Ep #242: Empowering Conversations: The Sexless Marriage (Replay)

speaker-0 (00:38)
Dr. Sonia Wright. Hello, hello, hello, Diamonds. How are you all doing today? It is Dr. Sonia, and this week I have Coach Donna with me. You know how we love to have these empowering conversations. And I was like, you know what? Donna and I need to have a conversation about the sexless marriage and everything that goes into it, all the emotions, the feelings, the thoughts, you know, everything that’s led up to.

The sexless marriage and what is happening right now in the sexless marriage. if you’re having sex, not ever not having sex at all, or maybe less than 10 times a year and you’re fine with that, and your partner or partners are fine with that, then there is no problem here. You don’t have to label this in any way or have negative connotations associated with it. But if it is something that you would like to improve.

Or change the situation, or you want more intimacy in your life, and you find yourself in this sexless marriage or sexless relationship situation, then let’s talk about it today.

So, Coach Donna, welcome. It’s a

speaker-1 (01:38)
Hey, thank you.

speaker-0 (01:40)
delight to be here. I love, love, love having

speaker-1 (01:42)
these

visits with you. Thank you for having me.

speaker-0 (01:45)
Well, thank you for coming and talking about the

sexless marriage and all the different aspects of it. And so yeah, I was just thinking for me, I think of like the sexless marriage is it’s it’s more than the loss of sex. It’s the loss of intimacy. It now you may have a great relationship. You may have be be with your best friend, but you’re kind of in a roommate situation.

Right. Or the relationship could be such that you haven’t talked in years, you can’t stand to look at each other. And that’s what you’re dealing with for the relationship. So that’s why I say like deal and heal, or actually feel deal and heal, right? Feel, feel, and feel. But somewhere around there, you have to look at the relationship and say, is this worth this worth saving? Like, do you want to be in this relationship and need really get honest with yourself?

And honest with your partner because if like a woman comes to me and she’s saying, We’re not having sex and and I’m trying to improve this relationship, and I’m like, okay, well, let’s talk about this. How do you feel about your partner? And they’re like, I hate, I hate their gut. So I’m like, you know, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to help the situation.

If you hate their guts, do you one do you do you want to stay in this marriage? So that’s like always the first question. Do you want to stay in this marriage? Is this marriage worth saving? Or are you better off separating, l leading your own lives and finding joy? And of course still working on, you know, I talked a lot about the sexless relationship because I ended up in sexless relationships, right? And I realized the common denominator is myself. So even though I was out of the relationship, I still

felt that I needed to do the work. So I’m not saying don’t do the work because you bring yourself into the next relationship, but do look and see if you value the relationship to begin with. What do you think that

speaker-1 (03:33)
I agree. I think there and actually have coached individuals who interpret like they they and it’s it’s fascinating when it can be either way. I think we stereotypically look at men who feel rejected because the woman in their relationship is not as interested in sex, but but we have I’m sure you do, I’ve had clients who they feel rejected.

And how this all comes around is that snowballs into the disconnect, the lack of communication, the lack of connection. And then that just is like a wedge that drives in and creates that that that divide. And it gets interpreted as really not liking the other person, or I I can’t stand to be around them, or I’m not attracted to them. And then that interpretation gets adopted as a belief.

When I’ve worked with individuals, we we kind of got into that a little bit as to like the reason they came for the session was to talk about sex and their sex life. But we have to go back several steps to figure out what is it that has led to you not being attracted to this individual and what drew you to them in the first place, what has changed. Absolutely.

I do agree. And even as a person of faith, people, I can imagine people might even kind of be blown away a bit, but I agree that you need to assess the relationship and figure out if this is something that is serving you and serving the other person well. I am in favor of doing the work to be the best version of yourself and then decide if it’s still not working for you.

Because just like you described, you’re going to take you into every relationship after that. And the downfall of thinking that the results I’m getting are because somebody else is a certain way or is not a certain way. and I just need a different person who is a different way, is I think generally a myth and just sets us up for repeating the same process, always within the framework of safety.

Right. Like if somebody is abusive, that’s a whole different ballgame. You know, run, don’t walk.

speaker-0 (06:03)
Yeah, and you can still do the work and and decide to leave, right? But I think that that is an important point when you say that you do take yourself with you, right? And to if you blame other people for the issues, when you lose your power, right? they say like it’s because of that person’s problem and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that we’re not having any sexual intimacy. And so you’re losing your prop your power. So even in that context, you can be like, well.

