Interview with Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten - "Dr. Psych Mom"

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. Alright everyone, DSO here from DadStartingOver.com, and our guest today is Dr. Samantha Rodman-Whiten. She is a clinical psychologist in a private practice and the founder of DrPsychMom.com. You can listen to her podcast, The Dr. Psych Mom Show, where she discusses parenting and relationships and everything in between, right?

Yes, thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, well, thank you for being on here. Um, this is a real treat for me because I love your stuff, I love your content. And I always tell people, I've interviewed a lot of authors and podcast hosts and stuff, and I always start with how I found you, just so you know. I'm sure that's of interest to you as a business person. But, um, whether you know it or not, but I'm sure you got a feel for it, you have a pretty big male audience.

Yes, that is something I'm proud of.

You have tapped into something. We've had another young lady on here named Suzanne Venker who has another popular podcast. And why she and why you are so popular is because of your— oh, I don't know if politically incorrect is the right term or not— honest, no holds barred, no BS kind of approach to all of this. And you're not afraid to say the common, oh, male perspective on things. And guess what? It's not so bad. It just, it is what it is. And you know, there's two sides to the coin and two sides to the relationship. And a lot of guys hear that and go, ooh. And the fact that it's coming from a woman makes them doubly go, ooh, now I'm gonna really pay attention. It's funny, I've noticed that when on my podcast, I can see, and you know, you can see the stats of what are downloaded and what's the most popular. Two most popular things are if I mention anything about old SEX, that gets a lot of downloads. And if my wife is on the podcast, men love to hear the woman's perspective on things.

That's true.

So you have very much tapped into something. So anyway, um, we have our DSO fraternity group, which is our members-only group, and guys on there talk. We have, um, online discussion forums, and guys get on there and talk, and they often say what book is good to read, what podcast is good to listen to. And it seems to be trends. Suzanne Venkers was the big one GS Youngblood's book was huge. Now yours is the podcast du jour. Everyone is talking about and linking to Dr. Psych Mom. Wow. So there you go.

Yeah, I see that there's— yeah, I see there's different stats on the blog is like, uh, 60 or 70% women that read that or, or more. But the podcast is like more men. I think that men like podcasts more than reading the articles. I think maybe on the commute or I don't really know when, but it seems like they like it a lot more.

The feedback I get from everyone is, I read your— or I listened to your book on Audible. So I put out books, and they all— and it's— men love Audible, they love the audio, and they love the podcast. Yeah, some don't even know that I have actual text articles on the website. It's just a foreign concept to them. They don't have time, they don't go search it out. They're in their car all day, back and forth with the commute. A lot of truckers listen to it. So yeah, it's Audio is very huge for men. Audio is huge. Well, here's the struggle. Um, this is a good struggle, by the way.

Sure.

This topic is the way to try to encompass what it is that I talk about on my website and podcast and so forth. I say everything kind of relationship-y and men. So we talk about sex and marriage and divorce and dating and everything else. Well, a common speech I give to guys that I talk to one-on-one— guys pay me for my time to talk to me is, um, same. Yeah, there you go. Yours is in a far more professional context, um, is I— these guys will tell me, let's say a common thing is, well, I caught my wife having an affair, we had, you know, 2 years of dead bedroom before that, I don't know where to go, what to do. And I say, well, dude, here's the problem. We have an hour and there's about 1,000 different avenues we can go down. We could go down what got you to this mess to begin with, why your wife's doing what she's doing, what to do after divorce, etc., etc. Let's try to condense as much as we can in an hour. So you and I could talk about a myriad of things for hours and hours. So I thought, let's try to condense as much as we can. And, you know, jumping on that whole thing about what's the most popular topic, the old SEX, why don't we talk about sex and marriage?

Go for it.

Um, but even that, when you think about, well, Shit, we could go down about 8 different roads there just talking about sex and marriage. So where to begin? I thought, let's talk about a controversial statement that I have said, and I've heard your stuff and I've read your stuff and I know you also say this and we're not alone in this, but it's still, when I verbalize it, it makes a lot of eyes open wide and ears perk up and men say, oh, okay, that's new. And that is this: when in the confines of a long-term monogamous relationship—

you should have sex even when you don't want to, is that what you're going to say?

No, that is— it is that the female libido, for lack of a better word, sexual desire— well, let's put it this way: when you're in the honeymoon stage and you're just getting to meet and you really click with a person, that is— the knob is turned up to 11, right? You're like, you're both just yahoo. And then after being with each other for— maybe you can maintain that for a period of years, and then you cohabitate, and that knob gets slowly turned down a little bit. And then you say, will you marry me? And the knob gets slowly turned down a little bit more. Then you get married, and it goes down a little bit more. Then you have kids, and for some people, that just slams all the way down to zero.

Sure.

A lot of men interpret this as, oh, wonderful, the old bait and switch. When she got me, when she had me, as soon as she realizes I'm a safe and secure, I'm not going anywhere thing, she Shoo, she can stop playing the act. And I always say to guys, no, it's not necessarily what's happening here. What's happening here is that within the confines of a traditional long-term monogamous relationship, sexual desire within women tends to go down.

Certainly.

You say certainly, but there's a large swath of people.

I don't talk to as many people anymore because, you know, being as I have all of this stuff out, most of the people that are my clients have read my stuff, so they're at least familiar with this. So I rarely get the novice, like, "Oh, I wonder why in my monogamous relationship my wife doesn't want to sleep with me." I don't usually get that as much, but I mean, I do obviously talk to other people that aren't my clients, and yeah, I guess if you are expecting that it's going to maintain, then it would be seen as a bait and switch, and I have seen that people think like that before. Obviously, that's crazy. Crazy because like women are not some sort of sociopathic manipulative like witches that are planning, especially nowadays. I mean, I have so many clients out-earning their husbands, you know. So like what exactly would they be bait and switching them for, you know? Like it doesn't even make any sense really. But that is, of course, men can't understand it because their libido, although it's not the same as it was in the honeymoon stage, it doesn't like die, you know, like it's still alive. So they, they just can't understand it. So they're trying to make sense of it, you know. And the only thing they could think of is there must be some sort of deception.

And so then this begs the question, if we can get people to agree, like, okay, this is just a natural state within this, well then that— what that does is, I guess a lot of women, what they don't appreciate is how crucial sex is for men at a very visceral, almost animalistic level, but also at a bonding with your partner level. We just really feel very disconnected if there's no physical intimacy there. Um, I guess to hear somebody say, you know, when you get married, that's probably— that knob's probably going to get turned down. And in some women, it goes all the way down to zero, and it's going to take some work to crank that up a little bit at a time. A lot of men throw their hands up and say, What exactly am I getting married for then? Which is kind of like, to a lot of women, like, Jesus, are you saying sex is it then for you? I mean, come on. To which a lot of guys go, it's about 95% of it, to be quite honest with you. And I wrote a book called The Dead Bedroom Fix, which is the, the reason a lot of guys find me is because they read that book. And it's all about, you're a man and you're a long-term relationship and sex has gone in the toilet. Oh, what now? So it's a huge issue. And I didn't even go— I've self-published the thing and I've sold 6-figure copies of this thing. This is a huge topic for a lot of people, for a lot of men in particular. Um, it's very, very crucial. So begs the question then, all right, I'm a dude, I've resigned myself to the fact that this is normal, this is natural, this is arguably a healthy thing that I'm seeing here. It's not necessarily unhealthy, horrible thing. How best to navigate this. Um, you talk about, hey ladies, many of you have what's called responsive desire. Once you get going, you're like, oh, now I remember why we did this and why I love this man and why I married him and everything. I get it, this is great. Um, what I have seen is, oh boy, are women very, very resistant to that.

