Does one of you want to have sex and the other not want to have sex? Have you forgotten how to be sexy and your erotic self? Feeling stuck in the companionship mode, work, and even health issues? Are you feeling stuck in the best friend and parenting parts of your marriage? Have you found yourself feeling disconnected from your erotic, sexual self? And, since parenthood, do you feel that your body has been a tool for procreation, and you want help feeling like a hot, attractive, sexual being? When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, you may be dealing with and struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors. As well, when you both are feeling ignored, cast aside, or unwanted sexually, Katie Ziskind specializes in sex and intimacy in couples counseling in Melbourne, Florida.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
Do you have a low sex drive and low libido and want playful, intimate, and sex positive tools back in your marriage through sex and intimacy-focused couples counseling?
As well, do you feel insecure and are not sure how to initiate sexy time within your your relationship? Are you are longing for deeper intimacy but unsure how to reignite the flame in your marriage?
Part of getting connected to your erotic, sexual side means understanding intimacy both emotionally and sexually in couples therapy. It can be confusing, sad, lonely, and dampen your self-worth when you are in a sexless marriage. The cycle of avoidant sexual behaviors can lead to frustration, rejection, feeling unwanted, lost, and emotional disconnection.
At Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, Katie Ziskind in Melbourne, Florida specializes in helping couples rebuild emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy. Emotional safety is essential and so is physical touch and feeling desired.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
To create a healthy sex life, many sexually avoidant couples need help stopping reactive, high conflict cycles of anger.
When you and your spouse need help rebuilding and co-creating emotional intimacy skills, you often need help talking about the root of anger. Feeling ignored, insignificant, and sexually cast aside can lead to resentment. Plus, you or your partner may questions your desirability.
You may wonder why your partner no longer wants to have sexy time, and feel sad about that. It can feel like a massive loss to not know how to get passionate, meaningful, playful, and loving sex back in your marriage.
As a result of feeling unwanted, lonely, and sexually distant, anger may increase. Because you struggle to feel like passionate lovers, you feel anxious, insecure, and self-conscious.
Sexual insecurity, hurt, feeling unwanted, and ignored creates a rocky foundation leading to more high conflict, angry disagreements.
And, these arguments may be regarding issues that are not even related to your sex life. Yes, you might be arguing about sexual intimacy. But, you may also be arguing about all areas of your marriage.
For instance, these include relationships with in-law’s, extended family, parenting discipline methods, family planning, moving, buying a home, work, food choices, financial values, and even time with friends. Katie Ziskind, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida helps you and your spouse work through tension and conflict. You can learn to do so in ways that are positive, healthy, and support a foundation of sexual connection.
When Katie Ziskind looks at rebuilding sexual desire and libido, a strong foundation of emotional sensitivity and conversational gentleness are essential.
Instead of feeling safe talking calmly, due to pent up resentment, tension, and insecurity, anger escalates. Likewise, looking at the root causes of your sexless marriage means developing emotional communication tools.
To add, we don’t often learn how to share intense, big emotions in a calm, loving manor growing up. Instead, we see domestic violent, yelling, and have parents and caregivers who are verbally and emotionally abusive. As a child, you may have been yelled at, belittled, guilt-tripped, and didn’t have role models for emotional intelligence.
Katie Ziskind, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida supports you and your spouse in develop emotional intimacy skills. From a base of emotional safety and intimacy, you can work as a team to move through childhood trauma and abuse.
By talking calmly and gently in couples therapy with Katie Ziskind, you both can create a foundation for a passionate, safe, playful, and erotic sex life.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
Due to a sexless marriage, emotional distance becomes greater.
As well, due to high conflict fights, creating a healthy, regular, erotic sex life seems more and more difficult. High conflict fighting and yelling cycle create sexual challenges in your marriage.
You both may be stuck in an avoidant sexual cycle due to reactive emotions and unresolved, angry arguments. Katie Ziskind, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida specializes in helping high conflict couples develop emotional intimacy.
Marriage counseling in Brevard County, Florida is a safe place to repair your emotional problems and in anger issues. Katie Ziskind creates structure and guides you both through calmly talking about past fights and anger issues.
To note, this conflict repair process in couples therapy provides bonding, security, and connection.
Katie Ziskind, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida helps you create an even more powerful, loving, long-lasting marriage.
From emotional intimacy skills, you can increase emotional safety, closeness, and bonding. In your marriage, you can work together to associate positive emotions with overcoming conflict.
Essentially, from marital therapy, emotional intimacy skills help you and your spouse Katie Ziskind, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida teaches you both how to invite elements of curiosity, forgiveness, openness, and playfulness into your marriage. Furthermore, feeling safe emotionally together supports an increase in sexual desire.
Emotional intimacy allows sexual libido, verbalization of sexual needs, and openness regarding sexual expectations to blossom.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
Couples counseling with Katie Ziskind at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching in Melbourne, Florida helps you communicate better.
In order to break cycles of yelling, couples need help talking about hurt, fear, insecurity, shame, loss, and guilt. Often, painful cycles of tension, the silent treatment, and criticism a symptoms of needing emotional intimacy skills. Right now, you might get stuck in high conflict fights, which contribute to you sexless marriage situation.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida helps you understand the root issues underneath sexual avoidance.
Perhaps, you are blaming each other. Or, you both are unknowingly being critical, and hurtful with your words. Without realizing it, many couples put each other down and are critical. The undercurrent of criticism create little, negative jabs overtime. During fights, you walk on eggshells, and are not sure how to get closer to your spouse. You deeply want to work on your partnership and marriage. But, you know you don’t have the skills.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
Do you wish you could get closer to your spouse, but in a fight, everything you seem to do or say makes matters worse?
At this time, both you and your spouse feel hopeless, sad, anxious, tense, frustrated, and insecure after a fight. Fights are fear to frequent for your liking. And, you remember a time in the past when you both held hands so easily and laughed openly. Deep down, you know you and your spouse can get back to being playful. You know you want the professional guidance and a specialist to help you both reconnect.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida helps you develop emotional closeness and emotional expression skills, which reignite sexual desire.
As well, yelling, blaming, and this reactive frustrating cycle leads to sexual distance.
Maybe, your arguments and fights leave you feeling unheard, invalidated, and overwhelmed. Anger causes your significant other and partner to feel unsafe emotionally.
To add, Katie Ziskind helps you both talk about your emotions underneath anger. Talking about core emotions and being emotionally vulnerable in couples counseling are key skills for a passionate sex life. Getting sexual desire back is a process of being emotionally vulnerable and learning emotional sensitivity skills.
When thinking about improving your sex life and rebuilding sexual desire and libido, one step is reducing high conflict fights.
In order to address the root cause of avoidant sexual behaviors and your sexless marriage, emotional intimacy skills are essential. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida helps you break the pattern of yelling and anger. In marriage counseling, you learn positive ways to help each other feel valued, appreciated, loved, special, and emotionally safe. Furthermore, from there, you can develop skills to be more in tune and in sync with each other.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida, helps you both gain guidance about how to help each other feel comforted, reassured, desired, attractive, wanted, and important.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
When your partner raises their voice, you start shouting too.
