Is Marriage the Death of Sex? 

I am reminded of a quote attributed to Socrates: A man should marry. If he gets a good wife he'll be happy. If he gets a bad one he'll become a philosopher.

Being in a committed monogamous marriage was easy for me. He passed away ten years ago and I miss our deep discussions.

Men and women need to find a spouse who will not gaslight them, who will not humiliate them, who is capable of faithfulness, who has a deep sense of honor and who understands that the best way to love yourself is to love your husband or wife.

I've lost faith in marriage in the current day and age so it's refreshing to hear some of the reasons to do it.

Having a good marriage is a gift. It allows one to have a team mate who will encourage, challenge, support you in any facet of life.

"It is not good that man should be alone." The original marriage is an example to us all.

I have been married for over 9 years now and one thing I can tell for sure- marriage is an emotional roller coaster but I have never regretted, I have a husband who is the best thing that has ever happened to me and two adorable kids without whom I can never imagine myself. And in the end - my marriage has been a conscious choice and everyday I try my best to maintain that consciousness. Love believe and give - the rest would be carried about by the universe. Thanks 😊

This June, my husband and I will be celebrating 15 years of marriage and I am only 36. Marriage is amazing. Understand it is dynamic, have humility, and realize you always have room to grow as a person.

I think this is probably one of the most important lectures I've heard from Jordan Peterson. If only everyone could comprehend this when entering a marriage and put this wise advice to practice, just think of all the Broken Hearts & broken marriages that would be saved. And all the profound happiness that could be achieved.

Interesting how not so long ago marriage was the beginning of sex life.

I suffer a lot of chronic pain, my woman takes that away. We're engaged now and I'm so excited. Life was bleak and dark before I met her, she takes care of me, pushes me to go on despite the hardship, and she inspires me to keep making music despite my body hurting badly. I need to marry this woman, she keeps me in line. She makes me feel like an accomplished man.

Shallow meaningless sex sucks in comparison to long lasting marriage/committed sex. Even if you only consider the actual physical act. It takes time to learn someone's body and how they respond to your body. The more you have time to explore that in a setting that is comfortable for both people (the comfort that comes from earnest commitment) the better the experience is. I had several short term purely physical relationships before I met my wife; and those experience pale in comparison. That doesn't mean that everything is perfect or that I don't sometimes desire variety (I don't know if that base desire will ever fully go away) but I always remember that the pleasure and passion I have with my wife cannot be replicated with any artificial substitute.

These topics are so important they shouldn’t be exclusive to any platform. They must be accessible in order for your message to be heard Mr. Peterson. Thank you for the wisdom you share with us 🙏🏼

11 years married and I swear on my life sex gets better every year. Honest to God truth.

I'm struggling with the idea of marriage not because of hedonistic reasons but rather a pessimistic and cynical view of life and love

I got married a year and a half ago to my longtime (6 year girlfriend). It can be a real challenge, sometimes. Specifically, getting past my wants and needs. The trick is to be engaged in communication and constant dialogue. I’m imperfect. She’s imperfect. Marriage is our attempt to better each other.

Jordan you are so amazing, you have such a gift, even though your intellect is far beyond most men you have the ability to explain things that most all men can understand… thanks for sharing your gift with us

Thank you jordan, your words help me understand a bit of relationships, in this crazy time we live in. There are things that are important in an union and just never change. As you said about acting together instead of as two separate people, you need to take the other into consideration at least.

At my 62 yrs I'm no longer interested in a "marriage". I have intimate relationships with friends and family, that is what fulfills me. I have finally come to a point in life where I no longer need a "partner" per se to make me whole. I feel great in my own skin and authenticity! What a freedom! Intimacy doesn't equal sex! Consciousness raises you above physical and into the spiritual. So it doesn't jive with sex!

Marriage is a sacrament, gift of God between one man with one woman, one flesh to grow to perfection, to holiness as our God is perfect!

