In general, there are two types of people in the world. There are some people who like to feel emotionally connected before having sex and there are some people who have sex as a way to feel emotionally connected. How to stop being defensive in my marriage. That's a million dollar question right there. Just learned about the death grip. My man definitely does it. How do I help? So Xander, can you explain what the death grip is?
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. So every Sunday on Instagram, we do Ask Us Anything Day. We put up a little question box, we take people's questions, and we do our very best to answer as many as we can. But lately... The questions have been out of control. So many good questions. It's so hard to pick which ones to answer. So I've been saving a little backlog of questions that we just didn't get around to on a particular Sunday for a particular reason.
but i really wanted to come back to them and eventually the backlog got so big that i thought you know what we should just do a whole episode about it so today we're going to be going through questions about sexual frustration we've got some stuff about defensiveness maybe even the death grip i've got a big old list we'll just see how many we get through yeah let's crank let's crank them out babe and if you're not following us on instagram you definitely should be we're at vanessa
and Xander at Xander with an X. So you'll get all the Sunday stories, but also get a chance to contribute to these podcast episodes. We always do a ton of polls and research for these episodes. So come on over and join us over there. But before we get into the episode today, we have an announcement. Yeah. I'm laughing now.
We have family dinner. That came out weird. No, we have family dinner with my family every week. And my mom always asks every week, like, does anybody have an announcement? And we always make fun of her because it sounds so formal and strange. She also asked it in a very... way as if there is an assumption that someone is hiding an announcement that they're not making every single week it's like she says it as if she knows
that there is an announcement and she's trying to like goad you into giving it but i'm like i don't know i don't i don't have one this week i fall for it every week i'm like oh who has the announcement this week but we actually do have an announcement probably not that we one that we would share at family dinner but we have
announcement that you will like, which is that we have a brand new freebie. We are always trying to make new free guides for you guys. And we're really excited about this one. It is all about the initiation. styles model. So this is a model that we developed when we were writing our New York Times bestselling book, Sex Talks, the five conversations that will transform your love life. And we have a whole section on initiation. to describe
the different ways that people like to be initiated with. I think a lot of people have heard of the love languages model. It's the same sort of idea that we all like to give and receive love in different ways. We all like to have sex initiated in different ways.
we don't know our own style if we can't communicate that style with our partner we're going to be really missing each other and probably initiating in ways that our partner actually isn't going to be super receptive to so if your partner has ever initiated sex with you in a way that made your eyes roll made you cringe gave you the ick or if you've ever initiated with your partner and didn't get a great response from them or even if it's just like a mass situation like oh the way
The way my partner initiates, I'm like, eh, I could go either way. Or you're initiating and you're like, it doesn't really seem like my partner. enjoys this they're not actively turned off like maybe they're still saying yes but it's not eliciting the type of response that you want this is what you need to look to figure out is what your and your partner's initiation styles are i mean honestly
Everybody needs this. Even if you feel like you're doing a pretty good job with initiation, it's not a big deal for you. Understanding your style and being able to talk about that with your partner, it can be so fun to talk about and it can really up-level initiation. Everybody needs this and we are giving it away to you absolutely for free.
I know we make a lot of silly reels over on Instagram showing the bad initiation type like styles, like the boob honk or just like coming up and humping against your back. And people are always like, OK, what's the answer? What's the right one?
the good ways to initiate so that is all in this free guide yeah i mean the reason why we don't have an instagram reel being like here is the way to initiate is because because there are initiation styles and so there is no one way it's that i can't tell you like in your specific situation right now with the partner that you have what the right way for you is to initiate
unless I know what your initiation style is and what your partner's initiation style is. So that's why you don't see us making that content. Like, here's the right way to do it. There's a whole plethora of right ways to do it for certain people. So this is why it's so important for you to figure out what you are and what your partner is. And then it starts to become pretty obvious what types of approaches will and won't work.
So we put a link to that free guide in the show notes, or you can go straight to vmtherapy.com slash styles to grab it. That's vmtherapy.com slash styles for the free. initiation styles guide. All right. So before we get into all these great questions, I just got to give a little plug for our review of the week. If you haven't left us a review, we would love it so much if you could leave us, ideally a five-star review.
If you love our podcast. Don't leave us a review. It's going to be a one star. Just give that to yourself. Yeah, just, you know, maybe move on to another podcast. But no, if you love Pillow Talks, we would love it if you could leave us a review because reviews are the best way for our podcast.
to grow and so we want to reward people for who do leave reviews who do love pillow talks and um yeah so what we do every week is we pick a random review from apple podcast we read it aloud if you hear yours read aloud we'll give you a free master class all you have to do is dms on instagram
or email us at info at vmtherapy.com. So here is this week's winner. Sexcellent. My title is cheesy, but this podcast is excellent. I wanted to learn about making sex in a relationship great, healthy, and strong. Vanessa and Xander are genuine, smart, knowledgeable, fun, and challenging everything you want your podcast hosts to be. I've learned so much and had fun doing it.
They have taken me from confused and doubtful about sex being anything but a conflict in a relationship to being equipped to make it a tremendous strength, no it's important to talk about, given me tools and techniques I need to succeed.
