Low desire and intimacy in a relationship: understand, measure, grow

What this dimension covers

When people say intimacy, most hear sex. That’s the first misunderstanding to undo: intimacy is letting yourself be seen, and welcoming what your partner lets you see. You can share a bed, a fridge and a mortgage without ever letting yourself be seen. A regular sex life can coexist with a starving intimacy, and the reverse happens too. Intimacy comes in several forms (emotional, intellectual, experiential, physical, erotic), and they don’t grow together.

Desire follows rules that almost nobody knows. It has two paths, each as normal as the other: the spark that comes first, and the appetite that comes with eating. It has two pedals, an accelerator and brakes, and a want that won’t start is rarely a dead engine, almost always a brake pressed down. And it lives on a paradox: love feeds on closeness, desire feeds on distance. The more successfully a couple blends together, the more likely it is to lull its desire to sleep, with no one to blame.

So this dimension covers all of that: understanding how your desire and your partner’s work, preparing the ground of safety where bodies relax, staying yourself under the other’s gaze, rekindling through the unfamiliar, breathing between closeness and separation, and getting through the seasons when desire goes quiet. The program’s register is sensual, never explicit, and its absolute safeguard is this: nothing is forced, and a “no” or a “not now” is a complete answer.

Signs that something is stuck

• You watch for your own desire, and the more you watch, the less it comes.
• You know each other “by heart,” and that’s exactly what put something out.
• The “we” has swallowed the “I”s: “we don’t like that,” “we go to bed early.”
• A cuddle gets dodged for fear it will “give ideas,” and a tally keeps running in the dark, each of you on your own.
• One of you waits and the disappointment shows; the other feels it and shuts down.
• The bedroom is a storage room, screens sleep between you, your schedules no longer cross.
• You only show what’s approvable: the movie you’ve “loved” for three years and actually hate.
• You no longer do anything together that neither of you has already done.

What the research says

The framework for desire comes from Rosemary Basson, who proposed a circular model in 2000 for established relationships: you can enter through chosen availability, with no desire beforehand, and let desire start up along the way. This is responsive desire, just as legitimate as spontaneous desire, and the shift from one to the other over the years is how things work, not a breakdown. Erick Janssen and John Bancroft described the dual control model: an excitation system and an inhibition system, independent of each other, each with individual sensitivities. Emily Nagoski popularized both in “Come As You Are” and set the program’s strategy: loosen the brakes first, stimulate second, and context governs everything.

On the paradox, Esther Perel put into words in “Mating in Captivity” what this dimension explores over several levels: love wants to nestle, desire wants to stretch, and desire needs a gap to cross, one that a successful life together erases piece by piece. Hence the “middle distance,” that moment when you see your partner in their element and they become someone again. David Schnarch contributed differentiation: staying fully yourself under the other’s gaze, neither fusion nor cutoff, because nobody desires an echo.

On novelty, Arthur Aron showed with the self-expansion model that a couple’s boredom is a halt in growth, not a lack of love, and that new, stimulating shared activities revive the spark. In clinical practice, Sue Johnson established that emotional safety is the foundation of physical intimacy: the body only relaxes where the bond is secure. Barry McCarthy and Barry Metz, with their “good-enough” idea, take the pressure off expectations and describe a sex life that evolves, with no golden age. And Harry Reis and Phillip Shaver described intimacy as a process: opening up, and feeling welcomed, understood, not judged.

The authors behind this dimension: Sue Johnson, Esther Perel, Rosemary Basson, Emily Nagoski, David Schnarch, Robert Sternberg, Brené Brown, Arthur Aron. Each page explains their background, their concepts, their studies and the limits of their work.

How MyLoveLab measures it

In the MyLoveLab test, the “Intimacy” dimension measures closeness as you live it: whether you feel close, whether you can talk about desire and wanting without embarrassment or pressure, what happens when one of you isn’t in the mood, and whether routine has taken the place of curiosity. The questions stay discreet: they’re about the climate and the conversation, never about practices.

The score out of 100 shows where this dimension stands compared with the other six. A low score doesn’t mean desire is dead. Most often it means that a brake is stuck on, that the ground no longer feels safe, or that the gap has disappeared. These are three things you can work on, and this score helps the program choose where to start.

Measure your Intimacy dimension in 15 minutes

How the program works on it

Ten levels, in three phases. Understand: the forms of intimacy, how desire works, the love and desire paradox. Practice: loosening the brakes, preparing the ground, standing tall under the other’s gaze, rekindling, breathing. Co-create: crossing the deserts, and putting together your intimate lab. The register is sensual, never explicit, and everything is offered, nothing is imposed.

1. 1The 5 forms of intimacy, letting yourself be seen, the staircase of closeness (small and real beats big and rare), your partner’s inner map that goes out of date, the door rather than the lever.
2. 2How your desire works, the spark misunderstanding, the two paths of desire, the circle rather than the straight line, two profiles under one roof.
3. 3The love and desire paradox, the two appetites, the vanished gap (nobody desires their own arm), the middle distance, fresh air rather than manufactured lack, your balance.
4. 4Your accelerators and your brakes, two independent pedals, your accelerator that lacks room, your brakes as a safety system, context is king, loosen first.
5. 5Preparing the ground, your body reads the climate before you do, the four pillars (the no that’s welcomed, the respected body, the permitted imperfection, the return after tension), repairing within 24 hours, the evening airlock.
6. 6Staying yourself under their gaze, neither melting in nor cutting off, the borrowed gaze, telling a truth that can stand, honesty has to be funded, two whole people choosing each other.
7. 7Rekindling, you don’t get bored of each other, you get bored of no longer growing together: real novelty, failing together, seeing your partner anew, the first-time date.
8. 8Eros and distance, desire as movement, separate gardens, leaving without guilt, the first two minutes of the return, the ecology of breathing.
9. 9Crossing the deserts, a season, not a verdict: dismantling the debt and the tally, getting out of the pressure-withdrawal cycle, gestures with no strings, the crossing plan and the two doors.
10. 10Your intimate lab, the pediment of the yes that wants to, exploratory conversations held cold and laughing, an intimacy that evolves, putting it all together.

Frequently asked questions

Going further

The test measures this dimension along with the other six. Take it to get your score, your level (fragile, needs work, solid or excellent) and which dimension to start with in the program.

• Loss of Desire in a Relationship: What Esther Perel Understood Before Everyone Else

Podcasts on this topic

To keep going by listening: French-language shows hosted by therapists and psychologists, chosen for this dimension. The official players are on our podcasts page.

• Au Cœur du Couple, Soazig Castelnérac et Marylise Richard (founder of the Amour Toujours media outlet and psychologist specializing in couples therapy)
• LOVECARE, en consultation avec Thérèse, Thérèse Hargot (sex therapist and couples therapist)
• Raviver le désir sexuel, François Renaud (sex therapist and psychotherapist, in Quebec)
• La Clinique de l’amour, Delphine Saltel (France Culture, “Les Pieds sur terre”)