What is Sex Really About In Your Relationship?
January 28th, 2009 |
By Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.
Click here to contact Jeanette and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
Shantal’s relief at opening her front door lasted exactly one minute. One look at Andre’s face told her that he was overflowing with irritation. She braced herself for the complaints he had stored up during her absence at a work conference. The barrage began right away. Shantal escaped to the bedroom. She crawled into bed without bothering to unpack, and tuned out. She felt like a dumpster being filled with four days worth of stinking trash.
Andre put his arm around his wife and nibbled at her ears. That usually turned her on, but not this time. She said she was tired after her trip and wasn’t in the mood for sex. Andre let out a big sigh. He had been looking forward to making love with his wife. He had hoped that a few days apart would make her want him again. His imagination went wild with images of a frustrating sexless marriage. That would be unacceptable What was he to do? He didn’t want to cheat, and he couldn’t tolerate the thought of Shantal looking elsewhere for sexual satisfaction.
Saturday came around too fast for Shantal but not soon enough for Andre. He prepared his opening gambit to get this problem out in the open and dealt with. Shantal clung to every moment in the shower, jogged for a longer time, cleaned, shopped and cooked, until there was nothing left to fend off the dreaded encounter. As soon as Andre sat on the sofa and asked if she was okay, she braced herself for a round of challenges that she didn’t want to explore.
“Are you feeling okay?” Andre asked, delicately opening the can of worms.
“I’m fine. Just a bit tired.” Shantal responded pushing the lid down on the can.
“It’s just that you seem to be tired a lot, and it comes up every time I try to make love to you.” Andre expressed as he pulled out a juicy worm.
“I can’t help it if I’m tired. You always want to have sex when I need to sleep.” Shantal defended, cutting off access to any more worms getting out.
“What am I doing wrong? I worry that I’m not attractive to you any longer.” Andre spilled out two more wriggly worms.
“You just don’t get it do you? You criticize me if I’m tired, or if I go away for work and don’t do the chores around the house. If I am not in the mood to do what you want, you blame me for spoiling your plans. You never ask what I want to do, or show any concern for how I feel. It doesn’t exactly make me feel like having sex with you.” Shantal spewed as she poured the remaining worms in the can over Andre’s head.
“I don’t mean to criticize you. I just want us to be on the same page. What’s the point of being together if we want to do different things? We might as well be room mates.” Andre said, deflecting the blows to his self-esteem.
Andre and Shantal both felt unwanted and unattractive, but in very different ways. Andre felt his maleness threatened, so he came on strong, using sex to boost his masculinity. Shantal felt treated like an object rather than a desirable female. She turned off the tap to her sexuality.
What does having sex mean for this couple? It isn’t about expressing love or sharing physical pleasure. It isn’t about tender moments of vulnerable intimacy. It isn’t about taking the time to be with one another in a secure embrace. The sexual act for Andre and Shantal is code for managing boundaries. Andre wants to tear them down by engaging in sex, reuniting the couple. Shantal wants to put them back up to signal her refusal to be taken for granted.
Tearing down walls and putting them back up is exhausting. Using sex as the battle arena is destructive and futile. Andre and Shantal don’t have to act out their fears and power struggles in bed. They can begin a dialogue about their experiences when separating and coming back together. It obviously stirs up a lot for both of them that is not being adequately addressed. Once they have the courage to begin that conversation, love making will be unshackled by the stresses of separation and reunion, making it pleasurable once again.
©Copyright 2008 by Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Jeanette and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
Don’t you think that it is pretty common for married couples to begin to use sex as a weapon against one another? they use it almost as a reward system rather than the integral part of a healthy relationship that it actually needs to be. You should never say you are too tired or too busy because sex is a part of marriage that helps to glue everything together. I think there are too many people male and female alike who ignore its essential importance to a relationship.
Easier said than done. An unresolved argument keeps coming back in different ways. Sometimes when things are going badly in a marriage people tend to postpone sex till they can sort out issues. Lack of transparency is a big culprit in this regard. Keeping things in one’s head prevents a person from being intimate.
