The Problem With Makeup Sex

Hey everyone! I’m Jenny Hale and you’re watching my truth bomb series – a series of short videos about relationships advice that’s problematic, why it’s problematic and where the truth really lies.

Today I’d like to talk about “makeup sex”.

There’s a school of thought which has this picture of an ideal relationship being a really passionate relationship. The kind of relationship where something happens, everyone gets angry, and they yell and they carry on, and then at some point the passion of the anger just turns into sexual passion.

Then they have this ravishing amazing passionate sex, and then everything’s OK. Now it works in the movies … doesn’t work so much in real life.

Even if you have the flaming row and the argument, and then you go away and calm down, and you come back together, and then you have the passionate makeup sex (which is a bit more common in the real world), it’s still a problem.

The problem is that makeup sex doesn’t actually restore what was broken.

In the moment it might feel like it does. Early on in a relationship when you’re still in love with each other, and then something happens, one of you gets angry and you get over it and have sex and it’s like “ah everything’s back to normal now”. It feels like the makeup sex fixed everything.

My partner and I have a little saying “sex fixes everything”, because often it doesn’t matter what emotional state you’re in, if you have sex you get endorphins. It’s a bit like heroin – everything’s FINE …

However, whatever it was you were arguing about, if that wasn’t actually sorted out, if it wasn’t resolved, it’s going to happen again. You’re going to have an argument again, and maybe you could have makeup sex again, but ultimately, if you’re having the same argument every week, eventually makeup sex is not going to cut it.

At some point, you need to reach a resolution on whatever it is that you’re arguing about.

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Real Relationship Issues

Now there’s a couple of things that could be going on. One is that one or both of you might actually be doing something that’s inconsiderate or hurtful or unethical, crossing boundaries.

For example, your partner’s going into your phone and reading the messages you were sending to other people. That’s a violation of your privacy. It’s a violation of your boundary. It’s something that you would legitimately be angry about and want to change.

Now, if every time you discover your partner doing that you get really angry, they get really angry, and then you have makeup sex, your partner’s just going to do it again.

And then you get really angry, they get really angry, you have makeup sex …

At some point you’ve got to ask yourself the question – how important is my privacy? What am I going do to make sure that this actually gets dealt with?

Or maybe this person is just incapable of actually having an adult relationship. Maybe they need to sneak in and invade my privacy because of their childhood wounds, which they’re not dealing with. At that point you need to decide whether to walk away or not.

No amount of makeup sex is going to keep you in a relationship where your fundamental human rights are being violated.

Individual Issues That Cause Arguments

Likewise, if what’s happening is someone’s childhood stuff is being triggered – maybe you had a bad childhood, maybe your mother was really unavailable, maybe she was an alcoholic, maybe she was just never there for you, and you were looking after the younger ones all the time.

You feel inside a sense of insecurity and abandonment because no one ever really took care of you, so whenever your lover does something where it looks like they’re being inconsiderate, looks like they might be abandoning you, maybe they want to go on a weekend hunting trip with their mates or maybe they come home late later than you expected, whatever it is, it sets off your childhood fear, your childhood loneliness, your childhood abandonment.

Then you get really angry, and then they get really angry because it’s really unfair, then you have make up sex. It doesn’t fix your childhood trauma, doesn’t make you a more secure person.

The makeup sex doesn’t actually do anything except give you a shot of feel-good endorphins in the moment. It might calm you down on that day but the next day when your partner doesn’t come home at the time they said you’ll be off again and another argument and another round of makeup sex.

The only way this is going to end is when you actually do your work. When you go and do therapy, you go and do some release work, you go and work with your body, do some somatic work, whatever it is for you that’s going to move that childhood trauma.

That’s going to give you a much better sense of safety in yourself. When you do that then you won’t get angry anymore.

After you do that, instead of having makeup sex you can have just crazy passionate sex because you don’t need to have an angry argument in order to have passionate sex. You’re going to have passionate sex every day of your life for the whole the rest of your relationship if you take care of resolving conflicts as they occur.

Why “Speak Your Truth” Is A Bad Idea

Hey everybody! I’m Jenny Hale and this is my truth bomb series of short videos about relationship advice that isn’t great, why it isn’t great, and where the truth actually lies.

