Is sex not frequent enough? Do you feel that your spouse rejects your touch, and avoids sex? Is your marriage is a horrible place? Fighting, arguing, the silent treatment, and emotional disconnection? Do you want the help of an expert in marriage counseling and sex and intimacy. You’re not alone, and the hopelessness you’re feeling makes a lot of sense—especially when sex has disappeared from your relationship and you’re left wondering, “What happened to us?” Wisdom Within Counseling specializes in sexless couples counseling.
Do you get stuck shutting down in the middle of a disagreement? Does your spouse avoid emotional conversations? Do either of you change the subject when things get uncomfortable, or end up physically leaving the room?
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
There are many layered reasons couples stop having sex. It can feel painful, hopeless, and even confusing. And, it’s almost never just about sex.
The loss of sex and physical intimacy is usually a symptom of deeper emotional disconnection, unresolved pain, or miscommunication in your relationship.
Here’s what might be happening—and how you can begin to shift it:
You’re both emotionally disconnected.
When you don’t feel emotionally safe, sex becomes difficult or even impossible.
Emotional intimacy is the foundation of physical intimacy.
If you feel unappreciated, lonely in your relationship, or like you’re walking on eggshells, your body will naturally pull away from sexual closeness. You can’t desire someone who feels like a stranger or an enemy.
There’s unresolved resentment.
Unspoken hurts—arguments left hanging, unmet needs, feelings of rejection or betrayal—build walls. These walls kill desire. When your emotional pain hasn’t been validated, touched, or healed, your body shuts down. You might even start to feel numb, avoidant, or disinterested—and then feel shame about that, too.
One or both of you are burned out.
Stress, overworking, caregiving, parenting, and mental exhaustion take a toll. For many couples, sex is the first thing to go when life feels overwhelming.
If you’re neurodivergent, highly sensitive, or prone to anxiety or sensory overload, this is even more common—and it’s not your fault. You may just need a gentler, more mindful way to reconnect.
You’re avoiding hard conversations.
It might feel safer to stay silent than to bring up feelings of rejection, disappointment, or hurt.
But silence only fuels misunderstanding. You might think your partner doesn’t want you anymore, while they’re silently afraid of being turned down. You may both be hurting—and just not know how to say it.
If you’re feeling hopeless right now, I want you to know: There is hope.
I’m Katie Ziskind, a certified sex therapy-informed marriage counselor.
And, I work with couples who feel like their emotional and sexual connection has totally broken down. Whether you’re dealing with past betrayals, ongoing conflict, ADHD, anxiety, sensory overload, or just sheer exhaustion from life—I help you find your way back to one another.
In 90-minute video couples therapy sessions, I create a safe, sex-positive, and judgment-free space for you to talk honestly about what’s going on.
Together, we work through emotional roadblocks, build secure attachment, and learn to co-create emotional and sexual intimacy that feels nourishing, playful, and safe.
You don’t need to fix this on your own. And you’re not broken. You’re just hurting. And when hurt is tended to, connection can bloom again.
You can book your intake session. This is your first step back to each other.
Katie Ziskind, certified sex therapy informed professional, Gottman therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling specializes in sexless couples counseling.
When negative communication patterns like the silent treatment, shutting down, criticism, or avoidance take root in your relationship, they don’t just affect your ability to talk—they directly impact your sexual connection.
The emotional energy between you and your partner is the foundation of your sex life. If that emotional energy feels cold, tense, or unsafe, your body and heart naturally begin to shut down sexually.
If your partner stonewalls you—going silent during conflict, refusing to talk, or emotionally disappearing—you might begin to feel invisible, unwanted, or unimportant. That emotional rejection translates into sexual rejection. You may stop initiating or feel anxious about being vulnerable. Sex begins to feel one-sided, disconnected, or even like a performance instead of a loving expression.
If you’re the one being criticized constantly or walking on eggshells, you might find yourself emotionally bracing all the time.
Sex is the farthest thing from your mind when you feel criticized.
And when you’re emotionally guarded, your body doesn’t feel safe enough to open up to pleasure, connection, or arousal. You need to feel emotionally safe to be physically vulnerable.
When communication becomes cold, distant, or filled with resentment, sex can begin to feel like an obligation instead of an invitation. You may start avoiding intimacy because it feels emotionally risky. Or you may crave sex as a way to reconnect, only to feel rejected by your partner’s shutdown or avoidance—creating a painful cycle of pursuit and withdrawal.
Negative communication also kills playfulness and curiosity—two key ingredients for an erotic, thriving sex life.
