Sex With Emily - The Truth about Sex Addiction w/ Marnie Breecker

Episode Date: May 14, 2022

So listen: is sex addiction real? We’ve all heard stories of infidelity followed by explanations of sex addiction as the reason for the behavior. But the truth is, just because someone cheats doesn���t mean they’re a sex addict. According to therapist Marnie Breecker from the Center for Relational Healing, sex addiction is indeed real: it’s an intimacy disorder with both emotional and physiological symptoms. On this best of show, Marnie and I talk about the common and compulsive behaviors of sex addiction, the deep human need for love and connection, affordable treatment options, love addiction, a how-to on IMAGO therapy (a great tool for communication) and healing steps for couples. Show Notes:More Marnie: Website | Instagram Sex Addicts Anonymous Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In fact, two different people can be engaging in the same sexual behaviors and even look like they're both addicts, and one is not an addict at all, meaning that they are making a conscious choice to do it. They're not feeling guilt and shame after the behavior. They're not saying, I'm never going to do this again. They're not acting against their own value system. Whereas an addict truly, they might love their partner. They might believe in every bit of their core that cheating and betraying the person they

love the most is actually totally wrong and horrible and crushing and they can't stop the behavior. You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. So listen, is sex addiction real? The truth is, just because someone cheats doesn't mean they're a sex addict. And if someone is a sex offender, that also doesn't mean they're a sex addict. But according to Marani Breaker at the Center for Relational Healing, sex addiction is indeed

real. It's an intimacy disorder with emotional and physiological symptoms. On this best-of-show, Marani and I talk about the signs of sex addiction, the deep human need for love and connection, affordable treatment options, love addiction, a how-to on a mago therapy, and healing steps for couples. Alright, in touch with Emily for each show, join me in setting an intention for the show. I do it, I encourage you to do it, and think about what do you want to get out of this episode. My intention is to give you more information

about something that is often misunderstood that is sucks addiction and also give you some communication tools you can start using today. Please rate and review Sex with the Emily. We're every listen to the show. My article for tips for lasting longer in bed is up at sex with Emily dot com. Also check out my YouTube channel for more sex tips and advice. If you want to ask me questions, do it. Leave your questions or message me at sexwithemlee.com slash askemlee. Or call my hatline 559 talk sex 559 825 5739.

Always include your name, your age, where you live and how you listen to the show. And totally cool to change your name if you want to remain anonymous. All right, everyone, enjoy this episode. Marty Breaker is a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified sex addiction therapist, and certified clinical partners specialist. She has been trained in a mago therapy and EMDR.

Marney's professional mission is educating others on the complexity of sex addiction and its traumatic impact on partners and family systems. Her goal is above all to treat every client with kindness, respect, and compassion. Find more Marney at marnebreaker.com or on Instagram at Center for Relational Healing. Okay, so this is Marne Breaker. Hi, we or on Instagram, at Center for Relational Healing. Okay, so this is Marne Breaker. Hi, we're on Instagram live right now. Anyone has any questions?

Marne is a sex addiction specialist. We have a question. Are there warning signs for sex addiction? We're sex addiction. Yeah, we have sex-offending. Yeah. Well, they're two very different things. So if we're talking about sex addiction,

you know, I actually wrote an article. I should send it to you, Emily. I gotta find it, but I wrote an article for single women about how to know what to look for. And when somebody becomes sexual or sexualized as a conversation really fast, that's actually a big red flag right off the bat, you know? Really? Yeah.

Sexualizing something very quick is not example. Not like just like, hey, we're going to bone after dinner, but more like, I'll give you a fancy example. That steak looks like what I want to, yeah, I don't know. Well, yeah, actually, I know where you were getting at, but yes we're gonna bone after dinner, but more like I'll give you a fancy example. That steak looks like what I wanted. Yeah, I don't know. Well, yeah, actually, I know you were getting up, but yes, that could be an example, but it doesn't have to be, it could be subtle years ago when I was dating. I was on that J date site, you know, many years ago.

