449. Emotional & Sexual Intimacy Go Hand In Hand: Sex Is Actually More Emotional - With Expert Austin Ellis

In this episode of the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast, Nick and Amy are joined by Austin Ellis to talk about how emotional and sexual intimacy are deeply connected in marriage. They discuss how feeling emotionally safe, valued, and understood often creates a stronger desire for physical closeness, while healthy sexual intimacy can also strengthen emotional connection and help couples feel closer overall.

The conversation also explores a common “stand off” many couples experience in marriage. One spouse may say they need more emotional connection before they feel desire for sexual intimacy, while the other spouse may feel that physical intimacy is what helps them feel emotionally connected. 

Austin shares that sexual passion in marriage is often fueled by strong emotional connection first, but that both spouses play an important role in building that bridge. When couples intentionally work on communication, appreciation, and spending meaningful time together, emotional closeness grows, which naturally increases desire and passion.

Amy and Austin also talk about how this difference does not have to become a barrier in marriage. Instead, it can become an opportunity for growth when both spouses are willing to understand each other’s needs and meet in the middle. When one spouse works to strengthen emotional safety and connection, and the other continues to show affection, pursuit, and patience, couples often find that the emotional and physical sides of intimacy begin to reinforce each other.

Austin highlights the importance of vulnerability in this process. When spouses feel safe sharing their thoughts, needs, and feelings without fear of judgment, it builds trust and deepens the connection between them.

This episode reminds couples that emotional and sexual intimacy truly go hand in hand. By nurturing connection, communicating openly, and making intentional efforts toward both emotional closeness and physical intimacy, couples can move past the stand off and build a stronger, more passionate, and more fulfilling marriage together.

If you haven't already, go check out the Ultimate Intimacy App in the app stores, or at ultimateintimacy.com to find "Ultimate Intimacy" in your marriage. It's FREE to download and so much fun! Find out why close to 1M people have downloaded the app and give it such high ratings and reviews!

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If you have any feedback, comments or topics you would like to hear on future episodes, reach out to us at amy@ultimateintimacy.com and let us know! We greatly appreciate your feedback and please leave us a review.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Welcome to another episode of the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast. And of course, it's going to be Therapy Friday. We need to change, we need to come up with another thing with that, right? But we have our good friend Austin back on with us. And today we're going to be talking about the importance of emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy and how they really do go hand in hand. You know, we get so many messages from people in our audience, and um almost just like, why do I need to focus on emotional? What does that have to do with sex or vice versa? And it's amazing how many people don't realize the correlation between the two. And so we really wanted to hit on that today. And Austin's gonna have a ton of great insight for us.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

So welcome back again.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited for this topic. It's yeah, it's truly one that comes up uh with every couple, I mean, every couple, um, and most people don't have language for it between them, right? They're like trying to convey what they need, but um it's like that it's like they're speaking different languages, right? We use that analogy in a variety of ways. But yeah, let's let's dive into this. And I I was curious just right off the bat, I know you get a lot of stuff from the listeners, you've done a lot of polls in the past, and my assumption is, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but um right, the the typical assumption is right, women need emotional connection, men need sexual connection. And uh the the truth is we all need both, ideally, right? Like we're we're sexual beings or emotional being beings, and I'd like to maybe add even into this conversation this concept of I call it spiritual, you know, intimacy. Um, and a lot of people feel that's religion. I I would suggest that's not religion, but I think if we we hit on those three and and probably a few other we'll call them minor intimacies, but they really can play into to these top three. Um so I was just gonna ask you, Amy, um if it's okay. Um from your perspective and and from the audience you have, do you do you feel that most men understand emotional intimacy? And then two, do you feel that most women understand the difference between sex and sexual intimacy?

