In the previous post, it was probably clear that part of the reason for my dissillusionment about sex is a direct result of choices I have made myself, especially my expectation about having just one sexual partner. If I dropped that expectation, many other potentially fulfilling options would be open to me. But there's another reason I have to accept blame for how things have worked out with H, and I thought it was worth writing about that as an addendum.
For many months after H told me she didn't want to be my wife, I thought of myself as being defrauded. When we married, I believed, and still believe, that a normal expectation of marriage is the mutual discovery of each others' sexuality and a shared joy in pleasing each other physically. I felt that in marrying me she was agreeing with that, and yet my expectation has not been fulfilled.
BUT, I have realised that these sexual expectations I have always held during our marriage have been unfounded. I accept – unhappily, but truly – that H had not considered the implications of marriage 20 years ago. She had not projected her imagination into that future, had not longed for a husband, nor children, nor making a new home, nor settling into one location. I assumed that by saying she wanted to marry me, she anticipated and wanted to explore and enjoy sex with me. But we got married so quickly that there was no time to check that assumption, and I didn’t even think to try. I should have, because if I’m honest with myself there were signs prior to marriage that the assumption was wrong.
(When I write that we got married quickly, I mean we knew each other for several months before "falling in love" one October, we were engaged two weeks later and married in January. That was a fundamental mistake that I could have avoided.)
From this vantage point, I can see that a very harmful effect of my unwarranted expectations has been an imposition on H from which she could see no escape. I regret that this is another consequence of us getting married before allowing time for us to get to know each other more deeply. There are really no justifications for my expectations that she would be interested in discovering our sexuality together or being interested in understanding my sexuality. And hence no justification for me blaming her for not fulfilling those expectations.
—Nat
Saturday 31 December 2011
Saturday 24 December 2011
Sexual frustration and the role of marriage
[This post has taken me a long time to write and perhaps it is too long, too raw and too personal. But I write honestly, in the hope that it also reflects others’ experience and that by me writing it down publically, others may feel some vicarious release.]
Sex has never delivered to me the promise it seems to offer.
In my youth I chose to be a follower of Jesus and inherited from the Christian tradition a commitment to sexual abstinence before marriage and absolute fidelity in marriage. The two go hand-in-hand: abstinence before marriage is really just one aspect of fidelity to a future partner. Monogamy – I mean lifelong monogamy, not what’s become known as “serial monogamy” – is not only unpopular these days, but for many it is a perplexing option. Indeed it is fast becoming unimaginable to many people.
Sex was once reserved as an expression of long-term commitment. Although that wasn’t always the reality, it was the ideal. It seems to me that two changes have happened to that ideal in my lifetime. In the 1960’s and 70’s the view took hold that sex was an expression of love rather than of commitment. If you were in love with someone, why would you not want to have sex with them, and why should it not be legitimate to do so? More recently, sex has become something exploratory prior to any declaration of love. I recall the stars of Sex in the City debating how many times one should have sex with a new “partner” before expecting one or other to say “I love you.”
Those two changes seem to me to constitute a radical reconceptualisation of both sex and marriage, and certainly show that I am way behind the times. I have always thought that the frustration inherent in the “constraint” of monogamy was worthwhile because it would lead to a deeper joy, though it is fair to say that I am disillusioned with that principle at the moment.
BC – Before Consummation :^)
In teenage years, with no useful role model, I simply repressed my growing sexual desires, thinking that they were somehow wrong. But I found that denying them is both impossible and self-destructive.
During my twenty’s I understood a lot more about sublimating sexuality by rechanneling the energy towards other endeavours. That was an extremely productive and rewarding period. Not only was I involved in (what I took to be) meaningful projects, but the self-training in restraint, the commitment to treat women as real subjects rather than objects, and the discipline of delaying gratification were all important in making me a man, and I think, preparing me for marriage. I think I did that in a healthy manner, though it did mean a lot of conscious turning away from “temptation” and unconsciously presenting an image to girls that said “I’m not available or interested.”
