Have you ever felt like the more you pursue your spouse, the further away they get?
Maybe you’re asking for more sex, affection, conversation, or quality time. Or maybe you’re the one pulling away because you feel pressured, criticized, or like nothing you do will ever be enough.
In this episode, I’m joined by certified sex therapist Dr. Laurie Watson, author of Brave Love, Great Sex. Laurie shares how the pursue-withdraw cycle showed up in her own 40-year marriage—and why the usual “I’ll meet your needs if you meet mine” approach often makes intimacy feel transactional instead of connecting.
We talk about how to recognize this cycle, uncover what’s really underneath criticism and withdrawal, and express your needs with vulnerability instead of blame. Laurie also shares practical insights about women’s arousal and pleasure, the connection between emotional and sexual intimacy, and why securely attached couples often have more—and more varied—sex.
If you and your spouse keep getting caught in different versions of the same argument, this conversation will help you understand the pattern and begin responding differently.
Resources:
Laurie’s New Book: Brave Love, Great Sex
Guest: Dr. Laurie Watson
Dr. Laurie Watson is a certified Emotionally Focused Therapy and AASECT-certified sex therapist with more than 35 years of experience helping couples create stronger emotional and sexual connections. She is the director of Awakenings Counseling for Couples and Sexuality and the author of Wanting Sex Again and Brave Love, Great Sex. Laurie also hosts the Brave Love, Great Sex podcast, which has received more than 17 million downloads. (Awakenings Center)
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.
laurie: [00:00:00] s*x has to be born in something that is er0tic, not transactional. Anytime it becomes transactional, it loses the er0tic quality that makes it satisfying. If you’re just doing it for me to make me happy or in exchange for all I’ve done for you, it doesn’t satisfy that deep, mysterious need of er0tic connection.
Dan: Early in her marriage, to her surprise, my guest found herself being the pursuer in her relationship. She wanted s*x and emotional intimacy more than her husband did. She knew intellectually that her husband loved her, but the more she pursued, the further away he got. Does that sound familiar? Anyway, she doubled down in pursuing him.
But as she pursued him more, he made more excuses to, you know, back away or avoid her, like staying late at work. Then she started tracking on a calendar the days they [00:01:00] made love and spent time together and let him know that she was tracking these things. But all he heard in all that tracking was that he was failing her.
That, by the way, is a s*x therapist describing her own marriage forty years ago. And if you recognize yourself in either half of that story, being the pursuer or the one distancing yourself, this episode is for you. My guest is Dr. Laurie Watson. She’s a certified s*x therapist who has been married forty years and works with couples to break this exact pattern.
Laurie has been on my podcast twice before too, and I love her wisdom and her wit and her way of explaining things. In this interview, we talk about her new book, too, Brave Love, Great S*x, which, by the way, comes out September 15th. You’ll hear why the love language swap that so many of us try, you know, where, “Hey, I’ll give you more quality time if you give me more physical touch and s*x,” why that backfires almost every time.
Laurie then explains the way out of this pattern that a lot of couples [00:02:00] face. She gets really specific about what to say instead of blaming the other person.
She also gives some real numbers on what the woman’s body actually needs, which, by the way, is something I think every husband should perk up to and listen and know. She also talks about which couples have the most s*x, and it’s probably not the one you’d expect.
This is a really rich interview with lots of insight, especially if you have a marriage where you want to have more high-quality s*x and more frequency, and also a marriage where you’re feeling closer together emotionally also.
By the way, I’m recording this episode to release on the second Friday of September, which is part of our Sextember celebration.
This is our month-long celebration. It’s, it’s a challenge, and if you’re already part of it, congratulations. Welcome. If you’re not part of it, let me just briefly explain that Sextember is our version of making s*x and intimacy better for one month through intentional effort, through small and simple activities.
And you’ll find all those [00:03:00] details in the free Intimately Us app that I highly recommend you download if you don’t have it yet.
You should also know that registration is now open for upcoming in-person couples retreat, next April seventh through eleventh, twenty twenty-seven. This is a four-day, four-night romantic retreat, especially for couples who are in an otherwise happy marriage but wish things were better when it comes to intimacy, both emotional and s*xual intimacy.
A lot of the stuff that you hear about on this podcast, even in this own interview, we help you apply it to your marriage in your circumstances, in your dynamic. And it’s not at this, like, stuffy conference room type of a thing. The venue is gorgeous. We even bring a private chef to prepare all of your meals.
We also do outdoor excursions to explore Southern Utah’s unique beauty. And the group is small on purpose. It’s limited to about twenty couples, so nobody is ever required to speak in front of the group ever, by the way, if you don’t wanna do that. It’s, it’s [00:04:00] a really uplifting, upbeat way to talk about s*x and intimacy in your relationship, to learn more about it and walk away stronger, more intimate, and more in love than the way you came.
