Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When Does Frequency Of Sex Change From A Quantitative Problem To A Qualitative One?

Transcript

When Does Frequency Of Sex Change From A Quantitative Problem To A Qualitative One? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:06
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:08
  Psych mom show. So today I'm going to be talking
• 0:11
  about frequency of sex and when it changes from a quantitative
• 0:14
  problem to a qualitative problem and you'll see what I mean by
• 0:18
  that as soon as we dive into that topic first, please do
• 0:21
  subscribe. Most recently.
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• 0:26
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  episodes. Now, out of about 370, So that
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  should that's a fair amount for you to be listening to.
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• 0:50
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  the Dynamics between couples like mr.
• 1:00
  Perfect, and his crazy wife that one.
• 1:01
  Maybe they're on subscribe. Anyway.
• 1:04
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  people now in my Facebook group. So you should join that.
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  Not therapeutic advice, you're not in a therapy relationship
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  with me from joining that. I just mean, people tend to give
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  each other advice in the group. But anyway.
• 1:25
  Okay. So there are two inflection
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  points that I see in my practice working with couples and
• 1:31
  individuals when the sex life starts to change, right?
• 1:36
  Right. And so a lot of couples are
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  having sex all the time at first and then it starts to change and
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  there's one point at which it goes below.
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  What would be the amount that the guy at least wouldn't
• 1:53
  masturbate? You know and some guys are going
• 1:56
  to masturbate no matter what and the more addicted to porn, they
• 1:58
  are the more they're going to masturbate, no matter what.
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  But the average guy does not really want to masturbate within
• 2:03
  his marriage. He wants to be having sex You
• 2:06
  know, and so at some point it transitions, from how much
• 2:11
  you're having sex that you don't need to masturbate to how much
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  you're having sex that you do need to masturbate.
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  And by need, of course, I know it's not like food and water,
• 2:19
  but into you, feel like you need a physical release.
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  Same as people, you know, also aren't going to die if they miss
• 2:25
  eating for a day. But you know most people do
• 2:27
  still feel hungry three times a day anyway.
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  So at which point is that I mean it tends to go when it's below.
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  So like three times a week even maybe two times a week.
• 2:39
  So two or three times a week, then the guy is fine not using
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  poor not masturbating and basically making his whole sex
• 2:47
  life about his wife which I think is great and you can refer
• 2:50
  back to my podcast on sexual codependence which is I think a
• 2:54
  good part of being married is that you are only dependent on
• 2:57
  one another for sex and that is a nice special thing that you
• 3:00
  share. You know, and while many men,
• 3:03
  most men remain monogamists. Don't fully remain monogamous
• 3:07
  because then they start using porn, which seems to basically
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  be like barely. Anybody does like no porn and
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  masturbation nowadays. So once you're involving other
• 3:16
  women and looking at other women, and your sex life, I
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  mean, you're not, you're not really monogamous, you know, not
• 3:21
  not fully your brain. Doesn't feel like you are,
• 3:24
  because you're tricking your brain into thinking that you're
• 3:26
  having sex with multiple women, which is why a lot of men over
• 3:30
  inflate their libido by having sex, you know, sorry.
• 3:34
  Would that it were so So by watching porn because your brain
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  starts to think you're screwing all these women still like your
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  sex drive is like, you know, like super high.
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  And that's why a lot of guys that are addicted to porn, by
• 3:46
  the way, don't want to stop because when they stop, then
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  their sex drive goes back to something that's kind of normal
• 3:51
  for their age and then actually that's much better for their
• 3:54
  relationship but their ego takes a hit because they don't, you
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  know, they don't they're not getting off multiple times a day
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  or every day anymore. They don't feel They need to
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  because they're not, you know, mainlining these super
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  attractive, women do a lot of crazy shit into their brains
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  with porn. But anyway, the porn stuff I've
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  discussed a lot in other podcasts.
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  But right now what I'm saying is there is a change when a guy
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  realizes that like his wife isn't going to basically fulfill
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  his sexual needs herself. You know, that he feels that
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  there's going to have to be another outlet and And usually,
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  I don't even really tell people to stop.
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  I always tell people stop using porn, you know?
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  But if you're, you know, a guy and is like, you know, 30s or
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  something and your wife's only having sex once a week, I mean,
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  it is, you know, you can try to wait, you know, that would be
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  nice, but a lot of guys are at least going to want to
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  masturbate one other time during the week.
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  So, you know, when it drops below a few times a week, that's
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  when there starts to be extracurricular activities such
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  as masturbation. That changes the dynamic of the
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  relationship. You know, from something where
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  you're fully meeting each other sexual needs to where you're
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  not, you know. So that usually happens after
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  the honeymoon stage is over. Some guys are like, what the
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  fuck that never happened while to you guys.