Listen to Pillow Talks. It's my favorite podcast and I can't recommend it more enthusiastically. Oh, that's a really sweet one. Thank you so much for taking the time. That is so awesome. And I mean, I think that's like really what we feel like we are on this earth. to do is sex does for so many people it unfortunately it sadly feels like something that really doesn't do that much and you know if anything it is like a detraction
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Okay, let's get into these questions. So Xander and I have not discussed our responses to these at all. I don't think you even know what's coming. No, you're going to get the Xander regular dude hot take on these. Raw and unfiltered. I'm going to raw dog these questions, babe. Okay. Why don't you read the first one? All right. My husband was groping me in his sleep. How do I address this?
Okay, so this is something that not many people know even exists. Including us before it started happening in our relationship. It did. So this is called sexsomnia.
Some people will initiate sex while they're sleeping. So it's just like sleepwalking. You know, people might get up and walk around. People have done... weird thing i remember we did people got into all kinds of trouble all kinds of trouble sleeping i know we did a prompt on instagram once and the one that always sticks out at me it was like what's the weirdest thing you or your partner has ever done in your sleep the one that always sticks out to me is someone baked an entire
your pie from scratch but the best part of it was they said I'm not even a baker. I've never baked a pie before in my life. But did it come out good? I never heard that. I know they didn't give us that detail, man. I mean, this also gets me thinking we were listening to an Armchair Anonymous episode recently about. sleepwalking and there were some wild
wild stories of what people did in their sleep. Like one guy like jumped out of a glass window. Yeah, it's bad. So anyways, people also will initiate sex with their partner in their sleep. Or just grope. I guess it's unclear. from this question like is your husband initiating sex or is he just groping do you want to tell the story of how it happened to us i mean i guess how it happened to us was
I mean, I don't really know because I don't really remember the beginning of it, but this was pretty early on in our relationship. First five years of our relationship, for sure. I know where we were living, so that kind of like... keys in the timing. For me, it was a time of very high work stress. I think that, yeah, I was generally dysregulated. A lot of stress.
not enough sleep not like consistent sleep and um yeah i woke up in the middle of the night one night and vanessa and i were starting to have sex well wait let me back it up I woke up and I was having sex with somebody and it was fucking hot. And for a moment it was like, Oh my God, who am I having sex with? But like, I'm in the middle. Like I can't stop. But like.
wait, like, is this wrong? Is this right? And then for a second, I kind of have this flash of, oh, okay. I'm like half asleep. This is my wife, Vanessa. This is okay. She seems to be into this. let's keep going and by the time we we finished very quickly i think and uh and then it was like whoa what happened yeah for me it was one of the sexiest experiences of my life because i had that same experience of you where
I didn't know who it was, but it was in a sexy, safe way. It didn't feel like scary or out of control or anything like that. Yeah, that's how it felt for me, too. I mean, it was like... Oh my God, this is so hot. And then there was sort of this question of, wait, is this, but wait, is that, is that okay? Yeah. Wait, I'm married. Wait, no, this is my wife. It's okay. Yeah.
And it ended up being super, super sexy. I really enjoyed it. And I was very sad that you stopped doing it and haven't done it for like 15 years. It happened a couple of times, probably like three or four times, I think. Over a couple month period, I would say. It happens most often when people are experiencing high stress. We don't have a ton of research on it. We don't know a ton about it. But it tends to happen most often when people are in really high stress situations.
For us, it was a very fun, very sexy experience. But for other people, it absolutely is not necessarily. And of course, the big issue that it brings up is consent. You know, if somebody is asleep and they're starting something.
you're not getting an active consent from your partner or at least you know the two of you aren't on the same page and so for a lot of people this can feel scary this can feel out of control and really unsafe so i don't know what the vibe was for this specific person they didn't say you know this really upset me or it didn't feel good for me so i don't know if it was more just a like is this weird or is he i've heard other people ask like is my husband
pretending to be asleep because he doesn't want that vulnerability of actually initiating yeah i think a lot of people make that assumption if it is happening because like i'm i'm just gonna make a assumption that what's happening in this situation is like
He's starting to, he's literally just groping her. Like he's starting to touch her. He's starting to grab at her. I'm guessing it's not leading to anything else. Like maybe she's sort of pushing him away. He didn't wake up fully. So he's not aware. of it but i think that this happens to a lot of people and yeah they do assume oh yeah i know he's he's awake he's just pretending that he's asleep and i think that that actually happens very rarely that's i mean if you're ever doing that like
please don't do that. Please initiate. Just talk about it. Don't pretend that you're asleep. But I think we can assume 99.9% of the time. If this is happening, they are truly asleep. They have no idea what's happening unless you wake them up. Oh, I don't know if I'd be that confident in the 99.9%. Okay, over 99% of the time. Okay, so here's what I would do. And again, not knowing if this is something that's upsetting to you or not, but I would talk to your husband about it when he's awake.
