Naked & Alone

Hello and welcome back to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast we undress the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love. And we have a great conversation to share with you all today. It's some really important stuff that I think is gonna really help people who feel alone in their marriage. But before we dive in, I wanna share one of our recent reviews. And thank you so much to those of you who have been leaving reviews. If you haven't done so yet, please do so. It's the best way to let people know that you love this pod. And today I'm gonna share a review that is entitled Great Encouragement. It is from emj js. It says, this is such a wonderful, encouraging podcast. The recent episode called Marriage in Transition was just what I needed right when I needed it. Thank you and shout out to our friends Sean and Lynette Reed, who were the ones that we interviewed on that episode. So, yes, we love that episode. If you haven't checked it out yet, go and check it out. And emj js, thank you so much for leaving that review.

Yeah, we appreciate all the reviews. I mean, really, it's so encouraging. Every single one. We always read them and they mean a lot to us. So thank you for sharing. Thank you for listening. One quick plug right now is that we've been doing more on Instagram and if you're not following Ave and AshleyWillis on Instagram, I'd encourage you to check that out because we've just pretty recently started doing a lot more.

Past few months. Lots of stories, lots of. Yeah.

So we're getting a lot more involved there as another way to connect. We're just looking for every way possible to connect with all of you, to hear your stories, to hear your questions, to respond to what content you want to hear that's going to be most meaningful in your marriage. So connect with us there. We're also on Facebook and other places, but haven't specifically plugged Instagram. I don't think so. Check us out. We would love to connect. Send us a message. We'll do our best to reply. And thanks so much, of course, as always, for listening to the podcast. So let's dive into today's episode. Today's topic is really an important one, but it's kind of a heartbreaking one. It is. And it's a dynamic that from those of you who write us on social media, you email us, you grab us, even at our live events, I know that sadly, this is a very common dynamic. And you know the episode is called Naked and Alone. And maybe you're thinking, like, what does that mean? You know? And we're talking about when you feel like you're baring your whole heart, your whole soul. You feel naked, but you're alone in the marriage in terms of feeling like you don't have a partner anymore, like your spouse is pulled away. And this can look a lot of different ways. Sometimes it's the dynamic where you're just living two separate lives and you've fallen out of touch with one another and you're just sort of operating as roommates who share some bills and kids, but not as partners and lovers and best friends anymore. Sometimes it's when one spouse is really trying to make the marriage work, but the other one is being distant or possibly abusive or possibly just kind of using them for, like, they would leave.

Altogether if they're messing with their heart.

But you just feel lonely. And if you're listening right now and you feel like, man, that's me, and it's a heartbreaking place to be, and I feel stuck. We're glad that you're tuned in right now, and we just want to give you some hope and some encouragement and hopefully some. Some practical next steps in this very difficult dynamic, you know?

Absolutely. And I think there's a lot of reasons and kind of whys behind why this happens. I think that it's not really a one size fits all. And so I just wanna own that right out of the gate that sometimes we talk all through this series, our Naked and Healthy series, we talk about mental health, we talk about spiritual health and physical health. And this is one of those things where sometimes mental health can even be the culprit of why one of the spouses feels alone, because maybe another spouse is facing a mental health battle. And so it's not always that someone is choosing to kind of be a recluse or to pull away from the relationship. And, you know, that might be the dynamic that someone listening is in right now, is that your spouse is going through something and for whatever reason, they're not opening up and they're trying to deal with it on their own. And in that kind of scenario, I mean, that's a situation where, you know, we talk about it all the time on this podcast, but you both have to open up. You both have to be real about it and say, like, listen, you can trust me with this. You feeling like you need to go through this mental health battle alone, or this thing alone, whatever it is, is literally pushing me away. And you May feel like you're losing your health battle right now, but you don't have to lose your marriage in the process. And I think sometimes there are those kind of situations where someone feels alone in the marriage because there's this thing that their spouse is dealing with. And really, the person who's struggling, who's trying to figure it out on their own and who's trying to get through it on their own is pushing away the very help that they need and is hurting their relationship in the process. And so I just wanna. I wanna talk about that kind of right out of the gate, because I do think that's one of those things where it's not like anyone is sinning or, you know, choosing to do something terrible to their spouse that is against their vows, but that they're. They're really making their spouse feel lonely because they themselves just. I don't know if it's pride or if it's just them convincing themselves, well, my spouse can't handle this, or I don't want to burden them with this. You know, they're pushing them away and they're making their spouse feel alone and hurting their relationship. And that's not what God calls us to do.