Likewise, learning emotional intimacy skills is a benefit of couples therapy with Katie Ziskind at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching near Cocoa Beach, Florida. Instead of reacting to your partner’s panic and anxiety with anger, you can start to be reassuring and grounding force in their life. It is very common, when you grow up in emotionally neglectful environments, to not know how to be emotionally vulnerable. Emotional vulnerability skills and emotional expression skills are benefits of marriage counseling in Melbourne, Florida.
Instead of getting louder when you hear your partner yell, you can stop this painful, escalating pattern. Due to trauma mechanisms and survival skills from an abusive childhood, mirror neurons in your brain see your partner getting more frustrated. And, these mirror neurons go into self-protection mode, and you put your guard up. Both of you might yell at each other. Or, as your partner yells louder, you go silent, which also makes marital disconnection increase.
Rather than reacting to each other, you can express your core emotions and show vulnerability.
Marriage counseling along the Space Coast of Florida supports healing from childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect as a couple.
How does Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida explain the interconnection between high conflict fights and childhood trauma, neglect, and abuse experiences?
When both of you end up yelling at each other, you both go into self-protection mode. This is essentially you fight and fight trauma responses kicking in. Other times, when your spouse loudly yells, and the natural trauma response you have is to go silent.
Maybe, you go silent because you are afraid to make your spouse more angry than they already are. To add, the silent treatment is often a sign of being emotionally triggered. When your spouse yells, interrupts you, and gets louder, they begin to remind you of your emotionally unstable and chaotic parent. Silence is the “freeze” trauma response, often developing to survive emotional and physical abuse and emotional neglect in early years. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida specializes in helping couples understand the connection to childhood trauma and neglect.
Early childhood trauma mechanisms play a role in marital disconnection and sexual frustration.
As a child, when your parents yelled and screamed, the way you learn to survive was to be silent. Being silent was a survival mechanism to get through the trauma of having an emotionally abusive, alcoholic, and narcissistic parent or caregiver. You learned to stay quiet and “keep the peace.” Now, these survival mechanisms, that got you through a very difficult childhood, are negatively impacting your marriage. Understanding the connection here is a key part of building emotional security and breaking the pattern of painful conflict.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida helps you openly talk about your fight, flight, and freeze trauma responses. You and your spouse get a safe place to better understand each other’s triggers.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
Developing emotional vulnerability skills to support a healthy sex life in marriage counseling in Melbourne, Florida with Katie Ziskind
Perhaps, you go silent and don’t say anything because you are afraid that you will say the wrong thing. And, when you partner yells, you just don’t say anything at all. It can be overwhelming when you have a spouse who is screaming at you.
From couples counseling, Katie Ziskind helps you slow down and understand the deeper interactions occurring. Your partner can be vulnerable and talk about how when you don’t say anything, your silence and withdrawal triggers them to yell more.
Does the silent treatment trigger your partner?
As well, your spouse or partner may have a fear of abandonment deep down. Fears of abandonment are very common due to experiences of emotional neglect and childhood trauma. Having a parent who was a work-a-holic, alcoholic, or gambling addict leads a child to feel ignored, unwanted, and cast aside. To add, these fears of abandonment get re-triggered in sexual arguments and sex life issues in your marriage. Overall, your spouse’s own trauma story plays a role in your marriage arguments.
The silent treatment in your marital fights can be triggering to your partner, because as a child they felt ignored, cast aside, and silenced. Understanding these deeper unmet love needs is essential when rebuilding sexual openness.
So, you give your spouse the silent treatment. You feel like you won’t say the right thing, so you go silent. But, being silent actually escalates the fight as it triggers your spouse’s fear of abandonment. Your partner yells because they feel unsafe, unheard, and ignored. To add, their inner child wounds from younger years get triggered as so do yours.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida gives you both tools to feel heard, loved, appreciated, comforted, reassured, playful, and sexy.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida, teaches you how to talk about traumatic child experiences where you felt ignored, silenced, and hurt.
These experiences of childhood emotional neglect play a huge role in the cycle of high conflict fighting. Being in a sexless marriage can be painful emotionally. Marriage counseling addresses the root issues when you struggle with a sexless marriage.
In couples therapy with Katie Ziskind, you get a holistic approach to rebuilding your sex life and erotic desire. And, you both can better understand how to offer each other security, reassurance, and support, improving your emotional intimacy.
Being able to reflect on high conflict fights in a part of couples therapy in Melbourne, Florida at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching. From better understanding each other’s trauma triggers, you can build emotional safety.
Childhood trauma leads to fight, flight, and freeze trauma responses. And, these trauma responses play into high conflict fights, sexual issues, sexless marriage problems. In Melbourne, Florida, intimacy focused couples therapy helps rebuild emotional intimacy and strengthen your couple bubble.
To add, trauma responses, such as fight, flight, and freeze, are primal instincts and survival mechanisms. These responses often manifest in various interpersonal conflicts, including high-conflict fights, sexual issues, and sexless marriage problems.
Sex and intimacy-focused couples counseling is a safe place to explore how these trauma responses influence your relationship dynamics.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
In Melbourne, Florida, sex and intimacy focused marriage counseling is a safe place to discuss the important aspect of rebuilding emotional intimacy for a healthy sex life.
How can childhood trauma play a role in our current sexless marriage?
Furthermore, fight, flight, and freeze responses are adaptations designed to get you through childhood trauma, neglect, and abuse. If you have a parent who is an alcoholic, and emotionally neglects you, this leaves an unmet love need. Your body shifts into survival and self-protective mode.
As well, if you have a parent who is a gambling addict or drug addict, this leads you to feel insignificant, unwanted, alone, and ignored as a child. Then, when your spouse ignores you, or you feel unwanted sexually, it re-triggers this pain from childhood.
To add, these unmet love needs and inner child wounds get triggered in marital conflicts, especially around sex and sexual issues.
Perhaps, your parent prioritized their addiction and alcoholism over spending quality time with you as a child. Or, you had a parent or caregiver who wasn’t a great role model. Your parent or caregiver was a work-a-holic, and never made it to your sport games. Unmet love needs and childhood trauma are a factor in sexual marital problems.
If you endured physical abuse and emotional abuse in childhood, then love was always followed by pain.
As well, physical abuse and corporal punishment leaves lasting scars. Furthermore, parents often hit, spanked, wiped, kicked, all in the name of punishment. To note, these are forms of physical abuse and trauma. Many times, parents and caregivers try to justify physical abuse and trauma as labeling it as a punishment.
Growing up with a parent who is abusive, emotionally neglectful, or struggles with addiction impact your sense of self-worth and belonging in childhood years.
In such abusive and neglectful homes, you develop feelings of insignificance and unworthiness. These are terribly painful emotions. As well, being ignored by your parents and caregivers can be very wounding and painful emotionally.
Constant exposure to family dysfunction and the absence of nurturing love creates lasting wounds.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida supports you in overcoming a sexless marriage.
