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I’m In A Sexless Marriage! What Happened?

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Many people find themselves in sexless marriages. As unfortunate as it is, if you’re in a sexless marriage, you’re not alone.

Does that mean you have to live with it? Of course not! Here are some great ways to understand what is happening in your relationship and what you can do to fix it so you can turn the heat back up in your marriage.

First the sex was great… but suddenly I look up and I’m in a Sexless Marriage! What Happened?

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How Sexless Is Your Marriage?

Different couples have sex at different frequencies. Some married couples have sex once a week and they’re completely satisfied.

Other couples have sex once a week and they’re not satisfied. They feel like they should be having sex three or four times a week or even every day.

Whatever frequency of sex that makes you and your partner most comfortable and satisfied is your “magic” number. Don’t feel that if your friends or neighbors are having sex more often that you have to have sex the same amount or you’re not satisfied with your sex life.

Have sex as often or as little as it takes to keep both you and your partner happy and satisfied!

Hormonal Issues

If you truly aren’t satisfied with your sex life, it’s time to make a change. There’s no reason that you should not be in a marriage with a satisfying sex life!

There are a number of things that can contribute to a sexless marriage or an unsatisfying sex life, so it’s time to do a little digging.

Visit your doctor to rule out any physical reasons that might be decreasing you or your partner’s sex drive. Many couples in sexless marriages will find out from their doctor that they have an imbalance of hormones that is contributing to a lack of sex drive. Your doctor can help you determine if this is an issue for you and your partner or not.

Feeling Close Again

Another big culprit of sexless marriages is not feeling close to your partner. Feeling emotionally distant can really take a toll on your sex life. You no longer feel emotionally safe with your partner, so you desire being sexual with them less and less.

If you find that this is a major issue with you and your partner, it’s time to get back on track and work on being closer emotionally.

A great way to feel close to each other is to sleep in the nude. It may sound strange, but sleeping in the nude and having skin to skin contact releases “happy” hormones that not only make you feel closer to your partner, but improve your emotional and physical health as well.

In addition to that, you can start talking to your partner and opening up to them emotionally, provided they do the same with you. If you’re truly having trouble with this, a counselor or therapist can help you and your partner start seeing eye to eye again.

Once you and your partner become close again emotionally, you’ll find that you want to experience each other sexually again as well.

If you find you’re in a sexless marriage, take a few steps to try and get your relationship in the right direction. With time and effort, you can figure out what went wrong and how you can get right back to where you want to be – in the bedroom!

Is There Life After Cheating? Can You Survive An Affair?

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No matter how long you’ve been in a relationship, an affair can completely turn your world upside down. Whether you were the cheater or the one who was cheated on, when the affair comes out into the open, it seems like life will never be the same.

Can a relationship survive an affair? What can you and your partner do to work past the affair and become a positive, healthy couple again?

Can a relationship really survive an affair? What’s the secret?

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The Causes Of Affairs

Too often, people view affairs as the problem. In reality, affairs are really not the problem at all. For example, having a runny nose and itchy, watery eyes are not a problem. They’re a symptom of the bigger issue of allergies.

Similarly, affairs are only a symptom of a problem in the relationship. If there are no allergies, there won’t be itchy, watery eyes and runny noses. If there are no problems in a relationship, there won’t be any affairs.

This can be a difficult concept to grasp, especially if you’re feeling victimized, but to begin working past an affair you have to own up to the causes of the affair.

The causes of the affair were unlikely to be “because your partner is a horrible person.”The more likely causes of the affair were that there was a problem between you and your partner to begin with.

Once you learn to accept that and own up to it, you and your partner can begin working through the affair.

Stop Feeling Victimized.

If you are the one who was cheated on, it’s normal to feel upset, hurt, betrayed and even victimized. Some people, however, stay in that state of mind for too long following the affair because they’re comfortable in the position of being the victim. Who wants to be the bad guy anyway?

