When your desires don't match: sex in a long relationship

“Tired again?”

The question is spoken quietly, in the dark of the bedroom, and it is not quite a question. In it are a few weeks of waiting, a few refusals that were polite but refusals all the same, and a faint note of reproach. The other, on the far side of the bed, turns over and says, “Yes, sorry.” They both lie there looking at the ceiling. Neither says what they really think. She: “Do you even want me any more?” He: “Why do I feel every evening as if I owe something?”

The roles in this scene could easily be swapped — in many couples the one who wants sex more often is the woman, in many it is the man, and in same-sex couples the difference of course does not follow gender. The essence stays the same: two people who love each other do not want closeness in the same way or at the same time. And because this is a subject most couples were never taught to talk about, the difference quickly turns into silence, silence into resentment, and resentment into a distance that reaches far beyond the bedroom.

In this post I want to write about why a difference in sexual desire is almost inevitable in a long relationship, what the researcher Rosemary Basson discovered about how desire arises in the first place, and how to talk about it without one of you becoming “demanding” and the other “cold”. I will write respectfully and without detail — this is about the relationship, not about technique.

A difference in desire is the rule, not the exception

First, something reassuring: a difference in sexual desire between partners is one of the most common reasons couples come to a therapist. It is not a sign that something is wrong with you, and it is not proof that you no longer love each other. Two people are simply two — with different bodies, rhythms, worries and histories.

The large British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, Natsal-3, which included more than fifteen thousand people, found that in the previous year roughly a third of women (34%) and a seventh of men (15%) had experienced a lack of interest in sex lasting at least three months. These are not rare cases. This is everyday life for a large share of adults.

If so many people are sometimes without desire, then it is almost certain that, in a long relationship, partners will at some point be in different phases. The question, then, is not whether the difference will appear, but how you will deal with it.

Spontaneous and responsive desire

For a long time the prevailing model held that sex begins with desire: first you want something, then the body becomes aroused, then closeness follows. This model grew out of the research of Masters and Johnson and of Helen Singer Kaplan, and for many years it also shaped the idea of what is “normal”.

The Canadian physician and researcher Rosemary Basson proposed a different view in 2000. She noticed that for many people — she first wrote about women in long-term relationships — desire does not come first. Often closeness begins from a kind of neutrality: I’m not against it, I’m open, but I wouldn’t start it myself. Only when there is touch, tenderness, a sense of connection does the body respond, and desire is born out of arousal. Basson calls this responsive desire, as opposed to spontaneous desire, which appears on its own, without a prompt.

For many couples this distinction is a relief. A partner whose desire is mostly responsive is not “without desire”. Their desire simply does not ring by itself — it switches on when the conditions are right. And a partner whose desire is mostly spontaneous can stop wondering why “the other never initiates”: perhaps it simply never happens to them that they want something out of nowhere.

Why desire changes in a long relationship

At the start of a relationship, many people are surprised by how easy it is. Novelty, uncertainty, being in love — all of this switches on spontaneous desire even in those who would otherwise have mostly responsive desire. Then everyday life arrives. A shared mortgage, children, jobs, ill parents, the washing-up. Novelty fades, safety grows, and many people find that their desire now works differently from before.

This is not a fault in the relationship. It is the natural course of things. For many couples the change comes after the birth of a child, when the body, sleep and the balance of power in the couple change profoundly — I write about this in The couple after a baby. For others it comes with job loss, illness or burnout. Desire is sensitive to everything happening in life — and to everything happening in the relationship.

That is exactly why a problem that looks sexual is often not sexual at all. If one partner feels overloaded, unheard, criticised or unnoticed, their desire is not “broken” — the body is simply saying that something else is missing in the relationship. Often these are the same themes that surface in recurring arguments, as I write in It is not about the dishes.

Accelerator and brakes

The researchers John Bancroft and Erick Janssen of the Kinsey Institute proposed a dual control model, which Emily Nagoski later explained for a general audience in her book Come As You Are as an accelerator and brakes. Each of us has two systems: one that responds to everything that encourages sexual desire (the accelerator), and another that responds to everything that might be a reason to hold back from it (the brakes). People differ in how sensitive each of the two is.

Why does this matter? Because when desire is lacking, many couples press on the accelerator — romantic dinners, new lingerie, attempts to “spice things up” — while the brakes stay firmly on. If your partner is exhausted, does not feel at ease in their own body, is worried about disappointing again, or carries an old shame connected with sexuality, more accelerator will not help. What helps is when one of the brakes is eased.

The circle that closes in the bedroom

In many couples a familiar pattern forms around a difference in desire. The partner with more desire initiates; the other declines. The one with more desire feels rejected, unwanted, less worthy — and next time initiates more cautiously, more impatiently or with a trace of reproach. The one with less desire begins to experience every touch as a question they have to answer, and so starts avoiding tenderness that is not meant to be sexual: a hug in the kitchen, a kiss on the way out. Soon both feel lonely.

This is the same dance of pursuit and withdrawal I describe in The anxious and the avoidant partner, only here it plays out on the body. And as elsewhere, the same holds: there is no single culprit. Each responds to the other, and each holds their own part of the circle.

Often resentment builds up on both sides. One resents that “it is always me who has to ask”. The other resents that “I can’t just be tender without it meaning something more”. Once resentment is there, desire on the side that already had less withdraws even further.

