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248. Is Your Marriage Different Than What You Thought You Were Signing Up For? · The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast, where we discuss how to find ultimate intimacy in your relationship.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: We believe that, no matter how many years you've been married, you can achieve passion, romance, happiness and ultimate intimacy at any stage of your life.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Join us as we talk to not only marriage experts, but couples just like yourself and people who are just flat out fun.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast is for couples who have a good relationship but want to make it even better.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Is your marriage different than what you thought you were signing up for?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast with Nick and Amy.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: And we get so many messages from both husbands and wives that, oh man, when we were first married, the sexual intimacy was strong and we had fun, and then, pretty quickly, it just completely died, or or vice versa, or vice versa, or the women are like the second.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: We got married.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: All the romance went away.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: He stopped buying me flowers, he stopped doing this.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Amy would attest to that and you know it happened like amy was all over me when we were dating, like she, she was physically attracted to me dating and yeah, and then, and then.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: We're first married a lot and now it's like she doesn't like kissing and anyways, that's not true.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: My point is is, I think, and amy and I talked about this other night.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: We're like do you feel like a lot of people were maybe trick I don't know if tricks the word but sold something, um, or you know?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: we all, we all put our best forward when we're dating right, and first married, probably, and first buried, and then, when the ring goes on, it seems like we fall into old habits or or stop trying to impress our spouse.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of where we're going with today's podcast is if you feel like what you signed up for, or what you thought you were signing up for, has become a lot different.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: And this goes again for both men and women.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: We hear from women all the time my husband's not romantic anymore.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: He doesn't buy me flowers.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: He doesn't buy me gifts.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: He doesn't do this.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: So that's what we're going to talk about today and, of course, we did an awesome poll.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: The polls are what I love Hold on.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: I got to add something real quick before we jump into the poll.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Losing your sex drive is valid.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you have stress, you have children.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: That changes your body, that changes your hormones.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: That changes your hormones.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: That changes.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: I just have to throw that out there, like the romance doesn't have to stop, but the sex drive does change, okay, Maybe the best word to describe it is your effort is 100.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Both spouses' effort is 100% when they're dating right, and then it seems like when you get married that effort decreases substantially.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Okay, so today's podcast is going to be why the effort and the intention changes Because, like we said, we're talking about all the areas of intimacy.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: We're talking about the romance, the emotional connection, the sexual connection, like whatever that looks like in your marriage.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: That's what we're talking about is why does it change?
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: right, yeah, and I think, okay, let's, let's liken it to maybe a timeshare right, and I've never bought a timeshare A timeshare.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: But from what I understand.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: We have been to a timeshare presentation and they make you feel like, oh, if you buy this or you get into this, this is the going to be the most incredible thing ever.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: And then what happens?
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: You get it and you're like crap, this isn't nearly anything like they said it was going to be.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: And then you find yourself a couple years later really trying to get out of that timeshare.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Right, well, at least that's what we Well, at least that's what we've heard.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: At least, that's what we've heard right, and I think and I'm not saying this in a negative way, but I think sometimes we as spouses can feel like that with marriage, right, we put our best forward while we're dating and we think, oh, the intimacy is always going to be strong, we're not going to fight, we're the flirting, the romance.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: We're not going to fight, we're the flirting, the romance.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Everything's going to be there.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: And for both husbands and wives, that that typically for most couples stops not for all couples, but for most couples or dies down and they're left thinking, wait, that's not what I signed up for.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Why is this not still strong?
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Because it wasn't?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Or why is the romance not strong?
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Why does my husband not romance me anymore?
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And so, again, like Amy said, this is a podcast talking about effort.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Why does the effort, why does the effort die?
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: And what are things that we can do to, I guess, keep our commitments or keep what we sold to our spouse?
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Um, keep it, what we sold to our spouse, so to speak of.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you don't like that word, sorry, but it is kind of what.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: It is right and I will, and I am and I am saying I'm totally guilty because there's no question when amy and I dated that I would get her flowers and I would do anything for her, and when we got married those things pretty much stopped.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Oh, like overnight.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, we're married, she doesn't need that stuff anymore.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Oh man, Boy, did I, you know, learn my lesson and I'm not.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: What does that mean?
