Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / If You Ignore Your Husband For Decades Years While The Kids Are Young, He Will Not Be There To Reconnect With Later; Also, You May Not Care

Transcript

If You Ignore Your Husband For Decades Years While The Kids Are Young, He Will Not Be There To Reconnect With Later; Also, You May Not Care · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:07
  Psych mom. Show today, I'm answering a
• 0:10
  question that a couple of men have had or topic a couple of
• 0:14
  men of suggested about how if their wife ignores them for,
• 0:21
  like the whole time that the kids are young which is of
• 0:23
  course, a long time. Then they are scared that they
• 0:26
  will detach and they want women to kind of know this that the
• 0:30
  man is at risk of detaching and not really being there, if the
• 0:33
  woman wants to reconnect in In later life.
• 0:36
  But you know, as I said, I could do a podcast about this but many
• 0:40
  women don't want to reconnect and later life when the man
• 0:43
  thinks that they will because the woman says they will.
• 0:45
  But the woman doesn't really know that and I'll talk about
• 0:48
  all the things that could influence this dynamic in a bit.
• 0:51
  Right after I tell you to subscribe, you may have noticed
• 0:55
  more of my episodes are paid subscriber episodes.
• 0:59
  The next one coming up is that most men don't criticize their
• 1:03
  wives sexual performance. And if you have been in a
• 1:06
  dynamic where you, as a woman of had your sexual performance
• 1:09
  criticized, I will discuss the variables that go into that.
• 1:12
  And if you're a man that does that I'll discuss, you know,
• 1:15
  everything about that. And please do join my Facebook
• 1:20
  group. That's separate.
• 1:21
  You don't get the podcast, the paid podcast.
• 1:23
  If you join the Facebook group has a separate thing, but it is
• 1:26
  fun and people talk a lot about their individual experiences and
• 1:31
  I give my feedback other people give their feedback and it's all
• 1:35
  all really nice people that are kind and welcoming because that
• 1:40
  is a group Rule and because that's who seems to come in
• 1:43
  anyway. Alright, great.
• 1:45
  So for today's topic, what we're getting to here, is the idea
• 1:50
  that. Well, it's really an idealistic
• 1:54
  idea. It's the idea and young.
• 1:56
  People think this. And every young person is
• 1:59
  thought this, when they're young have babies, they think almost
• 2:03
  like, okay, like after Years, you know, / baby.
• 2:07
  We then we're going to like reconnect now.
• 2:11
  Like, let's think about that 18 years.
• 2:13
  That's a lifespan of young adult.
• 2:15
  You think, you know, how you're going to feel at that time about
• 2:19
  your spouse or the marriage? Like, no, you're not, like, I'm
• 2:23
  here to tell you that. You don't know what, you don't
• 2:25
  know. None of us do, right?
• 2:27
  And I'm sure in your lifetime. There have been many things,
• 2:30
  that didn't go exactly how you thought they would go.
• 2:33
  This is going to be one of them. So There's not really a world
• 2:37
  that I've seen where a couple is completely disconnected and
• 2:40
  later life. Sorry and young child life and
• 2:44
  that in later life, they reconnect even though they were
• 2:48
  completely disconnected when the kids were young, that doesn't
• 2:51
  really happen. And it also doesn't really
• 2:55
  happen though and this is kind of the male fantasy of this, the
• 2:58
  male fantasies that the woman will really want to.
• 3:01
  And that maybe that, then they'll be in the driver's seat
• 3:03
  finally. And they'll be able to say
• 3:06
  Basically, I don't want to reconnect, you have to almost
• 3:09
  prove to me that you really love me.
• 3:12
  That's I think part of the fantasy to is that the man will
• 3:15
  finally be validated by the woman.
• 3:18
  The woman will say something like, I made a mistake.
• 3:21
  Ignoring you all the children were young and I really do want
• 3:24
  to reconnect. Now this is is not going to
• 3:27
  happen, man. You know you this should be put
• 3:30
  into the bucket of the fantasy that she comes and interrupts
• 3:33
  you while you're at work to give.
