Pursuer Distancer (2016 Rerun)

[Rerun] Dr Kirk Honda and Humberto give advice to a listener about their relationship.

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December 29, 2016

The Psychology In Seattle Podcast ®

Trigger Warning: This episode may include topics such as assault, trauma, and discrimination. If necessary, listeners are encouraged to refrain from listening and care for their safety and well-being.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
So Berto, someone wrote in and they want our advice
about how to deal with a relationship in what you know,
she's married and they're not having sex anymore and they're
having some conflict about it. And so I thought I
would read her email and we could talk about advice

(00:27):
or different approaches to that, since it's commonly a thing
that couples will and individuals will come to me in
therapy for that'll sit in my office and actually present
this as something that they want to work on.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
What do you say that sounds fascinating? Let's delve in.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Okay, So I'm going to have this email be anonymous, patron.
I wasn't sure if you wanted me to read your name,
so I'm just am going to read this anonymous. So
I'm going to break her email into a few parts,
just sort of chime in now and then. So she says, Kirk,

(01:05):
my husband and I have been together for nine years.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
By the way, what are we listening to right now? WHOA?

Speaker 1 (01:11):
This is called the Psychology in Seattle podcast Time. Your host,
doctor Kirk Honda. I am a professor and a therapist.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
My name is Sumberto Castigna, and I was an open
heart surgeon, but my hands got.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Injured, so she says. My husband and I have been
together for nine years. We've been having problems for a
while now with intimacy and trust. It's been about five
years since the decline of our sex life, and we've
been arguing a lot about it. He thinks my attention
must be going elsewhere. He has accused me of everything

(01:44):
from having an affair to being a lesbian. At first,
I didn't know what was wrong with me Berto any
thoughts that I have.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
To imagine that would be very common that one person
is feeling, you know, like, wait, what's going on? Where
are we no hanky panky? And then they start thinking,
wait a minute, is it me? Is it some other person?
Is it that they're yeah, like have they switched to
sexes interests? But rarely I have a feeling. Rarely people
might be like, oh, I wonder if they're having a

(02:16):
difficult time at work, or I wonder if they're feeling depressed,
or I wonder you know, it's probably the first few
thoughts are usually probably more more soap opera alike.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Right, It's a very common presenting problem in couple's therapy.
As I was saying before. I talk with lots of
people about this, and it's you know, first of all,
it's really natural for couples to grow apart over time.
It doesn't always happen, and there are ways to prevent that.

(02:48):
But I've seen it a lot, both personally and professionally,
particularly at the around the seven year mark, like the
five to nine yet they call it the seven year itch.
That's right, Well, they call it that for a reason.
I haven't looked up the research, but I definitely see
relationships there are different milestones you have. For instance, in

(03:11):
many of the dating relationships now, because there's online dating
and so many people you can start dating, there is
often a threshold that's a week in now.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Oh really yeah, minutes.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Well, it used to be like, you know, a few
months or something, but now if you can get through
a week, you know, you meet someone on tender and
you date them for a week, like you've crossed a
threshold if you're into that second week, you know. And
then there's other milestones like the three month or the
six month ish kind of saying, or the year, and
then there's a there's usually a threshold at the eighteen

(03:49):
to twenty four month mark.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I crossed the two drink threshold with a gall at
a bar one time.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, well in Vancouver's that's are you Are you sure
she was even talking to you or you were just
maybe to drink.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Maybe I crossed the two drink boundary or maybe it
was the twenty drink. I don't know. And are you
sure she just wasn't your bartender because you maybe it
was you, I don't know who it was.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
So at the seven year mark, which they have crossed
recently because they're nine years now, it it there's a
there's a there's a threshold there, and there are certain
tasks that are common to couples they've been.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Together nine years. You said nine years.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Wow, right, so you know things like sexuality, because sexuality
often becomes cool over time, whereas in the first year
or two there's very little problem.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Typically there are.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Problems with sexuality in the first couple of years for
some people, but often it's it's very easy for new
couples to drum up the motivation or to forego the
normal barriers that get in the way later on.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
In many cases, relationships start via the sexual route, right,
like you are attracted to each other and then you
meet and pretty soon you're kiss seeing, making out heavily.
Pretty soon you're having sex, And that's kind of like
you probably start doing those kind of activities before you
even find out. You know, what your parents' names are,
where did you, where were you born, what was your

(05:19):
early childhood like?

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Right, or maybe even more specifically, the sorts of insecurities
that the other person has. There's just not as much
at stake in the beginning of the relationship, even though
it's intense and you might really love that person, there's
a level of vulnerability that grows over time that is

(05:42):
not as present as it is in the beginning. You know,
if you fall in love with someone and a month
later they dump you, that's different than if you fall
in love with someone and twenty years later they dump you.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Oh yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
It's just as time goes on, you get more vulnerable,
and people start getting in more conflicts, and they start
hurting each other, and they start distancing each other to
protect themselves. They might have kids that this couple they
actually have kids, and so you focus on the kids.
You're busy with work, you neglect your relationship, and before
you know it, you're just no longer really connecting over time,

(06:19):
and there's not a lot of goodwill, and there's no
routines of.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Love between the two of you.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
And so in regards to his his you know, he's
accused me of everything from having an affair to being
a lesbian. These are really common paranoias for people who
feel neglected, both men and women. When they feel neglected
by their partner sexually, they will say things like this,