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  That was a tremendous red flag, you know?
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  And if, and when you were to get into another relationship, there
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  should at least be some period at the beginning, where, you
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  know, you are fully meeting one, another sexual needs that is
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  that would be something to Aspire to then the next Next,
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  inflection point, I see is when it drops below once every two
• 5:40
  weeks or once every three weeks. And then the guy at least sees
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  like the clinical definition of sexless marriage is waving at
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  him from the distance and he's like oh shit we're going to be
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  out like less than 10 times a year soon if this drops anymore.
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  You know definitely by the time it's once a month or less then
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  you know the definition is less than 10 times a year.
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  I don't see why that's not 12 times a year but it's kind of As
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  a matter at that point, it's so low.
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  So yeah. So then once it's like once
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  you've ever skipped like a month, you know, like there's
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  been like a calendar month without sex, then it starts to
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  be very different. Then it starts to be like a very
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  either depressive or a panicky feeling based in the guy and I
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  say guy but sometimes it's women you know, I've talked about that
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  sometimes a woman to hire libido partner, but the partner who has
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  a higher libido, most likely the guy starts to be like Oh, shit.
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  You know, I'm gonna end up in a sexless marriage and for all
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  intensive purposes, that kind of Amman one because we aren't
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  having sex anywhere near. You know what would make me feel
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  close? And then of course they get very
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  anxious so guys or or the women but usually you know, men in
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  this situation because every time that they have sex, it's,
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  you know could be like the last time for two to three weeks if
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  not more so then they get really obsessed with making it better
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  and like all this stuff and then they get it, right?
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  I'll Officer they come too quick, or whatever the case may
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  be, because they're anxious. So, you know, it's a whole, it's
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  all bad scene at that point. So how could you use this
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  information to help you with your sex life and with your
• 7:17
  intimate life? This would be a good thing to
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  talk about your partner. There's a lot of women that
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  don't want the guy to masturbate like totally understand, like,
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  you know, you want to be totally closed with one another.
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  I mean, it would be like, with the masturbating, especially if
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  you're using porn, it would be like if you want your husband to
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  take you out. To dinner.
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  But like instead, he's like taking a robot out to dinner,
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  you know, like it's like he's doing something that like you
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  want, but it's with somebody else.
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  So that's how he feels, you know, like he's like it's not he
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  doesn't want to be taken any robots out to dinner.
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  You want to be taking you out to dinner.
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  And by this, you know, dinner is sex in this analogy.
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  But really, it's also very mythological that there are all
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  of these men that aren't having sex.
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  That also don't want to do date night.
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  I usually see and I mean there's plenty of avoiding guys that
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  just want to have sex and not be romantic but that's not the
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  majority because the majority of people are not avoidant
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  attachment, the majority of men are not avoidant attachment.
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  The majority are secure and preoccupied together will
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  outweigh avoid because the majority about fifty percent.
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  If not more of people are securely attached but after that
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  there's more preoccupied than avoidant.
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  So the odds are is that you're with a man who wants if he wants
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  sex, he also wants roommate. So he wants the date and he
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  wants a sex. So it's not it's not a good
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  analogy except with avoided men to say the way that you yearn
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  for romance is the way that he yearns for sex.
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  That's true with avoidant. Men and preoccupied women.
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  But if the man is either securely attached or preoccupied
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  attachment, then he yearns for romance and hyorin's for sex.
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  So, you know, either way he does.
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  Any fucking any robots, he doesn't want to be taking any
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  out to dinner at the robot, of course, is the, you know, woman
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  Inside the screen and he wants the relationship to be with you.
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  You want the relationship to be with him.
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  Hopefully if you're a woman, that's married.
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  If you don't care how much he masturbates perhaps think about,
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  like, that's not that smart, right?
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  Because like, like he's doing so it would be like him not caring.
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  If you had an emotional affair just because you're not having
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  sex, That would be stupid, right?
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  Because you you care in theory about like emotions and
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  closeness and you would be doing that with somebody else.
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  He is doing it with somebody else.
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  Honestly, even if he's not using porn, he's becoming solely
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  dependent on himself for something.
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  That is not a solo activity so that's not good for the
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  relationship. It's like if you guys took walks
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  every day after dinner and then he decided that instead he was
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  going to run. All right?
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  I mean, I guess like it's good for your health whatever.
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  But like what about Time walking there.
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  What we were close? We were talking etcetera, Etc.
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  Ideally he would go like lift or something some other time and he
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  would still do like your walks, you know, he would leave your
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  walks as like a special thing. So the analogy though is what if
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  then he just started lifting right or he just started doing
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  whatever the fuck like your walks, you wanted to be like
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  your time together to exercise and talk.