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: What does that mean?
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: What I'm saying is like and I'm saying for myself nothing that Amy did Like that was absolutely the wrong way to think, Like I want to keep doing those things because I want my wife to love me.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Oh, did I learn my lesson?
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: No, no no, I meant, I meant for me personally, like um.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: I just just that unleashed on him.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: I'm just no, no, no, no.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I'm saying just as I look back, I'm like why I love you more now than when I dated you?
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: So why in the world would I not try to keep having you fall in love with me, like I want you to be more in love with me now than when we got married?
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: And that's the big question.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Why would I not want you to keep falling in love with me?
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: That's the big question.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: Are people even thinking that?
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: Is that coming in their mind?
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: I want my spouse, my husband, my wife to keep falling in love with me.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: I don't know if they're even thinking that.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: And that's the problem, because if you actually thought, what am I doing to keep my spouse to keep falling in love with me?
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: If you don't even have that thought in your mind, you're probably not doing anything, right.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you probably stopping the effort.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Well, and if you look at like we have so many couples that contact us, as we always say and it's always, it's always the same thing one spouse stops putting forth an effort.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: It might be a spouse stopping to put forth an effort in how they look, might it might be how they treat their spouse.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: It might be that sexual intimacy is no longer important.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: It might be that the husband's not doing date nights and romancing his wife anymore, like it's always that someone's effort stops.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Stops, for sure.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: But it's not really fair, right, like we say, I'm going to commit to you because you've, like you said, quote sold me on your appearance, your drive, your attitude, your personality, your direction in life.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: You're just all those different things, different things and also a couple years in a marriage, or ten years, or twenty, or two, or ten, two months, whatever it is.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: All of a sudden you're like wait, if you, if you stop doing those things, that's kind of unfair for the other person, right?
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: absolutely.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: You sold them on what type of spouse you were going to.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: But let's all take common sense, slash life into this and, yeah, things are going to change.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Bodies are going to change, aging happens you, you didn't have kids before, you didn't have stress before and a lot of I mean we have to take into consideration.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: Yes, those things are going to change, but the whole point is your effort really shouldn't stop and the intention in your marriage it's going to change.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: It might look differently, but that's where communication and all these things come into play is because, hey, I don't feel like you care much about this, like you did when we first got married.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Can we talk about?
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: that okay.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: So what's the biggest excuse that people make for maybe their marriage not being great anymore?
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: It's like the number one excuse is like oh, things change right.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Well, usually it's my spouse quit putting in the effort, like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: This isn't all about like.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: If your spouse stopped putting in the effort though some of the reason might be because of something you did you just don't want to look at that right.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Or the other common response is oh, that's just the way.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Marriage is right.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: This is what happens to everyone.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: No, it's not and it's not so, but those are just common excuses for why people kind of just stop putting forth effort and giving up on things, correct?
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Well, let's dive into the poll, because the polls and the answers are awesome.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, we took a poll and I don't know any of the answers, or?
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: responses.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: I have not shared the answers with Nick, so I'm just going to catch him right off guard right here.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: We started off asking our audience is your marriage different than you thought you were signing up for?
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: Pretty simple.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: And I would guess that 70% would say yes, I'm just guessing 82.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: 82, wow 82% of our audience.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: We usually get a couple thousand people looking at our surveys.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: We only do them in our stories.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: 82% said yes.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: I'm interested, and now that doesn't mean that when they say is it different than what you thought you were signing up for, doesn't mean it's bad.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't mean that when they say is it different than what you thought you were?
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: signing up for it doesn't mean it's bad.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't mean it's bad, although I would say I could be wrong.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: The majority are probably going to be negative, but I would say there's probably some positives in there too.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: Well, I think when you listen to that question, is your marriage different than what you thought you were signing up for?
