Navigating Desire Discrepancy in Non-Monogamous Relationships

4 minute read

Are you struggling with mismatched desires in your non-monogamous relationships? As a depth psychologist and experienced practitioner of non-monogamy, I've seen firsthand how challenging it can be when partners' wants and needs don't align. But don't worry – with open communication and self-reflection, you can navigate these differences and create fulfilling connections.

Understanding Desire Discrepancy

Desire discrepancy occurs when partners have different levels of interest in sex, intimacy, or relationship structures. This mismatch can manifest in various ways, such as:

• Frequency: One partner wants sex more or less often than the other.
• Type: Partners prefer different sexual activities or relationship styles.
• Intensity: The desired level of emotional or physical connection differs.

It's important to remember that desire discrepancy is normal and doesn't necessarily indicate a problem with your relationship. However, how you address these differences can significantly impact your connection.

The Impact of Attachment and Past Experiences

Our attachment styles and previous relationships often influence how we approach desire discrepancy. For example, if you have an anxious attachment style, you might interpret a partner's lower desire as rejection. Conversely, those with avoidant tendencies might use desire discrepancy as a reason to create emotional distance.

Recognizing how your past experiences shape your current perceptions is crucial for addressing desire discrepancy effectively. Take time to reflect on your attachment patterns and how they might be influencing your reactions to mismatched desires.

Communication: The Key to Navigating Desire Discrepancy

Open, honest communication is essential for managing desire discrepancy in non-monogamous relationships. Here are some tips for productive conversations:

1. Create a safe space: Ensure both partners feel comfortable expressing their needs without judgment.
2. Use "I" statements: Focus on your feelings and experiences rather than blaming or criticizing your partner.
3. Listen actively: Really hear your partner's perspective and validate their feelings.
4. Be specific: Clearly articulate your desires and needs, avoiding vague terms like "normal" or "regular" amounts of sex.
5. Explore underlying issues: Look beyond the surface-level mismatch to understand any deeper emotional needs or concerns.

Remember, these conversations are ongoing processes, not one-time events. Be patient with yourself and your partners as you navigate this journey together.

Reimagining Relationship Structures

Sometimes, addressing desire discrepancy requires rethinking your relationship structure. This might involve:

• Negotiating new agreements around sexual or emotional intimacy.
• Exploring different forms of non-monogamy that better suit your needs.
• Considering alternative relationship models, such as living apart together, relationship anarchy, or platonic life partnership.

Be open to creative solutions that honor both your needs and your partners' boundaries. Remember, there's no one-size-fits-all approach to relationships.

Self-Reflection and Personal Growth

• Addressing desire discrepancy often involves deep personal work. Consider:
• Examining your internalized beliefs about sex, relationships, and desire
• Exploring any shame or guilt you feel around your sexual needs
• Investigating how past experiences might be influencing your current desires
• Working with a therapist or coach to develop healthier patterns

This self-reflection can be challenging but ultimately leads to greater self-awareness and more fulfilling relationships.

Embracing the Complexity of Desire

It's important to recognize that our desires are complex and can change over time. What you want today might be different from what you wanted a year ago or what you'll want in the future. Embrace this fluidity and stay curious about your evolving needs and those of your partners.

While desire discrepancy can be challenging, it also presents an opportunity for growth, deeper intimacy, and self-discovery. By approaching these differences with compassion, open communication, and a willingness to explore new possibilities, you can create non-monogamous relationships that truly fulfill everyone involved.

Remember, there's no "normal" when it comes to desire – only what works for you and your partners. Keep the conversations going, stay curious, and don't be afraid to seek support when needed. Your journey through desire discrepancy can lead to richer, more authentic connections and a deeper understanding of yourself.

Listen to Playing with Fire episode 158 for an in-depth discussion of desire mismatch and how you can work to increase your relationship satisfaction. This episode includes descriptions of how desire discrepancies can manifest and empowering steps you can take today to change your experience.

Episode 158 Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated, and may contain some errors.

Joli Hamilton
Hey, can let's talk about desire mismatch, desire discrepancy discrepancy or mixed desire relationships? Something like what do you think that's

Ken Hamilton
a good one because that we've had multiple conversations in the year of opening around this, it.

Joli Hamilton
And I talk about this all the time it feels very normal to me to talk about when desires don't feel aligned. Because it's just a normal part of my job, but I noticed that there's a lot of shame attached to it for a lot of people. And I like to let's, let's take that apart a little bit. Let's see if we can. Yeah, let's do that concept and see if we can destigmatize it a little bit. Yeah, so right off the bat, even though even the language around it right. It sounds a little pathologizing. Right. Yeah.

