He Wants it Everyday, She Wants it Never
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None of the voices in this series are ongoing patients of Esther Perel. 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. Vitamin Water is from New York. We needed a drink that can keep up with the music scene in the city. We got to see our favorite DJ perform in Brooklyn. At 3 a.m.,

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Mismatched sexual desire or desire discrepancy is one of the most common problems that couples bring to sex therapy.

Ideally, I would say almost every day.

At the extremes, it's one person saying, "If I never had sex again, I would notice it and I would miss it for a moment." And the other person saying, "If I had it my way, I would want to have sex almost every day, if not every day." One person never interested, one person always interested. That kind of real pulls to the corners. And this is what happens in this couple.

The problem really came when we were done with Davies because that's when he assumed that our sex life would start up again like normal. And I think he never realized that those years I was kind of just going along to go along.

Recently, because we've been trying to have more, we're probably, I mean, not every day, but it's pretty close, like 20 times a month. So, I mean, the frequency at this point is not an issue. It's just, best case scenario, it's not uncomfortable for her. They have tried quite a few things lately. Read books, consulted people, watched videos, educated themselves, and they have begun to understand that

While it looks like it's about a mismatched desire, there is way more that is occurring at the heart of their erotic stalemate. We've been married now for 17 years and we have four children. We somehow missed this part about each other somehow, even though we knew everything else.

Welcome. Thank you. It's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. And tell me what has helped, what has made a difference? I don't even know yet on what, but. I think for me, just knowing that like, you know, sex is, is a kind of an expression of love for me. And it's like how I feel like a really deep connection with her.

And, you know, I think there's just... I had this stereotype. I was just, you know, guys want to have sex, they want to have sex. And I think that reading about, like, that as being kind of, you know, connected to our relationship and being an important part of our relationship kind of helped, like, both of us kind of view it differently. To both of you? Did it change anything for you? I mean, yeah. I don't think we ever talked about, like, what sex was for our relationship before. And...

I don't know. Like, so I feel like just through, I guess, individual counseling and marriage counseling, like we've learned to communicate better and express that. So like, I don't think I ever really realized why it was important before. So when you understood that sex for him is not just about getting off, but getting close, how did that land on you?

It's hard because I understand that's what he, like, how he feels connected, but it's not something I, sex is like, I don't know, it's a very rarely pleasurable experience. It's not really something I'm particularly interested in and I could very well do without it for most of the time and everything. Can I ask you something? Because I understand that sex is an issue.

And we came to talk about sex. What is the issue? Or how do you define the issue? I guess, like, in the last year, we've definitely started having sex more regularly, I guess, because we've known it's important. But I really like to make it pleasurable for my partner. And that's something that we just can't seem to make happen. I want her to enjoy it like the same way I enjoy it, or at least...

make it not uncomfortable, like, you know, then it kind of leads to other problems because then I start feeling bad that she's uncomfortable and then it kind of goes off the rails. So keep going, take me on the rails. Yeah. Like if, I guess that's been the one negative and kind of talked about it more and like understanding more is like, I got way more aware of when she's just kind of doing it to do it. And that makes me feel bad. And then it kind of

ends things like you know I don't so you stop yeah and and just yeah that that's that's it I mean you roll over you talk about it you weep you get mad um I mean I usually go and finish myself because like I'm that at least kind of helps me sleep and then I don't know I definitely feel bad but I also just I know it's you know it's not her fault like it's not intentional it's not

Yeah, like it's not something that she's doing on purpose to me, but it's also, I guess, because I was looking for that closeness and didn't get it. Like I know that I'm not super cuddly or like really happy when I come to bed. I try to consciously like still like, you know, cuddle her, but it's just not the same, I guess. And for you, the issue is?

I saw the issue as like just how different we view what sex is in our lives and our importance because we used to fight because the frequency was a problem. Like he used to get upset and take it very personally. Like if I didn't want to, as if it was, you know, I found him unattractive or I was unhappy with our marriage, which neither was true. So I

Now, the frequency is probably what you're okay with. The frequency is not my preference, right? And like, sometimes I know going in, it's not going to be great from my end. And I'm just kind of being there because I understand that this is important and that's what he wants and expects. And then sometimes we muddle through it, I find. And then sometimes we don't because especially he gets...

