They went from sexual & emotional gridlock to letting love & sex flow
* Al & Blair are actual clients, with fictitious names, who gave me permission to share their story. They are a heterosexual couple in their late 30s, living in the US. They had hit 9 out of 10 on the spiral of intimacy-destroying behaviors. We worked together for 18 months. Names have been changed to protect privacy.
Al and Blair were in a gridlock place of defensiveness and power struggles that made sexual intimacy impossible.
“We had gotten so defensive with each other,” Al recounted. “It wasn't about negotiating anymore, but about battling things out. We were on our own in the relationship, and it just made it so hard to accomplish anything.”
Day to day, we couldn't depend on each other for emotional support. Everything was like a business negotiation and a power struggle. There wasn't any room for compassion or empathy. We never finished disagreements, so they just fell into the background and kept building on top of each other. There was never any place to breathe.
Blair was also struggling. “I was in a really bad place emotionally and I couldn't voice any of that to Al. So he couldn't help me in any real way and I couldn't help myself. The fact that I couldn't even talk to my partner about it was suffocating me.”
All of This Affected Their Sex Life
Blair: “I was just stuck and sex was not enjoyable, not fun. And it just added to that anxiety that I was having that I wasn't giving him what he needed, but I had no idea how to do that and also get what I needed. I was completely stuck.”
Al added: “Sex felt like something we were using to just prevent everything else from getting more worse.”
And Blair concurred: “It was like a checklist thing I had to do. It was the only way we had to be close to each other, but I didn't enjoy it.”
For Al: “Sex became something I knew that I needed to be happy, but I didn’t really want to put in the effort to foster intimacy because Blair was unlikely to reciprocate. The windows where intimacy seemed possible got narrower and harder to actualize, and the sex we did have became less and less enjoyable and rewarding.”
For Blair: “there was a lack of desire, but a sense of obligation, and as a result, sex became less enjoyable and painful at times. It didn’t feel like a way to connect, so much as something we just had to do.
The Tipping Point
Blair: “One day, we tried to have sex and I was just like, I'm not feeling this. Then we got into yet another argument about how sex is an issue. It led us to question how we could commit to being with each other if this is what our sex life looks like.”
And for Al, it was so much more than just sex.
“I had arrived at a place of inadequacy. I wanted to get back to being happy and I felt that there was nothing I could do to make her happy. And so for me, it felt like we had arrived at a fork in the road and the options were to find someone who can help us be happy or give up and stop torturing each other.”
Acknowledging the problem (by submitting the consultation form) was the first step in taking back control.
“At that time, I didn't want professional help,” Blair admitted. “I was thinking: we can fix this, we're just not trying hard enough. Then it just escalated and turned into a huge fight, and I just felt helpless.”
“But Al has been a big advocate of finding a therapist and I realized that he's right. We're not going to fix this with a book on our own. I found this website and watched the video and everything you said resonated with me.
I filled out the consultation questionnaire and it just came pouring out of me and I just submitted it. With that, I just felt like I had taken a little bit of control back for myself and took a good step forward for us.
Our Consultation Meeting
“When we had our first meeting, we just looked at each other and it felt right. It's a lot of money, but are we going to save that money and lose our relationship? Is our relationship only worth that amount of money? If so, then let's just walk away.
We had our answer right there. We were willing to invest to make this work, and it just felt like a no-brainer. We really didn't think about it that long or hard, just felt it was right.”
Going Through the Journey
Recounting details of a recent tumultuous weekend, Al and Blair appreciate the tools they’ve gathered along their journey that prevented would would have been a painful experience.
Blair: “This past weekend was a culmination of using all that we learned along the way. There was this huge tidal wave of emotions, where we were finally able to use all of these different tools in different ways to have a good conversation, to create intimacy, to create safety. And I felt like I am now equipped to do this. It's not going to do this perfectly every time. That's not the point. The point is that I have the set of tools to help me relate better to Al and to help me identify how I'm feeling.”
I don't find myself back in that place that we were when we first started, where I felt alone and unable to voice my concerns out loud, for fear of them being true and us having to end things. So we're able to communicate more and not hold those resentments or feelings in, which creates intimacy.
The step-by-step coaching process helped them get there
Blair: “Every week we were given the set up tools or ways to think differently or act differently that we really tried to internalize and practice. We made these incremental steps and moments when I realized, ‘Wow, I'm using this now and I'm feeling better. Ok, this makes sense.’”
Al added:
“Along the way, there were a lot of small revelations and moments of enlightenment, learning frameworks, vocabulary, and practices and processes and small reassurances, not an overwhelming catharsis. But you do go into it thinking like there's going to be a moment where we're fixed. That's not how it is at all. It really is very incremental. And you have to learn to appreciate partial successes along the way, but that itself creates intimacy.”
Blair: “They happened to us all the time. I think everyone thinks that progress is a straight line up. Right! What we kept learning over and over is that it's an up and down fluctuation … towards the positive. Today, I don't let those moments of down make me think that our relationship is over anymore. It simply feels like part of the process. All along the way, there were these moments of realization where I could turn my mindset from something dark and negative into something positive and looking forward to our progress. This is a step in the direction of progress, not a downward spiral towards us breaking up.
What I love about all this is that it helps me relate to all the people in my life. I use all of these tools with everyone in my life that I have intimate relationships with, whether it's friends or family. You start to look at your conversations differently. And talk to people differently.”
