March 9, 2025 • 48 mins
In this powerful episode of Honey, We Need to Chat, we sit down with bestselling authors Sheila and Keith Gregoire to discuss why traditional views on intimacy may be hurting your relationship more than helping.
🔥 What you'll learn in this episode:
- ✅ Why prioritising sex might be the wrong approach (and what to focus on instead)
- ✅ The five key ingredients to a healthy, fulfilling intimate life
- ✅ How the mental load and household dynamics impact intimacy
- ✅ The "orgasm gap"—why it exists and how to close it
- ✅ The biggest misconceptions men and women have about sex
- ✅ How emotional vulnerability can transform your connection
👉 Whether you're struggling with mismatched libidos, feeling disconnected, or just want to build a healthier relationship, this episode is a game-changer.
👉 Connect with Sheila and Keith Gregoire:
Find more of Sheila and Keith's incredible work at www.baremarriage.com — home to their podcast, books, research, and resources on healthy intimacy, marriage, and relationships.
Follow them on Instagram and Facebook @baremarriage for daily insights and conversations.
Check out their bestselling books:
- 📚 The Great Sex Rescue — a groundbreaking guide to reclaiming intimacy.
- 📚 The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex — newly updated and essential reading for couples.
- 📚 The Marriage You Want — their newest release, helping couples build the marriage they deserve.
🎧 Listen now and don’t forget to subscribe!
💬 Join the Conversation: Have a breakthrough moment from this episode? DM us, tag us, or share your thoughts!
🔗Listen now: Anywhere you find your podcasts!
📺Watch on YouTube: Here
🌍Join the community & share your story: https://honeyweneedtochat.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Here, here's my biggest piece ofadvice.
OK, don't prioritise sex, and noone's going to understand what I
mean by that. It's not about prioritising sex,
it's about prioritising the ingredients of great sex.
Hello and welcome back to Honey.We Need a chat.
We are just introducing a very exciting guest episode today.
(00:21):
If you can see the video, you'llsee my beautiful arm candy.
Hanging around. In the background if you.
Can't see the video, won't make any sense, but we forgot to do
the introduction. So we're just.
Quickly doing that at Blair's desk, hence the different setup.
This week we have an incredible conversation with Sheila and
Keith Gregoire. From over in.
Canada, they are authors and public speakers in the sphere of
(00:43):
relationships and especially in intimacy.
So this conversation is all about intimacy, physical
intimacy in a relationship. And there is so much gold that
we're really, really excited to bring this conversation to you.
These guys are incredible wealthof knowledge.
They have a lot of experience inthis space.
They've done a lot of research, a lot of work working with
couples in terms of really developing and healing their sex
(01:05):
life and finding a beautiful balance there.
So we are excited to bring this conversation to you guys and we
think it's going to be really helpful.
We hope this is really encouraging and we can't wait to
hear how you find this conversation with Sheila and
Keith. Thanks guys.
Honey, we need to chat. Well, welcome to Honey.
(01:31):
We need to chat. We are really excited to talk to
our guests this morning. We're talking to Sheila and
Keith Gregoire over from Canada.You guys are actually our second
Canadian guests, is that right? Yeah, we just spoke to our first
international guest at All in the Whole podcast last week, and
he's also from Canada. So there you go, Canada is.
A theme. Yeah, we're making a connection.
(01:52):
Yeah. Now I have to ask who it was.
His name was Bryce and he's madean incredible relationship game
called Uncover Me. And it's it's really unique and
he's done such a great job. And it's it's just basically a
game that helps people come likebreakdown into like really
foundational, interesting conversations with a couple.
(02:12):
But it's not open ended questions.
It's really specific. Yeah, oh gosh, I gotta take a
look at it now. Absolutely.
Check it out. Yeah, because we can't get it
over here. We've got it.
They sent us a free option, but we can't get it in Australia.
Very. Yeah, but you guys could.
Sorry, Aussies. Hopefully eventually, yeah.
So Uncover Me is what the game is called.
But yeah, we're we're loving theCanadian guests that we're
(02:34):
having on the podcast. And I'm really excited
personally because I've actuallyspoken with Sheila and Keith
previously on a different podcast that I was hosting with
a good friend of mine. And just the chat was so
incredible. And I remember getting to the
end of it being like, I could talk to these people for so long
because they're just a wealth ofknowledge.
Sheila and Keith have worked in the relationship sphere for a
(02:54):
number of years. Sheila is an author, she's been
a public speaker and Keith has been joining her in that as
well. He's also a paediatrician, which
is super handy. We have four children and
paediatricians have been very helpful.
Very, very involved part of our life.
And they bring a really beautiful focus in relationships
and to communication and intimacy specifically.
(03:16):
And we're really excited to diveinto some of that today with
them. So thank you so much for taking
the time, the complicated time zone issues that we have to have
this chat with us today. We're really excited to have you
here. Yeah.
Thank you. It's good to be here.
Yeah. Thanks for inviting us.
Well, we might dive right in andtalk a little bit about your, I
guess, focus of relationships. I remember reading very early
(03:40):
on, I think it was even just before we got married, The Good
Girls Guide to Great Sex, which is one of Sheilas books and
you've just remastered. Is that right in recent years?
Yes, you. Wrote it.
I completely rewrote it. Yeah, there you go.
So I've got to check out the newone, but I just remember loving
the fresh perspective of of intimacy and working on kind of
breaking down some of the thingsthat women might struggle with,
(04:03):
but couples might struggle with in terms of coming into a
relationship together in an intimate sphere.
So right off the bat, what are some of the things from your
experiences working with couplesthat are the biggest
misconceptions that people mighthave when they're entering into
a romantic, physical relationship with each other?
OK, well here, here's my biggestpiece of advice.
(04:25):
OK, don't prioritise sex. Yeah, and no one's going to
understand what I mean by that. But The thing is, it's not about
prioritising sex. It's about prioritising the
ingredients of great sex. Because everyone's always
telling you to prioritise sex. And what do they mean by that?
Like. Well, I don't know, I guess
we're supposed to have sex like 3 * a week or four times a week
(04:48):
or something. But what is sex?
Right? Like seriously.
Like if if I were to ask you, what is sex?
That's one of the things that we, we really start with is how
do you define sex? Because how you define it is
going to, is going to really have a big impact on what it
looks like in your relationship.And and like Sheila says, if
(05:08):
someone asked you, someone stucka microphone in your face and
said, hey, give me the definition of sex, you know,
assuming you didn't run away because that's very creepy.
Most of the time you'd say something along the lines of,
you know, tab egos and slot B. We start talking about sexual
intercourse specifically. And and when you define sex as
(05:29):
that one act it it becomes very male centric and it doesn't
really encapsulate the whole experience.
Yeah, like, she could be lying there making a grocery list in
her head. You know, she could be an
emotional turmoil or she could even be in physical pain, and
that would still count as havingsex.
And so one of the problems is when when we see the issue with
(05:50):
sex being how often do we have intercourse, all we're really
asking is how often does he havea climax, right?
And So what if instead we were to focus on what makes great
sex? Because if you focus on those
things, frequency tends to take care of itself.
And. And so I just think we're
looking at the wrong metric a lot of times.
(06:11):
And as as a doctor, it's kind oflike, you know, you're treating
a symptom rather than the disease.
If you're not having sex, what'sthe reason?
You know, we, we talk particularly people who've been
traumatised by bad ideas about sex and they're resisting it for
a reason, because it's been a bad experience for them.
And to say to those people, we just have it more, that's not
the right answer. You know, when you have a
(06:33):
symptom, you need to look at what's the cause of that
symptom. So if if sex isn't what we isn't
what we want to be in our relationship right now, we need
to have some curiosity and say what are the elements of our
relationship as a whole that arecontributing to the current
state and how do we address those?
I mean, like, I think you've stumped me already.
I'm just like sitting just here.I'm like, wow, that is such good
(06:55):
words. You know, just in terms of just
that self reflection, right? So as, as the male in our
relationship, like it's so true,you know, and, and just out of
all transparency, like Amy and Ihave had these conversations
recently in our relationship about sex and what it means to
each of us and how we prioritiseit differently and the struggles
that we have to get into that mood and all that different
(07:15):
stuff. So it's like hearing you say
that is really a, a nice shock, I think and, and, and just a
really nice lens to equip me with to see sex and what I'm
trying to achieve and, and the importance of it and everything
else like that, which is really,really great, which I really
appreciate. When you share this with
couples, what sort of responses do you get with that sort of
(07:39):
lens that you bring out? A lot of fear.
I think there's a lot of fear because if if we let go of the
idea that you have to have sex and that we have to pressure
people to have sex frequently, then she's never going to want
it. So, and there's so many
assumptions in that statement because first of all, the
assumption is that he wants it more than she does.
That is not true in all marriages.
We've, we've surveyed about 40,000 people Now over all of
(08:02):
our surveys, our biggest one wasof 20,000 women for our book The
Great Sex Rescue. But here I'm, I'm going to list
5 things. OK, so get ready, I'm going to
list 5 things. But what we found is that when
she frequently reaches orgasm during a sexual encounter, when
there's high marital satisfaction and when mental
load is shared, when they feel emotionally close during sex, so
(08:26):
she's not feeling used when there's no porn use in the
marriage and when there's no sexual dysfunction, then
frequency takes care of itself. And I think people are really
scared to let go of that idea that we need to tell people that
they have to have intercourse nomatter what and, and instead
say, well, let's focus on the ingredients because they're
(08:49):
like, well, then she's not goingto have sex.
But that's the assumption there is that she's not sexual.
Yeah. Women are sexual, you just have
to give them something to want. Yeah, yeah.
So make sure it feels good for her, make sure it's a good
experience. And again, like I, I just love
that I'm someone that loves like, you know, just again, it's
(09:09):
all about that lens. I love using that word of, of a
lens of how do I see a situation?
Because again, what you've just done there is sort of paint that
picture of like cool, there are ingredients.
So for guys, like a lot of timeswe look at the situation like on
our sex life or whatever else, and it's just like, or she
doesn't want it, you know, she doesn't want this, she doesn't
want that. And it's like, well, I don't
(09:29):
know what to do. Like I'll give her a massage,
I'll do the dishes, I'll do these things that we know of,
but we don't fully understand the insides and the end of the
workings of of a female as well.And again, we get a lot of
writings from males and this is a big thing that we hear is that
I just want to know what is going in the mind of my partner.
(09:50):
You know, I want to know how they think.
I want to know how they operate.Yeah, yeah, I think it's good to
have in some ways, it takes the pressure off both sides when
you're like, you don't have to be focusing on how regularly
you're having sex and rather focus on these things.
It takes pressure off both sidesbecause then you do have a
practical kind of formula in some ways, although it's
(10:10):
probably not the same for everybody.
