We get emails from people every day who are having problems of various kinds in their marriage, and the simplest, most direct solution is often just have sex. Obviously this isn’t true in every single case, but you’d be surprised how often sex itself can smooth over differences and disagreements.
How does it make you feel when your partner is cold and distant? Or when they’re critical and prickly? Does it make you want to rip their clothes off, order in a vat of whipped cream and install a chandelier to swing from?
No? Well there’s your problem – according, at least, to Michele Weiner-Davis, the marriage-guidance counsellor whose Ted talk explaining her unconventional advice to warring couples has been viewed almost 3.5 million times online.
Her advice couldn’t be simpler: shag. Do it even if you don’t want to, do it especially if you don’t want to and, most important of all, do it frequently whether you want to or not. To make it even clearer, she’s borrowed one of the most famous advertising slogans of recent times: Just Do It. “Your partner will be grateful, happier and therefore nicer, too,” she explains from her clinic in Colorado. “It’s a win-win situation for both of you!”
Over the years, Weiner-Davis has honed her message. She’s now stripped it back to what she believes is the essence of a successful marriage. Gone is any therapeutic consideration of a couple’s history; of their emotional travails; of cause and consequence. Now she is entirely one-track minded: no matter how appalling the state of a marriage, she believes that kind, generous and frequent sex can bring it back from the teetering edge of collapse.
Let’s expand on the idea a little! Here are a bunch of related posts.
- Create the Habit of Daily Sex: Make it the baseline assumption that you’ll be having sex every day, unless you talk about it and explicitly decide not to have sex that day. Don’t let your baseline be “no sex”.
- Do Whatever It Takes to Give Your Wife as Many Orgasms as She Wants: Your wife (or husband) will want to have sex more if she (or he) is having orgasms. This isn’t rocket science.
- The 7 (Sex) Habits: #3 Put First Things First: Make sex your top priority for a while and see if it pays off.
- Are Facebook and Netflix Damaging Your Sex Life?: Put away your televisions, phones, tablets, and laptops — banish them from the bedroom if you have to!
- Science: “The ‘quickie’ saved my marriage”: Have more quickies.
- Great Sex Only Comes From Frequent Sex: The more you have sex the better it will get.
Sometimes we can get so wrapped up “communicating” that we forget the importance of body language. Maybe you should quit talking about your problems for a while and go have sex!
I tried to adopt this “Just Do It” attitude a while back. I have a hard time being in the “mood” without preparing myself all day long in between the 4 trillion other things that take up the average stay at home mom/homeschooler’s day. So I tried to just do it whether I want to or not. However, my husband can obviously tell if I’m not enjoying it, and its completely unfullfilling for him emotionally and mentally. He hates it when i perform but do not enjoy. But if i don’t just do it, we might “cheesecake” (code word for our lovemaking) maybe three times out of the month, and I want more for him, and ultimately us.
Hey Rebecca, thanks for your comment. We totally understand what you mean about “4 trillion other things” on your mind!
I get where your husband is coming from, but I think there’s a difference between “I’m not going to have an orgasm now” and “I’m not enjoying this sex”. You should have as many orgasms as you want, but that doesn’t mean you need to have an orgasm every time you have sex in order to enjoy the encounter.
It’s possible that your husband is having difficulty receiving the love you’re trying to show him because he feels like the sex is a failure if you aren’t having an orgasm. You can try to reassure him that you enjoy having sex and you enjoy being intimate with him even when you don’t have an orgasm.
If you want more orgasms than you’re getting, speak up for that too!
Last night we solved a marriage problem by having sex! My wife has a best friend and the two of them love to talk on the phone. My wife often calls her after the kids are in bed–which is also the time that she and I could be spending time together, including making love. Their phone calls sometimes go on for an hour or more, and I get resentful and jealous that my wife is not spending time with me–especially if we have not had sex for a few days and I am craving it.
So last night she was on the phone in the kitchen and was about 20 minutes into the call, while I was in the living room watching TV and waiting for her to get done. I was feeling especially horny, and we had spoken earlier in the day about having sex that night. I was thinking it wasn’t going to happen and starting to resent it. But instead of acting resentful I went up to her with a flirty smile that I hoped said, “Please get off the phone and let’s make love.”
She kept talking … but pointed to my pants and made a “down” gesture. She was telling me to drop my pants! I did so immediately. Then she pointed at my underwear. I dropped them, too, and was already erect. She started playing with my cock with one hand while holding her phone in the other and continuing to talk to her friend. She knows how to drive me wild with just one finger and started to do so. I gasped and she immediately put her finger to her lips. It was very clear that I better be quiet or she would stop stimulating me. So I tried to keep quiet. She kept playing with me and had to gesture a second time for me to not make a sound. I tried harder. I was standing completely still, concentrating on being quiet, as she continued to manipulate me while chatting and laughing with her friend on the phone! These are two very devout Catholics, and both my wife and I are sure that her friend would be mortified if she knew what we were doing during the phone call. That made it all the sexier! The whole idea of a sexual act during a phone call with an unsuspecting person was VERY erotic for me, and seemed to be for her too, though I somehow knew that she did not want me to touch her. She was smiling at me while driving me wild, definitely enjoying my “distress” at being unable to make any sound.
After about 15 minutes of this, with me close to exploding, my wife ended the phone call–a bit prematurely, it seemed to me. She grabbed me and led me to our living room, and it was obvious what she wanted. I grabbed her and bent her over the arm of a chair and entered her from behind. She was definitely ready! It was a hard and fast quickie that we both enjoyed immensely. I grabbed her hips and gave her a “pounding,” as she likes to say. This time I was controlling what happened, just as she had in the kitchen. We like these power exchanges during sex: first one is in charge, then the other.
This morning we laughed about it and I told her I would stop resenting her evening phone calls with her friend if this is what was going to happen. She laughed and called it “a great compromise.” I sure hope it happens again!
That sounds like fun! We hardly talk on the phone though… unfortunately?