Episode 2: When intimacy becomes transactional

Donna and Meg talk candidly about intimacy, emotional disconnection, and what happens when relationships quietly turn transactional. From avoidance and unmet needs to the invisible labor women carry and the red flags we only recognize in hindsight, this conversation is raw, honest, and deeply relatable.

What happens when intimacy stops being about connection — and starts feeling like currency? 

In this episode of She Shed Unfiltered, Donna and Meg have an unfiltered conversation about emotional disconnection, unmet needs, and the quiet shift many women experience when relationships become transactional instead of intimate. 

They unpack the emotional toll of avoidance, the invisible labor women carry, and the red flags that only make sense once you’re already looking back. This episode speaks directly to women who have felt unseen, unheard, or unsafe expressing desire in long-term relationships. 

You’ll hear honest reflections on: 

• Emotional safety vs. physical intimacy 
• How resentment builds when needs go unmet 
• Why “keeping score” kills desire 
• The loneliness inside relationships that look fine from the outside 
• Midlife dating red flags 
• Reclaiming desire after disconnection 

This is a conversation for women in transition — divorce, rediscovery, burnout, and rebuilding — told without sugarcoating or shame. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Cheesehed Unfiltered. This is not a podcast for perfect women or polite conversations. This is for the women who've been divorced, dismissed, burnt out, betrayed, and still somehow managed to show up, get shit done, and keep everyone else still alive. There'll be laughter, there may be tears, and you might even say, did they really say that shit? Just real women, real stories, and the kind of honesty that usually happens after the second glass of wine. The first season of She Shed Unfiltered is about the things we learned the hard way. The lessons no one warned us about. The moments that changed us. Whether we were ready or not. I'm Donna and I'm Meg, talking about what happened that night in the shed and and why it led to the end of what I thought, and I think even he thought a great relationship. It really was about avoidance and distractions and how we cope with different things. And and unfortunately, he was coping using marijuana. It really became such a hot topic in our relationship because he would come out to the shed before it was the she shed, but he would come out to the shed at nighttime and smoke pot and play the guitar. And I was in the house, whether it was watching TV, which I don't even watch TV, but there was such a loneliness and a void in my life because I was no longer the person that could relax him and calm him. It was smoking marijuana that actually calmed and relaxed him. You know, you start to shut down when you're no longer the safe person for your partner. And then on the other end, you know, I would go to bed. He would come to bed hours after me, wanting attention and intimacy. I couldn't give it to him. He felt rejected. So we're both feeling rejected for different reasons. Couldn't understand why he could come to bed, you know, an hour or two hours after I went to bed and still be intimate, reeking of smoke. Told him so we talked about so many times, like how it impacted me. And he would come upstairs and you know, wash his face, brush his teeth, and you know, he's like, I do everything I po I can to get rid of the smell. And I'm like, but the smell stays in your nose and in your body. And it wasn't so much the marijuana, it was actually the cigarette smoke. So he actually rolled his joints with like tobacco. And the tobacco was a huge trigger for me, which stems from childhood trauma and childhood sexual molestation. My ex-partner couldn't understand why sometimes I could be intimate and other times I rejected him. And I tried to tell him it was about connection and safety. When I feel emotionally connected to him, I feel safe. But when there's no emotional connection, then the smell of cigarette smoke puts me back to a place where I felt unsafe. And I just felt like it was just such like a it was just such a hamster wheel, like you're spinning trying to explain to him and wanting to be close to him, but him needing to smoke more than wanting to be with me. And he felt that I didn't want to be with him, and I did, and I think it was just like, you know, he felt rejected, I felt rejected. My feeling was that he wasn't willing to understand how the cigarette smoke, and it was more cigarette smoke than like the pot. Like I said to him, like try vapes, try gummies, try anything, like take the tobacco out of it. If you need to like relax at the end of the day and and you need help sleeping, then that's fine. But when it becomes something that is so like that's tearing us apart, and couldn't understand that the trauma happened when I was six and seven years old, how it was still like how it could impact me at 55. And honestly, I don't know how it you know how childhood trauma works. All I know is that it triggered me and I could feel my whole body tense up when he walked in the bedroom with cigarette smoke. You know, I think what what hurts the most is that I have really loved him and I was so attracted to him and I wanted to be with him, but my body shut down every time I didn't feel emotionally connected to him, and I could smell the cigarette smoke. And you tried to explain that to him too. I did, yeah. Yeah, but he just couldn't or wouldn't or didn't understand it. And you know, he he even mentioned at one point, like, my stress and trauma are right now, and yours were in the past, and he needs to deal with his stress and trauma, and that was that was his like his escape. It's sad that was the door slamming, you know. I I was mad that night we were out here, and I said, like, let's go to bed. Like, and he and he turned around and he's like rolling a joint, he's like, Let me just smoke this first. And I was like, Really? Like, you're gonna smoke that when I just asked you to come to bed and have sex and you want to smoke that, and so I got mad. I slammed the door, went to bed, and the next day he left.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Yeah, I mean that must have been so lonely because you are trying to explain in that moment what you're going through and your head space and trying to connect with him on this deeper level. But what he was doing from where I'm sitting seems very avoidant. I'm gonna do this solo activity, I'm gonna numb myself, I'm not gonna deal with whatever conflict which was not shared with you. I mean, you wanted to know, I'm sure you wanted to know where his head was at and and what he was struggling with, but it sounds like he was not forthcoming with that. So, like, what do you do with such little information?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Right. And I did know what he was struggling with, and and I was giving him space to kind of like work through things because again, the way I process things is I I need to be alone. And I was trying to be, you know, I knew the stresses in his life and I knew what was happening. So I was trying to be the understanding partner by okay, I know you need to go out to the shed, have a smoke, unwind. Yeah, again, I could sit here and beat myself up, like what could I have done better? Or maybe I shouldn't have like allowed him to be by himself, maybe I should have came out to the shed more. There was just no emotional connection between him and I. Like, you know, we'd talk about our work day. Did it feel very surface level when you were talking about your day-to-day? No, no, not not really. But I remember like the a few days before the slamming of the door, he came into the dining room and he just said, like, I feel so alone. I feel so alone. And I went over and I sat on his knee and like hugged him and kissed him. I'm like, You're not alone. I'm here. Like, I'm here, you're not alone. He just retreated to the shed every night, and I retreated to the couch. Then I went to bed, and and you were on two different paths. I feel like you were trying to come together, but it it wasn't no, no, and I think like the difference between men and women is like men are very physical in their intimacy needs, and women are very at least myself, I need an emotional connection, right? And you know, he would come to bed and I'm half asleep, and I love to cuddle, like being spooned by him was like my favorite thing. Like he's just it was such a natural, great fit, and I would want to be snuggled and I'm half asleep and to have sex, and I'm like, that's not how it's not really how it works. Like, you know, I know men it doesn't take as much for them, but women it it takes a little bit more than and felt undesired. I even I even said to him in counseling one time, you know, we'll get dressed up and we'll go to an event, and I put on like a beautiful dress and like beautiful lingerie underneath it, and we come home and you brush your teeth and hop into bed, and I'm standing there like unzipping my own dress, and you don't notice what I have underneath it. And he's just like, he actually said this in counseling. That's just not what I do. So it's like, how do you feel desired when you're like he wants me to get in bed and then have sex? But he like never ever undressed me ever once in the seven years. That doesn't really make sense, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:52

