The Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast: Intimate Conversations Most People Avoid

Some relationship stories are easy to tell. Others live in the quiet corners of people’s lives where embarrassment, confusion, and loneliness hide.

That is the territory explored by The Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast.

While many podcasts aim for entertainment or surface-level advice, this one deliberately walks into uncomfortable territory: relationships where intimacy fades, marriages that slowly become sexless, and the difficult questions people ask themselves when love no longer looks the way it once did.

The podcast exists alongside the broader creative universe built on my website and through my novels, particularly the SEETHINGS series. But unlike fiction, the podcast steps into the real world. It is not a thriller or a narrative story. It is a microphone pointed at situations people rarely discuss openly.

And that is precisely why listeners find it.

Where the Podcast Lives

The podcast began as an extension of my writing and online presence at Michael Forman Writing. Visitors exploring blog posts on the site regularly encounter references to the show, embedded players, and discussions about the themes it explores.

There is also a dedicated podcast page on the site explaining where the show can be heard and how listeners can subscribe. From there, the podcast reaches outward into the wider podcast ecosystem.

Listeners can tune in through major podcast platforms, including:

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Podcast Addict
• RSS podcast feeds and other podcast apps.

Once a podcast is distributed through RSS and the major listening platforms, it becomes available through hundreds of podcast players automatically.

In other words, the show originates from my website but lives everywhere podcasts are heard.

What the Podcast Is About

At its core, The Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast explores relationships that have lost their physical connection.

The podcast examines:

• sexless marriages
• declining sexual desire in long-term relationships
• emotional disconnects between spouses
• affairs and coping mechanisms
• monogamy and non-monogamy
• religious, social, and psychological pressures affecting intimacy

External podcast listings describe the show as a place where marriages and long-term relationships are dissected through discussions of intimacy, sexuality, and how those forces shape people’s lives.

Episodes often revolve around questions people quietly ask themselves but rarely voice aloud:

• Is a sexless marriage still a marriage?
• At what point does endurance become betrayal?
• Is divorce justified when intimacy disappears?
• Can emotional loyalty survive physical disconnection?

These questions form the rabbit hole.

Once someone begins thinking about them, they rarely stop.

The Meaning Behind the Name

The podcast title isn’t accidental.

The “rabbit hole” refers to the psychological journey people experience once they realise something fundamental in their relationship has broken. It is the moment when someone begins searching for answers:

• Why did this happen?
• Is this normal?
• Is there a solution?

The “dirty” part refers to the uncomfortable truths uncovered along the way — truths about resentment, coping behaviours, sexual incompatibility, and sometimes the quiet decisions people make to survive a marriage that no longer resembles the one they started.

On my website, the concept is explained simply: the rabbit hole is the mindset sufferers enter once they realise they are in a relationship they never expected to be living in.

And once you fall into that hole, the questions rarely stay clean.

The Origins of the Podcast

The podcast didn’t emerge from an abstract idea about relationships. It grew from experience and observation.

Like many long-form creative projects, it began with writing.

The themes explored in the podcast overlap heavily with those in the SEETHINGS novels: troubled marriages, hidden desires, emotional fractures, and the psychology of people living double lives due to sexlessness.

But the podcast moves outside fiction. It speaks directly to listeners who recognise their own lives in those themes.

According to podcast directories and listener commentary, many listeners find the show relatable precisely because the host speaks openly about the emotional complexity of intimacy and the confusion people experience when relationships lose their physical connection.

This openness is unusual in a media environment where relationship advice is often simplified into neat solutions.

The Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast does something different.

It acknowledges that many situations do not have simple solutions.

What Listeners Hear in an Episode

Episodes are typically short and focused.

Many run between 9 and 15 minutes, offering reflections, listener letters, or discussions about a single question or scenario.

Examples of episode topics include:

• Is It Shallow to Divorce Your Spouse Due to a Lack of Sex?
• At What Point Does Endurance Become Betrayal?
• Coping Mechanisms for a Sexless Marriage
• When Desire Disappears

These topics reveal the podcast’s tone. It is not a polished relationship advice show filled with clichés. It is closer to a private conversation — the kind people have with close friends late at night when they finally admit something isn’t working.

Who Listens to The Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast

Like many niche podcasts, the audience is specific.

According to statistics on my website, the majority of listeners fall between 35 and 60 years old, with male and female listeners split almost evenly.

That demographic makes sense. The podcast speaks most directly to people who have spent years or decades inside a relationship. Many are not newly dating. They are married. They have children. They have built lives around partnerships that may have quietly changed. For these listeners, the podcast does something simple but powerful. It confirms they are not alone.

Posts on the website emphasise exactly this point: people experiencing sexless marriages often believe they are the only ones going through it, and the podcast exists partly to show that many others face the same situation.

And sometimes hearing that truth is the first step toward understanding what to do next.

Why People Listen

People listen to The Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast for several reasons.

1. Recognition

Many listeners discover the podcast while searching the internet for answers.

They type phrases into Google like:

• “sexless marriage help”
• “why does my spouse not want sex”
• “marriage without intimacy”

When they find the podcast, they hear their own experiences described aloud.

That recognition is powerful.

2. Honesty

Relationship discussions are often sanitised. The podcast isn’t.

It acknowledges:

• frustration
• resentment
• loneliness
• conflicting moral choices

Listeners appreciate the candid tone, and reviews often highlight the host’s willingness to address subjects others avoid.

3. Curiosity

Some listeners arrive simply because they are curious about how relationships work. Psychology, sexuality, and long-term partnerships are endlessly complex topics.

The podcast treats them as such.

4. Connection to the Fiction

Readers of the SEETHINGS novels often find the podcast through the website.

The themes overlap. While the novels explore these ideas through characters and narrative, the podcast discusses them directly.

The two media reinforce each other.

A Podcast That Lives Alongside Writing

Many authors now run podcasts, but most use them purely for marketing.

The Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast works differently. It functions as a parallel creative channel. The blog explores ideas. The novels explore stories. The podcast explores the real-world experiences behind those themes. Each format supports the others.

Someone might discover the podcast first. Later, they might read a blog post. Eventually, they might pick up a novel. Or the journey may begin the other way around.

But the rabbit hole always connects them.

The Quiet Power of Niche Podcasts

Podcasts no longer need millions of listeners to succeed.

Many of the most impactful podcasts serve specific audiences. They become communities rather than broadcast platforms. The Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast falls squarely into this category.

It doesn’t try to appeal to everyone.

Instead, it speaks directly to people who:

• are navigating long-term relationships
• feel emotionally or physically disconnected from their partners
• want honest discussions about intimacy and marriage

That focus creates loyalty. Listeners who feel understood tend to stay.

The Rabbit Hole Is Always Open

Relationships are complicated. They rarely follow the script people imagine when they first fall in love.

Over time, expectations shift, desires change, and sometimes the quiet distance between two people grows wider than either of them expected.

That is where The Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast lives. Not in the fairy-tale version of relationships, but in the real one. It is a place where difficult questions can be asked without pretending the answers are simple.

Some listeners arrive out of curiosity. Others arrive out of pain. But many stay because they realise something important:

They are not the only ones standing at the edge of that rabbit hole.

And sometimes the first step toward understanding a problem is simply hearing someone else say it out loud.

–Michael (Dark Fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)