How Passion and Desire Fade in a Long-Term Relationship

Couples in midlife tell me the same story of their every-day: they wake up, get the kids off to school, juggle work or business, manage the home, maybe care for aging parents, then collapse from exhaustion. By evening there’s barely enough energy for casual conversation, let alone passion. Weekends are filled with errands, chores, laundry, rushed meals.

Physical touch happens in the margins: greeting hugs, quick kisses, nothing lingering. Touch becomes transactional or perfunctory. Initiation feels risky — fear of rejection, fear of pain, fear of not knowing how to reignite something you can’t quite remember. You start to believe that this is just the new normal: loving, solid and flat, and the spark that once made sex joyful feels like something that belongs in the past.

You love each other, and in many ways you’re great companions. But you know that underneath the surface, there’s a quiet ache: a longing to be touched, desired, and seen— not just as a co-parent, roommate, or partner in logistics, but as a lover.

When passion fades, couples often:

• Feel more like friends or colleagues than romantic partners — trust is there, but the deeper connection is gone or feels flat.

• Avoid sex altogether because it feels like a chore or because initiating has become risky: What if they say no again?

• Lose confidence — wondering if something is wrong with them for losing passion or desire, or fearing they’ll never feel that spark again.

• Bury unspoken resentments about unmet needs, emotional distance, or years of disconnection that turn into painfully distancing patterns.

Over time, this quiet erosion can leave you feeling isolated — even while sharing the same bed. You might ask yourself, “Is this just what happens after years together? Is this all we can expect from our love?”

Here’s the truth: it doesn’t have to be this way.

Break Through the Sexless Routine to Rediscover Intimacy

Passion doesn’t simply disappear with time — it gets buried under layers of stress, unspoken hurts and unhealed disappointments, or simply survival-mode living when you’re balancing raising kids, work and home life.

With the right tools and guidance to revive sexual desire and passion in a sexless relationship, you can peel back those layers, heal old wounds, and reawaken intimacy in ways that are even more profound and nourishing than in the early days of the relationship.

What feels flat and hopeless right now can transform into a sexual connection that feels alive, safe, playful, and deeply fulfilling. The spark can return — not as a fleeting flame, but as a steady fire that warms and sustains you both.

There Is Hope for Sexual Intimacy & Connection at Midlife

Imagine feeling met, desired, and alive in each other’s arms again.

Rediscovering sexual intimacy means making passion a vibrant, living part of your connection.

Picture this for a moment:

• Playfully engaging in a passionate kiss while cooking dinner together, the warmth of your bodies and the laughter filling the kitchen.

• Or sharing your Sunday morning tangled up in the sheets, laughing as you explore each other’s bodies like teenagers

• You might find yourselves holding hands during a walk, feeling the simple joy of touch reigniting your bond. Or even stealing a kiss in the supermarket aisle.

These moments are more than just physical — they're expressions of a deeper emotional connection, built on trust, understanding, and an excitement for closeness. Through intentional actions and open communication, couples move from routine to romance, from distant to deeply connected.

If you're longing to bring back that spark, to feel desired and connected once more, you're in the right place.

With the right guidance, you can transform your marriage into one that's not only enduring but also filled with passion, joy and physical intimacy.

How Customized Sex & Intimacy Coaching Can Help

You may have already tried date-night books, apps, 30-day intimacy challenges, and other generic advice — and felt stuck. The reason it didn’t work isn’t that you failed. It's because deeper intimacy needs more than one-size-fits-all solutions.

Your unique love deserves bespoke attention.

It thrives in emotional safety, consistency, and alignment with how you live, love, and connect. I know this deeply— because I’ve helped hundreds of couples like you with rekindling intimacy coaching to reclaim joy, tenderness, and sexual connection in ways that feel authentic and sustainable.

Get the Support Your Love Deserves:

My sex and intimacy coaching approach is first and foremost based on listening to your needs and designing the roadmap that meets you on your terms:

• It’s holistic — addressing physical, emotional, and sexual aspects in a cohesive, attuned way, not through fix-it or “how to spice things up” tips

• It’s tailored to who you are, how you live, your practical priorities, and what nourishes you both

• It cultivates Connection Sex™, profoundly slowing down intimacy so you savor every sensation, emotional beat, and moment of presence between you — without pressure or performance anxiety

A solid approach to fixing a persistent sex problem doesn’t start with theory. It starts with a deep look at your couple dynamics today and where you want to go. We base our action steps on the specific needs of your relationship and each member to restore safety, vulnerability and connection that breeds intimacy and sexual openness.

