I had always been told that sexual problems are the consequence of relationship problems, and that if you fix the relationship, the sex will follow. While that was indeed the case for lots of couples, I was seeing countless others who kept telling me, “We love each other very much. We have a great relationship. Except for the fact that we have no sex.” Clearly, their sexual impasse was not merely a symptom of a romance gone awry. We had to look in less obvious places for the roots of their erotic demise—which meant talking directly about sex, something couples therapists often prefer to avoid.