Although I didn’t actively seek marriage, or sex, I yearned deeply to find someone to whom I could give my self fully and without reserve. In marriage I sought someone with whom I could form a true partnership. A relationship in which both of us could feel not only the warmth of love but also the total security of lifelong commitment and the freedom to be ourselves without fear of rejection. And I hoped we would discover and explore the pleasures of sex together.
During Marriage
When I found the woman of my dreams and we were married, I mistakenly thought that the time to enjoy my sexuality had come. As I wrote previously, it seemed to me that my penis was at last doing what it was designed for. I experienced a sigh of contentment, a belief that my sexuality was at last able to be expressed in a wholesome giving to another. A sense that a longstanding longing had found it's true resting place. That my half had become a whole. That my sexuality could be the missing jigsaw piece in another's puzzle. That I could offer to H the ideal gift: one that comes from my heart (all good gifts are an offering of one's self) to nourish the joy in her heart.
But those feelings didn’t progress.
I remember an older friend saying that the problem with short-term sexual relationships was that there was not enough time to learn how to enjoy sex. He claimed that sex only became really satisfying after 15 years with the same person. Well that didn’t work for us! Sex didn’t provide any deep satisfaction – to either of us – at any point in our 19 years together. My yearning for intimacy banged up against the invisible wall of H’s passivity and self-protection. In sexuality, probably more than any in other area of our relationship, I have felt rejected to the core.
As is stereotypical of guys, I wished for more frequent sex that H did, and often felt the pain of my advances being rebuffed. She was the gatekeeper with total control over when we had sex. But that’s commonplace. In many cases she would wait until I was clearly desperate before throwing me a bone out of pity. I remember once, after three months with no sex, crying and begging H to understand what she was doing to me. There was no joint journey of discovery and our sexual repertoire was limited to two positions under the covers with the lights off.
But more important to me than the frequency or blandness of sex was her lack of any real interest in my sexuality. Rarely any discussion of sex. No response to my requests. There was no encouragement from H if I was doing anything right, or suggestions from her about what I could do better. There were very few times in the whole 19 years together when H would initiate either sex or even a romantic event. She never tried to seduce me and never even undressed for me. In short, I had H’s permission to have sex from time to time, but rarely her real assent or engagement.
One of the lies that marketers of sex propose is that good sex depends on physical beauty. That’s why we men all irrationally think that the glamorous models we see in the media would be the most satisfying sex partners. Through my relationship with H, I’ve come to believe that it is not good looks, but real desire that makes for the best sex. I enjoyed sex most when my wife seemed to actually want it. The converse, having sex with someone who doesn’t seem to want it, is disappointing and demoralising. Sex that is not mutually desired is empty. (I find the idea of rape not only obnoxious but very perplexing. How can there possibly be pleasure in forced sex? That is absolutely foreign to me. It would be like rubbing one’s penis against a brick.)
All of that is not to discount the pleasure I, and occasionally we, enjoyed. Sex with H has been the most pleasurable experience of my life. Nothing else comes close. It is the activity more than any other that I would wish to repeat.
My biggest frustration is that throughout our marriage there seems to have been the potential for so much more fun and deep joy, if only H had sought it. I lived with the hope of unlocking that potential for maybe 14 years before coming to the understanding that this was all H had to offer me; that she was not able to engage in any deeper intimacy.
AD (After Divorce)
But then H started to be more honest about her experience of our whole history together, and admitted that she had never wanted to marry me and had lived with the shame of doing so from day 1. She felt trapped and smothered. The lifelong commitment I took to be my most valuable gift to her, she saw as a chain. Instead of seeing the complete giving of myself as a blessing, she experienced it as an oppressive constraint that imposed on her an obligation she could not meet.
It is horrendous for me to hear from H that in the latter part of our marriage she would frequently want to cry after sex. I think something like that pain actually goes back a long time for her. When we used to have sex, the show would be over as soon as the first one of us climaxed. I was never told “Wow that was nice, let’s do some more”. She would turn her back to me and go to sleep. That was always disappointing to me, but now it sits like an accusation against me, and a judgement on my manhood, questioning the validity of the pleasures I once felt.
