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Key points
- Desire can be felt and expressed as a sentient force creating connection.
- Play diminishes unnecessary drama, supports the feeling of joy, and deepens a sense of belonging.
- Couples can restimulate the important relational ingredient of warmth, experienced in touch and gestures.
In Greek mythology, Eros is the son of Aphrodite and the god of love and sex. He possesses a youthful countenance. You don't need to welcome the god into your relationship, but rather the energies the god symbolizes. I am inclined to think of desire as the most essential energy reflective of Eros. I like thinking of sex within the perspective of bringing bodies together to play, being affectionate, nurturing, cuddling, and erotic.
The key is not to minimize the power of desire but to learn to live it as a significant emotional ingredient, enhancing passion, depth, and kindness. You begin welcoming eros as you come to feel, know, and speak your desire and empathically understand your partner’s desire. Let’s look more closely at how to commit to living from desire and some of the likely benefits.
Living With Desire
De-shame your desire. Knowing, feeling, and expressing your desire is not selfish or excessively self-serving. It is simply a natural way to take responsibility for your needs. You’re entitled to meet your needs by making choices that support them or by making requests of others.
Give your desire a concrete voice. Tell your partner what you want in clear, concrete, and behavioral terms. So it's not, “I want you to be more considerate,” but rather, “I want you to help me prepare the children’s school lunches.”
Remind your partner of the three responses supporting eros. The options are “Yes,” “No,” and “I want to negotiate.” Assessments and criticisms of the request are eliminated. All requests are treated as legitimate.
Be curious about your partner’s desire. Ask what might be desired of you. Remember, you have three appropriate responses to what is asked of you. The key is to be honest about your response, even when you feel guilty about saying “no.”
Evaluate the outcome of a request being met. Make time to be curious: “How did it go? You asked me to help you with the yard work. Am I in meeting your request?” This kind of check-in affirms the importance of your partner feeling satisfied and supports the role of eros in the relationship. Remember, this is not about you becoming a pleaser; it’s about supporting desire and remaining accountable for agreements.
Express interest in how desire is living generally in your relationship. Helpful questions include: "Are we getting what we want from one another?" "Are you getting what you want from life generally?" "Is there a way we can more effectively support one another’s desires?"
Benefits of Eros
Play. As long as play isn’t a distraction from some dynamic that deserves significant attention, it can bring a much-needed lightness to the work of emotional intimacy. It can also mitigate the amount of drama in a relationship. Play also has the ability to bring suppleness to life challenges, allowing us to release an unnecessary severity.
Inspiration. Eros can be a sentient force that creates new ways to collaborate, problem-solve, make decisions, and express love.
Adventures. Eros animates an adventurous spirit, stimulating new considerations for trips, vacations, hobbies, and places to live, and opening up new professional possibilities.
Fire. Eros is a hot energy. It can guide the non-blameful expression of anger, incinerating the ice of resentment. Eros also prioritizes warmth, such as acts of kindness, cuddling, hugging, holding, kissing, holding hands, and soft invitational gazing.
Sex. When talking about desire regarding a wide range of longings is normalized, there is more ease in talking about sexual desire.
Gratitude. When couples live their desires and experience a measure of satisfaction, feeling grateful is a natural outcome, with both people feeling valued by the other.
It helps to pay attention to emotions that surface as you express your desires and authentically respond to your partner’s requests. These emotions might be fear, disappointment, hurt, anger, or most commonly, guilt. Guilt surfaces when you’re in a story about desire, defining yourself as selfish or not entitled to say “no” to your partner’s requests. Work with the guilt, acknowledge it, voice your desire, or say “no” to a request. Over time, the guilt will lose a good deal of its clout.