(06:48):
of course you're obviously have You must be having an
affair otherwise, because when we first met, you wanted to
have sex all the time, and now you don't want
to ever have sex, so you must be getting it somewhere,
is the thought. Or you used to be so attracted
to me, what happened? Well, maybe you're a lesbian now,

(07:08):
you know. Now, certainly those things happen, but it's not
likely right. Also, gender plays a role frequently in heterosexual relationships,
depending on your culture. Men are socialized to connect via
sex and really no other way, and women are socialized

(07:29):
to connect via connection and vulnerability and this sort of thing,
and so you put and they're essentially men and women
are socialized in different cultures. And some people say that
heterosexual romantic relationships are cross cultural, Like if an American
marries someone from East India, you know, it's like you

(07:52):
are different cultures. And so cis women, sis gender, men
in heterosexual in units when they come together, they've been
socialized completely differently when it comes to love.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Remind me of what cis gender? Is that the the
opposite of transgender? So what does cis stand for?

Speaker 1 (08:15):
I don't think it stands for anything. It's just just
a word, like, oh, you're transgender, just cis gender. It
might stand for something, but it's one word, cis gender,
sis gender. Yeah, you can shorten it to say you're cis.
You know, I'm as cis mail or something. You'll start
hearing that more and more because there needs to be
a label that demarcates the fact that you're sis. There's

(08:40):
just because you can't just say I'm male and then
everyone else's trans mail.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Or you know you have non trans or something.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, right, there's no word for non trans. You have
to say sis. So okay, So let's get back to
her email. She says, I started looking into it. I've
looked into everything such as hormone levels, attachment theory, resentment,
and projection, I've realized that I don't like being vulnerable,
and I usually end relationships after a year. I hate

(09:06):
the thought of someone knowing what makes me happy or
sad or angry, because I don't want to give them
anything they can use to hurt me. This is because
I had a very narcissistic mother who was also a
drug addict. I have always presented myself in a very strong,
independent way. I told my husband that I discovered that

(09:28):
I have a fear of vulnerability, and he told me,
I'm your husband, you have to be vulnerable with me.
What do you think, berto Well.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Sounds like she's done a lot of self introspection and
really looked at, you know, different reasons why she might
be feeling or not feeling in these ways. It seems
like the question of does one have to be vulnerable
to be in a relationship is an interesting one. I

(09:57):
think that anytime you open up as a human being,
you're already being a little vulnerable. You know, as soon
as you start talking with someone, there's some vulnerability there.
As to whether you have to be I feel it's
more like you are, whether you like to or not.
You are vulnerable when you're in a relationship. I don't

(10:18):
know if I'd say that you have to be it's
more like you just are.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
I will say it depends on what we mean by vulnerable.
That we I would say we people have to be vulnerable. Now,
there are different styles of relationships. Some people prefer to
be a little more distant, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Some people prefer to be very close and vulnerable. There's
nothing wrong with that, But there are inevitable conflicts that

(10:44):
happen and needs that are not met. When, for instance,
her she is hurt by the things he's saying, you
have to communicate that that those things hurt, and that'sulnerable
to say that. I'm not talking about laying your life
open to being harmed, but I'm saying you can't. Like,

(11:08):
for instance, someone at work hurts your feelings, Well, if
you don't trust that person, you might not necessarily tell them, hey,
you hurt my feelings, even though you could say that,
But it's vulnerable to say that. In all likelihood you'll
just act like it didn't hurt you, and then you'll
go home and complain about it. Right well, if your partner,
there are limitations to that approach in that if your

(11:31):
partner doesn't understand the things that hurt you or the
things that you need which require vulnerability, then your partner
cannot meet your needs. So I would say that it
is a necessary part of being in a close relationship.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, I guess maybe it's the same thing. I would
have just flipped it around maybe and say, look, you're
gonna be vulnerable. What you have to do is you
have to be receptive to that vulnerability and open to
to what you were just saying, how can you help
your partner through those vulnerabilities? You know, that's that's interesting.

(12:06):
So I know a couple, sorry, I know a couple
that's been together for for you know, I don't know,
four decades or something, five decades, and they sleep in
separate bedrooms. They never show any PDA, no public display
of affection whatsoever. But they're still together. And you know,
I'm sure they'll they'll die before they would ever not
be together. I think they've figured out ways to hide

(12:30):
each other's vulnerabilities or not deal with it, you know.
And right, I'm not saying it's great, but it's somehow
provided a functional balance for them.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Well, culturally, people would look at that and say that
that was sad, and that they have a terrible relationship,
that they're just faking it or something. But and certainly
that can be true, but it's not. It's not a
for sure thing. Like I was saying, some people prefer
to have distant romantic relationships. They're more independent, they're more loners,

(13:04):
and they come together. There are couples that are married
for twenty years and they choose not to even live
with each other, and many people would say that that
is completely dysfunctional, but that's a cultural judgment. Love is
something of a preference. You love the way you want
to love, and you have a right to have the

(13:25):
relationship that you want. And some couples are choosing to
sleep in separate rooms because of snoring, and there shouldn't
be any shame about that. It's just a matter of preference. Now,
if you're sleeping in separate rooms because you can't stand
each other and you're either afraid of being vulnerable and

