Answering Relationship Questions About Sex and Connection
You can be talking to your partner about the same relationship and interpret the conversation completely differently. I learned that recently when I told my partner, Dallas, I was feeling disconnected and found out he heard that very differently than I intended it. Neither of us knew there was a misunderstanding until we actually talked about what that word meant to each of us.
While I spend my days talking about sex and relationships as a couples therapist, Dallas didn’t grow up talking about feelings and certainly didn’t learn to do it during his time in the Marine Corps. We have very different levels of comfort with some of these conversations, so we’ve had to keep talking through what we each mean and what we need from each other.
In this episode of The RISE to Intimacy Podcast, Dallas joins me to answer relationship questions about sex and connection from Reddit. We start with aftercare and what partners may need from each other after sex, then get into emotional connection and why deeper conversations can feel so uncomfortable. We also share how these conversations have shown up in our own relationship and what we’ve learned from having them together.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
1:13 - Answering Reddit relationship questions with Valerie’s partner, Dallas
3:06 - What aftercare can look like and how to ask your partner what they want after sex
6:06 - How Valerie and Dallas realized they meant very different things by “feeling disconnected”
10:02 - What someone may mean when they need emotional connection before sex
13:26 - Can you get an avoidant partner to have deeper, more honest conversations?
15:45 - How Dallas became more comfortable talking about feelings and vulnerability
18:41 - Why difficult conversations trigger defensiveness and how responding gently can build trust
19:51 - What happened when Dallas shared something deeply vulnerable with Valerie
22:19 - How deeper communication changed the way Dallas experiences their relationship
Mentioned In Answering Relationship Questions About Sex and Connection
Full Transcript
Valerie McDonnell: Welcome to the rise to intimacy podcast. I'm your host Valerie McDonnell, and for over a decade, I've worked as a sex and couples therapist because intimacy used to feel really overwhelming for me. I felt a lot of pressure to perform, I was disconnected from my body, and I often felt like desire was out of reach for me. But through my own trauma work, I stopped checking out of my body and started feeling connected to it again. I learned what it's like to experience intimacy without fear, without shutting down, and without numbing out. Now, I'm on a mission to help you do the same thing. This podcast exists because trauma doesn’t get the last word. You can learn how to calm your body, change the story you've been carrying, and rebuild real connection, first with yourself and then with the people you love. Let’s begin.
Welcome back everybody to the Rise to Intimacy podcast, and today I have a co-host joining me, and this is my partner Dallas–
Dallas: Hello
Valerie McDonnell: –and I'm so glad that he's joining me today. He's visiting all weekend, because we're in a long distance relationship. So, we get to see each other about every other week. And this weekend we thought something fun to do together, would be to do a podcast episode answering some Reddit questions on a relationship advice forum. So the first one we're going to get into is a little funny, but also brings up something important that we should be tending to when we're having intimacy with our partner. But the question is “How long until I can play Pokemon after sex with my partner?”
Dallas: Pokemon. I’m not big on the Pokemon. But, I guess I could put this in translation of like, I like playing video games, so how long after sex will it be, till I can play video games? I can put that in that perspective.
Valerie McDonnell: Yeah, what do you think?
Dallas: Well for me, for me and for you I, I know that you like to be cuddled with, nurtured, and you know pretty much, just, know, feel loved–
Valerie McDonnell: Yup
Dallas: -- so it's just when I give enough of that, then I'm just like “All right, I’m gonna go do my thing.”
Valerie McDonnell: How do you know, though? How do you know if you've given enough? Like, that’s probably what this person’s asking is like, how do I know when I've given enough time, right? Before like, my partner is not going to get mad if I get up to go play Pokemon?
Dallas: When you start to move away.
Valerie McDonnell: When I start to move away from you?
Dallas: You’re like “Oh, I'm hot.” I’m like “Great, it's my turn.”
Valerie McDonnell: Well, I think, right? I think, first, probably what I would say around this, is if you're questioning it, right? Like, anything else I would say, is what is, is what do you think I would say? Like, the first thing you would do, if you don't know the answer to this question?