Today I’d like to talk about the advice that you hear around the place, especially in the new-age personal development realm – “speak your truth”.

Now intuitively, it sounds like a good idea right?

Obviously, if you’re faking things in relationship, you’re not actually being authentic, it’s not going to work.

But “speak your truth” is not necessarily leading to authenticity. I see this a lot. I work with individuals and couples working on their relationships. I’ve worked with hundreds of people and I’ve seen this quite regularly. I’ve seen one partner giving the other partner “advice” – constructive criticism that’s not very constructive.

They’re telling their partner everything they think is wrong with them, what they’re doing wrong, how they can improve, and they justify this by saying “I’m just speaking my truth. This is just how I see it.”

Sometimes it’s wrapped in the language of non-violence, which is really interesting to see – nonviolent communication used in quite a violent way.

“When you do that I feel angry and hurt because my need for security is not being met”, and the subtext is therefore you shouldn’t do that.

So now that I’ve “spoken my truth”, now that I’ve told you how I feel, you have to change.

Or, it’s just a license to not be responsible in the way that people speak. I’ve seen people just allow themselves to go into a triggered rage state and say “I can’t stand this, this is unbearable, I’m out of this relationship, it’s over, that’s it …”

They don’t actually mean that. They don’t actually want to end the relationship, but in that moment there’s that’s how they feel. At that moment, that’s the words that spontaneously arise and pop out of their mouths. That’s the truth at that moment.

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Now you can imagine, as the partner trying to process what’s happening that’s really confusing.

“Speak your truth” works only when you’re speaking in a responsible way. When you’re speaking constructively, when you’ve thought it through, you’re very clear on what your truth actually is, when you know it’s not your childhood wounds speaking. When you know it’s not some mental construct speaking. When you’ve actually taken the time, you’ve done the meditation, you’ve gone internally, you’ve found the source of your own truth.

A lot of people who say “I’m just speaking my truth” have no idea what their truth is. They’ve never met their truth. They’ve never gone in there. They have no idea who they are, and they have no idea what’s true for them, so they say … stuff. Let’s call them mind farts. If they’re not childhood trauma, they’re mind farts.

They start “speaking their truth”, and what comes out of their mouth may be completely a hundred eighty degrees opposite to what’s actually in their heart as their truth, in their authentic self.

But until you’ve met your authentic self, connected with your authentic self, you can’t speak your truth, because you’ve got no idea what it is.

So the advice works for people who are connected with their authentic self, and who know what their deepest truth is, and can speak that.

For everybody else, whatever they speak when they’re “speaking their truth” is going to be on some level inauthentic. It’s going to be on some level a lie. It might be true in the moment because of that emotion, but it’s not really what they want for their life. It’s not really how they want to be with their partner, and so on.

A lot of relationship advice works like this. If you’ve actually done the work, and you’re connected with your authentic self, and you’re really present and together, and you have good communication skills then the advice is useful. Now, what percentage of the population is in that boat?

So you have to be very careful not to take these advices and use them as justifications for behaviour. It’s actually not constructive, and not useful.

At the end of the day what we all want to do, we’re all working on, is really coming home. Coming back to the authentic self, and being able to speak our truth for real. To be able to speak our authentic truth, to know who we are, and to know what we have to say.

Why “Spice Up Your Sex Life” is Terrible Advice

Hi everyone! I’m Jenny Hale and you’re watching my truth bomb series short videos on relationships and the things you get told that just aren’t true. Why that’s a problem, and where does the truth really lie?

Today I’d like to address a particular piece of advice that floats around all over the place and that’s in the situation where you’re in a long-term relationship and your sexual desire levels aren’t matched, over time one of both of you has become less interested in sex, you’re not having as much sex as you want to.

This advice is “look you know, this is normal. People get bored, so just spice it up a little bit. Just spice up your sex life.”

Today’s truth bomb is – this is really bad advice.

That’s not to say that it’s a bad idea to explore some fantasies, do some kinky things, not at all. But it’s not going to solve the problem which is leading to the lack of sexual desire.

Why would it be a bad idea to take this advice – spice up your sex life?

