Counseling: The Repulsive Factor

I had my 2^nd individual counseling session the other day, and were finally able to get into some issues.  I’m not sure there are many solutions in the making, but we’ll see.  We didn’t hit every little thing, but one can only do so much in an hour.

The counselor was keen to delve into my ENQ a bit, specifically a portion where I said that I feel Arwyn is repulsed by me.  I’m not sure if he was challenging me on that or just looking for more information, but more information he got, which is extensively documented here in this blog.  Whenever I touch her in a sexual way, she visibly stiffens and if she is not batting my hands away outright, she is backing away and avoiding my touch.  The other part to this is that she is not actively seeking my touch.  On example of this that I brought up was last weekend we went to eat out at a restaurant as a family.  This is one of those with the great big huge buffet and a big huge line to match.  As we winded our way through the line, and just wanted to have my hands on her back or shoulder or just generally be affectionate.  Sexual?  It’s not we’re going to drop our pants right there in the line while placing our order! (I’d like the blow job special, please).  No, this was just generally being affectionate.  But each time I reached out to touch her, she was moving off.  Of course, when we talked about this later she was unconscious of it and was moving along with the line, which is what I figured she would say.  But this illustrates how different things turn after dating is over and why affection generally takes a nose dive after marriage.  When we were dating, in an instance like this, she would lean into me and we would move through the line together maintaining close contact.  That notion does not even enter her mind nowadays.

Sexual touch…well we’ve been over that over and over again.  Porcupines and spiny sea urchins have an easier time with physical intimacy.  If there were sharp objects in the bedroom, I’m be lucky to have all my limbs, Lorena Bobbit notwithstanding. 

We (the counselor and I) also talked about this business of Arwyn insisting that sex be narrowly defined by penis-vagina intercourse and that touching is pretty limited and absolutely no oral is allowed.  This causes a sort of cascading effect on my erection.  I’m hesitant going into a sexual encounter, trying not to step on any boundaries, she climbs on top and about all I can do is just lay there.  Then she wonders why I’m not holding an erection which leads to her not having an orgasm or her being less than satisfied which in turn increases my own anxiety and we are in a downward spiral.  Then there are complaints where she feels sore afterwards, which doesn’t exactly help with desire.  This dude is going to be tested in his skills on a lot of fronts.

He ended up giving me some handouts and talking about the active listening communication.   The mechanical, scripted nature of that exercise would seem to be a step backwards for Arwyn and I since we have made some meaningful strides in communicating and talking.  He suggested that if I had trouble verbalizing my thoughts, writing them beforehand might be useful and then I could just read them.  That sounded very do-able.  He also gave me a list of emotion words in order to help me better express how I’m feeling.

Do you all think I need help expressing my emotions and my feelings?  Is my vocabulary limited in this area?  I dunno.  You all have been reading me long enough and have seen enough to be able to kjnow whether I need some vocabulary lessons in expressing myself.  I think the emotional baggage is what has kept me from adequately following through with Arwyn in the past rather than a lack of descriptive vocabulary.  He seems to like pointing out the stereotypes of how men seem less able to express themselves with words and how women generally have an easier time with that.  I agree with that, generally.  But I don’t know if providing a word list is the answer here.  It’s more a matter of being emotionally free enough to indulge in a more graphic emotional discussion.  I didn’t get into it in the session, but previous forays into the descriptive emotional jungle have often been met with adverse reactions and results.

He also suggested that we buy a book and both read it.  The Celebration of Sex by Doug Rosenau.  So perhaps Arwyn will finally read one of these books, since it is the therapist’s idea and not mine.  I don’t think she’s completely finished her ENQ so we’ll see where she’s at on following through.  I order the thing and went for the speedy shipping.  I also ordered C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain.  I figured I might need something else to read after finishing the other book and waiting for Arwyn to either read it or skim over it.  That sounds snarky, but I’m still very cautious about her follow-through. 

Rosenau has some association with my therapist’s training and education so maybe this will help us arrive at some common and productive ground.  The reviews seem generally good so I’m looking forward to it.

Arwyn and I did have a post-counseling discussion which I touched on briefly above.  She wasn’t aware of what I was seeing as her aversive reactions and did ask if I still felt like she wasn’t being very affectionate.  I told her that I thought she was really trying, but wondered how much of it was her just trying and how much of it is her truly desiring.  Funny thing about desire and affection; if it isn’t given freely, it isn’t all it could be.

There was no sex as she had a headache and had a wash clothe on her head as we talked.  So the once-a-week thing that she talked about last week; not so much.  Last night we both went to bed at the same time around 9:30, but she stated it was her intention to go to sleep.  We kissed and cuddled for a couple of minutes before she rolled over and fell to sleep while I watched the public access channel on the TV.  I’m thinking we are going to need to try to schedule a Sex Night, even as disastrous as that was a few years ago. I might get deeper into that discussion later, but you got the main gist here so that if I decide to move on you won’t be left behind or catching up won’t be such an arduous exercise.

D.

Talk Night

Yesterday, Arwyn had her next individual session. She had done some work on the ENQ and shared it with the therapist, but didn’t quite finish it completely so brought it home to do more work on it. We had designated last night as a sort of “talk night” where we would talk. Much of this was thwarted by the appearance of an HBO special on autism, which we watched. It was interesting, but really dug into our time as it was two hours long!

When it was finally over, she was ready to talk. Her opener was to suggest that she review her ENQ with me. I was a bit ambivalent about that, since I didn’t have my own copy on hand and thought it might be something we did together in therapy. But she was somewhat insistent and got her paper and read her comments that she had written. I listened as she read the entire thing before making any comments.

1. Affection: she described her need for affection as being moderate and that she liked and need nonsexual affection on a regular basis. I can’t remember how often she said she needed that, but it seemed higher than what she was offering.
2. Sexual fulfillment: She described her need for this as being moderate and that she would like sexual fulfillment once per week. This was kind of a stunner, because she has not been giving any indications of that at all. When I mentioned that, she emphasized fulfillment and that without that, she more less figured “What’s the use?” I told her that while it was possible to have sex without fulfillment, it was not possible to have sexual fulfillment without actually having sex.

