Transcript

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Disclaimer [00:02:01]:
The following content is not suitable for children

George Faller [00:02:05]:
So are we talking about having sex or doing the dishes? Laurie, I don’t know what the hell cycle we’re talking about here.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:15]:
I know it. And so many of our couples that are listening, right, they get mixed up and everything seems to impact each other and how do they straighten out this mess? That’s what we want to help them with to stay on mission today to talk about their emotional cycle, their sexual cycle and then a third Conversation about how these impact each other. Let’s do it. Welcome to Foreplay sex therapy. I’m Dr. Laurie Watson, your sex therapist.

George Faller [00:02:43]:
And I’m George Faller, a couples therapist.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:45]:
We are here to talk about sex.

George Faller [00:02:47]:
Our mission is to help couples talk about sex in ways that incorporate their body, their mind, and their hearts.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:55]:
And we have a little bit of fun doing it right, G?

George Faller [00:02:57]:
Listen and let’s change some relationships.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:03:01]:
Okay. Gee, let’s just remind everybody about our October retreat that’s coming up for couples.

George Faller [00:03:06]:
Yes. That’s going to be a game changer. Prioritize your relationship, come together for a day, and you’re going to have some of these conversations you probably never had before. It’s always one of our favorite times a year. Laurie would just, you know, we’re in this mess together. But when couples take the time to get together, good stuff happens.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:03:23]:
It’s a whole day on October 14th. It’s online. So we hope you join us and really talk with your partner about your sexual life. You can do it anonymously. All the questions are just for you and your partner. You, you can turn off your screens. We don’t even have to see, you know, who’s there. But if you want to talk with us and participate a little, that’s great too.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:03:45]:
Join us foreplaysextherapy.com all right.

George Faller [00:03:49]:
And might as well also give a shout out to our patrons. Laurie, you know, it’s.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:03:54]:
We can’t do this without them. Yeah, it’s so great.

George Faller [00:03:57]:
It always sucks to try to talk about money, but that’s the reality of this world we live on. Right. And you know, we got crazy lives and crazy schedules, but we really feel this is something bigger than the two of us. And, you know, to have people join us in partnering and carrying some of this load, it really does make a difference. So thank you. And for those of you that are interested, please join the team.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:04:19]:
Yep. And if you want to give a one time gift, you can just contact us and we will set that up for you.

George Faller [00:04:25]:
Well, hopefully there’s a billionaire listening. Say, you know what? I want to make the world a better place for love. Let’s get it out there.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:04:32]:
And then it would be wonderful to have that kind of support. Right. Because George and I are doing a lot in this field and currently we’re writing a book. And that takes a lot of our time that we could be using in other ways to, you know, support our families and things like that. But we’re, we’re trying to get this out there. The message of, you know, how to have better sex and committed relationships.

George Faller [00:04:58]:
Yeah. And most of these big podcasts out there, they have whole teams and staff supporting it and promoting. We don’t have anything. It’s really just Laurie doing all the work behind the scenes. So, you know, if get somebody can help with that if you, if you want to donate some time and do some work. I mean, this is the stuff that that’s, that’s needed.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:05:16]:
Yeah. Well, and we do have people and we have an editor. We have social media person. We have two social media people who helped us and are helping us right now. So just wonderful. Rebecca Erin Jo Davis is our longtime, tireless editor who know just has been so patient with us and we, we nearly wear him out. Thank you, Joe, for all your help.

George Faller [00:05:39]:
Awesome. So true. It takes a village, right?

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:05:43]:
It does. Okay. Let’s help couples with kind of organizing their conflicts. Right. We, we’re going to role play this and just to set us up a little bit so that people know what we’re doing is I’m Maria and you’ll be Joey. And we’ve just had a big fight. And you know, I was upset because you didn’t understand what I was going through with my girlfriends. And you said something kind of stupid.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:06:12]:
And it didn’t seem.