And this guy and I were talking, we were chatting, it was kind of late. It was maybe like 11, 11, 30 at night. And he, I send something to him and he's like, can you call me? Like he wanted to get on the phone right away. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but when I spoke to him on the phone, I actually agreed to get on the phone with him,

probably shouldn't have met that, but I did. I got on the phone with him and he disclosed to me in that conversation that he's a sex addict. And I had a weird feeling. As soon as he wanted to get on the phone so quick, there's like an urgency. There's an all out of boundaries. You can see that with sex addicts, like they push your boundaries. They're not really respectful when you're saying no or you're setting limit. When somebody is constantly

lying or keeping secrets, you know, even hearing about something with a pretty significant trauma background, not that all of them will become sex addicts or drug addicts, but you know, it is something to be aware of and to see how did the trauma impact this person now as an adult. Can you describe some of the common sexual addiction behaviors, what that looks like? When they're coming to you, even they've been addicted to prostitutes or porn or the most common would be porn and compulsive masturbation, prostitutes, escorts, massage parlors, strip clubs. Those would be the biggest. Those are the top ones. It's really not even with the partners, necessarily.

With their own partners? Yeah. No. We get so many questions, you're like, my partner, why, just porn. Is it a problem? How do we know if it's a problem? And my partner's looking at anything else that's getting them turned on and it's not me.

Well, that's a whole different issue. The reality is with sex addiction. It's a disease that occurs in secrecy. So when someone's looking at a lot of porn and they're keeping it from their partner, likely there is something to hide. We're not going to get into a whole conversation about whether or not pornography is... Right. Go back. Exactly. But when you're in a relationship with somebody, keeping a secret like that you have, that you look at a lot of pornography and that you're masturbating into it, even to the point where

you can't really perform in your own relationship, that's a problem. And so, I mean, to get back to the person's question about signs, I would say that when you're in a relationship or you're getting to know somebody who is incredibly secretive and they are not disclosing and they're not vulnerable, like those are some big signs. Not vulnerable about anything, right? Can't connect, sex, dictions, and intimacy disorder,

that's what it is, it's not about sex. And that's a lot of your work at the Center for Relational Healing is intimacy disorders. Is addiction a physical and mental disorder and is it genetic? Addiction can definitely be genetic. I mean, you see it intergenerationaly within families. So you will often see, or I'll see in my office, for instance, people that come in, and there is a history of addiction in their history. There is definitely a lot of research that does show like from a genetic standpoint, it can be inherited, but also that can be, you know, you grow up with a parent who has an

addiction and they have maladaptive way of coping. And you see that they don't have to regulate themselves sooth and as a child, you kind of pick up on those things. And in terms of the attachment piece, when you are young and you're either enmeshed by a parent and smothered or you're abandoned and neglected, that's going to impact how you can attach as you get older. It can often make somebody love addicted. It can make someone love avoidant.

It can make someone sex addicted. I mean, there's so many things that can happen. It is, I would say, a physiological and an emotional disorder, for sure, because most people that have an actual addiction, even though we talked earlier about that withdrawal, they are withdrawn when they're not getting it. And there, for them, it might be incredible anxiety, panic attacks, depression. That's the physiological piece that I'm referring to. People get headaches and digestive issues, and my clients are in tremendous distress, and it's both physiological as well as emotional.

Can somebody be addicted to love, Marney? Yeah, they call it love addiction, but really it's more being addicted to a person and to the attention and to the adoration and to the validation. And really when somebody doesn't have a sense of self themselves, like they can't really esteem themselves, then they're looking to others to esteem them. So when they're getting lots of attention from somebody and they feel really grain desirable, like they're on cloud nine and they're happy. And then if they lose that or the person they're interested in is not returning that interest or they're rejecting them, they could

they this is a person that literally can become so depressed that they become suicidal. Like we see a lot of love addiction in inpatient and intensive outpatient settings. When is sex addiction different than just cheating in a marriage? Thanks, K-Po. Thank you, K. I love it. That's a great question. Okay, so I'm glad that you asked that, K, because the reality is that one of the reasons that I think sex addiction loses some credibility is that oftentimes when somebody gets caught

