The Cold, Hard Truth About Long-Term Relationships
Have you become comfortably numb?
By Corinne Farago
There’s no getting away from the fact that couples in long-term relationships impact each other profoundly, in small and large ways.
If you’re a couple who lives together, there are moments throughout each day that bring you together to discuss something, to work on a task, to accomplish an errand, to share a story, or listen to one.
Partners flow in and around each other with such symbiosis, that we can sometimes feel like we’re one mechanism with a shared mind.
The functioning nature of our long-term partnerships becomes hardwired into our brains, just like everything else we do, day-in-day-out. Once settled into any repetitive pattern, our neurons are designed to minimize energy and attention on the subject at hand. It’s effective, it’s familiar, it’s secure, and in the case of relationships, it’s hazardous.
We become numb to our partners.
This is the cold, hard truth about LTR’s (long-term relationships). The good news is this numbing disease is not terminal. There is a cure. It’s called awareness.
Just as we trained our brains to become ‘comfortably numb’, we can train our brains to bring awareness to our daily encounters with our partner. Awareness wakes us out of our slumber of familiarity, and reminds us numerous times a day, that we can shift out of old patterns and into new ones.
One of my ‘wake-up’ exercises I introduce to comfortably numb couples is to bring awareness to their daily interactions with their partner.
At the end of an interaction they can ask themselves, “how would my partner rate the feeling quality of that exchange?” On a scale of 1-10 (1-3 being negative, 5-7 being neutral, and 7-10 being positive).
No one’s keeping score. It’s not a game to win. It’s simply an exercise that brings awareness to our day-to-day encounters with our partner when they cross our path. What rating our partner assigns to our encounters is largely within our control and our choice; our choice to feed them or drain them, to leave them feeling connected to us, or disconnected from us.
Bringing awareness to our relationship reminds us that we have a choice in how we impact our partner every day. What kind of general rating would your partner assign to their experience of you on a daily basis.Would they give you 2? 6? 9?
Do they walk away from you drained by your complaints, or energized by your praises?
Do you leave them with a furrowed brow of concern, or a smile and a chuckle over a silly joke?
Do they get the best of your energy, or do they experience you running on autopilot, putting out as little energy as possible in your exchange?
Ongoing daily encounters in the range of 1-5 are a sign that a relationship is not being enlivened or fueled with the kind of energy that nurtures connection and stimulates intimacy. A 1-5 range relationship dampens our happiness and deadens our enjoyment. If most encounters leave our partners feeling drained, their sense of connection to us will be laced with resentment.
If we want our partner to come away from an encounter with us feeling in the 7-10 range, we can bring more awareness to what gets them there.
Perhaps their 7-10 range is met with a few words that leave them feelings appreciated or cared for. Perhaps it’s a look that communicates desire and flirtatiousness, or a touch that says, “I care, I’ve got your back.” Perhaps it’s a silly face or a shared joke.
What quality of energy do you generally leave your partner with? Even the most mundane daily encounters wire our brains to seek that which gives us pleasure or repel that which inflicts pain.
It’s not surprising then, that couples who generally live in the 1-5 range have a harder time accessing the kind of trust and connection that elicits desire in the bedroom. Fulfilling sex lives are nurtured every day in the small connecting moments we create with our partner.
Bring awareness to the energy you bring to your partner on a daily basis, and ask yourself, “Did I bring my partner a 1-5 or a 5-10 experience?” Ultimately, the choice is yours.
If you are feeling “comfortably numb” in your relationship right now, coaching may be exactly what you need to go from a 1-5 to a 7-10.
Schedule a Discovery Call me and let’s discuss your goals, your desires and if sex and relationship coaching is your next step.
You can schedule a complimentary 15 minute Discover Call by clicking here :-)
Stay well and love deeply,
Corinne
Relationship and Sexual Empowerment Coaching…
is for the curious at heart, the sexual adventurers, and the lovers who long for more.
I work with clients on Zoom from all over the world.
Give me a call and we’ll speak for 15 mins to discuss the details of working together so you can find the love, sex and desire you long for:
Click here to schedule your FREE call today
Be sure to download my list of 186 erotic activities that I outline in my new e-book, Your Erotic Menu.
It may be the single most impactful step you take toward your sexual evolution. (I can confidently say, your dates nights will never be the same!)
(Mail about sex will often get sent to promotions or junk. Move me to your inbox so we can continue to stay in touch regularly. ☺)

The Plight of the Lower-Desire Partner
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.
From Drought to Desire
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.
The Secrets Inside the Date Night Masterclass
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.
Are Sex Toys Bridging the Orgasm Gap?
I coach people of all ages and cultures who have expressed their reluctance to include sex toys in their intimate time with a partner. They either suspect, or have been told that their partner is worried that a good vibrator will replace them in the bedroom.
Leave A Comment