I'm Jolene Nguyen and this is the Porn Addicts Wife Podcast, episode number 244, Sex and Intimacy. If your husband is struggling with a pornography problem and you want some help with it and you are not finding the resources that you like, you are in the right place. My name is Jolene Nguyen. I am a certified life coach. I am an active member of the LDS faith.
And I am the wife of a former porn addict. And on this podcast, I'm going to share with you the tools that you need in order to start your healing journey. This is where I'm going to show you how to dive deep into intentional living, how to rekindle connection with your spouse, how to manage all that emotional turmoil that you're feeling, how to break the addiction cycle that you have to your husband's addiction.
and tell you all of the ways to do that and start healing. I am so glad that you're here and I can't wait to get started. Let's go. All right. Good morning, my ladies. How are you? I hope you guys had a great weekend. I am excited to be talking to you guys today. Number one, because the Eagles are going to the Super Bowl.
I'm pretty excited about that. If you guys don't know, I grew up in Delaware. And so I was raised as an Eagles fan. And I'm very excited, you guys. And so it's going to be a great Super Bowl. So if you guys don't have a team yet. Root for the Eagles for me.
Okay. Go birds. Okay. And today I want to talk to you guys about sex and intimacy. And the reason that I wanted to discuss this, the reason I wanted to do this as a topic is because in just two weeks I am hosting my sex and intimacy masterclass.
guys don't know what that is it is a four-day live zoom call series that you guys can join i am teaching it inside my coaching program but i always open up a few spots for those of you who are really resonating with this topic who want to come get coached live this is for you So I will put the link in the show notes. But again, this is going to be, let me give you guys the dates and the details.
It's going to be Monday, February 10th through Thursday, February 13th at 12 p.m. Eastern each day. So right in time for Valentine's Day. And you are not only going to get to join me live for all four days, all four days I'm going to go live at 12 p.m. Eastern.
and you'll be able to come join, learn everything that I teach. You're also gonna be able to get coached by me live. So if this topic is resonating and you want some help with it, this is a great opportunity to do that. So I'm gonna work with you one-on-one.
on the coaching calls on the calls and we're going to dive into sex and intimacy so that you can actually enjoy your valentine's day if you're feeling a little anxiety coming up around this holiday around what you do the dates the what you wear lingerie, the shopping, the whole of it, the history of it, then this is the best thing for you. And I would love to see you there. So again, I'll put the link in the show notes. It's $99 to join for the whole week. Plus you get access to all the live.
recordings so even if you can't make it live I would highly recommend that you sign up because you will get access to all of the call recordings and content for life. Okay. And if you are interested and want to sign up for that, I would love to see you there. Plus I do have a special master.
bundle with Valentine's Day in mind I am doing something I've never done before where I'm bundling a couple of my master classes together at a discount to really give you the opportunity to actually enjoy your Valentine's Day because I know this is such a
triggering time of year for so many of you. So I'm going to put the link in the show notes to that bundle as well, but you will get the masterclass of... the sex and intimacy masterclass you'll be able to come join that live plus you'll get my attraction masterclass my confident sexuality masterclass and my how to not hate your body masterclass all combined at a discounted price of just
just $199 for all four of those. So I will put that in the show notes. You guys can look at that. But I would highly recommend if you're struggling with any of this, with your body, physicality, your sexuality, attraction, any of this, do that masterclass bundle come join this masterclass live and let's let me help you work on it and apply it so that we can actually move you forward okay so today let's actually dive into this just a little bit
talk about both sex and intimacy because they are not the same okay and I want to go off by let's start just by creating some definitions so we know where we're where we're coming from we all know the definition of sex okay so i don't feel like i need to give you the birds and the bees talk right now but let's go over the definition of intimacy
So there's the actual act of sex. And for the sake of this episode, sex is going to be the physical relationship that you have, okay? Physically, actively, sexually, just.