Yes, because there's a whole culture that that would be non-consensual in some way. That's all based on not understanding biology and kind of a real close-minded, you know, uh, almost like victim-centric kind of approach to it where like if a woman doesn't want it so much, then she shouldn't do it, you know. But then what do you do when that comes up against like the hard stop of she's never gonna want it that much, like she's never gonna have the spontaneous desire like ever possibly again. So in that case, what do they do? And so a lot of people just stop having sex if they're going by what the woman says, or they stop having sex unless when she's ovulating or who the hell knows. But yeah, so that would be kind of education about how female biology works is really a paramount focus in couples counseling, especially if if people are both open to any couples counseling that involves sex. And when they're not, then that's usually a big waste of time if the couples counseling does not involve sex and education about these sorts of matters. But even still, all the education doesn't help if the woman still has her mind closed to that idea.

Yes, I shouldn't have to, which I say to people, um, she's right, she doesn't have to do anything. It's her body, it's her brain. She doesn't want to do anything, she doesn't have to. For goodness sake, you're not going to hold a gun to the woman's head. Bingo, thank you very much. You know, it's a two-way street. Well, that's fine. And you could part as friends, shake hands and say, we had a great chapter in our life, it was wonderful, but I could see that you're not willing to work or even break down any of those barriers between the two of us. I have some men that I talk to where the women are so detached that it's— they've jumped right past the sex thing in any kind of intimacy, period. Is just off the table. Um, because if you ask the woman, it's because, well, because I know where that's going to lead, right? Um, as soon as I know he wants to take me out to dance and go to the movies and etc., etc., but I know as soon as we get home, and I know he, he got us a hotel for the weekend away from the kids because I told him it's just being around these kids, like, you know, it just takes my mind out of it. I can't get to that headspace.

She says, oh, you're only taking me somewhere to have sex. Makes sense.

So at some point you have to— exactly. So at some point the woman's gonna have to say, it's a little bit of effort on my part. Um, I recognize that I'm responsive in nature. Let's see what happens now.

Yes. Or of course, I'm certainly not interested in this man at all anymore, if I'm honest with myself, and therefore I'm gonna go let him live his best life and me too. It's funny, like when I was doing couples counseling in COVID, there was women that were so happy when one of them had COVID. They could quarantine. They didn't have to think about it because for 2 weeks he wasn't going to want to touch her, not talk to her, not have like only through text, really, oh, not kiss her. I mean, if that's the case where you, if you feel like that, then it begs the question, as you just say a lot, what are you doing? Yeah, what are you doing being married?

What are you doing with this man? Um, you know, I always say the ideal relationship is one that starts with a holy shit level of attraction and over-the-top sexuality between the two of you. It has to start at that pinnacle of the, the top of the mountain because it's slowly going to be chipping its way down as time and stress and everything. So can you imagine if you start somewhere in the middle of that mountain? It's just right down the toilet from there. So it surprises me how many men I talk to when I say Did you ever go through a really hot and heavy phase in your relationship? And they say, not really.

And they don't see it's a red flag at the time because some of them are very brainwashed to think that. In fact, I've even heard men say, I thought it was good because if it was just up to me, we would be fucking all the time. So, um, you know, she just bring— brought out other things in me and I thought that was really sweet. She had her mind on other things and we you're going to be well-rounded. You know, and they don't see it. So that's why education for young men is incredibly important, in addition to women, you know, like everybody, both genders, all ages.

That she is the yin to my yang, she's the softer, more sedate, she, you know, I'm the bull in the china shop, and I have to be tamed. And that's kind of, that's in the vernacular for a lot of families. When are you going to settle down, young man? And stop dating all these floozies and get you a good girl and settle down and have some kids. Um, it's funny. So we could go on to— I guess a good route for the conversation would be then, what is the— if you're talking to a man and he says, I'm in my early 20s and I'm ready to start finding a wife-to-be, great. What are you looking for? Well, obviously, very important part of it is sexual chemistry long-term between the two of us. So how do we as men make sure that we find a good partner who's going to be receptive to the fact that, hey, this honeymoon phase isn't forever, it's going to take some work down the line? Do we in turn— is it important to look at her mom and dad, for example, the, the wife-to-be's mom and dad, look at their relationship because that was the model for what she saw growing up?

Well, it— to some degree, yes, but it's more important than anything to for you to look for an open-minded partner, and that goes for both genders. So for example, there's many women that come from a very dysfunctional family of origin, but then they have thought about that and they have said, I don't want that. And so maybe they've gone to therapy or they've read books and they've thought, how do I stop myself from becoming that? So the— if even if she has like a happy, affectionate, um, family, parents, but she's never thought about that, that isn't a good sign because who knows, she could be wired real differently from her mother physically, you know, or it's a different generation where women no longer are supposed to have sex, you know. And so, I mean, that's like for real, I'm not even joking. And so like, it really— the primary trait that I would say underlies real happy partnerships is open-mindedness. Like you want a partner that's open to new ideas because she's not even gonna believe you if you say that her sexual desire is gonna attenuate over time. She's not experienced that in her 20s or whatever, second marriage, maybe she has, but in first marriage, certainly not. But somebody who's generally introspective and open-minded will be able to process new ideas as they come and to hold them in consciousness. Whereas somebody who's very rigid. The rigidity. Honestly, more than lack of sex, the reason that I see men leave their wives, um, I mean, obviously, as you know, as you say, most, uh, women initiate divorce, and you link to that a lot. But the— when I do see men that do, it's— some of it is lack of sex, but a lot of it is because the woman's just too anxious and rigid. Like, they just got too sick of it. They didn't want their kids to be raised like that either. And that closed-mindedness is just like they cannot deal with that wall that's up, like a hard stop for everything that they suggest in bed or out of bed.

Yeah, it's a common scenario amongst my readers is they read my book and they will go on this big self-improvement journey, right? Because a lot of men have— men are very good from what I've seen. Maybe I'm a little biased in that this is my audience, but they're very good about recognizing, oh wow, I've really dropped the ball in this relationship. I've gained 60 pounds. I've become this pushover Mr. Nice Guy. I've— I have no leadership qualities anymore, etc., etc. Well, obviously my wife's kind of not very attracted to me in that way. Of course she's not going to want to break down those walls between the two of us, so I'm going to do my part. So they do their part, and then months, if not years down the line, they go, you know, my wife, she's kind of an anxious loser. And they hate to say that.

