Most couples have their story memorised. When they met, what went wrong, why things aren’t what they used to be. They’ve told it so many times it feels like a fact.
And that’s the problem.
Dr. Dan Sneider is a couples therapist and the founder of IntimacyShift.com. He works with two distinct groups of older people: couples who’ve been together for decades, and people starting over in their 50s and 60s but carrying years of history with them. Both tend to arrive stuck in the same way, often telling a story about their relationship that stopped being accurate a long time ago.
One of Dan’s favourite tools comes from researchers John and Julie Gottman. He calls it the Story of Us. He asks couples to tell the story of their relationship and he says, that most have it memorised. That, he says, is where the work begins because if part of that story is “the passion faded,” that belief is now embedded, and better communication alone won’t shift it.
We also talked about something I personally found frightening in my marriage : disclosing my desires. Not the everyday stuff but the wants you’ve kept quiet about for years, maybe decades. The ones that feel genuinely risky to say out loud.
Dan’s approach isn’t to say everything at once. He talks about volume knobs. Turning down the fear a little, not eliminating it and scheduling regular time to talk about intimacy the same way you’d schedule the gym. Building safety in small stages rather than waiting for a perfect moment that never comes.
We got into conflict too. Specifically, why couples who live for big dramatic ups and downs are actually hardwiring themselves for pain. You know, the stuff of which movie romances are made. The repair is harder and the dopamine hit of drama becomes part of what they expect from love. Dan’s antidote sounds deceptively simple: I-language. “I feel unseen” instead of “you never.” It changes everything about how the repair goes.
Dan uses emotionally focused therapy, a model developed by Dr. Sue Johnson. He recommended her book Hold Me Tight to anyone who wants to understand it. The model runs 12 to 20 sessions, and Dan is refreshingly transparent about this: if you’re not seeing progress within that window, more sessions won’t fix it.
He also runs a 12-week online programme through IntimacyShift.com for couples who can’t access therapy locally or want to do the work on their own schedule. Yes, it’s expensive and that’s the point. Couples who invest are the ones who show up and do the work.
There’s a free tool on his website as well: a six-step framework for unlocking intimate conversations. A good place to start if everything else feels like too much right now.
What Matters
The story you tell about your relationship shapes how you feel about it. It can be rewritten.
Disclosing desires doesn’t require going all in at once. Build safety in stages.
Schedule intimacy conversations like any other practice that matters to you.
Fight with I-language, not you-language. The repair is easier, and so is the making up.
Rebuilding after infidelity or betrayal is possible. Dan has seen it happen.
Emotionally focused therapy runs 12 to 20 sessions. That’s the research-backed window for lasting change.
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