https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=0cSJXkIqIt4
I’ll tell you a story about that’s a personal story and Tammy’s told it before so I know I can tell it when both of us were very ill over the last three or four years and my wife almost died and so did I and All that unfolded over a period that lasted a few years and we were apart for a lot of that And when we came back together we were quite distant from one another partly because well I was still quite ill and Tammy was still recovering and well, many things had happened in the interim to say the least and It wasn’t a straightforward thing for us to Put ourselves back together as a couple We the will was there We had Had a practice of consciously dating for decades So when we first had little kids and this happens to people who have little kids we found that we were separating intimately And that’s because when you’re at that stage of your life and you’re developing your career and you have little kids. It’s like Sex is priority number 11 on a priority list of 10 and you only ever get to priority 5 So it’s not that it’s unimportant. It’s that it it becomes displaced and That’s understandable, but it’s not a good medium to long-term solution. It has to be moved back up the priority list to some minimally acceptable degree and the question is That you have to negotiate as a couple is what is that minimally acceptable degree and people hate having that conversation because people will act out Sexual acts say that they’ll never talk about which is a strange reality When I was working as a clinician I used to have these conversations with my clients especially now and then I would have both my client and their husband or wife in the office with me to talk over issues like This and one of the things I would ask them which they absolutely hated was well, how often should you have sex and They would come up with all sorts of reasons to not give an answer to that question like well We don’t want to make it so formal and we don’t really want to We don’t want to take the spontaneity out of it. And it’s like really you’re having a lot of spontaneous sex Are you really that’s actually you’re being married 10 years 15 years There’s so much spontaneous sex that you just don’t want to mess with that. It’s like why are you in my office? so so that’s just Delusional and so but it was still very difficult to pin either of them down and I suppose that’s because you know, maybe the husband says well 15 times a week and the wife says once every two years and that’s And neither of them want to admit that that’s what they want or need and so they won’t talk about it and so you have to corner people if you’re a Treacherous therapist and the way you do that is by starting with something absurd it’s like well How about once every two years and both of them pretty much agree almost instantly? That that’s probably a little on the scarce side and then you might say well Why how about four times a day and virtually without exception? Although not always both parties agree that that’s probably Aiming for the stars, let’s say But then now you’ve got people nicely trapped because you know, it’s somewhere between four times a day and once every two years and then you can pull in the walls It’s like well, how about six times a week or how about once every three months? And you know, that’s a lot closer, right? It’s still not that close, but it’s a lot closer Generally my experience was that people who have Relatively productive and engaged and multi-dimensional lives settle on something varying between once to three times a week and that’s a close approximation and I’ve also noticed that couples who aren’t intimate physically about once a week at minimum things tend to deteriorate across time and The relationship tends not to hold and I’ve also noticed that unless you spend about 90 minutes a week listening to and talking to your partner about Practical matters of the domestic economy and your shared life. You also build up a huge backlog of undisclosed communication and 10 years from now that will fall on you in the form of a Divorce case and you’ll spend all the time you could have been talking at home talking in court Which I wouldn’t recommend and so and I also think it’s very difficult to get that 90 minutes or 120 minutes or whatever it happens to be a week of intimate time together Unless you first sort out the 90 minutes or 120 minutes of necessary communication The 90 minutes or 120 minutes of necessary communication but It’s worth the discussion It’s like you could ask yourself first. All right Hypothetically, you could have what you wanted But first you have to admit what it is and that’s a hard thing to think through right because you really got to face yourself when you When you ask that question because you have to ask yourself Well, what’s the minimum sexual commitment I seem to require so that I wouldn’t be tempted say to stray And you might say to yourself. Well, i’d never be tempted to stray. It’s like never’s really not the right answer in that situation Right because it sort of means in some sense that you’re already three quarters dead So I don’t think it’s actually a moral virtue to assume that no matter what you wouldn’t be tempted to stray And i’m certainly not saying that the temptation is a good thing or that the straying is either but the proclivity To want to if you’re completely deprived might be The vestiges of a virtue it means you’re you still got a spark inside you and so you might say to yourself well I believe it would be this This is what I seem to need and want and then maybe your partner could Ask herself or himself the same question And then maybe you could have a discussion about now. That’s an awkward discussion But and there’s some rules for that too. It’s like Be willing to talk about it 20 times and do it really badly Because you’re not going to do it very well to begin with And 20 times isn’t that many if you’re going to make love to your partner Let’s say three times a week for the next 30 years. That’s 30,000 times a dreadful proposition that is but Talking about that 20 times is probably not that much of an investment given that degree of return So and it is useful to allow yourself and your partner to Understand that that’s going to not be an easy conversation that you’re going to do it stupidly and badly And one of the things I used to tell my clients Encourage my clients to do that’s not tell them encourage them to do Was to schedule dates if they were married and their objection was always the same. It’s like Well, we did that before we got married. I got married so I didn’t have to do that anymore It’s like really that’s why you got married Did you tell your wife that before he got married that I’m going to get I’m going to marry you so that I never have to spend a single moment for the rest of my life ever thinking about how to be romantically interesting to you What do you think shall we get married? It’s like That’s generally not the offer that’s on the table. And if you think that all of that romance is going to manifest itself Spontaneously, it’s like well, what what what do you think you’re in some sort of delusional Hollywood fairy tale? It’s like that’s not going to happen. It didn’t happen when you were single Or if it did it rarely happened It’s certainly not going to happen when you’re married you have to put some You have to put some time and attention To it and then you might think well How could we make it go so that if we put time and intention to it? It would be so clearly worthwhile that we’d never have a second’s doubt about whether or not it was a good idea And that’s a good thing to aim at and after Tammy and I were so ill and separated We had spent a lot of time Practicing dating and we had got good at it and that’s what we had when we were Recovering from death and Coming back together and That was great. That was a great thing and you know, they say practice makes perfect and so If you really want something Like you really want something why not aim at it? And if you really want something and you’re aiming at it, why not communicate about it and dream? You know you can dream together. You can think well if we had the romantic life we wanted What would you want That’s something to ask your partner What would you want something to ask yourself if I could have what I wanted that’s to knock and ask right and to seek If I could have what I wanted, what would it look like? you know and And then you can stumble forward stupidly and approximate getting it and with some practice Maybe you’ll get it and what a good deal that is and then you know, maybe you won’t be completely old and worn out by the time you’re 40 and completely devoid of any interest in your partner and cynical and bitter and searching around for an alternative and carping about how appalling your wife is to your friends and That’s a pretty damn dismal alternative to a bit of dreaming and some communication And so and I think you I think not only can you do that within an ethical framework? I think that if you don’t do it, you’re not operating within an ethical framework So it’s perfectly reasonable to pull up the sexual impulse, let’s say and elevate it to the status of the highest ethical endeavor a strange way of thinking about it, but The alternative is just not what anyone wants