Overcoming Blocks to Sexual Communication

Thomas Westenholz (00:05.359)
So welcome back to Couples in Focus podcast. I’m Thomas here and I am joined as always by Michael and we are continuing our episode on looking at sexuality and couples and how that all play out. And today the main focus is really going to be on, you know, how do we have these conversations about s*x and also what is blocking us actually having these? Why does it often end up in this silent death as I call it?

over time when nobody mentioned anything and eventually we’re so dissatisfied. So yeah, let’s get started, Michael. And I love to get your input on all this.

Michael Preston (00:42.967)
Let’s do it.

Yeah, yeah, looking forward to it.

Thomas Westenholz (00:49.751)
Amazing. So where do we start with all this? It’s a big topic. I think as you mentioned before the podcast, right? You said, let’s recognize how difficult this is. So I think that’s maybe a good place for us to start. Right. And I liked what you said. You said, this is really hard. It might sound simple. We might give you some tips, but actually it’s really vulnerable. Right. I like when you said, it’s not like talking about who’s washing the dishes. There’s a lot.

Michael Preston (00:59.043)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (01:03.842)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (01:13.39)
Good night.

Michael Preston (01:17.259)
Right.

Thomas Westenholz (01:18.005)
more at stake here, right? Because

Michael Preston (01:19.694)
Yeah, there’s a lot more of their person at stake, right? Who’s washing the dishes doesn’t say a lot about my person, but so much of our identity about whether we’re good at s*x or bad at s*x. These messages also get stirred into whether I am good or I am bad. Right? So it’s really, really vulnerable stuff we’re talking about.

Thomas Westenholz (01:23.479)
Yes. Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (01:47.651)
Yes, because that can be a really devastating message, right? And that might lead us into one of the things I know we want to discuss today is what are some of the blocks? Like, why are people not having these conversations, right? And what’s preventing them from actually doing that?

Michael Preston (01:51.298)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (02:04.118)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So we’re kind of talking about these, like when you try to talk about s*x, these are some of the things that oftentimes will happen. Couples do try to talk about this that will take their conversation in the wrong direction, which will likely end up in them having an argument, shutting down. it. They’re going to do all the same things. Right. But

when we do that dance, right? The cycle that we so often talk about, the pursue withdrawal cycle. When we do that around dishwashing, yep, that sucks, doesn’t feel good, nobody likes it. When we do it around s*x, it just hurts even more, right? Because one of the things that I think is really important to remember is both people, generally speaking, want a healthy, engaged, and

decently frequent sexual relationship, right? I’m not saying someone isn’t not I went five or one five a day I want a five a week and someone’s like, no, maybe not that much, right? There’s gonna be varying it but it’s not like one person’s like I’m just not gonna want to have s*x ever again and someone wants to have s*x all the time. It’s far more in the middle than that. And so here we have two people who generally want to have a sexual relationship who would like a decently frequent sexual relationship, but

can’t have a conversation around it when we have a couple of things become get present. So we want to take a second kind of name some of these blockers. The first one I would say is when we try to find the reason, right? Sorry, I’m on a studio recording here, but you can’t see my air quotes around the reason. So I’ll have to tell you air quotes the reason. When we try to find the reason we aren’t having s*x.

The reason becomes something about our partner, something they are doing or aren’t doing. And this becomes the blame game. Right? So oftentimes when couples come together to discuss their sexualized relationship, it’s on this like heated sense of you never do this thing for me or you always do this to me or if you would just try this thing.

Michael Preston (04:29.518)
Those kind of blaming startups are never ever going, they’re just not, they’re not going to end well.

Thomas Westenholz (04:39.439)
It’s like, you know, the US nuclear policy is mutual destruction. And I say, if this is how you start a conversation around s*x, it is basically assured mutual destruction, right? That is the outcome. There will never be a winner. Even if your partner were to back down and say, yes, it’s about me. Well, and you might feel gratification for a second because you get a bit of dopamine being right, then I guarantee you.

Michael Preston (04:44.47)
Yep.

It is assured mutual destruction.

No.

Michael Preston (05:00.76)
Right.

Thomas Westenholz (05:07.501)
You have just made your partner feel devastated about themselves and that is not going to help your s*x life. So the find the bad guy is definitely guaranteed mutual destruction, right? Which is why it’s never meant to be used, right?

Michael Preston (05:10.562)
Mm-hmm. Right. It’s not gonna help your s*x life.

Michael Preston (05:20.962)
Guaranteed.

Right, yeah, we really don’t want you to do that. If you’re thinking about having a conversation about s*x in your relationship and your goal is to, just need my partner to understand what they’re doing wrong, we’re gonna tell you right now, I don’t give a lot of direct advice, but I’m gonna give some and that is, don’t do it. Put the pin down. I’d rather you not talk about s*x than go tell your partner what they’re doing wrong about your s*x life, right?

Thomas Westenholz (05:51.588)
Yes.

Michael Preston (05:53.102)
that is going to be even worse than just this silent thing you guys are already doing and somehow surviving. So just go back to being silent for a moment. And maybe by the end of the episode, we’ll have a bit more of an idea of what you might could, how you might could approach that. So if there’s a part of blaming in your approach, right?

Thomas Westenholz (06:00.003)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (06:09.39)
Yes.

Michael Preston (06:15.88)
recognize that in yourself, right? Really go, am I really here to tell my partner what they’re doing wrong? Again, I’ll say there’s usually goodness behind it, right? If I could just help my partner understand this one thing, then everything could be different, right? So we’re saying it kind of funny way, but we do know there’s really good, it’s a desperate attempt, absolutely. You might have to, yeah, yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (06:33.079)
Yes, absolutely. It’s a desperate attempt for connection, right? And you’re spot on, but we have to laugh about the seriousness of life too, right? But of course we also understand that yes, behind this is a serious attempt to try and fix something that’s really painful. And we think that we can fix it by doing that. But I’m just saying that it’s the same as think you can fix geopolitics by blowing up a nuclear missile. No, it’s assured mutual destruction. So I get the intent, but they will never have the impact.

