How Often Should Couples Have Sex? Why the Real Answer Isn’t a Number
with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby and Dori Bagi, Certified Sex Therapist
Why the Real Answer to “How Often?” Isn’t a Number
If the sex you’re having isn’t good, more of it was never going to be the answer. Quality — and honesty — is.
If you have ever lain awake doing the quiet math, counting the weeks (or the months) since the last time you really reached for each other, take a breath before we go one inch further. You are not broken. Your relationship is not doomed. And the honest answer to the frequency question is not a number. It is a conversation.
My guest is my colleague Dori Bagi, a certified sex therapist and clinician with Growing Self who works with couples every single day. She holds a master’s degree focused on sexuality and sexual health, and she pairs that clinical depth with a solution-focused, coaching-minded approach — the rare combination I only half-jokingly called a unicorn glitter Pegasus during our conversation.
We got into the myth of the “right number,” what Dori calls the sleepers (the invisible things quietly running your sex life without your consent), the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire, why the lower-desire partner is not the patient, the third rail of no-longer-being-attracted-to-your-partner, and what it actually takes for desire and attraction to come back.
“If the sex you’re having isn’t good, why would you want more of it?” — Dori Bagi, Certified Sex Therapist, Love, Happiness and Success Podcast
Moments from this episode
Episode transcript
I ask about: is the sex that you’re having even good? Because realistically, if the sex that you’re having is not that great, why would you want to have more of that? Everybody in a long-term relationship is vulnerable to, over time, having it start to feel more like your roommates or just really good friends, rather than physically connected lovers.
They usually come in with desire discrepancy, so one partner would prefer to have more sex and the other one doesn’t. If this feels true for you, I’m so glad you’re here with us today. I have a very special guest on the show — my colleague and friend Dori Bagi, who is a therapist as well as a certified sex therapist, who is going to be breaking down the reasons why this can happen. Spoiler alert: they’re probably going to be a little bit new for you.
There are things that can get in the way of your emotional and physical intimacy that are kind of sleepers — until you know to look for them, you don’t see them at all. But seeing them and getting visibility into this can then give you opportunities to resolve this in a more direct and effective way. It comes down to understanding and communicating about each person’s needs and preferences.
Because once we start that conversation, couples often realize: actually, that’s not what I thought you were into, and that’s not actually what I’m really into. So by the end of this conversation, you are going to walk out of this with a new perspective into your physical relationship with your partner and some new direction for how to get back on track with the positive and pleasurable parts of your relationship.
Dori, I’m so glad you’re here with me today. — Thank you so much for having me. This is very exciting to talk about here. — Well, the reason I really wanted to talk with you about this specifically is because you are doing this work day in, day out with couples in your work with Growing Self, and you have so much visibility into this. You’re a true expert. And what I love about the way that you work is that you don’t just jump in and say, okay, let’s start doing stuff. You actually go through this extended assessment process where you’re really getting under the hood with people to understand not just what the problem is, but why. So that when the time comes to address it, it is effective — we’re doing what we need to do as opposed to just throwing spaghetti at a wall.
Well, what do people come in the door believing is the problem? — Usually they focus on frequency: how often they think they should be having sex, or how often they think a happy couple should be having sex. And they get these numbers from various places, but not very good resources.
It is extremely common to not be happy, at one time or another, with the frequency or the quality of the type of sex they are having. So when people are not having a good time, they start to research: what should this be? And those turn into myths or misconceptions around what is “normal” that maybe aren’t.
A lot of couples feel like, you know, we should be having sex twice a week, or at least a couple of times a month, because so-and-so said so, or they’ve seen that on the media somewhere. But that’s not necessarily true. It’s not necessarily about the quantity either. So there’s a lot of moving pieces.
Imagining right now, like a chart or something where you factor in years of marriage plus age divided by number of children — and that’s how many times a week you should be having sex. Oh my God, that is not sexy. Like, not even a little bit. No. No comparison, no pressure. Not sexy at all.
For me to find out what are the myths that each individual or each couple believes, I do go through quite an extensive process: how did they learn about sex? What was the messaging as they were growing up or early in their lives?
