so who taught you how to be in a
relationship and what skills do they
give you to negotiate that relationship
those are the two most frequent
questions I asked as a sex therapist
couples often come to see me because
they’re struggling with how to balance
the needs of a relationship versus how
they expect that relationship to work
and in there lies the dissonance between
the me and the we couples often have
this struggle because they don’t have a
common language to talk about connection
and connection is the intersection
between expected negotiations and
desired behaviors and the way we get our
own individual needs met as I work with
couples to try to create that unique
language we have discovered the
connection is not a thing
in fact connection is many things and
these many things operate along a
spectrum and this spectrum goes from
closed to open and when we think about
the closed end of this spectrum that’s
the place in this unique dyadic
relationship the place between you and
me that is sacred the place where nobody
else gets to go and in the open part of
this spectrum it’s where we as
individuals get to explore the needs we
have for ourselves beyond that
relationship in a way that doesn’t harm
the relationship but how do we do that
what are those places of connection
where we try to tie ourselves together
and where we also have that same
simultaneous need to explore as
individuals the first place is an
intimacy and when I work with couples I
define intimacy as that unique balance
between safety and vulnerability because
if we’re to safe and we can’t allow any
vulnerability and we are closed off and
if we are so vulnerable that we can’t be
safe we’re terrified but when we can
find that unique balance between safety
and vulnerability in to submit intimacy
gets to grow and thrive now
for some of us intimacy is something we
share only with one person and for some
of us we like to be intimate with lots
of people we like to share ourselves
with our co-workers with our friends
with our family members the second place
where connection actually happens is in
the emotional you know those feelings of
the heartstrings and for some people
emotion is a very private thing
something we don’t share openly some of
us we wear our hearts on our sleeve
right and we share it with everyone we
know and we can be quite open with that
we have the sexual how is it as couples
that we determine where our sexual
selves have a unique relationship and
where it is a shared relationship within
that Diane now as one couple said to me
I guess it doesn’t matter where you get
your appetite as long as you eat at home
right so you know part of that is but
how do we have our own unique experience
and have that be okay and where is that
we share it with our partner the next
piece is in that physical non-sexual
experience you know is it okay if I go
dirty dancing with my friends do I hug
and kiss everybody that comes into my
house or am I the guy that does that
bro-hug because I have a long need for
personal space and I don’t share a lot
of physical touch and where is the
importance of physical touch to me as
compared to where it might be for my
partner the next aspect of connection is
social now this one always cracks me up
because you know those couples where if
you get one you get the other they’re
never apart
ever right and then you have those
couples that are on the opposite end of
the spectrum where you actually believe
that the partner is a figment of their
imagination because they talk about it
all the time but they never show up so
how is it as a couple that we negotiate
how we engage socially and where does
our relationship start and end the next
piece is familial family family is a
serious place of connection and
relationship how is it that we blend
your family in my family do I call your
parents mr. and mrs. do I call them by
their first name do I call them mom and
dad what happens when we start talking
about our family of choice and we start
creating a family of our own what does
it mean if I stop coming home for family
dinner three nights a week does that
begin to feel like I am breaking
connection and that I am starting to
move on to that place of individuality
where that might not feel as comforting
to my partner the next piece of
financial we know that finances tend to
be a huge challenge for couples how do
we manage that connection around our
resources your money my money our money
and how do we make that choice and
decision to be able to say does it
matter who earns what and how we spend
it because I’ll venture to say it does
but how do we negotiate that in a way
that each of us can get our own
individual needs Matt next political can
a Republican marry a Democrat in these
days who knows right but part of this
what I’m really asking here is do we
have to have the same shared worldview
and value system there are those couples
who believe we have to be a voting bloc
we have to believe the same thing we
have to live along the same parallels
and then we have those couples that want
their partner to come home and challenge
bring home a different idea don’t make
me think the same way challenge the way
I see the world because that to me is
exciting I need you to be that
individual and the last major place of
connection is spiritual now when I work
with couples and we talk about
spirituality and they want to talk about
God faith and religion I think that’s a
really meaningful and powerful
discussion but what I’m really talking
about here when I talk about spiritual
spiritual answers the question so what
so what so what does it mean and do we
as a couple have to have shared meaning