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: No-transcript, probably not in a positive light, but I don't know.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: So let's hear some of the answers.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: That's pretty, that's pretty high, about 82%.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so in what ways is marriage different than you expected?
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: This is where we're going to get into it.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: And before we jump in, I would say I would answer that question yes, Marriage is different than what I thought I was signing up for.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I would guess you would say the same thing.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: It was, it was.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: But I think we're both saying, okay, we don't want it to be that way.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: We've been through that hard point.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: What are things that we can do to make it change?
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: And I would say now that our marriage is different than what we thought we were signing up for, but a lot more positives.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: We've had to figure some things out.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: And I think different isn't a bad word.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: I think that we need to look at is it different than what you expected?
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because you don't know what to expect.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: We all, like, have this picture in our mind what marriage is going to look like, and then we expect certain things with the way we were raised and grown up and brought up, and so then we get into marriage and we're like, of course it's going to look different, it there's not one person in this world that probably would say it wasn't different than what they expected, right, probably nobody, Maybe not yeah.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: I would love to meet someone who said, nope, it's exactly what I thought it was going to be.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: But, like you, said where we said is it different than what you thought you were signing up for?
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: That puts more of a probably a negative emphasis.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: And we aren't trying to come at this from a negative standpoint.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: The point we're trying to make is, for most marriages, they go into marriage with these expectations, um, even if they're realistic or unrealistic as to what their marriage should be like and a lot of that is based upon what they were sold during their dating phase, because obviously, amy put forth her best when we were dating, I put forth my best, so we sold each other hey, this is what you're getting.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: And then, as we got married, some of my flaws came out, and Amy doesn't have any flaws, but a lot of my flaws started coming out.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: She's like what the hell did I sign up for?
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: well, you already mentioned my flaw.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: What's that?
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: That my sex drive went down oh yeah, well, that's not necessarily.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: I, I.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I can honestly say, though, that I wish it hadn't.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: It's more of a a health thing, I think.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: I think it's hormones.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to get it fixed.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: I'm work, it's a working progress, right, but I would love to have that back.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: I, I, I can't say that I blame it on.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's my personality.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: I hid that.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: I really think it was like children and kids and all that I would love to have that back too, well, I mean, do you hear that you're whispering into the microphone, just joking no, I'm saying that joking, obviously um it doesn't affect you that.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, it doesn't and and again I'm saying that lightheartedly, like I amy we have.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: We have a great sex life and great relationship and it wasn't even the romance that got me that stopped for you.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Like we had to talk about that and then Nick stepped it up.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: I think it was more the my upbringing that affected.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: Like my dad worked multiple jobs and then I had to be the supporter in our marriage and like that really shook us.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: And so I think that expectations can be negative and that kind of comes into play with this, but I don't want to get into like expectations.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Let's just jump into this poll.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see what people have to say, and I'm sure a lot of us can relate to it.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Is your marriage different than what you thought you were signing up for?
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: And then we asked in what ways is it different than you expected?
