Are you in a marriage where you are no longer feeling sexual, or in a sexless marriage all together? Your sexless marriage can feel isolating, lonely, frustrating, and deeply painful. Wishing you could overcome anxiety and stress in your daily life, and relax into sexual arousal and enjoy sexual pleasure as you once did? Did you grow up in a conservative, religious, and strict upbringing where you learned masturabtion was dirty and to push away sexual urges? Do you find yourself trying to lose weight, stuck in diet culture mentality, and struggling with permitting yourself to experience sexual pleasure? Were you a virgin until marriage and want help exploring sex and orgasming in your marriage bond with your partner? Or, do you find yourself stuck in people pleasing mode in your sex life, and having sex out of duty or as a chore, rather than because you feel like an empowered sexual being? Intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut gives you a safe place to co-create a playful, passionate, and orgasmic sex life.
Were you taught “sex is dirty,” “good girls don’t initiate sex,” or “orgasms are for other people?” Or, “to be a good sexual partner means giving and not asking or needing anything?” In intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, you get to unpack and unlearn these negative messages.
Let’s get comfortable and confident talking about sexual needs, desires, and urges.
At Wisdom Within Counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, intimacy-focused and sex-positive marriage counseling with me, Katie Ziskind, provides you with a safe, affirming, and supportive space to explore your desires, your sexuality, and your emotional connection within your marriage.
In intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, you can begin to gently unravel shame, performance pressure, or fear around sex. And, you can step into the kind of marriage and relationship where pleasure and emotional closeness coexist beautifully.
Maybe, you say things like, “I didn’t experience an orgasm before we got married.” Or, “I want to start new sexual experiences together.” These are brave, honest admissions that reflect a deep yearning for growth, healing, and intimacy.
One of the most common things Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist in Connecticut, hears from clients is a desire to grow into a confident, communicative, and adventurous sexual partner.
That growth is possible. In fact, it’s something you deserve. Maybe, you feel shut down sexually due to early life messages from a strict, conservative upbringing. Or, you never had the chance to explore your own body because you were told masturbation was wrong. Or, you have struggled with expressing your sexual needs with your spouse.
At Wisdom Within Counseling in East Lyme, Connecticut, you can reclaim your sensuality. It’s not about being perfect. Great sex about learning how to express your needs. As well, co-creating sexual desire is about responding to your partner’s cues. And, great sex is about building a foundation of emotional trust that makes sexual exploration safe and exciting.
In intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, we explore what has shaped your current sexual beliefs and experiences.
If you’ve internalized messages like “sex is dirty,” “good girls don’t initiate sex,” or “orgasms are for other people,” you can gently unlearn those.
You’ll be supported in reconnecting with your body—not just intellectually, but physically and emotionally—so you can begin to feel more turned on, alive, and embodied. This may include learning how to touch yourself without guilt or shame. As well, sexual connection means understanding your sexual arousal cues. And, in couples therapy, it means co-creating rituals of sensual connection that make your nervous system feel calm, open, and safe.
If you want to be more mindful of what you need sexually and what your partner needs too, that’s a beautiful intention.
So many couples have never had real conversations about what feels good, what turns them on, or what they fantasize about. Couples avoid talking about sex because it becomes frustrating.
In sex and intimacy specialized marriage therapy sessions, Katie Ziskind helps you slow down, listen deeply, and begin talking about pleasure without fear.
We use tools like sensate focus, communication scripts, and values-based exercises that help you and your partner get curious, not critical. When couples get out of the blame cycle and into playful co-creation, the sexual spark naturally comes back.
Many couples Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist in Connecticut, works with want to bring more spark and novelty into their connection, but feel stuck in the monotony of daily life.
That’s totally normal. Intimacy-focused therapy teaches you how to prioritize your erotic connection, even when work, kids, or stress feel overwhelming. You’ll learn how to create rituals of emotional and physical closeness, how to carve out intentional time for foreplay and flirtation, and how to initiate in ways that feel authentic and not performative.
Together, we’ll rediscover what turns you on—not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
If you’ve never had an orgasm or rarely do, please know you are not broken.
Many women Katie Ziskind works with have never been taught how their bodies work, how arousal builds, or how to ask for the kind of stimulation they need.
You’ll be supported in slowing down, understanding the anatomy of pleasure, and how foreplay, emotional connection, and trust all contribute to orgasmic potential. Your pleasure is worth prioritizing, and sex-positive therapy with Katie Ziskind gives you permission to claim it—without guilt or comparison.
In sessions, Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist, holds space for both partners to be heard. You’ll each get a chance to express your feelings around sex—whether it’s frustration, fear of rejection, confusion, or longing.
When you both feel emotionally validated, it becomes much easier to be vulnerable, initiate, and stay connected during intimacy. Marriage therapy with Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist, isn’t about who’s right or wrong. Instead, couples therapy in Mystic, Connecticut is about becoming a team again, especially when it comes to your erotic life.
You’ll also learn to navigate differences in desire with compassion instead of resentment. When one partner wants more sex and the other feels shut down, it can create cycles of blame and withdrawal.
Through sex-positive counseling, Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist, helps you understand the emotional needs underneath your desire or lack of desire.
Often, it’s about wanting to feel loved, valued, and emotionally close—not just physically touched. You’ll begin to create new, emotionally connected experiences around sex that don’t feel pressured or disconnected.
As a sex and intimacy specialist, Katie Ziskind also help you explore fantasy, erotic language, and new turn-ons in a safe, nonjudgmental space.
You may discover that your mind is a powerful part of your sexual experience, and sharing fantasies with your partner can deepen trust and emotional intimacy. As well, you’ll learn how to talk about turn-ons with excitement instead of shame. And, from sex focused marriage counseling, you can learn how to co-create new sexual experiences that keep your marriage passionate and evolving.
Needing help talking about sexual fantasies?
Intimacy-focused and sex-positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut offers you a deeply compassionate, nonjudgmental space to explore your desires and reconnect with your sexual imagination.
You might feel like you’ve lost touch with the part of you that once daydreamed about passion, connection, and playful encounters. Or, life has dulled your spark with stress, routines, and responsibilities. In therapy, you begin rediscovering that erotic part of yourself—the one who longs, fantasizes, and deserves to feel fully alive and desired.
When you’ve been taught to suppress your imagination or feel ashamed of your desires, it’s easy to disconnect from what mentally turns you on.
Sex-positive couples therapy gently helps you unearth the stories you tell yourself about what’s “right” or “wrong” to want.
Whether your fantasies involve emotional closeness, a particular scenario, or power dynamics, therapy helps you explore them without shame. You get to say, “This is something I’ve thought about,” and feel heard, not judged.
Your therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling becomes a guide in helping you embody your sexuality again—not just think about it from the neck up. Katie Ziskind is a certified sex therapy informed professional, Gottman marriage therapist, and specializes with couples. In couples counseling, you’ll learn how to feel into your body, slow down, and notice what actually excites you sexually.
Through emotionally focused exercises in marriage counseling in Niantic, Connecticut, you’re encouraged to tune into your physical sensations. Mindfulness skills in couples therapy help you reconnect with what arouses you sexually. As well, you can learn it is acceptable and healing let sexual desire move through you naturally—not forced or pressured, but invited.
As you build comfort with your own erotic mind, intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut also supports you in sharing this with your partner in safe and emotionally connected ways.
Many couples struggle here—one partner might fear rejection or feel embarrassed, while the other may not know how to respond. In therapy, you’ll practice having these vulnerable conversations, where you can say, “I’d love to try this,” or “This kind of touch makes me feel close to you,” without either of you feeling criticized or inadequate.
Intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut gives both of you the emotional tools to listen with openness and curiosity, rather than defensiveness.
You’ll explore how to ask your partner what turns them on, what fantasies they’ve never shared, and how you can co-create a sex life that feels nourishing, exciting, and emotionally intimate. It becomes less about “fixing” your sex life and more about deepening your understanding of each other’s inner erotic world.
Sex-positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut also empowers you to deconstruct internalized shame about sex.
Maybe you were raised in a conservative or religious household where even thinking about sexual pleasure was taboo. Or, you never had the language to talk about desire. In therapy, you’re given permission to rewrite those narratives and begin defining your own relationship with sexuality—on your terms, as an empowered, erotic human being.
You’ll also work on developing sensual rituals that support sexual embodiment. This might include breathwork, slowing down during touch, incorporating playful language, or creating space for intimate date nights that focus on connection rather than performance. These intentional practices help you live inside your body again instead of feeling detached or stuck in your head.
Over time, intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut can help you feel more confident in expressing your sexual needs and being seen in your vulnerability.
You may discover that speaking up about what turns you on doesn’t push your partner away—it brings them closer. And when your fantasies and desires are met with understanding, respect, and love, it creates a safer space to explore even more together.
Ultimately, intimacy-focused and sex-positive marriage counseling helps you see that sexuality is not just about intercourse—it’s about imagination, trust, playfulness, embodiment, and emotional connection. You deserve a sex life that reflects who you truly are, not who you were told to be. And, in intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, you’ll be supported every step of the way. You and your partner work together in creating a healthy, thriving sex life.
Intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut supports you in talking about sexual fantasies.
Feeling sexy, desired, or even open to the idea of sexual connection can feel nearly impossible when you’re constantly battling with your own inner critic.
You may find yourself staring in the mirror and fixating on everything that’s “wrong” with your body instead of being able to see yourself as soft, sensual, and beautiful. When self-critical beliefs flood your mind, they drown out pleasure. You might be in a loving relationship with a partner who adores you—but if you don’t feel beautiful, if you don’t feel enough, sexual intimacy can feel unsafe, exposed, or even painful.
When you’ve absorbed cultural messages about what “attractive” or “feminine” is supposed to look like, it’s easy to internalize that your body must be a certain shape or size before it deserves desire or pleasure. You may believe, even subconsciously, that you have to lose weight first, or firm your stomach, or tone your thighs before you can be a sexual being.
This becomes a silent rule in your relationship: “I’ll want sex when I feel better about myself and my body.”
But, if that day never comes, you end up emotionally distancing from your partner, avoiding touch, and spiraling deeper into self-doubt.
Perfectionism traits make a sexless marriage and sexual intimacy issues much worse.
You may hold yourself to impossible standards—not just about your body, but about how “good” you have to be at sex, how you should look during sex, or even how “into it” you’re supposed to be. If you’re constantly worried about your performance, you can’t surrender to the moment. Your mind is checking out just when your body most needs your presence.
That inner voice saying “you’re not doing it right,” “your stomach looks weird,” or “you’re not enough” can completely shut down arousal.
Feminine sexual arousal is deeply connected to emotional safety, being seen, being valued, and having the time and space to slowly enter into your own body. But when your mind is preoccupied with body shame, arousal becomes a battlefield instead of a source of joy.
You may find that your body doesn’t respond—your libido feels flat, your arousal takes forever, or you’re unable to orgasm. And, you might even start avoiding sex altogether, not because you don’t love your partner, but because the experience feels like a reminder of everything you hate about yourself.
It’s heartbreaking when you want to feel close but feel emotionally blocked.
You may crave affection, touch, or validation, but recoil from sex because it makes you feel judged or “not enough.”
As well, you might even feel guilty—wondering what’s wrong with you, why you can’t just be “normal.” And that guilt turns into shame, which spirals into more emotional distance and confusion. Your partner may feel rejected, and you may feel trapped—longing for intimacy but too self-conscious to access it.
Sex and intimacy-focused couples therapy can help you untangle all of these complicated emotions. It offers you a safe space to explore where your beliefs about beauty, body, and worthiness came from.
You may discover how childhood experiences, cultural conditioning, or even seemingly harmless comments from past partners or family members have shaped your relationship to your body.
You may also explore how performance-based love—believing you have to look or act a certain way to be lovable—has kept you stuck in patterns of self-denial and avoidance.
In sex positive marriage therapy, you’ll learn how to soften your inner voice.
Instead of criticizing your body, you’ll begin to understand it, listen to it, and eventually appreciate it.
You’ll learn to identify the voices in your head that say “not good enough” and challenge them with kindness, compassion, and self-acceptance. When you stop attacking your own reflection, your body becomes a place you can come home to again—not something to escape from.
One of the most healing parts of sex-positive marriage counseling is learning how to talk about your body image struggles with your partner in a way that brings you closer, not further apart.
You may fear that expressing your insecurities will burden them or kill the mood. But, you’ll likely discover the opposite: vulnerability builds connection.
When your partner hears your pain with empathy and reassurance, your body may finally start to relax. You may feel safer, more supported, and more open to receiving touch—not because you’ve changed how you look, but because you’ve changed how you feel.
This kind of intimacy—emotional, raw, real—is the foundation of sexual healing.
In sex positive marriage therapy in Southeastern Connecticut, you’ll practice new ways of communicating about sex that feel authentic and empowering.
You’ll be guided to express your needs, desires, and fears without shame.
In sex and intimacy specialized marriage therapy, you’ll explore what kind of touch, words, or experiences help you feel desirable, grounded, and aroused.
You’ll learn to define pleasure on your own terms—not as something you have to “earn” by being perfect, but something you inherently deserve as a human being.
Sex-positive therapy also helps you release the timeline of when you’re “supposed” to feel aroused. It’s okay to not be in the mood every day. It’s okay for your desire to ebb and flow.
Therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling in Southeastern Connecticut helps you and your partner create space for slow, mindful intimacy that isn’t focused on performance or orgasm but on connection.
This spaciousness gives your body permission to relax and rediscover arousal on its own terms.
When you stop believing that beauty or sexiness is a destination—something you have to diet, tone, or hustle your way toward—you begin to access a gentler form of sexuality.
It’s one rooted in presence, authenticity, and emotional closeness. You may discover that arousal comes more easily when you’re feeling loved, accepted, and appreciated just as you are. And that healing your relationship with your body heals your relationship with your partner, too.
Over time, sex can transform from something that brings up shame to something that brings joy.
You may laugh more in bed, take more risks, ask for what you want, or feel safer saying “not now” without guilt. Your partner may feel closer to you than ever—not because you’re doing more, but because you’re letting yourself be seen.
Perfectionism loses its grip when you learn to love your imperfect self.
Through therapy, you’ll begin to understand that true intimacy isn’t about flawless bodies or perfect performances—it’s about honesty, empathy, and shared emotional presence. That’s what builds passion. That’s what reignites connection.
You don’t have to wait until you feel “perfect” to be worthy of sexual pleasure, intimacy, or love.
And, sex and intimacy focused marriage therapy helps you believe that you’re already worthy.
With the support of sex and intimacy-focused marriage counseling, you can begin the journey of reconnecting with your body, your partner, and your authentic self—and that’s where the real healing begins. At Wisdom Within Counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, you get a safe space to reconnect to your sexy self.
You’ve likely been exposed to countless messages—on TV, in magazines, across social media—that tell you there’s only one kind of woman who’s “allowed” to feel sexy or be desired.
