Is physical intimacy important for fortifying emotional intimacy?

Join the host certified coach, Brian Goodwin, as he helps men step out of their heads and become free from the thoughts that bind them. Hey, man. Hello, and welcome to the Relax Mail. I'm your host, Brian, and I wanna say thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to hear what is going on in the world of men and relationships and and the such. And today, I'm a little bit things may sound a little bit different. I am in the truck because, well,

did get, didn't get the recording done over at, at the office like I normally do. So anyhow, we are, we're talking today about the thing all men like. We all want some type of physical intimacy, but the issue that we run into is with all the different types of intimacy is that they, they sometimes need other elements of intimacy to actually work. And so we're gonna be, we're kind of breaking that down because

when it comes, when it comes to any type of intimacy, yes, we, guys, we like our physical intimacy. We like sex as a, as a whole. When we talk about physical intimacy, 99% of the time, that's what us men are actually talking about. We wanna do the horizontal mambo. We wanna play hide the salami. However, whatever euphemism you wanna call call sex, we this is what we are refer often referring to, but that's not all of it because physical intimacy is holding hands, hugging, kissing,

things along those lines. Even sitting next door next to each other on the couch and our arms are touching. That's, that's physical intimacy. And so we struggle with having physical intimacy,

but what we're actually struggling to have is we want more sex in our life. We wanna be able to say, hey. We're, we're, we're a very happy sexual family because us men take sexual intimacy and turn that into also, we lump that also into emotional intimacy and also a lot of times intellectual intimacy because it's, it's what we, what we take sex to mean that physical intimacy means that we are good enough. We have done enough of our job so that our wife is happy enough to get undressed for us.

And this is where a lot of our, our anxiety and depression and uncertainty and all that comes from is when our we do not get the sexual intimacy that we think. And we can say that, yeah, society is a portion to blame for this because a lot of girls have been raised, to think, well, I'm I'm I don't have to have sex to to exist. Well, neither do men. But that is like me saying you're always screaming at us saying,

we need you to give us just share your emotions. We we need need to be more emotionally intimate with each other. Well, we don't need for emotional intimacy to exist. It's kind of the way that it bounces back. Because when it comes to what us men want out of life and want women want out of life and out of marriages in in particular are actually a lot of the same thing. It's just how we get to that sense of fulfillment are two completely different roads.

And so how important is physical intimacy for to fortify the emotional connection? Well, it depends. Are you on the husband's side or are you on the wife's side? Because, yeah, we need all those different types of intimacy to be able to have a good functioning relationship. Yeah, guys. I know it would be easy if the wife would just put out. Alright. If she would just a lot and stop

coming up with all the dumb, lame excuses as to why she's not interested in having sex. And I get those excuses. I heard those for the first oh, good God. First five to ten years of our marriage. No. No. It was about the first five years of that marriage. And it was to the point to where I actually was talking to neurologists because she had so many freaking headaches.

It was always about a headache. Oh, I've got a headache. Oh, my head hurts. Oh, I'm I can't tonight. We've got I've got a headache. I've got a headache. I got a headache. I got so much of a headache. Like I said, I was talking to neurologists trying to figure out why does my wife have a twenty four hour seven day away a week headache. And I searched and searched until I would one one, neurologist actually sat me down and kinda pointed out. He was like, she doesn't have a problem.

If she really had that type of headache that long, it would tell she would be in the hospital right now. And I was like, well, I figured that because if there was that long and that much, then gee, wish she's got a brain tumor or something. And he's like, I guarantee you, we wouldn't find anything wrong. The issue is is y'all need to talk. Y'all need to come together in some other way. And it it it was a a

a talk that hurt. It was, it was a solid it was a solid punch in the nuts, honestly, because essentially what he was saying was, dude, your wife doesn't want to have sex with you. She's not interested in having sex with you. She is not interested in any of that aspect of of marriage. And tell to tell you the truth, I mean, I looking back on it, yeah, you could tell that might have been that was probably the case because even after the honeymoon.

