Sex advice with Suzi Godson: Anticipation overwhelms the act of reunion

After all the “waiting and wanting”, actually “having” requires adjusting to the real, rather than the ideal, says Suzi Godson.

Q. My boyfriend is in the army and spends a lot of time away. Whenever he returns home, he wants to have sex almost as soon as he’s back. However, it takes me longer to reconnect.

This makes him feel that I’m not excited to have him back, which I am.

A. I suspect your response bewilders you as much as it confuses him. In the days before his homecoming, you are probably equally enthusiastic about the prospect of sex. Anticipation is proven to boost arousal.

When American psychologists Lisa Hamilton and Cindy Meston studied levels of the hormone testosterone in women engaged in long-distance relationships, they found that the level present in saliva increased significantly before a reunion.

However, those heightened testosterone levels returned to normal as soon as their partner was present.

The researchers attributed this drop to anxiety because the stress hormone, cortisol, causes a decrease in testosterone.

Big reunions can be a horrible anticlimax.

After all the “waiting and wanting”, actually “having” requires adjusting to the real, rather than the ideal.

It is difficult to sustain a long-distance relationship in any context, but some separations are more problematic than others.

When two people spend most of their time apart for whatever reason, they inevitably live mostly separate lives.

It’s a difficult existence where the threads of the relationship are sustained by phone calls and emails.

There is also often a tendency for both partners to try to avoid talking about the stresses and strains of their lives, because it is more pleasant to spend the little time you share together talking about positive things.

The trouble is, healthy relationships thrive on sharing ups and downs, and eventually what begins as a well-intentioned attempt to preserve intimacy can create a void of shared experiences, which can leave you feeling as if you are drifting apart.

You don’t mention trust in your letter, but it is a big issue for long-distance relationships in general.

When you have a limited time together, there is a very strong temptation to avoid difficult conversations, but if you want this relationship to survive, don’t bury your head in the sand.

Sustaining a relationship when you are not married can be even more difficult because there is sometimes less confidence in the level of commitment.

While I’m not suggesting that you get married, I do think that you should both acknowledge the uncertainties that lengthy separation creates.

Setting ground rules for the relationship while you are apart would help. If trust is an issue, don’t assume monogamy; insist on a mutual declaration of exclusivity.

If the reconnection is difficult because you find it hard to go from being single to being part of a couple, negotiate some ‘single’ time while you are together, so you don’t feel obliged to distance yourself from the people who ordinarily support you when he is not home.

Similarly, don’t make him feel as though he is an occasional bolt-on to your otherwise full life. Work out where you think the problems are and be explicit about what needs to be done to enhance the relationship.

Ultimately, you and your boyfriend want the same thing, you just have different ways of getting to it.

He wants to have sex because skin-to-skin contact relaxes him and speeds up the reconnection process. You want a chat and a cuddle because emotional intimacy confirms that he is still completely committed to you.

Articulating your need for commitment will put the relationship on a far firmer footing and make it much easier for you to reconnect when he gets home.

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