Heather Shannon (00:01.342)

If you and your partner keep saying that you're too busy for sex between work and kids and house projects and everything else, it probably feels reasonable to some degree. You're probably feeling exhausted or even burned out. You're building careers. You're raising a family. You're trying to stay healthy. But when sex consistently drops to the bottom of the list, something deeper is usually happening. Even in relationships that feel

loving and generally healthy and functional. And most people don't realize what's happening.

Ahem.

Heather Shannon (00:41.1)

As an intimacy coach, I work with high achieving couples all the time who genuinely care about each other and start realizing that their sexual connection has kind of just faded without either of them intending it to. So in this episode, I'm breaking down three lies that couples tell themselves about being too busy for sex and what those stories are accidentally causing them.

The first one is about our expectations. The second lie is about efficiency. And the third lie is feeling like life is out of your personal control. So I do work with many couples, especially ones with kids at home who feel like they're just in a busy season of life. And by all accounts, they're correct. They're juggling, you know, careers, kids, sometimes caregiving for parents or other family members, and life transitions. The problem

is that it sounds super responsible. So then we tend not to question it.

Heather Shannon (01:53.966)

But when couples believe this too busy story for years, which I do often see, sex becomes a missed opportunity for pleasure, connection, and lots of happy chemicals flooding your brain and body. And eventually it can fully disappear. So the first lie I wanna go over is sex should just happen naturally. And...

people are assuming here that, you know, if you love each other and you're attracted to each other, then sex will just stay alive on its own, the way did early on in a relationship. And so what I would say to that is that the honeymoon phase of a relationship is anywhere from six months to two years. And during that period, our brain chemistry is, basically the equivalent of addiction.

to be fully honest. But it's sort of like a just it's just a necessary phase. And it's what our body does to kind of help bond us to each other. So it's not a bad thing. But I do think it can kind of set us up for false expectations, especially if you're like, you know, yeah, I mean, a year in we're living together, we're still having regular sex and blah, blah. And that doesn't mean it's gonna stay that way, though, because those hormones will come down.

Right. And I think they come down at a different pace, you know, probably depending on people's different biochemistry and genetics and the relationship and other things going on in your life. But if you keep referring back to that period, especially I think long distance relationships early on can mask this because you might have a fairly low sex drive. But if you haven't seen your partner in a month, you're probably going to want to have sex all weekend still. And so it can kind of mask people's baselines because our hormones are so

above normal, right? So you didn't have to be intentional at this point, you didn't have to kind of build that skill, because your brain was just thinking about sex automatically. And we just wind up having this false belief that it should stay that way forever. And what happens is we wind up taking our sex drives and our opportunities to have sex for granted. Now, the second point of this, sex should just happen naturally.

Heather Shannon (04:14.37)

And this is assuming we're out of the honeymoon phase. So if nothing sexual exists in your daily life, there's a really good chance you're not thinking about sex a ton, right? And this pertains to whether or not you have spontaneous desire, meaning your interest in sex just comes out of nowhere. Or if you have responsive desire, meaning you need that sexual stimuli to become interested in sex.

So what I see happen here sometimes, and I will say this is not universal, but men tend to have like a higher incidence of spontaneous desire, and women tend to have a higher incidence of responsive desire, right? And so everyone's gonna have a different balance of hormones and a different way they're socialized about sex. So let's not get overly attached to these generalizations, but.

Is it worth reflecting on for yourself? Do I tend to want sex more spontaneously, seemingly out of nowhere? Or do I tend to want it and think about it because something made me feel sexy or think my partner is sexy, or I actually felt relaxed and so I was able to notice my body signals more? That can help us know, but especially if you're responsive, you need that sexual stimuli. If your day to day life is, you know,

get up early, go to work, maybe try to squeeze a workout in, cook dinner, like clean the house a little bit, put your kids to bed, maybe watch an hour of TV with your partner and go to bed. There was nothing sexy in there, right? Maybe you're watching a hot sexy TV show, I don't know. Maybe you're like making out while you're watching the show. But if you're not doing that intentionally, it's probably not gonna happen. So that's a really important thing to keep in mind.