But formula you can step throughand be like, OK, if something's
not working, let's look at thesefive different areas and let's
look at where maybe something's.Yeah, let me, let me tell you
the story of Kate cuz. And we talked about her in her
book, The Great Sex Rescue. But so Kate, they'd had a really
good sex life when they first got married.
And then they went on to have a bunch of kids.
And with each child, she had postpartum depression a little
(10:33):
bit more. And so by the time her third
child rolled around, she was shewas quite out of Commission for
quite a while. And when she started to come
back around, you know, she started initiating sex every 72
hours because she felt like that's what you're supposed to
do. And it was 2 hours, 2, two years
after the birth of her last child and she still hadn't
reached orgasm again, even though she had regularly been
(10:54):
orgasming before. And but she's still initiated
sex and she hated it. And she was just growing really
resentful of her husband because, you know, this was
doing nothing for her. And then finally her husband sat
her down and said, like, what's going on?
Like it doesn't seem like you'reinto it.
And she said, well, no, I just, I, I just feel like I have to do
it. He said, no, wait, wait, wait.
(11:15):
Hold on, back up the truck. Like I don't want you ever to do
anything that you don't want to do.
And so from now on, you know, let's just initiate if someone
actually wants it. But if you don't want it, you
just tell me and we'll stop. Like, even if we're in the
middle of something, you just tell me and I will roll over and
I will go to sleep and it will not be an issue.
(11:35):
And over the next few months, heproved that to her.
So if they, you know, a couple of times they're in the middle
of it and she's like, Nope, Nope.
This doesn't do anything. I'm not going to get there
tonight. And he would just stop.
And she found that her ability to respond came back.
You know, she finally became orgasmic again.
And so now they've settled into a new routine, She told me where
(11:55):
they have sex about every 72 hours.
So, you know, it's still the same frequency, but it's
different now because she doesn't feel the pressure and
because it's really based on both of them enjoying things,
not just doing it out of duty. That's huge.
From from and I'm sure it's in in your books, but from your
(12:15):
experience in your research, what has been the sort of more
underlining things for pick couples that are struggling in
this area to either communicate about it or even just to follow
through with, I guess understanding that for each
other, you know where each otherat.
Good. OK, well, I, I would just, you
know, the biggest thing to talk about before anything else is
probably the orgasm gap. And we, our survey was
(12:37):
specifically of religious women,evangelical women.
And so we had an orgasm rate of 47 points, by which I mean that
95% of men almost always are always rich orgasm in a given
sexual encounter, compared to just 48% of women.
So that's a lot of women weren'thaving very much fun.
Now, when you look at other surveys that aren't as much in
the religious context, there's still an orgasm gap.
(12:59):
It's not quite as large, but you're still looking at about a
3035 point orgasm gap. And then I think the thing that
happens is this gets translated as well, Women just don't want
sex. Men do.
And women don't. Well, it's like, well, it's,
it's women want good sex. Yeah, yeah.
Like they don't want that kind of sex.
(13:20):
Non orgasmic disconnected, you know, not emotionally close sex.
No, they're not interested in that.
And and we and frankly, as guys,we should ask the question, why
are we into that? Because that's, that's a whole
into the other podcast probably.But but I I'm always amazed at
the lack of curiosity. You know, I want, I want her to
(13:40):
want sex more. Well, but she's not enjoying it.
And you're not doing anything different to make sure she does
enjoy it. You just are now telling her she
should enjoy it, so she'll want it more.
Yeah. Like we asked.
We asked both men and women in different surveys, does he do
enough foreplay? And in marriages where she
frequently reaches orgasm, over 90% of men said yes, I do.
(14:02):
I think it was like 98 percent or something.
And about 80, 8% of women said, yes, he does.
So, you know, even when she doesreach orgasm, 12% of women are
still saying he could do more. They're giving him good marks.
But when she doesn't reach orgasm, 71% of men and 52% of
women still say that he does enough for.
(14:23):
And so you have to kind of ask enough for what?
Like why? Why are people saying it's
enough if she's not having pleasure?
And I think it's because a lot of women have internalised the
idea that we're broken. So, you know, if sex isn't
working, it's because I'm not sexual.
And he kind of figures. Well, yeah, like, I'm trying.
(14:45):
But she's just, she just doesn'tdo anything for her.
And a lot of that comes back to what we started at the very
beginning. What is sex?
I mean, even even the use of theword foreplay, it's, it's not a
word that I particularly like because the implication is this
is the stuff you do before the real stuff.
And the fact of the matter is that penetrative sexual
intercourse is a really good waybiologically to stimulate a man,
(15:10):
but it's not the optimal way to stimulate most women.
And so if we really want to makesex great, we need to think of
it as the whole event and not have such a focused, you know,
priority on that one part of it.And if we took all the pressure
off, we just said we're just going to enjoy each other and it
goes where it goes. I think a lot more women would
(15:33):
be able to relax and actually enjoy that note.
And of course it would be a great experience for both.
Of them. So instead, instead of saying
because you don't orgasm as easily as I do in this
particular sex act, you're not sexual and I am.
Which if when we put it in thosewords, you realise how
ridiculous it is to say that. But but frankly, that's what
(15:55):
society kind of pictures like the movies.
You see what happens in movies, it's they start, you know, and
then bang and then it's all happened.
Everyone's amazing. Yeah.
And everybody enjoys it and it'sperfect, Yeah.
That's not reality. That's not the way they you.
Know I've sometimes wondered what it would be like if if for
exercise sake men just had to enjoy sex without orgasming for
(16:18):
a while, like if it would changetheir approach to it.
Because I feel like if if the tables were turned and the woman
every time it was pretty much guaranteed every time you're
going to have an orgasm you're going to enjoy it.
And then they had to like navigate, but my partner's not
really enjoying it that much. I feel like if you're having
that pleasure all the time, it'dbe really hard.
(16:39):
You have to be really intentional to take your mind
out of that and be like, oh actually maybe they're not
enjoying it as much as me. And I've sometimes thought, how
interesting for experiment's sake would it be to see how it
would change things if for a month or something like that,
every time you did it, the guy didn't get to have an orgasm,
but the woman had to. And that was how you went about
(17:01):
it and see how that would changepeople's approach.
I think that would actually havethat would definitely give you a
whole other appreciation of the,the process, you know what I
mean? Like because and that was one
question that I had for you. So again, as a guy and, and
knowing how a lot of guys are inthis scenario, in this area of
their relationship, you know, wehave, we can be very selfish in
the bedroom. We can be very selfish in terms
(17:22):
of, and not necessarily intentionally, but just in terms
of, again, that understanding ofour partner and, and what their
needs are to, to have that same experience that we have, it's a
lot easier for us, I feel. And so to hear all of this,
like, oh man, this is, this is fantastic.
Again, it's helping me with thatlens.
But I can also see the other side for a lot of guys where
(17:43):
this could be quite overwhelming, quite overwhelming
information in terms of man, I am one of those guys that, you
know, may not be pleasing my partner as as much as she would
like me to or whatever else. So hearing all that could be
quite overwhelming. What would you say to that guy?
Like, you know, where's the hopein that situation?
Yeah, like The thing is, you candecide to do things differently,
(18:05):
right? Like, like you can, you can turn
the tables right now. Yeah.
And it doesn't. It doesn't need to keep going
the way it's going, but it does take risk because if you start
addressing using her needs as well, it might mean that you
don't get sex as often as you were before because she's like,
no, I matter now. And it might take some time, you
(18:28):
know, to figure things out. But isn't that worth it?
Like, yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah, I was. Going to say, I think the other
element of it too is, you know, you know, what are we looking
for in sex? Because because another thing
that you were talking a lot about the difference between men
and women and how men and women approach sex.
And one of the things that a lotof times we're socialised, I
(18:50):
think is that the physical side of sex is for men and the
emotional side of sex is for women.
And so, you know, I've even heard people say that men just
want quickies and they don't have, they don't want emotional
connection. They just want the the release.
And women don't really care about that.
They just want to cuddle and be close, you know, and and I think
(19:12):
that's not AI think a healthy view realises that sex is a
physical and emotional experience for both people.
And so, you know, if I'm, if I'min a relationship with this
person and I'm finding this something that's easy and I'm
enjoying it, but she's not like emotionally, that should matter
to me. So, so, you know, as hard as it
(19:34):
is to say, you know, if we're inthe middle of things and you
want to stop, I'm going to honour you and let you stop and
still hold you and tell you I love you and I'm going to go
have a cold shower or do whatever I need to do, right?
Because because I care about you.
I think showing that that you really respect and want this to
be a good experience for them. It's not just lips.
(19:55):
It's not just not just saying you actually believe it.
Like, like a lot of guys are in the mindset you were saying
earlier, you know, like I wash the dishes, I do these things.
Because they're trying to earn sex from their wives as opposed
to seeing sex as something that flows naturally out of a healthy
relationship. We're both building on.
And I think having that mind shift as a guy, instead of
seeing sex as a transaction, seeing it as a way of
(20:16):
connecting. Because then if we're not
connecting emotionally, if we'rejust connecting physically, then
we're not really fully connecting and we need to and we
need to work on that. Yeah, and I think I think that's
that's probably part of the urgency that a lot of men feel.
And it also is a lot of the fearbecause, and this isn't guys
fault, OK. And and this is not saying that
(20:37):
women are better, believe me. But in our society, it generally
is that little girls are taught to pay attention to emotions and
little boys are not. So little girls are allowed to
express emotions. Little boys, the only emotion
you're allowed to express is anger.
And if you, and it's a lot of boys grow up and they don't know
how to recognise what they're feeling, how to talk with
(20:58):
emotional language, they don't know how to be vulnerable.
So you could be feeling weird about something that happened at
work, but you don't know how to talk to your wife about it
because you don't want to seem insecure.
You don't want her to think badly of you.
And you've never been able to admit any weakness because that
was always laughed at in your family or whatever.
And, and women could could go through this as well.
(21:20):
It just men go through it a lot more than women do, which is
really unfortunate. And so because of that, often
the only way that men truly haveto connect is through sex,
because they don't know how to be vulnerable in an emotional
way. And so because of that, we all
need intimacy, right? We were all created with this
deep, abiding need for intimacy.But if you can't express that
(21:43):
emotionally, then often the onlyway that you can express it is
sexually. And so if a woman says she
doesn't want sex and a guy really has a difficult time
being emotionally vulnerable, then the only way that he feels
connected is through sex. So when she doesn't want it,
he's like, I have absolutely no way of getting my intimacy needs
met now. And that, that really leaves him
(22:04):
stranded. But what if instead, we really
worked at how to help more men become comfortable being
vulnerable with their wives? You know, like telling them what
you're scared about, what you'rehoping for, what you're thinking
about, what you're feeling today.
Because if you can connect emotionally, then that intense
(22:26):
need for sex, doesn't it, it, itgoes away to a certain extent,
like it's, it's, it's not as overwhelming because quite,
quite often what happens is thatmen especially can, can feel
like I need sex as a way to connect because I have a very
difficult time connecting in anyother way.
