Couples Intimacy Assessment
Understanding Our Intimacy Barriers
A comprehensive couples assessment covering nine domains that affect intimacy. Designed to generate a clear, shared picture of what is active in your relationship and to bring that picture into a productive conversation or into therapy.
Before you begin
A comprehensive map of what is active
Intimacy is rarely affected by just one thing. This assessment covers nine domains. Both partners rate each domain independently, then you see both pictures side by side. It is designed to inform, not diagnose, and is most useful when brought into a conversation or therapy session.
How to use this. Both partners rate every domain on a scale of 0 to 10 and answer the short reflection questions. Complete your own ratings independently before comparing. At the end you see a summary grid of both pictures.
Partner A is shown in teal. Partner B is shown in lavender. Where scores differ significantly, that difference itself is worth discussing.
A deeper tool. If you want a shorter starting point, the "What's Getting in the Way" tool covers this more lightly. This assessment is for couples who want a comprehensive picture.
Domain 1
Emotional connection and safety
How emotionally close and safe each person feels right now. The sense of being known, understood, and able to be vulnerable without it being used against you.
Domain 2
Unresolved hurt or accumulated tension
Hurt that was never fully named or addressed, including small accumulated frictions, unacknowledged wrongs, or a larger rupture that is still present.
Domain 3
Feeling seen and appreciated
Whether each person feels noticed, valued, and appreciated for who they are and what they contribute, not just in the intimate relationship but overall.
Domain 4
Communication and conflict
Whether difficult conversations happen and land well, and whether unresolved conflict is bleeding into physical closeness.
Domain 5
Desire and arousal
Differences in desire levels, what is suppressing or activating desire for each person, and how well each partner's desire system is understood by the other.
Domain 6
Body, physical, and health factors
Physical changes, illness, pain, medication, hormonal changes, body image, or any other physical factor affecting the experience of intimacy.
Domain 7
Anxiety, mental health, and mood
Anxiety specifically around intimacy, broader anxiety or depression affecting desire and presence, or any other mental health factor that is currently active.
Domain 8
Life circumstances and stress
External pressures such as work, finances, parenting, caregiving, life transitions, or grief consuming the energy and attention that might otherwise go to the relationship.
Domain 9
History and past experiences
Past experiences, whether in this relationship or previous ones, that are shaping current intimacy. Earlier relationship patterns, messages absorbed about sex and the body, or specific experiences that left a lasting mark.
Before the full picture
Your own sense of what is most active
Partner A
Partner B
Partner A
Partner B
Your assessment
Your full picture
Both people's scores across all nine domains. The highest-scoring domains, especially where both partners score high, are the areas most likely to be driving the intimacy difficulty.
Partner A
Partner B
Together
Together
Together
Together
Each partner:
"The one thing I will do toward your most active domain this week is _____________"
Sagebrush Counseling offers online couples therapy across Texas, New Hampshire, Maine, and Montana.
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