Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When You Can't Deal With Your Wife's Changed Feelings About Sex

Transcript

When You Can't Deal With Your Wife's Changed Feelings About Sex · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody and welcome to the Doctor Psych Mom Show.
• 0:09
  Today I'm going to talk about why you don't want your wife to
• 0:13
  lie about wanting sex. And before you say, of course I
• 0:18
  don't want my wife to lie, I'll describe how guys actually do.
• 0:21
  Some of them want this. They just don't know that that's
• 0:24
  what they want. Before that, though, please do
• 0:26
  subscribe. My most recent subscriber
• 0:28
  episode was something or other. Let's see what it was.
• 0:33
  It was people used to prioritize marriage more is entirely
• 0:36
  inaccurate. Nobody could prioritize marriage
• 0:39
  more than most of the people that I witnessed today.
• 0:41
  And there are plenty of books about that.
• 0:44
  And I discuss all of those, at least one of those in in that
• 0:47
  podcast. OK.
• 0:48
  So moving forward, there's a lot of guys who are like, why can't
• 0:53
  she just, you know, like, act like she likes it?
• 0:56
  And listen, man, yeah, like she shouldn't lay there like a dead
• 0:59
  fish. I say that too, Don't lie there
• 1:01
  like a starfish, try to get in the mood.
• 1:03
  But globally, globally, it's like when the woman says
• 1:08
  something like, man, I really don't like sex as much as I used
• 1:11
  to. They were like like what the
• 1:14
  Internet calls butt hurt, which seems to just mean when a guy is
• 1:19
  very sulky and acts super like, immature about having his
• 1:23
  feelings hurt. So I mean, I don't really like
• 1:25
  the term, but it's what came to mind in that moment.
• 1:28
  If if you act extremely sulky and difficult about your wife
• 1:33
  mentioning her changes like growing up, getting older, her
• 1:38
  hormones are changing. She just doesn't value sex the
• 1:41
  way that she used to. If you want her to lie about
• 1:45
  that, then she feels that you're another child that she has to
• 1:48
  handle. And she feels that she cannot be
• 1:52
  honest with you about her real life and her real thoughts.
• 1:56
  And I'm not saying that she should say.
• 1:58
  And that's why I never want to have sex again.
• 2:00
  I'm seeing it more like more like if you were to say to her,
• 2:04
  you know, she wants you to go take a walk every evening and
• 2:06
  you said something like, man, you know, my back hurts a lot.
• 2:09
  I'm not as young as I used to be.
• 2:10
  You know, at some point here, we're going to have to make
• 2:13
  these walks like 2 miles, not like 3 miles and maybe even one
• 2:18
  mile. And I'll go for as long as I
• 2:20
  can. I promise you that.
• 2:21
  I know that you like these things and but I'll tell you
• 2:24
  man, I feel pretty old lately, right?
• 2:27
  Don't you want to be able to say shit like that to your wife?
• 2:30
  I mean, obviously, like you're a human being, you know?
• 2:32
  I mean, you would want to share how you view yourself.
• 2:35
  You're changing feelings. Your body, the world, your your
• 2:39
  changed perspective on your capabilities, your limitations.
• 2:44
  I mean, it's it's infinite. You should be able to say things
• 2:47
  that you think about your own self to your spouse.
• 2:50
  But yet, when some women in my office say I don't value sex the
• 2:55
  way that I used to, I'm getting older, my hormones are
• 2:59
  decreasing. I don't really have any issue
• 3:01
  that I want to take hormones for.
• 3:04
  I've changed kind of who I am really.
• 3:07
  I still want to have sex sometimes.
• 3:08
  I still enjoy it sometimes, you know, and I can get in the mood
• 3:13
  sometimes. I can try.
• 3:14
  I understand it's important to you, but I myself do not
• 3:18
  prioritize it the same way as I used to.
• 3:21
  Many women say this for example after menopause, and some women
• 3:25
  start to say it with perimenopause.
