Sex Without Stress Read online

  • After sex, how are you feeling?

  • How do you think your partner is feeling?

  • What do you both do once it’s over?

  • How do you know it’s over?

  • How does the cycle of avoidance show up for you two? How do you avoid talking about sex? How do you avoid having sex the next time? Why?

  • What exactly is your role in the cycle?

  • What will you admit if you are willing to get honest about what you’re doing?

  Your Takeaways

  * * *

  Pay attention to your steps in the dance. Look at where you are being direct and where you’re being evasive or misleading. Notice how you influence what happens and where you try to control what your partner does. Consider how your actions are interpreted by and affect your partner. What are some things you could change about your contribution right away? What became clear in this evaluation about how sex gets off the rails for you? What immediate ideas do you have about how it could get better?

  ——

  These series of questions deconstruct your sex life and shine a light onto what’s happening under the surface. There is usually a whole dance around sex that is largely non-verbal and unacknowledged—even though both people are aware of what’s going on. When I have these talks with clients, it’s clear how much both people understand what’s happening even if they never talk about it. Which is why you should talk about it!

  Slowing it down and admitting what you both already know allows you to talk about what’s happening with some compassion and curiosity. While it can be difficult to be honest about some of these dynamics, it takes a bit of the pressure off because you don’t have to pretend anymore. You are now informed and armed to transform your sex life. Hopefully, after tackling these lists of questions, you have several ideas about where the problems are and what has kept you from addressing them. You should have several concrete ideas about how your own issues and behavior are making things worse. The next step in the process is to get clear about your contribution to the problems.

  CHAPTER 9

  What’s on Your Side of the Court?

  So far, this book has provided opportunity to consider a variety of issues that might be at play in your own sexual struggles. While it makes sense that these contributing factors would make it harder to have and enjoy sex, that doesn’t mean you have to let them keep you stuck. Now is the time to reach clarity on how they are affecting you and what you are going to do about it.

  As you move forward in this process, only play your side of the court. I’ve mentioned that concept before, but now it is time to come up with concrete ways you intend to change your role in your sexual difficulties. You do your work, and your partner does theirs. You can hold each other accountable, to a degree, but do not worry about them or police their efforts. Do everything you can to solve your own part of the problem. To be successful, you need to get clear about exactly what your work is.

  Handle your desire discrepancy.

  If desire discrepancy is part of the problem between you and your partner, take on your half of that and deal with it in a healthy, constructive way. I use a concept developed by Dr. David Schnarch and suggest that you consider your role in the dynamic from two different perspectives: where is your best self in charge, and where is your worst self running the show?

  The best in you is the part that is honest. It’s the part that can settle your own emotional state and manage your reactivity. It’s the part that can connect with what you want and communicate that. The best part also keeps you safe by knowing you’re going to be okay. In a way (maybe surprisingly), it’s the part that could choose to leave the relationship if your fundamental bottom lines aren’t met—at least after a good, solid effort with your partner.

  YOUR “JOB” IF YOU WANT LESS SEX THAN YOUR PARTNER

  Let’s look at what’s happening if you’re the person with less interest in sex. We’ve already talked about how the person with less desire controls sex. Your partner wants sex more, so you’re the one saying yes or no, when and how. If desire discrepancy has been a problem in your relationship, then your partner has likely derived their sense of desirability and self-esteem from your sexual response, allowing you to control their sense of adequacy. You may or may not welcome that power.

  The best in you is showing up if you don’t want to have sex just to bolster your partner’s ego. It can be good judgment to be repelled by overtures for sex that come from neediness or obligation. The best in you knows you want a shared sexual experience that is about pleasure and connection, not validation. Your best self knows what good sex is (or can be), or you don’t know, but you are willing to figure it out for yourself. The best in you recognizes if your partner’s higher level of desire isn’t based in a developed ability to really connect in sex, to share moments of intensity, and to be present with you. So you may be showing good sense in not wanting the kind of sex you’ve been having with your partner. There may be other ways that the sex you’re having is subpar or problematic, giving you good reason not to want it. And your best self may also be standing your ground about how much sex you’re willing to have.

  While some of your lower desire may be solid and coming from a good place, because you object to the sex itself or the meaning it has, you still need to challenge yourself about the parts of your motivation that aren’t coming from your best self. Do you enjoy the power you have and wielding it over your partner? Perhaps you enjoy the pain it’s causing them because you have your own resentments that you don’t deal with directly. Putting off your partner and focusing on their issues is a way of not addressing your own anxiety or limitations. Your partner’s issues can be used as a diversion, even if they’re real, so that you don’t have to deal with your own. Don’t force your partner to carry the emotional brunt of your withering sex life. Sit down at the table, figuratively, and craft a solution. This is the time to stop waiting for just the right invitation and to begin stating your needs (or even acknowledging that you have any). The worst in you may think you’re perfectly happy sitting in your comfort zone, unwilling to stretch while knowing full well that your partner is suffering. The best in you is not.