Yeah, this is kind of what happens. And it happens, of course, in the gender inverse as well. Like, I have a lot of women working on themselves themselves in therapy, really what most happens with, with men, it's more the physical. They'll go on the journey of self-improvement. I'm gonna become a triathlete. I'm gonna drop all this weight. I'm gonna start playing tennis all the time. Why is my wife just sitting on the couch? For women, it's more like, who am I really? Do I want a career change? Like, uh, I've thought about becoming, you know, a different religion, like whatever. And the man is like, why would we do that? We're fine. So like, I think that each gender can be more close-minded in like its own way. But this closed-mindedness is frequently the proximal cause for divorce when one person is open-minded and the other person's closed-minded.

You know, it's interesting that you just— you get— and I agree, that's probably, um, the majority of situations are like what you said. Why can't you, man, come over to me more on the, on the emotional side of things and et cetera? I've seen the opposite quite a bit here where, um, and I can speak from personal experience where women will be, I'm going to join a CrossFit gym. I don't know if you're familiar with the CrossFit world.

Yep.

I don't know what that is, what's going on there, but, uh, it's one of— there's several things that I often joke about. Boy, I hear this a lot. One of the things is my wife likes horses. I don't know why that leads to a lot of drama, but it does. Horsewomen? I don't know. My wife's a nurse, and my wife is into CrossFit.

Um, it seems to be hot people. You show up there and you're bonding with the same hot people every week. You're all cheering each other on. This is probably exact, um, you know, stars aligning for any sort of stepping out, you know.

Yeah. Here's a woman who says, I'm tired of being sick and tired. Um, and her friend says, come to this group. There's no, there's no judgment. There's no anything. You feel safe there. And she's slowly losing 10, 20, 30, 40 pounds, and she feels great. And she's surrounded by all these winners who are all there at 5 in the morning. And then she comes home to Mr. Frumpy Guy. Yeah, but what I've seen though is the kind of the gender flip. That's kind of a, for lack of a better term, kind of a masculine trait. I'm going to work on my body and build it up and so forth. And these men will be, yes, but can we go to marriage counseling? Can we talk about this? I read this book the other day, and a lot of men are very big on pushing this, the thing they just learned, to the wife. Listen to this podcast I just heard the other day, watch this YouTube video. And the wife's like, can we just stop with the Constant trying to work on the relationship. Jesus.

Sure. I think that we're both seeing like there's just kind of 50% of the world is closed-minded, 50% is open, and then you're getting most of the men and I'm getting kind of both.

There you go.

You know, I mean, it's just, it's, it's same. Like so many of my women clients and my men clients, both of them are like, I tried to send my spouse your article on, you know, responsive desire, but you know, they never read it. They never wrote back to me. Like all these wasted emails. That's half the reason I did my podcast. Cause I'm like, Well, maybe you could play for your husband, you know, in the car. Like, maybe you could play for your wife. Some people do. I mean, I'm sure it's considered very passive-aggressive to play my podcast, but yeah. Yeah.

Well, because if you're the, if you're the low libido partner, which from what I've seen tends to be the woman, not always, of course, but tends to be, um, everything that we just talked about is all about, oh, here we go again. Here comes Mr. Trying to Get in My Pants again after I just got done telling him that I'm not in the mood, et cetera, et cetera. Quit pushing me. He's like, yeah, but Listen to this podcast about low libido and responsive desires. Like, oh Jesus. But you're right.

It's so interesting cuz it's not even about sex. You know, there's so many men would be happy if they were even cuddling or if they were even touching or if they were making out or like, it doesn't, it's not even at all. Cuz I say to men all the time, so would you leave if she had a disorder that she, um, had surgery on her vagina, she couldn't have sex with you for 6 months? They say, of course not. Of course no man would leave his wife for no sex for 6 months cuz she has an actual reason. What they find crazy-making is there's no reason. She says, we're fine. And she even says, we may do it tonight. And then tonight never happens, ever.

Okay. So here's this guy trying to get his wife to be more open, trying to come to his side to empathize with him. Like, this isn't all about sex. I think what you just hit on was, was a key point there. And what I call it is validation. Yes, all of, all of those little things that a woman does— let me hold your hand, let me snuggle up to you on the couch and everything— shows you're still my man and you still got it. And that is everything to men, everything, everything. And unconsciously, women are very fine-tuned validating machines early on in the relationship. They— what's your favorite drink? I'll buy that drink for you. Yes, I'll go to that concert with you. What whatever. They can morph themselves to kind of take the shape of the new container, which is their new boyfriend. And, uh, that's— men just, we get energized by that. And every little thing is whatever you want, boyfriend that I'm so madly in love with. And, uh, it's heartbreaking to see that slowly but surely get turned down. And what a lot of women don't realize is it doesn't take much to crank that knob back up. We're not talking full-blown pornography type sex here, folks. We're just talking about the very basic like little validating things. That's huge for a lot of guys, and women don't realize that. Um, simple little text message, thinking about you, handsome.

A lot of it, but they are so mad at a certain point, and when they are mad, then it all ends because then they're like, I don't want to do anything nice. The resentment, always up my ass for this. Yeah. And then like, it's not like They don't—

it—

because always they're nice on the guy's birthday, you know, then they turn it back. So they obviously know what to do. It's really bad if you're not even getting birthday sex, you know, those people in their own category. But there's all these people that do get birthday sex and they get sex if they're really nice and this and that, but the woman is just so mad on a daily basis that she just don't want to do the nice little thing.

When it's that bad, do you have a feel for what the success rate is for a man that finally says I've tried all I can. I'm really trying here. I'm struggling. You know, I often say to men, you want to get to the point where you will sit down with the marriage counselor, and the marriage counselor will start blurting off very boilerplate stuff like, you know, you need to get away from the children more, and you need— and the guy goes, I've asked my wife out on a date every weekend for the past 2 years. I've planned things away. And he goes, well, very good. Well, you know, you need to kind of help out around the house more. A lot of husbands 'No, let me stop you there. I help out. I do 70% of the housework, etc.' 'Okay, well, you know, and sometimes we let ourselves go.' And that guy says, 'I've lost 50 pounds. I'm in the best shape of my life.' He just keeps knocking things off the checklist. And eventually you want the marriage counselor to turn to— turn to the wife and say, 'Sweetheart, what the hell's wrong with you? This guy's trying.

Do you not want to try or not?' Yeah, but I mean, there are of course other reasons. I mean, the guy of the type that you're talking about frequently comes off like an asshole. He really does. He comes off like what I call in my writing Mr. Perfect and his crazy wife. So if you really are the guy— I mean, there's a whole— there's a bell curve distribution of everything. So there's some guys that are really trying from their best self, but there's also some guys that are just coming in there slamming through the housework. I'm super dad, I'm super husband, look at me drop my 100 pounds here, I'm gonna bench press you and she's like, oh, just shut up, you know? Because this guy's kind of got to work on a little bit of humility too. There are a lot of guys that get into like your podcast, like other podcasts like yours, and they get real high on life, and it's a little indistinguishable from being really arrogant because they did just drop 50 pounds, they do— they are in the best shape of their life, and the girl at CrossFit is winking at them, and then they do come off at home like a bit of an asshole. So So there is, of course, a little bit of a balance there. And frequently, if he hears some more— with women that are well-intentioned and really want to stay in the relationship, if they do go to couples counseling, it's not going to be right away. So you should tell that to your viewers. It is not going to be right away that there's any sort of change. Men like a change like that.

