We always talk about the importance of both emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy in a marriage. Both go hand in hand and are VITAL to a happy and successful marriage, and good sexual intimacy.
However, they are both extremely different! One's needs can often be met and satisfied outside of the marriage, while other needs cannot. So how does this impact a relationship?
For most women, they need the emotional connection with their husband before they are going to be interested in the sexual connection. And for most men, they need the sexual connection with their wife before they are going to want to emotionally connect and be vulnerable with her.
*We recognize this is not ALWAYS the case as each relationship is unique. But for the majority of men and women, it is.
Let's assume a wife is going to lunch, working out, or doing a bunch of activities throughout the day where they are talking with and connecting emotionally with others to the point that when they get home, their emotional bucket is all filled up.
The desire or need to have more emotional intimacy from their husbands might not be there as their needs have been fulfilled and met throughout the day.
A husband can only get his sexual needs met by his wife in the relationship.
Could this be a reason why so many women aren't interested in connecting emotionally or sexually with their husbands? And why husbands have a hard time connecting emotionally with their wife?
In this episode, Nick and Amy discuss this very interesting topic and point of view and share their thoughts on it. They also share the poll results from the poll questions they asked on social media to see what you thought.
If you haven't already, go check out the Ultimate Intimacy App in the app stores, or at ultimateintimacy.com to find "Ultimate Intimacy" in your marriage. It's FREE to download and so much fun! Find out why over 650,000 couples have downloaded the app and give it such high ratings and reviews!
WANT AMAZING PRODUCTS TO SPICE THINGS UP? YES PLEASE... CLICK HERE
Enter promo code UIAPP for 10% off your purchase (and free shipping in the US)
The Ultimate Intimacy Sexual Intimacy Marriage Course can be found HERE
The Intimacy and Adventure Marriage Retreat to connect on a deeper level as a couple! Find out more at https://ultimateintimacy.com/retreats/
Follow us on Instagram @ultimateintimacyapp for app updates, polls, giveaways, daily marriage quotes and more.
If you have any feedback, comments or topics you would like to hear on future episodes, reach out to us at amy@ultimateintimacy.com and let us know! We greatly appreciate your feedback and please leave us a review.
We always talk about the importance of both emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy in a marriage. Both go hand in hand and are VITAL to a happy and successful marriage, and good sexual intimacy.
However, they are both extremely different! One's needs can often be met and satisfied outside of the marriage, while other needs cannot. So how does this impact a relationship?
For most women, they need the emotional connection with their husband before they are going to be interested in the sexual connection. And for most men, they need the sexual connection with their wife before they are going to want to emotionally connect and be vulnerable with her.
*We recognize this is not ALWAYS the case as each relationship is unique. But for the majority of men and women, it is.
Let's assume a wife is going to lunch, working out, or doing a bunch of activities throughout the day where they are talking with and connecting emotionally with others to the point that when they get home, their emotional bucket is all filled up.
The desire or need to have more emotional intimacy from their husbands might not be there as their needs have been fulfilled and met throughout the day.
A husband can only get his sexual needs met by his wife in the relationship.
Could this be a reason why so many women aren't interested in connecting emotionally or sexually with their husbands? And why husbands have a hard time connecting emotionally with their wife?
In this episode, Nick and Amy discuss this very interesting topic and point of view and share their thoughts on it. They also share the poll results from the poll questions they asked on social media to see what you thought.
If you haven't already, go check out the Ultimate Intimacy App in the app stores, or at ultimateintimacy.com to find "Ultimate Intimacy" in your marriage. It's FREE to download and so much fun! Find out why over 650,000 couples have downloaded the app and give it such high ratings and reviews!
WANT AMAZING PRODUCTS TO SPICE THINGS UP? YES PLEASE... CLICK HERE
Enter promo code UIAPP for 10% off your purchase (and free shipping in the US)
The Ultimate Intimacy Sexual Intimacy Marriage Course can be found HERE
The Intimacy and Adventure Marriage Retreat to connect on a deeper level as a couple! Find out more at https://ultimateintimacy.com/retreats/
Follow us on Instagram @ultimateintimacyapp for app updates, polls, giveaways, daily marriage quotes and more.
If you have any feedback, comments or topics you would like to hear on future episodes, reach out to us at amy@ultimateintimacy.com and let us know! We greatly appreciate your feedback and please leave us a review.