And I finally was able to bring her because our honeymoon our our marriage first several sets of years was a was a bit different because I one, I was in the navy, and she was in in Amarillo. And so it was a an instance where the first year really didn't see much of her. I came home for two weeks. I ended up leaving, being gone for six months or so. Come back, got married, and then turned right around

and had to leave again. And then about, about a year and a half in, I finally was able to come in and bring her over to over to San Diego with me. And that lasted a good six months. And then we ended up having, we were end up gonna be going to, Washington for six to nine months. And, my wife did not want to stay in San Diego where she didn't know anybody.

So she wanted to go back to Amarillo. And so again, after six months, of being together and of not having the greatest of, of bliss, staying, turned around. And in one weekend, because that's all I had, I didn't have a whole lot of time. One weekend packed all the shit up, took her to, back Tamarillo. We found an apartment that day, paid way too much for that apartment, and got everything unpacked,

turn off offloaded the, the truck on a on a Saturday. We took off Friday evening as soon as we got off, got off early, and I was hoping that we were. And we trucked it all the way back to San Die or from San Diego back to Amarillo, which is, damn near, you know, almost a full day drive in itself in a U Haul truck. Got there Saturday night, got everything unloaded, took the truck, and dropped it off over to U Haul.

And, then, thankfully, my in laws had a plane ticket set up so I could hop on a plane, fly back, got home in back over to San Diego Sunday late night and was back on the, back on the ship in time to, for muster the following day. Now sucked that day, but it's still it was it was one of those instances of yeah. It was not a a good time. But then after, after we got back from, from San Diego, I was able to bring, Jana back, and, and we were there for about two years.

And so it from there, you know, we were saw each other, and that's like I said, that's where we started kinda realize and I started realizing, hey. Wait a minute. Something's goofy going on here because she's got a headache all the time. It's not like she wants to do anything, you know, from time to time. Yeah. Okay. She we may have some sex, but then it was it wasn't a very constant item. Then along the way, we, we, got out of the navy, moved to, moved to Dallas, had another kid,

moved, to moved around a little bit more. And, and the, honestly, at that time, that's when the the sex became okay, became at least regular. But, again, it was we were spending a lot more time together. We were spending a lot more time talking. We were we didn't have television. All we had was were some rabbit ears, so we only got just the very local stations. And so there was a lot of talking that went on.

We had some movies that we had brought in and, purchased through our through our wedding or through our marriage. And so we had those. And so there's a lot of movies, a lot of talking, a lot of book reading, and there was a lot of discussions. There was a lot of talks. There was a lot of late no. Not late night, but evenings that we would go out and we would go walking around.

We spent time talking, spent time with the kids, and that time that we spent together combined all those different intimacies from from experiential intimacy to to physical intimacy because there's a lot of times we would walk around the square town square, holding hands, pushing the baby stroller because kiddo was, was baby, baby, baby. And, and so we just we spent a lot of time together. And because we were able to spend a lot of time together, the emotional and physical intimacy grew.

And then as we moved into ended up moving again, things changed. And then we started drifting apart. And that's about the time that, I started pulling away from, from the relationship because it was easier to start looking at porn. I could find different porn sites and and get the sexual satisfaction or the perceived sexual satisfaction from that. And that happened for a while, for a good long while. And it was, it was a, it was a problem that we just really didn't address.

We just kinda started floating away from each other once more. And why? Because it was easier to do anything other than take the time to build the intimacy work. I mean, heck, by the time I we got over here, worked a little bit, did a a couple of nine to five jobs, and then eventually got into the oil field. Got in the oil field about 02/2008, late '2 thousand '7, early '2 thousand '8. And, yeah, there that was the beginning of me again being forever gone again.

So whenever I did get home, that would change that, that whole, dynamic change. I had things I had to do to play catch up because I wasn't home all the time. So life got in the way I stopped being intentional with what I wanted to do. And so life got in the way. And, before we knew it, sex was once every five to six months at its worst. Most time is about every other month. Not the best, best, interval that I'd like. I mean, for me, when we first got married, I wanted every day, you know?

And the wife was like, no. No. We're not doing that every day. We don't need to do it every day. I don't wanna do it every day. And there's still a lot of work that we have to do. There's still a lot of work that we have to do because we need to, we need to rebuild a lot of the connection. And some guys I've heard is like, well, why, why even try? I mean, it's just going ahead and just burn it down and let start from scratch. And, yeah, you I could do that.

