EPISODE 33: The Episode We Almost Didn’t Release

To be totally honest, though, I don't love taking your pants off is hard. You're so short, I had to bend so far over to get them off of your feet.

Hello, and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Xander 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. Today, we have a different kind of episode for you. Normally, we have a specific topic picked out. We have a bunch of bullet points that we want to cover, but. But we decided to kind of go off script today.

Oh, boy. What's gonna happen?

Nobody knows. Literally, nobody knows.

Will we ever release this episode?

We might not, to be perfectly honest. We decided, let's just sit down, let's hit record, let's see what happens.

Shooting the shit.

Both of us have full veto opportunity so we can decide not to release this.

So this might get weird.

It could get weird. You know, one of the things that we've been talking about is obviously we talk a lot about communication and how it is in relationships. And I think sometimes people, they just want a better sense of, like, how that actually works in our relationship. So I think it's one thing to, like, you know, you can read a bunch of communication tips, use eye language and that kind of stuff. But I think that a lot of times people just want to know, like, God, how does this practically work in a relationship? How do you really talk to each other?

Yeah. Cause I think oftentimes with tips, you're like, okay, well, I tried the tip at the beginning, and then things just got heated, and all of a sudden the tips were out the wind and it was back to the way it always is.

So we thought it would be interesting today for us to do, like, a relationship check in with each other, to kind of check in about where we are, what we're working on, and to have it really be unscripted so that we can give you an example of, like, what these kinds of conversations really look like in our relationship. So I have a couple of questions jotted down, you know, that I wanted to ask Xander and have him ask me, but we really don't have, like, a specific plan, and neither one of Us knows exactly what the other person is going to say.

Oh, except for the laundry list of complaints that I've been saving up in anticipation of this podcast.

Oh, great.

We're going to drop them all today.

Great. I cannot wait for that. Just rapid fire complaints.

I'm just kidding. That's not something we would ever recommend and I have not done that.

Great. Thank you for clarifying that.

Just in case anyone is listening, gets to the end and they're like, wait, where's the laundry list of complaints? I came here for that.

So we are recording this right after the holidays and we figured, the holidays, what a better time to check in with each other than the holidays. Because the holidays always stir shit up, don't they?

Oh, they do. They do. Even for us.

Even for us. Absolutely. I know. I'm thinking about people who are always asking us on Instagram, like, do you guys ever fight? Like, are you kidding?

No, never have, never have, never will.

What is a fight? So let me start off by giving you like a quick kind of recap of what happened over our holidays. We typically spend, you know, for the overall holiday season. The way that we've chosen to divide it up in our relationship is that we spend Thanksgiving with Xander's family and we spend Christmas with my family. So we were with my family for five days over the holidays. It was interesting.

Yeah.

My family is absolutely wonderful. I am obscenely lucky. I love them all so much. We get along really well. There's a whole lot of love in my family. If you follow us on Instagram, you've probably met every single member of my family, my parents in particular. They even have their own highlight on Instagram. I think it is one of our most popular highlights. People really love hearing from my parents.

Oh yeah. Whenever your parents come to visit or like we do something in LA together because they live relatively close by, but not that close. They're on the story. People love it.

People.

I feel like that's one of the most favorite things that we do on an ongoing basis. Questions for your parents.

They're super sweet. They're madly in love with each other, about to celebrate 40 years of marriage, which is wild. Lots of love, lots of great stuff going on in my family. Again, I consider myself to be very lucky and just like every other family, you know, there's also our fair share of shit. You know, there's stuff that, that comes up with my immediate family, with the extended family. So I'm not gon go into like all of the gory details of what happened over this holiday season because a lot of it just. It feels.

You're really building it up a little bit.

I know I'm not gonna tell you what happened, but I just want to be clear. Like, you know, a lot of it feels like there's stories that are not entirely my own to tell.

Oh, yeah.

And so I don't want to, like, go into all the details of what happened. And it wasn't like gory and nothing like horrific happened. But just to give you kind of a light sketch of what happened, I did have a disagreement with one of my family members over Covid issues. We had a lot of extended family issues around Covid because I think pretty much every other family in the world right now, my family is comprised of different individuals who have very different opinions about what Covid is, how infectious it really is, what we should be doing, what we shouldn't be doing, risk tolerance.

And safety tolerance, etc.

Exactly. So there was a lot of overarching, you know, challenges around how do we spend time together? Do we spend time together? What do we do? Where do we have it? Who feels comfortable going, who does not feel comfortable going? So that was an ongoing thread of discomfort, tension, conflict, you know, throughout the entire visit.

I imagine that these type of things are going on in so many families around the country and around the world.

