My wife and I are retired, and live very remotely. We are together all the time. We love each other deeply and rarely, if ever, fight. But our love life suffers due to us being together constantly. It feels more like brother and sister rather than husband and wife. I have a hard time performing due, I think, to our constant closeness. I am otherwise in great health for a 69-year-old man.
It is certainly likely that your constant closeness may be affecting your ability to be sexually inspired. When a couple become “like brother and sister”, this familial feeling can trigger complicated emotional and physical responses based on the incest taboo. Try to find a way to take breaks from each other. If temporary physical separation is truly impossible, you could try choosing separate pastimes within your home – anything that will foster a sense of individuality and of being separate selves. Have conversations in which you give each other permission to disagree. In seeking differences between yourselves, and celebrating them while marking and defining them, you create opportunities to see your partner as a more desirable “other”. Consider discussing sexual interests in ways you may have avoided previously – perhaps being brave enough to express individual fantasies. While this may seem daunting, it may be very beneficial - especially if some are edgy and trigger a strong reaction or curiosity in the other. Marital closeness is a wonderful thing; but when partners stop being sure who they are outside the context of each other, passion can evaporate.
• Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders
• If you would like advice from Pamela Stephenson Connolly on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments).