I could go ahead and just completely disconnect from my wife, get a divorce, give let even let her I have no problem letting her have everything in the house. Even have the house and the car and everything else with it except with the minor exception of, my family pictures. Other than that, she could take everything else and do with it what she wanted,

and I could be okay with that. But that's not what I want. That's what most men don't want. Most men don't wanna go off and go, just burn everything down because one, it's a pain in the ass to go off and try to find another woman. And you're there's no guarantee you're gonna find, find that rare unicorn of a woman that likes sex as much as you do. 99.99% of the time, you're gonna want sex more than she does,

and she's only gonna want sex for the three main reasons that that any woman wants sex. And if she's our my age, then she ain't gonna want kids because she's already either perimenopausal or she's already into it. Alright? Where I'm I'm 50, 50 one to be exact. And so it's it's not a, it's not something that women at that age particularly want to have. So if I was to find a younger model,

okay, that might be something that she's, she's interested in. But am I interested in having kids around the house until I am 70? Honestly, no. Not really. There's I've I've raised my kids. They are out of the house, and I kinda like to be a little bit selfish now. But, you know, that is a if you wanna have a, burn the burn the the whole institution down and start from scratch, that's gonna be something you're gonna run into.

You may find, that unicorn that that wants sex more than you do or as much as you do. But I wouldn't hold my breath, buddy. If you have that expectation that you're gonna find someone who wants sex as much as you do, you're going to cause more problems. And that's one reason why if you are wanting to have a go through a divorce, if you're wanting to go ahead and just and and dissolve the relationship,

you have to be okay. You have to get to that point, like where I'm at, where it doesn't matter what she gets. It's okay. I would still love her even though my wife, if she if we were to even if she was to come along and go, you know what? I want a divorce. I'd be like, okay. That sucks. I'd like to know why.

And if she gives me a reason, awesome. If she doesn't give him a reason, well, it sucks, but okay. I'm I'm I I accept the fact that that's what you want, and so let's get it done. I am one who by the by the the end of the, the relationship, I could still be her friend. I could still tree cheer her on with her endeavors. But if it was if I was to go off and feel like I was being the victim of the of the, situation, then it wouldn't be a good reason to have a divorce.

And that is because you have to have you're you're gonna be caring for that woman, your your partner, your spouse, for the rest of your life. You're gonna care about her. You're not gonna care for her, but you're gonna care about her. And so there is that instance that's going to always be kicking in. So you have to be in a place where you're accepting of whatever life brings.

So again, that's where the emotional connection and the, and, and spiritual intimacy and all the other intimacy, all the other 10 intimacies that we've talked about before all come into play. We have to make this, make sure and have the decision to to work on all of those different intimacies. And the way you do that is one, you gotta stop letting life just carry you down the road because that's where we get ourselves lost. That's where the the problem

originated from. For me, it was once we got I got into we moved to Oklahoma and life really started, dropped into into high gear. That's where we had all the where our distances started to grow because I was not pay paying attention to Jana near as much. I was not paying attention to my wife nearly as much. I was paying attention to the kids as I showed up, but at the same time, I'm you know, I was off in my own little world half the time. I wasn't finding ways to spend extra time with Jana.

I was finding ways of just entertaining myself, And Jana was doing the same thing. She was just finding ways to entertain herself, and she's got it. Now she watches television. I sit there in in her bedroom. I watch television in the living room, and we have the roommate syndrome sitting in between us. Now that roommate's that distance to the roommate syndrome is is shrinking, but it's still it's still there.

And there's a part of me that kinda questions. It's like, well, is this really room roommate syndrome, or is this just me being okay with who I am? And this is something this is a a question that I am been pondering the past for past month or so. Just is this really roommate syndrome that I'm in now, or is it is it me being okay with circumstance? And, in all reality, I think it is

there's still too much roommate syndrome mixed in. There's still too much, just living in the same house without, without a, a without all the all the extra, elements of a of a marriage. It is just roommates. We're we're friends with benefits as essentially. And that is something that comes with change as we work on the emotional connection, the experiences, the the other aspects of of of this relationship.