And I would say something like, hey, do you realize that you've been touching me in your sleep? You can listen to this episode with him if you want to, or you can Google sexsomnia together and look at it together and talk about, you know, what it's. the experience is like for you so ultimately what your experience is is the most important if this is something that feels upsetting and scary to you then it may be worth talking to his doctor talking to a sleep specialist in extreme cases
Some couples have stopped sleeping in the same beds together. So if it's something that is not feeling good to you, that's of the utmost importance. But if it's more like... you know oh it's just sort of funny that my partner's grabbing at my boobs in his sleep then just know it's a normal thing it does happen to some people it you know you can just grab his hand and move it off if you don't want him to be touching you you can
lean into it and maybe try to be intimate if you are excited by it and enjoying it but yeah i guess i'm having a hard time like saying what you should do since i don't know how the person feels about it yeah no but i i agree with you the very first thing to address if
you are aware of it you obviously are he is not aware of it we assume that he is not is to just bring it up hey like i just want you to know this has happened a couple of times then share how you actually feel about it if you're if you're like
I love this, like, hey, would you be open to me kind of like participating with you? Taking it a step further. Yeah, then you know what to do. If you are kind of... so-so about it i think just share like you know hey this is like i don't love this i'm not like this isn't doesn't feel like a violation but i'm not really open to having sex in the middle of the night then you could ask that could open the door to
hey, so what do you want me to do if this happens in the moment? Because I think then it's kind of like leading him to the question of, hey, so if this happens are you okay with me like giving you a shake or something to wake you up because i you know that's going to be the way to end it yeah is he's got to wake up there's no way that you can like reach him in his dreams and be like hey
hey dream dream partner you gotta stop that right like you gotta wake him up so you know i think you might be thinking oh well like i don't want to like wake him up because he's asleep so just talk about that like get his consent hey if this is happening
know because he's probably going to be like if you're not into it he's probably going to be like oh my god i don't want to be yeah i don't want to be doing that to you like why would he want to be doing that to you if you're not enjoying it and then yeah if you are actively like if that is really like triggering to you or turning you off then i mean i think yeah like what you said i'm talking to a specialist but certainly saying hey like i am not okay with this i know like
I know that you can't help it in that moment, but I'm going to wake you up immediately or maybe I'll have to remove myself from the bed or something like that. So here at Pillow Talks, it's really important to us to really go there, talk about all the vulnerable stuff that nobody else talks about. So let's talk about wiping your butt.
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most local grocery stores. Just head to the toilet paper aisle and look for their bright aqua rose and emerald packages. They're also available on Amazon if you're more of an online shopper. Okay, next question. Just learned about the death grip. My man definitely does it. How do I help? So Xander, can you explain what the death grip is? All right, the death grip.
is when a man has demonstrating it now the death grip is when a man when he masturbates uses a extremely tight grip so you know when men masturbate obviously they put their hand around their penis and you know i hope you're watching on youtube i hope you're watching on youtube this is what you're jacking over here in case you didn't know how men masturbate it's like this
And in case you didn't know that we are now on YouTube, episode full video on YouTube. We're staring at three cameras right now. We are over on YouTube, full video. But yes, death grip.
so very tight that yeah death grip i think is something that often develops over time of like the guy starting to grip tighter and tighter now the problem is when you grip tighter and tighter and tighter you start to acclimate to that level of pressure and once you are grabbing tighter than you can like then the tightness you would achieve from a vagina then when you have sex with anything but your extremely tight hand
you are going to struggle to orgasm or even feel very much stimulation because you've literally trained your body to only respond to a really tight pressure that's just not achievable by anything other than your own hand. Yeah, we all need to be thoughtful about our masturbation habits because if we are doing the same thing over and over and over again when we masturbate, and there's no right or wrong way to masturbate, but if you're doing the same thing.
over and over again whether that's a specific technique a specific pressure a specific speed always using the same fantasy always using a toy always watching the same porn yeah you're essentially training your brain to want more of that or to only respond to that there's a saying that goes the neurons that fire together wire together so you start creating a pattern and it's not anything that you
can't reverse but you can start creating a pattern where your body just wants to go down that same pathway to orgasm every single time yeah you absolutely can reverse that you can kind of like unwire those things but you can't in the moment you can't immediately yeah so yeah you can't be like oh yeah you just do this one thing and all of a sudden like you can feel all kinds of stimulation on your penis so yeah i think that i mean how you can help is talk to him
about it because he's probably not aware that this is a thing now yeah not everybody's aware of the death grip So I'm guessing that this person wrote in because their partner is experiencing some sort of performance issues, like likely he's not having orgasms. with his partner or maybe taking a really long time yeah he could be taking a really long time he could be not getting there at all he could be
needing to pull out and finish himself off with his hand. So any of those things might be happening. And I'm guessing that that's feeling, you know, frustrating or unwanted to their partner. Yeah, or probably to the both of you. I don't think this is not a pleasant experience for the guy to have either, though he may not be aware of that.
so these can be sensitive situations though because you know it's not your body so approaching your partner about it about their masturbation habits about using the death grip like that can be really sensitive you don't want your partner to feel ashamed or embarrassed you don't want to put them on the spot so like if i was going to come to you to talk about this what kind of language would you want me to use how would you want me to say it oh this is a good question i mean i think that um
I think that I would start, like, I wouldn't do this in an accusatory way. I mean, this person says, you just learned about the death quirk. My man does it. I mean, I'm curious, do you, like...