No, no. In fact, in one of our most popular talks we've done, ever done at one of the exo conferences, we had this. This whole furniture set up on stage with what we call the love seat, and then the two me seats out beside it. And we said, a marriage can live in one of three dynamics. It's the love seat where you're both in the same seat together, sharing everything, partners in every way. Where the second dynamics, you're both in the me seat, you're both just living your own life. And then the third, and the most painful dynamic, and really what we're talking about in this episode is where one of you is in the love seat saying, I'm fighting for this marriage. I'm doing everything I can to be the best spouse I can be.

And.

And one spouse is in the me seat saying, it's all about me, and I don't really care about partnership. And anything wrong in our relationships is your fault and not mine. And so I'm not going to do anything. Or maybe they just don't care at all about doing anything. And so. But the end of that talk, we said, the good news is you're never alone in the love seat because God himself is the love seat. You know, Jesus is holding you. The Bible says God is love, and when we rest in him you know, we're resting in love. We're never alone. But that still, even the comfort we have from knowing God's with us in our most difficult situations, it doesn't take away from the very real pain. I mean, I think some of the deepest pain a person can ever be in in this life is to live in a lonely marriage.

Oh, yeah.

And the Bible has a lot to say about this. And, you know, I've had a blog article even several years back called for the Unloved Wife that was specifically to wives that felt that in that dynamic. Cause I was just being bombarded at that time by women who were writing in and saying, you know, I just feel unloved in my marriage. And here are the reasons why. And there was. I wrote that article just encouraging them about God's love for them and to try to give hope. But no one should ever have to feel that. No one should ever have to feel that. You know, I'm alone in this. And like Ashley just said, there are different reasons for it. Sometimes it's not malicious intent from the other person. Sometimes it could just be they're trying to deal with something in a way that they might think that they're protecting you by not sharing all this with you. They're saying, I'm gonna protect my wife or my husband by dealing with all this on my own. But in marriage, everything is our issue. It's never his or hers. We have to always deal with it on our own. And if you're refusing to share something with your spouse or if there are certain parts of your life that are compartmentalized, you've gotta open the door of that. And part of being naked, part of why we call this podcast, the Naked Marriage Podcast, is that nakedness isn't just physical. It's saying, I've got nothing to hide from you. I want every part of my life to be open to you. And you have to connect in all of it. The good, the hard, the difficult, all of it. And if you're not, you have to start. You have to bring your lives completely and fully together.

