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I have always *hated* the idea of a soulmate. It felt so Hollywood, lazy, and Prince Charming to me...and totally grates against my feminist sensibilities.

Recently however, I have been reconsidering this perspective and here is why.

So many women and men who I work with say:

“I just feel like we are roommates.”

Roommates ...

As a marriage and sex therapist, I talk a lot with my clients about touch, connection and communication.

The thing that may surprise you is that lots of people don’t actually know HOW they would like to be touched.

They know how they DON’T want to be touched (and have communicated that thoroughly often with their partner). But when we get down to exactly what they would want their partners to do with their bodies — in detail — that can be hard for some people to articulate.

And of course ...

Activist, author, and preacher James Baldwin famously wrote, “Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.”

So many couples who we work with say things like…

• I love my husband but I’m not in love with him anymore.
• I do I love my wife! But I get so angry and I know that I can blame and ridicule her. But I do love her.
• I just don’t ...

One of the most common complaints that we hear from couples in a committed relationship is that the sex is not “as natural and spontaneous as it used to be”.

Wait…WHAT?!

Let me walk you through what “used to be your spontaneous sex life”….

One of you contacted the other, on say a Tuesday, suggested that you meet up for dinner, music, and dessert FOR FRIDAY. This is a full four day lead up to the *event*.

During that four days…all participants usually do one or more of the following:

• shave,
• wax,
• trim,
• comb,
• tan,
• pluck,
• dress,
• consider “do I wear ...

I joke with my clients often that I am going to write two books: How To Be A Grown Ass Man and How To Be A Grown Ass Woman.

Full disclaimer: all of us have parts of ourselves that need to be grown up, so as special as you are, you are not that unique in needing some up-leveling. In other words, don’t take this too personally. ;-)

Being a grown ass woman means being accountable for your actions and inactions. Knowing that your criticism, contempt and yes your ...

I tell wives all of the time, “Your husband is a grown ass man and can take care of his own feelings.”

This after the wife has said that she cannot possibly tell him the truth, the whole truth because he cannot handle it.

This, ladies, is a TERRIBLE strategy that results in you infantilizing your husband, protecting him from his emotions, and behaving (often) like his mommy and not his equal. This is a problem, big time, and will result in contempt, belittling, resentment, and power struggles in your relationship. [Note: women need to learn how to grow up often as well! Next month's post is about How to Be ...

Elie Wiesel, prolific writer and Holocaust survivor famously said, “the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference”.

If you have ever had a lover who didn’t call, a partner who ignored or rebuked your physical advances or a parent who neglected you, you know this is true.

To be unseen is to be invisible. It is to not matter. To not have value. To be meaningless. And to not exist.

Most people walk around with a corner of their psyche that already feels not good enough, that feels like a fraud or a failure, that feels unlovable, or like they do not belong anywhere.

When that wound gets activated through indifference by ...