E263: How to Have More Fun in Your Relationship

I think silliness makes life so much more enjoyable. Like, that's, that's really some of the most fun times that I have with you. And we're just being—

Absolutely.

If you're having a moment where you're like, if anybody else saw what we are doing and saying together right now, I'd be so embarrassed. Like, those are peak moments for me. Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex therapist. I'm Vanessa Marin, sex therapist with over 20 years of experience.

And I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step-by-step techniques for improving yours.

Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. Today we are talking about something that does not get enough attention in relationships.

The fact that you start 90% of our episodes with the word today.

You try coming up with a fresh intro every single time. Let's make you dance.

Let's talk about something that we don't talk about very often in relationships. This is something that has changed our relationship for the better.

No, no, no.

Look at that intro.

No, we really need to spice things up. So let's have you dance. I think it would be really fun to— Oh! Oh, wow.

I'm trying to— I'm trying to pull some— Well, I can't get up. If you're listening, we really need to be watching on YouTube because—

Oh!

I don't know how to—

He did a weird arm wiggle thing.

He did a little—

Was that the Pulp Fiction dance?

I don't know what that is.

Pulp Fiction?

What? No, I don't know what this is from. I was trying to do like the wave, but we have— there's like a plant over here and a wall over here. So I was being a little careful. I hope you're not watching on YouTube because then you'll have seen that. Fortunately. Well, oh God. Hopefully Nick, our editor, doesn't go with the wide shot. I was like, on the close-up shot, you can't really see my arms that much.

No, I think you should go with the wide shot.

Oh, come on, Nick. Please do me a solid with this edit job.

Okay, and hopefully you're not watching on YouTube because you're also gonna see that my face is a little bit puffy. And I want the people to solve a relationship debate that Xander and I have been having. Okay, so here's the deal. I got PRF injections under my eye. I don't do any like Botox or fillers or anything, but I tried PRF because it's just your blood. So they like take your blood out, they spin it, they get the growth factors, and then they inject it under your eyes. My eyes are obviously like, you get puffy afterwards, you get inflamed, you need a little bit of time to heal. And so I'm still a little tiny bit puffy. I think you can only really see it when I smile right now. It still looks that way. So Xander keeps trying to tell me, which is very sweet to be fair. He keeps trying to tell me.

I'm not trying to, I am telling you.

He's like, all that I, I don't see that. All that I see is my beautiful wife. And I'm like, that's great. That's really sweet, babe. But like, The objective reality is that my face is a little bit puffy. And I am not saying I look ugly, I'm hideous. It's like, yeah, of course my face is puffy. I had fricking needles under my eye shoving things in there. Like, of course it's puffy. But Xander, Xander thinks that it's, that I should believe him that he's like, I don't see it. I just see my beautiful wife. And I'm like, I think it's okay to say Yeah, it looks a little bit puffy, but I still think you look beautiful. But he won't tell me that I look puffy.

I just don't really see it. I mean, only when you smile, it just looks like you're like really smiling.

Come on.

I don't know, man. I don't notice that type of stuff. I just really don't.

But it's like—

It's your objective reality. It's not my objective reality.

It's not a subjective thing. It's not like—

There's no such thing. There's no such thing as objective when it comes to experience. There's really Probably not.

I think that you think it's a trap and you think that like if you say, yeah, you're a little bit puffy, I'm like, oh my God, you're so mean to me. But I genuinely won't. Like, I just think that's the objective and I'm not judging myself for it.

This is such a classic female-male dynamic going on right here. Just, just say it. Just say it. I won't be offended. I'm literally telling you what my experience is. I've been really consistent with it.

I think you can still be true to your experience and say yes, Your face is a little bit puffy, but I don't care. I still think you look beautiful.

So you're telling me to have a different experience, basically.

Yes. Sorry. Tell us what you think about this. And you can leave a comment on Spotify or YouTube if you're watching YouTube and seeing my slightly puffy face. It's not too bad anymore today. Anyways, what we were talking about today is fun. And wasn't that a fun intro?

That was super fun.

Okay, you know, obviously we talk about a lot more, you know, serious topics on this podcast. Communication, conflict, intimacy challenges, parenting, like all the day-to-day logistical stuff.

But we needed to have a topic that would require Vanessa to smile a lot to show off her potentially puffy face, her allegedly puffy face.

Okay, but I think it's very easy in long-term relationships, like with all the stuff that's on our plate, all the logistics, all like challenges of being messy and human, it's just really easy to lose the fun.

Just, yeah, stop having fun.

Yeah, to stop having fun in a relationship. And then you kind of find yourself wondering one day, like, what happened to us? Like, we used to have so much fun together, used to laugh together, we used to be able to do absolutely nothing but be like having so much fun together, and now it just It feels like we're just little husks of ourselves and husks of our relationship. And I think this— it often happens very slowly, too. And there's this point where you realize all of a sudden, like, wait, I don't remember the last time we had fun together.

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the insidiousness of slow change is you don't notice it when it's happening. You know, sort of like a slow decline of anything. I think, you know, we experience that when it comes to like health or aging. And similarly in relationships where it can be like, yeah, you don't notice a small, a minuscule change day in, day out. It's just that your perception of what normal is or what your baseline is slowly starts changing. And then eventually you have to have some kind of experience or confrontation or look in the mirror or someone else kind of maybe calling something out where you realize, oh shit, like this is totally different than what it used to be. How did this even happen?

