The Best Sex of Your Life Might Still Be Ahead of You
If you feel like the best sex of your marriage is somewhere in the rearview mirror, I want to hand you a different idea. For a lot of couples in midlife, it's not behind you. It's ahead.
That's the big takeaway from one of my favourite talks from the 2024 Sex After Kids Summit. Dan Purcell, who runs Get Your Marriage On with his wife, laid out a framework for the five stages a sexual relationship moves through. I still think about it constantly, and I wanted to bring it to you here too.
Quick honesty check: Dan said this framework isn't his own invention. It's a lens he uses with the couples he coaches, and it gave me real language for a season I was in the middle of. I'll walk you through the five stages below. If you want the full conversation, including more of Dan's own stories, the episode link is at the bottom.
Stage One: Newness
This is the beginning. You're figuring each other out, testing what's on the table and what isn't. Dan shared a story from one month into his marriage: an offhand comment left his wife in tears, and he learned fast which topics were off limits. That's stage one. You're setting patterns, some helpful, some not, just by feeling your way through.
Stage Two: Maintenance
Patterns become routine. This is where most young families land, especially with a new baby in the house. Sex becomes the quickie version, or the once-a-month tap on the shoulder just to keep the connection alive. Dan's point, and mine: there is nothing wrong with maintenance sex. It served me well after my first baby. What matters is whether it's a season you chose on purpose, or one you got stuck in by default.
Stage Three: Novelty
Eventually the itch for something different shows up. Often around the decade mark. This is when new positions, new locations, or ideas you'd have dismissed years earlier suddenly feel interesting. After my third baby, maintenance sex stopped working for me completely. I wanted new and novel, even if it was rarer. If that's you right now, this stage is exactly where you'd expect to land.
Stage Four: Meaning
This is where novelty gives way to depth. Dan described it as the difference between water skiing and scuba diving; novelty covers a lot of surface, meaning goes deep. Sex here is less about a checklist and more about wanting to genuinely see and be seen by your partner. This is also the stage where he asked a question that stuck with me: do you make love with your eyes open, or closed? Eyes closed can mean "let's just get this done." Eyes open is an invitation into something more vulnerable.
Stage Five: Surrender
The final stage is about dropping the performance entirely. Your body isn't the same shape it was. You're not pretending otherwise, and neither is your partner. Dan referenced a story from a book about a retired couple whose sex life had shrunk from three times a week to once, except that once now stretches over an entire long weekend. Less frequency, far more depth. That's surrender: no more keeping score, just enjoying each other.
Why This Matters After Kids
Kids don't ruin your sex life. They interrupt the coasting. Whatever shortcuts, shame, or half-taught sex ed got you this far stop working once your body, your relationship, and your identity all shift at once. The couples who come out the other side with something better are the ones willing to learn real skills instead of white-knuckling the same old patterns.
Wherever you land in these five stages, you're not broken and you're not behind. You're just in a stage. And every stage has a next one.
Want the full conversation with Dan, including the part where he unpacks why he believes sex should centre the woman in the relationship? Listen to this week's episode of the Sex After Kids Podcast here.
Dan also mentioned his app, Sparked, for easy at-home date night ideas. Full disclosure, I'm an affiliate, but I genuinely love what he and the Date Your Spouse team have built. You can check it out here: https://r.dateyourspouse.com/sofia
