When you and your partner want different amounts of intimacy

One of you reaches for the other and hopes. The other notices and feels a small knot of pressure. Neither of you says much about it, because the last few times it came up, it went badly. Over time the subject becomes something you both step around, and the stepping around starts to affect everything else.

Different levels of desire are one of the most common things couples deal with, and one of the least talked about. Knowing how common it is doesn't solve it, but it can take away some of the shame that makes it hard to discuss.

It is common

Britain's third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, one of the largest studies of its kind, asked thousands of adults about their sex lives. Among people in relationships, the most common difficulty reported at the level of the couple was partners having different levels of interest in sex, which affected around a quarter of both men and women.

A follow-up analysis of the same survey, published in BMJ Open, looked at people who had lacked interest in sex for three months or more in the past year: about 15 percent of men and 34 percent of women. Lacking interest was linked to general health, to depression, and to relationship factors, including not feeling emotionally close to a partner during sex and finding it hard to talk about sex. Because the survey captured one moment in time, it can't show which came first.

More is not a target

It is easy to assume there is a right amount and that one of you is above or below it. Research doesn't support a single number. In a set of studies of more than 30,000 people published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, Amy Muise and colleagues found that among people in relationships, more frequent sex was linked to greater wellbeing, but only up to about once a week. Beyond that, more was not linked to greater wellbeing on average. The data were correlational and describe averages, so they say nothing about what is right for the two of you. What they do suggest is that the goal is a shared life that feels good to both people, not hitting a frequency.

How each side tends to feel

The partner who wants more often feels rejected, and may start to feel unattractive or unloved. The partner who wants less often feels pressured, and may start to avoid affection altogether in case it is read as an invitation. Both end up feeling unwanted in different ways, and both are describing something real.

This is why the subject is so easily turned into a question of who is wrong. The more useful question is what the pattern between you has become, and what each of you needs from it.

What tends to help

Talk about it away from the bedroom, at a calm time, when nothing is being asked for. Conversations that happen right after a "no" are almost always too raw.

Separate a "not now" from a verdict on the person. Saying out loud that a no is about energy, stress or mood, and not about attraction, can take a lot of weight out of it.

Widen what counts as closeness. Affection that doesn't lead anywhere, such as a long hug or sitting close, can rebuild a sense of safety for the partner who wants less and a sense of being wanted for the partner who wants more.

Ask what makes closeness easier and what gets in the way. For many people the answers are ordinary: being less tired, feeling less rushed, not having been criticized earlier in the day, having time together that isn't about chores. These are things a couple can change together, and talking about them turns the problem into something shared rather than a quality one of you has.

Consider health. Desire can be affected by physical health, stress, sleep, mood and some medications. If a change in desire has been sudden or is causing distress, it is reasonable to raise it with a doctor.

When a difference like this goes unspoken for a long time, it often feeds a wider sense of drifting apart; see what growing apart actually looks like before it's a breakup. If it has turned into the same argument over and over, see why you keep having the same fight.

Intimacy is never owed. If either of you feels pressured, guilted or forced, that is a safety issue and not a difference in desire. Our crisis and support resources page lists places that can help.