If every interaction turns into a fight or ends in silence, your nervous system stays stuck in survival mode. And when you’re stuck in fear, anxiety, survival and trauma, you can’t access pleasure. Relaxing together is a precursor for sexual desire. Your body tenses, your heart closes, and your sexual desire fades.
Over time, this emotional disconnection can lead to sexual frustration, resentment, and loneliness. You may start to wonder, “Why don’t we touch anymore?” or “Why do I feel so alone, even when we’re in bed together?”
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
Couples therapy helps you understand how your emotional patterns are showing up in your sex life.
You can learn how to repair after conflict, express your needs with compassion, and rebuild trust—both emotionally and physically. When you learn how to speak each other’s emotional language, your body begins to feel safe again. And from that safety, intimacy, desire, and connection can grow.
You deserve a relationship where communication fosters closeness, not shutdown.
Where sex is not a chore, but a dance between two emotionally attuned, caring partners.
Why You’ve Stopped Talking—and How It’s Damaging Your Sex Life
If you’ve noticed that you and your partner aren’t really talking anymore—just exchanging surface-level updates, walking on eggshells, or silently seething—you’re not alone.
So many couples drift into silence without realizing how harmful it is until they feel completely disconnected emotionally and sexually.
And here’s the hard truth: when communication shuts down, your intimacy and sex life dies with it.
I’m Katie Ziskind, a certified sex therapy-informed professional, Gottman Level Two trained marriage therapist, and emotionally focused couples therapist. I specialize in working with couples—especially those who are feeling frustrated, stuck, angry, rejected, or emotionally alone. When silence takes over your relationship, it’s not just a bad habit. It’s a trauma response.
And yes, it directly impacts your ability to connect, love, and desire one another.
The Silent Treatment Is a Symptom of Deeper Hurt
You might think, “We just need some space,” or “I don’t want to make things worse by talking.” But, the silent treatment is often a protective mechanism rooted in emotional pain. You or your partner might shut down during conflict because:
- You feel unsafe expressing your feelings.
- You’re afraid of being judged, blamed, or rejected.
- You don’t have the tools to manage conflict without it blowing up.
- You’ve learned, probably in childhood, that silence equals survival.
The problem is, this silence doesn’t just protect—it disconnects. And over time, it builds a wall that feels impossible to climb over.
When Silence Breeds Resentment, It Harms Your Sex Life
When you stop talking, you stop resolving. The hurt piles up. Misunderstandings multiply. And your resentment grows. You start to assume the worst about each other. Then, you might begin comparing, criticizing, or feeling like roommates instead of lovers. The unspoken tension becomes a third presence in the room, always hanging heavy.
And sex? It becomes one more place where you feel miles apart.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
Resentment Is the Anti-Aphrodisiac
Sex doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s deeply tied to how emotionally safe and seen you feel. When you haven’t talked for days or weeks, when conflict never gets resolved, when you feel neglected, dismissed, or emotionally abandoned, your body closes off.
You don’t want to be touched. As well, you might even feel disgusted or numb. And your partner might interpret that as rejection, creating a vicious cycle.
This is where marriage counseling and sex therapy can be life-changing. Katie Ziskind is a certified sex therapy informed professional and Gottman therapist. At Wisdom Within Counseling, Katie Ziskind specializes in sexless couples counseling.
You Can Learn to Talk Again In Sexless Couples Therapy
In 90-minute video telehealth sessions, I help couples like you learn how to have repairing conversations. You’ll learn how to:
- Express your needs without attacking
- Listen without getting defensive
- Validate emotions (even the ones you don’t understand)
- Reconnect through emotional and sexual intimacy
Even if your fights have felt unresolvable… even if it feels like you’re both stuck in shut-down mode… I promise, there’s a path back to connection.
Talking Is Foreplay
You might be surprised, but talking is foreplay—especially for the female body. Women need emotional closeness to open up sexually. And men need emotional safety too, though they’re often conditioned not to admit it. The more emotionally attuned you are, the easier it is to flirt again, laugh again, and feel desire again. If you are looking at how to fix a sexless marriage, Wisdom Within Counseling specializes here.
When you work with me, you’ll learn to rebuild your relationship from the inside out. Couples therapy teaches you communication skills that feel honest, safe, and connective.
Let’s Rebuild Your Emotional Security and Sexual Passion Together
If you’re ready to move past the resentment, the loneliness, and the silence that’s crept into your marriage, I invite you to book a 90-minute video intake session right. You’ll get the support you need to feel heard again, to heal the hurt that’s built up, and to rekindle your sexual connection.
You don’t have to stay stuck. Through sexless couples therapy focusing holistically, you can find your way back—together.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
According to the Gottman Method, the silent treatment—what Dr. John Gottman calls “stonewalling”—is one of the most damaging behaviors you can bring into your relationship.