Most sex advice gives you generic tips to implement, leaving it up to you to figure out how to force-fit them into your already packed life. That is not sustainable — nor does it motivate you to invest time and energy into it. The best strategy is to create new habits that you are excited about, because they work with your life and priorities.

Most sex advice focuses on the physical side of sex and how to make it passionate and exciting. But that’s not enough. You also need to attend to the intimacy and emotional side of sex to to develop passion and closeness. Only a holistic approach that melds sex and intimacy together can tackle sex and sexual desire challenges in a long-term relationship.

How We’ll Work Together to Rekindle Passion & Intimacy

The journey to extraordinary demands commitment—and the results are worth it.

Customized Sex & Intimacy Coaching

This is both a guided journey to discover you and also a free-form one that gives us space to encounter and address whatever shows up in your path. Each session is tailored to what is most pressing in the moment as well as with the eye of your ultimate goal and is a mix of talking and experientially changing things around. Expect to learn more about yourselves and each other, break out old patterns, and gain deep confidence to show up authentically in sex, your relationship and beyond.

Personal Attention and Support Between Sessions

Growth is not only what happens in the sessions. It happens between sessions — when you try things out, succeed and also fail, and learn from it.

Which is why access to me and my support between sessions is critical. You get access to me between sessions via Whatsapp/text and through bonus laser sessions, so that you can troubleshoot in real-time when you get stuck and need a helping hand to get back to safety.

This high-touch approach ensures that you get personalized support when you need it the most.

Time Commitment for Transformation

My goal is to help you create sustainable change that sticks in real-life situations, not just what happens in a session — and that takes time.

We commit to working together for at least 12 months to start; many couples extend their engagement with me to 2–3 years for sustained, life-changing intimacy. We meet weekly via virtual sessions, with optional intensive days or week-long retreats to dig deeper.

Financial Investment

Coaching packages are deeply customized and start from US$18,500 for the core package. Couples in crisis needing an urgent boost of hope and healing also have the option to enroll in an unlimited annual package where you have unlimited support during the duration of the year; these packages start at US$28,500. Flexible payment plans are available and to be discussed during your free strategy call.

Emotional and Energetic Investment

This isn’t passive listening. You’ll be prompted to engage in daily connection assignments, breaking out of the rut of old habits and fostering new habits of intimacy. Expect to work up to spending several hours a week deeply connecting, touching, and/or playing with each other (which is your hopefully your goal to begin with!).

VIRTUAL COACHING: I am an American currently based in Europe and work virtually via the online conferencing platform Zoom with English-speaking clients all over the world, including the US, Canada, Europe, UK, Israel, the Middle East and Australia. 

There is no sexual contact involved under any circumstances.

Hi, I Am Irene Fehr, MA, CPCC, SEP

WOMAN, LOVER, INTIMACY WARRIOR, NATURE LOVER, FRANCOPHILE and SEX & INTIMACY COACH SINCE 2012

I am not here to tell you how to do things in sex to make it passionate. The last thing you need is something telling you what to do.

I am here to listen to your dreams and needs and then expertly guide you to realize them. It’s that simple.

In addition to helping hundreds of couples to create, rebuild, rekindle their relationship, my work and views on love and sex in long-term relationships have been featured in more than 40 podcasts and in major media outlets around the world.

Inviting Partner on Board to Get Marriage Support

Need help talking to your partner about getting support for rekindling your relationship with a sex & intimacy coach?

Maybe you’re already on the same page in rekindling sex and intimacy in your relationship, and this conversation will be a piece of cake.

For most couples, however, approaching a partner about working on the relationship can feel intimidating or scary. Don’t despair!

I’ve created a special guide on how to approach talking to your partner about hiring a sex coach. It includes a special process and a downloadable PDF worksheet for you to fill out to make the conversation a lot easier and more successful.

Download free guide: how to talk to partner about a sex coach

And if your partner seems resistant to the idea of getting marriage support, check out my blog post that will help you understand what might be going on for them.