In 1997, before WiFi was reliable and therapy was something you could get via app, David Schnarch handed us a flamethrower and called it a book.

Passionate Marriage sorta told couples everywhere to stop cuddling, stop clinging, and for God’s sake stop hoping your partner would validate your feelings.

Instead, Schnarch said, try differentiation: self-regulation in the presence of intimacy. Stand in the fire. Be your own person. Then maybe you’ll want to have sex again.

It was electric. It was blistering. It sold a shitload of copies.

But now it’s 2025.

The nervous system has a publicist. Consent is a whole field of study. Therapists know about trauma, neurodivergence, and cultural context. And the fire metaphor?

Well, some of us have PTSD.

So maybe it’s time to lovingly take Passionate Marriage, place it on the metaphorical therapist’s coffee table, and say: “Thank you, David. We needed you. But we also need to talk.”

Let’s begin with a blunt truth: many men don’t think sexism is a them problem.

They believe it exists—sort of, vaguely, somewhere out there. But it doesn’t click. Not really. Until one night their partner, over takeout and Netflix, says: My boss called me “sweetheart” in a meeting again. And he promoted Rob. Again.

And suddenly, it does click.

A pulse of indignation. A flash of understanding. A sinking realization that this isn’t some abstract “issue,” but a pattern with receipts—and his partner is living it in real time.

In many gay relationships, one partner may slowly becomes the emotional custodian—keeping track of who’s hurting in the friend group, when your mom called last, how many days it’s been since the last real check-in, and whether you’re overdue for a fight neither of you wants to start.

The other partner, meanwhile, thinks things are great. They help. They show up. They make a killer Spotify playlist for your anniversary dinner.

But they don’t notice the weight you’re carrying—because you’ve been trained to carry it so silently, even you forgot it was heavy.

Welcome to emotional labor.

It’s invisible. It’s cumulative. And in gay couples—where there’s no gendered blueprint for who “should” do what—it’s dangerously easy to ignore until one of you checks out, or burns out, or blurts out, “I feel like your unpaid emotional concierge.”

That’s where the Emotional Labor Mapping Tool comes in.

“I Didn’t Marry a Bad Person. I Married Someone Who Doesn’t Notice.”

That line came from a gay client of mine last winter, uttered while wiping his glasses with the bottom hem of his hoodie and trying not to cry.

What he meant was this: his partner isn’t cruel, isn’t abusive, and isn’t absent.

But the man he lives with—who splits the rent, the groceries, and the dog walks—doesn’t notice when he’s overextended, emotionally drained, or quietly spiraling while trying to remember everyone’s birthdays.

What he’s describing is emotional labor: the anticipatory, invisible, unpaid management of feelings, social nuance, and care. And yes, it exists—vividly and uncomfortably—in many gay relationships.

And no, it isn’t discussed nearly enough.

If you’ve ever wondered why people in long-term relationships sometimes feel like they’re watching the same movie on repeat—even when they love the plot and the co-star—it might help to blame an old presidential anecdote and a pile of horny lab rats.

Welcome to the Coolidge Effect: a not-so-fun biological feature that makes sexual novelty exciting… and sexual familiarity, well, less so.

This post is going to walk you through the science, the controversy, the cultural baggage, and the implications of the Coolidge Effect for real couples in real bedrooms—not just rats in cages.

And because we’re grown-ups, we’ll do this with the usual cocktail of dry humor, APA-style citations, and compassionate skepticism for the stories we tell ourselves about desire.

What Is the Coolidge Effect?

Is there a link between income and romantic intentions?

A new study in the Journal of Marriage and Family offers a compelling twist on the old adage: money can’t buy love, but it might increase your chances of starting a relationship.

Researchers Johanna Peetz and Geoff MacDonald found that single people with higher incomes were significantly more likely to say they wanted a romantic partner, felt more emotionally and logistically ready to date, and were more likely to enter a relationship within the year.

But here’s the catch: they weren’t any happier being single than lower-income souls.

In short, income predicted relationship pursuit, but not satisfaction with solo life.

There are some experiments you don’t get to reverse.

