Episode 20: Should We Break Up?

I often find myself thinking that I deserve better and even that my daughter deserves better. It just sounds like she knows deep down this is not the kind of partnership that she's looking for. Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex therapist with 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.

So make sure to 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. Should we break up? Knowing if and when to end a relationship is one of the most challenging, heartbreaking things that we go through.

Yeah, it's super challenging. Whether or not you're just thinking about it internally with yourself, or if you're actively discussing it with your partner, there is no easy way to have those thoughts.

Well, there occasionally are easy times. Like sometimes, sometimes it's a really obvious, clear decision. It doesn't mean it doesn't still break your heart. Sometimes in the rare situations, like the decision's really clear, but in the vast majority of the cases, things are really gray. It's really complicated. It's really challenging to decide, yeah, is this relationship going anywhere? Are these things deal breakers? This week we are doing something a little bit different. We're doing kind of like an advice column style of episode. We reached out on Instagram, we asked people, hey, tell us, are you in the middle of deciding whether or not to end your relationship? We want to hear from you. Oh my gosh. We got so many submissions and really long, detailed, absolutely heart wrenching situations that people are in. So we picked a couple that we wanted to talk through and we decided, said, we're going to share these stories with you and we're going to walk you through, like, what our advice is, what our suggestions are based on, you know, just how nuanced and complex these situations are. So we've got submissions that cover everything from, like, not getting the butterflies, not being turned on anymore by a partner, to not feeling respected. Even the phrase emotionally starved was thrown out. So we have some really interesting stories to share with you. It's like a peek into people's hearts, into some of the most challenging things that they're going through.

And to make this even more interesting, Vanessa and I decided to not tell each other what each of our recommendations would be for each of these situations, we haven't talked about our recommendations. We won't talk about them until we say them live on this podcast. So you'll also get to find out if Vanessa and I agree.

Yeah, we just want to acknowledge breakups are the worst, and we really want to do our best to support you with empathy and with compassion. And we hope hearing some of these stories and just stay seeing the way that we think this through, the way that we talk it through might be helpful for you if you're currently considering a breakup or in the future if you're finding yourself in that situation. Also, in the episode, you are going to hear a couple of voicemails from a few people who wanted to just share their stories. So we thought it'd be kind of cool, kind of like what we did in the Bodi episode about just being able to hear from real people and some of the struggles that they've gone through, the thoughts that they're having.

All right, and we'll get right into these breakup deliberations, but first, we want to share with you the review of the week. Literally the only podcast I listen to regularly.

Wow.

Wow. Thank you.

I'm already flattered.

I'm intrigued. All right, I'm listening. There's more. Vanessa and Xander are everything I didn't know I needed. It is literally the only podcast I listen to every week. Like clockwork. Thursdays have totally become my favorite day. Pillow Talks is the perfect blend of being on topic with completely relevant tangents that balance out so perfectly. You can just tell Vanessa and Xander are completely real and genuine and truly care about their listeners and followers. I love that any personal stories they share are only to provide examples of what they're talking about and never, ever feel like an attention grab. I'm so grateful to have found them. Hallelujah. Lovin it. Emojis.

Lovin it. That's what you're calling it?

Hell, yeah. Loving it. Well, because it's. It's this cake. She's laughing now.

Lovin it emoji. Oh, my God. You were. You said that with such confidence.

Yeah.

You didn't even take. Take a moment to think about it.

Well, that's right. I have been working on my emoji language. So to be clear to all you listening, because I know you can't see it, this is the smiley face with three hearts. So it is not like a kiss heart. It's not just the heart emoji. It's like she's just, like, in love.

Loving it.

Yeah. Loving it. You know, hands in there. Hell, yeah. I love it.

Okay, great. Well, I'm glad we could get a little laughing because I don't think we're going to be laughing too much in the rest of this episode, but thank you for that review.

That's seriously, like, exactly what we aspire for this podcast to be. So I am glad that it is landing that way for at least one of you.

If you haven't yet heard us talk about this, we are doing a special giveaway with these reviews. We really appreciate them so much. It makes such a big impact on how many people the podcast is able to reach. So if you leave a review for us, once you leave a review review, from that time forward, every week, you will be entered into our weekly giveaway. We pick a review of the week every week, and if you are the winner, you can DM us on Instagram at Vanessa Marin Therapy. You can ask us a question, tell us about what your situation is, and we will respond with a little mini coaching session. So it's just our little way of thanking you for helping out with the podcast. So let's get into these breakup stories now. Before we share all the details, we just want to offer a couple of disclaimers. First of all, like, we are not the ultimate authorities. So just because we have a certain opinion, that does not mean it's the right opinion. That does not mean that these people should or have to do, you know, the things that we are recommending. Like, this is just two people's opinions.

