What happens when you realize your spouse still loves you… but doesn’t really like you?
That’s the painful realization Matt Salis had after 20 years of marriage. His story is a powerful illustration of how emotional safety shapes sexual desire in marriage.
After decades of addiction, conflict, and a sexual relationship built around obligation instead of desire, Matt and his wife found themselves at a crossroads. What followed was a complete transformation—not just in their intimacy, but in how they showed up for each other emotionally.
In this episode, Matt shares how emotional safety became the foundation for rebuilding attraction, trust, and connection. He introduces his “Sex Sequence” framework and explains why many men are still trying to provide, protect, and lead in ways that no longer create closeness in modern relationships.
Whether you’re struggling with emotional connection, feeling stuck in a cycle of obligation around sex, or simply want a stronger marriage, this conversation offers practical insights for creating the kind of relationship both spouses genuinely enjoy.
In this episode:
- The difference between loving your spouse and actually liking them
- How addiction impacted Matt’s marriage and sex life
- Why “reluctant consent” creates hidden rejection
- The three-step Sex Sequence
- What emotional masculinity looks like in marriage today
- How men can create more emotional safety at home
- Why talking about sex every day can transform intimacy
- The “Always Be Dating” mindset that keeps attraction alive
Resources Mentioned
❤️ Couples Retreat Waitlist: https://getyourmarriageon.com/couples-retreat/
❤️ Spark’d App
Connect with Matt Salis
Untoxicated Relationship Survey
Want help applying these principles in your marriage?
Our coaching team specializes in helping couples improve emotional connection, communication, and intimacy. Learn more at: getyourmarriageon.com/program/
Guest: Matt Salis
Matt Salis is a behavioral health writer and researcher with over a decade of experience in the addiction and emotional abuse fields and a master’s degree in sexual health. He is a leading expert on intimacy in committed partnerships impacted by traumatic dynamics like alcoholism and emotional abuse. He co-hosts, along with his wife, Sheri, the Untoxicated Podcast with over half-a-million downloads, has conducted over 500 case studies, and he is the author soberevolution.
Disclaimer: The opinions and values expressed by guests on the Get Your Marriage On! podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and values of the host. Appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of the guest or their products by Get Your Marriage On or its host. While we work hard to bring you quality and valuable content, listeners are encouraged to use their own best judgment in applying the information or products discussed on this podcast.
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.
312: Emotional Masculinity with Matt Salis
Matt Salis: [00:00:00] probably 20 years into my marriage, when I realized my wife didn’t like me anymore.
Dan Purcell: anymore
Matt Salis: always leaned so heavily on the idea that we loved each other. But I realized that on a day-to-day basis, the way I was showing up in the world,
Dan Purcell: up in the
Matt Salis: if we were starting over and we had just met, she would not choose me.
Dan Purcell: not
Matt Salis: And it was the first time
Dan Purcell: the first
Matt Salis: that the idea that,
Dan Purcell: that
Matt Salis: the importance of like.
Is right up there with, if not even more important than love.
Dan Purcell: So what do you do when you suddenly realize your spouse still loves you, but they kind of struggle to like you? [00:01:00] Like, loving and liking is a different thing. And what do you do if s*x feels like it’s a negotiation every time? It, it feels kind of like an obligation or duty, something that you kind of have to schedule, or you have to put agreements in place in order to make it happen, and it kind of lacks that spark, that enthusiasm, that, that, “Heck yeah, I want to do this with you.”
And then, what do you do about times when you really want to be close intimately, and you kind of struggle with the emotional connection side? Because frankly, a lot of men say they want to connect s*xually first, and then they feel emotionally connected, and a lot of women say, “I want to feel emotionally connected first before I could connect s*xually.”
That’s what this podcast episode answers. My guest today is Matt Sallas. You’re gonna love him. He’s got an amazing story 25 years in the making, and he’s gonna reveal at the end what he calls his three-step s*x sequence that applies to both men and women in how to build an intimate marriage [00:02:00] they both love.
Before we get into this episode, let me quickly tell you that our cruise that we have coming up in October has officially sold out. Thank you, everyone, for signing up, registering your interest. It’s going to be a fantastic cruise. We– It’s gonna be a great experience for those coming on the cruise. And, we have our next in-person event in April.
So you can go to our website, getyourmarriageon.com/events, and you’re gonna see a waiting list for our next in-person retreat, which, is great for any couple that wants to implement the things that we talk about on this podcast in their marriage in a really fun, upbeat, supportive and, frankly, a great fun environment.
So supportive and fun. Also want to let you know, I just released a new app. It’s called Sparked. It’s spelled spark with an apostrophe D, Sparked, and you can find it on the App Store or the Google Play Store. This is to take your date [00:03:00] nights on steroids. So if you’re the kind of couple that you want to date each other regularly still in your marriage, but you really want a lot of pizzazz, you really want to take your dating game to the next level, this is it.
Full of tons of resources, and you get so much benefit when you sync with your spouse in the app. So download it and invite your spouse to download it too. It’ll really help you drive those conversations, reignite the spark in your relationship. Without further ado, let’s go meet Matt and talk about emotional masculinity
Matt, welcome to the Get Your Marriage On Podcast. How are you?
