ArcaMax

You want to hug, hold hands, and kiss your husband. The way back in would be to make eye contact, tell him that you love him, and that you would like to hold hands with him and continue to walk through life together. Will he hold hands with you for five minutes? Set a timer.

Practice touching and demonstrating physical warmth and gauge his comfort.

Once he is confident that physical affection won’t lead to sex, pressure for sex, and all of the discomfort surrounding it, he should feel more comfortable being physically close with you. Physical closeness, warmth, and comfort will be good for your relationship – and also for his health.

Dear Amy: Over the past few years, my friend has become increasingly immersed in self-help empowerment through books, blogs, and podcasts.

It started after a breakup about five years ago, and she found strength, security, and solidarity in the gospel of self-affirmation and authentic living.

Now, every conversation is dominated by her rooting out "toxicity" in everyone else's relationships and she is continually holding space for us "to live our truths" as she sees them.

She's stopped dating, saying that every man she encounters suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (a disorder that she retroactively applied to the ex), and she discourages everyone in the group from dating because of this.

Pandemic isolation has only accelerated the issue, and we can no longer speak at all without her going on at length about what everyone else needs to do to achieve the equilibrium she feels.

Our friend group is very pro-therapy in general, but this friend says that whenever she's tried therapy she's ended up counseling the therapist more than the other way around. Now it's affecting her professional life, as a colleague told her boss that she's patronizing and a poor listener.

I miss my friend. How do you help someone who's so convinced she’s helped herself?

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