If you are looking for a sexless marriage therapist, start with Katie Ziskind. Marriage counseling looks at emotional patterns when it comes to rebuilding your sex life. When we look at how to rebuild sexual connection in your marriage, we start with emotional communication. The silent treatment, not talking, and stonewalling are very damaging for your sex life. Furthermore, counseling for emotional intimacy and a sexless marriage teaches you skills to communicate vulnerable emotions, and build emotional security.
When your partner emotionally shuts down, goes quiet for hours or even days, and refuses to engage with you, it sends a clear message.
You don’t matter, your emotions are not important, and you are invisible.
If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of the silent treatment, you know how excruciating it feels.
You’re left spinning in confusion, walking on eggshells, and questioning whether you’re too much, not enough, or the problem. As well, you may try harder to reconnect—texting, apologizing, explaining—only to be met with cold silence. This dynamic doesn’t resolve conflict; it deepens the pain, creates insecurity, and fosters resentment.
Stonewalling is one of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” In Gottman’s research, which are communication patterns that predict divorce with over 90% accuracy.
When your partner withdraws into silence, they may be overwhelmed, flooded with emotion, or unsure how to respond. But, instead of soothing the relationship, this shutdown escalates tension and emotional abandonment. This directly impacts your sex life.
You may begin to feel lonely in your relationship, even though your partner is right there in the room.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
The silent treatment is a form of emotional disconnection.
When your spouse gives you the silent treatment, can feel punishing, like being locked out with no key.
Over time, it erodes trust and emotional safety. Now, emotional safety is the very foundation your relationship needs to thrive. And, it is the foundation of a healthy sex life.
When you don’t feel emotionally safe, you begin to protect yourself too. You may stop sharing vulnerable feelings, withhold affection, or shut down sexually.
Gottman found that couples who do not learn to repair after stonewalling episodes grow apart and start living parallel lives.
Have you become roommates rather than lovers?
The antidote, according to Gottman, is self-soothing and repair. If you or your partner feel overwhelmed and need space, it’s okay to take a break. But, it must be a communicated break, not a punishment. Marriage therapy with Katie Ziskind teaches you these emotional communication skills.
You can say, “I’m feeling flooded right now. I care about this conversation, and I need 20 minutes to calm down. You don’t have to fear abandonment. I’ll come back, and we’ll talk.”
That small shift keeps the connection intact.
This can be a lot harder to say in the moment. So, working with Katie Ziskind at Wisdom Within Counseling helps you rebuild emotional intimacy. Counseling for couples with no sexual intimacy starts with rebuilding emotional intimacy first.
When you are looking at how to rebuild sexual connection in your marriage, couples therapy supports security, appreciation, validation, admiration, and reassurance first.
In couples therapy, with Katie Ziskind, trained in the Gottman Method, helps you learn how to spot stonewalling in your relationship.
You can insight to understand what’s beneath the shutdown, and replace silence with honest, emotionally safe communication.
From couples counseling for a sexless marriage, you’ll gain tools to de-escalate conflict, reconnect emotionally, and rebuild trust. And, you can learn to do so even when things feel tense or emotions run high.
The silent treatment doesn’t just pause the fight—it freezes the relationship. Avoiding conflict and “keeping the peace” do not help you sex life. Part of learning how to rebuild sexual connection in your marriage means gaining emotional intimacy skills.
You deserve a partnership where your voice is heard and your emotions matter. And, both of you can work through challenges together, not apart. Counseling for couples struggling with sexless relationship gives you emotional and sexual education and tools.
Does my spouse have an avoidant attachment style?
People with an avoidant attachment style often use the silent treatment—but not necessarily to punish or manipulate. Your spouse may use the silent treatment with you and avoid talking to you. It hurts. You feel hopeless, powerless, and rejection.
Wisdom Within Counseling specializes in sexless marriage counseling online over telehealth video.
The silent treatment becomes defense mechanism rooted in fear, overwhelm, and emotional discomfort. Couples therapy helps you both communicate emotions more clearly. You don’t have to silence your voice or keep your emotions to yourself any longer. Counseling for couples struggling with sexless relationship helps you shift into a secure attachment style.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
If your partner has an avoidant attachment style, they may shut down, withdraw, or go silent during conflict or emotionally charged conversations.
While it can feel like the silent treatment—especially to someone with an anxious attachment style—what’s often happening is that they’re emotionally flooded.
In response, your spouse retreats inward to regulate themselves and avoid vulnerability.
Here’s how your spouse’s avoidant attachment style can show up:
Your avoidant partner might ignore your calls or texts after a fight.
They might refuse to talk or leave the house without explaining.
