Attachment & Intimacy
The Sex Cycle: An On-Demand Course for Couples
with Julie Menanno, LMFT, and George Faller, LMFT
Your emotional relationship and your physical one are not two separate problems. They are two ways of reaching for the same thing, and they are shaping each other constantly. This course maps the cycle running underneath both, in plain language, with the words to say out loud.
8 chapters · 52 lessons · 3 hours 15 minutes · watch anytime, yours to keep
$249 one time. Lifetime access. Secure Love Club members save 25 percent.
“Your partner isn’t your enemy. Your negative cycle is the enemy.”
Julie Menanno
Secure Love
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What is the sex cycle?
The sex cycle is the repeating pattern a couple falls into around physical intimacy. One partner reaches, the other cannot meet it in that moment, and in the second and a half before either of them says a word, both have already decided what it meant. It runs on the same attachment machinery as the emotional cycle, the one that produces the same argument over and over, and the two feed each other constantly. In most couples the partner who pursues emotionally is the one who withdraws sexually, and the partner who withdraws emotionally is the one who pursues sexually. That is why working on communication often does not move the bedroom, and why working on the bedroom often makes the talking heavier.
This course was taught by Julie Menanno, LMFT, LCPC, a licensed marriage and family therapist and author of the Simon and Schuster bestseller Secure Love, and George Faller, LMFT, a certified Emotionally Focused Therapy trainer and supervisor, co-founder of the New York Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy, and author of Brave Love, Great Sex. Both work from attachment theory and Emotionally Focused Therapy, the model developed by Dr. Sue Johnson.
The pattern
What is happening underneath your relationship
One of you reaches. The other one doesn’t have it to give right then. And in the second and a half before either of you says a word, your bodies have already decided what it meant.
Most couples try to solve this as two separate problems. The arguments at the kitchen table are one project. What is or isn’t happening in the bedroom is a different one. So you work on communication and the bedroom doesn’t move….. or you try to fix the bedroom and it only gets heavier.
Not because you’re doing something wrong. Not because either of you is broken.
But because the cycle running underneath BOTH of them has never been named.
When you can see the cycle, things start to make sense. And when things make sense, change becomes possible.
What changes
What you will walk away understanding
01 The exact cycle you get stuck in
Not cycles in general. Yours, mapped move by move, in your own words, with a name you both use.
02 Why your position can flip
The partner chasing connection at the kitchen table in the morning is very often the same partner rolling over in bed at night. There’s a reason, and it isn’t indifference.
03 What the protective move is protecting
Pressure, avoidance, rejection, shutting down. Every one of them is doing a job. You’ll be able to see the job.
04 The longing sitting underneath it
Every protection has a need buried in it. Unmet needs are what create the cycle in the first place, so this is where it comes apart.
05 Your gas pedals and your brakes
Named across eleven categories, yours and your partner’s, with the scores side by side. Most couples have never once had this conversation.
06 What to actually say
Words, not principles. Julie and George script both sides of every hard conversation in this course.
Inside the course
Eight chapters, 52 lessons, 3 hours 15 minutes
Short lessons you can take one at a time. Nothing here is padding, and nothing runs longer than it needs to. The full chapter and lesson list sits below, and the run times are here so you can see what you are committing to before you start.
CHAPTER ONE | 7 LESSONS | 21 MIN
Two Forces, One Need
Start here. The three systems inside an attachment bond, the red hat and the blue hat, and the five moves that complete a moment of connection.
CHAPTER TWO | 3 LESSONS | 9 MIN
Why We Protect
Green brain, yellow brain, red brain. Why what you can give your partner goes offline the moment you feel threatened.
CHAPTER THREE | 7 LESSONS | 23 MIN
Your Four Positions
Pursuer and withdrawer in the emotional cycle, then again in the sexual one. The criss-cross, the double pursuer, the double withdrawer.
CHAPTER FOUR | 7 LESSONS | 35 MIN
Mapping the Cycle
TEMPO, the five moves that run in under a second and a half. Then eleven minutes of real session footage with George.
CHAPTER FIVE | 8 LESSONS | 30 MIN
From Protection to Longing
Why asking is harder than criticizing. Safety longings and growth longings, and the double ask.
