Questions for couples

There is more possible than most couples think, and a threesome is far from always where it ends up. Often it starts smaller: someone there who only watches, or an evening where she gets the attention and he sits beside it.

Other directions: going together to a swingers club with guidance, so you do not walk in as a twosome and get looked at right away. A tantra session together. A scenario you think up beforehand and I carry out. Or an overnight stay where nothing has to happen and there is only time.

What works does not depend on how daring it is but on whether it makes you both a little nervous. That is the only measure I know.

An evening or night with a gigolo along, a gift to the two of you. For an anniversary, a birthday, or simply because a rough year has something to make up for. It is a lot more original than a dinner voucher.

You can also arrange it as a voucher without setting a date yet, so the one who receives it chooses the moment themselves. That works better than a surprise with a fixed evening, because this is not a gift you want to catch someone off guard with.

One condition: both of you have to want it. A gift that is really one person’s wish shows on the evening itself. So talk about it beforehand, even if that costs you the surprise.

Yes, and it happens more often than you think. I work with women on their own as well as with couples, and there is no couple surcharge: booking together costs the same as booking alone.

It goes calmly. Beforehand we discuss your wishes and limits, each named separately, because they rarely line up exactly. During the evening you set the pace; I steer along and watch whether everyone is still really present.

The evening almost always starts with simply sitting and talking, even when you have something clear in mind. That half hour takes more tension out of the air than any agreement on paper. That is not wasted time; that is the run-up.

Yes. Your partner can be there and watch without joining in, or take part after all. You decide that together, beforehand.

Some couples book a gigolo for her while he watches. Others join in together. There is also an in-between form where he starts by watching and slides in later, and that may change along the way as long as you both say so.

Beforehand I want to know what the plan is, not because it is fixed but because watching without an agreement often turns out more awkward than expected. Whoever sits on the couch without a role starts thinking. Whoever has an agreed role, even if it is ‘only watching’, does not.

That fire rarely comes back from trying harder. It comes back the moment something happens that you did not see coming, and that is exactly what almost never happens anymore in a long relationship.

That is no reproach. You have built a life together with little that is unexpected in it, and that was the whole idea. Only, desire lives on the opposite: on not knowing what is coming.

So what helps is not another conversation and not another weekend away to the same kind of place. What helps is one situation in which you see each other as someone separate again, instead of as the person sitting next to you. What that looks like in practice differs from couple to couple.

Yes, and you are certainly not the only ones in it. Only, another weekend in the Ardennes does not break a rut. For that, something has to happen that truly falls outside your pattern, and by definition that feels a little scary.

The test I use is simple. If you have to talk it over beforehand, you are on the right track. If it immediately seems like a fun idea that makes no one nervous, it is probably just a night out.

That conversation beforehand is, by the way, often already half the effect. Many couples say afterward that in the run-up they talked more openly with each other than they had in months.

Attraction comes back the moment you see your partner as someone separate again. Not as the person who empties the dishwasher.

In a house full of shopping lists, calendars and arrangements about who picks up the kids, that almost never happens on its own. Not because something is wrong, but because you see each other in the same role all day and that role simply is not erotic.

What works is a situation in which those roles do not apply for a while, and preferably one that does not take place in your own house. Talking alone usually does not get through here: it is not about understanding, because that is there. It is about seeing something new.

By making a moment for it again that stands completely apart from home. As long as sex has to compete with kids, laundry baskets and a head that never switches off, it always loses. That says nothing about your relationship.

The tricky part is that the standard solution, ‘just schedule it’, does not work for many couples, because an appointment in the calendar looks just like a task. What does work is being away: a hotel, an evening, a night where no one needs you.

And count on the run-up. For almost every couple the first two hours go to winding down. Reckon with time for that, otherwise you sit waiting for something to happen.

No, it is not weird, and handled well it does not harm your relationship. Often it actually strengthens it, and that rarely comes from the evening itself: it comes from what you have to say to each other beforehand.

Many couples talk more openly in the run-up than they did in months. About what they miss, what they want, what they are afraid of. That conversation would never have come up without a reason.

Where it goes wrong is when one of the two goes along to please the other. I usually notice that within ten minutes, and then I simply name it, even if that means the evening does not go ahead. Making agreements beforehand keeps jealousy small and trust big.

Start with what you want to feel, not with what you want to do. If you say right away that you want to book a gigolo, your partner mainly hears that you are missing something and that he falls short. Then the conversation becomes about that, and no longer about you.

If you say that you want to feel desired again and that you are curious, a conversation gets going instead of a defense. The concrete details can always come later.

Choose your moment too. Not right after sex, not right before sleep, and not when something else is going on. A walk works better than a conversation at the table, because walking side by side talks more easily than sitting across from each other.

Partly, yes, and that is exactly why we do not dive straight in. Before anything is in the calendar we write back and forth, and many couples want to call first or grab a coffee with the three of us.

You usually sense enough there. Not whether sparks will fly, but whether it is relaxed, and that second thing matters more: chemistry that is not there you can survive, awkwardness you cannot.

And if it disappoints on the evening itself, we stop. That is no disaster and it does not have to become a complicated conversation. Pushing through because it is booked never produces anything anyone is happy about.

By speaking it out together before the date, and separately from each other. In the introductory conversation you both name what is allowed, what is not, and where the limit lies. Even if that is different for each of you, because that is the rule more than the exception.

I sum it up afterward, so no misunderstanding is left and no one remembers something different on the evening itself. The consent form each of you fills in yourself.

What often gets forgotten: agree on how you stop, too. One word that you both know brings everything to an immediate halt, without explanation and without anything being said about it.

No. Cheating is by definition something you do behind your partner’s back. If it happens with his or her knowledge and consent, then it is not, however uncomfortable the word keeps sounding.

If your partner knows and wants it, booking a gigolo is a shared choice. That is a different kind of decision than deceit, and in practice it also asks more of you: deceit only asks for secrecy, this asks for a conversation.

Where it does go crooked is with half-knowing. ‘He knows I am doing something but not what’ is not consent. Then it is a postponement of the same conversation.

I understand that fear well, and in practice it almost never turns out that way. An evening with me is an experience, not a comparison. I am there for a few hours. You have been there for years, and you will be tomorrow too.

What does happen is that some jealousy comes along, and that is not bad. A little jealousy is part of it and usually means something is at stake that you find important. It only becomes a problem when you tuck it away.

So talk about it beforehand, even if you are ashamed of it. I ask about it myself in the pre-conversation, and with my background as a psychotherapist I usually hear it when someone is reassuring themselves.

By not doing it right away. Just after it ends everyone is still full of impressions, and then you easily say something you would have phrased very differently a day later. Sleep on it first.

After that, start with what it did to you, not with what you saw in the other. ‘I was startled by how much I liked it’ is a conversation. ‘You seemed pretty enthusiastic’ is a reproach with a question mark after it.

And keep in mind that a day or two later one of you may hit a dip. That is normal after intense closeness and it says nothing about the evening. You are welcome to just message me in those days.