Couple Forward

01/14/2026

S*x Dies Quietly in Long-Term Marriages, and Men Often Fade with It.
By Chrisian J Charette, LMFT

Not in a dramatic, “we hate each other now” way. More like a slow fade. Less flirting. Less touch. Less initiation. More “I’m tired.” More “not tonight.” More silence around it. Then one day the higher-desire partner, often the man in heteros*xual midlife couples, is living in a relationship where s*x has become rare, awkward, or loaded with tension.

When that happens, most people talk about logistics. Frequency. Techniques. Scheduling. P**n. Toys. Hormones.

Those matter. But they’re not the whole story. The real story is what it does to a person when the one human being who is supposed to want them no longer seems to.

Midlife has a special talent for turning the bedroom into a referendum on your worth.

Here’s what’s often happening for men.

A desire gap becomes a meaning gap.

For many men, s*x is not just s*x. It is validation. It is reassurance. It is the clearest evidence that the bond is still alive.

I have a running joke I tell my clients that skyscrapers, bridges, and tunnels are basically men’s mating calls in concrete. That’s why when you walk past a construction site, it’s like, ‘She’s here. Act natural. Hello, my love. Notice this rebar. Isn’t it magnificent?’ And when there’s no reciprocation then or now, a lot of whiskey gets sold.

So when a long-term female partner stops showing interest, desire, or initiation, the man usually feels two things at once.

He feels rejected in his core, deeply wounded.

And he feels like he’s not aloud to voice those feelings.

That second part matters. Men are trained to act like they’re simple. Like s*x is a physical need, like a snack. But when you listen closely, the pain is rarely about or**sm. It’s about being wanted, and not being wanted feels like despair.

Despair is the walking dead.

For men, and many women, s*x is the opposite of death. It’s trancedant and the most alive a person can feel.

Her lack of desire becomes an interpretation engine.

No s*x → I’m not attractive.

No initiation → I’m not desired.

No enthusiasm → I’m tolerated.

Repeated refusals → I’m a burden.

Her “giving in” →I am pitied and pitiful.

That chain reaction is not “dramatic.” It’s the human brain doing what it does: building a story from patterns. And those stories shape behavior.

Story → emotion → strategy → relationship climate.

When this goes on for months or years, the emotional consequences are predictable.

Men take many hits here.

First is shame.

Not the performative kind. The private kind. The kind that says, “Something is wrong with me,” even if you can’t name what.

Second is grief.

Men rarely call it grief, because that sounds like feelings, and feelings make people uncomfortable. But it’s grief: for the loss of spontaneity, for the loss of being desired, for the loss of a version of the relationship that felt alive.

Third is chronic resentment.

Resentment is what happens when a need stays unmet and you stop believing it will ever be met. Resentment is also what happens when you feel you have to pretend you’re fine, because having to beg for s*x makes you feel pathetic. It’s the same shame as paying for it.

Fourth is a self-protective shutdown.

Some men stop initiating because rejection hurts. That sounds healthy until you see what’s underneath it.

Stop initiating → stop risking rejection → stop risking closeness → stop sharing the vulnerable parts.

Then the relationship becomes efficient, polite, and lonely.

Midlife makes this worse.

Midlife is not just aging. It’s a pile-up.

Work peaks.

Parenting demands shift.

Caregiving for aging parents appears out of nowhere like an unpaid second job.

Bodies change, and people give up.

Sleep gets worse.

Stress becomes constant background noise.

For many women, midlife is also when perimenopause and menopause enter the chat. Hormonal shifts can lower libido, change arousal patterns, and make s*x physically uncomfortable through dryness or pain. If s*x starts hurting, desire often doesn’t “decline.” It protects itself.

Pain → avoidance → less arousal → more pain → more avoidance.

If the couple can’t talk about this clearly, the husband interprets avoidance as personal rejection, and the wife interprets pursuit as pressure. Now you have the classic loop.

Pursuit → pressure → withdrawal → more pursuit.

And because humans are excellent at turning pain into bad tactics, both sides tend to escalate the very behaviors that make s*x less likely.

Many women assume, understandably, that his focus on s*x means he’s not valuing the relationship in deeper ways.

Many men assume, also understandably, that her focus on “not being interested” means she doesn’t value him.

Both are often wrong.

In a lot of couples, the man is using s*x to ask a question he doesn’t know how to ask out loud.

“Do you still want me?”

He asks with his body because he never learned how to ask with words.

Then she hears it as a demand.

Now she’s defending her autonomy, and he’s defending his dignity, and nobody is defending the bond.

Initiation matters more than people admit.

There’s a specific psychological gut-punch in never being initiated with.

Even if s*x still happens occasionally, if it only happens because he pursued it, it can feel like he’s negotiating for basic desirability.

Initiation from her → “I am chosen.”

