Chemistry for your sex-starved marriage | Jessica Gold | TEDxGrandviewHeights

If I do everything she wants to please her and keep her happy then I will have the intimacy and sex I want I will have a good

marriage

and a happy life this is the refrain I hear over and over again from The Men Who Come To Work With Me In My Practice after all happy wife happy life good bad of course the intention behind this saying is good who doesn't want their partner to be happy but we don't understand how to execute it because when you abandon

your

self in order to get love it is an unspoken transaction that creates resentment, not attraction, so what do you do instead?

Because today, one in seven adults is married with little or no sex. Now, for some couples, this is not a problem, but for 100% of people. For the men who come to work with me it is definitely a problem and what I propose is bonding. You see, I've been studying bonding my entire life, first molecular bonding as a doctor of organic

chemistry

and now human bonding as a sex and relationship coach. I have noticed that there are two principles that we are never taught, but they are essential to have more intimacy, more trust, happiness and yes, good sex, who wants that?

You see, these two principles actually represent a paradox at the heart of the modern relationship. Paradox that when we learn to dance with skill it is like magic Mah, the first principle is to create a base of emotional security. Now people in the Happy Wife Camp think they are creating security by keeping things happy all the time, but what does this really do? is creating an unsafe environment to be authentic and both partners end up worrying about creating judgment and reactivity from the other. Now the second principle in dynamic tension with the first is the spark principle and Spark is about creating that sizzle, that mystery a little bit. of Separation, that attraction between the two of you, so see the Paradox here, how can you be at the same time close, safe and loving and also separated and sizzling?

Well, I'll tell you exactly how they do it, but first you might be wondering. how an organic chemist with a PhD like me came to study relational

chemistry

, so imagine this, there I was in my white lab coat on a Saturday afternoon in the laboratory, yes, on a Saturday afternoon, very carefully directing another radioactive solution over and over again to a seemingly endless series of little Wells when the voice in my heart broke you're not supposed to do this anymore I didn't want to believe it because walking away from a 10 year scientific career is no small feat, but I knew that was correct You see, I had never had a single class in all my years of scientific education on human bonds.

I had learned all about molecular links, but how to manage my own emotions and those of my classmates. Good luck, you're alone. How to communicate without getting defensive. No way, we're not going to teach you how to have good sex at all, and as a result, I was stuck in my head trying to find a logical path in life. I suppressed my emotions. I had an inner critic who ran the show. I felt disconnected from my husband and despaired of having much pleasure in sex. If you've ever been there, you know this is not a sustainable way to live, so that day in the lab I hung up my lab coat and walked out for good. decision to go travel the world for a year to say yes to what scared me at the end of those trips at an age when most of my friends were getting pregnant or getting promoted.

I found myself alone and divorced on a tropical island in a wooden cabin. Having no idea if I would ever have a job again and this was without a doubt the best thing that happened to me. I spent the next four years on that island receiving the education in human bonds that I had never had. I performed the most important experiment. of my life on myself, you see, I finally gave myself permission to focus that lens of curiosity that I used in my scientific experiments on my own relationships and sex life. I went to a completely new school and studied with new teachers in the fields of mindfulness yoga.

Emotional Intelligence and Sexuality I finally realized why it was laudable to study sex between molecules but shameful to study sex between humans after I learned how to apply these two principles of emotional safety and Spark to my own relationships. I finally got out of my head. I made friends. with my emotions and connected to pleasure, but when I thought back to my days in the chemistry lab, I realized something: these two principles of human bonding were actually there in my chemistry experiments every day in the lab. I just hadn't seen it every time I went to create a new chemical reaction.

First I had to do two things. He had to create the right environment for the molecules to bond. He had to give the right solvent the right temperature and inert atmosphere, essentially creating the conditions for the molecules to get close to each other. each other without interference and I also had to create the correct reactivity between the molecules. I had to make sure that they were attracted to each other, that there was a spark there, but actually, here's the trick and for the scientists in the audience you'll get it. It was a third thing that organic chemistry taught me about how to relate, and that was that no matter how much I begged, screamed, complained, or argued with my chemistry experiments, did they ever get them to do what I wanted them to do, it was only through of careful study, curiosity and a willingness to ask for help that I managed to overcome I wish I had realized that these principles were staring me in the face as an organic chemist and had known how to apply them to my own

marriage

today it has been 10 years since I hung up my lab shelter forever and I have spent that time studying relational chemistry and working with powerful men in science, technology and engineering who like me and maybe like you never had a single class on human bonding.

I've seen what can happen when you apply emotional safety and Spark into

your

relationships, let me tell you exactly how that's done. Take the case of Brian. Brian came to work with me when sex in his marriage had dropped to once every six months and he was very concerned because he seemed distracted. by other women, but he had a beautiful wife and amazing children and he didn't want to ruin his marriage. He thought maybe he just needed to implement some tips and tricks to get his wife back together, but what he didn't realize was that I had never actually been taught about emotional security or true spark and let me tell you, the truth is. that Spark has nothing to do with fancy dinners in lingerie, so with Brian we first talked about reestablishing a foundation of emotional security with his wife, we did three things first, he stopped meeting up.

They shot fire at his arguments and set boundaries on how best to communicate with each other. This allowed them to be real without fear of each other's criticism or reactivity the moment he stopped trying to convince her of what she was feeling, honey, if only you saw things my way, you wouldn't be upset, yeah , none of that anymore. He stopped being defensive and giving advice in conversations and instead he used the three magic words, tell me more and number three, he stopped judging his own emotions and became curious about his inner world. This allowed him to skillfully handle uncomfortable emotions for both him and her and choose to act from a place of love, which created a foundation of emotional security between the two of them.

Now, when it came to spark, he also did three things to rekindle that spark first. took. goal orientation moved away from flirting and instead of just touching his wife so that it would lead to sex, he learned to flirt with her and delight her and woo her again for the joy of the process itself, this took the pressure off and allowed him she approached him. Second, he learned to expand his pleasure palette and stopped coming to the relationship with his empty pleasure cup. To achieve this, he first developed a delicious self-pleasure practice that illuminated him from within and taught him new things. skills as a lover and also learned to open up and receive the sensory pleasure available to all of us every day of life and third, he stopped begging and started leading, so he created a vision for their relationship together and invited her to participate, my love, this is what I commit to doing together in our lives for decades to come this is what I'm inspired to do together will you join me instead of trying to convince her to do what he wanted a few months after Brian started to implement these changes?

I got the most amazing message from him, it said we started laughing together again and guess what that led to more overall, more trust, security and yes, regular sex, in fact today Brian tells me that his wife even initiates Sex and this is in a 20-year marriage was unheard of before in their relationship and she expects it too when he comes home from work in the bedroom in lingerie, this works, Brian says, I call it chemistry, so today I invite you to maybe say yes to one thing in your relationship and your sex life. What scares you may be deciding to study how to create security and spark with the same lens of curiosity that you would use to study a chemistry experiment because I believe that you Sex life and your relationship deserve at least that many hours. of devotion like your perfect body for the gym, your latest tech startup or even your PhD, the lab coat is optional