EPISODE 197: Ask A Sex Therapist - Resentment, Sexual Frustration, And The Death Grip

In general, there are two types of people in the world. There are some people who like to feel emotionally connected before having sex. And there are some people who have sex as a way to feel emotionally connected. How to stop being defensive in my marriage.

Ooh, that's a million dollar question right there.

Just learned about the death grip, my man. Definitely does it. How do I help? So, Zander, can you explain what the death grip is? Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Zander Marin. I'm a 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. So every Sunday on Instagram, we do Ask us Anything day. We put up a little question box. We take people's questions and. And we do our very best to answer as many as we can. But lately the questions have been out of control. There's so many good questions. It's so hard to pick which ones to answer. So I've been saving a little backlog of questions that we just didn't get around to on a particular Sunday for a particular reason. But I really wanted to come back to them, and eventually the backlog got so big that I thought, you know, you know what, we should just do a whole episode about it. So today we're gonna be going through questions about sexual frustration. We've got some stuff about defensiveness, maybe even the death grip. I've got a big old list. We'll just see how many we get through.

Yeah, let's crank. Let's crank em out, babe.

And if you're not following us on Instagram, you definitely should be. We're at Vanessa and Xander. Xander with an X. So you'll get all the Sunday stories, but also get a chance to contribute to these podcast episodes. We always do a ton of polls and research for these episod. So come on over and join us over there. But before we get into the episode today, we have an announcement. Yeah, I'm laughing now because we have family dinner.

Is that weird?

No, we have family dinner with my family every week. And my mom always asks every week, like, does anybody have an announcement? And we always make fun of her. Cause it sounds so formal and strange.

Like she Also asked it in a very leading way, as if there is an assumption that someone is hiding an announcement that they're not making every single week. It's like she says it as if she knows that there is an announcement and she's trying to, like, goad you into giving it. But I'm like, I don't know, I don't, I don't have one this week.

I fall for it every week. I'm like, ooh, who has the announcement this week? But we actually do have an announcement. Probably not the one that we would share at family dinner, but we have an announcement that you will like, which is that we have a brand new freebie. We are always trying to make new free guides for you guys. And we're really excited about this one. It is all about the initiation styles model. So this is a model that we developed when we were writing our New York Times bestselling book, sex talks, the five conversations that will transform your love life. And we have a whole section on initiation. And I wanted to describe the different ways that people like to be initiated with. I think a lot of people have heard of the love languages model. It's the same sort of idea that we all like to, you know, give and receive love in different ways. We all like to have sex initiated in different ways. And so if we don't know our own style, if we can't communicate that style with our partner, we're going to be really missing each other and probably initiating in ways that our partner actually isn't going to be super receptive to. So if your partner has ever initiated sex with you in a way that made your eyes roll, made you cringe, gave you the ick, or if you've ever initiated with your partner and didn't get a great response from them, or.

Even if it's just like a meh situation, like, oh, the. The way my partner initiates, I'm like, eh, I could go either way. Or you're initiating and you're like, it doesn't really seem like my partner enjoys this. They're not actively turned off. Like, maybe they're still saying yes, but it's not eliciting the type of response that you want. This is what you need to figure out, is what your and your partner's initiation styles are.

I mean, honestly, everybody needs this. Even if you feel like you're doing a pretty good job with initiation, it's not a big deal for you, like, understanding your style and being able to talk about that with your partner. It can be so Fun to talk about and it can really uplevel initiation. So everybody needs this and we are giving it away to you absolutely for free. I know we make a lot of silly reels over on Instagram showing the bad initiation type, like styles like the boob honk or just like coming up and humping against your back. And people are always like, okay, what's the answer?

What's the right one?

Give us the bad ones, but give us the good ways to initiate. So that is all in this.

Yeah. I mean, the reason why we don't have an Instagram reel being like, here is the way to initiate is because. Because there are initiation styles. And so there is no one way. It's that I can't tell you, like in your specific situation right now with the partner that you have what the right way for you is to initiate. Unless I know what your initiation style is and what your partner's initiation style is. So that's why you don't see us making that content like, here's the right way to do it. There's a whole plethora of right ways to do it for certain people. So this is why it's so important for you to figure out what you are and what your partner is. And then it starts to become pretty obvious what types of approaches will and won't work.

So we put a link to that free guide in the show notes, or you can go straight to vmtherapy.comstyles to grab it. That's vmtherapy.comstyles for the free initiation styles guide.

All right, so before we get into all these great questions, I just gotta give a little plug for our review of the week. If you haven't left us a review, we would love it so much if you could leave us, ideally a five star review. If you love our podcast, don't leave us a review.

It's gonna be a one star. Just keep that to yourself.

Yeah, just, you know, maybe. Maybe move on to another podcast. But no, if. If you love Pillow Talks, we would love it if you could leave us a review. Because reviews are the best way for our podcast to grow. And so we wanna who do leave reviews who do love Pillow Talks. And yeah, so what we do every week is we pick a random review from Apple Podcasts, we read it aloud. If you hear yours read aloud, we'll give you a free masterclass. All you have to do is DM us on Instagram or email us@infovm therapy.com. so here is this week's winner. Sexcellent. My title is Cheesy, but this podcast is excellent. I wanted to learn about making sex in a relationship great, healthy and strong. Vanessa and Xander are genuine, smart, knowledgeable, fun and challenging. Everything you want your podcast hosts to be. I've learned so much and had fun doing it. They have taken me from confused and doubtful about sex being anything but a conflict in a relationship to being equipped to make it a tremendous strength. Note it's important to talk about giving me tools and techniques I need to succeed. Listen to Pillow Talks. It's my favorite podcast and I can't recommend it more enthusiastically.