I guess he's more aware, like you said. And how is that different for you? Between him not knowing what your experience is and him checking in with you, noticing you're not into it, and then... I feel bad. I mean, I always feel bad because I understand that this is what he needs. Do you feel differently that he's noticing you? Is that better, that he's more aware of you?

More attuned to you? I don't know, really. I mean, I feel like it ends up more or less with more disappointment. So I don't know if that's like... For him. Yeah. I mean, for me, I don't really feel like it's changed much for me. Okay. So I have 10 questions.

Maybe 15 for that matter. There's a lot of things I want to make sure I understand. And they're not in order of importance, but you're using words and these words represent entire experiences. And I don't know what they represent for you. So first word is sex. What sex are we talking about?

It's normally PIV sex or sometimes oral sex. But I mean, for me, like, it doesn't really matter what we're doing. Like, you know, if I can make her feel good, like, that's like the best for me, which it doesn't, I feel like it's never really happened. But that's almost...

more important than like my own orgasm or my own climax like when you say I've never I don't feel that I've ever given her much pleasure what's that like for you I mean it's disappointing like it's it's frustrating I want her to experience like the way I'm experiencing it

I think recently she's like, "Well, tell me, what does it feel like for you?" And I'm like, "I can't even compare it to anything." Yeah, I can't think of something that is anywhere near the level of an orgasm for me. If she does orgasm, I feel like, I don't know, you've described it as a burp. I want her to have that same elation and just that feeling of bliss and closeness and everything afterwards.

Is it a loss for you? Do you experience it as a loss? I guess a little. She tends to just kind of get in her own way and get in her own head. And literally, if there's anything I could do to help her get past that, I would. I just don't know what to do. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take a pen and paper because I have too many things that are crawling through my head and they're going too fast. Hold on.

Okay, so I'll tell you words that are on my page, right? I'm going to ask you, define sex. Oh, I guess penis in the vagina. And that ends with an orgasm or should end with an orgasm? I guess, yes. Okay. When I ask them to define sex, this is a whole very much performance-driven, outcome-driven model, right?

Another way of thinking about sexuality is that sex is not just something you do, sex is a place you go. With yourself, inside yourself, with a partner or partners, and that it is an experience. And that is where I hope the conversation can go, because it's become so restricted. Penis in a vagina that ends with an orgasm, and so much pressure exists between them about that.

One thing is quickly becoming clear to me is how to invite them to shift from a performance-driven way of thinking about sex to a pleasure focus on sex. What feels good rather than what works? And do you ever have sexual activity that isn't meant to end in an orgasm? I guess not.

you know, we'll cuddle on the couch or hug or kiss are definitely not intended to be sexual. I mean, one thing that we've kind of been working through is she has like a pretty strong bristle reaction to touch in general. So we've been trying to non-sexually touch more, just hugging and kissing throughout the day when we see each other just to kind of

And does that feel different to you or that too could be... I'm fine with that as long as it like... Because like for the longest time, like I would not do much of that because... It came with the demand. That and I felt like...

He would interpret then and then he'd be like, but you did that before, so why aren't you interested now? Or he would accuse me of trying to tease him. And so I kind of just backed off and just wouldn't do anything. I wouldn't do anything that would turn him on because the minute I turn him on, he's going to want more. And if I give him a kiss, it's going to have to go all the way. And so I'd rather not give him a kiss and not have to endure anything.

Yeah, I'd rather not build up the expectation unless I know I can, I'm willing to, like, I have to commit in my mind. And like, so I'm kind of like, I would have to mentally be able to say I can sustain it all the way, all the way till bedtime. But you think if I give him a signal at five, he's going to have an expectation at 10? Yes. And so...

So she just described sex as the problem.

