My Husband and I Tried Modern Intimacy to Ensure Our Second Marriage Is Our Last

My husband and I have both been married before, gotten divorced, and are now well into a second marriage. The stakes for “making it work” seem higher for us since second marriages fail at a higher rate than first ones. Combining bank accounts, debts, and children from two separate lives (not to mention the presence of former spouses) tends to pile on top of regular life stress and bubble over if not attended to diligently. We both learned lessons in our previous marriages that made us extra cautious in this one—for example, don’t wait to go to therapy until separation is inevitable.

Our prior marriages taught us that minor issues that are allowed to fester can become all-encompassing. We’ve also learned over the last decade of our marriage that tension-causing issues have the potential to blow up faster this time around. Since we know all too well the emotional toll separation and divorce take, we agreed to be more proactive and less reactive when things arise. Perhaps it’s because we carry some of the scars of our prior relationships or maybe we’re older and more set in our ways. In any event, we have worked extra hard this time around to keep our relationship as strong as possible.

My marriage is in a good place for the most part, but several impending life events are already triggering some intense feelings for one or both of us. I thought it best to find a professional therapist to provide some guidance before things get bad and our relationship starts to suffer. Between the demands of work and kids, we needed an online option to fit therapy into our schedules.

This is where Modern Intimacy came in. Online couples and sex therapists like its founder, Kate Balestrieri, PsyD, claim to help people identify and change negative thoughts and behaviors that may interfere with a happy sex life. After reading some reviews and perusing the company’s blog, my husband and I decided to try Modern Intimacy. While skeptical at first (and newbies to sex therapy), we came out of the process in an even stronger place than before we started.

How I Signed Up and Started Scheduling Sessions

The Modern Intimacy website is sleek and clean—looking more like a luxury lifestyle publication than a therapy service—but that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of information. The site has lots of free resources, like a blog and podcast. You can read (and hear) all about Modern Intimacy’s services, such as individual therapy, couples therapy, and co-parenting therapy, as well as its areas of specialization, such as betrayal trauma and infidelity, sexual dysfunction, ethical non-monogamy, and sex or porn addiction. Other offerings include coaching services and six-week intimacy courses.

While perusing the website, I kept getting the prompt to schedule a free 30-minute intake evaluation call. The website popped out a calendar that let me choose from available timeslots for the evaluation. I booked one that fit my schedule.

A few days later, I spoke with the intake specialist, who took my information and asked me some questions to find out what type of services I needed. I gave her some basic insight into our family, our marriage, and where I believed we could use help to make things better. The intake specialist was engaging, asked me relevant questions, and allowed me time to formulate answers. She also asked which times and days worked best for us to participate in therapy so she could match us with a therapist with the right availability. Toward the end of the conversation, she recommended a therapist she believed fit our needs.

This more customized matching process was a definite benefit over other telehealth services I’ve tried, which match people with therapists based on forms and algorithms rather than personal interaction. It felt like a therapy concierge service.

We opted to do a session every other week and could book our first one as soon as one week following the consultation. This quick availability was a big positive for us since in-person therapy (and some online platforms) don’t typically have openings that soon after sign-up.

How Therapy Sessions Work

Modern Intimacy does not have a patient portal. Video sessions are conducted via SimplePractice, a HIPAA-compliant videoconferencing platform. We received a SimplePractice link in an email from Modern Intimacy; we could also access this link on the SimplePractice website. We found the video platform easy to navigate and didn’t run into any technical issues (at least none that we noticed). We had three sessions over the course of a month.

Our sessions were held in the evening to accommodate our schedules. We could have changed the time if it didn’t work by simply telling our therapist or sending an email message to the intake specialist we communicated with initially. Had we wanted to switch therapists, we would have also contacted intake again, either by phone or email.

My husband and I participated together in the same room as if we were attending an in-person session.

Our therapist established a good foundation right away by sharing some of their backstory and expertise, as well as setting the stage for what we could expect from session to session. 