Oh, that's a really sweet one. Yeah, that is so much. That is taking the time.

That is so awesome. And I mean I think that's like really what we feel like we are on this earth to do is sex does for so many people. It unfortunately it sadly feels like something that really doesn't do that much. And you know, if anything it is like a detraction from what feels like the good stuff in your relationship and it doesn't have to be that way.

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No, you're gonna get the Xander regular dude hot take on these.

Raw and unfiltered.

I'm gonna raw dog these questions, babe.

Okay, why don't you read the first one?

All right. My husband was groping me in his sleep. How do I address this?

Okay, so this is something that not many people know even exists, including us.

Before it started happening in our relationship, it did.

So this is called sexsomnia. Some people will initiate sex while they're sleeping. So it's just like sleepwalking. You know, People might get up and walk around. People have done weird things. I remember we did.

People got into all kinds of trouble sleeping.

All kinds of trouble sleeping. I know we did a prompt on Instagram once, and the one that always sticks out at me, it was like, what's the weirdest thing you or your partner has ever done in your sleep? The one that always sticks out to me is, someone baked an entire pie from scratch. But the best part of it was, they said, I'm not even a baker. I've never baked a pie before in my life.

But did it come out good?

I never heard that.

I know. They didn't give us that detail, man. I mean, this also gets me thinking. We were listening to an Armchair Anonymous episode recently about sleepwalking, and there were some wild, wild stories of what people did in their sleep. Like, one guy, like, jumped out of a glass window.

Yeah, it's bad. So, anyways, people also will initiate sex with their partner in their sleep or just grope.

I guess it's unclear from this question. Like, is your husband initiating sex or is he just groping?

Do you want to tell the story of how it happened to us?

I mean, I guess how it happened to us was similar. I mean, I don't really know because I don't really remember the beginning of it, but this was pretty early on in our relationship. First, like, first five years. First five years of our relationship, for sure. I know, you know, where we were living. So that kind of, like, keys in the timing. For me, it was. For me, it was a time of very high work stress. I think that, yeah, I was generally dysregulated. A lot of stress, not enough sleep, not like consistent sleep. And, yeah, I woke up in the middle of the night one night and Vanessa and I were starting to have sex. Well, wait, let me back it up. I woke up and I was having sex with somebody and it was fucking hot. And for a moment it was like, oh, my God, who am I having sex with? But, like, I'm in the middle. Like, I can't stop. But, like, wait, like, is this wrong? Is this right? And then for a second, I kind of had this flash of, oh, okay, I'm, like, half asleep. This is my wife, Vanessa. This is okay. She seems to be into this. Like, let's keep going. And by the time we finished very quickly, I think, and then it was like, whoa, what happened?

Yeah, for me, it was one of the sexiest experiences of my life because I had that same experience of you where I didn't know who it was, but it was in a sexy, safe way. It didn't feel like something scary or out of control or anything like that.

Yeah, that's how it felt for me, too. It was. I mean, it was like, oh, my God, this is so hot. And then there was sort of this question of, wait, is this. But wait, is that. Is that okay? Like, wait, I'm married. Wait, no, this is my wife. It's okay.

Yeah. And it ended up, yeah, being super, super sexy. I really enjoyed it. And I was very sad that you stopped doing it and haven't done it for, like, 15 years.

It happened a couple of times, probably like three or four times, I think, over a couple month period.

It happens most often when people are experiencing high stress. We don't have a ton of research on it. We don't know a ton about it, but it tends to happen most often when people are in really high stress situations. So for us, it was a very fun, very sexy experience. But for other people, it absolutely is not necessarily. And of course, the big issue that it brings up is consent. You know, if somebody is asleep and they're starting something, you're not getting an active consent from your partner, or at least, you know, the two of you aren't on the same page. And so for a lot of people, this can feel scary. This can feel out of control and really unsafe. So I don't know what the vibe was for this specific person. They didn't say, you know, this really upset me, or it didn't feel good for me. So I don't know if it Was more just a. Like, is this weird, or is he. I've heard other people ask, like, is my husband pretending to be asleep? Because he doesn't want that vulnerability of actually initiating.

Yeah, I think a lot of people make that assumption, if it is happening, because, like, I'm. I'm. I'm just gonna make a assumption that what's happening in this situation is, like, he's starting to. He's literally just groping her. Like, he's starting to touch her, starting to grab at her. I'm guessing it's not leading to anything else. Like, maybe she's sort of pushing him away. He didn't wake up fully, so he's not aware of it. But I think that this happens to a lot of people. And, yeah, they do assume, oh, yeah, no, he's awake. He's just pretending that he's asleep. And I think that that actually happens very rarely. I mean, if you're ever doing that, like, please don't do that. Please initiate. Like, just talk about it. Don't pretend that you're asleep. But I think we can assume 99.9% of the time, if this is happening, they are truly asleep. They have no idea what's happening unless you wake them up.

