Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Should You Ever Stay In A Sexually Unfulfilling Relationship If No Kids Are Involved?

Transcript

Should You Ever Stay In A Sexually Unfulfilling Relationship If No Kids Are Involved? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show. Today.
• 0:09
  We are going to talk about whether you should ever stay in
• 0:13
  a sexually unfulfilled longing relationship.
• 0:15
  If there are no children involved and as I said in my
• 0:19
  description, the answer is no. So if you were just coming for a
• 0:22
  one word answer that I speak in my voice, instead of you reading
• 0:26
  it on a screen, then you just bought yourself back 20 minutes
• 0:29
  because you don't have to listen to the rest of this podcast, but
• 0:32
  for everybody else that wants to know why, I feel so strongly
• 0:36
  about this. Just keep on listening.
• 0:38
  But first, please do subscribe. As I tell you every time that is
• 0:43
  very useful in helping me see that people actually like this
• 0:46
  podcast and helping motivate me to keep doing it.
• 0:50
  And also, of course you get access to bonus episodes.
• 0:53
  So the one that's going to be coming up.
• 0:55
  Next is when men have trouble with trust and how that can
• 1:00
  manifest both toward women and in general, this is a major
• 1:03
  issue that many months Struggle with and we'll discuss why how
• 1:06
  you could support your husband. If he's this way, how you could
• 1:09
  kind of even know if he is this way versus just thinking about
• 1:12
  him, as kind of being an asshole.
• 1:14
  Sometimes the trust issues are underlying what you think of as
• 1:18
  my husband's just being an asshole.
• 1:21
  So anyway, let's go to this current topic.
• 1:24
  So no, I do not believe that anybody in the one life that you
• 1:30
  get on this planet should stay in an unfulfilling sexual.
• 1:34
  Ship. If you are not extremely
• 1:38
  committed to this person and will hurt other people by
• 1:42
  leaving. So obviously there's a dead
• 1:45
  bedrooms Reddit and if you go on the dead bedrooms, Reddit, it
• 1:49
  can be like just a real mindfuck quite honestly because there's
• 1:53
  these people that are okay. So back it up.
• 1:57
  If you don't know, there's a dead bedrooms Reddit, then it is
• 1:59
  about people who are in quote, unquote dead bedrooms.
• 2:02
  They feel very unfulfilled and they are Basically sexless
• 2:05
  relationships and therefore the bedroom is quote dead.
• 2:09
  And and if you go and this is like a support forum, and if you
• 2:14
  go on this dead bedrooms, which like many of my clients who are
• 2:18
  married with kids, go on this forum to kind of understand more
• 2:24
  of a the other perspective. So like if a couple comes to me
• 2:28
  ones low libido Ones high libido frequently, the low libido, one
• 2:31
  doesn't have any idea what the high libido one is feeling.
• 2:33
  So obviously, They are coming to me and I can help them
• 2:37
  understand, but it can be also useful to visit this forum and
• 2:40
  see what other people feel and like, how, you know, it's not
• 2:43
  just, for example, this one woman's husband that feels
• 2:46
  completely unloved and, and terrible because she won't sleep
• 2:50
  with him. It's like everybody in that
• 2:52
  situation male or female. And there are also a lot of, by
• 2:55
  the way, women who are the higher libido partner that you
• 2:58
  can see by going to this forum. But anyway, so it can really
• 3:02
  help them understand. And it can also, of course.
• 3:04
  Help the higher libido. Frustrated partner feel not
• 3:07
  alone. As any sort of support group or
• 3:09
  Forum does so the you know, it's a useful form.
• 3:13
  But if you go on there you look it's like there are these people
• 3:17
  that are like 23, 24 years old. They don't have any kids and
• 3:21
  they like not had sex for six months or something or even
• 3:24
  three months or we're Christ at that age like two weeks, you
• 3:28
  know, that's, that's a lot. So and they're staying and so
• 3:32
  this can really help us. Um, understand why people
• 3:37
  self-sabotage because anybody who actually has children on his
• 3:41
  married feels like holy shit. Divorce would be such a huge
• 3:44
  deal. It would hurt the children, etc.
