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Hey Dr. Nerdlove,
My boyfriend and I have been happily together for a really long time. We are honestly best friends. But because we’ve been together so long, I feel like the spicy and romantic sparks have dwindled. I understand that this tends to happen with a lot of long-term relationships, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. I know he is content with me and we both know we are in it for the long haul, but I miss those flirty, romantic little snippets of the day that made me feel desired and wanted by him.
Our sex life is fine but I feel like he used to never be able to keep his hands off of me. This now makes me feel as if I am no longer attractive to him despite him saying otherwise.
I’m totally willing to initiate sex but I really want to grab his attention and keep it there for longer than just that night.
How to I rekindle this flame that brought so much passion and desire to our relationship and keep it going?
Many thanks,
Slow Burning Flames
Let’s start with the obvious: the initial rush of passion and intense sexual desire in relationships fades. This is something that happens to pretty much everyone. That doesn’t mean that you did anything wrong or you or your partner have fallen out of love or lost your attraction for one another. It’s just a result of a number of factors.
The first is just biology – when we’re having sex with a new partner for the first time, we’re shooting bolts of oxytocin and dopamine into the pleasure centers of our brains like someone hucked a Molotov cocktail into a fireworks factory. Over time, as we keep banging with that person, we generate lower levels of dopamine and oxytocin; it’s what’s known as the Coolidge Effect, after an apocryphal story involving President Coolidge, his wife and an experimental chicken farm. If we were to start sleeping with someone else, then the dopamine and oxytocin ramp back up again.
The second is that, in the beginning of a relationship, we and our partners are unknown. They (and we) are now an adventure that we’re on together, and everything is new and different and mysterious. We learn about one another, what each other is into, what we like, what they like, how to bring the two together, etc. There may even be issues that make getting together for some recreational hokey pokey more difficult, increasing that desire to see them.
But over time, the mystery fades. We’re no longer an adventure to one another, in part because we know each other so well. The sex can still be good, but it’s not going to be the new mystery and new experience that it was at the beginning. It can’t be, because time as we know it is, in fact, a linear progression of cause and effect and far less wibbly or wobbly than one might hope. And so the adventure eases and you reach a point where you will realize that you’re prioritizing a good night’s sleep or binge-watching House of Ninjas together over humping like weasels on meth.
And of course, there’s always good ol’ fashioned hedonic adaptation. One of the core reasons why humans are the dominant species on the planet is that we’re incredibly adaptable. We get used to just about anything… including wild and crazy monkey sex with someone unspeakably hot.
People gave Billy Bob Thornton shit for saying “a woman can be the sexiest woman in the world, but after a while, sex with her is like fucking the couch” but, well… he’s not entirely wrong. Humans are an inherently novelty-seeking species, and novelty by its very nature can’t last forever. Eventually the novel becomes the known.
Now, compounding this is the fact that, over the course of a long-term relationship, it’s very easy to fall out of some of the habits and behaviors that couples had at the start. After all, the relationship is solid; there’s really no question about whether you’re going to see the other person again and so it’s easy to fall out of the habit of flirting or taking them on sexy dates and the like.
None of that means that you’re not as attractive to your partner or that your partner isn’t as attractive to you. It just means that the factors that made it effortlessly easy at the start are no longer in play. It only becomes a warning when those early relationship habits fade along with consideration and respect for your partner. It’s harder to keep the spark going when the only place you take them is for granted.
So in your case, SBF, you want to start from the place that you and your partner are still into each other, still love each other and still find one another attractive. It’s just that you don’t have the booster effect going on that comes with the new relationship energy.
But the fact that you no longer have that NRE doesn’t mean that you two are doomed. It just means that what came effortlessly at the start now requires mindfulness and making a point of keeping things going.
So what do you do about it?
Well to start with, you want to embrace your inner Gomez and Morticia. Part of what makes them one of the most romantic couples in pop culture is the fact that they treat each other like they only just started dating. The way that they compliment each other, flirt and express their affection for each other is a core component to keeping the spark alive.
Consider the last time you were flirty with your boyfriend or vice versa. Bringing that back – making little comments to one another like “oh god that’s so hot”, remarking on how sexy he’s looking today, etc. is part of how you can help jumpstart that spark. Yeah, it may feel cheesy or inauthentic at first; that’s more a matter of how long it’s been, than not feeling it. It may also require looking at one another with new eyes – remembering the person you saw when you first started dating instead of the person you see brushing their teeth at night – to inspire you… but the feeling is still there.
