Ep 33: Uncompromising Intimacy with Dr. Alexandra Stockwell

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell is known as “The Intimacy Doctor", a wife of 25 years and a mother of 4.  She is an Intimate Marriage Expert who specializes in coaching couples to build beautiful, long-lasting, passionate relationships.  She is also the bestselling author of “Uncompromising Intimacy” and host of the outstanding "The Intimate Marriage Podcast".  Alexandra has been featured in the Huffington Post, Rolling Stone, USAToday, Cosmopolitan, Business Insider, and Disruptors Magazine recently named her one of “30 Inspiring Women to Watch in 2022.”

In part 2 of this soulful 2-part interview, Dr. Stockwell shares:

• What is the difference between a toleration marriage vs. an intimate marriage?
  
  
  
• What physicians often need to overcome to develop passionate and gratifying relationships.
  
  
  
• Why the conflict that may result from each partner's expression of truth and authenticity is an important part of the intimate marriage.
   

Listen to these life-changing insights and more in this week's episode...

Dare to Dream Physician Resources:

Dare to Dream Physician, Life Planning for Physicians

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Dare to Dream Physician on Facebook

 https://www.facebook.com/daretodreamphysician/

DreamPhysician on Instagram

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Resources for Dr. Alexandra Stockwell:

Book “Uncompromising Intimacy”
https://amzn.to/2ymI3Hl

Website:
https://www.alexandrastockwell.com/

The Intimate Marriage Podcast
https://www.alexandrastockwell.com/podcast/

Episodes mentioned:

From the Mouth of a Babe, with Matthew Stockwell
https://www.alexandrastockwell.com/from-the-mouth-of-a-babe-with-matthew-stockwell/

Alexandra’s Daughter Shares Her Perspective, with Josephine Stockwell
https://www.alexandrastockwell.com/alexandras-daughter-shares-her-perspective-with-josephine-stockwell/

IG https://www.instagram.com/alexandra.stockwell.intimacy/
FB Personal https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.stockwell.7

FB Business https://www.facebook.com/alexandrastockwellcoach/
FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hotmarriage
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandrastockwell/

Nonviolent Communication Feelings Investory:  https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/feelings-inventory

Transcript

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the dare to dream physician podcast. I'm so excited. You're back with us today. We're going to be diving into part two of. Uh, Profound interview with an amazing human being. If you have not listened to last week's interview, that's episode 32 emotional honesty. With the same guest Test, please go back and add that to your queue. After you're done listening to this one. if you've not yet listened to last week's episode, I can't wait to introduce you to my guest. She was one of the most eloquent and profound and present human beings who I've had the pleasure of getting to know. Every time she opens her mouth, she's just so full of insights. And I just cannot wait to have this conversation with her today and to share it with our listeners. I'm talking about Dr. Alexander Stockwell. She is a physician turned intimacy experts who specializes in coaching couples to build beautiful long lasting and passionate relationships. She is also the bestselling author of the book. Uncompromising intimacy. And she's the host of the intimate marriage podcast. Dr. Alexandra is a wife of 25 years and a mother of four beautiful children. Dr. Alexandra has been featured all over the media. She's been in the Huffington post and rolling stone and USA today and cosmopolitan and business insider. The list goes on and on. And most recently she was named as one of the 30 inspiring women to watch in 2022 by disruptors magazine. And when you start listening to her, you'll know why she deserves that title and so much more. So whether you are single or have been married for decades or anything in between you're going to get so much out of this conversation. We're picking up from the end of last week's episode. Where dr stockwell shares about this powerful discovery she made regarding emotional honesty and how that is integral to our wellbeing as physicians and as human beings

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 2:08

emotions, are like, pockets of energy and when they can be released, there's more creativity, more connection, more pleasure. And yeah, so these are some of the different ways, but the main thing that I'm trying to convey is if you notice you're angry, the point is not to override it or overcome it to make it safe for you to actually feel the way you actually feel. And when you do that, you end up having a lot more love and joy available.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 2:52

Yeah. And, it makes perfect sense to me. That's one of the things I love about your message in uncompromising intimacy, your book, I really resonate with you encouraging, cause, cause I I've read marriage books before and I mean there, most marriage books are interesting, but when I read yours, I thought this isn't just a marriage book. Dr. Stockwell is, is a visionary and, and not just, just for marriage, but for for authenticity and for, what you're talking about right now, which is really helping ourselves become more authentic by not squashing down parts of ourselves that maybe are unpleasant or maybe are not socially acceptable to us. But really embracing all those parts of us.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 3:48

