What to Know About Long-Term Relationship Sex

It’s incredibly common for new relationships to be marked (or heralded) by a surge in sexual passion. As two people develop a new intimacy together, they often feel drawn to express it with their bodies. The feel-good brain chemicals emitted by all that sex help make early relationship experiences feel tinged with a pleasant glow of happiness, and disagreements, fights, and resentment often don’t begin to appear until around a year in. However, the honeymoon phase can’t last forever. RELATED: The Honeymoon Phase: What Is It, Exactly? As you get to know each other better, familiarity replaces novelty, and passion gives way to companionship. That doesn’t mean that your sex life as a couple is over once you reach long-term relationship status, though — far from it. However, it does mean that it’s going to be different. In order to help you understand how and why this happens, and to help you navigate how to have a pleasurable sex life with your long-term partner once the new relationship energy has dissipated, AskMen spoke to the experts. Here’s what they had to say: Why Sex Often Loses Its Intensity in Long-Term Relationships “When a relationship is new, you are actively discovering your partner’s body, desires, little signals and odd quirks,” says certified intimacy coach and sex educator Sarah Tomchesson, marketing director at Magic Wand. “That state of alertness naturally invites exploration. Over time, people can feel ‘known’ — which is lovely — but that sense of familiarity often goes hand-in-hand with less curiosity. If you stop looking for newness, your sexual connection can drift toward predictable or stale patterns.” “As a relationship progresses, we move from the ‘passionate phase’ characterized by excitement and intense sexual desire to the ‘companionate stage,’ which blends passion with a strong sense of friendship and security,” says Zachary Zane, sex and relationship expert for #LubeLife. “The passionate phase usually lasts a year or two and then transitions into the companionate stage, which should last the rest of your time together.” “This shift from the passion stage (limerence) to the attachment phase is normal and involves a balancing of some of the neuro-chemicals that are activated with novelty (e.g. dopamine, adrenaline),” says Jess O’Reilly, Ph.D, host of the Sex With Dr. Jess podcast. “As mystery and risk fade, oftentimes passion follows.” “Shared life demands, routine and stress can also accumulate over time,” she explains. “This might include kids, money, family responsibilities, health issues, emotional load, sleep deprivation (or sleep debt); all of these can dampen desire, distract from eroticism and presence and reduce the time and energy you have for passion and sex, more generally.” RELATED: How to Break Out of Your Stale Sex Routine Shifts in your day-to-day routines also play a role, O’Reilly says. “Early relationship dynamics often include more unstructured times and more of a focus on one another, as you really dedicate time to dates, exploration and getting to know one another,” she explains. “As you settle into the relationship, your focus can shift to other things.” While this shift is typically one that takes place slowly over a period of months, it can feel disappointing or sad for some. That being said, it’s not just a bad thing. “Honestly, we wouldn’t be able to focus or live our lives if we perpetually stayed in the passionate phase and were constantly physiologically elevated and having sex,” says Zane. “It’s good to transition to the companionate stage and necessary for a healthy, long-term relationship.” RELATED: How Couples’ Sex Lives Change Over Time Does Stale Sex Mean the Relationship Is in Trouble? Because this shift is so ubiquitous, in and of itself, it’s almost certainly not a sign that there’s anything wrong with the relationship. In fact, it may simply be a sign that things are working out well enough for you to have stayed together longer than the honeymoon period allows for. “If the passion dips in your relationship or sexual frequency tapers off to some extent, don’t panic,” says Dr. Justin Lehmiller, Lovehoney Scientific Advisor and Kinsey Institute Researcher. “It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with you, your partner, or your relationship. This is pretty normal.” In fact, some people may be worried about it because they perceive that it’s a bad change that reflects poorly on them or the relationship, rather than missing the sex per se. A decrease in quantity or change in quality only signals a problem if it causes distress for you or your partner,” says Tomchesson. “There are many meaningful ways to be intimate that aren’t limited to sex. If you