And that can become the pattern. And then once something becomes our habitual pattern, it does get a little entrenched. It gets harder to change it. Doesn't mean we can't change it, but we kind of have to come up with a plan of like, okay, so if I'm not going to do the default mode of nothing sexy in the day, what are we going to do? What am I going to do to have some flirting in the day to have some more affection?

Heather Shannon (06:35.52)

to maybe mix it up where you're not watching a TV show every day, maybe you're playing a game with each other, maybe you're doing something that's relaxing together, maybe you do like a guided meditation or give each other a massage. So there's so many ways to break the patterns, but it's not gonna happen if you're taking things for granted and think that you should just randomly want sex or think that your partner should randomly want sex, right? So you gotta talk about it. You gotta block out some time.

Right? If you're like going to bed at the same time, kids are going to bed. Or if you don't have kids in the house, you know, are you busy doing projects? Are you out with friends all the time? Are you kind of just coexisting as roommates and not finding time in ways to make it more romantic? You know, like there's there's fairly simple recipes for creating.

Sexual tension, I have a whole episode on sexual desire, so check that out, the formula for that. But it's not rocket science, but it's also not gonna happen if we're not thinking about it and trying. And then the last piece, we'll get into this more with one of the later lies, is where does it fit with other priorities? Right, is it just kind of taking a back seat? So instead of assuming sex should just happen, couples need to actively nurture their erotic connection.

And in order to do that, you also have to understand yourselves and each other as a sexual being and like, what are your turn-ons and how do you get in the mood, right? And to understand just because things were so amazing at the beginning, it doesn't mean much, unfortunately, about what the rest of the relationship is gonna look like. And yeah, it's a little bit of work, but it can be very fun, very rewarding work. I think you're gonna get a very good return on the effort here.

So question to ask yourself for this first line, what am I doing to keep my own sexual energy alive and to keep the sexual energy alive in our relationship? Okay, so line number two. And I have to say, I love all my ladies out there. This one the ladies are a little more guilty of. So this one is taking time for sex is a luxury. And so the idea here is that,

Heather Shannon (08:54.306)

People might not even know that they have this belief, but this is something I hear in the way people talk when we're in a coaching session. It might be like, I was gonna masturbate, but I just felt like I had all this stuff to get done. And what I realized is, wow, you're not even giving yourself permission to have the time to be with your own body, to kind of nurture your own sexual energy, and to give yourself pleasure because you've decided it's not successful, productive, whatever, enough.

Right? Some part of you is like, no, that's not on my plan. But I'd like to educate everybody a little bit.

Heather Shannon (09:52.078)

So sex actually produces oxytocin for bonding. It's great for your lymphatic system. It releases mood boosting endorphins. Plus, it reduces cortisol and adrenaline. And so what I'm finding is a lot of people who fall into this line number two of sex is a luxury, they're stressed. They might be crushing it at life anyways, but it's because they're driving themselves, right? There's probably this inner task master.

that's putting an internal sense of pressure on you to do more, be better, achieve your goals. And you're like, I can't deviate from the plan. I don't have time for sex. It's not going to help me get to my goals. And first of all, I love your goals. I love the ambition. We're not trying to get rid of that. But can we try to do some work with this productive perfectionist part to help it see that sex is creating calm? It's reducing your stress hormones.

When you have lower stress hormones, you're actually going to be more calm and focused and have better ideas for all the other goals that you're trying to achieve. It increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain. So it could be good for you cognitively even. It leads to pain relief, better focus and motivation because it's releasing dopamine. So there are so many benefits. I mean, let's not skip the obvious one. You're probably going to feel more connected to your partner, right?

And that's why we're here because we want to create a great sexual relationship as part of, you know, the great friendship you might have and the great romance that you have as well. So give yourself permission, right? Work with your perfectionist part to give you permission to enjoy sex. You might have to remind it of all the benefits because often I think we fit in exercise or we fit in work.

And things that maybe feel like we should, and actually I think that's the problem. Anything that feels like we should do it, we're like, I gotta do this, okay, and we push ourselves. But anything that feels like, that actually just seems nice. That sounds fun, that sounds relaxing. like, we don't have time for fun. What, are you crazy? There's no time for fun. And I see this over and over with adults. I've been a counselor for almost 20 years now.

