When couples counseling works, but the bedroom doesn’t
Dear Dr. Jane,
My wife and I will have been married for 20 years next week. In lots of ways, we’ve got a great relationship. We get along well and parent together without a lot of conflict about the kids. We exercise, eat well and have friends. We work from home, and most days, we like work. The problem is sex. Even though we’ve done years of couples counseling, things haven’t changed in the bedroom. We connect when we go on vacation, but that’s pretty seldom. In some ways, I think the counseling made things worse, because after all those sessions, the bedroom didn’t get better. Gotta say, I’m completely discouraged. I’m 53 and she’s 47. I don’t know what’s going to happen if we don’t fix this problem. We never touch at all, and I’m going crazy. Can you help?
– Going crazy in Charleston
Dear Going crazy,
I can’t tell you how often I hear about this exact dynamic. It’s really an epidemic in our culture — good couple, bad bedroom. One of the reasons is that even though people have sought out couples counseling for years, it often hasn’t addressed their sexual concerns. This doesn’t mean couples counseling isn’t important, because it is. Learning how to communicate, how to respect one another, even how to disagree without hurting each other’s feelings — these are all important, even vital, things. Hopefully you learned them in your therapist’s office or Zoom room.
Unfortunately, the conversation that starts with “we need to go to counseling” doesn’t often end with “let’s make love” because counseling doesn’t address the real issues facing couples in the bedroom.
That said, you now know how to communicate about day-to-day things with less conflict, and hopefully you were able to build trust and a sense of safety in your relationship. These are really important — so don’t be discouraged about the time you spent. It matters.
Desire is a separate system from the emotional safety that most couples counseling focuses on — and that’s OK. In my work, I think about desire as something like an electrical charge, which is very different from thinking about daily communication. Imagining desire as actual electricity can help us figure out what to do when there doesn’t seem to be any charge flowing between you two. When your personal battery is drained — like your phone battery — there’s no way you’re going to find the charge, let alone the spark you want.
Tip #1: Recharge. Are you both exhausted? If so, sex is going to be low on the list. You may want to want it, but sex requires energy and your battery is at 3%. Get some sleep instead and see how you feel.
Tip #2: Mind “the gap.” Too much closeness decreases desire. You need space and separateness, just like real electrical circuits need polarity to create current. Your intimate life runs the same way. When you’re connected all the time — kids, pets, working from home — you don’t have enough separateness to want each other. Get some distance.
Tip #3: Don’t drain your battery. Where is your sexual charge going if it isn’t going into your relationship? You may be one of the thousands of people who’ve developed an unhealthy or even addictive connection to erotic material on their phone. If this is you, don’t be embarrassed — it’s incredibly common. But do stop the behavior. Porn sends all sorts of negative messages and creates unrealistic expectations about what real intimacy should look and feel like. You’re also learning ineffective sexual techniques from porn that’ll keep you from having satisfying experiences in real life. Watching porn regularly drains your battery for connected intimacy. Take a good look at your own patterns and make adjustments.
Get more rest, take a break from the stress in your daily life, and let go of unhealthy viewing habits. These are just a few things you can do to improve your intimate connection. Try these suggestions and let me know how it goes. I live for this stuff.
You’ve got this!
– Dr. Jane
When trying too hard backfires: A gentler path through erectile difficulty
Dear Dr. Jane,
I was married for over 20 years to my former wife. We had a sexless marriage for the last couple of years, but I never had any stamina issues when we were still intimate. Since the divorce, I’ve been dating, and I finally found a really nice woman — we’re exclusive now. Everything is going well except for one problem: my performance. I’m 44, eat healthy, work out, and I’m very attracted to my partner. I don’t take any medications other than Viagra, which gives me headaches. I’m starting to dread sex, even though I love her. My doctor says there’s nothing medically wrong. Can you help?
– Stressed out about sex
Dear Stressed,
I get this question all the time in my office, and the truth is, men have been given some misleading information about their sexuality their whole lives. They’re taught that arousal equals erection — and that’s often true. But it’s not always true, and when it isn’t, men tend to read it as failure. They worry they “have ED.”
Real erectile dysfunction is a legitimate medical condition, but a lot of the time, that’s not what’s actually happening. Most of the men I see have already been cleared by a doctor before they ever sit down with me. There’s nothing physically wrong. The doctor has told them “the plumbing works just fine,” and they’re left upset and confused. That sounds like your situation.
What they don’t realize is that a man’s body isn’t wired to prioritize sex during periods of stress. Think back to early human history: if something dangerous had interrupted sex, an erection in that moment would have been a liability, not an asset. The same wiring is still active today. Your body doesn’t distinguish between “danger” and “the low hum of everyday stress” — it just reads tension and responds accordingly. A nervous penis is a soft penis.
So what’s a guy to do? Here’s the catch: worrying about your erections makes them less reliable, and unreliable erections make you worry more. It’s a loop. The way out isn’t trying harder — it’s the opposite. Talk to your partner about what’s going on. Remind her this isn’t a reflection of her or how attracted you are to her. Ask her to talk about it with you, openly, and to reassure you. Shift your focus from erection to sensation. Slow down. That’s genuinely it. I know that’s easy to say and harder to do — but it works.
Here’s what you (and your partner) need to remember:
- An erection isn’t the same thing as arousal. It’s one possible sign of arousal, not the whole picture. You can be turned on, present, and engaged without being hard. Treating softness as proof that nothing else is real is what causes the shutdown — not the stress itself.
- Evaluating yourself during intimacy is the problem, not the solution. Arousal requires more than excitement — it requires a felt sense of safety. When you’re tracking your own “performance” (“is this good enough, does she like this?”), you pull your nervous system into threat mode, which is the opposite of the relaxed state arousal actually needs.
- If it happens again, don’t panic. One difficult moment is information, not a diagnosis. What turns a single stressful episode into a lasting pattern is the story you tell yourself about it afterward. A partner’s reassurance — spoken out loud, not just assumed — does far more to break that cycle than trying to white-knuckle through it alone.
You’re not alone in this. A significant number of men experience some version of this in their 40s. Keep your attention on pleasure, not performance. Reassure your partner it’s not about her.
You’ve got this.
– Dr. Jane
Dr. Jane Guyn is a nationally recognized relationship coach based in Oregon. Her column appears online monthly.
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