Could Celibacy improve your Love Life?

In this episode, Kate and Eric delve into the often overlooked aspect of celibacy within marriage—not as a permanent lifestyle but as a strategic choice to enhance relationship dynamics.

Topics:
➡️ Discussing temporary celibacy as a tool to enhance relationships.
➡️ Exploring how abstaining from sex can improve communication and closeness.
➡️ Addressing the difficulties and growth opportunities in periods of celibacy.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Eric MacDougall
So today we're talking about sex, and what we've been going through and some tension. Is that fair to say?

Kate MacDougall
People are going to be like this makes no sense. These people have sex. They're not virgins. Why are we talking about celibacy

Eric MacDougall
We're talking about celibacy in terms of like abstaining from sexual intercourse, right?

Kate MacDougall
Celibacy in the way of like abstaining to marriage. We're talking about celibacy is once you are in a sexual relationship and you abstain from sex, what are the impacts that might have on your relationship? Yeah, so we're gonna talk, but before we do that, what is on your mind and heart? Eric MacDougall, Good one, good

Eric MacDougall
one. He won. He won this one.

Kate MacDougall
I punched the mic.

Eric MacDougall
What's on my mind and heart? What's on my mind? Business? It's on my mind.

Kate MacDougall
Oh, my God. I know Eric, you talk about business a lot. I

Eric MacDougall
love Yeah, lately, especially, you know, it's been a topic, evolving things in the mastermind, feeling awesome, starting a six week cycle, supporting a lot of guys. Just fucking feeling awesome. I want to, hey, you know what? Shout out to guys in the mastermind. I want to say that, okay, I do life with these guys in the moments collective mastermind. I run, if you don't know, check us out. Jump in. It's awesome. I want to say, talks

Kate MacDougall
about these guys. Like, like, we hang out with them every Saturday. He'll be like, Oh, this guy hang out with this guy? Yeah, I know. But it's like, he talks about them. Like, I know them. He's like, Oh, yeah, this guy, this guy, he said this. And like, he names him by name. And I'm like, talking about Yeah, some of them, I know, but sometimes you're like, Yeah, you know my buddy this. And then he'll like, he'll like, talk about it. And I'm like, like, this guy at jujitsu, like, where did you see and you're like, Oh, he's a guy in my mastermind. I'm like, Okay, you're talking about him. Like, I know him,

Eric MacDougall
yeah. Like, they join the mastermind, they get code. Like, this is kind of how it starts, right? They join band. Things are going on. It's a catalyst, okay, I want to join this. And then they become part of the group, and they're doing life. And then they realize, like, this is fucking awesome. So we like, create a relationship.

Kate MacDougall
Eric legit becomes BFFs with everyone in his group. Okay, they really are. Like, when you talk about them and like you you just tell me, like, you know, like you talk about their wins, or your talk about, you know, how happy you are for for some of them, and like, or funny jokes they make on the calls and like, you guys just sound like you have such a good time. I'm like, Man, I wish this was in my basement. Like, I wish these guys were all, like, in my town, and we could, like, all hang out in the basement. Coming out on October. So coming guys, no, I'm gonna flow. You guys memo, I'm

Eric MacDougall
gonna come. Yeah. Anyways, I just wanna give a shout out because, yeah, I jump on these calls and don't they're just like, awesome dudes, yeah, mostly intelligent, amazing men, like leaders, just fucking awesome.

Kate MacDougall
Don't believe you guys. You like, he does truly love you guys. I know he says, I

Eric MacDougall
you know, we actually say that the group, like, it's funny. Some guys say this, like, because he we cultivate a relationship these men. Anyways, it's not a advertisement for our mastermind. Yeah. I just want to say, like, you know, I talked some,

Kate MacDougall
I know some of these guys are listening, yeah, and

Eric MacDougall
they please don't use your names. But what I want to say is, like, it's pretty awesome, but, like, keep some but so, man, I'm all over the place here, since I'm just so excited.