do feel disconnected, though, it’s worth addressing — curiosity and small, consistent rituals can help you reconnect.” “A dip in quantity is only an issue if you deem it so,” O’Reilly agrees. “Some people are happy with amazing sex once a month and others want to be having it every day. It’s really a matter of personal desires, which will also shift (and often decline) over time.” RELATED: How Often Do People Have Sex? That being said, she notes, “A dip in quality represents an opportunity to get curious, explore and experiment to see how you might reignite passion and pleasure. Of course, a decline in passion doesn’t inevitably equate to a decline in pleasure. Pleasure can be cultivated even in the absence of spontaneous passion.” How to Keep Long-Term Relationship Sex Hot But what if the decline in quantity, or quality, really does bother one or both of you? Short of wiping both your memories, there’s not much you can do to rekindle the same conditions you had when you were first starting out. And while it’s OK to mourn the hot, passionate sex you had back in the day, that doesn’t mean you should give up on building a new kind of physical connection with your partner that doesn’t simply rely on the sparking sexual chemistry between new lovers. So here are seven ways to keep your sex hot, passionate and fun even as you’re growing older together: 1. Talk About Your Sex Rarely are people taught how to talk about sex, so it’s no surprise that so many of us struggle with it. And when pop culture shows couples having sex, conversations about who likes what and who doesn’t like what rarely factor into the scenes, meaning people rarely have cultural scripts for navigating these interactions. Combine that with growing up in a sex-negative culture that makes shame rampant and you have a lot of people who simply would rather not talk about sex with a partner — even if that’s the thing their sex life needs most. A “big predictor of keeping passion alive is sexual communication,” says Lehmiller “If you can’t really talk about what you want when it comes to sex, it’s really hard to maintain a sexual connection when you transition out of the passion phase.” “Ask one another how you feel, what you dream about, how often you want sex, why you want sex, what you want to try and more,” O’Reilly says. “Just talking about sex can increase passion and frequency.” “Talk about the feelings you attach to sex,” she suggests. “How do you need to feel to get in the mood? How do you feel in your hottest fantasies?” “Curiosity is a daily habit that enhances intimacy,” Tomchesson explains. “Ask your partner questions like, ‘Tell me more about what you liked there,’ or ‘What was exciting about that?’ Then really listen. Questions are the simplest tool for noticing and attuning to your partner’s evolving interests and desires.” And no, this isn’t just a one-time thing. Even if the first go feels awkward, frustrating or unproductive, that’s a reason to keep going, not to back off. 2. Create a Sexy Atmosphere One of the nice parts of a relationship slowly becoming a long-term one is that you settle into comfortable familiarity. However, that’s not necessarily… sexy. Thinking about creating a more intentional and sexy ambiance can be a useful step in injecting some passion back into your dynamic together. RELATED: How to Make Your Bedroom Sexier “People who take more time to set the scene or mood before sex are more likely to keep passion alive,” says Lehmiller. “This is because they’re helping to cultivate the right kind of environment for desire to set in and for everyone to feel relaxed and in the mood.” “In other words, we’re talking about changing your environment in ways that are going to cultivate the right headspace,” he notes, “which might include paying attention to things like music and lighting, keeping your bedroom clean and comfortable, planning date nights, and getting rid of distractions during sex (like turning off or silencing your phones).” 3. Make a Rule Together Two people holding each other accountable can help them go a long way, whether it’s a gym buddy or a study buddy. Tomchesson advocates for couples trying out something called the 7-7-7 rule in order to create a semblance of structure when it comes to the relationship. “Build predictable rhythm around novelty,” she explains. That means you have “a date night every 7 days, try something new or take a quick getaway every 7 weeks, and travel together every 7 months.” “Regular, planned new experiences reset your relationship’s novelty meter, which in turn benefits your sex life,” Tomchesson argues. Plus, more travel means more vacation sex, which can often turn out to be surprisingly hot even though the only thing that’s changing is the physical location. If you’re not in a place financially where you can take smaller or larger trips with that kind of regularity, instead try brainstorming ways to experience new things together that don’t break your budget. 