Are you in a long-term relationship that is going a little stale in the bedroom? A recent K-Y National Intimacy Survey revealed that 57% of Canadian couples who have been in a relationship for five years or less have sex once a week or more and that number significantly decreases for couples who have been together for more than 10 years.
According to Vancouver-based relationship expert and sex therapist, Teesha Morgan, summer is an ideal time to put the sizzle back into your relationship. “I think in the winter we tend to hibernate being indoors; summer is the perfect time to make use of the sun and the weather. Putting in that sizzle sounds cliché but getting out of the house and doing something different with your partner is really important in putting the spark and love back between you.”
Teesha suggests that even if you don’t have enough money to go on vacation or to get a hotel room – it can be something as simple as putting a tent in the backyard and having a night out camping. Also, making a sex bucket list and checking something off the list once a month and doing a date night once a week will help keep the romantic juices flowing.
The K-Y Intimacy report also showed that just over 75% of men and women are open to talking about issues with their partner and interested in increasing their playfulness and spicing up their sex life. But men and women are different in how they communicate with each other.
“Women are usually the first ones to bring up issues and problems within the relationship while men are generally less communicative and sometimes show their love in different ways such as more physically. A lot of men feel more connected when they are having sex on a regular basis … So just keeping up with the touch in general is really important; when things like hand holding, hugs, massages and back rubs decrease then our threshold for getting angry and irritated with each other actually increases.”
Teesha clarifies that in order to have a successful relationship you must be willing to work hard at maintaining that connection with your partner. “How much effort are you willing to put in? How well do you communicate? How open are you with your partner? Do you talk about intimacy issues and issues in general?”
So how do we overcome these common intimacy problems? Teesha explains that if you have trouble with verbalizing intimacy issues you can always try the sandwich technique – start with something positive, then talk about what you want to see change in the relationship, then finish with something positive. This is a good way to open up to your partner and to get things rolling and changing.
Starting June 15 for 12 weeks, K-Y is inviting you to ask your most pressing sex and intimacy questions at www.facebook.com/intimacyexperiment. It’s completely anonymous and 100% FREE. Over the course of a week Teesha will pick a few questions, record personal video responses and post them. “And even if people don’t have sex or relationship questions it’s still a great place to go and find out what other people are asking – you may just learn something new.”