• 3:35
  You a blowjob like this is not going to happen, not that nobody
• 3:39
  does that. And if you're listening to this,
• 3:40
  that would be a nice thing to go do for your husband.
• 3:42
  But, but the, the point is, like the guys who fantasized about
• 3:46
  that, it usually doesn't happen because they're not in a world
• 3:49
  in which it could happen. And the women who disconnect for
• 3:52
  the entirety of the children's youth is not the woman that's
• 3:57
  going to want to reconnect later, that's the thing.
• 4:01
  So, like I can make a PSA here that like the man isn't The man
• 4:05
  will progressively detach, he's at risk for an affair.
• 4:07
  He's at risk for leaving all of these things.
• 4:10
  If you have extended periods of affection lists and sexless
• 4:14
  marriage, obviously, and if you're always putting Little
• 4:17
  League over your sex life, I mean, like, obviously the man is
• 4:22
  going to grow increasingly more dissatisfied and disconnected as
• 4:26
  a woman with a physical touch. Love language.
• 4:29
  Would if the man said no no basically we can't cuddle for
• 4:32
  the next few years because I am I'm really stressed with
• 4:36
  managing my job, you know, with doing what I got to do at work
• 4:40
  so we just can't have a connection.
• 4:41
  Well then of course the woman's not going to come back to you
• 4:43
  and it is a really good parallel.
• 4:45
  And I talked about this in my post, the young mother stage,
• 4:49
  and why to come home early from work.
• 4:50
  There is a much smaller window for most women.
• 4:55
  Well, let me, let me separate it, right?
• 4:58
  So there are there's the more normative woman experience where
• 5:01
  when the children are extremely young and she is pregnant /.
• 5:05
  Things /. Raising a toddler before the
• 5:07
  child goes into kindergarten or preschool.
• 5:09
  She is consumed with the child. All right?
• 5:12
  This is normal. This is evolutionary.
• 5:14
  The child will, of course died at that age.
• 5:16
  If she does not really stay vigilant, and her body is only a
• 5:19
  few years out from the hormonal changes of pregnancy childbirth,
• 5:22
  and nursing so that that happens to everybody pretty much then.
• 5:26
  There's the subset of women who are very anxious / avoidant,
• 5:30
  attachment /, scared of intimacy, who keep that going
• 5:34
  basically until the The child is like 18 or longer, you know, and
• 5:38
  even the child, being a young adult, she somehow always
• 5:40
  planning trips to the college, always talking to the child, on
• 5:43
  the phone, ordering them, shut off of Amazon to arrive at their
• 5:46
  dorm and somehow she's even just as busy now, as she was when the
• 5:49
  child was living at home. So women like that are suffering
• 5:53
  from, you know, anxiety, usually, which makes them a
• 5:56
  perpetual motion machine. And, you know, they also don't
• 6:00
  really focus on the marriage because intimacy is difficult
• 6:03
  and or they have trouble. Husband they have particular
• 6:07
  grievances with him empathic ruptures, Etc.
• 6:09
  And they don't really care about the marriage because they feel
• 6:12
  so hurt in the past and they are really trying to stay there to
• 6:16
  make an intact home for the children.
• 6:18
  So, if you're in a situation where it's the former, where the
• 6:23
  woman is just really perseverating on everything
• 6:26
  about the kid because the kid is like, literally five years old
• 6:28
  or younger, then you are the one who has to take a backseat and
• 6:34
  be patient. And understand that this is her
• 6:36
  evolutionary imperative is to take care of this young child,
• 6:40
  right? But after that, if she still
• 6:44
  never returns, there's not a world in which she's going to
• 6:47
  return after the child is 18. I've never seen it happen where
• 6:50
  the a woman who basically wanted no closeness that all pretty
• 6:54
  much then. I mean, think about her age at
• 6:57
  that point, right? She's going to be in her 50s in
• 7:00
  her 50s in menopause. After Decades of marriage is
• 7:04
  when she's Until then decide to turn to you.
• 7:07
  No way if anything then she's going to say.
• 7:10
  Oh, thank God. The child is out of the house
• 7:12
  has successfully raised them. Now finally, it's me time.