(13:48):
trying to address these issues to improve your relationship, or
you're afraid of divorce because you're too old and you
don't think that you know anything is available beyond the
threshold of divorce, then that's a whole other thing.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
But it's really a case by case basis. And it
also I think used to be probably less common, at
least in this culture, for couples to be so open
with each other, like when I see couples that are
now old old folks, and when you watch movies and
things like that from the fifties or older. At least,

(14:23):
the depiction and what you hear from people was a
lot more kind of daily pragmatic living rather than tell
me what's wrong with you? What is bothering you? You know,
these seem to be not things we would do.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Absolutely, the gender roles in recent American history culture were
quite rigid, and therefore it prevented couples often from actually
having intimacy. It's hard to know where we were before that,
because we are observations only go back so far. Maybe

(15:01):
five hundred years ago, people were much more open with
each other. Maybe there are some cultures where husbands and
wives were extremely vulnerable with each other. It's just hard
to know. It's just a common misconception. I think that
we automatically know that every and you weren't saying this,
but I hear this. Every culture was extremely rigid and

(15:23):
quote unquote traditional as a reflection of the way it
was in the fifties for us. But there were particular
forces on the American culture in mid twentieth century that
were particular to that time. For instance, industrialization. In the past,

(15:43):
you the vast majority of people and many people today
you live on a farm on a farm, and you
have five kids, and you're always within ten feet of
your wife or husband, and you know everything about each
other and you got to get along, right, And so
it's a different thing when we start looking at other

(16:07):
kinds of culture.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
That is funny to think, like, you know, today you
could say, oh, how is work today? I don't want
to talk about it, right, Or how was your trip?
Your business? I don't want to back then it's like,
how is the grass outside of our door today? Well,
you saw it because we just walked out. There's the cow. Right.
You shared everything together.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
It was an intimate life together and cheating would have
been a lot harder.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah. Right, where did you go for the last three
months to get some milk? Yeah? One of the cows
wandered off.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
I just kept chasing her, and you know, one thing
led to another, and now I have another wife.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
All right?

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Going on with the email, I'm also realizing that I'm
angry at him. I'm very angry at him. He comes
off is inconsiderate with my feelings and tells me I'm
silly for thinking about things that stress me out. When
I tell him I'm upset about something he did or said,
he blows it off like it's not that big.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Of a deal.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
He didn't like, he didn't do anything wrong. When this happens,
I shut down. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Bro? Interesting? And I wonder if if the reverse happens,
where the stuff she does is exaggerated, you know, it's like,
is a big deal to him? Like she if she
does something quote unquote wrong? If for him that's like, wow,
why did you mess up? Like this? Right? And then
when when she points something else wrong or something that

(17:38):
he did, he's like, ah, that's nothing. It sounds like
maybe that's a dynamic happening. I could see, like even myself, like,
if someone was doing that to me, I could see
myself being like, oh, all right, I'm not that that
doesn't seem to make me horny, honey, if someone was,
If someone's treating me like that, discounting your feelings, yeah, yeah,

(18:00):
I'm saying saying, oh, you know, you did this thing
and it's affecting me. Ah, get over it. That's not
an aphrodisiac. Oh ashly, wait say that again.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
All right, Well, let's go on with the email, and
I want to talk about attachment and other kinds of things.
But before we do that, let's take a break. What
do you say, Okay, okay, we're back. If you haven't
already become a patron of the podcast, do so now,

(18:33):
because we want you to become a patron. And that's
just the only thing that we want anyone to do.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Join the family. Join the family.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
We are one, and when you email us as a patron,
we're much more likely to read it on the air
like we are right now, and.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Less likely to make fun of you. Honestly, that's right.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Well we obviously whenever someone you know writes in and
they're just a listener and not a patron.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
We just ridicule it for years.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, we like post it up on the wall and
just point and laugh. So if you don't want that
to happen to you, become a patron.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Hey man. Blackmail and uh, what's the other thing?

Speaker 1 (19:12):
The coercion coersion Yeah, all right, let's go on with
the email. He wants things fixed without a lot of
process to it. I asked him to cuddle, and he says,
why would I give you what you want if I
don't get what I want? I tell him this and
he says that I only think about the negative. And

(19:33):
I have to know he is coming from a positive
place because he's my husband and he wouldn't have married
me just to belittle just to belittle me for the
rest of my life. And she wants to know our opinion.
She says, thank you so much for all that you do.
What do you think about that?

Speaker 2 (19:49):
One? Interesting? So let's let's reconstruct that she Is she
the one asking to cuddle? Is he asking to cuddle? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (19:58):
She says I want to c and he's like, why
would I give you Why would I coddle with you
if you don't have sex with me?

