Ep #198: Tool Belt for Thriving Relationships

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast, episode 198.

Welcome to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast, the only show that combines a fun personality, medical knowledge, sexual counseling, and life coaching together. To create unique sex coaching that helps busy women awaken their libidos, address intimacy issues, and learn how to express their sexuality for the rest of their days. Here is your host, certified life coach and sexual counselor, Dr. Sonia Wright.

We are getting there, we only have a couple more episodes left. Diamonds, how are you doing today? I’m so happy to be here. I am just reflecting on the fact that I have been doing this for almost four years, showing up and showing out and just, yeah, meeting my goal for being there for my Diamonds. I love doing my podcast because it’s the time when I get to sit and talk with you. So, I’m going up to podcast number 200. And then after that, I’ll still be showing up, but I’m not going to be showing up every single week.

I’m going to be focusing on doing other things and in episode 200, we will reveal all the fun that we have scheduled for the next six months and beyond. So, I’m super excited for that.

I’m also super excited because right now I am offering individual one-on-one sessions, you just click on the link that’s in the show notes and just sign up and come talk to me. Previously I was selling big packages for 12 sessions or more. No, that’s not what I want to do, it’s not aligned with how I want to be there for my family, and it’s also not aligned with how I want to be there for my Diamonds.

I want my Diamonds to just be able to be like, “Hey, I kind of want to talk to Dr. Sonia today. Let me just click on the link and see what’s available.” That’s what I want for my Diamonds. And so, I hope that you take advantage of that and you just decide to come and talk to me.

Alright, so I have been talking to my Diamonds and it has been such a wonderful experience, coaching people, people I’ve not met before and some people I have coached in the past. It’s just been a wonderful, wonderful time and I was coaching one of my Diamonds and we were talking about, what do you need in your tool belt for a good relationship? What do you need in your tool belt for good intimacy? And I thought to myself, oh my goodness, I really want to talk to all my Diamonds about having a tool belt for great emotional intimate relationships.

Now, I know not everybody chooses to be in a relationship, so I also consider that it’s important that everybody understand the concept of solo partnerships. Some people choose to be in a relationship with themself and not necessarily with other individuals, and that’s okay too. Take these same principles and make sure that you’re utilizing them in the relationship with yourself.

Alright, so let’s get started. I was thinking, what are some of the most important things? They’re not specifically in a specific order except for this first one. The first one is what I spend a lot of time coaching my Diamonds on. And I do tend to talk about this a lot in my podcast as well, but I’m still going to put it up there. I feel like it’s the hammer, it is the main tool that you would need in your tool belt and so that would be communication.

I don’t know how many women I talk to and they say, “Well, I’m not enjoying myself or this isn’t exactly what I want or I’m anxious about this or my libido is not where I would like it to be.” 1,000 different reasons they come to me and they’re all good, valid reasons. And then they say something like, “I can’t tell my partner, I can’t tell my spouse. No, I can’t inform them of how I’m feeling and what’s going on.” And so, communication is the number one main tool that you need, communication.

Don’t be afraid to talk about it with your partner and this is so important. If you’re not able to be in that vulnerable space with your partner or with yourself, this is very important. Communication requires vulnerability. Vulnerability requires safety, emotional safety, and physical safety. You know that when you say something about how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking, it’s not going to be like thrown back at you or you’re not going to be attacked or whatever.

So, the first thing, so maybe even before communication, there needs to be a feeling of safety there, but I’ll put them together. Not that I want to assume that the safety is there, but if you’re in a relationship where you feel you can’t be vulnerable with another person, then I think there’s some bigger questions that need to be asked about this relationship and do you want to stay in this relationship? Well, that you get to make that choice. But I always think about safety, physical or emotional, so often we think that if somebody is physically abusing us, then that’s a no and I’ve got to get out of the situation.

But we don’t realize the damage that’s done to our soul, to our spirit by verbal abuse as well. Your partner should be your number one cheerleader in your corner, not somebody that you tiptoe around and avoid because you can’t talk to them about something or because you’re afraid of hurting their feelings.