in the same ways you know that cafe down
at the corner where we had our first
date that’s a special place for us it
has meaning for us don’t bring your
friends there for lunch on a Friday
afternoon because it ruins the meaning
for me that do we have sacred space and
sacred ritual– in our relationship the
place that we get to go that ties us
together the place that allows us to be
separate from the world and do we as
partners need to find the same sacred
space in the same sacred meaning as our
partner does now what I’d like to do is
tell you how this all works in reality
so I’d like to tell you about a couple
that came into my office mark and
Jennifer mark and Jennifer came to work
with me because they were in a pretty
good place actually they had three small
children they were happy they had enough
financial resources but Mark and
Jennifer could tell that they were
starting to turn that corner where they
were going from being an intentional
couple to a couple by default you know
what I mean that couple that’s just
there because that’s what we do the
couple that’s there because we wake up
and we just do the same thing over and
over again and they started to realize
that their sense of connection was
becoming fragile and they wanted to do
something about it
so mark Jennifer and I sat down and we
had a conversation about
these places of connection so that they
could create a unique language of
intimacy for themselves and I asked mark
and Jennifer where would you place
yourself as a unique individual on each
of these spectrums where would you be
and here’s what they said now what’s
really interesting about this is there’s
no right place or wrong place to be
there’s no good place there’s no bad
place wherever you are is okay what this
taught mark and Jennifer was that these
places on the spectrums where they were
really close together that they shared a
certain value structure and they just
needed to create a language so that they
could both be understood in these places
where there was a greater gap in where
they place themselves on the spectrum
what it meant is that this was an
opportunity for the two of them to
negotiate expectations to name desired
behaviors and to talk about how they
were each going to get their individual
needs met in this relationship in other
words how do we have connection in a way
that allows both of us to feel safe and
kept I’m happy to say that mark and
Jennifer still together are feeling very
vibrant unfortunately they don’t come
and see me anymore but that’s good for
them because what they’ve done is
they’ve created a language of intimacy
that has worked for them I’m going to
close by asking you a question after
listening to this how will you define
connection and intimacy differently in
your relationship and now will you go
home and talk about it thank you
[Applause]
relationship and what skills do they
give you to negotiate that relationship
those are the two most frequent
questions I asked as a sex therapist
couples often come to see me because
they’re struggling with how to balance
the needs of a relationship versus how
they expect that relationship to work
and in there lies the dissonance between
the me and the we couples often have
this struggle because they don’t have a
common language to talk about connection
and connection is the intersection
between expected negotiations and
desired behaviors and the way we get our
own individual needs met as I work with
couples to try to create that unique
language we have discovered the
connection is not a thing
in fact connection is many things and
these many things operate along a
spectrum and this spectrum goes from
closed to open and when we think about
the closed end of this spectrum that’s
the place in this unique dyadic
relationship the place between you and
me that is sacred the place where nobody
else gets to go and in the open part of
this spectrum it’s where we as
individuals get to explore the needs we
have for ourselves beyond that
relationship in a way that doesn’t harm
the relationship but how do we do that
what are those places of connection
where we try to tie ourselves together
and where we also have that same
simultaneous need to explore as
individuals the first place is an
intimacy and when I work with couples I
define intimacy as that unique balance
between safety and vulnerability because
if we’re to safe and we can’t allow any
vulnerability and we are closed off and
if we are so vulnerable that we can’t be
safe we’re terrified but when we can
find that unique balance between safety
and vulnerability in to submit intimacy
gets to grow and thrive now
for some of us intimacy is something we
share only with one person and for some
of us we like to be intimate with lots
of people we like to share ourselves
with our co-workers with our friends
with our family members the second place
where connection actually happens is in
the emotional you know those feelings of
the heartstrings and for some people
emotion is a very private thing
something we don’t share openly some of
us we wear our hearts on our sleeve
right and we share it with everyone we
know and we can be quite open with that
we have the sexual how is it as couples
that we determine where our sexual
selves have a unique relationship and
where it is a shared relationship within
that Diane now as one couple said to me
I guess it doesn’t matter where you get
your appetite as long as you eat at home
right so you know part of that is but
how do we have our own unique experience
and have that be okay and where is that
we share it with our partner the next
piece is in that physical non-sexual
experience you know is it okay if I go
