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> Sexual unfulfillment is, I believe, one of the largest driving factors behind a lot of cheating and divorce. Maybe, but I don't think it's a root cause in mo

> Sexual unfulfillment is, I believe, one of the largest driving factors behind a lot of cheating and divorce. Maybe, but I don't think it's a root cause in most cases. Like, even if you had a social framework in place for the high libido partner to receive fulfillment outside the relationship, the issues (misaligned expectations, boundary issues, money stress, contempt, etc) that led to the breakdown in intimacy would still remain and and end manifesting in other ways. I think probably a more helpful direction is to provide more guidance to couples for how to communicate around intimacy, how respond effective to a coalmine canary issue like "the sex isn't very good any more" in a way that uncovers the root causes rather than blaming one person for the symptom ("it's the LLP's fault for not doing the thing") or trying to fix it with band-aids ("just have more date nights lol").

dm319 5y ago
You make a lot of assumptions here. Sometimes the answer is simple and people are not sexually compatible, were never good at having sex together and rushed into a long term relationship. I've seen this more in people who were further along the 'sexual repression' spectrum (i.e. following religious advice about relationships and marriage). Sometimes I think cheating and divorce is as much the norm as mating for life. I was reading a study recently that found that sexual intimacy steadily decreases over time in a long term relationship, and only seemed to go back up again if divorce/new partner happened. I will dig it out if anyone is interested. There is a taboo around non-monogamy which I think is detrimental to many people, and certainly a lot of people make multiple partners work, despite all the barriers to doing this in most societies. It isn't a sticking plaster for other issues, that I agree though. If anything it needs the participants to understand well what they want and to be excellent communicators - something we can probably all work on.

dm319 5y ago

You make a lot of assumptions here. Sometimes the answer is simple and people are not sexually compatible, were never good at having sex together and rushed into a long term relationship. I've seen this more in people who were further along the 'sexual repression' spectrum (i.e. following religious advice about relationships and marriage). Sometimes I think cheating and divorce is as much the norm as mating for life. I was reading a study recently that found that sexual intimacy steadily decreases over time in a long term relationship, and only seemed to go back up again if divorce/new partner happened. I will dig it out if anyone is interested. There is a taboo around non-monogamy which I think is detrimental to many people, and certainly a lot of people make multiple partners work, despite all the barriers to doing this in most societies. It isn't a sticking plaster for other issues, that I agree though. If anything it needs the participants to understand well what they want and to be excellent communicators - something we can probably all work on.