Yes. Yeah.

They need to bond, they need to open up, and maybe after like 3, 6 months, then they're willing to say, okay, maybe I'll try to have sex when I don't want to and understand responsive desire. But he has to be open to hearing about both of how they grew up and all their expectations about marriage and everything that you— he has to be open to hearing it and he has to show some humility because a lot of the guys in your situation of your followers are super proactive and they get a little too proactive. And then the woman's like, oh yeah, oh look, Mr. Perfect here running his triathlon, cool, fuck you. You know, they don't want to really even hear about it.

Mm-hmm. You know, because I think to those guys' point, they just hope that their wife is just like, well, look at Mr. Winner here. I know, hey, you know, hey ladies, this is my husband, look at this, huh? And then that, that the woman will validate the hell out of them and go Yeah, I'm on board. Well, there's a little bit more to it than that. I often tell guys, and any guys that have worked with me, I will say you're gonna have to be patient. Yes, yes, I know. We talked to one guy on our group who said only after a month of working on some stuff everything just changed instantly. That's super rare. There's just so many— there's so many resentments built in. There's so much baggage. She brings baggage to the table, you bring baggage. All that implodes and mixes all together. Now you have 3 kids, one of the kids is special needs, she got fired from her job. Just all these things just, you know, right? Come on, he's very— and all of a sudden you're just like, I lost 50 pounds, isn't that enough? No, it's going to take some work.

And it's worse. You know how many guys come in and say, I lost 50 pounds, my wife wants to have less sex with me? I had a blog on my, um, a post on my blog like that. That's what the guy wrote in. That guy ended up getting divorced, by the way. The guy that wrote that in, if I lick you to it. But it was because like she was, she was like, oh great, cool. Like, you know when men and women go on a diet together, it's like always so depressing for the woman. It's like within 2 weeks he's like gained like 10 pounds of muscle, he's lost testosterone. Yeah, yeah, she like gains 10 pounds. Like it's like very, it's terrible for the woman. So yeah, there is a balance between being like an alpha male like men think that women want, but James Bond, and then actually being like also a nice guy still, you know, a sweet and supportive guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And be able to—

versus the provider thing.

Yeah, be able to empathize with her and her situation and realize where it is she's coming from. Um, you know what I found, which is interesting, you talked about a lot of women going to therapy and stuff. What I have seen, um, through talking to my guys is their wife is very, very resistant to that. Um, and that it doesn't even need to involve him at all. That, you know, a lot of men that I talk to, when I say, well, you're only one half of the equation, dude, you're talking about all these great things you're doing, um, she's the other half of the equation. What kind of baggage does she bring to the table? And I will hear some pretty horrible stuff.

Listen, the women— yeah, she was abused, she was sexually abused and all this.

And then the follow-up to that is, I always say to men, Um, some of the best people I've ever known in my life have been through some horrible shit in their life, but they say, I've learned from it, I got help with it, and I did everything to make sure that I don't reenact all that horrible shit that happened to me in childhood. What you mentioned earlier, um, unfortunately— oh my gosh, that's so rare. Usually it's just la la la, I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to think about it.

You see women that don't really want to have sex. I mean, so, so as, as you said before, like, there's plenty of guys who did never had that like real high, hot and heavy honeymoon Moon stage, those guys, if they look back clearly, they were with an emotionally avoidant woman from the beginning. And emotional avoidance goes along with sex avoidance. Yes, there's a main effect of lowered libido within monogamy. However, again, there's a normal distribution. And when it just really totally goes away is usually when either partner— now about a third of my couples, the man is the lower libido. So in whichever, um, whichever gender, the people who really never were really that into sex are also usually never— not really that into emotion. They're not that into vulnerability and intimacy. That's the point. They are scared of intimacy. And therapy is intimate. That's an intimate relationship where you're talking about yourself and your life in the past in a way that could be uncomfortable. So yes, people— the people that shy away from therapy are usually usually people that shy away from intimacy, emotional or physical, you know.

Yeah, very good point. Very good point. And it surprises me how many women have that wall and they're not emotionally open or available in any way, shape, or form. And just to say, you know, the husband saying, you have these issues, you often bring up these issues, you often bring up your past to me. What I found is that these women are pretty open about it. Like, let me tell you about this horrible experience with my stepfather. Let me tell you about this. Let And the man's just like, wow, have you ever talked to anybody about that? Well, eff you. Okay, I guess, I guess we're not talking about that. And the men will put the line in the sand and say, it's been years. We're disconnected. Everything's been bad. You keep bringing up this horribleness of your childhood. You've never dealt with it. I'm here for you. I love you. You need to get some help with this. What do you say? And oftentimes the woman will be saying no. Yeah, you're going to break up our family for this. Absolutely. All right. It is what it is. And that's very tough for men. Um, that's after months, if not years, of trying and trying and trying on the man's part. And then finally he says enough's enough.

Um, it's very frustrating for people whose spouse will not get help.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just frustrating thing.

Interesting. You mentioned, you said one-third of your patient population are men that are considered the low libido. Do you have factors you think that contribute to that? Pornography, low testosterone?

Pornography is terrible, low testosterone. I have actually— there's many guys that I'm like, have you ever got your testosterone evaluated? And they go and they're like, oh. Low T is real big for men who have low libido. The other one, usually for men that have no libido, is past trauma. If there has been an abuse history, if there is like You know, if they have been— it doesn't even have to be sexual trauma. If there was a lot of physical abuse, emotional abuse, then that can really burrow its way into your self-esteem and just make it hard to be vulnerable at all. Um, but also depression. Depression can be, you know, a real libido killer for especially men, you know, compared to what they usually are. I mean, there, there's a lot— stress. But overall, like Oh, and also the one where the man's not really attracted to the woman. That's kind of a big one too. But they don't want to admit that. And really, we cannot kind of talk about that openly unless I get the guy individually.

You just hit on a big point there. I will often hear from men— how interesting this is— they will just go on and just read off a menu of stuff that I don't like about my wife. Yeah, it bothers me that she's very heavy and she doesn't want to do anything about it. Yes, she's very depressed and she will never get off the couch no matter what I do. Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, um, I will hit them with, so what exactly is it you want? Why are we talking? And the man will say, well, obviously, obviously because I want more sex. It's like, you want more sex from the woman that you just painted in the most horrible way imaginable to me? Don't you think that she picks up on the fact that that's what you think of her? Because obviously that's kind of what she thinks of herself. And yet here you are saying So we're gonna do it or not? It's like, that doesn't compute. And then I will often ask these guys, do you even like your wife? And I know it's a problem when I get that 10-second pause. That's bad. They don't eat. So to a lot of men listening to this, you're struggling and you're really wanting to— have you lost a connection to your wife that is more serious, sinister? I don't know what the term is. Than just me want more sex. That's not just it. You have lost attraction.

