This is part two of a two-part interview. In part one, Connect Couples’s Mercy Clark sat down with Brittany Bolden, LMFT, LCAS, a Connect Couples therapist and AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, to talk through why desire changes, what “duty sex” is, and why there’s no universal normal. Here, Brittany answers the four questions couples tend to ask next: how to improve a stalled sex life, how to say what you want without embarrassing anyone, how to rebuild intimacy after years together, and what to do when you and your partner want different things.
How can we improve our sex life?
Before Brittany suggests anything new, she looks at what’s already helping and what’s getting in the way. She sorts those into two categories: sexual accelerators, which hit the green light on desire, and sexual blocks, which keep pressing pause. A block can be resentment, exhaustion, or a partner who isn’t pulling their weight with the kids.
Then she spends time separating two things couples usually treat as one:
- Attraction: Do you find your specific partner appealing right now?
- Desire: What are your body and hormones doing, independent of your relationship?
Untangling which one needs attention determines where the real work happens.
If there’s a rupture, such as a betrayal or resentment that’s been building for years, Brittany addresses that first, emotionally, before anything physical. If the relationship is fundamentally healthy and the couple has drifted out of the habit of touch, she turns to touch exercises with a specific goal: helping a partner’s touch register as pleasure again instead of pressure.
When their partners go to touch them, they just kind of freeze up. It activates that nervous system… so what we start to do is create more opportunity for non-sexual touch.
Brittany’s target for these couples is about 26 non-sexual touches a day: hugs, a hand on the shoulder while you’re talking, cuddling in bed, scratching each other’s backs. Repeated often enough, that touch starts rewiring the pathway in the brain that links a partner’s touch with pleasure. None of these touches are meant to lead anywhere, which is what lets the nervous system relax into them.
There’s a real order of operations here for heterosexual couples. Men often need physical connection to feel safe enough for emotional connection. Women often need emotional connection first to feel safe enough for physical connection. Brittany builds both into the plan at once, pairing emotional repair work with a low-stakes, non-sexual touch practice, so neither partner is stuck waiting for the other to go first.
How do I communicate what I want sexually without hurting or embarrassing my partner?
Brittany’s answer is another touch exercise. Partners take turns as “giver” and “receiver” in short sessions of as little as 10 minutes, starting in clearly non-sexual territory like the hands or scalp. They can switch roles the same night or alternate week to week, depending on what their schedule allows.
The receiver practices steering out loud, in real time:
“Hey, I’d like it a little bit harder… hey, you know, when you scratch like that, it doesn’t feel as good.”
The touch gives both partners something low-stakes to practice on. The receiver learns to ask for what they want, and the giver learns to take direction without hearing it as criticism. As Brittany puts it, nobody’s going to be upset if you ask them to rub your hand harder.
Over time, the exercise moves into what Brittany calls the gray areas, like the side of the body or the inner thigh. Eventually it reaches sexual touch with clear limits (no penetration). The skill stays the same at every stage: say what feels good, and receive redirection without it stinging.
For couples who want a lower-pressure way to start the conversation, Brittany points to the free Gottman Card Decks app, which grew out of the card decks used in the Art and Science of Love workshop. Its Salsa decks come in mild, medium, and hot. Her date-night suggestion: pick a deck, flip through it, and show your partner a few cards that interest you.
Another option is a “Yes/No/Maybe” list. It’s a long checklist (the version sex therapists use runs past 100 items) where each partner privately marks specific acts and preferences, from kissing in public to dirty talk, as a yes, a no, or a maybe. Then the couple compares answers together.
Her one hard rule, whatever the method: don’t yuck anybody’s yum. If your partner shares a fantasy you’re not interested in, Brittany’s advice is to hear them out, then share whether it’s a yes, a no, or a maybe for you.
How do we rebuild intimacy and sexual connection after years together?
Brittany starts by finding where and why the breakdown happened. Most often, she says, couples got busy: kids arrived and sex slid down the priority list. Then she looks at what season they’re in now. Older kids or a lighter workload can make room for something that wasn’t possible five years ago.
Before anything physical, she looks for breaks in trust, and her definition goes well beyond infidelity. A partner who didn’t help with the kids can register as a break in trust, because the relationship was supposed to be a partnership. So can a partner who hasn’t shown up financially or emotionally. Some of these hurts are decades old, like a partner who felt abandoned in the first month after a baby arrived and is still carrying it when that child is 20.
Repair can also mean untangling a cycle of sexual disconnection, where one partner stopped initiating years ago, and the other never noticed the sex had stopped.”
Brittany takes those ruptures seriously and works on repair first. From there, the rebuild follows a familiar order. Emotional intimacy comes back through dates, real conversation, a kiss hello and goodbye, and non-sexual touch, often built into rituals of connection from the Gottman Method. Sexual reconnection follows once that foundation is back in place.
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Can we fix our relationship if we’re sexually incompatible?
Brittany often asks couples to define “incompatible” before she accepts the word. In her view, a sex life is mostly about compromise. The exception is a genuine values conflict, where one partner’s desire goes against the other’s core values so strongly that it changes how they see their partner.
Brittany describes working with a couple where one partner’s fantasy directly violated the other’s core values, to the point where she no longer found him attractive at all. That, Brittany says, is genuine incompatibility.
Outside of that narrow category, she looks for overlap. She uses the image of a Venn diagram: one partner wants something the other isn’t fully into, and there’s often a middle version both can agree to. If one partner wants something far more adventurous, the other might meet them with lingerie. If one partner fantasizes about a threesome and the other says absolutely not, they can talk the fantasy through together without acting it out, and Brittany finds that satisfies a lot of couples.
“You like it rough, and I like it gentle. We can find that middle ground.”
Her example of that middle ground: “Maybe we’re not physically rough, but maybe we get a little vulgar.”
The conversation stays gentle, and the same rule applies: nobody yucks anybody’s yum. Brittany’s broader view is that true incompatibility is rare. Most of what couples label incompatible is a compromise they haven’t found yet, which means it’s still workable.
Rebuilding intimacy starts smaller than most couples expect
Across all four questions, Brittany works in the same order. Repair comes first. Then couples rebuild through small, low-stakes practice, whether that’s a hug that doesn’t lead anywhere or ten minutes of saying “a little bit harder” during a hand massage. If you’re still sorting out why desire shifted in the first place, part one of the interview covers where that shift usually comes from.
FAQ: Rebuilding intimacy and sexual connection
How much non-sexual touch do couples need to rebuild intimacy?
Brittany’s clinical target is roughly 26 non-sexual touches a day, like hugs, a hand on the shoulder, or cuddling in bed. Frequent touch with no expectation attached is what helps a partner’s touch register as pleasure again.
What is a yes/no/maybe list?
It’s a long checklist of sexual acts and preferences. Each partner privately marks every item yes, no, or maybe, and then the couple compares answers. It gives partners a structured way to learn what the other is open to without having to raise a specific request cold.
What does “don’t yuck someone’s yum” mean?
It’s a common rule in sex therapy. When a partner shares a fantasy or preference, you don’t mock or shame it, even if it isn’t for you. You can listen, then say whether it’s a yes, a no, or a maybe for you.
Is sexual incompatibility a reason to break up?
Rarely, in Brittany’s experience. She reserves “incompatible” for true values conflicts, where one partner’s desire fundamentally clashes with the other’s ethics. Most differences in how often or how intensely partners want sex can be worked through by finding overlap, often with a sex therapist’s help.