In thriving marriage, partners share timetable for sex

I consider myself to be a deeply sexual person. This is different than saying my desire for sexual experience follows some pattern, because it doesn't. I can enjoy sex some days, and other days I'm interested in just being close. I can enjoy sexual relationships with my husband daily, or with some days in between. So, here's my question: I am still trying to figure out the male sexual mind. To me, it seems far more compulsive about sex. For instance, if I am going out of town to visit family, it will be important to my husband that we have arranged to have sex more often prior to my leaving. His words are, "It is important to give consideration to the fact that we won't be together for six days," or something like that. I'm more inclined to just let lovemaking happen. But, I'm not keeping track of "days," especially thinking about how many days one of us will be gone so we'd better ramp up the lovemaking before separation. Hard for me to understand this.

-- M.J., Henderson

The delight is, however, that you desire to understand it. Too many women are tempted, I think, to merely judge it. I'm saying your husband is a lucky guy.

Let me begin by suggesting that you misapprehend this trait in men when you think of it in terms of compulsion. Not that men don't regularly and easily fall into habits of sexual compulsion; they do! But I don't think that's the case here.

All you're observing, I think, is the difference between men and women, a difference so consistently represented that I can't remember the last time I met the exception: A man needs sex to feel connected to his woman; a woman needs to feel connected to her man before she can fully unleash her desire for sex.

Let's say it negatively: When a man is without sex, he interprets that as disconnection. He'll pout, become irritable, passive-aggressive, anxious and controlling, maybe even start to keep track of days: "It's been three days since we had sex!" When a woman is without a felt sense of connection, she begins to resent the hell out of sex. Oh, she'll keep track of days, too, just in the reverse: "But we just had sex three days ago!"

When marriages are thriving, the difference in gender sexuality is a delicious paradox. An endless well of intrigue and erotic mystery.

When marriages are struggling or in crisis, this difference in gender sexuality becomes interpreted negatively and breeds resentment:

Woman: "Why can't you ever just hold me!"

Man: "Yeah? Why can't you ever just do me!"

Woman: "All you ever think about is sex!"

Man: "And your point is ...?"

See, in a thriving marriage, mates do both. Neither mate becomes he/she who always decides. There is, instead, a joyful equanimity. Each willingly reaches into the other's world.

In a thriving marriage, a man simply accepts or maybe even comes to admire the feminine emphasis of meaningful connection as the preferred road to great sex. He learns the ceremonies and symbols of connection. He talks. He listens. He will let lovemaking happen.

In a thriving marriage, a woman simply accepts or maybe even comes to admire the masculine emphasis that sex is the meaningful connection. So, regularly, she wades in. Initiates boldly and directly. She will make lovemaking happen.

There's a light and dark side to keeping track of days. On the one hand, I'd like to think my mate had sufficient investment in great sex (uh, with me) that, if you asked her, she'd remember the last time we had a romp. Or, that if I suddenly stopped participating, she would not months later say, "Oh, has it really been six months?" On the other hand, you're right: When folks start obsessing about marital sex statistics, well, that can cast rather a pall.

If your husband displays other evidence of inordinate anxiety about otherwise healthy marital separateness, then maybe you have a concern. But your story could just as easily be interpreted positively. When he says, "It is important to give consideration to the fact that we won't be together for six days ...," he probably means he's crazy about you, is going to miss you terribly, miss feeling connected to you, and if he has to do that then he wants to gather up all the connection he can find before you leave.

He's not being compulsive. He's being a guy.

Originally published in View News, Dec. 29, 2009.