• 3:27
  If somebody is telling you a real world change due to age and
• 3:33
  stage, it would be, it would be like like a child saying to you,
• 3:37
  you know, mom, I don't really know about going to Disney this
• 3:40
  year because it's Beach week, You know, for me, I'm a senior
• 3:43
  now in high school and I've been going to Disney for a while and
• 3:47
  I'll tell you, you know, it's really great of you to take us.
• 3:49
  And I've though, been enjoying it less and less.
• 3:51
  And this year before I go off to college, I think I'd rather do
• 3:55
  Beach Week, which is scheduled at the same time.
• 3:57
  You're not going to be like, fuck you, you know, you're not
• 3:59
  going to be like you asshole. You're going to be like, Oh
• 4:03
  yeah, you're right. I I know, I know.
• 4:06
  I've noticed that you guys don't like Disney the same way.
• 4:10
  Say yes. I didn't realize it was at the
• 4:12
  same time as Beach Week. I'm sorry.
• 4:15
  It is sad for me, but it is happy for you.
• 4:18
  And I do. I do hope you have a good time
• 4:20
  at Beach Week, right? I mean, you're going to say some
• 4:22
  shit like that, right? And hopefully you're going to
• 4:24
  mean it. And even if you cry like about
• 4:27
  like little pictures of them with Mickey Mouse ears to
• 4:29
  yourself, you know you're not going to be like, you can't go
• 4:32
  to Beach Week and you're an asshole for telling me about
• 4:34
  Beach Week, right? So like, it's the same thing.
• 4:38
  And it goes along with my post Why are your kids allowed to
• 4:41
  grow up but not your wife? So a lot of guys totally
• 4:44
  understand when their child has a change of stage and when their
• 4:48
  child wants to go out and do more independent things.
• 4:50
  And in fact they get very upset when their wife doesn't want
• 4:52
  their child to grow up, but then when their child, when their
• 4:56
  wife rather says totally age appropriate things.
• 4:58
  Like I do not value sex as much as I used to when I was fertile.
• 5:03
  No shit Sherlock, right? And not for nothing.
• 5:07
  The woman doesn't usually include this, but when you were
• 5:10
  young and harder and more easily excited and you know, more young
• 5:15
  and virile and handsome, you know, like she, she misses that
• 5:19
  part too. She's not usually going to say
• 5:21
  it, but that goes along with it. And no matter how much
• 5:25
  testosterone you snort, you know, I mean you are not going
• 5:29
  to be 35 when you're 55, no matter if you're in the best
• 5:32
  shape of your life or whatever. You know what I think of that
• 5:35
  quote? Go back to all my aging podcasts
• 5:38
  on aging. But when a woman shares these
• 5:40
  sorts of completely age appropriate musings on her own
• 5:44
  mortality and and change of stage and what she just values,
• 5:49
  then some guys not all guys some guys are really awesome and
• 5:54
  mature and can come back with you know what you know I'm at a
• 5:58
  different stage too. Like I remember like one you
• 6:01
  know couple I worked with. Like I said well you know cuz I
• 6:04
  always say this to just to help people smooth it out.
• 6:07
  I say I I try to extend how much the guy would want it.
• 6:12
  Like I say, well, I'm sure he wants it, you know, maybe every
• 6:15
  day. And if you want it once a week,
• 6:17
  then what would a compromise be? And you know, because sometimes
• 6:21
  younger guys and less secure guys especially will not tell
• 6:24
  the woman how often they want it.
• 6:26
  Right. They won't say that because
• 6:28
  they're scared she'll think they're like a sex maniac.
• 6:30
  Right. So I try to help them out a
• 6:32
  little and just say that that is, though.
• 6:34
  It's normal, which it is normal, you know, for a young guy to
• 6:36
  want sex every day. Right.
• 6:38
  Well, this guy was older and he's like, you know what,
• 6:40
  though? Yeah, I really don't.
• 6:42
  Yeah. I would really want it, like,
• 6:43
  twice a week. You know, that is truly what I
• 6:45
  would like. And so if you're partnered with
• 6:48
  such a person and many guys have said things like that, you know,
• 6:53
  older guys and more confident guys, that's that's kind of the
• 6:56
  commonalities. If you're more confident that as
• 6:58
  a man, then you don't have to say, Oh yeah, I'm exactly the
• 7:01
  same as I was when I was 16, I still jerk it like 7 * a day,
• 7:04
  like, you know, calm down. So, so the the point is that
• 7:09
  some guys are like, yeah, man, me too.
