Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship (58 page)

Rather than press the issue and upset Phillip, Nicolle went along. It never left her mind that Phillip was dodging. When he finished in less than a minute they were both disappointed, although Phillip told Nicolle he was happy with his turn.

The next morning Nicolle confronted Phillip about his lack of self-confrontation three times last evening: He controlled their order of receiving so that he did her first; he initiated intercourse instead of receiving oral sex; and he didn’t let himself be brought to orgasm. Phillip became defensive, saying no one told him he had to confront his issues right then. However, having confronted herself in the wee hours of the morning, Nicolle wasn’t about to back down. She said the issue wasn’t that he didn’t do what he was told, but rather his intent and his lack of Meaningful Endurance. She had stepped up to her issues and taken them on, and in the process Phillip got what he wanted. But instead of pushing himself in kind, Phillip chose to dodge his issues. Nicolle was disappointed.

Phillip countered that Nicolle had had a terrific orgasm. Nicolle stayed with her question: How come he hadn’t confronted any of his anxieties? Was this going to be a real collaborative alliance, where they didn’t dodge difficult issues? Phillip said he didn’t have any answers.

Nicolle and Phillip didn’t talk about this for the rest of the week. They unloaded their stories as soon as they walked in to my office. Nicolle said she felt pretty good about herself, but she feared what would happen in our session.

Phillip said he felt okay when he woke up that morning after sex. However, he got upset during their subsequent breakfast conversation and stayed that way for days. He felt ambushed because, as far as he was concerned, they’d had a wonderful time the night before. He described their encounter in glowing terms.

“When Nicolle let me do her, it was amazing. She was amazing. We were amazing. I amazed myself. I felt like a great lover. I thought we were
really making progress!” Phillip’s language was enthusiastic, but his face and mind were masked. I recognized what he was doing and noted his skill: Phillip was praising Nicolle to keep the focus off himself.

“I admire your ability to use true statements to manipulate the truth. You’ve got that down to an art form. To use the truth to implant false understanding, you have to be
incredibly
good at mapping other people’s minds—and keep your own mind from being mapped.”

“What do you mean?” Phillip’s face was blank and his tone was suspicious.

“You’re praising Nicolle for receiving and crowing about what you were able to do. In the process you completely avoid Nicolle’s perception that you dodged receiving. She’s asking you to confront the facts now and tell her what you make of it.”

“I asked Nicolle to have sex with me in ways I thought I would like.”

“Okay. Let’s say that’s true. You’re still unable or unwilling to address the pieces Nicolle is pointing out.”

“I can’t do that because I don’t see it that way.”
Anything that remained of Phillip’s collaborative alliance with Nicolle, or with me, was now gone. Phillip could see the mess in front of him, and he was trying to avoid it. I noted his method: Claiming he didn’t see it at all.

Phillip was about to erupt, and signaling Nicolle and me that we had better back off. I had to find another way to engage him. I visualized them having sex that night. I paused to let Phillip’s reactivity subside, and then I spoke slowly and softened my voice.

“You must have been
very
disappointed.”

“What? What do you mean?” Phillip was on guard.

“When you came quickly. You must have been very disappointed.”

“How do you know that?” Phillip wasn’t denying or confirming anything. He was asking for my data.

I paused to take a breath. “I’m trying to help, but that doesn’t include fencing with you. Here’s my ante for our collaborative alliance: The issue is not how I know this; the question is, ‘Is it true?’”

Phillip hesitated, deciding what to do. Then he let out a long, slow,
“… Yesss!”
I had laid our collaborative alliance on the line and he stepped up to accept it.

“Coming quickly after dodging receiving first, and dodging oral sex, must have really hurt.”

“…Yes.” Phillip was settling down. Our collaborative alliance was reestablished.

“Why did you dodge?”

“… I don’t know.”

“Come on. You dodged that night, and whatever motivated you was happening then and there. You understood the significance of what was happening. Why’d you back away?”