How do you know? Have you observed him doing it? Has he mentioned it? If he's mentioned that before, then I think that the conversation is a bit... easier is you like oh hey like i've been learning a little bit more about this um like you know i'm wondering if you might be open to adjusting some of your habits so that we might be able to kind of like unwind this a little bit and i would frame it as
so that we can both have more intimacy when we're having sex, so that we can both have more of the experience of not finishing together as in simultaneous orgasm, but just... being able to continue the intercourse longer because i'm assuming that's what you're wanting out of this now if your partner doesn't know about it i think that it would just it would be more of a like
Hey, so like I've been learning about, you know, I've been researching some of this stuff around because in this case, what's coming up, I assume is, you know, it's sort of like delayed orgasm or like you needing to pull out and finish yourself with your hand. I've been doing some research about this.
And I'm curious, you know, I found out about this thing called death grip. I'm curious, like, you know, when you masturbate, like, are you using a really tight grip? Because this is something that can impact. these things that are coming up. If I said, if I told you I've been doing some research, do you think, I think you'd get embarrassed by like, oh fuck, she's like doing research because I'm doing so bad. I was thinking more along the lines of just saying, oh, hey, you know that.
podcast that I listened to pillow talk they were talking about the death grip this week and I'd never heard about that before do you know what that is maybe trying to make it sound a little more innocent rather than like i've been doing research because i have been unhappy with your sexual performance oh god all right okay let's let's merge the two that's better
That feels a little leading if you're just like, oh, just heard about this. What do you think? Definitely don't giggle like that. No, I think somewhere in the middle is better. You could be like, hey, you know what? I just heard about this thing on this podcast. I never heard about it before. It has a kind of. funny name, but then I realized that it can have some pretty serious implications on our sex life together. I'm curious if you've ever heard of this.
If this is something that you might do when you're masturbating. Okay, yeah, I like that. Yeah, because leading with curiosity, not accusatory. Hey, you're doing this and you're ruining our sex life. That's not what you want to be saying. It's more of like, oh, hey, you know, I just learned about this thing. You know, obviously, like everybody masturbates differently.
Even if I watch you masturbate, I can't tell what pressure you're using. The only way to know is by feeling, right? So like, yeah, just curious if this is something that you've ever done or noticed. I don't know. I think I'd be able to tell if you're like really squeezing it. Yeah. I don't know. That phase. Now I don't want there to be full video of that phase. That was a horrible phase.
That's going to be the thumbnail for our YouTube episode. Oh, God. Can't wait. I can already see it. Okay. Why don't we move on to the next one? And the thumbnail we'll have on your side. Yeah, my disgusted face. You doing that tongue out thing. Yeah, that's good. Please don't make that face ever again.
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DipsyStories.com slash pillow. All right, moving on. I'm doing chores and he wants me to stop and cuddle. How can I say no, but not be the bad guy?
loved this question when it came through because there's so many different layers to it so i immediately tried to imagine myself in that situation like let's say i'm doing the dishes i think the dishes is like the classic time that this comes up i'm doing the dishes and you're coming up behind me and you're trying to be all cute and sweet and like get me to stop doing the dishes and just be with you so part of my brain goes i love that
like it's so easy in life for us to get so sucked into our chores so caught up with the daily grind the to-do list doing all the things i think it's really sweet sometimes to have your partner pull you out of those moments and say like be here with me right now i just want to have a moment with you like let's hold each other let's make eye contact like
just that reminder of you and I are ultimately what's the most important thing in the world. Yeah, that being said... That being said, the other side of me knows that it would be really... annoying sometimes to have you do that like it would totally bring up irritation frustration like dude i'm in the middle of this like let me finish what i'm doing and definitely if I'm feeling like there's an imbalance in mental load or responsibilities. Like if I'm feeling resentful, like...
I'm washing the fucking dishes again because he forgot to do it or he said he was going to, but they're still here. If I'm annoyed at you, if I'm feeling like I'm doing more than my fair share, then I'm definitely going to get really frustrated in that moment. Oh, yeah. That's the first thing you're going to think about. Yeah. And I also there's something that makes me really nervous about this person saying.
How can I say no, but not be the bad guy? Like, is that you judging yourself saying like, I'm not allowed to say no, I'm going to be bad if I'm not allowed to cuddle? Or is that your partner putting pressure on you? Because I'm also not cool with that. If your partner's... if your partner tries to interrupt you to cuddle and you say no and your partner's making you feel guilty or bad or like something's wrong with you i'm not okay with that either so i really see it going both ways
I think ultimately, though, this is a great conversation for couples to have with each other. Yes. Do you feel open to me interrupting you when you're in the middle of something? Does that feel romantic to you? Does that feel sexy to you? Does that feel sweet to you? Or does it feel disruptive? I mean, that's one of the questions that we ask.
right at the beginning of our course, Art of Initiation, we have like a whole list of questions and scenarios that are essential for every couple to have discussed. And yeah, one of them is... Yeah, in the middle of chores or in the middle of specific chores. Are you okay with being interrupted or not? Because different people are going to have very different perspectives on this. For some people, it's like...
hell yeah, interrupt me whenever. I love it. It's validation. That feels great. The validation piece is really important because for some people, that feels really good. It's this sense of like... I can't even wait for you to be finished with those dishes. Like I want to hold you right now. Like it can feel super sexy and romantic in that way. But it could also feel invalidating when you bring the mental load thing into it. It's like.