I knew my wife for a week before we got married. Now, 14 years later, the emotional and sexual connection is off the charts. Getting to know someone deeply and coming together as one is amazing. But this takes humility, respect, and understanding from both the man and the women. You have to truly come together as one and give up yourself. But it's completely worth it, and I am so blessed to have my wife. When you live a Biblical life and put Jesus first in your marriage, it's absolutely amazing.

Look at JP in the thumbnail. Suffering etched in his flesh. Wisdom and compassion gleaming in his eyes for everyone, except for the many people he hates. What poise! I bet the professional photographer needed only to take one photo, and it probably needed little or no photoshop to produce this triumph. A great man! God and JP bless us!

This is amazing Jordan! Thank you from Brazil.

Guys, love is WORK. love is RESPONSIBILITY. Love is COMMITMENT. It's not valuable because it's free. It's valuable because it costs so much but is always worth it.

This is why we need to reason and think things through, use our reason and reflect on our behavior. People who just run on pleasure pay the high price!!!

Lol this always cracks me up when people assume sex decreases with marriage. I have been with my husband since I was 20yrs old and we married when I was 22yrs old. We have been married for 16yrs and going after each other for 18yrs now. When we were in our 20s our single friends thought they had it made, but when you added it up over that decade we had a LOT more sex because we had constant access to each other. I also don't understand why people lose interest, because we just seem to get better and better at our craft going after each other as we have gotten older...it is like out of this world at this point and light years more amazing than when we were rookies. Since we keep evolving as we get older, so does the relationship as well as the sex...so it doesn't feel like we have just been the same exact people the whole time. There are so many layers to our growing and understanding of each other as time goes by. I don't know that we will get to the bottom of it in an entire lifetime. We did have just one kiddo due to medical reasons (I am at pretty high risk of dying if I had another), so maybe that is part of the reason we didn't suffer as much of a dip in our sex lives when we had a child. Speaking of which, I did almost die when my son was a few months old, and after this happened in our 20s we realized that even when you are young to never take life or health or love for granted for one second. The superficial things mean nothing! I also have focused on being a stay at home mom that home schools, and I only do part time gigs here and there...this gives us a lot more family and marriage time as a couple to be with each other which has made a tremendous difference too. You have to consciously create, invest, and put time into making a romantic marriage. Having a best friend in marriage and a partner in crime is a great feeling too. If you don't exercise you get out of shape...if you don't exercise and work on your marriage every day, it will get out of shape and lose tone too. All of these things combined together have made it wonderful for us...because at this point we are like one soul in two bodies. While we enjoy each other's bodies immensely, we see that the real "us" is actually our soul inside of the body, and this body is just a temporary thing that will eventually go away.

Love your work. You talk so much sense Bloody profound

Always a pleasure to hear these talks.

As a person who wants what he described, in practical terms, I am an endangered species looking for another endangered species. I'm all for it, but the probability of it happening is slim to none at this point

Don't do sex before marriage

Life is more duty and less fulfilling ones happiness, I am learning this, I should have been parented these ideals.

Imagine having a father like Dr Peterson. What a role model

All men complaining about women, the same can be said about some men...look at yourself, are YOU good husband material🤔

The nature of moral behavior is that it is spiritual in origin. If you deny the spiritual, morality becomes fluid or a matter of opinion. And those in power have the strongest opinions. Especially in regards to enforcement.

Cause life is so much more meaningful if you have that special somebody to always fall asleep with they always wake up next to and just know that you have their beautiful heart to take care of it feels so good

Marriage is a gamble

This reminds me of a romanian novel that's mandatory reading in highschool, "Last night of love, first night of war" by Camil Petrescu. Too bad I can't find an english translation of it, because it's a good book, and it describes marriage in a very similar vein, which is impressive, considering it came out in 1930 and its characters use carriages as the main mode of transport

Always so much wisdom from Dr. Peterson!

This is very deep and well thought.

