In the lobby a married couple was waiting which was referred to me by an respectable clergyman. This Christian couple has been in faith for ages, they met each other in the church and lived the 17th year of their marital life. They had three children of school age. It was 3 years since their problem destroyed their marriage union.
The married couple was attached with the warmest love. This couple, being loyal and devoted, taking care of each other, complained of the absence of the woman’s sexual desire and erotic passion, due to which the frequency of the sexual life had decreased for the last three years and eventually it stopped. The woman always had a ‘valid excuse’ to refuse the sexual intercourse. She was tired of taking care of the children, having a stressful work day, the house-keeping and other things. Her husband did his best to help his wife and share the care. He was very attentive in everything and used all the possible means of fascinating her. She appreciated his striving and enjoyed the feelings of security and protection granted by Love. And while the psycho-emotional attachment was deepening, everything was going wrong in the night life, the passion was going out. The husband suffered awfully as the woman herself made a decision when they would have a sexual intercourse, and his own desire was condemned to be unanswered. In spite of “self-sacrifices” he applied to, it’s all the same the sex is something depended on the wife’s will. The sense of being under the woman’s control, dissatisfaction, aggression, disappointment, infirmity and being undesirable follow each other. “I feel desire towards self-confident man” said the woman. “Well, but it is very difficult to be confident when there are always refusals and criticisms,” objects her husband. So it is a vicious circle which is very peculiar to incompatibilities of a sexual desire. The more one refuses, the more powerful becomes other’s need, and the self-confidence vanishes. In this case the husband’s need got stronger and he tried to bring more pressure, but in answer to it the woman moved away complaining of his indelicacy. What we have as a result! He pushes away his wife with his behavior although he wants just the opposite, and the woman, moving away from her husband, makes his need and sense of uncertainty become deeper. Of course, she also suffered from the cool passion obviously showing her readiness to solve the problem. She was really stuck in an irresolvable situation. “If I tell my husband what I like, direct his sexual behavior, therefore what kind of man he is. He must know my erogenous zones, the exact point, in order that I achieve the satisfaction, mustn’t he?” On the other hand, when the ‘steering wheel’ is given to the man, this time he will be accused of getting pleasure egoistically and labeled as an indelicate one. This woman has another sexual complex as well, and her husband shares it unconsciously and strengthens its influence on the sex. That is that the husband had to do his best to achieve the wife; there is no automatic “yes”. In order to conquer the woman’s heart and seduce her it is necessary that he does do heroic deeds. And the very moment that it can seem to the man that ultimately he reaches what he wants, his delusion breaks into pieces, “You think that you reach me, but you are mistaken, I’ll now go away in order that you want me stronger”. “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.” quoted the woman the words of Apostle Paul. And so his duty is to have a sexual intercourse with his wife and her duty is to serve him whenever he wants it. “Where is the manifestation of a free will if sex is just a marital obligation? It doesn’t matter whether you want or don’t want. That’s to say that love making is like a duty. I can’t accept it; I don’t want have such a relation”-said a woman. Whereas the idea of seduction supposes to have a choice between “yes” and “no”, you can agree or disagree. This idea gives an opportunity to show/manifest free will. And for the desire it is necessary to have independence and freedom. It took me a lot of time to explain to the woman that her complaint was against only the obligation, not against his husband’s behavior. She didn’t want to have a sex because “the law” demands it. The woman usually wants to have a sexual intercourse when she is free from any obligation. It is very difficult for a woman to want what her husband wishes as in that case she loses her sense of independence and desire. So the woman objects not her husband, she is against the marital obligation. The problem isn’t connected with the man’s ego. It isn’t in vain that the female desire gets excited after an argument because that time she can experience freedom, her sense of autonomy heightens. “God created me with a free will, didn’t he? I want to manifest my will, to feel that I am an independent creature.” And suddenly she added in a bold tone, “You know, I feel aroused and have sexual desire, when I am in social places, where nobody knows me, for example in a restaurant or in a public transport. I have this feeling towards quite strange men.” “Because if you don’t know the person and aren’t attached to him with a marital commitment, you are free from any marital sexual obligation?” She looked at me with an embarrassed look. She loved and appreciated her husband. It is very important for her to have a sense of safety which the family gives since only in that case she could let her intimate feelings manifest freely. But however it is just the opposite – at home, in the domestic atmosphere, she loses her sexual passion and is becoming inhibited. “What prevents her at home: domestic affairs, obligations, and lifestyle?” asked her husband being entirely embarrassed from the development of the therapy. “No, the problem isn’t in the domestic affairs; your wife is inhibited by the bed and everything which is supposed to take place there. Because she thinks that the bed isn’t for pleasure, only frivolous women take pleasure in it and the moral ones don’t have such a feeling.” Our sexuality is something that develops under the constant influences of cultural and domestic cues with which we grow up. In this case the woman grew up in a strict patriarchal family. Her father who was a priest injected her that the premarital sex was impermissible, marital sex is for having children and the physical pleasure is a sin. Although now the woman approaches his dictations in a criticizing way she still has/carries those obligations inside her, they are her inseparable parts. There are women who, in order to manifest their sexual desire need to refuse at first which their husbands must accept and respect, and only a little later they can express their need. Here, there is no problem of power, there is a problem of feeling personal limits, independence and having own desire. Because they think, “if I agree, it’ll mean that I give up. The only way I can feel that I do at my own free will is that I myself go to him. Otherwise I won’t be able to reserve the sense of my wish against his strong desire” And nevertheless it’s necessary to know that the desire in a long-term relations looks like a wave – it either gets stronger or gets weaker. The married couples must realize that they are responsible for returning the desire and kindling it again as the erotic existence demands an active participation. The marital sex is a planned, conditioned sex. It is important not to devote to the myths that pleasure is only for young people. It is a usual thing to complain of the boredom of a marital sex, it is fairer and braver to nourish and develop the marital eroticism.
