Break the Sexual Stalemate

Break the Sexual Stalemate  -  (from Retool your Relationship)

The first step to end your sexual stalemate is to take control. It’s an all-too-familiar standoff: you need intimacy for sex, and he needs sex for intimacy. In a sense, each of you wants the same thing, but because you are a woman and he is a man, each of you goes about getting it in ways that are ingrained in the psyche of your gender. You need more involvement, verbal reassurance, and tangible contact prior to having sex, while he needs sex before he can let down his guard and demonstrate his tender side.

Give and You’ll Get

There are other important differences between how men and women function psychologically, as well as biologically, that need to be addressed, and I’ll discuss them shortly. But right now, I want you to be aware that he probably wants to feel close and intimate (just as much as you do!), but his way of achieving it is through the physical act of sex. Although you may believe that withholding sex is a way to exert your power, by withholding sex you are actually working against yourself. By misapplying your sexual power in this way, you are in reality denying him the only pathway he has available to fulfill your needs for intimacy. This session will show you how to use your sexual power to achieve the intimacy you want by controlling your sexual currency. And, yes, you will be training him as well, so that he gives you the pleasure you’ve been missing.

It’s All about Chemistry

In order to have great sex, you’ll need a basic understanding of how men and women experience sex differently. Gender plays a huge role in the biology, as well as in the psychology, of sex. Research tells us that men generally have a higher sex drive. It’s a bit more complicated than the idea that men are simply horny all of the time and will take any and every opportunity to get off. That’s because testosterone is the hormone that’s largely responsible for a person’s sex drive, and typically, a man has twenty to forty times more of it coursing through his body than an average woman does. A women’s testosterone level (and other sex-enhancing hormones and hence her sex drive) fluctuates on a monthly basis, being dramatically affected by her monthly period, as well as by having children. A man’s testosterone level, on the other hand, stays pretty much the same throughout his adult life. 

Another difference between the sexes is the way a man and a woman express their sex drive. Typically, men tend to behave more assertively than women when it comes to sex. Women are much more complex. Their sex drive is influenced not only by testosterone but also by the female hormone estrogen. Unlike the “assertive” inclinations generated by testosterone, estrogen is more “receptive.” There is a huge distinction between being passive and being receptive. High levels of estrogen enable women to be more approachable, open, friendly, sympathetic, and seductive—qualities that translate quite nicely and naturally into the bedroom. For men, sex can be just sex, while a woman may also want to use sex as a way to express intimacy or to please her partner.

In the early days of a relationship, both men and women tend to have much higher sex drives. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that this is important because nature dictates that one of our most primal instincts is the need to reproduce, so that the species has the best possible chance of survival. It’s called “pair bonding,” but over time the sex drive falls off—particularly for women. The result is that both men and women find themselves confused. Men feel betrayed and rejected by their former “sex-kitten” partners and are afraid that their partners’ declining desire for sex means that there is a problem in the relationship. Women wonder whether their diminishing sex drive means that they don’t love their partners as much as they used to. Yet in reality, these changes in desire are simply the natural course of events in any couple’s relationship.

INTIMACY

Many people think that intimacy is the same as sex, but it’s much more than that. To be intimate is to allow yourself to be vulnerable with another person.

Sensuality is one way of being intimate. Sensuality is the ability to touch and feel very connected to one another, to hug, hold hands, look into each other’s eyes, to see and be willing to be seen, even to speak openly and to

be open to sensitive feelings. Sensuality may build toward sexual intimacy, or it may not. It is a satisfying end in itself—and it can lead to more satisfying sexual experiences.

Some people grew up in families that did not allow or encourage intimacy, touching or sensuality. They may not know how to allow themselves to be open and vulnerable with another person. Intimacy may feel uncomfortable, threatening or overwhelming.

Intimacy, sensuality and sexuality are forms of communication within a relationship. They offer a rich and many-layered vocabulary that can intensify the relationship, allow the individuals to thrive and continually renew the couple’s commitment to one another.

The internet and our relationship

The internet and our relationship

Increasingly couples are citing the internet as a problem in their relationship.

Some signs that a partner may be in a relationship over the internet:

• They are spending more and more time on the internet particularly in chat rooms and those to do with sex and sexuality
• They try to hide information from you
• They have difficulty in not logging on
• They become distant, secretive or even critical of you

Some warning signs that you may be at risk of having an internet affair:

• All of the above
• You find yourself thinking about using the internet for purposes of making sexual contact
• You find yourself talking with one or more individuals on a regular, or pre-arranged, basis
• You make attempts to contact these individuals by other means
• You become aroused by the contact you have on line - more than with your partner
• You feel guilty about your online activities

Even though the relationship is termed "virtual", the sense that a partner is cheating on you is real and what's worse it can feel as if the 'other person' is under your roof - even if they are miles away.