Dr. Peterson, you are such a blessing to the world... 🙏

You are spot on sir, my wife of 36 years knows me well, and loves me anyway. That's my idea of intimacy.

this is a really good argument for marriage

I haven't listened to the video, but just responding to the title...no. Not even close. Nearly 15 years in and we're more bunny-like than on our honeymoon, I think. The tricky part now is finding time when the kids won't be around, or awake. >.> We've done nothing but grow closer and more open and communicative over the years (in general, not just regarding bedroom stuff) which makes intimacy easier during trying times, as opposed to us being stressed out and pushing each other away. I know that self-accountability has been a big part of my own growth as a wife; of course if I look for excuses, I can blame him for whatever I want. But acknowledging my own faults and triggers leads to empathy and understanding toward my husband, so I seldom get angry with him now. He's always been that way toward me, I suspect he's happy that I finally caught up!

It shouldn't be! I've been married for 10 years and am still wildly attracted to my husband! He'd such a good, strong and loving man.

amazing, thank you Dr. Peterson!

Loved the background mate

Marrying the right person for you is truly one of the best things you can do in life, and marrying the wrong person is surely one of the worst. We've pretty much culturally scrapped virtues like morality, modesty, chastity, and loyalty, so people mindlessly marry bad eggs and then are shocked when they get screwed over. Like attracts like; people with no morals marry people with no morals. We all get what we deserve.

I love this, marriage is more profound than we realize.

He nails it every time. He just gets people!!

A man who loves his wife loves himself. Ephesians 5:28. Simply beautiful and challenging.

i was a virgin bride married 13 years, now a widow of 3 years... i tell you sex is not dead when you get married... i had the free est mind blowing sex with my husband...

If we can go back to when the thumbnail for this video was taken, I just might consider it.

My aunt and uncle are merried for more than 20 years now and they're in their 50's and no one had ever seen them argue. They are getting older and older, and still behave like if they are only few months after the wedding. Truly amazing! I wish to have a love like theirs, because they are the real life example, that merrige doesn't kill anything.

Solid gold information.

What you say in this video SHOULD be true, but sadly it isn’t in real life. Marriage has destroyed the lives of five of my male friends from just my close friend group, and looking out of my window I can see seven male neighbours houses who’s lives have also been destroyed by marriage. They have had everything they’ve worked for all their lives taken away after being divorced by their wives. Most of them have lost ALL access to their children. There is a problem with what society is teaching women, until that is fixed I wouldn’t recommend marriage to any man.

Such a great advice🙏🏽

I love to listen to eloquent people. It‘s very satisfying! The only problem is that my motherlanguage is not english. So videos like this with a very elaborate vocabulary and a philosophical or psychological content are just overwhelming. That‘s so sad. I‘d love to really and fully understand what he is talking about.

Statistics increasingly and overwhelmingly say; “yes”

Need to have a cup of tea too!.🥰

But what about the fact that the law is incentivizing women to divorce and the fact that more that 70% of it are initiated by women. Marriage has been turned into an unattractive deal that isn't worth the risk by the legal system. I understand your point and I'm fully on board with you. But the immense power it has to ruin your life isn't worth it.

Please Make it part of pre Marriage talks. This truly Identifies the role of marriage and procreation as God intended... God bless Jordan Peterson God bless his works and soon God please bless his ministry as a CATHOLIC DEACON... We need people like you Jordan. Please think about this...

"Self-administered sexual interaction" is the politest way to refer to jerking off that I've ever heard 😂

One of his most resonating with what it means to exist.

