Rekindling Desire. Chapter 3. Turnoffs: Poisons for Sexual Desire.

Sexual desire is easy to kill. The potential for desire and pleasure is natural for both women and men, but can be vulnerable. A myriad of emotional and sexual factors can poison desire. Chief among these are anger and other negative emotions, including depression, guilt, anxiety, inhibitions, obsessions, compulsions, and shame. The technical term is inhibited sexual desire. This reflects the core issue,identifying and assessing factors that block (inhibit) sexual desire. The terms we use are turnoffs or poisons. To understand what inhibits desire, you need to identify individual and couple poisons.

Of the four phases of sexual response,desire, arousal, orgasm, and satisfaction,desire is the easiest to disrupt. Positive anticipation is the key to desire. If that key is turned off, it affects the entire sexual process. Sexuality is natural, but it has to be nurtured and reinforced. Women and men deserve sexual satisfaction. However, when conflicts, inhibitions, and avoidance dominate, sexual desire is undermined. This is especially true when anger overrides desire.

how premarital sexual experiences and expectations poison marital sex A depressing reality is that “hot” premarital couples are vulnerable to desire problems once married. Why? The factors that drive premarital sex,newness, illicitness, risk-taking, winning the partner over, romantic love, and exploring sexual boundaries ,are unstable. By its very nature, romantic love/passionate sex disappears with time. Ideally, romantic love would be replaced by mature intimacy. Ideally, hot sex would be replaced by the combination of intimacy, nondemand pleasuring, and erotic scenarios and techniques. Yet too often, sex becomes routine, low quality, and infrequent. Many times, this occurs even before marriage. The joke is that marriage kills sex, but nonmarried couples who have been together more than 2 years have higher rates of no-sex and low-sex relationships than do married couples.

New romantic love couples meet for weekends and special occasions. They have time, energy, and enthusiasm for each other.

They ignore the real world of jobs, laundry, and schedules. The person and the relationship are idealized. Once married, they spend seven nights together and have to deal with the nitty gritty tasks of sharing their lives. Within this context, sex is no longer idealized and supercharged. Ideally, couples would have both planned and spontaneous sexual experiences. Unfortunately, the reality is that sex becomes the last thing they do at night after watching the news or comedy program.

Premarital sex is a self-defeating and unrealistic standard of comparison. Barry tires of couples complaining that sex was best premaritally. The decrease in sexual frequency and romance frustrates, embarrasses, and angers the couple. Do not make premarital sexual comparisons,this poisons marital sexuality.

Marital sexual desire is based on a radically different way of thinking, feeling, and being a couple. Marital sexuality involves dealing with the whole person and sharing the complexities of your lives, including emotional and sexual intimacy. Premarital and marital sexuality comparisons are “apples and oranges.” They offer no help in resolving sexual issues, only causing blame and frustration. Disappointment, resentment, and feeling tricked or manipulated poison marital sexuality. The premarital comparison interferes with developing a marital style that nurtures intimacy, desire, pleasure, and eroticism.

anger.

Anger has an extremely corrosive effect on marital sexuality.

Couples can and do use sex to make up after an argument. This works as long as it is not associated with emotional abuse or physical coercion. Chronic anger poisons both the marital and the sexual relationship. Key elements in marital sexuality are feeling emotionally connected and trusting. Chronic conflict and anger break this emotional bond. The spouse is no longer your trusted, intimate friend, but an untrustworthy stranger who could hurt or even destroy you.

Feeling attacked or put down is the main precursor for anger.

This is especially impactful if the attack involves your body or sexuality. For example, a woman intent on hurting the husband complains that his penis is smaller than an ex-boyfriend’s. Later, she apologizes and says she did not mean it, but he continues to ruminate and feel put-down. Anger and alienation build. The therapist explains that penis size does not reflect sexual prowess nor does it affect female satisfaction. The clinician utilizes diagrams and suggests readings. Although this reduces myths, it does not reduce anger. Anger destroys intimacy and fuels sexual avoidance.

Women feel anger, usually unexpressed, at “intimate coercion.” Intimate coercion is a major cause of female inhibited sexual desire. The man who pushes sex, despite the woman’s reluctance and verbal protestations, is an example of winning a sex battle, but losing a satisfying intimate relationship. Intimate coercion is very different from marital rape. Marital rape is a repetitive pattern that destroys trust in voluntary, pleasure-oriented sexuality. Intimate coercion is an intermittent pattern which does not involve force, but is destructive to intimate sexuality. The essence of coercion is that it is a demand for sex at this time and in this way, and if not met, there will be negative consequences for the partner, such as harassment, put-downs, or not providing money or help around the house.