And in this dynamic where one person is the pursuer and one person withholds or is avoidant, you can instantly see this negative cognition, this thought that says: "Stop right in the beginning because if you give him the slightest, he's gonna want the whole thing." This is part of the vigilance.

each constantly tracking and the other vigilantly following every sign in the body, the eyes, the behaviors of the partner. So you have a whole strategy. I tried, but I don't necessarily know how effective it is because we've been fighting about this on and off for a while now. I think that's one thing that I've learned, though, that it's something we need to do during the day and that

That will kind of help like normalize the touch so that at 10 when I go to touch her, like it's not an immediate shudder like bristle, which obviously is no fun to be on the receiving end of that. And obviously it's not fun for her because she's reacting that way. Can I ask you something? Do you ever approach her after you have masturbated so that you don't come with an acute edge? Approach her for sex or just for... Both. Both.

Not usually for sex. But even for sex. Actually, it's more pertinent if it's for sex. Because one of the dynamics is you're pent up. She tracks you being pent up. She decides what strategy to use in relation to your pent upness. Her mindset is primarily about how to avoid it. What's the least I can do? And you is what's the least I can get in quotation marks.

That's the mindset. That's not even the bodies. Yeah. Okay. Have you approached her when you're not in a state where you think I depend on her for relief and for connection? It's both. So that I can be relieved by myself and I can connect with her without this being the central plot. It's just a question. It's not a prescription. But have you had that experience of decoupling?

I think not intentionally, but I do think that does happen. And because of that, whatever reason, I'm not expecting anything. And then sometimes she will initiate, actually. Yeah. That does happen.

When you don't expect that she has freedom. Yeah. She has space. She can want because she's not only responding to your wanting. At this moment, when it's polarized like this, there's your wanting and her not wanting. Yeah, I can see that. If you can approach her not from a place of that kind of wanting. Mm-hmm.

then she can get in touch with what do I want rather than just how do I manage what he wants, which is what she has done how many years together? 20. So she's been doing that for about 20 years. Manage your wanting. Does that resonate? Yeah, it does. Put it in your own words.

For me, sex is kind of a chore. It is something that is expected and it like I have never experienced what he like I sometimes think that he's like exaggerating it just to like make me feel like this is what you're missing out on in some sense because I have like I just have never ever felt the need like I'm kind of like

All right, that was okay, but it definitely wasn't like the way that I feel like it's almost like, yeah. And okay is what? What happens in your body? Tell me the body. I mean, it's like a little rush, but it's also very quick. That's the orgasm. Yeah. But the pleasure. The pleasure is not the orgasm. The whole experience. What's it like? What do you experience afterwards?

A heart rate increase, a sweaty palm, a state of arousal, an experience of desire, a closeness toward him, an openness of your body, a change in your breath. I don't know. I think I get a little flush. Don't look at him. Don't talk about sex and look at him. That's been the problem for me too long. You can look at me or you can look at me.

I don't know how else, like I've told him this before and I think he thinks it's odd as well. But like I can sometimes like orgasm with my mind without doing a single, like I can just be sitting here. It's also not, I've never felt that, I feel like the peaks that like we talk about. But I don't need to do anything. So I can just kind of build up enough in my mind and then it kind of like happens and then I'm like, okay.

But that is actually something very useful for you to know and very powerful. That speaks to the opposite of how you think of yourself. You've decided he's sexual, I'm not. If you can bring yourself to orgasm just with your mind, imagine how sexual you are. There are two simultaneous realities here. One is that

contrary to the way that they have organized themselves. He's sexual, she's not. The fact is that she's orgasmic and she can bring herself to climax just from thoughts. So physically, this is not the issue. But on some level, his needs are too much at the center of her experience. On the other hand, though, even though she physically is very responsive, it's not of interest to her.

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Because as a whole, I find sex very just like, I usually don't like watching it on television. I don't really like being like around it. Like, I kind of just don't want to deal with it. When you watch it, you feel what? Mostly uncomfortable. No, but you see that word uncomfortable, I've written it in big. But the uncomfortable has a thousand facets. What is uncomfortable for you?

It's embarrassing. Like, I shouldn't be here seeing this. Like, this is something that, like, you know, I mean... It's private. Yeah, it's private. Like, I should not be the third party here watching this. So when I watch it, my discomfort is this... It's like, I get very awkward, you know. It's just like this childish, like...

I think that's the best way of putting it. It's very like silly, very, I don't know. I know he doesn't like it, but I also don't know how to stop. Is it gross? Yeah. Like you cringe right now. Yeah. With your face. Is it gross or is it...

