as a % how important is sex for you in a relationship?

[Ami1uwant]

What's important will change over time. What's important in your 20s will be very different when you are in your 40s.

 

In your 20s the important factors are....

 

1. Physical attraction snd sex

2. Emotional support...most at this age ignore it.

3. Share the same values and same outlook on life in wanting kids where you will live, etc.

4. Share the same interests tends to not be important because you are young and still hang out with friends who give you this.

5. Sharing the same interests ties into friendships.

6. Another key for success that many don't look at in their 20s is compatibility ehen it comes to living together.

 

When you are in your 40s....

 

1. The children and having a family generally has passed. If you have had children snd they are still young then sharing the same philosophy is important.

2. Sex and physical attraction is still important. But it isn't as much of a driver.

3. Since your friends are now married off and involved in their own families the issue now becomes much much more important. You need someone echo shares the same interests as you. You want companionship.

4. As you get older you want more emotional support. This includes if anything could happen.

5. Common interests or someone who will allow you to keep your interest are important.

[xxoo]

Sex, friendship, and parenting compatibility are all vital. Each is a potential deal breaker.

 

I view each as 100% necessary.

 

It's like asking what's more important: air, food, or water.

Edited August 15, 2016 by xxoo

[2nd tyme]

Wouldn't that be 33.3%, 33.3%, 33.3%? Math comprehension has gone way down... or so it seems.

[seeingthisguy]

Haha best question! I'd say:

 

40% good sex

40% good friendship

20% common life goals (we don't have to have these goals in common so much as long as we support each other's endeavours)

[wmacbride]

I kind of hit on that, not in the same words, but love changes everything. I honestly don't believe that the majority of people in relationships really know what love is. True love isn't common, so most people think that they're in love but when the relationship takes alot of "work" like tons of compromises and maybe even arguments, I'm guessing this isn't a couple in love. When you love someone, you do everything right. Sex is only one part of the intimate relationship. The life together should be intimate; dates, the home life if you live together, differences are dynamic of a relationship that should be handled the right way if two people are in love..pretty much everything is right because the motives are right. Being in love means both people are out for the other person's happiness. The sex part will be just one more part that is "right."

 

No offence, but ask anyone who has been married to someone they love for a long time.

 

I've been married almost 20 years, and we've love each other dearly. We also fight sometimes, are sometimes selfish, sometimes get caught up in stressful life events, sometimes get bogged down in the boring, daily minutae, and it's not always easy, it's not always possible do everything just right, and it doesn't just happen.

 

we've been through times that have been incredibly tough, and if we hadn't truly loved each other, they would have broken us.

[wmacbride]

1. Did i say it works? I was asking for personal opinions on the importance of sex as a %.No one gets 100% anyway. who do you know that is 100% on life goals. Why do you think people are sexually frustrated and cheat?

 

2.I feel if you cant put an approximate % on this question sex is just not a priority for you,

 

3. I am 95 % in saying you either have low sexual experience or are too prudish and this is was your politically correct answer instead of answering my direct question.

 

I understand where she is coming from.

it can be easy to assign a percentage number, in theory, but when the rubber hist the road, life may make those numbers meaningless.

[wmacbride]

<I'm not sure I agree that 'true love' makes relationships easy by any stretch. There'll always be challenges. >

 

I didn't say easy, I said "right" - and if you've been in love a "few times" I'm guessing you're not talking about the true love I'm talking about. There is a saying I live by, due to experience, "when you love something or someone, you'll do everything right."

 

I'm not some armchair theorist, I'll share some life stories if need be. Until that time arises, just trust me. True love is rare, and is a once in a lifetime chance. If you've had it a "few times" you are really lucky. I'm going to be bold and guess that you aren't talking about the same thing I'm talking about though. There have been relationships in my past where I said "I love you" - and meant it. In hindsight, and based on experiencing the real thing, those other relationships now look hollow, a sham. Even though at the time they didn't.

 

I have seen true love, and have it with my spouse. My mother and father had it too.

 

I watched him care for her while she was dying from terminal cancer. She was ill all the time, couldn't eat, was so out of it on morphine for the pain that she sometimes didn't know where she was.

When he looked at her, he never saw the frail and wasted body. He saw the young woman he had fallen in love with and married, and whom he'd had a great life with. He'd spend hours by her bed, holding her hand and talking to her, still seeing her as the woman he loves and always will.

 

That was some years ago, and he still tears up if he sees her picture.

[MissBee]

It is hard for me to quantify sex into a percent of a relationship, it doesn't make sense to me. It makes it seem like it's a separate category discrete from other aspects and it's really not. The sex is combined with the romance, with the friendship, with how we communicate and all the other aspects. It's not really a stand-alone thing in my experience, and it's tied up with and affects lots of other aspects.

 

I have been in a relationship where the sex was not the best sex I'd had, it noticeably wasn't, but I really liked him; however, lots of others things were lacking and it became obvious and then the sex became even less interesting once the other problems started to rear their heads. Basically, good sex can obscure some ills (for a time) and bad sex, well, it can make a bad situation worse or if the situation is good and the sex isn't, you're at least more willing to try. I've also been in situations where the sex was good just on a plain physical level, but I got turned off from the person because of other issues and it's like a switch flipped and I stopped wanting to have sex with them, like even the idea made me queasy, because I was just so hurt or turned off by their behavior. Which is why for me it's hard to separate out sex by itself.

 

Ideally though, sex is a significant aspect of a relationship, esp in your younger years, and I want to be able to have an enjoyable sex life and sexual chemistry with someone I'm with. If that doesn't exist it won't work. If the sex is mediocre, but all else is good, I would try to improve the sex, as it is possible to improve your sex life....however, if it remained lackluster I don't think it would last.

Edited August 15, 2016 by MissBee

[VeveCakes]

45% sex

45% common goals, values, lifestyle

10% common interests, hobbies

 

Most of my interests are very male dominated. That explains the 10%.

 

This would be me too.

[central]

Without satisfactory sex (sufficient quantity and quality), there will BE no relationship (as far as I'm concerned), so in that sense, sex is 100% important.

 

 

If the sex is satisfactory, then it is one leg of an equal tripod (all must be present and extended for proper balance):

1. sex, affection, love (call it intimacy)

2. mutual values, goals, support, priorities (call it partnership)

3. mutual interests, activities (call it quality time)

[NTV]

In a romantic relationship.....

 

 

I hate to say it, but the 'friendship' piece is irrelevant to me. I have plenty of friends, and I don't believe that whomever I'm seeing necessarily needs or should fulfill that role. That's like saying 'family' (for married partners). Sure it's a role they may play, but that's not the basis for having them in your life necessarily.

 

 

I have a bunch of friends. A handful of really really close ones where I would be at their wedding, speak at their funeral, put them on the couch if they were going through a divorce, etc. Those relationships are incredibly valuable to me, and I would be extremely pained to lose one.

 

 

But not a single one of them holds anywhere the spot in my life that my wife does, nor should they. So... yeah, taking the friendship piece others mentioned and ignoring it.

 

 

For me, it looks closer to:

33% sharing intimate moments (sexual, romantic, etc.)

33% teamwork - ability to support and work towards a common goal

33% Personality - being a genuinely GOOD person. (Define good, right? well it's my perspective on how you treat others and your general positive/negative outlook on life, etc.) Having depth of interests, be able to take/make jokes, etc.

 

 

Of course, that's just what I'd look for in a romantic partner that I would want to keep for the rest of my life. Not necessarily what I look for in a short term partner... but I guess I had assumed most everyone else wasn't talking about that either lol