Sex and Relationships

How to Fix Your Relationship Once the Sex Stops

It's an Epidemic!
...
"Are we truly meant for each other?"
"Are we growing bored of each other?"
"Has the lust faded?  The glimmer dimmed???  Now the reality of the dynamic has set in...is this what I am destined for?"

These are all viable questions and thoughts.
But truth be told, most relationships steer themselves in this direction...for a multitude of reasons.  Some reasons are common/normal types of evolutionary relationship changes (ie, children)...while others, are not of the healthy variety (multiple partners)...etc...

Where did all that sex go?

New York Magazine published a piece today that featured excerpts from different men and women talking about sex with a long term significant other – or more specifically, the lack thereof.  It’s not breaking news that mind-bending, teeth-chattering sex many couples enjoy when they first get together can start to decline over time. The article examines fifteen different couples where sex became an issue for them for a variety of reasons from a lack of desirability to one woman with a  string of partners who couldn’t keep up with her.

However this article doesn’t address the real question on our minds, the real reason we’d click on this in the first place: what the heck are we supposed to do when we stop having the sex we once had with our partners?  There were some common trends I noticed that spanned across these fifteen different accounts. Here’s what we can learn so you don’t reproduce their lack of reproductivity.

It’s easy to take a lack of sex personally.
If your partner seems less interested in you than he used to be, the natural conclusion is “I’m a grotesque human being.” But there could be many reasons why he is less and less interested in sex – stress, exhaustion, or simply falling into a rut of comfortable domesticity.

It’s scary to talk about.
Confronting someone about why they don’t want to have sex anymore is terrifying because there’s a distinct possibility the answer will be unpleasant. However, not addressing the issue seems to be even deadlier. Passion can fad, but having a discussion about desirability is the best way to discover new ways to surprise one another.

The fact that men want sex more than women is a fallacy.
There were a few instances where women felt there was something wrong with them because they wanted sex more than their partners. When the women were always initiating, they felt something was wrong with them. Even worse, they felt there was something wrong with him. The truth is, some people just want and need more sex than others, which is perfectly fine! The important thing is to know what you need/expect and to understand what your partner needs/expects.

Nothing is deadlier to your sex drive than a lack of self-confidence.
How are you supposed to get lost in the moment when all you can think about is how your stomach rolls are particularly noticeable at this angle? If you really feel bad about how you look, there’s nothing your partner can say that will change your mind. This is a tough thing to tackle because, sure, we’d all love to snap our fingers and suddenly just accept ourselves, flaws and all, but that’s a lifelong journey. If you find yourself distracted by how you look, try to change your focus to your partner, and what you love about them.

It’s okay to be tired and not want sex all the time, but sometimes you gotta try harder.
Life is exhausting, and being exhausted isn’t sexy. But simply throwing up your hands and allowing sex to slip away because you’re tired or because you just don’t ever feel like it means you’re giving up something pretty grea. Sometimes you have to force yourself to get into the mood, and trust me once you get started it won’t feel like work.

Article by Laura Willcox