The way to find out what the relationship is capable of is to push yourself up against the question of can I choose this person?

Can I stop resenting what the marriage has never been,

and imagining this life where I could have had something else,

and instead love this person.

The challenge is that we want to be loved,

and then we manage our disappointment when we're not

being loved by not loving. Welcome to Conversations with Dr. Jennifer, a collection of interviews on the topics of relationships, sexuality, and more, all featuring Dr Finlason Fife.

We just came back from the Art of Desire, so We did a live women's event in Hillsborough, Oregon, which was awesome. We had such a good time.

And we are in three weeks going to be doing a couple's event also in Hillsborough, which is kind of the

Tuscany of America, rolling beautiful hills. And so we're going to be doing a strengthening your

relationship event which is a Thursday Friday and Saturday Christie what are those

dates? It's on the 24th in the morning but it it starts early in the morning, so you want to be in town on the 23rd.

Then the event is up over 24th through 30th.

Yep. Thursday, Friday, Saturday is the couples event. Then Sunday we have off and then Monday, Tuesday,

Wednesday is the Enhancing Sexual Intimacy event and you can come to both, make a week of it, or you can come to either if you want to just come for three days.

So I love these events. We do one of these every year and they are just a really good way to take a deep dive on your relationship and put aside the work

and the kids and the distractions and have some really focused time to look at what are we doing as a couple

what's interfering with the level of emotional or sexual intimacy that we feel how could we grow into better friends. So this is really, you know, those of you who follow me, I really teach a developmental approach to intimacy that that is to say love and intimacy is something we become more capable of as we grow as we are

willing to self-confront, repent, evolve, choose to love, something we'll be talking about today. And this is a deliberate process and the more we can

understand our role in our troubles, the more freed up we are to actually grow into someone more capable of an intimate marriage.

So it's not a pathology frame, it's really a growth frame, and so I think people find some relief in the idea that I'm not

broken, abnormal, other people struggle in similar ways because you think about the

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