Special Problems with Sex
Making love to someone for whom you care deeply and who cares deeply for you is one of life’s most enjoyable and fulfilling experiences. But many spouses, especially wives, find that what should be enjoyable turns into a nightmare. In the beginning of their marriage, a husband’s perspective on sex overrules her perspective, and so he forces her to have sex with him on his terms. Complying with his demands, she associates sex with a demeaning and sometimes painful experience. Instead of a way to express his love for her, sex becomes one of his most selfish acts. Eventually, it becomes the last thing she wants to do with her husband. She has developed an aversion to sex.
In those cases, I help a wife overcome her sexual aversion before encouraging her to have sex with her husband. In my Q&A column, “How to Overcome Sexual Aversion,” at the MarriageBuilders.com website, I describe the method I use to help a wife overcome an aversion to sex. It involves associating sex with love and comfort instead of selfishness and fear. After the aversion is overcome, her husband learns to make love to her in a way that expresses his care for her, rather than only his craving. Affection and intimate conversation usually provide the environment, followed by a personally satisfying sequence of touching that helps trigger sexual arousal for her. She also discovers positions and movements that create the most intense pleasure for her. After her husband learns how to make love to her in a way that is sexually and emotionally enjoyable for her, she is in a position to negotiate with him about having sex more often.
A related problem some women experience is pain during intercourse caused by vaginismus, a muscle spasm that closes the opening to the vagina. A yeast infection is usually the original culprit, but there are a host of other possible causes as well. The trick to overcoming this condition is to gently stimulate the vaginal opening without triggering the reflex. Daily exercises that slowly introduce ever-larger amply lubricated objects to the opening usually solve the problem within a few weeks. I offer a more detailed description of this recommended method in my article “How to Overcome Pain during Intercourse” in the Q&A section of the MarriageBuilders.com website.
If you try to have intercourse with pain, it will only make matters worse. It strengthens the painful muscle reflex until it becomes impossible to tolerate. On the other hand, even if you experience vaginismus occasionally, when your lovemaking always follows the Policy of Joint Agreement you will be able to overcome it the right way. Thoughtfulness is the solution to most marital problems.
Yet another problem faced by couples trying to resolve sexual conflicts is their tendency to fight. A point often made by wives is that the time taken for affection and conversation can be ruined by an argument. It’s the opposite of affection and intimate conversation. While that sounds logical to most women, men often don’t seem to get it. They expect their wives to be sexually receptive regardless of what went on before, because they would feel that way. An argument doesn’t necessarily lower a man’s sex drive, but it certainly creates enough emotional distance for a woman to crush her desire for a bonding experience. I’ve been writing for years that arguing in marriage should be avoided at all costs. But that’s especially true if you want to make love more often.
Every marriage is unique, so some of what I’ve written may not apply to you. Sometimes it’s the wife who wants to make love more often. In this case a husband may have lost his craving for sex due to lower testosterone levels. The solution to that problem is to see his physician for a testosterone supplement. Or it may be that his wife has made sex so unpleasant for him that he has developed an aversion. The recommendation I make for wives with an aversion to sex also works for husbands.
Sexual inexperience can also create sexual conflicts in marriage. For a couple, or even just one spouse, to enter marriage without knowing how to have a sexual experience complete with all five stages (willingness, arousal, plateau, climax, and recovery) can create a honeymoon disaster. The worksheets in Five Steps to Romantic Love can help a couple gain the experience they need to fully understand their own and each other’s sexual responses. It’s an understanding that’s absolutely necessary for marriage.
When I suggested sexual training to a couple recently, the wife responded by saying that she didn’t want to be part of a “science experiment.” She felt that if a couple were right for each other, they shouldn’t have to learn to enjoy sex with each other—it should just happen naturally. In one sense, she has a point. A couple in love finds that their sexual responsiveness toward each other is so greatly enhanced that they don’t have to do much to trigger every stage of the sexual experience. But when one or both spouses loses that feeling of love, understanding their sexual response so that they can create it with each other almost at will gives them a great advantage in being able to restore their love. Having a fulfilling sexual experience with each other is one of the best ways to make massive Love Bank deposits.
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I want you to have what you need in your marriage. And I’m sure that you want to give each other what you need. The only thing standing in your way is failure to understand and respect each other’s perspective whenever a conflict arises. The recognition that your perspectives complement each other—they both contain some truth that should be addressed in a final enthusiastic resolution—helps you see solutions that go beyond what either of you would have found on your own. Together you make wiser choices and meet each other’s needs in a much more fulfilling way. You’ll find that when you make love in a way that addresses both of your reasons for having sex, you will be completely fulfilled by it.
Consider This . . .
Have you been demanding, disrespectful, or angry when you’ve discussed issues about sex with each other? Have you used any excuses for these abusive tactics to try to justify them?
