She's Quiet Quitting Your Sex Life — And He Has No Idea

She didn't lose her desire. She quietly quit it. Sex therapist and author Colette Jane Fehr joins Annette to break down why women emotionally and erotically check out of relationships long before anyone notices — and what it actually takes to come back. If you've been going through the motions, or you've watched your partner disappear and had no idea why, this one's for you.

In this episode:

*What quiet quitting your sex life actually looks like in the bedroom
*Why emotional disconnection kills physical desire — and which goes first
*The real reason dead bedrooms happen (it's not about sex)
*How resentment builds from the smallest swallowed moments
*The one question that cracks a relationship back open
*How to know if quiet quitting has gone too far — and the signs it's not too late
*Three things you can do tonight to start coming back

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Do the sex.

Today’s Focus: Quiet Quitting Sex

Meet Colette Janefair

Housekeeping And Links

SPEAKER_01 0:54

I'm Annette Benedetti, host of the podcast formerly known as Locker Room Talk and Shots. The show has a new name: Talk Sex with Annette. But at its core, this is still your locker room. It's where we strip away shame, get curious, and speak the unspoken about sex, kink dating, pleasure, and desire. Around here, nothing's off limits. These are the kinds of conversations we save for our boldest group chat, our most trusted friends, and of course, the women's locker room. Think raw, honest, and sometimes unapologetically raunchy. Welcome to my podcast where desire meets disruption and pleasure becomes power. Let's talk about sex. Cheers. Today's talk sex within it topic is why women are quite quitting their sex life and how they can come back to it. Most women, they'll blow up their relationships. They disappear from them slowly. One swallowed ask at a time, one faked orgasm, at a time, one need they decided wasn't worth the fight. Until one day they look up and realize they're gone and they've been gone for years and nobody noticed. Not even them. That is quiet quitting your sex life. And today we're talking about why it happens, what it costs you in the bedroom and beyond, and exactly how to find your way back. Today's guest is Colette Jean Fair, licensed psychotherapist, certified emotionally focused therapy clinician and author of The Cost of Quiet. I love the name of that book. Her TEDx talk was a TED Editor's Pick. She's been in The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times Oprah Daily, and on Tamron Hall. And before she became the therapist helping women reclaim their intimacy, she was the woman who lost hers. She quietly quit her own marriage sexually and emotionally before she ever walked out the door. Colette, welcome to Talk Sex with Annette. Before we dive in, and I'm gonna give you a moment to tell my listeners all about you, I have to remind y'all that I'm over on OnlyFans and there. I'm sharing my sex and intimacy how-tos, demonstrations, audio guided self-pleasure, meditations, and so much more. I'm also on Substack doing a whole lot of the same. You can find me there with my handle at TalkSex within it, and you can find me in all the other places I am by scrolling down to the notes below. I'm gonna have everything tagged there, and I will have Colette's book there and all the places to find her. So make sure you check it out. Now, Colette, can you tell my listeners just a little bit more about you?

SPEAKER_03 3:40

Sure. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. This is such an important topic, near and dear to my heart, because this is exactly what happened in my first marriage and why I wrote my brand new book, The Cost of Quiet, that we're going to be diving into. My platform is really about helping people find emotional freedom by living our most alive lives. And such a part of that is our sexuality and being connected to our life force. It permeates all of our relationships and most importantly, the one we have with ourselves. So I'm thrilled to be talking about this with you all today.

What Quiet Quitting Looks Like

SPEAKER_01 4:18

I'm thrilled to have you here. And for my listeners who and viewers who are on my YouTube channel, can you hold up that book one more time just so they can see the cover when they are looking for it because they're going to, because just even the name, The Cost of Quiet, I think for a lot of people who have been in or are in relationships, this is going to resonate and hit home. If you are an audio listener only, I encourage you to go over to my YouTube channel and check this out just so you can see the cover of the book, because I have a feeling you might want to get it by the end of this podcast. So stay to the end because by the end, we're going to take you on a journey here, folks. And you're not going to want to skip to the end. You're going to want to take in everything you learn along the way. But by the end, we're going to be giving you some takeaways. Because if this resonates with you in any way whatsoever, if you have an inkling you're even headed in that direction, we are going to have solid takeaways that are going to help you turn things around starting tonight. Right? Yes. So you can keep having fun in the bedroom. No one wants to quiet quit sex. Right? No, hell no. All right. Well, cheers to sex then. And how to stop quiet quitting it. Chin chin. Chin chin. So let's dive in. Quiet quitting. We know it from the workplace. We know this term from the workplace, but what does it mean when it happens in your sex life?

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Oh, yeah. So thanks to COVID, we inherited this term and now we're applying it to relationships and our sexual relationships with partners. So it means typically that you're not getting your needs met. And rather than you feel a sense of no matter what I do, I'm not going to get my needs met. So you begin to disengage. Now, what's tricky is that we're not always communicating about these things as clearly as we could. And there are some very natural and real reasons for that. But it's that sense inside that there's nothing I can do about this. And so I have no choice but to just sort of accept defeat and quiet withdrawal. And long term, this creates more suffering because the more we avoid, the less we get what we want, the more fearful we are of engagement, and the more dissatisfied we are physically, sexually, and emotionally.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

When a woman starts quiet quitting her sex life and essentially her relationship, what does this look like in the bedroom specifically?