Right. We also very well may have different opinions.

Yeah. Also, we want to be super clear that we don't know all of the details of these situations, which is why.

Our opinions do not make us the ultimate authorities.

All that we have is what one partner in the relationship shared over a dm. So obviously, some of the stories that we're going to be reading you are quite long. Obviously it's not the whole story. And we're only hearing from one person, so of course the other partner is going to have a different story. So ultimately, in our relationships and in our lives, like, you are the only person who can make the decision that feels right for you. We just wanted to say that before we dive into all of this.

Also to all of you listening, I mean, first of all, we really hope that this will be super valuable because it can just be helpful to hear what is going on and with someone else, and then you, you can come to your own opinion on what you would do in this situation, what you think this person could do. And also hearing our opinions. Hopefully it's helpful. And I also want to ask that if you're finding it helpful, please send some positive vibes in the direction of the person asking these questions because they are going through a hard time and, you know, let's just try to give them all the support we can. Virtually. Yeah.

Okay. So this first story that we have is pretty long. So we're dividing it up into three pieces. We're going to kind of stop and talk about it at different points in the story. So here's the first part of it. I've been in my current relationship for three years. He has a daughter from a previous relationship and together we have a daughter. I can honestly say I've never loved anyone as much as I love him. Our relationship has always had an ebb and a flow, as I call it. We seem to have seasons where things are easy and we're both feeling the love and everything is great. And then we come back around to a low time with more arguing and tension and it doesn't feel like our love tank is full. I know this is normal in a long term relationship, but our lows lately have felt increasingly low. Certain things are very important to me that are not at all important to him. Like my Christian faith, living a healthy lifestyle and guiding our kids to do the same and maintaining a healthy financial status. I would also love to have more kids. While he has stated repeatedly it's not what he wants. I know that you can't force people to like or want the same things as you. But at times I feel like he doesn't like the person I am or thinks everything about me is bullshit. I don't feel respect from him.

Wow. First of all, I just want to validate the ebb and flow she mentions. I think that is a very common thing for people to have. And I will say from my experience in our relationship, we definitely have had an ebb and a flow. We've had seasons where things feel really easy and seasons where things feel harder. There, tension. Everything is charged. What I will say, as we have improved our communication with each other and added certain types of things like regular check ins and we've worked on things in therapy and how we communicate and how we listen to each other. I would say those ebbs and those flows have greatly diminished. Things feel much more stable because now we have the tools when we start feeling ebb beginning I had to think.

I was like, which one's the bad?

Is it a flow or is it an eb? I was like I guess an eb, it's like when we start the feeling, the beginnings of an eb, we have the tools now to be able to start communicating and kind of like get back into the flow. Especially just in the last, like, year or two, that's felt like more solid ground than we ever have been having those tools in our tool belt. So I would say to this person, like, that aspect is totally normal in kind of like normal relationships that don't have great relationship communication. And I think most people don't. That's not a bad thing. It's that we aren't taught this type of stuff with work. And, you know, I'm going to be honest, it takes work. It's not easy. Oh, yeah, it's not easy because we're not born with it and we don't have people modeling it for us for the most part. If you can put that work in, I will say from my experience, I think you can greatly reduce that aspect.

Yeah, let's talk through the differences that they have, because this is a big one. Right. We actually did a podcast episode about this. It's episode 14, where we talked about different social, political and religious beliefs. Definitely go back and check that episode out if you're in a similar kind of situation. But I want to talk about the kids aspect of it because I think things like religion, you know, for a lot of people, I think we want to share religion with a partner or we want to share, you know, a healthy lifestyle with a partner. And for some people, those things are just straight up deal breakers. But I think for the vast majority of couples, it's like, damn, that's really sad. I really wish that we could connect over this, but it's not like I can live and be happy in a relationship without that. But I think kids, whether or not you want to have kids, to me at least, that feels like a much more serious one.

She's saying she's expressing that she wants to have more kids. And at the same time, she's also saying that she would love to share some of her core beliefs, like her Christian faith, healthy lifestyle, etc. With her kids. And I can imagine that there's the whole nother layer. It's like if you are with someone who does not believe those same things, it's what it's like. One thing, if it's like, okay, we agree to disagree on these things, that only impact us.

Yeah.

But then it's like, it also impacts the kid that we have together. And it's like, I want my Kid to grow up in the religion that I'm in. And he's like, no, I don't want that. That's tough.