I love my husband but the first year was chalk full of fights. It came to a point where I thought we would split but 5 years later we are still together. We have good sex but not great sex. All the initial fireworks has affected us at our core. We have learnt to accept each other for our differences and we are devoted to each other but I dont think we are crazy about each other. Sometimes I find myself lost in so many thoughts while having sex and I know I am cleverly masking this by acting involved. I have seen him do the same too. We have civilised peace in our walls but I wonder at what price??
There is nothing that can bring a couple closer together than their own sexual relationship. Is it the cure all for everything? NO. But it sure does help sometimes! :-)
I agree that a healthy sexual relationship is as important as the intellectual compatibility. How does one get jiggy with it when it’s shades of grey days on end?? Most relationships suffer due to the mundanity of daily life. Doing what we do to make ends meet leaves us with no energy for anything even love. Children can be a cement and a source for problems in relationships.
We r married 5 years now and we have 2 children. Its difficult to make time for each other and with each other. Having children is the major reason for bad sexual compatibility. Its difficult to have meaningful sex when all the time you think it’s just about time for the baby to wake. Lack of sex definitely contributes to our disagreements as we have no stress busting at all.
We all have to find a way to carve out time for our partners in our marriage. I think that a lack of intimacy in a marriage probably is a bigger contributor to failed marriages than many of us would like tio admit.
Sex is about intimacy. It is the expression and the climax of personal intimacy between two people. The sex act itself is not as important as the close connection and offerring of vulnerability that two people should share when intimate. Each should stroke and care for the other’s emotional state as well as the physical body.
Even an alpha male like myself needs to be stroked and held close and reassured. We may not realize that much of the time but try this: Be intimate with your partner at a planned time. Touch each other, feel each other, talk only about loving things. Don’t think about orgasm – think about fulfilling the emotional needs of your partner. This is not a sex act. It is an intimacy act. Do not consummate the sex act until either the male’s erection has subsided or until a later time. Start over with personal intimacy and then let the sex go where it will.
It’s a hard concept for the male to grasp but physical intimacy (and emotioinal intimacy) does not have to end with ejaculation. Once in a while it might be better if it didn’t. Try it and see!
From your response Steve you think that sex may be the first weapon married couples use against one another. I think sex is used even before marriage, as a way of conquering, offering rewards, submission, creating an exclusive bond, bestowing gifts AND ALSO for AVOIDING TALKING ABOUT MESSY EMOTIONS. That continues during marriage and for couples who continue to use sex as a way of managing their frayed attachements after a marriage is over.
Sex is just one of the ways people communicate. My point is that when it is done to avoid talking it becomes a weapon rather than a tool.
Jenny, you are absolutely right. The same arguments keep coming back over and over again. Sex may be postponed for a while, but that is a way of keeping the argument unresolved. Underneath the argument is hurt, disappointment, anger, resentment and fear of loss. Sex doesn’t change those feelings, but it can help the couple take a break from those awful feelings and realize that there is a strong attachment supporting them. They renew the commitment to the attachment when they have sex, but it does nothing to solve the issues that make the attachment feel insecure the rest of the time. Talking is best.
Sex should be all about love and commitment, nothing more nothing less.
Sex is at the basis of all loving and committed relationships. There is no way for two people to feel any closer than through this special act of intimacy. It is sad to see couples who have problems in this area. It makes other challenges even more difficult to overcome.
But problems in this area can be worked on and overcome it just may take awhile. Sexual problems do not just come up overnight and they will not go away in a short amount of time either. I think that for couples experiencing these issues it takes time, understanding, and a well educated couples or sex therapist to get you through the dark days. Without that sort of guidance you may still be left foundering and have no idea where to turn for help.
This is really a good article and I can comprehend a lot of it. I agree…that the sexual relations between partners gone bad, doesn’t happen overnight and can be caused by many factors. Age, children grown up and still at home, etc.. I believe it’s really important to let go and try to work in a little time to re kindle this.