Yeah. And to make it really clear, the most common relationship advice ever given, especially when it comes to marriage, is that in order to be happy, you need to learn to compromise. And in order to have a good relationship, you have to be really good at compromising. And if you want a kind of bland companionship, compromise, we'll totally get you that. But if you want passion and connection and collaboration and expansion and intimacy of all flavors, the. Compromise just will not give you that. What will give you that is when I call being uncompromising, which is not that you always get your way it's that you don't take any part of your experience and brush it aside in order to make someone else comfortable. And so if we go back to the really helpful example you gave the most likely scenario is that you unconsciously didn't honor the anger or feel it because that's not being a good wife or a good mother. And there's a way in which I don't know that that's exactly compromised, but it is. It's like you, you didn't express it. You meant to not express how you felt so that everyone else would be more comfortable. But of course, When you have tuned in sensitive people in your life. Well, they feel it anyway. And if you actually give it some attention, it's simpler for the other people around you, both because the anger most through, and because when you're responsible with your own emotions, it's much simpler for other people around you to be relaxed.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 5:59

Um,

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 6:00

And this is something that is uniquely difficult for physicians to do. I want to say this with so much compassion and physicians are maybe uniquely qualified to think about these things, but in order for us to. Have a good bedside manner. Be excellent clinicians, be clear thinking responsible doctors. We need to compromise in the sense that we're using the word right now. We need to leave our own feelings at the door. We need to separate from aspects of our inner experience. We need to adjust our behavior out of consideration for the impact on others. Anyone who is a practicing physician has become a genius at putting their own internal experience aside whether it's being hungry or even going to the bathroom during a long surgery or even. Being touched by a meaningful interaction. Even, even if you're with someone, I don't know, who's maybe in hospice care, like, yes, we can feel it, but we, our emotions never got to fill the space. Instead of patients' emotions, we can meet patients with sadness, but we still need to hold back a part of our own experience because patients get to have that. So when we're doing that all day long is not a simple thing to open up and honor the full spectrum humanity within a. When we're not at work. So I feel incredibly grateful to have this conversation with you, knowing that physicians are listening. It's the kind of thing that influences physician marriages in a very deep way. It influences how we parent that's often easier, but at a certain point, sometimes it's not. And even with friends, if the other people are not physicians or they are physicians, it really, we need to give attention to our wholeness outside of practice so that we can be good doctors and really have meaningful personal lives.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 8:56

Yeah, that's so true. That's so true. And in fact, one of the examples you give, which is we don't even have time to go to the bathroom. That was exactly what I thought when, when you said, oh yeah, physicians are not tuning into our emotions because you're Right. It's really part of our training and our socialization as physicians that, that we can't, especially when we're in training, cause you can't really run off to the bathroom when the team is rounding.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 9:21

Right. Right, right. And, I feel proud of my 36 hour Q3 call, I know that's not really legal anymore. I'm 53. I graduated from medical school in 98. So those laws were not in place at the time that I trained. But, there's a pride in being able to override our emotions and override our physical sensations and I'm not knocking it. I think it's a really significant skill to develop. And I mean, either way we develop it, but it's so important. If we want to be gratified and connecting with someone emotionally or physically in all the ways we need to be present with what our actual internal and felt experiences in order to feel ecstasy in order to feel erotic connection in order to feel libido in order to feel turned on, we need to feel.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 10:31

Yeah. Yeah, no, I what you just said made me wonder, cause you mentioned this earlier in the interview about, experiencing arrival fallacy, right. Which is, I don't really like jargon, but, you described it perfectly, which is you worked really hard for 15 years and here you are, you've made it as an attending and you weren't, there wasn't anything overtly wrong, but you really felt what was this? It is this, can I do this for 40 more years? And. I wonder if, if part of the reason why so many physicians have the same experience of arrival fallacy is because we've, we've turned off our emotions. And so we, so it's not so much that there was anything overtly wrong with being an attending. It's just that we can't, we don't have the capacity after training. So, so many years and, missing all those bathroom breaks and, and, shoving our feelings away. So we could go through a residency. I wonder if when we get there, we don't, we don't feel satisfied. We don't feel the fulfillment or joy or ecstasy, like you say, it's that we've, in some ways, our training conditioned us to, to lose that capacity.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 11:52