Yeah, seriously. So I had, you know, me personally, I had two different conflicts with two different family members where there were like direct conversations between the two of us, disagreements around, you know, what feels safe and comfortable and, you know, what should we do? One of them was much more heated than the other. One of them took place over text message, so it was kind of like a little bit muted. But one of them was in person in my parents house. Xander was there in a different room, but he overheard the whole thing and kind of talked to me afterwards. So we had those two different things that came up and that that caused some tension and some emotions. There were some tears involved, There were some raised voices, like it was a conflict. And going on throughout all of this is. I was also asking my family a lot of questions about how our family has dealt with anger. I don't know if I've mentioned this anywhere before, like on our podcast or on Instagram, but I've been in therapy the last couple of months. I've been in therapy on and off for a lot my life. Like, I think therapy is very valuable. It's important for us to have that outlet. You know, it was part of when I was going to grad School to doing my training to become a therapist. Like, we were required to go to therapy because it was just so important to have the space to process things. So I've started therapy with a new therapist over the last couple of months, and we've been talking a lot about how I deal with my anger and how my family deals with their anger. My therapist kind of opened the door of like, okay, we're talking about your anger, but, like, I'm curious, what did you see growing up? How did your parents deal with it?

Yeah, and that's because so much of how we deal with things in the world comes from the way we've seen it dealt with in our families.

Yes, of course.

That's kind of how therapy works. Pretty much most stuff that's happened in.

Our family 101 there for you.

We do a lot of things that we have seen modeled for us by our family, and sometimes we do the exact opposite of things that we have seen or been modeled for us by our families. Of course.

Of course. So, yeah, I was having some conversations with my family, pretty much all the different members of my family. Like, what do you remember? What were you taught? What experiences do you have? And so these were, you know, they were really helpful and interesting conversations to have. Like, I. I am dying to have my therapy session. I've got a whole thing in notes. I'm ready to go. I've got a lot of content for this.

Sadly, you have 48 hours to go, though.

I know, I know. And it was also, like, it was very painful to have a lot of these conversations, and it caused a lot of pain for some of my family members to be recalling memories. And I learned a lot of things about my family I didn't know before. And in particular, about one member of my family, I learned some pretty shocking things that I had never known before that really rattled me. And, yeah, they shook me, really. So I feel like I'm trying to integrate this information. Like, wow, how do I fit this in with who I know this person to be and my feelings towards them? Long story short, like, I'm just in it right now. I'm. I'm in the muck. I've got a lot of new information. I've got a lot of emotions that are coming up. I have a nice, safe, wonderful container to process them in. But this was definitely, like. It was a really challenging couple of days for me. There was a lot of stuff. Stuff that came up. So let's kind of jump into this conversation between you and me now. I'm curious to know, how was this last week for you?

Yeah, for me, it's been really interesting, especially because you and I have been talking a lot about the anger stuff and the stuff that you've been doing in therapy and the stuff that I've been doing in therapy over the last couple months. And so that really set the stage for a lot of what I don't.

Think you've talked about the fact that you're in therapy either.

No, I guess I have.

Therapy reveal in this episode. Oh, I am ashamed of the secret that we're both.

There's nothing. There's nothing. Yeah, there's nothing. There's nothing weird about it. Definitely practice what we preach and. Yeah, I think what's been really interesting for me is that for a long time, I've kind of had an image of what, you know, how I see your family. And, you know, overall, I see your family in a really, really, really positive light, regardless of anything we're talking about. I really realized in this holiday that I've had a. Maybe a glorified image in my mind of just certain things. And this is, you know, it kind of saw a lot of, like, we are all human here.

Oh, yeah.

We all struggle with things. And I think that ultimately that's a really healthy thing. I think one of the things that we tend to do in our minds is really glorify certain people or certain relationships or certain things when we aren't that close to them.

And always the ones that are not our own.

Yeah. The ones that aren't our own. Yeah. The grass is always greener.

So perfect. That relationship's so perfect.

Yeah. Or it's something where it's like, you know, you go visit a friend in another city for, like a week and you're like, oh, my God, I want to move there. It's so great. My life would be so much better there. And then you go back home and, like, you're dreaming of it. And then, like, you go back to that place one day and you're like, oh, wait, what was I. What was. I think? Or, you know, worse, you move there and you're like, oh, God, I made a horrible mistake. And that's.

That's how you feel about my family?

Oh, no, absolutely not. I mean, we're. We're talking about moving there. So Vanessa and I are likely moving to the same place where her family lives. So it is not like that at all. But, you know, I think it is really healthy to have those things that we idealize or glorify. Kind of just brought back down to reality and kind of just being able to acknowledge, oh, yeah, like, these people are human. These relationships are like other relationships that I have. There is. They're normal.

Yeah. The interesting thing, like, hearing you say that is, you know, my family is definitely not one of the kinds of families that, like, tries to present this perfect image to the world. You know, like, we're very open about the fact, like, there's a lot of generational trauma in my family.

Yeah, definitely.

And my. Both of my parents have been, like, very open about the trauma that they have each experienced. And I really, you know, applaud them for, like, not recreating that trauma in our, you know, immediate nuclear family. So. But it's just interesting because we've never, you know, you think of that kind of like classic Stepford family that they're just so invested in. Like, make sure that everything looks perfect to the outside. Nobody can see anything. Like, my family is definitely not like that. But I have heard from other people before who have had that impression of, like, oh, but your family just seems so perfect, you know? And I'm like, where does that come from? It's interesting.

