growNman
growNman
I am growNman 119 Understanding Intimacy: The Messages We Receive
Entwined in layers of expectation and miscommunication, the topic of intimacy often sparks heated debates in relationships. How we understand sexual intimacy is significantly influenced by the messages we receive throughout our lives. In this engaging episode, we tackle the realities of intimacy that affect many married couples, particularly focusing on the masculine perspective. Join us as we explore how societal dictates have led many men to believe that intimacy is an obligation fulfilled by their partners, leaving a trail of dissatisfaction in its wake.
We share personal stories and insights that illuminate the common misconceptions surrounding intimacy, revealing how early teachings can set unrealistic expectations for both partners. We're digging into how intimacy should not only be a physical experience but an emotional journey that both partners embark on together. The episode sheds light on the vital role of communication in nurturing sexual relationships, debunking the myths of spontaneous desire that often leave men and women feeling disconnected.
Our discussions center around practical advice for fostering a deeper connection, emphasizing the importance of understanding each other’s emotional and physical needs. By challenging outdated beliefs, we encourage listeners to adopt new perspectives on intimacy, prioritizing joint investment and effort to create a fulfilling connection. This exploration offers a fresh take that can help couples build a richer understanding of their relationship dynamics.
Don't miss out! Dive into this thought-provoking episode and discover how devoted communication and mutual respect can pave the way for healthier intimacy. Subscribe and share your thoughts with us—how do you view intimacy in your relationship? Transform your connection today!
what up, though, and welcome back to I'm growing man, shemaj id in the building. I wanted to get on here and really talk about something that I think is tearing marriages or relationships up, and I think it's just poor messaging with sexual intimacy. You know, when I was growing up I'm just cover some of the things that I had, some of the messages I got growing up, and I'm just take you on a mini journey of what many men probably go through growing up on the idea of sexual intimacy. Just in my youth, probably, when I first, I think, remembered it stuck with me was sixth grade. It was a health class and we had to get parent permission to talk about sex, and I remember the teacher having us read a passage that said men think about sex hundreds of times a day and it's nothing that we could do about it. It was something to that degree. So in my head I just thought it was just natural for us to do that. So, as I moved through life having that information, you hear that you shouldn't have sex until you get married, and that was really driven by Christianity. That's what I was practicing at the time, and you know you hear Christians to say you could do this or you could do that, and I just couldn't understand.
Speaker 1:But at an early age I had already started participating in these activities and, not knowing that I was endangering everything to get to this point. And I am playing this game that adults aren't even good at, and I'm a young man moving through life. So I remember saying that I didn't ever want to get married, didn't want to do any of that, because I saw my father go through a relationship breakup that was detrimental to me. In the way that I view relationships Now. I just didn't want to look like him. So I was just moving on through life, like I was just going to be a player. And when I say a player I mean like have relationships with people, but nothing too serious, where we get along, we hang out, but it wasn't just going to be full time. And I just remember when you get married you still have these needs that you feel like your wife is supposed to fulfill. And I do want to say this my wife grew up with a Christianity background, so she believed in the word and she told me certain things that I felt like she already understood. She felt like that a wife is supposed to fulfill the needs of her husband. She told me that and in my head she's supposed to do that also. So it's like you're supposed to do these things, but the the activity never increased, like over the course of time. It just slowed down. And I remember talking to so many different married men and it was like that was the same activity that was going on in their household. So then I was like, why is this okay? So me and my wife had conversations over the years about it, but it drove me to this point. The messaging we got was not the right messaging.
Speaker 1:I believe that the lack of discipline that man had made it seem like every time we get excited, that if we're married, that a woman is supposed to fulfill that urgency, when in fact we make it so regular, we take the fun out of it. We make it so regular, we take the fun out of it. And I just remember, like, if, like doing it on a regular basis, it takes out the intimacy of it. But a man will think that that's the intimacy they're supposed to have because they get excited. But that's just the lack of discipline, but that's just the lack of discipline. And if you, if you believe you're supposed to be satisfied. Whenever that happens, then it will make any relationship difficult, any relationship.