George Faller [00:06:15]:
What I said was stupid was I asked about how was the restaurant. I mean, I know that was. Shoot me. That was such a terrible line.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:06:22]:
Right, right. And then you come over and try to repair with a sexual approach. And in my mind, I think it’s a sexual approach. And then we blow up further and we have both cycles sort of messed up between us. And many couples, George, I think struggle with both cycles at the same time. And they put so much on the table to talk about that. It’s just like a big bowl of spaghetti. And they can’t straighten it out.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:06:52]:
They don’t know where they’re beginning, where they’re ending. And we want to help them organize into three conversations. We want you to have a conversation about the emotional part of your life. Who’s the emotional pursuer, emotional withdrawer. Where do you get tangled up? Then we want you to have a conversation about your sexual cycle. Who’s the sexual pursuer? Who’s the sexual withdrawer? Then a third conversation. And all of these are separated by time. Right.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:07:20]:
We don’t want you to have this all in one evening, like three separate Saturdays.

George Faller [00:07:24]:
Yeah.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:07:25]:
Because it’s overwhelming to talk about difficult things. We, you know, it’s too tempting to get escalated. So the third conversation is how these, both these cycles impact each other. It’s a little complicated, but we’re going to show you how it’s done and we hope that you learn from this. And we’re excited to show this off.

George Faller [00:07:46]:
Yeah. So just that reminder, right? If half the population tends to find connection through talk through, you know, connecting through conversations and engagement and love language. Right. Quality time, and then the other half of the population tends to connect through touch, you know, through that sex and that there’s no right or wrong. They’re both super important. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t develop both of these. But yes, as Lori said, most couples get twisted and one person’s trying to talk about one and then the other talks about the other and it all gets confusing. So in real life, they’re intertwined.

George Faller [00:08:25]:
But we’re going to try to separate these just so couples can have success with one, then the other. Then we could put it together to see that dynamic interplay.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:08:36]:
I think one thing is we all mess up, right? We all get escalated in conversations. And it’s the repair process afterwards, when we’re a little calmer and we can talk about it, you know, that we can sort of make it better. So I think most of it, don’t beat yourself up if you get into a fight, repair afterwards.

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George Faller [00:12:01]:
All right, so let’s start off with that emotional cycle. Laurie. Laurie. Maria is.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:12:08]:
Thank you.

George Faller [00:12:08]:
Is wanting to talk and connect that way. Joey likes talking too, but he kind of picks up potential threats in these conversations and doesn’t engage. And then it leads to the typical negative cycle that that we’ve been talking about. So let’s take a look at what it might look like.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:12:26]:
Okay, so I’ll begin. So I appreciate you wanting to talk with me, Joey, about our fight last week. I’ve thought about it and thought about it and thought about it a whole bunch. And I think for me, you know, when you came home early, I was excited to see you. And for me, I had like all this stuff on my mind with my girlfriends. And now that I’VE lost my sister. So Maria lost her sister to breast cancer a year or so ago, and she was her confidant, and now she’s sort of reliant upon Joey. That’s my little aside.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:13:09]:
So, you know, after I lost my sister, it’s like I really depend on you more to kind of dump some of my feelings. And I know in some ways that’s not so easy for you. Maybe it’s even boring to hear all my little skirmishes about my girlfriends. But it was almost like I saw your eyes glaze over and you weren’t following me. And I told myself, you know, he’s bored with me. He’s. He’s not interested in me. And I started feeling really hurt about that.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:13:43]:
And really, all the longing and how I miss my sister, God awakened inside. And then I was sort of flooded with emotions. And then I got mad at you. And then you asked about, like, rather than responding to what I was saying about the fight with my girlfriends, you asked me about the restaurant and how I liked the restaurant. And it just. It didn’t seem to gel and to go together. And so I know I blew up at you and raised my voice, and I am sorry about that. I would like to know and understand how it was for you.

