Successful Relationship with Emma

5 Reasons Why Your Desire Might Be Low – Emma Solo (Ep.36)

• Emma Viglucci • Episode 36

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In today’s episode, Emma shares a key concept for why partners have different preferences around physical intimacy, and 5 top reasons that impact their libido and desire. She offers practical solutions to these culprits, and 3 love hack practices to integrate into your life to make sure you have a vibrant and satisfying love life.  

Hope you enjoy it!  

 

*Visit the Episode’s Page for the Video, related article, other resources AND to get our FREE Relationship Enrichment Mini Course!  


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DISCLAIMER: This content is meant to support your Journey and not as a replacement for professional assistance. Additionally, the ideas and resources provides by our guests are their ideas and recommendations alone and not necessarily a reflection of the host’s.



Emma Viglucci:

Hello, lovelies, and welcome to another episode. I am so excited for today's topic. I'm gonna be talking about the reasons why couples might be experiencing low libido or low desire in their relationship. First, I want to show you a key concept that we're gonna use to filter the rest of the information today that has a massive impact on what's happening for their partners and why they might be at different places when it comes to what they want out of their intimacy. Then I'm going to walk you through the five culprits of low desire and then I'm going to give you some hack practices to help you rebuild the intimacy that you want. Okay, so let's dive in. The main thing that I want to point out is that there is a thing that's called desire discrepancy. Now, what that means is that the partners might have different sexual styles. Desired discrepancy has to do with the partners having opposite sexual styles. The female body has more of the responsive style just follows with our chemistry and our biology and the male body has more of the spontaneous style. It follows with how their biology works. Those styles impact how we experience desire and that desire impacts how we want to show up intimately in our relationship, in our sex life. So having that information handy will help us understand more what I'm going to describe about the culprits, why you might be experiencing low libido, and I'm also going to quickly make a connection here to sexual dysfunctions. Sometimes this impacts orgasmic disorder for women, meaning it creates that for women, where women have a hard time reaching orgasm, and it impacts irritable dysfunction for men where you have the expectation of being ready to go, and the more that you observe that, the more that you want that potentially you hinder it. Right, watched erection doesn't pop this day. So we want to make sure that we are mindful of those styles in our biology, in our intimacy, so that we don't create those disorders, okay, where we're having a hard time orgasming if we're women and we might have a hard time getting erected if we are a guy. So keep that in mind because this is going to influence how the culprits manifest in the relationship and how we deal with them. All right, so we could filter the rest of the information through these lens so that we could catch if we're being true to our style and if we are creating funky business for us where we end up experiencing some kind of an air quotes disorder. All right, okay.

Emma Viglucci:

So, having given that setup, I want to go into the culprits. I'm going to list them, explain them and also I'm going to tell you how to fix them. So here we go. The first one is exhaustion. Now, these just a little side note. These might be obvious, right, but I want to explain them in a way that you could connect the dots to why your intimacy might have taken a hit, so that we increase the awareness in and of themselves of, of course they make sense. You're like, oh, of course, sure, that's logical, that makes sense Like duh. But if we really connect it to our intimacy, then we could be more proactive around changing the thing. That's really obvious but we don't do anything about. And then we have a better impact in our intimacy and in our closeness and our sex life satisfaction.

Emma Viglucci:

So, exhaustion if we are feeling really exhausted and we are drained, we have no energy, we might be in pain, achy, our body's, like dragging, how can we possibly expect for us to be able to get aroused? We just don't have literally the energy for the arousal, for the rising right of whatever energies are necessary to feel that desire, that chemistry, that desire in the chemistry, and to feel the emotions that come along with that and for our body to actually activate, to actually get aroused, literally physically, to reach our goal of having the pleasure and having like a deeper connection. And so that is true for both styles. It's especially true for the female body, for the woman, because our biology is already kind of of air quotes, sluggish, if you may. It's already kind of needs a ramp up. It already needs a buildup for it to reach height so that it could orgasm properly and derive all the pleasure. But if we're exhausted there's no way that we could get up that ramp right. It's already a steep ramp for us. We already have to work at that potentially right or remove all the things, so it's easy for us ramp. For us we already have to work at that potentially right or remove all the things, so it's easier for us to get up that ramp. But if we have like no energy and we're we're dragging with sluggish, it's virtually impossible. So it makes sense that we have no and no desire.