• 7:11
  I also am changing in these different ways.
• 7:14
  I don't think about sex as much as I used to.
• 7:16
  I remember when I was 25, it was quite a bit different than now
• 7:19
  you know and and also last year may have been a little bit
• 7:21
  different from now and at some point and 10 years, certainly
• 7:24
  five years et cetera, et cetera. So people, men that can join
• 7:28
  their wife in their wife's aging and changing, which of course
• 7:34
  the man is aging and changing. So it's like he's joining her no
• 7:38
  matter whether he admits it or not.
• 7:40
  He may not have the the decrease that she has and it may not come
• 7:43
  as quickly, but he definitely thinks differently about sex.
• 7:47
  Now those men can be in in much more loving and real and genuine
• 7:53
  partnerships where the woman is trying her best to be intimate
• 7:57
  because let's say that you're a guy and you're 65 and you want
• 8:00
  it, let's say once twice a week. That is much more doable for her
• 8:05
  than if you're 65 and out of anxiety that it might perhaps
• 8:09
  mean that you are getting to be old.
• 8:12
  You say, Oh no, I want it every day.
• 8:14
  I'll tell you, every guy I ever work with that's like let's say
• 8:17
  over 50 and stops with porn no longer wants it every day
• 8:21
  because you can go back to my articles on porn.
• 8:23
  But porn artificially keeps your sex drive super, super high.
• 8:26
  It fluffs you and it primes you mentally to see sex everywhere.
• 8:30
  And also of course you're able to finish all the time with with
• 8:34
  porn because you just keep on looking and looking for that
• 8:37
  money shot. Whereas if you were not using
• 8:40
  porn, you really wouldn't necessarily be able to
• 8:42
  masturbate the same way at that age.
• 8:44
  So my my point is that when women share, as long as they're
• 8:50
  not saying I'm basically fuck you, man, I I don't want to ever
• 8:54
  touch you again. Or maybe they could say that
• 8:56
  without the fuck you part. They could say, listen, I am
• 8:58
  totally beyond sex, but I want to stay married.
• 9:01
  Let's think of some sort of arrangement, you know, that we
• 9:03
  could come up with for that, right?
• 9:05
  And so there are many sorts of arrangements.
• 9:07
  Some people have an open marriage.
• 9:09
  Some people have don't ask, don't tell.
• 9:10
  Some people the guy goes and gets a happy ending massage
• 9:14
  every so often and some people just divorce.
• 9:17
  You know, I mean there's a lot of ways to skin the cat.
• 9:20
  But the the point is here that as long as your wife is not
• 9:25
  saying basically screw you, you're on your own.
• 9:27
  I'm I'm changed. That was then this is now.
• 9:30
  If she's trying to share with you openly changed values and
• 9:34
  priorities, then you too can have an open discussion with her
• 9:39
  about your maybe, maybe if it's a bridge, too far to say that
• 9:42
  your sex drive is down at 55 or 60, which it shouldn't be a
• 9:46
  bridge too far to say that versus 35 or 40, then you can
• 9:51
  maybe talk about it in other areas.
• 9:53
  That's the same as I am with working out.
• 9:55
  I remember I used to be able to run 3 miles in 15 minutes and
• 9:59
  that has not been the case for a long time.
• 10:01
  And you know what? Sometimes I think why am I even
• 10:04
  running right now? You know, I mean, why don't I
• 10:06
  just go enjoy something else and whatever, whatever.
• 10:08
  And so that must be how you feel about sex or.
• 10:12
  I used to value work a lot. I remember I would have all
• 10:14
  these all nighters and I was so interested in closing the deal.
• 10:18
  I haven't felt like that in a while, to be honest.
• 10:20
  You know, so maybe that's the maturing that you are talking
• 10:23
  about and the evolution that you're talking about in the
• 10:26
  sexual domain. Maybe I'm feeling it in the
• 10:27
  domain of work. Now.