3. Conversation: she mentioned that she had a high need for conversation. No surprises there, but again she hasn’t been offering as much as she seemed to be wanting. We do have differing conversation styles, which do sort of interfere with god conversation as I have in the past been known to be a bit argumentative. She did mention that I had gotten better about that in the past few months.

4. Recreational companionship: she said she had a high need for recreational companionship, and wanted us to do more things as a family. No surprise there, as I’m prone to wanting to veg out when I’m not working. However, this is another area that we’ve making some improvement in past months.

5. Honesty and openness: she said she had a moderate for honesty and openness, but admitted that she hasn’t always been so good about this herself, specifically mentioning her handling of our credit card crisis. Again, we could point to improvements in this area in past months.

6. Attractive spouse: She described her need for an attractive spouse to be moderate. She described her past partner/dates as being tall, thin, and neat. I later described them as being somewhat metrosexual sounding, which she didn’t appreciate too much. But my weight loss has helped my score in that area. But I’ve still got quite a lot of the farm boy in me, and I work outside and get dirty and do so without making a big deal about it and am not particularly fazed by it as much as she would like. Oh well. She did specifically mention my farm background being a factor against her suburban semi-sterile lifestyle as being a factor in this, so I got the impression that she was willing to make allowances here.

7. Financial support: she said she was satisfied with this, although she did say that was not always the case, which led to the credit card crisis. But she does feel her needs are being met.

8. Domestic support: I thought I was going to get it here, but she did not harp on that very much. She mentioned that we did sort of have an agreement about this early in our marriage that she would clean if I cooked and was okay with that arrangement. She talked a bit about the clutter that gets out of control at times on her own end. Her own mother was somewhat compulsive about keeping a clean house, and she tried for awhile to hold that standard but decided she was driving herself crazy trying to do that and I agreed that it was not worth all the stress that standard caused.

9. Family commitment: she had a high need for family commitment (no surprise) and admitted that things had gotten better here, but she did want more in this area. The fact that I was with the boys while she did her church meetings and step studies did score points here.

10. Admiration: she had a high need for affirming words, and this was probably a big weakness for me where I need to work harder. I can be overly critical and stingy with affirming words, so this is an area that I definitely have room to grow. While there have been some improvements, I know I need to do better.

After a discussion of the ENQ, we talked a bit more and then got into some hugging and kissing. It was getting late, thanks to the whole HBO special, but she seemed game. We really needed to get over this next hurdle, and so we worked on it. She shut the bedroom door and we both got naked. She kneeled up in bed, waiting for me to lay down so she could get on top of me but I was not having that. I wanted it to be different than the standard script. So I sat up and she got up in my lap, facing me and we just hugged and kissed like that for awhile. Not a lot of genital contact there, but that was not the idea here. T was intimacy and connection, and we seemed to have that. It was just two naked bodies connecting and it was very nice. She did comment after awhile that her knees were getting sore so I laid down and she got on top. There was some grinding around and she mentioned that all the antihistamines were probably making her dry, which has been another chronic problem. But I don’t see her going for any real solutions to that, such as lube of any sort, but we’ll see.

She was grinding around on me and I was getting over heated and holding an erection was challenging. Much of it as just psychological pressure (and a hideous lack of practice) but it was also that this position was a bit too submissive to maintain for the whole time. I told her this, so she let me mount her from the missionary position, and this did work a lot better for me as I was able to get inside of her, with a bit of work.

Love-making/sex has always been a pretty silent/solitary/serious type of thing for us, but we did talk a lot more this time, the two of us. I really did like that, as it did change the dynamic and made the experience a more intimate one for us. I don’t think she had an orgasm, but she did say it felt pretty good because she could better feel me inside of her. She thought it might be because she had tightened up since we hadn’t had sex for so long. I didn’t comment a lot on that, but was thinking that we never did have sex all that much to stretch her out. She tried squeezing and asked if I felt she was tighter and I said that I honestly really had no memory of that, but it did feel good.

No money shot in this scene. Sorry!

Afterwards, we did cuddle and talk a bit more, but it was getting late. She went to the bathroom and took a quick shower and I slept the best I had in months. If we could get more practice, I can see there being a lot less pressure and tension and maybe more fun. As it was, it was a good experience, which is more than I can say for other encounters I’ve had with her and she would likely say the same.

Of course, it will take more practice. I went through this whole script last year, too, where we thought we were starting a whole new beginning. We do have some advantages this time around that we didn’t last time, but it is going to still require a lot of focused effort. Maybe this is where the counseling effort can kick in, as it at least looks like we are getting some where with it. It might be akin to Dumbo’s magic feather.

Thanks to all who commented on the last post. I especially appreciate the women who stepped up, having had similar-type experiences. Yeah, Hazel, I did think a lot of you. That’s why you always made my blogroll, because I figured your views were the closest to my wife’s! To be honest, I nearly disabled comments there, because I knew I was blowing off a lot of steam, which is what I do here. I’m going to talk about all sorts of vile things, like separation and divorce because writing allows me to process my thoughts and experiences. It’s a far cry from actually doing it, tho. How long did I contemplate counseling before actually doing it? There’s no rush to do anything, here, but I’m also not going to skulk around, and hide. I want to square off on the issues, not retreat. Not talking honestly about it in my own online forum would be silly and just an exercise in self-avoidance. And I’m tired of being an avoider.

D.

Another Year; 1:1 Counseling

It was my day to do the 1:1 session with the counselor.  For the past couple of weeks, the ENQ kept popping into my mind, so I decided that I needed to talk about it.  In fact, right be fore I left, I took my completed questionnaire with me.  I’m very glad that I did.

This session, like al the others, involved getting the counselor up to speed on things.  This time it was about some things I’ve tried (like Relationship Rescue, praying togeth and a few other things, but notably NOT the cage) as well as how our daily routine generally runs and why it’s hard to find time to talk.  The one hour whizzed by faster than about any other I’ve ever been through.  Next thing, he was saying “Well, we’ve only got a few minutes left of our time…”

 

Wha…??

