What Really Happens When Your Partner Wants To Have Sex But You Don’t Want To…

For most couples who have been in a long term commitment, there are a lot of times when one of the partners wants to get down and dirty and the other just doesn’t feel like it. In a recent study scientists have looked at how different couples deal with such occurrences. This is called desire discrepancy and in study researchers have found that 80% of the participants have experienced it in one way or another in the past month. In another research, the participants said they had desire discrepancy in five out of seven days in a week.

In three different studies, scientists have looked at how people deal with a situation where one of the partner’s sexual desire is high, and the other’s is low. In all of these tests, they discovered that one’s desire to fulfill the sexual needs of their partner is a main motivator 1) in the desire to have sex in these occurrences and 2) in the ability to maintain contentment in the sex and the relationship for both sides. This motivation was called “communal strength” by the researchers.People who were more willing to have sex when they really didn’t want to, without the desire to get something in return immediately, did not focus on the bad side of sex: like tiredness the coming day. What they paid attention to was the good effects of sex, and namely how their partner would feel loved and wanted. So this strategy lead to these people being more likely to have sex in low-desire moments and this in turn made both sides feel better about the sex and the relationship. This concludes that despite having sex just because of their significant others desire, they were still benefited greatly. Even when they were in a desire discrepancy situation, these people felt content because of their actions.

This report implies that even if you don’t want to have sex, having sex because you want to see your significant other satisfied, will bring benefits to both. However, if you feel forced or don’t pay attention to what you want at all, you will not get the same benefits. In the relationships where this communal motivation occurs, both parties are considerate to each other. This means that when you see a partner who doesn’t want to engage in sex, but you want to, not engaging in sex is something that will help your relationship, because you make the sacrifice for them.So it comes down to not only how you deal with these types of situation, but also why you choose to deal with them that way. The emotions behind the actions play a very important role.