Sleep Divorce And Subtle Withdrawal

SPEAKER_03 7:00

So let's say someone's in a committed relationship or a somewhat committed relationship, but a relationship where there had been tip regular sexual engagement. This looks like not initiating, not being as responsive, looking for ways to subtly not be available for initiation, right? It can even be little things like putting on extra layers of pajamas, moving slowly away in the bed, right? Going to bed at a different time. And, and not that this is necessarily a bad thing, we have another new term that's become ubiquitous, which is the sleep divorce. I don't know if you're familiar with that or not, but I do media stuff on this all the time. Everyone's really into it. So this is the idea that a couple who are committed decide intentionally to sleep in separate bedrooms. Something that used to be de rigueur back in the 50s, and it's now coming back again. So it's controversial because some people feel like this is a form of disengaging, right? That this is not good for a couple, that it's going to negatively impact their sex life. And other people feel like, look, I have problems sleeping. You snore. This says nothing about how much I love you or want to have sex with you. This is just expediency because sleep's important. So what I would say is that it's not necessarily a sign that you're quiet quitting, but it can be. More and more I'm seeing couples in my office who are not sleeping in the same room, who have not had sex for six months, two years, 10 years. And it started with a quiet quitting. There wasn't a crisis, there wasn't an infidelity, there wasn't a big incident. It was just that slow get away from me. I'm gonna make myself less available to you. And for women, in large part, this can stem from emotional dissatisfaction, which then leads into sexual desire and arousal.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

When a woman starts quiet quitting her sex life and her relationship, does she know she's doing it, or is this something that she doesn't really realize?

Any Relationship, Any Orientation

SPEAKER_03 9:20

Great question. It can be either one. Sometimes what's fascinating is that sometimes people really don't realize they're doing it. It's just a natural aversion that starts to happen. And the most common thing I see is that it's not necessarily, again, sexual in origin. Is that it starts with, I'm not getting my needs met emotionally. I don't feel like I'm heard. I don't feel seen. I don't feel like my attempts, my bids for connection, my attempts to talk to you more deeply are happening. And so therefore, I don't really want to be physically intimate with you. Sometimes women will say, I'm kind of done. If you're not going to engage with me emotionally, I'm done putting out in the bedroom. I don't want to anymore. And I'm not going to do that to myself, which can be a real sign of healthy self-esteem. But other times women just start to pull away and they don't even realize what's happened until it's gone pretty far down the road. And then sometimes they find that there is some kind of emotional or physical affair or internet activity. And then, of course, they're blindsided and betrayed. And then we've got a whole affair recovery situation we have to deal with on top of it, which is not to suggest that you should be having, if you're in a heterosexual, I'm using a heterosexual example here, just for the sake of an example, but not to say that you should have sex with a partner when you don't want to. But men tend to not necessarily need to feel as emotionally connected to maintain an active sex life. For women, they're really inextricably entwined.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

So can quiet quitting happen in relationships of all genders and sexual orientations?

SPEAKER_03 11:14

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. I just think the behavior I'm talking about about okay, you're not sleeping with me. So now I'm jerking off to porn every night and not telling you. Not that that doesn't happen in my lesbian couples, but that's just more of a typical male scenario. But absolutely with my same-sex couples, we can see the same thing. And a lot of couples, it's hard because when you're together for a long time, first of all, as you well know, a lot of that passionate desire can atrophy if couples are not really working hard to maintain that boost of attraction. And that comes from all kinds of things, having novel experiences, getting creative in the bedroom. And interestingly, the one people often miss is talking about your sex life. We are afraid to talk about this with partners of all sexes, genders, configurations, monogamy, conscious non-monogamy, no matter what. Now, at least in conscious non-monogamy, you're forced to talk about it to some degree, but I mean your actual desires, your what's pleasing to you, what are you interested in that you've never tried? What do you fantasize about? People tend to not talk about that with their partners. And that's a huge part of sexual connection. We also know it's something that changes over the lifespan. What turns you on at 22 is probably not the same thing that turns you on at 42, especially as a woman, you come to know yourself more deeply.

Talking About Sex Keeps Desire Alive

SPEAKER_01 12:50

And does quiet quitting start first with emotional intimacy, intimacy, quiet quitting, or uh do we see it more as desire being the first thing to go?

Emotional Disconnection And Hormones

SPEAKER_03 13:04

So I see more often, and I can really only speak to this from anecdotal experience. I've been doing this for almost 15 years. So what I see in my office is that most typically it stems from the emotional disengagement. A woman who's tried really hard in her own way to get through and doesn't feel like anything works. She's met with in the book what I call the bad communication report card, which is three D's and an F. It's defensiveness, dismissiveness, distancing, or fixing, right? I share something with you about my feelings. A lot of men don't know how to sit with emotions at all. They immediately go into problem solving, they take it as a character attack. And if that happens over and over, for a woman, it's hard to really feel attracted and want to be close because we're wired for connection. If we don't feel heard and understood, it does affect our sexual desire. Now, the other issue is that this doesn't have to happen at midlife, but perimenopause and menopause, thank God we're finally talking about with some degree of honesty. Paramenopause can start as early as the mid-30s. So this is a time that, especially now, some women are getting into relationships for the first time ever. So hormones fluctuate, and that's a whole nother enchilada of issues that your desire for sex just naturally can really wane. However, all of that to be said, and I'm in the throes of menopause myself right now. So yeah, yeah. Hello. Such a joy. So I'm doing the HRT, I'm having to figure it out, ask questions, be proactive with doctors. It's really been so much harder than I realized to figure out this journey. I have felt a drop in my own libido, and I've been trying to figure that out myself in conjunction with the work I do with my clients. But what I find, back to what I said at the beginning, is that even if we don't we're not craving sex the same way or there isn't as much lubrication, and I think this still fluctuates widely for individuals. Some people are still horny, even in menopause. But regardless, it is you can find that desire for sexual intimacy with a partner when you start to connect more deeply to yourself. What brings you alive? Where's your life force? A lot of times we have lost our identity, we've lost our voice, we've kind of given up, we feel defeated in the relationship, we're bored, we have that just kind of mild dissatisfaction, and that'll crush a sex life more than anything a partner does or says.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah, I'm gonna give a little tip here, folks. I gotta, I gotta share this. So when you enter women, women, people with vulvas, when you are entering perimenopause, what happens first for many of us is we get super horny, right? That super horny. And I'm telling you, when this time comes, grab it by the horns. This is when you do lots of dirty stuff and you find your turn-ons, you get kinky, you get weird, you masturbate all of the time because you got to fire it up. Think about it. You want a raging fire before it starts to be doubtful.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