When you really have a lot of generational trauma, like you were talking about on each side of the family, it becomes really easy to kind of be like, these really intense things happen to my mom, and these intense things happen to my dad and his family. And it's really easy to kind of be like, okay, well, growing up, I'm like, okay, well, these things aren't happening here, so it's all really, really good. And then looking back, you can kind of be like, oh, yeah, well, those, like, intense generational traumatic experiences weren't happening for me. But there are also other things that happen that can be challenging that make it, you know, challenging for me, you know, now in my older age.

So how did this week feel for you, between you and me?

I think that this week felt pretty good. I felt that we had a really healthy amount of checking in, being there for each other and also giving each other space to have our own experiences. And I say that as. Especially between. I don't know. I guess when it comes to me giving you space because I saw you having some conflicts with other people, and I made an intentional decision to give you space to have those conflicts and to experience that without inserting myself.

Yeah.

Or trying, really trying not to insert myself, because I can recognize that in the past, I have inserted myself more in certain conflicts in your family.

Yeah. I mean, that was something that I kind of wanted to call a little bit of attention to. So basically what happened is this was, like, the bigger conflict with a family member that I was talking about. We were in the living room. Voices were starting to get raised. There were actually like, a handful of us that were in the living room, but it was just me and one other person who were having a big conflict in there. Xander and one other family member were in the kitchen. They had been in the middle of baking some cookies when all this started going down. And Xander's stayed in the kitchen and continued baking cookies. And I. I appreciated that. And I think that that's kind of a good rule of thumb for if you are seeing your partner get into a conflict with somebody else. Of course. Unless you think that, like, you know, things are really escalating. Maybe there's some sort of, you know, danger or something like that. Like, I have gotten into a pretty extreme conflict with a family member once, and you did intervene, and you were like, vanessa, let's get, you know, like, you moved me into another room. Like, this is not good. Yeah, we got to get you out of here.

Yeah. Things are unsafe or getting out of hand, then by all means, get involved. But when things may be emotional but are happening in a, you know, a safe and, I don't know, respectful. As respectful as possible, I could feel you, you know, sometimes that person is going to need their space, especially if, you know, for me, I did not have any skin in that game. I did not have. It did not matter what my perspective was.

Yeah. I could feel your attention on what was going on. Even though you were in a different room. I could kind of feel you, like, having an ear out to, like, okay, what's going on here? But I think it is a good rule of thumb to, like, not necessarily jump in all the time. Don't make things worse, especially if it's between your partner and their family member. I think maybe if it was like, I was having an argument with, let's say, your sister or something, maybe that would have been more appropriate time to jump in. Yeah, but me talking to one of my family members, you stayed out of it, and I think that was a good thing to do. And then once the conflict had ended, you came swooping in and you checked in with me and were like, okay, how are you feeling? What's going on? Tell me about what happened. For me that I just want to, like, call attention to that, and I want to praise you and thank you for that because it felt like a really nice balance of letting Me have my own space, be able to express myself, and also being really supportive and checking in with me. And he's shaking his hands in the air. He's proud of himself.

Good job. Good job, bitch.

You did a good job. I appreciate that. So I was really. Yeah, I was really grateful for that, and I felt like you supported me and you were on my side, but in a way that you still, like, let me have some of my own space around it, too.

Yeah. Yeah. And then otherwise, it felt healthy to me. Despite the challenges that we had, I think that it was nice for us. We kind of continuously checked in about the conversations that you were having with your family, about some of the, you know, like, how we express anger or, you know, how we process our emotions. And, you know, I felt like you and I just continued to kind of check in of like, oh. Huh? Like, oh, I heard so and so say this or I observed this or I observed that. How did this feel to you? How did this. What did you think when you heard that? And it felt like a healthy level of checking in. It's not like I was just walking around trying to psychoanalyze everyone and be like, oh, my God, did you hear when aunt blah, blah, blah said whatever?

Yeah. I think that we did a really good job of staying connected over this time as well. We did have quite a challenge getting out the door, as we always do when we first left.

Oh, yeah. On our way out of our house. Yeah. On the way home.

This is just, like, a real sore spot for us. Like, we have a really hard time whenever we're leaving to go somewhere getting out the door that day.

Like, yep.

And we always fight. We always fight about it. We're always on different pages about, like, one person thinks we're trying to leave at this point. The other person thinks we're trying to leave at this point. One person's wanting to have, like, a relaxed, cool day until we have to leave. The other one's like, no, no, no, let's get out of here and go as quickly and efficiently as we can. So we always do this. And the hilarious thing is that we know this is a sore spot for us, and yet we do not make a more concrete plan. Like, we sort of had some conversations the night before of, like, oh, yeah, well, let's just, like, we'll see what time we can get out in the next morning. But, like, we never make a plan of, like, here's exactly when we're trying to leave. Here's exactly what we need to do. Who's responsible for it. Like, we really need to learn how to set ourselves up for success a little bit better in that regard.

Yeah.

You know, so we struggled there.