I think that sometimes on some level they think to themselves that if she was really amazing in bed, maybe it would—

That would make up for all of that other stuff.

Make up for this stuff, but it doesn't because that's never gonna happen because you're looking at her sideways because you think that she's a fat sloth. So she's not exactly— that's not going to stoke her fire. To put on lingerie for you. You know, like on my podcast, I had a guy who said he won't call his wife beautiful because she's heavy. So if he calls her beautiful, he thinks that that is reinforcing that it's okay that she's heavy. So he'll just say she's hot or sexy.

But it's the opposite. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you make her feel good about herself and you make her feel comfortable— there you go— she's way more apt to jump on board the fitness train with you and eating healthy if she's Feels good, but if she doesn't, you'll get the— it's funny how that works. It's the exact opposite, and that goes against the old male brain of 1 1 2. It's very simple math. She's fat, why would I call her beautiful? You know, she's this— stop eating so much. It's very simple. Well, no, it's not so simple. It's a very complex issue of emotions and physical and everything else. What we're talking about in a roundabout way— tell me if you agree with me— A lot of people don't. This marriage thing ain't so easy, easy in quotes. So when I listen to a lot of guys and they tell me this pretty horrible baggage that they bring to the relationship, that the wife brings to the relationship, etc., etc. Tell me how you and your wife met. I just, I knocked her up by accident after our third date. She was the first woman to ever have sex with me. We dated for 6 months and got married, et cetera, et cetera. Tell me, why is it you got married? And very often the answer is, it's just what you do.

I don't know.

That's all the thought they put into it. It's a cultural thing. My mom and dad got married. My grandma and grandpa got married. It's just what you do. You meet a girl. Hey, you seem to like me well enough. After doing this for so many years, my grand epiphany, if you will, is, you know, This marriage thing, at least the way we define it today, it ain't for everybody. At least not forever. At least not for everybody right now in your life. You know, you're a 25-year-old and you've got the world ahead of you. You may be ready when you're 35. You may be ready when you're 40. You're more mature, you're more whatever. You've worked out a lot of issues in your life, and now you'll be a good partner. Now you're ready to be. A lot of people hear me say that and go, ooh, No, if we— and this is kind of a big, very big picture thing— if we put that narrative out there that marriage ain't necessarily for everybody, society as a whole will crumble.

Well, I certainly don't think that. I mean, I don't— I honestly don't think as many people are getting married now, and I don't think that it's going to keep dropping and dropping. And I don't think that's bad necessarily, because then there's less children and unhappy marriages.

Thank you. Exactly. Thank you very much.

Yes, an unhappy marriage is the worst environment for a child. And so if people are getting married to have kids because they don't really even like the person, it's just what you do and they're on autopilot. That's not good for anybody. Plus, men especially— I'm sure you speak to a lot of your guys— when they get into their 40s and they're back on the dating market, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. They're getting laid more than they know what to do with. But when they were 20, they couldn't find a woman to save their lives. Yeah, so you're a lot— the longer you wait as a man, the better you are. There is so many more women. You know yourself better. You're making money. You have a job. You're confident. You know yourself. You have to talk about men in their 20s, they are so scared. It's like what I call the golden vagina syndrome. It's like, oh my God, it's a woman! Oh, am I gonna do— I gotta keep her! Maybe I can marry her, then I keep her forever. That is not how you want to make a long-term Your most important decision.

Thank you. And it always surprises me what I hear coming out of so many men's mouths is, you know, when they tell me they want to hang on to their spouse who they caught cheating for the 6th or 7th time, that, um, she's on heroin and yada yada and she won't get help. And I'm like, what is it that keeps you attached to this woman so much? And very often, as a psychologist, you know this, a lot of their past trauma and childhood and stuff and who they attach to and who they're attracted to and codependency and all the other stuff. But what comes out a lot of their mouths is— here's a 36-year-old guy going through this, he's like, I'm not getting any younger.

It's like, yeah, people say that when they're like in their late 20s.

It's like, that doesn't apply to you, dude. You have your whole world ahead of you. I was like, I know 50-some-year-old men who are just dating like crazy and just beautiful women, and they're having the time of their life.

Yeah, it's also cognitive dissonance reduction. People don't want to say that they made a bad decision. People do not want to be like, yeah, when I was 22, that was the worst fucking decision I ever made was to marry this woman. So then they hold on to it. They forget—

I'm gonna make this work.

Yeah, it's like they'll hold on to it through hell and high water. And a lot of those guys end up just increasingly miserable over the years, but still absolutely thinking that the marriage was the right choice because they did it. So So they have to kind of retrospectively say it was good. It was not a good choice.

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, a big chunk of my readership and membership in the group, I can tell, we don't— we keep politics out of it. We're pretty good about keeping politics out of the group. But I can tell by virtue of a lot of the things said, a lot of these men would be under the umbrella of traditional conservative guys. We have a lot of Midwestern guys and so forth.

Yes.

And very often, I say, they love to lean on the crutch of "Hey, I made my vows. I'm not about to call this quits. I'm a Christian." Several men from Jerusalem that I've talked to, some really strict Muslim men, who say, "By virtue of my faith, I can't just say, call it quits. Yes, I know she cheated 6, 7, 8 times. Yes, I know I caught her doing all this horribleness, but I can't just walk away. I made vows and I want to make this work." and, um, they'll point to their mother and father. My mom and dad went through some issues. My mom had a long-term affair. They made it work.

Yeah, well, that's exactly why they're doing that. And a lot of those men, by the way, have been the surrogate spouse emotionally to their mother through all the years of their childhood. So they learn that, oh, I gotta rescue a woman. I've been doing it since I was 7 years old. Here, just another one down the pike. And so now I'm gonna do it for the rest of my my life. A lot of those men are in that role of a parentified child. That's what it's called when a child is in the role of a parent to a very dependent, uh, fragile mother who had whether, uh, depression, anxiety, alcoholism, schizophrenia. It could be anything. Borderline personality. I mean, especially adult children of narcissistic mothers.

They—

these men stay. The woman shits on them, they stay with her even faster.

Like, they just they hang on tighter and tighter.

Take care of a woman. And the ultimate fantasy is to rescue the woman in a way they could never rescue their mother, and to finally be good enough that she's healed. And she's never gonna be healed.

No, never, never. You know, there was a, um, a disturbing experiment, a science experiment I saw. It was a little video. It's like an old black and white video of a little baby monkey. I can't remember what—

yes. —this one.

Yeah, hooked up to the machine, and the machine would basically hit it with a little rubber mallet. Yeah, and it would knock the baby monkey across the cage. And the more abuse that little baby monkey got, the more attached it was to the machine. The machine was just like a little swath of carpet. That's all it knew ever since it was born. And so they found like, wow, it's just a natural instinct. The more we're pushed away as little kids, the more we want to attach. And we bring that into adulthood.