The husband and wife perceive intimate coercion dramatically differently. He denies that it occurs or says it is not his fault, and is shocked and baffled by her anger. His perception is that he is seducing or coaxing her, similar to premarital scenarios. She feels pressured and violated. Her preferences and desires do not matter; he puts his sexual needs over her emotional needs.

Involved, mutual, pleasure-oriented sex decreases. Frequency of intercourse is more important than her psychological and sexual feelings. She feels taken advantage of and abused. Intimate coercion must be confronted, and this marital poison eliminated.

Another source of anger involves the aftereffects of an extramarital affair. Men react more angrily than women. The wife’s affair is a reversal of the double standard. The most common female affair is a “comparison affair.” This affair met her emotional and sexual needs instead of these being satisfied in the marriage. She compared the lover to the spouse. Even though the affair is over, the husband feels judged and insecure, which is expressed as anger. Angry thoughts feed the cycle, especially when he is alone and ruminates. Some men react by shutting down sexually. Others forcefully initiate sex as if to avenge the affair.

Angry sex kills loving feelings, alienating the woman and poisoning her desire. The wife’s response to the discovery of the husband’s affair is angry withdrawal. This anger builds a wall of resentment that brooks no touching, affection, or caring. Anger and alienation build on themselves and poison desire.

Sexual issues are not the only, or even the chief, reason for marital anger. Major causes are hurt and disappointment in the spouse, marriage, or both. Hurt is caused by one spouse saying derogatory things about the other, discussing the other’s weaknesses with a relative or friend, putting the partner down in front of others, revealing a secret one had promised to honor, telling a joke at the other’s expense, using a slap or the threat of force during an argument, or reneging on a financial agreement.

Disappointment is caused by finding that the spouse is less successful than claimed, that the spouse’s family is fraught with conflicts and not the loving family the spouse depicted, that the move to a safer neighborhood is not financially possible, that caring and attentiveness have been replaced by compulsive TV watching, and that promises of intimacy have been substituted by a marginal relationship. Anger is a secondary emotion; hurt and disappointment are the primary emotions. Anger, whether caused by sexual or emotional factors, is a sexual turnoff. This is true for both men and women. In pornography videos, anger is portrayed as a sexual stimulus, but that is not how anger works for the great majority of couples.

Anger is best dealt with outside of the bedroom. Talk out issues over the kitchen table, on walks, or in a therapist’s office. The bedroom is the worst place for anger. Being nude and prone increases personal vulnerability. It is too easy for arguments to degenerate into hurtful attacks on the person, marriage, or sexuality. Deal with conflicts clothed and sitting up. Argue your points, but do not put the spouse down or fall into the “attack-counterattack” mode.

guilt.

Guilt is the most self-defeating of emotions. When you feel guilty, you lower your self-esteem and are likely to repeat the same destructive behavior. For example, the man sneaks off to a nude dancing bar and spends the $50 he planned to use for a couple night out. He keeps this secret and avoids his wife. He is afraid that if she knew, she would think he was a “scum.” As his self-esteem decreases, he feels guilty and lonely and returns to the nude club, which reinforces the self-defeating cycle.

For women, a major source of guilt is fantasizing about or having an affair. Sometimes the affair does not involve intercourse, but does include flirting, kissing, hugging, late-night calls, fondling, caressing, or stimulation to orgasm. Feelings of adventure, illicitness, and attraction are powerful. Ambivalent feelings, fear of discovery, shame, or disruption of a work situation or a friendship burden the affair, whether consummated or not. When the relationship ends, especially if it ends badly (as it usually does), feelings of guilt poison sexual desire. The bad feelings generalize to marital sexuality. The husband’s reaction of blaming or anger feeds the guilt and is a further turnoff.

Guilt causes the person to put herself down and to isolate from the spouse. Guilt disrupts the process of sharing intimacy and pleasure. To confront guilt, you need to take responsibility for the negative behavior, apologize, make amends, and, most important, use all your resources to stop that behavior.

anxiety.

Sex and pleasure belong together. Sex and performance are a poisonous combination. Anxiety is the emotion associated with performance. The type of anxiety that most interferes is anticipatory anxiety. Desire is facilitated by positive anticipation, but subverted by anticipatory anxiety. Approaching sex with a fear of failure, a wish to procrastinate or avoid, fear of embarrassment, or wanting to get it over with is a turnoff. It is like going swimming, burdened by a 100-pound weight before you dive in.

