How to Stay Passionate in a Long-term Relationship
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Losing ‘the spark’ is bound to happen in any long-term relationship.
It’s a hard pill to swallow — especially when that excitement of the honeymoon phase felt so passionate and so effortless.
Harder still, when you’ve committed to the person you love, only to feel the disappointment of losing sexual passion soon after.
It feels so wrong. And so disappointing.
Yet “the drift” happens to most couples.
You go from feeling like you can do anything and everything as long as your partner is by your side ... to feeling like roommates or enemies.
Sexual passion and excitement start to fade. You reach for your pet more than you reach for each other. And somehow household chores feel more important that the love of your life.
It’s no surprise that couples get confused and frustrated here.
They have no idea how to stop drifting into roommate-land.
They begin to think that they are doing something wrong.
Or that they’re somehow wrong.
Or that they’re incompatible — or worse, that their love is false.
Couples go into shame cycles, reinforced by the cultural messages that once you fall in love, everything should fall into place easily.
The radical idea here is that sex is supposed to die in a long-term relationship. There are forces at play that have nothing to do with our love or commitment to each other that make it so. Forces that are important to understand if you want to create the kind of passionate and connected sex that will last into the decades.
What motivated you to hook up sexually is not what’s going to help you sustain passion in the long-term. And avoiding the typical mistakes that couples make can prevent the death of sex becoming the death of your relationship.
The Evolution of Sex in a Relationship
It’s a classic story. The couple falls in love and things are exciting and passionate.
As the relationship progresses, sex gets less and less passionate and more and more sparse. And that sexual connections starts to die.
“The Drift” has done it again!
No matter how hard you, your partner or the both of you try, there will come a time in your relationship where the kind of sex you’ve experienced in the beginning — sex that’s driven by hormones, lust and excitement — will and should die.
And it’s a good thing.
There are three types of sex in a long-term relationship that you should know about, and two of them die naturally.
And the other one?
Once you recognize the death of the first two types, you get to cultivate and create the third one — and set it up to last for a lifetime.
Let’s go through these one by one.
Friction Sex
This is sex at the beginning of a relationship. Driven by hormones of sexual attraction, newness and the desire to play around, it’s all about fun and friction — two bodies next to each other, creating pleasure and getting off with each other. It can be erotic and fulfilling, amplified by the thrill and anticipation brought about by being with someone new.
While there is fun and passion in Friction Sex, there is little or no space for intimacy nor vulnerability here. In fact, couples tend to avoid both — because these have the potential to slow them down and “kill the mood,” distracting from the goal of pure fun, pleasure and orgasm.
Couples eventually run out of things to do physically (as there are only so many holes and so many ways to twist yourself into a pretzel to make it more fun), and they hit a wall.
Without emotional connection and an openness to talk about feelings and desires, couples get bored. Worse, they lack the tools to address the oh-so-common challenges of being in a relationship with someone — like being able to ask for what they want or to share how they feel — so they might get stuck being able to convey these important messages to each other.
Unless propped up by continuous search of the new and exciting position or toy, or drugs and alcohol, Friction Sex has a natural end of life in a long-term relationship. Simply, it just has nowhere to go. Couples here question their attraction to each other and often split up here.
Validation Sex
As you begin to develop feelings for your partner, sex starts to take on a different role. It becomes an expression of care and love, wanting to please and take care of each other. When it happens, it feels so good on a deeper level — after all, feeling validated by your partner as being sexy, desirable and lovable is what being in relationship is all about.
Thus I call this type of sex Validation Sex, and it can be incredibly passionate, fun and connected.
But … invariably life happens: responsibilities take over, there are days you’re cranky or plain tired, or you just had a fight — and you have to reject your partner’s advances, or not initiate at all. You might get tired of the same old in sex and not feel as excited to get into bed. You might have moments of not really liking your partner when you’re fighting and sex feels like a stretch. Or you might fear upsetting your partner or losing that validation, and not ask for what you really want.
