Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Late Bloomers

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Late Bloomers · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi, everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show, today, we're going to be talking about late
• 0:10
  bloomers. I do have a post about this, but
• 0:13
  it's a really popular topic because for reasons, I will
• 0:17
  discuss men who are late. Bloomers, tend to think that
• 0:20
  they are kind of the only freak in this embarrassing situation.
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  And in reality a there are often not even late bloomers by any
• 0:28
  real metric. And be like, this is a very
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  common source of insecurity for men.
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  Who have, you know, had all sorts of sexual histories as I
• 0:38
  will get to. And so somebody asked for this
• 0:41
  to be a podcast in my Facebook group so I'm going to do it and
• 0:45
  please do subscribe. My most recent subscriber
• 0:47
  episode was why on was why everybody should not go to
• 0:51
  therapy and who should and who shouldn't?
• 0:54
  So that was something that I just recorded and that I am sure
• 0:57
  that you will like particularly if you have ever thought about
• 1:01
  therapy more. Broadly like man, you know, like
• 1:04
  how Everybody should just go to therapy and you'll probably be
• 1:07
  interested in my thoughts about that being as I'm therapist.
• 1:11
  All right. So late bloomers, so I have guys
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  coming in saying they were late bloomers when they didn't have
• 1:16
  sex till they were like, you know, after their mid-20s and
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  guys who didn't have sex till they were, you know, in college
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  thinking that they were late bloomers because they didn't
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  have sex when they were in high school and I have guys who had,
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  you know, like everything but, you know, through college, but
• 1:32
  then were a late bloomer because they didn't, you know, like it's
• 1:34
  like all all sorts of stuff, you know, or like a guy who came
• 1:38
  into his own and his like mid 20s or late 20s and started to
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  date a lot and slept with a whole bunch of women and but
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  still considers himself a late bloomer because before that it
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  was only one woman or whatever, it's like a whole range.
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  There's like really no commonality with these guys
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  except that they all feel deeply insecure and kind of like Freaks
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  and like they missed out on some Integral experiences that
• 2:07
  comprise manhood and Adolescence, and they frequently
• 2:11
  relate their discomfort or lack of success with women.
• 2:16
  Whether it was with dating later on or in their marriages, they
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  frequently attribute this to their lack of experience early
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  on and or the related lack of confidence that this lack of
• 2:28
  experience led to. So, the reality is that there
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  are no that there's no like real cutoff for What makes a man, a
• 2:35
  late bloomer. It's really how you think about
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  it and there's a whole range. As I said of actual experiences
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  that all make men think that they are still somehow late
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  bloomers. What I do notice is
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  commonalities is that these guys frequently were raised in sex -
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  household and they have some anxiety and shame around sex and
• 2:56
  that they frequently tribute that to their lack of early
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  success. But in reality it's very
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  bi-directional and if there As a causation Arrow, I would say
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  that it goes from the shame and the negative thoughts about sex
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  to the lack of success with women.
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  Whereas the guys usually say because, you know, I didn't get
• 3:16
  a lot of experience then, you know, I lost my confidence.
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  They didn't have any confidence, it's really the opposite.
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  It's like guys who are very conflicted about women, and
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  about sex and have a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear and
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  shame. And we're raised in household.
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  Where they didn't see a lot of affection and they kind of have
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  no real idea what affection looks like in real life, you
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  know, between two people except if they're watching television,
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  you know, guys like that or going to strike out with women,
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  you know, I'm guys with attachment issues guys with
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  insecure attachment, particularly preoccupied or more
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  off. And fearful avoidant attachment
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  which I have done a podcast about the one where you have a
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  really difficult childhood, see what end up Like having
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  components of both preoccupied and avoidant, you know,
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  attachment so it's more like they they want very badly to be
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  with women but then they're also scared of women and kind of hate
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  women like those guys like that stuff is like, you know, it's
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  like cologne. Like the women can sniff it on
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  you and so they're not responding to that you're like
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  not good looking or that you're not, you know, athletic or
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  something. They're responding to the fact
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  that you see seemed kind of, you know, weird and difficult around
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  women because that's how you feel.
