Sex and relationships are big topics in therapy. Whether the issue is conflict with a partner or spouse, deciding whether or not to stay in a relationship, pain and confusion after a breakup or divorce, frustrations with dating and single life, or questions about sexuality, therapy can provide a private and relatively objective space to gain insight and learn skills.

The problem is that we don’t have sex or relationships in a vacuum. We date, have sex, break up, marry, divorce, procreate, and communicate under our social and economic conditions. Therapeutic techniques like “I” statements, values inventories, and the DEAR MAN skill can make navigating relationships easier, but when it comes to intimacy, capitalism still forces our hand in innumerable ways. For this reason, we can’t simply therapize our way out of the relationship problems subject to our social context.

As I have written in Tribune before, capitalism makes life much more stressful than it needs to be. Most people struggle in a society where the cost of living is spiraling, and most people work all the time to pay for basic necessities of survival. We have a shortage of both time and money, and these twin scarcities can cause serious problems for sex and relationships.