Latest / The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast / 226. Is Infatuation And Love The Same Thing? Understanding The Infatuation Stage Of Marriage And How To Get It Back

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226. Is Infatuation And Love The Same Thing? Understanding The Infatuation Stage Of Marriage And How To Get It Back · 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.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: It's the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast with Nick and Amy, and the title of today's episode is Understanding the Limerence and Infatuation Stage of Marriage, and how Is it Different Than Love?
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: I think it's going to be a fun topic to talk about today, because we had an hour long conversation about this in bed last night.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: In fact, we stayed up till midnight talking about it and how men and women are different and things like that.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: We so often have that excitement in the first part of dating and then also in the first part of marriage, where you're just totally infatuated with each other.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: You can't see enough of each other.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: You spend every waking minute together.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: The sexual connection is strong.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: When you first get married, you just think, oh, this is going to go on forever.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: And of course, it doesn't, I think, when it wears off.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: So many people misinterpret that as, oh, we're falling out of love or our love is just dying or whatever.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I think that's why so many people, especially single people, are jumping from a relationship to relationship, looking for that excitement and they think infatuation means love and it doesn't.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: That's what we're going to talk about in this episode the difference between infatuation, limerence and love, because there is a difference.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: I remember listening to this podcast episode and this celebrity couple had been married for a few years and she's just like oh, the spark just died.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: The excitement wasn't there anymore.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I knew that we needed to get divorced and she got divorced.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: And I'm sitting there thinking that's pretty much every relationship.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Things do change.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: The excitement gets lost.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Sometimes that infatuation stage wears off.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: But there's a difference between infatuation and love, and so that's what we're going to dive into today.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Covered that well.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Covered that well Covered that.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Well, I wanted to laugh because Nick is totally guilty of looking at me sometimes and saying remember, when we first got married and you just wanted to make out all the time and you were so, your drive was so high and you totally missed that.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Right, you totally missed.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: We talked about this last night.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: We did.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: How fun that stage is.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: It's so fun to be like I can't wait to see them tonight and I can't wait to get off work and I can't wait to just wrap my arms around you and kiss you passionately all night long and on.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Those first stages of falling in love are awesome.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: They are so awesome.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: But some people get so addicted to that that they can't handle a real committed marriage, which is real love, which is different than that.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I think we all missed that.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: But I think this whole conversation is going to come down to mature love is understanding.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: That love deepens and it absolutely changes and then it takes work to keep that love and that romance and that passion alive, right.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: And most guys and probably most women are feeling this way as well too.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Most guys are thinking, yeah, because we get messages all the time.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: But they're like, oh, when we first were married, things were great, we were making love all the time and this and that, and then things totally stopped.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: And where did that go?
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: We get that from almost every single guy, right.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And the women are saying, well, when we were dating, I was getting flowers and I was being romanced and all these things were happening.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: And now that?
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Now I don't get any of that.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: So this kind of goes both sides right, like the excitement, the passion, all those things are gone.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And that's why people have affairs as well, is they're looking for that excitement and thinking, oh, that newness, where is that excitement again?
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: But again, this episode is to talk about the differences between limerence and fatuation.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: That kind of go hand in hand, but they are a little bit different.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: And then also love.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Like Amy said, that love is something totally different and it's okay that your marriage changes over time and that things aren't always exciting or that infatuation is gone.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: That is okay, but it doesn't mean you've fallen out of love.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Love is so much more and so much deeper, and so, yeah, like I said, we're gonna talk about that.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So Absolutely, and I think that we actually had to do some research on this topic, because I was told I think it was like a year ago that I heard the word limerence and I'm like I don't even know what that means.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: So I kind of had to like, look it up.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: I had never heard.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: But then I started thinking that limerence was the same thing as infatuation, because I'm like you're just infatuated with the person, like you're just like so giddy, so excited, not obsessed, but like do you know what I mean?
