Behaviors That Might Drain Your Relationship

by Carolynn Aristone | Mar 30, 2022 | Blog, Communication, Connection, Love, Marriage Survival, Mindfulness, Relationships

Behaviors that Drain Your Relationship

When problems start in relationships, it’s easy to point fingers, blame our partners, and focus solely on their shortcomings.

“If you would just ___________ (fill in the blank), we’d be great!”

As I’ve written many times before, one partner typically wants to “fix” the other.

Wouldn’t love feel easy if it were that simple? Fix the problem partner and all will be well.

Reality? Partner problems are interdependent. Finding root causes to chronic struggles can feel murky at times. Shifting relationship patterns requires patience, tolerance and acceptance skills.

After all, it takes two to tango. Relationship research shows us that both partners uniquely contribute to relationship struggles.

I’ve got the perfect exercise to help you and your partner self-evaluate how you may contribute to your relationship issues. I often use practices like this in couples and marriage therapy to help partners decrease blame and increase accountability.

Holding Yourself Accountable

Personal accountability doesn’t mean that you stop expressing your relationship concerns. It simply means that you take a balanced approach to problem-solving. It’s a practice of humility.

While practicing accountability, be careful to not take responsibility for what doesn’t belong to you. Some of your behaviors may contribute to the issue, as well as some of your partner’s actions. Each one of you contributes to the whole.

The purpose of self-assessment is to help you better understand how you show up. Do you show up being the type of partner that you’d like to have? Do your behaviors ultimately push your partner away? How do you create connection when in conflict?

The DRAIN Assessment

I recently came across a great exercise that’s rooted in mindfulness practices.

Created by author Russ Harris, an expert in Acceptance and Commitment therapy, this assessment helps you take an honest look at your own behaviors.

He calls it the DRAIN exercise and it’s based on an acronym that he created that breaks down unhealthy behavioral habits.

Rather than focus on your partner, I invite you to focus on yourself. Take a look at each category and write down the ways you might “drain” your relationship.

How Do You DRAIN Your Relationship?

D – Disconnection – In order to feel fully connected to your partner’s words, ideas, actions and feelings, it requires you to pay attention. Full attention means that you feel open, curious and receptive to their thoughts, feelings, ideas and dreams.

That’s not easy when you feel hostile or defensive. Or when you go into conversations blaming them, or with preconceived ideas about their intentions.

Notice the many ways you might disconnect from your partner. It can look like many things such as irritability, stonewalling, being distracted, shutting down.

R – Reactivity – This refers to living on “automatic pilot”, meaning you don’t think about how you behave, it just happens. It’s a knee-jerk reaction or an impulsive response.

Rather than being mind-full, it’s more mind-less, meaning that you didn’t really consider the impact of your actions. This can look like short-tempered responses, cursing, yelling, blaming and generally being hurtful.

What behaviors might you do that reflect mindless reactivity instead of mindful responses?

A – Avoidance – Staying “conflict free” through avoidance is just as painful as being overtly confrontational. It’s a powerful and silent position of power.

Retreat might feel like a relief from your problems but it only magnifies the issues. It leaves your partner in a powerless state and keeps your relationship stuck and in a state of suffering.

How might you act out in avoidance? Behaviors can include numbing actions like taking in excessive drinking, food, drugs, screen time, denial or complete physical withdrawal.

I – Inside Your Mind – Our minds love to hold infinite conversations about all things. It’s the source of our ability for deep concentration as well as for relentless distraction.

Living inside your mind means that you spend lots of time rehashing old stories and hurts or rehearsing all the conversations that you want to say. Chatter, chatter, chatter. It’s a space that lets you ruminate and remain stuck in pain, suffering and unproductive stories.

How much time do you spend inside your mind? How trapped do you feel by the never-ending thoughts?

N – Neglecting Values – It’s easy to claim values but it’s not always easy to live up to them. Do you talk a good talk but then forget the walk?