Culture idealizes thin, toned, tan, hairless, effortlessly beautiful, and always “put together” women.
From a young age, you’re shown idealized, photoshopped images of women in lingerie, perfume ads, or bikini commercials and told—without words—that sexual pleasure is something reserved for women who look like that. These messages run deep and can cause you to question your own worthiness of being touched, loved, or intimately seen.
Do you feel pressure to diet, change your body, or look a certain way to then achieve sexiness?
Diet culture reinforces this constantly.
Every time you hear “bikini body” in an ad or see a “get fit fast” campaign before summer, it subtly teaches you that your current body isn’t enough. It says: “You’ll be worthy of attention and pleasure after you lose ten pounds… once you fix your cellulite… when you tone your stomach.” It trains you to delay pleasure and self-acceptance, to believe that desire has to be earned through restriction, shame, and hard work.
You may internalize this without even realizing it. Maybe you pull away when your partner touches you, not because you don’t want to be close—but because you don’t want them to feel the softness of your belly.
Maybe, you avoid initiating sex because you don’t feel attractive “enough” in that moment.
Or you might convince yourself that you’re not in the mood when really, underneath, you just feel too self-conscious to relax into intimacy.
Sex and intimacy-specialized marriage counseling near Mystic, Connecticut can help you unlearn these toxic beliefs about yourself.
It’s a space where you can gently start to unpack the stories you’ve absorbed about your body, your desirability, and what it means to be a sexual being. In therapy, you’ll be guided to explore how perfectionism, body shame, and diet culture have impacted your relationship with sex—not just with your partner, but with yourself.
You’ll also begin learning how to challenge the “rules” you’ve been taught. You might discover that your body doesn’t have to change in order for you to enjoy pleasure now. Through mindfulness, emotional attunement, and body-based awareness work, marriage therapy can help you reconnect with the truth. The truth is that you are enough as you are.
Your softness, your curves, your realness—it’s all worthy of being seen, touched, and adored.
Marriage counseling focused on sex and intimacy also helps you communicate these deeply vulnerable feelings to your partner.
You’ll learn how to say things like, “I want to be close, but sometimes I get stuck in my head about my body.”
Or, “I’m trying to unlearn the shame I feel around receiving pleasure.”
These honest conversations invite your partner into your healing instead of shutting them out—and this kind of vulnerability builds true intimacy.
Together, in intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, you and your partner can begin creating a sexual space that’s about safety, not perfectionism or sexual performance.
You’ll learn how to shift from a mindset of “How do I look?” to “How do I feel in my body right now?”
And with the right support in intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, your partner can become someone who affirms your beauty. You can learn to believe what they say too.
Intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut helps ground you in the moment. You partner can learn to meet you with love when old insecurities arise.
Over time, you may begin to experience arousal and desire more freely—not because you’ve changed how you look, but because you’ve changed how you relate to yourself. Instead of waiting for the perfect body to finally give yourself permission to feel sexy.
From intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, you can start embracing your body as it is.
And that’s where true, lasting self-expression, eroticism and sexual confidence are born.
You were never meant to look like an airbrushed image to be worthy of love, desire, or sexual fulfillment. In sex and intimacy-specialized marriage counseling, you’re given the tools, space, and emotional safety to reclaim pleasure on your own terms.
And, you can finally start feeling at home in your skin, in your romantic relationship, and in your sexual self.
What is a sexless marriage and how can marriage counseling with a focus on sex and intimacy support couples who end up here?
A sexless marriage is typically defined as one in which a couple has sex less than ten times a year, but for many, the emotional experience of a sexless marriage is far more nuanced than a number.
It’s about longing, disconnection, unmet emotional needs, and feeling invisible in a relationship that once felt safe and vibrant.
You may find yourself aching for closeness, missing the tender touches, eye contact, playfulness, and passion you once shared with your spouse.
Or maybe you’ve stopped hoping altogether, resigned to the quiet grief of sleeping beside someone who feels like a stranger.
Couples don’t arrive at a sexless marriage overnight. It often happens slowly—sometimes over years—as life, work, stress, parenting, trauma, and unresolved emotional pain begin to overshadow your connection.
You may have started out passionately, but over time, the space between you widened. Maybe one of you initiated and was rejected enough times to stop trying.
Perhaps, resentment built from unspoken needs or repeated misunderstandings. Or, maybe emotional pain around sex—especially if you were taught it was dirty, shameful, or only acceptable in narrow contexts—created a wall that neither of you knew how to dismantle.
If you were raised in a strict, religious, or conservative environment, you may carry deep-rooted messages about sex that make it difficult to feel free, playful, or curious in your body.
Maybe you were told to save sex for marriage, but once married, no one ever explained how to truly enjoy it or communicate your needs. You may feel ashamed for wanting pleasure, uncertain about what feels good, or even disgusted by your own desire. If that’s you, it’s no wonder that the idea of sex now feels like pressure, obligation, or something you’d rather avoid.
But, that avoidance doesn’t mean you don’t want closeness—you may just not feel emotionally safe or empowered yet.
On the other hand, your partner may view sex as a primary way of feeling loved, connected, and secure.
They may crave it not just for the physical release but because it helps them feel bonded to you—like you’re on the same team, like they matter. When their sexual needs are repeatedly met with avoidance or silence, they may feel deeply hurt, rejected, or even unloved. This pain can fester and turn into frustration, withdrawal, or resentment, creating a painful cycle where both of you feel misunderstood and emotionally abandoned.
This mismatch in desire—especially when layered with shame, anxiety, or trauma—creates a powerful emotional rift.
One of you feels overwhelmed or shut down, while the other feels starved for touch and connection.
Do you need a safe place such as in intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut to talk about a past history of trauma?
Past sexual trauma, such as experiences of rape, molestation, or other forms of sexual abuse, can deeply affect an individual’s ability to engage in a healthy and fulfilling sexual relationship. Sexual trauma can result in emotional, psychological, and physical barriers that can severely impact intimacy and desire within your marriage.
To note, sexual trauma may create a sense of fear, shame, or mistrust that makes it difficult for a survivor to feel safe or comfortable with sexual intimacy, even within a loving relationship. These reactions are not about a lack of love or desire but rather a direct result of the psychological wounds caused by the traumatic experience.
When you have have experienced sexual abuse, your sexual identity may become intertwined with feelings of shame or guilt.
Sexual trauma can lead to negative beliefs about your body or sexuality, causing you to view sex as something dangerous, shameful, or out of their control. These negative associations can prevent sexual desire from emerging in a healthy way, even if you love your partner and want a sexual connection.
Over time, these feelings can manifest as an aversion to intimacy. Or, you may even avoid sex altogether, leading to a sexless marriage.
The emotional and psychological effects of sexual trauma also often involve an overwhelming sense of emotional numbness or detachment. For survivors of sexual abuse, the act of intimacy can trigger flashbacks or feelings of powerlessness. Powerlessness causes you to distance yourself emotionally and physically from your partner. This detachment can make it challenging for your, as a trauma survivor to be fully present during sexual encounters. Sexual trauma ultimately can lead to disconnection in your relationship and a diminished desire for sex.
Relationship trauma, like infidelity or cheating, has a negative impact on sexual intimacy in a marriage.
When a partner is cheated on, it often leads to deep emotional wounds that can erode trust, which is a fundamental element of any sexual relationship. The betrayed partner may feel emotionally rejected, unsafe, or unloved, which can directly impact their ability to connect sexually.
The trust between partners is shattered, and the emotional hurt may prevent them from feeling comfortable enough to engage in intimacy again.