She has also spoken of how she too longs for a more intimate and sexually expression relationship. But I am not the man with whom she wants it.
H clearly enjoyed sex on some occasions, but for some reason I don’t understand, it was not the sort of pleasure she sought to repeat. I am angry that she didn’t perceive the potential joy that I so clearly see in sex, and angry that she has not understood my desire, my craving for it. And now as our marriage dies, I am angry that she has removed that pleasure from my reach.
It is true that I could probably find someone willing to have sex with me for pleasure or money, perhaps eventually even someone who wishes it out of love. But for now I continue the commitment to monogamy I have held for 35 years, a wasted fidelity to H that started well before we met. I grieve the fact that I cannot give myself to another in the way I gave myself to H. That is not just psychologically difficult, it is literally impossible. I cannot become a virgin again. I cannot say to another lover that I have saved myself for her. I cannot say that she is the only one.
Despite that, I still maintain a voluntary commitment to the constraint of monogamy and would recommend the same to my kids. The problem is that I can no longer justify that commitment by the belief that short-term restraint is made worthwhile by deeper future joy. The promise of that deeper joy is a fraud.
Since we stopped having sex, moved to separate bedrooms and then formally separated, my sexual options have become more limited, and the frustration has increased. After a few months of masturbation and porn at least daily, I hated the way that desire could control me. It is unrelenting, corrosive and demeaning.
So now I am trying to put my sexual desire aside. Sublimating that desire now, however, is a more difficult struggle than before I was married. That struggle takes two forms. One form relates to changing the way I respond to beautiful women. When I was married, I could transfer the desire created by that person over to my wife. But that strategy can no longer work. In time, I will re-enter the so-called “dating scene” and start building relationships with women that may lead to new intimacy and sex. I’m not there yet, but that doesn’t mean the natural appetite is dormant. In the meantime, is there a healthy and respectful outlet for such desire? (Perhaps “respectful” is not the best word, but I use it here as the opposite of “lustful”. Lust treats a woman as an object whose sole value is to satisfy – in reality or in our dreams – one’s desire. Lust demeans the woman and as a consequence demeans one’s self.)
The struggle to put sexual desire aside also takes a more purely physical form in the need for orgasm. I do not think it is possible for me to not have orgasms. But nor do I want to allow that inevitability to turn into an addiction, and I know that to be a real risk.
The trouble is that suspending the natural and God-given desire for sex means I am killing part of myself. I can turn the energy into other pursuits but when I’m not busy I am lost. I miss the touch of lips, the feel of the skin between her legs, the softness of her breasts. I ask God to fill the gap that H has left in my life but what could possibly replace that physical touch?
Is there no middle ground between killing this desire and letting it control me? Yes, of course there is – releasing the insistence of sexual energy is one of the primary purposes of marriage! A monogamous life-long marriage is precisely the societally beneficial and God-planned context in which the natural seed of sexual desire can blossom.
I am so freaking angry that the opportunity has been lost.
—Nat
Sex has never delivered to me the promise it seems to offer.
In my youth I chose to be a follower of Jesus and inherited from the Christian tradition a commitment to sexual abstinence before marriage and absolute fidelity in marriage. The two go hand-in-hand: abstinence before marriage is really just one aspect of fidelity to a future partner. Monogamy – I mean lifelong monogamy, not what’s become known as “serial monogamy” – is not only unpopular these days, but for many it is a perplexing option. Indeed it is fast becoming unimaginable to many people.
Sex was once reserved as an expression of long-term commitment. Although that wasn’t always the reality, it was the ideal. It seems to me that two changes have happened to that ideal in my lifetime. In the 1960’s and 70’s the view took hold that sex was an expression of love rather than of commitment. If you were in love with someone, why would you not want to have sex with them, and why should it not be legitimate to do so? More recently, sex has become something exploratory prior to any declaration of love. I recall the stars of Sex in the City debating how many times one should have sex with a new “partner” before expecting one or other to say “I love you.”