No initiation from her → “I am tolerated.”

This is why “duty s*x” often backfires. If she forces herself to participate but isn’t actually engaged, the man doesn’t feel loved. He feels pitied. Or worse, he feels like a nuisance she’s managing.

So he gets s*x and still feels unwanted.

Because what he wanted was desire.

S*x becomes the battleground because it is concrete. You can count it. You can argue about it. You can weaponize it.

But underneath, the fight is usually about responsiveness.

Do you see me?

Do you care about what I need?

Do you want me, or are we roommates now?

Research on s*xual rejection shows something important: the way a partner says “no” matters. A refusal can land as care or contempt. If the refusal comes with warmth and reassurance, couples tend to do better than if it comes with hostility or indifference.

That’s not romantic. It’s mechanics.

Rejection with responsiveness → pain softens → safety stays intact.

Rejection with coldness → pain hardens → distance grows.

What doesn’t help is pretending this is just a man being h***y and a woman being tired. That framing invites contempt on one side and entitlement on the other. It turns two nervous systems into stereotypes.

What also doesn’t help is treating libido like a character trait.

“She’s frigid.”

“He’s obsessed.”

Those are convenient stories because they avoid the more complicated truth: desire is contextual, relational, embodied, and vulnerable.

Long-term desire does not run on love. It runs on conditions.

Conditions include physical comfort, stress levels, emotional safety, feeling respected, feeling desired, novelty, rest, time, body confidence, and the absence of pressure. In midlife, those conditions often collapse, and men are told to “just live with it, quietly”.

So repair looks less like “be s*xier” and more like “rebuild the system.”

System rebuild → less resentment → more safety → more touch → more desire becomes possible.

That doesn’t mean the man shuts up and accepts celibacy. It also doesn’t mean the woman performs s*x she doesn’t want. The point is to stop treating desire as a moral issue and start treating it as a shared reality the relationship has to adapt to.

A better question than “why don’t you want s*x?” is:

“What makes s*x feel safe, appealing, and worth it for you now?”

And the equally important counterpart:

“What does s*x mean to you, emotionally, that you can’t get anywhere else?”

Those questions are not s*xy. They’re effective.

Here is the plain truth in the research: A lot of men aren’t starved for s*x.
They’re starved for being wanted by the person they built their life with.

And that cuts to the core for loyal men who carry responsibility, provide, show up, and then go to bed feeling empty, ashamed, and alone.

Sources

Lodge, A. C., & Umberson, D. (2012). All Shook Up: S*xuality of Mid- to Later Life Married Couples. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74(3), 428–443. 

Elliott, S., & Umberson, D. (2008). The Performance of Desire: Gender and S*xual Negotiation in Long-Term Marriages. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70(2), 391–406. 

DeWitte, M., Carvalho, J., Corona, G., et al. (2020). S*xual Desire Discrepancy: A Position Statement of the European Society for S*xual Medicine. S*xual Medicine Reviews / S*xual Medicine Open Access. 

Kim, J. J., Muise, A., Sakaluk, J. K., Rosen, N. O., & Impett, E. A. (2020). When Tonight Is Not the Night: S*xual Rejection Behaviors and Satisfaction in Romantic Relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(10), 1476–1490. 

My urray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., & Collins, N. L. (2006). Optimizing Assurance: The Risk Regulation System in Relationships. Psychological Bulletin (paper PDF). 

Byers, E. S. (2005). Relationship Satisfaction and S*xual Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Study of Individuals in Long-Term Relationships. Journal of S*x Research, 42(2), 113–118. 

Johns Hopkins Medicine. How S*x Changes After Menopause. 

Baumeister, R. F., Catanese, K. R., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Is There a Gender Difference in Strength of S*x Drive? Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 242–273. 

01/03/2026

Auld Lang Syne

Why the World Sings a Grief Song at Midnight

Every year, at the exact moment the calendar turns, millions of people do the same strange thing.

They stop talking.
They turn toward one another.
They sing a slow, aching song most of them don’t fully understand.

This ritual crosses cultures, countries, belief systems, and generations. It shows up in crowded city squares and quiet living rooms. It is sung by people celebrating together and by people missing someone who isn’t there.

The song is Auld Lang Syne.

And despite how often it’s treated like background noise for champagne and countdowns, it is one of the most psychologically honest rituals we still have.

Auld Lang Syne is a Scottish song, most commonly attributed to poet Robert Burns, who published it in 1788. Burns did not claim to have written it from scratch. He described it as something older, something collected, something already alive in the culture before he put it to paper.

That matters.

This wasn’t a song written to entertain.
It was a song written to preserve something human.

The phrase auld lang syne roughly translates to old long since or more plainly, the old days. Not nostalgia in the shallow sense, but shared history. Lived time. Bonds that were real even if they no longer exist in the same form.