• 10:29
  A man who could say anything like this is going to have a
• 10:32
  closer and more connected relationship, and ironically
• 10:35
  more then a guy who insists that he has not changed.
• 10:39
  That is the number one pet peeve of any sort of deeper thinking.
• 10:46
  Partner partners who like to introspect is when the other
• 10:49
  partner insists that they have never changed, never will
• 10:51
  change, because it's so obscene. What are you, a couch?
• 10:54
  You know, like what are you not going to change?
• 10:56
  Or a couch, and even a couch changes.
• 10:58
  You know, a couch changes. Unless it's a couch in a museum
• 11:01
  where the air has been sucked out of the exhibit and the couch
• 11:03
  will truly never change. You know, unless you are
• 11:05
  literally a piece of fucking furniture.
• 11:07
  Then you change. Of course you change, you grow,
• 11:11
  You evolve. Your priority shift, your value
• 11:14
  shift. This is positive.
• 11:15
  This is life. This is the cycle of life, you
• 11:18
  know, I mean, this is, this is like, I mean sunrise, sunset,
• 11:23
  like we are all not going to live forever.
• 11:25
  None of us are going to live forever.
• 11:27
  So join your wife when she muses on her changed feelings about
• 11:32
  things instead of taking it so personally and thinking, Oh my
• 11:37
  God, you know, now I'm not going to have the sex life.
• 11:40
  I want you. You're already not having the
• 11:43
  sex life that you want. I'm sure if she's making these
• 11:45
  sorts of of comments, you still have this fantasy that somehow
• 11:51
  she's going to act like she used to years and years ago, or some
• 11:54
  men have the fantasy that she will turn into a particularly
• 11:57
  entirely rather different human. And neither of those is very
• 12:01
  productive. Meeting your partner where
• 12:03
  they're currently AT and listening to them with strength
• 12:06
  and open mindedness, you know, is is truly the way to have a
• 12:11
  real intimate relationship because the guys who could say
• 12:14
  that, for example, then they could open themselves up to a
• 12:17
  different conversation, right. So the conversation could be
• 12:20
  like, oh, I'm hearing you're not too into it anymore, you know,
• 12:23
  and I still am of course not like how I used to be either.
• 12:26
  But is there anything different that we could do?
• 12:29
  Is there, is there anything kind of that that has changed now
• 12:32
  that would make things easier or better or anything?
• 12:36
  And then sometimes a woman will be like, well, yeah, I mean, for
• 12:38
  example, I can't do intercourse anymore, you know, because my
• 12:41
  vagina hurts vaginal atrophy after menopause, right.
• 12:44
  Or, you know, I it hurts me to do certain things because of my
• 12:48
  hips or because of my back or whatever.
• 12:51
  But. And you know, if if I didn't
• 12:53
  think you were going to push for those things, then I might be up
• 12:56
  for other things more frequently, like, you know,
• 12:58
  mutual masturbation or something like that.
• 13:00
  Or just, you know, and anything, literally anything else in the
• 13:06
  whole world, oral sex or or this or that.
• 13:09
  There are women that just shut down sex all together after a
• 13:13
  certain point because whenever they broach taking certain
• 13:16
  things off the table, the guy is so insulted and offended and
• 13:21
  hurt that she just closes down the whole operation.
• 13:25
  Because things just seem so unpalatable with the complete
• 13:28
  you know, the change, the absence of sex hormones.
• 13:32
  I make multiple analogies for how a guy can understand this.
• 13:36
  The big one is eating when you're not hungry, That can seem
• 13:38
  very disgusting and impossible. And another one is having sex
• 13:41
  against your sexual orientation, you know?
• 13:44
  So I've talked about this in my asexual podcast, I think.
• 13:48
  But when a when a woman feels like absolutely no sex hormones,
• 13:51
  it's like almost like be feeling asexual.
• 13:53
  For many women, in fact, they use that word colloquially not
• 13:56
  to mean an orientation, but just like at this point in my life,
• 13:59
  I'm pretty asexual and it's like a descriptor.