CHAPTER SIX | 7 LESSONS | 27 MIN
The Sex Conversation
Gas pedals and brakes, and the full BEST SEX TALK walkthrough: eleven categories, scored, compared, talked through together.
CHAPTER SEVEN | 2 LESSONS | 8 MIN
What Secure Looks Like
What a secure sexual cycle actually looks like, which is not about frequency. Then five things to do in your first week.
CHAPTER EIGHT | 11 LESSONS | 42 MIN
Questions and Answers
Real couples, real situations. The full hour of questions with Julie and George.
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The Sex Cycle: Full Workshop Replay
The full recording of The Sex Cycle.... all the teaching, every exercise, and the hour of questions at the end. It's here until we rebuild it into lessons.
The full recording of The Sex Cycle.... all the teaching, every exercise, and the hour of questions at the end. It's here until we rebuild it into lessons.
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Welcome and What This Workshop Covers
Julie Menanno and George Faller introduce themselves, set the ground rules, and lay out the road map for the whole course.
Julie Menanno and George Faller introduce themselves, set the ground rules, and lay out the road map for the whole course.
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Two Forces, One Need
Why your sex life and your emotional life are not two separate departments but two ways of reaching for the same thing.
Why your sex life and your emotional life are not two separate departments but two ways of reaching for the same thing.
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The Three Systems of an Attachment Bond
The emotional system, the caregiving system, and the sexual-physical system, and why the third one gets the least attention.
The emotional system, the caregiving system, and the sexual-physical system, and why the third one gets the least attention.
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The Red Hat and the Blue Hat
One mission at a time. What happens when both partners wear the red hat, and why somebody has to put on the blue one.
One mission at a time. What happens when both partners wear the red hat, and why somebody has to put on the blue one.
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The Five R's
Reach, respond, receive, recognize, reciprocate. The full shape of a moment of connection, and where couples usually drop it.
Reach, respond, receive, recognize, reciprocate. The full shape of a moment of connection, and where couples usually drop it.
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How the Two Systems Feed Each Other
Success in the emotional system builds safety in the sexual one, and the reverse is just as true.
Success in the emotional system builds safety in the sexual one, and the reverse is just as true.
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Exercise: Which Direction Does It Run for You?
Look at a disconnected stretch in your relationship and work out whether emotional distance shuts down your sex life or the other way around.
Look at a disconnected stretch in your relationship and work out whether emotional distance shuts down your sex life or the other way around.
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The Predictable Ways We Handle Disconnection
Fight or flight, intent versus impact, and why the ability to repair is the only real difference between the best couples and the worst.
Fight or flight, intent versus impact, and why the ability to repair is the only real difference between the best couples and the worst.
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Green Brain, Yellow Brain, Red Brain
Polyvagal theory in plain language, and why caregiving goes offline the moment your brain turns yellow.
Polyvagal theory in plain language, and why caregiving goes offline the moment your brain turns yellow.
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Protection, Hurt, and the Need Underneath
The three things a therapist tracks: the protective move, the threat beneath it, and the longing that is the actual solution.
The three things a therapist tracks: the protective move, the threat beneath it, and the longing that is the actual solution.
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Pursuers, Emotional and Sexual
Why the terminology switches to pursuer and withdrawer, what pursuing looks like in each cycle, and what it turns into when the pursuer gets insecure.
Why the terminology switches to pursuer and withdrawer, what pursuing looks like in each cycle, and what it turns into when the pursuer gets insecure.
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What Pursuing Is Protecting
Hope, control, a sense of agency, and the relief of finally naming the problem. Why pursuing is rational, not crazy.
Hope, control, a sense of agency, and the relief of finally naming the problem. Why pursuing is rational, not crazy.
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Withdrawers, Emotional and Sexual
Stuffing feelings, the shame spiral, losing ownership of your own desire, and the fear of failing at something that matters.
Stuffing feelings, the shame spiral, losing ownership of your own desire, and the fear of failing at something that matters.
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What Withdrawing Is Protecting
Turning down the heat, protecting the relationship from the worst version of yourself, and why withdrawing is never indifference.
Turning down the heat, protecting the relationship from the worst version of yourself, and why withdrawing is never indifference.
