ISI Brotherhood Podcast

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

• Season 2 • Episode 154

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We’re bringing back a candid discussion from last year that addresses a question many married men quietly wrestle with but rarely voice out loud.

Joined by marriage expert Dan Purcell, this episode tackles the deeper dynamics behind physical intimacy in marriage. Rather than focusing on surface explanations like busy schedules or exhaustion, the conversation looks at the underlying attitudes and patterns that shape connection between husband and wife.

One key theme centers on mindset. Driven men often approach every area of life with strategy and execution—including their marriage. But intimacy isn’t something you accomplish, negotiate, or earn. When a husband unknowingly treats closeness like a performance metric or a reward system, emotional distance tends to grow rather than shrink.

Dan shares openly from his own journey, reflecting on how subtle pride and misplaced expectations created barriers in his relationship. A turning point came with a simple but difficult question: How might I be contributing to this gap? That shift—from blame to personal responsibility—became foundational for rebuilding trust and desire.

The episode also confronts the impact of pornography on marriage. What may seem private or harmless often reshapes expectations and diminishes authentic connection. Temporary gratification can quietly undermine long-term intimacy.

At its core, this conversation emphasizes freedom and safety within the marriage relationship. Passion thrives where both husband and wife feel heard, valued, and unpressured. Honest dialogue—without defensiveness or problem-solving—can open the door to renewed closeness.

If physical or emotional intimacy has felt strained, this episode offers practical insight and hopeful direction for moving forward together.

Key Takeaways:

  • How achievement-driven thinking can unintentionally harm intimacy
  • The importance of personal ownership in restoring connection
  • Why communication gaps often underlie sexual frustration
  • The damaging effects of pornography on marital closeness
  • How simple, open conversations can begin rebuilding trust and desire

Connect:

Welcome And Sensitive Topic Setup

SPEAKER_01

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

Why Sex Is Hard To Talk About

SPEAKER_00

Well hey guys, welcome back to another episode of ISI Brotherhood Podcast. Listen, we're gonna talk about a topic today that many of you guys uh privately we talk about in the small group, uh, but it's why don't we have more sex? And you're like, Big A, really, are we gonna 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 gonna 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. Well, hey, let me welcome our uh co-host on today, Dan Purcell. Dan, it's a good idea. Hey, happy to be here. This is great. Yeah, man. I'm so glad to have you. This is a space that you've been in for a long time. Uh, you actually, uh, for those that are listening, Dan taught this session at one of our live events, and 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 uh be with us today. So uh catch us up just a little bit. Give me just a little snapshot of how you've been recently.

SPEAKER_01

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

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, thank you, Dan. I appreciate you saying that. Listen, let's dive into this topic. Uh, 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 uh, what have you found in your experience that makes this so difficult to discuss and so difficult to talk about?

SPEAKER_01

I think sex in general brings up a lot of feelings of discomfort and shame. Um, 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 that's a little weird.

Surface Issues vs Root Causes

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, right. Yeah, it is, especially if you don't talk about it. And then there's problems. And I I want to go down through uh 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 that really kills the desire. So, what have you seen around uh your coaching around unspoken resentments and how that plays out?

SPEAKER_01

It's let's say you and your spouse were dealing with, I don't know, financial difficulty. One person just keeps on spending uh 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. 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 I think we can we tend to compartmentalize sex as a 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 type 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 uh to each other, I think couples can really learn how to actually work through their resentments and to over overcome them. See, actually have a sex life you enjoy and you that you like.

Fatigue, Stress, And Mismatched Drives

SPEAKER_00

And that's what that's what all these guys are looking for and hoping for listening to this. They're gonna take some of your yeah, your advice. And you know, here's the thing, it's funny that you said that because I even know when I got married, you know, 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 we go into this thing brand new and figuring it out on our own. And it was awkward, needless to say. Like I'd 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 you want to, you know, be be mindful of that. But you you get into this, and like you said, you would talk about the budget and not even think about it. 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 it's go, which goes into the next thing I'll talk to about in a minute is 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_01

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, um, discomfort with uh one's own body, like a body image issue. Sure. It could talk about um uh there's there's a lot, but I think those are surface levels. They are.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I'm glad you're here because we're gonna dive into the real although although they definitely play a role.

SPEAKER_01

But uh 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. So you can't just blank it. Is that true for men and women? Or is that men and women? Now, not for everyone, but for some people they experience this. So you can't just blanket and say, oh, it's stress. That's why and then it's almost uh not practical to say, oh, I'll just you know take my stress dial from a nine or a ten down to a two or a three, and then boom, we have a great sex life. Although that would be idyllic. That'd be idyllic, but that's not reality. So that kind of advice doesn't really help people because we 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.

