🎧 Episode 18: Sex & Intimacy While Trying to Conceive: Reconnecting With Desire | Dr. Alexandra Stockwell
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Introduction
In this episode of The WOVA Circle Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Alexandra Stockwell — a physician turned relationship and intimacy coach, and author of Uncompromising Intimacy. After years of building a "successful partnership" with her husband that somehow never became a passionate one, Alexandra went on a mission to figure out why love and time together aren't enough to keep a relationship alive.
Now, decades later, she's helped countless couples rewrite the tired old rulebook that says great relationships are built on compromise. Spoiler: they're not.
Whether you're newly married, deep in the trenches of a fertility journey, or just feeling a little "numb" in your relationship, this conversation is full of real, usable tools — not vague advice.
What You'll Learn in This Episode
Why "successful partnership" and "passionate marriage" are not the same thing — and how to tell which one you're in
Why traditional relationship advice to "compromise" might actually be creating distance, not closeness
The six skills behind Uncompromising Intimacy, and why being kind matters as much as being honest
Why most relationship struggles aren't a communication problem — they're a role model problem
Three concrete tools for staying connected while trying to conceive, including how to ask for the response you actually need
What the "Conscious Redo" is and how to use it to break repetitive fights for good
Why emotional safety is often the real fix for a stalled sex life
A simple daily practice for reconnecting with pleasure — no bedroom required
⏱ Listen time: 62 minutes 🎧 Format: Video & Audio 📍 Best for: Couples who feel more like roommates than romantic partners, anyone navigating the emotional toll of trying to conceive, and people ready to trade "compromise" for real connection.
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Podcast Transcript
Meet Dr. Alexandra Stockwell
Gabie: Today I'm talking to Alexandra Stockwell. She's a physician who turned into a relationship and intimacy coach, and I just finished reading her book, Uncompromising Intimacy — I've also been actively using her app, so I feel like I already know you. I've even been using your advice in my own relationship. Super excited to talk to you today. Welcome!
Alexandra: Thank you, and I love that. I remember the first time somebody went through the Aligned and Hot Marriage program and then did a private coaching session with me. At the beginning, I felt like I was meeting this couple for the first time, and I started to introduce myself — and they said, "Oh no, we already know you well," because they'd been watching my videos. I just enjoy how you opened that up.
Gabie: For the audience to know you a little better, would you mind sharing your story — why did you turn into an intimacy and relationship coach? What triggered that for you?
Alexandra: Sure. I met my husband in medical school, and we got married. I had my first child in my third year of medical school, my second just before my internship. When we got together, we were definitely in love — our communication was good, our collaboration was good, we made decisions together well. But it almost felt like a really successful partnership rather than a hot, sexy marriage — rather than one where the erotic energy flowed between us.
We were both working 90 to 100 hours a week with kids in diapers, so we assumed once we had more time and were better rested, that more romantic part of our life — in or out of the bedroom — would blossom. But once I wasn't working nights and weekends, and he was only occasionally working weekends, nothing changed. That's when I learned that love is not enough, and having time together is not enough.
I read books, experimented myself, did trainings — one of which was a deep dive into sensuality and sexuality that was simultaneously a coach training. I didn't even know what a coach was at the time; that wasn't why I was there. But as a physician oriented toward health and wellbeing, I went curious about how do you teach this? And I felt like I had come home. I brought my own marriage further along — more alive, more nourishing, hotter — and trained to help others too.
Since then I've written a book, built an app, created many programs. My deep mission is to change the cultural narrative around long-term relationships — instead of thinking marriage is where we go to make babies and have a pleasant companionship, I want people to see that passion can continue to grow with each year. And I don't just mean in the bedroom — I use it interchangeably with aliveness. Sure, it's sex and passion and adventures, but really it's about how alive you feel each day, and whether your relationship feels like a business partnership — aligned in the big things but a little numb inside — or a portal to so much that's good in life.
