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It’s very rare that I get to speak to one of my besties from college, so a few months back I remember enjoying a wonderful conversation with her. However, suddenly she had to cut our conversation short after looking at her watch and realizing he had talked longer than the 15 minutes she had allotted to speak to me. I thought it was strange that she had our chat on a timer, but maybe she had to be do something with her kids, or perhaps her favorite show was coming on. When I asked her why she had to get off of the phone so abruptly, she replied, “Girl, I have to go have sex with my husband. I’ll call you tomorrow.” I hung up the phone thinking to myself, “Did she just blow me off for some scheduled nooky?” Yep, she sure did!

At first I thought to myself, “how Unromantic is that?” Part of the fun associated with sex for me is the spontaneity of it. But then it hit me that I hadn’t had spontaneous sex with my husband in a VERY long time, especially since having our son. Usually I’m too tired or overextended to get it in; and our schedules never seem to sync up. Suddenly, scheduling sex made a lot of sense.

My best friend is a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter and a lawyer who is baking cupcakes for her sons’ classmates in between depositions. Her husband has his own law firm and shuttles the kids to soccer, football and little league. It’s no wonder they have to schedule sex – they barely have enough hours in the day to get everything done before it’s time to go bed and wake up just to do it all over again. As full-time working parents ourselves, my husband and I barely see each other, let alone have sex…and it was beginning to take a toll on our marriage.

It seemed that the first thing I was willing to let go of after giving birth to my son was sex. It was the furthest thing from my mind. Taking care of my baby’s needs while working full-time to help provide for my family required all of the energy I had. Between caring for my son, cooking, cleaning, running errands and going to work every day, sex was just going to have to wait because I was exhausted. I figured it would work its way back into our lives on the weekends…or when my son finally slept through the night…or when I had some time off. But the truth is the longer we went without sex, the harder it got to get back into a sexual groove. The road back to intimacy was not an easy one, and NOT having sex became the norm.  Prior to life getting in the way, we had sex at LEAST once a day. Now we’re lucky if we can muster up a kiss goodnight.

So after thinking about my friend and her husband’s sex schedule, I wanted to give their idea a try – I began having date nights with my hubby. My hope was that labeling it a “date night” rather than a “sex date” would take the pressure off a little. Instead of planning sex, we planned simply to spend time with each other. We would talk (about anything other than work, bills or the baby), laugh, cuddle and simply hang out and reconnect. Just having some alone time is a form of intimacy that we had been lacking for months. And it felt good.

After a while, we’d do something different with our date nights, like have them at a hotel or get couples massages – something a little more romantic and sensual that got our senses peaked and our juices flowing. When we got creative with our date nights, we naturally felt spontaneous yet relaxed and sexy, thus increasing our desire for one another. We got a sitter and remembered for a night what life was like before the mortgage and the baby. It was almost like, “Hey…I remember you!” And it was fun! Date nights that led to sex dates were actually working.

So yes, scheduling sex may seem boring, robotic and unromantic…but it doesn’t have to be that way if you’re willing to be creative and open-minded to the possibilities. Sex in a marriage isn’t everything, but it’s important as far as intimacy and connecting is concerned. And in most cases, the more you schedule sex, the more you’re going to want to do it – making way for it to happen naturally and more spontaneously. It’s all about making yourselves a priority, growing together instead of apart and being proactive in your own sex life. If you can carve out time to attend a PTA meeting or run to soccer practice, surely you can make time for your man. It may sound silly to you now, but if you don’t nurture your sex life today, tomorrow just might be too late.

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