Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / How To Respond When You're Offered Unenthusiastic Sex

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How To Respond When You're Offered Unenthusiastic Sex · 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 before I get to today's requested topic, which
• 0:12
  is great. I love one subscribers request
• 0:15
  topics. Please make sure that you become
• 0:18
  a subscriber and please click on the Subscribe link so that you
• 0:22
  can have access to all paid episodes.
• 0:24
  The one after this is going to be paid, and it's going to be
• 0:27
  related to this about the role of Maintenance sex, in a healthy
• 0:30
  relationship. So, the balance between, you
• 0:33
  know, Anson Dental sex and maintenance sex and what that
• 0:38
  should ideally be and what maintenance sex should look
• 0:41
  like, and what is what it should not look like.
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  But for right now, we are sticking to the topic at hand.
• 0:48
  And so this subscriber wrote in that sometimes his wife offers
• 0:52
  him sex. Even when she's not in the mood
• 0:54
  and he is trying to work on seeing this as her being nice
• 0:58
  and her trying to understand his love language, but he gets stuck
• 1:03
  in the spiral. She doesn't want me.
• 1:06
  She's not attracted to me and this is pity sex and so he turns
• 1:10
  it down. So a lot of guys are in this
• 1:13
  situation where they're not sure what to make of it.
• 1:16
  When a woman who is not feeling spontaneous desire, initiate
• 1:20
  sex. Despite the fact that I
• 1:22
  repeatedly reiterate that women experiencing spontaneous desire
• 1:26
  is very rare with in monogamy, usually just Conchords with
• 1:29
  ovulation and most women experience responsive desire.
• 1:33
  If you don't understand what that That is go back to the
• 1:35
  response of Desire podcast. But basically what it means is
• 1:39
  that once women start going, then they get in the mood versus
• 1:43
  having desire. That predates the entire
• 1:46
  experience like men, do men feel horny than they want to have
• 1:50
  sex, women have sex and then they feel horny.
• 1:54
  So that's the cliff notes on that most of the time except
• 1:59
  with a new partner and or when you're ovulating, or you're
• 2:02
  feeling super close, unromantic But if you're just going to wait
• 2:05
  for all that shit to happen, you're not going to be having
• 2:07
  very much sex as is the life experience of many of the men
• 2:12
  that I work with surrounding this issue and the couple's.
• 2:15
  So what should you do if your wife is offering you sex when
• 2:20
  she's not in the mood? So it's very based on how, you
• 2:23
  know, I mean, there's like a world of difference between you
• 2:26
  are like Super Hyper Vigilant, preoccupied attachment guy,
• 2:31
  that's basically obsessed with whether or not his wife.
• 2:34
  Wants him. And so she turns to you with,
• 2:36
  like, a tired smile and says, hey, do you want to and then you
• 2:43
  think, oh my God, this is pretty sexy, obviously isn't fiending
• 2:46
  for it, like, in my dreams and so she doesn't want me and this
• 2:51
  just means she hates me. And she is a rejection and some
• 2:54
  sort of like crazy spiral down down, down, down down.
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  I don't see crazy as pejorative. Obviously, I'm just describing
• 3:02
  the spiral not the man. But anyhow, is it that?
• 3:07
  Or is it her being like, all right.
• 3:10
  I guess if you really want to make it quick because like in
• 3:13
  the second scenario, don't have sex don't ever have sex.
• 3:18
  Never has sex with a woman who tells you to make it quick, or
• 3:21
  in any other way is, like, demeaning or patronizing or
• 3:24
  nasty. So, don't do that.
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  And the reason that you shouldn't do that is something
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  that I'll explore in either a later episode or a post.
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  But what that does is it reaffirms a woman's mistaken.
• 3:34
  If that sex is just like half a tick up from masturbation on the
• 3:38
  rating scale which you know, many women think like, and I do
• 3:43
  a lot of psychoeducation around this to clear up this mess
• 3:46
  apprehension, but a lot of women, genuinely think that when
• 3:49
  they don't have a sex much of a sex drive or a physical touch,
• 3:52
  love language, they think. Well, sex is like, literally
• 3:55
  about getting off. So, if I'm not in the mood, why
• 3:58
  doesn't this selfish mofo? Just Jack himself off?
