Is sex really the most important thing??
 

Is sex the most important part of a marriage? In many threads, especially the threads that deal with infidelity, it is often declared that "If anyone ever cheated on me, that would be the end! I would never tolerate that from anybody! That is the absolute worse thing somebody can do to you!"

First, volunteer at a woman's shelter for a day and you will see there are a lot of things worse that can be done to a person. Infidelity is most certainly selfish, but I doubt that it is rarely done with malice, hate, or cruel intent towards another. It is more a crime driven by complacency in a relationship with the hope it is never found out by the other person. Many women I have met at the shelters take a daily beating from some pathetic excuse for a man but go back to him because "He loves me... He would never cheat on me." and they are right!! He is way to busy controlling his wife through fear and right hooks to waste time with another woman. King of 1 is enough.

An extreme example, I know. But the point is that these women value fidelity over basic kindness (not to mention safety), and I find that absurd. From your posts I know many of you would compromise happiness for fidelity, or at least you tell others they should. Is love really that conditional and dependant on the sex pact you made with your partner? A moment of weakness, caving into the purest human drive under who knows what circumstances and that's it? No more love? Not love, but rather fidelity conquers all?

I think there are better, more important measures of a couple's love. Two would be shared goals and patience. If my partner wanted different things out of life than me or was impatient with who I am as a person, they could chain themselves to our bed and give me the key. Bleh. Likewise, finding out they had lost their head and slept with someone else would not change either of those two things about them for me. Would it hurt? Yes, and it has when I was cheated on in the past - a whole lot. Love them and move on.

1 - I am not married, but was once briefly and apparently not very good at it.
2 - I have never cheated on a S.O.

So what is the most important thing in a marriage, and if it is the sex, why?

Here's the thing: emotional issues in relationships often show up first in the bedroom. And then, people often think that the the sex issue is the problem. If you look at this forum, it's full of people asking for sex advice, and when the scratch just below the surface, there are emotional issues, trust issues, communication issues, etc that are really what's going on. Infidelity doesn't just happen. It's an expression of stuff that's already happening in the relationship.

Is sex the most important thing? Of course not. But it's often a red flag for what's really going on.

If the sex is fine, then it's a very small part of the relationship. However, when it goes wrong, it can be a BIG part of the problem. I think communication is always a big part of a relationship, and it can fix many of the smaller problems.

As for the fidelity, that is not just about sex, but about TRUST. Which is even more important than just sex. If there's no trust, then there's no happiness. I cannot be happy with someone I cannot trust, so it's not giving up happiness because someone was unfaithful. It's realizing that you won't be happy with them in the long run.

Of course, from a evolutionary point of view, this is a very reasonable attitude. If a woman cheats, then you can't be sure that any children she has are yours. And if a man cheats, then he may be splitting his resources between two families.

Now, women in a shelter are not really a good population to generalize from. Their psychology is vastly different from the majority of other people. They've often been victimized in the past, and so don't necesarily see that they're giving up safety for fidelity (although I can't imagine the fidelity is the biggest thing they see in their spouse, I think it's the "love").

Although I am not married, I am in a serious relationship and can honestly say that id she ever cheated on me, it would be over. Period. The fidelity issue is not always about sex. For me, it is a trust issue. If someone cheats on me, I can't trust them, and if I can't trust them, I can not have any sort of meaningful relationship with them. And it is like ratbastid says, a lot of the issues show up in the bedroom first, because it is a more vulnerable position. Hard to hide guilt using your genitals...

:lol: Sorry, an image just came to mind with a person trying to hide behind a blushing penis...

I agree fully with Ratbastid. Sex is the canary in the mine, so to speak. When it keels over, better check the air quality...

Sex is odd, because its such an all consuming activity and takes so much effort, typically, to attain it. I think that's part of the issue. If sex were chocolate, it wouldn't be such an issue. "Just go down to the store and buy me another one dammit!"

I dont believe that sex is the most important thing.

I know that many people say that if a lover cheats it is a trust issue, and i agree with that.

However, after that you're dealing with two choices : 1) You love this person, s/he is the love of your life and you forgive them ...

OR 2) You say you love them, but the truth is after they cheat you dont see them the same way and you fear you cannot ever trust them again and you break it off ...
To me that is NOT love, and in reality, i think that if someone cannot forgive it may be due to some issues/bad experiences in their life..or like i said before, it's not true love.

