Sex? After Kids? Tell Me More, Esther Perel - Revisit

This week Dr. Becky consults with the renowned couples therapist, Esther Perel, to talk about what parents can do to rekindle their desires.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Here's something I like to say to the parents of picky eaters. Your kids eating is not a referendum on you. Eating is one of the few areas where kids can have some control. But how do you make sure your kid is still getting the nutrients they need to grow? That's where Smarty Pants vitamins fit in. Their formulas are designed to fill nutrient gaps kids often have. And they're made with kid-approved flavors even picky eaters love. Over 1 million parents trust Smarty Pants vitamins, which is why the Smarty Pants Kids Plus Multi and Omegas is the number one bestselling kids gummy multivitamin. You can shop Smarty Pants vitamins at Amazon, Target, or Walmart today. This summer, half of my married friends have been texting me about the movie The Invite.

• 0:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I won't ruin anything for you, but it's about a marriage that appears to be going south. There's a moment in the movie where a sex therapist looks at the troubled couple, played by Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde, and asks why they're still together. And they both named their 12-year-old daughter. And the sex therapist character, played by Penelope Cruz, squints at both of them and just says something like, "Oh, and that's gonna be so good for her, growing up in this stew of resentment." It sounds like something the renowned couples therapist Astaire Perel would say. And while she consulted on the movie, so she probably had something to do with it. This is exactly why I want to revisit a conversation I had with Astaire on the Good Inside podcast.

• 1:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  She came on a while back to talk about what happens to desire and play to eroticism once you have kids, and why the very things that make a family feel stable are often the things that quietly kill all those other factors. It's one of the most loved conversations we've ever had here. And if you haven't heard it, or you just want to hear it again because it really is that good, you're in for something. I'm Dr. Becky. This is Good Inside. Here's my conversation with Astaire Perel. If it's been a while, and you know what I mean, then this episode is for you. Eroticism, touch, sex.

• 2:08Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  These things often feel impossibly far away in our partnership during the period of raising young kids. And who better to talk about these themes with than the preeminent expert on all things relationship and intimacy, the one, the only, Astaire Perel?

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Everything that family life flourishes on, consistency and routine, is often what kills the erotic. Eroticism thrives on this mystery, on the surprise, on the unknown. And it's as if people have enough of that coming just from their children. And it's like eroticism thrives on everything that family life defends against.

• 2:53Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You don't want to miss this episode, and I mean it. You don't want to miss this episode. We'll be back right after this. Hi, Astaire.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Hello, Becky.

• 3:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I am so excited to have you on the podcast. And when I told the members of our community that you were coming on, people, I don't know, a more sophisticated way of saying it, they freaked out. They just freaked out. They're so excited. And I joined them in that feeling. So I'm just so happy that you're here.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  It's a treat, really.

• 3:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So for anybody listening who is not familiar with you or your work, tell us a little bit about who you are and the types of things you're interested in.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  So I'm a couples and family therapist. I was trained particularly in working with families and with couples. And I've had a predilection for working with people from multiple different cultural, racial, and religious backgrounds. I spent many, many years actually working with mixed families. Then I brought to that the subject of sexuality because it was also a cultural lens of how we look at sexuality in our relationships. And I am the author of two books, Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs. I have two podcasts, Where Should We Begin?

• 4:18Speaker 01

  And How Is Work?, which both feature anonymous, raw, live couples therapy sessions, one in the romantic sphere, one in the workplace, where I invite you to come behind closed doors and see what really happens in the lives of couples behind closed doors. But this is what you do with parents. You do something very similar. You bring the parents out of their isolation, out of their shame, out of their, you know, this is just happening to me thing, why can't everybody else have normal kids and handle situations well? And you create a community for the challenges of parenthood today. Like I try to create a global community for the challenges of modern love.