• 7:16
  And instead of being a full-time caretaker, I am going to pursue
• 7:20
  my hobbies, my interest, possibly even start a second
• 7:22
  career. So that is much more of what I
• 7:24
  see and you can relate this to my menopause podcast.
• 7:28
  So the idea that some men have and the woman says it because
• 7:32
  she may mean it's so like they're not Lying.
• 7:35
  So if you have a wife, she like 40 years old or something your
• 7:38
  children, let's say or Elementary School age.
• 7:40
  And she says listen just like, you know when another few years
• 7:44
  they'll be teenagers, then we'll have time for ourselves.
• 7:47
  She's not bullshitting you very few.
• 7:49
  Women are saying this maliciously like lying.
• 7:52
  That would be pretty crazy. There are very few sociopaths in
• 7:55
  the world that actively pathologically lie repeatedly
• 7:58
  but she thinks it it will happen, it seems plausible, you
• 8:02
  know that that maybe she doesn't Like to have an intimacy because
• 8:06
  the kids are a little and and maybe it really does all change.
• 8:10
  You know, people of both genders are really big and self-delusion
• 8:15
  that is really characteristic of The Human Experience.
• 8:19
  And people will tell themselves whatever sounds good because
• 8:22
  they want to reduce cognitive dissonance which is something
• 8:25
  that is uncomfortable when something that you think goes
• 8:30
  against something that you're actually doing like you need to
• 8:32
  resolve it somehow. So the women feel zero, A
• 8:35
  romantic feeling toward the husband, but they're telling
• 8:37
  themselves because it's less scary to think that this.
• 8:41
  They're telling themselves that it's because the kids are young
• 8:43
  and they're so stressed. Rather than deeply
• 8:45
  interrogating, if it really seems plausible and realistic
• 8:49
  that their romantic feeling would be completely at zero when
• 8:53
  they have like second graders and fifth graders like does this
• 8:56
  is everybody like that? No, but they don't go too deeply
• 9:00
  into it because it's terrifying to think that something about
• 9:03
  their marriages bad. And particularly terrifying
• 9:06
  because if it's bad, you know, then they might have to divorce.
• 9:09
  And if the children are the number one thing in their life,
• 9:12
  then they don't want to put the kids through the pain of a
• 9:14
  divorce. So they stopped the thought, its
• 9:15
  track, and they just tell themselves, oh, I just feel no
• 9:18
  romantic feeling because the kids are young and I'm so
• 9:20
  stressed, but maybe, when the kids are older, I will and
• 9:23
  people feel like this they genuinely do then, of course,
• 9:26
  the kids get older and they don't they don't feel any
• 9:29
  romantic feeling so it doesn't just come back.
• 9:32
  Magically this doesn't happen when There is not a definitive
• 9:36
  end point. So, for example, when a woman is
• 9:38
  nursing her sex drive goes to nothing, it's basically the same
• 9:41
  as menopause because she isn't supposed to have another baby
• 9:44
  biologically. I've talked about this,
• 9:46
  obviously, you can still get pregnant when you're
• 9:48
  breastfeeding, but your body doesn't want you to because your
• 9:53
  milk goes away. Now happened to me immediately.
• 9:55
  That's how I knew I was pregnant with my second.
• 9:57
  My first was nine months, my second came along my milk.
• 10:00
  Once have been basically nothing.
• 10:02
  Thankfully, I was obsessive and had like Store of frozen breast
• 10:06
  milk that could have fed like an army of infants.
• 10:09
  And so I was able to, you know, at that point.
• 10:12
  I thought I had to breastfeed them.
• 10:14
  That's what they tell you, you know, and so I was able to make
• 10:18
  it until my oldest was one year old with my reserves, but I'll
• 10:22
  tell you getting pregnant in. The milk went away pretty much
• 10:25
  instantly, so, your body evolutionarily then is not
• 10:30
  prioritizing the infant that you have, if it gets pregnant with
• 10:33
  another baby, while you're Breastfeeding, cause your milk
• 10:35
  goes away, which in a world without breast pumps.
