Marriage, especially one that lasts a long time, is all about growing, maturing, and living life as a family with your spouse. Moving, kids, career changes, new stages of life, you experience it all together, and, as such, you shouldn’t expect the nature of your relationship to stay the same the entire time. However, certain changes, such as a decrease in intimacy, while understandable and perhaps even unavoidable in some circumstances, are not something you should simply accept. It can have a bigger impact on your relationship than you might imagine. So, what can you do to address it?
Rebuilding Connection Requires Effort
You can’t simply expect to turn back the clock and have things be the way they used to. Intimacy often decreases in a marriage because your connection has changed in some way, often due to life’s responsibilities like parenting. As such, it’s important to prioritize time together, whether it’s having long, unbroken conversations about things other than the kids or simply holding hands more often again. These moments signal that you and your spouse still matter to one another, laying down the emotional closeness that is the foundation of physical intimacy, too.
Dating Each Other Again
If you’re looking for concentrated doses of connection-building between you and your spouse, dating each other again can be just what you need. Partners often find themselves becoming more co-parents after having kids, feeling more like roommates and teammates, but romantic energy can fade as a result. Prioritize child-free outings where you can talk about something other than the kids. Even if it’s just a coffee date or a walk in the evening, consistent quality time reminds you why you chose each other.
Talk About Sexual Health Openly And Honestly
Changes from pregnancy, aging, and even the stress of dealing with more responsibilities can have a wide range of impacts on your sexual health. From erectile dysfunction to changes in your libido, these are not the results of a dead bedroom; they are often a cause. Talking about these physical changes openly and without shame can help you focus your energy on finding solutions, like ED treatment. When couples support each other through these challenges, intimacy often deepens as a result. When you’re in it together, it can build the trust that underpins intimacy.
Understand That Intimacy Changes
Becoming more intimate again with your spouse doesn’t mean going back to just how it was right after you got married. After a dry spell, couples may need to redefine what connection looks like in this season. Maybe passion looks different than it did in your twenties, and you want to focus just as much on non-sexual affection, or you might want to look at intimacy aids to help you reignite things in the bedroom when traditional intercourse doesn’t happen as easily as it used to. Intimacy is often something that has to be rediscovered anew.
Many marriages go through a dry spell. However, you can stop yourself from developing a chronic case of dead bed syndrome with the help of the tips above.