I think that is definitely a piece of it. And I also think, and what I'm about to say is not unique to physicians, but it definitely applies to physicians. Is that anyone who's really competent and used to managing things in their life, doing the kind of exploration I'll even call it, research that you and I are talking about in. Seeing how we actually feel and what happens when we feel that feeling that can be such a destabilizing thing if we're used to being competent, because there are none of the usual, uh, signposts. It's why I actually really love coaching physicians because I can provide guidance so that these activities don't feel so alien, but really it's about developing a completely different skill set. And what we're talking about when a physician actually is willing to experiment, it can be a little bit less. Asking someone who has been competent with calculus two in a new field, go back and learn basic addition and subtraction. So what I'm saying is that cultivating a richer relationship and a more inclusive relationship with ourselves. And our whole experience is definitely confronting when we've been trained, not to do that. And it's, uh, uh, exponentially confronting when we are used to using our mind to problem solve and handle things in a competent way, and none of the problem solving and handling things in a competent way pertain in this realm. So it takes a lot of courage and gentleness and a willingness to. Try something new without really being clear where it's going to lead, which in itself is kind of a confronting thing for anyone. Who's a successful physician.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 14:24

Um, yeah, so I want to go back to your book cause I just love, love your books so much. in the beginning chapters, one of the things that you describe are the four types of marriages, four types of relationships. I would love for you to share that with our audience.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 14:42

So. Um, talking about marriages, but really this is any long-term committed relationship that there are four types. The first one is a toxic relationship where there's a lot of anger and a lot of fear, usually one person's more angry. The other person has more fear, but either way, both of those qualities are there. And in our culture, we have a lot of awareness about the problem in having a toxic relationship. So I don't need to spend more time on that, but I just want to name that. That is something that, yeah, we don't particular individuals don't always know whether or not they're in a toxic relationship or how to get out of one or how to shift the dynamic. But we know that that's a problem. Then there are termination relationships and I was so astonished to come across this statistic. I just came across. Once. So I don't know how often it's been studied, but in any case, some researchers found that 24% of all married couples fully intend to separate once the children are out of the home. And so in the termination relationship, even though the couple is still living under the same roof may well be sharing a bed. There's a way in which the relationship is already over and there's either a spoken or an unspoken piece. And each of them are cultivating their own relationships. Maybe they go on vacation separately. Maybe they go together, but internally, at least one of them has really closed off and is looking for nourishment in other ways. And then there is the toleration relationship. In my opinion, we have an epidemic of toleration relationships where two people are together. It can even look very good from the outside. They have no, they're not thinking about separating. They typically have what I describe as a conflict free passion, free relationship. In other words, they get along pretty well. Most of the time and things are kind of bland, not necessarily boring, but just kind of uninspired and comfortable safe.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 17:17

Hmm.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 17:17

And it means that the joy and the relationship comes from the children growing from, um, financial milestones being met from. Things that aren't really fundamentally about the connection between the two of them. Financial milestones can be, if they're actively collaborating, that's not how I meant it. I meant it just that the 401k gets built up without attention. And so that creates safety. Toleration relationships are really common and in many ways the best society has to offer. And then there is the fourth kind of relationship, which nowadays I call an intimate marriage, but in the book I call it a conscious partnership. And it's where both people engage in uncompromising intimacy, instead of things being bland, neutral, full of toleration. You know, that everything can create more connection, including the difficult conversations, including some conflict, that it is so much more important that you bring all of who you are to the relationship so that you can know one another so that you can keep growing together and experience passion and intimacy and unexpected twists and turns some delightful, some off putting, but either way, it's all of you and you feel alive and vibrant. And so, yeah, my book really is about how to shift from the toleration relationship to the conscious partnership.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 19:11

I have this big smile on my face. That's not going to show in the podcast, but it's just so such a beautiful vision. I love that. And, and the book you talk about the lack of role models, lack of role model marriages, and, um, how, when you started coaching, you would ask your clients, you know, do you have a role model of, of a marriage that you strive for and you stop asking because people didn't really have an answer for that. Which is one of the reasons why I truly believe you're, you're a visionary because this intimate marriage type. Marriage, this category that you've created. Um, and I know this exists, this type of marriage exists, but it is, it is so rare. And I don't know, I've, I've seen, growing up, I don't know if I've seen that type of marriage in someone. I know. And I think that's just such a, such, a profound shift. Okay. So actually I want to go back to the toleration marriage. I just love that description. And I think my favorite description that you gave that is what was, what was it? Passion. Oh, no,