Yeah, and use it or lose it. I mean, there is truth also that your desire, if you don't keep that flame going, it atrophies those muscles. And this is a big issue with quiet quitting that I see with couples, regardless of sexuality and gender, is that once something happens that starts to shut you down and couples stop having sex, they have a if it stops completely, it's very difficult to get it going. It doesn't mean you can't, but it's much harder than if you're just kind of struggling to figure out what works now. And this is something that's gonna change a lot throughout the lifespan of your own life and any relationship. You have to be in conversation about it. You have to be connected to your own body, touching yourself, paying attention to what turns you on, exploring with a partner. Sex doesn't have to mean intercourse. I know you know this very well. Touching, touching alone is so erotic, and so many different versions of what sex can look like are possible at any stage of life than what we're traditionally raised to believe. Especially like I grew up and I went to small all-girls Catholic school. Sex is like shameful. Did you too? Yes.

Menopause, Libido, And Self-Connection

SPEAKER_01 18:01

So listeners, before we popped into this conversation, I gotta give you a tiny quick background. Yes, I am I'm I'm going off track, but I think it's funny. She has an aunt, right? A great aunt, an aunt, an aunt named Annette Benedetti. And she is Italian as fuck, too.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

We got a lot in common happening. Okay, that's gonna be my new tagline. Italian as fuck. I love that. I am Italian as fuck, and proudly.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yep, yep, 100%. So I did not go to all girls' private Catholic school, but I went to private Catholic school. They did make the girls and the boys play on different playgrounds, though.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

So of course they did. Of course they did. So, and a lot of us, even if not Catholic, even if not Catholic school, there's so much shame around sex that's taught, especially for women. So it's very confusing as young people, and we're also taught to perform, to please a partner at the expense of ourselves. So we've got to shed all of that. And this is why I love the idea too, of not that you can't have great sex in your teens and 20s, but women really waking up to themselves in their 30s and beyond. And I have tons of clients who are having rocking sex in their 60s and 70s and really enjoying it, but they've given themselves permission to experiment, to be unconventional, and to talk about and advocate for what feels good to them, not just how do we please the other person.

Sex Is More Than Intercourse

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Right, right. So as it applies to quiet quitting in your sex life, I have a saying I like to live by sexy is an inside job. Yes, and I feel like some of what we were just talking about that you were bringing up is cultivating that desire from the inside. Women taking it on themselves, which honestly it sounds like a chore when I put it that way, taking it on yourself to find your own sex sexuality and desire. But I would argue I find having sex with myself to be more relaxing and more of a recharge than with somebody else. Simply because 100% agree. Right. I'm not worrying about anyone else. It feels more like a break, right? I'm just worrying about myself. I can think whatever I want, I can look however I want, I can make whatever noises I want. You know what I mean? I'm just enjoying the pleasure and being pretty primal in my discovery. Whereas when I'm with someone else, and I'm not saying that being with someone else isn't fun and doesn't bring a whole lot else to the table, or a whole lot more in some ways, but yeah, discovering yourself, becoming your own best lover. I bring this up almost every episode. Is it's my belief that that is the key to building and maintaining your interest in sex and your desirability and your desire for the long term. What do you think, Doctor?

Shame, Good Girl Scripts, And Agency

SPEAKER_03 21:26

I could not agree more. 100%. And I love the phrase that it's an inside job. It is. It all starts within. And I don't think this puts more burden on ourselves. Although I understand why you clarified the choice of words so intentionally. I think this is our permission to have freedom as women, that maybe this is even the first time at this unique point of history for all else in the world that's not maybe going so well. That this is that finally for women, we can be bosses at work, we can be successful, we can be feminine, we can be seductive, we can be sexually like takers and wanters and hunters, and we can also fall back and be taken. So much is available to us that wasn't historically allowed. And it does all start with within. And once you are giving yourself the permission to explore and be open to what you might find with no pressure with yourself, I think that translates over to a partner. And a lot of times in couples therapy, it's fascinating to me. I just have to say this that so many couples will come in and tell me, nobody ever, we've been to other couples' therapists. We've never talked about our sex life. Okay, this really, really bothers me. And I'm not surprised, actually, totally now that I'm Trained in this and doing this work, but I used to be. It is such a fundamental part of a relationship. And this isn't to put pressure. Our sex lives don't need to be perfect. They're going to ebb and flow. It's perfectly natural that there are periods of any relationship where you're not swinging from the rafter. So no pressure here. But also that your emotional life is very important. And so is your sexual life. Like we're designed to connect in these ways, both women and men. So it's really important to explore and get into conversation about this and be willing to look at what might not be working before it's too late, which is the quiet quitting dilemma. Oftentimes, we just don't want to address it because we don't know what to do. We feel like there's no way to do anything, and that's not true. And so we just let it play out and tell ourselves stories like, oh, well, it'll be fine, or I'll deal with that when. And it only compounds and gets worse. So avoidance is the enemy.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

I'm going to put my opinion in, which is if you are in couples counseling and they aren't addressing your association of your sexual life, you might need to find somebody new.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

I agree.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Unless you want a relationship that is sexless. Yes. Both of you. You're both like, let's not do sex, but be married. And I'm not saying there probably are couples who are fine with that.

