451. Emotional & Sexual Intimacy Go Hand In Hand Part 2 - With Expert Austin Ellis

In this powerful episode of the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast, Nick and Amy are again joined by therapist Austin Ellis to discuss part 2 of the previous podcast 449: Emotional and sexual intimacy go hand in hand. 

They discuss why so many couples struggle to maintain emotional and sexual intimacy after marriage. The conversation focuses on how life changes, unmet expectations, and lack of communication skills can create disconnection between partners. Austin shares practical insights on how couples can rebuild intimacy by developing new relational tools rather than relying on the conditions that existed when they first fell in love.

The discussion explores how emotional, sexual, spiritual, intellectual, financial, and recreational intimacy all play a role in a healthy marriage. They talk about how selfishness, entitlement, pride, fear, and shame often replace connection when couples stop intentionally investing in their relationship. They also emphasize that marriage requires daily commitment, vulnerability, and a willingness to understand your spouse’s needs, wants, and emotional experiences.

Austin provides therapeutic perspective on how couples can move from conflict and disconnection to unity by improving communication, building emotional safety, and choosing love over fear-based reactions. 

The episode also highlights how trauma, betrayal, and unresolved emotional wounds can impact intimacy—but that healing and hope are possible with the right tools and support.

Ultimately, this episode encourages couples to view marriage as a lifelong journey of growth, teamwork, and intentional connection, showing that ultimate intimacy is built through consistent effort, love, and commitment to each other.

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 close to 1M people have downloaded the app and give it such high ratings and reviews!

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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.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:40

Welcome back to another episode of the Ultimate Intimacy Podcast. And we're continuing our great discussion we we had with Austin Ellis last week, uh, talking about how emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy go hand in hand. If you haven't listened to that episode, go listen to that part one first, and we'll dive into part two today. Ultimate intimacy podcast with Nick and Amy and Austin. Welcome back to the podcast, Austin.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Thank you. I'm excited to keep going with this uh discussion. So it's so important for people, you know, to figure out how do we how do we do this thing that we uh at once really enjoyed and so many people can't seem to get back to it, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:18

So I would say this is probably the most common problem that we see, right? That that imbalance, uh men just not knowing what how to step it up emotionally. I mean, this is this is what we see from a lot of couples, and women not being able to step it up sexually or vice versa.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah, or vice versa, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Right, yeah, yeah, you know, it's I I kind of took some notes at the end of the last one of some things to talk about, and and I think maybe where we start is um right, when you get married, a lot, I mean, and I recognize that people in you know second, third marriages, but if we look at like kind of when you typically start out, um, your life is typically in a different situation. You know, you add kids later or you're getting married and you already have a new situation with you know stepkids or whatever, and and so the conditions that allow people to feel really connected oftentimes very quickly after marriage are totally different. And so people aren't, it's like they're not prepared for how do we maintain this when when life is different?

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Right?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

In our in my world, in the therapeutic world, like there's very common things, it's like every couple's gonna hit these, and every couple thinks they're gonna be okay when they hit it until they hit it, okay?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

