#77 Deepen Intimacy: Understand the Past and Strengthen Your Relationships

Ready to transform your relationship? Tune into a riveting conversation where we promise you'll gain profound insights on deepening emotional and physical intimacy with your partner. Join Tamara and her special guest, therapist Stephie Flood, as they explore how past experiences and childhood influences shape our present-day connections. Stephie opens up about her unique journey into therapy, shaped by her religious upbringing and early marriage, and offers invaluable advice on recognizing and addressing these deep-seated influences for a more fulfilling relationship.

Ever wondered how family backgrounds impact your marriage? Stephie and Tamara unravel the complexities of adjusting to different family dynamics, sharing personal stories that highlight how being an only child or growing up in a bustling household affects one's tolerance for chaos. They delve into the importance of understanding each other's attachment styles, guided by insights from the book "Attached" and John Gottman's research, and discuss how these styles influence issues like jealousy and the narratives we create about our partner's past relationships.

In today's digital age, maintaining intimacy requires modern strategies. This episode offers practical tips for setting boundaries with social media and fostering transparent communication about online interactions. They also introduce two courses designed to help couples build emotional and physical intimacy, emphasizing the significance of understanding each other's love languages and emotional needs. Don't miss this episode filled with expert tips and heartfelt stories to help you and your partner connect more deeply.

Chapters

• 0:00 Relationship Deepening Through Understanding Past
• 6:23 Attachment Styles and Relationship Dynamics
• 10:59 Establishing Boundaries in Modern Relationships
• 19:06 Navigating Relationships

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Straight from the Source's Mouth.

Speaker 2: 0:02

Podcast Frank talk about sex and dating. Hello everyone, Tamara here again. Welcome to the show. Today's guest is Stephanie Flood, and we'll be talking about deepening relationships. Be sure to tell your friends about it and rate it as well. Thanks for joining me, Steffi.

Speaker 1: 0:19

Hi, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Yeah, I think this will be a good topic. There's a lot of Instagram and stuff that talks about how to like if you're triggered from the past and you're not really mad at the person, so I think we could get more into that. But I'm gonna start with how you got into, or wanted to do this for a living.

Speaker 1: 0:37

So I tell people all the time that you don't become a therapist because, like, stuff was normal growing up and so I think, like a lot of us, I, my parents, are very deeply religious and they had a lot of ideas from their own past stuff about how they wanted me to be as a human, and religion played a big part in that. So they had me sign a purity pledge when I was 16 and place it on the White House lawn for Bill Clinton. I had a boyfriend at the time. I think that purity pledge didn't last all that long and so their next step was like, well, you guys should get married. We did, and thank goodness, actually it all worked out. We are still married. And then at the time I just was really lost. It took probably another decade before my husband really was like, I really think you should be a therapist, went ahead and got a master's degree in counseling psychology and pretty much out the gates. I knew I wanted to be in private practice. I knew that I wanted to primarily work with adults. I knew that I wanted to primarily work with adults. We ourselves were having a multitude of children. So we have four kids and four kids in five years we tell people all the time because we didn't know how that worked.

Speaker 1: 1:55

And then, as I built my private practice, it really shifted into couples kind of organically. Naturally. That's just, I think, who I attracted. And then it really it kind of dawned on me like a lot of couples struggle with intimacy issues and that tends to be a subject that a lot of people therapists tend to shy away from because oh, that seems really overwhelming or, you know, I don't really know what to say. And so it was a topic that I felt comfortable with. And then, just kind of in the way I grew up, like these messages that I was getting about intimacy and what should and shouldn't be happening made me want to talk to other couples about it and that's where we landed. So I've been in private practice now for 16 years. For 16 years I just started developing courses so that I can chat with more people and help more people, because there's only so many you can do one-to-one. So that's kind of my trajectory of my career path.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Okay, awesome, yeah, I get that, because I used to do stand-up comedy and you could do like a room of people at the time. But you can't do multitudes of people unless you have a platform like a podcast or a course or something like that. So, totally makes sense. I get it All right. And then you talk about intimacy. So when you say intimacy, do you mean like, is it generally sex or is it all the stuff around sex too? And then yeah, so most.

