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Chapter Eighteen LOVE AND SEX Love and sex are the two most sought after experiences in the entire world. In their haste to discover both, many have mistaken sex for love. Others have underestimated the importance of sex, wanting to experience love instead. You may experience sex without feeling loved. Conversely, you may feel loved without having sex. Ask any couple and I’m sure they would agree putting both together in a meaningful relationship can be difficult. For example, I’ll begin with Mark and Sherry. Mark was twenty years old when he married Sherry. She had just turned nineteen. From the beginning, Mark wanted to achieve sexual intimacy with his young bride but she would reject his advances saying she had a headache and didn’t feel well. Mark loved his wife and hoped her headaches would eventually go away. However, they persisted. As the months passed, Mark argued frequently with Sherry over their lack of physical intimacy. Sherry always seemed to win the battle but Mark was secretly planning to win the war. Mark decided that since his wife refused to have sex with him he would go elsewhere to get his needs met. He began visiting massage parlors and porno shops. He even thought seriously about having an affair. All the while Sherry refused to give herself to Mark and her headaches continued. Unbeknownst to Mark, Sherry wanted emotional intimacy most of all. However, Mark was afraid of intimacy, preferring sex instead. Mark wasn’t entirely to blame for his fear. His parents taught him men should always be “strong.” Emotions were irrational expressions of weak-minded individuals. No one hugged or touched each other at the house in which Mark grew up. Close physical contact was taboo. Mark learned to repress his feelings and avoid any physical contact involving touching or hugging. Touchy, feely stuff was for sissies but getting close to someone was okay if the purpose was to have sex. Sherry’s background was quite different from Mark’s. Her strict religious upbringing taught that sex was sinful. To make matters worse, Sherry’s older sister had gotten pregnant when she was a high school freshman. Her parents shamed her to the point that she had to leave home. The experience left Sherry with sexual hang-ups impossible to work through on her own. Mark and Sherry fought over sex for several years. Finally Mark had an affair and Sherry found out. She was devastated and filed for divorce. A few months later their marriage was over, all because they neglected to search for the root cause of their problem. Next, consider the relationship of Vince and Kathy. On a hot summer evening Vince met Kathy at a swank nightclub on the fashionable side of town. From the moment they laid eyes on each other, it was magic. The music and the moment produced an intoxicating spell as they danced the night away. When the music stopped the morning sun found them wrapped in each other’s arms, spent from a torrid night of sex. No one could blame Vince and Kathy for the attraction they felt for each other. Kathy was beautiful—stunning actually. Vince was a handsome, athletically built young man. He was intelligent, too. As one might expect, their relationship intensified over the next several months. Sex was great and getting better. Then, with all the flare of a modern day Valentino, Vince asked Kathy to marry him. She accepted. Their whirlwind affair felt like a fairy tale as they pledged their love at the altar of matrimony a few months later. Six months into their marriage, Kathy fell in love with another man and she filed for divorce. Vince was in a state of shock as he relayed the details of his storybook romance to his divorce recovery group. Weeping, he confessed that infatuation had gotten the best of him. Vince succumbed to lust thinking it was love. His marriage was over in less than a year. Lust, masquerading as love, claimed his heart while another man claimed Kathy. For Vince and Kathy, love was never a part of the equation. Your problem is different, you say? Then maybe you can relate to Ron. Ron told his support group that sex between him and his wife was a disaster long before their divorce. Ron revealed they had sex together out of a sense of duty rather than because of their mutual feelings of love and respect for each together. Ron further revealed he felt guilty after having sex with his wife. He eventually stopped having any physical contact with her, preferring instead to satisfy his sexual urges with pornography and phone sex. After several weeks in a divorce recovery program Ron admitted that he married his wife because his friends were getting married and he used porn as a way to avoid intimacy with his wife. Ron’s marriage lacked love and eventually it lacked sex too, all because he chose to ignore the importance of both in his marriage. These examples don’t describe your problem either, you are thinking. Maybe Randy’s problems with love and sex will be more to the point. During his marriage to Tina, Randy would sometimes allow his ego to interfere with his sex life. His ego would interject the absurd idea that his marriage was lacking something. “Why else would Tina refuse to comply with my sexual advances?” he wondered. “If she loved me, she would show me by acquiescing to my sexual desires,” Randy reasoned. The problem was that Randy’s requests were often too unconventional for Tina. Her conservative attitude toward sex simply would not allow her to indulge in any form of sexual activity