Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / What Does The Post- Honeymoon Stage Look Like For Happy Couples?

Transcript

What Does The Post- Honeymoon Stage Look Like For Happy Couples? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctor.
• 0:07
  Psych mom ship today. I'm going to be talking about
• 0:10
  what does the Post honeymoon stage?
• 0:12
  Look like for happy couples, right?
• 0:15
  So we'll talk about the stages of relationships for all couples
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  and then what it looks like when you are out of the honeymoon
• 0:23
  phase, but still having sex, which is something that a lot of
• 0:26
  unhappy people do not even believe happens.
• 0:29
  And I will tell you that it happens and how and what that
• 0:33
  looks like and why you may not Not understand, you know,
• 0:36
  spoiler obviously it's because you didn't see it ever or
• 0:39
  experience it it yourself before that though, please do subscribe
• 0:43
  the most recent subscriber. Episode is about how often how,
• 0:47
  and why do you have clothes deep connected conversations?
• 0:51
  Because for women, this is frequently the same as what sex
• 0:54
  is for men. It's like the only way they
• 0:56
  really feel close married in love.
• 0:59
  And if the last time you had a real in-depth conversation where
• 1:03
  you were interested in your wife sinner, World was you know ten
• 1:06
  years ago then it is likely. That was also the last time you
• 1:09
  experienced a blow job, you know.
• 1:11
  So we'll talk about that in that episode.
• 1:13
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  ability to participate and interact with others.
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  In the Facebook group. Okay?
• 2:06
  So moving on. All right.
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  What are the stages of relationship?
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  So, the stages of relationships, our honeymoon stage, which is
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  about 18 months to 3 years, after commitment starts.
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  So limerence or the infatuation stage where you're obsessed
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  with, somebody can go on indefinitely if there's
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  uncertainty but as soon as there is certainty, such as marriage,
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  you know, your your body and brain react differently to that
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  you move forward. Add the clock starts, right?
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  The clock starts because basically, you know, as I've
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  said so many times our genetic diversity of our species would
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  be better if women had sex with a different guy every time they
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  ovulate it, right? So that's what your body wants
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  you to do. So you meet a guy a, you know,
• 2:53
  yet married, right. Before that, your body doesn't
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  really know that you're gonna have a baby with them.
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  Neither just the woman in most cases like literally, she does
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  not know that. This is a light, it's game on.
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  So, as soon as your nose it's game on then the clock kind of
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  starts. It's not a it's not a remember,
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  this is not a clock that women start themselves.
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  This is kind of how your brain works, you know.
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  Remember you don't feel as excited about your job anymore
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  as you did in the first year, right?
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  Or having a child. Remember that used to be like
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  you know, this huge thing when you had a baby you ran home from
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  work to see the new baby. You don't run home from work to
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  see your 13 year old, you know, not the same way you love them
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  but it's different. There's not the novel.
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  LT responsive literally a new thing in your life.
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  So you got to understand what the honeymoon stage is and isn't
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  and what it isn't is something that women have purposefully and
• 3:45
  obstructive lie designed to fuck with you, right?
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  And people who do think that were raised in pretty bad homes
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  so I feel for you but you know that paranoid does not help your
• 3:53
  relationship any. So anyway the clock starts at
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  the moment of marriage. Let's say 18 months to 3 years.
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  Why get married have a baby nurse a baby wean a baby and
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  Body wants you to move on to the next, dude, you don't want to
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  move on to the next dude, because that's not what our
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  society does, you know? And that's not what people want
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  for their lives. But your body, you know, is
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  different and your brain is different and whatever.
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  So the novelty response, Fades what happens?
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  Then goes to disillusionment phase.
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  So this is when people think oh my God, I didn't marry the best
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  person in the whole universe. After all there are flawed
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  person. Check this out.
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  You know what I really see where their Friends / ex boyfriend, /
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  ex husband or wife is common for all, you know, and I see, you
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  know, why they are like their father or Mother after all holy
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  shit. Why did I not understand this
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  before that? They are just not a complete
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  Paragon of virtue in every regard.
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  And you know what? They could be pretty annoying.
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  So that's the disillusionment phase healthy couples then, get
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  fairly quickly to not like super quick.
