The Couples Expert

Welcome to episode 189 of our show, this is an encore presentation. Your host Stuart Fensterheim has some insights to share with his listeners today about intimate partner relationships and sexual intimacy with your partner; specifically about banishing boredom from your bedroom.

Hi and welcome to The Couples Expert Podcast with your host Stuart Fensterheim. This is episode 188 of our show. Thank you for listening today as Stuart welcomes guest Jim Thomas back to the show.  They will be discussing sexuality, emotional intimacy, and vulnerability.  

What you’ll learn from today’s podcast:

• How to resolve differences in sexual needs [4:20]
• Being vulnerable sexually [6:40]
• Emotional and intimate [8:00]
• How do you define what sex is? [10:50]
• Is kissing more intimate than sex? [12:00]
• What about pornography? [14:40]
• A man’s need for more emotional intimacy [16:45]
• Average sex is good too [24:00]
• Use different approaches to sex [28:30]
• When to talk about your sexual desires and needs [31:45]
• Discover your sexuality [40:30]
• Throw the rules out [41:45]

What we want is to have a fun, loving, caring, vulnerable experience for two people who care about one another, an experience you don’t share with anyone else. Trust your partner, and that both of you want to feel loved and important to each other.

Until next time, Stay Connected

The Couples Expert Podcast is sponsored by:  Stuart’s Daily Notes: Subscribe and change your relationship in 5 minutes a day with a video sent to your email inbox. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Stuart’s Daily Notes can help you too!   

Learn More: https://www.thecouplesexpertscottsdale.com/stuart-daily-notes/

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-couples-expert/id951362894?mt=2

Email: Stuart would love to hear from you. If you have a comment, review, or suggestion for a topic Stuart can tackle in the future, please email him at [email protected]

Next time on The Couples Expert Podcast:

Join us next time as Stuart discusses how childhood affects our relationships.

This is an Encore Presentation, this podcast originally aired in January of 2017. 

Hello and welcome to The Couples Expert Podcast with Stuart Fensterheim. Stuart is discussing how to set realistic and meaningful relationship goals for the New Year. We all want to do better and be better and the New Year is the new beginning that many of us use as a jumping off point for furthering our goals. The Couples Experts would like to thank you for a great 2018. Take a listen while Stuart discusses some ideas for 2019.

What you’ll learn from today’s podcast:

• Why we set goals instead of resolutions –[12:20]
• Goals are promises you make to yourself –[15:00]
• How to follow up and check in with your partner regularly  –[16:18]
• What you should include in your goal lists –[21:15]
• Some important suggestions for your growth as a couple. –[32:00]
• Share your lists and compare together  –[33:50]

The Couples Expert Podcast is sponsored by: Stuart’s Daily Notes: Subscribe and change your relationship in 5 minutes a day with a video sent to your email inbox. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Stuart’s Daily Notes can help you too!  https://www.thecouplesexpertscottsdale.com/stuart-daily-notes/

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-couples-expert/id951362894?mt=2

Email: Stuart would love to hear from you. If you have a comment, review, or suggestion for a topic Stuart can tackle in the future, please email him at [email protected]

Hi and welcome to The Couples Expert with your host Stuart Fensterheim. This is episode 186 of our show. Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa! Stuart wishes everyone very happy holidays. This year Stuart wants you and your partner to have a holiday season filled with love, togetherness and connection.

Today is a really special episode, because today Stuart is taking everyone on a magical journey today. A special journey of attachment, and acceptance, one of vulnerability and love. Visit a strange land where you will be meeting people as the most authentic version of yourself.

What you’ll learn from today’s podcast:

• Wearing masks [3:45]
• Recognizing when you are not being your best [5:00]
• Acknowledge your partner’s experience [9:00]
• Open the door to Attachmentland [11:00]
• Stop thinking you have to live up to an expectation [14:00]
• Being authentic [16:50]
• Dig deep and ask yourself questions [17:30]
• Stop surviving, and start living [20:00]
• That place where you are never alone [21:00]
• Qualities of authentic people [26:15]

There is a relaxation that occurs when you are authentic. What are the qualities of authentic people?

1. Are you self-reflective?
2. Are you accepting of yourself and other people?
3. Are you able to express your emotions freely and clearly?
4. Do you make commitments that you live up to?
5. Do you forgive easily?
6. There is a sense of love and giving.
7. We treat people with kindness and respect.

