Intimacy & Desire Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus Intimacy & Desire

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Zusammenfassung von Intimacy & Desire

Name: Intimacy & Desire
Rating: 4.3 (484 reviews)
Author: David Schnarch

David Schnarch

Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship

4.3 (484 Bewertungen)

25 Min.

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Intimacy & Desire
in 8 Kernaussagen verstehen

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What’s in it for me? Put the spark back in your relationship and rekindle your desire.

Do you feel like the sparks in your relationship are fizzling out? Do you sometimes struggle to get aroused by your beloved? Or do you simply feel bored having sex in the same old ways? If you’re in a committed relationship and answered yes to any of these questions, then you’re not alone.

In these blinks, you’ll discover that all long-term couples struggle with desire and intimacy at some point. And you’ll learn why desire problems crop up and that their presence is, in fact, a sign of a healthy relationship. Finally, you’ll get tips on how to address these problems, reconnect with your partner, and reawaken sexual intimacy.

In these blinks, you’ll also learn

how sexual desire works in relationships;
why healthy sexual relationships struggle with sex; and
new perspectives for approaching intimacy problems.

In every relationship, there is always a low desire partner and a high desire partner.

When you think of a healthy romantic relationship, what comes to mind? You probably picture a couple in love – a pair of people who are psychologically and physically compatible. And, if asked, you’d probably say they have a functional sex life. After all, a healthy relationship implies a healthy level of desire, right? If partners don’t desire one another, the relationship is as good as over.

Or so the myth about relationships goes. But that premise is based on a faulty assumption: that sustained desire is an index of a healthy relationship. In reality, sexual desire problems exist in all committed relationships.

The key message in this blink is: In every relationship, there is always a low desire partner and a high desire partner.

In every long-term relationship, there is a high desire partner (the HDP) and a low desire partner (the LDP). This is just another way of saying that one partner will always want sex more than the other. It doesn’t mean that the HDP is biologically predisposed to desirousness and the LDP is not. In fact, the positions say nothing about the individual partner – they only exist in relation to each other.

For example, if your partner desires sex daily and you only want it once a week, then you’re the LDP. But if your partner wants sex every other week and you desire it weekly, then you are the HDP. It’s always relative.

The positions can even shift throughout the course of your relationship, with partners potentially exchanging roles over time. Even if you were the HDP in the first few years of the relationship, you might become the LDP later on.

Understanding that there is always an LDP and an HDP can help you let go of worries that something is wrong with you. If you’ve ever been accused of not wanting enough sex, or of wanting too much sex, this framework should inspire you to put those reproaches to rest for good. Whatever the situation, you were filling the role of either LDP or HDP – relative to your partner.

Since the HDP-LDP dynamic exists in all relationships, you can also be sure that desire problems are not only inevitable but natural. All long-term relationships encounter desire problems at some point. It’s healthy. It’s normal. And it doesn’t mean your relationship is failing.

The lower desire partner always controls sex, whether he or she likes it or not.

Meet Connie and Brett – a couple that did think their relationship was failing. Brett (the high desire partner) felt that Connie (the low desire partner) was unfairly “withholding” sex from him out of spite. Meanwhile, Connie felt utterly powerless. After all, she couldn’t just will herself to feel desire. Brett made this worse by blaming Connie for her low desire, making her feel not only powerless but guilty. Rather than seeing their desire problem as a natural result of the relationship ecosystem, they both pinned the blame on Connie.

You already know that there's always a low desire partner (the LDP) and a high desire partner (the HDP). Now it’s time to introduce another constant – the real issue at the root of Brett and Connie’s problems.

Sexual desire issues are nature's way of getting us to develop ourselves.

If you encounter desire problems in your relationship, you might nostalgically look back on the early days of fiery passion, when you couldn't keep your hands off one another. You’re probably wondering, Where did we go wrong? But here's the thing: there's a reason the initial phase of infatuation comes to an end and can't be recaptured. The answer lies in evolutionary science.

According to anthropologist Helen Fisher, that initial love-drunk feeling is what helped our ancient ancestors focus on one particular partner. And it plays the same role today. But our brains are not built to remain in this supercharged state forever. After you’ve selected your partner and the relationship continues, your brain chemistry changes.

Most people in relationships track their partner’s mind for self-validation. 

Let’s say you get home after a lousy day at work. You decide to sulk in front of the TV as you wait for your partner to come home and cheer you up. But when he gets in, you don’t get so much as a kiss hello before he announces he’s had an exhausting day and rushes off to sleep. Disappointed, you go to bed that night feeling as upset as ever. You wonder, Doesn’t he care? Why didn’t he try to cheer me up?

Most of us, after all, enter relationships expecting to feel valued and understood by our partner. But what happens when he or she isn’t able to fulfill your expectations 24/7?

Depending on your partner for self-validation destroys sexual intimacy.

Sally had been faking orgasms since she first got together with Robert. At first, this was Sally’s way of supporting both her and Robert’s reflected sense of self, since he seemed satisfied with himself – and with her – when she moaned.

This played out over years – until Sally reached a breaking point. She was ready to give up her reflected sense of self by coming clean about her lies. But what would happen to Robert’s self-image as a result?

Sexual experimentation slows down as partners settle into a relationship.

Let’s say you're lying in bed and your partner starts rubbing your back. You recognize the cue for sex immediately – it’s been the same since the very beginning. So you get into gear and go through the motions. You’ve done this enough times to know how it works, right?

Except, lately, something is missing. The routine that once sent sparks flying suddenly feels a little . . . boring. Is it finally time to make a change between the bedsheets?

Sexual growth tends to happen at the point when couples feel like they’re hitting a wall.

We’ve seen how couples are reluctant to change up their sexual routines, and how this can be damaging. This was the case for Ellen and Regina: Ellen frequently wanted to have sex, while Regina was reluctant to do it in their usual way because it never really aroused her. Yet every time Ellen tried to introduce something new, Regina would become anxious and freeze. Eventually, Ellen became so discouraged by Regina’s reactions that she gave up trying altogether.

In this scenario, Ellen’s accommodation of Regina’s anxieties led to an impasse in their sex life. Since neither Ellen nor Regina was willing to meet the other halfway, they reached what the author terms gridlock.

Establishing a stronger collaborative alliance with your partner leads to better sex.

We’ve talked a lot about the importance of self-confrontation in romance. But how can you go on a mutual journey of self-growth with your partner? How can you work together to reawaken intimacy? And how can you translate this into sex?

The answer lies in building a strong collaborative alliance with your partner – an unwritten agreement to consistently work together toward the common benefit of the relationship. And it proves to be more effective than advice on sexual positions.

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Worum geht es in Intimacy & Desire?

Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship (2009) explains why all people in committed, long-term relationships run into sexual problems. Driven by case studies of real couples in sex therapy, the book demonstrates how people in relationships can transform their perspective – and confront themselves and each other – to reawaken sexual passion.

Wer Intimacy & Desire lesen sollte

Anyone interested in relationship advice
Couples looking to overcome sexual problems
Partners who want to deepen their connection

Über den Autor

Dr. David Schnarch is a licensed clinical psychologist and sex therapist. He is also the author of numerous books on intimacy, sexuality, and relationships, including the perennial best seller Passionate Marriage: Sex, Love, and Intimacy in Emotionally Committed Relationships and Resurrecting Sex: Resolving Sexual Problems and Rejuvenating Your Relationship.

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