Yeah. And so, yeah, I think with things like, you know, with religion, like, she could continue to go to her church, and he could. Could stay home, or I don't know if he's a different religion or whatever it is. So you can do that separately, but with something like kids, obviously you can't. Like, she can't say, I'm gonna go have my own kid, and you'll have nothing to do with it, Right?

Yeah. I think what a lot of people do end up doing is they kind of say, we'll let our kid decide for themselves when they get older, if they want to be born. No, no, no. If they want to continue, you know, they can decide about religion. But it is. But it is challenging because it's like, in order to decide, the kid has to have to go to church and whatnot to learn to get enough.

Moving on, buddy. I'm so confused about that for a second. Yeah. So I think kids. It's definitely more of a deal breaker for most people. And there are some couples where they can say, you know what? I. If it was up to me completely, I would have kids, but it's not so strong of a desire that I would end this relationship because of that. And so for those couples, there's a grieving process that you go through around. I've made this conscious decision not to do something that I really wanted to do. I feel good, and I feel okay making this decision, but I'm still gonna grieve it. Obviously, she's the only one who can know for herself of, like, is having kids a true deal breaker for her, or is it something that she could, you know, move past?

Yeah, it's hard to tell because she says, I would love to have more. And he said, it's not what he wants. So she didn't say, I need to have more. I think that's something for her to feel into for sure.

What really stuck out at me from this first section of her question is these two parts where she said, I feel like he doesn't like the person that I am. He thinks everything about me is bullshit, and I don't feel respect from him. Those are, like. That's really hard to bounce back from. And of course, we're not getting his perspective here. Like, he might be horrified to hear that she's saying this, but if she's getting that feeling of, you know, it's not that we're different religions. And he says, hey, I love you and I respect your religion and I respect you practicing what you believe in. I just have my religion that I, you know, want to feel respected in. Like, it. It's not that, like, everything about me is bullshit. Like, how do you. How do you be with a. With somebody if you feel like they believe that everything about you is bullshit?

That sounds really hard and probably long term not possible. What I will say is in that episode about different political, religious, social beliefs, if you really don't see eye to eye on certain things, there are ways that you can agree to disagree respectfully where you can kind of respect for each other. It sounds like it would be really valuable for them to listen to that episode and have a real honest discussion together about what are the things that are just key differences and can they find a way to have respect for each other and then agree to disagree or agree to not talk about those things? That's really important. And reading this, I do wonder if she has shared with him. It feels to her sometimes like he doesn't like the person that she is. I would imagine he probably doesn't feel that way, but I'm guessing they haven't had this conversation. And so she's kind of had this resentment building and building and building, and eventually it builds into feeling like you think everything about me is bullshit. You don't respect me. The way that you combat those feelings is you start talking a lot earlier about, hey, it doesn't feel good when you say this thing about my religion.

Yeah. Okay, let's move on to the second portion. She says, my love language is physical touch, and he is the opposite. Even getting a kiss goodbye in the morning before work is a lot to ask. I'm an emotional and sentimental person, and if I even tear up in a disagreement or tense conversation, he's quick to roll his eyes and get frustrated with me. He is so closed off most of the time that I am left feeling emotionally starved.

Again, some big words, big phrases here.

Okay, so I think we need to normalize. In most couples, you're going to be different love languages. And in most relationships, it's going to be work to get your partner to love you in your love language. Because it's not your partner's love language. It doesn't come naturally to them. So it inherently requires some work.

Yeah, I think so many of us think like, oh, well, we just tell each other what our love languages are, and then my partner will just do it. And you know what? It May be that. That, you know, we look out in the world through the lens of ourselves, like the lens of our own experience and the lens of our own love language. And so hearing something once around love languages. I'm just going to say it is not enough. It is not enough for you to just go out and do it 100% of the time. It takes, like, developing a habit around it. Like, with Vanessa and me, it took a lot of repetitions of me. It took me making a lot of reminders to myself. Like, I literally put reminders on my calendar to give Vanessa compliments. And after a while, it became a lot easier because I developed a habit around it. But you have to, again, like I was saying earlier, you got to put the work in.

Yeah. And so I think it would be easy to be cynical about that. Like, wow, Xander has to put it in his calendar to love Vanessa about relationships.

But if Vanessa was a physical touch person, I wouldn't have to put it in my calendar. It would be so easy and. And so natural. So, you know, that's the flip side.

Yeah. So we just want to normalize. Like, it takes effort, it takes work, because that's not naturally the way that you like to give love. And that doesn't mean anything's bad or wrong or incompatible about the relationship.

