Our Sex Life is a Disaster

Each episode of where should we begin is a one-time counseling session for the purposes

“of maintaining confidentiality, names and some identifiable characteristics have been removed,”

but their voices and their stories are real.

It's really been having trouble connecting sexually, it just ends in disaster basically,

like any time we try. I wrote my book, "Mating in Captivity" because so often people would come to see me, and their opening line would be, we'd love each other very much, we have no sex. And that beg the question, why does good intimacy so often fade in people who continue to love each other as much as ever?

This couple is two women, they are completely stuck in an erotic stalemate. The context of the moment is that one of them is eight months pregnant, and everybody has been warning them about the expected decline of their sexual activity. You are eight months pregnant and you are feeling a time pressure and a fear of what sex will be like after, you have a baby, and the crazy things people will tell you when you're pregnant

and what your sex life will be after that. But it doesn't seem like this is just a developmental and circumstantial reality between them.

Basically, the dance is that one of them approaches and the other one tries to do it right,

but they were trying, is what is complicated here, because the moment she tries her partner feels that she's not really into it, she then gets really upset and then they stop everything and then they launch a deep, three-hour conversation into the night that brings them back together into their closeness and intimacy, but also into a complete erotic dry spell. And this gets repeated and repeated, so they arrive eager to break free of this sexual

impasse. So let's listen. We've been together six years and we have this shared friend and we met and it was very beautiful in that way, just like yeah, let's talk more, let's do more stuff with each other, let's land a trip, let's do it, then I'm married, and it's very freeing and very pure.

“And what do you, well, I think that like initial metaphor, I always say it's like I'm an anthropologist”

and she's a series of hidden doors, so very curious about her, I want to know and she's extremely, you can say you because she's sitting next to you, just, it gives you what you're very, very interesting to me and then you convinced me to trust you in a way

I've never trusted anybody else, because you're made of more tough material than other

people I think, what would be your material, your made of, what's my material? I think I'm extremely certain about who I am, what I want, I have a lot of words immediately about my emotions, if it's very direct, I'm trying to explain myself all the time and that kind of hides that I'm not really trusting other people to do it for themselves and so I've developed these ways to really do a lot of work for them, I'm very sensitive to how they're

feeling, I'm very alert, very vigilant to their moods and I'm very descriptive with how I feel and how I want to be treated so that they know how to get it right, I'm providing them

“all the data and they implies you with, I think a lot of times that's what I'm trying to do”

yeah I think you are afraid of being misunderstood, you have a lot of words for your feelings and your emotions and you know what they are right when you're feeling them and when you're feeling them you have to say them and I don't like I'll be crying and you'll ask me what's wrong or

brought that out so you're learning a new language yeah that you didn't know existed or that you were

“taught to suppress or that wasn't valued, I think my value was that I'm”

easygoing, I'm not gonna make a fast make a fast make a problem you don't have to worry about me and I get praised for being useful and helpful and kind and not making it about me and I think part of what I learned with that was like okay so it's just like accommodate everyone else everything's okay if you're able to like maneuver around and go with the flow and not be bothered by anyone or anything and when would you see at the circumstances of your life

“that made that way of being so I think my childhood like growing up in a two different houses”

the really chaotic stepfather and geotic in men and other things if you're gonna go to do language and more precision than you was more of a child than a parent in the way he acted so is not dependable in that role to me while also chaoticly ripping apart our house and turns out he didn't pay taxes and we had to file bankruptcy and like both chaotic physically but also like

emotionally it was always like he was doing something wacky but then that house my grandmother

lived on the bottom floor and so I just like hung out with her all the time whenever things were like a little chaotic I was like all leave go be with my grandma all that goes on upstairs and I take refuge ever here you seem to do yourself yeah and so why her of old people oh people why you

“I think you're unlike anyone I've ever met you're so fun and funny like I joke about it but”

you do have a zest for life that is very like infectious and I think I know I have thought in me as well but it can be tamped down by my like pragmatism I think and you bring that out in me when I feel like I'm like a stick in the mud or like you encourage me to have fun in life and I need that so you're the stick and do the arabic and what made you want to do a session here how did that come about well we've had a hard last two years and I think we've really been

having trouble connecting sexually it just ends in disaster basically like anytime we try

will intend to have sex like we'll like start connecting and then something will feel off and however I bring that up we'll lead to conversation that becomes more and more emotional and heightened and heated and it will end in us both sobbing and no physical connection it happens and then at this point I think we're just kind of avoiding that entirely because if you're so stuck and so pointless to keep trying in that thing but that's awful too like

