Episode Description - Your Sexless Marriage Isn't Dead: How to Rekindle Intimacy
The sex stopped, the silence started, and now you're strangers sharing a bed. In this podcast episode, marriage, sex, and intimacy coach Irene Fehr unpacks why passion so often cools in long-term marriages - and how you can rekindle intimacy in your sexless marriage without pressure, blame, or performance anxiety.
When Irene’s libido completely disappeared in her own marriage, she felt broken and alone. Her sexless marriage ultimately ended in divorce. Now Irene guides couples past the point where the passion in their relationship fades and helps them reconnect on every level, regardless of their age.
In this deep conversation, Irene reveals why so many couples slide into sexless marriages or roommate dynamics and the three most common mistakes couples make when trying to “fix” their disappearing sex lives. Irene also tackles taboo realities, including mismatched desire, attraction changes, affairs, open marriages, and whether broken connection can genuinely be rebuilt.
If you and your spouse have slipped into being just “roommates,” and you’re worried your marriage will either be eternally sexless, or end in divorce, listen to this podcast episode. Irene will show you how you can rekindle your passion (or rebuild it after an affair) so you can create the lasting intimacy you long for.
Show Notes
About Irene
Irene Fehr, MA, CPCC, SEP is a Marriage Sex & Intimacy Coach who helps heterosexual couples make love and sex work over the long term — including bringing passion back into a sexless relationship. Determined to dispel myths about why sex dies in a long-term relationship, her views have been featured globally in HuffPost, Cosmopolitan, Shape, Refinery29, ScaryMommy, EliteDaily, and Bustle. Through her coaching, she guides couples at different stages of the relationship via three core pathways — Rekindling Us (rediscovering passion at midlife), Rebuilding Us (transforming crisis into connection), and Creating Us (laying a strong foundation for lasting love and sexual intimacy for new couples) — always anchored in the principle of consciously and intentionally choosing “us.”
Connect with Irene
You can connect with Irene on LinkedIn at Irene Fehr and on Facebook at Ignited Woman. You can follow Irene on Instagram at Ignited Woman and on her YouTube channel at Ignited Woman. To find out how to work with Irene visit her website at Ignited Woman.
Links to articles mentioned in podcast
Why Your Partner Won’t Get Couples Counseling and How to Get Them On Board
3 Warning Signs of Divorce and How to Address Them Before It's Too Late
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Irene
- Irene Fehr is a marriage, sex, and intimacy coach who helps couples rekindle passion, rebuild connection after crisis, and create lasting intimacy.
- Her own libido disappeared in marriage; she internalized shame and depression before transforming that pain into her life’s work helping others.
- Sexual desire naturally fades in long-term relationships because most couples lack tools for emotional connection and self-awareness.
- Sex dying in midlife is not inevitable—it reflects missing skills, not broken people or incompatibility.
- Irene suggests to shift from complaints (“We never have sex”) to vulnerability (“I miss being close to you”) to re-open emotional intimacy.
- Couples often skip small acts of affection that once fueled passion because of loss of connection; rebuilding starts with touch, attention, and presence, not performance.
- Loss of attraction often masks emotional disconnection rather than physical change.
- Affairs can become turning points if handled with professional guidance, emotional honesty, and shared vulnerability; meaning you can rebuild after betrayal.
- Three big mistakes couples often make: (1) Talking analytically instead of vulnerably, (2) Waiting too long—letting resentment build, (3) Pushing when a partner shuts down instead of creating safety and curiosity.
- Irene believes with maturity, self-awareness, and freedom from hormonal drives, midlife can bring the most profound, sensual, and emotionally connected sex of a lifetime.
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Transcript
Your Sexless Marriage Isn't Dead: How to Rekindle Intimacy
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
intimacy, relationship, rebuilding
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Irene Fehr
Karen Covy: 0:10
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision making so we can discover what keeps us stuck, and more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorced lawyer, mediator, and arbitrator, turned coach, author, and entrepreneur. And now without further ado, let's get on with the show.
