Are you and your partner struggling to reestablish intimacy in your relationship? How can you make a long-lasting impact in your relationship that benefits you both? How can you begin to talk about the difficult things? In this podcast episode, Billy and Brandy Eldridge speak about sex and relationships with Dr. Susan Orenstein. Meet Dr. Susan Orenstein Dr. Susan Orenstein, a licensed psychologist, and relationship expert and has successfully helped couples optimize their marriages or learn to let each other go so they can find “happily ever after” elsewhere. She is also the host of the After The First Marriage, which is a podcast dedicated to helping individuals find their happily ever after elsewhere. This means getting back in touch with their best self and reimagining possibilities for a fantastic future. Visit her website and listen to her podcast here. In This Podcast Summary * The most common thing couples need help with * How do couples regain that trust in their partners? * Addressing issues with sex * Tools for easing into difficult conversations * Hardest pills to swallow The most common thing couples need help with In Dr. Susan Orenstein’s experience, the answer is intimacy. People may come into the consulting room and say that they have a communication problem, but in fact, it is larger than that. Couples may have stopped trusting their partners, are walking on eggshells around them, they may have stopping confiding in one another and therefore they have less intimacy. Over this period, they have built up armor in the tense environment and can no longer interact with one another sincerely through their barriers. How do couples regain that trust in their partners? By starting to talk about the elephant in the room and getting right to the root of it. Have the tough but necessary conversation about how each person feels in the relationship. Acknowledge that you are not feeling as close as you would like to feel and be with your partner, and then commit to talking about this together – not with friends behind the partner’s back, not delving into escapism. Commit to having a difficult conversation together with sincerity and integrity. Addressing issues with sex It is important to talk about what is getting in the way of the one person who is having trouble with sex at that time. There is not only one cause but a multitude of factors that have built up over time. However, Dr. Orenstein gives a generalized cause which most couples struggle with when it comes to issues with sex; that it is to do with stress. But trying to solve this issue by pressuring your partner or guilt-tripping them does far more damage than good because it adds more stress. Couples should take a step back and try a new tactic of having ease in their relationship outside of sex first, to genuinely enjoy time spent with one another. Someone in the relationship can be more controlling over the other and feel as if they control the other person’s sexuality. This ownership or hostage situation is what adds more stress. Working to create an environment that is free and loving and open to express sexuality can encourage the partner to open up. Tools for easing into difficult conversations I think it’s important for couples to look at themselves and to say ‘okay am I doing anything threatening, am I being sarcastic, am I being belittling and then saying it’s a joke’? Just to be honest with ourselves about how we might be threatening our partner and not recognizing it and just cut all that out. When you cut all that out it makes a world of difference.