My boyfriend has started worrying about the fact that we no longer smooch for minutes on end like we used to when we just started dating (we made out in dark corners of seedy bars because I was living with my parents and he was crashing at a friend’s place - hard times!). He thinks we’ve lost our rhythm and that we kiss like 80 year olds. :dubious: I don’t know what he’s on about. We have plenty of sex, which is enough for me. And it’s not like we don’t kiss each other at all, we just don’t kiss with tongue for 10 minutes at a time anymore.
Anyway he wanted me to ask the Dope if this is normal. Do couples who’ve been together long enough eventually fall out of the habit of prolonged smooching? Or should we be worried?
(This is only a semi-serious question, for anyone who’s about to suggest we break up, as seems to be par for many relationship threads on the Dope. )
Prolonged making out seems to me to be typical of the infatuation stage. You can’t keep your hands off one another, and if you can’t have sex (at that moment), you gotta touch, kiss, grope, etc.
When you’ve been together a while such constant contact doesn’t seem to be required. Don’t get me wrong; I love to kiss my husband! But we’re not kids and we don’t have to be all over each other to convey how much we love one another.
We make out quite a bit, though not as frantically as when we were young and infatuated. But we still fondle and kiss when we are watching TV or when we pass each other in the hallway or kitchen. Sometimes it leads to sex, but not usually: sex tends to start in the bedroom for us.
ETA: Married almost ten years, together quite a while before that. And if you asked me which was more important–the sex or the making out–I’d have to think long and hard about an answer.
My SO and I have been dating for 2+ years and we don’t have the makeout sessions we used to either. But back then we had to drive 2.5 hours to see each other. We still hold hands and kiss all the time - but we don’t necessarily makeout unless it’s part of our whole seduction in to bed thing. Which, now that I’m thinking about it, was what used to happen to our makeout sessions back then too . . . .
I think it’s natural for there to be some reduction in the urgency over time. At times I wish for a little more romance, but I think all girls do. And at times, I’m sure he wishes for a little more frequency of the naughty naughty that I used to do when we first got together.
But those things are all still within reach in the right settings. It’s when you don’t touch/kiss/hump at all that you should start to worry.
Yes – it usually leads to sex whenever we have time for it, but we still have plenty of we’ve-got-10-minutes-let’s-snog occurrences without touching pink bits. It’s fun!
Usually it’s when the kids have just gone to bed and we meet in the kitchen and make out for a while, complete with clothed groping, knowing that we’re just biding time until they’re asleep. If someone gets out of bed for something and starts down the stairs, it’s easy to break off a makeout session to tend to the kid’s bedtime issue.
Sadly, I realize I fall into the same situation as the OP. Married 13 years, and now that I think about it, we never make out. It is either a slightly prolonged kiss at most, or sex, but nothing in between. I suppose there have been a few times when we have been at a show or movie with several prolonged kisses, which is just a way of saying “let’s have sex when this is over”, but not like when we were dating…
Three+ years and yes, we still ‘make out’ (if that’s what we’d call snogging with possible groping in the UK).
Actually it was something we discussed quite seriously early in the relationship - how it tends to diminish in long term relationship and usually acts as foreplay if it happens at all, something we both wanted to avoid. She’d got to the point in her previous relationship where it never happened unless her ex wanted sex, which in turn put her off - sometimes you just want a snog, without the pressure of it going any further. So we’ve made a conscious effort to maintain snogging sessions without any pressure for sex. Sometimes it DOES lead that way, but it isn’t a given, which makes it a more relaxed, fun activity, if you know what I mean.
Been together for four years. We stopped making out after about a year. I mean, what’s the point? Just move on already. I can’t think of a scenario where we couldn’t have sex but could make out. Maybe a movie or something, but since we rarely (if ever) go to the movies, I just don’t see that happening.
Not ‘normal’, but unfortunately pretty common. It should be a concern that one person is feeling a unmet need. Any unmet need will hurt the relationship, so yes you should be concerned, though it does not mean that you have to give in and always do something you don’t want to, as that is also not going to work, though a compromise for a short time might be helpful to him and in that both of you, but it’s a issue you have to explore in both of your pasts, why he has this need as part of what a relationship should be, and why you don’t have such a need for a relationship.
From how you stated it is seems like the smooching was replaced by sex for you, but not for him. Another similar situation that usually is though of in the opposite is that the man has sex and goes to sleep, while the woman wants to cuddle and talk then.
Married ten years and no, not really. We kiss often and I grab or pat her ass if it’s within reach, and we have sex fairly often, but no makeup sessions like we had before we were married (we didn’t have sex until after we were married, so our make-out sessions were epic).
7 years here, but yeah. We used to make out (assuming this means snogging and groping) frequently, and at some point over the last few years, this has almost disappeared; I’m not sure when, or why.
Do you think it’s something that can be resurrected once gone?
And it’s not like we don’t kiss each other at all, we just don’t kiss with tongue for 10 minutes at a time anymore.
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