Preoccupied attachment. And a lot of your readers should read the book Attached. A lot of people like that book Attached.

There you go. Very good. So as you can see, we've already gone down 12 different roads, and just with the grand topic of sex and marriage. Sure, it's huge. It's, it's a deep ocean we're jumping into. It's not so easy as just, hey, uh, the woman should just put out and that's all there is to it. A lot of guys have that mindset of, I work 60, 70 hours a week. She said, I do in the chapel. And I don't understand, all I want is 2 times a week, she should just do that. There's some point to that. But to me and to others, we just go, there's a lot more to it, dude, than that. This is a very, like we said, it's a very deep issue here. There's a lot more to it than that. And I understand you both made vows. But go ahead, I'm sorry.

Well, I was gonna say, that's all well and good if the woman believes that. And a lot more women used to believe that. That used to be part of the marital contract that was implicit, and women didn't used to like kind of mind that. That was like, um, a thing that we do. Maybe your libido did go down, but of course we still have sex, we're married. There was more of that. Nowadays there's a lot less of that, you know. There's a lot fewer women that believe that sex is part of the marital contract. So when you're going back to what do people think that they should talk about or how to find the right partner, I mean, talking about your expectations for marriage is like major, you know, because a lot of the guys that you're talking to, like, I'm sure none of them have asked, but they could picture that if they said to their wife back in the day, um, so what do you think, what if your libido did go down, would we have sex? The woman would not say yes, she would say no. I would think like if she had been actually directly asked, she would say, well, no, of course Of course not, but that doesn't matter cuz my libido's gonna stay up. But if a man does some research, she's like, well, she doesn't know that it's gonna go down. And she literally just said we wouldn't have sex. Mm-hmm. Like, it's funny, like how many men do not ask their girlfriends difficult questions. A, they don't like conflict, but B, they're putting the princess on a pedestal. Yeah. You know, and they don't wanna think anything bad about her. It's the same bull in the china shop thing you were just talking about. Oh, well, of course, you know, she thinks what she thinks. I'm sure she'll change. I'm sure she'll grow. I'm sure she would never really deny me. Bullshit. She would say it if you asked her.

Yep, yep, exactly right.

You know, communication is so key. I talk to people all the time about direct communication within the dating stage, you know.

Yep, hugely important. You know, it sounds so clichéd— communication, communication, communication. Men that I talk to take that in the wrong direction though, and they take it to a very pitiful kind of needy. So example, we haven't had sex in 6 months. The man will sit down with the woman and go, is it that you just don't love me? You don't want me? What's wrong with me? Why won't you do that? Is it your hormones? What's wrong with you? Etc., etc. The woman's like, this isn't the— a grand— a better version of the talk is something to the effect of, I love you. That's why I made vows with you. That's why I married with you. I want to be with you until the day I die. But obviously we're disconnected here. Then can you work with me to bridge that gap? And date again. And no, and just so you know, I often tell men to say this, just so you know, I don't mean let's jump into bed right this moment, because I don't want a mannequin that just lays there and says hurry up. That's not— we need to get reconnected again before we do that. So I don't want you to think I'm just doing this to get my needs met. I can take care of myself if I need to in that way. I don't want to do that. I want us to get back together again and be a couple again and so forth.

That's nice for women that are not totally That's nice for nice women, but they're not totally shut down. Yeah, if they're— there's also women that, by the way, um, respond to a super dominant approach that men don't want to take because they're scared to take it because they don't want to be thought of that they're doing something bad or chauvinistic. Yeah, there are a lot of women that will respond to the man being like, um, you know, I will not have sex with you if that's how you're acting. And I say that to my male clients. I say, if she does the thing where she lays like a starfish, just flip the script.

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I tell men.

No, say, I don't want to do it like this. Tell me when you're in the mood. This isn't working. Thank you. If you do that enough, the woman gets really weirded out because she starts to think he like must have something else going on if he doesn't want to have the starfish sex. So then frequently she'll initiate something else or bring out the big, you know, the bells and whistles that she did. Sure. There you go. Weirds them out if you say no to the starfish sex. Yep. In a positive way.

I'm glad to hear you say that. I put that in my book, is a lot of men say, what if I pick up on the fact that this is pity sex and I can see in her face and in her mannerisms that she's not into it? And I say, what an awesome thing it would be if your, if your husband were to say, I can see you're not into it, and sweetheart, I'm a big boy, that's okay. Yeah, right. Really, we could, we could just watch TV tonight, that's cool. And she'll be like, but I know you want it. So let's just do it. No, no, that's cool. I would much rather you be really into it. Let's wait till next weekend when we go out and etc. And she will respect you more like, oh, all right. And you're right, it will, it will light a little bit of fire under that little anxiety of weird. Totally.

She'll be like, where else is he getting it from?

Is it that? Is it that blonde secretary at work?

Yeah. When I'm in couples counseling with people, I say to them, man, you should stop masturbating. I don't like that idea of the outlet. The outlet does not help anything. The outlet makes him think that this is a less urgent situation than it is because he gets used to 10 PM, okay, I jerk off. No, what if you don't? Then you're gonna start to really realize pretty quick that you're in a dire situation. And the woman, frequently the woman has this like, um, she's soothed by the idea that he jerks off because she thinks it's the same thing in her mind.

He takes care of himself.

Fine, you know. So if I tell him to stop, she gets real weirded out because then she's like, uh, if he's listening, he hasn't got off in 2 weeks either. What's happening? What's he gonna go do? Yeah, which is— people did not used to masturbate in marriage. I mean, you're, you're, you know, your constituency of the conservatives know this, that it's not supposed to be something that you do as a married man, or in general you're like not supposed to as a religious So fine, when you're single, jerk off all you want. But once you're married, I don't think it's doing anybody any favors. Not the women either, 'cause there's a big one. Yeah. Oh, get her in touch with her body. She's in touch with her body. Now she prefers the vibrator and she'll do it at night for 30 seconds and go right to sleep and not involve you at all. So if there is anything less than a good sex life, nobody should be masturbating. And quite honestly, once you get to your 30s and beyond, if you do have a good sex life, nobody should be masturbating either. Either, because you probably can save it and be happier.

Yeah, get the energy out in other ways. Yeah. And you talk about with men and masturbation, uh, nowadays what that means is pornography because it's so readily available and so free. And that has a whole other host of issues of is— why is that a bad thing necessarily, that a man is looking at, you know, 19 and 20-year-old perfect women?

Yeah, he wants anything, any search term. Your wife is never going to be the equivalent of that. And many women are— yeah, many women are very weirded out knowing that he's looking at that.

It's a pornography— pornography is an interesting, insidious— and I'm not a, a, I'm not a very socially conservative guy by any means. Uh, I think pornography can be something that you utilize as a couple together. It can be a sexy addition to the relationship, and it can be a little kinky thing you do together. Um, but, uh, I often say to men, it's It— having sex with a woman is supposed to be, you meet each other, you both click, you talk, you click at a physical level, at an emotional level, intellectual level, and you get to know each other to the point where you're both comfortable enough to take your clothes off and do the, the most intimate of deeds. So that's a kind of a drawn-out process, sometimes not so much. But porn is click, click, done, and it just short-circuits the entire process.

