Can putting sex in the diary twice a week reinvigorate your marriage? We challenged a couple with three children to test Mariella Frostrup’s theory… with earth-moving results
Flicking through my diary, I see vet’s appointments and parents’ evenings, work appraisals and dental visits. Oh, and the words ‘Sex with Liam’.
Liam is the man I’ve been married to for 18 years, and in very many respects we are a perfectly normal couple.
He’s 43 and works in the construction industry, I’m 44 and work part-time for a travel agent and part-time for a local charity. We have three children aged 15, nine and eight.
And perhaps not surprisingly, given that we’ve been together for almost two decades, our sex life has hit a rocky patch.
Mr and Mrs Average Fortysomething are having sex once a week, according to a recent YouGov study. Liam and I are doing it once or twice a month — if that.
Which is why we’ve decided to take part in a radical experiment designed to boost intimacy, revive our flagging sex life and, hopefully, form new habits for the long term.
Can putting sex in the diary twice a week reinvigorate your marriage? Mariella Frostrup says it’s the secret to lasting love and challenged a couple with three children to test her theory — with earth-moving results. Pictured, Kelly and Liam O’Connell
Liam and Kelly have been married for 18 years. He’s 43 and works in the construction industry; Kelly is 44 and works part-time for a travel agent and part-time for a local charity, and they have three children aged 15, nine and eight
We are going to schedule sex. It was Mariella Frostrup writing in this newspaper who gave us the idea.
Echoing a recent study from York University — which surveyed more than 100 couples and found no difference in satisfaction between spontaneous and scheduled sex over a three-week period — she admitted that she and her husband had long found setting a time and date for sex was the best way to keep the spark alive.
‘Real love changes shape and form over years together, and sometimes needs a helping hand to get it back on track,’ she said, ‘while romantic love, left to its own devices, just fizzles out and leaves us empty-handed.’
I could really relate to that. And while it might seem that scheduling sex is a rather sad last-ditch ploy for couples whose relationship is on the brink, in fact expert after expert recommends it as a key strategy to maintaining a happy long-term relationship.
So, we are designating our own three-week period in our diaries, in which we will book in a total of six mandatory sex sessions — so twice a week.
When Liam and I first got together, our sex drive was equally matched, and we would do it four times a week at least.
Nowadays? He isn’t shy about hopping into bed at any time of day or night — but I can take it or leave it.
I’ve pushed sex down my priority list because there is always something more urgent to do at home, at work, or with the children.
For 99 per cent of the time my mind simply isn’t in that zone. It’s hard to get turned on when you’re preoccupied with loading the washing machine or remembering to get something out of the freezer.
And yet I don’t want my sex life to be like this. I want the closeness that sex brings, and I want it much more often than the starvation rations we’re currently on.
I know it would strengthen my marriage to enjoy that side of our relationship as much as we used to.
Part of the struggle is, of course, mental, especially for women. To want sex, I need to consider myself a sexually desirable being.
But right now, I’m not confident about the way I look at all. When I look in the mirror I see crow’s feet and frown lines, not to mention the 20 lb I need to lose.
When it comes to style, I’ve been in a rut for ages, and feel my appearance is stale and frumpy. I need to address this low sense of self-esteem — and I’m hoping more regular sex will do the trick.
By way of preparation, I reorganise my lingerie drawer and take myself off for a waxing session.
I want to find Kelly the sexually desirable woman — and so, frankly, does Liam.
Then, a little awkwardly — it feels so weird! — we sit down together and look at our work schedule and family calendar and start filling in the times we can do.
We opt for every Tuesday and Friday. It feels oddly like a contract, as though we should shake on it. But now we’re committed. Let the very unspontaneous fun begin…
Perhaps not surprisingly, given that they’ve been together for almost two decades, their sex life has ‘hit a rocky patch’
Tuesday, March 7, 8pm
In the days leading up to our first scheduled session, I feel I am going into it blindly.
I keep worrying about how I’ll get in the mood. In the diary, it’s down for 8pm — I worried that if we left it any later I’d be half asleep — but we’re going to have to be super-organised to make that.
The evening turns into a military operation; Liam takes our middle child to football at 6pm while I feed the others, martial their homework, run baths and set stricter-than-ever screen time limits. Our teenager decamps to his bedroom to revise and do a bit of gaming.
Before this experiment, when the little ones were down for bed, I would usually catch up on housework and squeeze in an online grocery shop. But not tonight.
When we are finally on our own, we have a nice bath together with scented candles and some relaxing music. Then we head to bed.
As I’m the one behind the schedule, I initiate sex the first night.
