What a Couples Therapist in Minneapolis Recommends When You Need to Feel Close Again

Sometimes the disconnection between you and your partner doesn’t come from an obvious rupture—it seeps in quietly. You may share a home, a schedule, even a bed, but still feel distant. Maybe it’s been weeks since you really talked, not just exchanged updates. Or maybe you’ve started to wonder when affection last felt spontaneous instead of routine. You might love each other deeply and still feel a painful sense of absence.

This kind of drift is common, especially in long-term relationships. But it can also be confusing and unsettling. The desire for closeness doesn't go away—it just becomes harder to access.

As a couples therapist in St. Paul, Minneapolis & across Minnesota, I’ve walked alongside many couples navigating this very terrain. And while there is no one-size-fits-all solution, there are reliable pathways back to intimacy. In this post, I’ll share practices grounded in the work of Sue Johnson, Stan Tatkin, and Esther Perel—experts in attachment, neuroscience, and relational repair. And I’ll root those practices in something tangible: the local landscapes and spaces of Minneapolis that invite presence, emotional depth, and reconnection.

1. Name the Distance with Compassion, Not Accusation

Emotional disconnection is often misunderstood. It’s not necessarily a sign of apathy or betrayal. More often, it reflects unspoken fears—fear of not being enough, fear of being too much, fear of being misunderstood or rejected.

Sue Johnson, founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), teaches that most relationship distress stems from ruptures in emotional safety. When partners feel unseen or unreachable, they often protest by withdrawing or criticizing—not because they don’t care, but because they’re hurting.

Begin by naming the disconnection in a way that’s gentle and vulnerable, rather than reactive:

• “I’ve been feeling far away from you, and I miss us.”

• “I don’t want us to keep drifting like this—I want to come back to each other.”

These kinds of statements open a door, rather than reinforcing walls. They create space for curiosity rather than defensiveness.

2. Disrupt Routine with Shared Experience

Sometimes the rituals of daily life—groceries, dishes, emails, errands—consume so much of our energy that there’s little left for intentional connection. When that happens, stepping out of routine and into shared experience can reignite a sense of “us.”

Take Minnehaha Falls, for example. The roar of water, the winding trails, the smell of wet earth—it invites embodied presence. Walk together, without distraction. Let silence exist without pressure. Then, when you feel ready, ask something small but meaningful, like:

• “When do you feel closest to me?”

• “What’s one thing I do that helps you feel seen?”

These questions, drawn from Stan Tatkin’s Wired for Love, help couples reestablish emotional safety through attunement and intentionality.

3. Reclaim Touch Without Expectation

Physical intimacy is often the first casualty of emotional distance. But touch doesn’t need to be transactional or sexual to matter. In fact, it’s often the small, intentional gestures—holding hands, a hand on the shoulder, resting your head on your partner’s lap—that rebuild safety and softness in the body.

Reacquaint yourselves with nonverbal connection. Take a quiet walk through the Lyndale Rose Garden and let your hands find each other naturally. Sit close at a favorite local café like Caffetto or Quixotic and notice the energy between your bodies. The goal isn’t seduction—it’s nervous system regulation. It’s about gently reintroducing your partner’s body as a safe place to land.

As Esther Perel often notes, desire requires both safety and mystery. Physical touch without pressure can reignite both. A queer-affirming couples therapist can support you in exploring these small, nonverbal ways of rebuilding trust and connection.

4. Reignite Curiosity—About Each Other

It’s easy to fall into the illusion that we know everything about our partner: their opinions, preferences, wounds, habits. But people evolve. We carry within us entire emotional and existential landscapes that often remain unexplored.

Go to the Walker Art Center together—not as critics, but as wanderers. Find a piece that provokes something in you, even discomfort. Then ask:

• “What does this make you feel?”

• “What does this remind you of in your own story?”

• “What would this have meant to you five years ago?”

These questions don’t just reveal artistic taste—they reveal values, memories, worldviews. Emotional intimacy isn’t built on knowing about each other, but by being willing to keep rediscovering each other.

5. Create Sacred Time—Not Just Shared Time

Many couples spend hours together without ever really being together. Closeness requires intentionality, not just proximity.

Stan Tatkin speaks of couples becoming “secure functioning”—meaning they prioritize the relationship as a safe harbor for both partners. One way to do this is to carve out sacred time, even if it’s brief, where you’re both fully present.

