Transcription
Right. It's funny because from doing this podcast and speaking to a lot of sort of sex therapists or couples therapists, this one of them said something to me one day, or maybe two of them said the same point. I think two or three of them said the same point, which is much of what makes sex so, you know, arousing is the spontaneity and the novelness, the newness of it, the excitement of it, all these kinds of things.
And they said to me that love is, in many respects, the opposite of that. It's the opposite of spontaneity. And love is like security and trust and dependability, and it's, you know, knowing someone. So I, I've spoken to a few of my friends, in fact, about this balancing act between like, I really love this person. I know them, and I'm there for them, and we, we know everything about each other. And then like having to fight to also create this excitement. Like, how do I, how do I love you like we've known each other for 10 years and you can trust me and depend on me, but then how do I have sex with you like, like we've just met? It's this. So we call it the Coolidge effect. Have you heard of this? Uh, Calvin Coolidge, uh, was president of the United States, and he and his wife were visiting, visiting a farm. And, uh, and as the president, uh, was led past these, uh, chickens and roosters, the farmer said, "Oh, uh, this rooster has sex 17 times a day." And Mrs. Coolidge wanted me to point that out to you, Mr. President, when she came by here, cuz we pointed out that rooster has sex 17 times a day. And Calvin Coolidge said, "With the same hen?" And the farmer said, "No, always a different hen." He said, "And President said, 'Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.'" So the Coolidge effect is that it has to be novel. It has to be exciting to be erotic, right? And familiarity, you know, which creates security and relaxation and openness, is antithetical to the novelty that creates sexual excitement.
But the truth is actually not so simple. Uh, because eroticism often really results from really creating an erotic situation together and making it an erotic situation. And for women, especially, feeling safe and feeling emotionally connected is a prerequisite for feeling really attracted and feeling that this is an erotic situation. That emotional connection is necessary for many women because women have such a strange relationship to safety and fear compared to men. The world is so much more dangerous place for women than it is for men. Women really need that emotional safety and connection in order to feel that the situation is erotic at all. It's important for your, your audience to realize that the largest study done on the quality of sex with 70,000 people in 24 countries found that the differences between people who say they have a great sex life and people who say they have an awful sex life has to do with affection and emotional connection. The people who have a great sex life say, "I love you every day and mean it." Kiss each other passionately for no reason at all. Cuddle. They're affectionate even in public. They have romantic dates. So affection and emotional connection for most people all over the planet are connected, rather than there being this dichotomy between, if you're close and if your friendship is good, sex is going to be terrible. And if you're distant and you know, and it's novel, sex is going to be great. It's just not true.
That's right. And is there a certain amount of, because a lot of couples fall into this trap of sort of fake comparison, whether it's social media or movies, where we think, okay, if we're not having sex three times a week, something's wrong. I need to raise it. We need to argue about it. We need to fix it. Is there any merit to the quantity resulting in, you know, happiness?
No. No relationship between quantity and happiness.
Quality. Yes. Well, with the caveat, with the caveat that if you have two people paired together, one who is extremely sexual, and, you know, really does need sex frequently, and the other one, uh, the opposite, asexual, who is more asexual and, you know, could take it or leave it, wants sex maybe once a month. That's not going to work. That's not going to work.
One of the things me and my friends have been deliberating about is the importance of what we call desire management, which is, if someone is like around too much and they're there every second of every day in the house when I get home, you know, everywhere, does that not to some degree start to kill the desire a little bit? One of the best things that I, I think I found in my relationship is that my partner's always working away, then I'm working away. And so when we see each other, it feels special and interesting. But I personally don't know that if we were both in the house seven days a week and I worked from home with her, whether the desire would be the same. I don't know. You know, I, I think that for example, John and I are around each other seven days a week and we have been for, you know, most of our marriage, but it doesn't matter.
Is that because of my attachment style? Maybe, cuz, you know, I wondered if.
Could be. Yeah.
Yeah. Could be. Could be.
I need a lot of solitude.
Mhm.
Yeah.
But you are around each other.
Yeah.
But you're around each other most of the time.
Well, we are, but, but, you know, in a house where there's enough space in the house to not be in visual contact with the other person all the time.
Right?
You see, so he's downstairs, I may be upstairs, something like that. Or I can maybe hear him, maybe not. He can hear me, maybe not, you know. So, um.
I think there is something wonderful about being apart and then coming together. That reunion after you've been apart for a while is really quite delicious.
You know what though? This is so interesting. I, I am working with an individual right now, uh, and they're both artists. They both travel a whole bunch all the time. And whenever they reunite after one of them is gone, nothing. There's nothing for about two or three days, and then they have to get into the same rhythm again.
