ISI Brotherhood Podcast

Married Couples Are Having Less Sex. Do You Know Why?

• Aaron Walker • Season 2 • Episode 14

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We're diving into the question every married man has thought but few have discussed openly: "Why don't we have more sex?" This honest conversation with guest expert Dan Purcell unpacks the hidden barriers to sexual fulfillment in marriage and offers practical wisdom for rebuilding intimacy.

Sexual difficulties in marriage aren't usually about the surface-level issues we blame—stress, fatigue, or busy schedules. The root problems typically stem from how we approach intimacy itself. When achievement-oriented men treat their spouses like projects to be fixed or goals to be conquered, they create distance instead of connection. "Your spouse isn't a project," Purcell reminds us. "She's not a person that if you whine loud enough or do the dishes enough... you don't earn sex like you do other goals."

This episode challenges the transactional mindset many men bring to the bedroom. We explore how unspoken resentments, poor communication, and mismatched expectations create barriers to fulfilling intimacy. Purcell shares from personal experience how his own "superior attitude" damaged his marriage until he learned to check himself first: "What is my role in why my wife has lower desire? How am I contributing to the problem?"

The conversation also addresses pornography's devastating impact on marital intimacy, with 83% of men in a recent church survey admitting to struggling with porn addiction. Like "a diet of candy bars," pornography provides temporary satisfaction while starving the relationship of genuine connection. True passion, we discover, only exists where there's freedom—your spouse must feel completely free to say both yes and no without manipulation or pressure.

Whether you're newly married or celebrating decades together, this episode offers transformative insights for creating the intimate connection you both desire. Start by sitting down with your spouse this week and asking: "What does emotional and physical intimacy look like for us right now?" Then simply listen without defending or fixing—it might be the beginning of a whole new chapter in your marriage.


And if this hits home, we’re continuing the conversation LIVE at the ISI Roundtable on July 29 virtual free event. This is your chance to go deeper, ask real questions, and connect with other men walking the same road. Save your seat today! https://www.isibrotherhood.com/roundtable


Key Takeaways:

  • Many men unknowingly sabotage intimacy by treating their wives like projects or goals rather than equal partners.
  • True connection requires ditching the transactional mindset and taking ownership of how we contribute to the intimacy gap.
  • Poor communication, unspoken resentments, and mismatched expectations are often the real culprits behind sexual disconnection.
  • Pornography creates a false sense of satisfaction while eroding real intimacy and freedom in the relationship.
  • A simple, honest conversation—without fixing or defending—can be the first step toward rebuilding emotional and physical closeness.


Connect:

Speaker 1:

Your spouse isn't a project. She's not a person that if you whine loud enough or do the dishes enough, or you don't earn sex like you do other goals, so you gotta think more in terms of this. Is a person, not like a goal.

Speaker 2:

Well, hey guys, welcome back to another episode of ISI Brotherhood Podcast. Listen, we're going to talk about a topic today that many of you guys, privately, we talk about in the small group. But it's why don't we have more sex? And you're like Big A really, Are we going to go there? Well, let's be honest, this is one of those questions that every man has thought, but very few have ever talked about In this episode. We're going to go there. What gets in the way of sex in marriage and how do we fix it? Well, hey, let me just make a special note those that are listening to this episode today. If you're a dad, a lot of young men follow me, a lot of teenagers follow me, and I'm so grateful for that. So, parents, use your own discretion if this is an episode that you think is suitable for your children. But, hey, let me welcome our co-host on today, Dan Purcell.

Speaker 1:

Dan it is so good to have you, hey, happy to be here. This is great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, man, I'm so glad to have you. This is a space that you've been in for a long time. You actually, for those that are listening, dan taught this session at one of our live events. It was the most attended live session we've ever had and so this is a real need. It's a real thing. Dan was an ISI brother for years and years and years and added so much value to our organization, and we just thought it would be appropriate, man, for you to come on and be with us today. So catch us up just a little bit. Give me just a little snapshot of how you've been recently, good ISI really helped me get my start.