All of this rocks the validation boat. It brings up fears about desirability, lovability, sexiness, and worthiness.
And it starts to reflect in sex.
Some couples begin the pursuer/withdrawer dance, where one person pursues to get their hit of validation, and the withdrawer shuts down under the pressure. It culminates in fights and constant tension. The couple play out their attachment wounds and patterns from childhood, getting stuck into painful cycles that require the help of a professional coach.
Or couples begin to tiptoe around each other, playing it safe.
The woman might typically worry about asking for what she wants to not upset the man: “I can’t ask him for that. I don't want to turn him off or upset him. What if I push him away?”
So she pulls back her enthusiasm for sex because she can’t get her needs met.
The man will feel her hesitation and respond, not wanting to put pressure or hurt her, especially when she is not showing much interest: “I don’t want to come on too strong and force her, so I’ll just retreat and wait for her to initiate.”
He pulls back emotionally too, and she feels his lack of interest and connection.
Here, couples spiral out, not knowing how to really connect, not knowing how to express how much that validation means to them and not knowing how to ask for what they really want and need.
And that gets passed into sex, killing the passion and genuine erotic connection. And Validation Sex begins to die out with it.
Couples here might go for taking care of each other’s sexual needs rather than focusing on the authentic and vulnerable expressions of their own sexual desires and vulnerability.
But as they hold back vulnerability, for fear of causing hurt feelings or rejection, it makes them fall back into Friction Sex just to get the deed over with or to “maintain” the relationship. But without the emotional connection, Friction Sex makes them feel lonelier still.
Or they may get stuck in sexual gridlock, getting into fights over initiating sex or having more of it. With that, they add more anxiety and pressure on top of sex, making it an obligation (and at the same time resenting that it is).
Why Sex Dies in a Long-term Relationship
And this point, both types of sex reach end of life. They have nowhere to go.
The passion that was present in the beginning naturally naturally wanes.
Couples get stuck in frustrating and hopeless cycles.
Sex dies.
And it’s a good thing, because it’s sex that’s been built on a foundation of:
Biological motivators: sexual attraction and desire to land a partner and mate that naturally die out
Demands for validation that kill sexual passion
Expectations that partners have for each other that were never discussed or agreed to, thus create pressure and resentment
Old patterns from past relationships that do not match the current circumstances
Friction Sex and Validation Sex are sex with a demand or agenda — and this is NOT erotic sex.
These types of sex do not last. They’re not meant to.
The key is to not to try to resuscitate sex here — IT NEEDS TO DIE!
What happens here is super important to the sex you can create in the future.
Use the death of sex as a starting point of a new stage — a new type of sex — that’s driven by:
listening to each other needs
understanding yourselves and each other
speaking what you need, including what has you feel validated and important AND what has you feel sexual
accessing passion that’s not dictated by the mood you’re in … but that comes from deliberate attention to each other
creating sex that comes from a genuine sexual connection
The Kind of Sex that Lasts in a Long-term Relationship
The third type of sex you get to create and make it uniquely yours. It’s a version of sex that doesn’t depend on the mood or the weather — and attunes to you and your partner, wherever you are in your relationship.
It embodies individual freedom and at the same time, connection with another person.
It’s what I call …
Connection Sex
… and it’s based on connection. Intimate connection. Sensual connection. Vulnerable connection. Open connection. Sexual connection.
And Connection Sex is not just about sex.
It’s a different way of life — different way of relating to each other — and out of that, sex flows.
The excitement for each other comes from the risk involved in staying with the vulnerability and openness of physical and emotional connection.
It’s a different way of being sexual with each other — it about seeing each other as individuals. In the words of Anais Nin, it’s “look[ing] at your partner like they’re magic.”
It’s practicing curiosity, asking yourselves and each other: Who is that person in front of you? What’s going on for them? What do they crave and desire?