Matt Salis: I am great Dan. It’s a pleasure to be me.
Dan Purcell: It is great getting to know you, and I got to know your wife a little bit better. message you share is so powerful and I’m looking forward to our listeners, hearing what you’ve come up with. You’ve got such a interesting story in how you’ve arrived here. But first I wanna hear of a time maybe in your marriage where.
You woke up to a realization that the direction it was going isn’t the [00:04:00] direction you wanted it to go anymore.
Matt Salis: Uh, yeah, that’s a
Dan Purcell: Yeah.
Matt Salis: place to start. Probably the biggest epiphany relationship wise that I’ve ever had. Is the day, probably 20 years into my marriage, when I realized my wife didn’t like me anymore.
Dan Purcell: anymore
Matt Salis: always leaned so heavily on the idea that we loved each other. We have four children together.
Uh, our lives are intertwined in so many ways,
Dan Purcell: many
Matt Salis: and business wise.
Dan Purcell: and business
Matt Salis: And, I always knew that the love was strong, but I realized that on a day-to-day basis, the way I was showing up in the world,
Dan Purcell: up in the
Matt Salis: if we were starting over and we had just met, she would not choose me.
Dan Purcell: not
Matt Salis: And it was the first time
Dan Purcell: the first
Matt Salis: that the idea that, uh,
Dan Purcell: that
Matt Salis: the importance of like.
Is right up there with, if not even more important than love. That’s the first time that it dawned on me because there, there was no change for me in the degree to which I liked my wife throughout our marriage, but we’ve been through a lot. I was a [00:05:00] high functioning alcoholic for 25 years. Found sobriety.
We like to say sobriety is not a solution, but it is a prerequisite. So once I found sobriety, then we had all the hard work to do. And it was during this period that I realized, oh my God, that the versions of ourselves that we’re becoming as, as we grow and develop and become better versions of ourselves individually, my wife doesn’t like the version of me she’s married to.
And you know, that was a huge hurdle that we had to overcome.
Dan Purcell: wow. So how’d you overcome that?
Matt Salis: You, you know, I had to, um, rather than be fixated on the way I wanted to show up, I had to start to.
Dan Purcell: to
Matt Salis: put quality time and take an interest and curiosity in what my wife was looking for in a partner. So, you know, she wasn’t looking for someone to stomp around the house and make all the decisions and discipline the kids
Dan Purcell: the
Matt Salis: and then be grumpy about work.
She was looking for someone to co-parent with her, to [00:06:00] listen,
Dan Purcell: her,
Matt Salis: to take her ideas and decisions as it relates to raising our children to heart and. Prioritize them over my own when there was conflict sometimes.
Dan Purcell: sometimes
Matt Salis: she was looking for someone who,
Dan Purcell: for someone.
Matt Salis: I think a great example of this and, and it ties into all the work that we’ve done around emotional safety, um, you know, after sobriety and when I was getting more healthy, I didn’t yell at my wife or my kids.
For things that they did. I didn’t yell at them at all, but I would still yell at the TV screen if I was mad about politics or my team was losing the big game. And that just created a level of anxiety in the house that put everyone on pins and needles. Everyone’s walking on eggshells. I’m not mad at anyone.
I’m mad at the TV screen, but I’m still creating anxiety. And so that’s one of the aspects that my wife just didn’t like about me. Like why would I wanna walk around here with a guy that’s got everyone on edge?
Dan Purcell: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. And would you think some of these things too, [00:07:00] talking about the first 20, 25 years, uh, as an alcoholic, it kind of masked these patterns that you had. And so when you became, , sober. It’s now uncovering things that have always been there, but now it’s more exposed.
So it’s like, oh, they’ve always been there, but they were masked with the alcohol, I guess, or the, the intoxication, oh, sorry. The addiction, I dunno what the right word is for you. This, but
Matt Salis: All three work. All three are fair. Yeah. No, I mean, I am a naturally very curious person, but I didn’t find that out until about 10 years ago, Dan, because you’re right. Every time there was a discomfort
Dan Purcell: dis
Matt Salis: in my life, I turned to alcohol medicinally. It started out as. Drinking with my friends in high school exploration and then, you know, drinking pretty heavily in college.
It was a big party scene and then, you know, happy hours in a professional setting as an adult.
Dan Purcell: As an
Matt Salis: And then, you know, my dad drank every day after work. He [00:08:00] had a couple gin and tonics, so I thought that was normal. So I was drinking on my own as well. And it just snowballed. And anytime there was any level of discomfort, you know, I, I think a, as men, we are conditioned.
To only feel a very narrow range of emotions. And anytime I felt something that was outside of joy or anger, I drank to medicate that. And so once I got that out of the way, that let me kind of peel back the layers and look at, how I was showing up in the world and what I wanted to be. And I have to say alcohol was a, you know, a huge issue for me and for my wife, for my family.
But there’s also a lot of conditioning elements too. Even once alcohol was gone, I was still, you know, like I said, stomping around kind of like the patriarch of the house and, and not understanding that the world was evolving and that my role needed to evolve as well. So very, very complex, but huge blessing in my life is that curiosity, the fact that.