Yeah, but I think fun is a really important part of a relationship. Like obviously it's fun is fun. Like it's an enjoyable thing to have. It gives you a sense of like real friendship. I think in your relationship it feels like this great foundation that the two of you have. I also think though, and maybe these are, I think these are things that we don't necessarily think about that often, but I think that fun builds resilience in relationships. Like when we feel like we have fun together, we can tackle so many more of life's challenges. I think most people have had that experience of life is just throwing shit after shit your way. That sounds weird. Life's just throwing shit your way. Life's throwing a lot of stuff your way. But like if you and your partner are just able to have a sense of humor in it and I mean I think we've had some times recently where we've just had to like so much stuff is going on, you just have to laugh at it. Like this is insane what we have on our plates right now. And like it, yeah, it just gives you this ability to get through things.

Yeah, I mean I think that you see a parallel to that or something that you might experience that might be more closer to home in terms of you've experienced this firsthand. If you're still like, oh, I don't know about this fun thing, but it's like in— you see this in the workplace very often, right? Like if you work in a— if you have a challenging job or, you know, you work somewhere where you go through busy periods or, you know, you're managing some kind of difficult change or reorganization, whatever, like changing jobs, changing expectations, If you are in a job where you hate all your coworkers, none of you get along, your boss sucks, everybody sucks, you're just in it for the paycheck, once you hit a challenging moment, you are so quick to just break, to being like, to snapping, like, screw this, I'm out, right? Like, I can't do this anymore. Whereas if you work somewhere where you love your coworkers, you get along, you guys do fun things together, maybe you have company retreats where there's team building, stuff, right? Like, it is so much easier to go through a hard time when you're like, hey, we are in this together. I know you, I like you, I trust you, you know, your, your teammates, your manager, etc. And, you know, that is why companies invest in team building and having fun stuff, you know, you know, versus other companies where it's like, yeah, it's literally a 9 to 5, we're not doing anything ever outside of work, we're not going to do anything nice or fun or whatever. And it's, it's Totally different vibe. And if you've worked at a number of places, you probably have seen the difference of what that feels like and what happens when things get challenging. And I think it's really exactly the same in relationships.

Absolutely. I also think that fun builds attraction. This is one of the biggest complaints that we've been hearing about recently from people, like saying, I'm not attracted to my partner anymore. I've lost my attraction to my partner. And it feels like this big mystery.

How do I get it back? Can I get it back?

I think it might just be gone and it's never coming back.

Yeah. Or we really fixate on like just the physical aspect of it. I think when, yeah, when you're not, when you've got like nothing in your relationship other than logistics, then I think the only thing to kind of grab onto around attraction is physical attraction. There's so much more to attraction than just the physical, but that's, that ends up being the only thing left when we get into, you know, when we have that slow decline of the fun and all of a sudden it's like, oh God, like this is just like a business arrangement, like this marriage is a business arrangement. Mm-hmm.

And I, yeah, I think that when you have fun with your partner, you feel more attracted to them because it reminds you of those early days in the relationship when you could do nothing and have the time of your lives together, when you were like, yeah, just getting to know this person and every moment that you got to spend with them was so exciting and enjoyable.

Yeah, and I'm sure if you listen to this podcast, you've heard me give this example a million times. This is where I jump in and say, this is the secret behind reality TV, and especially for like reality dating shows like The Bachelor. This is literally the secret to building fast connection and attraction between people where, you know, in any other regular circumstance, you'd be like, well, yeah, no, I'm not gonna fall in love with someone within one week. The way that they do it is putting people, intentionally putting people into, it's combination of new experiences and having fun. And if you notice, the people that end up building the most attraction are the people that are doing things where they're having the most fun. Even if the activity goes really poorly, it go, you know, goes badly, they don't enjoy it. If they have fun together, those are the, like, that attraction builds. And that's, that is the secret that reality TV has figured out is you can bypass so much of our normal barriers to, you know, how, how quickly you will gain attraction to someone if you just keep putting people in these type of situations. So I'm not saying that, you know, you need to do that where every day we're doing some crazy new thing, but if you have somehow lost the attraction to your partner, like, there is a way to turbocharge that. Like, just take your notes from reality TV. Forget about all that, you know, don't do the drama part.

So we're gonna get into how to have more fun in your relationship in this episode, and we asked our community to give us specific examples of ways that they have fun in their relationships. And there were a lot of great ideas. But before we get into all of that, we would love to get your support for the podcast. Yeah.

If you have fun listening to us, we'd ask you to do something that would be fun for us too, which is to have you rate our show, to have you subscribe to our show or leave a review, whatever podcast platform you are on right now. Just take a quick look. Is there a thumbs up?

Is there a star button? Is there a plus button?

Just smash it. That helps us. That helps our podcast so much and helps us have more fun with more people.

Yeah, we need to run the math on this. I haven't looked recently, but I think something like only like 10% of people who listen to the podcast are actually subscribed to it. And all that it takes is literally one little tap on your phone. It's not a big deal.