• 3:47
  Etc. Obviously, there is ways to
• 3:50
  ameliorate that. I mean I myself am divorced.
• 3:52
  Many people are divorced and we love our children, right?
• 3:57
  So it's not like a divorce is going to like desperately.
• 4:01
  Fuck up your kids just out of, you know, the like hole.
• 4:04
  Holy and irrevocably. Otherwise nobody would do it but
• 4:08
  certainly nobody wants it to happen.
• 4:10
  Right? So it's a lot harder to get a
• 4:14
  divorce or to think about doing. So once there's children
• 4:16
  involved. Totally, that's just literally
• 4:18
  common sense. Then you go on these forums and
• 4:21
  you see people, they don't even, you know, have a mortgage
• 4:24
  together, never mind human beings that they share and
• 4:28
  they're still trapped in these sorts of relationships where
• 4:31
  they're sexually unfulfilled. So, Do they do this?
• 4:36
  And obviously, I'm not judging anybody for anything.
• 4:40
  There's reasons why people do this.
• 4:43
  So it's not just like, it's like a stupid decision.
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  I mean it is a stupid decision, but people make stupid decisions
• 4:48
  like all the time. And that's a lot of what we're
• 4:50
  talking about here is how to use your self-awareness to make
• 4:55
  decisions that you are going to later, think are less bad, you
• 4:59
  do for you in the long run. So if I even get one person
• 5:03
  that's in a marriage. Without kids yet or not even
• 5:07
  married that sin sexually unfulfilled in relationship.
• 5:10
  That is like, hey, why am I doing this thing?
• 5:13
  That is so, obviously, self-sabotage, a then that will
• 5:17
  be, that would be. My goal is to at least make
• 5:20
  anybody think about this differently.
• 5:22
  So why do people do this low self-esteem?
• 5:25
  And expectations about relationships that you have
• 5:29
  learned in a dysfunctional, family of origin to the T.
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  Everything's Every single one of them, every one of them
• 5:37
  struggles with low self-worth. And why because the all the
• 5:42
  reasons that anybody struggles with low self-worth usually
• 5:45
  because in their family growing up, they did not get the sort of
• 5:48
  love that. They need it through.
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  No fault of anybody's, not that their parents were bad people,
• 5:54
  but they just did not get the sense that they were worthy of
• 6:00
  like real attention and deep fulfilling.
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  Love in the parent-child sense, really?
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  Because that's all, you know, that you can get as a child.
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  Is that from a parent and why? Because maybe a parent was
• 6:12
  depressed. Maybe they had their own trauma
• 6:14
  history. Likely their own childhood was
• 6:16
  even worse than whatever they gave their kid, and they were
• 6:20
  struggling with a lot of stuff. A lot of shit on their plate and
• 6:23
  they just were not able to be present and loving and attentive
• 6:29
  in the way that this child like any child would deserve.
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  And to learn more about this. You can listen to my attachment
• 6:36
  Theory podcast. So when these children then grow
• 6:40
  older and they're in a relationship, they it's
• 6:43
  confirmation bias. You already think you're not
• 6:46
  worthy of love and attention. You never really got a growing
• 6:50
  up. So then you get involved with a
• 6:52
  man or a woman will not sleep with you and you just think it's
• 6:55
  par for the course like relationships just kind of we're
• 6:59
  going to be this way. They're going to be
• 7:00
  disappointing. Nobody's ever going to fully
• 7:03
  love you enough and Why would they?
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  Because honestly, you're not that great and people don't
• 7:07
  obviously articulate these thoughts.
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  But these are the thoughts that they have on a subconscious
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  level is I am really not worthy of being in a relationship where
• 7:16
  my needs would fully be met. And that is the reason that they
• 7:20
  stay in a sexless relationship before there are any real
• 7:25
  commonsensical reasons to try to push through it?
• 7:28
  So, in contrast, if you, there are people and I talk about them
• 7:34
  all the time. I'm whose relationship sexual
• 7:37
  relationship, gets much worse. After kids why there are
• 7:41
  hormonal biological changes to women.
