“I do.” I bet when you said these two words, your heart was filled with a lot of hope and expectations for your married life. And it was so in the beginning. You felt like you were in a fairyland and everything you read in your favorite romantic novel was indeed true. That you have found your prince charming, who is and will always be completely mesmerized by you.
But unlike love stories, real life doesn’t end in “happily ever after.” Once the honeymoon period fades away, life’s reality strikes. Date nights are reduced from twice a week to once a month, and the person who couldn’t keep their hands off you barely has time to kiss you.
Ever wondered, “How do some couples manage to have fulfilling and exciting sex lives even several years after marriage; our sex life is entirely in vain?”
Here is a list of reasons why your sex life might be dying:
1. Lack of communication
Intimacy covers much more than just physical contact. It is both emotional and physical. Much of the emotional proximity between couples depends on how comfortable they are in communicating with each other.
Good communication is as much about effective listening as putting feelings into words.
For example, if one person is uptight about their feelings, they may need to work on more open strategies; the other person will also need to be mindful and provide more space.
Lack of emotional intimacy is bound to manifest itself in your sex life. You can’t expect to have amazing sex if you and your partner are not comfortable with each other.
2. Mental health disorder
A mental health illness like depression or anxiety can influence a person’s outlook on the world around them. It can even affect how someone looks at their partner or spouse (or rather, how they perceive their partner sees them).
A mental illness can also boost stressors in life, which can cause minor issues to blow up out of proportion. For example, a person who is going through anxiety or depression may start yelling at their partner when faced with minor stressful situations like a difficult day at work.
A person with poor self-image or low self-esteem may feel self-conscious or feel excessively vulnerable while being intimate.
3. Resentment towards the other partner
Arguments and disagreements are normal and inevitable in relationships. They generally pass away and are resolved relatively quickly. But some people face difficulty in letting these negative emotions go. These persistent negative feelings like anger or jealousy start interfering with intimacy.
If that’s the case in your relationship as well, the chances are that there is an underlying cause to these emotions that needs to be identified and understood.
4. Having children.
What else could represent the depth of your intimacy other than having children?
But being a parent is a very tough job. Ask any new parent, and they’ll tell you that tasks like feeding, cleaning, and putting kids to sleep don’t leave much time or energy for other things.
Also, focusing so much time and energy on children could result in little time for doing the same for your partner.
Although kids are a natural consequence of the wonders of intimacy, they can and do, in some cases, result in less intimacy in a relationship.
5. Work-life imbalance.
A fulfilling job is an integral part of a happy life.
Most people want to do well and accomplish their ambitions. Some people, however, are so heavily career-focused that it can get in the way of their love life.
Talking to your partner only about work, being away from home for longer durations, having little time or energy after long working hours, or thinking about work during ‘personal time’ (like checking work emails in bed) can all lead to a lack of intimacy in a relationship.
Now the question arises, “how can we rekindle the passion in our already dead sex life?”
Don’t worry; we got you covered. Here are a few ways you can fire the dead spark between you and your partner;
1. Scheduling sex
You might think, “Scheduling sex? How unromantic?” But hear me out. You and your partner can remind each other of your plans with naughty text messages and plan what to wear and how to escalate the “things.” This will make you two look forward to your date and build up the emotional foreplay that ensures excitement, arousal, and great sex.
On the contrary, if you rely only on spontaneous sex to keep the spark alive, under the stress of your jobs and the responsibility of children and family, none of you will be able to initiate sex for months.
2. Ditch the phone
In this modern era, more and more couples are drawn to the screen.
The Internet fixations have left couples with little time to spend exclusively with each other. Couples mutually decide the limit of time spent on the internet. Shutting away from the virtual world allows you to have a wholesome experience in the real world. And you can create romantic moments and memories that can enhance your emotional and physical intimacy with your partner.
3. Relaxing weekends
After a stressful week at work, many working couples make weekend plans to socialize or go partying. Weekends are also when they do household chores that were neglected during the week, run errands, and fulfill all kinds of family demands.
While completing these tasks is important, they leave no time for the couple to relax and just be with one another. Therefore, finding a healthy balance between ‘me’ time, socializing time, chores time, and ‘we’ time is crucial.