Speaker 1: 3:20

Yeah, so most of the time people come to me and I use the word intimacy because the internet's one don't generally love that word sex. They get very upset about it and then they kick me off their platforms. So we've a little work around with the word intimacy. They like that one better. But I also do believe that that's actually what people are really craving and wanting and as we change and as we grow, and what we wanted in our twenties is not necessarily what women and even men like want in their forties totally different. So using the word intimacy, I think, gives a broader idea of just versus sex, like straight sex, and so when I talk to couples we really talk about all the ways in which we feel close and connected, whether that is through touching or if it's on the emotional side, and how you stay deeply connected, and it sort of encompasses all of it.

Speaker 2: 4:14

Okay, Well, do you want to jump in either with? Like I know, one of the topics is understanding past relationships. I know that's. You know a lot of people think they're mad at the person they're with, but really there's something from the past. So I want to talk more about, like how that works.

Speaker 1: 4:28

When I talk to people about their past, usually we kind of jump in, you know, with couples and we sort of dive into history a little bit. And the history is, you know, mom and dad married, divorced, what their relationship was kind of like, what your kind of childhood, growing up stuff was like. I definitely ask people about religious feelings because it does play Sometimes. People will tell me well, there were no rules about sex and my parents never talked to each other and didn't touch each other. Well, that'll give you a lot of information about how you might act later on in life in a relationship or the things that you might really want. When we talk about, you know, past relationships that didn't end up being your primary relationship, you know there are things and people that come into our life that teach us things and also hurt us. And you know we want to be paying attention to. Oh, this thing that my partner might be saying that they have no idea that it really is hurtful to us or that it brings up something deeper to us, and our go-to immediate response is to react. And then they're like oh, sam, why are you so mad at me? I didn't say anything, I just asked you to take out the trash or whatever it was you know. And so we we dive deep into hey, maybe what are some of the things that may have hurt you in the past or created issues that, oh it, it turns out that's actually how I'm responding now to my partner. And how do we change that? How do we come at that in a different way? How do we feel inside our body to recognize that those emotions are coming up? And then how can we respond differently to our partner and vice versa? And then our partner kind of knows too.

Speaker 1: 6:23

I'll use myself as an example, being an only child. My husband sometimes is totally fine with our four children, just kind of being crazy and wild and running around and all the things. And if I come into the mix it feels really overwhelming to me. And it's overwhelming because I was an only child. I was by myself all the time, like lots and lots of noise and chaos and craziness like throws me for a loop. So we had to adjust and work that out and a lot of times I just had to ask him.

Speaker 1: 6:55

I was like, is it normal for them to like do these things? Cause I have no idea. Like, should they? Should they be like screaming and yelling at each other. Is that okay? Like cause I feel like I should do something and he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine. And he really struggles, honestly, with quiet and being really calm. He loves chaos, he loves swirl and he feels super comfortable in it, and so sometimes when I'm trying, like dial the temperature down, he will be like this is boring, like I'm bored, I don't know what to do. We should go somewhere. Let's get out of the house, let's do. You know things like that, so paying attention and understanding that about your partner.

Speaker 2: 7:35

Yeah, yeah for sure, and I know I usually talk about books, so are there any books that you found helpful to have couples read, or or just like a go-to Bible or just something?

Speaker 1: 7:47

I really like the book attached and it talks about our attachment styles, the way in which we bond with our person, and we get our attachment styles typically from our parents, from our primary caregivers. You know, some of us have secure attachments, which means the bond that we formed with our parents was pretty stable, very normal. We got all our needs met. Lots of us got an insecure attachment where we weren't really sure whether our parent or primary caregiver was going to be there or not be there, or it was inconsistent. And some of us have avoidant attachment styles, meaning like our primary care person just straight, did not attach or bond to us and so anybody that tries to get close feels scary and foreign. And so take an avoidant person and an insecure person and try and put them together and you get all kinds of fun things happening. So the Book Attached is a great book for couples.

Speaker 1: 8:49

Anything by John Gottman I definitely love respect and just think that their messaging and the way he approaches couples is just fantastic. It's based on research. I geek out on the science behind why we all do what we do, and they really have done. They have a love lab where they studied people. So anything by John and Julie Gottman is is phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 9:18

Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree on both of those. I've had a few episodes on Attached or attachment styles and him too. Actually, I don't think I've mentioned John Gottman, but I should have. Yeah, he's definitely great information, like you said. All right, and then if there was more to talk about the past relationship stuff, I know I may have interrupted that part or just you know, the deepening in general how do you approach couples and what actually works for them?