4. Map Pleasure Intentionally Being intentional about your desire to have a mutually satisfying sex life can be a useful step in the process. If things are feeling stuck and you have the budget (or insurance) for it, seeing a sex therapist could be a useful approach, but you may be able to make good progress between just the two of you by committing to improving your sex life together. What might that look like? “Carve out time (even small windows) to connect through conversation, touch and presence. It may not always lead to sex, but it makes space for the possibility of eroticism,” says O’Reilly. “Flirt, touch and have fun together. I call this ‘eroticizing daily interactions;’ you (likely) can’t go from talking about your dog’s bowel movements to tearing one another’s clothes off, so make time for personal and intimate conversations.” Or, try some sensual touch that feels lightly erotic rather than simply cute or comforting. “Make exploration a slow, playful practice,” Tomchesson suggests. “Starting at the feet and moving up to the head, explore every area with different types of touch — caress, squeeze, tickle, light spanking, vibration, scratching — and note reactions. Take your time; the goal is discovery, not a checklist. Over time you’ll build a shared ‘pleasure map’ you can return to and expand.” 5. Pursue New Experiences Are things feeling stale? This may surprise you, but the opposite of stale is fresh. Trying new things together (even if they seem a little silly at first) can go a long way towards helping you liven things up. “Continually trying new and different things can help to keep the sex exciting, whether that’s sharing or acting on fantasies, introducing sex toys, or having sex in new positions or locations,” says Lehmiller. RELATED: The Best Sex Positions to Improve Your Sex Life “If you’re trying new things (and they feel a little risky or uncomfortable), you’re more likely to turn off autopilot and pay attention with curiosity, which can heighten passion and pleasure,” says O’Reilly. 6. Explore Non-Vanilla Options Lots of people have their kinks figured out early on, but that’s not the case for everyone, and many more people experience their kinks as secret fantasies they don’t share with their partners. While it’s true that exploration and not list-making can be a great approach, for other couples, doing something like a yes/no/maybe list can help shine a light on potential areas to break new ground in. If your sex life has been fairly vanilla thus far, or you’ve found one particular kinky thing you both like and have stuck with it, trying some more out-there stuff that one or both of you have been meaning to try, whether it’s BDSM, role-playing, fetishes or any of the other traditional ways to spice things up, could genuinely yield positive results. RELATED: How to Spice Up Your Sex Life 7. Make Each Other Feel Appreciated There are lots of reasons a person’s sex drive may be flagging that don’t have anything to do with their sense of attraction to a partner. One big thing on that list is making sure your partner feels appreciated, an issue that women in particular have flagged as something they need from their partners. “A person may not have a sex drive because they’re stressed outside the bedroom,” says Zane. “After doing laundry, cooking dinner, picking up the kids, and just living a hectic life, the last thing they want to do is have sex.” “So what if you, their partner, picked up some of the chores? Made her life easier so she’s less stressed?” he suggests. “What if you picked up dinner on your way home from work instead of having her cook? What if you did the dishes? What if you did things that make your partner’s life easier and make her feel appreciated? That could really help your partner’s sex drive return.” RELATED: Reasons She Stopped Having Sex, Revealed It may sound corny, but there’s a reason people joke about men doing chores as being “porn for women.” Lowering your partner’s mental load by taking things off their plate can help them de-stress and get back into a nice, sexy frame of mind. And of course, feeling appreciated yourself can also help rekindle things. That’s not to say that one of you doing the laundry one time or giving the other cooing compliments will instantly rejuvenate your sex life, but every journey begins with a single step. You Might Also Dig: This Is How to Keep a Relationship InterestingHow to Talk About Your Unsatisfying Sex Life Understanding the Most Common Female Libido Killers