Yeah. Ironically, I think the times that we have been most successful are when we have an extremely early flight in the morning. I think that's the only time because there's no real wiggle room if you're like, we have to be at the door at 6am to get to the airport. Like, you can't screw too much up. Whereas it's the times where we need to leave mid morning that we really get ourselves into trouble because it's like you're like, oh, well, you know, Vanessa and I usually wake up pretty early. Like, does not matter what day of the week it is. And so we each are like, okay, well, we'll be awake by 7 o', clock, no problem. Like, if we're thinking we're leaving in the range of 11:00am it's like, oh, yeah, we got a couple hours. It can be real nice and comfy and for some reason we just never. It never clicks that it's like, oh, yeah, just even loading the car up is going to take a while and grabbing this and grabbing that and yeah, yeah.

So. But I think once we got there, I felt like this was one of, maybe one of our best holiday seasons. Like, I felt very connected to you. I felt. Felt like we had good time together. We did some fun, you know, interesting things.

We also did separate things.

I was just about to say that. It's like we also had some separate time. Like you went surfing a few times. We just like did separate things. And it was nice to have that balance of like together time and alone time. And I think especially for you to be with my family, but to still make the decision to, like, I'm gonna go take care of myself and do the things that feel really good to me, taking care of myself. Like, we've had other things, other members of the family that like struggle with that. And I think it was just great that you did that. It wasn't like you were like, peace out, everybody. I'm not hanging out with any of you. I'm gone all day every day. Like it was just a couple hours a few times, but it was. Yeah, I think it was really nice to like have that separate time too.

Oh, yeah. No, I like to take advantage of my earlier ability to just wake up early, not like need to sleep in and just go do something nice for myself in the morning.

Yeah. So this kind of leads me into Another question that I wanted to ask you is, how did you feel about yourself this week?

I felt pretty good about myself. It was good for me, despite the conflict that you mentioned and, you know, the other just kind of general logistical challenges that we had. I felt like you and I had a decent amount of alone time. We had a good amount of separate time. I felt good about going to go surfing twice. I would have loved to go more, but honestly, it was just the weather that got in my way. Honestly, the thing I struggle with the most over the holidays, being tempted to eat too many sweets. And I have a little bit. A bit of an internal dialogue about that and also recognizing that, you know what? This is something that happens on the holidays, and I'm going to give myself some permission to indulge.

My mom did catch you. She's like, xander's eating. He takes a cookie every time he passes by the dining room. My mom's not a food shamer at all in any way. She was delighted by you eating the cookies. It was just really funny. She saw you. Do you want to ask me the same question?

Yeah. How did you feel? Wait, what was the question?

How did you feel about yourself?

How did you feel about yourself during the holidays?

I feel like, overall, good. I mean, I'm leaving this holiday season with a lot of gratitude for my family. I feel like I did have a lot of good conversations with each individual member of my family, and I'm leaving it feeling a lot closer to everybody. In particular, I really had some, like, good bonding moments with my mom. My mom's really wonderful. Both my parents are, and I just. I'm feeling really connected to her and a kind of like a sweetness around our relationship right now. So mostly good, and it's my favorite word. And I'm feeling a heaviness, too. I mean, yeah, definitely finding out a lot of new information about my family and about one family member in particular. Like, it. It rocked me a little bit, and I'm feeling a little unsteady about it and a lot of sadness around it as well, I think. Talking about trauma, talking about, you know, past experience, I feel incredibly, incredibly grateful that I haven't experienced any major traumas, like, personally. But just, you know, hearing about people you love and recognizing. I mean, I feel incredibly lucky and incredibly rare to, you know, not have experienced, like, major childhood traumas. So just hearing about that stuff feels. Yeah, it feels sad. So I'm feeling a little unsettled. I am looking forward to therapy. I know I'll feel good, you know, Once we've had the chance to kind of dig into some of these dynamics. But for right now, it does feel like. Feels like a weight. I feel like I'm carrying a lot right now.

I understand that.

Yeah.

Makes sense.

Yeah, it does. And I think I'm. I'm giving myself the space. It makes sense that it feels heavy. It makes sense that I need a little bit more time to process and an outlet for it. So it's okay. I'm not beating myself up for it or, you know, saying just snap out of it or anything like that and letting myself feel the feelings, and I just, you know, it's just a little bit tough.

Can I actually circle back on and append my answer?

Sure. A bit.

That. Because that. That got me thinking, you know, how was it for me? I feel really good about. About how I handled just all that stuff that you were just talking about right now. Vanessa, in the past, for me, it was really hard for me to see you going through a tough time or see you managing some conflict or being in conflict. I needed to insert myself or I needed to take on some of that load or some of that heaviness. I was not able to manage the discomfort of seeing other people in conflict. And, you know, so I might want to jump in and try to problem solve or try to mediate or try to kind of like, back channel things with you or kind of be like, oh, my God, like, what do you. I can't believe so and so said this or whatever. I've started to recognize, especially, you know, in my own work in therapy that that is not an effective thing for me to do, is I need to learn. I need to learn to manage the discomfort that I feel in my everyday life. Seeing things that happen in the world that I don't like, or seeing people arguing about things that I don't like. The world doesn't revolve around me, and things are gonna happen. Things are gonna happen that make me feel uncomfortable or I feel uncomfortable in response to things, and I need to learn how to accept that and be okay with that. I feel really good about the way that I was there. I was witnessing what was happening. I was taking it in, and I was there for you. And I. But I felt like I put an appropriate amount of space between me. I had appropriate boundaries in what I took on, you know, because, like, I could hear things, but I don't need to take them in. I don't need to, you know, they can bounce off of me.