• 5:03Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I love the overlap that we're entering into here because so many of the challenges in parenting are the challenges of partnership while parenting, maybe especially while parenting young kids. And when I think about the questions that come up the most from parents, when I might say to them something like, "Okay, I hear all the stuff going on with your kids, all important, we'll get to it. Let's kind of just put that to the side. Tell me about what else is going on in your life. Tell me the other things that are going on in your home." The state of the partnership is almost always like the first thing to come out. You know, some version of, "Oh, there's so much conflict with my partner. I hate my husband.

• 5:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, we have different parenting styles. I do everything. I'm resentful. Um, you know, we're so disconnected. We're fighting all the time. Sex? Oh, sex. Oh, my goodness." None of that. That is so far from what's happening. And the relationship between how someone feels in their partnership and how their family system is functioning and the behaviors their child is, in a way, therefore, displaying are also interrelated.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  They're absolutely interrelated, but I will give you, I will even push it a level above, is this. This is the first time in the history of humankind that the survival of the family depends on the happiness of the couple. We used to get married, or that basically was the way to be in a committed relationship, and that was that. One time for life, it was you were stuck. Today, you can leave. And so the only reason, there's no excommunication, there is women who have enough to take care of themselves economically. The only reason the family will stay together is because the couple is relatively content.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  That means that if you're going to want to give everything to your children, you really want to make sure that one of the things you give them is a relationship between two adults that is alive and thriving.

• 7:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Give everything to your children? Let me open that door. What do you see?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Well, there is an unprecedented child centrality that has almost reached an apex of folly at this point. And it is living side by side with a high, unprecedented rise of expectations of our romantic partnerships. And these two are clashing on resources, time, money, attention, intimacy, connection. Who's gonna get it?

• 7:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So just tell me if this is right. I have higher expectations of partnership than we've ever had. While I'm pouring more of my energy into my kids than I ever have.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  That's right. Yes, that's exactly it.

• 7:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And those are really hard to coexist.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Very simple terms. Well, it's a pool.

• 7:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  For sure.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  It's a pool. And at the same time, if you really want to give more to your children, make sure to give more to the couple. Because otherwise comes a time when there won't be a couple for the children.

• 8:13Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So I want to jump into a specific, and I'm gonna a little bit make this up, but it's a myriad of so many people's stories. And I just hear their voices, right? Hearing what you're saying. Put more into my partnership? My partner is someone I feel very angry with right now. My partner puts no energy into me or into the kids. My partner comes home and thinks they could just waltz in and play with the kids and doesn't think it's a big deal that I've been, you know, taking care of the family the whole day. How can I put more into my partnership when I feel like I'm owed more by my partner?

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Right. But that is one litany you just gave me now, which is, you know, I'm a couples therapist. It's often a drop-off center where somebody drops off another person to come and say to me, "Here, here's the problem. Let me explain to you. I'm an expert on this problem." And then you can go and fix it. And much of what you start to do when you work with a couple is basically you try to divide accountability. You know, what is it that you do that you bring? How is this? What are you doing together that keeps this problem in place? That's an ecological view. How is the couple organized in such a way that you keep on being resentful and your partner keeps of being missing in action?

• 9:29Speaker 01

  So the first thing is, you know, does your relationship matter to you? That's just the first question. Now, you can say, "I don't have anything left to give to this relationship." And then it divides in a few different strains. So we need to break your question in small pieces.

• 9:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I like your first question, right? And I want to like allow the listeners to like sit with that as they're, I don't know, probably also driving or, I don't know, in a pickup line or doing something else. Like, that question really hit me, just like... Does your relationship matter to you? It's interesting how quickly it seems like someone's saying, but this, but this, but it just to sit with the question.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 10:13Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Does it matter?

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 10:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And like, if the answer is a yes, allow that, like, allow that to be enough.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Then, no, there's the second follow up.