These inner child wounds and unmet love needs impact your emotional well-being and erotic, sex life.
As a child, witnessing abusive or neglectful behavior from a parent can lead to a distorted perception of love and relationships. Instead of feeling valued and cherished, you may have felt worthlessness and undesirability.
To add, this sense of inadequacy can persist into adulthood, and gets triggered when your partner ignores your bids for sexual activities.
Furthermore, your spouse’s avoidant sexual behaviors can lead you to feel unwanted, unimportant, and undesirable all over again.
More so, marital conflicts around your sexless marriage often serve as triggering events for these unresolved inner child wounds.
When faced with disagreements or emotional challenges within your marriage, you and your spouse may experience heightened feelings of insignificance and rejection. These painful emotional experiences and feelings of insignificance and rejection are reminiscent of your painful childhood experiences. Deep down, you want to feel close, connected, safe, and held by your spouse. Your marriage conflict becomes a catalyst for activating deep-seated insecurities and fears related to being unloved and unwanted.
Feeling sexually rejected when your partner shows avoidant sexual behaviors can trigger these unmet love needs.
For example, you or your spouse who grew up with an emotionally neglectful parent, there are often struggles with expressing emotions. When your spouse grew up with abuse and neglect, they may struggle to verbalize their needs and emotions in your marriage. They close up, use the silent treatment, or yell. Though these are not healthy, Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida can help you find healthier ways to communicate.
To add, part of couples counseling means developing emotional vulnerability and emotional expression skills.
Holding back verbally and not expressing needs is related to childhood trauma survival mechanisms and plays in sexless marriage issues.
When your partner fails to validate or acknowledge your feelings during a conflict, it evokes feelings of being ignored and dismissed.
And, when your partner gives you the silent treatment can make you feel sad, insecure, upset, small, and unimportant. Then, your partner shows fight, flight, and freeze survival mechanisms. Both of you get triggered, it can mirror the painful, hurtful treatment and neglect you experienced by your parents as a child.
To add, this cycle of unmet love needs being triggered in your marital conflicts perpetuates feelings of unworthiness and emotional disconnection sexually.
Katie Ziskind specializes in helping you talk about both the emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy aspects of your marital bond.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
Similarly, as a child, you and your spouse may have been exposed to addiction or substance abuse. As a result, you both may carry unresolved trauma related to your parent’s abusive behavior. Marital conflicts involving issues such as alcoholism, gambling addiction, or drug abuse can reignite feelings of powerlessness and instability experienced in childhood. To note, you end up triggering your spouse’s fear of abandonment and betrayal, and vis versa.
You both trigger each other’s deep-seated anxieties, leading to defensive and avoidant responses in conflict situations.
Addressing these inner child wounds and unmet love needs is crucial for healing and restoring emotional intimacy in the marriage. Couples therapy with Katie Ziskind provides a supportive space for you both. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused couples therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida helps you explore your past experiences. As well, you both can understand how your past influences present dynamics, and develop healthier coping mechanisms.
By fostering empathy, validation, and effective communication, marriage therapy helps couples navigate conflicts with greater understanding and compassion. Doing so ultimately fosters a deeper emotional and sexual connection. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused marriage therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida helps you co-create sense of security within your romantic relationship.
Surviving childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect puts your body into flight, fight, and freeze.
To add, the fight response involves confronting the threat head-on, often through aggression or confrontation. For instance, this can look like yelling, criticizing, interacting in a tense way, or blaming.
Flight entails the instinct to escape or avoid the perceived danger. For instance, this can look like walking out of the room or running away from the conversation through alcohol use.
And, freeze involves becoming immobile or dissociating in response to overwhelming stress. This is the silent treatment and shows up and no talking or refusal to talk.
In your relationship conflicts, these trauma responses can manifest more escalated conflicts. For instance, you or your spouse may resort to aggressive arguments (fight). Or, you both may emotionally withdraw or avoid confrontation (flight). Or, you both may shut down emotionally (freeze) when faced with conflict, sexual rejection, or intimacy issues.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
Understanding these trauma responses part of couples counseling in Melbourne, Florida when in a sexless marriage and are crucial for overcoming your relationship challenges effectively.
In high-conflict fights, trauma responses can exacerbate tensions and escalate disagreements. For instance, you may adopt a fight response, becoming combative and defensive. Then, your beloved partner retreats into flight, avoiding confrontation altogether. This painful dynamic can perpetuate a cycle of disconnection and conflict.
It leads to a sexless marriage and sexually avoidant cycle. And, this high conflict cycle will erode trust and emotional connection overtime within your romantic relationship.
To add, fight, flight, and freeze trauma responses also play a significant role in sexual issues and sexless marriage problems. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida helps you explore trauma responses. Being emotionally expressive supports comfort, reassurance, and sexual intimacy.
We avoid sex when we don’t feel connected emotionally. And, feeling rejected over and over in a sexual way can lead to a sexless marital dynamic. Communicating deeper, core emotions helps you have a foundation for sexual desire and sexual passion. Then, you can have a safe foundation to communicate about sex, your sexuality, and what you need sexually more playfully.
Intimacy and a healthy sex life requires vulnerability and emotional openness.
Likewise, learning to be emotionally open can trigger fear responses in you and your spouse. This is especially true when you have experienced childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect. To add, fight, flight, and freeze mechanisms may lead to sexual avoidance, performance anxiety, or a lack of desire.
On that note, sexual avoidance, performance anxiety, or a lack of desire contribute to feelings of disconnection and dissatisfaction in your relationship.
Couples therapy near Rockledge, Florida provides a safe and supportive environment for you both to explore your trauma responses. You get a safe place to talk about childhood unmet love needs and underlying relational patterns. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist, helps you and your spouse develop effective communication skills.
In Melbourne, Florida sex and intimacy-focused marriage counseling, you can gain emotional regulation strategies, co-regulation skills, and coping mechanisms to navigate conflicts as a team.
Through techniques such as Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and trauma-informed approaches, you both can identify and address the root causes of your conflict. To note, sexual issues and intimacy challenges can often be traced back to unmet love needs.
You can learn to develop empathy, understanding, and emotional validation through marriage therapy to repair your sexless marriage. Learning these skills in couples counseling facilitates healing emotionally and sexually. And, from gaining emotional validation tools, you can promote and foster emotional intimacy.
Moreover, couples therapy in Brevard County, Florida offers a space for partners to rebuild trust. With Katie Ziskind, in Melbourne, Florida, you learn concrete skills to reestablish intimacy, and cultivate a deeper emotional connection.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
By learning to recognize and regulate your fight, flight, and freeze trauma responses, you both can talk more authentically and compassionately.
Couples counseling in Viera, Florida helps you talk about your sex life openly. You gain tools for creating security and developing mutual support within your romantic relationship.
By recognizing the role of fight, flight, and freeze trauma responses in your marriage conflicts and dynamics, you both can work towards building emotional intimacy. From meeting with Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida, you can cultivate a healthier, more fulfilling, erotic, and satisfying relationship. Sexual avoidance can come from feeling uncomfortable emotions, and not being able to voice them. Marriage therapy is a safe place to get comfortable talking about emotions. You don’t have to avoid emotions, or avoid sexual activities.
