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Comment by ARandomerDude | Hacker News Reader

I'm a man, been married almost 20 years.

I'll never understand why some people will promote being so "free" that you don't even need to bother with marriage, kids, and whatever else seems antiquated, then those same people will whine about being celibate in between their frustrated, unrealized porn fantasies.

Men, if you want to have sex – and a lot of it – here's the formula: get married, hold down a steady job, and treat your wife well.

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To be fair, it's not quite as simple as that - people have varied sex drives. In my own marriage, we've both definitely experienced ebbs and flows when it comes to that. Some of it is external reasons, and some of it is biological - stress can kill a sex drive, and welcoming a baby to the house almost always results in celibacy for months, if not longer, for multiple reasons.

But in general, yeah, this is good advice (for both partners, of any gender.) As my grandfather-in-law said, "Happy wife, happy life."

>I'm a man, been married almost 20 years.

Congratulations, sample size of 1.

> treat your wife well.

Sad to say, this is probably the hardest part for the majority of men who are like, "people will promote being so "free" that you don't even need to bother with marriage, kids, and whatever else"

I'll probably get downvoted for having this opinion, but that's been my anecdata of one.

always someone that has to man-bash.

Haha, def not man-bashing. In my experience, people (not necessarily men, we are just talking about men right now) like that tend to be quite selfish people. Nothing wrong with that, by itself, but it generally means they won’t be good to people in relationships with them (friendships, spouses, etc) until/unless they learn the world doesn’t revolve around their own desires, to trust other people, be trustworthy themselves, and realize a relationship isn’t a game.

I can see how my tongue-in-cheek reply can be taken as man-bashing though.

Every single married man reading this knows very well that when you marry sex activity decreases!

Even if it decreases when measuring in weekly or monthly terms, in all likelihood if you're measuring in terms of years and decades, a married person will be doing better than single folks.

Yeah, you want to consider single life after age 40 in the comparison.

Over 60%[1] of these couples have sex more than once a month, and 46% at least weekly. So, hmmm, where are you getting your data from? I guess if you compare to when you first meet vs. 20 years of marriage, the amount "has gone down" (daily vs. weekly now), but that's probably more than I'd get being single at this age.

[1]: https://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/what-to-know-how-oft...

Don't forget to tip your waitress, folks.

My wife and I were religious when we were dating and engaged. We did not have sex before marriage with each other. We are coming up on 20 years of marriage in December. I would estimate that we have sex between 1-4 times/week. There are some times that we go 1.5 weeks between, but it's rare and just kind of happens. But we talk about frequency and what kind of life we want to live directly. Having less sex is a choice for most, but not all, of people. You can choose to continue to have an active sex life. As an example, I prefer to go to bed early, she prefers to go to bed late. As a result, we often tend to have sex on weekend mornings (our kids are older and sleep in). That works for us. We probably have 50% night time sex and 50% morning sex.

I will also say, through lots of communication our sex is light years better now at 20 years of marriage than when we were first married. Our emotional connection is incredibly strong, and we have 20 years of communication to make the physical sex better as well. I am much happier sexually in my 40s with my committed spouse than I was as a teenager having sex (before I was religious) with different partners (the "variety" that the article mentions). Don't lose hope people. You can make a great life after marriage that is deep and rewarding sexually. Marriage can be wonderful if you value the right things in a partner and find that partner.

Not if you waited until marriage.

Some people value variety over quantity.

Everyone gets old and wrinkly eventually.

Better act fast then.

36 years here. 5 kids. Both of us chaste prior and monogamous after marriage.

Oh yeah. If you want sex, get married. If you want to pay off your student loans, just make a million bucks.

That’s unrealistic, and your religious indoctrination shows in your other posts. People hook up since teenage years. It’s normal.

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