Yeah, no, that's a good Point you definitely, in the past, have, like, have really taken on how I'm feeling, and then it's like, you know, you want to fix things or you want to make me feel better. And I think this is one of the classic couples conundrums that we talk about frequently is, you know, a lot of times, like, we just want to share something with our partner and have them be a part of the experience or understand what it is that we're going through. But then our partner takes it on, and they're, like, giving us advice and trying to fix it for us and telling us what we should do, or.

They'Re like, I'm going to be extra on your team, and I'm going to, like, jump in the ring with you and start fucking shit up.

And it just doesn't feel good for that to actually happen. So, yeah, you definitely did a great job of helping me feel so supported, but not taking it on, not trying to fix it or make it better, make it all go away. Like, you let me have my own experience, because oftentimes, like, what happens, you know, when you jump in and you take all of my stuff on is it leaves me with the feeling of, like, it's not okay for me to feel this, and it's not that I ever want to be, you know, like, with this example, it's not like I wanted to be feeling sad or upset or hurt or anything like that. But if I feel you jump in trying to fix it and make it all go away, it's like, oh, I shouldn't have felt that way in the first place. There's, like, a shame around it that comes up for me, and so I didn't feel that this time because you gave me that space.

Oh, great.

Good job, team.

Yeah. Go, team.

All right, different question. What is one thing that you're grateful for from this last week?

I'm just really grateful for being in this wild time that we're living in, these wild pandemic times, just being able to have some family connection and just share some connection and love and laughs and. Yeah, I'm just. Just. I'm really grateful for your family. I'm really grateful for the way that they have welcomed me into the family, how confident I feel just as a regular member of the family.

Mm.

I'm really grateful for that. Mm.

I agree. Yeah. It just felt despite all of the uncertainty and all of us having different levels of comfort and safety with what's going on, you know, with this pandemic that we're all so fucking Sick of like. Yeah, it did really feel nice to like have that quality time together. And there were a lot of laughs. A lot of laughs.

Some uncontrollable ones.

Some uncontrollable ones. We had a really good time. There was a lot going on and we had a really good time. And it just. I love the holidays. They feel really special to me. We have all these like silly stories and traditions and all kinds of stuff and we've had to modify some things these last couple of years for sure. But it just. There's just something really special about getting to spend that quality time together. I feel grateful for it. All right, so let's switch subjects now. We'll go a little more light hearted. It's been a little heavy right now, so I feel like we all also should do a sexual check in.

Oh yeah. Because we had a. We had a plan.

We had a plan going into this holiday season. In the middle of recording one of our podcast episodes from a few weeks ago, we made a pact to have more sex over the holidays than we usually do.

And I'm trying to remember that's a podcast episode is actually coming out after Christmas, right?

Like, no, it was the other people around.

Oh boy.

I think it aired already.

And so I think that maybe neither of your parents actually listened to that episode in a timely manner because I.

Don'T think they did. Fingers crossed. They did not mention it.

Nobody mentioned anything.

We decided to call this the holiday classic. I don't know, I can't remember how that came up. But the holiday classic was gonna be actually having sex over the holidays because usually what happens is, you know, so we stay at my parents house. We stay in my old childhood bedroom, which is not the most conducive to sex. It is very close to my parents bedroom. It has one glass door. So not great soundproofing. It's not like a solid door.

Yeah. There is fortunately a sheet.

A sheet that covers the glass. It's like a very. It's not a fancy.

Why is there a glass door?

I don't know.

Is it to put light into that hallway? Probably.

Probably. This is a really old. My parents house is very old. It was like built in the 20s. Nobody's touched it since.

Vanessa's mom grew up in the house that she lives in now, which is pretty cool.

It is really, really cool. But it's an old house. It is not a fancy house. There are multiple glass doors in that house. So there's a glass door. There are no locks on the doors either.

Oh, yeah, that's true. I, I have like just forgotten about that. However, I will give your family credit. Nobody. Well, maybe I shouldn't say ever, but barely anyone comes barging in.

No, they will always knock, especially at night.

No one is ever. No one has ever come in at night.

Yeah.

So I feel very safe. After about 9 o', clock, I feel like game on. Maybe earlier, not so much. There's a lot of yelling around that I was like, hey, Vanessa.

Yelling. So, yeah, it's not a very good room. It's not very conducive to sex.

However, there's a big bed.

There is a big bed which we upgraded on getting.

The mattress has been upgraded.

It used to be terrible. Absolutely terrible. So uncomfortable.

There is no creaking in the bed.

There is no creaking in the bed.

Which is better than we can say about our own bed at home.

That's true.

Tbh.

That's true. There's one upgrade. Yeah. In the past, like the holidays, we're always doing so much stuff. We're always with family, we're eating a lot. Like it just, just neither one of us feel very sexy. And so we have, you know, I think pretty rarely had sex over the holidays. Like, usually we're not staying for too long. So it feels like, okay, we're starting to get a little horny by the end of it. But it's not like a. It's not like we're staying for two weeks or something like that.

