SHE: Okay. And maybe I’m feeling more secure now, is why I don’t.
The “problem” this couple is discussing is that he has always wanted sex more frequently than she does. In this snippet of conversation she is trying to get him to agree that it’s not a problem anymore. She wants his reassurance. He thinks the problem still exists, but he avoids telling her that directly.
So often when a husband and wife talk to each other about their sexual needs, their conversations are like this—indirect, imprecise, inconclusive. Frequently both partners are in a hurry to end the conversation, hopeful that they will miraculously understand each other’s desires without much talk. They rarely say things like “I love it when you stroke my breasts for a long time the way you did last night,” or “I really need you every day,” or “Mornings are my favorite times for making love,” and so on. The problem is that the less clear you are about what you do and don’t want, the less likely you are to get it. Sex can be such a fun way to share with each other and deepen your sense of intimacy. But when communication is fraught with tension, then frustration and hurt feelings too often result.
Solution Learn to talk to each other about sex in a way that lets you both feel safe. That means learning the right way to ask for what you want, and the appropriate way to react to your spouse’s requests. Because most people feel so vulnerable about whether they are attractive to their spouse and a “good” lover, the key to talking about sex is to be gentle. A lovemaking session that starts with one partner criticizing the other is going to end faster than a “quickie.” The goal of sex is to be closer, to have more fun, to feel satisfied, and to feel valued and accepted in this very tender area of your marriage. Nothing is guaranteed to make your spouse want to touch you less than if you say, “You never touch me.” It’s better to say, “I loved when we kissed last weekend on the big couch. I’d love more of that, it makes me feel so good.” Likewise, instead of “Don’t touch me there,” you’ll get a better response if you say, “It feels extra good when you touch me here.” When you talk to your partner about sex, your attitude should always be that you are making a very good thing even better. Even if you aren’t satisfied with your current sex life, you need to accentuate the positive.
If you are on the receiving end of your partner’s request, try very hard not to see it as an implied criticism of your attractiveness, sexual virility, lovemaking skill, or innermost being. Try to have the same attitude as a professional cook. A chef isn’t insulted if a customer isn’t in the mood for polenta tonight or has an aversion to squid. Instead he or she makes accommodations that will satisfy the customer’s palate.
This doesn’t mean that you have to agree to all of your partner’s requests. It is up to both of you to decide what you feel okay and safe doing and what you don’t. Sexuality is incredibly malleable, so it is really possible to make accommodations to each other’s desires that will be pleasurable to both of you. For example, Mike wanted to have sex several times a week, but Lynne thought once or twice was enough. As a result, Mike felt frustrated and rejected. Over time he became more insistent that they increase the frequency. He’d bring home books and all sorts of erotica in an effort to turn Lynne on. But this just made Lynne feel pressured, which backfired. As Mike’s frustration grew, Lynne’s desire dwindled.
By the time they came to our workshop, Lynne and Mike had no idea how they could work out this issue. We suggested that the person with the least interest (currently Lynne) needs to feel in control. We shifted the focus from sex to sensuality. Lynne loved massages, so we suggested she go to the bookstore and select a book on massage that appealed to her. We suggested that she be in charge of the couple’s sensual experience. She directed their evenings. While there was no sex per se, there was a lot of holding and touching. Gradually, Lynne’s sexual desire heightened, and they began to have sex more frequently—about once a week.
Often expectations get in the way of an optimum love life. Not all sex has to be of the same quality or intensity. Sometimes it will feel like you’ve touched each other to the core of your souls. Other times it will just be pleasant. Sometimes sex is slow, sometimes it’s brief. Variety can and ought to exist in a sexual relationship. But there do have to be times when sex is an expression of love. Obviously, the more often this occurs, the better.
The best way to enrich your love life is to learn about each other’s likes and take the time to remember and memorize these things, and to use this knowledge in the way your fingers and lips touch each other. Make sure that this knowledge is really available to you when you are turned on sexually, and make this knowledge live in your body and in your sensitivity to your partner’s bodily reactions. This will mean tuning into nonverbal behaviors of your partner as you are beginning to make love. But try to develop the idea that words are also acceptable as ways of communicating even during lovemaking.
* * *
A major characteristic of couples who have a happy sex life is that they see lovemaking as an expression of intimacy but they don’t take any differences in their needs or desires personally.
