“You should know what I like.” Imagine an evening when your partner’s gesture misses the mark: this phrase comes to your lips. It sounds like a self-evident truth in love. If you love me, you know me; if you know me, you’ll figure it out. The problem is that it turns a desire into an ordeal. Your partner is no longer receiving information about your desire; they’re receiving a grade—and that grade arrives before they even knew they were taking a test. A study conducted among 308 couples and published in 2026 examined the links between intimacy, satisfaction, and a related, more general tendency: demanding perfection from others. Based on this study, I invite you to take a look at your expectations: expressing what you like, or expecting your partner to guess it without fail.
When a Preference Becomes a Demand for Perfection
A preference expresses what makes you feel good. A demand for perfection expresses what the other person should have done right. In the latter case, the other person sees a mistake where you simply had a desire.
Here are a few hypothetical phrases to illustrate the point. “I like it when you take your time at the beginning” is a preference: it provides information, it’s open to discussion, and it can evolve. “You should know by now that I need time” is something else entirely: the information is no longer provided; it’s assumed to be known, and its absence becomes a fault. The same goes for spontaneity. “I love it when you take the initiative” opens a door. “If I have to ask you, it doesn’t count” closes it, because it makes the one thing that would allow the other person to learn impossible: being told.
A third, more subtle shift: turning pleasure into proof. When every encounter serves to verify whether the other person loves you enough, knows you enough, or desires you enough, pleasure ceases to be a shared experience and becomes a verdict on the person’s worth. You can express a preference without making it a judgment on the person.
None of this makes you a difficult person. Having specific tastes, knowing what turns you on and what turns you off, is a treasure. The warning sign isn’t the intensity of your desires; it’s their silent, unquestionable nature.
Demanding perfection from yourself, demanding it from others, feeling judged
Researchers have long distinguished three types of perfectionism, and they are not to be confused with one another: demanding perfection from yourself; demanding perfection from others; and believing that others demand perfection from you. A systematic review published in 2023 in the Iranian Journal of Psychiatry reiterates these definitions and emphasizes another point: sexual perfectionism relates to sexuality, whereas general perfectionism more broadly concerns expectations of oneself and others.
| Orientation | What’s at stake | What you might hear in bed (imagined example) |
|---|---|---|
| Demanding of oneself | High standards for one’s own behavior | “I want to live up to expectations tonight” |
| Demanding of others | Expecting the other person to be flawless | “You should have sensed that” |
| Feeling Judged | Believing that others expect perfection from you | “I feel like I’m being graded” |
The 2023 review brings together six studies with diverse methodologies—five of which were cross-sectional—conducted primarily with women. Its results vary depending on the dimension of perfectionism and the aspect of sexuality studied: desire, for example, may be positively associated with certain forms of perfectionism, while other aspects of sexual life are negatively associated with it. Let me be clear: having standards is not a flaw. Silently imposing them on someone else is another story.
Less Emotional Intimacy in the Partner
The 2026 study, authored by Noémie Viens, Frédéric Langlois, and Marie-Pier Vaillancourt-Morel and published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, surveyed cohabiting couples twice over the course of a year. The methodology can be summed up in one sentence, quoted from the abstract published on PubMed: “A total of 308 cohabiting couples completed online questionnaires twice over one year.”
Its most telling finding concerns other-oriented perfectionism—that is, the general tendency to demand perfection from others, not necessarily in bed or solely from one’s partner. A higher score on the first questionnaire was associated, on the second, with lower relationship satisfaction in the individual themselves, as well as lower relationship and sexual satisfaction in their partner, via lower emotional intimacy in that partner at the second measurement point.
Sexual satisfaction here refers to the reported appreciation of one’s sex life. The pleasure of a particular sexual encounter is a different question. As for “you should know,” here’s the scenario I’d like you to imagine: the questionnaires measured a general personality trait, emotional intimacy and levels of satisfaction.
Self-oriented perfectionism follows a different path in this study: it was associated with greater emotional intimacy in the individual themselves, mediated by higher sexual satisfaction at the same follow-up measurement. This is not a reason to praise perfectionism, but it does serve as a reminder that demanding more of oneself and demanding more of others do not have the same associations.
The PubMed abstract is the only part of this study I was able to read. Since intimacy and satisfaction were measured at the same follow-up time point, these associations do not prove a chain of events in which high expectations would first cause intimacy to decline, followed by a decline in satisfaction.
Put Your Expectations into Words Before Turning Them into a Verdict
What follows is not a protocol validated by researchers: these are suggestions from Sex à la française for bringing an unspoken expectation into the open. The idea is simple: stating an expectation gives the other person information they can discuss, accept, or reject.
Expecting your partner to read your mind. Instead of “you should know,” try, for example: “There’s something I’d like, and I realize I’ve never really told you that.” You’re not giving anything up. You’re simply relieving the other person of the blame for not having read your mind.
Demanding spontaneity. The trap lies in a desire that would lose its value in your eyes if you asked for it. You could suggest: “I love being surprised. If I tell you what I like, you’re free to choose when and how.” What you share becomes a repertoire your partner can draw on, leaving room for surprise.
Constant evaluation. If you feel that every evening is turning into a grade, acknowledge it to yourself before bringing it up together: Did this gesture disappoint me, or am I drawing a conclusion about his or her worth from it? Then separate the two out loud: “Tonight, it didn’t do much for me. That says nothing about how I feel about you.”
This last point seems to me to be the most important. Specify what you didn’t like rather than what it says about the other person. Saying “I would have liked more time” leaves room for discussion. “You never pay attention to me” extends the disappointment of the evening to the person as a whole and can put your partner on the defensive.
Give the Other Person the Right to Try
Pleasing someone in bed is a skill that can be learned, and learning involves the right to make mistakes. Ask yourself how much room you’re leaving for adjustment: after a disappointment, does your partner hear a specific request, or the conclusion that they’ll never measure up?
The other side of the coin is being open to feedback. When your partner corrects you—“not like that, more like this”—hear it as insight into their desires rather than a failure. And if you constantly feel like you’re taking a test, say so too, without accusing: “Sometimes I feel like I have to ‘pass’ something. I’d like us to be able to get things wrong together.”
One last, essential point: none of this requires you to lower your standards or accept what you don’t like. Your boundaries remain boundaries, your desires remain desires, and no one should have sex to prove anything. What changes is the nature of your expectations: they become open to revision, shared, and open to discussion.
In a few words
So the next time “you should know” is on the tip of your tongue, make a specific choice: replace it with what you actually want. Give your partner information rather than a test. “I would like this” instead of “you should have.” Then let them respond: is it a shared desire, something to explore, or something they are not comfortable with? You will have an expectation to discuss together, rather than a test for which only one person knows the rules.
