Hi LG,

Do you have any knowledge (silly of me, of course you do!!) about how long the increase in dopamine and serotonin lasts when you are in an intensely emotional and sexual relationship?  Is it weeks, months, years?  Is there a difference between men and women?  Once the cascade falls off, can it reoccur for the same couple?  Is that unlikely because other neurotransmitters (contentment, security, etc.) take over?

Is there a way to bring on the dopamine and serotonin in a long term relationship?  I am married 20 years and would like to give up the hobby but that intense feeling is what I crave and I only get it with providers and no longer with my wife. The reality is that my wife rarely wants to be sexual (5 or 6 times/year).  My willpower does not seem to be strong enough for me to give up the hobby.  I always fall off the wagon eventually.

Any advice would be welcome.





-- Modified on 2/26/2007 7:50:37 AM

Hi there, Fcuks2Mcuh,

Interesting question that has been researched by many, anthropologist Helen Fisher among them. Her books are reader-friendly, pack a wallop of information, and are beneficial to the general population in need of answers. Highly entertaining and highly recommended.

Studies of passionate infatuation show that the  euphoric state lasts appx six to eight months. During that time, if lovers become separated, they go through something very similar to drug withdrawal symptoms. And when human lovebirds reunite, the oxytocin-dopamine rush returns, which suppresses the worry and anxiety and reinforces those in-love circuits of the brain.

But, as you point out, the hormone rushes of dopamine in the brain gradually calm down. The pair become "securely" attached to one another. Scientists have posited that the “attachment network” is a separate brain system – one that replaces the intensity of romance with a more lasting sense of peace, calm and connection. The attachment and pair-bonding system regularly triggers the release of more of the bonding chemical oxytocin, keeping partners seeking the pleasure of each other’s company over and over.

When researchers at a London university scanned the brains of people who were in love relationships for an average of 2.3 years, they found that, rather than the dopamine-producing brain circuits of passionate love, other brain areas, such as those linked to critical judgment, lit up. Mature love moves into a new, more long term phase, with bonds forged by oxytocin in women, and vasopressin in men.

Maybe some would disagree, but I don't think it is entirely possible to bring those early dopamine swings back into the relationship. Habituation has done its work. That's why you may have to "trick" your brain and bring in mood enhancers such as sexy lingerie, alcohol [in moderation, please!], romantic vacations, sexy films, games, etc., primarily to make the woman's amygdalic activity subside so she can get relaxed and become a little more sexually available.

The problem you are describing is almost hard-wired into the human species. After those six to eight passionate months, most women's brains are primed for eventual childbirth and taking care of the young. And most men's brains are designed to go out there and pollinate as much as possible, regardless of who's being born when. These are very primal brain circuits, and we as modern-day humans are constantly striving to override our genetic destiny. Sometimes it works very well, and sometimes not at all. In terms of women's sexual desire with long-term partners, we haven't yet figured out how to make some women tick. Women have the deck stacked against them, in comparison to the male sex drive. We women simply can't compete in the desire department. What's interesting is that many men are creatures of convenience, and would stick with screwing the same woman day in and day out if she were 100% available. But alas, many women lose desire for their partners during the remainder of the relationship, after those 6-8 months..or after those 2.3 years. It's neurochemical, and it's powerful.

As to your "willpower," I think you need to face the fact that you are a normal male, and not some type of recovering sexoholic. It is not normal for men to have sex only 5-6 times per year. It is unrealistic and cruel to subject a man to such an "inorganic" schedule. If that is your wife's position, you need to have a serious discussion with her about the disparity and what it's doing to your brain. Maybe you can make efforts as per her requirements, [it sounds like you would be VERY willing to do it] so that she is feeling sexy, taken care of, and can get in the mood. Otherwise, you will be "falling of the wagon" with some healthy regularity for many years to come.

Brain's a tough nut to crack,
the Love Goddess

Neurotransmitters (first messanger) last for milliseconds to seconds before they are reabsorbed. But their effect could last for a long time.

Actions of neurotransmitters affect intracellular Second Messengers proteins and their pathways and. The changes might last for minutes or hours. The second messenger pathway may also affect gene expressions which can last indefinitely. Also synapses among neurons may also changed indirectly by neurotramitters. All these can affect a person's long-term behavior.

My wife and I are a good, solid, loving couple.  I truly adore her.  She is beautiful inside and out.  She's a great mom to my kids and a warm and caring friend/spouse to me.  I consider myself very fortunate esp. when I look at how some of my male friends live.

My one complaint is that she has never (YES, Never) been very sexual.  I am the only man she has ever been with (she was a virgin until a few months before our wedding (she was 28 at our wedding) whereas I was very experienced and showed patience and understanding while we "attempted" to begin our sexual relationship.  Yes, I loved the person she is and was happy to wait).  She originally had vaginismus (for those who don't know the term: involuntary contractions thus making sexual intercouse impossible).  We saw a sex-therapist (very well known - Dr. Schiavi at Mt. Sinai in NYC) and eventually it became a non-issue for us.  We have 3 teenagers and 20 years of marriage behind us.