Ooh. I don't know if I'd be that confident in the 99.9%, but over 99% of the time. Okay, so here's what I would do. And again, not knowing if this is something that's upsetting to you or not, but I would talk to your husband about it when he's awake, and I would say something like, hey, do you realize that you've been touching me in your sleep? You can listen to this episode with him if you want to, or you can Google sexsomnia together and look at it together and talk about what the experience is like for you. So ultimately, what your experience is is the most important. If this is something that feels upsetting and scary to you, then it may be worth talking to his doctor, talking to a sleep specialist. In extreme cases, some couples have stopped sleeping in the same beds together. So if it's something that is not feeling good to you, that's of the utmost importance. But if it's more like, you know, oh, it's just sort of funny that my partner's grabbing at my boobs in his sleep, then just know it's a normal thing. It does happen to some people. You know, you can just grab his hand and move it off if you don't want him to be touching you. You can lean into it and maybe try to be intimate if you are excited by it and enjoying it. But yeah, I guess I'm having a hard time, like, saying what you should do since I don't know how the person feels about it.

Yeah, no, but I agree with you. The very first thing to address, if you are aware of it, you obviously are. He is not aware of it. We assume that he is not. Is to just bring it up. Hey, like, I just want you to know this has happened a couple of times. Then share how you actually feel about it. If you're, if you're like, I love this, like, hey, would you be open to me? Kind of like participating with you, taking.

It a step further.

Yeah. Then, then, then you know what to do. If you are kind of so, so about it, I think just share like, yo, hey, I don't love this. I'm not, like, this doesn't feel like a violation, but I'm not really open to having sex in the middle of the night. Then you could ask that could open the door to, hey, so what do you want me to do if this happens in the moment? Because I think then it's like, it's kind of like leading him to the question of, hey, so if this happens, are you okay with me, like, giving you a shake or something to wake you up? Because you know that's going to be the way to end it.

Yeah.

Is he's got to wake up. There's no way that you can, like, reach him in his dreams and be like, hey, hey, dream, dream partner. You got to stop that. Right? Like, you got to wake him up. So, you know, I think you might be thinking, oh, I don't want to, like, wake him up because he's asleep. So just talk about that. Like, get his consent. Hey, if this is happening, you know, because he's probably going to be like, if you're not into it, he's probably going to be like, oh, my God, I don't want to be.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't want to.

Be doing that to you. Like, why would he want to be doing that to you if you're not enjoying it? And then, yeah, if you are actively, like, if that is really, like, triggering to you or turning you off, then I mean, I think, yeah, like what you said, talking to a specialist, but certainly saying, hey, like, I am not okay with this. I know, like, like, I know that you can't help it in that moment, but, like, I'm going to wake you up immediately. Or, like, you know, maybe I'll have to remove myself from the bed or something like that, but. Yeah.

So here at Pillow Talks, it's really important to us to really go there, talk about all the vulnerable stuff that nobody else talks about. So let's talk about wiping your butt.

Let's do it.

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Crumbly, wow.

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I finished my cedar and I'm onto a different one. And I'm a cedar man.

Okay, I know Xander was like, can we order another package of these? But I just really love that they are made without any harsh chemicals. No parabens, no dyes. I am really conscious about the ingredients that I'm putting on my skin, especially in those sensitive places. So I really appreciate their commitment to making high quality products. If you want to upgrade your restroom ritual, you can grab Good Wipes at Target, Walmart, Kroger, and most local grocery stores. Just head to the toilet paper aisle and look for their bright aqua, rose and emerald packages. They're also available on Amazon if you're more of an online shopper. Okay, next question. Just learned about the death grip. My man definitely does it. How do I help? So, Xander, can you explain what the death grip is?

All right, the death grip is when a man has.

Oh, are you demonstrating it now? Yeah, sure.

The death grip is when a man, when he masturbates, uses a extremely tight grip. So, you know, when men masturbate, obviously, they put their hand around their penis and, you know, they're.

I hope you're watching on YouTube right now.

I hope you're watching on YouTube.

This is what's air jacking over here.

In case you didn't know how men masturbate, it's like this.

And in case you didn't know that, we are now on YouTube. Episodes full video on YouTube. We're staring at three cameras right now. We are over on YouTube. Full video. But yes, death grip.

So very tight. Yeah, Death grip, I think, is something that often develops over time of, like, the guy starting to grip tighter and tighter. Now, the problem is when you grip tighter and tighter and tighter, you start to acclimate to that level of pressure. And once you are grabbing tighter, then you can like, then the tightness you would achieve from a vagina. Then when you have sex with anything but your extremely tight hand, you are going to struggle to orgasm or even feel very much stimulation, because you've literally trained your body to only respond to a really tight pressure that's just not achievable by anything other than your own hand.

Yeah, we all need to be thoughtful about our masturbation habits, because if we are doing the same thing over and over and over again when we masturbate, and there's no right or wrong way to masturbate, but if you're doing the same thing over and over again, whether that's a specific technique, a specific pressure, a specific speed, always using the same fantasy, always using a toy, always watching the same porn. Yeah. You're essentially training your brain to want more of that or to only respond to that. There's a saying that goes, the neurons that fire together wire together. So you start creating a pattern. And it's not anything that you can't reverse, but you can start creating a pattern where your body just wants to go down that same pathway to orgasm every single time.

Yeah, you absolutely can reverse that. You can kind of like unwire those things, but you can't in the moment. You can't immediately.

Yeah.

So, yeah, you can't be like, oh, yeah, you just do this one thing, and all of a sudden, like, you can feel all kinds of stimulation on your penis. And so, yeah, I think that. I mean, how you can help is talk to him about it, because he's probably not aware that this is a thing now.

Yeah, not everybody's aware of the death grip. So I'm guessing that this person wrote in because they're experiencing some. Their partner's experiencing some sort of performance issues. Like likely he's not having orgasms with.

His partner or taking a really long time.

