It’s the age old battle of the sexes. In marriage, often husbands want more sex than wives. (But not always!) Men are anthropologically wired to spread their seed and women are wired to be selective of who they have sex with. Let’s face it, if our hunter/gatherer men had risked things that females risk — a higher STD rate, more likelihood of a broken heart, or an 18 year case of parenthood  — every time they had sex, they would have evolved to not want sex so much either. Clearly sex is a high risk hobby for women, hormonal changes, and dead-tired fatigue after having babies means that plenty of marriages suffer from a high-desire meets low-desire dead lock.

But new research from Science of Relationships shows that couples who survive the high-desire-verses-low-desire deadlock are those who have high “sexual communal strength.” Simply put, in these couples obligatory sex is reframed as an investment in the sexual community that both partners hold a stake in. Sex isn’t something that is given or taken, but something that is seen as an investment in the relationship.

And here are two other sexual facts and that can go a long way to beating this common problem:

• Wives Need Novelty More Than Men – Research shows that women in longterm sexual relationships get bored way before men. And when women become bored sexually, they aren’t as likely to cheat as they are to shut down. Tip for men: novelty for women means stimulating all her senses. She might be inspired by a different room, a different scented candle, a different position, different lingerie, different music and more important: a sex schedule complete with childcare, so she can plan ahead.

• Husbands Are Fine with Quantity Over Quality – Now I’m not saying that men don’t want a deeply connected, wild bedroom romp complete with massage oil, whispered fantasies, and olympian moves. But if the choice is no sex, plenty of husbands are happy with the frequent hand-job/blow-job combo, (with or without a side of fries.) Wives might pay heed to the notion of those couple with “sexual communal strength” and understand that a regular “pipe cleaning” can go a long way to keeping a relationship happy.

The bottom line is that men and women would both benefit from understanding their different sexualities. In terms of arousal, women are crock pots and men are microwave ovens. Begging for sex isn’t sexy. But helping a woman feel beautiful and relaxed is a turn on.

(P.S. Not all couples fall into the “husbands want more sex” dynamic. Sometimes it’s the husband with the low desire and that is sometimes linked to stress, a medical problem, or normal aging.)