I know. I think people don't do it because they're like, oh, well, once you start listening to a show, it always serves it up to you when a new episode comes out. And so you feel like, oh, well, I don't need to. But yeah, you don't need to. But for us, in terms of us, you know, our numbers being better so that we can reach more people. More people see us when more people follow us. So it helps us so much because we just want to have fun with everybody.

We would love to. It really does make a big difference. Thank you so much. Okay. So like I said, we turned to our Instagram community and first we asked them, like, before you started following our account, would you say that you and your partner had fun in your relationship? Only 21% of people said all the time. Wow. Yeah. So 80% of people, 79% of people thought that they could be at least having more fun, which is pretty wild. That's a lot of people wanting to have more fun in their relationship. 14% of people said that they rarely or never have fun, which is pretty sad. Can you like— that's really sad. Never have fun in your relationship.

I mean, I think that's— I think that's people who have, you know, that slow decline that we talked about is people that are really in the thick of it there where, you know, the years have gone by and, you know, that's why we're doing an episode like this. It's like it is so easy to avoid getting into that situation by trying to incorporate some of this stuff rather than just leaving fun to chance. Like, how do we actually incorporate this in, you know, every week, every month in our relationship? I mean, that is like the best relationship insurance that you can buy right there.

Then we asked if you don't have fun or like you want to be having more fun in your relationship, what gets in the way? And here are the most common answers that we got. Kids being the priority or kids always being around. Someone said it feels like we have to have family fun fun, not relationship fun, which I think makes a lot of sense. Like, there, you know, there are only so many hours in the day, and if the kids are always around, there is that pressure of, yeah, this is something we're supposed to be all doing together at the expense of our relationship.

Yeah, I can totally— obviously Vanessa Marin and I don't have kids, so we can't speak to this from a personal experience of it, but it makes total sense to me that, yeah, there is a different type of fun, family fun, where it's sort of like, you know, it's a different dynamic, it's a different group of people, and there's different things that, you know, you can and can't do when there are kids. I think it can be so easy to start falling into that trap of the kids are always the number one priority. I am not saying deprioritize or don't prioritize your kids, but I think a lot of people forget that when you make your relationship a priority, that that is also a positive benefit for your kids. I think a lot of us think, oh, I just have to do everything for my kids. It's this selfless, you know, selflessly doing things for the kids at the expense of our relationship. And ultimately, if I think most of us, if we look back to our parents, right, we learned, we picked up on so much about how relationships work and what we should and shouldn't be looking for. That is really foundational to how we then go out into the world, how we see ourselves in the world, you know, how, how sex ends up being for us, what types of people we're looking for in relationships. That comes down to what we saw in, you know, or saw or didn't see our parents doing. And so I think one of the best things that you can do for your kids, a way that you can prioritize your kids, is by prioritizing your relationship. So even if that's one less activity so that mom and dad can go on a date night, long term, you are actually prioritizing the kids more by giving them a picture of what a successful relationship looks like.

Okay. A couple of years ago, I gave my dad one of his favorite Father's Day gifts ever, Storyworth. So if you haven't heard of Storyworth before, basically it gives gives your dad or your loved one a year-long experience. So every week they get a question sent to them about their life and they get to respond however they want. They can write back over email, they can do a voice recording. This year, a guided phone call, which might be a great option if you have some technologically challenged people in your life. But seriously, it's very, very simple. My dad could figure it out and he's technologically challenged. So they take this story and then at the end of the year, they compile the years worth of stories, their words. You can also add photos as well into a beautiful hardcover book that then becomes a keepsake that you get to cherish for generations to come. As the person gifting it, you also get to play a role in it. Like, you can pick the questions that you want to send. I remember I wanted to ask my dad a bunch of questions about his childhood. He grew up in the suburbs of Massachusetts, and since we didn't grow up there, like, I just wanted to know more about what what that experience was like, what that area was like. And we just got so many funny and unique stories that I'd never heard before, even though I felt like I had heard all of my dad's stories. So it was a really cool experience for the entire family. Families have used Storyworth to create over a million books. There are over 50,000 5-star reviews. New this year is Storyworth's Unlimited Plan. You can buy it once and give Storyworth memoirs to friends and family all year. This year, give Dad a gift that captures who he really is before the stories get harder to Remember, Father's Day is Sunday, June 21st. Order right now and save up to $20 at storyworth.com/pillow. Save up to $20 at storyworth.com/pillow. Storyworth.com/pillow. Another super common answer was, we're just busy. It doesn't feel like we have time with all the running around we do.

