Ep12- Couples Series: Why Sex feels so hard, or impossible right now?

Sarah Wills: Hello, welcome to Unmasked Minds, the podcast with me. I'm Sarah the Psych on Instagram. I am a psychologist in real life and I work predominantly with middle-aged millennial women as we navigate this next chapter of our lives and everything that goes with it. I like to think of it more as a friendly conversation. where we're on the same side and we're just unpacking all of this stuff and I just happen to have some useful information because I'm a psychologist. So let's get into it. We've just done part one and part two of the couple series. Number one was about getting back on the same team, getting back on the same page, getting back to a place of feeling safe with our partner and being able to then have vulnerable and difficult conversations. Part two, which I think was episode 11, was then about conflict. Managing conflict and communication in relationships. And we really touched on the Gottman Four Horsemen. Noticing what comes out when we are in these situations, when we're feeling like things aren't going our way, when we're feeling triggered. You know, is it criticism, contempt, defensiveness or stonewalling? After that, I'm going to talk about the next most requested thing, which is sex. Let's talk about sex, baby. Let's talk about you and me. Come on, did any other ADHDs do that or was that just me? Okay. So, sex in relationships. It is such a common thing for millennial women to come to me and say, my partner wants more sex than me and it is a huge problem in our relationship. He wants more, I don't. We go to bed at night, I feel the wandering hand coming over and ⁓ my body reacts and I don't want it. And so I pretend to be asleep or I say I've got a headache and this is a pattern. And then I say, ⁓ does this matter to you? And they say, because I don't want to be like this. I love my partner and intimacy ⁓ or at least used to be. ...is important to me. And I can see how it's making them feel. And I don't like that. But I just don't understand why I have zero sex drive... ...with someone who potentially I used to have a great sex drive with. Why am I not feeling connected or compatible or wanting to have sex? And we're going to unpack that today. I guess the first thing to mention when it comes to women in sort of their 30s, 40s, 50s and we're talking about sex and the reproductive system, we need to acknowledge the role of hormones, We need to introduce perimenopause. ⁓ I'm not going to go into that. have a whole episode on perimenopause, but one of the biggest symptoms... ⁓ or most reported symptoms people discuss or notice in perimenopause is their sex drive. And not only their sex drive, but the physical changes in their body. A lot of women report low libido, but also dryness, pain during sex, all kinds of different physical responses. that then make us want to avoid sex, of course we're not gonna want it if it hurts, So I guess my first thing I wanna note is if you're in that age bracket and you're struggling and you're noticing those areas, get yourself checked out by a GP or a women's health specialist because as we notice changes in our hormones, it is only natural, like. When I first learnt this only recently, I was like, of course, right? know, sex drive and all of that is linked to our need for reproduction and survival. And once that's done, our body sort of goes, we don't really need that system and doesn't necessarily prioritise its maintenance, so to speak. So that is one thing to get checked out. The next thing I talk about with women who are feeling disconnected from either their selves or their partner intimately, I like to talk about stress. One thing we know is that women in their 30s and 40s are often in our society living highly stressful lives, whether that's because it's stressful managing kids or multiple children or neurodiverse children, whether it's because we're balancing work and being a mom, whether it's just the social expectations on women these days to do absolutely everything for everybody, whether it's because you had childhood trauma. or trauma throughout your life and it's unprocessed and it's starting to just feel fucking heavy. All of these things contribute to impacting our nervous system, okay? Now, if we live in a chronic state of stress, a chronic state of fight or flight mode, that is a problem. Our fight or fight or survival system in our body exists to keep us safe. It exists so that if we are in danger, we have the ability to switch on a certain part of our brain so that we can survive that danger. Now this is primitive, right? All animals have this, the basic fight or fight survival response. know, if I was a cave person, 200,000 years ago and And I walked outside my cave and a lion who was clearly hungry came up to me. I want my fight or flight response. I want the amygdala in the back of my brain to kick on. ⁓ I want my ⁓ thoughts to start racing. I want the blood to start... pumping through my body, I want my breathing to get faster so that I can oxygenate the parts of my body that are going to be needed to either run really fast away from this lion or to fight. So to fight or to fight ⁓ lion, So we do what we know and everybody is pretty familiar with this. ⁓ When in fight or flight response, we get these huge physiological shifts in our body. ⁓ we get cortisol and adrenaline just pumped through our system. It's like this super drug. You know, like how there's stories of women lifting cars off their children and that type of thing when they're in fight or flight because it's like this superhuman power that we get because it just gets delivered to us so quickly. We get the heart racing, we get the heat, right? Because our system is working so hard. And then the idea is that we have all of this energy and adrenaline and fast thinking and oxygen so that we can get away from the lion. And it's not really supposed to be a long term thing. We get away from the lion and it takes a lot longer for us to regulate once we get away from the lion and to calm down and for our body to feel safe again. Now, we still want that response in modern day society. I still want if I'm walking down the road and a car or a truck starts coming toward me, and clearly its brakes have failed and it's hurtling towards me and my children. I want my fight or flight mode. I