Are You Quiet Quitting Your Relationship?

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I in no way think that using sex as a bargaining chip and saying like, well, I'm gonna put our sex life on hold until this other thing happens is ever healthy in any relationship. In fact, it's really, really detrimental to relationships.

You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily, and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. Quiet quitting. It's the act of leaving without really leaving at a job. It's refusing to stay late, not seeking out extra projects, and only doing exactly what your role requires. Critics call it lack of inspiration or a hustle, but proponents say it's simply setting boundaries. But can quiet quitting apply to our relationships? I'll explain the signs to look out for and how to initiate the hard conversations you may need to have with your partner. If we can put aside our inner people pleaser, we can avoid long term resentment and articulate our needs. Intentions with Emily for each episode, I want to start off by setting an intention for the show. I do it and I encourage you to do the same. So when you're listening, what do you want to get out of this episode? How might it help you? Well, my intention is to help you recognize the signs of relationship stagnation and provide the tools needed to address the underlying issues rather than falling into contempt purgatory. Please rate and review Sex with Emily wherever you listen to the show, check out my YouTube channel, social media and TikTok. It's all at Sex with Emily for more sex tips and advice. If you want to ask me questions, do it. Leave me your questions or message me sex with emily.com askemily or call my hotline 559-talk-SEX or 559-825-5739. Always include your name, your age, where you live and how you listen to the show. And it's totally cool to change your name or choose to remain anonymous. All right, one more thing on today's show, I love lube. You know that I love lube. I love lubricants. I think that a lube should be added to every sexual experience no matter what your body part, no matter what you're doing, whether it's masturbation or sex with a partner or group sex, I don't care. But I have a new lube that I am thrilled about and it is called Playground. You probably heard me talk about it is a brand new sexual wellness company and they make just top shelf body sex safe lube. Why I love them well, they use quality ingredients like ashwagandha which is a sexual stimulant known to increase blood flow, promote more pleasurable orgasms. They use black cohosh, helps balance your hormone levels. Let me tell you another reason why I love them is because I know first you care about the ingredients that are in your food or your supplements, your medication that you just I know you're going to care what the lube that you put inside of you is made of. It's great for all genders. They have four essences that they're just not really scents but they're essences and they just sense smell good, they taste good. They have the most adorable pop top bottles you can put on your nightstand. I've never seen a lube like this and I'm just very excited about it. So that's why I'm partnering with them. And I want to tell you for a limited time my listeners can receive 15% off their first order. Just use the code Sex with emily@hello playground.com that's hello playground.com Code sex with Emily. All right, everyone, Enjoy this episode. Foreign.

Let's talk about quiet quitting. So quiet quitting is a new phenomenon. Maybe you've seen it on social media or you've heard it from friends, your kids, people in your community. And essentially, what quiet quitting is, where you might have seen the headlines is it's a rejection of the hustle culture, of this culture, of your job consumes your life. Everything you do is about your job and getting ahead, and you're just hustling all day long. You're not taking vacations. You're not taking breaks. And so essentially, it boils down to the concept of employment is just transactional. Employees giving their services and time in exchange for compensation for their employer. That's what the job is. And then if either party feels the other is benefiting more from the relationship, well, that party should reduce their effort accordingly. So the pros, if you're into quiet quitting, it's sort of a way to subvert exploitation in the workplace. You know, I think a lot of people during the pandemic, everyone was home and working and feeling like they weren't getting compensated for the work they were doing. It was exhausting. It was hard to communicate, maybe, with the workplace. This is where this was born, quiet quitting. What I believe as a con is I look at this and I think you don't want to, like, do the slow fade at work and just kind of give just enough. So I believe there's more ways that we can address these issues, like talking to your employer, quitting your job, and finding a job where you do feel respected and you do feel that it's more balanced. People who believe in quiet quitting are like, we don't want to live to work. We want to work to live, that we are prioritizing life, not work. So, again, this movement's probably been driven by people becoming more accustomed to working from home. There's also a recent worker shortage that has sort of shifting the bargaining power away from employers. And there was a recent Gallup poll that found that quiet