Speaker 2 (20:04):
I see, Okay, So now stepping into the other person's
shoes for a second, irrelevant of how we got to
this point, I could see the following. If the other
person is feeling unwanted, unattractive, you know, undesired, which sounds
like he may be feeling that way, I could see
them saying to themselves and then to her saying, look,

(20:28):
I've made all the moves or I'm always the one
making the moves. You don't seem interested, so why should
I even bother? Like I could kind of see that
dynamic playing out, and it's unfortunate because it means it's
gotten to that point.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Right then it just becomes tit for tat and whenever
you ask for something, the other person is saying, well,
you didn't give me what I want, So I'm not if.
If that's your mentality and your marriage, believe me, you're doomed.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
There also might be fear on his part that if
he does cuddle, that it will just be cuddling, right,
And I know that doesn't sound fearful like scary to
some people, but in his mind, it's like he's horny
or whatever, he wants sex and he's sitting there like,
I gotta cuddle. Okay, let's say we cuddle, And then
he starts cuddling, and everything that's running through his mind

(21:18):
is Okay, how much longer do I have to cuddle?
How much longer do I have to cuddle? Wait, nothing's happening,
And then he starts getting frustrated. Then he starts getting
what do you call resentful again? And then it's back
to square zero. Right.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
The thing is is that men are socialized to completely
laser focus on intercourse specifically, and the fact is that
humans are way more varied than that that. Men and women,
regardless of what gender identification you have, are social creatures

(21:54):
that need physical warmth from the day we're born. As
soon as we're born, we need our parents to hold
us against their bodies to you know, be close nearby physically.
When we leave infants in the crib without holding them

(22:15):
for you know, an adequate amount of time, which in
the beginning is twenty four to seven, then children fail
to thrive, they say, and some of them even die.
It increases fatalities around this, but there's low lower weight,
lower cognitive development, all these kinds of things that is

(22:35):
not relegated to infancy that persist throughout our entire life.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
And it makes sense.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
That we would have a need for human closeness because
those who craved that warmth and that bonding behavior with
other primates would survive on, you know, in the wilderness
more likely because they're not wandering off and they build

(23:02):
relationships that are you know, kin who will defend you
or give you food when you're tired or sick or something,
and all of that is facilitated through physical warmth. Sex
is a part of that, but a very small percentage
of the overall warmth that we all need as human beings. Now, okay, yeah,

(23:26):
Americans are terrible at this, by the way, particularly those
who descend from the northwestern part of Europe, and also
to some extent Japanese people, which I in my family
get the double whammy of.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Meaning that there's no modeling of just sitting and holding someone.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Or well, there's a culture that says that you don't
need that, and a culture that says that that is
unbecoming or unnecessary or fosters dependence or something. Japanese people
are notorious for that, and also so are Swedish and

(24:08):
British people, which are the other people I descended from.
So I have a double whammy of a lack of Now,
having said that, there was in my family a pretty
good amount of physical warmth in my family. And I
have three siblings, and we were always rolling all over
each other and you know, and just being physically warm

(24:31):
with each other, and so Anyway, my point is is
that because Americans have been socialized and raised in this
anti touching environment, you have what I find to be
two obvious symptoms. One is the increase in pets and
pet ownership and pet love. There was a time when

(24:55):
plenty of people didn't have any pets. Now everyone has
at least one, seemingly if not multiple pets. And what
do we do with our pets. We cuddle, we pet them,
we cuddle with them, we love them. And these are,
you know, surrogates for the warmth that we crave from
other human beings. Also another manifestation is you find men

(25:20):
completely obsessed with sex because you tell men, you tell
all people you can't touch each other, but particularly men,
because if men touch each other, they're gay, which is
the worst thing ever.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Well, you also tell them they can't touch women until
some very very narrow circumstances are met.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
Right, So, say you're ten, and I actually I'll tell
you a story. And might had said this on the
podcast before. When I was in the second grade in
Sunny Hills Elementary in what is now Samamish, Washington, we
were completely involve in each other's space. I remember whenever

(26:04):
the lights went out for a movie or a slide
projector thingy. We would all get down on the ground,
you know, in the library, and all the boys and
girls would cuddle. There was no sex. There was no sex.
I mean, we didn't even know what that was. It
was all just like backrubs and just warmth, physical warmth.

(26:26):
During recess, we would play soccer and then other times
we would we would hug each other and it was everyone.
It was all mutual, boys and girls. There was no
differentiation between boys and.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Girls, nothing past fifth base. Nothing.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
And so I remember in third grade, for I have
no idea why, it completely did a one to eighty
and no one touched each other, and everyone was insecure,
and there was a very firm boundary between boys and girls,
and everyone understood that touching was shameful and that sexuality,

(27:01):
even though we had no idea what sex was, it
was all shameful. I just I remember in third grade,
I was eight or something. I remember thinking back four
months ago we were all different, and now we're all
this way. And I loved it before and I hate
it now. And so you get these men who are

(27:22):
completely touched deprived, and they have one justifiable venue for
physical warmth, and that is through intercourse. And I don't
even say sex because sex can involve lots of things
that don't even evolve intercourse. Sure you can make out
or cuddle or be naked together, or there's you know,

(27:46):
there's lots of things. The feather in the bomb, feather
in the bumb and whatever in the bomb. You could
put anything in the bum. As long as it's sexually done,
then it's not in. And so there are just this
tremendous pressure for men to have intercourse all the time

(28:09):
because they have a quotient of physical warmth that they
need physically. It's not just an intellectual desire, it's a
it's a physical biological need.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
And when they can't get that sex, it destroys.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Them because it's there one way of having that human
need met. And then you have these women who are
just like, my god, what is this pressure all the time?
You know what? What's now? Of course, there are women
who will pressure men, So I'm not going to generalize completely,
but in my experience, there are more men who are
pressuring women to do this. And because many women are

