If it's been a while
and you know what I mean, then this episode is for
you eroticism touch sex. These things often feel impossibly far away in our partnership During the period of raising young kids, and who better to talk about these themes with than the preeminent expert on all things relationship. And intimacy, though, one, the only
Astaire perel.
Everything that family life flourishes on consistency and routine is often what kills the erotic eroticism thrives on this mystery on the surprise on the unknown and it's as if people have enough of that coming just from their children and it's what it's like, eroticism tribes on everything that family life defends against.
You don't want to mess this episode and I mean it you don't want to miss
this episode will be back right after this.
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Highest are, hello Becky. I am so excited to have you on the podcast and when I told the members of our community that you were coming on people, I don't know more sophisticated way of saying that they freaked out. They just freaked out there
so excited and I joined them in that
feeling. So I'm just so happy that you're here. It's a treat really. So for anybody listening who is not familiar with you or your work, tell us a little bit about who you are and the types of things you're interested in.
So I'm a couples and family therapist. I was trained particularly in working with families and with couples. And I've had a predilection for working with people from multiple different cultural, racial and religious backgrounds. I spent many many years actually working with mixed families. Then I brought to that the subject of sexuality because it was also a cultural lens of how we look at sexuality in.
Relationships and I am the author of two books, mating in captivity, and the State of Affairs, I have to podcasts. Where should we begin? And how is work, which both feature Anonymous, raw life, couples therapy sessions, one in the Romantic sphere, one in the workplace, where I invite you to come behind closed doors and see what really happens in the lives of couples behind closed doors. But this
This is what you do with parents. Do you do something very similar? You bring the parents out of their isolation out of their shame out of there. You know this is just happening to me thing. Why can't everybody else have normal kids and handle situations well and and you create a community for the challenges of Parenthood today? Like I try to create a global Community for the challenges of Modern
Love and I love the overlap.
That were entering into here because so many of the challenges in parenting are the challenges of partnership all parenting. Maybe especially while parenting young kids. And when I think about the questions that come up the, most from parents when I might say to them something, like, okay, I hear all the stuff going on with your kids, all important. We'll get to it. Let's kind of just put that to the side. Tell me about what else is going on in your life. Tell me the other things are going on in your home.
The state of the partnership is almost always like the first thing to come out. You know, some version of there's so much conflict with my partner. I hate my husband, you know, we have different parenting Styles. I do everything. I'm resentful. You know, we're so disconnected. We're fighting all the time. Sexo socks. Oh my goodness. And that, none of that, that is so far from what's Happening. And the relationship between how someone feels in their partnership and how their family system is functioning and the
Viewers. Their child is in a way there for displaying are also interrelated.
The absolutely interrelated, but I will give you. I will even push it. A level above is this, this is the first time in the history of humankind that the survival of the family, depends on the happiness of the couple. Hmm. We used to get married or that basically was the way to be in a committed relationship. And there was that one time for Life Fitness, you were
Look today, you can leave. And so the only reason there's no excommunication there is women who have enough to take care of themselves economically. The only reason the family will stay together is because the couple is relatively content, that means that, if you're going to want to give everything to your children, you really want to make sure that one of the things you give them is a relationship between two adults. That is a
Alive and thriving,
give everything to your children. Let me open that door. What do you see?
Well, there is an unprecedented child centrality. That has almost reached an apex of fully at this point and it is living side by side with a high unprecedented. Rise of expectations of our romantic Partnerships and these two are clashing on resources.
Time money attention intimacy connection who's going to get
it. So just tell me if this is right. I have higher expectations of partnership than we've ever had. Yep while I'm pouring more of my energy into my kids. That's right they never have. Yes that's exactly those are really hard to do.
Simple terms. Well it's a pulse for her pool. So and at the same time, if you really want to give more to your children, make sure to give more to the couple.
Mmm because otherwise comes a time when they won't be a couple for the children.
So I want to jump into specific and I'm going a little bit, make this up. It is a myriad of so many people's stories and I just hear their voices, right? Hearing what you're saying, put more into my into my partnership. My partner is someone I feel very angry with right now, my partner puts no energy into me or into the kids, my partner comes home and thinks they can just Waltz
In and play with the kids. And doesn't think it's a big deal that I've been, you know, taking care of the family, the whole day. How can I put more into my partnership? When I feel like I'm a load more by my partner,
right? But that is one literally, you just gave me now, which is, you know, I'm a couples therapist. It's often a drop of Center where somebody drops off another person to come. And say to me here, here's the problem. Let me explain to you, I'm an expert on this problem and then you can go and fix it and much of what you start to do.