George Faller [00:14:14]:
Okay, So I just want to pause a second because as Joey, I probably. I’m trying to hold back my perspective and why I did what I did. But remember, couples that are successful communicators, they try to figure out what the mission. If the person who’s sharing her feelings is, is Maria in this situation. I really want to try to keep my focus on her. Just do. Do I get her. Her reality? Do I get her hurt? Do I see what happens? This isn’t the time to really talk about me, so I’m going to try to respond to Maria as Joey, and then I’m going to shift the mission to talk about my reality and see if Lori can shift the mission to talk about that.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:14:54]:
I want to say another kudos to Joey. He’s listened all the way through to this. He hasn’t interrupted. He’s given her space to talk. You know, so that already feels good.

George Faller [00:15:09]:
Yeah. So I appreciate you. I don’t really get what you’re looking for when you’re talking about your friends. I don’t realize that’s your way of kind of unloading and you miss your sister. I kind of miss all that deep stuff that’s in this conversation. You know, to me it sounds like, you know, just complaining about your friends. Is not that important. So I am sorry that I missed seeing.

George Faller [00:15:32]:
You know, that was your way of connecting with me, like, kind of let me into your world, and I just missed it because I, you know, I did. I didn’t think it was that important.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:15:45]:
Yeah. So help me understand when you say, I don’t think it’s that important, like, what you mean by that.

George Faller [00:15:56]:
You know, hey, when I’m at work, the guys are always make breaking chops and things are happening. I don’t really come home and talk about that. To me, it’s just like. It’s just what life looks like. It doesn’t. So I don’t. I don’t see that as a bid to connect with me. I just see it as, you know what? Some of your friends are annoying.

George Faller [00:16:15]:
I know what they do. And it’s like, okay, so let’s talk about something positive. Let’s let go of that negative stuff and let’s. This is our time to kind of enjoy each other. We both been stressed out all day. Now let’s focus on all that we have. Right. So again, my brain often sees the negativity as such something that’s going to take us down.

George Faller [00:16:35]:
So when I ask about, hey, how is the restaurant? I’m trying to get you in a different direction. Like, talk about. The food was great. Let’s talk about what we’re gonna do tonight. Let’s go on a walk. Like, there’s so many good things and like, I don’t realize what I’m trying to talk about. I’m trying to pull it in a different direction because I’m trying to avoid the fight. That.

George Faller [00:16:54]:
That means you take it as, I don’t want you. And that’s not what I mean. But I get how you feel that way.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:17:00]:
Yeah. Can I. I’d like a little aside here. I think what you said, George, is so important because I do think the way men relate to each other is so different than the way women relate to each other. You know, men do joke around. They insult each other. That’s nearly bonding for them. You know, they set each other up and.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:17:21]:
And that’s. That’s cool with them. I think for women, little jabs and things like that are taken as women so much more personally.

George Faller [00:17:32]:
Yeah.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:17:33]:
I just think. Yeah, it’s. It’s a whole different world. And I think women need reflection and. And they don’t necessarily need fixing. They just need somebody to be sympathetic to them and. And it is an entirely different world to live in a female world than a male world. And so.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:17:50]:
And then there’s that clash between female and male worlds. Oh, goodness. But okay, yeah, but again, just my aside.

George Faller [00:17:57]:
It’s helpful to have a couple recognize. It’s okay to connect in different ways. It’s okay that Maria wants to talk about her day and it’s okay why Joey wants to focus on the positive. Right? But it sets them up to miss each other. And this couple is staying grounded on kind of the emotional dynamics. So let’s come back and talk about the sexual cycle. Let’s come back and talk some more about this.

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Dr. Laurie Watson [00:19:44]:
But I would love to know from Joey what happens when her tone goes up and why he freezes and why he can’t kind of reflect with her about what she’s really saying. Just in that moment. I understand he wants to pull it positive because he wants to look forward to their enjoyment of each other that evening. But I don’t feel like he’s been vulnerable yet about his freeze in her as her escalation about this situation goes up.

