Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When Your Wife Doesn't Want To Take Hormones To Increase Post-Menopausal Drive

Transcript

When Your Wife Doesn't Want To Take Hormones To Increase Post-Menopausal Drive · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctors.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show today. We are going to be talking about
• 0:11
  when your wife doesn't want to take hormones to increase her
• 0:14
  sex, drive post, menopause. And this is a common thing that
• 0:21
  that guys complain about and I will talk about this in depth
• 0:25
  from both positions, from both perspectives.
• 0:27
  My most recent subscriber episode was when you want your
• 0:30
  wife to change, how she dresses. That is not unrelated in a Since
• 0:34
  to this, so you should probably subscribe to hear that and over
• 0:37
  100 bonus episodes. The next one is going to be.
• 0:40
  Why would your partner tried to make you happy if you never act
• 0:43
  happy? So a lot of women are upset that
• 0:45
  their husband doesn't want to make them happy, but they never
• 0:47
  actually act happy. They just say whatever he did
• 0:49
  was Baseline the same thing for women whose husbands want more
• 0:52
  sex, they try to do more sex and I have more sex in the man.
• 0:56
  Still not happy. So, you know, it's kind of
• 0:58
  limits how much you're going to try.
• 1:00
  So I talked about that from both perspectives again in The next
• 1:05
  episode. So those are all subscriber.
• 1:07
  Once I didn't ask me anything last, it will now be last month
• 1:13
  by the time you hear it, and in my Facebook group.
• 1:17
  So if you like things like that, and more access to me, then you
• 1:20
  should join my secret Facebook group, which is separate from
• 1:23
  the podcast. All right, so anyway, a lot of
• 1:26
  guys in my group, just everywhere.
• 1:29
  Basically on the Internet or saying, there's some guys, whose
• 1:33
  wives take estrogen Esther own testosterone, a mix of these
• 1:37
  that's called hormone replacement therapy after
• 1:39
  menopause. And for, for some women,
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  especially if they're not highly sensitive people that are very
• 1:44
  reactive to extra sorts of things in their bodies, then
• 1:48
  this works. It certainly doesn't put your
• 1:50
  sex drive back to where it used to be when you were young, but
• 1:54
  it can help with sex drive with vaginal wetness with, you know,
• 1:59
  just generally feeling better after menopause.
• 2:03
  But not every woman wants to do this.
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  Why not? Well, I mean, there's the
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  Practical matter that many women are actively advised by their
• 2:10
  doctors, not to do this, for various reasons related to
• 2:14
  cancer risk and that people, you know, react differently to
• 2:18
  different things. So, if they have been very
• 2:20
  reactive in the past birth control, or to any extra
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  hormones and they're frequently, advised not to.
• 2:26
  But but but women who are not experiencing positive things
• 2:31
  with menopause and in fact can't sleep and and are very, very
• 2:35
  irritable and have hot flashes. They'll often try hormone
• 2:39
  replacement therapy because they're not feeling good.
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  So it isn't really to increase their sex drive, it's because
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  they feel like shit like they're depressed.
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  They're angry. Everything is going to shit,
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  they're gaining weight, they feel bad.
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  So in this case, like a lot of women will try basically
• 2:54
  anything because they feel so terrible, you know, like how
• 2:56
  somebody who's depressed will try any antidepressant, you
• 2:59
  know, even if it has a side effect usually.
• 3:03
  But the the guy That I'm talking about like their wives are fine.
• 3:07
  So in this podcast, I'm talking about women who are like happy
• 3:10
  about menopause, they're fine. Like they're seeing it as a life
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  stage and they're accepting that they're aging, you know?
• 3:17
  And the guys and their Drive is down because as I've discussed
• 3:22
  in my menopause podcast, which you can refer back to they,
• 3:25
  their body doesn't have any evolutionary reason to have sex
• 3:27
  hormones anymore because they're not fertile anymore.
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  So this is a stage of life that they are accepting old age.
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  It's there. They're aging and the thing is
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  is like most therapy, most individual therapy and couples
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  therapy really focuses. A great deal on acceptance.
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  Acceptance is very positive. You know, accepting where you're
• 3:47
  at and not trying to change who you are accepting that the next
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  stage comes down the road, I talked about this with the
• 3:53
  planned obsolescence model of parenting, as I call it people
• 3:56
  who are stuck on keeping their kids little or, you know, always
• 4:01
  wanting their kids to stay at a certain developmental stage.