Speaker 1:

Since joining ISI, I launched a podcast. I got the courage to find my who's in my businesses so that I can focus more on my unique zone of genius. I still do my come as you are documents. I update it every so often and I review that constantly. I do the 12 week year, which is something else I learned from my ISI brothers. I still continue that today. Others, I still continue that today. So there's so much of my success in business and personally that I attribute to my time learning from you and all the other really good men in ISI.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, thank you, dan, I appreciate you saying that. Listen, let's dive into this topic. It's something that in smaller groups sometimes we'll dive into, but rarely do we really go deep into this. Robin and I have been married 45 years. We've probably experienced most things that we're going to talk about today to some level, but y'all know who we are. You know what we're about. We're willing to go there, we're willing to tread those waters, and I think it's kind of silly not to, because this is a real thing that all couples deal with periodically, and it's a great thing, it's not a bad thing, it's not taboo, it's not something that we shouldn't be talking about. But what have you found in your experience that makes this so difficult to discuss and so difficult to talk about?

Speaker 1:

I think sex in general brings up a lot of feelings of discomfort and shame. Sex in general brings up a lot of feelings of discomfort and shame. And I think sex regardless of your religious upbringing or not it inherently comes with a little bit of anxiety Because there's let's be honest, it's a part of human behavior. It's part of humanity.

Speaker 2:

That's a little weird, yeah, right, yeah, it is, especially if you don't talk about it and then there's problems. And I want to go down through a few problems and then we'll get into some other things. But one of the things that I have seen over the years in coaching and leading the mastermind groups is there's oftentimes unspoken resentments, there's like these grudges, and it really kills the desire. So what have you seen around your coaching, around unspoken resentments and how that plays out.

Speaker 1:

Let's say you and your spouse were dealing with I don't know financial difficulty. One person just keeps on spending beyond the budget consistently. Don't you think you'd sit down with your spouse to say, hey, we need to fix this, or else some big problems are going to happen? Well, the same would apply to your intimate relationship, your sexual relationship. If things aren't working in the bedroom, I hope you'd sit down with your spouse and say this isn't working.

Speaker 1:

Let's work this out, and the solutions you might come up with might be creative, might be different than what we originally started with, but still I think we tend to compartmentalize sex as kind of the other. Sometimes, while we're comfortable discussing parenting issues or financial issues or maybe in-laws or how to spend our vacation, it's just sex tends to kind of take a different category altogether, and I think there's reasons for that. But I think, as couples learn how to talk about it, how to be better listeners to each other, I think couples can really learn how to actually work through their resentments and to overcome them. See, actually have a sex life you enjoy and that you like.

Speaker 2:

That's what all these guys are looking for and hoping for listening to this. They're going to take some of your advice. And here's the thing. It's funny that you said that, because I even know when I got married, we just celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary and so neither of our parents talked to us about this right before we got married. They didn't. I mean, we go into this thing brand new and figuring it out on our own and it was awkward, needless to say, like I had prepared for business, we'd gone to school, we'd done those things, we'd made great preparation, but for this it was a little awkward. You know, and as a dating couple, you know you don't talk about that stuff too much until you know, right before you get married and you want to, you know, be mindful of that. But you get into this and, like you said, you would talk about the budget and not even think about it.

Speaker 2:

But something that's as important as this, I know one of the things that Robin and I really experienced early in our career and a lot of people that listen to me, follow me, follow this podcast, are young in their career, but you're tired. I mean just the fatigue and the stress that comes along with getting married and then you're starting a new business or you're starting in a new career, just that mental exhaustion, the physical tiredness, you know. You get to the end of the day and you want to have a nice dinner and hang out with your spouse and next thing you know you're like too stressed or too tired, and then that just perpetuates the problem and so you don't address it right, you don't even deal with it, you just go I'm too tired. Or your spouse, you know Robin would say hey, I'm tired or not feeling up to it, and then I get this anxiety or anxiousness or like, and we're not talking about it, but it's just not, which goes into the next thing I'll talk to about it. I mean it's the poor communication. But so from a fatigue and stress standpoint, is that kind of at the top of the list, you see, for most couples?

Speaker 1:

I think so, but it's not the. So it's easy to rattle off a bunch of things that get in the way, like fatigue, stress, discomfort with one's own body, like a body image issue. Sure, it could talk about there's a lot, but I think those are surface level issues.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'm glad you're here because we're going to dive into the real.

Speaker 1:

Although they definitely play a role. But there's a lot of evidence that says stress to some people actually increases desire for sexual connection, not decreases it. Because the stress hormone, cortisol in your body, one of the byproducts of it is oxytocin. It's that bonding hormone. So for some people stress is actually the driver for more human connection, not less.

Speaker 2:

Is that true for men and women? Men and women, Now, not for everyone, but for some people not less. So you can't just-. Is that true for men and women, or is?

