It’s time to answer some more questions from our listeners! Today I’m joined by my colleague, Caroline, to discuss some of the questions that you have. We cover the following topics:
- A husband who’s struggling to connect emotionally with his wife, and he wants to learn how to do that without shutting down.
- A wife is struggling to find ways to connect romantically and sexually, and to have that desire for her spouse, even though he’s stopped using porn, which had impacted their marriage.
- A husband is wondering about penis size and how that’s impacting his marriage.
- A husband struggling with premature ejaculation wants to know how to satisfy his wife more.
- A husband who has a wife who thinks that anything beyond missionary position is gross and wondering how to navigate this challenge that they’re facing.
- A wife who’s feeling a great deal of sadness because she wants to feel desired by her husband, including through compliments, though currently she feels like she’s not desired in words or actions.
You can submit your anonymous questions here.
And don’t forget to tune in next week for Part 2 of this Q&A series!
Resources:
December’s “Get it On-a-thon” Fundraiser: Get Frisky for Fertility!
Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors or inaccuracies. For the most accurate and complete experience, we recommend listening to the full podcast episode.
Episode 215
Dan: Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of Get Your Marriage On. Today I’m joined with my [00:01:00] lovely coworker and team member, Caroline. Hello.
Hi, everyone.
In today’s episode, we’re going to address a lot of the questions that you have asked us through our anonymous Q& A form on our website.
Dan: This is a form where anyone can send a question to me anonymously, and we will do our best to answer them in an upcoming podcast episode. We’ve done a few of these, and they’re really, really fun, and I’m grateful that Caroline’s going to join me. She’ll offer her woman’s perspective on a lot of these things, and it’s going to be Fantastic.
Before we get into the questions, let’s remind our listeners that we have our couples retreat coming up in March of 2025. Now, Caroline, you’re with us at our last retreat real quick.
Dan: What was it like for you?
Caroline: It was amazing. I recommend it to anyone. It was amazing to connect with not just the coaches, but the other couples and really learn from everyone there. It was really something special.
Dan: That’s great. So all the details are on our website and we do a really deep dive into the intimacy of your marriage [00:02:00] and, uh, Hurry, because we only have room for up to 20 couples. So you want to get your, reservation down quickly.
Another way you can work with me and my team is through the Get Your Marriage On program. This program is designed for couples who are in otherwise happy marriages but wish things were better when it came to intimacy in the marriage. It involves a course, a community component, and coaching. You get to work with me and my team in private coaching and in group coaching to really move the needle in the positive direction in your relationship.
All those details are also on our website and over a hundred couples have participated in this program and are seeing great results in their marriage. And lastly, in December, we have the Get It On a thon coming up, right?
Caroline: Oh, yeah.
Dan: This is really fun. This is a fundraiser to help people who want to have a family but struggle with infertility.
So, our nickname for it is Get Frisky for Fertility. You’ll definitely want to see those details in your inbox [00:03:00] or in the Intimately Us app starting in December. So Caroline, what questions do we get to answer today?
Caroline: We have a lot of good ones. The first one comes from a husband who’s struggling to connect emotionally with his wife, so he wants to learn how to do that without shutting down. And he asks, I grew up in a home where displays of emotion were distrusted and ridiculed. And I developed the necessary habit of protecting myself emotionally, but suppressing emotions like a Vulcan. However, this has made communication and marriage difficult for me. I know I’m safe with my wife, but I still find emotional intensity difficult to cope with. After we have sex, I feel an immense emotional drop off that leaves me feeling depressed and distant. Sometimes for several days. The emotional vulnerability and intensity of sex seems to overwhelm me. This is difficult for my wife, who
ofteneels rejected after. She is gracious and understanding, but I want to overcome this cycle. But I’m not sure how.
Dan: Man. [00:04:00] That’s tough. And, I’m sorry for the kind of home he grew up in where displays of emotional, vulnerability were taught that it’s not safe to behave that way. And I love this question because a lot of men, generally speaking, struggle with, uh, learning how to connect emotionally.
It’s like the only emotions we’re allowed to have are angry, joy, and sadness. and horny, if that’s an emotion, right? Like anything outside of that is considered weak. And so he’s probably taught it’s not safe to show any emotion like fear or disgust or uncertainty. Like those are really powerful emotions that can guide our lives if we let them, but, those aren’t safe.