You know? Absolutely. I know we talked about the person who's kind of pushing the spouse away because they're dealing with a struggle, and they just are trying to maybe not burden their spouse with it. But there's a flip side of that. I remember years ago, you know, this is. I don't even know. I think it might have even been before we were officially doing marriage ministry. There's a couple at our church where she was dealing with Breast cancer. And her husband, for some reason, I think his way of coping with it was acting like she wasn't going through it. So he didn't go to any appointments with her. He never went and sat with chemo, you know, in the chemo room with her, which is hours where someone has to get chemo. And it's a cold room, and it's very sterile, and, you know, you want your loved one right there with you. And, I mean, it broke her heart. And they almost didn't make it. I mean, it was. I remember Dave and sometimes me, but mostly Dave, counseling, you know, just trying to give her that spiritual counsel of, like, God loves you. God's here for you. And she's like, but where is my husband? You know? And I remember them coming out of that. And thank God she got through breast cancer. She's doing really well, and she's healthy. But it took a lot to kind of. For her to trust him again and to. To deal with those feelings of loneliness that she had in her biggest time of need. And God has brought them through that. So there's hope. I mean, they've done the hard work of working through it, and she's forgiven him for that. But I just remember looking at her as this lonely wife facing a very serious health battle. And it broke my heart as her friend and sister in Christ, to see her so desperately wanting her husband in her corner, right there with her. And just no matter what she said to him at that time, he just wasn't willing to be there. And, you know, if you're listening to this or watching this right now and your spouse is going through any kind of struggle, be there. Don't make that same mistake. And I know that husband would tell you wholeheartedly, be there. Don't do what I did, because it's heartbreaking. And, you know, it's hard to feel lonely when everything else, you know, circumstantially is fine. But can you imagine? I mean, feeling lonely when you're facing cancer is just. It's so heartbreaking. And, you know, the reason we're talking about this, I know it's kind of heavy. It's kind of a heavy thing to talk about, but we just really need to make sure that we're intentional about not making our spouse feel like they're out there trying to just live life on their own. I mean, what's the point in being married if you're just living separate lives and just going through everything just separately? God wants us to do things together. We need to be burden bearers for each other. And we should never, you know, make our spouse feel like something's just their problem, their issue. We always need to enter into it and be right there with them.

Yes. Yeah. And that's really what this whole episode is designed to encourage couples to do. And so if you're listening and you're like, well, that's. That's what I want my spouse to do, like, I'm the one that's waiting with open heart, open arms, saying, let's deal with this together. But I can't get him or her to do anything. You know, I would say encourage him maybe as a starting place to listen to this episode, to just say, listen, I know you've said that you're not willing to do certain things, but for the sake of our marriage, our future, I need to know that you're my partner. I have to know that I can count on you and that you can count on me. That's what marriage is. And that we are in this together. That's what marriage is. If not, this isn't a marriage. I mean, it's just. It's not. But I. I don't want to separate. I don't want to go separate ways, but I also don't want to live married on paper and living as if we're divorced people. And so let's fight for this marriage. And I need you. I need you to join me in taking action. I'm not asking you to do anything that I'm not willing to do or already doing myself. And so as a starting point, would you just listen to this? Take 20 minutes on your drive or on your walk or your run or whatever, and just listen to this. And after you listen to it, let's come back together and let's talk. Let's just talk about, what did you think? What were you thinking? Did any new thoughts pop in your head? And what are some ways that we could start coming back together as true partners again? Because nobody wants a marriage where there's no connection, right? So if the marriage has gotten that way, assume the best of each other. Don't assume, oh, my spouse just wants it to be miserable, and he or she doesn't care at all. Assume the best. They want the same things I want. They don't know maybe what their actions are doing or causing, or maybe there's some other set of circumstances where they're just looking at this from a skewed perspective, or they themselves are wounded and hurt in ways I don't know about. But by assuming the best in each other. Let's restart the conversation and say, let's move. Let's move forward from here because we don't wanna stay stuck.

Absolutely. And that's so true. And I love how Dave was saying, it's a very gentle way of letting your spouse know you feel alone. Because I think what we don't wanna do is shut down the communication even more. Because right now, clearly, you feel alone. Because there's a huge lack of communication. And so coming guns a blazing isn't gonna help anything. It's just gonna push your spouse away. But saying, like, listen, this is how I feel, you've heard us say on here, use I statements. You know, your spouse can't argue with that. It's just how you feel. You feel how you feel, and you can say, listen, I feel lonely. You may not realize that you're, you know, pushing me away or that you're not, you know, connecting with me because you're so caught up in whatever it is you're caught up in, you know, with. Maybe this is a hard season at work, or there's something else that's occupying your mind all the time that you're not even realizing. You're barely talking to me or the kids. So, I mean, you can assume the best in that way. But I think when you do, come that very gently and say, listen, this is how I'm feeling, and I don't wanna feel this way. And I know you don't want me to feel this way because you're my husband. I love you. You're my wife. I love you. And I just want you to know this is where I am. That's such a gentle way of just saying this is where I am. Not pointing fingers, necessarily, but saying, this is how this season has made me feel, and I want us to reconnect. You know, I wanna talk about another dynamic that actually does involve sin here. Cause, you know, we talked about how sometimes we feel alone and nobody's necessarily doing anything wrong, per se, you know, or sinful, but maybe not tending to the marriage like they should. But there's another side of this where there is, like, there's something where, you know, one spouse is breaking vows and really doing it in such a way where it's not like they fell into it, they're regretting it, and then they're trying to make amends, but they are just actively going against the vows and using their spouse and expecting them to stick around and just to feel lonely and just to sustain the marriage.

