Photo Credit--Anne St. Germaine

Ms. Perel has a private psychotherapy practice in New York, with multilingual clients. She is fluent in eight languages. Her clinical teaching and interests center on culture and sexuality with a focus on couples.

A frequently referenced author and popular media commentator on the Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, CBC News, CNN This Morning and many other programs, Ms. Perel is the author of Mating In Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (Harper Collins, 2006).

Esther Perel--

While the diversity in the couples I work with is infinite, one complaint rings true across all cultures: couples who describe themselves as loving, trusting and caring, complain that their sex lives have become dull and devoid of eroticism.

Why is it that great sex so often fades for couples who claim to love each other as much as ever? Can we want what we already have? Why does good intimacy not guarantee great sex? Why is the forbidden erotic? Why does the transition to parenthood deliver such an erotic blow? And when we love, what do we feel, and when we desire, how is it different?

These are some of the questions that occupied me when I set out to research the nature of erotic desire in long-term relationships. I wanted to look at the obstacles and anxieties we experience when our quest for secure love clashes with our pursuit of passion.

After traveling to 20 countries in the last 2 years ( the book has been translated into 25 languages) I kept wondering whatever happened to the generation that experienced the sexual revolution, or its beneficiaries, who have contraception in their hands, can count on premarital sex as a given. They view sexual satisfaction as central to relational happiness, they can do what they want, and have no desire to do it, or at least not at home.

It is commonly viewed that sexual problems are the result of relationship problems—namely, lack of communication. Find out about the state of the union first; see how it manifests in the bedroom second. The premise is that if sexual problems are the consequence of the relationship, fix the relationship and the sex will follow.

In my experience, I’d helped many couples improve their relationship—they felt closer, laughed together, they communicated more. But this did nothing for the bedroom. Emotional fulfillment does not necessarily translate to sexual excitement.

Sex is not a metaphor for a relationship, it’s a parallel narrative. It speaks its own language. Love and desire are two different languages. We would like to think that they flow from each other. While love and desire relate, they also conflict. Love thrives in an atmosphere of reciprocity, protection, and congruence. Desire is more selfish. In fact, at times, the very elements that nurture love: comfort, stability, safety, for example, can extinguish desire.

Love seeks closeness, but desire needs space to thrive. Here’s a question to illustrate my point.

“Tell me about a moment when you find yourself particularly drawn to your partner.” All over the world, the answers resonate with a remarkable similarity.

When I seem him play sports… When she’s unaware I’m watching her…When he is talking with friends…When she’s confidently speaking with a colleague… When she’s standing on the other side of a crowded room, and she smiles just for me…When he’s playing with the kids…When he makes me laugh, when she surprises me… When I watch him do something he is passionate about.

Whatever the answer, it is never without an element of distance. The separateness is accentuated and difference is magnified. We look across this distance and what we see is different than the view up close. We create a bridge of things unknown by making a perceptual shift, and it is on this bridge, in the space between each other, that we can meet and play with the erotic.

My work with couples is to illicit strivings, longing, and novelty— to make interesting what is sufficiently available.

So how do we begin to better ourselves in the language of sex? First of all, stop thinking you’re trying to improve “sex”—it’s a limiting definition, too enmeshed in mechanics, necessity and numbers. Think about improving your relationship with eroticism; if that’s too big a leap, think play.

More Sex, Please, We're Married!

Jaci Rae is known as The Fabulously Frugal Diva and The Queen of More Green. She is the author of several books including this week's Bestseller at Amazon 5 Meals For $5.  Other books she's written: Shop For a Day With Jaci Rae, How To Get Almost Anything For Free, and Winning Points With The Woman in Your Life One Touchdown at a Time.  Jaci Rae, who was raised in poverty and knows the value of a dollar, can show you that it doesn't have to be a struggle.  Recently Jaci Rae went on a shopping spree and filled an entire truck, inside and out for under $400.  Jaci is currently working on a Ph.D.

Jaci Rae--

Sex, society and the Internet. These three explosive topics have elicited a lot of conversation and controversy. Society has always had a fascination with sex. However, over the centuries the fascination has gone from closed doors to open format.