Couples therapy in Melbourne, Florida with Katie Ziskind provides you with tools for building a strong, healthy couple bubble. Katie Ziskind specializes in teaching you skills for emotional and sexual support.
From both emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy skills, you can learn to heal, grow, and thrive together.
Understanding your fight, flight, and freeze trauma responses is essential for navigating relationship conflicts, sexual issues, and intimacy challenges.
As well, being able to communicate together through emotional vulnerability is a skill that you don’t learn anywhere else in life. A lot of times, we are told you stuff away our emotions. We are taught, from a young age, to put a happy face on.
And, we are told by family, culture, and society to always look happy. We often hear, “Don’t be a burden,” which plays a role in sexual avoidance cycles. As well, we are taught, “Don’t be too sensitive,” and “Don’t be too opinionated.” These negative beliefs play a role in sexual dissatisfaction and feeling uncomfortable sexually.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
What are emotional intimacy skills in marriage therapy in Melbourne, Florida and how do they play a role in avoidant sexual behaviors?
Essentially, emotional intimacy means that you feel safe opening up to your wife, husband, spouse, or partner. When you feel like you are walking on eggshells, that isn’t a safe marriage. And, when you feel you are going to get your head bitten off if you talk, that isn’t safe. Or, if you feel that your partner will criticize you or humiliate you, you stay silent. If you fear your partner will reject you or make fun of you, you may be very reluctant to have a voice. Couples counseling is a safe environment to talk about all of these pieces.
And, from emotional safety, your partner feels safe opening up to you.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida gives you safe space to have a voice and feel comfortable speaking up.
Opening up means incorporating more hand holding, warm hugs, building trust, and resolving conflicts calmly.
When you and your partner are able to talk about fear, hurt, rejection, and abandonment, you can stop the escalation of defensiveness.
And, you can create a foundation of playfulness for erotic desire and sexual intimacy. At the core, Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida helps you both gain acceptance skills.
From acceptance, you can move forward as a committed team. You don’t need to have a bigger penis to overcome a sexless marriage dynamic. More frequent sex doesn’t necessarily mean more satisfying, pleasurable, and fulfilling sex. And, you don’t need to go on a diet in order to get your sex life back. You don’t need to tell your friends and family members personal information and complain about how horrible your sex life is. As well, to overcome a sexless marriage, you don’t need to stay silent and stuff away your emotions. Putting a fake, happy face on isn’t the way to co-creating a loving, passionate, and positive sex life. Listening to these negative messages, often from society and culture, will only make your marriage worse.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida helps you identify distracting, unhelpful cultural beliefs.
What does a strong, loving, and healthy marriage and sex life look like?
There is no fear to be yourself when you have emotional intimacy in your marriage.
You both feel like you can be your authentic selves together emotionally.
Emotional safety means that you can both communicate feelings in supportive and kind ways. In general, when you have emotional intimacy, you are in tune with each other in subtle ways. You can both talk about your feelings. For instance, you can talk about feeling sexually insecure or body image issues. Or, you can talk about fears of abandonment, rejection, or fears of more loss. Maybe, you want to talk about your strict, conservative, and religious upbringing. You can talk about your sexual fantasies, sexual desires, and sexual urges playfully. When connecting with your spouse, great sex begins with emotional connection.
Overall, you feel safe expressing triggers and what may be underneath the anger in a calm, gentle way.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
In addition to emotional intimacy tools, how can couples therapy help get to the root cause of avoidant sexual behaviors?
In your marriage, you may be stuck in a sexually avoidance cycle and feeling trapped, confused, angry, and lonely. When one of you wants to have sex and the other person could care less about sex, there is a disconnection.
In addition to emotional disagreements, not having enough quality time together lead to a sexless marriage. So often, our culture places emphasis on developing careers. Society, religion, and culture never cheer us on in having a pleasurable, erotic, and passionate sex life. We are told to get in line, get married, and have kids.
And, we need a career to make money and have an income. However, might be getting caught up in parenting and your career. When you are so focused on building your career and making money, your marriage may become sexless. As well, when you are taking a new academic course, or even socializing with friends, your sex life falls to the background.
Perhaps, you are caught up parenting or dealing with health issues. Maybe, chronic pain, an auto immune condition, or mental health issues is weighing down your sex life. Other things that impact your erotic self, sex life, and sexual desire, loss, are anxiety issues. Working long hours can lead to burn out. Maybe, you both have been putting more attention into other areas than into your marriage and sex life.
You start to get more satisfaction, pleasure, and joy from other areas of your life. Then, you and your spouse develop avoidant sexual behaviors and get stuck in a sexual standoff.
You find yourselves grappling with the complexities of maintaining intimacy amidst the demands of careers, parenting, and social obligations.
Your sexually avoidant cycle can lead to intense, painful feelings. When one partner desires sex while the other is disinterested, a massive disconnection emerges. Neglecting intimacy in your marriage can be a result of societal pressures to advance your career and get a bigger house. As well, our culture and families do not teach us skills for maintaining erotic desire and sexual connection.
At Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, in Melbourne, Florida, Katie Ziskind helps you break the cycle of avoidant sexual behaviors.
Looking back, you both have prioritized your professional success over your sexual pleasure and sexual fulfillment.
Over time, your focus on parenting and growing your family has left little room for nurturing your sex life and intimate relationship. You both may struggle to balance exciting, but demanding work schedules. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida helps you create time and prioritize sexual intimacy.
Maybe, you are constantly striving for recognition and progress, inadvertently relegating your sex life.
To add, the relentless pursuit of your career goals can lead to exhaustion, burn out, and neglect of emotional and physical intimacy within your marital relationship. Overall, lack of quality time together and lack of attention perpetuates a cycle of sexual avoidance.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling in Melbourne, Florida.
Does it feel difficult to shift from responsibilities and demands of childcare, household chores, and extracurricular activities, to sexual pleasure?
Furthermore, the challenges of parenting add another layer of complexity to sexual avoidance in your marriage. In the midst of juggling parental responsibilities, you both may struggle to carve out quality time for each other. And, you want the help of Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy couples therapy specialist to help you balance sexual intimacy needs with parenting.
There is exhaustion and stress that goes along with parenting. As well, this emotional burn out can create emotional distance, resentment and disconnection. These negative emotions further contribute to the cycle of sexual avoidance in your sexless marriage.
In addition to career and parenting obligations, the fear of missing out of social engagements pull energy away from sexual intimacy. As well, personal pursuits can also detract from prioritizing intimacy within your marriage. Whether it’s attending social events, pursuing hobbies, or investing time in personal development, you both allocate time and energy to external activities.
Without realizing it, you only have so much time in a day. You know that you need help repairing your sexual relationship.
How Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida, helps you increase sexual pleasure?