Someone said to me on this podcast, they said, "You have to spend 90 minutes a week talking to your partner." And if you don't, and the person actually said to me, "If you don't get that into your dumb skull, you'll be spending much more time with them in divorce court."
Oh.
And wow. I know it was a, it was a brash thing to say, but I reflected on it and it really helped me because I think, I don't know, I'm, I'm speaking as a man, so I can't speak for all men. I can't speak for women, but speaking from as a man myself and also on behalf of my friends with my own attachment style. I think that's important to add. I struggle with naturally with conflict resolution because conflict resolution to me sounds like blame. So if my, when my partner says, "We need to talk," I'm like, "Oh my god, what have I done now?"
That's right.
"What have I done now?" And I sit there like a, a, you know, I feel like it's a, a kid in school being told off by their, like their headmaster, or a child being told off by their mother. I'm like, "Go on, tell me all the ways that I'm inadequate." But the framing of this idea of, "You're going to have to spend 90 minutes a week sitting with each other and talking regardless," helped me because he, he then went on to say, "Because if you do that, then you can get to play." Well, and I, here's here's my invention. I have a notebook in my back pocket.
Oh, yeah. Interesting.
And it's just designed for when Julie says, "We need to talk." And I take out the notebook and a pen and I say, "Okay, talk to me. I'm taking notes. I want to know what's going on." And she'll tell me, "I'm disappointed in you or angry," you know, I mean, if whatever she says, you know, I write it down.
And reflect it back and see if I understand what she's saying.
Yeah.
And so, I think, I think it's not just 90 minutes. It's 90 minutes when you're willing to listen non-defensively.
Which is not easy.
That's not easy. That's really the work in relationships is being non-defensive. But that's why we wrote "Fight Right," you know, and when we gave, you know, a talk, uh, it's, it's really so important to not do that. You, you, you blaming, that blaming. It's, you know, I feel about what, what's the situation, not, you know, the way you failed me. It's the situation.
Julie, is it, is it more often men or women that are saying that, I feel?
Are you kidding? Men are catching up, but it's hard. It's hard for men to do that. Women. I mean, you go to mental health expertise, and all the characteristics of, uh, a man that are considered mentally healthy: autonomy, independence, uh, strength, resilience, resilience, you know, all the stuff that's autonomous. For women: vulnerability, sensitivity, empathy, expressing emotion. So, you know, there's only one emotion that men are allowed to really openly express: anger, right?
Can they express fear? Oh my god, I'm so scared of going in there tomorrow. Or sadness. Or, you know, the more vulnerable emotions. It's God, think about it. It's seen as effeminate, and that's supposed to be bad. Why is that bad? Because women are second-class citizens, right? So to be allegedly like a woman and express vulnerable emotions is a bad thing because you shouldn't be like a woman. Why not? You know, I mean, so expressing vulnerable emotions, I think men are starting to catch up. You know.
Women like strength.
Yes.
And no, they like strength, but the problem is is that they also want to be empathetic too. They want to be, you know, nourishing to their partner. And if their partner is always presenting this facade of strength, they can't get close to them.
It's like the opposite of connection.
Yeah.
But, you know, we, we observed eight-year-olds in playgrounds. Uh, and if you, if you look at eight-year-old boys, they'll do run and chase games over a very large distance. And if an emotional event happens, if somebody gets upset, you know, say, "What's the matter, Brian?" and says the leader of the group, "I never get the ball." "Okay, toss the ball to Brian." Brian gets the ball and they're off and running. They keep the game in play. Manage conflict quickly. Look at two. Look at girls. They're playing in groups of two or three close to the school building, and they're talking about their feelings over and over again. You know, "You said that I was a baby, you know, because I had those barrettes. That really hurt my feelings." "Yeah, well, I, you know, I only wear barrettes when, when I was little, and now I don't wear them, you know, but that hurt my feelings when you said that." "So I, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." They're talking about emotions constantly, and it's like the hopscotch or whatever game they're playing is just an excuse for talking about emotions. For the boys, the most important thing is keeping the ball in play, and conflict gets in the way of that. They resolve it quickly. They're socialized so differently.
Mhm.
Is this part of the reason why it feels for many men that they are being held off all the time? Because it actually what's happening is their, their wife is just expressing their emotions, and the man never really expresses it. You know that old sort of slightly problematic phrase, which is "Happy wife, happy life."
That's right.
The reason why that phrase exists, I would assume, is because the man thinks, as long as I can keep her from expressing more problems to me, then I'm happy. He like thinks of his responsibility as just like.