(28:50):
allowed a little bit more of physical warmth with children,
with each other, with other, even with animals, you know,
when when when women cuddle with cats and this sort
of thing, it's it's more socially acceptable than when a
man does. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
So I have a little different take on it though,
because which you may not like. But uh, you know,
if you watch a lot of animal species where the
males are physically dominant, they sort of get to have
sex with whoever they come around, unless there's another competitor male,
and they just do it. I have a feeling that we,

(29:28):
over the many years we develop society, at some point
men established those same boundaries because men were like, well,
I don't want just any guy coming around touching my women,
so we're gonna slowly but surely implicitly set it up
so that you're not really supposed to touch women unless you're

(29:50):
married to them and in the bedroom. And then that
led to and this is where I do tend to
agree with you, that led to the unintended con sequence
of extra pent up sexual frustration that now is manifested
in a lot of unhealthy ways. But as an example,
I grew up in a different culture where when we

(30:12):
were even in preteens and we would go to dance dances,
you dance very together close the whole time, with many
different partners. You would always greet women after a certain age.
You always greet women with a kiss on the cheek,
sometimes two. There is lots of talking, but there's still

(30:35):
there is still definitely the dynamic of guys hunting for
sex and women kind of choosing and.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
The behavior of men being pressured around sex or creepy
has multiple factors, including just masculinity in general in terms
of that being socialized, and you know, perhaps biology your
speculation about early humans, I have to say, based on

(31:05):
what I know about research regarding early human social life
and behavior is likely not correct.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
But then throw away my early humans. Just look at
the extremes of this today where there's very repress societies
that say women will have to cover everything because men
can't be trusted, and the downside of that approach is
then men develop rage and uncontrollable sexual urges.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
So the only we can't say anything about the African
pleceisine around humans regarding that. What we can say is
those societies exist today, and we can look to recent
history for examples of how all of that leads to today,
and we can absolutely say that there are social forces

(31:58):
that are uh and more and more experts that know
more about this than I do will tell me that
when we became more less of hunter gatherer types of
people and more sedentary for agriculture, it forced people to

(32:20):
stay many people to stay close to each other. And
then and our sort of quote unquote natural tendency to
start wandering with our sexuality men and women created murder
and chaos and war, and so laws emerged.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah, that's what I was saying. And then I think
that as a result of that, one of the unintended
consequences was not everywhere in the world, not at all times,
but in many cases, men and women sitting there in
a corner being like, God, damn, I want to I
want intimacy, and I can't have it unless I meet
these very very narrow requirements.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
And you bring up Colombian culture, which has a different
aesthetic when it comes to male and male or you know, touching.
It doesn't eliminate the creepiness, so to speak, but it
does provide that need to be to be touched and
to have one. There are sixteen year old white American
boys who are literally touching not a single human being

(33:25):
for months and months and months because it's not a
cult a custom in their family. Other boys aren't going
to touch him because that's that's gay. And if he
doesn't have a girlfriend then or even if he does,
there's a chance that he doesn't ever have much time
to cuddle or to have contact with her. And so

(33:46):
what does he turned to?

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Can you guess what? He turns to? Violence? Well? The
worst kind?

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Well that, but what else? But yeah, and certainly people
can turn to violence or sports or something, but masturbation, right,
they turned to porn and masturbation because it's a pseudo
it's a pseudo warmth. You're touching yourself, but you're fantasizing
about someone touching you. Or people turn to sex workers
or massage therapists or you know, and there's professional cudlers.

(34:14):
But anyway, So getting to your email, patron, I'll say
that you and your husband follow a very similar dichotomy
regarding attachment insecurity. Without going too much into the weeds,
there are in essence, the easiest way to explain this
is there's two types of a based on the way

(34:37):
you were raised from your own parents and caregivers. From
zero to five, each of us have our own attachment style,
And there are two basic umbrellas. You have your secure
attachments and you have your insecure attachments. If you're securely attached,
then you manage relationships fairly well. It's not like you

(34:57):
don't ever have problems, but you manage to love people
but give them space. You manage you trust people generally
speaking enough to manage the to navigate relationship conflicts. Not always,
but you know you're just better at it. The other
type is insecure attachment, meaning that when you were growing up,

(35:18):
you weren't given enough love or attention or security or stability,
or you were given attention or stability with strings attached
or something, and so you grew up insecurely attached to
your parents, and therefore as adults you exhibit insecure attachment.
There are two types of insecure attachment mainly so there's

(35:40):
another third one but I won't go into. But the
two main ones are. So, your husband is what we
call anxious or preoccupied insecurely attached, meaning that he's frequently
fearful of losing his wife. Oh interesting, he's and he's
preoccupied with thinking about her, thinking about when you know,

(36:01):
does she love me?