Past relationships? What did they learn from school or media or families? And then I cover quite a few things that might not be quite accurate. So imagine somebody walking in with a bouquet of balloons, and you’re just popping them one by one. It’s these ideas about what it should be, what it should feel like, what each person’s role is. That’s another big one: what’s my role in this relationship to perform or to bring to the table? That’s quite common.
This could go as far as the role of the husband or wife and how much they should make each other happy. It’s also about how they should initiate and how long they should last. There are many things that people feel like it’s their job to perform in a way, but it’s often not the case. It really does come down to understanding and communicating about each person’s needs and preferences. Because once we start that conversation, couples often realize: actually, that’s not what I thought you were into, and that’s not actually what I’m really into.
I can see how this would get complex in a relationship because what we want in that experience can feel vulnerable to talk about. I’m actually thinking about a conversation I had recently with Dr. Nicole McLean — scroll back through my feed to find it. She has the most remarkable book. What we talked about is how difficult it is to have open conversations about sexuality, and how that’s often a starting point. What I’m hearing you say is that on a deeper level, when you go into it psychically, so to speak, it can turn into relational and intimacy problems when people are not communicating but they have these expectations of the other person that have never been articulated.
So they’re feeling disappointed, but the other person is on a totally different page in terms of whose job this is, what should be happening. It’s easy to see how people get disconnected because of that. Resentment, I’m guessing. — Yes, a lot of resentment where that doesn’t really need to be if they were able to communicate. That’s the good part about doing this work with a professional — it’s a lot easier.
What is the meaning that people make, even if they’re not talking about it with their partner? We have private opinions about what the problem is, and they’re coming to talk to you as a therapist. So what are they imagining you are going to want to change, versus the reality of what is actually the problem? — A very common one — and it’s always such a shock when I tell them, that’s not exactly what we’re going to be doing — they usually come in with desire discrepancy. One partner would prefer to have more sex and the other one doesn’t. So they come in and they expect me to say, okay, we’re going to be working on the lower-desire partner to want to have sex more. And then the rude awakening comes: yes, that might be a beautiful outcome that we’re going to achieve, but that’s not exactly what we’re going to be focusing on.
There is so much to do. And the work requires both partners — not just that the lower-libido partner is the problem. This is teamwork. This is joint effort. So everybody needs to do their own part in some ways. — So I would think it would be hard for you in your role, somebody like, “you’re going to tell them they need to step it up,” and then you’re like, yeah, actually no. What do you do instead? Where do you take them?
We talk a lot about where these expectations are coming from, where these imagined ideas — or not imagined, real ideas — are coming from about what sex should be like, how it should feel, or how often we should do it. But we focus more on the quality, not quantity. I ask, is the sex that you’re having even good? Because realistically, if the sex that you’re having is not that great, why would you want to have more of that?
We talk about how desire is sometimes spontaneous, which is great for the person that has spontaneous desire — but not so great if their partner’s desire is more responsive. So we talk about this as well. — For friends who are listening to us right now, this is an important concept — the spontaneous versus… — Receptive. Responsive. — Yeah, exactly. So this is a very great concept to think about. It’s a little bit about how our biology works differently.
Essentially what it is: some people have this desire coming from within to want to engage in sexual interactions with their partner. That’s called spontaneous desire. While their partner might have responsive desire — that is, when things are already happening, we are already down the road of intimacy, sexual intimacy, that’s when the desire kicks in.
Imagine just thinking that you need to go to the gym. Some people are great — they just know they need to go to the gym and they put their trainers on and off they go. And other people don’t really want to go. They kind of make themselves get there one way or another, but once they’re there, they’re like, okay, this is actually not too bad. I’m enjoying this. I see why I’m doing this. This is great. It’s similar to that — sometimes that enjoying part or enjoyment part kicks in once you’re already in the process.
If one person is a natural driver of this sort of thing and is expecting their partner to operate in the same way — that’s really not true for them. They might feel disappointed or like something is wrong, when in fact some people just have a more responsive sexuality. — Exactly. And this is when we talk about how you initiate, because maybe that could be something we could work on. How are you trying to get your partner in the mood? Maybe that’s an important piece to discuss.
