Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship (43 page)

Many couples don’t have sex. Lots more don’t have a collaborative alliance. Some may copulate four times a week and have multiple orgasms, but they don’t have a collaborative alliance during sex (or before or after, either).

A collaborative alliance is an informal agreement based on mutual interest, an unwritten treaty of union, coalition, and friendship that brings out the best in both of you. In moments when you and your mate have a collaborative alliance, your partnership is conveyed through
your actions and not just words. Collaborative alliances involve working together toward mutual goals and benefits,
even when this is difficult, anxiety-provoking, or painful
. In resolving desire problems, a collaborative alliance is far more important than perfect sexual technique.

There’s a difference between a collaborative alliance and a good relationship. A collaborative alliance can be made or lost in a split second. (A good relationship involves a longer time frame.) It can seem like you’re getting along great one moment, and the next moment it’s gone. That feeling is the sudden breakdown of the alliance. Partners in good relationships don’t maintain collaborative alliances every second. But if you’re generally able to maintain a collaborative alliance with your partner over a period of months and years—especially during difficult times of stress or crisis—you’ll feel like you have a good relationship. As in marriage, collaborative alliances play an important role in psychotherapy and parenting. Anywhere you look, collaborative alliances are incredibly important.

As soon as couples learn about collaborative alliances, they start tracking the coming and going of their alliance (unfortunately, mostly going at first). Collaborative alliances shift quickly because they rise and fall on your emotional stability, your ability to self-soothe, and your willingness to sacrifice for a cause. Collaborative alliances hinge on your (and your partner’s) Four Points of Balance. They involve your moment-to-moment ability to
hold on to your self, remain focused on your joint effort, and make yourself do what needs to be done
.

That last part is important:
Collaborative alliances focus on what needs to be done
, not just interpreting what’s going wrong or nursing your own feelings.

Not all alliances are collaborative. Some couples have no alliance at all, but others form collusive alliances.
Collusive alliances
appeal to the worst in people, rather than bringing out the best, and they are common in marriages and families. Whereas
collaborative
alliances involve working together for mutual benefit,
collusive
alliances allow people to dodge
their responsibilities or avoid difficult issues. Spouses often maintain collusive alliances around their respective limitations. Parents and children develop collusive alliances to deny the truth of what’s happening in the family. The weaker your Four Points of Balance, the more likely your alliances are collusive.

A warm, stable,
collaborative
alliance gives your brain optimal conditions to develop during childhood.
¹⁶⁰
Moreover, a stable collaborative alliance with your partner now can help you get over difficult experiences earlier in your life. Successfully processing your emotions facilitates brain change (brain plasticity) by (a) increasing excitability and activation of neurons, (b) facilitating the growth of synaptic connections, and (c) better integrating widely distributed regions of your brain, all of which promote better self-regulation.
¹⁶¹
The three forms of physical contact I’ll describe shortly are time-tested forms of physical and emotional collaborative alliances that may facilitate this process. They have the additional advantage of producing seven conditions believed to encourage positive brain change.

Let me tell you about a couple who put this system to good use. Larry and Juanita hadn’t had much sex during their nineteen-year marriage. During their first year together they had sex several times a week. Things were always a little rocky whenever they got started, but they got through it and most encounters went okay. But by their second year, sex dropped off to once a month and their foreplay went to hell.

Juanita usually got anxious and jumpy as foreplay progressed. As they approached what Juanita called “put up or shut up time” (i.e., intercourse), she felt obligated to take Larry inside her. It was hard for her to calm down and see it any other way. Juanita worried that Larry would get angry if she wasn’t ready, no matter how many times he reassured her. They had been going through this for years. As foreplay continued, Juanita was increasingly cut off from Larry, drowning in her own mind. Her reflected sense of self crashed, as did any alliance she had with him. By the time Larry started to insert his penis, there were no thoughts of
love or partnership. In Juanita’s mind, s
he
was on the firing line, all by herself. She was the one who was failing. She was the screwed up one from being sexually abused as a child.