Instead of arguing about sex, do you simply do what you please and hope that your spouse will adjust to it? What is the likely outcome when a spouse is expected to adjust to a decision that has not been enthusiastically accepted? Discuss with each other how unilateral decisions about any sex acts outside of your marriage affect each other (such as pornography, masturbation, etc.).
When does a decision regarding sex become a Love Buster? Do either of you feel you have the right to make decisions about sex independently of the other’s interests and feelings? Are you willing to give up that right by following the POJA for the sake of your love for each other?
Describe conflicts you have over sex as clearly as possible and respectfully learn each other’s perspectives. Use the Policy of Joint Agreement and the Four Guidelines to Successful Negotiation to try to resolve these conflicts by creating a solution that you both accept enthusiastically and are both willing to follow. You may find the worksheets in the workbook Five Steps to Romantic Love helpful in guiding you through the creation and implementation of your solution. The worksheets also support chapter 4 (Sexual Fulfillment) in His Needs, Her Needs.
Part 3
Common Problems with Marital Conflict Resolution
Let’s say you know the rules, and you are trying to follow the procedure I’ve recommended. But you are still finding the resolution to certain conflicts elusive. If so, this section will address some of the common barriers couples face in finding win-win solutions to their problems, and how to overcome them.
13
How to Negotiate When You Are Emotional
You’ve tried to avoid fighting because you know that it doesn’t really solve anything. But you get so upset by the way your spouse treats you, or ignores you, that you can’t help yourself. And when you try discussing problems with your spouse, you get even more upset by the way he or she reacts.
Does that describe your situation?
It’s a vicious cycle. The problems you face in your marriage upset you terribly. They must be solved now. You’ve tried to communicate their urgency, but your spouse isn’t cooperating. So you break the cardinal rule of negotiating by being demanding, disrespectful, and
angry. That gets your spouse’s attention, but instead of seeing the urgency of your problems, your spouse comes to believe that nothing you discuss can be resolved rationally. So instead of even attempting to solve your problems, your spouse ignores them, which upsets you terribly.
The primary advantage to being emotional in marriage is that conflicts keep getting addressed even if it means having nasty fights. But the disadvantage is that the conflicts are rarely resolved. And the way an emotional person tends to go about trying to get his or her spouse’s attention makes massive Love Bank withdrawals. The conflicts remain while their love for each other is slipping away. So how can an emotional person ever hope to have a marriage that works? How can such a person be happily married when they can’t seem to resolve any of their conflicts?
Well, I have good news. Emotional people can resolve their marital conflicts. I’ve witnessed their success in thousands of marriages. But the solution begins with the realization that they can learn to discuss their problems calmly and rationally. Regardless of how emotional you have been in the past, you can learn to approach life’s problems with grace and wisdom.
Begin your quest to become a calm and wise negotiator with the assumption that win-win resolutions to marital conflicts can be found only when spouses discuss their problems calmly and rationally, looking for solutions that make both spouses happy. Any attempt to be demanding, disrespectful, or angry will prevent you from resolving your conflict, and it will destroy your love for each other.
Next, assume that only you can control your emotional reactions—no one else can do it for you. And you can learn to do it.
Granted, your spouse can be frustrating. He or she can fail to provide what you need in life, and can say and do things that make you very unhappy. But the way you respond is up to you. No one forces you to make demands, show disrespect, or have angry outbursts.
Let’s stop here to think this through for a moment. If you don’t agree with these two assumptions, you’re not ready for my plan. Unless you realize that your problems will be solved only if you discuss them calmly with a win-win goal in mind, and take full responsibility for your emotional reactions, not blaming them on your spouse, you will not be able to develop the right frame of mind to tackle the conflicts that are common in marriage.
But if you accept these assumptions, your first step toward becoming an expert marital problem-solver will be to learn to be calm in the midst of frustration.
Train Yourself to Relax
An angry outburst is only one of many emotional reactions to frustration, and I’ve not only helped train others to completely eliminate them, but I’ve also learned how to eliminate them myself. When I was young, I had a very bad temper, as did most of the other members of my family. But when I came to realize that my anger was self-defeating, and that no one made me lose my temper, I set out to eliminate my outbursts completely. In spite of some very frustrating experiences I’ve had in life, I have not lost my temper in over fifty years.
The procedure I recommend to overcome angry outbursts is very similar to the way most emotional reactions can be overcome. It begins with the realization that no one makes you react emotionally. Whether it’s an angry outburst or any other intense emotional reaction, it’s yours and you are completely responsible for it. Your spouse can’t control your emotional reactions. Only you can control them.
Most intense emotional reactions are neurologically similar. An angry outburst and a panic attack have many of the same features—and the way to overcome them is essentially the same.
When faced with a threat, we either fight or flee. Either we stand up to the threat and defeat it, or we run for cover. If you fight, you’ll have an angry reaction, and if you flee, you’ll have an anxiety reaction. But in either case, it’s the adrenaline in your system that magnifies your reaction.