Here's a really good example. If you go to England somewhere where they drive on the left side of the road and you're from America or any other country where we drive on the right side of the road, it is not like all you have to do is have someone tell you, oh, yeah, by the way, you drive on the other side of the road here and you do it perfectly. It's like, it's gonna take a lot of time. And for a lot of. I know a lot of people who, you know, have moved to another country where they drive on the other side, after years, they're still like, this still bothers me.

Okay. So going back to her story, though, for me, where this takes a turn, it feels like it's getting back to the respect issue. It's one thing for him to say, oh, I don't really get you being so emotional or sentimental, but to roll his eyes at her when she's expressing emotion, that just, to me, indicates a lack of respect. And to me, that doesn't feel okay. He doesn't have to experience or process emotions in the same way, but he's not allowed to mock her for the way that she experiences or processes them. And then, of course, that phrase emotionally starved really jumps out at us too. You know, if it's getting to that point where she's just feeling this really extreme lack of connection from him like that, that's obviously not a good sign in a relationship. So, yeah, these two definitely need to have some really serious conversations. And again, it makes me curious about if he were to read this, what would his perspective be? You know, would he be horrified that she's felt this way? Would he have thought, like, oh my gosh, I thought we were, like, being silly and joking about that stuff. Just so many opportunities for miscommunication. But I think that they really need to have a conversation about the fact that she's feeling this really deep disrespect from him. Okay, so let's move on to the third part then. So this is the third and final part of this first story. So she says, like I said, I love him so much. I'm still here because when things are good, they're great. But at what point do I choose self preservation of my own emotional health over what I truly feel is best for our family? And that's for us to be together. She's saying she feels like it's best for their family for them to be together. I've done my best to communicate what I need from him in a way that resonates with him even as those needs change and evolve with life and parenting and everything else. But there is still a disconnect, and I think it's affecting our sex life too. I don't expect him to be perfect, but I often find myself thinking that I deserve better and even that my daughter deserves better. At the end of the day, all I want is a partner, and I don't always get the feeling that he's up for that. I haven't spoken to him about this yet and am nervous to since he always gets extremely closed off. I'm struggling with knowing whether I am still in love with my partner, even though I don't get the butterflies being around him or sexually turned on by him anymore. I obviously love him, but I'm not sure if I've fallen out of love or is this just what mature love feels like? Lots to unpack there.

Well, the first thing I have to say, because I love this one. Butterflies do not equal love. Butterflies actually is a fight or flight response. It is the blood draining out of your core body, like your chest, into your extremities as your body prepares for fight or flight mode because it detects that something is wrong or that someone is dangerous. So Butterflies have kind of been co opted by Hollywood to imply like that you're falling in love with the bad boy, when in reality what it means. You have a sense that this person is dangerous and your body is telling you to run away. Let's maybe set that part of it aside.

Well, let's normalize. So yes, of course, like the spark, spark fades in long term relationships. Attraction can fade and those are things that we actively have to work on. So it doesn't scare me or make me think like, oh, they're doomed because she's not feeling as turned on by him anymore. Like that's really normal and common and something to work on. What does concern me is this. I often find myself thinking that I deserve better and even that my daughter deserves better. Like, it sounds like she knows deep down inside and this is hard because there are a lot of good things about their relationship, there are a lot of things about their family. But it just sounds like she knows deep down this is not the kind of partnership that she's looking for.

Yeah, that's really tough. And it sounds like it's one of those situations where this is the challenge. It's really hard because we don't have all the details. I get the impression from reading this, I'm inferring from this that they haven't had a lot of deep conversations about this stuff specifically. I know she said she, she's communicated her needs to him and it feels like he's not receptive to them. But it sounds like they haven't had a lot of deep conversations about this sort of difference between them about religious and kind of personal beliefs or maybe about the way that they're raising their daughter or about the role of kind of emotions in their relationship. And so of course it's built up and built up into this thing that now feels like, oh my God, I'm just not getting what I want, want, yeah, at all. So that's just a plug for talking about this stuff early and often, even though it feels uncomfortable. Because this is how we develop the tools to decrease those ebbs and flows. This is how we avoid building these types of resentments that turn into these really huge feelings of I feel like I'm not getting what I need anymore.

So obviously we are going to recommend that this couple gets therapy, especially that they have a family. You know, it's important for them to like have these deeper conversations about it, have support in processing through all of that. So I think we're going to give the advice of therapy for pretty much all the stories that we're talking about here. Let's kind of wrap this one up and let's share with each other, like, what's your gut feeling about whether or not this couple should stay together or break up? And again, let's just be super clear. We're not the authorities here. We don't know the right answer. We're just sharing our perspectives. So what do you think?