Michael Preston (06:49.038)
Mm-hmm. That’s right.

Michael Preston (06:57.632)
Right. That’s right.

That’s right. That we’re wanting, which is, which is if we’re trying to talk about this, the impact we’re trying to do is open up a vulnerable conversation so that we can possibly explore what is happening in our s*x life that is keeping us from being able to both of us mutually from being able to engage in a meaningful s*x life together. Right. So that’s, that’s the goal. So how do we begin to do that? So the other pieces we’ll name is the.

Thomas Westenholz (07:02.691)
that you hope for,

Thomas Westenholz (07:21.967)
Yes.

Michael Preston (07:29.006)
general moves of the cycle, which is defensiveness and shutting down. Right. And so just to kind of take us on a second here.

Navigate resistance to couples therapy podcast episode.

I just take a deep breath there. That deep breath can be really important as you take a second to begin to notice like, what are your defensive moves in the past? Can you, can you take a second and think about a time that you guys have tried to talk about s*x? What is your move? Is it, is it to jump in with, but you never this or I can’t believe that. Like is your move to begin to get defensive when you start to get into this conversation? Again, these, these things being present.

is going to assure that you do not improve your s*x life. So if you find yourself saying, yeah, I’m kind of the defensive one. Like I get into justifying and, well, you didn’t do that, you didn’t do that. And I start going in point by point, kind of blaming all the other pieces, right? Tossing it back on the other partner. Take a second and say, what is usually happening? What is the message that you’re usually getting from your partner? Right? That somehow this is all my fault.

That’s normally where I see my defensiveness come from is somehow I’m sitting there in a place going, this is all my fault. And the only way to help someone understand that it’s not all my fault is to defensively show them all the things they are doing wrong. Right?

Thomas Westenholz (08:57.667)
Yes. And I can’t accept that something fundamentally is wrong with me. So all I can do is try and shoot it back at you again, or I can disengage altogether. That’s pretty much the options I have. Right. And then maybe I never bring it up again because I don’t really want to rock the boat. And even though it feels disconnected and there’s sadness and anger around not having a s*x life, then it feels better than stir the boat and watch the big waves coming. Right. The tsunami.

Michael Preston (09:08.972)
or you can disengage.

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Preston (09:25.934)
That’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (09:27.063)
So therefore I might just stay silent altogether. And that’s often what happens, right? People might have been through the blame game for a while. And then there’s just silence because we weren’t successful in finding the bad guy and that didn’t work. So now we just don’t really talk about it. And that become quite a desperate place, right? I call it the slow death, right? But there’s another option and that’s kind of what we want to present today, which is that it is possible.

Michael Preston (09:32.46)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (09:47.414)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (09:56.707)
to have open conversations about sexuality. And maybe we can talk about some of the blocks that comes up to that, right? Because I think when people here say that they’re like, no, no, no, that can just open the tsunami, right? Start the earthquake. And I don’t want that. what are some of the blocks here that kind of comes in the way of us being able to even sit down and start having these conversations?

Michael Preston (10:10.818)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Michael Preston (10:19.502)
Yeah. Ooh. I think about how so many couples have come to my office and they’ve shared that they are in a fairly like sexless relationship, right? And we don’t just describe a sexless relationship as one that never has s*x, but one that generally goes through long periods of time without any sexual engagement.

Right now people do come in with like, we haven’t had s*x in three years. There’s also comes that come in like, yeah, we might have s*x once every four months. Right. And even that’s going to go, okay, there’s something going on that I get the sense that a way to talk about it is first recognizing it feels like if we approach this conversation, the dam is going to break. And all the things that we haven’t said, it’s just going to come.

flooding out of us, which often happens, and we just end up in that same painful place. And so we can’t talk about it. We can’t even begin to talk about what makes us nervous about talking about this. And that can be a great first conversation, which is just being able to say, I get nervous around talking about s*x. lot of the sexual withdrawers, emotional pursuers are going to say, if

I try to talk about s*x, they’re gonna want s*x. And suddenly it’s gonna be I have to show up sexually. Right?

Thomas Westenholz (11:51.727)
Yes, and that can be so scary that I’d avoid it altogether. Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is why I like what you said about maybe we can start by just sharing how hard it is to talk about s*x and how scary that is. Even before I like that, I think that’s great. And I think also some of the blocks, if we look at them, we talked about before in our little brainstorm, you know, how we have external factors, right?

Michael Preston (11:55.37)
I- oooh! Like, don’t talk about it, right?

Michael Preston (12:04.706)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (12:14.125)
Mm-hmm.

That’s right. That’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (12:17.515)
and internal factors that really block sexuality. And it might be good as you sit and maybe reflect and listen to this. What are some of the things that are making our s*x life really challenging, right? Yes, there’s external factors like kids, right? Like working hours, like the demand of life. There can be different physical illnesses. There can be hormonal things, getting older. There are so many things.

Michael Preston (12:26.434)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (12:32.41)
yeah, yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (12:42.401)
impacting our sexuality. And of course, there’s also different preferences, right? But there’s so many things, external factors that has an impact on why the s*x life might slowly have been not what you wanted, right? And then another part of the block to it is what we mentioned a little bit already is the internal factors that cannot block, right? That can be, do I have a tendency to associate a lot of my identity with my sexual performance, right? This performance model we mentioned.

