May 10, 2024 • 42 mins
Physical Intimacy is much more then sex and is one of the most difficult things to talk about in relationships. Tune in and learn how to improve physical intimacy in your relationship and successfully navigate the “must have conversation” with your partner.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Relationships weather, romantic, platonic,familial are complicated and can be downright messy,
bringing out the best and worst inall of us. Here's an opportunity
for you to learn effective, concretestrategies to help you build healthy relationships from
the inside out. It's on BleepYour Life and Relationships with host Anita Astlan,
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psychotherapist of over twenty five years.Hey, guys, welcome to another
show. I'm Annita Asley, yourhost. This is show number two,
so we're pretty new here, right, We're doing pretty good. I love
this Unbleep your Life and Relationships.Last week we did our first show and
we talked about emotional intimacy and Italked about how emotional intimacy is one of
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the major things in a relationship.It's foundational and it's linked to what we're
going to talk about today, whichis physical intimacy. So, just if
you missed the show last week,emotional intimacy is really being emotionally naked to
your partner, allowing yourself to bevulnerable today. Physical intimacy, Now,
the two are linked. People sometimesthink you can have one without the other.
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Well, you can have the physicalintimacy without the emotional intimacy. But
if you want your relationships to behealthy, long lasting, and you want
to maintain them, the book bothare really needed. Yeah, you went
our appetite here, but first let'stalk about you. Just tell a little
bit about you. Okay for ourlisteners today who are just joining for the
first time. I am a licensedindividual, couples and Family therapist. I've
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been doing this for about twenty fiveyears, and I recently published a book
came out last year called Unbleep YourLife and Relationships. The word is not
really unbleep if you're looking for itonline, but I can't say the word,
but I'll let you guys kind ofimagine what that word is about.
The book really came out of myexperience as a psychotherapist, but also I
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share some of my own personal experiencesin that book to help people see that.
You know, you can have adversityin your life and you can be
successful. And I like to thinkof myself as being mostly unbleeped. Of
course, it's a progress, it'sa process, and it's continuing as we
age. It never ends, andit never stops. Because people say I
might I am, I gonna beunbleeped Anita by when you're not, But
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we are. We are work inprogress, are we? We certainly are.
So we're going to talk about physicalintimacy this time. And at the
end of the program you'll have kindof a wrap up for us. So
and if you're taking notes at home, yeah, well we'll get to well,
we're gonna we're gonna test you atthe end. There's gonna be a
quiz. No, I'm no,at the end of the show. At
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the end of each show, actually, I'm gonna give five things you can
do in your life to unbleep yourlife and relationships because we need something concrete,
you know, as a therapist,I always say to my patients,
Look, we're gonna explore your past. We're gonna try to get some understanding
to why you do some of thethings that you do. But at the
end of the day, I wantto help you change those things in your
life. And because we if wedon't need to action and we don't get
(02:59):
to change anything, we're just talkingtalking, talking and talking is great,
as you know, I love totalk, but what are we going to
do to change? Actions are reallyimportant? So the things I'm going to
give you at the end of theshow are actionable items that you can use
to unbleep your life and your relationships, because we all need to do that.
I don't know about you. Everyday I kind of think like,
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Okay, what do I got onbleep today? So today we're going to
help you out with your physical intimacyissues. Now, I just want to
start off by saying physical intimacy.When we hear that word, most of
us think it's what sex, Yes, sex, sex, sex excess,
and some of us actually think emotionalintimacy and physical intimacy are the same.
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They are not. As I talkedabout earlier, one has to do with
emotions. This one has to dowith our physical touch, our sense of
self physically with another human. It'sbeing physically close to someone. And I
want to really, one of thegoals I have today in talking about this
is help you guys to change theway you think about physhysical intimacy, because
right when we think of physical intimacy, we think about sex. It is
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so much more than sex. Butwe all get caught up in that one
and go I literally was listening toa couple last week and they were talking
about emotional intimacy being connected I hadto rephrase and say, what you're talking
about is emotional intimacy. And theguy turned around, I think his wife
said to him, I don't feelconnected with you. He said, well,
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we had we just had sex,and I'm thinking, okay, for
you, that's emotional intimacy. Andbut really, dude, you physically connected,
but it doesn't mean it was emotionalintimacy. So the two are very
different. They're not the same.So let's start off with physical intimacy.
What other forms of physical intimacy?The Holy hand, absolutely, I call
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it non affectionate touch. We needto be able to be physical with each
other in a non sexual way,and that's exactly what you know, hugging,
kissing, sitting on the count together, and even making eye contact.
People don't think that's physical intimacy,but it is. If we sit across
from each other, we're looking ateach other, that's a form of connection
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physically between us, and of coursethen it binds us also emotionally together.
Okay, very interesting. People wouldnot think of it that way. Oh
right, So now that we haveyou know, the you know in these
shows that we're gonna we're gonna dotogether. I always like to start out
by defining the terms, because howcan we fix something or work on something
if I think physical intimacy means onething and you think it means another.
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We have to be we have tohave a shared understanding of what it is
that we are talking about. So, guys, I want you to think
about what is it that comes toyour mind when you think of physical intimacy
and what I just said, andhopefully what I just said will help you
bring some non sexual I'm going torepeat that non sexual touch back into your
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relationship because I will tell you Ihave worked with couples individuals who apps don't
touch each other because they fear theend goal sex hate. I hate to
even say that they fear the end. They fear it because they're not in
the mood. They don't really wantto do it, you know, have
that kind of interaction with their partner, so they think that every single time
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their partner touches them, it hasto lead to that. So eventually what
ends up happening. And I wishyou could, guys could see this because
arms go up like a you know, a husband might go up to the
wife and want to hug her,and arms go up kind of in a
defensive mode. Yeah, thinking,oh my god, I don't want to
have sex to night, and Ihave to help them to understand. Listen,
if this is a lose lose situation, so you're losing non sexual touch
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not good, and then you're afearing sex not good. Sex is not
something you should be afraid of inyour relationship. It's the way adults play.
Sure, the founding father of talktherapy, Sigmund Freud, you talked
about that as adults, we needto play with each other, and the
way we do it is sexually.But again, there's different kinds of play,
there's different kinds of touch, andtoday I want to focus on some
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of that. So bringing back physicaltouch in your relationship is really important,
and we learned about that during COVID. By the way, there's a lot
of research now coming out to saythat for people who were isolated, like
I was lucky. I had mykids, my family to be with and
we continued to have physical touch,hugging each other and all that kind of
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good stuff. But those people whowere in isolation, who were not with
anyone, experienced higher rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues
because the research has conclusively shown thatwhen we are touched, guess what happens
in our brain? We release thefeel good hormones. So we need that
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touch the we need the non sexualtouch. How about just a little kiss
my wife. My wife and Ido this every night because I will go
to bed so early and she doesn't. Every night, no matter how matter
or happy, whatever, you alwayshave that kiss, no matter what before
we go to bed. Is thatis that nonuch? Of course it is.
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But you know it's good that youguys somehow have this understanding that that's
not gonna lead to sex pot becauseyou both got to go to work.
But in some relationships, they thinkif that's gonna happen, it's gonna lead
to sex, and they're afraid tojust verbalize it. And I say to
people, look, you got toclarify in some of these rules of engagement,
a kiss is not meaning that I'mgonna I want to have sex with
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you. It just means I wantto have some connection with you that's physical.
And of course I always I reallyam lost. Sometimes in my head
I'm thinking what is going on whenwe can't kiss our significant other, when
we can't hug our significant other ona daily basis. Yeah, and I
know people have issues all kinds ofstuff, but on a routine basis,
if you're kind of in a goodrelationship, those are the things that we
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should be doing on a daily basis. Is bringing back those little things that
will increase our emotional intimacy but alsothen increase our physical intimacy. There is
a positive relationship between the two,a positive correlation, we'll call it in
psychology. What it simply means asthe closer, the higher your emotional intimacy,
the higher your physical intimacy, andthe quality also will be impacted by
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that. It makes sense, right, if I feel close to you emotionally,
I'm going to want to be morephysical with you. Oh sure.
And and just simple fact of justholding hands walking down the street that doesn't
lead to anything. It's just itdoesn't have to lead to anything. If
it's a conversation you've had with yourpartner and I want that's a really good
point. You're bringing up the holdingof the hands. Now, as we
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know, as we age, thedesire for sex and our performance level with
regards to sex decreases for men andwomen. So that says that speaks to
exactly what you're talking about. Youknow, you see the old couple holding
hands and you're like, oh mygod, that's so cute. I want
to be that. That's really whatwe should be aiming for because the other
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stuff, I'm sorry to say,there's very healthy, active, sectually active
older people. But I'm just sayingthere's a decline and there's a decrease naturally
because of our biology. So it'sso important that we see we keep that
up. Holding hands, kissing,sitting on the couch together. That's that's
a very simple thing. That somethingbecause some people fail to do when I
ask them, how do you,you know, watch TV together? I'm
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on one end of the couch andmy partner is on the other or on
the loss, no, And sometimesthey go, oh no, I'm too
comfortable. Well get uncomfortable. You'retoo comfortable. Guess what it's gonna do.
It's gonna harm your relationship. Sometimeswe take comfort over what's gonna help
build healthy relationship with our partner.Yes, you've been with them for a
long time, and that's one ofthe key things you need to do.
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Just because you've been with them fora long time, it doesn't mean you
should be comfortable on the other couch. It's quite the opposite. We have
to make an effort to be morephysical, non sexually with our partner.
Kiss, hold hands, maybe rubon the back or something like that.
