In this episode of The Self-Confidence Project, I’ll discuss the reasons why sexual intimacy often declines in long-term relationships and share practical advice on how to TRULY revive it. I’ll talk about actionable steps to rebuild connection and intimacy without begging, pressuring, or pretending. The episode also emphasizes the importance of open communication and shared emotional support to maintain a healthy, passionate relationships.
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Kimberly
Hi, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Self-Confidence Project. I’m your host, Kimberly. I’m a men’s dating and relationship coach, and today we are talking about why sex will stop in your relationship and how you can get it back without begging, pressuring, or pretending. Now, here’s the truth.
You love your partner. You’re still attracted to your partner, but maybe lately the intimacy has. Fade is, maybe the sexual intimacy is less frequent, maybe it’s completely gone, and you are left wondering, why did this happen? How did this happen? How do we get here? Now, in this video, I’m gonna break down why sex will really stop in long-term relationships, and more importantly, I’m gonna share with you how to get the spark back without begging, without pretending.
Without pressuring your partner. Now, before I dive in, if you were new to this channel, welcome aboard. We talk all things life, dating and relationships. [00:01:00] Um, my name is Kimberly. I’m a dating and relationship coach for men. For many years now, I’ve been supporting men on a one-on-one basis to have, let’s just cut it to the chase, to have fun and dating, to attract great partnerships and go on to have loving relationships.
Now everybody’s journey is slightly differently, but that is ultimately what I, what I’m here to do. I support good-hearted men to find deeply loving relationships and honestly just make the world a better place and better relationships, and maybe even lower of the divorce rate. But we’re talking today about why sex really stops in a relationship.
And of course this is not a one size fits all video. They’re going to be nuance and different reasons why this might be happening in your relationship. But one of the very first reasons, guys, is that the polarity is gone. Now, if you don’t understand what polarity is, is have, have some other videos where I talk about this.
But polarity is very much the sexual attraction that is thriving in a relationship. [00:02:00] Because there’s a masculine feminine dynamic. There’s a masculine feminine polarity, right? Like the opposite of having polarity is two people that are really passive in a relationship. And the opposite of polarity would be two people that are trying to lead and fighting each other for the leadership role in the relationship.
Not a lot of sexual attraction in those two dynamics. So what happens is over time a lot of partners become very. Equal in energy. They’re both thinking about their to-do lists. They’re both in the same kind of mindset. They’re both in decision fatigue in their relationships. They’re both in this emotional sameness all the time, and you become partners in logistics.
Not lovers. So this is one of the reasons why sex will go away in a relationship because you’re kind of too [00:03:00] same. Same with your partner. Now, another reason why sex is gonna fade your relationship is because resentment has been building. Now this doesn’t mean that this res resentment is known. Sometimes it can be unspoken, but if there is unresolved emotional.
Tension in your relationship. You had a big ass argument that you just never really repaired for from, or a big incident that you just never really dealt with, and you both swept it under the rug thinking it was gonna go away and it started eating away at both of you. Well, this is unresolved emotional tension and it.
Wedges two people apart, so it creates this emotional distance. Now, maybe one or both of you is feeling really unseen in the relationship. Maybe you’re feeling super unappreciated and she’s feeling really emotionally disconnected and that kills desires like weed killer for your relationships, right? Or resentment, as you know, can be very [00:04:00] silent and very cumulative.
It’s like. Death by a thousand cuts, right? So this can be another reason why there isn’t really a lot of sex and desire in your relationship because you kind of secretly are annoyed with one another and you haven’t dealt with some stuff that really bothered you. Now, the third reason why sex is just gonna poof, disappear, like Houdini in your relationship is because if a woman does not feel emotionally safe or seen.
Right. Emotional connection equals sexual openness. So if she doesn’t feel seen, she doesn’t feel emotionally safe, she doesn’t feel understood, and you stop being present with this woman, or you’ve disconnected emotionally, uh, desire dries up like a well. So a woman, and I talk about this almost in all my content, a woman needs to feel safe with a man, physically, emotionally, maybe spiritually.
In order for her femininity and desire and playfulness to come out and therefore the sexual [00:05:00] escapades that you’re really desiring and wanting. ’cause a lot of men feel validated through that physical touch, but women feel validated through the emotional touch, which will lead to the physical. So it’s.
