Blog

"I don't know what's wrong with me. Everything works fine when I'm alone. But with her, I don't know, it's like I'm broken."

I hear some version of this from men over and over. Many of them seem to be sitting on top of the world: successful professionals, in relationships, well put together. To an ...

A couple I worked with had been together for six years. They shared a bed, a lease, friends, and holiday traditions. They had never once had a real conversation about money.

He paid for groceries and dinners out. She covered takeout. They each bought their own plane tickets and split the rest of th...

How many times have you been poked by someone you love? And how many times have you poked them, without meaning to?

Most of us could make a long list. I've been thinking about this through an old story, the fable of the porcupines.

The fable

The idea goes back to the philosopher Arthur Schopenhau...

You're both in the kitchen at the end of a long day. Someone's scrolling, someone's loading the dishwasher. Nobody's fighting. Nobody's really connecting either.

Moments like that are where closeness quietly drains away, or quietly builds. And a lot of it comes down to four phrases:

• I love you.
...

A good book can do something a session can't: it sits on your nightstand and waits for you.

These are the books I recommend most often, alongside my one-on-one work and The Sex Class. Some are about sex. Many aren't, at least not directly. They're about attention, kindness toward yourself, and how ...

You ask how they're doing. They say "fine." You ask again, a little more gently. They change the subject, or pick up their phone, or go quiet.

You want more closeness. And the more you push for it, the further away they seem to go.

If that's where you are, you're not alone. And there's good news: ...

Sex classes have changed a lot. For a while there was a class in San Francisco called "Eating Pussy Like a Champion." And yes, they had a live demo.

That's one end of the spectrum. Most classes are nothing like that, and mine is at the other end entirely. If you're curious but nervous, here are str...

"We're seeing each other, but it's not serious." "I'm not into labels." "Let's keep it casual."

Sometimes those sentences are exactly true. Plenty of people genuinely prefer casual relationships, or a lot of time alone, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But sometimes they're cover. The person s...

Keeping sex alive is one of the hardest parts of a long-term relationship. It's also one of the most common struggles I hear about.

And yet some couples stay sexually connected for years. What have they figured out?

In my work with couples, I see the same things show up again and again in the ones...

A partner says, "I don't feel close to you." You hear the words and honestly don't know what they're asking for. Open up how? About what?

In my work, I often trace that moment back to something much older: the playground, the locker room, the dinner table where someone said "toughen up."

Not every...