(22:46):
I And that's part of the panic. Yeah, just don't have the tools.
Yeah. And it's not, again, this is not
like, it's not that men are not capable of it, it's just that in
our society we don't socialise men to learn how to.
And a lot of women struggle withthis as well, you know.
So it's like the more that we can teach people how to be
emotionally vulnerable, the lesssex seems like a rejection if
(23:08):
your spouse doesn't want it, andthe less that hurts you and the
more you're actually able to want sex.
Like when when you're able to beemotionally vulnerable with each
other, that actually often fuelslibido.
Absolutely. Have you guys worked in this
space, much like working with men to do those things to to
(23:29):
work through those things and learn these things?
We certainly talked about it a lot.
Yeah. You know, I, I would just say
that we, what we've identified with our research is that men
who are able to connect to theseemotional levels do have better
sex lives with their wives. But in terms of the, the guys
who find this a hard thing to doand need to learn those skill
sets, we're not counsellors. We're we're, we're researchers
(23:50):
and writers, right? Yeah.
Absolutely, but we have a numberof people that we put them in
contact with who have really good books and other resources
in those areas. So you're talking about, you
know, helping men get into that space of, you know,
understanding with their emotions and how to communicate
those emotions. But I also see the other side
too with with women of because the man struggles to share
(24:13):
emotions or could struggle to share those emotions sometimes
maybe the woman can also feel like that she doesn't know how
to communicate to him because hedoesn't respond in a specific
way as well. So their relationship, you know,
might be in this space where they haven't, you know,
communication hasn't been a strong point of theirs in that
sense. How would you guys encourage
(24:35):
people that might be in that scenario to start this
conversation? OK, we have a really simple
exercise that I really encouragepeople to do every day.
It is such a simple thing, OK, but every day, maybe after
dinner when you're sitting enjoying a cup of tea, maybe
before you're going to bed, Share 2 emotional moments with
(24:55):
your spouse. The moment where you were the
most in the groove today, like you were doing with, you were
put on earth to do. You were succeeding.
It was amazing. And then the moment when you
felt the most defeated, like this is a slog.
I hate this. I can't do this.
This is awful because often whatwe do at the end of the day is,
is we ask the question. So what did you do today?
(25:16):
Right? And what's the answer to that?
Well, I had 6 client meetings. I went to the bank at lunch.
You know, I went grocery shopping after.
Like it doesn't let you in on your, where your spouse actually
is emotionally. So just ask them to check in.
Do that simple check in. What are two moments?
And we started doing that when Keith was working about an hour
away from home and sometimes you'd have to stay overnight.
And so we didn't see each other as often as we used to.
(25:39):
But I'm not a big talker on the phone.
Like I just, I don't like talking on the phone.
So we would do this because it was a lot quicker, but we still
kept up with each other. And I started to realise that
every night when I shared my most defeated moment, it was the
same thing. It was whenever I checked my
email and I realised wow I really hate my email and so I
hired check my email and my lifegot a lot better.
(26:01):
So you can learn stuff about yourself too.
That's the. Great thing, you know, because
we don't reflect ourselves on that most of the time.
It's not just our partner doesn't know.
We half the time just go throughlife without ever thinking about
it. And that's the beauty of being
vulnerable with each other and being able to be open and honest
with each other, right? But you have to, you have to,
you have to build a place that you can of trust.
(26:22):
Like there has to be an undergirding of trust.
If I'm going to truly open up and be vulnerable to you and
share my fears with you, I need to know you're not going to
freak out. Yeah, that we're.
Going to be able to, we're goingto still be a team, we're going
to still work through these things together and we're, we're
going to be OK, right. If I keep my, if I, you know,
Facade up and you're happy and then I let it down and you start
(26:42):
to look nervous, I'm going to just go back into my little
fortress, right? We have to actually be able to
be a safe place for our person to that we love to actually be
honest with us and and that's that can be hard too.
So. Yeah, we talk a lot about this
in our new marriage book that's coming out in March.
It's called The Marriage You Want.
And we surveyed a bunch of couples and really, really dig
(27:05):
deep on how emotional connectionmatters and and looked at
couples who did it well and whatthe what the key ingredients
are. But just that check, checking in
with each other is so key because if you're a lot of
people, their marriages exist without ever really sharing
their feelings. You might know what your spouse
thinks about politics. You might, you might be talking
(27:28):
all the time about kids, dentistappointments and doctor's
appointments, and maybe we need to go on a weight loss programme
or whatever. But you haven't actually talked
about feelings. And and that's when marriages
get really stale because you don't actually know each other.
Yeah, yeah. And I just want to say as well
to, to our, our listeners at themoment, you know, the guys that
(27:48):
are listening in, I just want tospeak to you for just a couple
of minutes. You know, this is again, we, we
have these moments where we hearsomething and it's, it's great.
But it, it can be quite overwhelming because it's that
when we get put on that spot of like, well, I'm not used to
this. And now my partner's asked me
this question and now I'm like, I'm not rehearsed, I'm not
prepared. And what I want to encourage you
(28:09):
think about this during the day,you know, if you can't do it in
the morning, in that time where it gives you that prep time to
think through, you know, think about it during the day, you're
going to, you know, you're goingto have this question brought up
at the end of every day and think about that, prepare for
that. This is something that's
extremely important for your relationship to be able to go
vulnerable, to be able to be emotional, to be able to create
(28:31):
that safe space. And it it really is, if you
can't go there yourself, it's going to be very hard for your
partner to go there as well. So if this is a a priority for
you and your relationship to grow and communicate, to grow in
intimacy, to grow in connectedness, prioritise that
man like, you know, really create that space and be
prepared to go on that journey with your partner.
(28:52):
Yeah, something we we've tackledthe topic.
And when I say tackled, I mean we scratched the surface because
it's so big of mental load on this podcast before, right?
And it's something that I have regular conversations with
people just work shopping. I feel like it's just such a big
monster that just sits there unaddressed most of the time in
(29:14):
relationships. And I was thinking, you know, I
really struggle to bring things up.
And that's been one of the things I've had to work on in
our marriage when I know that itmight not be easy to hear or it
might not be fun to hear. Or I'm asking something of Blair
that he there will be more work or whatever it might be.
And so I think as a woman, you know, if you're listening to a
(29:35):
podcast like this or you're reading a book and then you're
like, this is what I need more of from my partner, It can be a
really hard thing. Regardless of if it's intimacy
or you need more stuff done around the house or whatever it
is, it can be a really hard thing to ask the person you love
to do more for you. Do you have any advice on how to
(29:57):
approach that conversation? Yeah.
Well, can I share? Can I share with you a stat
that's in our marriage book? So this isn't even out yet.
So you guys get the preview. So we we scored marriage
satisfaction on a scale of one to 100 and most people actually
report being quite happy. And so most scores are kind of
(30:19):
within like the 70 to 90 range. So they're not that wide.
Anyway. When there's money problems in
the marriage, that affects the marriage by about 5:00.
So you're going to see a 5 pointdrop on a scale of 100.
When you go from having sex likeonce a month to a couple of
times a week, you improve the marriage by about 10 points on a
(30:42):
scale of one to 100. OK, so that's that's how much
that fixed now? We got to say something.
Those are associated. We're not saying if you have sex
more, you'll have a better marriage.
Yes, it's not. Associated as we yes.
It's associated. There's the.
Causation versus poor relation thing that's going to say that
yes. But when we look at housework
and and owning housework, when you move from doing 50% to doing
(31:05):
100%, you see a 30 point drop. Wow.
So, so people think sex and money are the big issues in
marriage and actually it's it's housework.
Yeah, and this is a big thing. And this is one of the things
that as guys, we've just got to get over it and look at the data
and, and, and do a reality checkand say truth is truth, facts
(31:30):
are facts. And the issue is this there,
there's really good studies to show that over time, people's
enjoyment of marriage declines. And for women, it declines a
whole lot more than for men in general.
And they've done studies, They've done time studies.
How what, what are you spending your time doing as a couple?
And what they found is that overtime, women are doing more and
(31:54):
more and more work and men are doing more and more resting.
And that's and then what happensis this goes on for 10 years.
It gets a little bit annoying. It goes on for 15 years.
It's getting really annoying. And then all of a sudden she
left me for no good reason. Yeah, no good reason.
Well, you know what I mean. Like this is what happens right?
(32:14):
And we want to say this isn't every couple like, like I think
in our in our survey, you know, half of couples are doing great.
Yes, yes. So it's not every couple, but it
is. It is a lot, and if it's you, it
matters. Yeah.
And my point is, is that is thatif you don't address this early
on, you're not going to see it right away.
But you can only handle unfairness.
(32:35):
And it's something that's reallynot a just division of, of how
we do things for so long. And then it's just going to be
too much. And then you can't rebuild guys,
because you've, you've took taken advantage of a situation
for a really, really long time. You can't just suddenly say
sorry now. So my challenge to guys is be a
partner from the beginning, right?
(32:58):
Like, it's not it's not. I help my wife with the
housework. My wife and I have a house, and
so we do work in it. Yeah.
Now, you don't always do the same thing, and some of you may
do more of the actual traditional housework than the
other person because one person's making more income or
whatever. But the point is, is that you
need to decide as a team what's fair and what you're both going
(33:20):
to contribute, and you need to both be contributors.
So I have literally had this conversation about five times in
the last two months with friendswhose partners just do not step
up in the house. And I, I, we have on the
podcast, we like to give a really well rounded approach to
(33:41):
the topics. And I recognise that a number of
these people also don't know howto let their partner own
different parts of whatever it is that they're navigating.
So there's a, there is a balancethere.
It's not a matter of like he should know that I need him to
do all those stuff without me ever mentioning it and then also
without me even giving him the opportunity to do it.
(34:01):
Or I like break him down when hedoes try.
There is a balance there and. There's also the other side too,
where it's like, all right, dude, like, do you need her to
tell you? You know, like.
Exactly. She needs to be taken out.
You live in the house and you'vegot kids that wake up at night
time. Yeah, yeah, there's there's
stuff that should be just a little bit more obvious than it
is. But in terms of wanting to be a
team and. And fully agree with what you've
(34:23):
said, working on it now so that it's not ten years down the
track. When it's a massive divide
between you guys, it's a massiveproblem to overcome.
How does a wife or any partner, if they're experiencing this
kind of thing, how do you approach asking someone to do
more? Like how do you approach that
when when they're not an invested party in that a point?
Well, I, I think you just got toask.
(34:44):
Yeah. And you've just got to say I am
not willing to live with this. If it continues in this way, you
know, it is not going to continue in this way.
I am not going to keep doing everything for everybody because
that is not sustainable. And we just need to be really
firm about that. And, and there's a lot of
different ways that that you canfigure out how to divide things
(35:07):
up. I really like what Eve Rodski
said in her book Fair Play. I think, I think she's got a lot
of really good ideas just owningan entire task.