Probably breakup. It feels like it's one of those things that has likely gone too far. That being said, what I will say is that I think if they are both open to some intensive couples therapy where they really go through the list of resentments that they likely each have about each other and are open to looking at each one understanding, like, why it is that the other person has that resentment against them. I think that there is a way to grow from this, but it takes a real dedicated effort from both parties. I'm concerned by what she wrote. He likely will not be up for that effort, or he may kind of hear her say, you know what I really want? I need us to be in couples therapy. I have sort of all of these things that I'm really unhappy with. And I could imagine him either being like, no, I won't go to therapy, or being like, how has it gotten to this extreme level without me being aware of it and kind of swinging really far the other way and being like, oh, my go, I can't trust you now. And it's like, that's kind of naturally lead to breakup anyway. All I'm saying is the only way back from this, I think, is both people to really be totally dedicated to our relationship comes first. I'm willing to do whatever it takes in therapy.

I'm with you on that one. Yeah. My gut is telling me it's going to be a breakup for these two unless they are both on board with intensive couples therapy and we wish them the best.

Yeah.

I don't know about breakups, but I know how I knew when my marriage was done, we did not have children. I was with him for 14 years. I loved him very much, but I knew he did not love me as I should be loved. Intimacy was gone. He would not ask me a question about my day. Anytime I tried to communicate with him, he would walk out of the room and I said, I know that there's so much more life for me. And I left. Took me five years of being single and I met someone and I have never been happier. I had no idea how much I suffered. Never stay with someone who doesn't show you love that you are looking for. You have to love to be loved. It's not about just giving. You've got to give and receive. It takes both.

All right, so let's get into our second story. And this is from a woman as well. So she writes, my partner has kids from a past relationship and has had a vasectomy. I want a child. Partner has said that he's willing to have a vasectomy reversal, but doesn't actively show me that he wants to have a kid with me. For example, dreaming of the future with baby together. I struggle with my role as a prospective stepmom and don't feel fulfilled by it, especially with the uncertainty as to whether or not I will ever be able to have a biological child with him. In addition, I feel like our communication is difficult. I want him to open up more emotionally, and he doesn't have that skill set, but he says he's willing to develop it. I worry that I'm spending so much time waiting, waiting for him to emotionally open up, waiting for him to show me that he wants to have a kid with me and I won't be happy or feel like my needs are met. I'm 35, so I don't have years to spend waiting on the positive. We share a lot of the same hobbies and money values. We're both actively invested and work on the relationship. We talk to each other with kindness and respect. We have a lot of fun and go on adventures together. He's so much more thoughtful than many of my friends partners. So many of the puzzle pieces are there. I know that no relationship is perfect, so I'm trying not to be idealistic or perfectionistic.

Interesting.

So there's one sentence in this that's really throwing me off, and we'll get to that in a second. But my initial read through this is there are just some miscommunications happening, and they're actually much closer to being on the same page than I think she realizes or is giving them credit for.

Yeah.

So, like, let's start right off at the top. She's saying, partner has said he's willing to have a vasectomy reversal, but he doesn't actively show me that he wants to have a kid. I think that's just such a personal thing. Like, for him, I'm willing to have a vasectomy reversal. Like, what other proof could I give you that I want to have a kid?

Snip. Snap, snap, snap. I All I can think of when I hear vasectomy reversal is the very best, best office episode of all time. What is it? The Dinner Party where Michael Scott talks about the number of times he's had a vasectomy and a reversal. You don't know the emotional toll it.

Takes on a man.

So you know this guy is willing to take that emotion.

Yeah, he is. So what I think is happening is, like, she's wanting him to show that he wants a baby in the same way that she is showing that she wants a baby. It's kind of like the love language stuff that we were talking about earlier. Like. Like she wants him to show it in that certain way. And he might be like, well, I'm showing it in my way. Like, I genuinely am excited. The simple fact that he's not, like, actively daydreaming in the same way that she actively daydreams. I don't think that necessarily means that he doesn't want to have a kid.

The fact that he's willing to have a vasectomy reversal, I think is. Is huge. I don't blame him for not being actively excited to go have a surgical procedure. So, yeah, it's.

Oh, so I see what you're saying. Like, it's not that he's not excited about having a kid. It's just like, who's going to be excited about getting this procedure? That might feel kind of scary or nerve wracking. So maybe the fear or the anxiety or whatever it is around getting the procedure is kind of masking the fact that he genuinely could be excited about having a kid.

