Does sex really change after the honeymoon?

What happens to sex in long-term relationships

Does sex really change after the honeymoon? The simple answer is yes, the beginning of a relationship is a time of “passionate love” where the desire to be close it at it’s highest. Because of an elixir of factors, sexual frequency, sexual desire/passion and sexual satisfaction all peak in this first stage, often called the “honeymoon” period. And then the spark seems to peter out. But what actually is changing. How fast does it change? And can we stop it?

How fast does it happen?

It is widely agreed that sexual frequency and satisfaction decreases within the first two years; however, there has been a discrepancy over the rate of decline. Some have found a sharp decline in the first few months of the relationship (Call, et al, 1995), while others have found a more gradual decline over the first few years (Liu, 2002; Fredrick, 2017; Schmiedeberg, 2016).

It depends on what part of sex we are talking about. I have separated out (below) what the research says changes in sex over time in a long-term relationship.

What changes?

1. Frequency of sex.How often we have sex declines rapidly in the first year of the relationship. Many researches have noted different numbers, but it is approximately half as frequent. After that, it is more variable, but there is a general trend toward — leveling off in year two, to enjoy a steady decline until children are older, where it may have a resurgence.How fast it declines depends on a number of factors — such as age, how fast you move in together, and how quickly you have children.
2. Quality of sex.
   The quality of sex was also found to decline (slightly) over the course of a long-term relationship. However, the decline looks different. It doesn’t start out as high, so it increases more gradually within the first year. It has been propose that this is most likely because as we get to know a partner we (presumably) become more skilled at how to please them. The quality of sex peaks then over the first year or two and after that slowly declines over the course of a long-term relationship.
3. Sexual satisfaction.
   Sexual satisfaction is the most researched. And several studies have found that sexual satisfaction increases for the first year (when the couple had the most passion and were gaining skill), but after that first year it declines, likely associated with waning of passion.Other researchers have identified key factors that determine whether sexual satisfaction is going up or down in long-term relationships. The factors associate with increasing sexual satisfaction almost all relate to how much effort you are putting into cultivating a good sexual relationship. Read more about how to stimulate sexual satisfaction in long-term relationships.
4. Sexual desire.Sexual desire has also been well studied and most have found sexual desire starts to wane after the ‘passionate love’ stage of sex. This change may not necessarily be because of the length of the relationship, however, and instead, it is more likely to be due to what happens in life when you are in a relationship over time. For example, the factors that have been shown to affect sexual desire have been divided into three areas. On a personal level, an individual’s stress, physical, age; on a relationship level, how well you and your partner are getting along; and on a societal level, how much you adhere to societal norms (such as gender roles), all determined how much sexual desire someone feels over time. (Mark 2018)
5. Sexual passion.
   Passion has been studied separately from desire and has been found to be related to whether a couple is increasing their level of intimacy at that time. Passion is believed to be directly related to whether you feel a rising level of intimacy with your partner at that moment. (Baumeister, 1999).
6. Sexual initiation. How we initiate sex matters.The length of a couple’s relationship also appears to play a role in “who” initiates sex in a couple. At the beginning of the relationship, we tend to rely on gender roles to determine who initiates sex and who is receptive (Weiderman, 2005). Sexual initiation is the “gatekeeper” to whether sex is happening or not. As the couple gets more familiar with one another the gender roles could become less rigid and more personalized within the individual couple, or they can be a barrier to some couples who don’t talk about how they approach sex after the honeymoon.

There is reason to be hopeful. If you tend to your sexual spark, it is possible to make it grow again. It might look different than at the beginning, but it could grow even stronger than it was before.

Resources:

Baumeister, R. F., & Bratslavsky, E. (1999). Passion, intimacy, and time: Passionate love as a function of change in intimacy. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(1), 49-67.

Call, V., Sprecher, S., & Schwartz, P. (1995). The incidence and frequency of marital sex in a national sample. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 57(3), 639-652.

Frederick, D. A., Lever, J., Gillespie, B. J., & Garcia, J. R. (2017). What keeps passion alive? Sexual satisfaction is associated with sexual communication, mood setting, sexual variety, oral sex, orgasm, and sex frequency in a national US study. Journal of Sex Research, 54(2), 186-201.

Hatfield, Elaine, Pillemer, Jane T., O’Brien, Mary U., & Le, Yen-Chi L. (2008). The endurance of love: passionate and

companionate love in newlywed and long-term marriages. Interpersona 2(1), 35-64.

James, W. H. (1981). The honeymoon effect on marital coitus. Journal of Sex Research, 17(2), 114-123.

Liu, C. (2003). Does quality of marital sex decline with duration?. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32(1), 55-60.

Mark, K. P., & Lasslo, J. A. (2018). Maintaining sexual desire in long-term relationships: A systematic review and conceptual model. Journal of Sex Research, 55(4-5), 563-581.

Moor, A., Haimov, Y., & Shreiber, S. (2021). When desire fades: Women talk about their subjective experience of declining sexual desire in loving long-term relationships. Journal of Sex Research, 58(2), 160-169.

Muise, A., Impett, E. A., Kogan, A., & Desmarais, S. (2013). Keeping the spark alive: Being motivated to meet a partner’s sexual needs sustains sexual desire in long-term romantic relationships. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(3), 267-273.

Schmiedeberg, C., & Schröder, J. (2016). Does sexual satisfaction change with relationship duration?. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 45(1), 99-107.