Like bleaching your hair platinum at 52.
Or selling the house for a food truck.
Or opening your marriage because a podcast made it sound sexy and spiritually evolved.

This is the quiet underbelly of the midlife open marriage trend—a story not of sexual liberation, but of existential whiplash.

Couples in their 40s and 50s are stepping into consensual non-monogamy (CNM) not out of lust, but out of a cultural moment that dares them to chase aliveness—even if it burns their life down.

What they’re discovering, sometimes too late, is that the fantasy of “ethical expansion” collides hard with the emotional physics of human attachment.

This post is for the ones sifting through the ashes.

Let’s get this out of the way early: FWB stands for Friends with Benefits, not Free With Burrito, though both can lead to regret and gastrointestinal confusion.

But what exactly is a friends-with-benefits relationship?

A quick gloss might say: “Two people having sex without the commitment of dating.”

But that’s like saying jazz is just music without words—it misses the improvisation, the ambiguity, and the occasional heartbreak hidden behind the snare drum.

In America, the “FWB” arrangement has become a full-blown cultural meme—a relationship archetype circulated in media, music, TikTok therapy, and private texts at 11:48 p.m. on a Wednesday. But what does it mean, socially and psychologically?

Is it a healthy middle ground between celibacy and codependence—or a slow-motion emotional trainwreck?

Let’s take a walk through the recent research, the cultural history, and the messy inner logic of FWB, in all its contradictory American glory. Don’t worry—I’ll be gentle.

Why Is monogamy whispering its way back in? What a quaint development for 2025. Because nowadays everyone has a poly friend. Or three.

Relationship structures come with menus.

“Monogamish” is a lifestyle, not a phase. We’ve got flowcharts for fluid bonding agreements, Google Docs for jealousy protocols, and a booming TikTok market for explaining how to manage six partners with two full-time jobs and a kombucha starter.

But amid all the spreadsheets and sacred slings, a new voice is emerging. It’s quieter, less judgmental than the moral purity of the past. Less purity, more poetry. Less “one man, one woman,” more one person, one universe.

This isn’t a return to 1950s constraint. It’s a philosophical return to erotic containment—an intentional, almost mystical monogamy that says: What if choosing one person over and over again is the actual thrill?

The Moment Before the Kiss (Or Why Intimacy Isn’t What You Think)

Most intimacy theories feel like they were written by well-adjusted people in soft lighting.

You’ve got your Bowlby (1988), your Hazan & Shaver (1987), your Gottman ratios, your Perelian erotic mysteries. The usual suspects.

And to be fair, they’ve given us a solid foundation. Attachment theory tells us why we reach out—or run. Gottman gives us conflict blueprints.

Perel reminds us not to become our partner’s HR department.

But something’s still missing.

Not just in theory. In practice. In the actual counseling room.

In the couple sitting across from me—still technically married, still doing the dishes, still “working on communication,” and yet somehow lonelier than ever.

And what’s missing is this:

Most intimacy models assume people want closeness. But they forget how much effort goes into not drowning in it.

Which brings me to a theory I’ve started sketching in the margins of my session notes. Let’s jump in.

So there you are—both of you successful, intelligent, and highly scheduled.

One of you wants sex.

The other… doesn’t.

Or doesn’t want that sort of sex, or not right now, or not unless the laundry’s folded and the kids are asleep and nobody at work cried that day.

What began as a quiet mismatch has turned into a marriage-wide frequency negotiation, where every touch can feel like a transaction—or a trap.

Welcome to desire discrepancy: the most emotionally loaded—and least honestly discussed—issue in high-functioning relationships today.

It’s Not About Libido. It’s About Meaning.

You’ve got the job. The partner. The shared calendar.

You’ve even mastered parallel inbox management and two kinds of password manager. You’ve built the life you were promised would make you happy.

So why do you feel like strangers passing in a very expensive kitchen?

Welcome to the number-one complaint of professional couples in therapy: emotional disconnection.

You're not fighting. You're not cheating. You're not even disagreeing about who forgot to call the plumber. You're just… no longer real to each other.