One of those is living together, one of those is pregnancy, one of those is having a child. Pretty soon, right after pregnancy, a man is also facing a much greater financial fear, whether or not they're doing okay, whether or not she's working, because now he's thinking of is she gonna be home with the kids? How are we gonna balance, right? So all of a sudden you're both going through two different sets of things. Yeah. Well, you're going through the same thing, it's like, oh, we're having a baby, for example, right? But you're both uh feeling that totally differently, right? Uh-huh. And so the reason I bring this up is um couples can thrive in a variety of conditions. Most of them only know how to thrive in the conditions in which they fell in love. And so it's just a little bit of skill set development, typically, of okay, you're in some different circumstances, you need some different tools, and you can get back to you know what was good. The other place, too, that I think is important, we we talk about needs, right? Like I have my needs. Um, it's it's pretty mature to be able to say, Hey, are some of my needs because I'm not willing to grow, I'm not willing to heal, and so I just want you to fulfill things for me. Um, when a husband and wife both together will say, Hey, what's mine to take care of? Um, that's not your responsibility to make me feel better, versus what's ours together. And so I often shift the conversation to, hey, let yeah, let by all means, let's look at needs, but let's look at wants, right? Do you want to be in a relationship with someone who wants to meet what's important to you, or do you want the bare minimum needs, right? Most people will say, Yeah, I want to, I want you to be happy, not just meet your baseline needs, right? And so if you can start to get in tune with like what helps me feel the most connected, where I feel in love with you and it's easy for me to give love. Like, if each person gets in tune with that, then it's a matter of are you gonna do it or aren't or aren't you, right? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Yeah, you made a great point. And we actually just did a podcast on this not too long ago, um, stating no one ever teaches you how to be married, right? Because exactly what you're saying, all you know is that what what you're going through then? Then you get me, yeah, get you get married, and all of a sudden it's two people living together with different perspectives, and you have children and all these different things. And and I love that you hit on that because now all of a sudden you're expected, how do we stay connected or grow our marriage with all this? I don't want to call it turmoil necessarily, but different things going on that you have to navigate.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah, there's something we we touched on a little bit last time that I think is really valuable for couples right now, right? In in my field, we can look at all sorts of data from the past, and and marriage was approached differently in the past, so was intimacy. I think we've come a long way. Like, you know, there there was places where people didn't have rights, there was fear, there was, you know, you could you had to stay in a bad situation. And so we've we've had a lot of progression in a positive direction, but with that, there's been things missed. And what I want to get to with that is I think couples, a lot of couples now, they miss the idea that hey, we're gonna get together and it's gonna expose both of our you know weaknesses, our selfishness, our insecurities, but we're committed to creating this daily, this this you know, connection, this intimacy between us. And if if people can understand you're gonna hit opposition and you overcome it together, and then there's another level of benefit. But what most people do is like, you're not making me happy, I'm out, or I'm pulling back. That makes sense. And yeah, so I think past generations, based on the data, it was like, we know this is gonna be hard. We're gonna work to create, and I mentioned this like the data in our last episode. A lot of women said, like, I think it was like the average was love for marriage was like seven on the list, but it wasn't I never want love. The idea was I'm gonna learn to love, right? Yeah, yeah. And and so right now we typically marry someone that we're attracted to that we love. Um, and then so we already have that baseline where a lot of the past generations didn't have that baseline, and we go, well, if it doesn't come easy, yeah, I'm I'm gonna just look at my phone all day or whatever, check out porn or you know, all the things, right? So any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03 7:29

Or you hear people that fall out of love, and it's not that you really fall out of love, you just stop trying and doing the things that caused you to be in love in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

So I think it really, like we talked in the last episode, part one, it really comes down to that all of a sudden that disconnect, right? Like, well, you're not meeting my emotional needs, and you're not meeting my sexual needs, which is a lot of the case. Sometimes it's just emotional, emotional, whatever. Right. But we get we get to that standoff that me and Nick talk about a little bit on this pumpkin that you're not meeting my needs, why should I meet your needs? And that whole selfishness comes out, right? And then that barrier, and you start getting more disconnected, and then I feel like you get lazy.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Parts of like selfishness, my needs are getting met, and then you both start to disconnect, and then you just start getting lazy in the marriage, right? Like, like what do you have to say about that?

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Yeah, you know, it I think that happens a lot. I think I think there's a lot of, frankly, there's a lot of entitlement that people enter marriage with and they feel owed, and it's like a it's like a quid pro quo trade kind of deal. The best marriages are not built on trade. Um, the best marriages are built on I love you, right? And I want what's good for you. And so to your point, Amy, I think that selfishness is born out of that entitlement, like kind of these oftentimes unspoken expectations. You didn't meet my expectation, and now what you're getting from me is my anger, and I don't even know why, right? And so I think with a lot of couples, a lot of the work I do it early on is do you even know what your spouse wants? No, I just see anger, I just see you know, shutdown or whatever. So, right, this openness, and you need safety to have openness, you need a sense of care. A lot of people kind of harden their hearts, and like it's really tricky because the people that typically shut down, like when I talk to them one-on-one, for example, they will tell me they want love and connection, but they're protecting themselves, that's why they're shut down. And so we have to work through the emotion there, but a lot of times I'll say, How is disconnection and punishing your spouse ever going to equal connection? Like, disconnection, anger never equal connection and love. Like, that's a that's a bad formula, right? Yeah, and so this idea of working through you know what's blocking me from pouring in, for a lot of couples, you can have a conversation of like, do you want to have a happy marriage? Yeah, I I would too. What does that look like for you? It doesn't have to be exactly the same, honestly.