SPEAKER_00 2:59

I actually was before you even start, I was gonna like, let me say something really quick before we get into it.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Totally read your minds.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Totally read my mind. Um I have had to point that out a lot to the people that like either comment or message us that when I'm always promoting that sexual intimacy is such a big part of marriage and that should be prioritized and that women should initiate more when I make those kind of comments. Um, I'm saying sexual intimacy. I'm not saying go have sex with your husband. I never say that. I always say sexual intimacy is important. And the emotional intimacy, what you just announced, the emotional intimacy is what makes that sexual intimacy. It's not intimate. And I don't know if anyone's listening that notices like on our social media and one of the stuff that we post. I'm usually using the terms being intimate. Sexual intimacy. I'm not saying go have sex. It's simple strong emotional intimacy. When husbands learn that it's kindness, it's how you respect your wife, it's how you treat her and talk to her, it's how you step it up and just kind of be a team player in the marriage. Like that creates this connection that then turns into sexual intimacy versus just sex. And it's so interesting because so many husbands are well, so many wives are like, he just wants sex. No, because men, like you just said, they want it to be intimate too. Like, what do you want? Every comment that we got was I want her to woman, I want her to want me, I want to feel desired, I want it to be connecting, I want her to enjoy it. You can, I mean, you can enjoy sex just physically, but to really enjoy the intimate part of it, like you've got to have that deeper connection outside of the bedroom, right? And that's what we talk about. Like on every pumpkin message, on every puzzle is how important it is to understand them. And before I'm and Nick has taught me over 20, almost 24 years of marriage.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

I taught you something. You can tell you something.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

You taught me how sensitive and loving and and caring and emotional men really are. And that sex is not just some arousal thing and gambling kind of thing. It's this beautiful experience that you want to have with your wife, and that comes from you feeling emotionally connected too. And that like might look in different ways. Our emotional connection might, we might need different things. But like, like you said, in in the big picture, like we both want so much of the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Well, and what's amazing, and and we talk about this all the time too, is you know, uh, let's just say load is our spouse or or for a lot of our audience, the wife, right? You know, they're like, might as well won't provide any emotional intimacy, and they've completely cut him off. Where in reality, men need to feel loved before before they're gonna feel safe enough to provide the emotional intimacy to their spouse. And so kind of one of those catch-22s, right? Uh, the wife's like, I'm not getting the emotional intimacy that I want, therefore I'm cutting them off. And the husband's like, I that's how I express emotionally that I love you. And you know, we we've seen this in a normal relationship during periods of times, but I can tell you right now that 100% of the time, well, not 100, I shouldn't say 100, but 99% of the time, if if a couple is having good intimacy, the husband's gonna be so much better. Sexual intimacy. The husband's gonna be most likely providing most, if not all, the emotional needs for his he's more open to figuring out what she needs and what she wants and to provide that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Right. And the the this is what's really interesting. When I when I sit down with couples, a lot of times I ask, like, help me just understand, like, how'd you meet, how'd you get together? And we keep it brief, but uh sometimes I go back and I say, Hey, did you guys get married without like ever talking and letting each other know who you are? Right? It's like no, and it's interesting because very frequently I'll have a a spouse say, like, well, yeah, when we were dating, like we'd have all these long conversations and we'd we'd stay up late and we still had to get up early, and it was like this excitement of like the conversation, and and they're like, Well, now they don't do it anymore. And I and I'll ask, like, what else was there with that, right? Those nice conversations or whatever. Oh, like then we were making out for two hours, or it's like, okay, there's two things happening here that play into the the connection, and so this concept of intimacy, I may have shared this before, but when you slow that down and you and you listen to how it's pronounced, it's into me see. I'm I'm letting you into me, right? Into who I am. And so the concept of emotional intimacy is this is this is how I feel, this is the even the way I think. We we call this intellectual intimacy. Um, this is the way I think about the world, this is the way about I feel about things, this is my hopes, my dreams, right? I'm gonna I'm gonna let you into that, and will you let me into that? That's that's a vulnerable. When you look at sexual intimacy, a lot of times people are being sexual, physical, with no like intimacy. It's like body-to-body. Um, I remember training as a sex therapist, and one of the things we they they taught us was when you're when you're gauging like you know, couple satisfaction and trying to get a hold of like where they're you know where their intimate lives are. Yeah, there's two things that were really important that I think are valuable for couples to know. One is whenever you're doing anything healing in the sexual realm, even like like erectile dysfunction or what like physical stuff, the path to healing it is all emotionally based. That's that's one thing that's valuable to know. Because it's you can't really you can't really separate sex from emotion. So even when we talk about like, oh, we're having this physical sex, um, what's happening emotionally for a lot of men is they feel rejected. Yeah, I am being sexual with you while you're not present emotionally. Um, that's not the man disconnecting emotionally, that's that's the woman not bringing emotional intimacy. It's like I'll bring my body, I'm not gonna be here with you. For women, similar thing in that in that scenario. She's not benefiting from emotional intimacy either, right? She's there physically, often also feeling a negative emotion of I don't really want to be here, I'm here, or let's get this over with, or whatever, like, or even she's even super loving. She's like, hey, you know what? I I don't really want to get into it, but I can be here for you. There's still emotions around that, right? So we we can't really pretend that sex is non-emotional. I'm even gonna say this when I work with couples with affairs, you know, people will sometimes say it's just sex, it wasn't emotional. You may not have had an emotional bond, but you were taking your emotions. Maybe your emotions were, you know, any number of things, sadness, depression, right? You're taking that emotion to sex to have it, you know, remedied. And so that's that's one thing we want to be aware of is sex is always emotional, even if it's just physical. And then the other thing I was gonna share when I um when I was in school, kind of going through the sex therapy training, one of the pieces that that really stood out to me was um when you're when you're working with a couple, when you're helping them try to repair, uh, you know, on a sexual level, it's very important in the assessment phase to try to understand um what type of like what what type of experience do they want? Do they want passion? Do they want gentle? Do they want what right, whatever? Yeah, and truly a lot of couples don't know that about each other. And so when I start to ask questions in front of each other, it's like the first time they've been like, oh, I didn't, I didn't I didn't know that about you. Yeah. Because lots of couples can't even talk about sex, even if they're having sex. And so sex becomes a very disconnecting experience for a lot of couples. It's it's you know, whatever they have orgasms, but it's not a it's not an emotionally bonding experience. It's actually an emotionally painful experience for a lot of couples.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

