Episode #52 (Part 1 of a 2 Part Series)
In this 2-part episode, Tim shares his recent experience in his relationship with his partner and how this experience helped build up their relationship to be stronger and deeper.
We sometimes have this feeling of not being desired or loved in our relationship and we tend to expect something from our partners in order to reignite the intimacy. We put a number on the love that we are receiving from our partner without even realizing it.
In this episode, we explore how you may be making her feel frustrated because she doesn’t know anymore what to do for you to feel loved and desired in spite of going all out in the relationship. What we feel is not a reflection of the relationship but it is a reflection of how we feel about ourselves.
Doug and Tim walked through how he was projecting some of the gaps he felt within himself onto the relationship. Wanting his partner to fix it but in reality, it is only him who can fix it.
Track your effort or performance in the relationship to see if it might actually be you isn’t putting in the effort to keep the relationship on fire.
In this episode you will learn:
- How relationships should not be numbered
- How you feel is not a reflection of the relationship, it is the reflection of yourself in the relationship.
- The importance of having a clear communication in fixing or saving a relationship
- Know your love language and your partner’s love language and show it the way they want to receive it.
- The importance of having the right support group
————-
Hungry for more?
Head over to our BONUS page for special access to some of the deeper tactics and techniques we’ve developed at The Powerful Man.
Listen on
iTunes
Sticher
YouTube
Spotify
———-
Podcast Script
Tim Matthews 0:00
I then messaged her, saying, no, I’m curious. What would you rate our relationship out of five? Five, being completely setting your world on fire? One, being that you settled in, you’d rather leave, and she said I’d give it a 3.5 to four. What would you give it? I then shared why I gave it, and I asked, okay, what would make it five for you?
Doug Holt 0:26
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Powerful Man show. I am your host, Doug Holt, with my co-host as always. Tim, “The Powerful Man” Matthews. Tim, what’s going on, brother?
Tim Matthews 0:40
Yeah. I’m good. You?
Doug Holt 0:47
I’m doing well. We had a great conversation before we hit the record button, as we always do. I always love it, and we give the listeners a little insight because it’s one of those things that when you and I start talking, it’s like, “Oh! that’s we got to record a podcast.” We can keep talking over and over again. But this time, in particular, you said, “Hey! let’s just record it, and we can have that conversation, and others can share it.” So Tim, talk about what you want to talk about today.
Tim Matthews 1:15
Okay, so just to give this even more context. We jumped on to record this episode, and you’re like, “How are you doing?” and I’m like, “Yeah, I’m alright.” This is a fascinating feeling for me because I feel I always wanted my feelings. It’s now very important, something that we teach, and feeling as your compass. It’s very important to acknowledge it and not just plow through it. That didn’t work for me for many years, many decades. So anyway, how am I doing? Distinctly average. I’d probably say below average for me, for my standards. So what I’ve come to realize, though, is that this is the first time I’m sharing this with you because I’ve not spoken to you in a few days. I was just aware of the network for transformational leaders, which was an amazing experience. One of the things I left in addition to that was a huge insight into myself. I’ve been wrestling with this over the past. How long now? A week. We played a game around the table at dinner. We played it on numerous occasions with the group at the network, and the game is called these three things. The game’s purpose is to go to the depth of a conversation with a group of people you don’t necessarily know that well, or even groups of people you do know that well and learn more about them. How the game goes is, let’s say we’re playing in Morocco with a group of guys in a couple of weeks. I said to you, these three things are the three lessons you had to learn the hard way. You may then share what those three lessons were. You then pass it on to the next person. You might say these three things are the key to explosive sex life. These three things are things you wish you would have done differently. You finish the sentence off with whatever it is you want, and the person then gets to answer those questions, and it doesn’t take five minutes per person. It’s a real case of bom, bom, bom, bom, bom. Otherwise, he was saying, and you shared it. I must have played this game four or five times. One of the things that kept coming up for me was the intimacy within my relationship. I realized that there’s an energy in my relationship that I want to and desire to reignite and respark. This isn’t about sex, and this has nothing to do with sex life. If this level of intimacy leads to sex, leads to more sex, then grip whatever.
