Tag: marriage

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WHEN SEX IS BAD

I was hesitant to write about this topic in a newsletter format because there is so much to say about it, nonetheless I am taking the challenge because it is important to address. In this article I hope to give a brief overview of common  sexual satisfaction issues as a way to both normalize problems that can feel shameful, and also to encourage further research for readers. For the latter purpose I have included some additional resources at the end of the article. 

Everyone has had bad sex. In fact, bad sex is probably more common that great or even good sex. But what is it, exactly? What makes it bad? Do we have to accept that bad sex will sometimes happen, even in a great relationship? (Yes, we do.) And are there things that we can do to minimize how often it happens?

WHAT BAD SEX IS, AND WHAT IT ISN’T: Sometimes sex is bad just because our connection is off or the temperature is too hot in the room. There are times when bad sex is not a big deal, and couples can laugh it off and not have it be a big issue. I don’t want couples to feel that when they have bad sex (they will!) that it means there is a problem, necessarily.

But for many couples, consistent bad sex is a signal of underlying problems, so what exactly are we looking for? If we define sex as an activity that feels good, then the most basic definition of bad sex is: sex that does not feel good. While this may seem simplistic, the many reasons sex may not feel good are anything but! It may not feel good because of one of the partners, all of the partners, or even because of people who are not involved in the sex or in the room when it is happening.

I have noticed that one major reason sex may not feel good is because one or more partners are not paying attention to either their own or the other’s bodies. It is difficult to feel pleasure if we are not paying attention to the sensations we are feeling ourselves, or enjoying the sensations we are giving to another. This means that sometimes sex does not feel good not because it feels bad, but because we are not feeling it at all.

This is what I often see in my therapy office–couples who are too anxious, resentful, or feeling badly about themselves to show up in their bodies or for their partner.

(Painful sex is a different category, and not something we will explore in this article. While you might describe painful sex as bad sex, I would stick with the descriptor “painful” when referring to it. Seeing painful sex as just bad could stop someone from exploring the reasons for the pain–instead blaming themselves or their partner for “doing it wrong”, and potentially ignoring a serious health concern. Painful sex must be stopped immediately, and the pain needs to be assessed by a professional.)

THE REASONS: So going with our definition of bad sex as sex that does not feel good, let’s look at some of the most common reasons this happens.

  • Relational Reasons:
    1. not being present with partner(s)/boredom
    2. lack of connection or curiosity
    3. lack of attraction or interest
    4. too much intimacy in the relationship
    5. lack of safety/consent (consent means being able to say no, not just yes!)
    6. unresolved trauma/active grief
    7. depression/anxiety/stress (often leads to erectile dysfunction)
    8. children/pets/lack of privacy
    9. sex as a performance-based activity
    10. betrayed trust/lingering resentments
    11. conflicting schedules/exhaustion/seeing sex as a task
    12. high desire/low desire couple
  • Organic/Medical Reasons:
    1. poor hygiene
    2. poor health or illness (can lead to health-related erectile dysfunction)
    3. age/menopause (can be a cause of erectile dysfunction for men or painful intercourse for women)
    4. substance abuse/medications that affect sex drive/function
    5. pain/injury

Notice something here? There are many more relationship reasons listed than organic/medical reasons, and yet most couples will go to their doctor assuming there must be a medical solution to their sex issues before considering a relational problem!

To be clear, organic/medical reasons must be ruled out first, before assessing any relational issues. While both may be present, the organic and medical issues have to be addressed first. In some cases, such as aging, addressing them means simply acknowledging them as an issue, and then looking at how this is affecting the relationship dynamic! Though there is no “resolution” to aging, acknowledging it as a factor in sexual enjoyment/attraction/drive allows a couple to make adjustments that benefit both of them while reducing shame and blame.

For relational reasons, a qualified couples and sex therapist is the best person to help with relational issues (a well trained therapist will know when to refer you for medical evaluation). Sexual issues can bring up a lot of vulnerability, causing one to communicate them either critically or defensively with their partner. What’s needed in these moments is compassion, empathy, curiosity, and an absolute commitment to what the relationship needs in order to thrive. If you are having trouble getting there, that’s the time to consider getting some assistance.

I will often utilize sensate focus with couples in order to dial down negative thoughts and increase presence and mindfulness when couples are touching one another. It is a form of “exposure therapy” that, over time, reduces anxiety and takes the pressure off achieving any particular outcome. While it can feel as though one is “going backwards” by focusing on touch sensations only and not pleasure, I like to present it as a “reset or reboot”, where you instead restart your erotic life without the “bugs”. We do resets all the time with our diets and exercise without feeling any shame about it–because they work! They can also work for your sex life. 