Those two changes seem to me to constitute a radical reconceptualisation of both sex and marriage, and certainly show that I am way behind the times. I have always thought that the frustration inherent in the “constraint” of monogamy was worthwhile because it would lead to a deeper joy, though it is fair to say that I am disillusioned with that principle at the moment.
BC – Before Consummation :^)
In teenage years, with no useful role model, I simply repressed my growing sexual desires, thinking that they were somehow wrong. But I found that denying them is both impossible and self-destructive.
During my twenty’s I understood a lot more about sublimating sexuality by rechanneling the energy towards other endeavours. That was an extremely productive and rewarding period. Not only was I involved in (what I took to be) meaningful projects, but the self-training in restraint, the commitment to treat women as real subjects rather than objects, and the discipline of delaying gratification were all important in making me a man, and I think, preparing me for marriage. I think I did that in a healthy manner, though it did mean a lot of conscious turning away from “temptation” and unconsciously presenting an image to girls that said “I’m not available or interested.”
Although I didn’t actively seek marriage, or sex, I yearned deeply to find someone to whom I could give my self fully and without reserve. In marriage I sought someone with whom I could form a true partnership. A relationship in which both of us could feel not only the warmth of love but also the total security of lifelong commitment and the freedom to be ourselves without fear of rejection. And I hoped we would discover and explore the pleasures of sex together.
During Marriage
When I found the woman of my dreams and we were married, I mistakenly thought that the time to enjoy my sexuality had come. As I wrote previously, it seemed to me that my penis was at last doing what it was designed for. I experienced a sigh of contentment, a belief that my sexuality was at last able to be expressed in a wholesome giving to another. A sense that a longstanding longing had found it's true resting place. That my half had become a whole. That my sexuality could be the missing jigsaw piece in another's puzzle. That I could offer to H the ideal gift: one that comes from my heart (all good gifts are an offering of one's self) to nourish the joy in her heart.
But those feelings didn’t progress.
I remember an older friend saying that the problem with short-term sexual relationships was that there was not enough time to learn how to enjoy sex. He claimed that sex only became really satisfying after 15 years with the same person. Well that didn’t work for us! Sex didn’t provide any deep satisfaction – to either of us – at any point in our 19 years together. My yearning for intimacy banged up against the invisible wall of H’s passivity and self-protection. In sexuality, probably more than any in other area of our relationship, I have felt rejected to the core.
As is stereotypical of guys, I wished for more frequent sex that H did, and often felt the pain of my advances being rebuffed. She was the gatekeeper with total control over when we had sex. But that’s commonplace. In many cases she would wait until I was clearly desperate before throwing me a bone out of pity. I remember once, after three months with no sex, crying and begging H to understand what she was doing to me. There was no joint journey of discovery and our sexual repertoire was limited to two positions under the covers with the lights off.
But more important to me than the frequency or blandness of sex was her lack of any real interest in my sexuality. Rarely any discussion of sex. No response to my requests. There was no encouragement from H if I was doing anything right, or suggestions from her about what I could do better. There were very few times in the whole 19 years together when H would initiate either sex or even a romantic event. She never tried to seduce me and never even undressed for me. In short, I had H’s permission to have sex from time to time, but rarely her real assent or engagement.
One of the lies that marketers of sex propose is that good sex depends on physical beauty. That’s why we men all irrationally think that the glamorous models we see in the media would be the most satisfying sex partners. Through my relationship with H, I’ve come to believe that it is not good looks, but real desire that makes for the best sex. I enjoyed sex most when my wife seemed to actually want it. The converse, having sex with someone who doesn’t seem to want it, is disappointing and demoralising. Sex that is not mutually desired is empty. (I find the idea of rape not only obnoxious but very perplexing. How can there possibly be pleasure in forced sex? That is absolutely foreign to me. It would be like rubbing one’s penis against a brick.)