Doug Holt 4:01
And this is your intimate relationship.
Tim Matthews 4:03
Intimate relationship, yeah, with Amelia. The division that kept coming to my mind was reigniting this energy of real seductive playfulness. Energy whereby there’s a lot of flirtation around, energy where there’s a lot of desire around. We ended on a Sunday night, literally a week ago, on the event’s final evening. I then started to go and ask people what their experience was of intimacy within their relationship, asking for their advice. These are people who have been married for 20, 30 years and have had a very varied sex life experience. Sex with different couples, swinging, threesomes, for all sorts of different things. There’s a whole real eclectic mix that you would ask the question and dive into it. I started to become aware of, “what? I’ve got to do something about this.” This has been something that I’ve been playing with, probably for about a year and playing with, and exploring, and so on. I love Amelia deeply. We know we have a very great connection, and I’m very grateful for the woman she is, how she gives me the space to travel the world and travels with me, and so on. I texted her last Sunday evening, and I said, “I can’t wait to see you.” and this was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back for me that triggered the conversation around this table with these people. She was like, “Yeah, it’ll be good to see you, too.” I was like, “Oh, I just feel like a flop. That feels like a flop.” As I said, this had been bubbling for me for a few days within this game. So you can imagine it is tricky; it is scratching, the itch has been scratched. Sunday arrives. I sent that message, I received the message back, that’s part of the conversation with all these people, and then I take loads of notes while doing that. I was journaling from all these different people, and it even continued into the following morning, with again, different people. By the time this was done, I must have spoken with about ten people.
Some were intimacy coaches. Some of them have been happily married for 30 years. Some of them were gay. Some of them were a complete mix; it was like a literary review if you will. I left there with some great insight. Before I left, I texted Amelia saying, “what I wanted to say to you on the message was, I cannot wait to get home to you, and hold you, and be with you, and kiss you and that same intimate energy that I’d felt like I want to reignite.” I didn’t say that to her. I think one of the reasons why I didn’t say that to her is because I didn’t feel fully safe to say it, and I’m exploring that as well. I ended up texting her very late into the evening. Sunday evening, early morning, Monday morning saying, “Hey, what, this is what I wanted to say to you,” and I got a nice response to that. Anyway, I arrived back home on Monday, about midday, and I shared it with her. I said, look, this is what I’m feeling; this is what’s going on for me. I feel like I want to reignite an intimate, seductive, playful energy between us. I feel like we’ve never had to do that. We’ve never been in this space before. We’ve been together for five years. The first few years of the relationship were so exciting, not because it was new and fresh, but because we traveled the world together, building The Powerful Man. I mean, that itself creates a certain energy in the relationship and then comes back from there. I’m still doing the same thing, and then we’ve settled more into a groove. I feel like it’s simply time for the next level. Next level of visibility, next level of intimacy, next level of connection, everything to share this with Amelia. She was open, really receptive. It was a great conversation, and I don’t want to wait till Paris. I flew to Paris the following day to be with my friend. We were there, I sat in his living room, and the content conversation continued. This has been weighing on my mind and my heart very heavily. I don’t feel like I’ve yet reached the point, although I’m nearing it. Okay, what’s the action plan? He knows, guys. We want a solution, don’t we? I’ve been sifting my way through these emotions and experiences and feedback and seeing what’s true for me. The conversation continued in Paris. I sent her a message. Now there are a few key lessons here that you get to learn from me that you don’t do. Because looking back, I could have handled this very differently, but it is what it is. We’re all on our path. We’re all growing. We’re all learning. Now we were there, and I then messaged her, saying, “No, I’m curious. What would you rate our relationship out of five? Five being completely setting your world on fire? One, being that you settled in, you’d rather leave.” She said, “I’d give it a 3.5 to four. What would you give it?” I then shared, “What I gave it?” and then asked, “Okay, what would make it a five for you?”
Doug Holt 9:53
Well, were you going to share with us what you gave it?
Tim Matthews 9:55
I gave it a three.
Doug Holt 9:57
Okay.
Tim Matthews 9:58
I gave it a three, and she said, “Okay, well, that’s just average.” I’m like, “Well, no, it’s not average. 2.5 is the average, and it’s above average.” Things can get so lost in translation through message cameos.