Emma Viglucci:

Now all kinds of things affect this, from lifestyle, grind, culture, like lack of sleep, having given, given birth, having infants, sleepless nights, stress, hormones, like all kinds of things. Right and the same for the men stress, grinding, overworking all the things. It's same thing. Even though they might be easier to get aroused and to be ready, stress is a killer, right. So their body, chemistry and their mindset, it still shuts everything down. They still have a hard time performing or performing is probably not the best word for this, but even though that's how it is used, I don't want, I don't want to um, buy into feed, feed that, that whole thing. But it's still hard for them to get aroused or to be interested if the entire, if they're stressed, they just, the body just doesn't respond.

Emma Viglucci:

So how do, how do we fix it? How do we address this? So, number one, taking stock of, okay, what is our lifestyle, what, what are our routines? What are our habits? How nourished are we? How supportive are we? What are, what are, what are our? What is our lineup for the day? What's happening that we're feeling so exhausted? We might have an actual physical reason, like an ailment. So getting physical is very important. Make sure that your hormones are fine, your thyroid is fine, your iron, your vitamin D, like all the neurotransmitters, like all the things, are functioning properly, so that it's nothing physical going on either in the brain or in the body, the rest of the body, and then adjusting lifestyle things.

Emma Viglucci:

How much sleep are we getting? What time are we going to bed? Sometimes we can't help how much sleep we get if we have babies, if we're nursing, like this kind of stuff. That makes it even more challenging, but that could be a separate conversation. Just know that. Well, actually, you know what.

Emma Viglucci:

Let me make a comment about that. If you're nursing and if you have a little infant, please nourish yourself, drink a little water, eat your nourishing foods and try to get as much rest sleep. However, you can do shifts with your partner so that you get a nice stretch of hours in, if possible at a time I know easier said than done. I know, I know I get it okay. Been there, been there with my clients, been there personally. I totally get it. Do the best you can. The more that you invest in adjusting that, the more easy that this gets, assuming that you don't have an infant and that this is not your thing. This is not what you're going through. The next thing is you still might have young children, and the young children slash. Children might affect your sleep for a very long time. Yet I understand this too. Or pets I understand that very well as well.

Emma Viglucci:

But again, what can we put in place so that we protect our sleep as much as possible? What are the things that we could do? Either sleep hygiene, going to sleep early or trying to get long stretches of hours and doing some kind of coverage with our partner so that we both have a chance to get enough sleep. So that's the sleep part. Then what does your day look like? Are you rushing? Are you running? Are you grinding? Are you not resourcing enough? Do you have your self-care? Are you nourishing yourself properly? Are you hydrated? And you see all the things. And this is assuming that you're healthy, right? So if you have ailments or you take medicine, there's all the things going on as well. So take care of that.

Emma Viglucci:

And then, of course, stress, stress, like I said before, man that just that exhausts us. Just it's really, really taxing on our system in all the different ways. And so if we can mitigate that, now you might say, well, I can't get rid of the stress. It comes with the territory of all of the things. Sure, you might have the stress, but you could do something about this impact that the stress has and you become more resilient. So if you can't get rid of the stress per se, you could do something about having stress or how you manage the stress or how you counter the impact. That's the secret.

Emma Viglucci:

All right, some people have this crazy stressful jobs and lives and don't do anything to counter the impact. That's first of all. We're going to manage and reduce the stress, of course. But I hear all of you going again you know I can't, this is the way it is, I understand. So I'm not even going to try to fight that with you right now. But you know what. You can put something in place to counter it.

Emma Viglucci:

Okay, so at least the basics. What does that mean? Mindfulness practices, anything that nourishes you exercise, things of that sort. Now, the rest of the day is also important. So the rushing around and the grinding see how much you can mitigate that. Building a little cushion and transition times in between things. Recharging, resourcing in the middle of the day, connecting to yourself and to others, replenishes and having somewhat of a wind down, that's nourishing routine. In the evening, that's more stress.