• 10:38
  Would have been a problem for me, right?
• 10:40
  Especially if there was no formula Etc, everything is based
• 10:43
  on what we used to be, which is caves people with no formula.
• 10:48
  So the, the without other things, too, but in this case
• 10:51
  formula is relevant. So, the point is, your body
• 10:55
  doesn't want you to make another baby when you're breastfeeding.
• 10:57
  So, your drive goes down. All right?
• 10:59
  This makes sense when you stop breastfeeding, your drive goes
• 11:02
  back up cuz your body wants to make another baby.
• 11:04
  Yes, this What it's about like this is biology, this is
• 11:06
  evolution. So but for some women it
• 11:10
  doesn't. So it doesn't if they are
• 11:13
  anxious, if they never liked sex.
• 11:15
  Anyway, if they are depressed. If there is, if there is
• 11:19
  tremendous dysfunction in the marriage.
• 11:21
  If the guy was a real douchebag, if he cheated while she was
• 11:24
  breastfeeding you know, like whatever the case may be for
• 11:27
  some women, it does not go back up for many women.
• 11:30
  It was never there. So now they could finally stop
• 11:32
  pretending and they tell them. Ourselves.
• 11:35
  The reason they have no drive is because they have small kids,
• 11:37
  then the reason they have no drive is because they have older
• 11:40
  kids. Then the reason they have no
• 11:41
  drive is because they have teenagers who were really
• 11:43
  stressful and are going out driving on their own and at any
• 11:46
  moment could call home and say, they got into a car accident or
• 11:49
  got a girl pregnant or whatever the point is, if you're in an
• 11:53
  elementary school age of kids parenting and your wife has no
• 11:57
  sex drive, you're supposed to deal with it.
• 11:59
  Now because there is no way if you believe that that shit is
• 12:04
  rebounding. In when they are teenagers or
• 12:07
  young adult and she's in her 50s post menopause, then I have a
• 12:11
  bridge to sell you, right? It's never going to happen and
• 12:14
  never seen that happen. So you got to think clearly
• 12:17
  about this fantasy world and so threatening women with this idea
• 12:23
  that, you know, if you don't focus on the marriage now, he's
• 12:27
  not going to want to reconnect, romantically when he's in his
• 12:29
  50s, this seems like a gift too many women, they don't want to
• 12:33
  reconnect when you're in your 50s. 50s.
• 12:35
  A lot of women that have had no drive and no romantic yearnings
• 12:39
  and no desire to be close the avoidant, wives, refer to the
• 12:43
  avoidant wife podcast. When the kids were young are
• 12:46
  envisioning a parallel life, retirement, you know, where you
• 12:50
  live your own lives separately, and to maintain the family,
• 12:53
  finances and not affect anybody's, net worth and give
• 12:57
  the children a place to come home on the holidays, from
• 12:59
  Christmas and Thanksgiving. One house.
• 13:01
  Instead of two houses, they assume that you guys will stay
• 13:05
  Gather and that your needs are being met by whatever the hell
• 13:08
  Hobbies. You've picked up as a midlife
• 13:10
  Mail Plus masturbation and they think that that's fine.
• 13:14
  So if you are in a situation where you are telling yourself,
• 13:17
  that you are in an emotional and sexual desert, but that somehow
• 13:22
  it will get better when she's older, doesn't make any sense.
• 13:27
  But some people tell themselves that or that knowing this would
• 13:31
  make a woman upset many women when the kids are out there,
• 13:34
  House. They are ready to divorce.
• 13:36
  They are ready, they have been ready to not be in a
• 13:40
  relationship for many many years.
• 13:42
  They actually never wanted necessarily to be in a
• 13:44
  relationship, but they had a biological imperative that was
• 13:47
  kind of making them drunk thinking that they wanted to be
• 13:50
  close because that is what evolution and biology does.
• 13:54
  It doesn't matter what your attachment style is doesn't
• 13:56
  matter if you like intimacy, your ovaries.
• 13:59
  Want a baby your brain wants a baby and this is same as how
• 14:03
  men. Want to have sex.
