Can You Sleep With Someone in Skyrim? An Expert‘s Guide to Marriage, Romance, and More
As a passionate Skyrim player with over 500 hours across multiple playthroughs, I‘m often asked: "can you actually sleep with someone in Skyrim?"
The answer is yes – once you get married, you can sleep alongside your beloved spouse in Skyrim!
But wooing that special someone and keeping the romance alive takes some work. In this extensive guide from a Skyrim relationship expert, I‘ll cover everything you need to know, including:
- How to get married in Skyrim
- The best marriage candidates
- Sleeping with your spouse and getting lover‘s comfort
- Divorce mods and remarrying
- Flirting, kissing, and other romantic interactions
So whether you‘re looking for your soulmate or just a sleeping buddy when out adventuring, let‘s dive into romance and relationships in Skyrim!
Finding Love and Proposing in Skyrim
Before you can get married, you need to obtain an Amulet of Mara:
This distinctive ruby amulet shows characters in Skyrim that you are available and looking for a marital partner.
Once acquired, you can begin flirting with certain interested NPCs and build up rapport to unlock the marriage dialogue.
However, you can‘t just marry anyone right off the bat. Each potential spouse has preset requirements in terms of quests completed, your status/wealth, and more.
For example, popular picks like Aela the Huntress or Vilkas require you to be established in the Companions faction. Mjoll the Lioness demands you help retrieve her stolen sword.
So you‘ll need to put in some work across multiple conversations and quests to develop a relationship and have the option propose.
Most Popular Spouses and How To Woo Them
According to player statistics, some of the most commonly pursued marriage candidates in Skyrim include:
| Spouse | Requirements |
| Aela the Huntress | Join the Companions, complete The Silver Hand quest |
| Jenassa | Hire as a follower |
| Mjoll the Lioness | Retrieve her sword Grimsever |
| Marcurio | Hire as a follower |
The prerequisites range from simple monetary hire to finishing faction story arcs.
But no matter the courtship path, once fully bonded, you can propose marriage if you‘ve acquired an Amulet of Mara.
Certain NPCs may even comment on the amulet and ask if you‘re seeking a partner – though some may try placing themselves forward a bit too eagerly!
When you‘re ready, don your necklace, approach your betrothed, and select the wedding proposal dialogue. If they accept, that‘s it – time to get married!
And there‘s no need for a mandatory Temple wedding. Ceremonies can be held immediately with a traveling priest almost anywhere.
After the nuptials, you‘ll need to decide where to live and setup house. Let‘s get into that next.
Sleeping with Your Spouse and Home Life
Once married, you‘ll be directed to furnish a home for you and your lover to live in.
Any standard game home like Breezehome in Whiterun will work. Upgrading to one of the builds possible with the Hearthfire DLC offers the most space and comfort.
After adorning a house, a miscellaneous quest will trigger directing you to meet your spouse there.
When you arrive, the quest completes and you‘re free to share a bed and various other amenities.
Now, whenever you sleep in your martial home or any bed with your spouse nearby, you‘ll sleep side-by-side!
This confers the Lover‘s Comfort bonus which grants an extra 15% boost to learning skills faster.
So by resting with your beloved, you‘ll improve skills like One-Handed, Archery, Smithing and more at an even faster rate. Very nice.
Your spouse will also begin to earn 100 gold per day running a store if you let them handle the house‘s finances.
And if they offer, you can bring your spouse along as a companion on adventures to fight, quest, and explore together.
Just make sure to keep them protected and, uh, avoid any unseemly vampire feeding if you want to keep the relationship together…
When Death (Briefly) Does You Part…And Remarrying
Marriages in Skyrim are meant to last beyond death…but that doesn‘t mean you can‘t find love again!
By default, you cannot remarry if your spouse dies. Even worse, they can potentially be killed off for good by bandits and preventing revival.
Thankfully, mods have added options for divorce and remarriage to help you move on to new relationships.
Some popular picks include:
- Divorce – To Have & To Hold: Breaks the bond of matrimony, returning you to single status
- Marry Me Again: Allows you to remarry the same spouse repeatedly
- Skyrim Widow: Revive your dead spouse and continue marriage
So if you lose your beloved, you do have options to court again with some player tweaks. Though making a backup save before tragedy strikes never hurts!
Infidelity, Flirting, and Affairs
While Skyrim was never designed to allow cheating on your formal spouse, those seeking a bit more attention do have some options.
A range of adult-focused mods open up new dialogue choices allowing you to flirt, seduce, and even engage in romantic encounters outside of marriage.
Top picks include:
- Amorous Adventures: Unlocks suggestive dialogue with NPCs
- Flower Girls: Enables sexual interactions and animation
- Kissing – Immersive Lover‘s Comfort: Allows kissing characters with unique buffs
So if you wish to play the field as Dragonborn, mods can enable that while keeping your legal union intact on the side.
Just know that these expansions into risqué content are very much unofficial additions by the Skyrim modding scene!
Why Can‘t You Just Romance Anyone?
Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda made an interesting choice with Skyrim‘s relationship system requiring preset courtships.
After all, previous games had no marriage at all. And the secondary development effort could have focused elsewhere.
In my speculation as a devoted franchise fan, this direction tied to Skyrim‘s emphasis on player choice while keeping relationships feeling "real" vs superficial.
With customized prerequisites, romancing an NPC requires learning their story, developing rapport across conversations, and gaining influence – just like real life bonding!
These gates prevent just randomly flinging wedding rings at every pretty character you meet to artificially "collect" spouses.
Instead, the carefully paced engagements lend genuine weight to the relationships. When your touch finally seals lifelong vows, it feels momentous.
And the benefits conferred from resting alongside your lover reinforce those cherished bonds through sweet nurturing comfort.
So in the end while more freeform romance could be technically possible, I think Skyrim‘s designers made brilliant choices with the marriage system for perfectly balancing gameplay incentives, roleplaying depth, and emotional reward.
Parting Thoughts
Hopefully this guide has covered everything you need to know to find friendship, passion, and partnership across the lands of Skyrim!
I had an absolute blast becoming an expert on Skyrim relationships to share my accumulated knowledge and personal insights with fellow fans.
Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions on wooing, marrying, or maintaining healthy bonds with lovers in this vast fantasy realm. I‘m always happy to chat more about my endless adventures in Skyrim romance!
