My uncle came home one day accompanied by two little friends, Homer and Zorba. They were a cocker spaniel and poodle mix. They were named by our Greek American family, so it was sort of what you might expect. Zorba was more aggressive and hyper-energetic. Homer had a mild, sweet personality. I adopted Homer. I remember the birthday party that my grandmother gave for Homer. He actually managed to keep the birthday hat that she had for him on for a little while. This was in the late 1960s and humans had already long been anthropomorphizing their pets as quasi-family members. From 1994 until 2010, I developed a close friendship with Dede. He was a talking cockatiel named after my daughter’s childhood imaginary friend. Dede bird, as we called him, spoke, which led to daily conversations. While watching a sitcom on television, if I began to laugh, so would Dede. This could set off a mutually igniting cycle of laughter that could go for several minutes. After Dede passed, I grieved for close to a year. This was in a similar fashion to mourning for a dear friend.
I offer this preamble regarding my personal history with pets as clarification regarding my affection and overall attitude toward pets. I think that they are wonderful creatures and should be treated with kindness and care. I think of dogs, in particular, as children. They love to play and they stay joyful until suddenly geriatric. The thing about pets, however, is that they are not actually humans.
Dawning of the Executive Management Team
As a psychologist, sex and couples therapist, I have worked with relationship issues of all sorts for many years. I have observed many couples that come into treatment experiencing arguments, anger, depression, hurt feelings, and alienation. The initial presentation may be of infidelity, cyber infidelity, discrepancy of sexual desire, lost desire, erectile uncertainty, and a variety of other sexual problems. They commonly suffer from issues of lost affection and intimacy. The couple is sometimes convinced that they have irreconcilable differences. They think of themselves as having a dysfunctional relationship and even question if they are with the right partner. While in certain cases these dark hypotheses may in fact be true, I have found that often these troubled couples are victims of modern life.
I have come to call these couples executive management teams. They work together however well or poorly to address all of the demands of modern life. There is usually a differentiation of function. One takes out the trash, and the other does the dishes. One drives the kids to soccer Tuesday, and the other takes them to dance class on Wednesday and Thursday. They problem solve together. They may be caring for older family members. They may be dealing with illnesses or injuries themselves. They each have full-time demanding occupations. They usually have multiple pets. These dogs and cats require visits to the veterinarian and regular care. The children may present problems of learning or misbehavior in school. Sometimes after-school tutors or therapists are needed. The high cost of living and related stressors can be smothering. In time, each partner looks to the other to throw them a life preserver. It never comes because each one is taking in water through the nose.
Modern life’s first victim: Time
The first victim of our modern multitasking lives is time. There are so many tasks, so many things to do, so many problems to solve, so many people to care for, so many bills to pay, so many places to be that typically we rely upon excessive scheduling to keep things straight and have an outside chance of doing what has to be done and being where we have to go. So what gets squeezed out of our schedules? You guessed it. Time for yourself and time for your romantic partner. In fact, romance gets scheduled on wedding anniversaries or Valentine’s Day for a couple of hours each. Today, anything of vital importance gets scheduled in our smartphones. The you and me time is left to occur spontaneously or naturally. By the way, these are words that have become gateways to alienated and troubled relationships. The intimacy gap begins to grow. Affection, touch, and sexuality are sacrificed as we slowly transform into a heavily burdened and fatigued life management team.
These now executive partners work together on the construction of the family project. They can be very effective in accomplishing their goals and building many aspects of a good life that can even look perfect from the outside. On the inside, however, they slowly begin to suffer, experiencing pain that results from the emotional, affectionate, and intimate void that insidiously grows. Couples begin to wonder if their partner no longer finds them attractive. They wonder why there is an increasing irritability. They feel an annoyance that when they speak, they notice their partner’s head planted firmly in a screen. Having sex becomes a chore mediated by fatigue, frustration, and disinterest. This sometimes leads to an attempt at couples therapy. Simplistic bromides recommending better communication and Saturday night dates become inadequate to rescue hope from despair.
Modern life’s second victim: Intimacy
It is important to define intimacy for the purposes of this essay. When I refer to intimacy, you can think of it as a cake with different necessary ingredients. These ingredients include mutual respect, attention, admiration, touch, affection, presence, shared sexual satisfaction, and a feeling that you have my back as I have yours in this life. Like all good cakes, it takes time to bake. It requires attention and care. When done right, it can be delicious. Please keep in mind, however, that you can’t cook it in the microwave. This work of art requires a slow-cook oven. If you have no time to bake the cake, you will be skipping dessert.