I don't know why people say that married life is sexless. I grew up very conservative. And in the church the women's bible study teachers would encourage wives to submit and keep a quote godly attitude and fulfil their husbands desire for sex. They taught that a woman was made as a companion and help for man and that it was God's will for wives to basically never say no to married life sex unless you were sick or otherwise in pain and unable. I'm one of four children and many other families I grew up with had 10 plus children. And surprise children are made during sex so. And TV was said to be the devil so husbands and wives had nothing else to do lol. Fast forward I dated a childhood friend and was not quote pure until marriage but I only had him as a partner. We're married now. We have a ton more sex now. Why? Idk I think when a woman feels secure and chosen there isn't a lot of fear and low self esteem that'll get in the way of her libido. When you are dating and you have sex and they haven't made you feel like the one per say it as a woman it makes you feel like maybe you aren't good enough or maybe there's another or etc. Etc. But when you are married idk for me a lot of those thoughts left and you're together so much it's easier to let your guard down and freely be affectionate towards each other. Idk what type of marriage other people have but the one I have and my parents and everyone I knew was just sex all the time. I mean bible thumpers thump more than just the bible it seems.....lol 😂

Well said!

The problem with marriage lately is that people aren't waiting until marriage to have sex. They feel dissatisfied because thry've been prancing about with evryone for years, and using them to please themselves, and even pleasing themselves themselves! You have nothing to give your spouse anyomre. Of course your marraige will fall apart! Wait until marriage, and your marrige will be much better. Your not compairing them to other people.

15+ years of trying good sir. Not going to pick somone who would be a Predator to my future children.

What an incredible man this is.

Honestly, as a young man marriage has become somewhat of a snare for men in recent times.

Great wisdom from this man

Can we have this clips channel in Spotify? That would be awesome!

On my third marriage. The two men prior had no commitment. Finally met the love of my life. A man who makes his bed as Jordan says. He has suffered so much but yet he has maturity to understand commitment. Only 8 months into marriage and every day I become more and more in love with him. My respect and affection grows with each difficult moment we go through together

The government has made it not as straightforward as you explain. We now have to think about what the benefits are and what ratio is it to the loses if it doesn’t work out

Historically, procreation was the goal. Becoming a mom or dad was the pinnacle of achievement, and that makes marriage particularly beneficial to women. Being married to one man and being a mother meant that he was committed to you and your children alone, because from a biological perspective men limit themselves in monogamy. For men then marriage becomes an act of honor and humility to submit to a covenant with one woman, and to be father to only her children. The Genesis story is a great summary of it, because a man binding himself to his wife and children to start his own family is the prime goal, and a woman desiring one man to be the head of her household is best for her and her children. Modern society killed the focus of procreation and marrying pragmatically or deontologically to focus on intimacy, which waxes and wanes, and is why so many fail to have success with that over the long run.

I need the Daily Wire ad I've seen a few times that starts with a “narcissistic” question along the lines of: “How can I find a good partner?” that is followed with an evaluation that this question is narcissistic and a suggestion that we should strive to be good prospective partners. I can't find this ad on DW channel (but there is a different one there).

Everything Jordan preaches makes complete sense, if we lived in a society that championed marriage and unity. We’ve got dating apps and social media as well as feminism breaking up relationships, bachelor mode forever until this is fixed ✌️

I have married twice. The first time was to a man who just wasn’t mature to handle being a husband. My second is to a man who wanted a full relationship and a real partner. It has been 15 years and I can honestly say it is successful for both of us to share this existence with.

I’ve been with my husband for 18 years. I’m 40. We met when I was 22 and he was 31, we were both at uni. We didn’t like eachother at first and used to argue/debate so much in seminars that everyone was shocked when we got together. He was a typical skater boy, all black metal and tattoos, and I was the nerd girl who spent her whole life in the library. But that intellectual battling we did was the thing that drew us together and we haven’t stopped since. It’s never dull , I’ll say that. We’ve been married for 10 years. It’s been an extremely tough road but we don’t give up on eachother. He has a history of abuse in his childhood, I had a BPD mother and a father who abandoned me emotionally. We’ve taken our issues out on eachother, sure, but in the spirit of challenge, we never shy away from the difficult things. And we work together. I’ve just completed 10 years of psychotherapy, and he’s just starting out with a therapist now. We always say it’s you and me against the world. And it always has been, always will be.

This man is a treasure!

We need to aim to be the best we can be as much as circumstances allow.