I have trust issues due to my upbringing and bad experiences, but I would forgive my man if he cheated (as long as it wasn't a regular thing.. im no human doormat) because he's the love of my life and I know I would rather let him rebuild that trust than to boot him out of my life forever.

Trust CAN be built up again assuming you will ALLOW that person to do so (and assuming they are, to you, WORTH the effort). People are human.. if they cave in and give in, it's a human error, a mistake. A big mistake, no doubt about that.

To error is human, to forgive divine

You know, when I've been cheated on it goes like this...

*Ouch*..., why did you do that?, and what do you want?

There is only one chance card given, depending on the answers or circumstances of course. Hurt me once, shame on you, hurt me twice... I'll take the 'shame on me' and walk away.

well, if he cheats, then i must not be the love of his life, because he couldn't even come and speak to me about whatever was bothering him, he had to go to someone else. And if I'm not the love of his life, then how could he be the love of my life?

It's deeper than sex. But sex is the catch all for feelings and supressed emotions in alot of marriages . . . for people who don't communicate on a regular basis . . . the signals they send in their sex life can denote something bigger and sadly, in some marriages, that is the only real communication that happens and most of it is non-verbal posturing . . . moral of my two cents . . . marry someone you geuinely like, make your spouse your best friend, communicate with them about everything.

If my husband were to sleep with another woman and to hide it from me . . .
I'd be hurt he didn't tell me how he was feeling or why he choose to do it.
But wouldn't i stop loving him over it and want to break up . . . no way, we're best friends and that's more important to me than sex. But granted i would be really hurt mostly that he had hidden something from me because we share everything.

When it comes down to it and you don't attatch all those emotional issues to it:
sex is just sex.

thanks,

sweetpea

I don't think that sex is the most important aspect in a relationship. I think that sex is just a reward for they way that you act towards your S.O. This is why people say that it's the chase that people want. The hard part of a relationship is maintaining a blance so that the both of you are happy enough to spend time together without thinking about having sex. Marriage should be with a person that sex comes natural to. You both should just end up finding yourselves being sexually attracted to eachother BECAUSE of how much you do not want to have sex with eachother. It is just too easy to have sex everytime somebody wants it. I think it's all about reassuring the other person that you still want find them sexy.

Sex is a thermometer but not all important. Hubby and I have had our ups and downs and there were times when neither one of us wanted sex because of our other problems. BUT cheating on someone involves much more than the sex. There's the lying and taking time, emotion, and effort away from the marriage. Now hubby and I have an open marriage so when we have sex with other's there is no lying and we are forced to devote MORE time to the emotional part of our marriage to preserve things as they were. We're not taking anything away and we're fostering greater trust. Cheating isn't the problem really, it's the lack of trust that results from it.

Yes there are worse things that humans can do to each other whether they're married or not but in a normal marriage the matter of trust is vital to the life of the marriage.

I reread this several times and I really don't understand it. At least, if I do understand it, I vehemently disagree with it. Why would you marry someone that you do not want to have sex with? This sounds like a horrible relationship. I can't say I would know for sure though, so you may be onto something. Please explain further, though.

Sex isn't the most important thing in a marriage, but I believe that if someone cheats on their spouse they can never be trusted again and the marriage isn't worth it anymore.

Honestly, I think that if you cheat on your spouse then you weren't supposed to be married in the first place. Marriage is a committment that you make for the rest of your life, not something that you "grow out of" when you get older. It's not like you can say "well, we've grown apart, I don't love her/him anymore because they're not the person I married." You grow together, respecting the newness that comes with age, or you don't grow at all.

Cheating is a betrayal of trust. Sex is the most common form of cheating, but it isn't the only form. Secretly meeting with someone for lunch, a movie, etc, because you like their company more than your partner is also cheating. Lying is a form of cheating though more often than not it accompanies another.
Cheating ( or total loss of trust ) is not a "rough spot" in a marriage. It is not the better or for worse. Cheating is a total disrespect of a person and a betrayal of everything you promised.
Yes it is true that people have worked out marriages after an affair, but as a personal note, I feel that once one person has cheated the marriage is over.

That's a very good and bold observation, Sage. You don't marry the person who fits you so perfectly at a singular, brilliant moment in life (though good marriages may start that way)... you marry the person who will grow with you, even at different rates... when one person grows or "runs" faster in one area, he or she pauses to jog in place, quite willing to wait for you to catch up and run with them rather than leave you in the dust... and you are willing to do the same for him or her. That's growing together, that's marriage (in the universal, trans-legal sense).

