More Important Than Love
“I just want to feel loved,” complained Angie. “Is that
too much to ask? I want to be able to count on Richard in
bed. I’m tired of feeling like I don’t count!”
Angie and her husband, Richard, were caught in a power
struggle that was having a very negative affect on their
sex life. Most of the time, as soon as they started to have
intercourse, Richard would ejaculate, leaving Angie angry
and frustrated. The more upset Angie got, the more trouble
Richard was having sexually. They started counseling with
me due to this issue.
“Richard,” I asked, “Have you had problems with premature
ejaculation in other relationships before you got
married?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Sometimes they would start off okay,
but eventually they always ended up this way. I’ve tried
lots of different things but nothing has worked. I just
don’t know what the problem is.”
As I got to know Angie and Richard, it became apparent to
me that they were caught in a control-resist system, and
that it was this system that was affecting their sex life.
It was the same system that had negatively affected their
sex lives in previous relationships.
Angie had learned early in her life, from both of her
parents, to protect herself from pain with anger and
righteousness. When things didn’t go her way or when she
felt rejected, she would get hard, bristly, blaming, and
parental. At those moments, having control over getting
love and avoiding pain was more important to her than being
loving to herself and others. Angie had no idea how to take
loving care of herself in the face of feeling rejected.
Richard learned early in his life from his experiences with
his parents that not being controlled was more important
than being loving to himself or others. He learned to go
into various forms of resistance to feel safe from being
controlled by others, including not doing well in school
and not taking care of his health. For Richard, premature
ejaculation was another form of covert resistance. It’s as
if his body was saying, “I don’t want to be controlled so I
need to get out of here as soon as I can.” In addition, he
was covertly saying to Angie, and perhaps women in general,
“I’ll show you that you can’t control me.” Richard had no
idea how to take loving care of himself in the face of
feeling engulfed, so the wounded part of him would revert
to what he learned as a child - resistance.
While Angie was not causing Richard to resist and Richard
was not causing Angie to get angry and judgmental, they
were each reacting to the other’s learned protections with
their own learned protections. Either one could shift the
system by learning to take care of themselves when their
fears of rejection and engulfment surfaced.
For example, Angie can practice tuning into her feelings of
rejection and reassuring herself that Richard’s behavior is
coming from his fear of engulfment and is not a personal
rejection of her. She can practice moving into compassion
for herself and Richard, rather than going immediately into
judgment.
Richard can practice speaking his truth and standing up for
himself when Angie is angry and blaming, rather than going
into automatic resistance. He can let Angie know that he is
not available to being treated this way, and at the same
time stay open to caring about her feelings and
understanding that his resistant behavior is painful to
her.
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