Gabie: Your story is so inspiring. I remember reading that you wanted your children to be happy, and you noticed how your relationship at home was affecting them — the way your parents' relationship affected you growing up. And you figured that if you want to help children be happier, the parents need to be in a happy relationship. Even saying this gives me goosebumps.
Alexandra: I appreciate that — it's not the thing most people pick up on, but it's very real for me. The very best thing I can do for children is teach their parents how to have a great relationship. And I think that's true whether people are married or divorced. No matter the situation, the relationship can be better and more inspiring, and it spares your child from having to work through the things you had to work through in order to build a healthy, nourishing relationship.
On Time, Fertility, and the Myth That More Time Fixes Everything
Gabie: You mentioned time — oftentimes we think if we just had more time, the relationship would be in a better state. But like you said, it's not just about time. When you're trying to get pregnant, the relationship often suffers and you don't know what to do. Sometimes the relationship was never a great fit, but you feel stuck because time is running out and you're not ready to leave. Or there's secondary infertility — you already have one or two kids, you want a third, but life is so busy you've lost the sexual desire and intimacy between you, and you don't know what to do about it. That's why I feel this topic is so important across different life stages and relationship stages.
Something else that stuck with me from the app: we're always taught we need to compromise in a relationship, and you say, "No, this isn't about compromise." This is really different from traditional couples therapy. Can you talk more about that?
Redefining "Compromise"
Alexandra: Absolutely — and it's not just traditional couples therapy. Throughout the Western world, the advice is: if you want a great relationship, you need to compromise. Once I developed my method, I actually went back and looked at wedding cards I'd saved — I've been married over 30 years — and sure enough, some Hallmark cards from 1996 gave exactly that guidance.
I think we need to start with definitions. When I think of compromise in a long-term relationship, I think of it as withholding what's true for you — your desires, your challenges, whatever's real on the inside — so your partner is more comfortable. There are moments when that's appropriate. But if that's your general mode — to withhold what's most real so your partner is more comfortable — it creates a bland companionship at best.
We're whole people, and if we're holding back important parts of ourselves regularly, there's no switch inside a woman that flips on in the bedroom so she can be fully expressed and fully present. If throughout the day we're leaving important parts of ourselves on the curb, we can't just pick them back up for sex.
So the book is called Uncompromising Intimacy — but by uncompromising, I don't mean you always get your own way. It's rooted in first knowing your own desires and inner experience, and then finding ways to express it so your partner can actually hear it — not to criticize or invite defensiveness, but to share what's true for you. That authenticity is what creates the most nourishing, dynamic, intimate marriage.
I was actually thinking about this with the woman whose biological clock is ticking, who's already invested so much and it feels too risky to leave. What do you do? Well, I'm not suggesting she says, "The truth is I'd leave if I were ten years younger." That's not it. There are six skills to intimacy, and one of them is being kind — the point is to create more connection, not less. Instead, ask yourself: what do I actually want more of? More fun together? To feel more heard? For him to be on his phone less? Identify what you really want, and convey that — "I just wish we felt more connected. Is that something we could figure out together?" Not "I've been thinking about leaving because I'm frustrated." It's about being vulnerable and sharing what you want, not criticizing what's absent.
Gabie: You work with many couples — when you tell them how to incorporate these pillars, do you see resistance from one side or the other?
Alexandra: I get very specific and practical. The main resistance I see: she might think he's just not interested in working on things, and I tell her she needs to learn how to say it in a way that isn't off-putting — knowing what you want to say and finding the way to say it that's conducive to connection, not disconnection. Sometimes her response is, "Why is it always me who needs to change?"
But when couples work with me privately, both are usually willing to try — they're investing the time and resources, after all. What I hear more often is women saying, "I really want to work with you, but my husband isn't interested." I used to take that at face value. Now I say, "Okay, see if he's willing to have a 15-minute conversation with me, just the two of us." Sometimes he's unwilling. But 100% of the time when he does talk with me for 15 minutes, he becomes willing to proceed — because what he doesn't want is for working on the marriage to mean fitting into her agenda, her way of viewing things, her way of saying things.