It can be extremely difficult to own up to the contribution to relationship problems, and it’s a lot easier to sit back and feel like the other person did you wrong. You’ll never move past an affair if you continue to let yourself feel victimized.  Take some time to think through how both partners contributed to the affair and what the possible problems in your relationships might be.

Solve Your Relationship Problems.

If you’re able to get to the point where you and your partner can both own up to your contributions to the affair, you’re ready to move on and start building your relationship back up. Counseling is a great way to work out your relationship problems and it’s very important that you do. If you ignore the underlying problems that caused the affair, the symptoms will continue to present themselves.

Enter into couples counseling or marriage counseling so you and your partner can begin to work through the deep seated problems that were behind the affair in the first place. It’s important to go into counseling together rather than individual counseling, because you stand a much better chance of solving your problems as a couple if you go through counseling as a couple.

With time and effort from both partners, you can begin to work through the affair and learn to trust each other again. When you begin to realize that both parties contribute to an affair, not just the cheater, your relationship has a much better chance of surviving the affair.

Five Little Words That Strike Fear Into The Hearts Of Men

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Everyone knows that guys get freaked out at the age old question, “How do you feel about our relationship?” Even statements along the lines of “We need to talk” usually send guys running for the hills.

Why is this? How can you talk to your man about your relationship without scaring him off? What is the right way to go about it so your relationship can stay positive?

“Honey, we need to talk [about our relationship]”…

Why Do Men Always Get Defensive When You Want To Talk?

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They’re scared they’ll get it wrong.

When women ask men questions, they’re always afraid of giving the wrong answer. It doesn’t even matter what the question is most of the time.

If the “right answer” isn’t clear from the get go, men tend to shy away from talking about the subject with you at all. Many times, this stems from women getting angry and frustrated when a man does happen to answer a question. If he happens to answer with the “wrong” answer, the woman will get angry and the entire situation will get blown out of proportion.

If this happens,especially if it happens numerous times, men only learn that when they answer questions, bad things happen!

More often than not, men would rather not give an answer at all and shy away from the discussion than risk giving the “wrong” answer and getting a lot of flack for it.

Creating A Positive Atmosphere

You can avoid this by simply staying calm if your man gets an answer “wrong.” In essence, there really are no wrong answers. Discussing a relationship or other issues are actually just talking about how each person feels.

This isn’t wrong or right ,but what is said can upset the other person. By staying calm and collected even if your partner does something to upset you, you’ll keep your partner open to opening up.

Get angry and take it out on him, and he’ll close like a clam. Encourage him to open up by simply having a positive attitude about what he says. If something upsets you, tell him – in a nice way.

Asking the Dreaded Question.

Don’t approach a situation with the words, “We need to talk.” This only scares guys away. Women might not think it’s a big deal, but to men the mere suggestion of that type of discussion evokes a strong evacuation instinct. They can’t help it.

You can, however, help how you approach the situation. Say something positive about the relationship, for example, how much you enjoy a certain aspect of it. Then let him respond to that. Chances are, when approached like that, your partner will likely open up with what he enjoys about the relationship as well.

When the conversation starts rolling along in that manner, you can bring up issues that you have, of course, in a positive way. Avoid negative language like “you never” or “you always.”

It’s hard to do, but avoid placing blame. Just talk about the situation calmly with your partner and let them know how you feel. Avoid ranting and above all, give you partner room to talk to. No man enjoys being a listening post for a woman on a frustrated rampage.

Talk about any issues you have with your partner right away so you can avoid penting up your frustration and taking it all out on your partner at once.

How To Break The Communication Gridlock And Save Your Marriage

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As a child I heard that “children are best seen not heard” so often I never spoke up in public about anything.  We are taught to keep our thoughts and feelings to ourselves from an early age.

Gender differences in communication

Girls are taught subtly in the classroom to keep their ideas to themselves.