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The Criss-Cross
The very common pattern where the emotional pursuer is the sexual withdrawer, plus the double pursuer, the double withdrawer, and the burnout pursuer.
The very common pattern where the emotional pursuer is the sexual withdrawer, plus the double pursuer, the double withdrawer, and the burnout pursuer.
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Taking Turns: Making the Hat Model Work
Why structured empathy works, why it fails the first ten times, and what it takes to get your nervous system to trust it.
Why structured empathy works, why it fails the first ten times, and what it takes to get your nervous system to trust it.
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Exercise: Name Your Four Positions
Name your position and your partner's in the emotional cycle, then do the same for the sexual cycle, and see whether they match.
Name your position and your partner's in the emotional cycle, then do the same for the sexual cycle, and see whether they match.
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TEMPO, and the Loop It Creates
Trigger, emotion, meaning, protection, outcome. The sequence that runs faster than you can notice it, and how two of them lock together until the cycle itself becomes the enemy
Trigger, emotion, meaning, protection, outcome. The sequence that runs faster than you can notice it, and how two of them lock together until the cycle itself becomes the enemy
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Session Demo: A Double TEMPO in the Room
Real session footage, start to finish. George sets up the double TEMPO, walks Chad through his side and Lori through hers, then reflects the whole loop back to them. Julie explains what that reflection is doing.
Real session footage, start to finish. George sets up the double TEMPO, walks Chad through his side and Lori through hers, then reflects the whole loop back to them. Julie explains what that reflection is doing.
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Two Cycles, One Pattern
The emotional cycle and the sexual cycle laid out side by side, trigger by trigger, and the common ground hiding in them: both pursuers are asking the same question, and so are both withdrawers.
The emotional cycle and the sexual cycle laid out side by side, trigger by trigger, and the common ground hiding in them: both pursuers are asking the same question, and so are both withdrawers.
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Exercise, Part 1: Map a Fight About Sex
Run your own TEMPO on one specific sexual moment, without softening the protective move.
Run your own TEMPO on one specific sexual moment, without softening the protective move.
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Exercise, Part 2: Your Partner's Side
Put on the blue hat and map the same moment as your partner experienced it.
Put on the blue hat and map the same moment as your partner experienced it.
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Exercise, Part 3: Put the Two Together and Name It
Link the two protective moves into one double TEMPO, then give your cycle a name. Includes the examples: the tornado, the vortex, the blame game, California.
Link the two protective moves into one double TEMPO, then give your cycle a name. Includes the examples: the tornado, the vortex, the blame game, California.
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A Couple's Example: Bringing Unsexy Back
A live example of a couple naming their cycle, and what withdrawing to protect yourself from being controlled is really doing.
A live example of a couple naming their cycle, and what withdrawing to protect yourself from being controlled is really doing.
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From Protection to Longing, and Why It's So Hard to Ask
The three stages of the work, why removing a protection leaves a void, and the four reasons the clear ask almost never comes out: fear of hearing no, the belief your partner should just know, the humiliation of needing, and the evidence that asking never works.
The three stages of the work, why removing a protection leaves a void, and the four reasons the clear ask almost never comes out: fear of hearing no, the belief your partner should just know, the humiliation of needing, and the evidence that asking never works.
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Two Levels of Longing: Safety and Growth
Safety first, then growth. Why you cannot explore until your nervous system has somewhere to come back to.
Safety first, then growth. Why you cannot explore until your nervous system has somewhere to come back to.
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What the Asks Sound Like
Word for word examples of a safety ask and an erotic growth ask, from both positions.
Word for word examples of a safety ask and an erotic growth ask, from both positions.
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What Sexual Withdrawers Are Longing For
Acceptance for their limits, permission to say no, non-sexual touch, and room to want something of their own.
Acceptance for their limits, permission to say no, non-sexual touch, and room to want something of their own.
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What Sexual Pursuers Are Longing For
Reassurance that they are not too much, appreciation for initiating, and space to get their mojo back.
Reassurance that they are not too much, appreciation for initiating, and space to get their mojo back.
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Speaking From Self
Leading with I instead of you, so your partner gets a real choice rather than a yes-or-reject. Then read the sample asks and notice which one makes you most uncomfortable.