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: So I don't even.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: I haven't really looked at these yet, so I'm sorry if I You're just reading the unedited this is unedited.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: It sucks, was answer number one.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: I expected the same amount of love and desire.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: 17 years later, it doesn't feel the same anymore.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my intimacy has changed.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: We've learned how to be best friends, enjoy being together, together and experience life together.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: There's a positive for you, there's gonna be positives in here, I promise.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Even though I haven't read them, I just have a feeling.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: I thought he'd understand my needs without me having to ask talk about that before I think we all learned that one um sex doesn't happen easily.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: That was from a wife.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: That's very true.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: I learned that one my marriage, no sex.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: That is devastating.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: My marriage is actually better than I expected.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's awesome.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm one of those that, if, as of today, I can say that too, like I feel like marriage to you is better than I expected it to be.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: Awesome.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it took a lot of work to get there because we almost were divorced right.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like we went through really hard stuff.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: It does take a lot of work.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: That's what we're going to talk about.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Another wife said feels less like a partnership than I thought it would be.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: If your spouse isn't super good at effort and communication, you're going to feel like that.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're going to feel like that.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're going to feel like you're on your own.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: Another wife I feel like a solo journey because he never chooses to be present, vulnerable or transparent and in that kind of situation that's deep and that needs some counseling, because there's a reason why someone isn't being vulnerable or transparent in their marriage.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: It's usually a deeper issue.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: I thought I'd be the.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: I thought I would be the top priority after God, but work and extended family is a bigger priority in my marriage.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we hear that a lot.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: We do hear that a lot.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: That's sad.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: Not at all what I imagined it would be.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Not all butterflies and roses, it's very, very difficult.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: And I and I don't think difficult's bad, because I think when things are tough it sometimes makes you appreciate the good times better.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Imagine if everything was perfect.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: You really want to appreciate what you have right and so.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's bad to have difficult times it's better than I thought that than I ever thought that was another answer from a husband.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: We're growing apart.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: That's from a husband.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: That's sad.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Way less sex than expected.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: I think, probably every man that has the higher drive.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to say every man, because I get that there's some women with higher drives, but I'm guessing that every husband with the higher drive has probably thought that.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, right.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: I think that's normal.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Everyone says marriage is so hard, but honestly I feel like it's easier than I ever expected that was from a husband.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: That's awesome that is awesome.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: His wife must have not lost her libido.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: Um k, kids have changed our marriage.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: That's one of those things that you have no idea what you're getting into until you have kids, and that is when prioritizing your marriage above your kids, and what that really looks like in a marriage, becomes oh so important.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Right Another this is from a wife.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: The appreciation for his acts of service, his love language, turned into more like demands.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: I actually was talking to someone online today about a quote that was posted I think it was on someone else's account that I had reshared, and it was a quote about sexual intimacy being important in a marriage and the word demand was in that quote and the conversation turned into nothing is positive when it becomes a demand.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, nobody wants to be demanded to do anything in the marriage, right, and when we got into really hard time in the financial problem problems that we were having, I started demanding him getting a job.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: I did, I'm not gonna lie, and that's where things got worse, because I'm like you get a job or blah, blah, blah, you know well, it doesn't matter what it is like.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: There's nothing you may talk about there, like when you're demanded to do something you almost want to do the opposite.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: I think it's human nature for sure and so absolutely, she's saying when it turned into demands and she did a frowny face, but it just when you feel demanded in your marriage, it turns negative.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: It's just, it is what it is.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah right um.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Another response was it's so much more comfortable.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: I'm myself 100 all the time.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: I wish I was more authentic when we were dating.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: I wish everybody was more authentic when they were dating I think, there would be so many less problems in marriage if we were more real.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: But that's, it's just how it is right like you put yourself out there exactly.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not going to show your flaws or your insecurities or anything like that well, maybe you would, but to a certain point yeah, right, yeah um, a lot harder than I expected.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: We have more lack of connection.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: We aren't as much our own family unit as I thought.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: We would be like cleaving together versus us against the world.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Um, she promised to make physical intimacy a priority and she has completely quit.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: There's probably a deeper into.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: There's probably a deeper reason to that.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Like I hate it when I don't know, though, I feel like I feel like some spouses, some women and it's not always the women, but typically like I feel like some of them because they don't desire or they don't have that desire built in them.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: They they often probably feel like well, if I feel this way, this is probably how my husband feels right or should feel yeah, like, yeah or should feel like you know, oh, he doesn't need sex, he, he should feel the same way I feel, which is there's really no desire for sexual intimacy.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: And that's yeah.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: So I think a lot of women look at it and say, oh, he doesn't need it, he just wants it.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: And because I have no desire to want it, at the end of the day, it is for the most part the women controlling if and when sex happens, right.