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  Many more women than men or women realize have postpartum
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  depression or anxiety. And all of these symptoms that
• 7:51
  go along with those women have a massive transition of identity,
• 7:57
  becoming like a mother versus, just a wife and a single person
• 8:03
  and there are There are many ways that that a woman changes
• 8:08
  so deeply when she has children that her sex drive just really
• 8:14
  goes onto the back burner. It's really not a part of her
• 8:17
  hormonal e or psychologically for a good while after she gives
• 8:22
  birth. So, if a man can understand this
• 8:24
  and wait it out and certainly work on the relationship.
• 8:29
  Meanwhile, then frequently after the baby stage women, do come
• 8:33
  back online. Mine in a sent sexually and they
• 8:36
  come back in, you know, maybe not in that honeymoon phase way
• 8:41
  but they certainly Begin Again to Value sex in the relationship
• 8:45
  and to have their identity grow such that it integrates the
• 8:50
  sexual part again, and they're not just a mom or something.
• 8:54
  Right? So many many relationships, the
• 8:58
  sex life takes a hit after children are born.
• 9:02
  And then men are kind of in this like, Holding pattern waiting it
• 9:06
  out. So some of those guys, their
• 9:09
  marriage is get back on track sexually and some of them don't
• 9:12
  but you can obviously see practically speaking.
• 9:16
  How a man would never exactly know in that situation went to
• 9:19
  cut and run not cut and run like literally like leave her but
• 9:23
  when to think about it as a major problem, I mean, so she's
• 9:27
  cleared to have sex after six weeks after giving birth, but
• 9:29
  she doesn't want to well no guy is really going to be a
• 9:33
  tremendous douchebag at that. Right.
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  I mean you have to like literally six week old infant
• 9:37
  but then what about when the baby is three years old, but
• 9:41
  then they're still sleeping in the bed, but then she didn't get
• 9:44
  back her body. But now she's thinking about
• 9:45
  going back to work. But then she's pregnant again on
• 9:48
  the one time that you did have sex.
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  You see how this goes. I don't have to like explain it
• 9:52
  in depth for anybody that's been there after a while.
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  Many men find themselves in a situation where, you know, the
• 9:59
  quote unquote baby is six and they've not had sex in a long
• 10:02
  time and it just somehow got away from that.
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  That now that is a situation where it is not as directly
• 10:10
  linked to somebody having low self worth, you know, like
• 10:14
  they're trying to be a good guy. They're trying to wait shit out.
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  They really don't understand anything about the woman's
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  transition to Motherhood. They're trying to be supportive
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  and then she just gets away from that.
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  Now if the woman when there is like like the child 678
• 10:31
  whatever, whatever add at that point.
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  She's just saying I don't want to have sex with you and Men
• 10:36
  remain in that. Then yeah, they do have
• 10:39
  self-worth issues. But again, it's compounded by
• 10:43
  they don't necessarily want to get divorced.
• 10:44
  They don't to see the kid, only half the time, etc.
• 10:47
  Etc. These always gonna be like a
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  range of complex issues but never is it.
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  So obvious that there is a lack of self-worth as it is with the
• 10:58
  people who do not even share kids, or frequently a house.
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  House, even or bills, or a mortgage, or what have you but
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  still are sacrificing? Their sexual fulfillment because
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  they truly just feel like this is kind of what life is.
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  And no one is really going to be that into me anyway, so I should
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  just kind of be happy with what I have and just get myself into
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  this yearning place where I'm never fulfilled.
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  That honestly is going to be a direct psychological parallel to
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  that man's upbringing where he was, probably always.
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  Yearning for more parental attention than he received was
• 11:37
  never fulfilled. And then, this current situation
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  with the sexless relationship in.
• 11:43
  His twenties, is really just a direct analog of how he felt as
• 11:49
  a kid. So, if you are in this sort of
• 11:52
  situation prior to having children, let me tell you for
• 11:55
  sure. It does not get better.
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  No, never gets better. Marriage and kids makes it
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  worse. Not better.
