In this video, David talks about the barriers that keep us from being truly intimate in our relationships and how we can break through those barriers.

Transcript:

So, do you ever feel like the intimacy just isn’t like how it used to be in your relationship?

Like life has gone and put barriers between you and your man, you and your woman.

And you don’t know how to get through them, how to break through and get back to that loving space that you used to be in where you have that desire burning with passion, and wanting to be intimate as much as you can?

The real world happens, real life happens.

When we’re in a long-term relationship and especially a marriage, we’re going to hit points that are natural for our intimacy to wane and to fade, and for other things that take bigger priorities maybe, to creep up and come up in the way.

So how do we get around those?

How do we actually restore the intimacy in our relationship so we can continue building up that amazing incredible love life between us and our partner, that pushes us to have an even better relationship than we did yesterday?

Well there’s a lot of ways to do it.

First let’s cover the things that actually creep up in our life, the things that come up as barriers between you and the intimacy and your relationship.

Things like stress, kids, fatigue all kinds of other life challenges, medical issues you name it.

These things creep up but there’s certain ways you can get around each and every one/

For example stress, stress is one of those big key things that we often times don’t even realize is affecting us and affecting our love life until it’s already gotten to the point where we’re starting to suffer from it.

In fact stress has been shown to research to actually affect more than just the emotionality of a relationship, it can affect your health in real ways and if you’re a guy when it comes to intimacy, stress can actually cause what’s known as stress induced or anxiety induced Ed.

That’s right stress can make it so you physically cannot be intimate with your partner men.

So you got to get a handle on that next one that’s fatigue.

I think we’re all kind of pretty aware with this little something small a couple things happened back in 2020, 2021 that just kind of fatigued the whole world.

How many times do you get home from work and you don’t want to be intimate, you just want to relax because you’ve been going going going non-stop all day long, you’re just worn out.

Real life happens but we can’t let those things that come up in our work, in our career, things like that our school stand in the way of us and our spouse, or us and our partner.

What about kids? Kids are a time suck.

I love my four kids, but they require a lot of time, they require a lot of energy, a lot of resources, a lot of effort and did I mention time?

They can get in the way of a healthy intimacy in your relationship and then of course other things.

Things like medical issues, ladies if your man is suffering from low testosterone he’s not going to have the same sex drive, he’s not going to have that same want to be intimate.

He’s not going to have a lot of the same drive and ambition that he used to have and there’s nothing you can do aside from getting that issue fixed.

That’s going to address those issues so what do we do?

How do we get past these different kinds of barriers?

Well let’s just start at the top again, the first one stress, fatigue, kids, that kind of thing.

The biggest way to get through it is communication.

Of course, like 90% of what I talk about on this channel is communication.

it’s the key in your relationship.

Communication is going to be how you break through probably 90% of the non-medical related problems you have in a marriage or in a long-term relationship.

Because that’s what a relationship’s all about.

So how do you build up that key, that communication between you guys to start restoring the intimacy?

Well there’s a few different things, first is to pick the right place and right time to actually do your communication.

If you want to talk about something, especially a deep subject, something like the two of you together, something like your love life, you want to do it at a time that’s right and appropriate.

You don’t want to be doing it when you’re already trying to juggle other things like kids or work.

You don’t want to be doing it at a time where you’re already a bit ticked off at each other, angry or stressed out with each other because that’s just going to open up a can of worms that leads to an argument or a conflict rather than leading to a breakthrough of those barriers.

Next is being honest and respectful.

I talk about this all the time, if you don’t have honesty and respect in your relationship, what do you have?

Do you even have a relationship?

When you’re talking to your partner about your intimacy they need to know the truth and you need to give them the truth.

You have to tell them there’s things that are stopping you from feeling intimate and close with your partner.

You need to address them and just say “Hey listen this is what you’re doing and when you do it, that makes me feel as though I’m being pushed away, that makes me feel further away from you, makes me feel not as close and intimate you as I want to be, and as you want me to be.

Next with that is using eye statements instead of you statements this is something we hear kind of banded about a lot in the psych community.

It really caught on back in the ’90s and stuff but ‘I’ statements are things like, I think, I feel, I need, I want,’ rather than saying like, ‘you do this to me, you make me feel like this, you make me want this.’

And there’s a difference, the difference is that when we’re saying things in the way of an ‘I’ statement, I feel like, I need this in my relationship, I feel like I’m not receiving this from you, it puts the onus on them but it puts the blame on us as well.

We’re not just saying this is your fault to our partner.

‘You’re making me do this, you’re making me feel like this, you’re causing these issues in our relationship.’

We’re saying, ‘this is an issue that I feel and this is how I would like you to address it.

Next with that, is being specific and clear.

Obviously ladies this is one I had to work through with my wife.

We’re not mind readers, I’m just a man, I don’t know what you’re thinking if you don’t tell me and so you need to talk through, you need to be honest and open and actually clear about those things that you’re feeling.

If you’re feeling neglected sometimes, you have to tell them ‘baby I feel neglected when you spend more time on the video games than you do in our actual family life,’ or whatever the case may be.

‘Honey I feel neglected or I feel used when you only come up and try to touch me and kiss me and caress me when you want sex.

Just simple stuff like that you have to make it clear so that they, your partner, can realize and understand what the issue is you’re even trying to address.

Next with the communication is showing appreciation feedback and listening actively.

These are kind of all rolled into the same thing, showing appreciation.

And giving feedback when you’re in a conversation it’s part one trying to keep things just on a positive note.

Saying ‘hay we may be trying to work through an issue but I still love you, I still appreciate everything you do for me,’ which goes back to those ‘I’ statements.