I think that that is also one of these sort of like slow decline or slow change types of things that we don't notice. And I think it can be really important to try to step back when we are thinking about this stuff and think about, do we actually need to do all of these running around things that we do? Or have we just slowly, slowly but surely gotten more and more used to Oh, well, we always do this, or we go to that store, we do this, you know, we always go to so-and-so's house on this day and whatever. And it's like pretty quickly it just becomes a new normal. Early in our relationship when we lived in San Francisco, you know, it could feel like on the weekends, like we could quickly fall into that pattern of like, oh my God, like, you know, oh, you know, we used to like go to Costco and go to whatever, you know, like certain stores where it's like nice to be able to go to that store where they have everything. But pretty soon your entire weekend can be gone. And if you step back and you're like, hmm, do I, do I really need to do that? Are there any alternatives to this? And just being like, oh, that's because that's the way we've always done it, isn't a good enough reason for continuing to do something if it's keeping you from having a little bit of time to do something nice. So I would, I would challenge people to sort of question that. Don't just assume, oh, well, we just have to do all these 10 things that we always do every weekend. Are there some things that we could reshuffle or reprioritize? Especially if you put it in the context of, hey, I'm missing just having like an hour to mess around with you on Sunday. Is there any way that we could look at that? Because your partner would probably be like, yeah, I miss that too.

Mess around with you? Your partner would be like, we don't have time for that.

Whatever it is. But I think that, you know, it's like if you can get your partner on board with that, then it's like, all right, let's reevaluate. And let's, you know, let's not assume that everything just has to be done the way it always has been. Let's see if we can get creative.

Okay. We— I had the funniest conversation with my Pilates teacher the other day. She was like, my girlfriend sent me this website and was telling me this has the most incredible clothing for the best prices. You have to check it out. It's this website called Quince. She's Mexican and she thought it was pronounced quince. It's Quince. And I, as soon as I figured it out, I was like, I was like, oh my God, no, you mean Quince. And yes, they do make incredible products. I like, I'm actually blown away by how many different kinds of products Quince keeps adding. We originally started buying for, from them. We bought linen napkins were the very first things that we ever bought. And I love these linen napkins. They were so much cheaper than I found at other places, but the quality was super high. Since then we have bought clothing, bedding, shoes, wallets, like they have so much stuff, and they work directly with ethical factories to cut out the middleman. So you're just paying for the quality, not the brand markup. But they've got everything— sofas, ceramic cookware, premium bedding. Like, you will end up like my Pilates teacher's friend recommending it to everybody. My current favorite Quince item is their gauze sleeveless maxi dress. I always get compliments whenever I wear it. It's so comfortable, you feel like you're wearing nothing, but you still look effortlessly chic. Elevate your summer wardrobe, go to quince.com/pillow for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com/pillow for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com/pillow. Y'all's— oh, and also like adult life responsibilities was in that category too. Money was another common response. And I want to challenge that one. You don't have to spend any money to have fun. Obviously you can spend money in a lot of really fun ways.

And not fun ways.

Yeah. That's true. But you don't have to spend money to have fun. Always being tired, work stress getting in the way, always being on our phones and social media. Oh my God, you guys.

Like, yeah. The amount of people that say we don't have time for anything. And then you say, all right, tell me about your social media usage. And it's like, like, there's 5 hours right there.

Yeah, and like, we're both guilty too. I'm not saying this from a holier-than-thou place. I get just as sucked into Instagram as anyone else, and I have so many experiences of like, whoa, I, you know, I just entered some sort of time warp, and now all of a sudden like 15 minutes are gone, and I like didn't have any enjoyable experience whatsoever.

Yeah.

It's sad. It's really sad. We have to be so on top of ourselves about our phone habits and our social media habits because they truly are sucking so much time out of our day. And I know everybody knows this already. I'm not saying anything new that anybody has never heard before, but we just don't take it seriously enough, myself included. It's always something to be on top of ourselves about. OK, another person wrote, we just don't know what to do to have fun. We get stuck trying to figure out what sounds fun. Oh, well, good thing you're listening to this.

This episode.

We're going to tell you how to have fun. And someone else said, we honestly just forget.

That is fair. I would challenge you on that one, though. You don't— forgetting is optional in this day and age with the technology that we have. This is a set a reminder. I forget so much. And I had to get really honest with myself about this. I think I had this idea that I should remember things. My brain should be able to remember things. It didn't used to be a problem when I was a kid or a teenager or, you know, maybe even a young adult. And so it was— I was shoulding, shoulding all over myself about, well, I should be able to like I used to or like Vanessa does or like what I think other people do. The reality is other people don't remember things very well either. But the hard truth that I had to come to was I am no longer able to remember things that well. I will probably, like, once it gets to long-term memory, for me, it's really good. So I'll remember like 2 months from now, oh shoot, I said I was going to do whatever. Like, there's someone I have to call to come to our house to do some work that I totally forgot about doing. I was supposed to do that a couple hours ago. And so I will, I will do this in 1 second, but not on, not on camera. But, but set a reminder, put it in your calendar. Once you accept But you know what? My memory is not what it used to, and I will forget things if I don't commit them to digital memory. So the moment you have that thought, then it's so much easier. I go, I have the thought and I go, I should remember that. And I go, nope, you can't remember that. I'm going to force myself to remember it and set a reminder.

So, I mean, do you think people should literally set reminders to have fun? Like, how can we remind ourselves?

Well, I think that you can listen to what we are about to talk about, giving you some ideas. And think about what, what would sound fun. And I think also it's lowering the bar for what fun is. I think you might be thinking, oh yeah, we should do something fun. And you're, you're setting a really high bar of like, oh, it has to be like, you know, really crazy or something I'm always going to remember, like a peak experience or something. I think that we can lower the bar where it's like, can we do something where we both laugh a little bit and we feel a little bit closer? With each other, or we just did something new, a little bit different than we have done before. Something that gives us something to remember.