Leading with I instead of you, so your partner gets a real choice rather than a yes-or-reject. Then read the sample asks and notice which one makes you most uncomfortable.
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Exercise: The Double Ask
The hold-me-tight conversation. Ask for what you needed in a triggered sexual moment, then let your partner respond, then reach for the growth longing.
The hold-me-tight conversation. Ask for what you needed in a triggered sexual moment, then let your partner respond, then reach for the growth longing.
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After the Double Ask
What gets in the way of that conversation, and why vulnerability that gets answered is what teaches the nervous system to try again.
What gets in the way of that conversation, and why vulnerability that gets answered is what teaches the nervous system to try again.
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Gas Pedals, Brakes, and What Makes Sex Extraordinary
Emily Nagoski's framing, why most couples who are not having sex have a brakes problem rather than a desire problem, and the research on what the people with extraordinary sex lives actually name.
Emily Nagoski's framing, why most couples who are not having sex have a brakes problem rather than a desire problem, and the research on what the people with extraordinary sex lives actually name.
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Your Gas Pedals, Your Brakes
Both pedals are down at once. How to name yours, own them, and make space for your partner's without shaming them.
Both pedals are down at once. How to name yours, own them, and make space for your partner's without shaming them.
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The BEST SEX TALK: How to Score It
The eleven categories, how to score each one from one to ten for gas pedal and brake, and what the scores are actually for.
The eleven categories, how to score each one from one to ten for gas pedal and brake, and what the scores are actually for.
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Body, Emotions, and Spirit
The first three categories, where the biggest brakes usually live, and why most couples stop having sex right here.
The first three categories, where the biggest brakes usually live, and why most couples stop having sex right here.
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Thoughts, the Sexual Cycle, and Your History
Fantasy and mental load, the trust a positive cycle builds, and the glimmers and wounds you carry in from the past.
Fantasy and mental load, the trust a positive cycle builds, and the glimmers and wounds you carry in from the past.
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External Factors, Talking, Orgasm, Laughter, and Kissing
The last five categories. Novelty and toys, whether you can talk about sex at all, the orgasm conversation almost nobody has, playfulness, and the kissing nobody brings up.
The last five categories. Novelty and toys, whether you can talk about sex at all, the orgasm conversation almost nobody has, playfulness, and the kissing nobody brings up.
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Reading Your Scores
Joey and Maria's scorecards, why high brakes matter more than high gas pedals, and how to walk the list together.
Joey and Maria's scorecards, why high brakes matter more than high gas pedals, and how to walk the list together.
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What a Secure Sexual Cycle Looks Like, and Your New Moves
Not frequency. Engagement, trust, vulnerability, gratitude, playfulness, and flexibility. Then the specific new move for each position: slow down and seduce instead of demand, step toward initiating and find out what you actually want.
Not frequency. Engagement, trust, vulnerability, gratitude, playfulness, and flexibility. Then the specific new move for each position: slow down and seduce instead of demand, step toward initiating and find out what you actually want.
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Your Week, and Closing
Name the cycle once, make one double ask, have one of the conversations, catch one glimmer and say so. Then where to go next in the two books.
Name the cycle once, make one double ask, have one of the conversations, catch one glimmer and say so. Then where to go next in the two books.
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Before the Questions: Two Clarifications
Why the thing that works stops working when you never vary it, and why getting clear on your own need lets your partner hear it without defending.
Why the thing that works stops working when you never vary it, and why getting clear on your own need lets your partner hear it without defending.
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When the Emotional Cycle Is Healthy but the Sexual One Isn't
A couple with strong emotional repair and a ruptured sexual history, and where to start when disgust is in the room.
A couple with strong emotional repair and a ruptured sexual history, and where to start when disgust is in the room.
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Trauma, Repair, and Taking the Pressure Off
Why you cannot push a body past trauma, what a new response does to an old wound, and sensate focus as a way back in.
Why you cannot push a body past trauma, what a new response does to an old wound, and sensate focus as a way back in.
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Rebuilding After Illness and Years Apart
Redefining what you are going for when intercourse may be off the table, lowering the brakes instead of chasing the goal, and why emotions are information whether they are positive or negative.
Redefining what you are going for when intercourse may be off the table, lowering the brakes instead of chasing the goal, and why emotions are information whether they are positive or negative.