Be yourself everyone else is already taken. - Oscar Wilde

We want to be that person in our partner’s life that they see as their best ally, their best confidant, that wouldn’t hurt a fly. Until next time, Stay Connected

The Couples Expert Podcast is sponsored by: Stuart’s Daily Notes: Subscribe and change your relationship in 5 minutes a day with a video sent to your email inbox. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Stuart’s Daily Notes can help you too!  https://www.thecouplesexpertscottsdale.com/stuart-daily-notes/

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-couples-expert/id951362894?mt=2

Email: Stuart would love to hear from you. If you have a comment, review, or suggestion for a topic Stuart can tackle in the future, please email him at [email protected]

Next time on The Couples Expert Podcast:

Join us next time as Stuart discusses New Year’s resolutions and whether or not you are a good partner.

Hi and welcome to The Couples Expert with your host Stuart Fensterheim. This is episode 185 of our show. Today Stuart is talking about boundaries in a relationship. There are many different boundaries that you can set in your life, and your relationship. Today Stuart pulls boundaries apart and helps you to learn how to set healthy boundaries in your relationship.

What you’ll learn from today’s podcast:

• Are boundaries even necessary in a relationship [1:45]
• Boundaries should be clearly defined [3:17]
• What do healthy boundaries include? [6:43]
• Where are our limit? [8:42]
• Is it ok to have friends of the opposite sex? [9:20]
• How to set limits with your partner [12:02]
• Emotional affairs [15:17]
• Unconditional love [19:10]
• Honesty [20:30]
• Self-control [23:10]
• Looking inwardly [25:25]
• Learn how to forgive [26:30]
• Summary of boundaries [28:10]

Unless your boundaries are clear, direct, and adhered to, your relationship is going to be a challenge. If you have that, your relationship will be one in which both of your feel so good about it and know that you are with that one person in the world that you get to spend the rest of your life with.

Until next time, Stay Connected

The Couples Expert Podcast is sponsored by:  Before You Tie the Knot, 12 Essential Conversations for newlyweds to have. This is an online course with support and direction from The Couples Expert. This course makes a great shower or wedding gift.

Learn More: https://www.thecouplesexpertscottsdale.com/12-conversations/

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-couples-expert/id951362894?mt=2

Email: Stuart would love to hear from you. If you have a comment, review, or suggestion for a topic Stuart can tackle in the future, please email him at [email protected]

This podcast was inspired in part by:

13 Boundaries Your Relationship Needs to Survive, by Ossiana Tepfenhart

Next time on The Couples Expert Podcast:

Join us next time as Stuart discusses authenticity, being yourself and feeling good enough.

Hi and welcome to The Couples Expert with your host Stuart Fensterheim. This is episode 184 of our show, and it is dedicated to Alvin Fensterheim. Today Stuart is talking about the importance of Father and Son relationships. The relationship between a father and son is one of the most important relationship. This relationship will lead to a good relationship with your spouse.

Stuart’s own Dad passed away almost 1 year ago, and his experience with the loss of that important relationship.  Stuart and his wife went to New York city recently where his Father is buried. Stuart’s family spent time reflecting on his Father, Alvin’s life, and the ending of a year of Shiva.

What you’ll learn from today’s podcast:

• Love is the absolute most important thing you can share with your family [7:25]
• Teach your son about being a man, in the truest sense [9:45]
• Demonstrate every single day that love is pathways to having a good life [13:55]
• Having shared interests [16:20]
• You should never do anything in your life that you don’t enjoy [17:38]
• Dedication to your family [23:13]
• Negativity about Grandparents needs to be off-limits [23:40]
• Building projects together [25:00]
• Demonstrate to your son, that you care about what they think and feel [26:32]
• As Fathers we need to focus on the positives with our sons [28:00]
• God picked us to be together [30:55]
• We are one family [32:50]
• Spirituality [34:12]

The father and son relationship will establish that both of you feel loved and important. You are lucky to have one another. Those messages echoing back for years and years, makes your relationship really important.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

The Couples Expert Podcast is sponsored by: The Hold Me Tight Workshop – Presented by The Couples Expert. 2 Days and 7 Conversations that can change your life.

Learn more: https://www.thecouplesexpertscottsdale.com/hold-me-tight/

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-couples-expert/id951362894?mt=2

Email: Stuart would love to hear from you. If you have a comment, review, or suggestion for a topic Stuart can tackle in the future, please email him at [email protected]

This podcast is dedicated to Alvin Fensterheim

Hi and welcome to The Couples Expert with your host Stuart Fensterheim. This is episode 183 of our show. Today Stuart is talking about sexual communication inside and outside of the bedroom. This episode is for couples in a long-term committed relationship, you are there for the long-haul.  This is one of the more difficult discussion for a couple to have, and Stuart will help to make it easier.

