Excerpt from: Chapter Four
Dancing in the Dark: Reclaiming Sexual Intimacy

New love is the brightest, and long love is the greatest, but
revived love is the tenderest thing known on earth.
—Thomas Hardy

The disruption of intimacy between partners is often part of the collateral damage of trauma. Trauma assaults your sense of self, your view of the world, and your trust in others. It affects you physically and emotionally. It changes your definition of personal safety and your conscious and unconscious desire for closeness. Accordingly, it often changes the sexual intimacy and relationship between you and your partner.

The goal of this chapter is to help you understand how and why trauma disrupts sexual functioning and to offer you strategies for reclaiming, repairing, or reinventing your intimate relationship. It’s common for one or both partners to experience a lack of desire, sexual performance problems, or avoidance of intimacy after trauma. However, because one of the insidious effects of trauma is self-blame, shame, and isolation, most people fear that they alone are the only ones with sexual problems, the only ones who can’t seem to find each other. As you read this chapteryou will find that you are not alone. You will learn about the common sexual issues experienced after trauma and see how they unfold in the lives of other couples.