“That’s enough, and enough is too much!”
—POPEYE
Your marriage contract includes an agreement to have a mutually exclusive sexual relationship, and you owe it to your marriage to manifest your intimacy physically and to keep your end of the bargain.
Make yourself available for sex at least once a week whether you feel like it or not.
If you find yourself thinking of sex as a hassle or trying to avoid it, ask yourself what you need to get in the mood, and remember, as with all surrendering, express your desires to your husband. Surrendering sexually means you do your part to maintain a healthy sexual relationship by regularly making yourself available for this pleasurable experience.
Rare is the marriage where both partners are completely satisfied with the frequency of sex. In Annie Hall, Woody Allen’s character complains to his therapist that he and his wife hardly ever do it—only two, maybe three times a week. At the same time, she is complaining to her therapist that they do it all the time—two, maybe three times a week!
Sex in a marriage is one of the most spiritual ways that we remind ourselves who we are. Something mystical and inexplicable happens when couples bring their energy together and merge physically.
Surrendering in your marriage has a terrific effect in the bedroom, just as surrendering in the bedroom has a tremendous effect on your marriage. There are a few reasons for this. For one thing, men don’t want to have sex with their mothers, and that’s who we remind them of when we’re controlling and bossy. For another thing, when a wife relinquishes control of when, how, and where sex happens, she is free to focus on receiving and being vulnerable. In response to this, the man’s masculinity awakens and he feels more inclined to be tender and generous with his wife. The more attention he gives her, the more likely she will feel grateful and satisfied. If she expresses this gratitude, the man feels appreciated and is likely to give even more.
If you’re thinking this sounds great in theory, but has nothing to do with your reality, take heart. This passionate, mutually gratifying sexual relationship isn’t as elusive as you might think.
Since a healthy adult sexual response includes the desire to have sex, if you don’t enjoy and look forward to making love with your husband, something’s wrong. Just as you would suspect you were sick if you lost your appetite for food, losing your sexual appetite is an indication that all is not well, and you will want to do whatever you can to heal. You’ll know when you’re better because your desire will return in full swing.
Perhaps a drop in your sex drive means you’re resentful or angry. Maybe something physical is turning you off. You might have an emotional injury that interferes with your normal desires. Whatever the root of the problem, curing it is critical to intimacy. Here are some of the underlying reasons women lose interest in sex.
THE COMMON COMPLAINTS
“The definition of a beautiful woman is one who loves me.”
—SLOAN WILSON
“I’m Not in the Mood.”
I often hear women say that they are “not in the mood.” This is not a wise reason to refuse your husband in bed. Moods come and go, and, as you know, just because you don’t start out wanting to have sex doesn’t mean you won’t end up there before it’s over.
You always have a choice about what to do with your body. But if it’s intimacy you’re after, say “yes” at least once a week when your husband wants to make love regardless of whether you’re in the mood. After all, why would you pass up the chance to have physical intimacy with your husband when it’s such a vital part of overall intimacy? Agreeing to make love with your husband helps make him feel loved.
This is not to say that you should be a doormat. Agreeing to have sex doesn’t mean you don’t ask for what you want first. For instance, I might respond to my husband’s advances by saying “I’d love a back rub to get me in the mood,” or “I’m up for it, but only if you can catch me first.” I might request candles and scented oil, a certain sex position or an old Steely Dan album first. Generally he’s more than happy to give me what I want because, as always, he wants to make me happy.
“I Don’t Feel Emotionally Connected with Him.”
If you’ve lost your appetite for sex because you feel abandoned in your marriage and overwhelmed with all your responsibilities, it may be that you’re exhausted from doing everything, or can’t find the time to get romantic after working and taking care of kids all day. Remember that as you begin to relinquish some responsibilities to your husband, you’ll have more energy, so part of the cure is to practice the other steps of surrendering—being respectful, receiving graciously, relinquishing control, expressing gratitude, and (perhaps most of all) practicing good self-care. As you commit to regular physical contact, you will begin to find more enjoyment in it because you can devote the energy you were formerly using to avoid sex to expressing what you want to make sex enjoyable for you. Who knows? Maybe lovemaking will make your list of the top ten things you love to do.
If you’re thinking, “He doesn’t do anything to help me, so why should I do something he wants?” remember that everybody loses during a long, lonely standoff. This attitude puts you no closer to restored harmony. Not least of all, withholding sex as a bargaining chip in the relationship is a terrible misuse of physical intimacy. If you make sex seem like a reward for “good” behavior rather than a mutual pleasure, you abuse your power and dismiss your own healthy desires. Saying yes whenever you can is a good way to ensure that you avoid the chilling effect of a sexual power struggle.