With me today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Irene Fehr. Irene is a marriage, sex, and intimacy coach who helps heterosexuals make love and sex work over the long term, including bringing passion back into a sexless marriage. Determined to dispel myths about why sex dies in a long-term relationship, her views have been featured globally in HuffPost, Cosmo, Shape, Refinery29, Scary Mommy, Elite Daily, and Bustle. Through her coaching, she guides couples at different stages of relationships via three core pathways. One is Rekindling Us, which is recovering, rediscovering passionate midlife. One is Rebuilding Us, transforming a crisis into a connection, and Creating Us, laying a strong foundation for lasting love and sexual intimacy for new couples. Irene is always anchored in the principle of consciously and intentionally choosing us. Irene, welcome to the show.
Irene Fehr: 1:59
Thank you so much for having me.
Karen Covy: 2:01
I am there, there's so much. I'm thrilled to have you here. There's so much I want to get into with you. But before we do all of that, what got you into this line of work? I'm so curious.
Irene Fehr: 2:13
Well, you mentioned uh my focus or the topic that I like to talk about, which is why sex dies in a long-term relationship. And what happened to me is that my specifically my interest in sex, my libido, completely died in my marriage. And it was extremely distressing, it was confusing, it was uh alienating in the sense that I felt so alone and broken because um, because it was my sexual desire, I felt very responsible for our entire sex life. And we know we had a very classic dynamic in the beginning. Sex was hot, there was a lot of it, we were excited, but then again, at some point, my sexual desire went away and our sex life completely imploded. And at the time we didn't know what to do about it. I couldn't really vulnerably speak about it. My husband couldn't really be there for me in the way that I needed, which I also didn't know how to say, how to express what I needed. We really um uh pulled away from each other without knowing how to deal with something like this. And by the way, this is so common. This is the classic story of sex is hot in the beginning and frequency passion go away. But again, without the tools and without the context and normalization of this, I took it on myself. He, I can imagine, felt shame and disappointment and frustration. We didn't know what to do with those things, and we fell apart. And our marriage ended in divorce. Not specifically about sex, but because we couldn't really connect over the things that really mattered. Well, we could, we were really great about choosing vacations or what wines we wanted to serve at a dinner party. But when it comes, when it came to opening up our hearts or being vulnerable about our fears or what was not working, no clue. And so um, you know, when I speak to sex dying in a in a long-term relationship, it's a natural part of the evolution. And when sex dies, it's really um it challenges us to understand ourselves, to build our awareness, to learn how to connect with each other over disappointments or frustrations. We failed that test. And what's on the other side is for couples when they get to this place is to realize wait a second, that end means we can actually create something stronger based on that self-awareness, based on our uh understanding ourselves of our ability to play with something so challenging. Again, we failed that. Oh, the end of our marriage. But it was also a beginning for me then to really start to. Well, first of all, let me, I'm going too fast. First of all, all of this affected me greatly. And for about four or five years, I was in deep depression because I took on that shame. I took on the sense that I was broken. But at some point I realized, wait a second, something is really off here. And I need to understand how to fix myself. But really, it put me on the path of understanding myself, growing myself, and then ultimately learning to um to figuring out what was actually happening and what happens to couples like me and women like me, and start to serve couples like this out in the world. Because I know it's so common and it's so painful when you're there.
Karen Covy: 6:05
I love that. And you are 100% right. It is common and painful, but just um just to give people a little context, especially those who are listening and can't see you and see how beautiful you are, what age range are we talking about? That, you know, when did this happen to you?
Irene Fehr: 6:23
Right. So I was in my uh second half of my 20s. Uh, we were both about the same age. And uh so I got I was in a sexless marriage and divorced by the time I was 30.
Karen Covy: 6:35
Wow. So, all right, this I want to address a myth, or maybe it's not a myth, maybe it's true. What most people think is that when you get to midlife-ish, right, that's all she wrote for sex. It's over. It, you know, it just dies in a long-term relationship. The fact that it happened to you, I can only imagine how much worse you must have felt because you're like, I'm too young for this, right? Um, but it does it, does it always happen? Does it have to happen? And if so, when does it happen?
