Does Your Partner Have to Be Your Sexual Everything?

An issue that I’ve noticed coming up a lot in my work, and I’d like to bring some attention to is the belief that once we are in a committed relationship, our partner should somehow become our sexual everything. They should be the person we desire, the person we fantasize about, the source of our sexual pleasure, and ideally, the only place our erotic attention ever goes. When that doesn’t happen, it can create a surprising amount of hurt and insecurity.

This often comes up around pornography, masturbation and sexual fantasies. One partner discovers that the other watches porn or masturbates and immediately wonders, Why do you need that if you have me? A fantasy involving someone else can feel even more threatening. For some people, simply noticing that their partner finds another person attractive can stir up fears about what that means for the relationship. I’ve worked with couples where these experiences are viewed as a form of cheating, even when there has been no sexual or romantic contact with another person.

Let me state clearly that I can understand why it can feel that way. In our modern society, we tend to connect sexual exclusivity with the idea that our partner’s sexuality should belong entirely within the relationship. We are fed these messages throughout the media, societal norms and religious beliefs.  These, however, are two different things. You can choose monogamy and still be an individual sexual person. Being committed to someone does not automatically turn off your imagination, your curiosity, your attraction to other people or your relationship with your own body.

Esther Perel explores this tension beautifully in Mating in Captivity. Much of her work looks at the challenge of maintaining erotic desire inside the safety and familiarity of a long-term relationship. Desire needs connection, but it can also benefit from individuality, imagination, novelty, and some sense of separateness. As Perel puts it, “Eroticism lives in the imagination.” (Esther Perel)

That can be uncomfortable because many of us have learned to interpret our partner’s independent sexuality as evidence that something is missing. If my partner masturbates, maybe I’m not satisfying them. If they watch porn, maybe they prefer those bodies to mine. If they fantasize about someone else, maybe they secretly want to leave. Those conclusions typically aren’t true.

Sexual fantasy, masturbation and partnered sex can serve different purposes. Masturbation might be about stress relief, sleep, pleasure, curiosity or simply having a sexual experience that belongs entirely to yourself. Fantasy allows us to explore ideas that we may never actually want to experience in real life. Even the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) includes freedom of sexual thoughts and fantasies, self-pleasuring, consensually shared pleasure, and access to erotic materials within its broader vision of sexual health. (AASECT)

Emily Nagoski’s work in Come As You Are and Come Together also challenges some of our assumptions about what desire is supposed to look like in a long-term relationship. Sexual desire is influenced by context, stress, relationship dynamics, pleasure, novelty and countless other factors. A satisfying sexual relationship isn’t necessarily one in which two people only ever experience desire through only each other. (Emily Nagoski, Ph.D.)

This does not mean that anything goes. Every relationship gets to establish its own boundaries around pornography, masturbation, sexual interactions and what each person considers cheating. Porn can become problematic within a relationship as can secrecy, dishonesty, broken agreements or sexual behaviors that consistently replace partnered intimacy. The important distinction is between having boundaries around behavior and expecting your partner to stop having an independent sexuality altogether.

In couples therapy, I encourage partners to get curious about what is underneath the discomfort. Is the real issue the pornography or masturbation itself? Or does it bring up something deeper: Am I enough for you? Do you still desire me? Am I attractive to you? Is our sex life important to you? Can I trust you?

I find those conversations tend to get us somewhere much more meaningful.

I don’t think the goal of a healthy sexual relationship is to become everything to another person. That’s an enormous job for any partner. Talk about pressure! The goal is to create a relationship where there is enough trust and emotional safety to talk honestly about desire, pleasure, fantasy, boundaries, insecurity and what sexuality means to each of you.

Your partner can be deeply important to your sexuality without having to contain all of it.

Written by Amy Palmer, M.Ed., LPC, CST

Amy Palmer is a relationship and sex therapist in Austin, Texas, serving clients statewide through in person and virtual therapy. She specializes in relationship therapy, intimacy concerns, desire differences, LGBTQ+ affirming care, and non-monogamous relationships.