What are some other invisible things? I’m thinking about a YouTube episode I did a while ago on the topic of the “dead bedroom.” It was so fascinating to me to go through the comments. People who were having this experience were feeling hurt, feeling frustrated. “My partner never wants to at all, and every time I broach it they totally shut me down.” They are genuinely perplexed. There’s this sense of helplessness of, I don’t know what to do to fix it, and it feels like the other person has all the power in the situation.
There could be a number of things, but some things I see commonly could be body image issues — they might not feel very good about themselves, or what they imagine their partner would be viewing them as. That’s actually a quite significant one, especially for women after childbirth, where it’s rarely an actual issue — their partner still sees them as beautiful — but that is definitely something that comes up quite often.
Other biological issues or hormonal considerations over time — yes, exactly. That could impact a lot of things people might not even consider. Hormonal fluctuations could be one thing that would explain why we used to be intimate all the time when we were both younger, and now we’re 45 and it’s different.
We can talk about the emotional intimacy part and the novelty piece: are we excited about each other? Are we still finding new things or exciting things about the sex life we are having? Because you’ll find that often, not really. They just do the same one or two things. That’s not very exciting. So the type of sex they’re having and the quality — is it good? Because if it’s not, then it’s hard to feel overly excited about it.
When we have these conversations in sessions, it’s not as upsetting, because by that time the couples have already learned so much about themselves and each other. So when we get to, okay, what does good sex actually look like for you, they’ve already gone through quite a lot of deep conversations that are actually quite important to have — to get to a place of, okay, let’s talk about what will work.
What I’m hearing you say is what I think the reality of the type of work that we do, right, as therapists, is: there is an experiential growth process that happens over time, and in an organized way, that you are moving people through really thoughtfully. So people are coming in hot the first couple of sessions, upset with each other, and it feels impossible to talk about. And then 12 weeks later, there’s this softening — they have been changed through the experience in a gentle way. So that eight, nine, ten sessions in, the kind of conversations we’re talking about right now don’t actually feel hard or scary. — Absolutely. Yes.
That feels like the third rail to me in this landscape. That’s scary to acknowledge. — It is. And this does come up quite often, whether it’s the lack of attraction or being into something we feel our partners might not be interested in pursuing with us. It is definitely a difficult conversation, because in our minds, if we have an alternative interest, we often think that there’s no way my partner can perform that, or would be interested in it, or is even open to the conversation.
Maybe we already broached the conversation in a soft-launch kind of way — “what do you think about this?” or “have you thought about that?” — and their partner had an offhanded response. So now we think that’s definitely how it’s going to go. But more often than not, if the conversation is open and honest — if a couple is able to have a conversation like that — then we can find the core of what the interest is of the person who feels like they have changed.
Someone is very oriented visually. Maybe they are watching porn, seeing people who are conventionally very attractive, very fit, with these beautiful bodies — and that is part of the erotic experience. And now your partner is 48, and bodies change. There’s a difference in what people are attracted to and what exists in reality. What would be a path forward in that kind of situation?
The visual stimuli is one part of the eroticism that drives desire. And while it’s a big one, it is not necessarily the only one. If the couple is able to find their way back to eroticism in some way — which they often can — then they will not be so focused on just the visuals. There is a lot more sensory stimuli than just the visuals. What feels good? What sounds good? What kind of movements are pleasurable? Often, even if they have the conviction that someone must look a certain way, if you really go into it with a partner that’s open to try new things, they find something that is very erotic to them, and then desire comes back.
If you’re really into someone for other reasons, they could grow a third arm and you would still find them incredibly sexy. It’s not necessarily just the visuals. It’s a lot about the energy and the vibe between people. — And for the listeners out there who feel like their body might not be something their partner might be into — that is rarely the case. Everybody could be extremely erotic.
It’s a matter of finding out what drives each person’s desire. It can feel like one person is simply not that interested in putting energy into that part of the relationship. Do you ever see that with your couples? — There are definitely different levels of interest, and it depends on the relationship state at the moment. It’s definitely a lot more challenging to figure out a sexual relationship between two people if one of them is not interested in figuring out what’s going on.