truly do. I want that to kick in. I want that energy. I want that adrenaline. I want that quick thinking so that I can get myself and my children to safety. Avoid, run away from the truck, hide from the truck, whatever you've got to do. I want to be able to get safe. And I'm okay with lying on the side of the road for a good couple of hours after that going, holy shit, we made it. So the problem is when our brains and bodies were created it created for survival, right? For those predators coming at us. We have that system to survive those short bursts of threat. But in modern day society, the threats that we have trained our brain to respond to are not lions and tigers chasing us. They're not cars coming toward us every single day. They are more psychological threats that we've been conditioned to fear. know, some of the basic ones that I work with with most women are, you know, fear of failure, fear of unworthiness, fear of letting people down, fear of not being enough. All of those fears exist within modern society and depending on your upbringing will sort of dictate or play a huge role in how big that is for you. But if you have a nervous system that responds to those fears, like you're being chased by a lion, then we're going to start to have a real problem because we are going to be in this chronic state. ...of stress, right. The chronic... I'm being chased by a lion every day. I'm going to be chased by a lion every time my kids ask for something... ...every time I can't do something, right. And so our bodies are in this constant state of fight or flight. And often we end up just there all the time... ...and we start to call that anxiety, right. Just this constant elevation of our nervous system. Now I could talk for a whole episode on why that is not good physically and mentally for the body, but today I want to talk about sex, When you are in this constant state of fight or flight, it is exhausting and it takes a lot of energy, ⁓ And our body will prioritise the systems ⁓ that are in keeping us alive, that are helpful in helping us run from the lion. So like our lungs and our heart pumping, the production of all the things that we need will get prioritised over systems like the digestive system. Have you ever noticed when you're feeling really scared about something really nervous that you get interruptions to your digestive system, whether it's as simple as a nervous poo or a nervous wee or a nervous vomit before you go out and public speak or, you know, for someone living in a more chronic state of stress or anxiety, it's... You know, a lot of people do notice IBS symptoms and things like that. Real disruption in our digestive system. A lot of things like insulin resistance, a lot of holding more body weight than usual because our metabolism is on off. I, you know, do I need that today? What's going on? So that is one system that we really start to notice huge impacts on when we're in a chronic state of stress or anxiety. The other system is the reproductive system. Now I'm not here to talk about the research on fertility or anything like that, but I will point out there is a lot going on in that space. What I want to do is really simplify it down to the point that says if you're in an unsafe environment or if your brain or body perceives you to be in an unsafe environment, then that is going to impact your libido. Because essentially if we are living in an unsafe environment, then it's ...doesn't really make sense that we would reproduce in this environment, That it would not feel ⁓ ⁓ alone ⁓ a break for half an hour or five minutes... ⁓ long that act now takes... ...depending how long you've been with your partner, right? ⁓ should delete that. I'm probably not going to but I should. ⁓ If let your guard down... and be intimate with your partner, then essentially if there's a lion around the corner, you're putting yourself at risk, right? So really starting to recognise that our sex drive and our libido and all of that is affected by how safe we feel in our environment. So if there's a lot of stress going on at work or you're not managing the stress in your day-to-day life with the kids, then it's going to feel like you're taking that out on your husband because as soon as he or she ⁓ ...reaches over your partner I should say. As soon as your partner wants to be intimate with you... ...it is the last thing your body has energy for. And I've just seen a huge shift sometimes in clients when I talk about that. You know, it's not necessarily because you don't love your partner anymore... ...it's not necessarily because you don't value intimacy... ...but it could be... because of the constant stress and pressure in your life, your body has just turned that system off. Yeah. And it's just not responding the way you would like it to. So in saying that, of course there's things we can do about that. You know, of course we can go and work on your hormones. Of course we can work on the stress and anxiety in your life. Now sometimes it's about just communicating that and saying, hey, I just want you to know that this, I see it. I know it's a problem. I'm laying there with my eyes closed, feeling terrible for this. I want that too, but I can't fake it. My body isn't producing all of the things that make that feel safe and enjoyable for me right now. So we've got to do different work. Maybe the work is on removing and changing the stressors in your life. Is it really worth it in our relationship that we're stressing and putting all this energy into all these other areas and our intimacy and connection is suffering as a result of it? Sometimes it's about having really vulnerable conversations as to why you're feeling disconnected with your partner and why something that is happening in the relationship is causing you to go into fight or flight mode and therefore not want to be intimate with your partner. So let me explain that one, right? So what I see a lot of is as we are in this stage, we've got young kids, we're doing our roles, we are like ships in the night. And from the woman's perspective, she might be starting to feel underappreciated, unseen. She might be starting to not feel attracted to feel loved and connected with her partner. Yeah. And women will need connection generally on a different level to men. That is just biologically true. So, you know, I have a lot of women come