Infidelity can also trigger feelings of inadequacy or insecurity in the betrayed partner.
They may struggle with questions about their attractiveness or worthiness, leading to a loss of sexual confidence. If a partner feels emotionally neglected or rejected through an affair, they may start to avoid sex as a way to protect themselves from further emotional pain or to punish their partner for the betrayal.
These emotional barriers often cause a disconnect in the relationship. As well, the betrayed partner may no longer desire intimacy or may feel completely indifferent to their partner’s sexual needs.
For the partner who has cheated, there may be feelings of guilt, shame, or anxiety that prevent them from being open to sexual connection.
They may fear their partner’s anger or rejection, or they may feel unworthy of love and intimacy after their actions. This creates a cycle of emotional distance in the relationship, where neither partner feels able to openly and safely express their desires or needs. The presence of infidelity often leaves lasting scars that can make it difficult for both partners to rebuild their connection, including their sexual relationship.
Sexual trauma and relationship betrayal often lead to emotional withdrawal, where one or both partners become emotionally distant.
This can result in a lack of emotional intimacy, which is essential for a fulfilling sexual relationship. When partners don’t feel emotionally connected, supported, or understood, it can feel impossible to initiate or enjoy sex.
The deeper the emotional wounds, the more challenging it becomes to rebuild sexual desire or satisfaction, and over time, this can contribute to a sexless marriage.
The lingering effects of both sexual and relationship trauma can also lead to feelings of isolation.
One or both partners may feel that their emotional needs are not being met or that they cannot talk openly about their sexual concerns, desires, or fears. Without the emotional foundation to support healthy sexual intimacy, partners may begin to avoid conversations about sex altogether. Avoiding talking about sex further contributes to a lack of connection and sexual desire. In these situations, it’s not uncommon for the marriage to feel more like a partnership based on obligation rather than mutual love and desire.
In intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, you can start to talk about sexual trauma and relationship trauma.
Healing from both sexual and relationship trauma requires time, patience, and the right support. In sex and intimacy specialized marriage therapy, couples can work through these issues by addressing the underlying emotional wounds.
You can work together on rebuilding trust, and learn how to communicate openly and vulnerably about their needs.
Couples therapy with a focus on sex and intimacy can be especially helpful in rebuilding the sexual connection.
Sex and intimacy specialized marriage therapy encourages partners to explore and express their desires while also supporting emotional healing and trust-building.
By working together with a therapist who specializes in sexual trauma and relationship healing, couples can learn to navigate the challenges of rebuilding intimacy in a way that feels safe and empowering.
Sex and intimacy specialized marriage therapy can provide a space where both partners can process their trauma.
together, you can rebuild your emotional connection, and learn how to restore your sexual relationship at a pace that feels comfortable.
It’s possible to heal from sexual trauma and relationship betrayal, and with the right guidance and support. At Wisdom Within Counseling, our sex and intimacy marriage therapists help couples can regain sexual desire and emotional intimacy.
Sex and intimacy specialized marriage therapy bringing you both closer together after trauma and betrayal, and fosters a healthier, more fulfilling marriage.
Does every conversation about sex feel intense and charged, so you avoid talking about sex?
You may try to talk about it, only for it to erupt into defensiveness, hurt feelings, or silence. The one who avoids sex may feel like a failure, ashamed or anxious about not being “enough.” The one who longs for it may feel angry, lonely, or resentful. Both of you hurt, but in different ways, and both of you may feel stuck.
In this dynamic, it’s common to stop even trying to talk about sex. The topic becomes a landmine. You avoid it to keep the peace, but underneath, the emotional distance continues to grow.
Intimacy becomes transactional or disappears entirely. You may still love your partner, but the emotional bond that once made you feel seen, held, and wanted starts to fade. You may feel like roommates, co-parents, or business partners, but no longer lovers. And that loss of romantic, sensual connection takes a toll on your sense of self and the relationship as a whole.
Sex-positive couples therapy is not about forcing anyone to do anything they’re not ready for.
It’s about creating a safe, non-judgmental space where you both can speak your truth. You get to explore how your past, your beliefs, your stress, and your emotions are shaping your experience of sex right now.
You can talk openly about what hurts, what feels confusing, and what you long for. As well, you can start to understand how your body may have gone into self-protection mode, not because you’re broken, but because you’ve been carrying messages and emotions that made sex feel unsafe or unworthy.
You deserve to feel empowered to express your sexual desires, or lack of desire, without fear of judgment. And your partner deserves to feel heard in their longing for closeness, without being made to feel perverted, selfish, or needy. In emotionally focused couples therapy, you can rebuild the emotional trust that creates the foundation for sexual intimacy.
In marriage therapy, you learn how to approach conversations about sex with empathy instead of blame, curiosity instead of shame, and patience instead of pressure.
When both partners are truly seen and validated, something softens. You may find yourself slowly opening again—sharing more, touching more, laughing more. Sex can begin to feel like a mutual, nourishing experience instead of a source of pain or disconnection.
And, even if you’re not ready for physical intimacy right away, therapy can help you begin the emotional foreplay that lays the groundwork for physical connection: emotional safety, verbal intimacy, shared vulnerability, and affection.
Through sex-positive, emotionally focused couples therapy, you can find your way back to each other, not just in bed, but in heart.
Healing from a sexless marriage takes courage, honesty, and support. You don’t have to live in silence, loneliness, or guilt.
You can rewrite the story of intimacy in your marriage—one that honors your emotional needs, your past, your body, and your deepest desires for connection.
How can intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut help you become sexually confident?
Being sexually embodied means coming home to your body—not just in a physical way, but in an emotional, spiritual, and sensual sense. It means reclaiming the parts of you that were shamed, hidden, or silenced under the weight of strict, conservative, or hyper-religious messages.
If you were raised in an environment where sexuality was viewed as dirty, dangerous, or something only meant for reproduction within a narrow context, you may have internalized a deep discomfort with your own body, desires, and pleasure.
Sexual embodiment is the journey of slowly and lovingly undoing that discomfort. As well, sexual embodiment involves reconnecting with your body as a source of joy, connection, and erotic energy.
When you’ve been told that wanting or enjoying sex is wrong, especially as a woman, you may learn to disconnect from your body.
Maybe, you learned to save yourself for your husband. And, you were a virgin until your wedding day. Now, you might shut down your sexual desires, ignore your own arousal, or feel numb during sex.
You may have learned to perform sexually and focus on pleasing your husband, rather than truly feeling sexually excited. Or, you might avoid sex altogether because it’s tangled up with shame and anxiety.
Intimacy-focused and sex-positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut can give you the safe, supportive space to begin examining these patterns.
You get to remove judgment, and develop deep compassion and curiosity around sex. As well, you deserve to explore where these shameful sexual messages came from and how they’ve shaped your relationship with your body and your partner.
At Wisdom Within Counseling, sex and intimacy specialized marriage therapy helps you overcome sexual shame, guilt, and sexual avoidance patterns. You can create new meaning around sex as a form of bonding and deep connection.
In intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, you can begin to talk openly about how your upbringing taught you to relate to your body, sex, and emotions.
Perhaps, you learned that masturbation would make hair grow on your palms. Maybe, you were taught that “good girls” don’t touch themselves, express desire, or enjoy sex.
Or, you were never given words to describe your body or your experience. Perhaps, a family member walked in on your masturbating and shamed you. Your parents never offered guidance or sex positive education on masturbation, sex, or even romance.