Speaker 1:

that Men and women. Now, not for everyone, but for some people, they experience this, so you can't just blink it and say, oh, it's stress.

Speaker 1:

That's why and it's almost not practical to say, oh, I'll just take my stress dial from a nine or a 10 and down to a two or a three and then boom, we have a great sex life, although that would be idyllic, but that's not reality. So that kind of advice doesn't really help people, because we need to get more to the root of the issue, which I believe is more about intimacy, which I can define in a minute.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let's go ahead and go through that. Just a few of the things and, like you said, we could go over this for hours the surface level things, and we want to get to the root cause of the problem. But just some of the things I'd written down that some people can identify with is maybe poor communication, insecurity, shame, different sex drives. If those mismatched libidos left unaddressed, now we've got a real problem later. Tito's left unaddressed, you know, now we got a real problem later. And then kids busyness.

Speaker 2:

You know, one that's really got me in trouble is lack of non-sexual affection. Right, it's just holding, caressing, comforting, cuddling, whatever you want to call it, you know, without that leading to something else. And so there's got to be a lot of that right for it to be really intimate. So then there's hormonal issues. There's got to be a lot of that right for it to be really intimate. So then there's hormonal issues, there's medical issues, there's porn distractions, there's spiritual disconnection. But let's dive into some of the things you talked about intimacy. So let's kind of go there. We know what the surface level things are. What is the root cause of this problem, primarily from your vantage point?

Speaker 1:

Well, to prepare for this episode, I came up with three ideas, three concepts, and I'm titling these things. What men can do to have a better sex life with their wife and it's the first one is what I hear a lot is they. When they're having a lot of distress about their sexual relationship, a lot of their thoughts go to it's my spouse's problem. If only they would blank, our sexual frustrations would go away, Like if only she wasn't so tired all the time, if only she wasn't so absorbed with the kids, if only she got over her hangups about X, y or Z, then our frustrations would go away. It's that line of thinking.

Speaker 2:

But the core of it is thinking it's the spouse's problem, not their own problem. Yeah, what do you suggest for couples, how to broach this topic of conversation? To do a self-reflection Like what do we or how can we approach that? Because it's a difficult topic, even if you've been married a long time. Right, it's very sensitive in nature. How would you address this with Mrs Purcell if you were to sit down with her and say, hey, here's the first place we can start?

Speaker 1:

Well, I've got a story about this of how I did it wrong.

Speaker 2:

Okay well tell us that, and then we want to learn how to do it right. Sure.

Speaker 1:

So my wife and I've been married 22 years About. The year 13 mark is when we really started investing in improving our sexual relationship and it was a glorious time in our marriage. We were like honeymooners. All over again, we're like rabbits.

Speaker 1:

We're just really thoroughly enjoying ourselves because we're learning so much and applying it as just the right season of our life and then fast forward another year or two. My drive is still very high and my wife's drive hasn't caught up to mine, as I would say. And even though we had the season that was great in kept in my mind, I was, I kept on progressing and she just plateaued and I was really frustrated about that. So, because of my line of work, I listened to a lot of podcasts about sexual intimacy. I have books that I read, whatever, and there was one particular book that I was so convinced if my wife would just sit down and read this book, all of our sexual frustrations would go away. She'd apply the homework and, hey, she'd finally catch up to my level. You know where this is going, right? Yeah, yeah, I do.

Speaker 2:

For a disaster. It's a train wreck.

Speaker 1:

I highlighted the book. I wrote notes in the margin, I had like sticky notes and whatever, and I'd like carefully place it, like on her nightstand, and it wouldn't move for a week, like what gives. So I'd like strategically position it over her pillow and it still wouldn't move, it'd go back to the nightstand. And so I, my wife and I had a discussion or an argument about it Say, hey, how come you're not reading this book? She's like Daniel, I we have six kids, I homeschool, I cook all the meals for the family, I have barely enough time for myself to even shower, and yet you want me to sit down and read a thick book about sex. And you know she had a really good point, like she just really didn't have a lot of time to herself or took a lot of time for herself.

Speaker 2:

So did you resent that? Let's talk about that for a second. When she said that, did you like? Well, hey, everything is more important than this? Did you feel? Because guys hearing this right now are going? Well, there you go. I mean, she's using all these excuses. That still doesn't change who you are?