I began playing at this hobby almost 15 years ago out of frustration.  She only wants sex 5 or 6 times/year.  I need that much in a week!  lol.  I masterbate almost daily and the hobby has been mostly fantastic for me. It has probably saved both my sanity and my marriage.   At times I feel some guilt but not about extra-marital sex, its about spending money selfishly and in secret.  If it were not for that guilt, I wouldn't feel a need to stop the hobby.

The discussion has been had many times.  She feels inhibited in our house when the kids are sleeping and when the kids are out she is almost always "too busy".  When we can get away for a long weekend alone she is interested in having sex only once during that mini-vacation. I conclude that she just doesn't have the desire for more sex than we already have.  The funny thing is that when we have intercourse she ALWAYS wants to be on top and almost always has an orgasm within 5 or 10 minutes.  She doesn't allow me to DATY and doesn't like me to be on top.  I acquiesed 20 years ago and attempted to change things only a few times over all these years, unsuccessfully.  Our sex-therapy back during our engagement started that pattern of her on top (control reasons, obviously) and she never got comfortable with giving up that control.  Of course, with 5 - 6 times/year there hasn't been much opportunity to change things up.  Ok, so I've accepted it.  I love her.

I think this is all I am going to get and I have accepted it.  I have no wish to upset my marriage and I play at the hobby as a result of my frustrations.

So, that's an earful!! What can you enlighten me with now?

Thanks.



-- Modified on 2/26/2007 1:21:16 PM

My message re neurotransmitters still stands, Fcuks2Mcuh,

You can't recapture that which was "spent." As to your wife's concerns, it's a perfect example of a person with an overriding amygdala activity. She would almost have to be on drugs to stop that part of her brain to activate. And, of course, she is a female, so her disparate sex drive is no match for yours.

Finally, I still believe that her initial inexperience and her vaginismus have played great psychological parts in her sexual scripting. It is truly lamentable that many women grow up in a very sex-negative home and are not able to take their sexual pleasures to capacity once they are adults. I wonder what her sexual education was like. One man at the age of 28? Amazing. It's almost like the Talibans/Orthodox Jews/Evangelical Christians/surely I'm forgetting another one, in its circumscription.

As I stated before, your situation is not the norm and if you seek my blessing to have more sex than 6x/yearly, yes, you surely have it.

A high price to pay for domestic bliss,
the Love Goddess

...[i.e. having to pay escort(s) or a mistress] is indeed very high.

But it's often a lot less costly, both financially and emotionally, than a divorce.

Put another way: many longtime-married, loving, but no longer sexually-compatable couples get divorced, though they really don't need to and probably shouldn't.

If this were Europe, a man would have other sexual outlets, and few would regard that as abnormal or immoral.

American 'morality' and social pressure in this area is, in my opinion,  ill-informed, self-righteous and truly despicable.

Dear bostongreg,
While I understand your position, I think you'll need to be very careful when you mention Europe as a model for holding together a family.

In many European countries, divorce is actually much more frequent than in the United States, mainly because the stakes for splitting up are so much lower.

Take Scandinavia, for example, always a region of interest to me, mainly because of their striving to maintain 100% equality between men and women. In Sweden, there is no such thing as formalized spousal support, simply because all women are expected to work and to contribute to the household. Child support is minimal, due to the State kicking in where the higher-earning spouse needn't. In Sweden, a divorce can be obtained in as little time as 30 days, if both parties agree. There is very little financial destruction - or incentive - in terms of divorce. Hence, Sweden is a country of serial monogamists. Incidentally, and even more interesting, prostitution in itself is not illegal, but buying sexual services is. So the "johns" are the ones getting arrested left and right, and the women more so "rehabilitated" and "assisted" in finding other jobs.

It is not unusual to meet families where both parties have been married 2-3 times, and have multiple offspring from each marriage. Since having children is not particularly costly - after all, the taxation rate can easily go over 50% for a medium-earning individual - it's common to meet parents in their 40s who have up to four and five children of their own, spread out over several families. Since maternity benefits are extremely generous and paid out over and over again, women don't think twice about popping babies with a variety of men. And the Scandinavian governments are only happy...after all, it is in their interest to have native Scandinavians procreating as much as possible, to maintain some sort of native population growth.

Much of the same scenario is happening in Norway, Denmark and Finland. As to Italy, fewer and fewer Italians are having children and getting married at all. Same in Spain and France.

As to the main difference between SOME European countries and the US, it is that in Germany and the Netherlands, prostitution is legal and a taxable profession. But in terms of domestic relations, since women are on an equal footing with men and big alimony/property disputes are less prevalent, paradoxically speaking, no one thinks twice about breaking up a loveless, sexless union.