If you make this commitment to be in a relationship with this person, obviously you’re not focused on hurting their feelings. But sometimes their feelings may get hurt and they’re allowed to have their feelings hurt, and that’s not necessarily a reason to stop having that communication. If that becomes an issue, then there is time for a conversation.

Whereas, “Hey, there’s something important I really need to discuss with you. Of course, I love you and I’m concerned that this might hurt you. So, I’m figuring out how we can do this where we can sit down and I can be there supportive and also express what I’m feeling. Because something’s happening behind the scenes when this communication is not happening and you think that your relationship is solid and strong. It’s not as solid and as strong as you think it is and your partner’s not stupid either. They also know that something’s going on.

And the fact that you’re not able to verbalize it, it allows their brain to go crazy and they think of 1,000 different reasons something could actually be happening instead of what’s actually happening. So, communication is the most important thing, and it’s always hard to communicate. I hate to say it’s always hard. But it can be hard to communicate about sexual intimacy issues. And I find that the more you communicate, over time the better that it gets.

I mean, I used to be a person that did not communicate anything. I was just, suck it up and go, Sonia. And as I got better at communicating, my skills improved overall, but also the connection in my relationships improved. So, communication, I think it’s the foundational skill that you need in your tool belt, so communication.

And I alluded to this a little bit, but safety is definitely, I don’t even know, safety might be the tool belt itself. If you’re in a relationship, you need to be safe physically, emotionally and there needs to be consent. So, the tool belt itself, I would say would be safety and consent, that has to be everything. And you can’t build a relationship if you don’t have this focus on safety and consent. So, safety and consent make the tool belt and then let’s put the first tool in which is communication.

Another tool that you need, but maybe even comes before communication, is self-love. Let’s talk about this a little bit because there’s so many people that don’t have this, that prioritize other people first. And especially women, we’re taught to prioritize everybody else first and make sure that everybody else’s needs are taken care of before we focus on ourselves. But let me just tell you, that will never happen. Everybody will always have needs and that’s okay. It’s not your job to fulfill all those needs.

Your job is to look at your own needs and focus on those and yes, fulfill those. It’s not anybody else’s job to keep you happy either. It’s your job to keep you happy. So, we have to figure out how to prioritize ourselves, how to put the focus on us. It’s like what they always talk about in the airplane: put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you put it on anybody else. And that’s not coming from a place where you’re just going to focus on yourself and not somebody else. You’re going to help put the oxygen mask on other people.

But if you’re not healthy, if you’re not sane, if you’re not getting your own needs met by yourself, you don’t really have anything to give to anybody else. And this self-love, I would say, is paramount. And I would also say that especially being women, being mothers, being whatever, we have a tendency to put other people first, but we definitely need to put ourselves first, it becomes so important. And in order to communicate, you need to love yourself enough to be willing to express what you’re feeling and what you’re thinking.

You need to love yourself enough to feel valuable, to even put yourself in the communication, in the relationship and to have a voice in it. You need self-reliance. We are all interconnected and that’s fine, but also, when we focus on somebody else to get our needs met, we kind of lose our power. This is about empowerment. As long as you have your own power, there’s nothing that you can’t do in this world, honestly. But if you give it away and you wait for somebody else to love you enough to feel happy, and that type of thing, that’s disempowering and that’s not where we are at, Diamonds.

So, self-love, self-love, self-appreciation, I would say go on a date with yourself. Do something kind for yourself. Ask yourself what your wants and your needs are and then work on fulfilling those. It’s nice when we get flowers from somebody else, but it’s more important when we have our own back. So, self-love is definitely a tool. So, we’ve got our tool belt on. We have a tool skill of communication. We have a tool of self-love. What else do we need?

Creativity, I think this is so important. You get to create the relationship that you want with yourself and the relationship that you want with another individual. You also get to create the sexual intimacy that you want with yourself and with another individual, so creativity is definitely a tool. So many of our problems around relationships and intimacy come from the fact that we are taking somebody else’s blueprint as to what a relationship should look like. You can always read information about other people’s relationships and what society thinks a relationship can look like and blah blah blah.