the two of you together okay maybe i should have defined it more okay intimacy on the other hand is different intimacy is designed is defined as a close familiarity or friendship so intimacy is closeness now what's fascinating about this is that even though sex is physically close your bodies are physically close it doesn't necessarily mean that you are intimate
okay now this can be confusing because a lot of times we'll use the term physical intimacy to refer to sex and that's not what i'm talking about here this is why we're keeping them separate sex is not the same as intimacy You can have sex without intimacy. You can be engaging physically with your spouse without creating intimacy or closeness emotionally.
and if you are feeling this way in your relationship if you guys are engaged physically still I mean even throughout my all of my marriage my husband and i have been very close physically we've always had a very healthy and active sexual relationship but there have been moments where it hasn't felt as intimate i've shared it with you guys that there have been times i remember one night specifically one time specifically
after being with my husband physically is that I felt very far from him. I didn't feel intimate. I didn't feel close. I felt like it didn't even matter if I was there. And I know that so many of you guys relate to that.
relate to this and that's what I want to offer today is that that's because there's a difference there's a difference between sex and intimacy so if you feel right now like you're having sex but it's not intimate then i want to offer this question which is why not why do you not feel
intimate because again if intimacy is a closeness it is also a feeling how do you feel you feel close so if you're not feeling intimate if you're not feeling close even though you still have a physical sexual relationship then let's ask the question why why not Why am I not feeling as close as I used to?
And what is preventing me from feeling that intimacy? What's preventing me from feeling that closeness? Maybe the closeness that I used to feel or the closeness that I want to feel with my spouse. And here's what's going to come up for you. I'm going to give you a spoiler alert.
to be a thought now your brain is going to think that it's totally a fact your brain's gonna be like well it's because he's watching porn i don't feel as close because he's watching porn okay but we want to really dive into why okay well why not because again a lot of people
watch pornography together or their spouse watches porn and it's not a problem for them and it doesn't affect their thoughts about their sexual relationship in fact they prefer it they're like oh my gosh it's so much better when he's watching it right so we want to get curious okay if i think
it's because he's watching porn why is that a problem why is that disrupting that closeness why is that breaking up the intimacy that we once had and that's where you're gonna get your answers that's where you're gonna collect all of the thoughts about it. Okay, does this make sense?
so if you're not feeling as intimate even though you're still physically sexually close then we want to ask the question of why and again everything that's going to come up is going to be all thoughts and feelings and those are great news because that's 100 percent in your control okay now here's the thing is that you can be having sex without intimacy but the reverse is also true can you have intimacy without sex and the answer is yes
And this is something that I really want to offer you for those of you who are really struggling to re-engage that physical sexual relationship with your spouse. but you're wanting to create, you're wanting to try, you're wanting to create more intimacy, but you just want to leave sex off the table for now, it's totally fine, you can do that. I have had many clients that go through a period of celibacy in their marriage, they do it on purpose, and I think it's...
It can be a fantastic tool. And I want to offer that you still can. It doesn't necessarily have to hurt your marital relationship. okay now i'm not saying it's suggesting that this should be how it is forever you guys get to decide what that looks like but you can still have intimacy without sex because again they're separate
You can feel close. You can have that closeness. You can create and foster that connection and that closeness with your spouse, even if you are temporarily not engaging sexually.
okay and that's what i want to offer to you guys today because again they are separate so if you want to do that i'm all in i would just ask that you do it very intentionally not as a consequence for his behavior right not as a well you did this bad thing and so you don't get to have any right but as a i want to work on feeling close to you without sex because a lot of times too what can happen is we will use the physical intimate relationship we'll use sex as a way to
maybe kind of mask the lack of emotional intimacy okay and again this is just a brief overview of you we're going to dive into this in the master class so bear with me okay but a lot of times we'll use sexual intimacy as a way to cover up that there isn't emotional intimacy we'll use sex as a way to
buffer from the lack of emotional intimacy and i want to offer that we get really conscious if that's what we're doing because that is not going to work long term it might make you feel better short term
but it's not going to make you feel better long-term, okay? And if this is the case for you, if you find yourself kind of leaning toward this or gravitating toward this, then I want to offer that you take a look at why you're doing that and get really... nitpicky at okay is there a way where I can
feel intimate with him without sex? Can I feel close to him emotionally without sex? And if the answer is no, let's ask why not? And if the answer is yes, then let's get really curious as to, okay, where does that happen? When do I feel most emotionally close to him and then let's re let's make sure that you're doing more of that on purpose and then
Looking at the thoughts and feelings that are preventing you from feeling that in more areas in your relationship Does that make sense? Because the truth is is that sex and intimacy are both crucial parts of a marriage and If you can foster both, then we want to be able to do that. And you can. The beautiful part about intimacy is that closeness is entirely available to you. It's all on your end, okay? Remember, relationships are just you.