Michael Preston (12:49.292)
Right. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

Thomas Westenholz (13:11.617)
And that might mean that I feel a lot of shame if you were ever to say anything, except my performance is great, that I would feel really bad about myself. That can really block being able to talk about s*x, right? And also s*x in general, because our sexual response is very much impacted by shame, right? Stress is a surefire way to shut down the sexual response.

Michael Preston (13:22.243)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (13:28.172)
Huge.

Michael Preston (13:31.982)
That’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (13:33.271)
Yeah, I just want to kind of start the discussion there and just say, Hey, there’s different factors here that can impact that makes s*x life really difficult and having conversations about it.

Michael Preston (13:36.461)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (13:41.558)
Right. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. think about how many relationships are having conversations, like active conversations around like perimenopause and being able to talk about those things and being able to name, hey, my body’s going through a lot of changes right now. I don’t even feel comfortable in my own skin. And can you tell your partner that? And can your partner take that in? Right. Because

What happens in the silent one, where nobody says anything, is there’s a slowing down or stepping away from sexuality as the comfortability in our own skin goes away. But then the message received is somehow something’s changed and I’m not worthy, I’m not, I’ve done something wrong, my partner isn’t attracted to me anymore. All the negative messages, right? So anytime there’s silence around sexuality, it invites that

really terrifying story to come up, right?

Michael Preston (14:46.254)
And so, you I was gonna say like, there’s, you you brought up kids earlier. We’ve got three kids. They’re all under 12 years old. We have a child in our bed 95 % of nights, not all night, but they come in and one of our children is getting older, so they’re staying up later. And my wife and I were talking about that. We’re like, ooh, this is our like, like together time.

is getting real squeezed. Like when my kid is up to 10, but I’m tired at 930, I’m like, no, this is hard. This is getting really, really difficult. And so one of the things that we’ve noticed in our life, and I think I just want to say this for like normalization sake, we’ve had periods of time where like our s*x life is like frequent and it’s more than twice a week and that goes on for a stretch. And then life gets really

stressful and job stuff comes up and then kids are in the room more and then work stuff gets really heavy for me. And suddenly we kind of look and go, man, like we’ve been really out of sync lately, right? And then we’ll go through a period of where it’s less than twice a week. But the difference I think that is that we experience is these are moments we talk about throughout our relationship, right? And there isn’t a problem with our partner.

But we’re able to say, whoa, we’ve been really out of sync lately. And then we start looking at our life together and we’re going, what has been happening? Right? you know, I’ve noticed that we’ve had, had a sick kid here, we had a sick kid there. And then, yeah, this kid has been up really late lately. And oof, we might need to look at how we getting these kids down on time and doing this thing. And just, have you noticed how tired you’ve been? I’ve been really tired.

Like, do you feel exhausted at the end of the day? Yeah, I feel exhausted at the end of the day. We name all of these things going on. And then we also offer reassurance. Hey, I really love you. Like, I feel like this is just a moment. Right? When’s the last time we had a date? When’s the last time we got to, like, some alone time? you’re right. That’s been a long time. right. OK. Hey, let’s make sure that we get someone in.

Michael Preston (17:11.278)
And often that’s what we’ll do is we’ll like, let’s make sure we get someone in who can stay later, right? To make sure all the kids are down, right? Cause if the babysitter leaves at eight 30, then I said I parent take the two and I got to go back into that role, but we’ll make these plans together and talk about it. But nobody becomes the enemy and no one in particular becomes the reason. Right? Our s*x life is waning and waxing and

get growing and decreasing. It’s more the ebbs and flows of life. Does that make sense?

Thomas Westenholz (17:45.387)
It does. And I think this is so important because you’re kind of starting to give the model through this example of your own life of how that actually looks like, right? Because what you’re describing here in your relationship is that, hey, there’s a safety of trust that when something changes, one, we both notice that something has changed, right? We notice it and then we come together as a team.

Michael Preston (17:50.786)
Yeah, yeah, you’re right. You’re right. am. Yeah.

Michael Preston (18:06.36)
Mm-hmm.

Thomas Westenholz (18:10.477)
and look at what are the factors preventing us from having what we would like to share together. So it’s all a team. It’s not you and me. It’s a team. saying, hey, so there’s these external factors. yeah, we haven’t done this and this is taken over. Let’s reprioritize each other. Right? And then together you come up with a plan for how to deal with that. Right? So that’s kind of like, how can we come together and look at what factors are blocking it?

Michael Preston (18:13.1)
Yeah, yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (18:36.003)
That’s one of the parts. And the other part that we kind of introduced with this internal, it’s also for people themselves to kind of reflect, is what is blocking me from being able to hear my partner? Is it that as soon as I hear, you know, maybe a preference they have, I start shaming myself. I start being really harsh on myself and that makes it impossible to hear this, right? And I just wanted to mention that because I mentioned it very quickly before, this is the performance model, right?

Michael Preston (18:46.318)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Michael Preston (18:58.946)
Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (19:04.471)
And it’s something a lot of people listening probably is accustomed to. Cause I think around s*x, we have had much of a performance model, right? Pornography is huge for so many people in our part of the world, which is all about performance, performance. And really, yes.

Michael Preston (19:12.348)
yeah.

Michael Preston (19:18.752)
And expectations in that world, right? They are not translatable into reality, right? So the cards become stacked against the partner, right?

Thomas Westenholz (19:25.743)
Of course not, because it isn’t meant to be reality, right?

Yes. And I think that the performance idea that it’s a performance also makes it not possible to do what is probably most important in sexual, which is to be present. Right? It takes us out of presence because now we have to focus, am I performing? It also makes it extremely difficult to take feedback. If for performance, I tell myself, which is common as well in this model, I am meant to know what my partner likes because I know what women likes, right?