As we’ve seen, modern life has robbed us of time. Time becomes a multitasking treadmill that never stops. We are running as fast as we can. Our second victim is intimacy. No time to bake this cake. So, what results from the stress? The couple loses connection. Intimacy is minimal or forced and at best occasional. Things become more bothersome. There is increased irritability. We may not know why. One partner’s libido is completely gone. The other partner develops a frustration that grows into resentment. So, what becomes of our desire and our need for intimacy and connection? What follows are the solutions that we develop as compensation that maintain an unfortunate homeostasis in our relationships.
The Chocolate Santa: Filling the Void with Screens
Do you remember when you were a child and at Christmas time you would get a chocolate Santa wrapped in colorful tinfoil? You immediately began to salivate and fantasize biting into that solid mass of velvet chocolate and allowing it to melt over your tongue and coat your throat. The excitement was palpable. Then you would pick it up, and after a gentle testing squeeze, your heart would break as a hollow shell collapsed into far less appealing chunks of darkness.
As the intimacy gap widens, it has a damaging effect, emotionally and relationally. Each partner is hurting in a variety of ways as they experience the lost emotional connection. The reactions typically manifest in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The thoughts may take the form of questioning if love in the relationship has been extinguished. The feelings will range from anxiety, worry, sadness, and depression to irritability and anger. Most interesting are the behaviors that people in relationships that suffer from these lost connections experience. Feelings of loss, diminished self-worth, and loneliness develop. In recent years, loneliness has been spoken and written about a great deal. Loneliness seems to have been accelerated by the pandemic and the post-pandemic period. So let’s consider and focus on some of the compensatory efforts to find distraction, soothing, self-worth, touch, affection, and lost intimacy.
Some couples have kids. Some couples have pets. Some couples have kids and pets. Everybody’s got screens. By the time of this writing, we are well aware of the pernicious effects of excessive screen time on children. Much less has been published regarding the negative effects upon adults. Notably, there is a dirth of information regarding how involvement with our devices impacts romantic relationships. I have written A love letter about the powerful effects that the algorithms driven by AI have on drawing our attention to screens. The wide-ranging reliance that we have on the endless functions performed by our smartphones creates compulsive attachment to the screen. This pries our attention away from our partners. I am fond of saying, “If you’re looking at your screen, you’re not looking at me.“ We can feel helpless against this all-important insidious device. How can a romantic partner possibly compete with these AI-driven algorithmic demands? The very notion can create a sense of hopelessness for how to cope with the negative effects of the key device in our modern lives. The answer is by joining together. Specifically, ideas on how this can be accomplished will be found below.
The special case of cyber infidelity
For some couples, the descent into the screens leads to cyber infidelity. This occurs when the couple’s lost intimacy transfers to screen involvement by one of the partners. This can take the form of compulsive use of pornography, emotional affairs, or interactive sexual involvement with a live person on the other end of the screen. Sometimes it leads to a face-to-face meeting and in-person sex. Sadly, I have treated many cases where the discovery came when the person was being blackmailed while unknowingly interacting with organized crime which set a cyber trap. Sometimes the person pays thousands of dollars or is outed to his family or job. This secretive boundary violation that violates the explicit or more likely implicit relational contract is invariably discovered and leads to a crisis in the relationship. Hurt and rage are experienced by the partner, followed by ongoing suspiciousness. This leads to an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. The hurt partner starts to behave like a detective. Constant phone checking, accusation, and emotional dysregulation become the norm. Trust is shattered. It tends to be very difficult for couples to work their way through this crisis on their own. They seek professional help. The treatment must be able to help them to work through the process of recovery and reconciliation. They must be helped to find a new model of trust. Returning to the old model will not work. They must be helped to shift from adversarial interactions to collaborative, cooperative, and mutually supportive ones. For more information on the treatment of cyber infidelity using the Collaborative Model of Couples Therapy see https://cyberinfidelityhelp.com.