Number one, it’s because when someone sexual desire goes down the reason for that is never boredom. I’m going to go right out there and say never. It’s never boredom.

So if it’s not boredom, what is it?

Usually in most cases there’s an underlying emotional mismatch between the people, some kind of tension, some kind of emotional conflict which has not been resolved, and that gets in the way of sexual desire.

Now, in the early stages of a relationship and when you’re young, especially if you’re in a male body and you’ve got testosterone going on, all kinds of horrible stuff can happen, and the other person can treat you really badly, but you still have desire.

In the initial stages with new relationship energy, falling in love, testosterone drive, you still have sex even though you’re mad at them. Yeah, you have a big argument, it’s not resolved but, you have makeup sex anyway because they look hot and you’re turned on and why not?

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Over time, when you’ve been in the relationship longer, and that early “in love” phase is gone, and as you get older your testosterone levels go down.

It comes down pretty rapidly so by the time you’re in your 30s if you’re resenting someone, if you do have an unresolved issue with someone, if you feel like they don’t get you, they don’t care, they’re not showing up for you, they’re in their own world or something, you’re much less likely to want to have sex with that person, emotionally.

Unless you really get down in there and resolve the underlying emotional conflicts they will eventually surface again and in a much more virulent form because there’s several more years of resentment built up. Some of the things you might have done during that time to “spice things up” might even feed the resentment, because one partner might be doing these things just to satisfy the other partner, not because they themselves actually wanted to do them.

So you have to be super careful when you go into this spicing up to make sure that both of you are genuinely wanting whatever it is that you do, and genuinely enjoying whatever it is that you do, because otherwise you just feed the underlying resentment and you make the whole situation worse.

At the end of the day the way that you’re going to be able to keep your sex life interesting and passionate and dynamic ongoingly is not any kind of simple technique or trick like spicing it up with sex toys or opening the relationship or anything like that.

It has to do with really getting good at navigating the emotional relationship, resolving conflicts, expressing concerns and resentments, setting boundaries, being a fully rounded human being in relationship with another fully rounded human being. That’s when you’ll get the kind of passion that can last for a lifetime.

Don’t Worry, You Can’t “Emasculate” A Man

Hi everyone! I’m Jenny Hale and this is one of my truth bomb series of short videos about relationships. In this series I’m looking at things which are commonly said that are actually rubbish, why they’re rubbish, and what the truth is.

Today what I’d like to address is this widespread myth that it’s somehow possible for a woman to “emasculate” a man. Now, this idea comes from a number of different places. It’s mentioned in Allison Armstrong’s books. It’s mentioned in various Neo-Tantra circles. Again, like all of these things, if you pick it apart you can find a nugget, but the wrapper that it’s in is so harmful that I really need to address this one.

So number one, if you’re a man, you’re a man, period. There is nothing that can happen in your life that makes you suddenly not a man. You are a man. You always will be a man. You always were a man – even if you are born in a female body, even if people teased you and called you gay or whatever.

If you’re a man, you’re a man. That’s it.

So where does this weird ass idea come from that there is something that a woman might be able to do to “emasculate” a man, to make a man not a man?

Where this comes from, it’s because we are in a culture which is damaging to men. When a woman does something that resonates with the way our culture damages men it makes a man feel less of a man. Not because of anything inside his human being, but because that’s what our culture has told him.

If you just step back and think about it you’ll be able to identify all of these horrible, horrible messages that we give little boys and men about what it is to be a man.

A man is always strong and confident. If you’re confused, if you have to ask for help well then you’re a pussy, which means you’re not a man.

It’s the culture which is constantly emasculating men. It’s not individual women who are emasculating men.

If we didn’t live in a culture that told men but being confused was unmanly, then when his woman said “you’re confused, you’ve made a mistake,” he would be “okay I’m a man that made a mistake”.

But no, no, it’s not manly to admit that you made a mistake. You have to always be confident. You have to always be right.

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You can see that this idea about what how a man should be is just incredibly damaging. It’s damaging to men. It’s damaging to relationships, and therefore damaging to women, all the men who are in relationships with men for that matter. It’s damaging to children. It’s damaging to everybody.

So what’s the nugget of truth in this?

Because there is one, and it’s this.