Irene Fehr: 7:07
So um a couple of things. Part, this this idea of sex in a long-term relationship based on mutual love, affection, and passion is a really new thing. It goes back to about 125 years at the time when Freud and Carl Jung were creating this idea of um self-analysis, meaning understanding yourself. And at this the same time, there was a romanticism happening. This idea that our feelings and emotions are really powerful. But 150 years is very young. I mean, really, that is nothing in the spectrum of how we have developed as human beings and how sex was used, which was for procreation and for safety. If I'm having sex with my partner, they belong to me or I belong to them. And here we're trying to create a relationship based on, again, mutual feelings, mutual desire, mutual love, and to make sex work together with that. And we're really not equipped to do that. And so that's why, again, I speak to this idea that sex is supposed to die in a relationship because we're not equipped to really uh make sex meet our emotional needs for that again, that mutuality. We need to learn the skills. And most couples don't know themselves enough, even if they're in their 30s and 40s, they don't know themselves enough. They don't know how to cope with difficult situations such as uh frustration or disappointment that their partner doesn't want the same thing as they do. And so they all, everyone, pretty much everyone, hits this point where the initial hotness, passion dies out, and there's this junction of what do we do? Do we conclusion that we don't we're not compatible, or that one of us is broken and that's just too bad, it doesn't work, or we choose to learn about ourselves and each other and learn these tools. And um the severity of this junction point will differ. For some people, they hit this, they're frustrated, they're unhappy, they're disappointed, and they're okay. And for others, it can absolutely create divorce, it can absolutely create years of fighting each other and conflict and crisis.
Karen Covy: 9:39
Let me let me interrupt for a second when you say they hit this point and but they're okay. Does that mean they're okay because they just don't ever have sex anymore and they're both okay with it, or they're okay because they find a way to reconnect and have better sex again?
Irene Fehr: 9:56
Great question. So both of those actually, a lot of couples hit that point and they really believe that they're just not compatible and that they can't really get to the place where they want to be. And so they, yes, they give up on sex, they become roommates, sex becomes too fraught with anxiety and worries, and they give up on that and they coexist as partners. Certainly they may love each other very much, but that there is no romantic uh relationship. Uh, there's also when couples uh are okay with this, they may, for example, open up the marriage and say, okay, we can't, we're not compatible. One of us is going to get that somewhere else. And I think that that idea has really taken hold in the last decade or so. This idea that um our partners can't be everything for us. And so it's okay to open the marriage. Now, that's certainly true, but a lot of the times that's applied when the couple just simply doesn't know how to reconnect to each other in this new way, in this new way that their sex life is calling them to do. So a lot of couples open up the relationship uh for lack of other solutions, other ways of working through it.
Karen Covy: 11:22
I'm curious, is that cultural? Because I know that in some cultures, having you know, a lover on the side is kind of normal. In others, it's absolutely taboo. Like, you know, in the United States, for the most part, most people think, okay, you're my husband or my wife, you're having sex with somebody else, we're done, right? But I know that's not true all over the world. So can you speak to that a little bit?
Irene Fehr: 11:50
Absolutely. So in Europe, in different places within Europe, which is where I live, um, that's very common. And um part of it is coming from this place of normalizing the idea that um you can have an open relationship and that it's not, it's not necessarily talked about, but it's also not taboo. Um, so that's the positive aspect of it. But some of the negative aspect of this comes from deep cynicism that we can’t make it work. And it comes from this place when when sex dies in a long-term relationship, again, the couple decides, well, that's it. We there's nothing more here for us, romantically or sexually. Let's agree to stay together for the love, for the children, for the common uh family goals, financial goals. But this again, this deep cynicism is there about making the romantic part work and kind of growing past this challenge. And that's why having a lover is so is more accepted here, which is unfortunate again, because I think that cynicism is unwarranted. It's not a matter of is it possible or not, but do we have the tools to do it?
Karen Covy: 13:13
Well, let's talk about that. What are the tools that a couple needs when they hit that point, if they hit that point in the relationship where sex is just not what it used to be, so to speak, and they're unhappy with that, what do they do?