Speaker 1: 9:59

So sometimes couples think and I think you know Times have changed, so you know it used to be like how many sexual partners you've had and you know how that does jealousy play into that and you know things like that, I think because we are more apt to have multiple sexual partners prior to our primary person, like those issues have kind of dwindled down. Those issues have kind of dwindled down, I think, when usually what comes up for couples when they are, you know, got some jealousy stuff going on, it's usually feelings around a story or an idea that they heard about your past partner. Like, oh, you know, Bob used to take me on, you know, these extraordinary vacations and now you're with John and John maybe doesn't ever like going on vacation, and so John now feels jealous of Bob, Like, oh, Bob used to do this thing for you and you're not going to love me, and so it comes up a bit. Social media also comes up quite a bit and having really good boundaries around how we interact, we have access now to ex-boyfriends, to co-workers from the past, to all kinds of people, and so as a couple you really want to sit down and have very clear boundaries and understanding and some guidelines for each other, expectations of, hey, this is who we talk to on the internet, this is who we decide. Hey, you know what? It's not a good idea. We're just not going to invite these people into our life.

Speaker 1: 11:38

Do we talk about how, if an ex or somebody calls us up or messages us or something along those lines, do we tell our partner or what do we do? My advice is always, yes, that we want to just be clear and honest. Hey, this is who messaged me. This is what the message said. How would you like me to respond? Like you know, or not respond, and that way you just don't get into a lot of that messiness that can happen. Way you just don't get into a lot of that messiness that can happen. And then again, social media is tough, Like it is tough for couples Again we just have access on our phones all the time to all kinds of people.

Speaker 2: 12:16

Yeah, and the sites that like hide messages and stuff too.

Speaker 1: 12:20

Yes, I do not recommend using any of those types of sites if you are in a long-term committed relationship and you would not like to get in huge fights with your partner.

Speaker 2: 12:30

Yeah, yeah, probably a good idea. Yeah, so how do you like deepen? I know you said I have boundaries and like, what are some other things you can to increase the or reconnect? I know you had mentioned that earlier too, if you want to say more, whichever way you want to go, yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:47

So when I, you know, right now, like kind of my focus has been couples that have been married for a long time, like like myself, you know, got some kids in the mix, got you know pets and a huge life, and you're, you know, probably both working and you're running around and you're doing all the things and you're doing life, you're doing the business of being married really, probably really well, and then you sort of look at your partner and you're like, oh, I don't really feel like we are connected, I don't feel like we are, you know, young and fun anymore. And or like you know, when was the last time? Like we just hung out and talked and had a glass of wine together, and for a lot of couples that space gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So a lot of couples will come to me just because they feel and then you add sex into that and sex typically is the first thing to go Start to notice like, oh, it's been a week. Oh, it's been three weeks. Oh, it's been four months. Oh, it's been a week. Oh, it's been three weeks. Oh, it's been four months, oh, it's been a year. And you know that's usually people will come to me when the house is on fire, which means you know it's four months or longer that they have had any sort of connection, intimacy or anything and they're trying to figure out how to get it back.

Speaker 1: 14:02

So the way we build it back is to slow and steady, almost like when you were first dating. Now, usually most people are first dating in their 20s and it's hot and heavy and you're real quick to do all the things. But we kind of want to do it in a slower fashion, meaning like, hey, let's start building in some physical touch every single day, because most people, most of us, forget to do that. We honestly, honestly forget to give our husband or our wife or partner a hug or a kiss every day, um, even twice a day. And I start to recommend to people like hey and this actually comes from John Gottman, but it's called the 10 second kiss and we start to build that in. If you've ever kissed your partner for 10 seconds, you will know that it is an eternity If you count it out. You're like, whew, that is way longer than I thought it was going to be. But then you get to get used to it again and you're like, oh yeah, that actually feels really good, and the reason it feels good is because it gives us enough time to get serotonin and dopamine flowing. And then we start to get that bond back.

Speaker 1: 15:10

So we start with that. We start with hugging and kissing every day. We start to look at how they are. How can they build connection and time together? What can we do in their week that says, hey, can we go for a walk every day around the block?

