Angel Ardito explains why couples have mismatched sexual desire and how to fix it. The real problem isn't the gap itself but the pressure-and-rejection cycle that breeds resentment. She recommends scheduling intimacy, increasing non-sexual touch, and approaching it as a team problem, not a personal failure.
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And welcome back, you nasties! If you're new here, hi, I'm Angel Ardito. I'm a certified sex educator and relationship coach, and today I want to talk about different desire levels. Having different desire levels is totally normal, and if you and your partner have different drives, it doesn't say anything about your compatibility. But how you handle it does determine whether or not you're going to grow resentful of each other. Most relationships, especially long-term ones, experience differences in libido sometime throughout their relationship. This is not a moral failing. Life can be incredibly busy, and stress, work, hormones, parenting, emotional connection. All of these things can have an impact on our libido. Usually how we see this is we see one partner with a higher desire and one partner with a lower desire, but we can also see this manifest with one partner who has spontaneous desire and another partner who has reactive desire, and that alone can create its own issue. I'm going to do a separate video on spontaneous and reactive desire, but for today we're just going to talk about higher and lower desire. Higher desire partner is not obsessed, and a lower desire partner is not frigid. Usually what happens is one person feels kind of rejected and the other person feels a lot of pressure, and this is not a good dynamic, and spiral really fast because desire does not thrive where pressure resides. And if we're putting so much pressure on our relationship for bedroom stuff, that's a recipe for disaster. We can't really cultivate desire and intimacy when we're feeling this deep sense of urgency to satiate the other person or to get what we need or prove a point. And the truth is that most desire gaps aren't even about attraction anyway. So what I want you to do is get really curious about your partner. As the higher desire partner, I want you to ask what makes your partner feel into the moment. As the lower desire partner, I want you to ask what other forms of intimacy are you up for if you're not up for the main event. And then you need to communicate that with your higher desire partner. This should be a collaborative experience where you both work toward a more connected intimate life with each other. Perhaps you need to schedule intimacy, perhaps you need more non-sexual touch, perhaps you need therapy. None of these are bad things, but it's up to you and your partner only to determine what you need. Different desire levels do not ruin relationships. Shame, silence, and resentment do. So this really needs to be looked at as not you versus me, but us versus this thing, and work together to find a dynamic that works for the two of you. That's all I have for today. If you have any questions go ahead and put them in the comment section. And until next time, stay spicy.