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah Well, whoever the higher drive is, yeah Well, I was going to add to that Like you don't know how your spouse feels because you're not your spouse, and for most women they're like ah, that's not really important to me because I don't really crave that.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Your husband does Like he's built differently, His body parts being like like I need to make love to my wife I'm gonna go crazy, I'm going crazy, I'm getting upset and ornery, like you can't be like, oh, it's not really a need, unless you have been a man and know that you can't really say that.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Right, that's my point and I keep, and I always will go back to the two experiences of the women that we know that went and got their hormones balanced and they turned into the higher desire spouse.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: And one of them said if I I never knew my husband felt this way, if I would have known how, how he felt changed everything I never would have.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah you know, well, I had a divorced wife write me the other day about something and it was about the hormone treatments and she's like I did this and it changed my sex drive completely.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: She's like if I she did like at the end of the marriage, I think it was too late yeah but she's like if I would have done that, like in the middle of the marriage or more when I started losing my drive, she's like I look back now, I'm like that would have changed so many aspects of our marriage and don't think, you know, don't have the attitude that like, oh my heck, you know my husband would leave me because I don't have sex with him.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Like, don't, don't underestimate the powerfulness of sexual intimacy and connection for a husband.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Intimacy, yeah, intimacy.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: For a husband Because, again, we've talked about this so many times that is how a husband feels loved.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: If a husband isn't feeling loved, nothing else matters.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Right, Like you can, you can tell him all day long how much you love him.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: But a husband wants to be desired.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: We spent so much of our retreat talking about how husbands want to be desired and they feel desired through their wife wanting them sexually.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: You take that away from a man and feel like he's not desired sexually, like there's nothing left, like for most men it's just like that they don't feel any.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: They don't feel desired or loved or anything but just swap that right, like we always talk about.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Like if a husband's, like have sex with me and the wife's, well, there's no emotional connection.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Like I don't feel loved, you don't prioritize me you treat like your career, like it's the most important thing in your life, and then you come home from work and you just get on your phone or get on a video game or go retreat to the bedroom and ignore me.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: It's no different that wife is 100% not feeling loved, and so we both want that intimate connection.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: We just feel it in different ways.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and nobody's nobody's way of feeling emotional connection or feeling loved is any less important than the other person's right, agreed Right.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Like it can totally be swapped and.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: I'm and again, I'm certainly not saying I want to be careful, because I'm not saying that it's just the wife's fault if she's not being intimate with her husband.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: That's not what I'm saying at all.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Like Amy said, it goes both ways and neglecting your spouse regardless, I feel like neglecting your spouse's needs is a form of abuse.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: I agree with that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: I agree with that on different levels.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: I'm going to keep reading.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Do you want me to keep going on?
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, sure, a couple more and then we'll dive in to the four simple things you can do to kind of change I got so many responses on this so I could go all day, but I'll just read a few more um different, but much better than we thought 30 years ago.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: How can you really ever know that's exactly what we just said?
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Right, like you, of course.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: It's going to be different, like not.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: Unless you were married before to the exact same person.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: You have no idea what you're getting into and again.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Different isn't bad.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: What we're talking about is maybe more so when you're you're sold something uh, feels like housemates instead of a tight couple in love.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: I think that's probably where 80% of the people well, I don't know, I guess we're getting we're getting a lot of positive, but maybe 70% of the people are really feeling like that.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: I think we all like looked at marriage being like, oh, we're gonna have these romancing in love, intimate feelings all the time, and then they taper off and love changes and, like we said, that's where the effort has to get put back in right, like you actually can get that back and that's what we're trying to like say, like, whatever you're feeling, whatever different, like oh, it wasn't what I expected, it wasn't as good as I wanted.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: You can turn that around.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Like and it's.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: It's fairly easy too, and that's what we're going to give you four simple things that you can do to turn things around.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Okay, let's read a few more.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: I expected my wife to still want me sexually, at least once in a while.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: I never thought marriage would be this difficult.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: I thought we would have a stronger connection than we do.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: The older you have, the more you have to put work into your marriage.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Honeymoon stage equals autopilot.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: Thought I'd spend more time with my husband.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Life is so busy.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: I feel very lonely.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: We used to have fun.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: We used to have fun having sex.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Um, my marriage is one-sided.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: I thought I'd have a lifelong best friend.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Instead I have a roommate.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: Feels like a stranger.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: There's not much appreciation in my marriage.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, I kind of want to end on a positive one.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm going to end on two positive ones.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize how wonderful it would be.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: I'm nine years in and it's better than I can imagine.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: 32 years and still massively in love.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: That's awesome.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: So there are couples and I can guarantee, if I asked any one of those couples that left a positive note on this.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: What they're doing.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: They would say that they both put an effort and they both put intention into that marriage every single day, absolutely A hundred percent agreed, and I'll and the four things that we're going to discuss.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I can guarantee that a hundred percent of the couples that are happy are doing these four things.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: So if you want to see marriage change and you are two spouses that both want to see your marriage change here are the four things you need to do.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Number one put forth some effort.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Now a lot of you are probably thinking well, what does that mean?