You [00:09:00] know, if something’s not working, I’m not just gonna be frowny faced about it and, you know, uh, move on and do something different. I’m gonna dig in and try to figure out why it’s not working. And that was the case with my marriage. And honestly, between that and my wife’s patience and her determination, that’s what saved our marriage.
Dan Purcell: Mm-hmm. So what was the sexual relationship like at that time?
Matt Salis: Oh, toxic to say the least. Um, during active addiction, you know, most addicts, myself included, in addition to alcohol, we look to other transfer addictions, other things
Dan Purcell: Mm-hmm.
Matt Salis: it’s all about us. It’s
Dan Purcell: About.
Matt Salis: selfish, selfish. And so the sexual relationship within my marriage was, medicinal as well.
Dan Purcell: well,
Matt Salis: You can imagine my wife was taking less and less interest in being with me. She, her trust for me was gone. any kind of emotional intimacy was completely gone.
Dan Purcell: gone,
Matt Salis: sex was for her. [00:10:00] It was a dutiful act. And I, you know, this is despicable and I’m not at all proud. I’m ashamed, terribly ashamed of this.
Dan Purcell: ashamed of this,
but
Matt Salis: know, there were times where my wife would agree to have sex because she wanted me not to stay up all night arguing about it and keep the kids up.
Dan Purcell: the
kids up. Mm-hmm.
Matt Salis: when I say medicinal, we had a period where we called it the agreement where we would have some kind of sexual contact pretty much every night. Um, and you know, I’m not gonna say that my wife never got any pleasure.
She did occasionally, but she had to be in a really relaxed. Peaceful state of mind that was so rare at those times when I was drinking and causing, you know, I, I would have binges where, um, I would cause real trauma in the relationship every few weeks, but I would have, uh, enough drinking that I was causing chaos in the relationship all the time.
And it’s hard to find,
Dan Purcell: Hard to,
Matt Salis: you know, mutually beneficial sexy time when there is chaos just ever present in the relationship.[00:11:00]
Dan Purcell: relationship. So I was using
Matt Salis: My sexual relationship with my wife medicinally, and she was becoming more and more disgusted by, you know, anything sexual oriented.
Dan Purcell: to a breaking point. This has to change. And if so, what changed And what was born out of that?
Matt Salis: It did. The breaking point was all about control in sobriety I had, so I had given up alcohol, my main medicine. But I wanted that sexual release. I wanted to keep that. We had this agreement that we had been doing for years where she was acquiescing and
you
Dan Purcell: and,
Matt Salis: the obligatory kind of wifely duty sex, like all the toxic, terrible words that it’s hard for me to even get out of my mouth.
Dan Purcell: My
mouth uhhuh,
Matt Salis: but you know, we reached a point where it just clearly wasn’t working and we had to try something different and I didn’t know what the solution was. I had no answer and she had no answer either.
Dan Purcell: either.
Matt Salis: but we abolished the agreement and we said, you know, our, the rate with which we have sex, the frequency is gonna go way [00:12:00] down.
Dan Purcell: way
Matt Salis: And we had to find a way for it to be, like I said, mutually beneficial and something that we both had an interest in.
Dan Purcell: had interest
Matt Salis: releasing that control. I was so afraid, Dan,
Dan Purcell: afraid
Matt Salis: re, to release the agreement because that was my safety blanket. That was my assurance
Dan Purcell: assurance.
Matt Salis: I was getting a lot of, you know, emotional connection from the physical connection my wife was getting none of that.
But, so by releasing the control,
Dan Purcell: control,
Matt Salis: agreement abolishing that,
Dan Purcell: abolishing,
Matt Salis: I, you know, I didn’t put in the context of control in the time, but I certainly do now.
Dan Purcell: but I certainly do.
Matt Salis: I was freeing her up to reject me anytime she wanted,
Dan Purcell: wanted
Matt Salis: that was actually a huge blessing in the long term, because I’m a strong believer that enthusiastic consent is way more important than reluctant consent.
I talk a lot about what I call the rejection inherent in reluctant consent when she would say yes, but she wasn’t really present. She didn’t really wanna be there. I could [00:13:00] tell and.
Dan Purcell: rejection of some sort.
Matt Salis: It is, and it felt toxic, you know, afterwards and later when I was drinking, I was oblivious to that. But in sobriety I started to be very kind of hyper aware of it and it just felt bad and we had to find a different way.
Dan Purcell: What you’re saying reminds me of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. When the beast realizes the only way for Bell to love him is for him to let her go.
Matt Salis: Yes.
Dan Purcell: And everyone in the cast is like, what did you do? You let her go like the last rose petals about to fall. Right? But that, that’s like the chasm you had to cross.
That’s a lot of people, that’s a very scary chasm.
Matt Salis: It was terrifying. I’d like to say,
Dan Purcell: place to cross
Matt Salis: I would like to say we had talked to someone like you and they gave us the suggestion. We did it because we just had run out of options. Like it was like this thing is fallen apart faster than we can put the pieces back together, and so we had to try something different.
Dan Purcell: something. So [00:14:00] you’ve crossed that Continental divide. so there’s more agency on her part for sex. It’s not about control. then you’ve come up with something that you call this, uh, is it the sex sequence?