She may be more attuned to the problems and express them from her perspective — we all speak from our own perspective. But once he talks to me and realizes I have his back too, and I'm sympathetic to his experience, he becomes willing to participate. So many men whose wives think they "don't want to work on the marriage" are actually extremely willing once they feel their experience will also be honored.
Why So Many Relationships Lose Their Way
Gabie: It makes a lot of sense — and I was frightened by the statistics you shared: 50% of first marriages fail, about 60% of second marriages fail, 73% of third marriages fail, and one in four couples stay together for the kids. What's really the cause of relationships going sideways? Is it that we don't have real role models — we don't know what a healthy relationship is supposed to look or feel like from the outside, so we don't know how to build it for ourselves?
Alexandra: I think it's precisely because they don't know what to do next. There are so many people who are extraordinary problem-solvers professionally — even good at managing household matters or parenting — because they can use their educated intellect to figure it out. But when it comes to intimate relationships, we're mammals who learn through imitation. For calculus, we need our prefrontal cortex. For relationships — how to speak with our partner, self-esteem, being embodied enough to notice our own sensual experience (are you really tasting your coffee? Really feeling the fabric on your skin when you get dressed?) — we're largely disconnected from our own bodies and any internal wisdom about how to "do" relationships.
Relationships really are a learnable skill, but we haven't been taught, and we haven't had it modeled. Some of us are lucky enough to have parents or grandparents with a great relationship, but even that doesn't take us as far as we need to go with our own partner. There's a real lack of role models — and a real underappreciation that a successful relationship is a skill that can be learned, the same way we learn to drive or manage employees. Ironically, the longer we're married, the less skillful we often feel, whereas most things in life get easier the more we do them. Just because we're married doesn't mean we're expert at being married.
Three Tips for Staying Connected While Trying to Conceive
Gabie: Couples who are trying to conceive — even if the relationship is amazing — it becomes really hard to have real intimacy and enjoy sex when you're staring at a calendar and an ovulation date. What tips do you have for them?
Alexandra: I have three tips, and each is a little extensive.
Tip 1: Get clear on what kind of communication you're having.
One of the biggest sources of disconnection in a marriage is when one partner is having one kind of communication and the other is having a different kind. A classic example: a woman says, "I feel so overwhelmed with IVF — what if it doesn't work?" and shares her emotions, but her partner responds with problem-solving — "Did you talk to the doctor yet? What did she say? Are you going to schedule with the therapist?" She just wanted to be heard. This is true for the fertility journey and for something as small as someone misplacing an item in the house — big and small issues alike.
I recommend couples make a list together of the kinds of communication they have — logistical, financial, visioning/daydreaming about the future, gossip (someone at a workshop offered that one!), vulnerable conversations, venting, conversations about sex and intimacy, spiritual conversations, whatever's true for you. Notice if there are kinds you'd like to be having that you're not, and add them.
Then, before initiating a conversation: get clear with yourself on which kind you want to have, tell your partner ("I want to share something vulnerable," or "I want to talk about finances and get to the bottom of this"), and then ask, "Are you available to hear it?" That needs to be a real question — if he's not actually available but says yes, it won't go well. As a spouse, "no" should really mean "not yet," so make a plan for when you will discuss it. If it's appropriate, also share what kind of response you want — "I just want you to listen and hold me while I share, and afterward too." If you don't know what you want, that's fine too — don't say it. But if you do, most partners want to give you what will actually help; they may not be able to figure it out on their own.
Gabie: I really like this because most people in relationships just say what they're going through — express feelings or frustrations — without asking permission first or explaining what they need from the other person. This completely changes the conversation. Maybe he had a terrible day and it's the worst time to discuss something. And telling him upfront, "You don't need to fix anything, I just want you to listen," changes everything, especially since men often want to fix things.
Alexandra: Yes — and when it's true, I say, "What's going to fix this is you just listening and hearing me," because he does want to fix it — so let the behavior you're requesting be the fix.
Tip 2: Protect non-sexual physical touch.