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Just like I can't wait to have you.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: And then you get married and it changes.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: So I've learned that those two things I mean they're similar but they're different, they're pretty different.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Now that I look back and I'm like I don't know that limerence is such a great thing now that I've learned about it, but we've all been infatuated before that.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: We're not gonna spend much time on those two differences, but we're gonna jump into what real love looks like and how marriage just changes and how we can make that amazing right.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: So yeah, and I agree with you, there's a little bit of difference and we'll talk about that just for a couple of minutes.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: But limerence can be described as an obsessive, all-encompassing form of romantic attraction, and some researchers have actually said that this obsession can actually be more of a mental disorder or even OCD.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Right, and we all have seen this TV shows or different things where a spouse is completely obsessed with another spouse to the point that they do crazy things, right, like they literally are watching them all the time and following them and just totally obsessed with them.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: And then if that couple ends their marriage or they're dating and they break up, then sometimes that person can do some pretty crazy things because they are so obsessed.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: And then you see, it goes to the next relationship and they kind of just go on from relationship to relationship to relationship because that limerence is so intense.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: And again, sometimes that can get to the point where it's a mental disorder or OCD.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Well, we forgot to start out by saying that we did take a poll on this and we asked our audience how many of you know what limerence is, and only 5% said yes.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: So I don't think most people even know what this word is Like I'm not gonna lie, like I didn't even realize what it meant until a year ago, right?
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: So should we jump in and kind of describe the differences we're?
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: gonna yeah, let's jump in and talk about the difference between the two.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so limerence and infatuation are both intense emotional experiences that involve feelings of strong attraction and attachment towards someone, but they do have different, distinct characteristics, for example like talking about, like the nature of feelings.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: So limerence is going to be more intense, you know, more fantasies, maybe a little bit more sometimes unrealistic.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Limerence is more like a long-term thing and infatuation can be more of like a shorter term thing, so to speak.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I think the normal couple is probably the average couple's more like in the infatuation stage.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: When they first fall in love or first married right.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly, right, exactly.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Because, like, the more I read about limerence and you guys couldn't correct us if we're wrong, we're not professionals, we had to research this but to me, the more I read about limerence and learn about it, the more I think that could kind of be a little bit toxic.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, and infatuation.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: we've all been through the infatuation stage, Like that's just, I think, natural.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: And that's exactly what this says is, limerence can be like for longer periods of time and a lot more intense and more of an obsession, while infatuation can be shorter lived and those feelings can diminish over time, and I think that's what we're talking about with, like most couples right, when they're dating, the feelings are very, very strong first and then they tend to die off over time.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: And that's the great thing about dating right, and that's part of dating is because you could go from relationship to relationship and you lose that, or you find things that you don't like about someone and then you move to the next person and you get that spark back right, like that's the whole part of dating is like you keep getting those sparks because you keep needing new people and then, however long you date, that kind of dies off and you're like I don't know if we're gonna make it.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: And then when you find that person, you absolutely find that stage.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: But you're like we are like so in love with each other, like we are totally alike, or we have dreams, like you can't imagine living without that person, so you decide to get married, right.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: And after dating.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: This is what makes it hard, because after dating and realizing oh, I mean a lot of people I think that whole dating thing is so much fun, right, and I mean it could be heartbreaking, but you're having so much fun like having that spark renewed every time you date someone new.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: And then you get to marriage and you're like wait, like we're committed, wait, this infatuation is going away.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I don't like the fact that this is going away.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: It kind of sucks right.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: That that stage kind of changes until you mature enough to realize, oh, it's changing in a mature way.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: And how do we accept that?
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: And I think the infatuation obviously, like you said, does change.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, in the polls that we're gonna share and the examples and things like that and all the emails and things Amy and I get, it's consistent across the board where it's like, oh, it was this way at first and now it's this way, like it, never, it, never, it never changes, hardly ever changes right, like I would say, 95% of the time it's consistent that way though.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, it was like this before, and now it's like this, yeah, and so that this is something that everyone, including Amy and I, obviously have experience.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: We definitely experience in our relationship.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: But I do want to jump back to and I don't want to get ahead of myself.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: There are things that you can do to bring back some of those Feelings of infatuation and kind of that stage in marriage.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Now Maybe it's never gonna be like it was, but there are never gonna be like it was.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: First falling in love is super fun.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's not gonna sustain life.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: There are things that you can do to bring back Some of those feelings and that excitement and that that passion to a certain point in marriage, and we'll we'll talk about those things as well for sure.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Do you want to get into the the poll answers and share some of the people's thoughts and feelings, like?