So I took out the ENQ.  He said he was familiar with it, but with a little more questioning I discovered he had never laid eyes on one before.  He was keen to have it, so I gave it to him.  I can always do another one.  There was some discussion about how that was one more attempt by me to move things along and how Arwyn did not follow through.  He was keen for her to do one and I said that I would speak to her about it and he said that he would also put in a word, if she wouldn’t listen to me.  He said that he does have couples do a similar questionnaire but his wasn’t as in-depth as the one I had by Harley.  I got the distinct impression that I was going to have to keep goosing this guy to get things moving.  We talked about whether we should have a joint session next time or do another seperate round.  I opted for another separate round, in order that Arwyn could get a chance to do her own ENQ and that we might actually have something significant to discuss when we came together.  I voiced some concern about where we were headed and whether or not we were actually going anywhere.  I can’t remember his exact response, but he agreed that we could benefit from another separate round of counseling.  Maybe he was making more headway with her than me.

I’m thinking that perhaps next time I might go ahead and bring up the cage/chastity play as, if nothing else, it might make these sessions feel more interesting.  He’s the only Christian therapist around, and I’m thinking that he might benefit from broadening his horizons a little bit.  He might discover a new favorite kink   I do like him, despite the feeling that we’re sort of dragging/drifting along.  He’s very skilled at active listening which may endear him more to Arwyn.  I’m just wondering aloud here if I might have had better luck with a female therapist since they are often better at confronting women than the men are.  Or maybe they might be better at confronting, in general.

Heck if I know.

In other news, our roof is fixed just in time for more weather.  Arwyn also had a few minor medical tests/procedures done and I’m glad everything went okay.  I never know how exactly to react to these health things, as she has always had several different things going on at any given time.  I try to act concerned because I am, and I’m equally relieved she was able to be treated so easily.  But empathy and emotionalism isn’t my strong suit  I know she doesn’t like it if I don’t act sufficiently concerned and I don’t think I made the grade this time around because we were so busy with other things (counseling being just one of them).  Oh well.

Happy anniversary; another year of involuntary celibacy.

D.

 

LOST

That’s what I’ve been watching the past week ever since I discovered all of the seasons are now available online. I’ve watched a few episodes before but never really got hooked. I’m kind of glad I didn’t because now I can just watch as many consecutive episodes as I want without having to wait! It’s a lot like watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended version) when you didn’t see the original movies. This being made even more true by the presence of Dominic Monaghan a former hobbit of said trilogy. I’m almost through season 2!

But it also reflects where we are the past few days. Thanks for all of the comments and encouragement, and I expected a lot of positive feedback given the fact that most of you have been beating me over head with a counseling club the past couple of years. Arwyn is willing to go, this is true and good. But we’re still not really going anywhere. I looked at some old journals and found that this business of being marooned dates back to at least 1999! Which happens to coincide with the birth of our first child.

Desmond asked for some special needs child backstory. No, this has not been a theme of this blog although it has been a major theme for Arwyn’s emotional storyline. I actually do have a blog out there that deals with autism and disabilities (she knows about that one but doesn’t read it) but my personal story as a parent still is not a major theme there. It’s sort of a secondary story. It has been a big part of our lives and I think we’ve been dealing with it. But I put the marriage on a higher priority level than any disability. This is easier said than done for any mother I’ve ever met. The children usually are elevated into a position of supreme importance and most other things become marginalized including the mothers themselves. In the process, I had to learn to be less selfish which has been a constant and painful exercise.

The divorce rate for parents of children with special needs is about 80%. For autism it is around 90% according to statics Arwyn has read. The question of “why” has not been sufficiently addressed in the professional literature of either autism or marital therapy fields. It’s not hard to imagine how increased medical costs can strain a marriage financially. Or the stress of raising a child with physical and behavioral issues. However autism lends itself to stresses as far as cause and treatment unlike any other disorder or disability. There are no physical markers. There are no blood tests. There are behavioral rating scales and tests of physical, emotional and adaptive development. Even though everyone agrees this is neurological no one knows exactly the the cause and there is no cure. So it is like there is this mystery thing at work and Arwyn set off to solve it. Mostly without me, even though my education and background are more in-depth in this area. She set off to find the cure. This involved trying a lot of stupid crap. Special diets. Special nutrients. Special therapies. All of it is pseudoscience and all of it is expensive as hell. Our financial hell was mostly fueled by this sort of crap financed by my limited salary as a special education teacher.

As I started to say last post, my response to Arwyn’s deepening obsession with pseudo science was anger and withdrawal. Supportive? Why on earth would I support something that is so obviously fraudulant? It is a long con that always opens with “Just try it! Wouldn’t you do anything for your child if there was only just a chance? Why won’t you just try it? How can you put a dollar amount on the health of your child?”

All cons make use of pride, guilt and fear. With autism, the guilt is already there and so is the fear. All the con artist has to do is fan the flame a bit and then pride takes over when a family who is doing the diet, therapy or other expensive intervention is seen as being more hopeful, more intelligent, more diligent and a better parent than the ones who are not throwing money down the toilet. I might even get a comment or two here from purveyors of crap if I give this an “autism” tag. It’s like the spanking discussion; it’s hard to have a rational conversation about interventions when so much is based on irrational feelings.

Parents of older kids know what we’re just starting to learn: we have to accept our kids as they are. Autism is not the end of the world. It doesn’t have to be the end of marriage. But it frequently is.

If you talk to women, they will point the fingers at the father. He is in denial and can not handle it so he abandons his wife and child. I do see that sometimes, but that is making it seem more simple than it really is. The man might not be abandoning his child as much as his wife. Is it because he wants no responsibility? Not likely since most guys are willing to put forth a minimum of effort if they get married in the first place. But I have seen firsthand the change the mother goes through once she becomes mother. The whole concept of “wife” get thrown out the window in favor of this new role. The guy who is now “father” doesn’t anticipate the role of “husband” coming to an end but that pretty much becomes the reality. Most couples do experience a cascading effect where marital satisfaction declines after a child is born. It involves a fundamental shift in roles and responsibilities and if a marriage is already weak, having a child makes it even weaker. If the child has special needs, multiply that effect by a factor of 4.

Arwyn did admit that she was consumed by the autism world until fairly recently. She can still get caught up in things but she has mellowed on it a bit. Her and I would still have intimacy issues regardless of our child’s disability, so I have not made that a major theme here. We are exceptional and extraordinary because of what we’ve been through. But we haven’t gotten any closer as much as we’ve gotten less hostile which is progress of its own. But we can do so much better if the marriage could just show up on the radar screen for both of us once in a while. The counseling at least helps put it there for an hour or so a week.