About one hundred years ago and back, maybe Europe was a more titillating model of the sanctioned mistress, the ardent, chivalrous lover and accepted trysts with paid ladies. Today, the women of Europe are the ones leaving their marriages in droves, mainly because there is no financial advantage to stay in them.

I don't know what's worse - American "morality" or European 'selfishness.' Either way, children can suffer from growing up in dysfunctional marriages that stick together to avoid financial problems - or in homes where easy divorce and re-blending of the family seem like normal, every-day events.

Always greener, isn't it,
the Love Goddess

Thanks very much, LG, as always, for sharing your extensive knowledge of this subject, too.

BTW: I wouldn't describe my own marriage as 'loveless' - yes, it's physically quite loveless, but not really emotionally loveless. My wife has always had a problem with physical intimacy, which has gotten even worse as we've grown old together.  The reason we stay together is not primarily financial. We like each other!

I didn't mean to suggest that Europe is any kind of overall social ideal, but only that in Europe my seeing an escort would be much more socially tolerated, even supported.

In today's news, there's a survey of how happy Europeans feel. See link below. What stuck me about it was, if you read the article carefully, the unhappiness described with the degree of unemployment in Europe.  

When government provides extensive public benefits, like the child support you mention, and puts many mandates on employers - employers are reluctant to hire, unemployment becomes high, and trust in government drops.  You can see all that in the survey.

If we could have some combination of American economic freedom and European social freedom, maybe that would be the ideal.  I agree that serial monogamy is not the answer.  "For better or for worse, in sickness and in health" has great value. And sometimes providers are a legitimate way to help that value survive.

LG, you closed your earlier post with a comment about how high the price was for my domestic bliss.  I feel that I have wonderful woman whom I truly love and the dilemma is that she is not as sexual as I would like.  For me, this is not a reason to upset my otherwise happy marriage.  As I age I would expect that my sexual needs will begin to align with hers more closely and having her to grow old with is a happy thought.  I love her that much, yes.  What would happen if I ended my marriage, hurt my loved ones, etc. all because I need more sex?  I think its very selfish and very unnecessary given I have found sexual satisfaction elsewhere.

What's that saying about The Devil you know is safer than the Devil you don't?  I have everything in my marriage now except sex.  If I gave it up for a different life, I may not be so lucky to find something better or even as good.

Reomestic Bliss, indeed. The price is not high, in my opinion.

It's good that you are happy, Fcuks2Mcuh,

And again, you are certainly not alone in your solution to the issue of sex drive disparity. My only wish in general would be that men AND women realized this disparity, normalized it, and perhaps stayed open with it. Ideally, men wouldn't have to sneak around and as a consequence, women wouldn't have to be devastated when finding out how men satisfy their purely sexual needs. And, conversely, women should have the right to seek sexual satisfaction outside the marriage as well. In that sense, Victorian society has done more harm than good, in that it changed the rules of the game for open outside amusement.

I'd still like to follow the Australian couple a few threads down,
the Love Goddess

I really like your Utopian hopes and wishes for a more open attitude toward the disparity between the sex drive of men and women.  How fantastic it would be if it was normalized, accepted and dealt with in a mature, reasonable, effective way.  But that would be a little slice of Utopia and we all know that Utopia is a mere dream.

Thanks for your great and intelligent insights and replies.

I agree with LG that more openness would be highly desirable.

Maybe we all can and should do whatever we can to try to improve the current repressive social climate. The American ideal that you must love only one woman at one time (regardless of sexual incompatablities) needs somehow to be readdressed and evaluated by the public.  

Wow, awesome info LG. Thanks for sharing.

I'm curious: has this apparently negative trend led to the much-lamented problem here in the US of kids growing up without strong father role models? Has that in turn led to higher crime, drug abuse etc?

No, not among the European-born population in their native countries, anymouseorama,

But..it has been observed in the immigrant non-European population where the divorce rate climbs due to acculturation issues and immigrant women enjoying higher status than in their native countries. Their sons, who grow up in immigrant-dense housing projects, without fathers or successful role models, do indeed have a higher criminal recidivism rate and drug abuse.

Witness what happened in the projects with the car burnings outside Paris. It wasn't pretty and it showed the glaring inequities between not just immigrants and the native-born French, but also the fact that the men in these immigrant families are either absent or without any economic and legislative power.

And, as usual, it falls to the women to pick up the pieces if they do have children...who grow up without strong paternal role models. But, as stated previously, since European-born divorced or single women enjoy the same material comforts as their married counterparts, their social network is strong and doesn't impact the children in an overtly negative way. So many kids come from single parent homes or blended families in Europe that the nuclear intact family is almost a minority at this point. N.b. that I am speaking of Western and Northern Europe. I am not so up on the Balkans or even the Russian Federation.

In either case, I believe in the power of capable, loving fathers and the difference they can make in their children's lives!

Dad Power Rules,
the Love Goddess