George Faller [00:20:13]:
Well, that’s the self fulfilling prophecy here, right? My mistrust, because of our history knows that when there’s a lot of negative emotion. It usually turns towards me. I’m going to wind up getting messages that I’m failing, that I’m coming up short.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:20:28]:
Right.

George Faller [00:20:29]:
And that’s what happened in this fight. I make a nice comment about the restaurant before, you know, you tell me I’m not listening. I don’t care. I don’t suck. Right. And so these messages that I’m failing actually give my body a failure in co regulation. I have this intense emotion that I don’t really know what to do with, and you’re not helping me with it because you’re the source of the threat. So the only thing I know what to do to get away from that kind of growing emotion, that negative emotion, is to pull away, to self soothe myself.

George Faller [00:20:59]:
Right. So that, you know, and we spend lots of episodes talking about the world.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:21:05]:
Wait, wait, let me go back to Joey. Let me respond to Joey as Marie. Okay, okay. So. Okay, so what I’m hearing you say Joey is as I’m talking about my girlfriends and I’m hot. You, like, feel something inside your body and your body gets dysregulated. So I’m looking over at you and your eyes are glazing over like you’re bored, but really you’re struggling with trying to stay regulated. Is that what you’re saying?

George Faller [00:21:33]:
Yeah, I’m, I’m, I know where this is heading and I’m already starting to brace myself by pulling myself away because that’s what I do. I. I’ve done that way before I met you. Like when the emotion’s going in the wrong direction.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:21:48]:
Yeah. You think it’s going to take a U turn and hit you. Like my anger is going to. And it did. So, I mean, you’re pretty validated there. Like, in some ways it did seem to me like a misstep. You didn’t say what I wanted you to say, and. And then I got mad at you.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:22:06]:
So I can see kind of the pattern why it makes sense to me that your body goes into alert. I get that. I really do get that.

George Faller [00:22:15]:
Thank you. So you can see in this example how easy it would be to go off if Maria starts to share. And I start to say, well, you’re just cold. I mean, this is what you do. We get into a fight and then you go cold. And like, we never have set. It’s so easy for me to introduce sex and the need for touch. And then Lori Maria defends herself by, you know, talking about the fight or the kids or the dishes and like couples Just throw in endless kind of content from these two places, these two cycles, and we’re just trying to help couples get cleaner.

George Faller [00:22:53]:
What are you talking about? This conversation is around the emotional cycle. If I try to introduce the sexual cycle, now is not the time to talk about it. So let’s. Let’s now talk about the next Saturday, the sexual cycle.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:23:06]:
Okay.

George Faller [00:23:09]:
So maybe I would initiate this conversation.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:23:12]:
Okay. And we’re separating these out, right?

George Faller [00:23:16]:
Yeah. This is.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:23:16]:
I don’t think couples should talk longer than an hour about anything.

George Faller [00:23:20]:
Yeah.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:23:23]:
Any fight.

George Faller [00:23:26]:
So, Maria, you know, I appreciate last week, you understand, in that place where I feel like I’m failing and I feel like you feel rejected. And we don’t see that when it’s happening. And that was really helpful. I really want to do the same thing, you know, later that night when, you know, when I’m trying to reconnect with you, the way I know how to connect. Right. Which is touch. And it’s so much more than just an orgasm. I mean, it’s how I feel.

George Faller [00:23:52]:
The most connected to you is, you know, not just fooling around, but then afterwards we’re cuddling and talking. It’s just like the best part of my day. And, you know, and I knew we were in a bad place after the fight, so I was trying to repair. I was. We didn’t have to have sex. I was just kind of reaching out. If we had sex, that would be awesome. But it’s like, really, the.

George Faller [00:24:15]:
What was the motivating thing for me is I just didn’t want to stay disconnected. And, you know, that’s how I tried to do that. And, like, when I reached out to you and you immediately roll over and say, like, how. How could you even think about that? It just makes me feel, like, dirty. Like I’m wrong. That I want this. That, like, there’s something wrong with me. I feel rejected.

