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Intimacy and building it back....

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BlueWillow

New Here
Hello everyone

Those of you in long term relationships; I would be curious to hear from you and gather insight /advice on the topic of intimacy.

I need to re-light the fire between my husband and I. We are sexually active maybe once a month, but the passion and intimacy has gone. Its rather mechanical at this point.

And there is a distance between us that just feels strange- but at the same time its a closeness of him being like family. Does that even make sense?
Im thinking how strange it would be to lie in bed and stare into eachothers eyes and be as passionate as we use to be. Strange because that has not happend in *years*.

[[[Not sure if there any Pisces reading this, but I tend to operate in fantasy land sometimes. Comparing my relationship to a romance novel or movie. But is it really possible to have
firey, steamy, hopelessly devoted, romantic marriages??? after many years?!?!]]]

Im a very sexual and physical person- my love language is touch. [ I know this is because of my child sexual abuse ] .... His is acts of service. So already right there we are a little off.
I feel like im forgetting myself, and letting a piece of me die off because im not honoring what is important to me. But I dont know how to initiate and break through to get it back.
I dont think he knows either... but he has explained to me sex isnt that important to him. He is content with what we have right now.

As I want to have a family soon, im scared that if we dont fix the intimacy now, then it will only become more challenging to get back.

Trust is tied to this issue im having too.. fear of letting go completely again.

Thank you In advance for reading...
 
the most knowledgeable person I've found on the topic of maintaining intimacy is Esther Perel. Heres an into to her
She’s fantastic.

The only gripe I have wih her is anthropological… it is soooooo not the first time in human history that sexual desire in committed long term relationships has been a focal point / priority in marriage or partnership. Even in the past 5,000 years of well recorded human history it’s unarguably been a priority -and often the ideal- in more times & cultures than I can easily relay, arguably a priority in maybe twice as many, and that’s excluding 60,000 some odd years we don’t have record of.

I can’t even be certain it’s true in a Judeo/Christian context in the past 2,000 years (although absolutely true in a Reformation / Martin Luther onward context, with its perfunctory & puritanical views on sex in general and in marriage, in particular).

But I do have to agree it makes her point very well; that desire seen as an ideal to aspire to? Is zeitgeist, rather than something “we” were all taught to do, as a foundational part of marriage.

My HOPE is that she’s trying to put people at their ease, in explaining how normal it is to not know how to do something, when it’s not taught/expected… and she simply choose the most expedient way to do so; hyperbole over fact.

It’s VEXING though, since there are sooooooo many historical references talking on exactly this point, and it denies people access to those resources (by being told they don’t exist).

So aside from things I’d like to debate loudly with her -and a table full of historians, anthropologists, & sociologists- in a bar? LOVE her work in this field.
 
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