More details are on our website at getyourmarriageon.com. Click on events, and you’ll see that. Or you can just click on the link in the show notes too. Ready? Let’s dive into this interview
Dan: Laurie, it is such an honor to have you back on the Get Your Marriage
laurie: Hmm.
Dan: How are you?
laurie: I’m good. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it
Dan: That’s good. You’ve been on my episode 36, one of my earliest ones,
laurie: Oof
Dan: then 149 also. And, uh, not very many guests get invited back a third time. So
laurie: Oh.
Dan: this is proof that you have such good things to say, and I think the message we’re gonna talk about today is really gonna impact our listeners. And, uh, you have a new book coming out too, and,
laurie: I do
Dan: really excited about, uh, the heart of your message [00:05:00] ’cause it is completely in line with what we talk about here at Carry Marriage On too,
laurie: Great. Great. I’m so glad. know. I’m
Dan: Ask you, in your own marriage, have you ever found yourself in a pattern where one of you is doing all the pursuing, the other one’s withdrawing? And what did that look like, and, and, uh, what came of it?
laurie: So, uh, pursue-withdraw is this pattern, Dan, that we all get into, and I think the good, the good news about it is that it’s a pattern that is resolvable once we kinda see it. So pursuers kind of wanna check in and figure out what’s wrong, you know, if they’re, if they sense just even a little bit of misattunement.
And they ask questions, maybe they get upset because there’s a disconnect between them and their partner. They might explain, they might over-explain themselves. They, they eventually might criticize their partner when they don’t feel like they’re getting [00:06:00] through, and then things can … They might escalate things.
Whereas withdrawers, they kinda do the opposite, right? So, um, you know, they wanna calm things down. They feel like, “If we keep things intellectual and stay positive, uh, we’re gonna avoid all these complicated emotional interactions. And then if it gets too messy between me and my partner, I’m gonna walk away from the conversation.
I’m going to withdraw, because that’s what keeps my body safe.” And pursuers are like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Fight is what keeps me safe, so I’m gonna fight for connection.” And withdrawer is like, uh, “Flight is what my body tells me to pull away.” And absolutely my husband and I have been pursuers and withdrawers, and there’s kind of two realms, and that’s what the book talks about in Brave Love, Great Sex, that, in our emotional life and in our s*xual life, this pattern of pursue-withdraw emerges, and we get really stuck.
We get [00:07:00] tied up in knots there. And when I was a young married woman, I was very anxious to have s*x, very excited about that. And, very shortly into the marriage, I was kind of the pursuer. I pursued both s*xually and emotionally. You know, I wanted to be best friends and share everything, and I wanted to have s*x a lot.
And so, you know, I was the one who was initiating, and it was kind of odd to me because, you know, I knew my husband loved me. intellectually, I knew that, but the more I pursued, the further away he got. And then, of course, as all pursuers do, get, you know, a little anxious about that, and they push a little harder.
And so, you know, I’m pushing for more connection. I’m beginning to keep count on a calendar, “Okay, these are the days we made love. Um, these are the hours that we spent together.” Then by the time the children came, which was [00:08:00] maybe three years into the marriage, I’m, like, really starting to track, “Okay, are we getting enough family time?
Are we getting enough couple time?” You know, what’s happening, and of course my husband is feeling, like, completely suffocated, and all my pursuing Sends this message over to him that is, “I’m failing.” You know, he hears this, “I’m failing. I’m not doing it right. I’m not doing enough.” You know, so for him, as a withdrawer, his body says, “Whoa, don’t wanna touch that.”
So he pulls back even further, stays longer at work because he’s like, “If I come home, there’s just gonna be an argument.” you know, he throws himself kind of into financial kind of building as most, you know, people do when they’re just married. And, you know, at that point, I was staying at home with the children for a while, and it was like, ugh, we were in a mess.
We were in a pursue-withdraw cycle. So when I wrote this book, which is [00:09:00] now 40 years later, after being married for 40 years,
Dan: Congratulations.
laurie: Thank you. Thank you very much. you know, I not only have worked with this with so many couples, right? So many. Everybody goes through a pursue-withdraw cycle, and I’ve seen resolution, and I have so much hope that people can resolve.
And that, that’s one of the things I still do clinical work as I do intensives for couples who sometimes fly in and we’ll do 12 hours at a time to really break through this pattern. and I, I just feel like the things I’m saying in therapy, the things I’m teaching it, you know, across to therapists, this is important information.
So my co-host and I, George Fowler, decided to go ahead and write the book so that it be- you know, it would become easy for couples to see their patterns and learn how to break them
Dan: I love it.
So, the title of the book is Brave Love, Great S*x, which [00:10:00] hints that one is the emotional side of the marriage, the other is the s*xual side of the marriage,
laurie: That’s right
Dan: they kind of mirror each other, and both are really important. Well, you can’t have one without the other, really,
laurie: Right.
