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Limited Intimacy: How Is A Relationship Affected?

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More Videos from Mike Lindstrom 6 videos in this series

Limited Intimacy: How Is A Relationship Affected?
Limited Intimacy: How Is A Relationship Affected?
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Relationship expert Mike Lindstrom explains how limited intimacy will affect a romantic relationship.

Mike Lindstrom:
How is lack of sex killing the relationship? Men and women all around the world want to hear the answer to this question and the answer is there’s two. There’s two sides to this when it comes to effect. We have this thing we call affect and effect, okay? Things affect you – external events like causation, and then there’s an effect.

So when you think about one side of the fence there’s an emotional part of it. When it comes to damaging or literally affecting your physical part of your emotional being, the first part is your emotional being. When somebody has lack of intimacy or physical touch or actual sex, the release even to the point of orgasm, it can adversely affect the emotional aspect of your when it’s not there because it affects your self-esteem.

Now think about it, when you have lack of self-esteem what do you do? You ask questions, and when you ask questions where do people typically go? They go look in the mirror. They go look in their mirror and they start seeing things that aren’t there. “Something is wrong with me. Am I overweight? Why isn’t somebody attracted to me anymore?”

Whether you are a single and no one is asking you to go out, or you’re married and your partner is not interested in you anymore you start, that self-esteem tank starts to empty and when it starts to empty it creates an uncertainty and when uncertainties start to happen other negative things start to come in. You become sensitive. You start maybe getting jealous about little things. You become snippy about little comments. Why? Because the lack of sex and intimacy causes that to trigger those other emotions which adversely affect the emotional part of you – men and women by the way.

The other side of it is the physical aspect of it. When you look at, and there’s been plenty of studies done – University of Chicago did a study this last year that talked about frequency of sex in the United States and by the way, relative to the world we are not having as much sex as a lot of other countries. Brazil and Greece were one of the two top ranking countries when it comes to the frequency of sex.

Well, in the United States the average adult is having sex about 61 times a year, just a little bit over once a week, just a little bit over once a week. Now what’s interesting is you hear a lot of married couples complaint about, “Oh, I don’t get sex enough in my relationship.” Well statistics show otherwise. University of Chicago studies showed that married couple adults actually having sex twice as much as the average adult. I think the number was about 112 times a year.

Now the physical stimulation that you get from sex, obviously there’s this effect of orgasm which releases the oxytocin in the brain. Oxytocin is also linked to some people call this “the lion tamer” for men. Technically it’s called post-coital narcolepsy. It’s when you have sex and you feel tired. Well there’s a physical thing that happens when you have sex. You feel tired and it actually lowers your blood pressure and it actually triggers the immune system. So there’s all kinds of things that can happen when you are having sex.

When you’re not having sex, think of all the other things that are not emotional. You have these physical releases and you have, not to mention everyone loves in this country because people say we are an obese country. If you have sex you have an entire tendency to lose weight. Well there’s truth in that because they say that the average 30-minute sexual session, you can burn up to 85 calories. Now think about that. If you had over 40 sessions of 30-minutes you’re looking at about 35 to 3800 calories -- that’s a pound. So you can lose weight having sex.

So there’s all these arguments that can be made around the lack of sex and what happens not just emotionally, but what happens physically. So it’s important to understand that there are benefits to boosting your energy and having sex.

About Mike Lindstrom:
Dan Lier & Mike Lindstrom have been coaching and speaking about success for a combined 30 years. Dan & Mike are well-respected success coaches and have studied the behavior between men and woman as it pertains to sex, love, communication, intimacy, loyalty and finding the partner of your dreams. As proud parents and loving partners, they are passionate about the relationship secrets set forth in "Dan & Mike’s Guide to Men". They have been featured on several media outlets including Fox News, ABC News, HLN, CNN and the Howard Stern Show.

Visit Mike Lindstrom at Ask Dan & Mike

Add a Comment1 Comments

Face it. When there's no sexual intimacy in a relationship, the whole quality of that relationship suffers. Physical intimacy creates an emotional connection to your partner, and when it's not there, both parties suffer. A sexless marriage is a lonely marriage. The lonliness can become unbearable. The question of why one's partner no longer wants to hold and touch and kiss him or her is in and of itself painful. The answers can hold the threat of a rejection that's capable of shattering a person to the core. But they need to be verbalized. They need to be explored to be resolved. And if a couple cannot talk about it, they're doomed.

September 17, 2010 - 7:30pm
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