“I don’t know.” Phillip was emphatic but not defiant. There was room for me to help him try to access the information a different way.

“In your mind’s eye, can you see Nicolle wanting to give you oral sex that night?”

“… Yeah. I can see it.”

“Good. Can you see the two of you?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Can you see yourself in that moment?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Tell me what that guy is feeling and thinking.”

Phillip was silent for a moment. “He’s thinking … this is going to sound weird … he’s thinking his wife is closing in on him … like he doesn’t have a choice … like he has to do it, because she wants to do it. He’s cornered, and he has to let her do what she wants … because she can blackmail him with their therapy.”

“Well, what do you make of that feeling? Do you think that is what Nicolle was intending?”

“… No.”

“So what do you make of the fact this comes up when Nicolle offers you a blow job?”

“… That I’m a lunatic?” Phillip wasn’t kidding. He was being collaborative and following the data. “I don’t know, Doc. I’ve never seen this so clearly before. I don’t know what to make of it. What do you make of it?”

“I’d guess you come from a place where people don’t keep alliances … A place where you felt manipulated and controlled—blackmailed, to use your term—… someplace where people aren’t trustworthy … where
emotional extortion is common and it wouldn’t be smart to relax. A place you wouldn’t let someone hold you, even if you were dying for it.”

Phillip buried his face in his hands. After several minutes of silence, he put his hands down and sighed. Phillip described growing up with his parents and his grandmother, who lived with them. His parents fought constantly. Oftentimes Grandma (his father’s mother) joined in the ruckus. He remembered being in his room, trying to ignore their screaming arguments that traveled from one end of the house to the other. His mother was typically depressed or angry, and complained bitterly to Phillip about his grandmother. His mother used her depression to blackmail Phillip into listening to her bitch.

Phillip’s gaze turned inward. “… I see how I manipulate and control Nicolle … I blackmail her into giving me what I want … or I fend her off from confronting me, by escalating things further than she will go. My father did that all the time!”

Phillip stared at the floor a long time, watching his past parade through his mind. When he looked up, the change in his face was remarkable.

“You should see your face at this moment,” I said. “I don’t know if it will still be there, but next time you go to the bathroom you ought to look in the mirror.”

“Why?”

“Your face is softer. There’s more softness to your facial muscles. You face is more readable and less impassive.”

Nicolle nodded warmly, with tears in her eyes. “I see it too.”

Phillip had developed a masked face as a child so his father couldn’t read him. When his father mapped out what Phillip thought about him, it would set his father off. By the time Phillip was an adolescent (and his brain had gone through two wiring and rewiring epochs of childhood and adolescence), his face was like a mask.

People confuse weakness with power. Phillip made this mistake when it came to his father. Phillip’s father was an alcoholic oil rig worker with a violent temper. When he wasn’t off-shore, he was usually drunk and
frequently vicious. Phillip spent his childhood staying out of his way. He described his father as a powerful man with a bad temper who overpowered anyone who challenged him.

More accurately, Phillip’s father was a
weak
man. What Phillip had to fear was his father’s
weakness
. Weak people are destructive; powerful people are constructive. Powerful people create, facilitate, and make things happen. Truly powerful people do this for the betterment of others. Weak people, like Phillip’s father, spend their time depriving and controlling others. There are good reasons to fear weak people.

The difference between powerful and weak domineering people is important. The children of weak destructive parents often confuse the two. Like many men (and women) whose fathers lost their grip on themselves in fits of rage, Phillip paid the price: He backed away from his own sexual aggression, like lots of men searching for the part of themselves that can fuck. When your father is often raging, it’s hard to keep straight the difference between being masculine and being intimidating. Learning to access, validate, and use that part—especially with their spouse—is a milestone in their lives.

I’ve worked with lots of couples where the man became the low desire partner when his wife made it clear she wanted to be fucked. It’s fun to have that kind of sex when you’re newly wed, but when you realize you’re dealing with someone more erotically inclined than you, lots of men get intimidated and their reflected sense of self feels dominated.