Dan: relationship
laurie: Exactly, Dan. I mean, emotional connection and er0tic intimacy are essential to our bond with our partner. And, you know, sometimes proportionately one person values one more than the other, but the attachment research says that both of these places of connection are equally important. There’s no actual hierarchy.
And, you know, some people, make love when they feel warm in their relationship. They f- feel desire after they feel that emotional connection, and other times people feel connected after they’ve made love. And oftentimes that’s the, that’s the struggle. Like, “Okay, I’ll give you, you know, I’ll talk to you if you’ll give me [00:11:00] s*x,” or, “I’ll give you s*x if you’ll talk to me.”
And they, and they get really tangled up there because one person says, “I, you know, I can’t, I can’t have s*x unless I feel emotionally connected at all.” We have a protagonist couple in our book, so what’s kind of fun about it is we follow, in the beginning, one couple through their process, and that’s Joey and Maria, and they have kind of a classic criss-cross cycle, which is what we’re describing here.
She is more of the emotional pursuer, really easy with words, words come quick to her. In an argument, she’s faster on her feet. He’s like, ah, deer in the headlight when it comes to arguments. His ears clog up, and he can’t even think when she’s angry. Even if she’s angry about something else, he shuts down.
You know, it’s like that, that level of emotion shuts him down. But he feels most connected s*xually, so he pursues her s*xually, and she’s like, “I don’t have s*x with strangers,” you [00:12:00] know?
Dan: Right. Got it. Got it. So this, this tangled mess is so relatable. Can you walk me through the steps? If, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, “Yeah, that’s totally me. Like, I, I want s*x ’cause I feel emotionally connected through it, and then my spouse wants emotional connection first
laurie: Right. Right
Dan: feel like, you’re in some sort of a gridlock.
laurie: Yes
Dan: walk through that as a couple?
laurie: Yeah, so that’s a crisscross pattern, and I just told you my husband and I were in a parallel pattern where I wanted s*x and emotional connection seemingly more, and he withdrew more. So there’s kind of two primary patterns. It can go– there’s a myriad of ways this can go, but the most common are either the crisscrosses we’ve just talked about, Joey and Maria, or the parallel pattern.
So in the crisscross pattern, first, um, I think the good news is, is we all know what it’s like to be frustrated, like to want something [00:13:00] and our partner seems to go away. Like the more we ask, the further away they get, and it doesn’t make any sense, and especially it doesn’t make sense in the crisscross pattern to people because they’re like, “Well, you say you wanna talk to me and be close to me, and I’m saying let’s jump in bed and have it, have it there, but you don’t want that.
I don’t understand that.” And the other person is like, “Okay, you say you wanna be close to me in bed, but I’ve told you over and over again, I need to spend time with you first and talk to you and feel connected, but you don’t wanna do that.” And so it’s, we understand intrinsically this frustration in our body.
We both understand that we can be pushers, pursuers, and we also understand, like, when we wanna back away. And so the emotional connection, Dan, our positions, w-whether we’re pursuing or withdrawing, come directly from our attachment [00:14:00] styles in childhood. And,
Dan: that in
laurie: s-sure, sure. okay, so we come out of childhood with three primary possibilities.
Dan: Categories.
laurie: yeah, categories of… And it teaches us, our childhoods teach us about how to view others and how to think about ourselves. So insecure childhoods, you know, which means we have usually general economic stability. We have a roof over our head. We have parents who love us, who are affectionate, and who also set, you know, reasonable boundaries around our…
Dan: at it generally too.
laurie: yes, consistent. And in an ideal world, we have parents who demonstrate love for each other, you know, and so we witness this loving relationship, and it gives us a model internally, and we feel safe and loved. So we grow up thinking, “You know what? The world’s a pretty okay [00:15:00] place. People are gonna treat me well, and I expect people to be dependable, and, um, and I’m okay.
I feel pretty good about myself, too. I feel confident.” And these people, securely attached people, generally marry securely attached people as well. That’s, that’s the theory. Um, you know, so
Dan: the United
laurie: s-
Dan: sorry to interrupt.
laurie: Yeah
Dan: United States, approximately, what do they say? What percentage of adults
laurie: They say 60%. They say 60% are secure
Dan: Great. Good to know
laurie: You know, so every family has some wobbles, right? Every family misses and messes up somewhere. So even when we come from securely attached families, we kinda tend a little bit one to the other in terms of if we’re going to be a little bit more of a pursuer or a withdrawer emotionally.
Dan: Especially in a stressful circumstance,
laurie: in stressful circumstances, right, our body goes into fight or [00:16:00] flight. So it’s either fight, pursue, flight, withdraw. But also in insecure childhoods, we come out of those in two different ways. So we come out either anxiously attached or avoidantly attached. So anxiously attached childhoods, you know, it- it’s basically care is a little intermittent or maybe invasive.