SPEAKER_03 10:09

Like it's so true. Yeah, it doesn't have to look exactly the same. If I if I were to ask Amy what does that look like to you and what does that look like to me, there's probably gonna be a lot of different things in there. Oh, absolutely. And I'm gonna need to meet those needs, and she's yeah, or I should say desires or wants, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah, all of them, right? Like we we do have needs for sure. I just like to help people think a little bit bigger. Like, what if we do what you want? Like, and it and it can be the needs and the wants. That's where marriage can be really cool because it's like, hey, you can create a new vision. I'll tell couples often, or I'll ask them, I'll say, How much time did you spend like planning a wedding? Right, several months. Cool. How much time did you plan a marriage, right? Or life together, and so you're planning, well, let's call it three months for a one-day thing, right? You have this vision for the flowers and the cake, blah, right? Three months for one day, and then I'll say, How long did you plan for I don't know, the next 60 years? Oh, we didn't we didn't do that, right? Right, okay, because you didn't you just thought it would work, but the best marriages are there's vision, and then I would let's say like an architect, right? Like you might have a vision, but if nobody taught you how to create that marriage, like if your parents examples great, but if they didn't teach you the skills to do what they're doing, and your partner doesn't have that, then you can have vision and even blueprints, but if you don't have the skills to carry that out, like and that's where people I think that was exactly our marriage.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

We Amy and I both know what knew what we wanted, but uh we went through a lot of turmoil because we didn't have the tools that we needed, a lot of it, wouldn't you say?

SPEAKER_00 11:57

I think we both came in with expectations that they were gonna stay hot, passionate, passionate. I was gonna get the things that I married for from him, which I didn't at first, and he was gonna get you know, the things that we had were gonna continue. And so, like what you're talking about, this vision, I think they kind of goes hand in hand with these expectations. We have these expectations in this vision, and then when they're different or they go off, you know, all of a sudden we're like, ah, this isn't gonna work, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yeah, and I mean, uh the one of the mistakes I made was I mean, truthfully, in early in marriage, I I honestly thought didn't understand my wife's needs, and I kind of thought she should need them or want them. I was like, no, my way's better, kind of thing. And you have to like try to understand one another. Like, men and women are totally different. We're not we're not the same, obviously. And so this understanding of like I I want this marriage to be really amazing for you, uh, help me understand what that looks like, and not in a so I can be you know controlled by you or whatever, but so I can show you love because I love you. And so one of the things I think we bring up real quick, I wrote these down, and most couples don't think of this. We you know, we started last episode with emotional intimacy, sexual intimacy, and I think I mentioned sexual intimacy in that. Oh, you mean spiritual or yeah, excuse me, spiritual. I often talk to clients about that's kind of like this soul-to-soul concept. Like, I'm gonna bring all of me, my mind, my emotions, my body, my you know, uh like I'm in. Um but we talk therapeutically, we often talk about intellectual intimacy, that ability to have stimulating, you know, meaningful conversations. Um, some people like I remember specifically one woman, I I listed that she's like, I've never heard that term. She's like, that's what I've been craving more than anything, right? And so, like, what does that look like? This this intellectual interaction, I put recreational intimacy. Oh, yeah. A lot of people like, I want to have fun with you. Like, it's cool to go do my hobby with the guys, or like I want to share my favorite things in life with you. That's really valuable. Um, I put intimacy around the use of time, energy, and vision. So if we look at like this concept of into me see, I'm gonna let you in on how I want to use our time. I'm gonna let you in on how I want to use my energy. I'm gonna let you in on my vision for our family, for our kids, for like whatever. I wrote uh parenting intimacy. I rarely hear people talk about that. For a lot of women, especially if they can have a conversation where they feel like he's equally like invested in that, that's uh where I would I would say 75% of women actually feel the closest there, and a lot of them aren't aware of it until we give language to it. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Oh yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