Through Melbourne, Florida marriage counseling, Katie Ziskind specializes in helping distant couples bond. Simply, having a safe space to talk about sexual expectations, sexual fantasies, and sexual desires begins prioritizing sexual intimacy. You get to say what you’d like to try sexually. Additionally, you and your partner can talk about erogenous zones, Katie Ziskind helps you both increase female sexual pleasure, which can be part of sexual avoidance issues. For instance, techniques for lengthening foreplay support the female orgasmic system and more sexual pleasure.
Talking about what you find attractive, sexy, and hot about your partner builds sexual desire and intimacy. Learn skills to invite for sexy time, erotic energy, and sexual openness into your relationship.
Sex positive couples counseling with Katie Ziskind is a safe place to rediscover your sexual self after traumatic birth experiences and becoming parents. You get a safe place to be curious and figure out what you like sexually. Sometimes, we like different environments, like the living room or the bedroom. We all have different things that turn us on sexually. You might like to use different sex toys, listen to an erotic audio book, or get in the mood a certain way. As well, we like fabrics like silk, cotton, or leather. When we think about shifting into a sexual self, vs. a parenting or best friend mode, we also talk about dirty talk.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of marriage counseling near Cope Canaveral, Florida.
Shifting into sexual confidence and sexual pleasure
To add in marriage counseling with Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist, helps you talk about the roles you default to. Often, women especially are told to be caretakers from a young age, so we don’t learn to have a voice from a young age. You may identify with being parentified your whole life and have been in a caretaking role for your siblings. As well, body disconnection is common when youa re stuck in a care giving role 100% of the time. Being a good care giver makes you a great wife and friend, but Katie Ziskind helps you connect to your sexual self in a confident way. Getting to know and express your erotic, passionate, and sexual side is a beautiful part of marriage too.
In Melbourne, Florida couples therapy, it may be the first time you get to be a little selfish, in the relationship and intimacy realm. As a couple, you both get a safe place to discuss what it means to shift away from, “to-do list, obligatory sex,” and into sexual pleasure and what is sexually satisfying.
Katie Ziskind, marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida, specializes in supporting couples discuss sex openly and increase playfulness and bonding through sexual pleasure.
Talking about elongating, luxurious touch on erogenous zones and types of touch you like are positive parts of reconnecting to your sexual self and gaining sexual confidence
Right now, you might be stuck in parenting mode, care giving role, or a give, give, give mindset. Shifting in sexual confidence means having a voice regarding your own sexual pleasure. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida helps you both have sex positive, open conversations.
Doing so fosters relationship security, and supports a playful marital atmosphere. This helps to break the cycle of avoidant sexual behaviors.
Lack of emotional and sexual presence leads to feelings of loneliness, pain, rejection, and dissatisfaction.
Yes, socializing and personal growth are important aspects of individual well-being. However, doing too much can lead to neglecting your sexual, erotic, and intimate bond. Not having quality time together can erode the foundation of your marriage.
In general, breaking free from the sexually avoidant cycle in your marriage requires a deliberate shift in priorities.
Katie Ziskind, Gottman marriage therapist and sex and intimacy specialist, helps you reaffirm your commitment to nurturing the intimacy in your marriage. Amidst life’s demands, you can work together to create sexual balance.
Part of couples counseling in Brevard County is recognizing the detrimental effects of neglecting your sexual connection. As a team in couples counseling, you both can actively work towards prioritizing quality time together. In sex-focused marriage counseling, you can explore what it means to let your sexy side out. Sexual self-expression is piece of working with Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida. As well, sexual confidence and self-assurance are also parts of sex and intimacy-focused couples counseling.
You can both team up to overcome challenges posed by societal pressures, religion, and external obligations.
In Satellite Beach, Florida, sex-focused couples therapy helps you develop open communication skills. Talking openly about sexual needs and your sexual side supports a satisfying, pleasurable, and erotic sex life. As well, you both get a safe place to practice empathy, and make intentional efforts to rekindle playfulness and passion.
Marriage counseling in Melbourne, Florida with Katie Ziskind helps you in reclaiming the joy and fulfillment of a vibrant and connected sexual relationship within your marriage.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
Let’s talk about your relationship garden when it comes to breaking the cycle of avoidant sexual behaviors and building a healthy sex life.
In Melbourne, Florida in couples counseling, we talk about your relationship garden. Your romantic relationship garden is a metaphor for the energy that both of you are adding to grow your marriage. Putting time, attention, and your energetic focus into other things detracts from the health of your relationship garden.
If you have a house plant and you don’t water it, it will turn yellow. Your house plant will die because you are not giving it attention, love, or water. In the same way gardens need attention to thrive, so does your marriage. So, think of maintaining your healthy sex life as creating a garden together.
You are bringing sunlight and your spouse is adding soil. Each of you are bringing important elements to create a prolific garden. If there isn’t enough sunlight, plants will die. And, if you don’t have the right amount of soil or water, plants die too. Your garden encompasses not only your current marriage state, but also your inner child wounds and unmet love needs.
Both of you are bringing experiences you have from your childhood to your marriage.
As well, experiencing pain, trauma, and loss are also aspect that we bring to this garden of marriage. Couples counseling with Katie Ziskind in Melbourne, Florida helps you understand that both of you need to grow your garden together. Both of you are needed to have fun, playful, erotic, positive, and emotionally present sexual experiences.
Essentially, this means giving time, emotional presence, attention, and meaningful conversation to your marriage.
In sex and intimacy-focused marriage counseling in Melbourne, Florida, the concept of the “relationship garden” serves as a powerful metaphor for understanding the dynamics and energy invested in a marriage.
Just as neglecting to water a house plant can cause it to wither and die, neglecting the needs of your relationship causes it to deteriorate. Couples in counseling learn to envision their marriage as a garden that requires nurturing, time, emotional and sexual intimacy, and care to thrive.
You can’t go buy a healthy sex life at your local grocery store, but working with Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida can help you co-create a beautiful one.
A marriage doesn’t just get good on its own. As well, a healthy marriage isn’t something you can go buy at your local grocery store. It is something you design and create over time. A healthy emotional and sexual connection is co-created, and needs ongoing attention. Essentially, each of you contributes essential elements to cultivate your relationship garden.
Similar to how sunlight is necessary for plant growth, one of you may bring warmth, positivity, and energy to your marriage. Meanwhile, your partner provides stability, support, and grounding, akin to the role of soil in gardening. Together, you both can create a harmonious balance of light and nourishment that sustains the health and vitality of your marriage.
To add, the condition of your relationship garden reflects the current state of your marriage. As well, your garden also includes the unresolved wounds and unmet needs both of you bring related to past experiences. Childhood unmet love needs and past pain are parts of your garden too.
Just as a garden requires fertile soil to flourish, your marriage thrives when both of you become vulnerable about your inner child wounds and unmet love needs.
To add, these unmet love needs from childhood trauma can manifest in conflicts, communication barriers, and emotional distance within your relationship.
Furthermore, you both bring a variety of life experiences, including pain, trauma, and loss, to your marriage garden. These experiences shape your perceptions, behaviors, and responses to challenges within your relationship.
Couples counseling in Melbourne, Florida provides a safe, supportive environment for both of you to talk about sex and intimacy.