Okay. That actually leads us really nicely into the next section.

It's almost like I have an outline in front of me.

Almost like you do.

It's almost like I know what I'm doing with this podcast thing. Isn't that weird? It's almost like I don't have an iPad sitting on my lap.

Okay, so we asked our Instagram community.

It's almost like I was lying that I actually can remember everything. I've committed this entire outline to memory.

Okay. We asked them, what specifically do you do to have fun together? Because, you know, we love getting into the specifics of things. So the first category that you led us nicely into was simple moments. This is what I called it. I turned these into, I think, 5 different categories. Simple moments was the first one. And I wanted to start with this one exactly for the reason that you just said, that I think too often we blow things up in our heads and think it has to be something like really big, monumental, like really impactful. But I think, I think I have the most fun with you. Like, yeah, doing something big is fun, of course. But I think I have the most fun with you in those just like simple, tiny little moments. And those kinds of moments are way more doable than the big grandiose ones.

Yeah. I mean, even before you got into the examples, like a simple moment and can just be, and it can also just be some unstructured time. Like, I think that, yeah, we get this idea, oh, and we, yeah, we gotta have more fun, so we have to plan a big activity. You absolutely can plan a big activity, or you could plan a much smaller activity like the ones that Vanessa is about to read. But you can also set the bar so low where it's like, hey, let's just have half an hour where around the house without any other thing like trying to compete for our time and just do something. I mean, like even just like pull out a puzzle and do a puzzle. Like, you know, that simple where it's just a little something that gets your brain working together in a slightly different way.

Okay. One person said, we're busy parents, so we don't have a ton of time, but we try to make errands feel like dates. I think that's really cute. Like if you go, we've done this before too, or you have like dumb errands that you don't want to run, but we go on them together. We do a lot of stuff together that that absolutely does not need—

like 90% of the errands, of the things that we go on together do not require both of us to be there.

But it just feels more enjoyable when you have your partner there. Like there's so many dumb things that we have to do that are part of being an adult. But if you have your buddy there doing it with you, it makes it feel more fun.

Yeah, I would recognize that that works for us because we don't have kids. When you have kids, the other parent, you know, someone has to take care of the kids. And so I totally understand that once you have kids, you really do have to divide and conquer a lot more. So we are not saying, oh yeah, now you're going to all doctor's appointments together and you're all go— you're going to the store grocery shopping together. No, definitely not. But trying to just get creative. Okay, maybe the kids are at school and typically, you know, one person goes grocery shopping during, you know, at that time or whatever. Um, and the other person stays home. Like, why don't you two go together? Like, it is an opportunity to do something. Together. So not all the, all the errands, but just strategically, if, if there is space and time. I, because I think the thing is, once you're parents and you are dividing and conquering, you get so used to the divide and conquer that you don't consider, you don't even consider a moment where you could choose to do something together. You're like, oh well, you know, she always goes and does this on her own, and I always go and do this on my own. And yeah, maybe step back and be Oh, actually, I'll just join you.

Or even I was thinking about like going to a kid's sports game. Like what if you brought a cute little picnic lunch for the two of you and you go to the game together and make it feel like, hey, we get this. Yes, we have to be here sitting in the stands, but like we're going to sit apart from the rest of the parents and the two of us catch up or something like that. Just trying to squeeze in those moments.

Yeah, the benefit of that too is that then you're not tempted to like yell at the refs.

Yeah, stop yelling at the refs.

Get overly competitive with all the other parents.

Classic. We take a walk after work together to reconnect. Love that one. Super simple. Our house always has music playing, so we dance around. Another good music one is with chores. Like put on some of your favorite music and if you have to like tidy up the house or whatever things that you're doing around the house, like it's a dance party plus tidying up. That can be fun too. Go on lunch dates in the middle of the workday together or quick little coffee dates. Date. Okay, second category was being silly with each other.

I think we forgot, so many people forget about this once they become adults. It's like, it's especially, and especially adults and parents, you're like, oh, I'm not silly anymore. I'm a parent. I'm an adult.

I'm a 40-year-old man. I'm not supposed to be silly anymore.

Yeah, you are.

I think silliness This is so underrated in relationships. I mean, obviously we are very silly people ourselves. So we're pretty biased around this, but I just, I think silliness makes life so much more enjoyable. Like that's really some of the most fun times that I have with you and we're just being like— Absolutely. If you're having a moment where you're like, if anybody else saw what we are doing and saying together right now, I'd be so embarrassed. Like those are peak moments for me.

Yeah. If you don't have any of that in your relationship, that's actually a good test. Do you have— Do you have anything that you do or say or moments from the last week where you're like, God, if there was a camera in the house and this was like getting livestreamed on Instagram, like I wouldn't know what to do with myself. That's maybe a sign that you could work on that. Like there's some work there.

Okay. Here were some specific silly examples. We have tons of inside jokes.

Oh, I hope to be a part of one of those one day.

Deep cut. That's an Office reference. Michael Scott. I think one of the best parts of being in a relationship is having a secret language.