Yeah, he could be taking a really long time. He could be not getting there at all. He could be needing to pull out and finish himself off with his hand. So any of those things might be happening. And I'm guessing that that's feeling, you know, frustrating or unwanted. To their partner?

Yeah. Or probably to the both of you. Like, I don't think this is. This is not a pleasant experience for, you know, the guy to have either, though he may not be aware of that.

So these can be sensitive situations, though, because, you know, it's not your body. So approaching your partner about it, about their masturbation habits, about using the death grip like that can be really sensitive. You don't want your partner to feel ashamed or embarrassed. You don't want to put them on the spot. So, like, if I was going to come to you to talk about this, what kind of language would you want me to use? How would you want me to say it?

Ooh, this is a good question. I mean, I think that. I think that I would start, like, I wouldn't do this in an accusatory way. I mean, this person says, you just learned about the death quirk. My man. Does it. I mean, I'm curious. How do you know? Have you observed him doing it? Has he mentioned it? If he's mentioned that before, then I think that the conversation is a bit easier. Like, oh, hey, I've been learning a little bit more about this. I'm wondering if you might be open to adjusting some of your habits so that we might be able to kind of unwind this a little bit. And I would frame it as. So that we can both, you know, have more intimacy when we're having sex so that we can both, you know, have, you know, more of the experience of fin. Not finishing together as in simultaneous orgasm, but, like, you know, just being able to continue the intercourse longer. Cause I'm assuming that's what you're wanting out of this. Now. If your partner doesn't know about it, I think that it would just. It would be more of a like, hey, so, like, I've been learning about, you know, I've been researching some of this stuff around, because in this case, what's coming up, I assume, is it's sort of like delayed orgasm or you needing to pull out and finish yourself with your hand. I've been doing some research about this, and I'm curious. I found out about this thing called death grip. I'm curious, when you masturbate, are you using a really tight grip? Cause this is something that can impact these things that are coming up.

If I told you I've been doing some research, I think you'd get embarrassed by, like, oh, fuck, she's, like, doing research. Because I'm doing so bad. I was thinking more along the lines of just saying oh, hey, you know that podcast that I listen to, Pillow Talk? They were talking about the death grip this week and I'd never heard about that before. Do you know what that is? Maybe trying to make it sound a little more innocent rather than like, I've been doing research because I have been unhappy with your sexual performance.

Okay, all right, let's merge the two.

Do you think that's better?

That feels a little leading. If you're just like, oh, just heard about this. What do you think?

Definitely don't giggle like that.

No, I think somewhere in the middle is better. We could be like, hey, you know what? I just heard about this thing on this podcast. I'd never heard about it before. It has a kind of funny name. But then I realized that it can have some pretty serious implications on our sex life together. I'm curious if you've ever heard of this and if this is something that you might do when you're masturbating.

Okay, yeah, I like that.

Yeah, because leading with curiosity, not. Not accusatory. Hey, you're doing this and you're ruining our sex life. That's not what you want to be saying. It's more of. It was like, oh, hey, you know what? I just learned about this thing. You know, obviously, like everybody masturbates differently. You know, I. Even if I watch you masturbate, I can't tell what pressure you're using. The only way to know is by feeling. Right? So, like, yeah, just curious if this is something that, that you've ever done or noticed.

I don't know. I think I'd be able to tell if you're like really squeezing it.

Yeah.

I don't know that phase now. I don't want there to be full video of that face. It was a horrible face. That's going to be the thumbnail for our YouTube episode.

Can't wait. I can already see it.

Okay, why don't we move on to the next one?

And the thumbnail will have on gear.

Side you doing that tongue out thing.

Yeah, that's good.

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All right, moving on. I'm doing chores and he wants me to stop and cuddle. How can I say no, but not be the bad guy?

I loved this question when it came through because there's so many different layers to it. So I immediately tried to imagine myself in that situation. Let's say I'm doing the dishes. I feel like the dishes is the classic time that this comes up. I'm doing the dishes and you're coming up behind me and you're trying to be all cute and sweet and get me to stop doing the dishes and just be with you. So part of my brain goes, I love that, like, it's so easy in life for us to get so sucked into our chores, so caught up with the daily grind, the to do list, doing all the things. I think it's really sweet sometimes to have your partner pull you out of those moments and say, like, be here with me right now. I just want to have a moment with you. Like, let's hold each other, let's make eye contact. Like, just that reminder of you and I are ultimately what's the most important thing in the world.

Yeah.

That being said, that being said, the other side of me knows that it would be really annoying sometimes to have you do that. Like, it would totally bring up irritation, frustration. Like, dude, I'm in the middle of this. Like, let me finish what I'm doing. And definitely, if, if I'm feeling like there's an imbalance in mental load or responsibilities, like, if I'm feeling resentful, like, I'm washing the fucking dishes again because he forgot to do it, or he said he was going to, but they're still here. If I'm annoyed at you, if I'm feeling like I'm doing more than my fair share, then I'm definitely gonna get really frustrated in that moment.

Oh, yeah. That's the first thing you're gonna think about.

Yeah. And I also. There's something that makes me really nervous about this person saying, how can I say no but not be the bad guy? Like, is that you judging yourself saying, like, I'm not allowed to. No, I'm gonna be bad if I'm not allowed to cuddle? Or is that your partner putting pressure on you? Cause I'm also not cool with that. If your partner tries to interrupt you to cuddle and you say no, and your partner's making you feel guilty or bad or like, something's wrong with you, I'm not okay with that either. So I really see it going both ways. I think ultimately, though, this is a great conversation for couples to have with each other.

Yes.