The bottom line is that what most people think of as bad sex is not a life sentence! While in some cases it could mean a mismatch of partners, in most cases it is a signal that something medical or relational needs to be addressed. Allowing yourself to be human with your partner will not only being you closer together, but it can also shift bad sex to good or even great sex. Why miss out?

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For further reading/research, I invite you to explore the following resources:

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WHAT THE ARTICLES DON’T TALK ABOUT

As you might imagine, I read a lot of articles about psychology and relationships. A lot! I learn new things all the time, and I find that suggestions offered for how to improve one’s relationship to be generally spot on–on paper at least, and that is where the problem is. I often think to myself, why, with all the good advice and suggestions available, why are so many still struggling to build and keep satisfying relationships? Why can’t we just take the skills we read about, apply them, and see things get better? 

Well, you can. You can take the skills and apply them and have things get better, but you can also try to apply them and have nothing change. And save for a few very honest couples therapists, not many writers will tell you this information in the selling points of their books. 

What I hope to explore in this article is not whether or not relationship books are helpful (they are), but instead what makes it difficult to implement what they suggest–obstacles that are not talked about that I see time and again in my therapy office.  For brevity, I have included just a few of these, but the list is by no means exhaustive.

MARIJUANA: I am no teetotaler! I think that there are many ways to get through a day, but of course some of these ways can hurt as much as they help, and this is why it is critical to make choices that work for our health and relationship as well as our mental well-being. Pot can be problematic because it affects each individual differently, but what I see consistently are two effects: it causes disconnection; and it narrows our window of tolerance over time. 

In layman’s terms, when one partner is on pot and the other is not, there can be a gap in communication and connection, but usually only the sober partner recognizes this, making it difficult to be heard or acknowledged. Additionally, the partner using pot is more easily triggered into feeling attacked, and may have less capacity to self-regulate or respond in a caring way. 

Working with couples like this is always a challenge because I want to be careful to not shame the partner who uses pot, but it is important to call out areas where it is not working vs. areas where it is. Unless a couple is willing to have this conversation, then they will resort to trying to change one another, to no avail. 

STEROIDS: I read  a number of articles about the effects of hard drugs, alcohol abuse, and prescription meds on relationships, but I have yet to find anything about the effects of steroid use on communication and conflict management. I suspect this is because steroid use is most common among gay men these days, meaning it is not considered a mainstream issue. But as someone who has gay male couples coming into my office, I know that I am not imagining the problem. 

Steroid use, like marijuana, affects everyone differently, and there are generalizations about their use that do not apply universally. One of these generalizations is the idea of “roid rage”, which suggests that steroids make the user angrier and more reactive. While this does not always show up, I can attest to struggling with clients’ reactivity where one or both are using steroids to increase muscle mass. 

Usually the work reaches a speedbump that is difficult to get over, and they will stop coming. As a therapist, I cannot make anyone, or even tell them, to stop using steroids, or any other substance, but I will comment on what is happening in the room and ask if this reactivity increases when they are on a cycle of the drugs. I feel this is the best I can do, and it is up to the clients to decide what is more important to them. I assure them that it is normal to have competing values, and while it is not always easy to choose between one or another, it is even more difficult to successfully reach opposing goals. 

DIFFERENCES IN HOW CONSENT IS EXPERIENCED: (I intend to write a longer article about this in the future, but it warrants inclusion in this newsletter due to my recent realization of its importance.) When it comes to socks, it may be “one size fits all”, but that is not the case with subjective experiences of consent. Men and women are told different stories of what consent is, with men often hearing that “as long as they don’t say no, it is a yes!”, and women hearing  a version of “you have an obligation to keep your partner happy”. True consent is rarely present in either story, and therein lies the problem with “one size fits all” approaches to it that are often suggested in print. 

I have found in my work with couples that agreements around consent are different in every relationship, and therefore it must be discussed. For many reasons, they usually are not discussed, causing issues with sexual satisfaction and frequency, silent resentments, trust, safety, and more. A couples’ failure to talk about consent stems from either cultural assumptions or ignorance, both of which can be remedied for the benefit of their sex life. 

Reading about consent is good, but often not good enough. A book cannot tell you about any negative conditioning you or your partner may have personally been exposed to in the past that interferes with true consent. Books that I have read suggest that willingness be present in any sexual situation, but what if you have never felt truly willing in a sexual situation? Willingness is easier if you feel you have the power to say no, but if not, can one truly give consent?

