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Fallen out of Love

November 4, 2014 by Edward Ryan Leave a Comment

“I love you… but I’m not in love with you.”

Those words are usually spoken by wives to their husbands, and it means it’s the end.

The woman has fallen out of love. And she doesn’t find him sexually attractive anymore.

There could be any number of reasons. The usual ones are that the couple grew apart, found flaws in their relationship, their priorities changed, or just couldn’t get along. More extreme reasons are abuse, infidelity, financial irresponsibility, or maybe the person just met someone else.

But, let’s think about the last item. Let’s suppose that the guy is a great husband who believes in equality and supports his wife. He vacuums, cooks, takes care of the kids. He encourages his wife to have her own career and interests, listens to her, rubs her neck. He doesn’t push sex on her when she’s tired and stressed. She starts thinking of him not just her husband… but her best friend.

And then she meets the testosterone-laden alpha male who may not do any of those things… but lights her fires like they haven’t been aflame in years. She obsesses on this new man… and gives her nice, caring husband the heave-ho.

Why?

They aren’t rational.

Or, let’s take the flip side of the coin. A guy has a wife who is perfect in every way… but he starts sleeping with a coworker who he’s fallen in love –and lust– with. He throws away his marriage and everything he had.

Again, why?

Hormones again.

Our hormones are addictive. They control us, subconsciously. And they impact both sexes equally.

They drive us to do stupid things for shitty reasons.

But there is an answer

And the answer is that both partners need to be honest with themselves and each other about what they want. And often, this means non-politically correct sex.

In the case of my wife and me, we have found that occasional roleplay in the bedroom resets the stresses of relationship of equals, recharges us, and gives us a cathartic outlet that brings balance to our relationship.

We don’t do it all the time, and we need our regular sexual connection as well. But me taking the dominant role, acting the alpha and giving her orders I expect obeyed lets my wife see me in a more masculine way that she secretly hungers for. And to trigger her enjoyment she has to make the mental shift to surrender and give up control… which is a hard thing for her to do, but ultimately is liberating and cathartic for her.

It’s been the answer for us, and increasingly, science is proving this out.

So, for those wives and husbands who have lost interest in their partner, who have fallen out of love or are risk of doing so, I firmly believe an occasional session of such roleplay does wonders, and can heal some of what is potentially fatally stressing the relationship.

And with that, we end this series of posts.

The next series of posts is called Spicing Things Up: Ignite your Passion! The first post explains what folks enjoy about spicy sex and things that aren’t politically correct but which are bringing back the spark in marriages and relationships.

Read the first post in the Keeping the Spark Alive Series: Why Do People Like the Spicy Sex Stuff?

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What to Do When your Sex Life is Dying and you Don’t Feel Close Anymore

November 4, 2014 by Edward Ryan Leave a Comment

“I’m bored in our marriage.”

“I don’t feel close to my spouse any more.”

“Our sex life has fizzled.”

Have you heard these, or maybe said them yourself?

If you have, you’re in good company.

Actually, if you’re married, it’s almost inevitable that at some point, you’ll say one, some or all of these things yourself.

Being married is hard. Raising a family is exhausting. And making a living is often thankless and stressful.

Then, trying to maintain the spark and intimacy with your spouse on top of everything else?

It’s near impossible, especially when you consider that everything has cycles, including long-term relationships. There comes a point where things aren’t “new,” anymore, where you know each other as well as two people can, and all the other responsibilities have pushed “time for each other and good sex” way down the list, if you can get to it at all.

It sucks. But this is life in the 21st Century.

But All is Not Lost

If you’re reading this blog or just found this post, you’re probably looking for answers to what you can do about declining libidos and intimacy, to bring back the romance and excitement. Maybe you’re just looking to spice things up, maybe you’re looking to reignite the spark in your marriage, or maybe you’re trying to introduce new ideas, both sexual and non-sexual, to your spouse.

Again, whatever the case, you’re in good company.

And just buying some sexy underwear or a toy is not going to be the magic wand. Well, maybe the toy you buy is a Magic Wand (highly recommended!), but you know what I mean. Any fix is more in your understanding of each other and your relationship, not in adding a Band Aid.

Every person and every relationship is different, but when the “newness” and adventure disappears from relationships, things go off track.

Also, people and relationships change and evolve over time. The Marlboro Man that made his lady swoon doesn’t seem quite as desirable when he’s splitting diaper duty, going to a cubicle job, volunteering to rub tired feet and doing all the things that make him a good husband… but not the manly, dangerous lover he was when the couple first met.

Ester Perel said it very well in her TED talk: The security, safety and comfort that we want in a long-term relationship is death to our sexual desire, which craves newness, novelty and unpredictability.