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  Now. Marriage and Kids makes it in a
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  more sexually healthy situation, marriage and kids can will
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  always dampen the original excitement.
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  But then with a partner that is also intersects.
• 12:16
  Generally, you can actually get back and have like a really good
• 12:20
  even better, not in the newness sense, but in the variety
• 12:25
  exploration, we know each other, we trust each other.
• 12:28
  We are down to try anything that can come back with people that
• 12:33
  are both. Loving and respecting of one
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  another and both value 6. So in that case is a world in
• 12:40
  which marriage and kids even do improve a situation because
• 12:43
  you're starting out with two people where they have the
• 12:46
  strong sexual connection, then they only amplify their
• 12:49
  emotional connection over time. So these are the couples that
• 12:52
  actually like, you know, start like getting all these sex toys
• 12:56
  in their forties and like, you know, dressing up and possibly
• 13:00
  sharing other fantasies and like all this stuff.
• 13:03
  This is real. I mean, In people do people have
• 13:07
  sex. You wouldn't think it to listen
• 13:10
  to my podcast. Right?
• 13:11
  But like there are people who have really fulfilling sex lives
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  after many many years of monogamy, and that's great.
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  And I never see those people in my office, but I know about them
• 13:22
  and other aspects of my life, right?
• 13:25
  So that's great. But that is never going to
• 13:29
  happen if you started out in a sexless or near sexless or a
• 13:33
  sexually unfulfilled in Get when you're dating is never going to
• 13:36
  happen. That is the highlight of as new
• 13:39
  and exciting. It's going to get.
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  And if you have a woman that feels in any way disgusted, by
• 13:45
  your touch, get out of it, get out of it, get out of it now.
• 13:50
  And if you are dating after divorce, never get into it
• 13:54
  again, I shouldn't have to say that because many many men at
• 13:58
  least know that one there, like, you know, no matter what I will
• 14:02
  never get involved after this divorce.
• 14:04
  I'll never get involved with another woman that doesn't want
• 14:06
  to sleep with me, but they say that, but then, look what
• 14:09
  happens. You've never dealt with your
• 14:11
  self-esteem issues. Your self-worth issues that from
• 14:13
  childhood were compounded by the senselessness of your first
• 14:16
  marriage. So you miss the kind of warning
• 14:19
  signs that the second, you know that the post-divorce partner is
• 14:23
  shying away from sex, maybe not as dramatically as the ex-wife
• 14:28
  but it's there. So in that case is why all
• 14:31
  people after divorce should just get the fucking to therapy.
• 14:34
  Like should be. That should be like the only way
• 14:36
  you're allowed to get a divorce certificate is if you go into
• 14:38
  therapy, so then like, you can have somebody who's checking in
• 14:41
  with you every week. Like are you doing any of your
• 14:45
  patterns from the past? Are you, are you, are you with
• 14:47
  this new woman or you're doing the same stupid shit?
• 14:49
  Like no. Okay.
• 14:50
  Good. Yes.
• 14:50
  Oh, let's fix it. But anyhow, so my point is,
• 14:54
  there should never be a time where somebody is in a sexually
• 14:58
  unfulfilled in relationship prior to marriage and kids.
• 15:02
  No, get out. It will.
• 15:04
  I'll never get better. It's not like she's going to
• 15:06
  learn like she's like hates touching you now, but she's
• 15:10
  going to learn to love touching her after.
• 15:11
  She has a ring on her finger. No, never going to happen.
• 15:15
  Never gonna happen. And if she has a ring on her
• 15:18
  finger and you don't have kids, do you get out?
• 15:21
  Get out, get out. Get out.
• 15:23
  You want to go to couples counseling?
• 15:24
  I can't stop you from throwing away your money.
• 15:26
  But if there is any woman that has no kids and goes from not
• 15:33
  wanting sex, too. What insects have two kids, I
• 15:36
  had never seen that unicorn. So I tried to talk very
• 15:41
  straightforward lead and avoid bullshit with people especially
• 15:44
  about things so important as who you choose to spend your life
• 15:47
  with or to remain with. So there are so many men.