So the best way to control an angry outburst or a panic attack is to reduce the adrenaline in your bloodstream. While there are many dietary and medical ways to help achieve that objective, or prevent it from happening in the first place, one of the simplest approaches to controlling your emotional reactions is to learn to relax, and to be able to do so almost instantly. Effective relaxation techniques can be learned within a few days if they are practiced often enough. And if they are practiced while thinking about some of your most frustrating situations, you prepare yourself for effective negotiation.
Just as you might prepare for a marathon by training your body to run ever-longer distances, you can train your brain to approach frustrating situations with intelligence rather than emotion. Every frustrating situation you find yourself in is a training opportunity. By relaxing instead of attacking (or fleeing), you create an opportunity to approach the situation with thoughtfulness.
While most of us know if we’re tense or relaxed, some people find it helpful to use some form of biofeedback to help them quantify their efforts. A simple galvanic response meter can do the trick, and they can be purchased online for between fifty and one hundred dollars. An audio CD that teaches relaxation techniques often accompanies the meter.*
The purpose of relaxation training using a biofeedback meter is to learn to relax under conditions of high stress. At first, you simply learn to raise and lower the meter reading by changing your thoughts. Think of an unpleasant stressful situation, and the reading rises; think of a pleasant non-stressful situation, and the reading lowers. After you can manipulate the meter by simply thinking stressful and non-stressful thoughts, your next challenge is to keep the reading low even when thinking about a stressful situation. You do that by deliberately relaxing every muscle in your body, thereby flushing out all of the adrenaline. With practice, your relaxation can be demonstrated on the biofeedback meter in a matter of seconds.
When you have mastered relaxation while alone, the next challenge is to keep the biofeedback reading low when you discuss a problem with your spouse. At first, you may think that all of your training doesn’t amount to much when applied to real-life situations. But with some practice, you will be just as successful with your spouse present as you were alone.
By keeping the meter reading low, you are controlling your emotional reactions, giving your brain a chance to think of real solutions to your problems. But when you become emotional, your creative ability is seriously downgraded, leaving you with few ideas that are worth considering.
If both you and your spouse can guarantee that your discussion will not lead to an emotional outburst, you will not only be far more creative and successful in finding solutions, but you will be more likely to raise problems with each other. Joyce and I tackle conflicts as they arise, and at least one will arise just about every hour we’re together. Obviously, if we did not handle our conflicts the right way, our lives would be filled with arguments—or we would not be dealing with them at all.
By controlling our emotional reactions, Joyce and I follow the first guideline for successful negotiation in marriage: to make the discussion safe and enjoyable. You are to avoid making any demands, avoid showing any disrespect, and avoid becoming angry. In other words, you’re to avoid becoming emotional.
If you can’t control your emotional reaction, you can’t follow the second guideline: to understand the conflict and its possible resolutions from each other’s perspectives with profound respect for each other—something terribly missing when spouses become emotional.
The third guideline, to brainstorm solutions with the goal of making both spouses happy with the outcome, is impossible to follow without the second guideline in place. And finally, the fourth guideline, to select a resolution that makes both spouses happy, can’t be followed if the third guideline isn’t followed.
So it all comes down to knowing how to control your emotional reactions. If you can learn how to relax, keeping your emotional reactions at bay while discussing marital conflict, you’ll have a much easier time resolving your conflicts. But if you can’t control them, your problems will remain unsolved. It’s that simple.
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*The GSR2 Biofeedback Relaxation System with CD by Bio-Medical Instruments, Inc. costs about $75.
14
How to Negotiate When No One Wants to Raise the Issue
Are there problems in your marriage that have been festering for years? Have you lost hope of ever resolving them because they are never discussed? Are you afraid to bring them up?
Successful negotiation in marriage is a skill that should be taught in school along with reading, writing, and arithmetic. That’s because successful marital negotiation leads to happy marriages, and that, in turn, creates productive families that make our entire culture flourish.
But sadly, most couples are not skilled in marital negotiation. When a conflict arises, they either fight over it or sweep it under the rug.
Suppose that you and your spouse want to take a vacation, but can’t agree on where to go. One of you wants to spend a week at a campground four miles from your home, while the other would prefer a week in Orlando, visiting Disney World, SeaWorld, and Universal Studios. Your children have all voted for the Orlando trip. You don’t want to fight about it, but haven’t learned how to negotiate. By avoiding the subject, no vacation at all looms on the horizon.
So to go on any vacation, one of you decides to capitulate. You either go camping or visit Orlando, depending on who does the capitulating. I’ve called that the sacrifice strategy for resolving marital problems. That’s one way to solve a problem without having to discuss it. But the capitulator ends up feeling very resentful. The one wanting a Florida vacation will be very unhappy camping, especially if it rains, and the one wanting to camp will not be cheered up by Mickey.
Sexual conflicts are often handled the same way. One of you wants sex more often than the other, so one person sacrifices, either agreeing to more sex than they want or putting up with less sex than they want. Either way, the problem is not discussed and resentment is the final result.
He Wins, She Wins Page 10
