Healthy relationships are built on foundations such as mutual trust, honesty and communication. Good sex can be just as important, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
If there’s incompatibility over sex in a relationship, it’s important to communicate and respect each other’s preferences. Without compromise and communication, it’s likely that dissatisfaction in the bedroom will affect the relationship at large.
If the relationship is worthwhile, then it’s worth taking steps to improve your sex life, right? At the root, you have to individually ask how much you care about sex. If there’s a mismatch, work together to find solutions.
Sex is a team sport, after all.
Bad Sex Leads to Breaking Point
A woman on Reddit’s r/sex community recently vented about her years-long sexual frustration with her boyfriend of five years. The OP — /u ThrowRA_saladfingers — said her attempts to work on improving their sex life have largely failed because of her boyfriend’s lackluster attempts to take the matter seriously.
“I am at the stage where I prefer to just masturbate on my own, and I feel extremely guilty about this but I find myself fantasizing about pretty much every guy I see,” she wrote, adding that they have sex about six times a year.
Many Redditors urged the OP to take action quickly because their situation could be a “dead bedroom” — a term to describe a couple who rarely or never have sex.
Here is some of their wisdom:
“If sex is important to you, you have to fix this now. That may mean bail or it may mean therapy,” u/ pastthepop wrote. “Take this from a guy who went through a ten year dead bedroom and almost lost everything because of it. Figure out what is important to you and fight for it.”
“Sounds like you’ve already made your decision and are subtly looking for approval – in that case, it’s perfectly okay and reasonable to break up with someone due to sexual incompatibility,” u/ DifficultCarob408 wrote.
“A relationship can survive with little to no sex or bad sex but only if both partners are honestly and truly okay with it, and the fact that you are here asking about this tells me that you’re not okay with it,” u/ Notwhoiwas42 wrote.
“What I don’t understand is why people don’t treat sexual compatibility with the same importance as physical attraction or emotional connection,” u/ Odimorsus wrote. “If they’re unhappy enough that they’re so stuck on what to do they farm it out to internet strangers anonymously, like it’s off limits to bring up in discussion in the relationship, maybe we ought to change that.”