Dallas: Communicate, –
Valerie McDonnell: Right?
Dallas: –ask questions.
Valerie McDonnell: Right, right?
Dallas: How are you feeling?
Valerie McDonnell: What, or just ask that question, right? Like hey, essentially this question is talking about aftercare. Meaning, you know, after sex, many people would like it if your partner would stay there for you, for at least a little time instead of just, you know, quickly jumping up out of the bed, throwing you a towel, and going to watch football.
Dallas: Right.
Valerie McDonnell: So, engaging in aftercare can be something like cuddling, snuggling, it can be getting something to clean yourself up, and giving something to your partner, getting them a glass of water. Do you enjoy the Aftercare? Or is it?
Dallas: For me, personally, it's not something I care for, it's not something I need, but I do need a glass of water. Go Birds. ‘Cause I am tired, and I have cotton-mouth.
Valerie McDonnell:We try to prepare ahead of time, usually.
Dallas: I drink water. I just chug it.
Valerie McDonnell: That, that is true. I mean, another tip, right? And as I tell my clients too, it's like, sometimes people get in their head about needing something in the middle of sex, right? And of course, just like, prepare ahead of time. You don't, you don't feel weird if we're like, “Hey here's some lube by the bed.” Right? Before we start having sex?
Dallas: Not at all.
Valerie McDonnell:Okay, It doesn't throw off the game at all?
Dallas: No.
Valerie McDonnell: No. We're like, we know what we need. Get our supplies. Right? Including water. I mean, for me, yeah for me, for aftercare is probably. Yes, I would love it if you got me water, if we didn't have water already. And I, I definitely just want you to snuggle with me some. It's just kind of like a full circle experience, when you include the aftercare. But again, if you don't know if your partner wants after care, or you think they do, and you're unsure what they want to do during that time, or how long they want you to stay with them, just ask them that question “Hey babe, I just realized the other day a thought popped up in my mind, and I was wondering, yeah sometimes, I love it when we have sex, I love, you know, snuggling with you afterwards, and then I get worried that maybe if I got up too quickly, you know, you wouldn't like that or would upset you. What does feel good to you?” And they might not know the answer either, that's not really the point, the point is, is that you're engaging in a conversation about sex in a way you probably never have before. And that just opens you up to have, you know, more opportunities to have emotional connection, that's you know, included with that physical connection.
Dallas: Right. And for the guys, I know first hand where you’re coming from, it may not be comfortable, to talk about some of these things, but the more you talk about it, the more comfortable you'll start getting, with it. It's like practice makes perfect.
Valerie McDonnell: Yes. That's like any, right? That's the, true for most any skill that we're learning. But thats, we'll get, let's get into the next question. We'll go into that deeper, I think. This one is “What does it mean if your partner tells you they feel disconnected–
Dallas: Ugh, I hate this.
Valerie McDonnell: –or tells you they need emotional connection before they're ready to have sex?” You and I recently had a conversation about, just, the phrase, I guess, feeling disconnected and, and I had no idea that's how you felt. So it opened up a very good conversation for us to have, so that I could understand how much your definition of me feeling disconnected was very different than, my definition of feeling connected.
Dallas: So right, when you tell me you feel disconnected I feel like, everything in the relationship is just completely ending, is coming to a halt, you don't love me anymore, everything I do is not good enough, and I start going down this, deep rabbit hole. I feel like I'm giving it my all, what am I doing wrong, and then yeah. It just doesn't, doesn't feel good.
Valerie McDonnell: And I had no idea that is how you interpreted ‘feeling disconnected’.And, it is something that I frequently say, in therapy sessions with my clients that's, just like, the term that I'll use, and they will use to me. When I say feeling disconnected, I essentially mean like, I'm kind of missing well, I was going to say the emotional connection, which is the second part of this question. So for me, I'm missing, like, feeling like, we're talking, you know, more deeply about certain things. That we're, you know, really having conversations that are not just like, about logistics, and work, and our kids, and stuff and. I mean, I think we do a really great job of our like, really cultivating ongoing physical connection. Like, non-sexual physical touch.