As well, they may act like nothing happened afterward, skipping over any emotional repair.
They often tell themselves, “I don’t want to make it worse,” or “Talking won’t help anyway,” so they stay quiet.
Underneath this silence is usually fear of intimacy, discomfort with emotional dependency, and difficulty trusting others to respond compassionately.
Marriage counseling for couples struggling with sexless relationship supports emotional communication.
So instead of expressing “I feel hurt” or “I’m scared,” they go silent—hoping the tension will pass without having to expose their inner world.
But to you, that silence likely feels like rejection, abandonment, or punishment.
Their silence and avoidance activates your nervous system and intensifies anxiety, especially if you crave connection, reassurance, or resolution.
In emotionally focused or Gottman-style couples therapy, both of you can learn what’s happening underneath this silence.
Your avoidant partner can discover how to self-soothe and stay emotionally present from couples therapy.
From sexless couples counClick Here To Get Started Building A Meaningful Relationship, Sexually and Emotionally
seling, you can learn how to ask for connection without overwhelming them. Together, you can learn to interrupt the silence with language that builds safety, like:
“I feel overwhelmed right now, but I care about this conversation. Can we take a short break and come back to it?”
Avoidantly attached people don’t use the silent treatment because they don’t care.
They use it because they’re protecting themselves from emotional discomfort they never learned to manage.
With the right tools and support in sexless couples counseling, they can learn to stay in the relationship. Talking about emotions is healthy. Rather than disappearing from your couple bubble especially when it matters most, your spouse can gain emotional intimacy skills.
Katie Ziskind, certified sex therapy informed professional, Gottman therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling specializes in sexless couples counseling.
How Is Honesty The Foundation for Rebuilding Emotional and Sexual Intimacy?
If you’re feeling distant from your partner, rejected sexually, or constantly questioning whether your relationship is secure, you’re not alone.
Many couples come to Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching because something feels “off.”
You’re fighting more, avoiding sex, or feeling emotionally disconnected. Often, underneath the surface is a painful truth: a lack of honesty has eroded the safety and trust in your relationship.
I’m Katie Ziskind, a certified sex therapy-informed professional, Gottman Level Two trained marriage therapist, and emotionally focused couples therapist.
I help couples like you—those struggling with anger, betrayal, and sexual disconnection—rebuild from the ground up.
And the first ingredient? Honesty.
Talking about emotions openly, honestly, and vulnerably is a key part in rebuilding a healthy sex life.
Sexless couples counseling supports both emotional connection and security, and sexual intimacy.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
Honesty Creates Emotional Safety
Honesty isn’t just about not lying—it’s about transparency, emotional vulnerability, and showing up fully in your relationship. When you and your partner are open with each other, you create a secure emotional bond. This security is what allows you to feel safe enough to desire each other, to touch, to be playful, and to enjoy sex. When there’s secrecy, defensiveness, or fear of judgment, the emotional space between you becomes rigid, guarded, and cold. Sex, if it happens, becomes mechanical or obligatory.
Examples of Relationship Honesty That Matter
Honesty doesn’t just mean admitting to past betrayals—it also looks like:
- An open phone policy: Not because you want to snoop, but because knowing you can access each other’s phones eases anxiety and reassures your attachment system.
- Saying “I’m struggling” instead of withdrawing: When you’re honest about your mental health, stress levels, or insecurities, you let your partner in instead of shutting them out.
- Being transparent about sexual needs: Maybe you feel disconnected during sex, or you wish your partner would initiate more often. Saying these things honestly, and kindly, is vulnerable—but essential.
When these kinds of honest conversations happen consistently, emotional intimacy grows.
And from that emotional intimacy, sexual intimacy naturally follows.
Secrecy Kills Desire
You might think that hiding your phone, deleting texts, or keeping thoughts to yourself protects your partner. But, in reality, secrecy slowly erodes trust.
Even small lies or withheld truths create a ripple of doubt. Your partner may not even know what’s wrong, but they feel it in their body.
A tightness, a suspicion, a distance they can’t explain.
Over time, this leads to sexual rejection, decreased desire, and emotional shutdown.
Honesty and emotional communication skills from sexless couples counseling repair this.
When you choose emotional openness, your partner can finally relax, let go of anxiety, and feel safe enough to reconnect.
Did You Know That Sex Starts Outside the Bedroom?
What many couples don’t realize is that sex begins in everyday life. Good sex begins in how you talk to each other. A healthy sex life is shaped by how you handle conflict, and how emotionally safe you feel.
If you’re holding back truth, avoiding difficult conversations, or keeping secrets, you’re also turning down the heat on your sex life.
