Latest / Behind Every Great Man / EP 45: The Mental Load Is Killing Your Sex Life
Transcript
- Jessica Zubchevich: Behind every great man is a great confident exceptional woman. Hi, and welcome to Behind Every Great Man. I am Jessica, your host. Behind every great man is a great woman whose body is telling the truth, even when her words can't. I want to talk about a moment, a very specific moment that I think many women will relate to. From the moment you open your eyes in the morning to the moment you close your eyes in the evening. There's a ton going on. You get up, you're getting the kids up, you're getting them ready, prepared for school, you're making lunches, packing lunches, you're getting in the car, you're driving, you're doing whatever you need to do during the day. Maybe you're headed to work, coming home, getting kids ready for sports or after-school activities, you're preparing dinner, you're going to the grocery store, you're getting everybody settled, ready, are they good, doing homework? Getting them ready for bed, getting ready and preparing for the next day. There is so much packed into every single minute of the day. There is not a spare moment to be had. Or picture the holidays, family coming into town, preparation for everyone being in your home, or you're traveling for the holidays. It is crazy town and you're running it. And somewhere in there, your husband. comes up behind you or reaches for you and he wants you. Either he's being playful or he makes a gesture or something you know your husband, something he's doing lets you know that he's wanting to be intimate with you. And we talked about this in a previous episode, but we're gonna go deeper into this. You turn around and you look at him like he has five heads. Or he's speaking a language you don't know what he's saying. You probably just look like a deer in headlights. Like what? What are you saying right now? Maybe you don't know what this is like, and maybe your husband doesn't do this, or he used to do this. Wherever you are, if this relates to you, I know you're gonna keep listening and we're gonna go on this journey. If not, I'll see you on the next episode. But this is a specific moment that I want to dive into what happens with you and what happens with him. Because I think women have experienced this specific moment a thousand times. And I'm sure your husband has as well. This is the first thing I want to say about this moment. Your husband doesn't know in that moment that you have what's a realistic number? I don't want to exaggerate. For some of you, it's way more. That you have 75 open tabs in your head that relate to you. Your children, their schedule, your husband, things that you're trying to remember and stay on track of, things that just happened, are currently happening, are about to happen. I know some of you women have 10x that amount. Your husband, when he comes home from work, maybe he takes work home with him, or he's done and he's just present. He's just there. He has no idea that you're more just like a shell of you in the room, but your mind is completely occupied because he cannot see what is happening inside of your mind. He doesn't know that part of your mind is still on the Amazon order that you just made. And part of your mind is in the grocery list. And part of your mind is on the science project that your son has tomorrow. Part of your mind is thinking about your mother in law coming into town and if she's gonna be comfortable. He has no idea that you are physically standing in the kitchen, yet your mind is in seventeen different places. This is the mental load that we're talking about, that we've been talking about. He is speaking to a woman that is not really even in the room. And here's what the research actually shows about why this happens. There is a theory in sexual neuroscience called the top down theory of low sexual desire in women. It describes a state where the higher level cognitive parts of the brain, the part responsible for planning, tracking, managing, remembering, becomes So activated and so dominant that they actually suppress the lower level emotional and sexual parts of the brain. It's not you being difficult or uninterested. It is your brain prioritizing cognitive processing over everything else. That is literally what it has been trained to do all day, every day. It finishes with desire requires a kind of mental. Quiet, that the managing brain does not have room for. There is a real ceiling to how much the brain can actually hold at one time. And if you've hit that ceiling, then desire is the thing that gets pushed out first. It has nowhere to go. So when we are in this state, and our husband reaches for us, and we look at him like he has five heads. That is our body telling us, giving us a report of what's going on and how far we have traveled from ourselves and our desire. And here is what many women do when we receive that signal. They feel guilty, that was me, that something's wrong, that I just that I lost my desire. I must not desire my husband or our love is fading or our fire is fading. They can get irritated. Like don't you know how much I have going on right now? Almost defensive. Like him reaching for you is a total imposition, almost resentful of him for even thinking about doing something like that. Why would he think that that's okay right now? Like I have time to be intimate with you right now. Can you not see how much I'm doing? And he's left stung or hit, rejected, confused, not understanding that her irritation really isn't about him at all. It's about how full she already was before he even walked into the room. Some push through, some go through the motions and do it anyway. Not being fully present, which is not good for anybody, and some shut down completely. Some just grow distant and there's nothing talked about. It's awkward, but then they just go on as if nothing happened, which continues to happen until he stops making the advances. And there's something That we really need to recognize and acknowledge of what happens on his end in this moment. The brain regions activated during rejection are closely linked to those activated during physical pain. Ouch. And research on couples shows that when one partner is consistently met with withdrawal