Sexy Is An Inside Job

SPEAKER_03 24:17

But so I was just gonna say, I agree, I agree. First of all, there are shockingly couples who are fine with that. I have had that. And in a couple cases, it was really trauma-based that that so much had happened that neither person felt comfortable, sadly. And I also want to honor that. If you're in a relationship where both people really are not interested, there's nothing wrong with that. Everybody's different, and for whatever reason. However, most of the time, in fact, more than 80% of the time, we have mismatched libido in relationships, even in same-sex relationships. One partner wants sex more than the other. Rather than that being a problem, we need to reframe that as that's just normal. If it's more than 80%, this is the way it is. It's unlikely that you and your partner have the exact same sexual appetite, the exact same desire. And so, again, if we can normalize this and talk about it, then couples feel closer than ever and they can figure out what turns each other on, what you're looking for at this chapter of life. And and these changes, this relationship can come back online with very small gradual changes that begin with the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

So dead bedroom. Is it a sex problem or is it time for a relationship autopsy? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

Gosh, I guess it kind of depends on the situation. But I do think a lot, okay. Here's what I notice that when I'll have couples where they're having problems with sex, that maybe there's like a medical rule out, or I've had couples where a partner's had cancer, had surgery, they're going through medical issues, erectile dysfunction, vaginismus. There's so many things that can happen. But what I see is that when couples are connected emotionally, meaning they talk about the hard things, they share their feelings, they share their dreams, their fears, their insecurities, their doubts, which we all have, they can work through those things effectively. So to me, it's more of an emotional issue, it's more of a communication issue. Even when there are sexual problems, if you know how to communicate effectively and you're willing to be vulnerable and you're willing to acknowledge what scares you, you're gonna get through it.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

So relationship autopsy.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's good, you gotta look at everything.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Yeah, that's my long-winded way of saying, simply put, relationship autopsy. I like it.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

You gave context. Context is important in these things. So right now, I kind of want to we've we've been taking the listeners on a journey. We set the stage for what this is. Now we've been talking about a lot of the things that that cause the quiet quittings. We we've also given you some signs. I'd like to sum up the top things. Just we're this is like a listicle. So we made sure that we hit them all before we move on to the next part. What are the top things in a relationship that lead to a woman quiet quitting her sex life?

Why Therapy Must Include Sex

SPEAKER_03 28:34

Feeling like she cannot communicate and be heard with a partner. If she gets defensiveness and dismissiveness or distancing, she's gonna start to disengage, feeling unfulfilled in her own life, not feeling engaged and excited about what's happening in her own world, right? Separate from the relationship, being disconnected from your own body, feeling like your desire isn't the same and you're afraid to talk about it. So you avoid it altogether, or feeling disconnected from a partner, not getting enough attention, not feeling like a partner is engaged and invested, just overall. Sometimes a woman just says, Well, forget it and doesn't voice her needs. So that's like the most important thing is that when a woman stops trying to voice her needs, watch out, people. That's a sign that she is quiet quitting.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

She's on her way out, starting sexually and emotionally, yeah, and physically and just all together.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

Yes. And there's a big difference between a woman not wanting to have sex and just telling her partner that, sharing why, even sharing, I worry how this will impact you, or I can't help it. Let's say it's physical, and a woman just moving away, not wanting to touch, not wanting to be close, not even initiating affection. Unfortunately, if you're not paying attention to what's happening in your relationship, that that's a recipe for disaster on any level. It's like a bicycle tire that has air in it. You can't just pump it up once and expect that you can ride that bicycle. You have to refill the air in the tire regularly. So if that's not happening, you're you're already slipping away.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

I think, especially for my male listeners, because oftentimes they get a little defensive, if you will. I would like to look at the things you just listed that are the reasons why a woman quiet quits. And let's talk about who owns some of this, right? Because I I get a lot of comments from men where where it's like, why is it all what men have to do? Now, when I was listening to your list of things, some of it clearly is a relationship thing. The responsibility for the caregiving and the relationship work that goes into maintaining the sex life does lie on the partner. But you didn't make it sound like it was all on the partner. So if I were to ask you, who needs to take ownership of these things that can lead to quiet quitting to make sure that that doesn't happen in the relationship, what would your answer be?

Mismatched Libido Is Normal

Dead Bedroom Or Relationship Autopsy

SPEAKER_03 31:34

Both. It's both people. So we've been talking about women quiet quitting. It's more common than women quiet quit, but I just did a huge article for Daily Mail on husbands quiet quitting. So this happens with men too. And it can be some of the same stuff: not initiating sex, numbing out and distracting, not wanting to be close, not wanting to engage. So it's definitely not unique to women. And regardless of who's quiet quitting first, it tends to feed on each other. If you don't feel like your partner's interested in you and engaged and responsive when you make what we call a bid for connection. And that could be something as simple as, hey, look at this meme on my phone, or hey, I want to tell you about what happened to me today. My coworker said something like so offensive. And here's how I felt bids for connection, or it could be a bid for connection, could be a come on, like I wanna, I wanna have sex with you, some form of initiation. But bids for connection, we know from the research that couples who last respond to more than 70% of each other's bids for connection. We're naturally gonna miss some. Couples who break up eventually or stay in a dead-end, lifeless, no sex relationship, a hyposexual relationship, only respond about 30% of the time. In fact, there was some TikTok thing a little while ago. I don't know if you saw it, people brought it up to me. I never saw it, but some viral thing on TikTok about women testing their male partners by saying, I saw a bird, and seeing how their partners reacted. So it's not totally a fair test, but the point was when your wife or your partner, your girlfriend or your boyfriend says, I saw a bird, do you respond with interest? Oh, really? What kind of bird? Do you get curious or do you just keep scrolling on your phone and ignore them? So this is something a relationship is a system and it's a series of actions and reactions. So both people are responsible. At any time, either person can say, Hey, I'm feeling disconnected. I feel like we're in a pattern here where you know we're really pretty distant and disengaged. You're important to me. This is why I'm taking the risk to bring this up. Can we talk about this? What are you experiencing? Do you see this too? Let's get curious together and start to talk about what's even happening. That's the first step toward turning it around.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