Ken Hamilton
As we were starting off, you're coming up with different kinds of phrases to find one that didn't sound like it was going to ping off of somebody's shame or, or, but the stigma, yeah, but the

Joli Hamilton
thing is, there's a difference between pathologizing and trying to find a name for something. And so I want to say, my goal is to have a conversation about what happens when two people, any two people, or more people have differences in either the intensity or type of once that they have what they want out of their life, what they want. Specifically, we often talk about either what they want sexually, or what they want in a relationship structure or style, how they want to orchestrate their relational life, though, that's what comes across my radar. But you know, I, as I say that, I think, hey, remember, when we ran that CrossFit gym together, we watched people deal with desire discrepancy all the time, all the time, when one part of a couple would come in, it was mostly monogamous people around us, then yeah, one part or both would come in, but only one would drink the Kool Aid and be into the whole scene. And it would cause over time, disruptions, because all of a sudden, one person is showing up for a workout that's going to last for an hour plus the driving there, and then the cooldown and then driving home. So all of a sudden, their day has two hours out of it. And CrossFitters never fucking Shut up. We will talk about our pull ups.

Ken Hamilton
That is true. Yeah. Oh, well,

Joli Hamilton
so so much. So they're there, it becomes this gap this like, Oh, we don't desire and I've seen the same thing happen with people who gain anything that they're passionate about, right, we can create this gap between myself and this person who I am partnered to. Because now we want different types of things, or we want a different intensity on the same thing, because a lot of the people I'm talking about when I think about CrossFit days, I think I'm gonna say so one of them came in and found out that what they like is to basically beat the crap out of themselves for an hour. And it felt good to them. They got an endorphin rush it also there's a lot there was status stuff, there was in group out group stuff, there was lots of psychology behind why it feels good to be part of a cult. And then sometimes their partner was like, Yeah, I'm perfectly happy to exercise. But I'm just going to exercise. Yeah, just, I'm just gonna, like go for a run around for a little bit. And I'm wrong. Like, I'm just, it's good. And so it's not that they didn't both like exercise they did. But they liked it differently. They wanted to inhabit that experience differently. And that to me feels so onpoint for how Yeah, we see people get into these adversarial positions with each other, right? Then one person is, is defending their right to like, what they like the intensity of it, the style of it, the type, and the other person often gets into an equally sort of defensive position. So I think rather than pathologizing, because something's wrong with like, the the actual mismatch, it's mismatch is normal happens all the time. What we do with it, though, is going to have a lot to do with how it feels to be in this particular relational container.

Ken Hamilton
Right. And I'd like to bring into the room right now the idea that it's not a fixed thing, like you said, so yeah. My desires change moment to moment. So how well our desires align. Depends on the moment depends on context depends on so many different things. So it's not just a question of do we both like the same thing, as though that is now answered and true forever,

Joli Hamilton
right? So, yeah, the idea that we would always be perfectly in sync, especially when we're talking about what we want out of our sex or relationship, or like organization, the idea that we would be perfectly in sync all the time. I mean, for one thing, sometimes you're gonna have eaten a bunch of ice cream, and you're lactose intolerant, and you might not want to have sex. Does that qualify for desire mismatch? If if I'm like, super horny, and you're like, Ah, I feel a bubble. Like, I don't I don't think that's usually what people are thinking about what I have seen, and I have felt myself like, even like a little wobble away from alignment can start to feel we can like brew it up in our minds like, well, this is a problem. This is a problem.

Ken Hamilton
So I'm making meaning out of

Joli Hamilton
Yeah. The narrative we tell, the meaning that we make out of the situation will have so much to do with how it winds up playing out. And I think for the purposes of this conversation, talking about the the different ways that we can even discuss desire, like I think right off right off the bat, when I'm thinking about desire, I immediately start thinking about the dual control model of desire. So when we're talking about sexual desire in particular, when Bancroft and Johnson's work came out, I think it kind of just sat in the background for a little bit men, a human being named Emily Nagurski. And her impeccable Sub Pop science writing, she pulled those studies from Bancroft and Jensen out and said, hey, you know what, everybody, we need to understand this, especially people who are in a heteronormative, especially mono normative relationships, we need to understand what the dual control model tells us about desire. So if you're not familiar with Emily, Nick OSCEs work already, I think she has translated the dual control model in a really legible, awesome way. Very interesting that in her books come as you are, and then again, in come together, which is brand new, just came out this past January. And she also has some TED talks that are really well done, and some great podcast episodes out there. So I'm not gonna go super into it. But the bottom line of the dual control model is there's more than one way to be interested in sex. There's just some of us have spontaneous desire. Some of us have what's called responsive desire with spontaneous desire. You just get horny, sometimes you see a thing and you're like, I could fuck that. Here's how I'd want to fuck that. Sometimes. Some people though, have more responsive desire responsive desire is more like I could get in the mood to respond to something I could Yeah, I can I could get in the mood and that point, some desire would ramp up. And those aren't too that's not like an on and off switch. I think of them as a spectrum. Somewhere in there like I'm a little bit more on the responsive side. At this point in my life, I was a little bit more on the spontaneous side my 30s

Ken Hamilton
and so right away we see the the the great potential for differences in desire from from person to person from home. Right

Joli Hamilton
And when we're talking about desire discrepancy in a mono normative paradigm, where we've we've centered the idea that monogamy is the norm and so you need to get your sexual needs met by one person. Desire discrepancy starts to feel real intense real fast. Would you like to speak to seems more like your area of expertise?

Ken Hamilton
Yeah, with it. I have not approached my relationships from a strictly modern or more normative point. But nonetheless, lazy Yes, yes. Let's not know

Joli Hamilton
I mean, you have been like not willing to go out and do the work of meeting other people. So even though you were technically there are you are technically available, you went for whole years where you you also just weren't putting in any effort to find anyone else. So you had this like mono bubble around you for periods of time where you weren't having your sexual needs met. There

Ken Hamilton
are a lot of a lot of reasons why someone might put all their their sexual eggs in one basket. And the and when that happens, there, just the potential for desire differences to magnify to be really, really highlighted. It goes way up, like oh, okay, so now I'm finding that my desire isn't lining up with my my chosen partners. More often than I would like,

Joli Hamilton
which I gotta tell you, that is such an exquisite way to sell flagellate. Like,

Ken Hamilton
oh my goodness, oh, the opportunities for

Joli Hamilton
a person who had a lot of shame around sex, you created this beautiful scenario where you technically speaking had all the rights and privileges to go out and have sex with someone else. But because you also had a whole lot of sexual shame, you could kind of mold her in the, in the IQ of my needs aren't being met, I feel sexually misaligned with my partner. And that must be and I remember hearing you talk about how, like, you making meaning out of like, oh, what I want is is wrong, right? It doesn't align with this person who I'm supposed to align with. So now I get to double down on myself shaming. And I see people all the time imagining that their desire discrepancy is entirely like innate. Like, it's like they're carrying it around with them. And like, it's only First off, we can only recognize the discrepancy. If there are if there's more than one data point, like, you literally need to have.

Ken Hamilton
And if I'm the higher desire partner, right, then I can vary like it is it is, it is no effort at all, to turn that into a story of I'm on Wantable because they don't want sex as much as I do. I must be bad. I was something wrong with me.

Joli Hamilton
Right? I was the higher desire partner in my first marriage. You were the higher desire partner in your first marriage. So we're both now totally screwed. Because we have to fight we have to play tug of war, because both of us want to feel like shit. Because we're unwarrantable. Right? So that's like, like, a basic premise is that like, each of us have a core wound about being something's off some things unwarrantable about us. But we're actually pretty well aligned. By and large, and are. So we have to Yeah, we have to get really creative. People do that all the time to

Ken Hamilton
be the one who gets to beat themselves up about being adaptable,

Joli Hamilton
right, I still like but I see this all the time, son desire discrepancy is really about not understanding how desire works, right. So we should definitely read Emily's books, understand how desire works, understand how to facilitate desire over time, in yourself and in your partners. But I think it's really interesting that desire discrepancy can continually fuel this, this shadow quality that I have this, this, this, this core IQ that clearly some part of me likes feeling, because I am with a partner, who is an anchor partner, so somebody I have lots of access to and lots of time with, who does want me and I still make that story up about myself, like I'm on Wantable. So clearly, some part of me is getting off on that. And now we could have a whole conversation about shadow work and existential kink, I think, let's table that. And we'll we'll do a whole episode on that because I'm actually certified as an existential kink coach, which is kind of ironic because I'm, I'm a union psychologist, I really didn't need that. But there are some helpful techniques. So if you hear yourself reflected in that, keep your eye out we'll do another episode on doing the shadow work. This also desire

Ken Hamilton
is also dovetails into our NSI training. So I'm noticing that right so in, in my my first marriage, I was the high desire partner. So when I felt like my sexual desire wasn't being matched, it would start negative self talk. One of the things that inspires negative self talk is actually the fight reflex from anger. So I was an you have mentioned this in previous podcasts about how I what previous episodes how I was very, like, nice, right? I don't I don't make a lot of like active trouble. I don't start fights. I don't get angry very often. On the outside, but lots of stuff makes me angry. And I'm like, No, I shouldn't I shouldn't be angry, so I won't be angry. Instead, I'll just take this fight reflex and just yell at myself. So

Joli Hamilton
a strong inner critic, is a sign of the critic of the fight response turned inwards.

Ken Hamilton
So I wasn't getting the sex I want made me mad. I was angry. I didn't want to bring it out. I kept it in. Now I'm punishing myself.

Joli Hamilton
Is this where I can also just add in that she knew your for your first spouse. She she knew you were angry. Right? So you weren't doing a great job of Oh, no,

Ken Hamilton
no, no.

Joli Hamilton
I mean, I mean, she and I were friends for a long time, she knew you were angry. And that's where the like, when we try to stuff that stuff down, it doesn't like, oh, yeah, that's gonna come up sideways a bunch of different ways.

Ken Hamilton
So yeah, I, I wasn't doing what I characterized as classic anger. So I must be succeeding, except there were all these other things that were happening that were unpleasant for the people around me. Okay, but I didn't think I was acting angry. So in addition, I had my fight reflex turned inward, multiplying that feeling of I must be bad. So

Joli Hamilton
I appreciate that. We're talking about the different ways that desire differences can feel icky, lately, and that's what I mostly see, I see people feeling achy, and wanting to fix it. And one of the ways that I see people try to fix it, is by saying I'm going to get these needs met by opening my relationship. I wish there was a there is a discrepancy. Someone wants different type of connection, intensity of connection, a different timing of connection, a different frequency of connection, a different context of connection.

Ken Hamilton
And I've heard people ask the question outright. So if I, if I open up my relationship, well, that helped me deal with this desire.

Joli Hamilton
Right? And I mean, I think a frank answer is, it could, but not necessarily. And I think, again, we have a great example of that, because I showed up in your life. I'm horny as hell, and specifically aiming so much energy at you. And that didn't stop you from wanting sex with your other partner.

Ken Hamilton
Right? Not at all. That I was, I was still trying to equalize that that mismatch. equalize that mismatch, what I was trying to, I was still trying,

Joli Hamilton
it was still something you wanted

Ken Hamilton
to fire that

Joli Hamilton
particular person. Yeah, right. And so that I think that's a really important point that is not talked about enough. In this season, we're doing other episodes on getting our needs met and on. Like, what it even means to have your needs met, hoping your partner changes and all of that. So this stuff will all fit together. But the idea that when you get a need met by another person, that doesn't mean that you won't still want that need met from the original person. It does not mean sometimes, so sometimes it does sometimes I've seen people do some really beautiful things around saying you know what, we actually don't wait don't align like wait, let's let's just, let's just look honestly and feel through this, Hey, we don't align whether that's Sexually whether that's in some other way. But hey, you know, what we do? We do still we like maybe we love parenting our children together, or we run a business together. And that's going really well or you know what I like I like living with you. But I don't know whether I had I don't know whether I want to co parent with you like there are a million ways we can align or miss align. But I see so frequently that someone will go they'll make a new connection and think, great. Now I have that need met, but you aren't like, you're not a need pinball machine or I don't like what's, I don't know what the right analogy is like, you. It's, it's not like your need cups just get filled up, like Okay, so you need to have sex. Okay? No, you your needs are contextual inside of a relational dynamic, right. And so I think of you back then it was confusing to me, because I knew that you had not had sex for six years with that person. And I knew that you were mad about that. And I knew that it wasn't working for you. But I also reduced it down to being about the sex, but it was never about the sex not real.

Ken Hamilton
Oh, it wasn't. And you said something a minute ago about the the theoretical situation where two people can knee saying, Okay, so we've got this relationship and our our sexual desires don't line up and the difference is significant enough that maybe we could maybe we can let's talk about it. Let's agree about what we're going to do about that. And there it is. Let's talk about it. Right because you know what? I never did talk about it. So if I could, so I kept going back, even out there, you were definitely providing me with all of the sexual energy that I was looking for.

Joli Hamilton
While I was keeping you busy, pretty much all of the hours that I could get your pants off,

Ken Hamilton
but I was still looking for something from her. Why? Because we'd never had the conversations where we said, so are we gonna like, what are we doing here?

Joli Hamilton
Like, are we retiring this?

Ken Hamilton
Ya know? And. And without that conversation, it's just this, this void.

Joli Hamilton
You know this, this episode is now going to tie in to another episode from this season about justice jealousy, because that actually was an interesting piece of the puzzle, because I watched it as I started to fill your sexual imagination over time. It inspired justice, jealousy, because let's be clear, if I'm certain her needs were not being met by you, either. While you were the high desire partner or like, that's just silly to think that like, there's there are reasons behind that. And to imagine that you have the you had the experience of then watching her desire go up. But then the two of you still didn't want to have to talk about the thing. So the medicine, the primary medicine for desire, differences is actually talking about it. And over a sustained period of time. It's not a one time conversation. No, it is because we're unpacking our shame. We're unpacking usually years of not talking about it, at least months. And often. We're, we're having to come to terms with who we are at the same time that we're trying to make ourselves legible to our partner. So now I'm trying to figure out who I am, how I am, how I have changed. And now how do I communicate this sense of me? And now my partner is over there trying to figure out okay, hey, that's not who you said you were. And sometimes there's a lot of resistance, like we you change the

Ken Hamilton
rules was bait and switch, hang on, right?

Joli Hamilton
And all relationships are as we change, right? We, we can't promise not to change. So

Ken Hamilton
these conversations, get they're complex. And they're ongoing. And they're ongoing. Right? And there are like, you may find yourself resolving one particular complexity. Great, good job. Now on to the next one, right? Because we're humans, we are complex.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah. So one of the things that I usually ask people if they say, okay, so I want to address this desire difference by opening up. I want to ask them, so what do you How are your conversations? Now? How do you talk about these differences? And how do you talk about all the other aspects of your life? You know, if you think about across the board, a lot of times people will tell me, we're great, we're great at communicating, we're awesome at communicating. And then they'll come into the year of opening, and I'll start asking them to have intentional, introspective times for themselves. And then intentional conversations with each other. And I'll model those conversations with you, because you're present in every cohort and a model the conversation and then and then they just don't. And we a few weeks will go by and I'm like, yeah, it you were good at communicating about the things you're good at communicating about. And you thought that that was the that was it. That's what there was. It's all the stuff that you didn't talk about, and all the stuff to

Ken Hamilton
a middle aged white man. So if I wasn't good at it, it's probably not worth being good at. Sorry, everyone.

Joli Hamilton
Okay, so but you need to have the conversations that you don't have, that you don't have the ones that you actively avoid. Those conversations are the ones

Ken Hamilton
that you make assumptions about instead of, but

Joli Hamilton
you're also going to need to have the conversations you don't know you don't have. And that is that's exactly why we do the year of opening. It's exactly why when I'm working with people in in private coaching. I facilitate every one of these conversations like or at least getting them started. I facilitate those conversations, but even then, I can't have the conversation for you. And I can't do the introspection for you. I can draw you out. And so there was a level of coming face to face with the the monsters that got you where you are and those monsters aren't in your partner. They're inside, you know, shadow work that is involved in facing whatever it is that you've been either unwilling or unable to talk about openly. It's enormous. And it's also a huge gift to yourself. Even if you were to take this out of the relational context, the self awareness and this capacity to know who you are, by having these conversations can't be overstated. That is

Ken Hamilton
a major self care, right there.

Joli Hamilton
It is, it is. And then we have to actually get into like, so what what kind of differences can be addressed? And like, all right, in my experience, like almost any difference can be addressed while maintaining a a relationship of some type. But often we have an unmet, like there's an on an imaginary line, it is quite literally, it's imaginary. We imagine it, we imagine this is what a relationship a partnership has to include. It has to include these things. So we have to be willing to do the work of having hard conversations, but also reimagining what we think a relationship is.

Ken Hamilton
Okay, right, there's a couple

Joli Hamilton
that I worked with for quite some time who really struggled because they, they seem to actually have a lot of alignment, tons of alignment. But they were really struggling because they had this like imaginary, they each had an individual imaginary container, like, okay, a relationship has to have, it has to check all these boxes as to do all these things. They did not want all of those things, what a relationship had to have them. And one of the things that they were struggling with was spirituality. Another thing was sexuality. And now I'm thinking this actually just describes half a dozen different couples I worked with just in the last year, and I don't do a ton of private work, I keep that work very exclusive. So it's, it's almost all of the people I worked with over the last couple years, in these tender areas. It's so so challenging. To fully acknowledge that we struggle in certain areas we struggle. We struggle to allow ourselves to let go of what we actually don't. We, we can't we can't come to terms, we can't come into alignment. So maybe we let that part of our relationship go. Or we reimagine what it even means to be in a relationship. And I think those are maybe that's just two different ways of saying the same thing. The the reimagining will often include setting down some things that you previously had taken for granted as Yeah, that has to be part of relationship. Yeah. So there's these two, like we have to if we're not having a sexual relationship, we're not in a relationship. Or if we're, if we're not engaged in a, in a truly emotional, psycho spiritual relationship, and we're not in a relationship, whatever it is for you. We can we can actually renegotiate all of this, but you also don't have to, like I like conversely, you can also decide, you know, what, I don't want, I don't want a relationship with a person who I can't have this particular kind of desire meant, but then you gotta face that. That's you. That's you saying? Yeah, if I can't have this kind of connection with you, I don't want to I don't want a relationship. I think that takes a fair amount of courage to own to own that and not make that like, oh, well, everybody. Everybody has sex in their marriage? No, not everybody. There are perfectly happy sexless marriages. So

Ken Hamilton
I'm hearing you describe the amount of personal responsibility that that these conversations require. Whether you're saying, I do want this, or I don't want this, you have to be willing to say, to say, this is what I want. Yeah,

Joli Hamilton
you have to be willing to name willing to name it. And then there is there's a whole period of time where you're like re acclimating to Okay, so how could we collaborate on creating something that works for all of us?

Ken Hamilton
Yeah, can't because what I like about what you're saying is how the, that personal responsibility, I want this, I don't want this. That can be the start of a conversation about imagining what you want your relationship to look like. Like, it doesn't have to be Oh, now now, I've just I realized I don't want this thing or that I do want this other thing. And those things don't fit into the rules that I have been carrying around about what a relationship is so we can't have a relationship. Well, what if, instead, you, you put the rules down? Just look at each of your actual selves, and see how you fit together.

Joli Hamilton
I mean, I think this is incredibly difficult though, because most of us are operating our relationships on a set of inexplicable, ineffable rules that we've never actually outlined for ourselves, but like, these are the things that we think are normal. And one of them is the normal amount of sex to have. Yep. I mean, that the number of times I have asked someone how frequently they have sex, which is a lead up to a bunch of other questions. And they have told me, the normal amount, just the regular or the regular amount. This also comes up when I'm dating, when I when I venture back into App dating, every time I venture back into App dating, somebody will talk about just you know, liking the regular amount of sex or a lot of sex. And I'm like, I don't

Ken Hamilton
I both of those are equally troublesome. I

Joli Hamilton
don't know what you mean, you're gonna have to either be way more specific, or I don't, I don't know, learn how to telepathically give me more information. It's, there is no normal amount of sex. There is no normal type of sex. There's so much variety here. So when we're talking about desire discrepancy, often it is this mix of all these differences that we aren't even totally sure how to describe to ourselves. So if I can use you as an example, it was type and frequency and intensity all going on for you. Right? That's yeah. Okay. So you wanted to you want a different types of sex, you wanted different intensities of sex, you want a different frequency of sex? So in my first marriage, yeah, I wanted a different, mostly frequency. I was really I was really hung up on frequency. I was the higher desire partner, and I had already sacrificed and said, like, fine, I don't like kissing. I don't like foreplay. Neither of those is true. But I had convinced myself that that was true, so that I could make it about this one simple thing. Okay, let's just boil it down to frequency. Like I thought if I made the discrepancy smaller in like the the points of contention in negotiation smaller, that that would somehow make the problem easier to solve. But it didn't, because the problem was about our kind of our ability to connect our ability to actually be with each other as we were. There were a million other problems, but we didn't know how to either of us, I think you and I didn't know how to approach with real vulnerable, like, oh, this might, you know, I don't think this is going to work for me. And that's the other piece of the, of really facing desire discrepancy is, yeah, what if it doesn't work for you? Does that mean that the whole relationship has to get thrown out? Or does that mean that you're willing to renegotiate? And just bust open all of those unwritten rules you have for yourself? Because those rules are completely made up? They are based in cultural norms. Absolutely. But there is that there's, there's no rulebook, there's

Ken Hamilton
no external standard. There's our culture. Yes. But they're not since

Joli Hamilton
we have no sex education. That basically means there's no rules. Yeah, there is no rule. There. When did you Oh, go ahead.

Ken Hamilton
Well, you you had said, okay, so that you, you theorized that my experience was that I wasn't getting the type, frequency or intensity that I wanted. And in retrospect, that's true. In the moment, I wasn't imagining things that it to that level of complexity. Because in the rules for that relationship that I was in, really the only thing that I could talk about, if which, you know, I didn't, was frequency, the idea that there were intensities and types. Well, you didn't come up. I'm

Joli Hamilton
guessing that you did talk about frequency a little bit. Like, yeah,

Ken Hamilton
but not enough to consider it an ongoing converse to the kind of ongoing conversation that we would have needed to actually get anywhere. All we did was notice it. Not really conversation so much as a mention.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, no, I mean, noticing is important. It is

Ken Hamilton
a good first step.

Joli Hamilton
And so when we are avoiding the conversations that are hard for us, because there's no such thing as an objectively hard conversation, it's just about how hard it is for you. because I don't have any trouble talking about sex with you, except when I do, right, like anything we can, we can have a hard conversation with anyone about anything. When I, when I think about what it is to have those hard conversations, I also think about how I'm looking for an outcome. I'm hoping for a new agreement. I'm hoping for us to come to some new conclusion that will allow me to get more of what I want, while hopefully not feeling manipulative, or coercive to you. And this is this tender stuff.

Ken Hamilton
It can be very tender stuff. And you just said something about me, I'm looking looking for a an outcome of a new agreement. Do you know what your old agreement is? Have you actually talked about

Joli Hamilton
it right and split and be clear about this specific subject? This subject? Yeah, because a lot of us do have some kind of agreement, though. Not as many people have them, you know, like, actually clarified and, and codified, but we have some agreements, but often, this was the unmentionable thing the whole time. Right. And I would say, in my, my experience, that there was no agreement about sex. There, certainly, and it didn't feel like a thing that was okay to have an agreement about because what I wanted was more frequency. And that felt manipulative, like just to even say I want more frequency felt like I was being like, I was asking something for asking for something that should only be freely offered.

Ken Hamilton
Okay, yeah, I get okay. And that that point? That was part of why I never talked about it. about any of that on my side. Yeah. I felt like no, it should be. It should just happen organically.

Joli Hamilton
And I think that might be born a little bit of the pre nascent. Before they were even nascent conversations on consent. Yeah. So you grew up in the 80s. I grew up in the 90s. And we weren't having consent conversations. I don't remember anyone even using that word. No, I'm certainly not during my teenage years, I think I was in my late 20s, early 30s. Before I heard that word, probably my early 30s. So think that, like, coming of age and setting our sexual scripts at a time when we just didn't have language to talk about consent? But I think we did want to behave kindly to our partners. And so then, yeah, like, instead of offering, we decide not to ask, like it, like if it's not being freely offered, we decide not to ask because that's the only thing to do, because we can't get consent any other way. Because basically, if the sex doesn't just fall on us, then it we might be doing something wrong. And I was at an advantage there. So as a cisgender woman, a relatively small bodied, cisgender woman in a monogamous marriage at the time, I was much less likely to be accused of being coercive or worse, in in pressuring someone for sex. So I did, I definitely pressured for sex. And I in ways that I would never do now, I had no idea that that I had no idea what that meant to be putting that pressure on someone, but also on the on the other end of that spectrum, you never did. And you never, you never pressured you never asked. And so we were at opposite ends of a spectrum, neither of which is actually giving our partners the full autonomy that they deserve. Yes, and not honoring our actual needs. And that to me, I still see that I see that playing out. All that like just constantly and I think it plays out within us as well. This isn't just an inter partner thing. This is an intra personal thing, where I may have parts that are so unmoored from wanting lots of sex and then I have other parts of me that are like tangled up twisted in shame struggling with religious guilt, purity culture, a million different reasons or shame about my kinks or confusion about what my kinks means are my attraction means you know, if all that's going on inside I can have desire discrepancy happening in here. So if you want to go to parts theory, or complex experience, like, if I've got that going on in here, and now I come to you, it is so much easier for me to project, all of that shame and bullshit and all of that out on to you. And CO create a situation where basically we are having a constant, low level argument about desire, because it keeps us it keeps the whole system in check. Like, it's like, okay, well just kind of be an ongoing issue. Because we're dealing with our inside stuff, either. I'm not dealing with the fact that I do have all of this pleasure phobia, I do have sex negative attitudes, I do have problems understanding what I need, or want sexually what or how to how to even talk about that. projecting onto my partner that that they don't want sex is one way to control that to manage that pain.

Ken Hamilton
So this is, this isn't quite where I thought this conversation was going to end up going. But I mean, it does an important part of desire mismatch is consent. I mean, if if there's a desire mismatch, it means somebody doesn't want frequency type intensity, to the same level that somebody else does, which means you need to have a consent conversation about what you're actually going to be doing. Right? And that consent runs through all of it. Right, right down to what you were just saying about. Okay, so So do I even just talking about it? Like, can we can we talk about this?

Joli Hamilton
And then words can we use? What words can we so there's actually I have a whole handout on like, what what words are okay for you? Do you have some words that are just like a no fly zone for you? Like, please don't use these words, yet. Just getting into the most rudimentary pieces of Yep. Can we talk about sex? Okay, what words can we use? Or what words are going to cause some kind of response that I can't manage? And that doesn't mean I shouldn't or can't work on that, that trigger response, but like, what words might shut me down? And then what are we talking about? Because we haven't even touched the fact that we haven't even defined what sex talked about

Ken Hamilton
what sex is? Uh huh.

Joli Hamilton
Like, what does that even mean? So, for that matter, what does kink mean? There's no, like, there is no arbiter of what these things are. So

Ken Hamilton
these are complex conversations, without question, and every single little bitty part of these complicated conversations are opportunities to learn more about each other. at a, at a deeper level as you're willing to go, and to learn about yourself. And in the process, learn about yourself so that your partner can learn about you. It's

Joli Hamilton
just I mean, that it's, but you know, what, if I were to go back in time, I actually I feel I feel very complete and, and, and happy that I am no longer with my first spouse. We were not suited for each other in a bunch of ways. But more importantly, the me who exists now couldn't exist in that context. It just was not possible. And, and yet, if I had challenged myself, to have these conversations for me, entirely, like for me, so I could know myself. He would have benefited. That's true. But it wouldn't it would have been such a gift to myself to say, Yeah, this is it is breaking the unwritten rules of relationship for, for me to insist that we have these conversations. But I got to know me. And if my partner then really wasn't available to have those conversations, and I did push for the conversations, but he wasn't available for them. I wish I hadn't stopped the self discovery. Because I like I like squoze Elliott, I don't know the right word like I, I squished that discovery process down to try to make it about getting something from him. It was It wasn't about that it was never about that. I didn't know what I wanted. What I needed. I didn't know it was so much easier for me to make it about what he wouldn't give me. And it's, it's so irrelevant. That just feels so silly from this perspective. 15 years later, I'm like, That's just who cares? It just doesn't matter. But at the time, but it does matter to me that I didn't know my 30 year old self didn't know what she wanted. Not really. She just reduced it down to like frequency of fucking I'm like, really? What? That doesn't even make any sense, by the metric that this grown up person that I am now is. I wonder what I'll think about that in 15 years, right? Yeah. Right now I'm like, that wasn't even that wasn't even the question.

Ken Hamilton
So it's a conversation that even honestly, so what you're describing is a conversation that doesn't need to be started because there's a desire mismatch. Yeah, just an investigation, about desires about how all this works for yourself and your partners. And

Joli Hamilton
you know, at the beginning of the conversation, I started saying, like, it could also be about the structure and we didn't really go into that we could have another separate conversation about when the desire mismatch is about the number of partners that you want to have, or whether you want to be polyamorous or whether you're maybe okay with swinging but not okay with polyamory, whatever that is. But it is, it is all going to revolve around getting clear on what your assumptions are. So that's all individuation work, all all of that like understanding what the what rules you've been abiding by, because you think some unconscious aspects of you think that's just what's normal. That's just what what is. And if you do want to negotiate around your sex life, those are important conversations to have if you want to negotiate around your relationship structure. That's a huge gift to your partner. But it might not feel like it to them. So let's remember that when you said this is an ongoing conversation Yeah, these conversations sometimes take years Right? To really unpack everything that was unsaid. So depending on especially how established your relationship norms are, I mean I it's making me think of what I used to say when I was a child birth doula about you know, took you nine months to grow a baby, it's going to take nine months to start feeling like you are have your your legs back and your and your yourself back and like, Oh, who am I now? Right? The longer those problems brewed, the longer it will take to figure out okay, who am I now? And I think that's the norm that's that's completely normal. Thanks for having a complicated and nuanced conversation with me. I'm gonna I want to pick this up and have a follow up conversation about shifting relationship structures and the desire discrepancy that that can be. All right. Thank you.