No, well, I mean, we want to feel seen and and also we want any effort like that that we put in, we want that building of desire, we want to be acknowledged for that, you know, and to feel sexy with someone, yeah. So, you know, it sounds like that's not where he was at, that's not where his head space was at all, which is crazy to me.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah, and it's so it's so crazy because he was always saying, like, how beautiful I was, and like, you know, that I was his dream girl and all of that. But those are words. Do you know what I mean? Like they're words, but the actions are like unzip my dress. I I don't even care if you rip it, like just like you know, do something that mirrors what you're saying, yes, right? Exactly. You had mentioned you had a very similar, like in our last episode, a very similar experience with your ex-husband on, you know, the intimacy piece.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

And as you said, you know, we felt like roommates and having a child together as much as we both love our daughter, it completely changed the dynamic, and it just felt like we were we were doing life as roommates and just talking about day-to-day logistics and groceries and running errands and and zero desire, zero flirting, zero physical touch, uh, which I also love cuddling. Oh my god, who does it? I know, it's the best thing. You just feel so like your heart rate drops, and you feel like so relaxed and comfortable and safe with that person, and it is the best feeling in the world. And it's just like everything around you just slows down and you can be in the moment. And I missed that. I missed that deeper connection and just kind of like slowing down with someone. It felt like we were both just go, go, go, and again, on different tracks. I was very much like at home with the baby. He was either in the basement renovating the house or out running errands, and I felt like I was very domesticated at home, just kind of quietly losing my mind, trying to figure out how to be a new mum. It was not easy. I definitely leaned on my girlfriends at the time and they kept me sane through that. Uh, because I just I thought, is this what it is to have a family? Like, do you just have to give up that part of yourself? Right. And but I mean your your desire to to be loved in that way, you know, returns after you have a child. It's not like you become dead from the waist down. No, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:21

