Kim Anami

How to Save Your Marriage

Have more sex. Preferably every day.

I wrote a year or two ago about a couple who decided (well, primarily she decided) to have sex every day for a year. I read an article yesterday about the results of their experiment five years after the Year of Living Sexually.

The consensus was that “it was the best year of our marriage, without a doubt,” according to Charla, the wife. “I never would have predicted that at the beginning, or that it would have such an impact.”

The original intention of the 365 days of sex was to provide her husband with a year-long 40th birthday gift. Charla considered her marriage to be a happy one, but was aware that the sexual passion had dwindled. “Like a lot of married couples with kids, sex got lost along the way. But its absence becomes a presence in the marriage, a silent tension hanging in the air. It certainly was in mine,” says Charla.

“Brad actually thought it was unromantic, that sex should be more spontaneous. I said to him ‘look at our lives now — nothing we do is spontaneous.’ The point is you absolutely cannot depend on spontaneity to keep your sex life going when you’re in your 40s, married and with kids — it’s never going to happen.”

Charla confesses there were days when she didn’t feel up to it but likened it to any discipline–like going to the gym or eating a healthy meal. There may be initial reticence, but the dividends are huge. Plus, once you get going, you inevitably feel better.

“Of course, there were days when I didn’t want to do it — but then there were days when I didn’t want to do a lot of things, but I still did them because it oils the wheels. And what could be more important than oiling the wheels of your marriage? It doesn’t have to be the A-plus experience all the time — the main thing is that you are making an effort.”

“I do think it’s very easy for women to say: ‘Men just need sex more, I just don’t need it as much.’ For my own part, what I realised is that, actually, I do need that form of physical connection with my husband just as much as he does — but maybe it nourishes me in a different way.”

Remember, the major factor that distinguishes your marriage or intimate relationship with all others is the fact that you are having sex with that person (em, probably). Your sexual connection is designed to be a source of energy, nourishment and pleasure that feeds you and enriches not just your relationship, but your entire lives.

I challenge you to try it for 30 days. Yes–30 days of sex. See how it goes. Make an official sex date at least once a week where you set aside three hours just for sex, and then make sure that every day outside of that you still have sex.

Let me know how it goes!