Emma Viglucci:

Substances and bad food don't help anything. They might give you a little relief in the moment. They might give you a little hit of dopamine and all the sugar and all the things, but you're not doing yourself any service at the end of the day, because now your body has to deal with all of that detoxing and cleaning while you're sleeping and it's focusing on that as opposed to nourishing and replenishing and addressing all the other things that it needs to do to help you have more vitality. So if your body needs to get rid of the alcohol process, all the sugar repair damage that you've done to yourself, it's not going to have as much of a chance to do the cleansing in the brain, filing the information away and doing all the repair that might help you get that juice and that vitality. You see, okay, so that's a lot of different things that I cover there.

Emma Viglucci:

This is more of a wellness conversation at that point in that particular segment. But, tweak, you don't have to be like oh, my dear Lord, that's only the first one and there's a gazillion million things to do. That's okay. The one that hits you the most, the one that was a two by two to your forehead, that's the one that you're like okay, you know what? Let me do something about that one. This is how we deal with when there is too much stuff coming at us and too many things to change at once and it feels overwhelming. Okay, pick the one thing you're like. You know what? Let me do something about that and go for it. Crack that code right, put the thing in place, address the thing so that you can feel the impact and the difference. Okay, so that was for exhaustion.

Emma Viglucci:

Number two is domesticity. What this means is that you become too domestic in your relationship and in your lifestyle. Everything becomes around running the household, dealing with the children, doing the business of life. You're living by your roles husband and wife, or whatever, wife, wife, husband, husband or mom, dad, whatever the combinations, right? Just the roles. You're just flowing and operating from that place, not from couple, lovers, partners, soulmates or mates. That piece of the relationship gets lost in translation, and that's what the juice is. That's where you could create the good stuff to have the good sex life, more than good. That's where it comes from. If that goes away, that gets muted because all the other roles cover it. There is no juice. There is no polarity. There is no juice. There is no polarity, there is no attraction, right? Everything becomes around doing. There is no being, there's no relaxing, there is no being able to show up with the essences of you, where the attraction was in the first place. And, to top it off, you're probably both in masculine energy. And, to top it off, you're probably both in masculine energy to take care of the business of life. There's nothing yummy about that.

Emma Viglucci:

So we want to embody more of our core energy. So, if we are women, we want to embody a more feminine energy when we are interacting with our partner, because that's where, in the polarities, where the attraction is. If you're same gender, one of you needs to polarize to the other energy. So usually, like I said, most of us are both partners are usually in masculine. So one of the partners, regardless if you're a female or not, and regardless of what gender your partner is, one of you needs to go feminine, all right. So nevermind genders. So if both are being in masculine, leading with masculine energy and doing all the masculine things, all of the doing, one of you needs to when you're trying to be sexy and interact with each other and build a couple apart, needs to go feminine, more feminine energy. Now, quick little side note about what that means.

Emma Viglucci:

The masculine energy is, like I said, is the doing, the logical, the planning, the organizing the orchest, the making things happen. The feminine energy is the emotions, the fun, the playfulness, the feelings, the intuition, the creative, the nourishing, the nurturing. You see, you see the difference. This part goes away when we're all in the doing, doing, doing doing discipline, making things happen, taking care of business, right, and we're all in this place most of the time. And so when we invite this feminine part up more, when we bring it up more and our partners and they're masculine and we show up with our feminine assuming that we are the feminine partner and again, if you're the same gender, then you decide who's going to do what. We could take turns in roles too, even if our partner is masculine. They could choose to male, they could still choose to be, show up in their feminine energy. It's okay too. We both have both. So, but as long as it's polarity, that's where the attraction happens. You see, domesticity kills that. So we have to be super intentional about cultivating that. So in a private time or in times where, okay, we take care of business, now let's switch into being together and hanging out, we have to switch the energy. That's super important. We have to flip to the other side.

Emma Viglucci:

The next culprit is expectation, expectation. Now, the expectations get in the way because they have a tendency to rent space in our head. And when we are in here, ruminating, ruminating, thinking about things, processing, thinking about things, remembering things, worrying about who did what, how was that thing done? Was the other thing not done? What might they be thinking about me? What might be going on about the other thing? Do they think I'm too fat? Do they think I'm too skinny? Do they think I'm ugly? Do they think I smell Whatever right?

