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DR MAX THE MIND DOCTOR: you CAN have a happy marriage without sex

Published: 17:13 EST, 20 November 2015 | Updated: 03:40 EST, 21 November 2015

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There's an old joke about a sex therapist who wants to discover how often people make love. He decides the best place to find a wide cross-section of respondents is at an airport.

After quizzing various travellers, he spots some air crew striding across the concourse, and remembers that pilots are known for being lotharios.

‘When was the last time you made love?’ he asks an airline captain, who instantly replies: ‘1957.’

The therapist is astonished. ‘That’s rather a long time ago,’ he says. The pilot smiles. ‘Not really. It’s only 20.15 now.’

I thought of that old chestnut when I read about a new study claiming the key to marital happiness is having sex once a week: no more, no less.

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Statistical sex: The Canadian study found that those who made love more than once a week experienced no more happiness than those who didn't

Researchers at a Canadian university looked at questionnaires filled in by 30,000 people over 30 years and found that’s how often the most contented couples made love. There was no rise in happiness for those who had sex more often.

This certainly flies in the face of all the marriage guidance books that place sex at the centre of a successful relationship and suggest any problems can be solved by more action in the bedroom. But is once a week really the formula for bliss?

For me, studies like this miss the point.

Sure, there’s no denying that sex can be good for you. Regular love-making has been shown to boost your immune system, lower blood pressure, reduce the risk of heart attacks and improve sleep. And, of course, it can help a couple feel closer and strengthen their emotional bond.

But for some couples, once a week would seem like a chore, while for others it would be agonisingly infrequent. There’s no right or wrong.

Apparently, the Greeks are the nation with the highest proportion of people having sex at least once a week, at 86 per cent. We British are way down the league, at 55 per cent, with the Japanese lower still, at 34 per cent.

Well, Greek people are lovely, but I’m not convinced they’re that much cheerier than those in London and Tokyo.

And according to one of the most comprehensive surveys of our sexual behaviour, carried out last year, a clear majority of Britons — 63 per cent — say they’re satisfied with their sex life.

On the other hand, that figure was noticeably down on the 76 per cent recorded four years earlier — perhaps reflecting the way our increasingly sex-obsessed culture makes us all secretly feel that we’re not (so to speak) keeping up with the Joneses.

The trouble is, I just don’t know if I trust studies like this. If a man with a clipboard came up to me while I was out shopping and started asking me questions about how often I was at it, I’m not sure I’d answer very honestly.

Gender difference: In one survey, 43 per cent of men said their sex drive was above-average, compared to just 25 per cent of women

No one wants to sound like a nymphomaniac, but no one wants to appear boring. We all want to be normal — and, in reality, there’s no such thing. We need to recognise that everyone’s libido is different.

When I started work as a doctor, covering a urology ward, I got talking to the wife of a patient who’d just had a prostate operation. He was sitting by his bed, out of earshot, while we were by the nursing station.

I mentioned that prostate treatment can lead to difficulties in the bedroom department, and that if this happened there was lots we could do to ensure the intimate aspect of their marriage was maintained.

I told the wife not to worry and gave her a reassuring smile. I was rather proud of myself for broaching a subject many doctors would shy away from and waited for her to shower me with gratitude. From the look of horror on her face, I realised how wrong I was.

‘Are you joking?’ she said. ‘I love my husband, but I’ve been putting up with that sort of thing for 30 years. Now I might finally get a break.’

It had never occurred to me that she might see impotence as a blessing. But it made me realise that there are countless people out there who genuinely love their other halves but aren’t remotely interested in having sex with them.

We’re endlessly told sex is the ultimate recreational activity, but for many of us — exhausted by our jobs, raising a family and/or caring for elderly parents — the prospect of a bag of Maltesers and watching Strictly is far more appealing.

We rarely hear the voices of people who have very low libidos. But while only about 1 per cent of the population consider themselves ‘asexual’ — meaning they have no sexual desire at all — a great many more do not feel that sex is particularly important to them.