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 20:24

Conflict free and passion

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 20:26

conflict-free and passion free. just, that says it all. I you're so right. I think that as a society, We w we don't, especially for our marriages, we don't really want to, honor conflict. It's, it's sort of like a thing to run away from.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 20:49

Right. And it's what compromise is all about. Like that's the value we have is keep the peace compromise, let go of what's important to you. Or maybe it turns out it's not that important to you. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not, but either way. Conflict free is, is the thing to aspire to. And I don't think that's true at all. I'm not a fan of conflict for conflict sake. I'm a fan of expression of truth and the expression of truth and authenticity brings with it some amount of conflict, but in my marriage, if we have conflict and we both are present and we both are our own and one another's experience, and then we're on the other side of that, we're always so grateful. Like I'm so glad that that thing that was sticky, that led into that intensity because we know ourselves better. We know one another better and the flow of energy and connection is strong. Rather than needing to get stuck and blocked

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 22:10

Um,

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 22:10

that really, if you think of the flow of water, the flow of energy compromise just creates one barrier after another. And being uncompromising means that whenever something arises, it can be given attention until it dissolves.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 22:32

I'm curious if you can give some examples. cause you've been using yourself as a such a great example. So would you say that in your experience that did you go from a toleration marriage to a intimate marriage model in your own life?

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 22:49

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, I'm a pretty juicy person, but I had a lot of years being kind of dehydrated and. My husband is a physician he's chief of pain management and our regional, he, he really was scared of conflict. I wasn't that great with it, but I felt more competent than him. And I remember we'd been married for I think, 10 months. And I knew that he felt things deeply, but his, if we think of the parasympathetic options, his, his stance was always flight. He might not physically leave, but internally he was out of there whenever things felt dangerous. And when I had intense emotions, even positive ones, it felt dangerous to him. So I remember. Encouraging him so much to yell at me to express how he actually felt so we could work with the truth. And so one day he had so much courage. It was so great. I don't even, I remember exactly where we were. I don't remember what he said, but like he's a very even killed person. I remember, there was a resident who had been an ICU nurse before going to medical school. What she told me, how anytime she was in the ER, she wanted my husband to be the senior resident there because he is just so calm in a crisis. And that's fantastic. But that level of calmness that is. The makings of a toleration relationships through and through, because that kind of calmness, no matter what's going on, it left me feeling unseen and unresponded to anyway. So I pushed and encouraged. And so he said to me, Alexandra, you know, I don't know what, but whatever it was, he said it. And then I just yelled at him back. I was like, okay, fantastic. Now we can have at it. And he was just shocked. I think he thought, you know, he'd spoken with intensity and it was a time for a standing ovation. And instead he had his wife yelling at him. So we have. Many many, many moments where each of us was just trying to be more real. Another moment in terms of the transition from toleration to intimate, uncompromising conscious partnership was when I realized how many thoughts I was thinking that were creating barriers between the two of us. And in the way that earlier in our conversation, we spoke about paying attention to how we feel. I also had a very in-depth phase of paying attention to what I think. And so I remember sitting on our couch and having a conversation and I was partway through a story and he got up and he knew that I was doing this research and exploring these things. And so I said to him, did you just get up because you find me boring because that was the thought that years before I wouldn't have even been aware that I was having, but I was, that was, that was the thought in my head. And he just looked at me and he smiled. He said, no, I just need to go to the bathroom. It's incredibly interesting. And I'll be right back. So in the transition from toleration to conscious partnership. There's a lot of being real and authentic in a way that like I've used the word researcher for a few times. I really mean that in terms of the neutral inquiry, because so much of what holds us back is not actually based on truth about ourselves or about the other person. But there's no way to know that unless we're willing to honor our experience enough to discover it. Like I just, like, I just shared, I'll give you an example from clients. I often have clients reach out to me. In fact, I'm thinking of one of my early clients. She was a pediatrician and he wasn't a physician and they, they had a conflict free passion for your relationships. And I don't know how long since the last conflict, since the last passionate, it had been about seven months. And so they wanted my help in reconnecting in that realm. And I know that unlike a one night stand in a long-term committed relationship, you really need to have some emotional connection before being able to even discuss anything else and have it be purposeful and helpful. So in their case, I started by asking first him and then her. What he loved about her? Like what about her made him happy to be her husband? What did he appreciate about who this woman is and how she has grown since they met? And he had so much to say that she had never heard before she had no idea. And in fact thought that the reason that it had been seven months was because he was no longer interested. And as he talked about how amazing she is, what also came out is how inadequate he felt to, create good experiences for them. And so he would rather just avoid things all together. She talked about appreciating what a stable presence he is. The point that I'm trying to make is that almost everything that each of them said. The other one didn't know. So very often it's easy when people hear about being uncompromising and creating uncompromising intimacy, it would be easy to assume it's about saying, you know, telling your partner that their breath smells badly or that you're unhappy with them in such and such a way, or, you know, this isn't working or that isn't working. And yes, it is essential to bring those things up in a skillful way, which is what my book is about, is to give the tools for how to bring these things up in a way that is constructive rather than destructive. It turns out that expressing the authentic, genuine, intimate, glorious things also is one of the things that is missing from the toleration relationship. And honestly, if a human being can tell another human being with depth, authenticity, genuine kindness, and honesty, what they adore, what they love, what they value, how they feel and the other person's presence, then it's quite likely that they're going to be able to say some of the more complicated things as well. Now let me be very clear. I'm not talking about saying, oh, you're so great. Or I love you so much. You're the best. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about when I look at you when you're sleeping, I, I can't even say how I feel inside because I just feel so grateful that we've both chosen to live her life together. There's a depth that comes with real self-expression. And if you want develop it by saying fabulous things to your partner or to some other person whom you really care about, because if you can do that really genuinely feel your feelings and express them. It's not that far away. To say the things that need some evolution.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 32:57