Yeah, I think could be is the key word. Like, I would imagine he may need to have the procedure and he may need for you guys to get pregnant before that. That excitement comes. He already has a kid and he already had a vasectomy, which to me implies, like, he feels content with the amount of kids he's had. He clearly felt ready to live the rest of his life without having kids because he got a vasectomy. He may not ever be actively excited before you guys get pregnant about having a kid, because he's already said, you know what? I'm done. But he's willing to reconsider that, which I think is huge. And so I think she needs to think about, in order for me to be truly happy having a biological child, do I need to see him be actively desiring it in advance or not? Because I think he is for sure on board with it. If he's on board with having the procedure.

Well, maybe you and I have different thoughts about this, because if I put myself in her shoes. I want to know that my partner is not just like, okay, babe, sure, yeah, we can have a kid, whatever. I want to know that my partner is like, yes, I want this child. I want to bring a life into this world.

Has she communicated to him? I'm feeling concerned because I really actively want to have a kid with you. And I'm not seeing. At least I'm not perceiving that you actively want to have one with me. I do want to acknowledge that. I know you've said you're willing to have the vasectomy reversal, and I'm curious what that's like for you. Like, what are you feeling around your desire to have a kid with me?

Okay, so then let's talk about the other big piece of this. She says she feels like their communication is difficult. She wants him to open up more emotionally, but he doesn't have that skill set.

He's willing to develop it. This was so interesting because then she says that she's feeling like she's waiting around. She's spending time waiting around for him to develop it. That made me wonder. I don't think that that's necessarily something that you just go off and develop on your own, come back to your partner and, like, it's like, oh, cool, now we're emotional.

Now I'm fixed.

Now I'm. Now I'm fixed and I'm perfect. Yeah. If you go back in time, like, ideally, you develop that skill set as you're a kid growing up and a teenager and a young adult. And it's not something that, like, you have to totally develop together. But I do think that at this point in time, this is something that they will have to develop together. Even though she feels, like, emotionally literate, having an emotional connection in your relationship is both of you developing something together. It's just. Just like sex. Like, you can't be like, oh, well, I was super good with sex with my last couple partners, so therefore, I'm going to be great at sex with this new partner. Like, you still have to develop. Develop a rapport, like a sexual rapport together based on what works for each of you.

Yeah, yeah.

He could go off and do all this personal work on emotions and come back.

I like the way you talk about your emotions.

Whoa. That's weird. I don't know. That's not what I wanted. So I think that's just another argument. This is work they have to do together. And the good news is it sounds like they are both willing to do that.

So I think what they could do is identify what are some ways that we want to do this. Is it that we're going to go to therapy, is that we're going to start listening to some podcasts together, we're going to read a book together, you know, identifying something active that they can work on. So let's get to the one sentence that's really tripping me up here, though.

All right.

It's early in her story, and she writes, I struggle with my role as a prospective stepmom and don't feel fulfilled by it, especially with the uncertainty as to whether or not I will be able to have a biological child. So I can't quite tell. Is it that she's saying, you know, I don't think I could be fulfilled just as a stepmom. I want to also be a biological mom. But to me, it just feels like he has kids, so he's a package deal. It's not just him. If she's saying, I struggle with my role as a stepmom and I don't feel fulfilled by it, it makes me think about those kids and, like, is that fair to them to be brought into somebody's life? Who's. Who's saying, I struggle with this role? I don't know if I could be fulfilled being this role to you.

Yeah. Or like, I need to have my own biological child. And I wonder, would that child be. Be treated differently from the other ones?

Yeah, for me. Yeah. My. My perspective around that is again, like, he. It's. He's a package deal. He comes with these kids, and these kids deserve to be loved and deserve to be accepted as well. And of course, like, she's gonna have her own unique relationship with them. But I really think that it should come from this place of feeling in the same sort of way that I was talking about feeling excitement to bring a child into this world. I think she should feel excited to bring these children into her family and into her life. Life Actively excited. Not just, okay, I love this guy, and he comes along with these kids, so I guess I gotta deal with them.

All right. I have a psychological hypothesis. Oh, God. I'm not the psychologist here, so I'm just. I'll just. Neither am I. I'll just come out and say it. Is it possible that he may be picking up on the fact she's not feeling super fulfilled in her role as a stepmom? He feels that there is some disconnect between his kids and her, and so he's kind of subconsciously like, not so excited about having a kid with her because he's worried about the dynamic between all of them. Is this a possibility? Like, we all are so good at thinking, oh, no one else is gonna pick up on this stuff that we're feeling. Like, it's. It's just perfectly inside of me, and my actions don't betray, like, what I'm really feeling. But I think a lot of it's.

