Considering the 30-Day Sex Challenge in a 16-Year Marriage
by Jennifer Munn

My husband just suggested to me that we have sex every day for thirty days. Seriously. SERIOUSLY?

When it comes to sex, while I definitely like it (and have even been known to love it on occasion),  I don’t frequently seek it out. In fact, sometimes I pointedly dodge it. Why do I avoid thee? Let me count the ways:

  • Exhaustion
  • Stress
  • Too much on my mind to enjoy it
  • It can take too long
  • It can be messy
  • His libido’s too high libido, which is his problem not mine

But lately, after sixteen years of marriage and five kids (yes, five!), my husband and I are really trying to re-establish bliss and happiness in our marriage. For a period of about 6 or 7 years, for a variety of reasons, things were pretty rocky: we were emotionally isolated from each other and our resentments festered. But over the last year or so, we’ve been proactively healing and growing and re-kindling what brought us together in the first place.

I want to see my husband happy, and I know sex every day for thirty days would make him happy. But will it make me happy in the end too? I readily admit there have been many times when I gave in to having sex just to please him and afterwards said with whole-hearted honesty, “We should do this more often!” Maybe the problem is me, not him.

So I Googled “sex for 30 days.”

Turns out it’s a thing! Like a challenge. (I’m assuming Google is where he got this idea in the first place.) And it’s a challenge based on the benefits of regular sex. Apparently, there are plenty:

  • Exercise
  • Stress reduction
  • Improvements to immune response
  • Anxiety reduction
  • Improved sleep
  • Increased intimacy

There are many more benefits, but these are the ones most appealing to me. Especially #6. During my online research, I found people who attempted sex every day for an entire year! Both couples ended up saying that it improved everything in their marriages. They said they lost their inhibitions and embarrassment about the subject and gained confidence: “Now we can talk about anything.”

That struck a chord. I definitely have sexual inhibitions. I often feel embarrassed about the whole thing. I have trouble letting go. And I can’t reveal my inner most desires without some serious shame. I don’t even know where this comes from, but I know I don’t want it. I don’t want inhibition or embarrassment or shame to get in my way — or his way, for that matter. I need to learn to be vulnerable.

Of all people in this world to do that with, who better than the man who has committed to spending the rest of his life loving and cherishing me? And he has and he does, every single day. Fuck, I’m lucky.

So, yes. I will do this. I will do this for him. And I will do this for me. I will do this for us.

And with practice practice practice, my libido should pump up (one of the other health benefits, don’t you know), the walls I’ve built should come crumbling down, and with any luck, in thirty days we’ll be a whole new us!

In the meantime, let’s just hope he doesn’t Google the 365-day challenge.

This article was originally published on Jennifer Munn’s blog “My Humanist Chrysalis”

Want more intimacy without all that sex?
5 Ways to Get More “Us” Time



4 Comments

  1. When me and my hubby were trying to concieve, we had sex every two days through the whole cycle and it became more of chore and not remotely pleasing or a bonding experience.

  2. This feels unrealistic. Sex every day for 30 days almost certainly means continuing right through a menstrual period — which for many women consists of a few days of cramps, a week of bleeding, and a few days of recovery, during all of which time sex is off the table.

    1. not for everyone! I love sex on my period, the sensation is heightened, the intimacy (if you’re partner has no issue with it) too!

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