In today’s episode, we are discussing the curious case of couples that are in love but don’t feel sexually connected. What happens when couples are in the middle road, doing everyday life together and feel secure but can’t tap into their sexual source.

Join George and Laurie today as they explore this topic and why some couples are stuck in this rut. Is it avoidance, a form of protection or straight exhaustion that stops the flame from burning? If you find it hard to engage in the chase or maybe avoid sexual connection in your marriage, make sure to listen to this show to uncover some of the deeper themes of protection and avoidance you may be experiencing. Our hosts guide listeners in a conversation on how to address this and strategies to renew the spark in everyday life!

Check out this episode’s sponsor (and help the pod!):

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Transcript

Laurie Watson, PhD (00:02.328)
So George, I want to talk about this phenomena of when some people can’t feel sexual about their partner, they love them, they respect them, they admire them, but somehow or another they can’t feel sexual anymore once they’re connected. Whereas, you know, they can feel sexual about people that they’re not connected to.

but with their very partner, they can’t. And that kind of split, of course, is pretty damaging to a relationship. But I want to talk about why it happens and see if we can think about it together.

George (00:41.752)
Bring it on, Laurie, let’s do it.

George (01:29.57)
so that we wind up just rescheduling their best sex in September.

Laurie Watson, PhD (01:58.072)
You know, we just love to ask again for patrons to support us, help us keep these mics hot. And the conversation’s real by supporting our show. We thank you so much. And when we do have advertising, if you definitely use the code to help us, that’d be another way to keep us going. So, George, the mic’s hot.

George (02:19.948)
The mic’s hot, I like that, Laurie.

Laurie Watson, PhD (02:25.646)
George, this idea of, you know how people split that up. I have tons of patients who do this. And do you come across this too where somebody, I don’t think it’s only men, I think it’s women too.

who suddenly like, you know, they’re living life, they’re living in the middle road like you talk about, paying bills, raising kids, going to work. And they just see their partner kind of as a work partner, you know, somebody to get life done with, but they don’t seem to be able to.

eroticize them, to keep them sexy in their mind. It has nothing to do with attraction, has nothing to do with, even if their partner, maybe it is, has to do with them showing up in sweats and dirty hair, I don’t know. But they don’t seem to keep it all in one place, where they have sex in the same person as they have security.

George (03:31.928)
Yeah, it’s way too common. isn’t that some of what’s behind some affairs too? It’s like, you know, I have this safe place and I go somewhere else and so many people working with, you know, going to a massage parlor or doing something because they do split, their sexuality and their emotional intimacy seem to be pretty disconnected.

Laurie Watson, PhD (03:52.916)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I know Freud talked about this, the Madonna whore complex, you know, just that somehow or another, you know, men in his era, it was dominantly men that he at least talked to, how they would have mistresses on the side that they would be able to feel sexual about, but they didn’t love them.

And then the women that they love, their wives and the mother of their children, they love them, but they couldn’t feel sexual about them. And that’s kind of something that has been observed basically throughout time. And I think, you know, as women have had more freedom, certainly we see that in women as well.

George (04:38.535)
We need a female version of the Madonna whore. Because you’re right. Right? Attracted to the bad boy, but actually, you know, can’t… You love your partner who’s such a nice guy, but the nice guy finishes last.

Laurie Watson, PhD (04:53.14)
Exactly. Exactly. I like that. The nice guy finishes last. That’s the gender reverse on the hormadonna syndrome. they exactly. I mean, I hear this all the time. It’s like, my husband’s the nicest guy in the world, but I just don’t feel anything for him. You know, I think it’s something about I really think this is something about defensiveness that

You know, it’s an unconscious defense. We’re not doing it on purpose, probably. But we somehow or another separate out our feelings of tenderness from our feelings of eroticism. You know, we can’t, we can’t feel them both about the same person. And I think it’s, I think that maybe if we regulate desire,

It keeps enough space. know, like I don’t have all my eggs in one basket. I can’t maybe be as hurt. I think there’s something protective about this.

George (06:06.068)
Yeah, mean, there’s also could be something that’s not so sexy about.

George (06:12.844)
the good guy, the Madonna that, you know, feels like you can’t bring some of that more erotic carnal energy into it. It’s like, you know, this person’s changing diapers with me five minutes ago. How do I transition into this, you know, very different, you know, and we know it’s secure attachment. You can make that shift. Ultimately, that’s what we’re trying to figure out. How do you, how do you pull together these splits? But I think, yeah, this is

If you look at the movies, it’s all hot sex, strong desire, it’s passionate. We get so much training to think about something outside of the routine. Our partner often falls into the routine.