A second form of anxiety is performance anxiety, which has a negative affect on arousal and erection. The man views erection and intercourse as a pass,fail test. Sex is not sharing pleasure, but a performance where fear of failure predominates.

Performance anxiety also affects women, interfering with subjective arousal and vaginal lubrication. When arousal and orgasm are taken out of the context of sharing pleasure and made into a performance goal, anxiety increases and desire decreases.

inhibitions.

Sex is fun. Allow yourself to experience pleasure-oriented sexuality What types of inhibitions (roadblocks) interfere with the natural progression of desire, arousal, orgasm, and satisfaction?

Inhibitions include psychological, relational, or sexual factors that block pleasure. Typical inhibitions are poor body image, reluctance to initiate, unwillingness to let go in front of the spouse, embarrassment at being nude, self-consciousness about making sexual requests, reluc-tance to try an erotic scenario, and fear of embarrassment or rejection. Inhibitions take the fun out of sexuality. Inhibitions result in rigid sex roles and stereotyped sexual expression. Sex becomes mechanical and stale, draining desire. For example, the couple has sex only late at night, with no lights, after the male’s nonverbal initiation, with limited foreplay, use of the missionary position, and perfunctory afterplay. Even if functional for both partners (it is less likely to be functional for the woman), how much fun is it? Few people look forward to that predictable, stereotyped scenario.

Inhibitions are a psychological form of withholding. You are not free with yourself or with the spouse. Psychologically and sexually, you are hiding behind a wall; you are guarded and inhibited. Allow sexuality to be open, flowing, and free.

obsessions and compulsions.

Obsessions and compulsions are sexual turnoffs. Sometimes they are a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but usually the problem is linked to sexual expression. Obsessive thoughts interfere with spontaneity and communication. For example, the husband who is obsessed by a fetish is shut off from the spouse.

A woman who obsesses that a wife and mother should not enjoy oral sex blocks pleasure. Compulsive behavior is off-putting.

Washing genitals can increase sexual comfort, but compulsive, ritualistic washing is a turnoff. Compulsive behavior such as counting intercourse strokes, using three different forms of birth control, and immediately jumping up to wash off semen, are turnoffs.

Obsessive-compulsive sexual behavior is based on the irrational fear of dirtiness and contamination. In fact, genital secretions are healthy. There are more germs in your mouth than on your genitals. An advantage of a monogamous relationship is that you can enjoy sex without fear of STDs or HIV/AIDS. Sexual obsessions and compulsions rob the couple of healthy, vital marital sexuality.

shame.

Shame refers to negative thoughts and feelings based on past experiences. The sad reality is over 90 percent of women and men were subject to negative sexual experiences in their past. This refers not only to the major traumas of child sexual abuse, incest, and rape, but to being sexually humiliated, guilt over masturbation or fantasies, being sexually rejected or ridiculed, having a sexual dysfunction, having an unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, being exposed to or being peeped on, receiving obscene phone calls, or being sexually harassed.

Unfortunately, it is common to have confusing, negative, traumatic, or guilt-inducing incidents in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, or during all of these life stages. This is not the way it should be, but is the reality. These experiences are better confronted and dealt with, then accepted, not kept secret. The worst thing about a traumatic incident is that it becomes a shameful secret that controls sexual self-esteem.

Like guilt, shame has no positive function. Shame is more irrational because people blame themselves for something they did not cause. Why “blame the victim”? They dealt with the situation as well as they could, given their awareness and resources at the time. The “victim” should feel pride in having survived. Guilt lies with the perpetrator; there is no reason for the survivor to feel shame or guilt. The adage “Living well is the best revenge” is an optimal way to think about negative sexual experiences. Do not blame yourself; take pride in being a survivor.

Express sexuality in a manner that reinforces self-esteem and your intimate relationship. Be a proud survivor, not a victim controlled by shame.

confronting and changing sexual poisons.

Realizing that you feel controlled by a sexual poison need not cause embarrassment or depression. Knowledge is power.

Becoming aware of the poison and its self-defeating effects is a first step. Accept, rather than deny or minimize. With increased awareness, you reduce the poisons control. It is a “trap”; replace it with sexually healthy ways of thinking, acting, and feeling. For example, the poison is guilty withdrawal after an incident of masturbating to a “900” phone fantasy. Share that information with the spouse within 24 hours so that it does not become a shameful secret. You agree to a negative contingency (such as cleaning the bathrooms for a month or sending a $25 check to a cause you vehemently oppose) each time you use the “900” line.

