On this episode of Swoon Gina and Julie talk about closure, endings, break-ups and saying goodbye. They talk about how to know when it's time to say goodbye and how even when it's right to end something, it can still be really sad.

We are so incredibly grateful for your love and support the last four years! Thank you for sharing this experience with us and for making this podcast such a powerful and loving part of our work and our lives.

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Lots of people struggle to stay fully present during sexual connections with partners.  In this week's episode, Julie and Gina discuss how to stay in the moment amid a life filled with distraction.  

JOIN OUR MEMBERSHIP: Want a place to cultivate relationship skills with advice and coaching from two intimacy experts? Join Gina and Julie weekly at www.swoonwithus.com for the tips, tricks, and tools your mama didn't teach you.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS:

Dr. Gina Senarighi, Ph.D. CPC is a sexuality educator, author, and communication consultant specializing in healthy boundaries, passionate relationships, jealousy, and infidelity. Her most recent work has focused on helping entrepreneur couples and co-founders create healthy relationships at work. She supports non-traditional couples all over the world as a retreat leader and award-winning certified relationship coach.

Connect with Gina: www.heygina.com or on Instagram at @heyginasena

Julie Jeske, LPC is a sex and relationship counselor. She has a private practice where she helps clients increase intimacy, ignite passion, and deepen their connection to themselves and others. Julie especially loves to help women discover who they are sexually. Through counseling, online classes, or in-person retreats; her clients learn how to talk about their sexual and relationship desires, and explore ways to make them a reality.

Connect with Julie: ww.juliejeske.com or on Instagram at @julie_jeske

ACTION STEPS:

Join our patreon community patreon.com/swoonwithus.com  for our bonus episode on this topic AND all the handouts and episode notes we mention in the podcast.

BUY THE BOOK Love More Fight Less: A Relationship Workbook, Gina Senarighi https://amzn.to/3oeKTS

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Or is it? We know the holidays can be very stressful for a lot of people. Are feeling a little nervous about spending time with your family? Do you need some help getting clear about what you want during this busy time? Listen as Gina and Julie give you tips and tools to help you set healthy boundaries this holiday season.

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Everything went online last year, so we are sending our apologies this week that we didn't get to the topic of virtual sex a little sooner. But here we are- walking you through the pros and cons of online sex in today's episode of the Swoon Podcast.

Julie and Gina answer listener questions about staying in touch with exes, once a cheater always a cheater, and how long to wait until you get back in the dating game.

We don't focus enough attention on grief in our culture. In today's episode, Julie and Gina will break down what you need to know to help process grief in healthy ways.

Gina and Julie truly love helping people improve their lives from a strengths-based perspective. This wee they explore how to set intentions and clarify a vision for 2021 starting with one simple question: what do you want more of?

On today's show Julie and Gina talk you through creative ways to access pleasure in the pandemic new year.

In the spirit of gift-giving, Julie and Gina share their tips for giving great gifts to your love and a few of their favorite gifts for your sweetie this holiday season.

People try all kinds of wild ideas to save their relationships, today Julie and Gina talk through several of the most common ways couples try to make a save.

We love love, and we all love being loved. Tune in today to learn how to use the Five Love Languages to better communicate your love.

There are very well-known stages of relationship growth, today join Julie and Gina to learn where you are in the phases of relationship growth and what to do in each growing stage.

So many couples are coasting or going through the motions right now. This week, Julie and Gina talk about not only making sure you are on the same page with your partner, but also how to get clear about what you both want and then move toward that shared vision.

This week on Swoon, Gina and Julie created a special Q&A episode for our supporters on Patreon. If you didn't know this already, Swoon is completely funded by your support on Patreon. And one of the perks of joining us on Patreon is a bonus episode each month. This month we asked our patrons to send us their questions and we chose 2 for a bonus episode. We had so much fun answering these questions that we wanted to share one of the questions with our regular listeners too.

The listener asked about wanting a weekly sleep-over with the person they are dating. We talk about different desires around closeness and space and how to ask for the things you want/need.

You can hear the full episode on Patreon. Thank you so much for your support!

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Feeling disconnected or blah in your relationship? This week, Julie and Gina talk about ways to bring joy, pleasure and excitement into your life and relationship (even during a pandemic).

