Dr. Tartaro Intimacy Coaching

Dr. Tartaro Intimacy Coaching I offer support to individuals and couples to practice vulnerability and create nourishing connectio Call me a free consultation today!

I offer services to individuals and couples to create the connection you crave and the joy you know is possible.

The second episode is here! Get ready to meet Annie & Craig, a delightful couple from Seattle who I had the privilege of...
02/24/2026

The second episode is here! Get ready to meet Annie & Craig, a delightful couple from Seattle who I had the privilege of interviewing for “We Too: Real Life Stories With Real Life Couples”, my monthly couples video spotlight.

Link in comments.

Annie & Craig practice polyamory and as you will hear, prioritize creativity, community and a good dose of zaniness in the path they walk as a couple. There were moments of this interview when my eyes popped in amusement - and frankly, awe - at their stories.

The world is filled with reasons to be anxious and scared right now with our nervous systems paying the price for the intensity. It’s a critical time to get involved in creating the just world we want. It’s also a critical time to be tracking and tending to our well-being and feeding our systems with signs of hope.

This interview is an invitation to do just that.

Both Annie and Craig identify as White and cisgender. Annie has a graduate degree (from ASU like me!). Her parents are still married, she has inherited wealth, owns her home and lives with ADHD and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), which she bravely shares at the start of our conversation. Craig was born into a poor-medium income family, does not have higher education and maintains stable housing in the intentional community he co-founded. Each of these factors plays its role in shaping the people you will meet in this episode.

Towards the end of this interview, you will hear how community support and witness is a vital resource for the health of Annie and Craig’s partnership. They close with a wish for all couples to be reminded by the web of friendships - “We all go through it” - when times get tough.

“We All Go Through It” could be the motto for this series!

That’s my hope, that these interviews will be a strand in a web holding you in your intimate relating, normalizing your challenges, inspiring you to grow and reminding you that you are not alone.

I hope you enjoy, from our hearts to yours.
Link to full interview in comments. 👇🏼

How to Repair Well: A 4-Week Couples JourneyHI y'all. Quick question: what do you do in your intimate partnership when o...
02/17/2026

How to Repair Well: A 4-Week Couples Journey

HI y'all. Quick question: what do you do in your intimate partnership when one or both of you has hurt the others’ feelings? Do you have like an actual process for cleaning it up?

I ask because, after almost 15 years of working with couples, one thing I have seen is that the couples who find ways to apologize, take responsibility and mend after breakdowns get closer over time.

And the couples who let hurts pile up and just move on, don’t. Like really don’t. Like ultimately lose the glue of their bond.

My name is Dr. Mama Jessica Tartaro. I am a mom, wife, Intimacy Coach and dancer. Starting in March, I’m offering a new program for THREE couples who are interested in a 4-week, low cost pathway to skill-building your repair process. “How to Repair Well” will be part personalized class, part coaching and part deep dive into a personal healing process. More info below.

To level with you, I'm not myself in a perfect marriage. My husband and I have been together for 7 years, married for 6. And we have conflicts! Usually low level spats. Occasionally big blow outs.

One thing I will say that I am very proud of is that we clean up well. It means that our conflicts become less like bombs and more like turning points in our life cycle that teach us things we needed to know.

A mentor of mine told me years ago, "It's not IF you make messes. It's HOW you clean them up that matters!" A truth that has rung loudly in my own marriage and my work with couples in my private practice.

For the month of March, I have room for THREE couples to do a 4-week journey with me. Called, "How to Repair Well," this will be a skills based coaching and educational program inspired by the work of Dr. Susan Campbell, author of the book, 'From Triggered to Tranquil'. Couples will meet with me weekly for 1-hour sessions as well as do homework in between sessions.

While this program is open to everyone, I am prioritizing couples with children of any age. As a parent myself, I have a big heart for how hard it is to invest in healthy adult intimacy while juggling the endless demands of parenting. If that is you, I would love to hold a space for you in my schedule.

This program is for you if:

•You are committed to your relationship as a pathway to growth

• You two have many foundational tools in place in your relationship

• You have conflict in some form, either low level reactionary moments, bigger fights or all of the above

• You may have a tendency just to let things blow over rather than really resolve them

• You would like to evolve rather than continue to repeat patterns

• Bonus if you are also parents (but not required if you are still interested)

Cost of the program is $500. Payment required to hold your place.

If you think this is for you, let me know by filling out the application in the link below which includes more information about the commitment. I will be in touch to confirm your registration and get you booked!

I've been studying and teaching about conflict tending for the last several years, including training to be a mediator, teaching community courses on conflict tools as well as working with grief teachers on conflict tending in grief work. It would be my pleasure to share what I have learned with committed couples, so that more of us in loving long term partnerships can deepen and grow through conflict - a healthy part of relating - rather than be knocked down by it.

Let me know if you have any questions or just fill out the application below and I will be in touch!