So he’s learned really how to shut them down and suppress them. But the thing about emotions and research backs us up is emotions are felt. They’re like stored in our body. It’s like body intelligence, not just in our mind. So when we don’t fully process an emotion, it doesn’t quite go away. It gets recorded in our [00:05:00] body and over time it can stack up.
And it can manifest itself in unhealthy ways. Like in this situation, after a very emotionally intense situation, like with his wife, he needs to disconnect, needs to create distance between him and his wife just to feel safe about himself. But it’s a compound problem, because distancing himself from his spouse makes it think like, I shouldn’t be distancing myself from my wife.
Why am I doing this? And then to add a layer of, you know, maybe the guilt and shame he feels about that. So it, this problem just keeps perpetuating itself. It doesn’t quite ever resolve if he keeps behaving in this way.
Caroline: Yeah, I agree. It seems like he’s trying to avoid that emotional intensity, but by distancing from his wife, it kind of creates that emotional intensity that he’s seeking to avoid. And then that cycle just keeps going, which is really challenging to navigate.
Dan: Yeah. So the way out of this is, um, I’m, I’m guessing, You have enough awareness. If you’re going to ask this questions, you [00:06:00] have an inkling of what your next step is, but, what to do is not going to feel great. So you’re looking for a shortcut. And my answer is there is no shortcut. It just is going to take an incredible amount of courage for you to stay in that open, vulnerable state and not run away.
It’s going to freak you out. Because everything inside you is going to say, create distance, run away, this isn’t safe, and you have to learn how to, as I say, calm the heck down, right? Learn how to take deep breaths or center yourself or whatever it is, whatever skill you can acquire here to really calm down the anxiety inside of you and stay present and open in that vulnerable state, if you’re going to ever get out of this and break this habit.
Caroline: Yeah, and something Dan that I was thinking of is It’s okay to communicate with your spouse that you’re feeling that emotional intensity and Vocalize the impulses that you’re having to pull away in that moment You can be like hey, [00:07:00] i’m really trying hard not to create distance, but I really want to right now Can we talk about this?
Can we connect in this way and like help ground each other in that moment? This would be uncomfortable to do, if you’re not used to sharing emotional situations with your spouse. But it is totally okay to work towards being honest with your spouse in that moment of, I’m feeling overwhelmed emotionally and this is hard for me.
You can 100 percent say that to your spouse.
Dan: Yeah,
Caroline: understand what’s going on for you.
Dan: that’s great. That’s excellent. I love that. Hopefully that’s helpful for him. We also, do a deep dive into emotions, understanding emotions, how to, especially for men, how to connect emotionally with their spouse, how not to run away from emotions that might scare us, that we’re Experiencing all that’s in our get your marriage on program.
We go with that in depth with step by step methods and how to learn how to connect more emotionally with our spouses.
Caroline: Are you ready for the next one, Dan?
Dan: Yep.
Caroline: Okay. [00:08:00] This one is from the perspective of the wife. She is struggling to find ways to connect romantically and sexually, and to have that desire for her spouse, even though he’s Stop using porn, which had impacted their marriage. So, she says, My husband has finally been able to quit using pornography. He’s now totally in love with me and so much more engaged and excited about sex. seem real to me, and I think he has a great chance of staying porn free. But I just don’t have any romantic or sexual feelings for him anymore. I mostly just feel hurt because of his past. We are friends, and that’s as close as I feel to him. What should I do to overcome this so I can be as in love with him as he is with me?
Dan: I first want to congratulate the husband for overcoming You know, pornography, that’s, that’s fantastic. But I’m curious as to what they did in their relationship to make this happen. And this is [00:09:00] just, um, I don’t have information on this, so this is just based on maybe a gut feel, maybe I’m reading between the lines, but what I see a lot of couples do when one person’s using pornography, the other person goes into more of a control kind of a, um, relationship where, for example, in this case, the wife might.
Turn herself into his accountability buddy. It’s like, did you choose me today? I’m going to check your phone every other day. So they kind of set up this ritual where she becomes like the police or the cop, or in this case, the parent in the marriage, instead of being lovers and equals.