Like most therapists at Modern Intimacy, ours specializes in helping couples reconnect emotionally and physically after a disconnect. This disconnect could be caused by things like external factors (life transitions, stress, etc.), mental health issues (depression, anxiety, etc.), biological changes (hormones), or medical conditions (erectile dysfunction, impotence, etc.). These issues often overlap, and one of the main purposes of sex therapy is to help a couple unravel all the factors contributing to the distancing.

The first session of any kind of therapy is always the history and current complaints kind of thing, and this was no exception. Obviously, when it comes to couples therapy with a sex therapist, the questions about sex life and satisfaction come up in that same first session. Again, our complaints didn't necessarily center around that, just a general "we need to find ways to get a little closer so we don't drift too far apart" and there is always a measure of physical distance in that.

Our therapist was very knowledgeable and extremely good at getting us to be honest about the stuff that wasn't working for each of us without it causing problems after the session ended (everyone's worst-case scenario in couple's therapy, I imagine). Talking about sex did get easier for us by even the second session because we understood fairly quickly that the awkwardness we felt was more about our innate bias when it comes to sex talk (common, we learned, for those of us who grew up in conservative/modest homes where talk of such things was unheard of).

Our sessions gave us great insight into some of the things we were doing well in our marriage and a few that we could improve upon. For instance, the way we handle conflict is not always ideal. We don’t fight but tend to dismiss issues to avoid a confrontation.

We hadn’t thought about this before. But, once we’d worked out some better ways to communicate with each other in those moments of elevated anger or frustration (techniques such as using “I” statements to inform the other when we were feeling hurt or sad without it coming off as an attack), the tone in our home changed. What we already thought was going well felt even better after some practice.

Our therapist also gave us homework to do between sessions, but none of it centered around sex. Everything we did in the session and outside was meant to bring us closer together mentally and emotionally. even the touching activities. I think the most beneficial assignment for us was aimed at making us better active listeners. (One of my biggest pet peeves about my husband is that he always seems to be scrolling his phone, even when we're talking. One of his complaints about me was that I interrupt when he talks.)

Our homework was to take turns letting the other talk for five minutes while actively listening and not chiming in. Super hard! Eventually, we built up to 15 minutes of uninterrupted talking, which is not necessarily always easy to do from either side. but it's something we are getting better at doing even a month later.

Sensory homework included touching more in non-sexual ways. We are super affectionate anyway and didn't really have many problems doing this. But I know that other couples can be less touchy-feely than we are, so holding hands for, say, five minutes every evening, or giving/receiving a back rub without expectation of sex may be more relevant for others who are out of practice. But it was nice to say, "it's time to do our touching homework" because that usually meant he brushed my hair or I rubbed his shoulders for a set amount of time. Being close is never a bad thing.

Pros and Cons

Our experience with Modern Intimacy was pleasant at every step. While I was put off by the idea of a telephone consultation at first, the intake specialist made what could have been an awkward process painless. I believe this conversation went a long way to matching us with a therapist we could connect with right away. That said, there were some cons to our experience as well.

Final Thoughts

After trying Modern Intimacy for four weeks, I am thrilled with the results and believe my husband and I are well on the way to an even stronger connection. Our therapist was able to get to the root of some of our relationship issues and gave us thoughtful insight into how we could start course-correcting to ensure we stayed emotionally and physically connected.

Through a series of conversations with a trained professional, we now have a better sense of the elements in our relationship that we can work to improve. A traditional couples therapy platform may have helped, but we may not have felt as safe discussing some of the more sensitive details of our relationship with someone who wasn’t a sex therapist.

Modern Intimacy was not included in our user survey, so I cannot compare my experience with those of others. But I believe the company has aligned itself to provide high-quality sex-positive therapy services to any individual or couple looking for help. There are some notable drawbacks, namely limited national availability and high cost; however, those who can afford to take advantage of Modern Intimacy’s services (and have it available in their state) may find the experience worth the expense.