It's like this motherfucker doesn't even realize that like I'm doing way more than my fair share. He's not, you know, he's not, he's not even picking up the slack. Like he's not delivering on.
his side of the bargain and and now he wants to like try to cuddle it feels like it's just all about him yeah and there's no like you're not being seen for what you're doing or contributing yeah and so yeah that it yeah that validation piece is like because like the other partner could be like oh well i'm just trying to validate you and it's and it's like you got to be able to describe how that either feels positive validating or invalidating
to you so i think step one is you have to make sure you guys are feeling good about how you're dividing responsibilities and mental load that has to be in place otherwise no interruptions I would say, though, a nice middle ground. So have that conversation. Ask your partner, do you like to be interrupted or not? But a nice middle ground would be, let's say you walk into the room, you see me doing the dishes. If you would say to me like.
I would love to hold you and kiss you right now. Can I interrupt you? Like just asking, can I interrupt you? And there might be some times where I'm like, yes, please. You know, that's so sweet. I love that. Like, let me wipe my hands off.
And there might be other times where I would say, you know what, I just really want to finish these, but let me come find you as soon as I'm done. Or another thing that you could do is say, I want to hug you. I want to hold you right now. Let me help you finish those dishes up.
Like scoot on over. You do the washing. I'll do the rinsing. Like make it feel like let's finish this up together so that we can prioritize ourselves. Yeah. So if you are the person who is doing the chore that is being interrupted, think about. Would one of those sound better or worse to you? And, you know, try to suggest the one that sounds the best to you. Say, hey, if you're feeling like you want to do this, this is the way that I will receive that the best.
And yeah, I think another thing is like if you are the person that is wanting to interrupt your partner in the middle of chores, there is definitely an element of you got to read the room here. i'd evaluate what okay what chore is she doing like dishes that's a i mean that's an interesting one because it's like i i know i do the dishes often and it's like i don't like doing the dishes but once you get started you get into a groove and you're like oh yeah oh yeah now i'm gonna fit like
That was a little too excited. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, it does feel it's funny. It does feel good. It feels good because I don't I so never want to get started. But once I do, I'm a responsive. Responsive dishwasher. Oh, my God. Once I get started, I'm like, oh, God.
It just activates the dopamine in my brain like, oh, yeah, I'm going to finish these dishes. This sink is going to be clean as a whistle. So I know once you get started with that, you're like, oh, man, like if I stop now, then I'm going to have to start. again and starting the starting part is the part that sucks
Right? He's like, my hands are already wet. I'm like saturated with water. Like, or I got the gloves on. It's a dirty trip. Versus like, if I'm folding laundry or something, like it's so much easier to just toss a towel down than it is to like... the dish is half washed and then you put it down and you have to dry your hands all that stuff yeah it depends on the chore and i think it depends like check your partner's mood as they're doing the chore if they're like
hate scrubbing the dishes like you know like that's probably not the time to interrupt them versus if somebody's like you know they put some music on and they're listening you know jamming out while they're folding all the towels that's probably a better time that you could approach them yeah and i think it's also like a val a judgment call of is this a is this a like a
timely or like a high priority chore like hey like our we just had dinner and the sink is the kitchen is dirty and the sink is full of dishes we have to do the dishes in order to be able to make our next meal like then maybe that's not a good time to interrupt whereas if it's i don't know some other chore i'm trying to think of a i don't know like an unnecessary not an unnecessary but like not a like it has to happen right now
I don't like like a random like, oh, like cleaning the bathroom or something where it's like typically you don't clean the bathroom every single day, right? You clean the bathroom once a week, once every two, you know, some. something like that where it's like okay maybe it doesn't have to happen right now in this moment they are choosing to do it in this moment so you could consider like okay maybe don't interrupt them in these time sensitive ones if it's something else
I mean, I still don't love the interrupting in the middle. Like, I would suggest saying to them, hey, you look so cute right now. I'm thinking about you. I love you so much. Like, I really want to squeeze you. And I'm curious if you're open to that right now. Or let me help you finish. Or hey, when you're done, could we spend some time together? Something like that where you're.
You're giving them the validation of, hey, I'm thinking about you. I'm loving you right now. I want to be able to do this rather than just coming in and doing it. Okay, I'm very curious to hear what you're going to say on the spot about this one. How do you bounce back after a disappointing sexual experience? Woo, this is an interesting question. I can think of a lot of shades of this. I think the first thing I want to say about this, because disappointing is like...