So it’s like the overprotective parent. It’s the, lack of clarity about when help is coming. It, you know, like all of a sudden I get this support, but then it’s followed by this criticism, and I don’t really understand how we went from my parent supporting me to my parent criticizing me.
Or, you know, my parent somehow or another gets preoccupied, and I can’t get their attention. So what I learn from that is that I need to really be vigilant about when my parent is going to be [00:17:00] available, and I kinda need to dance and perform and get their attention. And so we come out of that kind of a childhood feeling like, “Hmm, I’m not sure I’m okay,” because children, of course, are egocentric, and whatever is happening in their families, they take it to heart.
It’s about them. So they come out thinking, “I’m not sure I’m okay because my parent,” you know, “or my parents don’t seem to be there consistently.” And they also think, you know, “Everybody else out there is probably unreliable too, so I’m gonna have to really get their attention.”
When we come out of a childhood and are avoidantly attached, it’s a little different. there just usually is not reliable care. It’s more emotional neglect. So in our, story in the book, Joey comes from a family of immigrants and, you know, his father is a trucker, gone a lot.
His mom works in a restaurant, gone a lot. She’s kinda [00:18:00] depressed because she’s overwhelmed with the transition to the States. Um, she doesn’t have much energy left to come home and parent, so she comes home and watches television kind of in a darkened room, and Joey grows up without a lot of attention. So when we come from families like that, we learn, like, the best strategy to, to survive this is to be independent, to not need people.
And so Joey grows up like, “Okay, I’m gonna take care of myself.” And you can imagine insecurely attached people marrying each other, right? One person is like, “Wow, I gotta keep getting your attention in order for you to you know, give me what I need,” and the other person is like, “I need to not need you at all.
You know, this is how I survive.” So we’ve got one person pursuing, trying to get the attention, the other person saying, “I, I, you know, I don’t, I don’t wanna need you at all.”
Dan: Uh,
laurie: And [00:19:00] so our emotionally, that is a direct result of our childhood attachment styles And I mean, there are, there are also worse situations in childhood.
Those are traumatic situations, maybe growing up with an alcoholic parent or, you know, God forbid, many traumas happen in childhood. And there is a fourth style that’s disorganized, but I think in general, in our book, we kinda stay toward these three more basic styles because, you know, a traumatized childhood, , is a whole ‘nother can of worms, right?
And it’s gonna need, a lot more help and support in order to thrive i- if you get married from that. So these childhoods impact the emotional cycle, but the s*xual cycle is actually impacted by that and other things. So when we think about how we’re going to move, whether we’re gonna be pursuers or withdrawers s*xually, [00:20:00] certainly our sense of how we feel about ourselves, are we okay or not, are we attractive or not, you know, is really going to impact us.
But also there’s hormones, you know, that’s a huge influence. There’s first experiences. One of the things I really like to ask couples when they come in is, “What was your very first s*xual experience?” Because that is kind of like an imprint. and let’s say that it, uh, it was with another person, uh, not a trauma experience.
But that first experience where it was consensual, still, like, weighs very heavy on a person’s… like, how they’re going to feel hopeful or not hopeful about their continuing s*xual relationship,
Dan: Yes.
laurie: So yeah, yeah. Because I mean, you think about it, some people, you know, are anxious just to throw away their virginity.
They’re- they wanna get through that, so maybe they have s*x at a frat party or [00:21:00] something. But it’s not, it’s not tender, it’s not respectful, it’s not, feeling loved. You know, other people, you know, wait until they get married. and I grew up in a Christian system where we were taught very much to wait until we get married.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
laurie: Uh, but unfortunately, along with that was you shouldn’t read anything educational about s*x because that could len- you know, tempt your mind toward wanting to do s*x. It was a fear-based teaching, right? Which I know you are familiar with So I didn’t get good s*xual education. fortunately, I, researched on my own.
So I did come into marriage with a lot of joy and hope, but, um, not any experience. And I think that, you know, when that happens and your first early experiences are fumbling and, you know, you’ve been waiting for this your whole life and you’re like, “Oh, what’s, what’s the big deal here?” [00:22:00] You know? Like, “I don’t even know what’s going on here.”
Um, you know, it can be really disappointing for young couples when they have that experience, especially, I think, in faith-based teachings. Um, and I see… You know, I live in the South, so I see a lot of young Christian couples who have gone through this, and they’re like, “I,” you know, “I waited for this?” Like, “What’s the big deal?”
And so sometimes the woman doesn’t know how to have an org@sm. Maybe she’s never explored her own body. You know, so those first experiences, they could be painful, they could be kind of nothing, and that too impacts c-
Dan: or whatever. Yeah.
laurie: A big letdown, right? Um, you know, so, so that, those early experiences can impact us, as well as, like, our family teaching, whether it’s explicit or implicit.
