Modern committed relationships value egalitarianism, partnership, and democracy, but desire fundamentally thrives on the conflicting intangibles of risk, aggression, and power imbalances. More literally, you can spend less time in close proximity to your partner, whether that’s leaving them alone when you’re home together, or one of you moving out. You might think you know everything about them, but it’s impossible to fully understand another individual, and simply acknowledging this can increase your psychological distance and increase desire. Like balancing commitment and desire, you can try to change your perception of your partner. To balance intimacy and desire, create either psychological or physical distance. Many people would be unwilling to give up the closeness of a stable, long-term relationship for the distance required by desire. However, desire requires distance because when two people are so fused they’re one, there’s no mystery, and no person separate from yourself for you to fall in love with. Knowing someone well is comfortable, and intimacy is a fundamental human need. For example, the next time you’re at an event with your partner, imagine how everyone else in the room sees them⁠-as someone unknown to be curious about⁠-and try to see them that way too. Look at them in a different context to your partnership. They might be committed to you, but they’re their own person, and you don’t own them.

To balance commitment and desire, change your perception of your partner. Fear of losing your partner was part of what made the relationship exciting. However, security has a deadening effect on desire.

You don’t have to worry about if your partner loves you or if your relationship might crash and burn at any moment. The author discusses three specific sets of conflicting values:Ĭommitment, and the security it brings, is a wonderful thing in a long-term relationship. The balance often lies in looking at your partner in a new context.

The values of long term relationships-commitment, intimacy, and egalitarianism-are at odds with some of the fundamental ingredients for desire-risk, distance, and power imbalances. There are two types of tensions that make it hard to maintain desire in committed relationships: inherent tensions between the values of domesticity and desire, and external tensions between a couple and the rest of the world.

Mating and captivity