Marriage Mondays: Doing the Deed

Today, you have the treat of having a FEW Marriage Monday posts, all centered around the thing I always say we never talk about enough: sex!!

We've talked about sex a little bit before, and about dressing sexy, but today we're having some specific conversations about sex and marriage. Starting with...how long can you go without sex before it negatively impacts your relationship?

Sex plays a big role in marriage, but when it comes to long lapses between sexy times, I always think of something my friend, Mike, from grad school once told me. Mike got married without ever having slept with his wife. I remember that another classmate and I were so blown away that they had decided not to sleep together until after marriage (neither were virgins before...they basically were born again Christians and decided to wait until after they were married before sleeping with each other). I asked him what he would have done if it had turned out that they weren't sexually compatible. He told us something that I have always remembered and which has put sex into perspective in my own relationship since. He said that there is so much that constitutes a marriage and sex is a small part of it. If they would have had problems with sex, it would have been a small part of their overall marriage and not the most important part at all. I remember being amazed by the wisdom in that statement.

Now, years later, after I got married, I realized that there was something to my friend's statement. Sex is a big part of marriage, but it is most certainly not the most important thing. And there is so much more that goes into marriage besides sex. For instance, I think I'd be more sad if A.P. lost the ability to speak than the ability to have sex. I'd miss our hilarious repartee more than sex, I think. Don't get me wrong, I love sex with A.P., but I love him as a person more. He says he'd be sad if I lost the ability to walk with him more so than sex. You see? Sex is important, but not the be all, end all.

The reason I bring this up is because my sister lives in India. She moved there two years ago with her husband for her job. The stint was supposed to last through March of 2012, but they recently found out that her contract will be extended through March of 2013. Her husband has decided to move back stateside. He will live here and she will stay in India. A.P. and I were joking about how long it would be before they had sex again. Obviously, there are other issues they are facing, but honestly, the whole thing made me think about about this big question: how long can you skip on the sex before your relationship is affected?

A.P. and I have definitely gone through some dry patches, but I've always kept what my friend said in my head. It may not be great now, but it's not the most important thing. Still, we have never gone for over a year! I don't know if I could do it.

Whether it's a dry patch in your own relationship, or a temporary living situation that prevents you from physically connecting, lack of sex happens to even the best relationships. The question is, how long is too long? So, what do you think? How long could you go without sex before it would affect your relationship negatively?

Check back later for some more sexy fun!

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(Photo via here)