If you claim a certain set of values as important to you, such as love or kindness, your actions – even when you feel angry – need to reflect those values. You can be angry and still love your partner. You can speak firmly without being unkind. Feeling angry doesn’t mean you abandon the value of love.

What values do you claim as important to you but then seem to abandon in moments where they might matter most?

Take It To The Next Level

Now that you know the DRAIN Assessment and have answered the questions, Harris suggests that you make a list of two columns.

In the first column, make a list of values according to the type of partner that you’d like to be. You might use words like loving, kind, generous, affectionate, supportive, trustworthy, etc.

Then, in the second column, come up with a list of values that you don’t subscribe to. Samples include materialistic, hostile, disorganized, aggressive, mean, etc.

After you complete your self-assessment through the DRAIN process, look at your two lists. In moments when your relationship feels challenging, which list best describes your behaviors?

Be the Change, Enact the Change

Even if your partner doesn’t see their role in things, it doesn’t mean that you can’t work on your part. You can’t make your partner “do” anything, but you can exercise control over how you think and what you do.

Sometimes, when you become the change you want to see, you shift the entire system of your relationship. You no longer play the same role. It’s like you change the dance step, going from the tango to the waltz.

Your partner can’t possibly keep dancing the tango without you as the tango partner.

Take the lead.

Relationship Maintenance: Is It Time for a Tune Up?

by Carolynn Aristone | Feb 17, 2022 | Blog, Communication, Connection, Love, Marriage Survival, Mindfulness, Relationships, Sex Positive, Soulful and Mindful

Relationship Maintenance

I recently received a call from a former couple that I worked with. They said, “Can we come back in for a few sessions? We need a tune-up!”

Relationships require a certain level of maintenance. Just like a car requires standard maintenance a few times a year, well, your relationship does too.

Unfortunately, so many couples misconstrue this reality.

Have you ever had thoughts like this?

Here is a list of mistaken beliefs that many couples think when it comes to relationship maintenance and nurturing:

If we have to work at it, then something is wrong.
I shouldn’t have to tell him what I need, he should just know!
Sex should just happen, we shouldn’t have to talk about it.
She should know I love her, why should I have to say it all the time?
Isn’t it obvious that I appreciate what he does?
Why do I have to thank him for picking up the kids? He’s supposed to do that.
We’ve been together 30 years, isn’t it clear that I’m not going anywhere?
We have sex at least once a week, clearly she’s satisfied.
Yes, I work late a lot but he understands. If he was unhappy, he’d tell me.

Do you see the pattern here?

These simple statements show us a series of common thoughts that can become relationship poison.

Let me show you what lurks beneath them.

There are 3 Components of Love that help couples connect and build a healthy foundation. In this blog, “What to do if You’re Falling Out Of Love”, we talk in-depth about Sternberg’s theory.

Current research tells us that a predictor for divorce is not infidelity, lack of romance, financial stress, or co-parenting differences.

It’s a lack of love.

Relationship Maintenance At Every Stage

Whether you’ve been together five years or 50, whether you’re a new family or empty nesters, your relationship is the vehicle that you ride together through life.

If you’re not regularly maintaining it, well, you become a hazard to your family and to yourselves.

It’s so easy to let life get in the way of your relationship focus but as the authors have written in the book, A General Theory of Love, “If somebody must jettison a part of life, time with a mate should be last on the list…”

Dropping your time with your partner should be last on your list.

Try This “Tuning In” Exercise

One of the exercises I like to give couples in therapy is called the Relationship Check-In.

In this exercise, you’ll take turns sharing:

Set aside 20 minutes each week to check in with your partner.
Put away all electronics and find a private space in your home.
Try to check-in before either partner gets too tired (not too late).
Start by naming something that you appreciate about your partner.
Name something you might be struggling with in the relationship and name what you might need more or less of from your partner.
Tell your partner that you love them if that feels right for you. Hug.

In this exercise, no topic is off-limits.

It’s a great exercise in staying connected, holding space for both positive and negative experiences and clearly communicating what you each desire.

It’s also important to stick to the 20 minutes.

If check-ins become 2-hour marathons, no one will want to participate.

