Romance and Rage

Posted by fxckfeelings on February 17, 2011

Now that Valentine’s Day has once again come and gone, let us oppose the sentimentality that equates love with romance, good sex and a chocolate and roses assortment. In real life, relationships are a flowerless affair fraught with bad sex and bickering. True love is not pretty hearts and valentines, but what you do to stay together and show respect when you’re feeling anything but. It’s not the chocolates or the fights, but the way you move past them that matters.
–Dr. Lastname

My husband, a heterosexual, healthy 37-year-old man who loves me, does not want to have sex with me most of the time. We used to have good sex for the first year or so, but then with time it became less and less frequent, e.g., every 6-9 months. I am attractive and feel that other men find me desirable. We tried talking, seeing a sex therapist (didn’t go well, he just found the whole thing frustrating and upsetting and was angry with me for making him go). He says he doesn’t know why he doesn’t feel like having sex with me, but it deeply affects my self-esteem and our relationship. I gained some weight (20 pounds) and went from skinny to curvy over the last 10 years, and I know that it was a big(ish) issue for him. I’m currently doing good diet/exercise routine and am slowly loosing the extra pounds, but I really don’t know how much it will help. He says he finds other women attractive and would probably have sex with them if he was single, so obviously the issue is with us/me or our relationship. He also says that he loves me a lot and is faithful, but we don’t have fun anymore and that I always complain and want to have serious talks, and he’s tired of it. Overall it’s a good relationship, with some ups and downs, but we’re honest with each other and love each other very much. I would really appreciate some advice since I’m losing hope that it will ever change.

It feels good to feel attractive, sexy, rich, powerful, or whatever, but those feelings, or any feelings, don’t make a good foundation for building your self-esteem or your partnership. And they’re quicksand to a healthy marriage.

After all, you won’t always be attractive or sexy (age, weight gain/loss, a rare case of leprosy), and you may lose your riches or power (poor economy, joblessness, making “bunga bunga” with a teenager like a certain political Italian).

At that point, if you believe what your feelings tell you, you’ll be a loser, and your marriage will be worthless. It’s better to stop that kind of thinking right away and, above all, not to talk like that to your husband.

In addition, you’re talking as if he’s responsible for failing as a husband, even though it’s unlikely that he has any control over the disappointing sexual chemistry between you. You’ve made excellent attempts to get help together and they haven’t worked. As George Clinton would say, you can’t force the funk.

If the bad news is that your soured chemistry can’t be altered, the good news is that he’s not to blame. When you talk like it is his fault and insist that he could do better if he tried harder in therapy, or that you can’t have fun together without sex, or that he’s a pig for hating your new curves, you’ve turned an uncontrollable misfire of sexual chemistry into a personal failure of love and friendship.

So instead of assigning him blame, acknowledge his strengths and achievements. He has stuck with you despite a lack of lust, a corresponding excess of talk, and his urge to wander. You continue to enjoy living with him in spite of the sexual famine, and you’ve survived the stress, shame and humiliation of your sex coma.

Most importantly, you have what good marriages need, which is a lot of positive personal chemistry and devotion. You have more to be proud of than do horny, happy people who assume their hot sex life makes them “successful” (viva Berlusconi!) rather than simply lucky.

If you acknowledge your husband’s strength, as well as the uncontrollable nature of his sex drive, you may find him more willing to explore ways of coping with the problem, perhaps by giving you pleasure in bed even if he’s not aroused, or seeing an endocrinologist to check out his hormone levels.

Yes, it’s embarrassing for him and it’s too bad you’re not getting any, and hey, you might even want to call the whole thing off. If you do, however, it’s because a neurologic reflex failed, not him; it’s chemical, not personal. Even if you do lose your marriage, neither one of you is a loser doomed to a life of funklessness.

STATEMENT:
“It’s sad and frustrating that my husband’s sex drive has faded with the familiarity of marriage, but it sure hasn’t been for lack of trying, for either one of us. Now I have to accept the fact that things aren’t likely to change, and decide whether the good parts of our partnership outweigh the loss of sexual pleasure. No matter what happened to our sexual chemistry, however, we haven’t failed as people or partners.”

I want nothing more than to bring a little peace to my family, but often it seems impossible. My daughter is a genius at messing up and then apologizing for nothing, and my husband believes he has to drum her misdeeds into her head to make sure she’ll never do them again. He wants me to support his criticism, and she wants me to defend her from being picked on, and neither will stop bickering once they get started. My goal is to impose some peace and quiet.

The problem with an excessive need for peace, as Neville Chamberlain found out, is that it can make you excessively compliant with the biggest, loudest, most belligerent asshole in the room.

If they want your attention and support, you won’t get peace; instead, they’ll compete to see who can make you feel more guilt or fear until you finally feel their pain (instead of the other guy’s) and do what they want.

If you look rattled or upset, they know they’re on the right track. Remember, a good war needs an anguished bystander as much as it needs angry opponents.

Instead of expressing your anguish about their conflict, work out a procedure for providing them with a fair response. It should include listening to the substance of the complaint, deciding whether it requires action and/or sympathy on your part, and then refusing to participate in further argument.

You need to believe you’ve done what you can and that you have no additional responsibility for their pain and conflict, other than not to make it worse by joining in. In most cases, the only action you’ll need to take is to acknowledge that they’re being bothered, and that they’re right to feel bothered, but there’s nothing you can do other than tell them to let it go.

Nobody wants to hear that, and they’ll probably give you a momentary earful, but it will be short and sweet, (and cut off by closing the door behind you), compared to the escalating battle that your usual placating inspires.

Trying to smooth out everyone’s feelings just encourages more feelings, which leads to more conflict. Life is unfair, you don’t have the power to fix it, and unless you’re married to, or are a parent to, Hitler, feel free to sit this one out.

STATEMENT:
“I hate hearing my husband and daughter argue, and I don’t like judging their complaints, but I’m prepared to give them a hearing if necessary and decide if anything needs to be done because it allows me to withdraw from further discussion with a clear conscience, after giving them the best advice I can.”