Defining Intimacy And Common Traps

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, let's go ahead and go through that. Just a few of the things, and what and like you said, we could go over this uh for hours, you know, 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, right, insecurity, shame, different sex drives, you know, mits, yeah, if those mismatched libidos left unaddressed, you know, now we got a real problem later. And then kids, busyness, 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, uh, 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 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_01

Well, to prepare for this episode, I came up with three ideas, three concepts. And I'm titling these things, uh, 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 um got over her hangups about X, Y, or Z, then our frustrations would go away. It's that line of thinking. But the core of it is thinking it's the spouse's problem, not their own problem.

SPEAKER_00

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? Well, I've got a story about this of how I did it wrong. Oh, okay. Well, tell us that, and then we want to learn how to do it right.

Dan’s Story: When Fixing Becomes Control

SPEAKER_01

Sure. So my wife and I have been married 22 years. Uh, 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. 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 uh another year or two, I I my drive is still very high, and my wife's drive is hasn't caught up to mine, as I would say. And even though we had the season that was great, the I 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 and 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 can, you know where this is going, right? Yeah, yeah, dude. For a disaster. It's a train wreck. I highlighted the book. I wrote notes in the margin, 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 push the over her pillow and uh it still wouldn't move. It'd go back to the nightstand. And I so I my wife and I had a discussion or an argument about it. Said, hey, how come you're not reading this book? She's like, Daniel, I we have six kids, uh, 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 uh, she just really didn't have a lot of time to herself or took a lot of time for herself. So did you resent that?

SPEAKER_00

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 the 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. Exactly.

Checking Yourself And Owning Your Part

SPEAKER_01

I was so this is what I said next. Like, yeah, I'm gonna 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, cleanup, 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. 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 it's really late. And there's no couple time anymore. Sure, sure. 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. Um, I love cooking, and uh I cooked the kind of meals that she likes, and I really like made sure the meals were great. But here's the thing, a big A. I let her know it. Uh oh. I let her know what a good job I was doing. And I I would make little comments like, you know, I work full-time and I still manage to get dinner done on time. I thought you were smarter than that dance. Right. But I I was very uh very subtle in what I was saying. Yeah, yeah. As if to say, look, I I I have no problem figuring this out. What's your problem? You can't solve this problem. And uh, 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. 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 uh our marriage from a marriage of partners and equality into a hierarchy. And we do this so subtly. In this case, I the unspoken undercurrent of all my communication, verbal and non-verbal, 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 support superior to you or that you're subordinate to. It just doesn't work that way in human biology.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we weren't created that way, right? We were created as partners and not the hierarchy. So I know that uh in past experiences I've talked to you, you often say, hey, we gotta 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_01

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

SPEAKER_00

What does that even mean?

SPEAKER_01

Like, what do I need to ask myself? You need a lot of self-uh 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 in 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.

Managing Anxiety When You Hear No

SPEAKER_00

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. But like I just said it. 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. Uh-huh. 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 realize maybe some of these things that I, you know, were doing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I have two ideas there. 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 um the the uh 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. We it's very, very easy for us to see the littlest speck in someone else while ignoring the beam in our own. So uh that's 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 the uh the planks are in your own eye.

SPEAKER_00

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. You know, I lead guys, I teach guys, I coach guys, would 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 how do we get control of that anxiety?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, a lot of times our anxiety is uh masked. For example, um, 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 XYZ. I'm fine with that. And you're not. But uh 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, yeah, how do I behave?

SPEAKER_00

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

Education Gaps And Realistic Timelines

SPEAKER_01

You're pouting like a teenager because you're anxious. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So anxious about sex isn't about like the sexual acts himself, 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'm on? And sometimes diffusing anxiety or 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, sorry, 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, you know, church leaders or people in a small group at church, whatever. But it's gotta be good and healthy, right? You're not gonna go to an echo chamber where they'll reinforce your anxiety. That that's not healthy.

SPEAKER_00

But 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. Uh 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. Uh, how much time should we be willing to endure for this growth?

SPEAKER_01

I would say a very long time for endure for growth. And this is this is what I mean by that. I my world, 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 are 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_00

How can we educate ourselves better as it relates to, you know, us being sexual beings? Like, how can we educate ourselves better?

SPEAKER_01

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 sexual 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 uh they're really the presenting problem is she had a hard time achieving orgasm, uh having pleas sufficient pleasure, sufficient stimulation for pleasure in the sexual act. And the 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, uh they find out they only spend five to ten minutes in bed together. And the 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 she's a woman, she didn't know that that's not how women generally are, they had the wrong expectation in the in the first just just to begin with. So uh 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 uh solves so much of heartache sometimes.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That yeah, we need to get better education sometimes.

