Psychology Today Blogs - Divorce Busting

Sex-Starved Wives

Michele Weiner-Davis — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:05:36 -0700

I heard a joke the other day that goes something like this. A couple seeks marital therapy. The wife complains that her husband isn't interested in having sex. At some point in the middle of the session the therapist grabs the woman and kisses her passionately while she "oohs" and "aahs" with delight. The therapist then turns to the husband and says, "See, your wife needs this every Monday, Wednesday and Friday." The husband is quiet for a moment and then replies, "Monday and Wednesday will work, but I can't get her here on Friday. I've got a golf game."

This joke caught my attention because it had an unfamiliar ring to it- the husband didn’t want sex. We’re used to the standard jokes about desire-less women who prefer doing just about anything- cleaning out the freezer, paying bills or taking out the garbage- over having sex with their mates. But this was a new twist, a twist I might add, that has quite a bit of truth to it.

As someone who is in the front lines with couples, I have grown increasingly aware that women have no corner on the low libido market. In fact, based on my clinical observations and casual conversations with colleagues, I’d say that low desire in men is America’s best kept secret. After all, in a culture where virility is inextricably connected with masculinity, why would any man want to broadcast his drop in desire? Most of the data available on the incidence of low libido in men is based on self-report and estimates vary widely. Do we really know what goes on behind bedroom doors? I don’t think so.

Although it isn’t hard core research by any stretch of the imagination, I teamed up with Redbook Magazine to survey women about their views on their husbands’ sexual appetites. We found some interesting results. I will mention just a few.

Sixty percent of the women surveyed said they wanted sex just as much, if not more, than their husbands. The majority of low desire men are unwilling to discuss this issue with their wives and resist seeking help from doctors or therapists. They also won’t talk to their buddies about it. (It’s hard to imagine a guy walking into a locker room, telling his friend, “I really wish my wife didn’t want sex all the time. I hate that she thinks of me as a sex object. And another thing…why can’t we hug without her thinking we have to have sex? She just has a one-track mind.”) Men’s unwillingness to openly discuss this matter leaves women feeling exasperated, lonely and hopeless.

Another interesting point is that the person with lower sexual desire (in this case, the husband) controls the frequency of sex. He has the veto power. Not only that, he expects his wife to accept it, not complain about it and to remain monogamous, an expectation that is bound to backfire over time. The survey also suggested that there is less sex in marriages when the husband has low desire than in marriages where women are the ones who say, “No”. That’s because, in our culture, men are expected to be the initiators and when it is the wife who initiates but gets turned down frequently, she is more likely to give up than her male counterpart.

Another myth-buster revealed by the survey was what women said were the causes for their husbands’ lack of desire. Contrary to popular belief that the only reason a man would turn down sex is because “his machinery isn’t working properly,” or their wives are extremely unattractive, this just isn’t so. Men, it seems, turn off to sex for many of the same reasons that their wives do- emotional disconnection, underlying resentment or unresolved problems, depression, stress and so on. In fact, one of the most common reasons men reject their wives’ advances is that they feel their wives are critical or bossy. Nagging simply isn’t an aphrodisiac.

The problem is, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Are men turned off to being sexual because their wives complain, or do women complain and behave angrily because their husbands are physically and emotionally withdrawn? Ah yes, the infamous Catch-22. And therein lies the problem. When there is a sexual divide, each spouse waits for the other to change. “If you are nice to me, then I’ll have sex with you,” or “When you have sex with me, I’ll be kinder to you.” You don’t need a degree in psychology to know that this sort of standoff is playing with fire. Stalemates make marriages go down the tubes.

And before I get nasty comments or emails about the fact that there are millions and millions of men who go to bed lonely,…. I know, I know. I have written extensively on this subject. For the record, I routinely encourage women who have little or no understanding about their husbands’ sexual needs to place more priority on their physical relationships. But now it’s time to nudge men who have shut down and turned off, to climb out of their comfort zone and reconnect with the women they love. Don’t you agree?

Our Harried Lives and Satisfying Sexual Lives- An Oxymoron?

Michele Weiner-Davis — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:35:25 -0700

I frequently get requests for tips about relationships from freelance writers. My most recent request was to provide a few simple suggestions for keeping passion alive in the face of our hectic, career and children laden lives. The question got me thinking. Some people believe that having children, busy careers, family and community commitments and personal hobbies are valid reasons for allowing passion to run dry. But in the words of a famous philosopher, Rosanna Rosanna Danna, "There's always something." In my work with couples, I insist on the importance of keeping sex alive by making it a priority. How? Here are five tips for keeping love and passion alive:

1.Decide that sex needs to be a priority, that without it, intimacy on all levels drops out. Desire is a decision. If the passion has fizzled, decide and discuss what needs to be done to bring back more zest. Make a plan.

2. Schedule sex. Stop thinking that planning sex eliminates spontaneity. It's truly planned spontaneity.

3. Flirt. Remember back to the early years of your relationship when you had pet names and compliments galore for your spouse. Recall how you'd dress up and make sure you were looking hot before you got together? What ever happened to those sweatpants-free days? Go back to what you were doing when things were hotter between you, even if you're not totally in the mood.

4. Stop being so kid-centric. Nowadays, we place our kids right smack dab on top of a pedestal- running them to lessons, practices, school functions, friends' houses, orchestrating elaborate and expensive birthday parties, and making sure they have whatever their little hearts desire. While it's true that our kids deserve a prime focus in our lives, I always tell couples that the best thing they can do for their children is to put their marriage first. If they don’t, when the nest empties, they will be two strangers who have led separate lives. The divorce rate has leveled off in every age group EXCEPT the newly empty-nesters, people who have often been married twenty to thirty years! No matter what, go out on dates. Make sure you have weekly child-free times together. Put a lock on your bedroom door. Unless a nightmare or an unusual circumstance occurs, put your children to sleep in their own bedrooms. If they sleep with you on a regular basis, it will destroy your love life. Teach your kids about the importance of marriage by living rather than just espousing it.

