How To Regain The Spark, Chemistry & Intimacy

How you can regain the spark, chemistry and intimacy in your relationship.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a viewer who is thirty-six and has two kids with his wife of seventeen years. He says that after the birth of their second child, his wife mostly lost interest in sex and intimacy. She says she still is attracted to him like before, but she is worried about her health problems and is still stinging over the death of her father. She blames hormonal changes and stress.

He feels like his needs aren’t being met and is considering going his own way, but he’s torn because of the kids and wonders if he is being selfish and should just suck it up. He says his wife is no longer the person he married. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

I have a quote that I wrote on this particular topic, because this is something I do a lot of phone sessions with guys on — guys who’ve been married, guys in a long term relationship, and they’re in this boat, basically. So, typically, a lot of the phone sessions I get with guys in this situation, the women are leaving or have left and they want to get them back. But in this case, he’s not happy and he wants the opportunity to fix it, but he’s also at the point where he’s kind of ready to pull the plug.

But before he can make a decision to leave the relationship, he’s got to control the controllables. He’s got to control the things that he can do to make himself more attractive, or the most attractive that he can be. And he’s also got to start displaying the behaviors and things that I talk about in How To Be A 3% Man, so he can be the best version of himself and be the most attractive version of himself and start doing the things, that it’s obvious from going through his email, that he’s no longer doing.

He may do everything right and it still may not have enough effect on her to get her to participate in her own rescue, if you will, because relationships take both people. They both have to make a consistent effort if it’s going to stand the test of time. And sometimes one person, for whatever reason, maybe it’s health problems or whatever it happens to be, they were never in love in the first place or the other person’s not displaying a lot of attractive behaviors. They’re just not putting in the same effort. And in order for a relationship to work, both people have to make the effort. It can’t be the only one pushing the wet noodle, so to speak.

So let’s go through the quote. The quote says, “The courtship never ends in a relationship. If you don’t date your wife or girlfriend, eventually, some other guy will. Love is playful and fun, not serious. When a woman feels heard and understood, the legs open. When she doesn’t, the legs close. Men should decide ahead of time that they are going to be happy, playful and always look for reasons to have fun and try to learn something to get better. If you are experiencing pain in a relationship, it’s because you are focusing on yourself. Love is about giving without attachments. Love is freedom. Love is allowing. The purpose of all relationships is that you go there to give.”

These are kind of the baseline things that I want him and anybody else that’s in this situation to consider. And obviously I go into extensive detail in my book, How To Be A 3% Man, which you can read for free at UnderstandingRelationships.com. All you’ve got to do is subscribe to the email newsletter. You can also read my second book, Mastering Yourself, which is all about how to align your life with your true calling and reach your full potential.

Viewer’s Email:

Hey Corey, 

I’m 36, married with two kids 5 and 3. My wife has been struggling with her health and also the death of her father over the last two years. He was diagnosed with cancer and declined over the two years until his death.

Obviously, that would be traumatic for anybody. The best way you can help her through that is to get her to talk about her feelings, what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling — “Tell me more. Don’t leave anything out. How did that make you feel? What do you mean by that?” — and getting her to explain. Because when it comes to emotions, whether it’s men or women, and in this particular case, an intimate relationship, if you can get your woman to talk about what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling, she expresses it. And when she expresses it, she can feel it.

You have to feel nasty emotions in order to heal them, in order for them to dissolve, in order for them to lose the negative charge that they have on you that’s affecting your behavior, because what you resist persists. And so, what you can do is to help your wife talk about it. “Why don’t you tell me about that, honey? What are you thinking? What are you feeling?” Get her to open up about that and just facilitate it, “What else? How did that make you feel?” Get her to talk about it and emote those feelings without trying to solve her problem. You’re just facilitating her talking. Because like the quote says, when a woman feels heard and understood, the legs open, and when she doesn’t, the legs close.

I am struggling with how this has impacted our relationship.

Well, at the end of the day, dude, you’re the guy driving the fun bus. And if you abdicate authority, the leadership authority, and you let your wife take over the wheel and she’s not having a good time driving your fun bus, well, that’s partly your fault, because you abdicated the leadership role. You set the tone in the household. You decide ahead of time that you’re going to be happy.

It sucks that her father died, but there’s nothing you or her or anybody can do about it. You have to learn to accept it, learn from it and move on. Because everybody is going to die eventually, and more people in your family that are close to you are going to die, and you can’t spend two to three years grieving over it and not getting over it.