She recommends several things in keeping desire alive:

1. Make space for the erotic:

* Have a lot of privacy

* Make erotic space: time when you are just being, and are not being responsible

* Prevent distractions

2. Remember that foreplay starts long before the love making

3. Keep realistic expectations

* Things ebb and flow

* Spontaneity is a myth

* Relationship issues are not equal to bad sex

This is great advice.

But there’s more to it.

My next post provides more insight about what’s going on, how genders view things differently, and gives suggestions of things you can do to resolve conflict, communicate better, and keep the spark alive in your relationship and sex life.

Read the next post in the Keeping the Spark Alive Series: Bring Back the Spark in your Relationship with These Tips!

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Our Stressful Lives are Killing our Relationships, Intimacy and Sex Lives

November 4, 2014 by Edward Ryan Leave a Comment

Do you hear yourself saying things like:

“I just don’t have time for anything.”

“I just don’t have energy at the end of the day.”

“I am always so tired.”

“I can’t get it all done.”

“I have nothing left.”

Sound familiar?

It sure does to me.

Or maybe this applies to your spouse, and you’re asking yourself:

“Why is she always exhausted?”

“Why is he always cranky?”

“Why can’t he relax?”

“Why won’t she have sex with me?”

We are all Burnt Out

It’s never good to make generalizations, but I’ll make one anyway.

We are all exhausted and stressed.

We are trying to fit a gallon of milk in a quart container. And it’s not working very well.

We’re trying to be good employees, spouses, parents, and children to our own parents. We are trying to hold on to our jobs in an economy that’s increasingly competitive and unpredictable. We’re trying to prepare our kids for their own careers and lives. We’re trying to provide care to our rapidly aging parents.

And somewhere in there, we’re trying to have a relationship with our spouse, including a sexual relationship.

It sure ain’t easy.

Oh, and then there’s one other forgotten person we’d also like to give some attention: ourselves.

It doesn’t all fit!

No, that’s not what John Hamm’s girlfriend says.

Well, okay, maybe it is.

But in our case, we’re talking about our ability to do everything we want to.

In our case, we had kids, with each additional kid we jettisoned more of our lives.

Hobbies. Reading. A clean house. An attractive yard. Elaborate home-cooked meals.

And we have to be realistic: there are trade-offs for everything. I don’t care what some book-writing Fortune 500 COOs are saying: most of us can’t have it all. Frankly, not all of us can be at the c-level, with multiple nannies, a personal chef and personal trainer.

And it’s fine. Really, it is.

“We Need to Talk.”

Those words that scare the sh*t out of anyone hearing them. But that’s what you need to do if you’re going to address these issues..

You need to sit down with your partner and talk about priorities, both for your lives as well as for any given day.

When we haven’t done that, and we are dissatisfied with our relationship, then we have to figure out what’s going to give, and how we’re going to change.

And if our sex lives aren’t working, we need to talk about that, too. In the next post, I talk about sexless and sex-starved marriages. stress killing sex lives

Read the next post in the Keeping the Spark Alive Series: Sexless and Sex-starved Marriages

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Nothing Can Be New Forever: Good Sex Fades

November 4, 2014 by Edward Ryan Leave a Comment

If you haven’t watched Esther Perel’s outstanding TED talk, “The Secret to Desire in a Long Term Relationship,” you need to watch it. If you have 20 minutes, go watch it now. Seriously! I’ll wait. If you don’t have 20 minutes, bookmark it now or send the link to yourself in an email to watch when you have time.

She explicitly asks the question, “Why does good sex fade?”

Esther’s talk is simply outstanding, and she shares how all of us in long-term relationships are going to have conflicting demands for safety and comfort (love) and novelty and desire (lust). She has some specific suggestions for what we can do to keep things fresh and new, which we’ll do a separate post about another time.

However, I’ll sum up her points as follows:

In order to keep our relationship, sexual life and our own selves alive, we need to use our imaginations, and commit to making space for the erotic, our fantasies, and each other. It’s hard. But you and your partner’s imaginations are key to keeping things new and fresh.

Not Tonight Dear. I Have a Headache.

For all the improvements in technology, productivity and science, it sure does seem like everyone is working their asses off.

If we can find a job, that is.

If you don’t have a job, you’re busting your butt to try to find one, and fretting about how to survive.

If you have a job, by and large you’re probably working longer and harder than you’ve ever worked before. And you’re probably working for less money than you were ten years ago.

And if you’re a full-time caregiver, recent articles report that you work longer and harder than those who get paychecks.

The pressures of raising a family keep increasing, with sports, homework and extracurriculars getting more and more overwhelming as parents try to get their kids ready for this increasingly competitive world.

And with shopping, cooking healthy meals, cleaning and endless laundry, you’re probably at least 20 hours a week behind before Monday even comes. And that’s not even doing anything for yourself.