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I said.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I said do you know what lemurin says?
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: 5% said yes and I asked what is limerence in?
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Is it different than love?
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: And I got so many answers like I have no clue.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I have no clue, question marks no clue, don't know, never heard of it.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: So A couple people said a feeling of love that isn't a feeling of love.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: That isn't love, like more like a fairy tale, like yeah.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Another one said that lemurin is the same as infactuation, which it's similar.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: It's not the same, but it's similar.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: The fantasy love versus real life.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Right yeah, get stuck into exactly.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: That's one of the things that it says.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: You know, limerence can be maybe a little more.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: When you're in a state of limerence you are gonna going to ignore the red flags or the, the things, the problems or the things that should be recognized and you're going to live in kind of a fantasy world where people that, if it's more of infatuation and it's not that obsession, then people are gonna notice the red flags or imperfections or things that you know they're they're recognizing, I guess which leads us to the next comment that says infatuation of someone, fall in love with that idea of someone.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of how it starts out, right, like you fall in love with, you're like, oh, you're so amazing and we're all pretty amazing when you first meet, right, so you're gonna show your good side and your your strengths.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: And then all sudden you start to get to know somebody and you find out they're a real human being and everybody has weaknesses and flaws, right?
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so falling in love with the idea of somebody is the infatuation stage, and then you get to know them and things change like that's just, it's just how it works, right, someone else, that infatuation or lust, it is not love.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: A.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Great right, absolutely so that's where the problem caught comes from is because we think that infatuation Stage is what love is.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Except for that's not what love is.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And the many you realize that you're like no, this is just falling in quote.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: We think love, but when you really love somebody, you're looking at all those flaws, you're looking at all those weaknesses and you're like I Want you because of those.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and that's the whole point of this podcast is is, again, a lot of people think that Infatuation and love are the same thing and they're not.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: They think that, oh, if those feelings die off, those feelings that I had, they misinterpret those feelings as love and, like Amy said, it's not love.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: People have the infatuation stage time and time again when they're dating someone and then, you know, over Over X amount of time, those feelings die off.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: That that is completely different than love, and I think during this podcast episode so we don't get confusing I think maybe we focus more on infatuation and love rather than, you know, sharing.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're not going back and forth.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: What limerence?
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're not getting it.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Limerence is similar to infatuation.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: It's a little more obsessive, maybe a little more toxic.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: We're gonna stick to infatuation stage, because that's when you're falling in love and everything is giddy and exciting and Sparky right exactly, but to be to be mindful of this.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: If you aren't experiencing that infatuation still in your marriage, just know that.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: That is okay.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong with you, right You're.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: You're not falling out of love just because you don't have those feelings of excitement and all those feelings that you had when you were first married or dating.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Don't interpret those is that you're falling out of love, because Infatuation and love, like Amy said, are two completely different things and infatuation is not love.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Agreed, agreed, okay.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: So my question is what is love?
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: How would you define what is love?
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: well, you know, love is obviously something much, much deeper and it's not chasing those feelings as much as it is something deeper.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know how to describe it, but Sorry, I put you in the spot.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Um, no, that's okay.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, I know.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: You know how you feel about it.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know how I felt about it like that's probably what I should have pulled the audience Like what is love?
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I'll do that at another date, but to me, love is when you accept the person, when you know them, when you truly know them, and I feel like you almost have to be married to Understand what real love is, because love to me is sacrifice.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Love to me is selflessness.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Love to me is service.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: When you, when you realize we're both flawed, we're committed to each other, oh, and we're not perfect, but now we're a team and I'm willing to serve you and you're willing to serve me, and we're willing to put our selfishness and our, our human nature aside to serve.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Because I love you, I feel like love grows deeper and that's when you realize what love is, and love is 100% different than infactuation because now you're not loving and committing because of sparks and romantic feelings.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: You're loving and committing because that relationship is so much deeper, right?