Dirty? It is gross. I don't like a lot of, not just for this, like I'm not into any kind of human bodily functions. They're all kind of gross. I've had children. It's kind of a mess. The human body just makes all kinds of mess. I really don't like that. In general, there's a lot of hand, I make him hand wash a lot in between things because I can't deal with the idea of that

touching me. So yes, it is definitely gross. And when you are on the couch? Like, like just like when you're cuddling on the couch? Is that? I don't mind like that, that cuddling and touching. Like I said, as long as it doesn't require a absolute like, this is a firm yes now. I'm okay with it. I'm okay doesn't mean I like it. I enjoy it.

It feels good. You know, there's a lot of other things besides I can tolerate it. It's very narrow. And for being as involved with him, it needs more. Not more frequency, God forbid. More quality, more ease, more enjoyment. Yeah, absolutely. I like to think of myself as a warm person. But I don't think I'm a very touchy, feely person in general.

I definitely am with our children, but I'm not in general a very touchy person and neither were are really my parents were either. If we had another conversation, I would have wanted to explore further her aversive responses to the human body, the fluids, to her description of children. What is the disgust that she feels and what has she noticed about it?

And I also would have wanted to speak further with her and to explore together what she meant when she says, I'm not a touchy-feely person. That is such an expression, but it connotes a whole experience of closeness, connection, boundaries, boundary intrusion. What is her experience of touch or what has been her experience growing up with the absence of touch? Tell me a bit about the background. Okay, we'll be here forever.

I'm an only child. My father passed away a little over, I think it's been 10 years, more than 10. It's like 11 or 12 years now. My mother is still around. She lives very close by. Where are they from? They're from Taiwan.

And you were born? I was born here. They came over for college. My parents did not have a great marriage. I felt like my mother was almost always on the brink of wanting to leave. She did not actually do that until I was like in college. And my parents are just weird. They're weird people, I think. That's another word. These are words that represent worlds. So what is weird for you?

My parents are two people that, well, my mother especially loved work and went, "Oh, I'm turning this age now, and if I don't have a baby, I probably won't have a baby. Probably shouldn't have a baby." Had a baby, and I... Like, the expectation of what a baby was and what a child is was, like, I think completely different from, like, what my mother especially mentally imagined. She is a very critical person. She's never happy.

Like nothing I did was ever right. Like even my own children are not what she thinks children are. Like it's like she spends time with them and then she has nothing but a litany of complaints, which are mostly kids just being children. I see her, talk to her, but I, yeah, I have a thousand strategies and ways to kind of manage and how I want to deal with it. And I mostly just try to limit what I can where both of us are not mad at each other. You know what I was just thinking?

With your mother, you manage her criticisms. With him, you manage his yearning for closeness. But you're always managing. Yeah, I try to balance. I try to balance it so that we're okay. You know what they want and you know to manage them. But there's not enough space for you to ask yourself, and what do I want? I don't know what I want. You don't know partly because there's no...

space to ask, to be curious about the question. And sexual interest or sexual curiosity or sexual desire involves owning the wanting. Desire is wanting. And you straddle him, you straddle her, you straddle four children. But I'm just noticing that you're filled with what these people need, want, feel, think, and have to say. So

My image, as you were talking, is to see this body of yours closing because that's a boundary you can create for all their needs to not penetrate you because they have a lot of them. Criticisms, needs, comments, wishes, frustrations, and you tighten and tighten your body so

And it becomes wound up and everything else that touches it, it bristles because it just says, this is my little world that belongs to me. And everything else stay outside for a minute. No, it's true. Yeah. I'm feeling you as you speak, but I need to know if

Right. Like, I feel like all day I'm just bouncing around, balancing what everyone else's things are. And so, like, I don't really, like, know who I am in some ways. I don't think I ever really did because for so long when I was a kid, I built up whatever my mom wanted, right? Like, what was I supposed to be? And then...

Because I'm an only child, I was very lonely as a kid because it was either study or I was stuck with my parents. I had friends and stuff, but I wanted the family that I have now. I wanted kids, and I didn't want them to feel these things and stuff like that. So I'm very lucky for having a partner that's much better than what I saw as marriage for my parents, for sure. Was you dead?