and say, he just wants to have sex and For me, that has to start with cuddles on the lounge. It has to start with the dishwasher being emptied when I ask for it to be emptied. Because all of those things are the things that causing me to feel stressed that are making me pull back from him, that are triggering these feelings within me that are making it unsafe to be intimate. So if I actually read some of the questions that came through, I'll read two of them. One was, we used to be so good in bed, perimenopause has destroyed my libido, what the actual fuck. I hope I have addressed that in really normalizing that that is a thing and that is not your fault, but with the right support, you can see significant changes in that area. So I do have a whole other episode on perimenopause. But if you can look at understanding that and supporting yourself as your hormones reduce, then that can be really useful for you. And even communicating that to our partner. It is not that I'm finding you less desirable. I used to love being intimate with you and I want to be back there. just, my body's not responding, so help me to navigate that. That can be a really powerful conversation. Another question or comment I've got here. is how do I deal with the fact that I'm getting the ick when my husband tries to be intimate with me? And I think to answer that one, we've really talked about recognising that the ick could be coming for a number of reasons, maybe just so much stress that that system in our body is not thriving at the moment and so we need to work at how do we get ourselves feeling safer, get our nervous system thriving a lot more so there's a chance that that system comes back online. Secondly... What are those discussions that need to be had in the relationship? Going back to the episode just before this, what are the difficult conversations that need to be had about your needs? Are you asking for your needs to be met? Are you being clear? You know, if your libido does exist and it is able to be turned on, but it's just not doing it for you when he rolls over in the middle of the night and does a boob grab. Are you communicating that? Are you saying, darling, I do really want to be intimate with you, but for me, it starts hours earlier. For me, I need you to be helping out and getting the kids to bed so I'm not just fucking exhausted when you come for a boob grab. You know, are you advocating for yourself and your needs so that intimacy is accessible for you. Now I'm not sure if I've done this topic justice. I just know that there's quite a few things that I talk about regularly with clients. I certainly know for my husband and I, we go through phases where intimacy is not as great. You know, in the scheme of things, we would say we have quite a healthy and regular sexual and intimate relationship. But we certainly go through phases where it gets a bit boring. You know, I know I recently said to Rob, you know, we're having sex about once a week and I know it's good and I'm grateful for it. You know, it does provide connection, but it's getting a bit boring. It's getting a bit predictable. And when you go for that rollover or when I do this, you know, I just, I'd like it to feel different because even just the fact that it's being a bit boring and predictable is meaning I don't feel like it as much. Now there's no shame in saying that because we're both just really busy and we do our thing and you get into, you know, that works. That works for both of you. So let's just do that. Let's not have to think about it. ⁓ you know, we also then made a commitment. Yeah, you know what? We both feel like this and neither of us was saying anything. So what can we do? ⁓ to change that and changing it wasn't, well, let's just introduce something spicy into the bedroom. It was more about what needs to happen earlier in the night or in the morning. A big one was getting the kids out of our bed, Because that really ⁓ with the ability to be spontaneous. So in order to improve our sex life, we focused on the kids bedtime routine. ⁓ I know it doesn't sound sexy. But when my husband was coming in and truly helping to get the kids to bed and then they weren't in our bed, I'd tell you what, my body was responding to that. You know, so it feels like such a serious topic. And I think it's one that we, due to shame or just not having the skills to talk about, we don't talk about it with our partner. We don't say this is how I'm feeling because often it is met with defensiveness. You know, we've been in stages where I've said, hey, I'm like, I'm finding it a little bit boring and repetitive. And this is no shame on my husband, you know. I don't want to share too much that feels too personal, but this is just, this is regular stuff that happens in marriages, right? You're doing something and it's working for a while and it's not working for a while. Often when someone says that to the partner, they get defensive, you know. Well, you're not doing this. You're not initiating sex. Like, come on, who hasn't had that conversation? I want you to initiate it more. Well, I'm not going to initiate it more. And we're getting this defensive back and forth, right? If we actually listen and set a safe place for our partners to listen to us and hear us, we can have some really great conversations about it. And often your partner just needs to hear that I'm not okay with this either. that I would like more intimacy. But it's not as simple as doing the deed for me. This is what I need to see to be there. ⁓ And I need you to step in and support on some of these things, you know? ⁓ It might be so much as I need a bit more self-care. I'm just feeling really uncomfortable in my body. ⁓ at the moment and so what I need is for you to support me to move my body, go to the gym, go to Pilates, maybe get my nails done, maybe get some waxing or whatever and then I would start to feel supported and that is going to sort of unlock things to feel safer for me to be more intimate. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one, potentially a bit risky talking about sex and sharing some personal stories on here, but hey, it's what I do And I know some of you really, really enjoy when it's real and relatable like that. So let me know what your thoughts are as we start to wrap up this couple series on Unmasked Minds podcast. Thank you for listening.