Talking About Sex in Therapy: Building Connection and Finding Hope

Sex is one of the most vulnerable, intimate aspects of a relationship, and yet, it’s also one of the hardest topics for couples to talk about. Many clients feel ashamed, anxious, or afraid of judgment when sexual struggles show up in their relationship. As a therapist, I want to normalize this: difficulties with sex are common, and they don’t mean your relationship is broken. They simply point to areas where healing, understanding, and new tools can bring closeness back.

Sex Is Both Physical and Emotional

For some people, physical intimacy opens the door to emotional closeness. For others, feeling emotionally safe is what allows physical intimacy to thrive. This difference sometimes shows up along gender lines, though not always. One partner may long for emotional connection before sex, while the other feels closest through physical touch. Therapy helps couples understand these differences, communicate their needs clearly, and meet each other with compassion instead of frustration.

Common Struggles Couples Face

Sexual difficulties can take many forms, and they’re far more common than most people realize:

• Infertility: The stress and heartbreak of infertility can turn sex into a chore, draining pleasure and spontaneity.

• Erectile Dysfunction: A common concern that can impact confidence, closeness, and create pressure for both partners.

• Pain During Sex: Whether experienced by one partner or both, pain can make intimacy feel scary, frustrating, or even avoided.

• Changes in Frequency or Duration: Sometimes sex feels less frequent, rushed, or disconnected, leaving one or both partners feeling unsatisfied.

• Difficulty Finishing: Struggles with orgasm can create anxiety, shame, or guilt that build over time.

These challenges don’t exist in isolation, they affect how couples communicate, how safe they feel with each other, and how connected they are outside the bedroom.

The Emotional Impact

When sex isn’t going well, partners may feel:

• Anxious about performance

• Ashamed of their body or responses

• Guilty for not meeting their partner’s expectations

• Lonely, even within the relationship

But these feelings don’t have to define a couple’s sexual connection. Therapy can provide space to process the emotions behind the struggle, reduce shame, and reframe sex as a place for shared joy instead of pressure.

Coming Together in Hope

Sex therapy doesn’t look like a “fix-it” plan. Instead, it’s about helping couples rediscover where they feel safe, connected, and happy together. Some couples redefine what intimacy means for them, expanding beyond intercourse into touch, affection, playfulness, and communication. Others learn to rebuild trust in their bodies and each other.

The goal isn’t perfection, it’s finding what works for you as a couple, creating a sex life that feels nourishing and meaningful rather than stressful.

Talking About Preferences and Differences

Sex is also deeply personal, and not every couple fits into traditional molds. In therapy, it’s important to create a safe space to talk openly about preferences that may feel harder to share, such as:

• Watching pornography

• Kink or BDSM practices

• Polyamorous or open relationships

• Exploring sexuality and orientation

These conversations can be controversial or uncomfortable, especially if partners have different perspectives. But avoiding them only creates distance. Therapy allows couples to explore these topics respectfully, set healthy boundaries, and decide together what feels right for their relationship.

Finding Intimacy, Your Way

At the heart of sex therapy is this truth: intimacy belongs to you and your partner(s). There is no one-size-fits-all answer. When couples come together to explore their challenges with honesty and curiosity, they often discover not only solutions, but also new layers of connection, joy, and trust.

If sex has become a source of stress or silence in your relationship, know that there is hope. With the right support, couples can navigate difficulties, honor their differences, and create a sex life that reflects the love, respect, and intimacy they deserve.

Intimacy: More Than Just Physical Connection

When couples come to therapy, intimacy is often one of the first concerns they name. Sometimes it’s about physical closeness, but more often it’s about something deeper, wanting to feel seen, heard, valued, and connected. Intimacy is not just one thing. It’s emotional, physical, intellectual, spiritual, and relational. When one area feels off, it can ripple into the rest of the relationship.

As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associate, I help couples look at intimacy in a holistic way. My approach blends Gottman Method Couples Therapy, family of origin exploration, and somatic work so that couples can reconnect not only with each other, but also with themselves.