Michael Preston (19:34.893)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (19:41.378)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (19:51.096)
You

Thomas Westenholz (20:01.091)
which of course is a complete nonsense, but this message still is very prevalent, which makes it hard to hear when your partner say, actually, I like this a bit different. Maybe I need a bit more slowness, whatever it is, because you have learned that you’re meant to perform. When actually s*x is like, you know, we talked about, it’s like when you meet someone and start going on dates, you don’t know anything about them. That’s why you, you know, you go out on dates and start asking them questions and you slowly learn that their preference is…

Michael Preston (20:27.404)
Mm-hmm

Thomas Westenholz (20:28.513)
is pizza and not burgers, right? And over time you learn these little preferences, but you didn’t expect yourself to know this, right? However, often in sexuality we come into this and we have this pressure that we told ourselves, I am meant to, because I’m a man, I’m meant to know what women want. Or maybe the other way around, right? I’m meant to know what my partner wants. Of course you don’t. Just like you don’t know their preference was pizza. So really the…

Michael Preston (20:36.909)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (20:45.55)
All right.

Right. Right.

Thomas Westenholz (20:54.935)
most important, but I remember a guy once asked me, what’s your main s*x tip? And he was waiting for some physical thing to do. And, and I said, my main tip for, for being a good lover really in your partnership is being able to be fully present and being open and curious about your partner’s response. Right. And he was a bit baffled by that because that’s not what he was expecting to hear. Right. He thought there’s surely some technique that can always apply.

Michael Preston (21:01.23)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (21:16.524)
Well.

Michael Preston (21:19.822)
Right. Well, there’s some there’s something we can do some oil we can get some some something that’s going to make this thing easy. It’s it’s I will say this. It’s good sexual relationship. Does get easy when you can have a good sexual conversation, when you’re a lot, when conversation is allowed to flow, because even as you were naming like, oh, we don’t expect to know.

Thomas Westenholz (21:25.047)
Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (21:45.273)
Yes.

Michael Preston (21:49.238)
If we’re just getting to know someone, we’re not expecting ourselves to know whether their preference is pizza or hamburger.

But growing with someone also means remaining open to the idea that their favorites begin to change. Like my wife and I, we’re very different than we were when we met when I was 11. I hope I’m very different than when I was 11. Also when I was 18, I married her at 20. And here we are approaching our 40s. And I hope that we’ve changed.

Thomas Westenholz (22:03.631)
That’s right.

Michael Preston (22:24.174)
from the time we got married and our preferences have changed and that we’ve gotten better at some things, but we only know that if we stay curious, right? And so even sexual preferences can change and then they can change from evening to evening. What feels good yesterday doesn’t feel good today. Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (22:32.473)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (22:37.199)
That’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (22:46.315)
Exactly. And this is why the conversation is ongoing. It’s not about just learning a technique, right? Everything is adaptable even in the moment. And that’s why I said being present and attuning and curious is the main thing, right? And it’s also okay to get it wrong, but I can even give an example here of how something like this could look like in practice, right? So maybe after having had s*x or love making whatever with my partner, I could then suddenly turn around and say, hey, something felt a bit different today.

Michael Preston (22:50.574)
See you next

Thomas Westenholz (23:15.299)
And then we had an open talk about it and I said, yes, I think I was a bit miss attuned because I wasn’t fully normally I’m very present, but I wasn’t. had a lot of other things, know, sun and hospital. I wasn’t fully present. So I said, yeah, I think I was a bit miss attuned and I had a lot of stress. I just came out. So I wasn’t really cause something and she said, yeah, I did feel a bit different. And she said, I think I needed a bit more slowness and you just had all this stress that needed. And I said, that’s true. I really, I didn’t fully attune. I said, I apologize about that.

Michael Preston (23:15.502)
and

Michael Preston (23:24.29)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Michael Preston (23:29.454)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (23:35.276)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (23:44.023)
Mm-hmm.

Thomas Westenholz (23:44.487)
And she said, that’s okay, you know, we’re not all and then now we’re having a conversation about it, right? And this happened afterwards when we were lying there being calm. And in this, now we’re realigning again. Yeah. So it was okay that we missed a tune a bit. Nothing happened. No damage happened.

Michael Preston (23:49.09)
Right. Right.

Michael Preston (23:56.174)
That’s Well, yeah. Well, that’s because you’re willing to have the conversation. Right. So again, we come back to a trusting sexual relationship, right? That we are allowed to have a conversation. We can get back in line. Or back aligned. That’s a better way to say that back aligned means getting out of alignment. Not a big deal, but.

Thomas Westenholz (24:03.726)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (24:10.905)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (24:24.601)
Yes.

Michael Preston (24:25.694)
If so often, those who are coming to this saying, how do we have this conversation? They’re going to say, but if I say to my partner, that didn’t feel so good, they’re going to go on a shame spiral. And so that becomes the delicate place. You named shame earlier. And what often keeps people from having these conversations is being able to mention that didn’t feel good or

Thomas Westenholz (24:41.764)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (24:45.327)
Yes.

Michael Preston (24:54.914)
something felt off or even like, are you okay? Suddenly there’s a shame spiral because on the performance side, the vulnerability is my worth and my value hangs on my ability to perform well. And any message that I’m not performing well can send me on a path of self-hate.

Thomas Westenholz (25:02.383)
Yes.

Michael Preston (25:23.042)
Like I’m not good enough, I’m too broken, I can’t even get this right. And we’ll lose our partner to that. And so it becomes a very difficult conversation where we have to take it really slow and even name in the beginning, like, hey, I know this can be hard to talk about.

Thomas Westenholz (25:27.471)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (25:32.655)
That’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (25:39.791)
That’s right. And this is why I think there really are three components, an example you gave and I gave that are important to highlight, right? Because we talked about what killer is silence. What we’re saying here is actually being able to talk about it ongoingly is a key component. Silence is a killer of s*x life, right?

