Man explains why pressurizing your partner for physical intimacy is wrong: 'There's no clock'

Each couple has their own love language and their own way of navigating intimacy. However, communicating through times when one partner might seek physical intimacy and another doesn't, can get difficult and pressuring. Doug Weaver—who goes by @dougweaverart on TikTok—recently posted a video in which he discussed his wife and their relationship with intimacy.

The video was uploaded in response to a comment on another video about intimacy. "When you're to once a month come and say that again," the comment read. The helpful video clip was captioned "There is no clock!" and was viewed more than a million times.

Weaver began his video by reminding viewers, "I've stated so many times that I don’t believe in pressuring your spouse to have intercourse with you when they don’t want to. If you ask them to have intercourse with you and they say no, it is not appropriate to throw a fit."

Weaver is referring to the fact that spouses should not be whining, complaining, or moping around the house if one partner isn't comfortable with physical intimacy. All of these things are designed to make your partner feel bad and add pressure, making them feel as if they are not fulfilling their "duty" to have intercourse with you. According to him, people frequently say to their spouses, "Why did we even get married if we're not going to be having sex?" or call them a bad spouse, which is not the right thing to do.

Rather than focusing on the frequency, people could be focusing on the quality. "Oh no, it’s been 14 days. It’s been three weeks. If I don’t have intercourse with them now, they’re going to resent me, they’re going to hate me. It’s going to destroy our marriage," he continued, and this is from the perspective of the person who refuses to have sex. He believes that those partners are under pressure to "push through" one moment of intimacy in order to "start the clock over" because their relationship will fail otherwise. Frequency doesn’t matter, he claimed, nor should it.

"The common response that I get is 'Well, that’s easy for you to say because your wife wants to do stuff with you. Come talk to me when it’s been a month, three months, a year,'" he said, before opening up and being honest about his marriage. Weaver has been married for over 15 years and asks viewers if they really believe there hasn't been at least one time when they haven't had intercourse to put things in perspective.

"Just because we haven’t done something in a while doesn’t mean I’m going to apply more pressure," he said. "That pressure is probably why we haven’t done it in the first place. I’ve never pressured my wife in that way,” Weaver admitted, “but the pressure that society puts on us, the way we are trained — she came with that pressure." Despite the fact that there was no pressure from him, she felt obligated to be willing to have sex with him — and this is societal. "It took a long time and a lot of communication for us to really establish that there is no clock," he explained. "There is no more obligation to have intercourse after one month than there is after one day."

Weaver revealed something very beneficial to him and his wife was to stop counting days."If my wife is having intercourse with me just because she feels like she needs to — to be a good wife or whatever — she’s not going to have a good time. It’s not going to be good," he said. Pressurizing would either create a negative experience around intimacy or might act exactly like a turn-off.

In another video, he explained how it could also be the other way around and men might feel pressurized. People usually assume that it is men who always seek physical intimacy since a 'real man' always wants to want it. However, he encourages the understanding that men can also say no to touch for various reasons.

Viewers agreed with Weaver. "There is no larger turnoff than feeling like it's a chore on your to-do list," commented @dusthappy1. "If he sighs, rolls his eyes and mopes if I'm not in the mood. My mood will never return!" added @attesmatte78. Nicole Matusow, a New York State Licensed Psychotherapist, stated, "When you begin to associate sex with pressure, desire is quashed and performance is compromised."

Sex will most likely become awkward, rushed, or anti-climactic as a result." Then, as Weaver suggests, the quality of that sex will turn you off from future encounters, creating a negative feedback loop. The most important thing to remember is that you should never have sex if you are under pressure to do so, regardless of whether the pressure is spousal or societal.