Why Does Stress Affect Sexual Desire? The Flooded Mountain Range I work with many couples puzzled by changes in their sex lives. Sometimes they are not dramatic shifts like affairs or mismatched libidos. Sometimes, couples just experience confusing, slow declines in erotic connection. Couples now stick to routines, partners question why former turn-ons stopped working,…
Family Meeting to Maintain Household and Relationship Let’s face it, this life is complex. You’re probably spread too thin between work, eating, cleaning, laundry, bathing, exercise (if you even have time), and family. Even if you don’t have ADHD, it might feel like you’re constantly surfing from crisis to crisis and making more mistakes than…
Couples Coping with COVID-19 I’ve already heard couples complain: “I can’t believe we’ve only been quarantined for two days and I already can’t stand being with my partner.” “I’m glad that we’re together, but we’ve been so distant for so long that I’m not sure what this is going to be like.” “Either being quarantined…
Why He Watches Porn Instead of Having Sex It is a common complaint, and not just in heterosexual couples. I hear one partner complain that he watches porn when the partner wants to have sex. It can be hard to understand, so I decided to write a post to help people make sense of this…
This blog entry returns to my How Sexuality Works series which uses the metaphor of a river to help explain sexuality and eroticism. For prior posts in the series click the links below or skip below to read about sexual compatibility. Sexuality Is a River What is Erotic and Why? Part I What is Erotic…
My Relationship is Bad. Exit Or Stick Around? “How long should I stay?” is a question that I get sometimes in individual therapy clients and a little less frequently in couple therapy too. As a therapist, I can’t answer for the client but I do have ways of helping my clients answer the question for…
Eight Ways to Avoid Holiday Arguments and Keep the Peace Every holiday, all over social media, I see snarky posts about the yearly tradition of holiday arguments. Maybe it is no surprise then that right after New Year’s Day, couples therapist offices like mine are flooded with new clients seeking help for issues that came…
Bored in Bed? Place an Order With This Sex Menu This is a little tool that I created to help couples that are bored in bed. Follow these instructions so you can create your sex menu while you read along. Take regular sheet of paper, hold it with the long edge toward the bottom (landscape…
Befriending the Dragon: Decreasing Relationship Reactivity In attempting to help clients figure out how to decrease relationship reactivity during their relationships, I’ve come up with a metaphor that helps people begin practicing a more confident and peaceful responses. Before I get to that, I’ll describe high reactivity through the same metaphor. Imagine that your partner…
The most common presenting issue I hear is a need for “communication skills,” aka arguments. From my perspective, having done this work for a number of years, is that communication problems are often a result of attachment challenges. That is, the couple is caught in a dance that reflects their individual attachment styles. While there…