7 Insights to Understand About Each Other That Make Sex Flow in a Long-term Relationship

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Intimacy insights to make sex flow in long-term relationship

One of the main reasons why couples run into sexual problems is that they assume they know their partners, while they’re actually projecting their own logic onto them. It’s like trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole.

At best, massive miscommunication follows. At worst, both people form a sense that your partners doesn’t get you and doesn’t care.

This can be avoided — easily — by getting curious about each other and having conversations about sex.

Talking about sex is not just a nice-to-have — it is actually crucial for stoking desire for it and enjoying it.

According to John Gottman, PhD, the foremost research scientist of relationships and head of the Love Lab at University of Washington in Seattle: of the couples who can’t comfortably talk about sex with one another, only 9% say that they’re satisfied sexually.

In other words, if you do not talk about sex, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you won’t have a good sex life.

The following questions help you hone in onto seven (plus a bonus one) important insights about your partner that will help you connect more intimately, build closer sexual connection and make sex that’s more than just the same-old boring motions.

It is about getting to know your partner, but you’re not off the hook here. You also need to know the answers to these questions for yourself. If you don’t know the answers about yourself, your partner has 0% chance of knowing and delivering on them for you.

Don’t fret if you don’t know the answers. Stay curious and observe, what has worked in the past before, even a little bit?

Plus, use this intuitive process to turn your common complaints into desires.

Be sure to hold these conversations outside of sex, in a relaxed setting where you’re both open and connected and are not rearing to go.

To get started, here is a free worksheet to write down your answers and your partner’s.

 

1. What will have you feel appreciated today?

Asked daily, this question is a gift that keeps on giving well beyond the 24 hours. When we’re overwhelmed with “real life” that distracts us from our partners, knowing what will have your partner feel loved and appreciated that very day makes them feel important — and it fills their cup. It’s a lot easier to give sexually from a full cup than from an empty one. We could guess what our partner’s need based on their love language, but nothing signals “you’re important to me” than asking this directly and letting your partner tell you what would make the biggest difference for them.

2. What will have you feel desired today?

We take desiring each other for granted, as evidenced by how non-sexual most couples act on a day-to-day basis. Flirting goes by the wayside, when responsibilities take over, and leaves sexual desire as something that appears on special date nights or vacation.

Posting this question to your partner daily will help to stoke the sexual connection and connect you as lovers. Just like the previous question, by merely asking about it, you send a signal to your partner that they’re important to you and that you care about whether or not they feel desired by you.

Now, doing something that will have your partner feel desired does not mean that you have to deliver on sex as a result. Sometimes sex spontaneously follows, but more often than not, the gestures fills their cup so that sex can flow at other times.

3. What will have you feel supported today?

Intentionally doing something every day to have your partner feel supported fills their cup, full stop. And having your partner tell you how they want to be supported gives you information on how to do it in the most impactful way.

I know what you’re thinking here, so let’s pause for a second.

These are not sexual questions or questions about how to make sex better, you say.

Indeed. These are questions to help you feel important to each other — and what can bring us closer together, knowing that your partner is choosing you each and every day.

Meeting each other’s need for appreciation, desire and support builds closeness and fills your cup. And when you’re closer, sex and sexual desire tend to flow easily and spontaneously.

Respect, admiration and appreciation go a long way in stoking — and solidifying — sexual desire and passion for each other. Cut these out, and you end up having sex that’s just about the motions or the finish line, and little about connection or love.

Now, let’s get to some sex questions.

4. How do you signal that you want affection?

This is where most couples, in virtue of being human, get tripped up. We think we signal for affection in the same way, in the same circumstances, and so we expect our partners to get our reactions and vice versa.

Nope.

Again, in virtue of being different humans, we signal differently for affection, as well as other things. Some ask for it, others hint. For some affection starts physical, for others it happens verbally first.

Ask your partner about their signals and what they mean — and how your partner expects them to be fulfilled. This sets you up to succeed in delivering them, and allows your partner to deliver on yours.

5. How do you signal that you want sexual attention?

We’ve been wrongly led to believe that there is a universal way to signal that you want sex that transcends gender, which has led men and women to misread each other’s cues — and experience massive heartache and disappointment.

The reality is that men and women signal that they want sexual attention differently. In fact, for most women, the way we signal we want sex has nothing to do with sex in the first place.

How we communicate sexual desire — and when — depends on the model of sexual desire that you run on. Do you have spontaneous sexual desire or responsive? Do you need connection, sexy contexts and pleasurable stimulation to feel sexy, and eventually sexual, or do you want sex just at the mere thought or vision of your partner?

Knowing how your sexual desire functions — and what cues you are sending out to get what you need — lead to you having your desires met.

Read:

6. What makes you feel safe to open up with each other in sex?

Opening up to each other in sex is a prerequisite to having a passionate and exciting sex life. Without safety, we tend to go into our head, often dissociating from our body and our partner, and resort to performing or going through the motions. And that spells disaster for passion and connection.

The opposite is true when you feel safe to open up — allowing yourself to ask for what you want, to move freely, to initiate or re-direct your partner, and to experience the full range of experiences that sex allows.

One of the sure-fire ways to make your sexual experiences unsafe is to harbor left-over resentments and hurt feelings — as well as feeling under-appreciated and under-supported — without repairing them.

However good you might think you are at hiding your feelings, resentment rears its ugly head. It will always come out — and always sideways — in the form of a snarky or sarcastic remark or an eye roll. Or a transactional kind of arrangement, that uses withholding attention and pleasure as barter.

Most often, it comes out as a tight pussy and lack of sexual desire for women and absent-minded motions and a rush for orgasm for men.

Read more:

7. What things are guaranteed to turn you off or even shut you down sexually?

It’s no brainer that you want to avoid actions or gestures that shut down your partner. But too often, we’re too scared to name and ask our partners about them, fearing what they can potentially tell us in exchange.

When we close our eyes and bury our heads in the sand, we commit to repeating the same mistakes that lead to the same results — which naturally erodes sexual desire and connection over time.

If you were concerned that you’ll upset your partner by asking them this question, not asking it guarantees that they will not feel met and be upset over it. (Our fears become self-fulfilling prophesies when we let them drive them bus.)

That’s the seven things, but we’re not finished just yet. This important question has a follow up. Because just telling someone what turns you off only helps them to avoid those things. They also need information on what to do instead so that you have a satisfying experience, not just an absence of one.

Thus the last question:

8. BONUS: What things help you get turned on and become sexually available?

Help your partner know how to approach you, play with you, stimulate you, and create pleasure in ways that do turn you on. The more specific, the better.

For most women who have responsive sexual desire, our process of turning on starts way before we get naked and sexual. Be sure to think about things that your partner can do throughout the day that have you come alive, both in your heart, mind and pussy.

And be sure to link the answer to what this step/activity provides for you, so that they really understand why you want them to do this, and not just do it mechanically.

“I love it when you hold me tight for a few minutes when I get home from work. It helps me relax and connect to you as my lover, not just father/roommate. I feel friskier afterwards.”

“I get turned on when you come and sit next to me on the couch, put your arms around me and look into my eyes. It makes my body tingle and want to reach over the kiss you. Then it’s all lights are on for sex.”

Read more:

 

Talking about sex can be hard and this article primes you to creating the right context for it.

Most importantly, have a conversation about sex outside of sex and the bedroom, when you’re both relaxed and connection — and don’t have the pressure of getting it on over your heads. That’s when you’re most open to listening and sharing freely.

And if you want more questions to start up conversations about sex, download this free handout with 19 more questions that help you learn more about each other. 

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: