I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately who say it feels like they’re watching their sex lives just flatline, and they don’t know what they can do to change it.
I’ve actually identified 6 key reasons why this can happen, and I want to share #1 with you today.
Here’s the deal: the intricacies of daily life ARE somewhat at odds with the desire to feel sexually ‘on’ all the time. When your mundane life takes over, all of the details of the house, chores, errands, bills, laundry, and other daily tasks put a serious damper on your sex life. These things are NOT particularly sexy. Although a creative person can put some sexy in there, these things put a damper on sex and sexiness. They do not tend to inspire passion and creativity. Rather, they are about basic survival and productivity. Not all that sexy.
We don’t learn to prioritize our sexuality and all that feeds it in our culture because we are taught that it’s a luxury–something you do when you have the time and/or money to spend on “indulging yourself”. So naturally it falls to the bottom of the priority list as soon as things get busy and stressful (hello holiday season!).
Of course, if you are in a committed relationship, there’s even more of those stresses to manage. And often, the cultural expectations of what a long-term partnership should look like actually undermine our ability to keep things hot.
For one thing, people, particularly women, tend to put far too much pressure on their partner/husband to be “everything” to them: the source of all their pleasure and the one who fulfills their emotional AND sexual needs while also being a steadfast companion through life’s challenges. And that’s not even adding kids and the expectations of parenting into the mix!
We need SOME kind of distance or space to keep things hot. I’ve known people who have lived apart from their partner for 25 years or more, actually keeping their own apartments/homes! They say that’s what makes it continually interesting and sexy. That makes total sense, but most of us don’t live like that.
We want to play house with the one we love, which can definitely be fun. Yet, once you start dressing in front of each other, sitting on the toilet in front of one another, farting and letting all that mundane physical stuff hang out, it removes the allure and the tension and it lessens sexy. Negotiating who is picking up the kids, doing the laundry and cooking dinner–not so sexy. But all of that can increase intimacy. For many, that’s not the kind of intimacy they are wanting.
So you can see that it’s tricky when you want to be sexy and passionate with the same person you want to have a deep intimacy with. You can decide to do all of this with more purpose and intention. You can keep more mystery there. Not say everything or negotiate every load of laundry. Close the bathroom door and leave more space. Give the relationship more room to breathe and more room for sexiness.
And whether or not you are in a relationship right now, I always advocate creating daily practices that reconnect you to your sexuality. When you set aside the time to do them each day, you integrate your sexuality more fully into the everyday so that it stops being something for “special occasions” and stays more constant for you–even when life gets stressful.
If you want to figure out how to create the daily practices that keep the sexiness in your life alive, I want to invite you to join me for my 5-week virtual masterclass, Bringing Sexy Back. You will learn the skills and break through the internal and external barriers that are keeping you from living your best sexual life. This course is perfect for both individuals and couples (bringing your partner makes the work so powerful!) and we start March 17th. Find out more information here!