What changed society’s willingness to discuss and view sex in an open forum? The term Sexual Revolution was first noted in 1929, when Thurber and White used the expression in their book, Is Sex Necessary? However, some historians believe the sexual revolution actually began in the 1960s. Prior to the 1960s, society, as a whole, had a very puritanical view of sex and sex was not openly discussed.

Skip a few decades to the explosion of the Internet and an entirely new kind of sexual revolution began. No longer was sex a veiled and taboo subject that could cause a scandal. Nor was sex hidden in a stack of magazines, secret drawers or a stash of DVDs on a hush-hush closet shelf. It was a wide-open arena for anyone to participate in.

The new sexual revolution focused on sexual freedom and experimentation. The Internet "superhighway" gave easy access to sexual content in a way society had never experienced before.

Chat rooms and instant messaging became the new form of "meeting" and "communicating" with other people. Mega "super stars" were sometimes unwittingly born from taped sexual escapades in "private" trysts. (Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee, and Paris Hilton are the most notable.)

The question is has society, as a whole, become a better place now that knowledge of any kind is so easily accessible? There are pros and cons. A few of the extraordinary assets of the Internet are:

• Research can be done on a much broader scale and performed with a lot more ease.
• Information can be disseminated more rapidly.
• The exposure to various cultures and societies is much more obtainable whether or not you can travel.
• Moreover, the chance for running your own business is available to anyone.

Lazier.
• More overweight.
• More disconnected.
• Face-to-face social skills are rapidly declining.
• The moral gauge of society is becoming obscured.
• Sexual predators have gained much easier access to their prey.

Because of the free-for-all, cyber-sex and cyber-affairs have run rampant. The divorce rate at 38% only a few years ago, is climbing to over 50%. *(National Center for Health Statistic based on 46 reporting states. This measurement is based on per capita.)

In addition to a higher rate of divorce, young children, pre-teens and teenagers have been given carte blanche access to the Internet. They are being exposed to sexual predators and pornography at an alarming rate as Internet addiction is reaching epidemic proportion.

The backlash from the massive exposure of the Internet Sexual Revolution, coupled with the social abandonment, has come at a great cost to humanity and the relationships we value.

While the Internet does offer a vast world of possibilities and exciting exploration of the world around us, without limitations it has become an addictive hazard that people, for the most part, unintentionally use to destroy their families and relationships. Moreover, overuse is known to cause problems physically, financially and emotionally.

The Internet is a great tool to utilize. But it's just that, a tool. However, for too many people their Internet connection has become their friend, lover and world. The utopian culture Internet addicts create for themselves is becoming a large-scale dilemma.

What is the solution to the worldwide problem? The only answer is for society to begin reconnecting to the real world and curb their enthusiasm for their computers and the technology that runs them. The Internet is not the adversary; it's the uncontrolled use of the Internet that causes problems in all areas of an addict's life.

*It should be noted that the higher rate of divorce was not blamed on the use of the Internet. Some studies cited the ease of which divorce is now available as one of the contributing factors in the rise of divorce.

When Pornography Is The Problem

A Deeper Understanding of NO-SEX Marriages

The study, published in the July 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, studied almost 2,000 U.S. women ages 30 to 70 who were in stable relationships.  It found that more than 50 percent of women who went through menopause naturally and almost 40 percent of women who went through menopause by having surgery to remove their ovaries had a prevalence of low sexual desire, compared with 26 percent of women who had not gone through menopause.

 Interestingly, women who went through menopause naturally exhibited the lowest distress about their lower sexual desire.

"Women who go through menopause naturally may continue to produce some hormones that are beneficial for sexual response whereas women whose ovaries are removed are not producing these reproductive hormones," said Suzanne West, Ph.D., M.P.H., a senior public health researcher at RTI and the study's lead author. "In addition, naturally menopausal women have more time to adjust physically to the hormonal changes, and may also be expecting changes in their sexual response that reduces their distress about their low sexual desire."

The researchers found that distress about low sexual desire was more than twice as prevalent among surgically menopausal women as women who have not yet gone through menopause. The distress was particularly highest among women who were younger than 45 years of age when they had their ovaries removed.

According to the authors' estimates using current census data, at least 16 million women who are 50 or older currently experience low sexual desire and about 4 million are distressed by their low desire.