What is it that I do have control over? What are my boundaries? Where do what do I want with this situation? But you’re right that a lot of times there’s a sexless marriage and and it does involve two people, but it may be the case of Miss Max Libido and things like that. But I have, I’d say like twenty percent of women come to me and they’re saying I would like more sex. Like I’m not getting intimacy in my relationship from my partner.

Right. And it it’s almost like the partner has checked out. and if it’s a male partner, you know, obviously they check testosterone levels and things like that, but erectile dysfunction could be a part of it. Stress could there’s a lot of reasons under there, but it it is interesting that I’d say I’d say about one in five of my clients does in fact come with to me and saying that they want sex and for some reason. And and very often it’s hard to pin down if they happen to have a male partner.

A partner that has a penis, it’s it’s hard to get them to talk about it and to find out exactly what’s going on. We resort to a lot of anger as opposed to having a discussions as to why sex is not happening. Cause I think that for people that identify as male and our penis own owners and and or our penis owners, there’s a lot of identity tied up in sexuality for men, the way our society

says that men have to be around sex and sexuality and erections and penis. It’s almost like they are their sex.

speaker-1 (08:01)
They they are their penis.

speaker-0 (08:03)
They are their penis, right? And it’s their penis.

speaker-1 (08:04)
This

is them. They are their penis.

speaker-0 (08:07)
Yeah, or they’re having sexual difficulties. It’s really a hit to their to their manhood, to who they their identity, exactly. And so I think that it’s even harder for them to discuss the issues than it is for women people that identify as being a woman. All righty. So we have this list. So that door opens and in comes the hairy beast. They are gonna talk about it. And I I have mentioned that I’ve helped several women and couples with this situation to get back to

I and I if you go back to one of my early episodes, interviews with Didi, she was actually in a sexless relationship for five years and worked with her in her 70s and and got that back up and running. So it doesn’t matter about your age, your race, your, you know, how long you’ve been in a relationship. It doesn’t matter if sexual orientation. It like this, the like for lesbians, they call it the lesbian deathbed, right? Like everybody has a different name for it.

You know, the sexless relationship is what we’re talking about. So in comes the hairy beast, haven’t had sex at all in the last 12 months or maybe a couple of times in the last 12 months. But then you’re surprised that there’s all these other friends that come in with them. So shame. Let’s talk a little bit about shame because I think that shame is the hardest thing for people to admit to and to deal with in order to get the help that they need.

speaker-1 (09:29)
You know, I I agree. And the thing about this list is it is what we make the lack of sex mean. And it’s imp I think it’s important to pre-frame that because then we can also we have control over what we make it mean. And about shame, the beautiful thing about shame is it can’t live in the light.

Shame requires silence and darkness and pushing things under the rug. And so if you follow the suggestions, even from like from set podcast 79, right? The the sexless relationship and the many reasons why. And you you start out with communication. So if you will communicate, start talking about it, then the shame will fall away. It can fall away by bringing it out into the light. And as you do.

then we realize why it exists, what what gave it life to begin with, and then we could stop feeding that.

speaker-0 (10:38)
Right. And also I we had a separate episode where Shane just came for a visit and talking to Shane realized that it was a form of protecting us, right? It was an extreme form of protecting us. It was kind of yelling louder and louder and louder, trying to get us to understand that something wasn’t right and to be aware of it and to try to protect ourselves, you know. And and when we were able to listen to what Shane said, it’s just like you said, it comes into the light. We listen to what it has to tell us.

And then it calms down and then we can actually deal with the situation overall. Right. Yeah, like

speaker-1 (11:14)
Literally step one of you were talking about deal and heal and you touched base on that. And so dealing with it, acknowledging it has that it’s there, right? Acknowledging that sex has left the relationship, left the marriage. And so as you acknowledge, then you bring it to light and you can then start processing it. I I get the mental image of a turtle, you know, withdrawing into its shelf because it’s about protection, but honestly, then the wall.

that we build with shame also keeps a lot of what we want out.

speaker-0 (11:49)
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s interesting that there’s this connection between different things. Like there’s shame and then there’s embarrassment. Embarrassment, I kind of think of a lighter version of shame, right? It’s like if we don’t deal with the embarrassment, then it goes into this deeper layer of shame, right? And maybe it started initially with confusion and rejection and those type of things. And so there’s what we’re talking about with these people that are coming to visit or these feelings that are coming to visit.

are just layers, right? If we continue to ignore things and that, you know, that’s part of it, the avoidance tactic tactic, right? And the buffering tactic where we’re off buying stuff online or eating donuts

the shopping online, there’s the binge watching Netflix. There’s so many ways in our society.