If your partner, especially, and I'm gonna say your female partner and you're a guy, this is very heterosexual of me, but everyone should listen. Comes to you and says, I'm unhappy, like I'm struggling, and says that to you, you better fucking listen.

SPEAKER_03 35:35

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Like fucking listen. I I was actually in a very long marriage, I haven't been for quite a while. A man who I'm still incredibly good friends with, like besties with, right? But pretty early, yeah, yeah. We we became very familial. But very early, it's like having a brother. It's so weird how that happened.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

No, I think it's fantastic. I'm friends with a million exes, so I totally get that. And I'm remarried and still friends with exes, so I think I think that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Yeah, well, we have children, so it I mean, that's not why we're friends. I mean, think we'd be anyways, but it helps. But in our marriage pretty early, so maybe six years in, is that right? Maybe it's even earlier than that. I remember coming to him and saying, I'm unhappy. Like, I don't feel like you see me, you don't ta touch me. He wasn't a PDA kind of person. I am like, I'm just very well clearly, I put it all out there. And I said to him, I'm like, I feel so dissatisfied. And I looked at him and I said, I want you to know if you don't give me attention and we continue down this path, I will end up looking for it somewhere else. I know myself, and I will do that.

SPEAKER_03 36:54

Good for you for being upfront about what was happening.

Top Triggers For Quiet Quitting

SPEAKER_01 36:57

He still didn't work. He still didn't. This is just the way he was built at the time. And as time has gone by and we've revisited the relationship, we postmortem it sometimes, and we just talk now, sort of it feels like we're lifetimes away from it. He has said to me, I wish I had paid attention to this, or I can't believe that because I used to like reach across the car and rub the back of his neck and he would do that and flinch away from me. So I stopped doing that, and he he like I brought that up to months and he flinched. He was like, Oh god, I really wish I hadn't done that. But yeah, we were young. So those of you who are younger than us, listen to us. It's not just us as women either. I think men grow and evolve and look back, and can we can all see where we went wrong, but there was nobody to teach us. We didn't, there weren't educators like you and I. There were not pleasure-based sex educators or even relationship coaches or or counselors or therapists that were guiding in the same way that we are now and telling you the things that we are now. That wasn't part of our culture, right?

Who Owns The Work

SPEAKER_03 38:09

You're so right. You're so right. There was nobody modeling this for us. And it's funny you say this, Annette, because I had a similar experience in my first marriage where I felt like everything really, really went wrong, where I became dissatisfied sexually and emotionally and started to quiet quit was after the birth of my first daughter. Because before then, I played what I call good girl itis. I was infected with the disease of being a people pleaser, trying to be needless and selfless and make my husband happy. That was what I thought a good wife and mother looked like. And then after I had a child, I nearly died in labor, and so did my daughter. We both made it, but it was really scary physically. And then I had postpartum anxiety, and I just felt like he did not get it, he did not care. Now, looking back, I also really didn't know how to communicate effectively the way I would now around what I was experiencing. But we not that long ago, my my younger daughter's 22, at her 21st birthday, we finally ended up at a dinner to celebrate her having this long discussion about it, where my ex-husband finally said, Clot, you saw, and his dad's a great guy, but old school, right? He said, You saw the dad I grew up with. He said, I didn't know anything about emotions. I wasn't able to hear you, probably no matter how you said it. So we had a really nice, healing, acknowledging moment. But I want to also say, because I think this is so important, it's such a big part of my book and what you can get out of it that will make a difference. That oftentimes, so it's really important to be direct. And I couldn't agree with you more that if your partner tells you they're unhappy, as hard as it is, listen, don't stick your head in the sand because that happens a lot and that will not go away. That will never work out. So the message I used to get from my ex-husband is I've given you everything. Like I've given you this amazing life. Like basically, what do you have to be unhappy about? Meanwhile, I'm like, I'm drowning here. My body split open, I say in the book, like a cantaloupe oozing all over the place from every orifice, not to be gross, but I was a train wreck physically. I was riddled with anxiety. I was a young mom living far away from her family of origin. And my husband was emotionally completely unavailable. So the other piece that I give in the book is that I hear this a lot in my office. We think sometimes that we're saying that we're struggling and that we're appealing to our partner, but it's coming out like now it's the game of telephone. So who's to say if it's how you're saying it always or how they're hearing it? But it comes out often like criticism. And feedback is very hard to receive, no matter who you are. But if you have insecurities, not good enough, all of that stuff that many of us do, shame can come up so easily when somebody hears that their partner's unhappy. We have to be direct and assertive. We have to say it, but we also have to make sure we're revealing this in a very self-focused way, meaning a lot of I statements and very little you, you, you. This doesn't guarantee we're heard. Some people can't hear it. Like what you and I are describing, some partners are not yet ready in their own emotional development and may never be, no matter how diplomatically you tee it on a platter. But I do often hear women coming forward with blame, with accusation, and with criticism. And they'll say, Well, I feel like you don't care, for example. That's not sharing your feelings, that's sharing your story. I call it the negative partner story, that the brain is a meaning-making machine and you will generate an interpretation of what your partner's doing and why. And we tend to lead with that or what they're getting right or wrong, instead of saying, Hey, I feel like we're pretty distant lately. Let me tell you what I'm experiencing. I've noticed that you're not leaning over at night to touch me. You haven't initiated sex in a while, right? We're stating the behavior as neutrally as possible. And this is really hurting me. I feel lonely. I'm scared about the relationship. I don't know what to do. And I've made several attempts to talk to you about it. And I don't feel like I'm getting hurt. Can you help me? Can we talk about this in a way that makes it safe for us to both stay engaged? You're important to me. And using that attachment language and focusing on your own emotions, your own experience, letting this person know I'm taking the time and making the effort to tell you because I love you and I want to be close, not because I'm coming at you to blame or accuse or criticize you, can make a huge difference. Doesn't guarantee, but increases your chances greatly of getting heard. And this is the whole method I give in the book that I call self-connected communication, shows you exactly how to do this step by step. But that can make a huge difference. And still, you're gonna get some people who dismiss you, get defensive, tune you out, and then you have powerful information with which you can make choices. Better to confront it, put it out there directly, see if you can get through. And if you're doing your part side of the street and you can't get through, then that's information where you can say, Can I can I live like this? And maybe you don't quiet quit, maybe you actively quit instead.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Right. So women who are quiet quitting, women who have lost the desire to be clear, they can come back, right?