Rather than “hiding out” after an incident, the couple is urged to engage in an intimate date. The poison is challenged. It no longer controls couple sexuality. The one-two combination is to confront the poison so that it is eliminated and to reassert a healthy role for marital sexuality.

Rich and robin.

Rich and Robin began dating as high school seniors. The “two “Rs” were envied by friends as a happy, stable couple. They dated through college with only two minor breakups and married exactly a year after graduation. When they entered therapy, they had been married 4 years and had an 18-month-old daughter, Rich was successful in computer marketing and actively involved in the care of their daughter. This enabled Robin to pursue her academic career as a Ph.D. student in literature. They were viewed by family and friends as a model couple, moving ahead with individual, couple, and family lives. Rich and Robin were affectionate in public, and because they had a baby, people naively assumed that they were a sexually active couple. People do not realize the difficulties and pain that occur behind a bedroom door.

Rich and Robin were controlled by turnoffs and poisons, including several remnants from their premarital relationship.

Robin felt very guilty about contracting a sexually transmitted disease during that time when she had broken up with Rich. She transmitted chlamydia to Rich, who had been furious and blaming. Rich was viewed by friends as easy-going, but Robin knew how angry he could be. He never hit her, but had thrown things and put his fist through a wall. Robin was intimidated by his anger.

Early in the relationship, they used sex to calm the anger. Robin came to resent this, especially Rich’s demands for oral sex. Robin viewed fellatio as Rich’s pacifier and found this a turnoff. Even before marriage, sexual frequency and quality (especially the latter) dramatically decreased.

The honeymoon had been a disaster. Rich demanded and forced fellatio after heavy drinking at the wedding reception. This was their only sexual experience during the 2-week honeymoon.

Awkwardness and resentment built, especially Rich’s hostile satire of the couple as the only husband and wife in America who had not consummated their marriage (in fact, 1.5 percent of marriages are not consummated during the first year).

Robin wanted to get pregnant, and they developed a pattern of having sex in the middle of the night. Their daughter was conceived through a 2 A.M. intercourse. Although they seldom discussed the no-sex state of the marriage, each was privately ashamed and embarrassed. Robin blamed Rich’s s angry, demanding approach and unwillingness to share feelings. Rich blamed the problem totally on Robin, seeing her as cold and inhibited. Rich felt that Robin had lied during the premarital years, when they felt romantic love and had enthusiastic sex.

What brought the chronic problem to a crisis was that Robin discovered Rich was purchasing oral sex at a massage parlor on a weekly basis. Although he paid in cash, Robin became suspicious because debt was mounting. When confronted, Rich tried to finesse and minimize the problem. He finally admitted the paid sex incidents, but blamed them on Robin for withholding sex. He assured her that he used condoms, but she insisted they both be tested for STDs and HIV. The results were negative. The physician suggested consulting a marriage therapist with a subspecialty in sex therapy.

Robin and Rich were extremely uncomfortable during the first therapy session. They believed the cultural myth that couples in their 20s do not have sexual problems. In reality, sexual problems are the main cause of divorce during the first 3 years of marriage.

When they realized they were not alone, feelings of stigma were reduced. The therapist put the problem in perspective,like many married couples, Robin and Rich had not developed a comfortable, functional couple sexual style. Sex cannot be treated with benign neglect; this results in a no-sex or low-sex marriage.

After the initial meeting, individual sexual histories were scheduled. Without the spouse present, each person had an opportunity to review positive and negative elements of his or her sexual development and to explore attitudes, behavior, and emotions. The therapist asked each to focus on his or her role, rather than blame the spouse. Secrets, turnoffs, and poisons were carefully assessed.

In the feedback session, the therapist observed that when Rich and Robin began as a couple, they felt open and caring. Over the years, frustrations, secrets, resentment, bitterness, and poisons built and compounded. Respect, trust, and intimacy eroded.

Living incongruent lives increased emotional stress. It is draining to appear to be a happy couple while in reality feeling alienated and trapped in a no-sex marriage. The goal of sex therapy is to confront personal, marital and sexual poisons and to revitalize the intimate bond. This entails dealing with secrets and turnoffs and breaking down walls of alienation and avoidance. Rich and Robin needed to begin thinking, talking, acting, and feeling like an intimate team.

The therapist pointed out “traps” each needed to monitor.