All of that is not to discount the pleasure I, and occasionally we, enjoyed. Sex with H has been the most pleasurable experience of my life. Nothing else comes close. It is the activity more than any other that I would wish to repeat.
My biggest frustration is that throughout our marriage there seems to have been the potential for so much more fun and deep joy, if only H had sought it. I lived with the hope of unlocking that potential for maybe 14 years before coming to the understanding that this was all H had to offer me; that she was not able to engage in any deeper intimacy.
AD (After Divorce)
But then H started to be more honest about her experience of our whole history together, and admitted that she had never wanted to marry me and had lived with the shame of doing so from day 1. She felt trapped and smothered. The lifelong commitment I took to be my most valuable gift to her, she saw as a chain. Instead of seeing the complete giving of myself as a blessing, she experienced it as an oppressive constraint that imposed on her an obligation she could not meet.
It is horrendous for me to hear from H that in the latter part of our marriage she would frequently want to cry after sex. I think something like that pain actually goes back a long time for her. When we used to have sex, the show would be over as soon as the first one of us climaxed. I was never told “Wow that was nice, let’s do some more”. She would turn her back to me and go to sleep. That was always disappointing to me, but now it sits like an accusation against me, and a judgement on my manhood, questioning the validity of the pleasures I once felt.
She has also spoken of how she too longs for a more intimate and sexually expression relationship. But I am not the man with whom she wants it.
H clearly enjoyed sex on some occasions, but for some reason I don’t understand, it was not the sort of pleasure she sought to repeat. I am angry that she didn’t perceive the potential joy that I so clearly see in sex, and angry that she has not understood my desire, my craving for it. And now as our marriage dies, I am angry that she has removed that pleasure from my reach.
It is true that I could probably find someone willing to have sex with me for pleasure or money, perhaps eventually even someone who wishes it out of love. But for now I continue the commitment to monogamy I have held for 35 years, a wasted fidelity to H that started well before we met. I grieve the fact that I cannot give myself to another in the way I gave myself to H. That is not just psychologically difficult, it is literally impossible. I cannot become a virgin again. I cannot say to another lover that I have saved myself for her. I cannot say that she is the only one.
Despite that, I still maintain a voluntary commitment to the constraint of monogamy and would recommend the same to my kids. The problem is that I can no longer justify that commitment by the belief that short-term restraint is made worthwhile by deeper future joy. The promise of that deeper joy is a fraud.
Since we stopped having sex, moved to separate bedrooms and then formally separated, my sexual options have become more limited, and the frustration has increased. After a few months of masturbation and porn at least daily, I hated the way that desire could control me. It is unrelenting, corrosive and demeaning.
So now I am trying to put my sexual desire aside. Sublimating that desire now, however, is a more difficult struggle than before I was married. That struggle takes two forms. One form relates to changing the way I respond to beautiful women. When I was married, I could transfer the desire created by that person over to my wife. But that strategy can no longer work. In time, I will re-enter the so-called “dating scene” and start building relationships with women that may lead to new intimacy and sex. I’m not there yet, but that doesn’t mean the natural appetite is dormant. In the meantime, is there a healthy and respectful outlet for such desire? (Perhaps “respectful” is not the best word, but I use it here as the opposite of “lustful”. Lust treats a woman as an object whose sole value is to satisfy – in reality or in our dreams – one’s desire. Lust demeans the woman and as a consequence demeans one’s self.)
The struggle to put sexual desire aside also takes a more purely physical form in the need for orgasm. I do not think it is possible for me to not have orgasms. But nor do I want to allow that inevitability to turn into an addiction, and I know that to be a real risk.
The trouble is that suspending the natural and God-given desire for sex means I am killing part of myself. I can turn the energy into other pursuits but when I’m not busy I am lost. I miss the touch of lips, the feel of the skin between her legs, the softness of her breasts. I ask God to fill the gap that H has left in my life but what could possibly replace that physical touch?
