My husband & I have sex once a month & only if I instigate it – can a three-week challenge save our love life?

With studies showing that many women in their 40s want to relight the fire in their long-term relationships, Emma Woodhouse, 41, a PR professional from London, and her husband Jonathan, 56, test out three online platforms in a bid to spice things up between the sheets…  

From at-it-like-rabbits to once-in-a-blue-moon, it’s fair to say my sex life with my husband Jonathan is not what it once was, sadly.

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When we first met 18 years ago, his libido was definitely higher than mine and we’d get it on at least twice a week.

But as the years went by, intimacy gradually flagged. 

A few years ago, during the stresses of the pandemic, we hit a rough patch of arguments and we almost split up.

We’ve since worked hard to heal the rift, helped by couples’ counselling, and I’m proud we’ve clawed our way back from the brink.

Now, rekindling intimacy feels like the final frontier. 

We only do the deed once a month, at best, and only if I instigate it.

I don’t know if that’s partly because of the 15-year age gap – at 56, Jonathan understandably has less energy now – or just the familiarity that comes from being married for 13 years.

Plus, juggling the busyness of our full-on jobs and parenting our eight-year-old son Nico, at bedtime, we’re asleep as soon as our heads hit our pillows.

I long for the sexual connection we used to have, and any time I’ve raised it with Jonathan, he says: “I’d like that, too.”

But then life takes over. 

I’m not alone, though.

A survey by the University of East Anglia found fewer women in their 40s are having regular sex than those in their 20s, yet more than half of women want more

As numerous websites and apps now offer advice and resources to boost your sex life for a fraction of the price (and potential embarrassment) of visiting a sex therapist, I wonder if learning some new tricks might restore the sizzle. 

With Jonathan intrigued by my plan to test out three platforms over three weeks, it’s time to sign us up for some sex-ed sessions…

Week one

BEDUCATED 

A subscription website that claims to teach you how to have great sex seems like a good place to start.

There are more than 100 expert-led online courses, both for solo learning and couples, to help build your sexual confidence and learn new pleasure-giving and receiving techniques.

You have to sign up and pay to gain full access, but it’s free for the first 24 hours, then around £24 a month, which comes down to around £7 if you sign up to a yearly subscription.

At first, the vast number of tutorials feels overwhelming and the ones on quirky fetishes, such as “face-sitting”, just aren’t our thing.

But we soon find plenty that chime with us.

We’ve both done a lot of yoga and meditation, but we’ve never really understood what tantric sex was, so the Tantra for Couples session intrigues us.

It starts by asking us to “make love to an orange” by caressing it, which feels as ridiculous as it sounds and leaves us in a state of hilarity rather than arousal.

After that, we sit knee-to-knee doing mindful breathing while maintaining eye contact, before moving on to touching each other.

Once we are in the zone, it feels incredibly intimate, without too much pressure, and the sex that follows lasts a knee-trembling 40 minutes.

Even better, we do the deed twice more that week, which we haven’t done in years.

And while we aren’t at this stage yet, it’s good to see sessions like Sex After Menopause on offer, as well as sensitive topics like Dealing With Rejection.

Beducated also has an AI sex coach, which is similar to ChatGPT, but it felt very impersonal – “a bit like using Ryanair customer services,” jokes Jonathan. 

Libidometer: 9/10

Week two

MOODMENT 

This is a wellness app with sensual content.

There’s nothing explicit – the sections are focused on relationships and ways to improve sensuality – and it costs £11.99 a month or £119.99 for a year’s subscription. I decide to try out the app’s seven-day libido challenge, which has a short activity each day to complete.

One asks me to explore myself while looking in the mirror – which makes me feel less like a sex kitten and more like my own gynaecologist – but another is much hotter, where I have an aromatherapy bath and Jonathan gives me a massage.

It takes me back to an amazing sexual experience with Jonathan at a secluded beach villa in Bali many years ago, and leads to us having sex three times this week. 

Libidometer: 6/10

Week three

CHEEX 

It describes itself as “an online platform for sexual entertainment and education”, but porn is what you get with Cheex.

This subscription website has packages from £13 a month or £103 a year, with sex tutorials and audio stories on top of the obvious.

I’ve never purchased porn before, and on the rare occasions I’ve looked at free stuff in the past, the misogyny and dead-eyed performers with spray-tanned, silicone-enhanced bodies just left me feeling sad.

But this service sits more comfortably with me, thanks to podcasts and articles about sex positivity and seeing sexually liberated people of every persuasion and size.

I also feel surprisingly aroused.

We’d never watched porn together before and it’s a big turn-on for us both – so much so that I even watch a threesome video alone one night when Jonathan falls asleep early.

A threesome is not something we’d try IRL, but we do attempt a technique called edging, where you create a heightened state of arousal and stop at the brink of climax until you can’t hold back.

The results are like nothing I’ve ever experienced before!

We have sex three times this week.

This is definitely worth the investment! 

Libidometer: 8/10

THE VERDICT

Given we had sex a total of nine times in three weeks, I’d say the experiment was a resounding success.

The key was making sex more of a priority and opening our minds to new things.

Our sex life is still a work in progress – especially as Jonathan has been travelling a lot with work lately – but when we do manage to do it, it’s more passionate and playful, and we feel much more connected.

While we didn’t feel the need to keep subscribing to the platforms, I wouldn’t hesitate in future if I felt we were stuck in a rut again.

As Jonathan says: “Any new experience keeps a relationship exciting.”

Now, we are both so much more conscious of putting the effort in and keeping our sex life alive – though I certainly will not be making love to an orange again any time soon…