Right, something like that sounds reallygood. We're going to take a break
here. What do you got comingup in just a second or so?
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Well? I have a few questionsfrom my followers on Instagram that are going
to talk about some of the otherthings that people struggle with in their sexual
RELATIONSHSI on Bleep your Life on NewsTalk eleven thirty WISI and more coming up.
Everyone strives for healthier relationships. Here'smore of Unbleep Your Life and Relationships
(11:28):
on News Talk eleven thirty wis.Hey, guys, welcome back to Unbleep
Your Life and Relationships. I'm yourhost, Anita Asley, published author and
psychotherapists of twenty five years. Ohmy god, I can't believe it's been
that long that I've been working withindividuals, couples, and families to help
them resolve a lot of issues andlots of issues. One of the things
(11:50):
we're talking about today is physical intimacy. We talked about emotional intimacy last week
now physical intimacy and we just saidyou know so much more and having sex,
but sex seems to be the focusnow with regards to how we express
and experience our physical intimacy that comesfrom our family of origin. Ooh that
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phrase? Do you remember? Greg? Last week I mentioned it and sometimes
it confuses people to like, whatdoes that mean? It is really your
family? Your parents? Sure?Your parents? How did you experience physical
intimacy with your parents? The touching, the hugging, being close to each
other. Now, I'm going toget all nerdy and geeky on you,
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but it's important sometimes to learn somethings. When the godfather of learning theory,
which is a pendura, sorry tobe all clinical, but he talked
about how people learn and one ofthe things he said was that mostly at
that young impressionable age when our personalityis being formed, we learn through observation
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and imitation. Well, you know, you look at you growing up as
a kid. Some families they hugeach other. Yeah, some don't hug
each other. I see what you'resaying. Yeah, But the point that
he was making is that you cansay whatever you want to your kids when
they're that age, but really they'regoing to learn from what they see and
they're going to imitate that. Right. So getting back to physical intimacy.
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Growing up, I didn't see myparents hugging or kissing or doing any of
that stuff, and I imitated whatI saw initially, which was distance.
But I'm not like that right I'mnot like that right now. I went
through a lot of unbleeping myself intherapy. Of course, that really helped.
Therapy is a good thing. Idon't be afraid of it. He
really does work. Anyway, welearned from a family of origin how we're
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going to express that, but alsohow we're going to experience that. And
of course that has very different connotationsif there has been sexual abuse and physical
abuse, so we're not talking aboutthat. We're talking about physical touch.
That's positive. So if you grewup in a touchy Pheely family, you're
going to be touchy in Pheely.I wasn't like that originally, but you
know, then I go back andthink, well, my mom was very
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touchy in Philly. My dad wasn't. He was when he was a little
drunk. But we won't get intoit. We won't get into that today.
It's not a therapy session. Butmy mom was she was very touchy
feely, and I'm so much likemy mom, So I'm like that in
my relationships and it would be reallydifficult for me to be with somebody who's
not like that, because I wouldexperience that are you rejecting me? Like?
Why don't you want to hug?And you just want to have sex?
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Well, there's so much more totouching than that. Sure, sure,
Now you have a lot of questionsfrom I have some questions, so
I want to talk. I'll takethe first question. So I just want
to say, before I get tothe questions, there are three things that
most people have trouble with in theirsexual relationship. Do you want to take
a guess? I'm putting on thehot seat here. I'm so nervous about
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talking about Hi. Hey, what'sher name? Dorothy? Hi? Dorothy?
How are you? Greg? Isawesome to have here. He said,
you have a wonderful relationship. ButGreg, I'll tell you you are
in a long term. We don'thave to get explicit because I know this
is not my podcast and I haveto follow FCC rules and all that kind
of stuff respectfully. In long inlong term relationships, it does. Because
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I'm going to talk one of thequestions will highlight these. We have to
make an effort to keep it exciting. We have to put our best foot
forward literally and not become too comfortableand complacent, because yeah, if you're
having sex with the same person fora long time, of course it's going
to get a little bit boring.Industrial it becomes very operational, it becomes
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a transaction. And that's normal.When people come to me and say,
well, there's something wrong with mymarriage and blah blah, I'm like,
there's nothing wrong with it. Sexually, you are just experiencing the symptoms of
being in a long term marriage.And those symptoms are not negative. They're
just normal and healthy. And whatI have to do is help you help
yourself, just you know, kindof make it exciting. To be honest
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with you, what is normal andwhat isn't normal. I think a lot
of people just don't know. Theydon't know, and it's all relative.
Like if you're a couple who hassex once a week and you're happy with
that, and then you're you know, you have a three times maybe every
other week or you know, everyother three weeks and once a month that's
a normal progression of your sexual lifetogether as a couple. And as I
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said before, it's normal that itdecreases. That's okay. Who am I
to tell you how much sex youshould be having in your marriage because people
will ask me, Anita, what'snormal and what's not, what's healthy and
what's not. It's relative. Letme hear the narrative and then I'll help
you. This goes to what we'regonna have, you know, talk about
throughout the through the question is everybodyhas a different libido meaning sex drive,
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and sometimes in a couple shit peoplewill say, you know, she's not
normal because she only wants to havesex once a month and I need to
have sex once a week. Let'snot pathologize. We're very quick to pathologize
our partner, meaning there's something wrongwith them, and I'm saying, no,
they have a different sex drive thanyou. Let's try to bridge this
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gap. And they try to bridgethis gap without talking to each other and
just talking to me about it,that's wonderful. I'll help you. But
guess what the next step is goingto be for you to talk to your
partner about what you're thinking and whatyou're feeling within your sexual life. And
that's the hardest part. And guys, you're going to hear me say this
all the time, and yeah,I am repeating myself with intention. Everything
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starts with a conversation. If youcan't talk about it, you can't fix
it, especially this topic. Itis so difficult for people to talk about
one of the most intimate things thatthey experienced with another person. Well,
yeah, you know, you're thinkingof sex. You're thinking, well,
we had kids, now, nowwhat do we do? You know now
what we do is it's supposed tobe fun. Yeah, kind of used
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to put on different clothes. Whatam I supposed to know? Well,
that's it. So it changes,just as you change, just as I
talked about last week, needs andexpectations change in a long term relationship,
Well, they just change, andwe evolve as human beings and what we
like, maybe sexually when we weretwenty one, we don't like anymore and
we want to try something different.But if we don't have that conversation with
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each other, it's going to bedisappointing because I'm going to be thinking,
hey, you know, used tolike this and now it's not going so
well anymore. We have these conversationsguess within ourselves with our friends, but
not with the person we should behaving the conversation with talk talk talk talk
talk talk, But talk to yourselffirst, ask yourself, you know,
what's going on with me sexually?What do I like? What do I
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you know? People often don't havethat conversation with themselves. And once you're
able to identify within yourself what youneed and what you expect, talk to
your partner. Are these needs andexpectations realistic within the context of your relationship?
And if it's a long term relationship, you're not going to break up
over it, hopefully, but youcan tweak it, you can talk about
it. Well, sometimes people dobreak up, but I'll get it to
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that. That'll be the last thingI talk about today, those sexless marriages,
because they are out there, andif you're one of them, O
God, I got some tips foryou. We'll talk about that later.
So let's get to our question.We have two questions. Do we have
time for these questions before? Let'sdo one? Okay, let's do one.
Okay, you mentioned you kind ofjumped the gun here, but that's
okay, Greg, I forgive you. Okay, So the three things that
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people experience trouble with in the sexualrelationship. One of them is quantity.
So question number one comes here.It goes, thank you for your question.
By the way, on my Instagram, if you guys want to follow
me on Instagram, it's asked Anita, ask Lee, that is to handle.
You can send me your questions viathat page number one. My wife
and I both work and have twosmall kids. We never have time for
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sex. We both want to havesex. We love each other. I'm
attracted to her, but every timewe think about it, we're too tired
to actually do it. What dowe do quantity? We live in a
very busy world. Everybody is busybeing busy, but they are not prioritizing
what they should be prioritized. Youcan just take some time, maybe take
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a weekend together and I'm gonna saythis, put it on the calendar.
Oh yeah yeah. People are gonnasay, well, that's not spontaneous,
that's not fun. Listen, people, schedule sex is better than no sex.
Okay, put it on the calendarand I'll tell you something. There's
there's a lot of secondary gains too. If I know on Friday, that's
gonna be our day. I amgoing to lead up to that with other
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emotional intimate things. I am,I'm gonna I'm gonna woo you a little
bit because I don't just want itto be Okay, Friday, it's eight
o'clock and we'd agree to do withit. That's not the point. The
point is you put it on thecalendar. You know it's coming up.
You can even start on Friday morningsending some nice emojis to each other saying
hey, I'm really looking forward tonightanything. You know, it's on the
calendar, it's coming up. It'sa goal to you know, to have
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the sex, and of course towork towards making it romantic, not so
operational, not so technical. Putit on the calendar. There's nothing wrong
with that, No, but peoplethink it is because it's not spontaneous.
Say on every Friday at the firstof the month, I would say,
you know, I think, youknow, weekly once a week is a
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healthy number. But I don't know. It all depends on people are gonna
say, well, I can't believeyou said that. Whatever is you know?
This couple addressing this question, theywant to be intimate physically with each
other. They seem to have ahealthy life, and what they're saying they're
busy with kids, But don't getlost in the busyness, because I'll tell
you then you end up in myoffice ten twenty years later saying, oh
my god, we're so disconnected.We never made time for each other.
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Is emotional intimacy, physical intimacy.They are connected, interrelated, and you
want to keep that part of yourselfand your relationship on a good note.
