New Book
The Intimacy Gap
When one of you wants more — and both of you are suffering
By Marisol G. Westberg, PhD, LMFT · AASECT Certified Sex Therapist
“I want to be able to want you.”
Those words, spoken in a whisper, might be the most heartbreaking sentence in a therapist’s office. The person saying them isn’t indifferent. They’re grieving. They remember desire. They miss it.
Across from them sits their partner, holding a different kind of grief — the crushing weight of feeling unwanted by the person they love most.
Who This Book Is For
Does any of this sound familiar?
Desire discrepancy — when one partner wants sex significantly more than the other — is one of the most common problems in long-term relationships. And one of the most misunderstood.
“I love my partner but I just don’t feel desire anymore — and I don’t know why.”
“I feel constantly rejected. Like I’m begging for affection from the person I love most.”
“Every time they touch me I tense up. I know what they want and I know I’ll disappoint them again.”
“We used to have an incredible sex life. I don’t know where we went or how to get back.”
This book is for both of you — the one who wants more, and the one who wishes they could want more. Neither of you is broken. You are speaking different desire languages. This book teaches you how to understand each other.
What the Book Covers
A real map back to each other
Not quick fixes or performance techniques. A genuine clinical framework built from years of working with couples navigating exactly what you’re navigating now.
01
Why desire works the way it does
Spontaneous vs. responsive desire — and why the difference explains almost everything that has gone wrong between you.
02
The pressure-rejection cycle
How mismatched desire escalates into a self-sustaining cycle that keeps turning even when both partners are trying to stop it.
03
The weight of everything else
Stress, exhaustion, unequal labor, parenthood — how life drains the conditions desire needs to survive.
04
When past wounds shape desire
Trauma, sexual history, and the nervous system — why the body responds to intimacy the way it does, and what can shift.
05
Performance anxiety & body shame
The quiet forces that pull attention away from pleasure — and what both partners can do to create the conditions for presence.
06
The practical path forward
Small moves, honest conversations, and the relational shifts that allow desire to emerge naturally rather than by force.
Available Now
The journey back to each other is already underway
It began the moment you decided that what exists between you is worth understanding, worth working on, and worth fighting for.