As some of you know by now, my family is packing up soon to head to Austin, Texas, for a one month sunny getaway in Marc...
02/11/2026

As some of you know by now, my family is packing up soon to head to Austin, Texas, for a one month sunny getaway in March! This is mama’s big dream, a grand leap and truly an experiment in relocating our lives with a toddler.

Part of what is making this possible is that by some magical stroke, we were able to enroll Joya in a very special South Austin preschool that happened to have an opening. Everything else has been the details after that, though I must say I deeply exhaled when we found housing last week! So many moving parts.

Last night, Joya said to me with great seriousness, “Mama, I am not going to need you to stay with me when I am at Bloom School. But if you need me for anything, just call. And I will be sending you love”.

I blinked back tears.

Our family’s original plan was of course for us all to travel together. But in the end, Rich will only be joining us for a long weekend; he is needed back in Washington for his business. I’ll be solo parenting for most of the month while attempting to see clients during Joya’s school hours. I trust Joya and me to figure this out, but also, I’m nervous.

And I think my child realizes this.

That she wanted to reassure ME melted my frazzled heart. She also showed me yesterday that she can buckle her car seat by herself. And she had her first spend-the-night-out last weekend without us.

Oh Joya, your blossoming independence is upending the world as I’ve known it. I’m so excited to spread our wings together soon and discover us in flight.

“For our third date we were going for a walk through volunteer Park and I said something off hand like, “Oh I straighten...
02/06/2026

“For our third date we were going for a walk through volunteer Park and I said something off hand like, “Oh I straightened my hair for you today.” And he was like, “Whoah whoah whoah just so you know, that will never matter to me.” And I remember him touching my heart space and saying, “It’s what’s in here that I care about and that’s what I want to get to know”.

- Annie

I had the enormous pleasure of interviewing Annie Gustafson and Craig Michael Ivey this week for Episode 2 of “We Too: Real Life Stories with Real Life Couples”. It was a joy.

That quote above from Annie is just one of many that will give you a peek into their love affair and the creativity and authenticity that infuses the path they are taking. 

Be sure to sign up for my newsletter (link below) to get the full video of our interview when it drops by the end of the month! 👇🏼

I’m giving the second half of an online, free talk tonight on how to mend and tend relationships when there is conflict,...
01/28/2026

I’m giving the second half of an online, free talk tonight on how to mend and tend relationships when there is conflict, so that we grow and deepen in connection.  “How to Compost Rupture Into Relationship”.

There’s still time to sign up!

This will be a skills based evening, so come prepared with a notebook and ready to do partner exercises.

These are  the kinds of practices that deeply benefit from practicing in community. Come practice these humbling, helpful and critical tools with us in a loving safe environment.

Conflict in relationships is inevitable. Whether or not we can come back to connection through conflict depends on  our skills and resources. Come,  let us resource together tonight.

If you can’t make the talk, you will get the recording afterward.

Register at the link below! 👇🏼

I am thrilled to share with you Episode 1 of “We Too: Real Life Stories with Real Life Couples” and its debut today! Cli...
01/27/2026

I am thrilled to share with you Episode 1 of “We Too: Real Life Stories with Real Life Couples” and its debut today! Click links in comments to watch videos (full length + a lovely 10-minute clip).

I interviewed Renee & Neil, Port Townsend, WA, about their 24-year long marriage and how alive they feel in connection to one another all these years later.

Their vitality as a couple is no accident – they work at it, every single day!

When you watch and listen to our conversation, you will hear how they nurture their relationship, including through their communication, their s*x lives and their conflict tending.

And you will feel it too. Their happiness is infectious.

This interview is a refreshing inoculation to the news cycle right now. It’s a gentle, smart, engaging, funny, and tender romp with a couple who work diligently on their love. I found myself belly laughing with them. I imagine you might, too, when you tune in.

So many of us are looking for ways to create a better world right now than the one we see around us. It is vital that we not only track what is not working but that we anchor our energies around what is. This interview is one deeply inspiring example.

Keep in mind as you listen that healthy adult relating depends on larger socio-economic and demographic intersections as well. Renee and Neil are both White and cisgender, with stable income and housing, higher education degrees and some generational wealth. These supports have contributed to the journey of their relating in countless ways and with their permission, I am sharing this part of their story too.

Maintaining healthy relationships in our families, across our friendships, in our professional groups and even across political differences demands skill. May listening to this interview fill you with beauty, settle the churning inside even for a few moments and empower you to grow in creativity and wisdom for responding to the world.

Links below to tune in and watch! 👇🏼🎥 ❤️

And now time for a little beauty, to let our weary nervous systems catch a breath. 😮‍💨Ahem. As of January, and in my ste...
01/15/2026

And now time for a little beauty, to let our weary nervous systems catch a breath. 😮‍💨Ahem. As of January, and in my steady comeback to creative projects since parenthood, I started a video series, a monthly spotlight on couples! First episode comes out next week!

It’s called, “We Too: Real Life Stories with Real Life Couples”. As in, we too - all couples - have ups and downs, beauty and travesty, and no one is alone in this.

