Michael Haggstrom, RCSW, Doctor in Counselling, Calgary Therapist

How’s Your Love Life?

John and Alexia are going apart. They are avoiding intimacy, unsure of how to rekindle the passion they once shared. Instead of talking about it, they avoid the topic altogether.

What they don’t realize is they are entering into a dangerous time in their relationship, where discontent and resentment are building. It won’t be long before one of them will start to develop feelings for someone else, someone who will smile at them and make them feel special. It may not lead to an affair, but it will draw them further apart as a couple.

John and Alexia would be wise to no longer deny their problem. If not, it’s only a matter of time their relationship might end. In our counselling offices, we help couples who are just like John and Alexia.

“Intimacy is a vital key to lasting and fulfilling love.”

WHAT YOU MUST KNOW
7 Ways love and sexual intimacy are destroyed

1. Failing to invest in your emotional connection. When we get too busy with work and start to neglect one another emotionally, we will start to grow distant, even unintentionally. Far too many couples fail because of neglect.
2. One partner withholding intimacy. Love and sex require you as a couple to join together, to agree, to want to experience intimacy with one another. Sometimes one partner will withdraw for a wide variety reasons: feeling emotionally distant, trouble with sex drive, resentment or broken trust.
3. Having low self-esteem, negative body image or sexual insecurities. Things change as we age: our energies levels, body shape and libido. This can affect how good we feel about ourselves. If we have a negative self-image, we may not want our partner to touch us or get close physically.
4. Getting lazy or ignoring your partner’s needs. Sometimes we will begin to take our partner for granted. We believe that our commitment will last forever, so we slack off and neglect expressing love consistently with our partner. This damages trust. No one wants to feel like they are your possession.
5. Experiencing boredom and too much predictability. We need both stability and variety in life. Most of us don’t go to the very same restaurant or watch the same movie, over and over. We might have our favourite one, but we also want some variety. In intimacy, we need to spice things up with our partner every now and then. Creativity communicates to your partner that you are still interested in them.
6. Different sex drives and desires for sexual intimacy. Sometimes we find ourselves struggling with varying intensity levels and even differences in frequency for sex. This requires plenty of dialogue to make things work well for both partners so you can stay satisfied; otherwise, you will become resentful.
7. Exhaustion and being too tired with work or other stresses. Stress should never be an excuse for withholding love and connection. We don’t form a couple to just pay bills or raise children. We need love expressed all throughout the relationship, no matter how many responsibilities we have. That includes having fun, laughter and creating ongoing memories together.

KEY: Staying friends and maintaining passion gives couples staying power!

COUNSELLING HELPS
What is Intimacy & Sex therapy?

Intimacy and Sex Therapy helps couples talk more openly without shame or conflict around their issues.

It gets things out in the open with honesty and seeks to promote understanding. It helps to equip with effective methods that recreate passion. Couples counselling therapy helps to:

✓ Discover creative ways to bring romance into the relationship

✓ Learn new ways to enhance intimacy and sexual connection

✓ Increase your self-confidence and skills in the bedroom

✓ Repair disappointment, anger, hurt and resentments

✓ Overcome performance anxiety, erectile dysfunction

✓ Address body image issues and insecurities

✓ Manage life stresses so they don’t exhaust you