• 4:01
  What is the goddamn different? What does he need me to do it?
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  What is this? Like spite thing with the
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  PowerPlay, what's going on? Because they don't understand
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  that, it's beyond just the orgasm.
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  Now, how does the man contribute to this delusion?
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  If you're offered sex? It's basically somebody saying
• 4:17
  here, use my vagina, as your hand to masturbate with quickly
• 4:21
  please and you do it, then you are, perpetuating the delusion
• 4:25
  that sets in jerking off for the same thing.
• 4:27
  You should never be accepting sex that comes with make it
• 4:31
  quick or if you're really neat, too.
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  Or anything like that or you know like well I don't want you
• 4:40
  to sulk so like nothing like that.
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  If it's nice then I'll get to that in a moment.
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  But if it's not nice, don't take it.
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  And in fact, say no thanks, I don't need to do that.
• 4:52
  I don't ever want to have sex with somebody who is not feeling
• 4:57
  positive about me or about sex. That's not something I'm going
• 5:00
  to do anymore and if she says, well then you're going to be
• 5:02
  waiting forever. Say Probably not because we need
• 5:06
  to get it to couples counseling and I don't want to stay in a
• 5:08
  relationship with somebody, you know, Lord sex over me.
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  So, you know, then you got bigger fish to fry.
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  If you're in the situation where a woman is saying it in this
• 5:16
  kind of way, like oh my God, if you really want to find blah,
• 5:20
  you know, and being nasty. But let's say that you're not in
• 5:23
  that situation. Let's say you're in the first
• 5:25
  situation and, you know, your wife is really tired, you know,
• 5:30
  that she's not quote in the mood parenthetical though.
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  Again to Reiterate is she ever really in the mood?
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  Or she just more tired right now, if she's like many women
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  with in monogamy, she never is so kind of that may be cancelled
• 5:44
  out and you could just be like, oh, look how nice my wife is to
• 5:46
  initiate. But anyway, so if she turns to
• 5:49
  you and in any positive, loving way wants to have sex.
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  When, you know, she's not in the mood, then have sex and then do
• 5:58
  it. Be happy, be happy that you're
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  with somebody who wants to make you happy, and in this
• 6:04
  situation. And I also ask my husband for
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  the male opinion on this. He said, why don't you bring
• 6:09
  your A-game and see if you could transform it into something
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  positive? That's always a good strategy.
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  Sometimes that can work is specially if the woman overall
• 6:20
  feels positive about you. If you're in the situation that
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  a lot of my clients are in where the where there's a lot of water
• 6:26
  under the bridge and there's a lot of animosity and bitterness
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  and resentment. Then you bringing your A game is
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  a lot more fraught because Frequently.
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  It doesn't go well when you do and there's no difference.
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  So that also brings us to the idea of what is the goal is the
• 6:44
  woman, even at all thinking about the idea that she might
• 6:47
  get in the mood because if you're having sex with somebody
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  who thinks that it's more likely to that, you know, you know that
• 6:55
  you sprout wings and fly away then that she has an orgasm in
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  the encounter, then this is also very disillusioned inning and it
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  really screws up your Drive and your motivation levels.
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  So if you are with a woman who is going to have sex with you
• 7:12
  and be nice and throw you a bone basically but she's not going to
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  try to get into it at all. No matter if you bring your A
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  game or like the a game of a porn star, then you're also in a
• 7:24
  situation where you may just decide to opt out of that, you
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  know? So if frequently this happens
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  and basically all the sex that you're getting, is this sex
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  where she says, okay do you want to?
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  And she doesn't say It mainly, but she says it nicely but she
• 7:39
  doesn't try at all to get into it or to have an orgasm.