So because a lot, a lot of guys are like, yeah, I'll do it.
Just give me a list, right? Just give me a list and I'll
work through the list. But the problem is, as soon as
you say that, she still has to be the one.
Still the mental. Load who is figuring out what
(35:28):
needs to be done when it needs to be done?
Who is keeping track of when's the last time we, we changed the
furnace philtre? When does the dry cleaning need
to be picked up? What snack do we need to take to
the kids sports practise? Whatever.
So if you can just each own different spheres.
So maybe he does the entire sports practise.
So he, he manages the calendar, he manages the fundraisers that
(35:49):
there always are. He manages whatever snacks.
If, if practise uniforms have tobe cleaned, he cleans them.
He does the carpooling, he does everything.
So she never does that, right, Because a lot of times we think,
well, taking Johnny to soccer practise just means putting
Johnny in the car and driving him.
But it it, it's more than that, you know, So maybe he owns all
(36:13):
of that and maybe he owns like all the laundry or something.
Well, you know, she does the dishes or cooks or whatever, but
just own different spheres so that she doesn't need to give,
she doesn't need to give you a list because she she has the
ability to just completely forget about that.
You know, she doesn't have to think about soccer at all.
(36:34):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And this is one of the things that we found is there are a lot
of studies that show that men who do more work around the
house tend to have better sex lives with their partners.
And but it's it's the exact opposite of the I'm doing the
dishes, so I'll get. Something.
It's the exact opposite of that.It's it's they're engaged
partners who are committed to the relationship.
(36:57):
And guess what? Their wives find that sexy.
Right. Because that's like having a
partner is sexy. It really is.
Even for guys too, right, You know, and, and I think that that
that's so important. One of the things I would think
is to start with these particular women, if they're
talking with their, their partner is to say, do we not
agree that we should both work on this relationship and we
(37:20):
should both have the same amountof downtime?
Because if, if we've had dinner that I've made and then I'm
cleaning up the dishes and putting it in the dishwasher and
wiping the tables off while you go watch TV, you know, that's
not fair. Like I'm still working and
you're, you're on relax mode now, right?
(37:41):
So, so you know, you, you're notgoing to always have like some
1, you might both work out of the home.
Only one of you may work out of the home.
There's all kinds of different ways to navigate it, who's doing
what. But at the end of the day, we
both should have the same amountof time to relax.
And if you've got a lot of time to relax and I don't, that's not
fair and that's not going to bode well for our relationship
(38:01):
long term. And I think sometimes guys need
a little bit of a shake up to realise that.
And as I said earlier, better now than years from now.
And sometimes. It's flipped, you know, we
found, we found that there are, there are men who do the vast
majority of stuff. I think it's like 5 times more
often it's women, but there are men who do as well.
And so whichever it is in your relationship, the point is that
(38:23):
we all need to be contributing partners.
I hear one, one thing a bit where, you know, guys might say,
but you've been at home all day with your kids.
Like, you know, I've been at work all day.
I stayed home for a year with the kids, by the way, why it
worked. That is hard work, man.
It was such like such an eye opener for me and something I'm
so grateful for because it was just like, yeah, that is that is
(38:47):
not rest at all. Is it was harder than my actual
job? It was a good activity though,
because it was hard for me to beworking and then come home.
Yeah, we were working from home,but come into the the house
space and it was a good activity, actually a good
exercise to like see each other's perspective on it.
But yeah, it is, it's there's a,there's a lot of things that
play into and the family of origin that you know, how you've
(39:08):
been raised and what you've experienced is a huge one.
I'm sure that plays into what you expect.
But I think what we say on this podcast all the time is to be
curious and to spend time askingthe questions and exploring what
people's expectations are and that kind of thing.
And I think if you're having those expectations, you're
living out your family culture without having the conversation,
(39:30):
then that's probably the first spot to be like, oh, hang on, we
haven't actually spoken about this.
So what's playing out is probably not the most
constructive and healthy, healthy way if we haven't even
gotten on the same page. So a question about coming back
to intimacy specifically then wejust to get a little bit
personal for a second. When we first got married, we
(39:53):
went through a time where my drive was actually higher than
Blair's at the beginning, and for a number of reasons, Blair's
was lower and. We, we can be full transparent.
I, I had a pornography addictionwhen we when we got married and
stuff, which really played into that, that.
Especially as Christians coming into marriage, it was it was an
interesting mix. And also he was working a really
(40:16):
labour intensive and early morning job.
So we just had a lot of things, including new marriage that we
were trying to navigate. In that time.
I felt very rejected and I my initiation and my approach to
sex really got shut down. And now we're on the flip side,
we're having this conversation this week where Blairs, he's his
sex drive is a lot higher. And mine, because we've got four
(40:37):
children and and I've had that experience has just gone like, I
really struggle, I guess. And especially right now, we're
moving house. My brain is just not even there
at all. It's like completely off the
radar. And so Blair's like, it's kind
of starting to feel rejection aswell on his end.
And I was like, well, I don't think that I've really worked
through the rejection that I felt at the beginning.
(40:58):
So now I've just shut that part down.
Now he's experiencing rejection because I've shut that part
down. So it's a big complicated
relationship, which I think a lot of couples would have
factors that are complicated like this to play into it.
How do you go about, you know, and we've got the benefit of
being on the same page. We want to work on this and
we're very open to communicationand working on things.
(41:19):
So that's, that's beautiful thatwe're already at that stage.
But how do you go about healing when you've been it's one thing
to start fresh and start fresh on a in a new relationship on
the same page, wanting to have areally, you know, holistic sex
life. But when you've had experiences
where you have had hurt, how do you go about healing that side
(41:39):
of it to come together in a morestrong way when it's like deep
hurt that you don't even really understand yourself now I.
Always say that you can't forgive and heal from what you
can't name. And so you know, to fully heal
from something, you have to be able to name what it it was and
the all the effects that it had.There's a concept that we find
(42:01):
in in the Bible called lament, which we don't really.
Practise as a society. Anymore and I think we need to
get back to it because it was very therapeutic.
The ancients and many cultures, many other cultures in the world
today, non western cultures actually practise lament really
well. But it's just when you name the
(42:21):
things that happened to you and you let yourself be sad about
them for a time, you're not you.Don't you like you're allowed to
sit in the sadness and name it? Because sometimes we can't move
on from it unless we let ourselves process it.
Yeah. And so just letting yourself
take some time and say, OK, thisis actually what I felt.
Because often we're running awayfrom those feelings.
We don't want to let ourselves feel them because we're afraid
(42:44):
we'll you know, what's going to happen if I let myself feel
them, You know, is the marriage at risk?
Am I going to get into a depression?
And if you really fear that you will, then please do this
exercise with the licenced counsellor.
But sometimes you just got, and I'm not saying do it for months,
but just sometimes you might just need to take a weekend or
something and write, write it all out.
(43:05):
Write yourself a letter, write him a letter, write God a
letter, whatever. Just say this is what I felt,
you know, and then talk through it, process through it and then
say, how is this affecting me now?
And where do I want to be? Where do I want to go?
What do I want to do with this? You know, and and then talk
through some of the forgiveness parts, you know, I want to
(43:26):
forgive you, but what I need to see is this like, here's why I'm
still having trouble trusting. Let's talk that through.
And these are all big conversations.
They're hard conversation. Yeah.
Yeah, and it's not necessarily asimple fix, but you can't heal
from something unless you reallydig down deep and let yourself
feel it. I love that the lament, even the
(43:47):
word itself is so dramatic. And like, you can, it's like a
physical feeling when you say itlike lament that is.
So no, it's not. It's not part of our culture at
all. It is very much like push it
away, like either be bitter and end up living a bitter life
because you haven't dealt with it or just pretend it didn't
happen. So I love that.
I love that perspective. And I think that's a really
(44:08):
practical. Yeah, yeah.
Tactic Today I'm going to try and lament.
Well, we might start to wrap this chat up, even though I
don't want to because it's been amazing.
But one last question for you guys.
If you were to talk to yourselves at the very beginning
of your relationship, what is one piece of advice that you'd
want to give to younger Sheila and Keith?
(44:32):
You go ahead. Well, you know, again, I could
talk for an hour on this one now.
But the big thing for me, what you're talking about goes back
to what you're talking about just a second ago about the
feelings of rejection. Because, you know, early in our
marriage, my drive was the high 1 and I also very much
internalised it and felt rejected.
(44:52):
And, and what I wish I had done,I wish, I wish I was mature
enough at that time to have said, why is this such a need
for me? Like, like she, she's tired and
she doesn't want to have sex. Why do I experience that as
rejection? You know, like what's going on
in me? And am I willing to, to see the,
(45:16):
because honestly, I would feel like I was less of a man or that
I was like, you know, all these kind of things and our
masculinity and all of these things are wrapped up in, in
this whole thing and asking the questions.
Well, why is that? Like why do I see it that way
and why can't I just realise she's tired?
Yeah. And in a non judgmental way,
(45:36):
just kind of actually do the work on my inside rather than
than kind of becoming pressure or becoming guilt or becoming
the but I wash the dishes or thewhatever.
I wish, I wish I'd been, I wish I'd gotten to where we are a lot
sooner. If if someone had told me that
when I was younger. Yeah, I would just say one of
(45:56):
the things my daughter Rebecca, our daughter Rebecca says and
she's the Co author on the greatSex rescue in our book.
She deserves better. We do a lot of research
together. I loved her attitude towards her
first year of marriage, which was everything that bothered
her. She made a big issue out of,
which goes against a lot of the advice that we hear, right?
We hear don'ts with the small stuff and everything.
But she and her husband, we're both like, no, if there is
(46:19):
something that I don't want to live with for the next 50 years,
I need to deal with it now. And they had a rough first year
where they dealt with everythinglike, I am not doing the dishes
every night. We are going to talk about this.
Whereas, you know, he would be like, no, you're not going to go
running to your mother and talking to her.
They have a bunch of stuff they both did, but they dealt with it
(46:42):
all. And I see a lot of people not
having those deep conversations early on and just trying to
skirt along the surface. And they were like, Nope, Nope.
We're going to deal with this now because what we deal with
now, we'll set the stage for what our marriage is going to be
like in the next 2530. 4 You love that.
I think that might be my new advice to people that are
(47:04):
getting married. As long as you can deal with it
in a constructive way, wanting the best for your partner.
And it's not just to make a big deal of it, because you want to
make a big deal of something, I think.
That making a big deal doesn't mean blowing something out of
proportion. It means no, you know.
Highlighting it. Deciding if this is something
you can honestly let slide or not, and if you can't just be
honest that this is something weneed to work.
(47:25):
On yeah wow that's so good I love that well how can people
find you what what can they be looking for online together so.
I'm at bearmarriage.com, so that's that's BARE bear
marriage.com and all our social media is there and you can find
our two books Great Sex Rescue is our big one on sex, which has
a tonne of charts and stats. It's really fun.
