Can We Have Too Much Love and Sex?

"I love you much too much, I've known it from the start, but yet my love is such, I can't control my heart" —Alma Cogan

Being in love, and the sex and intimacy that accompanies it, is a valuable experience. But is it possible to love too much? How would our partner react if we said they were coming on too strong?

Can We Love Too Much?

“Too much love drives a man insane, you broke my will, but what a thrill.” Jerry Lee Lewis

Loving too much is different from loving too many people, falling in love too often, or loving too deeply. Loving too much is when love disturbs a subtle balance in our romantic relationships. Often, it is when one or both partners cannot function and flourish as a result.

We can distinguish between romantic intensity, a snapshot of a momentary peak of passionate, often sexual, desire, and romantic profundity, which refers to the lover’s broader and more enduring behavior and attitudes. External changes are highly significant in generating romantic intensity, whereas to create romantic depth, familiarity, stability, and development are tremendously important. While romantic novelty is useful in preventing boredom, romantic familiarity is valuable in promoting flourishing (Ben-Ze’ev, 2019).

Couple in love

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Just as we would not fault an author for writing a too profound book, we would not criticize a lover for loving too profoundly. However, if such profundity leads us to neglect other valuable activities, then we may say that it is “overly” profound. It is the lack of balance, which often violates the lover’s or the beloved’s autonomy, rather than the excess of profundity, that is the problem. An extreme example is the case of murderous husbands who claim they killed their wives who tried to leave them because they “loved them too much.” This demonstrates the distorted nature of the phenomenon. Murder is not genuine love; rather, it is a pathological behavior violating autonomy (Ben-Ze’ev & Goussinsky, 2008; and here).

Union is idealized in romantic love, yet spending too much time with our beloved may diminish our feelings. Some distance, providing greater personal space, is important for romantic flourishing. Thus, while significant geographical and temporal distance may be damaging for a relationship, a more limited distance can be beneficial. As Roger de Rabutin said, “Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small and kindles the great.”

Indeed, studies indicate that long-distance couples are typically more satisfied with their relationships and are more in love than couples living under the same roof, and long-distance relationships enjoy a higher survival rate (Jiang & Hancock, 2013; Kelmer et al. 2013) Long-distance relationships that involve frequent communication and meetings focus our attention on the profound aspects of our relationship and our lives, thereby helping partners to disregard superficial aspects.

Likewise, social contact, which is important for a happy and satisfying life, has an optimal limit. It was found that the effect of the quantity of social interaction is nonlinear: At high amounts of such interaction, its positive effects may be reduced or even reversed (Ren et al., 2022). Similarly, men and women are sexually attracted to intelligent people, but not to the most intelligent people (Gignac & Starbuck, 2019; and here)

Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (2009) argue that there is a significant problem with the notion—popular in economics and in ordinary life—that you can never be made worse off by having more choices because you can always turn some of them down. This principle, they argue, fails to consider self-control, temptation, and the conflict between short-term desires and long-term welfare. They criticize the wish to have more mainly because it tends to privilege many superficial, short-term desires and ignore our fewer, profound long-terms needs. Similarly, Barry Schwartz (2004) claims that maximizers’ unending desire for more leads to general dissatisfaction and reduces well-being. Indeed, Jonathan D'Angelo and Catalina Toma (2007) found that online daters who chose from a large set of potential partners (i.e., 24) were less satisfied with their choice than those who selected from a small set (i.e., 6), and were more likely to change their selection.

Can We Have Too Much Sex?

“Sex is like money; only too much is enough.” John Updike

Like other addictions, sexual addiction is harmful. However, if sex is not compulsive but frequent, can too much of it still be harmful?

Research indicates that frequent sex is associated with greater well-being and that the more sex you have, the happier you feel (Ben-Ze'ev, 2023). Nevertheless, Amy Muise and colleagues (2016) demonstrate that the association between sexual frequency and well-being is best described by a curvilinear (as opposed to a linear) association: Ssex in romantic relationships is no longer associated with well-being at a frequency of more than once a week (this frequency may be sensitive to age, gender, or relationship length). Muise and colleagues reject the claim that there are limitless benefits to engaging in sex and that more sex is always better; instead, sex may be like money—only too little is bad.

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Similarly, Chelom Leavitt and colleagues found that those who experience consistency of orgasm are generally more sexually satisfied and have happier relationships. However, while consistency of men’s orgasm correlates linearly to relationship and sexual satisfaction, women who experience consistent orgasms report increasing sexual and relationship satisfaction up to a point. After that point, however, the increase in sexual and relationship satisfaction becomes progressively smaller (Leavitt et al., 2021).

Does Too Much Intimacy Reduce Sexual Desire?

"The true feeling of sex is that of a deep intimacy, but above all of a deep complicity." James Dickey

Intimacy (or closeness) is essential to romantic relationships. However, as Gurit Birnbaum (2018) claims, it does not necessarily follow that extremely high intimacy stifles sexual desire or that an increase in intimacy over time is a prerequisite for experiencing sexual desire. The critical factor in associating intimacy with sexual desire is the need for intimacy itself rather than the amount. Intimacy heightens sexual desire when having sex builds upon or repairs the relationship (Birnbaum, 2018).

Similarly, Amy Muise and Sophie Goss (2024) claim that the relationship processes that foster closeness (or intimacy) are associated with higher sexual desire and help couples maintain that desire over time. In considering whether too much closeness stifles desire, they propose that the balance of closeness and distinctiveness (i.e., the space between partners acknowledging each partner’s unique contributions to the relationship) in a relationship is important for maintaining sexual desire. Muise and Goss characterize too much closeness as couples feeling a lack of space and time alone, wanting separate interests, feeling suffocated, wanting more time with friends and needing independence.

Feelings of being too close to a partner may arise from a lack of independence or distinctiveness from a partner, and not only because partners experience a high level of closeness. Whereas closeness may set the stage for desire, distinctiveness between partners allows desire to grow and be maintained; high closeness without sufficient distinctiveness is one reason why desire declines over time.

In conclusion, good attitudes or behaviors can become excessive when they don’t contribute to one’s overall flourishing, potentially even damaging it, mainly by preventing the pursuit of less enjoyable but more meaningful activities that advance flourishing. Having a lot of what we enjoy holds true up to a point, after which one can have too much of a good thing. Sex is typically wonderful, but too much sex is harmful. Likewise, too much love is when the subtle balance between the agent’s and the partner’s autonomy and personal flourishing is disrupted. As in other aspects of life, a balanced romantic diet leads us to more tasty and healthy romantic possibilities.