Playing with your lover | having fun in your relationship
The importance of playing with your lover
This being a sex blog, I am sure you have understood “playing with your lover” in the sexual sense of the word. You dirty minds! I can see your imagination galloping: you are thinking of cock rings, kinky toys and titillating roleplaying, aren’t you?
I’ll stop you right there. For once, it’s not sex I am referring to.
Connecting with your inner child
At this point, I have non-sexual playing in mind: miniature-painting, paragliding, trivial pursuit. WWII re-enactments, dance classes, pottery. You name it. As long as it makes you happy and doesn’t serve any functional purpose whatsoever, it counts as playing. Adults with busy lives tend to underestimate the importance of playing. We get swamped by obligations and, at some point, even finding time for pleasure feels like a chore.
-“I really don’t feel like going out tonight, I am wasted, but it’s Mauro’s 40th, I can’t possibly skip it!”, a pale Xander whined to me the other night.
This was not a first for Xander. I also regularly overload my program with activities which should, in theory, give me pleasure but in practice only stress me. No judgement here.
It’s a shame though. Play is not only important for personal balance and development. It also seems to be a crucial factor for matrimonial bliss.
Having fun in your relationship
Howard Markman has been studying fun in couples since 1996 and is adamant: couples that play and laugh regularly together are happier. Maybe that’s why John Gottman in his Eight Dates proposes that you go out to play with your lover for date nr. 6. The questions he poses are interesting: what does adventure mean to you and your partner? What’s the last thing you can remember doing that was only about having fun? Don’t be daunted if your idea of fun is different than your partner’s. Doing new things together keeps the novelty of relationships intact!
Reading this made me wonder: do Xander and I play together? I mean we certainly love sexual playing, but what about good old-fashioned recreation?
I have to admit I am spoiled here. Xander has one of the most creative imaginations I’ve ever encountered. We play a lot: we dive, we climb (ok, I do most of the climbing while Xander holds the rope shouting instructions), we are into Dungeons and Dragons, superheroes, puzzles, lego’s and writing together. And when we play, we often get carried away. We put a lot of passion and energy into our playing.
Our favourite hobby: playing Couple of Secrets
This blog is a perfect example of our common play. I remember people asking us when we had first started the blog: Why are you doing this? Why are you divulging details of your sexual life? Many things triggered us to start Couple of Secrets, but -hand on the heart- I think the most honest answer is simply that we have fun doing it. Starting a common project, combining two of our biggest passions -sex and writing- is our idea of common play.
Sex games are fun too
So, you know how I told you, in the beginning, this wasn’t going to be a post about sexual playing? Well, I’ve changed my mind.
You see, for Xander and me, sexual experimentation is a kind of play. How else to describe the hours spent planning how to realize our latest fantasy or reminiscing of our past sexual escapades in bed? Setting out to discover the next swingers club or to try out a new sex toy, going out for drinks and spending hours discussing how our sex life is evolving and what the next post should be for Couple of Secrets don’t serve strictly speaking any functional purpose. We do it for pleasure.
But what makes it fun? The truth is we don’t need any of this to satisfy our sexual hunger. Sex between us is profoundly satisfying and it is evolving with time. Sexual exploration is just an added layer to that: it has become a hobby of ours. It’s not something that we need to keep the flame between us burning. If it were necessary, it would probably feel like a chore.
Every couple has its own habits and preferences to play. Tell us what you enjoy doing with your partner. How do you play with your lover?
Photo credit: Pexels and Pixabay