Matt Salis: Yeah, that’s right. I’ve been, uh, yeah.
Dan Purcell: talk about that for a bit, but I just for context, you also have a master’s degree in sexual health, so this isn’t something that you’ve like just made up. You’ve got a lot of training, you’ve got a lot of thought behind what you’re about to share, I’m sure.
Matt Salis: Yeah, absolutely. It’s been about a decade now that I’ve been studying addiction and, and really specifically the impact of the addiction on partnerships on intimate relationships.
Dan Purcell: intimate relationships, Uhhuh
Matt Salis: and you
Dan Purcell: and
Matt Salis: not just addiction, but the emotional abuse that goes along with it.
Dan Purcell: goes
Matt Salis: And so that’s kind
Dan Purcell: And so that’s
Matt Salis: the trifecta where I’ve spent my time, emotional abuse, addiction, and intimacy.
Dan Purcell: and
Matt Salis: And,
Dan Purcell: And
Matt Salis: of the things that’s really interesting in working with couples that have experienced addiction. [00:15:00] They’re often very willing to tell their story. I
Dan Purcell: to
Matt Salis: we live in a different day and age than we used to, and, and
Dan Purcell: and
Matt Salis: addiction is a less taboo topic,
Dan Purcell: taboo
Matt Salis: but where the conversation always ended was at the bedroom door.
I, it’s really hard to get people to talk about their sex life and how it’s been impacted by addiction. And so that’s why I went back to school and got the master’s in sexual health ’cause
Dan Purcell: sexual
Matt Salis: needed more help exploring.
Dan Purcell: exploring
Matt Salis: And, and from that has come the sex sequence, which actually has surprised me,
in, its almost in its simplicity.
But also in the degree to which people don’t follow these three steps. So basically,
Dan Purcell: basically,
Matt Salis: kind of guy, Dan, that I can be ready to go sexually at any moment. I don’t, I don’t need the sex sequence, or I don’t think I do physically. I definitely don’t. Arousal wise, I definitely don’t. But for my wife, it’s very different.
She needs these three steps. The first step in the sex sequence is emotional safety.
Dan Purcell: safety,
Matt Salis: [00:16:00] safety is going back to me, stomping around about. A football game or a political thing. I don’t like getting that out of the household. You know, I can still discipline my children, but I need to do it with my voice lowered and not do it the way I was taught
Dan Purcell: was
Matt Salis: my father and my grandfather.
I’ve gotta end that kind of generational passing down of discipline techniques. I have to be, you know, when, when my wife wants to bring something to me, we always, on our podcast, we talk all the time about the orthodontics bills because we have four kids and they’ve all had orthodontics.
Dan Purcell: orthodontic
Uhhuh.
Matt Salis: when they first find out they’re gonna have braces, that’s another, you know, five grand.
And so that would be the kind of situation where I’d be working away in my office, typing away on the computer, and Sherry would walk in and say, well, we got back from the orthodontist. It’s another five grand. What, what? You know, like I’m, I’m losing my mind, right? I’m not mad at my wife. I’m not mad at my children for their crooked teeth.
I’m just mad at the situation. But when I express that, I just make everything uncomfortable. So, emotional safety, a great tangible [00:17:00] example of emotional safety is my wife can come and tell me somebody needs $5,000 worth of orthodontics and I remain level and calm. And we all know it’s not my wife’s fault.
And I, I don’t treat her as though it’s her fault. I treat her as though, you know, don’t, don’t make the messenger. Pay for the message. Right?
Dan Purcell: Yes, Uhhuh.
Matt Salis: so that’s the emotional safety piece. Emotional intimacy is the next part of the sex sequence. That’s taking it to the next level. That’s not just me being a calm and a listener who doesn’t activate my wife’s nervous system.
That’s me initiating. That’s me saying, Hey, you
Dan Purcell: Hey, you
Matt Salis: you were talking about this conversation you were gonna have to have at work, and I know there was some conflict involved and you were worried about it. Tell me how that went.
Dan Purcell: Tell me how that went.
Matt Salis: Or you know, gosh, our, one of our kids stayed out late, passed their curfew, and when they came in, I know we were, it was late.
It was, we were both tired, we were upset in the moment.
Dan Purcell: at the moment.
Matt Salis: How are you dealing with that the next morning? Like, [00:18:00] where are your emotions? Are you still upset?
Dan Purcell: you still
Matt Salis: So emotional intimacy. Exploration, it’s proactive. Whereas emotional safety is more just setting the stage and making thing, making sure things are okay, and that sets the stage.
If we have an emotionally safe environment and I am instigating emotional intimacy,
Dan Purcell: intimacy
Matt Salis: sets the stage for sexual intimacy that’s
Dan Purcell: intimacy that’s
Matt Salis: beneficial,
Dan Purcell: beneficial.
Matt Salis: mutually orgasmic. Um, everybody feels good and it, the, the, the physical contact.
Dan Purcell: Physical
Matt Salis: Feels welcomed instead of, like I said before, obligatory.
Dan Purcell: Yeah. Oh, I like that. All right, got it. So, uh, step one, it’s establishing safety, which I like how you described. That’s my being able to self-regulate, self-soothe, better, like a better handle on your. Natural instincts to just be so reactive
Matt Salis: Yeah.
