Worth noting that this pattern occurs among gay couples as well! (i.e. sexless long-term-relationship, where one party is unhappy about this).
I think that conflict in desires/values is inherent in all relationship, and long-term-relationships have more room for conflict because they involve a closer/longer relationship. Sex drive is a major area where partners tend to diverge especially frequently (probably just for biological reasons in het couples).
It’s not obvious to me that sex in marriages needs much special explanation beyond the above. Unless of course the confusion is just “why don’t people immediately end all relationships whenever their desires conflict with those of their counterparty”.
A general source of problems is that when people try to get a new partner, they try to be… more appealing than usual, in various ways. Which means that after the partner is secured, the behavior reverts to the norm, which is often a disappointment.
One way how people try to impress their partners is that the one with lower sexual drive pretends to be more enthusiastic about sex than they actually are in long term. So the moment one partner goes “amazing, now I finally have someone who is happy to do X every day or week”, the other partner goes “okay, now that the courtship phase is over, I guess I no longer have to do X every day or week”.
There are also specific excuses in heterosexual couples, like the girl pretending that she is actually super into doing sex whenever possible, it’s just that she is too worried about accidental pregnancy or her reputation… and when these things finally get out of the way, it turns out that it was just an excuse.
Perhaps the polyamorous people keep themselves in better shape, but I suspect that they have similar problems, only instead of “my partner no longer wants to do X” it is “my partner no longer wants to do X with me”.
Worth noting that this pattern occurs among gay couples as well! (i.e. sexless long-term-relationship, where one party is unhappy about this).
I think that conflict in desires/values is inherent in all relationship, and long-term-relationships have more room for conflict because they involve a closer/longer relationship. Sex drive is a major area where partners tend to diverge especially frequently (probably just for biological reasons in het couples).
It’s not obvious to me that sex in marriages needs much special explanation beyond the above. Unless of course the confusion is just “why don’t people immediately end all relationships whenever their desires conflict with those of their counterparty”.
A general source of problems is that when people try to get a new partner, they try to be… more appealing than usual, in various ways. Which means that after the partner is secured, the behavior reverts to the norm, which is often a disappointment.
One way how people try to impress their partners is that the one with lower sexual drive pretends to be more enthusiastic about sex than they actually are in long term. So the moment one partner goes “amazing, now I finally have someone who is happy to do X every day or week”, the other partner goes “okay, now that the courtship phase is over, I guess I no longer have to do X every day or week”.
There are also specific excuses in heterosexual couples, like the girl pretending that she is actually super into doing sex whenever possible, it’s just that she is too worried about accidental pregnancy or her reputation… and when these things finally get out of the way, it turns out that it was just an excuse.
Perhaps the polyamorous people keep themselves in better shape, but I suspect that they have similar problems, only instead of “my partner no longer wants to do X” it is “my partner no longer wants to do X with me”.