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Transcript

How Emotional Labour Is Killing Your Desire (And What He Can Do About It) · Intimacy With Lauren

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know what no one talks about when they explain low desire?
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that by the time you get into bed, you've already spent 14 hours being the person who remembers, coordinates, anticipates, manages, soothes, and sustains everything and everyone in your household.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: The mental load of running a family, tracking the school calendar, noticing when the shampoo and toothpaste are running low, managing your partner's emotional reactions, staying on top of everyone's needs is exhausting.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And exhaustion is the least fertile ground for desire to exist.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: The question is not why you don't want sex, the question is how you could possibly have anything left for it.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: In this video, I'm going to name what emotional labor actually is, show you how it depletes desire at the root, and explain what exactly needs to change for you and for your partner so you can create conditions where desire can exist again.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: You feel guilty for not wanting sex, but what you are not tracking is the full cost of everything you carry before that moment arrives.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: The emotional labor is invisible, even to you, and you cannot address something that you cannot see.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Lauren Wolf, registered psychotherapist and sex therapist.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Emotional labor is one of the first things I assess when a woman tells me her desire has disappeared.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: While it's not always the cause, it is almost always a contributing factor and a significant one at that.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to walk you through what emotional labor is, how it destroys desire, what women need to do about it, and what their partners need to understand about their role.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Emotional labor is the invisible work of managing the emotional and relational life of a household.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: It includes remembering appointments and birthdays, medication refills and social obligations, managing the emotional temperature of the relationship, anticipating what everyone needs before they ask, translating your partner's moods into something manageable, planning meals, events, social calendars, monitoring how everyone is doing, including your partner, and adjusting accordingly.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: It takes time and energy and is almost entirely invisible because when it's done well, nobody notices it.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Emotional labor does not come with a paycheck recognition or a clear end time.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I ask women to list everything they have thought about or done in the last 24 hours that their partner has not.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: The list is always long and always striking.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when they show it to their partners, the response is either something defensive or recognition of, I didn't know that you were doing all of that.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: That invisibility and that denial are the exact problems.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Desire requires a nervous system that is not an overdrive.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: It requires some sense of being cared for, not just the one doing all the caring.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: It requires physical and mental energy, both of which emotional labor consumes completely.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: When you spend your entire day managing everyone else's emotional world, you arrive at nighttime with nothing left.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And desire, which requires ease and presence and joy and the ability to receive, cannot emerge from depletion.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: You are not withholding, you are running on empty.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Desire requires receiving.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot receive when you have been in giving mode for 14 straight hours.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Women describe this as by the time we go to bed, I have given everything I have, and he wants more, and I have nothing left to give.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a desire problem.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is a resource problem.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: The desire cannot show up because the tank is empty and it gets emptied every day by the labor that isn't shared.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: If this is resonating, subscribe.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I post weekly on what is actually getting in the way of desire and what to do about it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: This conversation deserves more than just a quick tip.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be clear, this is not a partner problem.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Women also have a role in addressing emotional labor.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Many women take on emotional labor automatically before they're even asked because they have been conditioned to manage, anticipate, and maintain.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Part of addressing this is learning not to automatically absorb every task, learning to delegate rather than manage, and learning to name what they are carrying rather than silently resenting it.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Your husband can never know if you don't tell him.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you cannot change a dynamic you've not made visible.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And many women have never made the emotional labor visible to themselves or to their partners.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: You are not a martyr if you name what you're carrying.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: You are someone who has a right to be known and shared with.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: This looks like making a list of everything you carry that your partner does not.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Make it real and specific.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Identify which items could be transferred, not helped with, transferred, where your partner becomes the one responsible, not the one assisting.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Stop managing perfectly and allow imperfection when your partner takes something over.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: For partners watching this, her lack of desire is not about you.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm shocked by the comments I receive elsewhere from men oozing with insecurity and misogyny.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: For the loving, supportive husbands, her lack of desire is not about you.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is about the state of her resources.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the most powerful thing you can do to support desire returning is to reduce the emotional labor she carries, not help take over.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's a significant difference between helping and owning a responsibility.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Helping means she still manages it and you assist.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Owning means you notice, you track, plan, and execute.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't have to ask.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: She does not have to remind.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: You see it and you handle it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: That shift from helper to owner is what actually reduces her load.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Asking, what can I do to help?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: still makes her the manager.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Taking something over makes her a person whose load just got lighter.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Stop automatically absorbing tasks before your partner even has a chance to notice them.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Stop managing how your partner does things when they take something over.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Stop swallowing the resentment of an unequal load while running on empty.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Start making the invisible labor.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Start making the invisible labor visible to yourself and to your partner by naming it specifically.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Start transferring ownership of tasks rather than asking for help.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: There is a significant difference.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Start letting imperfections stand where your partner takes responsibility for something.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Tonight, do this.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Write down everything you have thought about, managed, or tracked today that your partner did not.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Be specific.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a complaint list, it is a visibility tool.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Share it, not as an accusation, but as information.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I carry.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I need us to talk about how to redistribute some of it.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Choose one item to fully transfer, not with instructions or check-ins from you, but with full ownership shifting.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let go of how it gets done.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And notice how your body feels even when one item is genuinely not.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Notice how your body feels when even one item is genuinely not yours to carry.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Desire cannot grow in depletion.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Reducing emotional labor is not a luxury.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is a precondition for desire returning.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: When you have resources, when some of the weight is shared, there is room for something other than survival.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Your desire is buried under the weight of everything you carry.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Making that weight visible and working to redistribute it is not a relationship fix, but it is a desire fix.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: The two are connected in ways most people don't realize.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're not withholding, you're depleted, and depletion is totally solvable.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to understand more about the specific things that block desire, watch the five intimacy blockers keeping you stuck.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Emotional labor is one of the drivers of the survival mode blocker, and that video gives you the full picture.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Link on the screen.