[Echo7]

you may want to read a book called "Five Love Languages". it will answer a lot of questions for you and may even help strengthen your relationship.

Yes, I have read it. Thanks away

[Echo7]

It really is a blend, at least for me. I think being deeply in love drives it, though. To me, she is the most beautiful and desirable women in the world, and this world is full of beautiful and desirable women. Her voice over the telephone makes me as horny as seeing her in something sexy or nothing at all. The non-sexual part of our relationship has yielded an emotional intensity that always carries over to our physical relationship to the point that I can't recall ever feeling just physical gratification.

Not saying all is perfect in our world. We've got our differences outside and in the bedroom, but I think we laid that foundation Stillness speaks of. So, even when things are much more wild than romantic, I still get that chill and wow like the first time with her. Like I won the lottery 23 years ago and didn't blow the money.

See. That's kind of what I'm talking about.. If you don't have that, is it worth having at all?

[c130_captain]

My wife and I are 30 and 31 years old respectively and have been married for 8 years. Before that, we were high school sweethearts for 3 years before breaking up when I left to college.

Not quite 15 years yet, but I think we both experienced the sex cycle that many people goes through. Started off having sex like bunnies and skipping school just to have sex all day when we first started dating and lasted until we broke up three years later when we were having relationship issues and decided it was a good time to break up and see other people (plus I was heading off to college anyway so a long distance relationship wouldn't work). When we got back together my senior year of college, I realized that I truly love her after having many relationships with other women. We got married and our sex life was still great for this first two years. We didn't have sex like bunnies as when we were teenagers, but still had great passionate and rough sex 1-2 times a week. As with many relationships, when we argue and get into fights, we'd have a dry spell for a few days before makeup sex.

When we had our first daughter, it through our sex life off somehow and we ended up only having sex maybe 1-2 a month. She was insecure about her after pregnancy body and that effected her not wanting much intimacy even though I tried my best to let her know that she's even more beautiful for sacrificing her body to start a family. In a span of 5 years, we had four children all spaced 1-2 years apart and during that time our sex life fluctuated like crazy. We'd go one month of having crazy amount of sex (10-15 times) and then would mellow out for 3-4 months (having sex 2-3 times a month).

Over the last 1.5 years after our last baby was born, our sex frequency became a lot more predictable even though it goes in spurts. We'd hide in the closet and multiple mixture of passionate and rough sex sessions each day for a couple of days and then it thaws for 4-5 days. She tells me it's her recovery time physically and mentally and I have no reason not to believe her.

In summary, our sex life come and go in spurts, which works for us and we always have both passionate/make love and rough sex sessions We have multiple great sessions each when it happens, but there are 4-5 days of a dry spell. But we both masturbate when we can't have sex with each other whether do to emotional or physical distance (I'm an Air Force pilot so I'm away from home 6-10 days a month not including deployments). Also, with a marriage or long term relationship, it's normal to fall in and out of love but the key is understanding that it takes a lot of work from both partners to fall back in love when they drift out of love. Our sex life cycle doesn't have a direct relationship with how much we're in and out of love with each other either.

[LilahX]

I do believe that in a good r/ship there is making love and **************g and both are good. Ialso strongly believe that if sex goes out of the r/ship it loses a very special degree of intimacy. I think r/ships can survive without it, but I don't want to be in a r/ship that's just surviving. I want to be in one that's alive and I feel sex keeps it alive. But that's me. If both parties are happy to have a non-phyical life they can still have love, be in love, and be happy. It's whatever works for individual couples but it needs they both need to be 'on the same page'.

[raindancer]

We make love, even when we're just... ahem... having sex.

[Echo7]

I think r/ships can survive without it, but I don't want to be in a r/ship that's just surviving.

That's kind of what I'm struggling with at the moment. I sometimes wonder if my relationship is "just surviving" ..I love my husband with all my being and I don't ever want to be without him. I'm also extremely committed to staying a family, for my children's benefit.. but there's just no 'spark' left with us, it's like we've turned into best friends.. we have enjoyable sex when we have it. But I want the lust and excitement back that we had in the beginning. That seems to last for some couples and not for others. I'm wondering how many others feel the same way..

[Stillness]

That's kind of what I'm struggling with at the moment. I sometimes wonder if my relationship is "just surviving" ..I love my husband with all my being and I don't ever want to be without him. I'm also extremely committed to staying a family, for my children's benefit.. but there's just no 'spark' left with us, it's like we've turned into best friends.. we have enjoyable sex when we have it. But I want the lust and excitement back that we had in the beginning. That seems to last for some couples and not for others. I'm wondering how many others feel the same way..

Echo7, We've been married for 14 years and together for a couple of years before. We're just under 40. We have issues. We struggle. We have since the beginning. Although we’ve never been apart, we have had moments where we were just going through the motions and probably both fantasizing about being single. We’re past that now. The hurdles are just bumps in the road.

We have the spark more so than ever. It’s not because we’re smarter, better, or even that good of a match. What keeps us going is the same thing that keeps successful business enterprises going. They bring together people from all walks of life and backgrounds because they have a vision statement. They have set rules for how the organization is run and a common goal toward which they're working. For us, our faith provides those things. We’re not just lovers and friends, but we’re spiritual siblings. We have a ministry. We have students. We are a unit of a congregation. We study and worship together with them, but also just the two of us. We're learning a foreign language and culture together. We know what we want to be as individuals and a couple. We also know that we won't reach that goal for now, but we work towards it all the same. We work apart secularly and have completely different careers. So, our lives are separate in that sense, but our jobs are not the focal point of our lives.

I think that couples that have something like that - whether it's faith, volunteer work, or family itself - tend to be stronger. (And by family, I don’t mean, “We’re doing it for the kids.” I’m talking about people who come from traditions where family is life.) We have seen a lot of couples (literally hundreds) in our families and among or friends come and go. The ones that have focus beyond just staying together tend to last longer. There are some failures, but they're much more rare.

People who lack that vision and focus, but still stay together are a rare breed. I have no clue how they do it. Are they just among that chosen few that are well-suited for one another? Is it extraordinary patience and perseverance? Are they just convincing fakers? Whatever the case, the rest of us have to believe in and work at something together or watch our marriages collapse. But hard work beats talent anyway.