that was out of the ordinary. Randy’s ego would whisper, “See, I told you she doesn’t love you.” Then, Randy would sneak off to the massage parlors and strip joints on the seedy side of town to get his needs met. Luckily, Randy and Tina were interested enough in preserving their marriage to seek professional help. A trained counselor discovered the dynamics of their problem. The real problem, as Randy discovered, was the “trap” set by his ego. Randy grew up in a negative environment so he felt undeserving and unlovable. When his wife refused to satisfy him sexually, his ego would tell him she didn’t love him. This rationalization gave him permission to “act out” by taking secret excursions to massage parlors and strip joints on the other side of town. Randy not only rationalized his adulterous behavior, he also negatively reinforced his belief that he was unlovable. Once Randy understood the trap set by his ego he could design a strategy to counter his destructive behavior and experience emotional and physical intimacy with his wife. None of these examples describe your marriage, you say. Maybe you and your husband still have strong feelings for each other, but he’s had affairs and that confuses you. You decided you can’t trust him so you punish him by withholding sex. With the passage of time, you begin to question your marriage. “What is going on? Is it you? Is it he? Why does he seem to love you, even want you, yet find it difficult to stay away from other women?” you ask. The answers are really quite simple. Your husband secretly believes if you knew him, you would not like him. When he is having an affair, he feels unconditionally loved. The person with whom he is having an affair knows he is having an affair and “loves” him anyway. He feels he can be himself with her—faults, fantasies and all. Unfortunately, he is afraid he can’t be himself around you due to his low self-esteem. You might see him for whom he really is and stop loving him. If you knew he was capable of having an affair, would you love him? This is only one issue he thinks he must not tell you about. There are others. He thinks if you know what they are, you might like him even less. For you, love is the missing ingredient. On to William and Penny. They have been married 15 years but their sex life is not rewarding. Penny secretly harbors resentments against William. She keeps a score and wouldn’t dare allow herself to become physically intimate with him. William is keeping a score, too. He can recall each and every time his wife rebuffed his sexual advances. William handles his resentments differently from his wife—he pretends he doesn’t care. He has a lady friend at work with whom he is emotionally involved. He satisfies his sexual urges by fantasizing about her. Neither William nor Penny is happy. They are too in love with their resentments to constructively deal with the issue of sex. Love is definitely missing. Our final example couple is Robert and Joan. Although Joan was stricken with an illness some years ago that threatened to restrict her sexual activity, Robert continues to love her. Over the years, Robert and Joan have worked doubly hard at maintaining their relationship. Instead of bemoaning their misfortune, they decided to look at their problem as a chance to make a new start. They slowed their lifestyle and spent time getting to know each other. In the process, they became best friends. As friends, they trust each other enough to please each other sexually in ways they never dreamed of before Joan’s illness. Today, Robert claims his sex life is better than ever and his marriage to Joan has blossomed into an exciting love affair. Often, men aren’t as bold as Robert. They are reluctant to face their sexual problems because they are afraid of intimacy and terrified of feelings. Too many women aren’t like Joan. They are averse to communicating their wants and needs to their husbands believing they will experience rejection if they do. The result is, neither spouse really knows what the other one wants. Each mistakenly assumes they are not loved or that no one cares about them. When one spouse thinks they are not loved or what they want from the other isn’t important, trouble soon follows. What do you want from your spouse? Is it sex? Is it love? Are you afraid to get close to your spouse and to your feelings? Are you letting negative childhood experiences rob you of the closeness everyone longs for? Perhaps you are allowing someone else’s ideas about sex to influence your sex life. Maybe you and your spouse are both keeping a score? Are you trying to avoid the real problem by escaping to an addiction? Isn’t it time you deal with your problem? Possibly it isn’t a compulsive behavior preventing you from experiencing emotional and physical intimacy. Conceivably, you simply need to talk to each other and allow each other to know the truth about you, your past, your childhood and your beliefs. Think about reevaluating your idea of love and sex. Have you mistaken lust for love, intensity for intimacy and control for caring? Exorcize those nagging resentments and allow your spouse back into your life. Whatever the issue is, talk about it. Start talking and don’t stop. There is no better way to start a friendship. It might even lead to a satisfying sex life. Work on your relationship. Like Robert and Joan, you may become friends as well as lovers. End ExcerptTo download your copy and begin reading right now for Just $14.95!
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