quitters make up at least 50% of the workplace. No matter which side of the coin you are, if you believe in quiet quitting or not quiet quitting, let's talk about how this applies to our relationships, because it's actually similar. Maybe you're in a relationship and you think, you know, I am contributing time and energy in this relationship, and I hope my partner's doing the same. And in fact, at the beginning of the relationship, they were doing the same. So the benefits that you're drawing from the relationship, you know, in your mind is like, it should be equal to the amount of work you both put into the relationship. So if you're not getting that, you might say, well, my partner's never going to change, or I tried to talk to them, so I'm just going to, like, withdraw from the relationship. I want to quit, quite quit. I'm going to reduce the amount of time and effort and energy I'm putting into this relationship. Because if my partner is not going to give me anything, well, then I'm just going to do the same. Maybe they'll notice, maybe they won't. But I'm sick and tired of this. So how would you know if you were quite quitting your relationship or if your partner was quite quitting your relationship? There's no better place to look than the Four Horsemen. It's actually a metaphor depicting the end of times in the New Testament. That's maybe where you heard of the Four Horsemen, but it's actually a metaphor that the Gottmans, John and Julie Gottman, use to describe communication styles. And if you recall, we did a show with John and Julie Gottman. They are relationship experts. You can find that in the show notes. But essentially, they said, if a couple engages in these four behaviors, it's gonna predict the end of a relationship. Now, they're fascinating. They've been doing this work for, like, 60 years. They can put couples in a room and watch. Within a few minutes or less, they can decide, well, this couple's definitely not going to work out. Let's walk through these. Tell me if these sound familiar, because I think maybe a lot of us have sort of dabbled in some of these in our relationships, or we've been with people who treated us this way. So the first one is criticism. So you need to know the difference between criticism, which is actually attack on your character, like, you're not a good person, you are lazy. And a critique or a complaint about specific issues, like noticing, like, you know, this behavior that you did really made me feel bad. And I'm hoping that it's something that you could work on. You could work on being on time in our relationship. So it's a little bit more careful, and it's kind, and it takes the love and respect you have for your partner in consideration where criticism does not. So here's a complaint. I was scared when you were running late and didn't call me. Like, I thought we agreed we would do that for each other. That's a complaint. Okay, like I thought you were going to prioritize being on time. Criticism is, you never think about how your behavior is affecting people. It's not that you're forgetful. I think that you're selfish and you're lazy and you don't think of others and you don't think of me. First off, you can tell the difference there, right? If someone criticizes you and we've all been criticized, it really hurts. Like it gives you no room for healthy communication and really working through things. So as you can see, criticism is the first of the four horsemen that just is sending couples down a really a much darker path. But when criticism becomes really pervasive in the relationship, it paves the way for the next horseman we're going to get to the next one is contempt. And contempt is pretty bad. I mean, the government said that this is one of the main predictors. Like if you see couples who act with contempt, it's like the relationship is five seconds from over. So that goes way beyond criticism. And not just attack on the partner's character, but the person is assuming a position of moral superiority. You know, you don't want to have sex. I've been working all day. I do so much for this house. What are you doing? You're just sitting around all day and you disgust me. It's really intense. And if you experience contempt in a relationship, and I've seen couples do this, but when couples are contemptuous of each other's, it also shows that they have weakened immune systems. They get cold, they get more illnesses, they get flus. And where this contempt comes from, it's not just like your partner one day turns to you and they're acting in contempt. It's usually because a series of negative interactions and negative comments just escalate and they escalate. And then you get to this point of just really disgust. Next we have defensiveness. And we all know it's like to be defensive, right? We just feel unjustifiably accused. So everything you tell me, if I'm your partner, I'm just going to reverse that blame right back at you. And then I'm going to continue to escalate it. I might have no empathy for you. Find the defensive partner. I will only back down if you apologize to me. When someone's defensive, there's also no room for any healthy conflict management. When we're talking about being defensive, the non defensive partner makes a request and they say, you know, I've been thinking about lately and I really miss our intimacy. And I'm hoping tonight we could spend some time together. It'd be great to have sex. Great to give you a