How Were The Holidays? The post holiday season can be an especially challenging time for couples. Perhaps you are empty nesters and the kids went back to school. Could be your vicarious thrill in watching your young children’s Christmas joy has waned with the new year or maybe when the grandparents flew back to home […]
Sex and Intimacy
The Poison Sex Dart: Objectifying Love
Not a Prescription Nor a Cure, Just a Perspective: What does it take for two people to always feel mutually stimulated and sated in a long-term relationship? Probably magic. As a therapist what strikes me as most ironic and piercingly problematic is that the bedroom, specifically and most likely, the bed, often evolves into being […]
Spotlight on The Heart: Valentine’s Day
What’s Tough About February 14? Besides the possibility of being caught in a winter blizzard, February 14 is the one day a year when the cultural spotlight aims its beams of light on the heart of the relationship. How soft, flattering or harsh the light feels, depends on the health of that heart, year to […]
Coupledom Resolutions Revisited: New Years 2014
New Couples, Veteran Couples: Here are a few suggestions for the ritual of joint resolution that we call the New Year. When the ball drops this even numbered New Year be prepared. Talking Heads: Vow to aim for eye contact when you have verbal exchanges as much as possible. The walking out of or into […]
Sexual Pain Or Impaired Performance: No Shame, No Blame
What Is Not Spoken: As a couples’ therapist I am accustomed to learning from my patients that they have not experienced sexual intimacy for months or years leading up to their visits with me. Numbers of years. What is equally significant is the common admission that paralleling the absence of physical contact has been the […]
The Passive-Aggressive Punch: The Silent Code of Anger In The Coupledom
Jill is taking a break from the blog this week. Here is one of her most popular posts from the past year or so. Excerpt: Withholding: A common form of passive-aggressive behavior is withholding: sex, affection, information, conversation. Someone in the Coupledom stops chatting, sharing details of family life; someone refrains from conveying essential data […]
Getting Married? How To Stay Sexy Together From The Inside Out
A Gift Of A Mind-Set: The wedding date is approaching and you and your partner may already be residing together. Or you may be living apart but have enjoyed sexual intimacy for sometime. Perhaps the two of you have delayed that most intimate of connections for your wedding night. Then again, you may be amongst […]
The Un-Romantic Bed
Bill Maher: If ever there were an unromantic guy, it is Bill Maher with his surgeon-like skill to slice away all artifice and get to the earthy or seamy underbelly of so much of life, political and otherwise. Recently, he made a comment about sleep which got me thinking about the unromantic aspect of sleeping […]
Free Holiday Gifts
As the holidays consume our time and attention, I suspect reading blogs will fall down on the “to do” list. But just in case you have a moment now or after the Times Square Ball drops us into 2012, take a peek at the contents page of The Couples Tool Kit. Or dip into the […]
Finding Love Over Fifty Online?
Can Dreams Come True After Fifty-Two? I am hearing a lot lately about older folks meeting up and partnering or even marrying, happily and in many cases, unexpectedly. Unexpected in that either they had been searching for years with no results, or surprisingly lucky when they began their search to find the perfect mate. Perfect […]
Husbands Without Friendships or Heart: Why?
Boys Are Socially Illiterate? Niobe Way, a psychologist at New York University whose area of specialty is adolescent development, recently published a book entitled Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and The Crisis of Connection. The book focuses on her research on male adolescent friendships, her experience as a high school guidance counselor and observations as the […]
Oldies but Goodies: Sex In The Coupledom: A Powerful Absence
Happy Labor Day Weekend! Jill is taking a break from the blog this weekend to rest and relax post Hurricane Irene. Here is one of her most popular posts from the past year or so. Excerpt: No Shame Needed Here: The fact that a significant number of couples are not having great sex, frequent sex […]
Oldies but Goodies: Weight Gain, Sex, And The Coupledom: Weight Tells A Story
Happy Labor Day Weekend! Jill is taking a break from the blog this weekend to rest and relax post Hurricane Irene. Here is one of her most popular posts from the past year or so. Excerpt: A Forbidden Topic: Weight talk in a relationship is so tricky and full of traps that most couples avoid […]
The Singledom Blues
The Suitable Other: I have been asked by folks, who are negotiating the worlds of post-divorce, widowhood, breakups and unwanted celibacy, to share some thoughts on The Singledom, a phrase used here to encompass a life in search of the suitable other. What’s New Under The Dating Sun? Mainly the pace and the method of […]
Addressing “Married, with Infidelities” within The Coupledom
Taking a break from taking a break, I couldn’t resist commenting on a very interesting article in the magazine section of today’s NY Times, Married, With Infidelities, by Mark Oppenheimer, who writes the Beliefs column. (Especially in the light of all the recent conversation about infidelity surrounding former NY Congressman Anthony Weiner and his Sexting escapades, […]
Sex In The Coupledom: A Powerful Absence
Sexual Intimacy MIA?: “A common clinical adage is that sexuality contributes 15-20% to a marriage’s serving of shared pleasure……… When sexuality is difficult or non-existent, it plays an inordinately powerful role, perhaps 50-75%.” (McCarthy & Metz, 1997). When physical intimacy is missing in action in The Coupledom, its importance soars! No Shame Needed Here: The […]