in this day and age to be able to do the avoidance thing, right? But with avoidance, we need to recognize that when we’re choosing avoidance, we’re also choosing that we are on a path

speaker-1 (12:45)
Two. Exactly.

speaker-0 (12:46)
to making something a it’s more serious problem than it has been.

speaker-1 (12:51)
When I looked at the these visitors, if you will, and their friends, I thought about dominoes, not pizza. More buffering with pizza. No. I thought about dominoes and not even the game, but how you set them up so you can push one and the rest fall, right? These are connected. Yeah. They touch each other.

speaker-0 (13:13)
Wow, you’re so smart. How’d you get so

speaker-1 (13:15)
And

speaker-0 (13:16)
smart?

speaker-1 (13:16)
I don’t know, I hang around with with really brilliant friends. Hey,

speaker-0 (13:19)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (13:20)
right, the the five people you hang out with. So I’m doing something right today. I would be curious about the questions we ask ourselves and what the answers lead us to. So, like you touched on embarrassment kind of being a a a lighter form of shame. What question

Are we asking ourselves that would lead to embarrassment or shame, such as Are we asking ourselves things like, what is wrong with me? What am I, what am I not doing? What do I need to be so he or she would be attracted to me? Yep. Again, what have I done wrong? What do I need to do better? All of those things will lead you to criticism and judgment. Yeah.

And now the dominoes are falling. It just takes the flick of the first one and they go.

speaker-0 (14:17)
It’s kind of interesting when you say that I had this vision of the dominoes falling, right? And it may be confusion, embarrassment, leading to shame. And but it’s on this path that’s paved with like the criticism and the judgment, right? But

speaker-1 (14:31)
Exactly.

speaker-0 (14:32)
yeah, it’s like that path that it needs to take in order to get there. And I like how you say, what are the questions that I’m asking myself? I’m also drawn to what are the questions that I’m not asking myself to go from that place of just embarrassment to shame as opposed to.

Okay, what would make this better? How can I have a better understanding of what’s happening? Okay, I’m feeling embarrassment. What do I need to do to address this issue now so it doesn’t become shame? Like those kind of things. What do I need to forgive myself for? What do I need to communicate and talk about? Like those are the questions that are not being asked that are also leading to the shame because we’re like going into the avoidance mode. Yeah.

speaker-1 (15:14)
And the thing I’ll I’ll throw in a little psychology here, which I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, just disclaimer.

The concept of a gestalt, meaning early in life we had an initial experience that created a particular type of response in a in a particular type of sensation in our body, and we may have named that shame.

or embarrassment or whatever. And then when you go on to have subsequent events that have a similar sensation or response, we tend to group them by that s significant emotional response that we have. So now we are 30s, 40s, 60s, 70s,

In a sexless relationship dealing with embarrassment and shame, which for many might be on the same gestalt. But it’s you’re not dealing with the emotional response of the embarrassment or the shame that you’re in that moment. You pull with it

speaker-0 (16:25)
Exactly.

speaker-1 (16:26)
all the other experiences that have a similar emotional response from as long as you

speaker-0 (16:33)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (16:34)
And and that’s another conversation. But but along that entire gestalt, let’s say that, along that entire gestal, which began before you even could consciously process.

speaker-0 (16:45)
Yeah. And I usually say if it’s the case that you’re having a severe reaction to something, a severe emotional reaction to some event that happened, you are probably pulling in a lot of stuff from the past, right? It’s not just what’s happening right now. it it may be your body saying, I am not safe. I am really not safe here. So if you’re having a strong reaction in some way, recognize that you are probably.

reliving or or something that happened in the past and that you may need to revisit that and find out where the the lack of safety began and how it’s impacting what’s happening right now. So yeah, that’s really good. All right, let’s go back to our list and see what we’ve got on this list. Okay. So let’s see. I had this kind of in okay. So we talked about like in when intimacy goes, communication and connection also go. And so I put

communication as like the moderator for the panel discussion in my last episode because I feel like it is necessary for everything. Like it’s the the the glue that holds it all together. The communication has to be there. So before the touch can come back, the communication has to be there. And I always say that that if you’re looking for sexual intimacy, it’s built on intimacy, overall intimacy in the relationship. And overall intimacy in the relationship is built on communication.

