“Can a couple in a long-term relationship really keep the sexual spark?” I asked a leading sexologist, a Ph.D., as we walked to dinner.
“Nope,” he said. “Especially when children are involved. We just aren’t wired that way.”
I felt let down by his response, since, at the time, I was working on a course for couples to help them keep the “spark” alive.
A few years later, after I had my son, I heard another sexologist talking on the radio. “It’s impossible to continue to have hot sex,” he said. “Couples need to be friends. The conditions for hot sex involve parts of the primal brain that are only activated when a relationship is new. We don’t have access to the primal brain.”
I was in my car listening to the interview and I remember saying out loud, “That’s just not TRUE!”
I’ve been in the relationship trenches with my clients and in my own long-term relationship for over 2 decades now, and to put it mildly, I don’t agree with these fellow experts!
I know for a fact that we can access the parts of the brain responsible for “hot sex”.
I also know that there are ways to cultivate attraction, connection, and passion for each other, even in long-term relationships.
If you’re willing to put in the time and effort to cultivate your erotic life and you use effective strategies, you can ignite that “spark”. You can create burning passion just like it was at the beginning of your relationship, only better.
When I say better, I also mean deeper. In a long-term relationship, there is depth, there is comfort and there is a knowing about each other that creates a lovely intimacy.
What happens though is that all this comfort and intimacy doesn’t set up the conditions for hot sex.
We need mystery, we need a little discomfort, we need to be seduced. We need a little danger or edge thrown into the mix.
I know I’ve said this before, but I really want you to get this idea, in order to create passionate, hair-pulling sex you need to re-create the conditions that were present when you first met.
Take a moment right now to make a list of what you and your partner did when you first met? What are some of the things that attracted you to each other? What made it exciting? What was new? How did you feel?
Re-creating the early months or years of your relationship is not necessarily an easy thing to do, especially when you have kids, logistics, and an entire emotional history with your partner.
It seems the very thing, our sex life, that created our children is the thing that gets most threatened by their existence.
Date nights and intimate time can help, if you are able to let go of the logistics and stay out of patterns. Couples stuck in patterns are usually the ones with the most bedroom boredom.
I’m not just talking sexual patterns, I’m talking all patterns. Think back to the beginning of your relationship. What made it so exciting?
Did you eat out at the same restaurant every Tuesday night? Or did you try new places together? Did you have sex, in the same way, each time? Or was every step new, exciting and a time of discovery?
Lisa and Bill came to see me as part of a program they had invented themselves.
In their mid-forties, with three kids, and 15 years of marriage behind them; they decided to bring in an element of the new. Each month they spent a day doing something sexually adventurous together.
On the day they came to see me they were exploring Tantric Sexuality and Erotic Massage. I was thrilled to meet them and very interested in the results of their year-long experiment to spice things up.
They were several months into it and raving at the results.
“Every couple should do this, we’re having a fantastic time! And having great sex!”
Lisa and Bill had gone on ski adventures with an overnight stay in a ski cabin. They went skydiving together as part of a romance package for couples. (By the way, skydiving is one of the things that gets you producing PEA, a chemical responsible for you feeling “in love”).
Lisa and Bill were committed to their challenge and very open to the experiments. I loved working with them.
A Year Long Challenge
I challenge you to take Lisa and Bill’s challenge. Here are some guidelines:
- Each month plan something new and exciting for you and your partner to do together. Put it on your calendar and stick to it.
- Take time planning each mini adventure. If each of you likes surprises, you may even want to take turns, so that one of you is left in mystery. Some people can feel overwhelmed with too much mystery, so respect each other’s tolerance level for the edge. You don’t want to reinforce feelings of mistrust.
- And work together to build trust if part of your disconnection has come from breaks in integrity. Make each other feel safe enough to trust each other in your experiment.
- Be open to new experiences, but don’t push beyond your boundaries. Negotiate with each other what level of surprise and mystery you each enjoy
- One way to make sure you know your partner will enjoy the experience is to come up with a long list of activities that excite each of you, and over the course of the year, you can choose from that list and guarantee a home run!
- Do things that you have never done before. Do things that are a little bit edgy.
- Be creative.
Here is a list of things to try:
- Purchase a couples package at a resort or spa
- Take a weekend couples workshop on Tantric sex
- Go sky diving then rent a hotel room for some intimate time
- Visit a sex toy store and purchase some pleasure objects to try together
- Get a private lesson on something sexual you have always wanted to learn, then go to a hotel and try it
- Take a dance lesson with one of sexier styles of dance
- Spend an entire day making love
I’m out to prove my fellow sexologists wrong and I want you to use your relationship to prove me right!
That’s something you desire too, yes?
I truly believe that we can have it all. We can have long-term relationships, kids, a thriving family life, and a hot passionate sex life.
It does take commitment to make it happen.
I’ve created many tools, techniques, and strategies to help couples keep things hot and I’ve built them into our courses. What I describe above, I have turned into a whole system called, “Adventure Dating.” It works like a charm when put to use.
I’ve also developed systems like Sexy Sex Labs, Sex Life Challenges/Practices, Touch and Talk Games, Pleasure Mapping and Empowered Erotic Persona Development and many others.
Diving into these arousal boosting tools is super fun and increases your chances of keeping it hot for a lifetime. Get on our email list, if you aren’t already and keep your eyes peeled for your opportunity to dive into one of our course offerings.
And stay tuned as I study couples who have succeeded in “keeping it hot”!
Start making your plan!
Until next time, fill your life with pleasure,
Jaiya
