Heather the Sexologist Talks About Her Dead Bedroom and Divorce

The subject I wanted to bring up was a little bit of a touchy one, and we talked about it briefly for a second there. You and I had a chat before, and we talked about your previous marriage, which ended as a dead bedroom marriage, which of course piqued my curiosity because I've been writing and talking all about it. And I said, well, here we have this attractive female sexologist who was vulnerable enough to raise your hand to say, I've been in a dead bedroom and I just got out. At that time, you just got out of one and you were a newly single gal and sharing your story. And to summarize, this isn't necessarily fair, but it was basically good man, good relationship, just very mismatched in that physical department. He wasn't as interested, if at all, in that anymore. And you're like, I am. And you went through a personal transformation in terms of weight loss and other things. And here you are. Which, by the way, is the story I hear almost verbatim from men every single freaking day. I have— this man will say, I have decided I don't no longer want to be 300 pounds. I want to lose all this weight and I want to go to the gym. I want to eat better. Wife, what do you think? Wife says, eh, he's like, cool. Wife, I want to do that. Wife, I have a renewed energy. I want to get together physically, intimacy. Eh, I'm good. Very much, eh, almost depressed. Very low libido, man is re-energized. And when he goes to the internet and says, I'm a dude, I've been trying to get through this woman for years, nothing's happening, the internet as a whole, men will say, it's time to move on, dude. You know, some will go as far as to say, get you a side piece, as the men say, cheat on the side, keep your family life going, while others will say, leave, the world of abundance awaits you as a man who's newly fit and everything else. Then we have a gal, Ms. Heather Rae, saying the exact same thing. And boy, did the men come after you, didn't they?

Yeah.

In the comments.

I think some of it too, they, you, some of the comments they were picking up on, uh, parts that we were talking about that were not what, it wasn't my experience, like with the 100 men, no, that we were being, we were exaggerating and it wasn't me.

Oh, I see. Yes.

Yes.

I got to watch how I clip these things. Yeah.

But that's me as a sexologist. I'm like, no one will ever know my number. They don't need to know my number because that doesn't define me. You know, it's—

it could be 2, whether it's 2 or 200.

Yeah, yes, it doesn't matter because that doesn't define me, just like it doesn't define a man. Um, that's, you know, people will say real quickly, oh, I want to marry a virgin because, you know, she hasn't been with anyone and I'm the only one that she's ever been with.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Or also the ones to complain later because she doesn't have the experience. And unfortunately, she can't help that, you know. She saved herself. She wanted to save that for you. The only experience she has is with you, so you're gonna have to work a little harder, you know. But you can't shame her for it. So you— yeah, there's a double-ended— a double-edged sword, is that how you say it?

But I just wanted to point out the irony of that, of a lot of men. And, you know, I got on there and said, yeah, I don't get it. Here we have a lady who's experienced— I almost expected a little camaraderie from the men of like, one of us, you know, like We're all there, but instead, it's a lot of sexism there, let's be honest. And it was also a lot of people lashing out at basically, you don't know it, but you represented the women that they were upset with in their life. Some of those men had been cheated on. Some of those men were the guy who sat at home and worked 100 hours a week and did all the things he was supposed to, and the wife said, adiós, I'm leaving for the pool boy, or whatever. And so those guys are obviously very hurt. And here they hear a woman saying, I'm going to leave this, what seems to be a perfectly good guy, other than you were wildly mismatched in the physical department, which, which is hugely important. Sorry, people, but it is.