• 15:50
  I work with that that the marriage started to tank in that
• 15:54
  Dimension after marriage like marriage.
• 15:58
  Once it was a marriage started to derail sexually, but then
• 16:01
  they went and had kids and they regret it they do.
• 16:04
  I regret the children, they don't regret the kids.
• 16:06
  They love the children. But if they had to do it over,
• 16:10
  you know, like he's smart people that listen to this like
• 16:13
  philosophically. You wouldn't know those
• 16:15
  children, right? If they were never created so
• 16:18
  that these men think the same if I had it to do over, I never
• 16:21
  would have known these children that I love.
• 16:23
  So, I would have got the hell out of Dodge as soon as our
• 16:25
  honeymoon. We went to, you know, Cabo for 7
• 16:29
  days and had sex one time. That's when I should have come
• 16:31
  back in an old it, you know, so don't Be that don't be that
• 16:36
  person. Like don't be somebody that
• 16:38
  decides to kind of make your problems worse by having kids
• 16:42
  with somebody who you already feel a shrinking from your
• 16:45
  touch. And with whom you do not feel
• 16:49
  like true and authentic version of yourself because you're
• 16:52
  always begging for scraps of physical affection.
• 16:55
  Don't make that your life. Now, you will realize, obviously
• 17:00
  that, I've mostly talked this point so far.
• 17:03
  I've only talked. Talked about men who are in this
• 17:06
  situation because it's so much more common, obviously, for men
• 17:11
  to be the higher libido partner. And, but I have really made it
• 17:15
  clear in every other aspect. I do not believe that women
• 17:18
  should ever be with a man that won't sleep with them.
• 17:20
  Like, men don't get their period.
• 17:23
  Their mood shouldn't go up and down over the course of the
• 17:25
  month. They do not get pregnant.
• 17:28
  They do not nurse. If you are a high libido woman
• 17:32
  that your To get a pass. Maybe when he is like, in that,
• 17:38
  like, has the flu, but otherwise, if there are signs
• 17:42
  that like, you're always initiating, no, no, girl.
• 17:46
  You deserve different than that. You can you should not be the
• 17:49
  initiator in your sex life. Basically at all, except for
• 17:55
  shits and giggles. Like, if you want be fun and you
• 17:58
  want to be cool and you want to be like world's best white then
• 18:00
  initiate all the time if you like, but not.
• 18:03
  If that's Literally the only way you're gonna get laid because
• 18:06
  that is never ever ever going to make you happy.
• 18:09
  So, any woman who potentially has a boyfriend out there that's
• 18:12
  listening to this and is not married yet or is Mary, that
• 18:15
  doesn't have children yet. This will never ever get better.
• 18:19
  You always feel unattractive, unloved.
• 18:22
  And unworthy. And if you deeply think about
• 18:24
  this right now, why are you drawn to a man?
• 18:27
  Who makes you feel this way? It should be yet an epiphany
• 18:30
  moment. Oh my God, because that's
• 18:32
  exactly how I felt. Always, I always felt like I was
• 18:36
  begging for scraps of my parents attention, maybe one or maybe
• 18:39
  both. And I never felt like I was good
• 18:41
  enough. So now I'm replicating, this
• 18:43
  Dynamic subconsciously, by being with one of the few men on
• 18:47
  Earth. That wouldn't want to fuck my
• 18:48
  brains out all the time because that is confirmation bias.
• 18:52
  And that makes me feel like familiar.
• 18:55
  It would feel very unfamiliar to me to be with a man who is
• 18:59
  actively pursuing me because of my self-esteem issues.
• 19:01
  So you should be thinking, what I need to do is Is get my ass
• 19:05
  into therapy right now and work on myself and work on resolving.
• 19:09
  My self-esteem issues. This is now going to broaden out
• 19:11
  to men or women in the situation to go to therapy right now.
• 19:15
  You should be committing to to work on self-esteem issues.
• 19:18
  So that eventually you can get to a place where you think, of
• 19:21
  course. I should be with a partner who
• 19:22
  wants to have sex with me. I'm an attractive person.