You are listening to the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast, where we discuss how to find ultimate intimacy in your relationship. We believe that, no matter how many years you've been married, you can achieve passion, romance, happiness and ultimate intimacy at any stage of your life. Join us as we talk to not only marriage experts, but couples just like yourself and people who are just flat out fun. The Ultimate Intimacy Podcast is for couples who have a good relationship but want to make it even better.
Speaker 2:And this is going to be an interesting podcast.
Speaker 2:Amy and I had a message on Instagram about a week, maybe two weeks ago, which prompted a great conversation with us to get Amy and I had and we thought it'd be a fun topic to do this podcast on.
Speaker 2:So we don't really have a title, but basically what we're going to talk about today and we want to get your thoughts and feedback, because we have no idea if this is right or wrong, but we thought it was a great point someone made and we really thought about it and thought, yeah, this could probably impact a lot of relationships. So women can get their emotional needs met outside of the marriage, but men can only get their sexual needs met inside the marriage. So what is the impact of this? Because we know how important both emotional intimacy and physical intimacy is and they really do go hand in hand. Like you can't have good sexual intimacy if the emotional intimacy isn't there and for a lot of men, they need the sexual intimacy before they're going to be vulnerable and want to give the emotional intimacy. But both of them are completely different in so many ways and, like we said, one of those can be met outside of the marriage and the other one cannot be met outside of the marriage.
Speaker 1:I have to jump in and say, if you are a high desire wife and your husband is the low desire husband, then you're missing out on the sexual intimacy and the emotional intimacy probably in your marriage, which is heartbreaking. So, like we always say, disclaimer at the beginning. Yes, this can go the other way around. I mean technically right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because if you are a high drive spouse, if you're the high drive spouse, you're only getting those needs filled in the marriage. But emotional we're going to talk about emotional intimacy and how that can be filled only inside the marriage by certain aspects, but also there are aspects of emotional intimacy that can be filled outside the marriage. So, depending on what the drive, we understand that this can go different ways for everyone, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly as Amy said. It's different for everyone, but I would say the majority of people in marriage, most of the women, need the emotional before they want to give the sexual, and most of the men will open up emotionally with their spouse if they're getting the sexual. So it's just kind of that dance right. Both of them need to be in the majority of marriages. In the majority of marriages correct.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of topics to discuss in this topic because, yes, some women are at home and don't get the emotional connection outside of the marriage and the men are out working and doing careers and sometimes they get more emotional connection and we'll talk about that. What that looks like I don't mean like, I mean just like conversations, right, but we have a lot of people in our lives and we do get connections, and I guess that's where this all comes down is intimacy. You can have emotional connection with other people, I can have it with my friends, I can have it with my extended family members, blah, blah, blah but when it comes to intimacy, emotional intimacy I guess that's what we're trying to get to in this podcast it's the emotional intimacy that you can only get from your spouse, and there are differences to that.
Speaker 2:But I think what we're getting at is, let's say, let's say you're a wife and you're going out to lunch with your friends and you're taking your kids to play dates to the park and you're talking with your friends and you're just. You're spending a lot of your day talking and interacting with friends and other people, right? You're getting that emotional intimacy bucket filled through great conversations and different things right, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that's emotional intimacy, though I think that's emotional connection.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, okay, emotional connection. But the point I'm trying to make is I think there's a lot of women out there that they get that bucket filled and then when they come home they don't need to talk to their husband, they don't need all those things because they've filled that throughout the day and that's where this entire podcast came from is because my husband's like, not my husband.
Speaker 1:A husband commented to us or reached out to us and said this is where I struggle. My wife is gone all day, interacting with lots of people, getting some of her outside the marriage needs filled and she doesn't have any sex drive. So when it comes to the marriage, there's not a whole ton she needs from me.
Speaker 2:She's already got it, man.
Speaker 1:She's already kind of got some of that met outside the relationship Because emotional and we'll get into this because some people are like you can't get any emotional needs met outside of your marriage. Yeah, you can, there are certain things that you can, and so the problem is when it comes to sexual needs, those are absolutely only inside the marriage. And so his kind of question was kind of is that fair that she can get some of her needs met outside the marriage and he was a loyal husband but is it fair that the wife in this situation that has no sex drive, he can't get his needs met anywhere else because he's committed, faithful, loving husband, right, and his needs are only filled in the marriage? And so I think we threw this out and did some polls and we'll get into those. But there are many husbands actually feeling like this, and I've never really thought about that before.
