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Chapter 1: How does a lack of sexual desire affect a marriage?
I was very open and honest about wanting a fun, enthusiastic sex life. I was really vulnerable and honestly, I was explicit. And he promised that we could try anything, that he would be into it. And then we got married and all the handcuffs were taken off and none were put on.
What up? What up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Taking live calls from real people from all over the world. Talking about your mental and emotional health, your marriages, your relationships, your kids, all of it. Whatever you got going on in your life. If you want to be on the show, click the link in the show notes so that Kelly can feel importante.
I don't super know what a show notes are, but I know that everything's there. All the stuff is there.
I'm so proud of you. I didn't even have to remind you to say it and you did. I'm so proud of you.
Well, you got a tattoo on your throat that says in the show notes. She is trying to get AI on her side. So she is changing her tattoo game up considerably. Let's go out to Philadelphia and talk to Sarah with an H. What's up, Sarah?
Hi, how are you?
I'm doing good. How are you?
I'm all right.
Oh, all right. Yikes. What's going on?
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Chapter 2: What are the underlying issues of resentment in relationships?
So, so desire for you is, is sexual. It's in the bedroom.
Yes.
Yes. Okay. Or on the kitchen table, wherever on the couch, like wherever. Um, yeah. Um, So backing out of, like, we'll get to talking about sex, okay? But let's back out for a second. Sure. Where else do you not feel desired?
It's mostly physical. Okay. He does a really good job of appreciating my personality, how hard I work, all the effort that I put into everything. He loves and respects me. He is very kind, very gentle, very thoughtful. He's a really good person. He's a really good guy. And we've talked a lot about this. And I think he just does not feel that desire. I don't think it's me personally.
I think it's no matter who he was married to, he just doesn't have the... We were virgins when we got married. And even when we were dating, this was an issue. But we attributed it to... Fear of pushing purity boundaries. And he like he told me once you're married, I'm not gonna be able to keep my hands off of you. I just don't want to push a line.
I don't want to cross anything that we're not supposed to. It's like, so I chalked up his not wanting to make out to wanting to be a good Christian. And, you know, I loved that at the time. Um, but I was very open and honest about wanting a fun, enthusiastic sex life. I was really vulnerable and I honestly, I was explicit.
Um, and he, he promised that we could try anything that he would be into it. And then we got married and all the handcuffs were taken off and none were put on.
Um, so, uh, trying to find a good place to start.
Sure, yeah, no, it's not a normal problem. All the Christian marriage books have a chapter about the other way around, but nobody knows how to deal with this.
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Chapter 3: How can couples effectively communicate their needs?
So how do you hold that intention with... Okay, and so let me say it like this. And I'm always careful when I say this because this gets weaponized in really awful ways. Okay? So I want to say this up front. If you are... It usually gets weaponized in the reverse. So if you're a man who's listening to this and you choose to weaponize this, I don't support that. In fact, I condemn that.
I think it's wrong. Okay? But... There's two different types of desire. One is spontaneous. It happens. It sounds like you. I will do it anywhere, anytime. Oh my gosh, he looked at me. How about right now, right? And there's responsive desire. Once this train gets cooking, I don't feel like it. In fact, I rarely feel like it, but I'm never sad that I did it.
In fact, it feels good while it's happening. It's awesome.
Go ahead.
Is that him?
Yes, sometimes. Okay. So we, this isn't about like frequency of sex. We have sex a couple of times a month. I initiate, um, most of the time it's kind of not in the mood. Maybe later. Um, sometimes he gets into it and it's fine. Those times are always, always the same, but they're fine. Um, but a lot of times. Always the same.
What does that mean? Same positions, same routine.
Same thing. Yeah. Um, but a lot of times, um, it's like obligation sex, um, which honestly is worse than just being straight up shut down. I agree. It feels humiliating and I just want it over.
Yes. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And so I guess my question for him, as I would ask for anybody on the other side of this is, just because you don't feel like it initially, why has he not explored why I don't feel like it?
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Chapter 4: What is the impact of past experiences on current relationships?
And after a year of marriage counseling, he could not remember any kind of sexual trauma. He out and out does not think it's any kind of attraction to men or anything. We really got nowhere. The counselor recommended that we ended up separating. So we separated for a couple of months. And then we stopped going to counseling because I didn't want to be separated.
Okay. So you've boxed yourself into a pretty harsh predicament, right?
Yeah. And the other part of this is I sometimes wonder if I'm in the wrong, if the roles are reversed and, you know, a husband is asking his wife for something that she's not comfortable with. You know, everyone agrees that that guy's violating boundaries. So, you know, I'm in a spiral sometimes. Like, for example, like oral sex. I love giving it. He has no problem receiving it.
He promised he would try oral sex with me. But in 12 years of marriage, he's never once attempted it. And he knows how much it hurts because they bring it up almost every time we talk about this.
What's his reason for not doing it? Does he think it's gross? Is he uncomfortable with it?
Does he think it's wrong? He does not think it's wrong. He told me he doesn't want to do it because he thinks he'll throw up. And that's really hard. It's really hard to hear because it's not just about the act and the fact that I'm never going to get to experience it, but... Knowing that my husband is like, is repulsed by something that intimate is shattering. And it's not me.