Michael Preston (25:46.254)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (25:50.315)
and

Michael Preston (25:59.294)
Let’s keep saying that over and over. Good s*x starts with good conversation. If you cannot talk about it, you’re going to hit your freeze button and not be able to say something, and then your sexual experience is going to fall apart because you can’t talk about it.

Thomas Westenholz (26:05.356)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (26:10.467)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (26:16.633)
Yes.

That’s right. That’s right. And then I think the second part is criticism is also a killer, right? Like we talked about. So silence and criticism are killers. So now we kind of talked about what not to do, right? However, you could still do it perfectly. And we’ll talk more about later about ways to communicate it. But even if you do those things that we say, there can still be the third block and killer, which is shame, right? Which is the internal part of how the receiver get the message, whatever you say.

Michael Preston (26:32.792)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (26:36.302)
Mm-hmm.

Thomas Westenholz (26:49.325)
And it’s true. So that’s why there’s two things to work on here. That’s why I’m mentioning it. There’s one is how are we communicating the message? And then there’s for the receiver is how am I receiving the message? Because unless both these are in a place where that’s possible, you can’t get to the examples we just gave, right? They require both a receiving partner who doesn’t, you know, when my partner said, actually, I need it a bit more slow, I didn’t go into a shame spiral and say, I’m a bad person or I’m an adequate lover.

Michael Preston (26:56.91)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (27:00.974)
That’s right.

Michael Preston (27:07.318)
Mm-hmm. That’s right.

Michael Preston (27:16.694)
Right. Right.

Thomas Westenholz (27:18.923)
I just said, in that moment, I wasn’t fully present because my son is in hospital and that’s okay. But I’m re-attuning now. If I go into a shame spiral, that could escalate it too, right? This is why there’s both the message and how it’s received.

Michael Preston (27:22.774)
Yes. Right. Right.

Michael Preston (27:30.2)
Yeah.

And then if you want to take that further, right? I wonder what would help that partner say in the midst of it, like, hey, can we slow down here? I really need to slow down. Right. And is that allowed? Right. And then be able to go, ooh, yeah, I am. I’m in a stressed place. I’m not really with you. I can see that. Right. Let me slow down.

so that I can be with you. And then that way we can take what would have been a misaligned sexual experience and in the middle of it, start shifting it to an aligned sexual experience, right? Which is what we’re naming is the, when there’s a lot of safety, you can look to your partner and say, Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, that doesn’t feel good. Hey, can you not put your hand on my back in that spot? Can you move your hand?

to the back of my head. Wow, right? And it’s not telling our partner, you’re doing it wrong. It’s telling our partner, there’s a better way, right? There’s a better spot here tonight. That back of the, that small of my back feels really nice usually, but not so feeling good today. But man, that back of the head, that’s feeling really good. Okay.

Thomas Westenholz (28:42.649)
That’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (28:54.348)
Absolutely.

Yes. And I think what you’re talking about is like the optimal place to get to, right? Because that requires a lot of attunement, a lot of trust that it’s safe to express myself, a lot of being aware of my signals all the time. So what you’re describing, I think is optimal. It’s also quite a high level, right? To have that level and awareness. So I think you’re spot on. That is like the next level, right? But even if you miss those parts, right? Doing s*x, which can happen, then what we are saying is

Michael Preston (29:02.274)
Yeah, yeah.

Michael Preston (29:07.778)
Mm-hmm.

That’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (29:26.841)
then it’s okay, it’s not too late. We can still have these conversations, right? Optimal, yes, if we can notice it all the time, amazing, but we’re gonna miss it, right? And even you and me probably miss that sometimes just in the heat of life. So then afterwards it’s still okay to have that and then you can reengage and realign and you learn something new every time, right? And this is what’s so amazing that then it’s helpful for next time of being able to attune to new signals that you’re getting.

Michael Preston (29:29.294)
That’s right. Yep.

Yeah.

Michael Preston (29:38.137)
yeah, all the time.

Michael Preston (29:47.534)
You do.

Thomas Westenholz (29:55.023)
Because really, like you’re saying, it is constantly changing because the external factors are different every single day. One day I’m feeling great and on a high, right? The other day I’m downbeat and just been in hospital. You know, everything. One day I’m tired, the other day I’m awake, right? So there are so many factors and of course the same for my partner. So really it’s about being able to talk about present moment, what’s changing. And maybe, yeah, maybe we can help people a bit about

Michael Preston (29:58.093)
It is.

Michael Preston (30:11.886)
Mm-hmm.

There is.

Michael Preston (30:20.248)
That’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (30:23.629)
you know, how to deliver the message. We talked a bit about that, right? As a way of softening the message. So it doesn’t come like, you don’t do this or you are always this that of course is going to send them either in shutdown or trying to defend themselves.

Michael Preston (30:26.114)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Michael Preston (30:38.902)
Yeah, so I think that’s a great, great piece. think that I want to name one thing about shame before we do move on, because I think it’s so important. Because what happens is we were talking about shame in a supervision group the other day, and I love the way we talked about it naming. It’s like getting caught in a riptide.

And even, even if a partner is standing safely on the shore and inviting a safe conversation and saying, Hey, swim here. Right. I can, I can hold what’s going on for you. I can, I can do all those things. can prioritize our connection right now. Shame doesn’t even let good messages get to their partner. Right. It so distorts it. Right. Which is like, if you, know, someone’s caught in this riptide and someone’s standing on the shore and saying,

Hey, I love you, come back to me. They’re gonna, Shane will take that as, see, they’re telling you you’re going away. Right? It just says, right? That’s what Shane does. And the only way to get out of the riptide, right? Is to swim, not even try to swim to the shore. You’ll get sucked out further, but to pause and swim sideways, swim parallel to the shore, right? And just start saying, okay, I’m stuck in shame. I’m really stuck in shame. And there’s really no way to move forward in that conversation.