In Brevard County marriage counseling, you can explore how past traumas and losses impact your present relationship dynamics and sexless marriage.
By acknowledging and processing past trauma experiences, you both can cultivate a deeper understanding and empathy for each other. As well, you can work on fostering greater resilience and both emotional and sexual connection in your marriage.
Just as neglecting to water or provide adequate sunlight can lead to the demise of a garden, ignoring the needs of your marriage result in disconnection and conflict.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapist in Melbourne, Florida teaches you how to invest time, effort, and attention into tending to your relationship garden regularly.
How do you grow your relationship and address avoidant sexual behaviors?
To add, this involves practicing open communication, expressing appreciation and affection, and prioritizing quality time together. By nurturing your marriage with care and intentionality, you both can cultivate a thriving and resilient relationship that withstands the challenges of life.
As well, you may explore patterns of interaction, communication styles, and areas of conflict to help couples cultivate a healthier and more fulfilling marriage. Through collaborative goal-setting and skill-building exercises, couples learn to cultivate trust, intimacy, and resilience in their relationship garden.
Moreover, Melbourne, Florida couples counseling with Katie Ziskind empowers you both to address underlying issues and challenges that hinder the growth of your relationship garden.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist, in Melbourne, Florida provides couples with tools and strategies for navigating conflicts, managing stress, and fostering emotional connection. These tools lay a foundation for sexual desire, sexual passion, and sexual activities.
By cultivating self-awareness and empathy, you both can deepen your understanding of each other’s needs, sexually and emotionally. And, you can learn more about each other’s perspectives, nurturing a stronger bond in your marriage.
In sex and intimacy-focused couples counseling sessions, Katie Ziskind guides both of you in identifying areas of strength and growth within your relationship garden.
As partners continue to tend to their relationship garden, they may encounter setbacks or obstacles along the way. However, with dedication, patience, and mutual support, you both can overcome challenges. From marriage counseling near Cocoa Beach, Florida, you can cultivate a flourishing marriage that brings joy, fulfillment, and growth to you both.
In Melbourne, Florida, couples counseling offers you and the opportunity to nurture and strengthen your relationship garden, creating a lasting foundation for love and connection.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
Being able to think about your relationship as living garden that needs your attention and love can help you create a lasting love life.
In order to have a thriving marriage, if you have to put in work, love, and dedication. Being committed to each other is just one part of having a thriving marriage. Plus, part of having a great marriage is maintaining your garden too. We don’t learn maintenance skills growing up.
Occasionally, you have to weed the bad plans that you don’t want out of your garden. Then, you can have room to plant new things in your relationship garden.
You can let go of cultural expectations that tell you that happy marriage just happens. In reality, happy marriages don’t just happen. Anger and trauma don’t go away on its own.
Yelling doesn’t solve any problems or make your marriage better. And, neither does the silent treatment or refusing to speak to each other.
We often don’t learn how to create an emotionally vulnerable and emotionally safe relationships growing up.
If anything, we see parents and caregivers treat each other in negative ways. You may have seen your parents being mean and critical to each other. Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist, speaks to and explains the concept of your relationship garden in detail in marriage therapy.
Essentially, you are both co-creating a garden of emotional safety and romance at all times.
When building your emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy, thinking of a garden metaphor can be supportive and playful.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
What takes the fun and pleasure out of sexual expression and sexual activities?
In sex and intimacy-focused marriage counseling, you can learn how to shift from sexual avoidance, fear, insecurity, shame, and guilt into sexual pleasure. As a team through couples counseling in Melbourne, Florida with Katie Ziskind, you both can create more pleasure-oriented sexual activities.
Through pornography, culture, and society, penetrative sex and orgasm focused sex leads to obligation. Thinking of sexual activities with an end goal in mind steals the joy away from what could be pleasurable.
Having a to-do list mindset around sex leads to sexually avoidant behaviors. To note, this is because pleasure is no longer associated with sexual activities.
They become chore-like in nature when the focus is on an outcome. With Katie Ziskind, intimacy-focused marriage counseling helps you create more pleasure oriented sexual activities. And, you can have fun building sexual desire in ways that don’t necessarily have to end in penis in vagina penetration.
From sex and intimacy focused marriage counseling in Melbourne, Florida, your sexual activities can be diverse, fun, erotic, mysterious, and playful.
In the realm of your sexual, romantic, and intimate relationship, society and culture put an outcome-oriented narrative around penetrative sex and orgasm-focused sex. As well, pornography, society, and culture like to teach people that penetrative sex and orgasm-focused sex are what create sexual fulfillment.
However, this is not true. It is really a narrow focus on inaccurate, traditional notions. From this limiting mindset, seeing sexual activity as penetrative and orgasm-focused often overlooks the rich tapestry of pleasure and connection that can occur through diverse and playful sexual experiences.
Through couples counseling with Katie Ziskind, you can explore the pitfalls of prioritizing penetrative sex and orgasm-centric sex. As well, penetrative sex and orgasm-focused sex leads to obligation. This mindset about sex steals away connection, and contributes to sexually avoidant behaviors.
Furthermore, in marriage therapy, Katie Ziskind delves into the transformative potential of enjoying sexual activities together without a focus on the end goal.
Essentially, intimacy-focused marriage counseling helps you both redefine sexual experiences to prioritize pleasure, diversity, and connection.
From refocusing away from penetrative sex and orgasm-focused sex, and instead to pleasure, sexual desire increases.
For many couples, the pressure to jump right to penetrative sex and achieve orgasm create a sense of obligation rather than genuine pleasure. To add, this emphasis on sexual performance-driven encounters leads to feelings of anxiety, inadequacy, and disconnection within your sexual relationship.
As a result, there is no sexual excitement, hype, desire, or joy. Thinking about what comes next will take you out of being able to enjoy the present moment.
Instead of fostering intimacy and joy, the pursuit of orgasm becomes a goal-oriented. And, being so focused on orgasming takes away spontaneity and genuine connection. As a result, you both may find yourselves trapped in a cycle of sexually avoidant behaviors. Since sex is no longer associated with pleasure and fun, sex doesn’t seem exciting anymore.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
Sex and intimacy-focused couples therapy with Katie Ziskind in Melbourne, Florida helps being back the anticipation.
Instead of sex being an obligation, you both learn new skills to more fully enjoy sexual activities.
Intimacy-focused marriage counseling with Katie Ziskind offers a transformative approach to revitalizing sexual connection. She helps you shift the focus from penetrative sex and orgasm attainment to pleasure-oriented experiences.
By exploring alternative forms of sexual expression that prioritize intimacy, creativity, and sexual exploration, you both can rediscover the joy and fulfillment around sex again.
Essentially, when you are able to be in the present moment, you can create pleasurable shared sexual experiences.
Through open communication, empathy, and a willingness to explore new avenues of pleasure, you both can cultivate a deeper sense of connection and satisfaction within your sexual relationship.
In embracing a pleasure-oriented approach to sexual intimacy, you both are invited to explore the diverse spectrum of sensations. There are so many different sexual experiences that can be found beyond penetrative sex.