• 14:06
  So if they if you haven't had sex in a long time, it doesn't
• 14:09
  matter. If the woman is compatible,
• 14:11
  you're gonna want to have sex with her.
• 14:12
  And that is how many women feel with their biological imperative
• 14:16
  to have kids? You know?
• 14:18
  I mean, it just makes sense if you think about it that way, but
• 14:21
  many people idealized things and don't want to think about it,
• 14:24
  that's simply. But that is really what it is.
• 14:27
  So even the most avoided woman, because sometimes people say so,
• 14:31
  why did these avoiding people get married?
• 14:33
  Why did they want a family? So, Bad because it has nothing
• 14:36
  to do with romantic intimacy. It's a drive to have a baby.
• 14:39
  It's so different. Women feel in love with their
• 14:42
  baby, even avoided women frequently feel the greatest
• 14:46
  love affair of their life is with the baby and that's not
• 14:49
  unusual. The greatest love affair of many
• 14:51
  woman's life. Most women, I would say most
• 14:54
  healthy women are going to be more in love and I don't say
• 14:57
  healthy like pejorative usually the women that have trouble
• 15:00
  bonding with their baby's head trauma.
• 15:02
  So that's what I mean. Like if you've had a very
• 15:05
  Horrible childhood and now you get pregnant and have a baby
• 15:08
  frequently. You'll have higher rates of PPD
• 15:11
  higher rates of inability to bond with your baby because all
• 15:14
  of your childhood traumas being re-trigger.
• 15:16
  But in a situation where a woman had a somewhat normative
• 15:19
  childhood and she has a baby, the oxytocin rush and the the
• 15:25
  the idea that you will. Now, finally, give your life for
• 15:28
  somebody that you love in an instant without even thinking
• 15:30
  about it, this is the deepest love that.
• 15:32
  Most people feel is for a new Be, so that doesn't have to do
• 15:36
  with your relationship with your husband.
• 15:38
  Your relationship with your husband is somewhere else.
• 15:41
  It's in a different bucket. So, yes, women want that, they
• 15:45
  don't think there's no, like bait-and-switch happening a
• 15:49
  woman. Feels like she wants to connect
• 15:52
  with the man. She doesn't think about it in
• 15:55
  comparison to what other women feel cause she's never been
• 15:58
  another woman. And avoidant woman has never
• 16:01
  been a different woman, you know, she doesn't know.
• 16:04
  When she thinks that you're funny and that you're cute and
• 16:07
  that you got and that you'll make a really good dad.
• 16:10
  She thinks that this must be the great love affairs, that people
• 16:13
  sing songs about and and have on movies because and that stuff.
• 16:18
  In fact, it's just really songs in movies, but but there must be
• 16:21
  some equivalent of that in the real world and this must be what
• 16:23
  it is. And so that is what she thinks
• 16:27
  it is. And then she has the baby and in
• 16:29
  her mind, very obviously, and practically at that point, you
• 16:34
  guys more If into a family, that's why.
• 16:36
  So many avoided women like this seemed very confused when their
• 16:40
  husbands bring them into counseling because they're like,
• 16:43
  wait, I don't understand. We're a family.
• 16:45
  I'm a mother like this is what the whole point is of Our Lives.
• 16:49
  Why are you telling me about all the shit you want to do in bed?
• 16:52
  I don't understand. That isn't what we're doing
• 16:55
  that. Isn't our life.
• 16:56
  I thought it was obvious that our life was going to be raising
• 17:00
  a family, and they are just as fly.
• 17:04
  Berg acid as the man is to hear that.
• 17:07
  That is what she always thought that a marriage was because he
• 17:10
  thought it went without saying that there would continue to be
• 17:13
  some sort of intimate romantic relationship, and she thought
• 17:16
  there would not and of course, these assumptions are rooted in
• 17:19
  our families of origin are attachment style a million
• 17:22
  variables but but yeah so you know tldr here if you think that
• 17:29
  there is a way that you're reconnecting with a woman in her
• 17:31
  50s. That's never wanted to be close
• 17:33
  in her 40s or 30s this This is silly, that's not going to
• 17:36
  happen and you should get into therapy.