Irene Fehr: 13:30
Well, first of all, and then this is it won't be a surprise when I say this. It is about naming it and communicating about it. But how we communicate about it is really important. Most people will complain about it. You're not available for me. We're not having enough sex. Why aren't we having more sex? You know, it's been a long time. Why don't you want to have sex with me? And from that place of complaining, uh, you get defensiveness. No one likes to be in the receiving side of complaining. And so that kicks couples off on the on the wrong foot. Instead, it's important to have a vulnerable conversation, conversation like lovers would, which could sound like, hey, I miss you. I loved when we laid together and then would start kissing and it would lead to sex. And, you know, I really miss that. I'd love to do that again with you. I'm not sure what happened. Can we talk about it?
Karen Covy: 14:34
What happens if they talk about it and one person, and I'm gonna go straight stereotypical here, right? So it's the man who wants more sex and the woman who has just lost her libido, right? And he says, I love, I would just what you said, I would love to lay with you. I love when we had sex, let's do it again. And the woman is just not into it.
Irene Fehr: 14:57
Yeah, so here's the thing, and this is a subtle difference in language. Here, let's do it again, skips over a lot of things that particularly women need to be able to do it again. And that is the connection piece. So the key piece is just to reestablish that connection. Like, I'm missing you, I'm missing your body next to me. We don't have to have sex, I just want to be with you. Those words are very different than let's have sex again.
Karen Covy: 15:27
Yeah.
Irene Fehr: 15:28
And it's so easy to slip into that and forget that when, especially in the beginning, why sex was so uh passionate and hot was because all those steps were had their own space and they were accentuated and amplified. Like touching each other's hands was del just this sent tingles down your spine, or your person look, your partner looking at you, or just holding each other in a long hug, like you do that naturally in the beginning, but we skipp over that part and like, hey, let's have sex. We're missing a lot of really important things. And this is where um the couples that come to me, that's there's they're very common blind spots. And once you just talk about having sex, having sex, having sex, they can get out of that. That's a that's um like a broken record. And they really are blind to these things that they also have used to do and don't do anymore, and how impactful they are.
Karen Covy: 16:38
So let's I'm curious about another question, another stereotypical situation. Let's say that the couple's been married for well over a decade, they've got a couple of kids, and one of them or both of them have put on a few pounds, right? And so you've got one person who's saying, you know, I'd love to have sex with you, but I'm just not attracted anymore. How do you deal with that?
Irene Fehr: 17:04
Well, that's very common scenario for most people who age, which is pretty everybody. Um, but there's also something else that may be at play here. So when we're in love with someone, we will love them even if they look and act like a goat. I think there's an actual uh lyrical or poetic way of saying that. But the point is when we're in love, we see someone for their the we see them as beautiful despite their flaws. And more so than just in love, when we're really connected to them, when we are, when we have our hearts open, when we're met, when we're seen, when we get to see and meet our partners, again, that's where that this whole being in love really what that looks like. So when we are in that state, these things don't really matter as much because the connection is strong. But what happens, like you said, life took over, there's the kids, we're managing our lives and stuff. Naturally, the disconnect will happen. We will lose that connection, and these flaws start to um show up as much more prominent than before. And they become kind of excuses. Like I don't feel connected to my partner, and all I see is that they got you know bigger and fatter. But it's really that I don't feel connected anymore, and I'm not able to see more, you know, past that or more that there's more to be honor than that. And so a lot of the times this physicality question actually speaks to a deeper disconnect between the people, and again, another blind spot that people don't see.
Karen Covy: 18:55
So let's say people are in that situation and they've got the disconnect in their marriage, but they want to repair it, right? They don't want to live in a sexless or a dead marriage, and they don't want a divorce. How can they start to reconnect, for lack of a better word?
Irene Fehr: 19:13
Yeah. And this is my area of expertise, this reconnection. So, as you brought up in the beginning, it's either rekindling us in midlife or rebuilding us when we have kind of hit that crisis point where this is so frustrating and unbearable that we're kind of spiraling down or spiraling out. Um, and a big piece is to again to communicate and to name vulnerably the frustration around that, because that vulnerability takes us away from you did this, I did, you know, he said, she said, he did, she did what we're doing to actually having a heart-to-heart conversation. So just by vulnerably naming what's happening, you right away start to create connection. You right away are able to get past this pattern and into a more um vulnerable, more intimate conversation.
Karen Covy: 20:15
What happens? What happens if one person opens up and the other person says, yeah, it's all your fault?