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  That's not healthy for the Or for you and instead you should
• 4:06
  understand every stage is temporary and then the child
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  goes into a different stage and your parenting is going to have
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  to proceed apace with that. So for women who have accepted
• 4:17
  that they are going through menopause, they're in a
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  different stage of Life. They're going to have a lower
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  Drive, their bodies going to look different, you know, they
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  may have different values, they may have different needs, that's
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  positive. I mean, that, that is real
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  positive people who can accept their stage of life, that, that
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  isn't something to get rid of. It would be like if you like
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  lost your hair and your wife is like, I want you to, you know,
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  do this hair transplant surgery, and you were like, but I'm fine
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  losing my hair. You know, like this is fine.
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  I'm accepting. This is who I am, you know, or
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  if you wanted to retire from like a fast-paced job and your
• 4:52
  husband and your wife was like, no, I want you to keep working.
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  I like having your salary. It's like, what?
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  Like I'm supposed to be able to retire at some point, you know,
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  like life moves on like maybe I want to do different things with
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  my life, you know. That's like the same as a woman
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  feels now in a state in a situation where she has zero
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  desire for sex and also will not try to even have sex with you at
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  all. And like let's say even like she
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  can't do it vaginally. Let's say she will not do a hand
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  job. She will not do oral.
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  She will not do anything and she couldn't do it vaginally in some
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  cases because your vagina really hurts.
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  You know, when all of the hormones have God has called
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  vaginal atrophy. But but the point is, if she
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  will not even try To be intimate or to cuddle, or to hug or
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  anything. Well then yeah, you have a leg
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  to stand on. But you're like to stand on
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  isn't telling her like what to put into her body as a as a
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  medication basically for what is a natural life stage?
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  If she were unhappy with that situation and felt that she
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  wanted to try or if she herself felt that, you know, that she
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  can't just fake it and Wants to have some to see if there's some
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  kind of Desire that could be had, okay?
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  But if you have a conversation with your wife and she says, I'm
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  actually fine with the stage that I'm at in life, like we can
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  cuddle, we can hog. I could try to have sex, we
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  could do some other things, it's not going to be more than like
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  probably once a week. I mean I am really getting older
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  or maybe every other week but because I just really don't feel
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  like the same person anymore, you know, and I get that you
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  still do and so I'll Let's compromise, right?
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  Then that seems like kind of a normal Natural.
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  Evolution of a couple something. Here's something that gets in
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  the mix. Sometimes guys, take Viagra so
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  then they are like going to have a hard-on.
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  Like they did when they were young but Viagra really stresses
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  marriages? Because the woman and the man
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  were, like, developing at the same Pace, like, he wasn't
• 6:56
  getting erections anymore either, and she's postmenopausal
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  like he wasn't getting a lot of erections.
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  He didn't have the same drive that he used to have, and she
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  doesn't have the same Drive. She That.
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  So this is kind of a natural sort of progression but that is
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  intercepted by Cialis or Viagra because now he is he has an
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  inflated drive or the an inflated ability to have sex,
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  just like women watch porn all the time.
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  At this age, they're inflating their sex drives super high
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  beyond what it would be. So the clients that I work with,
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  when they kick the porn at habit, they realize that their
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  sex drive isn't somebody who wants to have sex twice a day.
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  Age 55, like it's just not, that's crazy.
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  You know, it goes down to. Somebody wants have sex every
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  few days or once a week at age, 55, most of the time when
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  they're not using Viagra and they're not like, jacking off to
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  porn all the time or fluffing themselves with porn images all
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  the time. So it reminds me of The Twilight
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  Zone episode where an old couple got to go into this.
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  You know, medical facility. That could make them young again
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  but then they realized they only had enough money for one and so
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  they ended up letting the man do it again.
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  Go back pain and he comes out and he's like clicking his heels
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  and he's in his 20s if he's amazing.
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  And then he looks at her and she looks at herself and it's like
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  he's 25 and she still 75. And so of course in this
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  Twilight Zone episode, he decides to change back so that
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  they could go along with their regular life as like a little
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  old couple which was The Natural end of things.
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  I was the natural way that their life was expected to go Viagra
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  is like that guy becoming 25 again.