She’s kind of taking on more of a parent role, and he’s taking more of a child role. And biologically, humans are programmed not to want to make love to children. Right? We don’t find that erotic. We want to make love to a man, or to a woman, or someone at least that we’re equal with. Not someone that, depends on us like a dependent like that.
So perhaps the [00:10:00] relationship kind of morphed through the pornography struggle and where it wasn’t no longer a partnership as much a romantic partnership anymore. It turned more into a functional marriage where one’s trying to gain an upper hand over the other to control something they didn’t like in the marriage.
Caroline: Yeah, and thinking about that and that control, I feel like in situations that I’ve seen, it’s usually because of maybe a lack of trust there. So you feel like because of that lack of trust, you have to check in, you have to kind of into more control because you don’t necessarily trust if your spouse can do it without you. And, it’s hard to build trust with each other after something challenging like this comes up. And that could maybe lead to some of the feelings she’s having of not quite sure how to build that sexual intimacy and desire again, but I think maybe focusing on the trust first would then help to set the foundation for rebuilding that desire sexually.
Dan: In addition to trust, there’s this, uh, you [00:11:00] know, the ghost of his past still lingers in the bedroom. She says, I mostly feel hurt because of his past. And, that may take some time to heal and just acknowledge that. And just give yourself a little grace through this process.
And, there might still be some unaddressed trauma that she will need to deal with, with regards to his pornography use and the hurt she felt. And to really take that head on and use sexuality in their marriage as a tool, you know, good sex is good for your brain, good sex heals traumas, good sex helps you in so many ways and they’re not all just physical, uh, reasons, they’re spiritual and emotional reasons why good sex is good too.
So. Part of it could be learning how to start your marriage over. As Esther Perel says, and I love this quote, most adults will have two or three marriages in their lifetime. And the lucky ones have that marriage with the same person. In other words, you can start a new marriage with the same person and see if you can approach this [00:12:00] from fresh eyes and let’s start over here and build something great.
Caroline: Yeah, and I love that you brought up grace in this instance, too, because, I think maybe this wife is putting pressure on herself to be healed at the same rate that the pornography stopped at. Healing from what she went through doesn’t happen at any specific pace. It can take time. And that’s why I like that you said, like, they get to make a new marriage. They can help her heal at her pace while creating that new marriage for them and step into that. And I love the quote you shared. That’s just wonderful.
And I think that could be a beautiful thing that applies here.
Dan: Great.
Caroline: Okay, the next one is from a husband and he um, has a question about penis size and how that’s impacting his marriage. So his question is, my cock is very small and comes usually in less than a second of sex. My wife is not satisfied and I was wondering if there was anyone who had any good advice. Yes, I know about other ways of pleasing her, which I do well with my [00:13:00] mouth, but I want to be able to make her orgasm with my cock.
Dan: Great. First of all, I hope you’re not offended with the word cock here. we’re going to use that cause that’s the word he used. second of all, I want to just recognize that feeling like your body is inadequate to satisfy your wife. Is going to be a really difficult feeling to have and just feeling inadequate to please your wife.
Sexually can permeate every interaction you have with her, even the non sexual interaction. So this can be definitely something that will haunt the whole marriage if it’s unaddressed. And, I’m not surprised that your wife isn’t satisfied when you say you come in less than a second, that’s very rapid ejaculation.
So I want. to invite you to think about your situation a little differently because the way you’re thinking about it now is not going to solve your problem in your current state. You have to think about it differently. The first principle is the size of your penis usually has very little bearing on women’s pleasure.[00:14:00]
Now there are women that say they prefer maybe more girth than length, ultimately the pleasure center for a woman is her clitoris. not her vagina. Would you agree, Caroline?
Caroline: Yes, science, people, everything points to this. So yes.
Dan: I would suggest that his own insecurity about his own body, about his penis size, is, contributing greatly to his rapid ejaculation and his inability to satisfy his wife. He’s so caught up in, am I gonna be good enough? Is this gonna happen? That, that stress and anxiety is happening. Also, a third component is to recognize How does he know his penis size is too small?
Did his wife tell him? Is he comparing himself to porn? Where porn is such an exaggeration, I mean, I’ve heard the statistic, most male porn actors have a penis size of eight inches or longer, yet that’s less than one percent of the population. So, [00:15:00] it’s, it’s a very, disproportionate proportion. Size, considering like the bell curve of, you know, what’s normal in the normal range.