Katie Ziskind is a sex positive marriage therapist who will help you unpack those narratives and begin creating new ones. In intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, you can develop ones that are aligned with your values, your lived experiences, and your own truth. You’ll learn that being sexual doesn’t make you bad or broken; it makes you human.
Through the process of sex-positive counseling, you can begin to reconnect with what it feels like to live inside your body.
You can learn to connect with sexual feelings, urges, and relax to then experience sexual arousal. Maybe, a couples therapy session involves talking about your sexual fantasies. Or, a different marriage therapy session involves talk about body parts you like touched.
Living inside your body means learning to slow down, to feel your breath, your heartbeat, and the places in your body that hold tension or fear. It also means learning to feel sexual pleasure without guilt. You can be proud to think of yourself as sexy. And, you can let go of all the hats that you wear from mom, caretaker, parent, sibling, to co-worker, to employee, to daughter, to bill payer.
Intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut includes mindfulness and breathwork. It is a safe space for practicing new kinds of emotional intimacy skills with your partner too. Couples therapy helps you develop a kind, curious relationship with your body—maybe for the first time in your life.
Reclaiming your sexuality after religious trauma is not about swinging to the opposite extreme or pushing yourself into sexual experiences you’re not ready for. It’s about developing a sense of choice and agency.
Sex-positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut supports you in finding your own pace, your own desires, and your own ways of being erotic.
You get to decide what feels good, what feels safe, and what you want to explore—without pressure, shame, or fear.
And, you may also discover that embodiment is emotional, not just physical. Being sexually embodied means being emotionally present during intimacy—being able to express your needs, feel connected, and experience closeness without shutting down. Marriage therapy with our sex and intimacy specialists helps you name the emotional blocks that make sex feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
Maybe it’s fear of rejection, guilt from past choices, or sadness about years spent disconnected from your body. Working through these emotions is an important part of becoming whole again.
In couples therapy with our sex and intimacy specialists, your partner becomes part of this healing journey.
They learn how to support your growth without taking it personally. Instead of feeling rejected, they’re taught how to respond with empathy, patience, and love. You’ll practice new ways of communicating about touch, turn-ons, fantasies, and arousal.
It becomes a shared experience of healing and discovery—not something you’re doing alone, but something you’re doing together, as a team.
As you become more embodied, sex begins to feel different. It’s no longer about meeting expectations or avoiding shame—it becomes about pleasure, connection, and presence. You may find that sexual arousal happens more naturally, that your body responds more easily, and that your desire begins to return.
When your nervous system feels safe and your emotional world is honored, your body can relax into pleasure.
This kind of sex—emotionally connected, embodied, and safe—is deeply healing.
Intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut also helps you explore your own eroticism.
What excites you? And, what fantasies do you have? What kind of touch do you crave? You get to rewrite the narrative that your sexuality only exists for someone else’s pleasure or only within rigid, moralistic boundaries.
As well, you’re allowed to want things sexually. You’re allowed to feel sexy. And, you’re allowed to be curious sexually about yourself and your partner. Sex-positive marriage counseling invites you to explore all of this with openness, confidence, and freedom.
Ultimately, becoming sexually embodied after a strict, conservative, or religious upbringing is an act of liberation.
It’s about returning to your body with compassion. As well, it’s about choosing to love and honor the parts of yourself that were silenced. It’s about letting your desires live and breathe.
With the help of intimacy-focused marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, you can build a relationship with your partner—and with yourself—that is rooted in honesty, emotional safety, and embodied pleasure.
You deserve that.
How can intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut help you learn to be confident initiate sex with your spouse and being playful when life feels so stressful and overwhelming?
Sexual confidence is the belief that your sexual desires, body, and pleasure are valid, worthy, and desirable.
It means feeling comfortable in your skin, trusting yourself to express what you want, and being emotionally open enough to engage with your partner sexually—without shame, fear, or insecurity.
Sexual confidence isn’t about always being in the mood or having the “perfect” body. It’s about knowing that your sexuality is a natural part of you, and learning how to access that part even when life feels stressful, exhausting, or overwhelming. It’s about feeling safe enough—within yourself and your relationship—to take the lead, be playful, initiate intimacy, and feel deserving of desire.
If you’re feeling stressed, overworked, emotionally depleted, or mentally scattered, it can feel like sexual confidence is the last thing available to you.
Maybe you shut down your sensuality to get through your daily responsibilities. Maybe you’ve learned to prioritize caretaking, parenting, or work over your own needs and pleasure.
Or, maybe you just haven’t been taught how to initiate sex in a way that feels authentic and comfortable. You might even worry that trying to come on to your partner will make you feel awkward, embarrassed, or rejected. These are very real, common fears—but you don’t have to stay stuck in them.
Intimacy-focused and sex-positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut can help you reconnect with your sexual self.
In a safe, nonjudgmental space, you can explore your relationship with sex and discover what gets in the way of feeling confident. Your therapist can help you identify whether it’s stress, shame, body image issues, rejection fears, or lack of emotional safety that’s keeping you from stepping into your sensual side.
Once you name the roadblocks, you can begin to break them down gently and build new patterns rooted in safety, curiosity, and pleasure.
Initiating sex doesn’t have to mean being dramatic or bold. It can be as simple as leaning in for a longer kiss, making intentional eye contact, sending a playful text, or asking your partner if you can lie down together and cuddle. Therapy can help you get comfortable with this kind of subtle, slow initiation—ways of inviting intimacy that feel like you.
When you feel emotionally connected and not pressured to “perform,” desire often starts to wake up naturally.
Sex-positive counseling focuses on emotional intimacy first, creating the trust and connection needed for physical intimacy to thrive.
Marriage therapy can also help you work through the self-doubt that says you’re not sexy enough, desirable enough, or good enough to initiate sex. These beliefs are often internalized from past experiences, culture, or previous rejections. In counseling, you’ll begin to rewrite those stories and develop a more empowered narrative.
You’ll begin to see yourself as someone who is worthy of pleasure, capable of creating erotic connection, and safe to express your desires. That shift in self-perception is the foundation of sexual confidence.
In couples therapy with our sex and intimacy specialists, you’ll also have the opportunity to talk honestly with your partner about how initiation works best for both of you. Maybe they’ve been waiting for you to initiate, but you weren’t sure how.
Or, you’ve both fallen into a routine that lacks playfulness and spontaneity. Our sex and intimacy specialists create a structured space to have these conversations with support. This way, no one feels blamed, inadequate, or confused.
With our sex and intimacy specialists, you begin to learn each other’s sexual languages—how you each express and receive desire.
One of the most powerful things you can reclaim in intimacy therapy is your ability to be playful.
Stress, trauma, and rigid gender roles often strip playfulness away from sex. But erotic energy thrives in play—it’s what makes sex feel fun, creative, and alive. You might explore how to bring humor, silliness, flirtation, or novelty back into your connection.
Whether it’s through guided exercises, sharing fantasies, trying new experiences, or simply creating uninterrupted time together, our sex and intimacy specialists support you in keeping intimacy playful, even when life feels heavy.
A skilled therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling in Niantic, Connecticut will also help you reframe sexual initiation as a shared experience, not something that lives or dies based on your performance.
If you make a move and your partner isn’t in the mood, it doesn’t mean you failed—it just means your timing wasn’t aligned. Couples therapy with our sex and intimacy specialists helps you separate sexual rejection from personal rejection. This way, you can keep showing up with sexual courage and openness, even when things don’t always go as planned.
In sex positive couples counseling, you can also explore the kind of emotional foreplay that helps you feel more turned on.
Maybe you need more words of affirmation, more emotional check-ins, or a gentler wind-down from your busy day before you can access your sexual self. Initiation becomes easier when you’re already feeling emotionally close and seen.