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  Then don't do it. She has to fake it, at least the
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  enthusiasm, not the orgasm. I never want them to fake the
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  orgasm, but if she could fix some enthusiasm and she may get
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  herself into the headspace where she's actually enthusiastic and
• 7:55
  can actually have an orgasm. So many women think that their
• 7:58
  orgasm is optional, but it's really not optional that much,
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  maybe like ten percent of the time but not like 50 or Five
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  percent of the time. So again faking orgasms never
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  good but fix some enthusiasm, you might get into it, be
• 8:15
  enthusiastic, Miss pronounced enthusiasm and enthusiastic but
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  make some enthusiasm, fake being enthusiastic and you then may
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  get into a headspace where you are likely or to enjoy yourself.
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  Because here's the thing you could be like so nice and so
• 8:33
  sweet. But if you are constantly having
• 8:37
  Is that you that does not end it an orgasm for you, you're not
• 8:41
  going to want to keep doing it, you know?
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  It's like why would anybody like would your husband want to keep
• 8:46
  doing it? Like nobody wants to keep doing
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  something that doesn't end well and that there's no point to
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  accept to be nice. That's called charity work, you
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  know, that's philanthropy. Nobody wants to keep doing that
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  forever. You know that this is like like
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  why capitalism works you know like every people do things for
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  rewards, so the Of just being a good wife, is not enough to keep
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  most women focused on having a good sex life.
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  So what I would say is, yes, bring your A game.
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  But if this is a situation where she genuinely means, like, I'm
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  not going to rush you. I'm not going to say hurry up,
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  but I'm just really, I'm gonna lay there like an inert
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  substance and let you move me. Don't have that sex either like
• 9:32
  like only have sex if it turns out, well, historically or Or if
• 9:37
  she's committed to changing it. So she could turn to you and
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  say, oh, you know, I do you want to in a tired voice and then you
• 9:45
  say, okay sure. Like, you know, I love you.
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  You're so beautiful and start with your A game start bringing
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  it and if you see that she's just trying being nice but
• 9:57
  trying to get it done with just stop and say, listen, honestly,
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  I don't really want to, you're not into it and honestly a lot
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  of women. If you do this, a few times in a
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  row, they'll be like, holy shit, man.
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  Carriage is in Jeopardy. I better start enjoying Seth,
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  you know, or we better start like going to a couple's,
• 10:13
  counselor or in some way. Dealing with the fact that he
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  has just rejected me for sex three times in a row that weirds
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  me out, it never happened before.
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  So maybe something is changing here, and I'm not able to just
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  phone it in all the time, and I link to my article about phoning
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  insects in the description of this episode.
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  So, so, if your, if your flowchart, kind of guy think
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  about it, right? So you're starting out Like if
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  she nasty or is she nice and the offer of basically what you
• 10:41
  would call Charity sex? Okay.
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  She's nasty. Don't do it.
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  So you're done your flowchart. Stop there in that strand.
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  Then the other one. It's like, okay, she's being
• 10:51
  nice. Is she gonna get into it?
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  And she historically somebody who will then try to bring her a
• 10:58
  game to eventually remember she needs some warm-up.
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  That's responsive desire so it may be all you kind of all you
• 11:06
  just doing your thing. For playing at her for like
• 11:10
  10-15 minutes. But at that point, does she
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  tried to get into it? And did she have an orgasm if so
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  then yeah, if she offers you something, then take her up on
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  it because sometimes it turns into good sex it does.
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  If you're in that situation where she allows it to many,
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  women are tired 100% of the time.
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  You know, women have chronic pain.
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  They have depression, they have anxiety.
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  They have children their aging. They go through menopause, they
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  may be starting out tired and didn't pay a lot.
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  Lot and they don't tell it to you because I don't want to be
• 11:39
  like constantly complaining, you know, but that's the truth, you
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  know. If if I let's say only was
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  allowed to have sex in at night. I mean I don't even know what I
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  would do like really I can't even picture it.
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  So I'm so fucking tired at night and I am a woman.
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  Not a lot of y'all males seem to respect and think has good
• 12:02
  advice for this sort of thing and I'm telling you so that you
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  can identify with Your wife and you could be like, wow, maybe my
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  wife isn't as as an enthusiastic, or whatever, as I
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  think or as abnormal as I think if there were no other times in
• 12:17
  the day, somehow for me to have sex.