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Where do I put forth effort?
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Find the areas in your marriage that you feel like are lacking or that maybe haven't had much effort put forth.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: You're not for a husband?
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Are you not as romantic?
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Are you not doing the things that you were doing when you were dating, Like buying her flowers once in a while, giving her a card sending her a text Like just even those simple little things.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: put forth some effort can just completely change the whole perspective and dynamics of your relationship and how they feel, or you know what they're thinking.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: What does that mean to you?
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Put forth effort, same thing.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Same exact thing and I think what's important about this one, I think love language has come into this Same exact thing and I think what's important about this one, I think love language has come into this Because you like, like Nick said, like you can't Stop giving her flowers well flowers.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Your mom, your wife might not like like gifts at all.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: She might not want that kind of stuff.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Maybe she needs time, maybe it's taking a walk around the block.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Hold her hand.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Go have some conversation with her before you climb into bed.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Go, take dress up for her and take her on a date.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: Like, actually look nice and put effort into a date.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Have it all planned out for her.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Maybe that would mean a lot to her To put in effort.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: You have to communicate about what that looks like.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: You can't just say I'm putting in effort.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Oh well, I'm not.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: I don't speak your love language, so that's not really effort to me.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: I need different effort and you're both going to have different efforts and different needs, and that's.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: You just have to talk about it and notice I said putting forth some effort, like all it takes is a little bit like for sure, if you're putting in virtually no effort, bump it up to 10 or 20 percent and that's going to feel like a complete game changer for your spouse.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: So figure out the areas that you're maybe lacking in on both sides and just put forth a little bit more effort.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: And that sounds kind of exhausting for some people to put more effort into something Like I'm already so tapped out right, like my career and just finances right now and this and this, and I've got so much on my plate, to think of having to put effort Like.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: What does effort look like in a marriage?
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Like we said, 20 minutes at night, turning your phone off, just turning your phone off is going to change your marriage.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Just sending your spouse a text or anything Say, hey, I really appreciated that you did this last night, thank you, thank you for doing that.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: That is effort, something that simple, is easy.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Effort is easy.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly Number two date each other again.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I can promise you that everyone on this that that uh did our poll that is saying marriage is awesome.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: I can promise you they're all having frequent date nights, and the ones that are not happy in their relationship are probably not doing date nights.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: That's how you fell in love, you.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: You dated each other, so start dating each other again.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: I'm going to add to this one.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: We just got done with our marriage treat.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: If you listened to our very last episode about all the wonderful takeaways and Greg shared a story that I just loved and he talked about what it looks like to date each other and how we kind of just get complacent and okay, where?
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: do you want to go tonight?
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Where do want to do dinner?
