WHEN YOUR PARTNER WANTS SEX ALL THE TIME: WHAT IT MEANS

Not long ago, a female client came to see me for help with stress in her marriage. She and her husband had been married only a year, and they had been dating two years prior to that. One year into the marriage, he wanted sex all the time.

My client came to see me because she had had sex one too many times without wanting it, and her instinct told her that this issue had become a serious problem. When I asked how many times each week she was sexual with her husband, she said, “three or four.”

My response, “That is a lot of sex for anyone, but especially for someone who doesn’t want to be having it in the first place!” My client is by no means unique. The goal for anyone stuck in this pattern is to stop having sex when they don’t want it, and reducing the frequency of sex each week is a good place to start.

Will problems start with the couple once you put the brakes on the sex? Yes, but isn’t it an even bigger problem when you’re not feeling it emotionally?

WHY SOMEONE WANTS TOO MUCH SEX

First, conventional wisdom suggests that men are more sexual than women, and that men want it “all the time.” Actually, plenty of men and women have this problem, which is looking to sex to fill a dysfunctional emotional need. In other words, wanting sex occasionally is healthy; wanting it constantly is a sign of a problem. Most men and women who need sex all the time do this out of anxiety.

Their mood is off or they feel anxious, and they want the emotional and physical release that comes with sexual activity. These individuals use sex to regulate their mood because they can’t regulate it as well any other way. For them, sex is a tool to feel better – not to feel closer to another person.

While your partner may tell you that he wants sex to feel closer to you, it’s often not the truth. In most cases where one person pressures the other to have sex, sex has become a kind of drug to which they have become addicted.

By DR. SETH MEYERS