5. And last but certainly not least, adopt the Nike philosophy and, "Just Do It". If I had a dollar for each time someone in my practice said, "When my spouse approached me, I really wasn't in the mood to have sex, but once we got into it, I really enjoyed myself,!" I would be extremely wealthy. For countless people, I've observed, sexual desire doesn't just happen, you have to make it happen. One man in my practice said, “Every time I approach my wife, she doesn’t seem too interested, but once we get into it, she really seems to enjoy herself. I wish she would just write on her hand, ‘I like sex’ so she remembers it for the next time.” (Wouldn’t a tattoo be better?) After seeing this pattern so often, I decided to do some research and came across the work of Dr. Rosemary Basson who has validated my observations and helped shift the way I think about sexual desire forever. We’ve been taught that sexual desire has four stages- desire (this occurs when we have some random lusty thought out of the blue), arousal (this occurs with physical stimulation), orgasm (this is self-explanatory, I think), and resolution (when our bodies return to their normal resting states.) However, this paradigm has limitations because for millions of people, stages one and two are reversed; that is, they must be physically stimulated before their brains signal that they are really want sex. In other words, arousal occurs before desire. The trouble is, these arousal-before-desire folks constantly compare themselves to their more highly sexed spouses who have sexual fantasies every 15 seconds, and then end up feeling as if there’s something wrong with them. They think they have low or no desire. They believe they are passionless. But the truth is, these folks are just wired differently from their partners. And once they learn about this difference and take it to heart, they stopped feeling flawed. They remember the sirens within. They keep in mind the wisdom of nudging themselves to be more responsive to their partner’s advances, even if they’re not totally in the mood at the time. They remember that, sometimes in life, things just need a little jumpstart.

The Walkaway Wife Syndrome

Michele Weiner-Davis — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:40:43 -0700

The Walkaway Wife Syndrome

For the past two decades I have devoted myself to helping couples work out their differences in order to keep their marriages and families together. This marriage-saving passion is not based on religious beliefs nor do I think that divorce is morally wrong. My divorce busting bias is simply based on my firm conviction that the vast majority of problems that people are experiencing when they consider divorce are, without question, solvable. Over the years, I’ve had countless experiences of helping near-the-brink couples reinvest in their marriages and fall back in love again. That being said, there is one particular situation that I find particularly challenging. I refer to it as, “The Walkaway Wife Syndrome.”

Do you know that two-thirds of all the divorces that are filed in our country are filed by women? This is not to say that women take their commitment to their marriages lightly. They don’t. Most women believe that they have tried everything humanly possible to turn things around before throwing in the towel. Nonetheless, women are walking away from their marriages in droves. Why? Although there are a variety of reasons that might account for this mass exiting, there is one reason that, in my mind, stands out above the rest.

During the early years of marriage, a woman tends to be the emotional caretaker of her relationship. She makes certain her marriage remains a priority, insisting on quality time together, meaningful conversation and shared activities. When a woman feels close to her husband, all is right in the world. However, if the marriage takes a back seat to other commitments, she pursues her husband for more connection by having frequent heart-to-heart talks. If these tête-à-têtes are successful, the marriage blossoms. If not, her complaints are no longer confined to her feeling unimportant. She begins to find fault with many other aspects of their relationship. He hears, “If I had known what kind of father you’d be, I never would have had children with you,” or “What can’t you pick up after yourself? You’re just like one of the kids.”

Suffice it to say, these complaints hardly prompt him to want to spend more time with her. And so, she quietly plans her exit strategy. She tells herself, “I’ll leave when my youngest goes to college, or “I’m going to find my soul mate and then I’ll leave this marriage,” or “As soon as I can support myself financially, I’m outta’ here.”

Exit strategies often take years to execute and during that time women are focused on fortifying their resources, not fixing their marriages. The absence of complaints has their husbands believing that things have improved; they’re out of the dog house. “No news is good news,” they tell themselves as they obliviously continue to lead separate lives. But then “D-Day” arrives and their wives inform them that the marriages are over, triggering shock and devastation. “Why didn’t you tell me you were this unhappy,” these men protest, words that finally nail the marital coffin shut. It is then that they start to recognize the importance of their wives and their children. They become desperate to save their marriages.

It is said that people don’t change until they hit rock bottom and I can tell you first hand that the bottom doesn’t get any lower than the earth beneath these men’s feet. The threat of divorce generates true soul-searching. These are the men who readily schedule appointments for therapy, sign up for marriage seminars, read every self-help book they can get their hands on, seek spiritual connection and even risk vulnerability by discussing the f-word (feelings) with friends and family. Gradually, they become the husbands these women have been wanting.

But for so many women it’s “too little, too late,” or “I know this is not going to last. If I stay in this marriage, you will go back to your old shenanigans,” which, though completely understandable, is nonetheless, tragic. That’s because, rather than feign “appropriate husband behavior,” most of these men sincerely undergo a personal transformation that shifts their priorities forever. They typically make great second husbands. Every time a near-walkaway wife or her husband enters my office, I’m determined to do what I can to open her heart and mind to see the profound changes in her man. I’m often successful, but I must admit, this is one of the trickiest clinical knots to untie. I’d much prefer that couples really grasped the concept that time together is of utmost importance and that nagging, though well-intended, almost always backfires. That’s why I’m a huge proponent of marriage education. Falling in love is easy, staying in love is another matter. People need information and skills to stay in love. If I had my way, I’d teach myself out of a job.