(47:45):
And then our new book, The Marriage You Want, is out in
March and it has even more charts and stats.
Yeah, that's awesome. And and really really fun so.
Yeah, awesome. And that's all on the website.
You know they can find those books on the website.
Yeah. At bearmarriage.com and our
podcast is there as well. Awesome, fantastic.
Well, we will be checking that out and you guys should be too.
Thank you so much for chatting with us today.
(48:07):
We really appreciate it. If you have not signed up to our
website, go do that now 'cause we're gonna send this out to you
guys as well so you can find thebooks and the links and that's.
The links. Straight away so you don't have
to do the searching yourself to sign up there or check out our
socials and we'll get all that information to.
You guys up as well. Awesome.
Thank you so much guys all the way from Canada.
(48:27):
We really appreciate it. All right, take care.
That's great.
Here, here's my biggest piece ofadvice.
OK, don't prioritise sex, and noone's going to understand what I
mean by that. It's not about prioritising sex,
it's about prioritising the ingredients of great sex.
Hello and welcome back to Honey.We Need a chat.
We are just introducing a very exciting guest episode today.
(00:21):
If you can see the video, you'llsee my beautiful arm candy.
Hanging around. In the background if you.
Can't see the video, won't make any sense, but we forgot to do
the introduction. So we're just.
Quickly doing that at Blair's desk, hence the different setup.
This week we have an incredible conversation with Sheila and
Keith Gregoire. From over in.
Canada, they are authors and public speakers in the sphere of
(00:43):
relationships and especially in intimacy.
So this conversation is all about intimacy, physical
intimacy in a relationship. And there is so much gold that
we're really, really excited to bring this conversation to you.
These guys are incredible wealthof knowledge.
They have a lot of experience inthis space.
They've done a lot of research, a lot of work working with
couples in terms of really developing and healing their sex
(01:05):
life and finding a beautiful balance there.
So we are excited to bring this conversation to you guys and we
think it's going to be really helpful.
We hope this is really encouraging and we can't wait to
hear how you find this conversation with Sheila and
Keith. Thanks guys.
Honey, we need to chat. Well, welcome to Honey.
(01:31):
We need to chat. We are really excited to talk to
our guests this morning. We're talking to Sheila and
Keith Gregoire over from Canada.You guys are actually our second
Canadian guests, is that right? Yeah, we just spoke to our first
international guest at All in the Whole podcast last week, and
he's also from Canada. So there you go, Canada is.
A theme. Yeah, we're making a connection.
(01:52):
Yeah. Now I have to ask who it was.
His name was Bryce and he's madean incredible relationship game
called Uncover Me. And it's it's really unique and
he's done such a great job. And it's it's just basically a
game that helps people come likebreakdown into like really
foundational, interesting conversations with a couple.
(02:12):
But it's not open ended questions.
It's really specific. Yeah, oh gosh, I gotta take a
look at it now. Absolutely.
Check it out. Yeah, because we can't get it
over here. We've got it.
They sent us a free option, but we can't get it in Australia.
Very. Yeah, but you guys could.
Sorry, Aussies. Hopefully eventually, yeah.
So Uncover Me is what the game is called.
But yeah, we're we're loving theCanadian guests that we're
(02:34):
having on the podcast. And I'm really excited
personally because I've actuallyspoken with Sheila and Keith
previously on a different podcast that I was hosting with
a good friend of mine. And just the chat was so
incredible. And I remember getting to the
end of it being like, I could talk to these people for so long
because they're just a wealth ofknowledge.
Sheila and Keith have worked in the relationship sphere for a
(02:54):
number of years. Sheila is an author, she's been
a public speaker and Keith has been joining her in that as
well. He's also a paediatrician, which
is super handy. We have four children and
paediatricians have been very helpful.
Very, very involved part of our life.
And they bring a really beautiful focus in relationships
and to communication and intimacy specifically.
(03:16):
And we're really excited to diveinto some of that today with
them. So thank you so much for taking
the time, the complicated time zone issues that we have to have
this chat with us today. We're really excited to have you
here. Yeah.
Thank you. It's good to be here.
Yeah. Thanks for inviting us.
Well, we might dive right in andtalk a little bit about your, I
guess, focus of relationships. I remember reading very early
(03:40):
on, I think it was even just before we got married, The Good
Girls Guide to Great Sex, which is one of Sheilas books and
you've just remastered. Is that right in recent years?
Yes, you. Wrote it.
I completely rewrote it. Yeah, there you go.
So I've got to check out the newone, but I just remember loving
the fresh perspective of of intimacy and working on kind of
breaking down some of the thingsthat women might struggle with,
(04:03):
but couples might struggle with in terms of coming into a
relationship together in an intimate sphere.
So right off the bat, what are some of the things from your
experiences working with couplesthat are the biggest
misconceptions that people mighthave when they're entering into
a romantic, physical relationship with each other?
OK, well here, here's my biggestpiece of advice.
(04:25):
OK, don't prioritise sex. Yeah, and no one's going to
understand what I mean by that. But The thing is, it's not about
prioritising sex. It's about prioritising the
ingredients of great sex. Because everyone's always
telling you to prioritise sex. And what do they mean by that?
Like. Well, I don't know, I guess
we're supposed to have sex like 3 * a week or four times a week
(04:48):
or something. But what is sex?
Right? Like seriously.
Like if if I were to ask you, what is sex?
That's one of the things that we, we really start with is how
do you define sex? Because how you define it is
going to, is going to really have a big impact on what it
looks like in your relationship.And and like Sheila says, if
(05:08):
someone asked you, someone stucka microphone in your face and
said, hey, give me the definition of sex, you know,
assuming you didn't run away because that's very creepy.
Most of the time you'd say something along the lines of,
you know, tab egos and slot B. We start talking about sexual
intercourse specifically. And and when you define sex as
(05:29):
that one act it it becomes very male centric and it doesn't
really encapsulate the whole experience.
Yeah, like, she could be lying there making a grocery list in
her head. You know, she could be an
emotional turmoil or she could even be in physical pain, and
that would still count as havingsex.
And so one of the problems is when when we see the issue with
(05:50):
sex being how often do we have intercourse, all we're really
asking is how often does he havea climax, right?
And So what if instead we were to focus on what makes great
sex? Because if you focus on those
things, frequency tends to take care of itself.
And. And so I just think we're
looking at the wrong metric a lot of times.
(06:11):
And as as a doctor, it's kind oflike, you know, you're treating
a symptom rather than the disease.
If you're not having sex, what'sthe reason?
You know, we, we talk particularly people who've been
traumatised by bad ideas about sex and they're resisting it for
a reason, because it's been a bad experience for them.
And to say to those people, we just have it more, that's not
the right answer. You know, when you have a
(06:33):
symptom, you need to look at what's the cause of that
symptom. So if if sex isn't what we isn't
what we want to be in our relationship right now, we need
to have some curiosity and say what are the elements of our
relationship as a whole that arecontributing to the current
state and how do we address those?
I mean, like, I think you've stumped me already.
I'm just like sitting just here.I'm like, wow, that is such good
(06:55):
words. You know, just in terms of just
that self reflection, right? So as, as the male in our
relationship, like it's so true,you know, and, and just out of
all transparency, like Amy and Ihave had these conversations
recently in our relationship about sex and what it means to
each of us and how we prioritiseit differently and the struggles
that we have to get into that mood and all that different
(07:15):
stuff. So it's like hearing you say
that is really a, a nice shock, I think and, and, and just a
really nice lens to equip me with to see sex and what I'm
trying to achieve and, and the importance of it and everything
else like that, which is really,really great, which I really
appreciate. When you share this with
couples, what sort of responses do you get with that sort of
(07:39):
lens that you bring out? A lot of fear.
I think there's a lot of fear because if if we let go of the
idea that you have to have sex and that we have to pressure
people to have sex frequently, then she's never going to want
it. So, and there's so many
assumptions in that statement because first of all, the
assumption is that he wants it more than she does.
That is not true in all marriages.
We've, we've surveyed about 40,000 people Now over all of
(08:02):
our surveys, our biggest one wasof 20,000 women for our book The
Great Sex Rescue. But here I'm, I'm going to list
5 things. OK, so get ready, I'm going to
list 5 things. But what we found is that when
she frequently reaches orgasm during a sexual encounter, when
there's high marital satisfaction and when mental
load is shared, when they feel emotionally close during sex, so
(08:26):
she's not feeling used when there's no porn use in the
marriage and when there's no sexual dysfunction, then
frequency takes care of itself. And I think people are really
scared to let go of that idea that we need to tell people that
they have to have intercourse nomatter what and, and instead
say, well, let's focus on the ingredients because they're
(08:49):
like, well, then she's not goingto have sex.
But that's the assumption there is that she's not sexual.
Yeah. Women are sexual, you just have
to give them something to want. Yeah, yeah.
So make sure it feels good for her, make sure it's a good
experience. And again, like I, I just love
that I'm someone that loves like, you know, just again, it's
(09:09):
all about that lens. I love using that word of, of a
lens of how do I see a situation?
Because again, what you've just done there is sort of paint that
picture of like cool, there are ingredients.
So for guys, like a lot of timeswe look at the situation like on
our sex life or whatever else, and it's just like, or she
doesn't want it, you know, she doesn't want this, she doesn't
want that. And it's like, well, I don't
(09:29):
know what to do. Like I'll give her a massage,
I'll do the dishes, I'll do these things that we know of,
but we don't fully understand the insides and the end of the
workings of of a female as well.And again, we get a lot of
writings from males and this is a big thing that we hear is that
I just want to know what is going in the mind of my partner.
(09:50):
You know, I want to know how they think.
I want to know how they operate.Yeah, yeah, I think it's good to
have in some ways, it takes the pressure off both sides when
you're like, you don't have to be focusing on how regularly
you're having sex and rather focus on these things.
It takes pressure off both sidesbecause then you do have a
practical kind of formula in some ways, although it's
(10:10):
probably not the same for everybody.
But formula you can step throughand be like, OK, if something's
not working, let's look at thesefive different areas and let's
look at where maybe something's.Yeah, let me, let me tell you
the story of Kate cuz. And we talked about her in her
book, The Great Sex Rescue. But so Kate, they'd had a really
good sex life when they first got married.
And then they went on to have a bunch of kids.
And with each child, she had postpartum depression a little
(10:33):
bit more. And so by the time her third
child rolled around, she was shewas quite out of Commission for
quite a while. And when she started to come
back around, you know, she started initiating sex every 72
hours because she felt like that's what you're supposed to
do. And it was 2 hours, 2, two years
after the birth of her last child and she still hadn't
reached orgasm again, even though she had regularly been
(10:54):
orgasming before. And but she's still initiated
sex and she hated it. And she was just growing really
resentful of her husband because, you know, this was
doing nothing for her. And then finally her husband sat
her down and said, like, what's going on?
Like it doesn't seem like you'reinto it.