The time spent on the internet is time spent away from the primary relationship, the intimacies that are shared with a virtual person don't get shared with a real partner and this leads to feelings of betrayal, rejection and worthlessness. It's not just partners that are neglected; children and friends also suffer to.

The person going online can feel they're escaping from real life problems but retreating into cyberspace only exacerbates what's happening in real life. Online relationships carry the danger of detaching you from reality - the virtual partner can become idealised, by comparison the real partner can look inferior. Unfortunately internet relationships can lead to break-ups and whilst some of these may've happened anyway, some are mistakes - leaving real partners for virtual partners whose online personas bear little relation to what they're really like.

It's not the internet that's to blame for the rise in break-ups and relationship problems caused by online affairs. As human beings we have choices - to engage in what technology has to offer, or not. Just because technology is offering you access that is affordable and provides you with anonymity, it will not reduce the trauma of a partner discovering what they are likely to feel is as much a betrayal as a real life affair.

Tips to try if you find yourself becoming involved online or suspect a partner is:

• Consider what is going on in your primary relationship that is creating a need for cybersex
• Talk to your partner about your concerns and feelings, the areas of your relationship that are no longer working for you
• If you can't talk together then seek the assistance of a counsellor
• The internet can be addictive, try taking a moratorium from the computer or internet

Why is my partner so annoying at times?

Why is my partner so annoying at times?


We fall in love with someone, and imagine that now at last life will be full of peace, joy, companionship and hope. But after a while we often become aware that our partner seems to stand in the way of us achieving our own dreams of peace and fulfillment. We become angry with our partner, because we feel they aren’t able to provide what we expected of them, when we fell in love. And now we are committed to them – we can’t get those things from someone else either! They stand between us, and the life we dreamed of. That can make us very angry and frustrated.

Why doesn’t my partner love me a little better?

In our dreams, maybe we imagine the perfect partner to be the one who we fall in love with, and it carries on that way for ever. They understand us so well, they are there for us when we need them, saying the right words, providing the right support that we need. Perhaps in our dreams we don’t have those big arguments, or disappointments. It really is “happily ever after!”
Why couldn’t we find that perfect partner? Maybe we secretely long that our partner was a little bit quieter, or noisier. We wish they were more generous, or better with money! We wish they liked sex more, or left us alone occasionally. There’s a reason why we fall in love with the partner who doesn’t seem quite able to match our dreams. We see in them an ability to love us, in a way that we learned from people who loved us in our earliest years. We recognize that kind of ability to love in the partner we choose.
But however strongly we were loved, there was always a little bit of love we didn’t get. And it turns out that this partner we choose isn’t very good at providing that bit of love either, just like those who loved us when we were children. That bit of love we didn’t get as children often goes back to some painful memories from childhood. When our partner can’t love us that way either, it touches some tender spots inside, and can bring out some of our deepest fears that we may have tried for years to hide away.

How can I make things in my relationship better?

We seem to always choose a partner who isn’t very good at meeting some of our needs in life, even though there was something about them that caused us to fall head-over-heals in love with them. Wouldn’t it help if our partner really understood what is going on in our world. Maybe then they would stretch a little bit more towards us, and provide those needs. Maybe they would spend a little more time with us, or leave us alone a little more – or whatever it is that is important to our happiness. Some of the most important issues may seem small, but are actually loaded with emotions. They emerge time and time again at the very heart of all the big arguments we have. How can we talk about them in a way that doesn’t trigger yet another big argument? The first step towards a better relationship is to have a calm and effective way to talk about these big issues.


The Retool Your Relationship Workshop is a way to have a deep and rewarding conversation, that helps you and your partner really understand the issues that seem to recur in the heat of conflict.

How can we talk about difficult things? It often leads to an argument.

Do you ever find yourself getting a little tense before a “serious talk”. Is your partner once again going to tell you what you do wrong, and what you need to do right! What do they expect you to do? Maybe you will get angry and deny it all, and who can blame you! Or maybe you will sit through it feeling wretched and miserable, wondering how you can have been so unkind and uncaring.


It’s very hard to hear what your partner needs without some kind of reaction!


The Retool Your Relationship Workshop is a way to have those difficult conversations while feeling strong and loving for your partner’s sake. You can trust a process, that is safe, respectful, caring, and very interesting!
Imagine that you can take a holiday from being you for a moment. You can walk across a bridge to sit for a while in the land of your partner, as a welcome and valued guest. There, without judgment, you can learn about what it is to be them, what they need, and how you can help them, just by listening, and sharing their experience. And then they can do the same for you. It’s fascinating, to be able to learn so much about the person you love most in the world! One thing many of us learn when we do this, is how different our partner really is from us! The things they did never made sense before we really listened. They may have just seemed a little selfish, or irresponsible, or uncaring. But now when we really listen to them speak, we realize that to them, it all makes perfect sense in a way that is amazing! Our partner isn’t like us at all – how interesting.