George Faller [00:24:35]:
I feel. I just feel bad.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:24:39]:
Not a good feeling.

George Faller [00:24:40]:
No.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:24:41]:
To feel rejected and feel bad, especially when your intention is to reconnect. Yeah, I guess. You know, so many times for me, well, first of all, okay, I gotta keep my focus on you.

George Faller [00:24:58]:
Yeah, but that’s a good point. Let’s just pause it. It’s so hard for Maria not to want to make it about her. And if she does, she says, yeah, but it’s gonna just kind of erase trying to focus. So this.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:25:09]:
Right.

George Faller [00:25:10]:
If I’m the one sharing, focus on me first and then make that transition, then invite me to understand. Maria.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:25:16]:
Okay, so this is kind of. I mean, we’ve talked about this a little bit, so I know this. It’s, it is your love, language, touch, sex. You feel more connected to me after sex for sure. And I agree with you, we are more connected after sex. So it makes sense. And I guess you’re saying that night when we were so silent throughout the whole evening, this was your way of thinking about it. How do I get back with.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:25:48]:
How do you get back with me? So when you reached over and touched my shoulder for you, it was, it wasn’t a hey baby, let’s have sex. It was a hey, honey, I want to connect with you. I want to repair with you. I want, I want to get over this fight. And I guess I, I mean certainly I acknowledge I snapped at you, you know, so that just probably reinforces all the things in you that say, I don’t like sex, I don’t want you. All of that bad feeling. What does it do to you when I snapped?

George Faller [00:26:23]:
Yeah, it does. It plays all those tapes in my head. It goes from just this moment to globalizes. It’s always this way. You’re not really attracted to me. There’s something wrong with me. You know, that’s some bad places. But I, I do want to know what it does to you because, you know, I.

George Faller [00:26:43]:
If you’re not connected to me and then I try to have sex, does that put pressure on you?

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:26:55]:
You know, thank you for asking. I think it’s funny because that evening I felt a million miles away from you and I felt so disconnected. And yeah, I, you know, I, I thought it was a bid for sex. And I, I mean, I was not thinking at that point at all about that. This is Joey’s way to repair and he needs sex. I was just like, I was in another country from, away from you and I was feeling so lonely and I, I was hoping you would say, hey, honey, you know, let’s, let’s have a do over and talk about what happened between us and let’s try to do it better. And, and so it was just like it jangled me, you know, I just felt jangly. And I think when I feel that loneliness combined with kind of a surprise, you know, I know I get angry and you know, I know you think that’s an attack and I can see how you do, but inside it was like I also, I guess I just felt so missed, you know, because you didn’t see what I needed and kind of didn’t bring the repair in the way.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:28:22]:
In the same place that I need the repair.

George Faller [00:28:26]:
Yeah. So let’s Pause. Because, again, I think this happens a lot in the conversation.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:28:31]:
Yeah.

George Faller [00:28:31]:
You see how Maria wants to keep going back to the emotional conversation. She wants to repair the emotional conversation. She wants Joey to talk about the emotional conversation. And it pulls us out of the sexual conversation if we start talking about what happened in the fight earlier that day. Right. So I really want to know what’s. What’s happening for Maria when she’s put in a position to have disconnected sex.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:28:56]:
Okay, good.

George Faller [00:28:56]:
Right. It’s the.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:28:57]:
Thank you. Yeah, that. That’s good. I. And I, you know, I’m sort of being her, and I did what I would normally do.

George Faller [00:29:06]:
And this is what everybody does, right?

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:29:08]:
Yeah. Right. Okay, let me go back to that question, because you did. Could you ask it as Joey so that they can see how you could align Maria back to what you really need her to focus on?

George Faller [00:29:22]:
Yeah. So I know. Thank you for listening to kind of what happened for me. I know you know when you roll over and you’re angry that something’s going on for you. So I don’t really know what. I know you’re disconnected. I know you’re feeling lonely. So, like, my body wants sex or touch when that’s happening and you don’t.