And she said, well, no, I just, I, I just feel like I have to do
it. He said, no, wait, wait, wait.
(11:15):
Hold on, back up the truck. Like I don't want you ever to do
anything that you don't want to do.
And so from now on, you know, let's just initiate if someone
actually wants it. But if you don't want it, you
just tell me and we'll stop. Like, even if we're in the
middle of something, you just tell me and I will roll over and
I will go to sleep and it will not be an issue.
(11:35):
And over the next few months, heproved that to her.
So if they, you know, a couple of times they're in the middle
of it and she's like, Nope, Nope.
This doesn't do anything. I'm not going to get there
tonight. And he would just stop.
And she found that her ability to respond came back.
You know, she finally became orgasmic again.
And so now they've settled into a new routine, She told me where
(11:55):
they have sex about every 72 hours.
So, you know, it's still the same frequency, but it's
different now because she doesn't feel the pressure and
because it's really based on both of them enjoying things,
not just doing it out of duty. That's huge.
From from and I'm sure it's in in your books, but from your
(12:15):
experience in your research, what has been the sort of more
underlining things for pick couples that are struggling in
this area to either communicate about it or even just to follow
through with, I guess understanding that for each
other, you know where each otherat.
Good. OK, well, I, I would just, you
know, the biggest thing to talk about before anything else is
probably the orgasm gap. And we, our survey was
(12:37):
specifically of religious women,evangelical women.
And so we had an orgasm rate of 47 points, by which I mean that
95% of men almost always are always rich orgasm in a given
sexual encounter, compared to just 48% of women.
So that's a lot of women weren'thaving very much fun.
Now, when you look at other surveys that aren't as much in
the religious context, there's still an orgasm gap.
(12:59):
It's not quite as large, but you're still looking at about a
3035 point orgasm gap. And then I think the thing that
happens is this gets translated as well, Women just don't want
sex. Men do.
And women don't. Well, it's like, well, it's,
it's women want good sex. Yeah, yeah.
Like they don't want that kind of sex.
(13:20):
Non orgasmic disconnected, you know, not emotionally close sex.
No, they're not interested in that.
And and we and frankly, as guys,we should ask the question, why
are we into that? Because that's, that's a whole
into the other podcast probably.But but I I'm always amazed at
the lack of curiosity. You know, I want, I want her to
(13:40):
want sex more. Well, but she's not enjoying it.
And you're not doing anything different to make sure she does
enjoy it. You just are now telling her she
should enjoy it, so she'll want it more.
Yeah. Like we asked.
We asked both men and women in different surveys, does he do
enough foreplay? And in marriages where she
frequently reaches orgasm, over 90% of men said yes, I do.
(14:02):
I think it was like 98 percent or something.
And about 80, 8% of women said, yes, he does.
So, you know, even when she doesreach orgasm, 12% of women are
still saying he could do more. They're giving him good marks.
But when she doesn't reach orgasm, 71% of men and 52% of
women still say that he does enough for.
(14:23):
And so you have to kind of ask enough for what?
Like why? Why are people saying it's
enough if she's not having pleasure?
And I think it's because a lot of women have internalised the
idea that we're broken. So, you know, if sex isn't
working, it's because I'm not sexual.
And he kind of figures. Well, yeah, like, I'm trying.
(14:45):
But she's just, she just doesn'tdo anything for her.
And a lot of that comes back to what we started at the very
beginning. What is sex?
I mean, even even the use of theword foreplay, it's, it's not a
word that I particularly like because the implication is this
is the stuff you do before the real stuff.
And the fact of the matter is that penetrative sexual
intercourse is a really good waybiologically to stimulate a man,
(15:10):
but it's not the optimal way to stimulate most women.
And so if we really want to makesex great, we need to think of
it as the whole event and not have such a focused, you know,
priority on that one part of it.And if we took all the pressure
off, we just said we're just going to enjoy each other and it
goes where it goes. I think a lot more women would
(15:33):
be able to relax and actually enjoy that note.
And of course it would be a great experience for both.
Of them. So instead, instead of saying
because you don't orgasm as easily as I do in this
particular sex act, you're not sexual and I am.
Which if when we put it in thosewords, you realise how
ridiculous it is to say that. But but frankly, that's what
(15:55):
society kind of pictures like the movies.
You see what happens in movies, it's they start, you know, and
then bang and then it's all happened.
Everyone's amazing. Yeah.
And everybody enjoys it and it'sperfect, Yeah.
That's not reality. That's not the way they you.
Know I've sometimes wondered what it would be like if if for
exercise sake men just had to enjoy sex without orgasming for
(16:18):
a while, like if it would changetheir approach to it.
Because I feel like if if the tables were turned and the woman
every time it was pretty much guaranteed every time you're
going to have an orgasm you're going to enjoy it.
And then they had to like navigate, but my partner's not
really enjoying it that much. I feel like if you're having
that pleasure all the time, it'dbe really hard.
(16:39):
You have to be really intentional to take your mind
out of that and be like, oh actually maybe they're not
enjoying it as much as me. And I've sometimes thought, how
interesting for experiment's sake would it be to see how it
would change things if for a month or something like that,
every time you did it, the guy didn't get to have an orgasm,
but the woman had to. And that was how you went about
(17:01):
it and see how that would changepeople's approach.
I think that would actually havethat would definitely give you a
whole other appreciation of the,the process, you know what I
mean? Like because and that was one
question that I had for you. So again, as a guy and, and
knowing how a lot of guys are inthis scenario, in this area of
their relationship, you know, wehave, we can be very selfish in
the bedroom. We can be very selfish in terms
(17:22):
of, and not necessarily intentionally, but just in terms
of, again, that understanding ofour partner and, and what their
needs are to, to have that same experience that we have, it's a
lot easier for us, I feel. And so to hear all of this,
like, oh man, this is, this is fantastic.
Again, it's helping me with thatlens.
But I can also see the other side for a lot of guys where
(17:43):
this could be quite overwhelming, quite overwhelming
information in terms of man, I am one of those guys that, you
know, may not be pleasing my partner as as much as she would
like me to or whatever else. So hearing all that could be
quite overwhelming. What would you say to that guy?
Like, you know, where's the hopein that situation?
Yeah, like The thing is, you candecide to do things differently,
(18:05):
right? Like, like you can, you can turn
the tables right now. Yeah.
And it doesn't. It doesn't need to keep going
the way it's going, but it does take risk because if you start
addressing using her needs as well, it might mean that you
don't get sex as often as you were before because she's like,
no, I matter now. And it might take some time, you
(18:28):
know, to figure things out. But isn't that worth it?
Like, yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah, I was. Going to say, I think the other
element of it too is, you know, you know, what are we looking
for in sex? Because because another thing
that you were talking a lot about the difference between men
and women and how men and women approach sex.
And one of the things that a lotof times we're socialised, I
(18:50):
think is that the physical side of sex is for men and the
emotional side of sex is for women.
And so, you know, I've even heard people say that men just
want quickies and they don't have, they don't want emotional
connection. They just want the the release.
And women don't really care about that.
They just want to cuddle and be close, you know, and and I think
(19:12):
that's not AI think a healthy view realises that sex is a
physical and emotional experience for both people.
And so, you know, if I'm, if I'min a relationship with this
person and I'm finding this something that's easy and I'm
enjoying it, but she's not like emotionally, that should matter
to me. So, so, you know, as hard as it
(19:34):
is to say, you know, if we're inthe middle of things and you
want to stop, I'm going to honour you and let you stop and
still hold you and tell you I love you and I'm going to go
have a cold shower or do whatever I need to do, right?
Because because I care about you.
I think showing that that you really respect and want this to
be a good experience for them. It's not just lips.
(19:55):
It's not just not just saying you actually believe it.
Like, like a lot of guys are in the mindset you were saying
earlier, you know, like I wash the dishes, I do these things.
Because they're trying to earn sex from their wives as opposed
to seeing sex as something that flows naturally out of a healthy
relationship. We're both building on.
And I think having that mind shift as a guy, instead of
seeing sex as a transaction, seeing it as a way of
(20:16):
connecting. Because then if we're not
connecting emotionally, if we'rejust connecting physically, then
we're not really fully connecting and we need to and we
need to work on that. Yeah, and I think I think that's
that's probably part of the urgency that a lot of men feel.
And it also is a lot of the fearbecause, and this isn't guys
fault, OK. And and this is not saying that
(20:37):
women are better, believe me. But in our society, it generally
is that little girls are taught to pay attention to emotions and
little boys are not. So little girls are allowed to
express emotions. Little boys, the only emotion
you're allowed to express is anger.
And if you, and it's a lot of boys grow up and they don't know
how to recognise what they're feeling, how to talk with
(20:58):
emotional language, they don't know how to be vulnerable.
So you could be feeling weird about something that happened at
work, but you don't know how to talk to your wife about it
because you don't want to seem insecure.
You don't want her to think badly of you.
And you've never been able to admit any weakness because that
was always laughed at in your family or whatever.
And, and women could could go through this as well.
(21:20):
It just men go through it a lot more than women do, which is
really unfortunate. And so because of that, often
the only way that men truly haveto connect is through sex,
because they don't know how to be vulnerable in an emotional
way. And so because of that, we all
need intimacy, right? We were all created with this
deep, abiding need for intimacy.But if you can't express that
(21:43):
emotionally, then often the onlyway that you can express it is
sexually. And so if a woman says she
doesn't want sex and a guy really has a difficult time
being emotionally vulnerable, then the only way that he feels
connected is through sex. So when she doesn't want it,
he's like, I have absolutely no way of getting my intimacy needs
met now. And that, that really leaves him
(22:04):
stranded. But what if instead, we really
worked at how to help more men become comfortable being
vulnerable with their wives? You know, like telling them what
you're scared about, what you'rehoping for, what you're thinking
about, what you're feeling today.
Because if you can connect emotionally, then that intense
(22:26):
need for sex, doesn't it, it, itgoes away to a certain extent,
like it's, it's, it's not as overwhelming because quite,
quite often what happens is thatmen especially can, can feel
like I need sex as a way to connect because I have a very
difficult time connecting in anyother way.
(22:46):
I And that's part of the panic. Yeah, just don't have the tools.
Yeah. And it's not, again, this is not
like, it's not that men are not capable of it, it's just that in
our society we don't socialise men to learn how to.
And a lot of women struggle withthis as well, you know.
So it's like the more that we can teach people how to be
emotionally vulnerable, the lesssex seems like a rejection if
(23:08):
your spouse doesn't want it, andthe less that hurts you and the
more you're actually able to want sex.
Like when when you're able to beemotionally vulnerable with each
other, that actually often fuelslibido.
Absolutely. Have you guys worked in this
space, much like working with men to do those things to to
(23:29):
work through those things and learn these things?
We certainly talked about it a lot.