Bids For Connection And The 70 Percent Rule

SPEAKER_03 44:02

Yes, yes. Now, if it goes on too long and you get to the point of total detachment, then it can be very difficult to bring it back, which is why it's best to intervene sooner.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

All right. What are some of the signs that quiet quitting has gone on too long and may be at the point of no return and coming back to the relationship?

SPEAKER_03 44:26

There's a big one. It's loud like a siren, indifference. When there is no longer anger, no longer even that negative story in your head, you just don't give a flying fuck. That that place, that's where I got at the end of my marriage. I was like, I could watch you have sex with a harem of women and eat popcorn for all the for all the fucks I'd give. And I had loved that man very, very, very deeply. So, and I see this over and over in my office. When you get to the point of total indifference and there isn't even anger left, and we call it in therapy a burned out pursuer. This is when a woman becomes so tired from trying and trying and trying sexually, emotionally, carrying the mental load, trying to tell her partner she's unhappy, planning date nights, doing all the emotional labor. I mean, we women will usually fight really hard for a connection when we love someone. And when we're exhausted and nothing feels like it works, we get to that place of total burnout. That's where there's apathy and indifference. And at that point, a lot of psychologists will say it's very difficult to get the connection back. That said, whether or not you're all the way there, it's really a very individual thing. And this is where therapy can sometimes help, but you can also do your own inquiries inside to figure out okay, where am I? How burned out am I? Am I at a place of total apathy? Or is there some, do I give a half a fuck? If you give even 1% of a fuck, there's still the possibility of turning it around, truly.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

You could just be like, I want to sit in the cuck chair and see if I care as you mess around with women. If you're like, oh thank God, you're the one doing it, it's probably done.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

I mean, I we talked about the fact that I'm Italian. If I'm into someone, I can be very jealous. I'm passionate about my person. If I'm not jealous at all, I mean, I don't behave like a jealous lunatic. I think jealousy gets a bad rank. But it's actually a normal human emotion. And I'm territorial about my man. And my husband has female friends. Again, I feel secure in the relationship, but the thought of watching him, and we're we're monogamous. So that's not to say that you have to be monogamous, but we are conscious.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

I just want to say the way in which you said, and we're monogamous. I believe you. That that was you said it.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

I hope we are. I think we are. I don't know what he's doing.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

You stated clearly where you stand about your so if I am watching a man I'm in a monogamous relationship with interact sexually with another woman, that's not something I personally desire. That's something that typically lights me aflame with jealousy. If I don't care, I that relationship is dead. And in my own personal experience, I've never come back from that point. In fact, I've often found that partners, when I finally walk away, then they panic and, oh no, where are you going? Right. And I see this all the time in my office. The most common thing is women come in, they're burned out pursuers, they've been quietly quitting out of desperation, right? Many times they feel trapped by finances, by children, by religious constraints, fear of stigmatization. Finally, they've gotten up the courage to say this thing has been dead for a long time and I'm done. And then let's say they're in a heterosexual relationship, the male partner's, what? What do you mean you've been telling me you're dissatisfied? I had no idea to your point, Annette. And I don't want a divorce. Let's go to couples therapy. And now the woman's looking at me, going, Colette, I wish I could care. I wish I could. Where was this energy that he's showing you now? Where was this five years ago?