  The key is to figure out what’s happening and confront yourself about it. Where the best in you is in charge, where it makes sense for you not to want sex, you need to speak up and do something about what’s wrong instead of avoid sex. It’s not fully from the best in you if you won’t talk about it, address the issues, and work toward solving the problem between you. Where the worst of you is showing up, you need to take it on. While you can get benefit from communicating with your partner and taking a stand, it is your job to challenge yourself to act differently. It is your job to take a more active role in solving your sex life. It is time to clean your side of the court. That will entail stepping up, determining what it takes to want to engage in sex, and designing a real contribution to a sex life that works for both of you.

  YOUR “JOB” IF YOU WANT MORE SEX THAN YOUR PARTNER

  If you’re the person with the higher level of desire, you’ve got the same two basic questions—what part of your role is from the best part of you and what part is from the worst?

  The best in you is showing up when you advocate for what you want—knowing that sex is important to you and valuing it. Speaking up about what matters and not just letting it go is important. The best in you shows up when you’re in touch with what you like and what turns you on. If you’ve figured out your desires, preferences, and eroticism, you’ve gotten in touch with core elements of yourself. If you validate those desires, too, giving yourself permission to want what you want instead of needing your partner to make them okay, that is a sign you’re coming from a solid place.

  The worst part of you shows up when you rely on validation from your partner to feel good about yourself. You take their lack of sexual interest personally, as rejection. Your sense of yourself—as a person, as a lover, as a partner—requires their se
xual interest. When you have sex, you feel good about yourself and your relationship. But without sex, you get shaky. Sex is reassurance. This changes the meaning of sex from connecting with your partner to making you feel okay about yourself. This is usually unpalatable to your partner, who can tell this is a form of neediness, and then they become less interested in sex.

  The worst in you is involved, too, if you believe (or pretend to believe) you are sexually evolved and enlightened while your partner is repressed or inadequate. If your conversation never gets to why your partner legitimately isn’t interested in sex and how it might not be fulfilling to them, you’re not challenging your pretenses. You can have lots of interest in sex but still plenty of issues around intimacy. You may struggle to get emotionally close to your partner, able to be physical in sex but not open in other settings or in other ways. Maybe you can be sexual when someone doesn’t mean as much to you, but you struggle if your partner matters to you. Your libido can be a smokescreen for your own challenge with having a true connection with your partner.

  The worst in you is in charge when you have whatever sex is offered to you, abandoning your own desires, preferences, and eroticism to keep the peace. You take whatever scraps you can get. This suggests to your partner that you have no taste, that you can’t discern good sex from bad, and you just want to get off. You are feeding a cycle that undermines your partner’s respect for you, and probably eats away at your self-respect, too.

  Dealing with your half of the desire discrepancy is going to require taking yourself on and behaving differently. Speak up about the things you know to be a problem and where you know you are on solid ground. Claim the validity of your desires and continue to advocate for yourself and what you want. But also confront yourself about how you’ve needed your partner to respond a certain way for you to feel good about yourself. Admit when you’ve been willing to blame your partner without looking at your own role. Get honest about how you are challenged to show up, be seen, and have true moments of connection. Figure out the ways this situation is about you and your own limitations instead of blaming or pathologizing your partner. Decide what you’re going to change in your interactions, so those changes originate from your best self.

  Master your own emotional regulation.

  Self-soothing and emotional self-regulation are big parts of the work for each of you. Develop the ability to tolerate anxiety as well as feeling unsettled and unsure. Instead of looking to your partner to change what they’re doing or to reassure you, settle yourself down and tend to your own reactivity. This is going to take practice, but playing your side of the court means regulating your own emotional state. You can take a break to get control of yourself, but then it’s your job to show up and engage again. If you get triggered or escalated, it’s your job to notice that and do what you need to do to regain control. It’s also your job to let your partner take a break when needed and not hold them in discussion against their will. It’s your job not to call names or blame your partner. Avoid taking the bait or throwing fuel on the fire. Each of you has that job, but your side is the only one that you need to focus on.

  Adjust your expectations.

  Another part of playing your side of the court is adjusting your expectations. Recognize your own expectations and how those have shaped your interactions with your partners. Where you have unrealistic notions about sex, acknowledge and change them. This requires letting go of things you might have thought were important and accepting a new view of how relationships work. There may be some sense of loss and a need to grieve some of these ideas. It’s hard to let go of the idea that someone who loves you should just know what you want. Or that sex should be easy and not need any work or effort. The idea that you and your partner should orgasm at the same time, through penetration, or repeatedly is based on unrealistic expectations. But keeping expectations like these sets you up to fail, feeding the cycle of avoidance you are trying to change.