Feel like, do you feel open to me interrupting you when you're in the middle of something? Does that feel romantic to you? Does that feel sexy to you? Does that feel sweet to you? Or does it feel disruptive?

I mean, that is. That's one of the questions that we ask right at the beginning of our course, Art of Initiation. We have, like, a whole list of questions and scenarios that are essential for every couple to have discussed. And, yeah, one of them is. Yeah. In the middle of chores or in the middle of specific chores, are you okay with being interrupted or not? Because different people are gonna have very different perspectives on this. For some people, it's like, hell, yeah. Interrupt me whenever I love it.

Yeah.

Like, it's validation that feels great. Ooh.

The validation piece is really important, because for some people, that feels really good. It's this sense of, like, I can't even wait till you for you to be finished with those dishes. Like, I want to hold you right now. Like, it can feel super sexy and romantic in that way, but it could.

Also feel invalidating when you bring the mental load thing into it. It's like. It's like this motherfucker doesn't even realize that, like, I'm doing way more than my fair share. He's not. You know, he's not. He's not even picking up the slack. Like, he's not delivering on his side of the bargain, and now he wants to try to cuddle. It feels like it's just all about him, and there's no. Like, you're not being seen for what you're doing or contributing.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, that. Yeah, that validation piece is like. Cause, like, the other partner could be like, oh, well, I'm just trying to validate you. And it's like, you gotta be able to describe how that either feels positive, validating, or invalidating to you.

So I think step one is you have to make sure you guys are feeling good about how you're dividing responsibilities and mental load that has to be in place. Otherwise, no interruptions. I would say, though, a nice middle ground. So have that conversation. Ask your partner, do you like to be interrupted or not? But a nice middle ground would be, let's say you. You walk into the room, you see me doing the dishes. If you would say to me, I would love to hold you and kiss you right now. Can I interrupt you? Just asking. Can I interrupt you? And there might be some times where I'm like, yes, please. That's so sweet. I love that. Let me wipe my hands off. And there might be other times where I would say, you know what? I just really want to finish these, but let me come find you as soon as I'm done. Or another thing that you could do is say, I want to hug you. I want to hold you right now. Let me help you finish those dishes up. Like, scoot on over. You do the washing, I'll do the rinsing. Make it feel like, let's finish this up together so that we can prioritize ourselves.

Yeah. So if you are the person who is doing the chore that is being interrupted, think about, would one of those sound better or worse to you? And try to suggest the one that sounds the best to you. Say, hey, if you're feeling like you want to do this, this is the way that I will receive that the best. And yeah, I think another. Another thing is, like, if you are the person that is wanting to interrupt your partner in the middle of chores, there is definitely an element of, you gotta read the room here. Like, I'd evaluate what chore is she doing? Like, dishes. That's a. I mean, that's an interesting one. Cause it's like, I know I do the dishes often, and it's like, I don't like doing the dishes. But once you get started, you get into a groove and you're like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, Now I'm gonna like, that.

Was a little too excited.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it does feel. It's funny. It does feel good. It feels good because I Don't I so never want to get started. But once I do, I'm a responsive. I'm a responsive dishwasher. Oh, my God. Once I get started, I'm like, oh, God. It just activates the dopamine in my brain. Like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna finish these dishes. This sink is gonna be clean as a whistle. So I know once you get started with that, you're like, oh, man, if I stop now, then I'm gonna have to start again. And starting the starting part is the part that sucks. Right. It's like, my hands are already wet. I'm, like, saturated with water. Like, or I got the gloves on.

It's a dirty trip versus, like, if I'm folding laundry or something. Like, it's so much easier to just toss a towel down than it is to, like, the dish is half wash and then you put it down and you have to dry your hands. All that stuff. Yeah, it depends on the chore. And I think it depends, like, check your partner's mood as they're doing the chore. If they're like, hate scrubbing the dishes. Like, you know, like, that's probably not the time to interrupt them. Versus if somebody's like, you know, they put some music on and they're listening, you know, jamming out while they're folding all the towels, that's probably a better time that you could approach them.

Yeah. And I think it's also like a judgment call of, is this a. Is this a, like, a timely or, like, high priority chore? Like, hey, like our. We just had dinner and the sink is. The kitchen is dirty and the sink is full of dishes. We have to do the dishes in order to be able to make our next meal. Like, then maybe that's not a good time to interrupt. Whereas if it's, I don't know, some other chore. I'm trying to think of a. I don't know, like, an unnecessary. Not an unnecessary, but like, not a. Like, it has to happen right now. I don't like, like a random, like, oh, like cleaning the bathroom or something where it's like, typically you don't clean the bathroom every single day. Right. You clean the bathroom once a week. Once every two. You know, some. Something like that, where it's like, okay, maybe it doesn't have to happen right now in this moment. They are choosing to do it in this moment so you could consider, like, okay, maybe don't interrupt them in these time sensitive ones if it's something else. I mean, I still don't love the interrupting in the middle. I would suggest saying to them, hey, you look so cute right now. I'm thinking about you. I love you so much. I really want to squeeze you. And I'm curious if you're open to that right now. Or let me help you, or let me help you finish. Or hey, when you're done, could we spend some time together? Something like that. Where you're, you know, you're giving them the validation of, hey, I. I'm thinking about you. I. I'm loving you right now. I want to be able to do this rather than just coming in and doing it.

Okay. I'm very curious to hear what you're gonna say on the spot about this one. How do you bounce back after a disappointing sexual experience? Experience.