So,
Caroline: Yeah.
Dan: uh, comparing yourself to something that’s a very small percentage of the population, you’re always going to feel like you come up short and you don’t measure up. And that’s a horrible place to be in. That’s a horrible frame to come from when you’re trying to make love to your wife.
However, the premature ejaculation does need to be dealt with because, um, you know, in under a second, as he says, is not going to create a satisfying close bond that you’d usually want to have. Most people want to have in that kind of a setting. So there’s some
Caroline: both of them.
Dan: Yeah, it does, it does. And so, rightly so, she’s, you know, wants her husband to address this.
And I think he should take responsibility for it. Now, here’s another way to frame this, too. In general, I think women care twice as much about the size of a man’s heart than the [00:16:00] size of his penis, right? We make love with our hearts, not just with our bodies. And I think couples that report having the very best sex lives, like this is what the studies and the research show, what makes s*x so great is the deep meaning and that emotional connection that you get from it.
And it feels like pure love, like a pitcher being poured right into your body, like just receiving and giving just love to another person. And it has this replenishing, rejuvenating effect. Great sex does. Which is funny because most of these people in all the research, there’s very little mention of org@sms or body performance.
Do you see us so much more about our emotion, the emotional connection, and the meaning attached to it? In fact, those that focus so much on performance as equating to good sex actually end up having unsatisfactory sex lives. because they expect that it’s performance, it’s [00:17:00] lasting longer, it’s all these things alone that make for a good sex life, and they ignore the emotional part or the more spiritual, meaning connecting, meaning building aspects of it.
Caroline: Yeah. Sex is body, heart, and soul, not just body. It’s all of those elements together. And that’s what makes sex so connecting, is it incorporates all of those parts of us. It helps us to be seen by our spouse.
Dan: And
Caroline: emotionally and otherwise.
Dan: when he can really step into that sexual relationship, fully emotionally naked, you know, emotionally connecting. your woman wants to make love to a man, not a boy, right? She wants a king in bed that’ll treat her like a queen. So stop focusing so much on your own inadequacies and start just relaxing and enjoying the moment and just focusing on her pleasure.
And you’ll probably find that as a side effect, right? Your erection is lasting longer.
Caroline: Yeah. [00:18:00] Great advice, Dan. I love it. Are you ready to move on to the next one?
Dan: Yep.
Caroline: Okay, this one’s kind of similar. It’s also from a husband who, also has some struggles with premature ejaculation and their wife is also feeling feelings of dissatisfaction. He says, don’t think that this is a fake question or that I’m bragging.
It’s very real for me and I’m really struggling for 20 years now. My wife is one of those women who exudes exotic sex appeal without even trying. We have a great relationship and are fiercely loyal to each other. I’m a lucky man. My P. E. is excitable. I’ve tried many methods, but often end up just closing my eyes during sex and trying to think of other things. That leaves me feeling disconnected from the emotional connection we could share. If I open my eyes and catch a glimpse of her intoxicating supermodel like body, I come within seconds. Even with numbing [00:19:00] spray, with pills, and with the start stop method, she only achieves orgasm if it’s fast and hard, and I’ve only been able to do that for her a few times in twenty years. Fortunately, I’ve mastered pleasing her orally, but she wants it during vaginal sex, and she’s getting more frustrated and unsatisfied as the years go on. both really want to experience the close emotional connection of penetrative intercourse more regularly. Without it, sex just feels more manual. I’m feeling more and more desperate about it. I know you guys touched on the most common solutions, but do you have any ideas for my situation?
Dan: This is a great question and it ties into the previous question a little bit. What I’m seeing here is again some anticipatory stress that is inducing his premature ejaculation. So what would help him is learning some arousal control and self awareness.
Again, this is more mindfulness practice around his arousal. And, one way you can do this practice, this just being really practical, is you’re, by the way, this is something you’ll [00:20:00] need to set aside time for, like you would set aside time for a gym workout or some other practice, where you’re going to calendar maybe 20 to 30 minutes three times a week, over six weeks or so.
You’re going to put lubricant on your and start stimulating yourself and you want to get an erection. You want to get fairly aroused, but you don’t want to ejaculate. And what you want to do is get to a state where you can focus on high levels of arousal without necessarily tripping over into the orgasm threshold.