Doug Holt 10:12
Yes.
Tim Matthews 10:13
It’s so much better to do it face to face. But these have been bubbling up in me for so long. Me, whenever I see something, I’m going to address it, right? It’s everything that we teach, and this is enough for me. However, it wasn’t the right kind of method that I chose. It’s all perfect at the same time. As I said, it was a three. She didn’t say this, but the impression that I got from her was. Naturally, she was quite hurt. Feeling that, someone said something key to me. I know I’m kind of jumping around a little bit here, but bear with me. In Paris, what triggered the message was a conversation about continuing. I felt its heaviness, and something weighed on the text message, and I shared it with one of my friends there. He said, “Oh my god! why are you doing that?” I’m like, “What do you mean?” Well, you can’t put a number on love. If she’s doing the best that she can, with what’s available to her and you’re then given it a three, and she’s now going to be sitting there thinking, We’ll help! What the hell can I do? I don’t know what more I can be doing for this guy. Maybe I’m not the right guy for him. Maybe I just can’t fulfill these needs. All these different scenarios can then start to play out, and I was like, “Oh my God! you saw, right?” When you can’t put a number on love at the same time. As a guy, I want to know where I’m at. How I love tracking dogs, so throw that in there as well. Someone else then said something that hit home for me, which I’ll get to in a minute. So I then texted back, saying, “Look, I’m sorry. I know it’d be better for me to do this in person, and not as much. I prefer to be there with you, holding you, looking in your eyes, holding your hands, and just speaking with you about this, and at the same time, it’s just coming off me right now. So, I’m looking forward to getting back and doing this in person with you and having this conversation so you can understand what I mean. Now I get that it’s not fair for me either to put a number on love. Especially if either one of us feels that we’re doing the best we can, it’s like a two or a three or a four for the other person. That’s not fair either,”. She responded, saying,” Yeah, I agree it wasn’t fair of you to do that.” Because after I sent that, I shared the man was a three, trust me why, which I’ll show in a minute. I didn’t get a response for about an hour. So clearly, she was probably a little bit hurt by this.
Doug Holt 13:00
Sure.
Tim Matthews 13:01
She said, “Why is it a three?” I was trying to share again about this intimate energy that I feel gets to be reignited. Then I told her that I just don’t feel desired by you, and I don’t feel loved. What else did I say? I’m going to start looking at the message. Click on the flyers and bear with me.
Doug Holt 13:31
While you’re looking that up, I just want to set the tone. If you are here, you’ve traveled to an exclusive party with high-level individuals. Male and female masquerade ball in a mansion, and then you’ve come back. I mean, did you come back home before heading to France?
Tim Matthews 13:49
For one evening, yeah.
Doug Holt 13:50
For one evening, and then you head off to France, for a good reason. You’re with somebody who had a loss in their relationship, and to be with them. But you’re also with other people in France. All while this communication is happening. Hey, guys, I want to interrupt this episode because I want to talk about something important. We put together a case study on how almost 300 men have taken control of their lives. They are 4x in their business revenues and have more connected intimate sex, all without sacrificing the relationships or their health, using the activation method. Now a lot of you have contacted us, and they want to know how they’re doing it. We put together this short 11-minute case study just for you. So you can see how these entrepreneurs are achieving this level of success. To get this case study, all you have to do is go over to ThePowerfulMan.com/11. Yep, that’s one, and you can get the case study right now. All it’s only 11 minutes, and it’s going to show you exactly how these men have done it. Let’s get back to the episode.