Well, and yeah, I was sorry. The one thing too that I think we, we must not have gotten into it on that, but the one thing that I noticed a lot, like what you're saying, is I actually didn't file. I wasn't the one that filed. My ex-husband did. He felt that he was holding me back, which I don't— like, we're really good friends now, but he's like, he's a great guy. Like, we get along great. We didn't have any issues outside of that. But after going through that sexless marriage and us talking about how it was making me feel, you know, lack of confidence, you know, I wasn't feeling sexy. The one person in the world that I wanted physically did not want me back in that same way. And he said, "I do, I just, yeah, I just don't have a libido." I'm like, "Okay, but how I'm feeling, you can say that you are, but your actions are saying otherwise. And so this is how I'm feeling. And it's a really crummy feeling to have. Like my confidence is at an all-time low. Like this is challenging for me." So as we're working through this, he ends up, you know, 2 and a half, 2, 2 and a half years in, he has a heart attack. And I think obviously after a heart attack, you are put on medication, which is going to make that even more challenging. And so I think he already knew, okay, we're struggling with this. This is already an issue. This is going to get worse. And at this point, he felt he was holding me back. So instead of working through those things, he just kind of threw his hands up. And we were both— yeah, we definitely now looking back, we both could have— he says, no, you couldn't have communicated more. You were very assertive with your communication. As he's laughing, because I'm like, yes, I definitely put it out there. I let you know. But I think both of us could have handled things differently. But I also, I don't know if staying, you know, people are like, oh, well, do you wish that you, you know, y'all could y'all mend things? And I really like the relationship that we have now. You know, we're, we're friends. It's no, I don't want to hear about him dating. That's weird. It's very weird. But we're friends. And I don't know if we had continued on that path that we were on, if we would have resented each other. And it doesn't mean the divorce was perfectly peachy and everything was sunflowers and rainbows. No, like we, we had our hiccups there. You know, we definitely could have— we're human and we make mistakes. But now looking at it, I don't know that I would risk having that resentment toward each other and saying, oh, I wish we had— you know, he says, you know, I wish I hadn't pulled the trigger so quickly. But, you know, what's done is done. And I am thankful that I do still have a friend in him. And, you know, it's, yeah, it's, it's been amazing still having that friendship and that, you know, if something were to happen to him tomorrow and he needed a caregiver, like, I'm that person. I would do it. Yeah. Whether he liked it or not, like, hey, sorry, buddy, like, you're stuck with me. But yeah, it's definitely one of those, it sucks that it happened the way that it happened. But yeah, that's definitely, it wasn't me that walked away from it. It was, you know, we had been fighting through that for a while.

So, so in essence, he was like, I gotta cut you free, girl, let you do your thing. This ain't working. And, you know, you're a sexually open-minded individual. I'm going, you know, sexologist, that's a big leap for me to say. But did alternative lifestyle type of things come to mind, such as open relationship or anything like that? I asked because I'm not— because that's my world, but because I hear that all the time.

Yeah, it did. That was definitely something that was mentioned on his end as well. If you're just getting those needs met, we'll be good. And I have many clients that are open and I like— that's cool. For me personally, I do not want that type of relationship. I am very— I'm a one-man gal. Like, that's, that's my thing. It's just I want that between you and me. It's special. I enjoy the passion with just us. I want you to walk around and know, yeah, my wife is a sexologist. Let them freaking be. They don't know how I am in bed. Like, they'll never know. You know that. Like, that is something that you have. You have that. Like, that's our thing. And so being able to, you know, especially like my partners are, you know, dating me, they're going to know, hey, yeah, sometimes she parades around online in lingerie and pours honey on her ass in a TikTok video. It happens sometimes because I sell lingerie. So they know that, but I'm like, no one knows what you know, you know, it's, it's different. So I feel like that's kind of my thing of like, hey, no, this is, and I don't like to share, not judging others that do, but like what's mine in the bedroom is mine. I'm not going to share my sex toys and I'm not going to share my man. And so it did get brought up and he, You know, it was definitely one of the conversations that, you know, he did bring up. And my response to that was, you're not hearing me.

That ain't me.

What I'm wanting is you. I don't just need sex. I need that passion and that intimacy with you, not anyone else. This is what I'm wanting. And you're trying to, you know, in my words to him, because of the way, again, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. But it was kind of like a, here, just go get it elsewhere. Yeah. And I'm like, that's not, that's not meeting my needs. My needs.