D.

Gotta Do It

I have hedged, hammered and hawed all over this for too long. I’ve been avoiding for too long. Y’all have been good about pointing that out, and while I’ve been receptive in some areas, I often deflect some of the most obvious suggestions and measures that might move me forward.

It’s about being in the proper space developmentally in order to do what needs to be done. I’ve covered some significant distance these past few months doing independent study with a little help from my blog friends. Y’all do what you can and I SO appreciate it! So now I need to advance more and I’m feeling stuck. It’s time to get that local therapist’s number programmed into my cell and make the call for some professional coaching on how to proceed. I’ve talked about it before, and will keep talking about it until I get it done. Then I’ll talk about it some more.

Yesterday, as I was walking out of the house (and writing yesterday’s post in my head) it occurred to me that I’m about tapped out. I’ve probably been out of my league for quite some time but getting up to speed on Schnarch’s approach might help save some time in the long run. Hopefully this guy will be up on it. It’s hard to imagine a marriage or sex therapist who wouldn’t but that’s sometimes the way things go out here in the sticks.

The recent comments by someone identifying herself as Kathy also made me aware that I need to go deeper to acquire more tools and resources. The average layperson has a basic assortment of tools at their disposal in order to take on various relationship and psychological issues. Thanks to self-hep books and the internet, more people are accessing more information but it is often not very good information. Many of the options and suggestions new readers bring in tend to be of a more shallow nature. For instance, for the woman who is married to a guy who doesn’t want sex; how often have you heard, “You need to wear sexy lingerie and spice it up!” If you’re a guy in the same position, we always hear, “You need to do more around the house and take more time with the kids and give her more time to herself!” Other offers involve being more considerate, being less selfish, doing something for yourself, find a hobby, get a pet, talk it out, practice better communication skills, be more affectionate in a nonsexual way, speak the proper love language, nonsexual date nights, buy more gifts, take the pressure off, fix yourself, be less judgmental, more empathetic listening, sensory nonsexual exercises, more physical exercise, eat healthier, lose weight, penis enhancement, breast augmentation, Viagra, wild oats, wild yams, ginseng…

I’m sure I’m missing some.

It’s not that these are bad suggestions. Most of them are pretty good and can serve a purpose. But after a few years and trying several variations of these, it might be time to drill deeper. The standard plays don’t always work and then it might be time to go for something different. No guarantees there, as my chastity play clearly illustrates, but it did represent a pretty good effort in creativity and thinking outside the box. I got some useful information there that may yet prove to be useful down the road. In fact, I need to process that from a more Schnarchian paradigm to see what comes up. The most important thing is to keep at it and to keep driving for progress, such as it is. Writing and blogging has been an invaluable tool to help me process so I need to keep investing the time into doing that, even if never makes the blog.

D.

Tools for getting through it

 

01/13/2008

 

This is one long-ass book!

 

Finally, in chapter 12, Schnarch reveals so tools for getting through the crucible.  I’m not going to retype them all or even give a reaction to them.  He goes into different levels of differentiation as well as how to self-soothe.

 

It’s this chapter that has the hiking story that Val commented on earlier.  He does go a long way to be as fair as possible in describing how his wife being slower caused him problems with dealing with himself.  He also shares the story of how his wife’s and his move to Colorado put them on the brink of divorce!  He then goes into why he included those stories.

 

The tips and techniques are helpful and I suppose the reason he didn’t include those earlier on was because he was keen on someone reading most of the book before trying them.  Still, I’m convinced this thing is put together backwards..

 

Fucking

Yes, that’s pretty much the theme and part of the title for chapter 10 of Schnarch’s Passionate Marriage. Anyone who has read this book knows that Schnarch uses the word fuck fairly freely but not gratuitously in his writing. Some might argue it is never appropriate to use the word but Schnarch starts of by explaining why and how he uses it.

As for me, I will fling that word out on occasion just because of its nature which is aggressive, lascivious and salacious at the same time. It’s precisely the way it grabs the imagination and emotions which makes its judicious use effective. But it loses its power with over use. When I was in the Army, it was pretty much a standard adjective to describe anything and everything to the point where one pretty much ceased to hear it or even realize they were saying it. “Grab your fucking rifle and a fucking rag and then clean the fucking thing for a fucking hour or so before it is fucking chow time.” “Pass the fucking salt” just rolled off the (fucking) tongue too (fucking) easily while in the (fucking) chow hall.

Now that I’ve totally desensitized you or turned you off, we’ll proceed to the word’s real meaning as opposed to its abuse and misuse in the military.

Schnarch breaks it down by first talking about doing the other person and about being done. The elegance of doing someone is in the fact that both partners are essentially giving but it is done in different ways. The partner doing the doing is being sexually generous in their actions while the partner being done is being generous in their response. Those of us who struggle with intimacy know the barren landscape of both when it is absent. In fact, when we actually have sex, we are doing something but it isn’t necessarily each other. At least with masturbation we are doing ourselves. But in the emotionally fused relationship there is such a minefield around sex with so many rules and boundaries that it is almost impossible to really cut loose.

I can’t really do Arwyn because she has so many narrow boundaries. If she even lets me on top, it’s pretty much confined to a little kissing and some in and out. There is no erotic touching and no licking allowed at all. I need to stick to the script and it involves coming pretty much as quickly as possible. And as far as being done, I don’t know if we’ve ever really even approached that ever. So I’m wondering if I would even know what to do if it ever happened. Would I even be able to handle it? Would I be able to enjoy it? I have no idea, except it would be a shocking experience. I’d need practice to actually learn to enjoy it, I think.

The essence of doing and being done simultaneously is fucking. There’s really no other term that captures the aggressive, desirous and carnal nature of it. As Schnarch quotes D.H. Lawrence “The woman who doesn’t have at least a bit of harlot in her is a very dry stick, indeed.” There is lots of fucking that takes place in the world between married people but unfortunately most of it is done with and to people who are not married to each other! For some reason, our culture almost instantly turns married sex into some sort of insipid, tepid, luke warm experience. Suddenly we’re supposed to be “making love” and the art of fucking becomes profane. However, the reality is just the opposite. As soon as a couple stops fucking, they inhibit their desire, their passion and their constructive aggression and eroticism sort of whithers up, dries up and gets blown away by other competing priorities.