Laurie Watson, PhD (06:59.454)
Mm-hmm. And I think what you’re saying, you know, like the movies being hot sex, we also have particularly gender ideas in the movie, right? The man is kind of the Marlboro man. Strong, silent, even though we’re begging for him to be vulnerable and open about his feelings.

Does that then change the mystique of somebody that we can project all this, you know, stuff onto and I don’t know, then he can feel really sexual. You know, like does vulnerability kind of interrupt that fantasy of them being a tiger? I don’t know.

George (07:38.722)
How many movies?

George (07:48.787)
How many movies do you see hot sex on a black Tuesday night between two partners who have just worked the whole day and then, you know, took care of the kids and now are kind of jumping to bed with each other and having hot sex?

We don’t see a lot of examples of it.

Laurie Watson, PhD (08:06.306)
You know, my favorite television show is Friday Night Lights. And it’s because one of the reasons is because the marital couple, the coach and the principal, they’re married to each other and they have a love story. And they have chemistry, you know, but he still plays kind of the character of the withdrawing male, but.

He’s also crazy about his wife and keeps seeing her as somebody he wants and she seems to keep seeing him as somebody she wants sexually. So it’s like a model, even though there’s still some gender stereotypes in it. I don’t know, I think one of the things I notice about that marriage is they give each other a lot of respect and space for their own separate visions too.

George (09:00.697)
it’s a great example of…

them holding both, right? They are best friends and can be intimate and have each other’s back and have vulnerability and share their struggles. And they could, you know, get down and dirty and kind of still do this fun bedroom stuff that’s super important. I mean, to me, that’s the goal. We don’t have to choose either or it should be end both. And that’s what the research says, right? Secure attachment, great lovers can do both. They keep finding something new in their partner. It is like a stranger when they’re having, you know, that growth.

and that not knowing, and then they can transition and go off to do initiatives and, know, paying the bills and like they can do both, which gives them the highest levels of engagement.

Laurie Watson, PhD (09:44.214)
Yeah, so true. I mean, I also worry about the literature that talks about, you know, men getting together with women who are sexual pursuers and how that can be a turnoff. You know, like, does that…

Does that impact later on? Do women get rejected because they have this really alive erotic part when they’re in some dating relationships and then they somehow or another are rejected and they sense it’s because it’s a threat and so then they just dial it all the way down. So they lose desire but the man is happy because he’s the chaser and she stays the chasee. I don’t know.

George (10:34.05)
I think that chasing is critical. And you know, that couple you’re talking about, they take turns chasing. He might chase more sexually, but they both find moments of chasing. They both can tap into that energy. And I think you need to do that to keep the erotic.

life force alive. And what you’re talking about in the Madonna Horus Syndrome is, you know, one partner stops chasing. It’s boring. It’s no longer like it doesn’t elicit that response that needs to chase. then before you know it, they look elsewhere to chase. mean, so we could just follow where the chasing goes and it’s going to tell us what’s happening.

Laurie Watson, PhD (11:13.87)
So I’m not sure I understood that though. You’re saying like the man stops chasing.

George (11:21.218)
Well, you’re giving the example of when a woman pursuers doing the Jason and the initiating. And sometimes that puts the man in the position of, wait a second, I don’t know what to do when I’m not chasing. And they start to backpedal. And before you know it, they can’t access the erotic energy because they’re not tapping into some chasing energy.

George (11:45.739)
No, mean, they got to figure out. mean, that happens a lot the other way, right? When the man does chase how many women don’t want to have sex because they’re not, you know, they’re just not tapping into any chasing energy. They’re just doing it all the time for their partner at obligation. And like when you can’t tap into chasing energy, you’re in trouble.

It’s never going to be the same and there’s going to be discrepancies and maybe one person more initiates than the other. But I think both partners at some point have to find something they want to chase and want from the act themselves for them to enjoy it.

And when you talk about the Madonna horse syndrome, it’s like, can’t find something I really want to chase with my boring partner who I love and I want to do life with, but I’m really not that interested in having sex, but I really would be interested in so-and-so having sex in my fantasies. And they chase that they feed that they think about that. And, know, again, it creates this split.

Laurie Watson, PhD (12:38.958)
But you’re assuming too, you’re assuming too that the wife, the reason he doesn’t want to have sex with her is because she’s boring and she’s absorbed in what?

George (12:47.18)
That’s how his interpretation, that’s his interpretation. I think she probably would be wild in bed if they had the way of tapping into each other.

Laurie Watson, PhD (12:57.128)
you

George (12:59.062)
I think we’re all born to be wild in bed, Laurie.