Yeah. And the times where. There have been some times where we have stayed for two weeks or more. Like when we were living in Germany, we would come back, we would come back for like five weeks or something over the holidays and we would stay for a long time. And I think that we. Very minimally.

Yeah, for, yeah, for us it's just, yeah, it's, it's hard to get to feel in the mood to have the energy for it. And we also have difference of opinion about it too. Like for me, I could get in the mood, I could save some energy. I could, you know, get excited about it. But Xander, you have some like, logistical challenges that come up for you around it.

Oh, in terms of my enjoyment of it.

Uh huh.

Well, yes, that is, that is absolutely true. I mean, one, one big difference is over the last, I don't know, 12 to 18 months, I have really kind of altered things for myself in terms of my own fitness level, the way that I take care of myself. I have a lot more energy than I used to. So in the past it was Sort of the combination of it being challenging logistically to have sex there and also me having less energy, less desire, that is really different now. However, there are some issues that I have. I don't really love sex in the dark, and I don't love quiet sex. Like, for Vanessa, I think she's like, oh, well, it can be kind of hot that we need to be quiet. And for me, it kind of feels like we're not there together doing it when, like, I can barely see her and I can't make any noise and she can't either. I'm like. I just, like, get in my head more like, oh, huh. Is this. Is this good for her? Is this good for me? I don't know. Versus, like, when we can see each other and we can communicate with each other much more, like, clearly and explicitly. It's like, oh, yeah, we are here together doing this.

Yeah, you love having sex when there's a lot of light. Like, you like to be able to see all the action that's going on.

It doesn't need to even be a lot of light. But yeah, I will say I like just full daylight sex. I like to see what I'm working with. However, I am totally fine with minimal light. The shades closed or something like that. You know, it's daylight outside, but the shades are closed. I'm totally fine with that as long as I can see something. This was like. This was like, there are no lights on at all. The shades are drawn. There are no lights on. We're trying to pretend that we are asleep.

Yeah, exactly. We didn't want to have a light on and then, you know, somebody think we're awake and come knocking. So we had all the lights off.

Yeah.

My preference is like, some low lighting. To me, your preferred level of lighting is like, spotlights on. It's just, you know, it doesn't really get me super in the mood. I like some low lighting. I do like to be able to see you make eye contact, see what's going on. But I also. I could. I could be totally fine with sex. Like, in pitch dark. For me, when I can't really see that much, it feels like it heightens the sensation. Like, I. I don't know what's coming next or where you're gonna touch. And it just. I'm able to pay more attention purely to the sensation than to, like, the visuals of what's going on. But that does not happen for you.

Yeah, you're like, I gu. A very visual person. I'm coming to realize because I'm just thinking when you were saying that, like, oh, it heightens my senses. I'm like. If I'm being honest, the dark dulls my senses.

Interesting.

I like.

I like.

Yeah. Like, I mean, I don't mean this in a negative way, but it wasn't very good sex for me. We did it. We got it done.

It got better as we went on.

It did get better.

It was not good.

Yeah, it got better, but it. It was not great.

Can you. Will you tell what. What happened the first time?

Oh, my God.

In terms of sight.

Oh, my God. Okay, so I. I made a horrible mistake. I. We were. We were starting to. We were starting to make out. And so Vanessa described that there is a. There is a glass door that is covered with, like, a shade or a sheet or something like that. So if there is a light on in the hall outside of the bedroom, there is some light in the room that we are staying in. And if the light is out in that hallway, then it is pretty close to pitch dark. So we started. I believe we started making out when the light in the hall was not on. And so I was like, huh, it's fairly dark. I'm just going to close my eyes. And we were making out for a while. It was taking me a little while to get. Get. To get hard. And so I just. I don't know. I. I usually open and close my eyes, like, kind of interchangeably. Like, I'll take a look, but I was like, you know, it's dark. I can't see anything. I just kind of forgot about my eyes, and I kept them closed. And then. I don't know. I can't remember. Some number of minutes later, I just, like, open. I just opened my eyes and the light in the hallway had been turned on at this point, and all of a sudden it was like, oh, shit. Like, I can see everything. Like, I thought it was pitch black in here. I was like, I forgot I could use my eyes.

All that I hear, he just starts, like, chuckling at a certain point. He's like, oh, I can't see. I just have to open my eyes. It's like I had my eyes closed.

Whoops.

It was pretty funny. It really cracked me up.

Yeah. I was like, man, I've been, like, sitting here with my eyes closed, being like, God damn it, I can't see anything. This sucks. And then it was like, oh, I could have just opened my eyes and I could have seen some things.

So the darkness is an issue for you? And also the sound is an Issue for you. So, like, we were saying, like, it's a glass door. It is not soundproof. And so we were doing our best to, like, you know, not really make any noise.

We weren't trying to be, like, totally silent. We were whispering.

Yeah, we were whispering and, like, some light moans. But in general, whisper moans. Whisper moans in general. Like, we tend to be pretty loud when we're, you know, alone and there's nobody else around.

