When we think about mismatched desires in intimacy, we usually jump to thinking about different desires around the frequency of sex. But in the work I do with couples and individuals, what I find to be the deepest part of mismatch is a question around what intimacy even means.
The more emotionally responsive partner needs a connection with the heart that feels authentically deep and genuine. They need to feel their heart being dilated open. There are not clear objective physical steps one can take that will do this. It has to be navigated, moment to moment, within the dreamy realm of sensation and perception.
The typically more vigorous partner is engaged with the flow of what they are doing in the world, the momentum of life priorities, and conceptual thinking — what’s going on in their mind. They have a ton of mental energy and psychic force that requires a jolt of overt sexual energy to distract them from their inner mental momentum. So one partner is wanting to feel a timeless connection and sensitively permeating consciousness in order to surrender, and the other partner may just want to physically get it on, to find relief and some sliver of freedom, then let go into the bliss of sleep.
This obviously creates a conflict.
So how do we overcome these mismatched desires?
What’s Really Going on?
The problem is that we try to extend and give to others what we want — one partner may want physical connection and grounding to get them out of their head, but often that's the last thing the more sensitive person wants because they feel their partner to be emotionally remote and distant (or uncaring).
Mismatched desires are essentially an inability to understand your partner’s view, coupled with a lack of skillfulness in expressing the depth of love within the act of sex.
The good news is that learning, healing, and transcending this issue is the spiritual path to freedom, bliss, and a lasting intimacy that grows over time.
We Unnecessarily Put Our Relationship at Stake
Mismatched desires around intimacy can have a significant impact on relationships. We get stuck in purgatory -- the perpetuation of ongoing suffering. We can’t see that we’re the ones that are creating it, and end up using our distress to justify all kinds of things like affairs and porn addiction.
Similar to a snake swallowing its own tail, we’re spinning the whole drama up within our thoughts and emotions, and sustaining it through our attention. We are the cause and the force that is keeping our suffering active, although we’re often very good at projecting it onto our partner and external circumstances. But when you see this self-action for what it is, it puts you back in a position of power and choice instead of overwhelm and feeling trapped by the situation.
There tends to be a huge amount of stuck emotional energy when it comes to this looping pattern, and as soon as you engage it, it can grow more overwhelming. But when we’re in a state of hopelessness and overwhelm is precisely when the possibility of the gift appears.
When you are on the very edge of almost giving up, is when the situation’s energy is ripe for transformation.
A 5-Step Solution to Mismatched Desires in Intimacy
Step 1: Discover What Intimacy Means to You Both
In the area of intimacy, words fall short when describing the force of emotion within us. Talking over and over about a lack you feel will unintentionally bring the focus on the problems and pain, and not on what you want and feel is possible. Repeating old arguments and complaints reifies the conflict and misunderstanding that you are trying to bridge. Our partners can never see the situation like we do, no matter how many times we explain it, because they are seeing things from a different bodily viewpoint. It’s never a mere objective situation we are trying to communicate, it is inexorably grounded in our bodily, emotional, mental, and psychic position.
Instead of asking your partner what intimacy means for them, ask them to show you what it looks and feels like.
Give them a taste of your palpable yearning, and how you would look and act and feel when receiving exactly what you want. Share an ideal scenario in terms of the physical and emotional details that are most important to you.
We become emotionally moved and involved when we witness someone embodying pleasure, bliss, surrender, and loving command, even if it is only play-acting. You know how gripped and moved you can be by a captivating movie, so imagine how you would respond to seeing your intimate partner embodying ravishment, sexual bliss, or keen-edged awareness.
Step 2: Establish Your Intentions for Intimacy as a Couple
Establish your deepest intention and purpose for intimacy. If you want to just orgasm and fall asleep, that is so low on the spectrum of possibility, one may wonder if it adds anything to even involve your partner.
You go a little higher up in the realm of intimate possibilities through gifting and nakedly experiencing pleasure.
Or you can go to the ultimate level, which is “how can God liberate my partner through pleasure or through sensual movement or unwavering consciousness that envelopes and interpenetrates?” How can I be an instrument of the divine and fuck my partner from that place?
Step 3: Re-Establish Safety & Trust With Your Partner
Safety and trust need to be remembered and located within our body. We often know how bad things feel, but we easily lose sight of what feeling whole, sexy, and loved feel like. We have to pause, reset our awareness on ANYTHING that we feel good about, and expand outward from there - until our awareness can locate and genuinely FEEL - anything good in our partner, then we build from there.
Bodily awareness can be gently trained upon what we want instead of the problems. Locate a glimmer of it already present, even if in embryonic or veiled form. This does not involve thinking. Our sexual yearning and desire are actually the language of life itself, pulling you toward the love and ecstasy you always intuit is possible.
The source of this intuition is the body itself, rich in sensual wisdom that the mind cannot fathom with words or internal dialogue. Inner mental talk only pulls us away from our partner and our deepest self.
Surrender your inner critic, your inner sports commentator, your inner judge - let the whole inner dialogue go - and choose love instead.
Step 4: Learn to Speak Your Partner’s Language
Learn to give gifts in your partner's intimate language, without expectation that they be received or even acknowledged. You first have to locate some self-sufficiency and wholeness in order to do this, and then you can engage in the dance with your partner.
It's hard to understand how radically different two people can experience the exact same thing because our mind is always projecting sameness for all views. But in order for your partner to feel loved, connected, or understood, you need to learn how to speak their language.
Your effort and attention to the nuances of doing this, is love expressed through the shape of you, the most intimate gift you have to offer.
Step 5: Expand Your Non-Verbal Vocabulary
Trust that your body is wired for pleasure. The more we come into the core of the body the more it softens and frees us from our mind. So learn how to express things non-verbally.
Our awareness of mismatched desires is usually in the mind. The thing we’re feeling in our bodies is speaking the truth and it’s not a problem within the moment it arises. It’s a problem when we start putting a time frame on it, or looking at things historically, or projecting forward into the future. In the pristine moment of now, there is simply our desire, how we yearn for something, and the other partner is not picking it up, or not understanding, or they are.
Expand your non-verbal vocabulary. If they aren’t understanding you, risk conveying it another way. Don’t give up petulantly after only trying once or twice.
Appreciate that the deepest communication is done with face, eyes, breath, touch, posture, and how you move.
The speed with which your partner reaches forward and touches your hair could stop an argument, or have you trembling and turned on. How you stir your drink can communicate desire or apathy. How you look into their eyes could make them feel like a teenager again innocently flirting, or an invitation to explore much darker desires. Simply raising your eyebrow could stop your partner in their tracks, or cause a tense situation to dissolve into mirth. We are always communicating through our bodies, all the time.
Learn how to do this intentionally, consciously, relaxedly, and playfully, conveyed with the fullness of love, because at your core, that is what you are.