QC: Communicating Intimacy Challenges Without Losing Connection With Mallory Oxendine

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Certified sex therapist Mallory Oxendine provides practical strategies for communicating with partners about pain during intimacy while maintaining connection and avoiding shame. She addresses the fear of rejection that often prevents these crucial conversations and introduces a framework that transforms vague concerns into specific requests partners can fulfill.

• Fear of rejection often prevents difficult conversations about sexual pain and limitations
• Avoidance of these discussions only deepens disconnection and misunderstanding
• John Townsend's "People Fuel" framework offers language for requesting specific relational nutrients
• Being clear about needing acceptance, comfort, or encouragement helps partners know how to respond
• Most partners want to be supportive but need guidance on what response would be most helpful
• Clear communication preserves emotional intimacy even when physical intimacy needs adaptation

Check out episodes 120 and 121 with Mallory for more insights on intimacy, endometriosis, and chronic illness.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Is intimacy in the bedroom getting harder to do,
but you're really not sure howto communicate this to your
significant other.
Mallory Oxendine walks usthrough techniques and ways that
we can communicate to oursignificant other about the pain
that we're experiencing whilealso maintaining a sense of
intimacy.
Stick around.
Life moves fast and so shouldthe answers to your biggest

(00:23):
questions.
Welcome to EndoBattery's QuickConnect, your direct line to
expert insights.
Short, powerful and right tothe point.
You send in the questions, Ibring in the experts and in just
five minutes you get theknowledge you need.
No long episodes, no extra timeneeded, and just remember
expert opinions shared here arefor general information and not

(00:44):
for personalized medical advice.
Always consult your providerfor your case-specific guidance.
Got a question?
Send it in and let's quicklyget you the answers.
I'm your host, alana, and it'stime to connect.
Today I'm joined by my expertguest, mallory Oxendine, who's a

(01:05):
licensed professional counselorand a certified sex therapist,
and is certified in EMDR therapy.
She focuses her work onsexuality, informed and
trauma-informed care and workingwith both individuals and
couples.
Mallory's areas of focusinclude intimacy issues, women's
health issues, sexual andchronic pain and dysfunctions,
infertility and the prenatalyears.

(01:26):
She works diligently ineducating, empowering and
journeying with those sufferingwith endometriosis and other
chronic pain issues.
Let's get into this.
When someone has an immenseamount of fear, reservations,
maybe they're even feelinginsecure in their relationship
and things are starting to shiftand change within their body,

(01:48):
they're feeling more pain, theyare anxious about being intimate
with their partner, how do theytalk to their partner about
this?
How do they tell their partnerI really love you or I really
want to engage with youintimately, but I'm in pain and
I don't know if I can do this?
And how do we do that withoutthe guilt and the shame that can

(02:10):
follow that?

Speaker 2 (02:12):
I think one of the factors that comes up for me and
I see most often in my office,is the avoidance of talking
about it because of fear ofresponse.
Right, and really, when we kindof dig down it's often a fear
of rejection what if I say Ican't and they don't accept me

(02:34):
or they don't want me anymore,they don't pursue me anymore?
Those are just some of thenarratives I hear come out of
the fear that kind of stops usand holds us from being
emotionally and verballyvulnerable with our partner.
So one of the things that Iwork through is there's a really
good book called People Fuel byJohn Townsend and he talks

(02:57):
about relational nutrients andgiving people the nutrients they
need to thrive as a human, andI just love the language he uses
in that book.
But I introduced that he has alittle handout.
It's easy to find.
It's a free PDF download, it'seasy to find.
But it talks about givingacceptance, giving comfort,
giving containment, givingencouragement, giving hope.

(03:19):
So sometimes when we go to havehard conversations, a lot of
times the person listeningdoesn't really know how to
respond because they don't knowwhat they're looking for, right,
right, they're like do you?
do you want me to say it's okay?
You want me to say I don't care?
Do you want me to say, cause?
The fact is, they probably docare, right, and it does impact.

(03:41):
That doesn't mean that love'snot there, that doesn't mean
they're not going to journeywith you, but, like, they do
have an experience of this withyou.
And so I really encourageclients to read that, read the
book, or at least review the PDFof the different relational
nutrients.
And like what do you need?
Oh, I really just needacceptance, what she defines as

(04:04):
connection without judgment.
I just need to know that youaccept me when I say that I
don't have energy to have sex,yeah, right, and most, most
partners are going to go okay,how can I do that?
Yeah, or like, this is hard forme, but I want to try to do
that for you.
Right, they're going to havetheir experience of it, but they

(04:25):
want to engage because of thelove and care in the
relationship.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
If this resonated with you and you want to hear
more for Mallory, you can listento episodes 120 and 121, where
she sheds light on intimacy,endometriosis and chronic
illness.
Those episodes are the episodesyou didn't know you needed.
That's a wrap for this QuickConnect.
I hope today's insights helpedyou move forward with more

(04:49):
clarity and confidence.
Do you have more questions?
Keep them coming, Send them inand I'll bring you the expert
answers.
You can send them in by usingthe link in the top of the
description of this podcastepisode or by emailing contact
at endobatterycom or visitingthe endobatterycom contact page.
Until next time, keep feelingempowered through knowledge.