Dan Purcell: the time. And then step two, at [00:19:00] actually engaging at an emotional level. This is investing in your spouse. This is like caring, like genuine, caring concern.
Matt Salis: And
Dan Purcell: there,
Matt Salis: is where guys have guys really struggle with that second step. Most guys can figure out the emotional safety piece, but the emotional intimacy because they’ll, I’ll hear guys say to me, well, I listen when she talks. Like, isn’t that enough? Like. I don’t wanna listen, but I do. You know, I put my computer away and I turn and I face her and I make eye contact.
God, what more do you want from me? And I’m here to say we live in a different time than we used to. And engaging proactively is a huge, a huge step for keeping the sparkle alive and keeping the intimacy strong in a relationship. It.
Dan Purcell: and is this what you call, um, emotional masculinity? Then this, the skill.
Matt Salis: It, you know, it, it ties into that being able to navigate the sex sequence, um, ties into emotional masculinity. Would you like me to talk a little bit about emotional masculinity? Yeah.
Dan Purcell: Yeah. Yeah. I wanna learn more about that. [00:20:00] Tell me more about that
Matt Salis: Great. So, I, I think, Dan, that we live in a really exciting time and I think we are being distracted. We’re having trouble seeing the forest through the trees.
What I mean by that is all the attention as it relates to. The major
Dan Purcell: Major,
Matt Salis: taken place during our lifetime is on technology. It’s on,
Dan Purcell: on
Matt Salis: uh, social media and the internet and ai.
Dan Purcell: ai.
Matt Salis: to say I think the progress made by women during the 50 years I’ve been on this planet
Dan Purcell: on
Matt Salis: is even more exciting, more relevant, and especially in the context of an intimate relationship, something we need to pay more attention to.
What I’m talking about there, you know, women have gained educational superiority, financial independence, sexual autonomy,
Dan Purcell: autonomy. Mm-hmm.
Matt Salis: intellectual equality,
Dan Purcell: Equality. And
Matt Salis: have to adapt.
Dan Purcell: have to,
Matt Salis: And we have yet to do that adequately, in my opinion. I don’t think it’s fair that we ask men to, um, get rid of [00:21:00] or ignore. A million years or a thousand years or whatever of masculine instincts.
I think the masculine instincts are ingrained and they’re still there, but we can, what we can ask men to do as it relates to adapting to the changes in women is to redirect the masculinity. We’re no longer called upon to guard the entrance to the cave and make sure a bear doesn’t need our family.
That’s not part of masculinity anymore. So we can still lead and provide and protect. We just need to do that
Dan Purcell: in
Matt Salis: in an emotional context. That’s where emotional masculinity comes in. So
Dan Purcell: in.
Matt Salis: lead, provide and protect. When
Dan Purcell: and protect,
Matt Salis: we’re providing that emotional safety that I talked about, that kind of baseline, making sure that the.
Dan Purcell: Sure.
Matt Salis: flow and the feel of the household and in our intimate relationship that it’s calm and nervous system is regulated. When we talk about providing or that’s providing emotional safety. When we talk about protecting
Dan Purcell: protecting,
Matt Salis: to protect our families
Dan Purcell: our
Matt Salis: from critique, criticism [00:22:00] and comparison. If you think about it,
Dan Purcell: you think
Matt Salis: when we go out in the big, bad world, we’re constantly exposed to what other people are doing, what other people think of us.
Dan Purcell: of
Matt Salis: I know as a child growing up,
Dan Purcell: growing up.
Matt Salis: you know, I’d go to school and I’m trying to compete on the soccer field and I’m trying to compete in the classroom and I’m trying to compete for girls. And, uh, I’m comparing myself to my fellow students and then I come back to the house and back when I was a kid, all of that ended.
Being at home was a safe place. Because, I didn’t have access to all of that anymore. Now with social media, these kids never get a break. They are constantly in comparison and critique mode. And so I think the way we parent has to change, it’s really important that we not be. Um, part of that critique and comparison, uh, and criticize mode.
I don’t know about you, Dan, but I was raised in a family and my sister and I, my sister was kind of princess aside, I like to say, and I [00:23:00] was teased. That was like my dad’s love language for me was to tease me. So anytime I did something that was joke worthy, it was coming my way. but I, I think I’ve had to learn how to parent differently.
I have one girl and three boys, and my natural instinct was to princessy my daughter and tease my boys, and I had to get away from that because they’re under such a constant pressure of comparison and critique. And so, oh boy, it’s hard, Dan. They’ll do something goofy and I’ll, I’ll like lean, like I wanna, I want to get the dig in there like it’s so, it’s right there, you know, it’s low hanging fruit.
But, and, and this re this has a huge impact on my intimate relationship as well, because when my wife sees me protecting my kids, limiting screen time, having family dinner around the kitchen table every night where we’re having conversation, no phones allowed. I never thought until I
Dan Purcell: until
Matt Salis: exploring my curiosity,
Dan Purcell: curiosity
Matt Salis: was actually an intimate moment for my wife to see me parenting that way as [00:24:00] opposed to.