Listen When Your Partner Says I’m Unhappy

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Right. And I think because I again I'm gonna go back to one of the number one sort of negative comments I get from listeners, which I want to put asteris next to this, by and large. Counter to what I thought it would be, most of the comments I get from men are men really interested, engaging, and wanting to make a difference. But I do get the number one negative comment is again, why do men have to pursue? Why do men have to do all the work? Why is it all about what women want? And let's go back to what she just said. Women tend, I believe, tell me if I'm wrong, to be the ones pursuing the affection, doing the work, trying to keep things ignited and sexy and so on and so forth early in the relationship. And when we are carrying the weight of that work and there's not reciprocity, eventually it gets old, especially if you're then you add kids on top of it who we also have to take care of. There's only so much we can do before we're like, this isn't worth it. Like, I just don't have it in me. I'm exhausted. Even when we're super passionate, loyal people, like I am also like, if I'm with someone, I am with them. I mean, lovers, friends, family. You know, and I'm also pretty territorial. So for me to dump or let go of or walk away from one of those things, it has to be severe. It has to be great enough that I feel relief when I step away. I might feel a little bit of sadness, tiny, tiny bit. Sometimes I'm shocked at how little sadness I feel. But you have to get that burnout. So to my listeners who hopefully are listening to this, it's not, it's not a one-way thing. It's not all about you having to do the work. If, but if and if you can see what she's giving early on and reciprocate that, then you're both in this equal state of giving and and keeping each other energized. And we're not gonna get to this point now where it's okay, now she doesn't want to go down on you. Now she doesn't want to have sex with you, now she doesn't want to do fun, sexy things with you or be intimate. And now you do have to step up, and now you do have to do more of the giving, and you have to support her nervous system, and you have to figure out how to bring her back around, or she's gonna try again with someone else because it's just easier to find someone new and start from the hot new relationship energy place instead of dragging the dead horse.

SPEAKER_03 51:22

Exactly. And I think what you said support her nervous system, make her feel chosen. Women, even if they're not feeling super sexual, will tend to want to be intimate physically with a partner when they feel cared for emotionally, when they feel seen, when they feel that the effort is reciprocated and it's not all on them. There is emotional labor in a relationship. When people say a relationship takes work, that's what we mean by that cliched expression. It shouldn't be suffering and torture, but it does take work to know someone, to be engaged, to keep attraction alive, to continue to be curious about your partner. Both men and women grow and change throughout life. So if you're leaving all of that work to your wife or to your girlfriend, eventually she's gonna burn out. And it can start as simply as first of all, there's two things. It can start as simply as getting curious about your partner. Ask your partner how are you experiencing the relationship? Sometimes we're scared because we're scared of the answer. It's not, it's not as scary as you think. It's better to hear what's true. How satisfied are you with things lately? I love to suggest a question that if you didn't fear my reaction, what would you tell me I need to work on? Because I think that's why people stay silent. This is why I call my book The Cost of Quiet. We're afraid of what comes next. We're afraid of an argument, we're afraid of hearing things that are gonna hurt us, we're afraid of our partner's reaction.

After Kids: Burnout, Anxiety, And Repair

SPEAKER_01 53:13

So I want to go back to the question. First of all, when do you bring up this question? And can you restate the question and what exactly it's going to help with?

SPEAKER_03 53:27

Yes. So you can bring up the question anytime. And if you find yourself going, oh, there's never a good time, that is probably your psyche protecting you from vulnerability, because vulnerability is scary. There's always time, it doesn't have to be a big momentous occasion. Okay. So it could just be in the morning at breakfast, at night, in the middle of the day, Saturday driving in the car. It's not that weighty that it that the roads have to be cleared for this conversation to happen. And then the question is really if you didn't, and you don't have to say it exactly this way, this is how I phrase it, and I'll tell you why. If you didn't fear my reaction, or if you didn't have to worry about how I'd react, or if you knew I would react well, what would you tell me I need to work on for our relationship to be better? And the reason it's so important, if you knew I would react well, what would you tell me I need to work on for our relationship to be better? Is that you're already speaking to the fear of the reaction and saying, hey, no matter what you tell me, I'm willing to listen, I'm not gonna react poorly. Right? I'm I'm here for your feedback. I have the courage to hear it. And then it's really for our relationship to be better. That helps to hold what we call in therapy the attachment frame. That this is something we both want as a team, our relationship to be better. This is about growth, not about criticism, not about blame, not about whose fault it is. This is about what we can do to grow. And then that I need to work on signals that I'm asking you for feedback about me. I'm not putting that part on you. I want to know what you experience and how I could improve because I'm willing personally to work on myself and my side. That doesn't mean your partner doesn't have their responsibilities or that you don't have the right to also express this or have grievances or ask for what you need, but you're really giving your partner permission to share with you what's making them unhappy, what they're dissatisfied with. And let's say they're relatively happy. You're still inviting a deeper connection, the antithesis of quiet quitting by saying, Hey, what's working? What's not working? What could I do better? We love very differently. We have very different sexual appetites, we have very different ways of showing emotion, we have very different ways of wanting sexual gratification. We got to ask this other person. We can't assume that the thing that we did or that worked in the first two months of dating is still working sexually or emotionally on rinse and repeat. So have the courage to ask and be curious.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

Well, that brings me to where we need to wrap this up and make sure that my listeners have the tools they need to start making a difference in their relationship tonight. We have given you the marker of uh quiet quit has gone too far. So check your relationship for that if this is like ringing some bells. But if you're before that, we also talked about some of the signs that she's quiet quitting. And this is important for everybody in the relationship. So if you've seen those signs, you now know things can be turned around. We've given you some ideas on how to do that. But I want you to clearly give my listeners three things, three takeaways for right now before they go and buy your book and figure out all of the rest or call you personally that they can start doing tonight to start changing the situation to quit the quiet quit if you well.