Today’s podcast contains adult material, so please use discretion when listening or use your headphones!

Stuart and his wife are currently on vacation in New York city. They are visiting family, enjoy the culture and people watch, as well as visit the 9/11 museum. This is a time they they spend connecting and spending time together without the distractions.

What you’ll learn from today’s podcast:

• Stop expecting your partner to read your mind [4:10]
• Your job is to keep your partner interested [6:30]
• When you want to talk about your sex life, don’t do it when you want to engage in sex [9:10]
• Give your suggestions both verbally and non-verbally [10:45]
• Talk about your experience [14:00]
• Playfulness [15:30]
• What turns you on? [19:20]
• Communicate your needs [22:30]
• Most men are not interested in having quick sex [23:30]
• No need to fake an orgasm [24:45]
• Steps to have a conversation about sex [26:30]

Sexopoly: https://www.amazon.com/Sexopoly-Adult-Board-Couples-Friends/dp/B0035ETLJY

When you are ready to have a discussion with your partner about your sex life use these steps:

1. Tell your partner how much you care about them.
2. Give them a clear message about what is not working for you. Choose only one area to discuss at this time.
3. Follow up with something positive. Talk about what works really well in your sex life.
4. Suggest that you have the conversation again in the future.
5. Talk about how much you love being intimate with them.

Do not discuss how it went with other partners. This is only about what works for the two of you. You want to discuss this in kind and loving ways. You want to show and tell your partner what you need, to bring the two of you to a pleasurable place. Really make sure your partner knows that who they are is more important than anything else, and that you are lucky to have them in your life. The two of you can accomplish anything as long as you do it together.

The Couples Expert Podcast is sponsored by: The Hold Me Tight Workshop – Presented by The Couples Expert. 2 Days and 7 Conversations that can change your life.

Learn more: https://www.thecouplesexpertscottsdale.com/hold-me-tight/

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-couples-expert/id951362894?mt=2

Email: Stuart would love to hear from you. If you have a comment, review, or suggestion for a topic Stuart can tackle in the future, please email him at [email protected]

Until next week, keep working, keep soul-searching and stay connected!

This podcast was inspired in part by:Conscious Man, by John Grey and Arjuna ArdaghJill Donato’s article on Communicating During Sex to Make it Better for Everyone

Hello and welcome to The Couples Expert Podcast, with your host Stuart Fensterheim. This is episode 182 or our show. Today’s episode is full of tools, tips, and Stuart’s pearls of wisdom to create a marriage that will last a lifetime.

Whether you had premarital counseling or not, this episode is to help you to learn how to make your relationship meaningful and significant. None of us get married to be finding ourselves in an empty, lonely relationship. Many times this happens because we don’t really understand what marriage is all about. Tune in today and keep your marriage alive, passionate, and close.

What you’ll learn from today’s podcast:

• Authenticity and vulnerability 2:40
• You need to have a plan 7:25
• Learning how to communicate with your spouse 10:40
• Triggers 16:45
• 3 main elements of communication 19:40
• How do we learn how to navigate challenges 20:45
• Setting yourself up for having realistic expectations 22:25
• Children 25:45
• You have to work on the trust you have for each other 28:05
• What is going to change with marriage? 30:20
• You have to talk about everything 31:40
• Social media 37:20
• Money and financial planning 39:00
• Sex and intimacy 40:30

The most important thing to remember about your first year of marriage is to enjoy your newlywed status. Also, memorize this: “The first year of marriage is a learning and transitional period for the rest of your life”

During this first year transition, you need to be able to view your conflicts and moments of disconnection as opportunities for growth. What may seem like a complaint from your partner, can be a gold mine to learn what they need.

If you work on all of these things, at the end of the day, you will be able to roll over in bed, look and your partner, smile and say “life is good.”

Thank you for spending part of your day with The Couples Experts. We hope you enjoyed the show and take away something meaningful to your relationship. Until next time stay connected!

The Couples Expert Podcast is sponsored by: Stuart’s Daily Notes: Subscribe and change your relationship in 5 minutes a day with a video sent to your email inbox. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Stuart’s Daily Notes can help you too!  https://www.thecouplesexpertscottsdale.com/stuart-daily-notes/

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-couples-expert/id951362894?mt=2

Email: Stuart would love to hear from you. If you have a comment, review, or suggestion for a topic Stuart can tackle in the future, please email him at [email protected]

Next week: Join us in two weeks as Stuart talks about how to be accountable to yourself, learning how to communicate both in and out of the bedroom. Until then, stay connected.