Teasing my boys and everyone’s on screens all the time. So that’s the protect aspect of emotional masculinity lead. We can still follow that,
Dan Purcell: follow
Matt Salis: instinct to lead, but we need to lead those emotionally intimate conversations I talked about a little while ago. We need to get out of our comfort zone and, talk about things that are outside of the two emotions that we naturally feel of joy and anger, right?
Um.
Dan Purcell: and the third horny.
Matt Salis: Yeah, that’s right. We gotta expand beyond that.
Dan Purcell: good. So the stigma culturally is men. Aren’t the emotional ones. If you’re show emotion, you’re weak, that’s not what we’re really talking about here. Show more emotion per se. It’s like lean into your masculine instincts of leading, protecting, providing, and, but now you’re leading, protecting, providing. At an emotional level, also, not just purely a [00:25:00] physical level, and that that kind of turns the tables a bit. Now there you can lean into the strengths, like it takes strength sometimes to. really connect with your kids on an emotional level or connect with your wife at an emotional level. So back, back to the scenario of like the husband complaining to you.
I put my phone down, I close the laptop, I face them, and I’ll listen. What more can you expect? What’s your answer to that? Then?
Matt Salis: we’ve gotta grow some emotional grit. That’s another aspect of emotional masculinity. we need to be more resilient. We’re, you know, we all grew up, you know, you playing football with your buddies and you get knocked down and you, you get up and you’ll brush the dirt off. And yet, keep going.
We, we know how to be gritty as men.
Dan Purcell: Yes.
Matt Salis: We don’t often explore that in an emotional context, and we just, we just have to, if I show up for my wife in a way, like I described earlier where I’m, I’m really riled up about [00:26:00] something and I’m letting that fly and she leaves the room, I can’t go pout behind her.
You know, why didn’t you listen to the rest of my rant? Like, if that’s not a comfortable place for her, I need to be the, the gritty resilient one from an emotional context. Understand, I have to show up a certain way in order to get the reception that I want. It’s on me. I mean, my wife is available for me emotionally.
She’s available for me physically in all these ways, to be a co-parent, to be, you know, to manage the house together. But I have to be resilient in the way I show up emotionally in order for her to wanna participate in that way.
Dan Purcell: That’s really good. And this leads to building a better sexual relationship because you’re just setting that foundation, right? We have the safety now there’s investment emotionally, right, with the emotional intimacy and that, that just makes the physical just that much more, uh, sweeter, more meaningful. In that sexual experience too.
Matt Salis: It does, and it’s sweeter for both of us. We get there in different [00:27:00] ways. I heard a great joke. Uh, just a, like an online reel the other day. I, I would love to give attribution, but I don’t, I’d never seen the comedian before, but she’s in a, in a club in a comedy club, and she looks at the couple in the front row.
She says, what is your biggest fear on a first date? And the man says, well, I don’t know. I guess I’m afraid I’m gonna spill some of my food on me. And I’m thinking to myself as a man as well, when she’s asking the question, I’m thinking, I guess my biggest fear on a first date would be. That I would like accidentally pee on myself when I went to the bathroom or something, you know, not, so not anything that happens regularly, but that would be my biggest fear.
And then she looks at the woman sitting at the table in the front row and she says, what’s your biggest fear on a first date? And the woman says that I’ll be raped and murdered. And you know, of course that’s the answer she’s looking for, Like, guys, you, we have to understand the degree to which we are, engaging in any relationship first date or 10 years down the road.
We’re engaging differently. And so, the [00:28:00] way that the sex sequence and being emotionally masculine changes my intimate relationship is I provide for my wife things that I don’t necessarily need. I don’t need emotional safety. To have sexy time, and I don’t need emotional intimacy to have sexy time.
But if I provide those, then my wife shows up in a way where she feels free, she feels comfortable, she’s in uninhibited, and the sex is a thousand times better. And so I get the physical contact that I’m really, uh, wanting and needing. But I also, there’s the emotional piece for me because. I can tell by the way my wife is touching my arm, how into it she is.
Dan Purcell: into,
Matt Salis: And if I give her the thing she needs, then she’s gonna touch my arm in the way that I’m like, ah,
Dan Purcell: way that I’m
Matt Salis: I’m a stud. She loves being in here with me. This is great. She’s, she’s loving it as much as I am, and then my self-esteem goes up. Um, and the, there’s kinda like an afterglow from it, but all those pieces have to be there.
It’s not just about like swinging from the chandelier.
Dan Purcell: Chandelier,
Matt Salis: [00:29:00] about her feeling comfortable enough to swing from the chandelier. And not forcing it. And that is huge. And that’s been something that has taken me years to understand. That’s the message that I try to get across to other guys who, who are like me and are, , spontaneously aroused.
And they don’t need any of the foreplay. Yeah, you do. Whether you think you need it or not, it’s gonna pay off big time in the end.
Dan Purcell: That’s a great perspective. And what is something on a regular basis, a habit that you’ve seen, you know, couples that thrive, what is something they do, to kind of keep that spark alive?
Matt Salis: Well, that’s a great question.
