Why Desire Fades in Long Term Relationships and What Helps

By Mark Ryan, BACP Accredited Psychotherapist and NCPS Accredited Relationship Therapist

If your desire has faded, or your partner’s has, it is easy to read it as a verdict. Perhaps the love has gone, perhaps one of you has changed, or perhaps something is wrong with the relationship that nobody has dared to say. In the therapy room, sex is often where the emotional health of a relationship first becomes visible, which helps explain why a shift in desire can feel so loaded.

The change itself is very common. It happens in couples of every gender, sexuality and relationship structure, and it rarely means what people fear. It is also something you can work with. The work tends to look less like repairing a fault and more like learning new conditions, from what you learned about sex to how safe it feels to be open and how you talk about all of it.

Why desire changes over time

Many people remember a time when wanting each other took no thought at all, and they wonder where it went. That memory can make the present feel like a failure. In session, almost everyone says they would like to go back to the start, when sex just happened and did not seem to depend on talking. It helps to understand why the start felt the way it did.

Research on established couples describes the pattern plainly. Desire is often intense in the early stages of a relationship, and as partners get to know each other it tends to decline (Muise et al., 2019). Other researchers describe the same drift, noting that many couples struggle to maintain desire over the long term (Birnbaum et al., 2016). The early months have their own conditions, which include novelty, uncertainty and few competing demands. Those conditions do not last for anyone, and their absence is not a personal failing.

For many people, especially in long relationships, desire also changes shape. The psychiatrist Rosemary Basson (2000) proposed a circular model, developed from clinical work with women, in which closeness, willingness and arousal feed one another and desire does not have to come first. Waiting for desire to arrive before anything begins can mean a long wait. Starting with connection can bring desire in behind it.

If you want to look at the emotional dynamics behind a quiet bedroom, why couples stop having sex covers low libido in detail, and is our sex life normal looks at how wide the range of normal is.

Mismatched desire is part of the picture

It is rare for two people to want the same amount at the same time. One partner starts to feel rejected, the other feels pressured, and the conversation turns into a negotiation about frequency. Underneath, each person is often asking whether they are still wanted. Differences in desire are an ordinary part of long relationships and not proof of incompatibility.

How you interpret a mismatch matters as much as the mismatch itself. In six studies of almost 1,900 people, researchers compared two beliefs about sexual satisfaction. People with sexual growth beliefs think satisfaction comes from effort, while people with sexual destiny beliefs think it comes from finding a compatible partner. Those with growth beliefs reported higher relationship and sexual satisfaction. For people with destiny beliefs, sexual disagreements went with lower relationship quality (Maxwell et al., 2017).

My article on when your sex drives don’t match explains what desire discrepancy means and how to begin that conversation without blame.

What you were taught about sex, and what you were not

Very few of us were taught how to talk about sex, and fewer were taught how to talk about wanting it. That gap tends to show up in adulthood as embarrassment, guesswork and silence. Looking at where your ideas came from can loosen some of the shame around them.

The picture I hear in session is strikingly consistent. Most people describe almost no sex education at school, perhaps a single biology class, and no conversation at home. They learned through experience and web searches, and they learned alone. Research in the UK points the same way, describing sex education as variable in quality and typically focused on biology in place of communication, relationships and pleasure (McCarthy et al., 2012).

Shame deepens the silence. A recent review found that sexual shame, shaped by cultural messages, body image and sexual self-image, can interfere with desire, arousal, orgasm and pain in women’s sexual functioning (Graziani & Chivers, 2024). If you feel ashamed of a want, you are unlikely to say it aloud, and your partner cannot meet a need they have never heard. In practice this often sounds like ‘It’s just not what I want’ or ‘It should just be obvious’. Both are understandable, and both leave a partner guessing.

Sociologists call the ideas we absorb about sex sexual scripts, and many of them were absorbed instead of chosen (Simon & Gagnon, 1986). Once you can see your own script, you can ask which parts are yours. Why it is so hard to talk about sex and desire explores the difficulty of the conversation, and learning to love the skin you’re in looks at how body image shapes intimacy.

Why safety and responsiveness matter so much

Sex asks for more exposure than almost anything else we do with another person. You are undressed, you are showing what you want, and you are open to being rejected or judged. Being that vulnerable takes a sense of safety, and that sense is built in the ordinary moments of a week, which is why a change in desire often points to something outside sex.

I see this repeatedly. When a partner is not emotionally supportive in everyday life, it can become hard to feel safe enough to be open sexually, and this tends to show up without either person connecting the two. Research on responsiveness, meaning the feeling that a partner listens, understands and cares, supports the link. Across three studies, responsive partners were more desirable to each other, with a stronger effect in women, and feeling special and valued helped explain why (Birnbaum et al., 2016). In a diary study of 100 couples over 42 days, people with attachment insecurities tended to see their partners as less responsive, and that perception predicted fewer fantasies about their partner (Mizrahi et al., 2018). These are patterns and not proof of cause.