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  And the reason that you feel like that is frequently because
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  of these two things, either having a very sex - household
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  that you grew up in and or, and, of course, there's going to be a
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  lot of overlap with this seeing, a very difficult marriage, you
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  know, or having seen your parents, go through a
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  conflictual divorce or having one parent, cheat on the other
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  parent or like something where you learn not to trust.
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  Relationships. So if you grew up with like
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  let's say a narcissistic mother, are you going to be really into
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  women and I mean you're certainly really into women.
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  You certainly want to have sex with women and you fantasize
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  about it all the time. But do you really want to be in
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  a relationship with a woman as much as you may say?
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  Yes. Everything that you were trained
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  in your subconscious is shouting.
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  No because you don't trust women, you don't trust them not
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  to be like your mom, you don't trust them.
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  Not to be dangerous to trust her to be close to To.
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  So, the worse, your relationship is with your parents and the
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  more conflict. You see between them, then the
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  more ambivalent, you're going to have about adolescent,
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  relationships, and young adult relationships, because you
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  literally still in your family home, you're still seeing all of
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  this shit. You're still interacting with
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  these negative attitudes towards sex and relationships that are
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  being internalized from the home that you live in.
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  And then simultaneously in high school.
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  You're supposed to just, you know, somehow magically enter
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  Into a mutually loving, you know, high school, sweetheart
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  relationship. I mean, How likely is that?
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  It's very unlikely to be able to do that without a template.
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  You know, and it's just a learned behavior.
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  Guys, who are seeing happily married, parents are more
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  comfortable, and confident, they kind of think of themselves as a
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  guy who will one day be happily married.
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  And so, when they have like a little girlfriend, when they're
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  14 or 15, they don't think something like, oh she's
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  probably going to like break my heart or be a bitch.
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  She's this isn't real or she's not going to like me.
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  And they don't think that before they date the woman either, like
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  when they see a pretty girl in English class, they think
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  something like, oh wow, I'd really like to date her.
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  I bet she would be a good girlfriend, you know, and of
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  course, they think, you know, their x-rated thoughts to
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  because their pubescent, boys, but they also think these nice
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  thoughts, you know, and the guys that grew up though, hearing
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  like a lot of bad stuff, or observing a lot of bad stuff
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  about women relationships or sex, they don't, they think they
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  see the hot girl, English class and they feel attraction but
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  also fear / dislike and they're like, I bet she's a real bitch,
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  you know, and, and and I bet that she would never go for me.
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  I bet she's the kind of girl and you see a lot of the stuff on
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  like but in cell forums, you know, and I've talked about
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  insults before as, like, kind of extreme attachment issues on
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  confidence issues. And guys, it stands for
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  involuntary, involuntarily celibate, and it's these.
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  These guys that go around Being very upset that that women only
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  like attractive men, they think, I don't know, etcetera, you
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  could Google it. But anyway, um and one of them
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  got very famous which is why this term got mainstream one of
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  them. Got very famous for trying, I
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  think to kill and possibly succeeding and killing a girl
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  that rejected him when he asked her to go to the prom or
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  something like that. But anyway, so these guys you're
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  going to see a hot girl in English class and think bad
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  things and those things are going to make him seem a little
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  bit jumpy and Around her. She's not going to go for you
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  know where as if he looked exactly the same way but acted
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  different. She might you know if he just
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  was kind of like a nice semi confident.
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  Guy of course, every young person isn't super confident yet
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  but the ones who were raised in happy homes are more confident
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  about their ability to at least speak to somebody of the
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  opposite sex have been potentially, you know, have some
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  sort of a mutually You know, nice and affirming interaction
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  with them. So the guys who are late,
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  bloomers are almost always guys who grew up and hope and houses
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  where they were trained to be negative toward relationships or
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  sex, so sometimes they're like super religious houses.
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  So like sex was totally off the table.
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  You weren't supposed to have premarital sex.
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  They were hearing all terrible things about premarital sex.
