The Number: How Often Should Couples Have Sex?
We weren’t sealing the marital deal often enough
When my wife and I shared a beach cottage with some married friends—tight quarters—last summer, I hadn’t been the one to make the house arrangements. So while our friends got first dibs on the master, and their toddlers went in the bedroom next to them, we got stuck in the room with the twin beds by the kitchen. There was nowhere for us to put our newborn but in a crib right between us.
Having sex is a big part of going on vacation for me; though not having it for another week wasn’t going to kill me—that was our usual pattern anyway. But the following morning, and every morning thereafter, I was awakened by the sound of boots knocking, followed by cooing in the den over cups of post-coital Folgers. My wife wears earplugs, so she didn’t get to hear how beautiful our housemates thought the sunrise was seven mornings in a row.
“How can you not care that they have sex so much?” I asked, more jealous of them than curious about her.
“I care more that we can’t sleep in the same bed,” my wife replied. Right, I thought: the bed where we have sex. But that’s not what upset me. These two were doing it every single day. Even at our friskiest, twice a week was pushing it. I’d never really given our sexual health a second thought. There had been comfort in feeling like we had a sex life just like everyone else, but now I couldn’t look at another couple without wondering if they were doing it more too: the ugly trust-fund guy who marries out of his league; my wife’s hot friend who stays with that ripped d-bag for the sex; friends who had babies by accident because they had careless romps so often. Observation turns to obsession quickly when you’re a hard-up skinny guy who can point to the exact day his child was conceived.
Our vacation mates’ energetic sex life floored me. I’d been a friend of the husband for over a decade, and I’d always thought of him—and them—as being more like us than anyone else we knew. Happy in life and career, we loved our beautiful wives like mad and only went to strip clubs when a bachelor party called for it. This wasn’t different eating or exercise habits my wife and I were talking about; this was the ultimate seal of marital commitment. And we weren’t sealing the deal often enough.
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