Like, you know, if, if your family never talked about s*x, ever, that’s an implicit message about s*x. You know? [00:23:00] You, y-
Dan: Right
laurie: you don’t talk about it. It’s silence. And I’m sure, Dan, you teach about this all the time, right? That silence over s*x is an important, powerful message that says, “This is not something we talk about.”
And then you can imagine as a young couple, or even middle-aged couples who have never talked about it, right? They, they have no idea kind of, like, language that works for them to describe their body, to describe their sensations, to communicate to their partner how they like to be touched, to hear all that.
I mean, that can be, like, really awkward. They’ve never done it. And some people, you know, they… This is another thing I, I do in the book is we, we talk about different scenarios. So we do talk about a trauma scenario where a, a girl is, date r@ped, essentially, in college. We talk about, a couple who has had, one has had an affair.
We talk about aging, [00:24:00] and there’s lots of different impacts on the s*xual relationship. So all to say, emotionally, straight out of childhood. S*xually, there’s a part of it, the way we interact, pursue or withdraw, that is out of childhood, and then there are all these other influences.
Dan: As you were speaking, I– reflecting on my own experience here
laurie: Oh, good
Dan: Holy cow, I, I feel so fortunate. I-I’m just filled with gratitude right now. I came from a family that was– I knew my parents loved each other,
laurie: うん。
Dan: I, I– it felt like a stable home.
laurie: Hmm. Lovely.
Dan: wife did too.
laurie: Nice. You were part of that secure attachment in childhood, yeah
Dan: so. Yeah, as you’re talking about… And then my first s*xual experience was with my wife,
laurie: Mm-hmm
Dan: and it was a very Like,
laurie: Hmm.
Dan: we both had a great experience with that.[00:25:00]
laurie: Lovely.
Dan: so…
laurie: think, what do you think you guys did that made it so positive in preparation?
Dan: Well, with the wisdom I have now, there’s even more preparation I could have done.
laurie: Mm-hmm
Dan: But I think we were both genuinely looking forward to it.
laurie: Mm-hmm.
Dan: we talked a- about kind of our expectations.
laurie: Hmm. Nice
Dan: also kept our expectations low.
laurie: Mm-hmm.
Dan: And, we had been friends for such a long time. We were just very comfortable with each other.
laurie: Mm, that’s lovely
Dan: when it came time for our first experience, we’re undressing each other, we took our time, and we laughed, and we giggled, and like, “Oh, this is fun. I didn’t know my body does this. I didn’t know your body does…” Like, it was like we’re like kids playing.
laurie: Mm-hmm
Dan: kind of the feeling. It wasn’t filled with a lot of like– [00:26:00] There’s anxiousness ’cause it’s nervous ’cause this is a first
laurie: Yeah. Yeah
Dan: the kind of anxiousness that, um, uh, squashed a desire to be with someone.
laurie: Nice. It re- it really does. Had anybody talked to you about, like, how a woman’s body functions s*xually by that point? Or had you read about that? No. Mm. Mm-hmm.
Dan: Which we quickly figured out together after. To, to an extent. I it was an emotionally positive experience. and I took it at face value that it was a pleasurable experience for my wife too. And I,
laurie: Mm-hmm.
Dan: genuinely believe it was very fulfilling for her. But it wasn’t until 13 years in our marriage when we actually learned how– for her to learn how to org@sm consistently, and
laurie: Yeah.
Dan: major breakthrough in our marriage.
laurie: Yeah. Yeah, and that
Dan: oh, and,
laurie: And I am,
Dan: what started Get Your Marriage On,
laurie: oh, really?
Dan: y- [00:27:00] whoa,
laurie: need, we need to spread the word
Dan: There’s a whole ‘nother dimension here no one ever told us. Like, it wasn’t a bad thing, but we had no idea it could be, like, so much better. Like,
laurie: Right
Dan: all our lives?
laurie: Right. Exactly. Exactly. And that’s a long time to be having s*x without that physiological reward, right? She hung in there
Dan: physiological too, but as you say, you know how the s*xual dimension affects the emotional dimension and vice versa.
laurie: Mm-hmm
Dan: Once we had this major s*xual breakthrough, also impacted our emotional connection as a couple.
laurie: Of course, of course
Dan: it just opened us a whole ‘nother layer of connection, a bond that
laurie: Mm-hmm
Dan: could exist in a, in our relationship. I was busy career building. She was busy our children, and, even though we’d go on a date once in a while, we were good friends, we could talk about a lot of things, we were both still a [00:28:00] little anxious about s*x because we didn’t know what we didn’t know. And the, the breakthrough for us came through, as you’re saying it, it’s like, “Oh, wait. There’s so much more to this.”
laurie: Mm.