The same goes with dress and presentation. We all love our comfy sweats and joggers, yoga pants and oversized tees, but making an effort to look good for your partner helps keep the spark alive. Knowing that you are trying to look hot for them (and vice versa) is the sort of thing that makes them feel appreciated and encourages them to do the same for you… and responding to their efforts (and yours) makes you both feel seen and desired.
The hardest part is the novelty. Unless you and your partner are in very unusual circumstances – a long-term, long-distance relationship, where you can’t see each other more than a handful of times per year, say – it’s more or less inevitable that the mystery will become the known and the novelty will become the every day. But “hard” isn’t the same as “impossible”; it just requires a little lateral thinking. Since the novelty of a new partner is gone, then you’ll want to inject novelty in the relationship in other ways.
Consider your sex life; over the years, you likely fell into certain patterns – sex at the same time of day, same place, same basic positions, etc. One of the easiest ways to inject some novelty into the relationship and fire things up again is to change up the where, when and how you’re having sex. You might, for example, decide to have a moment of reliving being in high-school or college, trying to find a place where you and your snugglebunny could hook up without the interference of parents, siblings or roommates. Taking the car out to a remote location or an empty parking garage, hopping into the back seat and making out like you’re teenagers again can be an incredible experience. The chance of being caught – however small – can, likewise, add spice to the moment.
Or you might decide to rent a hotel room – knowing that you’re not going to have to be the ones to change the sheets or do all the little things that occupy your usual evenings – take an edible and go to town on one another. You might try sharing fantasies and take turns fulfilling one for each other. Or you may take things in a wildly different direction and try something that neither of you have ever done before. If you’re usually having standard-issue sex, this might be a good time to look into adding some light kink; even something as simple as a silk blindfold and basic restraints can transform things from typical to an adventure. Hell, if you’re both feeling especially adventurous, you might see if there are play parties or sex clubs – you can be tourists and watch or you might decide to participate in, say, one of the semi-private spaces.
Or you may decide to add challenges to when, where and how you have sex. You may say “Ok, not in bed or the bedroom” or “No sex without your having to do X first” or “Missionary is off the table; we can only have sex in other positions”. You may decide that you can’t do standard PIV and have to get creative about how to get one another off… anything that would force you to change up how you’re doing it and think about how to accomplish this new challenge.
The key is to change things up, do new things and add some novelty from new sources to what’s become routine. The nice thing about it is that not only is it fun, but the buzz and excitement you and your partner get from changing things up can become self-reinforcing. It’s a lot easier to get back into that flirty, can’t-keep-my-hands-off-you mode when you both feel like you’ve been fucked like a champion… and that feeling encourages you to keep experimenting, keep seeking out new adventures and new experiences together.
Now with all that being said: this can’t be a one-sided affair… er, as it were. You both have to put the effort in. While you may be the one to kick things off, your partner should be doing his part too. You aren’t exclusively in charge of rekindling the spark; he’s got to work it as well.
You can lead by example, sure, but you need to use your words, too. Y’all may have been together for a while, but unless one of you suddenly unlocked your mutant-powers later in life, neither of you have become a mind reader. So be sure to tell him that this is something you want and something you want to do together. It takes two to tango after all… whether it’s the traditional vertical style or the horizontal.
Good luck.
Hey Doc,
I love your blog. I’ve been diving deep into the articles and questions recently. Here’s mine:
I am a 30 year old male, and I am about a year and a half removed from a 4 year relationship that I’m still healing from. I just moved to Spain for a fresh start and I’m seeing a lot of old patterns creep up when trying to find dates. Most notably, when I see a cute girl I want to talk to, I freeze up and never find the courage to do so. I read your article about the top dating mistakes we make, and I resonated a lot with that. What the problem is though, is after. When I get home after not making a move, I tend to feel like a complete failure. I have strong feelings of shame, regret, and disappointment in myself if I don’t approach. I’ve dealt with these feelings since high school whenever I “lost my chance” with a girl.
So my question is; how can I shift my mindset to where I’m not feeling like a complete failure if I don’t talk to every pretty girl I pass by? How do I stop the pressure of feeling like I NEED to talk to every pretty girl I see out and about? I think this will help me approach because I won’t be so pressured by myself to talk to women and approaching. Thanks for all the help.