I'm so glad you pointed that out because you know, one of the reasons we created the let's talk about sex card decks is when we pulled our audience, the majority of our audience said that they don't talk about it. And it, you know, how can something get better if you don't talk about it? I mean, and we're not just talking about sex, but anything, right? Like anything in life, how can it get better if you're not talking about it? So I'm really glad that you you brought that up. And then kind of hitting on the other point you made, um, we ask couples all the time, the very first thing when they message us, the very first thing we ask, well, are you are you going on dates? Are you dating your spouse? And every single time it's no, we don't. And like kind of hitting on the point that you said, you know, that's how you connected and got romantic, and is by having those deep conversations and getting to know each other and things like that. And so, you know, couples that want to continue to have that relationship need to keep talking and and um learning about each other and have doing the same things they were doing when they were dating.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Yeah, that's really important. You know, I I use this language a lot of times of this idea of like, can you um court your queen is the language I'll use. And then can you captivate your king, right? It and you look at those words court, that's a proactive, I'm thinking ahead of time. What's gonna help you feel close to me? Men did this in the beginning, right? They were thinking. Um, hey, I'm attracted to her. I want her to want to spend time with me. I'm gonna, you know, brush my teeth, or I don't know, whatever. You're you're thinking and you're doing, and then you're planning dates and you're being present. And same things with women, this idea of captivating, right? Esther Perel does a great job in her book talking about how oftentimes after we have commitment, and especially with marriage, okay, a lot of times what happens is it's almost like subconsciously we go, okay, we got him. Now I can be my less best self, right? Or stuck with me.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

