Sex can be an important way to connect, but there’s no right amount for a healthy relationship. What matters more is whether both partners feel close, respected and satisfied with their intimacy. Communicating about different levels of desire, removing pressure and exploring intimacy both together and alone can help create a sex life that works for you.
Sex is often seen as one of the defining features of a romantic relationship. In a way, it can feel like the big activity that differentiates your relationship from any other close, platonic relationship.
So if you stop having as much sex, or stop having sex altogether, it can be easy to start wondering: What makes our relationship different from a friendship? Should we just be friends? Are we failing as lovers? Is something wrong?
Sexual intimacy can be incredibly beneficial to your connection, but it isn’t the only thing that creates intimacy between two people. So how important is sex, really? Let’s look at what we actually mean by ‘sex’, what it can bring to a relationship, and how to handle some of the feelings and questions that might come up when your sex life changes.
What counts as sex in a relationship?
First of all, sex doesn’t just mean penetration.
We have pigeonholed ‘sex’ as penetrative sex for a long time and placed a huge amount of importance on that one physical act.
But intimacy and sexual connection are much broader than that.
Rather than asking whether you’re having enough of one particular kind of sex, it can be more useful to ask: do we still have intimacy, pleasure and excitement between us?
The benefits of sex in a relationship
There are plenty of reasons sex can be good for us, and that’s important to acknowledge if we’re asking how important it is in a relationship.
Enjoyable, consensual sexual experiences can help us relax, release feel-good hormones and relieve stress.
But within a relationship, sex can offer something else too: a way of connecting that sometimes feels difficult to achieve through words alone.
There’s the vulnerability of being physically intimate with another person. There’s the softness that can come afterwards, whether that’s pillow talk, cuddling or simply lying together. Being comfortable enough to give and receive pleasure can also build trust and help partners learn more about each other’s bodies, desires and boundaries.
Sex can be playful, too. Long-term relationships inevitably involve bills, work, chores, family responsibilities and everyday stress. Sexuality can give you a space to step outside of all that and encounter one another differently.
None of these benefits mean you need sex to have a healthy relationship. But when sex is mutually wanted and enjoyed, it can be a powerful form of connection.
Desire discrepancy: the importance of sex is individual
Some people are naturally more sexual than others. Some want sex frequently and consider it a major part of a romantic relationship; others don’t place nearly as much importance on it.
We all have different needs, so there is no ‘perfect’ amount of sex. How important sex feels can differ enormously from person to person and from relationship to relationship.
What can become difficult, especially when it isn’t talked about, is desire discrepancy: when one person wants sex more often than the other.
Desire discrepancy is extremely common, and it can fluctuate throughout a relationship. There might be periods when one of you is stressed with work, exhausted, dealing with health issues or simply doesn’t have much capacity for sex. At another point, the dynamic might reverse.
Without communication, this can become painful on both sides. One person can start to feel pressured while the other feels rejected, unwanted or dissatisfied. Neither person’s experience is inherently more valid than the other’s.
The goal isn’t necessarily to make both of your sex drives identical. It’s to find a way of navigating the difference with care, honesty and respect.
Closeness > sex
The biggest takeaway is this.
Sex is not the most important thing in a relationship. Closeness is.
Maybe you’re not having sex, so you don’t feel close. You’re not talking about it, and that’s driving you even further apart. Or maybe you stopped having sex because you stopped feeling close.
These things can easily feed into one another.
Ultimately, the most important thing isn’t sex itself. It’s communicating, relating and feeling close to one another.
Sometimes people initiate sex because they’re really seeking intimacy, reassurance or affection.
For some men in particular, social conditioning around emotional vulnerability can mean sex becomes one of the few places where they feel comfortable experiencing tenderness or closeness.
Other people might agree to sex they don’t really want because they hope it will repair an emotional gap between them.
But sex can’t do all the work of communication for us.
Plenty of couples have little or no sexual intimacy and are perfectly happy together because neither person experiences it as a problem.
They communicate, listen to one another, show affection and find other ways to feel physically and emotionally close.
This can become particularly visible in very long-term relationships. Sexuality doesn’t disappear with age, and plenty of older people continue to have active sex lives. But for some couples, sex becomes less central over time. That doesn’t necessarily mean something has been lost. Their relationship may simply have evolved into a different form of intimacy, built on decades of knowing, caring for and understanding one another.
If neither of you is having sex, neither of you particularly wants to, and you’re both happy and connected, where is the problem? As they say, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.
What is worth paying attention to is when you’re not having sex and don’t feel close. Or when you are having sex, but still don’t feel close.
Closeness is the thread running through all of this. When you see a genuinely happy, healthy couple, what tends to stand out isn’t how often you imagine they’re having sex. It’s the way they speak to one another, respect one another, enjoy one another and seem to be on the same team.