Under Pressure
Alright, AP, there’re a couple things you should do.
The first thing is to change your mindset, especially about going out. What you’re doing right now is what a lot of folks do to themselves when they’re single and ready to mingle: they create a scenario where the goal is to go out and get laid, ideally that night. If they can’t bring someone home, they at least need to get a number, a make out, something. And when they don’t… well, like you, they end up going home feeling lower than a snake’s ass in a drainage ditch.
The problem with this approach is two-fold. The first is that you’ve created a situation that you can fail, which means that, by the transitive properties of our brains being kinda bullshit, you are a failure. The second is that your success is also dependent on other people, and that means that there can be no certainty. Women have agency, after all, and a life outside of someone trying to pick them up. Even if your hair and style is on point, you’re smoother than a graduate of the Lando Calrissian School for Players and and you’re dropping bon mots like Velma dropping her glasses, you can still not succeed because sometimes people just aren’t in the mood for reasons that have nothing to do with you.
As the man once said: it’s possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That’s just life.
So, rather than going out with a mindset of trying to meet someone or talk to every pretty woman you see, go out with a mindset of having an experience. What that experience is, you have no idea. Maybe you’ll try a new bar. Maybe you’ll discover a new amazing place and eat your body weight in tapas. Maybe you’ll drink tea and have a conversation with a fascinating stranger. Or maybe you’ll talk to a pretty woman and see what happens. Whatever ends up happening is that experience you were looking for.
By changing your goal (from meeting a sexy someone to having an experience) and your mindset (it’s win-win, no matter what happens), you free yourself from both the pressure to perform but also the expectations that make it possible to disappoint yourself. Setting yourself free to just experience things, enjoy things, you free yourself to just do stuff. Maybe you’ll talk to a lot of people. Maybe you won’t. That’s ok. Maybe you’ll talk to a few ladies, but because you’re not focused on trying to get a specific result (a number, a make out, taking her back to see your apartment), you’re freeing yourself from the self-imposed pressure to be “perfect”. You can be more authentic, more genuine and more relaxed.
Another thing is to what I call “dating slow” – not pressuring yourself to treat every interaction as one where you have to get a number or a date at the end. Most people don’t start a relationship – or even agree to go on a date – with someone they just met. Most of the time, there’s a period of getting to know one another, talking and connecting and then things happen. If give yourself permission to just chat with someone, without expectation or the goal of getting something from them at the end of it, you make it much easier to just vibe with them. If you see them again, great. If not, that’s cool too; you still had a good time.
At the same time, taking things slow means that, instead of trying to convince her that you’re worth her time, you can take the opportunity to get to know her and see if she is worth your time. Not in the arrogant sense of “how dare you presume that I might be interested in you” but in the sense that time on this planet is limited and you don’t want to waste it on someone who just isn’t compatible with you. You can free yourself to be curious about them, to see what they have going for them besides their looks and whether they’re someone you’d want to be in a relationship with in the first place.
But by being relaxed and not having an agenda beyond a nice conversation, you are taking the pressure off that says that you have to perform, that you have to be perfect, that you have to impress her and dazzle her and be more than just the best version of yourself but the best thing she’s ever seen. You can just enjoy yourself, and help her enjoy her time talking to you.
Getting to know someone over time – whether it’s days or weeks or even months – actually can work in your favor. Propinquity – the tendency to form relationships with the people you see the most often – is a powerful and underrated aspect of attraction. Similarly, the exposure effect increases interest; we find people more attractive as we get to know them over time. Exposure leads to familiarity and familiarity leads to affection. So, talking to the regulars at your favorite place to chill and grab a drink increases the likelihood of sparking something up with them.
And once you’ve taken the pressure to perform – and the binary pass/fail mindset – then you’re freeing yourself to be much more self-confident and self-assured. It’s kinda magical how much easier it is to be confident when you’re not treating talking to a pretty lady as something you must succeed at.
Start from there, and you’ll notice how much easier things become and how many amazing women there are out in the world. If one isn’t into you, you’re not into her or you just don’t have an opportunity to chat them up, that’s fine… there’re many more. And by taking things slow and at a measured pace, you’ll have the time, energy and desire to go meet the ones who are right for you and looking for an awesome guy like you.
Good luck.
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