But when it comes down to it, the relationship that works for the two individuals or the one individual if they’re solo partnered, you get to be creative and create that relationship. And understand that that relationship is going to be evolving over time. So that creativity is necessary because throughout the lifespan of this relationship, it’s going to change. It’s going to become new. It’s going to become different. There’s so many different aspects of it. If you think about it, society dictates what a relationship should look like.

And so many women come to me because their relationship doesn’t look like that. People have concepts about how many times you need to have sex in the month. They say at least three times weekly is what I often hear. And they may come to me because they’re like, “I’m not having sex three times weekly.” I’m like, “That’s an arbitrary number. Is that actually what you want?” And some people would be like, “No.” And I’m like, “Is that what your partner wants?” And like, “No, the partner’s fine, they’re not complaining.” I’m like, “Well, we don’t make trouble where there isn’t trouble.”

That is imposing somebody else’s belief system and ideal system, or whatever on your relationship and then saying there’s something wrong with your relationship. No, you get to be creative in your relationship. You get to decide, I’m going to create that relationship that I want, not one that is dictated by society or whatever. So maybe you two sleep in separate rooms because one of you snores. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Society says you should sleep in the same bed, but if you’re not getting sleep, let me tell you, there’s not anything that will destroy a relationship faster than not getting sleep. So maybe it is that you sleep in separate beds. Maybe you come together, you cuddle every night, you do whatever you want to do for fun, night, day, afternoon. It doesn’t have to be a specific time for that. Fun is fun and you get to have intimate fun anytime you would like, maybe not on the bus. Maybe keep it in your house, but time of day, anytime that you like.

But if you need to sleep in separate rooms for your sleep health, then hey, go ahead and do that. I know people that sleep and have separate houses. They’re in a great relationship and they recognize that it does not work to live together. One person’s pretty messy. The other person is very strict and they’re making themselves miserable together. And they’re missing out on the fun of their relationship because they’re so focused on keeping things neat and tidy or whatever. And that works for one person, but it didn’t work for the other person.

And if that’s the case, they chose to live in separate spaces, maybe separate spaces in the same house, or maybe in a separate house altogether and that gets to be okay. So, you get to create the relationship that works for you. You don’t have to listen to anybody outside of your relationship telling you what and how your relationship should look.

I had some relatives that felt that I was not being the perfect wife that I should have been. This is a long time ago, this was back in my 20s and because I didn’t change my name. And so, it was back, I got married in the 90s for the first time. And so, they would send me letters, if they ever sent me a letter and they would either hyphenate my name with my husband’s last name or they would obliterate my name altogether, Wright. And they would use my husband’s last name instead.

And they felt very certain that this is what should happen and so they were imposing their will upon me. I love my last name, Sonia Wright. I’m Sonia Wright. I didn’t feel the need to change it. My husband didn’t feel the need at the time, didn’t feel the need for me to change my name in any way. We did have a child and our child has our names, both of our names. So, just because somebody else has a belief system as to how things should go, doesn’t mean that that’s the way it has to go, you can make this up. And creativity is a wonderful thing.

Now, when I’m talking about creativity and intimacy, I always make sure that people are aware of a concept called a sexual smorgasbord. And a sexual smorgasbord is having more than one way to be intimate, intimate emotionally and intimate sexually. If we only have a concept, a narrow concept of intimacy being penetrative sex or heteronormative penetrative sex, then we’re kind of missing out on a lot. Sexual intimacy, as long as there’s consent, as long as there is no unwanted pain with sex, things like that, you get to be creative.

You get to choose what you want that sexual intimacy to look like. And it gets to be 1,000 different things. And this is one of the things that I do in my Own Your Sexuality Now course, is we spend time on the sexual smorgasbord and really talking about all the different ways that you get to be intimate. So, creativity, definitely 100% comes in here in terms of how you can have sexual intimacy. It gets to be fun.

So, for all my Diamonds, I would say, come up with five different ways to be sexually intimate. And if you’re in a heteronormative relationship, only one of them gets to be about penetrative sex. What are the other four ways or even 20 ways? Get creative with this. And that means on the days that you may not be in the mood for penetrative sex, you have other choices and you have more of an open definition.