When you work with a couple is basically you try to divide accountability. You know, what is it that you do that you bring? How is this, what are you doing together? That keeps this problem in place? That's an ecological view? How is the couple organized in such a way that you keep on being resentful and your partner keeps off, being being Miss Missing in Action? The first thing is you, you know, does your relationship
After to you, that's the first question you. Now, you can say, I don't have anything left to give to this relationship and then it divides in a few different strains. So we need to break your question in small pieces.
I like your first question, right? And I want to like, allow the listeners to like, sit with that as their, I don't know. Probably also driving or don't know pick-up line or doing something else like that. That question really hit me just like, does your relationship.
Matter to you. It's interesting how quickly it seems like someone say, but this, but this, but just to sit with the question, like, what does it matter richt? And like, if the answer is a yes, allow that like allow that to be enough for? Like, nah, that's the
second photo, okay? Then the follow-up is, and what is it that you do to express its importance? Hmm, because when you take care of your little Smurfs, you are organizing a
TV tease, you are making sure that there is novelty, you go and make sure that they have no clothes, no friends, no Explorations new discoveries. You bring a tremendous amount of energy into that relationship. And so there is plenty to talk about plenty to reflect upon plenty of pictures to look at it cetera. Now, tell me how have you manifested, how have you shown to yourself? Forget even,
To your partner that you relationship matters. What have you done for that? Typically the kid has a play date every week and many of the couples of the kind that you've just described have three dates a year. My birthday, you burden our anniversary and maybe we'll have sex on the anniversary just to make sure that we can still, you know prove. We are a couple days so to speak. So does it matter to you? And if so what is it that you do? That makes that importance visible?
You know.
It's so, so simple what you're asking. And this is what I was saying to you. Before we were recording, I give this way of reframing things, which such Simplicity, but they're so. So provocative at the same time, is there like a myth out there or a fantasy? Like, my partnership should work out in a way or without without this effort. Or why is that so hard to put the energy into your partnership to say?
Say yeah, I have to plan things too, and I also just like with kids, I say sorry, I repair. I reconnect, I, you know, do fun things together. We play. Why does that feel so unnatural
Partnerships? When I wrote meeting in captivity, I try to really understand what happens to this what? I call the erotic energy, right? The Creative Energy. That makes us feel alive vibrant.
Vital, that's what you call to play to, to roll on the floor, to love to create to tickle to, to look at each other to love together,
Etc. That's a rhotic energy. You're not just talking about like sexy
time. No no no, I'm talking about that. Creative outbursts, that energy. That makes you feel alive. Everyone understands it with children and the way that I understood why it happens, there's a few different things happening in the couple, you know, first of all, when you have kids it's a revolution.
In the couple, it completely shifts, all the resources, the time, the attention, the intimacy, the money, it all shifts. Why? Because when you are in a relationship, you negotiate continuously two pools. You negotiate, your need for stability and predictability and reliability. And then you also negotiate. Your need for novelty, and exploration, and risk, and change, and movement, Etc. But, when you have a child, you
Stability, you become security so that the child can become Adventure. The child itself is an adventure that you're going on and that you are accompanying. And so you try to stabilize yourself. And as a result when people say, actually if you ask me about sex is that people say sex in a couple you must be kidding. And I said, oh, let's not talk about sex but let's talk about that, erotic energy, playfulness imagination, aliveness curiosity engagement, Etc.
Ah, it is alive and well, but it is Eros. Redirected, it all goes to the children. With the idea that the adults will kind of survive like a cactus that should not have, don't even need to water and on occasion you look at and it will give all its energy to the little ones and slowly, it will begin to gasp. And then one person says, what is going on here?
Where are we at? We haven't you know whatever. We haven't gone hiking we haven't been alone. We haven't gone on a date. When is the last time? We went dancing. When's the last time we touched each other and looked at each other? The way that we are constantly adoring each other's kids. And when's the last time that when you say, how are you? I didn't answer. How is Jimmy.
But actually, how are you and not what you did and what you got done and what is of the list? How are you? What's happening to this person right here next to me, who is going through a lot of things that is the, the loss that takes place errors, redirected all that energy goes to the little ones and then there's the next tension, which is that everything that family life flourishes on consistency,
And routine is often what kills the erotic eroticism thrives on this mystery on the surprise, on the unknown and it's as if people have enough of that coming just from their children and it's what it's like, eroticism tribes on everything that family life defends
against. So those two poles, right thing? Once you have young kids like it's actually understandable that you lean more into the stability and predictability side. Like it's understandable, no one's doing anything.