“I Can’t Get Aroused.”
Even if you don’t feel irritated with or estranged from your husband there could still be another reason you’re feeling disconnected from your desire in general. Check with your doctor to see if there’s a physical cause. Certain medications can lower your libido. Nursing a baby or going through menopause may also cause you to feel temporarily disinterested in sex. Sometimes there are simple solutions to these hindrances, such as switching to a different medication or employing a hormone therapy.
If the doctor says there’s nothing to do about your diminished desire but wait (to stop nursing, to complete the medication, or to advance to the next stage of menopause, for instance), make yourself available at least once a week anyway. Assuming you’re not going to experience pain, this is really not that much different than not being in the mood. If you don’t show up for sex, you will still cheat yourself (and your husband) out of an intimate physical connection. If you do show up—who knows? By the end you may be enjoying yourself too. Remember to speak up about what will make it enjoyable for you.
IDENTIFYING AND HEALING A SEXUAL INJURY
“Perfect love is rare indeed—for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.”
—LEO BUSCAGLIA
If you’re experiencing a tremendous amount of fear as you’re reading this, perhaps you are avoiding sex to protect yourself from feeling the pain of a previous sexual injury. If that’s the case, you’re not alone.
I have also felt ambivalent about making love with my husband. I always wanted to enjoy a physical relationship, but another part of me didn’t want sex at all. When I started discussing my ambivalence honestly with other women, I noticed we had something in common: Many of us had suffered some kind of emotional injury related to sex and we were haunted by a lingering sense of powerlessness and violation.
Some women had engaged sexually when they were too young, while others were the victims of rape, incest, or molestation. Regardless of the trauma, the travesty was the same: We sometimes associated sexual experiences with our earlier injuries, and could feel tremendous anxiety even during a healthy, consensual sexual encounter.
Simply put, we were fearful of not having control of our bodies.
We preferred to control when, where, and how to make love, because it somehow felt safer, which makes perfect sense since control comes from fear. We all said we wanted to be pursued, but then when we were, we often turned our husbands down. This prevented us from experiencing the pleasure of spontaneous sex with our partners. Our old defense kept us from connecting and left us feeling lonely.
If you sometimes feel obligation or pressure to perform when your husband initiates lovemaking, you may have a sexual injury. If you’re thinking that you always feel pressured to perform when your husband approaches you sexually, take a look at the underlying fear. This fear and sense of obligation manifests itself as a reluctance to engage in any physical contact at all. The reasoning goes something like this:
1. If I kiss him, he might get turned on.
2. If he gets turned on, he’ll want to have sex with me.
3. If he wants to have sex with me, I’ll have to because I got him aroused in the first place.
4. I may not want to have sex with him, so if I want to keep my options open …
5. I won’t kiss him—at least, not like that!
The problem with this thinking is that it also prevents us from engaging in sensual activities that don’t necessarily culminate in an orgasm. Erotic pleasures like back rubs, showering together, or just being playful seem too threatening to enjoy.
If you identify with having sexual injuries, you may want to find a gentle, safe counselor who can support you in processing your experiences and helping you heal. You may even need to take a break from having sex with your husband while you’re opening up the wounds and trying to heal them.
But didn’t you just say I should always say yes?
I did, as a matter of fact, but I’m making an exception. If you are working with a therapist or are engaging in some other form of healing, it may be necessary to take a temporary break.
Let your husband know that you’re working on some issues of your own that may make you unavailable for sex, but put a time limit on it—say three months. Promise that you’ll let him know when you’re available again. Thank him for bearing with you. Assure him that you still think he’s attractive and that the injuries you’re healing have nothing to do with him. He might continue to approach you in the meantime, and in each moment you will get to decide if you’re available.
Just communicating about your lack of desire will help to improve the intimacy in your relationship. Instead of wondering if you’ll ever be a willing sex partner, your man will have hope for the future. Also, asking your husband to support you in a situation like this taps into his masculine instinct to protect you.
If you’re thinking that your husband will not respond supportively, consider Gina’s experience.
She told her husband that she was working on some sexual injuries that she endured as a teenager, and that she wouldn’t be available for a few months while she dealt with them. Gina was so nervous telling her husband this that she could only look at the ground and try to keep from shaking. But once the words were out, she was relieved and rewarded. Her husband responded like the tender, good guy he is and said he loved her—no matter what—and wanted to protect her. When Gina asked her husband if he would bear with her for a while he said, “Of course, I will.”
You will probably be pleasantly surprised too because telling your husband about the fears you have surrounding sexuality makes you vulnerable. It demonstrates a degree of trust and faith in your husband that he will want to honor. When you reveal yourself he will not only want to protect you, he will also find you beautiful.
