Why 80% of Couples Survive Affairs (And the Truth About Relationship Power Dynamics)

any of that we just get rain but anyway tell us a little bit more about the work that you do and the sex therapy because a lot of like I know a sex therapist and a lot of people when you tell when you say oh this person's a sex therapist they think they're a sex worker um yes and that's obviously not the case it's a talk and therapy but would you like to explain a little bit about what you do and how you help people

Absolutely.

I'm so glad that you asked that question because I think people have so many misconceptions about what sex therapy is.

Sex therapy is just your average talk therapist.

And then we get advanced certification and training in like sex and relational work.

So just the way that you would come to your normal therapist about depression or anxiety, you would come to me if you were having erectile dysfunction, pain during sex, or if you and your partner are having difficulties around sex.

So like one of the biggest issues is a desire discrepancy, which just means somebody has higher sexual desire and the other person has lower sexual desire.

And then there is a little bit of confliction there with people and their partner when that happens.

Yeah.

So how

would you get around that? Is it just about the couple understanding each other or is there more to it than that?

The desire discrepancy, it sounds simple, but when somebody has been inside a desire discrepancy for five, six, seven to 15 years, the pattern that evolves is very complex.

So at first, when there's a desire discrepancy, there's some frustration, there's some pressure that is being put on the other partner.

Usually the lower sexual desire partner receives pressure from the higher sexual desire partner to have sex or want to have sex.

And then that person feels angry and they feel upset.

And the person who has higher sexual desire feels frustrated and upset as well.

And what devolves in that pattern is blaming each other.

It's like, oh, it's your fault because you have lower sexual desire.

Oh, it's your fault because you're putting pressure on me.

So the first thing that I do in that work is usually reducing the blame.

We can't do anything if we're blaming each other and we think that this is your fault or your fault.

It really is a team approach.

And we have to get the couple on the same team to be able to actually do this work and and alleviate the desire discrepancy so we can communicate about it appropriately too

yeah that sounds like like all counseling really because if you're blaming someone like I think that there usually is like oh this person's a problem but actually I find myself saying it to clients all the time yeah you know you can't you can't change them you can only change yourself so a lot of the work is working towards accepting that you can't change the other person.

Yeah.