Irene Fehr: 20:22
Well, that is very good information. Your partner, and if um it probably is not the first time uh that they will blame you for doing that. So uh can you do something about it? Yes, but it's also again really valuable information. If your partner blames you when you get vulnerable, it may not be a safe place to be in, a safe relationship to be in. And maybe vulnerability can't happen in an unsafe relationship.
Karen Covy: 20:55
Makes a lot of sense.
Irene Fehr: 20:57
If there is, you know, and there's levels, there's levels of the this kind of response from it's your fault, go fix yourself, which I have heard a million times, definitely in many couples that come to work with me. Um, and also um on the other end of the spectrum is people who are not, it's so hard for them to face the reality of the challenge that they're not able to. And with them, you don't want to give up, but you also have to really take it slow, be like, here's I'm opening up to you. I know you can't really respond to me right now, but when you are ready to respond, I'm here. And you start to open up little by little. So there's a big spectrum of things, and it depends where you are in the spectrum and what it means.
Karen Covy: 21:54
Okay, what happens if the opening up is in the context of, you know, the couple has hit this place in their relationship where they're not having sex, and one of them stepped out of the marriage. And so the wall that they've hit is somebody found out their spouse is having an affair. And, you know, how do you come back for that from that? Because if you didn't have the connection before, you certainly don't have it then, and you don't want to have sex with somebody who just cheated on you necessarily. So how do you is that fixable? I guess is where to start.
Irene Fehr: 22:30
So absolutely it's fixable. And so and actually for many couples, more than we realize, it is a turning point in their relationship where they get honest about what's happening, what their needs are, what their emotions are. It's kind of a you have to burn the house down before you build a new one. Um, and but it is also true that um stepping out of the marriage really requires, or let me say it differently, recovering and rebuilding after stepping out from a marriage really requires a third-party help, someone who can facilitate the process because otherwise it's too personal, it's too raw. You can't be in it and trying to like lead the process out of it. You need someone to hold space for both people and to facilitate the uh first the um the anger and the um the hurt and then the grieving and then the rebuilding. And that's usually something that most couples can do on their own, or that it would be a lot more painful if you try to do it on your own and really stretched it out. So that's the first thing is that this this piece requires very expert hand holding and creating that safe space for that. Um, the second thing is, you know, is it possible to rebuild? Again, yes, but it also depends on the um the self-awareness of the people involved and the ability to drop into those vulnerable places and to make admissions um and to own what has happened, um, and to really again to bear your soul through this. Um and you know, from both sides, the person who was cheated on, they have a tremendous amount of pain. And a lot of people are not, they're not equipped to open that and and show that. But that's part of the healing. And of course, the person who stepped out to for them to take responsibility for what happened. Um, so again, it takes a certain level of intellect uh emotional intelligence and that emotional maturity.
Karen Covy: 24:51
Well, what if whether somebody's in whether a relationship is in the stage of somebody cheated or it's just the relationship sex has died, right? And it's become more of a roommate situation than anything else. Um, what do you do if you're the person in the relationship that wants to work on it and rekindle sex and love and passion, and the other person is perhaps less interested in doing that? What do you do then?
Irene Fehr: 25:25
Yeah. Well, it depends how this actually plays out. Because it's rare that um, I mean, it happens, of course, but it's rare when we really pour our hearts out and we're vulnerable, and our partner just turns away and says, no, I don't want to work on it. This problem a lot of the times is a result of actually making three very big mistakes when we talk about working on our sex life. Okay, them because uh I think most people will really relate to them. Um, and again, if our come from is these three mistakes, it's almost invariable that our partner is not gonna want to work on them. Okay, so it's almost like so very important stuff. Um and again, most people will recognize themselves. I certainly made these mistakes as well. Um, and the first mistake is that we make a very generic and personal conclusion about the relationship. Hey, babe, our sex life is not working. We should, we should get help. Right. So what's wrong with this is that you are coming from this place, this kind of like superior analytical perspective of uh having judged the entire relationship as not working and speaking for both of you, right? And this will be triggering. It has first of all, it has the personal factor of a business meeting when someone says, you know, I've looked at the numbers and uh this quarterly report and it's just not working. Like it's not particularly motivating.
Karen Covy:
No, but it what if it's true?