Tim Matthews 15:02
Yeah, correct. Like I said, “I don’t feel desired. I don’t feel like we get the best of one another, and it’s a level of intimacy that’s missing right now. I think it’s a level of intimacy neither of us has ever experienced before, either a power together, and I think that’s so true”. It’s a level of intimacy for me that I know I haven’t experienced before. This is growth. Isn’t it? You don’t know what you don’t know. You arrive at certain points. You realize that few explorations of it can lead to great places. I said to her, “We’ll cut out one more intimacy to have more sex. Women want to be desired. I don’t feel that you feel desired from me either. I’m curious to know what you think about this. I’m open to you disagreeing with me and feeling that I’m completely wrong. I realize it would have been better for me to ask you in person. Sorry for that attention, because you want to worry, I’d much prefer to be with you, holding you, looking at you. Are you free on Friday evening?”. Because that’s when I arranged a date with her. So then, my friends shared this with another friend that was there. A lot of these friends network with me in Skipton, so they know what is going on. They were privy to the conversation. He said, “Do you feel desired by yourself right now?”. I was like, “Oh, my God!” I said, “Nada. Hit it up.” All okay. “You love language, what is it?” I said, “Words of affirmation and physical touch.” “Have you given that yourself right now?” I was like, “Nope.” He was like, “Okay, do you see how fair this is?”, he says, You are projecting some of the gaps in yourself into the relationship. Wanting Amelia to fix them. Wanting Amelia to be the one that gives these to you. I just pondered on it for a moment. I was like, “Fuck, shit. I am.” I do believe there’s still some truth within the relationship that gets to be an intimacy that gets to be reignited. It’s not even reignited.
Because it’s a different level of intimacy than we’ve ever experienced. I’m talking about a deep spiritual connection here. A kind of connection you experience through Tantra, or a video in ceremony together. All other things together. I also know that the more I give these things to myself, on a new level, in a new way, because what I’ve realized on my journey is that things work for me for a certain time. They started to stop working for me. It’s like going to the gym. Lifting a certain weight, easy stuff while your body’s adapting to it, and then your body gets used to it, which becomes a bit easier. For me, I think that’s one of the things that I’ve experienced in my practice of self-love, self-appreciation, and self-expression over the past several years; I’ve been on this journey. I know that when I give myself these when I truly desire myself, I get to improve the shape I’m. I’m not in bad shape for most people’s standards. If we talk about overall health, I’ve got some great routines in my overall health, and I know there’s so much more for me. It’sKnowing that the gap is created, I feel like there’s room for me to desire, flirt with myself more, and appreciate myself more. All these things will then feed into the relationship, and sure, there are some tactics and things we get to do in a relationship, which I’ll share in a moment. At the same time, there’s the work that I get to do as well. So fast forward to me arriving back from Paris. I arrived back from Paris Friday afternoon. It’s now Sunday. I have this continued conversation with Amelia around all of this, sharing what’s going on for me. Yesterday, we started to deepen the conversation, and I said to her, “Look, this isn’t about you. This isn’t anything you’re doing wrong.
This isn’t a reflection of the relationship. This is me. This is a reflection of things I’m feeling inside myself, about myself that I get to figure out.” She then went on to walk past the poster of Anthony Joshua, and she was like, “That’s why he lost the fight. He didn’t want to get his face messed up.” Like, what do you mean? I do not know a girl that doesn’t fancy him. All right. What is it about him? He’s tall. He’s big. His voice is revved as a fighter, and he’s got this charisma. Because I know, obviously Joshua is a good-looking guy, and there’s also a lot of other guys equally as good looking, if not better, in my opinion. I said, “I get the impression, Amelia. If we met in a bar right now and saw each other across the bar, I don’t think you’d come to me. I don’t think you see me in that same light, or speak about me, or think of me with that same passionate energy. I wanted to know, maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t, I don’t know, and I want to know what I don’t know right now. I want to know where my gaps are right now because I’m committed to uplevel in this, whatever it takes. No truth is going to be too painful. Truthfully, I want to know what I don’t know.” She paused for a while. I shouldn’t be thinking you’re lying. Then she said, “Of course, I do. when you go out, when we dress up, I think you look amazing.” Anyway, we continued the conversation. I shared with her something that as I was in Paris with my friends, my friend lost someone very close to him. He was in a very loving, amazing marriage for 26 years. He was talking to me about what it takes to have a really happy marriage. He said some key things, and he said, “Look, the relationship has got to be the priority, and I didn’t like to run. But my wife did. So I took up a running plan with her. She didn’t like cycling. I did. She took that up together. So we could spend time together. It’s all about having shared interests rather than going off completely separate and doing things separately. He talked about the importance of growing with one another.
