How to Bounce Back When Your Sex Life Is Struggling

A few years ago, a friend of mine posted on social media that she conceived her second daughter while her first child pounded on her bedroom door. I remember thinking, “Wow, way to keep it going under pressure!” Then I had children of my own and I understood this on a whole new level. That was their chance to be together, take it or miss it. It turns out that sexuality researchers have a name for this—it’s called sexual resilience.

Sexual resilience is the ability to bounce back from setbacks in our sex lives—things like parenting young children, physical changes due to aging, physical or mental health problems, or ongoing stress at work. Some couples adapt to these challenges and overcome them, while others struggle to re-establish a satisfying sexual relationship.

Although there are strategies for being more sexually resilient (I’ll get to that), perhaps the most important part of this discussion is simply acknowledging that our sex lives change over time, and they shift in response to other events in our lives. Needing to work through those challenges does not mean our sex lives are dead or our relationships are doomed. In fact, working through problems and challenges together can help couples grow stronger. Step one, if you’re experiencing sexual challenges, is to remember that this is a common part of almost every relationship.

There is an important exception to this, however. If your partner is forcing you to have sex or doing things that make you uncomfortable, please reach out for help. These are not normative challenges but evidence of abuse.

What Do You Value About Sex?

In the PRISM study, sexuality researchers Andrea Beck and John Robinson interviewed couples who had experienced a sexual challenge about how they were able to bounce back (or not). They found that people reacted differently to sexual challenges based on what they valued most about sex. Do you place a high value on the physical satisfaction you get from sex, the emotional closeness you feel with your partner during sex, or both?

Valuing emotional closeness and intimacy was a key for couples to be motivated to work around sexual challenges, even if it meant changing how they approached sex or adjusting their expectations of sex. They noted that sexual values can change over time, so even if you are someone who is mostly motivated by the physical parts of sex, there are opportunities to shift that focus and place more value on the connection you feel with your partner during sex.

When you’re faced with a sexual challenge, what can you do to be sexually resilient? Beck and Robinson identified three key components to sexual resilience based on the experiences of couples in their study:

1. Acceptance

Sexually resilient couples take an “It is what it is” attitude toward their sexual challenges. Instead of using a lot of energy dwelling on the frustration of not being able to have sex the way they used to, they redirect their energy to coming up with solutions to the problem at hand.

For example, if you’re the parent of young children, acceptance means knowing sex might be interrupted at any moment and adapting to that reality. Sex with young kids in the house means it may not be as frequent, as long, or as loud, but it can still be fun, provide a meaningful connection, and give you a release from the pressures of life.

For couples facing sexual challenges due to new physical limitations, the task is to accept that the sexual menu may need to change. Activities you did before may be off the menu, but that may make room for things you didn’t spend much time on before.

2. Flexibility

Couples often have a sexual script they follow in their sexual encounters. They know the moves and they just do them. When a sexual challenge disrupts the sexual script, it requires some flexibility and problem-solving to create a new one. This goes against the message we get that great sex should come naturally and effortlessly. Even without specific sexual challenges, this is not true. Like the relationship itself, sex takes work sometimes, and that doesn’t mean the couple is incompatible.

In the face of a sexual challenge, couples may need to shift their focus from the sexual activities they used to do to something that fits their situation better. For example, couples may need to incorporate sex toys, focus on oral sex, or schedule sex rather than expecting it to just happen. All these strategies require couples to talk about sex, maybe more than any other time in the relationship. This is a shift, too, from letting sex be mainly nonverbal to making plans and discussing strategies for addressing your new needs.

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3. Persistence

Don’t give up! Couples in the PRISM study sometimes tried one or two strategies and then gave up. These couples rarely showed resilience because they didn’t give themselves a chance to really find strategies that worked for them. Changing what we value and what scripts we use for sex is difficult work that takes patience. Sticking with it is an important part of being resilient.

Although this was not part of the PRISM study, I would argue that resilience also applies to each sexual encounter. Sometimes sex is interrupted, or an erection is lost, or someone’s mind drifts to their work stress and it kills the mood. We have choices in those moments to regroup and try again or to call it quits. I think resilience in the face of those in-the-moment challenges is just as important as resilience for long-term challenges. If we can train ourselves to get good at resetting and trying again, then when a health problem pops up or we transition to parenthood, we will have the tools for acceptance, flexibility, and persistence that we need to bounce back.