When couples are monitoring ovulation and scheduling sex, one unintended casualty is that non-sexual physical touch drops off entirely — foot rubs, hugs, kisses — often just because it "can't lead into sex" when everything's on a schedule. But there's no need for that correlation. If he used to give you foot rubs and hasn't lately, ask. If you like romance, light a candle while he does. Try a collection of oils for massage. Or something quicker: when you leave the house or come home, have a real hug — front to front, truly embracing, not shallow. You don't need to feel turned on for this to count.
Oxytocin, the bonding hormone, rises with real hugging and even with eye gazing (no touch required). More non-sexual physical touch will just help you feel more alive and more like a woman who's married, rather than a vessel calibrated for conception — you can be both. It might require a simple conversation: "This doesn't change anything about what we're doing in bed or when — I just want to turn up the physical connection again without risking anything in terms of conception."
Gabie: If both partners have different love languages — say one needs more touch than the other — how do they meet in the middle without it feeling like a compromise?
Alexandra: Love languages are wonderful for creating understanding when there's disconnection. Ideally we all expand our range and can give and receive love in all the languages — some come more naturally than others. If touch is one partner's primary language, the other needs to find their way to relax and connect through touch too, even if it's not their instinct.
For example: touch isn't my primary love language, but it is my husband's. At the end of the day, he'll ask, "Would you like a massage?" and I always say yes — not because it's my language, but because it helps me relax after a long day. Sometimes I fall asleep, sometimes I turn to face him — it doesn't matter which.
If touch itself feels uncomfortable rather than just unfamiliar, it may also be about how you're touched — pressure that's too light or too strong. Women tend to want touch that starts at the periphery — hands, feet — and moves inward, the way you'd approach a cat rather than a puppy (men, generally, are more "go straight to the goods"). You can say, "Would you try starting with my hands and moving inward from there? Let's see if that's more comfortable for me" — without criticizing how he's done it before.
Tip 3: Claim at least five minutes of pleasure every day.
Not necessarily sexual, though it can be. Think about your five senses: What food or drink do you love the taste of? What smells delight you? What sounds — birds, music? What does touch feel like — the fabric on your skin, how you touch your own face while washing it (are you scrubbing like a metal sink, or caressing)? Maybe it's curling up with tea and a soft blanket.
For women, pleasure is deeply nourishing and it isn't an intellectual endeavor — it happens in the body through the senses. This is important for your nervous system, for replenishing your proverbial cup so it's not empty, and for activating your parasympathetic nervous system. It's not like oxygen — you can survive without it — but parts of you can't thrive without a few minutes of pleasure each day. And there's no wrong day to start.
Gabie: When you're trying for a baby, especially if you know it won't be easy, you can lose touch with yourself and everything around you. This is a good way to come back to life — back to the foods, music, and things you used to enjoy.
The "Conscious Redo": Breaking Repetitive Fights
Gabie: You talked about the Conscious Redo — can you explain how that applies in practice?
Alexandra: In most marriages there are particular issues or conflicts that feel like you get trapped in them over and over. You might discuss it, verbally process it, hear each other's side — and a week later the same thing happens again, like no progress was made. I wanted to figure out how to interrupt those patterns, and my answer is the Conscious Redo — though you don't need a long-standing pattern to use it; you can use it any time you're feeling off with one another.
Instead of hashing through what he meant and what you meant, you go back to when things felt good between you and proceed from there, taking a different route forward. It's important to go back to the right point. Let me give an example: I was coaching a couple whose sessions were on Fridays, and they'd been disconnected since the weekend. I asked, "When were things good?" He said, "Monday morning — I said I wanted to go mountain biking, and her response..." led to a big fight, and they hadn't really talked since.
So I said, "Let's go back to Monday morning. How are you going to say that to her? How is she going to respond?" They proceeded from there, and he felt great — but she didn't. When I asked her if she'd actually felt good before the mountain biking conversation, she said no — the night before, he'd come into the room while she was already in bed, turned on all the lights, was loud, and she felt disrespected. So Monday's conversation was just piled on top of that.
