times a week and wished they had time for more; and couples who didn’t want or need it more once or twice a month. When all partners are satisfied with their pattern, their sexual health is good, and they’re getting enough intimacy to feel content, there is nothing to fix or change.
To me, frequency is not as important as respecting the importance of sex and making it a regular part of your relationship, according to your and your partner’s needs and schedules. The couples I worry about are the ones who make sex their lowest priority, avoid it, never make the time for it, don’t communicate about it, and thus don’t really sexually mature.
LARRY and JEAN-MARIE had been married for 45 years. They were in my office because she didn’t want to have sex with him anymore. While she sniffled into a hankie, he glowered as she said that while she didn’t mind it too much, he wanted to have it every day and after 45 years of it, she just couldn’t anymore.
My first thoughts, naturally, went to menopause and the thought that Jean-Marie’s libido had significantly altered. But by the next session, the problem came into focus.
In 45 years, they had never changed their routine. When Larry got to bed at night, he always began by touching her breasts until he was aroused, and then penetrated her. Jean-Marie had come to dread that breast-grab. She didn’t really know if she’d ever had an orgasm. All she knew was that she was tired of having sex with him. Larry, meanwhile, was hoping I’d tell them if there was a pill to make her more sexually compliant. She wouldn’t let him touch her anywhere but her breasts. Neither was open to making changes in the way they had sex. Jean-Marie wanted to write sex off completely; Larry just wanted what he wanted, a wife who’d let him get on top of her every night.
Frankly, I would be tired of having sex too if it was that predictable and unvaried. A common thread uniting many marriage partners who complain of poor sex lives is that neither of them are actually very good at sex. Sometimes, it’s because one partner is selfish in bed and doesn’t care as much about how their partner feels. Sometimes they’re too shy to introduce alternatives, too embarrassed to make themselves look foolish if they make a mistake, or too inhibited or guilty to suggest variations that might make it better for one or both of them. Sometimes, one partner’s shame or inhibition casts such a chill over the bed that the sex itself is cold and anti-septic.
My clinical view is that the problem here was chronic sexual immaturity. Larry was still a fumbling fratboy, trying to have the kind of sex he had at age 20, with about the same success most men that age have (i.e., limited). Jean-Marie had never reached her own erotic potential and she blamed it all on her husband. No longer the newlywed drenched with hormones, she was turning into a bitter old lady who had stopped caring about her husband’s genuine need for intimacy and physical love.
For them to heal, they had to restart their sex life on a healthier footing, and learn to spend more time on all the cuddly parts of sex – the fondling and kissing and teasing. Jean-Marie had to let her husband touch her all over, and Larry had to learn to go slow.
I designed a special behavioral challenge for them: they couldn’t have intercourse again until they had each been able to make the other climax with hands and mouth. It took them a while to get going because they both avoided their homework for months. But once they began the exercise in earnest, it was amazing how quickly things began to shift. Re-learning sex, and focusing on new ways to do it, empowered them to return to intercourse with a new sensitivity and understanding of the kinds of pleasure they could give and receive.
Jean-Marie’s libido did not hugely increase as a result but they were able to reach a happy compromise. Larry still wished it happened more often, but Jean-Marie was now enjoying it. Getting such positive results from their experiments convinced Larry to change his attitude about adding sex toys to their intimacy. Though their intimacy was still more mild than wild, they were tickled to death to think they were having sex like “the kids do today.” It really changed their lives. The anger and resentment melted from Jean-Marie’s face and Larry was so much more self-confident and upbeat. It was a wonderful thing.
I attribute some of the lifelong sexual immaturity in couples to an exasperatingly common cultural myth that “sex isn’t that important in a relationship.” When I hear people say that, I take it to mean that they’ve given up and think others should, too. For the rest of us, sex is important in a relationship. If we are monogamous, then our sex life with our partner is critical, because they are our only source of sexual intimacy. Take that one source away or obstruct it, and the stability of the relationship becomes unpredictable. Sooner or later, one or both partners may look for that sense of sexual intimacy elsewhere.
KYLE came to me because he had been having an affair and his wife had just found out. She accused him of being a sex-addict and said that she would give him another chance if he went for counseling and tried to fix himself. If he could come back to her, saying that he’d dealt with it and he’d never cheat again, she would take him back.
Kyle told me he started the affair after his wife had their second child. Her body had snapped right back after the first one, but after the second, her breasts were droopy and her waistline was gone. He accepted the changes as part of the price of having children and wanted to get back to a regular sex life, but his wife pushed him away, telling him she didn’t feel sexy with all the extra weight, that she was too tired from taking care of the kids, and other excuses that left him completely high and dry in the romance department.
Being a 21st century man, he started visiting dating sites as a hoot, but before too long, one thing led to another. He met a woman who shared his libido, and they had started an amazing affair. The sex was so much better than it had ever been with his wife. His girlfriend was adventurous and playful in bed, whereas his wife had always acted like sex was something she just went along with for his sake.
The problem was that he really loved his wife and he couldn’t stand the thought of being apart from his babies. He didn’t know what to do – he’d never had such great sex as he did with his girlfriend, but he felt obligated to his commitments. Should he stay with the hot girlfriend or should he go back to his wife, knowing in his heart he’d never have really great sex again?
If there is any one theme which unites all the diverse people who see me, it is their disappointment with their sex lives. They may come to me for an issue concerning their genital function, but inevitably, there is an underlying emotional reality we have to puzzle through. To help clients make smart sexual choices, I have to understand who they are as human beings and what their relationships are like. And that’s a big piece of what makes sex between or among adults so complicated: we aren’t just dealing with body parts. We are dealing with interpersonal dynamics and psychological landscapes.
While we do not have all the answers, we know more than we ever did both about the nature of sex and how to turn things around emotionally for people. People can overcome inhibitions. People who are inorgasmic can become orgasmic. People who fail with partners in bed can succeed with partners in bed. People who cannot have penetrative sex can still enjoy sexual intimacy. Most importantly, people can learn from their mistakes and make better choices which will bring them much greater sexual happiness.
I’ve witnessed radical transformations in the course of therapy that leave me in awe about our seemingly innate capacity for sexual resiliency and recovery. Even when a person’s early sexual potential is damaged by traumatic sexual experiences, such as rape or molestation, their underlying sexual identity can become vibrant. It’s such an important message, yet so rarely expressed: Good sex is as beneficial as bad sex is harmful. I’ve seen people rehabilitate themselves and re-start their emotional lives through better, more nurturing sex.
Clients