The study, funded by Procter & Gamble, was conducted while West was working in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Guest Bloggers Wendy and Larry Maltz--

Porn is available anywhere, any time these days – on the Internet, cable television, cell phones, iPods, and more. Unlike just a decade ago, it’s often free and difficult to avoid. In fact, you can see more porn in a few minutes online than most people saw during their entire lifetime a generation ago. And today’s porn offers a plethora of images that cater to many tastes and temperaments, from soft-core porn to things like bondage, violent sexual acts, and child sexual abuse. It also has the power to shape sexual interests and behaviors, and create negative consequence in people’s emotional, physical, social, relationship, and spiritual lives like never before.

It’s no wonder that more and more porn users are asking themselves, “Do I have a problem with porn?” Perhaps, you are one of them, or you may know someone who is.

A quick way to examine whether porn has become (or is becoming) a problem in your life is to ask yourself these five questions:

1. Is porn hurting my sex life with a partner — or my chances of having a satisfying sex life with a partner?

There is no doubt that porn is a highly effective sexual stimulant. Watching it can turn you on and “spice things up” with a partner. But what you may not realize is that too much exposure, especially over a long period of time, can seriously harm your sexuality.

Porn can easily go from being something that can enhance a sexual experience to something that funnels sexual energy away from a partner or potential partner until IT becomes the primary object of your sexual desires. By misleading you about what is realistic and healthy (mutual pleasure, full-body sensuality, and love), porn can end up teaching you a self-centered, voyeuristic, genitally-focused approach to sex that can turn an intimate partner (or future intimate partner) off. And if you try to hide your porn use, the lying and secrecy will undermine the honesty, trust, respect, and closeness in your intimate relationship.

2. Is porn use decreasing my self-esteem and respect for others?

Porn isn’t good for you if it makes you feel bad about yourself in the long run. Ted, a twenty-six year old former porn user, told us that he became “disgusted” with him self for getting off on porn, being so attached to it, and lying to others about what he was doing. “I desired porn physically, but in my heart I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do,” he said.

When you fantasize and act in sexual ways that go against what you value and want for yourself and for others, you end up conflicted and distressed. You may feel anxious, defensive, depressed, guilty, ashamed, and isolated. Porn use that causes you to be dishonest, deceitful, or hypocritical is obviously not good for you – the price is too high when porn costs you your integrity and healthy sense of connection with others.

3. Is using porn interfering with other parts of my life, such as doing my job well, studying for school, getting enough sleep, or spending time with my family?

While using porn may start out as “a little fantasy entertainment on the side,” many people find themselves sucked in by the game-like nature of finding new and different images that turn them on. As a result, it can eat up increasing amounts of time with detrimental consequences.

Charlie, a thirty-three year old computer specialist, recalls how time spent with porn hurt his career and relationships. “I wasted huge tracks of time on porn and fell behind in my work. I was spending three to four hours a day on something that had no benefit to me as far as becoming a better person, gaining skills, understanding the world better, or enhancing my relationships with other people.”

4. Has my porn use become addictive or compulsive?

Porn use can be highly addictive. Studies have found that regular exposure acts on your brain and body much like regular use of drugs or tobacco. Porn creates a triple feel-good cocktail — it sexually excites, provides a fantasy escape, and creates a feeling of relaxation following orgasm. You may wonder how something that you don't actually ingest can alter your brain chemistry and physiology, but just because something enters your body through your eyes and ears and not your mouth, doesn't mean it's not getting in and doing damage. Regular porn users often report that in time they find themselves needing more of it and more graphic, risky, and intense images to get the desired effect. Some porn users experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms, such as irritability and difficulty sleeping, when deprived of porn.

Signs of a porn addiction include craving porn intensely and persistently, being unable to control your use or stop, and continuing to use it despite your encountering serious problems with it. Bonnie, a former porn addict said, “After a while, Internet porn took on a life of its own. Rather than me using it, it was controlling me. I lost the power to say no.”

5. Is porn use leading to risky, dangerous, or illegal behaviors?

It’s easy to lose perspective on what you’re doing and risking when you’re under the seductive spell of porn. A relationship with porn can become a living nightmare when it leads to the break-up of a relationship, loss of a job, rejection from your friends and family, or trouble with the law. Unfortunately, someone who is “high” on porn may not see these disasters lurking right around the corner, or they may fool themselves into thinking they’re too smart to get in trouble.