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: So I love that you said earlier.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: We get so attached to that first feelings, and then we think we're falling out of love.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: What's happening is, I think, when we change from infactuation, change stage to the love stage, what we're doing is we're falling in love, we're learning what love is.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: So it's actually opposite kind of what we think, right.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's why you see so many like celebrities and stuff that just they go through like 100 marriages, like it's like every year.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: They're just addicted to the infactuation stage.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: And then when things, when reality hits and that excitement wears off, they're like, oh, I must be falling out of love.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: And so immediately they're going and chasing that again.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: And so they dive into another relationship and another relationship, another relationship, searching or thinking that if they find love it's going to fill that way the whole time.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: And the reality is it just isn't right.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: And that and that's okay, and that's again.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: What we're going to talk about today is there really is a big difference between infactuation and love.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So do you want to jump in?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I want to share one comment that Nick made last night while we were talking about this.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly how you said it, but you said something about, I think, that husbands.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: How did you say I got to think about this?
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I think the husbands have more of that, in fact, that infactuation stage built inside of them longer than women do.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: And I know this is a topic that a lot of people are going to think differently about, but it was quite a conversation that we had because a lot of husbands, like you said, come and say, well, she wanted to make out a little time and make love when we first got married and she was all over me.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Nick's admitted this many, many times.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: I said it last night.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: He says it all the time You've changed.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Your sex drive has changed, A lot of things have changed about you, but I feel like men or husbands with a high drive are still.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: They still have more of that infactuation stage inside of them continuously.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And it kind of dies off more for the why, and so I'm like that would probably would have been a great pull to take, but I actually agree with that yeah.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Well and tell us why you feel like that.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Well, as we've talked about in many podcasts, you know, it's usually the lower desire spouse that controls if and when sex is going to happen.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: And typically, you know, like Amy said, we talked about this for like an hour, maybe even an hour and a half last night and I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I feel like a lot of men feel like they get gypped a little bit right, and I'm like when, when you're dating, it seems like you know, there's the kissing and the affection and it seems like the future wife is really interested in things physically.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: And then, when you first get married, we hear all the time, man, the first couple years of marriage, we were making love all the time and things were passionate and exciting and this and that I mean this is the common thing, common theme from every single, pretty much every single husband out there not every single, we all know their exceptions, but majority of husbands out there, this is the exact common thing.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: And I stayed today, me, it's no different, right, like I'm like, oh, when we first got married, like I will admit that you were wanting to make love all the time and you were initiating and this and that, and so husbands are husbands still are searching or wanting that infatuation stage as well.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Right, like they're like.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Hey, why?
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Why is this not?
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Why is it changed?
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Why is it changed?
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: And for women, they, their bodies, change, they have, we have children, we have a lot of things going on and women are just like Amy was saying last night to they are just built differently.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Where they're not, most women do not crave or their bodies not telling them that they need this sexual release or the sexual desire we are just 100% created different.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Our bodies are created different.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: So you have a body part saying I'm in the mood, I want to make love to you.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: So you still have that drive inside of you.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: That's like craving your wife, right.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: And so for women I'm just talking about women that don't have that strong sex drive I know there's there's differences, but for the women that don't have that sex drive, we're missing that aspect of craving being intimate like you guys are, and I'm not saying like it, it sucks, it's not fair.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Like I think, most women listening would love to have a strong sex drive.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: We would love to feel that craving that we first felt before life hit us right?
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like you said, like our bodies have changed A lot of us have had children, our hormones have changed Our, our stress, our brain like all those things have impacted us being a mom, a parent, jobs, careers Like, I think, your body, the way you're created is you can overlook a lot of those things because of your strong drive and for us, our brain takes over and because we don't have that strong sex drive, are those, those physical body organs telling us that we crave?
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: That it kind of does change a lot of things, right?
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: No, you're exactly right Because when, when our sex driver, when a man's sex drive is strong, like that's what he's thinking about, right, like reality, reality can set in.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: But a man can push those things aside.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Where a lot of times women can't, men can get out of the routine.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Where a lot of times women can't, like, men can change the focus, where a lot of times women can't right, because because that drive is driving us to want that, where a woman, a woman, if a woman doesn't have that drive, they just they can't understand, like, why do you need this?
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Why do you, you know, why do you feel the way you do?
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: I just can't understand why you have to, you know why you crave it.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Why you crave it?
