Episode 35: The Secret To Mindblowing Sex in Long Term Relationships

Do you have a mind-blowing sex life? Do you want one?

In this episode, we are talking about common problems couples struggle with when it comes to sex. 

We’ll talk about pressure, resentment, desire gaps, and the quiet patterns that shut sex down… and then we’ll get into some practical, real-life suggestions that help sex and intimacy feel connected, playful, and yes—spicier.

This episode starts mild and heats up as we go, so consider this your friendly warning.

If you want better sex that feels natural instead of forced—and you’re open to a few spicy ideas along the way—press play!

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Transcript

Kari Hoskins (00:36)
Welcome to 2026, my friends. You guys, this season is going to be so fun. I have so many yummy, juicy topics lined up for you. I've also invited some guests to come chat with me on this podcast to give you some fun and interesting different perspectives. And of course, I have some really great tools lined up to help you create

healthier, more satisfying, fun relationships. So if you have not yet clicked that subscribe button, please make sure you do that so you don't miss a single episode. And really fast, before we dive into today's sexy topic, I do want to just give you a quick note. I want to invite you to head over to my website, kahoskins.com, so that you can download my free PDF, Stop the Spiral.

how to have a conversation when you are feeling angry. I created this PDF for you because I teach my clients ⁓ a two-step process that really helps them communicate better and have more productive conversations when their emotions are running high. And it's helped a lot of people and I thought that it might help you too. So go over and check that out at kahoskins.com. All right.

Let's get into it. Let's talk about sex. In our culture, we make jokes that long-term relationships, specifically, I think marriage, is where sex and desire go to die. You guys, this makes me so sad. And I want to challenge that because it doesn't have to be the case, okay? Sex and intimacy,

do not disappear because of how long you've been together. It disappears because you've stopped doing the things that keep it alive, We're not taught how to sustain sex and desire, or I should just say desire, ⁓ once the novelty and the newness of the relationship wears off and once real life and stress and pressure and all that stuff,

starts to settle into your relationship. So here's what we're going to do today. I'm going to walk you through a few of the most common sex related issues that are preventing people from having good sex or frankly any sex at all. And I'm gonna do this by sharing with you three examples from my work so you can see a couple of different ways this shows up ⁓ and just kind of see what this looks like in other people's relationships.

And then I'm going to share with you, of course, the key to mind blowing intimacy in your long term relationship. And I'm going to give you some practical ways to create a sex life that feels more connected, playful, and fun. And these are the same tools and suggestions that I give to my clients that has worked wonders in their relationships.

listener discretion is advised. This episode starts out pretty mild, but when we get to my last few suggestions, it definitely gets a bit, I'm gonna call it spicier. So if you've got kids or grandma in the car, just plan accordingly. All right, so I wanna start off by sharing some of those real life examples with you, okay? And these examples are things that are holding people back ⁓ from having good sex or

sex at all, unless you see if any of these sound familiar to you. So I'm going to go with the most extreme first. I'm going to call this the sexless relationship. I worked with a couple who had not had sex or any kind of physical intimacy in over two years. By the time they found me, you guys, they weren't even looking to fix their sex life. They were just trying to figure out if their relationship was salvageable.

and they weren't sure if they wanted to fix it or not. And so that was another piece of the puzzle. But once we got into it, of course, sex became one of the topics. And one of the things that we very quickly discovered is that ⁓ the wife had a lot of resentment. They'd been married for about 15 years. And for the last 10 years, she really felt like she was carrying the brunt.

of the kids and the house and the schedules and all of those family obligations ⁓ in addition to her job that she had outside of the home and she was feeling really overwhelmed alone and like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders while her husband worked late at night and was going off and doing things with his friends.

And early on when she first started noticing this, they were having conversations about it, but nothing changed. And she eventually got tired of talking about it and bringing that because she felt like she was nagging. So she just stopped having conversations. And when they stopped having the conversation, that's when the sex stopped too. She eventually moved into her own separate bedroom. And when she moved into her own separate bedroom, that was when they came and found me. Okay.