Any work too. So when men, especially young men— there was some terrifying study years ago that like some large percent of young men would rather watch porn than go have sex. Crazy. Like, you would think that that would never happen, but dude, it used to be porn like this. It's basically like virtual reality at this point. So for men that have any social anxiety at all, the idea of going talking to a woman in a bar when instead you could pretend that these 3 women and the yak or whatever you're Googled is doing it for you.

Yeah, I mean, I could pull up to— I could pull up to McDonald's, spend $5, and have a hamburger in about a second. Or I can go buy the ingredients at the grocery store, come home, cook it. That's how they're thinking about it. Yeah, it's— that's too much trouble. And who has time for that? And I got video games to play.

And also, I never realized before I was working in the field for long enough that men actually think sex works like porn. I thought that was a myth. So women don't believe that's true until you talk to as many guys that tell you if they really do think it works like porn. That is shocking to a woman, that really they think that a woman can come that fast. Oh, I see. That type of stimulation, she's going to be that excited, make those noises. Oh my God, it's so— it's so interesting how many men I talk to, they're super high achieving, super smart, they're like in their 30s, and I'm like, you know it never ever is like that, right? And they're like, well no, I mean, I know women's never gonna be that hot. I'm like, no, no, none of that is like how it really is. Unless a woman wants to give you a treat and act like that, that's never how a woman has an orgasm, not ever ever. They're like, really? What are the differences? And then I enumerate them. But yes, porn is terrible for teaching men sex. And a lot of men use it to teach them sex. Terrible. It's a good idea for women to watch some porn to learn what to give a man on a special occasion, but it's— it doesn't have anything to do with what a man should do for sex. They don't have any porn where it's like a man going down on a woman for 20 minutes after they have a deep conversation, and for the first 19 of those minutes you think she might have died, and then in the last minute she has an orgasm. Nobody's watching that video, but plenty of men are having that in their life, and that's like the only way their wife gets off. They have no idea because all they watch is the woman who you lick her and, oh my God, she has 20 orgasms in a row. No, that's not real. Smart guys think this. Some of your listeners and watchers—

oh, I'm sure. But I tell you, uh, it surprised me how, um, how little experience men have with women prior to marriage. You know, yes. Yeah.

And building on that, my favorite topic to talk about for a male audience is all these men think that these women that they slept with before their wife were having orgasms. So sorry to tell them. I have otherwise very intelligent men that are like, oh no, I know, I know. I'm like, how do you know? And meanwhile, I could get a couple in two individual sessions and she's like No, I barely ever have an orgasm. He's like, well, at least I'm grateful that she has an orgasm every time. It's like, you don't know shit. You know, women know how to fake pretty good. It's not like the idea of a muscle contraction is rocket science. So, you know, it's like When Harry Met Sally, but women are way better than that. So what I entreat men to consider as a thought experiment is why don't you go based on that none of them ever had an orgasm before your wife and go into it assuming assuming you need to learn it from the ground up, and you do with every individual woman anyway. But a lot of men have this hubris coming from these episodes in college where I tell them they're all auditioning to be Mrs. whatever your name is. So every woman you banged in college was auditioning to be Mrs. Ralph. So sure, every prospective Mrs. Ralph was coming the minute you looked at her. Has nothing to do with reality.

It's not fair. It's not fair to compare— and this is a great lead into my next question— it's not fair to compare the energy, the act, if you will, the uber-validation, all that other stuff that happens in a brand new one-night stand, new relationship, your fling of 6 months. That is a completely different energy than wife, 3 kids, mortgage. Oh yeah, I mean, those are completely different energies. But I tell you, on both sides, every newly divorced person I can tell you this, when you get a taste of that new relationship energy all over again after being in a ho-hum relationship for 15, 20 years, which I can raise my hand and say, there you go, yeah. And I've heard plenty of men saying, now that I've had a taste for that again by virtue of dating and meeting some pretty women, they find me handsome, et cetera, et cetera, I can't go back. There's no way I can go back the, that old, uh, yeah, domestic.

95% of them end up remarried.

Yeah, they do, don't they? Yeah, there's that drive to pair bond and go through life with somebody.

Yeah, for real. Yeah, I mean, that's something that you can't eradicate in humans. But hopefully in the second go-round, they're at least drawn to the women. They've done some introspection and they're drawn to the women. What I always say, actually, as a pragmatic tip for your followers is, yeah, everybody's sex drive's gonna go down over time. That's a female. But if you get a woman with a physical touch love language, then you got your best chances. So a woman that you see as a big cuddler, hugger, and kisser all the time, you got the best chance with that woman for— in, in like, in a first marriage, people don't know shit. But in a second marriage, at least go for the woman that herself likes physical touch, because even when her sex drive is down, she's still gonna want to do the cuddling and all that kind of stuff that can lead sex. How much—

how pliable do you think the love languages are in terms of— zero, goose egg, none. Really? So you haven't, you haven't seen where a woman will say to a husband, let's say for example, she's just really not into the husband through— she never has been, or she's resentments have built up, and he goes to give the hug and she does the old— and she will say, you know, I took a test and my love language is physical touch. Ain't it, sweetheart? But then divorce happens, etc., etc., and she just sees a new man and she says, you know what, I don't mind him touching me.

Or he doesn't mind him for 18 months to 2 years because that's a period of limerence that's evolutionarily mediated. And if he fasts— because that's as long as it takes to meet a man, get pregnant, have a baby, and finish nursing the baby while he brings food and stuff. And then while baby's weaned, man can go. So if he fasts you fast forward 5 years into his ex-wife's new relationship, that guy is gonna be in a desert as well.

So given that, that limerence, new relationship energy, honeymoon stage, whatever we wanna call it, is not the quote real, if you wanna call it that, that's not a good basis for what's this person gonna be like as a long-term partner 20 years down the line.

That ain't it. Book, book.

Yeah, so given that, is there a recommended time period courtship of dating, so we can get a glimpse of the real her. 3, 4 years, 5 years.

No, because the limerence stage, which is a psychological word for the infatuation stage, can exist until uncertainty is resolved. So definitionally until the wedding night. Definitionally. There you go. Keep it going, or for as long as until she's like humiliated by the fact you won't propose to her, and then she emotionally checks out.

So I think, yeah, I think this is insanely interesting, and I love talking about this, but some men listen to this and go, oh, holy shit, excuse me, what? Um, then why should I get married? That's how important that uber validation, limerence state, uber sexuality, all that stuff is to a man. You know, like I say, when a man is divorced and he's freshly— he goes, I'm not getting rid of this. Then he's like, why should I marry again?