Dan Purcell: a great
Matt Salis: I had to have a shift in mindset. I
Dan Purcell: in
Matt Salis: it’s really easy to say, gosh, I’ve been married coming up on 30 years now. It is really easy to let that get boring and routine and to start to take each other for granted.
Dan Purcell: for
Matt Salis: But the solution for me to avoiding that, it ties back into when I told you, Dan.
That I realized my wife didn’t like me anymore. I, I try to come [00:30:00] at every interaction with my wife, with the acronym a b, d always be dating. ,
Dan Purcell: Love it. Okay,
Matt Salis: it’s a takeoff from an Alec Baldwin movie and then an Alec Baldwin, uh, SNL skit where it was, he was a, he was an Elf in Santa’s workshop and it was a b, c Always be cobbling.
So it’s a takeoff from that, but always be dating. I think about every interaction that I have with my wife as though it’s a second date. You know, I, I want to be interesting and engaged. I want her to, enjoy my presence and I wanna bring something to the conversation, to the relationship. Listen there, one of the things that I learned in my, graduate studies.
When after a woman has children, things change hormonally. There are some things that change in the brain as well,
Dan Purcell: as well,
Matt Salis: her prioritization goes toward nurturing those children. And it’s really easy for me to get man hurt and get sad because I’m no longer top priority. And for a long time I did. But then I realized this is [00:31:00] a beautiful thing that my wife prioritizes my children.
And I prioritize kind of her and the whole family in a, in kind of a protection masculine mode. This is how the species has survived. Why am I fighting this? Like, let her prioritize my children. But what that means is
I can’t stomp around the house and complain about things and then expect her to feel close to me.
I have to be in, always be dating mode to a greater extent than she does. Look, every time I look at her, I wanna touch her and I wanna be with her and I wanna, you know, whether it’s sexual or otherwise,
Dan Purcell: or.
Matt Salis: there’s just that spark for me. She doesn’t feel that she’s worried about the kids all the time, and so I have to create that spark.
I have to be showing up in a way that
Dan Purcell: way
Matt Salis: shows how much I appreciate her
Dan Purcell: I
Matt Salis: prioritization, the way it falls toward the kids, and just
Dan Purcell: and
Matt Salis: the way I appreciate the fact that she continues to put up with me after all these years.
Dan Purcell: That’s good. I love it. So I think I use this so much term. It’s foreplay all day, but it’s this like constant. [00:32:00] Pursuit. You’re in pursuit of her, you’re in pursuit of her goodness, her richness. And it’s not taking her for granted, but you know, coming at it with fresh eyes every day.
I like that mentality. It’s, it’s, it’s, fresh every day.
It’s the
Matt Salis: let me re
Dan Purcell: I like that.
Matt Salis: let me react to foreplay all day, because when I talk with people about the necessity to maintain consistent emotional safety.
Dan Purcell: safety.
Matt Salis: a hundred percent of the time. If you think about it, Dan, if you do the math, 1% of our day is 14 minutes.
Dan Purcell: 14
Matt Salis: if I say I’m 99% emotionally safe, that means you went on a tirade for 14 minutes.
That’s not okay. That’s not going to create the kind of connection in the relationship that we’re looking for. So yes, foreplay all day. you know, be constantly being in, always be dating mode. It sounds arduous. It’s, I’m sure guys are gonna hear this and roll their eyes and be like, oh my God, this guy,
Dan Purcell: my
Matt Salis: what Disney movie does he think he’s living in?
It’s not that [00:33:00] hard. It’s just a pattern. It’s, it’s like any other pattern. Once we. get it rolling, right, and, and we show up that way consistently. It’s not hard to close the laptop and turn and face my wife and listen to her and, you know, and compliment her on something she did or something she said, or a way she parented or whatever.
It’s, it’s not as hard as it sounds. It, it just takes practice and it takes dedication.
Dan Purcell: That’s really good. Wow. This has been a great conversation. Matt. Anything else you wanna share with us to help couples, especially men listening to , harness their, , masculinity to create better? Emotional connections, better friendships, better sexual relationships as a whole, or if you’re the wife listening to this, what would you hope they would listen and take away from to help support their husbands better in helping them have more of this emotional masculinity in their, in their role?
Matt Salis: Yeah, that’s a great [00:34:00] question. You know, men are typically fairly competitive. Um, I’m, I’m a high school and college soccer coach, and I coach both men and women. And the major difference is everything I do with the men has to be a competition. Even if it’s, you know, we’re gonna go get water, who can be the first to the water jug?
Like, everything’s gotta be a competition with men. And, and so this emotional masculinity thing, this is gonna have legs. In 20 years, we’re, we’re not gonna be talking about emotional masculinity ’cause that’s gonna be how we show up in the world. I’m convinced of that. And so right now there’s an opportunity for men who embrace this to be the winners.
Whether that’s the winners in a committed partnership that you’re already in, in your marriage, or if you’re in the dating market. And you know, I, we’ve done research recently. that talks about what women are looking for in a new romantic relationship.
Dan Purcell: relationship,
Matt Salis: a lot of old thought out there that they’re looking for financially financial signaling from men.
Dan Purcell: signal.
