8 Ways To Protect The Spark In Your Marriage
A survey has revealed that sexual attraction is no longer the most important ingredient to matrimonial bliss.
Scopio Images | Canva In one survey reported by the Daily Mail UK, of 452 married people surveyed, 78% of them said they would stay married if they no longer felt sexual desire for their spouse.*
If you’re reading this and your relationship is in the honeymoon phase, you’ll feel horrified and think, “What’s wrong with those people, they must be dead!” If you still rush home from the office to make sweet monkey love, you’ll feel stunned that other marriages lack the heat and ecstasy of your own.
But for millions, sex is not the primary reason for selecting a long-term partner; it’s simply one of the ingredients in marriage.
For others, every need, including financial partnerships, friendship, and fun, can be met by millions of people. If you’re monogamous and crave emotionally connected passion with one partner, how can you avoid the “one partner” becoming no partner at all?
Why losing the spark doesn't have to end your marriage, if you have a plan in place
Not everyone has the same sex drive
One of my friends had this horrible shock after 20 years when his wife pulled the plug on sex. Little by little, she didn’t want to, wouldn’t, and finally ended their love life and his sex life.
He described himself as a boiled frog for whom the heat was turned up little by little until he had been boiled to death. In fact, he was a freezing frog, hibernating over the winter in his frozen lake, except for him, the Spring thaw will never come.
We can’t make people wrong for having low libidos unless they have conned us into marrying. For instance, a few months into my second marriage it became obvious he had lied about his sex drive. He had conned me into the match he desperately needed, and there were two indications that he lied about sex. I dismissed the effect these people had on him. I was absolutely wrong.
First, his father’s anti-sex programming campaign. Second, his meditation teacher; a monk who promoted celibacy.
None of these things are deal-breakers for the right partner, but they should've been a topic of conversation from the beginning.
You can avoid the shock of a lifetime
If you agree that sex is a non-negotiable component in a happy relationship that creates a loving bond between you and your partner every week, then beware and prepare.
Here's how to protect your sex life before you marry, and every year after.
1. Discuss sex now
it’s not enough to set the stage before marriage, which is often a fear-based desire for control. Instead, subtly finesse for information and listen.
1. If one of us found that our desire was slipping, what do you think we should do?
2. How important do you think lifelong learning and communication training are so that we avoid arguing and also retain openness and honesty?
3. If we were angry at each other how do you think we could deal with it and make peace before going to sleep that night?
2. Identify trick questions and troubling answers.
Most people will show you why you shouldn’t marry them if you learn to listen carefully and retain what they say by keeping notes.
Unsurprisingly, 66% of those in the British Study who said diminishing sex wouldn’t tank their marriages were aged 45 to 54. However, you never think this will happen to you! You can’t read someone’s mind, but you can ask yourself these simple questions that I ask clients whose partners have become sexually distant.
3. Figure out initiation
How frequently does your partner initiate sex?
Never
Once in a while
Half the time
Always
4. Explore your favorite parts
What is your favorite aspect of lovemaking with your partner?
Anticipation
Their Amazing Skills
How Loved I Feel
5. Connect to your bonding
To what degree do you feel bonded Physically/Emotionally/Spiritually to your partner?
Mentally, we are one mind.
Physically, when we touch, it’s as if we are one body.
Spiritually we are peaceful and in sync.
We’re not that connected but it’s an easy partnership that works most of the time.
I don’t know, I never thought of that before.
Oh, well now I understand why we’re not intimate!
6. Plan for diminishing hormones and aging
if you’re married to someone who is always looking for safe natural health solutions, you won’t have this problem.
However, there are still people who haven’t embraced de-aging and who refuse to supplement. If this is your prospective partner, be aware of E.D. in men and trouble orgasming in women. Watch out that the lack of hot sex becomes the lack of any sex as disappointments and indifference take over.
7. Know who to marry and who to avoid
There are four kinds of marriages caused by differences in people’s needs. Just as “love languages” help people understand how to navigate a relationship, Herrmann Brain Dominance® explains your worldview and how that affects your choice of a partner.
How many parents have wasted years advising their adult children to avoid “fantasy love affairs that go nowhere”? These parents were logical, but their children were not, and it is like speaking two languages without translation software.
Other parents are visionaries and watch in horror while their children marry the “safe bet’ and the “sure thing,” which is the opposite of a creative or passionate choice.
When considering the 4 Herrmann Brain Dominance® perspectives, cue the Rolling Stones song, “You can’t always get what you want, but you can get what you need,” to satisfy your brain’s worldview. This is a boon to self-understanding and avoids so many divorces.
If you are a LOGICAL THINKER, a realist, you’ll ask, “What type of marriage partner is right for me?” and you’ll amass data points to prove it.
If you’re a SAFETY THINKER, you want someone dependable, reliable, and a companion, and that’s light on lust and emotion.
However, if you are an EMOTIONAL THINKER, you need ecstatic passion and love because, without it, you don’t feel alive.
Finally, if you are a VISIONARY, you’re lucky but not in love. Instead, your minimal need for companionship and intimacy makes life easier because meditation, yoga, nature, and peace are the keys to your happiness.
How do you identify whether your partner will make a great match for you so that “losing the spark” has a minimal chance of occurring in your marriage?
We need to listen to what they tell us on the first five dates. Most people want to be known; they aren’t looking to con you. However, are you prepared to hear what they say?
Don’t believe you can change them because that requires a mutual commitment to shift, not just you feeling more disappointed, disgusted, and discouraged each year.
Now that you understand that the culprit is the differences in brain wiring according to Herrmann Brain Dominance® what can you do?
8. Prioritize when seeking your partner
Create your “Perfect Lifepartner Checklist” with 50-100 line items, including every aspect of life, from favorite sports to sexual positions.
It’s crucial to do this to have clarity before you have the first date so that you can avoid what you do not want and attract what is key for you. If your logical parent says you’re aiming too high, please repeat your new mantra, "If I settle for what I don't want in a spouse, how will I stay married?
Naturally, the equally important question is asking yourself what you are doing to attract and retain the fabulous partner you desire so neither of you loses the spark of passion to make you feel happy, loved, and alive.
Susan Allan is a Life Coach whose Evolution Revolution® Trainings offer proven tools to experience joy, and happiness and let go of suffering.
*Editor's note: We should note here that the survey referenced is not a scientific one, but rather from Femail Magazine, which is owned and run by DailyMail UK. Though this survey was conducted by the tabloid publication, we can still discuss the findings in case they feel familiar to anyone else.