Laurie Watson, PhD (13:01.55)
I’m going to put that as a sidebar in our book. We’re all born to be wild in bed. Born to be wild in bed. It’s like those Chinese cookies, you you put in bed at the end of everything. George is we’re going to do this. George is saying is born to be wild in bed. You know what? I do think that right. How could?

George (13:23.603)
Amen to that.

Laurie Watson, PhD (13:36.61)
But maybe not everybody is with us on this. I think there’s so much here, and it’s so common to lose kind of that eroticism with your daily partner. OK, so I’m not sure I have answers here. I just have problems. I don’t know how to help people sort of figure this out. OK, let’s come back.

George (13:55.448)
You

George (14:03.177)
Let’s come back and try.

Laurie Watson, PhD (14:04.61)
Let’s come back and George is going to give us all the answers about being wild and bad.

George (14:14.858)
What happened to George? He disappeared. never came back, Laurie.

Laurie Watson, PhD (14:17.87)
Where is George?

George (14:20.002)
Guess you don’t have the answers either.

Where did he go? I think it’s a good thing to have a lot of questions and not have answers. That’s how we keep a growing edge. And this has been with us since in human history, right, where people can access their chasing energy. So, but I do think we have some, some experience of helping people bridge that split, right, to be able to start recognizing.

they both need to find some chasing energy in each other. There’s not a lot of chasing energy, right? When you’re doing the dishes and you’re stressing over life and like, oh, all a sudden now you sit on the bed and here’s this person and your pajamas next to you and you’re like, well, what do you think? mean, some of the time that’s great, but there are other times where that’s not enough. Your body’s gonna start seeing this other person.

I do think there’s a transition from inside and outside the bedroom that can be important.

George (15:29.174)
Like even what are you looking for with intimacy? Are you looking for a little romantic interlude where you can have some kiss and some nice music on? Like, is that a shift from doing the dishes? Are you looking for a little workout where you can have some hard sex? that’s a transition from something else. There’s just so many different types of sex. It’s such a…

a rich environment to do a lot of different things. think most couples lose their ability to tap into the range of what we can do sexually. You know, they fall into a rut of the same old thing and they just, they don’t get super excited about it. And then they start looking elsewhere for that excitement.

Laurie Watson, PhD (16:15.66)
Yeah, I think that’s true. They basically take out the intention toward their partner, toward making it exciting and creative. And sometimes one person still wants to do that and the other person doesn’t have any chasing energy like you talk about.

But I think that this is, back to how do we think about it, I think it really is an avoidant strategy. There’s something that we avoid when we put ourselves in our partner’s hands and say, yeah, you’re the only one. And if our partner doesn’t have that coming toward us or, but I think, I think.

George (16:45.229)
Mm-hmm.

George (17:19.924)
I think that’s the intimacy. If I always ask what’s the sex that they’re looking for outside from the partner, what’s the whore sex? You know, is it a lot of times that is disconnected sex. It’s just this physical act of kind of immediate erotic visual stimulation like pornography. you it’s everyone’s turned on. have quick orgasms. mean, that’s that’s very different than making love to your partner.

Laurie Watson, PhD (17:47.886)
Mm hmm. It’s certainly easy. Easy, fun, carefree, no strings. We, you George and I are writing a book, which thank goodness I’m almost done with that book. Aren’t we just going to be so glad when this is done? mean, it’s a gift, but.

It’s been a lot of work. But one of the characters in our book has this going on, kind of the sense of, you know, can’t eroticize their partner, can’t do it, but can have affairs where they, you know, have hot sex. It’s like, it’s really better for them that they’re not emotionally connected to the partner.

George (18:36.376)
and it really is a problem with intimacy. It’s not that the partner can’t make love, it’s that they don’t really know how to shift their erotic being from this kind of novel, intense fantasy towards this more vulnerable. I think that’s an important part what great lovers can do. It’s an area that…

like in this book, that she has to learn how to grow herself. It’s not our fault she learned to disconnect from vulnerability and emotions and found life force and kind of chasing this energy. But, you know, we lose our balance. We overcompensate. We look for it all in this one area instead of the whole, which is just gives us more range.

Laurie Watson, PhD (19:22.808)
So how would we heal that avoidance, George, the piece that feels kind of maybe unconsciously scared to keep it all in one person?

George (19:22.914)
Bye, dig duds.

George (19:37.406)
the hard work, you have to face the discomfort. Like what is it about making love that you would rather go off and have this hot kind of sex? Like there’s something about the intimacy in that that they’re not really aware of. Now I’m working with this one couple where

George (19:59.843)
The guy his whole life has had pornography type sex. That’s what he looks at. It’s all visual. It’s all different positions and spankings and like he needs an edge to sex. you know, even in beginning, him and his wife could do some of that. And then over time they’ve done less of it. He started compartmentalizing looking elsewhere. Like pornography is a big part of feeding the visual. you know, as his wife wanted to transition more into lovemaking, he didn’t know how to do that.