Speaker 1:I just haven't. But I look back at our relationship when we were struggling emotionally and I mean this was like in our first 10 years. We were emotionally disconnected because we kind of both had we're going down our own path and I could full on admit that when the emotional connection wasn't strong in our marriage, I probably, and you probably did too, because I think husbands and wives need emotional connection with other, with other people.
Speaker 1:Like I'm not saying only women need emotional connection, we all do, that's just a human existence thing, right. But I noticed in our marriage like yeah, I would talk to friends, probably about stuff that should have been talked about in the marriage, or or can like ask questions, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like there was probably some of that on both of our sides because we weren't connected to each other emotionally in the marriage. And that's where it gets dangerous is yeah, it's good to have friendships and have other people and have relationships, that's super healthy. But that disconnect comes when things that should only be and that's the emotional intimacy should only be discussed, or should be a spouse kind of conversation, gets taken out, and that can be both people's fault too that you're not feeling that connection right.
Speaker 2:You're exactly right. We're not in all any way saying you shouldn't go out and do those things and have fun. The point I think we're trying to raise is are are you going out and getting those emotional needs filled to the point to where? Then you come home and you're not able to give anything to your husband or to your wife, right?
Speaker 1:Exactly, that's the point Either way too. Either husband or wife.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so we look at what social media has done. How, why? Why do people go to social media? To get a certain need filled.
Speaker 1:Or validation that they might not be getting in their marriage Exactly.
Speaker 2:So people are going to social media and they're spending hours and hours, hours, and they're feeling. They're feeling something they need in their life because maybe they feel like they aren't getting it in their marriage or maybe they're fulfilling the need here and they have no desire to try to fill it in their marriage and we see that how it's just taking over. And so, again, that's the point we're trying to raise is, take a real hard look at your marriage and and you know, ask yourself this question is one of the reasons that I don't want to connect or be intimate with my husband, because I'm getting the emotional needs met by my friends or by other family members. What are, what are ways that I can emotionally connect with my husband so that we can also physically connect more often? You know as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and we're going to get into a list of like what emotional needs look like and ones that can only be fulfilled by your spouse. Because we asked wives this we're like you know what emotional needs can only be filled or you only want to be filled by your husband, and there were tons, there were tons. But I think the majority for women and so I'm not going to put any blame on any of the women at all is usually when a wife is like going to friends or extended family members or another person or group of people with stuff that should be coming to the husband. It might be because they're not feeling safe or heard or listened to in the marriage and they really need someone that they feel like listens and cares.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly.
Speaker 1:So sometimes it's a disconnect in the marriage why some of these things are happening.
Speaker 2:Or why a spouse is going to look for things outside the marriage to get what they need, right.
Speaker 1:And which is same. Well, I don't want to get into pornography and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Or affairs.
Speaker 1:Or affairs or anything.
Speaker 2:But that's.
Speaker 1:But what causes all of those things is usually because it's somehow lacking a need in a marriage right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think, most In a lot of cases, yeah, I think most of you listening would probably agree with that.
Speaker 1:Like I don't think people just start doing stuff when they have, or looking at stuff or or trying to get emotionally connected to someone else, unless something is majorly missing in their own relationship, because you don't hear of couples that have amazing, passionate, deep, connecting marriages. Turning to outside things typically right.
Speaker 2:You're exactly right, because they don't need to, because they're getting those needs met in the relationship For sure, yeah, so this is a good episode to talk about these things and again just really think inwardly. Okay, what am I doing to maybe contribute to whatever is maybe lacking in the relationship?
Speaker 1:Right. So I want to jump into the polls first, because this kind of. We had a couple responses when we threw out questions about this whole topic and they're like that's confusing. I still don't know what you're saying. So hopefully, before we jump into like the main part of the podcast, I'm just going to read a couple quotes that kind of brought this whole conversation up right. So I think this was one of the first ones we got that kind of opened our eyes to. Oh yeah, I can understand this. I've never really thought about this.
Speaker 1:A guy said, although I agree with the statement that men and women have varying needs, I think there is a disconnect here. Both parties need sexual and emotional intimacy. If men needed one and women needed the other, we wouldn't be on equal footing. Men and women experience emotional connections through a variety of relationships parents, siblings, friends, mentors, peers, coworkers. They should only experience sexual connection with each other. This would be the same as saying men are only allowed intimacy with their wives, but women can have it wherever they find it, the emotional connection he's talking about.