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  Well, then it's really hard to kind of, you know, many of those
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  guys philosophically repudiated religion by College Years.
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  But then it was really hard to get rid of those ideas.
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  About sex is bad girls, that will have sex with you or
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  slutty. And, you know, nice girls are
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  virgins and, and all of this stuff.
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  I mean, I've said a lot that a lot of the people that I get in
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  counseling or people who were raised to wait until marriage
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  and then their sex life is pretty terrible.
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  You know, at least at first because they have no idea what
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  they're doing and this should not be any sort of.
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  Surprised because you need practice and confidence to, you
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  know, really achieve any sort of closeness in bed and these
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  people had neither. So anyways, so the late bloomers
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  in marriage frequently, have a lot of problems with their wives
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  because their wives are like, basically, like why do you have
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  so many confidence issues? Like, what is the deal with your
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  self-esteem? I thought that we're living like
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  a nice life. I thought that like you're
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  happy, you have a job, we have kids, like I'm happy.
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  Like why are you never happy sometimes these Want to do a lot
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  of crazy shit in bed because they feel like they never got to
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  and so they want to catch up and they want to make up for lost
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  time. Which certainly the woman does
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  not want to do because she correctly feels that it's not
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  about her. It's about just literally him
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  checking some stuff off his bucket list.
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  So you know the woman feels the same as if she said to the guy
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  you know what I really want to do what I really want.
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  I want you to like work like an extra job so that you could buy
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  me like this car that I've always wanted but like you know,
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  it's cool. Cool.
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  Like you know you just have two jobs you know, cause I really
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  want a Range Rover. So like I think that's fair
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  which of course, like it's very, very similar.
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  The feeling when a guy is like, basically I he says implicitly
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  or explicitly. I never got to do enough stuff.
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  So now I want to check off everything that I've seen in
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  poor, and now that brings me to another issue which is that
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  these late bloomers had a hell of a lot of years where they're
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  only experience was with porn. And I've talked a lot about how
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  that can make an exposure to Horn.
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  That's extremely heavy. Certainly can make a guy, you
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  know, not really understand what sex is like and think that women
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  only supposed to act a certain way and respond to certain way
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  and everything is about, you know, having this kind of
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  really, you know, poorni sex that women hate and you know so
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  then they got kind of caught up in in the whole idealization and
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  devaluation of women because they're these super hot women
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  but they're only behind a screen and you can Can't get to them
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  and they're slut. And it, you know, it's really
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  bad for like a guy who doesn't have a young man who has no high
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  school girlfriend were real life experience with sex with women
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  to be in like a tunnel of porn. Like, all the time that they
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  just descend into basically four hours.
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  A night is like really bad for mental health and it sets the
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  guy up for these massively unrealistic expectations of his
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  later wife. So that that Is a really big
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  thing. And also a lot of these guys are
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  tempted to cheat later on because they get attractive and
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  they are, you know, like they were probably always attractive
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  but again they acted kind of Jumpy and nervous and you know,
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  they were they were very, very not confident and now they're
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  more confident because they're grown men and so they are
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  exactly who is, is at very high risk of cheating because they
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  have never had the experience of confidently walking into A room,
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  having a woman smile at you, maybe you start talking to them
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  and then you go up to the hotel and have sex, you know, to their
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  room like so on a conference or something.
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  If that were to happen to a man who is a late bloomer, he would
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  be at much higher risk for possibly cheating than another
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  guy because if he still has a lot of this conflict and kind of
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  resentment and bitterness over what he thinks of as these Lost
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  Years. You know then he wants to again
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  make up for Last time and this, then the resentment, he feels
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  toward his wife who cannot be multiple porn stars but is just
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  one person, he feels like she's not doing enough in bed.
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  She doesn't care enough about it about him experiencing things,
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  and she's not like porn after all.
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  And so then you could see how this makes like a very, very
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  perfect alignment of stars here for him to cheat.
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  So that that is a possibility as well.
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  And also the porn addiction frequently continues into
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  marriage. Particularly, if the Man is then
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  disappointed by his marital sex life and then feels very
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  hopeless. Feels kind of like he never got
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  to have sex in a you know, in the ways that he wanted to and
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  now he's never going to so any could become very very hopeless.