Irene Fehr:
It is true, but again, here's the thing: if you want to rekindle your relationship as being lovers, you got to speak in love or speak. So instead, hey, it's not working, we need help. It could be something like, I feel so lonely and I miss you. And I know you haven't been wanting or available to do this. You know, there's a part of me that understands why you've been busy working, whatever, but there's a part of me that's so sad. I miss you. And I realize this is not like this this um this leaves me feeling so alone, and I know that doesn't work for me. It doesn't work for me to go back, go to sleep every night to to a stranger. I'm having a really hard time. So if you notice the difference, I am having a really hard time, I am struggling with this rather than again this analytical, hey babe, it's not working. We need to get help.
Karen Covy:
28:19
Okay.
Irene Fehr: 28:19
So if we want to get our partners on board, we have to speak, love or speak. We have to get personal and vulnerable. So that's again the first mistake, not doing that. Um, and also what happens is that uh again, this this analytical perspective of this is not working, that can be argued. What are you talking about? We're working fine. Look, we went on date night yesterday and we did we went on a vacation and look, we're having sex once uh a month. We're it's working. Your analytics are wrong.
Karen Covy: 28:55
Okay, yeah, got it.
Irene Fehr: 28:57
It gets you nowhere, it gets you absolutely nowhere. Whereas personal reveals about your heart and what's happening for you emotionally can't be argued. No one's gonna come back to you and say, like, no, you're not lonely. You don't feel that way, you don't feel that way. Of course, some people do, but overall it's it um sparks a different kind of conversation. So that's um that's number one mistake that again kind of guarantees that your partner's not gonna be on board. The second one is waiting too long to bring this kind of conversation up, bringing waiting too long to say, hey, I miss you, I'm lonely, I am struggling.
Karen Covy: 29:44
Okay.
Irene Fehr: 29:44
What happens if we wait too long? We build up resentment. And when we finally get up the courage to address this, we are coming in with so much charge and we're dumping all of this resentment on our partner. After right, having thought about this for months, maybe even years, and our partner, usually kind of like caught unaware, like, wow, how why did this nuclear bomb just land on my head? Where's this coming from? And so they're not going to be receptive. They're going to be like, wow. Right. They're going to be defensive. They're going to shut down or they're going to get extremely angry. Again, it's going to go nowhere towards getting them on board.
Karen Covy: 30:36
But what is, okay, so I maybe this is a question you can't answer, but what's too long, right? Because something happened. You know, first of all, we're all busy. And a lot of times it can it happens where the sex in a relationship, it doesn't just turn off one day. It sort of slowly tapers off. And then one day it's you notice, oh, geez, we haven't had sex in weeks, months, whatever it's been, right? Um, and then at that point you start, once you realize it, you become more aware of it and you see it more often. But at what point should you bring this to your partner spouse and say, hey, I'm feeling this way. What's that too long time?
Irene Fehr: 31:23
I love this question. And the typical answer is that there is some kind of an actual timeline, like, oh, it's been a month, or it's been six months, or it's been whatever, six years. But I have a different answer to that. And it's a very emotional answer. And that is, too long is when your resentment has bled into your communication and your connection with your partner. So your meter needs to be your own resentment. That's where the self-awareness comes in. Wow, am I holding this resentment and am I being sharp with my partner or am I being unforgiven? Like, wow, they were five minutes late to dinner and I just blow up, or something like that, right? Your meter, your resentment meter is going to tell you when it's been too long.
Karen Covy: 32:12
Okay.
Irene Fehr: 32:13
And that's something to tune into and really listen. And that's why, again, couples make this mistake is that, and I understand it's myself included, it's so scary to bring this up. Vulnerable, it's so fraught with its own anxiety. And we put it off thinking it things are gonna turn around, or you know, it's been like this because uh we've been tired, or X, Y, Z, or maybe when the kids grow up. So we put that off. But again, we have to check in with our resentment meter and to see if that's really bleeding out into the rest of the relationship because resentment is toxic, it will kill connection.
Karen Covy: 32:55
100%. Yeah, I love how you said you're checking in with your own resentment level, because I think so often our tendency is to look to the other person, right? What are what are they doing, where are they at? What instead of checking in with ourselves, and you know, we're the only person we can control.
