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HAVE YOU NOTICED A steady decline in your sex life while at the same time your stress levels have risen? There’s no coincidence here. It’s been shown that the more stress we have in our lives, the less sex we enjoy.
Whether you work long hours, have financial pressures, the kids are driving you insane, or any number of other large and small stress factors, it can all pile up and affect your sex life.
Stress is devious too. It makes us believe that so many things are super important, yet we can’t do anything about it. So, what do we do? We let go of the fun things in life so we can tend to our ever-growing stress pile. What’s one of the most enjoyable things on the planet? Sex!
Naturally, that devious stress monster will hypnotize you into believing that you need to cut that out of your life. You’re too tired for sex. You’re too frustrated, too exhausted, too preoccupied, too stressed.
Pretty soon your mind starts playing tricks on you and you begin to believe that there’s something wrong with your relationship. Your partner no longer finds you attractive or you no longer want to make love with her. You begin to pick things apart, so you can justify why you aren’t having sex. She put on weight, she’s a nag, or you’re simply too tired.
One day you wake up and realize that stress is in complete control of your life. Those fun, relaxing times you had pursuing activities you enjoyed or making love are long gone. Now you really feel resentful, yet you believe there’s nothing you can do about the stressful situations in your life. You then convince yourself that this is how relationships are. How pathetic is that?
Dealing with Your Stress
When you have a moment of clarity sit down and be honest with yourself. What things in your life are truly causing you stress? Write them all down, no matter how big or small, even if they seem silly or you feel there’s not much you can do about it. Get it all out.
Look at that list and see where you can make changes. For example, my friend Dan has a long commute to work, coaches his son’s baseball team, and has a million things to do around the house on his days off. Not to mention the many credit cards he’s paying off and other financial stressors.
He and his wife Sarah hadn’t had sex in nearly 9 months. Yikes! She blamed it on the fact that since their last son was born she wasn’t in the mood and he blamed it on a whole lot of things. There was a girl at Dan’s job who seemed really into him and he was tempted, more than once, to go for it and just have an affair. But he didn’t.
What he did do was to figure out how to reduce the stress in his life. He couldn’t cut down on his commute to work so he downloaded some audio books he had wanted to listen to. The long drive to work is now a bit more enjoyable and he learned how to speak Portuguese in the process.
With his finances, he simply talked to his wife about making a budget, cutting up their credit cards and living more frugally. Sarah wasn’t happy about it at first since she loves to shop but now she’s hooked on finding great deals at second-hand stores and yard sales.
Dan also opted out of coaching the baseball team, though he goes to every game and helps his son practice on the weekends. It’s more enjoyable for them both.
Once he dumped a lot of the stress from his life the entire energy in his family changed and everyone else was less stressed too. Dan and Sarah now have sex nearly every night and they’re both happier.
If your sex life is buried beneath your stress, find ways to manage it and you’ll be between the sheets and having fun once again!