So what I say to those men is the following: A, 33% of the women who have divorced, from my estimate and from some statistics I have read, well, not just out of divorce, but in relationships, are the higher sex drive partner. So wouldn't it be a wonderful state of events for a man who had been in a sexless marriage to pair up with a woman who's had been in a sexless marriage or who didn't get enough hugs and kisses and love in her, in her physical touch love language. That's the ideal state. And I see this sometimes in second marriages as two people that had felt very physically lonely get together. The second best is just a woman with a physical touch love language that you know is going to hug you and kiss you and want back rubs and want to touch. These men here are offering their wives back rubs and the woman says no. I'm sure a lot of your followers, you know, it's a sad situation because she just hates touch. What the hell are you gonna do with a woman who just hates touch? Except get into a time machine and say forget it.

So she's all touched out by the kids all day.

All touched out can resolve. And also breastfeeding actually changes your hormones into menopause. Oh yeah. So that can remit. But if I'm talking about the guys, frequently when men do not leave women with— or, and women don't leave men when the kids are real little. But when they hit school age, that's when you could tell what it's going to be like for the the rest of your life. Mm-hmm. If that's not good, go to couples counseling, slash, leave. Yeah, interesting. And the fact that— I agree with you 100%.

And you know, we're— there is a large population of people out there that listen to this and say, okay, so you're saying that when you enter into this long-term domesticity and comfort and so forth, so forth, that it, it's known to reduce that sexual sexual desire and the activity between the couple, usually initiated by the woman, the downturn. Well, there's a solution to this, and that is this thing called maybe polyamory or swinging, open relationships. In other words, keep that Limerence holy shit level of sexual desire, like keep lighting the fire, light the fire, light the fire, light the fire. Um, your thoughts on that?

Some people do that. Some men in particular want to do that. Well, you're talking So polyamory, like, she could go and have that whole new relationship energy with another guy, but that usually does not make the husband that happy unless he's off having his fun with another woman. So like, he could do that, but the most of the relationships I see like that don't last because then kind of after a while, why are we married? We're each kind of dating separately. But, um, what a lot of the men like to fantasize about is the hot wife things. The woman goes out for somebody else and then she comes back all excited Sometimes this works, but usually she's all excited about the guy she just had sex with, you know. So that doesn't really seem to me to— some people it can work. There was some New York Times article about like 7 couples that have been doing polyamory for like 20 years. Cool, that's great, but I think that they're outliers. I think that exactly, you know, generally if the goal is to amplify the union, like introducing some new penis to her, I mean, how this make any sense, right? She's just gonna like the new penis, good job.

But yeah, yeah, it's, um, yeah, the fact that I think a lot of men in that situation eventually come to terms with the fact of, oh, my wife is back and she's sexier than ever solely because we have another guy, another guy. So what does that make me? It basically makes me a safe, comfortable home base to come home to. Yeah, the ATM, the comfort that— well, in a lot of cases with the, with the guy being the stay-at-home husband, it's, uh, he's just the comfort. He's just all that domesticity and everything she always wanted, but the fire is not there anymore. But it is with that guy and that guy and that guy, right?

Now there are some people, but these people were kinky before. Like, if you introduce this idea to, like, basically a woman who's monogamous in her heart and you introduce, oh hey, look over there, it's Sven, isn't he hot? She's your compare bond to Sven because she's a pair bonder. But if there's people who meet like on a lifestyle website, they're like in, you know, what's that place in Jamaica, whatever that place is, and they're like all in their lifestyle resort and they meet and they decide this is what we are going to do for our life, cool, maybe you will. But for a monogamous man in like Texas who goes to church to decide that this the way that he's going to make his wife like him again? I don't think so. I think that he would be much better off with couples counseling that focuses also on the sex piece, which is missing so much.

I had a guy who reached out to me and said, um, they did— his wife came to him and said, hey, how about open marriage? Which from what I've seen about 90% of the time means I've kind of already started forming a relationship with another man. Can you absolve me of this guilt? And, and the wom— And the women are smart and they will say, "And by the way, you know what this means? You can go out and have other women too." And the man's like, "Ooh, I didn't think about that." And what happens is he gets next to nothing and she's off having the time of her life. And one guy said the wife came back and said, "I've been seeing John over here, you know?" "Yeah." "And I think I want to be with him from now on. I'm sorry, this just happened." But I thought we were in an open relationship. He said, well, the thing is that John doesn't believe in open relationships, so we can't continue on in that. So basically, pair bonded with a new guy.

Yeah, pair bonded with a new guy. And what is interesting is that all those guys that tried the open marriage in their 40s and they get nothing, because that if they were single, they'd be getting a lot. So that's an interesting thing. If those guys are like trying to test Ron in some way, like How am I gonna do on the dating market? As soon as you have ethically non-monogamous in your relation, in, in your profile, all those hot young, uh, 20 girls, they don't want you. That's like gross to them. But as soon as you're actually single, have at it. A lot of them will find you attractive again. So it's not a good test run. Whereas for a woman, if she writes ethically non-monogamous, the door breaks down. The guys are trying to get in for no strings attached sex. Who doesn't want that? Right, different world.

Yeah, different world completely. Well, it's been great. It's— well, it's been over an hour now. Uh, anything we need to plug? Drpsychmom.com. Drpsych.com. Drpsychmom.

Yes, Drpsychmom, that is my website. Of course, people can also come and talk to me for individual therapy or counseling. Um, they could find my contact information and some samantharodman@gmail.com, but they could find that on my website. And also wherever you listen to podcasts, I'm on Spotify, Apple, everywhere with the Dr. Psych Mom Show. So if you subscribe to that, I also accept a lot of, um, suggested topics. I'm not fancy like you, it's just me talking for 20 minutes. I've never had a guest. If I do, I'll get you on, but it's just easy to just do it in my car and just while I'm waiting for pickup.

Oh, that's awesome. You just— and your phone on the, on the car? Oh, that's awesome. I record my—

never have any notes. I don't have like some cool microphone like you. It's just me talking into my phone for 20 minutes.

I could talk. You are— and you're pumping out content like crazy. How often are you doing the podcast?

It's a podcast like 3 times a day whenever I have an idea. They're only 20 minutes, so I just talk. And I do like at least 2 blog posts a week, and I'm always on social media. So if anybody wants to Follow me. There's so many ways to follow me, so they could follow me.

Well, you're really setting the bar though. It's hard to keep up with you. I mean, I thought I was doing good, like once a week kind of podcast or something. I was like, oh geez, nothing like this. So in the car with the phone, that's the key.

Just forget this whole fancy setup. You got to do it right from your phone. Whenever the kids are at soccer practice, you go into the car and do it.

There you go, there you go. Well Dr. Dwight— I'm sorry, the name I have in front of me. Oh, Dr. Samantha Rodman-Whiten. Doctor, thank you so much.

Thank you for having me. I need to—

yes, this is awesome. And yeah, I would love to have you back on because like I say, we have— this was just sex and marriage and you saw where it took us.

Yes, everywhere.

One another big topic I'd love to chat with about sometime is your childhood baggage and how that affects your relationships moving forward in life. Who Boy, that's huge.

That would be a huge one. Yeah.

All right, Dr. Thank you so much. Thanks so much. You have a good one. You too. See you later.

Bye-bye.