Are you feeling like your sex life has become monotonous?  Have your romantic feelings for your partner gotten swept away by the day-to-day responsibility of home, work, and family?  Are you less attracted to your partner than you were before?  Are you lacking in desire? Do you worry about the pattern your sex life has turned into continuing, developing an affair, or having a negative impact on your sustainability of the relationship? if so then this tip is for you.

Many people in long-term relationships wish their sex lives were more spontaneous and fun just like they used to be.  However, if you constantly look back to the early stages of the relationship and long for the easy transition from the day to day to the romantic love making, common of this stage of relationship, you may be setting yourself and your relationship up for failure.  In the beginning of a relationship, most couples are in what is know as romantic love.  This type of love is easy, flows freely, and it highly contingent upon having good fun experiences in the bedroom as well as outside of it.  During this stage, couples are more invested in the “little things” of the relationship and are highly focused on pleasing the other person.  However, over time there is less focus on this as both partners become comfortable with one another.   Many couples in that stage have not yet reached mature intimacy.  Intimacy is a key component of long-term companionship and sexual satisfaction. Mature intimacy is a part of the relationship where each partner is able to express both positive and negative feelings, make requests and be confident such requests will be respected, feel like an intimate team, and have sexual experiences that are satisfying as an individual as well as for the couple.

Many couples will fall into the trap of expecting all of their sexual experiences to be fantastic for both partners all of the time, without either partner expressing any wants or needs to desires.  This is rarely the case.  In order to have satisfying experiences, couples need to communicate their wishes to one another.  For sex to become spontaneous again, there needs to be desire and anticipation. 

To understand where the desire and anticipation originated from in the relationship, you need to assess the strengths of your sexual relationship with your partner. Changing your sexual situation to increase the spontaneity, fun, and pleasure also requires assessment of areas in which you longed for change but were not able to ask for it.

To begin this assessment start by asking yourself the following questions:

·        What made it easy?

·        What was fun? And what made me anxious?

·        Was I satisfied with myself and my relationship each time we had sex?

·        What foreplay activities did I appreciate the most? Which ones the least?

·        Were there certain scenarios that almost always lead to a good sexual experience?

·        Which ones were almost always negative?

·        Who initiated sex?

·        Did you feel an emotional bond from sex?

·        What was the quality of my partner’s physical and mental technique at the beginning of the relationship?

·        Was there any dysfunction? How did we handle it as a couple?

·        Was there pressure from family, friends, or cultural beliefs to have sex or to abstain?

·        How much did we communicate about personal wants and desires?

·        What types of stimulation were provided? And which did each partner prefer?

·        Did sex make me feel more connected with my partner?

·        Was I more open to new experiences than I am now?

·        What’s always been missing?

·        Was there ever a dysfunction?

·        How did we handle a bad sexual experience?

·        Did we fight over sex?

·        What was our best sex ever?

·        What did I anticipate?

·        What did I desire?

After answering these questions, you should have a good base knowledge of what your sex life looked like in the early stages of the relationship.  Next you will have to explore what your sex life is like right now.  Be realistic. 

·        Is the sex enjoyable? 

·        Are you feeling pressure to have children? 

·        Do you long for an emotional connection during sex that is simply not present? 

·        Are your looking for a tension release? 

·        What does sex mean for your relationship now? 

·        Is sex contingent upon orgasms? 

·        Do you fight over sex?

·        Do you feel an emotional bond from sex?

·        What is the quality of my partner’s physical and mental technique?

·        What turns me on?

·        Do I know what turns my partner on?

·        What do I desire and anticipate?

·        Do I look forward to sex or is it a chore?

·        What do I like about our sex life now? What is my favorite and least favorite parts?

·        Do you have the same amount of time to devote to your sex life like you did before? 

·        Have things changed since having children?

·        Is there a current dysfunction? 

·        What new experiences am I open to now?

·        Who initiates sex now?

·        Has either partner had an affair?

·        What is your attitude about sex? 

·        How important is it to the relationship? 

·        Is bad sex a deal breaker?

·        What are you really looking for by enhancing your sexual life?

·        How much do you communicate about sex with your partner? 

·        Have you always been interested in similar sexual and erotic situations, positions, and scenarios or has there been differences in the past that were not addressed? 