Is that, was this like seriously disappointed? Did something go horribly wrong? Was something painful? Was this just a not ideal? It just wasn't, it was like mediocre sex. Mediocre. What do we do? What do we do? Well, if we just have one that is just like, you know, it's fine. A little bit of a dud. We're usually just like, hey, we got it done. Yeah. We'll high five.
yeah like you know not not my finest work but we did it i feel like we usually yeah we usually joke about it where we and we congratulate ourselves we're like you know what we still did it it was connecting we you know had that experience not every single time I guess I want to start there. Like, let's back up for a second and let's just normalize that not every single time you have sex is going to be amazing. I think we have incredible, epic, next level sex.
and sometimes we have experiences that are just kind of a dud and like sometimes we can sometimes you know ahead of time where we're both like you know we're a little tired or just like not super feeling it but we've decided both decided to have sex anyways it's like let's get this done yeah but sometimes it's like it kind of surprises you out of nowhere like it seemed like the vibes were right and everything was going good and then it just ends up being like
oh that was like fine but not as good as i thought it was going to be going in so like let's normalize it's okay to have a dud every now and then it's totally fine yeah the first thing i want to say is like this is a mindset shift that i think is required this is a mindset problem this is an acceptance problem like we need we need to be able to accept that sex is not always perfect that if sex were always perfect then
that would just be average. The reason that we have good experiences is because there is a baseline or a general average.
allows us to be able to judge oh that was better than usual or that was worse than usual or less i don't know i don't want to say worse like worse sex it was just like you know not as good as it usually is so i think that there's an acceptance piece that like yeah we're not fully in control of this we can't have perfection all the time sometimes things will be better sometimes things will be worse and it's like shifting your mindset to accept that this is
this is the reality of sex in a long-term relationship and so once you have that mindset shift then it becomes much easier to bounce back i mean in theory once you have accepted that perspective, you don't really need to bounce back because there's nothing to bounce back from. Oh, that was just a normal sexual experience to have, that it was not the very best one I've ever had.
So I think that that perspective shift can be really helpful. Yeah. But yeah, and then that also what you were saying, the acknowledging it, just the simple fact of, yeah, not, you know. That wasn't our finest work together, but it was still, you know, but then think of a compliment. Make it a little compliment sandwich. That's what I like about what we do is like we just congratulate each other like, hey, you know what? We got it done. And it feels connecting.
rather than us feeling embarrassed or retreating to separate ends of the house or like, oh my God, I'm gonna leave with this disappointing sex. We turn it into a little lighthearted joke and like, hey, we did it. you know we got back we got back in the saddle we made that time even though we didn't think we had it like go us hell yeah now if it was
Like on the more serious end of disappointing, like there was something that was actively unpleasurable or painful or uncomfortable. That's not something where you just hold it in and expect to bounce back. Like that is where you got to have some kind of conversation about that of saying, you know, hey, when XYZ happened, that didn't feel very good for me. That didn't feel very safe.
Yeah, and I would suggest having that conversation outside of the bedroom at a later time. So don't do it immediately while you guys are still naked in the bed. go out of the bedroom loop back around to it and say like hey i wanted to talk about you know what just happened yeah unless you do need to stop in the moment like if you are
Yeah, if we're talking about something much more serious. Vanessa is not saying just grin and bear it and then talk about it later. No, no. I mean, yeah, if we're talking something like in the middle, you're in pain or you're not feeling safe or whatever it is, like definitely stop it and talk about it then and there. But I'm talking more something.
something much less serious like let's just say your partner tried out a new oral sex technique that you just like weren't really loving I would say wait until you're outside of the bedroom and bring it up really gently and just say something like, hey, you know, when XYZ happened. this is what i felt or you know next time i'd rather that we do this or you know i really appreciated that you tried that but it just wasn't like wasn't my jam not my favorite one yeah
So yeah, if there's something to learn, something to share with your partner, something that you want to do differently next time, of course talk about it. But I think the vast majority of these situations are where it's just...
people are getting a little too in their heads thinking they need to like optimize everything when the reality is you're going to have times that just aren't the greatest. They're a little bit of a disappointment and that's okay. Just roll on to the next one. Yeah. So like long story short. Number one, like accept that it will not always be perfect, that it is normal to have somewhat disappointing or not ideal experiences. Then after you have, you know.
had that mindset shift if you are still feeling like something happened that was like not not just a normal sort of like you know high or low then then bring that up and talk about that All right, moving on. Is sexual frustration a real thing? I get standoffish if it's been a while. This is such a good one too. Okay, so first I think we have to talk about the two types of people in the world.
There are some people. There's only two. There's only two. There's only two. Hard and fast rules. But in general, there are two types of people in the world. There are some people who like to feel emotionally connected before having sex.
then there are some people who have sex as a way to feel emotionally connected. And I think that this question is ultimately talking about that second group of people, people who want to feel... emotionally connected through having sex like in the middle or right after sex those are the times that they feel the most emotionally connected now i think a lot of people
misunderstand this type because it's so easy for us to write off sex as just a physical act as it's not as important as emotional intimacy or it's yeah it's just this physical thing that we're doing it's just feeling good But I will say, as somebody who likes to have sex as a way to feel emotionally connected.
it's not just a physical act it really is the intimacy the closeness the vulnerability the connection that i experience during sex that creates so much of that emotional connection that i feel to you and so for me personally if it has been a long time since we've had sex i will start to feel myself I don't know if I would say frustrated, but I'll feel myself feeling disconnected from you and feeling like that desire to reconnect with you. Now, that being said.
