Mismatched sex drives

So readings come in waves for me.  Sometimes they are all about work.  This time,  they've been about marriages and mismatched sex drives.  I find it so interesting that people from all around the world can come to me with the same problems.

So I talk to them about appetites.  Imagine always being hungry,  you only get to eat once a week.  And even if the food is delicious,  you know you are not getting any more after that.

Or imagine always being overfed.  You are full,  you feel bloated,  and here is another meal - still delicious but now it feels nauseating.  You just don't want to eat! why can't they understand that.

When I put it into food,  people start seeing what I am saying.  There is nothing morally wrong or superior about being always hungry or always full.  It's just a different drive alignment.  The trick is how to handle it within the marriage.  

When I gave this analogy one client said,  yes,  he never lets me get hungry for it! If only I could have the time to get hungry,  we'd both enjoy it more.  And the other client said I always feel like I'm starving and I'm starting to feel resentful.  They could see the picture clearly. 

Now what to do?

Well,  that's a really complicated question and each couple has to come up with it's own answer.  I'm strongly against force feeding!  But some people correlate affection with sex,  and can't have one without the other,  which leaves everyone dissatisfied.  And I do want both parties within the marriage to be satisfied.  Sometimes just having non sexual terms to discuss the issue, makes it less heated and more objective.  Let's start with that and see what individual answers we can find,  without judgement or blame. 

Cascading Errors

This week, in my household, we have had a series of cascading errors. ( A phrase I learnt from airplane crashes,  where one small error triggers another and then a third,  and then it suddenly becomes catastrophic, though none of those errors on their own would have done much harm…)    and for a moment there,  not seriously,  but emotionally or energetically,  it all felt too much. 

The piece de resistance was when I thought I lost my keys and I had to leave the apartment to give my son lunch which he needed because he couldn’t leave school because he had arrived 5 minutes late last week and had his out-lunch pass cancelled… See what I mean by cascading error – one small thing goes wrong – and all of a sudden all the systems feel the strain and everything wobbles.  

I did leave and managed to get back into the apartment too.   And then, with the clarity of relief, I recalled where I had left my keys.  I also, through sheer luck, found another object that had been missing all week and driving us batty as we searched for it, to no avail.  And now the errors feel corrected.  The wobbles have stopped, the flight is smooth again.

Sometimes it only takes one reprieve to turn the plane around…