Whether you’ve been dating for a few months or a few decades, it’s totally normal and healthy for sexual desire to ebb and flow throughout the course of a relationship…
But if the lull has been too long for you and/or your partner, you might want some help in sexually reconnecting again.
Life gets busy. Schedules get in the way. And, similar to most forms of self-care, our sex lives… the very thing that can be filling us up better than anything else… often gets put on the back burner.
By sexually reconnecting with your partner you’ll feel happier day to day, your arguments will either dissipate or de-escalate faster, and you will feel more deeply connected to your significant other throughout your relationship. A healthy sex life is one of the major conversations that you have with your partner on an ongoing basis… and if you’ve essentially stopped communicating, your relationship is going to take a huge hit.
Here are five ways to sexually reconnect with your partner.
1. Connect to your own body first
In order to have a healthy sex drive, healthy relationship to your sexuality, and general good feelings about your body, it’s fairly imperative that you feel connected to your own body.
It’s increasingly common, today more than ever, to feel disconnected from our physical bodies. As a society we tend to exercise less, spend less time in nature, spend more time on digital devices, and consume more pornography than at any other point in history. And as a cumulative result, we often feel very in our heads as opposed to our bodies. Without that pre-existing bridge built between our minds to our bodies, it’s difficult to have a healthy libido and even harder to fully enjoy the sexual pleasure we’re experiencing as we’re experiencing it.
In order to counteract this overly ‘in our head’ way of living you can do a few things.
– Spend time in nature. Go sit in a forest (or in a park) with your bare feet on the ground. Feel the breeze on your body. Inhale the scent of your environment. Fully drop in to the moment (and make sure you leave your cell phone at home).
– Exercise. Go for walks. Jog. Do yoga. Go to the gym. Do whatever medium-high intensity sport feels the most fun/playful/challenging for you.The oxygenation and cellular restoration not only improves your sexual enjoyment and stamina, but it helps balance your immune system and gives your sex drive a shot in the arm.
– Take baths. Get massages. Do anything that makes you feel physical external sensation that re-sensitizes you to how your body experiences touch. Speaking of which…
– Masturbate. All great lovers do. Masturbation is one of the greatest ways you can simultaneously re-sensitize to your body while also remembering/discovering/refining exactly what kind of sexual stimulation you find the most pleasurable. Set aside regular time to see what you enjoy the most while masturbating (regardless of whether or not you climax) and you’ll see the benefits translate themselves into your sex life in a way that you never thought possible.
2. Remove any major blocks through conversation
There’s definitely something to be said about the idea of “connect first, communicate second.” And for the most part I agree with this way of thinking. But if your sex life has been in a lull for a while (and “a while” can mean whatever you want it to mean) there are likely some things that you or your partner need to say in order to feel like you can sexually reconnect again.
Maybe there’s been an unresolved argument that needs to be addressed. Maybe there are certain stressors that one or both of you have been juggling and you need to have an open conversation about it. Maybe you just need to check in with each other and have a real, deep conversation.
Whatever is there that needs to be addressed, it likely needs to be addressed before the sexual energy can start flowing between the two of you again (to the degree that you both know that it can).
Whether you have the conversation(s) in or out of the bedroom is up to you. Wherever you feel the most comfortable, that’s where it should take place.
Maybe you need to ask questions like…
“How have you been feeling about our sex life lately?”
“How have you been feeling about us lately?”
“Is there any unresolved stuff that you feel like we need to talk about?”
Shine the proverbial light into the dark corners of all of the unspoken things between you… and you might be surprised as to how the more deep, honest truth that is called into the light, the more the sexual energy starts to flow again. It’s not uncommon for taboo topics to be talked about and then one or both partners feel an instant shift in the air that leads them to maul each other with erotic passion. I honestly believe that if people more frequently utilized the courage that it takes to have the tough conversations in their relationships, the Viagra/Cialis/Levitra/E.D. pills market would lose 20% of their revenue overnight. The fastest way to a rock hard erection or a slick, wet vagina might just be an honest, soul baring conversation about something real.
More truth = more sexual flow = more ability to sexually connect.
3. Start with these connection exercises
Now that the major topics have been verbally addressed and dealt with in a loving, compassionate way, we can get to the more physical connection exercises.
I have found that, for me personally and for countless clients, these following connection exercises are super powerful for helping us slow down, drop in to the moment, and reconnect with our partner in a way that we aren’t prone to doing on a regular basis (unless you’ve been following me for a while and regularly use my tips).
7 breath forehead connection
I have written about this one in the past in my article 6 Connection Exercises For Couples, and it bears repeating.
It’s simple. You slowly come together, forehead to forehead (or third eye to third eye for you more spiritually inclined folk), and you go through seven rounds of connected breaths. You inhale slowly together, and exhale slowly together a minimum of seven times. You do this without talking, and with your eyes closed.
This exercise helps you literally sync up to your partner, and it also encourages you both to slow down and focus on your breath. It’s an excellent exercise to use to gain a clear, slow moment of connection no matter what the context is. I have several married clients who do this exercise with their partner every morning and every night, as their non-negotiable non-verbal check in.