Dallas: Right.
Valerie McDonnell: So, you're a very affectionate person, which I love. And I'm a very affectionate person, so that works well. So, that does help me feel like emotionally connected ongoing. But for me, disconnected has never been about me thinking “Oh this is some, you know, worrying sign that I might want to break up, or that I don't love you.” But now that I know, that that's how it is for you. We just, he, you know, he, he just directly asked me for what he needed, which was essentially like “I don't like that phrasing let's do something different.” And can you, and maybe a little bit of reassurance, you, ask for too, do you think?
Dallas: Yeah. ‘Cause, first off, I did communicate it. Like, I did not like the word disconnected and I told her why, and she did, she listened to me, she started using something different. But I don't know what that something different is because we haven’t gotten there to that point yet, so.
Valerie McDonnell: We’ve been very connected lately, so it hasn’t come up. I feel like, well, when you said that to me, you essentially said, well. Because that was your interpretation at first, you would ask me, you know, if you're, if you're not feeling, you know, good about something can you just, tell, like ask me, you know, “Do you still love me?”
Dallas: Mm hmm.
Valerie McDonnell:But I think it was a little bit reverse, of what you are essentially, do you see what I’m saying? Like maybe I don't love you, and you're asking me to say “Do you love me?” to you. So It’s a little bit of reverse there of what you’re asking me to do, what you’re kind of needing? But, I'm happy to always give you that reassurance. So yeah, we're still figuring it out and you know as you can see it's not it's not a big deal. We're figuring it out, right? And we will talk about it again, if something like that comes up.
All right, and so now let's talk about then, the second part of this question. Which is, you know, when your partner tells you that they need emotional connection before they're ready to have sex. So this is something that comes up all the time in sex therapy, where one person, not always the female in the relationship, but very often times it is, says that they need emotional connection, before they feel like they can be open to having sex. And so a lot of times we can go back and forth around that, because I've come to realize by asking couples when this comes up over and over again, I'm like, what is, do you know what, you know, your partner means when they say they need to feel emotionally connected? And a lot of times they're like “No.” And sometimes even the person asking for the emotional connection does not know what they want. They’ll say “It’s just like a feeling.” So, we were actually talking about this the other day, in the car, and I asked you “What’s feeling emotionally connected mean to you?”
Dallas: Feeling emotionally connected to me, is more or less, knowing what your partner may be experiencing in that moment. So for me, like when I have, like, my PTSD symptoms show up, she can see that, and she knows how to take care of it, vice versa. Like when I see that her PTSD symptoms are coming up, I know how to take care of that, and I know how to react from there.
Valerie McDonnell: Yeah. And that's a really good point, because essentially, what you're saying is that, we have awareness of things about each other that, you know, some of them are just our stuff that are personal, like the PTSD, but we have the awareness that those things cause us to, you know, have all different types of emotional states, such as anxiety, depression, anger, sadness. You know? And so, emotional connection in that context is the fact that knowing that you are able to turn towards me, and offer me support instead of, other people maybe that aren't so connected could criticize each other, or could be like “Why aren't you over this yet?” You know? And that's not what happens. So in this context for you, it really is sounding like emotional connection is like, about supporting each other.
Dallas: Supporting each other, that's more than just a surface level relationship. It's beneath the surface level, which is what she tells me all the time, she's like “I don't want a surface level relationship, I want below the surface level.” So.
Valerie McDonnell: Right.
