Relationship and Intimacy Coach, Nathalie Sommer, gives tips on how to ignite back desire in a relationship

Has the passion faded in your relationship? Has sex become less frequent? Is your libido low and you’re not sure why? If you are nodding your head, don’t worry! It’s completely normal to go through a period of time with less sex. The good news is that there are many ways you can get things juicy again between you and your lover. 

When you first meet someone, sex is at its peak due to the chemical PEA, the love chemical that gets released in the brain. You probably know the feeling all too well, when you have this intense chemistry and craving to be physically close, and you just can’t keep your hands off each other! After about 2 years the chemical slowly starts to decrease. This doesn’t mean you no longer want to have sex with your partner, but it requires a bit more of an effort to keep things hot and spicy in the bedroom.

 

With our myriad of stresses and commitments, sex is not always going to be our priority and that is also absolutely fine. But, the loss of erotic presence in a relationship is the reason sex stops, and I want you to try to focus on fixing the cause and not the effect. If it has been too long and you feel that your relationship is getting neglected and starting to suffer, it’s time to do something about it and get things back into gear.

Understanding Male and female libido:

Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat, and look at the difference between male and female libido. Men generally seem to be more sexually keyed up than women, and studies confirm that men (as a whole) think of sex at least once a day, experience more spontaneous sexual arousal and have more varied sexual fantasies. Whereas, only a quarter of women have the same stream of sexual thoughts as men. That being said, that hardly means that men want sex all the time and women rather binge watch Netflix.

What happens is, the stereotype tends to oversimplify both men and women, by saying female sexuality is over complicated and men are “ready” for it all the time. What we need to take into consideration is that female and male libido is frequently impacted by medical, hormonal, lifestyle and medication issues. Especially while we’re all spending more time at home, stress sensors go up, we contract and it has a different effect on each individual.  So, to sum it up – it’s impossible to dichotomize female and male desire. There may be a myriad of reasons why each gender may not be interested at any given time. It’s key to remember that sexual desire is not linear, it’s fluid for each individual.

 Understanding desire:

How do you show up at work? Are you organised and on time? Do you look for continuous ways to improve your skills? What about your children? If you have kids, do you put them ahead of yourself and  ensure that they are loved and taken care of? I bet you do. How about your relationship? Do you give it the same amount of energy? Well done if you do, but if you don’t then don’t fret, you’re not alone! 

What tends to happen is that your relationship gets the ‘leftovers’, because we feel exhausted, even if we’ve spent all day at home, in the home office or tending to the kids. Comfort and familiarity sets in and we become straight up lazy. So no wonder, desire starts to dwindle when the relationship is dealing with the leftovers.

Another reason is, when first meet someone, sex is at its peak due to the love chemical PEA. What’s PEA? It’s the chemical that the body releases to create the strong chemistry you feel when you have a deep desire for your partner. You know that feeling, where you just can’t keep your hands off each other?! Generally, after approximately the 2-year mark, the PEA chemical slowly starts to decrease. This doesn’t mean you no longer want to have sex with your partner, but it requires some ‘work’ to keep things hot inside the bedroom. Why not or get some support from a therapist or intimacy coach and discover some new possibilities for the bedroom?

The Importance Of Cultivating Desire

We all desire, novelty and mystery as it creates – curiosity! If you see your partner day in and out because you’re locked up together, it’s hard to miss and long for them. Even though it may be nice to spend all this time with your partner, in order to cultivate desire and eroticism in your life, you must bring anticipation into the relationship. So instead of sitting on top of each other – create space! Schedule in quality time to do things you both enjoy instead. Put the mobile phones and other distractions away to be truly present with each other! If you want to create some erotic tension, why not get creative and bring in some spontaneous erotic teasers? It will help build anticipation and it can result in both spontaneous and planned sex.

This doesn’t have to take up loads of time or energy. Send each other a naughty text message as you sit across the room, followed by a cheeky smile. See what happens if you just kiss for 15 minutes. What happens if you only touch each other above the waist, but you don’t touch below (hot, right?!)? This is not only fun, but it keeps you in a state of longing, anticipation and desire – the perfect aphrodisiac to keep the intimacy alive.

 Feeding Your Erotic Palette:

If you’d like to experience deep pleasure and keep your intimacy alive, it starts by exploring and discovering each other’s pathways to arousal. It is hard to look forward to sex when you are relying on the same script again and again (remember we crave novelty).

Start by asking each other some questions: “What do you currently enjoy during sex? What else would you like to try? How would you like me to initiate sex?” If you’re craving more novelty, I suggest exploring with some touch games in the bedroom! And to really heighten your sense of touch, grab a blindfold. By shutting down your sense of sight, your sense of touch gets heightened  in a major way. Maybe you’re craving anticipation, space and tease. Or do you want to experience light or hovering touch, eye contact and an emotional connection? Maybe you want to have all of your senses engaged through comfort, ambience, and sensory play?  Your partner won’t know what you like or fantasise about until you tell them– it’s as simple as that.

If you are not sure where to start, I suggest you both take the Eros Archetype Quiz. This will help you to understand both your own and your partner’s erotic language and it will be a great way to help you feed and be feed in your desires.

About the author:
Nathalie Sommer is a certified Relationship & Intimacy Coach, Women’s Transformational Coach, speaker and international workshop facilitator. Through her communities, 1:1 + group coaching, speaking and events.
Nathalie is supporting and transforming women’s and couples relationships and lives from around the globe, helping them to create powerful transformations through sensual feminine embodiment, relationship & intimacy work.
You can follow her work via https://www.instagram.com/nata.sommer/ on Instagram and join her lively Eros Temple For Modern Women Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1835416650102332/   for intimate chats all about relationships, pleasure and sex. You can also visit her website to find out more about her services http://nathaliesommer.com/, or take Nathalie’s Eros Archetype Quiz http://nathaliesommer.com/quiz/

• chemistry
• desire
• erotism
• intimacy coaching
• libido
• PEA
• relationship
• sex