That's toxic.

Yes, it's very tox. You know, we actually have received several messages recently where this is the dynamic. And it just is always heartbreaking when I read it. But, you know, there's never a time when it's okay to just, you know, a marriage is not a marriage if one spouse is just continually cheating on their spouse or abusing them or, you know, anything where there's this behavior where, you know, they're just actively going against their spouse. God does not want, expect or want that spouse to just stick around and take it over and over and over again. And so I just wanna make that very clear that that's not okay. You know, you can't just expect your spouse to just deal with mistreatment. And, you know, as the spouse who is maybe taking it, I think it's a really hard place to be because, you know, in that love seat, me seat image that Dave talked about earlier, it's like, here you are, you're in the love seat, you're praying every day, you're reading the marriage books and doing all these things, and yet your spouse is continually cheating on you, coming back, saying they're sorry and then doing it again and not really showing that they're sorry in their actions. That's a hard place to be. And so we often get these questions about, like, well, what do I do in that situation? And I would tell you, this is one of those situations where you've gotta go to your spouse and say, listen, I wanna stay married to you. I love you, I committed my life to you. But you are continually choosing to step out of the marriage. And really, just that in and of itself is a form of abuse, absolutely emotional abuse at best, you know, and it's like, you know, you have to put down boundaries and say, you know, I can't really stand for this. If you're willing to get help, if you're willing to completely cut off contact with these people and then do the work that needs to be done to regain my trust, we can work on these things. But at this time, you continually are stepping out of our marriage. You're cheating on me. You're saying the words that you're sorry, but you're not showing it. And until you can come to grips with that, you know, we really, you know, it can't go on this way.

Right? Because it's not a marriage.

It's not a marriage.

So you're saying, like, at what point do I leave? If somebody has.

And people ask us that all the.

Time, are always continually Cheating on me? Well, there's no marriage left to leave at that point, because your spouse has already chosen that the marriage is over by the way that they're acting. And the rest is really just paperwork. And for you to feel like you have to stay in a situation where your spouse is consistently abusive, physically, emotionally or otherwise, or is stepping out through infidelity consistently and with no remorse, that's just simply not a marriage. And, like, you need to get help and healing for yourself. You need to heal from the very intimate wounds that have been inflicted on you through no fault of your own. And you need to be able to let go of any baggage or shame that you might be carrying, because usually an abusive person like that, that would live with that kind of narcissistic and very toxic mindset is probably gonna make you feel like it's somehow your fault that they're cheating all the time or whatever it might be. And even though that's so clearly wrong, when it's a spouse who's telling you that, it's like, it can feel true in our brokenhearted, vulnerable state. But we're here to tell you that that is not true. This is not your fault that you are a victim here and that God loves you and you're a precious child of his, and he wants you to be protected, and he wants you to know that you. That you don't have to live like that, that he has something better for you, and his heart breaks along with yours that your spouse would treat you in such an abusive and repugnant way. And so get the help that you need. If you feel unsafe physically, then get out of that house and call the domestic abuse hotline and get in a safe place. If you just feel like my spouse is treating me in an unsafe way by the fact that he or she is consistently breaking the marriage vows or being completely unrepentant, then it's time to step away. And we almost never advocate separating. It's just. We are all about saving marriages. We're about restoring marriages. And even a marriage in your situation can be restored, but it's going to take that other spouse being completely repentant and cutting off contact, like Ashley said, with these other people, and committing to integrity and committing to monogamy and committing to rebuilding the trust that they have shattered through their actions. And until they're willing to do that, they're not a safe place for you. And so we pray for healing and hope. If you need somebody to talk to right now, we have coaches here at XO that are available to meet with you via Skype or Zoom. You can contact them@xomarriage.com coach coaches. And even if your situation isn't one where there's this really toxic form of ongoing infidelity or ongoing abuse, but it's just more the loneliness like you've talked about, they've just pulled away. They've become distant. Your spouse has become just not in the picture the way you want them to be. Our coaches can really, really help you. They can be that place to talk to where you just say, like, listen, am I crazy? Here's what I'm going through. And they're going to say, no, you're not crazy. It's wrong that your spouse would pull away like that. But let's talk together about finding that action step. Here's the good news. You don't have to figure all this out on your own. When we're in a lonely marriage, I think there's this feeling of desperation, like I've got to figure out on my own what to do because I don't even have a spouse to talk to. But you don't have to figure it out on your own. There are people who can help. There are people who care about you, that love God, that want good things for your marriage. And we have some of those people right here on our coaching team. And so reach out to our coaches or reach out to a pastor at your church or a Christian counselor in your area and get some counsel and just realize you don't have to figure it out all on your own. In fact, we make our best decisions when we have wise voices speaking into us.

