An internationally renowned champion for saving marriages, best-selling author and marriage coach Michele Weiner-Davis has written eight books, covering topics such as divorce busting, sex-starved marriages, and her most recent one – “Healing from Infidelity,” a topic we delve deeply into during this Smart Sex, Smart Love podcast.

“If it weren’t for the kids, we wouldn’t be trying to save our marriage,” is a statement Weiner-Davis hears often in her sessions with couples heading for divorce. How a therapist responds to that statement can make all the difference in what transpires, she has found from her years of experience working with couples who are struggling in their marriage.

She courageously speaks out about the pitfalls of unnecessary divorce – she founded The Divorce Busting Center in Boulder, Colorado – and urges couples to make their marriages work and keep their families together, an often unpopular sentiment among many therapists.

In this podcast, she offers some valuable advice to help couples rebuild trust and repair their fragile relationship.

We can't simply squeeze ourselves into expected heteronormative structures and find happiness. It’s not going to happen! That’s why Tom Bruett, a therapist and founder of the Queer Relationship Institute, wrote the book, The Go-To Relationship Guide for Gay Men: From Honeymoon to Lasting Commitment, a guide that provides the tools to build a rich, deep gay relationship. In any romantic relationship or friendship, there will be differences. This is how we learn about our partners and ourselves, and how we can grow in a relationship. If we do not go through the differentiation process, it creates angry fighting and static toxicity, Bruett finds. In this podcast, we talk about how to connect with your partner when you are not on the same page, and how to start the differentiation process and end with problem solving and a deep, sustaining and committed relationship. It will not happen if you are trying to create a carbon copy of a heterosexual relationship. It’s time to find queer joy, Bruett exclaims.

“I am promiscuous because I am curious,” reads an introduction to Soulmates: A History of Our Fetish for Feet,” a book authored by Adam Zmith, a writer and podcast producer whose work focuses on sex, queer identity, LGBTQ+ lives, history, art and desire. In my Smart Sex, Smart Love podcast, Zmith shares that fetishes with feet are a centuries’ old pleasure that most cultural groups have explored. In fact, one in 6 people have fantasized about feet, and it is one of the most googled fetishes. It is a whole universe of pleasure, he has discovered. In my podcast, Zmith also talks about another book he wrote, Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures, a “manifesto to pleasure,” he describes. Through his work, including a weekly podcast entitled, Free Sex, Zmith’s goal is to build a world where everyone can have sex the way they want it.