If you have not felt as interested in sex as you once did, you are not alone. I regularly hear from individuals and couples who report their sex lives are kind of, well, disappointing. This was often not the case at the beginning of the relationship. I remember one female client (Barbara) who told me “I had the best sex of my life with my husband before we were married. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.” But now, they have sex very infrequently, and it doesn’t have the same level of enjoyment when they are intimate. Barbara just doesn’t feel the urge to have sex. What happened?

As a couples therapist, I don’t worry about the couples who sometimes fight, I worry about the ones who are too apathetic to fight. It is usually a sign one or both members of the couple have checked out of the relationship. Even in the best and happiest relationships, there is conflict. It’s inevitable, like death and taxes. The key to a healthy relationship, though, is to learn to manage the conflict. One of the things I like to do with new couples is to establish some rules or boundaries at the start of our work together. These are the rules of fair fighting. These rules are not original to me, you can find some version of them all over the internet. But, they are certainly a good starting point, and they are often not intuitive to couples embroiled in conflict.

This post can show Houston couples how to reignite the spark in their relationship. Learn to get back to the excitement you felt when you first met! If your relationship is feeling a bit dull, couples therapy and marriage counseling in Houston, TX, can help to enhance communication, intimacy, and connection. Call us today if you are feeling stuck or just want to learn to have fun with your partner again.

By the time I get the phone call to schedule couples counseling, people can feel hopeless and desperate. Most couples wait too long and sadly that means it can be tougher to get things back on track. There are those relationships where people yell and slam doors and others where they quietly grow apart or grow bored till there is nothing left. The one thing they have in common is the depth of the disruption to people’s lives. It’s hard to be at peace when one of the most important relationships in your life is broken.

When stress enters the relationship (as it has during the pandemic), couples will inevitably turn towards one another or turn away from one another. If I am in a trusting, safe, loving relationship, I may see my partner as part of the solution that will help me feel better, or I will view them as an obstacle that makes things worse for me.