We do. The Burlington Coat event is back. Buy a coat now through November 29th and get $5 off your merchandise. Purchase of 25 or more from December 6th through December 24th. Plus, Burlington is donating 50,000 new coats to help those in need nationwide. Through our partnership with Delivering Good, we've been keeping you warm for over 50 years. We'll see you at our coat event, Burlington Deals brands. Wow. Visit burlington.com coats for details. And I just want to clarify something, too. I know we kind of talked about a lot of different scenarios of abuse, but I want to make it very clear that if you're being physically abused, you need to walk away, get to a safe place, make sure you and your kids are safe. That is a very. I just wanna make that extremely clear here because we did talk about a lot of different situations. And so there's hotlines you can call. Definitely talk to trusted friends but you need to get yourself away from that person because they're not safe. And so, you know, we have a lot of different resources on this. And also we do talk about this on several different podcasts, so be, you know, just listening to those. But it's just very important to make that distinction in that particular situation. Cause we want you to be physically safe. But, you know, when it comes to feeling alone, I do think that a lot of the people we hear from that are dealing with loneliness, it's usually kind of maybe in the midst of raising kids. I've noticed, you know, there's a lot of people where they're in the thick of raising kids and they both have their careers going and everybody's busy doing all the things, but when it comes to their relationship, they just feel like they're miles apart. We hear this all the time, and I think it's so easy to lose sight of each other. Right? And, you know, oftentimes one spouse kind of realizes it, realizes, oh, goodness, we're really not as close as we used to be. We need to start working on the marriage. But then when they approach it with their spouse, their spouse isn't quite to that place yet. And it can be so discouraging. I mean, it's. It's like you're just hitting a brick wall. And so these things, you know, we do believe God can definitely help you out of this rut. I mean, this is a rut that a lot of people find themselves in. So I just wanna say that, like, if this is you, you know, there's hope for you, there's hope for your marriage, but we can't expect it to just be different overnight. You know, like most things, it didn't happen. You know, you didn't fall into this feeling of loneliness and disconnection overnight. And so the path to healing and connection, it takes time. It's a work in progress. And so when you go to counseling or when you talk to a marriage coach, which I do encourage, you know, either or both, it's gonna look real ugly at first. You know, there's gonna be some things that you guys haven't talked about for years that are gonna come out, some hurts that you're gonna have to share with each other that you've never really sorted out. And it always looks a little ugly and messy at first. And a lot of times, people come out of that first or second or third counseling appointment, and they're like, we're not gonna make it. I hear it all the time. Right, sweetie? We Hear it all the time. And what I always tell them is just like when a surgeon is cutting out an infection or cutting, you know, getting something, a tumor out of you that doesn't need to be there, that's been sucking the life out of you and has been making you unhealthy. It hurts at first. It's messy, and then they stitch it up and you have to have a healing time. And you've gotta put that ointment on it that keeps it from getting infected. It's a process, right? And little by little, you start to see it mend. And that's the same thing when it comes to relationships, is we've gotta give the process time. We've gotta give God time to do the amazing work that he does. Because he's the one that's gonna make your spouse's heart soft. You can pray for them, you can be kind to them, do all those things, but you can't change them. Right. We have to realize we're not the ones, but thank God for that, right?