It doesn’t actually matter whether you’re in a male body or a female body. If you put someone down, if you criticize them consistently, if you refuse to trust that they are a competent adult and they can do what they are good at, you will make them feel really small.

This is true of women as much as it is of men. If you constantly nag a woman she’s also going to feel completely inadequate.

So the take-home is – be awesome to one another.

Build one another up. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a male body or a female body. Be kind. If you have feedback to give someone make sure that they’re in a good space, it’s a good time, that you’ve phrased it in a completely neutral way. You’ve given them the information. You’re trusting them to do what they need to do with the information.

If you need to draw a boundary for yourself, you do that without blame or accusation. You say look, for example, if you’re not willing to get directions before we leave and know the route then I’m going to drive myself. Or whatever it is.

You take care of yourself, and whatever you need to take care of yourself, so that you don’t need to change your partner’s behavior in any way. Give them the feedback and let them make the choice.

So this is a truth which applies that whether you’re in a male body or a female body, whether your partner is in a male body or a female body. It also applies to your relationships with children, to your relationships with work peers.

It’s a natural human phenomenon. If you put shit on somebody they will feel like shit. So just don’t. That’s it.

Yes, You Should Go To Bed Angry

Hey everyone! This is Jenny Hale, and this is my truth bomb series, a series of short videos about advice that’s given in relationships which is sadly misplaced, and where the truth really lies.

Today I’d like to address the old chestnut of “never go to bed angry”.

There is a good intention to this. If you get in the habit of not resolving arguments and just going to sleep, and then waking up the next morning and both of you have to rush off and do things, and you feel better anyway because you’ve had some sleep, you won’t ever really actually resolve an argument.

So there is some some truth in the idea that you need to work conflicts through and to actually resolve them.

However, I have worked with a number of clients over the years of working as a as a coach and relationship counsellor who have an incredibly unhealthy pattern of “never go to bed angry”.

Something happens, one of them gets triggered, they’re really upset. The other one’s trying to manage that. At some point, they get upset themselves. Both people are upset, they’re saying things to each other, nobody’s listening, and this goes on until 3 or 4 a.m.

And then they’re exhausted. They get a couple of hours sleep, they rush off to work, they can’t function, they come home that night, they still haven’t resolved anything, but they can’t go to bed angry, so they do the whole thing over again.

This is not good.

In order to be able to resolve conflicts you need to be rested. You need to be sleeping. Some arguments, some conflicts are quite complex. They have many layers to them, and it takes some time to pick them apart.

It may be the case that one or both of you has some childhood issue triggered. Something’s happening that’s reminding you of something that was very upsetting from your childhood and you don’t even realize. You think that it’s your partner wiping their hands on the dish towel that’s making you so upset. You don’t realize that you had 15 years of your little brother destroying all your belongings and that that frustration and rage is the thing that’s really driving you.

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So you might have your own individual stuff. Or, your partner might legitimately be doing things which are actually inconsiderate and you might be going “Oh, this is me, I just need to soothe myself. I just need to work on myself. I need to be more patient and more tolerant”, when in fact what needs to happen is you need to set some boundaries and you need to actually make some agreements about how things are happening in the real world.

So there are always these two pieces in any kind of conflict. There’s what’s actually happening in the world right now, and then there’s both people’s past and how that might be being triggered, how that might be coming through.

Until you separate those you’ve got no hope of resolving the conflict. You need to be clear on what is actually happening here and now and needs to be changed, and what is being triggered and needs to be taking care of internally.

So it’s a good principle in general that you always work your way through to the very end of a conflict and actually resolve it, but that might not be something that you can do in one evening. And it might not be something that the two of you can do alone, because if you’re both triggered into your childhood stuff it’s very difficult to see what is the present.

You might need to get a third person to mediate the conversation to really understand what’s happening.

There aren’t many third people available at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. to come and do that, so in that case it’s better to actually just go to sleep, wake up the next day having had some rest, and then see if you can find somebody to help the two of you to work through and figure out what’s going on.

This has been the truth bomb series. This was the “never go to bed angry” episode and I hope to see you around in future episodes!

Walk Away From That Argument!