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  You knows a couple of years into the acceptance phase which is
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  well, you know this is a flawed person but I love And I want a
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  life with them, and I'm a flawed person to, and we're flawed in
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  these different ways and we can help each other and we can
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  accept each other and, you know, everything's fine.
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  And this is the person that I love and I want to build a life
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  with Etc. And why do some people get to
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  that sooner because they had parents that were kind of like
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  that, you know, they had an easy template, it's like saying, you
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  know, why are people who learn English at a younger age better
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  at English usually, well, because they never had to really
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  learn. English.
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  It was like, or any language, you know what I mean?
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  It's like, it was there. It's like a fish doesn't know
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  what's in water and you didn't know you were speaking English,
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  you know, if you're an English speaker or whatever.
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  And so the point is is like if you had a happy marriage that
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  you saw growing up, you never had to worry about learning how
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  to do it. It was the air that you breathe.
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  So then you learn how to interact like that and likely
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  you're attracted to somebody else, who came from a happy
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  family as well. And then you both interact in
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  the ways that you didn't even realize you were learning to
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  interact and it goes usually pretty.
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  And then there's the other people write all the adult
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  children of dysfunctional families, who have no fucking
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  idea how to interact in a marriage because all they saw
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  was disconnect or yelling or cheating or betrayal or violence
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  or drunkenness or whatever. And so they have to learn from
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  scratch, how to be in a relationship and so they
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  frequently, you know, Escape into fantasies of this wonderful
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  romantic love, that will be Redemptive and that will be
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  different for them than it was for their parents.
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  But they have Have no skills that had to do that at all.
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  So frequently instead they end up replicating, what they saw
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  growing up much to their Chagrin and you know extreme frustration
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  and sadness. So Dad for those people the
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  disillusionment stage starts earlier last longer and
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  frequently leads to the dissolution of the marriage and
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  it's because they also find other people that are adult
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  children of dysfunctional families.
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  You know, you don't get randomly assigned to marriages like goes
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  to like you subconsciously find each other, preoccupied finds
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  it. I don't and vice versa and you
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  know, that's how it goes. So then what can you do?
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  Well when you're in the disillusionment phase you can go
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  to therapy which is the only time people go to the
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  disillusionment phase. Obviously we're go to therapy
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  obviously because they don't go in the honeymoon stage and you
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  can work on creating new patterns, right?
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  But for some people, the disillusionment phase, you know,
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  remit for many people, it romance.
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  And so then what does that look like?
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  And what does what is ahead? Happy marriage at like you're
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  five or tet. What does that really look like?
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  Well, I'll tell you, it looks pretty good.
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  The people do not have the same lost as they did in the
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  honeymoon phase. Some of the men may not the same
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  as the honeymoon phase, right? Where it was like, oh my God.
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  Is she really gonna sleep with me?
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  Oh my God! Oh my God!
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  Oh my God! I mean, they may still be asking
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  if she really gonna sleep with me, but it's not, oh my God, oh
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  my God, you know, and it's not that level of like super
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  adrenaline-fueled. Old and new relationship energy
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  but people are happy to see each other, they consider each other
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  best friends. They're attracted to each other.
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  The woman again, may have only responsive desire post monogamy,
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  which means she never really looks at him unless she's
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  ovulating and gets, quote horny, but yet she still does want to
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  have sex with him, because it is a good experience, and it feels
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  good. When she starts etcetera, Etc,
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  she finds him objectively to be attractive.
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  He finds her to be very attractive as I've discussed.
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  Just it's better when the guy thinks the woman's more
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  attractive than himself and when she agrees, I have a lot of
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  podcasts and posts on that and need to think their wives are
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  really hard for things to work. And they generally are on the
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  same page with their values, raising kids making money, or,
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  or not, or whatever, you know, where they live, the involvement
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  of the in-laws. Whatever the case, maybe people
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  have a lot of things that they grapple with the role of work,
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  work life, balance Hobbies Etc. So, Generally for happy couples.
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  The post honeymoon, stage is still not like the honeymoon
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  phase. So there are no people that have
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  multiple kids, that are having sex multiple times a day, you
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  know like the same way as they did in the honeymoon.