George Faller [00:29:43]:
So what is it about, you know, disconnected sex that’s so kind of hard for you?

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:29:50]:
Yeah, I mean, literally, I think for me, when you touch me at that point, it’s. It doesn’t feel soothing or comforting. My body, it feels like pins and needles, you know, just like you’re gonna. It’s pins and needles. And so it’s the anti sex touch, you know, I’m so not there. And if I were to have sex, I would feel so used. I would feel so taken advantage of. I would feel like I have to perform my duty.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:30:21]:
All of that stuff would come up in it. It would not feel good to me. It would not feel sensual or like we’re making love, you know, That’s a horrible feeling.

George Faller [00:30:32]:
I wouldn’t want you feeling that. No wonder why you don’t want to have sex if your body’s feeling like pins and needles or repulsed by kind of that type of touch or where you’re at.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:30:45]:
Yeah. So thank you. Yeah.

George Faller [00:30:47]:
All right.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:30:49]:
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George Faller [00:31:14]:
So you could see with stopping this, you can see how try and understand what happens to Joey when he’s rejected sexually or what are the good reasons why Maria is withdrawing. Right. And helping the couple stay centered on the sexual conversation. Now, our third object objective with this last minute or two here is just trying to see in real life how quickly these overlap, Right. If I try to talk about sex and the hurt that happens when Maria is not interested and Maria starts talking about the criticism and emotional cycle, we’re going to bounce back and forth between the two and get confused and not make progress on any of them. But the nice part is when you can see both of these cycles, they’re totally intertwined. I mean, Marie is not going to want to have sex unless she’s emotionally safe. And Joey’s probably not going to want to emotionally kind of have a lot of these conversations when he’s feeling sexually rejected.

George Faller [00:32:14]:
Like both people’s positions in both cycles influence what’s happening in both cycles. Right? And that’s the good news. There’s a lot of common ground here. Once you start looking at both cycles, when Maria rolls over, she’s avoiding, in sexually what I avoid emotionally. And, you know, when I get critical because of the sexual psych, I don’t like that Maria rolls over. You know, that I can relate. Now, that’s exactly what Maria does in the emotional conversation. So there’s a lot of common ground when we can look at the two of these side by side.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:32:48]:
So the third conversation I’m going to start is, Maria. I think it’s smart, Joey, for us to see how your needs sexually, my needs emotionally, the way I disconnect sexually, the way you disconnect emotionally, how that, like, impacts each other. And even as you talk about your stuff, I realized one of the things that I had not really brought to you in that conversation about my girlfriends had to do with sex. It’s so crazy because I had felt, I don’t know, like my girlfriend was critical. She’s prettier, whatever, than I am, you know? And I was thinking when I was telling you all about that, that the reason I started telling you about this is I was thinking, joey’s going to tell me I’m hot. And just to forget about what my girlfriend thinks or says or her competitiveness, I was just thinking, you’re going to say that. So I was actually looking for this affirmation like, you Think I’m hot. And it would have just dismissed it.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:33:46]:
And I realized I didn’t tell you that I wasn’t vulnerable enough to tell you what I was needing from you in this conversation. So for you, you thought it was just me complaining about my girlfriends. And I really had a need from you. And it actually had to do with our sex. And I had thought about it. It was like, I’m going to come home, Joey’s going to say this, and it’s going to make it all better. And I was even thinking about sex that night. Like, how good it’s going to feel, you know? But I realized some of it was.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:34:15]:
I didn’t start with that. I led with the complaint. I didn’t tell you my need.

George Faller [00:34:20]:
Wow, that’s. I didn’t know what the heck to do with that. Sounds good that you were thinking about it, because I so often think you’re not. And again, I didn’t. I think we both got to figure out how to send clearer signals, direct signals, because I do the same thing. I try to, you know, avoid the fight because I want to fool around later. And I. And I’m, like, going through the motions some of the time.

