Remember when you were first dating your partner and the sex was hot, heavy, and frequent? As time passed and you and your partner slowly built a life together, the initial passion might have lost some of its luster or faded altogether.
As with heterosexual couples, LGBT couples often find the responsibilities of life take over as work stress, family issues, finances, and life events begin to distract from sexual connection. In fact, it’s a subject that’s quite challenging for many gay couples to talk about.
As a therapist who works with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender couples, I assist with better communication and connection. Early in the conversation, couples typically talk about a variety of issues that are affecting their relationships, some easier to broach than others.
The topic of sex is a particularly tough one for many to bring up, let alone address.
Although some couples find contentment and intimacy within sexless partnerships, an active, satisfying sex life can be an important part of human connection and self-care. Is it possible to reconnect to your partner and bring passion back into the bedroom? Absolutely. It just takes a little focus, energy, and of course desire.
Here are three tips you can use to begin the process of reconnecting to your partner sexually:
1. Start Simple
Often, couples hoping to rekindle a spark want to rush right back into sex and one or both partners end up feeling overwhelmed. So instead of trying anything, they do nothing and the frustration grows.
Building anticipation, excitement, and romantic feelings can help. Perhaps take a moment to put on some music and slow dance together, giving your bodies a chance to reintroduce themselves to each other. A little massage time is great for setting a comfortable pace for touch.
These types of activities help to create a safe bridge of connection and allow space for intimacy to develop. Once that reconnection occurs, you might find that your primal urges take over and your bodies naturally pursue the best routes to sexual release.
2. Think Creatively
Even in the most satisfying relationships, sex can become stagnant or routine at times. It’s nothing a little creative thinking can’t fix.
Is it possible to reconnect to your partner and bring passion back into the bedroom? Absolutely. It just takes a little focus, energy, and of course desire.
Consider developing a collection of sexual activities with your partner that either of you can draw upon to liven things up. This exercise can build up your sexual vocabulary and serve as foreplay in its own right.
Have each partner separately write down sexual activities he or she would like to bring into the relationship, with each idea going on its own piece of paper. Then go through the ideas together, with no judgment, and decide which ones you both would feel comfortable trying out.
Put all the slips of paper featuring ideas that you both are willing to experiment with into a hat, box, or other container. Whenever either of you wants to initiate sex, you can draw a piece of paper that represents your activity for the night. It can be fun and playful, and it may relieve the pressure of having to figure out the right activity for the moment.
3. Rediscover Life
One of the major reasons couples get bored in the bedroom is that they are bored in life generally. Look at the routines and traps you may have fallen into and notice how they have influenced your connection with your partner. Is Friday night always Mexican food night? Do you always watch the same television shows? Do you attend only events that you are comfortable attending, where you know what’s going to happen?
Although it’s lovely to be with someone you can create rituals with and let down your guard, if these rituals become cemented and inflexible, they can bring a malaise into the relationship that affects your sex life.
So look in your local paper or on social media for events in your community, check the LGBT guides, or see friends you have not seen in a while. Rekindling your passion for life can, in turn, ignite your passion for each other.
Applying the three tips above will help you create a blueprint to reconnect with your partner and reinvigorate your sex life. Satisfying sex with the same partner can be one of the delights of a long-term relationship, but sometimes you need to bring a little awareness into the room to keep the fire going.
The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the preceding article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment below.
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