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  Phase racing home from work for a quickie you know, before they
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  pick the kids up from daycare, maybe sometimes you know like
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  again if she's ovulating, if it's an anniversary, if he did
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  something particularly wonderful.
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  But again, you just got to understand like I have a lot of
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  stuff out about this because I you know Ivan just had a podcast
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  about like aging and why like people don't eat increasingly
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  don't accept aging, it's like people kind of convince
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  themselves more and more with every passing year and advances
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  in technology and medication and whatever that like they can
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  somehow stop time, you can't stop time.
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  You may be totally in love with your wife but it's still not
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  like she walks in a house. You like want to fall over
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  because you're just so taken with her beauty not Every day at
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  least, sometimes run a fuck at work call, you know.
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  So and it's the same thing times a million on her and because
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  female hormones are more responsive to not to being in
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  the honeymoon stage anymore. But that does not mean that
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  people are not happy and that they don't develop
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  longer-lasting and deeper connections over time.
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  They're obviously much more invested and committed invested
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  in and committed to each other with every passing day.
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  Week year, etcetera. So happy couples still or not?
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  I have this thing are other married people having
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  spontaneous sex. I recent podcast you.
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  They're not doing it on the kitchen table with small kids,
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  you know? It's not like everybody, but you
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  is having this like ongoing love affair, like love affairs, Peter
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  out, and in, happy couples, healthy couples.
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  They are replaced by a stronger Bond than the original honeymoon
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  stage. Which, yes, still does have
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  connected sex and attraction and romantic love.
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  Of but also has a really strong percent.
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  You know, of the pie chart is a friendship and a team
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  partnership, you know, of raising kids Etc.
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  So for a couples that are unhappy the disillusionment
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  phase lasts forever. It can last the rest of the
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  marriage, they had a brief honeymoon phase and then they're
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  they're basically resentful and disillusion for 50 years.
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  And that is unfortunately common you know in especially the
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  people I see that's a lot of their parents, you know.
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  We're just on happily married forever and so the child thinks,
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  okay, it's going to be different for me.
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  I'm going to basically stay in romantic love forever but that's
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  not possible. So then they go into the
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  disillusionment phase and because they have no template
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  for how you would kind of come back out of that into this more
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  into this acceptance phase. Their parents never did that.
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  They just Either on or off for them, it's either that they
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  somehow get back to the honeymoon stage, which is
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  impossible. So those are the guys who are
• 12:06
  always telling their wife, I want it to be like it was at the
• 12:08
  beginning. You have to do this in bed and
• 12:10
  this embedding this embed in this embedded.
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  You have to look at me like this and you have to say these words
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  and you have to wear these clothes.
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  Like it's like they're trying to like direct a movie where they
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  get to be an eternal honeymoon stage.
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  And there's women who do that to know, you're supposed to be
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  romantic. You're supposed to be looking at
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  me and talking to me and like, you know, when I come into the
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  room, you're supposed to look up in this way and say this and
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  that Are also trying to like socially engineer themselves and
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  endless honeymoon phase because in the minds of people of adult
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  children of dysfunctional families, who grapple with this,
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  there's really only two stages. It's romantic fairytale love or
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  disappointment, anger, and frustration.
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  So of course they want to stay in the honeymoon, phase, who
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  wouldn't but that's impossible. So they set themselves up to
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  fail. So what really the reality is is
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  that with healthy couples. Yes, there's a disillusionment
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  phase, there's frequently some more fighting after that.
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  You know, even with couples that are happy, you know, they will
• 13:03
  have a little bit more fighting few years in after a honeymoon.
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  Stage wears off, power struggles and deciding how the family is
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  going to look and who does wide and what the roles are going to
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  be and things about kids and money, and all sorts of stuff.
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  But you know, they have these templates and they figure.
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  Okay, fine, my husband / wife isn't perfect, then again my
• 13:25
  mother you know never thought my father was perfect but she loved
• 13:28
  him you know because of his Strengths what are my partner's
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  strength? They don't start a chelate it
• 13:33
  necessarily but that's kind of how it goes.
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  Well, Mom and Dad weren't perfect either, you know, but
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  they were able to make it work and they loved each other.
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  So, what do you do if you don't have that template?