Aren’t they so cute?: Sleeping with Fluffy
A phenomenon that I have observed with couples in my practice is co-sleeping with pets. I am sure this was starting to be common before the pandemic, but during and post-pandemic it seems to have exploded in frequency. Dogs and cats seem to be these adorable creatures that we just love to touch, fondle, and pet. Perhaps no other creatures on Earth provide limitless unconditional love and affection for their human masters. Couples in my practice sleep with these adorable beings in their bed. Each partner searches for a way to close the gap and fill the void of affection and intimacy. The needs and desires of the animals set the tone. They take up residency and ownership of the bedroom and in fact, the bed. The sexual relationship of the partners begins to drift further and further. The affectionate, emotional, physical, and intimate needs are displaced upon the animal. One partner usually becomes frustrated and resentful. A protest is lodged and tends to go on unresolved. A new homeostasis is formed and however unhappily, everyone learns to live with it until they can’t anymore.
But, it’s better for the kids: Co-sleeping with the Children
In a number of cultures, co-sleeping with children is common. In Western societies, pediatricians and developmental psychologists will present various points on harms and benefits. A full explication of this topic is beyond the scope of this essay. It is also unnecessary to the role that co-sleeping has played in the systemic context. I have counseled many couples that sleep with their children. This takes various forms. Sometimes one of the parents cuddles up with the child in the child’s bed. Sometimes there’s a child that sleeps in the parental bed, often between the parents. The rationale is always presented in some form as best for the child. It ranges from the child is anxious, the child has nightmares, the child can’t fall asleep any other way, the child will otherwise call out, the child will cry, or the child just prefers it. The benefits of co-sleeping with younger children are less controversial. I have seen, however, parents co-sleeping with children ages 6 to 8 and even nine years old. Sometimes parents are in agreement and supportive of the necessity of this arrangement. Sometimes one parent develops a frustration and resentment as protests go unheeded. So why might this be occurring from a systemic perspective? I think by now you might guess that it is the parents’ effort to fill the affectional and intimate emotional void. Yes, it becomes a compensation that is experienced in the growing intimate gap between partners. What could be a more efficient compensation than to experience contact comfort from a child with the righteous rationale that it is what’s best for the child? Unfortunately, for the couple, it creates the unfortunate homeostasis that maintains the void.
How do you cross the Grand Canyon?: With a partner, a little bit at a time.
To this point, we have established the problem. We have also seen some compensatory solutions that do not work. So how does a romantic partnership get restored when the affectionate, physical, and emotional connection has frayed and a gap has developed? There are no easy solutions and no one-size-fits-all plan. There are, however, concepts and approaches that can be very helpful. The first step is the shift from an adversarial approach to addressing the problem to a collaborative and cooperative approach. Moving away from blame and toward honestly sharing feelings within a supportive context is essential. You can start by giving each other daily compliments. You can give short and simple expressions of appreciation for the contributions that your partner makes to daily life functioning. Compliments on appearance help. These gestures indicate that you are noticing again. That doesn’t mean that all conversations become sweetness and light. It just means that we hear with open ears, non-defensively, while also minimizing accusations. This is not about looking for the bad guy. It is, rather, a joint effort on how we could save ourselves and our relationship. We lost our way. We can only find it together. Once agreeing to mutual respect, collaboration, and cooperation, we now can work together to dismantle or at least minimize the established obstacles to affectionate, emotional, intimate, and erotic connection. From this secure foundation, the couple can begin to slowly make the changes that will facilitate reestablishment of connection.
The first challenge is the phone.
I believe the name phone is a 20th-century vestige. I don’t actually know what percentage of usage of the smart device is as a phone, but I would be surprised if it is more than 1%. We are on the thing for many hours doing all sorts of tasks. I don’t believe I need to enunciate the various jobs that it performs for us. Suffice it to say that it is the key portal and repository of the core of our daily activities and functioning. We will not be getting rid of the thing anytime soon. So how can we deal with it? We’ve got to deal with it together. I have developed Five Principles that can serve to provide couples a structure and a starting point for having collaborative and cooperative conversations about smartphone utilization and management. This is offered as an alternative to feeling ignored and resentful and even suspicious when your partner is paying excessive attention to the screen.
- Ask your partner, not yourself. A vital principle of successful smartphone management is not to exclusively rely upon what we feel and believe. It is essential that we ask our partner their feelings and perceptions about our smartphone utilization. While we may not completely agree, this serves as the basis for a constructive discussion about how our partners are being affected by our smartphone use. In the discussion, it is critical to listen non-defensively, fully taking it in and thoughtfully considering our partner’s opinions and feelings. Their impressions can be incorporated into any decisions to adjust smartphone involvement. An example would be time spent involved with social media. Getting feedback toward developing personal guidelines for behavior and choices on social media can be helpful.