Juanita and Larry sought therapy after an emotional blow-up. Larry had made his periodic overture for sex. Juanita pretended not to notice and continued reading her book. Larry persisted, and Juanita hesitated and then agreed because they hadn’t had sex in almost two months. They were both nervous as they started making love. Just before intercourse Juanita called it off, saying she was feeling nervous and pressured. This was their typical pattern. Larry rolled over and went to sleep, leaving Juanita crying in the darkness. Two days later Larry told Juanita he was finally fed up and seriously thinking about divorce.

In our initial meeting, Juanita told me she was a sexual abuse survivor. She described herself as having been nervous all her life. Father fondled her through her underwear multiple times when she was between the ages of eight and twelve. She felt obligated to let him do it. Mother had a hard time keeping herself emotionally together, and Juanita thought Mother would come unglued if she found out. Juanita became sexually promiscuous during adolescence. Now she had difficulty getting relaxed and aroused during sex with Larry.

Juanita and Larry described themselves as having “a good relationship, but with problems in the sex department.” Actually, they had difficulty maintaining a collaborative alliance in lots of circumstances. Juanita dropped her alliance with Larry whenever she felt threatened or frightened. On the other hand, Larry was no better at maintaining their alliance, which is common in couples. Larry’s version of dropping their alliance was stomping off after she’d “pulled back.”

Each time Larry or Juanita dropped their alliance, the other felt hurt. A single sentence like “Do I really have to?” or “Are you sure you really want to?” was all it took. After almost twenty years, Larry felt humiliated when he initiated and was rejected again. He was often depressed for days afterward. Juanita alternated between rage and despair; Larry became frustrated and hopeless. The combination demoralized them for months on end.

Juanita never realized she usually dropped their alliance first. It happened every time she started to have difficulty and envisioned Larry
about to get frustrated. In response to her own anxieties, she dropped her side of the alliance by telling Larry, “Now, don’t be angry.” This in turn upset Larry, which increased her anxiety and decreased her arousal, at which point she simultaneously pulled away and felt “abandoned.”

Maintaining an alliance involves emotional resilience. If you drop your end of the alliance every time your partner drops his, you can’t have a
resilient
collaborative alliance. That’s why your ability to maintain a collaborative alliance hinges on your Four Points of Balance. You need to stay clear about your commitments by holding on to your self, and meeting those commitments by quieting your mind, calming your heart, and soothing your emotions when you’re anxious or upset. You have to stay grounded and not overreact when your partner drops his alliance with you. A resilient collaborative alliance requires meaningful endurance when times are rough.

Many of us have been shaped by our parents’ inability to maintain a collaborative alliance, either with us, or with each other, or both. This shapes your brain and your behavior, especially when it comes to controlling your emotions. Your brain responds to your interactions with others, for instance, through changes in neurochemicals and neuron wiring, and controlling the expression of your genes (called
epigenetics
).
¹⁶²

Some people have genes that produce lower amounts of neurochemicals that reduce the impact of stress and trauma (like serotonin and MAOA). This reduces their resilience and makes them particularly prone to depression and suicidal thoughts when they encounter stressful life events.
¹⁶³
Childhood maltreatment increases children’s chances of developing antisocial personality disorders and committing violent crimes as adults.
¹⁶⁴
However, there is a strong interaction between genes and environment (G
X
E interaction) in the etiology of antisocial behavior.
¹⁶⁵
Here’s where your life experiences make a huge difference. Having problem-predisposing genetics makes no difference if you’re
not exposed to stress or maltreatment (i.e., your genetic predisposition is not “expressed”).

In Juanita’s case, although physical sexual abuse happened rarely (three or four times), collaborative alliances crashed all the time when she was growing up. The daily breaking of alliances, which often happens in families where sexual abuse occurs, can have greater negative impact on children than episodic sexual abuse per se.

