When my husband and I started dating, we quickly became one of those
obnoxious couples who couldn't keep their hands off each other. We kissed every
time we stopped at a crosswalk -- in New York, that's a lot. At Starbucks we
were so grotesque -- staring into each other's eyes, stroking each other's arms
-- that when the branch removed its tables and converted to carryout, we
wondered if we were the reason. Once, during a protracted public goodbye, a
group of teenagers actually screeched at us to get a room.
We did more than that. We got married. Like most couples in the throes of
passion, we were smug, convinced that all the cliches about things slowing down
described partners who weren't meant to be together in the first place. But
slowly, things did cool off. We still loved one another, still held hands. But
the crosswalk kissing and the subway platform clinches faded away. Instead of
long weekend mornings in bed, we started getting up early and going to the
gym.
I couldn't help (a) noticing, and (b) torturing myself about what it meant.
You'd have to be hiding under a rock for the last decade not to know that half
of all marriages now end in divorce, and that sexual difficulties are one of the
leading complaints of unhappy couples. Was this how it begins?
It's some consolation that many other Americans face the same question. In
the benchmark survey of desire, roughly one-third of all adults reported having
some kind of sexual problem during the previous year. Some pundits blame gender
politics, job stress and cultural changes. Others, more cynical, point to the
monotony of marriage. But these plausible (and socially acceptable) explanations
obscure a more disquieting truth. Sex, and more importantly, intimacy, are
grown-up skills, and most of us, metaphorically speaking, are still in junior
high. We're still clinging to the idea of romance, when real intimacy requires
something a lot more difficult: pushing past your own limits to become a more
fully developed human being.
Conventional wisdom holds that an intimate couple thinks pretty much the same
way about most things. You connect seamlessly -- especially in bed. But
according to the radical ideas of the marital and sex therapist David Schnarch,
we've got it all backward. "Sex is inherently based on intimacy. The problem is
that most people have a very misguided idea of what intimacy means," he says.
"There's this idea that your partner is going to make you feel good and validate
you." It's our cultural template for "true" love. Think Tom Cruise in Jerry
McGuire declaring his love for Renee Zellweger: "You complete me," he says,
with trembling lip.
Except that no one has a marriage like that. What's more, says Schnarch, no
one should. Sure, the you-complete-me stuff works fine in the beginning. It's
even fun. Like two people cinched together for a three-legged race, there is
satisfaction in getting the groove of operating side-by-side with perfect
fluidity. But when you try to keep those tethers on indefinitely, reality
intrudes. Two people aren't going to agree on every move. And they'll get tired
of always accommodating the other -- by keeping quiet, by moving the same way,
by propping the other one up.
Sooner or later, a lot of these three-legged marriages wind up in gridlock:
Each partner is increasingly frustrated by the other's apparent unwillingness to
get on the same page -- and each becomes increasingly annoyed and worried about
it. It's in this juncture, where the conflict between real intimacy and wishful
thinking rears its head, that many of us notice the sex ain't what it used to
be. But while we fear that this is the beginning of the end, Schnarch says it's
often when things finally start to go right. It means marriage is beginning the
relentless process of doing what it's supposed to do, nudging us away from the
Renee-Tom model of partnership and forcing us to figure out who we are as
individuals.
Real intimacy is frightening. It requires a kind of openness, honesty and
self-respect that most of us aren't used to. But Schnarch's 30 years of
counseling couples has convinced him that it's worth it. A truly intimate
connection between adults is less volatile, because couples aren't ticked off
about what their partner is or isn't doing to prop them up. It's more solid,
because it's based on reality. "Ultimately, you get through gridlock and get to
a place of more honest self-disclosure, where the focus is on being known,
rather than being validated," he says. Best of all, the sex often becomes more
relaxed, creative and connected. Literally and figuratively, no one's hiding in
the dark anymore.
Learning the Language of Sex
When couples do try to address their sexual problems, they often focus on
mechanics: Viagra, lingerie, trying out new positions. But sex -- even terrible
sex -- isn't engineering, says Schnarch. It's a language, and its content is
everything else happening in the marriage. The woman who doesn't say a word but
barely opens her knees for her husband is actually speaking volumes. Ditto the
man who is so intent upon pleasing his unpleasable wife that he frequently loses
his erection. "Even the way couples avoid having sex is a window into who they
are together," he says.
Often, sexual disconnect has a similar refrain: I can't show you who I really
am. People's mistaken ideas about intimacy have made them overly reliant on a
partner for their own sense of self. You demand that your partner approve of
you, and you begin to count on him or her to reassure you that you're normal and
that your feelings are valid. This makes it difficult to be completely open or
honest with each other anymore. One or both of you begins to feel suffocated,
and the intense vulnerability of sexual passion that was so easy in the early
days becomes impossible.
Tammy, 36, and her husband, Jack, 34, struggled for years with mismatched
sexual desire. Jack wanted to have sex all the time. Tammy avoided it. "I pretty
much didn't care if I never had sex again," she says now. For her marriage's
sake, she'd tried supplements and testosterone cream to increase her desire.
