Ever feel like you wish your wife was a little less vanilla? Every wish your spouse would be more enthusiastic about trying new things in the bedroom (or out of the bedroom for that matter)? Ever ask your spouse what their fantasies are, and they look at you with a blank stare or an “I don’t know”? Ever get frustrated when, after a discussion about your sex life and things get better for about a week or so, and then fizzle and go back to the way they used to be?
A husband recently emailed me with these concerns, and with his permission, I will be giving you some ideas about this topic today for both the higher and lower desire spouses.
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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 221
Dan: Ever feel like you wish your wife was a little less vanilla. Every wish your spouse would be more enthusiastic about trying new things in the bedroom or out of the bedroom for that matter. Every ask your spouse what their fantasies are, and they look at you with a blank stare or at best response. Like, I don’t know. Ever get frustrated when, after a discussion about your sex life and things, you want to get better and they get better for about a week or so.
And then things fizzle and go back to the way they used to be. I want to give you some ideas about this topic today. Uh, husband recently sent me this email and with his permission, I want to share it with you. This is what he says. My wife and I have been together for six years and we have three young kids.
We started listening to your podcast a lot for the last month. The reason being that I expressed to her that I wasn’t happy with our sex life intimacy towards one another in and out of the bedroom, lack of openness and the lack of excitement in our lives together. She agreed with [00:01:00] what I was communicating with her.
And she has been committing to work on it a week at a time in little ways. Listening to your podcast is one of those ways. She’s very, I guess I’ll call it “vanilla” or plain when it comes to our sex life. She gets uncomfortable talking about sex aloud with me, for example, discussing toys, new positions, et cetera. It’s to the point where it has made me uncomfortable to bring things up to her.
I’m hesitant because I fear not being heard or cared about and what I’m communicating. She’s trying to be more open to things I want to do with her.
She is taking very small baby steps on this, which I appreciate.
However, when I asked her things that she likes what turns her on or what she would like me to do sexually for her, she doesn’t have an answer and says she just doesn’t know. I want to be able to work on things for her in the bedroom, as well as she is doing for me. I want the homework. Is there a way to help her [00:02:00] dig into what is really a turn on and get her going or find sexy and hot or something she’d like me to do?
I feel like being able to understand her that way as well as the other half of the battle, but I don’t get any feedback from her. I really want to know her in that way more, making sure she is taken care of and pleasured each time we’re intimate is my number one goal. Close quote. thank you for this gentlemen, the sentence, this. Uh, question you have a really good heart and desiring a more intimate marriage, some more erotic lovemaking and giving her pleasure as her.
Number one goal is definitely commendable. And having the courage to express that you want something better for your marriage is also a very good first step.
It’s also common for the spouse that has higher desire for sexual novelty, to be more clear about what his or her turn-ons are. Compared to the spouse with lower desire. It makes sense because you think about it more, it’s something that you value,
but just because your spouse doesn’t think about it the same way [00:03:00] you do it doesn’t mean that they’re broken, that need to be fixed or that they have, values that oppose yours. There are definitely more layers to impact here.
So today, I want to invite you to think about this problem from a very different perspective. This perspective might be different from the other advice you’re used to listening to such as communicate your needs openly and listen, and just share what your needs are and ask that their needs get met. And we’re not going to do that today.
In this episode, I want to answer this man’s question primarily about. Talking to those with the higher desire for sexual novelty, I’m going to share a few ideas and give you some practical suggestions. And then I’ll finish the episode by talking to the lower desire spouse on some ideas for him or her to. First of all, I want to validate that desiring an intimate. Honest or erotic and joyful sexual relationship or their spouse is a worthy goal.
Sex is such a powerful way for couples to bind [00:04:00] themselves to each other. Even on a biological, spiritual and emotional level.
Sexual desires that foster closeness intimacy and something to look forward to in the marriage is definitely a good recipe for sex worth. Having. However, there’s a common trap that those with the higher desire for sexual novelty fall into. It’s thinking that they’re somehow more evolved or sexually superior to their spouse. I know because I am the higher desire spouse, my marriage, most of the time.
And I’ve fallen into this trap personally, far, too many times. I see it in my coaching practice too. It’s a trap because you don’t see it as a trap. You see it as you know, what’s good for the marriage. You’ve put your time and effort into researching and getting good advice. Maybe even listening to an amazing podcast like this one. Or downloading a thoughtful intimacy app, like intimately us for couples. These are all good things.