Pornography especially puts a major emphasis on penetrative sex being the main goal. Furthermore, from sensual massage and erotic touch to playful experimentation and mutual exploration, intimacy-focused sexual activities offer endless possibilities for connection and pleasure.
Instead of being focused on penetrative sex, you can simply enjoy seeing your touch ignite feelings of sexual pleasure in you partner’s body.
By embracing diversity and spontaneity in your sexual encounters, you both can break free from the constraints of obligation.
Part of marriage counseling with Katie Ziskind helps you reclaim the joyous, exciting, erotic, fun, sexual, and playful essence of intimacy.
The duration and nature of foreplay can vary widely between the male body and female body. While some males may only need 4-8 minutes, females often need longer foreplay. Part of bringing more pleasure into sexual experiences means lengthening foreplay. Women and vulva owners especially require require more time and sexual stimulation to become fully aroused. Males or penis owners reach a state of readiness more quickly.
In couples therapy in Melbourne, Florida with Katie Ziskind, you can talk about your individual preferences, sexual desires, and arousal patterns unique to each of you.
Furthermore, foreplay encompasses a wide range of intimate activities that build anticipation, arousal, and connection between you both. To add, teasing is a part of foreplay, which increases playfulness.
Foreplay can include physical touch, such as kissing, caressing, and massaging, as well as verbal communication, flirting, and erotic stimulation.
Essentially, engaging in foreplay allows you both to explore each other’s bodies, desires, and boundaries, creating a sense of intimacy and excitement leading up to sexual activity.
For many women, longer foreplay is essential for reaching a heightened state of sexual arousal and experiencing pleasure.
Foreplay also supports female pleasure and leads to more enjoyment during sexual activities. More sexual pleasure leads to a higher level of sexual desire and arousal. This extended period of stimulation allows for increased blood flow to the genitals, clitoris, vulva, lubrication, and mental relaxation. Through foreplay, a sense of intimacy and safety evolves.
As well, foreplay that is 45 to 90 minutes facilitates a more pleasurable and satisfying sexual experience. Furthermore, foreplay enables women to mentally and emotionally engage in the sexual openness. It builds anticipation. Foreplay is a big topic and part of marriage counseling in Melbourne, Florida.
At Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching near Palm Bay, Florida, we talk about lengthening foreplay, which enhances sexual desire, libido, and connection with your partner.
On the other hand, men often require less time for foreplay due to differences in arousal patterns and physiological responses. However, this does not mean that men do not benefit from or enjoy foreplay.
Essential, engaging in intimate activities before intercourse enhances arousal, prolongs the duration of sexual activity, and deepens emotional and physical intimacy between you both.
Additionally, men experience increased sensitivity and pleasure when their partners are fully engaged, present, aroused, and responsive during foreplay.
Effective communication and mutual understanding are essential for navigating differences in sexual desire and sexual arousal issues.
In Melbourne, Florida, couples counseling with Katie Ziskind is a safe place to openly discuss sexual preferences, fantasies, and boundaries regarding foreplay and sexual activity.
By actively listening to each other’s needs and desires, you both can collaboratively explore new techniques, fantasies, and ways to enhance your sexual connection.
Furthermore, prioritizing pleasure and enjoyment over performance-oriented goals can help alleviate pressure and anxiety surrounding sexual encounters.
Creating a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere, free from distractions and expectations, allows both partners to fully immerse themselves in the experience and focus on mutual pleasure and satisfaction.
It is important to recognize that sexual desire and arousal are influenced by a variety of factors, including hormonal fluctuations, stress levels, relationship dynamics, and overall health and well-being.
In sex and intimacy-focused marriage counseling in Brevard County, Florida learn to also prioritize self-care practices, such as regular exercise, adequate sleep, and stress management, to support sexual health and vitality.
Experimenting with different forms of foreplay and sexual activities also reignite passion and desire within your relationship.
Trying new techniques, incorporating sensual massage, using erotic toys or accessories, and exploring fantasy role-play can add excitement and variety to sexual encounters, enhancing pleasure and intimacy between partners.
Ultimately, sexual desire is a complex and dynamic aspect of human experience that evolves over time within the context of a relationship. By prioritizing communication, mutual respect, and exploration, couples in therapy cultivate a fulfilling and satisfying sexual connection. You get a safe place to talk about your sexual feelings, from enjoyment and pleasure, to feeling rejected and alone.
From talking about sex openly, you can work together to meets each other’s unique sexual needs, fantasies, and desires.
In general, prioritizing pleasure over penetrative sex and orgasm-focused encounters is key to fostering a vibrant, exciting, and fulfilling sexual relationship within your marriage.
Intimacy-focused marriage counseling with Katie Ziskind provides couples with the tools and guidance needed to redefine sexual experiences in ways that prioritize pleasure, sexual diversity, and connection.
By embracing a playful, present-moment, and exploratory approach to intimacy, you both can transcend the limitations of obligation. You don’t have to think of sex as a duty or another thing on the to-do list.
Sex and intimacy-focused couples therapy with Katie Ziskind in Melbourne, Florida helps you rediscover the excitement, joy, and sexual satisfaction that comes from truly connecting with your spouse on a deeply erotic level.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
How can a strict, conservative, Christian, and religious upbringing with fear-based and shame-based messages around sex play a role in avoidant sexual behaviors in your marriage?
For one, one or both of you may have been raised in a strict, conservative, Christian, and religious home with fear-based and shame-based messages around sex.
You may have learned that sex was dirty, taboo, and only for procreation. When you carry shame, guilt, and insecurity around sexual activities, it is more challenging to express your sexuality.
As well, you may have grown up learning that pre-martial sex was a sin and wrong. You may have learned that self-pleasure and masturbation was inappropriate, a sin, and would cause you to be impure.
Furthermore, you may have avoidant sexual behaviors in your marriage because of shame, guilt, insecurity, and inner conflict around sex.
Additionally, a part of you may find it pleasurable when you’re safe, romantic partner touches your body. You like how your body responds and how you feel. It feels good to receive pleasure.
But, due to your conservative, religious upbringing, you may feel like it is a sin to enjoy pleasure. It is also difficult to push away the negative narratives that come into your mind.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
A strict, conservative, Christian upbringing can lead females to develop negative beliefs such as, give, give, give, don’t to be too much, and don’t be a burden.
You experienced so much religious trauma around sex that you feel complex emotions around enjoying pleasure. Often, you find it difficult to relax into the moment with your partner and enjoy sex. Your mind keeps replaying the images of religious trauma you went through in your adolescent years during current sexual experiences with your spouse.
To add, there may be a sense of inner conflict due to a strict, religious, and conservative culture. As a result, you may have avoidant sexual behaviors because sex feels overwhelming emotionally.
Talking about shame, insecurity, guilt, and sexual trauma due to your conservative, religious upbringing is a good start when it comes to creating a healthy sex life.
Girls and young women learn to stay quiet and note develop a sexual voice. And, females develop these shame-based beliefs, which causes them to forfeit their own sexual pleasure. Sex then becomes part of the to-do list and an obligation rather than pleasure-focused, causes sexual avoidance.