How do you get into the cycle with one another? So the reason why sex is gonna be gone in your relationship because a woman just doesn’t feel seen anymore, she doesn’t feel emotionally safe. Maybe that’s happened because you didn’t repair a big conflict. That created some resentment and it’s wedging the two of you apart from one another.
Now, of course. Life stress also overpowers libido in both men and women. Kids. Nasty little kids, right? Or just the stress of having kids. You know, usually the lowest level of satisfaction in a relationship is after the first child is born. There’s stress, there’s changing routines, there’s focus on other things.
You go very, very quickly to the very first point I made, polarity is gone because energetically you’re both in the to-do list for the kid or whatever it might be. And this life stress overpowers libido. [00:06:00] It could be a huge change in jobs. It could be your parents are aging and you have to spend a lot of time caring for them, or that your FI finances are in disarray and so your mental space is being consumed by something else, and when daily.
Life stress takes over sexuality becomes one of the first things to go out the window. The two of you in fact, have become survival partners, not sensual partners. Now, life stress happens, right? So how do you deal with it? How do you respond to it? How do you continue to prioritize one another? So I wanna talk a little bit about, you know, commonly what people can do wrong here.
So. You might recognize that intimacy is dried up and that’s really frustrating for you. So, but you, maybe you’re really conflict avoidant. You don’t really know how to share your true feelings with your partner. ’cause you’ve never really done it before. You, you weren’t raised to talk that way. So you don’t know what you don’t know.
And so what you [00:07:00] do know is that, hmm, maybe if I can put a little pressure on this woman, um, she’ll. She’ll just do it right and hopefully she does it from a place of love. Maybe she’ll just do it outta moral obligation or duty. So what happens is you try to initiate intimacy from pressure or out of frustration.
And what a woman will in fact actually do is completely shut down. It’s going to have the ad verse effect or so maybe you think, okay, well, okay, if I can initiate with a little bit of. Pressure on this woman that I’m just gonna pull away emotionally because I’m not getting my needs met. And now this woman feels even less connected than she did before.
Um, now you’ve gone from infrequent sex to no sex. Um, so then you think, okay, well what can I try next? And you go, well, you know, you know I’m gonna, I’m gonna logically try and fix this problem. And you’re gonna tell her the reasons why this needs to happen and what it’s gonna lead to, and this big logical story that you’ve [00:08:00] prepared in your mind.
And then what happens is she feels misunderstood because she’s not really fully being seen. And so then you go, well, I literally. Don’t know what to do. I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried initiating from pressure, I’ve tried pulling away. I’ve tried to fix the problem. Um, so now I’m just gonna stop initiating entirely.
And then the gap widens between the two of you. And you’re not actually, you’re not, you’re not getting what you want in the relationship, neither of you are. So if you push too hard or you give up completely, neither approach gets you back into that. Like beautiful polarity and that nice dynamic that you probably had a little more effortlessly in the beginning of the relationship.
And this is common, guys. You’re not alone with this. I work with men and have been for many, many years. There are patterns in relationships, and that’s what leads a lot of relationships to burnout, stress, disconnection, divorce, [00:09:00] infidelity. You name it. Lots of things start to happen. Men start to source their needs elsewhere, whether it’s porn or different addictions or outside the relationship.
Women start to get their emotional needs met elsewhere, so maybe they have. Friends that they choose to spend more time with, or they have male friends that they spend more time with, or they read fantasy books. I don’t know what it is, but the point is we push away from our partners versus leaning in to solve these issues, not years after the resentment starts, but when these things pop up, how do we as a couple learn to address and work with one another?
So how can you reignite sexual connection? Well. Pressure’s not gonna work, right? So how do you lead with presence? So instead of asking your partner, when are we going to have sex again? You can say, how can I make you feel more connected to me? Because it’s the connection that is needed as the precursor to physical and sexual intimacy.
[00:10:00] Not when are we gonna have sex again? ’cause that creates pressure. Well, I don’t know. I’m too busy for you, is what you’re gonna hear. Right? So how can you become attuned to how your part and this works. For women to men too. Okay? This is not a YouTube channel on why men need to just be better and women can just be the way that they are.
Both sexes need to become more attuned to the needs of the opposite sex, and women have a lot of work to do to meet the needs of men in modern. Day dating and modern relationships. But for you guys, you can become more attuned to how a woman is feeling before you’re focusing on what you’re not getting.