I feel like I understand the pattern like I understand why we're both making these mistakes

and I don't know how to not make them so tell me because this wasn't always like that or

okay wasn't always that so what is a little snapshot of sex between the two of us the on's and off's what's been to history what's been glamorous and fun and glorious and blissful and what's been

that we're like at the beginning especially it was so so much discovery I remember I used to say like

I didn't know I was in a box I'm stepping out of this box that I didn't even know I wasn't having sex with and was fine well it wasn't a great fit like it could be fine but having sex with a woman that I was in love with was extraordinary I kept it being more stretched out and more amazed at how good it felt I remember crying a lot

“after orgasming just being so overwhelmed I how happy I was and I think then it got a little”

hard because there was like a disagreement of how much we wanted to have sex but we went to therapy then and it got better what did you do there that was helpful I think the things we took from

that that we still use are like it's always better when we're lighter we're at our best when we're

like having a good time and it's fun and it's playful playful I think in sex it gets too easy to dive into the like heavy space and then we're like in a deep conversation and then it just gets so heavy and we don't know how to get out of it and when you go deep where do you go what exactly is it the same conversation over and over? In some aspects and I feel like it's just like there's so many things that I've like clobbed onto it where it's like you are eight months pregnant

and you are feeling a time pressure and a fear of what sex will be like after you have a baby

“and you've had a lot of self-body hatred that I think is like attached to it and it gets really like”

do you desire me and also my body is changing and we'll continue to change and then I think you have had a past a salt experience that I think we had previously talked about but I think in the last year at least how it is like risen to the surface more and that fear has is much more present for you than previously so sometimes like that comes up you get upset because you are picking up on my energy of uncertainty or nervousness in what to do next your fear is that I don't want to be

there and you don't want to have sex with someone who doesn't want to be there and so I think those like fears everything else starts like raining down on them and so then we're like having these conversations where we're pulling these apart but they're kind of conversations we've had a lot and then it's nine times out of ten gets to a place of okay we are connected again

but we always end that being like why did we have to spend two hours going through that again

“yep that's a good summary and I think a lot of what I see as your fear is getting it wrong”

and I've become so upset all the time that you are like very very worried that you're getting it wrong and then your touch becomes hesitant and then I'm picking up on that and getting all wound up about that which makes you more nervous and not feeling super connected to what you want which is hard for you in the first place okay but you had a version of that a few years before you got pregnant and you went and sold help and somebody said if you keep it light you bring your playfulness into it

it actually will keep you in the experience and you were able to do it which is really important there's a part of you that feels like there's a timeliness to it now you feel like I've got a few more months of woman before mother and then God knows what's going to happen to me well it's definitely feeling like pressure it feels like we're running out of time we wasted all this time not connecting yeah tell me a little bit about becoming pregnant

how was that and how much has that had an effect yeah that was part of the hardness of the last two years okay it just took a while we had to immediately go to the doctor to do it

and you know it was a lot of hormones that made me crazy well that IUI hormones that were

terrible your whole life becomes revolving around this cycle and you can't plan anything you can travel on you can yeah so it sucked I think we were both feeling really alone in different ways during a lot of it and had a really hard time try to best empathize with each other but it was really hard to like fully see each other because I think we were going through such different things

but can you have experiences where you feel more differentiated without that instantly meaning

“that you have to feel more lonely or alone well I'm not sure if this dresses what you're saying”

but we were being so careful with each other I am so empathic towards you I know you're trying so hard like you'd be like out of your mind doing chores working so hard making sure that everything was operating well and I'd be trying so hard to like regulate my emotions so I wasn't taking things out on you and we were just being like extremely polite to each other we weren't connected and it was kind of like roommates almost like in a kind way but very separate well come to marital formality

“marital formality that's how I'm visualizing it as you describe it but you experience it”

because you were going through something different I ear pregnant I'm not you're doing the

shots I'm not and this is like our first exercise where it's challenging for us to actually

that's why I mean my differentiated recognized these difference without it becoming distant and formal yeah and isolating so the question is how do you both have things that you know the other person may not fully see without having this have bad consequences because what you describe sexually is kind of similar I began to not know exactly what you want and so I started to become so cautious I don't want to do it wrong whatever that means and the effect I become more disconnected

from my own pleasure because I'm busy making sure you're okay and it starts to become more caretaking than love making and when that caretaking takes place we become emotionally entangled with each other but we're not having fun it kind of curtailed the pleasure we can be caring we can be loving but we're not able to actually let go which is the foundation for being able to enjoy it yeah I think that sounds right I feel like we've before realized like the fun having fun together

what you call light I call fun yeah I'm not it's not just like fluffy fun yeah because you've kind of highlighted the importance of the light the lightness right this is the opposite of any conversation psychological digging plumbing probing responsible loving caring but not able to you can't do the two at the same time when you bring to your sexuality at level of emotional response disability and caretaking you will block the erotic energy that is the playfulness that then

becomes translated into sex that means no talking anymore of that sort after before unrelated but