There was a study done years ago (sorry, I don’t recall the source) where they counted the number of times girls were called upon in class to boys, and the number of times girls were punished for speaking out of turn as opposed to boys.  This study revealed that girls are called upon less, and punished for speaking out of turn more.

Boys, of course are taught to hide their feelings from toddlerhood.  Our culture doesn’t even allow boys to learn the words for feelings.   Then, older boys, fathers, brothers, teachers, and coaches shame them if they show any sign of having a feeling other than happiness or anger.

So it’s no wonder communication is so hard for us. Yet those of us who can overcome our difficulties with communication are the best equipped for any career and have far more financial and social success.

Environmental effects on communication styles

For myself, my “dysfunctional family” further complicated all the cultural edicts against communication. I learned to keep secrets, to protect others from my feelings (I didn’t want anyone to know how badly I hurt because then I would have to tell them why), and to try to guess what others wanted from me since they wouldn’t come out and tell me.

Coming into a marriage with this kind of baggage at age 43 and a history of two failed marriages did not bode well from my new partner. Yet he took the gamble (Yea!) and I think it has paid off for both of us.

To get to good communication from the very beginning we had to fight a number of difficulties.

First, I was phobic of his anger (anger in my family meant someone would get abandoned or hurt) and because of his own Self-Protector mode anger was his primary emotion.  Second, I hid my real feelings because of how I had been trained as a child.

The first year of our marriage was turbulent and extremely painful at times.  It was a good thing we were so crazy about each other or we could never have survived it!

Overcoming communication difficulties

Overcoming the fear of really being heard was a tough thing for me.  I was pretty thoroughly entrenched in the “Victim” role.  It has been an evolving process that resembles the peeling of the layers of an onion.

My husband loved me enough to hang in there with me as I peeled off the excess skin and let him see my real self.  Because of my childhood wounds I never believed anyone would or could love the “real” me.  Yet the opposite has proved to be true.  The more I allow my real self to be exposed the more he loves me and the better friendships I develop.

But exposing my real self means telling people what I really think, feel, and need and that can make me feel very vulnerable. What if they don’t like it? What if they don’t like me? What if they get mad at me? What if they leave me? What if “something terrible” happens?

But the worst thing that can happen is my abandoning myself.  It may not feel like that is the worst thing in the heat of the moment.  In the heat of the moment the fear of the other person’s reaction feels worse than the consequences to the quality of the relationship, or the impact it has on you.  But it is not.  Abandoning yourself in this way prevents you from getting what it is you really want in your life and in your relationships. And ultimately, it keeps you from feeling good about yourself.

The ugly truth

The ugly truth is that if we speak our truths, if we say what we really feel and want (in ways that are both respectful and empathetic) the other person could still reject us and we could lose them.

But which is worse, rejecting ourselves or being rejected by another person? My personal experience is that if we are maintaining the relationship with a lie about who we are the relationship is doomed anyway.

In the course of my second marriage I seldom told my whole truth, I struggled to keep up the lie that I was okay with how things were going. I have never been so depressed as I was during those years.

Today, though my husband doesn’t always like it, I tell him what I think and what I need.  This adds depth and authenticity to our relationship and cements our commitment to each other.

Speaking our truth may be hard. It may be terrifying in fact. But not speaking our truth can condemn us to unsatisfying, painful relationships with others as well as with ourselves.

Taking Ownership if our needs, wants and feelings while being Respectful and Empathetic with those we love can transform our lives and our relationships. It may be unsettling at first, but oh, is it ever worth it!

Do You Know Why Your Partner is Pushing You Away?

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Don was a tall thin, ex bass guitar player of 43 who had been sober for 18 months.  He had, for the first time in his adult life begun to experience the pleasure of being alive without drugs in his system and had met Karen.  Karen was a divorcee with two teenaged children. Her ex-husband had been a raging, violent alcoholic with whom she had struggled nearly 20 years to make a life.