If you are having trouble with consent in your relationship, or any of the other issues I wrote about, I strongly suggest seeking out the help of a qualified couples and sex therapist–your relationship, satisfaction, and safety may depend on it!

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SHOULD YOU GET MARRIED?

Love can influence us to do all kinds of crazy things, can’t it? In the best case scenario, love motivates us to move outside our comfort zones into areas that feed emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical development. And in the worst case it can fuel our desire to hurt, injure, or destroy another, or even ourselves.

I am particularly interested in love when it causes couples to marry, because married couples, often those who are no longer “drunk” on love, are the majority of my therapy clients. They enter my office feeling betrayed by love and by each other, wondering if they can ever trust their feelings again.

How can love, such a welcoming and powerful host, “abandon” us once we accept its enticing invitation? How is it that love can, over time, peel back the illusion to reveal a partner who is not who we thought they were?

Well, it is my assertion that love does not do these things, rather, it is our conditioned way of thinking about love that creates these thoughts. Real love, when practiced regularly, does not sneakily reveal uncomfortable truths about our partner. It instead can show us layers we did not know were there–levels of history and experience that continue to be molded and reinterpreted. Real love reveals not lies or flaws, but vulnerability, which is essential to creating closeness, trust, and safety.

What does this have to do with whether or not a couple should marry? It has everything to do with it! Couples have the option of marrying for reasons that, over time, either work or don’t work, but I notice they often find themselves in the latter position, sadly. Fortunately this outcome is preventable. There are a lot of different reasons why a couple “should” get married, but I intend to highlight the one reason I have found that leads couples to real love over time.

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Remember that “new love” feeling? The endless energy and interest, the aliveness, the skin that feels extra sensitive, the mouth that tastes more, the eyes that see brighter colors. That is a fantastic feeling, but the truth is that it ain’t love! It is real, just not real love. It is the powerful process of bonding, and all the feelings that go along with that, without which we might never find a mate.

Many successful marriages have used these feelings as reason enough to wed, and to be honest, they can result in a successful marriage over time. But it is not the feelings that created success; it was the couple’s willingness to move past them into differentiation, and eventually, genuine interest in, and respect for, each other’s differences.

What motivates that interest and respect? Well, if you think about your own life, what is it that makes you interested in someone? Usually, we are drawn to those whom we admire, find attractive, are curious about, who make us laugh or stimulate us intellectually. We are also drawn to people around whom we feel good about ourselves.

So if it ain’t love, then what might we call this feeling that bounces between individuals? I call it potential.

We feel the potential of what we can become, individually and together, how alive we can feel, and how much we want to be engaged with another and the world. Couples sometimes choose to marry because of this potential, only to see it wilt on the vine after a number of years. This does not always mean they should not have married. The feeling of potential is not an illusion, but it also not a guarantee of outcome. Potential leads to nothing unless action is regularly taken on it.

What I will assert is that feelings of new love invite us to experience the potential of a better self, but what ultimately determines if we should or shouldn’t marry is whether or not we accept, and then act on, that invitation.

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You know how, if you were lucky, your parents used to make you feel like the most important person in the world? You weren’t that, of course, but it sure felt good to be treated this way. What your parents were inviting you to experience was your potential, believe it or not. You thought you were the most important person in the world, whereas they thought that you could be.

Regarding adult relationships, new love also makes us feel like the most important person in the world for a time, but in reality it is an invitation to become something more. More what? More loving, more patient, more fun, more spontaneous, more compassionate, more understanding. more passionate, more sexual, more curious, more humble.

The reason this invitation is so enticing is because when we succeed in becoming more of these things, we are living “the good life”. One definition of the good life I like is that it is “having better problems” (Thank you, Mark Manson). A more romantic definition of it is that in the good life we are better versions of ourselves.

If you are in a relationship where you hate how you are showing up, you have a choice: you can work on the relationship or you can get out of it. Working on the relationship, with the skilled guidance of a trained couples therapist, will reveal if the relationship is a good or bad fit. The good news is that most relationships are a good fit, the partners just don’t know where they fit together. It is in the coming together where our potential can be acted upon and realized.

And this brings us back to the most important reason, in my mind, why one should get married to their partner. Because being with them constantly inspires you to be better. This reason supersedes sexual attraction (which can fade) and compatibility (which is a myth). If you find a person whose very presence in your life challenges and motivates you to be better, every day, who inspires you to be the version of yourself your potential has always hinted at, then marry them. That is not just a commitment to another, it is also a commitment to living a good life.