Cuddle for 10+ minutes
Cuddling is fantastic. One of the best things that we can do for our sexual connection is re-integrate more touch into our lives. And one of the best ways we can do that most efficiently? Instead of flipping through Instagram, checking our email, or reading our digital books before we doze off, why not trying prioritizing extended cuddle sessions?
As humans, we all crave touch… and we especially love it from people that we already love and adore. So shut off your devices, set a timer if you have to, and cuddle for a while. The happy chemicals that get released in your brain will help you sleep better than almost anything else you can do before bed anyways.
Kiss for 10+ minutes
Remember when you were younger and kissing was it’s own reward, and not just a preliminary step that inevitably lead to sex (as is common in long term relationships)? Well, guess what? Kissing is still just as awesome.
Kissing is a deeply intimate act, but we often rush through it too quickly to remember that basic fact. Explore your partner’s mouth with yours. Hold their face in your hand. Slow down and fully enjoy how wonderful it is to kiss someone you love so deeply. Kissing is a conversation… and it’s one that you don’t want to rush through. Sure… some touching/groping/grinding might naturally occur in your 10+ minute make out session and that’s totally fine… but let the kissing take centre stage for a while. You might be surprised as to how it’s benefits permeate throughout all of your sexual play.
Extended one-way foreplay
Now, I don’t even really believe in the word foreplay because it sets up the idea that there is stuff that you do “before sexual play” and then the supposed “good stuff,” aka penetrative sex. I think that the word sets up a bad mindset for our sex lives. But, it’s still a common word so I’ll meet society where it’s at.
Just like slowing down and enjoying kissing is great fun (and deeply intimate), having non-rushed extended, one-way foreplay is also fun and deeply intimate. I would even argue that foreplay, in the traditional understanding of the word, is the most intimate part about sex.
We slow down and take the time to focus the entirety of our attention on making our partner feel the best that they can possibly feel… through the use of our hands, mouths, toys, and anything else that we can think of/they ask us for.
This is also where the last point in section #1 comes into play… if our partners have stepped up the metaphorical bat when it came to their own self-pleasuring, hopefully they’ll be courageous enough to ask for exactly what they need to feel the best. And if they aren’t comfortable asking, we can either ask them directly during the sexual play, or simply go off of their non-verbal cues (pacing of breath, movement of their body, moaning, etc.).
Whatever you end up doing in your sexual play, slow down, take your time, enjoy yourself and your partners pleasure fully, and take turns so that you each get to focus on both the giving and the receiving phases.
4. Spoiling sessions
Spoiling sessions are as simple as their name implies. You and your partner take turns gifting each other with an uninterrupted block of time (30 minutes, an hour, three hours… it’s up to you) where you deepen your physical and sexual intimacy (as directed by the recipient). It’s basically an exercise where you simultaneously practice being selfish, while also explicitly asking for what you want.
Maybe your partner wants you to start off with a massage… or kissing, or cuddling. Maybe they want you to go down on them in a certain position for a while. Maybe they want to have slow, sensual sex with you while you listen to their favourite music coming through loud, bass-y speakers. Whatever you do during your spoiling sessions is up to the recipient (obviously within whatever boundaries you are both comfortable with).
Remember, doing this exercise is a comfort zone stretch for a lot of people (especially the first one or two times that you do it) because we’re not used to explicitly asking for what we want in bed. So be patient and loving with yourself. It’s an exercise. It will cause growth (in you individually and in your relationship). So take your time with it, and give it a few tries (each) before you decide how you feel about it. If you stick with it, it could turn into the best thing that ever happened to your relationship.
(If you’d like to read a more in-depth breakdown of what a spoiling session is, I’d recommend you check out this article dedicated to the specifics of spoiling sessions.)
5. Prioritize it to keep the momentum going
While short-term bursts *DO* bring value to our relationships/sex lives (like the burst of happiness/connection that you get from going to a weekend workshop or trying out a spoiling session one time), they are still merely tools. The way that we truly and deeply shift the quality of our relationships (and lives in general) is by building new habits.
Whatever you have found has worked the best for you (from kissing to cuddling to spoiling sessions and beyond) out of the above list, talk it over with your partner, and make a commitment to make these habits a part of your regular routine.
Put them in your calendar. Make your connection time nonnegotiable. I would recommend an absolute minimum of once per week (if it’s multiple hours long) all the way up to every morning and/or evening. Nothing matters more than the connection you feel with your intimate partner. So much of your happiness, health, and career satisfaction is tied to how happy you feel in your home life. So make it priority number one and see what happens.
Some people think that putting connection/conversation/sex/your relationship in your calendar is un-sexy… but I think that there’s nothing sexier.
What’s sexier than showing your partner “I care about you so much that I want you to take up multiple time slots in my calendar… because you’re worth it. We’re worth it. Our connection is my highest priority in life.”
Our time and attention are the most valuable resources that we will ever have. So give them freely to your partner and your entire life will flourish.
And besides… there’s nothing sexier than intentionality.
Dedicated to your success,
Jordan