Dallas: So it's talking about the hard things that you don't want to talk about, it's going to be uncomfortable. You're not going to like it sometimes, it may annoy you, or get under your skin, but having the emotional capacity to sit there and talk about what each of you want, is a, it's a very strong thing, and it may get emotional. Because, I know we’ve gotten emotional, a couple of times
Valerie McDonnell: Yeah, many times. Yeah, well and so. Let's, let's go to the next question ‘cause that will, I think expand on, what we’re talking about now. This other question is “How do I convince my avoidant partner to have an honest conversation to fix our misunderstandings and build healthy relationships?” So, I mean, you know. When we first started hanging out, it was very casual and we became friends first, you know? We were dating we had fun, we were friends and then–
Dallas: Do you wanna tell the truth?
Valerie McDonnell: What is the truth? You can tell the truth.
Dallas: Well, we were friends with benefits first.
Valerie McDonnell: We were chosen friends-with-benefits at first. Yeah, very much so. Due to the, with what was happening in life at the time. I had just gotten out of my marriage, and I was not ready for commitment, and, you know, you were having fun too, and so we hung out for a few months, you moved away, and then we reconnected probably a couple years after that. And even when we reconnected, we basically just reconnected as friends-with-benefits, because again. That's kinda the stage we were at, so we weren't in the beginning, like, that. I think it was probably because there wasn't, like, an expectation of, like this, or an expectation you have when you are in a committed relationship. I think we were having deep conversations, but there wasn't like, there was, the stakes weren't high. Because we weren’t, you know, in an exclusive, committed relationship. And then, you know, when we became a couple that's when I noticed, because we started trying to talk about it, I guess, that you were pretty uncomfortable with having these, like, deeper conversations. So, and then, you know, you had a lot of resistance to it. How do you think that you were able to go from being pretty avoidant around all that stuff, and knowing that you did not ever learn how to talk about feelings, and you certainly, you know, haven't learned that level of communication in the way that I have had to do, to be an effective couples therapist, which requires a lot of you as my partner, so I do really appreciate you for that.
Dallas: Yes, it requires a lot of communication. But yes I, I didn't grow up in a family where we communicated our feelings. After I got out of my family, I went into the Marine Corps, we definitely didn’t communicate our feelings there. It wasn’t till I got out and started going to therapy, that from there, I, I realized I didn't understand, what my feelings were. I didn't understand. I only knew sad, mad and that was pretty much, and depressed, that was pretty much it. But it wasn't until you like, started like, not forcing me to have those conversations, but like, approaching in the way I wouldn't say like a beginner level, but like approaching the way where it was gentle, where it was a comfortable environment for me to have these conversations with you. To the point where I knew I can have these conversations with you, because I knew that once I tell you this information you weren't going to blackmail me, or use this information against me. So, it's, when you get to the point where, you're just in that comfortable environment, you know you love this person, and you want to share things, even though it’s hard. It's extremely hard to share it.
Valerie McDonnell: Well, and I think too, like, with some of the things that would be more uncomfortable for you, I like, we were able to, so like maybe for example, one of the things is that, I would, I realized at some point, that when I would tell you something, that like, would be bothering me, or something, you know, maybe I didn't like, or didn't feel good, or wanted to see if it could be, you know, work better for us. That you, I think also view that as me kind of, not the, attack is a strong word, I just don't have the word for right now, but like a personal attack on you, like maybe like you're not a good enough partner, right?
Dallas: Yeah, I felt that way.
Valerie McDonnell: Right. And at some point I realized that was able to say to you, you know when, me bringing these things up, or me wanting us to be able to have this information so we can improve our relationship. It's like me you know rooting for us, so that we can work as a team to fix anything that might not feel good between us. And like for me, I was doing it as a positive thing, and for you at first, it seemed like a negative thing because it did feel like “Oh I must not be doing something right.”
Dallas: Right.
Valerie McDonnell: And we had to talk about that.