Wow. It's amazing. I love, I love the examples that you gave to really, really go in depth. And if we know ourselves know our feelings better than, than we can show up with more in our marriages and our relationships. Because if I wasn't in tune with my feelings, you're right. Like it looked that the compliment I would give would just be like, oh, you're a great, and not really not really feel those feelings and not really even allowing myself to experience that moment of, of sitting there and watching and reflecting on my gratitude on my feelings. And so it makes a lot of sense what, what you said that the, the work starts with ourselves with knowing ourselves with honoring all the different parts of ourselves, even the ones that were not comfortable with.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 33:53

Yes, exactly. You've probably heard me say that. I believe that relationship is the ultimate vehicle for personal growth. And I think that most important things in life, if not all of them start with our relationship with ourself. And one of the beautiful realities of being in a committed partnership with another human being is that we can't hide from. Complicated parts of ourselves. Well, we can, but not, I mean, we can hide from it and end up in a toleration

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 34:33

Exactly. It would be a toleration, Mary.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 34:35

yes, yes. But if we, if we're going to be with someone and really have a vibrant, alive, passionate relationship, then over time, all the different stuff that's in our souls comes up so we can give it attention. And I just find again and again, that people think when the other person changes, it's going to be so great, but that's really not where the gold lies.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 35:19

I think actually this may be, you've been saying this all along, but I want to maybe just say it more explicitly or have you say it more explicitly, which is that, oftentimes when we're doing personal development, our spouse may be doing their own personal development or maybe they're not doing personal development. And so, especially listening to this podcast, I think, people just listen to them, on their own. And could you maybe speak to that person who listen to these couple of episodes and then think, well, that's great you know, this is amazing, but you know what, if my partner's not on board, then what.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 35:56

