When it feels hard to sexually connect to your partner after an argument
Image: Naomi August via Unsplash
You’ve just had an argument with your partner. Words have been said that stung and you’re left feeling hurt, betrayed, vulnerable or just plain pissed off.
Popular culture tells us that the normal way things go, is argue, apologise, kiss and make up (usually passionately in the form of make-up sex). But what happens when, even after an honest, heartfelt apology, the intimate, sexual connection hasn’t quite come back?
The thing is:
Intimacy starts with yourself.
What can happen when we experience those post-fight feelings, is that the connection to ourselves is ruptured. You might be questioning whether you really are the things they said you are, or if you did do XYZ wrong. You might also be defensive and stubbornly insisting you’ve been wronged. And when this happens, you’re not clearly communicating with yourself.
Intimacy is something that starts on the inside - with the connection to your Self. It’s the cultivation of a close relationship that requires honesty and tenderness. For most people, building an intimate relationship with themselves isn’t that easy, because it means seeing yourself for who you really are. It can be a beautiful but testing journey of self-acceptance and healing. So when the Self we’ve been building that intimate relationship with feels attacked or questioned, it can bring the whole thing tumbling back down again. And this can be exacerbated if you have mechanisms of withdrawal or defensiveness in these circumstances.
Some ways of bringing your self-connection back include: yoga, journalling, cacao ritual, listening partnership, dancing, art, walking, therapy, cacao, preparing a nourishing meal for yourself, pulling cards and/or a solo-date. Basically anything that allows you to spend time with yourself.
One way of explaining intimacy that’s often used in neo-tantra, is: into-me-I-see
Once you can see yourself again with more clarity, it will be easier to let yourself be seen by your partner, and see them in return. After all, you can only be intimate with someone else to the extent that you can be with yourself.
So give yourself time and grace.