Heather Shannon (12:09.834)

And this was one of my first learnings. was like, adults are really bad at relaxation and fun. How sad, right? So let's shift that, please, if you're listening to this podcast. Fun actually is productive. Relaxation actually is productive. It creates balance in our life and helps us be at our best. So we're reframing it. So sex is not this just like luxury or frivolous thing.

It's actually something that recharges your battery for all the other things that you do. And that can be something that we're not used to, right? We can think, no pain, no gain, right? It's like that phrase wouldn't exist if people didn't think it was true. So what if you can have fun and learn things? What if you can have fun and have more energy and motivation for everything else in your life? What if you can have fun?

and feel less pain in your body and feel closer to your partner. So fun things can also be good for us. think we somewhere along the way we got twisted in this like hustle culture that we live in that fun and pleasurable things and relaxing things and connective things are frivolous and sort of like an optional type of thing, which I mean, hey, if you don't want to have sex, you don't have to have sex. But probably if you're listening, you do or your partner does and you're trying to figure it out.

Okay, so the takeaway question for this one is, what if taking time for sex was actually helping me show up better for everything else in my life? Okay, so if the first two lies are resonating, the third one is where people really tend to get stuck because of how reasonable it sounds. So, line number three, life just needs to calm down first. Now,

people often believe that, okay, we'll get back to focusing on us after I get my promotion at work, after the kids grow up a little bit. So there's just kind of this kick in the can, down the road, like, eventually we'll get there, later we'll get there. But like, guess what? Your life is now, right? And if that's the approach, then that winds up being your life.

Heather Shannon (14:33.142)

Right, so it's not that we have to wait for the circumstances to change. We get to change our own perspective by changing our thoughts and beliefs and stories, right, which will in turn change how we're feeling and which will in turn change the results we're getting in our sex life. So a couple key points here. Things will never slow down. That's point number one. Things will never slow down, right?

Maybe you have a few days, maybe you have like a slower period at work, but then you'll be bored and then you'll be like stressed out by how bored you are at work. But generally. There will be you'll have to get new tires on your car. There will be some other repair that my car was just in the shop for five months. Maybe you need a new hybrid battery like I did, and your car's in the shop for five months waiting for the battery from Japan. You know, something will break in your house someday. I was just talking to you had to get a new furnace.

and there's $13,000. So it's just like shit is gonna keep happening, right? Like life is gonna keep life-ing as they say. And if we're waiting for life to stop life-ing, then effectively we are waiting until we're dead, right? So don't let the circumstances dictate how you show up in your life. Now, the goal that I have for you guys is to make intentional choices. So if you don't wanna feel like life is just coming at you,

you have to kind of remove yourself and take a bird's eye view of like, okay, what is happening in my life? What does my day to day look like? What options are available to me? And when we do that, when we take the bird's eye view, sometimes we're like, I'm probably like under utilizing my parents as babysitters, or, I have like some ways to trim the budget so that we can afford to pay babysitter or take a couple's weekend getaway.

So you'll find solutions, but you kind of can't find solutions if you're not looking for them. Right? We have to start being curious. And what can happen when we don't is obviously your sex life can slow down, right? The whole point of this episode. But other balls can drop too. It could be like, we never kind of decided what are we doing for childcare, right? And then it's like, well, now one of us is staying home and that was not the plan. Or it could be...

Heather Shannon (16:58.414)

Mmm.

Heather Shannon (17:16.75)

It could be maybe your schedule changes and you have to get to work earlier. So you're missing your morning workout and that was something that recharged your battery. So there's so many ways this can happen. And if you haven't, check out the big rocks theory. You can probably look at it on YouTube, but the idea is that we have big rocks, have pebbles and we have sand. The big rocks represent our top priorities. The pebbles represent the medium priorities and the sand represents just like

shit that takes up time, like checking your email. It's like there's nothing really fulfilling about it. You kind of have to do a little bit of it. So the idea is if you put the sand in, which is kind of symbolic of letting life happen to you, just all these little incidentals where like, I don't know, I just got to do it. And then we put in the pebbles, then we put in the big rocks. The big rocks actually don't all fit. So that basically means that you're dropping the ball on some of your top priorities.