Rob, a recovering porn addict, said, “ Porn felt good in the moment, but then it just took me down. When I got busted for downloading child porn, it cost me everything I cherished — I lost my lovely wife, my two beautiful kids, a well-paying job, and a big beautiful house. Clever as I thought I was, I never saw it coming. ”

A “yes” answer to any one of the five questions above can indicate a problem with porn and the need to take action to address it.

BREAKING AWAY FROM PORN

As with other health concerns, the sooner you recognize problems and get help, the easier it is to recover. You have to acknowledge the problem, find support for making healthier choices, deal with the negative repercussions of past porn use, and learn new, healthier approaches to sexual relationships and intimacy. Our book, The Porn Trap: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Problems Caused by Pornography offers many ideas for accomplishing these goals and provides a roadmap to successful healing and long-term recovery.

The benefits of recovering from a harmful porn habit are well worth the effort. As Derek said, “Now that I’ve stopped using porn, I feel better about myself as a human being. I’m able to be more present and connected with other people. I’ve stopped sexually objectifying everyone. For the first time in my life I feel here and sexually healthy.”

What Is Healthy Sex?

Jennifer Wider--

Diabetes can take a toll on a person’s overall health, but amidst all of the possible problems that may arise sexual dysfunction is not often talked about and is more common than most people realize. According to the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, Mass., roughly 35 percent of women with diabetes may experience some form of sexual dysfunction related to their disease. 

Most of the past research about diabetes’ impact on sex has focused on men. But it has become quite clear that women suffering from diabetes may experience sexual difficulties as a result of complications from the disease. A recent study in the journal Lancet revealed that diabetes frequently impairs normal sexual functioning in both men and women. 

According to the study’s research team from the Department of Endocrinology at the Boston University School of Medicine, “The effect of diabetes on women's sexual function is complex: the most consistent finding is a correlation between sexual dysfunction and depression.” 

In addition to the psychological effects of the disease, the study’s authors were quick to point out that more research in body physiology was needed to fully understand the toll diabetes can take on the female patient. “More research on the sexual effects of abnormal adrenal and thyroid function, hyperprolactinaemia, and metabolic syndrome should also be prioritized,” the study authors wrote. Hyperprolactinaemia is the presence of abnormally-high levels of the hormone prolactin in the blood. Unusually high amounts of prolactin are suspected to be responsible for impotence and loss of libido.

Women with diabetes who suffer from sexual dysfunction often have a wide variety of complaints.  Nerve damage from the disease can result in a decrease of sexual arousal and lowered libido. Diabetic women are also more prone to problems with decreased vaginal lubrication. In addition, some women with diabetes may suffer from recurring vaginitis, or inflammation of the vagina, as a result of yeast infections, which can make sexual intercourse painful. 

There are treatments available for sexual dysfunction, which vary based on the underlying cause. The key is to have an open, honest discussion with a health care provider who can assist patients in narrowing in on the cause and finding the proper therapy.   

Diabetes results from the body's inability to produce or respond to insulin, a hormone necessary for the absorption of sugar. There are several types of diabetes—the main ones are type 1 and type 2. Type 2 is the most common and usually affects overweight people who are older than 45 with a history of the disease in their family.

“Increases in obesity and sedentary behavior are the major drivers of the diabetes surge,” says Dr. K.M. Venkat Narayan, M.D., chief of the Diabetes Epidemiology Section at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga.

Although the number of people suffering from diabetes is at an all-time high, there are measures people can take to cut their risk. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle can lower the chance of getting diabetes for both men and women. “Exercising thirty minutes per day, five to seven times a week and keeping your weight under control with a healthy diet,” explains Narayan.