You still want that for yourself. Yeah. And I think even more because after you have a baby, like your body has changed. Yes. So many different things have changed, and you're like, you're trying to figure out who you are, and you know, you're not loving the like the stretch marks or the excess weight, and and so having your partner still think you're hot and sexy, even though you're feeling like your boobs are sore from feed breastfeeding and everything's sore, and you can't you still can't fit into your clothes, like so it's really like this mental thing, too, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah, and there's something so raw and vulnerable about that where you're so self-conscious of your body, it almost feels alien, right? Because you've never been in this physical state before. And like, what even am I? I'm just like a walking 24-7 restaurant for this baby, right? When I was married and had the baby and was just starting to go out and try to socialize a little bit again. Um, my ex-husband kept a scrap of paper on the fridge and put his name and then my name and put tick marks by each name, tracking how many times I went out with friends. Oh my god. Yeah. Oh my god. Which was awful. And I ripped it up and put it in the garbage, and he said, Why did you throw that away? And I said, Are you seriously tracking when after a year at home dedicated to our child, I am trying to find myself and and reconnect with friends. You're gonna keep track of how many times I've gone out. Wow. Yeah. And did he like was he a social person? Not at all. Very much. Preferred to be, we were opposites in that way. I'm very social extroverted. He's introverted, homebody likes to tinker on projects uh and and do his own thing. So I think that was definitely uh a divergence because I I had my own social scene separate from him because I tried to pull him in, but he didn't seem to enjoy it. So I thought, you know what, I'm not gonna push this boulder up the hill if he wants to be at home. That's that's fine. I'm not gonna try to force it. Right. But then it felt like there was this lingering kind of resentment or almost kind of passive aggressive attitude, like ticking, like this is how many hours you're away from home. It just feels wrong to, you know, approach it that way.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

I totally agree. And, you know, again, when when we split up in uh in March of last year, I remember him saying, like, I'm the lawn boy, and I'm the mechanic and the pool boy. And it's like, yes, you do take care of the pool, and yes, you do the lawn, and yeah, you take care of the cars, but do you understand what I also do? Right? I do all the cleaning, I do all the cooking, most of the cooking, I do all the meal planning, I pay all the bills, you know. This keeping score thing just was something that floored me, right? I'm like, so you that's how you look at our relationship, is that you do X, Y, and Z, and I don't know what what do what do you want for that, right? And I do, you know, all these I do things as well. But I remember like again, when you look at we talked about red flags last week, and you sit back and I look back, I spent a lot of time in therapy and a lot of time journaling, and everything feels like there was what's the word I'm looking for? Like monetize, like I will if I needed something extra done, it would be like, yeah, well, if you give me a blowjob or if we can have sex tonight, or and so there's a weird kind of bargaining going on. Yeah, sex became like I don't want to have it if transactional. That's the word I was looking for. Yeah, transactional, right? Like help me do this, and well, it doesn't feel special at that point, no, no, right? But I never really I just thought, you know, I'm like fine, just add it to the list, right? Like how many do I owe you now, kind of thing. Right. But didn't really think that he was serious, but after the separation, and he actually called it out, like he he was journaling like how many times we had sex in a in a week. Really? Oh yeah, like we sex was super important to him, and I knew that like when we first started dating, and and so at first, like any relationship, you're having sex all the time, like morning, noon, night kind of thing. But then as you like start to, you know, become a couple and you're spending more time together, maybe it's not seven days a week, maybe it's not two times a day, seven times a week. And but I always like I knew how important that connection was for him. The week that he left, it was a Sunday that he left. Yeah, we actually hadn't had sex in seven days, and that was the longest we had ever gone. But he made a comment like, you got out of bed in the butt on Sunday morning and went downstairs. Like, why did you do that? And I'm like, I was really hungry. He goes, and you took my sex away that day too. And I'm like, wow, I didn't realize that was my job before I could get up and have a piece of toast because I was starving. And so it like looking back, no wonder sex didn't feel safe for me anymore because it was, you know, transactional or expected. Like again, rip my dress off me.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Help me build that desire. Can we build that desire together instead of it being transactional or just expected? Like, what are you supposed to deliver on that every morning? Right. Or that feels like such a weird way to approach it that's a little more dispassionate. I don't know how you'd be able to get into that, really.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Yeah, and like when he started saying, like on January, whatever the date was, uh, I wrote in my journal that we were in your office and I was putting a desk together for you. And I even went out and I smoked, we went to bed that night, and Donna actually instigated it. And I was thinking, who writes all this stuff down? He was tracking like when we had sex and how many times a week it was, and when I said no, and when I rejected him, and I was just like, that's kind of fucked up for me. I mean, maybe that's it just kind of fucked up my my head a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Like, of course, how could it not? And also, it almost feels like he's building a case against you, like we do not have enough sex, so this is why I am the way that I am. But I mean, in the grand scheme, if you're in a long-term relationship with someone, seven days is not a long time. I mean, I have a lot of married friends who I will not name who haven't had sex for years. And I mean, you were in a long-term relationship living together. I just feel like that's a very intense assumption that you're just gonna be ready to go multiple times a week.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Right. When we both had stressful jobs, a blended family, you know, all there were a lot of different dynamics happening, but yeah, it just sex was not, it was a duty.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Did he actually say to you, like, I feel unloved or rejected if you don't have sex with me many times a week? Was that a discussion or was that more like a logging in the journal?