In other words, high arousal without Orgasm. And it’s a, it’s a learning experience, like riding a bike. You have to get on the bike and learn how to pedal it and experience it. And your body will start to learn its own balance and rhythm. You’ll start to get more in tune to your body’s different arousal states.
You’ll learn how to. how you breathe is going to increase or decrease your arousal. You’re going to learn how moving your hips increases or decreases your [00:21:00] arousal. You’ll learn how squeezing certain muscles in your pelvic floor will increase or decrease your arousal in that moment. And with a combination blend of all these things that you can do in a highly aroused state, while keeping your, arousal under control, so to speak, you’ll figure out how to maintain more.
Self control over your arousal, even in intercourse, those skills transfer into when you, when you have sex with your wife in this. So that’s a practice that you can definitely try to see if you can, be more mindful of your arousal in the moment.
Caroline: Yeah, it amazes me how much mindfulness impacts our sexual functioning and relationship with our spouse. And it could really benefit him here, it sounds like.
Dan: Maybe just two more small thoughts before we move on to the next question. One, I don’t know if you’ve tried this, but men have a refractory period. After ejaculating, there’s a certain period of time in which we’re unable to have another ejaculation, whether [00:22:00] it’s 15 minutes when you’re like a teenager or 24 hours when you’re in your 60s or 70s.
There is a refractory period, but you can actually use it to your advantage. If you know that intercourse is going to happen, you can plan ahead. ejaculate earlier in the day, you know, and then when you come together, you’re going to, be less able to rapidly ejaculate. So, you’re basically using your refractory period, , in your advantage to lasting longer in the sexual relationship.
And, The last tip I have is, remember, there’s so much more to sex than just your body’s functioning, as we’ve already discussed. I think, uh, I understand your wife would really like it fast and hard, and for a long time. Part of it could be, it’s just something you’re both going to have to learn how to do.
workaround and there may not be a great solution in that way, but don’t overlook all of the [00:23:00] hundreds of other ways you can have extremely satisfying, deeply connecting, emotionally filling experiences sexually also. And so. In other words, don’t be so goal oriented that, or so narrow that it has to be this one way for us to achieve what it is that we really want to achieve.
The end goal, right? Sex is a means to an end. It’s not the end in and of itself. The greater end being a stronger, closer bond in our marriage, for example, that rejuvenation, that replenishment that we talked about earlier.
Caroline: Okay, we have a good one for the next one too. So this one from the perspective of the husband who has a wife who thinks that anything beyond missionary position is gross. And so he’s asking for advice on how to navigate this challenge that they’re facing. He asks, How do I help my wife overcome her initial that’s gross response when it comes to [00:24:00] things in the bedroom? She’s been working really hard to be more open to sexual intimacy at all, which I’m so grateful for, she’s still very uncomfortable with anything that isn’t ultra standard, i. e. me on top missionary. anything else, she has this initial you that’s gross, or why would you even want to do that reaction.
How do I help her overcome this? we can have a bit more fun in the bedroom. What do you got Dan?
Dan: Uh, this is a great question. I’ve got lots of thoughts on this. First is, learn how to validate your own desires because you want something that your wife thinks is gross. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea per se. Uh, it could be that. You just have a different perspective or different preference than your wife, and you can still like the things you like even though she doesn’t like them.
The second is pay attention to how much energy you’re putting into trying to solve the problem by trying to control your wife. And it may not look like that on, you know, on the [00:25:00] surface. It might look like kindness and generosity. Sometimes when we see our spouse as a limiting factor in our marriage, so to speak, it puts a lot of our energy into trying to control something that we don’t have direct control over.
We’re trying to control an outcome in another person when it really is up to them to decide if they’re going to like or dislike whatever sex act that it is or behavior that you’re trying to propose you do.
Caroline: Yeah, I love that because It shows that we can’t control our spouse as much as we like to tell ourselves We can by doing xyz we can control the outcome they do by doing that. It’s it’s not true No matter what we do. only control us. We can’t control them.
Dan: So,
Caroline: what you just shared there
Dan: I think about an instance of a couple I coached where the husband really wanted to have oral sex with his wife. Giving or receiving, didn’t matter, just really thought that would be a beautiful way to set their marriage to, like, the next [00:26:00] level. And she didn’t want it. No matter how hard he tried, how hard he convinced, she just wouldn’t change her mind about it.
