Why Does Female Libido Go Down in Monogamy?! Won't That Scare The Man Away?! (from a DSO Live Stream)

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. But back to Guitar God 365. He says, question: why do women lose libido in monogamy? If they want the man to stay around to help with the kids. Oh, seems like a fast way to get him to leave. Um, Guitar God is referring to a, uh, I guess you say a phenomenon, a trait that, um, I didn't make this up. I, you know, I've learned this along with everybody else over the years. Um, there are books and a lot of material out there by women. This isn't like a male conspiratorial thing. In fact, most men want to not believe this. Believe it or not. Esther Perel, I quote her all the time because I admire her a great deal, I love her stuff. Our buddy, Dr. Psych Mom, Dr. Samantha Rodman-Whiten. There's another gal who's a PhD, Wednesday Martin. Who else? I think maybe even anthropologist Helen Fisher dabbles in this a bit. A lot of women. I admire a lot of women writers that write on this topic. Topics, which is relationship-oriented stuff. And, um, one of the things that all these ladies say is, oh, we pretty much know for a fact that when women enter into a safe, committed, long-term monogamous relationship, marriage for example, boy, their libido or sexual desire knob seems to get cranked down. Yes, even with all things being equal. So ladies, don't jump. Ladies always get really, really pissed when I bring this up. I'm like, I'm just quoting what the other ladies say. These ladies with PhDs and things after their names, Dr. So-and-so, psychologist, right? They'll say the same thing. But even with all things being equal, even when the guy does 90% of the chores in the house, even when the guy, it could be the most egalitarian household on the planet. He could be the biggest lover in the world. He could look like a Greek god, right? But his wife, if he's like the— if she's like the average wife, not every, but there's, there's enough here where we can talk in platitudes. It's a trend, right? And the trend is, let's say, on the libido— on the libido— libido is another word for sexual desire, sex drive— on the libido scale of 1 to 10, I always joke the man at the early stages of the relationship is like a 10, and then as time marches on and you're together with this woman for 10, 20, 30 years, if we were to somehow hook up some kind of machine to test his libido, it would go from a 10 to like a, I don't know, like an 8.5. Still pretty high. I, again, I always joke that if the, the guy had a really bad day at work, people were fired, he doesn't know if he's going to get fired tomorrow, He's not feeling too well, yada yada, and he walks in the door at home and he's just destroyed. And the wife looks at him and says, you want to go to the bedroom and get it on? He's probably going to say yes. That's men for you, right? We seem to have this— thank you, testosterone— we seem to have this baseline level of libido or sexual desire that's just there and ready. It's like Mother Nature has imprinted us with this so we can continue to make more babies, right? Which is why we make millions and millions of sperm. Anywho, but for the ladies, let's say on a scale of 1 to 10, her libido, it doesn't quite match the husband's usually, not always, usually. Let's say it's like an 8 out of 10 at the early stage, the honeymoon stage. And then they get married and it goes to like a 6. And then, you know, they move in together, get married, 10 years goes by, it's now a 5. And then they have children. Children number 1, 2, 3. And next thing you know, she just rips the knob off and throws it away off the machine. That's what we see with a lot of ladies. And it takes some skill, some work, some know-how to— you'll never get it back up here again on a consistent level like what you had at the honeymoon stage. Rarely. There are some things you can do. Some women report, uh, hormonal replacement therapy really helps crank that up for some women, not all. But there are other things she can do. The man can do things to generate more sexual desire in the woman in terms of, well, let's say he's a disgusting slob and he recreates himself into a really handsome, dressed well, fit individual. Can't hurt. And sometimes it really, really helps. She goes from a 0 to a 4, let's say, on the libido scale with changes that he does. And then the man really steers the ship as far as the relationship, the relationship boat is concerned. He's steering it and he says, we have to have date night at least twice a week. We have to get away from the kids once a weekend every quarter. We have to go on vacation with each other. We have to go dancing with each other. Yes, it's from what I've seen a lot of the time, the man has to kind of drive the ship. And then he can see kind of like blips on the radar, like, oh, there's the old girl back again. There's the old girl back again. But invariably, she always comes back to like what we call mom mode. And but we see those little spikes. There's the gorilla. That's what keeps us men going, seeing those spikes. So the question is, why does that happen? Well, dude, what I and others have kind of come to the conclusion is it's, it's difficult to try and kind of, I don't know if anthropomorphize is the right word, trying to apply a human emotion or human reasoning to something where it maybe doesn't necessarily belong. But we, we try to understand, like, what the hell's going on here? Why does this happen? It seems that our natural inclination as the human animal is Mother Nature imprints us with this