SPEAKER_00

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

SPEAKER_01

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. Um, 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, uh, because the pendulum in our uh larger culture swung the other way of open love, uh, 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 uh 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 it's only right in a certain uh time. Therefore, if I 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, a very fear-based approach is is gonna 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 uh uh 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 to kind of get back to basics of what and fundamentals of what is healthy for a marriage and kind of believe in that.

Pornography’s Costs And False Shortcuts

SPEAKER_00

Let's switch gears for a second. So uh 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 um survey among the men. So not your name. There was no way to track it, and there were questions on there. One of the questions was is porn addiction. 83% of the men said at some level they struggle with porn addiction. I believe it. A lot of the guys that I've coached and taught use the lack of intimacy in their own marriage as an excuse uh to use porn. Yes. So what is the consequence of that? What is the benefit or detriment uh to being involved in pornography uh within a marriage?

SPEAKER_01

So um 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, uh secular uh researchers in the sex space find uh 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 um always has um it's it's very um enticing, very enticing, it's very validating in a way.

SPEAKER_00

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

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. Right. 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 it's uh right, it works on all those mechanisms in your body that that that give you that sexual satisfaction, right? And it's 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 um it's like uh it's like a diet of candy bars, right? You eat 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 it's poor nutrition. So uh it'll starve the relationship of the emotional connection, the relational connection.

Your Spouse Isn’t A Project

SPEAKER_00

But there's a comparison there also that's not reality, right? Of course, right of this anticipation, uh, 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 yeah, it's just an illusion. So, how do I get my spouse to want more sex with me? Like, how do I do that? All right, let's go there.

SPEAKER_01

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

SPEAKER_00

And I aren't we so like that though. I can just 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, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's like that has no relevance whatsoever with Robin whatsoever. No, no, it doesn't even, but we think that way. It's like do the task, right? You're gonna get the outcome.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. And boy, have I found that's not true. And so sometimes it turns into like uh 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. So it's not what you get, it's what you give, right? Yeah, yeah. That's I like that, I like that. That's really good.

Freedom Over Control Builds Desire

SPEAKER_00

I remember a story that uh 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, uh, hey, I know you were a little disappointed in this or that, which was unusual. I'm usually not disappointed, but 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 gonna be terrible. And she said, if you would focus on me and my needs, you might be surprised what would happen. And that is so true, and it's so difficult to do.

SPEAKER_01

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? Yeah, 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 in the world.

SPEAKER_00

And they know that motive a mile away, man. 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 they're bullies, you know, they bully their way in, right? They're very overt at doing it. Uh, that's obviously not the way. No, 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_01

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. Um, 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 no nothing. Um, you know, there's no reciprocation that way. One one issue uh to add, and I'll get to the answering your question about what to do instead, is we sometimes forget that passion only exists in freedom. There's gotta be a little bit of give and take. There's gotta be passion. For sorry, there's gotta 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. Um, one example is I don't like that answer though, Dan.

SPEAKER_00

I'll just be honest with you. 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 probably the 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 have 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_01

Because at the heart of it, you want control, not intimacy. Most of us say, Oh, of course I'm not sure. Well, you're busting me today, Dan.

SPEAKER_00

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

When Choice Hurts And Growth Matters

SPEAKER_01

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. There's a in the plot, uh, he needs to make a woman fall in love with him before the last rose petal falls. And Bell 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 is 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. 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's 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 and the she ends up choosing him and coming back, and and the spell is reversed and everything like that. But um, 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_00

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. Right. It's good. What what do you say to the guys out there that are saying, Man, I'm this is not a Disney movie for me. I'm not Beauty and the Beast, and maybe I married the wrong person. Like, what do you say to those guys?

SPEAKER_01

Uh 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 hate being done. Yeah, they can't. 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 it make yourself a good choice. Have you let yourself go? Well, start becoming attractive again. Have are you are there parts of your own character that you feel like aren't um that need to be addressed? Then start working on those. Start working on being more trustworthy, start working on um 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's what 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, where 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_00

Hey, before we go, talk to us a little bit about uh I've heard your story. You teach you and I both are believers, and uh 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_01

So good. Uh think of going in the Garden of Eden, foods growing for you easily, everything's abundant, there's no stress, no trouble. Uh and then Adam and Eve, they partake of the fruit, uh, they're cast out of the Garden of Eden, and now they have to face life uh very differently, right? Now that they work for things. And but through all 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. 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 uh, so the sweatpants phase. They call that uh 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, uh, 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 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?

Resources, Gift, And Closing Challenge

SPEAKER_00

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. Uh, before we leave, tell 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_01

Thank you. My website is getyourmarriageon.com. And I have a special gift gift for the listeners. I I'll have a 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 get your marriage on dot com slash ISI. And from there, I'll also you can find my podcast and things like that there.

SPEAKER_00

Man, so good today. Thank you. I could keep you here for hours and continue this. Maybe we'll have you back for uh 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, and 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.