• 14:02
  And so imagine if you were a heterosexual man trying to have
• 14:05
  sex with a man, with another man who probably you wouldn't be so
• 14:10
  into it, you know, and not a bisexual.
• 14:12
  Then you would be into it. But if you were just a straight
• 14:15
  guy trying to have sex with a guy, usually men understand this
• 14:18
  analogy. You wouldn't like it that much.
• 14:20
  And it doesn't matter how high libido you are, you still
• 14:24
  wouldn't like it that much. And so if somebody feels
• 14:26
  completely asexual, then that's how they feel having sex.
• 14:30
  I'm not saying all postmenopausal women feel
• 14:32
  asexual at all. What I am saying is that they
• 14:34
  feel less sexual. So that and and now not all of
• 14:38
  them, but most of the monogamous older women it postmenopause
• 14:43
  feel pretty much like something has very much changed, you know?
• 14:48
  And so when you refuse to acknowledge that that thing has
• 14:51
  changed, she usually shuts down altogether because she feels
• 14:55
  like you can't understand, you can't empathize, You're not
• 14:57
  really even trying. You're insisting that you're the
• 14:59
  same man that you were 50 years ago.
• 15:01
  It starts to strike her as absurd, or 40 years ago, or 30
• 15:04
  years ago, or even 10 years ago, or even last week, because
• 15:06
  nobody is the same human being from one moment to another.
• 15:09
  We're all constantly changing, growing and aging.
• 15:13
  So anyway, this would be a good one to reflect on, you know, and
• 15:17
  if one assignment that you can do is open up a conversation.
• 15:22
  Has anything about my interactional style stopped you
• 15:25
  from being open with me about your changing feelings about
• 15:28
  sex? Believe me, it's not going to
• 15:29
  give her any feelings she didn't have before, and women would
• 15:34
  consider that very different and very interesting and even
• 15:40
  admirable. Honestly, if the guy who always
• 15:43
  acted so insecure about sex that she always has to handle and she
• 15:47
  always has to act like everything is great even when
• 15:50
  it's not, remember, then she doesn't do it.
• 15:54
  Remember, if she always has to act like everything's great,
• 15:56
  then if she doesn't know 100% that it's going to be a great
• 15:59
  encounter where she could at least fade A modicum of
• 16:01
  enthusiasm, then she'll cut you off entirely because you're
• 16:05
  don't seem to be strong enough to handle it.
• 16:07
  If, like, she were to try to interact at the beginning and
• 16:10
  get to responsive desire, but she didn't because remember,
• 16:12
  responsive desire doesn't always kick in, go back to my
• 16:15
  Responsive Desire podcast. But that doesn't always kick in.
• 16:19
  So if you're the kind of guy where you're going to be
• 16:21
  extraordinarily hurt and offended if she tries is to get
• 16:24
  in the mood and you are making out, and then she just can't go
• 16:27
  on with it because she doesn't get in the mood and she feels
• 16:30
  very, very not into it, then she will just limit the number of
• 16:34
  encounters you can ever have because she 100% knows that she
• 16:38
  has to be 100% into it. So instead of trying like 3 * a
• 16:42
  week, she'll only try like once every other week when she knows
• 16:44
  that maybe she could do it 100%. So that's just a real pragmatic
• 16:49
  way that being an insecure guy that cannot tolerate a woman's
• 16:53
  changing levels of desire, even within an encounter can come
• 16:56
  back and bite you in the ass. But anyway, if you were to start
• 16:59
  this more open minded discussion, she would be like,
• 17:01
  wow, he's actually secure enough.
• 17:03
  He's actually mature enough for me to talk to him openly about
• 17:07
  my feelings and instead of me having to handle him like he's a
• 17:11
  child. And that is always good for the
• 17:13
  marriage because that's the number one thing that women kind
• 17:15
  of hate having to do within a relationship is feel like the
• 17:19
  man has to be treated like another kid.
• 17:21
  And you could understand that, right?
• 17:22
  I mean, that doesn't sound very attractive when it's put like
• 17:24
  that. All right.
• 17:26
  Well, thanks guys for listening and I hope that you enjoyed this
• 17:29
  and I'll talk to you all soon. Bye.
• 17:30
  Bye.