I had another couple who came in with the opposite problem. The wife wanted more sex and ⁓ she wanted her husband to initiate more. She felt rejected. And to be honest, like she was pretty freaking confused because she was and is, I keep saying was, she still is. Like she's freaking beautiful. She keeps her body in tip top shape. She always looks put together.

And so she just could not figure out why her husband did not seem like interested in her anymore. And what we found out was that it wasn't a lack of attraction. Okay. It was a lack of emotional safety in the relationship. So she had a real issue with, or I don't know what to call an issue. She just had a hard time regulating her emotions, like keeping her emotions in check. And so

What the husband was experiencing every day basically was her lashing out at him, becoming really angry over things that he thought were pretty small. And her reaction to those small things weren't like ⁓ in proportion to whatever it was that was happening. And so she would lash out and get angry at him. And then a couple of hours later, she'd be over it. And then she'd like,

get really affectionate and she'd want to get busy, but he was just not into it, So he told me that he felt like he was a punching bag. And that emotional whiplash between the lashing out and the anger to the affection and wanting to get busy, it just made it really hard for him to feel open or relaxed enough in order to want sex and physical intimacy. So...

Over the course of like the last couple of years, his desire just almost completely shut down. Then there are couples who are still having sex, but it feels unsatisfying, kind of meh, maybe a little tense, or there's just not enough. Okay. ⁓ and the just not enough tends to be one of those things that I think I probably work with the most. ⁓ so the couple that I'm working with now is in this situation.

He wants more sex and she feels pressured. ⁓ And then they started fighting about it. And the thing with this couple, and I think one of the, and I bring this up because this is definitely something that I don't necessarily deal with a lot, but it was a really important lesson for me, which is why I want to share it for you. They had a great relationship outside of sex, which normally other issues in the relationship is what creates the sex problem.

they actually had a really, really good relationship except this one area and they could not figure out what the hell was going on. Okay. So they started fighting about it. They both thought it was her libido. So she had gone to doctors. She had taken, you know, she was taking like different supplements and things like that to try to help her libido naturally. As it turned out, as we were going through our sessions, we discovered it was not really a

her libido at all. She still wanted sex because they were having sex about twice a month. She still wanted sex. She was still attracted to her husband. What happened was her body had shifted and changed and so their arousal styles which used to be similar were now very different. Her husband was the same. He was very quick to get turned on like

Their scenario was she would start getting undressed to jump in the shower in the morning and he would see her naked and instantly get turned on, want to jump her bones, want to get in the shower with her and she was just not into it. Okay. And that was what the problem was. We discovered she wanted more of the buildup. She needed her mind to get wrapped around it. Her body no longer instantly responded the way that it used to. And so when she wasn't immediately

with him and immediately turned on, he would feel, and then she'd push him away, he would feel rejected. But then what would happen, she'd feel bad. And she wanted to be close with him. She wanted to have sex with him. So she would initiate, but he was still hurt. And then he would push her away. And then she felt rejected. So that you can see, like they were stuck in this loop where they actually wanted each other, but they just kept missing each other because their arousal styles were different,

Okay, so once we uncovered that, we came up with the plan and you know, and I'm going to be sharing a lot of like the stuff that we talked about at the end of this episode. But once we established that and came up with the plan, their sex life just completely turned around and I'm very happy to report that they are doing awesome now. Okay, so I wanted to start with these problems because when sex feels hard, awkward or non-existent,

The problem isn't usually sex. It's what's happening underneath the surface of the relationship. It's the relationship dynamic. And in those first two examples that I gave you, was definitely the relationship dynamic. And the last example I gave you, it was really that they hadn't talked about the changes that had happened. So they were lacking communication in that area. So here's the key, you guys.

to having mind blowing sex in your long-term relationship. It's maintaining a healthy relationship dynamic. It's addressing the problems that are going on underneath the surface of your relationship. It's about having and continuing to have open and vulnerable communication and staying emotionally connected. If you can do those things, those are the things that help create a really strong good foundation.