Woo. This is an interesting question. I can think of a lot of, I can think of a lot of shades of this. I think the first thing I want to say about this, let's Cuz disappointing is like, is the, Was this like seriously disappointed? Did something go horribly wrong? Was something painful? Was this just a. Not ideal?

It just wasn't. It was a mediocre sex.

Mediocre.

We do.

What do we do?

Well, if we just have one that is just like, you know, it's fine. A little bit of a dud. We're usually just like, hey, we got it done. Yeah, we'll high five.

Yeah, you know what? Not my finest work, but we did it.

I feel like we usually joke about it and we congratulate ourselves. We're like, you know what? We still did it. It was connecting. We had that experience. Not every single time. I guess I want to start there. Like, let's back up for a second and let's just normalize that. Not every single time you have sex is going to be amazing. I think we have incredible, epic next level sex and sometimes we have experiences that are just kind of a dud. And like sometimes we can tell sometimes, you know, ahead of time where we're both like, you know, we're a little tired or just like not super feeling it. But we've decided, both decided to have sex anyways.

Yeah, it's like, let's get this done.

Yeah. But sometimes it's like it kind of surprises you. Out of nowhere. It seemed like the vibes were right and everything was going good and then it just ends up being like, oh, that was fine, but not as good as I thought it was going to be going in. So let's normalize. It's okay to have a dud. Every now and then it's totally fine.

Yeah. The first thing I want to say is this is a mindset shift that I think is required. This is a mindset problem. This is an acceptance problem. We need, we need to be able to accept that sex is not always perfect. That if sex were always perfect, then that would just be average. Right. Like, the, the reason that we have good experiences is because there is a baseline or, you know, a general, like an average. And that by having that, that allows us to be able to judge, oh, that was better than usual or that was worse than usual or less. I don't know. I don't want to say worse. Like, worse sex, it was just like, not as good as it usually is. So I think that there's an acceptance piece that like, yeah, we are not fully in control of this. We can't have perfection all the time. Sometimes things will be better, sometimes things will be worse. And it's like shifting your mindset to accept that this is the reality of sex in a long term relationship. And so once you have that mindset shift, then it becomes much easier to bounce back. I mean, in theory, once you have accepted that perspective, you don't really need to bounce back because there's nothing to bounce back from. Oh, that was just a normal sexual experience to have that. It was not the very best one I've ever had. So I think that that perspective shift can be really helpful. But yeah, and then that also what you were saying, the acknowledging it, just the simple fact of, yeah, not, you know, that wasn't our finest work together, but it was still, you know, but then think of a compliment. Make it a little compliment sandwich.

That's what I like about what we do is like we just congratulate each other. Like, hey, you know what? We got it done. And it feels connecting. Rather than us feeling embarrassed or retreating to separate ends of the house or like, oh my God, I can't leave. We had this disappointing sex. We turn it into a little lighthearted joke and like, hey, we did it. You know, we got back in the saddle. We made that time even though we didn't think we had it. Like, go us.

Hell yeah. Now if it was like on the more serious end of disappointing, like there was something that was actively unpleasurable or painful or uncomfortable. That's not something where you just hold it in and expect to bounce back. Like, that is where you gotta have some kind of conversation about that, of saying, you know, hey, when XYZ happened, that didn't feel very good for Me that didn't feel very safe for me, you know? So.

Yeah. And I would suggest having that conversation outside of the bedroom at a later time. So don't do it immediately while you guys are still naked in the bed. Go out of the bedroom, loop back around to it, and say, like, hey, I wanted to talk about, you know, what just happened.

Yeah. Unless you do need to stop in the moment. Like, if you are, like.

Yeah, if we're talking about much more serious.

Vanessa's not saying just grin and bear it and then talk about it later. No, no.

I mean, if. Yeah, if we're talking something like, in the middle, you're in pain or you're not feeling safe or whatever it is, like, definitely stop it and talk about it then and there. But I'm talking more something. Something much less serious. Like, let's just say your partner tried out a new oral sex technique that you just, like, weren't really loving. I would say wait until you're outside of the bedroom and bring it up really gently and just say something like, hey, you know, when X happened, this is what I felt. Or next time, I'd rather that we do this. Or, I really appreciated that you tried that, but it just wasn't my jam.

Not my favorite one.

Yeah. So, yeah, if there's something to learn, something to share with your partner, something that you want to do differently next time, of course, talk about it. But I think the vast majority of these situations are where it's just people are getting a little too in their heads thinking they need to optimize everything, when the reality is you're gonna have times that just aren't the greatest. They're a little bit of a disappointment, and that's okay. Just roll on to the next one.

Yeah. So, like, long story short, number one, accept that it will not always be perfect, that it is normal to have somewhat disappointing or not ideal experiences. Then after you have had that mindset shift, if you are still feeling like something happened that was like, not just a normal sort of, like, you know, higher or low, then bring that up and talk about that. All right, moving on. Is sexual frustration a real thing? I get standoffish if it's been a while.

This is such a good one, too. Okay, so first I think we have to talk about the two types of people in the world. There are so many.

There's only two.

There's only two.

There'S only two. Hard and fast rules.