“not in that moment even if you have to stop stop put some music stop to some reading stop”

to gentle touch don't start telling what's happening in your heads because you will go there

until you've taken care of the basinet I want to clarify this a little bit because of course

“there is responsibility and worry and care in love it's when the burden of responsibility”

becomes excessive or overwhelming to the person is when the caretaking takes over that I begin to sense that the very ingredients that nurture love are sometimes the same ones that stifle desire because if you feel intensely responsible for the other person you cannot let go

letting go surrender is an experience of freedom and unself consciousness if you're busy

making sure the other person is okay you cannot actually enter inside yourself to surrender that doesn't mean that one has to become careless it's a real gradation and some people understand that there is a way in which they love that makes it hard

“for them to make love to the person they love and this is what I think about when I listen to them it's”

like the kind of connection that they are cultivating brings the emotional security that they need but sometimes what makes us feel emotionally secure is not the same as what makes us feel sexually excited and that's when they say the lightness is so important to them because the lightness means that we are being playful, mischievous, curious and that lightness creates a certain differentiation a certain space between them that then allows them to come close it's difficult to go inside

“another I'm not talking about orifice I'm talking about the universe of another when you are already”

inside we are in the midst of our session and there is still so much to talk about we need to take a brief break so stay with us but now it seems like sometimes I have such a bad feeling I'm so overwhelmed if you took her hand now when you feel that over where would you put her hands because you were having a moment of it right now too right she's giving me something to do it's more than I need to do I don't know how to get to it I can't even consider the thought of it

because I'm instantly overwhelmed by the idea that I can't do it so and where do you put her and when you're overwhelmed okay and then you want to lean you head in it all right let it go let you head lean in her hand and then stop checking to see how she's doing

don't check a showcase is it okay my asking too much am I too much stop thinking about her for a second

you can now you're just going back to check on her stop checking on her and what I just said you can tell her too are you okay are you worried about your sense no alright let her know that you don't need that kind of care taking in the moments okay I don't have to worry about me right now why did you take the hand off I'm going to have a little box for coins you go to check on her you're going to put coins in the

box over and be very tired I love her retirement yeah I don't know it's like I feel like I already take up so much of the space being taken care of could it be possible that when you actually stop you take more space if you take the hand do it again so you put your hand you put it on

that way it may help you a little bit more to not be so focused on her and then you realize

imagine that and I'm just going to stay with the sensation I just need to bring me back in my body so I'm going to breathe I'm going to use the hand because I'm resting on it and it just feels solid and I can lift the weight of my head lean on her and that leaning brings a lot of trust and safety because I'm not all alone I'm just enjoying the feel of this and in my the way you can

move the hand because the whole effort for you is to not begin to try to think about any of this

just it's okay we get taken out of our body and we go back in and we go back in through touch through breath through movement and that is how you keep this contained how much of this

“have you been able to hear now I think a lot tell me what you hear well that it really needs to be”

protected from the emotional digging that that's very threatening to the space that it needs to be

I think thought feels really helpful when you're having a big emotional reaction my instinct is

to like guard myself and that makes you want to check on me more which means my guard like I get overwhelmed when you're mad when you're mad sometimes I get overwhelmed when you're so upset because you're so sad it just like feels so bad to watch that that I feel helpless and that I'm responsible and that I've caused this pain for you and don't want to sit in that bad feeling and this credit that you're giving yourself is true or manufactured by your

“very creative minds I think a lot of both give it to me he said it was 95% your fault the other day”

I did say it was 95% great accuracy you are visually degraded okay well he's asked so few as for the present I think some of it is like if I know I'm causing pain or like doing something you don't want all I can do is try to fix these problems that I've caused yeah that it's like have you caused together you're starting to connect with each other you're playing a run it's supposed to feel good what's happens when she gets angry yeah like where were said what

said in the angle and that you caused on top of it it's because like I touch her too lightly or in a way that she's picking up an energy that I am too nervous or don't want to be there