massage. Well, if I'm the defensive partner, I might say, yeah, just like you always want something else from me. I mean, I'm so tired, and I feel like you're always criticizing me. Now I'm not having sex with you enough. Like, what's next? Like, what do you want next? I'm not, you know, paying my own way around the house. And, you know, they just sort of every. You, like, can't win. Like, when someone's offensive, you're like, oh, I just. Nothing I can say. And this is where you might shut down and lead to the next one. And then fourth horse one is stonewalling. I think of stonewalling. I think of, like, the silent treatment. And this is when one partner just shuts down. They completely disassociate. They stop responding. They do not confront the issues. They make evasive maneuvers to just avoid conflict. And so essentially, there's an issue in the relationship, and the partner refuses to communicate verbally. So they walk away, they withdraw, they avoid, they resist. This is something that you gotta look out for is the stonewalling. Those are the behaviors. But how else this might look in the relationship if you're completely withdrawing is you might just be coasting. You know what it means to coast. Like, I'm just coasting along. People do this in jobs, too. Just doing the bare minimum to maintain this relationship. I'm not putting any effort. You know, I don't really care either way. I'm going to do just enough so this person will stay in a relationship with me. I don't want to confront anything, but I'm just coasting. And another one is, like, the slow fade. You recognize your relationship's coming to an end, but. But you just don't want to be the one to pull the plug. So you do, like, a subtle, like, sabotage. And have you ever heard this, like, someone who's like, oh, I never break up with people. I just get them to break up with me. Like, that's what I think about the slow fade. Like, you're not being communicative at all. You're not doing the things that you were doing at the beginning of the relationship, but you're, like, slowly backpedaling out of the relationship. Now. There's also something that could happen here, and that is the domino effect. So Rachel Dialto, she's the chief dating expert at Match, and she put it this way. If one partner starts to Quietly quit their relationship and really doesn't start to put the same amount of effort in. Typically, what we see is the other partner feels that they feel this too, and they start to do the same thing. And so now we have this cycle. It's like, well, if you're not showing up to the relationship, I'm not showing up in the relationship. When you see this domino effect, you might still go on dates, but they become way fewer and far between. You might have dinner with each other every night, but you just. You get over it as soon as possible. These are the signs. Sound familiar? You want to, like, send this to your partner or listen again? You might have to. I just gave you a lot of information. If this is familiar, what do you do? So here's some solutions. I'm going to give you some emotional versus physical solutions because I get it. Listen. It is really hard to feel a sexual connection when you're stressed out, you're anxious, and you are not connected intimately. And by intimately, I mean you're not having the emotional connection. You're not talking about your day, you're not talking about your feelings. You're really, really not sharing anything. And when that goes away, it's really hard to jump in and have sex. Because a lot of us require emotional intimacy to feel sexual. So let's start with the emotional. Diagnose the problem. You might ask yourself, so what am I doing here? Why am I withdrawing from intimacy? Yeah, I noticed lately I've been avoiding my partner. I've been turning lights off before they get home. I've made up excuses. Well, quiet. Quitting a relationship is essentially disassociating from your relationship. And disassociation is essentially a defense mechanism. And sometimes it's not even really conscious. This defense mechanism is put in place because we want to protect ourselves from disappointment or heartbreak. I don't want my partner to leave me, so I'm just going to disassociate now. Disassociation is a tactic that a lot of us use in other areas of our life. We use it in conflict, we use it during sex, we use it at work. But how we do one thing is how we do everything. So it probably shows up elsewhere. You might just be withdrawing because you don't have time right now. You've other things going on in your life, so you're just investing less in the relationship. You need to focus on your career, yourself, your family. You've got a lot going on, and you think, I'm just gonna not give as much as relationship now, this type of quiet quitting is usually temporary and consensual because your partner knows or should know you're going through it at the moment and wants to give you space. So again, all of these things I'm talking about, I really hope that they are consensual and that if you feel like you are withdrawing in a relationship or if your partner says to you, babe, I feel like lately you've been pulling back, is something going on? Rather than getting defensive, which is a really, like, common response for many of us, when you hear something like this, it's so great. Take a beat, take a breath and just say, tell me more about that. Could you give me examples? Because then maybe once you hear