What if your sexual relationship starts out great, but over time you’re not having the same great sex you used to?

How do you deal with a situation like that? Do you talk about it with your partner? Or do you accept it and pretend that everything’s fine? That’s the dilemma the woman in this video is faced with. It’s a painful dilemma, and one that led her to (at times) fake her orgasms.

When considering how to move forward with a dilemma like her’s, let’s first unpack some of the underlying beliefs and dynamics.

Many of us enter a sexual relationship with assumptions about sex that we’re not consciously aware of.

Ideas such as:

• If the sex was once great, it will stay great out of its own accord.
• Sex should come naturally; it’s not something you should have to work on. Irrespective of changes in our personal lives, in our bodies and in our relationship, the sex should just take care of itself.
• What turned us on years ago should still be a turn on today.

The realities of life don’t follow our assumptions. We change. Our sexual desires change, our relationship dynamics change, and so forth. When we discover over time how these assumptions don’t hold up in the face of real life experiences, our first response is often to

1. Blame our partner or ourselves, OR
2. Ignore the changes and pretend that everything is still hunky dory. This way we can avoid the conversation altogether!

When we go with option 2, we often find external reasons for why we can’t bring it up. The woman whose situation we discuss in the video has convinced herself that it would be too hard for her partner to hear that the sex isn’t as great for her as it used to be. In her mind, she is avoiding the conversation to ‘take care of his insecurities’. This dynamic taps into old and pervasive conditioning that many women grapple with: the notion that it’s more important to focus on the needs and sensitivities (imagined or real) of others, even if this comes at the expense of your own needs, wants and desires.

Here’s where it can be useful to look through the lens of “sex as a mirror” to find how our personal and relational patterns are showing up in our sexuality:

• If you are avoiding an uncomfortable conversation around sex, that pattern of avoidance probably isn’t limited to just your sex life. It may also be present in other areas of your relationship overall.
• If you pretend to have a good time and give up on your needs in the bedroom, you may be giving up on your needs elsewhere in the relationship too. Imagine the kind of resentment that will creep in over time by continuing this pattern long-term.
• If you ‘protect your partner’ against uncomfortable truths, over time this will erode your level of arousal. Arousal isn’t just about being physically stimulated. It is about being erotically stimulated, which includes the entire fabric of your relationship and how you show up with each other outside of the bedroom. It’s hard to get aroused with someone you don’t deem capable of facing some difficult or uncomfortable truths. That dynamic will create a split between your body, your mind and heart, which will have an impact on your ability to be present while having sex.
• By rationalizing the reasons for not having the conversation you avoid facing your own discomfort. But by projecting it on your partner you are splitting yourself in two: one part that tries to please your partner and another part inside that knows the truth of your authentic experience, which you are trying to hide from your partner and, possibly, even from yourself. The consequence of this split is that you can’t fully show up for yourself or for your partner and you limit your ability to experience your full sexual and erotic potential.

Just like the frog in the picture, many of us walk away from facing the changes in our sex life and our relationships. Walking away might not mean a literal act of leaving the relationship. Often it is an inner walking away; emotionally withdrawing or splitting in a way similar to what we mentioned above, where we rationalize this ‘walking away’ by telling ourselves that it is ‘too hard for our partner’ to have the conversation.

The paradox is that by trying to keep our sexual space ‘hurt and risk free’ we actually create the potential for much bigger dangers over time.

Such as deadening our sex life to the point that it becomes boring, stale, repetitive, lacking novelty and excitement.

Instead of withdrawing and trying to hide from your authentic truth, what we suggest is to walk away from your unhelpful assumptions and patterns!

You cannot separate sexual growth from personal and relationship growth. Keeping your sex life alive means looking at things that are risky to face AND having risky conversations.

Because here’s the thing:
Sex is about getting naked with each other. In the beginning of a relationship getting physically naked with each other can be a hugely exciting process of exploration and discovery. Over time, if we want to keep our sex life novel and exciting, it imeans getting naked on other levels too: emotionally, spiritually and relationally.

The good news is that by letting go of our unhelpful assumptions and facing the challenges in our sex life as part of our journey of personal, relational and even spiritual growth, an entire world of possibilities opens up.

Within the disturber of the change lies the fertilizer for the next phase of the relationship.

There are no guarantees that this will automatically lead to excitement and novelty in your sex life. It’s a process. And, as with any other process, the road can be curvy and challenging. But by taking the risk, you are choosing the journey that maximizes your potential for creating fulfilling sexual and intimate experiences.

Watch the video for more!