Speaker 1:So then we said, speaking to high drive husbands and lower drive wife situation. So this is just that typical situation, the problem with wives getting some emotional needs met outside the marriage friends, sisters, extended family, etc. As they don't always need as much emotional needs filled from their husbands. But husbands typically need more sexual connection to feel loved, which could only happen in the marriage. Like you already said, only his wife can fulfill those needs or this can throw off the balance of needs being taken care of in the marriage. So let's jump in at just the poll question really quick.
Speaker 2:Before you jump in, I want to bring up just a quick thought because I think this is important. So I mean, I talk about this often where, you know, we talk about Amy's love language, right? I was like you know why? Why early on, were you so sexually had such a strong sexual desire, and now it's gotten a lot weaker. One of the things we've talked about and I think it rings true is right now, you know, in our relationship we have sexual intimacy quite often, right? So that is a need that's being fulfilled, and because that needs being fulfilled, she really doesn't have that desire, right? But if that need was not being fulfilled, she would most likely have that desire. And so what I'm, what I'm trying to get at is, if a need is being fulfilled outside the marriage, so to speak, an emotional need, then that's probably not going to be a need that needs to be filled when a spouse is back home or with their spouse, right?
Speaker 1:Or is it? See, that's the big question we have for the day, because we asked, wise after thinking that can you get a lot of your emotional needs met outside the marriage? And that was a poll we took and a lot of them said no, there are certain emotional needs.
Speaker 2:I need only for my husband right, which I agree with.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I agree with yeah, it's not just a simple black and white.
Speaker 1:It can go both ways, though, because a lot of men are out working in a career world, they get plenty of emotional connection from other people too, right? So I mean it can go. It's we're not just saying the wives get it Like there's a lot of husbands they're out in the world getting for sure that kind of conversation from other people too.
Speaker 1:right, because when we say emotional connection in this podcast, we're really talking about right now more just conversations and communication those kind of things. And yeah, that sounds like okay, most in a healthy marriage, communication is a big part. But we hear from so many couples the communication is not a big thing in their marriage, that their husband comes home or the wife just kind of, like we said, has already gotten a lot of communication during the day from other people and it's just, there's not good communication anymore.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think, a great example. I mean, I go to dinner and do our date night and we look around and 90 90% of the couples out there are looking at their phones. Like it is the craziest thing, like it's it's. It's almost bizarre and weird. You look around the waiting room or the restaurant and there's people literally on their phones while they're eating. They're on their phones while they're waiting.
Speaker 2:They're not talking to each other, like it's just so, and they're not using no conversation starters on the right, they'd be looking at their app and then that their spouse right yeah so bizarre and it's so like, almost like shocking that you couldn't just sit and have a great, that you wouldn't want to sit and have a great conversation with your spouse.
Speaker 1:It's true. Okay, so how? Spouses with high sexual drives can only get their needs met in the marriage and spouses that need their emotional needs can get a little bit of their emotional needs met outside of the marriage. So we asked our audience does this ever affect your marriage relationship? I had no idea what was going to come from that. I'm like I'm still kind of like thought processing this whole conversation, right, because it's I could go so many different ways there's so many aspects to talk about, but and every relationship is different.
Speaker 2:So, different and there probably are relationships that are listening, that are probably like, yeah, my spouse is getting all their emotional needs met outside and that's probably why they feel fulfilled already.
Speaker 1:So we asked does this ever affect your relationship? And 53% yes, it totally does. Like more, just more than half of the people that took the poll. It was a pretty big poll. 9% nope, not in our marriage. 19%, said sometimes, and 20% I've never really thought about this, which I was kind of in that I was in that room.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I was totally too.
Speaker 1:Because I've never. I've always just been like oh, I've got a lunch with my friends, but I can still emotionally connect with my like. I've never even like thought about this, but I look back at our relationship when it was struggling 10 years ago. And there were times and I was like there were absolutely times that I was getting my emotional needs filled from friends or family when we were feeling disconnected, and I don't think that helps the connection.
Speaker 2:So when you came home, did that make you more likely or less likely to want to connect emotionally with me?