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  So it It subverts the natural order of a couple growing old
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  together. Now, of course, if you're in a
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  situation where your wife is menopausal and she completely
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  refuses to play ball at all, and to acknowledge that you have any
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  sort of Need for physicality then then she's probably done
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  with the marriage, you know. And if you want, you could get
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  out of that because there's no, I mean, you could always do
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  whatever you want, right? But I mean, ethically, if your
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  wife is saying, I refuse to have any physical touch with you at
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  all, because I'm postmenopausal and I don't care.
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  Well, then that's not really being a Person, but if she says,
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  I'm fine with where I'm at the and also particularly there's
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  many women who try the sex hormones and they have many side
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  effects. Testosterone is the main one
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  that increases drive and that does have a lot of side effects
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  particularly in highly sensitive people.
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  So, you know, you could have acne.
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  These are the ones I've heard from clients, acne, weight gain,
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  bloating irritability. Is a very big one and fatigue
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  because like it's kind of like like Like it's like putting you
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  back into puberty and says, you know, and you sleep all the
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  time. You want to eat more, you know,
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  that's what testosterone does. So for some women, they do have
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  side effects and of course, if they have side effects for
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  something, then you know who are you to tell them what's worth?
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  What? So they may have a higher drive
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  but it still may not be directed toward you because they're mad
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  that they're on the the sex hormones that they don't want to
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  be on a lot of women. Find it to be very relieving,
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  not to ride the emotional rollercoaster of a menstrual
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  cycle every month. Or to be on estrogen or
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  progesterone, which, you know, mess with your mood.
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  There are women that this really works for and they should
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  definitely try it. But if a woman is fine and
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  doesn't have any issues and she's trying to add a, at a
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  normative, kind of way engage still physically, so it's not
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  going to be every day that you're having sex with a 65
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  year, old woman, most likely nor do I think that that's really
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  reasonable, you know, to ask, if somebody doesn't want to Do it.
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  But like, yeah, once a week, that sort of thing and a lot of
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  closeness, a lot of touching and cuddling, most men that are
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  older, especially if they're not, if they're not addicted to
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  porn and addicted, could mean a lot of things.
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  So, go back to my porn and marriage podcast.
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  If they're not artificially, fluffing their libido with porn
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  or their penis with Viagra, they would be real fine.
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  Having sex every, you know, seven to fourteen days but
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  cuddling, And touching and holding hands at back scratches.
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  That's the kind of thing that, that, that would be great, you
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  know, and a lot of women will do that, but they don't feel like
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  genuine trying to act like a 30 year old woman when they're
• 11:18
  twice that age, you wouldn't want.
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  I mean I don't know what you would particularly want but many
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  women who have a 30 year old daughter and our age 60 do not
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  want to be back. There they have a daughter
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  that's that age or some of the settings, you know?
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  And it just doesn't feel natural to try to approximate that.
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  And they would rather have somebody who kind of accepts the
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  Time Marches On, you know, and people that have trouble with
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  this have, you know, the idea that Time Marches on and that we
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  all age frequently are kind of difficult people who have had
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  difficult upbringings, and they feel like they a lot of Late
• 11:55
  Bloomer men's you could refer back to my Late Bloomer podcast,
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  have particular trouble with the fact of Aging because they feel
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  like they never got enough sex when they Um, so like somehow
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  these are the ones who tell me. Oh my wife and I are going to
• 12:08
  have all this sex when the kids are out of the house.
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  I'm like, when she's 55 is what you're planning for to have a
• 12:15
  sexual Renaissance. Like what, you know, like
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  biologically that doesn't make any sense, you know?
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  And, and it's like, there's this fantasy that somehow they can
• 12:24
  get time back, but you can't get time back.
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  You know, there's no time that you get back time.
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  Goes in One Direction. This is like an existential or
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  philosophical issue that I see many.