And the reason why this is important as well is because as we get older, our bodies, things change. And so, parts may not work as well as they did previously. And it kind of gets boring if it’s the same thing all the time, so let’s switch it up. Let’s have some fun with this. What is on your sexual smorgasbord? What would you like to put on that, on your charcuterie board? That gets to be so much fun. So, creativity is another tool that we are putting in our tool belt.

So, we have the tool belt itself, which is safety and consent. We have the tool of communication, the tool of self-love, the tool of creativity. What other tools do you need for a good relationship?

And I should say, I should have said this at the beginning, that a lot of this podcast is based on a conversation that I had with my partner, Dr. Kimmery. And we were just talking through what was important for our relationship, but also what was important for the thousands of couples that she has done counseling with over the years and what she has seen that has made the difference in terms of the relationship working versus not necessarily working. And one thing that’s very important is flexibility.

And I was asking her, “What exactly is flexibility?” And she said, “It’s being willing to compromise.” And I thought about that, being willing to compromise, not always having to be right. This is not a race, people. There’s not a winner. If you’re having arguments or discussions and things like that, it’s not about winning. It’s about connection, communication. It’s about being there in the relationship. The winner gets to be in the relationship if there’s flexibility. So, flexibility becomes something that’s important.

Always strive to see the other person’s view. You may not agree with it, but I think it’s important to understand the other person’s view. You learn and you grow and your relationship grows and is nurtured by the fact that there’s flexibility and you get to talk and understand the other person’s point of view. And I also use this for sexual intimacy as well.

I always ask, what is somebody’s sexual fantasy? And it’s not about whether or not you act out that sexual fantasy, but you learn a lot about a person in terms of what is their sexual fantasy and what they’re kind of interested in actually doing or acting out. And sometimes, what turns one person on, maybe not even in terms of fantasy, but just in terms of what turns somebody on may not be what you’d think would turn somebody on and that’s okay, but you do get to find out about it and you do get to open your mind to it.

And so, flexibility, if it’s something that you’re not as familiar with, so flexibility on so many different levels, flexibility with communication. Flexibility with understanding somebody else’s point, flexibility with not necessarily being right all the time, but focused on growing and learning together. Flexibility around people’s concepts of sexual intimacy and what turns them on. Flexibility in so many different ways. So, flexibility, thank you. Thank you, Kimmery, for that one.

I added faith. Whatever is happening in your relationship, and relationships kind of have up and down moments, every relationship does. And you choose with those up and down moments what is going to be the result. If you have a down moment and you’re committed to the relationship and you have faith that everything’s going to work out, you’re going to sort it out. But if you don’t necessarily have faith that things are going to sort themselves out or that it’s going to be okay, or you’re going to get over this, whatever it is.

But if there’s an understanding or faith that somehow we will figure this out. Yes, we’re in a low spot right now, but it’s not the end of the world. We will figure it out. Faith that the relationship is going to keep going. When you lose that faith in the relationship, you kind of have to ask yourself some bigger questions there about the overall relationship as well. Sometimes you have to ask the bigger questions, if you’re not willing to be vulnerable, or you don’t necessarily feel emotionally safe, then yeah, it’s time to ask those bigger questions.

So, if you don’t have faith that the relationship is going to be okay no matter what then yeah, that’s when you do ask yourself some big questions. But if you’re having a down patch and you’re like, “Somehow, we will figure this out”, that’s all you need. You don’t need to have, we’re in this relationship forever and it’s going to be perfect and wonderful no matter what. No, it’s more like, we will figure this out, it will be okay, or just faith in yourself. Something will be figured out in this situation, I’m going to be okay.

But having faith and an understanding that you are going to be able to handle whatever comes up. So, Dr. Kimmery added this one in which is commitment to fun. I’m always about the fun. I think fun is fun and it’s something that we should strive for more in our life. So often we have a lot of responsibilities. We’re taking care of a lot of people’s needs, on the job, off the job, in the house, wherever and we kind of get away from fun.