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  And I only had to have sex at night, that would be a shitshow,
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  really? Because I can't.
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  I'm so so so tired. I'm somebody who suffers from
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  depression and migraines and I have three kids, and I'm growing
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  this business. It's really tough.
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  So if I couldn't have sex in the morning or the afternoon, then I
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  would Have sex a hell of a lot less, probably, 20% of the six
• 12:40
  that I have. So so a I mean, you could take
• 12:44
  that also as like your own, that doesn't have to be a tangent.
• 12:48
  That could be an interesting thing for you to think about to
• 12:51
  like try to make it so that your wife doesn't have to initiate at
• 12:57
  a time that isn't good for her. Right?
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  Be around. Talk about it.
• 13:00
  Schedule. Sex say, I want to work from
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  home today because then we could be closed in the middle of the
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  day. You know, say If I take care of
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  stuff with the kids in the morning, does, you know, does
• 13:12
  that allow you to and like, have sex with me?
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  Like seriously. So many guys are, like, all it's
• 13:18
  demeaning to like asked what they could do to have sex,
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  that's not demeaning. That's being a fucking team
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  player. There are plenty of women who
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  will have sex at night, if the husband work does, the kids in
• 13:29
  the middle of the night, the middle of the night, wake Up's.
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  And the morning guys. A very, very little idea how
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  much physical fatigue? Egg and physical pain, and lack
• 13:40
  of sleep, influences. Women consistently very, very,
• 13:44
  very low empathy on this because it's just different to be a man.
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  Point Blank. You have more testosterone, you
• 13:51
  don't feel pain the same way. You just really, don't I so
• 13:55
  rarely see men that struggle with chronic pain in the way
• 14:00
  that women do even. And also, they have much lower
• 14:04
  rates of it in general, they have lower rates of migraine
• 14:06
  lower. IBS lower rates of depression,
• 14:10
  lower rates, of anxiety. So, this is just a really like a
• 14:13
  PSA do not minimize how exhausted your wife is when she
• 14:17
  asks about the charity sex. Instead, try to say, are there
• 14:21
  ways that this could go better, where it doesn't have to be sex
• 14:25
  at night or whenever it is that she hates it so much right or
• 14:29
  that, she's so tired. But anyhow, so in back to your
• 14:32
  flowchart so if she's the type who is then, just never going to
• 14:36
  even try to get into the A mood at all and you could talk to her
• 14:38
  about this, you know? Like when you offer me sex, I
• 14:42
  think that, you know, what I'm wanting is for you to be into
• 14:46
  it. So are you going to be into it?
• 14:48
  Let you know art like it's is this is this a real offer here
• 14:51
  and then you know, if she's called out, she may actually
• 14:54
  have to think about it. If she's a team player and be
• 14:56
  like, no, like I mean, this is not going to work out well,
• 14:59
  because what you don't want is a situation where and I know that
• 15:03
  a lot of y'all have been in a situation where she offers you
• 15:07
  the Charity sex, right? But then that turns into your
• 15:09
  sex for the week, so it's like a worst-case scenario.
• 15:12
  So this isn't like sex at is like, okay, so you'll have sex
• 15:16
  with her Tuesday night when she's exhausted.
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  But then Wednesday, she's feeling better.
• 15:20
  And it's going to be a better experience.
• 15:21
  No, no, she says. Oh, but we did it Tuesday.
• 15:24
  So we're good to go, basically, that's in her mind and you don't
• 15:27
  want that situation. That's the worst of every world
• 15:30
  and the only sex you got that week was the charity sex.
• 15:33
  So you need to actually have a discussion with your wife.
• 15:35
  What is our sex life, you know? No, because it seems to me that
• 15:38
  our sex life is only. We do it for 10 minutes.
• 15:41
  You you throw me a bone every so often which, you know, I
• 15:45
  appreciate the thought, but it's really is not good sex.
• 15:48
  Nobody seems to be happy and you could also tell you right.
• 15:52
  By the way, I'm not happy when when it isn't good.
