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"Put yourself
in your husband's shoes right now," I urged Wendy. "He's a respectable father,
husband and businessman. If I were to ask him which feels worse, having to resort to
masturbation or you finding out about it, what would he say?"
Wendy tried to
discern the answer to my question, then gave up and abruptly started to cry. "He must
feel awful," she said.
"You have no
idea!" said Jason. The anger had left his voice. He realized from Wendy's response
that she understood his frustration and truly cared. He was greatly relieved.
We had achieved
something vitally important: empathy, the ability to put yourself in another person's
shoes and know what it's like to be him or her. Soon we established that Jason had empathy
for Wendy as well. He understood the pressures on his wife to be a good mother and
maintain her career at the same time. And he understood how stress had caused her to be
less than receptive to his sexual advances.
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Having achieved
this measure of mutual empathy, we were able to move on. To the couple's surprise, I did
not zero in on the sexual component of their relationship. In fact, I avoided it. I knew
from experience that it would be fruitless to delve into the details without first
examining the emotional context that had ripped the rug out from under a once healthy sex
life.
"When was the
last time you felt respected by your wife?" I asked Jason.
He thought for a
moment, then answered, despondently, "It's been so long I can't remember." Like
most men, he needed to feel respected, if not admired, by the woman he loved. At the very
least, he needed to know that he was not disrespected.
Wendy was shocked
that Jason did not feel respected by her. "He's a great guy," she said. "I
guess I can be critical at times, but I have tremendous admiration for him."
"Not
anymore," muttered Jason. He was afraid that the revelation about his masturbating
would destroy Wendy's respect. On the contrary, she admired his courage in admitting it.
"I didn't
know how hurt you were," she told him. "You should have told me. Don't you trust
me?"
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She'd hit the nail
on the head. Jason didn't trust Wendy to hear his pain without losing respect for him. In
his mind, feeling hurt was unmanly. Instead of communicating his feelings directly, he
became sullen and secretive and dealt with his frustration in private.
Wendy then
admitted to a trust issue of her own: while Jason was hiding his secret, she felt that
something was going on and wondered if he was having an affair-only to now feel guilty for
not trusting him.
In our next few
sessions together, we examined more deeply the issues of trust and respect. We also opened
up additional areas of exploration. One was acceptance: both Jason and Wendy had come to
feel let down as they discovered traits in each other that they had difficulty accepting.
When I asked Wendy how long it had been since she'd felt cherished by Jason, she wistfully
said, "I've gone from feeling like a prize to a pain in the ass." We also talked
about enjoyment. Once upon a time, they had found joy and delight in one another's
company. But they had let their life together grow tedious and businesslike.
Only after these
other areas had been explored thoroughly did I let Jason and Wendy return to the issue of
sexual chemistry. Now they could focus on that aspect of their relationship without losing
sight of everything that was affecting it and, in turn, was being affected by it....
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