Creating, Maintaining, and Rebuilding Long-Term Intimacy with Bella Krutik

Bella Krutik, a relationship nervous system and feminine embodiment coach, shares how she helps successful women and men rebuild trust, intimacy, and long-term connection. She reflects on her formative years as a rule-following, approval-seeking “good girl,” shaped by a first-generation Australian/Latvian immigrant family culture of playing small and staying safe.

Bella describes marrying at 20, divorcing four years later, then repeating similar patterns in a second marriage (people-pleasing, self-abandonment, blame, weak boundaries). Years after separating and divorcing her second husband (the father of her son), they reconciled and rebuilt a deeply honest, connected partnership after both did substantial work: she trained as a feminine embodiment coach; he stopped drinking, attended therapy and men’s circles.

They discuss how unrealistic cultural narratives about “perfect love” reduce self-responsibility and make normal human flaws look like red flags. Bella explains embodiment as shifting from living “neck up” into the body—tracking felt sensations, releasing “frozen tension,” and learning to respond rather than react in conflict. The episode also covers signs of “flatmate” relationships (logistics-only talk, screens, intimacy dropping), redefining sex as broader intimacy, practical reconnection via intentional touch and deeper conversations, gratitude as a practiced muscle, and how high-achievers must soften and drop control at home. Bella outlines how she helps clients discern whether to stay or leave without “should,” and how she protects herself by holding sessions in a “container” and using embodiment practices afterward.

00:00 Meet Bella Krutik

01:08 Formative Years

03:24 Immigrant Family Culture: Playing Small, Staying Safe

05:11 Embodiment & Learning Through Mistakes

07:04 Early Relationships: Unaware Patterns & a First Marriage at 20

09:49 Second Marriage, Same Patterns: The Myth of the ‘Ideal Partner’

12:43 Reconciliation After Divorce: Inner Work, Boundaries & Vulnerability

15:54 Society’s ‘Perfect Love’ Script

19:15 What Feminine Embodiment Means in Practice (From Head to Body)

25:29 Holding Pain to Access Pleasure

31:08 From Lovers to Flatmates

35:41 Redefining Sex: From Performance to Intimacy

37:24 Rebuilding Connection: Touch, Presence, and Turning Off Distractions

39:45 The Gratitude Practice: Training Your Brain to See the Good

43:42 Imperfect Love: Slipping, Repairing, and Embracing Messy Emotions

45:12 High Achievers at Home

50:28 Stay or Go? Untangling ‘Should’ and Taking Responsibility

55:03 Protecting the Helper: Holding a ‘Container’ for Clients’ Trauma

57:50 What’s Next: Career Vision, Partnership Without Remarriage, and a Possible Book

01:05:41 Final Reflections & Farewell

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