Thomas Westenholz (31:51.502)
Yes.

Michael Preston (31:59.082)
until we’ve named the shame and taken a sidestep away from the conversation we’re trying to have and just go, that’s it. Like I’m stuck in my shame and I’ve got to slow down.

Michael Preston (32:11.566)
and bring myself out of that riptide, right? Go on a parallel journey for a second. And once we get out of that riptide, we can make our way back to the shore, right? So I like that analogy. I like that way of talking about it, but it’s also letting the person know that when shame is so strong, even positive messages might not make it to your partner. And that would be really normal. getting help around organizing how shame has impacted someone’s life would be really, really helpful for these conversations.

Thomas Westenholz (32:40.591)
Yes, and also when we are in a place of shame, we are not able to do the steps we talk about of how to communicate in a productive way. And I like your analogy. want white water rafting. And remember the guy said, if you fall in, keep a hold of your oar, whatever it’s called. The first thing I did when I fell in was throw it away and just try to stay on top of the water as you’re bouncing. And that’s because nothing can get through in that moment.

Michael Preston (32:45.73)
We can’t.

Michael Preston (32:51.735)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (32:58.542)
That’s funny. Right. That’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (33:08.589)
You’re not able to communicate, either take messages in or send them out properly, because all you’re trying to do is not to drown. Yes.

Michael Preston (33:11.98)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you’re not used to it, right. And then, but I will say if you go whitewater rafting enough and you spend enough time in that turbulent water, you start to learn to put, you know, like the way you sit down in the water matters, right. And how you get back to floating, because you don’t want your feet to get caught under a rock and hold you down, like all sorts of things. But it does become accessible if you spend enough time in that turbulent water. And so if you get help around the shame.

Thomas Westenholz (33:20.846)
Yes.

Of course.

Thomas Westenholz (33:29.785)
Yes, yes, that’s right.

Michael Preston (33:42.06)
and spend some time in that turbulent water of shame, you can begin to catch it. So I want to know there’s a lot of hope. There’s a lot of hope for anyone that gets caught up by shame. Now is working with a good therapist to begin to organize what happens to you when that shame comes and take that parallel step, all with the goal to be able to get back to the shore and go back to our partner and say, okay, I can be more present now, right? We can carry on that conversation. But it’s a difficult thing to navigate, right?

Thomas Westenholz (33:47.791)
That’s right.

Michael Preston (34:11.0)
So just a word there for shame. And if you are experiencing that, just to know that there is hope in that and there’s ways that we can begin to name what’s happening and open up the relationship to actually not spend so much time being inspired by shame and help people be able to say, yep, I know when this shame comes through me, I know what’s happening to me, I know what I can say to my partner, I know how to move parallel, and I know how to get back to the shore, right? I think having a plan.

That’s huge. Having a plan for when shame comes, but if we don’t have a plan, then we’re just going to get caught up in it. maybe we’ll take an episode and talk about shame at another time, but just wanted to mention that here because it is very likely having these conversations will take you down the shame road. So I want to go back to what we were saying is how do we begin to have this conversation? And I think one of the conversations that would be really

Thomas Westenholz (34:45.39)
Yes.

Michael Preston (35:05.344)
interesting to kind of how would you approach this, right? If someone came to you and they said, like, help me.

My partner says, I don’t like it when you do that. And I just shut down.

Right? Because that’s often what happens. What do you, how can we help that person begin to share with their partner what just what happens to them? What are the messages, the scary thing that happens if their partner says, I don’t like that.

Thomas Westenholz (35:35.897)
Yes, I think, and I just want to recognize again, it’s not to try and make advertising for therapy, but sometimes this can be really difficult to do on your own. Because if you’ve been stuck in this for too long, then sometimes it’s not possible. The cycle in itself have sometimes become so strong and compelling that it’s pretty much impossible on your own to step out of it, right? Even with all the best tools. So we can tell you, or do this, saying it this way.

Michael Preston (35:42.69)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (35:54.636)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Thomas Westenholz (36:04.289)
and it might not still work, right? Because the distress gets so high. So there is a place where you do need someone to intervene, right? And I’m just saying that because I know that I can give some advice now, but for some people that still won’t work, right?

Michael Preston (36:06.616)
That’s right.

Michael Preston (36:13.55)
That’s right.

Yeah. Yeah. So if you’re you’re in Brighton and you need some help, Thomas Weston-Holson saying check him out on Psychology Today. Look him up and he will he’ll help you get through this conversation. If you need some help.

Thomas Westenholz (36:24.057)
Ha ha!

Thomas Westenholz (36:28.975)
Hahaha!

Or if you’re up north, then Michael is there. that’s true. That’s true. There we go. So what did we come back to? What was the question again?

Michael Preston (36:33.695)
Yeah, you could be anywhere. I’m all on zoom. So coming back to this place, right? Where if someone were to say to their partner, I don’t like it when you do that, but their partner shuts down. How would we help them organize like what’s happening in that shut down place to be able to help their partner hear the scary messages that get stirred when that happens?

Thomas Westenholz (36:54.095)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (37:00.003)
Yes. And actually I think you gave a really good framework for this in our last podcast. I think it was, which is kind of based on the whole EFT model, right? Which is to look at what is kind of the cue, what is happening that caused my distress. And that might be hearing this message or you didn’t do this right. Yeah. Then the second part is what did that mean for me when I heard that, right? What did I make it mean? Did I say I’m not a good lover?

Michael Preston (37:04.888)
Ahem.