it, you're like, oh, yeah, babe, you know what? I am withdrawing, and it's because I've been really worried about my sick parent, or I'm worried about money. And so just again, the more we can ask questions and listen and really sort of be transparent with our partner about we're going through, you will avoid all of this horseman and quiet quitting altogether. But let's go a little bit deeper. So let's say you're not feeling satisfied sexually in the relationship. You can ask yourself, why am I not satisfied? It could be you guys. A lot of times we're not satisfied because we're not asking for what we want and we're not clear and our partner actually has no idea. And it usually goes back to not just sex has to do other things going on. So maybe you're not feeling appreciated by your partner. You're making all the plans, you're paying for everything, you're doing all the things, but your partner is not appreciating you. And then you're just playing back sexually. You maybe you're attempting to get back at your partner for doing something wrong that they've done to you. And I don't recommend ever using sex as a weapon, as a bargaining tool in the relationship and say, well, I'm going to withhold sex until you do this thing for me, or that it really just never works. This is all really just some diagnostic tools here for you to get clear on what's happening. Usually the problem with the physical equals the emotional, or if it's emotional problem, it equals the physical. Usually they're very, very closely related. I mean, honestly, typically if there's a relationship with sex, like let's say your partner can have an orgasm or isn't having an orgasm when you want them to, or there's else happening Usually those are easier to address than like the. The questions around sex where you're like, I'm withholding or I'm never in the mood, or I'm mad at my partner. Usually there's an underlying, you know, emotional component. Maybe you figured out the problem. You're like, this is the challenge. This is what's going on. I don't want to talk to my partner. I don't want any of this passive aggressive behavior in the relationship anymore. And you know how I feel about how to do this. You've got to address your partner right away. Being direct, being open, being clear. You know, you want to have humility and empathy, and you want to set yourself up for success Using my three T's of communication, which is timing, tone, and turf. You want to make sure that you're picking the right time. It's not when you're fighting. It's not when your partner said something again that pissed you off. It's when you guys are in a good neutral space and you are not tired and you're not angry about anything and you are in a good, you know, good place together. Maybe it's date night. The tone is light and curious and open and compassionate. And the turf is outside the bedroom. And just remember this, our partners are not mind readers. So sometimes we think, I've tried to explain this to my partner. They should know what I'm going through. But most often they do not because we can't all pick up on subtle cues, especially passive aggressive tones. Like, if someone's passive aggressive to me, I tune that out completely. I just see that as somebody who really doesn't know themselves enough. And there's a lot of work to do. So really it's best to to go with these conversations with just some compassion and being direct and being clear. Here are some other things. So let's say we are talking about sex here. And I just want to give you a few other tips because you're like, you know what, Emily? We're not in the four horsemen. We're just been disconnected lately around a lot of things. I'm busy, they're busy. We haven't made time for the relationship. I don't know if I talked to you about the sexual state of union lately, but it is a series of checking questions that you just use with your partner about your sex life. You can discover each other's turn ons, get curious, like, what's working well in this relationship? What's not working well? So really, this is a tool of becoming intentional in Your sex life. I like to recommend to couples to ritualize this conversation. So picking a time, maybe it's once a week or once a month, you come together and you're like, let's talk about our sex life. And there's a series of questions. Some of them could be like, you know, what are you enjoying about our sex life right now? Or what? Something new you'd like to try? What can I do more of to make sex satisfying for you? What's your favorite memory of sex we've had as a couple? I love this one because I think that just sharing one memory could explain so much to you about what you both really value in your sex life. Especially my partners might be a little bit different than mine, but that sort of tells me that my partner really liked when we slowed things down and I was really attentive to their needs, you know, Another thing you could ask is, you know, may I share something I'd like more of during sex? It is, you know, fill in the blank. Another question could be, when we're having sex, what's your favorite part about it? So some of these questions will get you going and, you know, just have you open up conversations, especially about sex, in a way that feels more conducive to figuring out what you both want, what you both like, and how to move forward. I understand that bringing up sex can be super confusing and frightening to a partner. I