He's okay. He's definitely more affectionate than my mother, but my father was a compulsive gambler. You know, he'd disappear for days and, you know, come back in the middle of the night. I could hear them fighting or he'd come in my room crying. So it was hard. I mean, I understand on one hand why my mom wanted to get a divorce because it was a lot to deal with like this and, you know, money issues, of course. So I get it to a degree, like,

But it's also hard when you're growing up hearing that all the time, too. Like, my mom always told me, like, that's why I'm an only child. Because she could not have another one because she was afraid that she would have to get divorced. And, like, I was such a hard child to deal with that if she had to have two or three, like, how would she manage? My father's gone now. I mean, we had an odd relationship, I guess. Like, I mean, he was... I mean, I don't know. My parents had...

They were imperfect people and then together they just made kind of an imperfect life, right? They had different things. He was what? He was strange, my father. He would disappear, he would cry. My parents would buy me. My parents always just buy stuff to kind of, you know, if he was gone for a while or if he hit me, then they would buy me a stereo. So it was kind of just this odd life, right?

He also had ADHD. Yeah, I mean, that's probably why he gambled. Yeah. And you think you have it too? Oh, I definitely have ADHD. I'm on medication, but I still don't actually know if it's perfect.

I'm struck by how she talked about so many aspects of her childhood. The loneliness, the absence of her father, and the inconsistencies between harshness and then overindulgent stereo systems, and between the belligerence between the parents and the economic tensions. And I wish I had acknowledged some of that, including...

She does say in the middle of this, but I wanted a different family and I've created that. And I have four children and I have a fantastic partner with whom I created the marriage that is way different from the one that I grew up with. And I miss all of that. There is still so much to talk about. We need to take a brief break. So stay with us.

On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Watch Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app to watch live. Learn more at globalcitizen.org.com.

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the ADHD and the inability to stay in your body when you're being physical? My one therapist mentioned how like that could be like a reason why like I just float out and everything like that, especially because it's not something that I'm particularly like

engaged or interested in wanting to stay in, right? Like in some sense, unfortunately. So that's why I like my mind. Can you take his hand one moment? Sure. And put it somewhere on you where you would like it to be. Don't face each other. You probably haven't. I just want to... Wherever you want it to be. And now put it at the pressure that you would like it to be. If you want, close your eyes and do nothing else but...

See if you can feel that hand on your knee. And then just breathe, like deep breath in, and you can count four, three, two, one, as a breath out. He ain't going to do anything. He's not going to ask for anything. It's entirely yours. You can lift it. You can move it. You can keep it there. This is about, it's exactly yours.

what I want. You see, what makes touch sexual is not where you touch it, nor the involvement of genitals. It's where it connects with sensuality, with pleasure, with control, not as in being in control, but as in surrendering. It's letting go, that concept of control.

And when we talk about initiating, this is initiating. It's not about foreplay, which is five minutes before the real thing, and the real thing is intercourse, and you know that it worked because there's an orgasm. That is a very particular script, but it's also a very narrow script, and it's one that is not doing you good at this moment. How is this? This is fine. Like, I mean...

It's the best you ever described anything in this realm. It's fine. I mean, I don't know. Tell me more about fine. I think I probably would like more touch, but I don't like the expectations that come with it. So it's like, like I said, he's always talked about how that's how he feels close and connected. And that is not what I need to feel close and connected. Look, I know...

That you have, and it doesn't mean that it's not true, but you have over the years, each of you told yourself certain things. And the more you say, I don't need this, I don't need this, what you insist on persists. And you can create a reality with those words. But you also do not want to continue to have sex that you grin and bear. No, that's true.

So I think that what may be more helpful at this moment, instead of saying, I don't, I don't, I don't, is to say, I have not yet. I have not yet experienced an openness around touch because I often experience a demand. And I don't know yet. And I'm a young woman. And who knows where I'm going to go? It's a part of me I have never explored.