Emma Viglucci:

So if we worry about what might they be expecting or experiencing from us and vice versa, what we want from them, how come they didn't dress up for us? How come they didn't shower before we got into bed? How come blah, blah, blah, all the things that we do, we get too hung up in the thoughts we can't drop down into our hearts, we can't be in our body, we can't feel our body, we can't experience our body. We're not in sensing being mode. How are we supposed to feel our body? We can't experience our body. We're not in sensing being mode. How are we supposed to feel pleasure from that place? How are we supposed to get in touch with our energy and build it and culminate.

Emma Viglucci:

So the thing to do here is to do a little bit of cleansing before we go to intimate time, and intimate is not just sexual intimacy, by the way. I mean, this whole conversation is about sexual desire and libido, but this is also about connection and emotional intimacy. That gets impacted as well if we are all noisy in our head, and so what to do is to clear the decks a little bit, take a little bit of time to transition, take a little time to spill your brain, dump your brains that's the saying, right? So this I'm known for this in my house from dinner to hanging out. So let's say, work dinner hanging out.

Emma Viglucci:

I take a little bit of time to transition, just to dump my brain. Like all this, all the loose ends, all the things I'm supposed to be following up on still do tomorrow. Miscellaneous things, whatever, like anything that's running around my head. I put it down, right, I take a few notes of, like, all the little loose ends. So I go to hang out with a clear, clear slate. Now I'm empty, I'm ready, right, I'm ready to be filled with yummy stuff. I'm ready to be available. I could get out of my own head. I'm not still processing. I could be fully present. That's huge for me, right? So I totally need to do that, highly recommend it for people who have busy heads and who get stuck in all the expectation game and all the worrying and all the anticipation and all of these things. We get stuck there.

Emma Viglucci:

So, whatever you could do to empty out your head, to dump your brain, to stop processing and worrying about things, do that and then you transition to being with your partner, because from that place you'll be more available and it's easier to go into your feminine. If you're from that place, you'll be more available and it's easier to go into your feminine if you're a woman, because you're not worrying, worrying about doing. You see, you get out of the noise, if that's the thing that gets you, and you could be more into the being and therefore receiving, therefore relaxing and being in your body, and that's how you allow yourself to be able to ramp up and feel that desire. Now I'm focusing more on the doing side of this, but it could be any worries, thoughts or any noise in your head, right? So you find your own flavor and then see what you need to do to address it. So for me, it's like all the things that I have to still do, for example. So that's why I do a brain tap and I capture all of that.

Emma Viglucci:

All of that for some people might be feelings about their partner. People who have had affairs or things happening like that in their relationship they might have that playing out. People who have funky dynamics with their partner they might be worrying about or thinking about all the ways that the partner let them down so they can't relax and be with them in a fun, pleasurable, vulnerable way, because they have resentment very, very, very, very common. So you might want to journal, you might want to address those topics before you go into more private time. Okay, so tailor this to whatever your situation is more specifically, so you address expectations and the noise in your head so that now you could be available. Okay, so that was three and that was expectations. So now for number four, for enmeshment.

Emma Viglucci:

This one has to do with being together too much. Now some partners might say I wish right. So usually feeling disconnected is a more pervasive state for couples and therefore being together a lot might be thought of as a desired state. But let's clean that up. You could be together all the time and still feel very disconnected. This brings me back to the pandemic, right? If you recall, we worked with each other 24-7 and people were freaking out and they were still not feeling connected. They were together too much, right? So you could be in the same space. I'm sure you've heard the thing that says you could be in a room full of people and still feel lonely, right? Same concept. You could be in a room full of people and still feel lonely, right? Same concept. You could be with your partner all the time and still feel disconnected. So it's not about the space that you're in per se that's important, but how you're in the space.

Emma Viglucci:

And so this one plays out in that, if you're together all the time, you kind of become like a blob. You're too unmatched, you two together, where you don't have this space to miss each other, to see different aspects, to bring different stuff in, to see them as separate from you, to experience the pull right to, to be inviting. If you're together all the time, all that stuff goes away because, like, you don't miss each other, you see each other all the time. You know everything. There's no questions, there's no wondering in a good way, no curiosity, right, like all this stuff is like. And so with this, what we want to do is find the balance between separateness and and togetherness. Huge People think that being together more should be the right way to do a relationship and that if partners want time by themselves, that they don't care about the relationship.