* * *
Your sexual life will be further enhanced if you feel safe enough to share your sexual fantasies with each other and even act them out together. This is a very delicate area. Although fantasies are the home of imagination, variety, and adventure in a marriage, very few couples are able to share their fantasies and then find some way of honoring them within their sex life. If you are able to share your fantasies, the result will be great intimacy, romance, and excitement.
Try to cultivate the idea that within the boundaries of your marriage, all wishes, images, fantasies, and desires are acceptable. Nothing is intrinsically bad or disgusting. You can say no to your partner’s request, but don’t disparage it. Expressing a fantasy requires a great deal of trust, so take care to be tender when you hear of a fantasy your partner has. If it’s not one of your own, but it’s not a turn-off, then agree to it. Don’t take it personally if your spouse wants you to pretend to be a stranger, a nurse, or a pirate. Just consider it play. The idea, the desire, the fantasy is usually not understood at all by the person expressing it. No one knows why particular fantasies are erotic to certain people, they just are.
There are some open manhole covers in the area of sex that you should know about. The greatest of these is a lack of basic knowledge about sex. It leads people to base their expectations for their own performance from informal and unreliable sources, mostly those heard from friends during adolescence. The result is often that we judge ourselves quite harshly and feel that we are not very good in bed. For example, many men think that they have to always be able to get an erection whenever the situation calls for it. If it doesn’t happen, it is common for great self-doubt to set in. These and many other expectations are things we carry around with us without being very aware of them.
Another problem with the lack of basic knowledge is that we presume we know about one another’s anatomy and sexual physiology when we have never learned about these things anywhere. We wouldn’t think to run a new, complex, modern appliance without at least glancing at the manual. But in the area of sexuality, we do. Fortunately in this day and age manuals and books about sexuality are readily available in bookstores. Just don’t assume that you already know about sex without reading about it. Purchase whatever appeals to you. I highly recommend the classic The Joy of Sex, edited by Alex Comfort (Pocket Books, 1972), Lonnie Barbach’s For Each Other (New American Library, 1984), and Bernie Zilbergeld’s The New Male Sexuality (Bantam, 1992).
HOUSEWORK
The task: Creating a sense of fairness and teamwork.
Joanne was fed up. For months she had been asking Greg not to throw his dirty laundry on the bedroom floor. For months he kept forgetting, just like he kept forgetting to vacuum the carpet and wash the dishes every night, even though he agreed that these were his jobs. Both of them worked full time, but Joanne usually got home first and would end up picking up after Greg.
As she ran the vacuum or rinsed the dirty dishes that were still in the sink, she would be seething. When he got home, she’d give him the silent treatment or make sarcastic remarks about being the maid. He’d insist that the problem was that she was a terrible nag. “Maybe if you’d leave me alone about it, I’d be more likely to do it,” he’d tell her.
Greg didn’t realize how damaging his attitude toward housework was to his marriage until the day he arrived home to the sound of banging from the bedroom. He walked in to find his wife, still in her business suit, nailing his dirty boxer shorts to the oak floor. “They’ve been there for three days,” she told him. “So I figured you wanted to make them a permanent part of the decor.”
Joanne and Greg eventually divorced, so I’m not suggesting that the solution to housekeeping conflicts can be found at the nearest hardware store. The point is that men often don’t realize how deeply women care about keeping their home in order. There are certainly exceptions to the gender differences in this area, but as a general rule, in the Odd Couple spectrum of cleanliness, women skew more toward the fastidious Felix and men toward slovenly Oscar.
When a husband doesn’t do his agreed-upon share of the housework, the wife usually feels disrespected and unsupported. Inevitably this leads to resentment and a less satisfying marriage. Many husbands just don’t understand why housework is such a big deal to their wives. They may not be slackers on purpose. But many were raised in traditional homes where their father did no housework at all. A husband may pay lip service to the notion that times have changed and that it isn’t fair for his wife to work a second shift when she gets home while he pops open a beer. But old ways die hard. On some level many men still consider housework to be a woman’s job. When the husband helps, he feels he should be applauded—but instead his wife keeps demanding he do more, which makes him defensive and likely to do less.