Dan: And, uh, um, so it enhanced our s*xual relationship. It also increased and improved our emotional relationship in ways we didn’t expect. We thought
laurie: Yeah. Yeah, and this is, I think what you’re talking about there is that one area, the emotional connection and the s*xual connection, has a gravitational pull on the other, right? As s*x becomes deeper, more pleasurable, there’s a developing closeness and er0ticism that deeply impacts the emotional connection and vice versa.
And I love that you did something proactively to help, you know, couples that are in your situation without a good education. And I would say too, uh, my experience, uh, in marriage with this pursue-withdraw [00:29:00] cycle, with the, the stuck place s*xually led me to become a s*x therapist. And I, I wanna say to your audience, since I am a certified s*x therapist, uh, just a little bit about a, you know, a female anatomy and, you know, their physiological cycle, just so…
And you’ve probably talked about this 1,000 times on your podcast, but let me say it again, right? Women climax through cl1toral stimulation primarily. And I think every movie, every thought is that somehow or another women climax through s*xual intercourse. And there’s only about 15% of women who do climax through s*xual intercourse, like hands off without stimulation otherwise that can do that, but most women need simultaneous stimulation during intercourse, or they climax first with cl1toral stimulation or oral s*x.
Um, and it takes them about a total of 45 minutes. So women have brains that [00:30:00] are very web-like. They’re thinking about many, many things at the same time. So they need about 20 minutes of kind of coming into the s*xual moment with slow dancing, undressing, um, cuddling, lying naked, kind of entering that moment s*xually, leaving their day, putting aside their to-do list, and then they need about 20 minutes of direct contiguous cl1toral stimulation to reach org@sm.
And vibrators, I, I don’t know if you talk about vibrators, but they c- okay, they can shorten that, either one of those cycles. They can help with that, you know, getting ready part, and they can help shorten the 20 minutes that it takes to have an org@sm. But if you’re not using a vibrator, it takes about 45 minutes for a woman to have an org@sm with lots and lots of stimulation.
And I think that young couples don’t know that, and my podcast co-host, George, admits that at 50 years old, he didn’t know that. You know [00:31:00] so
Dan: Yep
laurie: that was partly what we also talk about on our podcast, Brave Love, Great S*x, which is same name of the book. Um, we talk a lot about this dilemma of pursue-withdraw, how to resolve it.
We do role plays, and we also talk about explicit s*xual information there as well.
Dan: That’s good. Laurie, I wanna ask one more question on this theme. I think people understand or realize, “Wait, my spouse…” We’re talking about the, uh, the crossover pattern here.
laurie: Yes
Dan: emotional connection, I want s*xual connection.” They, then they do, like, the love language quiz, quiz. “Surprise, I’m physical touch,” as, as the thing says,
laurie: Mm-hmm
Dan: “Oh, you are, um, time. Therefore, let’s, let’s swap.
laurie: Mm-hmm.
Dan: more quality time in exchange for more physical touch, please.” And it becomes transactional,
laurie: Yeah.
Dan: or so they
laurie: Yeah.
Dan: It’s like, “I
laurie: Yeah
Dan: To get more s*x, I will put more…” [00:32:00] It’s like a vending machine. “I will put more of this, like I’ll put more, uh,
laurie: Into your bank, your emotional bank.
Dan: and therefore
laurie: I can take withdrawals out. Right, exactly.
Dan: backfires. This,
laurie: and does it, it’s, isn’t it frustrating that it doesn’t work that way, right? Yeah, that
Dan: they don’t know any other way. What’s a better way to think about this? Maybe
laurie: Yeah
Dan: is wrong and they need to look at it come from a completely different angle
laurie: Well, I think brave love is speaking from the heart. It’s being vulnerable when we would prefer to be defensive. So, you know, m- rather than telling our partner, you know, “You don’t listen to us,” we say, “Hey, lookit, when I can’t get through to you, I get worried that I don’t matter to you.” And maybe rather than walking away, we say, you know, “Even though you can’t see it, my heart is really beating fast.
I’m afraid I’m failing you, and that I always make you unhappy.” That kind of brave showing of our underbelly [00:33:00] creates this vulnerability, and we create that same vulnerability s*xually when we talk about what we’re feeling inside. So it’s like, “Okay, you never want s*x,” that’s a blaming kind of statement.
That’s a pursuing statement, right? It’s a complaint. Rather than the vulnerable, like, “Lookit, when, when you turn me down, I just want you to know I get afraid that I’m not attractive to you.” That’s vulnerability. Or maybe it’s like, rather than saying, “You know, when you get frustrated with me s*xually, what I hear inside is that I’m failing you, and that I’m not s*xy enough for you.