Again, the trap isn’t wanting better sex. The trap is thinking [00:05:00] you’re sexually superior to your spouse as if you have the idea of what good sex is and our spouse doesn’t and he, or she needs to catch up to your level. This reasoning makes sense though, because you figure you think a lot about sex, you’re more interested in sex.
You read about it more and generally have a wider range of interest in sexual novelty.
Or compared to your spouse, you don’t have as many sexual hangups and you might find certain sexual acts very exciting instead of disgusting, compared to how your spouse might think about it. On the other hand, you also see that your spouse seems to be really anxious about sex, and this could be real as he or she does have anxieties about sex, whether it’s body image issues. The culture he or she grew up in negative past experiences or general lack of healthy sexual education. You might ask her or him what their interests are and he, or she would respond with generalized answers or tell you that. [00:06:00] Uh,
Or just tell you what you want to hear so that you’d stop asking and pestering them, or just responds with hesitation or you get a lot of, I don’t knows.
And then you hear about couples. Maybe you read it online in a Facebook group or something about a people that have overcome hangups, where they used to not do X, Y, Z in the bedroom.
And now they do it all the time and they love it. And you begin to wish or spouses more like those that really put in the effort to make sex great. In your book. The problem is there’s a, self-deception hidden in this line of thinking the mistake is that you equate good sex with novelty. And because you want more novelty than your spouse, or because you’re more comfortable with your sexuality, you are therefore the authority in your marriage as to what constitutes good sex in the marriage. You start seeing yourself as sexually superior to your spouse and wish they’d just catch up to your level, even if it was a little bit. And yes, good sex can [00:07:00] include exciting new things and novel aspects, of course.
But the mistake is thinking that getting your spouse to somehow do those things with you. ’cause you know, better. That’s where the deception lies. When it comes to building a sexual relationship and a sexual friendship, anytime you and your spouse are no longer on equal grounds and start forming a hierarchy, meaning when things that they’re superior to the other or below the other. The lifeblood of passion will go out the window. Yes, your spouse might give in and do what you want them to do, but it’s not going to be coming from a place of enthusiastic passion. It sets up a marriage pattern where your spouse works to earn your approval through sex or sexual acts, which might look like duty sex. Which when you accept and participate in that dynamic, you’re just perpetuating the problem.
And in the end it becomes antithetical to real passion and desire because it’s not organic.
[00:08:00] The other problem about this trap is it’s a little intoxicating because it feels good to feel like you’re the one in the marriage that has it all put together and you know what good sex ought to look like. But the reality is it’s a mask to hide your own anxieties about sex. And when I say that you might be going well, I’m not the one with the anxieties about sexist.
My spouse. That’s really anxious about sex. I get it because you want more creativity and novelty, and you’re fine with that. You’re not anxious about that desire,
But ask yourself, how do you behave when you don’t get what you want? Do you double down on being extra nice to your spouse, thinking that you’ll earn it that way. Do you distance yourself from your spouse emotionally as a way of coping with the sense of loss of not getting what you want. Do you accommodate your spouse folding into what he or she wants or doesn’t want pretending to be happy about it, but feeling resentful along the way.
Or do you argue in pressure, your spouse, that they’ll finally yield to do what you want them to do with you in the bedroom? Do you complain to [00:09:00] your spouse about how their vanilla. Do you go online or find friends to get reinforcement that you’re right. And somehow your spouse must be wrong about this.
Do you spend more energy trying to solve your spouse’s side of the problem than your own side, such as blaming the effects of purity culture, their upbringing, and so on. Each of these reasons indicate to me that you’re anxious about the novelty you’re not experiencing in your marriage.
And trust me, I’ve done all of these intimately familiar with these losing strategies.
Sexual anxiety is often a reason why a person with high desire is high desire for sex. It’s their inability to handle the in certainty of a sexual outcome, such as whether or not your spouse will want to do X, Y, or Z with you. That very anxiety increases. his or her desire for sex. A few years ago from a distance, I witnessed an interaction with a couple.
This couple came to an event to address their differences in sexual desire, which by the way is just about [00:10:00] every couple on the planet, in a long-term relationship, you’re going to have sexual desire, differences.
As part of the event, each participant received a goodie bag and then the bag was a gift from a well-known health and wellness company. It was a drink powder mix designed for women that they claim increases. Women’s libido. And this case, the husband had the higher libido and he wanted his wife to drink the mix. She resisted. He complained to her that the number one issue in their otherwise perfect marriage was her lack of libido. And here they are with a possible solution right in front of her.