We tend to be communicative. I wouldn't say we're. No one's screaming.

Yeah, yeah, we.

But we communicate with each other openly.

We communicate. But honestly, like, the vast majority of people have completely silent sexual.

That's true.

We put a poll up about this recently, and it was like, whoa.

Well, yeah, but I can understand you have kids in the house or whatever, then you just kind of get trained to, like, oh, yeah, we got. It's like that all the time for us. Like, oh, there's people in the house. You gotta be quiet.

Yeah. We don't scream at home or anything like that. We make noise for sure. And we talk and we're open.

We enjoy ourselves.

Yeah, we enjoy ourselves. And we could not do that. And so for me. Yeah, again, I can get turned on by that. Like, ooh.

Yeah.

We have to be quiet and sneaky and, like, don't make a noise. That can be hot to me, but it is not hot for you.

Yeah. Maybe if the lights were on, I could have. I could have been like, one or the other. You can look, but you can't talk.

But you've expressed to me before that. Yeah, it feels like you don't know if I'm, like, enjoying myself or really, like, in it with you.

Yeah. There's not the same cue. There's not the same visual and verbal cues.

I will say again, I can get turned on by not, you know, not being able to make a lot of noise. But I will say, like, it was difficult around orgasm, like, trying to figure out our timing and, like, are we on the same page? So I want to be super clear. Like, simultaneous orgasm should not be the expectation. You know, we always see it this way in movies and TV and all that kind of stuff, but it's actually very difficult to have an orgasm at the same time. Xander and I do it most of the time now, but we've put so much work into that, and there's a lot of communication that goes into, like, where are you? And where are you? And when's the time?

And knowing, like, hence the need for communication.

This is the whole process and so not communicating with you openly. Like I was definitely like, okay, I'm getting there. Like, are we all systems go? What's going on here? And so there was a little bit of that like kind of a thing. So I get the sound thing being a distraction. But overall the holiday classic, like it went pretty well.

It was classic.

I'm glad we did it. I don't think we would have had sex, maybe not at all, you know, during this trip if we had not made that agreement beforehand. And it helped me to go into the weekend thinking, hey, we're basically. What we had said to each other was like, we're going to try to have the usual amount of sex that we have at home here.

Yeah, it was like we're gonna have a lot more sex than we usually do when we are at your parents house. And it was, yeah, it was nice to have that intention. Yeah, it was nice to kind of lead with like, oh yeah. Like I'm, I'm, I'm needing to get myself in a headspace where I'm thinking, like I would be thinking at home rather than kind of just being like, oh, I'm in someone else's house and just whatever, I'm gonna go to sleep.

So I think some tips that I would give to people, you know, who are in similar situations are, you know, one, talk about it beforehand, make a specific plan. It did really help me to be like to have sex in the back of my mind and think like we're doing it, you know, it doesn't matter, like I gotta save some energy. And so there were times where I, you know, the family was hanging out and I was like, okay, we're going to bed. Cause I was trying to like save some energy and make some space for.

That and keep the light off in the hallway, please.

I do think we didn't do it this time but I think morning sex could have worked too, too. Because we tend to get up pretty early. Oh yeah. Most people were like hanging out in their beds for a while. So I think we could have gotten away with some morning sex as well.

Absolutely. It's honestly just our dog situation. Our dog slept in the little like mini walk in closet. It's pretty janky. But it worked.

It did.

But by the morning they were like scratching on the door. Yeah, they were ready a few times. Ready. Like if they hurt anyone turning over in the bed, they were like, let me out, it's morning time.

So I do think morning sex could have worked. We also brought our sound machine, which muffled out some sound, and that made me feel more comfortable with, like, the light whispers that we were doing. Yeah, sound machines are always great. But, yeah, I'm glad that we. I'm glad that we had the Holiday Classic, and I think we should do the holiday Classic next year.

We should.

Okay, so let's wrap this up with one final question.

Bonus round.

Bonus round. This was originally what we were thinking of doing for the podcast episode was, like, talking specifically about sexual requests. Like, what is a request that we each wanted to make of each other? And then we were like, okay, we can't do a whole podcast episode just about this, But I want to still ask this question. So I would like to know, do you have a request of me of something that you would like to do more of in the bedroom, something we haven't done in a while, like what you want?

Yes, I do.

All right.

I would love to have more oral sex. I would love to go down on you more. I love going down on you. And I don't know why, for whatever reason, we haven't been doing that so much recently. And what I'm finding is that I like it the best when you tell me to go down on you or when you sit on my face. I like it when you initiate it.

It interesting.

There's something really hot about that, and that makes me want to do it more. Not that I don't want to do it now. I do think about it. But there's something more enticing about knowing that you want it interesting.

I can do that.

Yeah. Even if it's just for a short amount of time or in the middle of something else. I like. I like to be told to do that.

Okay, I'm curious, though, to get ultra specific here. Is it a, like, you want me to ask you to do it, or is there something about me kind of, like, being bossy about it?

Yeah, I think the latter. I mean, why ask when you can tell? I'm giving you permission right now.