It's not me specifically. He's assured me of that. Like he's told me, like, I am attracted to your body. It's not, it's not you specifically. It's any, any vagina would gross him out. He's never seen me. He's never seen me in the light.
I mean, I guess the best I can do right now is sit here with you. That sucks. It's heartbreaking.
Yeah, thanks.
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Chapter 5: How can couples navigate differences in sexual desire?
I think there's something else. I, I, this one's hard for me because I only, I only have one side of it. Okay. Yeah. Um, and there is a, it's overrepresented in the media, but it is a, a physiological thing. There is those that they're, they're classified as asexual. Yeah. The switch is off and, And they have no interest in turning it back on.
Or they have no interest in being interested in how pleasurable I can make my spouse's life.
Yep. And I don't know how to forgive him for marrying me anyway when I knew and he knew that I was not going to be content with that. Because how do you not know that about yourself?
And maybe that's wrong of me. Yeah, I mean, and that's where I'm going to get so unhelpful. Like, it's not gonna make you feel better wisdom here. I would be very careful about the stories you're making up about him. And why he did what he did. Why he's doing what he's doing.
Because the stories you're making up about why he's doing what he's doing is causing as much, if not more pain than what's actually happening in reality. And they're not getting you any closer to what you want, which is to be desired by your spouse.
And y'all have done the things that I would have recommended, like go get hormone checks and medical checks, checkups, and go sit with a therapist and go try to unpack some of this stuff. Because statistically speaking, it is outside of the norm. Yep.
And coming up with reasons that he somehow tricked you, somehow lied to you, somehow created this, like that's a lot of, that's coming from inside of you, not inside of him. Unless he's looked at you and said, yeah, I kind of knew this. I just thought it wouldn't bother you that much. If he did do that, that's some significant deception, right?
Yeah. No, it's not that.
Okay. So.
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Chapter 6: What role does emotional maturity play in a marriage?
Because I do get calls mostly from men or have conversations behind closed doors with mostly men who are like, man, she does this and this, but she won't do this one thing. And that's this, like the glasses they wear is just the one thing she won't do. And it's a refusal to honor discomfort on a particular thing. This is different.
Okay.
This is a wholesale rejection of you. And this is hard to hold this tension. I can't sit here without having talked to him. and say that the rejection of you is somehow malicious or evil or mean?
I don't think that it is. I think he just doesn't want to. Like he doesn't want to see me because he thinks it's gross. He doesn't want to.
But the fact that he hasn't been curious, like let's figure this out together. I think this is going to be gross. Well, let's find out. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
That to me is the gap.
I don't know. I don't know where to go.
So the unhelpful wisdom I have for you is this. You've boxed yourself in which with in this in this world, which is I will not leave. And I really, really want this part of my life, which nobody on earth would blame you for, for wanting to be desired by your spouse. Okay. Yeah. And so the only path in this box that you've made is,
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Chapter 7: How important is it to prioritize your partner's needs?
It's going to take time. And going in the front end with a therapist and saying, I'm not leaving my husband and everyone tells me to leave him. I'm not going to. Period. I want to learn how to grieve well. And I want to learn how to be compassionate at the same time. Because here's the thing. I'm hearing from your voice that you don't believe him.
I think I've just felt so much resentment for so long that I... have had to direct it somewhere. And I've known about myself for, you know, since I was a teenager that this is who I am. And it's something about myself that I really like. I like that I feel this way and that I knew I was going to want to have this as part of my life. And I
And I spent most of my teenage years and young adult years looking forward to sharing that with my husband. And when I got married, being like, guess what? And so the fact that this piece of myself that I really like about myself is the thing that causes all the pain.
But it's not, though. It's deeper than that. You know what I'm saying? Like you had this picture of what you thought your marriage was going to be and that picture's different. Now you've heard my show, that happens all the time.
People who find out they're not going to have kids and they had a picture in their head of 10 kids and people who have lost and people who, like that happens all the time and it's painful and it's the worst and it happens to every married person in some shape, form or fashion. They had a picture of what they thought things were going to look like and it's different.
But this is different than that. Underneath it all, If in your bones you don't believe him, then the rejection is an active, he is actively rejecting you. I am choosing my whatever over your, like being with you. Or if you dig all the way down and you realize, oh my gosh, I believe him. Because he's amazing in every other way. Then there is the, I'm going to grieve it like crazy.
And that energy I have, that expression, that power that's inside of me, where else is that going to be channeled? How am I going to make meaning and purpose of this? So, so, so, so much here. And sorry, I couldn't just wave a magic wand on this one. And sorry, I don't have a good lived experience here. I haven't had this conversation before. This one's out of my depths.
But I would sit down with a therapist and say, I'm not leaving him. I need some path forward because I do think he's a great man who is incapable of giving me this part of my life. And I'm not going to leave him. So I'm going to grieve it. And I'm going to realize that my cage is locked from the inside and I'm going to step out of it.
Or I'm going to really get down into my bones and realize, I think he's, I think he's doing this to me. And I'm going to act accordingly there because then it's an act of fidelity. It's an act of, or an act of infidelity. Somebody's willfully withholding and willfully not doing the work they can do to become whole themselves so that we can build something amazing.
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Chapter 8: What steps can couples take to strengthen their connection?
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