If a difficult topic is raised, it’s helpful to know that:

The partner with the complaint has the time and space to share it
The time to focus on a difficult topic is boundaried and softened by positive feelings.

When couples commit to this exercise, they almost always report feeling closer, more connected, in communication and generally happy with each other. Is it time for a relationship tune-up?

Fun Ways to Nurture Your Love

In addition to regular check-ins, it’s also helpful to be kind and offer loving gestures when the opportunity arises.

Small things like cooking your partner’s favorite meal, bringing her a cup of coffee in bed, washing his car for him or going out on regular date nights go a long way to demonstrate caring.

There are so many ways to attend to and maintain your love. Maintaining what you have together isn’t a sign of dysfunction. It’s a sign that you care so much.

What are all the ways you attend to your relationship?

How to Heal Your Relationship After a Betrayal

by Carolynn Aristone | Feb 12, 2022 | Blog, Communication, Connection, Love, Marriage Survival, Mindfulness, Relationships, Sex Positive, Soulful and Mindful

Healing After Infidelity and Betrayal

I see many couples in the practice because of infidelity, affairs, cheating and/or betrayal.

In these deeply painful experiences, couples not only struggle with the most fundamental concept of commitment but also with attempting to maintain their love during their crisis.

When Ashley Madison was hacked in 2016, an interview on NPR revealed that affairs occur in at least 20% of all marriages yet other reports state affairs occur in at least 60% of all marriages.

Most couples have no map, no fallback plan, no direction on where to go once the affair is discovered or revealed.

“NPR revealed that affairs occur in at least 20% of all marriages yet other reports state affairs occur in at least 60% of all marriages.”

If you’ve experienced infidelity or betrayal, the pain endured by both of you can feel insurmountable.

Restoring commitment in its most fundamental sense can feel nearly impossible for you.

Yet, with attention, intention, effort, and patience, I’ve seen couples move from near divorce to complete healing.

Couples may seek therapy at different stages of this journey.

Here are some examples of when partners contact us:

One partner suspects the other is cheating. Rather than sit alone with his concerns, he’ll use therapy as a means to explore what to do and how to handle it.
One partner is on the brink of having an affair or actively having one. She’ll use therapy to try to gain clarity about her conflicted feelings.
A betrayed partner discovers an affair and experiences a crisis of emotions. Feeling total devastation and loss, she’ll immediately seek out couple’s therapy for guidance.
A betrayed partner cannot get past a previous affair discovery. It may be years later and the couple struggles to move on. They may schedule for themselves to see how they can “get past” what happened.

Transparency, Accountability and Time

Initially, it will be important for couples to practice transparency and accountability.

If you are the betrayed partner, you hold a whirlwind of emotions that must be expressed.

Critical to healing, you’ll need to express your anxiety, anger, fear, disappointment, shock and overall devastation.

It’s natural for you to ask questions about the affair, remain suspicious for a period of time, and to question everything.

If you are the involved partner, you must hold yourself accountable for the decision to step outside the relationship, even if you feel justified in doing so.

You may have your own separate emotional experience that can also include fear, sadness, desperation, relief and concern.

It’s natural for you to avoid answering questions but you cannot avoid all questions.

Most importantly, you’ll both need to value time.

Time will help you move out of a crisis state, develop insight into your relationship and possibly envision a future together.

“Time helps couples move out of a crisis state, develop insight into their relationship and envision a future together”

Is it Possible to Experience Intimacy During a Crisis?

In therapy, as couples move through these phases, they learn how to practice the behaviors associated with “loving” while healing from an affair.

Amongst the many skills learned, couples practice communication, empathy, vulnerability, transparency, care for the welfare of the other, honesty, trust-building, and forgiveness.

Learning these skills isn’t a guarantee that you will stay together.

For some couples, the best decision, while difficult, is separation.

Before you move into those big decisions alone, please consider seeking therapy.

Therapy provides a space for couples to explore the healthiest way for them to heal.

Therapy shows couples how to practice “loving”, whether they choose to stay together or to separate.