realize that a lot of people, when someone brings up a topic of sex, they go into fight or flight mode. They think, I've done something wrong, my partner hates me, they must hate my sex life. I'm not a good lover, and they just shut down. And that's because we don't have a lot of healthy examples of people talking about sex. So just know if that happened to their partner, it's okay to say. All right, sounds like you're really getting frustrated with this. Or I can see you reacting. Let's pick this up again. But that doesn't mean you stop having the conversations. Okay, so finally after that, take action. All right, so now you've addressed some things that you want to work on in your relationship. I get it. Here's some things you can do for emotional issues. Let's say even feeling unappreciated, perhaps you feel like the child caring responsibilities are on balance or helping around the house. You could talk about, like, corrective behaviors, like what behaviors and actions need to address this pressure point, like, how can you problem solve? And together. Because the fact that you are feeling unappreciated means that maybe you've been pulling back from sex and intimacy. So it would, you know, really makes sense that your partner should try to come together and help you problem solve. Maybe you need your partner to help out a few more days a week. Maybe you need to get some help just around the house. Maybe you just need the words like you just need your partner to say I appreciate you. I really appreciate all the work you're doing around the house. Maybe you just need to be seen. So this is good to figure out what do I actually need to feel better here? And then for physical issues, try different sex activities together. Exploring new kinks or turn ons. I always encourage people to download my yes, no, maybe list, which you get that for free on my website. You can download it from the show notes or make a sexual bucket list. I love this. Like, write down the things that you want to try or write down your greatest hits. Here's our three most memorable times you've had sex and then you swap the list. There's a lot to learn about your like your sexual DNA as a couple. Like, what have we both liked? Are there any overlaps on this list? Is there anything that you both love doing? Why aren't you doing anymore? Like you both love 69 or you both love sex outside? How great we just figured out and let's do more of that. All right, now you know the signs of conflict in your relationship. Maybe you're quite quitting your relationship. So we're going to take a short break and then I'm going to get into your questions.

This is from Jesse, 32, in the Netherlands. Hey, Dr. Emily. My boyfriend and I have been together for four years, broke up twice in between. We're trying to decide if we should buy a house together. We're in our 30s, so it's kind of also become a discussion of whether or not we are ready to settle down and have kids with each other. My boyfriend has perfectionist tendencies, struggles with decision making, and has a lot of difficulty trying to decide if our love is good enough. This has led to some issues for me with confidence, which are especially present during sex. I feel like he's not that into me and it makes me have spiraling thoughts during sex, which totally distracts me from experiencing pleasure. I don't want to break up with him. We are working through our issues in therapy together, but I think we can get back to a good place. But how do I stop the relationship issues we're having from ruining sex for me? I've listened to the show for a long time. I love the podcast. Thanks in advance for considering my question. All right, Jesse, thank you for your question. So I hear what you're saying. So he's got struggles with decision making, and it does not feel good when he is not sure about you. So I love that you guys are in therapy right now, but I'm wondering what you're finding out in therapy. So have you been talking about these challenges, about what it means to not be good enough and what he's unclear about now? It could just be his age, where he's at in his life. He might not be sure what he wants right now. He might have some challenges around his career. Not having financial security or security in who we are in the world or feeling we're not great. Anything that can really be a hurdle to us feeling like, okay, well, how can I connect to someone else if I don't feel great about myself? So what I want to say here is, Jesse, I don't know if this is going to make you feel better right away, but to tell you this, that his being not sure about you has nothing to do with you and everything to do with where he's at in his life. Okay? So it's not like you can do more, be more, and do all these things that are gonna actually, like, all of a sudden, he's gonna choose you. But the problem that we're facing here is that you are having these feelings during sex because you don't feel he's choosing you. You're like, well, I don't feel safe in this relationship. And it's making me have spiraling thoughts during sex, which is distracting pleasure, which is so common, that happens to so many of us. And listen, the best sex that people report, when they have the most pleasure and the most orgasms and the most connection is when they feel safe. When we do not feel safe because our partner's like, maybe they've cheated on us, or we're unclear about how they feel or something happened