These questions will help your gain a deeper understanding of your sex life. Take all your answers; make a list of positives and negatives to share with your partner.  Do this because it will help you be more confident in what you want to express to your partner about your sex life.  And people who are more confident will try harder to get more things that they want.  If you express yourself confidently to your partner, it is likely that you will one get what you want and tow help them become more confident in expressing their wants and needs.

To gain more information about your sexual style try the circle technique, which is a great way to start a conversation about, likes, dislikes, and preferences with a partner. After the conversation, commit to becoming an intimate team where you will work on your sexual issues together, building intimacy and desire.  Each partner will become responsible for his or her own sexuality and will support one another in their endeavors. 

 Lastly you will move into redeveloping your sex life into the rhythms and patterns you prefer.  You will begin to bring back the spontaneity and fun that sex once brought to your relationship.  You will also learn what your partner prefers for pleasure and how to intertwine that with your own vision of sexuality.  As mentioned before, sexual desire is a function of anticipation.  Many would think that anticipating something takes the spontaneity away, however this does not have to be the case.  Spontaneity requires some planning on at least one partner’s part.  You need to know what your partner likes in order to spontaneously surprise him or her with a night of pleasure. 

To capitalize on this fact, and to increase spontaneity in your sex life, have one partner plan a time to possibly initiate sex but not tell the other person.  While the possibility is there that you could have sex, it is not required.  When the date arrives, the partner that was not aware of the “date” will think the other partner is being spontaneous and acting outside the comfort zone even though the event had been planned then entire time.  Another way to increase spontaneity is to indulge in erotic fantasies that were once deemed unnecessary or unacceptable.  In order to have a satisfying sexual experience, most people need to have multiple forms of stimulation.  This may include clitoral stimulation during intercourse or touching and rubbing your partner’s back while performing manual or oral stimulation.  In some cases, stimulation can be increased by talking about and role-playing sexual fantasies during sex.  Remember intimacy with your partner will allow you to make requests and feel as though your desires are respected within the couple framework of “good sex.”  Naturally some compromises will need to be made but in most instances, by approaching the topic as a couples issue and explaining what you are looking for from the experience, your desires will be met by a supportive partner. 

Another way to increase spontaneity and fun is to change a familiar position just slightly.  If you and your partner prefer the missionary position, try putting a pillow beneath your hips to elevate yourself and change the angle just slightly.  This will change the sensations enough that it will feel like a completely new position.  Next, you can try to start to switch up the routine.  It you always start with kissing then breast play then genital stimulation before intercourse, try starting with genital stimulation, move to intercourse then breast play.  Try to include activities that are considered foreplay during intercourse.  This will again create different sensations and make the situation feel completely new and different. Lastly, you can make sex more fun by incorporating things you have lying around the house into your sexual experiences with your partner.  Try to have sex in a different room.  Maybe have a sensual back massage in the living room then move to sex in the bedroom.  If you prefer sex to be within the context of your bed or bedroom, try cuddling on the couch or floor in the living room afterwards.  If you recently had a baby, try using the baby oil as massage oil for you and your partner before sex.  For women, you can grab a silk scarf, wrap it around your hand, and use it during manual stimulation.  Anything can be made sexy if you want it to.  Try to surprise your partner with some new sensations during sex.  Changing a small piece of the experience can change your whole perception and make the scenario feel more spontaneous. 

Remember spontaneity requires anticipation and desire.  Increasing theses two will increase the fun and romanticism within your sex life. Don’t fall into the trap of comparing what you have now to the romantic love that naturally faded months or years ago.  Communication will help bridge the gaps between boring sex and experiences that are satisfying for both partners. To increase spontaneity and intensity use the questions in this tip to evaluate where you were and where you are in the sexual relationship.  This will define your comfort zone.  Then you can push yourself and your partner to a zone that is just beyond your comfort zone and slightly uncomfortable and maybe anxiety producing.  Give your partner and yourself permission to feel that discomfort and anxiety, then continue with new and different forms of stimulation the results may surprise you.  Change only happens outside your comfort zone; therefore, you have to make a conscious effort to move out of it.

written by Amber Lynn Connell, MA

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