How Your Perfect Marriage Can Harm Your Sex Life

You talk for hours about everything, eat pizza in your sweats, and are still so hot for each other that you do it in elevators. He's your hubby and your buddy. What more could a woman want?

Want or not, the “buddy” marriage unfortunately tends to be more about the "talking" and less about the "gotta have you right now" sex. Naturally wanting to have it all, we spoke with sociologist, sexologist and Author of Love Between Equals: How Peer Marriage Really Works, Pepper Schwartz, Ph.D., to find out what we can do to make sure we get it.

What Exactly is a Buddy Marriage?
According to a study she conducted of couples in traditional and non-traditional marriages to define and analyze buddy marriages or what she calls “peer” marriages Dr. Pepper Schwartz found four distinct characteristics:

1. The partners tend to NOT split household duties according to traditional male and female roles.  

2. Both partners believe the other has equal influence over important decisions.

3. Both partners feel they have equal control of the finances and reasonably equal access to discretionary funds.

4. Each person’s work is given equal weight in the couple’s life plans.

Beyond being deeply collaborative, Schwartz explains that buddy marriages place an emphasis on friendship (hence the peer/buddy description): “Peer marriages embody a profound psychological connection.”* Here you won’t find a woman singing along to Destiny’s Child’s Cater to You or wanting to be put on a pedestal. Instead, both she and her partner are looking to be perceived as an equal, a best friend in the relationship.