#76 Relationship Pillar 4: Keeping The Fire Alive in Your Relationship#76 Relationship Pillar 4: Keeping The Fire Alive in Your Relationship
Call To Courage Podcast
Gareth Pickering and Matt Dahse talk honestly about fading desire in long-term relationships and how self-pleasure can support intimacy rather than harm it. They share personal experiences, challenge porn-fuelled habits and offer practical ideas for rebuilding connection from the inside out.
22:34•23 Jun 2026
Keeping the Spark: Becoming Your Own Best Lover in Long-Term Love
Episode Overview
- Sexual disconnection in long-term relationships is often about pressure, distance and unspoken expectations rather than lost attraction.
- A healthy self-pleasuring practice means taking responsibility for your own sexual energy instead of outsourcing it to a partner, porn or fantasy.
- Open conversations about self-pleasure help remove shame and reframe it as support for the relationship rather than betrayal.
- Major life shifts such as having a child call for new sexual agreements and time to reconnect with one’s own body before rebuilding couple intimacy.
- Slowing down and listening to how the body truly wants to be touched can break long-standing automatic habits formed in adolescence.
“Self-pleasure is part of my own sexual hygiene. It's part of my own development of my relationship with myself, with my body, with my pleasure.”
Curious about how others keep intimacy alive over the long haul? This conversation between Gareth Pickering and Matt Dahse offers a candid look at what happens when sexual connection cools in long-term relationships, especially after big life shifts like becoming parents. Aimed largely at men and couples who feel the "fire" has dimmed, the episode breaks down why so many relationships slip into a so‑called "dead bedroom" phase.
Gareth and Matt stress that it's rarely about lost attraction, and far more about pressure, disconnection, guilt, and unspoken expectations. Their style is open, humorous and very down‑to‑earth, which makes some fairly edgy topics feel surprisingly approachable. One of the central themes is becoming your own best lover. Matt explains how swapping words like "jerking off" for "self‑pleasure" shifted his whole relationship with his body: "Self-pleasure is part of my own sexual hygiene.
It's part of my own development of my relationship with myself, with my body, with my pleasure." Together they challenge porn‑driven habits and fantasy‑based routines, arguing that these simply outsource pleasure instead of building true self-connection. You'll hear practical ideas on what a "healthy self-pleasuring practice" can look like, why it doesn't have to involve porn, fantasy or even orgasm, and how slowing down and listening to the body can reset long‑standing patterns formed back in teenage years.
They also emphasise open communication: reframing self‑pleasure as support for the relationship, rather than a secret or a betrayal. For anyone in recovery from addiction or unhealthy sexual coping patterns, this episode offers language, structure and permission to rethink how sexual energy is handled. It asks a simple but brave question: what might change in your relationship if you stopped outsourcing your pleasure and started treating your sexual energy as something sacred, rather than shameful?
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