Yeah, ask a man how he's feeling and she says, "Well, I'm not hungry. I'm not horny. Uh, I'm okay."
Ask a woman how she's feeling. She says, "Well, I don't know. There's, there's, you know, the children and there's this in the house and, you know, and there's this tangle of questions that really she has to address when you ask her how she's feeling. There's so many things. And for a guy, it's so much easier." But John, as men, I think we can both agree that although, well, I'm speaking for myself here, but although in the moment going through that conflict resolution, the 90 minutes a week, getting out your notepad, listening is annoying in the moment, when we zoom out, we realize that if they didn't raise these issues, if they didn't express these issues, this relationship wouldn't be so good.
That's right.
And we'd be in serious problem.
That's right. They're the managers of intimacy.
Yeah.
We need them. Yes.
We did have to say, "Stephen, we need to talk."
Yeah. Yeah.
Did you see Stephen's face? That was so cute. He went, "Oh."
It's true. I realize it. I realize that this is serving a purpose, which is helping me, you know, and it's helping us.
That's right.
Um, so I sit there and I'll listen to, you know, the things that, um.
The things that aren't right. But you're right. My brain is just like, me and my friends can sit in silence for eight hours, sat right next to each other, and we'll meet each other, sit in silence for eight hours, leave. Great evening.
That's right. Yeah.
We both, we're both like doing our own thing.
But it's just, I think men are such simple creatures most of the time.
Oh, you are not.
That is so not true. You know, one of the things that I've certainly seen in my, my work, you know, I've been doing clinical work for 50 years, and what I see is that men have exactly the same emotions.
They do. They just try to bury them because it's not okay for them to express them. So, they just try to shove it down.
But, open a little door, crack, and up it comes. Lionel Tiger, who studied men's friendships and women's friendships, said, "With alcohol, men get together, very physical, and they talk about their feelings an enormous amount. Takes a little alcohol to make it happen."
Two women said to me last night that I was speaking to, um, on, uh, WhatsApp, um, people that I work with in a different company, they were saying to me that their partners often express how they're feeling by just sending songs out of the blue. Sending songs.
Sending songs out of the blue. And I'd never heard of it. And because one of them said it, and the other woman said, "Oh my god, my partner does that too." Which is instead of like telling me how he feels, he'll send me a song, which is basically a way how he feels.
Yeah.
Um, and some of those songs are very romantic, and it's like, "I love you. You're the best person I've ever found." But instead, he, they can't, he can't vocalize it to her. So he has to send her a Spotify link and say, "Listen to this."
But it's the same thing, right? It's the.
That's right.
Inability to to vocalize, which is.
Yep.
Difficult for men.
Keep working on it.
I am, yeah, I'm like progressively getting better, but sometimes I have little relapses if I, if I am very busy in my mind, and then I have to have one of those, "We need to talk" chats. So I think you're right, there needs to be a bit of a ritual around like, "Is this a good time?"
That's right.
Yeah. Will I have your attention? Or, you know, even being in a different environment like.
Well, you can make, you know, make a date to have a talk like that. When we are giving couples workshops, at the very end of it, we always, uh, give recommendations for ways of preserving the changes you're making in the relationship, the improvements. And one of them is called the State of the Union meeting, right? Where you start with five appreciations of each other, you know, things you haven't said before that you've noticed that your partner is doing, right? And express your gratitude or thanks or your admiration. Then you go into, "Okay, so what do we need to change? What do we need to improve?"
Right?
And then you finish up with this beautiful question. I just love this question: "How can I make you feel loved this week?"
Mhm.
And that's closure.
You mentioned the word there, gratitude.
Yes.
Why is gratitude so important? Being grateful for them and expressing that something that you two both do to each other.
I think, I think it's indicative of a habit of mind. That's that's really much more important. A habit of mind where you're noticing what's going right and feeling appreciative for it. And I, I know I wake up every morning lying next to Julie and think, "I'm one lucky guy." You know, I've got this wonderful woman, and, you know, life is good. I go through my checklist. Everybody's okay. All all the people I love are all right. And I'm with her, and I get to see my grandson, you know, and my daughter. Life is good.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think gratitude brings you into the moment. Brings you into the moment, you know. So, and as John pointed out, uh, you're not just looking for what's wrong, you know, or what your partner is doing wrong. You're looking for what your partner is doing right.
Um, you know, there's been studies. Who was it? Gerson Robinson, I guess, um, who looked at unhappy couples versus happy couples. Unhappy. It wasn't that they weren't doing things for one another, but unhappy couples only saw 50% of what their partners were doing for them.
The positivity.
Of the positivity, right? Whereas happy couples were seeing it all the time.
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