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  So, you know, you can see how bad you would feel if he just
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  replaced it. You don't really Ali want your
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  husband to be masturbating all the time?
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  This isn't good. Like I've talked about this.
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  A lot of talks about female masturbation to if your sex life
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  isn't good. Why are you getting more
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  self-sufficient than that domain?
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  You're already to self-sufficient, either.
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  You don't care, which is selfish, right?
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  Because it's all about, then how you feel in any given second or
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  you are, you know, getting used to something that isn't what
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  another human being can approximate.
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  So a woman can't do everything out of porn.
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  She can't be The dopamine Rush that pouring gives you because
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  she is only one person in real life versus a constant stream of
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  images. You know, like getting right
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  into your head and of course, as I've discussed, a man can't be a
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  vibrator because he can't, and then for woman, gets addicted to
• 11:21
  a vibrator, she can't have an orgasm with the guy so
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  masturbation in general, unless your sex drive is Way Beyond
• 11:28
  anything. I know for anybody that is
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  monogamous and there, you know, 30s, 40s, Beyond 30s and 40s.
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  By the way, is a big Big change. Very, very big change.
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  It's as big as from 20s to 30s. Actually, I think it's even
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  bigger because in 40s, women start to go through
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  perimenopause before that. They've not really had any
• 11:45
  hormonal changes to all like body image.
• 11:48
  This that all right, fine. Yeah.
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  But you still have your hormones by 40, something you stop.
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  You know that's when women kind of change.
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  That's the estrogen drops. And the testosterone is
• 11:58
  frequently not there at all. So that is a big change.
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  So at that point and then start to look quite different in their
• 12:04
  40s to even if they tell themselves, they Don't because
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  their bodies are changing to and their hormones are raging, so
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  people in their 40s. Usually don't have a surfeit of
• 12:12
  sex drive to work with. Unless, of course, the man is
• 12:15
  fluffing himself by constant porn, use or taking testosterone
• 12:19
  or whatever. And, you know, so you got to
• 12:22
  work with what you have. This is not a situation where
• 12:26
  any guy don't care how much porn he's using, is going to be able
• 12:29
  to jack off with poor in the morning and then get hard
• 12:32
  immediately again to have sex with his wife.
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  It's just not happening. There's a refractory period if
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  it was a brand-new woman, maybe maybe it's your friend.
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  That's the honeymoon stage refractory period, which is
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  shorter but still, you know. And this is why I sometimes I
• 12:45
  hear this in sessions guys are like very mad if their wife
• 12:49
  wants to have sex at a time that they just jerked off, right?
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  Because they feel like they're trying to get out of head of the
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  problem and not have this build-up of sexual tension by
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  masturbating and then turns out she wanted to have sex.
• 13:02
  So this is why people need to schedule sex at least
• 13:05
  implicitly. No, for example, we have sex,
• 13:08
  you know, on the weekends twice and then once during the week
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  and so then yeah, that gets you up by the way to the three times
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  a week, which I'm and definitely should be able to to wait and
• 13:17
  not masturbate. If he's having sex that he
• 13:19
  knows, he's going to have three times a week.
• 13:21
  Anybody listening to this podcast, that's not, you know,
• 13:24
  living in a frat house, should be fine with your multiple
• 13:27
  children, your job and everything else, you know, you
• 13:29
  could be fined, waiting for your three times a week, sex, I say
• 13:33
  that is that it's just pretty. T.
• 13:36
  It's a pretty big that would be a pretty big ask for somebody
• 13:41
  who was like 16 years old. But it's not a big ask for
• 13:44
  somebody who's 45 years old for 26 years old, right?
• 13:47
  It Isn't. So in a lot of guys would be
• 13:49
  super happy with three times a week.
• 13:51
  So if you're listening to this you could also say all right, if
• 13:53
  I want to have a happy relationship more of a happy
• 13:55
  relationship, what something I could try.
• 13:57
  If I like numbers maybe I could try to increase the rate to
• 14:00
  three times a week because I do have people that have sex like
• 14:03
  three times a week or more and those Always have, you know, a
• 14:07
  different kind of connection in my office.
• 14:09
  So of course, I don't see people who have wonderful perfect lives
• 14:14
  at all, because then they wouldn't be coming in to couples
• 14:16
  counseling and are any people really feel, you know, have
• 14:19
  perfect lives. Anyway, begs the question.