When she met Don she felt relieved to be with someone who listened to her feelings, cared about what she thought and wanted.  Together they forged an attempt at a marriage.  Within six months Don had begun verbally putting her down and nagging at her for minor infractions.  Karen had been “through this before” and she withdrew from him emotionally, mentally making her plans for divorce before they were through their first year.

The Underlying Issues

Before the year was out she had divorced him and was convinced that no man could be what she needed.  When I spoke with her a few months after the divorce she told me about the failure of their marriage.  She said he had never been able to perform sexually, but that she was not upset about it; she was just happy to have someone who cared about her. But as his own since of inadequacy around his sexual performance grew, he became angrier and angrier toward her, ultimately pushing her to divorce.

I was saddened that she had not discussed her marital problems with me prior to their divorce because I knew what had happened could have been prevented had she been aware of the dynamic underlying his behaviors.  Don’s insecurity put him in a position of feeling trapped and hopeless, despairing of being the partner for his wife in the way he wanted.  His instinct was to move into a self-protective mode, pushing her away so that she would not want to be sexual with him.  Karen then reacted back in her own self-protective mode and retreated behind first emotional barriers, then legal ones.

Both in tremendous pain and feeling like a failure, the marriage dissolved without so much as a look back.

Failure Out of Fear

Don and Karen’s dramatic example of how a marriage can fail out of a fear that is not addressed highlights the pain that results from a lack of compassion in marriage.  Do I think Karen should have continued to put up with his verbal abuse? No, I don’t. But I do think that if she had been able to see through the rage into the pain that was underneath, she may have been able to save her marriage.

Don continued to be the same loving, gentle, wounded soul she had married, but she lost sight of that because of how his hurt and fear played out.  No one can blame her for that considering the abuse she had endured for nearly 20 years.  Yet all in all, it was such a shame for both of them.

Had Karen recognized that he was pushing her away because he was so fearful of rejection by her because of his inadequacy in the bedroom, she could have responded to him with empathy instead of self-protective anger.  Had Don recognized and been able to own his true fear to her instead of pushing her away, things might have turned out very differently…

If Karen had come to me sooner, I could have helped them work through their fears and begin to see each other as human beings who are hurting and desperate for love.  Had either of them taken ownership of the situation and offered empathy and respect to the other, compassionate understanding could have transformed their relationship.

How to Work Through the Fear

If you find yourself in a situation where your partner seems to suddenly be pushing you away with anger, nagging or other kinds of protective withdrawal there are things you can do.

  1. Breathe, and know that whatever is going on with them, while it might seem like it is about you, rest assured it is not. Contain your own reactivity long enough to hear what is really going on.
  2. Listen to the fear and hurt underneath the anger.  When someone is angry and bitter or cold, they are in pain and/or fear.
  3. Respond in a way that acknowledges your recognition of their feelings. Say something like; “I can see that you are really hurting right now. I’m sorry.  What is going on?” Use your own words to convey that message.
  4. Give them a chance to fully disclose what they are feeling even if it makes no sense to you initially and you don’t agree with their point of view.
  5. Respond to what they are saying with some kind of acknowledgment that what they are saying makes sense given how they saw things. (This does not mean you agree, only that given how they are seeing it, it makes sense.)
  6. Let them know you empathize with their pain and/or fear.  Have you ever felt anything like what they are expressing before?  Our human experiences are always similar. Letting your partner know you’ve been there helps them feel safer with you.
  7. If they will let you, connect through some kind of physical touch, a hand on the shoulder, a kiss, a hug, a held hand… something that gives them the physical sensation of your being there with them.

Of course, I recognize how difficult this is to achieve when someone is expressing their anger directly to you. But when you can shift out of the automatic reactive self-protection mode you have a chance and getting beyond the tit for tat battles that are the downfall of even very close relationships.

The compassion that is the end result of such communication can really change everything about your life in every relationship.  It can save your marriage.