And the amount of time and energy he spent trying to, you know, change her mind, or complain, or pout, or shame her for not wanting it. It was all just driving a deeper wedge between them. And it wasn’t until she decided on her own that she will try to like it, is when it made a difference. Like, you can’t do it for your spouse.
In this, in this story, she had to decide, I am going to try to learn to like it. And that’s when things will change. It reminds me of a joke. How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? Do you know?
Caroline: I haven’t heard this one, no.
Dan: Only one. But the lightbulb really has to want to change.
Caroline: That’s pretty
Dan: Right? That’s the, that’s the idea, right? Like, you can’t change your wife. You, you, you can’t. Make her change her mind around these things. now [00:27:00] let’s talk about gross things real quick. Quote unquote, gross things. I think it’s very normal for men and boys to be less grossed out by sex.
Do you agree, Caroline?
Caroline: Yeah, I mean, I think it also depends on your upbringing, but just like, at the root, I feel like, yeah, guys are less grossed out by things than women are.
Dan: I think about like bugs, earthworms, spiders, like, right. Like generally speaking, boys are a lot more comfortable with those things than girls. And I. I think there’s a, there might be a biological or even divinely designed reason for that, because perhaps women have a lower, um, disgust threshold. Or a higher disgust threshold, however it’s said.
Because it helps them keep babies alive. It’s probably adaptive in that context. So, it might be that she just has a just a, um, more sensitive to disgust, And so, certain things you’re proposing in sex might be a little bit more difficult for her to [00:28:00] accept. Because Uh, of that adaptive quality that she has, and in the right context, it’s adaptive.
Maybe in your sexual context, it’s not serving you very well. So that’s probably something worth examining.
Caroline: I think it would be interesting to dive deep on why she believes it’s gross. Like, why she has these feelings.
Like, what beliefs are fueling these feelings behind thinking that different things regarding a sexual relationship is gross? It would be an interesting conversation for them to have in a non judgmental way. Not with the, the end goal of, oh, learning these root beliefs are going to change her choices, but just to learn more about her and why she feels and believes the way she does.
And then that would give both of you the opportunity to have some deeper discussions about it and you could understand her better and then she could understand you better. Maybe down the road it would help her to feel more comfortable, maybe not. But at least you’d better be able to understand why she feels the way she does.
Dan: I like that, [00:29:00] Caroline. And my wife and I have definitely have had those conversations over the years. And even in my own marriage, there were things that were an absolute no, like 10 years ago, five years ago, three years ago, or even one year ago, that are now a possibility in our relationship. So I guess realize too that you may not be having all the gross fun you want to now, but over time, things can change.
Things do change. Of course, there’s no guarantees, but generally, as men and women mature, they become more, more self secure and, then they don’t let their past insecurities Inhibit them so much in sexual things. So, just give it some time might also be a solution. So a lot of patience and grace is going to be needed for that.
Caroline: No, I totally agree. I, similarly, when I first got married, I was like, oh, I will absolutely not A, B, C, D. And then things change as I, myself, have gone through my sexual scripts that I [00:30:00] had and go, Oh, is this actually true, or is this serving me in my marriage? And really analyzing those beliefs, those scripts that I had. And once I had the ability to reflect on that, it changed what I then was willing to try and not try.
Dan: Yeah.
Caroline: think, I like that you shared that. That’s something you experienced, because I think that’s just something that universally happens to a lot of couples, You might be surprised at where you see yourself later.
Dan: You can’t force it though. Right, Caroline,
Caroline: No,
Dan: of unfolds. Right. So in the meantime, on a worn, this man that. First of all, differences in preferences are normal. So that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with having different preferences or perspectives on things, but I’d warn you about taking up a one up position as I call it in my coaching program.
This is when you take the I’m superior to you because I have it figured out and you don’t, or you’re the limiting factor in our marriage because of your insecurities and hangups around sexual things. [00:31:00] Taking that attitude puts you on unequal grounds. It says basically. I have more authority or more, more, uh, more of a say in our marriage than you do, which really interferes with intimacy because in order to be truly intimate with someone, you need to have a good sexual friendship with someone.