I know I'm ADD or I know my mind takes me fast in places, but that doesn't, pieces of information, but it's not pieces of an identity. If you keep saying, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, you don't leave the door open. It's about developing self-awareness. It's not about responding to his pleas. It's about developing a sense of autonomy.

so that you're not just managing other people's needs. It's about discovering things that you like, even if they're small. I mean, small is who decides. They're going to be big for you.

The way you just moved and you moved the mic and you come close to him and you plot yourself against him and you took his hand and you put it exactly around your hip. You knew exactly where you wanted it to be. This, all of that, gesture upon gesture of somebody who knows, who has a sense. The knowing is a sense knowing. It's not an intellectual knowing. And then owned it.

How was that for you? Good. I mean, I definitely enjoy like non-sexual touch. I think that's something that in the last year we've gotten better at. I guess she's never told me how she wants to be touched. Like we've tried. She just did. Right. That's one little example. I've suggested. I've tried. I believe you. I believe you. Like we've, I know like...

She likes more pressure. We've tried massages beforehand, which I think helped. I mean, it's hard to, you know, we've tried so much and it depends on your mood and sometimes something works and sometimes it doesn't. But I feel like that has helped. Works means what? Works means like gets her into a headspace to want to have sex.

He begins to talk about how much they have explored non-sexual touch, but it lasts one sentence. It instantly becomes non-sexual touch meant to make her want to be more sexual with me. So there is no non-sexual touch. She may be more single-minded in how she views herself as non-sexual, but so does he.

That's why I stopped him to ask, what do you mean by it works? Because I had a sense that it meant it's just a lead on for the other thing. That thing in and of itself does not really do it for me. What are other ways you can experience closeness? Because there is experiencing closeness and then there is alleviating or relieving yourself. And the fact that

It seems that it helps you go to sleep. It chills you. It relaxes you. And you have it in your mind that it has to be with her. It doesn't have to be with her, but it just, I mean, ideally it would be with her. Yes, but ideally it will be with her, but probably not nearly. Here's your question. You can have frequency or you can have quality at this moment.

Right. If you want quality and you want her to be engaged and you want a partner who is enjoying it and says, I want this too, then you have to step back. We've kind of tried both and neither has worked. So that's why we're here. But this was quality. Yes. Okay. Yes. And this was a very simple, what do you like, without saying what do you like. It says, take my hand and take it wherever you want it to be.

We can do that at home. Yeah. We could do that on the couch, and if it doesn't lead anywhere else, it doesn't have to lead anywhere else. Then you go, you take care of yourself, but you won't feel taking care of yourself rejected. Yeah, I think that's definitely a part of it that I'm trying to deal with is that it does feel like rejection, and I guess part of the frustration is the best-case scenario is fine, and, you know, it's...

I think yes, if we had more quality satisfying for her interactions, it would make the times that we didn't easier. But that's something we haven't figured out. I would prefer the quality. That's where we were having the problems because

For me, the ideal would be, obviously, we both want to, like, when it's good, it's good, right? But as a whole, I don't know. Like, I just, it does not come up in my mind. It is not something that, like, naturally I'd be like, oh, this is what I would like to be doing right now either. No, but you don't have spontaneous arousal. No. That's okay. Okay.

And loads of people, particularly loads of women, have responsive desire. We're definitely opposite. So Emily Nagoski, in her book, Come As You Are, describes it very beautifully. You are responsive, but you're not going to be responsive if you experience demand. You're going to be responsive if there is invitation. And even more so, you're going to be responsive when the invitation comes from you.

not from him, because it's so hard for you to experience as an invitation rather than as a demand, as a need. When he needs you and he comes with you with that need, that emotional need, not just a sexual need, it's an emotional need in the language of sex, then you can be nice and you can be kind and you can do it because you're taking care of him, but you experience nothing

pleasurable for yourself, except the fact that you feel good about having been nice to him. And on occasion, you start to resent it too. Very true. Okay. So that script is what is standing in your way at this point. Sometimes we engage in sex because we are aroused. Sometimes we engage in sex because we have desire.

but we don't experience the physiological arousal yet. Just the thought of it is nice. I know I feel good, but physically in my body, I feel nothing yet. So I do things with myself and with my partner, and I start to experience arousal. That comes next. And sometimes I start because I have willingness.

