You CAN bridge the libido gap: HELEN MAYOR has helped hundreds of couples get back in sync

When I meet people at parties and tell them I’m a psychosexual therapist, the most common question I’m asked — often in a whisper, possibly after a few glasses of wine — is how to get a sex life back on track once the spark in a marriage has waned.

It’s a familiar theme in my clinic, too, and almost always at the root of it is a mismatch of libidos. But, sometimes, the reason for the mismatch is complicated.

A recent poll found Brits are having sex less than once a week. Google searches for ‘dead bedroom’, a term used for couples experiencing a prolonged period of sexual inactivity, have risen by 223 per cent in the past year.

Peek behind the statistics and my bet is you’ll find a nation of couples where one of them wants more sex than the other. And I see just as many women who’d like more sex in their relationship as men.

It’s been called the ‘libido gap’, and many otherwise happily married couples suffer from it. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s almost inevitable in most relationships at some point.

We put barriers up and construct obstacles, until one day, sex simply becomes too fraught or too loaded with emotion, we back away from each other, and our relationship slips into a downward spiral. When sex goes wrong, life can often feel wrong, too.

But you can solve the problem and close the libido gap by dismantling damaging, intimacy-killing beliefs and breaking free of the patterns of behaviour that wear away at the passion you once felt for each other.

Read on for my seven-step guide on how to breathe new life back into your relationship — as well as enjoy the best sex of your life (even with the partner you’ve slept side-by-side with for decades) . . .

ONCE A FORTNIGHT IS PLENTY!

Many women assume their partner has certain expectations around sex, even in established long-term relationships. They feel any kiss or touch creates an unwanted obligation to jump straight into bed and so, sadly, become reluctant to kiss or touch in any context — in or out of the bedroom.

Soon the avoidance of touch becomes pervasive and the men withdraw, too. The deprivation of any touch is hugely damaging to almost any relationship and can leave couples feeling not just isolated and alone, but unsure how to come back to one another. This is often where I am brought in.

TIP: To take the tempo down, I ask each partner to clarify how much sex they would be happy with. In almost every couple I’ve worked with, this has been less than their assumption of how much the other person wanted. Learning that both of you may be satisfied by less frequent sex than you used to have allows you to breathe.

Everyone’s expectations get a reset. You’ll feel calmer about touch, sex and connection. Some might want sex every night but, in my experience, most partners just need to feel wanted, to connect once a week or every fortnight.

HAVE SEX AS A STARTER

A fascinating new development in my practice is the epidemic of men I’m seeing — young, good looking, gym-toned — who are just not particularly interested in sex.

This is baffling and dismaying to the (equally gorgeous) women they marry. These couples love each other, but given the choice of binge-watching a TV series or going to bed together, he chooses another episode. It seems to his partner that he has lost interest in her sexually.

The problem is, these partners sometimes have no experience of sex beyond instant desire, so they need to learn how to sustain intimacy by making it a habit.

TIP: Escape the mundanity of day-to-day life together. Do something new, even if it’s talking about dreams for the future or going on a bike ride.

Jimmy and Mel worked hard in corporate careers and were too tired to choose sex after a rare date. I suggested a lunchtime date at the weekend where they could go to bed afterwards. Or try ‘pre-emptive’ sex before a date, which takes the pressure off and often makes couples feel more playful.

Another trick is to arrive at dates separately, so no-one is sniping about who has the keys or whether you’re going to be late, but instead see your partner arrive in their ‘who can resist me?’ shirt or dress, just as you did when you started dating.

TRY THE NEW ROLE PLAY

One of my clients, let’s call her Beth, had tuned out of sex with her long-term partner Stan. They’d been together for a decade and were in their late 30s with a toddler and a child who had just started school.

Though she loved him and found him attractive, she didn’t ‘want’ him, despite his constant desire for her. His desire was so powerful, she felt there was no space for hers to grow and, as a consequence, had no real sense of what sparked it any more.

After some time working together, we came up with a plan where they agreed to switch roles. Now she would become the sexual protagonist and he would follow her lead. That meant he had to stop initiating altogether and give her space to work out what turned her on.

In a matter of weeks, her libido was no longer overwhelmed by his. Beth started to actively want sex and Stan enjoyed the feeling of being wanted.

He let Beth set the pace and she began to notice she felt more open, relaxed and liberated by her new sense of sexual autonomy.