Yeah.

For the most part, in relationships, we pick up on this type of stuff even if we don't explicitly see it. Like, inside, deep down, there's something in us. Huh. It doesn't seem quite right between my kids and her, and that worries me about having another one. And so I'm not. If that's the case, I would. I'm not surprised that he's not. Hell, yeah. Let's do this.

Okay, so as a psychotherapist, not a psychologist, I think that you could be on to something there. What do you think? Do you think that this couple should break up or should they stay together?

They should stay together. I think they should have some couples therapy. Maybe they don't need to have a ton of couples therapy, but I think there needs to be some really honest conversation about how it is that each of them kind of show their desire for having kids and some honest discussion about, like, what it means for her to be a stepmom, what he's looking for out of her as a stepmom, and what it would look like sort of being both a stepmom and a biological mom in that kind of family dynamic. Talking about how she would like to see him be more emotional and ways that they could work on that together. If they're both into that, I think that there's a lot of room for this to turn around really quickly. And if they're not open to that, she probably needs to decide if it's more important for her to have her own child and move on.

Well, we're two for two. I agree with you on this one as well. I've. They should stay together. With the caveat that she is actively excited about being a stepmother.

I feel like society especially tells women there's not too many good men out there, so if you have a good man, you better hold on to him. Growing up very religious, too, I was taught to not follow my intuition, rely on external voices to impact my choices, and I ignored my gut. And he wasn't a bad person. He wasn't abusive. We didn't have a deep emotional connection that I really wanted out. Of a life partner. There doesn't have to be some big reason why you break up. Just wanting to break up is enough.

All right, let's get into our third and final story today. This one is also from a woman.

We have a lot of female followers on Instagram. It's like 90% plus. So if you are a guy and not following us on Instagram, please give us a follow because we love to get a more balanced perspective over there.

Yes, we need a few more men over there. All right. I'm actually struggling right now with whether or not to break up with my boyfriend. He always says there's a disconnect between us and that he's not happy with our sex life. He thinks that the cause of this is because I'm cheating on him, which is not true. He's willing to have sex whenever, but I. Not so much. I look at him and I am attracted to him, but when it comes to sex, I don't know how. How to connect. I don't feel turned on. I've been trying hard to find an explanation as to why there's something missing there when it comes to sex. I do agree that there is a disconnect between us, but I just can't figure out what it is, much less how to fix it. I'm so tired of having this issue, and I also feel like it makes our sex life worse too. The relationship I'm currently in has been the most serious and long term relationship I've ever been in. I love and want to be with him, but I'm tired of being blamed for cheating with when that is not true. So we got kind of curious about this when we reached out to this woman and asked her a few follow up questions. We wanted to know, like, why does your partner think that you're cheating? And she said his former partner that he was with for several years cheated on him. And he says that I show the same signs as her when she was cheating.

Well, he's quite the detective. Yeah.

So we asked, like, well, what are the signs? And she said, no connection during sex. Continually making prolonged eye contact with other men. When I'm off work and we're together on the weekends, he feels me more present in the relationship. But when I come home from work, there is a disconnect. So the cheating dynamic, this is a really challenging one. Anybody who has been cheated on and both Xander and I have been like, you know, that you develop this antenna for any sort of potentially cheating behavior, and depending on, you know, how severe the cheating was, how recent it was. Like, you can be very on guard and very hyper vigilant, like, looking for that. And it makes sense. Right. We've just been so hurt, so betrayed. So of course you're going to want to protect yourself from being hurt in that way. Again, of course you're going to be, like, on the lookout for these kinds of signs. I want to validate that, you know, the guy's experience. But this has been going on for years.

She said, yeah, I think the other thing with the signs, I'm putting signs in air quotes. The challenge here is, yeah, he was cheated on in the past, but the signs that he's referring to, he has no way of knowing if those signs are actual indicators of her, you know, his ex girlfriend being about to cheat on him or just stuff that was going on in, like, randomly in the lead up to this happening. And so he's, you know, it's so easy to develop this thing of being like, oh, well, I was cheated on. And here's what happened in the two weeks before. So everything that happened in the two weeks before is now a sign that this is going to happen. It could be some of those things were a sign, some of them weren't. But because of the way he was traumatized by it, like, he's created this connection in his mind, no one is going to convince him otherwise. About.