And she doesn’t even want to try it. She doesn’t even want to drink the drink in his mind if only she’d just drink it. She’d have an increase in libido and he would be a lot happier and she would be a lot happier in their marriage. Problem. Solved.
But she didn’t want to drink it. Why the resistance to drink the drink on the wife’s part? What do you think you suppose is going through her mind? Does she agree that the number one issue in their marriage is [00:11:00] her lack of libido? Or his insistence that her lower libido is a problem. Sex is clearly a power struggle in her marriage.
If she gives in and drinks the drink, is she tacitly agreeing that she’s wrong and her husband is right all along. Losing the power struggle. So does refusing to drink, help her claim a sense of her dignity, her autonomy and her independence. Which is something we all really, really want. If she drinks a drink and his anxiety may go down temporarily.
But what about tomorrow? Is she now committed to managing his anxiety about her low libido through a drink powder mix? Do you see how the husband in this story doesn’t realize how anxious he is about sex? And it creates a disconnect with him and his wife in the process. Dr. David As well as many other sex researchers, coaches, and therapists agreed that low libido is often a sign of good judgment on the part of the lower [00:12:00] desire spouse.
In other words, A plausible reason why your spouse might be vanilla. Could be good judgment on his or her part.
It’s not about the sex act alone. You want them to do with you?
It’s about what meanings are attached to doing it with you. Or what it costs them if they choose to do it. As I teach him, I get your marriage on program and discuss at our in-person couples retreats. The very best marriages are ones where it’s less about ego or a power struggle around sex, but we’re both partners actually partner as equals and have a collaborative spirit about all marital matters.
Our next marriage retreat is March 26th through the 30th in beautiful sunny Southern Utah. It’s a great opportunity for you and your spouse to get away for four days, to relax a little and twist some romance and have some fun. And also get to do a deep dive into the intimacy in your marriage with the guidance of be, and my fellow coaches.
So sign up today, [00:13:00] the details are on our website@getyourmarriageon.com. We humans don’t just have sex. We always participate in a meeting. It’s impossible to have sex without deriving some meaning from it, unless you’re absolutely completely drunk. And he won’t remember it.
Therefore there’s really no such thing as quote unquote, casual sex.
So if having sex with your spouse is about participating in a meeting, what kinds of meanings in sex would you both collaboratively define as good sex?
What kind of sex sounds inviting to both of you? What kind of sex is sex worth wanting for you and your spouse? Let me give you a few ideas. What about sex, where you feel like you can totally be yourself where you don’t feel like you have to put on a production or a show or be a certain way in order to make your spouse happy.
What about sex, where it’s about really enjoying each other sharing pleasure without a particular goal or a specific outcome that has to be reached in order for it to quote unquote [00:14:00] count as having sex. What about sex? That’s highly erotic, super hot, where you get lost in the passion of the moment where it feels as though time has stood still. You feel transported to someplace special that only you and your spouse can go. And you’re there for a while.
What about sex, where you both feel really close to each other deeply loved and cherished and valued for who you are deep inside. What about sex? That’s so good. It’s worth losing an hours nights. Sleep over. In these examples, good sex. Isn’t defined by novelty alone. It’s defined by what meanings are created in the experience.
Good sex. Doesn’t come easily to everyone all the time. Anything in life of value requires effort and sex is no different it’s because it requires you to learn how to settle down while being undressed next to someone, which frankly is a tall order. If you pay close attention, there’s probably some anxiousness and this extra having, you can tell, [00:15:00] because you’re probably worrying about what your spouse is thinking about or worrying about while having sex.
And you can’t really be in the moment if you’re worried about what your spouse is thinking about or what you’re worrying about in the sexual act.
Therefore your ability to quote unquote, calm the heck down. As I like to say, really is the ultimate black belt sex tip. Is because once you can be more mindful and open about the experience and really be open with your spouse, that’s when great things happen. It’s a lot easier to be naked bodies tucked inside each other when you’re both settled down and just enjoying the moment. I want you to pause this podcast just for a moment and think about your three top sexual experiences.
Go ahead. Think about your best sexual experiences if you had with your spouse or top three? Let me know when you’ve got it and you’ll know you’ve got it. When you notice you have a smile come across their face. So, let me ask you. Did those peaks sexual experiences begin [00:16:00] from a place of trying to get somewhere or demanding more novelty in your relationship? Like dragging your spouse up the mountain where you think good sex ought to be. I doubt it.
