Tribeca Therapy Quoted In Two Articles On Couples And Relationships In Business Insider

Business Insider recently featured Tribeca Therapy in two articles, drawing on our practice’s expertise in couples therapy and relationship therapy. Talking with our Founder and Clinical Director Matt Lundquist, the articles focus in particular on codependency in relationships and how to discuss challenging issues between partners, including difficulties living together, and lack of sex and intimacy.

The newest article is part of a column that answers reader questions sent to Business Insider’s resident sex and relationships reporter Julia Naftulin. In this installment, the reader explains that after moving in with her partner, they can’t stop fighting and rarely have sex. Providing advice as a couples therapist, Matt notes the importance of talking about these issues when they come up rather than allowing them to fester and grow into a bigger argument. As he says, “The currency of the relationship is sitting down and talking about it.”

 While Matt suggests perhaps not addressing the lack of sex in the first conversation as having a discussion can bring a couple closer and subsequently, build more connection, he also asserts that creating a calm space for these conversations is essential. “I urge couples to schedule a meeting without devices and say, ‘I’m concerned about this. Can we talk about it?’ before the problem becomes a regular trigger for arguing,” he observes.

The other Business Insider piece uses Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband Brad Falchuk’s decision not to live together in their first year of marriage as a jumping-off point to talk about codependency in relationships. Though Paltrow never used the word codependency in discussing how living apart benefited her marriage, the article noted that she was hinting at avoiding codependency. In the piece, Matt explains that codependency often manifests as one person needing too much while the other sacrifices their needs in lieu of their partner’s: “With codependency, it’s rarely that we mean each person is dependent equally on the other. If one is more dependent on the other, it is inequitable because there is an enabler and an enabled.”

Matt also quickly notes that the drive to satisfy a partner’s needs doesn’t necessarily mean codependency. “Giving voice to needs is normal and wonderful and a lot of people I work with need to become needier, actually,” he asserts.

Read more of “Since my partner and I moved in together, we can’t stop fighting and rarely have sex. What should I do?” and “Gwyneth Paltrow said living apart from her husband the first year of marriage helped ‘preserve mystery’” on Business Insider.