8 Ways to Spice Things Up When Your Sex Life Has Gone Dry
· Vice
Sex can dry up in long relationships for reasons that have nothing to do with how attracted you are to your partner. Work runs late. Kids wake up. Bodies change. Stress eats your brain. Intimacy is sort of treated like flossing. It’s a respected practice…in theory.
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A Guardian roundup pulled together advice from sex therapists and clinicians who hear this problem all day. The message isn’t “panic,” and it’s not “buy lingerie and pray” either. It’s mostly the boring stuff everyone skips. Sleep, stress, planning, and making room for sex in a life that’s constantly pulling you in a million different directions.
Here are ways to spice things up a bit:
1. Stop acting like this means it’s over
Dr. Tammy Nelson says, “Every couple goes through dry spells.” Dr. Laurie Mintz adds that the limerence stage “lasts six months to two years, then fades.” The point is that the early fireworks are never permanent.
2. Check what’s going on inside you first
“If someone is depressed…that strips away the ability to take pleasure,” Dr. Orna Guralnik says. If you feel numb, exhausted, or resentful, your libido is probably reacting to your life, not your partner.
3. Schedule sex without apologizing for it
Dan Savage argues for planning. When you have too much going on, you “block out time, turn off your devices, and schedule sex.” Planning is not unsexy. Planning is how adults make anything happen.
4. Redefine sex so it’s not a single act
Erotic connection doesn’t have to mean full-on penetration every time. It can be “anything from a long kiss to holding hands on the train,” Dr. Orna Guralnik says. Dan Savage agrees: “The more broadly you define sex, the more sex you’ll have.” A wider definition takes pressure off and makes starting easier.
5. Build a small bridge from daily life into intimacy
Nelson says, “Most of us don’t have a libido problem; we have a nervous system problem.” Her fix is a transition, like a shower, stepping outside, or a song, anything that signals it’s okay to relax and enjoy yourself.
6. Talk about sex in a way that doesn’t sound like an interrogation
Nelson suggests starting with what actually worked instead of rehashing what didn’t. Ask, “What did you like about the last time we had sex?” Then follow with “What would you like more of?” No speeches. No blaming. Just information you can actually use.
7. Make a “menu” you can pull from
Build a menu for your sex life the way you’d build a playlist. A few reliable hits, a few wild cards, no filler. When you’re both in the mood, you pick something and run it. The goal is for both people to finish happy and interested in round two.
8. Change the setting
The same bed, the same room, even the same house can start to feel monotonous after a while. “Go somewhere else…go to a hotel,” Guralnik says. New surroundings can break the autopilot feeling that kills excitement.
A dry spell can feel lonely, even when you love the person next to you. Start small, stay honest, and aim for progress you can keep repeating. The goal is closeness, then more closeness, then whatever comes after that.
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