Hello and welcome to The Couples Expert Podcast, with your host Stuart Fensterheim. This is episode 181 or our show. Today, Stuart talks about the difference in sexual desire.

We come together quite often with different types of libidos, but when we first get together and the passion is there. After a period of time, you settle in with your partner, and reality and the stresses of life hits. We then begin to realize that our libidos are just not the same, and the sexuality diminishes.

What you’ll learn from today’s podcast:

• Difference between two different libidos [2:00]
• Come up with a sex number [3:00]
• Compromise by broadening your range of activities that are sexual [11:00]
• Talk about how things are going sexually for the two of you [13:00]
• If you have a higher sex drive, you should not take it personally if your partner has a lower libido drive [14:00]
• Do not be critical and negative about your partner [17:00]
• The cuddle hormone [18:10]
• Where is the compromise [20:20]
• Being comfortable with masterbation [21:30]
• You have to be really honest with one another [24:00]

Quote:  “We can either jump on the trampoline, or we can just screw”

4 Tips when you have this sex drive difference:

1. Laughter; laugh about this, not make it as serious as it might feel.
2. Make the relationship the most important thing. You better have a relationship where your partner feels courted every day of your life. You need to stir up those romantic juices that quite often lead to more passion.
3. Instead of complaining about a “dry spell”, divert that sexual energy into other things. Allow your relationship to have ebbs and flows, and don’t let it get in the way of caring and loving of each other.
4. Your sex life is only one aspect of your relationship, and that the two of you, together, are going to make the caring and loving you have for one another more important than any sex act or pattern.

Thank you for spending part of your day with The Couples Experts. We hope you enjoyed the show and take away something meaningful to your relationship. Until next time stay connected!

The Couples Expert Podcast is sponsored by: Annual Relationship Checkup: Sure, we get our vehicles serviced, have maintenance done on our homes, and see our local GP to make sure our bodies are in good working order, but sadly, we tend to neglect one of the most important things in our lives – the health of our relationship.  https://www.thecouplesexpertscottsdale.com/annual-relationship-check-up/

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-couples-expert/id951362894?mt=2

Email: Stuart would love to hear from you. If you have a comment, review, or suggestion for a topic Stuart can tackle in the future, please email him at [email protected]

*Today’s podcast was inspired in part, by Jessica McCleese’s article on Coping with Different libidos, and Michelle Weiner’s Tips for Partner’s with Higher Sex Drives.

Hello and welcome to The Couples Expert Podcast, with your host Stuart Fensterheim. This is episode 180 or our show. Today, Stuart talks about loving yourself despite betrayal in a relationship. Stuart will discuss 4 parts in today’s podcast:

1. How do we really define what betrayal looks like in a relationship?
2. What does the hurt look like, feel like, and what is the experience like?
3. What are the long-term consequences of that?
4. How do we recover from those hurts, and how do we move on?

Stuart just returned from a cruise to England, where he and his wife had a lovely holiday connecting and enjoying each other. He also spent some time thinking about this podcast, and specifically this episode.

What you’ll learn from today’s podcast:

• Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Greetings [0:16]
• How do we trust again? [2:30]
• Can we really see ourselves as valuable in a relationship [3:50]
• How do we really define betrayal? [5:50]
• Your partner’s perception of you [14:00]
• Your partner becomes the means with which we define our world [15:15]
• What does the hurt really look like? [18:05]
• Am I lovable?  (Emotionally focused therapy) [22:00]
• Separate yourself [25:00]
• Grieve for the lost relationship, without blame [27:00]
• Finding who you are [29:50]
• Healing from betrayal [33:40]

For many of us there are scars that we bring from our previous relationships. When we come from a significant relationship where there are betrayals, we have a difficult time trusting ourselves and our new partners. We have to find the silver lining. We have to choose happiness.

The Couples Expert Podcast is sponsored by: Stuart’s Daily Notes: Subscribe and change your relationship in 5 minutes a day with a video sent to your email inbox. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Stuart’s Daily Notes can help you too!  https://www.thecouplesexpertscottsdale.com/stuart-daily-notes/

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-couples-expert/id951362894?mt=2

Email: Stuart would love to hear from you. If you have a comment, review, or suggestion for a topic Stuart can tackle in the future, please email him at [email protected]