The most notable example of this within our little blogging circle is Tajalude and her husband Brady. From her past posting, we see that Taja really, really would like Brady to just take her and fuck her occasionally with some degree of carnal passion (actually, you won’t see that because she’s flushed most of her archives but trust me). We saw that Brady often responded positively to Taja’s passion when she decides to take control and do him. If I’m reading her correctly, she’d like a bit of reciprocation in kind from him. But for some reason he doesn’t do it, and it might be a fear of his own aggressive nature. I think us men sometimes have our aggression socialized and censored right out of us. The good news is that we can learn to channel it into our passion but we have to be confident and differentiated enough to do it. Emotional fusion can kill male carnality the same way it kills desire in women. There’s comfort in routines and safety in not rocking the boat too much.

The emotional fusion goes both ways. Taja really gets anxious about Brady’s disengagement and she pulls away in order to lessen her own emotional tension which probably makes him feel more anxious. And next thing you know, there is emotional gridlock. If he could learn to deal with some actual good old fashioned fucking, he could foster the growth of his own differentiation and learn to take the lead a bit more. The whole trying to have a baby thing probably really tests the marital machinery even more. There’s some stellar potential for growth if they could both learn to get along a bit better, forget about making a baby and just fucking fuck.

Taja, along with many of her other female bloggers, nicely illustrates another point Schnarch makes in this chapter that I might otherwise totally not wrap my mind around. That is that women generally have a better understanding and comfort level about doing and being done than men. My experience has been exactly the opposite but he points out that he gets more feedback at his lectures from women. The topic of sex and sexuality is more often discussed in women’s magazines than men’s. Women tend to have more of a comfort level when talking about body fluids and orifices, according to Schnarch. And I’ll admit that sometimes it really is hard to fully appreciate the fact that women might enjoy anal sex, although not as difficult as those men who have not reached the developmental milestone of having their own anal regions penetrated. Penetration is something men seem to have a more difficult time with, along with getting our minds around menstrual flow, tampons and the like.

I still have a difficult time with this particular section of chapter 10. While many female bloggers seem to be very much in touch with their own carnal eroticism, most of the guys on my blogroll are married to women who are exactly the opposite. If there is some deeper erotic energy in there, it’s been pretty well hidden.

Perhaps I should spend a minute explaining what fucking is not. It is not manipulation or doing things to intentionally hurt the other person. It is not rape. Fucking is not a perversion and it is not something that is inherently profane. It is not using a partner as a receptacle or a scratching post. It is not subjugation, violation or subordination. It is tinged with aggression and power, but it is not pitted against a partner. The power does not minimize the other person but maximizes their enjoyment through projecting desire in a strong and confident manner.

The fantasy of fucking involves being ridden hard and put up wet. It is doing and being done until both partners are exhausted. It is rigorous, vigorous and virile.

D.

Kissing and Foreplay

I’m working on an entry applying some of the Schnarchian principles to chastity but since doing more reading I need some additional processing space.  So here you go.

 

The hugging chapter was revealing as was my little experiment which has not been repeated.  Schnarch says that it usually takes at least 2 minutes to find a truly relaxed and connected state and sometimes over 20 minutes and even then there’s no guarantee.  I found it interesting because in Dr. Phil’s Relationship Rescue program he prescribes hugging for 2 minutes every day.  And it was at that point that Arwyn decided to opt out of it for an unspecified amount of time.

 

Schnarch’s most famous suggestion for revving up sex is to have eyes-open sex.  And he does get to that, but I wanted to spend some time with kissing and foreplay as a sort of foreplay into actually talking about sex.  And like the hugging, there is a lot going on in the kissing and foreplay.

 

First off, Schnarch does chide us all for feeling perfectly comfortable demanding that our partner look at us while talking but see nothing wrong with not looking at the person we are kissing while kissing them.  Movies and television and other role models perpetuate this behavior for sure.  Everyone closes their eyes when they kiss!  Right?  In fact I remember an old song (maybe by Crystal Gayle?) that chided her lover for no longer closing his eyes when they kissed. But we really do sort of put ourselves in a position of having to practice some sort of emotional braille with this particular foreplay-like behavior.  In fact I’ve started sometimes opening my eyes when Arwyn and I are doing the perfunctory “off to work” kiss.  I’m not sure how I’d feel about have her eyes looking back but I’m willing to explore.

 

Kissing is one of those areas where we begin to negotiate the terms of our intimacy.  It probably means more in terms of our own perceptions than it does about our partner’s state of mind in how we perceive it.  We can’t really truly know, even if we ask.  But we usually don’t for the same reason we keep our eyes closed.  Namely, we can only tolerate only so much intimacy.  We may claim we want more but that claim rarely truly plays out in our own behavior.  We act in selfish ways and succumb to selfish interpretations in order to justify our own behaviors which usually truly get in the way of intimacy.

 

Foreplay is even more of a mine field.  Or mindfield.  According to Schnarch, foreplay always takes place.  It may be pretty freakin’ short, but it always happens.  It is where both partners negotiate where the boundaries are for whatever intimacies that are to follow.  He even goes so far as to describe it as a sort of pushing and shoving match between married couples as they attempt to gain whatever position.  Anyone reading me for a long enough time can attest to that as we’ve had a number of these sort of interactions.  According to Schnarch, it’s not about communicating because we are, in fact, communicating butt loads in these little slapfests.  It happens because we are so emotionally fused that there is total and absolute gridlock.  Arwyn feels like an abused victim and I feel like a rapist.  Poorly differentiated couples can not tolerate a lot of intimacy so it is not uncommon that foreplay be very short or almost skipped altogether.  What little there is is often scripted and mundane.  This is because the fused couples can not self-soothe and opt for the safety of a routine. 

 

For instance those of us who begin with a back rub every time.  What is your partner doing during the backrub?  Mine is lying face down and is almost always absolutely silent.  In fact, sex is a terribly silent exercise.  There is very little talking but I’m sure there is gobs of tension, anxiety and insecurity.  We’ve both gotten to the point where sex isn’t a lot of fun for either of us.  Much of it is because of all the tension around the fusion and me simply appealing to my reptilian self just to get off.  I’ve written before how I felt like a reptile and that insight was more accurate than I knew then.  Arwyn treats me like one because I act like one. 