Research tells us that couples will wait five years before they seek out relationship help.

The Silent Divide

For many affair couples, they unknowingly experienced a silent divide, a slow and steady series of actions and inactions that laid the groundwork for the affair(s) to occur.

Remember, commitment isn’t a one-time act. It’s a series of behaviors that nurture your relationship over its lifespan.

This happens on the days when life feels ordinary, mundane and fine, as well as when you struggle to be in each other’s company.

With so many tools/resources at your disposal, from articles and books, podcasts and courses, and/or therapy, it’s easier than ever to stay attuned, connect and practice loving every day.

What resources do you use to practice “loving”, consistently, even when your relationship feels hard?

Understanding Partner Differences

by Carolynn Aristone | Nov 29, 2021 | Blog, Relationships, Sex, Sex Education, Sex Positive, Sex Therapy

Understanding Partner Differences

Something happens to us in early courtship.

Flooded with hormones, we see our partner through a blind set of eyes. They can do no wrong. They light us up from within. They’re everything we’ve ever wanted. “Soulmates”.

We tend to see ourselves in our partner. Sometimes, they bear the characteristics that we aspire towards. Other times, they seem like a mirror image of us. What better experience than to partner with ourselves for life?

In some relationships, partners never seem to have conflict. They’ll say “we don’t fight” and seem to agree all the time.

That type of union makes it difficult for partners to evolve. It can also lead to something called enmeshment, where each partner seems to blend into the other with no distinct “I”.

Other couples confront a different reality. They “suddenly” discover that one partner seems polar opposite to the other. This can wreak havoc on a couple’s self-concept. Partners wonder how they EVER got together to begin with. What were they each thinking?

Welcome to the world of differentiation.

Some couples fail to achieve it. Other couples struggle to accept it.

What is healthy differentiation and why do we need it for healthy love?

What is Healthy Differentiation?

In 1997, Dr. David Schnarch wrote a groundbreaking book called Passionate Marriage in which he claims that differentiation is essential for healthy relationships.

By his definition, “differentiation is the process by which we become more uniquely ourselves by maintaining ourselves in relationship with those we love ”.

He adds that differentiation is essential to reducing blame, repairing conflict, tolerating intimacy and creating a hot, loving sex life.

For relationships to be healthy, it requires you to attend to your individuality as you move through the world in a state of togetherness. It means being two distinct people attempting to create an interdependent relationship.

Why is Differentiation Important?

When partners can clearly and distinctly define themselves while in partnership, they create a more honest, transparent, authentic relationship. No masks. No facades. This in turn helps eliminate relationship habits that can become toxic, such as the expectation for mindreading, wrong assumptions and chronic resentment.

When couples can achieve this, it gives them an extraordinary gift; for each partner to love and to be loved, exactly for who they are.

Differentiation and Intimacy

Dr. Schnarch identifies different types of intimacy. Consider which type of intimacy you might practice in your own relationship. We’ll use Dr. Scharch’s language.

According to Scharch, you engage in other-validated intimacy if you expect that your partner will accept you, empathize, validate you and reciprocate disclosure after you’ve shared something personal about yourself. Your self-worth depends on the reaction of your partner.

Self-validated intimacy is when you can disclose your thoughts and feelings while maintaining your own self-worth, regardless of how your partner responds. You hold no expectation of acceptance or reciprocity for what you’ve shared.

Would acceptance and reciprocity be “nice”? Maybe. Unfortunately, “nice” can keep a relationship flat, dull and static.

He argues that intimacy can occur in the latter form, even if the disclosure isn’t accepted, validated or empathized with; even if only one partner discloses. Self-validated intimacy requires you to support yourself while letting yourself be known to your partner. It reduces unhealthy dependency and enmeshment.

Let’s just sit with that for a moment. What you just read may feel counter to everything you thought you knew about relationships.

Intimacy and Vulnerability

Differentiation requires vulnerability tolerance. As a couple’s and sex therapy practice, my team and I frequently use that term when referring to the work we do with our clients.