Speaker 1:That's a great question, if I, being 100% honest, if there were things that I wanted to talk about with someone and I just already had those discussions, I probably didn't need felt like I needed to have those with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly which absolutely affects intimacy. Absolutely, and that's exactly why we're doing this podcast, because there are people out there that are getting their needs met outside the relationship. Emotional needs, emotional needs, and then don't need those met inside the relationship, which is going to throw a lot of things off.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so we always talk about this like circle right, when you have like sexual intimacy and emotional intimacy and when, when it's off or when it's not balanced right, Like like some kind of healthy balance is going to look different to everyone, but when it's not balanced in your marriage and gets thrown off, the other aspect gets thrown off, correct? When you're not emotionally connected, the sexual intimacy is usually thrown off, and when there's no sexual intimacy for most husbands they've admitted the emotional intimacy gets thrown off because they're not willing to give when they're not getting any of their needs met and I could say 100%.
Speaker 2:when we're going through the time struggling If Amy, um, when the sexual intimacy maybe wasn't as good and we still Amy, was really amazing but it wasn't the connected Correct.
Speaker 1:We talked right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, but if, but, if the sexual intimacy isn't there, a husband is absolutely going to pull away emotionally and he whether, whether they do this intentionally, unintentionally it's like oh, she doesn't love me, she doesn't want anything to do with me, so I'm not going to, I'm not going to talk to her, I'm not going to, you know, I'm going to withdraw, I'm going to pull back. And you see, that happen all the time with spouses, and so that's not, that's not an uncommon thing. So I mean, I think this, I think what we're talking about is so true and it, it happens, it happens, it happens.
Speaker 1:It happens Absolutely. Do you want me to jump into the answers on this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's read some of the answers, then we'll dive in.
Speaker 1:Okay. So this is where it gets kind of all over the place and makes this podcast a little more like we're just going to maybe have to take a couple and be like okay, how do we discuss this? A husband said I can't emotionally fill her, she has to get it elsewhere, but either way she's still not interested in sex. I think having that attitude that you can't emotionally fill your wife, I'm not sure where to take that, because what women do need other women in our life. We just do Like we need to have friends, we need to have that woman connection. There's certain things that women get filled from other women. There just is the problem is thinking that a husband literally cannot fulfill. I don't know, this is a question that I have. I don't know how husbands feel about this. Do you feel like you can emotionally fulfill me or do you feel like Well, obviously we try.
Speaker 2:I think that's one of the things is a husband can try to fulfill his wife emotionally as much as she needs, right? Like if there's days where you just really need me to sit and talk and do those things, absolutely I can do it, and if there's other days where you only need me for five or ten minutes to get what you emotionally need, I'm there for you, right, right. So I think as husbands we can give as much or as little, as kind of as just needed from our spouse. And you know, I think for most husbands they just want, they just want that, whether it's five minutes or an hour and a half.
Speaker 1:And this is where it gets tricky, because I feel like at least in our marriage you might be totally different. I feel like Nick needs as much emotional connection as I do.
Speaker 2:I would say, that's true.
Speaker 1:And I think that a lot of husbands would actually agree to that, even though we think that, oh, men don't need as much emotional connection as they do sexual connection. The longer we talk to people and take surveys I'm feeling like, no, actually husbands do, they actually do need the emotional, and maybe it might be a different time or in a different way. But I think we're a lot more alike than we think we are. Yeah right, but I think, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:But I think, going back to what we're hitting on, is, if women need to be emotionally connected before they'll be sexually connected, and they are getting many of those needs fulfilled, you can see how this can cause a lot of issues. To where again they may come home, they may jump on their phone, they may not need that connection from their husband and they probably don't look at it intentionally, but they probably like, oh, I'm satisfied, I'm good, right, yeah, and the husbands over there are like I want to connect with you, I want to be close to you. And if, again, if those needs are already being met in other ways, then the spouse is probably not going to be as engaged or likely to meet the needs inside the relationship.
Speaker 1:For sure. No, that's good. I had a husband leave several comments on let's see. He said drawing appropriate boundaries within the marriage and being respected. I think that's a great comment. And I also say drawing appropriate boundaries outside of the marriage. I mean, you don't usually think about I have to set boundaries around being emotionally connected to anybody else, like my friends or my extended family, but how important really is that? Right? Because if you're discussing things, especially things about your marriage or about your spouse outside of the marriage, that's a big, big line to cross, right.