A healthy, whole relationship has so many different parts. A couple can have a shared life together — a social life, being parents together, operating a home, having a strong friendship — all kinds of pillars. And sexual intimacy can be one of them. But for somebody to say, “nope, all these other things are good enough for me, we could just take that one out,” and the other person is like, “but I kind of want that one” — how do you address that?
If I have the opportunity to talk to both partners, hypothetically one of them says, “I love my relationship, everything about it, except I’m just not interested in sex at all.” If I’m able to understand where that’s coming from, it might shift, because there’s a lot of reasons why someone might feel like that. And if we’ve gone through all of the potential things — traumas, physical limitations, a variety of things — then we can also talk about what would it mean for us if we are not participating in a sexual encounter with our partners? What would it mean if they did, but not with us? Whether that is an option. Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s not. But at least the topic is pulled out.
The person who’s not participating gets to sort of define the conditions of the relationship the other person has to participate in — almost like holding somebody hostage in the sexless relationship for the rest of their lives. Is there a middle path where they can keep the good parts of their relationship? — Yes, we usually find a way together. But there are opportunities where the way forward is: yes, have one person that still wants to be sexual experience that outside of the relationship, if that feels comfortable for everyone. Sometimes it does. That is absolutely something that needs to happen in an extremely honest and open way, to understand where each person’s desires are — but also what are the boundaries and the limitations of that dynamic.
Opening up a relationship — that’s a real deal and needs to be done very thoughtfully and ethically. Would you say that it is probably for the best, if you’re thinking that might be in your future, to get the support of somebody like you? — So many landmines. I definitely would suggest talking to someone that is an expert in this. Even if you feel like that is where we had it, sometimes we don’t have that. There are other ways, and we can find a really great dynamic within the relationship. However, if that is definitely where you want to go, there’s just so many things to consider that you might not think top of your mind.
There’s not, like, three tips to transform your love life or whatever. Even just your response to that question — “oh, it depends” — I think that’s just so valid. For anybody listening being frustrated: this is actually the real deal. — What is one type of complexity that could come up hypothetically that might need to be addressed, that is hard to do without the support of a professional? Because of either just not having visibility into it, or a lot of reactivity when people try to talk about some of this stuff on their own.
One of the really common ones is the jealousy piece. The boundaries. What is okay, what is not okay. Some people might not even consider the type of protection they might use, or what’s involved with that — what can you do and what can you not do with that type of protection, if that’s what the topic is. Also, how are we going to communicate about it, how much each partner is going to share or ask — there’s just many layers to it that you might not think about before heading into it.
We’re just scratching the surface. I could talk about these topics for hours. So you have to come back and we’ll continue this conversation. What I would love to have you talk about is the fact that what we are talking about right now is not trite advice. It is not superficial. There are complexities. What you’re talking about is how you, as an expert, would organize this work. Imagine people listening to this thinking, that’s probably what I need. I want to hear your insight into what people need to be thinking about in order to make good choices as to the type of helper they engage with.
All therapists are not the same, right? Like different kinds of doctors — one person is an oncologist, the other person is a dermatologist. They’re not the same thing. In our culture right now, a lot of people believe therapy is therapy, not understanding that there is clinical mental health, and there is also personal development and growth work — what do we need to do differently in order to get better outcomes with each other, which is often in the coaching realm. Especially in situations like sexuality, with the dimensionality of it, sometimes it can be, okay, what do we need to understand? What do we need to learn? What do we need to do differently? How can we grow together? Other times, there can actually be clinical things at the core — if somebody is a trauma survivor, that is absolutely a clinical thing that needs to be handled differently.
When I meet potential new clients, if for some reason we can’t work together, I always say: please make sure that you find someone that is accredited or has a background in sexuality or sexual health. There’s a lot of research out there to indicate that a lot of therapists, unfortunately — that’s just how we are trained — are not very comfortable talking about certain topics around sexuality. And once a client sees a therapist get flustered or flinch about a topic, they’re not going to want to open up. So they need to find someone who is very confident and knowledgeable about all that there is to know about sexuality.
Read the fine print. Take a look at their background, training, experience. Are they explicitly mentioning specialized training and experience in sexuality? I would also think that having a background in marriage and family therapy ought to be very helpful, just with the systemic pieces of it — plus sexuality training on top of it. — Ideally, yes. And that’s a very unique person. But we are out there. Make sure you find the right person that can confidently support you through this process, because it’s not an easy one.