Originally, the song was sung at partings, funerals, reunions, and moments of transition. It was about memory, loyalty, and continuity. Only later did it become associated with New Year’s Eve, largely because New Year’s is itself a collective threshold moment. A shared crossing.

We sing it when one year ends and another begins because that moment demands more than celebration. It demands acknowledgment.

The Lyrics

(Original Scots, public domain)

Verse 1
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

Chorus
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Verse 2
And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp!
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Verse 3
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
Sin’ auld lang syne.

Verse 4
We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d,
Sin’ auld lang syne.

Verse 5
And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
And gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.

What the Song Is Actually Saying

This is not a song about starting over.

It is a song about not pretending.

The opening question is blunt and almost confrontational:
Should old acquaintances be forgotten?

Not “have we moved on?”
Not “are we happier now?”
But: should we erase what mattered just because time passed?

The answer the song gives is no.

Instead, it offers a different posture toward time and relationship.

→ We remember what we shared
→ We honor what shaped us
→ We acknowledge distance, loss, and change
→ We choose goodwill anyway

Even the repeated image of sharing a drink is symbolic. Not indulgence, but equality. You take yours. I take mine. We meet as we are, not as we once were.

This is a song about relational maturity.

Why This Matters for Couples and Relationships!

From a my perspective, Auld Lang Syne captures something I see constantly in real relationships.

Most couples aren’t struggling because they don’t want a better future.
They’re struggling because they haven’t made sense of their shared past.

Unprocessed history doesn’t disappear.
It just goes underground.

Resentments, losses, ruptures, and missed moments don’t dissolve when the calendar changes. They live in the nervous system. They shape how safe we feel. They quietly influence how much closeness we allow.

Auld Lang Syne does something radical.

It says: before we move forward, let’s tell the truth about what’s been.

Not to relive it.
Not to blame.
But to integrate it.

That is how secure attachment is built. Not by pretending nothing hurt, but by remembering together without collapsing.

The Song Feels Sad And That’s the Point!

People often describe Auld Lang Syne as depressing or gloomy.

That discomfort is revealing.

Modern culture is obsessed with optimism without integration. New year, new you. Clean slate. No baggage. Positive vibes only.

But the human nervous system doesn’t work that way.

We don’t reset.
We accumulate.

This song allows grief to exist alongside gratitude. It makes space for joy that isn’t naïve. For hope that doesn’t deny cost.

At midnight, when time visibly turns, we are asked a quiet question:

Can you carry your past without being owned by it?

That is not sadness.
That is wisdom.

The beauty of Auld Lang Syne is that it doesn’t rush us.

It slows us down at the exact moment we are most tempted to speed up. It invites us to look sideways at the people next to us and backward at the road behind us before we step forward again.

It reminds us:

→ You are not starting from nothing
→ You are standing on everything that came before
→ What mattered still matters
→ And goodwill is a choice we can keep making

Relationships don’t move forward by erasing the past. They move forward by understanding it, honoring it, and choosing differently where needed.

That’s what this song has been quietly teaching for over two hundred years.

So when it plays again next year, and you realize you don’t know all the words, that’s okay.

You already know the meaning.

Take the hand next to you.
Take a breath.
Carry what mattered.
Step forward with kindness.

For auld lang syne.

01/02/2026

I checked the numbers again today, even though they haven’t changed in any way that actually matters.

2,852 weeks lived.
1,724 weeks left.
54 years and 34 weeks old.

Numbers are blunt. They don’t offer meaning. They don’t tell a story. They just point and wait for you to decide whether you’re going to pay attention.

I’ve always liked measuring life in weeks because weeks are honest. Years smooth things over. Weeks stack. They reveal patterns. They show where you repeated something long after you understood it. They show drift. They show discipline. They show what you practiced, not what you intended.

Weeks are the unit of becoming.

When I look back over the weeks I’ve lived, I don’t see one clean arc. I see phases of awareness. Weeks where I was performing a life instead of inhabiting it. Weeks where I confused intensity with depth, certainty with strength, improvement with wholeness.

I also see weeks of real work. Not new work. Ongoing work. The slow, often unglamorous kind. Weeks of noticing my own patterns instead of defending them. Weeks of choosing repair over righteousness. Weeks of staying present instead of disappearing into competence, intellect, or control.

I am done proving, this part of my life is about improving. To embrace growth, progress, and craft development. To sit in the seat of consciousness and observe, see the menu of choices, and direct the avatar.

There’s a difference.

Proving is about the avatar. The character I learned to play. The version of me optimized for approval, effectiveness, or survival. That avatar can be impressive. It can get results. It can even look like growth from the outside.

But improvement without deep self-awareness just builds a better mask.

The real work has been learning to stay connected to the self behind the character. The one doing the watching. The director, not the actor. The part of me that can notice when the nervous system is driving, when an old story is running, when a reaction is about history more than the present moment.