I don’t know if you remember, but when I got married to Dr. Kimmery, we basically came up with a plan that we were going to have 100 honeymoons. I think we’re on honeymoon number 12 or something like that. But it’s kind of fun to just say, “Yeah, we’re going to have 100 honeymoons or maybe 100 date nights or maybe 100 walks in the park”, or whatever. But you get to have fun with it. Sometimes it’s a big thing and sometimes it’s just something that’s one night, but 100 honeymoons.

And there gets to be points in our relationship where we can look through things and spend some time looking back. We’ve had some hard patches, I’m not going to lie. We’re two very intelligent women that are strong willed and have lived our own lives for a long time and then coming together and very different styles. So yeah, there has been ups and downs, but it’s been worth it. And the fact that there’s been the fun there as well, that’s made all the difference too. In fact, even if we’re in the middle of having a discussion, we can still laugh about something. So, the fun part of things, that’s definitely something that’s important.

Here’s something that I think is very important, but I’m going to recap. So, we’ve got our tool belt. We have communication tool, we have self-love tool. We have creativity, creativity in the relationship, overall structure and creativity in the sexual intimacy aspect of things. Flexibility, this is not a race. There’s not a winner. Faith, believe that you can take care of yourself, you can take care of the relationship, that it will all sort itself out. A commitment to fun. That’s another tool that we have in there.

And then here is one. And when I said this is in no particular order, it’s not because this is probably, if I were to put them in order, this one would be up near the top, which is respect. Respect for your own individuality and respect for your partner or partners’ individuality, and that includes boundaries. Having a respect overall for other people and a respect for yourself. Obviously respect, this kind of goes with self-love but having self-respect. You’re not going to allow people to do things emotionally or physically to yourself. You’ll be able to be like, “No.”

I coach or I have coached a lot of people that are in relationships with narcissistic individuals. That is one of the hardest relationships to be in. Basically, it’s sneaky, you never know if you’re on a solid footing with them. One minute they’re super nice to you. The next minute they’re manipulating you. And then the next minute they’re doing something completely cruel, just downright cruel and mean and you’re left there in shock. And then the cycle begins again, where they’re nice and loving and kind to you. So, you’re never on firm ground.

And they gaslight you as well, so you’re like, “This doesn’t seem right.” And they’re like, “It’s fine, you’re the problem.” When we have respect for ourselves, if you’re ever asking yourself, this doesn’t feel right, this is not how I want to be treated. When you have respect for yourself, you’ll get out of the situation. And it could take a while to get out of the situation, but once you see it, you can’t unsee it. So, if you Google, narcissistic personality and then if what you see in there looks a lot like your partner, then beware and go talk to somebody about this.

If you’re sitting there going, “This doesn’t feel right. They look so perfect and wonderful to everybody on the outside, but they’re not kind and loving to me. They’re more concerned about how they look to other people and then they do mean and cruel things that other people don’t believe they’re actually doing to me.” You might be dealing with a narcissistic personality type of individual. But the important part is having respect for yourself and having boundaries and being okay.

Now, we’re getting away from having a narcissistic partner, but just a partner in general, being okay with your partner having boundaries as well. Have respect for yourself. Have respect for your partner or partners and it gets to be okay, but that’s not a problem to have respect for yourself, to have your own back. I always say this, have your own back in every situation and sometimes it’s hard to have your own back.

Take yourself out of the situation and put your best friend or your child or whomever in that situation, and ask yourself what you would do. That kind of gives you your answer, because sometimes we’re not going to stand up for ourselves, but we’re going to fiercely stand up for somebody else. So, if you need to figure out where your boundaries are, then put somebody else in the scenario for a minute. And then check and see if those boundaries are something that you would uphold for somebody else.

The chances are if you’re going to uphold them for somebody else, you need to uphold them for yourself. And sometimes we are the person that’s being obnoxious. And if that’s the case, check yourself, really look and see if that’s how you want to show up in this world and if that is who you are. Respect yourself, respect your partner or partners.

And then the final one that I’ve kind of alluded to, but I want to make sure that I’m very clear about is, have zero expectation that your partner is meant to meet your needs. Be very clear that it is your job to meet your needs. It is not somebody else’s job to meet your needs. Now, I mean, your partner might do something that makes you really happy and you’re squealing with delight, sure, that’s fun. But on a day-to-day basis, you’re the one that needs to make yourself happy.