That's the way we play with eachother. Put it on the calendar.
I don't care if you think it'snot spontaneous. Guess what it's better than
no sex? All right, yeah, some good. You got a lot
more questions to answer here coming upin just a bit. It is Unbelieve
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your Life on news Talk eleven thirtyw I said, and more coming up.
Anita Askley has more advice on howto on Bleep your Life and Relationships
on news Talk eleven thirty wys Hey, guys, welcome back to Unbleep your
Life and Relationships with Anita Ashley.I'm your host, psychotherapist of twenty five
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years. We're talking about sex,one of the things everybody wants to talk
about. And then nobody wants totalk about it is difficult to talk about.
I don't know why. For me, it's easy. I have a
therapist, But I kind of getit. Greg, you're turning around,
yeah, and you're talking about quantity. You know. Now most guys are
out there like seven times a week. Yeah, but you have to make
a compromise. There's a compromise tobe made. And it's not necessarily true
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by the way all guys, mostguys, I mean, it's the whole
alpha thing. It's not always truethat men need to have that much sex.
It's all about the context of yourrelationship. Like I was saying before,
women also have sexual needs, butsometimes we just express them very differently,
and you're not sure writ It allgoes back to what the dynamic is
within your relationship that we can talkabout before we get into the We just
(23:02):
talked about quantity. But I dowant to say when couples present with issues
with quantity, I do want tomake sure that there's not an organic issue
going on, meaning something biological.So I'd like to send both people out,
you know, the man to theurologist, the woman to her doctor
to make sure there's not a hormonalthing going on. You know, it's
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beyond the scope of my practice todeal with that because I'm not a physician,
but I do want to share thatfor men after the age of forty,
there's a decline one percent of testosteroneevery year after that. So that
does affect your performance, that doesaffect desire, and you might need a
little bit of a t shot.I don't know. It's all relative to
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where you were. And with women, are they premo, menopausal, postmenopausal,
where are they? Our sexuality andour drive performance is impacted by our
biology. But hey, today we'retalking about the relational part. And I'll
say that most of the research doessay that are sexual when we're having issues
in the bedroom, it is usuallyrelated to something that's going on in our
(24:04):
head, brain, head and lateSunday night. But you're something we said
in the last segment that you madea good point of putting it and putting
it on the calendar. Put it, yeah, schedule it, put it
on the calendar. Now let's getto the quality. Everybody. You know,
people complain about the quality. It'snot like it used to be.
(24:25):
Well, of course not because you'reolder and if you're in a long term
relationship that's gonna fizzle out a littlebit. So we have to make an
effort. Make an effort, justlike you're gonna put it on the calendar,
you're gonna have a conversation with yourpartner. The worst thing that you
could do, and this is whatpeople generally do, is like, oh
my god, you know, theyattack and criticize the other person, like
you never want to have sex andit's so boring because you just lie there.
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Well, that's really gonna work.If my partner tells me that,
I'm like thanks, I feel reallygood down now. I really want to
have more sex with you, andit's gonna be even greater because of what
you just said to me. No, don't attack the sexual And that's the
only way people know how to havethis conversation in this attack defense mode.
You need to approach me with compassion. You need to approach me with some
(25:11):
interest in what I want, andwe need to be able to talk about
that rather than this attacking that goesWhat about talking about your limitations. I
can't do this anymore. Absolutely,I'm older to do that. I'm older
now. Yeah, my needs havechanged over a time, and that affects
the quality, but it can begood. Again. That's what I want
to say in a long term relationshipthat we once we talk about it,
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once we're able to identify some ofthe things that we want to do we
don't want to do, then wehave to give it a chance moving forward
and accept the fact that it's goingto be different. It's not going to
be like when you were twenty.Actually it can be better because you're more
confident in yourself and you know yourselfmore. Sadly, some people don't.
And I get that being raised inan Indian household, sexuality didn't exist,
(25:55):
Like I wasn't supposed to be asexual being. But once I was able
to appreciate my sexuality, know mysexuality, own it, and then of
course learn more about it as Ichanged as a woman, then I'm much
more comfortable with it, not onlywith myself, but also talking to my
partner. And that's of course goingto enhance the quality. Again, if
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you and are able to talk aboutit, it's going to enhance the quality
of our sex life. Now,I just want to know if I'm allowed
to say this, but I'm goingto say it, but you can bleep
it out, pornography is not theanswer. If you guys are watching say
that I can't. Okay, Ifyou know you're watching porn all the time,
that's not going to help your sexlife. If you decide as a
couple to share in that experience,great, because if you're just watching porn,
that creates another issue. Because wehave addiction, we have all the
(26:37):
time expectations. Yeah, ye,they're not realistic. That's not happening in
most people's bedrooms. And then whathappens is you need a higher level of
stimulation. That's usually not going tohappen for most people. So what it
does is totally skews your ability tohave a positive sexual experience with your partner,
and then your expectations are completely wild. But if you both, if
(27:00):
you both agree to it your adults, who am I to say you shouldn't
do it? Everything which is notexcessive and not impacting your relationship in a
negative way. But again, donot attack your partner. Don't make it
about them, make it about yourself. How you can bring your sexuality to
a different place in terms of quality. I would like to experience this,
(27:23):
I would like to do this.How do you think, what do you
think and how do you feel aboutit? Using eye language. We talked
about that last week. Anytime we'retrying to resolve something in talking to our
partner, use eye language. Don'tuse you. You is accusatory and it
usually puts the other person in avery defensive mode. But if I say,
hey, you know, can wesit down and talk about this?
(27:45):
And I say to you, youknow, I'm feeling a little concerned because
I feel like I'm not satisfying you. And what can I do differently?
That's all I me, me,me, I'm looking at myself. I'm
evaluating my own performance. What doI bring to the table, rather than
you know, what is Greg notdoing? Okay, all right, so
you have any more questions, Ihave another question. This is the question
(28:07):
that will highlight the third part thatpeople struggle with in their relationships. So
we went from quantity, quantity toquality and this one is a very interesting
one and most people struggle with thisone. So I'll ask the question and
we'll talk about it. I'm aforty five year old male, My wife
is forty. We are mostly happy, happy, We're mostly happy, and
(28:27):
our sex life is pretty good.However, it's always me asking. She
rarely asks me. I would liketo feel desired at times? What's wrong
with her that she doesn't approach me? I love her, but feel I
will become resentful over time if thiscontinues. Wow, how do you handle
that? I mean, he's almostaccusing her in a way. He's well,
(28:51):
what he's talking about is a commonproblem that most people face in relationships
after a long period of time,or even actually initially. I shouldn't say
that, but it is a problem. So I just want to say thank
you for asking that question. Andsome really good things here you have.
You have a good sex life,you seem to enjoy it, you love
each other, but you're afraid totalk about something which is called the initiation
(29:12):
dance. We all have an initiationdance. There is an asker and there's
an ask ee. If you thinkabout you don't have to answer because I
don't want to get in trouble Greg, But if you think about your sexual
dynamics, is it you that initiatesor is it that your partner initiates?
And are you stuck in those initiationroles? The initiation dance, there's a
(29:33):
person who always asks, and thenthere's the ASKI we don't want to be
staying. We don't want to stayin those polarized positions. And he's basically
saying that I'm stuck. I'm alwaysasking her. She never comes to me.
Doesn't seem to be that she's denyinghim, but it seems like he
wants to be desired and feels whydon't you do this? I'm gonna give
(29:56):
I'm gonna give you some tips here. First, I want to say that,
right, think about your sexual dancearound initiation. Think about it.
We all have one and if yourpartner has come to you and said has
said in the past, hey,I'm always the one asking you, how
come you never initiate? First ofall, don't approach it that way?
How come you never again the youlanguage? Right? It's being able to
(30:19):
say, hey, you know,I would like to feel more desirable in
this relationship, and how I wouldfeel more desirable is kind of like if
you hit on me once in awhile, you know, it'd be kind
of nice. We have to beable to again talk about this. Yes,
I'm repeating myself, let's talk aboutit. I just want to say,
when it comes to the ASKERNASKI like, for this person, what This
is what I would say to you. And I'm not sure how many times
(30:41):
a week you're having sex. Maybeit's once a week. This is what
I have said to couples who arein my office. I'm going to give
you a month, okay, Andthe guys will say, oh my god,
what if she never initiates? No, I'm going to give you a
month because the woman in this situationusually says. And I'm using women because
most of the time this problem isbetween a guy. He's the man.
Are you always thinking I have tochase my wife to have sex. It's
(31:03):
usually not the other way around.The first thing is you're gonna switch roles.
You're not gonna be the asker anymore. You're not gonna initiate. You're
gonna give that over to her.And they'll be sitting in my office and
be, oh my god, she'snever gonna Yes, we're gonna give it
a month, because she usually sayshe never gives me the time. Like
literally, I would initiate, butbefore I have the opportunity to initiate,
(31:26):
he's right on me. I seright, So I can't win over here,
right, I would have. Iwas going to, but guess what
he pulled the trigger before I didso. I think a month is a
good time. If you are acouple who has sex once a week,
it's a good time. Let her. We've talked about it. You're gonna
you're gonna switch roles. You're gonnabe the one who initiates. He's not
(31:47):
gonna initiate, and we're gonna giveyou a month. If after a month
you haven't initiated, something else isgoing on that we got to talk about.
Second, it's Wednesday, come only. No, don't be but that's
kind of it. We got totalk about it. We're going to talk
about it in concrete terms. That'swhy I put some very firm boundaries around
that. Give it a month,but give her the chance to initiate.