What can I say? It’s brilliant. Though I had been worrying about having to perform at a set time, the fact I knew this moment was coming means I had found myself visualising our sexual encounter throughout the day, rather than being occupied with other, duller, things.
It dawns on me that the anticipation of our planned rendezvous has warmed me up before we have even begun.
In fact, things go so well that the following morning we have an extra unscheduled session.
Friday, March 10, 6pm
A disastrous evening. Our scheduled sex session almost goes by the wayside and it’s not for want of trying! We planned this evening on the basis that the children often stay at their gran’s house on a Friday, but tonight it turned out she was going out and couldn’t have them.
That means the children are at home at 4pm, two hours before our window for sex.
When the time arrives, with our eldest having headed out to the gym, and the youngest two busy in the living room playing on their VR headsets, we decide our best bet is the bathroom, the only room in the house with a lock.
Just as we’re in the throes of things one of the children wants the loo. We stop — a bit tricky for Liam — and move to the bedroom instead.
If anything, that’s worse. Our rescue pug, Pablo, usually sleeps with us in the bedroom and now he circles outside the door, pawing and yowling to come in.
By now, I’m not really feeling it, but we persevere anyway. ‘We said we’re going to do it so let’s do it,’ I whisper through gritted teeth. Not sexy.
Tuesday, March 14, 5am
Another unexpected trial. The day before, I test positive for Covid. I feel OK, but should we refrain?
This time, in the morning, chosen because the rest of the house is sleeping, feels better for us. Unfettered by the day’s demands, and while the children (and pug) are asleep, we can at least get it on in peace. Which we do.
We snuggle up afterwards, and this is an unexpected benefit, too. Having scheduled sex means there’s a new atmosphere of connection and anticipation to everything we do together. We’re definitely cuddlier even on non-sex nights and more intimate outside of the bedroom, too.
I start to realise our relationship had been in danger of flatlining into friendship. We have never stopped loving each other, but we had stopped relating to each other as sexual beings.
Scheduling the moment means putting myself first, too. I carve out time to style my hair and put on matching underwear. I also take a bit of extra grooming time in the shower and spend longer on my make-up routine, trying out a few new eyeshadow colours. I’ve started getting up early and alternating a yoga workout with going for a run.
Liam surprises me by telling me he has started to notice a change in me; I am beginning to be more assertive in bed, he says. In fact, for me, the changes are just as significant outside the bedroom. Allotting non-negotiable time slots has made me more aware of my time — and finding time for myself — in general.
Friday, March 17 Scheduled time: 8pm Actual time: 5am
We plan to have sex in the evening but get ahead of ourselves in case things don’t go to plan, and again do it first thing.
Strictly speaking, this is more spontaneous than scheduled, of course, though the date is right.
I’m starting to realise that, despite us thinking 8pm would be a good time for us — late enough so that the children should be in their rooms, early enough so that I wouldn’t be totally exhausted — in fact, we’re still too caught up in the stress of the day, and it’s almost impossible to switch into the right mood.
Morning sex, by contrast, is a great start to the day — and the benefits last into the evening, too.
To my surprise, after dinner, I leave Liam and the children to it and take myself off for a jog.
Tuesday, March 21 Scheduled time: 8pm Actual time: 3pm
Liam unexpectedly comes home early from work and, yes, we absolutely take advantage of the chance to do it before the school pick-up.
We know right away that it will have to be fast — it was a bit of a Challenge Anneka experience, but all the more exciting for it. This feels very out of character for us. Before, I’d have talked myself out of it, telling myself there wasn’t time, I wasn’t feeling sexy or didn’t have the right underwear on.
But this experience is teaching me that you can’t take yourself too seriously. Life is always a little crazy with three children and two parents working full-time, but nothing — not work, bills, pets or children — truly gets in the way of sex if you’re prepared to make the effort. I notice Liam is in a better mood. He says I am, too.
Mr and Mrs Average Fortysomething are having sex once a week, according to a recent YouGov study. Kelly says: ‘Liam and I are doing it once or twice a month — if that’
Friday, March 24, 6pm
With my mum actually picking up the children from school to spend the night at hers, Liam and I spend the day in London together, then go home for a romantic dinner. As we walk through the front door, I have butterflies in my stomach, just as I did when we first dated. We are both very much in the mood!
Before, we wouldn’t have spent a day off like this together. I might have gone shopping; Liam would probably have gone to the pub with friends. Yet these past weeks we have consciously planned our lives around those intimate moments together. And our sex life is entirely reinvigorated.
Indeed, this week, in addition to our two scheduled sessions, we have sex twice more ad hoc!
Regular, loving sex is very much part of our routine now; we just needed that nudge to get things back on track. I know it’s April, but I’ve bought myself a new — and bigger — diary.
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