What does this do to your relationship and sex life?

Bluntly, libidos tank when we’re tired, overwhelmed and stressed.

But a healthy sex life is critical for a healthy marriage.

For many of us, it’s not just a stress relief, it’s a way of feeling closer and spending time together.

Society seems to be conspiring to take our sex lives out at the knees.

It sucks. Good sex fades.

Not all is lost

To address a problem, understand it.

Is your stressful life undermining your relationship? Is it impacting your intimacy and your sex life?

If so, then talk about it with your partner, and see if they agree, both on the situation, the causes, and the impact. And then commit to doing something about it.

And in my next few posts, we’ll see what we might be able to do about this stuff, including how good sex fades. We may not be able to fix the original problems, but we can address how we respond, and how we act.

Read the next post in the Keeping the Spark Alive Series: Our Stressful Lives are Killing our Relationships, Intimacy and Sex Lives

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Your Dying Sex Life

November 3, 2014 by Edward Ryan Leave a Comment

A dying sex life is all too common…

Paul turns off the lights in the kids’ rooms. They’re all tucked in, bedtime stories are told, and now he has loving on his mind. It’s Saturday night, and this is probably his only opportunity for the week. He slips into the master bedroom and sees his wife Elaine propped up on a few pillows, in her threadbare but comfy cotton nightgown. Tonight she’s reading a novel; other nights she’s playing Candy Crush or watching the new episode of Scandal. Paul brushes his teeth, and then heads towards the bed.

Elaine ignores him until he’s turning the sheets back, and then she looks up at Paul with some annoyance. She knows what he wants… and she isn’t really in the mood. She knows it’s been a week since they last made love… but she’s tired, and just not feeling it. They have a boring sex life at best. But if he insists, she’ll feel guilty if she doesn’t accommodate him.

Meanwhile, Paul tries to remain positive, but he can read the body language, and already he knows he has the choice of either nicely taking the brush-off, or pushing it and getting sex with an unenthusiastic, borderline resentful partner… which is almost worse than not getting sex at all. But it’s been a week… he’s starving for sex…

If you’ve been together for a while, this may sound all too familiar. The novelty and newness is gone, one or both partners are having libido issues, and the life is just getting sucked out of the relationship.

You can barely find time for sex at all, and when you do it’s not as good as it used to be. You can feel the intimacy waning. And you don’t know what to do about it.

Your sex life is dying.

We don’t have enough time for ourselves. We don’t have enough time for each other. And unsurprisingly, we aren’t having enough sex and what sex we are having is terrible.

Even worse, for some the sex even stops all together. Perhaps it’s stress. Or no time. Or the sex got boring. Or one or the other partners lost their libido. Or the sense of intimacy in the relationship failed due to other problems in the relationship. It’s hard to feel sexy and want intimacy when you’re angry and resentful.

So, how about you?

Are relationship issues impacting your sex life?

Or, are sex life issues impacting your relationship?

Do you know why? Do you know how to fix things?

Here, I talk about relationship issues, conflict, communication, and how it’s all connected to feeling intimate with our partners and our sex lives. But I feel very strongly about one thing:

A healthy sex life is a requirement for a vibrant marriage.

And by healthy sex life, I mean one of quantity and quality that fulfills both partners, and reinforces and builds connection. You can’t get more intimate than when you have sex; pleasing your partner, them pleasing you, and letting your barriers down and making yourself vulnerable. You keep things fresh by admitting your fantasies to each other, and lovingly fulfilling those fantasies without judgment and with understanding. This kind of intimacy is nourishing, cathartic, exhilarating, and fulfilling.

But so many people are missing out. Perhaps you are one of them.

Love and sex are the greatest rewards of life. We all deserve to have someone to love, and to love us, and to have someone with whom we can let our guard down around and explore and experience our sexuality in different ways.

If you’re in a monogamous, long-term relationship, your partner is the only one you have for exploration of your sexual fantasies and get emotional fulfillment.

But in so many cases this isn’t happening. Why is this?

One or the other partner not being interested or available
Simple exhaustion and lack of time
Boredom
Health or mental challenges
Fear of a partner’s rejection for asking for new things
Concerns about being judged or doing things seem forbidden
Just not being aware of the possibilities that are out there
Lack of sexual interest in one’s partner

And of course there are traditional relationship issues; if you have those, you have another set of problems. But if you have a reasonably good marriage where the spark has just disappeared, this site and these posts can help.

This series of posts will talk about the issues that can lead to a loss of sexual desire, how you can address the, and how you can bring the spark back to your relationship.

Read the next post in the Keeping the Spark Alive Series: Spice Up Your Sex Life to Increase Intimacy

Keeping The Spark Alive Index

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