No one enjoys feeling vulnerable. Most would describe the experience as feeling naked, exposed and unprotected from harm. Yet vulnerability is an experience partners need to step into from time to time to establish real intimacy.

One of my favorite quotes on intimacy and vulnerability is from Dr. Schnarch. He says:

“I don’t expect you to agree with me; you weren’t put on the face of the earth to validate and reinforce me. But I want to know you love me – and you can’t really do that if you don’t know me. I don’t want your rejection – but I must face that possibility if I’m ever going to feel accepted or secure with you. It’s time to show myself to you and confront my separateness and mortality. One day when we are no longer together on this earth, I want to know you knew me.”

Self-disclosure and tolerance for vulnerability become easier when our sense of worth becomes less dependent on our partner’s moods and reactions.

The more we can reveal of ourselves, the more interesting our relationships become. We increase the possibility of making real contact, real authentic connection with our partners.

This achievement allows couples to retain a sense of intimacy even when in conflict. It permits partners to have differences of opinion, to have a voice, to express themselves.

Integrating Healthy Differentiation into Your Relationship

If you’re not sure what all of this means for you, let me simplify it: establishing an intimate connection with your partner starts with having a strong, healthy connection with yourself.

If you allow your self-worth to hinge on the words and actions of others, you have not yet learned how to support yourself or possibly love yourself. It’s difficult to give and receive love with another person if you haven’t yet learned how to fully accept and love who you are.

Even folks who appear to be fiercely independent may struggle to genuinely connect with anyone else because underneath their outward presentation, sits fragility.

Consider a radical act of self-confrontation. Focus on yourself and not on your partner. Ask yourself if you can metaphorically stand up on your own two feet. Can you hold yourself up? Can you hold yourself up in more vulnerable situations with your partner? Can your partner do the same? How well do you tolerate your partner’s differences? How much room is there for difference within the partnership?

How might differentiation help you become a healthier, more enlivened couple?

Sensate Focus for Better Sex

by Carolynn Aristone | Oct 27, 2021 | Blog, Relationships, Sex, Sex Education, Sex Positive, Sex Therapy

Sensate Focus

In couples and sex therapy, one of the best suggestions I give some couples who struggle with sex is to not have sex. Seems counterintuitive, right?

After all, how are couples supposed to work on their sex life or create better sex if they stop having it?

I suggest abstaining as a temporary measure. It helps alleviate the pressure of sex. Think about it. When sex isn’t happening or if it’s happening awkwardly, it can occupy a lot of your mental space and emotional energy.

If you’re the seeker, you might constantly look for sexual signs or windows of opportunity, the right way to approach your partner without annoying them, or to get a “yes”.

If you’re the avoidant partner, you might wonder “what’s wrong with me?”, seek ways to discourage physical contact or feel anxious about whether your partner will ask again tonight.

Loss of libido, a sense of rejection, different levels of sexual desire, sexual dysfunction or different sexual needs can make you feel mentally and emotionally consumed, put stress on your relationship and an unconscious pressure on both of you.

When I suggest abstention, it alleviates that pressure. There’s no more figuring out what to do. As you adjust to this new arrangement, I slowly introduce new, evidence-based ways for you to physically re-engage that likely carry far better results.

The Impact of Your Troubled Sex Life

Your sex life holds its own peaks and valleys. This is normal and natural in long-term relationships. But when you have prolonged periods of time where you either can’t meet each other’s sexual needs or you stop having sex altogether, physical engagement can feel awkward and stressful.

When I ask you to take sex off the table, we make room for you to heal your erotic and emotional wounds first. Problematic sex impacts how you relate to each other. Whether you’re feeling constantly pressured or rejected, the intimacy dance between you can cause emotional injury for everyone.

Sometimes these emotional injuries shut down the avoidant partner’s sexual system. Their body learns that sex feels emotionally unsafe so, over time, their libido takes a nosedive.

Ironically, the seeking partner’s sexual system can often shut down just as the avoidant partner’s system starts to wake up! Chronic rejection inevitably leads to resentment which is a sexual turnoff.

