Create Your Own Luck By Making Intimacy Lighter

In this week's episode, I'm talking about how to keep sex and connection from turning into a pressure-filled project by bringing back laughter, flirting, and lightness. I share why playfulness builds emotional safety and give three simple ways to create more “luck” in your love life. 

• how seriousness turns intimacy into pressure 
• why laughter signals safety and reconnects couples 
• shifting from obligation to anticipation with small playful moments 
• the lap dance story and why imperfection can spark desire 
• three practical tools: flirt more, revive inside jokes, do something silly together 

You can download the Get Lucky Guide by going to https://monicatanner.com/getlucky. 

Transcript

St Patrick’s Day And Luck

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Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, Monica Tanner, and our topic today is going to be more fun and all about how to have more fun, especially in our intimate relationship. So today's episode is about the fun part of getting lucky. And it's perfect timing because today is St. Patrick's Day. And since I don't have little kids to hide coins for anymore and I don't drink beer, this is about the most exciting thing I get to do on St. Patrick's Day. Because this holiday is all about luck, celebration, and a little bit of mischief. So here is what I've learned over the years about couples who have a great sex life. And that is that they're not as lucky as they are playful. And I will add to that, they are intentional. They make time and space to laugh together, they flirt with each other, and they don't take sexual intimacy so seriously. That may seem simple, but it's honestly one of the most overlooked aspects of a long-term intimate relationship. Many couples lose the plot, the part where they used to have fun and laugh together. Today I want to talk about why playfulness matters so much and how bringing laughter back into your relationship might be one of the easiest ways to start feeling more connected and closer to each other again. And since today's St. Patrick's Day, we're gonna talk about how to create a little more luck in your sex life. So here's the problem with being really serious about intimacy. One of the things I notice is that when couples talk about their intimacy challenges, I often get the feeling that it's very heavy for both of them. Their conversations sound like we need to work on our intimacy, we need to fix this, we should be having more sex or better sex. And while those conversations are important, they often create a lot of pressure. When intimacy feels like a problem to solve or an obligation to be fulfilled, it can start to feel heavy instead of inviting. And if you think back to the early days of your relationship, chances are intimacy didn't ever start with a very serious conversation. It started with playfulness, teasing, inside jokes, flirting, unexpected touches, and laughing together. That playfulness creates a feeling of safety. And emotional safety, as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, is one of the strongest predictors of desire in long-term relationships. When people feel relaxed, accepted, and they're able to laugh together, their nervous system settles down. Connection opens up, curiosity returns, and couples have more access to that intimacy that naturally grows inside of us. So there's a reason why laughter feels so good to us. Because the action of laughing actually releases tension from our bodies. It signals that we're safe and we can have fun. It reminds both partners that they're on the same team. And in a long-term relationship, that matters a lot. Because struggles with intimacy often create a subtle pattern where partners begin to feel like they're on opposing sides. As we've been talking about this month, one partner feels rejected, and then the other partner feels a lot of pressure. And playfulness is what interrupts that dynamic. When couples laugh together, it shifts the energy from are we doing this right? What's wrong with us? to we're in this together and it's fun. And that shift alone can drastically change how intimacy unfolds. Another powerful contribution of laughter is that it builds anticipation, not pressure, not obligation, just curiosity. So when you send your partner a flirty text in the middle of the day, or a private joke across a crowded dinner table, or a playful comment when nobody else is listening, those small moments create intimacy sparks that ignite into full-blown desire. And that anticipation is often what makes intimacy feel exciting rather than scheduled. It's the difference between are we gonna do this or what? And I cannot wait to be with you later tonight. That emotional shift is huge. And here is another massive reason why intimacy helps so much, is because it gives couples permission to let loose a little and be imperfect. I remember when my husband and I were celebrating a significant anniversary, I decided to learn how to give him a lap dance. I literally, me and a good friend, who are both celebrating our 10-year anniversary, went over to a woman's house and in her garage, she taught us how to seducely dance for our husbands, all choreographed to a song. My friend and I never laughed so much as we were trying to awkwardly tap into our seductiveness. And then when it came time to do the dance for my husband, I had never actually practiced with another person sitting in the chair because trust me, I practiced a lot to get the choreography right. But on the night when I actually performed it, I was so awkward and clunky that I stepped on his toe, I hit him across the face with my elbow. It was anything but seductive. And that night, my husband and I ended up both laughing so hard we were in tears. It was such a great experience. It's a great inside joke, and I realized something so important that night. That laughter for me is a powerful bridge to desire. Now, as we talked about last week, most relationships have a spontaneous desire partner and a responsive desire partner. And so it's important to find bridges to desire or ways in which perhaps the lower desire partner can kind of heat up. This can include things like relaxing in a hot bubble bath, taking a walk together. And for me, it's unwinding after a long day with some laughter. Most of our laughter now comes from funny memes that my friends and I send to each other online and I share them with my husband. Sometimes he finds some of his own, but they mostly come from me. So back