for enjoying mind blowing sex. When your relationship is new, the desire and the arousal and the fun just kind of comes naturally. You don't have to think about it. Your brain is literally releasing all of these like really yummy, feel good chemicals that make you feel good both emotionally and physically in your body. But then once that newness wears off,

It takes more effort mentally, emotionally, and physically. Because in order to have mind-blowing sex, it needs to be co-created between the two of you. And it needs to be pleasurable to not just your body, but to your soul. And that is how you have mind-blowing sex. And this is exactly what I'm about to address right now. Okay? So the key is...

really keeping your relationship dynamic, healthy and strong and creating the conditions that keeps you both wanting each other and desiring each other. And so that's what these tools and suggestions I'm about to give you. It gives you the foundation for great sex. That's where you start. So in order,

To make this happen, there are a few things that your relationship needs to do. You need to feel emotionally safe. You need to create awareness about your bodies. You need to maintain emotional connection. And once you have all that done, this is the fun part, you need to keep it interesting. And you need to have a balance of novelty and play and risk in the bedroom.

So I am going to share with you some suggestions that are gonna help you out in each of these different areas. So how do you create safety in your relationship? Okay, so first of all, nothing kills desire faster than pressure. If you are pressuring your partner to have sex with you or to have more sex with you, please stop, If you are the person that's feeling pressured,

and you are having sex out of obligation, please stop. Obligatory sex is worse to your relationship than no sex at all. But here is the thing. You don't just stop having that sex and do nothing. You stop having obligatory sex and then you go get help. You get help from me, my link is in the show notes, or from somebody else who is specialized and trained in communication and sex. Okay, so you don't just stop.

and do nothing, all right? if your relationship has a desire gap, meaning one of you wants more than the other, this matters as well, okay? Because what happens with this mismatch of desire is the person who wants it more, the higher desire partner, usually feels rejected if they're pushed away, and the lower desire partner feels pressure. And like you both end up feeling alone and it...

really puts this like damper kind of on your relationship. Safety always comes before the spark, always. And if your partner stiffens up when you reach for them, if they pull away from your touch or they avoid closeness altogether, this is a sign that there's not very much safety in your relationship,

People take this as a rejection. It's not rejection, it's self-protection. And that's a really important distinction, And the reason why they stiffen up, they pull away or they avoid is because they're often afraid of it leading to somewhere they don't wanna lead. So the first suggestion I have in this area is to engage in non-sexual affection every day. That means a hug, holding hands, go for the six second kiss, make eye contact.

laugh together. All of that without any expectation or hope of it going anywhere else. It's just affection for the sake of affection. ⁓ When non-sexual affection is warm and pressure-free, it builds safety in your relationship. And it's not just me saying this. The Gottman Institute, which I mean, I've referenced them on this podcast a million times,

They really highlight that non-sexual touch is one of the fastest ways to rebuild closeness in your relationship. If you are not doing this or you haven't done this for a while, you're probably gonna have to have a conversation with your partner about it, letting them know that you just want to hold their hand or give that hug or have that kiss and you're not expecting it or wanting it to go anywhere, You're gonna have to have that conversation.

You also need to have awareness about each other's bodies. This is the second part. Most couples ⁓ focus on what turns each other on. They know it turns themself on in most cases, but they don't know what turns them off or they don't talk about the turnoffs. So in the book Come As You Are, which I highly recommend you reading if you're having an issue in this area, the author, Emily Negowski, she's amazing. She calls these turnoffs the brakes,

the things that shut your body down. A turn on is like pressing the accelerator in your car. Turn offs are like hitting the brakes, right? When the brakes are on, it's really hard to create desire and become aroused. So brakes can include absolutely anything that shuts you down or turns you off, right? Stress, overwhelm.