There’s definitely a therapeutic component to this — somebody’s coming in and there’s deep trauma at the core. Of course we need clinical mental health treatment in that regard that is sexually informed. And there’s also a space for somebody like yourself who has a strong orientation around coaching psychology — so you have the clinical mental health background, and the sexuality master’s degree, but on top of that have this coaching mindset. What does that coaching piece look like? Because we’re not seeking to treat in coaching; we’re seeking to create understanding and change outcomes. — The main difference is that it is very solution-focused. We are not sitting in so much of the processing. Obviously it provides context, and if someone requires clinical support, that is very important. But if you’re past that, or that is not a requirement, then having a structured way forward and focusing on the solution — how we can get there — is what tends to work best.
If anybody is excited about potentially talking with Dori about your situation and how she might be able to help you — she’s available through Growing Self. You can just request to speak with Dori and figure out what’s going on, what your hopes and goals are, as a starting point.
What to take with you
The right frequency is not a number.
Couples fixate on how often they “should,” but the honest answer depends on the two people, and chasing a number usually makes things worse.
Quality beats quantity, every time.
If the sex you’re having is not good, more of it is not the goal. Better is.
Desire comes in two flavors.
Spontaneous desire shows up on its own; responsive desire kicks in once you’re already connecting. Neither is broken, and mismatched styles are often misread as rejection.
It’s a team problem, not one broken partner.
The lower-desire partner is not the patient. Reconnection is a two-person project.
The real reasons are usually invisible.
Body image, hormones, lost novelty, and quiet unspoken expectations do more damage than most couples realize.
Change is experiential, not three tips.
Couples soften over a structured process, and the conversations that felt impossible in week one become doable by week ten or twelve — especially with the right support.
How Often Should Couples Have Sex? Why the Real Answer Isn’t a Number
How often should couples have sex? If you have ever lain awake doing the quiet math, counting the weeks, maybe the months, since the last time you really reached for each other, I want to say something before we go one inch further. You are not broken. Your relationship is not doomed. And the honest answer to that question is not a number. It is a conversation.
Here is what I know after years of doing this work, and after countless conversations with couples who felt exactly the way you might be feeling right now. Almost everyone in a long-term relationship is vulnerable to this. Over time, the thing that once felt effortless can start to feel more like living with a good friend or a roommate than with a lover. It happens slowly, and it happens to people who genuinely love each other. So if that is you, take a breath. You are in extremely good company, and you are not stuck.
Most of the couples who come to our practice with this have already tried to solve it on their own. They have read the articles. They have read the books. They know, on paper, that they are supposed to communicate more and try harder. The problem was never information. The problem is that a paragraph on a screen cannot sit in the room with you when it is 10pm and the old pattern takes over. That is the part that changes when you do this work with a real person.
For this episode I sat down with my colleague Dori Bagi, a certified sex therapist who works with couples every single day here at Growing Self. What I am going to share with you is real, and it will give you language for what is happening in your relationship. But I want to be honest from the start: the language is in service of the actual work, the part where you and your partner do it differently, and that is the work my team does with people through sex therapy and couples counseling. Keep that in mind as you read, because it is the whole point.
Why has our sex life faded even though we still love each other?
Because the real obstacles are almost always invisible. Dori calls them sleepers. You cannot see them until you know to look, and until you do, it can feel like something is mysteriously, hopelessly wrong.
Couples tend to arrive believing the problem is obvious. One person wants more, the other wants less, end of story. But underneath that surface there is usually a stack of things nobody has said out loud. Old messages about what sex is supposed to be. Quiet expectations about whose job it is to initiate or to perform. Disappointment that has never been named, which slowly turns into resentment. None of it is dramatic. All of it adds up. When Dori works with a couple, she does not start by handing out techniques. She goes under the hood first, to understand not just what the problem is but why, so that when the time comes to change something, it actually works instead of being spaghetti thrown at a wall.
This is also where emotional intimacy and physical intimacy quietly become the same conversation. When people stop feeling close, the bedroom is usually the first place it shows. If you recognize your relationship in this, that recognition is worth something, and it is exactly the kind of thing our coaches and therapists help couples untangle, because it is genuinely hard to see your own patterns from inside them.
