All right, and welcome back. I just did an episode with Melanie Curtin on her podcast Dear Men, and we broke down the real reasons your wife might not want to have sex with you anymore. Not the surface stuff, the actual underlying patterns that kill sexual connection in long-term relationships.
We walked through five major factors. First, trauma and wounding on her side that blocks access to pleasure, which can be really painful to confront because there's often not much you can do except be clear about your needs. Second, when you're just not attuning to her body at all, you're moving at your pace or following some porn script instead of actually tracking what she needs. Third, neglecting emotional connection, those micro doses of presence and attention throughout the day that create the foundation for her to want to open to you.
Fourth, and this is a big one a lot of guys miss, using sex to discharge stress and emotional tension. If you're coming in dysregulated, balls of stress, trying to get off all the feelings you don't want to feel, she's going to feel that and close right down. Nobody wants to be a receptacle for that. And fifth, the polarity piece, when you're not in your power, not leading, not being direct with your desire, the whole relationship goes flat.
The through line in all of this? Most of it comes down to how you're showing up, the state of your nervous system, your capacity to regulate yourself, create connection, and lead. That's the work. Not sexy Instagram polarity moves, but the real shit work of taking responsibility for yourself so you can show up in a way that actually inspires her to want to be close to you.
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Jason Lange: Right.
Melanie Curtin: Like. Oh, like she'll just try to avoid it. Most of the time she'll kind of do it because she knows it's good for the relationship. And this one can show up even if she doesn't have trauma in her background.
Jason Lange: Right.
Melanie Curtin: And I wanted to briefly mention, for those that are new to the podcast, we use some terminology around alpha and omega that has to do with polarity, which is something we'll get to. But I just wanted to slow that down because what we don't mean is that traditional word of alpha male. That's not what we're talking about. It happens to be the same word, but it means something different to us. And I also wanted to highlight that word, closeness. Closeness. So much of this conversation about sex has to do with closeness and passion. And there can be a tension between those and there can be a connection between those, a very close connection. And I think what you're pointing to, Jason, is that for a lot of people, not just women, we speak to a lot of men where they need emotional closeness in order to get aroused. It's actually not just women that function that way. A lot of people function that way. We happen to be framing it in this one way right now, but I just wanted to really make sure that that's understood because I've. Many of the men that we've worked with, many of the men that we've worked with have said things like, I just, I'm not turned on by a one night stand. I feel like I know the woman I'm sleeping with or I don't get aroused. I don't. It's just not exciting for me. That's normal. And I think our culture kind of makes it weird, right? It's sort of. There's all these messages around. Men have to want sex, and they have to want sex all the time. And if you don't want sex all the time, you're not really a man. And we had a of weird shit around sexuality, and that's just one part of it. But I did want to mention that that closeness is a lot of what we're talking about here. Emotional connection, closeness. Do I feel you with me? Do I feel your attention on me? Do I feel like you know me in this moment? Do I feel like you know me in this moment? Then I'm gonna, you know, wanna have sex with you. That's not a hard and fast rule, but we're making some generalizations. So just like roll with that's. There any last things about that one before we move on to the next one?
Jason Lange: Yeah, it. It just that it's gonna. This one also pays dividends in your own life as man because the skills you need to build to create that kind of connection are gonna serve you in all kinds of areas outside of your partnership as well. So just know that it again, it's, it's worth it. And just because you did it last week doesn't mean it's good to go right now. Right? We. I often use the analogy if it's like sunshine and water, just because you watered the plant yesterday, you gotta water it again today just because you got sunshine needs sunshine again. So does she. In terms of your presence and that emotional connection, like those are the two real things here.
Melanie Curtin: Or feeding the meter. I like that.
Jason Lange: Feeding the meter.
Melanie Curtin: Yep, Totally gotta feed the meter. And yeah, we're not delving into kind of how to do that, how to build that emotional connection. We do go into that in our work. We're gonna move on here. But if you're like, what, how do I do that? What do I. If I knew how to do that, I'd do more of it. We'll. We'll help you out. Help you out. Okay, number two. Number two, this is a little confronting. Wait for it. So we actually did a whole episode on this topic that I'm gonna drop in the show notes and it's called are you using your wife for sex? Which is confronting as well as this. She doesn't want to be a receptacle for your tension. Take it away, Jason.