(32:08):
If you're always initiating, ask yourself, maybe I'm just doing it too quickly
and not giving her enough time,and maybe she needs more time and her
again getting back to she has adifferent libido to you. But at least
you will feel desirable when she's ableto do that, when there is space,
when you've provided the space for thatto happen. Two more topics to
(32:29):
talk about what is coming up andjust their next thing. Oh well,
I'm going to give you the fivetips to take away and I'm going to
talk about sexless marriages. Wow,Unbleep your Life on news Dock eleven thirty.
Wi said more are coming up.Back to Unbleep your Life and Relationships
on news Talk eleven thirty wys Hey, guys, welcome back to on Bleep
(32:52):
Your Life and Relationships. I'm yourhost, Anita Astley. We're talking about
physical intimacy today and all that itis is in addition to sex. And
we just talked about some of themost common problems people experience in their sex
life, which is quality. Yeah, quantity is one of them. Initiation
I didn't think of that one.Yeah, you're paying attention. You're going
(33:13):
to pass the test that you talkedabout earlier. Now, the initiation dance
is a very common problem. Asyou were just listening, who initiates and
if you're always one initiating, havea conversation with your partner about it.
You don't have to be stuck inthose roles. I know it's more complicated
than that, but again, everythingstarts with the conversation and also have some
self awareness into how do you playinto the dynamics, but that can be
(33:36):
changed. Have a conversation, askyour partner to take on that role if
they're comfortable with it, and evenif they're not comfortable with it, ask
them to go beyond the comfort level. And we have to sometimes be uncomfortable
to get to a place where wewant to be. And especially with sex.
You know, people have such ahard time talking about and I get
it, it's such a personal thing. Sure, but once you start talking
about it, you don't stop.Look at me, I'm on a roll
(33:58):
here, and I grew up ina very sexually repressed family. By the
way, Indian people don't talk aboutsex and apparently they don't have sex.
But that's funny considering it's a countryof overpopulated people. But what am I
talking about over here? Okay,so let's talk about a topic that's very
difficult. Sexless marriages. Yeah,that's very fascinating. Is that common?
(34:21):
It is very common. I geta lot of questions and comments about Anita,
I haven't had sex with my wifefor ten years? How do I
resolve this issue? And I'll say, look, if you haven't had sex
in your marriage for ten years,there's a lot of issues going on that
are not related to sex, andI would guess from my And again,
I'm not doing therapy, guys.I'm just sharing my personal and professional experience
(34:45):
in working with couples and individuals forover twenty five years. If you haven't
had sex and ten years, yougot some other issues going on, and
they're probably related to emotional intimacy,which we talked about last week. If
you can emotionally connect with your partner, then a sexless marriage is out of
choice there. And what do Imean by that? There are many marriages
(35:06):
in which they are older or evenmaybe in their forty to fifty whatever,
they have agreed that they have avery close connection emotionally, but they don't
really desire to have sex anymore.That does happen. So in that situation,
who am I to say, yeah, you should have sex and there
is something wrong with your relationship.Absolutely not. If that's the agreement that
you've made with each other and bothof you are content, good for you.
(35:29):
But most of the people in thecomments that I get, there's one
person who's dissatisfied with that and isreaching out for help. But I'll say
to even that person, you're reachingout for help but guess what. When
there's usually one unhappy person in amarriage, there is usually another one.
You're not just experiencing this in isolation. Your partner just hasn't come forward,
or maybe they haven't you don't knowabout it. But generally when there's no
(35:52):
sex, and I always think like, oh my god, how does one
week, two weeks, three weeksturn into ten years? Easily? Because
life goes fast, as you know, and we can hide behind the kids,
we can hide behind our job.But eventually, you know, if
it's important to you, it's goingto present itself in different ways and you're
going to struggle with this. Isthere a tip for someone who says,
(36:12):
you know, i'd like to it'sbeen ten years. How do you get
into that? Well, what's thatconversation that you've been dreading? But guess
what, it's ten years? Howmuch more are you going to? Wait?
Will be dead soon? Then you'llbe having no sure. So that's
what you're saying, Yeah, yeah, exuseue, call a therapist. Okay,
if you're afraid to have this conversationyourself, get some professional help.
(36:35):
I'm a therapist. I deal withthese issues all the time in my office.
First of all, it's not thatuncommon, so it's okay to reach
out and get some help, andthen I will help you get your partner
in, learn more about what's goingon with you, and then of course
invite your partnering because I want toknow what the story is on the other
side. There's always a story onthe other side. It's not that you're
(36:57):
assuming that your partner doesn't want to, but maybe they do. And I
don't even know if I can saythe M word here, but I won't
say it. Yeah, can wesay thank you daddy? It's the okay
good I've got. But that's healthyand that's and that's the first question I
asked, do you do that?And it's usually yes? And how often
(37:19):
it's usually you know, a healthyamount. Again, this is something you're
keeping to yourself like this dirty littlesecret. It's not. Let's have a
conversation with your partner about it andthey're probably struggling with it too, and
then I'm going to help you resolvesome of that. Again, it is
a symptom of something else. It'snot the problem itself. Does it make
any sense? Yeah, I seewhat you're saying. You kind of got
(37:40):
into that into that mode. Wherewould you know where you've been so busy
all your life? That's an excuse. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying.
Yeah, and this in the backof your mind, you well,
we don't have any time to dowell, well, we'll do it later.
We'll do it later, we'll doit later, I have a headache,
or you know the menstruational cycle thatlasts ten years. You know,
a week are whole ten days?Wait a minute, you're like post metapausa.
(38:04):
What's going on over here? Soall kinds of excuses. We can
laugh and joke about it, butit's a serious problem. And again it
is a symptom of something else,and that usually is there is a crack
in the foundation of emotional intimacy.You're not connected. That's why I said
earlier on when we talked about puttingit on the calendar, put it on
the calendar, because you don't wantto become the sexless couple. You don't
(38:27):
want to become that couple, whichyou don't do it anymore, and then
you don't talk about it anymore.And the longer the time span goes on,
the harder it gets to talk about. We build up all this anxiety
years later, it's much more difficultto talk about than it was maybe five
years ago because it was fresh.But now it's been ten years. How
do you bring the subject up?Anita? We have about five minutes to
go. I know you got fivetips. You want to talk to it.
(38:50):
I do, I do, Ido? I do? Okay,
thank you because I can go onand on. Okay. Top five things
you can do to unbleep your physicalintimacy in your relationship. Number one,
Get comfortable talking about uncomfortable things likesex and physical intimacy. Number two.
Stop looking to your partner to improvethings. Look within yourself. Ask yourself
(39:14):
questions like how did I learn toexpress and experience physical intimacy in my family
of origin? And am I repeatingthat? And is that a good thing
or a bad thing? Is itharming me and my relationship? You got
to look at yourself first. Numberthree bring back sorry number keep going,
ah, I'm flabbing it up.You'll you'll add it. I know you
(39:36):
will, but I'll just keeping aNumber three. Bring back affectionate touch in
your relationship. Hug, kiss,sit on the couch, be together,
touch each other, cold hands whenyou're walking down the street. It doesn't
cost anything and it's not that complicated. Change this is really important. Change
the way you think about physical intimacy. We are a function of our thoughts.
(40:00):
If we change the way we thinkabout something, then I believe we
change the way we feel about itand the way we do it. Physical
intimacy is so much more than sex. Number five, work on increasing your
emotional intimacy. If you're able toconnect with your partner emotionally, generally,
the physical intimacy is of better qualityand there is more of it. It
(40:23):
is a foundation of all healthy relationships. Emotional intimacy five things you can do
well you're just you is as basicas just looking at each other. I
to op. Yeah. I meana lot of times we don't even look
at each other. We don't becausewe're running around, we're looking at our
phones. So stop doing that.Yeah. So those are five things that
you can all easily do. Anita, Now we got a few minutes here,
(40:45):
let's talk about you. Okay,can we come and see you?
You can. I am still inprivate practice. You can look for me
on my website, Ask Anita,askleid dot com. I do take individuals,
couples and families who are unbleep theirlife? Are you busy? I
am, I can depending on howdedicated and committed you are. I always
(41:08):
think there's people who are just visitingme and there's people who are just staying
to really do the work. Becausemy goal at this point in life is
to help spread the message and theword through social media and through you know,
talk shows like this. I lovedoing this, even though I still
love doing clinical work. This ismy passion right now to help people at
(41:28):
a macro level so they can getall the information from your website, they
can and they can see in allthose social media platforms right let see if
they want to catch up with meoutside of studio. Guys, you can
follow me on Instagram, Twitter,Facebook, YouTube asking you to Askley And
if you're interested in buying my book, it is available on Amazon and Simon
and Schuster. It is not Unbleep, it is something else. Unbleep Your
(41:51):
Life and Relationships by Anita Ashley.I just can't say the word. I
wish I could, And we're goingto have a show on that. Why
can't we say the word? What'swhat's so terrible about word? Get into
it today? Okay, So that'sthat's two shows. What are we going
to be talking about next week?We're going to be talking about talking what
Yeah, Because Hey, like Isaid before, if we can't talk,
(42:13):
we can't fix any of these issues. We need to learn to communicate,
and we're going to talk about theart of communication, listening and speaking on
Bleep Your Life with Anita Ashley onNews Talk eleven thirty W I sent see
you next week.