And then financial intimacy is another one, right? This this openness, this transparency. Um so if couples can start one getting in tune with these things, and then it is a risk sometimes to share, but like, hey, I want to let you into what I would like to create with you, and I'm interested in what you want to. Now you can start to build a marriage intentionally instead of reactively. Does that make sense? Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Yeah, yeah, totally agree with everything you're saying. When it's reactive, you're gonna have just constant conflict.

unknown 15:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

Like you said, building that together and you know, how can I asking those questions? And I I would say most people don't know, don't ask those questions. Like just as simple as, like you said, going to your spouse and saying, hey, you know, what does this mean to you? Or how how can I make you feel this way, or what do you want in our marriage?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Oh, absolutely. And going back into this like emotional, sexual, you know, why why those things and bringing the spiritual and all those other kind of areas of intimacy that kind of I feel like kind of go in with the I mean they both they're all combined, but more into the emotional um that make the sexual intimacy so great. Let's just talk about can we just dive into like like commitment? I think what happens is that it is easy getting easier to turn selfish or turn to our phones or turn to divorce and just kind of be like, I give up, right? Like I think back in the days there wasn't all these distractions and distractions, but there wasn't this giving up mentality. And so we talked about in part one where sexual intimacy just as much effort needs to go into them as the emotional intimacy. And you were saying things like like when a couple is like I'm committed to yes, absolutely creating really strong emotional connection first, but I'm I'm committed, keyword committed to let's make two nights a week minimum to be intimate, but like intimate, intimate connection, how then it changes marriage? And we we're also seeing, you know, how important that is for the lower joint spouse to like put that effort and commitment into the month and and just the changes that you see with them. I think, I think, and then had to do this in my own marriage, like kind of step back and be like, how committed am I and what does that look like? What is he needed? And am I actually committed to his needs? Because he's committed to my needs, it needs to be equal there. And it's not always 50-50. But I think that we need to, and we say this a little bit in our podcast is like, have this higher standard of living in our marriages, like what does commitment really look like? And are we really portraying love as a matching word, right? We say we love ourselves, we say, Oh, I love you more than anyone, but do we actually show them? Do we show it in the way we talk to them when the when we put our phone down or that that we get excited to go on date nights, or that we get excited to be intimate with them? Like this looks all different ways. But I I don't know. I just think the society and nowadays we're missing that what commitment means. And it's constant effort, right? Like I just think we're getting lazy.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

That was a long question. That was a long question. Can you rephrase that to him?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I think he knows where I'm I think he's a therapist. He knows exactly where I'm going with that.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Like long strings of things, Nick.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Um okay, do you mean my exact question?