SOURCES: Bhasin S, Enzlin P, et al.  Sexual dysfunction in men and women with endocrine disorders.  Lancet. 2007 Apr 21; 369(9570): 1346.
© March 13, 2008 Society for Women's Health Research

More In Sexual Matters

Dr. Gary Smalley and Pastor Ted Cunningham have just published The Language of Sex: Experiencing the Beauty of Sexual Intimacy. Written from a Christian perspective, this is Dr. Smalley's first book on the topic of sex.  Long held as a taboo topic within the church, today's Christians are beginning to open up about their sex lives, its problems, and solutions. Dr. Smalley believes that sex is largely undiscussed because it is a private often uncomfortable subject, similar to talking about one's own funeral.  However, to properly honor and protect the sexual relationship, he states that it must be discussed.  The Bible, he writes "provides more instruction and guidance for how to make a baby than for how to take care of one!  God has given us sex as a gift and it's one to be thoroughly treasured, celebrated and enjoyed."

After being in relationship ministry for 45 years, Dr. Smalley has traced most sexual issues in marriage back to relationship problems.  Each marriage has a formula for great sex, beginning with honor, developing into security, leading to intimacy, and finalizing with sex.  "The best sex of your life starts in your heart, not in your head or between your legs."  Sex is the result of building upon a secure loving relationship.  "Sexual problems are indicative of greater issues."

Think about your relationship with your spouse.  Do you:

Consider your husband/wife to be extremely important?

Value your spouse's thoughts?

Have you kept your commitment to the relationship since your marriage?  Sexually?  Emotionally?

Do you speak derisively about your spouse when he/she is present?  When absent?

Unresolved conflicts about work, money, friends, etc..lead to a lack of security and intimacy in marriage.  Dr. Smalley believes that security must be nurtured within the relationship. 

Dr. Smalley's Top Tips on Growing Security Within Marriage:

Guard your spouse's heart: Don't go to bed angry at each other.  Commit to this, if possible, at the beginning of your marriage.  You'll never need to sleep on the couch or leave the home.

Create boundaries: Form a union between you and your spouse, that cannot be separated by anything or anyone.  This includes old girlfriends, addictions, and parents.

Don't use sex as a weapon or a reward: Do you have a headache tonight?  Once in awhile, that's ok.  Every time your spouse wants to have sex? That's a no-no. Do not attempt to control your marriage or spouse with sex.  Sex is for both the husband's and wife's mutual enjoyment. 

Commit sexually to your spouse for life: Keep sex completely within the bounds of your marriage: physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Enjoy make-up sex by practicing the five-minute rule: Take a five-minute break after an argument.  Listen more, speak less, anger slowly.

Today it's easy to just dump the marriage when difficulties arise, looking elsewhere for happiness.  But relationships rarely improve with a change of partners.  Instead, both men and women should spend a little more time investing in an awareness of their spouses' needs, desires, and uniqueness. Your spouse is the person you chose to love, honor, and commit to. The Language of Sex, a must read for every marriage, will certainly help couples resolve issues, leading to greater intimacy within the marriage.

BackStory: Gary Smalley, best-selling author of The Language of Love (Angel Award Winner), The Blessing and The Two Sides of Love (Gold Medallion Award Winners), is president and founder of the Smalley Relationship Center.  His books have sold over six million copies.

Ted Cunningham is the pastor of Woodland Hills community Church in Branson, Missouri, which received a Purpose Driven Church Health Award in 2006.  Ted is a speaker with the Smalley Relationship Center.

More Experts in Sexual Matters

Guest Blogger Joyce Catlett--

Returning to Geraldine’s and Luke’s problem, (see More Sex Please, We’re Married, Part 1), the authors of Sex & Love in Intimate Relationships recommend taking the longer, more challenging route rather than using a quick-fix approach to rekindling sexual intimacy and maintaining emotional and sexual closeness. Improvement can only come by first uncovering the deeper-lying causes of the problem – usually rooted in childhood - rather than focusing on external factors most couples tend to blame for their diminished desire.

According to Dr. Robert Firestone, sexuality in a relationship usually deteriorates when members of the couple reach their intimacy tolerance threshold, which triggers psychological defenses created in childhood. The irony is that the same defenses we developed to protect ourselves against pain, frustration, and anxiety in our earliest relationships now become barriers to happiness and satisfaction in our present-day relationships. Firestone points out that ”Most people have a fear of intimacy, yet at the same time are terrified of being alone. Their solution is to form a fantasy bond – an illusion of connection and closeness – that allows them to maintain emotional distance while relieving loneliness. Destructive fantasy bonds exist in a large majority of couple relationships The process of forming a fantasy bond greatly reduces the possibility of achieving a successful personal relationship.”