Relationships weather, romantic, platonic,familial are complicated and can be downright messy,
bringing out the best and worst inall of us. Here's an opportunity
for you to learn effective, concretestrategies to help you build healthy relationships from
the inside out. It's on BleepYour Life and Relationships with host Anita Astlan,
(00:22):
psychotherapist of over twenty five years.Hey, guys, welcome to another
show. I'm Annita Asley, yourhost. This is show number two,
so we're pretty new here, right, We're doing pretty good. I love
this Unbleep your Life and Relationships.Last week we did our first show and
we talked about emotional intimacy and Italked about how emotional intimacy is one of
(00:44):
the major things in a relationship.It's foundational and it's linked to what we're
going to talk about today, whichis physical intimacy. So, just if
you missed the show last week,emotional intimacy is really being emotionally naked to
your partner, allowing yourself to bevulnerable today. Physical intimacy, Now,
the two are linked. People sometimesthink you can have one without the other.
(01:08):
Well, you can have the physicalintimacy without the emotional intimacy. But
if you want your relationships to behealthy, long lasting, and you want
to maintain them, the book bothare really needed. Yeah, you went
our appetite here, but first let'stalk about you. Just tell a little
bit about you. Okay for ourlisteners today who are just joining for the
first time. I am a licensedindividual, couples and Family therapist. I've
(01:32):
been doing this for about twenty fiveyears, and I recently published a book
came out last year called Unbleep YourLife and Relationships. The word is not
really unbleep if you're looking for itonline, but I can't say the word,
but I'll let you guys kind ofimagine what that word is about.
The book really came out of myexperience as a psychotherapist, but also I
(01:53):
share some of my own personal experiencesin that book to help people see that.
You know, you can have adversityin your life and you can be
successful. And I like to thinkof myself as being mostly unbleeped. Of
course, it's a progress, it'sa process, and it's continuing as we
age. It never ends, andit never stops. Because people say I
might I am, I gonna beunbleeped Anita by when you're not, But
(02:16):
we are. We are work inprogress, are we? We certainly are.
So we're going to talk about physicalintimacy this time. And at the
end of the program you'll have kindof a wrap up for us. So
and if you're taking notes at home, yeah, well we'll get to well,
we're gonna we're gonna test you atthe end. There's gonna be a
quiz. No, I'm no,at the end of the show. At
(02:37):
the end of each show, actually, I'm gonna give five things you can
do in your life to unbleep yourlife and relationships because we need something concrete,
you know, as a therapist,I always say to my patients,
Look, we're gonna explore your past. We're gonna try to get some understanding
to why you do some of thethings that you do. But at the
end of the day, I wantto help you change those things in your
life. And because we if wedon't need to action and we don't get
(02:59):
to change anything, we're just talkingtalking, talking and talking is great,
as you know, I love totalk, but what are we going to
do to change? Actions are reallyimportant? So the things I'm going to
give you at the end of theshow are actionable items that you can use
to unbleep your life and your relationships, because we all need to do that.
I don't know about you. Everyday I kind of think like,
(03:20):
Okay, what do I got onbleep today? So today we're going to
help you out with your physical intimacyissues. Now, I just want to
start off by saying physical intimacy.When we hear that word, most of
us think it's what sex, Yes, sex, sex, sex excess,
and some of us actually think emotionalintimacy and physical intimacy are the same.
(03:40):
They are not. As I talkedabout earlier, one has to do with
emotions. This one has to dowith our physical touch, our sense of
self physically with another human. It'sbeing physically close to someone. And I
want to really, one of thegoals I have today in talking about this
is help you guys to change theway you think about physhysical intimacy, because
right when we think of physical intimacy, we think about sex. It is
(04:04):
so much more than sex. Butwe all get caught up in that one
and go I literally was listening toa couple last week and they were talking
about emotional intimacy being connected I hadto rephrase and say, what you're talking
about is emotional intimacy. And theguy turned around, I think his wife
said to him, I don't feelconnected with you. He said, well,
(04:24):
we had we just had sex,and I'm thinking, okay, for
you, that's emotional intimacy. Andbut really, dude, you physically connected,
but it doesn't mean it was emotionalintimacy. So the two are very
different. They're not the same.So let's start off with physical intimacy.
What other forms of physical intimacy?The Holy hand, absolutely, I call
(04:48):
it non affectionate touch. We needto be able to be physical with each
other in a non sexual way,and that's exactly what you know, hugging,
kissing, sitting on the count together, and even making eye contact.
People don't think that's physical intimacy,but it is. If we sit across
from each other, we're looking ateach other, that's a form of connection
(05:09):
physically between us, and of coursethen it binds us also emotionally together.
Okay, very interesting. People wouldnot think of it that way. Oh
right, So now that we haveyou know, the you know in these
shows that we're gonna we're gonna dotogether. I always like to start out
by defining the terms, because howcan we fix something or work on something
if I think physical intimacy means onething and you think it means another.
(05:32):
We have to be we have tohave a shared understanding of what it is
that we are talking about. So, guys, I want you to think
about what is it that comes toyour mind when you think of physical intimacy
and what I just said, andhopefully what I just said will help you
bring some non sexual I'm going torepeat that non sexual touch back into your
(05:54):
relationship because I will tell you Ihave worked with couples individuals who apps don't
touch each other because they fear theend goal sex hate. I hate to
even say that they fear the end. They fear it because they're not in
the mood. They don't really wantto do it, you know, have
that kind of interaction with their partner, so they think that every single time
(06:17):
their partner touches them, it hasto lead to that. So eventually what
ends up happening. And I wishyou could, guys could see this because
arms go up like a you know, a husband might go up to the
wife and want to hug her,and arms go up kind of in a
defensive mode. Yeah, thinking,oh my god, I don't want to
have sex to night, and Ihave to help them to understand. Listen,
if this is a lose lose situation, so you're losing non sexual touch
(06:43):
not good, and then you're afearing sex not good. Sex is not
something you should be afraid of inyour relationship. It's the way adults play.
Sure, the founding father of talktherapy, Sigmund Freud, you talked
about that as adults, we needto play with each other, and the
way we do it is sexually.But again, there's different kinds of play,
there's different kinds of touch, andtoday I want to focus on some
(07:04):
of that. So bringing back physicaltouch in your relationship is really important,
and we learned about that during COVID. By the way, there's a lot
of research now coming out to saythat for people who were isolated, like
I was lucky. I had mykids, my family to be with and
we continued to have physical touch,hugging each other and all that kind of
(07:25):
good stuff. But those people whowere in isolation, who were not with
anyone, experienced higher rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues
because the research has conclusively shown thatwhen we are touched, guess what happens
in our brain? We release thefeel good hormones. So we need that
(07:46):
touch the we need the non sexualtouch. How about just a little kiss
my wife. My wife and Ido this every night because I will go
to bed so early and she doesn't. Every night, no matter how matter
or happy, whatever, you alwayshave that kiss, no matter what before
we go to bed. Is thatis that nonuch? Of course it is.
(08:09):
But you know it's good that youguys somehow have this understanding that that's
not gonna lead to sex pot becauseyou both got to go to work.
But in some relationships, they thinkif that's gonna happen, it's gonna lead
to sex, and they're afraid tojust verbalize it. And I say to
people, look, you got toclarify in some of these rules of engagement,
a kiss is not meaning that I'mgonna I want to have sex with
(08:30):
you. It just means I wantto have some connection with you that's physical.
And of course I always I reallyam lost. Sometimes in my head
I'm thinking what is going on whenwe can't kiss our significant other, when
we can't hug our significant other ona daily basis. Yeah, and I
know people have issues all kinds ofstuff, but on a routine basis,
if you're kind of in a goodrelationship, those are the things that we
(08:52):
should be doing on a daily basis. Is bringing back those little things that
will increase our emotional intimacy but alsothen increase our physical intimacy. There is
a positive relationship between the two,a positive correlation, we'll call it in
psychology. What it simply means asthe closer, the higher your emotional intimacy,
the higher your physical intimacy, andthe quality also will be impacted by
(09:16):
that. It makes sense, right, if I feel close to you emotionally,
I'm going to want to be morephysical with you. Oh sure.
And and just simple fact of justholding hands walking down the street that doesn't
lead to anything. It's just itdoesn't have to lead to anything. If
it's a conversation you've had with yourpartner and I want that's a really good
point. You're bringing up the holdingof the hands. Now, as we
(09:39):
know, as we age, thedesire for sex and our performance level with
regards to sex decreases for men andwomen. So that says that speaks to
exactly what you're talking about. Youknow, you see the old couple holding
hands and you're like, oh mygod, that's so cute. I want
to be that. That's really whatwe should be aiming for because the other
(10:00):
stuff, I'm sorry to say,there's very healthy, active, sectually active
older people. But I'm just sayingthere's a decline and there's a decrease naturally
because of our biology. So it'sso important that we see we keep that
up. Holding hands, kissing,sitting on the couch together. That's that's
a very simple thing. That somethingbecause some people fail to do when I
ask them, how do you,you know, watch TV together? I'm
(10:22):
on one end of the couch andmy partner is on the other or on
the loss, no, And sometimesthey go, oh no, I'm too
comfortable. Well get uncomfortable. You'retoo comfortable. Guess what it's gonna do.
It's gonna harm your relationship. Sometimeswe take comfort over what's gonna help
build healthy relationship with our partner.Yes, you've been with them for a
long time, and that's one ofthe key things you need to do.
(10:43):
Just because you've been with them fora long time, it doesn't mean you
should be comfortable on the other couch. It's quite the opposite. We have
to make an effort to be morephysical, non sexually with our partner.
Kiss, hold hands, maybe rubon the back or something like that.
Right, something like that sounds reallygood. We're going to take a break
here. What do you got comingup in just a second or so?