Now, the really interesting thing about this demo is if people put in the big rocks, then the medium rocks actually fit into the spaces in between the big rocks. And then the sand fits into the spaces between the medium rocks and the big rocks, and it actually can all fit. So that's a possibility. It's also a possibility it won't all fit, but wouldn't you rather the sand not fit than the big rocks? And so just taking a look at, how am I spending my money? How am I spending my time?

Do I have a calendar? How am I keeping track? Do I have any time blocked off where I don't have to do anything? Or am I running myself ragged and creating burnout? And that's part of the issue with my sex life. So the gist here is just take a look at it. And the funny thing about it, as I mentioned, sex can actually help regulate the stress that is making you feel overwhelmed by life.

my experience and I think a lot of people's is when I'm just, know, go, go, go when I should be doing this and, you know, pressuring myself because, you know, I'm an ambitious person too. I have goals too. It can be so easy for life to become unfulfilling, monotonous, and you're not enjoying the ride. But when you calm down, sometimes it's like, I can get more done in less time because I'm just thinking so clearly. I have less brain fog.

Heather Shannon (19:39.116)

So it could also be eating a little bit better, more of an anti-inflammatory diet. Then maybe you're thinking more clearly, you have more physical energy, you get more done. So when we take the time to think about it, these kinds of solutions appear and we realize what actually works for us. Instead of the bulldozer, let me just bulldoze through all the sensations in my body, all the true desires and just force myself to go, go, go.

We don't want that. Okay, so the question, and this is actually very important. The question is not, do I have time for sex? The question is, can I, and do I want to make time for sex? Now, if you answer that question, no, it's actually not a big rock for me right now. I'm actually very happy with my priorities. I get energy in other ways, manage stress in other ways. Fine, no problem.

but at least let it be an intentional answer about if you want to prioritize it. So you can ask yourselves, what would change if I treated my sexual connection as something worth protecting? If I treated this thing that's allowing me to express myself, allowing me to be in tune with my own body, allowing me to experience pleasure and connection and joy and fun and hopefully some silliness occasionally.

Yeah, what if we actually value that and make the time and energy for it? So sometimes when we're busy, the idea of being busy is actually covering up avoidance. sometimes it's literally, okay, we're just so busy, it is a phase of life. Some of that's very legitimate, right? But I think there's an interesting overlap here with

attachment styles and attachment theory. Because one of the signals that somebody has an avoidant attachment style, meaning they're kind of scared of too much intimacy because it hasn't always been safe for them in the past, is that they're a workaholic. And I think that's really interesting. And I think that could apply here. So is it that you're too busy and you just haven't taken the time to manage it? Or is it that you're too busy because that way you don't have to really like look at your sex life?

Heather Shannon (22:02.358)

and have this intimacy and closeness with this other person. I definitely think that one's worth asking. So if you zoom out, all of these lies that we talked about today share the same pattern. They allow couples to believe that sex will come back later when life slows down, when I feel more relaxed, when our circumstances improve. And what I want to caution is that nothing happens later. Everything happens in the now.

Right. And so if we're waiting for later, then we're kind of just spending like the precious moments that we actually have right now. Like we're of wasting them rather than spending them in the ways that we want to. So sexual connection is not going to magically return due to the passage of time alone. It's going to return because you're changing how you think about it, how you prioritize it and how you engage with it.

It's not just another task on your list. It is one of the few things in life that can actually recharge your energy, calm your nervous system, and strengthen your bond at the same time. So if this episode has helped you to see your sex life from a new perspective, that shift in thinking is exactly where the real change begins. So in my work,

I help couples look at the thoughts, the emotions, and the patterns that shape their sexual connection because when those change, the results in the relationship change too. So follow the show if you want more conversations about the deeper emotional and psychological layers of sex and relationships. Thanks for listening everybody. We'll catch you next week on another episode of Sex for Couples.