Irene Fehr: 33:18
So absolutely, and again, uh, sex can't be separated from the rest of the relationship. So that resentment is going to affect how loving you are, how caring you are, how forgiving you are, how much grace you have for these little uh things that we do wrong, which is a lot all the time. We're human beings, and that's going to start to eat at the relationship. And it's very, very important that we, yeah, that we use ourselves as that meter.
Karen Covy: 33:47
That makes sense. So, what's the third mistake that people make?
Irene Fehr: 33:52
The third mistake is it's a little bit more nuanced. Um, and that is that we if especially if we had a pattern of our partner not engaging in this conversation or blowing it off or pushing it away or just going silent, um, we start to get rigid and we start to like some people will push, like, okay, why don't you talk to me about this? Why don't you do this? Um, and uh especially specifically in this kind of dynamic, it's important to understand some of the emotional reasons why people are not we willing to seek help or to look at their relationship. Some of them are around their uh attachment strategies or attachment patterns. Some of that is fear of looking into it and maybe seeing that something is broken. Maybe it's fear of realizing that if we start to look at it, they're gonna be incapable of fixing it or changing it. And so that's the kind of the human element, the emotional element that we have to start to get curious, like what's going on? And again, this is where that emotional awareness, emotional maturity comes in, to be able to ask and to back off, to like ask the question and say, you know, I want you to think about it. I love your answer. I'm here when you're ready to tell me, and leave them to think about it because that question itself is confronting. Um, you know, what's having you shut down or what's having you not do this? But again, it's about that that kind of grace and that compassion and understanding and under understanding that there's um emotional reasons. And I have two articles on my website actually that speak to why uh specifically the emotional reasons of why people don't um uh won't go to couples counseling or coaching and why they won't get help for their relationship. So I go in depth in those two articles about that.
Karen Covy: 35:56
I love that, and I highly encourage everyone to go check out those articles, which will be linked in the show notes. Um, but also just can you give me an idea? I mean, why would someone shut down like that? What what's one emotional reason why somebody would just avoid the conversation?
Irene Fehr: 36:17
Well, one of them, and I mentioned it already, and I'll elaborate on it, and this is particular to man and women dynamics and why the man won't look at it, and that is that um a lot of men take sex and the success of the relationship overall as his responsibility. He's responsible for the success of it. And so when his partner comes to him and says, even vulnerably, hey, this is like this is not working for me, this is really hard, I'm struggling, I feel alone, that the shame that they feel as having failed at their relationship, at their sex life, their relationship, everything is so great. And shame contracts us. Shame is the opposite of making space to do something new and to grow. Shame contracts us, it pulls us back, it shuts us down. And so they will not be able to really respond right away. And so you have to have multiple conversations and you have to create some uh more safety in there. So maybe for them, it would be less focusing less on what's not working and more of, hey, I want to do these things with you, or I want us or I want to share this with you, and I'd like to learn about this, that it looks like less of a failure and more forward looking. Like we haven't failed, we're just want I just want to learn more of how to do this differently. And so without understanding what's happening to them, it's very hard then to shift the direction of the approach.
Karen Covy: 37:55
Yeah, and again, as you're talking, I'm thinking to myself, this just seems like an area where getting professional help would make such a big difference because all of the things that you're talking about are so vulnerable, they're so raw that I could just hear in a situation somebody says, I feel alone, the other person starts to feel shame, and then one triggers the other, and all of a sudden you're going down a path you didn't want to go down, right? You're not fixing things, you're breaking them more.
Irene Fehr: 38:29
Yeah. And what I do with my couples is that exact same situation that you're describing, but facilitating in such a way that they actually feel compassion towards each other, that they open up, that they may cry together, that they start to see that they're both struggling. And then that creates connection. Uh, when there's shame, we're both struggling, it separates couples. But when there is compassion, we're both struggling, means like, wow, we're actually uh in the same place, and maybe we can like support each other and be here together while we're struggling, and that creates connection. And that's the difference between doing it yourselves and doing it when an expert is facilitating that process.
Karen Covy: 39:18
Yeah, it just seems to me, and I could be wrong, but it seems like your chances for success increase exponentially when you have some guidance going through this versus trying to muddle through yourself, right?