From Criticism To I-Statements

SPEAKER_03 57:19

I love that. Quit quiet quit the quiet quit. It's perfect. Okay, so the first thing is, and I'm gonna make this really clear and tangible, the first and most important thing, it all starts with connection to yourself. This doesn't have to be hugely complicated, but in today's ever-distracted world, half the time we have no idea what's going on in our own internal world. Be still for a minute, whether you do a five-minute mindfulness meditation, there are a million apps out there that can help you do that, or you just close your eyes, put your hand on your heart, and start by noticing what's happening in your body, any body sensations. That's the beginning of an inquiry as to what you're feeling, and your feelings will inform your needs. You can't go to your partner and communicate, bring your sex life back, quit your quiet quitting if you don't know what you're feeling, what you're needing, what you're wanting, what you're experiencing. So all roads begin within. The second is make it a habit to have a couple's check-in. There are a million versions of this. It can be, this sounds so simple, and it is, but this is one of the most important things. And if I could get every couple early in life to adopt this policy, we would probably prevent quiet quitting, period, and we would save a lot of relationships. So check in with your partner regularly, ideally daily. It can be five minutes. There's a little exercise that I give to a lot of my couples where you name a feeling and you express an appreciation, you talk about what you're needing and you share what you're struggling with. And you don't give feedback, it's just a check-in. You say, Thank you for sharing, and the other person goes. If you don't want to do that, have a weekly meeting where you open the floor for each person, not an extended talk that devolves into an argument and a back and forth. Let's talk a little logistics and let's talk about what you're experiencing emotionally. Very, very important to stay connected and talk about what each other is experiencing, not just how is your day fine, how is your day, right? That's going nowhere. And then the final thing I want to say beyond the check-in, this is hugely important. You have to address the small things as they happen. People think couples are in my office, uh, infidelity, parenting differences, finances. I hate your parents. Okay, I'm not saying those things don't happen, right? But what I am saying is most of it is the argument you downloaded Duolingo when you said you were done with that. I'm not even kidding. You left the milk on the counter. You do it's the tiny micro moments that tap into so much more. And when we don't address those things and know how to repair by sharing our feelings and putting our needs out there assertively, those little moments that we swallow and say it's no big deal, they add up. They lead to resentment. And resentment is a huge driver of quiet quitting. We didn't even really get into that part of it, but anyone listening to this knows at some point in your life you felt the bitter taste of resentment. Don't let it happen. It's drinking poison, expecting someone else to die. And that comes from being willing to engage with conflict at the smallest level when it's a three, not a 10. This will bleed into your sex life for the better.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:56

I'm gonna do a little plug for myself here because you said the number one thing was to get in touch with yourself and figure out your own pleasure. I'm just gonna plug my 365 days of orgasms pleasure journey. Y'all should know about it by now. No, you're not having to have an orgasm every day, but I am taking you from base level, figuring out where you find pleasure in your body, what it even feels to like expert level masturbation techniques by the end of the year. We are not there at all right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:28

Okay, I love this though. Life is better with orgasms. So yes. Yes to what Annette is offering.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:35

This will, this will, this will teach you all the ways you can orgasm, all the ways you can feel pleasure and how you can use that in your entire life. So I'm gonna plug that. I have a whole playlist on YouTube. If you guys are following me on social media, you're gonna see me posting exercises and daily prompts there weekly. And I'm just plugging it here right now because I have an expert. I've got an expert that says what I'm doing is a good idea for you.

Boundaries, Feedback, And Choices

SPEAKER_03 1:02:01

So absolutely, absolutely. And that will filter into your relationship if you're in one with a partner in every way that's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

Yes, absolutely. And I even talk about how partners can be a support. So just plug in myself using the expert for that. Love it. Thank you so much for this conversation. I learned a lot from it. It has me sort of looking over my own past relationships so that I can be better in current relationships. But I would love for you to right now take them a moment to make sure that my listeners know everywhere they can find you, follow you, and learn from you more.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:40

Absolutely. So I am everywhere. You almost can't not find me. My website is colettejanefair.com. Colette has one L and Fair is F is in Frank E-H-R. It's a bizarre spelling. I'm also on Instagram, very active there, Colette Janefair. I have a great sub stack where I give a ton of relationship advice, which is called Secrets from a Therapist. You can find me there. And although I can't do anything therapeutic, of course, online or through email, I love engaging with listeners. I'm happy for you to reach out. Please do if you have questions or you want to let me know how you like the book. And of course, my new book, The Cost of Quiet, How to Have the Hard Conversations That Create Secure Lasting Love, is available now everywhere from Amazon to my website to your local bookstore. And I do think it will really help you better your communication and deepen both your emotional, sexual, everything kind of intimacy with yourself and your partner.

Signs It’s Gone Too Far: Indifference

SPEAKER_01 1:03:44

So, listeners, if any part of this conversation has resonated with you, if it's made you look at your relationship a little bit closer, or look at your own role in where you're at and your relationship a little closer and go, hmm, I might be doing that, or she might be doing that right now. You have some hope, I would hope, and unless you're you got that. She doesn't give a fuck anymore. In which case you still might have some hope. Yes. Never lose hope. But there is a path back. And there are people who can help you. There is a book out there you can get that's gonna at least help you start having the conversations you need to have. This is a game changer for relationships. Even putting a word to it, quiet quitting, is a game changer. So thank you, Colette, so so much. I feel fortunate to have an expert like you here to help guide me and my listeners. And so if you enjoyed this conversation, you got something out of it, A, I'd love you to drop a comment. Go over to my YouTube channel at TalkSex within it. Drop a comment. How did this resonate with you? Why? What are some signs you've seen in your own relationship? Ask a question. If you drop that into the comments section, I will be able to read it, pass it on, respond to it. But also take a moment to go to my podcast on Apple and Spotify and drop a review. That's what helps get this information out to more people, bring more people to listen and contribute to these conversations. I'd really appreciate that. Thank you again, Colette, for joining me. And to my listeners, I'll see you in the locker room. Cheers. Cheers.