Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship (10 page)

But the price of feeling good about yourself because others approve of you—or want to have sex with you—is feeling bad about yourself when they don’t.

Isn’t it perfectly normal to take it personally when your partner doesn’t want to have sex with you? Likewise, wouldn’t you feel bad if you don’t desire your partner and he tells you you’re screwed up? Of course! That’s the point: Most people rely on a reflected sense of self from others.

This doesn’t result from childhood trauma, like not getting enough praise or unconditional acceptance when you were young. Constant criticism and rejection during childhood gives you a particularly
negative
reflected sense of self. Parental neglect makes you believe you’re unimportant and unworthy. But inexhaustible positive reinforcement won’t solve the basic issue,
because you still depend on others to make you feel okay about yourself
. Even if you were the gleam in your parents’
eyes, you may still demand constant attention, support, and reassurance from your partner. No amount of praise gives you a
solid
sense of self.

A solid sense of self develops from confronting yourself, challenging yourself to do what’s right, and earning your own self-respect
. It develops from inside you, rather than from internalizing what’s around you.

It takes much longer to develop a really solid sense of self (i.e., reach adulthood) than many people think. So, when we marry we usually still depend on others for a positive self-reflection. We bring our reflected sense of self into our marriage, because it got us there. Meanwhile, the lust, romantic love, and attachment circuits in our heads are working overtime. What happens next is a no-brainer: We become a “couple.” Marriage is an ecosystem designed to help you become an adult, by making your reflected sense of self incredibly vulnerable and finally untenable.

Like most LDPs, Sally believed sexual desire is a natural function. This put her in a weak position in her own mind. Robert believed this, too, which diminished Sally’s status in their marriage. Robert’s desire became the standard by which Sally’s desire and adequacy were measured. Since Sally measured herself by Robert’s dissatisfaction, she readily assumed the lesser position in their sex life.

In our initial session Sally complained that Robert frequently beat her down emotionally, telling her she had a sex problem. I said this was
his
reflected sense of self talking.

“It’s pretty common for the high desire partner to rescue his drowning sense of self by saying, ‘It’s you, not me, that’s the problem.’ The more you depend on a reflected sense of self, the less you can handle being seen as less than perfect. When your flaws emerge, your picture of yourself cracks, and you crash emotionally. If you depend on a reflected sense of self, blaming someone else makes you feel better. So lots of low desire partners frequently hear, ‘I’m not the problem. It’s
you
!’”

Sally complained, “I feel so bad when he says this to me. I’m depressed all day. I keep replaying our interaction in my head. I keep seeing myself disappointing Robert.”

“That’s what happens when your reflected sense of self [pointing to Robert] is having a bad day.” Sally and Robert laughed. The tension in the room lessened.

“It’s hard to hang on to yourself when you’re getting
two
simultaneous messages: One is,
You’re no good, you’re defective and inadequate, and you don’t have what it takes.’
The other is,
You’re the one with the resources, and only you can feed my physical and emotional needs. You have no right to withhold this, because I need it
. The emotional whiplash leaves the low desire partner wondering who she really is.”

My description started to trigger Robert’s reflected sense of self. “So why doesn’t Sally ever initiate?”

“You and Sally go through a typical pattern. You are the high desire partner, and like most high desire partners, you try to instill desire in Sally. Sally is the low desire partner, and like most low desire partners, she knows you need her to validate you as a lover. She’s supposed to do that by having sexual desire. The only problem is that having to validate you makes her feel less desire and more pressured. Sally knows you feel rejected when she doesn’t want sex—and this, in turn, makes it harder for her to enjoy having sex with you. The low desire partner’s sexual desire goes down, and the high desire partner’s reflected sense of self goes with it.

“That’s where you come in.” As I said this Robert sat up in his chair. “The high desire partner starts feeling undesirable, unattractive, and un-loved. He tries to make the low desire partner more desirous, to shore up his sagging sense of self. The low desire partner sees this and gets turned off by the high desire partner’s insecurity. So the cycle gets worse.

“Next, the high desire partner adopts a seemingly enlightened attitude: The low desire partner has a treatable problem, and the high desire partner wants to help her fix it. The high desire partner offers to ‘accompany’ the low desire partner to treatment. The low desire partner bristles at the high desire partner’s patronizing attitude, and the cycle gets worse.” Robert smiled. Sally was so relieved he didn’t explode, she giggled.

“When the high desire partner blames the low desire partner, any fledgling desire evaporates, and the low desire partner becomes resentful, defensive, and unmotivated. The high desire partner takes this personally too. So, the cycle worsens.”

“Sounds familiar,” Robert said.

“The high desire partner’s reflected sense of self takes a beating with each experience of rejection—meaning any time the low desire partner doesn’t want sex—and a deep withdrawal follows. As time passes, the withdrawal deepens into an emotional deep-freeze. As the cycle worsens, the high desire partner pushes harder for sex, trying frantically to instill desire in the low desire partner, while alternately pulling away more violently.”

Robert and Sally exchanged knowing looks. Robert’s demeanor continued to soften. “So why doesn’t the low desire partner get off her ass and do something?”

“Why should she? The low desire partner has nowhere to go. If she doesn’t develop more desire, she gets the blame. If she does, the high desire partner gets the credit. You supposedly created the desire in her. With nothing to gain and nothing to lose, the low desire partner isn’t highly motivated to make things better. She’s more prepared for rebellion and passive-aggression.” Sally smiled self-consciously and blushed.

Robert had to smile. “Okay. I’m impressed. I get the idea that Sally and I are interacting largely because we are the high desire or the low desire partner, and that this determines what we’re going through. It sounds like we’re completely on auto-pilot.”