Emma Viglucci:

They don't care about the partner, right? This is some usual thoughts that people have. So on one hand, we know that we need individual time and that we need our own space and our own things logically but a lot of times one of the partners, even though they understand that logically, at the end of the day they still want more closeness and more togetherness. That partner is always disappointed that the other partner is not around enough and the other partner feels the pressure to be around more and they don't want to and they have made to feel to be the bad guy. And so what I want to clear up here is that it's totally fine, if not imperative, that you have individual time, that you have separateness and that you find the balance of how much time together you have and that you make that time meaningful, that it's not just being in the same space, because you could be in the same space and still not feel the connection right, and so it's not about the quantity of time, it's about the quality of time, the intentionality that goes behind the time they are together.

Emma Viglucci:

And for those of you who are feeling like roommates and you're disconnected, you barely have any time together. The opposite is true. But again, you don't have to build in all this time. It's just a matter of finding the balance. Just the other way, how do you find more together time that's meaningful doesn't have to be like oh let me just totally flip this thing and I have to find all this time to spend with you. That's not what we're saying. Okay, so you assess for yourself where's your relationship at, and we have to find a balance that makes sense for your life. It doesn't have to be 50 50, whatever this balance that people seek, whatever whatever balance, differential balance people have a way that serves you, meets your needs. That's what balance means at the end of the day. And so somewhat of me time and us time. And what does that look like? Very intentional, so you really nourish yourself and you really nourish the relationship. Okay, so that's what that means, okay.

Emma Viglucci:

The last one is boredom, and boredom is when we do life by default, day in and day out, same things grinding, basic routines, basic together time, not intentional, not having the experiences, not bringing in any good yummy juice into the relationship. You're pretty much dull. You've muted your radiance by the monotony of things, and so what we want to do with this one is to shake things up a little bit and do some different things. Have a different interest, have a different habit, have a different activity, have a differenting, bring different people into your life. And again, I don't want to make this overwhelming you don't have to do all of the things, whatever reason. I just picked that one thing right I need to hang out with my friends a little bit more. Maybe I need to go to the gym a little bit more. Maybe I need to take an art class. Maybe I need to hang out with my family more. Maybe I need to take more trips. I don't know, I'm just saying.

Emma Viglucci:

So what does that look like for you and how can you air more juice? How can you bring more aliveness? The more that you invest in yourself and you remove the monotony and the yuck and the noise and the grind and the stress, the more that your radiance can shine through, you see, the more sparkly that you become, and that's where the attraction comes from and that's where the interest comes from, and that's where the allure comes from and that's where the desire comes from, and that's where the libido is more alive and ready, you see from, and that's where the libido is more alive and ready, you see. So with all these things, with this five, our job is to mitigate the thing that's muting us and making us dead or not interested and just blah, putting a little thing in there so that we could remove any roadblocks for us feeling more radiant and more alive and more ready. So, quick recap, the five are exhaustion, domesticity, expectations, enmeshment and boredom.

Emma Viglucci:

All righty, so the last thing that I want to offer for today is hacks and practices. What does that mean and what are we going to talk about here? So a few things with this. The first one is three things you know I'm going to offer you. So the first one is that we want to make sure that we invest in our connection. When we are feeling connected, when we're feeling resourced, when we're feeling aligned, we feel safe. When we feel safe, we're able to let go, we're able to relax, we're able to get out of our get out of the head, become more available and be able to like, drop in and be present and be and be ready, so we could take things to the next level.

Emma Viglucci:

If we're not connected, if we are worried, if we are stressed, if we are not feeling our partner, if we are having resentments, if we are fighting, right, we can't really go there unless you're having angry sex, but that's like the whole other thing. That's a different conversation. Most of us are not doing that right. Most of us are feeling disconnected, and these are some of the things that would address that, and so our job is to create a safety so that we can take things to the next level. We can remove all this stuff that gets in the way and then we could feel freely and be able to show up that way. So, address the resentment, address whatever's annoying. You address putting things in place so you could build that connection, deepen that connection so you feel more aligned. So whatever's getting in the way again with something there, to remove it, to address it, so you create the flow again, you see, and you can get yourself there.