Robin had to stop seeing sex as Rich’s domain, instead valuing sexuality for herself and their marital bond. She needed to confront anger and resentment, not use sex as a way of withholding or getting even. She could use her veto power to stop a sexual activity that she experienced as aversive. She reduced guilty feelings about the STD and did not allow that to control her sexual self-esteem. Rich was understanding and supportive of these changes, but reluctant to confront his traps. His biggest issue was eliminating angry sexual demands and intimate coercion. The therapist advised instituting a 48-hour prohibition on sexual activity after an angry incident. Rich had to stop judging and blaming Robin.

Rebuilding the marital bond and revitalizing sexuality are not easy, but are doable. Rich and Robin were committed to their marriage and family, but the poisons were severe. They had to confront the poisons, with each spouse committed to eliminating (or at least significantly reducing) these. Each partner had to be responsible for his or her behavior. Gradually, they began feeling and acting like an intimate team. The marital bond of respect, trust, and intimacy was badly frayed, but was still intact and open to being revitalized.

The change process was uneven, two steps forward and one step back. It is easier to confront a poison before it takes hold, but for Rich and Robin their poisons were chronic. They liked the analogy of marriage as an emotional bank account. Premaritally, they had made big deposits and there were few withdrawals.

Since marriage, there had been few deposits (their child was the main one) and many withdrawals, especially in the sexual area.

They had to conscientiously make small, steady, intimacy deposits and guard against poisonous withdrawals.

The change process was arduous and required a great deal of psychological energy. Robin assertively vetoed what she found uncomfortable. Rich stopped intimate coercion. They did each trust that the other spouse was dedicated to revitalizing the sexual bond. If an incident got them off track, the partner who was resonsible assured that it was not intentional, and this took away the poison.

Rich was surprised at how much he enjoyed sensual, nondemand touching. Robin joked that they were better at pleasuring than at sex. The therapist reinforced the importance of emotional intimacy and nondemand pleasuring as a solid basis for couple sexuality. He encouraged them to confront poisonous attitudes and behavior. Sexuality could not bloom if poisonous feelings and turnoffs were present (like weeds overrunning a flower garden).

It was Robin who initiated the return to intercourse. She requested that they maintain the prohibition on quickie intercourses and fellatio to orgasm. Rich agreed to honor this. He was enthusiastic about interactive, giving, prolonged sexual experiences. Robin taking the role of requestor and guider was a significant breakthrough. Equally important was monitoring turnoffs. For example, if Rich became frustrated and angry, rather than acting out, he called a time-out. They left the bedroom, brewed herbal tea, and talked for half an hour over the kitchen table. Robin listened empathically and validated his feelings, even if she did not agree with his proposed course of action. They went to sleep as intimate friends, with the agreement that they would discuss the problem during therapy if they could not resolve it by themselves.

At therapy termination they planned follow-up meetings and relapse-prevention strategies. Poisons are never totally gone. You have to monitor poisons and be committed to not fall into old traps. Individually and as a couple, you must value and nurture emotional and sexual intimacy.

confronting and reducing sexual turnoffs.

Changing behavior is seldom easy, nor is it total. Even people who have successfully stopped smoking and have not had a cigarette in years still experience urges to smoke. It is easier to totally cease a behavior than to moderate it; for example, it is easier to stop smoking than to moderate eating. Intimacy and sexuality are areas where balance and moderation should be the norm, which makes the change process challenging.

Couples with a no-sex or low-sex marriage must struggle to revitalize intimacy and desire. Some poisons are totally eliminated, but others need to be monitored. For example, a couple with a history of physical and verbal abuse is committed to abstain from abusive behavior. If conflict and anger intensify, there is fear of regression. It is hoped that they will learn to utilize emotional-regulation skills and the time-out technique. Fears and resentments never disappear, but they will no longer control the couple.

Individually and as a couple, you can confront marital and sexual turnoffs. They do not deserve power over your life or sexuality. Do not allow them to control your present or future. The person with obsessive thoughts about a sexually transmitted disease or an affair accepts the reality of the past, but does not let this control the present. You cannot change the past (although you can learn from it). Take responsibility for yourself in the present.

Do not remain stuck in the victim role. You are a survivor who is aware of poisons and is committed to not repeat self-defeating behavior. You are empowered to view sexuality as positive, accept sexuality as an integral part of your personality, and express sexuality so that it enhances your life and marriage.

Exercise,identifying and changing sexual poisons and turnoffs.

This exercise involves a concrete, personal assessment of sexual poisons and turnoffs. Develop a realistic plan to eliminate or drastically reduce them. Do the assessment phase separately, then work together on the change phase.

