The best sex of your life after the transition?
Many couples notice that their sex life changes during and after the transition. Desire is less spontaneous, libido sometimes feels further away than ever and old sexual scripts no longer work. Yet that does not mean a decline, quite the contrary.
With the right insights and approach you can be correct in and after the transition The best sex of your life experience. In this article you discover how to break stuck patterns, get closer together emotionally and physically and develop a form of sexuality togetherMeno-proofis.
In our previous article we dived into the biggest misunderstandings about sex after the menopause and described why they get in the way of so many couples. Let us zoom in on what happens when you avoid those pitfalls and actively choose a new, closer way of connecting.
Do you want to get stronger from the menopause together? Discover how we Guiding couples to lasting emotional and physical connection.
“We have never felt so intimate, so naked together‘
Tine and David are in front of us again, a few sessions further. This time not a meter apart, but so close that their knees touch each other. Their hands are entangled, thumbs that gently glide over each other’s skin, a shared smile that lingers in their eyes. Tine had withdrawn from sex for months, which gave tension and incomprehension and pushed their marriage towards an almost sexless situation. Now they have started working with us to renew their sexual and emotional bond from within. At home they faithfully do the exercises we give them and they tell things like: ‘We have never felt so intimate, so naked with each other, while there has not even been sexual intercourse.’ David shines: ‘I have the feeling that I get to know a new Tine. That I can conquer her in a new way, and that is exciting.’
Their experience is no coincidence. This is what we often see with couples who dare to release old patterns and open themselves to new ways of intimacy, both physically and emotionally. What Tine and David have applied at home are exactly the keys we share here with you.
Curious how we help couples to use these keys? Discover our approach with Sex Therapy Informed EFT.
What Successful Lovers Do Differently
The couples who keep their sex life alive after the transition cannot be caught by the three intimacy killers from the previous blog. They do 3 things radically different:
- Building emotional safety. Trust and connectedness become the source of eroticism. We called it emotionally exposed.
- consciously opt for proximity and responsive desire. Lustful pleasure arises through Contact, not before
- Stay curious and create new scripts.
Three keys to deepen your sexual connection
Key 1: Get out of the pursuer-avoider dance
In most relationships, partners end up in a predictable feedback loop. One hunts for connection, the other withdraws. This pattern often takes place at the same time on two fronts: emotional and sexual.
The problem is that in this dance emotionally exposed, sharing a vulnerable Auch moment, becomes almost impossible. You get stuck in blame, defend or distance yourself, while naming that vulnerable moment is the key to connection.
The AUCH moment
At EFT we look under the waterline: what is under your chasing or avoiding behavior? That is always an auch moment, the point at which something hurts because an attachment need is not met. Only when that is spoken does it become possible to connect.
Four common positions and their alternative:
Emotional pursuer
Typical pattern: ‘Why do you never let anything be heard from you ?!’ Alternative: ‘I feel insecure and afraid that we are moving apart. I long for a moment when we are completely us.’
Emotional avoider
- Typical pattern: silence or subject change
- Alternative: ‘I find myself withdrawing because I’m afraid I can’t do it right. But I really want to be with you.’
Sexual pursuer
- Typical pattern: putting pressure or sighing about too little sex
- Alternative: ‘I miss feeling physically close to you. I long for that feeling that we are in our love bubble.’
Sexual avoider
- Typical pattern: shear on crowds or fatigue
- Alternative: ‘I feel tense and afraid that I will disappoint you. But I want to try something together that makes it less pressure and it can feel good again.’
By naming it AUCH, you show your partner what is really going on in you. That is being emotionally exposed. Only when that happens can the dance change and there is room for proximity in and outside the bedroom again.
When you step out of this dance, there is room to really meet each other, both emotionally and sexually.
Wondering how we help couples get out of this destructive dance? Discover our approach with Sex Therapy Informed EFT.
Key 2: Put fun over performance
Emily Nagoski summarizes it as pleasure is the measure. Release the pressure of spontaneous sense or desire. The ‘desire imperative’ – the idea that desire must arise automatically and suddenly – often no longer works after the transition and is actually a fable. In reality, desire usually arises because you start together, not before.
Adult playground
Scroll aside old patterns and write a new, relaxed script for intimacy. That does not have to be spectacular: curious touch, a massage, or a playful appointment to kiss each other in a new way can be enough. So the focus shifts from ‘Do I feel like it?’ To ‘How do we make this fun together?’
Let the bedroom become your personal playground. Plan moments without script or purpose. Body next to body, breathing, feeling. Often the sentence comes afterwards. And if there is no flow? Then the emotional bed might be too tense. Then go back to key 1 and expose you even more emotionally, before physically exposing again.
Make the transition your new beginning: Schedule a conversation
Key 3: Update each other emotionally and sexually
After all these years together, your brain thinks it ‘knows the other’. Handy in the household, disastrous for eroticism. Certainly around and after the transition change body, pace and preferences. Stan Tatkin often says it: your partner will no longer be who he or she is today. Yet many couples deal with each other as if they have a fixed ‘saved version’ of the other. That makes the contact predictable and sometimes boring. You leave without regular updates. Train your brain to do an update regularly, not only emotionally, but also sexually. In this way you continue to surprise each other and your connection remains alive, in and outside the bedroom.
2 exercises
Daily look
Look at each other’s face for 60 seconds. What do you see today that you didn’t see yesterday? Say one new detail out loud.
Diary Exercise: ‘Giving, receiving, taxing’
Write three answers every day for a week:
- What did I receive from my partner today?
- What did I give to my partner today?
- How did I bother my partner today?
These those 3 diary questions actually work as one Daily update of your Relatielandkaart: You add to what is new, correct wrong assumptions and thus reinforce the feeling that you really know each other.
These three questions help you to make a mini-Relational update to do. You no longer take for granted what you get from the other. And you become aware of how you sometimes unintentionally burden your partner, so that you can take responsibility faster and restore it together. In this way your inner ‘relationship maps’ remain current, exactly what is needed to maintain a sustainable, secure connection.
Regularly updating keeps your emotional and sexual connection alive, because you continue to see each other as you are now. This prevents rut and makes room for responsive desire and new scripts that fit this phase.
Ready to take new steps yourself?
Don’t wait until the desire comes back on its own. Or until the other finally changes. Dare to make the leap. Not back to the past, but forward to better.
In our Sex Therapy Informed EFT Sessions We help couples break stuck patterns and make physical and emotional contact again. This can be done online or during an intensive retreat in the South of France.
A lasting, satisfying sexual relationship over different phases of life – even during and after the transition – is no coincidence. It requires conscious choices: making room for emotional exposure, enjoying touch without pressure and discovering new experiences together.
We guide you step by step to a sexual connection that is honest, deep and sustainable, despite hormonal changes and persistent misunderstandings.
Online or during a multi-day Retreat in the South of France.
👉 Find out how we work on Existo.org Or send us a message – we are happy to think along with you.
Inspiration and background This article is inspired by work by, among others, Sue Johnson (Love Sense, Hold Me Tight), Emily Nagoski (Come Together), Peggy Kleinplatz (Magnificent Sex) and Stan Tatkin (Wired for Love, We do, in each other’s care) and translated into our own practical experience with long-term relationships.