Emma Viglucci:

The other one is the golden rule of sexuality, and I think I learned this in graduate school a long time ago. Somebody threw this out there as the thing, and I made it a rule that I teach clients now, and that is sex one time a week. Now don't shoot the messenger. Let me explain what this means. You might have a few resistances around that. Number one you might say that's too little. Number two you might say that's not romantic or sexy to schedule it, fine. So this is what I say to you.

Emma Viglucci:

Number one if you're not having any sex and you schedule and you have it, we're ahead of the game. That doesn't mean that you can't have more sex. You can have all the sex you want. You can be as spontaneous as you want. So I'm not saying that you schedule it once and you're done. I'm saying schedule it so you have at least one, okay. And two, it might not be sexy, but at least you're having some. And then you make sure you cover your bases. You could have all the other, sexy as much as you want, as passionate as you want, as whatever. It might not schedule, might not feel passionate or romantical or sexy or whatever, but it's what you do with it. At least you create a space for it. How you show up to it's up to you. It doesn't mean that because the schedule is going to be boring. Sex, right so? So those two things don't go, don't go together. You can have all the romantical and spontaneous sex that you want outside of that, or rather than, and as much as you want outside of that. So a schedule doesn't mean anything, it just means that at least you get it and you can have a lot more than that one time. Okay, so have fun.

Emma Viglucci:

And then, number three date your partner. Now, so a few things here that come up. Date your partner doesn't mean a little bit of time together in the same room or doing a little something and you call it a day and that's a date. If that's what you're doing and that's all you can manage, because life is nuts, it's better than nothing. So at least you have the couple of times some time together, and at least you're getting out together and you're doing something, fine, that's fine. I'm not saying anything about that. If that's all you can manage, that's perfect. But please, I implore you, step it up a notch if you can.

Emma Viglucci:

And that means that when you show up to this date, it's going to be not a doing date, not just showing up to the date as your usual selves, it's going to be that you show up to the state with your core energy, not with the rules, not with all the to-do's, not with talking about the children or catching up on the gossip. Right, you're going to use this time to have more meaningful interactions, deeper connections. Talk about the relationship, not necessarily what's wrong with it and fixing things, but like checking in with each other and being with each other, talking about dreams, desires, future alignment, values, things that are touching your heart. Just showing up with a different side of you, with the part of you that doesn't get to show up throughout the day because you're in the doing more than taking care of business life mode. You're going to show up as if you were on a date, as if you just met this person. Right, you don't show up to dates when you start dating with all of the noise of life usually. Usually, if you do that, you're probably not doing very well dating. Just a little side note there, right? But so you're going to treat going out with your partner date night like, really like a date.

Emma Viglucci:

You're going to show up in date with date energy, in date mode. So take yourself out, bring that yummy, sexy energy. Show up with your essence. Take a little care, show up with the wooing, show up with the feminine energy, show up with all the things, so that the spark has a chance to spark and reignite and rekindle and have the good conversations. How often do you get to have these? How often do you get to have this time together like this, right? So milk it. That's one aspect of it.

Emma Viglucci:

The other aspect of it is to invest in having fun, good dates, not just showing up somewhere and having this conversation, so this bringing this energy, which is good enough in and of itself, but the more that you invest into this, the more you get out of it right. You have experiences, you can have adventure, you have fun. You could just tap into all kinds of other things and bring all that good, yummy energy. For on that, we have a date, your partner protocol that you could download. It's one page that walks you through the whole process of how to date your partner properly, so you get all the good, yummy stuff that I'm talking about. We're going to put a link for that in the description so that you could download it and get hooked up with this.

Emma Viglucci:

Okay, my loves, those are the three hacks Connecting better sex one time a week at least and date your partner properly, all right. So thank you so much for being here. I would love to know what of this resonated the most, what you're going to do next. Take an action, make it real, go for it, have all the fun and hopefully you could crack the code on having more love it all and having more desire in your relationship and really enjoying the sex life that you desire and that you want to have with your partner. Thank you so much for watching. I will see you at the next one. Bye.

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Emma K Viglucci, LMFT

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