“My partner and I never want to have sex at the same time. What do we do?”

Tips from a relationship therapist in Denver, Colorado. 

Maintaining intimacy in a relationship is a major aspect in helping you and your partner feel connected. So it makes sense that when your sex life and libido feel out of sync, it affects that overall feeling of intimacy and connection. Here are some things to try if you’ve noticed that you and your partner are out of sync.

The first step: name it

It’s going to be really hard to talk about and work on your sex life if you can’t name what currently feels off. Most likely, if you’re feeling like you’re not on the same page, your partner is feeling it too. Clearing the air and naming it can release a lot of tension and help you work on it together. 

Once you’ve been able to name it, you can explore what’s happening together. It could be helpful to reflect on the last several weeks. When have you wanted to have sex? Were you able to express it to your partner? What happened next? And vice versa. What has been going on in your lives in general? Perhaps one of you was dealing with a cold and just didn’t feel good for a week or two. Maybe your partner has been really stressed at work, or you’re dealing with stress from your family. This kind of curiosity can give you insight into what’s been happening.

If it’s really hard for both of you to reflect on the last several weeks, commit to starting to reflect moving forward. Set an intention to check in with each other regularly – daily, weekly, twice a week. Keep a journal or a tracker if you need to so that you can start identifying any possible patterns. 

Look for Accelerators and Brakes 

Dr. Emily Nagoski wrote an excellent book on sex and intimacy titled Come As You Are. It’s a combination of practical tips and research that can help us really start to understand the science behind sex. After all, libido and arousal are largely biological processes. So understanding how they work is key. 

Before we dive in any more, I like to give a disclaimer to everyone I recommend Nagoski’s work to. Although the book packed full of super helpful information, it’s also written through a very heteronormative lens. This is a huge limitation of the book and Nagoski’s research. 

One of the things in the book that has been most helpful for my clients is understanding the concept of sexual accelerators and brakes. To paraphrase Dr. Nagoski’s explanation, think about how your car works.

If you hit the accelerator, the car will go. If you hit the brake, the car will stop. But what happens if you slam on both the gas and the brake at once? Generally, the brake wins. That means you have to let off the brake and then hit the gas, for the car to go.

This is kind of how our libido works. We each have our own accelerators (turn-ons) and brakes (turn-offs), but in order to let our accelerators take us to a place of enjoyable intimacy, we can’t just slam on the accelerators. We have to let off the brakes first. 

Figuring out what your accelerators and brakes are is the key. And this is super important: they’re not all going to be sexual in nature. In fact, most of our accelerators and brakes have nothing to do with sex on the surface! 

Your accelerators might very well include what you find sexually attractive or arousing, but could also include things like having a really good day, giving a presentation at work that was very successful, feeling gratitude (especially toward your partner), having a good workout and feeling energized, enjoying a fun or romantic date, etc. Accelerators are basically anything that helps you feel better and therefore, potentially more in the mood. 

Brakes, on the opposite side, are those things that make it harder for you to get into the mood for sex. Yes, they can include sexual turn-offs, but it’s safe to say that brakes are usually non-sexual. Your brakes could be things like going through a lot of stress, having a stomach ache or feeling sick, feeling overwhelmed, having a phone call with an estranged parent, getting into an argument with your partner or kids, not feeling comfortable in your body that day, or any number of other things. 

As you and your partner start to identify what your unique accelerators and brakes are, you’ll be more likely to find times when you both have minimal brakes engaged – and can work on engaging the accelerators! 

Plan it out 

I know this one feels unsexy, but hear me out. Planning sex ahead of time is not stuffy or boring. In fact, it can feel really intentional and romantic! The reality is that life gets busy and exhausting and mundane, especially if you’re married, or have kids, or both work full time, or live together. That spontaneous, amazing sex that can come so easily in the honeymoon stage of a relationship can fade over time. That doesn’t mean anything about your love or attraction to each other. It just means you’re normal humans. 

Constantly wishing your sex life would be more spontaneous usually just leads to resentment and discouragement. Instead, plan time for intimacy in advance. Maybe you plan a week ahead, maybe you decide in the morning to head to bed a little earlier that night. 

Planning sex can help you both start thinking about sex! It gives you something to anticipate and get excited about. It also allows you to get some of your brakes out of the way, like laundry or meal prep or getting the kids to bed, because you’ve given yourself time to plan ahead. Seriously, try it! You might be surprised. 

Address any medical concerns 

If it seems like you and your partner have tried all the tips in the world to improve intimacy, and it’s just physically not working, it could be worthwhile to discuss this with your doctor. There are many medical conditions and medications that can affect libido, and many have nothing to do with sex or the reproductive system on the surface. Sometimes, there are surprisingly simple adjustments that can be made with medications to help the problem. Other times, you or your partner may have been living with an undiagnosed condition that you can now get treatment for. 

Talk it out in couples therapy 

Never underestimate the power of having a neutral and professional third person supporting your relationship! Couples therapy can be an amazing place to identify your patterns, learn healthy communication skills, repair old hurts, and find new ways to support the intimacy in your relationship. Visit our couples therapy page to learn more about couples and relationship therapy.

Hold this at the forefront as you start to take steps forward…

Whether you’re taking the first step to name your frustrations with your partner, or you’re diving into relationship therapy, I hope you can feel encouraged to know that this is all part of having a healthy and loving relationship! Changes in libido and seasons of being out of sync are very normal, and there are many different ways to address them. 

If you don’t want to go it alone, don’t go it alone. Couples counseling can help you navigate sex and increase intimacy and connection. Reach out for a free consult with one of our Denver couples counselors today.