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When Caregiving Leaves You Depleted
Reclaiming your own desire when every day is survival, and why re-engagement is for you, not for your partner.
Reclaiming your own desire when every day is survival, and why re-engagement is for you, not for your partner.
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When the Sexual Cycle Crosses the Line
Attachment injuries, taking ownership of impact, and why a question like this deserves a professional eye.
Attachment injuries, taking ownership of impact, and why a question like this deserves a professional eye.
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Mismatch or Fixable Discrepancy?
How to tell the difference, and what happens when one partner will not engage at all.
How to tell the difference, and what happens when one partner will not engage at all.
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Unlearning Harmful Teaching About Sex
A body stuck in fight or flight after years of obligation, and the role the partner plays in rewiring it.
A body stuck in fight or flight after years of obligation, and the role the partner plays in rewiring it.
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Realistic Expectations After Years Without Sex
What is actually possible when both partners are motivated, and why the goal cannot be intercourse.
What is actually possible when both partners are motivated, and why the goal cannot be intercourse.
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Recovering From a Traumatic Loss
Healing conversations first, what the word healing actually means in practice, and the cost every protective move carries for the person making it.
Healing conversations first, what the word healing actually means in practice, and the cost every protective move carries for the person making it.
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What a Repair Conversation Sounds Like, and Closing
Naming the injury, naming what it did to you, holding it without defending, then reciprocating. George closes on what this work is for, inside and outside the bedroom.
Naming the injury, naming what it did to you, holding it without defending, then reciprocating. George closes on what this work is for, inside and outside the bedroom.
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Free lesson
Watch The Criss-Cross before you buy
The partner who chases you for a conversation at breakfast is very often the partner who rolls away from you at midnight. And the one who goes quiet in an argument is the one reaching for you physically.
Most couples have lived inside that arrangement for years and read it as two separate problems, or as one person’s fault. It’s neither. Watch the lesson, free, and see if it’s yours.
The part people talk about
Eleven minutes inside a real session
A husband reaches across the bed and feels his wife tense. His stomach drops. Here we go again.
She has been with the kids since six in the morning and has nothing left, and that hand landing on her back says one more person needs something from me.
You watch George take each of them through it, slowly, and then put the two sides together so they can finally see the loop they’ve both been losing to. Most people never get to watch this work happen. In this course you do.
Included in Chapter Four. Shared with the couple’s permission.
Who it’s for
Who this course is for
Whether you take it together or on your own, the material meets you where you are.
This course is for you if:How it works
you keep having the same fight, or the same silence, and nothing shifts
one of you wants more connection while the other feels nothing but pressure
talking about sex turns into frustration, defending, or going quiet
you feel close everywhere except in bed….. or close in bed and nowhere else
there’s a rupture between you that never got repaired
you haven’t had sex in months, or years, and it’s become the thing you don’t mention
you want to feel closer, and you don’t know the way back
You do not need to be in crisis to take this. Plenty of the couples who need it most are doing fine everywhere else.
How it works
How to take the course
Julie and George were fitting twenty sessions of work into one afternoon. You are not on that clock.
01 Buy it once
Everything unlocks immediately. No subscription, no expiry date, no waiting for the next cohort.
02 Watch a chapter at a time
Lessons run two to eleven minutes. A chapter is a sitting. Take one a week if that suits you better.
03 Do the exercises
These are the part that changes things, and they need room. Nothing you write down gets shared, and nobody is put on the spot.
04 Come back to it
It’s yours for good. Most couples return to the mapping chapter and the sex conversation more than once.
Positioning
Is this therapy? What a course can and cannot do
This is teaching, not treatment. Julie is a licensed therapist and George is a certified EFT trainer, and they are both clear in the course that what they are doing here is education. Nobody is diagnosed, nobody is treated, and nobody is put on the spot.
This course is education and guidance. A framework for seeing your own cycle, plus scripts and exercises you work through at your own pace. Available anywhere, any time, for one price.
Therapy is diagnosis and treatment. It treats mental health conditions with a licensed clinician, and it is limited by state licensure. This course is not a substitute for it.
Where a professional needs to be involved, Julie and George say so directly in the course, particularly in the chapter on trauma, coercion, and repair.