Yeah.

Like an inside language. Just all these weird little inside jokes and phrases and words. Like it makes it feel so fun and so special. Someone else said, we gather the funniest reels and watch them together at the end of the day. Honestly, this is something that we could do. Like we send each other reels all throughout the day, but then inevitably it's one person being like, did you watch the reel I sent you? And they're like, no, I haven't yet. And like, why don't you ever watch the reels I send you? Well, no, that's what I do.

I go, oh, did you watch my reels? The answer is almost always no. And then I'll be like, all right, watch them right now and I'm going to watch you.

But like if we had some, like a little ritual of, okay, we're going to take 5 minutes and, you know, we're in bed or we're on the couch or whatever and we're just not in bed. We don't like to be on our phones in bed, but, but like being cozy.

It is, it is interesting that we've made social media antisocial, like we engage with it it just with ourselves and the social media when in a relationship we have a partner right there. We have someone that we could be social with around social media because we know so many people are lacking time in their day because both people are heads down using social media and the, the minutes, the hours, they tick by and all of a sudden we're like, oh, we never have time for anything. And I would challenge you, if you feel like you're using social media too much, think maybe, what if I just use social media with my partner? Okay, whenever I want to watch Reels, then it's like, hey, maybe this is an opportunity for us to watch together. I think that I know when we do that, I feel way less sucked in to the sort of like addictive gamified nature of it. Because it's like, it's not like I'm just like, oh, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. It's like we have to decide to, oh, like, oh, don't like this. Okay, should we keep going? Going, I don't— like, it, it breaks that, it breaks a lot of that addictive cycle.

That's a really good point.

So yeah, I'm not saying stop watching Reels, stop doing social media, but I think with Reels especially, that is such a dopamine hit, like just the scrolling. You're like, ah, I gotta wait, gotta wait till I find like a really great one that never comes. Yeah, gotta end on a real banger. Um, what if you're like, hey, let's watch, let's watch some Reels together. And if you're like, oh God, I'm embarrassed by my algorithm, then maybe you got some work to do on your algorithm. But yeah, I think that is a great hack because it's fun when we do that. And then it actually feels like something fun we did together.

Somebody else said dancing in the kitchen.

Wait, but what about like the living room? I'd rather dance in the living room.

You can dance anywhere you want.

Okay.

Anywhere? Dance in your podcast chair. Playful teasing. Obviously we do a lot of that in our relationship.

I think that, I mean, that's one where you have to gauge like what is is the appetite for teasing amongst both partners, because I think different people have different levels of this that they're okay with in their relationship. So we're not saying just start going in and roasting each other, roasting your partner out of nowhere. But if this is something that feels— that, that is, uh, you know, that you guys are open to, try it out.

Doing impressions or voices. We just finished the last season of Love on the Spectrum where one of the couples was really bonding over doing impressions and voices together, and it was so sweet to watch. Another person said, watching comedy specials or our favorite sitcoms and just being weird together. Yeah, we definitely do a lot of that. Yeah, just being weird. If you are looking for the perfect outfit that's soft enough to sleep in, put together enough to answer the door, somehow right for everything in between, you have to check out Cozy Earth's jogger set. They're made from viscose from bamboo. It's lightweight, breathable, just gets softer and softer over time. It actually feels like PJs. They're so soft and so comfortable. And they make a lot of things that are just incredibly soft and comfortable.

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All right, honest question, how many arguments start because of the fact that you're both just really tired?

I'd probably say like 60%. This is not scientific, but, uh, a lot of fights are just plain sleep deprivation.

Yeah, at a minimum, because when you're not well rested, everything feels bigger.

You're more reactive, less patient, less interested in connecting, and less interested in other things as well. Yes, including that.

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I do not.

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Okay. Maybe sometimes.

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The third category was adventure. So I think these things tend to be the slightly bigger experiences.

Yeah, I think this is what people more typically think about when, when someone says you should have more fun. Fun, or we should have more fun. This is where most people's heads go to. I'm not saying— we're not saying these are bad. These are great. But I think that when we have the blinders on and we think these are the only types of things that we can do for fun, that's when we're missing out on opportunities.

Okay. I thought this was such a great idea. Someone wrote, we actively try to do something we're bad at together, like a painting class or a dance lesson. That is so interesting, like, to consciously be trying to pick something that you feel like you're bad at.

You— because that's vulnerable and it is connecting and it could be really funny. Yeah, and it can be funny. And then it's also— there's a power in both of you being bad at it because I think that it can feel weird if you do an activity where one partner is really good at it and another is not, because then any kind of silliness that you're having can come off as like, oh, the more experienced partner is like making fun of the less experienced partner.

Like if we tried to go surfing together. I don't know, man.