I looked at Phillip and Nicolle and nodded as I exhaled. They took a breath and relaxed too. I turned to Nicolle and in a slow, soft voice asked, “So, is Phillip the only one who needs to take off his mask?”

Nicolle immediately picked up my lead. “No indeed. I am fed up spending my life afraid of ‘standing too tall.’ We have a saying where I come from, ‘The tall poppy always gets chopped down.’ My father could be mean when he drank, but it was my mother who really came after us
kids. Anything you did well or felt proud of, Mother would try to chop down. I stopped letting her know what was important to me. I stopped letting her read my mind. Then she started playing ‘cat and mouse’ with me. She tried to catch me lying or having sex with boys. I started doing both to say,
‘Fuck you!’
I was smart, but I refused to get good grades in school, because I knew that’s what she wanted.”

I decided to focus on Nicolle’s ability rather than her defiance. “So there’s more to you, sexually and otherwise, then has surfaced to date?”

Nicolle closed her eyes as if taking mental inventory. Then she nodded affirmatively. “Yup.”

“Then you and Phillip have everything to gain by taking yourselves on when you have sex. You’ll be able to make your lives better now and resolve your past issues in the present.”

Nicolle was never at peace when she went down on Phillip. Usually she didn’t want to do it, and when she did, Phillip was such a bundle of nerves she couldn’t enjoy it. She worried about setting him off, about him losing his erection or coming too quickly, or her doing it too well. Yes, doing it too well. Nicole never got to relax with Phillip and enjoy her own prowess or the physical sensations of sucking a man’s penis. She’d given enough blow jobs to know guys liked receiving them, but some looked down on a woman who really enjoyed giving them. It had been many years since she felt the power and agency of sending a man off into nirvana.

“Sounds like you don’t have experience standing tall in front of people you love. You could create a corrective experience for yourself by doing it with Phillip. You’d have to deliberately give him great oral sex and relax while you do it, quieting and centering yourself. If that isn’t motivation enough, you might consider doing it for Phillip.”

“How so?”

“Letting your competence shine will help Phillip confront himself. If it’s obvious you like giving him head, he’ll only have himself left to confront. Your ability to give good head positions him to confront his difficulty with being the receiver. You’re enjoying what you’re doing: fucking him. When he doesn’t relax and let himself be fucked, it won’t be attributable to you.”

Nicolle giggled. “If I blow his brains out, can I clean out the cobwebs in his head?”

“Certainly figuratively, and perhaps literally. The more you
feel
him while you do him, the more you confront Phillip to receive what you’re offering. The emotional and physical intensity will push his issues in spades.” Phillip nodded.

“While you have him in your mouth, think about the issues he’s facing right that moment. Before you start, let him know you’ll be thinking this. This way Phillip will be better able to map your mind while you’re sucking him. Let him read your mind. Use your head while you’re giving Phillip head—if you want to leave his mind spinning.”

Nicolle laughed and looked at Phillip. Her smile was carnal. “Sounds good!”

Phillip laughed nervously. “Am I obligated to receive oral sex to preserve my alliance with my wife?” His question sounded absurd, but it made perfect sense.

“You sure sound like someone whose automatic response is defiance when you feel your partner
wants
you. If you keep this possibility in mind while Nicolle sucks your brains out, you just might get your brain to think differently.”

Phillip paused for a moment. “I see that now.”

“When you last had sex you dropped your alliance with Nicolle. Nicolle was offering you more than a blow job. She reached out to you. She felt your alliance deteriorating as you withdrew into yourself. You could have declined oral sex and still maintained your alliance. You just needed to tell Nicolle you knew you weren’t confronting your issues. Then she could have agreed to intercourse as a friend, rather than as someone colluding with you.

“I get it!” Phillip’s eyes were solid in a way I hadn’t seen before. His face was soft. His functioning increased as if he had gone from groggy to fully awake.