And despite it being trendy these days to pretend that both genders are equally insatiable, I don’t believe that’s true. By and large, women report lower sex drives than men.

In one survey, 43 per cent of men rated their sex drive as above-average, compared to just 25 per cent of women. Even allowing for male swaggering and female modesty, that’s quite a difference.

Are people who are indifferent to sex doomed to be miserable? Of course not. There are plenty of paths to happiness — and sex is only one of them.

So far as relationships are concerned, the key is to talk to each other, compromise, do what works for the two of you — and let everyone else go hang.

Tough times can make tough people

Stressful life events can, apparently, be good for you. Research published this week suggested that those who’ve experienced a bereavement or divorce are better able to cope with the ups and downs of life.

I’m always wary of that tired mantra, ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. What about polio? Or losing your legs? Or loads of other horrible things?

It’s just a cliché people trot out when they bump into you in the supermarket after something awful has happened and they don’t know what else to say.

Under stress: A study has shown that those who have gone through tough times are better able to cope with emotional hardships in the future

However, I run a clinic for people with eating disorders and I am surprised by how many patients tell me, after they’ve finished treatment, that the experience has changed them for the better.

They have a better understanding of themselves and a gentle, more sympathetic understanding of other people’s difficulties. It can also give them a determination and grit that they never had before. For example, I had one patient who was so unwell she had a real risk of dying. Indeed, about 25 per cent of people with an eating disorder die from it.

She also used drugs and was an alcoholic. However, over several years she worked incredibly hard, kicked the drugs and booze and got back into work. We were preparing to discharge her from the outpatient clinic when she suddenly announced she’d got an amazing new job on the board of one of Britain’s most high-profile companies.

She’d applied just for the hell of it — and the selection process couldn’t have been tougher. But whenever she felt she couldn’t handle it, she reminded herself that nothing would ever be as bad as what she’d already gone through.

The result? She leap-frogged about five rungs on the career ladder and is now going from strength to strength.

What a woman. And what a great lesson.

KEEPING CHARLIE SHEEN'S ANTICS IN PERSPECTIVE

Yes, like everyone else, I think actor Charlie Sheen is a creep.

But I do want to point one thing out. Modern antiretroviral medication is so powerful that, if he was taking it consistently, he’s right to say the chances of him passing on HIV were close to zero.

That’s how far we’ve come in the battle against Aids. So while it’s fine to criticise sleazy Sheen, let’s keep the dangers of HIV in sane perspective.

A seven-day NHS needs more than just doctors

Last week, my baby nephew suddenly became unwell and was rushed into hospital with suspected meningitis.

The doctors and nurses were incredible. Within minutes, he was seen and assessed by a full medical team, despite it being the weekend and the early hours of the morning.

Initial tests confirmed that it was meningitis. The little lad was regularly reviewed by a consultant paediatrician, who told my sister and her husband that further tests were needed to determine what organism was responsible.

However, because it was the weekend, these tests had to be put off until the Monday since there were no laboratory staff in to do the work. In the meantime, they started my nephew on medication to cover all likely bugs, just in case.

Call to action: Junior doctors are set to go on strike and picket, like they did here in October, against pay and conditions. This calls to mind the problems posed by the Government's hopes for a seven-day NHS

To me, this sums up the problem with the Government’s proposed seven-day NHS.

The planned reforms have left us on the brink of a strike by junior doctors. While I’m fearful this would be a hugely self-sabotaging move that risks patient welfare, I also think Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has made an enormous error in picking a fight with such dedicated professionals.

What’s more, he has revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of the real problems hospitals face.

Junior doctors are already working seven days a week. And in critical care — the key area where full cover at weekends is the difference between life and death — they’re going flat out.

The problem, as my nephew’s case showed, is that doctors are only one cog in a very big machine.

My nephew (and I’m happy to say he’s fine now) had plenty of doctors: it was the lab staff who were needed. Without them, the medics were working in the dark. If you want a truly seven-day NHS, you need all the back-up departments up and running. Just picking on junior doctors won’t solve anything.