Yeah.

Cause we don't always have the right motives either. We don't always have the right motives. And so, you know, let God do his work and trust that and really be digging into the Word during this time and knowing, you know, that even though you're going through this hard time, this is really hard. And none of us ever wanna repeat the hard times we walk through in marriage. But I can tell you from my own experience and from our own experience that when you walk through those times, as long as you do the hard work, you keep believing, you keep doing all those things you know you need to do, and you keep trusting God and going to the counseling appointments. When you get to the other side of that, there is a depth to your relationship and a connection that you never knew you could have. And that's what God does. That's what he does. And so you might be lonely right now, but I want you to know that it doesn't have to stay that way. It doesn't have to stay that way.

Thank God it doesn't.

And thank God it doesn't. And, you know, I know it feels horrible right now, and you're hurt right now. And there's a desperation even, I think, and there's all these what ifs and worries, but I want you to know that God is with you. He's right there in that love seat. And so, you know, call one of those marriage coaches today. Or, you know, talk to your pastor, talk to a trusted friend, go get counseling and really start, kind of start the healing process. And even if you go alone at first, that will help. That really helps give you perspective and knowing that you're not alone in this. And then keep, keep opening up to your spouse and just being honest about where you are. And I promise you, little by little, you'll start to see change.

You absolutely will. And again, our coaches can be a resource in that the site is xomarriage.com coaches. All right, well, this brings us to my favorite time of the episode, question and answer time. Thank you guys for sending in great questions every single week about all different kinds of things. Like, we have covered so many different. It's not even we who've covered it. It's like you guys who've covered it by the questions you send in. And then we just do our best to try to answer it. So again, you can find us Dave and Ashley Willis on social media and write us there. And we try to answer those questions directly. But the questions that get answered here on the podcast are submitted to nakedmarriagepodcast.com and today's question says, how do I communicate my physical needs to my wife? I feel like every time I bring it up, we argue. And it's either that I need to do more chore play to help her be in the mood or she just doesn't have the sex drive. I do, and I feel like the bad guy. Man, this is a great question. I think that just in our experience, this is a very common dynamic in marriage. It's not always the husband who has the higher drive. It's usually the husband about 80% of the time, if the stats are right. But in nearly every marriage, one spouse has the higher drive. Like I said, usually the husband, sometimes it's the wife. But all marriages have to kind of figure out this. This dynamic of how do I get like sex is. I hear a lot of guys say sex is like my number one need. It might be my number one through my number five need all. And yet my wife is just not on her radar. And so when she. And she's the only legitimate place on earth that I can meet this need, any other way that I try to meet it is going to be like a counterfeit way or potentially a completely destructive way, sinful way. So obviously stepping out of the marriage in any way is always a sin and always toxic and never an excuse for it. But he's like, I feel like I'm starving. I'm a starving man who doesn't have any place to eat. And it makes me feel resentment towards her. And I'm sure that she can probably sense some of that resentment, which makes her feel even less sexy and less in the mood. So, you know, I've got a lot I could say about this, but, sweetie, I would love your insight as a wise, wonderful woman here to have to weigh in from a wife's perspective.

