Category
Couples and Intimacy
5 essays
Why Do We Talk Only About Problems When We’re Trying to Save Our Relationship?
When a relationship is struggling, problems need to be discussed. But when every effort to improve things becomes an inspection of what is wrong, a shared life can start to resemble an endless fault log. The amount of talking grows without a matching increase in trust, play, or curiosity…
Why Do We Stop Feeling Like Romantic Partners After Having a Child?
A child brings a new love into a relationship while fundamentally changing its old arrangements. When romance recedes, it often reflects parenthood consuming the available resources rather than love coming to an end…
Should Couples Sleep in the Same Bed?
For many couples, a shared bed is quiet evidence of closeness, which is why wanting to sleep separately can sound like rejection. Yet sleeping together and sleeping well are not the same thing. The question is whether the arrangement protects both rest and intimacy…
I Don’t Recognize My Partner Anymore: Is This the Person I Married?
A partner’s changes can feel like a betrayal in a long relationship, because commitment also rests on an expectation that they will remain somewhat the same. Yet bodies, responsibilities, losses, and dreams change over the years. The difficulty lies beyond change itself…
Am I Married to My Partner or Their Family?
No couple consists entirely of two people. Each partner brings loyalties and ideas about boundaries learned in their family. Why can loyalty to family feel like opposition to a spouse, and is the central difficulty the family or the couple’s alliance?…