After healing your erotic and emotional injuries in couples’ and sex therapy, you understand each other better. Mutual understanding helps you see the good in each other again. You’ll communicate more effectively and connect more.

Sometimes, this is enough to get the sexy wheels turning. But not always.

So what’s a couple to do when they reignite emotional connection but not sexual connection? I help couples reconnect physically through a step-by-step proven exercise.

A Powerful and Proven Exercise

When couples tune into and attend to their sensuality, they lay the ground for their sexuality to emerge in a powerful and connective way.

Known as a Sensate Focus exercise, it requires different levels of physical touch. It combines mindfulness and present-centered awareness with some specific steps, rules, limits.

This slow progression of touch builds a sense of safety and trust in each partner again. It also helps you break unhealthy touch habits and creates pleasurable touch experiences.

The power of sensate focus is in its ability to keep you focused on touch in a deliberate, purposeful and conscious way. This skill often gets lost in long-term love. Over the years, sex can become routine and often mindless. Sensate focus helps you break old patterns and establish new, more pleasurable ones.

Unlike traditional, goal-oriented sex, sensate focus helps you enjoy the pleasure of the sexual journey by staying tuned into your senses. After all, good, fully-embodied sex is a sensual experience.

Rules for a Successful Sensate Focus Experience

Before you embark on your sensate focus journey, there are a few rules to understand.

Rule #1: Suspend judgment

Let go of any expectations for this exercise. Treat this entirely as an experiment and stay curious as to what it produces for you without judging your experience. Learn from it.

Rule #2: Mark your calendars

Mark your calendars together. Initially allow for 30 minutes of sensate time for each recipient. Try to choose times when you can relax and rest and where you can have privacy without distractions. However, make sure to also choose a time where you will stay awake.

Rule #3: Clothing Decision

While the goal is to maximize skin-to-skin contact, clothing is optional. If you choose to wear clothes, choose your least restrictive clothing. As you move through the exercises, your clothing preferences may change. Keep your room at a comfortable temperature.

Rule #4: Focus on sensuality, not sexuality

The purpose of sensate focus is to strengthen present-centered awareness, mindfulness and sensate awareness through touch. This means that even if you get turned on, you will not act on your sexual impulses.

The Sensate Focus Exercise

Below are the steps to follow for your sensate focus exercise.

Step 1: Non-Genital Touching

Decide who will be the Toucher and who will be the Receiver.

The receiver will focus on the sensation of being touched, without judgment. They will allow the toucher to explore their body freely. The receiver should not direct the touch but will allow the toucher to have his/her own exploratory experience.

The receiver can and should communicate if the toucher creates physical discomfort for the receiver. At that point, the toucher should change the type of touch they are practicing.

The toucher will explore the receiver’s body by focusing on texture, shape and temperature. They will also explore different forms of pressure on the body.

Notice the difference between the texture of your partner’s cheeks versus their hands. Notice what it’s like to offer a quick, steccato type of touch versus touch that is elongated. Notice how touch with your full palm differs from fingertip touch.

Only touch non-genital areas. That means that breasts, penis’s, vaginas, buttocks’ and kissing are off limits!

It’s recommended that, if sexual arousal occurs, neither partner attempts to satisfy the arousal. This would shift the focus away from sensuality toward sexuality and probably keep you in your same dysfunctional touch patterns.

Be sure to change roles and reciprocate. Do not compare experiences as they will be different.

Step 2: Genital Touching

Kissing and penetration are not included here.

Even though we’re introducing genital touch, the goal is to explore each other’s bodies through touch. Allow your focus to stay on the sensation of touching and being touched.

All of the same rules apply. The toucher should stay focused on the sensory experience beneath her/his hands. Move slowly and/or quickly; move deliberately. Trace and run your fingers and hands along your partner’s body, including their genitals.

In this scenario, the receiver now has permission to put their hand over the toucher’s hand and move with them if they so choose. Do not lead the toucher. Instead, follow their movement. The receiver can practice communicating what they might want through their hand, perhaps with a gentle squeeze. The toucher can decide whether or not to abide.

