If your partner isn’t interested in you and won’t even talk about it? What can you do?
Find out with Reid Mihalko and ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com
Reid: Video 3. What if your partner won’t sleep with you?
Cathy: Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com.
Reid: Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Cathy: We’ve been talking about the way society messes with our minds around sexuality and our connections, and also ways we can reconnect. But if your partner, if the partner is shut down, they’re not feeling sexual, and they don’t want to have, we’ve talked about having discussions with them, trying to get connected with their body, you know, helping them feel in their body, de-stress yourself, what do you do then?
Reid: At some point, it’s going to be really tough. Because if they really are just-
Cathy: I want to get down to the nitty gritty. Let’s get to the painful part.
Reid: I’m going to say, you start master… like you start enjoying your own body, and having your own sex life with yourself. Now unless you have an open relationship and it’s smart for you to see other people, do not, you know, stick to your relationship agreements.
Cathy: Or consciously change them with that person.
Reid: Or consciously transition things, but what I would do, and this is just me, and remember, I’m a jackass, is envy. It’s really hard to mope and stay committed to moping when everyone else is having a better time than you are. Now you can’t throw it into your partner’s face, but you may be taking a course and just leaving the web browser open in a non-creepy, weird way. But like, “Oh my God, I’m doing my course thing.” Or that book on cunnilingus that you just happen to leave on the back-
Cathy: The Sex 10x video that you were worried about.
Reid: Yeah, but the book that you leave on the back of the toilet, never underestimate the power of leaving a book on the back of the toilet, ladies and gentlemen. Never mention the book, don’t nag. If your partner is a curious sort, putting some of those little colored sticky tabs on passages.
Cathy: A couple of notes.
Reid: Yeah, a couple of notes. Just trust me on this one. This also goes for you parents who have kids and you don’t know what to do around the discussions. Just buy really good books. You can email, I’ll point you out some resources. Buy really good books and leave them around the house. Or better yet, hide them, because they will find them.
That being said, or just tell your kids, don’t ever read this book, and of course they’re going to read it.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: That being said, start developing and cultivating a relationship with your own body and your own pleasure, and start having a relationship with yourself.
There’s somebody who’s dinging the door, did you want to answer the door?
Cathy: Yes, I think it’s the delivery person.
Reid: We’re going to let the delivery person do their thing.
Cathy: Oh, excuse me.
Reid: Okay, we’re losing Cathy Vartuli, ladies and gentlemen.
Cathy: I can cut out this part.
Reid: So while Cathy answers her door, you have this moment of just us. A little intimate connection.
Cathy: It’s for me? Okay thanks!
Reid: What I would advocate for is that you build and cultivate a relationship with yourself, and your own body, and your own pleasure. Really start sourcing, and thriving, and nourishing yourself in a way where, now this could backfire on you in a minute, where you’re just really living your life, and living by example and having fun. Then in a non-blaming, shaming way, continue to gently invite your partner to join you whenever they would want. That’s the best advice until they just, you continue to do this and they just don’t ever want to join you.
Now, when you start seeing or feeling the second wave of resentment coming, the first wave being you’re just being resentful that they won’t sleep with you, and hopefully you got some therapy or some professional help so that you can move through that. That second wave of resentment and anger-
Cathy: Let’s talk about that on another video.
Reid: Yeah, but when that starts to come, that’s going to be the signal that you need to sit down with them and have a real conversation. Or a new conversation about what do we do next. Because I’m just going to get passive-aggressive with you now, because I miss being affectionate and intimate with you.
Cathy: It’s part of what we’d originally put in the relationship.
Reid: It’s what culture said was supposed to be part of a relationship.
Cathy: Some people are conscience, most people just assume.
Reid: Yeah, so there’s that next conversation that needs to be had about what do we do next-
Cathy: Let’s have that-
Reid: … If we can’t meet on this.
Cathy: Let’s talk about that in the next video?
Reid: Yeah.
Cathy: Excellent.