Charlene Douglas | MAFS UK Expert Explains Why It’s Never Just About Sex

0:00Charlene Douglas:Married at first sight. I came on board as a sex and relationship therapist and yeah it's just gone from strength to strength. Like the ratings are like they go through the roof every year.

0:13Charlene Douglas:So I'm Charlene Douglas. I'm a psychosexual therapist and I solve the problems linked to sex and relationships. So any issue you have with sex or relationships. What are the symptoms that make someone end up in the office with you? Oftentimes the relationship has broken down, so communication has broken down. People are at a bit of a stalemate and they aren't being intimate anymore. I think when you're arguing quite a lot, you're not resolving the issues. Obviously, if sex isn't happening and it's something that's important for you in a relationship, then that's a bit of a red flag that something needs to be addressed here.

0:48Charlene Douglas:I think avoidance as well. And that can happen quite a lot in relationships where you have one or both partners that are just not talking about it. It's like the elephant in the room. So I think those types of issues you start to notice actually maybe you might need a bit of help. But so often people wait until it really has built up. They have like a big argument. Someone walks out and then it's like, oh, let's go and see Charlene now. Yeah, let's get Charlene in. So a lot of the couples that I work with, the very first thing that they will say to me is, charlene i have an issue with my partner in the bedroom so linked to sex but my actual relationship is fine so they're like you don't need to kind of delve into the relationship part it's just a sex it's just in the bedroom and i would always say that it's never just in the bedroom this started in the relationship you haven't felt respected you haven't felt valued your voice hasn't been heard you have felt emasculated something is going on here that is playing out in the bedroom like 100 percent so there's a lot of pressure on men so i think the message is always that as men that you should know what you're doing for a lot of men they they think about sex they they dream about sex they wonder about sex probably every day so when their partner has finally said yes to sex the excitement is like through the roof that they're actually seeing the naked body the woman that said yes the green light is on it's like yes yes yes and so naturally the body gets really really excited so then your woman is saying to you hey I want 30 minutes of foreplay and you're thinking mate I can only like give you like five minutes right now like I'm super excited but it's just that for women it's not like it doesn't feel nice but it feels better when their body has really experienced that sexual charge and but you know learn about foreplay learn to be a bit intentional with your touch introduce a bit of tease you know I think sometimes guys forget all that one thing that does bring us together no matter what part of the hormone cycle we're in is watching married at first sight together married at first sight that was mate can i shut your hand that was beautiful that was really good love that love that as an experiment do you do you think that it can work that people can be put together and and and it can just from there that can give love i mean we've proven that we have been able to do that and that that has worked i think you know we we do the the first part right in terms of putting people together then they have to do the hard work and that is listening and listening to the feedback uh that is stepping out of their comfort zone that is doing things differently from how they've ever done it in the past not everything but certain things that maybe weren't so great and some people are committed to that some people are not and um and also for some people the spark is really important and that they hold on to that throughout the whole experiment so how much do you think communication style of someone coming in and being like i just have to be right gets in the way of even having any connection that's long term yeah i think yeah i think you you have to be in a space where you're more committed to resolving a situation with your partner more than being right you know and i think that we see that on married at first sight as well that they often say at like the dinner parties you'll hear them say um we can't wait to go to the community ceremony and talk to the experts about this um but that's because in their mind they are right and their partners wrong.