Mrs. Jones
It is not unusual to hear the results of a nationwide survey saying that the average married couple has sex on average “fill in the blank” times per week. Does that mean if we don’t meet the quota of having sex two or three or four times per week that there is something wrong with us or wrong with our relationships?
So many questions lead to so much pressure! I remember joking with my girlfriends when I first got married about the jelly bean jar. You remember: you were supposed to put a jelly bean in the jar every time you had sex during your first year of marriage. Then you were supposed to remove a jelly bean from the jar every time you had sex during the second year of marriage to see how drastically the frequency had declined. Ironically, Mr. Jones worked nights six days a week during our first year of marriage, so I’m pretty sure we didn’t meet the average per week quota as newlyweds!
Now, thirty something years later, I realize that throughout our marriage we never worried about that silly jelly bean jar or the social science studies about how much sex we need to keep our marriage healthy. We instead focus on taking advantage of the rare evenings with no activities planned or those rainy Saturday mornings when we don’t need to get out the door to get in our long runs for the week.
Some weeks we have lots of opportunities to spend “quality time” together, and some weeks we are doing well to have the energy to kiss each other goodnight before sinking into bed exhausted from the daily grind of life. Some evenings we will be focused on quickly getting upstairs after dinner with a glass of wine to spend some sexy time together. And other evenings we will simply enjoy conversation sitting in the sunroom with a glass of iced tea.
Which evenings do I like better? Both types of evenings are important to me. I’m not gonna lie, Mr. Jones would probably prefer more evenings of the sexy upstairs variety versus sunroom conversation, but I truly need both. If we get so busy that we lose touch with what’s going on in each other’s lives, then my sex drive suffers because I am stressed out and distracted. I need to feel connected to Mr. Jones in order to feel sexy.
So maybe we focus too much on quantity, when the real focus should be on quality. I know gentlemen, this is a lady’s perspective. Maybe I’ll talk Mr. Jones into piping in with his opinion one day!