• 10:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Then the follow up is, and what is it that you do to express its importance? Because when you take care of your little schmerfs, you are organizing activities. You are making sure that there is novelty. You go and make sure that they have new clothes, new friends, new explorations, new discoveries. You bring a tremendous amount of energy into that relationship. And so there is plenty to talk about, plenty to reflect upon, plenty of pictures to look at, et cetera. Now, tell me, how have you manifested?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  How have you shown to yourself, forget even to your partner, that your relationship matters? What have you done for that? Typically, the kid has a play date every week, and many of the couples of the kind that you've just described have three dates a year, my birthday, your birthday, and our anniversary. And maybe we'll have sex on the anniversary, just to make sure that we can still, you know, prove we are a couple, so to speak. So, does it matter to you? And if so, what is it that you do that makes that importance visible?

• 11:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, it's so, so simple, what you're asking. And this is what I was saying to you before we were recording, like, you have this way of reframing things with such simplicity, but they're so, it's so provocative at the same time. Is there like a myth out there or a fantasy, like, my partnership should work out in a way or without, without this effort? Or why, why is that so hard? To put the energy into your partnership to say, yeah, I have to plan things too. And I also, just like with kids, I say, sorry, I repair, I reconnect, I, you know, do fun things together, we play.

• 12:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Why, why does that feel so unnatural in partnerships?

• 12:26Speaker 01

  When I wrote Meeting in Captivity, I tried to really understand what happens to this, what I call the erotic energy, right? The creative energy that makes us feel alive, vibrant, vital. That's what you call to play, to, to roll on the floor, to laugh, to create, to tickle, to, to look at each other, to laugh together, et cetera.

• 12:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's erotic energy. You're not just talking about like sexy time.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  No, no, no. I'm talking about that creative outburst, that energy that makes you feel alive. Everyone understands it with children. And the way that I understood why it happens, there's a few different things happening in the couple, you know? First of all, when you have kids, it's a revolution in the couple. It completely shifts all the resources, the time, the attention, the intimacy, the money, it all shifts. Why? Because when you are in a relationship, you negotiate continuously two poles. You negotiate your need for stability and predictability and reliability. And then you also negotiate your need for novelty and exploration and risk and change and movement, et cetera.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  But when you have a child, you become stability. You become security so that the child can become adventure. The child itself is an adventure that you're going on and that you are accompanying. And so you try to stabilize yourself. And as a result, when people say, actually, if you ask me about sex, it's like, people say, sex in a couple, you must be kidding. And I said, no, no, let's not talk about sex, but let's talk about that erotic energy, playfulness, imagination, aliveness, curiosity, engagement, et cetera. It is alive and well, but it is eros redirected. It all goes to the children with the idea that the adults will kind of survive like a cactus,

• 14:21Speaker 01

  that you don't even need to water. And on occasion, you look at, and it will give all its energy to the little ones. And slowly, it will begin to gasp. And then one person says, what is going on here? Where are we at? We haven't, you know, whatever, we haven't gone hiking, we haven't been alone, we haven't gone on a date. When is the last time we went dancing? When's the last time we touched each other and looked at each other the way that we are constantly adoring each other's kids? And when's the last time that when you say, how are you, I didn't answer, how is Jimmy?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  But actually, how are you? And not what you did and what you got done and what is off the list, how are you? What's happening to this person right here next to me, who is going through a lot of things? That is the, the, the loss that takes place. Eros redirected, all that energy goes to the little ones. And then there's the next tension, which is that everything that family life flourishes on, consistency and routine, is often what kills the erotic. Eroticism thrives on this mystery, on the surprise, on the unknown. And it's as if people have enough of that coming just from their children.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  And it's what, it's like eroticism thrives on everything that family life defends against.

• 15:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So those two poles, right? You're saying, once you have young kids, like, it's actually understandable that you lean more into the stability and predictability side. Like, it's understandable, no one's doing anything wrong.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  And it used to be fine when we thought that family life should be about family and that we didn't really care if a couple was romantic and parents slept in separate beds the day after they were done conceiving. And all of that worked perfectly fine when we had a different conception of the adult relationship.