How often should couples have sex, and does the number really matter?
There is no correct number, and honestly, the harder you chase one, the worse it tends to get. What actually predicts a happy sexual connection is quality and communication, not a quota.
When couples come in worried about frequency, they have usually pulled a target from somewhere unreliable. A number they saw online. Something a friend said. A vague sense that a happy couple does it twice a week, or at least a few times a month, or whatever the going myth is. I joked with Dori about imagining an actual formula, years of marriage plus your age divided by the number of kids, and we both agreed: that is about the least sexy thing on the planet. Comparison and pressure kill desire. They do not create it.
The question Dori asks instead is the one that flips the whole thing on its head. Is the sex you are having even good? Because if it is not, more of it was never going to be the answer. This is why couples who quietly assume they have a frequency problem often discover they have a quality problem, or an expectations problem, or a communication problem wearing a frequency costume.
If your relationship has drifted toward what people call a sexless marriage, I want you to hear that as a starting point, not a verdict. It is one of the most common and most workable things couples bring to us. The first conversation with one of our couples counselors is for exactly this, and no, you do not need to be in crisis to have it.
What’s the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire?
Spontaneous desire is the kind that shows up on its own, out of nowhere. Responsive desire is the kind that switches on only once intimacy is already underway. Both are completely normal, and a lot of couples are quietly mismatched without realizing it.
Dori uses an analogy I love. Think about going to the gym. Some people put their trainers on and head out the door because they want to. Other people do not want to at all, they drag themselves there one way or another, and then, once they are actually moving, they think, oh, this is not bad, I am glad I came. Desire can work the same way. One partner may feel the pull ahead of time. The other may only feel it once connection has already started. The trouble begins when the more spontaneous partner assumes their responsive partner should operate exactly like they do, and reads the difference as rejection or as proof that something is wrong.
Once you understand this, the whole problem often reframes itself. Maybe the issue was never desire at all. Maybe it was how you have been initiating. Sometimes a low sex drive is not low at all, it is simply responsive, and it has been waiting for a different invitation. Figuring out which one you are dealing with is a big part of what this work does, and it is much easier to do with someone guiding the conversation than to puzzle out alone at the end of a long day.
Take our free Relationship Quiz and get a personalized read on where your relationship is strong, where the sleepers might be hiding, and what to focus on first.
Take the Relationship Quiz →Isn’t this the low-desire partner’s job to fix?
No. And this is often the most freeing thing a couple hears. The lower-desire partner is not the patient, and this is not a repair job aimed at one person. It is a two-person project.
Couples usually walk in expecting Dori to work on the partner who wants sex less, to somehow crank their interest back up. Then comes what she gently calls the rude awakening, when she tells them that more sex may well be a beautiful outcome down the road, but it is not where they are going to start, and it is not one person’s assignment. There is real power in that shift. When you stop framing one person as the problem, both people get to show up, and the whole dynamic has room to move.
A lot of couples in this spot are stuck in a pursuer-distancer pattern, where one chases and the other pulls back, and every attempt to fix it makes it worse. That pattern is real, it is common, and it is very hard to interrupt from the inside. Naming it together, with help, is usually the moment things start to change, and it is precisely the kind of work our couples therapists do.
The hidden reasons most couples miss
Beyond myths and desire styles, there is a whole layer of contributors that rarely get said out loud. Body image is a big one, especially for women after childbirth, when someone can feel unattractive even though their partner still sees them as beautiful. Hormonal shifts change things too, in ways people often do not connect to what is happening in the bedroom. And then there is novelty, or the loss of it. When a couple has quietly narrowed down to the same one or two moves, it gets hard to feel excited, which loops right back to Dori’s question about whether the sex is any good in the first place.
The research backs this up. Rosemary Basson’s work reshaped how clinicians understand desire, showing that for many people, especially in long-term relationships, desire is responsive rather than spontaneous (Basson, 2000). Emily Nagoski popularized this science and the idea that desire is highly context-dependent rather than a simple on-off switch (Nagoski, 2015). And a large study by Amy Muise and colleagues found that while sexual frequency is linked to well-being, more is not always better, with the association leveling off around once a week (Muise, Schimmack, & Impett, 2016). In other words, the number was never the thing. This is also why stress and your sex drive are so tightly linked, and why chasing the same spark you had at the beginning rarely works on its own.