Each of you must list your poisons and turnoffs. Then list couple poisons and turnoffs. Focus on your turnoffs; do not second-guess your spouses. Examples of individual poisons include dwelling on angry thoughts, resentment over a sexual incident, inhibition about making sexual requests, avoidance of sexual topics, a secret arousal pattern, obsessive-compulsive reaction to vaginal secretions, irrational fear of pregnancy, making yourself unattractive, feeling controlled by childhood sexual trauma, overscheduling so there is no time for intimacy, making sexual demands or threats, being afraid to try new erotic scenarios and techniques, and feeling that you do not deserve sexual pleasure.

Make two columns. In the first column, list the advantages of maintaining this poison. Be honest. You maintain the poison because it protects you from anxiety or fear of failure, it is a way to control or punish the spouse, it gives you a sense of power, or it serves to maintain the status quo. Are these in your best interest?

In the second column, write how your life and marriage would be better without the poisons. What would you be free to try? Would this facilitate sexual anticipation and desire? You owe it to yourself and to the marriage to challenge and reduce poisons and turnoffs.

What is your role (not your spouses) in maintaining couple poisons? Examples include your role in the pursuer,distancer dance, the intimate coercion process, avoiding couple time, angry arguments, attack-counterattack cycle, using alcohol as a way to avoid intimacy, not making sexual requests yet resenting your spouse’s s insensitivity, maintaining an extramarital affair, comparing your spouse with a person you fantasize about, or blaming problems on family of origin. Next to each couple poison, draw two columns. In the first column, list the advantages of maintaining this poison. For example, you maintain the status quo; it is easier to blame your spouse than to take personal responsibility; it is a reason to avoid initiating; you desire to maintain emotional and sexual distance; you fear that if the issue is addressed, it will destroy the marriage; you need to maintain secrecy; or you get sympathy from friends and family. Is that what you want? Is that healthy for your marriage? In the second column, list the advantages for you and for the marriage of resolving the sexual problem. What will it take to confront couple poisons? How much time and energy? What attitudes and behaviors need to change? Do you value the benefits of a secure, satisfying marital bond? Be specific and concrete.

Exchange lists as you enter the change phase. It is easy to become defensive and counterattack when reading the spouse’s s material; that is counterproductive. The key to change is approaching sexuality as an intimate team. You trust that the spouse is on your side and will help you confront poisons.

Sexuality is a team sport; do not turn against your intimate partner. Stay away from the “guilt-blame game.” Your spouse is being vulnerable in disclosing turnoffs. Honor that vulnerability; do not turn it against that person. Listen to your spouse’s requests of how you can support the change process. Overcoming turnoffs and poisons is a one-two combination: (1) each spouse takes responsibility for changing his or her attitudes and behavior, and (2) the partners work together to eliminate the poisons and revitalize marital sexuality.

Develop a specific, clear plan to confront and reduce individual and couple poisons. Your spouse states how he or she will be supportive. What specifically will you do to promote change?

What is your spouse committed to stopping so that the process is not subverted? No change plan is perfect, but it will be successful if it is clear, positive, gradual, and you are willing to problem-solve when you encounter difficulties.

Change is a couple task. Sexuality is a shared, intimate process.

You cannot force or coerce your spouse. This exercise and the follow-up experiences give you practice at being an intimate team.

Instead of denying poisons and turnoffs, focus on changing so that these no longer control your marriage and sexuality.

closing thoughts.

There are a myriad of personal and couple turnoffs that can poison the sexual relationship. When poisons are identified and confronted, they lose power. When people assume responsibility for their own turnoffs, recognize that each person has a right to express feelings, share problems with the spouse’s, realize the spouse’s intentions are not to poison the relationship, and work as an intimate team to confront and eliminate these problems, change is well on the way. Successfully confronting turnoffs is a source of pride.

Removing poisons is necessary, but not sufficient, for revitalizing marital sexuality. Intimacy, nondemand pleasuring, and erotic scenarios and techniques are integral to healthy sexuality. Affirming sex as a shared pleasure, a way to reinforce intimacy, and a tension-reducer allows sexuality to play a positive role in your marriage.

Personal and couple turnotts need to be monitored so that they do not regain power. You have devoted time and energy to identifying and eliminating poisons, but you cannot stop there.

Be aware and vigilant so that negative attitudes and habits do not return. It is normal to have “lapses”; do not allow them to become relapses. An adage is “marriage cannot rest on its laurels.” Be willing to address personal, relational, and sexual issues so that these remain free of poisons.

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