Speaker 1:

Exactly I was. So this is what I said. Next, I'm going to make a deal with you I will take over all the meal prep for two weeks. I'll do all the meal prepping, shopping, cooking, clean up everything which would free you up like an hour or two hours a day, and in exchange, take that time instead. You know, draw a bath for yourself, relax, take some time for yourself and read the book instead. So she reluctantly agreed.

Speaker 1:

And another part of the story you need to understand is one of our contention points in our marriage at the time was dinner would be late, like 7.30, 8, sometimes even 8.30 o'clock at night. And when you're having dinner that late and you're cleaning up dinner and then you put the kids to bed, it's really late and there's no couple time anymore. So I wanted dinner done earlier in the day so that we could actually have an evening together, maybe even play with our kids, and then sometime just for us before we were too exhausted to go to bed. Well, guess what, for those two weeks I had dinner done 5.30 every single night and I cooked great meals. I love cooking and I cooked the kind of meals that she likes, and I really made sure the meals were great, but here's the thing, big A, I let her know it.

Speaker 2:

I let her know what a good job I was doing, I would make little comments.

Speaker 1:

like you know, I work full time and I still manage to get dinner done on time.

Speaker 2:

I thought, you were smarter than that.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 1:

But I was very, very subtle in what I was saying, yeah, as if to say look, I have no problem figuring this out. What's your problem? You can't solve this problem, and all right. So picture this my wife's in the bedroom reading this book that I wanted her to read to fix our sex life, and I'm out there cooking. Is she swooning in the bedroom like, oh, my husband is so wonderful, he really cares about me, he really wants to give me this time so I can read this book. Is she thinking that? No, not at all. Instead, she's probably hating the book. She's probably resenting me more.

Speaker 1:

So, on a logical level, it sounds like well, if only my wife would like invest in her sexual relationship and read this book, our sex life will get better. But what we don't, what we forget, is we take an approach that breaks our marriage from a marriage of partners and equality into a hierarchy, and we do this so subtly In this case. The unspoken undercurrent of all my communication, verbal and nonverbal, to my wife was I have it figured out, you don't, I know better. You don't, I've got it put together. You don't Like, you're the broken one, you're the one that needs fixing. There's a little bit of superiority in me, and you cannot make passionate love with someone who thinks they're superior to you or that you're subordinate to. It just doesn't work that way in human biology.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we weren't created that way, right, we were created as partners and not the hierarchy. So I know that in past experiences I've talked to you. You often say, hey, we got to learn to calm the heck down. We need to back off just a little bit, so tell the guys some approaches to take then. So how would you handle that same scenario differently today? Very differently?

Speaker 1:

First of all, I would check myself first, because and how do you?

Speaker 2:

do that. What does that even mean? Like what do I need, to ask myself.

Speaker 1:

You need a lot of self-awareness here. But one great question to ask myself is what is my role in why my wife has lower desire? How am I contributing to the problem? In my case, my superior attitude is contributing to the problem, in that I am together. We are co-creating a wife and a marriage that has low sexual desire because the way I treat her Now she has a role to play in it too. But I need to clean up my side of the street first before I start complaining about her side of the street, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

And how can people do that professionally? We'll just take the average guy you know me, for example. Like if I go into that, maybe I don't really think I'm communicating that way, maybe it's not from my perspective. I know oftentimes I get in trouble from Robin. She'll say why did you say it that way? And I'm like I don't even know what you mean.

Speaker 1:

But like I just said it.

Speaker 2:

She said you're so forward, you're so stern, like it doesn't sound like that's coming across with compassion or empathy. And I'm like God, it's just my personality. Everybody knows big A is just straightforward. And she's like well, I don't like it that way. I don't like it when you say it that way. So what do you say to those guys that are like man, I didn't even know to know that. I didn't even know to know that I didn't even realize maybe some of these things that I, you know were doing, yeah, yeah, I have two ideas there.