cheating or engaging in some kind of egregious behavior, sexually, sex addiction gets blamed or it's often thrown out as the reason behind it. And the truth is that just because someone cheats does not make them a sex addict by any means. In fact, two different people can be engaging in the same sexual behaviors and even look like they're both addicts. And one is not an addict at all, meaning that they are making a conscious choice to do it. They're not feeling guilt and shame after the behavior. They're not saying, I'm never going to do this again. They're not acting against their own value system. Whereas an addict truly is not they might love their partner. They might believe in every bit of their core that cheating and betraying the person they love the most is actually totally wrong and horrible

and crushing and they can't stop the behavior. They need to get that hit, just like a drug addict needs to get that hit. But for most people in fidelity, or people come into one of your programs, which I love that you have actually recovery programs for people who are going through trauma, or through cheating through infidelity, would you say that a lot of people in fidelity

are sex addicts? It just seems like from what I hear most of these, more like they wanted love attention from someone else. It wasn't so much of a sex addiction. I do think that the reality is that people make conscious choices to cheat. When they feel like they're not getting their needs met in a relationship, when they feel when kids come into the picture and a mother or parent, like a partner is not so, you know, so much available to their husband anymore to be there all the time, that often

actually engages somebody in distancing themselves and starting affairs, going, you know, getting it elsewhere. But that's not, that's not addiction. Right. It's a choice and it's a terrible choice. And we see a lot of disconnect in our society and today and instead of couples coming together when things are tough or when they're struggling,

they're moving further and further apart and people make that choice. What kind of help can people get if they're seeing some signs of sex addiction in the relationship for themselves or for their partner? There are so many treatment centers available now and places that specialize in betrayal trauma and sex addiction and fidelity. My center here in Los Angeles, the center for relational healing, that's the center for

relational healing, Marnie's NLA. I will say that I have a phenomenal staff and I take such incredible pride in the work that we do, but we're not the only people obviously that do this work. There are certified sex addiction therapists around the country as well as abroad. There are partner specialists. I'm actually a certified clinical partner specialist as well and there's an organization that trains therapists to be able to work with the cheated or betrayed partner. It's actually pretty easy to find help if you get online and you do a Google search.

And then the type of treatment you get really depends on the acuity of what's involved. Like if you've got a full-blown sex addiction case, sometimes outpatient therapy once a week is not going to be enough. Group therapy is important. 12-step program, sometimes intensive outpatient therapy. It just really depends on what you're looking at. Can you define the difference between being a sex addict and a sex pervert, and they probably mean sex offender,

I'm thinking, or the sexual deviant? I guess it would depend on how we're defining pervert, because somebody who is, for instance, a lawyer, who is looking at people like peeping in tight people's windows, things like that, or someone who's engaging in frotterism, which is touching another person without their permission, you see that like in crowded rooms or like on the subway, where someone's rubbing up against you

and it can sort of be under the guise of, oh, it's just crowded in here, but it's an intentional conscious thing to do. That's perverted and that definitely would fall into the category of sex offending. You know, sex addiction, you know, there could be people that have fetishes that are sex addicts, but I certainly wouldn't

pathologize that and say that anybody's fetish is necessarily perverted. So I do think that they're drastically different things. Okay, Marnie. Let's talk about how couples can repair after dealing with infertility, the trauma of infertility in a relationship. And can they repair? They can repair. It is a lot of work and it's a lot of effort, a lot of money, a lot of time, resources, and a lot of pain. The first thing that I want to say is that most partners that have been cheated on or have experienced betrayal trauma in their relationship will say that, well, of course, they're not

happy that their husbands or their partners cheated on them. Nobody wants that. But that's not really the part that's the inexcusable part. That's not the part that's traumatic. The part that's traumatic is the broken trust. It's that shattered sense of what you thought was true is not anymore. And partners go back and look at everything that they thought once was their reality, and they realize that it was not their reality at all.

And so to really recreate trust and reestablish intimacy is the goal of relational healing. When couples first come in typically, what we usually see is the attic comes in because they were caught. Everyone's in a while, very rarely. The attic are so much cheated. They might not be called an attic. Exactly. Yeah, the person who has acted out, sexual out. They'll come in and usually they've been caught.