Speaker 2 (36:02):
Is she I need you? To be. You know, when
she discovers.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Oh, I'm never vulnerable with you, he says, oh, my god,
you need to be vulnerable with me, you know, because
he's he is aware, preoccupied, anxious attached people are extremely
aware of the fact that people are distant from them,
that the close that their spouses are distant. They'll if
you talk to them, they will complain and say, yeah,

(36:27):
my wife husband is is too distant, or they're too cold,
or they're they don't tell me what's going on, or
I feel like we're two ships passing in the night
or something. You know, you'll hear these kinds because because
they're very they want more and they're not getting it,
and they'll get upset and they'll say ridiculous things like

(36:49):
I'm not going to cuddle with you unless you have
sex with me.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
I mean, because they're.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
They're so they're hurting on a daily, minute by minute
basis that it's hard for them to to navigate those
kinds of relationship moments. The other type of insecure attachment
is what we call avoidant or dismissive. Again, same circumstances. Essentially,
you're parented in such a way that you feel insecure

(37:15):
about your attachments. And then you grow up and what
you learn early in life is I can't depend on
other people. People abandon me, they hurt me, they don't
love me properly. And so I've learned, not consciously so
to speak, but as a child, they become very independent
and they learn to just not even share their vulnerability,

(37:37):
and they actually learn to submerge their vulnerability, to submerge
their feelings, and.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
So they build walls. They build walls, right, So that's
what she is, like literal walls between countries.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yes, they feel, and so that's what she is. Is
she exhibits avoidant dismissive attachment and a similar they'll say
similar things as her, Like I discovered that in all
my relationships, I was always the one that would leave.
The avoidant dismissive people are always the one to say

(38:09):
like ah, at the first sign of a problem, they'll
they'll run because there they'll say, I don't need people.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
I'm okay on my own.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
And what they will say typically is that they don't
have needs. They'll say I don't I don't have needs.
They don't even know about their needs, but in actuality
they have more needs than secure people. Because they are
they've been neglected their entire life. But before we get
into more of that, let's take a break. What do

(38:38):
you say, Okay, okay, we're back so again. Attachment insecurity?
She exhibits avoidant, dismissive attachment insecurity, and you know she
is it's just she shuts down. She says, it's very

(39:00):
common for dismissive people.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Estion for you is there? Do you imagine that there
was some sort of implicit attraction as a result of
them being sort of opposites on.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
This they frequently attract each other, not because they are opposites.
It's a fallacy that opposites attract.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
But Paula Paula told.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Us, yeah, it is because these types of attachment insecurities
fit well together. Because if you yourself, let's just say
you are the you know, the patron who is very independent,
doesn't like to be vulnerable, shuts down and distances yourself.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Well, but you also have denied.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Insecurity and neediness because you, deep down are desperate for
human contact, but you just don't trust it to happen
because you were denied it as a child. Right, Well,
you fit very well with someone who is very anxious
and preoccupied about attachment because they will chase you a lot.
And so if you're the one who's distancing and the

(40:07):
other one is chasing, then there's always a closeness that occurs,
even though over time there will be a massive amount
of conflict around it, depending on the degree. But if
you're avoidant and you meet up with another avoidant person,
then you're both distancing yourself from the other person and
you'll never have contact. Two independent people, they just drift

(40:31):
apart ships in the night. Plus, you don't have a
viable screen to project your neediness onto which you need.
You need to facilitate projective identification in order to function
in life.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
What about two needy ones?

Speaker 1 (40:48):
So two needy ones go crazy because they are they
are fighting all the time, and they might go well
for a bit of time because they might I love
each other very quickly, but they'll very quickly become upset
because when you depending on the degree, but if you're
very needy, and by needy, I don't mean negative, I

(41:11):
mean everyone's needy. Everyone needs human contact. But if you're
insecure about your neediness and you're preoccupied, and you're anxious,
and you're people who are preoccupied, anxious attachment style, have
a fair amount of paranoia that he's exhibiting. Right, he's
thinking you're a lesbian, you're having an affair, Like because
you've been rejected when you were a child and abandoned,

(41:34):
you have this template like, well, people don't love me,
people reject me. And when I feel distanced, it means
it doesn't mean that we're just having an off day.
It means they're moving away permanently. They're going to abandon me.
That's the paranoia.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
And so because your brain's like probably stored some of
those signals back when it really meant that you were
abandoned or whatever, and you're like, oh, I will forever
see that a red warrant, red sign you know.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Right exactly. And so when you put two people like
that together, they become paranoid about each other and it
explodes very quickly. So a stable somewhat stable, the most stable,
is secure, and secure those are the if you have
two securely attached people together. Research says most you know,
most stable, but another stable configuration but will likely dissolve

(42:28):
at some point without help. Is the what we're seeing
here is anxious, preoccupied with an avoidant dismissive person. So okay,
what I will say is this, you guys need couple's
therapy with a good couples therapists. Not every couples therapists

(42:48):
is good, take it from me, particularly with someone who
understands how men and women are socialized regarding attachment, which
is something to think about, and socialized regarding massa linarity, femininity. Now,
the other thing I'll say here is there's nothing in
this email that tells me that you two are doomed.