(11:03):
Well? I have a few questionsfrom my followers on Instagram that are going
to talk about some of the otherthings that people struggle with in their sexual
RELATIONSHSI on Bleep your Life on NewsTalk eleven thirty WISI and more coming up.
Everyone strives for healthier relationships. Here'smore of Unbleep Your Life and Relationships
(11:28):
on News Talk eleven thirty wis.Hey, guys, welcome back to Unbleep
Your Life and Relationships. I'm yourhost, Anita Asley, published author and
psychotherapists of twenty five years. Ohmy god, I can't believe it's been
that long that I've been working withindividuals, couples, and families to help
them resolve a lot of issues andlots of issues. One of the things
(11:50):
we're talking about today is physical intimacy. We talked about emotional intimacy last week
now physical intimacy and we just saidyou know so much more and having sex,
but sex seems to be the focusnow with regards to how we express
and experience our physical intimacy that comesfrom our family of origin. Ooh that
(12:11):
phrase? Do you remember? Greg? Last week I mentioned it and sometimes
it confuses people to like, whatdoes that mean? It is really your
family? Your parents? Sure?Your parents? How did you experience physical
intimacy with your parents? The touching, the hugging, being close to each
other. Now, I'm going toget all nerdy and geeky on you,
(12:31):
but it's important sometimes to learn somethings. When the godfather of learning theory,
which is a pendura, sorry tobe all clinical, but he talked
about how people learn and one ofthe things he said was that mostly at
that young impressionable age when our personalityis being formed, we learn through observation
(12:52):
and imitation. Well, you know, you look at you growing up as
a kid. Some families they hugeach other. Yeah, some don't hug
each other. I see what you'resaying. Yeah, But the point that
he was making is that you cansay whatever you want to your kids when
they're that age, but really they'regoing to learn from what they see and
they're going to imitate that. Right. So getting back to physical intimacy.
(13:13):
Growing up, I didn't see myparents hugging or kissing or doing any of
that stuff, and I imitated whatI saw initially, which was distance.
But I'm not like that right I'mnot like that right now. I went
through a lot of unbleeping myself intherapy. Of course, that really helped.
Therapy is a good thing. Idon't be afraid of it. He
really does work. Anyway, welearned from a family of origin how we're
(13:37):
going to express that, but alsohow we're going to experience that. And
of course that has very different connotationsif there has been sexual abuse and physical
abuse, so we're not talking aboutthat. We're talking about physical touch.
That's positive. So if you grewup in a touchy Pheely family, you're
going to be touchy in Pheely.I wasn't like that originally, but you
know, then I go back andthink, well, my mom was very
(13:58):
touchy in Philly. My dad wasn't. He was when he was a little
drunk. But we won't get intoit. We won't get into that today.
It's not a therapy session. Butmy mom was she was very touchy
feely, and I'm so much likemy mom, So I'm like that in
my relationships and it would be reallydifficult for me to be with somebody who's
not like that, because I wouldexperience that are you rejecting me? Like?
Why don't you want to hug?And you just want to have sex?
(14:20):
Well, there's so much more totouching than that. Sure, sure,
Now you have a lot of questionsfrom I have some questions, so
I want to talk. I'll takethe first question. So I just want
to say, before I get tothe questions, there are three things that
most people have trouble with in theirsexual relationship. Do you want to take
a guess? I'm putting on thehot seat here. I'm so nervous about
(14:46):
talking about Hi. Hey, what'sher name? Dorothy? Hi? Dorothy?
How are you? Greg? Isawesome to have here. He said,
you have a wonderful relationship. ButGreg, I'll tell you you are
in a long term. We don'thave to get explicit because I know this
is not my podcast and I haveto follow FCC rules and all that kind
of stuff respectfully. In long inlong term relationships, it does. Because
(15:11):
I'm going to talk one of thequestions will highlight these. We have to
make an effort to keep it exciting. We have to put our best foot
forward literally and not become too comfortableand complacent, because yeah, if you're
having sex with the same person fora long time, of course it's going
to get a little bit boring.Industrial it becomes very operational, it becomes
(15:31):
a transaction. And that's normal.When people come to me and say,
well, there's something wrong with mymarriage and blah blah, I'm like,
there's nothing wrong with it. Sexually, you are just experiencing the symptoms of
being in a long term marriage.And those symptoms are not negative. They're
just normal and healthy. And whatI have to do is help you help
yourself, just you know, kindof make it exciting. To be honest
(15:52):
with you, what is normal andwhat isn't normal. I think a lot
of people just don't know. Theydon't know, and it's all relative.
Like if you're a couple who hassex once a week and you're happy with
that, and then you're you know, you have a three times maybe every
other week or you know, everyother three weeks and once a month that's
a normal progression of your sexual lifetogether as a couple. And as I
(16:15):
said before, it's normal that itdecreases. That's okay. Who am I
to tell you how much sex youshould be having in your marriage because people
will ask me, Anita, what'snormal and what's not, what's healthy and
what's not. It's relative. Letme hear the narrative and then I'll help
you. This goes to what we'regonna have, you know, talk about
throughout the through the question is everybodyhas a different libido meaning sex drive,
(16:40):
and sometimes in a couple shit peoplewill say, you know, she's not
normal because she only wants to havesex once a month and I need to
have sex once a week. Let'snot pathologize. We're very quick to pathologize
our partner, meaning there's something wrongwith them, and I'm saying, no,
they have a different sex drive thanyou. Let's try to bridge this
(17:02):
gap. And they try to bridgethis gap without talking to each other and
just talking to me about it,that's wonderful. I'll help you. But
guess what the next step is goingto be for you to talk to your
partner about what you're thinking and whatyou're feeling within your sexual life. And
that's the hardest part. And guys, you're going to hear me say this
all the time, and yeah,I am repeating myself with intention. Everything
(17:26):
starts with a conversation. If youcan't talk about it, you can't fix
it, especially this topic. Itis so difficult for people to talk about
one of the most intimate things thatthey experienced with another person. Well,
yeah, you know, you're thinkingof sex. You're thinking, well,
we had kids, now, nowwhat do we do? You know now
what we do is it's supposed tobe fun. Yeah, kind of used
(17:47):
to put on different clothes. Whatam I supposed to know? Well,
that's it. So it changes,just as you change, just as I
talked about last week, needs andexpectations change in a long term relationship,
Well, they just change, andwe evolve as human beings and what we
like, maybe sexually when we weretwenty one, we don't like anymore and
we want to try something different.But if we don't have that conversation with
(18:07):
each other, it's going to bedisappointing because I'm going to be thinking,
hey, you know, used tolike this and now it's not going so
well anymore. We have these conversationsguess within ourselves with our friends, but
not with the person we should behaving the conversation with talk talk talk talk
talk talk, But talk to yourselffirst, ask yourself, you know,
what's going on with me sexually?What do I like? What do I
(18:29):
you know? People often don't havethat conversation with themselves. And once you're
able to identify within yourself what youneed and what you expect, talk to
your partner. Are these needs andexpectations realistic within the context of your relationship?
And if it's a long term relationship, you're not going to break up
over it, hopefully, but youcan tweak it, you can talk about
it. Well, sometimes people dobreak up, but I'll get it to
(18:51):
that. That'll be the last thingI talk about today, those sexless marriages,
because they are out there, andif you're one of them, O
God, I got some tips foryou. We'll talk about that later.
So let's get to our question.We have two questions. Do we have
time for these questions before? Let'sdo one? Okay, let's do one.
Okay, you mentioned you kind ofjumped the gun here, but that's
okay, Greg, I forgive you. Okay, So the three things that
(19:15):
people experience trouble with in the sexualrelationship. One of them is quantity.
So question number one comes here.It goes, thank you for your question.
By the way, on my Instagram, if you guys want to follow
me on Instagram, it's asked Anita, ask Lee, that is to handle.
You can send me your questions viathat page number one. My wife
and I both work and have twosmall kids. We never have time for
(19:37):
sex. We both want to havesex. We love each other. I'm
attracted to her, but every timewe think about it, we're too tired
to actually do it. What dowe do quantity? We live in a
very busy world. Everybody is busybeing busy, but they are not prioritizing
what they should be prioritized. Youcan just take some time, maybe take
(20:00):
a weekend together and I'm gonna saythis, put it on the calendar.
Oh yeah yeah. People are gonnasay, well, that's not spontaneous,
that's not fun. Listen, people, schedule sex is better than no sex.
Okay, put it on the calendarand I'll tell you something. There's
there's a lot of secondary gains too. If I know on Friday, that's
gonna be our day. I amgoing to lead up to that with other
(20:22):
emotional intimate things. I am,I'm gonna I'm gonna woo you a little
bit because I don't just want itto be Okay, Friday, it's eight
o'clock and we'd agree to do withit. That's not the point. The
point is you put it on thecalendar. You know it's coming up.
You can even start on Friday morningsending some nice emojis to each other saying
hey, I'm really looking forward tonightanything. You know, it's on the
calendar, it's coming up. It'sa goal to you know, to have
(20:45):
the sex, and of course towork towards making it romantic, not so
operational, not so technical. Putit on the calendar. There's nothing wrong
with that, No, but peoplethink it is because it's not spontaneous.
Say on every Friday at the firstof the month, I would say,
you know, I think, youknow, weekly once a week is a
(21:07):
healthy number. But I don't know. It all depends on people are gonna
say, well, I can't believeyou said that. Whatever is you know?
This couple addressing this question, theywant to be intimate physically with each
other. They seem to have ahealthy life, and what they're saying they're
busy with kids, But don't getlost in the busyness, because I'll tell
you then you end up in myoffice ten twenty years later saying, oh
my god, we're so disconnected.We never made time for each other.
