Episode 97: Keeping Passion Alive in Long-Term Relationships

When you’re feeling that intense passion in the early stages of a relationship, having great sex is usually pretty easy. However, those feelings don’t tend to stick around very long. It’s normal for passion to begin fading after a year or two. But it doesn’t have to disappear entirely. It’s very much possible to get the spark back–and keep it going–with a little bit of effort. So let’s talk about how to do it! For today’s episode, I am joined by Dr. David Frederick, an Associate professor of Health Psychology at Chapman University in Southern California. Dr. Frederick has taught more than 70 courses on human sexuality and gender. Some of the questions we explore include: What typically happens to sexual frequency and satisfaction over time in long-term relationships? Why is trying new sexual activities crucial to boosting passion? And what kinds of novel activities have the biggest impact? How many new things do you need to try sexually in order to experience a boost in passion? Are the factors that predict sexual satisfaction the same for lesbians and heterosexual women? What about for gay versus heterosexual men? What can lesbians teach heterosexual women about closing the “orgasm gap?” Besides trying new sexual activities, what are some other tried and true ways of reinvigorating passion in a long-term relationship? To learn more about David, check out his website here and visit his Google Scholar page here for more information on his research. Thanks to Promescent (promescent.com) and the Modern Sex Therapy Institutes (modernsextherapyinstitutes.com) for being sponsors of this episode! This podcast was made on Zencastr. Join Zencastr today and receive 40% off of their professional plan for 3 months with my exclusive discount code: sexandpsych *** Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for previous articles or follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram. Listen and stream all episodes on Apple, Spotify, Google, or Amazon. Subscribe to automatically receive new episodes and please rate and review the podcast! Credits: LEGIT Audio (Podcast editing) and Shutterstock/Florian (Music). Image created with Canva; photos used with permission of guest.