(43:10):
I've treated people with much worse problems than this, and
they've successfully turned themselves around.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Wow, it takes a long time.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Couple's therapy, like in a situation like this, can take years,
but you don't have to meet every week. You might
meet every two, three, four weeks, and I've seen success
with that. But like I said, it's very common problem.
I've held to many couples with worse problems.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Your advice is baffling because my instincts would have been
look set up a situation where he comes home and
he finds you with a guy and a girl whom
he doesn't know, with you yelling that they're so much
better than him in every single way. I think that
would really turn things around. Yeah, I don't know what
sort of kinks you have, my friend.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
Well, actually we've talked about this the CULD fetish episode.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
With a few couple like a year ago.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
All Right, so assuming he's not a psychopath, okay, because
some people will think that.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
He is because he's way a psychopath.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Well, he's verbally abusing her, and he's well I believe
he's Believe me. There are people listening to her email
that are reading into it, and we don't know because
I haven't met these people or just basing on ours,
but there are people listening to that presentation that will
think he's a psychopathic domestic violence, horrible human right.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
God. See, I would have, first of all, disclaimer to
our patron and writer. I don't think this, But I
looking from the outside looking in, with very little context,
I would have gone the other direction to say, Oh,
the person writing that email, I wouldn't call him a psychopath,
but the person writing an email seems to show less
emotion or less empathy or something like that. I wouldn't

(44:49):
have said that. The other what I would have said
is something along the lines of like, oh, they seem insecure,
they seem very worried, they seem paranoid, all these kind
of things. But it's interesting like psychopath.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, well, or domestically violent or abusive or something like this.
I mean, she asked to cuddle with him, that's a
nice thing, and he's like, I'm not going to cuddle
with you because you don't have sex with me.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
That's not abusive. That's just too depending.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
Believe me, if you saw what that might have been
it you might agree that it's abusive. Now there's no
way no, because it's I mean, just think about the
message there. It's like, unless you lay there so that
I can have sex with you, then I'm not going
to give you what you want.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
You know, that's pretty But yes, but we're walking into
this nine years on, so we don't have the context
of where he thinks. He's trying to pull these little
levers to try to get his life the way he
wants it and he can't. And so it's not Again,
he could be, but it doesn't sound to me like
he's like from day one, Okay, I'm going to blackmail

(45:53):
you left and right and extort you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
No, I don't think I don't see signs of it.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
But I'm saying it's just on people.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
But assuming he's not a psychopath, and assuming that he's
not like a quintessential abusive narcissistic person, and assuming that
he has the capacity for love and empathy like everyone else,
but he's just been socialized weird, and he's in a
tight spot that he's nine years that it's hard for him.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
To get out of.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
He needs to access his feelings and be vulnerable about
them while you are compassionate toward him, and vice versa.
For instance, he could say, and these are just like
cheesy words, put it in your own words. But for instance,
he could say, it hurts my feelings that you don't
want to have sex with me, and that makes me angry.
Sometimes I want to be close with you and have

(46:41):
sex with you, and when we're not close and not
having sex, I feel sad. So it sounds childless, it
sounds cheesy. But however you put that into words that
needs to be communicated. Those are the kinds of things
that need to be said between people. And in my experience,
the couples that come to me, they've never even come
close to those kinds of communications. And then you could

(47:03):
say back to him, I'm so sorry about that. I
really don't want you to be sad. I'm dedicated to
finding an answer together. Let's talk about it now. With this,
you're on the same team. You both want to increase
intimacy and sex. You both are on the same page.
You both want the same thing, and then you work
on it, and that takes time. You have to It's

(47:23):
never is and what he wants and thinks is there's
an easy answer to this. She could just turn around
in her head. But even if she forced herself to
have sex with him, at this point, they've got some
deep seated issues that need to be worked out, and
so it takes time. There's been a lot of damage
and all that damage is going to take some time

(47:45):
to unravel.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
A couple questions I would have. One is has something
changed in the last end number of years to where
she is? If she asks herself in the cold light
of day, is she still actually a try him sexually? Well?
Like what his and his appearance, his behavior over time,

(48:07):
the way he does talk to her just makes it
so that every time he opens his mouth it turns
her off. I mean these kind of things. Yeah, And
because because it's one thing to be like, well, yeah, no,
I still find him very attractive, and I just don't
really have the energy, right, I don't really as opposed
to like, no, actually I don't really find him attractive,
you know, could be and and then the other aspect.
The other question that comes to mind is but you

(48:30):
kind of answered it there. I was thinking, well, is
there any value in just and just having sex like
or is that counterproductive to something? Sense?

Speaker 1 (48:39):
No, it's fine as long as it doesn't feel like
she's being raped, right, you know what I mean? But yeah,
there's there's nothing wrong with that. It's not going to
fix the problem because there's that's what he.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Thinks the problem is. But I see it is not
really the problem, and in fact, it could it could
work backwards because he might start feeling, wait, you're just
having said with me to have sex with me, right?

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Exactly what he really wants deep down, in my estimation,
is a partner is someone who loves him and someone
who is flexible with him, you know, someone who he
can depend on, someone who he believes is needs him,
because that's what he's That's what a lot of people want,
is is they want their partner to need them. Somewhat,

(49:25):
not too much, but but some because it indicates that
you're important in that person's life.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
Cheap tricks set it best. Yeah, I want you. Yeah.
So basically, the the other question is should should they
start with the couples counseling, Should they do individual therapy?
Should they do both?