On the other hand, I think this is why so many people cop out early with the excuse of "irreconciliable differences," because they just gave up trying... they grew impatient with waiting for the catch-up (indeed, sometimes the difference can be too great, but this should be realized before marriage I think). Even something as seemingly natural as sex becomes very hard work at times in a marriage, and if both people are not committed to work on it till death parts them... well, why get married? (and I understand and respect when some people consciously choose against marriage because they realize they do not want to be in this kind of situation... that's a very honest and hard thing to do, too).

While the sex is an important part of our marriage, the foundation is trust. If Grace were to have an affair behind my back, it wouldn't be that she was having sex with another woman that would hurt me, though it would, so much as it would be that she didn't trust me enough to share with me that she had such feelings and desires, and the feeling that I wasn't enough for her.

I know that she finds other women attractive; she points them out to me so I can ogle them, too. I would never have an affair behind her back. I have built up a strong emotional relationship with another woman, and my wife knows all about it, and because I've been free and open with her about it, and because it isn't coming between us, she's fine with it, she's even encouraged me a bit.

I think of it this way. If I could never have sex with her again, would I still want to be with this woman? The answer is yes, the close freindship we share, the emotional intimacy we share, the absolute trust I have in her would all be there.

The biggest issue, the one that figures most prominently in divorce cases is money; sexual issues are secondary, important, very important, but secondary.

I think there are many factors that determine how important sex is in a marriage at a particular time. How long people have been married for is an obvious one. I would think it would be more important at the start, specially if you've been one of the people who have waited till being married to lose your virginity. (Did anyone here do that?)
As the marriage progresses there are many other things that crop up.. kids can really put you off having sex ever again sometimes, work can get on top of you and bite into your quality time with your partner and then there's housework and other general chores. I guess there are also different answers on what else can be construde as important in a marriage. Some people might say that money is, or maybe the assets like the house and car, for those of you that have kids, you'd know that they are the ultimate important thing in a marriage.
Reading back through earlier posts, they seem to be more about relationships in general. The original poster asked if sex is the most important part of marriage. I think being married makes it something different than just a relationship when sex is concerned. Much harder to get out of anyway. :)

I want to answer this before reading all the responses.

To me, after 11 years of marriage, sex is not the most important thing. I would say understanding, trust, honesty, love, and other things are more important. A sense that you are "in this together" no matter what, help with family matters, help in general. Being able to ask for help and opinions without feeling stupid and without being made to feel that your spouse is not willing to help, with things like the children, to putting together a bookshelf, to painting the house, doing yard work, etc. Or better yet, not having to ask for help when the kids are acting up and things are chaotic, the help is just there. Feeling like family is most important over all else. When all of this does not exist, it is hard to get in the mood for sex.

This is just my opinion.

I have a question to all the posters who claimed their marriage would be over if their spouse ever cheated on them. Have you actually experienced that yet? If you have, did you walk away because of trust issues? If you didn't walk away, were you honoring you wedding vows? Or did you stay together because you both chose to?

Those are shoes that you need to walk in before being too certain about what you would do in theory.

I believe we have sexual desire because we evolved that way so that our species could propagate itself (much like other animals do). I believe we evolved to have romantic love because it is in the best interests of our species' survival to have a family unit (much like some animals mate for life). With the number of "out of wedlock" births in recent history, this is probably not as important as it used to be.

Because for most of our history there have been more women than men, it is/was probably good for our species survival that many men are wired to have multiple sexual partners (women too, but probably not as many). I think most relationships where people "fall in love" start out as infatuation and extreme attraction and eventually grow into a more stable kind of love based on our life experiences with each other.

As to the original question that started this thread "Is sex the most important thing", I'd say that it is not but the idea of your partner becoming sexually involved and infatuated with someone else and then wanting to share life experiences with them, is a very important thing. Having sexual desire for someone outside of the relationship is natural but following through on it is a betrayal of trust mostly because it threatens to end it.

i would have to argee with this, i have one thing to add from my perspective...

my sex life isnt the greatest in the world but i have 2 wonderful kids out of what i have so that makes my sex life a lil lower on the totem pole then it was 2 years ago, also i have noticed that when my wife and i's schedule was opposite of each other i didnt wasnt shown that i am loved which i realized is more important then sex...dont get me wrong i love sex and i would love to have it a couple times a day but if i go without it for months i wont die/cheat cause of it, as long as my wife is here and doesnt ignore that i need some kind of appreshetion(sp?)/love.