  Give your partner the benefit of the doubt.

  Find ways to extend the benefit of the doubt to your partner. You may be coming into this process with a lot of bad history and hard feelings, but without forgetting that, be willing to see this as a fresh start. Focus on what you must do and allow your partner the space and responsibility to tend to their own work. Don’t worry yet about how they are doing, and don’t jump to conclusions that they aren’t doing what they need to. A lot of this work is internal, so you may not see anything right away. That doesn’t mean they aren’t changing. Focus on you, not them. Assume the best instead of the worst, especially if they make a mistake. Unilaterally giving your partner the benefit of the doubt and honestly assessing what happens is a big part of getting into a virtuous cycle instead of a vicious one.

  Be honest.

  Perhaps the hardest part of playing your side of the court is the need to be completely honest. You may think you’re an honest person, but the true test comes when there’s a lot at stake. You need to be honest even when it’s going to cost you, even when it might cost you the relationship and when it really isn’t what your partner wants to hear. Unless you’re telling the truth and coming clean when it’s risky, you’re not an honest person.

  Real trust is based on this kind of honesty, as I described in Chapter 4. Your partner cannot trust you if you hold back to spare their feelings or “make them safe.” They will not trust you if you swallow your feelings and concerns only to blindside them later. Trust will not exist if you neglect your own needs and wants, building resentment over time, even if you are doing it to keep the peace or be accommodating.

  You also need to be honest about your ability to read your partner and how you use the information you get when you do. Most people are not avoiding sex by being direct and overt; they do it by sending signals to their partner and by reading the signals sent in return. It becomes collusion between partners, a covert agreement enacted by two people. Once you begin talking about your interactions, including the fact that you are sending and reading signals, you start to deal with the real issues.

  For now, having this conversation can be scary. One or both of you have invested in the pretense that you can’t read the other. You may fear what’s going to be revealed about you or your relationship if you honestly open up. Once you get honest, you can’t go back to pretending you don’t know. There is no unringing that bell—and that is a good thing, although it feels risky.

  There isn’t room anymore for pretending. Don’t mislead your partner about what you’re thinking or wanting. Don’t hide behind half-truths or deflection. Don’t avoid telling the truth or sharing what’s going on for you by focusing on your partner and their issues. You and your partner read each other; it’s time to admit it and deal directly with what you know about each other.

  Your Takeaways

  * * *

  This is the part of the process where you gather steam to make change, getting clear about what your role is in the problem. You have taken a good look at your thoughts and behaviors, and you have examined several ways that people typically struggle to do their best in relationship. Tie this all together and make it personal. What do you need to do differently to manage the difference in sexual desire with your partner? Where do you need to improve in your ability to manage your emotions with your partner? Where does anxiety take over and keep you from doing your best? You’ve already explored a lot of your unrealistic expectations when you examined your history; which ones do you need to change? What can you do that allows a fresh start? How can you contribute to a virtuous cycle with your partner? What do you need to get honest about? Where have you been hiding and pretending you don’t know what’s happening between you?

  ——

  Every relationship, every dynamic, and every interaction are co-created. But you can only analyze and change your part. Yes, your partner’s behavior has an impact on you. You may need to bring up what they’re doing and how that is affecting you. But focus on changing the parts you can control, the parts that are
about you.

  You and your partner are on the same team in this process. You are allies. Doing your part as a teammate means taking this seriously and acting unilaterally, whether or not your partner is doing the same. This is a commitment you make for yourself: to do your work and to clean up your part. Every time you encounter a difficulty or are tempted to focus on your partner and their mistakes, confront yourself first. What part is yours? What could you have done better? What were you really thinking and wanting? Is there something you could do that would change the outcome and more reliably lead to what you were trying to accomplish? How are you not being honest or direct? Answer these questions, then confront your partner in a respectful way. Holding someone else accountable is a respectful thing to do; it shows you think they can do better. Part of playing your side will be (respectfully) calling out your partner, but that only comes after you’ve taken a good look at yourself. Most of your effort at this point needs to be focused on your own contributions. Now get excited. It is time to move on to the stage where you transform your sex life.

  Before you do, let’s revisit the example couples to see what they learned through this part of the process. Each person has examined their family history, their sexual and relationship history, and their sexual dynamic with their partner. Each has put together these pieces and gotten ideas of what they need to work on individually. They have a strategy for moving forward, knowing what they want to change and transform.

  Carol and Todd

  Carol and Todd are the older couple nearing retirement.

  Carol is a breast cancer survivor, and Todd is experiencing erectile dysfunction.