Couples believe they want intimacy, but in fact have very low tolerance for it, and retreat from intimacy. They may form a pleasant, albeit non-sexual, bond which they both draw on to relieve feelings of insecurity, deprivation, and emotional hunger left over from their childhoods. They tend to cling to each other and play out either the parent or child roles with each other rather than engage in adult sexual intimacy.

Therapy can help by focusing on each partner’s psychological development. The goal is to give up the negative behaviors we learned in childhood which alienate our partners and push them away. Understanding why we become irritable and argumentative after being close sexually and emotionally can also help us rekindle the feelings we enjoyed early in our relationship. We need to work to reestablish our independence as a separate unique individual -- the person we were when our partner fell in love with us. Then we will once again be able to love each other freely and deeply.

A few corrective suggestions recommended by the authors of Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships:

(1) Acknowledge to each other that things are not the same as when you first became involved,

(2) Try to have an honest conversation, ideally with a counselor, to express directly the underlying anger. Also admit that you have been distorting your partner’s traits in a negative direction or exaggerating his or her weaknesses, and

(3) Most importantly, recognize that many of the ways you distort your partner actually come from critical inner voices or negative thoughts that we all have about our selves and other people.

It is also important to remember that these critical inner voices originated as a defense that we erected to protect ourselves as children from painful experiences in the family. We idealized our parents and as a result thought that we were at fault and believed that we were bad. This negative way of thinking about ourselves, our partner, and our relationship is not really our own view. Instead this unfriendly, alien point of view is made up of negative messages we picked up from some of the unloving ways our parents may have related to each other, from how they may have treated us when they were angry, and from how they may have distorted us as children. When we understand this and identify and challenge these negative thoughts, we will be better able to sustain sexual intimacy and emotional closeness in our relationships.

Recommended Readings:

Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships Robert W. Firestone & Joyce Catlett, (2006)

Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice Robert W. Firestone, Lisa A. Firestone, & Joyce Catlett, (2003)

More Expert Opinions in Sexual Matters

, and is an expert at PeopleJam. He is frequently called upon to share his expertise with regard to contemporary business, national and world news by television, radio and print media including: Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Newsweek, Time, Los Angeles Times, ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/CNN/BBC News, Oprah, and Today.

Guest Blogger Mark Goulston--

As more of the facts behind the Eliot Spitzer scandal come to the fore, it may be clear that once again grandiose, narcissistic men come to believe that they live by different rules than others. It may also be clear that men who possess a great drive to succeed not infrequently have that drive cross over into a sex drive that doesn't seem to be satisfied within a mundane typical marriage.

On the other hand, even non narcissistic men are not immune to discovering that sex is a great way to relieve tension.

Men in fact did not ask that sex for sex sake would be such a great tension reliever. It just is. (And as women are becoming more competitive and aggressive in the world, they are not far behind in discovering it). But if a guy is married to a woman who demands and deserves to be treated with respect who would not take too kindly to serving as a
vehicle for purely carnal sexual relief, and is someone he respects, he can sometimes have problems covering up his desire to sometimes just use her (and in his mind not very respectfully) for a release rather than to make love.

So… if a man has a large uncontrollable sex drive, feels it is the only way to relieve tension and he has a wife
who either has less of a sex drive, would be turned off to having sex the "imaginative" way he would like to and talking about the problem only makes it worse (as he can come off as whining, complaining or sullen and not much of a turn on), what should that man do?

Related: What About Eliot Spitzer's Wife?

Guest Blogger Joyce Catlett--

The Problem

According to recent surveys, married couples and those in long-term relationships have less, not more satisfying sex as compared with singles in short-term relationships. ”We love each other, but sex has disappeared from our lives,” – complain a growing number of couples seeking professional help. Almost epidemic in proportion, diminished sexual intimacy in married life nonetheless remains a taboo subject for most couples.

Why does sexual desire so predictably disappear from the lives of couples after they become committed to the relationship and to each other? Why do so many couples believe, rightfully, that the sexual sizzle of their early relationship will inevitably wane in a long-term relationship? Can we recapture the early spirit of our mating dance, and again become our mate’s object of desire?