• 15:55
  They think if you are the kind of nice guy Workhorse,
• 15:59
  people-pleaser, that is trying to be nice about the charity sex
• 16:03
  all the time. I'm telling you, they have no
• 16:05
  idea how much you hate it. I'm telling you this, you could
• 16:07
  Believe me or not. But women do not unless the man
• 16:11
  explicitly says, I don't like this type of sex.
• 16:13
  We have they have no idea. They are trained to think again.
• 16:16
  I call it the golden vagina. They're trained to think that if
• 16:19
  the man has his penis in a vagina he's having fun like all
• 16:22
  pizzas. Good pizza.
• 16:23
  All sex is good sex if it if it's not that way especially
• 16:26
  it's not that way in monogamy. When you're in your 30s 40s,
• 16:29
  Beyond you got to tell her because otherwise she doesn't
• 16:32
  know she believes in the golden vagina, the same as you used to
• 16:35
  that penis in vagina, is the be-all All end all it's not
• 16:38
  laying there with an inert substance is not.
• 16:41
  So you got to say that too. So basically, what am I saying
• 16:44
  to you? I think you have to dialogue
• 16:46
  with your wife, you know, I'm this always.
• 16:48
  What? I tell everybody, you got to
• 16:50
  talk to your wife about your sex life or it's not going to
• 16:52
  improve. There's like a lot of people out
• 16:54
  there that think all you have to do is like go to the gym act
• 16:58
  more confident, lose some weight and like, do whatever.
• 17:01
  You know, how many guys like that.
• 17:03
  I see in couples counseling when that still doesn't work to get
• 17:06
  them late, It still doesn't work.
• 17:08
  In fact, the woman often thinks that they've become more
• 17:11
  annoying because now on top of everything they're talking about
• 17:14
  going to the gym all the time. So if you really want a
• 17:18
  transformation in your relationship of the sort that's
• 17:20
  affected and couples counseling, a portion of the time, remember
• 17:25
  couples therapist, not miracle workers.
• 17:26
  If you come in the day before your filing for divorce, they
• 17:29
  can't do much try to get in before that.
• 17:32
  But if you want, more of a transcendental change, you got
• 17:35
  to talk openly about sex and make Vulnerable.
• 17:38
  She has to make herself vulnerable.
• 17:39
  Everybody's got to understand how desire Works in men and
• 17:43
  women, you got to be able to gain plan what sex looks like.
• 17:47
  And the other thing when I'm talking about scheduling sex and
• 17:50
  that it's important to say. Listen, if you're so tired, all
• 17:53
  the time at night, maybe we could do it a different time.
• 17:55
  People say that that too is so unromantic, it's not unromantic
• 18:00
  if you're in living in the world of the real, you know, and not a
• 18:03
  fantasy world. Basically, scheduling sex
• 18:06
  doesn't have A Google invitation, you know, on your
• 18:09
  calendar, it can basically be like, two people understanding
• 18:13
  that every weekend, we have sex both days during the day,
• 18:16
  because that is when the woman is in the mood.
• 18:20
  Or we have sex every morning, or every other morning, because we
• 18:24
  can't do at night, or we have sex every night, but just when
• 18:27
  she doesn't go to work the next day or whatever the hell it is,
• 18:30
  you know, it doesn't have to be something that's very
• 18:32
  businesslike. It could be two, team players,
• 18:35
  understanding that there are variables Is that affect people
• 18:38
  besides just spontaneous desire, you know?
• 18:42
  And instead there are physical and mental and scheduling and
• 18:47
  parenting and work-related issues that actually have to be
• 18:50
  hammered out before. The average monogamously
• 18:53
  partnered woman wants to have sex or is in a relaxed State
• 18:56
  enough to do so, alright. So I hope that this helps you.
• 19:00
  I do hear the birds guys, this whole time I am outside
• 19:03
  recording this one and I hope that this Helped you really
• 19:08
  subscribe to the next one because I'm going to talk about
• 19:10
  the role of Maintenance sex. What maintenance sex should look
• 19:13
  like, how frequently on average people would engage in
• 19:16
  maintenance versus other sex and I think that'll be a good one
• 19:20
  too. So I hope everybody has a great
• 19:22
  day. Bye guys.