Feeling like you're carrying the mental load of the family or the mental load of the problems in the relationship. Feeling emotionally unsafe. Worrying that the little ears are gonna hear you once you start getting busy. That is a huge turnoff for a lot of people, especially women. If you have any body shame or your partner has body shame, maybe one of you has gained weight and you don't feel comfortable in your body and you're embarrassed to get naked in front of them,

If you're having pain or discomfort, that is a definite turn off. Your partner's shitty mood might also be one of the things on your turn off list, feeling pressured, None of the things that I just listed make anybody feel sexy. So here's my second tool for you. You each need to make a list of what your turn offs are, and then you need to share it with each other. And then this is the important part.

You need to do whatever you can to remove as many of those as possible. Now, obviously, it's hard to remove all of your brakes all of the time, but the more effort you put into removing those brakes and those barriers, ⁓ the more success you're going to have in creating a mind blowing sex life. right. All right. And so like, you know, tying this back into the examples that I gave earlier, that couple

with the hot wife, their issue, the brakes for him was that emotional whiplash. So when she learned how to regulate her emotions and like keep herself in check and have more rational conversations when she was upset, this helped turn the relationship around because they were moved that brake All right.

And then you need to work on really your foundation so that you can have a fun, satisfying sex life. Sex does not start in the bedroom. It starts in the relationship. So if you want to have better sex, you need to have consistent emotional connection outside of the bedroom. So what I have, all my clients do, regardless of where they're out in the relationship,

I have them start spending a minimum of 20 minutes a day connecting with each other about real life. More than just like, was your day, honey? You need to ask, what are you doing today? I have all of my couples ask each other what they're doing that day so they each know what's happening in the other one's daily life, especially if they're not with each other all day long, which most people are not. So what do you have going on today?

What are you looking forward to? What are you dreading? And then you close that loop at the end of the day. So it goes more than just like, how did that thing go? It's like, how did your meeting go? ⁓ it went well. What went well about it? How are you feeling about it? it went bad. Why do you think it went bad? How are you feeling about that? How did that thing go at the kids' school or whatever it is? How are you feeling about that? You want to not just know like the information about what happened.

during their day, you want to know what they think about it and how they feel about it. That is emotional connection. And having these conversations, you guys, this does not take long. It takes about 20 to 25 minutes. But if you're doing it on a regular basis, and again, I suggest doing it every day, it's going to build emotional closeness in your relationship that is going to help you build a better sex life. You cannot skip

those first couple of steps and expect your bedroom activities to be mind blowing. You have to have those in place first. Now, once you're doing those things, it is time to step up what I call your engagement. And this is where intention replaces uncertainty and replaces guessing. so how do we do that? And what do I mean by that? I mean like, ⁓ is he gonna wanna have sex tonight?

Do I want to have sex tonight? Is she turned on? I don't know. I can't tell. Like that's guessing. That is not sexy. In fact, it creates a lot of pressure and awkwardness for a lot of people. So here's suggestion number three. It's my favorite one. Schedule sexy time. I know. Some of you probably just flinched. You guys listen. There is this like misconception that if you have to plan or schedule

having sex and putting it on your calendar, that it's unsexy. That cannot be further from the truth. I want you to think back. When you were dating, you planned your dates. You scheduled when you were gonna see each other. And then you likely thought about it all day long, or you looked forward to it all week long, depending what your situation was, And that anticipation created desire and interest and...

Just like excitement, right? So planning did not kill your desire, it actually created it. And it works the same way now. We just don't think about it like that, So you wanna decide together what feels realistic, like how many times a week or a month you want to have sex, and then you put it on the calendar and you protect that time. Things do not get in the way of your sexy time, And I have to say,

this does not eliminate spontaneous sex. In fact, couples who really start planning their sexy time tend to end up having more spontaneous sex. my husband and I, we do this, we have our sexy time. We like literally put it onto our phone calendars. It's in red and it says sexy time. And we love it. ⁓ And one of the reasons why we love it is we look forward to it.

