Spring is known as the season for love for good reason. Everything around us is thawing out and firing up, including our moods thanks to a springtime burst of dopamine scientists say often sets the stage for romance. But for every couple that begins a five-alarm love affair in the spring, experts say there are many more that find themselves in dry dock.

Call it libido gap, a dead bedroom, or the more clinical term “sexual desire discrepancy.” By any name, the shortfall between how much physical intimacy two partners want is one of the biggest sources of tension in relationships.

“It’s a lot more common than most people will discuss,” says Machel Hunt, an Atlanta psychosexual therapist and one of two experts who spoke to The Reckoning about getting back that lovin’ feelin’.

The cause of a libido gap can be physical, such as hormone imbalances or other conditions that lower desire. Other times the cause is mental, including stress and a history of subtle sexual trauma experts say can be particularly common among gay men.

Whatever the reason, the results are typically partners who feel frustrated, resentful, and powerless. The good news is the solution to sex woes can be as simple as opening your mouth—to speak, that is. From exploring vulnerability to confronting and releasing sexual myths, the experts say there are many ways to combat desire gaps.

You don’t have to just live with a dead bedroom—if you’re willing to put in a little work.

“Cultivating desire has to be a priority, one can’t just want to have sex with a partner,” says Atlanta psychotherapist Julius Jessup Peterson. “There has to be some form of investment.”

A Silent Bedroom Epidemic?

Judging from the steamy sex scenes on TV or the risqué lyrics on the radio, everyone is having lots of hot, nasty sex with bae, right?

The numbers say something different entirely. One study found some 80 percent of couples reported recently wanting more or less sex than their partner. And it isn’t limited to heterosexual couples: A 2017 poll of over 1,500 LGBTQ+ people found that 78 percent of couples regularly experienced mismatched libidos.

While lots of people may talk about sex in general, far fewer of them talk to their partners about their individual needs, says Hunt, who offers couples counseling and sex coaching through his practice Therapy For You.

“In our society, there’s so much conversation around sex but it’s all very superficial,” he says. “It actually reinforces some of the stereotypes and schemas that we believe.”

Experts say among the most harmful of those stereotypes is the notion that there’s a magical number of times a healthy couple has sex. That number doesn’t exist and is one of the first things a couple looking to improve their sexual connection should abandon, says Peterson, who counsels couples through their practice Roots, Seeds & Branches.

“The only standard that matters in a consensual sexual relationship is the standard defined by the ones in it,” Peterson says. “Normal is whatever is fulfilling and sustainable. As providers, the first step we take is to refer those in our care to a medical doctor to rule out any cause for a decline in libido that is medical and or related to a physical health concern,” Peterson adds.

“It’s not the frequency that closes the gap and creates fulfillment,” Peterson says, “it’s the pleasure.”

You Aren’t Just “Good at Sex”

Sleep, stress, physical pain—all are common reasons a partner may turn down sex. And experts say they are valid; both Hunt and Peterson include a health workup to rule out hormonal issues for clients with libido lags.

But when you dig deep enough, both experts say, there’s typically much more to it.

“What I find is that when physical pleasure is not prioritized and there’s a libido gap, either there’s a physical health concern or there is an emotional need, that’s not being addressed in the relationship,” Peterson says.

That emotional need can relate to shame, insecurity, or even, says Peterson, unrecognized trauma.

“People come into a relationship with a fantasy,” Peterson says. “Is this fantasy rooted in some form of trauma that you’re trying to heal within yourself?”

Sometimes that trauma is subtle. Hunt pointed to the scenario of an effeminate man being verbally taunted as a child and later growing into someone with unhealthy ideas for what he deserves sexually.

“Now they feel that being a bottom means I have to do this, I have to take that,” he says. “You have to please the person you’re with, that’s what ‘sissies’ do.”

Stereotypes, meanwhile, often create a type of pressure that couples can’t live up to. For Black men, in particular, those stereotypes can include ideas that they are automatically supposed to be hypersexual or naturally good at sex, Hunt says. When they aren’t, men sometimes shut down.

“People think that sex is either good or not,” Hunt says. “For Black gay men, it’s easy to just dismiss someone based on that because we’ve been cultured to think that sex is such an important part of who we are as gay men. That’s why a lot of people don’t get help.”

Reigniting the Fire

Experts say healthy couples already have the most valuable tool they need to overcome desire gaps — the ability to talk to one another.

“It comes down to what is the level of communication that’s happening in the relationship,” Peterson says. “How safe is it to ask for what you need?”

Among the first things Peterson says couples should discuss is shame, whether it’s surrounding their past relationship traumas or just embarrassment about their sexual needs in the first place.

Such shame can be particularly acute in communities of color, where the topic of sex and sexuality has a lot of historical baggage.

“For so long, sex has been weaponized against us,” Hunt says. “We still have a vulnerability that people find difficult to engage.”

And yet both experts agree that talking as honestly as you can is critical to re-igniting the flames in your love life. Both therapists encourage couples to start by gaining a clear understanding of what they want from the relationship. Next, give yourselves permission to be extremely honest with one another about what you like and don't want more of or less of.

They encourage examining your beliefs around sex—ideas like sex being owed to a partner or being the most important part of a relationship—and creating new ones.

“Figure out your own relationship with sex,” Hunt says. “A lot of gay Black men have unhealthy relationships with sex and those unhealthy relationships with sex will lead to unhealthy relationships with other people.”

Perhaps most importantly, gain a clear understanding of healthy compromise within a relationship. Experts say that can look like negotiating what a partner needs to feel open to more sex or even coming to an agreement on how high a priority sex should be in the relationship.

“It’s important for everybody, every person, to know that they are worthy of what they are asking for,” Peterson says. “To not allow shame regarding their desires, regarding their fulfillment, to be a barrier.”