And your job as her teammate and her husband is to facilitate helping her get through it. But obviously, you’ve got to know how to do that, and you do that by getting her to talk about it. Especially when she looks down, “Baby, what’s the matter? You you look kind of down. What’s going on? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? Talk to me.”

I’ve been faithful through all of this and we’ve been together 17years. She has always been loyal and chased me relentlessly through marriage. I love and am attracted to my wife, but my needs in the relationship are not being met. She has very little drive for sex, and although she says different, her attraction for me seems low.  

You always look what a person does, not what they say. She says, “Oh, my attraction is really high for you, honey. I love you,” but she’s not showing that through physical intimacy. Remember, when a woman feels heard and understood the legs open. And if you’re driving the fun bus, because I’ve been through this email, there’s a lot of anger. You’re upset, you’re pissed off at your wife and you’re feeling pain, and like the quote says, when you’re feeling pain in a relationship, it means you’re focused on yourself. You’re focused on the fact that you’re not getting laid.

Well, the reason you’re not getting laid is because your wife doesn’t feel heard and understood. And from the tone of your email, it doesn’t sound like you guys are having a lot of fun together. That’s a big part of the problem. It’s hard to stay mad at somebody that makes you giggle and laugh all the time. All the best girlfriends I’ve had in my life, ones that I wrote about in my book that stayed in my life throughout the decades, they have a good attitude. They’re always happy, they’re always bubbly.

Even in relationships with other people, they still reach out just to let me know that they love me, and they’re thinking about me, and they want to know how I’m doing. They make me laugh and we make each other laugh. And it’s cool to have people to go through life with that you have great memories with, that when you’re having a difficult day, you get a “What’s up” out of the blue with giggly, laughy, silly noises and messages that you can’t help but crack up and think positively about the other person.

So, you’ve got to think about it from that perspective. Whatever a woman is feeling, whatever you’re making her feel when you’re with her, is what she’s going to associate with being with you. And if your butt hurt that she’s not putting out or you’re not having enough sex and you’re mad at her, that’s not going to do anything to make her want to have sex with you. You don’t want to have guilty sex. You don’t want her just to give you a mercy fuck. You want her to fuck your brains out because she loves you. You don’t want to pity fuck either. You want her to do it because you’re her man and you send her emotions into the stratosphere.

This change happened after having kids and is especially noticeable in the last two years. She blames hormonal changes and stress.

Well, the courtship never ends. You’re the leader of the fun bus, but now you’ve got two little munchkins that are in the mix. And your job as the leader of the fun bus is to arrange dinner plans, arrange a weekend getaway at a bed and breakfast somewhere. Leave the kids with the grandparents or a babysitter that you trust or family friends. Figure it out. Just figure it out. You’re the man.

“Babe, pack your swimsuit and your comfortable clothes, because we’re going somewhere warm this weekend, and I got a babysitter for the kids.” “Where are we going?” “It’s none of your damn business. You just need get your cute little ass ready. Pack your suitcase, because we’re out of the door here at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, we’re Gonzo, and we’re going to go have fun and it’s going to be a good time. And it’s none of your business.” Something along those lines, at least twice a month, I would have to say. Ideally, once a week you’ve got to have a date night.

You’ve got to have time for just the two of you without the kids screaming in the background, because when they’re yelling like that, and they need attention all the time, and you’ve always got to watch them, because they’re putting stuff in their mouth or trying to eat things or climbing on things, you’ve got to watch out for them. And so, if if she’s a stay-at-home mom and the only human beings that she talks to all day are a three and a five year old, when you get home, she wants to have some adult fun conversations.

And if she’s stressed out because she’s been busy watching the kids all day, you’ve got to be the guy that can pull her out of that and help her escape from her life. “Hey baby, how was your day?” That should be the first thing you do when you get home every night. “Hey baby, how was your day? Tell me about it. Oh, what else? Really? Oh little Johnny climbed up the dresser and almost pulled it over on himself. Oh, wow. And you caught him? Wow, you’re amazing! You’re an amazing mom.”

“You know what, I’m going to put that on my list this weekend, and I’m going to get a cable and some cord and anchor that thing to the wall, so little Johnny doesn’t get crushed by the dresser the next time he climbs up on it.” You put it in your iPhone, you make a note on it, and it’s like, “I’ve got you, babe. That’s taken care of. What else? Tell me you about your day,” and you just handle things. You handle shit. That’s what men do. You take away all the stress. You make it easy for her to feel safe and comfortable and not worry. You don’t come home stressed going, “Damn, I need some pussy woman! I’m horny!” She’s not going to want to hear that.