• 16:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And in this day and age, right, where we are overwhelmed with information, I wonder also if that pull into the rigidity and the stability, right? Parents these days, it's like, this is how you have to do this with your baby, and this is what you have to do. There's so much rigidity, right? And so much focus on, you know, the right way. I feel like these days, there's even more of a pull, you know, toward that, toward that end.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Yes, because parenting and child-rearing practices have become very dogmatic in the West. Highly dogmatic, with a sense of over-responsibility on the parents, under-responsibility on the institutions and the society. So the parents are literally filtering through all the unknowns and all the pressures, and it's all on them. And every small movement can make or break the future of their little ones with a sense of complete overwhelm and panic.

• 17:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  So, the system that is in place, when I say the system, I'm saying the culture at large, is really no longer saying, child development is a natural process, that you go through certain stages, and the role of the parent is to shepherd you through those stages. No, today, child development is an artificial creation on the part of the adults that are taking care of these children. And depending on how they respond to them, how they expose them, et cetera, they're going to create this creature versus that creature. So we are in a phase where culture is more important than nature. That changes, by the way, that changes every 10 years.

• 18:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Are we close? Are we close to a shift?

• 18:01Speaker 01

  I don't know, but I know that every time that you, that we get, you know, hooked on a dogma when it comes to parenting, 10 years later, the truth of today is the joke of tomorrow.

• 18:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  100%.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  So we have to really be on this clear that these are not fundamentals. You have three, you know that what works for one is very different from what works for the other. And that what allows you to really flow is the fact that you can change because you see who is the other kid.

• 18:29Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I always, I always say that, that my kids each require me to lead with a different part of me. Like, they all require different parents.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  That's extremely well said.

• 18:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And so that's required me to do a lot of work to build certain, certain of those parts are more natural to lead with.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 18:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And others, you know, weren't, you know, so.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Which is super important in, when people get into the, I'm not a good parent. Of course, you seem to have been perfectly fine for child number one and two, or one and three, or whatever. And this one is more challenging because they call something in you, a part of your leadership, that is more difficult.

• 19:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  But that has to do with the relationship and the fit between one temperament and another, not your competence.

• 19:13Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  100%. I feel like it calls out the, one of the more underdeveloped parts of you.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right?

• 19:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You ask your kid how their day was over dinner and they just say, "Fine." But when they're in the backseat on a long drive, suddenly your kid opens up. I've noticed this for years. Kids don't open up head on. Sometimes they need a side door and traveling is full of these side doors. Something about being somewhere new, side by side, out of your normal routine. It just opens everyone up, including me. That's what I love about finding a home to stay in on Airbnb. You land somewhere that comes with stories and side doors built in. Maybe you're staying in a beautiful old house near the ocean, the kind where you can feel the history, wondering what life was like for the family who lived there 100 years ago. Or maybe you're staying in a cabin with a shelf of board games,

• 20:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  where your kid can find their favorite from home and a new favorite too. These are the moments my kids and I start telling new stories and asking new questions. And while your family is away making stories together, your home doesn't have to sit empty. You can list your space on Airbnb and give families traveling to your area, the home away from home they're looking for. It's a great way to earn extra money to put away for your next vacation. So your home works for you, even when you're not in it. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host. I talk a lot about being present with your kids, but presence requires self-care. And in the chaos of summer, the basics of self-care are the first things to go for me. And for me, that is hydration.

• 20:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  By late afternoon on a hot day, I have a headache, I'm a little foggy. And so obviously I'm quicker to snap. And then half the time, it's actually just that I forgot to take care of myself in a basic way. Because when it's hot and you're sweating, you're not just losing water, you're losing electrolytes like sodium. So you can sip water all day and still feel drained, because water alone doesn't put back what you sweat out. It's why I keep Element around all summer. It's an electrolyte drink with no sugar and flavors that actually make me want to drink more. My favorite is lemonade salt. If you want to try it, right now you can grab a free sample pack of Element's most popular flavors with any purchase through my link. It's definitely the easiest way to find your favorite flavor.

• 21:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Just go to drinklement.com/goodinside. That's drink L M N T dot com slash good inside.