Yeah. You know, I, I would just say
that we, what we've identified with our research is that men
who are able to connect to theseemotional levels do have better
sex lives with their wives. But in terms of the, the guys
who find this a hard thing to doand need to learn those skill
sets, we're not counsellors. We're we're, we're researchers
(23:50):
and writers, right? Yeah.
Absolutely, but we have a numberof people that we put them in
contact with who have really good books and other resources
in those areas. So you're talking about, you
know, helping men get into that space of, you know,
understanding with their emotions and how to communicate
those emotions. But I also see the other side
too with with women of because the man struggles to share
(24:13):
emotions or could struggle to share those emotions sometimes
maybe the woman can also feel like that she doesn't know how
to communicate to him because hedoesn't respond in a specific
way as well. So their relationship, you know,
might be in this space where they haven't, you know,
communication hasn't been a strong point of theirs in that
sense. How would you guys encourage
(24:35):
people that might be in that scenario to start this
conversation? OK, we have a really simple
exercise that I really encouragepeople to do every day.
It is such a simple thing, OK, but every day, maybe after
dinner when you're sitting enjoying a cup of tea, maybe
before you're going to bed, Share 2 emotional moments with
(24:55):
your spouse. The moment where you were the
most in the groove today, like you were doing with, you were
put on earth to do. You were succeeding.
It was amazing. And then the moment when you
felt the most defeated, like this is a slog.
I hate this. I can't do this.
This is awful because often whatwe do at the end of the day is,
is we ask the question. So what did you do today?
(25:16):
Right? And what's the answer to that?
Well, I had 6 client meetings. I went to the bank at lunch.
You know, I went grocery shopping after.
Like it doesn't let you in on your, where your spouse actually
is emotionally. So just ask them to check in.
Do that simple check in. What are two moments?
And we started doing that when Keith was working about an hour
away from home and sometimes you'd have to stay overnight.
And so we didn't see each other as often as we used to.
(25:39):
But I'm not a big talker on the phone.
Like I just, I don't like talking on the phone.
So we would do this because it was a lot quicker, but we still
kept up with each other. And I started to realise that
every night when I shared my most defeated moment, it was the
same thing. It was whenever I checked my
email and I realised wow I really hate my email and so I
hired check my email and my lifegot a lot better.
(26:01):
So you can learn stuff about yourself too.
That's the. Great thing, you know, because
we don't reflect ourselves on that most of the time.
It's not just our partner doesn't know.
We half the time just go throughlife without ever thinking about
it. And that's the beauty of being
vulnerable with each other and being able to be open and honest
with each other, right? But you have to, you have to,
you have to build a place that you can of trust.
(26:22):
Like there has to be an undergirding of trust.
If I'm going to truly open up and be vulnerable to you and
share my fears with you, I need to know you're not going to
freak out. Yeah, that we're.
Going to be able to, we're goingto still be a team, we're going
to still work through these things together and we're, we're
going to be OK, right. If I keep my, if I, you know,
Facade up and you're happy and then I let it down and you start
(26:42):
to look nervous, I'm going to just go back into my little
fortress, right? We have to actually be able to
be a safe place for our person to that we love to actually be
honest with us and and that's that can be hard too.
So. Yeah, we talk a lot about this
in our new marriage book that's coming out in March.
It's called The Marriage You Want.
And we surveyed a bunch of couples and really, really dig
(27:05):
deep on how emotional connectionmatters and and looked at
couples who did it well and whatthe what the key ingredients
are. But just that check, checking in
with each other is so key because if you're a lot of
people, their marriages exist without ever really sharing
their feelings. You might know what your spouse
thinks about politics. You might, you might be talking
(27:28):
all the time about kids, dentistappointments and doctor's
appointments, and maybe we need to go on a weight loss programme
or whatever. But you haven't actually talked
about feelings. And and that's when marriages
get really stale because you don't actually know each other.
Yeah, yeah. And I just want to say as well
to, to our, our listeners at themoment, you know, the guys that
(27:48):
are listening in, I just want tospeak to you for just a couple
of minutes. You know, this is again, we, we
have these moments where we hearsomething and it's, it's great.
But it, it can be quite overwhelming because it's that
when we get put on that spot of like, well, I'm not used to
this. And now my partner's asked me
this question and now I'm like, I'm not rehearsed, I'm not
prepared. And what I want to encourage you
(28:09):
think about this during the day,you know, if you can't do it in
the morning, in that time where it gives you that prep time to
think through, you know, think about it during the day, you're
going to, you know, you're goingto have this question brought up
at the end of every day and think about that, prepare for
that. This is something that's
extremely important for your relationship to be able to go
vulnerable, to be able to be emotional, to be able to create
(28:31):
that safe space. And it it really is, if you
can't go there yourself, it's going to be very hard for your
partner to go there as well. So if this is a a priority for
you and your relationship to grow and communicate, to grow in
intimacy, to grow in connectedness, prioritise that
man like, you know, really create that space and be
prepared to go on that journey with your partner.
(28:52):
Yeah, something we we've tackledthe topic.
And when I say tackled, I mean we scratched the surface because
it's so big of mental load on this podcast before, right?
And it's something that I have regular conversations with
people just work shopping. I feel like it's just such a big
monster that just sits there unaddressed most of the time in
(29:14):
relationships. And I was thinking, you know, I
really struggle to bring things up.
And that's been one of the things I've had to work on in
our marriage when I know that itmight not be easy to hear or it
might not be fun to hear. Or I'm asking something of Blair
that he there will be more work or whatever it might be.
And so I think as a woman, you know, if you're listening to a
(29:35):
podcast like this or you're reading a book and then you're
like, this is what I need more of from my partner, It can be a
really hard thing. Regardless of if it's intimacy
or you need more stuff done around the house or whatever it
is, it can be a really hard thing to ask the person you love
to do more for you. Do you have any advice on how to
(29:57):
approach that conversation? Yeah.
Well, can I share? Can I share with you a stat
that's in our marriage book? So this isn't even out yet.
So you guys get the preview. So we we scored marriage
satisfaction on a scale of one to 100 and most people actually
report being quite happy. And so most scores are kind of
(30:19):
within like the 70 to 90 range. So they're not that wide.
Anyway. When there's money problems in
the marriage, that affects the marriage by about 5:00.
So you're going to see a 5 pointdrop on a scale of 100.
When you go from having sex likeonce a month to a couple of
times a week, you improve the marriage by about 10 points on a
(30:42):
scale of one to 100. OK, so that's that's how much
that fixed now? We got to say something.
Those are associated. We're not saying if you have sex
more, you'll have a better marriage.
Yes, it's not. Associated as we yes.
It's associated. There's the.
Causation versus poor relation thing that's going to say that
yes. But when we look at housework
and and owning housework, when you move from doing 50% to doing
(31:05):
100%, you see a 30 point drop. Wow.
So, so people think sex and money are the big issues in
marriage and actually it's it's housework.
Yeah, and this is a big thing. And this is one of the things
that as guys, we've just got to get over it and look at the data
and, and, and do a reality checkand say truth is truth, facts
(31:30):
are facts. And the issue is this there,
there's really good studies to show that over time, people's
enjoyment of marriage declines. And for women, it declines a
whole lot more than for men in general.
And they've done studies, They've done time studies.
How what, what are you spending your time doing as a couple?
And what they found is that overtime, women are doing more and
(31:54):
more and more work and men are doing more and more resting.
And that's and then what happensis this goes on for 10 years.
It gets a little bit annoying. It goes on for 15 years.
It's getting really annoying. And then all of a sudden she
left me for no good reason. Yeah, no good reason.
Well, you know what I mean. Like this is what happens right?
(32:14):
And we want to say this isn't every couple like, like I think
in our in our survey, you know, half of couples are doing great.
Yes, yes. So it's not every couple, but it
is. It is a lot, and if it's you, it
matters. Yeah.
And my point is, is that is thatif you don't address this early
on, you're not going to see it right away.
But you can only handle unfairness.
(32:35):
And it's something that's reallynot a just division of, of how
we do things for so long. And then it's just going to be
too much. And then you can't rebuild guys,
because you've, you've took taken advantage of a situation
for a really, really long time. You can't just suddenly say
sorry now. So my challenge to guys is be a
partner from the beginning, right?
(32:58):
Like, it's not it's not. I help my wife with the
housework. My wife and I have a house, and
so we do work in it. Yeah.
Now, you don't always do the same thing, and some of you may
do more of the actual traditional housework than the
other person because one person's making more income or
whatever. But the point is, is that you
need to decide as a team what's fair and what you're both going
(33:20):
to contribute, and you need to both be contributors.
So I have literally had this conversation about five times in
the last two months with friendswhose partners just do not step
up in the house. And I, I, we have on the
podcast, we like to give a really well rounded approach to
(33:41):
the topics. And I recognise that a number of
these people also don't know howto let their partner own
different parts of whatever it is that they're navigating.
So there's a, there is a balancethere.
It's not a matter of like he should know that I need him to
do all those stuff without me ever mentioning it and then also
without me even giving him the opportunity to do it.
(34:01):
Or I like break him down when hedoes try.
There is a balance there and. There's also the other side too,
where it's like, all right, dude, like, do you need her to
tell you? You know, like.
Exactly. She needs to be taken out.
You live in the house and you'vegot kids that wake up at night
time. Yeah, yeah, there's there's
stuff that should be just a little bit more obvious than it
is. But in terms of wanting to be a
team and. And fully agree with what you've
(34:23):
said, working on it now so that it's not ten years down the
track. When it's a massive divide
between you guys, it's a massiveproblem to overcome.
How does a wife or any partner, if they're experiencing this
kind of thing, how do you approach asking someone to do
more? Like how do you approach that
when when they're not an invested party in that a point?
Well, I, I think you just got toask.
(34:44):
Yeah. And you've just got to say I am
not willing to live with this. If it continues in this way, you
know, it is not going to continue in this way.
I am not going to keep doing everything for everybody because
that is not sustainable. And we just need to be really
firm about that. And, and there's a lot of
different ways that that you canfigure out how to divide things
(35:07):
up. I really like what Eve Rodski
said in her book Fair Play. I think, I think she's got a lot
of really good ideas just owningan entire task.
So because a lot, a lot of guys are like, yeah, I'll do it.
Just give me a list, right? Just give me a list and I'll
work through the list. But the problem is, as soon as
you say that, she still has to be the one.
Still the mental. Load who is figuring out what
(35:28):
needs to be done when it needs to be done?
Who is keeping track of when's the last time we, we changed the
furnace philtre? When does the dry cleaning need
to be picked up? What snack do we need to take to
the kids sports practise? Whatever.
So if you can just each own different spheres.
So maybe he does the entire sports practise.
So he, he manages the calendar, he manages the fundraisers that
(35:49):
there always are. He manages whatever snacks.
If, if practise uniforms have tobe cleaned, he cleans them.
He does the carpooling, he does everything.
So she never does that, right, Because a lot of times we think,
well, taking Johnny to soccer practise just means putting
Johnny in the car and driving him.