dirty dancing with my friends do I hug
and kiss everybody that comes into my
house or am I the guy that does that
bro-hug because I have a long need for
personal space and I don’t share a lot
of physical touch and where is the
importance of physical touch to me as
compared to where it might be for my
partner the next aspect of connection is
social now this one always cracks me up
because you know those couples where if
you get one you get the other they’re
never apart
ever right and then you have those
couples that are on the opposite end of
the spectrum where you actually believe
that the partner is a figment of their
imagination because they talk about it
all the time but they never show up so
how is it as a couple that we negotiate
how we engage socially and where does
our relationship start and end the next
piece is familial family family is a
serious place of connection and
relationship how is it that we blend
your family in my family do I call your
parents mr. and mrs. do I call them by
their first name do I call them mom and
dad what happens when we start talking
about our family of choice and we start
creating a family of our own what does
it mean if I stop coming home for family
dinner three nights a week does that
begin to feel like I am breaking
connection and that I am starting to
move on to that place of individuality
where that might not feel as comforting
to my partner the next piece of
financial we know that finances tend to
be a huge challenge for couples how do
we manage that connection around our
resources your money my money our money
and how do we make that choice and
decision to be able to say does it
matter who earns what and how we spend
it because I’ll venture to say it does
but how do we negotiate that in a way
that each of us can get our own
individual needs Matt next political can
a Republican marry a Democrat in these
days who knows right but part of this
what I’m really asking here is do we
have to have the same shared worldview
and value system there are those couples
who believe we have to be a voting bloc
we have to believe the same thing we
have to live along the same parallels
and then we have those couples that want
their partner to come home and challenge
bring home a different idea don’t make
me think the same way challenge the way
I see the world because that to me is
exciting I need you to be that
individual and the last major place of
connection is spiritual now when I work
with couples and we talk about
spirituality and they want to talk about
God faith and religion I think that’s a
really meaningful and powerful
discussion but what I’m really talking
about here when I talk about spiritual
spiritual answers the question so what
so what so what does it mean and do we
as a couple have to have shared meaning
in the same ways you know that cafe down
at the corner where we had our first
date that’s a special place for us it
has meaning for us don’t bring your
friends there for lunch on a Friday
afternoon because it ruins the meaning
for me that do we have sacred space and
sacred ritual– in our relationship the
place that we get to go that ties us
together the place that allows us to be
separate from the world and do we as
partners need to find the same sacred
space in the same sacred meaning as our
partner does now what I’d like to do is
tell you how this all works in reality
so I’d like to tell you about a couple
that came into my office mark and
Jennifer mark and Jennifer came to work
with me because they were in a pretty
good place actually they had three small
children they were happy they had enough
financial resources but Mark and
Jennifer could tell that they were
starting to turn that corner where they
were going from being an intentional
couple to a couple by default you know
what I mean that couple that’s just
there because that’s what we do the
couple that’s there because we wake up
and we just do the same thing over and
over again and they started to realize
that their sense of connection was
becoming fragile and they wanted to do
something about it
so mark Jennifer and I sat down and we
had a conversation about
these places of connection so that they
could create a unique language of
intimacy for themselves and I asked mark
and Jennifer where would you place
yourself as a unique individual on each
of these spectrums where would you be
and here’s what they said now what’s
really interesting about this is there’s
no right place or wrong place to be
there’s no good place there’s no bad
place wherever you are is okay what this
taught mark and Jennifer was that these
places on the spectrums where they were
really close together that they shared a
certain value structure and they just
needed to create a language so that they
could both be understood in these places
where there was a greater gap in where
they place themselves on the spectrum
what it meant is that this was an
opportunity for the two of them to
negotiate expectations to name desired
behaviors and to talk about how they
were each going to get their individual
needs met in this relationship in other
words how do we have connection in a way
that allows both of us to feel safe and
kept I’m happy to say that mark and
Jennifer still together are feeling very
vibrant unfortunately they don’t come
and see me anymore but that’s good for
them because what they’ve done is
they’ve created a language of intimacy
that has worked for them I’m going to
close by asking you a question after
listening to this how will you define
connection and intimacy differently in
your relationship and now will you go
home and talk about it thank you
[Applause]
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