Trust is the foreplay most people forget to practice. Katie Ziskind is a certified sex therapy informed professional. As a Gottman therapist, at Wisdom Within Counseling, she specializes in sexless couples counseling.
In telehealth marriage counseling, I’ll help you create rituals of honesty—daily check-ins, safe words, body language cues.
So, you can be real with each other again.
When you drop the masks, emotional connection thrives, and your sex life becomes more frequent, more fun, and more fulfilling.
Start Rebuilding Your Marriage Bond Through Sexless Couples Counseling Today
If you’re ready to stop walking on eggshells, wondering if you’re being lied to, or feeling sexually invisible—now is the time to start in sexless couples counseling. Book your 90-minute video intake session with me directly through my online scheduler.
You don’t have to keep suffering in silence or pretending everything’s fine.
Your marriage and romantic relationship deserves to be your safe haven. From sexless couples counseling, you can learn to be vulnerable, honest, emotionally close, and create a sex life that is sexually pleasurable.
Let’s build that together—one brave conversation at a time.
Understanding the Silent Treatment in Your Relationship
How Does Couples Therapy with Katie Ziskind Help You Reconnect?
Have you ever been in the middle of a disagreement, only to be met with silence?
Maybe your partner stopped responding to your texts, refused to make eye contact, or avoided speaking for hours or even days.
This is called the silent treatment. There is often a deeper reason why it happens.
From an Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) perspective, the silent treatment is a protective response.
This shutdown often comes from childhood trauma responses and is a PTSD symptom. Trauma symptoms are a huge part of rebuilding your sex life and emotional intimacy.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
If your partner grew up in a home where emotions were ignored, punished, or mocked, they may have developed silence as a survival strategy.
As well, if they had narcissistic parents or caregivers who guilt-tripped them into feeling like their emotions were wrong or too much, they may have learned early on to bottle everything up.
Speaking up might have meant getting yelled at, being shamed, or emotionally abandoned.
Silence became the safer choice during childhood trauma experiences.
If your partner had to please a parent just to stay emotionally safe, their inner child may still be trying to protect them in adulthood.
That same pattern shows up in your marriage when conflict arises.
Even though you’re not their parent, and you’re not going to hurt them for sharing their feelings, their nervous system is still wired to believe it’s not safe to be vulnerable.
Is there door slamming in the middle of a disagreement?
Are repair and conflict recovery conversations almost impossible in your marriage?
This doesn’t mean their behavior is okay—it just helps explain why it happens. Understanding these patterns is the first step toward healing. When you realize your partner isn’t trying to hurt you, but is acting from a place of fear or learned helplessness, compassion can begin to replace anger.
In sexless couples therapy with Katie Ziskind, you and your partner can begin to name and understand these emotional patterns.
You’ll explore how childhood experiences shape adult behaviors and learn how to break the cycle of silence and disconnection. Katie Ziskind helps you both gently reconnect to your inner children, and find safety in expressing feelings again.
In sexless couples counseling, Katie Ziskind provides a space where both of you feel like you matter, appreciated, and validated.
She guides your partner in discovering that it is safe to express their feelings now. That your relationship is a different environment than the one they grew up in.
And she helps you, the one on the receiving end of the silence, share how painful and lonely it feels when you’re shut out.
As you both learn to stay emotionally present and communicate more openly, your bond grows stronger.
You begin to see that these trauma and PTSD patterns aren’t personal attacks but outdated survival strategies. And, from that awareness, healing and intimacy can begin to flourish again.
How Can Sexless Couples Counseling Help When Your Spouse Has an Avoidant Attachment Style?
When your spouse has an avoidant attachment style, it can feel like you’re always chasing connection, while they’re running away.
You reach out because you need closeness, reassurance, and emotional safety. But, instead of coming toward you, they pull away.
It can feel incredibly painful and confusing. Especially so if you have an anxious attachment style that becomes even more activated by their withdrawal.
Katie Ziskind is certified sex therapy informed professional. She gets to the root cause of your sexless pattern of disconnection. As a Gottman therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling, she specializes in sexless couples counseling. Sexless couples counseling breaks cycles of emotional avoidance and sexual avoidance.
Your spouse may not realize how deeply their silence and emotional distance impacts you.
They might say they need space or that they don’t want to talk right now.
But, underneath that distance, they may be feeling overwhelmed, afraid of being judged. When they are unsure how to express their feelings, sexless couples counseling gives them skills. Katie Ziskind teaches emotional communication tools to fighting couples.
Instead of saying, “I’m scared,” or “I feel rejected,” they go silent. It’s not that they don’t feel emotions. Rather, it’s that they haven’t learned how to share them safely.
Narcissistic, highly critical parents never teach their children emotional communication.