If it’s the case that you’re living with your best friend like a roommate, do not despair because that means the communication is still there and the intimacy overall of the relationship is there. And now it’s a time to add back in the touch. And that definitely will require communication, but at least the foundation of the communication and the overall intimacy in the relationship have been preserved. And so that’s a really good place to start. If you find that that it’s all broken down.

then focus on the communication first. I agree. You can’t if you don’t have the communication, you can’t expect to add in touch and it to go very well.

speaker-1 (18:45)
Yeah, I think the connection, like I encourage people to to rebuild, revisit the connection that they have, that the and and you know, connection can just be synonymous with intimacy, but the connection that they have outside of sexual intimacy is going to be reflected, I believe, largely within the sexual intimacy, the sexual relationship. And so if they’re not well connected.

If they’re avoiding, if they’re kind of barely talking and barely connecting, then you’re gonna barely touch. Yeah. And so you can’t, it’s it’s difficult to expect, and I think it’s an unrealistic expectation that we’re gonna go from kind of, I don’t even want to look at this person to okay, now let’s get it on. A man’s mind might be able to do that, but I think at least stereotypically.

A woman’s mind doesn’t make that leap very well at all. To go from like we’re more crockpot, we want more relationship, we want more connection. And and so to not be very well connected, to not have much emotional intimacy outside of the bedroom can make it difficult inside the bedroom. And I think

speaker-0 (20:04)
I was gonna say, yeah, so in terms of like stereotypical men versus women, we also have to look at how society has trained us, right? Society has said to men that it’s okay to have sex and that’s your major form of connection and communication with people. Yeah. Right. So that’s why we’ll find that men may or may not need as much of a connection there. Whereas society has put a lot of label on women that choose to just have sex, right? Yes.

And it has to be because you’re in love, that there’s connection and stuff like that. So when we look and we say women need more connection, that’s is probably true overall, but that also is something that society has said that is the context in which women are allowed to be sexual. So

speaker-1 (20:48)
And it’s not a must.

speaker-0 (20:49)
yeah. But it it it is definitely there. So I think that that’s good about the communication and then when it’s not there and leading to like resentments and frustration.

And and ultimately anger, like there’s this frustration that leads to this resentment. And then the resentment is kind of brewing and then it’s like blowing up in anger, right? So if you find yourself in anger, definitely communication. And and you know, if you need to check in with a counselor to process a lot of these emotions as well. I think that that’s very true. But when you’re what do you think about frustration, resentment, and anger? Because I kind of put them together.

speaker-1 (21:27)
Because and and they would, it would not be unreasonable at all to expect and just to throw back in that gestalt idea, that those all would have a similar emotional response and a similar that they may be on a gestalt together. And so it makes sense that they get lumped together because we often would interpret them similarly and have a similar response. Anger is commonly a secondary response to fear.

And so what are we afraid of? What

speaker-0 (21:59)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (22:00)
loss? What is it, is it lack of acceptance? Is it is it is there some loss? Is it an identity thing? We’re back to asking ourselves, learning to ask ourselves really good questions, letting the emotion, the sensation, the feeling that we’re experiencing be a clue to us that something is going on.

And then to ask ourselves really good questions in response to that sensation, emotion, feeling, because I think they’re like breadcrumbs. They’re going to lead to behaviors. So let the behaviors be your breadcrumbs. The result can be your breadcrumb. This whatever is going on is externally the emotion that you’re experiencing, the behaviors that you’re experiencing, what what the results are in your life, they’re a clue back to.

What’s going on up here, you know, between your ears? And so ask yourself, slow down, ask yourself really good questions to help get to the root of that. And especially understanding that anger can be a often, commonly, a secondary emotion to fear. Then what is the fear? What do I not? A great question is what do I not want to be true that is true?

speaker-0 (23:26)
Yeah, and that I like I like that because it brings up this concept of deep pain. Like you’re talking about deep emotion. Usually I find underneath all that anger and frustration, resentment is just a lot of deep pain and having to deal with rejection, right? Having to deal with like it that you have thoughts that your partner thinks you’re not sexy enough or whatever it is, like in some way there’s rejection, there’s loss, there’s pain, there’s fear of more.

emotions that you don’t want to handle and feeling overwhelmed. So that’s when I talk about the deep pain. It’s like, what exactly is the deep pain for you? What is it that you’re masking and covering up with the anger, the resentment, or the apathy, right? So there’s the deep pain and usually I see at some point the deep pain and the hopelessness eventually lead into this place like it’s too much for

for people to handle eventually they get to this place of numbing out. Then apathy kicks in because it’s a way of protecting yourself. And I just wanted to check in with you what your thoughts are around apathy.

speaker-1 (24:33)
So in my experience with certain clients where they have a partner who seems to be well, they seem to, they’re just not asking. They’re not initiating anymore. Over time, as we work together, what was interesting is they tried to work on themselves from a mental health standpoint, from a physical standpoint. And then they finally just said, I’m through asking. And I was, I was a little saddened by that.