I firmly believe we can. As I emphasize in my workshops, combining passionate sex and emotional intimacy is rarely as natural and easy as we want it to be. Instead, maintaining a healthy erotic sex life in a close relationship is often complicated and confusing. Let’s look at Geraldine’s story: She and her husband Luke were interviewed by Dr. Robert Firestone, my co-author, for our book Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships.

Luke and Geraldine started out as friends and had much in common. They both loved motorcycling and Geraldine really enjoyed working alongside Luke in his carpentry shop. Gradually it dawned on her that she was in love. One evening Luke told her that he had fallen in love with her. She was thrilled. The next day, they were having dinner with another couple who were close friends, and Luke repeated what he had told Geraldine the previous evening. She was slightly self-conscious, but liked the fact that he had confided in their mutual friends and shared his feelings with them. That was about two months ago.

Now she finds herself being annoyed by him. She says he seems bossy and demanding. “He keeps asking me when I’m coming by the shop to work with him. But truthfully, I can’t tell whether he’s all that provoking or if I’m being extra critical of him. I have to admit that this has happened before in a relationship I had last year. I was head-over-heels in love and then I just cooled off. Is this a pattern? Whose fault is it? Did both these guys change for the worse or does familiarity breed contempt?’

Geraldine’s story underscores a puzzling fact about human beings. Paradoxically, when people are loved for who they really are, very often they feel compelled to reject this love and to punish their lover. Being loved and appreciated for their positive traits is very different from the negative identity they may have grown up with.

Of course, most people would say that they want love in their lives, and they would be telling the truth. However, it has been our experience that very few people can accept or even tolerate genuine appreciation, approval and affection, especially from someone they love and admire.

Unbeknownst to most lovers, their reactions to being loved include anxiety and anger. Anxiety aroused by feelings of being loved is unpleasant at best, and disturbing or even agonizing at worst. On an unconscious level, we feel angry at the person who is making us upset and anxious, but so often we can’t explain why. We may become irritable with our partner or we may begin to withhold the qualities that he or she originally admired in us. We are afraid to express our anger directly because we don’t want to hurt our partner’s feelings. However, in an intimate relationship, unspoken anger kills off sexual desire more effectively than anything else. In addition, we often distort our partners, exaggerating their human foibles and weaknesses while rationalizing our lack of attraction by dwelling on these distortions.

In Geraldine’s case, she couldn't stand being loved because it threatened the negative view she had of herself that she had formed in her family. She was unloved, rejected and made to feel unattractive and even superfluous. Accepting Luke's positive feelings toward her would have turned her world upside down and caused her tremendous anxiety, so she protected herself without even knowing why.

Later in the same interview, Geraldine admitted: ”I’ve never thought of myself as a loving soft woman, and that’s exactly what I started to give up when our relationship became ’public.’ I changed my actions so I wouldn’t have to see myself that way again, the way Luke saw me. In my mind I created a monster out of Luke. I began to seen him as mean and demanding. I found faults wherever I could. Luke’s natural feelings for me made me feel differently about myself, made me feel that I was lovable, and I couldn’t live with that identity, so I twisted everything to do away with that feeling about myself, and I hurt Luke so much in the process.”

So it appears that Geraldine answered her own question, “Whose fault is it? Does familiarity breed contempt?” when she realized this core truth about human beings. (Of course, Luke also pulled away from being close to Geraldine; it’s never one person. To some extent, everyone has the tendency to retreat from the very thing they want the most.)

Understanding why people have difficulty sustaining feelings of love and sexual attraction over an extended period of time in a personal relationship can help. It is important to know that we all suffer to some extent from a basic fear of intimacy. When we take a chance on trusting a relationship partner, we’re going to feel anxious, fearful, sad and emotionally vulnerable. These feelings, even though they may be operating below our conscious awareness, cause us to distort our loved ones, as Geraldine did. The way out of this problem is to raise our awareness of this paradoxical truth about ourselves and to struggle to “hang in there” and remain close to the one we love.

Related: What Is Healthy Sex?

              Take Two Pills And Speak To Each Other In the Morning