If you focus on somebody else who has to do something in order for you to be happy, you lose your power. You’re no longer empowered. You will become more of a manipulative type of personality, a manipulative type of person, where you’re trying to figure out how can I get this other person to blah, blah, blah, because it helps me feel better. No, Diamonds. I’m calling you on that if you’re doing that bullshit. No, no, no. I have this wedding joke with Dr. Kimmery and I’m like, “No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no.”

But really, the wonderful thing about midlife is that you get whatever it is that you want in order to make yourself happy, you get to do. And I’m going to be talking more about this later, but we’re going to have a give your last fuck party podcast episode, which is once you give your last fuck, and I don’t mean literally, even though this is a sex coach podcast. But when you get to that point where you’re like, “I am so done with pleasing other people. I’m so done with spending my life being there for everybody else but myself.”

When you give your last fuck so that you can live the life that you want to live, that is golden. That is wonderful. And that’s where it comes to that place where you start really focusing on yourself, taking care of yourself. And not focus on what somebody else can give you because you’re giving it to yourself. And showing up in the world from that perspective is really amazing.

So, the last thing in the tool belt is zero expectations. You can be loving and kind and expect love and to be treated well by other people and at the same time not have any expectations that they are here to make you happy or they are here to do things to make you happy. You are here to do things to make yourself happy. Being in a relationship, when you realize that you have the power to take care of yourself, it makes for such a healthy, wonderful relationship.

And if you’re solo partnered, it’s the best. You’re not sitting there saying, “I can’t be happy because I don’t have a partner.” You’re sitting there saying, “Hey, fuck, I am really happy. And I’m going to do this, this, this and this. I’m going to connect with my friends if I want to. I’m going to live my best life.” Give up that last fuck and live your best life.

Okay, Diamonds, that is all for today’s episode. So good talking to you. Podcast 198 is in the books. And if you want to come and talk to me directly, just click on the link below and schedule a visit, a one-on-one call with me. Okay, love you lots. Dr. Sonia out.

Diamonds, it’s Dr. Sonia. How are you? I’ve got a question for you. I have asked you this question before and I’m going to ask you again. How is your sex life? No, really, on a scale of one to ten, how’s your sex life? You know I’m all about intimacy in midlife. If you rated the passion in your life as less than an eight, then we need to talk, sister. I am personally inviting you to an individual coaching session with me. Yes, one-on-one, you, me, Dr. Sonia together talking. Let’s do some coaching.

I really, really, really want to connect with my Diamonds. So, I’m opening up my schedule over the next couple of months to talk to you, to coach with you. I’m blowing up my business and I really want to blow your mind as well. Yes, I have group coaching programs and actually quite a few coaching programs are going to be coming out in the next six months. But right now, I want to coach you. So, I’m introducing the individual Diamond coaching sessions. Book your call now. The link is in the show notes.

As I wrap up my podcast, I really want to connect with you, so let’s get together individually and connect. Let’s create that amazing, satisfied intimacy that you deserve. If you’re in your 40s, 50s, 60s, beyond and even younger, you potentially have 30, 40, maybe even 50 more years of intimacy ahead of you. What do you want that to look like? This is always the question that I’m asking you, Diamonds. You have the power to influence what sexual intimacy looks like in your life, so, let’s get real.

Let’s talk about what’s going on with your body, your libido, and let’s see what we can do to kick start this intimacy. Whether you have a partner or not, come talk to me. Whether you want to focus on your pleasure or libido, come talk to me. Whether you want to fall in love with your partner again or fall in love with yourself for the very first time, come and talk with me. If you’re a woman who wants to enjoy all aspects of her life then let’s chat. It’s finally time. It finally gets to be your time.

So, click on my link below in the show notes or go to my website soniawrightmd.com and join me in your own private coaching session with Dr. Sonia. I’m not sure how long this is going to last, but I really want to talk to you. I want to connect. I want to coach you. I want to help you get to where you want to go with your impossible intimacy game. I am here for you. I can’t wait to talk. Okay, Diamonds, Dr. Sonia out.