• 14:21
  Whatever point is the people that I do, see, I still do see a
• 14:25
  range, right? Of how often people are having
• 14:26
  sex. And I'll tell you the people
• 14:28
  that are having sex out few times a week, even more than the
• 14:32
  people have sex a couple times a week and way different than the
• 14:35
  people have sex one time a week. I don't wait different of course
• 14:38
  than the last. So that's kind of what this
• 14:39
  episode is about. Is there are these inflection
• 14:41
  points but the ones that are doing it a few times a week,
• 14:45
  it's a different game, like they could be fighting, they can be
• 14:47
  mad at each other, whatever, but there's still a romantic
• 14:50
  connection. You still feel that there is a,
• 14:52
  a couple sitting in front of you versus two completely separate
• 14:55
  people, which is frequently how it feels when people have no sex
• 14:59
  life at all, or have a very minimal low-frequency sex life,
• 15:04
  which, as I said, To be classified into two categories.
• 15:08
  The ones where it's less than what they can not masturbate
• 15:13
  with. And then the ones where it's
• 15:15
  basically rolling up to a sexless marriage, any day now,
• 15:19
  so, you know, this would be a good one to discuss with your
• 15:21
  partner. Only in the situation that your
• 15:23
  partner wants to hear from me because many don't, you know,
• 15:27
  I'm a niche taste here like a lot of like you're not going to
• 15:31
  get every woman being like, Oh, I love listening to her.
• 15:35
  She's like. Like so warm and fuzzy and
• 15:38
  validating like you just do not, you know.
• 15:40
  So and the women that do listen to me, by the way, it's funny
• 15:45
  because frequently they then are the more proactive partner and
• 15:49
  their husband doesn't want to listen to me, you know, tell
• 15:52
  them what's what for 15 minutes. So, you know, it is rare that
• 15:56
  both people will like to listen to me the same.
• 15:59
  And if you're in one of those situations, this is certainly a
• 16:02
  good one to discuss. But if you're not then you your
• 16:05
  Elf can create the conversation without me.
• 16:09
  Add my voice and not everybody loves.
• 16:12
  I hear this on Tick Tock. Unfortunately some people seem
• 16:14
  to have terrible taste in human voices and you know told me that
• 16:19
  I sound like Marisa Tomei in in My Cousin Vinny which I take as
• 16:24
  a compliment because I love her and she went to Edward r--
• 16:28
  Murrow my high school but 17 years earlier anyway so that was
• 16:33
  just a lovely comment from a fan.
• 16:35
  Man. But anyway, so if you are
• 16:39
  somebody who wants to bring this up as a conversation, you don't
• 16:42
  need me in your spouse's either. You can say something like, wow,
• 16:46
  you know, I was thinking about it.
• 16:48
  Do you feel any different when we're having sex three times a
• 16:51
  week versus one? Because I don't but like, I
• 16:54
  guess, you know, some people really do and I mean your your
• 16:58
  husband in that case would be like over-the-moon happy much
• 17:01
  happier than listening to me, you know?
• 17:04
  And he would say wow. Yeah, I really do like I and
• 17:07
  then you could be like, well, what's, what's like?
• 17:09
  The least amount of time that you still feel connected during
• 17:12
  the week and he'd be like, I think maybe two times a week,
• 17:14
  he's lying, he's lying. He means like three times a
• 17:17
  week. Like I told you but he'll be
• 17:19
  like oh I think two times a week and then you be like okay well
• 17:21
  then let's try two times a week and then you had like a
• 17:23
  wonderful exchange that was you know sparked by this podcast but
• 17:28
  you didn't need me. Exactly there.
• 17:31
  Well you know you didn't need to share a link of.
• 17:34
  I appreciate all of you that Are the links, but I'm just trying
• 17:37
  to work with the ones who tell me, oh my husband, my wife
• 17:39
  doesn't want to listen to you, okay?
• 17:41
  Like, you know, it's a free country.
• 17:43
  You are still able to bring the conversation up yourself and you
• 17:48
  should because honestly, if you're the one who wants to
• 17:51
  share the link, then you this is this matters to you.
• 17:55
  So you really want to figure out how you yourself can bring it up
• 17:59
  in this doesn't, of course, just go for this podcast, but for all
• 18:01
  podcasts. But if you are in the unique
• 18:03
  situation where you share stuff and your partner, Really likes
• 18:06
  it. Well then you probably should
• 18:07
  thank them and be like, you know, it's really nice that when
• 18:09
  I share you, when I share these podcasts or whatever with you
• 18:13
  that you're nice about it because I hear that everybody
• 18:15
  isn't so nice about it. Alright it will be a good
• 18:17
  conversation. Always good to express
• 18:19
  appreciation. Alright well hopefully you got
• 18:22
  something out of this and I'll talk to you soon.
• 18:23
  Bye bye.