What happens when your partner refuses therapy, refuses to talk, and refuses to change- but divorce isn’t on the table?

In Part 2 of our special replay from Taboo to Truth, we’re once again turning the tables on Dr. Jenni and Daniel, as they continue their candid conversation with friend and fellow podcast host, Karen Bigman.

We’re incredibly grateful to Karen for generously allowing us to share this two-part conversation with our Sex and the Psyche listeners and give you a chance to hear Jenni and Daniel from the other side of the microphone.

This time, the conversation goes even deeper into what can slowly kill desire in long-term relationships- and what couples can realistically do when they feel stuck.

Jenni and Daniel talk about how to express your needs when your partner isn't willing to budge, why stagnation- not necessarily incompatibility, can be one of the biggest threats to a couple’s sex life, and how to tell your partner you're bored in bed without completely crushing their confidence.

They also unpack the “Madonna-whore complex” and the love-lust split, explore why menopause and postpartum can become significant periods of sexual stagnation, and get refreshingly personal about what it’s like to navigate intimacy when you're both married and sex therapists.

And they tackle an important question about relationships and gender roles: Why do so many men defer to women when it comes to being the “relationship expert,” and what happens when both partners take responsibility for understanding and nurturing their connection?

It’s honest, vulnerable, sometimes uncomfortable- and exactly the kind of conversation we love having on Sex and the Psyche.

A huge thank-you to Karen Bigman and Taboo to Truth for sharing this conversation with us.

If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, go back and start there!

And be sure to check out Taboo to Truth wherever you listen to podcasts.

Follow Karen Bigman:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taboototruth

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@taboototruth

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taboototruth/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenbigman

Website: http://taboototruth.com

Substack: https://karenbigman.substack.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when one partner wants sex and the other doesn’t?

Mismatched desire- or desire discrepancy is one of the most common issues Dr. Jenni Skyler and Daniel Lebowitz see among couples, and it’s a topic they’re asked about again and again.

For this special episode of Sex and the Psyche, we’re turning the tables and putting Jenni and Daniel in the hot seat!

Our friend Karen Bigman, host of Taboo to Truth, generously invited Jenni and Daniel onto her podcast for a candid conversation about desire discrepancy, intimacy, shame, and the challenges couples face when their libidos don't match. We’re so grateful to Karen for allowing us to replay this conversation here on Sex and the Psyche, giving our listeners a chance to hear Jenni and Daniel as guests and get a behind-the-scenes look at how they answer the questions they’re usually the ones asking.

In this first part of the two-part conversation, Jenni and Daniel explore why desire discrepancy happens, what it can look like in long-term relationships, and why the partner with lower desire is never simply “the problem.” They also talk about why some men shut down or go silent when they’re struggling sexually, how shame can take over in the bedroom, and how the right words can open the door to a much more honest and compassionate conversation between partners.

A huge thank-you to Karen Bigman and Taboo to Truth for sharing this conversation with our Sex and the Psyche audience.

Be sure to listen to Part 2 for more of Jenni and Daniel in the hot seat!

And while you're at it, check out Taboo to Truth wherever you listen to podcasts. You may discover your next favorite show!

Follow Karen Bigman

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taboototruth

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@taboototruth

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taboototruth/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenbigman

Website: http://taboototruth.com

Substack: https://karenbigman.substack.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if someone had actually taught you how to have a great relationship?

While Sex and the Psyche takes a short production break, we're bringing back some of the conversations our listeners connected with most. In this Encore Episode, we revisit our conversation with Zach and Sally Maxwell and explore The Relationship Framework Nobody Taught You.

Relationships don't come with an instruction manual. Most of us learn how to communicate, navigate conflict, build intimacy, and stay connected by trial and error—and sometimes by making a whole lot of mistakes along the way.

Zach and Sally offer a fresh perspective on the skills and framework that can help couples better understand each other, communicate more effectively, and create a stronger, more connected relationship.

Whether you heard this conversation the first time around or you're discovering it for the first time, this is one worth revisiting.

Take another listen, share it with someone you love, and remember: a better relationship starts with better conversations.

New episodes of Sex and the Psyche return soon. Until then, enjoy this Encore Conversation—and keep your questions coming!

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok and please DM us with your questions!

Guest Information:

sally@max-wellcoaching.com

https://www.max-wellcoaching.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You asked. We answered. And apparently, you wanted to hear more.

While Sex and the Psyche takes a short production break, we're bringing back some of your favorite conversations, and we're starting with one of our most downloaded episodes.

In this Encore Episode, Jenni and Daniel tackle the questions about sex, relationships, and intimacy that people are often too embarrassed, curious, or nervous to ask out loud.

We dive into small penis size, casual sex, sexual rejection, and why rejection can cut so deeply. We answer these questions with honesty, humor, compassion, and a little science along the way.

Whether you missed this conversation the first time or you're ready to hear it again, there's something here for everyone. Because sometimes the questions we're most hesitant to ask are the ones we're all wondering about.