after initiating, they begin to adjust their behavior to avoid the discomfort of being turned away. In plain language it says repeated rejection teaches the brain to stop reaching, not because the desire disappeared, but because the nervous system starts protecting itself from the sting of being declined. So if your husband used to reach for you, and even though you couldn't in that moment, you still wish that he did. So if your husband has stopped initiating or he's given up trying, this is something that may be going on with him right now. He may have been met so many times with that five heads moment where you're just looking at him or you're irritated or you're bothered or you shut down. Something inside of him shut down. Because who wants to be on the receiving end of that? We can justify it all we want by saying there's so much going on. There's no time or space for this right now. But we gotta be ready for the response to that when we tax serious time onto it. That who wants to continue showing up when they're constantly being rejected in some way, shape, or form? I know I wouldn't. So I wanna give you something to say in that moment that is simple and clear, and it doesn't leave your husband guessing and making his own interpretation of what's going on in your head. It can simply be Babe, my head is not actually here right now. I am in 17 different places. I appreciate the gesture, but I need some time to get back to being present with you. And in that moment, instead of guilt or irritation, can you flip that? Can you flip that and see it as a compliment? Because it truly is. What is this situation? It's your man wanting his wife. Your man craving his wife, the woman that he married. And that is such a beautiful thing. You may not be able to respond to it in that moment, and that's okay communicating that to him, but it's still something beautiful because he doesn't want to live with just a roommate. He doesn't want to have sex with a logistics manager. He doesn't want to be intimate with an organizational expert. No. He wants you. That desire is beautiful and it deserves to be received that way. And he's not wrong for reaching for his wife, the woman that he married. And then there's a longer conversation to be had. Not in the moment when everything's charged and there's not a lot of time and you're right in the middle of everything. That's not the time. When there's no charge, when there's no sexual charge or irritation, whatever's going on, it's just you guys. Calm and you can have a conversation about it. Something like, babe, when I am carrying the mental load fully, when I am deep in managing everything, there is no capacity or no room in my brain at that moment for desire or being sexually charged or turned on or being in my body. It's just kind of non existent in that moment. Share with him the neuroscience behind it. What the mental load actually does, how it kills our desire. It is not about you. It is not about us. It is about the load that I am carrying mentally. The more you both understand this, the more when you are in that moment and this comes up again, he understands what's going on. You understand. That is healing. When Keith comes up behind me and I'm in that moment, he grabs my ass or whatever. And I turn around and I just look at him. He just knows. We've had many conversations about this time, this moment, and how I need to come back to myself, the reintroduction to myself and my husband. This was maybe two episodes ago. He doesn't feel rejected anymore. He doesn't feel confused by me anymore. He understands. Most husbands, when they actually understand that this is more of a neurological thing and not a personal thing, wouldn't take it as rejection. They would understand what's going on. And instead of feeling rejected and confused, they can come to you and say, Okay, you got a lot going on. What can I take off your plate? Ooh. Then you do want to have sex because how hot is that? And that's really what this episode is about. It is an invitation to understanding. That five head moments and the fullness that we as women experience. It is the start of a conversation rather than the end of a conversation. And finding our way back to desire, not pushing through it, not feeling guilty about this. That's just not necessary. It doesn't need to be present. It is addressing the fullness and setting things down when we can and coming back into our body, coming home. And then reaching for our partner again. Let's take some time for our weekly pause. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, just take these couple moments for you. If you can, close your eyes. Let's all take a deep inhale together. Exhale it out. Another deep soothing breath in. Exhale it out. One more deep breath in. Let it go. I want you to think about the last time you had this five heads moment. What was actually happening in your mind in that exact second? What were you carrying? Actually think about the things that you were carrying in the mental load. Now sister, I want you to think about whether you have ever told your husband what that moment is actually like for you. Has he ever heard you explain it in the way we just talked about? If not, what is stopping you? And think about one small phrase you could say the next time it happens. Something honest. Something that explains instead of shuts down. Can you see the beauty in him reaching for you? Can you take it as a compliment instead of irritation or frustration? This is bigger than you, sister, said It's not your body betraying you in that way. It's your body telling you the truth. The work is learning to listen to it and then learning how to express it. Let's all take one last deep inhale together. Exhale it out and open your eyes. Sister, your body knows what's going on with you before your words have the chance to express it. Behind every great man is a great woman whose body is telling her the truth, even when her words can't find it. Thanks for taking the time to join me on this week's podcast episode. You can find more episodes of Behind Every Great Man on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if this spoke to you, Please subscribe and why not share it with your girlfriends. Thanks again and I'll see you next week.