 

The scripted aspect of sex is all about regulating the intimacy and finding comfort in the routine.  I know where the script is going to go pretty much every time and I don’t like most of it.  But I go along with it anyway.  I almost skipped this section to run ahead to chapter 12 where Schnarch talks about the mercy fuck.  But I’m glad I didn’t, since the section on kissing and foreplay really hit home.

 

Schnarch talks much about treating past issues in the present.  Psychotherapy has traditionally involved going through past issues and hurts and dealing with childhood issues.  Many times the claim is made that “We need to deal with the underlying problem before we can move forward” or “We need to deal with this past abuse or history first before moving on:”  The efficacy of this approach is pretty minimal because it simply isn’t realistic.  It’s not how life is lived.  It also involves leaving people stuck and then spending years and thousands of dollars delving into past issues that simply can not be changed. 

 

Schnarch uses the sexual crucible approach to deal with these past issues in the present.  So unlike a behaviorist who really isn’t dealing with past issues at all, he uses present behavior and the solutions to move forward within present circumstances.  How dependent this is on the skill of the therapist remains to be seen.

 

In my own case, the fear of abandonment is an underlying factor that has absolutely ruled all my relationships.  I can not stand for things to get too good because past experience tells me that it will turn to shit.  Opening up to another person involves a hell of a lot of risk and a hell of a lot of hurt.  I swore to myself that I was not going to be hurt like that ever again.  The result is this terrible gridlock we have now.  I am absolutely not any more differentiated than Arwyn who has divorced parents and an alcoholic father to contend with.  Arwyn means a lot to me but more intimacy means a lot more hurt.  But there’s obviously a part of me that really wants it.  I want to know and be known.  But only so much.

 

This even goes into my smoking which still rules me.  I started way back when as a way of self-medicating myself after a bad, bad emotional breakup.  I was devastated beyond words because I had opened up so much.  Truth was, this other girl couldn’t handle the intimacy of that relationship.  Neither could I, as it turned out.  So on the heels of heartbreak, smoking was my way of self-medicating.  It still is.  And this is one area where Schnarch is less focused and fuzzy.  He places a lot of importance on the skill of self-soothing but has not explained exactly what that looks like or how to do it.  In a way, smoking could be a way to self soothe but it is also a way engage that marital sadism that I wanted to skip ahead and read about because I know Arwyn dislikes it.  Why she married a smoker lends itself to a certain amount of masochism inherent in the system.  Don’t worry.  Arwyn and I both share equally sadistic qualities.  I’m just more willing to admit it at present.

 

I’d like to see Schnarch get together with John Gottman, who quantified anxiety and how couples reacted to each other in more concrete and tangible ways through pulse and respiratory rate and facial gestures.  Anxiety and tension do have quantifiable analogues and using single subject research designs, the effect of different self-soothing techniques could be compared. 

 

Okay, now I’m ready to talk about doing things with eyes open.  Schnarch actually spends a couple chapters on this, with eyes-open kissing and foreplay leading to eye-open sex.  I used to open my eyes open a lot more but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Arwyn do it.  And sometimes I don’t like what I see.  Not only are her eyes closed but there is a sort of grimace in her face.  Pain?  Could be.  Concentration?  That could also be.  The eye-open bit flies directly in the face of a lot of modern sex therapy that is sensate focused.  The therapists tell a person to focus on their own sensations which means keep the eyes closed.

 

Schnarch sees things decidedly different and I have to agree with him.  One of my chief complaints is that Arwyn “isn’t there” during what few sexual encounters we have had.  Her handjobs pretty much are sterile exercises.  Her kisses perfunctory.  Her fucking is scripted.  Her boundaries are rigid.  But all that says a lot more about me than her in that I’ve been willing to accept these paltry offerings until relatively recently. 

I’ve written before about how I did better during the handjobs when Arwyn and I would talk.  We’d talk about dirty diapers, laundry, finances, chores that needed to be done and pretty much what every couple talks about when they talk.  She just happened to be rubbing my cock at the time.  But what made these encounters better for me rather than her doing it in stony silence was the fact that while talking, she was at least somewhat present.  We tried it with her facing me, and I did like that but I don’t think she did.  She preferred to lay down beside me where she didn’t have to look at me.  But I do enjoy having my eyes open more than not, at least to a point. 

 

The purpose is to actually connect, emotionally and mentally as well as physically.  But that sort of connection can only really be made if we’ve done a lot of our own internal work where we can comfortably invite someone else in.  It represents a more authentic form of intimacy.  I’m living proof that it is possible to have sex without really connecting and I’m not sure I have ever truly connected with Arwyn during sex.  I’m not exactly an open book as noted above so I picked someone in a very similar stage of differentiation as myself.  And we really are well matched in many ways.

 

It is impossible to not communicate during sex.  Fact is, I’ve been getting the message louder than I would have liked.  So now I have little choice but to grow in response to dealing with it.  It may take the proverbial atomic bomb blast to get Arwyn in motion and that might be where we’re headed.  But I’m still getting a handle on my own insecurities in the meantime. 

 

Cat asked an interesting question in a comment below.  What if Arwyn is just honest and says she loves me but isn’t in love with me?  What that is, is a code that basically says that she wants to be nice and somewhat caring but does not want to be with me and does not want to want me.   Wanting to want and working towards making an intimate connection is an act of will at this stage of the game.  For my part, I need to be willing to deal with that possible reality.  At that point I have some serious choices to make.  Adult choices that involve my own integrity.  If I’m reading him correctly, I think that is where 2amsomewhere has come out.  He looked at the situation and saw where he was not going to grow a lot more with the woman he was with because she was unwilling to differentiate and grow.

 

I’m not in that spot right now and funnily enough, I don’t think Arwyn is either.  When we do speak of these things there is a fair amount of emotionality involved and my gut tells me she is more keen to working things out than she lets on.  But she has no idea how.  She longs for deeper emotional connections but not with Lizardman me.  I have some personal and self-centered issues of my own to work out in order to escape my inner reptile.