Now that you have his support I urge you to seek help from a therapist, an online or community support group, or a book such as The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse by Laura Davis. Do whatever you have to do to heal so you can be sexually whole. Just as your appetite returns when you’re over the flu, your desire to be desired will return as you heal sexually. You need only be tender and reassuring with yourself while you’re healing to discover it again.
THE SEVEN SEXUAL MYTHS
“Oh, I’m scared all the time! I just act as if I’m not.”
—KATHARINE HEPBURN
If you suffer from a sexual injury you may subscribe to common misconceptions that make you feel obligated—and therefore pressured—to be sexual. Here are some of the common myths—and the lesser-known facts—that I’ve heard from the women I know.
1. Myth: If I don’t have sex with him, he’ll look for it someplace else.
Fact: If your husband is one of the good guys, you have nothing to worry about. In other words, if he’s not a sex addict who is sleeping with other women, you will not drive a healthy man to seek sex elsewhere by taking a temporary sexual healing break. (If he is a sex addict acting out with other women, see the section in the introduction called “When Not to Surrender and Get Out.”)
If your husband has a history of infidelity it will be harder to believe that he will remain faithful while you’re not temporarily available. But, if he has the capacity to be faithful, he can certainly go without sex on occasion. He cannot, however, live without respect and admiration. Ongoing control and criticism are far more dangerous threats to monogamy than the absence of sex.
If you can’t be sexual with him right now, your husband does deserve the promise of sex in the future. Let’s say you decide to work with a therapist to heal some old wounds, and during that time the pain is so intense that you decide to tell your husband you won’t be sexually available for three months or so. If you talk openly with him about not being available and that the situation is temporary, it’s very unlikely that he’ll look for sex someplace else during a short-lived break.
It’s true that men have been known to cheat on their wives out of anger and loneliness. However, it’s usually a last resort for regaining the masculinity and intimacy that are lost when he’s lived with ongoing criticism and control. Another motivation for a man to cheat on his wife is the feeling that he may never get his sexual needs met in his marriage. While neither of these situations would make his cheating your fault (he is always responsible for honoring his wedding vows), it only makes sense to avoid emasculating him or withholding sex indefinitely.
When you acknowledge that a healthy sex life is important to you, and that you plan to return to one as soon as possible, you are fostering intimacy and trust in your marriage. That’s very different from just ignoring his frustration and making no commitments to improve in the future.
Your husband may very well need more sex than you are able to offer him if you’re unavailable for a while. Fortunately, men know exactly how to satisfy themselves when we’re not available. Your husband probably went many months or years without sex plenty of times before he met you. A hiatus with you is not going to drive him into some other woman’s bed. Remind yourself of this when you feel afraid.
Some women feel threatened when their husbands masturbate, but men tend to view masturbating as a bodily function, rather than a cataclysmic sexual experience. According to the old joke, 98 percent of all men masturbate and the other 2 percent lie. Your husband is probably like most men. He may even use pornography when he masturbates. But what he’s reading or watching is strictly between him and God, and it’s none of your business. A centerfold is not the same as a flesh-and-bones woman, so don’t make it more than it is.
You may find these views on the topics of masturbation and pornography distasteful, but keep in mind that you can’t control your husband’s masturbating or pornography viewing. Trying to stop him is a form of controlling—which wastes your time and interferes with your intimacy. Remember that part of the reason he’s attracted to you is because he’s attracted to the female form. That’s the way he’s made.
2. Myth: “If I have sex with him, I’ll have to work hard to prevent him from seeing how fat/freckled/wrinkled/sweaty I am.”
Fact: We’re accustomed to thinking that we’re unattractive if we haven’t showered, done our hair, put on makeup and perfume, or put on a pretty outfit with matching earrings. We women are especially hard on ourselves when it comes to the way we look. But no matter what your state, you have a womanly shape and scent and a feminine spirit that is attractive to your man, which is why he’s making goo-goo eyes. Seize that opportunity to connect.
Try not to flinch if your husband fondles your stomach, looks at your thighs, or runs his fingers through your dirty hair. Don’t stand between him and what he finds pleasurable. Don’t worry about how you smell or what bodily fluids you’ve excreted. If he doesn’t care, why should you? Being overly self-conscious is a barrier to intimacy. When you accept yourself as you are, you will even start to feel attractive at times that you never thought you would.
If you refuse him because you insist that you are not attractive, you’re acting on the belief that this man has bad taste, when clearly he has excellent taste as evidenced by the fact that he married you. You are also criticizing what he thinks, which is disrespectful and ungracious.
