The Loving Truth

Ask Sharon: Why Desire Fades

• Sharon Pope • Episode 135

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Have you ever wondered why the spark seems to fade over time?

Desire doesn’t disappear because something’s wrong. It fades because everything is the same.

I explain the science behind why familiarity suppresses desire and how we mistakenly attribute pleasure to the person (like a number three) rather than the physiological reaction in our own body.

I also share what we can do to bring desire back in a long-term relationship… without waiting on our partner to figure it out.

Desire isn’t magic. But with a little effort and intention, it can be reawakened.

Struggling to decide whether to stay or go in your marriage and you’re serious about finding that answer?

Book a Truth & Clarity Session with a member of my team. We’ll discuss where you are in your marriage and explore if there’s a fit for you and I to work together so you can make - and execute - the RIGHT decision for YOU and your marriage.

Speaker 1:

If you've ever found yourself questioning your relationship, wondering should I stay or should I go, you're not alone. Today, on the Loving Truth, I'm sharing an exclusive peek inside my membership program the Decision, which is the only way to get live coaching and support from me. You'll hear real members ask their biggest questions and I'll be coaching them through the doubts, fears and complexities of making this life-changing decision. If you've been craving clarity and guidance, this episode is for you.

Speaker 2:

Here's what we're going to cover. The first thing we're going to talk about is when there's a lack of desire. I don't know, possibly everyone could relate to that. And in the context of that, we're also going to talk about when there's a number three, which really screws up the desire inside your marriage. So we're going to talk about that real briefly, just because, I mean, I'm in the Facebook group, so I see it like you do. Whenever someone posts about that, there's lots of resonance and lots of conversation about that.

Speaker 2:

I wrote this blog post and it's around. Let me start with the story of anytime I want to go out to eat, or Derek and I want to go out to eat. He'll ask me like well, what do you have a taste for? What do you want? I say the exact same thing every single time. He knows this. It has not changed in years and I think he's secretly hoping I will come up with some other answer, but the answer is always sushi. I want sushi. I will go get it tonight.

Speaker 2:

Almost every Thursday night after these calls, I almost always go get sushi. It's like my favorite treat. I don't know why, and I will often say because he jokes with me. He's like aren't you sick of that? You've had it two nights in a row, or you've had it twice this week, or whatever. And I always say no, I could never get sick of sushi. That is completely impossible. But that's because sometimes it's fresh and sometimes it's fried, and sometimes it's fried, and sometimes it's tuna and sometimes it's salmon, sometimes it's grouper or shrimp or avocado or cucumber, right. So sushi is a category, but if I was having the exact same rule for every meal every single day, I promise you I would get sick of it.

Speaker 2:

Now I know this because of two reasons. One is because many years ago, I was on a diet I know shocking. I was on some crazy diet and they had me drinking five chocolate protein shakes a day. You can have water and you can have these five shakes a day and you can have these five shapes of that. So what I learned in the process of doing that is that I was no longer using food as a reward or enjoyment. It was just fuel for the body. That's it, and I've always wished I could get to that place. I feel like that's how my husband is. He eats to fuel his body and I'm like but food is so good, so that's what I got out of it. I never craved the shakes the chocolate shakes I. Just when I got hungry I was like, oh, let me go pound a shake real quick, and then I get back to doing whatever it was I was doing.

Speaker 2:

The other reason I know that is because there is scientific evidence that if you eat the same thing every single day, you will get sick of it and you won't desire it. So familiarity suppresses desire. Here's what the science says. When you get something new in your experience and it's new and desirable, and I call it very blinky, very flashy here's what happens in the body your brain starts lighting up like a pinball machine and it emits the feel good hormone, dopamine. You know where I'm are with the same person, day in and day out, year after year, being invited to a sexual encounter in the same way, having the same I don't know what two or three different positions that you do over and over and over again.

Speaker 2:

Guess what happens? Desire wanes because familiarity suppresses desire. So no longer are all the pinballs machine lighting up in your brain. It's not anymore Right, and so the dopamine isn't being released, and so now it doesn't feel as good. Now that causes some people to question their love and question their marriage. It also causes some people to then go looking for the dopamine hit. How do we do that? Hello, number three Right, it's new, it's desirable, it's exciting, it's more than a little dangerous.

Speaker 2:

What happens in the body? Bling, bling, bling Dopamine shot through every cell of your body. And then, ladies and gentlemen, what we do is we attribute all those good feelings to that other person. We give away all of our power of what just happened inside of us and we associate that with this other person and we say he made me feel that. No, darlings you, the physiological, you made you feel that that's all that's happening.

Speaker 2:

And I know that it's a little bit of a bitter pill. That desire is going to wane the longer you're with your partner, but I also think it should provide us with some comfort that nothing has gone wrong. This is just the physical, chemical reaction in the body that impacts every single one of us. None of us is immune to this. None of us has a brain that never emits dopamine. So if you plan on being monogamous which I do we have to wrap our minds around this idea that over time, we should not expect our desire to be at a peak level consistently, for I don't know the rest of your life with the same person who only knows the same four moves right, and we do too. It's not like we're offering a whole bunch of stuff up either. So I also wanted to bring you some comfort that nothing's gone wrong.