- Keep score. A common phenomenon of human psychology that we have observed is that perception and judgment of experience are highly subjective. Therefore, using facts, statistics, and objective data to further inform our understanding is often helpful. One famous example is in weight management. We are sometimes asked to weigh, measure, and calculate what we are eating because our subjective judgment often is an underestimate. Similarly, using data to improve our self-assessments in smartphone management can be a great help. Most smartphones such as the iPhone provide information on time and subject utilization. This can be found by going to the utilities function. In fact, weekly reports on your phone usage can come to you in the form of an alert. The information that you receive can allow you to make an informed decision on any necessary or useful adjustments in total time spent on your phone or on particular areas such as work or social media. Reviewing this information on a weekly basis can help you to stay on top of your involvement with the device.
- Regularly checking in with each other. Just as you keep track on a regular basis of your smartphone use, it is just as important to check in with your partner’s feelings and perceptions. Asking your partner for feedback is not in the form of a single grand gesture, but rather an ongoing process that allows the cooperative and collaborative regulation of phone use. It is not asking for permission, but rather encouraging and inviting feedback. It is a two-way discussion where each partner‘s phone use is considered and evaluated. This approach respects the power and influence that technology has over our lives and our relationships. It is not accusatory. It should not invite defensiveness. It is a team approach to an ever-growing threat. It is the recognition that we must band together to minimize the menace that technology poses while we continue to enjoy the benefits that technology provides. It acknowledges the problem that modern relationships will continue to face. It prioritizes the relationship over the device.
- Build in time together. The functions of smartphones have been developed by very clever people with the primary purpose of stealing your attention and monopolizing it as much as possible. Algorithms have been developed and are constantly being improved to achieve this purpose. It grabs our eyeballs and keeps them glued to a screen. Any casino slot machine would be jealous of the power of our smartphones to grab and sustain our attention. If we are focused on that screen, we will not be focused on our partner. Relational attention is lost often at great expense to our relationship. This, along with the other normal demands of life, frequently makes it difficult for naturally occurring time together to happen. Therefore, it is important to schedule events, activities, and leisure time to be together, not just taking care of business, kids, paying bills, visiting family, or problem-solving. Those collaborations are all necessary, but do not provide the level of relational reinforcement needed to sustain a loving relationship. We also have to be able to have fun together in a relaxed manner. We must talk about it. We must plan it. We must even schedule it. Waiting for it to naturally occur may mean waiting forever and longer than many relationships can afford.
- Monitor and nurture intimacy. Over time in a long-term relationship, it is common that intimacy and sexuality begin to wane. I am frequently using the expression with clients that, “life conspires against sex.“ This means that the pressures and demands of a life well lived get in the way. All of the responsibilities that we face— stress, illness, medications, family demands, financial demands, work demands— and now our screens— get in the way. Often, there is little time, energy, strength, or attentional capacity left to be able to focus on sex and maintaining rewarding intimacy or what I call sexual wellness. These factors make it near impossible for partners not to drift from each other over time. This can leave us with high stress and feelings of resentment that lead to a growing alienation. Our screens, however, still have our devotion. This state of affairs makes it important for there to be regular intimacy. Just as when to go to work, paying the bills on time, and taking Junior to the soccer game are scheduled and demand our time, so must sex. Developing a regular routine of getting together perhaps on a certain day at a certain time becomes a wedge against insidious relational drift. Some will say, “Gee, that’s not spontaneous.” Understand, there of course is no prohibition against spontaneous sex. However, waiting for it and relying solely upon it is often a recipe for relational disaster.
To re-iterate the principles listed above are a basic foundation for the successful relational management of screen time and smartphone devices. Please consider using them as a point of departure for discussion, refinement, and developing your own relational principles for the successful management of smartphones. The key will be teamwork and utilizing the concepts of cooperation and collaboration. Do not underestimate the challenge or the threat. Act as if the future depends on it.
Now, what about Fluffy?