We talk about it. We talk about like what we're gonna be doing later on that day. about 30 minutes before sexy time is ready to go. We stop work. We start connecting. We kind of start making that bridge into that sexy mindset. Okay, it really helps us shift from all of the to do things into the sexy mindset. All right.

I love it because our phones go away and like we're just in our little bubble and we love our little bubble. All right. So once you have all of that, this is where you have to make sure the kids are out of the room. This is where things get a little more spicy. After you've done all those things, you are ready to introduce more playfulness and a little maybe riskiness into your sex life because this is what keeps things

interesting, new, and fun. And this part only works if you're doing all those other things I just talked about. All right. So here are some of my more playful suggestions. And at the end of these suggestions, I am going to be sharing with you a very easy way to introduce these things to your partner if you haven't done so, if this is not like a normal part of your relationship. Because it can be really hard for some people to talk about.

All right, so suggestion number four is to create sexy rituals. I have a lot of sexy rituals, but I chose to just give you a couple of examples that address some pretty specific sex-related issues that people might have. So for couples who really struggle with one person initiating, right, ⁓ my suggestion is to create clear, playful signals that tell your partner, hey,

I'm open to intimacy. I'm open and in the mood. I want to have sex. So what I suggest is getting some kind of an object. I personally really like and encourage couples to get like a battery operated candle. I like red. You can choose any color, but basically you turn that candle on to signal to your partner that you are in the mood. And so obviously you have to have a conversation about this. have to tell them what this means.

But it becomes a really fun way. Your partner might walk into the kitchen or walk into the bathroom or the bedroom and they see that candle is on and they're like, ⁓ he's interested or ⁓ she's interested. Okay, so that's a really fun thing.

Another ritual that I really like is non-sexual massage. And you can just use this on its own ⁓ or as foreplay.

So each partner chooses one or two places on their body that they want to be touched or caressed and just enjoy. But the rule is you cannot touch any genitals or breasts. So I actually had a couple who took this to the next level and I love this, which is why I'm sharing it with you.

They like to use the music to really set the mood for them. And they decided that they would dedicate an entire song for each of them to receive that non-sexual touch. And every once in a while, one of them would get a longer song. And the joke now was they totally scored when they got that longer song.

But so what this does, that three minutes, if you're just going to stick with the three minutes, is it slows everything down and it builds some anticipation and some connection with your partner before you jump into actual sex. My next suggestion in this area is to take your pillow talk, you guys, to the next level. After sex, don't just like roll over and fall asleep or quickly jump out of the wet spot and

you know, go rinse off in the shower, though those are good things to do. But take a breath. Take a couple of minutes. Grab a hand towel that you have next to you Put that in the wet spot and then have a conversation. What was your favorite part of that? You made a new sound. What was that about?

or, hey, I tried this new thing. What did you think about that? talk about what you just did. This definitely increases emotional closeness and vulnerability and communication around sex. I also suggest if there is something that your partner does that you just love, it a name, a playful fun name. That makes it way easier for you and a little less embarrassing.

to ask for it again in the future. And of course, is there something your partner's doing that you don't like? I wouldn't do it right away, but maybe in the next day or two, just go, hey, remember when you did that thing? I didn't really like that. it hurt or it felt awkward. Whatever, can we like change that up? Like you need to be talking about what you're doing in the bedroom that you both like and that maybe...

isn't so much of a turn on for you. the next thing I want to suggest is that you try something new. And this is definitely where things start getting spicy. This is about curiosity, not about performance. So you can try sharing a fantasy.

Talk about what turns you on about the fantasy and maybe that fantasy is a little scary, like it's fantasy, like you don't actually wanna do it. Talk about what scares you about it, These are the things letting your partner in and all that sexy stuff you think about is part of creating mind blowing sex, Explore different positions. Go grab a copy of the Kama Sutra. I love the Kama Sutra. You guys, it has pictures. It has pictures.

so that it helps you know how to get into that position. And let me tell you, some of these things, like you might end up cracking up. I think that if you can laugh during sex, that is definitely a sign that you have a fun, healthy sex life. So changing things up like that, changing ⁓ things up in your setting, okay? Your environment. Maybe you change up the lighting. Like in our bedroom, we have white lights, but we can change them to different colors.