The importance of the sacred space of the relationship, and being mindful of what you put into the space, and some other really powerful insights, that again brought back with me, and I was reflecting on to see which of them landed with me, which of them resonated with me. So yesterday, after I’d shared this with Amelia, I was feeling because we were actually in Leeds doing some clothes shopping. After all, we’ve got to Santorini tomorrow. We ended up going off in separate directions. I had a call with a guy. I decided to take it from my car. So I headed back to the car; the call lasted five minutes or scheduled an hour. I just sat there with my phone, and I just meditated and journaled about how I was feeling and what was going on for me. Some action steps, that’s the great thing about this, and the great thing about what we teach is that we have some tools, don’t we? I went through the process, and the truth is actually through remembering false. So the facts are detached from this. What are the lies? What’s the story that I’m telling myself right now? What’s the truth? Who am I? So I came up with a list of the story I’m telling myself and the truth on the other side. I started to think of how I should release this? How do I release this heaviness? Well, I get to have a clearing conversation with Amelia. Okay, so who am I really, and then I went through the process to identify who I am, and then reinforced. I’ve not gone through reinforcements yet. So obviously been in town in Leeds, shopping for clothes. It wasn’t a great place for us to have a cover conversation. So we arrived back home, we continued the conversation, and I shared it with Amelia. I wrote down what it would be to be a five for me in a relationship, which I’ll share with you. So five for me in a relationship is something that would set my world on fire. So number one, not in any particular order: Sex. passionate, lights on, different positions, exploring fantasies with each other, sexual growth, desire for one another.
Conscious communication. Able to express one’s emotions, needs, and the other person listens, doesn’t feel attacked or judged. We honor each other’s needs and feelings, and this is always done face to face, never by text; I learned my lesson. Total honesty. We always speak what we think and feel. We listen generously, with the belief that you’re wonderful and it’s possible. Never settle. If either person wants to walk away at any point, they are honest and tell you in person. Deep spiritual connection. Able to see what’s going on for another. Hold space for one another, grow together. Amelia and I have chosen to learn Tantra together. We’re going to do yoga together or do some other things together. A strong, independent, and sexy woman, she knows her mind, and she’s grounded. Co-creation versus codependent, and brackets. The relationship is a priority and a sacred space. Don’t put negativity into space. We bring positivity, love, respect, and celebration. We take care of our side of the street first. Playfulness. never go to bed on an argument. We help one another without needing to be asked. We need to make an effort with one another. How we look, our body, how we speak. Detonates presence. Prizes, romancing her, sexy gifts. What we do on an evening, not just sitting in front of the TV watching Netflix, occasionally is fine; every night is no good. I share this with Amelia. We were not a million miles away from that we’re not.
Amilia is good to go, and the right one is for her for it to be a five and a relationship for her. Then what we’re going to do is I’m going to put them together, and when the array is all out, print it onto a big sheet and gather it up around it. That’s almost going to become our promise to one another. Our North Star, for me, will be really helpful; it’s going to remind me. What we’ve come to realize is, we start making an effort. We do make an effort, we go out to amazing places, we go for dinner, we go hiking, we do some good things, have a great relationship, and a great life, and there’s more. I’m feeling pulled for that something more. Again, I shared that with her yesterday. Look, I am madly in love with you. I want to be with you, and I want to grow with you. I want to grow together, and that’s what I’m feeling. I’m feeling a desire for that. So I feel better about sharing now. I don’t feel as heavy because I know you’re going to have some amazing insight. I don’t feel as heavy now as I did at the start of the podcast. Thank you for bearing with me if you’ve got this far, and I jumped around a lot. If you can cut this far, then stay tuned over the next weeks and months because I anticipate some fascinating journey you’re going to be part of as I dive into all of this.
Doug Holt 27:36
So Tim, thank you for sharing. As any man or woman listening to this knows, being this vulnerable is the hardest thing. So thank you for giving that gift to everybody listening, including myself.
Tim Matthews 27:49
Of course, brother.
Doug Holt 27:52
Hey guys, if you’re enjoying Tim’s insights, wait till part two, where Tim dives deep and gives you actionable insights into what to do next. I will see you here in part two of The Powerful Man show.