If any of this is landing a little too accurately, that is not a bad sign. It means you are finally looking at the real machinery instead of the surface. Sorting through which of these is actually at play in your relationship is a lot of what our coaches help couples do, without shame and without a checklist.
What do I do if I’m not attracted to my partner anymore?
First, breathe, because this is more common than anyone admits, and it is not the end of the story. Attraction that has faded can come back, because eroticism is built from far more than what you see.
This is what Dori calls the third rail. Someone still has a sex drive, but the spark toward their specific partner has changed. Maybe their tastes have evolved. Maybe they are drawn to certain images or fantasies. Maybe bodies have simply changed over twenty years together, as bodies do. It can feel scary and shameful to say out loud. But here is the reframe Dori offered that I keep thinking about: if you are truly into someone for other reasons, they could grow a third arm and you would still find them incredibly sexy. So much of attraction is energy and vibe between two people, not a checklist of visuals. When a couple is willing to explore what actually drives each person’s desire, the sensory world opens up well beyond the visual, and desire has a way of finding its way back.
If your version of this looks like feeling rejected when your partner turns away, know that the hurt underneath that is real and worth tending to, not powering through. Everybody can be erotic. It is a matter of finding what lights each person up, and that is a conversation our sex therapists are trained to hold without flinching.
What if one of us just isn’t interested in working on it?
That is genuinely one of the harder situations, and it does happen. When only one person is willing to look at what is going on, the work is more challenging, but it is not automatically over.
A healthy relationship has many pillars: a shared life, partnership as parents, friendship, all of it. Physical intimacy is one of those pillars, and sometimes one partner would like to quietly retire it while the other still very much wants it. When Dori has the chance to understand where a partner’s lack of interest is coming from, whether it is stress, a health issue, an old wound, or something else, things often shift. And when a couple has truly explored every avenue and still cannot align, she helps them have the honest, careful conversation about what that means for them. Occasionally that includes talking about whether one partner might meet that need outside the relationship, which is a complex path that requires real honesty about jealousy, boundaries, and communication, and the support of a professional. It is never a headline. It is a last, thoughtful option among many.
Most couples never need to go there. The far more common outcome is that couples therapy helps two people find their way back to each other, and the version of the relationship they rebuild is better than the one they were quietly grieving. That is the work, and it is worth reaching for before you conclude the door is closed.
Why reading this article isn’t the same as doing the work
I want to be honest with you about something, because you deserve it. Everything Dori and I talked about is real, and it works. People use it and their relationships change. But I would be doing you a disservice if I let you close this article believing that reading it was the work.
Here is what almost always happens. You read something like this. Something clicks. You feel a little hopeful, and you make a mental note to try the new thing next time. Then next time arrives, at the end of a long day, with all the old feelings in the room, and the pattern the two of you have been running for years takes over anyway. You are not unmotivated and you are not broken. You are trying to rewire an entire dynamic, by yourselves, in the exact moment that dynamic is strongest. That is the hardest possible time to do something new.
What works is having someone in your corner who understands your specific patterns, who can help you slow the whole thing down, and who is there between the hard conversations, not just during them. That is what working with our team actually is. Not lectures. Not generic advice. A real, structured process that meets you where you are and moves you, gently, toward each other. There is also a lower-cost path for couples who raise the question of cost, including work with skilled clinicians who are completing advanced coaching training, so price does not have to be the reason you keep waiting.
If something here landed somewhere specific, that is your signal. You do not need to be in crisis, and you do not need to have failed at this first. Schedule a free consultation, no pressure and no commitment, and just talk through what is actually going on for the two of you and whether this is a good fit.
Can desire and attraction really come back?
Yes. Not with a magic trick, and not overnight, but through a process that genuinely works. This is the part I most want you to hold on to.