Finally, you should be fine when we thought that family life should be about family. And that we didn't really care. If a couple was romantic and parents, Lisa, slept in separate beds that they, after they were done conceiving, and all of that worked perfectly fine. When we had a different conception of the adult relationship,
and in this day and age, right? Where we are overwhelmed with information, I wonder also if that pull into the
Rigidity in the stability, right? Parents these days it's like this is how you have to do this with your baby and this is what you have to do. There's so much rigidity, right? And so much focus on, you know, the right way. I feel like these days, there's even more of a pull. You know, toward that toward that end.
Yes. Because parenting and child. Rearing practices, have become very dogmatic in the west, highly dogmatic, with a sense of over responsibility.
Parents on the responsibility, on the institutions and the society. Mhm. So the parents are literally filtering through all the unknowns and all the pressures and it's all under them and every small movement can make or break the future of their little ones with a sense of complete overwhelm and panic. Yeah, so the system is that is in place when I see the system am said the culture at large is really no longer saying.
A child development is a natural process that you go through certain stages and the role of the parent is to Shepherd you through those stages know today. Child Development is an artificial creation on the part of the adults that are taking care of these children. And depending on how they respond to them, how they expose them Etc. They are going to create this creature versus that creature. So we are in a phase where culture is more important than nature. Hmm, that changes by the way.
That changes every 10 years. Mmm, are we close? I close today but I know that every time that you do that we get couldn't you know Hooked On A Dogma when it comes to Parenting. Then years later, the truth of today's the joke of tomorrow 100% so we have to really be on this. Clear that these are not fundamentals.
You have tree, you know, that what works for one is very different from what works, for the other. Hmm. And that, what the allows you to really flow? Is the fact that you can change, because you see, who is the other
kids? I always, I always say that that my kids, each require me to lead with a different part of me. Like they all require every wasted. That's extremely well. And so that's required me to do a lot of work to build certain certain of those parts are more natural lead with. That's right and others
You know, weren't you know, so
which is super important in when people get into the, am not a good parent. Of course you seem to have been perfectly fine for Child Number 1 and 2 or 1 in 3 or whatever. And this one is more challenging because they call something in you a part of your leadership. That is more difficult. Yes. But that is to do with the relationship in the fit between one temperament and another, not your competence
100%. I feel like it.
It calls out the one of the more underdeveloped parts of you, right?
So Astaire and I have been talking a lot about sex, but what about when your kid asks you about sex, my kid came home and asked me. But how does the
baby get into the
uterus? How does it actually get in or most recently? Why does that kid on the bus? Always laugh? When they say the number 69, 69. What is that about? All right, well, I just did two mini workshops on this in membership. So if you're a good inside member,
Go log on and you can listen to either or both of them. One is geared for kids who are toddlers and early Elementary and one of them is geared for having kids who are older check it out, you're going to get so much from them.
So I'm going to push this back to you. How did you manage this? All like, when you had young kids,
Your parenting your partnership your and the other thing that I know we both care a lot about is to be playful or have any erotic energy in a partnership. So many especially women have lost that in themselves, right? Like the ability to create space, you know. I remember saying to my husband, there's a few things we not going to do. Hmm I do not want us to one day wake up and just say there's nothing here. I worked with enough couples.
I also understood that we are going to do these things very differently and I'm going to leave every once in a while for a week and you're going to manage perfectly fine. And if that happens, then I should know that I need to trust you. So that when I'm next to you, I don't need to own constantly monitor you with the remote control. I made a lot of what I think, and not particularly popular things in the American context. Should I hide in that company? My kids to their games? Every Saturday?
I thought that this is bizarre. So I had a way of offsetting things by bringing in a cultural difference from as a European. And for many other places where I've lived and I just knew that this is not, this is not the truth. This is just one way that people do it here but people do other things completely different and this was true from the, from sharing the bed, to letting cry to the, to the bottle, to the crib, you know, from the beginning, the way I read childbearing books in French,
Mich in Hebrew and in English and for everything that was I was told this is how you should do it. I then went to read and I saw that there is other cultures where they said the exact opposite and I thought, oh well then I can go for my own intuition. Yeah. If there isn't one truth then I can figure out which one is the right that fits here and that was so important. I have more, I always wanted to write an article about that very experience of what it was like from zero to three to read child-rearing book.
