RISE Library: Articles on Sex, Intimacy, and Communication 

It’s 10:30 at night. You’ve both worked all day, handled dinner, chores, and maybe the kids, and you’re finally in bed. One of you rests a hand on the other’s thigh, and the other person starts wondering what it means. Is this affection? Are they trying to initiate sex? For someone who's already exhausted or stressed, having to figure that out can feel like one more thing to deal with at the end of a long day. Most of us were never taught how to initiate sex. We learned from

You say yes to something your partner asks, even though you really want to say no. Maybe you're trying to avoid an argument, or you're worried they'll be disappointed or upset with you. So you tell yourself it's not a big deal and agree anyway. It feels like the easiest choice in the moment, especially when you don't know how your partner might react if you were honest. The wish that you'd said no doesn't just disappear, though. Each time you agree to something you don't real

You're struggling with your sex life, you're desperately missing your partner, and every time you try to talk about it, they change the subject, get irritated, or simply stay silent. Eventually, you stop bringing it up, even though the wanting hasn't gone away. In that silence, your mind starts filling in the gaps with assumptions you haven't checked for accuracy, leaving you wondering whether you're incompatible, whether your partner still loves you, or whether this is the b

You bring up something small with your partner. Maybe it’s the trash that still hasn’t gone out, something they shared in front of friends, or a moment where you felt dismissed. You’re trying to talk about one specific thing, and suddenly you’re hearing, “I can’t do anything right.” When your partner gets defensive like this, the conversation can quickly shift away from what you were actually trying to address. Sometimes the way something is brought up does matter. Leading wi

You can be talking to your partner about the same relationship and interpret the conversation completely differently. I learned that recently when I told my partner, Dallas, I was feeling disconnected and found out he heard that very differently than I intended it. Neither of us knew there was a misunderstanding until we actually talked about what that word meant to each of us. While I spend my days talking about sex and relationships as a couples therapist, Dallas didn’t gro

You found porn on your partner’s phone, and now you’re wondering if watching porn is cheating or if you’re overreacting. Or maybe you’re the one whose partner found it, and you genuinely don’t understand why something you never considered cheating suddenly feels like betrayal to them. Either way, you can end up arguing about a question neither of you ever actually said out loud. That’s why couples can so easily talk past each other when it comes to porn. One person is focused

You want to work on your sex life. Your partner wants to work on communication. When you are coming into couples therapy focused on different problems, it can be hard to know where you are supposed to begin. And if each of you already feels like your concern has been overlooked, even deciding what therapy should focus on can turn into another argument. Different goals for couples therapy do not necessarily mean you want different things from the relationship. You may both wan

You can still love your partner, function well together, and somehow end up feeling more like roommates than romantic partners. Maybe you do everything together and have trouble functioning as two separate people. Or maybe you’ve become so independent that you divide the responsibilities, stay out of each other’s way, and rarely talk about what’s actually happening beneath the surface. These relationships can look completely different from the outside, but both can lose the b

Past relationship trauma can quietly shape the relationship you're in now, even when your current partner has done nothing to cause it. Your ex cheated on you, so you check your partner's phone. Or a former partner emotionally disappeared when things got serious, so now you find yourself bracing for the same thing to happen again. This is one way betrayal trauma can follow you into a new relationship. Your brain may understand that your current partner is different, while you

You’re trying to be clear about what you need in your relationship, so you draw a line and tell yourself you’re setting a boundary. But when your partner responds with defensiveness instead of change, it may be worth asking whether what you communicated was actually a boundary or an ultimatum. A boundary stays focused on your own limits and what you’re willing to do. An ultimatum shifts the focus toward controlling your partner’s behavior or forcing a specific outcome. The co

If you’re checking how long it's been since you last had sex or bringing up an ex just to see how your partner reacts, you've probably told yourself it's harmless. But what if the behaviors you’re using to feel safer in your relationship are actually creating more distance between you and your partner? Anxious attachment doesn’t always look like obvious clinginess or pursuit. Sometimes it shows up through testing, monitoring, or keeping score, especially when your nervous sys

Couples can spend months or even years working on communication, conflict, and trust without ever talking about what is happening in their sex life. Once sexual concerns come up, their couples therapist may refer them to a sex therapist, almost as if sex is a separate problem that needs to be handed off to someone else. Part of the reason is that many couples therapists were never formally trained to talk about sex. That can leave couples doing important work on their emotion

A calm, steady relationship can start to feel like something is missing, even when nothing seems wrong. If you have a trauma history, quiet may be harder to trust than chaos ever was. What feels like boredom or incompatibility may be your nervous system mistaking calm for the absence of love or desire. Trauma can also show up when you pull away as soon as a relationship starts to feel good, use sex or being desired as proof of your worth, or feel drawn to dynamics that do not

Scheduling sex can sound like a practical solution when life is full and intimacy keeps getting pushed aside. It can also leave you feeling like sex has become another obligation on the calendar, especially when the pressure starts building long before the scheduled time arrives. The difference often comes down to what that time is expected to guarantee. When scheduling protects space for connection and leaves room for desire to develop, it can take pressure off. When it star

Couples wait an average of six years after problems start before ever getting help. If you’ve been sitting on the question, “Will you go to couples therapy with me?” you probably understand how that happens. You know something needs to shift, but you’re worried your partner will hear the request as, “Our relationship is failing,” or “You’re the problem.” Even if you never say those words, that energy can show up in your tone and body language. Research on conflict conversatio

Your desire for sex doesn’t match your partner’s, and now you’re wondering what that difference says about your relationship. Is this a normal part of being together long term, or a sign that something has started to go wrong? Mismatched sex drives are incredibly common, but that doesn’t mean every desire gap should be ignored. Sometimes the difference comes down to spontaneous and responsive desire. Other times, resentment, pressure, and emotional disconnection have started

A viral podcast clip recently claimed that pleasuring a woman during sex has “not much ROI” and that using a vibrator would make him feel “cucked.” Reducing a woman’s orgasm to a business calculation may sound extreme, but the belief underneath it is far more common. Female pleasure is treated as extra, optional, or only worth pursuing when it happens easily. Sex education often skips the clitoris, pornography turns performance into instruction, and penetration is still treat

When one partner wants sex and the other pulls away, it can start to feel like every attempt at closeness comes with a risk. If you’re the one initiating, you may feel rejected, unwanted, or unsure whether your partner desires you anymore. So eventually, you stop trying altogether, not because the desire is gone, but because the rejection has become too painful to keep risking. Underneath that pattern, both partners are usually trying to protect themselves. One person reaches

You love your partner and want sex to feel close, connected, and mutual, yet desire can still feel harder to access than you think it should. When they ask what you like, what turns you on, or what would help you feel more present in your body, you may not have a clear answer. That confusion can be painful for both of you, especially when your partner experiences your uncertainty as distance, disconnection, or rejection. Those moments make more sense when you look at how earl

Ever tried to resolve conflict with your partner, only for the argument to end because one of you finally gave in? It might look like the conflict is resolved, maybe even like someone won, but the person who backed down is usually still hurting underneath it all. They’re tired of explaining themselves, tired of having the same fight on repeat, and tired of feeling like the only way to move forward is to check out. That kind of “resolution” doesn’t create real repair. It creat