The thing people do not always realize is that this work is experiential. Couples often come in hot the first couple of sessions, upset and certain it is impossible to even talk about. Then something softens. By eight, nine, ten sessions in, often across about twelve weeks, the very conversations that felt terrifying at the start do not feel hard anymore, because the two people have been quietly changed by the process itself. That is the hidden part of good couples work, and it is exactly why three tips off the internet cannot deliver it.
One more thing that matters enormously: who you choose to help you. Not all therapists are the same, any more than all doctors are. For something as layered as sexuality, Dori’s advice is to read the fine print. Look for someone with real, explicit training in sexuality and sexual health, ideally with a marriage and family background too, because a clinician who gets flustered will make it impossible for you to open up. And there is a real difference between clinical mental health treatment and a solution-focused, coaching approach: the first sits with and heals deeper wounds like trauma, the second focuses on understanding and doing things differently so you can change outcomes. The right provider knows which one you need, and when.
If you want to understand that distinction before you choose, our guide on relationship coaching versus couples therapy lays it out. And when you are ready, the people who do this work with couples every day are right here through sex therapy at Growing Self. You do not have to figure this out alone, and you do not have to keep counting the weeks. There is a way back, and it starts with one honest conversation.
xoxo,
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
About this episode’s experts
Dori Bagi
Dori Bagi is a certified sex therapist and clinician with Growing Self, where she works with couples day in and day out. She holds a master’s degree focused on sexuality and sexual health, and she pairs that clinical depth with a solution-focused, coaching-minded approach — the rare combination Dr. Lisa only half-jokingly called a unicorn glitter Pegasus during their conversation. What sets Dori apart is that she refuses to hand people a checklist. Before she changes anything, she runs an extended assessment to understand not just what is happening in a couple’s sexual relationship but why, so that the work that follows actually lands.
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Licensed psychologist, marriage and family therapist, and Board Certified Coach. Founder of Growing Self Counseling & Coaching. Host of the Love, Happiness & Success podcast (15M+ downloads). 25+ years of clinical practice. Creator of the Growing Self Institute, where she trains licensed mental health professionals in evidence-based coaching psychology.
Resources Dr. Lisa talked about in this episode
Sources cited in this episode
- Basson, R. (2000). The female sexual response: A different model. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 26(1), 51–65.
- Muise, A., Schimmack, U., & Impett, E. A. (2016). Sexual frequency predicts greater well-being, but more is not always better. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(4), 295–302.
- Nagoski, E. (2015). Come as you are: The surprising new science that will transform your sex life. Simon & Schuster.
- Mark, K. P. (2012). The relative impact of individual sexual desire and couple desire discrepancy on satisfaction in heterosexual couples. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 27(2), 133–146.
Questions people ask about frequency, desire, and reconnecting
There is no universal number. Research links sexual well-being to connection more than frequency, and for many couples the benefits level off around once a week, with more not necessarily better. Quality and communication matter more than hitting a target.
Yes. Almost everyone in a long-term relationship is vulnerable to it, and it happens to couples who deeply love each other. It is common and workable, not a sign your relationship is failing.
Spontaneous desire arises on its own; responsive desire switches on once intimacy is already underway. Both are normal. Mismatched styles are often misread as rejection when the real issue is how partners initiate.
No. It is a two-person dynamic. Framing the lower-desire partner as the problem usually deepens the disconnection. Reconnection is a shared project.
Attraction can change for many reasons, including evolving tastes, body changes, stress, or lost novelty. Eroticism is built from far more than the visual, and with honest exploration and support, attraction often returns.
It is harder when only one person is willing, but not automatically hopeless. Understanding where the lack of interest comes from often shifts things, and a professional can help you have the honest conversations that follow.
Often, yes. Good couples and sex therapy is an experiential, structured process. Many couples find that conversations that felt impossible early on become manageable over roughly twelve weeks.
Look for explicit training in sexuality and sexual health, ideally with a marriage and family background. A clinician who is comfortable with the topic makes it possible to open up. Decide whether you need clinical treatment or a solution-focused coaching approach.
No. You do not need to hit rock bottom to reach out. The first conversation exists precisely to help you figure out whether this is the right fit for you.
Frequently, yes. A sexless period is a starting point, not a verdict. With honest communication and the right support, many couples rebuild a connection that is better than what they were grieving.