SPEAKER_01 18:28

No, I got it. I yeah, the a couple thoughts that I I kind of jot down, and I think you're touching on something like probably really important, like across culture, across religion, across like everything. Like the the the thing we're touching here is um I mean, this is from a therapeutic like we have knowledge of this, right? We can we can gauge what what is narcissism, what are narcissistic tendencies. The world is increasing in narcissism. I mean, that's that's factual. And the underlying component of that, it it looks like selfishness, but if you go deeper, the deeper underlying component is people aren't having their attachment needs met. Okay. That's right, that starts in childhood, but it also happens in marriage. And I'll I'll share this because it's important. No matter what happened in your childhood, truthfully, your marriage can be a remedy to create secure, healthy attachment. The reason I want to start here with this conversation of commitment is logically, most people are committed, emotionally, a lot of people are more committed to their fear than they are to love. Okay. And so it can feel a little hard to face this, but a lot of times what I try to do gently is I say, look, you've told me your values. It's you know, you value being a good spouse. That's about you, that's not even about your your spouse yet. You value being a good spouse, you value your spouse, you actually like your spouse, you value marriage, and you value value parenting and your kids, right? But what are you consistently choosing? Well, I'm I'm choosing what my looks like checked out, okay. Why are you choosing that? Well, fear is typically the answer. Um what else are you choosing? Well, I'm choosing anger, I'm choosing criticism. Okay, so you're not you're not actually committed to what you value most, you're committed to protecting yourself or escaping discomfort when couples can be mature and say, Hey, I don't get this right. And I would say it's really mature for every single human to say, I kind of suck as a spouse a little bit, right? I'm I'm trying, but we come to marriage imperfect. It's quite narcissistic, honestly, to think that you came as a whatever, 20-year-old, 35-year-old, and you just like had it figured out. So if we can all kind of step in out of this and be like, look, I know I'm not gonna get this right all the time, but I want to, and I'm willing to look at me so I can grow and I can operate from love instead of fear or anxiety or right. And and and going a little deeper, so we use the term commitment, and and I think we probably should bring up the word covenant, um across cultures. This isn't a you know a Christian thing only, like across cultures, across religions, the concept of uniting yourself through life, which was you go across cultures, like marriage is a life thing, right? And it's it's bigger than a commitment, it is a covenant, and for those people that are married, if you don't know that you're in a covenant, it it's probably worth like I made a covenant, right? You probably made vows. Um Even if you were in an arranged marriage, which still happens in parts of the world, there is an understanding that, like, I am in this thing. And that's a daily effort. So many people are not thinking about their marriages for months at a time, honestly, right? And so, right, if going back to what you said, Amy, like if we step out of selfishness and laziness and we get in tune with our own values, one, what do I value? And then two, what do I want? Probably what you'll find is it's pretty available. I I tell couples this, they don't love it. I'll say, I bet we can spend two days together, and I bet you can go home and be happy, like pretty quickly. And they're like, No, we've been trying everything. And I I'll like lovingly, I'll say, Have you tried XYZ A B C? And they're like, We didn't even know about that. I was like, these are ingredients for a successful marriage.