Couples counseling helps you build those emotional rituals together. This way, you don’t feel like sex is just another chore.
Your sex life becomes something you’re both co-creating with care and intention.
Ultimately, intimacy-focused and sex-positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut gives you a path toward reclaiming your sexual self.
You get to release the pressure of “getting it right” and instead focus on building connection, curiosity, and confidence. You learn how to initiate from a place of grounded self-worth, not performance or anxiety.
And most importantly, you remember that you’re allowed to be sexy, playful, and desired—even in the middle of a busy, beautiful, and imperfect life.
How does having a spouse with mental health issues play a role in a sexless marriage and a need for sex and intimacy focused marriage counseling?
Living with a spouse who has bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, or an anxiety disorder can feel like you’re constantly walking on emotional eggshells. You may feel unsure of what mood your partner will be in on any given day—cheerful and engaged one moment, irritable or withdrawn the next.
You might find yourself trying everything to “fix” their mood, to bring them back to center, only to realize that their mental health issues are more complex than anything you can control.
This can be incredibly disheartening. Over time, it can feel like your emotional connection is slipping through your fingers, leaving you feeling powerless, discouraged, and alone in your own marriage.
Are you struggling with communication and conflict?
The strain on communication can be one of the most painful parts. You might try to bring up how you’re feeling—lonely, rejected, confused—but find yourself shut down or met with defensiveness. Or perhaps your partner’s anxiety flares so intensely that any conversation about emotions or intimacy quickly spirals into a panic or shutdown. When you can’t talk openly, when you feel like your words are always misinterpreted or ignored, your heart starts to close. And, you stop sharing. You stop reaching out. You begin to isolate emotionally, which soon turns into physical and sexual disconnection.
Right now, you may deeply love your spouse but feel like you’re losing them.
Their compulsions, panic attacks, mood swings, or trauma triggers often take center stage, and the intimacy between you is no longer mutual. It starts to feel like their mental illness is the third person in the marriage, quietly taking up all the space in your relationship. You might feel selfish for wanting to be touched, desired, or emotionally connected. But your needs matter too. Wanting closeness isn’t selfish—it’s human. And when that closeness fades, you start to feel like you’re invisible in your own partnership.
In a sexless or sexually strained marriage, the silence can be deafening.
Has sex become infrequent, mechanical, or has disappear altogether?
You may have tried to initiate, only to be turned down repeatedly, which leaves you feeling rejected or even ashamed.
Or, perhaps your partner wants sex but doesn’t realize that their emotional unavailability or untreated symptoms are pushing you away. When the emotional climate of a relationship becomes unpredictable or disconnected, sexual intimacy often becomes the first casualty. Without emotional trust, your body doesn’t want to open. And without loving touch and affection, you may feel emotionally starved in your marriage.
Over time, you might start to grieve the intimacy you once had. You remember what it was like to be playful together, to laugh in bed, to explore each other with curiosity and excitement.
Now, you may find yourself going to sleep early, avoiding physical touch, or even dreading the vulnerability that sex requires. It’s not that you don’t want connection—it’s that everything feels so fragile, so emotionally loaded, that it’s easier to avoid it altogether. But in doing so, the distance between you only grows wider.
You may start to believe something is wrong with you when you are sexually rejecting your partner.
Maybe you wonder, Am I not attractive anymore? or Why can’t I be enough for them to want me? These thoughts are heavy and painful. When your emotional and sexual needs go unmet over time, you begin to lose your sense of self-worth in the relationship.
You might become resentful, anxious, or numb. And even when you try to talk about your needs, it can feel like your spouse’s mental health always takes priority. You begin to feel like a caregiver rather than a partner.
There is often guilt on both sides. Your partner may feel ashamed for not being able to show up for you, for being emotionally or sexually unavailable. You may feel guilty for feeling frustrated, resentful, or even angry with them for something they can’t fully control.
But resentment, when buried, poisons connection. It builds invisible walls that block emotional intimacy and make sexual intimacy feel like a chore or a pressure rather than something joyful or connecting.
When mental illness isn’t acknowledged or treated as a shared reality in a relationship, couples fall into cycles of sexual avoidance and miscommunication.
It becomes easier to pretend things are “fine” than to open up the painful conversation of what’s missing. But that conversation is exactly what can begin the healing. Talking about sex, emotional connection, and mental health—out loud, with guidance—can be the key to rediscovering closeness, tenderness, and true partnership.
Through emotionally focused, sex-positive couples counseling, you and your partner can begin to name the patterns you’re stuck in. You’ll learn to hold space for each other’s emotions, without judgment or blame.
And, you’ll learn how to repair communication breakdowns, understand the emotional impact of mental health challenges, and rebuild your sexual connection from a place of empathy and mutual desire. You’ll no longer feel like you’re the only one holding the emotional weight of the relationship.
Instead, in marriage counseling with our sex and intimacy specialists, you’ll co-create a safe, connected, intimate space where love and desire can flourish again.
You deserve to feel connected, wanted, and emotionally safe in your marriage.
Just because your partner has a mental health condition doesn’t mean your needs disappear. And just because things are hard now doesn’t mean they can’t change. With the right support, tools, and conversations, you and your partner can move from silence and rejection into connection and closeness again—emotionally, mentally, and sexually. You don’t have to do it alone.
Why You Should Work with Katie Ziskind for Marriage Counseling and Sex-Positive Intimacy Therapy in Niantic, Connecticut
If you’re reading this, it means you’re searching for real answers—maybe even a lifeline—for your relationship. You love your partner. You want to stay together. But the sex is missing, the intimacy feels forced or absent, and when you try to talk about it, things spiral into arguments, confusion, or silence.
Maybe one or both of you are living with mental health issues—like bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, or anxiety—and it’s hard to separate your emotional world from your sexual relationship. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist in Connecticut, is passioante about helping distant couples co-create a passionate sex life. And you don’t have to navigate this complex, emotional terrain by yourself.
Katie Ziskind specializes in helping couples who are struggling with disconnection, sexual avoidance, emotional shutdowns, and the heavy mental load that comes with managing a mood or anxiety disorder.
At Wisdom Within Counseling in Niantic, Connecticut, Katie Ziskind offers a deeply compassionate, emotionally focused, and sex-positive approach to marriage counseling.
You might be wondering how to talk to your partner about your sexual desires—or why you’ve lost your libido altogether.
I’m here to hold space for both of you, gently guide you through the process, and help you find your way back to each other.
Women especially come to me feeling exhausted, emotionally overwhelmed, and sexually disconnected—not because they don’t love their partners, but because they’re burnt out, mentally and emotionally.
When foreplay feels rushed, when emotional needs go unmet, and when mental health symptoms go unsupported, it’s incredibly common for desire to shut down. Libido isn’t just physical—it’s emotional, relational, hormonal, and psychological. In couples therapy, we unpack all of that in a way that feels safe, validating, and even empowering.
You might be carrying shame from a religious upbringing, or feel deeply uncomfortable talking about masturbation, fantasies, or arousal.
Many couples have never been taught how to communicate about sex in a healthy, secure, or emotionally present way.
You may feel like sex is taboo, or that your needs are somehow “too much.” But healthy sexual connection starts with open, vulnerable conversation. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist in Connecticut, helps you get there. You can move at your own pace, with your own values.
Mental health challenges like OCD, anxiety, PTSD, or bipolar disorder can complicate intimacy and sexual desire. For instance, intrusive thoughts can make sex feel unsafe, anxiety can make it hard to relax and feel pleasure, and trauma can lead to dissociation during intimacy.