If you stayed like that for a chunk of the evening and it was completely, completely on your term, there's a good chance that you would say, this would be a nice thing to do with him, for him and with him. And it would be willingness. No, you would still not have any arousal. You just would just have a thought in your head, but it would be yours. And that is what would give it the flavor of desire because it would be self-generated. He says...

Nothing turns me on more than to see you turn down. That's all I would want is to please you. There are very few straight women who say that. What changes her is what happens to her, is how she awakens herself, how she ignites herself, not what happens to him. And that means that she needs to be able to enter into her body, into your body, and to experience it pleasurable, relaxing, inviting.

No responsibility. Responsibility for you will be the killer of sex. I have to. No, that's true. And I have to because otherwise he's upset. And if he's upset, then tomorrow we're going to argue. And if we argue, then we're not going to be a good family. And then our kids are going to see everything that I always promised I would never do in front of my kids. Yeah, that's pretty much how our arguments went.

Yeah? Yeah. Give me the sequence. Yeah, I mean, it would be a failed, frustrated encounter. We would yell, we would fight, sometimes he would storm off. You know, he...

I mean, we're both cold to each other, to be fair. Like, we both get cold. But it's a noticeable difference for him, I guess, in the degrees of, like, the difference when he's happy and when he's not. And especially with the frequency thing, it's like, okay, one day, okay. Two days, it's good. Like, three is, like, when, like, that's about when, like, I feel like, yeah, like, his...

limit of being able to and then it's like then it almost becomes like a forced encounter like because we have to now because we've because what? because we've let it kind of slide for like and what happens to you? I mean what is so dangerous to you? it's something that like I'm trying to avoid and and maybe doing other things like being closer in other ways would help that but yeah I just I feel like that lack of of closeness and that

Like that lack of connection. But you're monolingual. You feel very close here. I watched you. Right. No, and I think that part of it is we've only had that one way to feel that. That's what I mean. You're monolingual. Okay. Sorry. You rely on sex as the only way. Yeah. I'm not saying that you're not going to wish you had more sex and more frequently than you will. But...

The way that it pens up inside of you energetically and how you experience it as a complete severing of the tie from her is acute. You need to learn other means to self-soothe and to regulate so that you're not at a mercy. What she experiences is the pressure and the urgency. How do I calm myself down?

How do I help myself go to sleep? How do I not have anxiety? Because when you can't sleep, you get anxious. And then you rely on sex for your anxiety. That has not much to do with sex anymore for connection either. Mm-hmm.

So do you feel that you can leave with a few things with you? Yeah. Yeah, I definitely feel like, yes, we need to find a way to kind of dissociate that. And I would like to feel that closest. I mean, that's what I want from our relationship too, but I don't know how. No buts, no buts. Punctuate. Yeah. Yeah.

See, you're so in your positions that you want to constantly reiterate, reiterate. You know your positions by heart. Don't bother. You can switch roles and you know exactly what the other one's going to say. So it's nice for him to hear, I want that. And not just because you want that, but I want that. That's a clear I want statement. Own it. It's beautiful. Receive it. Want to try it again?

Without the butt. Yeah. Yeah. I want the closeness. I want us to find a way to have that non-sexual thing. No, I appreciate that. And by the way, the way he strokes your hip in the last hour is not just affectionate. It goes in and out. It's affectionate. It's sensual. It's sexual. It's beautiful. It's pleasurable. And you notice it sometimes. You don't notice it at other times.

It's in the body and outside the body, inside myself, outside myself. And that melody is a very, it's one of the many sexual melodies, but it is a sexual melody. Yes. And I think I would be more comfortable with it on a regular basis if it didn't always carry stuff with it. Like it's because, yeah. Here's another way of saying that. I love it when I can sink into it because that that's the thing it is.

That's true, yes. I like, I really do enjoy it for what it is. Like, when it stays what it is. And that will at times become an invitation. Where Should We Begin with Esther 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, Eva Walchover, Destry Sibley, Huwete Katana, Sabrina Farhi, Eleanor Kagan, Kristen Muller, and Julianette. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, Jen Marler, and Jack Saul.