“or it's like this vibe shift that she picks up on that I am not always aware of and so I think it”

takes me off guard where she's like what's wrong and then I touch what that's the way you start communicating what's wrong well previously you're useful well I am better yeah I have expressed that's not a good way but I think in this point yeah it depends on the situation sometimes you're able to ask in a way that feels a lot better but I think you usually are saying like something feels off and I think I try to respond like I'm here with you I'm trying

oh and it's right oh the trying is also off yeah we got to make a list of it the words that yeah not the helpful it's good recession and then if I try something else and it still doesn't feel right then I think you get really upset it escalates and if you were to ask her in that moment for something do you say pinch me do you say squeeze do you say harder do you ask for something

when that doesn't feel good do whom me I get really upset it's like describing what I want does not work to get what I want and part of what seems like is missing is being with somebody who also wants that thing I'm getting like somebody following instructions and it's not fun or pleasurable

for both of us so then what's the point and do you have a kind of an instant despair I'm never

“going to be met I think that does happen a lot yeah especially after like not being able to”

communicate what I want for so long at this point yeah there's a lot that's being said here but one thought is sexual frustration it has a meanness to it it has an edge a person I want's worked with described that when they have that kind of sexual frustration it's like the baby that can't find a nipple either they instantly get it or they get a little frustrated just trying

to gauge and find that nipple but if they can't find it and if they can't latch on to it and if they

can't instantly feel good they're thrown off into a total state of despair and cry it's not just the actual hunger it's also the emotional being met and she says it she says it in an adult language but she points at something that is very young and very primary it's all me and my desires that's driving everything and then I have made it almost impossible for you to share and be connected to your desires but now there's no fun so there's none of your desires there

“so if you want to say something you cannot wait till she's done”

this is true in words this is true in sex yeah I think I give you a lot of space to be mad at me

or tell like yeah express everything I think especially if like you've been saying that you're trying to communicate something and I'm not understanding it it feels like okay well I got to give her like a lot of space to try to explain herself and feel understood and then feel that I'm getting it okay and that hasn't worked to great yeah okay no more talking so I watched this so I'm saying she continues and the more you try to make yourself available and good listener

at the end you'll disconnect from yourself so the very thing that she's hoping won't happen is what she's colluding with you to create unfortunately you have got to stop her sooner nicely kindly the bigger you become the better it will be right nightmare I thought I'm offering you an offer you can't refuse you think it's a nightmare sometimes people mean to do something really well kind I'm going to give you the space

to explain yourself to me but in the process I'm going to be so focused on you that I'm going to end up losing me and by losing me you actually are not going to appreciate how much focus I put on you you're going to be angry that I come to you and that I have lost my own identity my own sovereignty my own autonomy my own desire my own needs because I'm all totally focused on you all of that in the name of love we have to take a brief break stay with us

“this is probably true in many aspects of your relationships you have to grow you have to take”

more space in the good sense of the word you met someone who is the best teacher you can get in that department because she can take she expands the more room you give her the more she will fill it

where she will learn from you that you don't have to say it six times or that if you ask for a certain touch and you don't get it immediately that doesn't mean that you

are forever condemned in the kingdom of never being met that you will forever you know be too much

but never be met so this is a kind of a misses too much and misses too little what would you want in those moments if you could rewrite that script like what I wish would happen

“or what you're going to make happen I think stopping you from going down that path how are you”

going to do it is just saying you don't have to go down that road right now like stay here you say this

with a little bit more conviction um this but it's hard you don't have to go down that road

right now stop out of you don't indicate okay okay do it until you feel I got it I got it it's not so much in the words as it will be in the power of your voice in the conviction and in the I know that I'm doing something good for us even if she's not there yet yeah you have something available at that moment that she doesn't have I don't know it's almost like counter-intuitive to like tell you to stop to not give you this space to go down a dark hole

that that's actually what you need yeah a container not space I'll only grow indefinitely

“you have to be the genie living in a bottle if you do this with her you will have to change”

something fundamental about your childhood too probably gotta do that don't you understand your cities yeah you had these chaotic people they expanded they took up all the space you shrunk you went downstairs the idea was my role is to make sure that I think about everybody else and I let them expand and take the least amount of space possible and that was very self-protective

and very useful but when you do that with her the reality is different and she is very clearly telling

you I need in this case the more you rise the more balanced the relationship will become the more balanced the relationship will become the more you can connect to your own designs the more you connect your own desires the more she will have someone that she can bounce against because you can't let go in front of someone who collapses you can only let go in this person has confidence if you're too scared or too fragile then the other person holds back the whole time too

“and that is exactly what happened sexually too I believe it that makes sense”

yeah it does how does it happen not she just want to try something with you come which one wants to start me okay take your hand just start walking that's right and this walking you can call it like collaborate so you know you collaborate and you're working you're collaborating and now I'm going to say I'm going to say resist resist you're going to have to pull a little more yes and passive totally passive

and resist you know fair you're using two hands and passive

power positions one person is leading the other person is following the hold hands and one

