Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - The Surprising Benefits of Scheduling Sex

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, I'm sex, love and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the last 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Bites, where I tackle your most asked questions and requested topics. These episodes are designed to be fun, quick and to the point. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. listen i know what the movies and popular culture teach us right that the best sex happens

Starting point is 00:00:36 spontaneously and you're just carried away and yeah that's amazing and that's also really easy in the beginning of your relationship and what therapists and scientists call the infatuation stage, which lasts anywhere from three months to three years, depending on how much time you spend together and how quickly you commit to one another. But after that, you move into what's called the attachment stage of love. And attachment is beautiful and sustainable. If we lived in infatuation where we couldn't stop, you know, we were going at it like rabbits, we wouldn't get anything else done. Society would cease to function. So it's kind of a natural evolutionary process that we move into attachment. But that is often that connection, that familiarity,

Starting point is 00:01:27 that commitment is often where desire goes to die. So make sure you watch my video on building desire. But one of the keys that I talk about in that video that I want to talk about here is scheduling sex. Now, I know you're rolling your eyes, so just bear with me, okay? The main thing to know, and this is especially true, like big checkmark next to it if you are a parent. If you are a parent of one or more children and you are waiting for sex to happen spontaneously, you will be tapping your fingers and waiting for sex for a long time. And the same is honestly true in a long-term relationship without children. Just life gets in the way, work, busyness, the natural intense horniness and desire that happens with the infatuation stage.

Starting point is 00:02:24 And quite frankly, when we're younger and our hormones are really on board, it's hard to sustain in a long-term relationship. And so let's talk about the scheduling thing. Once again, the fantasy and the reason we tend to resist that is that we think that the best sex is spontaneous sex. And spontaneous sex is great. But if you aren't having sex, it is much better to have scheduled sex than no sex. And I have been doing this for 30 years working with couples and thousands and thousands of couples I have counseled to do this. And it does require a mind shift, which we'll talk about. But when they take this on and they start practicing it, I've never had a couple come to me and say, no, it didn't work. It's not working for us.

Starting point is 00:03:17 We're not going to schedule it. Because what happens, you do have to make that mind shift where you are willing to open to scheduling it, is that several things happen. First of all, you are making sex a priority. Maybe for the first time, maybe again, but you're making sex a priority. That is a huge message to the internal systems within each of you and within the relationship, that your physical connection is a priority, and you are keeping those appointments, okay? Now, it may be every Thursday night at 8 p.m., or it may be week to week the time and day changes. It doesn't matter to me as long as at least once a week, maximum every two weeks, you are scheduling sex. Now, why is this important? Because that sexual frequency

Starting point is 00:04:12 sustains the emotional connection between the two of you. It's something you can count on and it starts to actually take on a tone of foreplay. So you're going to have sex on Tuesday at 4 p.m. Tuesday morning. You're maybe sending some flirty texts to each other. maybe you're shaving your legs and pits for the first time in a week you're maybe putting on some sexy underwear you're thinking about it there's some titillation around it right so it starts to be something that you can look forward to and that you can relax into the other thing i love about scheduling sex is that it takes the pressure off so if you've been in a dry spell for a while or desire has been uneven or it just hasn't really been coming together for you and you aren't really

Starting point is 00:05:06 having sex. I mean, there are so many sexless marriages. It's estimated that about 70% of marriages are struggling with their intimacy frequency. So you aren't alone. But what happens when you schedule it is that the pressure is off. Are they going to initiate? Are they going to say yes if I initiate? This is like this 800, especially if one of you still has desire and the other doesn't. There's like an 800-pound gorilla in the room with you that nobody's talking about this pressure there or this expectation around sex. When you have it scheduled, it's taken care of. The rest of the week, you can relax if that sexual pressure has been on. Even better, and this is one of the things I love, one of the reasons I love to use scheduling sex in therapy with couples,

Starting point is 00:05:53 especially couples where the intimacy is broken down, is that I can get them then to kiss and cuddle and flirt and hold hands and be in all these playful spaces together the rest of the week because the one who doesn't want sex isn't thinking, oh, crap, I don't want to go and give them a hug or pat them on the tush because they'll think I'm wanting to start something and I'm really not in the mood right now and I'm not in the headspace right now. And the person who does want the sex isn't thinking, oh, I'm not going to go give her a kiss because she's going to pull away from me thinking I'm trying to start something, right? None of those guessing games are there because you're having sex on Thursday at eight, right? So this is all just playfulness,