And so their partner will know something. They might have seen a receipt for something. They might have gotten a phone bill. They might have gotten a receipt. They're used to be back in the day with a receipt. Now it's the phone. Right. Right. Or the something from the internet like pictures pop up or somebody sees like the history. That's a big one looking at their part of history. Browser. Right. Yeah. People don't delete their histories. And so usually a partner discovers something and then

that's what gets the the acting out partner into therapy. But usually that's just the tip of the iceberg. What's been discovered, there's usually a lot more. At least with addiction, if you are dealing with a couple that's just dealing with infidelity, which is still horrible, I don't mean to say just, but if that really, maybe it was an isolated affair or somebody was seeing, you know, was engaging in something for a short period of time, and it's really an isolated thing. You're not looking at addiction, and you don't always get more information.

There's not always more than just what that issue was that the partner discovered. But with sex addiction, you really are typically looking at years of acting out and secrets and lies. And so one of the first things that happens is an addict will be working with his therapist to prepare what's called a formal disclosure.

And that's essentially an opportunity for him to come in with like a written list. Often it's a company pie of polygraph. They'll have to take this polygraph you know before after. And they will read this list to their partner. And the reason for this, some people think this is crazy. That's got to be so painful and it's so awful. The truth is the partner has the right to know the truth about the relationships. They can make an informed decision about what they want to do.

So they're like, so it'd be like, give me example of a disclosure. So well, they're usually pretty long, but you know, it might start with, you know, in March of 1996, I met a woman at a bar when I was on a, you know, work vacation, and we went up and had, you know, oral sex and vaginal sex in my hotel room and it was unprotected. And then they keep going. Yeah. And then there was this time after work when I met something right. Yeah. And it could be, I mean, I just did a disclosure not too long ago. I mean, there was somebody that disclosed hundreds of partners and he's been married, you know, for, I think it's been 30 years or something like that. And so how does, how do you recover? How do you

recover? And his partner was, I do you recover? How do you recover? And his partner was, I'm assuming, I had a heterosexual heterosexual, yeah. Maybe she's mouth-a-gate and it does he nuts. Do you get a break? Like if there's that many things 30 years, can I break for some lunch here? I mean, the disclosure itself,

you mean to be take breaks? No, no, but we're allowed to, like the partner calls the shots and if they need to take a break for any reason, of course, we stop it. The mouth-a-gate, they just be like, what? Like one of them would be bad, but if there's like 50, I mean, it's awful. I actually have a disclosure coming up this coming week.

It is, I will say even as a therapist, it's probably the most difficult thing that I do because imagine if it's so hard for me to sit and listen to this, I can't even begin to imagine what it's like, not just for the partner. That's horrendous. But also, if the addict is actually doing this, that means that they have come to some place in their recovery and healing Where they realize how important it is that they give their partner this information. There's some degree of empathy and It's torturous for them to be doing this. You know, they're looking at the person that they love more than anything

And they're saying I did all these horrible things. I put you in danger I put you know, I put your health at risk. I was having all this unprotected sex and Or I brought people into our home or I introduced people to our children. And so to hold that as a therapist is really painful. God, it's so true. We can't even imagine what you hear. It is torturous.

That's all sides of it because you have the empathy as well. You do have empathy. So how could we work with children today? Like is there so kind of tools or parents? Any kind of work parents can do around children suffering to kind of prevent this? Is it about education? Because I just see so many friends and work parents

doing best their ability, but their kids are suffering as well. It's important, but you know, I think it's actually worse now than it was because of social media. In other words, parents are putting kids in front of TV's and video and they're seeing so, they're having so much exposure and kids are growing up wanting to get likes and with the snap chat and with Instagram and the selfies the selfie culture. It's creating so much narcissism right. I was outside my office the other day and I saw this girl with like a little mid-drift top and she had her phone and she was like posing and then pulling her shirt down to show more cleavage. I had no idea what she was doing with those pictures, but I'm just thinking this is our culture now.

This is our culture now. It's really upsetting. You're right. It's more so like if we didn't have narcissism as a problem before, it's just like tenfold. So yeah, you're right. It is a bigger issue, but I just think you're right. The problems today, I'm kind of grateful now for my childhood trauma. Me too. Totally. It's like, God, there wasn't like other things on top of it. You're right. But you know, what I do think parents can do is teach them how to have what's called emotional regulation. How do you tolerate negative feelings in a way that's not going to take you out and make you feel like you do need to, you know, use some sort of a mind altering substance or behavior?