“person walks across the room this was in our offices here in the studios and in the first”

iteration I guide you and you are collaborating collaborate so it's a fairly equal position we both

have decision making we share the direction so to speak in the second one you resist resist

and instantly you hear the intensity shift there is an energy in the body there is a playfulness that sits in because resistance in playful mode is intensely fun if I pull you hand and you keep pulling me and we pull in opposite direction we have this tension we have this force that is created but you can only resist something that is trying to pull you with equal or stronger power that is exactly what we are describing and exploring sexually speaking as well

the third stance is the passivity and the passivity you know for some people it's a treat to have somebody who just follows them around a passive sweet puppy with no intentionality of their own and for other people it's really a terrible experience to pull that meat so the exploration of distances sets a lot of light under dynamics between people in relationships so what was it like to lead and to be led my favorite one was leading when the other person has no fair

very fun it felt more fun to drag you around resisting because because we were playing and you had a lot of intention like we were playing a game passive was the worst the collaboration was just like this is nice to hold my wife's hand and walk around passive was boring and resisting was fun

yes here's what I saw I saw you bend and get close to the ground to master your strength

and then to see what you got so you probably felt that you had to build her strength

“yeah that's probably right I think sometimes it feels like I am responsible for both of us”

for drawing her out yeah and for explaining to her what she needs to do for me and so I feel she's not rising to the occasion because I still have to explain it like I'm not being that firm yeah or it's like if I still have to generate it I'm like be strong for me like I can't ask that it takes away what it means for you to be strong so then it doesn't count to you or just still lies in my responsibility

you can't let go then right or you that's the piece of control in sexuality that involves letting go you cannot fully let go if you don't experience the sturdiness of the other person

“so we both have to be sturdy and also let go I think it's hard for me to believe that when I'm”

leaning fully on you that you're enjoying what I ask if you're enjoying you say yes I don't believe you

I mean it feels painful to hear it you say that I think I don't always know how to respond

because if you're like if you already don't believe me how else can I explain it to make you believe me you take it upon you if she doesn't believe you it's your problem that's not necessarily the case if she doesn't believe you that may be her challenge that says more about how she thinks about herself or feels about herself maybe than even how she

that is enough for you to feel like you're enjoying for her enjoying is claiming

and that is going to be the opportunity that this relationship offers you to learn how to do that and to value it to appreciate it not just to learn but to have

“it be something that enlightens and and life is the relationship yeah I think it's like group”

both or sometimes trying to take care of the other two intensely and then have a hard time connecting in that and it's like something so simple is going back to like touching each other with the trust that like we know we're trying to care for each other

that exists but like fully letting go into that it seems simple but we don't do it

this is taking and receiving you have primary verbs there's seven verbs around sex but in relationships to asking can you ask do you ask each other do you ask what you like do you know how to ask do you know what to ask for

“do you feel comfortable asking giving you like to give do you give and try to do it right”

do you give with ease do you give because you love to be generous and you love to know that is you're the one who can give this do you give because you're afraid that you owe and that you're trying to acquit from your debt I mean lots of positive and more challenging things around giving same with receiving for many people receiving is the hardest sexually speaking for sure and if you have negative self-talk around your body it will be harder it's not

harder to receive when she does it right but when she doesn't do it right you will instantly personalize it so you each have your ways of personalizing so you have asking giving receiving taking then you have sharing and then you have playing or imagining and then you have refusing and you can ask yourself which is the verb that I need to practice more which is the one that comes easy for me which we'd like to bolster a little bit

and they are all translated somatically in the body

“one of the most important balances a equilibrium in a relationship is how do I stay connected with you”

without disconnecting from me how do I stay connected with myself without disconnecting from you and I am looking at the relational patterns that are down here one woman who is unbounded and one woman is slightly old of one who takes up a lot of space and one who constantly faces herself and this very dynamic of I make sure to tell people what I need so they will know how to behave towards me what she doesn't say in the beginning of the session is that when

she does that over time she also doesn't believe that when they do it they actually mean it

and the wife basically tries so hard to respond to the needs of her partner that in effect

she has no idea what she wants and she's back at the stage that she was when they first met I was someone who had been so overwhelmed in this chaotic household and I learned to not have much needs of anything and here I find myself meeting someone who is an excellent teacher for expressing one's needs so does it all the time but in effect we have now recreated the very dynamic that we were both trying to get out of and it's playing itself out in all aspects of our relationships

especially sexually where should we begin with ester perel is produced by magnificent noise we're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with New York Magazine and the cut our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destry Sibley, Sabrina Farhy, Kristen Muller and Julianna, original music and additional production by Paul Schneider and the executive producers of where should we begin

our ester perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller