Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Four Ways To Get Yourself In The Mood Even If You're Not Feeling Sexy (For Women)

Transcript

Four Ways To Get Yourself In The Mood Even If You're Not Feeling Sexy (For Women) · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctor psych mom show today.
• 0:09
  I am going to be talking about when women are not in the mood
• 0:15
  and don't feel like they're ever in the mood.
• 0:18
  Which of course, I talked about a lot and how then you can
• 0:24
  potentially get yourself into a mood where you want to have sex
• 0:29
  and to really initiate Intimacy in some sort of spontaneous fun.
• 0:34
  A that isn't that doesn't feel totally disingenuous.
• 0:40
  So before I get to that good stuff that I know you are just
• 0:44
  really waiting to hear me talk yet again about another angle of
• 0:49
  human sexuality. Remember to like And subscribe
• 0:53
  to my podcast if you subscribe, you have access to bonus
• 0:56
  episode. So just click on, subscribe, and
• 0:59
  it's five ninety-nine a month and you get extra episodes.
• 1:02
  My most recent one was about empathic.
• 1:04
  Ruptures and how to resolve them, which is super important
• 1:08
  listening for anybody in any kind of long-term relationship
• 1:11
  that wants to prevent against mounting resentment and
• 1:14
  potential divorce. So that's my scare tactic for
• 1:17
  you to listen to that episode. So let's talk about this episode
• 1:21
  though now. So obviously a lot of women no
• 1:25
  longer experience, tremendous sexual desire with in long-term
• 1:28
  relationships. We're talking about marriages of
• 1:30
  multiple years and they know that they They love their
• 1:35
  husband, they want to be fun and, you know, really just fun
• 1:41
  partner. A lot of women don't feel very
• 1:44
  fun at this stage of Life, anywhere, near midlife,
• 1:47
  honestly, anywhere. After kids, you know, the fun
• 1:50
  starts to diminish a little bit and but you still want to be a
• 1:55
  good partner and you want to get back in touch with some parts of
• 1:59
  yourself that used to be sexy and figure out how to control.
• 2:04
  Tribute to a sex life which is not, obviously just laying there
• 2:10
  like a dead thing during intercourse but rather is
• 2:13
  engaging in an enthusiastic and excited way during sex.
• 2:20
  Now I've talked a lot about responsive desire so I am in no
• 2:23
  way saying that you're supposed to get yourself some how-to when
• 2:29
  your husband walks into the room.
• 2:30
  You just can't stop yourself from attacking his body.
• 2:34
  It's A happen after years of marriage, you know?
• 2:38
  I mean, sometimes he may be looking handsome.
• 2:39
  You may in fact, always think that he's handsome and you may
• 2:42
  always even think that objectively he's sexy.
• 2:45
  But does this mean that you are going to experience a flooding
• 2:52
  of desire in the way that you would have?
• 2:55
  When you were first dating him? Probably not.
• 2:58
  However, their, this doesn't have to be the end of the story,
• 3:03
  a lot of women. I'm feel that it's disingenuous
• 3:06
  to act as though they want sex when they don't.
• 3:09
  And of course, that isn't true, you know, anymore than it is
• 3:14
  disingenuous for your husband to act like he wants to take you
• 3:17
  out on a romantic date. When he doesn't, there are
• 3:19
  things that we do within the context of a loving and happy
• 3:22
  marriage. And obviously, as I've hammered
• 3:25
  into your heads by this point, once you start having sex for
• 3:28
  many women that leads to responsive desire.
• 3:31
  So a few minutes into it, you're going to feel that A lot of
• 3:35
  arousal and interest that you used to feel but it happens
• 3:40
  after you start not before. So how do you get yourself into
• 3:43
  a headspace? Well, one good way is to focus
• 3:46
  on the positives of your partner.
• 3:49
  So while many people who are frustrated and irritable in, you
• 3:54
  know, with the many travails and stresses of Life, they harp on
• 3:58
  the what their partner does not do so this obviously does not
• 4:02
  put you in the mood for anything but an argument.
• 4:04
  Aunt, however, if you really take the time to focus on the
• 4:08
  positives of what your husband does, then it may really put you
• 4:13
  in a much better frame of mind. So, if you think, you know, this
• 4:17
  is like how I talked in my podcast episode about the kind
• 4:20
  of marital scorekeeping. That helps scorekeeping is
• 4:23
  really terrible if you're looking out for yourself.
• 4:25
  But if you're scorekeeping what the other person is doing right,
• 4:28
  that can be very, very good for your marriage.
• 4:31
  So in this case, you could say, what are the nice things that my
• 4:33
  husband has done. Today, or this week or whatever,
• 4:36
  he's taken care of the kids, he did some cute stuff with them,
• 4:40
  he tried to joke around with me. Yesterday, when I was in a bad
• 4:44
  mood, he did the grocery shopping on the other day, he is
• 4:48
  being sweet to me about my job problems and listening to me,
• 4:53
  talk about them, whatever it is. So if you think about wow, my
• 4:56
  husband has done some really nice stuff that's going to put
• 4:59
  you in a very positive mood where you feel good about him
• 5:04
  and When you feel good about him you remember that he's not that
• 5:07
  bad looking either. And you know if you start
• 5:09
  something with him you're probably going to end up
• 5:12
  enjoying it sexually. It's even better.
• 5:15
  By the way, Pro tip you can. If you talk to someone else or
• 5:19
  even post on social media about positive, things that your
• 5:23
  husband does, then all of the positive feedback from your
• 5:26
  friends or family is actually going to make you feel better
• 5:29
  about your husband too. So if your husband brings you
• 5:31
  flowers and you text your friends like oh isn't this cute?
• 5:35
  Or you put it on Instagram or something.
• 5:37
  Then yeah people are going to say oh what a great guy and then
• 5:41
  that's going to make you feel good about your husband and in
• 5:44
  the mood to do what he likes which you end up liking to also.
• 5:50
  You could start working out a lot of people that very
• 5:53
  disconnected from their bodies in midlife.
• 5:56
  And you feel like you are really just a robot that goes to work,
• 6:00
  takes care of kids and goes home when you exercise.
• 6:03
  And I'm not talking about the Weight loss aspect or anything
• 6:06
  like that. Talking about merely using your
• 6:09
  body in a different kind of a way and becoming really attuned
• 6:15
  to the fact that you are a corporeal being, instead of
• 6:19
  basically a brain for work and then a set of hands to do shit
• 6:22
  at home. So, if you can pick back up, any
• 6:25
  form of exercise, particularly ones that you like, so, a lot of
• 6:29
  women, like, stuff related to dancing, or, you know, people
• 6:33
  like yoga. People like weight training,
• 6:36
  people, like different classes, whatever it is.
• 6:39
  Sometimes just the fact of being like, a physical being can get
• 6:44
  you in the mood and to remember what else your body can do in
• 6:47
  other areas, such as the better. It's also good to go out.
• 6:53
  Take walks, go dancing. Basically.
• 6:55
  Anything physical is going to put you in the mood for sex
• 6:58
  more. This is just because you're
• 7:00
  using your body and a pleasurable way.
• 7:02
  So you remember you have now Now, you've paired an
• 7:05
  association of my body brings me pleasure, which you haven't
• 7:09
  really thought about before for women.
• 7:11
  Masturbation can also help with this, but don't take it too far.
• 7:14
  And as I've written about women can get addicted to the
• 7:17
  vibrator, which does not help anything in the bedroom with
• 7:19
  your husband. If you're using a lot of porn
• 7:23
  constantly as man, we're not talking about been here, but
• 7:27
  just my caveat, if you're a man, that's using a lot of porn.
• 7:29
  This is actually have a bad effect on your sex life Unless
• 7:34
  somehow you. Looks like it, you're watching
• 7:35
  it together or you use it very sporadically, but if you're
• 7:38
  really getting dependent on porn, that's kind of bad bad
• 7:42
  scene for your sex life, just like any sort of dependence on
• 7:47
  an external object is going to be bad for your sex life,
• 7:50
  because it's not about your partner.
• 7:53
  So, back to women, you, which is my topic.
• 7:56
  I sometimes find it difficult to stay on track with my job.
• 7:59
  So, what my topic is here is ways that you can get yourself
• 8:04
  into to the mood to be responsive to your partner.
• 8:07
  Another way is actually just initiating sex, right?
• 8:10
  I mean men want you to initiate sex.
• 8:12
  This is like the most common thing that men want.
• 8:15
  And you don't have to like really have desire to initiate
• 8:21
  sex. Like it's exciting to initiate
• 8:23
  and to see how happy that makes your partner and then you'll
• 8:26
  respond to desire kicks in. So if you don't usually flirt
• 8:30
  with your husband, or you don't usually put on lingerie or you
• 8:33
  don't usually Ask him to go upstairs or send him a naked
• 8:37
  picture or anything, depending on how crazy you are.
• 8:40
  I mean, there may be many other things that are things that you
• 8:44
  used to do that. You don't currently do.
• 8:46
  Why don't you try to do them? Because his nice response will
• 8:50
  be enough, possibly to actually get you in the mood because now
• 8:56
  you feel sexy. So, guys, always want.
• 8:59
  And I did my podcast episode on, don't try to turn your wife on
• 9:02
  by sending her pictures of your dick.
• 9:04
  Or whatever else. It's like the it's like
• 9:07
  literally the opposite for many women.
• 9:09
  Sending a naked picture of themselves would be sexy getting
• 9:13
  one about their husband, is it because what sexy to women is to
• 9:16
  feel desired. So if you initiate like by
• 9:22
  sending a naked picture, you get to be rewarded with his desire
• 9:27
  and all of us enthusiasm. Now of course, if he's like a
• 9:29
  dick about this, like there was a guy who there is a woman who
• 9:33
  wrote in your school about her Husband who she scheduled a sexy
• 9:37
  naked photo shoot and then he didn't like it.
• 9:40
  I think, because he thought she was overweight or something.
• 9:42
  So if your husband has ever said, anything bad about your
• 9:46
  body, your shouldn't be initiating sex.
• 9:48
  Anyhow, because he's an asshole, but certainly don't send him any
• 9:51
  naked pictures. Only do this in the case, where
• 9:54
  you know, you're gonna get a nice response which is, you
• 9:57
  know, 99% of cases so you can do something sexy even when you're
• 10:02
  not feeling it in order to basically Your brain into
• 10:05
  feeling sexy, you know, like how if you smile, you know that
• 10:09
  there's research by the way that Botox helps depression.
• 10:12
  Why? Because it stops you from
• 10:14
  frowning and when you frown, then it triggers your brain.
• 10:17
  I'm sad when you can't frown your braids.
• 10:20
  Thanks, I must be happy. I guess.
• 10:22
  At least I'm not sad. So it's the same kind of thing.
• 10:25
  I frequently say fake it till you make it and this is an area
• 10:28
  where that's very useful. So if you're thinking that you
• 10:31
  look particularly cute in your shirt or whatever, Ver that day
• 10:35
  or you're feeling less bad body image stuff than usual, send
• 10:38
  your husband, a picture or flirt with him when you're ovulating
• 10:42
  is a wonderful time for this because you are research shows
• 10:46
  that your voice is higher. You pick sexier clothes and your
• 10:49
  nicer to be around as would make sense if we want to perpetuate
• 10:53
  our species. So during ovulation is a good
• 10:56
  time to initiate in this way. And it's the closest you're
• 10:59
  going to come to feeling spontaneous desire, for your
• 11:01
  husband, or for anybody, what? Are some other ways.
• 11:05
  Well, you know, you can schedule a date a date.
• 11:09
  Puts you into a totally different frame of mine and yes,
• 11:13
  that's always so good. If the man scheduled the date,
• 11:16
  you know what, though? At the end of the day, you just
• 11:18
  got to be out on the date, if you schedule the date, you also
• 11:21
  get to pick the restaurant and you also get to pick what time
• 11:25
  you go. And a lot of women who are used
• 11:28
  to saying that they want their husband to schedule.
• 11:30
  What they basically mean, this is a secret is I'm glad that
• 11:34
  Reschedule said because by me telling him to schedule, I know
• 11:38
  his lazy ass isn't gonna schedule then I don't have to
• 11:40
  schedule and we don't have to go.
• 11:42
  So if you're like one of those people that secretly happy that
• 11:45
  you're not even out on a date and might actually be kind of
• 11:48
  irritated if all of a sudden your husband decided to have an
• 11:51
  every week date night at the place that he thinks you would
• 11:54
  like, which is never where you would like why don't you just
• 11:58
  decide to schedule a date where you would like, get dressed up,
• 12:02
  look attractive, have a drink. And get yourself into a
• 12:05
  different mindset. We're don't have a drink.
• 12:08
  I'm not telling you drink if you don't like to drink but you
• 12:11
  know, you get yourself into a different mindset where you're
• 12:14
  not just a mother and a wife, and an employee and whatever
• 12:18
  else. You're actually a fun person out
• 12:21
  on the town and this is more reminiscent of who you used to
• 12:25
  be. Again, we're kind of trying to
• 12:27
  trick our bodies and brains into feeling how we used to be.
• 12:31
  So it's called State dependence. It's like if you drink coffee,
• 12:34
  When you're studying for a test and you should drink coffee at
• 12:36
  the test because you'll recall more of what you studied its
• 12:40
  context-dependent. So if you get dressed up and put
• 12:43
  on perfume and have a glass of wine and you're wearing a cute
• 12:47
  outfit, then your body remembers that as date date.
• 12:52
  When I have date, I feel excited, I feel desired.
• 12:56
  I feel sexy and then that may translate to how you feel on the
• 13:00
  date with your husband, even if you had to plan it right.
• 13:04
  Right. And what shall I give you for a
• 13:08
  closing remark? I'm usually so good at these
• 13:11
  soliloquies, but it's been a long day of clients for closing
• 13:15
  remark, though, to be serious. It's really, really important
• 13:19
  that couples connect sexually. I see everyday, the horrible
• 13:24
  aftermath of couples who have not connected in years in any
• 13:28
  real meaningful, sexual way, and it's really hard to get back on
• 13:32
  track. So if you notice yourself,
• 13:34
  Getting off track, you're the woman now.
• 13:37
  It's not many of the time. I tell, the man do this, do
• 13:40
  this, do this, do this, do this. Because after all, you're the
• 13:43
  one who wants to get laid, but as the woman, even if you don't
• 13:45
  have an active desire to get laid, and if that is the
• 13:48
  problem, you still have an active desire to have a happy
• 13:52
  marriage. So if you have the want to have
• 13:54
  a happy marriage, you don't hate the guy, then you are going to
• 13:59
  have to go up against the natural biology of women's
• 14:03
  attenuated. Sex drive in monogamy.
• 14:06
  So you are going to have to be wildly and you are going to have
• 14:09
  to trick yourself and your body into feeling, sexy enough or
• 14:16
  happy with him enough, or positive enough to start
• 14:20
  something, sexual that will then turn into a nice experience.
• 14:23
  And you could also really feel good about yourself and be proud
• 14:26
  of yourself for doing that because in reality, you were
• 14:31
  into quote in the mood but you did it anyway, because You are a
• 14:35
  loving partner. Now, if you like going full
• 14:40
  circle to other podcasts, this, by the way, when people are
• 14:43
  like, how do people have possibly have open marriages?
• 14:47
  Some people decide to short-circuit this process of
• 14:50
  the woman, you know, pairing how she feels with sexual desire to
• 14:55
  literally the woman going out and flirting with or dating or
• 14:58
  sleeping with other men because that Stokes her real sex drive
• 15:03
  which comes out from Novel Partners.
• 15:05
  So don't hate that. If you're, if you heard that
• 15:09
  podcast in your like, oh who were those deviance that?
• 15:12
  Do that I've increasingly more clients.
• 15:15
  Now that have those sorts of arrangements.
• 15:17
  For exactly. The reason that that is like a
• 15:20
  real easy way to not easy, are we easy?