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: so much, and I and.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not, I'm not gonna lie, we're little gels.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: And I and I don't know why we're built that way.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: But it's awesome for you and I would.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I would love to feel like that, right, like I think a lot of women like I don't know, I don't want to get off on a tangent, so I'm just.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: The whole point is is that I think it's more natural this was our conversation last night I think it's more natural for a man to still feel like he has part of that infactuation stage because of his strong drive and a woman more women feel like they've lost that infactuation stage because we don't have that strong drive most of the time and a lot of things have changed for us in our bodies, and that's and we're going to bring it back to the podcast that's where love comes in.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: This is the way we talked about.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Love comes in when you understand and you have matured and you have had these conversations and you understand you're different than me.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: You were created different.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I'm creating different.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry that my drive has gone down.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: It's awesome that you still have a drive.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: How do we find that balance?
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: How do we talk about this?
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: How do we make this love, this deeper love, work with the two of us being different?
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Right, that's where love comes in is when you start compromising, when you start serving each other, when you acknowledge and accept those differences and you find balance, like I feel, like ultimate intimacy, finding that, finding that is where love truly comes in.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: You are exactly right and this is exactly part of the conversation we were having last night is talking about that how true love when you and your spouse truly love each other you're going to have that give and take.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: You're going to want to serve each other in ways that may be.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: A great example we were talking about last night is Amy loves raspberries.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Okay hold on.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: I have to give a little disclaimer.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: You're going to laugh.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: This is the stupidest, dumbest analogy ever.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: But I don't think so.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: They're going to laugh because they're like roll their eyeballs and be like that is so dumb.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: But for our marriage, this analogy worked for us.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: So, as you're listening, maybe pick something that would represent an analogy that works in your marriage and then go talk about your spouse with it.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, amy.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Amy loves raspberries like I love sex Like sir.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I know that sounds dumb.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: She, just she seriously loves raspberries and I know that and we've joked around in previous podcasts that that's her sixth love language is raspberries.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Fresh fruit.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: So I know that she loves raspberries and I'm not.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: I'm not perfect, but a lot of times I know she loves raspberries, so I'll go out of my way to go to the store or whatever, and pick her up some raspberries.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I do it not because I love raspberries or not because I want to drive to the store and take 30 minutes out of my schedule.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: I do it because I love seeing her face.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: I love seeing her smile, I love seeing.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: So I love seeing how happy she is when she's eating those raspberries, right?
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: If I love them, right, right.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: And so and so likewise is for sex in our relationship.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Like she doesn't have the desire to have sex all the time, she doesn't Not all the time.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's not natural for me, yeah she has a low desire, but she knows it's, it's important to me, she likes to make me happy, and so we have, we kind of have that back give and take.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: I guess, so to speak, like we want to make each other happy.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Now it doesn't and that doesn't mean it has to be perfect, like you're not.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: When you have a low-desire spouse and a high-desire spouse, you're probably not gonna find something that's perfect, right, because typically what will happen is the perfect situation is going to look different for a high-desire spouse than a low-desire spouse.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: You're not gonna find anything perfect, but you can find a balance that both of you can live with or both of you are happy with, and so maybe it's you're making love once to twice a week, and maybe that's not a hundred percent what the high-desire spouse would want, but it's not the lower-desire spouse having to give in anything, and so it's important to find that balance.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: The point I'm trying to make is when you have love, not infatuation when you have love, you're going to have that desire to serve and do things for your spouse.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: You just are which brings us to unselfishness, sacrifice and service.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: If you really love your spouse, you're willing to do those three things correct.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: You're wearing willing to if you're tired.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: If you're tired, you're still going to be willing to do something for 30 minutes that makes your spouse happy, right?