unknown 22:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Let's put those ingredients in. We'll help you work through the path. Like, I'll I'll be really transparent with this. There was a time where me and my wife had kind of our core issues, and we couldn't work them out, couldn't work them out, couldn't work them out. And then we had fallout from that. I was like, more pain because of that stuff. We we got to a place and I was like, our original issues are actually worked out. You've made some changes, I've made some changes. Like our original struggles are like we could do this, but we'd had so much fallout damage, right? And I I see this with a lot of couples. It's like it's like uh uh a you know, uh the analogy in my mind is like there's a there's a lake, okay, and there's a dam, right? That's creating the lake, and then there's this stream down below. By the time couples come to me, it's like that dam is broken and like everything's been destroyed, intimacy, communication, like all this damage. And very frequently I go, okay, like the damage is here. What what broke the dam, right? Like, let's look at that. And what were the issues that were like pushing against the dam that didn't get resolved, and then it right, we had all this fallout. Very frequently, the initial stuff that started it is simply tied to a level of I missed what you were trying to let me know. It wasn't unwillingness, it wasn't a lack of care, it wasn't it was I I didn't see it, I didn't, I didn't understand it, or if I did, I didn't know what to do with it. And so one of our goals as a couples therapist is we unite the couple against the problem. Couples come in and they point the finger, you're the bad guy, you're the bad guy, right? And we try to go, it kind of looks like this happened to you. And you each did some stuff, but nobody wakes up and is like, I think I want to destroy my marriage today, and I think I want to see my wife cry. And I love when my husband is, you know, sleeping on the catch. Like nobody, nobody's right. And so we help couples see that this happened to you, and you can fight back against it and get back to good. That's where I think commitment comes in. I know we took a round about. Are you committed to the covenant? Are you committed to the person? And can you have the courage to go, when I pour back in, I'm gonna get a better version of my spouse because my love does something. It's so cool when a wife and a husband believe that my love actually matters, I'm gonna pour it in and I'm gonna see that that's gonna do something for all involved. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, you explained that perfectly. I think the other word that goes kind of hand in hand though is pride. I mean, I think when you know, you can't let your pride down. We see so many couples that just like are, you know, get in arguments over the stupidest thing, it's because of pride, right? You can't be wrong or you know, whatever. And I think pride just could be such a killer in marriage. Um, you know.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Well, you said you said most of the couples that come in this situation when the dam is already broke, is because they miss something. And so what I'm taking from like everything that you're saying is it all comes down to communication.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Because they missed something, right? It was either not sent or they didn't understand what it was, they didn't know what that looked like, whatever, which is totally assumptions. Yeah, like it all comes down to like learning, having those tools to really be able to communicate. Like, I really need this from you. Well, what does that even look like? Let me let me tell you, right? And being willing to be like, and then I'm sorry, messed up, I wasn't very good at that. I'm gonna try harder this week. And it's like, oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Sometimes in in the therapeutic world, we talk of like paradoxes. Um, so I'll I'll share the paradox, okay? We often say, so what you said is is accurate. Like a lot of it breaks down to communication, but the paradox comes in is we also say when couples are connected, they can communicate just fine. Okay. Um, and so the the place where the this comes into play is we need some communication skills, but we need the communication that's not just verbal. Okay, the communication is not it's not knowledge, it's not it's love. Okay. When I communicate love to you and you feel loved, we can talk just fine, right? We can we can navigate things, you know. We're smart, we we you're right. It's when people are disconnected from love and they're bringing anger and fear and pride and shame. Shame is huge. We should probably have a full podcast about shame. I don't know, right? Yeah, we do. But these these this is what's very cool when couples come in for for healing, is oftentimes we're like, let's resolve the emotions that are getting in the way. You're not choosing anxiety, you're not choosing pride, you're feeling it, and now it's part of the divide. That's a lot of places where emotional intimacy can actually be the deepest. Um, for example, let's say a guy is. I mean, I'll just share transparently. I met with a couple a few days ago. Um, pretty extreme trauma that is in the marriage, but they were doing well with that, and then they experienced a trauma that you could never plan on that wasn't between them. I won't go into the details of that, but so I I sat down and she was crying, she was hurting, and I was kind of glancing on my other eye, but I'm trying present. And I could just tell like it was not hitting him.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Like, I was like the deepness of it.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Yeah, it was like he was it was like he was taken out by what I what looked like pride. I'm like, man, he's just being hard-hearted, kind of thing, right? Like she's pouring out her heart, she's crying, he's just like stonewall kind of thing. And I turned to him and I, you know, comforted her, and I turned to him and I said, I said, You're you're pretty numb, aren't you? And I said, You know that hearing that should be painful for you. But you don't feel the pain right now, right? And he said, He's like, I'm I'm numb. And I said, and I just I because I've done this for a while, I knew where to go, and so I didn't try to make it intellectual, but I softened my voice and I went really slow and I said because you know that part of this hurt you created for her. Right? That's what he doesn't want to touch because it's painful to know that you hurt your wife. And I and I just said, I know what it's like to hurt a wife, I know how that feels internally, and I said, But right now there's an opportunity to see her in her pain and to heal that. And I said, That emotion you're feeling is shame, but it looks to your wife probably like like you don't care. And I just turned to her, I said, Am I getting that right? And she's like, Yeah, she's like, I was just really vulnerable, and he has no word, right? So I came back and I said, I don't think you're doing this intentionally. I said, I feel like you're taken out by this shame and it's looking like pride, right? Yeah, yeah. And so, I mean, I won't go into all of that, but one of the things that happened is I helped him out of the shame by validating that it's hard, and you know, it does make sense to feel bad about this, and it is hard to see your wife cry of something you did, but you're making it potentially worse by I hurt you and now I'm not comforting it, right? So we got him back to a good place, and and she called me. We had a follow-up thing, and I just kind of checked in, and she said it was so valuable for me to see that when he was like not responding to me, like she had her her, you know, what she believed that was, right? And she's like, it was a total paradigm shift for me to see my husband as like also hurting that he hurt me. She's like, that's everything I wanted. Wow, right. But he didn't have the ability to do that, right? And and the place where well I should word this, he did have the ability, he just needed a little, a little nudge, right? A little a little safety that I I help provide. And the reason I share this is this is a very common thing in in couples therapy. We pretty much know that within an hour, hour and a half, we can help couples leave connected. Doesn't mean everything's resolved. Doesn't mean that there's not work, but it's like you could should be able to leave with some hope that you two are capable, the pain of the past can be resolved, and you can gain the skill sets to build an amazing marriage, not a not a mediocre marriage. And that that's where a lot of couples it's interesting because we feel like we're gonna go to couples therapy and it's like problematic. It's like we should probably call it like you're coming to marriage-building school that should have been taught from you from you know from age zero to twenty or whatever. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Yeah. Well, I love what you shared because um what like maybe a month ago now from this episode, you talked about betrayal, going through really hard things, and then for people that like you gave them hope that like you can be in a really hard place and your needs aren't being met and you're not communicating right, you're feeling disconnected, you're not feeling loved, and you can turn them around by starting like with a new foundation. And so I I think the like this help is someone whether you're feeling like sexually rejected or you're feeling emotionally rejected or just completely off and you're married to someone that like on some's really great at giving help and giving tools to like just start this, let's start this and and build the endless journey, right? Like so and I love that you you've dealt with so many things that are just couples that are just broken in pieces at the very you know, going down that river, the dam is broke, but you're like, hey, I can still help you rebuild a marriage that like creates ultimate intimacy. That's what we want everyone to have, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:09