So, yeah, we have to do we have to do what is is needed so that we can have the have the relationship that we want. So how do we how do we stop letting life just carry on? How do we stop with the whole roommate syndrome aspect of our marriage. Well, that is the practice of being intentional, intentionally doing something so that you get a result that you're after. You have to start instead of or you have to stop

just letting things happen. You have to actually start making an effort to to make the change. When you make those efforts, you're going to have a better result, but that intention and the intentionality of of bettering yourself will shine through. When you start showing that your purpose in life is to ensure that your wife is the primary target of your world, I believe that she's going to show up better. She's going to show up in her way. She's going to become the, the star that you're wanting.

Now, is it going to be precisely what you want? Probably not because she is her own human being. But, again, are you willing to accept your wife for being the wonderful woman that she is? Because if you are, awesome.

You are go you're well on the on the road. If you expect her to be a particular way, if you expect her to to always be, in some sort of state of undress and her being okay with it, you're you're deluding yourself, man, because you have to remember women aren't the biggest fans of sex. When we can accept that, we can get more sex and more sexual fulfillment because we're not obsessed with why is she not? You're more happy with the fact that, hey. We have. And it's not that you're settling,

which is often as I'm saying that, that's what my brain was screaming. It's like, oh, so you're gonna just settle. No. It's not the fact that you're settling. You're it's kinda like the highs and lows of the fifty fifty lifestyle. To be able to get the highs highest highs, you have to go through the shitty lows.

So to have that deep fulfilling connection, you have to be intentional with the emotional connection, the the the spiritual connection, the intellectual connection, the experientials, all the different types of, experiences so that you can have the physical intimacy because the sky's yeah. We want physical intimacy. The problem is is that whenever, our wife goes, well, I'd be more physical if you'd if you'd just talk to me more. Okay. Well,

after sex. And then we have sex. And what do we do? We roll over. We fall asleep. So we're not available for that open conversation. You have to start being start applying the the social capital to your wife to be able to make the withdrawal of of of sex. To be able to have that physical intimacy, you have to be able to sit there with her as she's watching the, you know, the the housewives of of Nowhere County and wants the emotional disaster that these people are so that you

can at least spend the time because you're gonna get the quality time from the quantity of time. The more time you spend with your wife, the more quality is going to show up. It's a numbers game. It's kinda like anything else that you're doing in life. The more nos you get may the more yeses you're gonna receive. But the just do any of it, you have to start with getting nos. You want and you wanna get,

more sex? Well, then you're gonna have to ask for sex more often and be okay with the nos because you're gonna get a bunch more nos than you're gonna get the yeses. And when you can do that and be okay with that, then, yeah, you're gonna see that your life improves and your your the the intimacy on all aspects, on all the different, forms of intimacy are going to to grow, but you have to find a good equal mix for that to all work together.

If you would like help on being able to improve your intimacy, to find out how you can improve your relationship with your wife, you can always reach out to me. You can go to relaxmail.com/trycoaching. And there, you will see a, scheduled table, and you can choose whatever day available to sit down and have a conversation. We will do that four times. So that's a month's worth of coaching

for free. That's completely free. I wanna just let you help you see and understand and try out what coaching is about. And when you try that out, you will see that it's not anything, you know, airy fairy. I'm not gonna go off and call you an imbecile or a loser or anything like that. It's no. We're just helping you see how your thoughts get in your way and keep you from actually having the joy and fulfillment that you actually want.

And so, guys, with that, I wanna say thank you very much for listening. If there's anything that I mentioned here that really resonated with you or caused you to think of a friend who could benefit from this, please share this out with them. There's most of our podcast platforms these days have some type of share button. Hit that share button. Send it to them through Facebook, Instagram, whatever it is, or just send it to them as a plain text to go, hey, dude. I was thinking of you whenever I heard this.

And just send it to them. But also share this out with with your, with your group on on Facebook or or wherever, and let them know, hey. There's this website out there. There's this this podcast that helps men become better men for their families. And as they come in and they learn and develop and and see what the, relaxed male is about, they start to see, okay. Hey. There is hope for my marriage because my marriage can become better, but all I have to do is stop wigging out and learn to relax.

So, guys, with that, I wanna say thanks again for listening. Y'all take care. Y'all have a great rest of the week. Until next week. Bye.