Speaker 1:That's going to totally affect your intimacy. But I don't think a lot of couples discuss that together, Like what boundaries do we have in place about getting emotional needs met outside of the marriage? And of course you're going to be like, okay, with the opposite sex, that's a given, those kind of things are givens. But great question right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely I don't know that we really had that discussion because I think that a lot of couples think, oh, that's just common sense, that I shouldn't talk about marriage issues to my friends or whatever. But that happens all the time with people. But that's where, like crossing that line of emotional connection, like that's where it causes issues in the marriage. When you're not coming to your own spouse with the issues you have with your own spouse, right, that's going to cause major disconnect.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think every relationship is going to look different, right, and that's okay, because everyone's needs are different. But I think, if you, to simplify what we're talking about, if you just simply ask yourself am I getting my buckets of my different needs fulfilled outside of the marriage and what am I getting filled inside the marriage, and really just ask yourself that question and say, and you know, what am I getting filled outside of the marriage? Is it too much, is it too little? What am I, you know, not filling inside the marriage, and just really have a come to Jesus moment with yourself and with your spouse and with your spouse and well, this leads me to that video that we did.
Speaker 1:That went viral because people were. They thought it was like hilariously and real. And then we started getting a lot of comments. They're like, okay, well, the video was the one about husband and wife's needs and it started out with the wife's needs. I need this, this, this, this, this, and the list was like a page long, right, like.
Speaker 1:I need all these emotional leads in my marriage, like you know romance, affection, non sexual touch, talking communication. I need you to listen to me. I need this, this, this and the husband's needs were sexual intimacy and people just thought that was hilarious, right.
Speaker 1:But they thought it was true, but then people started commenting and think it looks that way. It looks like the wife has a bigger list, but sexual intimacy for a man is so emotional that most of that list under the wife was still under the sexual intimacy category, which shows that men need emotional intimacy too. It's usually just maybe in a different way.
Speaker 2:Yep Right, because the list.
Speaker 1:We had a lot of people say those lists are actually equal, they're just expressed in different ways. So yeah.
Speaker 2:if that doesn't tell you, no, I do agree with that. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:So I don't know, did that get off? Subject Mix like I don't know what to say right now.
Speaker 2:Speechless.
Speaker 1:Speechless. Another husband said this should be something that both parties work on, so there's no need for outside intervention. And that's like the big thing we're trying to say is it's good to have friends, it's good to have extended family, but there's so many emotional needs that need to stay within the marriage. Should we get into those? Because then we ask the wives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that'd be good.
Speaker 1:Let's get into that. We asked the wives better, question wives, what emotional needs do you need? Only from your husband? Okay, and this is where it gets good because you think. Okay, you can go have conversations with your friends and family, but we're not talking about those romantic, passionate, best friend, spouse, loving kind of needs. And this is, this is the list that I love. This is, this is the responses we got cuddles, flowers, care, him desiring me and wanting me, words of affirmation, encouragement from my spouse there's, your friends can encourage you and whatever.
Speaker 1:But when it comes from the person you committed your life to and that you love, that's a whole different need, right, like that's a whole different aspect. Just quality and romance, time together, security in my marriage, a place to land for love and support, not like I feel like I have to carry everything on my own. I need him to be my ally with the hard things and parenting budgets, personal trials. He's my safe space Laughter, romance, empathy, cuddles, respect, validation, emotions. He's my shoulder. I need to be heard, safe and secure and cared for tenderly. That's something you get only from a spouse To be known, desired, to listen about, let's say to listen to care about what interests me to put me before other things.
Speaker 1:I want his validation. Even if others validate me, it's not the same if it's not my husband. I love that. Affirmations, encouragement, deep conversations about our future, memories. We've made together goals and dreams. Literally every okay, this, I think, is from a husband. I think Literally every emotional need is met or needs to be. No, this is a woman met by my husband. End of story. Literally every emotional need is met or needs to be met by my husband. End of story. I love that so many women are like no, I cannot get my emotional needs met outside the marriage and they probably have a great marriage.