An idea born years ago and just now getting off the ground, “We Too” is my contribution to help lessen the isolation and shame around couples who genuinely struggle because come on, adult intimacy is hard. So let’s open up the doors that keep the real life stories silenced and start to get out loud about what helps couples as well as what challenges us, both.

I must say myself, this first episode is extraordinary.

I asked Renee Baribault and Neil Harrington months ago if they would be my first guests because they are one of those couples about whom people say, how do you do it?  How do you keep the magic alive all these years later?

As you will hear when the episode drops next week,  it’s not an accident that they still have such a fresh, alive love 24 years and two grown children later. They *practice* love, including  through big and small daily touch points that they describe in detail in the interview.  They take a really creative approach to their s*x lives, something they prioritize, which is so inspiring to hear. And the way they talk about conflict is very tender, something you will see at the tail end of our hour-long conversation.

I joked at the end of my time with them that I looked forward to going home to my husband afterward because I felt like I was inspired by their stories to be a much better wife!

There’s just something about orienting our attention to what works - rather than so many examples of what’s broken in relationships and in the world - that feeds the spirit, brings hope, and gives viable pathways for growing.

I believe this first episode especially offers all of that and more. I hope you will watch!

To get this content delivered to your inbox, sign up for my newsletter, link below. I will be posting videos on YouTube as well as announcing on social media as well.

Are you in a couple and would you like to be interviewed for “We Too”? My 2026 calendar is filling up! Fill out the application, which I will link in the comments below, to be considered!

Finally special thanks to my video editor Gabe Van Lelyveld of Whaleheart Productions who has been patiently guiding me through the pre-production process and helping me ensure we have a beautiful finished product  that does justice to these brave couples.

Thank you for your support of healthy adult intimacy -  and the generations of children nurtured by healthy, happy parents - by tuning into this free program this year! Again, sign up for my newsletter below. 👇🏼

Y’all, I did a thing! Aliko Weste aka Mountain, creator of “For the People” podcast, just interviewed me for an hour abo...
01/08/2026

Y’all, I did a thing! Aliko Weste aka Mountain, creator of “For the People” podcast, just interviewed me for an hour about my work with couples, about my experience of being a mother, and about my vision for how to create more relationally intelligent, cooperative communities to support parents, children and all relationships. Phew!

You know, I spend so much time with toddlers that I was seriously worried for a minute that I wouldn’t be able to string an intelligent adult sentence together! 😬

I’ll say I got a few out in the end but truly with the help of this loving sweet being who put me right at ease from the start.🙏🏽❤️

We had a flowing conversation about love, about the gaps left in our collective emotional education, and about a couples program I am about to launch that challenges the notion that adult relationships need to happen behind closed doors.🚫🤫

It was a joy to swim in deep waters with you today, Mountain. Thank you for believing in me. 💦

🎙️ Episode airs in February! Stay tuned!

Y’all, I did a thing! Aliko Weste, creator of “For the People” podcast, just interviewed me for an hour about my work wi...
01/07/2026

Y’all, I did a thing! Aliko Weste, creator of “For the People” podcast, just interviewed me for an hour about my work with couples, about my experience of being a mother, and about my vision for how to create more relationally intelligent, cooperative communities to support parents, children and all relationships. Phew!

You know, I spend so much time with toddlers that I was seriously worried for a minute that I wouldn’t be able to string an intelligent adult sentence together! 😬

I’ll say I got a few out in the end but truly with the help of this loving sweet being who put me right at ease from the start.🙏🏽❤️

We had a flowing conversation about love, about the gaps left in our collective emotional education, and about a couples program I am about to launch that challenges the notion that adult relationships need to happen behind closed doors.🚫🤫

It was a joy to swim in deep waters with you today, Mountain. Thank you for believing in me. 💦

🎙️ Episode airs in February! Stay tuned!

“I also just wanted to let you know how absolutely skilled you are at coaching. Truly I am honored to be working with yo...
10/03/2025

“I also just wanted to let you know how absolutely skilled you are at coaching. Truly I am honored to be working with you. I appreciate your directness, coupled with gentle compassion. Holding two in a container is also quite difficult. Thank you.

I know that our journey with you will bring my husband and I more intimacy, as well as allowing me to be better in all my other precious relationships. Thank you, Jessica”.

- Melissa A.

🖌️Sometimes I ask my clients for testimonials. Sometimes they just come spontaneously in the midst of really hard work that opens new doors. This one was the latter. Shared with permission and a whole lotta reverence.

🌱Dr. Tartaro Intimacy Coaching accepting new clients. Website below.

📸 Photo credit https://unsplash.com/

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98325

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Intimacy Coaching: Is it right for you?

Let's face it. Intimacy can be tough.

I have dedicated my life to teaching about healthy relating, and I assure you, every day I am still humbled by how hard it is to stay connected!

As an Intimacy Coach, this is what I have learned.

Intimacy is not about mastery - it's about practice. And that's what I help you do. When you sign up for my services, you and I work as a team to practice and improve your ability to connect.