Speaker 1:So I know a lot of people don't think I'm crazy, but I know that when I started viewing intimacy like something special and when I say special I mean like it's not going to be all the time and I can't remember this judge it was a judge, black woman. She's in a pretty happy relationship. She's older, really attractive. So her husband, you know, you know, is gets to those moments where she, he, wants to do it and she was like these are what I need for you to do. If you want to, you're going to have to get me there, you know. Like you're going to have to like rouse me up, kiss me, make me feel like a lady, make me feel wanted. Nobody never taught me that and I remember, um, like my wife, she says she's attracted to me, but you just don't turn a woman on like that because you're just ready. You know what I'm saying. There's supposed to be some type of some action, some some build up.
Speaker 1:And I think as a man I used to have a problem because I didn't know about that part and I think that if men knew that, they had to put the effort in to get the woman to participate, it would look differently. But just rolling over and be ready, like she's sleeping, you're just ready to go at it. It's not going to end up well and I think infidelity typically comes from that lack of action. And if anybody remembers infidelity, I don't think any man does anything to mess up their home. But they're doing what they can to not feel like that's the problem. That's going to break up the home. And I know that sounds selfish, but we have been fed a message that says that women are supposed to do these things. And then you have this day and time where women have more of a voice and we can understand and see that they have needs and things that it's not fair to them and an open-minded man will be like that's right.
Speaker 1:I've gotten to the point where I want the relationship with my wife to do so well that I'm willing to compromise everything that I've learned to see what it would look like if it was her way. And I think, with the mindset that I have now, knowing that if you're going to participate in those activities, that it's going to take more effort. I know when you're young like she, and I even talked about it when we were young. It was just like. It was like boom, you know, it was just let's go. But now we're older, so it's, it's going to take, you know, some some hugging, some kissing, and I think if the woman's not doing, if the man is not doing that, the woman is not really in the mood and it could take so much out of the whole situation, because having a one-track mind that your lady is supposed to fulfill this need is going to. It's not going to end well, and this is what I learned from that.
Speaker 1:Like the gist of it all is just communication. If you got this idea that women are supposed to do this, you're supposed to talk about that in the beginning, but we don't because we think that the woman already knows the role. There's so many conversations you can't prepare to have, but when you do have a conversation that you've never had and it's different views, you guys should have rules and boundaries so that you can understand you're on the same team. At this point in my life, all I want to do is make sure that the moment that I'm living in is the best version of me. My wife she's giving me these eyes where I can see that when she's happy, the household moves differently and most men are going to be all right. But if they put that work in trying to make that better, have happy the woman, she performs at a different rate and it'll it'll return in your favor Majority of the time. You know. I know I hear people like women be nagging and I don't think women that, I think just Lynn. They don't do what they probably should be doing and the woman just reminded him over. Like if you do it the first time, you don't even have to worry about hearing the second time. And I think this is this this will probably help so many relationships.
Speaker 1:If you can create a routine, like I have a routine, a personal routine that I have to do every single day so that I know that I'm working something that's trying to develop for a later time. Like I work on language, communication, I meditate, I work on math every single day because I know at some point it's going to develop into something that is better than now. You have to do that with a relationship also Now you have to do that with a relationship also Like me and my wife. We have this time where, about 6.30, 7 o'clock, after we've eaten dinner, we've walked the dogs, we're together and we're watching something that we want to watch, or we're having conversations, or we have time with the family where we're creating a relationship that is building something for later. And a lot of times I noticed before that we got to this point we were just passing ships through the night and the daytime. You know, we would, we would, we were cordial, but we didn't really have a routine of unlayering a day or finding out what's troubling us on the inside or what what's making us happy, because you never know what someone's going through unless you're talking to them.
Speaker 1:And I realized when you create that relationship, intimacy looks totally different. She and I have conversations that I wouldn't replace with intimacy through physical contact, because she helps me grow like in real time. You know I've been in, I've had the feeling of great intimacy, physical contact. But the way that we have conversations, if men approached a relationship like I, have to put this time into her until it develops into this energy. And when I say this energy, I mean you already know that if you guys get into it, y'all already have some rules to get back to the point where you guys enjoy each other's company. It doesn't last too long. It's just a reflective moment to let you know.
Speaker 1:There's a conflict. What's going on? What am I not understanding? What is she not understanding? Conflict what's going on? What am I not understanding? What is she not understanding? What are we not understanding? What can I say differently? For her to see my view, let me try to see her view better and let's see it together so that we can move on.
Speaker 1:When you do that, I'm telling you the relationship is better than any relationship you've seen on television and it's going to be yours. You put it in the work, it's yours. It's something that I haven't been able to describe, but I'm telling you this young men and this is why I'm saying young men, because a lot of times they say men at older ages, they won't change their ways. So this message isn't for them. This message is for young men or young people. I don't want to just limit it to men.
Speaker 1:Anybody looking for a relationship as a man don't want to just limit it to me and anybody looking for a relationship as a man you have to believe you're going to do everything for the relationship to work, even if she's not doing what she's supposed to be doing. That means you have to vet your partner out, know what's her family like. You need to know how she responds when she's tight, how she handle money. What is your role to make her a better person? What is she going to do to make you a better person? It has to be a give and take type situation and if you don't talk about it, you won't know. Both of y'all might be given the same thing and you don't need it, and then you'll be taking the same thing and don't need it and it's like they're not doing this.
Speaker 1:But if you have an effective conversation where you could learn learn the boundaries, what the person's used to like, the more conversations you have, the more gaps you feel with not hurting that person accidentally, because a lot of times we forget that we haven't told our partner everything and they'll get upset or we'll get upset about something that we think that they know and they have no idea. And even if they did know it, they didn't even do it on purpose because it was the accident. So I think if we could be more open with the communication aspect, we can create a better way to have sexual intimacy through I don't want to say necessarily planned, but if it's a part of the routine, you can look forward to it. You can say, ok, during these couple of days it could happen at any time, but it needs to happen, but you have to look forward to it. A lot of times we always look what the movies or when we were young, like, like it's like dancing in the rain, like just at any moment you could just have this time.
Speaker 1:But we're older now, we're more mature and we have to be more responsible and consider that we don't. We don't just respond to things like we used to. You know that we don't just respond to things like we used to. At least people my age and if you are, it's a blessing. But our body's typically breaking down and if we as men don't keep in mind that we may have gotten the wrong message, that we'll keep making those mistakes that men were making six centuries ago and when I say centuries ago, I mean think about it.
Speaker 1:Through all the history we have, you're telling me that there are no ideal relationships that people say you know what? That's what I want when I get older. Majority of those relationships are narrated by men who were successful in something and the one that kind of played the background and I would love to hear their role and I can almost guarantee whatever role it was, it wasn't a role that they wanted to have when they were younger. So now I think we have to just be more open to like being wrong on a lot of the things that we've been following, and I think that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 1:If men knew that intimacy should be, it should be rare. It shouldn't be just whenever you feel like you want to do it and if it is the case, your partner should be open with information to say if they're capable of doing it. And a lot of times you know what, before I get out of here people always say what they would do with me in a relationship. When you're in a relationship, everything changes. Like you can say what you would do, but sometimes, or most of the times, it don't look like what you want it to look like and it's going to take an effort to get what I'm trying to describe to everybody. So I challenge all of you guys if you want a healthy relationship, converse about boundaries, what it should look like.
Speaker 1:But the biggest advice I can tell I want to go back to the sexual intimacy, I think the biggest part if you want that. Like the judge, I wish I could remember her name and please forgive me, but when she said, hey, you're going to have to like touch me, you're going to have to like say nice things, I mean, you can't my body. Just don't turn on like that. You know what I'm saying and that makes a lot of sense. And if that's the case, you need to put seven to 10 minutes in and just getting her there, just so that you can get what you need. You can't just be disappointed because you know you got to warm the car. You can't just drive your car in the winter without warming it up or it's going to break the body down of the car. So just be mindful of you. Have a whole person that needs to be warmed up, and a lot of times we'd be. We'd be thinking about what it was like in the beginning, when it was just complete attraction that would turn all of your senses on. With just a breath to the ear or, you know, a finger to the face, this brushing, you know just where your hairs rise up because you enjoy their company.
Speaker 1:So keep that in mind, gentlemen, and I believe that as we continue to find more ways to be successful in these relationships. That will decrease a lot of heartache and pain. If you believe that the messages that women are supposed to do this, this and this, you're probably going to fail. She's not going to be happy after so many amount of years and she's going to think that you're going to mature into a different person. But if you really believe that that is what it's supposed to be, it's not going to work out. And I'm not looking for anybody to prove me wrong, because I know that no woman wants to live that way and if a man is really trying to have a healthy relationship, he'd be so interested in what makes her happy and what doesn't make her happy and if something you like that makes her unhappy, if you care about her, you won't do it anymore. Y'all make today better than yesterday. Don't worry about anything you can't control. G-a-t-a Get after that action or that action will get after you. Be green on purpose.