Dallas: Yeah, it's like an, instant like, as soon as you tell me, like, you don't like a certain thing that I’m doing, I instantly take that as “Oh she doesn't like this. Like, what the heck. Does, she doesn't like anything.” That you guys –
Valerie McDonnell: –Right, right, right. Yeah so, and I think it, that's how so many people feel. That is, it is very difficult to hear your partner come, and, and say they, you know, they're struggling with something. Might not like something that happened between the two of you. And many times, it can get off track because, when we hear that, and then if we kind of go into ourselves, and then we might become defensive, right? And then we get off track from, you know, the point of the conversation like, the thing our partner was tryna bring up to us. But, you know, helping your partner know those things, when you say like, you have a, you know I'm not going to use that information against you, right? That's something like, that's a fear that I believe we all have when it comes to being vulnerable with someone. Because sharing something that is so private and personal, and that you just really mostly keep to yourself. When you share that with somebody else they can use that information against you, so you do have to have a lot of trust.
Dallas: Right.
Valerie McDonnell: But when you do that, and you share it, and you see that they handle it gently, that builds a trust.
Dallas: Yeah and it just. Like, I could say it was probably like a month ago, or probably three weeks ago, I was able to share some information that I haven't been able to share with anyone, with my partner. And it was the hardest information I've ever had to share. And yeah, it was hard for her to listen to it, but we took it lightly, we discussed it, and afterwards I felt like I was 10 times more in love with her than, like, right before that conversation that I was stressing about. And I felt like all this weight was lifted right off my chest. And yeah, I just felt extremely happy from there. And she didn't judge me, she didn't call me names or anything like that, she pretty much took it with a grain of salt, and told me that she loved me.
Valerie McDonnell: Yeah. I, we, that we did have a really, you know, that was something very meaningful, that occurred in our relationship. Because, yeah, he's right he shared some super vulnerable information, and I think, probably your fear, just like again, most people's, is that I, I could like, if I could’ve, I could’ve maybe said, you know, acted like, you know “What the hell.” right? Or I could’ve had a negative response, in many different ways. And –
Dallas: To the point where it could’ve ended the relationship.
Valerie McDonnell: – Right. Yeah, that’s right. It could’ve been where I’m like “Oh my gosh, like, what the hell? I didn’t know this information.” But, yeah, it was, I really appreciate in that moment I could tell that, you know, you were taking a big risk by sharing something very personal to you, and the way we handled it was like “Well, we might not know exactly how to figure this out in the moment, but what do we know? We know we love each other, we're no, we're committed to this relationship and we're just going to keep having conversations.” Right? And that's what we've decided to do, and also, I really appreciate that we talked about boundaries and, and have been really respectful around boundaries. Around, you know, talking about certain things, right? And moving forward with certain things, so that was, it really was a collaborative process for us, I feel like. And it –
Dallas: Once again, it was emotional too.
Valerie McDonnell: It was very emotional. But it really did bring us closer together. So, it was great. And he had said something to me, kind of in that process of like, you know, how I've, I've been like, talking about communication so much, for over year now, and that he finally, you know, he, it was hard for him, it was really uncomfortable. But, that now he really sees the benefit of it. And the benefit really that you mentioned was, that you felt like our relationship really, is the, is the first one you've had that has gone underneath the surface.
Dallas: Right, right. Most of my relationships have been surface level relationships. I've never communicated as much as I have, in this relationship. I could tell you that for, for a fact.
Valerie McDonnell: So side note, if you’re gonna be in a relationship with a therapist, you're probably going to be doing a whole lot more talking than you're used to.
Dallas: Yeah.
Valerie McDonnell: Yeah. But I have appreciated you, you know, sticking it out with me ‘cause I do know that that has been hard for you, yeah.
Dallas: It has been. But we're working.
Valerie McDonnell: Yeah. And we’re still doing, we’re still doing the work.
Valerie McDonnell: Thanks for listening to the RISE to Intimacy podcast. If today's episode resonated with you, know that healing is possible, and you don't have to do it alone. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a rating, a review for us at ratethispodcast.com/rise it really helps others find us, and I'm so grateful for all your support. You can learn more about my coaching packages for individuals and couples at risetointimacy.com and remember, sex therapy isn’t for people who are broken. It's for people brave enough to look beneath the surface.
Comments