Kate MacDougall
They're so awesome. You're awesome. But I don't want to say one of the funniest

Eric MacDougall
things is like, you know, we build these relationships. And even the guys are connecting with each other. We're all connecting. Like, these guys jump on phone calls, talk to each other when they travel, they see each other. And one of the guys said a couple weeks ago he's like, Eric, if you would have told me at this age of my life. Yeah, I'll say his age, but he's, like, this age of my life that I'd be telling another man, he's a million another man that that I love him, I would never have believed you and like, this is like, a regular thing,

Kate MacDougall
right? I can just imagine guys at the retreat, just like, Kumbaya hugging of each other, like, just like, You guys are amazing. Yeah? I can see I

Eric MacDougall
feel so close to some of these men. Like, yeah. Anyways, so that's enough marketing that's

Kate MacDougall
on your heart, that's been on your heart, your men have been on your they really are on your

Eric MacDougall
heart. And so really thinking about, I can serve them better, how I can bring more amazing stuff to them, how I can also allow their voices to be heard. Because some of these guys, I mean, they got some awesome stories. They've been doing life, some of their amazing dads. We had a guy in the group, you know, he's like a coach and a teacher, and he brought some of his wisdom. It just felt awesome. So nice. I'm just feeling awesome now. I'm just talking what's on, what's on your mind and heart?

Kate MacDougall
Well, you know what, you know what i you i You're gonna talk about all the feels I got the feels today. Okay, it's so weird. I had this like little girl moment in my classroom, like I was sitting and remembering myself. I think it's because I was talking about that with my students just before, like, I was talking about how I wanted to become a teacher, and I wanted to be a teacher for a long time. And I used to teach my teddy bears. I used to teach my brother and sister. My dad made me like a blackboard in the basement. I used to, like, teach everyone and, like, I told them that, and then I went and I went and I sat on my desk as they were, like, sitting and doing some, like, busy work, or not busy work, like some independent work. And I looked up, and I was like, I'm a freaking teacher. I'm

Eric MacDougall
living the

Kate MacDougall
class with little humans. Like, this is awesome. Like you did it. You did it like, you know, yeah, it was just like, a cool moment to sit there and look around and be like, these are my students. This is my classroom. I got a carpet like, I don't know the carpet thing, that's a big thing,

Eric MacDougall
Antioch carpet.

Kate MacDougall
I just had this moment of, like, Look at me.

Eric MacDougall
Passionate you are about being a real teacher. I know how much it means to you, and it's only

Kate MacDougall
like, been 12 years, but I had another moment. It happens once in a while. I like, be sitting there and I'm like, yes for you, yeah. So that's been kind of on my heart, my mind, what's been on my mind, you know, honestly, like we're on the teacher topic, a lot of teaching stuff. Move on. What is what else is on? It's okay. You want to jump into a topic, yeah.

Eric MacDougall
So today we're talking about so you and I have been having a conversation. So Eric had a awakening, right? Whatever. Anyways, Eric's been doing a lot of reading and research and back in therapy. And, you know, the catalyst for this is that we were in a disconnection cycle for a long time, and something happened in our life where, you know, not be fully upfront about it. You know, over like, a three week span, I had grabbed my son's arm, like, three different times, right where, like, grabbed him and brought him to his room. And that's not okay. It's not okay. Like, my hands on him, I own that. But that was really, like an awakening for me, of, like, okay, Eric, like, there's, there's something up here. There's just like, unhealthy hum of anger. You're like, on the edge of snapping, you know, I was talking a guy, and he mentioned, like, oh yeah, like, the razor's edge of anger. And it's like, yeah, that's what it feels like at any moment, like I could just snap. And so I really stopped, right? And I really, kind of, like, reflected on what was going on, where was this coming from? Like this not okay, is not what I want to do, but, and something has to change, right? Because it's like a three week stretch where, like, this is, this is the third time this happened. I was like, Okay, I need to do something. So I reached out for help, got some help, dove into some books, asked a million questions, which I typically do. I love researching. I love learning. And I started to kind of understand, like, Okay, I'm, I'm, you know, creating these, like, dependent or codependent patterns, you know, in my life, in my relationship, where I'm kind of staying stuck, right? And so that led to, you know, eventually, kind of going down the rabbit hole here. That led to a conversation that you and I eventually had about our marriage, and, like, what marriage 3.0 could look like. And, you know, me advocating for my needs a lot more, and I've been hiding part of myself to protect you and to make sure that you're not experiencing discomfort in our life.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, I think I want to bring this a little further. Like we we were on the brinks of like, are we going to continue this marriage, or are we going to end this marriage? And it was like both of us kind of came to terms of if we're going to continue the marriage as it is right now, version whatever, 2.0 of it. Let's end it right like this is not working for me. It's not working for you. I'm not happy. You're not happy. So unless we're both willing to evolve this marriage into the next version of it. We're no longer willing to continue the marriage as it is. So we had a very like serious discussion about that, and very emotional, very like hard conversation to have, because talking about separation is not easy, but in all honesty, like, why would we both stay in a marriage that we absolutely detest? Yeah, why would we stay in a marriage that isn't fulfilling for either of us? You know? Why would we keep pretending that this is okay and nothing we did was wrong, nothing we you know, the version of the marriage we had was not a bad version. It's just no longer working for us, where we are now, yeah.

