3 Reasons Why Passion Fades in Long Term Relationships
In the past you couldn’t take your hands off each other. When you were apart, you used to desire, fantasies , miss one another.
Now, yes, your are fully committed. You are best friends. But there is no passion. No desire. Something is missing !It feels like you are roommates.
Passion feeds physical intimacy which in turn feeds connection, nurturance and the protective guard around relationships.
It is because of the kids, work, hormones and other reasons - Is it? What is really going on? Why does passion fade in long term relationships?
What you need to know about passion.
1.Passion in long-term relationships involves two needs that push against each other. On the one hand, we need security, safety, familiarity and predictability. But we also need adventure, unpredictability, mystery and surprise.
We need to feel safe in a long term relationship in order to develop emotional intimacy and closeness. We need to know that our partner will not wake up one day and decide to leave us. But in order to develop desire, we need the danger, the surprise , the adventure.
2. Passion develops through imagination , through fantasy and mystery. In a long term relationship , knowing gives the feeling of safety , which is needed in order to develop emotional intimacy. But it also kills desire . There is no mystery. You can not imagine your partners as the night on the white horse which sweeps you of your feet with passion because you know them too well.
3.The qualities of a relationship that grow love – mutuality, protection, safety, predictability, protection, responsibility for the other – are the very things that will smother passion .
Passion comes with a range of feelings that would make our everyday, socially appropriate selves gasp with the inappropriateness of it all – jealousy, possessiveness, naughtiness, power, selfishness.
The secret is to know how to connect to the parts of ourselves that are powerful, passionate, playful, sexy, mysterious, selfish, while also being able to be generous, considerate, socially appropriate, responsible and respectable.
But how?
The more connected we become, the more responsible we also become and the less able we are to be selfish – to let go – in the presence of another. Over time we loose the connection with the part of ourselves that experiences passion.
How can we reintroduce passion?
Spend time apart !
Passion flourishes in absence. With distance we are able to feel mystery, longing and anticipation – the hallmarks of desire.
Forget spontaneity!
Passion isn’t going to appear from nowhere. Deliberately creating opportunities and space to be with each other.
Passion and desire are the heart of your relationship. They are the lifeblood of connection and intimacy. Do not give up on them!
Did the Love Between Us Die?
You don’t fight. You are very functional. From outside you appear as the perfect couple.
But between you and your partner everything is dead. You are putting a ton of energy in children, work, hobbies.
But inside the romantic relationship, there is no energy.
You weren’t always like this.
In the past, you were sooo in love. Spending all your time together, enjoying each other’s company,
not caring what you are doing, if you are doing it together.
What happened? How did that love, the aliveness you felt, die?
As per imago therapy, In the first few months you and your partner are in the romantic stage.
You are in symbiosis. You feel as if you and your partner are the same person. You want similar things,
you enjoy similar things; you think the same way. This is so much fun! Finally, you found that person that really gets you! It feels as you and the are one and not two separate people.
When the love ecstasy wares off, around a year into the relationship, you start worrying that your partner may be a separate individual from you, with their own wants, needs, wishes, and thoughts. You become worried that they may not want the same things you want. You suddenly notice that maybe there are some differences.
They are shocked that You don’t want to spend your free evening with him and his friends. You seemed too always want to spend time with them, no matter where and with who. And they go alone. You are hurt that they chose their friends over you. You feel neglected, betrayed and a little voice tells you that they went because you bore them and maybe they don’t love you anymore. Only a month ago, they would choose spending time with you over everyone else.
Welcome to the power struggle stage.
A natural stage in relationships, which usually happens between 12 to 18 months in. You refuse to separate from the symbiosis you were feeling. You refuse to accept the fact that your partner is a separate person from you. You refuse to accept the difference between you and them.
To transition from the power struggle stage to mature love you must build differentiation- The understanding that you and your partner are separate individuals and the acceptance of the differences between you and them.
Easier said than done.
You start fighting. Each of you pulling to their side. You want them to be like you, they want you to be like them. You fight, argue, yell, scream, blame. You are not willing to give up the symbiosis.
Suddenly, one day you wake up and the only thing you hear is quiet. There is no fighting, no arguing, no yelling.
You are in a cease fire. Great, no?!
No!
You are so disappointed, so hurt by your partner, that to protect yourself, you build a parallel relationship.
You are together, but you are like two lines who never meet. Yes, you talk about the kids’ issues, you both
go to your best friend’s birthday, you maybe even have sex once a week, but you are disconnected. distant.
Connecting is a basic need for all of us.
When there is connection, you feel alive, joy. But when there is the connection is missing, there is a feeling of death.
Because connection is a basic need, which we as humans cannot survive without, you find yourself putting your energy in everything and anything but your partner: exercise, kids, friends, hobbies. Volunteers are needed? you are there. Anything and everything to get that energy, which does not exist in the relationship, someplace else.
But this is still better than then constantly fighting, no?!
No!
Where there is anger, there is emotion. There is aliveness. It means you care. You are hurt because you feel like you are losing something valuable.
When there is quiet, there is the feeling of death. There is a danger of you giving up on you, as a couple. A danger of giving up the relationship.
This quiet is a toxic quiet, made from feelings of disappointment, rejection, and abandonment.
These feelings destroy the love you still have to each other.
If there is no connection, maybe we should give up the relationship?
No!
The feelings are there. They are just buried very deep, deep under piles of defenses and hurt.
Can you transform a dead relationship?
Yes, Yes and Yes!
Through the Imago couple’s dialog.
The Imago dialog is a dialog used in imago therapy, in which one of the partners, the sender, is sharing their emotions,
while the other partner, the receiver, is listening, without responding.
We usually are busy defending our self and responding. We do not listen to our partner. We are trying to show that we are right, and they are wrong.
Through the dialogue, the partners understand what their partner needs, discover each other, understand the real source of pain and learn how to reconnect.