So you want me to boss you into it?

I mean, just tell me that you want it.

Well, we did have a podcast episode where we made an oral sex bet.

We did.

Whether or not there was going to be a ketchup in the refrigerator. Go Check out episode 34 if you want to learn more about that bet. And surprise, surprise, I won the bet.

Which is actually oftentimes when we make oral sex bets, I win. Usually it's like a trivia type thing. And when Vanessa. Vanessa makes unadvised bets oftentimes Ill advised, ill advised, not unadvised. Vanessa makes ill advised, advised wagers when it comes to trivia. Or she underestimates how good my trivia knowledge is on non. Non celebrity or pop culture related things.

That's a sad thing. I really don't care about celebrities at all. But I have just. It's like what we were talking about with music a few podcast episodes ago. Like, I just have a weird place in my brain for. I don't. Like, I don't even know where I hear the celebrity gossip because I don't follow any accounts. I don't read magazines. Like, I don't know where I pick it up, but I pick it up and it sticks in my brain and I don't know why.

Yeah, but. But circling back to our bet, Vanessa. Vanessa won the bet, so I owe her an oral.

You owe me oral.

I owe her oral. And last night? Was it last night or was it this morning? You were like, oh, you didn't. You didn't give it. You didn't do it for me. And I was like, well, you didn't ask me. And you know, I want to be asked or told.

All right, well, I will tell you when it is time.

Yeah.

Are you ready for my request?

Let's do it.

I would like you to undress me more.

Oh, I would be happy to do that.

Yeah. Very often we take our own clothes off. That's true. I like when you take my clothes off for me.

Oh, that. I'm so glad that you told me that because I really enjoy doing that. It's fun. To be totally honest, though, I don't love of. Taking your pants off is hard. You're so short. I have to bend so far over to get them off of your feet. And it's like, we get stuck there. So I struggle with the ankles and I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah. Oh, the angles of the ankles. I have to be like, can you help me? Especially if it's like. If it's like jeans, that's fine, but if it's like, like stretchy pants, like yoga pants or something, like, they get stuck, and I'm like, I can't reach far enough down to pull this thing off. Like, can you just kick it off, please? So I would love to do that. And, you know, work with me on the bottoms.

I can do that.

All right, deal?

Deal. Sounds good. I think those two things could go together a little bit too.

Absolutely. I'm excited.

How does it feel to talk about these requests? Because I think this is something that makes a lot really nervous.

Yeah, no, I. For me, it feels good. Like, I, you know, we've done a lot of work on our sexual communication, our communication in general, and I think we feel really confident being able to do this. But it feels good. I mean, if I feel closer with you now, and I love knowing what you like. I love knowing that they're, you know, hearing that there's something that you want, is something that I also feel really good about, would enjoy doing. Like, oh, it makes me really happy to know that I can do a little more of this thing and really make you happy. That feels great.

Yeah. I mean, I think there are maybe two key takeaways here for people. One is start off making positive requests. Like, both Sandra and I asked for something that, you know, some more of something that we like. It wasn't a request of like, I hate that you do this, or you're the worst at this kind of thing. Right. So get yourself more comfortable with making these, like, positive rooted requests and make, you know, talking about sex feel fun between the two of you. I think we've talked about this before that, like, the major mistake people make when they start talking about sex in their relationship is they start honing in on the problems, the things that they hate, the things they want to get rid of or change, rather than focusing on asking for more of the good things. So that's one. And then the second thing that strikes me is we both know, I think with each of these requests, like, they're not surprises to either one of us. Right. Like, we each know that the other person likes that. It's just. It's how easy it is to fall out of doing the things that, you.

Know, that you guys like getting into a pattern. And then it's sort of out of sight, out of mind.

Yeah. So I think that it's just important to remember, like, it's just very easy to stop doing these things and to have this very, you know, kind of pared down sexual routine that you go through with each. Each other every time. We are not immune to that. We fall into that pattern often ourselves too. So it's just taking a little bit of time to be more conscious of it, take that step back, have these kinds of conversations. So you remember. Oh, yeah. These are the things that I really love. These bring me joy. This makes me feel connected to you and close to you, and this turns me on. It's just great to talk about those things.

Yeah.

And now Xander is wiggling his eyebrows at me. So I think we've got to wrap up this episode.

Yeah, I think so.

So thanks for taking the time to check in with me today.

Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it. And thank you for your request.

Thank you for your request.

I look forward to honoring it right now.

So thanks for tuning in. We hope that we've given you some examples of ways to communicate. We hope it's been helpful. Like, just hearing us talk through this again, it's been like a really. Just raw and open conversation. We didn't plan out what we were gonna say or any bullet points or anything. Like, we just wanted to just talk, the two of us as a real couple. And hopefully it's been helpful for you to hear that.

Yeah. Thank you guys so much. So that's it for this week's episode of Pillow Talks. If we ever air this. We'll see.

We'll see.

I think we will. This went pretty well.

I think we will, too.

Yeah. So join us again next week when. I don't know what we're gonna talk about. Cause we don't know when we're gonna release this one. But next week, there's gonna be something awesome. I guarantee it.

Sam.