SPEAKER_00 18:47

When we first got together, he had said like him and his ex-wife didn't have sex for seven years. Right. And he said that um that is like he he'll never be in a real a relationship again where you know sex wasn't a priority. And I understand like intimacy is so important in a relationship, right? Like, but intimacy looks different, it's different in different ways. It's not just about intercourse. And seven days and seven years are two very different things, right? But sometimes I'm like, is he saying that? Like, I wonder what he's saying about me now. Like he went months, it literally was seven days, was the longest we ever went. Yeah, it was mostly like on the weekends because by the time I got home from work, I was just tired. It was not an excuse, like it was like I'm literally exhausted. Sex looks very different for me now. Like, I don't even know if I want to have sex ever again. I have a golden retriever. Who needs a man? Right? Endlessly loyal. I know. Best snugglers, no expectations, just a little rub under the chin, and you're done.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Just eye contact and get the tailwake. Right? Yeah, perfect. Before we wrap up, let's just do a quick check-in with each other, Donna, and see what's happened to us this week so we can update everybody.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Uh well, it's funny. This is this is uh interesting and relatable to when I just said that I don't think I ever want to be intimate again or ever want to have sex again. And honestly, my body is just like totally shut off to that. But I had a dream about a guy the other night, and it was fucking steamy and hot. And I'm like, my path crossed with this guy, and uh I had a very short conversation with him, and then I went home and like had the steamiest fucking hot dream. And I'm like, all right, maybe I'm not dead inside. So now I'm embarrassed if I ever see this guy again. Uh I don't think I can look at him the same way, but I was like, girl's still alive. So it must have been surprising. It was, yeah. I woke up like feeling a little shameful and uh a little embarrassed and wondering, like, at first I didn't even know if it was a dream. I had to look beside me to make sure that was just kneeling beside me and not this guy. But I was like, that's the first time in 10 months of being single that there was even like a little like hint of liveliness inside me or intimacy or wanting to even like touch somebody again.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

So yeah. And when you woke up, did you was were there any good feelings or was it just shame?

SPEAKER_00 21:23

No, there were good feelings. Oh, it was good. No, I was like, huh, huh, maybe, maybe I should never say never. So yeah, you know, maybe there's maybe there's hope for me.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

So what about you? So mine's kind of of the opposite tilt. Uh so this week I had to say goodbye to the guy I'm dating that I told you about, which I um, you know, had already discussed off the mics some red flags. Um he's 10 years younger than me. And um, you know, I was impressed by him, ran his own business, um, is a parent like me, so a few points of connection, but he would be really sketchy. About uh planning dates in advance. It was like, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see when I'm off work, we'll see, you know, if when I have to drop my son off at his job. And it ended up being uh that he was only available Monday nights for 60 to 90 minutes. Like a booty call. Yeah, like a booty call basically, like after work, but before he has to drive an hour to get home because he doesn't live in the city. He works in the city but doesn't live in the city. And I was trying to explain to him how that was not enough for me, and he just didn't seem to get it. He said, Oh, it's just early days. We've been dating less than two months, we'll figure it out. But I had told him multiple times it's it's um an area of stress for me when we don't set up plans in advance. It always feels very last minute and on his schedule, what works for him, not what works for me. Right. And uh, you know, for example, uh, I I had texted him and at, you know, just before midday saying, so what are the plans for tonight? He texts me five hours later saying, I'll be there in 20 minutes. Might that is not okay. Just so I I let him off a couple of times on that, and uh, because it was early days, but I just I just got fed up. I just couldn't couldn't deal with it anymore. And I think the fact that he didn't understand why was part of the issue. So very happily going to take a break from dating after two months of being reintroduced to him. I had a six-day and a six-week adventure, and I'm gonna focus on my daughter, my work, and my friends right now. It's the long and short of that. So and this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yes, yes, yeah. Don't forget the podcast. And the podcast. Yes. I am very happy to be doing the podcast. Well, there were so many red flags, so good for you. I'm proud of you. And uh, here's the singletons.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Yes, here's to us, here's to us. This has been She Shed Unfiltered, where midlife isn't polished, it's real. From divorce and career pivots to perimenopause and everything no one warns us about. These are the honest conversations we've lived, survived, and shared with you today. Until next time, stay brave, be curious, and keep it unfiltered.