Desire fatigue was one of the very first topics Gina and Julie decided to talk about when they started this podcast because it's one of the biggest concerns facing long-lasting couples.  On today's show learn what desire fatigue is and what you can do about it.

We've been getting a lot of questions from listeners about how to navigate difference of political opinions in relationships, just in time for the US election this episode we invited Jeff to join us to talk about how political difference is impacting relationships.

Have you ever wanted to listen to couples and sex therapists' breakdown of the most successful romance reality show?  Well, Gina and Jeff finally convinced Julie to join Bachelor Nation.  Sit back and enjoy some lessons in romantic "real life" entertainment.

As the days get shorter and the nights grow colder, plenty of people start coupling up to weather the cold winter months. On this episode of Swoon, Julie and Gina discuss cuffing season and how to navigate dating and romance in the age of COVID.

Gina and Julie talk about your dwindling surge capacity during these crazy times and why it should matter to you. How is your depleted surge capacity impacting your relationships? What can you do to help weather this ongoing uncertainty?

Have you ever asked yourself if couples therapy actually helps? Are you a little skeptical about couples work? Let Julie and Gina talk through the reasons it "works" for some and not for others.

This week Julie and Gina get real about all the stress of handling parenting relationships with a partner and how exponentially challenging it is during week number 748 of the pandemic.

We’ve never met anyone who doesn’t want to be a good lover, but what does it really mean to center your partner’s pleasure in lovemaking?  Listen in this week and find out.

Do you want to be a sex educator, therapist or coach? Or have you wondered what a sex therapist or sex coach really does? On this episode Julie and Gina share more about their work and the paths they each took that lead to careers that make them swoon.

This week Gina and Julie are talking about “mommy issues”! “Mommy Issues” is a label that is thrown around (usually in a negative way). Julie and Gina are sharing what it means and some of the things that contribute to mommy issues (or daddy issues).

They also share examples of different ways mommy issues show up in relationships, tips for exploring and talking about mommy issues; and things that can help heal parenting wounds. Give it a listen and if you have more questions about mommy issues, daddy issues or parenting wounds you can submit your questions via Patreon.

Love Swoon? Support us on Patreon (and get extra goodies).

Want more Julie and Gina?

Join Gina and Julie for a special Relationship Maintenance Pre-Holiday Call on November 12.

Join our monthly membership group or take our classes.

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You know how hard it is for people to talk about sex? It can be even harder for some people to talk about money! Today Gina and Julie share some of the reasons money feels like such a taboo topic and then offer tips and tools to help you and your partner find ease and common ground when it comes to finances.

Having healthy relationships isn't just about romantic relationships.  The other intimate and meaningful relationships in our lives are essential to our well-being and to learning how to handle all relationships well.  Today Julie and Gina talk about a-romantic relationships and the heartbreaks that come from them.

It's hard to know what to do when you become exes.  What if you want to stay connected?  What if you absolutely don't? This week on Swoon, Gina and Julie talk about how to decide what you need moving forward form your exes.

Anxiety, stress and worry are common experiences, especially during a pandemic. This week on Swoon, Gina and Julie talk about how to best support your partner when they struggle with anxiety.

If you've never experienced depression it can be really hard to understand what your partner is going through when they do.  Today Julie and Gina will walk you through how to respond to your partner and support them when depression pays a visit.

In their combined 23 years as sex therapists Julie and Gina have seen a wide range of sexual interests. Today we're talking about some of the more creative dreams folks have and how exploring fantasy can help you connect more intimately.

Hey, Gina just published a workbook about communication. Today we're talking about it and which communication issues are the most important to address in relationships.

Desire is a critical part of being intimately connected in relationships. Julie and Gina discuss how normal desire concerns are with lots of different people, how to deal with a lack of desire, why desire comes so much more easily early in relationships and three different approaches to desire issues in relationships.

Shame is one of the greatest hurdles to connection and belonging in human relationships.  It's a huge problem in human intimacy, sexual expression, and relationship repair.  Tune in this week while Gina and Julie break down the barriers to connection.