Speaker 1:

First is your spouse can be your number one ally in helping you, because your spouse knows you better sometimes than you know yourself. You know what Jesus teaches about the plank in our eye and the speck in the other's eye. There's actually a lot of truth in psychology about that, in that our brain is very good at self-deception. We like to have a high opinion of ourselves and a poor opinion of other people. It's very, very easy for us to see the littlest speck in someone else while ignoring the beam in our own. So there's a lot of truth to that. So, if you can, with all the humility you can muster, go to your wife and say honey, what is it about me that is hard for you to be married to me? That's a powerful question to ask and you may not like the answer. But what is it about being married to me that is hard for you? That would be very revealing and help you kind of maybe see where some of the planks are in your own eye.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, without a question. Other people see you differently than you see yourself. Yes, yes, without any hesitation or question whatsoever. So a lot of guys and I can only speak for guys because that's who I talk to I lead guys, I teach guys, I coach guys, we lead the mastermind. There's a lot of anxiety about sex. There's a lot of guys, a lot of discussions in our groups and then individually when I'm coaching, about having a great amount of anxiety. How do we get control of that anxiety?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a lot of times our anxiety is masked. For example, you might look at your spouse and say anxious about sex. I'm not anxious about sex. You're the one that's anxious about, I don't know, trying new positions or new locations, or X Y Z. I'm fine with that and you're not. But anxiety about sex has little to do with novelty or comfort with novelty. Anxiety has to do with how you behave when you don't get what you want. In other words, if I'm not getting enough sex that I think I want, how do I behave?

Speaker 2:

I'm not good at that, to be honest with you. It's created a lot of arguments in our marriage over time.

Speaker 1:

She's like you're pouting like a teenager, yeah, and I'm like well, I don't even know how to answer that Like that's true, right, you're pouting like a teenager because you're anxious yeah yeah, so anxious about sex isn't about, like, the sexual acts themselves, but it's about what you do when you don't get what you think you want or what you think you need. So that's a great mirror to hold up to yourself. Like, how do I behave when I don't get what I want?

Speaker 1:

And sometimes diffusing anxiety and learning how to control your own anxiety is like, look, it's been a few days and it's not gonna happen tonight. I will be fine, I will be okay. That's like learning how to self-soothe or like it's all right, I'm just gonna go for a run or gonna go work out, or it might be I'm gonna go talk to some friends that I trust or some healthy activities that help you kind of self-soothe. Or talk to a friend that you trust, or it might be church leaders or people in a small group at church, whatever, but it's got to be good and healthy, right? You're not going to go to an echo chamber where they'll reinforce your anxiety. That's not healthy.

Speaker 2:

I know that you teach a lot about being willing to endure some discomfort during that growth. Yes, everyone's built differently as it relates to that. Talk to that just for a moment. What do you tell these guys that you know their libido is off the chart, their wife's is not. We're going to get into talking about that a little bit more just in a minute. But like, physically that's discomforting, you know, emotionally that's discomforting. We want to grow, but there's a lot of anxiety around it, a lot of discomfort, physically and emotionally, around that. For guys, how much time should we be willing to endure for this growth?

Speaker 1:

I would say a very long time for enduring, for growth, and this is what I mean by that. My view is, sexual struggles in a marriage are actually God's way of inviting us to grow up. When we have, let's say, I want to grow muscles, I need resistance Because if I just lift I don't know, a five pound weight over and over, I'm not going to get much muscle. I need more resistance. So sometimes it's the difficulties that we have in our sexual relationship is an invitation for us to grow a little more, and that requires a little bit of enduring that growth, that discomfort. Like you would want to grow muscles. Right, you got to endure some pain for a little while if it's going to make you better in the end. So it's a refining process if you look at it that way.

Speaker 2:

How can we educate ourself better? As it relates to us being sexual beings, how can we educate ourselves better?

Speaker 1:

I'm glad you brought this up, big A, because sometimes the issue with sexual problems in a marriage are none of the things that I talked about and it's just purely a poor sex education. A lot of us don't have a great sex education. We don't know our own anatomy very well, we don't know the basic mechanics of pleasure, we don't know like. There's a story of a couple coming in for sex therapy and they're really the presenting problem is she had a hard time achieving orgasm, having sufficient pleasure, sufficient stimulation for pleasure in the sexual act, and the therapist is working with them and asking them all sorts of questions Do you do this? Yes, have you tried this? Yes, have you done this? Yes. And in the end they find out they only spend five to ten minutes in bed together. They find out they only spend five to 10 minutes in bed together.

Speaker 1:

And the basic thing that was missing from their education, their knowledge, is she expected her experience to be very like his experience very quick to be aroused and very quick to get there. And because she's a woman, she didn't know that. That's not how women generally are. They had the wrong expectation in the first, just to begin with. So, having a solid sexual education, knowing what's normal in this case for the women it'd be you need about 20 to 30 minutes of good loving stimulation for you to even get there. Solves so much of heartache sometimes.

Speaker 1:

So we need to get better education sometimes.