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  Well therapy, is that template, their therapy reading books,
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  listening to this podcast and others, you know, like you got
• 13:49
  to kind of educate yourself basically to repair it yourself.
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  And if your partner is also a person that really wants a
• 13:57
  relationship to work, then they can Engaged, couples counseling,
• 14:02
  basically, helps you normalize. Like there's so many times in
• 14:05
  couples counseling with people. They tell me how often they
• 14:07
  fight and I'm like, no, you can't fight that much.
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  That's not healthy. They're like, no, you know,
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  people fight. I'm like, no people don't fight
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  every day and actually, I just did a video on this because I
• 14:17
  looked up the statistics finally.
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  So I got statistic that only 8% of people couples fight
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  everyday. You're not supposed to fight
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  every day. That is not normal.
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  That is not good and especially if you have kids, it's extremely
• 14:29
  bad. And I've made Made various posts
• 14:31
  and podcasts on how stressed out.
• 14:33
  They get, you know, by your fighting which you think is like
• 14:36
  no biggie and to them is the end of the world.
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  So anyway, the point is you're not supposed to fight every day
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  and a lot of couples, don't even know that because they came from
• 14:45
  two families where the people fought every day.
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  So how the hell do they know that?
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  That's not normal. You know?
• 14:50
  And so or anything people will say like oh people don't really
• 14:54
  have sex after they have kids and I'll be like no that's not
• 14:57
  true at all, you know, of course they do.
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  And why do you think that will? My parents certainly did in my
• 15:03
  mother told me that, you know, or, or they slept in separate
• 15:06
  rooms and I never saw them touch and, you know, they raised us
• 15:08
  children and we were fine because that person is never
• 15:11
  interrogated. Oh well shit.
• 15:14
  You know I mean is that the only way to live?
• 15:16
  Probably not like we're mom and dad really happy they certainly
• 15:19
  never seemed happy. You know?
• 15:20
  Yes they did raise us kids but hey should all four of us have
• 15:23
  gotten divorced, you know, or whatever.
• 15:26
  So the point is is that it's real hard, but not impossible.
• 15:30
  To reshape your template of the disillusionment and acceptance
• 15:35
  phases. Everybody likes the honeymoon
• 15:37
  phase. But after that, you definitely
• 15:40
  have to reframe marriage. Everybody does.
• 15:43
  Even the happy couple's do especially two happy couples.
• 15:47
  They are so happy because they are actively always thinking to
• 15:50
  themselves. Okay, I don't like this about
• 15:53
  him, but I do like this about him, okay?
• 15:55
  I can't change this about him but maybe I'll ask him to change
• 15:58
  this. Maybe I'm the Problem with this
• 16:01
  and I'm going to change this in myself, maybe the issue is
• 16:03
  really that. I'm too much this, and he's too
• 16:05
  much that and those two things don't make.
• 16:07
  So I'm going to try to be less than as he's good.
• 16:09
  Try to be less of that, and these sorts of imaginations are
• 16:14
  below the level of Consciousness, sometimes above
• 16:16
  the level. And if you came from a family,
• 16:20
  where you saw, Mom and Dad, possibly, sometimes grapple with
• 16:22
  personality differences, but then it ended up working out.
• 16:26
  Then these thing, then that second nature.
• 16:27
  If you didn't, you're going to have to put the work in.
• 16:30
  In with teaching yourself about relationships, as you probably
• 16:33
  already know because you've listened to how many episodes of
• 16:35
  this already, right? And, you know, therapy can
• 16:38
  really help, not always couples couples is great.
• 16:40
  But also individual can really help an individual go deeper.
• 16:45
  You don't have to waste half the session listening to your
• 16:48
  partner. Not it's not always a waste, you
• 16:50
  know what I mean? But like, you can talk
• 16:52
  specifically about your own background.
• 16:54
  You're a subjects your expectations, about marriage,
• 16:57
  your behavior, how to reframe, how you Think you know so it's
• 17:01
  like couples counseling is great but it's massively expedited.
• 17:05
  If both people have gone through individual counseling or at
• 17:08
  least one I mean hopefully to all right well I hope you found
• 17:11
  this interesting. I hope that you subscribe as
• 17:14
  well and have a great day everybody.
• 17:17
  Bye.