Matt Salis: They’re not, they’re to a [00:35:00] eight, eight x degree, eight times more likely to mention kindness and emotional safety as an attribute they’re looking for than the financial side. They can earn their own money. So the men who embrace emotional masculinity in their existing partnership or in a new one, they’re gonna be the winners.
They just are. They’re gonna have better sex lives, they’re gonna have better connections and better relationships, and it’s gonna be better for their, their internal health. Like there’s so many. Ways that this is beneficial for, from the perspective of the women. Um, I really encourage women to demand 100% emotional safety in your relationship.
Your, your guy can, he can step up and meet that. But
Dan Purcell: he can handle it.
Matt Salis: every time you just kinda, you let it activate your, your nervous system. You, you go into fight or flight mode and it’s not because he is yelling at you, it’s ’cause he is yelling at some outside, you know, his boss was mean to him and he’s screaming about that at home.
Every time you allow that to happen, [00:36:00] um, it you’re, you’re just, you’re kind of perpetuating it. And so I would encourage women demand 100% emotional safety. Your guy can do that if he tries.
Dan Purcell: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Very good. so good. Okay. Let’s switch gears a bit. Let’s say you’re, listening to this, you’ve gotten a lot better at emotional safety. You’re a lot more invested emotionally, uh, and you have a great sexual relationship now, and now you’re ready to take things to the next level. I think I’m putting you on the spot a little bit here, but what would you give us as a black belt sex tip? Black belt, meaning this is like, you know, you’ve covered the basics and now you’re ready for the more advanced stuff your training and your background. What’s one tip or move or. A concept that you can teach us to make sex that much better in the marriage?
Matt Salis: I, I think the most important thing that we’ve done to take it to the next level in my relationship with my wife is we talk [00:37:00] about sex every single day, every single day or night. Talk about it. I didn’t say we have sex, but it is a given. And it’s usually when we go to bed, right? I mean, we have busy lives, we work all day.
We’ve got kids. So that’s the typical timing of it. But we get in bed and we say, you know, what are you interested in?
Dan Purcell: interested in uhhuh?
Matt Salis: It, it’s been shocking
Dan Purcell: shocking
Matt Salis: variety of answers that we both give each other. Um, it, yes, it, I I have a much higher sex drive than my wife, which I think is from my research and conversations I’ve had, I think that’s typical.
That’s not to say it has to be that way often. not the majority, but often
Dan Purcell: majority
Matt Salis: the woman has the higher sex drive, so that’s not super important. But navigating the, uh, divergence in sex drive, that’s what’s important.
Dan Purcell: that’s
Matt Salis: So we talk about it every night and.
Dan Purcell: night and
Matt Salis: You know what? What I am, I am almost always a go like, I’m ready.
Yeah, I would like to have sex. That would be great. But I’m able to [00:38:00] show up to that conversation and sometimes I can say, listen, I could tell you were wearing something hard tonight during dinner. I can tell this is not sexy time for you. And just by me saying that so that my wife doesn’t have to reject me, that is a huge benefit down the road for her.
You know, she just feels closer to me.
Dan Purcell: closer to me
Matt Salis: acknowledging that. Likewise, my wife will show up in that conversation and sometimes she’ll say,
Dan Purcell: she
Matt Salis: I’m not really interested in sex. I’m not really interested in orgasming,
Dan Purcell: in
Matt Salis: but I am interested
Dan Purcell: I
Matt Salis: in, um, doing something nice for you because I just feel really close to you.
And I, I wanna show up that way. And so we can have some form of sexual contact that, you know, it doesn’t take an hour and it’s not,
Dan Purcell: and it’s not,
Matt Salis: orgasmic for her necessarily,
Dan Purcell: necessarily,
Matt Salis: feels good about it. I feel, I don’t feel like it’s obligatory. She has said this is a gift and I wanna give you this gift. And so by getting away from the taboo,
Dan Purcell: right,
Matt Salis: getting away from the stigma and talking about [00:39:00] sex every single night, we have grown so much closer emotionally, intellectually because we’re basically what happens now, Dan, it’s fascinating.
We’ll lay down. I’ll be like, I bet this is what you want. She’ll be like, I bet this is what you want. So we’re like answering each other’s question and we’re right 95% of the time. And so anyone who thinks. You know, sex is one thing. Talking about sex, that’s a no go. I would encourage you, you want black belt in intimacy and sexual contact.
You gotta talk about it, and you gotta talk about it a lot.
Dan Purcell: That’s so good. Great. Matt, where can people go to learn more about you, your work, and what you offer?
Matt Salis: Well, we would love to invite people to check out the intoxicated podcast. Um, that, that kind of trifecta of topics that I talked about, including the emotional intimacy in committed partnerships. That’s the kinda stuff we talk about. We talk about all kinds of relationship issues, so we’d love to have ’em check us out there if they’d like to participate in our research.
We invite people to go to [00:40:00] intoxicated survey.org and take a, a quick survey. It’ll take a minute. We’ll provide resources based on the answers and we’ll con I, I’ll contact the person directly and kind of tell ’em what we think about their answers, so it’s an opportunity for people to say, Hey, this is how my relationship is showing up right now.
What do you think? Get an outside observer’s opinion.
Dan Purcell: So good. All right. I’ll include those links in the show notes.
Matt Salis: Thank you. I.
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