One suggestion: On a Sunday morning, before phones and errands pull you into the world, grab takeout from Rise Bagel Co. and sit on the hill at Gold Medal Park. Watch the river or the skyline. Then, ask:

• “What moment from this week made you feel alive?”

• “What’s something you’re looking forward to?”

When couples practice this kind of intentional presence, it tells the body and heart: “You matter. We matter.”

6. Explore Spiritual Intimacy—In Your Own Language

Spiritual connection doesn’t require organized religion or shared beliefs. It’s about meaning. About awe. About the big questions that live beneath the surface of ordinary life.

Maybe it’s watching the sun set over Bde Maka Ska, holding hands in silence. Maybe it’s lighting candles and reading poetry aloud. Maybe it’s asking questions like:

• “What’s something bigger than us that you believe in?”

• “What do you think we’re here to learn, together?”

Ritual, reflection, and awe create a deeper foundation. They remind you that your relationship is not just a logistical partnership—it’s a living, evolving story with spiritual depth. Couples therapy can help you honor that story, especially when the plot feels uncertain.

7. Reach for Help When You’re Lost

Not every reconnection can be sparked by a walk in the park or a conversation over coffee. Sometimes the distance has been growing for years. Sometimes the pain runs deeper than what a weekend can heal.

That’s when couples therapy can help. Therapy provides a space to slow down, to unearth the patterns that block connection, and to practice new ways of being together. It’s not about fixing each other—it’s about understanding the longings, fears, and wounds that shape how you love.

There’s no shame in asking for support. In fact, it’s one of the most courageous things a couple can do. Your couples therapist will hold space for that courage to take root and grow.

Closing Reflections

Relationships, like rivers, don’t always follow a straight course. They meander, dry up in places, flood in others. There will be seasons of ease, and seasons that require more effort and intention.

But distance does not mean it’s over. Disconnection is not the same as disinterest. It may simply be an invitation—to pause, to reach, to rediscover.

So walk the falls. Sit by the lake. Ask the tender question. Touch fingertips in silence. And if you need help, a couples therapist can walk beside you as you find your way back.

Closeness isn’t a fixed destination—it’s a practice. And you can return to it, again and again.

Could Working with a Couples Therapist in Minneapolis, St. Paul, & Across MN Help You Feel Close Again?

When connection feels out of reach, it’s not a sign that love is gone—it’s often a sign that something deeper is asking to be tended. At NobleTree Therapy, our couples therapist in Minneapolis, St. Paul, & across MN offers trauma-informed, identity-affirming support to help queer partners slow down, soften defenses, and find their way back to each other. This work isn’t about fixing what’s broken—it’s about making space for what’s real.

• Let’s connect—schedule a free consultation

• Learn more about LGBTQ couples therapy at NobleTree

• Come as you are. You don’t have to do this alone.

Other Therapy Services Offered at NobleTree Therapy in St. Paul, MN

At NobleTree Therapy, we walk alongside individuals, couples, and queer families across Minnesota who are navigating the quiet, brave work of healing and becoming. Whether you're unlearning old relational patterns, tending to identity wounds, or simply longing to feel more at home in yourself, our practice offers a space rooted in warmth, attunement, and emotional depth. In addition to couples therapy, we offer LGBTQIA+ affirming care, support for religious trauma and spiritual wounding, space for creative and identity exploration, and companionship through grief that doesn’t always have a name. This isn’t quick-fix therapy—it’s work that honors your complexity, your resilience, and your pace.

About the Author

Kendra Snyder, MA, LMFT, NCC (she/her) is the founder of NobleTree Therapy and a licensed trauma therapist offering care across Minnesota and Colorado. For over a decade, she’s supported individuals and queer couples as they navigate the nuanced terrain of identity, intimacy, and emotional safety. Her work is grounded in somatic, depth-oriented, and attachment-focused therapy, creating space to explore what lives beneath the surface—and to tend to it with care.

Kendra specializes in walking alongside those healing from religious trauma, chronic misattunement, and identity fragmentation—including LGBTQIA+ folks, adoptees, and anyone forging a path beyond the expectations they were handed. As both clinician and survivor, she meets each story with warmth and reverence. In her couples work, she holds space for honest reconnection, trusting that love becomes more whole—not through perfection—but through presence, repair, and the courage to be fully seen.