Yeah. Well, no, and that's interesting because I just, for Mother's Day, I went to visit my mom and we went to one of those places where like they have a bunch of pottery and you paint the pottery and then afterwards they like fire it. You get your piece of pottery back. I am horrible at that. And like none of us knew what we were doing except my mom who had been there a couple of times. And like, and it was just, it was kind of funny because, you know, my sister and I and my dad were all like, you know, we saw my mom like requested that they do some special treatment thing to her pot. And we were like, oh my God, like we didn't even know that was an option. Like here we are like using this one brush and there's actually like 10 brushes out there. I also found myself being like originally like not really looking forward to going to the pottery things. And it's like, I don't like doing pottery, but it's like you sit down and you're painting You're like getting into the zone. You're like, all right, this is, this is enjoyable. This is— it's fun. It's fun to bond with my family members over how little we know about this.

Okay. Here were some other common responses in the adventure category. Trying new restaurants, enjoying outside time together, weekend trips. We try to do regular staycations, local music events, taking classes together, exploring a new neighborhood. This was a cute idea. Testing out hobbies we wanted to try as kids, but couldn't.

Oh, yeah. Indulge your inner child.

Yeah. When you bring your, when you let your inner child out to play, that can really be a pretty profound experience of having fun. Creating a shared bucket list. And this last one was also really interesting. A day of yes. We take turns. One person gets to ask the other person to do things and we challenge ourselves to say yes. Yes, as much as possible.

Wasn't there a movie about, like, a Jim Carrey movie, Yes Man, or something like that, where it was like some magic happens and all of a sudden Jim Carrey is only able to say yes to things? He's not able to say no and he has to do everything. I don't know, that's a deep cut. But I really like the day of yes. And I, with a lot of these, it makes me think, oh well, like, oh, I could go to like this, like a local music event, but like I don't think I really probably would like that band or that kind of music or the place that it's at. I'm judging the activity based on how much enjoyment I think I will personally get out of it rather than judging it based on what is the benefit of us going together to have a new experience. And that's actually an interesting thought. That's something I could challenge myself on more is that it's not about, oh, am I going to derive personal satisfaction from this thing? But rather thinking, is there going to be some benefit of us doing this together? Some, a new, a new experience, a new connection. Is there gonna be like, are we gonna gain some relationship satisfaction? So I think so many of us get caught in that, oh, am I gonna like this? And it's like, hey, it's not about you, it's about us. Is this gonna be something that we will remember, that we will talk about, that we will will have an opportunity to just be silly or have fun at together. Oh, and then also, of course, I want to call out because I know it's a big objection is, you know, oh, you know, money is tight, or, you know, everything we want to do for fun costs money. In this adventure list, some of the things did cost money, like going to new restaurants or like taking a weekend trip, maybe a music event, maybe not. But I think a lot of them didn't necessarily cost any money. So challenge yourself. There's so many opportunities to do free things out in the world or even in your house that you may not love personally, but as a partnership, as a relationship, as a marriage, like you may derive some satisfaction and benefit out of it.

Okay. The fourth category I'm calling games and competition. Board games. Trivia nights, mini golf, pickleball, video games. Bowling. Bowling, fantasy leagues. And what did, what was the show that we were just watching? They're like, they take you bowling. Oh, Euphoria. They're taking her to rehab. Rue's taking someone to rehab. And she's like, it's gonna be fine. They take you bowling. Okay. This was an interesting idea to gamify meal decisions. Options because like if there's one thing that needs more fun, it's the dreaded, what are we having for dinner conversation?

Oh yeah.

Oh God. Okay. So this person said, we write down the options, then roll the dice and let fate decide. It takes the stress out of picking dinner.

Or yeah. Or you can make your own like Chopped challenge. You can put like a list. Okay. Here are the proteins that we have and here are the vegetables. Just put them in a hat, draw one. Like, all right, we're going with this. This.

So I mean, this one obviously is going to vary from couple to couple. Sometimes competition can get a—

it can bring out the best or the worst in us.

It can bring out the best or the worst in us for sure. Um, but plenty of great ideas there.

Which one of us do you think is more competitive? To all the listeners out there, I'm curious what you guys think.

Put a little poll up.

I mean, It's— if you know us a little bit, it should be pretty obvious that it is not me.

But to be fair, I think I have gotten way less competitive. I would not call myself competitive anymore.

Yeah, it's more of like, I get to, I get to see that side of you.

I don't even know. Like, I used to be competitive for sure, and it 1,000% was actually coming from a place of insecurity within me. But now I feel like I have more confidence and more self-assuredness and I don't get the same like—

The zing?

The zing out of being competitive. I can be, and I wouldn't even use the word competitive with myself, like I like to challenge myself, but I don't have a feeling of like I have to win.

Yeah.

I don't feel that anymore. But yeah, you're definitely definitely like whatever the opposite of competitive is.

Anti-competitive.

Anti-competitive. No, you're just really not competitive. You're driven.

Unless I really know I can beat you in something and then that's fun.

Okay. And then category 5, our 5th and final category, intimate fun.

Oh, so messing around with each other. Like I said, I teed this one up, guys. Hey, it'd be fun to have half an hour to mess around. And this is what we're talking about.

Flirty texts, sexy games or questions, which actually is a great reminder of something that we have been doing a terrible job at doing. We have a card deck. We do. With sexy questions.

Yeah, there's connection questions. There are sexy questions. There's just relationship communication stuff. Stuff, but it's all really positive and fun.

Yeah, we just realized this on Instagram a couple of days ago. Somebody called us out and was like, you never talk about your book, but your book was like life-changing for me. More people need to read it.

