This is a great question, and like all great questions, it leads to more questions. Here are some questions you should ask yourself if you’re considering breaking up with your partner because the sex just isn’t cutting it.

1) Has the sex always been sub par?

I used to joke that it takes six times of sleeping with a new partner before you can evaluate if the sex is going to be good or not – and while this was a joke, as with all great jokes, there’s some truth to it. Six times was just a number I made up but it was emphasizing that you can’t judge sex after the first time with a new partner… or the second… or even the third. You’re getting to know someone new and that partner is getting to know you. You could be the stallion of all love makers, waltz into my bedroom, and I still wouldn’t be convinced you’d know how to fuck me well. Everyone has their own preferences, quirks, things they like and don’t like, and you have to figure that out. That will take a little time and experience with each other, and you have to allow your relationship not only an increasing sex tally, but also the closeness and comfort that comes with continuing to date and be together, romantically. As you continue to date someone and grow closer to him or her, you will feel more comfortable making adjustments in the bedroom or asking for pointers as far as what your partner likes. As your comfort level rises, usually your communication will improve, and hopefully this translates into the bedroom as well.

Now, if we’re talking about a relationship in which you’ve been together a couple years and have been having sex for a long time, we have a totally different issue at play. At the beginning of relationships you have all kinds of hormones working for you: dopamine to name one. When you first start dating someone new, biochemically speaking, you are literally high on natural drugs produced by your body. The sex is always going to be better at the beginning because of the pleasure inducers your body is shelling out. Further, it’s exciting and mysterious – you’re getting to know a new partner! Esther Perel, a world-renowned relationship and sex specialist, says that passion flourishes with mystery and comfort flourishes with intimacy. When we first meet someone, there’s a ton of mystery and passion levels are high. However, as we continue dating them, and oxytocin levels (the hormone that works in attachment and bonding) are flying high, we start establishing intimacy. Two years down the road and we’re convinced all mystery is gone, passion is dead, and intimacy is flourishing like the stupid cock block that it is. However, this is incredibly normal and to be expected in all relationships. Those hormonal levels at the beginning of the relationship do not, scientifically proven, sustain themselves. How to increase mystery through mindful sex is another blog entirely. Just do not fret and break up yet because there may be some alternatives, and if you do, you may find yourself in the same situation with a different partner five years from now.

2) How comfortable are you and your partner when it comes to discussing sex and things of a sexual nature?

Communication in the bedroom is key for passion and healthy sex to sustain itself. If you or your partner have a difficult time discussing issues in the bedroom, this could mean you will have a difficult time on the road to GoodFucks town. If you have trouble with discussions regarding sex, are you in the minority? No way! You’re in the majority for sure! However, don’t celebrate your normalcy just yet because this majority is having trouble between the sheets, as you may have noticed. Being able to have calm, respectful, and even playful discussions about sex with your partner is extremely important. In order for your sex life to be good, you need to be able to tell your partner what you like and don’t like, and find out the same for your partner. I had one client who was bored out of her mind with the sex of a new relationship. Yet, when I asked her why they never tried different positions or discussed her lack of enthusiasm, she was overcome with anxiety and stammered that it just wasn’t worth it, she’d rather break up and move on. She was sure that good lovers naturally know their way around a woman’s body, I’ve heard they even cause their mothers orgasms on the way out of the womb, and she was determined to find one of these urban legend lovers so she would never have to speak about sex to anyone. Good luck, as I said before, because he can be the greatest lover, but he still doesn’t know your body, and every woman is different in what she likes. If he walks in sporting the skillset acquired from his last relationship, we definitely know he knew something about how to please her. However, with regard to his new partner, he could be spot on, kinda good, or even downright terrible. It all depends on how well you can communicate with him about issues in the bedroom.

3) How well do you know your own body and your sexual preferences?

Do you masturbate often? Do you have much experience masturbating? Have your taken a mirror and checked out all your hidden nooks and crannies? Do you feel comfortable touching your body… everywhere? Do you know how you like to be touched? Fast or slow? Hard or soft? Do you know if you like to be dominated or pushed to submit? Do you know if you like to do the dominating? Do you have a feel for how you like the power dynamic to be in the bedroom? Do you like biting or pain? Do you like props? Are you incredibly uncomfortable right now just reading these questions?

My main question is: how well do you know yourself sexually? If you don’t know yourself very well in the downtown-julie-brown department and can’t answer many of the above questions, then I must ask, my dear one, how well will you be able to communicate the answers to your lover? One step further, even if you don’t know, which is still OK, how open are you to exploring these questions with a partner and how open is your partner to doing that with you? How safe is the relationship for this type of sexual exploration? These questions will help guide you to figuring out what you need. But if the sex is bad and you have no idea what you like, how is your partner supposed to have the slightest clue either?

4) Are you and/or is your partner open to exploration?

I touched on this briefly in the question before this one, but I want to emphasize it because it’s an important question. If the sex is bad, and you’re with a partner that is too uncomfortable to explore new or other things, then, it’s quite likely that the sex won’t have the chance to improve. If sex is bad, it’s hardly ever a sign that two people aren’t supposed to be together, or that it’s never going to work. The same thing goes for if sex is amazing – it does not mean that you are in any way soul mates. However, if the sex isn’t grand, and you’re paired with a partner who is completely closed off to the idea of trying out things in an attempt to improve the situation, that does not bode well for the sex. You both have to be open to the idea of making things better or else how can anything change? You can’t sit around and wait for Syd the Sex Archer to come shoot you with his sexy-times-guaranteed arrow and watch gratefully as the sex miraculously changes from dull to dangerously dirty. Bad sex doesn’t mean either one of you is necessarily bad at sex, but it does require an open-mind on both ends if you want to make it better.

5) Do you and your partner have different sexual preferences?

Let’s assume that you’ve done a lot of exploration alone and with others – and so has your partner – but you’re finding that your preferences aren’t really meshing. There are a ton of examples I could give:

• You both like to be dominant (or submissive) and neither of you gets off on playing the other role

• One of you likes things a little rough (biting, pinching, slapping, etc.) and the other only gets off on the gentle stuff
• One of you likes to play the slave while the other prefers things be equal between the sheets
• One of you likes condescending dirty talk, while the other just can’t get into it or doesn’t feel comfortable degrading the other

This does not have to be a make-or-break situation, but it does require some patience and a unique brand of compromise. Firstly, if you’re committed to giving it a go despite sexual preference differences, you’ll need extremely open communication in the bedroom – there’s no getting around it. If you can’t talk about what you like and don’t like in a sex session, you’ll both just end up frustrated, resentful, or unhappy. Secondly, explore if you and/or your partner aren’t into something because you’ve tried it several times and you know you don’t like it – or maybe you’ve never tried it and are assuming you won’t. In this case, you might be wrong, and if you’re open to it, you might as well try it. Further, maybe you did something with an ex and didn’t like it, but there were a million confounding variables in that situation that aren’t necessarily present in your current relationship. Maybe your last ex was an asshole so when he treated you like a slut in the bedroom, it made you upset. However, if your current lover is a wonderful, gentle person, when he treats you dirty in the bedroom, you know its an act, and you actually start to enjoy the role he’s playing.

The walkaway point remains that bad sex in a relationship is disappointing, but it’s usually fix-able, and at the very least, worth a shot. I’m a firm believer that satisfying sex is a birthright, so you are more than deserving of it in your relationship. However, if the sex isn’t satisfying, that doesn’t have to mean that the relationship is over. Ask these five questions and be very honest in your answers. Your best sex might be just around the corner…