It turns out, there is a cure for couples who’ve stopped having sex.

It’s not tantric yoga. It’s not couples’ retreats where you whisper affirmations at each other while covered in rose quartz. It’s not even a new mattress.

According to Professor Gurit Birnbaum—a psychologist at Reichman University in Tel Aviv who’s spent three decades studying sexual desire—your libido isn’t dead. It’s just... uninvited.

If your relationship feels like a long layover in Cleveland—safe, predictable, and sexually inert—Birnbaum has news: You can rebuild desire, but you’ll have to stop waiting for spontaneous combustion. Because in long-term love, the spark doesn’t reignite itself.

You have to strike the match.

“We’re soulmates with separate thermostats and calendars.”

In 2025, love stories aren’t just being told—they’re being re-edited.

One of the most resonant marriage memes among Gen X and young Boomers is not a poetic declaration of unity. It’s about having your own blanket.

Welcome to #MarriedNotMerged, where the hottest flex in a long-term relationship is emotional independence with a twist of deep, chosen interdependence.

These aren’t avoidant couples—they’re differentiated.

Let’s talk about what that actually means—and why David Schnarch and Ellyn Bader would probably be proud.

Let’s say you’re in a committed relationship.

Things are… fine.

But then a flirty coworker laughs a little too long at your joke.

You feel a twinge—an attraction, an ego-boost, a betrayal-lite. And before you know it, you’re online buying concert tickets. Or a ceramic juicer. Or both.

Why?

According to a new study in Current Psychology, it’s because encountering romantic temptation can subtly shift your purchasing habits—and in hilariously predictable, gendered ways.

Men tend to reach for experiences (like events, trips, or fancy dinners). Women, meanwhile, go for material goods (like gadgets, kitchenware, or home décor).

But here’s the kicker: it’s not about cheating. It’s about reaffirming your worth as a partner. A kind of consumerist self-cleansing.
“I flirted—but I also bought throw pillows. We’re good, right?”

It often doesn’t start as a complaint. It starts as a private ache, a sigh after another night of feeling like a prop in someone else’s movie. Eventually, it forms into a question:

Why is my husband selfish in bed?

It’s a powerful question—one that speaks to the gendered imbalance of emotional labor, the cultural conditioning of male sexual entitlement, and the quiet heartbreak of relational loneliness.

As a couples therapist, I can tell you: if you're asking this question, it doesn't mean you're broken. It means you're awake.

In a laboratory in Canada, 151 couples sat across from each other and, with cameras rolling, began an eight-minute conversation about their most pressing sexual concern.

This wasn’t reality TV—it was a study on how the ghosts of childhood trauma show up in the most intimate corners of adult relationships.

The study, published in Archives of Sexual Behavior (Bigras et al., 2024), asks a deceptively simple question: Does trauma in childhood influence emotional dynamics during adult sexual conflict?

The short answer is yes—but not in big, flashy ways.

The longer, more useful answer is that trauma subtly shapes emotional patterns and attachment styles, which, in turn, color how sexual conflict feels and unfolds.

Let’s dig into what they found and why it matters.

When the sun goes down and the blue light filters are on, it turns out your body may have its own secret sleep hack—and no, it’s not warm milk or a meditation podcast narrated by a sleepy otter.

A new pilot study published in Sleep Health suggests that sex—whether partnered or solo—isn't just fun and occasionally complicated, but also objectively good for your sleep.

That’s right. Not just “I feel like I slept better” good, but measurably better. As in: less time staring at the ceiling, more time in deliciously uninterrupted sleep.

Let’s break down the pillow talk.

Let’s say your marriage is a ship.

Solid, seaworthy—except sometimes one of you keeps staring longingly at the lifeboats.

That’s what researchers mean when they talk about an infidelity tendency: not necessarily an affair, but a repeated emotional leaning toward the escape hatch.

Now add another layer—divorce anxiety—that creeping fear that your relationship might be headed for the rocks, emotionally or legally.