Is there no middle ground between killing this desire and letting it control me? Yes, of course there is – releasing the insistence of sexual energy is one of the primary purposes of marriage! A monogamous life-long marriage is precisely the societally beneficial and God-planned context in which the natural seed of sexual desire can blossom.
I am so freaking angry that the opportunity has been lost.
—Nat
Thursday 8 December 2011
"As you wish" doesn't work
In my relationship with H, an early commitment was to be her servant. But my intention was never for that to be one-sided. I did not want a relationship where she felt indebted, nor one where I was trampled on. In my mind this was clear from the first, traumatic year of our marriage: I would serve H in the hope that when she felt loved and secure she would also serve me. (Is there any difference between mutual servanthood and mutual love?) But instead, she has experienced my service as oppressive – perhaps as a debt she cannot repay – and built a wall of protection around herself, founded on a mistrust of my best intentions, that prevented any mutuality at all.
I’ve always called it servanthood, but as she rejects that core element of my self-image, my self confidence is shattered. Is it just she who has misunderstood, or do others share the same perception that I am arrogant and judgemental? Have I built my life on a bad idea?
Perhaps generosity is a more helpful image of essentially the same desire. I love being generous: generous with my money, with my time, and in the way I interpret other’s motives. I love the giving of myself to others, and never more than to H.
The whole of our marriage has been made hollow by a lack of intimacy, which makes me wonder what it is that I have lost by now being separated. It’s not as though past intimacy has suddenly been taken away. What’s different now? Even though H didn’t allow herself to be intimate with me, I embedded myself in a sort of one-way intimacy. Always generous to her. Always hoping she would one day see and appreciate it: like Wesley’s repeated “As you wish”. Always serving in the hope that she would one day reciprocate. But my Buttercup never came to that life-changing moment when her eyes opened to the realisation of what mutual love could mean.
What’s different is not any change in what I can expect from H, but that I can no longer express my generosity, my intimacy, with her.
No, that’s rubbish; unhelpful rationalisation. What’s different is that I can no longer feel her warmth next to me in bed, can no longer feel her softness under my hand, no longer exchange a kiss, a cuddle. No longer delude myself that she wishes those things from me.
I knew that she was taking advantage of my generosity, though I mostly chose not to know it. She would never engage in a discussion of it and I drifted in a quicksand of optimism, dreaming that one day she would understand. I should have listened to a counsellor who, very early in our marriage, warned that servanthood [I assume he meant servanthood that is not mutual] is not a good basis for a relationship.
— Nat
I’ve always called it servanthood, but as she rejects that core element of my self-image, my self confidence is shattered. Is it just she who has misunderstood, or do others share the same perception that I am arrogant and judgemental? Have I built my life on a bad idea?
Perhaps generosity is a more helpful image of essentially the same desire. I love being generous: generous with my money, with my time, and in the way I interpret other’s motives. I love the giving of myself to others, and never more than to H.
The whole of our marriage has been made hollow by a lack of intimacy, which makes me wonder what it is that I have lost by now being separated. It’s not as though past intimacy has suddenly been taken away. What’s different now? Even though H didn’t allow herself to be intimate with me, I embedded myself in a sort of one-way intimacy. Always generous to her. Always hoping she would one day see and appreciate it: like Wesley’s repeated “As you wish”. Always serving in the hope that she would one day reciprocate. But my Buttercup never came to that life-changing moment when her eyes opened to the realisation of what mutual love could mean.
What’s different is not any change in what I can expect from H, but that I can no longer express my generosity, my intimacy, with her.
No, that’s rubbish; unhelpful rationalisation. What’s different is that I can no longer feel her warmth next to me in bed, can no longer feel her softness under my hand, no longer exchange a kiss, a cuddle. No longer delude myself that she wishes those things from me.
I knew that she was taking advantage of my generosity, though I mostly chose not to know it. She would never engage in a discussion of it and I drifted in a quicksand of optimism, dreaming that one day she would understand. I should have listened to a counsellor who, very early in our marriage, warned that servanthood [I assume he meant servanthood that is not mutual] is not a good basis for a relationship.
— Nat
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