And she's and and this is the thing that's really valuable in this conversation of intimacy. Um, most people are trying to get from their spouse what I don't think initially comes, but can come over time, which is we're trying to get unconditional love. And the truth is we don't marry people with no conditions, right? Like you marry someone, there's some conditions in place, they're lovable, but you don't you don't marry when the conditions don't work right. And and so we want to enter into a relationship and go, hey, I'm here, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be in this with you through all the conditions, right? That is the commitment, but it doesn't start with unconditional love, it starts with what are the conditions we're gonna meet, and then people go, hey, I this is great. We can get through all these conditions with these conditions in place, and what happens is a lot of times couples let go of these conditions, then they go through life and it it breaks them apart, right? And so the place where we help couples a lot of times is bringing them back to what are the conditions that help you feel loved, and what are you trying to get met by your spouse that it that's not theirs? Meaning, if you're seeking unconditional love, that's typically you're seeking something you didn't get from your childhood. Parental love is meant to be unconditional, it's imperfect. I would say God love is perfect, however, uh we struggle to create the conditions where we can feel God's unconditional love. Maybe go into that another time. But then the next component here is I often tell couples, you can get to a place where you're loving each other unconditionally, but that comes over years of going through some hard conditions together, and you develop that like I see you differently, even if the conditions aren't perfect. And you look at the the long arc of marriage, right? When you look at couples married, you know, 40, 50, 60 years, the conditions completely change. Oh, yeah, yeah. We don't look the same, we don't have the same, you know, and all of that has shifted, and it's like I am able to now say I love you unconditionally because I've done it through all the conditions, yeah, and you're not you're a different version, you don't look the same, you don't, right? That's more of how unconditional love develops in a long-term relationship. And again, we can go into that another day. But the place I want to bring it back to is when we look at this intimacy concept, oftentimes when I'm sitting with couples and you know, we're talking about whatever type of disconnect, I often start to share ideally, you both really love your emotional, you know, relationship. You both also really love your sexual relationship. It's not a trade, it's not a I give emotional intimacy, so you give sex. It's as we connect emotionally and we're both feeling closer and closer, we naturally want to be intimate. Genuinely, a lot of couples get that backwards. Um, where they'll have sex from disconnection thinking they'll become more emotionally connected. I tell this to a lot of couples. We we break it down, I say, How did you feel when you were being sexual? And they'll say, I feel connected. And I go, Okay, like yeah, you're physically connected. Let's talk about emotions for a second. What is the emotion? Um, I feel happy, I feel excited, I feel loved, okay? And I'll say, let's talk about the word connection. This is like a knowingness, right? And I'll say, last time you were sexual, did you know what was happening emotionally for your spouse? No. Okay. Then you weren't emotionally connected because connection is knowingness. If I don't know what's going on for you emotionally, you don't know what's going on for me emotionally, and we each have even feel-good emotions, hey, I felt bliss and joy, me too, but you don't know it, you're not connected to one another. You're connected to the emotion, not the person. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think that's great.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

I I really like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

So I guess my question with what you're saying is how do you what do you ask, or how do you find out? I mean, that comes to comes down to talking after, right? Yeah. That comes down to the quote after play, like, how do you feel? Like, let's share some feelings right now, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:49

I would say even ideally that's happening, like if we're talking love making, right? That's happening during. This is a an interaction that is you're consistently like being aware, right? That's that's facial expressions, that's you know, communication verbally or right, it's eye contact. I'll I'll I'll I'll stay with this for just a second. One of the ways we gauge if couples are truly having emotional intimacy during sexual intimacy is we ask, can you talk to one another? Oh no. Okay. Well, then you're not emotionally bonding, probably. Um, the other thing is, can you look in each other's eyes? That's those are the two big ones that we ask couples from a sex therapy standpoint. A lot of couples don't even look at each other's eyes, they can't make eye contact. That lets you know that it's too it's too vulnerable. So you can do the body-to-body thing all day long, but you're not really connecting with each other, and that's why so many people leave feeling like it was yeah, that was nice, but I don't feel more bonded. You want to try again, kind of thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Um, I was closed for a second.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Well, I don't know. I don't think you have to intently look at each other the whole time.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