programming that says, I, I'm so horny and I'm so attracted to this person, and we click at a level which is— we don't have that same click with everybody, it's relatively rare, but oh, I found one I click with. And Mother Nature says, yeah, you click for a reason. There's biological reason here why you are so attracted to this person. Get together with them and make babies. So the, the, uh, the libido goes through the roof for both of us, and we just can't keep our hands off each other if this is a good relationship and you're a good match. I know unfortunately it doesn't happen for a lot of people in relationships, sorry. But anyway, and, um, so it wants us to get together and make babies, proliferate the species, procreate. That's what all of these Uh, that's what all this, this mating dance is for, this, you know, courtship and everything else— to make babies, to make more humans. Every species does the same thing. More animals, sorry. And, um, so we get hitched and we procreate and make babies. And Mother Nature also imprints in us some programming to keep us both around to make sure that the baby is properly if you want to use a biological term, weaned, meaning taken care of in the infancy stage to the point where it's more self-sufficient and they don't need mom and dad to hover over them 24/7 to make sure they're still alive and fed and everything. You know, when the kid starts walking around and other things. It seems that the programming is imprinted within us that says when we get to that post-baby weaning stage and everything's good, Mother Nature kind of imprints in both of us, well, I guess we're done here. We kind of start drifting apart. I know it's sad, but we have a lot of things that seem to back that notion up. Men start looking elsewhere. Women are like, husband, what husband? I don't even think about the dude anymore. I'm so concerned with kid and everything else that sex and the idea of being with my husband in that way, gone. Not every woman, but a lot of women report that they have to be physically reminded. A lot of them talk about, I have responsive desire. I have to actually start the act of intercourse with my husband in order for me to go, oh yeah, that's why I like it. I forgot. Well, men are like, what? We just sit there and look at our wife's, you know, butt as she walks across the kitchen. We're ready to get it on. Women aren't necessarily like that. So it seems that we haven't programming within us to make us drift apart. Why? Why would Mother Nature want us to drift apart like this? To go make more babies with other people, to proliferate our DNA. You know, this is kind of like evolutionary psychology kind of talk and theorizing and so forth, but every other animal species does the same damn thing. A lot of people like to point to certain species of birds and prairie voles and everything remain together, you know, in a monogamous sexual relationship for a lifetime. Even that has a lot of holes in it when you kind of research. Strict, strict, strict sexual monogamy is almost unheard of. Um, what seems to be within the human animal kingdom more, uh, common is polygyny— one man, multiple female mates— because he can spread his seed elsewhere. And we as humans seem to want to try to accomplish this in a lot of different ways. Cheating, not good, but a lot of men do it. Not most men, but a lot of men do it. Women too, not gonna let you off the hook, ladies. What's another way in which we can accomplish this? Serial monogamy. Thank you. How can monogamy be serial? Because you pair bond, form a bond with this person, I love them, or anything, make kids, and then slowly divorce or drift, and then divorce and do it all again with somebody else. We as a society have given our blessing to that. A lot of people get divorced and have kids with somebody else. It's Mother Nature's way. Mother Nature finds a way. And so why do we do that? Proliferate the species. Um, it's almost like, why does the woman's libido crank down? It can be looked at, if you want to look at it really negative ways, she's kind of kicking you out of the nest. Beat it, dude, your job's done. We made the kid, the kid's fine, we don't need you anymore, get the hell out of here. But we have to fight against that because we're— most of us watching this, most of us in the comments here are what we call, uh, monogamous people who would prefer to remain that way and would prefer to find a partner for life if at all possible. Well, got your work cut out for you. You gotta fight a lot of impulses. I mean, the world of pornography and sex workers and so forth, that— I mean, it's the world's oldest profession for a reason, prostitution. We have a pretty strong instinctual drive to mate with other people, and we have to fight against that, and we have to do little things that keep us connected, that fight that drifting apart and to bring us back together. And, um, takes a lot of work. And, uh, you say, uh, Guitar God, that boy, that seems like a fast way to get the guy to leave. Think again, buddy. I got plenty of men that I talk to that have been in sexless relationships for decades, man. Decades. I'm blown away by that too. I don't get it, but we have a lot of guys that are very codependent. They have mental and emotional issues, and to be alone scares them half to death. They would rather endure the hell of being with somebody than the unknown possible positive world that awaits them, or life that awaits them, because that potential life could be even worse. That's how they think. It's sad. I feel sorry for the guys, but that's, that's their world.