And again, us and guys listening to this, I talked to guys who hear this every day. They hear that the wife's like, go get your girlfriend. Like, I have obviously, I'm not enough for you. And you know, obviously, I can't fill all your needs. I don't want it like you do, if ever. So go, you have my permission. And the guy's like, no, I don't want to get it elsewhere.

And that's not the— it's crazy because people who go into that open lifestyle, if they're going to go into it and have success with it, it has to be both partners wanting that. It can't just be one saying, oh, I don't want to have sex with you, go get it elsewhere. Like, please, that's not how that's going to work. There's— especially when all that partner is wanting from you is you and that time, that attention, that passion. If they find that elsewhere, which you're inviting, what do you, what do you have to offer at that point? You know, it's, it makes it more challenging. You both need to be on the same page if you end up going into a lifestyle like that. And there are ways that you can do it and have success with it, but that's not one of them. And so I knew, hey, for me, sex is passionate, sex is feelings. Like, I had a traumatic childhood, so all of that comes into like, I have to trust a partner. I'm not just gonna have sex with somebody on the first night. I need to know that person and know that I'm safe and I'm gonna be able to open up and have fun. Like, it's great, but I need that. And if I find that connection, 'cause that's with my partner, but if I find that elsewhere, that's going to affect my relationship here and I'm not gonna risk that.

Another way of framing it is, and this is something I hear often, is we're really struggling as a couple to come together to figure out how to make this work. We heard about this thing called open marriage. What they don't have is that introspection like you do, which is to say, I'm actually kind of— not kind of, very monogamous when it comes to that world. And I know me. And if I were to form that kind of relationship with somebody, I'm going to be more drawn to that than I am to you. And that's going to put our relationship at risk. And that's what, what I've heard a lot of people discover after the fact. Oops, I've grown attached to, caught feelings for whatever. This person's my new primary partner. I'm forgetting this one. And that disintegrates in divorce and all the other good stuff. So, and you're big enough to say, I know me, that's what's gonna happen, dude. So no.

Yes. And letting clients know when they come and they're asking about it, letting them know. And when I know immediately, it makes it super easy. 'Cause as soon as they're like, oh, that would never happen. Yeah. I would never catch feelings. Nope, never happened. Okay, you're not ready for that.

Yep.

Because anytime you are having sex with another person, you can separate sex and feelings. People do it all the time. You're able to, great. That doesn't mean it won't happen. And if you're that quick to throw it out, oh, that would never happen, then you haven't thought enough about it because we need to have a game plan for when that happens. We need to have boundaries and what we both are comfortable with going into this. Like we're writing those out. And like, I have my clients, like, they write it all out. They bring it to me as a list and I'm like, okay, well, I want you both to sign the bottom of them and I want you to tuck them away because you just know it's not a legal document, but you both saw it. You're both reading them over and you're tucking them away. And so y'all know, hey, if you disrespect that boundary and you do something that was not within your idea of what that open relationship looked like for you, that's going to ruin all trust. And if you start catching feelings for someone, typically the rule is you're not talking to that person. Like, hey, I'm feeling myself grow attached to this person. We're going to need to step away from that and we need to focus here for a while like that. Otherwise, you're— it's like a snowball and it's just rolling and it's collecting more snow and you're not going to be able to stop it.

It's one of my standby phrases is one man, one woman takes a lot of work to keep it going and keep things sexy and keep connected. Now all of a sudden you want to introduce other human beings into the mix. Your work just increased exponentially. Illustrate what you just illustrated right there. I caught feelings. Time out. Let's rework on us. That's work. And that's a whole level of complexity. And you think you're— you think everybody's just wired for that? Think again. That's some tough stuff.

And those relationships have the same problems that a monogamous relationship with jealousy— they have the same problems. It's not like those issues go away because they're getting needs met elsewhere. No, it doesn't go away. It looks different, but they're all still there. And it's out in front of you all the time. Not all the time, but you know, when you're engaged in that.