We had to go back further — to before he came into the room that way. He said, "I wish I had gone in more quietly," and repeated that Sunday-night communication with much more gentleness. She relaxed, and then they replayed the mountain biking conversation — both smiling, wondering why they hadn't been talking for five days. Sometimes it's better not to rework everything that happened; sometimes you can just go back to where things were good and proceed, as long as you both recognize where the wrong turn happened. Otherwise, it won't actually be better next time.
Gabie: How do you apply this in the heat of an argument?
Alexandra: As with any tool, start small — with topics that aren't ultra-intense — so you build the skill before applying it to something big. Either person can request a Conscious Redo. If my husband suggests one and I'm still too angry — I know if we start over I'll say the same thing because I'm still pissed — a Conscious Redo isn't a substitute for a pause. In that case I'd say, "Let's take a pause, I'm not ready for a redo yet," take a shower, calm down, and come back to it.
One tricky part: the person who requested the redo shouldn't be left hanging indefinitely — it's common for one partner to want to talk and the other not to. So at minimum, say, "Let me know when you're ready," or "I'll ask you again tonight or tomorrow." But someone not being available in the moment is not a free pass to never resolve the thing.
Emotional Safety Often Comes Before Passion
Gabie: You've mentioned that traditional couples therapy usually focuses on conflict resolution, but in your experience it's often a conflict-free, passion-free relationship that's the real problem. You've also said that even when couples come to you with bedroom problems, those often resolve on their own once you work more on emotional safety. Is that accurate?
Alexandra: Yes — let me share a story. A couple I worked with hadn't had sex in nine months when they came to see me. I could tell they weren't very connected, so I didn't start in the bedroom at all — I started with the tools of Uncompromising Intimacy, including being kind and cultivating curiosity, to rebuild their rapport and emotional closeness. After about three sessions, they were no longer disconnected — they were beautifully connected.
So I said, "Let's talk about the original issue you wanted to work on." They both looked confused — and then her eyes opened, she put her arm around him, and said, "We're all set." Once they could be themselves, feel seen and heard, and understand each other's experience, that emotional intimacy paved the way for passion and sensual intimacy too.
In my practice, that's true about 80% of the time — the emotional work resolves the physical disconnection. For the other 20–25%, we do focus directly on touch and what's happening in the bedroom. But emotional closeness requires self-awareness and self-expression — being authentically your whole self, not clamping down or avoiding what's uncomfortable. When that's the case, sometimes there's more fighting, sometimes less — traditional therapy focuses on keeping people out of fights, but the result can be that emotion gets compartmentalized and buried, which impedes the flow of passion. I'm not pro-fighting, but I am pro-self-expression — growing the capacity to hold your own and your partner's emotional range. If that range is narrow and polite, it'll be narrow and polite in the bedroom too. If a couple comes to me with a lot of fights, I'm looking for how to channel that energy into the bedroom, not dial it to zero.
Gabie: So passion is a good thing — it might just need to go somewhere else.
Alexandra: Exactly. Redirect the passion.
Closing Thoughts: What Made You Feel Alive Today?
Gabie: I'll close with a question you posted on social media that I loved: What has made you alive today?
Alexandra: I have two contenders. One is this conversation — the way you've read my book and absorbed my material really shows, and the questions you've asked come from someone who's genuinely digested my life's work. That's very enlivening. The other: I have a coach, and I'd felt some disconnection between us compared to usual. I named that today, and now we're more connected — also very enlivening. My teaching is all about how to do this within marriage, but I think it applies to every meaningful relationship.
Gabie: Beautiful. For me, also two things — this conversation, of course; I'm honored to have you as a guest and it's genuinely made my day. And today I took five minutes for myself to do a breathing exercise to calm my nervous system, because I realized how busy and passionate I've been about building WOVA, making sure I have enough time with my kids and husband — so busy I couldn't even stop to pause and breathe. Those five minutes were something I needed, and I plan to continue them.
Alexandra: Thank you so much.
Gabie: Thank you.
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