Men are basically afraid of intimacy. Women need it. It is difficult to see things through the eyes of each other but when we do, it’s like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. If you try, you can both be reborn with desire. It can be very therapeutic to reclaim our desire for intimacy no matter how old we are.

Little girls scream. Boys run away. Women nag and men close themselves off. But eventually we set our sights on love and begin negotiating long tunnels and many obstacles to be together. Many of us women who are feeling the need for skin-to-skin contact, use peppermint and lavender to trick our libido into feeling loved. We enjoy affirmations of love like cards, flowers, candy and/or special bedroom favors. I like to be kissed and my husband likes to be massaged whether sex is on our minds or not. Men need to understand that sex is like chocolate to women. The more we get the more we want. When we haven’t had it for a while, we don’t crave it like men do. 

If your lack-luster libido is buried under piles of emotional baggage, it sometimes takes time, energy and heavenly cooperation to dig it out. I refer you to David D. Burns, MD, clinical professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine who wrote Feeling Good and it’s sequel, Feeling Good Together: The Secret to Making Troubled Relationships Work.  Burns says “You can heal a relationship quickly and dramatically, with mind-blowing effects…But you must be willing to examine your own part in it and to see whether you are actually triggering the very problem you’ve been complaining about.” We don’t want to see ourselves as the cause of problems because it is painful and hurts our pride tremendously, however, Dr. Burns assures us that once we start changing, our partner will follow suit and change, too.  

If you are having a communication problem, try working on it together. Try the one-minute drill. One person talks and the other listens without interrupting, agreeing or disagreeing. The idea is to sharpen your listening skills. After 30 seconds the listener summarizes what is said with a 95 percent accuracy. If drawing a blank, the talker must try again to reach her partner verbally. Now switch roles. Almost immediately communication between the both will improve when their listening skills improve..

Eventually, we have to face the fact that sometimes in life, our bodies won’t do what our heads want done. It is good to remember if we’re famished for what we can’t have, we need to find other ways of enjoying each other. Anxiety and low libido go hand-in-hand. We can’t muster up desire when our brain, the main factor in the equation, isn’t cooperating. It might be good if both partners do some preliminary exercising to get those hormones jumping and jiving. Compliment each other. Touch each other. Comb each other’s hair. Look eye-to-eye and say something to encourage the other’s ego. If we can kick misery, worry and guilt to the curb before coupling, we can become great lovers. As to the bumping and grinding part, it pays to have a sense of humor and to be kind. Sometimes we are sexy and sometimes – - let’s face it, we’re not but we can always turn off the lights.