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  I struggle with is that one is like, okay, like I'm a
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  grandmother. Now, let's say, so what I'm
• 12:39
  focusing on is the grandkids and that's like the natural order of
• 12:43
  things. And in fact, there's an
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  evolutionary hypothesis called the grandmother hypothesis that
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  I've mentioned semi-regularly cuz I remember from grad school
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  and it talks about that women, one idea is that women live
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  longer than men, because the women that help out with their
• 12:59
  children's children, are those kids end up doing better because
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  they have more resources because there's To be like a third
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  parent, the maternal grandmother and sometimes paternal
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  grandmother. But you know, a lot of the time
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  the mother's mother helps her. But the the point here is that
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  if you have very different philosophies on Aging, that's
• 13:19
  something to get into therapy to discuss because that's really
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  what it is. You know, it's not about sex
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  hormones or not. It's about are we going to get
• 13:27
  older together? Because really, you just got to
• 13:29
  think about. If your wife said to you, you
• 13:31
  know, I really need you to just Just work, always.
• 13:35
  In fact, I'd like to try to get a better job.
• 13:37
  Now at age 60, you know, I'd like you to travel more, that
• 13:41
  was like cool to me. Like I like that time away from
• 13:43
  you. And that's what I got to join.
• 13:45
  You on trip. That was fun.
• 13:46
  Remember, when we were 25, we did at the beginning of your
• 13:48
  career, so I'd like you to do that.
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  So fuck the gulf or hanging out with our grandchildren or
• 13:54
  whatever you want to do. I'd like your career to last 50
• 13:57
  years, not 40 years or whatever the case may be.
• 14:00
  Well she doesn't really get to pick that and that would be kind
• 14:02
  of fucked up, right? Because You were trying to make
• 14:05
  peace with that. You're transitioning to a
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  different life stage and she can't for some reason.
• 14:10
  And that would be fairly self-centered and of course,
• 14:13
  within within limit. So I'm saying, if a woman
• 14:16
  completely Cuts you off from all physical affection and has no
• 14:20
  desire to work together collaboratively on it.
• 14:23
  Then then, yeah, I mean that that's a situation where, of
• 14:26
  course, your children are now grown at that stage, make your
• 14:29
  decision whether to stay or leave.
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  But you know, if a woman is trying and all that, you're
• 14:35
  really blaming him her for is that she will not try to
• 14:39
  biologically make herself younger?
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  Well, I mean, I don't know it's, you know, it doesn't sound so
• 14:45
  good because even the next woman that you can get will also age,
• 14:49
  you know. So, let's say that you dumped
• 14:51
  your 60 year old wife, and you, how you somehow got yourself
• 14:55
  with a 30 year old woman, oh, guess what, she's going to want
• 14:58
  to do. Make a baby and then you don't
• 15:00
  know what's going to happen to her body and her drive, you
• 15:03
  know? So, Time, Marches On for
• 15:05
  everybody or let's say you got a 48 year old woman at age 60 and
• 15:09
  a couple years menopause going to hit her.
• 15:10
  So you never know if you're always running away from
• 15:13
  transition change and evolution that is not necessarily the most
• 15:18
  psychologically healthy or or possible or, you know, realistic
• 15:24
  way to live your life. And so, so hopefully you got
• 15:27
  something out of this podcast. I was beyond just hormones and
• 15:31
  and really zooms out to kind of what is your philosophy.
• 15:34
  That's Affion change, you know, and growth and, and moving into
• 15:39
  a different frame and identity. And what is it mean to be a
• 15:44
  couple of supports each other through good and through bad and
• 15:48
  what does it mean to be collaborative and mutually
• 15:51
  respectful and try to solve a problem versus try to solve a
• 15:55
  person. So a lot of these guys are
• 15:57
  trying to solve a person can solve a person, you know, if a
• 16:00
  person wants to to Natural Life Changes.
• 16:06
  It's kind of fucked up, you know, to keep on pushing and
• 16:10
  pushing that they shouldn't. As you would feel if your wife
• 16:14
  scheduled you for, like, you know, a couple of hair
• 16:16
  transplants, got you in with a personal trainer, a spray tan
• 16:20
  and would never ever let you retire.
• 16:23
  You would be like, what does this person even love me?
• 16:25
  I mean, even, just the never, let me retire, is enough to make
• 16:28
  most people say, does she even love me?
• 16:29
  Or am I, or am I an ATM? So, in this case, it's like this
• 16:33
  even love me as a Ian or did he just loved me at age?
• 16:35
  35? You know when I when I had the
• 16:38
  right level of testosterone in my bloodstream so you know it is
• 16:42
  a philosophical question. And one that's very interesting
• 16:44
  to think about and I hope you found it interesting as well and
• 16:49
  I will talk to you soon. Have a great day, guys.