Eric MacDougall
And I think, you know, obviously this was not like, one conversation. This was many conversations happen over time. Sometimes we had to take breaks and be like, Okay, it's actually too much. Or I was like, I don't really, you know, I don't really have an answer right now. I need to think about things, yeah, and really important, understand, like, you know, we were part in keeping ourselves stuck. Yeah, I think that's kind of what we owned,

Kate MacDougall
and that's kind of what we noticed, and that's where, kind of, like the sex conversation came in. Was like, this is one of those things. It's like a small win for us. Like, well, at least we're having like, sex still. But then when you really think about it, it's like, well, we're kind of both settling for the sex we're having right now. That's kind of both like, yeah, we have sex, but like, the sex we're having isn't desirable anymore for either of us.

Eric MacDougall
And I think that's that's a big part of what opened the conversation around sexuality. And again, we had a lot of conversation about different aspects of our life, you know. I think a lot of the conversations around, you know, kind of taking the next step in our relationship was about ownership. They were incredibly hard, you know, I, you know, for me, at least, I really took ownership and said, like, Hey, I know that what I'm doing is leading to something like unhealthy, and I need to do something different, so I don't know where that's going to lead us. And if that means, like, like, you're saying, you know, we talked about is like, you know, if that leads us that eventually we're gonna have this beautiful co parenting relationship, and we're gonna blend a family that's gonna be really hard to do. But if that's the path that makes sense, okay, and if, through this journey, I realized, like, Hey, I actually have the opportunity to love you more deeply than I've ever loved you, and obviously I have to open myself up and be more vulnerable, because I've been blocking and hiding parts of myself, and that has been a disservice to this marriage. I have to own that right. And so a lot of the conversation for me was like, I'm going to essentially try things. Please bear with me, because it's going to be different. But I'm doing it in service of love. I'm doing it in service of being more fierce, in terms of loving you, loving the relationship, loving our marriage, and really honoring all that. And

Kate MacDougall
I think that's the key point. Is we both realized we're hiding parts of ourselves in order to continue this marriage, this version of the marriage. And I think we're both at a point where it's like, I no longer want to settle. I no longer want to settle for this version of myself. I want to be truly, authentically me. And it's weird, because when you're in the moment, when you're in that relationship, it's working. Things are working. Things are good. Well, it's comfortable. It's comfortable. And that's what was happening. It was very familiar. And so that's what we kind of noticed about, you know, the sex we were having. It was very familiar. It was very comfortable. It got us to, you know, an end goal, the conversations we're having, the date nights we're having, everything is just very comfortable. And, you know, I, somewhere along the way, lost myself again, like I say again, because it's happened before, and we've had these moments in our relationships before, and we've come, you know, we've evolved from them and created a brand new relationship from it. But, yeah, it was. It's like, definitely tough conversations to have, but very eye opening and very rewarding to have, because then we get to a point where we're like, huh, yeah, I don't want to settle anymore. This is not the version of Kate I want to be. This is not the wife I want to be. This is not the example of a wife I want to give my daughter to just like, settle and be like, fine and be like, just kind of go day by day like a zombie. This isn't what I want my son to look for in a wife. I don't want my son to think that, like, he has to just have, like, a wife who just does everything he wants, and, you know, doesn't really have any interests or passions of her own or dreams of her own. So I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna stop this is no this is no longer working for

Eric MacDougall
me. Yeah, I want to say, like, what? So I think it's really important here to understand, and this is what I want our listeners to really take away, is that in all relationships, right? You get to a point where the container of the relationship and keeping that type of relationship alive becomes more important than you being true to yourself, right? So this is what we say. We're talking about, losing yourself. This happens in all relationships, where it becomes like, okay, in order to keep the marriage as is, so in order to keep things going, because the the way things are going, are working. And when you say you're working, you know it's working. You're talking about it's comfortable. It's familiar. Because sidebar here, if you're a human being, your priority is being comfortable. That's the that's the priority is to survive me comfortable. And so it's normal that you're trying to do this, but it's really important to bring awareness of, like, Okay, now the container is actually running me, and so, like, the marriage now becomes more important than my own authentic self, and I'm actually sacrificing parts of myself to remain in this container, yeah? And

Kate MacDougall
you know, it's, I think it's normal to sacrifice some parts of yourself, like sometimes, right? But when it becomes like you're sacrificing more and more and more and more every day, that's when the lights, the red lights, red alerts should be going on, yeah? But now listeners are like, okay, so what is this thing?