Passing up an opportunity to have a physically intimate moment with your husband because you feel inadequate is unpleasant for everybody. You’re denying him the chance to give you pleasure and yourself the chance to receive it and feel beautiful in his arms all because you feel insecure about your body. Why not use the opportunity to feel great? Tell yourself, “I turn him on! He must think I am sexy and gorgeous.” Even if he’s not telling you so in words, notice what his actions are saying.
3. Myth: “If I don’t have sex with him now, he won’t approach me again.”
Fact: While it’s true that repeated rejections can be discouraging, it’s not likely to make your husband stop trying. Just as people keep tugging at the lever of a slot machine, so your husband is also optimistic about hitting the jackpot. This is especially true if you have told your husband up front that you might not be available and that it’s not about him, because then he won’t take your rejection personally. Another reason he won’t stop trying is that part of his physical makeup drives him to mate with you. His instincts tell him to plant his seed.
If your husband is not approaching you, a much more significant problem may be rejection outside the bedroom. Keep working on respecting and deferring to him. And, of course, practice making yourself available.
4. Myth: “If I don’t have sex with him when he wants to, he won’t love me.”
Fact: His love for you doesn’t depend on sex. You are lovable whether you are performing sexually or not, and to believe otherwise reflects a painful lack of self-worth. Don’t discount the unique qualities that made your husband fall in love with you in the first place. Your husband loves you for lots of reasons—the way you mother his children, make a home, laugh at his jokes, know the names of all the constellations, admire his muscles, or wear your hair when you’re going to the beach. Remind yourself that you have intrinsic value as a person, not just as a sex partner. Your husband did not marry you just for the sex. For that, he could have made arrangements that required much less effort on his part.
A reasonable man will not insist on having sex when you’re unavailable. He may complain loudly, but he won’t stop loving you because you’re abstaining for a little while. Keep in mind that he wants you to be happy, and if that means entertaining himself for the moment, so be it.
5. Myth: “If I have sex with him and it’s only so-so, he’ll complain that it’s not as good as it used to be.”
Fact: You might end up having terrific sex when you least expect it. Remember that the point of lovemaking is to connect physically and to distinguish your marriage from every other relationship. Not all sex is fabulous, so don’t hold yourself to an impossible standard.
6. Myth: “If I don’t have sex with him, he’ll be angry and I will feel guilty.”
But there’s a simple antidote for not keeping your sexual agreement. Apologize. Acknowledge that you have deprived him sexually, and tell him you are doing everything you can to get to the root of the problem and heal it so you’ll be available for him.
You can’t afford to feel guilty or be harsh with yourself.
It’s appropriate that you feel remorse, and that you try to speed the process of renewing intimacy by making an effort to be available to your husband. However, guilt only robs you of the energy you’ll need to address the issues that stand between you and a pleasurable sex life.
7. Myth: “If I start to have sex with him, I’ll have to satisfy him to the point of orgasm.”
Fact: Women with sexual abuse in their past especially tend to feel this way, and understandably so. If you’ve survived a rape, date rape, or molestation, you probably identify with this belief, and you have internalized the idea that “no” is not an option.
Some wives had an overly simplistic, black-and-white view of sex that made us feel we were either going to do it and go all the way, or we weren’t going to engage at all. Once we acquiesced to a kiss, or got undressed or passed some other symbolic starting point, there was no turning back.
If your husband is one of the good guys as described in the first chapter, then he is not one of the creeps who forced you. Remind yourself that he never will be. If you ask a good guy (i.e., your husband) to stop in the middle of lovemaking, he may protest, but he won’t rape you. I asked the women in the circle to do this as a onetime experiment, and I recommend it for you too, to demonstrate that you are in charge of your body. Once we had the proof, we knew that we could always choose. That made it easier to say yes more often, and have the physical intimacy we craved. The truth is, you always have a choice, and knowing that will make you feel freer to engage in lovemaking.
* * *
I have talked to hundreds of women, and among those who have a lack of desire for sex, the majority subscribe to the seven myths. Too many have a history of sexual abuse.
In other words, you are not alone. But you need to take responsibility for your own healing, particularly if you’ve been blaming your husband for your lack of desire. For instance, some women complain to me that their husbands always want sex from them—as if that’s a problem. They’re surprised when I say “That’s great!” As I see it, his actions prove that he has a healthy male sex drive, he doesn’t see her as his mother and he’s physically attracted to her, all of which is good news.
It takes tremendous courage to heal from sexual wounding, but if the women in the first Surrendered Circle could find that courage, so can you. You deserve to have the freedom to enjoy your own sexuality with the man who has committed to you for life, so don’t let your fear and old wounds stand in your way. You’ll never feel more feminine, or him more masculine, than when you’re enjoying the zenith of physical intimacy with the love of your life.