Juanita was her parents’ “perfect daughter.” From early on they wanted harmony in the house, at all times and at all costs. Her parents sent her to prestigious schools and bragged about her accomplishments to their friends. They often talked with Juanita, but hardly listened. Juanita gave her parents the daughter they wanted to see, but she knew she was invisible to them. She always said she was fine, even when she wasn’t, because that’s what they wanted to hear.

Juanita never mentioned her childhood sexual experiences with her father. When your father touches you sexually, you know there’s no collaborative alliance. Knowing your mother won’t believe you or intercede does the same. You could say Juanita was being loyal to her parents even though they weren’t loyal to her. But in reality they had a
collusive
alliance.

Juanita’s parents had no alliance with each other: Her mother had walked in on her father screwing the maid, and her mother never missed an opportunity to remind him of it. She would often bring this up at the dinner table. Sometimes her father encouraged Juanita to appeal to her mother on his behalf in the name of “peace.” In turn, Juanita’s mother used her to “work out her feelings” about things Juanita’s father had done.

When Juanita’s parents talked about getting a divorce, her standing as a perfect child became even more important. Juanita’s grandfather was a prominent person in town, and he had expected his son to keep up appearances and stay married even if he was unhappy. From an early age, Juanita knew her extended family was untrustworthy.

Larry’s family history of collaborative alliances wasn’t much better. Larry’s father and uncle had sued each other over a failed business. They had started the venture to get back at Larry’s grandfather. Grandfather had kept them working for decades with promises that they’d eventually inherit the business. Instead, one day he told them he planned to sell it.
Larry’s father and uncle tried to steal the company’s clients and start their own business. They weren’t successful. Things worsened when Grandfather sold the business and kept all the proceeds.

Larry’s father talked big, and he expected Larry to relate to him like he was a big important man. In reality, Larry’s father was a little man who needed to look bigger than he was. His approach to parenting could be summarized as: “Let me be your rubber crutch.”

Repeatedly, Larry’s father cooked up plans that involved Larry. Invariably, this meant Larry had to make himself vulnerable by depending on his father in some way. Ten years ago Larry co-signed a car loan for his father. His father didn’t pay it off, and the bank demanded payment from Larry. Two years ago, his father owed money to several people and Larry paid seven thousand dollars to keep him from going to jail. Dad promised to repay him, but Larry never saw a nickel. This hurt Larry and Juanita financially, because they didn’t have gobs of money. But the real pain came from watching his father repeatedly drop the collaborative alliance Larry kept offering him.

Given their histories with their respective parents, it wasn’t surprising that Juanita and Larry maintained a collusive alliance to avoid their sexual problems for over fifteen years.

Your ability to maintain a collaborative alliance is rooted in human evolution and culture.
¹⁶⁶
But forget the notion that marriage is inherently “till death do us part.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. Anthropologist Helen Fisher notes most animals don’t pair-bond, and those who do have two things in common: They give birth to helpless babies, and parents don’t stay together for life, only long enough to co-parent their babies through infancy.
¹⁶⁷
From this, Fisher realized kinship, rather than marriage, has been the steward of human evolution over the ages.
¹⁶⁸
When couples broke up, mothers turned to kin for help. Junior had more contact with Auntie, Uncle, and Grandma than with Dad.

Kinship ties often outlast marriages because kinship relationships tend to be less intense. They involve fewer two-choice dilemmas, more
degrees of freedom, and more emotional and physical space in which to interact. They don’t tap your Four Points of Balance as much as marriage (although this isn’t true in highly emotionally fused families). The more kinship relationships approach the intensity of monogamous marriages, the more collaborative alliances in extended families tend to break down. So if kinship rather than a two-parent household is the bedrock of civilization, you’d better be particularly good at maintaining a collaborative alliance if you want a stable long-term marriage.