You need to be on equal grounds. So the moment you break off that equal partnership and create hierarchies in your relationship where you go one up or she goes one down, that’s, or something, a combination like that, as I teach in my program, that sets you up for a lot of difficulty. And for me, it put us back a few years in our sexual development because of my tendency to, to go one up in certain, in certain areas.
So I’d warn you about that.
Caroline: I definitely think that’s a good caution to issue for anyone in their sexual relationship. Okay, let’s move on to the next one. This one is probably one of the [00:32:00] heavier questions. It’s the perspective of a wife who’s feeling a great deal of sadness because she wants to feel desired by her husband and she feels like, She’s not, and has a hard time with him not telling her that he thinks she’s pretty every once in a while, which she would like him to.
So, her question is, How do I overcome my sadness that my husband never tells me I’m beautiful or in any way indicates that he’s attracted to me? This dynamic has forced me to create my own self confidence and validation, but man, it would sure be nice to hear once in a while. I don’t even know the last time he expressed that to me. It’s hard to not feel jealous when I hear about other husbands who express that a lot. I
don’tament my appearance or body, I love myself. I think it’s pretty normal to want to be desired by your spouse. I’m guessing I just don’t know what to do after I’ve expressed this preference. Do I just live and work around [00:33:00] this element of sadness and disappointment forever? Maybe I’m not communicating in a way he understands. Does, I would love it if you would tell me I’m beautiful once in a while, not do the trick? I’m higher desire in all physical and emotional parts of our relationship, but work hard not to be anxiously attached. I’m just sad. What do you have, Dan?
Dan: Oh, I was hoping you’d go first. It’s a heavy one. I just want to say, I’m just sorry she’s going through this and acknowledge how hard this is. And I’m sad that you’re sad about this too. One thought I had, when I read this question is what Paul says in the New Testament in 2nd Corinthians 12. He talks about how he had a thorn in the flesh.
And if you remember, he asked the Lord like three times to take away this thorn. but the Lord didn’t in his wisdom. Instead, it’s as if saying to Paul, look, I’m not going to take this away. You’re going to have this weakness, whatever it is, [00:34:00] but because of that weakness, you’re going to learn how to depend on me.
And when you depend on me, you’re going to find that you have more strength. Otherwise, you’d be so full of yourself without any weaknesses that then you’d kind of disconnect from me. So, in other words, what I learned from that is many things, but what I want to highlight is there’s definitely value in our suffering.
And I, that’s a hard pill to swallow sometimes by not getting everything we want in life has this refining power over us. It, it makes us more patient. It makes us more, empathetic. It makes us more benevolent. It makes us more kind, like these difficult and hard things we go through in life. actually make us better people.
And I think that’s part of God’s design for marriage, because frankly, in marriage, you never get everything you want. when you’re going to be married to someone, and if you’re going to have an intimate marriage, [00:35:00] disappointment is a big part of being married. And you have to learn how to balance that and cope with that and make meaning out of it.
But you don’t have to be bitter out of, because of it, we can be better because of that.
Caroline: Yeah, and just building on that thought, thinking of the part of her question where she says it forced her to create her own self confidence and validation. um, I think part of this refining experience for her is it created that opportunity for her to really build on loving herself, validating herself, creating that self confidence. She says she loves her body and those things, and although she doesn’t feel it from her spouse right now, it has given her an opportunity to do that for herself. And, oh man, everyone wants to feel loved and desired by their spouse. That’s That’s part of getting married, is to have that, that partner in life.
Dan: Yes.
Caroline: crime, but we don’t encourage crime here. But, um, you know, that partner in [00:36:00] crime. That you, you want that excitement, that joy, that connection. And you want to be desired by them. And so, my heart just goes out to this sweet woman. But I just think of Myself that sometimes it’s easier for me to see what’s not there than to see what is there And so, don’t know if this applies in her instance, but maybe instead of looking for what’s not there Which is that being told that she’s beautiful or, um, attractive, maybe instead of only looking for that and seeing that lack, it could be helpful to look at the other ways that the husband does express his love and desire for her in other ways that maybe don’t have to do with her physical appearance. Um, And that can be really done than said, but I think that could maybe be a valuable thing to try the ways he is showing love and connection, even if it’s not in the way that she’s hoping for.