Speaker 1:They probably do have a great marriage. When you believe that your spouse can only feel the majority of those emotional needs, I think you put more effort into your relationship, right. Yeah, I need my husband to listen to me without trying to always find a solution. Um affection 100% comes from my marriage. We are grieving. Let's see Um time. He has a busy job. He's on a call 24 seven, so I feel a night away is the only way I'm going to get his attention and connect with him. That's that's hard when you're super busy. A tentative everything. Everything comes from my husband. I don't go anywhere else for those kinds of needs Companionship, protection, feeling as if I mattered, words of affirmation, romance, quality time those are only things my spouse can give me. And last one, deep talks and relationship maintenance. I think what it comes down to is there are so many needs that only our spouse can fill.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so is this accurate? What's your conclusion on this?
Speaker 2:Well, I think even in our own relationship we've seen that in the past, um that we have gone elsewhere a little bit to get our needs met and right emotionally, emotionally, yeah, I mean, I've never gone anywhere else.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to clarify that, like when we're talking about getting needs met outside the marriage, we're always we're talking about connection and conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so and I think again, I I'm repeating myself, but I think if you those listening to the podcast just really, I guess, look inside and say, okay, if I really look at things and be honest with myself, am I going outside the relationship to get certain buckets filled or certain needs met, and how is that impacting what I'm able to give to my spouse? And for some couples it might be a lot, for some couples might not be anything, but I, you know, I think it's important to look at that because, again coming back to it, if, if we are getting some emotional needs met outside of the relationship, that's obviously going to have an impact on how couples connect inside the relationship, not only emotionally but also sexually.
Speaker 1:And I think that my takeaway is it's absolutely not fair for one spouse to be able to get needs met outside the marriage if it's affecting the marriage right.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Like that's just not fair. So just like having this conversation setting some healthy boundaries about even just emotional connection not being met inside or outside of the marriage, I just I don't know. I think conversation and communication yeah.
Speaker 2:And this topic.
Speaker 1:I think it's a great topic to have with your spouse right, especially if you're feeling a little disconnected in one of the areas.
Speaker 2:Well, let's just quickly cover, like some of the things, that the emotional needs that should be met inside the relationship. So, obviously, number one and I guess this, this can be also not only emotionally but physically, but obviously sexual intimacy. That is something that should only happen inside the marriage. Coparenting, that's something that should be in the marriage. Legal and financial ties, you know, future planning, intimate conversations, and I think this is a big one. If you're having a lot of intimate conversations outside of your relationship, that's probably a problem. Now, having said that, amy and I do podcasts. Well, at least we're doing them together, right, and having these conversations together.
Speaker 1:But I think there's appropriate things to each one of these right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Like there's not probably any wife that hasn't had conversations with their friends, it's just making sure that they're outside the marriage appropriate.
Speaker 2:Exactly, you know, future planning, intimate conversations, like we said, household management, things around the house, personal growth and development, spiritual things, I mean that's, I think that's something you can get that outside of marriage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think to a point To a point, but I think that's something that happens inside the marriage a little bit as well too. But obviously there's a lot of things that should not happen outside the marriage and I think that's a point we're trying to get at and again, just really take a look inside and ask yourself am I getting my needs Meets met outside the marriage so that I'm not able to get my spouse the needs they need inside the marriage and this is the thing I think I get from this entire thought thought-provoking question is you want your spouse to be your best friend.
Speaker 1:That's what creates ultimate intimacy in marriage, right? It's like having your spouse be your best friend, and we all want that. We've all noticed times in our marriages where we haven't felt like that and times in our marriages where we did feel like that, but that's like the epitome of marriages, like having your spouse be your best friend, right, and that comes from being able to all these things that you could talk about with your friends, your spouse being that person that you would go to first. And that's where this all comes down to it. And I think what that guy was missing is that he felt like maybe his wife was going to other people instead of having him be her best friend, and I think a lot of husbands just want their wives not just be connected sexually but emotionally and spiritually. I think most spouses want to have that all of the 12 areas of intimacy with their spouse, right. They want that deep friendship and that's where deep friendship in marriage comes from is being able to talk and get all those needs met in the marriage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will say this too, just as we're finishing up it's amazing how, if just one thing is really off, how it can really devastate the marriage. I mean, for example, going off this list, things that you should never do outside the marriage, so to speak. I took our financial things outside the marriage and, looking back, look at how that just wreaked havoc on so many aspects of our marriage. And it really did, because instead of talking to Amy and saying how do we solve this problem or how do we do these, I took it outside the marriage and tried to solve it. As I'm the man, I just got to figure this out.