The second finding carries a nuance. How safe you feel is partly what your partner does and partly how you read them, and your history shapes that reading. If you recognise yourself here, anxious attachment in relationships and the anxious avoidant trap describe how those patterns play out.

Safety here means feeling accepted and responded to. If your concern is fear of a partner, with pressure, coercion or punishment for saying no, that is a different situation. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline (0808 2000 247) and Galop, which supports LGBTQ+ people (0800 999 5428), can help.

Pleasure over performance

Performance and pleasure can look identical from the outside, and they pull attention in opposite directions. Performance asks whether this is working, whether you are doing it right and whether you will get there. Pleasure asks what you can feel right now. Many people find, once they notice it, that most of their attention has been on the first question.

For many men, this arrives as an unspoken job description, which is to get hard and to come. Masters and Johnson described ‘spectatoring’, in which a person monitors and judges their own sexual performance from the outside, and proposed that this anxiety is incompatible with sexual response (Masters & Johnson, 1970). Worrying about an erection pulls attention away from the sensations that help produce one. If difficulties with erections persist, it is worth speaking to your GP, because there can be physical causes.

Women often describe something different, which is feeling secondary, as though the male orgasm is the focus of sex and their own pleasure is optional. The data shows a pattern. In a US sample of more than 52,000 adults, 95 per cent of heterosexual men said they usually or always orgasmed when sexually intimate, compared with 65 per cent of heterosexual women, while lesbian women reported 86 per cent (Frederick et al., 2018). Women who orgasmed more often were also more likely to ask for what they wanted, and their encounters more often included more than intercourse alone. The study points to links and not causes, but it suggests that how we define sex shapes who gets pleasure from it.

Choosing pleasure means asking what feels good instead of whether it worked. For women it also means not turning orgasm into a new target.

Performance and pleasure can look identical from the outside, and they pull attention in opposite directions.

How to talk about it without it landing as an attack

When something is not working sexually, the natural instinct is to say so. Sex is one of the most vulnerable parts of a person, and a complaint about it can land as an attack on exactly that place. People go quiet or defend themselves, and the conversation stops. Resentment then fills the space where information should have been.

In session, people almost always begin with what they do not enjoy, and it tends to hurt deeply. The research is clear enough to be useful. In a survey of 625 adults in China, people who shared more of what they liked reported greater relationship satisfaction and intimacy. Those who shared more of their dislikes reported lower intimacy and relationship satisfaction (Li & Santtila, 2025). It was a snapshot of heterosexual couples in one country, so it shows links and not causes. Even so, it fits what I see. Talking about what you want gives a partner something to do. ‘I don’t like it when you rush’ tells them what to stop, while ‘I love it when we take our time’ tells them where to go.

The quality of the conversation matters more than its frequency. Pooling 93 studies, a meta-analysis found that sexual communication was linked with both sexual and relationship satisfaction, and that quality mattered more than how often couples talked (Mallory, 2022).

Fear of sounding like a request holds many people back from sharing a fantasy, yet fantasies are common. In a survey of 1,517 Canadian adults, only two of the fantasies it asked about were statistically rare (Joyal et al., 2015). Sharing a fantasy is not the same as asking for it, and saying so out loud helps.

The partner who is listening has just as much influence. Asking ‘tell me more’ before reacting, and saying thank you for being told, signals that sharing was welcome. In session, once safety has been established, this tends to go very well. People are often relieved to be working towards something better, and there is a sense of being on the same team. How to discuss sexual needs with your partner walks through how to begin.

Making time, widening sex and letting go of the finish line

Clients often describe lives that have become full and, in some ways, dull. Work, children and logistics fill the week, and there is no time left just to have sex. When they look at what they have prioritised, it is usually companionship, which is worth valuing but can leave intimacy at the bottom of the list.

Research on established relationships suggests that deliberate effort matters. Across three studies, doing novel, stretching activities together was associated with higher sexual desire, and higher desire went with greater relationship satisfaction (Muise et al., 2019). Making time is practical. Put it in the calendar, protect it, plan the conditions such as childcare and phones away, and leave the outcome open.

It also helps to widen what counts as sex. When sex means intercourse ending in orgasm, everything else becomes a warmup and the main event becomes a test. Research on ‘great sex’ found that being fully present was among the most commonly described components, alongside emotional connection and authenticity (Kleinplatz et al., 2009). The components described were about presence and connection, not technique.

Not every time will be amazing. Some couples treat each encounter as a test, so that a flat night means someone has done something wrong. The ‘good enough sex’ model offers an alternative, valuing variability and flexibility and the sharing of pleasure over one perfect performance (Metz & McCarthy, 2010). And there is no finish line. Clients are often uncomfortable with ongoing work at first and want it to be done, which is close to the performance mentality. When we work on presence it tends to bring relief. You do not need to be perfect. You need to be present.

Desire in LGBTQ+ and open relationships

Much popular advice about desire assumes a heterosexual couple and a script about who initiates and who finishes. If that is not you, advice built on it can feel written for somebody else. The same questions of safety, communication and pleasure apply, but the scripts differ.