It's actually controlled by Alexa. So during sexy time, we'll say, Alexa, turn on sexy time. And the light will go from soft white to soft pink. And that like sets our mood. Maybe get a big, soft, fuzzy blanket and throw it over the couch or the bed or on the floor or wherever it is that you want to get busy. Just changing something up in the way that you're doing things can add a lot of, ⁓

interest and freshness into your sex life. Here is a fun one. Take a talk dirty class. my gosh, you guys, this is so much fun. There are so many talk dirty classes out there. I would highly recommend checking out Ashley Manta's class. You can, and I'm going to put it in the show notes for you. can find it at elevate intimacy.com. It is a

fantastic course. And one of things that I really love about it is she sets you up for success and really helps you get into the right frame of mind and then teaches you some really fun ways to incorporate and feel comfortable with dirty talk in the bedroom. Another suggestion that I have is to check out one of those yes, no, maybe lists. these are really, really powerful when you can have

open conversations. It really does open up your conversation actually. there are a million of these out there. If you google sex bucket list or kink sheets or sex menus, you're going to find some of these. Again, I will put a link in my show notes for you. ⁓ There is one person that I have found that really has done a great job of compiling a great list from like mild things all the way up to super super spicy things.

And so what you do with this list is each of you marks what feels like a yes, a no, or a maybe, and then you talk about it, right? So you grab the list, you print out two copies, you fill them out individually, and then you have a conversation about it. But again, this is not about convincing each other or pushing each other to do something you don't want to do. So you have to agree ahead of time that maybe means maybe. And sometimes maybe means like, maybe?

I'm not sure what that means. What do you think that means? Let's check this out together. And sometimes maybe he's like, ooh, this feels scary, but I'm kind of interested. Let's have a conversation. Okay. So maybe does not mean eventually. It means I'm hoping to have a conversation about it. Okay. So those are some of my more spicy ⁓ suggestions. Another one, I guess that I forgot to list is if you're interested, there are,

erotica, like literature, like fun, sexy stories that you can redo each other or listen to together. And that is another fun kind of sexy way to incorporate something new into your sex life. All right? So the easiest way to broach this topic on any of those suggestions or anything, frankly, that I've talked about with you today is to simply say, hey, I have an idea. That's all you have to say. I have an idea.

and your partner's gonna go, yeah, what's that? Or whatever, right? That is the easiest way to broach a conversation. Because once they're like, yeah, what's your idea? You tell them and now you're in a conversation, So how do you know if you have a mind blowing sex life? Okay, well, first of all, personally, I think that if you have a mind blowing sex life, you probably already know you're like, hell yeah, I have a mind blowing sex life. But here are some of the hallmarks of a mind blowing sex life. You crave it.

You want it, you think about it. You both put the effort in to all of those things that I talked about. And for a lot of people, when they have a mind blowing sex life, they are talking about it. They are reminiscing about their sexy excipades, They're talking about how incredible their sex is. So I know that today's episode was a little bit longer, a lot longer than usual. So really fast, let me recap for you.

If your sex life is not satisfying, or maybe it's not happening at all, the solution is not avoiding the topic, okay? And it's not jumping into like the dirty talk and the yes, no, maybe list, those spicier suggestions that I made. It's really about opening up the dialogue, naming what's going on underneath the surface of your relationship and creating that safety and that foundation that allows you to have.

mind-blowing sex. When your relationship dynamic shifts and your communication opens up around it, the sex usually follows, So I am giving you homework this week. Choose one of my suggestions to try. Just one shift is literally enough to start changing things in the bedroom. And look, you guys, if you want support walking through this together, you can book a consult with me.

My link again is in the show notes or you can reach out via my website, kahoskins.com. All right, my friends, that is what I have for you today. I will talk to you next week.