Like, I can't, I can't.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

It's like, can you, right? Can you see each other? Into me see, right? And and so going back for a second, um sex is like well, sex is not that vulnerable. Like you know, you can just have sex with people do this with strangers, right? Like being very available emotionally and like letting someone into your wants and needs during that's really vulnerable. And so and that's where the prize comes. Like the the best sexual intimacy uh is less about the physical component. Oh, for sure. You guys know that, right? And I want I want to go back just for a second to something you talked about a little bit earlier, which is you know, I I talk with all these guys all the time. I mean, uh all every couple I've ever worked with, we talk about sex at some point, and typically in the beginning. But most men I will and I'll say most for a reason, most men are very aware of like, I don't want sex where she's not present. Um sometimes I will quote unquote take it, I'll I'll mo I'll you know, better better a little bit than nothing because it and and the way that I help them kind of decipher what's happening emotionally is it's like you're being sexual, numbing that you're being rejected with intimacy while you're being sexual. And guys are like, for sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Well, well, and I think what happens too is you know, we've heard this from from many people as well, is when a guy is making love to his wife knowing that she doesn't want it, I think it's normal for a guy to feel guilty too, like he's doing something wrong. Like I know she doesn't want it, right? Therefore, how how can we do this? What's supposed to be an amazing thing? In fact, we had uh someone just write us in and say, hey, my my husband and I just got in a fight earlier over you know sex, and he's basically telling me he doesn't want to have sex with me anymore because he knows I don't want it, and he doesn't feel desired, and he's like, I don't I don't want to have sex with you if you don't want to, if you don't love me or or into me. And I think, you know, I just just wanted to point out like you know, for so so many women think, oh, he just wants sex, it's just about you know getting off. But I and we state this all the time, I can't state clearly enough from a husband's point of view that it is the sex part is so little, it's so much more than that.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

I think that women understand that. I I think most women understand that the problem is that we're wired so differently, and we have so many tabs open and so many things we're thinking about, and our body completely reacts in a different way. So if he's be monstrous, he's like, Let's make love. If I'm be monstrous, I'm like, that is the bottom of my list, right? Like I've gone the kids stamp, and I've gone like a lot of people are like the houses are in, or are and then we also have this like little this to make it done. And this didn't get done and I felt like I was doing this alone, and then I had to go do this, this, and this. And you were on your phone. Like, we have a lot of issues in our women's brain that are just like, turn them, turn them, turn them, which I'm not saying is fair. I'm not it's sucks. Do you know what I mean? But we're just completely different where he's like, let's let's go make love. And the wife is like, dude, I I got stuff to do. Like, this is not the top thing in my mind. And so I think what we have to realize is that, yeah, it's emotional for him too. But then we get all the husbands are like, Well, she has this big fat checklist that I have to pass on to where she'll be intimate with me. But that's the problem, right? That's a lot of people's problem. And he's like, that's it's so unreachable. So unreachable, it's never gonna happen. And if she does do it, she's thinking about something else. And it's like, sorry, you know, so we have to learn this is where the vulnerable vulnerability comes in and that emotional connection. Like, what is stressing you out? What can I help you do to take care of the house so that you can like concentrate? How do I be a better dad tonight so that you feel like I'm that real team player? Like Nick's Nick can tell when I'm stressed. He's like, I'll take care of dinner tonight. Like, okay, that takes a lot back from me. This is this is a lot of the problem, too. It's not that we don't always understand that it's emotional, it's like our brains are wired so differently that we do kind of have this checklist not saying it's okay, you know.

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Right. Yeah, I mean you're touching on some some deeper things, and I'll I'll keep them light here um because it's it's different for every couple, and a lot of this is is unconscious. Like when we when we fall in love, there is so much happening that we're unaware of. Like, um, and and this changes even with generations, like so the further back you go, um, I mean, then we have data, like you can look this up. Like when you when you go back to like 1920s, 1930s, you know, you have wartime type stuff, and it like the world is in different, you know, chaos. When you ask a man and a woman why they get married, okay, I'm not married, why do you want to get married? Love was like seven on the list for most women. So they're thinking about, right? Hey, I you know, let's go even further back. Well, I didn't uh I wasn't able to learn how to read. I can't work, I can't provide for myself. You're not necessarily thinking, hey, where's a guy to fall in love with? You're going, where's a guy that I can survive with? Obviously, that's not the ideal, and we've we've progressed in many ways, but this unconscious thing is under under under the surface for a lot of I mean every couple, and then you're bumping into that, and there's kind of these, you know, unknown even expectations that are being met in dating that you're not even aware you have there because they're being met, right? Then you get married, you're like, hey, where'd you go? You're meeting all my needs. It's like I didn't know that. So the the place I want to go with this, uh, and going back to one of the things you talked about just a minute ago, Amy, is there's these unconscious things happening, and uh then the mind is running. That's unconscious, that's busyness, right? For sure. And uh when I work with men that they consciously know I I don't want a non-present spouse. On the flip side, I hear from a lot of women, he's just not present. He's not present in the home, he's not right. And so he shows up physically in the home. He might go through the motions of helping some stuff, but he's not checked in. Then they go to the bedroom, she's not present, she might be there physically, right? So you have a you have a presence issue. He's not showing up, she's not showing up in in different places, and very often they go hand in hand. I will tell you, and a lot of women don't love this, but like this is just we men are built this way. I mean, it's just it's not our it's not bad, it's not like this is a thing for us. Like, most men, if they can have like real love making, like a couple times a week, like she's present, she's into it, she wants it, she's willing to take whatever she needs a half hour before to like get herself in the right place, she's willing to communicate. Hey, can we just knock these three things off the list, and then I will be fully present. I will tell you, women, if if you'll shook for that too, especially three or four, if you want, that dude will jump tall buildings for you. Like he will meet every need you can ever imagine, and you won't even probably have to ask. It's not about an orgasm for a man.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