It's a emotional regulation. That's exactly what it is. Because it's just tolerance. But it is true now that kids, because of whatever is going on, could be media, could be that there's so much more pressure on kids to succeed today and to get into schools. That is really about learning how to regular emotions a young age and not just numbing out on your phone because now it's so much easier to numb out, right? Like you could just do it.

And in TV, I mean, there's so many ways to numb out video games. It's another big one when I see kids at restaurants. I don't know if you could pay attention. You look around, you see families and parents are on their phones, and the kids have the video games. And I'm thinking, oh my god, talk about intimacy disorders. This is creating so many problems in terms of learning how to become intimate. Think about, we used to go, if you went out for dinner by yourself, for the breakfast by yourself, you might have a newspaper with you or a book.

Now, whoever is sitting by themselves and not looking at their phone. Exactly. As long as you just put the menu down, you might even look around the restaurant. Right. You use the trees or look outside. You would. Smile with somebody. You don't smile. You don't look up. We're all on our phones.

We're going to take a quick break, but stick around after work for our sponsors, Marweth Marnie Breaker. Talk about intimacy disorders. How would you even define that? I used to just say data series of people who were like before I got into this work emotionally blocked, emotionally unavailable, and really it's about intimacy. Yeah, there's a term called intimacy anorexia. And where does that come from? For instance, if somebody grew up in a family where their primary caregivers are not giving that they're neglecting them, it could be because the parents are working three, four

jobs in order to put food on the table. It could be because the parents have a mental illness, they have an addiction, they're just not present. Whatever it is, they feel rejected or neglected. Our need, our number one most primal need is a human being is to connect and to be loved. It's so important. So we grow up and it's not like we don't want that connection. We do. We crave it. We desire it. But we can be so afraid of being neglected again and abandoned again that it creates this

fear like I'm not going to get close to people. Right. Right. A ban on issues. Right. And so that can be sort of the intimacy and a recceil. Like I'm not letting you in. I'm not going to be vulnerable. I'm not pulling myself to get hurt again. I get re-tronized. Right. Which I think is like just what so many. I want to say the majority of people, I know we do so many people. But then again, all we hear is like you just said, the healing, how it really works, is that we are all deeply craving love in connection.

Like that's all we want. This is the most alone. I think culture in America, we live so separate from everybody else. We're not near our families. We all moved away. We don't have the community. We don't like share homes with each other, we don't, we're like very

isolated already. And then now I think the impact of having the internet or home to TV, social media, all that stuff is driven a further wedge between us and really feeling authentic connection and relationships that very much and that's also that also say you're going to have to build a village for people who's going to come stay at your center. At the center, I know I've actually thought about sometimes somebody who has a residential treatment center, but there's so many and your center. At the center, I know. I've actually thought about sometimes somebody who's a residential treatment center. But there's so many, and I can't take that on right now. But I've got a lot of other things going on.

There's a false sense of intimacy, again, that comes from technology in the internet. Like the advent of the internet was a huge reason why pornography addiction became so big. People started choosing to be at home where they could, it's affordable. It is anonymous, and there's one other, a, I can't think of what it is, but in any event.

Aino? No, it's accessible. It does say accessible, anonymous and affordable. And people choose to be at home with their pornography rather than being out there, you know, going on dates, being out with their friends, being intimate,

and true intimacy. So people develop these relationships in their homes where they don't have to leave. And this becomes their sense of intimacy. These people in these films, they're not gonna leave them, they're not gonna hurt them, they're not gonna put them down, they're not gonna reject them. But they're still getting that, yeah,

they're still getting off of it. Or it doesn't matter. God, this is all such good stuff. Thank you, Marney. I feel like we're gonna move into some emails because I want you to help me answer some questions here from the listeners, but this has been such a great discussion. And I love that you live here,

because you're gonna come back on the show. Marney Breaker, the Center for Relational Healing, it's LACRH.com, and your Instagram, and all that, do you wanna give all that out? We can also put it on our website. You can put it on the website. Okay, so thank you, Marney, this is amazing. So now we're gonna go into some emails.