Long live big Dr. Peterson

When we have separation of marriage & state I`ll consider it.

My parents have been married for 38 years. My aunts and uncles have been married for over 40 years. My cousin has been married to her second husband for nearly 30 years. Marriage really is a team effort.

This is such an interesting topic for this generation and generations to come because there is much more sexual liberation now in western society, and across the world. So many marriages and long term relationships I've observed, and even some I've been involved in, have fizzled out in terms of sexual intimacy. Many people often staying together in misery simply because of a sense of duty, or fear of being alone, or some other internal justification. This is the struggle and no relationship should be forced. More people are open to multiple partners now and polygamous relationships or solo sexual sustainability. But this is a double edged sword as this seems to be drifting to more superficial experiences akin to substance abuse. Always chasing a better high but never being fulfilled. So yes marriage is still fundamentally relevant in mainstream society, but not just for sexual intimacy, but rather for the substance of more meaningfull relationships and personal or spiritual fulfillment.

Amazing video. Nothing more to say. A few minutes of wisdom capable of changing someone's life if implemented

It's the pill most of the time. Woman gets married uses hormonal birth control. That stuff tanks the libido many of my friends are repulsed by sexual stuff while on the pill.

The comments here are exactly what I expected.

No not if you marry the right person, it’s the best thing that you will ever do

I really wish I could speak to you in regards to what I'd experienced, and I know as I've seen it, that people can find connections with my story in their own life. As I was deeply troubled given my familial situation which was only worsened by being given an ideological idea against my maturity; which directly imposed on my ability to socialize. Creating a very insecure barrier between myself and woman. Until it'd all subsided after a motorcycle accident to which I finally found my skin. Falling in love within the same week. A psychological nightmare it was but I knew I was introspective enough along with an obsessive ability to focus on details that I could figure out what'd happened. It gave me haunting realizations about my generation and current human social behavior, especially sexually and intimately. I essentially incorporated my shadow by falling in love; pure and bloody insanity. It was what allowed me to find my voice that I didn't have for so long; or even taking ownership of the skin I inhabited. Learning key details of human emotions, imaginations and how it all related to the superego of society. Learning that I was blind as a result of my parents actions of which the world has plenty of ways of exploiting. Such as modern hook up culture or the possession of hair triggered lust. My first thought after the accident and meeting that woman was "what have we done?" Strangely enough I consider her to be my shadow, a direct opposite. Given that the world influences both genders in very opposing ways. To essentially make true unity next to impossible which weakens men and possesses woman with power that corrupts their sight. Not something they usually see until it's too late.

Is that Peterson's personal library? 😍

💯 Jordan

I can't think of any social institution that is a net benefit to people

I will have been married for 35 years this spring, been together with my husband for 40 years. Would I do some things differently (better) within the marriage? Yes. Do I regret being in this marriage? No! Do I feel deprived for not having had multiple partners in all this time? Also no. The key is to consider your commitment as permanent. This seems self-evident to me, but apparently it isn't anymore. Divorce should not be an option unless there is abuse. This forces you to work out your problems and become a better person, rather than taking the easy way out and run away.

I wish more women actually wanted commitment rather than "friends" who they use for attention. :(

I’m not on board with falling in love as it’s an emotional state no different from fear or hate. It may start out as an emotional state but in the end real love is a choice. But, I don’t think we disagree.

4:52 that's gonna get clipped

"Life is suffering. So what do you do with that suffering? Try to reduce it!" - Jordan Peterson (2017) One of the main reasons why I have no interest in marriage or relationships. Inviting a woman into my life would only needlessly increase my own suffering.

Nice to know it exists. From my grandparents to cousins and so on, I have no good examples of what I would call healthy relationships. That includes my siblings (that are getting married soon) and my friends. Fuck.

I was married for 7 years and have two kids. My ex decided she would rather sleep with her boss than focus on the family. If you look at the statistics this happens frequently, it’s no wonder why men don’t want to get married.

Yes, Jordan. It is.