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  Now, couples counseling is ideal and individual counseling,
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  certainly for the guy but both kinds of counseling, a really
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  good because when somebody is feeling resentful, hopeless
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  conflicted angry, I mean that does not make them a good
• 14:02
  partner, you know? And They could be depressed.
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  There's like a lot of stuff that the guy probably has to work
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  through in terms of resolving his issues from adolescence and
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  from that stage and it's frequently coupled with anger
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  about his family life and that he had no template and they had
• 14:19
  no shot. And they shove these attitudes
• 14:22
  about sex and marriage and whatever down his throat.
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  There's like a lot of stuff going on.
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  So individual therapy can be useful couples counseling can be
• 14:30
  helpful as well, and also even just kind of See that's geared
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  toward accepting like how that this is that what how the guy
• 14:39
  feels, but that it's really not what he thinks.
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  Most people are not going through life.
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  Like they're on you know some kind of episode of 90210 or
• 14:49
  Brandon Walsh was with a different girl every weekend
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  like that isn't what most guys high school life is like but if
• 14:56
  you're a late bloomer, you kind of idealize, this this whole
• 15:01
  like player lifestyle or whatever and you think, Sigelei
• 15:05
  everybody was doing that except for you and that.
• 15:09
  So even just having some basic knowledge and awareness about
• 15:13
  the actuality of what other people's lives are like.
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  So frequently, for example, I talked to guys who had the
• 15:20
  situation and I say, well, you know, the average amount of
• 15:22
  sexual partners is for a person at 7 and they're like, what?
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  Like I thought was like, 40, you know, not 40, you know, it's
• 15:30
  like seven and frequently these guys had seven, you know?
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  Because After they stop being a late bloomer, they had seven or
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  maybe they had four or maybe they only had one.
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  But you know what, the average of seven minus one is a lot
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  different than if they think that the average is like, 40,
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  you know, you're not 39 women different than everybody else.
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  And so, even just basic awareness of how this late
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  bloomer depressive kind of thought process can impact you
• 15:59
  from seeing reality, can be very useful in and of itself.
• 16:03
  I have a lot more. Not I mean, I think I covered a
• 16:05
  lot, but I certainly have more that I wrote about this in my
• 16:08
  post late bloomers. Just always Google anything on
• 16:11
  dr. Psych mom.com.
• 16:13
  And if somebody's going to ask about late-blooming women, I
• 16:17
  prove you that a little bit in the post women don't usually
• 16:20
  come to me with tremendous dissatisfaction about about
• 16:24
  having been a late bloomer. That's not to say that women
• 16:26
  don't say that they wish they would that they slept with more
• 16:28
  people, they frequently do because they just wish that they
• 16:32
  had more fun, you know, or that they had pursued.
• 16:34
  Did some crush or something like that?
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  This is like a human nature thing.
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  Women are human. So both both genders often feel
• 16:43
  like they should have taken more opportunities.
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  Should have been more Carefree should have enjoyed life more
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  when they were young and there's a this is more prevalent
• 16:53
  obviously. In people who struggle with more
• 16:54
  depression because people who are depressed seem to like see
• 16:58
  Life as a string of missed opportunities.
• 17:01
  So if this exemplifies your general Outlook Then it wouldn't
• 17:05
  be a bad idea to get assessed for depression in general
• 17:08
  because know every single human does not look back at their
• 17:13
  early years with a mix of resentment anger bitterness.
• 17:18
  And you know, discussed and and healthy dollop of like self
• 17:23
  degradation. That is not normal.
• 17:25
  That means that you're struggling with depression most
• 17:27
  likely and unresolved childhood trauma.
• 17:29
  I would I would really wager. All right, so hopefully this was
• 17:34
  useful for you. You guys, please do subscribe.
• 17:36
  They're going to be over 90 subscriber episodes.
• 17:39
  Now, follow me on all social media and I'll talk to you all
• 17:41
  soon.