We want to know the other, to be familiar and to feel the warmth of that. We want to be physically close, as in no distance between us. We want to feel that it’s safe to give ourselves over, that we will be received and not left exposed. The wanting is fulfilled and there’s a security in knowing that it won’t leave – that it’s safe and stable. In love we feel the having, the closeness, the belonging.
To love is to have, to desire is to want. There is a difference between love and desire. We want to feel safe, but we want the excitement and growth that comes with teetering with our toes on the edges of unpredictability. We want to be in a relationship where we feel a sense of belonging, but we want to expand our own identity. We want a predictable, safe partner we can trust and we want an exciting, passionate lover. The problem is that we are asking for all of this from one person. It’s how we feel the edges of ourselves and stop ourselves and our relationship from stagnating. As much as we need security and safety, we need adventure and risk. As much as we need predictability, we also need mystery and surprise. We need to know what happens when we reach out and we need an idea of where the relationship is headed.īut we also have a need for adventure and excitement. We need a sense of familiarity and predictability. We need to feel as though the relationship has staying power and that the person we love isn’t about to walk out the door. We need to feel safe and secure in a relationship – we can’t build intimacy and closeness without it. But we also need adventure, unpredictability, mystery and surprise. On the one hand, we need security, safety, familiarity and predictability. What you need to know about desire.įrom the work of Esther Perel, we know that desire in long-term relationships involves two needs that push against each other. We’re fully available for ourselves and this is critical for desire to flourish. We become selfish – ‘self-ish’ – in the very best sense of the word. It’s about a psychological space we go to during intimacy, where we are with another person but able to let go of responsibility for that person and engage completely with ourselves – our physical needs, our sexual needs, our fantasies. It’s impossible to switch on desire if we’re not there to switch it on.ĭesire then, isn’t about what our partner does, but about what we do and the connection we have with ourselves. The clue is in the word – ‘self-less’ – as in the lack of self.
As explained by Esther Perel, a leader in the area of desire in relationships, desire fades when we disconnect from ourselves and become selfless, which is the enemy of desire. Above all else, it comes with the assumption of responsibility for the needs of our partner over our own. It comes with the vacuuming, the cleaning, stress, work, busy-ness, familiarity, predictability and just trying to make it through the day. You can spend time with other people, laugh, cry, argue, share a meal and go on holidays with them – but sex is something that is only for the two of you, building and nurturing an intimacy and connection that is shared between the two of you and nobody else. The very thing that makes your relationship different to every other relationship in your life slowly stops. Slowly, the protective guard around your relationship might start to chip away. Kids, work, life stress, hormonal changes and those ‘but-they’re-just-so-comfy-feel-them’ grey trackies that glue themselves to you in winter have a way of putting out the fire a little, but problems come about when it stays out for too long. Intimacy might fade, the connection might loosen and sex just doesn’t happen any more. The intensity of desire in relationships will ebb and flow. Understanding the nature of desire is key to getting it back. There can still be love and a deep emotional bond in these relationships, there might even still be sex, but without desire the way we see ourselves and feel about ourselves changes and will ultimately play out in the relationship. Intimate relationships in which desire has faded can take on the shape of housemates or colleagues. No wonder they’re such hard work! Worth it – but hard.ĭesire feeds physical intimacy which in turn feeds connection, nurturance and the protective guard around relationships. But that doesn’t mean there will be desire in a long-term relationship. There might be a solid friendship at its core.