It’s important that the toucher not make the genitals their sole focus. The touch should still maintain a whole-body curiosity.

Again, switch roles without comparison.

Step 3: Mutual Touching

Kissing and penetration are not included here.

With greater sensory awareness, partners can now play with mutual touch, including genitals. If you’re becoming sexual instead of sensual, simply spend less time touching the genital areas and stay focused on other parts of the body. Attune to texture, shape and temperature.

An add-on to mutual touching is exploration with your mouths. That doesn’t mean jumping into oral sex. It means exploring your partner’s whole body with your lips and tongue. It means tasting them and feeling their body from an oral sensory perspective. Remember to stay focused on your sensory experience, not your sexual experience.

Step 4: Kissing and Sensual Penetration

Following the same principles from your previous steps, you can now include touch through kissing and penetration from a sensory perspective.

Approach the experience from a sensual lens. Imagine what kissing and penetration look and feel like from a sensory experience. Notice the warmth and the wetness. Allow your fingers, hands, lips and mouth to guide you.

Begin with a non-genital focus and gradually bring the genitals into contact. Allow for genital touching and rubbing without penetration.

If both partners seek penetration, move slowly and intentionally into this form of touch. Allow yourselves to fluctuate in movement, including stillness, as penetration occurs.

Step 4 invites both partners to touch and receive, simultaneously. It’s important to stay relaxed and pleasure-focused as the body increases in it’s arousal, intensity and possible orgasm.

Some couples like to linger in each step for several dates before moving onto the next step. Take each step at your own pace, practicing mutual respect, curiosity and openness.

The Benefits of Sensate Focus

Sensate focus has so many profound benefits. In addition to helping couples slow down and tune in, it strengthens your ability to be both sensual and sexual, allowing them to overlap but without confusing the two.

Let’s face it. We live in the age of instant gratification. Got a headache? Take a pill. Feeling lonely? Hop on Facebook. Need the book now? Instantly download it to your e-reader.

Good partnered sex doesn’t work “in an instant”. It doesn’t have to be slow. But it does need to be mindful. It requires your fullest attention. It needs you to shift your focus to pleasure.

In our fast-paced world, if you’ve forgotten how to be mindful with your lover, sensate focus provides you with the path for deeper, more meaningful and satisfying sex.

What Sex Ed Didn’t Teach You About Sex

by Carolynn Aristone | Oct 4, 2021 | General, Relationships, Sex, Sex Education, Sex Therapy

What Sex-Ed Didn’t Teach You

Wouldn’t it be great if our parents and the systems at large helped us learn, at an early age, about how to be in a sexual relationship with someone else?

In couples and sex therapy, the majority of individuals and couples that I work with tell me that their parents never talked to them about sex when they were kids. Most bawk at the sex-ed programs held in school.

Those that received sex ed in school, learned about the anatomy of sex, puberty and STDs.

**No one ever taught them about how to be in a sexual relationship with another.**

Sexual feelings typically start during puberty. Yet it’s in those years that adults often turn away from the subject of sex – due to their own discomforts and inhibitions. It’s an “I don’t want to know about it, la la la” attitude that fails all of us as adolescents. Then, as adults, we wonder why the heck we feel so awkward just talking about sex, let alone engaging in it.

Healthy sexuality stretches far beyond physical anatomy and sexual diseases. It involves understanding your own sexual identity and what it means to be in a sexual relationship – whether that’s a long-term relationship or a one-night stand.

The Comlexity of a Sexual Relationship

The complexity of sexual relationships includes understanding one’s own sexual body responses, the emotional landscape that accompanies sex, attraction as dynamic, not static, how sexual desire manifests, multiple ways of achieving sexual pleasure, what stimulates or shuts down arousal, the impact of sexual rejection and so much more.

Unless you’re self-pleasuring alone, sex is a relational experience. Yes, we also have a relationship with ourselves but for the sake of this article, I’m referring to the way we relate to our sexual partners. So many folks lack the tools to navigate the “relational” part of sex.