I’m willing to bet that your best sexual experiences unfolded organically from a base camp at the base of the mountain. You both found a place where you felt settled down together. And then the right moment unfolded before you it’s like an organic process, you weren’t trying to yank or push your spouse into doing something. There was no pressure in there.
It was both an organic unfolding.
From my experience, the couples with great sex lives have learned how to master the art of getting to a sense of this collaborative. Openness this base camp, if you will, with their spouse. If you’re in a marriage with a vanilla spouse and you wished for more excitement, you’re going to have a much better chance of getting your spouse to hike up the mountain with you. Once you’ve settled in at a base camp rather than yanking them up the mountain. Now [00:17:00] finding your base camp as a couple takes practice, my wife and I, by the way, have a very normal marriage.
And this is something we practice often and I don’t claim to have everything worked out myself. A while ago. Emily and I went on a getaway, just the two of us for the weekend. It was a perfect rest and reset And what made this particular getaway great is allowed us to take a step back to stop trying to work on something in our marriage.
Instead we unworked on something and we didn’t focus on anything per se. We stopped trying to get the other person to share our point of view. If it was a tug of war, we both decided to just drop the rope for the weekend. We then quickly found our base camp. It meant dropping expectations and fears and certain things not happening, which required a lot of calming the heck down. We just let things unfold, organically and unfold.
They did. We had a great time and we’re a lot closer because of it.
Looking back. I can see times in my own marriage where I’ve been [00:18:00] indulgent and how I’ve approached my wife about things I want to try in the bedroom. It’s indulgent because I know her weaknesses and how to exploit them to get what I want. Unfortunately though. She also knows my weaknesses and how to exploit them too.
So our dynamic can quickly turn into a power struggle. I can see how I was pressuring her for more novel experiences to solve my problem of the fear of missing out, or being too fixated on a particular outcome. I couldn’t clearly see that my fears, my anxiety, refeeding my desire for more sexual novelty at the time, because I was so immersed in it.
Like the problem was like right up here in my face, it was coloring everything I saw about our sexual relationship. At this time, all it took for me was to step away from the problem and the problem sorted took care of itself. So I encourage you to find your base camp and let your sexual desires as a couple.
Be an organic unfolding process. [00:19:00] Sexual desire, interest in novel sexual activity. Isn’t something that can be produced or demanded. Of course you can express what you want. There’s no problem in that. But it’s the demanding, or I need you to work on this or how come you don’t want to work on this? That’s the part where we start falling into the trap.
The reason is sex hates being fabricated.
It hates being produced. Sex hates the burden of it being the measure of success or happiness in one spouse or in the marriage. Sex hates needing to look a certain way in order for it to be acceptable. Dr. Jennifer Finlaison five. One of my mentors once said, get good at calming down enough to be with your spouse and stop trying to get him or her to be something for you. You’ll quickly find more life and progress in your marriage.
Then the false ambition of trying to get somewhere else.
Your ability to settle down into your relationship is the measure of your maturity, not how comfortable you are with a wider range of sexual [00:20:00] acts. The more mature person isn’t the one that can do X, Y, Z, and wants to do it all. The more mature person is the one that can really settle down and be with their spouse. While still holding onto their own desires. It’s then.
And only then when your spouse might progress by stepping into more novelty, but you don’t control his or her progress. Real progress is made. When you stop making your spouse, manage your anxieties and neediness about sex and learn to truly be with your spouse. Hearing this, you might say. All right, Dan.
So my desires don’t count. You’re telling me I just need to settle and pretend to be happy with it. Well, I get resentful. I get it. It will be resentful. If you think of this as the strategy for you to get more novelty and sex. Remember, this isn’t a strategy. You’re not trying to get something. From someone by being a certain way, that is a form of manipulation.
It might look nice and calm on the outside, but it’s not real [00:21:00] progress because they’re focused on the other person’s decisions and behavior to dictate your internal state. Remember progress, isn’t defined by how much novelty you experienced in your marriage, but how well you can collaborate as a couple in finding your base camp. Thinking you understand better than your spouse.
What progress looks like is the trap. If you want any chance of greater sexual adventure together, you’ll find it first by settling down next to each other in your base camp and let things organically unfold from there. That is not settling for less that’s maturing together. It is because the marriage is then capable of more freedom from the power struggle and the very things that are interfering with the ability to seek more novel experiences together. By the way that base camp, that calm feeling, where you can both be really open and collaborative.