So when we have these kind of insecurities in relationships, I think it would feel very different for her if he was to say something like, I've been hurt. I'm very hypervigilant, looking for things. I feel insecurities that come up for me. I feel fear that comes up for me. If he were to take ownership over it and share in that way, I bet that she could be really compassionate with him and say, like, I'm so sorry that you were hurt that way. I will never hurt you that way. Like, that's not what I want to do. But when you turn it around and you're just throwing it at your partner and constantly accusing them of cheating on you, of course she's not going to feel sympathetic to him because she's on the defensive. She's just constantly having to say to him, I'm not cheating on you. I'm not cheating on you. I am not cheating on you. And you know that's just going to drive a huge rift in between the two of them.

Yeah. So for me, it is no surprise she's struggling with wanting to have sex with him.

Like, yeah, why would you want to have Sex with somebody who's con. Who's convinced that you're cheating on.

Yeah. One, they're accusing you constantly of cheating. Why would you want to have sex with them? Also they're accusing you of cheating and they're also staying with you. It's sort of this weird dynamic of like, why is this person with me if they feel like I'm constantly betraying them? Why. Why do you want to do that? And. And I do feel like it's very likely a chicken and egg type scenario at this point. This has been going on for a while. So he ties the sexual disconnect into you. It's just proof that you're cheating on me. Who knows if this started up years ago? Like, who knows if the sexual disconnect didn't actually start once he actually kind of accused her of cheating? At this point, I feel like there's just no way to know.

Yeah. So with this one, you know, I'm not a fan of ultimatums. I don't think they work in the vast majority of cases. But I do think this. In this situation, it's going to be something where she's going to have to tell him, like, I can have the space for your feelings of fear or anxiety or whatever it is that comes up, but I need you to take ownership of them. I can't be in a relationship with somebody who is constantly accusing me of cheating.

Yeah. And I think that it's likely he needs to do some personal work, probably individual therapy for him to try to heal from the trauma of being cheated on. All of us are impacted differently from cheating. It depends on what happened. It depends on who we are. And so many things. Things. But in this case, it's pretty clear that there's been some lasting damage as evidenced by the fact that he's continuing to accuse his current girlfriend of cheating on him for a long time. So that implies to me he's got to do some work on trying to heal from this. If he ever wants to be in a relationship and not suspect this. What's your recommendation?

My gut is saying that these two are probably gonna break up. It just feels like he's in a really wounded place right now where he's struggling to take ownership of his own experience and to recognize. Recognize the ways that he's hurting his current relationship. I don't know. The vibe that I get from this is that he's just not really ready to be in a relationship right now. I could be completely wrong about that. But I think that unless he's willing to stop making this accusation. They're probably going to need to break up.

Yeah, I would have to agree with you. I mean, it just. There's no way for this dynamic to ever change unless, like, she stops going to work and she stops ever looking at anybody else. And magic, she starts wanting to have sex with him again without him having to change at all. And the problem is they're just kind of butting heads in this way that it doesn't feel like it's highly likely to change in a positive way.

Yeah. So those are our three breakup stories, our thoughts about what these couples can do. And again, just want to reiterate, we're not the authorities here. We are not psychics. You know, we don't know what should happen or what's going to happen. And we really appreciate, appreciate the bravery that these women showed by reaching out and being willing to share their stories. And we send them all of our love and compassion and wish them the best.

So if you're going through anything similar to this, what I will say, because we heard this from so many of the people who wrote into us, writing it down to us, even if we didn't talk about it in the podcast, was so helpful. It's the act of dumping out all of your thoughts and organizing them them is super helpful. I would encourage you to do the same. It's so easy to think through stuff really quickly in our head and feel like we're being super thorough. But there's something about writing it down, whether that's pen and paper or tapping it out with your fingers in an Instagram DM or whatever you're talking about.

Like Morse code or something.

Tapping it out and Morse code, to me, super, super helpful. So just bottom line, mind, we both recommend writing stuff like this out. Don't keep it all in your head. Try to write it down, organize your thoughts. It helps so much to just see the full story in front of you.

All right, so we have a free gift that we want to leave you with as well. We have a free guide called the Golden Rules of Communication. Obviously, communication is such a huge dynamic in relationships. In each of the stories that we've shared, you know, there are definitely ways that these couples are miscommunicating with each other. We all miscommunicate with each other on a pretty much daily basis. So we put together this free guide called the Golden Rules of Communication that's going to walk you through really specific guidelines to follow in your communication, give you plenty of examples of how to phrase things, how to have tricky conversations. It's just a super, super useful guide. So we will put the link to download that in the show notes so you can check that out@vmtherapy.com that's the number 20.

All right, so that's it for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week when we talk about how to try new sex positions, even if you're shy or nervous about it.

Ooh, I can't wait. See you then.

Sam.