Dear Doris
My wife and I are married over 40 years. Our children have moved out and we are grand parents since many years now. I love my wife and consider our marriage pretty good. But often I feel a certain type of boredom or routine in our relationship and our sex life is also not the most active and exciting. What’s there to do?
P.
Dear P.
Congratulations for being married more than 40 years! I assume during your time together, you already have navigated through many different chapters in your marriage, full of all kinds of challenges. I have no doubt that the two of you are very resourceful.
I consider it an art to keep a relationship fresh and your sex life exciting, especially when you are together for so many years. It is possible, however, when you work at being upfront and honest with yourselves and with each other. If you haven’t yet, I recommend you to pick a relaxed moment and ask your wife how she feels about your partnership and your sex lives. It is important to know each other’s perspectives, and how they may differ. Your dreams for the relationship are also important. For instance, what are your unfulfilled hopes and longings for your partnership now? Our hopes and needs change and might not be the same as ten or even one year ago. When you become aware of each other’s current dreams about the relationship, you have goals or a direction to work toward.
For long-term couples, it is especially valuable to look from time to time into what has worked well in your partnership so far, which areas could profit from a brush up, and what are your hopes and dreams for the relationship. There are moments when our partnerships are asking for a new level of commitment, more intimacy, a new chapter, or more dream work about the future, in order to survive. If we miss the signals, we may lose our connection with each other and we may start to look outside of our partnership to get certain needs met, in your case, your sexual needs.
Your partnership may be experiencing one of those moments right now. It is healthy to ask each other during these times if we still want to be life partners. If we do, then we ask ourselves what would we like to improve or change? These fundamental questions can take a lot of courage to ask, but they allow us in the end to make a conscious choice between continuing as a couple or not.
Even if your wife feels satisfied with the state of your sex life and partnership, here are some inspirational questions for you both to answer and share with each other.
-What images or sensations (feel, smell, taste, colors, music) come up in you when you envision an exciting sex life?
-What might be different in your relationship if you could experience exciting sex again?
-Do you have any hopes or dreams that you have never shared with your partner? (They don’t need to be limited to your sex life.) If yes, share them and support each other in fulfilling them.
I recommend for the next three months, that the two of you consciously make your partnership the number one priority in your lives, and that you ponder with an open heart (no blame or shame) on questions that are significant to both of you and your partnership. They may look like the one’s I mentioned above, or you may come up with your own questions and ideas.
Warmly,
Doris
If you have any relationship questions, please send them to doriswier@embraceconflicts.com