Plus, pornography overuse can lead to sexual avoidance and a sexual standoff. As well, pornography overuse can lead to performance-oriented sex, cycles of sexual avoidance and self-isolation.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy couples counselor, talks about letting go of cultural expectations regarding what you think sex should be.
Expectations are often unrealistic and steal the joy, fun, and playfulness out of your sexual moments.
When you and your partner are in a sexless marriage, struggling with avoidant sexual behaviors, and feeling ignored or unwanted, Katie Ziskind specializes in this area of couples counseling.
At Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist, offers valuable insights and practical strategies for breaking free from the cycle of sexual avoidance and rediscovering the amazing joy of intimacy.
Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist, unpacks the dynamics of sexual avoidance within marriages, offering guidance on how to navigate these challenging waters with empathy and understanding.
Whether you’re feeling confused, lonely, or simply unsure how to bridge the gap between your sexual desires and your partner’s, this episode provides a roadmap for fostering open communication, cultivating desire, and reclaiming pleasure within your relationship.
Katie Ziskind specializes in help couples break cycle of sexual avoidance. You get a safe space to break the sexless marriage cycle and explore the transformative power of embracing pleasure. As well, you can learn skills to break free from the confines of sexual avoidance, in a way that is gentle, emotionally in tune, and kind.
In general, Katie Ziskind discusses ways to speak up, have a voice, and bring more erotic pleasure into your sexual experiences.
To begin, book your session with Katie Ziskind, relationship coach, Gottman marriage therapist, and sex and intimacy specialist below.
Where in Bevard County, Florida does Katie Ziskind offer sex and intimacy-focused couples counseling for breaking the cycle of avoidant sexual behaviors?
In Brevard County, Florida, Katie Ziskind specializes with couples needing help with rebuilding desire when they feel stuck in a marriage where there is no sexual desire or sexual intimacy any more. Katie Ziskind helps sexually avoidant couples in Melbourne, Palm Bay, Titusville, Cocoa, Merritt Island, Rockledge, Cocoa Beach, Satellite Beach, Indian Harbour Beach, Cape Canaveral, Viera, West Melbourne, Indialantic, Melbourne Beach, Malabar, Grant-Valkaria, Mims, Melbourne Village, Palm Shores, Barefoot Bay, and Micco.
Katie Ziskind also helps sexually frustrated, long-term couples in sexless marriages rebuild libido, playfulness, and passion in Fisher Island, Longboat Key, Hillsboro Beach, Bay Harbor Islands, Bal Harbour, Palm Beach, Key Biscayne, Sanibel, Pinecrest, Lighthouse Point, Key West, Key Largo, Manalapan, Marathon, Gulf Stream, Jupiter Island, Indian River Shores, Captiva, Indian Creek, Orchid, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, St. Petersburg, Golden Oak, Naples, Orlando, Windermere, and Belle Isle, Florida.
Additionally, she helps couples in Coral Gables, Sarasota, Tampa, Miami, Winter Park, Parkland, Weston, Port Charlotte, Highland Beach, Aventura, Surfside, Boca Raton, Belleair Beach, Boca Grande, Gulfport, Wilton Manors, Coral Springs, Snell Isle, Old Northeast, South Beach, Amelia Island, Marco Island, Sunset Islands, Star Island, Coral Springs, Wellington, Fort Lauderdale, Las Olas Isles, Harbor Beach, Rio Vista, Plantation, Davie, Delray Beach, Gulf Stream, Ocean Boulevard, and Seagate, Florida.
Katie Ziskind is a licensed marriage and family therapist, Gottman level 2 marriage therapist, and certified sex therapy informed professional in Florida, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
As well, sex and intimacy-focused Gottman marriage therapy is available in New Jersey and Connecticut. She helps sexually avoidant couples build sexual attraction, intimacy, and gain sex positive education all over on video.
Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching offers sex and intimacy support for rebuilding sexual desire for low libido couples in Niantic, East Lyme, Colchester, Darien, Greenwich, Old Saybrook, Westport, Middlebury, Chester, Waterford, Mystic, Stonington, Noank, Groton, Ledyard, Madison, Essex, Old Greenwich, Fairfield, Clinton, Branford, Wilton, Avon, Simsbury, Vernon, Guilford, Windsor Locks, Ridgefield, Wilton, Southport, Hartford, Preston, New Canaan, West Hartford, Glastonbury, Connecticut.
In New Jersey, Katie Ziskind specializes in sex positive couples therapy in Alpine, Short Hills, Saddle River, Rumson, Bernards Township, Wyckoff, Mountain Lakes, Highbridge, Glen Ridge, Chatham, Colts Neck, Tenafly, Princeton, Haddonfield, Scotch Plains, Summit, Princeton, Moorestown, Ho-Ho-Kus, Madison, Cresskill, Ridgewood, Upper Saddle River, Westfield, Chester, and Mendham.
In episode, “42: Break Avoidant Sexual Behaviors and Shift To Pleasure,” of the “All Things Love and Intimacy Podcast,” with Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist, she discusses the sexual standoff many long-term couples find themselves in and give practical tips as how to develop sexual and emotional intimacy.
Listen to Katie Ziskind, Gottman marriage therapist and sex and intimacy specialist, talk about this topic on her podcast. It is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Please note, this podcast is no substitution for seeking professional help.
In marriage therapy in Melbourne, Florida, Katie Ziskind, sex and intimacy specialist, helps you understand reasons as to why you are get stuck in a sexually avoidant cycle.
As well, you get skills, tools, and techniques to unstick your sexual standoff and focus on pleasure.
If pregnancy and parenting has changed your marital and sexual dynamic, sex positive Melbourne, Florida sex and intimacy-focused couples counseling with Katie Ziskind will help.
Health issues, family drama, and becoming parents can make sex is less frequent. Reconnecting to sexual desire and increasing libido is a beautiful process of self-connection. Marriage counseling with Katie Ziskind is a safe place to shift away from, “obligation and urgency to get sex over with.” Instead, you can prioritize sexual pleasure, intimacy, rebuild desire, and have fun exploring each other’s bodies again.
In sex and intimacy-focused couples therapy near Micco, Florida, we talk about how sexual desire increases from emotional and sexual standpoints.
To note, sexual desire builds from a relaxed nervous system. Likewise, learning to relax into the moment is a gift for both you and your spouse. Having pleasurable sex and regular intimacy is about letting go of needing to do anything on your to-do list or have sex be a certain way.
Great sex is about letting both of your sexual selves unfold together, offering freedom from mental chaos, from being emotionally connected.
You both can learn to give and receive sexual pleasure and pleasurable touch, without it having to end in penetrative sex. At Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching near Palm Bay, Florida, you get to talk about the importance of fun, playfulness, and emotional connection in sexual moments together.
Overall, you get positive skills, techniques, and tools to have more fun, increase sexual desire, and tools that encourage playfulness through touch.
Katie Ziskind, the owner of Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching, specializes in helping couples balance erotic desire and sexual connection with the best friend and parenting elements of your marriage.