Speaker 1: 15:25

It's one of the secret things that I tell couples to do actually is to go for a walk around the block, because usually you are not on your phone Hopefully you are you don't have to make eye contact, so it doesn't necessarily have to be weird, you just kind of talk about your day. Usually you can either strap the kids in the stroller and haul them with you, or you can leave them at home because you're not gone for too terribly long and it gives couples a chance to really like, just be themselves, be together, have some conversations that they might not be able to have when there are dogs and kids in life, all kind of running around them. So we do that and we just slowly build from there till we get to the point of like, okay, when do you guys think it would be the best time to be intimate, like, did you guys just get kind of out of a routine of, like? You know, saturday night was our date night? By the way, I don't actually recommend that, usually we're too tired, but like, hey, how does? How does Sunday morning look like? Usually we don't have too much going on. We can park the kids in front of an iPad for 30 minutes and, you know, maybe that's our day, my husband and I.

Speaker 1: 16:37

Our date day is Friday afternoon. Actually, we go have lunch together every Friday, as much as we possibly can, because that's the time when, honestly, we don't have to worry about kids's. The time when, honestly, we don't have to worry about kids. They're in school, so we don't have to get babysitter do all that. We don't necessarily have to dress up. We can. You know it takes an hour, an hour and a half out of our day when we're both working and it it is our time together every single week. It has been so connective for us and when we just start to talk to couples, or when I talk to couples about you know where could we find that time? Usually you can find time somewhere, and you know, and it doesn't have to be huge and big and all the things, um. So that's how we start to build, rebuild intimacy and rebuild connection back into your or rebuild intimacy and rebuild connection back into your relationship in your life.

Speaker 2: 17:34

Yeah, that makes sense. Just start dating. Well, like I said, covering up times, if you want to do something, you'll make the time for it, and that lets you know if you're both working on it too, if you're both trying to make the time. So give credit for at least trying, I guess, at first.

Speaker 1: 17:52

And I tell people this too you know we're always looking for our partner to do something like oh, if he does this, then I'll do this, and I really, really encourage people to be the one to start first. And when you take responsibility for yourself and say, hey, I want to start making the marriage better, it really is. It is really life-changing for both of you. Like you tend to change as a human because you're doing different things, your partner starts responding different and it shifts and, typically speaking, when somebody is being changed their behavior and it's less combative or it's more open or it's more loving, it's more of a our person tends to respond in kind and then we're off to the races.

Speaker 2: 18:36

Yeah, yeah, I've definitely heard that before. I hadn't seen it firsthand.

Speaker 1: 18:39

Yeah, yeah, cause it's very challenging, but it can be done, yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:43

And even if it's something small, like just to get started, you know, give you like a little hope that they, oh, they will respond, or but yeah, and I totally agree, just do it first, whether or not it's their turn or they owe you, yes, well, unless you want to say more about that, it seems like a good time to let people know how to reach you and the courses you had mentioned.

Speaker 1: 19:06

Yes, so I have two courses right now out in the world, and the first one is A Flood of Love. It is a little bit longer. It is six modules and kind of all of the stuff that you and I were talking about today really dive pretty deep into that. I give couples lots of questions. You get a lot of encouragement from me on like, okay, this is how you deal with this, this is how you build into this. Um, you can do this course either on your own or, if you want to sit down as a couple and do it, you can do it together. It's the more advanced version of kind of what I got.

Speaker 1: 19:43

The second course is a mini course and I kind of geared it towards guys. It's called A Guy's Guide to Getting More Action in the Bedroom and most of the time the time and this has just been my experience as a therapist generally have no idea how to intrigue their wife or female partner into doing the things. They are usually like, hey, if I grab your boob, this should work right, Like this is what you and so this is super easy fast course. It's 20 minutes long. It gives you six very basic steps, uh, to really from a man's perspective, how to get their female partner, uh, moving in a more physically intimate direction. Yeah, yeah, so you can find me at afloadoflovecom and I'm on Instagram, mainly at Steph Flood of Love.

Speaker 2: 20:46

And I was going to say back to like when I used to do standup. That's what I used to talk about Like if you want to have sex more, you should do these things, like I kind of talked to. I related it to the love languages. If they're, if they're a words of affirmation person, you should probably say some nice things before you just go to touch.

Speaker 1: 21:04

So exactly yes, um, I think I'm, I, I'm, I'm with you and and thinking about all the funny ways you could really mess this up actually, all the funny ways you could really mess this up actually. Yeah, but yes, it really does have a lot more to do with emotionally connecting to your female partner than trying to physically connect, and sometimes I think guys, you know, they just get a little ahead of themselves and they're like, well, you know, and most guys honestly, like being slightly easier, they're like just please touch me.