 

It’s a paradox that getting emotionally closer to someone else involves becoming more of myself.  This is because being emotionally fused and relying on this other person to hold me up through borrowed functioning and a reflected sense of self is inherently a very selfish thing.  It places the responsibility of my anxieties and fears in someone else’s lap when I need to be holding my own self up so that I have a greater capacity to care.  Emotional fusion places rules and expectations on the other person that are heavy and burdensome and pretty much suck the life out of desire, passion and sexual intimacy.  My pushiness with Arrwyn and trying to guilt and manipulate her into sex was sort of akin to rape.  But I was raping myself emotionally as I set myself up perfectly to be rejected and then hurt by her rejections.  That also sort of answers the chastity cage comment by Snow66, at least in part.  It was a game we were very poorly prepared for.  While it might have fostered some strong feelings by me it was still not on a human level of depth as far as intimacy and closeness.  In fact, it likely increased Arwyn’s anxiety level which would send her desire even further in the crapper.

 

However, I do think there was valuable and necessary growth that took place there.  Arwyn could see my attitude improvements while wearing the cage and she was somewhat open to that.  But the emotional weight of holding the key combined with the guilt factor of me kinking up probably didn’t advance things the way I had hoped.  That’s not to say there wouldn’t be any benefit later.  I think Tom over at Vanilla Edge demonstrates that good things can happen if the relationship is in a better place.  At least they’re funner to read.  I’ll think about expanding that later as I get further into the book.

 

It still feels like it’s taking me a long time to get through it.  I know, it’s all a process and it’s all good but it is not a fast read. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll read and reread various points.  I wouldn’t mind spending $30 on a DVD movie version of this thing.  Maybe even $50 if they had live demonstrations performed by actual couples!

 

D.

Have a Happy and More Differentiated New Year!: Hugging

I laid down my notes for chapter 5 of Schnarch’s Passionate Marriage over at Unsolicited Advice WP.  Now I’m going to see if I can illustrate how those concepts have worked and played out with Arwyn and me in our marriage.

 

When we first met, Arwyn was the one who went after me.  She pursued me, called me and asked me out.  She’s the one who suggested getting naked the first time we ever had sex.  She seemed to like and want it everyday, twice a day!  I almost got concerned about whether or not she was some sort of nymphomaniac and whether I could keep up or not!  In fact, I almost (almost) got to point where I saw sex as a chore!  I mean it was night time and it was time for sex.  We woke up and it was time for more sex.  But the sex wasn’t terribly adventurous and the passion…meh.  But she was perfect in so many ways and had such an apparently easy temperament.  She seemed so perfect.  Almost too perfect.

 

Sex is a crucible for growth and seems to cultivate emotional fusion.  It can deepen emotional ties and create increased significance between two people.  It’s the wonderful and awful thing about it.  It feels pretty good, too!

 

So why was my now overly frigid wife so willing to fuck the hell out of me back in those early days?

 

It’s because she was far from the laid back person she presented.  She suffered from some really deep insecurities that created tension.  That tension and anxiety drove her into seeking acceptance in the one way pretty much guaranteed to get my attention.  Sex.  This is why Schnarch says that some tension can increase sexual desire and behavior.  This is why we see this tape played and replayed so many times over and over.  That early sexual feast is largely driven by insecurity and a need to be needed and accepted.

 

But that sort of acceptance is only so deep.  At some point, someone is going to feel used and in this case it was the person who started it, which was Arwyn.  It was inevitable, though.  Either she was going to get there, or I would.  I could not even sustain the everyday 2x a day rate we were doing and if I had backed off sooner she might have stepped up the eroticism.  However any move she made in that regard was going to be short-lived.

 

A lot of people have commented that Arwyn lives in a world where she gets what she wants.  She can live and enjoy life at my expense and doesn’t have to suffer through sex.  But that isn’t true at all.  Like anyone else, Arwyn wants intimacy and closeness and she doesn’t have it.  And she isn’t keen to fuck someone who treats her like a fucktoy.  So she avoids sex and sexual discussions and even sexual thoughts.  The reason is that intimacy involves a whole lot of risk, not the least of which is the risk of losing it.  She knows full well the pain of such loss.  So in a sense, there is some operant pain-avoidance going on.  It’s not so much the fear of intimacy, but the fear of its loss.

 

And that, my friends, perfectly and utterly matches mine.  I fear abandonment and loss every bit as keenly as Arwyn.  Make no mistake: intimacy scares the hell out me.  Not so much the closeness itself but the fear of its loss.  Therefore, these fears play out neatly in how I experience Arwyn’s sexual rejection.  I feel like she is totally abandoning me.  I feel like that because I am not sufficiently differentiated.  I need her to validate me through sexual desire.  It’s the reflected sense of self at work.  That’s where all this loneliness and depression comes from.  I feel abandoned.  At the same time, we have pretty much adopted the same strategy for dealing with our mutual fears: emotional withdrawal. 

 

We really are a perfect match.  Only in a fairly destructive and dysfunctional way. 

 

Ironically, that distance and avoidance has given us some room for introspection.  She is working on herself independent of stuff I’m doing.  In a sense, the avoidance has sort of worked for us.  We’re growing in ways we would not have done outside of the marital system.  And that’s kind of what’s amazing about marriage: it’s a system unto itself that sort of encourages growth and correction in its own way.  So while Arwyn and I follow this one particular path, other couples can grow following a different and less avoiding path.

 

The insight I’ve acquired here has helped me see where some of those folks on my blogroll are at.  FTN, who seems like a fairly decent guy and his wife, Autumn, sometimes defy conventional explanations of sexual dysfunction.  But apply the idea of differentiation and some of Autumn’s hang-ups (and FTN’s corresponding self-reflected insecurities) make sense.   XH and his wife have a similar interaction going as far as intimacy.  XH has a basic awareness that they aren’t meeting their sexual potential but is a bit confused by it in light of improved frequency and more varied sex acts.  It’s more a matter of intimacy than just sex as an act.

 

Hazel who is the perfect female LL person models this very well in her relationship with a husband who appears terribly selfish and lazy.  Her and her husband both seem to suffer from a buttload of anxiety.  It keeps her from enjoying sex and keeps him from even trying to connect emotionally during sex instead preferring to make it a mechanical porn reenactment. 