TIP: Many couples fall into a rut where one initiates and the other gets to feel wanted. Changing it up allows you to learn more about yourself and your partner sexually. Beth started to feel more compassionate towards Stan and the feelings he had when she rejected him.

CREATE A TOUCH JAR

Jenny loved her partner Mark — he was warm, kind, sensitive and fun. They were in their 40s and thinking about moving in together.

But their sex life was not what they hoped for: Jenny wanted spontaneous passion, while Mark couldn’t engage with this. It alarmed him and he felt ashamed for not matching the alpha male stereotype. In every other way this couple had it nailed, but this mismatch was causing problems.

The couple agreed to create a ‘touch jar’. Each of them wrote down things they liked to do sexually on coloured Post-It notes, the colours graded according to how heavy or full-on they wanted each session to be, and put them in a jar. A pink note, for example, might be kissing or cuddling; a yellow one, a massage or bath together; and a green note, having sex in a new position.

In this way, instead of feeling shut down by Jenny’s ad hoc demands, Mark felt he could choose what he wanted and when, which made him more open and playful.

The next time we met, they were giggly and exuberant — they had been using the jar a lot to initiate sexual moments. Mark got to decide when he could approach Jenny, but there was still an element of surprise not knowing which Post-It he might pick. Alternatively, Jenny could initiate something but Mark could decide what level of intimacy he wanted.

TIP: Autonomy and confidence, trust and safety, are huge considerations in sex. Write out things you like, don’t like, or might be open to trying, agree them and maybe get your own jar. Even the act of going to the jar can create frisson and excitement.

PUT YOUR SEX LIFE FIRST

Publishing exec Sian was angry and frustrated with her sex life, but these feelings were masking her huge fear that her marriage was not going to last. Jeremy, her husband of two years, loved her but was shamed by his own absence of desire.

Stressed by a high-pressure legal career he didn’t enjoy, he was using booze as a crutch and hiding his true feelings about work from Sian.

This is a good example of the way in which sexual rejection often has little to do with sex itself, but instead reflects how people feel about themselves. Jeremy’s dissatisfaction with life was showing up in the marriage.

During an online meeting while they were on holiday on the Suffolk coast, I could see how much happier and less irritable they were when they weren’t at work. A few sessions later, we talked through the realities of a permanent move for them, how it would work with schools and their jobs, and Sian later told me their sex life improved almost instantly.

TIP: Sometimes we need to find out the real reasons for a sex drought. What do we need in our lives to be content and feel relaxed enough to free up sexual feelings?

LOVE YOUR BODY

If you don’t like your body, you go into sex with the limbic system (the part of the brain responsible for our fight-or-flight instincts) already on high alert.

When you project onto your partner an assumption of disgust at any point they touch this part of your body, your brain is essentially working against desire.

It takes a bit of effort to create a new narrative. Often the biggest obstacle is how you talk to yourself, because the ‘disgust’ is yours, not your partner’s.

TIP: Create a healthy internal narrative rather than a masochistic one and, over time, you form new habits and neural pathways that reward you with dopamine for being nice to yourself.

One of my clients, who was very tough on herself, made me a mug with a phrase I used to remind her of her value: ‘I am the prize’.

Another described herself as a ‘reformed perfectionist’ and now loved her body just as much as her partner did.

. . .IMPORTANT: NEVER USE SEX AS A REWARD

I see this scenario a lot. Take Sonya and Rob, busy working parents. Sonya felt objectified by his desire for her, and began to agree to sex only when Rob was the ‘perfect’ husband and family man, using it almost as a reward for his good behaviour.

Sex is often where dissatisfaction in other parts of life starts registering. Sonya felt under-appreciated by Rob. She felt he didn’t value the things that mattered to her — namely, he wasn’t engaged during family time — and that was getting in the way of her sexual feeling for him.

TIP: You need to identify what the real cause of the friction is. If you feel one or other of you isn’t pulling their weight in some way, make a schedule you agree on — be flexible with each other, but also be honest — and then sit down together for a debrief after sticking to it for a week and adjust it based on feedback.

Feeling cared for and valued by Rob made Sonya so much warmer towards him and started to heal the sexual gap which had emerged in their relationship.

It’s not an instant process but, during one of our final sessions, they were flirting so much I felt I needed to excuse myself.

• Helen Mayor has practice locations in Hampstead, North London, and Central London. She also offers online sessions (helenmayortherapy.co.uk). She is co-founder of The Thought House Partnership, which specialises in relationships and sex (thethoughthouse.co.uk).