Speaker 2: 21:38

I was going to say. I read recently, totally switching subjects, that I think it's 70% of women are the ones that file for divorce. I don't know if there's anything to say about that or just like some reasons why women would or should or shouldn't, or like what you. When they're on the threshold, what would you say? Or how do you get them to see when they if it's working or not, or could work?

Speaker 1: 22:01

Women will start to just I think the best way somebody described it to me is you know, women are kind of like a basketball, and if they can bounce so many times and recover so many times, but eventually they're not going to bounce anymore, so they'll put in.

Speaker 1: 22:21

Women will typically put in a lot, a lot of effort to make the relationship work until they just can't, and that's typically why a divorce will happen, because they just cannot put it in any more energy or effort to the relationship. And it leaves a lot of men sometimes sort of dumbfounded. They're like I didn't even know that you were this far down the line, this far down the line like um, which really kind of sucks, but that it is typical that that that will be what happens. And so what I encourage women to do is, instead of just continually like, let that ball bounce lower and lower and lower is the first few times that you're like, hmm, not loving that kind of behavior, start to have a conversation now. Now, go to therapy now. Don't let it fester, because we will, as a female, you will just your emotions will say nope, I'm done now. And once a woman's done emotionally, that's pretty much the end of the end of the relationship.

Speaker 2: 23:37

Yeah, yeah, and so I guess what are some other things like men can do? I mean, there's a lot of difference. Like men think women should be like them and vice versa. So there's a lot of confusion between like just getting each other as you know, different genders.

Speaker 1: 23:53

Yeah, Different genders and being, you know, in being in this day and age, right Like so, again, I work with a lot of couples that are more in my age range, which is, you know, 35, 40 plus crew that have been together for a long time. You know, I think that the biggest thing for men right now and you were asking about books and some other really great books Terry real is another really great therapist talks a lot about us and the connection of us and men kind of having to make a change right now because women are in the working full time and having kids and our partnerships need to be a full partnership. It cannot just be a woman going to work full time taking care of the kids, taking care of the house, like this, you know, and the guy just goes to work. Like there has to be this shift now that it is a full partnership, that everybody is sort of doing different components of the business of being married.

Speaker 1: 24:57

When we do that and we respect and appreciate what each other brings to that relationship and verbally communicating a lot of the time like hey, let's appreciate each other for what we do and what we bring, and that keeps that bond strong, the more men can do that and say, hey, I appreciate the things that you're doing. And again, this goes back to that emotional connection. The more a man can emotionally connect to his female partner, the better she's going to feel and the more likely she is to want to touch you and the more likely she is to want to touch you. And most men their love language is physical touch. They do have others, but for the most part they really really enjoy being touched. It doesn't have to be sexual, it just hugs, kisses, hold their arm, pat their behind, whatever it's going to be, and that's kind of the hamster wheel that we want to get on when it comes to like healthy relationship.

Speaker 2: 26:01

Okay, I was going to ask if you had any final thoughts or like something you want to leave the people listening.

Speaker 1: 26:07

I would just marriage is hard. Long-term relationships are hard. They're messy, getting fights you think you want to call it quits. You know I do this for a living. My husband and I have been together 30 odd years now and we've definitely been there where we're like oh Lord, how are we going to do this one more day? And my encouragement is to just keep trying, recognize that you're in a kind of messy place or that something's kind of off or it hurts or it's just not working, and keep trying to talk. Keep trying to listen to your partner. We want to talk more at our partner. Listen like, ask them questions. Hey, how are you feeling about this? What could I do differently? How could I approach this differently? That would help you do differently. How could I approach this differently? That would help you. And if we do that, like you know, you'll get through kind of the muckiness and you get back to kind of the nice balance and the and and feeling good and confident in your relationship again.

Speaker 2: 27:07

Yeah, I have heard it's like lots of ebbs and flows and there's good and bad, so just weather the bad and get back to some good for a while. Awesome, all right. Well, thank you very much for being on, thank you for having me, and your courses sound really cool, especially the mini courses. That would help a lot of men figure out. But yeah, thank you again for being on and if you like this episode, be sure to tell your friends about it and rate it as well. And thanks again. Thank you, alrighty Bye everyone.