Melanie Curtin: Yeah, I would say that one of our, one of our current clients had definitely A polarizing moment this last week. And, yeah, didn't take long. I mean, five minutes or less. And she had a big emotional release, you know, like, that's. And I think that one of the things I really want to emphasize here is that polarity is not just what you say. It's who you are when you say it. And you don't even have to say anything to polarize the moment. I remember we had a client years ago who was single and dating, and it was not going well. I mean, it was not going well. And then he started working with us and learned about these concepts, started applying them, and within, I want to say, eight weeks, it was not very long, he went on. He went to a dating event, and he met a woman. He met a couple women, but he met a woman who he felt like was out of his league. And. But he. He did the things we talk about. He did. He did the things we talk about in the exercise. It was one of those where they split you up and you do little dates and everything. And he breathed, and he held eye contact, and he focused on his central column and included his balls and his breath, meaning that's not. This part of me I tuck away. And I never, you know, connect to. Right? I'm. I'm here. I'm with you. I see you. And she came up at the end and gave him her number. And because he was in the program, he had, you know, more support and structure around this, and he kind of worked through some of the, like, I don't know. She kind of feels like she's out of my league. I don't know what I'm doing here. And we just really encouraged him. Just stay present, kind of keep. Keep going, right? Keep connecting. And they had basically the hottest date of his life at that point. And they've been together for, I think, a couple of years now. And I've heard this before from a number of our men, especially the ones that are single or dating, where they said, I'm. I'm. I'm sure that if I hadn't been in the program, I wouldn't have led in the way that I did, and I wouldn't have polarized her in the way that I did, and she wouldn't have come home with her.
Jason Lange: Me.
Melanie Curtin: So. And. And it's not, like, complicated stuff, right? It's, like, pretty basic, but it makes a huge difference. And I really want to emphasize that. That part about breath and that part about power, it's a. It's. It's an emergent Quality. It's something that emerges from you. It's not something that you have to force. It's not a line that you come up with from your head. It's something that's coming from your body, from your embodied desire. Your embodied desire. And you speaking and moving from that, that is what is sexy. That is what is polarizing to me, is you bringing that. So if you don't have access to it, if you kind of breathe from the chest up and you do, you don't really want to admit that you're. That you have sexual desire because you don't want to make her uncomfortable. You don't want to make her feel unsafe. You don't want to put pressure on her. You know, then you're. Then you're not going to bring it. You're not going to bring that. And it's going to be really hard for you to polarize the moment. So, again, my point is, is it's important to get the right support. It's important to get the right help in this regard because it can be really transformative and lasting versus, oh, I don't know why this one moment worked with my wife and this other moment didn't work. It kind of demystifies it. It brings it more into focus and clarity. And when we're talking about polarity, I would say, well, first of all, we do have the polarity masterclass, which I'll. I'll see if we have that available yet. But one of the biggest polarity killers is passivity. And I, I will never forget this. One of our guys the other day said, I tend to wait for the signal, right? I tend to wait for the signal. And I think that's a really great epitome of kind of like, I'm waiting for her, right? I'm waiting for her to give me the signal that, you know, she's open for conversation or for sex or for whatever it is. That is not. Not polarizing. Polarizing is I'm bringing my power, I'm bringing my desire. I'm bringing. I'm being forthright about my. My wants, my wishes, my intentions, which could be sexually or otherwise. And that's leading, right? And, and leading doesn't mean. And I have to get it, but it is leading. It's being straightforward. I want us to talk about the holidays this weekend. That's leading. It's not kind of waiting or guessing. It's leading. And I, I would say that's one of the primary things that we train men on, is how to lead skillfully which is not dominating, and it's not being passive. It's in the middle. It's leading. And one thing that I've seen repeatedly is that this actually expands into other areas of a man's life. So we had a client once who, yeah, basically showed up because he said, I know my marriage could be bad. It's fine. I think he used that word. It's fine, but it's not very erotically charged. It's not very. You know, they were not on the brink of divorce. This was not a couple in distress. But he just knew there was more. He wanted more. That drive for more is why he showed up with us. And one of the very basic things he did once was he said, yep, I just. I ordered food and I brought it home for dinner. Normally, I would call my wife, say, what do you think? How do you feel about this? And he said, it was pretty liberating. I just made the choice. Choice. And I thought, if she's already made something, we'll have this food tomorrow, or vice versa.
Jason Lange: We'll.
Melanie Curtin: We'll figure it out. But I know she enjoys this food, and so do I. I'm. I'm making a decision. I'm bringing it home, and I'm doing this. And he said it just. It liberated something in him, and it was really fun to watch him. And I would say them as a couple, kind of expand into, like, whoa, there's all this fire. There's all this energy available now that he's bringing more of his. His self, bring more of his power, more of his desire, his essence forward. It's polarizing, right? It's polarizing. And in their case, she was already open to a degree, right? They already. They had a good emotional connection. They had some things going for them already that some couples don't have. But, man, that was fun to watch. And then where I was going with this is that he started to ask for more at work. He got a promotion. I think he actually ended up changing jobs at some point in the future. But he. He took that drive, that experience, that. With him into the workplace, and it transformed things. And he's not the only client we've had like that, where this energy, this embodiment, this power, this walking with this intention, it carries over. It carries over, and it tends to improve life at many levels. You know, I would say we had another client who had a breakthrough with his family around Christmas, around the holidays of leading and setting boundaries that he'd never done before, because it's the same thing. It's not different. It's right. I'm leading with what I want and I'm listening to the answer that comes back. I'm leading with what I want and I'm listening to the answer that comes back. It's not my way or the highway dominating, but it's not passive. It is the middle way. It is leading.
Melanie Curtin: Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. Da da.