Intimacy and the Gottman Method

The Gottman Method reminds us that intimacy grows out of friendship, trust, and shared meaning. When couples nurture the small, everyday moments, checking in on each other’s day, showing appreciation, and building rituals of connection, they create the foundation for deeper closeness. In therapy, I guide couples to strengthen these “friendship systems,” which then naturally enrich emotional and physical intimacy.

Family of Origin and Intimacy

Often, the way we give and receive intimacy is influenced by the families we grew up in. For some, affection was freely expressed; for others, emotions were guarded or love was shown in indirect ways. When couples explore these patterns, they begin to understand not just what intimacy looks like for them, but why. This insight opens the door for partners to rewrite the script together, choosing new, intentional ways of giving and receiving closeness.

Somatic Work and Feeling Safe in Intimacy

Intimacy also lives in the body. When arguments escalate or emotions feel overwhelming, the nervous system can become flooded, making closeness feel unsafe. Using somatic tools, I help clients learn how to calm their bodies, notice their triggers, and reconnect in ways that feel grounded and safe. This might mean pausing during an argument to regulate, or practicing mindful touch and breathwork to restore a sense of connection.

Intimacy Beyond Couples

While much of this work happens between partners, intimacy is also about how we relate to ourselves and to our families as a whole. Sometimes, strengthening intimacy as a couple creates ripple effects, improving family communication, building stronger bonds with children, and breaking generational patterns of disconnection.

Building Lasting Closeness

True intimacy is not about perfection, it’s about vulnerability, curiosity, and courage. It’s about being willing to say, “This is who I am,” and trusting that your partner will meet you there. Through therapy, couples learn not only how to repair after conflicts, but also how to nurture closeness in ways that feel authentic to them.

At A Strand of Hope Counseling, my goal is to help couples and families find deeper connection by weaving together research-based tools, personal insight, and embodied practices. Because intimacy is not just about what happens in the bedroom, it’s about the safety, trust, and love that couples create in every corner of their relationship.

Strengthening Your Marriage: Beyond Communication Skills

Marriage is not just about living together, it’s about learning, growing, and navigating life’s challenges as a team. Many couples find that even years into marriage, they still bump up against the same arguments, triggers, or stuck patterns. That doesn’t mean the marriage is broken. It means the relationship is inviting deeper work.

In my work with couples, I primarily use Gottman Method Couples Therapy, which is rooted in decades of research on what makes relationships succeed. Couples learn practical skills for improving communication, managing conflict, and strengthening friendship and intimacy. But sometimes, to get real traction, we need to go beyond communication strategies alone. That’s when I bring in family of origin work and somatic tools to help couples move forward.

Family of Origin: The Invisible Blueprint

Every person brings their history into their marriage, the way love was shown (or not shown), how conflict was handled, what trust looked like, and how emotions were expressed. These early experiences shape how we show up with our partner today.

In therapy, we explore how these patterns influence the couple’s dynamic. Maybe one partner avoids conflict because in their family, disagreements felt unsafe. Maybe the other pushes harder for resolution because growing up, problems were ignored. By understanding these “invisible blueprints,” couples gain compassion for each other and clarity about how to create new patterns together.

Somatic Work: Calming the Flood

Even the healthiest couples get emotionally flooded during arguments, when the body shifts into fight, flight, or freeze mode. In those moments, logic goes out the window, and communication tools don’t always land.

That’s where somatic work comes in. Somatic tools focus on calming the nervous system, helping each partner recognize when their body is in overdrive and learn how to regulate before re-engaging in the conversation. This might involve grounding exercises, breathwork, or other physical techniques that reset the body so the mind can follow.

For Couples, and Families Too

While this work is powerful for couples, the same principles apply to families as a whole. Families can learn to recognize intergenerational patterns, manage emotional flooding, and communicate more effectively. Whether it’s parent-child relationships, siblings, or extended family dynamics, these approaches can create more understanding, safety, and connection.

The Deeper Work of Marriage

Couples therapy is not just about solving arguments, it’s about building a resilient, connected partnership that can withstand the ups and downs of life. By blending the

Gottman Method, family of origin exploration, and somatic practices, I help couples move beyond surface-level struggles into deeper healing and lasting change.

Because at the end of the day, marriage is not just about surviving conflict, it’s about creating a safe, supportive relationship where both partners can thrive.