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I, I would hope so.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's because you love your spouse and because you love your marriage.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not saying our next podcast episode is on duty, sex and transactions in marriage, so I'm not gonna get into this.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I don't want to jump into that, and so you're.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: If you're rolling your eyeballs like well, then it feels like duty, or then it feels like an om something, or just listen to the next one.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: What I'm saying is sometimes and I know the raspberry thing was stupid, but Nick what Nick was trying to say is that I really enjoy eating raspberries.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: That brings me pleasure in my life, like I love, though I just do.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: There's probably something that you love, like some people love chocolate or whatever.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: He's willing to take the time out of his day.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Nobody wants to go grocery shopping.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: He sacrifices some time that.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: He's not even a fruit person, so he's like this is stupid.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Right, it kind of is, but it means a lot to me, so he's willing to do it.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: And sometimes making love or speaking your spouse's love language even though you have opposite love languages, I can find other things besides sex to talk about doing some kind of active service that you hate doing, but you're, it means a ton to your spouse like there's lots of ways to show intimacy besides sexual intimacy.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying we do things in our marriage for our spouse because it means a lot to our spouse, whether we're tired, whether we're stressed, whether we're worn out, whether sometimes we don't feel good, like we still are doing things all the time because we love our spouse.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: So the entire point is like when you have true love in your marriage, you have matured.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: You have matured enough in life or in your marriage to realize it's not all about you and even if there's things that you don't enjoy, you do them because you love your spouse.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: That's true love, when you're willing to sacrifice and serve your spouse yeah that's what I feel like love is exactly, and I think infatuation a lot of times is more of a selfish thing.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: I think it is it's like just like I've talked about when people get out of the infatuation stage, they think all the love's gone and they're thinking about themselves.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: I don't feel this feeling anymore.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Therefore, I'm not gonna stand this relationship or or even in marriage, like I don't feel this feeling anymore, so I'm not gonna keep giving her this or him this or keep serving in this way, right?
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Exactly, but the way you get those infatuation feelings back into your marriage is by both of you being like I'm gonna give to you and I'm gonna give to you, and we're gonna try and bring that spark back exactly that's how you bring it back right exactly.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: So that's what everyone's wondering in this podcast episode is what are, what are some of the things that we can do in our relationship to keep that passion alive or have, have times or glimpses of that infatuation?
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: Right, bring back I'll call it excitement or those butterfly feelings, or sometimes it's not those.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: It's not the butterflies and the sparks that you felt when you first fell in love or fell at first got married.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: It's different now, but it's still.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: You can still have a passionate and serving an exciting marriage by doing exciting things and keeping things new right exactly what you're gonna jump into the things so I think the first thing, the most important thing, is continuous communication.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Like I, like we say often, amy and I are always sharing conversations that we have.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Like last night we were talking for an hour hour and a half, having a great conversation in bed till like midnight, just before we're going to sleep, and there's just something about like having a good conversation that's just going to connect you more as a couple.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Now it doesn't always lead to sexual intimacy and that that it doesn't need to, but when you're connected emotionally, you're obviously going to then have the desire to be more physically connected, wouldn't you agree with that?
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I would agree with that yeah, and I think most women would agree with that, whether they have a low driver or not.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: I think most women love their husbands and if they really are feeling emotionally connected and and if you don't, that's that's on you tell him.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Tell him what you need, tell him the romance you need, tell him what is gonna be emotional connection to you.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I feel like most wives, if they feel like that and they are mature and committed, that will, that'll be important to them.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah for sure, for sure.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Well, part of that is sharing, you know, shared experiences where, whether you're engaging in activities together or hobbies or doing different things to kind of reignite the spark, like one of the best things you obviously can do is go on an overnighter or travel or things like that.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Like that's one of the reasons Amy and I try to do overnighters once in a while or go on a trip once a year or something is that is a great way to kind of have the excitement and and be in a new place and experience new things and and be able to a hundred percent focus on each other where we don't have the distractions and kids and things like that, and intimacy or sexual intimacy as well, is a lot more likely to happen when you don't have those different distractions right right so and then, I think, keeping intimacy alive.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: So you know, I don't know if this is a great example or not, but we, when you, when you're doing things on a regular basis and regular it can be different for everyone, that could be once a week, it could be once every two weeks, it could be twice a week, whatever it's just like exercising, when you get in that mindset and start doing, you know, exercising every day or something, it's something that you do because you know it has physical benefits.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: It might not be like your favorite thing to do to wake up and go exercise, but you do it because you know it's important and and physically, mentally, emotionally, you'll you'll be better because of it.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: And I think sexual intimacy can also be like that, to where, like and well, not jumping ahead, but I think it's something you just need to do right, like to enjoy something you got.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: You got to do it for sure, but isn't it like you bring up the whole gym thing or whatever?