Speaker 2:

And then, for those of you that get really, really twisted up about your number three, two things I want to tell you. You won't love it, I know. All that's happening is the physiological chemical response in your body. Don't give that to this person and say you are not responsible for this, because then what happens is that if I don't have that person in my life, I think I will never feel that way again. Look, you can feel I could eat gelato. I know I said sushi, but I could eat sushi and gelato every day. I could eat gelato every day and it would send all the dopamine hits. But if I ate gelato every single day, I'm telling you after a few months you put a steak in front of me and there's no possible way that I'm not going to have that same chemical response. So don't give that like you did that for me. We're so special, I know. I know what I speak of. You know, I know, I've been there. It's not like, it's not that this is so special, it's not that this is not special, but don't associate a dopamine release in your body and say it's because of a person, it's because it's new, it's exciting, it's desirable, it's dangerous. That's all that's happening. And, by the way, this is the other part. You'll hate it.

Speaker 2:

If you're with him or her for the next three, five, 10, 20 years, your desire will wane. So if you want to be monogamous, we got to get comfortable with okay, we need to expend a little bit of effort in order to keep it interesting. Right, like, okay, we can't expect peak desire, but we shouldn't necessarily have to settle into Sharon, I'm completely uninterested and bored out of my cotton pick in mind, but oftentimes, what do we do? We look to our partner to entertain us, to make it different. Right, you should be doing something different so that I can feel desire. What I will tell you is that this is not a male and female thing either. I mean, males and females experience sex differently, obviously, but their desire also wanes. For you in particular, it's not. But anyway, we won't go there.

Speaker 2:

Here's the things that you can think about doing, and it's not all sexually related, it's also connection and lighting yourself up related. So the first thing I would suggest is look for and this is Even if you're in divorce differently and you're like Sharon, I don't want to reignite something, that's cool, but you got to know this for your next relationship. If you want a monogamous relationship, if you want an open relationship, then cool. You just go find someone new every three or four years and you'll always have the dopamine hit. It'll be fine. So here's what I want you to think about.

Speaker 2:

Think about new opportunity, just things that are new to you. That can be taking a cooking class If you're with a partner, with them. If it's by yourself, then it's by yourself. That can be taking a cooking class If you're with a partner, with them. If it's by yourself, then it's by yourself. It can be traveling to a new place and experiencing something completely new. Look for new things to do. Don't just fall into the rote sort of same old, same old.

Speaker 2:

The kids are finally in bed. I'm exhausted. We got to get up at six. All right, we got 10 minutes. Let's just do it Right. Of course, you don't feel desire. That's not going to send dopamine anywhere. So look for opportunities for something new. New is what creates that.

Speaker 2:

The second thing is look for new points of connection, right? So how many? You don't even have to raise your hand, but I'll ask the question and you can tell me if that sounds like you, how many of us fall into. Okay, after dinner and at the end of the day, we just sit in front of the TV, yeah, probably on like opposite ends of the sofa, like you know, those sofas with the recliners on the ends. I call that the divorce sofa, because when you do that every day at the end of the day. So, instead of doing that, hey, why don't we go sit out back? It's summer, let's share a glass of wine, just catch up, just want to see how your day is. It doesn't have to be so scary, but if we keep doing the same thing, we're going to get the same feelings, we're going to get the same results. And then, of course, you can have conversations with your spouse about this, Like, hey, I learned something new today, did you know?

Speaker 2:

that after you're with your partner, you could have a conversation about it, or you could just take it upon yourself to realize, like, okay, if we're going to keep sex interesting, we have to be willing to do some things that are outside of our comfort zones once in a while, not even every time, but once in a while, because even that once in a while hit will keep you engaged and will keep the desire sort of alive. So that can be new positions, it can be new ways to have foreplay, which, remember, begins at the end of your last orgasm. And it can also be new ways of inviting one another. Right, we can do a lot better than this whole. Like you want to fool around? No, that's not sexy, no. So if we want to take it upon ourselves, those are the things that we can do. If we don't want to take it upon ourselves and we want our partners to do it and they're not in this group, then you might need to be the one to tell them, because they don't know. They're just doing what they know to do, just like we've all done before. We learned something different, right? So that's what I want to offer about desire.

Speaker 2:

It's not this mysterious thing that gets sprinkled on some couples and withdrawn. It's almost like we think it's magical. It's there one day and then all of a a sudden it's not there. Sharon, how am I supposed to get desire back? I don't even want to be near him. Well, you can't with that attitude, of course you can't. But once you understand where desire comes from and what all those good feelings, the reason you're having all those good feelings, and it's a chemical reaction in the body, the reason you're having all those good feelings and it's a chemical reaction in the body, it actually has nothing to do with, like someone else I know. So all of us in monogamous relationships. We got to figure this out and we got to get comfortable with, like, of course it's going to ebb and flow, like anything that's going to ebb and flow, but the more we pay attention to it and the more intentional we are about it, the more it will flow and the less it will end.

Speaker 1:

If today's episode resonated with you and you're ready to find real clarity about your relationship, I'd love for you to take the next step Apply for a truth and clarity session where you'll speak with a member of my team about where you are in your marriage, what's keeping you stuck and whether my coaching is the right fit for you. You don't have to navigate this alone. Go to clarityformymarriagecom to apply now.