When you start off things in a blaming and accusatory way, ‘honey you’re not living up to my expectations, you’re not meeting my needs,’ is pushing our partner down.

But if we can start saying, ‘hey this is an issue I’m feeling and I appreciate and love you, and I want to be intimate with you, and I want to get over this issue with you so we can lift each other up.’

That’s what it does, it lifts them up rather than pushes them down.

It lifts up your relationship and it’s trying to build that up rather than simply crash through your partner in order to get what you want.

So outside of communication, what do you actually do?

We know that communication is the key in pretty much everything.

What are some physical things you can do starting today that’ll restore the intimacy?

Number one is spending quality time together.

Real quality time together not just time where you go out shopping, not just time we’re in the house together dealing with the kids together, but genuine time that’s for just the two of you.

So what my wife and I have done is made a conscious effort to never stop dating we go out a couple times a week whether it’s just for lunch or dinner dates, and we have set time where it’s a few hours where it’s just the two of us.

Where we get to talk where we get to enjoy each other, where we could still go out and have a date and actually act like we’re dating still.

Which is when you’re out spending that quality time, make it quality time.

Actually treat your spouse like you’re on a date.

Don’t treat them like you’ve been married to him 10 years.

Ask them questions engage with them just start playing the game of would you rather, and just start making up random questions to dig deeper into each other’s lives and each other’s hearts.

My wife and I do that all the time and we’ve actually had people stop and mention, ‘oh that’s so cute to see you guys getting along like this on a first date.’

Only for us to tell them, ‘no we’ve been married two decades.’

And they say, ‘what do you mean you guys are sitting here asking questions and talking like it’s your very first time meeting each other .’

And because when you treat each other like that, when you always try to keep dating you’re always building up that romance, that attraction, that chemistry within you and you don’t allow yourself to hit that point where you stagnate and where those life barriers start becoming something real.

That’s in the way of the two of you.

Next is to be flexible and to try new things.

In the psych community these are called having first firsts.

First new novel experiences with each other.

Anytime a couple, that you can engage in something new, any experience you’re building up those synapses in your brain for the very first time, which is bonding you two together within that experience.

Because it’s something shared, it’s something unique, that only you two have together, that you share with nobody else.

So if you can go out and just find something small around your town, one thing in our little town there’s a place that started up called the Civil Axe.

It does the axe throwing, so we rented an hour there one time.

You’re allowed to bring drinks and stuff I brought a bottle of wine, we showed up and we learned how to throw axes into all kinds of stuff, do trick shots, and not only was it just a fun time doing something kind of stupid, where there’s a little bit of competitiveness but not enough to where it actually accounts for anything.

So it’s just fun, but it’s also kind of one of those things where the ladies the first time you stick an axe in a chunk of the wood, I mean my wife her eyes lit up like she was holding a little pew pew or something.

I mean you can see it was a power trip all of a sudden.

‘Wait a minute, I just stuck this right into that target like some kind of Viking Warrior.

Find something like that, there’s places, there’s these lock in rooms whatever.

Find a place, a hike a trail that you never been on.

Go on Google Maps type in state parks around you, you’ll find some beautiful place that you’ve never been to and then go, do it because when you do those kinds of things together, it’s just like when you first met.

You’re doing the kinds of things that build up the attraction and the chemistry within you, from the ground up.

Then of course the last thing is just to remember to actually be affectionate throughout the day.

Intimacy can’t grow if you’re not being intimate.

So if you’re not showing your love to your partner throughout the day that’s never going to happen.

Guys, this is where we get into a lot of trouble, it’s we think intimacy starts, stops, finishes, ends, finalizes, completes all in the bedroom between the sheets and that’s not where it is.

Your intimacy, it has to start the minute you get out of bed in the morning, the minute you get up and start getting ready for the day.

Are you kissing your woman? Are you actually touching her and letting her know that you’re greeting the day with her and that you love her?

When you come home throughout the day are you touching her on the small of her back when you walk by?

Are you giving her hugs and kisses throughout the day?

Are you actually being a man to her and touching her and giving her those physical needs that she needs fulfilled?

Or are you just kind of coming in when you want something, when it’s time for you to rock your jollies?

You see ladies, guys would get turned on easy quick just like that.

Girl says hey honey and that’s about all it takes, but ladies they take a little more they take a little more emotionality.

It doesn’t start just when all of a sudden you get that first little rush of hey ‘I could have some fun here’ no, it starts when your man is coming up behind you and giving you a hug for no reason.

It starts guys, when you give her a kiss before you leave for work and caress her ear and let her know how much you love her and how much you can’t wait to see her again.

It starts when you come up and help her with the dishes or help her with the kids to get into the bath tubs and let her know that you’re going to help her, and that you appreciate the things she does, and that you want to take a little load off of her back so that she has the time and energy to be intimate with you.

There’s lots of things we can do to break through these different barriers to intimacy and all it takes is for us first to step back and take kind of an objective look at what the barriers are, and how the actual source of those barriers is coming at us, and then communicating with our partner how can we get through.

How can we together lift each other over this barrier rather than coming at it from opposite sides and just smashing into each other.

How can we avoid that crash which is a stagnated relationship with no intimacy, no romance, and instead use these barriers as a means to lift each other up emotionally and spiritually, so that we become more intimate than we were before.

You can do it, get out there spend some time with your spouse.

Spend sometime with your man.

Men go actually touch your lady let her know you love her on more than just the nights when you want to get lucky, and that intimacy will start returning.

Your relationship hasn’t died, there’s just a lot of other stuff going on, and once you figure out how to get through that stuff, your relationship’s going to come rebounding back with a blaze like it never had before.

If you’re willing to put in the work.