No, but in general, there are two types of people in the world. There are some people who like to feel emotionally connected before having sex. Then there are some people who have sex as a way to feel emotionally connected. And I think that this question is ultimately talking about that second group of people, People who want to feel emotionally connected through having sex, like, in the middle or right after sex. Those are the times that they feel the most emotionally connected. Now, I think a lot of people misunderstand this type because it's so easy for us to write off sex as just a physical act, as it's not as important as emotional intimacy or it's. Yeah, it's just this physical thing that we're doing. It's just feeling good. But I will say, as somebody who likes to have sex as a way to feel emotionally connected, it's not just a physical act. It really is the intimacy, the closeness, the vulnerability, the connection that I experienced during sex that creates so much of that emotional connection that I feel to you. And so for me personally, if it has been a long time since we've had sex, I will start to feel myself. I don't know if I would say frustrated, but I'll feel myself feeling disconnected from you and feeling like that desire to reconnect with you. Now, that being said, what we do with those feelings is where this gets really tricky, because what you can't do is use that as a way to pressure, guilt, or manipulate your partner into having sex with you. So the way that this question is phrased gives me a little bit of pause. It's like using the word frustration and also saying standoffish, Like, I'm getting standoffish with my partner. To me, that implies a little bit of a. Like, I'm pissed at you. You need to change this. We need to do this type of thing.

Or, like, the only way for me to feel better is by having sex.

Yeah. So again, like, I am somebody who wants to have that sexual connection first, so I get it. And I have for sure been standoffish with you at times when we've been in dry spells or we're not having sex super regularly.

You get little standoffish sometimes. Like, if just like, one of us is sick and we haven't done it in a while, and it's like, oh, God, it's been so long.

Yeah. So, like, I get it.

It's.

It's challenging to know how to navigate those feelings because you're allowed to feel disconnected. You are allowed to want to have sex with your partner again. You are allowed to want to feel close to your partner again in the way that you like to Feel close to them.

You're allowed to feel frustrated. Like frustration is a real emotion that you can't just be like, oh, I'm not allowed, this isn't, this isn't a real thing that I'm allowed to feel. Because sexual frustration isn't real. Like if you are feeling it, it is real.

But again, you're not allowed to guilt, pressure, manipulate your partner into having sex with you.

Yeah, I mean this gets me thinking about, for me it's surfing. For someone else. It might be like golf or something. Like if I'm having a bad day out there and I'm like struggling to like, things just aren't going the way I want them to in my surf session. I'm like falling, not like catching waves or whatever. I can get really frustrated and I can get really single mindedly focused on. I just gotta get, I just gotta get one, I just gotta get a good one. Like that's the only way. But the reality is, is this is, it's a, it's a tough sport, like on your body and if you're tired or whatever and like I'm like blowing out my arms. Like eventually I'm like, this isn't gonna happen. Like, and so it's like I could push myself until I drown out there or like injure myself. Or I can be like, you know what? Today's not the day, it's not happening today. Or you know, I think this happens with people playing golf a lot. Like, oh, I'm just having such a bad day. Like I can't, you know, I'm like way over par, I'm way over my number or whatever.

I thought you were gonna talk more about like when you can't go out surfing for a while cause the waves aren't good.

I mean, that happens too. That frustrates me as well. I'm like, why don't I live like in Mexico in the tropics where there's always waves. No, but like I just think that. But yeah, I mean it's like think about another like a hobby or something where you get frustrated and it's like, yeah, you can just force you be. Like the only way for me to feel better about myself is if I like hit that shot. But like, how often does that happen? Like the reality is usually we have to be like, okay, I'm feeling frustrated. Today's not the day, I'm gonna come back to this another time. And like, yeah, you could either feel grumpy the entire time until you come back and try it again. Or you can take responsibility and be like, hey, I'm feeling frustrated about this. What else can I do to feel good to soothe myself?

Okay, so there's a number of layers here. Like, yes, part of it is soothing yourself. It's not your partner's job to manage all your feelings to make you feel better. But I also think there's something to be said about how you approach your partner with this. So if you go to your partner with, like, it's been two weeks, I can't believe we're not having sex. You turn me down the last three times. Like, that's not good. Don't do that. But you can go to your partner and say something like, hey, I'm really missing you. I know life has been so full and so busy lately, but I'm missing you and the connection that you and I get to have. Can we take a look at our schedules together and figure out some time that we can really have, like, quality time together? That's a totally different thing where, again, you're still allowed to feel frustrated, you're allowed to feel disconnected, but you're approaching your partner from a sense of wanting connection with them, from a sense of teamwork. Let's work together. Rather than, I'm frustrated and you have to fix it or I'm going to withdraw. I'm going to be standoffish until you give in to me. It's a totally different vibe. So definitely recommend using that kind of language and. Yeah, and soothing yourself, too. I think that is an important aspect of it, but I want to validate. Like, it's okay to feel frustrated. It's okay to feel disconnected from your partner. Like, that makes sense. Okay, Xander, how to stop being defensive in my marriage?

Ooh, that's a million dollar question right there.

This. This one's an entire podcast episode, but.

That'S what I was about to say.

Let's see what we can do in a few minutes. How do you stop being defensive?