I’m not a s*xual enough creature for you, and I get worried that you’re gonna leave me.” That- those are brave conversations that we have that untangle this pursue-withdrawal cycle. And so it’s more than just transactional. You know, I just, “I’ll give you all the things you want,” right? “I took out the garbage.
I watched the children. Uh, I took you on a date night. Why don’t you wanna [00:34:00] have s*x?” You know?
Dan: Yeah,
laurie: Be- because, because s*x has to be born in something that is er0tic, not transactional. Anytime it becomes transactional, it loses the er0tic quality that makes it satisfying. It’s like, okay, if you’re just do- doing it for me to make me happy or in exchange for all I’ve done for you, it doesn’t satisfy that deep, mysterious need of er0tic connection.
So we have to speak from the heart. we also have to learn ourselves, Dan, like when we start to get escalated, our body is gonna tell us something. Like for me, when I feel uptight about something, I always feel it in my stomach. Like, that’s my first signal. Uh-oh, I’m in fight or flight. And once I learn that signal from my body, I also kinda have to know, what is it that I’m telling myself about my partner’s intention?
Because we all tell ourselves something about our [00:35:00] partner’s intention. We, we make up a story, which is usually untrue.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
laurie: a very modifiable piece, right? Uh, usually what I tell myself is, “My partner doesn’t care about me. My partner is selfish. My partner is asexual. My partner is, uh, boring.”
You know, like there’s all these things that we make up in our head versus saying maybe, um, ” My partner’s probably preoccupied with work right now. They’re just not available to me. Maybe we can connect a little later.” Those, if we said those things to ourselves, our bodies would calm down. But when we’re triggered, we start to say these other things.
We make meaning out of the situation, and we amplify it, right? So we need to learn how to do it, and then we do something with those experiences inside. We protest or we withdraw, and it feels like I … You know, if I can’t get through to you, of course I’m gonna criticize you, and I’m gonna come after you.
What else could I do? [00:36:00] And or if you’re a withdrawer, it’s like, “Look at y- you know, when you get hot, you get unreasonable. I have to get away from you.” It feels so essential, like these are truths that, you know, I have to react this way. I have to do this, versus what it becomes a truth as we learn this new pattern in Brave Love, Great Sex is to be vulnerable, to start acknowledging our own pattern, our own contribution to the cycle, and then doing something different, which is Telling our partner what is really going on inside without blaming them for it.
Um, and once we do that, we can– things do deescalate. So there’s kinda two stages in healing. One is this deescalation, and then the second one is the deepening, right? The restructuring of the way we relate to each other, which is, “I’m gonna ask you for what I need.” And when our partner empathically listens to us [00:37:00] and gives us what I need, maybe it’s like, “I just need you to tell me that you really are attracted to me, you know, ’cause I get so anxious about that.”
And when they say, “Oh, look at, I am so attracted to you. When I don’t wanna have s*x, it’s about my preoccupation or the fact that I don’t have time, and I’m worried about my body getting aroused,” or all these other things that become heart-to-heart conversations, that restructures the way we’re connecting and basically changes everything.
And then sexually, the good news is we can use that freed-up energy to kind of er0tically explore with each other. I mean, I, I am delighted when I hear you and your wife y- you know, that on your honeymoon night, you undressed each other, you giggled, you laughed. It was playful, right? I mean, you gave yourselves…
You did probably a lot of things. You gave yourselves permission to not be [00:38:00] perfect. You gave yourselves permission to just enjoy whatever the moment came. That, that was really, really smart. And as we get out of this tension, this cycle of, you know, “You always want s*x. You only want my body,” um, or, “You never want s*x,” you know, “You never attend to my needs s*xually.
You, you know, maybe you’re not… Maybe you’re frigid,” that kind of a cycle. Once we start speaking from the heart, there’s actually more energy. There’s more freedom. There’s more security. And so in secure er0ticism, it is playful. And what you talked about, two secure people coming from secure childhoods, it was playful, and that was a beautiful thing.
You needed a little more education about a woman’s body, but it was beautiful what you did have, right? And d- believe it or not, securely attached couples, it kinda sounds boring, like, oh, you know, maybe that’s not, maybe that’s not so s*xy. [00:39:00] Actually, securely attached couples have the most s*x, Dan, and they have the most variety of s*xual experiences, and they kinda trust that the other one isn’t going to betray them, so they have this freedom To be together in, in a beautiful way and to explore and to talk.
Like, I can trust that my partner isn’t gonna say, “You wanna do what?” Like, you, l- like, w- that seems like you’re a freak, you know? or, you know, we don’t feel pressured when our partner says, “Hey, these are fantasies that I have s*xually.” We don’t go, ” Oh, no, now I’m gonna have to do these things that make me uncomfortable,” and all of that, and get uptight.
