Comments on: Reclaiming Sexual Intimacy in Your Relationship

By: Homecoming:Falling in Love Again | Healing Together for Couples

Homecoming:Falling in Love Again | Healing Together for Couples — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 07:37:17 +0000

[...] Reclaiming intimacy often happens best is small and special steps. Listening to music, holding each other, laughing and crying together, talking in the dark about your first time as lovers all work to restore a sense of trust and intimacy. As such, they enhance sexual connection. [...]

By: Understanding the Sounds of Silence in Your Relationship | Healing Together for Couples

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:35:22 +0000

[...] Words Can’t Say: As addressed in my 2008 book Healing Together and my blog post “Reclaiming Sexual Intimacy in Your Relationship,” there is a intimate bond that couples share physically that can not at times be translated [...]

By: Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP

Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:36:18 +0000

Nat: Thanks for sharing what does sound like a very difficult situation. One of my concerns is that intimacy has become defined in terms of sexual relating and the despair that it can’t be fixed. That said, I worry more about the staying out of each other’s way and the missed intimacy of other ways of relating. Sometimes we are in such pain over what we don’t have, it is truly hard to muster the energy to use what we do. Sometimes the new and different explored together is a start. A new restaruant, playing a game of cards in your yard, visiting a park, eating in your car in a new town – are things that partners sometimes only do with each other – Yes these sound simplistic and they in no way dismiss what you miss- but they are sometimes the unexpected step of changing the perspective and lifting the feelings. It would be great if one of you could risk saying – “What are we doing sitting across the room from each other when we could be walking together?” You never know where it leads. Thanks for your comment – Suzanne

By: Nat

Nat — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:25:35 +0000

There is no healing in our situation
My wife and I have been married 43 years and about 26 years without sex or intimacy and without any kind of real love. I’ve had E/D for years and nothing has helped. Were in our 60′s and physical probems get worse. We both take depression meds and other meds for blood pressure, cholesterol and etc. Every body says they can fix a sexless marriage but thats not true, for us its been to long and even if we could there wouldn’t be enough time. So we stay out of each others way, I’ve become really quiet, I let my wife talk and I respond with a grunt, or yes or no. She don’t want to listen to me.

By: Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP

Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 23:14:31 +0000

Adventureh: Thanks for your comment – so glad you are dancing! Suzanne

By: adventureh

adventureh — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 19:49:27 +0000

My partner and i are dancing together, in the dark.

I just hope that we could keep the magical connection so that our distance relationship will last.

Thanks for sharing something from your book!

By: Understanding Jealousy in Your Relationship | Healing Together for Couples

Understanding Jealousy in Your Relationship | Healing Together for Couples — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:27:19 +0000

[...] decide to use their suspicion as a point of information and they move in to reclaim the relationship and the intimacy . Sometimes without too much said, their efforts bring a reciprocal positive response. If the [...]

By: Getting Divorced: Steps to Dissolving a Marriage | Getting a Divorce

Getting Divorced: Steps to Dissolving a Marriage | Getting a Divorce — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:05:53 +0000

[...] Reclaiming Sexual Intimacy in Your Relationship | Healing Together … [...]

By: Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP

Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:32:43 +0000

Mariah: Thank you for your comment. I certainly have to agree that there is no easy answer and when you are living it – it is more real and difficult than anyone else can feel, much less write about. Th very fact that you are reading, looking and even commenting tells me about your own personal resiliency. Thanks and believe in the one person you can count on – you. – Suzanne

By: Mariah

Mariah — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:28:18 +0000

Dr. Phillips wrote –

“I would say if there is any aspect of your relationship where you can feel authentic enjoyment – that is where you start. Confidantes are intimate even if for some reason it can’t quite be physical[.]”

Here’s the problem with this. You can have authentic enjoyment with anyone. Anyone can be a confidante — a family member, a trusted friend. You can all manner of extraordinary intimacy with family members and trusted friends.

What you can’t have, if you’re married, is sex with them! (The friends, not the family. I’m not naive about incest.) So the idea of focusing on intimacy and confidante-ness with your spouse if your sex life is gone is very cold comfort. Very, very cold.