In April, I attended a conference on couples therapy. There were some heavy hitters there, like Sue Johnson who developed emotionally-focused therapy (EFT) and Esther Perel who wrote the fascinating Mating in Captivity. There are a lot of compelling ideas in Esther’s book, but mostly it revolves around this fundamental paradox: Love likes the security of the familiar, and sex thrives on the new. As she writes, “Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery.” And this paradox can lead to a whole lotta sexual deadening in long-term monogamy. She thinks you can love the hell out of your partner—really, truly, madly, deeply—and still not want him.
For Sue Johnson and EFT, it’s all about the emotional bond between the partners: The reason some couples don’t have good sex is that they don’t feel safe enough to be vulnerable. For her, it’s a matter of increasing intimacy and trust (in her language, forging a secure attachment) and then good sex will naturally follow.
Now, I like EFT a lot. I think a secure attachment is pretty crucial to a fulfilling life. But is it the key to a fulfilling sex life? I look around at the couples I work with, at the couples I know, at the couples I’ve been inside, and I wonder. I like Sue’s notion better, but I find Esther’s more convincing.
It’s not that Esther is automatically equating domesticity with the death of the libido. But by recognizing that long-term intimacy can be a challenge to hot sex by its very nature (words and italics mine, not Esther’s), I believe that awareness gives us more than a fighting chance. By pretending there is no paradox, that good love should always equal good sex, I’ve noticed that sometimes people are left feeling like they themselves are the problem (”What’s wrong with me that I no longer want to have sex with the man I married, the best man I know?” “Is Viagra approved for women yet?”) or that their partner is the problem (”Maybe he’s not the one for me, after all.”)
We all know that sex changes when you’re in a relationship for a long time. It’s usually not as frequent, maybe not as novel. But here’s what I believe, based on my practice and the people I know: If you once had the spark, you can get it back. It won’t look exactly the same, or feel exactly the same, but it can feel pretty damn good.
I have a friend who’s been together with her husband for going on fifteen years, and I think of them as the best model of long-term intimacy/sex that I know. They’ve got two kids and busy lives so they’re not having sex anywhere near as often as they used to. But when they do have sex—once a week, once every couple of weeks, sometimes it goes longer—afterwards, she says, “Man, that was fantastic. Why don’t we do that more often?”