She is no longer the woman I married. She struggles a lot with anxiety now and constantly worries about her health.

Well, feminine energy grows through praise. Even when she’s in a grumpy mood, tease her. “I love it when you’re grumpy. You’re so fucking sexy when you’re grumpy. You get a little twitch on your mouth up here, especially when you’ve got a little bit of anger.” Whatever it takes to get her to laugh, to chuckle, to get a crack in there so she laughs. Because if she laughs, she feels good. That releases serotonin in the brain. And when that happens, guess what? She feels good. Now, she associates being with you as feeling good. Now, you’re making her escape. You come home, you make everything better.

She’s stressed out. It’s your job to facilitate both of you being able to escape from your life with your kids. I know you guys love your kids, but the most important thing is the relationship that the two of you have. Because if you guys aren’t having fun together, you’re being a shitty example for the kids. And you’ve got to fix that, because otherwise your kids are going to grow up, and they’re going to emulate that kind of relationship. And as a dad, I’m sure that’s not what you want to show them.

This is a major turn off for me. Before the kids, our relationship was awesome and I was doing what you teach without knowing it. 

Well, now you have kids in the mix, so things get a little more difficult. Part of life and growing older is your problems get bigger and more complicated, and you get good at solving problems.

Am I being a dick for thinking about our relationship this way?

Well, from the tone of your email, it’s obvious that the vibe in your household is not one of fun. It’s one of a husband who’s got blue balls, and he’s pissed off about it, and he lets everybody know about it. It’s like, that ain’t gonna work. You ain’t gonna to get laid with that kind of attitude. Go out to a nightclub and try to pick up a girl with that kind of attitude. Everybody’s going to avoid you like the plague.

If you come home and your wife jumps in your arms, “Baby, I’ve been thinking about you all day. I’ve missed you. The kids have just been hellions. I’m so glad you’re here.” “Oh, really? You little munchkins, what have you been doing to Mommy all day long?” Anybody who’s got kids can know the giggliness and the fun that goes along with something like that. You pick the kids up and you wrestle with them and you play with them. It’s like, “Baby, you know what? I’m going to take you away this weekend. We’re going to go somewhere. We’ll get a babysitter. I got you. You need a break today, babe. I got you.” “Where are we going?” “None of your damn business? It’s top secret.”

Am I being selfish for thinking like this?

Well, if you’re experiencing pain in a relationship, it means you’re focusing on yourself. You’re not being the most attractive man that you can be. You’re being kind of a pain in the ass. You’re being kind of a whiny bitch, coming home and complaining about sex. What is the combination? Hang out, have fun while you’re hanging out, and then hook up, in that order. It must be in that order.

You’re wanting to go right to the hooking up part without any hanging out and having fun. It’s the same process on a date. If you think about it, when you were younger and you were single, you went, you hung out, you had fun while you were hanging out, and then at some point, you guys got close, things got a little frisky, one thing led to another, and then you were naked in bed together. That’s what happened.

That’s the process. And it has to go through that process, because it’s in hanging out and having fun while you’re hanging out that you get your woman to talk and open up and share everything that’s been going on. And when she shares it all and you listen, she feels heard and understood. And then she’s going to be like, “Oh, you’re such a great listener. I’m so glad we talked, honey. I love you.” And you’re like, “Baby, come over here and sit in my lap and give me a little sugar,” and you take it from there. It’s really not that hard, but you have to do the work. And you’re not going be able to do it when you’re butt hurt.

I feel like going my own way some days but feel guilty for the kids and her.

Well, you’ve got to be a better man and a better husband. You’ve got to be more attractive. Because like I said, the tone of this whole email is a dude that’s pissed off, and it’s not surprising at all to me that you’re not getting laid.

She has given me 17 years of her life. Should I just suck it up and deal with what comes?

You should start being the leader and the driver of the fun bus once again, like you were when you were dating and in love. The problem is the courtship stopped along the way. Then you started getting pissed off about the sex, and then you stopped hanging out, having fun and hooking up. And then, you come home and just figured, “I’m working, I’m making all this money, I’m paying the bills, providing for everybody, and I want some damn box, woman! When I come home, I want some pussy!”