We can just listen. We can say, “Okay, this is, this is how your brain works. That’s so curious. That’s very interesting.” But together we can decide on what brings mutual pleasure
Dan: Oh, love that. That’s great. Laura, what a great conversation we’ve had. In fact, while you’re talking, it [00:40:00] reminds me of a lesson I learned from my young teenage son. He’s got a cellphone now. He’s learning technology, and we’re trying to help him navigate this. So one of the limits we place is a time limit on how
laurie: Ühüm.
Dan: use his phone.
laurie: Ühüm.
Dan: Often he comes to us a huff. “You never give me enough time on my phone.”
laurie: Mm-hmm
Dan: And when he comes with that energy, our instant natural inclination as parents is fight right back.
laurie: Right. Right. Exactly
Dan: if he came to us with a different energy, “Dad, can I please have more time on my phone so that I can a friend or
laurie: Mm-hmm
Dan: text this to someone so I can arrange a ride?”
Or something like that. Do you see how that’s a very different… It’s, it’s the same complaint, “I need more time,”
laurie: Right
Dan: is, it’s this attacking energy. “You never give me enough,”
laurie: Right. Right.
Dan: I please have that?”
laurie: Right, and we wanna, we wanna defend our [00:41:00] position, right? I mean, it, it makes sense. And it can go the other way, too, right? It can… You can say, “Oh, I know you’re so frustrated that there’s this time limit. That’s really hard. And by the way, Dan, can you put a time limit on me on my phone?” Because I find it, I’ve– I find it very addictive, you know, reels and, like, just having the phone nearby is addictive.
So I, I think it… First of all, I think you’re very wise parents to do that. But also, you can, you can use this vulnerability, like, “I know. It must be so frustrating for you that you, you know, have this time limit when maybe all your friends don’t, and it just feels like, gosh, we’re so restrictive, right?” Like, you can mirror back his complaint.
Yeah.
Dan: be seen. Yes.
laurie: Yep, help him be seen so that at least he doesn’t feel so frustrated, like, you know, it ma- it makes sense. You know? Phones are addictive. Phones are important in our [00:42:00] worlds, and so it makes a lot of sense that he feels that way. And telling him that, at least, without bending your rule, because you, you are the parents, you do need to set good boundaries, um, you know, at least there can be relationally between the two of you understanding, which I’m sure you know, and, uh, you were probably gonna get to, and I butted in there and said it.
But you, you feel the energy difference, like, if he came softly with more vulnerability, with more reason about what he needs, your hearts would not be defensive and would be more willing to give him something, right?
Dan: Yeah. I think the same applies to intimate communication in a marriage. Learn that
laurie: Exactly
Dan: What’s the energy you’re bringing there?
laurie: Exactly. Exactly.
Dan: And
laurie: It
Dan: were talking about how this process of just being vulnerable with your spouse and open, like, this is what– It’s like [00:43:00] being really honest, right? “This is my experience right now with you.” witnessed that in a, in this, in a couple I was coaching just yesterday that got to that point, and it was, like, electric in the room. You can just feel the shift
laurie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dan: good at debating each other and,
laurie: Mm-hmm
Dan: you don’t have this right,” “No, that’s not correct,” “Well, you said this three years ago,” “Well, that wasn’t quite fair.
It was more like this.” And they’re really good at arguing at the surface level,
laurie: Ühüm.
Dan: get anywhere.
laurie: Ühüm
Dan: wasn’t until they, like, really deescalated, as you said, step one,
laurie: Mm-hmm
Dan: two, just get really honest about their experiences with each other. when you can just feel the shift in the room, and it’s like, “This feels so much better.
This feels so different
laurie: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Beautiful. Beautiful work you’re doing there
Dan: All right. Brave Love, Great S*x, the book comes out September 15th
laurie: Yes.
Dan: bookstore.
laurie: Exactly
Dan: Anything else you wanna say about that?
laurie: I [00:44:00] just invite you to pre-order for us. That really helps us, uh, hit that big boom on the release date. It’s everywhere. It’s on Penguin, it’s on Amazon. Penguin is our publisher, and we’re so proud that they have chosen to publish this book, and you can certainly find it anywhere, like Dan said, that books are sold.
And please join us as well on our podcast, Brave Love, Great Sex. Same name
Dan: Great. Thank you
laurie: Okay. Thank you so much for having me, Dan. Appreciate your work and this opportunity
All right. Wasn’t that great? I really liked Laurie’s insights and just her knowledge about how s*x and intimacy works in a lot of marriages. If you found any of this helpful, you can share this podcast with your friends so that their marriage is strengthened too.
If you feel stuck and want help implementing anything we talk about on this episode, you can go to getyourmarriageon.com and seek out private coaching or [00:45:00] explore our next level program, which is more in-depth and very targeted for couples that want better intimacy in their relationship. Thank you again for listening.
Now it’s your turn to go get your marriage on