• 21:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So I'm gonna, I'm gonna push this back to you. How did you manage this all, like when you had young kids?

• 21:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Your parenting, your partnership, your, and the other thing that I know we both care a lot about is to be playful or have any erotic energy in a partnership. So many, especially women, have lost that in themselves, right? Like the ability to create space or play.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  I remember saying to my husband, "There's a few things we're not gonna do." "I do not want us to one day wake up and just say, 'There's nothing here.'" "I've worked with enough couples." "I also understood that we are gonna do these things very differently." "And I'm gonna leave every once in a while for a week and you're gonna manage perfectly fine." "And if that happens, then I should know that I need to trust you, so that when I'm next to you, I don't need to constantly monitor you with a remote control." "I made a lot of what I think are not particularly popular things in the American context."

• 22:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Oh, shit.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  "I didn't accompany my kids to their games every Saturday." "I thought that this is bizarre." "So I had a way of offsetting things by bringing in a cultural difference from as a European and from many other places where I've lived. And I just knew that this is not, this is not the truth. This is just one way that people do it here. But people do other things completely different." "And this was true from the, from sharing the bed, to letting cry, to the, to the bottle, to the, you know, from the beginning, they were, I read child-rearing books in French, in Flemish, in Hebrew and in English." "And for everything that was, I was told, 'This is how you should do it.'" "I then went to read and I saw that there is other cultures where they say the exact opposite."

• 23:27Speaker 01

  "And I thought, 'Oh, well, then I can go for my own intuition.'" "If there isn't one truth, then I can figure out which one is the right that fits here." "And that was so important for me." "I am, I always wanted to write an article about that very experience of what it was like from zero to three to read child-rearing books from different cultural contexts." "It really gave me such permission to not think that I was doing it wrong." "Later, I, you know, we had our fights, because I also came from a model of, you know, I thought we're going to be equal. And no, we fell into traditional gender roles and gender divisions that was just like, then this happened to me as well."

• 24:11Speaker 01

  "But what we did have is a shared desire to make sure that the relationship stays vibrant, because I had seen too many couples die on the vine. And I was determined not to make that happen." "So we traveled alone from the moment, they were very little, small little things, but we gave ourselves time away. We continued to go and listen to live music, because we like that and it's an energizing thing, or to go dancing every once in a while. I mean, we continued to do things that were not just in the identity of the parent. There was, we were two colleagues, we would go to conferences together, we would learn new things. So we had new things entering into our system as well."

• 24:56Speaker 01

  "I wanted to socialize. I understood that if you want a rich social life, you invite people to your house. They come to you, then the kids are there, they can meet these adults, they can develop relationships with them over decades. They're in their late twenties now, they know these people since they're born. And they, you know, it became a kind of an extended family of sorts. And I was deliberate about a lot of these things, I have to say. It became a mission for me to arrive on the other side and to feel like, 'I'm so glad now we have a few more decades, hopefully, alone again, but not like, you know, I have nothing to say to this person.'"

• 25:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Well, here's something I want to say to all the listeners, because what I, what I hear you saying though is being deliberate, being intentional. And there's a tension, there's like a little bit of a fight for, for being able to maintain your relationship and being able to have that vibrancy and that energy. It doesn't just happen. And I like your example.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  You know how I say it, in a long-term relationship, everything that's going to just happen already has. It's extremely deliberate.

• 26:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  It's deliberate to say, "I'm gonna put my hands on your hand, even though it's more hairy than on the little silky skin of the baby, because we need to stay connected." "It's deliberate to say, 'Let's go out and not to dinner and sit across the table from each other and finally talk about the kids, because now we have each other's ear.'" "It's deliberate to say, you know, we are going to take a night away and not feel guilty about it, but actually think that this is extremely important to resource ourselves. It's willful, it's deliberate, it's, it's premeditated, I would even say. And so is the physical connection. Sometimes you have to just say, 'It feels good.'" "You know, it's deliberate sometimes to go to the gym.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Not every time you go to the gym, you just want to go there and you're running. But somehow in your head, you know that you have rarely regretted afterwards." "So if the connection is good, it's deliberate to say, 'I want to invest in this.'" "But it's equally deliberate to tell your partner, 'Thank you, this is important.'" "You see, what feeds the system is the acknowledgement of the effort too." "So when you have little ones, I think it's very natural in a family to have a role distribution." "You asked me before, what's one of my important core truths? This would be one of them. One parent, the frontline parent. This is true in same-sex couples, no different. So it's, it's not always gendered, but there is a frontline parent.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  It's also the one that wakes up more easily, that has a different sensory threshold. It's the one that maybe is not working for the moment or works with more flexible hours and can attend more to the disruptions that children bring in the life. All of that. But everyone understands frontline parent. The frontline parent looks at all the stuff, the domesticity, the chaos, the needs of the children, the childcare, whatever, the doctor's visit, you name it." "The other parent, you can blame them and resent them for not doing what you do. Or you can thank them for thinking about the stuff that you can't think about, because you're too involved." "So if you understand a role distribution is at one..."

• 28:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Like what though? Like what? Because I'm just, I'm just hearing someone saying, like, sitting on the couch watching TV?

• 28:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  Like, one person says, "Shall we go for a hike?" While the other one is talking about what needs to be done. "Or shall we take a bike trip? Or shall we go, shall we call so-and-so and go out on Saturday? How can you think about it? Don't you see the freaking mess that is, you know, you only talk about play and having fun? Yes, because you don't and you need someone who reminds you. In every couple, over time, where people say, 'We were able to maintain it,' there is always one of them that says, 'The other person just didn't let it go.'" "They made sure that we had a coffee or a breakfast. They made sure we had our date night. They made sure we still physically connected. And even though I didn't feel like it, it's because they didn't let up."

• 29:05Speaker 01

  "So instead of fighting the difference, develop a complementarity around it."

• 29:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And there's some, and I love the way you say, "And thank, thank the other person for holding that, that pole or that part." "And so one of the things you do that I love is you, you turn things on their head and, and help us all see things differently. So I'm thinking about someone who recently wrote in this as a question for you, right? So it was a woman, married to a man. And she said, you know, "I do, exactly, I'm the frontline parent." It's not what she said, but essentially, "I'm the frontline parent and I need my husband to do more with the kids. I need, I need him to come home from work earlier. I need him to acknowledge the mental load I have." "And then at the end of the day, he is basically trying to have sex with me. Like, doesn't he understand that, like, I can't have sex after feeling so alone and so unsupported?

• 29:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What, like, help us see that a little bit differently? And what would be some steps to take?

• 29:59Speaker 01

  First of all, I've been that person, just so, it's not, I can think this way and I can, but I also force myself to think a different way. And the first thing I would want you to think is that probably he feels just as alone." Because first of all, quite often, if you think all he wants is sex, you're missing it. All he wants is to connect with you, to feel less alone. But it is also the case that for men, intimacy, tenderness, connection, touch, affection are only allowed through the license of the sexual language.

• 30:35Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Just pause on that for a second because I think that's so important. And

• 30:41Speaker 01

  When we divide, she wants intimacy, she wants not to feel alone, he wants sex. We're, we're often off. It is sometimes true, but it is often off.

• 30:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But you're saying we probably want the same things.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  We want the same thing.

• 30:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And that doesn't mean your husband is going to say, that's true, sweetie. I want vulnerability and intimacy. That's not right.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  That is not the language in which it will be spoken. The woman has, you know, every woman has received a licensed language that is help me.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Every man has received a licensed language, which is make love to me.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  But we want the same thing. We don't want to be alone. We don't want to feel disconnected. We don't want to feel that we've become a function in the house.

• 31:28Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  That the other person barely sees us anymore, that we're just a machine.