I I mean you are a hundred percent spot on. Yep. 100% spot on.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Most men truly as they as they like can trust that she's gonna be present, and like he can see her smile, and and a lot of men, the most valuable part is I want to please you. So when a woman's like, I don't want anything for me, like right off the bat, a man's going, I'm trying to bring my whole self to you to give you pleasure, and you want nothing to do with me. Okay, that sinks a man. He's like, Okay, I'll I'll take my eight-second orgasm and right, whatever. But if if we can show up for each other inside the bedroom and outside the bedroom, and men we can we can have this flip conversation. Hey, you know, she wants your presence. Show up happy, show up alive, show up interested, be curious. The challenge is a lot of men will put in and I don't want to make a trade thing here, okay?

unknown 27:20

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

A lot of men will put in quite a bit of time, okay? I'm I'm doing this for the family. I will I will tell you I've I met with a lots and lots of men, and I've seen this. It's like, hey, if if you're not living with the wife, your wife and your children, like what what type of money are you necessarily trying to make? And they're like, well, it's pretty simple. I just, you know, like I'll live by my like they don't need as much, right? So a lot of men feel like I'm pouring into career, more than necessary to take care of all this. And I'm coming home and I'm trying to be present, and they're like, I'm trying to give this amount of energy. And I recognize women are doing a ton of stuff too. A lot of them are working as well, a lot of them are doing a majority of the house stuff if we're honest. Okay. So I'm not I'm not trying to make a battle between it. What I'm trying to get to is if the two of you can look intentionally and go, I want to meet your emotional needs and sexual needs, wife. I want to meet your emotional needs and your sexual needs, and then you go, What are they? And they're not going to be the same. Most men will uh men are over here this time. Most men like feel the most connected through sex. Like that is data, that is how our brains work. We feel the most connected through sex, we also feel the most rejected through sex, okay? It's not about intercourse, it's not about lingerie, it's not about orgasm. Okay. Um, and so understanding this component is if he can make the effort outside the bedroom in you know a variety of ways, and she can really make that effort in the bedroom, and oftentimes for women, two things precede that. One is I gotta get in tune with myself, and then also I need to know that I'm uh reasonably connected to him to go there and be you know present emotionally, and and I think that's valuable for both to say, are we going into this connected or are we disconnected and trying to get connection through sex? That's what most couples do, and it doesn't work. So I often encourage couples like have some little interaction, have some playfulness, like take some time in kind of the foreplay that is conversation. It is, I love you, it's you look handsome, you look beautiful, like that's gonna help you feel better emotions, and then you're gonna share them. I would say for each of you too, you know, Amy, if we go back to like kind of the wife has a lot going on, just her being able to say, like, hey, I am feeling I'm kind of a little bit stressed, I am kind of you know overwhelmed today. Um and even giving an option, like, if you could do this, I can go, you know, whatever. I can go take a hot bath and kind of clear my mind so I can be present. Or if we can knock this out tonight, I I can really show up tomorrow. What what would you prefer, right? And for a man to be he then he's going, okay, I can have I can have sex tonight, or I can have sexual intimacy tomorrow. Most men will say I can well, most men will say, can we do both? That's what most women will say. Let's be honest, okay. Um, but that lets you know they really value the intimacy.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Oh, you're you're splitting fast. Absolutely. Most men would say, Yeah, we do both.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