Couples therapy with Katie Ziskind offers a unique opportunity to slow down these conflict cycles. In sexless couples counseling, you can understand what’s happening underneath the surface of avoidance.
Katie Ziskind helps your spouse explore the root of their avoidant patterns. An avoidant attachment style goes back to early life experiences. During trauma, expressing needs or emotions led to punishment, rejection, or disappointment.
In sexless couples counseling, your partner can begin to understand that you aren’t the enemy—you’re someone who wants to connect.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
At the same time, Katie Ziskind creates a safe space for you to voice your needs, especially your need for closeness and emotional responsiveness.
She helps you find language that doesn’t push your partner away.
In sexless couples counseling, she teaches your partner how to stay present even when emotions feel overwhelming. This mutual understanding helps you move from reacting to connecting.
Over time, your partner learns how to say things like, “I feel anxious right now.” Or, “I don’t know what to say, but I want to stay here with you.”
These are signs of developing a more secure attachment.
Avoidant partners often fear losing their independence or being engulfed. But Katie Ziskind helps them realize that true intimacy is about balance—staying connected without losing yourself.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
You may also learn how to manage your anxious attachment triggers in therapy.
When you understand your partner’s silence isn’t personal, and that they’re trying to protect themselves, you might feel less abandoned. This helps reduce your need to chase or over-pursue, giving both of you space to regulate your emotions.
With consistent support from Katie Ziskind, your relationship becomes a secure base. From sexless couples counseling, your marriage becomes a place where both of you feel safe to be vulnerable. You both feel safe to reach out, emotionally and sexually. And, from sexless couples counseling, you both learn how to respond to each other with love. A consistent, healthy love, neither of you had because of childhood trauma.
From an Imago Relationship Therapy lens, this shutdown often comes from childhood.
The old pattern of one person shutting down and the other person escalating begins to fade. Sexless couples counseling specialist helps you replace it with more emotional balance and mutual respect.
This transformation doesn’t happen overnight. But, it is possible with the right guidance. If you’re stuck in this painful pattern of emotional disconnection, book a 90-minute couples session with Katie Ziskind. Begin your journey toward healing.
Let your relationship become a place where you both feel safe to speak up, be seen, and be truly known.
Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching serves the United States, Internationally, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, and beyond. Sexless couples counseling is an online therapy for couples ready to reconnect.
These early inner child wounds show up in subtle but powerful ways.
For instance, shutting down in the middle of a disagreement, avoiding emotional conversations, changing the subject when things get uncomfortable, or physically leaving the room.
You may feel confused, hurt, or rejected, wondering why your spouse won’t talk to you.
But from their perspective, silence feels like the only safe choice they have. It is a trauma and PTSD symptom.
Katie Ziskind helps you both gently reconnect to your inner child wounds, unmet love needs, and find safety in expressing feelings again.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
Katie Ziskind provides a space where both of you feel heard and validated.
She guides your partner in discovering that it is safe to express their feelings now—that your relationship is a different environment than the one they grew up in.
And, she helps you, the one on the receiving end of the silence, share how painful and lonely it feels when you’re shut out.
As you both learn to stay emotionally present and communicate more openly, your bond grows stronger. You begin to see that these patterns aren’t personal attacks but outdated survival strategies. And from that awareness, healing and intimacy can begin to flourish again.
Book a 90-minute online couples intake session with Katie Ziskind
But here’s what you need to know: the silent treatment doesn’t just hurt the one doing it—it hurts you, too.
You might feel invisible, anxious, or confused. As well, you might think you did something wrong or feel deeply rejected. And when you’re hurting, you might react with anger, tears, or shutting down yourself. This creates a painful cycle where no one feels safe or heard.
Katie Ziskind, licensed marriage and family therapist and certified sex therapy-informed professional, helps couples break this cycle.
In marriage therapy sessions together, you’ll learn how to:
- Understand why the silent treatment happens
- Express vulnerable emotions safely
- Repair disconnection gently after arguments
- Rebuild emotional trust and closeness
You and your partner will practice saying things like:
- “When you go quiet, I feel alone.”
- “I need to know we can work through things together.”
- “I go silent because I’m scared you’ll be upset with me.”
Through gentle guidance, Katie helps couples find their way back to each other. You learn to listen, to respond instead of react, and to build a relationship where both of you feel safe to speak your truth.
If you’re tired of feeling alone in your relationship, if silence has become more common than connection, now is the time to take the first step.
Book a 90-minute online couples intake session with Katie Ziskind, certified sex therapy informed professional at Wisdom Within Counseling, who specializes in sexless couples counseling.
It’s time to rebuild the emotional and sexual intimacy your relationship needs to thrive.