Irene Fehr: 39:33
Absolutely. And uh the chances are higher, and also you get there faster. You know, couples, according to John Gottman's research, couples wait six to seven years to seek help. And the amount of damage that they can do to each other and to their love, to their trust is enormous. And so if you they didn't wait that time, the process could have taken, you know, one or two years. But they're there, you know, again, um uh hurting each other themselves, the relationship for such a long time.
Karen Covy: 40:09
Yeah, that makes sense. I have loved our conversation, but there's one sort of sideways direction. I want to go. I have to ask you this question before I let you go. So you have maybe a different opinion than a lot of people out there about midlife sex. You I know you think that midlife is a time to have extraordinary sex, which most people don't look at it that way. So perhaps because I am at a certain stage in life, um, I just want to know why is midlife the best time to have great sex?
Irene Fehr: 40:46
Oh my gosh. Uh yes, I love, love, love this topic. So thank you for the question. Um, why is it such a great time? Well, when we are young, first of all, um, our hormones are driving the show. And they make us do crazy things, which could be fun. There could be fun, crazy things, but they also are they make us go faster, they make us focus on the climax, the orgasm. They make us um really uh like hyper focused on performance, on making sure that we look good, that we feel good. And that kind of sex certainly could feel good and it's fun, but it has diminishing returns. It will be fun for the first couple of times and then it goes away, right? It dies out. And the things that that come with mid with midlife is the self-awareness that there are other parts of us than hormones that can drive sex and sexual connection. It could be sensuality and the ability to really uh engage with each other physically for the pleasure of physicality, not to get to sex or to get to orgasm, but to enjoy each other's bodies, the skin, the sensations that come from it, the vulnerability that that shows up when you get naked and really allow someone to touch you for your pleasure. And that shows again when the hormones wear out, and I don't mean just the hormone, sex hormones of meeting each other, but as we approach, uh as we age, um men get less testosterone, women get less estrogen, all of those sex hormones made us want to have sex for procreation. Now we look to other sources again, sensuality, eroticism, allowing yourself to be really free and to follow your desire, to really allow that force within you to move you, even though it may not look good or it may be whatever taboo, but really giving yourself that that permission to be free. That's eroticism. It's definitely about emotional uh connection and vulnerability. Again, maybe letting go of the performance and the perfection that drives us before to be like, gosh, maybe in failing, we discover something even more magical than we get when we succeed. And we start to access those places in us as we age. And so, midlife, if we are, if we give ourselves permission to no longer be perfect or as high performing as before, we can enter this magic and create sex that really can't even rival the sex that we have when we're younger. And I've seen that with myself, even though I've hit that midlife place much earlier than actual years, midlife years. But I also see that with my clients in their um 50s and 60s, early 60s, where there's that sweet spot where we um become more self-aware and have access to those places. And then sex becomes much richer than just the physical aspect of it that we can experience when we're younger.
Karen Covy: 44:12
I love that. I love that. And I think it's the perfect place to call this a wrap around the conversation. If Irene, if people want to work with you, if they want to learn more, if they're tired of living in a dead, sexless marriage and want to reconnect again, where can they find you?
Irene Fehr: 44:30
So there's a wealth of information on my website, which is my name, Irenefehr.com. There's, of course, ways to get in touch with me. I offer a free one-hour strategy session to see what uh what is possible for you in either rekindling or rebuilding or uh creating you as a couple. Um, and again, all there's so many resources for these different uh different avenues and these different stages of life on my website.
Karen Covy: 45:00
I love that. And I really encourage everyone who's listening out there. I encourage you to go to Irene's website and it's Fair F-E-H-R, Irene Fehr, and check out all of the things that she has. Irene, thank you so much for talking about what is often a taboo topic and you know, bringing so much wisdom to our audience.
Irene Fehr: 45:22
Absolutely. My pleasure. Thank you so much for this rich conversation.
Karen Covy: 45:26
You're welcome. And for those of you out there who are watching or who are listening, if you enjoyed today's conversation, if you'd like to hear more conversations just like this, do me a big favor. Give this episode a thumbs up, like, subscribe, and I look forward to talking with you again next time.