Eric MacDougall
So that brought us to the conversation, because for me, one of the changes I want to say so I've been removing a lot of dopamine from my life. Yeah, right, the dopamine kick I haven't drank in a very long time. I removed cannabis and trying to remove sugar. I'm debating, you know, the point of, like, slowly weaning off coffee porn, like all these things, right? I'm removing Kate. You think it's like a game. You're like Eric. Just keeps removing things from but, and moving to another dopamine kit creatively, and then removing that one and but one thing I realized is like, okay, am I dependent on our sexual connection to kind of keep me enmeshed in this loop of relating, which is like, am I using sex to create a sense of security in our marriage? And is the act of sex when we're having it does like the act of us having intercourse together, kind of block me, or act as like an emotional guard for me, facing the truths in our relationship, which things feel disconnected. I'm withholding some of my needs back. We're not having some of the open conversations that I'd want to have, things like that. And so what often happens in the cycle that I've noticed is like, you know, we're not really feeling good. Things feel disconnected when we feel disconnected, we have sex, and then it's like, okay, cool, everything's normal. Again, we don't have anything to work on our relationship anywhere about because we're having sex. And so sex kind of like acts as this kind of solve to, like, it's like a band aid, sure, exactly. And so for me, I brought up the conversation of like, hey, you know what? I think I'm gonna go celibate, you know? And I think in the middle of us having conversations about what the future of our marriage looked like, what the future our relationship like that brought up a lot of red flags for you.

Kate MacDougall
Well, yeah, no, for me, it was more like, I didn't understand it at first. At first, I was like, you want to connect more. You literally told me the other day that one of the most important things for you in a marriage was physical connection, not necessarily sex, but physical connection, feeling my presence, feeling, you know, being kissed, being hugged, being loved in a physical way. And that sex was very important for you, and then, like, maybe two nights, two days, or whatever. Later you're like, I want to take sex off the table. I want to not have sex anymore. And I was like, intercourse in a race, yeah, intercourse. And I was like, and then I was like, Well, no, like, I like having sex. I like having orgasms. I am not sure that I will enjoy sex if there's no penetration, because I really like that. And so I'm sitting there confused as AF, like, what the heck is happening and what is this idea? And thinking, Well, no, no. And then I kind of had like this little like little girl temper tantrum inside my body, like, no, no, I want to have sex. I want intercourse. I want orgasm. I don't want to No, I'm not playing this game, no. And then through this conversation, after I stopped having a small temper tantrum, we were able to have an adult conversation about it. I realized that what I'm holding onto is the one confirmation that I used to have in our relationship, that we were fine. But what we've decided is we no longer want to just be fine. We want to be good and we want to be great. We want to evolve past this stage of our relationship. We want to grow and, you know, feel connected and feel more in love. And so through having the conversation, I was like, Well, you know what, it's not a bad idea. It's going to be freaking hard, because for me to, like, have sex in a different way. That's not like an automatic like, you know, do a and b and then you're gonna, you know, yeah, how very

Eric MacDougall
safe and familiar, how you're having successful sex. If

Kate MacDougall
I do a and b, then I will have an orgasm, and I will be happy that now I'm gonna have to, you know, teach Eric how to do different things on my body. And maybe I don't even know how to do those things yet, so I'm gonna have to, like, learn alongside him. And I'm like, awkward, weird, like, I'm gonna have to be like, do it this way, do it that way. And then I'll be like, yeah, none of that is working. Let's just go back to having can we not just do it the way we know it works? And that's the problem. That's exactly when I said that, when I said, Can we not just do it the way we know it works, I was like, that is the pure definition of our relationship right now. Let's just do it the way we know it works. Let's just do it the comfortable way. Let's just keep everything as is. Let's not change, let's not grow, let's not try anything new. And then it gave me this, like, ick. I was like, ew, this is exactly what I don't like of our relationship right now. I don't like that. It's just the same old Groundhog Day, day in and day out. Wake up, do the same things, have the same sex, have the same conversations. Like we're not trying to find new ways to connect with each other. We're not trying to find new ways to be spontaneous. And that's very lonely. It's like a very disconnecting, lonely thing to live in a relationship where you're like, that's fine. It's fine, yeah. And

