One Exception To "You Knew This Before You Married"

When Dr. Laura has a caller complaining about something in their marriage, she will almost always have one of these two statements as part of her response, even if she uses different wording:

1) You knew this about them before you married them.

2) You didn't spend enough time getting to know them before you married them. 

Usually, it is true. I do maintain, though that people: 1) CAN hide who they truly are, and especially a bad habit, for the 24-33 months she recommends before marrying, and 2) people can be changed negatively by illness or trauma.

But what I wanted to talk about was sex. 

Dr. Laura often encourages callers (and listeners) to save sex (or at least intercourse, but she does otherwise include other sex acts as "sex") for marriage. 

Never the less, if someone complains about the sex in their marriage, she'll ask how the sex with this person was before they married.

There are two potential problems with that, though.

1) If they waited. People like Dr. Laura say (and what choice do they have, really) that you can tell how your potential spouse will be as a lover based on how they are with everything else. That's not necessarily true, though. 

2) A lot of people who listen to (and thus call) Dr. Laura have some amount of guilt, shame, apprehension, or anxiety about sex outside of marriage. (See number 1.) In such cases, they think the sex will be much better once they're married. There are a lot of messages out there saying exactly that: Married sex is better. So they marry, and they find out that it doesn't get better. 

It is also true that some people, and most of them are women, use sex as a loss leader when it comes to relationships and marriage. These people will have sex often, enthusiastically, and with various elements like certain sex acts, when they are trying to get someone to marry them. Then, once married, or once they have a child together... POOF... it's gone. The sex is less frequent. They are less enthusiastic. They used to do it on the kitchen table morning, noon, and night, and now they'll only do it one day per week (if that!), with the lights off, right before going to sleep. The girlfriend who could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch and swallow it all down has turned into the wife who, if she will go down on him at all, barely makes an effort and will avoid his ejaculate like it is poison.

If the caller doesn't have kids with their spouse, Dr. Laura is likely to give her blessing to leave. Or, if the caller is a man, she might tell him to be more romantic. If they have minor children together, and she's only talking to the caller and not their spouse, she will tell them to focus on what they like about  the other person/the marriage, and to masturbate and fantasize. Those are generalizations; every once in a while, the recommendations will be different. 

The bottom line, though, is that "You knew this about them before you married" doesn't really apply to sex, which is usually very important, in every, perhaps even most, cases. It's one of the enormous risks taken (especially for men) in entering marriage, even more so if he agrees to "wait for marriage".

Many men worry that what they like about whatever form of sex they're already having will chance after they marry. In a lot of cases, that worry is justified. And if they wait for marriage, many men worry that she's not going be willing to do what he desires, or allow him to do with her or to her what he desires, even if it is common and harmless. And often, they're right. Or as he gets more and more trapped in the marriage, they fade away.

Some of these men seek what they want elsewhere. Wrong? Sure. So is treating sex like a loss leader.