or we don't feel safe, we can't be present because we're on high alert. You're on high alert because, listen, being sexually open and carefree and sinking into your body and having incredible pleasure, the precursor to that is safety. Because why am I going to let go and open up and show my vulnerabilities with somebody who could leave me any minute? So I understand what you're feeling here 100%. And I'm wondering, have you been able to talk about this in therapy? This particular part about what his behavior is affecting what you feel about the relationship. And especially during sex, this is where the conversation really has to happen. That he can understand that the consequences of him feeling he's got one foot in, one foot out is not allowing you to really open up sexually. So he sees that there's some repercussions to him not, you know, making these decisions. And again, here's the thing about it. I don't think we ever know for sure. If we put the ring on someone's finger and we buy a house together, sometimes we still don't know. Right. Like that is also a practice thing. I'm going to commit to this thing in the moment and we're going to figure it out together. There's a certain, like, we are in it for now kind of mentality. It's kind of like the Buddhist law of impermanence. Right. We all just don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. So we're going to do the best we can today. And I don't know that you guys are there yet, but I think that there's a lot of other signs here that you just have to get clear on what you both want. Can you at least commit that if you do buy a house that for the next year you're going to make sure that you go to therapy once a week and it's non negotiable and you're going to stick with it. Like what else would you need from him to feel safe? And it's okay if you don't have that answer, but I would also bring that up in therapy. I would say I don't feel safe, but I'd like to figure out what makes me feel safe. Maybe you need to hear some words for him that are, like I said, like he's, maybe he needs to say to you, I love you and I'm choosing you now and we will revisit this in a year. But I promise for the next year I'm going to make every effort I can to feel committed. Or maybe you say like once a week we're going to have these check ins where I, you know, I need to know how you feel about it. Maybe you need the words, maybe you need him to buy the house or you guys need to get the house together because that action is gonna make you feel safe. Like what else do you need to feel safe? Because listen, it's also on us to feel safe. Like usually to let him know what that looks like. And if he says to you, I hear what you're saying, but I can't do any of that. Well, then you have more information, right? We're constantly gathering information on our partners. Cause I don't think things are so black and white in relationships. In fact, usually they're not. But when you're very, very clear and you make a request and you let it be known what you need, especially if he's in the therapy figuring out with you together, he can at least agree that he's going to try to do some of these things to make you feel more connected. But if he says, nope, can't do it, well, then you have the information and you might even have your answer about what to do next. Because I want this for you, Jesse. I want you to feel safe and I want you to feel nurtured and I want you to feel connected and have the most incredible sex. So you're doing all the right things here. And thank you so much for your email, Jesse. Appreciate it. This is from Jeff 53 in Seattle. Hey Dr. Emily. I discovered your show around the time of its inception, but haven't listened in years and rediscovered it recently. I loved it then and I love it even more now. Thanks, Jeff. Your growth as a counselor and human being are really wonderful to behold. You are a blessing to all of those who have the good fortune to find their way to your wisdom. It's possible that my question is more about venting than particular guidance you have for me, but I've been continuously surprised by your answers to questions posed by your listeners. I married and loved my wife deeply and place great value in our relationship for its stability, its functionality and depth. She's a killer saleswoman and brings in significantly more money than me. This wasn't so in our beginnings, but this imbalance has created resentment in her that has undermined our once excellent sex life. I'm in the midst of a career shift to address this issue, and in the meantime, sex has been put on hold indefinitely. I'm a flirt. I adore women generally, but I'm super loyal and these qualities combined are at the moment driving me mad. I need to get laid. I mean, masturbation is great, but I've got that under control. What advice do you have? Have, if any? Thank you so much for your email, Jeff, and I love that you've been here since the beginning and thank you for your kind words. I really, I really appreciate it and thank you for reaching out. So what you're saying is the imbalance of her making more money than you right now as a result of that, she put Sex on hold indefinitely. And I just want to check, did she come out and say those words? What did she say to you? You're not pulling your weight around here and I'm making a lot of money. So let's just put sex on hold. Because sometimes we think that's what's happening or we had a conversation