Striving for intimacy involves novelty, surprise, mystery, risk, and adventure. That’s what couples therapist and author, Esther Perel, claims in her outspoken book Mating in Captivity. How many of these characteristics would you say describe long-term relationships and marriages today? Or how about your marriage? If you picked none (okay, perhaps one of the five), you stand to benefit from Ms. Perel’s book.

Briefly, her thesis goes like this: The domestic duties of living together which bring two people together and provide valuable security and stability are the very underpinnings that deaden or squeeze the life out of the mystery and discovery necessary for venturesome love-making. “How can you desire what you already have?” asks Ms. Perel.

Her book has a variety of answers. Here’s the link to it on Amazon.

If you’re in a pinch for time, however, you can check out the NY Times article, “The Couples Therapy Expert Esther Perel Takes on Sex and Sexuality.” Or listen to her 2013 TED talk on YouTube.

As I mentioned in my Nov 5th blog, Has Sex in Your Relationship Flatlined?, Esther Perel states her perspective this way, “Eroticism requires separateness. When there is nothing left to hide, there is nothing left to seek.”

What does your gut say? Would separateness spruce up your relationship’s bedroom blahs?

Happy mating, everybody!