“Like most couples, the two of you are
emotionally fused
, like Siamese twins. Every move one of you makes upsets the other’s emotional balance. One’s efforts to control or mobilize herself deeply perturbs the other. Sexual desire problems don’t require anger, a vendetta, or malevolent intent. You want to control your own life. When you are as tightly fused and emotionally entangled as the two of you, any move—or lack of movement—from one partner deeply impacts the other.”

Robert nodded. “Is that sick? I thought we had grown apart.”

“If you’re normal, you are emotionally fused. The problem isn’t that you’re ‘too close.’ It’s that you are too dependent on each other for your emotional balance. When you rely on a reflected sense of self, you have
no choice
but to attach to someone else. Emotional fusion becomes an overriding necessity and a forgone conclusion.

“You and Sally are like two businessmen in intense negotiations. When one is satisfied with the deal, the other feels he hasn’t bargained hard enough. One’s satisfaction makes the other think he could have gotten more in the trade. He begins to think he cheated himself—or was swindled. Each needs the other to be unhappy in order to feel that he did well in the competition. You and Sally talk about win-win solutions, but your reflected sense of self makes that impossible.”

Sally spoke up. “I know that’s true: Even when I push myself to please Robert in bed, a part of me knows I’m withholding at the same time. I’m constantly watching him to see if he can tell. I’m at war with myself when we have sex. I’m driving myself nuts!”

“You are both highly accomplished at tracking each other’s minds, which I call mind-mapping.” Sally and Robert gave each other suspicious looks. Then, they broke into nervous laughter. The intimacy was so intense, they looked at the floor. When Sally and Robert walked out of my office, they watched each other from the corner of their eyes.

If you have a reflected sense of self, being able to read other peoples’ minds is all-important. You do it constantly, vigilantly searching for clues about how others think and feel about you. You have to know what other people are thinking to make sure you look good in their eyes. That’s what a reflected sense of self is all about, and you can’t be sure you’ve got other people’s approval if you can’t map their minds.

Actually you are
hyper
-vigilant, scanning for advance warning of the rejection you anticipate. You play three moves ahead. You become expert at it. It’s a full-time job. You don’t want to be caught off guard or look like a fool.

You couldn’t do this if your brain couldn’t figure out another person’s mind. Mind-reading plays a critical role in successful social interactions and manipulating other people (e.g., to get them to like you). It can be
used negatively or positively. Mind-mapping is an incredible process, but sometimes it’s no fun. You can learn more than you really want to know. Many times you have disappointing or scary realizations. Shortly, I’ll introduce you to the Four Points of Balance, which will help you keep your mind-mapping on track.

Reading someone’s mind means understanding his thoughts, feelings, and motivations by studying his reactions and behavior. Mind-mapping arises from awareness that (a) other people have their own minds, replete with perceptions, beliefs, and desires, and that (b) other people’s behavior can be explained and predicted by deducing the content of their mind. Scientists refer to everyday mind-mapping as folk psychology or “mentalizing.”
⁶⁰

Mind-mapping begins in childhood as you study the people in your family. You behave in particular ways because you recognize their emotions, desires, and thoughts; you understand their distortions, moods, personalities, and past histories. Mind-mapping occurs in every culture, in every aspect of life, during every waking moment.

Mind-mapping lies at the heart of
all
social interactions. Manipulating the mental states of others to alter their behavior is a sign of social intelligence. Successful social interactions, straightforward or manipulative, come from recognizing who the players are and what makes them tick. There are usually loads of mind-mapping going on in unpleasant and unsatisfying interactions too, it’s just more likely to be inaccurate.

Mind-mapping plays a critical role in maintaining your reflected sense of self. If you can’t figure out how someone feels about you, you don’t know where you stand. Not knowing makes you anxious, so you want to figure it out. Mind-mapping allows you to present yourself in such a way as to get the acceptance and validation you need from others.

For example, Sally and Robert were unaware they were mind-mapping each other every night as they went to bed. Sally would pretend she was oblivious, but she monitored Robert for signs he might initiate sex. Robert scrutinized Sally for clues that she might be “in the mood.”

In the last decade researchers have focused on how your brain accomplishes mind-mapping. They have identified a vast and diverse neural network involving specific cells in different parts of your brain that work together in a sophisticated system. Mind-mapping involves three main parts of your brain: Cells in the back of your brain detect other people’s motor behavior. Cells in the middle part of your brain read other people’s emotions, to which you add your own emotional response, and then integrate the data. Cells in your forebrain take the result and execute it. This greatly oversimplifies how your neocortex negotiates with the emotional centers in your brain and tries to organize them. But for our purpose, this lets you know the part of your brain that determines the meaning of things isn’t necessarily the more rational part.
⁶¹

Mind-mapping arises from reliable and powerful mechanisms preexisting in the reptilian part of your brain, the most archaic part, which distinguishes between animate and inanimate objects, and between human and nonhuman animals. This part of your brain distinguishes your own actions from those of others.
⁶²

Other parts of your brain build on this by “sharing attention,” focusing on what other people focus on. By following other people’s gaze, and perceiving their emotions, you can deduce their goals. You figure out what they want (desire). This lets you anticipate their future course of action, and organize your own goal-directed actions accordingly.
⁶³

Reptiles do this on a rudimentary level.
⁶⁴
But your mammalian brain adds meaning and emotion to the data. This non-rational, emotionally reactive part of your brain largely shapes what you’re going to do about what you’re mapping. Your prefrontal neocortex adds details to your mental map of the other person’s mind, negotiates with your mammalian brain about your course of action, and implements it.
⁶⁵

Earlier I told you Helen Fisher found that certain parts of the brain light up in romantic love, and new parts light up when you’ve been in love longer. These latter parts play a key role in mapping someone else’s mind, as well as your own mind (self-awareness).
⁶⁶