George Faller [00:34:49]:
And I know that’s not what you’re. Maybe that’s why you pick up, like, I freeze or I’m on eggshells. Because, like, I just, you know, I don’t see the value in these things. And that’s on me to get better at. Because, you know, whatever doorway we need to meet each other is important. And. And you’re good at that. You like listening to people’s kind of issues.

George Faller [00:35:11]:
And there’s an intimacy in that that I so often don’t really get. And I know I got to get better. Not just for you, like, for myself. That is to not sleepwalk through those moments all the time to, like. It only would make things better in the bedroom if we had a better conversation around these topics. So, again, I do want to get better at that.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:35:30]:
Yeah. Thank you. I just. I appreciate what you’re saying. Right. That you wish you could listen to me more and deeper. And. And there is a possibility for you that that would create more of a feeling of closeness and that it would be better for us.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:35:47]:
Yeah. So I gotta tell you more about my sexual ideas and needs and, like, how my emotions get impacted sexually. And I just love hearing you say, you know, that you are thinking about listening to me more emotionally, and this would help me. I mean, man, if you listened like that, I would be turned on. It it’s like, in the beginning, we talked for hours and hours about everything, and I was so turned on all the time.

George Faller [00:36:16]:
And it helped me, too. It’s not just something to give you. I just. It would help me. So that’s what I’m taking out of this conversation.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:36:25]:
Okay, so three conversations we want you to have. We want you to separate them. The emotional cycle conversation about a fight, the sexual conversation about a fight, and then the interplay of those. And, you know, as we do more in the school of love, we’ll talk more about this overlapping cycle issue. But we wanted to give you a taste of it so that you could practice. And again, remember, it’s not the fight. It’s the ability to repair that makes for great couples. Right? Okay.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:36:56]:
Thanks for listening.

George Faller [00:36:57]:
Keep it hot, y’all.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:36:58]:
So some of you are interested in our work. We want to tell you where we are, what we’re doing. First thing is our couples retreat coming up in October. Right, George?

George Faller [00:37:07]:
October 4th. Yes. Online. This is a chance to just spend a little time with your partner. We guarantee you’re going to kind of come out of that training with more things to talk about sexually.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:37:18]:
Yep. And we’ve got an early bird special right now, so take us up on it and join us for a day of talking about sex.

George Faller [00:37:25]:
And for therapists, we have two trainings coming up. We have one in September 18 to 20 in Las Vegas, where Lori and I will just be kind of brainstorming and really pushing the leading edges of kind of EFT and the sexual cycle. We’re excited about that. And then in January 23rd to 25th, we’re coming to Nashville in person to do three days of really kind of breaking down this process. And again, I think this should be mandatory for all therapists to just kind of have more confidence in knowing what to do and work with the sexual cycle.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:37:57]:
Yeah, we’ve already had lots of signups for that. By the way, George, people are also taking advantage of that early bird special. You know, we want supervisors to come. We’re giving half off to the supervisors. So please join us so that we can kind of get on the same page and understand and develop EFT further. There’s going to be two days of lecture and exercises, and then a day maybe with a live and, you know, working on your tapes and your stuck places. And we’re gonna go down to the Honky Tonk and have dinner together and have some fun.

George Faller [00:38:31]:
Have some fun.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:38:32]:
Have some fun. Yeehaw.

George Faller [00:38:34]:
Yeehaw. And for all you listeners, again, if you have a community and you want Laura and I to come out and give a specialized training on sex. And again, I think this is so important for anybody seeing couples. Then reach out to us and let’s continue to spread this message. Yeehaw. Call in your questions to the four play question. Voicemail dial 833my4play. That’s 833-MY- the number fore play and we’ll use the questions for our mailbag episodes.

Disclaimer [00:39:04]:
All content is for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered as a substitute for therapy by a licensed clinician or as medical advice from a doctor. This podcast is copyrighted by Foreplay Media.

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