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: we are so guilty of that we'll get in the car and be like you choose tonight.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: No, you choose tonight but at least we're still doing it we're still doing date night.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: But he said, take it up a notch.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: He's like.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Sometimes he's like I'll get ready, I will have it all planned out.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: And he's like I will go through the garage to the front door and ring the doorbell and act like I'm picking her up for a date.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: And I a lot of people were laughing like, oh, that's so funny, that's cheesy or whatever.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: But he's like but Julie was like, that was so great.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Like I.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: I felt like I was 20 again.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I felt super romanced, like if, even if you just grabbed a flower out of the yard and showed up at the door, like those simple little things mean a ton to your wife and I'm laughing in my head because I can hear greg going to the door.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: Hey chick, you ready yeah, no, it was such a great retreat, but we talked about this the simpleness of like dating your spouse and putting that effort in.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: It was so good all right, love it, totally agree.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Third thing start having some conversations together.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: I remember reading a stat that said the average couple talked like something like nine minutes per day or something right, and half the time is, if you're talking nine minutes a day, you're not getting into anything deep.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: It's probably more like all right, we'll see you later what time the kid's you know getting done or yeah, it's probably stuff like that spent a couple minutes each day having some deeper, more meaningful conversations again, just like back when you were dating.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: That's how you got to know each other.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: You start having those conversations and connecting a little bit better emotionally and that's gonna.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: It's gonna lead to other things if If you okay.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Some couples say I don't know what I talked about.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: We always talk about either work, or we talk about the kids, or we talk about house stuff, Like.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: It's just not like it was when we were dating.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Here's a tip.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: This is literally why we created the app Conversation Starters.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: I know that you're like Conversation Starters.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's just just like we've been married 30 years.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: What do we not know about each other?
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: I promise you there's things that you don't know about each other and conversations that you have never had.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: One night, me and nick um pulled out the intimate conversations or even just the regular in conversation starters on the app and two conversation starters turn into an hour or two hour long conversation.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: We couldn't even stop talking about it because I was like how have we never talked about this?
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: And so if your date nights, if you're looking across, like you go to a restaurant and you're looking across each other and you're just like okay, we got to just talk about the kids again, Like what else is there to talk about?
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Pull it out, pull out your phone and just ask each other a couple questions on the conversation.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: I mean you're going to end up having deep, you're going to end up staying curiously about each other, learning new stuff about each other, and that's what we're talking about when we talk about effort.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, and it's simple right, totally agree.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: The final one is make sexual intimacy and connection a priority.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: If is, make sexual intimacy and connection a priority.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: If you have to schedule it, I know that sounds lame but again, if you have to say you know what we're going to.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: We're both going to put forth an effort to connect sexually on Monday night and Friday night or whatever.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Those are right.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Put forth an effort, put it on the calendar, so to speak, and make it a priority.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: If you're connecting sexually, you're probably going to be connecting better emotionally, and vice versa as well.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: So I mean, I think it's don't if, if you do those four things, you're going to see your marriage completely change let me point something out really quick.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: So he listed four things.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: He listed out put forth some effort, date each other, have meaningful conversations and then make sexual intimacy a priority.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: If you look at that list, three of those were emotional intimacy.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: One was about sexual intimacy.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: So I guess in my mind I'm thinking okay, if you, if you're spending all 75% like out of this list, on deep dating connection, emotional connection and then sexual intimacy is number four.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: For a woman it's like gosh, my husband's putting a lot of time, but I'm having sex a couple times a week or whatever is balanced for you.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: It's not that much to do, right?
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it shouldn't.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: It shouldn't be put on a back burner.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally agree, I can totally get into that, but.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Totally agree.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Well, and I loved how they talked about it at the marriage retreat.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I think they mentioned that sexual intimacy is just as vital and important for a woman as it is a man.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I don't remember all the things they said.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: We'll have to look at the notes.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: Well, all the health reasons too.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Hormones, stress, health just better, sleep better, skin better all those things that we use as headaches.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Sex is actually good for.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: So we should make love later, anyways.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: So, do those four things, I think you'll see your marriage completely change and, yeah, we really hope you enjoyed this podcast.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Um, if you missed the last episode, we have some new products that we just got in the shop.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Card deck number two, volume two Sex Physician volume two.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: Instead of having only 75, you now have 150.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: Who doesn't want that?
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Who doesn't want that Exactly?
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: And we really appreciate your feedback, your reviews, your purchases, purchases.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: It keeps our podcast going.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: We love doing this, we want to keep doing this and we appreciate your support yep amen that.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, we appreciate listening to the podcast and until next time, we hope all of you enjoy ultimate intimacy in your marriage.