Hey everyone! I’m Jenny Hale and this is my truth bomb series. Today I’d like to have a look at the piece of advice “don’t walk away from an argument”.

Now, I’ve worked with a lot of people over a lot of years and a number one complaint that people come with is “they just walk off … they just … we’re in the middle of something, it’s important, and then … off they go, and that’s it!”

Now obviously if that happens, if you have a genuine conflict going on with your partner and you just walk off and never discuss the topic again, yes, that’s a problem. It’s probably not the way to do things.

However, if you make it a rule that whenever there’s any kind of conflict between you and your partner, neither of you can leave the conversation until it’s resolved that is also a problem.

We need to understand how human beings function and especially when we’re in a situation of conflict. There are different types of people, based on the personality and childhood experiences.

Fear and Trauma

If you’ve had a difficult childhood, if you’ve had one or both parents who couldn’t meet your emotional needs or just wasn’t there, then there could be situations in conflict, in difficult arguments and discussions, where you feel a lot of fear.

The fear can be so strong that it actually causes people to shut down. It causes their brain to stop working. They can’t even think. Now if you’re one of these people, if this is happening to you in a discussion with your partner, it’s very important that you take some space from the discussion.

You can’t have a meaningful discussion when you just shut down like a deer in headlights and your brain is not working. Whatever comes out of your mouth is not going to be very kind or productive (if you manage to get anything out of your mouth at all). And if you don’t, that’ll probably upset your partner even more.

So when people are very, very much in fear and shutting down they need to leave the conversation. They need to walk away from the conversation.

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Anger and Abuse

Also, if someone’s extremely angry and they can’t restrain themselves from saying and doing violent things, they can’t restrain themselves from accusing, blaming, name-calling, swearing, breaking things, at that point you are a danger to your partner. At that point, when you’ve reached that level, you need to walk away.

The number one thing that you need to do is prevent any abuse from happening in your relationship. Like it or not, if you get so angry you can’t control yourself and you’re swearing and breaking things and calling your partner names that is abuse. I know you don’t mean to do it, you feel like you can’t control it, but what you can control is whether or not you’re in the room with them.

So before you get to that point, or the moment you realize you’re heading for that point, you have to leave the room.

So there’s several circumstances where it’s imperative that one or both people leave the room.

Coming Back Together

Now I’m not saying that you then never come back to that discussion or you never resolve it – obviously that’s also very harmful. You do need to come back together and you do need to finish the conversation but you both need to be capable of finishing the conversation.

You need to take a break for however long you need to calm down to calm down from the fear, or to calm down from the anger. Maybe you need to go and do something with your muscles to burn off some of the adrenaline or maybe you need to play some music, or listen to some music, or do something to change your state.

Figure out what it is that you need to do, do it for as long as you need to do it, and then come back together again when you’re both calm, and continue the conversation in a productive and constructive way.

The Problem With Makeup Sex

The Problem With Makeup Sex

Send Me "Lasting Passion" Right Now!

Real Relationship Issues

Individual Issues That Cause Arguments

Why “Speak Your Truth” Is A Bad Idea

Why “Speak Your Truth” Is A Bad Idea

Send Me "Lasting Passion" Right Now!

Why “Spice Up Your Sex Life” is Terrible Advice

Why “Spice Up Your Sex Life” is Terrible Advice

Send Me "Lasting Passion" Right Now!

Don’t Worry, You Can’t “Emasculate” A Man

Don’t Worry, You Can’t “Emasculate” A Man

Send Me "Lasting Passion" Right Now!

Yes, You Should Go To Bed Angry

Yes, You Should Go To Bed Angry

Send Me "Lasting Passion" Right Now!

Walk Away From That Argument!

Walk Away From That Argument!

Fear and Trauma

Send Me "Lasting Passion" Right Now!

Anger and Abuse

Coming Back Together

Yes, You Should Go To Bed Angry

“Say It Sweetly” Is Bad Advice

Why “Spice Up Your Sex Life” is Terrible Advice

The Problem With Makeup Sex

Don’t Worry, You Can’t “Emasculate” A Man

You Don’t Need To Be An Alpha Male

Walk Away From That Argument!

Why “Speak Your Truth” Is A Bad Idea

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