Hi, Emily, I think I'm a sex addict, but I can't afford a therapist. I don't want my wife to know about this. Are there bibliotherapy resources or other resources I can access to treat my sex addiction? What steps can I begin to take on my own? Thank you Lee 48 Toronto. Lee, I'm so glad that you reached out and there are resources. If you don't have the financial means to go and see a specialist, my my first suggestion would be get to a 12 step meeting immediately. SAA, go online to SAA or essay.org. They are all over.

There's phone meetings and computer meetings and lots of meetings in person. And you can get there essentially free of charge. And you will connect with a lot of other people in a confidential environment and get a tremendous amount of support, work the steps. There's also tons of books out there that you can read. I will say that while I understand not wanting to tell your wife at some point, it is the secrecy

that's going to keep you from being able to connect to your wife and from really healing. So eventually I would consider letting her in and sharing with her. Thank you. That is a great point. And did you say S-L-A-A, like sex and love addicts and others? S-L-A is another one. Okay. So you were saying S-A-A. Yes. Okay. So I think that that's just the key here.

We think that these secrets, you know, like they say in 12, you're just a six, six is your secret, set them more reveal to others. We think that that's going to be the most devastating thing, but that's actually what heals us. So all these secrets and things that we can't deal with, just with addiction. Yeah.

We see a lot of people recovering finally after doing the disclosure that weren't able to before they did a disclosure Because they finally like you said they finally actually come clean and said everything they were so terrified of saying and they held on for years And then suddenly they're no longer walking around in shame, right? Exactly. That's like the end though to shame, right? Right. They're looking at their partner saying you know everything that I've done You've known every awful thing now that I have done and you still love me and you're here Right. Oh, okay, you know everything that I've done, you've known every awful thing now that I have done, and you still love me and you're here. Like, oh, okay, you know?

Because we all kind of a lot of us have a base, many of us have a fear of abandonment, and then if we do, if we have to pile onto an addiction that we're so ashamed of, like, it's just like this quagmire, but if you start to, you're like, and you do reveal everything to partner, and they're still there, it's like, wow. They love me, they love me.

They do that. Right, I don't have any more secrets, it's amazing. Hi, Emily, my wife and I have been married for 15 years, we have two kids, and we're It's amazing. Hi Emily, my wife and I have married for 15 years. We have two kids and we're still in love. We both have high pressure jobs and are balancing work, our house, kids and their schoolwork. It can feel like too much at times. Well we have a healthy sex life.

I definitely want to have sex way more than she does. I feel like my hormones are through the roof and I desire her all the time. We have sex once a week and maybe a hand job one more time a week. It's not enough. I'm afraid to bring this up for fear that she may judge me as a sex addict. I turned to porn and masturbating when I'm not having sex with my wife. I would never resort to cheating, but how do I separate myself from thinking I'm an addict rather than just a loving husband who desires his wife a lot? Thanks for all you do, love the show, long time listener, and I'm sure you will say

communication is lubrication. It is, communication is lubrication. Matthew 43 Michigan, my home state. I don't feel like he's exhibiting signs of sex addiction and I can understand that I hear this a lot from listeners. So like, is there a problem with me? My partner doesn't, you know, they don't desire me. How do you know?

And then oftentimes there can be allegation like where you're masturbating all the time where you want sex so much, they can kind of label the partners as psychetics. So they take that on. So, you know, masturbation is really healthy in a relationship. I say couples should always be masturbating and you should keep masturbating even when you're in a relationship and out of a relationship. And so, yeah, I mean, I think all that's important, but I don't see any sex addiction here. I see that they really just need to talk about their sex life. That's what I see. I like that. I like that. Yeah, I would definitely want to assure you that

assuming you're giving us all the truth here, it does not seem like there's any indication of sex addiction, but it does seem like you do need to be willing to talk to your wife and have a very honest, candid conversation without worrying about her judgment to talk about the difference in desire. What you're describing is one of the most common reasons that people come in for sex therapy in marriages. There's just a difference in desire. What you're describing is one of the most common reasons

that people come in for sex therapy in marriages. There's just a difference in desire. Yeah, exactly. And sex therapy, going to speak, if there are financial resources, that's what sex therapists do. They come in and there's like a safe environment and with a really safe container,

