Tweaking scheduled sex plan might keep both of you happy

Q. I work full-time and have two young children.

To me, it makes perfect sense to plan sex for certain evenings rather than rely on spontaneous lovemaking when we finally hit the sack and all I want to do is sleep. But my husband complains that for him, “sex by appointment” is un-sexy and takes all the fun out of things. How can we compromise?

A. In a long-term relationship, the competing demands of work and kids are rarely conducive to spontaneous sex. In an ideal world we’d all get back after a day at the coalface, cook dinner, help with the homework, clean up, get the kids to bed, walk the dog, put the bins out, and then be so overwhelmed with lust at the sight of our partner slipping into a pair of pyjamas that we’d feel compelled to rip off our clothes and make mad passionate love to them.