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Does that sound familiar – getting to bed early and falling asleep before your partner arrives? Or stay up late so they sleep when you come in? Doing everything right in hopes of a yes to sex? Finding important work to do when your partner proposes to make love? Proposing sex and sneaking into a corner to lick your wounds of rejection? Even starting an argument before bed to reduce the chances of intimacy? If this is you then you are not alone, these and many similar scenarios are being played out in homes across the country.
Relationships are energy cycles and wherever there is action there will be a corresponding reaction. It is common for partners to have different sexual needs as we are all unique individuals with a personal history of how our desires have evolved. How these needs are negotiated is one of the key indicators of relationship success.
The cycle begins when the partner with the higher sexual desire (more often the man, although this is changing as more women find themselves in the sex seeker category) realizes that his sexual needs are unmet and he begins to seek the to look for less interested partners. The more the pursuer chases, the more the other begins to avoid, becoming more and more unavailable emotionally and sexually, resulting in the pursuer becoming more needy, unhappy, and focused on getting what they want, turning every situation into a potential one Trick manipulated for sex. This frustration causes them to become surly, irritable, and fault-finding toward their avoidant partner, making them wrong for not wanting sex, and even withholding affection and intimacy in all areas of the relationship as revenge.
The avoidant partner will do whatever it takes to avoid sex or have to say no to sex, as they often feel wrong and try to avoid guilt. They do this by avoiding any kind of physical touch or affection, often keeping themselves too busy to be spoken to, creating physical distance between themselves and their higher-sex partner, often focusing on the children, or working as a distraction. They, too, make the other person wrong for their desires and shame them for being too sexual. They see the pursuer as only focused on sex and find it easy to blame them for a lack of intimacy that they deeply crave but avoid if it leads to potential sex. When the consequences of avoiding sex become too great, they offer palliative sex to relieve their partner’s pain and off their back, but with no pleasure for themselves or their partners.
Palliative sex is not good for either of them, both feel ripped off as there is no real satisfaction and it is just a temporary void in a deadly relationship situation.
If you suspect this dynamic is occurring in your relationship, review the suggestions below, paying special attention to no. 10:
1. Start understanding. The reason this scenario is so painful for both parties is because you are both being controlled by something outside of you, even while you are still intensely searching for it – the underlying foundation of a relationship is the longing for love. The pursuer misses it by seeking it outside of themselves through sex. The avoidant misses it by not seeing where it’s most prevalent – in sex.
2. Each person must stop wronging others and themselves. Realize that the behavioral cycle is likely to make any underlying discrepancy in desire more pronounced than it actually is. Develop compassion for where the other person is by seeing how it really is for them.
3. Recognize the value of sex as a unique part of an intimate relationship, how it brings connection and satisfaction, it is a special activity not shared in any other type of relationship. It offers at least a deep connection and contentment. Sexually active couples are said to be happier than those who are not.
4. Understand that sex is also good for you as it relieves tension and stress, produces chemicals that improve bonding and well-being, boosts immunity, keeps you fit, stimulates hormonal balance and joyfully reduces chronic inflammation – the source of many disease processes.
5. Realize that sex is an important human need. When you choose to withhold sex from your partner, their ways of coping have major consequences—either suffer it by emotionally shutting down, using masturbation as a limited solution, finding another sex partner, or leaving the relationship. The double-edged sword in this situation is often that the person restricting sex still expects to receive all of the other benefits of the relationship such as precedence, intimacy, affection, emotional and financial support, etc., a very one-way exchange of energies that is not many other life situations would be tolerated.
6. For this cycle to end, BOTH must change. Agree to communicate about your situation and seek a workable solution, while acknowledging the challenge and vulnerability. Do not listen judgmentally to the other person’s experience as it is for them. Discuss what options for change are possible.
7. The Pursuer:
– Seek a greater connection with yourself rather than seek it through your partner. Learn through tantra masturbation techniques that will circulate your sexual energy and deepen your connection with yourself, rather than building into frustration seeking release. This allows you to be less attached to sex, making getting a “no” less painful. Paradoxically, as you reduce your frustration, neediness, and manipulation to create sex, you become more attractive.
– Unconditionally offer nurturing touches outside of sex to restore safe physical intimacy.
– Rate what kind of sex you offer? Check out if you are looking for heart-connected, intimate, strong lovemaking? Or do you focus on performance and outcome, on releasing tension, rather than creating, even nurturing, intimacy, connection, and spontaneity? This isn’t about letting go of hot sex, just approaching it from a different perspective – being connected to yourself, being open and vulnerable creates dynamite sex. This is what searching for a more tantric approach to sex can offer you.
– Establish communication between you and ask the other what kind of touch etc. he might be open to.
8. The Avoider:
– Look at how sex could be of value to you, as a way to nurture and connect with yourself, rather than something you need to “give” to develop a pro-sex attitude.
– Make an effort to reestablish emotional closeness by not withdrawing from emotional intimacy.
– See what may be limiting your desire to change, as an avoidant you often build walls around your heart and sexuality to protect yourself – these walls can become a prison.
– Try to meet your partner in the emotional vulnerability, connect sex with heart and rediscover lovemaking instead of having sex.
– As you learn to rediscover this part of you, be willing to negotiate levels of sexual participation. E.g. holding your partner while he’s pleasuring himself, or being ready to have sex with no desire to be there when you know he’ll build up once you start. It’s not about forcing yourself into sex you don’t want (in fact, giving up palliative sex is important), it’s about creating an openness to the possibilities of sex.
9. If this is impossible, at least negotiate a way for the pursuer to meet their needs outside of the relationship without shame or judgment, and keep a path of emotional connection open between you.
10. If you’re having trouble exploring the above area, you’re not alone. Seek outside professional help, someone who can guide and support you in finding a way out of the maze and into a new place of self-knowledge, loving understanding, connection and enjoyment.
Thanks to Annette Baulch | #Sexual #Desire #Mismatch #Recognize #relationship #killer #solve #Tantra