Speaker 2:It's my job to provide or whatever, and that almost ended our marriage. Just that thing alone. And so, hitting back onto the point as to what needs are we taking outside the marriage versus having inside the marriage, it's just so important and, again, if we all analyze, each of our relationships is going to look different, our experience is going to be different. But just really analyze in an honest way how can we be better at fulfilling needs inside the relationship versus going outside the relationship for those needs? So hopefully this podcast just made some sense.
Speaker 1:I hope it made sense. I don't know.
Speaker 2:We really felt like this was an important topic to talk about. We were excited to talk about it, because it's hard to talk about things we know what we want to say. Like we had an amazing conversation for like 45 minutes the other night about this and we're like, oh, this is going to be a great topic. But then we get into it and it's sometimes hard to express what we're trying to portray or express. Sometimes doesn't always come out the right way, but hopefully the point came across and you understand what we're trying to convey in this podcast.
Speaker 1:And we really, really appreciate it when you just take 30 seconds after the podcast to write us an email and just say, hey, this really hit home.
Speaker 2:Or you guys suck, or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:No, but we get a lot of sweet emails after podcasts and just expressing like how you felt about it, or you've never really thought about it, or maybe you've been through it. We just love hearing from you guys. It just after podcasts, I don't know the emails kind of make our day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had one the other day, a couple of the other day, but one in particular. That was pretty amazing and just almost made me want to cry a little bit.
Speaker 1:I know I might have turned up.
Speaker 2:Of how we're doing what we're doing because we truly want to help marriages, and so when we hear that our thoughts and the things that we've gone through are helping a lot of people, that means more than anything.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and we don't know everything. We've been through our share of stuff.
Speaker 2:We certainly don't. We continue to make mistakes. There's no question about that. We make a lot of mistakes.
Speaker 1:We try to implement a lot of things that we learn into our marriage on a daily basis and try to share those with you, and we get a lot of. You are so amazing that you share stuff with us so that we can share it. You bring a lot of good topics and subjects to our minds for us to talk about.
Speaker 2:Just do study and consider them.
Speaker 1:And do surveys on. So we really appreciate that. And next month, let's see. When does this? Let's see. Next month we're excited to say that we're going to have a whole bunch of I don't know about a whole bunch. We'll see how many people want to, but we're going to have some couples. Come on our podcast and just talk to us. If you're a listener and that sounds exciting to you, email us. We want couples that we're going to have to what. We're going to have to. What's the word?
Speaker 2:Well, I think couples that have had experiences in their marriage, like we have one couple that's been married over 50 years and they're very happily married and we would like to know what the secrets are they're going to come on our podcast.
Speaker 1:We have a couple other couples that have been through really hard stuff and found healing and recovering and have turned their marriage from surviving to thriving. I think that's what we're going to focus on next month. The month of February of love is that I think most marriages have gone through a survival mode to flipping a switch, no matter what that switch looked like for them, and all of a sudden becoming passionate and thriving again, which is our story, and we love to hear other people that have gone through that and what they're doing to help their marriages and make it strong and amazing, and so I hope next month will be really fun just hearing from some couples that have normal lives like us Exactly.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say, amy and I make a lot of mistakes. There's a lot of things that we certainly don't know. We continue to fall short, but we love sharing the experiences that we have had or the things that we have learned along the way, along the journey, because we really were at a breaking point in our marriage to where I remember telling Amy, I guess we're just done, let's just get divorced, and I remember that day as clear as anything and how awful that day and those feelings were. But we've been able to get our marriage through a lot of hard work and a lot of difficulty to, I believe, a really good place. And we continue to fall short, we continue to make mistakes, but we work very hard on our marriage. And that's one of the things that we constantly tell people is we have a good marriage but we work extremely hard at it on a daily basis, like we recognize that if we don't, that, we can get back into a bad place in a hurry.
Speaker 2:It's never. I think people think, oh, I can just put, I can hit the cruise control button and just sail through life and marriage will be great all the time. And it's not. You're going to have ups and downs. You're going to have unexpected things happen, or financial things happen, a job loss or help things. There's so many things that can happen that can just throw your life into a tailspin, and so being grounded and having a strong relationship can help you be prepared for when those things and those storms do hit, because they will hit, they will hit, they'll hit. Anyways, we hope you enjoyed the podcast. Look for a great month coming up, like Amy said, with a ton of different guests, and we'll see you on the flip side.