Dan: Yeah, if he’s open to it and only if he is willing I think some coaching marriage coaching from a really good coach [00:37:00] Might help uncover some deeper layers of what’s really going on for him and for her That we just can’t see in the on the surface with this question For example, there could be some deep seated insecurities that this man has maybe some past trauma and by trauma, I don’t mean like a major event, but just could be a series of small things that have been unresolved that are preventing him.
Or maybe it just was never modeled to him. So, uh, a lot of men generally don’t like to take action. If they’re not. If they’re not certain that the results going to succeed, think about like a hunter, you’re not going to draw the arrow to kill your deer. If you’re not fairly certain you have a chance of hitting the target.
Right? So a lot of men hedge, they hold back, they conserve their energy. They conserve their compliments partially because they’re afraid that it might miss the mark. So I just use that as an illustration, how coaching can really help dive deeper in situations like this.
Caroline: Yeah, and as you were saying that, Dan, it made me think [00:38:00] of something that I don’t know if it’s applicable in this instance, or maybe it is in someone else’s, but, I know that I’ve had conversations with before where they say, I don’t want to compliment. My wife’s appearance because I don’t want her to feel like she’s being
Dan: That’s our only value. Right? Yeah.
Caroline: that that’s where I see her value I don’t want to solely focus on her appearance because I don’t want her to feel objectified
Dan: Yes. Uh huh.
Caroline: that I love every part of her and so I don’t know if this is happening in this This relationship, but sometimes are cautious, if they’re very self aware, to compliment physical appearance because they don’t want their wife to think that’s the only thing they see in them, and they don’t want them to feel objectified by them, so they don’t compliment that.
So,
Dan: Yeah.
Caroline: just a thought that I had that at play, or not, but it is a thought just to consider.
Dan: You know, I hear that a lot too, but I don’t think that comes from a place of strength. I think it comes from a place of [00:39:00] weakness. Because, if you can be fully honest, men, generally speaking, too, are visual creatures, right? We, that’s, that’s our primary instinct in how we gather information and relate with the world.
And, with our spouse. So, of course, if you think your spouse is beautiful, to express it and say it, but don’t apologize that she’s so beautiful and so stinking hot. Like, own it. Love it. And it’s okay if she, so we’re so afraid that our spouse is going to think some way that we don’t want them to think that we hedge that’s again, putting us in an enmeshed position because we’re now depending, uh, we, we’re trying to control this outcome of this way.
We want our spouse to think or behave about us. And so we’re playing these mind games. You got to drop the mind games because it’s dishonest.
Caroline: agree. It’s not honoring yourself and what you’re feeling and what you’re thinking, we need to just be honest and be Authentic and be [00:40:00] like dang you’re looking good.
And I’m not afraid to tell you like we need to be able to do that
Dan: Yes. Less caution for this woman is. Uh, when we have difficulty in our marriages, we often think that there might be someone else out there. Some nameless, faceless person that would just love me in all the ways that I’d like to be loved. And it’s a fantasy, right? Um,
Caroline: Yeah,
Dan: and this fantasy is not going to serve you.
It doesn’t help you. solve your immediate marriage problems. So, uh, find meaning in your struggles, seek coaching if it’s helpful for you. And remember, I think love and loss go together. When you fully choose someone, it also means you’re going to choose the parts of them that are their weaknesses too.
They’re the whole package and that’s part of love. Love comes with loss.
Caroline: yeah It does I think what you said about, like, coaching could be really beneficial because it could help them learn to communicate and especially [00:41:00] her of, I, I feel really hurt or undesired when you don’t tell me that you find me beautiful at least once. Once in a while, and it’s really creating a wedge between us, because I want to feel desired, being able to communicate those deeper feelings could be really beneficial for both of them, so that’s, I love that you’ve brought up coaching, because it could really help both of them learn to communicate those things. In this case
Dan: Great.
Thank you for listening to this episode, please share it along with our apps and timidly us. And just between us with their married friends. I promise they will thank you for life. If you want a more meaningful sexual and intimate connection in your marriage, I invite you to check out my, get your marriage on program.
Dan: Over a hundred couples have said this program packs tremendous value and has helped their intimacy grow to the next level. Now go get your marriage on. [00:42:00]