Another benefit was gaining a vocabulary to express what they want.
Al recalled: It was a really big deal to identify words to describe my desires or what I need for the first time in my life. It untangled a lot of my feelings, resentments and fears. It helped me see these are the things that I want and not getting them. Which means that I can negotiate my way to some version of these. I felt hope because now there's understanding, awareness and communication. And it started with me understanding that about myself.
To find their way to each other and to deeper intimacy, Al and Blair had to overcome some major fears about themselves and their relationship.
A huge one for Blair was:
Vulnerability isn't weakness. You need safety to be vulnerable, but that being vulnerable creates exactly what we're looking for, which is a stronger connection. And we need to be able to put down our guards long enough to be able to do that.”
For Al, the big fear was a fear of failure. “And inadequacy. Failure and inadequacy have been the two big ones for me.”
To be “intimacy warriors” takes getting over fears, especially the fear of telling others about what’s going on — something that inadvertently kept them feeling alone and unsupported.
Blair: “For me, I had to get over the fear of voicing my concerns out loud because of ‘what if they're just true and then we just break up? What if the stuff isn't fixable? What does that mean about us as people? And what does that mean for us as a couple?”
I think a lot of people in our lives have this perception of us as this perfect couple. And so the fear of us having to go out there and be like, ‘oh no, we actually have a whole set of problems’ was scary for me. It felt like dropping the veil that we're just always happy, always best friends and always perfect. And so being like ‘oh no, we're not’ was really scary for me.”
Al adds:
“I had only told one person during the year and a half that we were going through really hard times and that our relationship wasn't going great. There was just one distant friend who I could be honest with, and as much as that helped, it wasn't enough to change anything. But it reflected to me how afraid I was to be honest with the people I cared about, about what was going on in my life and in our relationship.”
Blair: “Yeah. I didn't want to tell anybody around us cause I figured we could muscle through it, fix it and then no one would ever have to know. And that, that part of it would just go away. And now we tell everyone.”
Today, they both admit that:
When people complain to us and voice their frustrations and their fears, we can say that we only fixed that because of the work we did. And acknowledging that we needed it and taking the steps to actually do the work. There's vulnerability and honesty in that. We want to give that gift to other people.
Their Relationship Today
When asked to summarize in three words their relationship today, it’s “secure, promising and progressing.”
Al: “I have become more human. I have been very robotic my whole life. And so more empathetic, more real, a little more quiet.
And I’ve become the opposite of guarded. So much more vulnerable … willing to show my imperfections and willing to own up to those. To actually show people that I am a person who is capable of vulnerability.”
Blair: “I didn't want to be wrong. So, I avoided saying stupid or wrong or dumb so I don't want to sound silly. I was a bulldozer and was over-intellectualizing everything.
When we started, I just wanted to win the fight. I wanted to do it in a way where I wanted him to feel bad because he made me feel bad and that he had to apologize. And then I didn't. And that is so the antithesis of how I approach our conversations now, like I, we can go into conversations and I hope he feels like I'm not winning. I'm not trying to win anymore.
Blair continued: Now I am more open about what I'm feeling. I censor myself less before I say something. It feels better to get it out than it does to keep it in. And I think that goes along with being more vulnerable, like being willing to make those mistakes and say things in an imperfect way in the fight to just vocalize how you're feeling. But as long as it stays inside, nothing's going to happen with it. It's just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. So being able to be more vulnerable with not only Al, but with myself, like is really a huge part of this. I don't always have to be strong. I don't always have to be perfect. I don't always have to be all of that. Like, I can feel anything I want and voicing that to Al makes us stronger, not weaker. Me having these doubts is just human feelings.”
And it's not about winning anymore. It's not about one of us winning — it's about us. This is so corny but it’s true. It's about us winning together. What can I do to help you feel safer, happier, better today?
And Al is more there for me. He checks in with me emotionally and physically. He is available to meet me wherever I'm at on that day. And I can be in any different place. I can be upset. I can be sad. I can be happy. I can be anywhere. And he is going to be there for me in that moment. Not having expectations of where I should be. And these are easier conversations now, where everything doesn't feel so dire, everything doesn't feel like it's hanging in the balance. It always just feels like I can come to [him] with these conversations that I want or need to have with him. I feel a desire to come to him now, instead of hiding it.
Al: Blair has become a life raft for me in a way that I didn't think I was allowed to have. What a crazy thought to be like swimming in the ocean, your whole life, all by yourself with no land in sight. And then to suddenly realize you're allowed to have a life raft. And so [she] became something that's just totally new to my life experience that has made me feel so much more safe and able to, to let my guard down and just not be so rigid all the time and not always in survival mode and not always trying to be like an apex, you know? I have a life raft now, and that is such a game-changer for my whole life.
Their Sex Life Today
Al: “It’s just a relief that sexual tension (and desire) doesn’t build up to untenable levels anymore. I can express my sexual desires and know that they will be heard. I know that I can be intimate with Blair in a way that feels good for her, emotionally and physically. I feel a physical and emotional connection with Blair that had been missing.”
Sex is fun (and sometimes funny), exciting, and we explore and experiment in ways that we never could before.
Blair: “Al can be honest and open about what he needs, so I can respond to that. And because that reduces my anxiety around sex, I’m able to enjoy it now. I feel like I can also be more honest with Al about what I want and need, which has made our sex life much more fun and interesting!”