A major cause of this unfortunate dynamic is that Greg, like most men, tends to overestimate the amount of housework he does. This has been documented by British sociologist Ann Oakley. I know this is true in my own home. When I complain that I’m doing all of the housework, my wife says, “Good!” because she knows that means I’m actually doing half.
Solution By now the key to resolving this issue should be clear: Men have to do more housework! Sometimes men shirk their responsibility in this department due to a sheer lack of motivation. Let’s face it—no one wants to trudge out the recycling bags in the snow. So maybe this little fact will spark a husband’s enthusiasm for domestic chores: Women find a man’s willingness to do housework extremely erotic. When the husband does his share to maintain the home, both he and his wife report a more satisfying sex life than in marriages where the wife believes her husband is not doing his share. The benefits to these marriages extend beyond the bedroom. In these relationships the women also have significantly lower heart rates during marital arguments, which means they are less likely to begin a discussion harshly and so avoid triggering that whole downward spiral of conflict involving the four horsemen and flooding that leads to divorce.
I’m not suggesting that every husband must do a straight 50 percent of the housework if he wants to save his marriage and see his sex life improve. The key is not the actual amount he does but his wife’s subjective view of whether it’s enough. For one couple this could indeed mean an even split of chores. But in another marriage the wife may be just as satisfied if he takes care of some chores she hates—like cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming—or even if he agrees to budget for a weekly housekeeper to lighten both their loads.
The best way to figure out how much housework a husband needs to do is for the couple to talk over the following list. By itemizing exactly who does what, you’ll finally have an objective basis for determining who should do what.
Use the list to describe to each other first your perception of how things are currently handled and then how you would like them to be. This list extends beyond actual cleaning to other domestic chores—like family finances and various aspects of child care—that can also be causes of conflict if the distribution of labor is seen as unfair.
You may find that certain patterns emerge. As I said, men often believe that they are doing a larger share of domestic chores than is actually the case. In many marriages the husband does more of the “brute strength” tasks like washing the car or mowing the lawn, or the abstract jobs like financial planning that don’t have to be done on a daily basis or on a strict timetable. The wife carries more than her share of the mindless, daily drudge work—like cleaning and picking up—which leaves her resentful.
Who Does What List
Running errands
Now:
Ideal:
Taking clothes to the cleaners
Now:
Ideal:
Washing windows
Now:
Ideal:
Planning the food menu
Now:
Ideal
Going grocery shopping
Now:
Ideal:
Cooking dinner
Now:
Ideal:
Setting the table
Now:
Ideal:
Cleanup after dinner
Now:
Ideal:
Cleaning the kitchen
Now:
Ideal:
Cleaning the bathrooms
Now:
Ideal:
Putting out clean towels
Now:
Ideal:
Keeping counters clean
Now:
Ideal:
General tidying up
Now:
Ideal:
Getting the car serviced
Now:
Ideal:
Putting gas in the car
Now:
Ideal:
Sorting incoming mail
Now:
Ideal:
Paying the bills
Now:
Ideal:
Balancing the checkbook
Now:
Ideal:
Writing letters
Now:
Ideal:
Taking phone messages
Now:
Ideal:
Returning phone calls or e-mail
Now
Ideal:
Saving money
Now:
Ideal:
Taking out garbage and trash
Now:
Ideal:
Recycling
Now:
Ideal:
Doing the laundry
Now:
Ideal:
Folding the laundry
Now:
Ideal:
Ironing
Now:
Ideal:
Putting the clean clothes away
Now:
Ideal:
Sweeping kitchen and eating areas
Now:
Ideal:
Vacuuming
Now:
Ideal:
Washing and waxing floors
Now:
Ideal:
Changing lightbulbs
Now:
Ideal:
Repair of appliances
Now:
Ideal:
Making the beds
Now:
Ideal:
Defrosting and cleaning refrigerator
Now:
Ideal:
Shopping for clothing
Now:
Ideal:
Planning travel
Now:
Ideal:
Home repair
Now:
Ideal:
Remodeling
Now:
Ideal:
Home maintenance
Now:
Ideal:
Buying furniture
Now:
Ideal:
Redecorating home
Now:
Ideal:
Buying items fo
r the home
Now:
Ideal:
Buying new appliances
Now:
Ideal:
Sewing and mending
Now:
Ideal:
Straightening kitchen cabinets
Now:
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work Page 21