Speaker 2:

You know, you talk also about the culture and having purity in the culture. Yes, talk about that just a little bit and what we're experiencing today.

Speaker 1:

Yep, all for the record, I am 100%, all for the concepts behind purity. We I believe sex is for marriage. We don't engage in premarital sex Once we are married. We're completely loyal to our spouse. I believe in fidelity. I think that's the standard.

Speaker 1:

I do think in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s a lot of our listeners of this podcast in that generation kind of grew up at a time where a lot of people in conservative churches because the pendulum in our larger culture swung the other way of open love sex with anyone any time A lot of the conservative churches the pendulum swung the opposite way to really preserve the idea of purity Almost to the point of a lot of they use a lot of fear-based tactics when it comes to understanding sex. So messages a lot of people received or absorbed in this era are about sex is bad or it's only right in a certain time. Therefore, if I have sex outside of that time, I am now worthless. There's a lot of shame carried with it and it was very effective at helping people not have premarital sex.

Speaker 1:

A very fear-based approach is going to work, but the problem happens after they say I do and transitioning into a healthy sexual relationship where a healthy sexual education was lacking. So it's like all of a sudden, it's like the day before, it's like no, no, no. Now that I say I do, it's a yes, yes, yes. Flipping that switch is very difficult for a lot of people and so there's a lot of just because of the culture, the conservative Christian culture at large, there's a lot of people that do kind of need to work through and kind of get back to basics of what and fundamentals of what is healthy for a marriage and kind of believe in that.

Speaker 2:

Let's switch gears for a second. So recently, at the church I go to, we have 8,000 members and we had a men's event and there were about 1,500 men there and they did a secret ballot survey among the men, so not your name, there was no way to track it and there was questions on there. One of the questions was is porn addiction? 83% of the men said at some level they struggle with porn addiction.

Speaker 2:

A lot of the guys that I've coached and taught use the lack of intimacy in their own marriage as an excuse to use porn. So what is the consequences of that? What is the benefit or detriment to being involved in pornography within a marriage?

Speaker 1:

So I would say pornography is For the record. I am 100% against pornography in any form. I don't see any value it can provide in marriage. And I'm not the only one that shares that opinion. Even secular researchers in the sex space find John Gottman is one of the leading marriage researchers in the country. He also says I see no value and benefit. Pornography actually adds to a marriage long term in all of his research and study. But we can't deny the appeal of pornography right Like. Think about it. The woman on the screen never says no, never has a headache. You say show me your body and she happily does so, sure, and always has.

Speaker 1:

It's very enticing, it's very validating in a way. Yeah Right. So the temptation, I think, is when things go by the way. This is a newer phenomenon because two or three generations ago, without as much easy access to pornography, if you and your spouse had sexual conflict, guess what? You didn't have a lot of alternatives. You duked it out, you worked it out, you solved your sexual problems, where, for some people, if they have a sexual problem in their marriage, turning to pornography gives you the sense of eroticism because it gives you all. It's right, it works on all those mechanisms in your body that give you that satisfaction. And it's on tap, it's easy to get, but it's devoid of the relational and emotional work to get it. So in a way it's kind of like a diet of candy bars. Right, you eat it, it gives you quick energy, it feels good in the moment, but, oh man, I can't eat a candy bar for dinner. Long term it's poor nutrition, so it'll starve. The relationship of the emotional connection, the relational connection, plus there's a comparison there.

Speaker 2:

also, that's not reality, right? Of course, you have this anticipation, these expectations, and your spouse doesn't measure up to that in some regard. And now there's a form of being disenchanted or unhappy in the relationship. Yeah yeah, it's just an illusion. So how do I get my spouse to want more sex with me? How do I do that?

Speaker 1:

All right, let's go there. One particular trap that I see working with a lot of successful men I know ISI is filled with a lot of them is you generally attract people who have learned how to work really hard and achieve goals. These are people like you, big A and Seth and others who have learned if I work hard enough at this, I will succeed. They have a lot of that self-confidence. So when they want more sex in the relationship, a lot of times the approach goes to I kind of know what I want, I know how to get there. If I work hard enough at this, then I will get what I want.

Speaker 1:

But those kinds of that line of thinking doesn't always translate to intimate relationships, because your spouse isn't a project, she's not a person that if you whine loud enough or do the dishes enough or you don't earn sex like you do other goals. So you got to think more in terms of this is a person not like a goal or not something? This is something very different from me. I married someone very different from me. She has different ideas about things.