to the awkwardness of this lap dance that I attempted for my husband. One of the reasons why it was such a powerful moment is because let's be honest, intimacy sometimes can be super awkward. You're dealing with human bodies, there's funny noises, none of us are perfect. And oftentimes, when you're in the throes of intimacy, something funny happens, someone bumps their head, or a moment doesn't go as planned, like the debacle of the chair dance. But couples who can laugh together in those moments stay connected. Couples who feel pressure for everything to be perfect often have so much anxiety that they can't relax and just enjoy being together. Playfulness is what allows intimacy to be human instead of performative. And that's where real connection lives. When you have a safe place to go with another human that you feel comfortable just being completely yourself around. So if you feel like the playfulness has faded in your relationship, the good news is it's something that you can easily rebuild. The powerful tools I want to give you in this episode have to do with three small ways to begin to bring that playfulness back into your relationship. So the first way is by flirting. Flirting by virtue of what it is can be very awkward. It might stretch you out of your comfort zone. But easy ways to flirt with your partner that they may not even see coming is sending them a flirty text in the middle of the day, maybe even a playful photo. I'm willing to bet if you've lost that aspect of your relationship, your text messages are filled with logistics. What if you just randomly sent something super playful that builds some anticipation for seeing them later that day? Or even just something sweet to remind them that you're thinking about them. Another way to bring that playful energy back is to revisit old jokes or inside jokes that you shared together. One of my very favorite memories from when our kids were growing up, and I have very small genes because all four of my children have big brown eyes, just like me. And I remember when they were super small and they would look up at us with those big brown eyes and they would say, Hold you. It was a bid from connection from these little babies that I miss so much. And after a long day, I love to look at my husband with big brown eyes and just say, hold you. It's meaningful to us and it's playful and loving and sort of an inside joke that now I'm sharing with all of you. But if you can't think of anything, I want you to remember times when you've laughed with your spouse. Whether it's a funny movie, an instance that happened on vacation, a family tradition gone wrong. Think about humorous moments that you and your spouse have shared together. I also really love code words. My husband and I have a very specific code word for get me out of here or my kids are driving me crazy. I'd rather be in the bedroom with you tearing your clothes off. We have a specific code word for that. So see if you can get a little more playful in your language that just the two of you share together. Shared humor is such a powerful intimacy builder. And the third thing you can do to bring that playful energy back is to do something silly together. Like I said, watch a comedy, go through some funny memes that you found during the day, play a game together. There's nothing that melts the stress away of a busy time of life than pulling out a deck of cards and playing a speed game like Slapjack or Speed. My husband and I haven't done this for a long time, but I'm thinking it's time to bring it back. Just try something new together, something that will make you both laugh. Because, my friends, laughter creates connection in ways that conversation just sometimes can't. So those are my three tips. Flirt, create some inside jokes or playful language together, and do some silly things. I just thought of this one, but my oldest son, who is newly married, they have these fun drawings that they did of each other in the bedroom where we stay when we come to visit, and they're so funny and playful. I can't speak for his wife, but my son is not an artist, and so his portrait of his wife is silly, it's funny. I'm sure they had a great time creating those, and just having them up in their apartment is a fun and playful way to just enjoy each other. So, since today is St. Patrick's Day, I want to leave you with this thought. I don't believe that luck is random. I'm pretty sure you create your own luck. And when couples leave space for fun, laughter, curiosity, they keep flirting. And when they allow laughter and lightness back into their relationship, they build the emotional conditions where intimacy can naturally grow. So, in other words, they create their own luck. So if you've enjoyed this series where we've talked about creating the conditions for getting lucky through emotional safety, we've talked about understanding desire differences and now how to bring fun and laughter back into it. I created a download for you called the Get Lucky Guide, which is 10 conversations that build desire. It incorporates all three of the things we've been talking about this month into a short workbook that couples can go through together with prompts and exercises that help reduce pressure, increase playfulness, and create the emotional conditions where intimacy grows naturally. You can download it by going to monicatanner.com forward slash get lucky. And if today's episode made you smile or reminded you of something playful in your own relationship, maybe tonight on St. Patrick's Day is a good night to lean into that energy. Send your partner a flirty text, share an insight joke, laugh at something together, and create a little more luck in your love life. So happy St. Patrick's Day. I hope you get lucky and be sure to join us for my next two episodes where I have incredible interviews lined up. Next week, we're talking to Jessa Zimmerman. We're going to go in depth on desired differences and how to break out of that terrible dynamic of the pursuer who feels rejected and the partner who feels pressured. You're not going to want to miss that one. And then I'm talking to my dear friend Katie Renyan about her company Faithful Sling. And if you're looking for something fun and playful to add into your relationship, you are not going to want to miss that episode on roleplay dates. I will tell you, for me, it is one of the funnest things that I have done in a long time. So I will see you here, same time, same place next week. Go get your get lucky guide and remember to have a little more fun.