But it it, it's more than that, you know, So maybe he owns all
(36:13):
of that and maybe he owns like all the laundry or something.
Well, you know, she does the dishes or cooks or whatever, but
just own different spheres so that she doesn't need to give,
she doesn't need to give you a list because she she has the
ability to just completely forget about that.
You know, she doesn't have to think about soccer at all.
(36:34):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And this is one of the things that we found is there are a lot
of studies that show that men who do more work around the
house tend to have better sex lives with their partners.
And but it's it's the exact opposite of the I'm doing the
dishes, so I'll get. Something.
It's the exact opposite of that.It's it's they're engaged
partners who are committed to the relationship.
(36:57):
And guess what? Their wives find that sexy.
Right. Because that's like having a
partner is sexy. It really is.
Even for guys too, right, You know, and, and I think that that
that's so important. One of the things I would think
is to start with these particular women, if they're
talking with their, their partner is to say, do we not
agree that we should both work on this relationship and we
(37:20):
should both have the same amountof downtime?
Because if, if we've had dinner that I've made and then I'm
cleaning up the dishes and putting it in the dishwasher and
wiping the tables off while you go watch TV, you know, that's
not fair. Like I'm still working and
you're, you're on relax mode now, right?
(37:41):
So, so you know, you, you're notgoing to always have like some
1, you might both work out of the home.
Only one of you may work out of the home.
There's all kinds of different ways to navigate it, who's doing
what. But at the end of the day, we
both should have the same amountof time to relax.
And if you've got a lot of time to relax and I don't, that's not
fair and that's not going to bode well for our relationship
(38:01):
long term. And I think sometimes guys need
a little bit of a shake up to realise that.
And as I said earlier, better now than years from now.
And sometimes. It's flipped, you know, we
found, we found that there are, there are men who do the vast
majority of stuff. I think it's like 5 times more
often it's women, but there are men who do as well.
And so whichever it is in your relationship, the point is that
(38:23):
we all need to be contributing partners.
I hear one, one thing a bit where, you know, guys might say,
but you've been at home all day with your kids.
Like, you know, I've been at work all day.
I stayed home for a year with the kids, by the way, why it
worked. That is hard work, man.
It was such like such an eye opener for me and something I'm
so grateful for because it was just like, yeah, that is that is
(38:47):
not rest at all. Is it was harder than my actual
job? It was a good activity though,
because it was hard for me to beworking and then come home.
Yeah, we were working from home,but come into the the house
space and it was a good activity, actually a good
exercise to like see each other's perspective on it.
But yeah, it is, it's there's a,there's a lot of things that
play into and the family of origin that you know, how you've
(39:08):
been raised and what you've experienced is a huge one.
I'm sure that plays into what you expect.
But I think what we say on this podcast all the time is to be
curious and to spend time askingthe questions and exploring what
people's expectations are and that kind of thing.
And I think if you're having those expectations, you're
living out your family culture without having the conversation,
(39:30):
then that's probably the first spot to be like, oh, hang on, we
haven't actually spoken about this.
So what's playing out is probably not the most
constructive and healthy, healthy way if we haven't even
gotten on the same page. So a question about coming back
to intimacy specifically then wejust to get a little bit
personal for a second. When we first got married, we
(39:53):
went through a time where my drive was actually higher than
Blair's at the beginning, and for a number of reasons, Blair's
was lower and. We, we can be full transparent.
I, I had a pornography addictionwhen we when we got married and
stuff, which really played into that, that.
Especially as Christians coming into marriage, it was it was an
interesting mix. And also he was working a really
(40:16):
labour intensive and early morning job.
So we just had a lot of things, including new marriage that we
were trying to navigate. In that time.
I felt very rejected and I my initiation and my approach to
sex really got shut down. And now we're on the flip side,
we're having this conversation this week where Blairs, he's his
sex drive is a lot higher. And mine, because we've got four
(40:37):
children and and I've had that experience has just gone like, I
really struggle, I guess. And especially right now, we're
moving house. My brain is just not even there
at all. It's like completely off the
radar. And so Blair's like, it's kind
of starting to feel rejection aswell on his end.
And I was like, well, I don't think that I've really worked
through the rejection that I felt at the beginning.
(40:58):
So now I've just shut that part down.
Now he's experiencing rejection because I've shut that part
down. So it's a big complicated
relationship, which I think a lot of couples would have
factors that are complicated like this to play into it.
How do you go about, you know, and we've got the benefit of
being on the same page. We want to work on this and
we're very open to communicationand working on things.
(41:19):
So that's, that's beautiful thatwe're already at that stage.
But how do you go about healing when you've been it's one thing
to start fresh and start fresh on a in a new relationship on
the same page, wanting to have areally, you know, holistic sex
life. But when you've had experiences
where you have had hurt, how do you go about healing that side
(41:39):
of it to come together in a morestrong way when it's like deep
hurt that you don't even really understand yourself now I.
Always say that you can't forgive and heal from what you
can't name. And so you know, to fully heal
from something, you have to be able to name what it it was and
the all the effects that it had.There's a concept that we find
(42:01):
in in the Bible called lament, which we don't really.
Practise as a society. Anymore and I think we need to
get back to it because it was very therapeutic.
The ancients and many cultures, many other cultures in the world
today, non western cultures actually practise lament really
well. But it's just when you name the
(42:21):
things that happened to you and you let yourself be sad about
them for a time, you're not you.Don't you like you're allowed to
sit in the sadness and name it? Because sometimes we can't move
on from it unless we let ourselves process it.
Yeah. And so just letting yourself
take some time and say, OK, thisis actually what I felt.
Because often we're running awayfrom those feelings.
We don't want to let ourselves feel them because we're afraid
(42:44):
we'll you know, what's going to happen if I let myself feel
them, You know, is the marriage at risk?
Am I going to get into a depression?
And if you really fear that you will, then please do this
exercise with the licenced counsellor.
But sometimes you just got, and I'm not saying do it for months,
but just sometimes you might just need to take a weekend or
something and write, write it all out.
(43:05):
Write yourself a letter, write him a letter, write God a
letter, whatever. Just say this is what I felt,
you know, and then talk through it, process through it and then
say, how is this affecting me now?
And where do I want to be? Where do I want to go?
What do I want to do with this? You know, and and then talk
through some of the forgiveness parts, you know, I want to
(43:26):
forgive you, but what I need to see is this like, here's why I'm
still having trouble trusting. Let's talk that through.
And these are all big conversations.
They're hard conversation. Yeah.
Yeah, and it's not necessarily asimple fix, but you can't heal
from something unless you reallydig down deep and let yourself
feel it. I love that the lament, even the
(43:47):
word itself is so dramatic. And like, you can, it's like a
physical feeling when you say itlike lament that is.
So no, it's not. It's not part of our culture at
all. It is very much like push it
away, like either be bitter and end up living a bitter life
because you haven't dealt with it or just pretend it didn't
happen. So I love that.
I love that perspective. And I think that's a really
(44:08):
practical. Yeah, yeah.
Tactic Today I'm going to try and lament.
Well, we might start to wrap this chat up, even though I
don't want to because it's been amazing.
But one last question for you guys.
If you were to talk to yourselves at the very beginning
of your relationship, what is one piece of advice that you'd
want to give to younger Sheila and Keith?
(44:32):
You go ahead. Well, you know, again, I could
talk for an hour on this one now.
But the big thing for me, what you're talking about goes back
to what you're talking about just a second ago about the
feelings of rejection. Because, you know, early in our
marriage, my drive was the high 1 and I also very much
internalised it and felt rejected.
(44:52):
And, and what I wish I had done,I wish, I wish I was mature
enough at that time to have said, why is this such a need
for me? Like, like she, she's tired and
she doesn't want to have sex. Why do I experience that as
rejection? You know, like what's going on
in me? And am I willing to, to see the,
(45:16):
because honestly, I would feel like I was less of a man or that
I was like, you know, all these kind of things and our
masculinity and all of these things are wrapped up in, in
this whole thing and asking the questions.
Well, why is that? Like why do I see it that way
and why can't I just realise she's tired?
Yeah. And in a non judgmental way,
(45:36):
just kind of actually do the work on my inside rather than
than kind of becoming pressure or becoming guilt or becoming
the but I wash the dishes or thewhatever.
I wish, I wish I'd been, I wish I'd gotten to where we are a lot
sooner. If if someone had told me that
when I was younger. Yeah, I would just say one of
(45:56):
the things my daughter Rebecca, our daughter Rebecca says and
she's the Co author on the greatSex rescue in our book.
She deserves better. We do a lot of research
together. I loved her attitude towards her
first year of marriage, which was everything that bothered
her. She made a big issue out of,
which goes against a lot of the advice that we hear, right?
We hear don'ts with the small stuff and everything.
But she and her husband, we're both like, no, if there is
(46:19):
something that I don't want to live with for the next 50 years,
I need to deal with it now. And they had a rough first year
where they dealt with everythinglike, I am not doing the dishes
every night. We are going to talk about this.
Whereas, you know, he would be like, no, you're not going to go
running to your mother and talking to her.
They have a bunch of stuff they both did, but they dealt with it
(46:42):
all. And I see a lot of people not
having those deep conversations early on and just trying to
skirt along the surface. And they were like, Nope, Nope.
We're going to deal with this now because what we deal with
now, we'll set the stage for what our marriage is going to be
like in the next 2530. 4 You love that.
I think that might be my new advice to people that are
(47:04):
getting married. As long as you can deal with it
in a constructive way, wanting the best for your partner.
And it's not just to make a big deal of it, because you want to
make a big deal of something, I think.
That making a big deal doesn't mean blowing something out of
proportion. It means no, you know.
Highlighting it. Deciding if this is something
you can honestly let slide or not, and if you can't just be
honest that this is something weneed to work.
(47:25):
On yeah wow that's so good I love that well how can people
find you what what can they be looking for online together so.
I'm at bearmarriage.com, so that's that's BARE bear
marriage.com and all our social media is there and you can find
our two books Great Sex Rescue is our big one on sex, which has
a tonne of charts and stats. It's really fun.
(47:45):
And then our new book, The Marriage You Want, is out in
March and it has even more charts and stats.
Yeah, that's awesome. And and really really fun so.
Yeah, awesome. And that's all on the website.
You know they can find those books on the website.
Yeah. At bearmarriage.com and our
podcast is there as well. Awesome, fantastic.
Well, we will be checking that out and you guys should be too.
Thank you so much for chatting with us today.
(48:07):
We really appreciate it. If you have not signed up to our
website, go do that now 'cause we're gonna send this out to you
guys as well so you can find thebooks and the links and that's.
The links. Straight away so you don't have
to do the searching yourself to sign up there or check out our
socials and we'll get all that information to.
You guys up as well. Awesome.
Thank you so much guys all the way from Canada.
(48:27):
We really appreciate it. All right, take care.
That's great.
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