Do You Need To Know Your Needs Before Entering Into A New Relationship?

How can you figure out your own needs are? Find out with Reid Mihalko from http://www.ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com.

Cathy: Someone wrote in and said, “When I was newly single after divorce I had all these men flocking to me and I was like having all kinds of hot poly kinky play, everything I dreamed of and then some I met someone special and we turned to monogamy when I realized I was sort of passing my energy around and feeling drained and I wanted to return the container of relationship focus and commitment. A year insecurities given way to frustration, I feel invisible, sexually shut down, defaulting to my partner's vanilla, and wanting desperately to be seen as new. I can't determine if what I'm craving has to do with my needs not being fully sexual and not being met sexually in my relationship or am I just a woman who needs new relationship energy or stranger sex periodically to thrive or is widely be seen code for I just need to double down and work on the self-love before I go asking for an open relationship... EEck, what do I do?”

Reid: Oh my god, this is amazing!

Cathy: Yes.

Reid: You are all such smart human beings

Cathy: You’re wonderful

Reid: who write us these amazing things

Cathy: They really are

Reid: I am sitting here with Cathy Vartuli of http://theintimacydojo.com/

Cathy: And I'm here with Reid Mihalko from http://reidaboutsex.com/

Reid: Excellent

Cathy: Yeah and I think...

Reid: We…we agreed that we're sitting with each other.

Cathy: that’s often

Reid: This is important.

Cathy: It's good to start with basics.

Reid: Okay and we agreed that this is a great share. Please keep

Cathy: Yes

Reid: sending stuff to us

Cathy: Yeah, no these are wonderful. I love the vulnerability and the…and the question.

Reid: Alright, solve their problem. In two sentences, go!

Cathy: Two sentences. I think one, humans need different things at different times. So I…I was brought up that you're kind of you're you are who you are, that's how you were born, that's what you want but as I've gone through my life there were times where I’ve explored with kink and then there were times I didn't want kink and they were…I think people are allowed to have variation in what they want to experience and what leaves them fulfilled. So just because last year you wanted something doesn't mean this year you can't want something else or today and tomorrow you can want different things.
So first just giving yourself permission to have different needs at different times and perhaps talking to your partner about exploring outside a vanilla or exploring within vanilla if that’s all that partner’s want willing to do might go towards helping you understand where your needs can get met within the existing agreement and then also just being really clear that “Okay maybe I do like a new relationship energy or a stranger sex sometimes.” There's nothing wrong with that. I think doing the work on self-love is always useful, always valuable but it doesn't change what are we prefer sexually or what our body might be asking for unless it's something we're using to escape who we are I think. I love your thoughts on that.

Reid: So first off, some of your questions are so awesome and like go don't just take our advice for it

Cathy: Yeah

Reid: Go find other support maybe get a therapist, couples counseling, all kinds of stuff, right? Because none of that has to be the…the death knell that something's wrong.

Cathy: Yeah

Reid: So that just, just, just say that. I, for this conversation or this email, right? Because it was very it seemed like this was not somebody writing who was just having their sexual renaissance like there's a lot of thought and a lot of complex things that have been articulated in this email. So I'm going to give a really simple bit of advice that's actually quite complex and my…my answer is to look at life from a Yes, And perspective. Yes, And traditionally comes from or where I found it first was in the improv comedy world where the secret to improv comedy is to always be yes and so you never negate to something that's…that's already been established, okay? This is pretty actually I'm kind of proud that I came up with this. I didn't come up with this but like how I'm applying it right ‘coz I'm like “Oh like this is actually this is this is interesting advice.” So yes you have a monogamous relationship and you might need other things.

Cathy: Role playing with your partner on new sex or stranger sex or it might work or

Reid: Who knows? But it also might fall under the category of monogamous relationship and I need non-monogamous things. So for me as somebody who…who coaches people through this kind of stuff, right?