Speaker 1 (49:47):
No, they should do couples counseling. I mean they should
do both. They should do it, but they definitely need
a couple of counseling. Individual counseling can help, but only
with an individual therapist that is a couple like like,
I'm a couple therapists and.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
An individual therapist.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
See, And whenever I see couples, I realize there are
two sides to every story, and so when I see individuals,
it's very easy for me to remember that because my
day is fill is like half couples, half individuals. And
I know people who only treat individuals that are easily

(50:19):
seduced by an individual's account of a story and will
become very countertransference against their other partner.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Ah, that person sounds terrible, Yeah, and will actively actually
tell their client to break up with that person.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
It's a very common thing, and I think actually research
demonstrates that when you have a relational problem and you
go to individual therapy, you have a greater likelihood of
that leading to divorce than if you go to couple's therapy.
Oh wow, yeah, I mean, which just makes sense, right.
So the other thing I want to say is, because
of his relational traumas that he likely went through, there's

(51:00):
a part of him that thinks you are purposely withholding
affection from him.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
It's not an accident.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
There's a part of him, not most of him, I'm guessing,
but there's a part of his unconscious that believes you, patron,
are purposely withholding affection from him. You're purposely harming him,
which really hurts his feelings naturally, right, And that results
in him being angry and he says angry, hurtfull things.

(51:27):
We've heard a few things that he says that are
angry and hurtful, and he becomes hyper focused on sex
because that's his own that's his sole avenue to intimacy,
because it's too vulnerable to focus on affection, acceptance, love,
nurturance and.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
This sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
This triggers your relational traumas regarding your narcissistic mother, whom
you learned to shut down around and you shut down
to him. You become numb, like actually neurologically numb. You
repress your anger, which is what you needed to do
as a child, because you can't be angry at your mom.

(52:05):
She would abuse you and all likely it or at
least it would make her more volatile, which completely eliminates
your libido. When you shut your brain down, you shut
everything down, your anger, your your sadness, your happiness, and.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Your libido, your sexuality.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
You can't get horny if you're emotionally numb, and so,
in desperation, he begs you for an answer to this problem,
and so you turn to the only thing that comes
to mind, which is the things that he said or done,
which is part of the problem, but it's only half
of the pattern. And this triggers his fears of being abandoned.

(52:45):
So he tries to convince you that your perspective is wrong,
because he believes that if he can convince you that
you're wrong, then you will love him in the way
that he wants you to love him, and this triggers
you to become even more numh because just like your
mom screaming at you in a narcissistic way you needed

(53:05):
to become numb as a child. You become numb to
your husband. This in turn triggers as a relational trauma
because he is terrified of being abandoned and he feels
your energy moving away from him, and the cycle.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Goes round and round and round and round, and.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
No sex ever happens, and the two of you focus
on sex because it's easier to talk about that than
to talk about the reality of this pattern of being
relationally triggered. Now, I could be completely wrong about this
analysis of this circular causality, this recursive pattern, this nonlinear causality,

(53:40):
this mutual causality, if you will, could be wrong, but
I've seen this so many times that I can hear
the signs of the pattern in your email.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
What do you think, Berto? It makes sense to me
the way you're describing it. It seems kind of a
logical dead spin, because yeah, like the one thing traggers
the other. You know, it's like, hey, I'm not getting
what I need, and then the other side retreats. Wait,
now I'm really not getting what I need. Ah, I'm
gonna retreat further, and it just can spiral.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
And this is the basis of what we call systemic therapy.
Systemic family therapy, which is the central feature of the
program in which i'm program director called couple in Family
Therapy at Antioch University, Seattle. Systems theory is extremely powerful
when analyzing the cause or the diagnosis when we see

(54:38):
these kinds of problems in families. Other kinds of perspectives
are terrible. In my mind, most of them don't even
consider this pattern of back and forth. They might look
at him, cognitive therapy might look at him and say, look,
you just need to stop thinking about sex.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
You think about sex too much, Just stop it, just stop.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Obviously that's bothering you. So if you just stop thinking
about sex for her, they might say, obviously you need
to start thinking about sex. You know, there is They're
they're very simplistic answers that are isolated to the individual
and not looking at the systemic pattern between the two
of them.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Food is making you fat, just stop eating, right exactly?

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Or racism is a part of our culture, Well how
about we just stop, just make racism I legal, just
stop it.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Yeah, it's like.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
No, it's a sy we all just get along. It
all fits together in a in a vast web. The
classic example that I bring up is wolves in Yellowstone
National Park were bothering people, so they just killed all
the wolves. Oh I heard about this and or moved
them or something. I think they just killed them and

(55:52):
which led to an increase in the deer population, which
led to a deforestation, which led to more runoff into
the rivers, which killed the fish, which led to a
complete breakdown of the ecology. So what do you have
to do? You you got to bring the wolves back,
you know. And this denial and ignorance of systems and

(56:14):
the reality of systems is part of the problem with
therapy today. And not to sound superior, but I'm going
to that without a systemic theory and understanding systems, you
will miss, in my estimation, a majority of the issues

(56:34):
in couple's therapy, a majority the issution family therapy, and
a majority of the issues that individuals come to therapy for.
Because people come to therapy because they're anxious, they're depressed,
they're upset about their relationships, and unless you understand the
system in which they're embedded, you will miss the true
diagnosis of the problem. And when you treat just that person,

(56:55):
you're essentially just getting rid of the wolves in that ecosystem.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
So your's saying, bring the wolves back. He should have
prostitutes come to his house regularly.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
I'm saying, when a client comes into your office, you
have to bring in their wolves and and let the
wolves do.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
What they're gonna do.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Literally, sometimes that means the wolves are gonna eat your clients.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Yikes, but them's.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
The breaks, all right. Well, that does it for that
episode of Psychology and Seattle. Thanks for joining us out there,
Thanks for joining me Berto, and please take care of
yourself because you deserve it,