Books from different cultural contexts it really gave me such permission to nothing that I was doing it. Wrong it later. I you know we had our fights because I also came from a model of you know I thought we going to be equal and know we fell into traditional gender roles and gender divisions that was just like then this happened to me as well. But what we did have is a shared desire to make sure that the relationship
Stays vibrant because I had seen too many couples die on the vine and I was determined not to make that happen. So we traveled alone from the moment. They were very little small little things, but we gave ourselves time away. We continue to go and listen to live music because we like that and it's an energizing thing or to go dancing every once in a while. I mean, we continue to do things that were not just in the identity of the parent. There was
We were to colleagues, we would go to conferences together, we would learn new things, so we had new things entering into our system as well. I wanted to socialize, I understood that. If you want a rich social life, you invite people to your house, they come to you, then the kids are there, they can meet these adults, they can develop relationships with them over decades. They're in their late 20s. Now they know these people since they're born and the, you know, it became a kind of an extended family.
Of swords. And I was deliberate about a lot of these things. I have to say, I became a mission for me to arrive on the other side and to feel like I'm so glad. Now, we have a few more decades, hopefully alone again, but not like, you know, I have nothing to say to this person.
Well, here's something I want to say to all the listeners because it what I hear you saying though is being deliberate being intentional, and there's a tension, there's like a little bit of a fight.
For being able to maintain your relationship and being able to have that vibrancy and that energy. It doesn't just happen and I like
you're insane. Oh how I see in a long-term relationship. Everything that's going to just happen. Already has? It's extremely deliberate? Yes. It's deliberate to say I'm going to
Put my hands on your hand even though it's more hairy than on the little silky skin of the baby because we need to stay connected. It's deliberate to see. Let's go out and not to dinner and sit across the table from each other and finally talk about the kids because now we have each other's ear. It's deliberate to see. You know, we are going to take a night away and not feel guilty about it, but actually think that this is extremely important to Resource ourselves. It's willful. It's deliberate
The tits premeditated I would even say and so is the physical connection. Sometimes you have to just say it feels good. You know it's deliberate sometimes to go to the gym, not every time you go to the gym, you just want to go there and you're running, but somehow in your head you know that you have rarely regretted afterwards. So if the connection is good, it's deliberate to say, I want to invest in this but it's equally deliberate to tell your partner. Thank you. This is important.
Don't see what feeds the system is the acknowledgement of the effort to. So when you have little ones, I think it's very natural in a family to have a role distribution. You asked me before? What's one of my important core truths? This would be one of them. One parent, the Frontline parent. This is true in same-sex couples, no different so it's not always gendered but there is a Frontline parent. It's also the one that wakes up more easily that there's a different sensory threshold it
The one that maybe is not working for the moment or works with more flexible hours and can attend more to the disruptions that children bring in the lab, all of that. But everyone understands Frontline parent. The Frontline parent, looks at the older stuff, the Domesticity the chaos, the needs of the children, the child care, whatever, the doctor's visit, you name it. The other parent, you can blame them and resent them for not doing what you do, or you can thank them for thinking.
Thing about the stuff that you can't think about because you're too involved. So if you understand a rule distribution, is
that I want the like, what? Because I'm just, I'm just hearing someone saying, like, sitting on the couch watching TV. No, right. Like one person
says, should we go for a hike while the other one is talking about what needs to be done? Shall we take a bike trip? Or shall we go at? Shall we call? So, and so and go out on son, how can you think about it? Don't you see the freaking mess and he's, you know, you only talk about play and having fun. Yes.
Because you don't and you need someone who reminds you in every couple over time where people say we were able to maintain it, there is always one of them to says the other person. Just didn't let it go. Mmm, they made sure that we had a coffee or a breakfast. They made sure we had our date night. They made sure we still physically connected and even though I didn't feel like it, it's because they didn't let up. So instead of fighting the difference,
Develop a complementarity around it
and there's something and I love the way you say. And thank thank the other person for holding that that polar that part. And so one of the things you do that I love is you turn things on their head and help us all see things differently. So I'm thinking about someone who recently wrote in this as a question for you, right? So it was a woman married to a man and she said, you know, I do is that on the front line parents, not what she said. But essentially on the Frontline parent and I need my husband to do more with the kids. I need, I need him.