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: So I just joined a ladies gym for the first time in my life and a freaking sucks, right, but isn't it interesting.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: But it's good for me and I know that, so I push myself and there's gonna be better there's gonna be benefits down the road when I finally quit being sold in store.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: but it's funny how many couples will go hit the gym and kick, kick their own little butts at the gym doing something really hard and strenuous.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: That's not fun.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Well, it's not fun for most of us, but they do it anyways.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: But yet so many couples are like well, I don't want to make love or I don't want to be emotionally connected and have conversations, whatever that looks like, I don't want to do that, because I just don't want to.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: But yeah so many people are so willing to go do other things Right.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you look at the benefits of like working out, like you said, it's not something you want to do, but it has benefits.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Making love is like the same thing, Like maybe it's not the most exciting thing for some women to do, but what are the benefits?
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: The benefits are you're going to have a happier marriage, a happier husband, a closer relationship, a better emotional intimacy.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: There are a lot of physical benefits of making love and having sex.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of benefits that sometimes we don't even recognize or enjoy.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: So maybe maybe looking at it saying you know what, maybe it's not my favorite thing to do, but there are a lot of benefits to our long-term relationship and our connection and everything by you know doing these things.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: And if it's not exciting and it's not something that you want to do because you don't enjoy it?
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: I mean I always say, figure out how to enjoy it, because your husband wants.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: It's only great for your husband when you're enjoying it.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: That's what he wants.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: This high drive spouse wants the low drive spouse to enjoy it, and you can enjoy it, implementing different things and learning your body and go back to the episodes that we talk about how to enjoy it and how to really, you know, find that, because that's really nobody wants duty sex.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about it in the next one.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Like that's not what we're going after here, yeah.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: Well, and I think spontaneity like doing and planning things that are exciting and kind of surprising and sometimes some spouses don't like surprises so find out if that's something your spouse likes or not.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: But and I know I get I say this a lot but if you just go back to the things that you did when you were dating, there's probably a pretty good chance that that's going to help create a lot of those feelings you had when you were dating.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Because how often do we get in life and get busy and we stop doing the same things we're doing when we're dating?
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: If you listen to the list continuous communication that's what you were doing when you were dating Shared experiences, you were doing fun things, you were going on walks, you were taking trips, you were doing hobbies and things together.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: The physical connection was there for a lot of people in the early stages of marriage, right when you're still in the dating stage, so to speak, of marriage.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Like our whole, first year of marriage for us was dating.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Because we got married so quick.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: So yeah, absolutely my point is is If you look at your life now, I'll bet you that for those of you out there that don't have that infatuation stage still, or that passion or that excitement in your marriage, I'll bet you anything that you're not doing the things that you were doing when you were dating.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: So again, incorporate the things that you were doing when you were dating back into your life and I think you'll see the passion, some of the passion on the romance and the sparks and that infatuation, those infatuation feelings to a certain level, get back in your relationship.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: If something is missing in your marriage, then change it.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: It's really just that easy.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: I feel like right, if something's not working, then change it.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: If you look at that list, like Nick just said, and you're missing some sparks, put those sparks back in.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: What did we do in our dating that we're not doing now?
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: It's just that easy.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: I was almost saying it's easy.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying it's easy to start implementing things and working on your marriage.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: And one of the things you could do is take your spouse to the 2024 Intimacy and Adventure retreat in March, the 21st to the 24th.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: The couples that have come to that this will be our third one that we've done, and the first two have been just phenomenal.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: People have just raved at how much fun they're having, and one of the reasons why is because we combine the intimacy and adventure.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: We do a lot of fun things, we have great food.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: We have a lot of great time connecting and getting to know people.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: The instruction is amazing.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: The instruction with the Gormans is just absolutely amazing.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: We have them in this retreat doing all the instruction as well, so go check it out.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Let us know if you have any questions.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Just email us at amyatultimateintimacycom with any questions you have, and we hope you enjoyed the podcast.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: We hope you bring back some of that infatuation into your marriage and go have a conversation about this with your spouse.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: There's a lot to talk about.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: So we hope each one of you find ultimate intimacy in your relationship Until next time.