How to talk about it

Most couples do not talk about sex because they do not know how — or they talk only when it is already bad, at night, after a refusal, with anger in their voice. A conversation about sex is most fruitful when it is not in the bedroom and not straight after a failed attempt at closeness. On a walk, over coffee, in calm.

This is how the beginning of a conversation that does not end in reproaches might look (a composite, not a real person):

“I’d like to talk about something that isn’t easy for me. About our closeness.”
“Again? I know that lately I’ve …”
“It’s not about who’s to blame. I’d like to understand what’s going on with you.”
Silence. “When you hug me in the evening, I feel I have to decide something. And I’m tired, so I pull away.”
“So you’re not pulling away from me, but from having to decide?”
“Yes. I’d most like just to hold you.”
“I’d like that. Really.”

Nothing is solved in this conversation. But both learn something new: that the refusal was not a refusal of her, but of pressure, and that she does not only want sex but also the feeling of being desired. That is something to build on. I have written more about moving from reproaches to needs in From blame to needs: how a couple learns a new language, and you will find some questions to start with in the Questions for a couple’s conversation tool.

How much is enough?

Many couples wonder whether how often they have sex is “normal”. There is no single answer to that question, and any figure you read in a magazine says more about the average than about the two of you.

An interesting finding comes from a group of researchers around Amy Muise, who examined the link between sexual frequency and life satisfaction in more than thirty thousand people. Among couples, well-being was higher for those who had sex more often — but only up to about once a week. Beyond that, well-being did not increase further. The research does not say that once a week is the rule. It does say that more is not necessarily better — and that how you both feel about closeness matters more than how much of it there is.

For a couple with a difference in desire, this is valuable. The aim is not for the partner with less desire to “rise” to the other’s level, nor for the partner with more desire to “resign themselves”. The aim is to find a rhythm and a form of closeness in which both feel welcome — and which is not simply sex or nothing. Between the two extremes there is a great deal of room: tenderness, touch, a shared bath, lying together with no plan.

Exercise: a map of closeness

Each of you does this exercise on your own, and then you bring it into a calm conversation. It takes about twenty minutes.

1. Write down three moments from the past year when closeness with your partner felt good — not necessarily sexual. What was different then? Where were you, what kind of day was it?
2. Write down your three biggest brakes. What takes away your appetite for closeness most at the moment? Be specific: “when I get home and half the work is still ahead of me”.
3. Write down what switches you on — not in detail, but in terms of conditions. Time? Feeling noticed? Laughter? No expectations?
4. Swap your notes, and each tells the other just one thing that surprised them. Don’t defend yourselves and don’t correct each other.
5. Agree on one small step for the coming week — easing one brake or creating one moment of closeness without a goal.

The exercise only works if it feels safe. If one of you feels pressure during it, or if the conversation always ends in tears or anger, that is a sign you need a third person in the room.

When to see a doctor or a sexologist

I would not be honest if I wrote that every difference in desire is a matter of the relationship. Often it is, but not always.

When there is pain. Pain during sex is not something to put up with. For women it is a reason to see a gynaecologist, for men a urologist or their GP. A body that hurts closes down, and rightly so.

When medication or hormones are involved. Some medicines — often including antidepressants, some blood pressure medication and hormonal contraception — can affect desire. So can the menopause, the period after giving birth, breastfeeding, diabetes and low testosterone. Never stop medication on your own; talk it over with the doctor who prescribed it.

When depression or burnout lies behind it. Loss of desire is a common sign of depression — and conversely, depression changes the whole relationship, as I describe in Depression in a relationship. If the loss of desire lasts a long time and comes with low mood, sleeplessness and loss of pleasure in other things too, your first port of call is your GP or a psychiatrist.

When there is a specific sexual difficulty. Difficulties with erection, arousal or orgasm, or old wounds connected with sexuality, are the field of sexologists and sex therapists, who have specific training for this. Couples therapy and sex therapy can complement each other very well.

And most important of all: when there is pressure. Sex that someone forces on you, talks you into until you are worn down, or that you “owe” is not a difference in desire. It is violence, including within a marriage. If you recognise yourself in this, read more in the knowledge base under violence in a relationship, and in Slovenia call the SOS helpline for women and children affected by violence on 080 11 55 or, in an emergency, 113.

What you can expect in therapy

People are often afraid that talking about sex in therapy will be awkward or too personal, or that they will have to go into detail. It is not like that. In couples therapy we usually do not talk about technique, but about meaning: what closeness means to you, what happens when it is missing, what each of you tells yourself about yourself when you are turned down or when you turn the other down. It often turns out that old stories are at play — about whether you are worthy of being wanted, or whether you are allowed to say no without losing love.

In relational family therapy, in which I am training, we see sexuality as one of the most intimate languages of a couple. Patterns we brought from our family of origin often show up in it — how the body was talked about, how tenderness was expressed, whether it was allowed to want. When a couple understands this, a difference in desire stops feeling like a battle and starts to feel like a question the two of them can answer together.

What to remember

• A difference in sexual desire is almost inevitable in long relationships and is not proof that love has gone.
• Besides spontaneous desire there is responsive desire (Rosemary Basson): for many people, desire switches on only once closeness has already begun.
• Often it is not the accelerator that is missing, but too many brakes — stress, tiredness, resentment, pressure.
• Talk about sex outside the bedroom, in calm, about meaning rather than blame.
• With pain, the effects of medication or signs of depression, see a doctor; with pressure or coercion, seek help — that is not a difference in desire.