That’s where responsiveness lives.

Reaction belongs to the character.
Responsiveness belongs to the self.

Vulnerability lives there too. Not as exposure for effect, but as accuracy. The willingness to feel what’s actually happening without immediately turning it into performance, strategy, or certainty.

This isn’t about abandoning ambition or refinement. It’s about integrating them. Letting improvement serve authenticity instead of replacing it. Letting the avatar become a tool rather than the one in charge.

The older I get, the clearer it becomes that meaning isn’t found. It’s practiced. Weekly. In small moments most people never see. In pauses. In choices. In staying in the director’s chair when it would be easier to jump back on stage and manage perception.

1,724 weeks left isn’t a countdown. It’s a constraint. And constraints clarify.

I don’t want to spend my remaining weeks chasing validation or polishing a persona. I want to keep refining my capacity to respond rather than react. To improve without abandoning myself. To keep becoming who I actually am, not just a sharper version of who I learned to be.

The weeks ahead aren’t blank. They’re responsive. They will become whatever I repeat.

So this is the orientation I’m carrying into 2026.

Continued improvement, grounded in awareness.
Less proving, more presence.
A character in service of the true self.
More time in the director’s chair.

People like to say everything happens for a reason. It doesn’t. Things are going to happen. There is no grand director. Nature is chaotic, and chaos doesn’t imply design, meaning, or fairness. It simply implies movement.

What is ours is intention. What is ours is the story we tell ourselves about what happens. How we respond. What we practice. Who we decide to become in the aftermath.

We are not promised outcomes.
But we are responsible for authorship.

We are the masters of our fate.
The captains of our souls.

01/01/2026

and I rang in the new year. Started the night and ended the year Become who you are! “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” Jung #2026

01/01/2026

This year asked me to slow down.
To listen more carefully.
To choose depth over speed, truth over comfort, repair over performance.

I’m grateful for the couples who trusted me with their rawest moments.
For the sessions where clarity arrived late but stayed.
For the work that proved patterns can be seen, named, and changed.

I’m grateful for my friends.
The ones who stayed close.
The ones who challenged me.
The ones who knew when to speak and when to simply sit.

I’m deeply grateful for my daughters, each finding her way in her own time.
Watching them grow reminded me that direction matters more than speed, and that becoming is not linear.

I’m deeply grateful for my Grandson, Shy

I’m grateful for building Couple Forward not as a brand, but as a body of work.
Frameworks sharpened.
Language refined.
Tools created to make nervous system change practical, not abstract.

I’m grateful for mistakes that cost something.
They clarified my values.
They stripped away what was performative and left what was real.

I’m grateful for Amber.
For choosing resilience and repair.
For choosing the long arc when the short exits would’ve been easier.
She is the reason for my emotional growth and my muse.

I’m grateful for my own teachers, therapy, and mirrors.
For being challenged instead of comforted.
For learning where certainty was protection and where it could soften.

And I’m grateful for the dawn of AI.
Not as a shortcut, but as leverage.
A way to scale care, insight, and structure without diluting depth.
2026 feels like a threshold → where this work can reach further than my calendar ever could.

This year didn’t give me everything I wanted.
It gave me something better → clearer values, steadier footing, and work I’m proud to stand behind.

Here’s to forward motion.
Here’s to truth with tenderness.
Here’s to the next year, built on what actually lasts.

Christian

12/17/2025

12/14/2025

In the last month I’ve created so many apps. I can’t wait to launch this stuff in 2026. It genuinely feels like we’re living through one of those rare moments in history—like the printing press, the Enlightenment, or the birth of the internet—when the way humans think, build, and share knowledge quietly changes forever.

12/10/2025

12/06/2025

Workshop Time: Love Rewired.

11/27/2025

Gratitude isn’t a mood. It’s a way of paying attention to what’s already sustaining you. Gratitude doesn’t pretend life is easy. It reminds you that even in the hard parts, something is still holding you up.

11/03/2025

If a man carries a father wound, it often shows up in the smallest moments. He can’t have a hard conversation without getting defensive.

His partner ends up mothering him — not because she wants to, but because she’s dealing with the boy in him still fighting for his father’s approval.

Underneath that armor is unhealed rage at the criticism and control he grew up with. He wasn’t allowed to question it. And the less affection he received, the more obsessed he becomes with being respected now.

He thinks respect is earned through hard work and success. But that belief turns him into a machine — loyal to duty, analyzing everything, even her feelings.

So when she asks for emotional connection, it doesn’t feel like love. It feels like a threat — like she’s asking too much.

The path forward isn’t proving himself. It’s learning to father the younger part of himself. To shift from proving to improving.

When he does, the defensiveness fades. Peace takes root. And he finally knows he is enough — capable of meeting her need for emotional partnership without losing himself.