Because oftentimes the problem isn’t just we’re not having sex. The problem is what is causing us to feel disconnected from one another. So if you look at the issue underlying the issue, right? They call this, I call this like the dishwasher issue. When a woman’s like, oh, you didn’t help me unload the dishwasher.[00:11:00]
Is it really about the dishwasher? Not really. It’s about the unmet needs. She’s feeling maybe for support in the household, so there’s an issue underlying the issue, and sometimes the way couples communicate is not so black and white. So sometimes we need to sift through. The, the dirt, the dust to actually get to what the real underlying issue is.
So how can you become attuned to how she’s feeling before you focus on what you’re not getting? Now, how can you rebuild emotional safety in a relationship? Right? And if you guys are listening to this video thinking, wow, this sounds like a lot of work. That’s relationships for you, right? They take a lot of work and they take a lot of effort, but they’re also so worth it because when you put this work and effort in, you have wonderful periods of great connection and free flowing polarity, and honestly, you’ll be the envy of all of your neighbors.
So when you can hold space for a woman, your partner, without rushing to fix things, [00:12:00] then that validates her emotions. Even if you don’t agree with her emotions, even if she’s burnt out or stressed or frustrated because of something, and you can see how she could not feel that way. It’s not your job to fix her emotions, it’s just your job as her husband, her partner to.
Validate that that is her experience. Even if you don’t agree, I can see how you would feel that way. That sounds really tough and really frustrating. And yes, in the back of your mind, you can be like, Hmm, I don’t agree with that. I’m not asking you to be overly agreeable. Quite the opposite. But emotional safety and composure, super helpful, right?
So if you create this appreciation for who your partner is and what they’re feeling, that creates more safety, that leads to more openness and more openness will lead to the intimacy that ultimately you want to have. But this comes from a genuine place. Now, how can you reclaim this polarity? ’cause this is so important.
Take the lead again in your relationship plan. Something really exciting for her. [00:13:00] Initiate something different in that relationship without. Expectation from her. Drop that roommate vibe, touch her outside of the bedroom without it meaning anything, without it being, every time I hug you, I’m expecting sex.
Or every time I hold your hand, I’m expecting kissing, or there’s no expectation. It’s just creating that. Physical closeness and loving vibe without it always having to mean something bigger. Show that edge that you have as a man because that polarity equals. Energy, add a little tension in there. You start to reclaim that polarity in your relationship.
Now, this also allows you guys to bring, bring that playfulness that gets lost in relationships, that flirtatious that joking with each other, that being a little bit goofy or unpredictable because seduction. Is not always just about [00:14:00] sex, it’s about being alive in your relationship. What is the last thing you did with your partner that made you feel looking alive?
Because if it’s been a while, it’s been a while, right? But think about the beginning of a relationship the first few months, maybe even the first year. Man. I think about the first year of my relationship. We did so much cool stuff all the time. We felt so alive and on top of the world, and then cancer and pandemics and moving houses and adopting dogs and fertility and everything can get in the way.
How do you bring that playfulness, fun and polarity back to your relationship? Now, what’s also really important is how can you two talk about sex without all of the shame? This is tough. ’cause many couples will stop talking about sex altogether. ’cause it’s awkward and it’s tough. And I wasn’t raised to talk about sex and it’s crude.
And I grew up in a house maybe that was religious. And there’s so much shame and guilt about talking about sex and pleasure and it seems super taboo still. [00:15:00] So let’s just not talk about it and hope it goes well. And then it doesn’t go well. And now I’m burnt out and resentful. We’ll talk about it because couples that talk about sex have more sex and they have better sex.
And that’s a quote from the Gottman Institute. So you can say to your partner, I miss feeling really close to you. What would help us feel more connected? Again, she’ll tell you what she needs to feel connected and vice fricking versa. What do you need to feel more connected? Right? So it goes both ways because sex doesn’t just stop in a relationship because you don’t feel attracted to your partner.
Right. You can be really attracted to them, but it stops when disconnection seeps in, and resentment is ever present and routine takes over your life. But the good news is you can lead this repair not by demanding or forcing sex, but by becoming the kind of partner who reignites desire [00:16:00] polarity and that emotional connection.
So ask yourself. What did we or I do in the beginning of the relationship? And do some more of that to rebuild your sexual connection. Guys, I hope this video was helpful. Drop your comments below how. Have you experienced this? What are the ebbs and flows that you’ve gone through and what has got you back and connected to your partner again after a period that was maybe a little stressful, or where the sexual polarity just fizzled out like a birthday candle?
I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments guys, and look forward to another video next week. Cia.