Sexual avoidance often doesn’t come from a lack of love or desire.
Often, sexual avoidance comes from fear, overwhelm, or past trauma stored in your nervous system.
If you’ve experienced sexual trauma or emotional rejection in the past, your body may automatically activate fight, flight, or freeze responses when you’re approached for sex, even by a loving partner. You may shut down, go numb, get irritated, feel anxious, or want to run away—not because you don’t care, but because your body is protecting you from reliving emotional or physical pain.
You might notice yourself avoiding sexual touch, resisting emotional closeness, or creating distance with your partner even though deep down, you long for intimacy.
This is the freeze response—your nervous system becomes overwhelmed and goes offline to keep you safe.
Or maybe you experience the flight response, where you stay busy, distract yourself, or scroll on your phone to avoid intimacy altogether.
These trauma and PTSD responses are normal when you’ve never been taught how to feel safe in your own body or in a relationship where your boundaries matter.
In some cases, you may get triggered and react with anger or defensiveness—the fight response—when sex or intimacy is brought up. This can cause confusion or hurt in your relationship, especially if your partner doesn’t understand the trauma underneath your reactions.
Over time, this cycle can create a sexless marriage filled with emotional disconnection, shame, and loneliness.
You may feel broken or wonder, “What’s wrong with me?” when in reality, your nervous system is doing its job to protect you from perceived danger.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
Working with Katie Ziskind, a certified sex therapy-informed professional, helps you and your partner gently unpack these automatic trauma responses.
Through compassionate, trauma-informed counseling, Katie Ziskind creates a safe space where you can explore your body’s reactions, learn how to self-regulate, and begin to feel emotionally safe with each other again.
Instead of pushing through sex or avoiding it altogether, you’ll learn to approach intimacy as a shared experience rooted in trust, safety, and emotional connection.
Katie Ziskind helps couples like you rebuild emotional and sexual intimacy slowly and respectfully—using techniques from somatic therapy, attachment-based healing, and sex-positive communication. You’ll learn how to talk about sex without fear or pressure, how to create foreplay that feels safe and pleasurable, and how to reconnect as loving, vulnerable partners.
Together, you can move out of trauma survival mode and into a relationship where sex is no longer avoided.
Instead, through sexless couples counseling, sex becomes a healing, joyful, and connecting experience for both of you.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
In sexless couples therapy, talk about how a pornography addiction has been causing avoidance and the silent treatment and negatively impacting your marriage and sex life.
When you watch pornography, it’s easy to get the idea that sex should be loud, intense, and mostly physical. Another reason for a sexless marriage is pornography addiction.
Many people with an avoidant attachment style turn to numbing behaviors. Furthermore, pornography is one of those numbing behaviors to escape difficult emotions. However, pornography doesn’t show real life sex. Pornography show sexual experiences with little to no talking or emotional connection. Unfortunately, this perpetuates a lack of emotional communication and silence in your marriage.
Plus, porn often portrays sex as this purely visual, action-packed experience. In porn, communication is minimal or completely absent.
But in real life, talking during sex is a powerful way to connect, express desire, and make sure both of you feel safe and satisfied.
You might feel confused or self-conscious about whether to speak up or stay silent, and porn doesn’t help clarify that.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
Porn also tends to glamorize sex that is fast-paced and focused mainly on penetration, skipping over the critical part that many women need: foreplay.
In reality, a woman’s body often requires 45 to 90 minutes of gentle, thoughtful foreplay before she feels fully ready to experience deep pleasure.
Porn rarely shows this because it’s not visually “exciting” enough for the camera. But, this omission sets up unrealistic expectations about how sex “should” go.
Foreplay that lasts 45 to 90 minutes isn’t just about physical touching—it’s about creating emotional safety and presence.
You might start with slow, lingering eye contact that says, “I see you, I’m here for you.”
Holding each other’s gaze without rushing builds connection and trust before a single touch happens. This deep presence is the foundation for everything that follows.
Begin with gentle, full-body touch that isn’t focused on genitals at all.
Running your hands lightly over her arms, shoulders, back, and legs lets her body relax into your touch.
Use soft, slow strokes—like tracing the curves of her body or lightly massaging her scalp—to awaken her senses without pressure. You’re showing through touch that you care about her whole being, not just sex.
Take your time with kissing.
Start with soft, tender kisses on her cheeks, neck, and collarbone. Let your lips linger on places that might often be ignored, like the inside of her wrists or behind her ears.
This thoughtful attention helps her body recognize you’re focused on pleasure, not just a goal or finish line.
Encourage her to guide you with words or gestures.
Ask, “Where do you want me to touch you next?” or “Does this feel good?” Your curiosity and willingness to listen is a gift that helps her feel safe and empowered.