Through marriage therapy, Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist in Connecticut, helps you understand how your brain and nervous system work. This way, you can move from survival mode into connection mode. Couples learn how to soothe each other, turn toward one another instead of away, and build a secure emotional bond that reignites desire and connection.
If you’re a woman struggling with low libido, Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist in Connecticut, wants you to know that there is nothing wrong with you.
You are not broken. And, low libido is not because of being a mature age. What you’re experiencing may be a totally understandable response to the stress, resentment, and emotional overload that many women carry in their daily lives. Your mind might just be protecting you.
Through emotionally focused, sex-positive therapy, we work to understand the why behind your lack of desire and begin creating new pathways to pleasure, comfort, and mutual intimacy with your partner.
Many couples come in thinking they need to “fix the sex” when what they actually need is to rebuild emotional safety. When you feel emotionally unsafe or misunderstood by your partner, your body won’t want to open up sexually. That’s not failure—it’s wisdom. Our work will focus on communication, rebuilding trust, slowing down foreplay, and exploring what true eroticism and emotional presence look like for each of you. You’ll learn how to express what you need and want without hurting each other.
Whether we work in individual or couples sessions—or both—you’ll be entering a judgment-free zone. I’m LGBTQIA+ affirming, kink-aware, and here to help you rediscover what you want, not what the culture or your family of origin taught you to want.
Together, we rewrite old scripts, challenge shame, and make space for the real, honest conversations that change everything. You’ll learn how to speak your truth without guilt, and how to listen with empathy and curiosity instead of defensiveness.
You might also be worried about making your partner feel “not good enough” when you bring up sex.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist in Connecticut, guides couples through those conversations with sensitivity. At Wisdom Within Counseling, Katie Ziskind teachs you how to speak from your emotional truth without blame. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist in Connecticut, helps your partner understand that your lack of desire isn’t a rejection—it’s a symptom of something deeper that you want to work through, together.
In marriage therapy, you’ll move away from fear and into a deeper level of closeness, appreciation, and sexual confidence.
If you’re ready to feel seen, heard, desired, and emotionally safe again in your relationship—if you want a healthy, pleasure-filled sex life that honors your needs, values, and identity—sex-positive couples therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling in Niantic, Connecticut is here for you. This is the space where healing begins, desire is reignited, and emotional intimacy finally becomes a lived reality.
How can intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut support you and your spouse in developing emotional security, closeness, and communication?
Emotional intimacy is the heart and soul of truly satisfying and connected sex.
In intimacy-focused and sex-positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut, emotional intimacy is seen as the foundation that supports physical intimacy, erotic connection, and a vibrant sex life that feels safe, playful, and deeply nourishing.
When you and your partner feel emotionally seen, validated, and understood, you naturally create the kind of trust and safety that allows desire to flourish. Without that emotional closeness, sex can feel performative, disconnected, or even anxiety-inducing.
Emotional intimacy means you feel emotionally safe enough to share your most vulnerable thoughts and feelings with your partner—without fear of judgment, rejection, or being shut down.
It allows you to say things like, “I need more time to feel aroused.” Or, “I’m feeling insecure in my body lately,” or “I really want to feel desired, not just touched.” And, you do so without worrying that your partner will get defensive or feel hurt. It opens the door to honest, compassionate communication about sex, needs, fantasies, and fears.
Imago Relationship Therapy offers powerful tools, especially when it comes to learning how to validate your partner’s experience.
Validation means acknowledging and affirming your partner’s feelings, even if you don’t agree with them or even fully understand them yet.
In Imago couples therapy, say one partner shares something emotionally vulnerable like sexual rejection hurts or low libido feels like failure. The other partner learns to mirror back what they heard, then validate. For instance, saying something like, “That makes sense to me. I can see how you’d feel that way.”
That kind of emotional validation is incredibly healing. It lowers defensiveness, soothes shame, and brings partners closer.
When you feel emotionally safe, your body can relax. When your nervous system feels calm and supported, it becomes much easier to experience sexual desire, turn-on, and pleasure.
Emotional intimacy through validation helps you know that your needs matter and that your partner genuinely wants to understand you—not fix or blame you.
It also means your vulnerability is held with tenderness, which is essential for building erotic trust. At Wisdom Within Counseling, our intimacy and sex positive counselors guide you in strengthening your emotional intimacy skills.
Sex-positive counseling also teaches you that emotional intimacy isn’t about being perfect or having it all together.
Great sex about being emotionally present, curious, and responsive to one another.
This kind of presence helps couples move from “roommates with to-do lists” back to lovers who make eye contact, flirt, play, touch, and prioritize emotional connection.
At Wisdom Within Counseling, our sex and intimacy specialists teach you how to be curious and responsive. As well, marriage therapy gives you and your partner a structure to talk about difficult topics. For instance, lack of desire, sexual mismatches, or trauma are all great to talk about in couples therapy. And, you can learn to do so in a way that builds closeness rather than causing more distance.
Many couples come into therapy having never had real conversations about sex.
Sometimes because of religious shame, cultural silence, or fear of hurting the other person. Imago-informed, sex-positive therapy teaches couples how to talk through those fears.
For example, you might learn to say, “When I’m touched without emotional connection, I feel objectified and it makes me want to pull away.” And, your partner can learn to hear that without feeling criticized. That’s the power of emotional intimacy—it opens a gateway to deeper, more authentic sexual experiences.
Another key skill is curiosity instead of criticism.
Emotional intimacy grows when both people replace blame with curiosity.
For instance,“What’s really going on for you when we don’t have sex?” or “How can I support you in feeling more desired?” These kinds of questions move you toward each other instead of apart. And, when you feel emotionally close, sexually rejecting your partner becomes less frequent. Rejection and avoidance of sex decrease over time because you build a deep emotional bond through couples therapy.
When couples feel emotionally distant, sex can become a battleground: one partner withdraws and the other pursues.
Or one partner gives in out of guilt, and the other feels unwanted. These cycles are painful and disheartening. Imago and emotionally focused therapy help you step out of those roles by rebuilding emotional safety and mutual validation. Instead of “Who’s right?” the conversation becomes “How do we feel closer and more loved?”
Sex-positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut recognizes that sex is emotional, not just physical.
A fabulous sex life is about how seen, accepted, and emotionally understood you feel in your relationship.
Emotional intimacy skills in intimacy focused and sex positive marriage counseling in Southeastern Connecticut lays the foundation where you feel free to express fantasies. As well, from marriage therapy, you can feel safe exploring new desires, and feel turned on because you feel safe and known.
You get to rebuild your erotic connection from a place of mutual care, compassion, and co-created pleasure.
Ultimately, emotional intimacy is the soil in which great sex grows.
Without it, arousal often withers, and both partners feel disconnected. But with it, sex becomes not just an act—but a shared expression of love, trust, playfulness, and emotional depth.
If you want sex to feel alive again, start with emotional connection skills with our sex and intimacy specialists.
Sex-positive, emotionally focused marriage counseling—especially with Imago skills like mirroring, validating, and empathizing—helps you rebuild your sex life. Katie Ziskind and the team of therapists at Wisdom Within Counseling are sex and intimacy specialists who guide you there.
Where in Connecticut does the team of therapists at Wisdom Within Counseling help?