At this point, I will remind you of my deep love for Homer and Dede. What I am about to say does not come from callous or anti-pet feelings. Instead, it is about establishing necessary and appropriate boundaries between the couple and the pet in the service of reconnection. The typical reaction that I get from clients when I suggest removing Fluffy from the bed and, if possible, the bedroom usually is resistance. People will tell me that the dog will cry and yelp. The cat will scratch at the door. It’ll keep us up. We will feel so bad for the little darling. I tell them that it may not be easy. There may be some tough nights. What I do know, however, is that the behavioral psychologists have taught us about something called a variable schedule of reinforcement. When trying to extinguish a behavior, if you are inconsistent and occasionally give in to the barking, yelping, or scratching, it sends the message that as long as they keep it up, eventually, you will give in. They will wear you down and reclaim their throne on the bed. Consistency will win the day, albeit after a few nights of disrupted sleep. There’s a lot at stake, so tough it out together.
Oh, but the children need me. They will cry.
An analogy that I frequently use with parenting is that it’s always easier to open the fense gate than it is to build and establish a new one. Just like with pets, when an appropriate boundary has not been established for sleeping arrangements between parents and child it can be challenging to creat one. Depending on the age of the child, a gentle, but firm explanation for the older child can be helpful. For both older and younger children, utilizing the behavioral concept of successive approximations allows a gradual step-by-step distancing with the eventual goal of having a child sleep in their own room and bed. For instance, if the child is sleeping in the adult bed, start the night sleeping in the child’s bed until the child is asleep and then the parent can return to the adult bedroom. There are any number of variations on this approach. I want to remind you, however, that like with pets there may be crying, yelping, calling or screaming. Also, remember the dangers of the variable ratio schedule. If you give in, it will prolong the pain and threaten to defeat the effort. Keep in mind, that you are not hurting your child. Instead, you are helping your child to develop appropriate boundaries, autonomy and independence.
Our phones are off and we sleep together in the same bed: Now what?
So at this point, we are making the necessary adjustments by shifting away from our compensatory mechanisms. We are no longer relying on the distraction from our phones. We are not utilizing our pets or children to substitute for spousal or partner focused affection and intimacy. The path is clear once again to pay attention to each other. It’s all better now, right? Well, not just yet. Now comes the hard part. Now begins the process of emotional reconnection. The distractions and emotional gap fillers are gone. Appropriate boundaries are being established. The sacred circle around the couple is no longer semi-permeable, but being reformed as solid. Fears can arise. Heightened anxiety is likely. “ Can I take the emotional risk, again.” “ Does my partner still find me attractive.” “ Will my partner still want me.” “Can I find my desire again.” “ What if I can’t get an erection.” It is common that other equally concerning questions arise as we contemplate connection.
Waiting for Godot and the myth of spontaneous sex.
We all know that spontaneous sex is the best, right? Scheduled or planned sex can’t be any good. You know, it’s not natural. Relying on spontaneous sex reminds me of Samuel Beckett‘s play Waiting for Godot. In the story, the characters wait endlessly for Godot who never arrives. I am fond of saying that modern life conspires against sex. Modern life rarely affords the rest, attention, free time, feeling of freedom, and yes, the spontaneity that we rely upon. If this is true, then I suppose we will be sexually lost forever. Unless, of course, we take advantage of a method that we use for anything in our lives that we deem important. You guessed it, scheduling. Think about it. If it’s important, it’s on your smartphone calendar. Dates, events, meetings, activities, you name it are all there. Being together sexually however, for that, we will rely on the myth of spontaneity. I wish you best of luck. So the alternative is to find time for meet ups. To formally or informally arrange and schedule them. That’s right, do it on purpose. Whether times to talk, times to touch or times to be erotic, this is a necessary approach in modern life. To be clear, I’m all for spontaneous sex. It can be great when it occurs. I am just against relying on it. Those that do experience what I call sexual drift. Twice a week becomes once. Once a week becomes once every other week. Once every other week becomes once a month and so on. We must schedule if we are to prevent the insidious and growing sexual gap. It is necessary to fill the void of intimacy.
Easy does it.
The first rule in affectional, emotional, intimate and erotic reconnection is to go slow. Major vacations, date nights and other large efforts at togetherness can be intimidating. They can backfire. Start with small simple short conversations. The nature of these conversations, however, should be different from the usual task oriented and problem-solving types that you engage in as the executive management team. Take a posture of curiosity and asking questions and sharing with your partner thoughts, feelings, dreams, and desires that may not have been discussed for a long time. Think of it as getting to know a new someone that you may have known for a long time.