One of the biggest reasons clients come to see us is “communication.” And often they share that what they really want is to feel heard and understood in their relationship. This week on Swoon, Julie and Gina help you learn how to be a better listener. 

This week Gina and Julie are talking about the balance of power in your relationship They are tackling division of labor, the invisible load, how you make decisions, who has power and who wants it.

On this episode they share signs that your power is getting out of balance. They also give you ideas about how to talk about power in your relationship to make sure you are on the same page and no one is developing resentment.

They are also hosting a Relationship Maintenance Pre-Holiday Call on November 12 that will explore the balance of power and getting on the same page as we head into the holiday season.

Love Swoon? Support us on Patreon (and get extra goodies).

Want more Julie and Gina?

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Julie and Gina continue their miniseries about how to have tricky conversations. This week they explore conversations about wanting to slow down your relationship and how to talk about exes and past relationships.

Julie, Gina and Jeff, three white mental health professionals talk about how they, and other white therapists, can support the black lives matter movement. The three of them discuss why it's important to show up, even imperfectly, instead of not showing up at all. They share their experiences talking to family members that need to be educated. They provide white counselors with resources to educate themselves and much more. 

Julie and Gina continue to share skills and tools for tricky conversations. This week they explore how to tell your partner you want to go to couples counseling/coaching and how to talk about your STI/STD status.

On this episode of Swoon, Julie and Gina share tips and tools for asking for what you want sexually. They give examples of what often goes wrong and then model different ways to ask for what you want so that all of your fantasies come true.

We're changing things up a bit for the next two episodes of Swoon. Today and next week Julie and Gina will talk through some of the more difficult conversations couples face and give you real-life examples of what to say in tricky situations.

May is International Masturbation Month! On this episode of Swoon, Julie and Gina answer listeners' questions about masturbation and also talk about all of the benefits of self pleasure.

How much time, energy, and money do you spend on couples work before giving up?

How to know when fighting to fix a marriage/relationship turns desperate & destructive?

Is divorce inevitable for some marriages or are all relationships salvageable?

How do you handle pursuer/avoider (or distance/pursuer) dynamic in relationships?

What's the difference between asking for reassurance from a partner vs. asking for consent?

Julie and Gina answer listener questions about polyamory and nonmonogamy. 

Questions:

1. Tips for maintaining primary relationships during non-monogamy
2. How to manage time in a poly relationship so all partners feel their best?
3. How do you work through jealousy?
4. How to stay feeling connected when your partner is with their other partner(s)?
5. Tips for the “other” person or non-primary partner to stay sane and strong

Julie and Gina welcome Jeff back on the show to talk about penises. They discuss what to do about erectile dysfunction, how to respond if your partner's penis isn't doing what you hoped, and they address the age old question, does size really matter?

Questions:

1. Help! I'm living alone right now. How do I cope?
2. In the age of a pandemic, how can I get touch and non-sexual affection? 
3. I am living in a small space. How can I find time to appreciate my partner?
4. Can I get some tips for communicating with my partner in a small space?
5. How do you keep it fresh during quarantine times? 

This week Julie and Gina are talking about romance! They are feeling extra swoony as they chat about what makes romance so delightful. They both hear from a lot of people who want more romance in their relationships and feel like things aren't quite as sparkly as they were in the beginning of their relationships.

On this episode they talk about what makes it so hard to embrace romance and why so many people wish their partner could read their mind. They also explore different flavors of romance and give you tangible ideas about how you can add more romance to your life whether you are in a relationship or single.

Love Swoon? Support us on Patreon (and get extra goodies).

Want more Julie and Gina?

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Today we are focusing on people who are living together and managing all sorts of things while we are in a pandemic. Are you feeling stuck? Exhausted? Depleted? We also offer suggestions for people who are transitioning out of a relationship or newly single during this strange time we have all found ourselves in.

On today's episode of Swoon, Gina and Julie talk about dating during this weird new world we are living in. They offer information so you can discern if you want to start dating right now, and offer tips and tools if you are in the beginning stages of a relationship. They also answer listeners' questions about dating in the time of Covid-19.

Get intimate (or into it) with vulvas, vaginas, clitoris, and labia. At least half our listeners have (or need to have) intimate relationship with these parts. Today Julie and Gina give a little sex parts overview.