about it, but I just want to check. Could there be something else going on in the relationship? Because I would love for you just to check your story. I in no way think that using sex as a bargaining chip and saying like, well, I'm going to put our sex life on hold until this other thing happens is ever healthy and ever any relationship. In fact, it's really, really detrimental to relationships because essentially it's taking sex and putting in this transactional lane where then it becomes this, you know, person withholding sex and the other person, like, trying to do everything they can to get the sex. And it just is a really unhealthy imbalance that sets up a dynamic for the future too, that just can be really hard to undo. And I like to think about sex as a healthy collaboration where you're both like, co creating your sex life. So I'm just wondering what else is happening here because you're also saying like, you know, you adore women, you're loyal, but you won't get laid. I think if you said to her, listen, I'm noticing that these behaviors have been happening lately. I feel like you're withdrawing, but I also really love you. I love our relationship. I actually have come to require our intimacy and our connection to really feel whole and to feel connected to you. And I'm not sure what I can do if we don't have that kind of connection. Do you have any advice? What do you suggest that we do? It could be that you're craving penetrative sex and orgasms, but a lot of times what we're craving is intimacy. So I'm wondering for you as well, do you feel like since she's working so much, that she's also just pulling away intimacy? Is there no longer any hand holding or deeper conversations about emotions and feelings? And so again, a lot of times I feel like this isn't about a sexual, but it's more about connection. So I'd love you to check some of those things out with your wife and see if you guys can come together. I mean, she's not divorcing you, she's not leaving you. She's doing some behaviors right now that aren't making you feel great. So you could let her know how they're making you feel and see if you guys can find other solutions to kind of solve some conflicts that are going on in your relationship right now. And I do believe that if you really listen and you ask some questions, you just listen to where she's at right now, you're going to find that it's less about the money thing and the withholding sex and there might be some other things going on. This is my hunch. And now, Jeff, I want you to have this conversation and get back to me, please. All right. Okay. This is from Sydney, 17 in the UK. Hey, Dr. Emily. I've listened to your podcast for two months now and I love it. I've recently got into my first relationship and my girlfriend and I have been dating for a month. In the beginning, I was petrified of hurting her because I doubted whether I truly liked her or not. I have communicated this with her. This started to fade away until yesterday after our month anniversary, where I started to feel detached and almost as if I don't like her anymore. But deep down, I know this isn't true. When I was previously in love, I was very obsessive and it was unhealthy. This connection is healthy. But I think I have misconceptions about love. As I grew up with an abusive father, my parents don't have a good relationship. How do I get over this fear of hurting her and backing out? Thank you. Thank you so much for your question, Sydney. And first off, I think it's really great that you're so self aware of your patterns and how you're, you know, realize that you're already pulling away. I mean, that's such great self awareness. I love that. So I think that the first thing is to let her know that you really love her and you want to work on this relationship and that she has permission to kind of call you out when she sees you acting in this way, when she sees you withdrawing from certain behaviors or she sees you pulling away and you can say, I don't want to do this with you anymore. This is a pattern I am trying to break because she's not going to be able to figure it out. And even if you tell her what it's happening, she still might not notice it. So I really recommend that you bring her into it and you say, like, these are all the things that I'm feeling. Because when we give our partners all the information they need, like really healthy partners who want the best for you and for them and for the relationship we'll say, okay. They'll be so relieved. How great is it to know that your partner actually isn't trying to leave you and dump you? But they want to work on it, but they're just doing it because they have something with themselves. So all they're asking you, they're not saying to be a better partner, so I don't leave. They're saying, can you just help me be a better version of myself by helping me notice these behaviors of myself? And I'm telling you guys, this works. This takes growth and maturity. And I love that you're 17 asking these questions, because these are things I wish I knew at 17. I think I used to do a lot of that stuff, too. I think I can recognize pulling away when I didn't feel safe. And now let me tell you something. It never goes away either. Like, I'll do these things in my relationship, but now I notice that, like, oh, that thing I just said, it's because I was feeling insecure in this moment that you might pull away. I mean, still, I do those things. Sometimes