• 15:23
  But I mean biologically, it's an easy way to get the woman's
• 15:27
  arousal level backup, 20 novel, man, spontaneous desire.
• 15:32
  So if you're like all real cool, Chill in your marriage and you
• 15:36
  are real secure and open-minded than this is a possibility as
• 15:40
  well. You know, involving either the
• 15:43
  man doing it also or not. But for most people that I'm
• 15:47
  talking to, they are not going to go directly to the source
• 15:50
  there and get the novel sex, desire, feeling with a novel
• 15:56
  person, they are trying to replicate that for the good of
• 16:00
  the marriage within the context of the marriage and sex with a
• 16:03
  person that is not the novel partner as most women can attest
• 16:07
  to is usually a lot better than with a novel Partnerships and
• 16:10
  that will partner still has to be taught everything and they do
• 16:13
  not no matter how experienced they are.
• 16:15
  That usually not very, you know good.
• 16:18
  It's all exciting but they don't know exactly how to touch you
• 16:21
  yet. Whereas the long-term partner
• 16:22
  does and by the way, if you are somebody who is too shy to teach
• 16:29
  your partner, how to have good sex with you, that is another
• 16:32
  way to get yourself in the mood to Sex is to make sure you have
• 16:36
  a good sex because as I just wrote about, if my wrote about,
• 16:43
  does your wife really enjoy sex and I've spoken about that as
• 16:46
  well? If you don't enjoy sex, why
• 16:49
  would you want to do it? This whole end game has to get
• 16:52
  you somewhere. You have to have responsive
• 16:55
  desire because he's touching you the right way, if you're in this
• 16:59
  kind of situation where you don't want to hurt his feelings,
• 17:01
  but he doesn't really know how to have sex with you, right
• 17:04
  then. Then you probably ought to go to
• 17:06
  Sex Therapy, or you ought to do a lot of research about how he
• 17:10
  can do that better and share some of that with him and think
• 17:14
  about it and read some erotic stories, talk to your individual
• 17:19
  therapist about it. Figure out a way that you can
• 17:22
  communicate what you would prefer to your husband because
• 17:26
  all of the tips in the world are not going to help you.
• 17:28
  If you're going to end up having bad sex, then you're not going
• 17:32
  to think about positive things about him.
• 17:34
  Going to put yourself in the mood, you're not going to send
• 17:36
  them naked pictures because oh my God he might want to have sex
• 17:39
  and sex is terrible. So if you're in that situation
• 17:42
  you must help yourself. Do not just sit you know getting
• 17:46
  like older and older never enjoying your sex life.
• 17:50
  Nobody deserves that. Alright guys, so hopefully this
• 17:53
  helps some of you reframe how you can very genuinely, give it
• 18:01
  the old College. Try to get yourself into the
• 18:04
  Mood to have sex with your husband even high libido women.
• 18:08
  By the way, do not usually have spontaneous desire, what they do
• 18:13
  have is a they are good at having an orgasm and enjoying
• 18:18
  themselves in bed probably with anybody.
• 18:21
  So that shouldn't really be too. You know, bragging too much
• 18:24
  about that because the high libido woman, usually knows what
• 18:27
  she wants and has tried it enough with other people or with
• 18:31
  herself and know. So she knows Sex is going to be
• 18:35
  good and also, she usually has a physical touch love language.
• 18:38
  So, she genuinely yearns for the cuddling and kissing and hugging
• 18:41
  even when she doesn't have spontaneous desire, which she
• 18:46
  still may have some base never going to be as much as a man.
• 18:49
  So, you know, even high libido, women have to use some of these
• 18:54
  tips sometimes, especially over the vicissitudes of the
• 18:58
  menstrual cycle. Because there's at least a
• 19:00
  couple weeks there, where you don't feel like doing anything.
• 19:04
  Thing ever and you got to work against that.
• 19:07
  If you want to be a good partner, just as your husband,
• 19:09
  may not want to be romantic ever, but he still got to work
• 19:13
  against that to be a good partner.
• 19:15
  All right guys, thank you for listening.
• 19:16
  Please Subscribe. And I will talk to everybody
• 19:19
  soon.