by Dr. Lori Davis, NP | Certified Sex Counselor | Relational Desire Coach

If you have read about the five losing strategies, you already know what pulls couples apart. The needing to be right, the controlling, the unbridled self-expression, the retaliation, the withdrawal. Most of us have a few favorites. We reach for them automatically, especially when we are hurt or scared or tired of the same conversation.

But knowing what not to do is only half the work.

The five winning strategies are the other half. Also adapted from the work of Terry Real and Relational Life Therapy, these are the moves that actually build something. Not perfectly, not without discomfort, but in the direction of real connection rather than away from it.

Here is the core premise: using these strategies does not guarantee you get what you want. What it guarantees is that you stay in relationship while you work toward it. And in the long run, that is the only path that actually leads somewhere.

1. Advocate for what you want

Being relational does not mean being passive. It does not mean swallowing what you need or waiting for your partner to figure it out. In order to be in a relationship, you have to actually be in it. That means daring to rock the boat. Being bold enough to own your right to say something.

The distinction here matters: advocate, do not criticize. Make requests, not complaints. Be specific, be actionable, be consistent. Be brave enough to risk disappointment or rejection. And be prepared to grieve what you do not get without making that grief your partner’s emergency to fix.

This is long-term work. Nurture change in small steps. Help your partner understand what you need and give them the chance to give it to you. That is advocacy. It is not demanding, and it is not silent suffering.

2. Speak to make things better

If you do not have something constructive or loving to say, zip it.

This is not about being dishonest or suppressing your experience. It is about understanding that delivery is part of the message. A completely valid feeling, expressed with contempt or in the wrong moment or with a ten-minute preamble of grievances, will not land. The message gets lost in the delivery. Your partner stops hearing the content and starts managing the tone.

Do not be critical, negative, or past-focused. Use the Feedback Wheel when you need to make a repair, and then let go of the outcome.

The Feedback Wheel has four parts. What I saw and heard. What I made up about it. How I feel about it. What I would like. That structure keeps you honest about the difference between fact and interpretation, and it keeps the conversation about repair rather than prosecution.

3. Listen to understand

When your partner is speaking, it is not about you.

This one is harder than it sounds. Most of us listen to respond. We are already formulating our counter-argument, our defense, our clarification, before the other person has finished their sentence. We are listening for the moment we can re-establish our own position.

Listening to understand means setting that aside. Being curious about your partner’s perspective rather than threatened by it. Objective reality is not the goal in intimate relationships. It is a dead end. You do not have to agree with your partner. You do not have to share their interpretation of events. But you do need to know them. And they need to know that you understand and respect their experience, even when it differs from yours.

4. Respond with generosity

Be generous. Acknowledge your part. Validate your partner’s concerns even when you do not fully share them. Give what you can, whenever you can, from an abundant heart.

Terry Real frames this as enlightened self-interest, and that framing is worth sitting with. This is not about martyrdom or endless accommodation. It is about recognizing that your partner’s wellbeing and your own are connected. When you give generously, you are not losing something. You are investing in the relationship you actually want to be in.

Generosity in relationship means not waiting until you feel like being generous. It means choosing it, especially when your adaptive child is insisting that your partner has to go first.

5. Cherish what you have

Give your partner specific positive feedback and appreciations. Acknowledge and amplify progress whenever you see it. Cultivate sharing. Find time for affection and tenderness. Prioritize your erotic connection even when your relationship is still imperfect.

That last line is worth reading again. Prioritize your erotic connection even when your relationship is still imperfect. Not after you have resolved the conflict. Not once things feel easier. Now, in the middle of the imperfection, with what you have.

Cherishing is an active practice. It is not a feeling that arises when everything is going well. It is a choice to look for what is good and name it out loud. To let your partner know they are seen and valued, specifically and regularly.

Using these strategies together

The losing strategies are easy. They come automatically, especially under stress. The winning strategies require intention. They require you to pause before you react, to choose the harder move, to stay in relationship when every instinct is telling you to fight or flee or shut down.

These strategies are not just about being a better partner. They are not relationship maintenance or conflict management or communication skills, though they are all of those things too. What they are actually doing, when you practice them consistently, is build the relational climate in which desire can exist.

This is the core of what I call Relational Desire. Desire between long-term partners is not primarily a biological event. It is not just about hormones or novelty or how attracted you were to each other in the beginning. It is a response to the quality of the relationship you are living inside. When you feel safe, seen, and genuinely cherished by your partner, when you know that your needs matter and that conflict will not destroy you, your body and heart become available in a way it simply cannot be when you are running losing strategies at each other.

The couples I work with who are struggling most with desire are almost always also struggling with one or more of the losing strategies. The contempt, the withdrawal, the unspoken resentment. And the couples who find their way back to each other, not just to better communication but to genuine wanting, are the ones who do this work. Not perfectly. But consistently.

None of these strategies will close a desire gap overnight. What they do is change the ground you are standing on. They keep you in contact with each other, and in that contact, desire has somewhere to grow.

The goal is not a perfect relationship. It is a real one. And Relational Desire lives in exactly that: the real, imperfect, deliberately tended relationship you are building together.

Working with me

If you recognize the losing strategies in your relationship and you are ready to start building something different, this is exactly the work I do. I help couples and individuals develop the relational skills to move from the patterns that keep you stuck toward something that actually works. You can learn more about working together here.

Dr. Lori Davis is a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and Certified Sex Counselor specializing in relational desire and intimacy in long-term partnerships. Known for bridging clinical health with relational coaching, she helps couples bring pleasure, ease, and connection back into their relationships and sex lives. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Oprah Daily, and Women’s Health, and she teaches sexuality counseling at the University of Michigan. Today, she offers virtual consultations, coaching, and intensives for couples ready to create fierce intimacy together.