Law # 12: DEALING WITH DIPS IN SEXUAL AROUSAL
You’ve probably been there before—you meet someone, everything is excellent, and you start going steady. Maybe you even get married. After a time—it could be months, years, decades—your sexual chemistry starts to dwindle. The spark you shared in the past for so long seems to exist no longer.
Reduced sexual chemistry can be a complex issue to navigate, one that can cause insecurity and resentment. Here are ways to navigate the topic for your health and the health of your relationship. The more you know about your vagina, the better you can care for this vital organ. Know your vagina’s unique characteristics, how it functions, how it’s supposed to work, and how it changes with age to stay on top of your health and advocate for your body’s needs.
The first question you need to answer is whether you’re having trouble getting stimulated by him or if you’re having trouble getting stimulated at all. If unsure, try pleasuring yourself or healthily checking out porn that has previously aroused you to see if you struggle to become aroused. If you struggle with self-arousal, you may be dealing with an issue of overall sexual stimulation.
Regardless of which camp you fall into, start with a timeline. Think deeply about the timeline of your relationship and when you (or your partner) started having difficulty with arousal. Detail precisely what was happening for you, your partner, and in your household at the time. Involve your partner in this conversation if you need help.
If you’re having trouble getting stimulated altogether…
Check physical and mental health factors. A health check-up is never a bad thing. Various health issues could be the cause of your difficulty with sexual arousal. Conditions could range from hormonal imbalances to issues with birth control, reactions to antidepressants, or age-related hormonal changes. Feeling stressed, anxious, or depressed can also increase the chances of difficulty with sexual arousal. Get a health check-up if you’re experiencing any of these issues. Ask your doctor to investigate anything that concerns you, including alternatives to medications, or ask for a referral to a qualified mental health expert or research one on your own if you’re dealing with mental-health-related issues. Also, if you’ve experienced pain during intercourse that led to your desire to avoid sex or a lowered libido, you may be dealing with a sexual disorder like dyspareunia, which may need medical intervention, or you may be encountering an issue that you can resolve with at-home remedies like lubricants for vaginal dryness.
Do a self-assessment. If you’re going through difficulties in some aspect of your life, even outside of your relationship with your partner, such as changes at work, difficulty with children, financial issues, or problems in platonic relationships, those things may impact your sexual drive. Do a gut check on all aspects of your life to see if changes correlate with your reduced sexual drive. If you find additional stressors that may have impacted your sex drive, work on a plan to address them and share those details with your partner. Remember, he may be experiencing something due to those stressors in your life too.
If you’re having trouble getting stimulated by him specifically…
Audit the relationship. Do a deep, honest relationship excavation to see if underlying, unresolved relationship issues impact sexual chemistry. Are you bored? Do you feel unloved? Have you or your partner been unfaithful? Are you still harboring feelings for an ex? Do you resent your partner? Do you think your partner resents you? Have you and your partner spent less time together due to new, busier schedules? Or are you all spending so much time together that you’ve grown bored of each other? Is there abuse in the relationship? Is your partner doing something or a series of things that make you not feel attracted to him? Has the sex ever been good, or have you never really enjoyed it in the first place? Having these difficult conversations with yourself first will prepare you to have them with your partner.
Audit your attraction. Are you still attracted to your partner? Write out why you fell for your partner in the first place, and then do a gut check to see if you’re still attracted for those same reasons. If you aren’t still attracted for the same reasons, are you attracted for new reasons? If so, write them out. If you are no longer attracted to your partner for the original reasons you fell for them, and you don’t have new reasons that you are currently attracted to them, you may be dealing with an issue of physical, mental, or emotional attraction.
If you’re attracted, but sex isn’t hitting the mark, have that conversation. It could be that bad sex is turning down your arousal dial, and if so, the path to spicing things up could be as simple as communicating better about what turns you on and practicing better sex together. If that’s what’s going on, own your sexuality and confidently share with your partner what gets you going. Be respectful and supportive when you have this conversation because making your partner feel overwhelmed and insecure isn’t the best way to cure your overwhelm or associated feelings.
If it’s you, tell him. If you’re dealing with a health condition, feelings of insecurity, or other issues that reduce your arousal, let your partner know. It’s good for your relationship to be honest about things that impact you and each other. The more you share with him about this, the better they can support you while maintaining their own mental health surrounding the issue.
Ask your partner how they’re feeling. Remember to have a mutual discussion instead of just talking at your partner. You may find that your partner is experiencing the same feelings as you. If so, don’t get resentful if they share that they are also not particularly aroused by you. If the feeling is mutual, that’s worth discussing.
Be specific about solutions. Whatever you identify as the culprit zapping your arousal, be clear about what is triggering it and detailed about the solutions you will implement individually and as a couple. If one or both of you is experiencing health issues, make a clear plan for how you will treat those issues and evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment. If the problem is not health-related but instead related to something you have some control over, like schedules, be clear on what changed in the schedules that landed you where you are. Discuss ways to adjust those things, if possible, and be specific. If it’s not possible to change those things temporarily, discuss that openly and honestly, and put a date on when things will turn around so that you can mutually evaluate whether the proposed solutions are within your mutual comfort zones.
Speak to a therapist. If you need help navigating these potentially murky waters, finding a qualified therapist may help provide a different perspective and highlight blindspots for you and your partner.
“Enduring long-term painful or unpleasant sex – even with someone you like for other reasons – is likely to create insurmountable resentment, depression and despair. Don’t do it.”
- Pamela Stephenson Connolly, US-based psychotherapist specializing in sexual disorders
“Expect that marriage isn't always a ‘wild bed of passion’ — but that it should be at least some of the time. Unless the two of you have some alternate agreement, when you get married your spouse rightfully expects to be the only man in bed with you for the rest of one of your lives, just as you expect the same fidelity from him. That means that for a good 50-60 years to come, your only sense of sexual satisfaction will be your husband or yourself. That is a long, long, long, long (I really cannot add enough ‘longs’ to sufficiently emphasize this point) time to go without some wild passion ebbing and flowing along the way. You can't expect to maintain full throttle levels at all times, but as someone who's worked extensively with divorcing couples, I can guarantee that if you don't bring that passion to the surface more often than not, you will be headed to a family law practitioner's office one day in the not so distant future. Know that a good marriage is worth fighting for, and a really bad marriage is worth leaving.”
- Arianna Jeret, MA, MSW, Expert Relationship Coach
“Sex life does not define an entire relationship. It is entirely normal for couples to have problems with sex from time to time. That doesn’t mean the relationship is no good or is doomed for failure.”
- Jenni Jacobsen , Licensed Clinical Social Worker
We’ll always advocate for quality discussions that can save an otherwise loving, healthy relationship from the brink of disaster from dwindling sexual chemistry. We value the advice from our experts in the authority section today about thinking through your relationship, doing a deep dive, and then having meaningful conversations. Sure, there are times when relationships need to end for the health of both partners, but never if there is a resolvable situation that two caring partners to resolve.
There is no reversal of this law. Communicating about changes in your sexual relationship is paramount to your health, your partner’s health, and your relationship. You owe it to yourself, them, and your relationship to speak up about what’s happening.