Speaker 2:

Aren't we so like that, though I can tell you over the years, man, hey, I carried out the trash, I helped dust, I helped vacuum. I did all the things with the kids, like surely now, yeah, and it's like that has no relevance whatsoever with Robin, whatsoever. No no it doesn't, but we think that way. It's like do the task right, You're going to get the outcome. Yes, and boy have I found that's not true.

Speaker 1:

And so sometimes it turns into like something kind of transactional hey, I've done all of these things for you, can't you just give me a little something or other? And that. And we forget that sex is at least human. Sexuality is primarily relational. It's not driven purely by hormones or other things like that. It's about the relationship.

Speaker 2:

It's not what you get, it's what you give, right yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I like that I remember a story that once I went to Robin and we were talking, she could tell that I was disenchanted at the moment. And a little later she said hey, I know you're a little disappointed in this or that, which was unusual. I'm usually not disappointed. And she said I know what your expectations were, I know what your pleasure was, but let me give you a word of advice. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is going to be terrible. And she said if you would focus on me and my needs, you might be surprised what would happen.

Speaker 2:

And that is so true and it's so difficult to do.

Speaker 1:

And I hear people say but I do focus on our needs. I take out the trash, I help like chore play is the new foreplay, as they say right. I do all these things, but here's the thing your wife can smell it a mile away when your motives are about trying to get her in bed with you is why you're doing those things rather than really investing, and they know that motive a mile away man. Yes.

Speaker 2:

They can smell it, they have a sixth sense, they know that motivation from a mile away. It is crazy. Well, I know there's a couple of ways that we can do this. Some of the guys are bullies. They bully their way in, right. They're very overt at doing it. That's obviously not the way, right. So how do you suggest tactically? Give the guys some ideas, some ways that they can approach this and do it the right way?

Speaker 1:

Well, I'm glad you mentioned the overt way that's really visible on the surface, like that's like threatening your wife. Oh, if you don't do this, then whatever. Right, it's a bully approach, but there's also just as pernicious, and it's the covert way. This is the quote, unquote nice guy, they're really nice, they're being really nice about things, yet inside they're kind of keeping score and they're upset. End of the day. I gave her a bubble bath, I put the kids to bed, I did all these things, and she's like oh honey, thank you, I'm so tired and she goes right to sleep and inside he's seething inside like wait, I did all these nice things for you and there's no reciprocation that way. No, nothing, you know. There's no reciprocation that way.

Speaker 1:

One issue to add and I'll get to answering your question about what to do instead is we sometimes forget that passion only exists in freedom. There's got to be a little bit of give and take. There's got to be passion, sorry, there's got to be freedom in order for passion to exist. In other words, you need to be just as willing to let your wife say no as much as she's allowed to say yes in a marriage One example is I don't like that answer, though, Dan.

Speaker 1:

No, we don't.

Speaker 2:

We don't like that answer and it's so difficult to give that much freedom and latitude. A lot of guys that are listening to this right now said man, if I took that approach, nothing would ever happen, and that's what myth we want to bust today is. That's not necessarily the case. Possibly some of the things that you've been doing are in alignment with what Dan and I've been talking about, and that's the reason I wanted Dan to come on to give us some insight as to how we can approach this differently.

Speaker 1:

Because, at the heart of it, you want control, not intimacy. Most of us say, oh, of course I want an intimate relationship. You're busting me today, Dan.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. I thought this was for the audience, this is for me. Yeah, that's really powerful.

Speaker 1:

So I like to illustrate this in the movie Beauty and the Beast, disney's Beauty and the Beast. I think most Americans have seen this movie. In the plot, he needs to make a woman fall in love with him before the last rose petal falls and Belle comes into the castle. He captures her and he's trying to force her to fall in love with him and all of those things like demanding she has dinner with him. They all backfire right. And then at the very, very critical moment she realizes her own father's in trouble and the beast has this choice If I let her go and leave the castle freely, she may never come back. But if I keep her here, then there's a chance that she'll still choose me and fall in love with me.

Speaker 1:

But he learns that the only time she will actually freely, of her own accord, of her own agency, to choose the beast back is if he actually lets her go. So he lets her go and everyone in the castle is like what are you doing? Big mistake. Like now we're doomed forever. Why'd you do that? Right? But because it's a Disney film, it has a happy ending. She ends up choosing him and coming back and the spell is reversed and everything like that. But that's the point. We need to be like Beast sometimes and be willing to give our spouse full freedom and choice, even if it goes against what we think, because we got to prioritize freedom over control.