Yeah, we have a book and we have a card deck based on the book. It's a New York Times bestselling book.

It's right behind me.

It's really, really good.

It's called Sex Talks: The 5 Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life. Oh, and the card deck is literally right up there.

I don't think it's in the shot. Oh, you can't see it in the video. Boom, boom. We got a card deck.

Look at how cute it is.

It's beautiful.

The Sex Talks card deck, 90 prompts.

This is, yeah, this is so legit. I mean, the card deck, we went through a lot of other card decks out there and there's not a lot of great card decks for your relationship out there. There's a lot of card decks.

There are a lot of decks.

There are a lot that have the ability to start a lot of fights. Open up some real rifts in relationships.

You can tell that like therapists did not write those questions. The one that always sticks out to me that I always give as the example is, what's something that you hate about my parents? Yeah. Like, why would you put that on a card?

Or like, what do you want less of in bed? I'm like, yes, if there are things that you want less of in bed, that is important. However, there are more skillful ways to approach ways to start that conversation that aren't, hey, we need to talk. I want less of X, Y, and Z. There, I mean, if you've been listening to our podcast, you can probably already think of a number of different ways to start approaching that issue that aren't going to be, you know, just dropping a bomb like that.

Yeah.

So these are very persuasive. So anyway, sex talks card deck.

The book is amazing. The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life. The card deck is just like, it's really fun and playful. Draw a card at random and answer it. You can— if you have a partner who tends to say like, oh, I don't know in the moment, like send them a picture of the card in the morning and be like, let's talk about this at the end of the day. So you give them time to think of their answer.

Yes. Go to sextalksbook.com. I believe the links for the book and the card deck will be there.

Yes. So definitely check those out. Okay. Recreating favorite dates.

Yeah.

That's very sweet. Showering together. Can be fun for some. I would not call that fun for me.

We are really at the wrong height where my elbows—

We have too much of a height difference.

My elbows are at her face level and that can cause some challenges. We have a— We don't have a—

We have different temperature preferences.

We don't have a small shower, but it's not large enough where, I mean, well, it's not large. Yeah, we don't have two shower heads. That's really the dream to be in the shower together, but in our separate little space. Here's my suspicion about the shower and the temperature is if you are taller, you generally want a lower temperature because it is, you know, in 1 foot of the water falling, it actually does lose a decent amount of temperature. And I know this because I distinctly remember as a kid, like showering with my parents and like getting picked up and you're like, oh my God, it's so hot up here. Like it's a totally different experience. So yeah, like it, the, the water temperature really does decrease a fair amount. And so I do suspect that we actually are probably closer in our preferences than you think. But who knows? The answer is you just need a shower stool.

That sounds like fun. Okay, building anticipation and being playful sexually instead of performance-focused.

Yeah, don't be so serious. In fact, I mean, unless you're, you know, unless you have the sex personality type that is more about seriousness. But I think a lot of us get this mistaken idea, especially if we've been socialized around sex a certain way, that it has to be this very serious, formal thing. And it absolutely does not, especially once we're in a long-term committed relationship where we trust the person and we've, we've done it a lot. We have a history together. Unless you really get off on the seriousness of it, try setting that aside. Try being a little goofy, a little silly. I think you might be surprised at how much more fun it can be.

And our last response, your guides. We have so much fun with them.

Oh yeah, of course.

Absolutely. I would call out two of our guides in particular, our Ultimate Foreplay Guides and Ultimate Sex Positions. Those are by far and away like the two most fun.

Or, and if you want to formalize a lot of this, join The Spark because we give you, we give you fun conversation prompts every month. We give you one connecting activity, one sexy activity to do. So I mean, that is a real lot like slam dunk way to just get this, you know, on autopilot amongst the two of you into your calendar. Just join The Spark. It's $9 a month. Super easy.

It is.

I mean, like, you know, I was talking about relationship insurance, having a little bit of fun. Like, tell me relationship insurance that costs $9 a month is not worth it where you, you know, that is going to ensure your relationship, that you guys have fun together, and then you are actually going to enjoy that and be looking forward to doing that every week and feel closer and have more sex and all the good stuff, right? Like, that is so worth it. So definitely check any of those out, all of them out. I think you'll be happy.

Yeah, we'll put the links to the foreplay guides and Sexposition and The Spark in the show notes. Or you can just go straight to vmtherapy.com and we'll have them in there too. All right. Well, that is all we have for you on the topic of fun. We truly think that it's just one of the most underrated forms of intimacy. So I hope this episode has inspired you to have a little more fun.

Yeah. Think about like, what is— yeah, what is one thing from here? Take one thing. Yeah. You could try this week in your relationship? What is one thing that you want to do from here? Text your partner right now. Hey, I— it would be really fun if we did X, Y, and Z today, tomorrow, this weekend. Pick out one thing. Let us know what it is. If you are listening on Spotify, or you can leave comments, let us know what's one fun thing that you want to try this week. And if you're not, DM us on Instagram. Instagram or TikTok @vanessanzander. Let us know what it is that you want to try because we'd love to know.

All right. Well, that's all for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week. We release new episodes every Thursday.