• 19:27
  Who wants to have sex. That is great.
• 19:29
  Many people would value that highly.
• 19:32
  That is, in fact, a very good quality.
• 19:34
  I have A person wanting to have sex and wanting to connect in
• 19:37
  that way and being interested in that.
• 19:39
  And so I'm going to find somebody that I click with who
• 19:42
  also is my peer and my partner in this sexual domain and wants
• 19:49
  to co-create a loving and fulfilling sex life as a major
• 19:53
  aspect of our connection together.
• 19:56
  Not the only aspect but one primary thing that we are
• 20:00
  compatible on because people that are low.
• 20:04
  Low on self-esteem. They don't think.
• 20:06
  Oh, this is a good thing that I want to have sex.
• 20:09
  They basically think. Oh, this is another way.
• 20:10
  I'm irritating. Somebody, I usually irritate
• 20:12
  people. So here's another way is by
• 20:14
  asking for too much sex. No, no, it's not real.
• 20:18
  That is only real in certain specific domains, right?
• 20:24
  Like the ones that I've discussed.
• 20:25
  So if you're a man, you have a really high sex drive, your wife
• 20:28
  just had a fucking baby, you know, or she's like in the
• 20:31
  middle of a major depression because she's grieving, Or she
• 20:35
  had a miscarriage or like, who the hell knows?
• 20:37
  Right? A surgery.
• 20:39
  Like some bad thing at that point.
• 20:41
  She should be like man. I wish he didn't have a sex
• 20:43
  drive and he wouldn't be bothering me about this.
• 20:45
  That's normal. Right?
• 20:47
  But it's not normal for partner to think that when there's not
• 20:50
  massive distressed going on or massive couples conflict.
• 20:54
  So usually that's not a good thing.
• 20:56
  Oh, also another one if she goes through menopause.
• 20:59
  So there's a lot of men. They do have a healthy loving
• 21:01
  sex life, and then, the woman goes through menopause and shit.
• 21:04
  It changes. I did a podcast on how women
• 21:06
  change in their 40s that could be relevant for you and also
• 21:10
  podcasts on other reasons. Your libido might be low.
• 21:13
  I think at least one of those is a paid ones, you might have to
• 21:15
  suck it up and pay to hear one of those awesome podcast.
• 21:19
  But anyhow, I hope that this Lent some sort of value to your
• 21:23
  life. And honestly, if you have a
• 21:26
  younger sibling, or somebody that could listen to this and
• 21:29
  should listen to this, then, you know, send it to them because my
• 21:33
  basic client. Tell here are married people
• 21:36
  because that's when they find me and of course, parents because
• 21:38
  dr. Psych mom, but this stuff is
• 21:41
  stuff that I work on with with younger people like the few guys
• 21:45
  in their 20s that I work with a Roy's.
• 21:47
  I feel very lucky not to toot my own horn.
• 21:50
  But because most of the guys I work with in their 40s and
• 21:53
  Beyond are like, man, I wish somebody talk to me about sex
• 21:56
  and relationships when I was a young man the way that you're
• 21:59
  talking now. And then I would have maybe made
• 22:01
  different choices or understood how I was.
• 22:04
  Self-limiting because of my own issues and how that got me into
• 22:07
  whatever relationship issues. I'm in currently.
• 22:10
  So, do share this with people who could benefit, who, perhaps,
• 22:13
  you know, don't know these sorts of things about how they should
• 22:18
  have high expectations for themselves and how their
• 22:21
  self-worth issues, May really impact, their partner choice, in
• 22:26
  ways that, you know, can can really screw with you.
• 22:31
  Once you make the wrong decision in a partner.
• 22:33
  It's not like you can't go. But it's a little hard, you
• 22:35
  know, you can't put that Genie back in the bottle, especially
• 22:37
  once there's children. There's going to be a lot of
• 22:39
  stuff to deal with if you suddenly realize that you do not
• 22:43
  want to be in a dysfunctional relationship anymore.
• 22:46
  All right, so hope everybody has a great weekend and talk to you
• 22:49
  soon.