I'll take whatever. Um, I I feel like we have to like do a part two to this because I feel like there's so much to talk about. You know what I mean? I mean, I think we can just keep going and going, going. I'd love to talk about, okay, like it's for the women out there that have hired, right, that are listening and they're just like, wait, one minute, you know what I mean? That's a whole nother topic. We get that. We we'll we'll make another. We've kind of talked about that before in a different episode. Um, the the mental list, like not being present because of our mental list. That's a whole nother conversation. Um, what you just barely got done saying, I'll take the like that rejection, that's a whole nother conversation. Like there's just a lot of places we can go with this. But I think it's what you what it comes down to to me is is understanding each other and trying to be present. I I can 100% balance testimony right here that the reason our marriage is at the place that it's at is because there are so many nights where I'm like, I'm not in the mood. This is the last thing I'm thinking about, I have a hundred things on my mind, but I choose to be present instead. A couple times a week. I'm not always working, but sometimes he's like, You're not in it tonight. Like, I yes, I will be on this. Like that that happens a lot. I try very hard in our marriage to just be like, tonight isn't about me. I am tired, I'm an instressed. But you know, if you listen to our podcast episode last week, I think it was the last one, we did 10 reasons why organs organisms are so good for you, and they were health reasons. Okay, so try to come out of your, you know, the women that do struggle with wanting to be intimate, and the emotional intimacy is already strong, okay? We've already talked about like when the emotional intimacy in the marriage is strong, there are other benefits to it. And when you can take yourself out of my house needs to be perfect, everything needs to be done, like try to learn how to close those tabs. If you have anxiety, depression, all those, all those little pieces, like how how can I get the help that I need so that I can still put my marriage first? And this is important to him, so it needs to be important to me. And that's what it comes down to is unselfishness in marriage. If something is important to him, it's not that it's like, oh, it has to be at the top of my list. No, it's called I need to either talk about it with him, learn how to enjoy it, figure out myself, figure out what's going with my cell, figure out how to close my tabs so that I can be present for him, even if it's not the top of my list. Like that's how marriage works, right? Because like I promise you, guys aren't like, oh, I can't wait to go plan this big date, or I can't wait just top at the store and spend money on flowers that I don't care about. Those kind of things, like we both have to do things in our marriage that aren't always at the top of our list, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:12

And what one of the things you're touching on, this is where we when we get into healing, right? We're talking a lot of like what doesn't work. Um, when we're getting into healing, a lot of what we're we're talking with couples is you're you're no longer looking at you and you, you're looking at what makes this work. I tell couples all the time. I mean, this is a kind of first, if we're gonna work together thing, I will say, you're not my client, and you're not my client. Your relationship is the client, and you're telling me you want a healthy relationship, that probably means truthfully, some healing for both of you and some growth for both of you. I'll often say this version of each of you cannot create that. That's why it's not working. This version of you, with a little more intention, probably a little more knowledge and skill, um, and a reprioritizing of love, not just marriage. Those two people can have this, and when you have this, everything's better, right? Everything's better. And most couples don't know how to get there, truthfully. And so I do want to wrap this up, and I do think we should do a part two, but I think this last piece here of um understanding that the emotional bond is both of yours, the sexual bond is both of yours, and we get this thing of this sex is for him, emotions for her. That's not how it's meant to be. So I see this in the progression of people. Let's just take the the common, which is higher desires often men, lower desires often women, okay. Probably we should go into this too. There's a reason that I would say I would say 99% of people don't know why they're high desire, low desire. Okay. There's a reason for that. Um, and it's emotionally based, okay. When the emotions are resolved, people are sexual, people are emotional. Okay, so you do get these dynamics in in couples where it's high desire, low desire. And oftentimes one person is having to do some real work to like manage that down. And um, right, that's avoiding temptation, that's trying not to, you know, have you know pornography in your life or you know, tempted with other things, and and that's they're like, I feel constant desire to be intimate with you, I want to be close to you. That's challenging. The other challenging part is when this person is like, I kind of never feel it, okay? And because these persons having like I'm compelled, that's a constant work. Okay, I'm constantly taming this, okay. And on the flip side, they're going, I'm constantly doing work for our marriage. Can you kind of sometimes do the same work? It's intentional work. I know you don't feel it, I also don't feel it. And so what happens is I see people doing all this work, they're like, Man, this is really hard for me to manage this desire to be close and intimate. And the other person's like, uh, I don't, I don't, I don't want to have sex with you, right? And and that feels like the most disheartening, right? It's like, okay, this isn't about sex. This is about I love you enough to not cheat on you, I love you enough to manage this desire and go to work hard for you and try to be present, and what I feel from you is you're not willing to turn this on for a couple hours. That is where a lot of damage comes and where a lot of pain when like when I get in therapeutically, this has nothing to do with sex. This has to do with love and and prioritizing your spouse and your marriage. And again, I don't want anybody to feel shame here. When we look at this with couples, they're like, Oh, you're having to be very conscious. I'm not really being conscious.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Yeah, both are a choice.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