What we do with those feelings is where this gets really tricky. Because what you can't do is use that as a way to pressure, guilt, or manipulate your partner into having sex with you. so the way that this question is phrased gives me a little bit of pause it's like using the word frustration and also saying standoffish like i'm getting standoffish with my partner to me that implies a little bit of a like
I'm pissed at you. You need to change this. We need to do this type of thing. Or like the only way for me to feel better is by having sex. Yeah. So. again like i am somebody who wants to have that sexual connection first so i get it and i have for sure been standoffish with you at times when we've been in dry spells or we're not having sex super regularly you get a little standoffish sometimes like if just like
of us is sick and we haven't done it in a while and it's like oh god it's been so long yeah so like i i get it it's it's challenging to know how to navigate those feelings because you're allowed to feel disconnected you are allowed to want to have sex with your partner again you are allowed to want to feel close to your partner again in the way that you like to feel close to them you're allowed to feel frustrated like frustration is a real emotion that you can't just be
like oh I'm not allowed this isn't this isn't a real thing that I'm allowed to feel because sexual frustration isn't real like if you are feeling it it is real but again you're not allowed to guilt pressure manipulate your partner into having sex with you yeah i mean this gets me thinking about for me it's surfing for someone else it might be like golf or something like if i'm having a bad day out there and i'm like struggling to
like things just aren't going the way i want them to in my surf session i'm like falling not like catching waves or whatever i can get really frustrated and i can get really single-mindedly focused on I just got to get I just got to get one. I just got to get a good one. Like, that's the only way. But the reality is, is this is it's a it's a tough sport like on your body. And if you're tired or whatever, like I'm like blowing out my arms, like eventually I'm like.
I'm, this isn't going to happen. Like, and so it's like, I could push myself until I drown out there or like injure myself. Or I can be like, you know what? Today's not the day.
It's not happening today. Or, you know, I think this happens with people playing golf a lot. Like, oh, like I'm just having such a bad day. Like I can't, you know, I'm like way over par. I'm way over my number or whatever. I thought you were going to talk more about like when you can't go out surfing for a while because the waves.
aren't good no i mean that that happens too that frustrates me as well i'm like why don't i live like in mexico in the tropics where there's always waves no but like i i just think that yeah i mean it's like think about another like a hobby or something where you get frustrated and it's like, yeah, you can just force you to be like, the only way for me to feel better about myself is if I like hit that shot. But like, how often does that happen? Like the reality is usually we have to be like.
okay i'm feeling frustrated today's not the day i'm going to come back to this another time and like yeah you could either feel grumpy the entire time until you come back and try it again or you can take responsibility and be like hey I'm feeling frustrated about this. What else can I do to feel good, to soothe myself? Okay, so there's a number of layers here. Like, yes, part of it is soothing yourself. It's not your partner's job to manage all your feelings to make you feel better.
But I also think there's something to be said about how you approach your partner with this. So if you go to your partner with like, it's been two weeks. I can't believe we're not having sex. You turn me down the last few times. Like, that's not good. Don't do that. But you can go to your partner and say something like, hey, I'm really missing you. I know life has been so full and so busy lately.
but I'm missing you and the connection that you and I get to have. Can we take a look at our schedules together and figure out some time that we can really have like quality time together? That's a totally different thing where, again, you're still allowed to feel frustrated. You're allowed to feel disconnected, but you're approaching your partner from a sense of wanting connection with them, from a sense of...
Let's work together rather than I'm frustrated and you have to fix it or I'm going to withdraw. I'm going to be standoffish until you give in to me. It's a totally different vibe. So I definitely recommend using that kind of language. And yeah, and soothing yourself too. I think that is an important aspect of it. But I want to validate like it's okay to feel frustrated. It's okay to feel disconnected from your partner. Like that makes sense. Okay, Xander.
How to stop being defensive in my marriage? Ooh, that's a million-dollar question right there. This one's an entire podcast episode, but let's see what we can do in a few minutes. How do you stop being defensive? All right, so this is coming from somebody who used to be quite defensive in his marriage. And I still catch myself sometimes with that defensiveness coming up. I do think that this is another mindset shift. Like the broad answer.
is we got to shift our mindset similar to the bouncing back after a sexual experience you know with that one it was sort of an acceptance thing i need to accept that you know they're not all going to be perfect in this case it's like It's a mindset shift of, I am going to be wrong in my marriage. I am going to hurt my partner. I am going to say things that I don't.
or that come off differently than how I intended them, I am not going to be perfect in this relationship. And sort of an understanding or, yeah, an acceptance. of that i think that i think that so very often and at least i don't know i can't speak for women i think like the way that men are socialized like
we can be socialized into being defensive from a very young age. And I think about being in elementary school on the playground and like, you know, kid two kids get into a fight about something or we know one kid like does something to another one and it's like you know what the teachers tell you is like okay you have to apologize and i think that this is sort of
enforced apologizing thing that very quickly solidifies this idea of every time something happens someone is in the right and someone is in the wrong and who wants to be in the wrong all the time Whereas the reality is in relationships is that there's very, very few times where there's an objective like this person is 100% in the right and this person is 100% in the wrong.