Importantly, don’t just launch into a discussion. In our age of distraction, you must first localize the attention of your partner. Saying something like, “I’d like to talk with you, is this a good time.” is a good way to start. If you are the partner being invited, only accept if you can pay full attention. If you’re just coming back distressed from caring for an elder parent or if you’re fatigued from a stressful day on the job or if you notice that you have feces on your fingers from changing your baby’s diaper, it’s perfectly okay to decline the invitation. How you do it is what’s critical. Something like, “I very much want to talk with you, but because it’s important to me I want to be able to pay attention. Can I get back to you.” I call this the rain check. The rain check is offered in baseball games that are rained out. It means that you are entitled to come to another game. If you offer a rain check after not being able to show up for a conversation, then you must be the one who follows up with something like, “You had wanted to talk with me. I can listen now. Is this a good time.“
The next level of connecting is to touch. Look to gradually increase the amount of time that you and your partner are in skin to skin contact. It could be a touch of the arm. It could be holding hands. It could be sitting next to each other in physical contact while watching a movie. The hello and goodbye pecks on the cheek shift to gradually prolonged hugging and kissing. Some body contact in the bed with removal of blankets and pillows that may have served as a barrier between your bodies now allowing for some physical contact. Gradually melting the ice that may have developed as a physical barrier between you is essential to normalizing the feeling of physical contact. Take your time slowly through the steps. If it feels too fast, tell your partner and adjust the pace. Do not recoil, but rather talk.
I would like to add a caution to our intimate conversations. Smart, verbal and well, educated people tend to overly rely on them. Sometimes they rely so heavily on talk that they turn themselves into a knot. This reminds me of the fable of Alexander and Gordian Knot. In short, the knot was so intricate that anyone that tried to unravel it in the usual way failed. When faced with the knot Alexander the Great lifted his sword and cut it through. This reminds me of how intricate the knot is that words can create, thereby causing further frustration and failing to bring us closer together. So what sword do we have? We have the sword of touch. Sometimes when words fail, using simple affectionate touch can allow us to cut the knot and get beyond the intricacies of the argument that was bogging us down.
Sexual Healing
Reconnecting as sexual partners is the next step and in some ways the most daunting in reestablishing affectionate, emotional, and erotic bond. It is natural to feel anxiety. Here again, it is good to go slow. Through touch and affection allow the erotic feelings to build. This is where I like to introduce the concept of intimate communication. While similar, it is distinct from general communication. It is common to observe couples that communicate fairly well about most topics that they face as an executive management team. Very often, when it comes to sexual matters, the conversation stops.
Being able to give feedback to each other both verbally and non-verbally through bodily reactions is essential to becoming a good erotic team. Feedback one of the The 5 F’s by Dr. Peter Kanaris factors for optimal, sexual functioning, and erotic connection. Assessing your feelings, fantasies, focus, friction or use of five senses, biofeedback, and partner feedback is a useful approach to ensuring your presence and enjoyment during a sexual encounter while reducing anxiety to a manageable level. You can move it from negative feelings like shame and anxiety that inhibit you to positive feelings like joy and excitement that invigorate you. You can tune into fantasies of sexual encounters that you create or remember to build erotic excitement. You can use all of your senses from touch to sight to hearing to taste and to fragrances that build erotic pleasure. You can pay attention to your focus. You can allow distracting thoughts to gently pass by until you come to a present focus on what you are enjoying about the erotic event. You can tune in to the biofeedback that your body is giving and move toward what you are enjoying the most. You can be open to observing the feedback from your partner’s body and open to getting verbal and nonverbal feedback as you give your own. This could allow for a smoother sexual dance. Think of it as old partners learning to dance together again. They will give feedback to each other through body movement and verbal expression until they create the dance. Needing to make adjustments is not a sign of failure, but a normal and necessary part of refining the dance.
Now it begins
I hope at this point you have some useful ideas of how affectionate, emotional, physical, and erotic connection can be defeated by modern life. It doesn’t mean you have a dysfunctional relationship. It doesn’t mean you’re with the wrong partner. It doesn’t mean that it’s hopeless. It is important to have a sense of how you arrived at this impasse. The void can be devastating. It can engender feelings of helplessness and despair. The disconnection and resulting gap did not form overnight. It will not be repaired overnight. You must have patience. Collaborating and cooperating in a mutually supportive way with your partner can make all of the difference. Slowly over time as you join together to make the necessary changes. Despair can move to hope. Hope can culminate in elation. The high functioning executive management team can be joined by an affectionate, intimate, erotic team as you move together into the future.