Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship (4 page)

I waited several moments to let things quiet down. “Then you probably don’t need to leave. I’m not going to tell you or Connie to ‘Just do it.’ One reason I won’t do that is because I’m not going to ruin your chance to feel
wanted
. If Connie just did it, you still wouldn’t be
wanted
. And as much as I’m hearing you’d like to have sex, it looks to me like you’d like Connie to want you too.” Brett looked down at his shoes. When he looked at me again he nodded, and his mood was more subdued.

“My clients
do
get to the point where they can ‘just do it’ to accommodate their partners, and it
enhances
their feelings of self-worth, rather than
diminishing
them. But that occurs at the
end
of treatment, not the beginning. If I told them to ‘Just do it!’ at the outset, I’d be encouraging them to ignore their own feelings—which I never do. Getting to the point where you
can
be generous, flexible, and considerate with each other involves a natural process of personal growth. Shortcuts and sermons about being considerate don’t work.”

Both partners saw I wouldn’t make either one of them “Just do it!” Each saw I wouldn’t encourage him or her to defer to the other. What I said made sense to both of them.

“So why do I have low desire?” Connie asked.

“I don’t know that you actually do have low desire. But it’s clear you’re the lower desire partner in your relationship.”

With that question I knew things were about to take off.

Let me offer you a singular truth about sexual desire that transcends time, culture, and personal circumstance: There is
always
a low desire partner, just as there is
always
a high desire partner—and there is one of each in
every
relationship. This is a profound paradigm shift, like changing from believing the world is flat to believing it is round. It is a shift in viewpoint that creates a totally different picture of yourself and your partner.

This new picture can completely change how you feel, whether you are the low desire partner or the high desire partner. It allows you to stop being defensive or feeling inadequate or “different.” It is a
nonpathological
view of how desire problems occur:
The LDP and HDP are positions in a relationship
.

To be precise, the two positions in a relationship are the low
er
desire partner and the high
er
desire partner. In practice, it’s easier to talk about the low desire partner and the high desire partner once we’re clear about what we mean.

There is a low desire partner and a high desire partner on virtually every issue and decision in your relationship. One partner wants to do something (the HDP) that the other doesn’t (the LDP), or wants to do it less. Even if you and your partner both want the same thing, one of you will want it more. At every point of contention, “high desire” and “low desire” are positions (stances) partners take relative to each other. And once there is conflict (which isn’t necessarily about sex), it’s clear who fills which position.

No one is the LDP—or HDP—on everything. Positions shift on different issues. You may be the HDP for sex, but your partner could be the HDP for intimacy. You may be the HDP for sex or intimacy and the LDP for having a baby or being monogamous. Whether it’s having sex, moving in together, disciplining your kids—or not having kids—or visiting your friends or your in-laws, you’re going to be either the HDP or the LDP.

Being the low sexual desire partner doesn’t mean you have no (or almost no) desire. Let’s say on average you like sex once a week. That would make you the LDP if your partner wanted sex twice a week. If he or she didn’t want sex at all, you’d be the HDP. The same level of desire that makes you the HDP in one relationship could make you the LDP in another. You could want sex every day and still be the LDP if you’re paired with someone who wants it twice daily. You’d be the HDP if you wanted sex bi-monthly and your spouse didn’t want it at all. What makes your sexual desire “high” or “low” isn’t just biological drive, or your past, or how much you like sex. It always involves some standard of comparison. Usually it’s your partner!

There is no “correct” frequency of sexual encounters. Realizing that “low desire” and “high desire” are always relative positions stops arguments over how much desire is normal or healthy. This should clarify what frequency of sex I think you should have: If you and your partner are happy with whatever you’re doing, I’m happy too.

My HDP/LDP distinction may seem like an obvious and logical way of distinguishing who’s who in a relationship, now that I’ve made the point, but this conceptualization didn’t exist before I developed my approach. To do this I had to get beyond conventional ways of understanding sexual desire. Therapists traditionally looked for the causes of sexual desire problems “inside” people. Nothing like the low desire / high desire theory appeared in anything I was taught as a therapist.
⁵
This new way of thinking changed how I treated sexual desire problems, and my clients’ outcomes improved dramatically.

You have to change your viewpoint, too. For instance, you have to stop thinking of low sexual desire as a personality trait. It’s not uncommon for the HDP at the outset of the relationship to become the LDP later on (and vice versa). Getting clear that “high desire” and “low desire” are not character traits makes you less defensive about your level of sexual desire, whatever it is. LDPs, in particular, stop feeling inadequate and defective. It gives you and your partner equal standing for dealing with each other.

For Connie and Brett, my LDP/HDP distinction was a wake-up call. They stopped overreacting to each other, and the emotional pushing and shoving between them decreased. They were able to make rapid improvement when their views changed. They were open to the possibility that sexual desire problems are part of a
healthy
sexual relationship.

Some couples divorce over sexual desire problems because they don’t understand how love relationships operate. Realizing relationships are driven by more than your feelings—and that your feelings aren’t always accurate—will help you stop taking things so personally. But when you’re bruised by interactions with your mate, it’s hard to abandon the thought that you’ve been wronged. So, just when things seemed to be settling down, Brett unveiled a litany of complaints about Connie controlling him through sex.

“Okay, Doctor. So there’s always a low desire partner. And Connie shouldn’t feel bad about being it. But there must be something wrong with Connie that makes her dislike sex. I’m sure it has something to do with her childhood. Her parents got divorced when she was young, and her mother didn’t particularly like men. I think Connie is as controlling as her mother. Connie tries to control me by withholding sex.”

