Play is a reset button for our over-stressed, news-saturated, time-pressured adult minds. Most couples I work with will readily admit that play is not something they experience on a regular basis. Life has gotten too busy. There’s barely enough time to be alone to talk, much less play.
I was helping a friend celebrate his birthday this week. The 4 of us who attended this little outdoor soiree were diligently wearing our masks and keeping our distance. When someone held up a camera to take a pic of the birthday boy, I jumped up and, without thinking went over to wrap my arm around him and snuggled up close for the camera. In that split second I completely forgot that touching was a risk to both of us. I lurched back, apologizing profusely for my momentary lapse. “When was the last time someone touched you?” I asked him…
“This is not what I signed up for, when we got together five years ago.” These words from a past client, ring in my head now and then, when I think about couples who are dissatisfied with their sex lives. You can feel in this sentiment, the utter frustration he felt when it came to his unmet expectations. Over those five years, something changed, or more than likely, was ignored in the excitement of a new relationship.
Most of the clients I see in my coaching practice share a common dilemma… They’re lacking sexual self-confidence. Life and circumstances have taken a toll on their confidence in themselves as lovers, and without that foundation of security, taking steps toward a better sex life, seems daunting and doubtful.
Sexual desire is born out of a sense of safety. The safety felt with a trusted lover, the safety that our bodies will be honored, the safety knowing that sex is for pleasure and intimacy. There is no safety if sexual intercourse has the potential to irrevocably alter a woman’s life. There is no safety if a woman’s right to choose to conceive a baby or not, is stripped from her.
Sex can invite us to be light and playful, and it can be intense and psychological. Sex can open our hearts to romance, or unite us in spirit. Sex can heal us of our pain, and introduce us to new-found pleasures. Sex can lead us into the deeper and more shadowy feelings that lie under the surface, waiting to be revealed.
You can’t argue someone into loving you, yet in effect that’s the conflict that many no-sex or low-sex couples find themselves in on a daily basis. Chronic anger around a couple’s sexuality poisons a relationship and stresses their emotional bond. Although these pressure tactics can work in the world outside of the bedroom, power struggles in the bedroom only end in frustration and conflict.
Sexual desire discrepancy in long-term relationships isn’t an anomaly, it’s built-in to the lifestyle of cohabitation, and is pretty much guaranteed to develop at some point within the first 1-3 years of a new relationship. Desire discrepancy is normal, it’s to be expected, yet it remains one of the most painful and destabilizing challenges a couple has to face.
No matter how dry your sex life is right now, there’s a path forward for you as a couple. Just like anything in nature, change is constant. Everything has an ebb and a flow, an expansion and a contraction, a rising and a falling. So it is with intimacy and sexuality in relationships.
You see it everywhere, “How to have hotter sex now.” “Reignite the passion in your relationship.” “Get the magic back in the bedroom.” Online ads, magazine headlines, sex therapy advice, even TV shows all name the same problem. It’s pretty clear that they’re all speaking to an issue that is extremely common in relationships. Sexual dissatisfaction.