Speaker 2:

You know I hadn't looked at it from an intimacy standpoint, but I even teach this concept in business. It's like when you grab somebody's wrist and you force them in the corner, their inclination is to push back and to fight. But when you let go and you allow them to make an intelligent decision, oftentimes they'll do the things that you're wanting. And I've never really looked at it from an intimacy standpoint with my spouse that way. What do you say to the guys out there that are saying man, this is not a Disney movie for me, I'm not Beauty and the Beast and maybe I married the wrong person? What?

Speaker 1:

do you say to those guys, thank you. And marriage is messy, it's intimate, relationships are risky, there's an inherent risk with relationships and there are going to be some cases where your spouse will just not choose you back, and it is really heartbreaking and there's no formula, there's no strategy, there's no magic pill or silver bullet that fixes those situations, because you're married to another person with their own thoughts and feelings and and it does happen there's nothing you can do really without control, of course, and even control is pseudo control, like people. People hate being in control.

Speaker 1:

In the end you need to honor another person's choice. So the lucky ones of us have a spouse that chooses us back, but you also can set the conditions to make yourself a good choice. Have you let yourself go? Well, start becoming attractive again. Are there parts of your own character that you feel like aren't that need to be addressed? Then start working on those. Start working on being more trustworthy. Start working on being a better listener, like, do all those things because you're investing in yourself, because that's what a good partner does and that makes you a very attractive choice. So, even if your spouse chooses otherwise, you have a consolation prize and it's no small consolation prize that at least you yourself have become a better man as a result. And if this relationship ends and you do go your separate ways in cases that does happen, well, you're going to be that much more prepared for the next relationship, rather than just repeating the problems that were happening in your first relationship into the second relationship.

Speaker 2:

And before we go, talk to us a little bit about I've heard your story, you teach you and I both are believers and we really can kind of correlate this to kind of the creation, the fall and the atonement pattern in the Bible. What does that teach us about how to improve our sexual relationships?

Speaker 1:

So good. Think of going in the Garden of Eden. Food's growing for you easily, everything's abundant, there's no stress, no trouble. And then Adam and Eve they partake of the fruit, they're cast out of the Garden of Eden and now they have to face life very differently. Right Now they work for things, but through all of that in the Bible story there's a promise from day one there will be a savior, a redeemer. There is a way back. It takes some work, takes some effort, you have to go through some things, but there is going to be this promise and you will be saved eventually by my grace.

Speaker 1:

This pattern of creation, fall atonement, happens in marriages. Creation. Think about like your honeymoon, right. The fall is the sweatpants phase. When the honeymoon phase wears off and you start realizing you know, those things that initially attracted me to her are actually really annoying now, and vice versa, right, those things that she thought were great in you, well, they're getting on her nerves now too. And so the sweatpants phase. They call that knowledge without love. And the first, when you get married, it's love without knowledge. You fall in love with them without knowing everything about them. Now that you know more about them, you don't love them as much so the whole. The quest is if you will love with knowledge. It's learning to grow through it together. I've chosen this person. I still choose this person. Can I step in with both feet and fully keep choosing this person and learn how to love someone who is so different than me?

Speaker 2:

Wow, that is so good, dan, so so good, man. I know this is a difficult topic. You've got so much that you're able to share with others. Before we leave, tell guys how they can connect with you, what's the best way to reach out, how to follow your podcast, and how they can connect with you even after this episode.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. My website is getyourmarriageoncom and I have a special gift for the listeners. I have a guide that's a three-page guide how to overcome sexual difficulties in your marriage or how to enhance sexual intimacy in your marriage, and you can go to getyourmarriageoncom, slash isi and from there I'll also. You can find my podcast and things like that there man, so good today, thank you.

Speaker 2:

I could keep you here for hours and continue this. Maybe we'll have you back for a second episode. But guys, listen. Thank you for tuning in today. Sex is a God-given gift to married couples but, like any gift, it has to be unwrapped. It has to be enjoyed, it has to be stewarded, not buried under silence and shame or excuses. So I want to challenge you today Go sit down with your spouse this week and ask each other this question what does emotional and physical intimacy look like for us right now? Then I want you to listen. I don't want you to fix it, I don't want you to defend it or interrupt, just listen. Thanks for being here today. We'll see you next week.