Eric MacDougall
I think you're hitting on something really important here that I think a lot of people can relate to, which is that type of relationship is very undesirable. It's not a relationship worth wanting. Yeah, it's not nobody wakes up and says, I just want normal. I just want boring. I just want, you know. And I think this is where we get into this place where we kind of tussle with this, and this is a big part of what Esther Perel talks about, which is, comfort is important in relationship, but novelty is important as well in a relationship. And with too much comfort, with too much familiarity, you lose the novelty, you lose the excitement, you lose the new, you lose the change, right? And without the change, there is nothing exciting worth wanting. And so that, for me, was really like, can we get to a place where we start to, you know, really open up about some of the things we want, you know? And it happened on Sunday where, you know, I talked about, so one of the big things that I've been stepping into is how I want to feel cared for, right? Like being cared for, and how I often repress that I don't allow myself to be cared for. I have a lot of resistance around being cared for, yeah? And

Kate MacDougall
even when I offer, like, Hey, let me care for you in this specific way, like, let me do this for you, you're like, that's no, I'm

Eric MacDougall
good, I'm good. It's fine. I don't want to burden you. Yeah, you know, I'm good. And that that's a block that I need to overcome, is allow myself to be cared for. And so like inviting you into an experience, you know, and kind of be open to what we did is, you know, we showered together and I said, Hey, I just want to actually care for each other's bodies. I just, I actually want to, you know, this might sound weird, but I want to wash each other. So it'd be okay if we washed each other and then put lotion on each other, like head to toe, right? And, you know, whatever happens, happens. But again, I want to be very clear, like, I don't want to have intercourse like that. So I'm okay if there's like, eroticism. And for me, not only that, I feel very cared for, and it was very intimate, but it was also very erotic, right? And and to me, in that moment, I remember, you know, when you said, you said, Yeah, I'm open to that. Not only was I like, wow, I'm looking forward to this so much, but as I was experiencing it, there was like a closeness that I felt to you that I hadn't felt in a really long time, even when we're having sex,

Kate MacDougall
yeah, and I think that for me, the experience was a little bit different, because I was still in our old mindset. I was still in the mindset of, you know, let's do things as we usually do things. And like, okay, let's just add this

Eric MacDougall
little like, this is foreplay. What am I gonna get to? Yeah, exactly.

Kate MacDougall
So the whole time, like, I wasn't in a place where I could connect with you, because I was, like, must put on a show. Must be sexy. Don't do this weird. Don't do that weird. And so like, my whole, my whole thing in my head was like, we're eventually gonna get to a place where, even though Eric said it, we're gonna have intercourse and we're gonna have it, like, we know it, and it's gonna be good. So

Eric MacDougall
I gotta get myself in the mood, and I gotta make sure I'm in the right headspace. And

Kate MacDougall
I realized, like, that came and it like, like, I realized you had such a different experience than me, and I'm like, Well, it's because you spend too much time thinking, Kate, like, if you had let yourself open up, you would have experienced something different. And so I think that having this mutual agreement of, hey, let's just take intercourse off the table. It doesn't mean we're not going to touch each other. It doesn't mean we're not going to connect sexually. It just means it's not going to look like our normal do A then B and get a result like it's just it's going to be new, it's going to be uncomfortable. We're going to have to become vulnerable. We're going to have to communicate a lot about things we haven't communicated about before, and I think in the end, it's going to help us grow, and it's going to help us realize that we're Not we're worth more than just settling

