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Long workdays have left them fatigued, years of raising children have snuffed their romantic fires, and the economy has them so stressed their libidos are tanking right along with it.
What's a good Christian couple to do?
Have sex - and do it daily, says Pastor Ed Young, 47, who is encouraging married couples in his Texas congregation to have sex every day for a week.
"God is pro-sex. He thought it up, it was his idea and he wants those of us who have said I do, to do it," he told his 20,000-member congregation last Sunday, the first day of the Seven Days of Sex challenge at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Tex., a suburb of Dallas.
"I think the church has allowed our culture to hijack sex from us and we've not spoken boldly, honestly and openly about it," he preached in front of a luxe double bed draped in black-and-white linens.
The talk was the climax of a series of sermons called Leaving Lust Vegas, which he says geared 5,000 couples up for a challenge that would light a fire in them to serve not only one another but God, too.
"Sex is not a fix-all," Mr. Young said Monday. "The beauty of this sexperiment is what's going to happen around the bedroom. It'll get stuff on the table that couples need to talk about - you can hide your anger, but if you're having sex regularly, it forces you to deal with these issues."
The singles in the congregation were encouraged to eat chocolate and pray for their future soulmate, he said.
By Monday evening, Mr. Young, who has been married for 26 years and has four children, says he received texts, e-mails and calls from couples who said they were already seeing improvements in their married lives.
"When you have sex, it forces you to be intimate. You're forced to deal with issues because you're so close physically," he said. "You show me someone's sex life and I'll tell you how the rest of the marriage is going."
But sex counsellors argue it's not that cut and dry.
"I think people need a lot more help to build really meaningful intimacy in their lives than just being told to have sex more often," says Meg Hickling, who has worked with faith communities in her 35 years as a sex educator in Vancouver.
While some religious communities across Canada are warming to the idea of talking about sex, many are conflicted about Mr. Young's message.
"I think it's rather unfortunate that Pastor Young has encouraged his congregants to have sex seven days in a row," says John-Henry Westen, the Ottawa-based editor of LifeSiteNews.com, a conservative Christian, anti-abortion news website. "I think sex is the most intimate expression of love between a husband and wife, and it can't be experimented with, morally at least."
Others don't agree with the theatrics used to present the controversial topic, mainly because there's no chance for dialogue when a sex talk is delivered from the pulpit.
"I'm not sure public worship is the place to do that," says Rev. Trisha Elliott, a United Church minister south of Ottawa. "I would be more inclined to talk about that on an invitational level in a discussion group."
Mr. Young seems to be reducing sexuality just to sexual activity, she says, making the message come off as narrow-minded.
Christian marriage counsellors are also concerned with Mr. Young's suggestion that daily sex is a way to discover and dig up marital issues.
"I think the couples who are reluctant to seek help or maybe have some reasons why seeking help is untenable for them, it might cause more problems," says Gerry Goertzen, founder of Riverbend Counselling, a Christian marriage counselling practice in Winnipeg.
"I think the church does need to address this, but I think it also needs to take a very pragmatic approach by addressing the fact that sex can be a very difficult or sadly a hurtful and painful place for some people to go to."
Mr. Young also didn't address sexually transmitted infections and diseases in his prechallenge pep talk - a glaring omission, Ms. Hickling says.
"Within conservative marriages, there's just a colossal assumption that people are faithful. And, of course, it's just not true at all," she says. "People are having sex outside the marriage and because they feel so guilty about it they're not going to doctors and being tested."
She fears women in the congregation who hear this message from Mr. Young will feel pressure to take on the challenge with their husbands, even if they would rather not.
But those taking on the challenge say daily sex has breathed new life into their marriages.
Kimberly and Henry Alayon of Flower Mound, Tex., say their family life has improved since they started making love every day.
"When I got home [Tuesday night], the dishwasher was empty, the house was all picked up," said Ms. Alayon, 45. She and her husband, 50, are having as much sex as when they were newlyweds 19 years ago. They will probably do it more than once on Friday when they both have a day off work, she coyly added.
This Sunday, Mr. Young will have one last chat with his church members about sex, a roundup to the week of love-making. As a next step, he will suggest that couples revisit how often they had sex before the challenge and seek to double it.
And is it possible Fellowship Church will be reminded of the sex marathon nine months from now?
"Maybe we'll have a baby boom," Mr. Young laughed.
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