• 17:38
  Now to see if this relationship is sustainable, before you end
• 17:42
  up 50, something years old looking back and saying the last
• 17:45
  few decades, we're lonely, and there is no relief in sight.
• 17:49
  And there was not going to be this Oasis that you got to with
• 17:51
  the end of the desert of the child's youth, right?
• 17:54
  And also if you are a woman listening to this, this can help
• 17:58
  you understand what your husband is thinking.
• 18:00
  That if you're thinking, oh, thank God, basically.
• 18:03
  By the time he's finished, 50 and I'm 50.
• 18:06
  Well, have raised our children, they'll be out of the house.
• 18:09
  He'll be able to do the trips, a whitewater, rafting whatever his
• 18:12
  hobby is. I'll be able to finally
• 18:15
  volunteer more. Maybe I'll even start my own
• 18:17
  business. It's going to be great and then
• 18:19
  the kids are going to come home periodically.
• 18:22
  Maybe we'll even live to you know move to wear one of them
• 18:24
  goes to school. That would be fun know if he's
• 18:27
  been up your ass. All these years to be closer, he
• 18:31
  actually thinks that when the kids are out of the house, you
• 18:33
  guys are going to I have this great romantic Harmony, if that
• 18:37
  makes you incredibly uncomfortable and anxious to
• 18:39
  think about you owe it to him. Now, to talk about your
• 18:42
  differing expectations, for this time of life, which is also in a
• 18:46
  podcast. I wrote about whether you and
• 18:48
  your partner have the same post-retirement empty nester
• 18:51
  years expectations, because this is a very big issue.
• 18:54
  I see, is that people realized too late that they have very
• 18:58
  different views. It's not too late because, you
• 19:00
  know, you can always pursue whatever sort of alternate
• 19:03
  lifestyle or relationship. Want but people get very
• 19:06
  blindsided when a spouse has a completely alternative view than
• 19:12
  they thought that they did. You know, a very different one.
• 19:15
  One person wants to travel one person wants to stay home every
• 19:17
  day. One person thinks we're going to
• 19:18
  reconnect sexually and romantically one person thinks
• 19:21
  that ship sailed 10 years ago with the hell.
• 19:23
  Are you talking about Etc? Alright, so I hope you got a lot
• 19:26
  out of this podcast and please do so well.
• 19:30
  You have subscribed and please do join the Facebook group.
• 19:32
  If you think that it would be good for you, I also So, have
• 19:34
  hired a lot of people at my group, practice, best life
• 19:37
  Behavioral Health. I'll my life coach, and my sex
• 19:40
  coach was a registered sex ologist.
• 19:42
  They are not therapist, so they can work anywhere in any state
• 19:45
  and they work with a lot of different issues.
• 19:48
  Obviously, the sex coach works with intimacy issues had the Ray
• 19:51
  and the life coach Meredith. Jacobs works with a lot of other
• 19:53
  stuff, career, and parenting and divorce and relationships.
• 19:58
  She only works with individuals. Heather works with both
• 20:00
  individuals and couples. Meredith, used to be a lawyer.
• 20:04
  So if If anybody has career issues that can also work with
• 20:07
  her and I have another career coach cat who's also a
• 20:10
  therapist? I got a lot of people going and
• 20:12
  you should look that up and of course you could always work
• 20:15
  with me. I have increasingly less and
• 20:16
  less availability though which is why I'm hiring all these
• 20:19
  other people. All right?
• 20:20
  I'll talk to you soon. Have a great day.
• 20:22
  Bye. Wait, I got confused to get, you
• 20:25
  did not subscribe to hear that episode that I represented this
• 20:29
  episode, I'm zone right now is a free episode so you definitely
• 20:32
  should subscribe because I am about to record my next
• 20:36
  subscriber episode which as I talked about is, if you're a man
• 20:39
  who criticizes your wife in bed, you are in the minority and
• 20:42
  here's the Dynamics that lead to that.
• 20:44
  All right. Bye.