Lisa Miller

And she doesn't want to have sex.

And she's saying so in her marriage to her husband.

that is empowering for her in some way.

I mean, he could tell, but he very much wants to be her loving partner.

Well, they were both working on this in therapy, individually and together.

And Javier's therapist gave him an exercise that was meant to help couples who aren't having sex or who want to get over some hurdle in order to have sex.

And the first stage is, you know, one partner lies down fully clothed and the other partner touches him or her.

everywhere except the erogenous zones.

And the partner who's clothed and lying down says what they do and don't like.

And they did it one time, and Javier said he enjoyed it very much.

But when he asked her, did she want to do it again, she said no.

They didn't even get past the first phase of the exercise.

But also, you have to share this new body with him when you haven't totally gotten comfortable in it yourself.

Yes, I think that's true.

I think they're both completely blindsided by that.

You know, we all get into our relationships with these unstated contracts that are not totally happy compromises sometimes.

And then something like this happens and you have to like ventilate that contract and say, okay, like this is not what I want.

And they're doing that.

So you're empowered in a way to take up space to say what you want

And that forces you to have to figure out what you want.