5 Most Common Mistakes Couples Make When Working on a Sex Problem in a Long-term Relationship

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Frustrating mistakes couples make fixing sex in a long-term relationship

Over the last decade, I’ve had the privilege to be trusted by hundreds of highly distressed couples dealing with an ongoing problem of sexual desire in a long-term relationship to carry them to safety and build a connected, loving and sexually-fulfilled relationship.

As you can read in their own success stories of transformation and joy, anonymous but written in their own words, they’ve made these mistakes over and over, causing them immense heartache and too often, the brink of divorce.

I’ve compiled a list of very common — and very understandable — mistakes that couples make to help you prevent this unnecessary pain and get the resources you need sooner. Whether it’s an issue of low or lack of sexual desire, or lack of passion in the bedroom after decades together, the resources to support you are a free consultation away.

1. Working on the sex problem individually

If you’re having a problem with sex with each other, it’s a couples issue, not an individual one. Unless you desire to have sex with a comatose partner, your partner has a role in what happens. The sustainable solution requires both people to be interested and committed in making their joint sex life better. It requires both to be in the room to understand each other and learn new skills. You can get the resources you need on your own, but ultimately, you have to learn new practices and new ways of having conversations with your partner to solve it.

I do not work with members of a couple individually because it can significantly hurt their relationship. If I were to work with an individual not the couple, I would end up seeing the dynamic through that individual’s eyes — through their hurt, their biases, and their stuckness — instead of seeing it through my expert eyes. What is a couples issue therefore needs to be addressed by the couple together, both being part of the process and solution.

2. Working on your sex problem through books and free online content

Books and free online content are wonderful if your sex problem is recent and has been going on for less than a year. You may be stuck and wanting to find inspiration, new perspectives and a mindset change on what is possible and which direction to take. You have not yet developed a deep level of disappointment and frustration and have the possibility of figuring this out yourselves.

If your problem has been going on for more than a year — and especially if the situation is deteriorating emotionally — working on this without getting personalized support is actually hurting your relationship. The more time goes by, the more emotionally disconnected you become and the deeper the wounds get. They you get caught in the downward “death” spiral of intimacy-destroying behaviors that threaten your relationship as well. The real shifts come from experiential work — doing things differently and re-connecting — not just by intellectually understanding that it’s necessary.

My personalized coaching approach is about taking you through a step-by-step process that teaches you to relate in a way that feels connecting, easy — and arousing. It’s about learning new communication and sexual skills, not just talking about them. And it’s about transforming your relationship to make it work better, the way my “Intimacy Warrior” clients have done.

3. Approaching the problem piece-meal

You might only have had enough time or interest to read one book, try an exercise for a couple of days, then find yourself losing interest as “life takes over.”

The most common problem, ever! Every one of my clients have gone through the yo-yo pattern. No, they’re not stupid or incapable. But they are using the wrong approach to the problem because it’s compelling and it makes you feel good — temporarily.

Until it makes you feel worse.

Working on a sex problem piece-meal gives you the illusion that you’re making progress — you’re doing something after all. But the failure to sustain the progress and get through the inevitable dips causes you to feel worse about yourself and about your relationship.

You feel bad that you can’t stick to something, like it’s a personal failure. And you also convince yourself that nothing works to fix your problem — the exercise or the approach is simply wrong for you. You fall prey to fatalistic thinking and believe that things are indeed hopeless. “See, I’ve tried EVERYTHING and NOTHING works,” you tell yourself.

The thing about change — especially when in involves a sensitive topic such as sex and intimacy — is that you go through ups and downs, successful periods and lots of dips. Ask anyone who’s gotten good at something.

The journey to being good at something is not linear.
It has ups and downs, dips and peaks, unexpected turns and detours.
It requires persistence and takes a whole lot of perspiration.
And it needs handholding from a sherpa and guide who knows how to move you through the dips and keep you going.

My clients will tell you that working on things consistently, through weekly sessions and constant touch points, has helped them not only sustain progress but make their lives so much easier. You can read about their journeys in their success stories, all expressed in their own words.

4. Arguing about sex — when none of this has anything to do with sex

If you’re struggling to fix an ongoing sex problem, or worse, it’s making you feel disconnected and distanced, it’s no longer a sex problem. It’s an intimacy problem. And when that lingers, it becomes a major relationship problem, by devolving into a “death" spiral of intimacy-destroying behaviors.

If you’re stuck in endless loops arguing about who is initiating (or not), you need expert intervention to take this conversation to a vulnerable level to help you both feel heard and understood.

Because at that point, the conversation is about one of three question, which go back to your attachment patterns:

  • Am I important to you?

  • Can I be myself with you?

  • Will you be there for me in distress?

Being stuck in the sexual conflict is like fog and mirrors, blocking what you need to see about your partner — and sharing what you want them to see about you. It’s about understanding each other and healing the hurts behind resentments and distance.

Until you can get to this level of vulnerability, you will spiral out, hurting each other in the process.

5. Endlessly chasing possible causes of the problem instead of taking practical steps to come closer together.

It’s become fashionable to be “armchair therapists,” diagnosing ourselves and each other with what is wrong with is. However, knowing what is wrong does absolutely nothing to actually solve the problem practically.

Understanding your type of attachment does nothing to help you leave the argument feeling heard and understood, instead of abandoned.

You need a guided step-by-step approach — tailored to your specific situation — to solve your problem practically, so you can move on to enjoy your life and each other.

Like initiating sex in an easy and spontaneous way. Or asking for what you want without feeling ashamed. Or scheduling “no underwear brunch” after Church every Sunday, the way one of my clients do now.

Too often, traditional analytical couples therapy doesn’t help either, as it focuses too much on understanding the problem, rather than helping you solve it. Here is a check-list to know if you’re getting the best guidance in your sessions — or are stuck in a frustrating holding pattern:

  1. If you’re NOT consistently experiencing connection with your partner in your therapy sessions, you’re going down the wrong path. Spending more time in therapy will do nothing. Your therapist needs to be expert enough to help you restructure your interactions with each other — from criticism to vulnerability, from closedness to closeness — so that connection becomes the reality, not a future promise. Your hope is on the line.

  2. Analyzing what's gone wrong and why needs to be a tiny fraction of what you do. Real intimacy is not theory or analysis; it's an experience that must be modeled and fostered in every word you speak to each other, every gesture, every move. Your therapist should be modeling this for you and helping you live this. The alternative deepens the wounds that pull you two apart.

  3. If you’re committing to a session-by-session model of therapy, you’ll face a frustratingly long and arduous path that may or may not get you where you want to go. It’s a costly risk that most couples are unwilling to take. Rebuilding intimacy needs to be an intentional step-by-step process, backed by success stories, and led by a specialist who believes in your relationship and your love. 

The thing about these five very common mistakes is that they’re understandable. When you might be pulled by other priorities, such as child-caring and your career, working on sex & intimacy in a relationship may feel superfluous or unnecessary. All of my clients felt that same way, putting off working with someone until things got bad. But there is something that we don’t often consider that helped them make the decision — and it was their heart.

They knew deep in their hearts that their relationship and love deserved more — and they fought for it. It’s why I call my clients “Intimacy Warriors.” They followed their hearts … and the heart always knows.

Dare to follow your heart. Dare intimacy.

P.S. When you’re ready to find your way back to each other, here are a few options for you: