53: Let's Talk About Sex, Substance Abuse, and Safety. Interview With Matt Salis

Matt Salis shares his knowledge of sexual health and how it interacts with addiction. 

 We also talk about sexual desire discrepancies and what you can do about them.

 And what’s something that can get you more sex?

The Untoxicated Podcast.

Echos of Recovery & Shout Sobriety

Transcript

0:00

Hey, what's everyone. Today. I have a really cool interview. Matt St. Lists, who is a friend. And I used to work with him years ago at his and his wife's bakery. And, Matt was a really cool boss. so I know he was really into, uh, us employees being on time. Never did less. We were cool. And we worked together and then I found out he was sober and he was becoming sober at the same time. I started to be. And so we met, we had munch and then we decided to start a podcast together. And that podcast was and still is called the intoxicated podcast. I'm going to link in the show notes. It's a really good podcast. He and his wife, Sherry are currently releasing episodes weekly. And the podcast is about addiction and relationships. I'm no longer part of the podcast I bailed. Um, and then I did buy this really good microphone. Matt kept it as a result of me baling, but you can tell he's still using that quality microphone and his sound quality on the interview as much better than mine. Because the day for the interview, I left my good one at home. Nevertheless. Today, Matt and I, we talk about substance abuse, sex building, back trust. And then we focus again primarily on the topic of sex. And Matt is in the middle of a master's degree program in sexual health at the university of Minnesota. I mean, shares his knowledge and wisdom with us. It's a great interview. Welcome to solving disconnection and creating connected relationships for couples and parents. My name is Jason Polk and I've been a couples therapist for over 10 years, and I love helping couples get along better. Now let's hear from Matt, what is he up to and why does he do it?

Matt: 1:49

in a master's degree program at the University of Minnesota in Sexual Health. Because, think the sexual intimacy, sexual relationship component, of relationships and recovery is so, so, so important. and here's another area where what we have seen, didn't really ask the questions on this, so sorry if I'm going No, go with the sex. Let's talk about sex. Um. So, so, again, there are kind of two ways that this works in an alcoholic relationship. Uh, what happened in our case was continued to have sexual relations, even as I was, drinking abusively, and I became, just tremendously unattractive to my wife because of the alcohol, there's still things that I wouldn't call Universalisms. But there are trends that we notice. And so, one of those trends is that the men that we work with tend to Think attraction has to do with physical appearance and that ship has long Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. married and have kids. Like if you think that woman is still with you because you go to the gym, you're freaking nuts, man. Um, about creating this safe environment. So when our environment wasn't safe anymore because of my drinking and my gaslighting and my calling her names and my making it, uh, making her walk on eggshells.'cause she never knew what to expect. I was just ridiculously unattractive to her. in order to avoid, avoid the conflict that would come from, uh, sex all the time, we did continue to engage in sex. So it was consented. I never, you know, I never crossed the consent line, but it wasn't enthusiastic consent. It was, you know, it was, I'm going to do this. So that I can keep from staying up all night, hearing him complain about the fact that I never have sex or so that I, you know, one of the things she said often on the podcast is just heartbreaking, is sometimes she would con consent to sexual contact so that, uh, I would go to sleep, I'd pass out afterwards and I wouldn't wake up the kids, complaining about the fact that we didn't have enough sex. So one of the two paths that is common, Is continued sexual activity,,in active addiction. The other one is for it to completely dry up, and sometimes this is mutual. It's not always just the non substance using partner. either way, it often just, sex is a, it just becomes a, something we don't even talk about. Don't even consider. It's just not part of it. And so when you enter recovery, I'm a believer. That first of all, in relationship recovery, trust is the hardest thing to win back when you've been through something traumatic, like alcoholism. I think this probably also applies to infidelity. you know, there are lots of other things that this probably applies to. winning the trust back is the hardest component, and I think linked to the trust is intimacy. It is virtually impossible for some, uh, two people can have sex when there's not trust. That's not a problem. But to have feelings for each other, emotional intimacy, that is basically impossible when there's not trust. Hmm. one of the things that we talk a lot about on the podcast and that we work on in our own relationship and that we talk through with people, with other people, is this idea that, a mutual work thing be done. Trust leads to intimacy, but can lead to trust as well. So working on that emotionally intimate part of the relationship, being vulnerable with each other, being physically intimate with each other, be again, that's the ultimate vulnerability, right? getting naked and lying next to someone and trusting them. With your soul, your physicality, your men mental state, everything. That's kind of the ultimate, in vulnerability. And so working through to the point where you can do that not only comes from trust, but it also helps build trust so that the trust Hmm. carry over into everyday life. Um, so that's a big part of, uh, kind of the direction we're going now. The reason I'm in this master's program is through our peer support, through our podcast, through working with couples, we can get people to talk about anything alcohol related, but as soon as we start talking about sex or intimacy, people typically get, get pretty shy. And so I needed kind of formal education to continue develop,, our knowledge in that area because, people are less forthcoming with their experiences as it relates to intimacy than they are as it relates to alcoholism. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Hundred percent. This comes up a lot, in my practice, And with my audience desire discrepancies let's assume things are generally safe and one partner wants more sex than the other. Right? I know it's a very general question. There's not too many details., I guess how do you work with that? Or like what's, what are your thoughts? Well, th this is an area where, this degree program has come in super handy. I think it's really interesting. I've read, so I've read all the, these research studies now, right?'cause I'm in Mm-Hmm. you know, flying blind, right? And talking to people, And one of the studies that I don't think it gets a lot of attention, but is super interesting to me, is that male is directly relink to survival of the species, right? Orgasm and ejaculation are not technically exactly the same thing, but. Uh, 99% of the time man orgasms, he gives off sperm, right? so, the fact that typically, again, not always, again, goes both ways, but Mm-Hmm. The male has,, the higher libido. It just makes or, Uh, even if you're a creationist, it, it makes yeah. Yeah. the, that for the man to have sex is necessary for the, for survival of the species. a woman to orgasm is not, has nothing to do with the survival of the species, this one area for a woman to orgasm usually takes a high degree of trust and vulnerability. if the woman is sexually satisfied, then she's probably with a pretty upstanding. dude who's, or, you know, obviously we, there's all kinds of different sexual orientations and gender identities, and I don't want to exclude, but most of the work that we do is in a really hetero, heteronormative, you know, area. so for a woman to orgasm, um, she needs to really trust this guy. The emotional and mental, that goes along with the physiological. Now certainly, there, there's lots of research that proves that women can block all that out and they can orgasm anyway. Um, but for kind of the natural state of things, be in a, a situation where they can be stimulated to orgasm, they have to be relaxed and trusting. And so their part of the natural selection process, the female part of continuing of the species and pleasure being an important component of that is IM it with somebody that I feel safe with. And if I do, then I can relax and enjoy it. And then, you know, the desire discrepancy is, is still an issue because desire and pleasure and orgasm are not the same thing. But now, you know, when you're in this situation where the orgasm gap is narrowing and there's a lot of trust, the emotional intimacy is being built in the relationship, then it's a lot easier for couples. And, I draw on my own personal experience first before then we've kind of related and found that other couples are in similar situations. Then it's a lot easier for my wife, for instance, who has a lower libido than me to still, look forward to sex and, understand that maybe, she isn't thinking about it all day the way I am and looking forward to. To getting in bed at night, but she still knows she's gonna get a lot out of it. She's gonna feel warmth and connection and trust, and she's gonna be care of. And she's, she's not gonna be put in any situations that make her uncomfortable. And so, the desire discrepancy becomes less of a factor there's still something in it for her. are you, are you from Yeah, I'm sure you are. Are you're familiar with Esther Perel and her work? Yeah. Yeah. I'm a huge Esther Perel fan, one of the things that she talked about is, desire or arousal, actually arousal's the better term for as after they've been in a relationship for a long time is often, you know, it's not instinctual. It takes a little bit of work but if you know that it'll come and that arousal will be followed by pleasure. Um, then there's something in it for both parties and it makes kind of negotiating around desire discrepancies, a more kind of doable thing. The other thing I'll say, oh my God, Jason, we are so, we so under communicate when it comes to relationships in a general way, but definitely when it comes to sex, expect our partners to be mind readers. We expect them to know what we want and when we're gonna want it, and how we're gonna want it. And we've been taught from an early age that conversations about sex and sexual activity, taboo. And if we can just break through that, I'll tell you, my wife and I talk about sex every single night. not a long conversation. But it's often, Hey, what are you interested in? And, you know, we know each other really well at this point. And I can often say, Hey, I can tell you were having trouble with one of our kids leading up to bedtime. And you guys were in a heated discussion about something. And I know that, uh, hits the brakes to use a term by Emily Naski, Yeah. Who, is the author of the bestseller. Come as You Are. She talks about, uh, arousal and desire and there being breaks for those me, there are very few breaks for me. Like I can have sex naked in a cornfield and I'm good to go, but there are lots of things that make it undesirable for my wife. And that's a very typical relationship situation to be in. And so if she's had a stressful situation with one of the kids when we go to bed, I know that's really, it's off the table for tonight and I need to be, I. Mature in understanding get that, and get that just because that discussion with one of our kids didn't bother me. Doesn't mean it, it didn't bother her. And so communicating, like I said, every night, and some nights I'll say, listen, I really would like to have some kind of sexual contact tonight. For whatever reason the wind blew just right today. But I, I feel a stronger need than normal. And um, know, she will enthusiastically consent, not because her desire is there, but because is in a partnership with somebody and, she wants to meet me halfway. When other times I say, you know, I could take it or leave it. And she'll say, well, you know, I really would like to leave it. And I'll say, great. But if we don't have that conversation, then we both lay there wondering what each other's Yeah, totally. frustrated'cause I'm not getting enough. She's getting frustrated'cause she feels like she constantly has to, give in. And then we have what we call big nights, which is, the object of a big night is her sexual which it takes longer. more of a process. But it's awesome, man. I love big nights, but you know, you can't go to bed at 1130 at night when you've got kids and, and job and Yeah. expect that. So we have to kind of plan for that. And if you're not communicating, then you're not planning for it. And I think a lot of the frustration in relationships just comes from a lack of communication. Do you see that in your practice? Yeah, let me share, the frame that I got for desire discrepancies is kind of what exactly what you were talking about. Usually I'm just gonna say, hetero-normative couple here, you know, the male partner wants more sex, the female partner maybe as kids. It's like, oh my God, I'm touched out. I just can't, I'm like, just so drained at the end of the day. And also maybe she feels like she's doing everything she may feel, you know, disconnected emotionally from their partner. And so generally, I hear this from the female partner, I would be more open to sex if we had more of emotional connection. Right. Which another way of saying it is if, if the relationship feels safer. Yeah. If I know you, if you are sharing your vulnerabilities, and the problem is the male partners, usually I feel emotional connection when we have sex, right? Sometimes it's even associated with worth, right? When we don't have sex, I think that I'm a piece of crap, right? Is the male partner, Mm-Hmm. and so we gotta make that explicit, right? We gotta get that out there, right? Exactly what you're talking about. Talking about it. And then I think a safe place to start is with the emotional connection, right? Start sharing more. And then someone shared this analogy, just kind of looking at it as like, a wedding cake. The first tier is emotional connection. And then when there's more of that, then you can put physical connection. I'm not talking about sex, however you define it, and then you're able to put sex on top of that. But once that is there, then simply the idea of talking about sex. And you mentioned the brakes, right? The accelerators. Um, having that conversation, I throw it out there, what do you guys think about scheduling sex? Right? Whatever. It works. But the more there's safety and they're talking about it, the better. So I don't know if that answered your question. Well, yeah. So many things that you just said. I totally relate to. I think Disney and the Hallmark Channel have done a huge disservice to our society Hmm. by creating these fantasies that we are just gonna read each other's mind and. No, stand in front of the fireplace and wanna rip each other's clothes off. Once you've got kids and jobs and you got a few years under the belt, that ship has sailed. That is not gonna happen Um, there's also relatively recent research that I've read that talks about there's a nurturing chemical that they've identified, a nurturing hor hormone that kind of clicks on in a female's brain, uh, once she becomes pregnant and it never clicks off again. And so Uh another huge barrier that we had to work through in our relationship is I needed to understand that we, so we have four kids. mm-Hmm. My relationship with my kids is different than my wife's relationship with the kid, the kids. And two relationships with the kids make my relationship with my wife different than my wife's relationship with me. Very confusing. I know, but. Basically, here's what it boils down to, because of this nurturing hormone, um, because she gave birth to them. My wife thinks about our kids all the time when my kids are not in the room with me. Maybe this makes me a bad father, but, but I know there's a lot of us out there that feel this way when my kids aren't in the room with me, I'm not thinking about'em. And, we can go long periods of time in this kind of area where like, if we go away for the weekend, don't think about him at all. And my wife thinks about him all the time. And so I have had to come to grips with as, not only a father, but al also as the husband to my wife. I've had to come to grips with the fact that my, my kids are her first priority. And I have acknowledged she is my first priority. Uh, the way it's supposed to be, man. I think yeah. mutual and family unit, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. And I've run into it over and over and over and over again with the people that we've met. when I expect her to prioritize me or our sex life or our intimacy, or our connection or any of that stuff over my kids, I'm crazy man. All I'm doing throwing wedges into the relationship. It has been profoundly impactful on our relationship for me to recognize she is always gonna choose them over me. And that's okay. And actually I want that because I want my kids to have a mother like that. I want them to have this, um, protector to that degree, right? Because I know I'm gonna protect her and ultimately I'm gonna protect everybody. Um, not trying to be all masculine male, like I swing a big sword kind of a thing. But, by prioritizing her when she's prioritizing them, think there's a lot of Cohesiveness and a lot of stability to that kind of structure. And I think it happens naturally and we wanna resist,'cause we want to talk about equality everything's the same. You know, one of the, one of the biggest problems, going back to my hatred of the, the wedding vows, here's kind of a side hatred. I hate the fact that, people refer to their, the love in their marriages as unconditional love. I think that's complete crap. think by definition, marriage is a, and re and romantic relationship is conditioned love. I chose you because there were things about you that I liked. You chose me'cause there were things about you that you liked, things about me that you liked. We have set these conditions and we've bonded ourselves together. The love that I, that I feel for my kids, and certainly the love my wife feels for my kids is totally different. That's unconditional. They could come, and uh, hit her in the knee with a baseball bat and she'd still love'em. So we do a disservice when we wanna, just kinda say, I need to love you as much as you love me. And we, we, we co-parent equally. We co-parent for sure, but we have different we need to acknowledge it's okay. Like it does so much good for our relationship that I know that she's gonna pick them over me because yeah, yeah. For sure. grips with that and I can deal with it. Does that Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, let me share too, the more we can. Make it less about us, the better. And for example, one time my wife and I, we went on a, a just a couple years ago, I guess now we went to Florida and the kids were with my parents and we had a week. And so in my mind I'm thinking like, you know, we're gonna be together and own, we're gonna have crazy sex all day. Go to the beach. Beach, right. And, you know, we were intimate, right? We had sex, but,, not how I was envisioning. And we talked about it and she was like, Hey Jason, after the birth of our kids, like, I feel like my body is just totally foreign to me, right? And I've been having like body issues and as a result, it's hard for me to. Be more open to sex. Right. We would say that would be a break, I guess we would say. And when I heard that, it was like, oh, wow. Right. We had emotional intimacy there. And as a result, I made it less about me. Right. It doesn't mean I'm not gonna give up and be like, oh, I'm never gonna have sex. You know, we're gonna talk about it. But still that was really important. Kind of like what you were saying about her first priority is always the kids, not me. You know? I think fundamentally the more we know it's not about you. Right? Yeah. Well, it, that's right. It changes the relationship. This is someone you love, so now you can have empathy for this thing she's struggling with, to saying, you know, she's just withholding'cause she's mean, or Mm-Hmm.'cause she's stubborn. Or any number of reasons. You know, back to this whole natural selection, this whole survival of the species topic. What she's experiencing makes total sense to me on just a logical standpoint, right? She has had babies, has done her job for survival of the species. if sex is related to that, her subconscious, in her, you know, the part of her brain that she can't access, she's checked it off the list. Why would she ever wanna have sex again? Like, honestly, I think of it like, I'm lucky that she ever wants to have sex with me. She had her baby, she did her thing. it's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Nice., around I, I, I'm not on my wife or Yeah. not, it's not like that, but like, Hey, my sperm doesn't know we had a baby. My sperm wants to keep going. I've had a vasectomy and my sperm still thinks it's got some, some role That's funny. That's funny. Oh my gosh. I wanna, I wanna go back to the desired discrepancy Mm-Hmm. I wanna add one more thing that I think is so important and something that when I learned it, it changed my relationship with my wife, it changed our intimate relationship. Uh, back to Belgian American psychotherapist, Esther Perel, who is an expert in this field, she has kind of a cute way of saying this, but I think there's a lot of truth to it. She talks about how foreplay, foreplay me, you know, starts with, maybe a little shoulder massage when we get in bed, right? Foreplay for my wife. And I think many women, most women, you know, dare I even say, starts at the end of the previous orgasm, says Esther Perel. So what happens during the day more to do with the likelihood of an intimate encounter, a physical, intimate encounter in bed at night the things that actually happen in bed. I can all of a sudden turn on the charm and start rubbing her neck. But listen, the ship has sailed. If I was grouchy with her earlier or I forgot to do something she asked me to do, or you know, I left a pile of clothes, dirty clothes on the floor, like that is gonna have a bigger impact on desire discrepancy most Just being kind of partner that our partners want,, in kind of a long term. And just always, you know, it's easy, right? You're in relationship with this person. You're around'em all the time. It's easy to get short and snippy and think I didn't do anything wrong. I was just trying to expedite the communication by not listening to your whole statement before I responded to it. Right? it's been very impactful on me to recognize how much that relates to her intimate feelings toward me. Hmm. every time I cut her off and finish her sentence for her, or don't really listen,'cause I'm watching the football game, um, that has a huge impact on the bedroom. know what I mean? Yeah, if, and most, I think most men don't have any But what you're saying though is so important, and I coach people a lot in this, look at your side of the seesaw. Right. You know, but also in a way on that, I always encourage people, to identify what you want and think of it. What can I do on my side to allow my partner to do said behavior, right? It may not work and that's okay. Right? But kind of what you were talking about, looking at your side of the seesaw, it's so important because as a couples therapists, I see a lot the blame. Gosh, you just need to do blank, blank, blank, blank. Okay, well slow down. Let's think about what can you do. And Like you can't get anyone to do anything. They may do it, but then there's resentment and it's gonna come back later. But what can you do on your side? Which boils down to the more you can have the relationship be a safe environment. Yeah. Trust. Trust space for vulnerability, right? You're putting yourself in the best position and also being okay with it too. If my wife says no to sex, you know, I may not like it in beginning, but I'm gonna be okay, right? The relationship's not doomed. I'm not a piece of crap. yeah. You know, um, a another just kind of profound game changer for us in our relationship was when I stopped because you just, you just talked about how you can't change people. I stopped looking at the things that my wife was not capable of doing and tried to make her capable of doing those things. to basically berate her into doing the things I wanted her to do. I stopped looking at it that way and started curiosity and empathy and started saying, why can't she do that? There's gotta Hmm. something. Maybe it's from when I was an active alcoholic. Maybe it is from her childhood, because I kind of made light of it earlier, but she did grow up with an alcoholic mother did get divorced twice. there is, this like, like attachment theory stuff. Maybe Yeah. something. So a, a tangible example in our relationship. My wife really struggles to initiate, like now that we talk about sex every night, it's kind of a mutual discussion. that, even if she did have desire, even if she wanted to have sex, she really couldn't initiate it. Like she just doesn't have that tool in her toolbox. than me getting all hurted up about that, right, I. You know, um, why do I always have to be the one to initiate? It makes me feel'cause I'm always the one initiating, which I think is a super common, uh, complaint Mm-Hmm. than, uh, getting, getting all bent up about that. say, I don't know what the reason is, but she can't do it. Mm-Hmm. can't do it. Yeah. I can spend the next 50 years being mad about that, on a, a once a week basis or whatever, or once a month basis, or I can acknowledge it just isn't happening. Yeah. are things I can't do either. You know, Yeah. there's, there's stuff that she,, you from a parenting perspective or whatever, stuff there, I'm a pretty good listener now, but I'll never be as good a listener as she wants me to be. It's just never gonna happen as hard Yeah, yeah, cut me a little slack and say, you know, he's doing his best and that's yeah, totally. I agree that this quote came to mind from, uh, my mentor, Terry Real, and he talks about can I grieve the fact that I'm not getting blank, right? Which maybe, in terms of cleanliness, in terms of, you know, money spending, money, one person is spend there, one person is saver. There's all differences, right? I'm kind of more of a clean person, my wife less so let's say to clean. Can I grieve the fact my wife may not always put the coats in the closet, right? Yes, I can agree that. While I'm accepting what I am getting, right, you know, this comes back around to this whole self-esteem issue. The better I feel about myself, the more I don't care whether the coats are in the closet or Uh, You know, the better about myself, the more I don't care that she doesn't initiate sex and that it's gotta be this. Awkward discussion every night, which isn't awkward anymore, but it was awkward first, you know? And Yeah. Yeah. gotta talk about, I want her to mind read, but she And so the better I feel about myself, the more, and, and you know, self-esteem is not arrogance. It's not narcissism. Those are bad things and those are different things. Self-esteem is just, know, I'm satisfied, man. I did my best. I had these encounters today and they went okay, and this one didn't go so well. And I'll try to do better next time. And I feel pretty good about myself. And I don't need to medicate with substances. I don't need to medicate with sex. I don't need to medicate by making sure my wife does things my way because I can't handle it if she doesn't. And so this all wraps back around to self-esteem, you know

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So if you want to know more about Matt. And you want to hear more of his wisdom, check out the intoxicated podcast. And as I mentioned, there'll be a link in the show notes and he does that with his wife, Sherry. Also, I'm gonna leave a link for his book, sober evolution, as well as the different programs on this name, them echoes of recovery. And shout sobriety and I'll leave links to all that. And again, thank you so much for listening.