It doesn’t work like that, bro. Because she’s thinking, “I’m here with these kids all day long. I’m doing this, I’m doing that, and they’re puking, and they’re shitting in their diapers, and I’m dealing with the stress. And the lawn guy wanted to get paid, and then the pool guy fell in the pool or there’s something wrong with the pump.” She’s got issues as well, she’s running a household. She’s not getting paid for it, but she’s running a household and you’re out working.

You’ve got to try to walk in the other person’s shoes and look through their eyes. And she’s willing to do all of that and not get paid. But when you come home, you have to be bringing the fun and the good times. “I can’t wait for my baby to get home. I’ve got so much to tell him. Oh my God, so many things have happened. I can’t wait to see him, to see that man and jump into his arms.” If she’s not jumping into your arms, it’s because you’re being a dick. Simple as that. Don’t be a dick.

Do I give it more time and see what happens?

Well, you’ve already tried this approach. It ain’t working. You have to change your approach.

What can I do to improve my situation?

Hang out, have fun and hook up. Plan a weekend getaway somewhere. Figure it out. You’ve got to do something. Get your kids taken care of, so it could just be the two of you, maybe for two or three days, a quick little weekend getaway. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just something for you and her. Maybe a staycation. Maybe you just stay at home all weekend and hang out by the pool or in the backyard or whatever and do fun things together. But I would suggest getting out of the house, going to dinner, making dinner reservations.

Figure it out, make a date, do something fun. The kind of things that you know she loves doing that makes you laugh. Maybe take her to her favorite place that she hasn’t been in awhile because you got busy and caught up, basically being roommates. That’s what happens a lot to people in your situation, they become roommates. They stop having fun together, because the kids require so much work.

I know how it is. I’ve been there before. I’ve been the part-time dad, and the part time-uncle and everything else. When you have ten kids, and you’ve got two or three different couples — go to Disney World with two or three couples and ten or twelve kids, and then we’ll see what kind of man you really are, trying to deal with them running all over the place.

After discovering your work, I’ve been working on myself hard and have returned to the younger version of myself which has increased her attraction some.  I’ve also worked on opening her up more which helps, but she is constantly stuck in a negative point of view.

Well, it’s your job to get her out of it. When she’s in a negative point of view, go up, put your arms around her, and put your lips around her neck and make a fart noise when you blow on her neck — just something ridiculous and silly, anything to change it. It’s what we call a pattern interrupt. So, anything that’s weird. Or you walk up to her and she’s being really negative, and you pinch her nipples and her nipples get hard. It’s like, “Babe, are you cold? Do you want me to get you a sweater or something?” It’s like, “Well, you grabbed my boobs.” It’s like, “You sure? Are you sure that was me? I don’t recall that.”

This is very frustrating for me and tends to piss me off.  

Obviously.

I’m the type of guy that soldiers on no matter what happens.

Well, we don’t need you to soldier on. We need you to get back to being fun and playful and actually fun to be around, because that’s the guy she fell in love with. That’s a guy that has the answer and the solution for everything. That’s the rock. That’s the mountain.

Right now, what’s happening is you’re coming home and throwing a temper temper tantrum like a little boy that’s not getting what he wants, and she gets temper tantrums all the time from a three and a five year old. It’s like, come on. She doesn’t need another child, she needs an escape. She needs an escape with with her Prince Charming, on a frequent basis. First thing you do when you go home, “Hey baby, how was your day? Tell me about your day. Were the kids hellions today. Tell me about that.”

She used to be very driven as well and no longer is.

Because she’s probably not having a lot of fun.

I would appreciate any advice you’d be willing to give. 

Thanks in advance and I love your work. 

Bob

Well, I think I covered it extensively, but hang out, have fun, hook up is the simple formula, in that order. You want to go right to the hook up part. That’s not how it works. You don’t go to college on a Monday, and Friday and walk out with a degree. It usually takes you several years. Same thing with the gym. You don’t go into the gym and work out for thirty minutes and then you’re kind of done for life. It’s like, you have to continually go. You have to control what you put in that big hole in your face for food. You must participate in your own rescue.

And if you’re still struggling and you would like to get my help personally, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly.

“The courtship never ends in a relationship. If you don’t date your wife or girlfriend, eventually, some other guy will. Love is playful and fun, not serious. When a woman feels heard and understood, the legs open. When she doesn’t, the legs close. Men should decide ahead of time that they are going to be happy, playful and always look for reasons to have fun and try to learn something to get better. If you are experiencing pain in a relationship, it’s because you are focusing on yourself. Love is about giving without attachments. Love is freedom. Love is allowing. The purpose of all relationships is that you go there to give.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne

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