Eric MacDougall
Yeah? And I want to say something really quick here, because I really want to, like, honor you and celebrate you. Thank you. Yeah. So for those you guys who don't know, Kate is the avoidant partner in our relationship, if you're thinking about attachment theory, right? So we're both fairly secure now, but you know, when things get heated, you're avoidant. I'm anxious, right? I was disorganized for a very long time, and then got anxious, and eventually got to secure. But again, things get heated, like I go into anxious mode. And for those guys don't know, we're not gonna go into attachment theory, but essentially, like, I crave and love closeness. I'm always seeking closeness. I'm always seeking affirmation. I'm always want that. And Kate, you know, tell me if I'm wrong. But like, too much closeness, too much intimacy, too much revealing yourself, can be a little scary, right? And so to be in this space where we are learning more about ourselves, we're revealing more of ourselves, we're being vulnerable. We're like facing intimacy, like right in the face, in a way that it's like, to the point uncomfortable sometimes makes me very excited, and I assume makes you very uncomfortable. And so I really want to recognize that, that like, this is not easy, and I honor that, and I'm not like, Let's rush over and do this. And I think in these moments, you know, you speaking out and saying, like, I'm not liking this. I want something like that's very important to the process, because the last thing I want is for this to be another way where you're like, I'm just going to give Eric whatever he wants, and then he'll be happy, and then he'll leave me alone.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, and I think that that's what I've realized, is part of my growth, part of something that I need to do differently, that I want to do differently to help a relationship grow and evolve, is to be more honest, is to open up more. We talked about in last week's episode where, you know, I repress my anger a lot, and I'm gonna have to talk about, you know, Hey, Eric, I didn't like it when you did this. Hey, Eric, I this made me angry today, but it also is going to have to I'm also going to have to communicate what I am enjoying, what I desire. Harrick, I would like to do this, or her this sex. Sexless thing isn't working for me. So maybe we can have sex like I would desire that tonight and and, you know, it's not to say that these things can't happen, but what it's going to do is it's going to force us to communicate in a different way. It's going to push me to get out of this comfort zone that I've created and I that I've gotten very comfortable in. Yes, it's okay to say I'm an avoidant partner, but if you've made it your identity, and you're like, Well, I'm avoiding. Can't do anything about it. The end, it's like, Well, okay, okay, yeah, that's fine. But, like, there are ways to move past that avoidance, of course. Is it going to be my first instinct to be like, This is scary, yeah, for sure, absolutely. But does it mean that now I have to use it an excuse for everything in my life and stop myself from doing everything. No, no, that's just a shit excuse not to do anything. So yes, I am an appointment partner. Yes, change and getting close and being vulnerable is extremely uncomfortable to me, but I am at a place in my life where I'm no longer willing to put up with that. And does that mean I'm going to stop being avoidant? Probably not, but it's going to mean that I'm can trust myself, that in those moments where I feel avoidant, I can move past it, and I can, you know, succumb it. And sometimes. I won't be able to but at least I'm going to be able to be honest about it and be like, this is a little too uncomfortable for me. Yeah,

Eric MacDougall
I need to be spaced, or we need to slow down, right? I need to back up. Yeah, 100% and that's totally okay, right?

Kate MacDougall
And I think we're at a place in our relationship where I trust that you're going to honor that. I think that you know me well enough to know that you know that this is who I am. So if I'm kind of avoiding at first, you're not going to be, like, pushed too hard. You said you would exactly. It's going to be like, Okay, I'll give her some time. I'll let's I'll try again. But also,

Eric MacDougall
like, I really want to say this, I know we're going along, but like, this is very important, is you also have to honor that, like, what I think this is kind of what people get to they're like, you're avoidant, so you have stop being avoided in order to make it but it's like, there's, let's say we actually tried to understood, understand that avoidance. Instead of saying, like, that's bad, I need to change it. What if we actually honor that and use it as, like, a message, like, what's it trying to tell us here? And I think this is what people aren't doing, right? It's like, well, I guess I'm noticing. You know what it's telling me is there's a lot of change, and I realized that, you know, I don't like some of these things that are happening, and I feel like I'm betraying parts of myself by putting aside my own needs to give you what you want, and like there's information there. So it's not about like I'm feeling avoided and I need to change, right? It's like, I'm feeling avoidant. What is this telling me? And then, because there's something sacred about that knowledge, right? Of what's happening in your body. And so, you know, anyways, I just wanted to honor you, because I know that. You know, there's probably even avoidant partners out there who are like, Why don't you just stick to what works like, why don't you? And I get it, you can do that. There's nothing wrong with that. And often the anxious partner is the catalyst for change. Often the anxious partner is the one pushing things forward, right? And so I just really want to honor you and your courage and just tell you that, you know, I just want to have open communication about whatever you're experiencing. And in the end, that's what I want. I don't know, like I don't have the answer. You know, I think what I want is to work alongside you, to discover how you can become more of yourself and I can become more myself, so we can be more than the sum of our parts. I love you.

Kate MacDougall
Thank you. I love you.