Starting point is 00:06:33 flirting, connecting, and that fuels the desire between the two of you so that when your sex date comes, it's even more exciting. Hey, it's Dr. Laura Berman. I've been a sex, love, and relationship therapist for over 30 years. And the main question I always get asked is, how the heck do we spice it up in a long-term monogamous relationship? Well, if you want to take your love life, your sex life to the next level, whether you're in a relationship or not, check out my free course on quantum sex. It's going to teach you how to take your sexual response to the next level capable of full body orgasms, how to use sex magic to manifest your dreams and how to connect on an even deeper level sexually with your partner. Just go to

Starting point is 00:07:26 drlauraberman.com and you'll find it right there on the homepage, the quantum sex free course. Check it out. Let me know what you think. The other thing is that you're not having to worry about making time for it. The time is made and the time is a priority. And it's really, really important to keep those appointments with each other at all costs. Now, if one of you has an emergency or one of you is really sick, obviously there are times that you need to cancel your sex date, but you don't just cancel.

Starting point is 00:08:08 The one who canceled or needed to cancel reschedules on the spot and keeps that commitment and reschedules quickly, not for next week, but within the next few days or as soon as possible. That is a really important piece of this because it can very easily be something that you push off again and again, and it must be something that you prioritize. The other thing I think is really helpful is if each of you take turns kind of taking the lead, right, especially if you haven't really been sexual in a while or been going through a dry spell and you start scheduling sex. Try to schedule it several weeks in advance. Some couples, your schedules are so crazy that you have to do it week by week and that's fine. But ideally, schedule it several weeks in advance once a week. and then take turns taking responsibility for it. And what I mean by that is that,

Starting point is 00:09:09 let's say your sex date is on Saturday at 11 a.m., okay? If it's your turn, you are making sure the bed is set up, maybe lighting some candles, putting on some music, going and saying like, okay, it's time to have our date. Like one of you is kind of taking the responsibility. and then the next date it's the other person's responsibility to be like okay let's go like you don't have to i mean you could just meet in your bedroom naked at 11 a.m but that doesn't always happen because you've got other things going on so one of you is kind of driving the bus a little

Starting point is 00:09:47 bit and that's a beautiful thing because then each of you are taking equal responsibility Now, if you want to add a new layer to the sex date, you can even plan on some fantasy play or some toy play or trying a new position. Right. So in that case, I love to recommend the fantasy box as an addendum to scheduling sex. And what the fantasy box is, and this is separate from your sex state, is you sit down and you each write down on a piece of paper all the fantasies, role plays, positions you can think of that you would love to try with your partner. So maybe it's reenacting a fantasy of a cop and someone getting a ticket or a teacher and a student, or maybe it's trying a new position or a new sexual act or a new toy or a role play or costume or whatever. you write them all down and you make a promise to each other. We're not agreeing to do all of each other's thoughts and fantasies here, but we are going to keep an open and nonjudgmental mindset. Neither one of us are going to criticize or freak out about any of the fantasies that are

Starting point is 00:11:01 shared. Then you each compare your lists, you share them, and then you come up with a common list, the ones that both of you can agree on and try to keep an open mind and negotiate a little bit, but the list that both of you are willing to try. Then you take that master list and you can just keep the list and refer to it. But I love to create a fantasy box by writing all of them down on little pieces of paper, put them in a jar or a shoe box or whatever. And then once a week, or if you want to just do the fantasy thing once a month, you can, right? You have your four sex dates a month. And maybe once one of those dates, you do the fantasy box. But each time you do it, you pull one out of the box. And whoever's fantasy it was, whoever's list it was on,

Starting point is 00:11:50 it's their responsibility for setting the stage, getting the supplies, doing the research, getting the costumes, setting it up. They're the ones kind of driving the fantasy or the role play. You are an active participant, but they are the ones that are taking responsibility for getting it all set up for your sex state. That can be a beautiful addition to add some added spice into your sexual consistency. But either way, if you embrace the sex state, I promise you your relationship will flourish more as a result. Your intimacy emotionally will be greater. You'll feel more like allies and sex begets more sex. So the more sex you have, the more emotionally connected, the more sexually connected you feel, the more sex you want to have. If you like this

Starting point is 00:12:42 episode, make sure to follow and also let me know if there's any topics you want me to cover on The Language of Love. You're a fool of crime

Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - The Surprising Benefits of Scheduling Sex

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