Come home from work earlier. I need him to acknowledge the mental load. I have. And then at the end of the day, he is basically trying to have sex with me, like doesn't he understand that? Like, I can't have sex after feeling so alone and so unsupported. What like, help us see that a little bit differently and what would be some steps
until I've been that person just to it's not I can think this way and I could but I also have forced myself to think a different way. And the first thing I would want you to
to think is that probably he feels just as alone because first of all, quite often, if you think all he wants is sex, you missing it. All he wants is to connect with you to feel less alone but it is also the case that for men intimacy tenderness connection touch affection are only allowed to the license of the sexual language. Just
pause on that for a second because I need that. So,
Hornet. And
when we divide she wants intimacy, she wants not to feel alone. He wants sex, we're often off. It is sometimes true, but it is often off.
But you're saying, we probably want the same things. We
want the same thing
and that doesn't mean your husband. And say, that's true. Sweetie. I want vulnerability and intimacy. That's not right. That is not the
language in which it will be spoken. The woman has, you know, every woman has
Has received a licensed language. That is help me. Hmm, every man has received the license language which is make love to me but we want the same thing. We don't want to be alone. We don't want to feel disconnected. We don't want to feel that we've become a function in the house that the other person. Barely sees us anymore that were just a machine. Yeah. And that will just on a task list all the time. So the here's
what I said to this woman, instead of you want him to help, he want him to help you. This may be all true, but it's not useful. So, I'm going to try to give you a different way to approach your guy and your predicament, because if you continue as, is it just going to be more of the same.
And I know where it goes and 40 years doing couples work. I kind of know where it goes. I see it. I see you around the corner before you get there and that's why I said it like that. It's really annoying because I'm going to make you say things that are not what you really want to say. So I'm I'm twisting you, this is I I know that I know the moment, you know. So if you went to your husband and instead of I need you to do more with the kids,
I miss you, I miss us.
You know, it's like days go by and we barely talk, connect check in with each other. It's like, what the hell has happened? And I would love to be able to think more about us. I know you've been asking for that.
I know that you often reach out and I'm just cold to you. I know that I'm often resentful. Of course, I think I'm legitimately resentful and I think I'm right. That may be so, but that may not be wise. And I have a feeling that I would be much more available to us. If, when I ask you certain things, you could also be more responsive to me.
So you first acknowledge Him, then you take ownership for what you're not doing and only then do you ask for more for what you want? Hmm.
That that order of operations really matters, right? Because as soon as we lead with your not or I need the defensiveness that then we're against each other the right? Yeah, you know, in an adversarial
situation but it's not just that this defensive is that when you are in that dance, you reinforce in the other the very position that you actually don't want. Hmm.
Why would they want to do more when all you telling them is that they do nothing, tell them that you also want to feel closer to them. If that's the case which I hope it is because if all you want is just a helper, then new partner is picking up on something. Mhm. Which is why I ask you, does your relationship matter?
All right, if you're feeling like, I'm feeling your left, wanting so much more. There are so many more questions I want to ask a stair and I'd love to absorb all of her wisdom. Well guess what? You don't have to wait too long next week. A stereo will be back, answering the questions that came directly from you. You don't want to miss it. I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to share a story or ask me a question. Go to good inside.com / podcast. You could also write me at podcast at good. Inside.com parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world and parents deserve resources and support. So they feel empowered, confident and connected. I'm so excited to share good inside membership. The first platform that brings together content and experts, you
Just with a global community of, like valued parents. It's totally game-changing good inside with dr. Becky is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Newsome at magnificent noise. Our production staff includes Sabrina far, he Julian at and Kristen Mueller. I would also like to thank Erica, belski, Mary, Panico Ashley Valenzuela and the rest of the good inside team and One Last Thing Before I Let You
Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside.
So I have an idea, you might be thinking, oh, so much of this episode resonates but it's such a hurdle to get over to talk about these things with my partner. Well, one of the things I know from working with couples is talking about tricky, topics is much easier. When you have a third. What do I mean a third instead of talking directly about a topic to a partner, the two of you talk about an episode you both listen to or an article you both saw or a book you both read. So right?
Now, consider sharing this episode with your partner, as a way to bridge the gap. Maybe add a note like, hey, there were a lot of really interesting points that made me think about things differently. Thought you might be interested in this too or take it a step further. And right, I miss you. I'd love to reconnect. Maybe we can both listen to this and talk about it together.