Michael Preston (37:15.255)
Uh-huh.

Michael Preston (37:19.512)
Mm.

Michael Preston (37:24.814)
That’s right.

Michael Preston (37:30.093)
Hmm.

Thomas Westenholz (37:30.095)
I’m not good enough or I can’t really get this right or she doesn’t really want to be sexual with me anymore. What do you make that message mean? Right?

Michael Preston (37:40.27)
Man, that, what are you naming there? Right? All of that, right? I’m sure some people are listening and going, yeah, I do that. And just to give a handhold of that, that’s fear. Right? That’s fear. Fear starts to stir and says, maybe I’m not doing it right. Maybe I’m not a good lover. Wow. Okay.

Thomas Westenholz (37:58.467)
That’s right. And that’s really painful, right? And I’m kind of just re-emphasizing the model you gave in the last podcast, because you’re asking people might not have listened to that. So then we make a meaning out of it. Then how do you then respond? Yeah, what’s your initial reaction to what’s happening right now? Is it that you want to fight back? You want to tell them how wrong they are and how it’s their fault, which is a natural defensive response?

Michael Preston (38:05.165)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (38:09.314)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (38:14.435)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (38:22.304)
Even.

Thomas Westenholz (38:26.115)
But as we said before, not going to be productive, but it’s a natural response. Or do you just want to shut down and get away? Cause the overwhelming message for you is I’m never going to get it right. Yeah. And what is then your action tendency, the impulse, how you want to react or tend to react. Yeah. It’s good to just have some awareness of that. Cause then maybe we can slow it down and we don’t have to go straight on autopilot. We don’t have to accept the initial narrative that your mind makes out of this.

Michael Preston (38:26.241)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (38:37.133)
Mm.

Michael Preston (38:41.902)
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Preston (38:53.272)
That’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (38:54.733)
which is just that, it is just a narrative. It is not reality, but the narrative is very painful, right? So that can give us that perspective to look at it and say, this is what I tell myself, but that doesn’t mean it’s a truth. And then what is my response to that narrative that my brain gives me? And how does that feel? What do you, which might can be the harder part, right? What am I actually feeling when I start telling myself that I can’t get it right, that I’m not good enough?

Michael Preston (38:56.536)
That’s right.

Michael Preston (39:00.974)
Bye.

Michael Preston (39:06.072)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Michael Preston (39:15.394)
Yeah. Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (39:24.941)
Right? And we often have to slow down to be able to feel. We are often in such a rush that we don’t feel for a purpose, right? We don’t want to feel. But if you slow down and just sit with this right now, the narrative, the meaning that you make, what’s happening internally, what do you notice if you notice anything in your body, what’s coming up? It might be a sense of sadness, right? It might be anger. might, whatever might come up again, we don’t have to judge it.

Michael Preston (39:43.758)
That’s right. Right, right, right.

Thomas Westenholz (39:54.137)
Yeah, they are valid emotion trying to communicate something. So this is kind of the framework you gave, right? And that gives us a new place to start communicating what’s happening internally instead of making it about you, which is external, right? So that now allows the opportunity to start saying, actually, and I know this is complex and it sounds very easy, us sitting calm here.

Michael Preston (40:20.226)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (40:21.537)
It’s very difficult to do when we feel under threat. But you know, the pond is here. You can now communicate to your partner and say, Hey, when I heard you say that I got this wrong, I told myself that it meant I’m not a good lover. And I felt this tension contraction and I just felt a sense of sadness. Right? That’s a very new.

Michael Preston (40:36.354)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (40:43.596)
Right. Yeah. And the point being you can come, you can come do that later. You don’t have to like that. This might be, we haven’t had s*x in two weeks, but I’ve been avoiding it because the last time we had s*x, you said something like, I, know, Hey, that doesn’t feel good. And man, it really shut me down. Right. We can come back and hold this conversation. Like you’re saying.

Thomas Westenholz (41:08.803)
And I think realistically, that’s often what’s going to happen. It’s very, very rare that we can do this in the moment, right? And even less so.

Michael Preston (41:11.726)
That’s going to be the place to start.

Right. Not, not, especially if we’re not talking about it ever. Right. You’re likely going to have to do this on a Tuesday evening when s*x isn’t on the table. Right.

Thomas Westenholz (41:19.255)
Yes, exactly.

Thomas Westenholz (41:28.109)
Yes. And you normally can’t do this when you’re distressed, this process, right? That’s what I’m so often what happened is you’re distressed and it’s okay if you need to remove yourself because it only escalate, right? But you could even say, I want to, I will come back. I just need to collect what’s happening and I’m not sure right now what’s going on, except that I want to go into my normal runaway or attack you. And I don’t want to do that. So I’m just going to remove myself, but I will be back.

Michael Preston (41:32.034)
Very difficult.

Michael Preston (41:42.904)
Yeah. Right.

Yes.

That’s right.

I will be back.

Thomas Westenholz (41:56.323)
And that’s quite an important message to send the last piece, I will be back. Cause if we just disengage, it often just send the signal again, I’m abandoning you, I don’t care. Right. And so it goes on. So it’s an important little piece to say, I will be back. says, I care, but I need to regulate before I can engage in a productive way. Right.

Michael Preston (41:59.15)
That’s right.

Michael Preston (42:09.378)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I’ll say this too, you you were naming how if we do the same thing, we’re going to get the same thing, right? And so, you know, we’re naming part of the beginning of the episode, we said the blockers to a meaningful conversation is one of them is shutting down. And if my response is to stay shut down,

The truth of the silence is whatever meaning I make. If I make the meaning that my partner doesn’t think I’m a good lover, if I stay silent and I stay withdrawn, then that becomes truth. It becomes the only message I hear. I don’t get an opportunity for my partner to reassure me something different. And so what that might look like is,

Coming to a partner in a moment of reflection and engaging around that, you can say,

You know, hey, when one thing I’m noticing is when I hear that message that I did the wrong thing sexually or it didn’t feel good to you, my performance strategy gets really rocked. Like I’m not performing well enough. And if I’m not performing for you, my fear is you will not.