All right, so this is coming from somebody who used to be quite defensive in his marriage. And I still catch myself sometimes with that defensiveness coming up. I do think that this is another mindset shift. Like, the broad answer is, we gotta shift our mindset, similar to the bouncing back after a sexual experience. You know, with that one, it was sort of an acceptance thing. I need to accept that, that they're not all going to be perfect. In this case, it's a mindset shift of, I am going to be wrong in my marriage, I am going to hurt my partner. I Am going to say things that I don't mean or that come off differently than how I intended them. I am not going to be perfect in this relationship and. And sort of an understanding or. Yeah, an acceptance of that. I think that. So very often, and at least, I don't know. I can't speak for women. I think, like, the way that men are socialized, like, we can be socialized into being defensive from a very young age. And I think about. I think about, like. Like, you know, being in elementary school on the playground, and, like, you know, kid. Two kids get into a fight about something, or, you know, one kid, like, does something to another one, and it's like, you know, what the teachers tell you is, like, okay, you have to apologize. And I think that it's this sort of enforced apologizing thing that very quickly solidifies this idea of every time something happens, someone is in the right and someone is in the wrong and who wants to be in the wrong all the time. Whereas the reality is in relationships is that there's very few times where there's an objective, like, this person is 100% in the right, and this person is 100% in the wrong. In relationships, there are complex dynamics at play. And for the most part, yeah, I could say something really hurtful to Vanessa, but also, like, Vanessa's probably not saying very helpful things, you know, before I say that, or like, the way that she reacts to what I say, you know, causes it to get worse or, you know, increase the intensity or whatever. And so it's like, for the very vast majority of situations, like, there are things that we are both at fault for. I'm putting at fault in air quotes. But ways that we are both contributing to situations not being the best. Because if you're saying, I'm a good man who never hurts his wife and never says anything that I don't mean or whatever, and then you find yourself in a situation where perhaps you have done something like that, then you kind of just polarize in your head and go, oh, no. Now I'm gonna just be defensive and find any kind of excuse why that didn't happen the way it did. But if we can approach it like, yeah, I expect to hurt you. I expect to screw up. I expect to have to learn and grow and improve, then there's not so much to be defensive about. It's a. Oh, shoot, I hurt you. That sucks. Let me think, like, let me actually feel into that what that feels like, because it's like feeling that. That disappointment. Oh, my God. That's not what I meant to say, but I can totally see how you interpreted what I said in that way. And that hurts. I can't take that hurt away from you right now. And that feeling that gives you the motivation to grow and change.

Oh, there's so much that we could say about this. Let us know if you want us to do a whole episode on defensiveness, because I'm like, my brain's going nuts right now, but come on over to Instagram, Vanessa and Xander, and let us know. So, okay, number one, we have to show our favorite piece of relationship advice that we literally have tattooed on our bodies.

Boom.

The word. And mine's really tiny. You're probably not gonna see it in the video.

Mine's bigger.

So this is literally my favorite relationship advice. It's the understanding that two things can be true at the same time. Even two seemingly conflicting things. So I think often we get to a place of defensiveness because we want to be the one and only right person in the relationship. But your mindset and your relationship will shift completely if you can recognize that two things can be true. I can feel X and Xander can feel Y. There is no one right objective truth. Both of those things are true because we are feeling them. And so I don't have to defend myself or defend my position to the death to be the one and only right truth. If I'm recognizing that two things can be true. So that just instantly cuts down the defensiveness. It's like I can hold on to what my experience was, my perspective was, and honor your experience and your perspective at the same time rather than battling them out. I also think a lot about the difference between intent and impact. So I think a lot of times people get defensive when their partner says, you know, you hurt my feelings, or, you did this to me, and we want to defend ourselves, like, I didn't mean to. That's not what I said. I didn't do that. But if we can recognize the difference between intent and impact, yes, I didn't intend to hurt you, but the impact that I did have is that it did hurt you. And it doesn't make me a bad person. It doesn't wash away what my intent was. The intent and the impact, it's another. And both of those things can be true at the same time. But if we can honor both of those things, that also really cuts defensiveness off at the knees, too. And then I also think it's just a. I don't know how to say it. It's a totally different way of looking at the world is just being able to recognize we're gonna fuck up, we're gonna make mistakes, we're not perfect. I do things to hurt you and annoy you and irritate you all the time, and I love you. I never wanna have a negative impact on you. I want you to think I'm the best person on the entire planet, but I'm human and I'm just gonna do those things. And so for me, being hearing things that I've done, it always sucks. I'm never excited. Like, oh, amazing. Great. I'm so glad I hurt you. I'm so glad to notice yet another fault in myself.

Oh, another learning opportunity. Can't wait.

Fucking learning opportunity. But at the same time, it is also this recognition of, yeah, I'm human and I do make mistakes and I fuck up sometimes. And being able to acknowledge that and take ownership of that has such a big impact on your relationship too, that it just. It makes it feel worth it for me. So. Okay, I'm gonna just stop us there because there's so much more that could be said.

But that was great. We both had two long monologues. I was feeling a little defensiveness. I was feeling a little self conscious. I was like, wow, I just, like, talked for a while and then you did too. So it's all good.

It's a big, meaty topic.

It is.

And it's something that makes such a big impact on relationships when we can get rid of our defensiveness. I mean, defensiveness is one of the biggest killers of relationships. It just makes everything feel awful.

Yeah. There's so much available to you if you can. You can't ever get rid of defensiveness completely. It is a very natural human emotion that you are. Are always going to feel to some degree, but it's how we respond to it. But yeah, there's so much more available to you in your relationship, in life, if you can decrease the amount of defensiveness that you approach situations with.

Okay, we're gonna have to wrap up here for today, but there's another question that we didn't get around to that I feel like could also be a whole other episode.

Oh, that's a doozy. Yeah.

Why do so many married women not want sex? Nor do they seem to want it to change? So let us know on Instagram if you want to hear an episode about that, because, boy, oh, boy, could I go off on a long speech about that one. But I'll say for now, why don't we point people over to our episode called maybe It's Not Low Libido. Yeah, that's a great starting point. All right, well, we're gonna wrap up here, but remember, you can go grab our free guide about the initiation styles over@vm therapy.com styles and we will put that link in the show notes as well.

All right, well, that's it for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week. We can't wait to see you, Sam.