you talk about this stuff. When you let go of the judgment and you have somebody there that's sort of a neutral third party that can help you, there's exercises people can do. Sometimes, listen, the reality is being a mom or being a dad is exhausting. It can be when you have high-pressure jobs and you're balancing a million things. And sex is often especially for women, not the thing. It's the first thing that goes. So sometimes it takes having a real mindful practice and really recommitting to that. And, you know, Matthew, maybe if you really share with your wife how much you want to connect to her and how much you desire her,

and that you want to do it in a way that feels good for her without pressuring, I imagine that it might help you grow and create more intimacy and vulnerability. Well, you're saying about sex therapy, though. I think a lot of couples go to talk regular therapy, and I think sex therapy can be just tremendously helpful for so many couples. You do sex therapy as well. I just feel like there are a lot of traditionally trained therapists that really aren't trained in sex therapy And I know a lot of couples are like we're in therapy for ten years sex never came up. I'm like, how is that possible? And they go to one sex therapist like Bessam and all that comes together Okay, we'll do one more question

And this is especially for you because I find this fascinating I don't know much as much about it. You're trained in this. Hi Emily Can you explain a mago therapy? I believe you briefly covered this in other podcast episodes, but I'd love more information about who can benefit from it, how it works, and expected results. Thanks, A27 Michigan to people from my home state. I love it. So I have talked about it, but I'm not an expert in it. It's a trained in it. So can you explain Amago therapy? Yeah. So Amago was created by Harville Hendrix, who is a published author and he's also been

a speaker and he's been all over the place. I love Mago Therapy. It's really created for couples, but the reality is that I do think that it can be effective for any people in a relationship. I remember coming over and one of my best friends was struggling with her daughter when she was 16 years old and she was like, I just, oh my god, it's insane. We can't communicate. It's horrible.

And I came over and I facilitated a Mago dialogue for them. And so, yes, it's created for couples and can be incredibly helpful. It's a very structured conversation. A good example of it because I know it's pretty easy to do it. Totally. So the first step would be the center says something and the receiver mirrors it back. And you really want to do it verbatim. As you get better at this and more effective at this, then you can really paraphrase.

But in the beginning, you really want to mirror it back exactly as is. Then the second thing you do, you say, is there more? Is there more? Yes. And then I will tell you until there's no more. And then you will say, okay, so what I heard you say, and then you paraphrase, just like a general overview of what you heard me say. The next step is you validate.

So I heard everything that you said. That was really important to me. Thank you for sharing what you just said made sense. Any of those things, a validating statement, right? And then the third part is where you actually attune to my emotions. So you say something like, based on what you just said, I imagine that you must feel, fill in the blanks, right?

And so, and then you check it out, is that how you feel? And then I tell you, so we're not making any interpretations or actually sorry, we're not making assumptions about what the other person's saying. We're checking it out. Is that really what you said? Help me understand it. And then here's the most important component of magotherapy. It's not about being right. The idea behind magotherapy is that two people can have completely different world views. And it doesn't mean that one is right and the other one's wrong. And it's not about proving our point. It's about

being heard, listening with curiosity, and validating and empathizing and attuning with our partner. That's, I love it. It's amazing. I get chill amazing. Because I've done some of this work, you know, I've studied some somatic therapy a little bit, but I get this. Let's do it. Okay. All right. Now I'm going to think of something I don't want to say to you. Yeah. Okay. Let's think. I'm going to, this is going to be a high top medical thing. We don't know each other enough for you to be to have a, to have a, I'm confrontation. Yeah. I'm going to, this is going to be a high-tech thing. We don't know each other enough for you to have a,

to have a, I'm confrontation. Yeah, I'm not mad at you about anything. Okay, yeah. So, okay, so I'm going to make this up. So, Emily, when I came here today for this interview and the door was locked outside and I was knocking and nobody was here and I waited for, you know, like 15 minutes before you showed up, I felt really disrespected and I, I didn't know if you were going to be here and I felt like you didn't value my time. So what I heard you say was that when you arrive, you're waiting outside for 15 minutes