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Practical steps towards a healthy sex life
Separate societal expectations from what is actually good for you
Forget, for a moment, how much sex you think you should be having.
There’s no universally acceptable number, and comparing yourself to friends, statistics, previous relationships or couples on social media is unlikely to tell you much about what your own relationship needs.
Instead ask: Are we happy with our intimate life? Do we both feel loved, wanted and respected? Is there something either of us would genuinely like to change?
Those questions are much more useful than counting how many times you’ve had sex this month.
Communicate about what you actually need
Once you’ve started figuring out what works for you, talk about it.
Good communication around sex isn’t just about saying what you want in bed. It’s also about reassuring one another that you care, being able to hear ‘not tonight’ without turning it into rejection, and being able to express dissatisfaction without turning it into blame.
Not having sex can sometimes bruise egos. One person withdraws, the other feels rejected, resentment grows, and suddenly you’re arguing about something much bigger than whether you had sex on Tuesday.
Talking openly helps stop those feelings from silently building.
Let go of pressure and resentment
If you want a sex life that feels natural, open and special, reducing pressure can make an enormous difference.
One useful place to start is agreeing that every kiss doesn’t have to lead to sex. Cuddling doesn’t have to lead to sex. Getting into bed naked doesn’t have to lead to sex. Touch can simply be touch.
If there’s already a lot of pressure or resentment between you, it can even help to temporarily take sex off the table and start rebuilding physical intimacy without expectation.
Kiss. Massage each other. Lie together. Touch. Flirt. Be physically affectionate without trying to get anywhere.
Removing the goal can sometimes make space for desire to return naturally.
Explore together
If you care about your relationship, communicate well and generally feel close, but one or both of you still feels dissatisfied with your sex life, it might simply be time to broaden your horizons.
Maybe one of you isn’t enjoying the sex you’re currently having. Maybe you don’t know what you want. Maybe you’ve fallen into the same routine for years. None of these things automatically mean the relationship is over.
You might explore working with a sex coach or therapist, seeing a bodyworker, attending a couples workshop or finding another form of intimacy support together.
And you don’t need to wait until something is ‘wrong’. Exploring intimacy more consciously can help you:
- Figure out what actually turns you on
- Learn how to communicate during sex
- Become more present during intimacy
- Work through personal blocks or difficult past experiences with appropriate support
- Discover where you align sexually and where you’re different
Sometimes simply approaching your intimate life with curiosity rather than judgement changes the conversation completely.
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Our picksExplore alone, too
Something many couples seem to throw out of the window when they get together is their own intimate relationship with themselves.
You don’t have to explore sexuality exclusively as a couple.
Masturbation, fantasy, erotica and simply spending time understanding your own body can help you discover what pleasure and intimacy feel like for you. That can actually make partnered intimacy easier, because you’re not expecting another person to magically know what you want.
There can still be stigma around solo sexuality within relationships. Some couples have boundaries around pornography, for example, and those boundaries deserve an honest conversation rather than assumptions from either person.
Having a private sexual self doesn’t automatically take something away from a relationship.
It can mean your sexuality feels like something that belongs to you, rather than something your partner is solely responsible for providing.
So, how important is sex in a relationship?
Sex can be a wonderful way to feel close to one another. It can bring pleasure, vulnerability, playfulness and a kind of intimacy that feels unique to your relationship. If you have that connection, nurturing it is a good thing.
But sex is one way of being close.
It isn’t the be-all and end-all of a relationship. What matters more is whether you feel connected, respected and able to communicate honestly about what you both need.
For one couple, a healthy relationship might include sex several times a week. For another, it might mean occasional sex. For another, it might mean no sex at all.
The important question isn’t Are we having enough sex?
It’s Are we both happy with the intimacy we have?
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Related reading
Sexless marriage: what it means and how couples find their way back
Sources & further reading.
- Matthew D. Johnson, Wenran Li, Emily A. Impett, Justin A. Lavner, Franz J. Neyer & Amy Muise / Journal of Family Psychology / 2025. How are sexual frequency and relationship satisfaction intertwined? A latent profile analysis of male-female couples
- Katherine Arenella / Family Process / 2024. Desire discrepancy in long-term relationships: A qualitative study with diverse couples
- Brian J. Willoughby, Adam M. Farero & Dean M. Busby / Archives of Sexual Behavior / 2014. Exploring the effects of sexual desire discrepancy among married couples
- Stephenie Davies, Jennifer Katz & Joan L. Jackson / Archives of Sexual Behavior / 1999. Sexual Desire Discrepancies: Effects on Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction in Heterosexual Dating Couples
- National Institute on Aging / National Institutes of Health / reviewed 2022. Sexuality and Intimacy in Older Adults
- Heather Grey; medically reviewed by Jennifer Litner, PhD, LMFT, CST / Healthline / updated 2026. Sensate Focus: What It Is and How It Works