(21:30):
Is emotional intimacy, physical intimacy.They are connected, interrelated, and you
want to keep that part of yourselfand your relationship on a good note.
That's the way we play with eachother. Put it on the calendar.
I don't care if you think it'snot spontaneous. Guess what it's better than
no sex? All right, yeah, some good. You got a lot
more questions to answer here coming upin just a bit. It is Unbelieve
(21:52):
your Life on news Talk eleven thirtyw I said, and more coming up.
Anita Askley has more advice on howto on Bleep your Life and Relationships
on news Talk eleven thirty wys Hey, guys, welcome back to Unbleep your
Life and Relationships with Anita Ashley.I'm your host, psychotherapist of twenty five
(22:14):
years. We're talking about sex,one of the things everybody wants to talk
about. And then nobody wants totalk about it is difficult to talk about.
I don't know why. For me, it's easy. I have a
therapist, But I kind of getit. Greg, you're turning around,
yeah, and you're talking about quantity. You know. Now most guys are
out there like seven times a week. Yeah, but you have to make
a compromise. There's a compromise tobe made. And it's not necessarily true
(22:38):
by the way all guys, mostguys, I mean, it's the whole
alpha thing. It's not always truethat men need to have that much sex.
It's all about the context of yourrelationship. Like I was saying before,
women also have sexual needs, butsometimes we just express them very differently,
and you're not sure writ It allgoes back to what the dynamic is
within your relationship that we can talkabout before we get into the We just
(23:02):
talked about quantity. But I dowant to say when couples present with issues
with quantity, I do want tomake sure that there's not an organic issue
going on, meaning something biological.So I'd like to send both people out,
you know, the man to theurologist, the woman to her doctor
to make sure there's not a hormonalthing going on. You know, it's
(23:23):
beyond the scope of my practice todeal with that because I'm not a physician,
but I do want to share thatfor men after the age of forty,
there's a decline one percent of testosteroneevery year after that. So that
does affect your performance, that doesaffect desire, and you might need a
little bit of a t shot.I don't know. It's all relative to
(23:44):
where you were. And with women, are they premo, menopausal, postmenopausal,
where are they? Our sexuality andour drive performance is impacted by our
biology. But hey, today we'retalking about the relational part. And I'll
say that most of the research doessay that are sexual when we're having issues
in the bedroom, it is usuallyrelated to something that's going on in our
(24:04):
head, brain, head and lateSunday night. But you're something we said
in the last segment that you madea good point of putting it and putting
it on the calendar. Put it, yeah, schedule it, put it
on the calendar. Now let's getto the quality. Everybody. You know,
people complain about the quality. It'snot like it used to be.
(24:25):
Well, of course not because you'reolder and if you're in a long term
relationship that's gonna fizzle out a littlebit. So we have to make an
effort. Make an effort, justlike you're gonna put it on the calendar,
you're gonna have a conversation with yourpartner. The worst thing that you
could do, and this is whatpeople generally do, is like, oh
my god, you know, theyattack and criticize the other person, like
you never want to have sex andit's so boring because you just lie there.
(24:48):
Well, that's really gonna work.If my partner tells me that,
I'm like thanks, I feel reallygood down now. I really want to
have more sex with you, andit's gonna be even greater because of what
you just said to me. No, don't attack the sexual And that's the
only way people know how to havethis conversation in this attack defense mode.
You need to approach me with compassion. You need to approach me with some
(25:11):
interest in what I want, andwe need to be able to talk about
that rather than this attacking that goesWhat about talking about your limitations. I
can't do this anymore. Absolutely,I'm older to do that. I'm older
now. Yeah, my needs havechanged over a time, and that affects
the quality, but it can begood. Again. That's what I want
to say in a long term relationshipthat we once we talk about it,
(25:33):
once we're able to identify some ofthe things that we want to do we
don't want to do, then wehave to give it a chance moving forward
and accept the fact that it's goingto be different. It's not going to
be like when you were twenty.Actually it can be better because you're more
confident in yourself and you know yourselfmore. Sadly, some people don't.
And I get that being raised inan Indian household, sexuality didn't exist,
(25:55):
Like I wasn't supposed to be asexual being. But once I was able
to appreciate my sexuality, know mysexuality, own it, and then of
course learn more about it as Ichanged as a woman, then I'm much
more comfortable with it, not onlywith myself, but also talking to my
partner. And that's of course goingto enhance the quality. Again, if
(26:15):
you and are able to talk aboutit, it's going to enhance the quality
of our sex life. Now,I just want to know if I'm allowed
to say this, but I'm goingto say it, but you can bleep
it out, pornography is not theanswer. If you guys are watching say
that I can't. Okay, Ifyou know you're watching porn all the time,
that's not going to help your sexlife. If you decide as a
couple to share in that experience,great, because if you're just watching porn,
that creates another issue. Because wehave addiction, we have all the
(26:37):
time expectations. Yeah, ye,they're not realistic. That's not happening in
most people's bedrooms. And then whathappens is you need a higher level of
stimulation. That's usually not going tohappen for most people. So what it
does is totally skews your ability tohave a positive sexual experience with your partner,
and then your expectations are completely wild. But if you both, if
(27:00):
you both agree to it your adults, who am I to say you shouldn't
do it? Everything which is notexcessive and not impacting your relationship in a
negative way. But again, donot attack your partner. Don't make it
about them, make it about yourself. How you can bring your sexuality to
a different place in terms of quality. I would like to experience this,
(27:23):
I would like to do this.How do you think, what do you
think and how do you feel aboutit? Using eye language. We talked
about that last week. Anytime we'retrying to resolve something in talking to our
partner, use eye language. Don'tuse you. You is accusatory and it
usually puts the other person in avery defensive mode. But if I say,
hey, you know, can wesit down and talk about this?
(27:45):
And I say to you, youknow, I'm feeling a little concerned because
I feel like I'm not satisfying you. And what can I do differently?
That's all I me, me,me, I'm looking at myself. I'm
evaluating my own performance. What doI bring to the table, rather than
you know, what is Greg notdoing? Okay, all right, so
you have any more questions, Ihave another question. This is the question
(28:07):
that will highlight the third part thatpeople struggle with in their relationships. So
we went from quantity, quantity toquality and this one is a very interesting
one and most people struggle with thisone. So I'll ask the question and
we'll talk about it. I'm aforty five year old male, My wife
is forty. We are mostly happy, happy, We're mostly happy, and
(28:27):
our sex life is pretty good.However, it's always me asking. She
rarely asks me. I would liketo feel desired at times? What's wrong
with her that she doesn't approach me? I love her, but feel I
will become resentful over time if thiscontinues. Wow, how do you handle
that? I mean, he's almostaccusing her in a way. He's well,
(28:51):
what he's talking about is a commonproblem that most people face in relationships
after a long period of time,or even actually initially. I shouldn't say
that, but it is a problem. So I just want to say thank
you for asking that question. Andsome really good things here you have.
You have a good sex life,you seem to enjoy it, you love
each other, but you're afraid totalk about something which is called the initiation
(29:12):
dance. We all have an initiationdance. There is an asker and there's
an ask ee. If you thinkabout you don't have to answer because I
don't want to get in trouble Greg, But if you think about your sexual
dynamics, is it you that initiatesor is it that your partner initiates?
And are you stuck in those initiationroles? The initiation dance, there's a
(29:33):
person who always asks, and thenthere's the ASKI we don't want to be
staying. We don't want to stayin those polarized positions. And he's basically
saying that I'm stuck. I'm alwaysasking her. She never comes to me.
Doesn't seem to be that she's denyinghim, but it seems like he
wants to be desired and feels whydon't you do this? I'm gonna give
(29:56):
I'm gonna give you some tips here. First, I want to say that,
right, think about your sexual dancearound initiation. Think about it.
We all have one and if yourpartner has come to you and said has
said in the past, hey,I'm always the one asking you, how
come you never initiate? First ofall, don't approach it that way?
How come you never again the youlanguage? Right? It's being able to
(30:19):
say, hey, you know,I would like to feel more desirable in
this relationship, and how I wouldfeel more desirable is kind of like if
you hit on me once in awhile, you know, it'd be kind
of nice. We have to beable to again talk about this. Yes,
I'm repeating myself, let's talk aboutit. I just want to say,
when it comes to the ASKERNASKI like, for this person, what This
is what I would say to you. And I'm not sure how many times
(30:41):
a week you're having sex. Maybeit's once a week. This is what
I have said to couples who arein my office. I'm going to give
you a month, okay, Andthe guys will say, oh my god,
what if she never initiates? No, I'm going to give you a
month because the woman in this situationusually says. And I'm using women because
most of the time this problem isbetween a guy. He's the man.
Are you always thinking I have tochase my wife to have sex. It's
(31:03):
usually not the other way around.The first thing is you're gonna switch roles.
You're not gonna be the asker anymore. You're not gonna initiate. You're
gonna give that over to her.And they'll be sitting in my office and
be, oh my god, she'snever gonna Yes, we're gonna give it
a month, because she usually sayshe never gives me the time. Like
literally, I would initiate, butbefore I have the opportunity to initiate,
(31:26):
he's right on me. I seright, So I can't win over here,
right, I would have. Iwas going to, but guess what
he pulled the trigger before I didso. I think a month is a
good time. If you are acouple who has sex once a week,
it's a good time. Let her. We've talked about it. You're gonna
you're gonna switch roles. You're gonnabe the one who initiates. He's not
(31:47):
gonna initiate, and we're gonna giveyou a month. If after a month
you haven't initiated, something else isgoing on that we got to talk about.