they are so habitual that we don't even realize that we're doing them. And I'm telling you, when I point this out to a partner, we can laugh and you can say, okay, is that cool? Like, it just becomes a thing. And I'm telling you, it barely happens anymore. In fact, it hasn't happened in years and years and years. But when it happens now, I'm so aware of it, I can notice it. So this is what I want for all of you. And what I love is Sydney. This is such a fabulous question because I am so certain this has inspired so many other people to take these same lessons and the same level of communication into their relationship. This is from Meg, 20, in Florida. Hey, Dr. Emily, I love your podcast. Would you mind talking about the if he wanted to, he would concept that is popular on the Internet? I love my partner. We have a healthy relationship. But when I hear things like, if he wanted to, he would, I start wondering if I'm settling. Since my partner doesn't do the romantic things that I see online, like buy me flowers and plan dates. But on the other hand, I understand that he cannot read my mind and know to do these things without me communicating my desires to him. Anything he to say on this topic would be great. Thank you so much. I don't agree with if he wanted to, he would. Okay, so first, I love that you're recognizing that this is this whole, like, thing that you're seeing Online, like, people are like, oh, if he wanted to dump him or dump her, they're not right for you. We're all, like, comparing and despairing things that we're seeing. Like, yeah, this is bad. Let's all get in this together and be miserable. That is just not healthy at all. He doesn't know what you want at all. If my partner kept buying me flowers and planning dates, that in no way would make me feel like he was really committed to the relationship. What I need is communication. I need to have, like, deeper conversations about things in our relationships. So we all have different ways that we need our partners to make us feel the romance or to feel connected. So I guarantee you he doesn't know what you want. So to say, if he wanted to, he would. Or you might say, no. No. But I told him once I make a Pinterest board of all the flowers I like, and I tell him all the time what my friends do when on fabulous dates. That should be enough. No, again, just because you're dropping hints and you think he's a mind reader, it doesn't work. What you could say to him is, you know, I want to talk about our relationship. And you can start with all the things that you really love about it, because no one wants to hear you complain. They don't. God, last night was so fun. Or I love. We went to this movie, and I love this show and all the fun we've been having together. And I realized, like, fun and doing things with you is, like, my favorite part of our relationship. And we go a few days or a few weeks and we don't have things planned. I start to feel less connected with you, and it's important to me to be busy. And then I start making plans with friends. But I don't want to withdraw from you in our relationship. So I'm wondering, do you think it would be possible we can make some more plans together? Let's look up right now, 30 shows coming down and things we could do. Because he just might need a little bit of help. He might not be a planner. He might not be romantic. He might even know what that means. So if you tell him all these things and he's like, I understand. I'm going to make a plan. And he doesn't, I'm going to tell you this, Meg. Having a healthy conversation with him once is not enough to make a change. Has anyone ever had a conversation with you about changing behavior? It could be anything. It could be like, you should stop smoking or you should start working out more. You should stop cutting people off sentences. Did you ever make a change from one request? Did you ever learn a new behavior because someone said it to you once? Probably not. So when people say that relationships take work, it means that we have to repeat these conversations several times. And eventually, if your partner still doesn't change even if you've said to them, you meeting this need of mine is a really important part of me feeling healthy in this relationship and feeling stable and feeling connected to you and feeling loved and feeling safe, and then they still don't do it. Well, then I think you can say, well, if you wanted to, we would. But only then can you say that. All right, Meg, so just go practice having some healthy conversations and see where it goes, because you're going to know a lot more after that. Thanks for your question. I appreciate you, Meg.

That's it for today's episode. See you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening to Sex With Emily. Be sure to, like, subscribe and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend or partner. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Sex with Emily oh, I've been told I give really good email, so sign up@sexwithemily.com and while you're there, check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize your pleasure. If you'd like to ask me about your sex life, dating or relationships, call my hotline 559-TALK SEX. That's 559-825-5739, or go to sexwithemily.com askemily Special thanks to Acast for powering the Sex with Emily podcast. Was it good for you? Email me feedbackexwithemily.com.

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