Yeah, you need to start with feeling your feelings, but that's only where it starts. One of the things that makes for such exquisiteness and precision in personal development in the context of a marriage is that we want our communications to be well calibrated, which is completely different than compromising. So if I want to say something to my husband, there might be the way that I say it to myself and the way I say it to him. And maybe they're the same. And maybe they're different because I don't want to hold back on any of my truth, but I also don't want to just express it without consideration for his experience. Without really honoring the connection that lives between us. There are many, many, many women who are really very evolved, very superior, very developed, have really attended to their own personal growth and. They're our partners are disappointing and lag. It's sometimes in a heteronormative marriage in the other direction, but it's more commonly that women feel that they've really grown and their partners are really not interested in personal growth and they really just don't know things. And I wish he would care. And if you're listening and you have some version of that attitude, your personal growth status is not what you think it is because part of personal growth is becoming more patient, more tolerant, more receptive, more understanding, less judgmental, less demanding. Now. I'm not talking about becoming more compromising, not at all, but it's a completely different thing to be irritated and frustrated and disappointed and resentful at his situation compared to yours. And it's another thing to be really curious about what his experience is to open yourself to the possibility that his personal growth doesn't look or feel, or tastes like yours, and also to have room for change, to happen in subtle and not so subtle ways. And just be open to that. And in terms of that, I want to emphasize that in any kind of family context and particularly a marriage or a romantic partnership, if one person changes. The whole situation changes and it's not instant. It's not like, okay, I make this change. And then there's parody. And my partner will change too. It's not like that. This is really a, we can understand that when we consider systems theory that when one person shifts their inner stance, their perspective, their relationship with themselves, their willingness to be courageous and express things, their willingness to set boundaries, the whole system shifts and evolves. So you just keep working on your personal growth, learn to be strong, learn to soften, learn to have boundaries, learn to open your heart. Whatever it is that you need to work on. And it is way too early to determine your partner status or what they're capable of until you're no longer invested in they're changing in a particular way. And at that point, then you can see, but I have just been astonished again and again, the place that I encounter this most is when I'll have a woman reach out to me and say, she, you know, there's this and that happening in their relationship. She really wants the two of them to work with me, but he's just not interested. He doesn't like personal growth. He's not interested in talking more. They're variations on that theme. And so when I'm in a conversation with a woman who says this, what I say is okay, Just ask him to have a 15 minute conversation with me. Don't ask him to commit to a whole transformational package. Don't ask him to commit to anything other than 15 minutes of conversation with me. And there are some men who just, there are no and that's that, but many of them end up saying yes, when the only commitment is 15 minutes of time. And in that situation, 100% of them are interested in going further and discussing what's involved. And the main contribution that I bring to that conversation is I, first of all, don't have an agenda for them. I'm genuinely interested in their experience. So if you're frustrated by a lack of your partner's personal growth, I'm wondering how genuinely curious you are about their experience and how curious you are in relationship to your opinions about what you think they should be experiencing. So I think that gives a pretty good flavor of that landscape from my perspective.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 42:15

Yeah, that answers it beautifully. It makes so much sense that even just having one individual in the relationship, go through their transformation that in itself can transform the whole relationship. And, I love the example you gave of when an individual feels frustrated about the other person that actually just means they have to do more work on themselves as well.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 42:41

Yes. And it doesn't mean that the relationship will last forever. It doesn't mean it will end. It just means that you can't really connect with the truth of the dynamic between the two of you until you're not triggered and activated by who and how that other person is as they move through life.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 43:03

Um, Yeah. you so much for, for everything. This has been great. I, I want to respect your time. I have so many other questions for you. One of the things that I absolutely love and I'll just put in a plug for your, your podcasts, because I would love to talk more about it on this episode, I think you've had two, of your kids on your podcast, describing their experience of what it's like growing up in your household, where, you and your husband have a intimate marriage as now you call it. And what that experience is like for them and your youngest son is how old.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 43:43

He was nine when we did the interview. He's 10 now. So yeah, I had my daughter who's 25 and has had her own relationships. And so she has that perspective. And then my son, who's nine. I interviewed each of them, the two in the middle. I have not yet.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 43:59

It was just a delight, especially your nine year old son. you know, After these episodes, our listeners are really wanting to find out more about you. So tell our listeners how they can connect with you and please share about your book. Because I, I believe that everyone should get a copy of this book. I love that you give practical tips, not only the vision of this is what marriage can be, but also just very practical tips on how to get there.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 44:27

Yeah, I'm really glad you emphasized that because I feel like, it would be important to add to our conversations that I really believe that having a fantastic relationship is a learnable skill and I enjoy breaking it down. It's not this mysterious inspiration or I don't know what it is actually, a very logical coherent learnable skill. And so yes, by all means read or listen to my book. It's available on Amazon paperback or Kindle and audible. The audible is about three and a half hours and there's no reason not to listen to it on a faster speed. I definitely am kind of slow with my voice there. And yeah, it's meant to. Show you how much more is possible and give you tools to create that. So it's called uncompromising intimacy and you can find it there. And when you do, please, read it and leave a review either on audible or Amazon, that's always helpful. And for everything else, well, listen to the intimate marriage podcast and you can find me@alexandrastockwell.com.

Dr. Weili Gray, Host 45:46

Wonderful. Oh, of course. Put all of that in the show notes and thank you again for coming on. And it was going to be amazing, but again, this way exceeded my, even my expectations of how amazing it was going to be.

Dr. Alexandra Stockwell, Guest 45:59

Well, well, the quality of your questions and your listening, it brings out good things from people. So thank you so much for having me.