According to a new study published in Psychological Reports, the surprising answer to this anxious, unstable dynamic might be mindfulness.

Yes, mindfulness—the same thing you associate with wellness influencers and overpriced journals—may actually reduce the anxiety some spouses feel about divorce, even when they’re secretly (or not so secretly) scanning the horizon for alternative partners.

The finding? Modest, complicated, and deeply human. In other words: just like marriage.

When you and your partner run a business together, every kiss comes with a calendar invite. Your pillow talk sounds like a revenue review. And the only thing you’re emotionally vulnerable with is your profit margin.

Welcome to entrepreneur couple life—where “how was your day?” is a performance review and “let’s spend time together” means labeling inventory on the living room floor while arguing over font choice.

But amid the chaos, stress, and shared WiFi password, there's a rare alchemy at work. You’re building something. Together.

And that shared purpose, believe it or not, rewires how you give and receive love. Or at least how you try to—before collapsing from burnout.

So let’s decode the true love languages of entrepreneur couples, using actual science, a little sarcasm, and the hard-won wisdom of people who’ve tried to merge QuickBooks and libido—and lived to tell the tale.

When two people marry, they usually don’t expect a third partner in the relationship. But in medical marriages, that third partner is often the job itself—ever present, ever hungry, and occasionally more demanding than either person involved.

Medicine is a calling. It's also a system. A culture.

A way of being that seeps into your bones and, sometimes, into your bed.

For many medical couples, especially those in long-term marriages, the real struggle isn’t about communication or chores—it’s about how to stay connected when your whole nervous system has been trained to disconnect.

And that’s not a character flaw. It’s a consequence of the work.

There was a time, not long ago, when porn came in the form of a VHS tape hidden inside a cereal box in your uncle’s garage.

Erotic curiosity meant faded Playboy magazines, elbowy make-outs, and the persistent question: Is this how it’s supposed to feel?

Now, with the miracle of generative AI, you can summon your ideal sex partner like a horny sorcerer: “Alexa, make her taller, sadder, and emotionally available.”

And lo—she appears.

The Archives of Sexual Behavior recently chronicled this brave new world: 36 platforms offering build-a-lover technology that allows you to control everything from eye color to emotional neediness.

Want a sultry goth redhead girlfriend with a 1960’s haircut with bangs who talks like an audiobook narrator and hates your ex?

Done.

Prefer a cowboy with a PhD in philosophy and a submissive streak?

Also done. Just click, prompt, unzip, repeat.

This isn’t "porn." It’s erotic UX design. You’re not aroused—you’re A/B testing orgasms.

There comes a point in every long-term relationship where the questions get quieter—but deeper. Will we still want each other when we’re both tired, aching, and not quite who we used to be?

What happens when the body falters, the libido shifts, the memory fails? What happens when caregiving enters the room? Or death?

You won't find many influencers talking about it. Not because it isn't important, but because the culture no longer knows how to speak with reverence about aging love.

In our current cultural moment—defined by performance, youth worship, and algorithmic attention—the love between aging partners is not considered viral or monetizable.

But in many ways, it is the most emotionally advanced form of intimacy we have. It is love after the dopamine drops off. After the perfect photo. After the plan. It is love as stewardship.

And that makes it quietly revolutionary.

You’re not just doing the dishes. You’re translating the emotional temperature of your partner’s bad day into whether or not you should ask about it.

You’re not just hosting Thanksgiving. You’re pre-moderating the dinner table tension between your mom and your spouse.

And you’re not just “good at communication”—you’re the one who keeps remembering that something needs to be communicated in the first place.

Welcome to the unspoken job of emotional logistics.

If the traditional “mental load” is about remembering dentist appointments and ordering more dog food, the emotional load is about tracking moods, managing unspoken expectations, and serving as the household’s chief emotional interpreter.

It is exhausting. It is often invisible. And it is rarely reciprocated in kind.