So both have to choose in. I'm choosing here, I'm choosing here. Awesome, let's have this great thing together. We can talk about how to get there. But I think the the last piece, probably before we close with this one, is along those same lines. When I ask couples uh like values, do you like do you I mean, do you value love? Do you value a happy marriage? Do you do you believe that if you two are good that benefits your kids? Like everybody says yes, like yeah, yeah, I'm a loving relationship. And I'll often say, like, what are you willing to do for it? A lot of people say anything.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

But I'll say awesome, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Awesome. Guess what? It's actually not that hard. So good news for us. It it it's there's a there's a formula recipe, right? Here's how you pour into the other person, and when you pour into the other person, I I I saw this, I'm at I want to end this episode, but I don't. I had a guy. Let's keep going. Okay, let me just let me do this. I I had it's actually a ultimate intimacy listener that it's the ultimate intimacy listener that sent me an email. Um and he was like, I just don't know if I can do this anymore. He's like, I don't know if it's worth it. He's like, I've been trying to put effort into this for years, and I don't feel like she is. And and uh then I got on the phone with him and he's like, let me send you this text message, and he he sends me this text message, and um it was like the the smallest thing from her, like, hey, thanks for being patient, I love you. And he was like, My whole world flipped in like 10 seconds, right? Um, and good, like for her to to have the awareness of hey, I know it's kind of difficult, but I appreciate that you're making effort, I see that like that shifted his world really rapidly. Yeah, and the reason I share that is it's really valuable to know that like what your spouse is asking for is not like the most difficult, and it has so much benefit for both of you. And and if you have children for your children, to have have your children grow up in a home where they witness two people pouring into each other. That's honestly pretty rare, if I'm honest.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Yeah, best gift you can give them.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

I I think this has been an incredible episode, and if we need if we want to continue going.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

We should do a part two next week.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Okay, yeah, okay, yeah. I mean, great episode. I think the audience is gonna get so much out of this, and I I feel I feel like so many people feel like the mountain is insurmountable, but really it's just about talking and meeting each other's needs um when it comes to just this emotional and sexual interest.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

I want to just we're gonna start part two, and I just wanted to say we're I want to talk about in the next one how just saying yes more in your marriage on both sides will change your marriage. And like that little switch switch in my mind, like that changes everything for us.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

So yeah. Well, yeah, great episode. I feel like we can help so much many of our audience based upon the feedback we get. So we hope you enjoyed this episode with Austin. If you want to reach out with Austin, um just message us, we'll put you in touch with him. Uh, he can he can help transform your marriage like he has for so many other people that we know. Um, don't even don't even second guess it. Um just just email us, write us, we'll give you his contact information and get on the path to transforming your relationship and having the marriage you want. And and like Austin just says in previous episodes, uh rebuild your marriage to something you want. You know, let go of something that you don't want, and then you can get on the road to that. So, Austin, thank you so much. We appreciate your comments until next time.