So I I feel I feel really I had really some really great mentors and and teachers and professors. And one of the things that has been really valuable, like I mean, early in my career, everybody was coming in with betrayal. Um, like we that episode we talked about was all sexual betrayal, which I mean, couples go through a lot of hard things, right? But that sexual betrayal is among the hardest for couples to repair from. Um, but you know, based on a lot of experience, like couples can come in and I can say from experience, like you can do this, like there is a path. That hopelessness is where a lot of people are are stuck, no matter you know what the core and so I hope in this episode, like there is a path. I won't I don't want to use the term back because a lot of couples are like, Oh, we never had it amazing. I would say there's a path towards ultimate intimacy, right? There's a path to this concept of man and woman become united as one, right? And you know, I'm fortunate to have had enough experience to see the Lord work in marriages where I go, like, hey, I I can give you a lot of great tools, I have skills, but like God can guide you to become your best selves together. And right, she's getting the best of the masculine, and he's getting the best of the feminine. And so many couples are either flipped, right? They're flipped or they're just you know, they're self-protecting, and they often one's bid, you know. When Gottman talks about this, like I'm making an attempt, a bid to connect, and a lot of couples are missing that. And so I would just say marriage is meant to be the best, and you're gonna face challenges, but ideally you're facing those with your best friend, and you have this space, let's call it your intimacy space, mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, all this stuff. You have this thing between you two that can help you weather the storm, and coming out of that where it's like, I at least I have you, right? And we had great love making and we had a fun date night. Now we can face life. So many couples are facing life disconnected, and that's everything we're trying to help with, right? So right, love it.

SPEAKER_03 35:29

Oh, this has been a great uh podcast episode. Um as Amy and I said before, you know, we have a lot of conversations off camera with Austin, and um one of the things we just love is that you know, you don't need to rebuild something that you don't want. You can rebuild something new, and we'll do a deeper podcast on that as well. But if you're a couple out there listening, and you know, even if you're not in the darkest place, whether you're in the darkest place or you're in a place where you're like, we just need a little bit of help, um, feel free to reach out to us. We'll connect you with Austin. And Austin's been gracious enough for ultimate intimacy customers to offer about 15 minutes of time to uh get to know you and hear hear what's going on. And um, you know, we we really appreciate that as well, too. So you can have an introductory call with Austin and um you know get to get to know him a little bit and see if he's the right fit. But we've seen so many couples that have benefited so greatly in seeing their marriage completely transform after visiting with Austin. In fact, um, some of our best friends um just have have an incredible marriage after working with Austin. So don't hesitate. Um if you if you feel like you need a little bit of help, uh we really feel Austin Austin can be a great benefit to you. So reach out to us and we'll put you in contact with him. And we appreciate being on the podcast as well as Austin. It's always a pleasure. We love working with you. And until the next time, we hope all of you can find ultimate intimacy in your relationship. Thank you.