I could feel for her the tone in their voice, the frustration. That’s one thing why I love what you do so much, is that there is a place for these individuals to come when they finally just don’t know where to go, what to do anymore, and they just give up. And the risk of then just having a roommate, I think, is so much greater, or turning to the other things in their life.

That they have an identity with, whether that’s kids, grandkids, career, hobbies. And so again, we see how there’s a wedge that is creating a big divide, and nobody even has to hate each other. It’s just there’s this thing missing. There’s no real communication about it. And one partner has just decided through asking, and in their mind, yeah, through being rejected. And

I’m just gonna move on. Yeah.

speaker-0 (26:05)
Honestly, I have this theory that that is the origin of scrapbooking. Honestly, like you can spend hours cutting out little doillies and sticking them in books. Like it will take up every minute of your time if you let it, right? And you don’t make pretty pictures and you’re so happy you don’t have to deal with the fact that your partner has checked out or both of you have checked out, right? Yeah. And I’m actually going to do

One more on the open and open relationship visiting because and non-monogamy visiting, because sometimes a partner checks out and they they will not check track in. And what do you do if you want to be in that relationship still? And and just because there’s not a sexual component to it, you get to have conversations with your partner exactly. If you can, it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to give up the relationship if everything’s working well, but you still want a sexual outlet, then let’s explore.

Non-monogamy. So I will be doing one more on when non-monogamy or open relationships comes to visit. But yeah, it is very true. When apathy is there, I think apathy is like a joy killer. Like it’s it’s it affects all different aspects of your life, right? It’s it doesn’t stay in one little confined area. So I think it’s something that’s very important to to look at, you know, what’s happening with this apathy and how it’s affecting the sexual part of the relationship.

But all aspects of your life as well. So the

speaker-1 (27:31)
I think it’s it and I think it’s not because you don’t feel it’s because you feel it all.

speaker-0 (27:38)
You feel it all and you just get to a place where you can’t take it any longer. So as we said, I’ll just mention, you know, so the deal and heal, like deal, identify what’s going on, decide if it’s worth keeping the relationship, work on the communication to get to the healing. You know, that’s the that’s that’s the way it goes. And and

And maybe there’s different ways that it looks, you know, the healing part looks a lot of different ways. And you get to choose what’s right for you in your relationship. And if you need help, definitely reach out to a sex coach, a sex therapist, individual counseling, group counseling, do it all, right? Like couples counseling versus individual counseling. That there’s a lot of different ways to do this. In my on your sexuality now intimate group, it’s so fabulous because you’re with a group of the other women that are dealing with this. So

we have one person in there that is just making, well, there’s a lot of people making miraculous transformations, but one person in in particular is just doing some amazing things. Actually, you know, so many of them are. But along this this sexless marriage and the apathy thing and and deciding that she wants a different future for herself, right? So we get to make that choice to have a different future. Okay, Don, I don’t want to keep you forever because I could talk about this for a really long time.

Now so any last words that you want to put in before we finish up?

speaker-1 (29:02)
Mm-hmm. I think one thing that that came to mind, and you mentioned this often, but it deserves being reiterated over and over, is that ultimately our sexual pleasure is our responsibility. Right. Yeah. And so if we we can be angry and resentful and eventually become apathetic, that that somebody else is not showing up to the party. And I’m speaking very general on purpose, but because this that can fit

any member in a relationship. So if we we can put it on them, but then we lose our power. And so accepting that my sexual wellness and my sexual health and satisfaction is my responsibility, then opens the door to a lot of possibilities for you. You’re not stuck and ultimately you have the reins.

to create your sexual experience. And so you can still enjoy a roommate if that’s the direction your relationship’s going and you still have a good relationship, just not the sexual component, there are alternatives for you getting what you want, but ultimately recognizing that your sexual health, your sexual wellness, your sexual experience is your responsibility. Then that’s very empowering, I think.

speaker-0 (30:25)
Yeah, and definitely I don’t want to end the note to because to make people think that the only choice now is eventually to go to non-monogamy. That is just one of the choices. There are I I have seen it many marriages and relationships come back from this place, doing the work, but it does require a lot of communication and and willingness to listen and not blame and to get vulnerable and to deal with the emotions that you’ve been avoiding. but

And to be open and creative to different concepts of sexuality and to be okay with adding the touch back in. All righty. Thank you so much, Coach Donna.

speaker-1 (31:05)
You

always so fun. Thank you. Thank you.

speaker-0 (31:07)
Thank you. Thank you, Diamond. See you next week.