Listen, laugh, learn...and remember: you're probably not the only one asking.

New episodes of Sex and the Psyche return soon. Until then, enjoy this Encore Conversation, and keep your questions coming. Yours might be next!

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok and please DM us with your questions!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Department of Defense made headlines when it announced plans to test testosterone levels in active military members. The debate that followed was loud, political, and almost entirely missed the point.

Jenni and Daniel are not interested in the political conversation. They are interested in the clinical one, and in this episode they take a current news story and do what they do best: strip away the noise and get to what actually matters.

They start with the basics. Testosterone is not simply a marker of masculinity- it is a marker of health. Vitality. Mood. Cognitive clarity. The capacity to make good decisions under pressure. Too high creates its own problems. Too low, which is far more common, particularly in high-stress, sleep-deprived environments like military service, produces depression, fatigue, irritability, and a creeping sense that something is fundamentally off. Daniel's phrase for it, borrowed from their recent conversation with Dr. Rachel Rubin, says it precisely: I don't feel like myself.

But the number alone tells you almost nothing. A reading of 450 might have one man feeling like he's on top of the world and another quietly falling apart. Context matters. Individual baseline matters. And the systems surrounding that number- sleep, stress, relationships, mental health, nutrition and physical strength matter as much as the hormone itself. Testing testosterone without addressing those systems is, as Daniel puts it, throwing a pill at a very complex situation.

Jenni brings women into the conversation and makes the case that hormonal testing is not a male-only issue. She shares her own experience discovering her testosterone was in the basement despite being a muscular, physically active person, and explains why estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone together form the constellation that optimizes women's physical, sexual, and mental health. She makes the point that neither testosterone nor estrogen belongs exclusively to one gender- men need estrogen, women need testosterone, and balance is individual, not categorical.

Daniel ties it back to the bio-psychosocial model- the framework that Jenni and Daniel have built their entire clinical practice around. You can test the biology. But if the psychology is suffering (anxiety, depression, unprocessed trauma) and the social dimension is broken, (relationships in conflict, connection absent isolation growing), the biology will follow. Each system pulls on the others. Fix the sleep and the testosterone improves. Improve the testosterone and the irritability decreases. Decrease the irritability and the relationship gets better. The relationship getting better reduces stress. The stress reduction improves sleep. You pull one string and it moves another one.

They close with the thing that surprises most people when they say it out loud: the antidote to stress is connection. Not a supplement. Not a number. Not a protocol. The ratio of connection to disconnection in your life is one of the most powerful health metrics available- and it's the one almost nobody tracks.

This episode is for veterans and first responders. It's for anyone who has wondered why they don't feel like themselves. It's for women who have never been told to test their testosterone. It's for men who didn't know that low testosterone looks like depression. And it's for anyone who has been waiting for someone to say that their relationships, their sleep, their stress load, and their hormones are not separate conversations- they are one conversation, and it starts here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sally and Zach Maxwell introduced eight pillars. Jenni and Daniel spent the next number of days talking about all of them.

This bonus episode is what happens when two therapists who are also married to each other sit down to unpack a framework that resonated deeply- finding the places where the Maxwell pillars align with their own clinical work, the places where they want to push further, and the places where an entirely new conversation opens up.

The first thread is about why frameworks matter at all. Daniel makes the case that most couples stumble into relationship rather than building it intentionally, and that having named categories for what you're working on is not cold or clinical. It is the scaffolding that allows the emotional, spontaneous, genuinely alive parts of a relationship to exist without collapsing under their own weight. Jenni responds with a vision of the Maxwell pillars printed on the refrigerator, a cheat sheet for the OCD brain, the ADD brain, and every brain that has ever been in a relationship and lost the thread of where the conversation was supposed to be going.

The second thread is about authenticity, and it starts with Jenni noticing something about Zach Maxwell. He is not fluffy or effusive. He doesn't do the rom-com version of showing up. And yet he is clearly exactly the right person for Sally. Daniel's answer is one of the most quietly important things he says in any episode this season: what matters is not that you show up the way your partner imagines you should. It's that you show up wholeheartedly in your own way, because a partner performing someone else's version of love is not actually giving you love at all. Your partner can feel the difference. Every time.

The third thread is the one that deserves its own full episode, and Jenni says so directly. Sex as a transaction. Not the dismissive, joyless version of that phrase. The genuinely useful reframe: I am going to offer you pleasure, and in exchange you are going to offer me pleasure. And if you can surrender to that- if you can allow yourself to be present in the transaction rather than resentful of it, something shifts.

This leads to Daniel's homework assignment built around a car dealership analogy that somehow perfectly captures everything. The narrative you bring to a transaction determines the experience you have of it. Where in your relationship are you walking in convinced you're going to get the short end of the stick? And what would shift if you walked in grateful instead?

