In this conversational advice segment, a listener (Ryan Pope) asks how a supportive husband can help his wife when she "freezes" under stress and anxiety, causing a pause in both emotional and physical intimacy. Lauren explains that the freeze is not a deliberate withholding of sex but a lack of readiness, and recommends a "slow down to speed up" approach that emphasizes non‑sexual physical touch (e.g., hugs, neck rubs, butt pats) before any sexual advance. The host expands on the concept of "setting the tone" throughout the day—starting with gentle morning gestures, playful kisses, and small acts of care—to create a playful, low‑pressure atmosphere. Both partners are urged to reflect on their own behavior: men should check if they are being overly insistent, and women should consider when they last initiated affection. Practical hacks such as surprise "booty calls" or pretending to need help with a light bulb while actually being naked are offered as ways to break the cycle and re‑engage intimacy. The overall message is that consistent, low‑stakes affection and mutual responsibility can help couples move out of the freeze and restore a positive intimacy cycle.
Chapters
Mr. Ryan Pope from Facebook. He says, a question for Lauren. My wife is very affectionate, but like other women, she can fall into the, quote, freeze mode when life gets busy and anxiety-producing. And this puts a freeze on intimacy, both physical and emotional, which can create a negative cycle. How should a supportive partner work with his wife to avoid this and promote positive cycles within busy lives?
Yeah, this has been, this has been a tricky one because it's one that I can completely relate to. And having been a woman and a wife for a really long time, one thing that I'll hear from a lot of guys is they're like, my wife is withholding sex from me. And I get what they mean, I get what they're trying to say, but what's most likely is that she's not withholding it, because withholding means that she's already ready to go and is choosing to not do the thing that she wants to do, when in reality she's— she just doesn't have anything to withhold. Yep, we haven't even gotten there yet. Um, so what I've found is the best way when you are in the freeze state, as as a woman who's been there dozens of times, will probably get there again one day and have to be worked out of it, is kind of a, a slow down to speed up approach, right? So what I've found when I am like super wound up and stressed and I just cannot get loose the way your husband wants you to is having a lot of non-sexual physical touch. Leading up to it. Slowing down, like hugging without moving your hands down to grab the ass. Actual hug.
You're asking a lot.
I know, I know. It's one of those just trust me, bro. It's gonna be tough because you're gonna be doing the hug and you're gonna be like, it's right there. It's right there. Just trust me. And that's one thing that I found is you don't even notice it. It's almost like, you know, a lobster in boiling water at that point. Like, pretty soon you are hot. You just didn't realize you got there.
You're, you're explaining perfectly something that I wrote about in my book, which is called Setting the Tone. And setting the tone is not done right during the act of and it's not, you know, immediately precipitating as in, hey, I'm making my move, let's run to the bedroom. Setting the tone literally happens at 7:30 AM in the morning when you wake up and you roll over and go, did you have a good sleep? And kiss on the back of the head and move along. In the kitchen, let me make you the coffee. And I'm big on the butt pats, pat on the butt. You know, I should go around her in the kitchen, give her a little honk honk, looking good there. Give her, you know, give her a hug, kiss, hope you have a good day. All these things just set the tone of playfulness. Which is something that is really missing in a lot of relationships, is playfulness and just being, you know, goofy with each other and fun with each other. And, um, you know, a little kiss on the back of the head, just the neck rub when I see she's doing this, because my wife is a surgeon, so she's always doing this. She's always looking down, and this part of her neck is always hurting her. And I can see when she's hurting, so I give her the on the back of the neck thing. None of this— and I've asked her in podcasts, do you interpret this wife as any of this saying This means you better give me sex later. And she laughed and said, no, I just see it as a normal little playful loving thing. And that's something a lot of people are missing. But you get caught in this vicious circle of, I haven't had any for so long, therefore I feel resentful, therefore I don't want to give her the playful little hug and touch and neck rub and everything. And when I do, I'm such— I'm so, excuse my language, horned up at this point that all it does is lead me to go right to the butt and makes, and just makes me further frustrated. So I better keep a distance. It's tough. This, this relationship stuff is tough for sure.
I think there's definitely a point that men and women have to kind of meet somewhere in the middle when it comes to like the freeze or a drought in the intimacy in the relationship where, you know, just like men need to kind of slow it down and ask themselves, like, have I been kind of a sex pest this week? Have I been kind of like badgering her a little bit much and being a little bit insatiable, maybe. But just as much as men need to do that, I think that women do need to like ask themselves, like, when's the last time I initiated anything? Anything, even a kiss. When's the last time that I was the one who went in for the kiss or pulled him in or anything? You know, like the other night, I actually— I think I, I made my husband's entire day. I'd never done this before. But I tried calling for him, but he was not nearby in the house. You know, we have two stories and a basement. I was on the second story, must have been the basement. So I literally did a booty call. I called my husband's phone. And I was like, will you come upstairs? For one reason or one reason only. And he was like, did you just booty call me?
I'm sure his initial thought was something's wrong upstairs. You know, there's— there's a leak. Is there a mouse? Is there a cockroach? What's going on?
See, that's— I'm not gonna lie, this is actually one of my low-key, like, wife hacks. My, my wife hack life hack is what you gotta do is you do the husband call, the hey babe, the one that he knows is like, I gotta replace a light bulb, or she can't reach this. But instead of there being a light bulb, you're just naked in bed. And now, now it's kind of got like this Pavlovian thing because he doesn't know if it's going to be the light bulb or the naked wife. Either way though, he's going to be running, he's going to jump to attention. You gotta spice it up sometimes, you know. I like it.