In relationships, there are complex dynamics at play. And for the most part, yeah, I could say something really hurtful to Vanessa, but also like Vanessa's probably not saying very helpful things. you know, before I say that or like the way that she reacts to what I say, you know.
create causes it to get worse or you know in increase the intensity or whatever and so it's like for the very vast majority of situations like there are things that we are both at fault for i'm putting at fault in in air quotes but like ways that we are both contributing to situations not being the best because if you're saying
I am a good man who never hurts his wife and never says anything that I don't mean or whatever. And then you find yourself in a situation where perhaps you have done something like that. then you kind of just polarize in your head and go, oh, no, I'm now I'm going to just be defensive and find any kind of excuse for why that didn't happen the way it did. But if we can approach it like, yeah, I expect to hurt you.
I expect to screw up. I expect to have to learn and grow and improve. Then there's not so much to be defensive about. It's like, oh, shoot, I hurt you. That sucks. Let me think, like, let me actually feel into that, what that feels like. Because it's like feeling that disappointment. Oh, my God.
that's not what I meant to say, but I can totally see how you interpreted what I said in that way. And that hurts. I can't take that hurt away from you right now. And that feeling, like that gives you the motivation to grow and change. Oh, there's so much that we could say about this. Let us know if you want us to do a whole episode on defensiveness because I'm like, my brain's going nuts right now. But come on over to Instagram, Vanessa and Xander and let us know. So, OK, number one.
We have to show our favorite piece of relationship advice that we literally have tattooed on our bodies. Boom. The word and. Mine's really tiny. You're probably not going to see it in the video. Mine's bigger. So this is literally my favorite relationship advice. It's the understanding that two things can be true at the same time, even two seemingly conflicting things.
So I think often we get to a place of defensiveness because we want to be the one and only right person in the relationship. But your mindset and your relationship will shift completely. If you can recognize that two things can be true. I can feel X and Xander can feel Y. There is no one right objective truth. Both of those things are true because we are feeling them. And so I don't have to defend myself or defend my position to the death to be the one and only right truth.
if i'm recognizing that two things can be true so that just instantly cuts down the defensiveness it's like i can hold on to what my experience was my perspective was and honor your experience and your perspective at the same time rather than battling them out. I also think a lot about the difference between intent and impact. So I think a lot of times people get defensive when their partner says, you know, you hurt my feelings or you did this to me.
And we want to defend ourselves like, I didn't mean to. That's not what I said. I didn't do that. But if we can recognize the difference between intent and impact. Yes, I didn't intend to hurt you. But the impact that I did have is that it did hurt you. And it doesn't make me a bad person. It doesn't wash away what my intent was. The intent and the impact, it's another and. Both of those things can be true at the same time.
But if we can honor both of those things, that also really cuts defensiveness off at the knees too. And then I also think it's just a... I don't know how to say it. It's... A totally different way of looking at the world is just being able to recognize we're going to fuck up. We're going to make mistakes. We're not perfect. I do things to hurt you and annoy you and irritate you.
All the time. And I love you. I never want to have a negative impact on you. I want you to think I'm the best person on the entire planet. But. I'm human and I'm just going to do those things. And so for me, hearing things that I've done, it always sucks. I'm never excited. Like, oh, amazing. Great. I'm so glad I hurt you. I'm so glad to notice yet another fault in myself. Oh, another learning opportunity. Can't wait. Another fucking learning opportunity.
But at the same time, it is also this recognition of, yeah, I'm human and I do make mistakes and I fuck up sometimes. And being able to acknowledge that and take ownership of that. has such a big impact on your relationship too that it just it makes it feel worth it for me so okay I'm gonna just stop us there because there's so much more that could be said but
That was great. We both had two long monologues. I have so much to say about defensiveness. I was feeling a little self-conscious. I was like, wow, I just like talked.
for a while and then you did too so it's all good it's a big meaty topic it is and it's something that makes such a big impact on relationships and we can get rid of our defensiveness I mean defensiveness is one of the biggest killers of relationships it just makes everything feel awful yeah there's so much available to you if you can you can't ever get rid of defensiveness completely it is a very natural
human emotion that you are always going to feel to some degree but it's how we how we respond to it and but yeah there's so much more available to you in your relationship in life if you can decrease the amount of defensiveness that you approach situations with okay we're gonna have to wrap up here for today but there's another question that we didn't get around to that
I feel like could also be a whole other episode. Oh, that's a doozy. Yeah. Why do so many married women not want sex, nor do they seem to want it to change? So. Let us know on Instagram if you want to hear an episode about that, because boy, oh boy, could I go off on a long speech about that one. But I'll say for now, why don't we point people over to our episode called Maybe It's Not Low Libido. Yeah. That's a great starting point.
All right, well, we're going to wrap up here. But remember, you can go grab our free guide about the initiation styles over at vmtherapy.com slash styles. And we will put that link in the show notes as. well all right well that's it for today's episode of pillow talks thank you so much for listening join us again next week we can't wait to see you