LDS Marriage Counseling & LDS Sex Therapy

You don't have to spend half the session explaining what garments are, why a temple recommend matters, what a calling is, or why a disagreement about church attendance may represent something much bigger than where your family spends Sunday morning.

I understand LDS culture, language, beliefs, family structures, and expectations around marriage and sexuality. That context can be useful because religion may intersect with your relationship in ways that aren't obvious to someone unfamiliar with the culture.

At the same time, being familiar with LDS beliefs doesn't mean I'm going to assume what you believe, what your marriage should look like, or what decisions you should make. Two LDS couples can have very different values, experiences, and relationships with their faith.

Absolutely. And you don't have to sanitize the conversation because you're religious.

I'm an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, so I'm comfortable talking directly about desire, arousal, orgasm, pleasure, sexual functioning, bodies, sexual expectations, boundaries, and the things you may not have had many opportunities to talk about openly.

We can also take your religious beliefs and sexual values seriously. Sex therapy isn't about convincing you to become more sexually permissive or pushing you toward sexual activities that don't fit your values. It's about helping you build a sexual relationship that works for both of you.

LDS couples come to sex therapy for many of the same reasons other couples do: differences in desire or frequency, difficulty with arousal or orgasm, painful sex, anxiety or avoidance around sex, difficulty communicating about wants and boundaries, changes in sexuality across different stages of marriage, or simply feeling sexually disconnected.

Religious messages and experiences can also matter. Some couples struggle with the transition from avoiding sexual thoughts and experiences before marriage to suddenly expecting sexuality to feel natural after marriage. Others are trying to sort through shame, expectations about gender or sexual roles, or differences in how each partner understands their shared sexual values.

We can talk about all of that without assuming religion is either the problem or the solution.

Then that deserves room in therapy.

Messages about modesty, purity, desire, gender, bodies, and what it means to be a “good” religious person can affect sexuality in very different ways. Some people transition into married sexuality fairly easily. Others discover that beliefs or messages that once helped them make sense of sexuality are now creating anxiety, shame, confusion, or difficulty experiencing pleasure.

We can look at the messages you've received, how they've affected each of you, and which values you genuinely want to carry forward into your sexual relationship. I'm not interested in deciding for you which religious beliefs you should keep or discard.

Yes. I work with couples across a pretty wide range of relationships with the LDS Church, including actively practicing LDS couples, couples who identify culturally as Mormon, couples in which one or both partners have left the Church, and mixed-faith couples.

You don't need to fit neatly into a particular religious category to work with me. And if your beliefs are changing, you don't need to know where you'll eventually land before coming to therapy.

When differences in faith have become a significant issue within the relationship, we can also work specifically on navigating a mixed-faith marriage.

No. Knowing LDS culture is useful because I understand the context you're bringing into the room. It doesn't make me the person who gets to decide what your marriage, faith, or sexual relationship should look like.

I may help you examine where particular expectations came from, talk more clearly about what each of you actually believes and wants, or challenge assumptions that are creating problems between you. But I'm not going to prescribe a particular level of religious observance or decide which sexual choices are appropriate for your marriage.

The goal is to help the two of you build a relationship that reflects your values, including when your values aren't exactly the same.

Yes. Premarital counseling can be especially useful for LDS couples because marriage may involve several major transitions happening at once.

We can talk about communication and conflict, finances, family relationships, roles and expectations, children, religious practices, and what you each imagine married life will actually look like.

And yes, we can talk about sex before you're having it. 😆 For couples waiting until marriage for sexual activity, premarital counseling can be a particularly useful place to talk about expectations, anatomy, desire, pleasure, communication, boundaries, and the transition into a sexual relationship before you're trying to figure everything out on the wedding night.

You don't have to wait until you've figured out your religious future before coming to therapy.

A change in belief can affect much more than church attendance. It may raise questions about identity, parenting, family relationships, sexuality, religious practices, temple marriage, community, and the future you thought you were building together.

I won't approach therapy with the goal of getting one partner back to church or helping the other partner leave. We can work on understanding what the changes mean to each of you and how to build a relationship that can make room for honesty and difference.

Absolutely. Being LDS may be relevant to your relationship without being the reason you're coming to therapy.

You might be struggling with communication, recurring fights, resentment, emotional distance, parenting stress, differences in needs, sexual disconnection, or feeling like you've gradually become excellent co-managers of a household and not particularly connected partners.

We can use your religious context when it matters and leave it in the background when it doesn't. You don't have to turn every marriage problem into a faith problem just because faith is important to you.

Yes, depending on where you're located. I see clients in person at my office in Centennial, Colorado, serving the Denver metro area, and provide online therapy for clients throughout Colorado, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Idaho

If you're in Idaho, my Idaho registration is specifically for telehealth practice, so Idaho sessions are online.

If you and your partner will be joining from different states, we can talk during your consultation about where each of you will be located and whether I'm able to work with both of you.