Your teachers
Why learn from Julie Menanno and George Faller
This course brings together two leading voices in attachment work, and it’s the first time they’ve taught together. Julie works in the emotional cycle. George has spent much of his career on what happens when the same attachment system shows up in the bedroom. Together they show you the whole picture, which is rarely taught in one place.
Julie Menanno
LMFT, LCPC · Author of Secure Love
Julie is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a licensed clinical professional counselor, a relationship coach, and the founder of The Secure Relationship, a global coaching practice rooted in attachment theory and Emotionally Focused Therapy. She has built an audience of more than a million people by turning complicated relationship dynamics into something you can recognize in your own kitchen. She hosts The Secure Love Podcast, and her work moves people out of reactivity and into co-regulation, responsiveness, and lasting intimacy.
George Faller
LMFT · Author of Brave Love, Great Sex
George is a certified EFT trainer and supervisor and the co-founder of the New York Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy. He has trained therapists all over the world, and he co-hosts the Brave Love Great Sex couples therapy podcast. His work is about integrating the emotional and the physical, and helping couples move out of disconnection into something that feels alive.
What you get
Included with your purchase
52 video lessons across 8 chapters, 3 hours and 15 minutes of teaching
11 minutes of real session footage, a couple working through a missed moment with George
The full hour of questions and answers with Julie and George
Guided partner exercises built into every chapter
The complete workshop slides as a PDF, including the eleven category BEST SEX TALK inventory
Lifetime access. Watch it as many times as you want, whenever you want
One purchase covers two people watching together
Pricing
One price, yours to keep
$249
One time. The full course, the session footage, the hour of questions, and the slides.
No subscription, no expiry date.
Secure Love Club members: $186.75
Members save 25 percent, the same discount that ran on the live workshop. Apply it with a member-only discount code at checkout.
Already registered for the live workshop? It’s already in your account at no extra cost.
The full on-demand course with Julie Menanno and George Faller. Eight chapters, fifty two lessons, three hours and fifteen minutes. Understand the cycle driving both your emotional connection and your physical one, and learn what to say when it starts.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
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It is the live workshop, taught by Julie and George in September 2026, edited into a course. The teaching is the same. What is gone is the waiting, the tech trouble, the break, and the clock. What is added is structure, so you can take it in pieces and come back to any lesson.
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No. If you registered for the live workshop, this is already in your account at no extra cost.
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For good. One purchase, no subscription, no expiry date. Come back to it in a year if that is when you need it.
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No, and a lot of people do not. The exercises are written so they work either way. Understanding your own position and your own protective moves changes how you show up, even if your partner never watches a minute of it.
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Yes, if you are watching together on the same screen. Two separate logins need two purchases.
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Very common, and worth knowing that this course does not make one of you the problem. Neither of you is the bad guy in it. The cycle is. A lot of hesitant partners find that easier to sit through than advice that starts by telling them what they are doing wrong.
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Nothing at all. Julie builds it from the ground up. If you already know the material, the sexual cycle layer will still be new, because almost nobody teaches it.
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Direct. Julie and George use plain language and specific examples, including what to say and what people actually like. Nothing is shown. But it is a real conversation about sex, not a careful one, so it is not one to have playing with children in the room.
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No. It is teaching. Julie is a therapist and George is a certified EFT trainer, and they are both clear in the course that this is not treatment and is not a substitute for it.
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You are in a lot of company, and it comes up directly in the course. George is asked what is realistic for a couple who have not had sex in more than five years, and he answers it. Short version: he has never seen a couple where both people were motivated who did not get there.
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That is in here too. There are questions in the final chapter about sexual trauma, about coercion inside a marriage, about harmful religious teaching, and about rebuilding after illness. Julie and George answer all of them carefully, and they are honest about where a professional needs to be involved.
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Yes. The Criss-Cross lesson is free to watch. It is the one that tends to make people sit up.
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Yes, the complete workshop slides as a PDF, including the full eleven category BEST SEX TALK inventory so you can score it together.
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$249, one time. Secure Love Club members pay $186.75.
Start today
Deep and lasting love is within reach of all of us
Not because the hard parts disappear, but because you finally know what is happening when they show up, and you have something to say.