Second, it's Wednesday, come only. No, don't be but that's
kind of it. We got totalk about it. We're going to talk
about it in concrete terms. That'swhy I put some very firm boundaries around
that. Give it a month,but give her the chance to initiate.
(32:08):
If you're always initiating, ask yourself, maybe I'm just doing it too quickly
and not giving her enough time,and maybe she needs more time and her
again getting back to she has adifferent libido to you. But at least
you will feel desirable when she's ableto do that, when there is space,
when you've provided the space for thatto happen. Two more topics to
(32:29):
talk about what is coming up andjust their next thing. Oh well,
I'm going to give you the fivetips to take away and I'm going to
talk about sexless marriages. Wow,Unbleep your Life on news Dock eleven thirty.
Wi said more are coming up.Back to Unbleep your Life and Relationships
on news Talk eleven thirty wys Hey, guys, welcome back to on Bleep
(32:52):
Your Life and Relationships. I'm yourhost, Anita Astley. We're talking about
physical intimacy today and all that itis is in addition to sex. And
we just talked about some of themost common problems people experience in their sex
life, which is quality. Yeah, quantity is one of them. Initiation
I didn't think of that one.Yeah, you're paying attention. You're going
(33:13):
to pass the test that you talkedabout earlier. Now, the initiation dance
is a very common problem. Asyou were just listening, who initiates and
if you're always one initiating, havea conversation with your partner about it.
You don't have to be stuck inthose roles. I know it's more complicated
than that, but again, everythingstarts with the conversation and also have some
self awareness into how do you playinto the dynamics, but that can be
(33:36):
changed. Have a conversation, askyour partner to take on that role if
they're comfortable with it, and evenif they're not comfortable with it, ask
them to go beyond the comfort level. And we have to sometimes be uncomfortable
to get to a place where wewant to be. And especially with sex.
You know, people have such ahard time talking about and I get
it, it's such a personal thing. Sure, but once you start talking
about it, you don't stop.Look at me, I'm on a roll
(33:58):
here, and I grew up ina very sexually repressed family. By the
way, Indian people don't talk aboutsex and apparently they don't have sex.
But that's funny considering it's a countryof overpopulated people. But what am I
talking about over here? Okay,so let's talk about a topic that's very
difficult. Sexless marriages. Yeah,that's very fascinating. Is that common?
(34:21):
It is very common. I geta lot of questions and comments about Anita,
I haven't had sex with my wifefor ten years? How do I
resolve this issue? And I'll say, look, if you haven't had sex
in your marriage for ten years,there's a lot of issues going on that
are not related to sex, andI would guess from my And again,
I'm not doing therapy, guys.I'm just sharing my personal and professional experience
(34:45):
in working with couples and individuals forover twenty five years. If you haven't
had sex and ten years, yougot some other issues going on, and
they're probably related to emotional intimacy,which we talked about last week. If
you can emotionally connect with your partner, then a sexless marriage is out of
choice there. And what do Imean by that? There are many marriages
(35:06):
in which they are older or evenmaybe in their forty to fifty whatever,
they have agreed that they have avery close connection emotionally, but they don't
really desire to have sex anymore.That does happen. So in that situation,
who am I to say, yeah, you should have sex and there
is something wrong with your relationship.Absolutely not. If that's the agreement that
you've made with each other and bothof you are content, good for you.
(35:29):
But most of the people in thecomments that I get, there's one
person who's dissatisfied with that and isreaching out for help. But I'll say
to even that person, you're reachingout for help but guess what. When
there's usually one unhappy person in amarriage, there is usually another one.
You're not just experiencing this in isolation. Your partner just hasn't come forward,
or maybe they haven't you don't knowabout it. But generally when there's no
(35:52):
sex, and I always think like, oh my god, how does one
week, two weeks, three weeksturn into ten years? Easily? Because
life goes fast, as you know, and we can hide behind the kids,
we can hide behind our job.But eventually, you know, if
it's important to you, it's goingto present itself in different ways and you're
going to struggle with this. Isthere a tip for someone who says,
(36:12):
you know, i'd like to it'sbeen ten years. How do you get
into that? Well, what's thatconversation that you've been dreading? But guess
what, it's ten years? Howmuch more are you going to? Wait?
Will be dead soon? Then you'llbe having no sure. So that's
what you're saying, Yeah, yeah, exuseue, call a therapist. Okay,
if you're afraid to have this conversationyourself, get some professional help.
(36:35):
I'm a therapist. I deal withthese issues all the time in my office.
First of all, it's not thatuncommon, so it's okay to reach
out and get some help, andthen I will help you get your partner
in, learn more about what's goingon with you, and then of course
invite your partnering because I want toknow what the story is on the other
side. There's always a story onthe other side. It's not that you're
(36:57):
assuming that your partner doesn't want to, but maybe they do. And I
don't even know if I can saythe M word here, but I won't
say it. Yeah, can wesay thank you daddy? It's the okay
good I've got. But that's healthyand that's and that's the first question I
asked, do you do that?And it's usually yes? And how often
(37:19):
it's usually you know, a healthyamount. Again, this is something you're
keeping to yourself like this dirty littlesecret. It's not. Let's have a
conversation with your partner about it andthey're probably struggling with it too, and
then I'm going to help you resolvesome of that. Again, it is
a symptom of something else. It'snot the problem itself. Does it make
any sense? Yeah, I seewhat you're saying. You kind of got
(37:40):
into that into that mode. Wherewould you know where you've been so busy
all your life? That's an excuse. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying.
Yeah, and this in the backof your mind, you well,
we don't have any time to dowell, well, we'll do it later.
We'll do it later, we'll doit later, I have a headache,
or you know the menstruational cycle thatlasts ten years. You know,
a week are whole ten days?Wait a minute, you're like post metapausa.
(38:04):
What's going on over here? Soall kinds of excuses. We can
laugh and joke about it, butit's a serious problem. And again it
is a symptom of something else,and that usually is there is a crack
in the foundation of emotional intimacy.You're not connected. That's why I said
earlier on when we talked about puttingit on the calendar, put it on
the calendar, because you don't wantto become the sexless couple. You don't
(38:27):
want to become that couple, whichyou don't do it anymore, and then
you don't talk about it anymore.And the longer the time span goes on,
the harder it gets to talk about. We build up all this anxiety
years later, it's much more difficultto talk about than it was maybe five
years ago because it was fresh.But now it's been ten years. How
do you bring the subject up?Anita? We have about five minutes to
go. I know you got fivetips. You want to talk to it.
(38:50):
I do, I do, Ido? I do? Okay,
thank you because I can go onand on. Okay. Top five things
you can do to unbleep your physicalintimacy in your relationship. Number one,
Get comfortable talking about uncomfortable things likesex and physical intimacy. Number two.
Stop looking to your partner to improvethings. Look within yourself. Ask yourself
(39:14):
questions like how did I learn toexpress and experience physical intimacy in my family
of origin? And am I repeatingthat? And is that a good thing
or a bad thing? Is itharming me and my relationship? You got
to look at yourself first. Numberthree bring back sorry number keep going,
ah, I'm flabbing it up.You'll you'll add it. I know you
(39:36):
will, but I'll just keeping aNumber three. Bring back affectionate touch in
your relationship. Hug, kiss,sit on the couch, be together,
touch each other, cold hands whenyou're walking down the street. It doesn't
cost anything and it's not that complicated. Change this is really important. Change
the way you think about physical intimacy. We are a function of our thoughts.
(40:00):
If we change the way we thinkabout something, then I believe we
change the way we feel about itand the way we do it. Physical
intimacy is so much more than sex. Number five, work on increasing your
emotional intimacy. If you're able toconnect with your partner emotionally, generally,
the physical intimacy is of better qualityand there is more of it. It
(40:23):
is a foundation of all healthy relationships. Emotional intimacy five things you can do
well you're just you is as basicas just looking at each other. I
to op. Yeah. I meana lot of times we don't even look
at each other. We don't becausewe're running around, we're looking at our
phones. So stop doing that.Yeah. So those are five things that
you can all easily do. Anita, Now we got a few minutes here,
(40:45):
let's talk about you. Okay,can we come and see you?
You can. I am still inprivate practice. You can look for me
on my website, Ask Anita,askleid dot com. I do take individuals,
couples and families who are unbleep theirlife? Are you busy? I
am, I can depending on howdedicated and committed you are. I always
(41:08):
think there's people who are just visitingme and there's people who are just staying
to really do the work. Becausemy goal at this point in life is
to help spread the message and theword through social media and through you know,
talk shows like this. I lovedoing this, even though I still
love doing clinical work. This ismy passion right now to help people at
(41:28):
a macro level so they can getall the information from your website, they
can and they can see in allthose social media platforms right let see if
they want to catch up with meoutside of studio. Guys, you can
follow me on Instagram, Twitter,Facebook, YouTube asking you to Askley And
if you're interested in buying my book, it is available on Amazon and Simon
and Schuster. It is not Unbleep, it is something else. Unbleep Your
(41:51):
Life and Relationships by Anita Ashley.I just can't say the word. I
wish I could, And we're goingto have a show on that. Why
can't we say the word? What'swhat's so terrible about word? Get into
it today? Okay, So that'sthat's two shows. What are we going
to be talking about next week?We're going to be talking about talking what
Yeah, Because Hey, like Isaid before, if we can't talk,
(42:13):
we can't fix any of these issues. We need to learn to communicate,
and we're going to talk about theart of communication, listening and speaking on
Bleep Your Life with Anita Ashley onNews Talk eleven thirty W I sent see
you next week.
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