I replied, “You just told your wife she’s screwed up, she’s just like her mother, and her main goal in life is to deprive you of sex. That wouldn’t encourage most women to be interested in sex, let alone to be nice to you. Whether or not what you say about your wife is true, your own complaints are a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Brett thought about this for a moment. “I see your point, Doctor. But I still feel like Connie controls our sex life. I’m just being honest. That’s the way I feel.”

“I
know
Connie controls your sex life,” I replied. “I’m absolutely certain of it.” Both Brett and Connie looked at me strangely.

“Maybe this has something to do with Connie’s childhood, but maybe it doesn’t. Maybe she is withholding from you, and maybe she’s not. Maybe the problem isn’t Connie at all. Maybe you’re banging your head against a truth about intimate relationships and blaming Connie for it. Of course Connie controls when and how sex happens.
She is the low desire partner!
”

This was so outside anything Brett had anticipated, he didn’t know what to do. Nobody spoke for a few moments, but I felt the antagonism between them diminish. I had Brett’s undivided attention.

“Brett, you might think the low desire partner controls sex when a relationship is in trouble, and that things won’t be like this when your relationship gets better. The truth is,
the low desire partner controls sex whether things are going great or not
. It never changes, even when your relationships improves. Happy couples simply handle this better.” Brett looked puzzled, and I continued.

“Once I realized there is a low desire partner in every relationship, I discovered a second rule of human sexual desire:
The low desire partner always controls sex
.”
⁶

Brett challenged me, “Well, what if I don’t like this rule?”

“This is the rule whether you like it or not. You can attempt to get around it by coercing your partner to have sex. Begging, cajoling, criticizing, demanding, and withdrawing are standard methods. But you’re here because you’ve tried and failed. You may pressure Connie into having sex, but you can’t pressure her into wanting you or being passionate … so maybe there isn’t something wrong with Connie, or you, or your marriage. Maybe you’re dealing with something bigger than how you feel about each other, or your childhoods. All around the world, the low desire partner in a relationship always controls sex. And in your relationship, Connie is the low desire partner.”

Brett became less adversarial. Realizing he was “banging his head against the wall” quelled his anger, and made it easier for him to not take things so personally. “I guess it’s true, even if I don’t like it. But how come no one ever tells you important stuff like this?”

“The idea that marriage has its own ecology is relatively new. Therapists
never considered this possibility, but they still had to deal with the problem. That’s why they came up with ‘Just do it!’”

The reality that the low desire partner
always
controls sex put Brett and Connie on equal footing. They realized I wasn’t blaming or making excuses for either of them. I was simply describing the way relationships operate. Connie and Brett settled down, but I could see their minds working.

Brett waded in. “So how am I supposed to handle the fact that the low desire partner always controls sex? Am I supposed to be happy about this?”

“Feel anything you like. It won’t change things. You’re not the only person to struggle with this. It has sent generations of high desire partners searching for aphrodisiacs for their mate in hope of improving their situation.”

Brett laughed. “Don’t think I haven’t considered that.”

Seeing that there’s
always
a low desire partner, and that the low desire partner controls sex in
every
relationship, calmed Brett and Connie. They stopped bickering long enough in our session to think anew about what was happening between them. But it wasn’t long before Brett started complaining about not getting enough sex. Connie, in turn, harangued Brett about not doing his share of household chores. I cut them both off.

“Complaining about how Brett does and doesn’t do housework is no different than Brett complaining about how you approach sex. You can nag Brett to get some control over household tasks. But if you want him to participate, the partner with the least desire for household chores controls when, how, and if they get done. You can stop buying food and let the garbage and dirty clothes pile up to push him to take more responsibility around the house. But he completely controls whether things get handled
fairly and collaboratively
. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about household chores, sex, or raising the kids. The rule holds true in any undertaking that one partner cannot or doesn’t want to accomplish
alone. It’s particularly true when a sense of collaboration is important. The partner with the least desire holds the decisive vote.”

Connie didn’t say anything for several seconds. She was shocked to realize she was up against the same thing as Brett. In an instant, she had an entirely new picture of her situation and their interactions. Instead of her usual thoughts of Brett’s behavior and feelings, she thought of possibilities she’d never considered before. She applied it to other relationships and saw how it held true.

“I can see it now that you point this out. My sister Sally doesn’t like getting together for family gatherings and reunions, so events get scheduled around her whims. She always shows up in a bad mood, and everyone accommodates her because they don’t want to set her off.”

I nodded, acknowledging she understood what I’d said. “You’re talking as if Sally enjoys the control this gives her. Maybe she does. Lots of people do. But in lots of couples, the low sexual desire partner doesn’t want control over sex—often times she or he feels burdened by it.”

Connie nodded. “I know I feel that way about sex. Sally says she feels tremendous pressure around family holidays, like she’s spoiling everyone’s good time if she doesn’t show up.”

Brett interjected, “I think Connie was right the first time, Doc. Sally likes having that control. I think Connie does too. All the women in her family are like that, even her mother!” Brett was angry about feeling controlled by Connie, and he expected her to apologize. This is a common problem for people who approach relationships primarily through their feelings. Brett had a hard time giving up the idea that Connie was “doing this to him” to control him because it went against his feelings. There was no doubt in his mind. If he felt it, it must be true. If Connie created an outcome, this must reflect her motivation.

I said, “If you’re the high desire partner, it’s bewildering to think that the low desire partner always controls sex. You
feel
controlled, so it’s hard to get beyond the picture that your partner is controlling you—and wants to. It’s easy to attribute this to personality traits and motivations you think your mate possesses.