and you were knocking at the door and no one answered and you felt really frustrated, but really frustrated because we had a time set up and disrespected it. And you felt frustrated and disrespected, Is that, is that true? Yes. Um, okay. So I would have heard you say, is there anything more? No, that's it. Okay. So I hear what you're saying about that you were waiting and that, and you felt frustrated and disrespected. You felt like I didn't value your time and you actually got everything you had it and frustrated. I don't know that I said frustrated. I'm not sure. So you felt disrespected and I didn't value your time. Because you came at this time and I feel like that you,

yeah, you must have felt really hurt and disregarded and angry. And angry. You must have felt really angry. Yeah. Thank you. So that's the idea now. Me sitting here listening to even though this is a totally made up. We certainly have a locked the door ever. No,

they let me in right away. And then actually the producer came and met me in the parking lot. Everything's beautiful. Now we can't have the party at the right. But the point of it is that there's no defensiveness on your part. Instead of you going into making an excuse or justifying it, you completely validated the experience. You know, you didn't go to defensiveness. You were like, yeah, I get that. I totally hear what you're saying. And basically sort of the impression I got was,

thank you for sharing that. Yeah, thank you for sharing. Yeah, and I can understand why you would feel these things. You know, think about how many times partners get together and they have an argument and the other person, instead of just saying, you're right, you're absolutely right. I didn't come home in time for dinner instead of being like, why are you always getting on my case?

I was working really hard and that's not going to bring a couple closer together. Exactly. Apart, it just seems to feel validated. I think it'd be really helpful to do a link to Amago Therapy on our website because I've done a few workshops and over the years, I've learned this stuff.

And the reason why it's just so helpful is because it's like you're really just literally mirroring back to them, you're listening and you're saying back to it and you're getting in touch with the motions. But I think the reason why this is so challenging is because for example, like let's say we were in a relationship though, right? And you were like every time you know, let's say we shared, you know, a similar thing, but we shared one key to the house. Let's say like something happened and there's only one key left of the house. And you're thinking, I came home and you took the key. And I'm going like, I told you that

you should, you left for working, you left on the table, yeah, because you left on the table today, I had to take it and lock the door, right? Because I'm right that so you're really upset by it. So I feel like in this scenario, like it wasn't true. And if that was a really case, I would feel bad that I was 15 minutes late. But in a relationship, typically, if your partner's met, you're going to easily think of why not. So how do you get partners to, in that moment, diffuse it without, it's a practice, I guess. Well, that's why there's the, the, this dialogue, it's called a mago dialogue, because there's safety in the structure. Some people say it's so contrived doing this whole thing.

This is not like normal conversation, but that's where the, that's where the safety comes in. Because the person who's listening, who's again called the receiver, that person is, they're instructed to look neutral, to not make eye gestures, not roll their eyes, no facial expressions. Right. And to really listen out of curiosity, the goal of this is not to be right. It doesn't mean there aren't times when there is right or wrong. There could be.

But the idea is to be able to understand that your partner's experience was a certain way and they felt a certain way. Like everything. We're a lot. We are entitled to our feelings and I learned this like when I was my mom, what does some kind of training thing in the 70s and she was like, Oh, we start with your feelings. Never attack. I feel this way. So I kind of get this, but I feel like if you're doing a mago and you're feeling like, but I'm so mad, you could flip it back and say, Now what's going on with you, right? In the same session, you could be like, okay, so I was like, so tell me by how you're feeling.

I could say, well, this morning when you left for work and the key, you know, I felt the key was on the table and I felt like you don't listen to me, which is really disrespecting me. And then we could have played it back. And then we see that we both had different experiences and interpretation of something. So, by the way, one of the things that I do do,

you're asking before about some of the treatment that's available for couples This is not necessarily for couples dealing with them fidelity, although it's pretty common But we do offer these they're called couples boundaries workshops where couples come in and not that the issues they're bringing in are not important But really what we're doing throughout the whole workshop We are using these different issues like the one you and I just talked about in role played But they're real ones for the couple But we're really helping them learn how to communicate

with each other and listen from a place of curiosity and just share to be known without that wanting to judge or have to agree or to be right and make your own your partner wrong. It's all about being right, and then when it gets to contempt and couples, this is a way just to diffuse everything. I love it.

Thank you, that was really good. That's great practice. Everyone check it out on our website. We have to go. This is a great show. That's it for today's episode. See you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily.

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