Ansonia, Ashford, Avon, Barkhamsted, Berlin, Bethany, Bethel, Bloomfield, Bolton, Branford, Bridgeport, Bristol, Brookfield, Burlington, Canaan, Canterbury, Chaplin, Cheshire, Clinton, Colchester, Coventry, Danbury, Darien, Deep River, Derby, Durham, East Granby, East Haddam, East Hampton, East Hartford, East Haven, Enfield, Fairfield, Farmington, Franklin, Glastonbury, Goshen, Granby, Greenwich, Griswold, Groton, Hamden, Hartford, Hebron, Kent, Killingly, Killingworth, Lebanon, Ledyard, Lisbon, Litchfield, Madison, Manchester, Mansfield, Marlborough, Meriden, Middlebury, Middletown, Milford, Montville, Naugatuck, New Britain, New Canaan, New Fairfield, New Haven, New London, New Milford, North Branford, North Canaan, North Haven, Norwalk, Norwich, Old Lyme, Old Saybrook, Orange, Oxford, Plainfield, Plainville, Pomfret, Portland, Preston, Prospect, Putnam, Redding, Ridgefield, Rocky Hill, Seymour, Sharon, Shelton, Simsbury, Somers, South Windsor, Southington, Stafford, Stamford, Sterling, Stonington, Stratford, Suffield, Thomaston, Thompson, Tolland, Torrington, Trumbull, Union, Vernon, Wallingford, Waterbury, Waterford, West Hartford, West Haven, Weston, Westport, Wethersfield, Willington, Wilton, Windsor, Windsor Locks.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist is also licensed in Florida and New Jersey. She offers telehealth video therapy from the comfort of your home.
Whether you’re healing from past sexual trauma, working through sexual avoidance or anxiety, or simply want to bring more aliveness to your marriage, intimacy-focused and sex-positive marriage counseling offers a path toward joyful, connected, embodied love.
Ultimately, the journey of sexual exploration, confidence, and connection is a lifelong one.
At Wisdom Within Counseling, we take that journey together—at your pace, with care, curiosity, and compassion.
You don’t have to do it alone. Your pleasure matters. Your story deserves space. And together, we’ll rewrite it.
Why work with Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist in Connecticut, to have more frequent, regular sex when you are currently in a sexless marriage?
Working with Katie Ziskind, a sex and intimacy specialist in Connecticut, can be the transformative step you need if you’re currently experiencing a sexless marriage. A sexless marriage can feel isolating, frustrating, and deeply painful, especially when emotional and physical connection are vital parts of any fulfilling relationship.
At Wisdom Within Counseling, sex and intimacy specialized marriage therapy gives you a safe place to co-create sexual expression and enjoy sexual pleasure.
A Note From Katie Ziskind
With my guidance, you can explore the emotional and physical barriers standing between you and a vibrant, satisfying sex life. I provide a compassionate, non-judgmental space where you can feel safe to express your sexual desires, concerns, and fears about intimacy, without shame.
One of the first steps in addressing a sexless marriage is understanding why it exists in the first place.
Many couples I work with often don’t realize the depth of emotional disconnect or unresolved issues contributing to their lack of sexual connection.
With my specialized training in sex therapy and marriage counseling, I can help you identify and unpack these underlying issues—whether they stem from unresolved emotional wounds, stress, work-related burnout, or patterns of miscommunication. Together, we can look at how those dynamics are impacting your sexual intimacy and what needs to shift in order to reconnect.
Many couples struggle to overcome issues like sexual rejection, fear of inadequacy, or emotional neglect, which directly impact the desire for sex.
In our work together, we will focus on fostering healthy communication around sex and emotional intimacy. I’ll teach you how to express your sexual needs and desires in a way that feels safe for both you and your partner. This is crucial because when partners are able to communicate openly and vulnerably, it creates a foundation for desire to grow, and sex doesn’t feel like an obligation or chore anymore.
It’s also essential to address how past experiences and beliefs may be influencing your current sexual dynamics.
If you or your partner have experienced sexual trauma, religious or cultural shame around sex, or grew up in an environment where sex was repressed, it can be difficult to enjoy or prioritize intimacy in marriage.
As a sex-positive, trauma-informed therapist, I can guide you through addressing these wounds, helping you heal, and reclaim your sexuality in a healthy and empowering way. We will focus on making sex something that feels freeing and pleasurable, rather than something you feel guilty or ashamed about.
For many people in sexless marriages, emotional intimacy has become strained or absent. Often, this lack of emotional connection can directly contribute to the absence of sexual desire.
By working with me, you’ll not only address your physical intimacy needs but also create a deeper emotional bond.
Through tools like Imago therapy and emotionally focused couples therapy, we will work on strengthening the emotional intimacy in your relationship, which is crucial for reigniting sexual desire. When both partners feel emotionally seen, heard, and valued, it creates the trust and safety needed for sex to feel like a mutually fulfilling experience.
I understand that the idea of initiating sex or even talking about it can be daunting when you’re stuck in a cycle of rejection and disconnection.
That’s why I offer a safe, structured approach to help you break those cycles and feel confident about your sexual needs.
Working together, we’ll explore what might be hindering your ability to initiate sex and create a safe space where both partners feel comfortable expressing their needs. I’ll teach you how to be intentional about your sexual relationship, creating moments of connection outside of the bedroom that will naturally lead to more intimacy in your marriage.
Sex is an expression of vulnerability, and it can be incredibly difficult to open up to your partner about your desires if you feel emotionally unsafe.
Through sex-positive marriage counseling, I help you create a nonjudgmental environment where both partners feel comfortable discussing their sexual preferences, fantasies, and boundaries.
This allows both of you to understand what the other needs in order to feel desired, and it helps take the pressure off of “performance” during sex. By developing a deeper emotional understanding of each other’s needs, we work towards creating a relationship where desire and intimacy are natural, rather than forced.
A major benefit of working with me is my focus on sexual education and exploration.
Many couples in sexless marriages simply don’t know how to bring passion and novelty back into their connection.
We’ll explore ways to spice up your sexual relationship with new ideas, ways to initiate touch, and even communication practices that enhance sexual pleasure.
Whether it’s trying out sensate focus exercises, creating rituals of closeness, or learning how to talk about sex more openly, I will support you in bringing the spark back to your relationship, so sex becomes an exciting, desired part of your connection rather than an afterthought.
I recognize that busy schedules, work stress, and family obligations often get in the way of sexual intimacy.
Couples can fall into a pattern where they prioritize everything else over connecting physically and emotionally. I work with you to break this cycle by helping you prioritize intimacy in a way that feels manageable.
We’ll discuss how to set aside intentional time for intimacy, how to schedule sex without it feeling forced, and how to communicate with your partner about your sexual needs in a way that feels like a mutual priority.
This approach reduces the stress of trying to “fit sex into your schedule” and helps you both get back in touch with your desires.
In therapy with me, you’ll also gain insight into how sexual health and sexual satisfaction are influenced by both partners’ emotional and mental well-being.
Often, low libido in a marriage isn’t just about physical desire but is closely connected to emotional and psychological factors. Whether it’s stress from work, relationship conflicts, or mental health challenges like anxiety or depression, these can all impact your sexual health. Together, we’ll address how to support each other in managing these issues in a way that supports your emotional and sexual connection.
Finally, my goal is to help you rebuild a fulfilling and passionate sexual relationship, free from shame and pressure.
By focusing on open communication, emotional intimacy, and exploring each other’s desires, I will support you in creating a new foundation for your sexual relationship. This isn’t about quick fixes—it’s about long-term growth and intimacy. With sex-positive couples therapy in Connecticut, we will move toward a future where sexual connection is part of the daily love and respect you share with your partner.
If you’re ready to start the process of healing your sexless marriage, I am here to guide you every step of the way.
