The Relationship Lesson I Didn't Expect to Learn From Reddit

In my first two weeks as an active user on Reddit, I noticed the same theme showing up over and over again in relationship content. Couples who loved each other, cared about each other, and wanted things to work...yet were struggling because their needs weren't aligned.

In this episode, I explore what happens when physical intimacy, emotional connection, and personal desires fall out of sync. Why resentment often builds in silence. And why creating a fulfilling relationship starts with understanding yourself first.

The goal isn't to find a relationship that simply looks good from the outside. It's to build one that feels good from the inside.

Email CT: ct@TheMindfulSPX.com

Connect on social: @TheMindfulSPX

Check out our website: TheMindfulSPX.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome back or welcome to the Security You podcast. My name is Citi, and I help you understand why you love the way you do. I'm going to pull back the curtain here for a second and let you know that I am not a big Reddit guy. I may have over the years learned here or there, but it's not something that I wasn't a place that I uh went to and consumed much of anything. And I recently signed up and have been on there more and obviously gravitate towards the dating and relationship content, which brought up a really interesting space that I didn't think I was going to talk about or didn't, I guess, feel any need to talk about on this podcast. But it's something that within the first couple weeks of me being on there and actively engaging and seeing what people are talking about, it was a it was a question that I kept seeing come up. It had to do with physical intimacy and the premise of hey, when we uh started dating, we had sex this often. And then over the course of the next six months or a year or years, that that has dwindled and now it's it feels like a chore. Now it's once a month or once every six months, or once a year. And why I'm feeling called to talk about this is that I believe physical intimacy is a very important part of a connection and especially a romantic one at that, especially your long-term relationships, your life partner, marriage, whatever that may look like for you. I believe that the physical, sexual closeness and intimacy, that space is very, very important for a healthy, you know, long-term relationship. I guess, and let me caveat, there there may be some people listening that that's that important to them. And so if that's the case, this episode probably isn't going to resonate with you. However, I believe that the majority of people as humans, we crave the physical closeness with another person, sometimes to our detriment, where we are chasing that. I don't want to say chasing the high of that, but we're we're chasing the feeling of that that may make us make other decisions than we otherwise would. Where my head goes with that is from the standpoint of entertaining relationships that maybe aren't the best for us, aren't the healthiest for us, or really aren't fulfilling us, but we're going to chase them because of the feeling of that closeness, of that intimacy with that person, even though there's other things in the equation that aren't uh that maybe aren't being fulfilled from just like a general relationship standpoint, but we just we crave that specific peace. So we're we're craving that more so than other things, which I'll probably talk about in other episodes because I feel like as a society, if we came into connections, dating and relationships without using the physical and sexual side as the basis for that connection, as a foundation for that connection, we'd be living in a different world and we'd be creating a lot of healthier relationships just literally because of that one change. But that's not the point of this episode, that's for another day. So going back to when I came across this on Reddit and I'm seeing it multiple times, it really didn't matter from the sense of was it men that were talking about that, or was it women, or was it this age, or was it that age? There was no real like correlation that I was seeing. It was just more so this idea of hey, this relationship or this marriage feels really good to me because of A, B, and C or X, Y, and Z, but I'm not getting met, my needs aren't being met sexually. And that essentially what's happening then is you're going to resent. You can have all those other, you know, amazing things on the checklist, but if the sexual side is something that is very important to you and part of a fulfilling connection to you, that it's not something that you can just do once a month, once a six months, once a year, whatever the cadence is, because it's something that's like deeply ingrained and deeply important to you. So I just felt with this episode, I just want, I don't know who needs to hear this. Wherever you may be listening from, I want you to know that that is a completely normal and fair thing that you desire and that you need. And if you're not getting that, I ask you to sit with that and think about the relationship as a whole. Yes, there may be these 99 other things that are really good and fulfilling, and everybody from the outside may think, oh, you have the guys have the perfect relationship. Oh my gosh, you're the best couple. At the end of the day, you know, you're the one that's in the bedroom with them, you're the one that is alone in the car with them or wherever you may be. The whole point of this podcast is helping people understand the dynamics of connection, dating relationships, understanding yourself so that you can create those relationships that are fulfilling to you. So, again, I just want to reiterate that your needs are valid, and if they're not being fulfilled, then reconsider that connection or dig deeper into that connection. Where is that coming from? Why why is it something that's very important to you? And then why is it from the opposite side? Why aren't they able to fulfill that for you? It may simply, because I've seen this as well, like where they have this dynamic that I've explained here in this episode, and they aren't so it ends up being like one person is doing all the work. So one person is going to therapy, when in reality it's the other person that needs to go to therapy or needs to work through whatever they need to work through to be able to give you the love that you desire, that you rightly desire and need to feel connected, to feel fulfilled in that relationship. It's not a one-way street. It's not just because you want this so much that you can change that other person. They have to be willing to meet you there, understand your needs, and be able to meet you there so that you can create the connection, the ultimate connection that's fulfilling and rewarding to every part of you, to every part of your being. And that's not too much, that's not needy, that's literally just a human desire that we all desire. And maybe some people want certain things more than others. I mean, literally everybody, you know, we're all different. One person may really crave the physical intimacy, and one person may really crave the quality time, or you know, the different love languages and all of that. So we're all different, but we all deserve a relationship that is deeply fulfilling to our soul. That's all I got for you today. Hopefully that was helpful, insightful. And like I said, whoever needed to hear that, I was in your ears today and giving that guidance to you. One request I have if you actually a couple here as I close this out. Uh one, I just added new podcast cover art here, so a little bit updated. Wherever you may be listening, it should look different to you. Uh, secondly, I have something through my podcast hosting provider called Fan Mail. It's a feature that they have. So you literally can text the show. You can text me. It's like a masked number, so I'm not going to see your number, so don't worry about like there's nothing privacy uh issues with that. It's all kind of hidden behind the scenes, but it allows listeners to interact with the host. And I would love to hear from you wherever you may be listening. If there's a question, there's a situation that you would want me to talk about on a future episode. I'd love to know that, or any feedback that you have. Good, bad, or indifferent, I'm all years. So I'd love to hear from you. Wherever you listen, you should be able to click fan mail. Uh, there should be like a link in your I mainly listen on Spotify, and so on Spotify it's like a actual text link. So you can just click fan mail, you should open up the next steps, which is pretty simple. You just text, or you can actually uh also record a voice message, and I can respond back to you as well. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you for being here. Appreciate you, and until next time, take care.