Yes. And this is, you know, if you're watching YouTube, I'm smiling because this is a question we get a lot. So this is very common. Again, I do wanna reiterate what Dave said that. Cause, you know, a lot of times women get really angry when we're like, oh, it's the guy that's having the higher need for sex. And honestly, that it isn't always true. I mean, there's a lot of women that write us with this exact same scenario, and they say, like, I am, but my husband says he's not interested in sex or keeps on putting me off. So whether it's the husband or the wife, what I would say is the question here is, how do I communicate my physical needs? And so as a woman, as a husband coming to a wife, I would say, you need to talk to her more. Because that's what I hear when I'm reading this. I'm thinking, yes, your sex drive, that's your number one need. But in the same way, communication is her number one need. And whenever we're kind of counseling with husbands and wives, every time the husband's like, we never have sex. And I'm like, well, when's the last time you really talked to her? When's the last time you really listened? You know? Because that's the thing that makes us feel loved and that's the thing that makes us want to be closer to our husband, is when we're like, he gets me. And he's not only attracted to me physically, but he thinks I'm pretty awesome and, like, actually wants to hear my thoughts and my hopes and my dreams, and he enters into my world like, that's what she's probably lacking here. And I agree. Chore play is a real thing. Like, Dave is never sexier than when he's, like, doing one of the many chores on our list. And so that's a real thing. We need to feel like we have a partner and, like, we're not a maid in our house, because that's gonna kill the sex drive real fast. So I would say keep on doing that chore play. But it sounds like he's doing that and he's just still frustrated. Cause he feels like that need is not being met. And so be tender with her. You know, it's a real turnoff to women when they feel like their husband's like, look, I put away the dishes, I did the laundry, I did this thing. Let's do it. You know, like, that's a turnoff. We feel like it's transactional.

Right.

And a marriage is not. It's not A. Sex is not a transaction.

It's not. Because. Yeah. So that's. That's where it gets delicate. Because it's like, okay, I did this, so you do that.

And I get where he's coming from because he's like, I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

I'm doing it. Tell me.

Just.

He's like, just tell me what to do that's going to lead to sex.

Exactly. I mean, I understand. I'm not trying to fault.

No, dude, I get it. Like, I mean. I mean, I get that that is such a strong drive. Yeah. But, you know, I also get. Not as much, because I'm not a woman, that for a woman, she doesn't want to just feel like, well, I don't want this to just be so. Take all the romance out of it altogether. But maybe practically, it could be something that. Until there is a better natural rhythm where you could talk to her about, could we schedule.

Schedule it.

And I know that sounds unromantic, but just say, listen for me, if I'm not able to make love to you at least twice a week or whatever that is, I feel like I'm just absolutely dying. And I just desperately want to connect with you in that way. So could we pick two nights a week and just schedule it and then tell me what I can do all seven days of the week to make you feel loved and cherished and adored, so that when those two nights of the week roll around that you're ready to go and you're feeling connected to me because I want to meet all your needs. This isn't just about my need, even though this is a desperately huge need for me. Hear me on that. But I want to meet all your needs, too. And so what would it look like for all of our needs to be met and for us to be really, truly connected?

Yeah. I want to say one more thing. I would also. I think you kind of touched on this, Dave, but ask her what you can do to make it more pleasurable for her. And maybe you have asked her this, but if you haven't, just say, I want you to be honest with me, are we not spending enough time on foreplay? Am I not doing something? Is there some thing that I'm not doing that's gonna make you enjoy it more? And it might be eye opening to you. It might be as simple as that. Or maybe you're just not giving her enough time to enjoy it too. And you don't mean to. Because again, when you're waiting to have sex for so long, it's hard to hold back when you feel like you're not having sex as much as you need. But if you could talk to her and say, what can I do? Cause I want it to be mutually pleasurable. I don't want it to just be this thing that you feel like you have to do for me. Because sex is meant to be mutually beneficial to both. And so that may be a conversation that needs to take place.

Yeah, it's good. Communication is key in all parts of it, inside and outside the bedroom. A great, you know, a great book that you guys could go through together to give a plug. Is the book Naked and Healthy? You know, we talk about kind of a lot of things that I think could lead to more intimacy inside and outside the bedroom, so you can check that out. But thank you for your question and thank you for all who have listened. We appreciate you guys. We'll see you next time.