You’re showing her that her sexual pleasure is your priority. And, that communication is welcome at every step.
Use sensual activities beyond touching—like whispering sweet things in her ear, reading poetry, or sharing a warm bath together. These moments nurture emotional intimacy and relaxation, two critical ingredients that prepare her body for orgasm.
Foreplay is about engaging all her senses, not just the physical.
Explore slow, teasing touches to more sensitive areas: the inner thighs, lower back, or sides of her torso.
Instead of rushing to genitals, you’re building anticipation with feather-light strokes that awaken nerve endings and spark desire.
This teasing lets her body say “yes” gradually, creating a slow burn that deepens arousal.
Remember to vary your touch between light and firmer pressure, always checking in on how she’s feeling.
Sometimes a gentle squeeze of the hand or a reassuring touch on her lower back communicates safety and presence. Your attentive rhythm helps her body relax and trust you completely.
Incorporate mindful breathing together.
Synchronizing your breath or encouraging her to breathe deeply and slowly keeps both of you grounded in the present moment. Sexless couples counseling helps you get comfortable talking about foreplay.
This connection between mind and body opens pathways to pleasure that are often blocked by stress or distraction.
As her body becomes more responsive, slowly introduce more direct touch to her breasts, nipples, and vulva. But, continue to move with verbal communication and care, tuning into her reactions.
Use your hands, lips, and tongue in gentle, varied ways that allow her to tell you what she enjoys without feeling rushed or pressured.
Finally, understand that this extended foreplay honors her unique rhythm and needs.
You’re creating a sacred space where she can fully relax, surrender, and build pleasure over time.
When you take this thoughtful, emotional approach, the orgasm that follows isn’t just physical—it’s an expression of deep trust and connection between you.
Start In Sexless Couples Counseling with Katie Ziskind, Certified Sex Therapy Informed Professional, To Rebuild Emotional Closeness and Sexual Intimacy.
You might watch porn and think, “Why isn’t my partner ready to jump right into sex after a few minutes of kissing?” or “Why don’t I feel the same instant desire?”
These questions can lead to frustration or feelings of inadequacy.
But your body’s natural rhythm is different from what porn shows. Foreplay—touching, kissing, teasing, and emotional connection—is essential to build comfort and arousal, especially for women.
Another way porn misleads you is by showing perfectly coordinated bodies, flawless orgasms, and nonstop excitement.
Porn rarely shows the awkward moments, pauses, or moments of needing to check in with your partner. In real sex, you may stumble over what feels good, need to ask for adjustments, or slow down to reconnect.
You might worry that talking during sex will kill the mood. But, in truth, communication can make your experience more pleasurable and intimate. Sexless couples counseling teaches you that sexual communication is part of a thriving, pleasurable sex life.
Porn also tends to focus on visual and physical cues and leaves out the emotional depth and vulnerability sex involves.
It doesn’t show the subtle cues you and your partner exchange—like a soft “yes,” a breath, or a gentle touch—that create connection and build trust.
If you rely only on porn as a model, you might miss how important these emotional communications are in real life.
You might feel pressure to perform or live up to the impossible standards porn sets: bodies that look perfect, sex that never slows down, and orgasms that come easily and loudly.
When your experience doesn’t match that fantasy, you can feel disappointed or like you’re failing.
But, those images are carefully scripted and edited, not reality.
Pornography also often erases the variety of sexual experiences people enjoy. It highlights only a narrow set of acts and ignores the diversity of bodies, desires, and preferences that make real sex rich and unique.
If you feel like you “should” want what porn shows but don’t, that can create confusion or shame around your own desires.
As well, if you or your partner are struggling with feeling comfortable talking about sex or expressing needs, porn doesn’t help.
Instead, it teaches that good sex just “happens” and that the less you say, the better. But, honest communication about what feels good, what doesn’t, and what you want to try is one of the most erotic and connecting things you can do.
Ultimately, porn is a fantasy designed to entertain, not educate.
If you want to build a deeply satisfying, intimate sex life, you need to create space for open communication, extended foreplay, and realistic expectations.
That means letting go of the false narratives porn feeds you and embracing your unique rhythm, desires, and needs—with your partner right there beside you.
You deserve to experience sex that feels pleasurable, safe, and connected—not rushed or silent.
When you talk during sex, take your time with foreplay, and let go of porn’s unrealistic standards, you open the door to a sexual relationship that’s joyful, playful, and deeply fulfilling for both of you.
Wisdom Within Counseling and Coaching – Rebuild Emotional and Sexual Intimacy
Serving Connecticut, Florida, and beyond with online therapy for couples ready to reconnect sexually and emotionally.