 

Mu Ling, C-Marie, Joeflirt, Nutty Man, Xi , Aphron and right on down the blogroll…these are all the same sort of growthy systems which seem to have big doses of emotional fusion going on.  We’re frustrated because we care about what the other person thinks.

 

I need to give a few folks special mention, though.  Oblivion, Trueself and Desperate Husband have seemingly responded to their issues by going outside the system.  They got lovers on the side or “friends with benefits.”  On one level they are trying to get out but on another they seem to be lingering where they are.  They may have progressed a bit on the differentiation ladder bit it isn’t going to be much.  The reason is that a new and long distance relationship is going to involve the same sort of dynamic Arwyn and I had and every other relationship in the beginning.  They have the tension of insecurity and newness and that super machine of the reflected sense of self working overtime (along with a biological cocktail of powerful endorphins) combined to blind them to the fusion they are going to have to work through down the road eventually. 

 

Two others need to be mentioned, here.  Therese and RS give us some unique perspective because we have two married folk blogging separately.  It’s also unique because RS has been the lower desire one seemingly pulling the puppet strings to Therese’s HL.  Funnily enough, I expect this script to be switched with the second child.  But regardless, it is similar to all the other cases above.  It is a case of two people who do care about each other but struggle with how to deal with the other person’s significance and the threat of loss through lack or respect, lack of acceptance or abandonment physically through divorce or death.  They have done so many right and proper things to get closer to each other before and during their marriage.  RS’s affair wasn’t so much a sexual thing as it was having issues with his emotional fusion with Therese.  They are going to be working on that issue the same as the rest of us; forever. 

 

I never said differentiation was fun. 

 

Like any other kind of growth it is pretty painful.  But you are either growing or you’re not.  And if you’re not, you’re probably dying.  But take no solace there, as I suspect there will be a lot more growth in the hereafter!

 

D.

 

Hugging Till Relaxed

 

Since I’ve started this chapter I might as well blog where I’m at with it, since Arwyn is camped on the computer.  Also working on this is relatively easy so far.

 

When I first saw the title for chapter 6, I thought, “Why devote an entire chapter to hugging?  The title pretty much says it all right?  You hug and keep hugging through the initial jolt until you are both relaxed.  Good enough.  Next!”

 

But with Schnarch nothing is ever straight forward or as simple as it seems.  I may or may not get into all the theory and mechanics behind it all, but I can report on some initial findings in this area.

 

First off, Arwyn and I are not terribly huggy with each other, especially when we’re not feeling close.  However, it is something that we can still do and she really doesn’t feel terribly threatened by it.  So while reading this chapter, I couldn’t wait to try it out to see how things worked or didn’t.  And it was interesting.

 

One thing emphasized about Schnarch is the idea of having a self-supporting stance during the hug instead of leaning into each other like an A frame.  This is what you might call a “Differentiation stance” with the idea being that both partners can enjoy the hug more when neither or both are off balance.  So when I did this, it made we realize how much I was usually leaning into Arwyn and how much weight I would put on her as I would try to meld into her.  Ah!  Fusion!  And fusion is not a good thing, here.  So I do have a recollection of her complaining about my heaviness at times, and herr not being able to handle extended hugging because of that.

 

I approached her in the kitchen and she was taking some shirts somewhere to be hung up and I simply stepped in front of her.  And that was all there was to it.  She went easily into a hug and had no problems with it at all.  And she really had no problems staying in the hug for an extended time either.  There wasn’t as much interaction with each other because my youngest son wanted to either get in the act or deliver commentary.  But we hugged for a good minute or so.  She wanted to finish hanging her shirt so she gave me a quick kiss and was off.  End of experiment.

 

How relaxed was I?  Not terribly.  Looking right at her just had me getting awash in insecurity about my breath, my hair and my face.  But I held on.  She was sort of leaning on me and would drop her head on my chest as I am a full head taller than her.  Her arms were up about my neck and shoulders and were a lot more relaxed than my arms around her which were a bit on the tight side until I noticed and sought a more comfortable posture for them.

 

So in this particular exercise, it would appear that I might be the more tense partner of the two of us.  Also it does nicely demonstrate that we are not so totally estranged and separate as I might convey at times.  There’s at least enough room for this little affection and that’s something.  It shows that there is room for affection and maybe some intimacy down the road, you think?  A lot of the lack/loss of intimacy is on account of me being such a prickly pear.  I do project a heaviness that can often intimidate.  Also I don’t invest a lot into relationships because I don’t want to lose and be rejected.  It’s just easier to ward people off in the first place than contend for them to keep them from leaving.

 

All that from just a hug.

 

More research to follow.

 

D.

 

 

A Commotion in the Bedroom

Actually, if there is one, I have no idea.  I just put that out there to be teasy and witty.  It’s not that there shouldn’t be a commotion in the bedroom right now.  There should.  but there’s not.  At least not with me in it.

I’m listening to some xtian trance music that I ordered a couple of weeks ago and it came in today, of all days!  And it is pretty cool.  Arwyn likes Christian music just because of the words and not necessarily the music itself.  But this is still too rich and fast for her blood, and she said as much after listening to a bit of it.  I’m the opposite, where I like most genres of music but just because it is Christian rock or contemporary doesn’t make it good.  In fact, a lot of it is pretty hideous.  Most of this is stuff that I like and will eventually get it tricked out with some steps for the dance pad.  It takes several hours of some maximum CPU power to get just a few songs rendered and I’ve got about 7 CDs here.  Tonight I began converting them into mp3’s to get them ready.

This morning I was somewhere in the 196.8 range but tonight I suspended the workout activities in order to eat some cake with the boys.  They were all excited and could hardly wait.  Arwyn could NOT wait as there was a big, giant strip of cake missing on one side.  She’d have gotten away with it if she hadn’t frosted the thing first.  Oh well.

Now that I’ve got some new music, I’m anxious to get back on the mat again and work it out.  I’ll have to really work hard and punish the body a bit for my indulgence but I figured, “What the heck? Why not indulge a bit just once?”  After all, other people do it it, some more often than others.

Too bad I have to work in the morning, otherwise I’d have had a beer or two or three with my cake and my new music.

I’ll give a more detailed account later, perhaps.

D.