And it leads to the line that became the title of this episode. How many women have sat across from Jenni in her office and said some version of: I feel like I'm just a receptacle. Like he's using me. And Jenni's clinical response, delivered with complete warmth and zero apology is the truest and funniest reframe she has: he can masturbate with his hand. He is choosing you because he wants connection with you. He likes you. And your vagina. And those two things are allowed to coexist.

This is Jenni and Daniel at their most themselves. Thinking out loud, finishing each other's sentences, disagreeing slightly, and landing somewhere true.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Karen Bigman's path to becoming a menopause sex educator is one of the most unexpectedly compelling origin stories we've heard on this podcast. She started in technology. She raised children. She worked in restaurants. And then, in her early 50s, newly separated after a 25-year marriage and struggling to orgasm with a new partner, she found her way to a sexual medicine practice run by Dr. Bat Sheva Marcus, where a nurse practitioner handed her a little blue bullet vibrator, suggested she try it in the next room, and Karen came back five minutes later saying "you just changed my life".

That moment is the seed of everything Karen has built since. Her platform, Taboo to Truth, is dedicated to dismantling the two most pervasive myths she encounters in her work: that sex is something people stop having at a certain age, and that it's a topic too taboo to discuss openly. Her course, Men Meet Menopause, is built on the radical premise that male partners, often the most confused and the most shut out from the conversation, deserve their own education, their own language, and their own practical tools for showing up during one of the most significant transitions their partner will experience.

In this episode, Karen joins Jenni and Daniel for a conversation that covers a remarkable amount of ground with warmth, humor, and genuine clinical depth. They dig into why menopause remains under-discussed even in 2026, the lingering shadow of the Women's Health Initiative, the male reluctance to name what they're observing, the shame women carry about bodies that are changing in ways they didn't expect. Daniel introduces the compassion sandwich, leading with care rather than observation, as the reframe that changes how every difficult conversation lands. Karen talks about the five pillars underlying sexual disconnection in midlife couples, and what it looks like when one of them wobbles.

Jenni brings in the Cheesecake of Pleasure- her clinical framework for expanding a couple's repertoire beyond intercourse as the only available flavor, and the conversation around grief, creativity, and what it means to look forward to something bigger than what you're losing becomes one of the richest exchanges of the season. Karen's concept of sex snacks sits beautifully alongside it. Both frameworks point to the same clinical truth: when intercourse is temporarily or permanently off the table, the answer is not resignation. It's creativity. It's building a palette of pleasure that belongs to this season rather than mourning the one that's passed.

Karen closes with the line that may be the most important thing in the episode: don't give up. Don't accept the myth that this is done. Don't believe that sex is only for young people or for other people or for the version of your relationship that existed before all of this. The research shows that women over 60 can have the best sex of their lives if they want. The invitation: for women navigating menopause and for the partners who love them, is to join the journey together and find out what's on the other side.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is the conversation that happened after the conversation.

Part one of our Deb Rubin episode covered the foundations: why sexuality is not an emergency, the three things that make kids stop talking to you, and the difference between sexuality and sexualization. This part two episode picks up exactly where that left off, and goes somewhere most parenting conversations don't.

The first thread is clothing. Specifically: what do you actually do when your middle schooler comes downstairs in something that makes your stomach drop? Deb walks us through the questions she loves. Not the panicked parental reaction, but the slow, deliberate, genuinely curious questions that keep the conversation open rather than slamming it shut. Is it weather appropriate? Does it fit? Does it feel comfortable? Is it right for the occasion? And underneath all of those: is my reaction coming from a fear, or from a responsibility?

She also names something that most parents are thinking and nobody says out loud: people make a quick snapshot decision based on how you look. Not fair. Not right. But true, and worth telling your kid directly, without judgment, so they can factor it into their own deliberate choices rather than discovering it the hard way.

The second thread is social media. Deb waited until her daughters were fourteen before allowing any social media at all. She was strict about time limits and relaxed about content, believing that her job was to manage the dopamine delivery mechanism, not to surveil everything her kids were consuming. And then, in junior year, she removed the limits entirely. Not because the concern was gone, but because she had two years left under her roof to let her daughter practice managing herself and discover, on her own, whether she needed limits at all. Her daughter put them back on after a month.

That story, (the limits removed, the daughter who reinstated them herself) is the emotional and clinical centerpiece of part two of our conversation with Deb Rubin. Because it illustrates everything Deb has been saying across both conversations: the goal is not control. The goal is critical thinking. The goal is a kid who, when left to their own devices, reaches for what actually serves them.

Jenni closes the episode with a clinical frame that Deb immediately said she was going to steal: the dopamine toolbox. When electronics are the only source of dopamine in a child's life, the consequences are significant and well-documented. The invitation, for kids and for the adults raising them, is to build a diverse toolbox of dopamine sources. Movement. Connection. Creative work. Real-world competence. Not instead of screens, but alongside them, so that the pull of any single source never becomes the whole story.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.