• 31:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  And that we're just on a task list all the time. So here's what I say to this woman. Instead of you want him to help, you want him to help you. This may be all true, but it's not useful. So I'm going to try to give you a different way to approach your guy and your predicament. Because if you continue as is, it's just going to be more of the same. And I know where it goes. I'm 40 years doing couples work. I kind of know where it goes. I see it. I see you around the corner before you get there. And that's why I say it like that. It's really annoying because I'm going to make you say things that are not what you really want to say. So I'm, I'm twisting you.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  This is, I, I know, I know the moment, you know? So if you went to your husband and instead of I need you to do more with the kids, I miss you. I miss us.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  You know, it's like days go by and we barely talk, connect, check in with each other. It's like, what the hell has happened? And I would love to be able to think more about us. I know you've been asking for that.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  I know that you often reach out and I'm just called to you. I know that I'm often resentful. Of course, I think I'm legitimately resentful. And I think I'm right. That may be so, but that may not be wise.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  And I have a feeling that I would be much more available to us if when I ask you certain things, you could also be more responsive to me. So you first acknowledge him.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Then you take ownership for what you're not doing. And only then do you ask for more, more for what you want.

• 33:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That, that order of operations really matters, right? Because as soon as we lead with you're not, or I need the defensiveness, then we're against each other, right?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're in an adversarial situation. But it's not just that it is defensive, is that when you are in that dance, you reinforce in the other, the very position that you actually don't want.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Why would they want to do more when all you're telling them is that they do nothing?

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Tell them that you also want to feel closer to them. If that's the case, which I hope it is, because if all you want is just a helper, then your partner is picking up on something.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Which is why I ask you, does your relationship matter?

• 34:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  All right. If you're feeling like I'm feeling, you're left wanting so much more. There are so many more questions I want to ask Astaire. And I'd love to absorb all of her wisdom. Well, guess what? You don't have to wait too long. Next week, Astaire will be back answering the questions that came directly from you. You don't want to miss it. I'll see you next week.

• 34:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Thanks for listening. To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com/podcast. You could also write me at [email protected]. Parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world. And parents deserve resources and support so they feel empowered, confident, and connected. I'm so excited to share Good Inside membership. The first platform that brings together content and experts you trust with a global community of like valued parents. It's totally game changing. Good Inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Newsom at Magnificent Noise.

• 35:30Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhi, Julia Nat, and Kristen Muller. I would also like to thank Erica Belsky, Mary Panico, Ashley Valenzuela, and the rest of the Good Inside team. And one last thing before I let you go. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside.

• 36:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So I have an idea. You might be thinking, oh, so much of this episode resonates, but it's such a hurdle to get over to talk about these things with my partner. Well, one of the things I know from working with couples is talking about tricky topics is much easier when you have a third. What do I mean a third? Instead of talking directly about a topic to a partner, the two of you talk about an episode you both listened to or an article you both saw or a book you both read. So right now, consider sharing this episode with your partner as a way to bridge the gap. Maybe add a note like, hey, there were a lot of really interesting points

• 36:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  that made me think about things differently. Thought you might be interested in this too. Or take it a step further and write, I miss you. I'd love to reconnect. Maybe we can both listen to this and talk about it together.

• 37:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know that feeling when your brain is at full capacity, right? I mean, you have a reminder from the dentist in your email, a birthday party invitation on the fridge, and your kid just texted you about a soccer game they forgot to mention until that moment, and you just cannot remember one more thing.

• 37:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's where Skylight Calendar comes in. It's an all-in-one digital smart calendar that syncs with Google, Apple, and Outlook to help your whole family see the days and weeks ahead. And I really love the tasks feature, which is designed to help your kid build routines around things like homework and chores. And when your kid can do those things independently, it's a huge win for everyone in the family. Skylight Calendar is so much more than just a calendar. It's something you can add to your routine to help your family work together. And right now, Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15-inch calendars by going to myskylight.com/becky.

• 38:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's M Y S K Y L I G H T dot com slash V E C K Y for $30 off your 15-inch calendar. Myskylight.com/becky.