This can manifest into such problems as not communicating clearly and directly about sex, misunderstanding partner advances or rejections, lack of sexual satisfaction, goal-oriented sex over pleasure-oriented sex, pressure to have sex when it’s not wanted, sexual dysfunctions such as erectile dysfunction or lack of orgasm, sexual disappointment and/or sexual preferences never shared.

Healthy Sexuality in Relationships

In a healthy sexual relationship, sex is a shared, relational experience. It’s where partners can communicate fiercely through physical contact alone. Yet it’s also a space where sexual conversations are welcome. Curiosities, desires and fears are shared. Compassion and empathy are demonstrated. Vulnerability is risked, contained and honored.

As a relationship and sex therapist, I’m constantly learning new ways to help my clients deepen their understanding of themselves and each other when it comes to sex. I also help my clients foster a sex-positive mindset. I found a great, simple resource online that I’d like to share with you.

Explore Your Sexual Health

The University of Louisville has online resources in their campus health department for their students. One of the subject areas is sexual health. The site demonstrates a non-shaming approach to sex ed and helps students foster a sex-positive mindset.

One of their resources is a Sexual Health Bill of Rights. I’ve included it below.

Before reading all 16 Rights, I invite you to travel down memory lane. Try to remember yourself as a pre-teen, teenager or young adult. Think about the home you grew up in. Try to remember your early awareness about sex and your own sexuality. Who were you then? What sexual messages surrounded you?

Once you’ve conjured the memory up in your mind, take a moment to read all 16 rights below. Pause after each one. Think about how it relates to your adolescent years and adult years. Notice if the response is the same or different.

Sexual Health Bill of Rights

I have the right to own my own body.
I have a right to my own feelings, beliefs, opinions and perceptions.
I have a right to trust my own values about sexual conduct.
I have a right to set my own sexual limits.
I have a right to say no.
I have a right to say yes.
I have the right to experience sexual pleasure.
I have the right to remain celibate.
I have the right to be sexually assertive.
I have the right to be the initiator in a sexual relationship.
I have the right to be in control of my sexual experiences.
I have the right to have a loving partner.
I have a right to my sexual orientation and preferences.
I have the right to have a partner who respects me, understands me and is willing to communicate with me.
I have a right to talk to my partner about incest/child abuse/rape.
I have a right to ask questions and receive sexually accurate information.

What might you add to this list that’s not already there? What’s missing that might relate to you specifically?

Sex and Your Intimate Relationship

Couples get tripped up on so many of the nuances that come along with sex. Consider how the sexual health bill of rights ties into any problem areas for you. Let’s explore a few together.

Bill of Rights #3: What does it mean to trust your own values about sexual conduct? If you’re not sure, ask yourself, “what do I value about sexual behavior?”. Do you value when your partner asks permission to touch you a certain way? Or, perhaps, you value the element of surprise? Maybe you value feeling safe. If so, what behaviors support that?

Bill of Rights #9: If you have the right to be in control of your sexual experiences, and your partner has the same right, who actually has control? Who’s in charge when it comes to sex? What does control look like behaviorally? How does control become a shared experience?

Bill of Rights #15: If you experienced sexual abuse or a sexual violation in your past, have you told your partner? Does this experience impact how you experience sex now? Do you worry what your partner would think if he/she/they knew? How would that impact your relationship?

Sex is Relational

Sex is relational but it starts with you.

Consider your own sexual story, history, identity, expression, permissions and limits. Use the Sexual Health Bill of Rights to help you explore your own sexuality. Consider who you were as a young sexually developing person and who you are now as a sexually active or inactive adult. Where are the parallels, connections, intersections?

But don’t stop there! Ask your partner to do the same. Your sexual stories, both past and present, are powerful. They help you understand who you are as a sexual being and as a sexual couple.

And…your story keeps evolving. As a couple, it’s up to you to create each new chapter. Be courageous authors! Make it epic.

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