sex during marriage

Reasons Your Married Sex Life Lacks Passion

When you got married, you probably didn’t imagine sex during marriage would be like this. After all, you love each other. You are attracted to one another and have good chemistry. However, when you are intimate, there is something missing. Maybe it’s a new development in your relationship. Perhaps it has always been that way and you hoped it would eventually change, but it hasn’t. Your married sex life is passionless.

Sex is not always going to be earth-shattering, particularly when a couple has been married for a long time. When sex consistently lacks passion over time, it can become divisive. Sex’s frequency wanes. Filled with unsatisfied desires, some people make unhealthy choices, such as using porn or having an affair in an attempt to quench their thirst. But porn and infidelity aren’t the answer. In order to find a real solution, it is important to identify the problem. If your married sex life lacks passion, it could be for one of these 7 reasons.

1. Inhibitions

When one or both people in a couple are inhibited, it normally comes from a negative view of sex. This negative view may have formed from something as serious as abuse. Others may have had parents who tried to keep them from having unmarried sex by communicating that sex is bad. That association sometimes remains even in sex during marriage. Feelings of guilt, fear, and self-consciousness come rushing in like they are still doing something wrong. Unfortunately, these are normally deeply ingrained and counseling is ideal for moving toward healing.

2. Lack of Prioritizing and Initiative

Undealt-with hurt will turn the heart into a petri dish of bitterness.Sex is not set as a priority. Energy is given to everything else: raising kids, pursuing careers, or maybe even pursuing other people. This normally happens when one person puts sex low on the list leaving the other frustrated. Picking up on the frustration of their spouse, they do it out of obligation. Nothing takes the passion out of sex more than when a husband feels like his wife has sex with him as a favor or vice versa. Both husband and wife need to keep sex high on the list of priorities.

3. Hidden Bitterness

When unresolved issues and a lack of forgiveness linger below the surface, they create disunity. Passionate sex is fueled by the level of connection a couple is experiencing. Undealt-with hurt will turn the heart into a petri dish of bitterness. The relationship electricity will dim until it eventually shuts off.

4. Lack of Honesty

Whether it is for fear of either rejection or hurting the other person, a lack of honesty will place limits on the sexual relationship in a marriage. It shows a lack of trust. It’s important to be able to communicate what each person finds enjoyable and what they don’t. This doesn’t mean all desires need to be met, but that there should be a safe environment for free and open dialogue. One of the beautiful things about sex during marriage is knowing things about one another that no one else knows.

5. Focus on Performance

The focus of sex should be to love, connect, and enjoy one another. People can become preoccupied with performing because it makes them feel powerful. It also could be out of the insecurity rooted in a fear of being compared to a spouse’s past experiences. It’s good to tune in to your wife and work to meet her desires as long as the motivation is one of giving. When the motivation becomes performance-based, it becomes self-serving and breeds disconnection.

6. Loss of Attractiveness

This can be physical, but in most cases, it is deeper. Maybe it is the abrasive or disrespectful way she treats him that causes him to view her as less attractive. It could be that he has no initiative in life or with the family and that turns her off. Address the issues honestly but with kindness and gentleness.

7. Familiarity

Both of you are caught in a cycle of doing the same routine. It’s gotten predictable and boring. A couple easily can fall into this trap, but it’s important to change things up and perhaps even try something new.

Sound off: What do you do to keep the passion in your marriage?

Huddle up with your kids and ask, “What are you most passionate about in life right now?”