It’s “eyes wide open sex,” where you’re willing to look at each other and be seen.
It’s a lifestyle choice rooted in prioritizing being lovers — carving out time for each other to connects, to listen to each other’s hearts and explore physically without pressure or time constraints.
It’s a kind of sex where you sharing dreams, desires and fears with each other, and let each other in.
And it’s a kind of sex where you flirt and play with each other, stealing moments of connection, and making each other feel important and desired.
In Connection Sex, there’s space for both excitement and deep emotions, passion and vulnerability, change and evolution.
It’s good for the couple and it’s good for women’s desire, too.
It should not come as a surprise that this kind of way of life is conducive to women’s libido in a long-term relationship.
Women’s libido thrives when there is emotional connection and time and space deliberately carved out for being lovers. When there is space and attention to discuss her needs. And women become sexually open when they’re not rushed to get turned on — when it’s a flowing and natural process, like allowing a flower bud to open (not a task to do at the end of an exhausting day).
This is the kind of sex that lasts through the evolution of the relationship.
Whether you’re going through child-rearing, aging or whatever life throws your way, Connection Sex weathers the storms because you stay connected and open with each other.
Avoid These Common Mistakes that Push You Away from Each Other
Death of Sex brings up a lot of emotions. Confusion. Disappointment. Anger. Blame. Hopelessness. Defeat.
It’s one of the hardest points in the evolution of a relationship.
The death of sex does lead many couples to (wrongly) conclude that they’re simply not made for each other.
Here are the mistakes that couples make.
Avoid these, and the death of sex can become the starting point for creating the kind of sex — and intimate relationship — that aligns with the love you have for each other.
1. Deny the death of sex in your relationship
Death of sex is natural and normal. It happens to all of us, many times and at various points of a relationship: post childbirth, moves and career changes, menopause, loss.
But when you deny that it’s happening — or worse, try to resuscitate what has died — you dig a deeper grave for it.
Because by denying the death of sex, you deny the feelings that go with it. Resentments and disappointments go unacknowledged, and fears get amplified. At some point, the scales will tip towards apathy or contempt — which often cannot be repaired.
If you cannot acknowledge what you had before — the happy and passionate moments — and feel the sadness of their passing, you cannot lay those times to rest. And you cannot start anew.
2. Try to fix sex by yourself, instead of as a team
The death of sex isn’t just about sex — it’s about the emotional toll of the disconnect, plus the disappointments and fears that go with it that are the problem.
It is likely the lack of communication and trying to do it alone is what contributed to the deeper disconnect over the death of sex. Trying to go at it alone now will only add to it.
Connection Sex is all about connection between the two of you … which naturally requires partnership and a focus on both of your needs, desires and likes. A single person in a couple cannot create Connection Sex without the other.
3. Try to be sexual again without healing the hurts beneath
Mainstream advice tells you to go on date nights to revive the passion. Or get new sex toys to spice it up. And many couples do that, only landing themselves into deeper disappointment, resentment and blame.
You fool yourselves trying to fix it on the surface, because there is something deeper going on inside.
For couples in a long-term relationship, no amount of toys or date nights is going to heal the devastation of the death of sex. Couples who struggled with painful patterns of conflict and pursuer/withdrawer dynamics, getting their way back to safety will require professional help. It takes the laser eye of an experienced couples coach to help to break through the deeply-rooted cycles to bring the couple back to safety. Then, and only then, can sexual exploration and growth begin.
Staying passionate in a long-term relationship is not automatic. You don’t “default into” a passionate long-term relationship.
It’s something to be deliberate about.
It’s something that’s intentionally built.
Which means that is a choice for you to make.
Dare to follow your heart. Dare intimacy.
P.S. When you’re ready to find your way back to yourself and your partner, here are a few options for you:
SCAN through my articles and you’ll find pearls of wisdom about women’s libido and reviving a sexless relationship.
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