your thoughts about the other person. Intimacy is the same way. This is how one of you can feel like you have a really good close connection. You can feel like you're doing really well and the other person can feel really far away, right? And that's because it's our thoughts about the relationship.
It's about our thoughts about the other person that create how we think about it, that create the relationship that we believe that we have. So if you aren't feeling intimate, then it's a result of your own thoughts and again this is the best news because this is what we have control over we have control over your thoughts we have control over your feelings now what i'm not suggesting is that you then blindfold yourself i am not suggesting that you just pretend
like everything's fine because you may be looking at your thoughts and you may be looking at your intimacy and not feeling very intimate your lack of intimacy and you may find we may take a look at all of those thoughts and you may like all of them
You may not want to be close to him right now. And that's totally fine. I'm all in. What I want you to do is do it on purpose. That's what I want for the whole purpose of everything that I ever teach you ladies is all to make sure that you're doing it.
consciously so if you're not feeling intimate then we want to look at why and then make sure that you choose those on purpose and like your reasons why do you like those thoughts why are you choosing these thoughts to perpetuate the lack of intimacy and do you like those reasons and if so i'm all in and if not then we can change those so that you can actually start to foster the relationship that you want to have with your spouse and heal and maybe what was working for you
in the past is no longer working for you and that's the beauty of this also when it's a hundred percent in your control and you recognize that and you recognize that it's your thoughts that are creating the feeling that are creating the intimacy or lack thereof in your relationship
that is when you have the control to shift it. It's not something you have to wait for. You don't have to wait for your husband to change his behavior. You don't have to wait for the past to have been, you know, till we hit a certain number of days past, you know, when you were hurt. All of it can...
start to change immediately as soon as you know how to work on your brain, how to manage your mind, and how to process your emotions. And when you know how to do those two things and you have help doing it, you have all the support that you need, then it is simple.
Okay, it's not easy. The work is not easy. It's still hard work to do, but it is simple and it doesn't have to be as frustrating as it is when you're waiting for someone else to change so that your relationship and marriage can move forward. Does this make sense?
Okay, so if you are struggling feeling connected to your spouse, feeling close to your spouse, either with or without sex then i want to highly encourage you to come to my sex and intimacy master class we're going to dive into what the difference is between sex and intimacy we're going to dive into sexuality and sexual relationships and then we're going to go over emotional physical and sexual intimacy.
And physical intimacy and sexual intimacy are not the same. We're going to talk about all of those during that masterclass. I'm going to help you apply all of this to your own life, help you uncover all of your thoughts, all of the thick questions that I just went through. I will do them.
you on that call in those master classes so that i can help you apply all of this and move forward so that we don't just have a whole bunch of nice thoughts that then we become aware of and then we stay stuck because we don't know what to do with them okay you deserve to have a beautiful physical relationship with your husband if you want to you deserve to have a beautiful sexual relationship with your husband if you want to you deserve to have a beautiful intimate relationship with your husband
if you want to and if you don't know how to do that then i would love to help you okay bottom line sex and intimacy are not the same thing and this is where you learn how to control both okay i love you ladies so much and i'll see you guys next week so take care
All right, my lady, if you love what you're hearing on the podcast and you're ready to take it and apply it in your life to see a true transformation, then I want to invite you to come join my coaching program. Now is the best time because I have just added an annual. membership so you can join for the lowest price ever. Get all the details on my website, jolenewin.com. And don't forget to sign up for a free consultation call with me today.
We'll get on the call. We'll talk about where you are, what you're struggling with, and then we'll see what is the right fit for you and your budget. Again, go to my website, JoleneWynn.com, sign up for a call, and I'll see you there.