Some of the research above included people in same sex relationships. The orgasm study found that lesbian women reported higher rates of orgasm than heterosexual women, which the researchers took to mean that many heterosexual women could experience more than they currently do (Frederick et al., 2018). The idea that lesbian couples inevitably lose desire is a myth, and lesbian bed death isn’t real takes it apart.

Where more than one connection is involved, desire is negotiated across all of them, so time, safety and honest communication stay central. Jealousy can complicate it, which is covered in jealousy in open and polyamorous relationships, and opening a relationship sets out what to think about before you begin. My work with gay couples in London, and with polycules, is affirming of all relationship structures and identities.

A guide for the conversations that come first

Therapy is not the right starting point for everyone, and for some people it is not available. You might not feel ready to sit in a room with someone, you might not be able to afford it, or you might want to begin at home first. Many people also want a clear structure, because the topic is hard to start without one.

For that reason, I have written a short guide, 13 Golden Rules for Talking About Intimacy and Desire, which is now available to download on the website. It sets out thirteen principles, from owning your needs and understanding your own history to choosing pleasure over performance, making time and dropping the idea that there is a finish line. Each rule combines a short explanation, what the research says, what I hear from clients in session and reflection pages you can write on, alone or with a partner.

The guide includes a note on safety and signposting to further support. It is educational and not a substitute for therapy, and it is designed for people who want a thoughtful, structured way to begin.

How therapy can help

Some patterns are easier to see from outside a relationship than from inside it. When two people have circled the same conversation for years, each has a well-rehearsed version of what the other will say. Part of a therapist’s job is to interrupt that rehearsal and make room for something new.

Therapy gives a couple somewhere to have the conversation they have been avoiding, with someone who is not on either side. My approach is integrative, drawing on Imago, Gottman, emotionally focused and attachment-based work, and it is sex positive and affirming of LGBTQ+ people and of relationships of every structure. We look at what sits underneath the pattern, including history, safety and expectations, and we build conversations step by step so that they do not turn into attacks.

I do not offer sex therapy for specific sexual difficulties, and I am glad to say so when a referral would serve you better. Couples work begins with a joint consultation, and what to expect in a first couples therapy session explains how that goes.

When you feel ready to talk it through, you are welcome to book a free 30-minute consultation with me, in person at one of my London rooms or online. Either of you can make the first contact, but the consultation is for both of you.

About the Author

Mark Ryan is a BACP Accredited Psychotherapist and NCPS Accredited Relationship Therapist working in person across central London, from rooms in Pimlico, Kensington, and Angel. He works with couples, individuals, and polycules on relationship issues including jealousy, affairs and betrayals, sex problems, and considered separation. His practice is integrative, sex positive, and affirming of all relationship structures and identities.

References

Basson, R. (2000). The female sexual response: A different model. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 26(1), 51 to 65.

Birnbaum, G. E., et al. (2016). Intimately connected: The importance of partner responsiveness for experiencing sexual desire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(4), 530 to 546.

Frederick, D. A., St. John, H. K., Garcia, J. R., & Lloyd, E. A. (2018). Differences in orgasm frequency among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual men and women in a U.S. national sample. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 47(1), 273 to 288.

Graziani, C., & Chivers, M. L. (2024). Sexual shame and women’s sexual functioning. Sexes, 5(4), 47.

Joyal, C. C., Cossette, A., & Lapierre, V. (2015). What exactly is an unusual sexual fantasy? Journal of Sexual Medicine, 12(2), 328 to 340.

Kleinplatz, P. J., et al. (2009). The components of optimal sexuality: A portrait of ‘great sex’. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 18(1 to 2), 1 to 13.

Li, Z., & Santtila, P. (2025). Getting what you want: How disclosing sexual likes and dislikes is associated with sexual and relational outcomes and the role of perceived partner responsiveness. Journal of Sex Research.

Mallory, A. B. (2022). Dimensions of couples’ sexual communication, relationship satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction: A meta analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 36(3), 358 to 371.

Masters, W. H., & Johnson, V. E. (1970). Human sexual inadequacy. Little, Brown.

Maxwell, J. A., Muise, A., MacDonald, G., Day, L. C., Rosen, N. O., & Impett, E. A. (2017). How implicit theories of sexuality shape sexual and relationship wellbeing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112(2), 238 to 279.

McCarthy, O., Carswell, K., Murray, E., Free, C., Stevenson, F., & Bailey, J. V. (2012). What young people want from a sexual health website: Design and development of Sexunzipped. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 14(5), e127.

Metz, M. E., & McCarthy, B. W. (2010). Enduring desire: Your guide to lifelong intimacy. Routledge.

Mizrahi, M., et al. (2018). You haven’t been on my mind lately: Partner responsiveness mediates the link between attachment insecurity and sexual fantasies. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 35(4), 440 to 459.

Muise, A., et al. (2019). Broadening your horizons: Self expanding activities promote desire and satisfaction in established romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 116(2), 237 to 258.

Simon, W., & Gagnon, J. H. (1986). Sexual scripts: Permanence and change. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 15, 97 to 120.