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 1 
iQuestions Expert, Michael Sytsma 
 
 
Question: 
 
Our love life has been pretty lousy the last couple of years. Do couples 
go through occasional "rough patches" or is it a sign that something's 
deeply wrong? 
 
Answer: 
 
Yes, couples will go through rough patches in their marriage, where 
the love life will get not quite as good as it had been.  
 
Sometimes that’s because of internal factors that are just going on 
with us. It may be that we have experienced a loss, and we have to 
grieve the death of somebody or the death of the job. It may be that 
there’s life transition going on that has kind of distracted us from our 
connect time with each other. 
 
It may be that there are some personal issues like illness or 
depression. We may be going through something that is chronic for us 
in our health. 
 
It may also be that there is something going on in the relationship. 
Most commonly, I find that the couple has just stopped working on 
their sex life. 
 
We have this myth in our society that great sex comes naturally if you 
are just meant to be together—and that’s not really true. We have to 
keep working on all aspects of our marriage, including our sex life. And 
if you are not setting aside time for that, if you are not continuing to 
nurture and to care for each other, your sex life might go into a patch 
 
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where it’s not doing so well. If it hasn’t been watered and cared for 
and nurtured, it might start to look a little bit frail. 
 
But your question was, “Can this be a symbol of something else that is 
going on deeper in our marriage?” 
 
Well, that would be the fourth option. It could be a sign of something 
that is not healthy in your marriage. It could be that there is some 
bitterness or some resentment that hasn’t even been talked about.  
 
It could be that you have reached a stage in your marriage where 
there is something new that has risen. It may be that it’s “empty 
nest,” and there are some different ideas for what that might look like, 
and it’s starting to pull you apart.  
 
It could be that you’ve just stopped nurturing and caring for the 
marriage in general. 
 
There are a lot of things that could be going on. The key is to sit down 
and start talking about it. Share with each other what you are 
experiencing. Share with each other that it seems like this is a rough 
patch, and what might be going on inside of you, what might be going 
on with each other. 
 
Begin to plan for what you would like for your sex life to look like, and 
then you have to work on disciplining that to happen. It may mean 
that you have to spend some more time just dating each other. It may 
mean that you have to set aside time to have sex. It may mean that 
you grab a book and sit down and read a book about sexual intimacy 
out loud to each other, just to begin to create some ideas. 
 
It may be a rough patch. It may be something deeper, but it is well 
worth sorting it out, and continuing to move forward in enriching this 
part of your marriage. 
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