Michael Preston (43:43.221)
Love me.

Thomas Westenholz (43:46.649)
Beautiful.

Michael Preston (43:46.796)
and then I shut down. And I don’t normally tell you that. Because I get too scared that you’re going to tell me I’m right.

Right? We can say that to our partner and then our partner and respond with, wow. Right? I had no idea that’s what was happening to you. When we share this in session, partners are usually blown away that moments like that, that for one partner might just be, I was just trying to help them.

do something good for me because I really wanted it to feel good, but I didn’t know it was going to rock them that hard. And then our partner can offer reassurance like, hey, you are doing a great job around some things. I am so in love with you. I don’t think you are not performing sexually. That moment isn’t a global moment for me.

Without being able to get that reassurance, like I said, the silence defines the truth and the message is stirred. But when we can send that message that’s really clear to our partner and our partner can say to us, that’s not my experience. Let me share with you, you are a good lover. I know you’re a good lover. You have been a good lover. I’m confident you will continue to be a good lover. And then we can start getting soothed

in the place that our fear is actually stirring, in the place where we’re telling ourselves we won’t be seen as good. Our partner can say, I see you as good. I experience you as good. Then we can start to get something different in our relationship. And this goes on both sides of the fence. Both sides of the sexual dance have to take that risk and begin to share when you turn and roll away from me.

Michael Preston (45:53.55)
Right? Or when, you when you only pursue me sexually and it feels like I’m just an object to you, but I don’t have you come to me emotionally. Here’s what happens to me. It feels like you don’t want all of me. Right? Then I feel like an object and then I start to feel kind of used and that doesn’t

really drive my sexuality. Because I want to have a good sexual relationship with you, but I don’t want to feel used.

These are difficult things to share, they’re really vulnerable things to share. And in those moments, startups’ defensiveness can show up right there. And so just be really mindful of your own defensiveness, And if you say, when you say this, it’s like, well, that’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean, you’re not a good lover. Again, we’re going right to the trash bin.

Thomas Westenholz (46:57.551)
Yes, and I think this spot on and also there’s just this magic of curiosity. So even if there are some dynamics where maybe the sexual encounters haven’t been very good, right? And we can easily go into the performance model of, I’m not a good lover. Then there’s a magic just in communicating to your partner that you’re curious about learning about them and what they actually do like. Cause that message is saying, I care about you.

Michael Preston (47:04.696)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (47:20.899)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (47:27.447)
Yeah

Thomas Westenholz (47:27.715)
Yeah. And that’s an important message. And sometimes I would say all the time, actually more important than what performance you brought. Cause if you’re open and curious, you can learn and figure it out together. So then it’s actually okay that you don’t know exactly what they like, but it changes the whole framework, right? If you’ve been for many years, just doing the things you’ve been doing, the other person feeling dissatisfied, they would eventually also pull away, right?

Michael Preston (47:40.002)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (47:54.709)
Even if you’ve been good co-parents and maybe other things in life seem pretty okay, right? And peaceful and calm, they might still pull away. And that can be, I recognize that can be a devastating message for some people to get that actually what we’ve been doing weren’t working for me. But that doesn’t make you inadequate. It just meant you never had open curiosity yet, right? Because you could not know what your partner knew or want or like without having had open conversations. Nobody knows.

Michael Preston (47:59.319)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Preston (48:07.169)
Absolutely.

Hmm.

Michael Preston (48:17.134)
All right. Nope.

Michael Preston (48:23.554)
Yeah. Right.

Thomas Westenholz (48:24.555)
Nobody knows, right? So just the first step for maybe a more avoidant partner could be just having the curiosity and know there’s nothing wrong with you for not knowing.

Michael Preston (48:35.37)
Yeah. Yeah. No, I love it. Right. Again, we keep coming to that place, right, where finding a way to begin the conversation, whether you’re beginning with your partner around, hey, we don’t talk about s*x and I’d like to find a way to do that. Right. Or you’re trying some of these more, maybe a little bit more of a depth move where it goes, hey, when this happens to us sexually, right, when you turn away or when you leave the room, right.

Or when you get angry and frustrated, this is what happens to me. My whole world starts to shatter. And if you’re trying that, the point we want to be really clear about is when we’re not talking about s*x, the chances of sexual relationships, sexual encounters, sexual fun are very small. Because we’re going to get it wrong and it’s going to feel personal. And so finding ways to keep talking about this, keep bringing it up.

and checking our own defensiveness, our own desire to shut down and our own desire to blame. Checking those things constantly when we try to have these conversations. Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (49:42.991)
That’s right. And I think that’s a great place to end. I know this is a fascinating topic and we can talk about it. So.

Michael Preston (49:45.452)
Yeah, yeah, because it’s a little bit longer of an episode today, but I think that’s because it’s a huge topic and it’s so important to name it, name the vulnerability and take it easy. And we’re going to keep talking about this, right? And all of the conversations we have on this podcast about how to have conversations, they’re going to apply to the sexual conversation as well.

Thomas Westenholz (49:53.196)
It is. It is.

Thomas Westenholz (50:07.503)
That’s right. That’s right. So thank you so much. And I hope you guys took something away from this. This is over and out for this week from Couples in Focus. And I’ll see you next week, Michael. Take care.

Michael Preston (50:08.942)
All right. Yeah, yep.

Michael Preston (50:14.359)
Alright.

Good to see you Thomas. now.