It’s a very inviting meeting for your spouse to step into also because it’s not a demanding place. It gives him or her [00:22:00] this space to work out internally what he or she needs and wants and desires. Within her.
All right. We’re about 25 minutes into this episode and I’m finished speaking to the spouse with the higher desire for sexual novelty. Now, I want to turn my attention to the last five minutes to the spouse with the lower desire for sexual novelty in your relationship and give you a few practical ideas and tips of what to do next. First. Sexual growth always happens best when it’s about something you want.
The first thing I want you to know is sexual growth happens when it’s about something you want to do and not something you feel like you have to do. In a previous podcast episode with Dr. Cammie Hearst, she tells a story of scientists. Uh, studying mice solving amaze, and for the first group of mice, they put cheese in the opposite corner. They put the mice in the maze and the mouse, sniffs, the air smells the cheese and then starts working to solve the maze to get to the cheese. And the second [00:23:00] group. They put the mouse in the maze and had a puppet owl chasing the mouse through the maze.
So the, the mouse had to solve the maze to save its own life, to save its own skin. Then they analyze the brain activity that happened in the mouse’s brains while they’re trying to solve the solve the maze. Now the task is the same, right? The task for the mouse is solve the maze, but what was going on inside their head or why they were solving the maze was a very completely different reason.
One was about approaching the other was about. Avoiding a consequence. And as they analyzed and looked at their brains, the brains that were about the cheese, about approaching something they want had twice that brain activity in regions of the brain around creativity and problem solving compared to those that are being chased by the Peppa owl. No surprise.
In other words, sexual development needs to be something you want to do and not something you have to do. Then you’ll make a lot more progress [00:24:00] and connection and development in your own marriage. A few ways to find more cheese and your desire to grow sexually can be to get a really good book about sex.
Listen to this podcast, download the intimately us app and read through the learn section. Talk to friends you trust that are willing to open up and share about what works for them in their own marriages. Join our private Facebook group, which I’ll include in the show notes or get coaching from those that share your values. My coaching program, by the way, can definitely help you in this area.
If you sense your spouse seems to be really needy or anxious about sex or certain sexual acts consider for a moment that you’re participating in creating a marriage where you’re creating an anxious spouse, dynamics and marriages are always co-created. You have a part to play in the reason why your spouse is anxious, it doesn’t mean you’re responsible, but you definitely have a role to play. Are there areas where you can make a more honest effort.
Do you fear you’ll be [00:25:00] given up control in your marriage.
If you were to become more mindful of your sexuality and honestly address what needs to be addressed.
Some personality types are more open to new experiences than others. It could just be that you’re not the try, anything once type and that’s okay. One of my favorite movies is the secret life of Walter Mitty. Where the main character lives a very predictable unexciting, boring life until he is thrust into solving a problem. And realize that life is meant to be lived and experienced, even if it takes you out of your comfort zone. Sometimes finding inspiration to push yourself. Just a little bit outside of your comfort zone is where you’ll find new joys, new experiences and new things that breathe, meaning and depth into your life. You can also find that this pattern helps with parenting finding new hobbies and seeking better balance in life. Fearlessly taking yourself on and addressing things that matter to you also helps.
I also suggest taking your fears, concerns, and hopes the Lord in [00:26:00] prayer. And I know he can be helpful and listen, and look for his guidance in small everyday things. If you have a specific hangup that you’d like to get over. The best way to get over it is to expose yourself just a little bit to that thing that makes you uncomfortable and then settle with it. And then expose yourself a little bit more.
Dan: For example, if you don’t like tomatoes, but you’re motivated to like eating tomatoes more, you might start by touching a tomato. And then progress to smelling a tomato. And then maybe touching a tomato with your tongue. And then taking a small bite and so on by progressively exposing yourself to more tomato over time. You may one day discover that you actually liked tomatoes in certain situations, or at least you can tolerate them better. This process requires you to push yourself and commit to growing yourself up, which doesn’t always come easy to everyone. Most importantly of all, think about what kinds of meanings of sex are appealing to you and [00:27:00] collaborate with your spouse to have more positive sexual encounters that leave you feeling more loved and pleasured.
If you’d like additional help in this area, please check out our, get your marriage on program and consider attending our in-person couples retreat. We’re only doing one retreat this year and it’s going to be our best one yet. Check out, get your marriage on.com for all of these details to help you in your marriage. Thank you for listening and have a happy new year.
