How to Bring Back Desire in a Long-Term Relationship

A letter in a Guardian advice column has stayed with me for years. A 63-year-old man, married for 45 years, wrote that he still loved his wife but no longer felt sexually attracted to her. It had faded slowly. He noticed other women, felt guilty about it, and had never acted on it. He had tried erection medication and found that it didn't create attraction. He said it wasn't fair to his wife. (You can read the original column here.)

The columnist's answer focused on enmeshment: a couple so fused that there's no space left between them. That can be part of the picture. But I didn't think more space, on its own, would bring back the kind of lust that gets you hard, wet, and reaching for each other.

So here's how I would work with this couple if they came to see me.

One medical note first. Some medications, including some antidepressants and blood pressure drugs, can affect desire and erections. If you think yours might be, talk to the doctor who prescribed it. Don't stop or change a medication on your own.

Start with what's true right now

I'd ask both of them to say, as honestly as they can, what is real about their sex life today. Not what it used to be, not what it should be. What it is.

That can feel unsettling. It's also the first step toward anything changing.

Questions I'd give them to explore together:

• How important is sex and sexual play to each of you?
• When did you last feel truly intimate with each other?
• Are you happy with things as they are? (He clearly isn't. We don't know how she feels, and her answer matters just as much.)
• Is this what you imagined your relationship would look like at this point?

When each person gets to say what is really happening for them, the pressure usually drops a little. And you now have an honest place to start from.

Find out what actually turns each of you on

If both people want to be closer, the next step is exploring what Jack Morin called "core erotic themes." His book The Erotic Mind is a great place to learn about your own (my notes on it are here).

I sometimes call a core erotic theme your "sexual movie script." It's the scene, the dynamic, the feeling that really gets your engine going. And it keeps evolving over your life.

What I often see with couples is that one person has a script they have never shared with anyone. They've been holding back what really turns them on because they feel ashamed, or because they don't want to rock the boat.

How to listen when your partner shares

Sharing your peak turn-ons is vulnerable. If your partner is scared, they will pick up on any hint of judgment from you.

So before you ask, get comfortable. Let your eyes, mouth and face soften. Settle into where you're sitting or lying, and let yourself listen to the story.

If you notice yourself judging, you can say so, kindly:

"Wow, I'm surprised to hear some of this. I didn't know that was how you wanted me. I can hear how nervous you are, and I'm feeling a little nervous too."

It's okay if their desires make you uncomfortable. It's not okay to make them feel wrong or ashamed for having them. That only pushes them further away. There are no bad desires.

Hearing a desire is also not the same as agreeing to act on it. Each of you keeps your own yes and your own no, and you can change your answer as you learn more. If you want help with the asking side, I've written about how to ask for what you want.

When your scripts are different

I once worked with a couple who were disconnected sexually and both wanted back the sex they'd had when they met. As we explored, it turned out one of them loved romance and the other wanted rougher sex. Two very different movies.

Once each of them really understood the other's movie, they learned how to give each other what they wanted. Each even found things in the other's script that they wanted for themselves.

It isn't always that simple. Sometimes one partner is truly not into the other's script, or your desires are very far apart. That can get hard, and yes, sometimes it leads to the end of a relationship.

You may have to ask yourself whether it's better to live a partial truth and stay together, or to be fully yourself and risk losing someone. Only you can answer that one.

Being yourself creates room for desire

I think that's what the columnist was reaching for. Esther Perel writes about this too: desire needs some sense of two separate people, each with their own inner life.

When you are truly yourself, you are like no one else. That gives each partner room for their full self-expression, and in my experience it's one of the things that keeps couples drawn to each other over decades.

What about being attracted to other people?

He wrote that he had found other women attractive since he was young and has "battled" with it. Feeling desire for lots of people is normal.

The useful questions are about what's underneath. Who is he drawn to: strangers on the street, friends, colleagues? What kind of attraction is it? How far do the fantasies go?

I think of it like the lottery. Everyone daydreams about winning, and we daydream more when work is hard or money is tight. Relationships work the same way. When your needs seem less and less likely to get met, imagining that someone else could meet them is normal. It's a signal pointing back at what you're missing.

Does more space help?

Sometimes. If you've become so fused that you've lost track of yourself, a separate hobby, a weekend with friends or a night out alone can bring some of you back.

But space on its own rarely brings desire back. What matters is what you do with it, and whether you bring something of yourself back into the relationship. Like a muscle you haven't used in a while, desire tends to come back through attention, not absence.

A small experiment to start

Each of you, separately, write down three moments, real or imagined, when you felt most turned on. Don't edit yourself.

Then choose a quiet time and trade just one each. The listener uses the soft listening above and says thank you. That's it. No sex is expected afterward, and either of you can pass if you're not ready.

You're not fixing anything yet. You're letting each other back in.

Want more of this? Everything I teach clients about desire, pleasure and talking about sex is in The Sex Class, at your own pace.