Right. So then he’s, he’s, you know, he’s showing I’m not really any interest and she’s confused because they had this great wild sex and now all of sudden he’s disengaging because he don’t really know how to make that transition. When she was able to join him in that realm, he could tap into it. But when she wanted more than just that, which is healthy, right. To want sex that’s deep and you know, you can look into each other’s souls and some of that, he can’t make that transition.

George (21:26.124)
I think it’s the, we throw the word vulnerability around, but to be able to super depend on the charge of kind of that visual conal type of sex and to not have that, to think about like letting your body relax and kind of thinking about like holding your partner and kissing and that more romantic, emotional part of sex is just something he has very little experience tapping into.

And it’s scary because his fear is he won’t know to do it. And then it won’t work. His penis might lose his direction. Like he’s going to, so it’s just easier not to face that. And then he puts it on her. Like she’s not doing enough wild things with him when, when meanwhile she can do some of those things. Like you said, lot of partners get pathologized as the problem when, know, she has a great range. She just, you know, wants a little bit more of that emotional kind of.

touch, mendurant sex, and he actually is blocked in that area.

Laurie Watson, PhD (22:27.822)
Yeah, I think that’s what I’m talking about is that block. I guess certainly one thing you’ve brought out is the pathway, right? That his excitement path, his arousal pathway is very visual and maybe visual and variety. I mean, he’s relied on that to get excited. And so there’s some fear of, okay, I won’t perform well.

George (22:52.024)
Yeah.

George (23:19.884)
Exactly, he is not chasing.

Laurie Watson, PhD (23:20.41)
I guess the switch is really for him maybe the answer is switching from visual to sensuality but even still it’s there’s something missing emotionally. He’s like holding his heart back somehow.

George (23:33.293)
Yeah, that’s, he’s not chasing the emotional. He’s not finding anything in himself that’s looking for that. And then surprise, he doesn’t want it. I mean, he’s, he’s got to develop the part of him. was, he’s made to want that kind of connection and yet it’s been blocked. So the only way is to face it is to say, what is so uncomfortable? What could happen? What’s the anxiety saying could happen if you let go of this kind of trusted part of you?

to develop this part that’s underdeveloped that doesn’t really know how to show up in that space. You know, it is scary.

Laurie Watson, PhD (24:07.326)
This is where in my work I go back to attachment styles and attachment history. somehow or another I always imagine that in their history that they did need, that they did need love and it didn’t come. And so they learned to protect from needing. It’s like they take this vow, I will never need anybody completely. And sexually, you know, the body needs.

George (24:44.216)
Yeah.

I think it’s a one-two punch. agree. think there’s this, their needs not being met, so they got to just not need. But then they find this life force in this act where they do feel alive, because it’s pretty lonely not to need and be by yourself all the time. So then you find this erotic act that feels like, boom, fireworks go off. And it’s like, damn, my body wants that. That’s how I feel alive. And the more you feed that part of you, the more the other part doesn’t ever see the light. It just stays kind of in the darkness.

start developing this split.

Laurie Watson, PhD (25:18.126)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so it’s maybe avoid an attachment from childhood, but the second chance in life, which is puberty and eroticism, gives their body a sense of, I’m not alone. But then in adulthood and in partnership, it never comes back online where they can need the one person that’s most significant to them, their attachment figure, their partner.

George (25:46.188)
Yeah. And it’s not their fault. You know, they found a resilient way of feeling alive and they took it. They just over rely on that. And, know, that’s our message. It’s if you find yourself in this role, nobody wants to be in this role. It’s just the way the cards were dealt. And the good news is, do you want to keep living that way? You needed that at a certain point in your life, but there’s a doorway open where you could have both. You have a partner who wants a little bit more to know who you are in different ways, not just in this physical way.

and that if you’re willing to face the fears and grab your partner’s hand, you probably can find your way towards each other.

Laurie Watson, PhD (26:22.86)
Yeah, and that’s the risk is to want the person that you’re with, right? It’s scary.

George (26:31.138)
chasing. Yeah. But notice the face that you’re chasing something.

Laurie Watson, PhD (26:37.046)
Notice the wet.

George (26:38.878)
face that you’re chasing something.

That’s the shift we want you to make.

And for all the partners who don’t chase sex, it’s the same thing. How do you find something you want?

George (27:07.788)
Keep on chasing, baby.