They hadn't worked. Nor had a therapist who'd advised Tammy to try a little
novelty -- like running a hairbrush all over her husband's body. "I already
didn't want to have sex," says Tammy, still irritated, "and I definitely didn't
want to do that." By the time they wound up at Schnarch's office, they were
inches away from divorce.
Through three intensive days in therapy, it became obvious that Tammy's
problem wasn't biological. Jack was needy, emotionally, and looked to Tammy to
make him feel better, in and out of bed. Tammy, like many women, played the
caregiver role to the hilt. She was a teacher, she had two small children, and
she was even contemplating a new career as a nurse.
They began to realize, with Schnarch's guidance, that although they felt
estranged from each other, they were in fact completely interdependent. Jack
didn't know how to soothe himself when he was feeling anxious. He looked to
Tammy, and to sex, for that. For her part, Tammy had no idea how to take care of
her own feelings, or even what they were. Nor did she have the energy, because
so much went to propping up Jack. In some unconscious way, by avoiding sex with
him, she was saying no more.
For their relationship to survive, each needed to take a step back and change
how they individually dealt with their own emotions, rather than leaning on --
and resenting -- the other. Jack had to learn to deal with his neediness on his
own, and recognize that he couldn't expect his wife to do it for him. Tammy had
to figure out who she was and what she wanted, or live her life without really
ever knowing herself -- much less getting to be known by anyone else. And she
had to speak up when she disagreed, rather than keep quiet in order to not rock
the boat.
A year later, Tammy and Jack are utterly honest with each other. No hiding.
"Before we would just not talk about any of our problems because we didn't want
to get each other upset," Tammy says. Now, she says, they always say what they
are thinking or feeling, regardless of the reaction they anticipate. "It can be
very uncomfortable," she admits. "And I'm still working on tact." But in their
case, she says, it changed everything. Over the course of several months spent
learning to be themselves together, Tammy's sex drive returned. They're happier
than they've ever been, she says: "We just renewed our vows in Vegas."
How Sex Makes Grown-Ups
Schnarch's way of thinking about the interdependence of sex and intimacy is a
big shift from the traditional focus on anxiety as a primary cause of sexual
difficulty. Problems in the bedroom are too often seen as distinct from the
emotional struggles of marriage and partnership. But Schnarch -- and a few other
therapists -- have developed an alternative view, one that puts partnership at
the heart of sexuality and puts both sexuality and intimacy at the center of
human development. Sexual difficulties are a kind of emotional Rorschach test
that offers a glimpse into not just the dynamics of the relationship, but the
continuing agenda of growing into a fully autonomous human being.
Schnarch says that what happens with many troubled couples is analogous to
what happens in children as they mature emotionally. A key developmental task of
adolescence is to form separate and unique identities from our parents. (That's
what the dismissive remarks and the skin piercings are all about.) We assume
that by the time we're married, we're past all that. Not true, says Schnarch.
We've merely switched our focus from our parents to our spouses. Temporarily,
some of us adopt joined-at-the-hip intimacy as an archetype of marriage. But the
rebelliousness, the need to separate ourselves, kicks in again. You know it,
Schnarch says, when you begin to find yourself more at odds with your partner
and less sexually attracted to each other than you used to be.
Or you know it when you engage in something he calls arguing about reality.
That is, you both experience an event -- a movie, or a remembered moment from
your past together. But you see it in entirely different ways, and you can't
stop arguing until one of you caves in. Schnarch describes one couple's memories
of the birth of their first child. The wife thought it was the closest moment
they'd ever shared -- but her husband remembered being nauseated by the blood.
Their contradictory views of this event became part of a bitter argument that
surfaced again and again. Because neither of them would accept the other's point
of view, they felt that they were drifting apart. In Schnarch's view, this
difference of opinion was normal, not an indication that their relationship was
falling apart. They are, after all, two different people.
Schnarch's treatment usually involves intense four-day sessions, and doesn't
lend itself to quick tips. All the same, there are basic behavioral shifts that
he finds can benefit many unhappy couples. They all involve the same process:
Each partner takes responsibility for his or her own emotions and learns to
tolerate the idea that his or her partner is not a spiritual twin. That means no
longer expecting a partner to validate you -- so that he or she can admit that
sometimes your ideas are half-baked, rather than always reassuring you that
you're right. You examine your own behavior and see what you expect others to do
for you that you could be doing on your own -- for example, learning to feel
good about yourself without requiring someone else's praise and compliments.
But don't expect your partner to applaud when you tell the truth about
yourself. Learn to lick your own wounds -- it's not your partner's job to soothe
you, it's yours. Try to tell the truth for the right reason. Being honest
doesn't mean being vindictive. "The idea is that you are telling each other the
truth, even when it is difficult, out of caring and commitment, not because
you're pissed off and want to carve each other up," he says. The irony, says
Schnarch, is that rather than increasing conflict between couples -- as you
would think might happen -- emotional honesty has the opposite effect. The issue
is no longer about what your partner does or doesn't do: You can accept that
they, like all people, have their own limitations and failings. Instead, the
focus shifts to you, and whether you're being a grown-up -- or not.
The Joys of Adulthood
Schnarch is still something of a maverick in the field of sex therapy. Talk
to 10 sex therapists (I did), and you'll get 10 strong opinions. Some think he's
done the sex and marital therapy version of cracking the code of DNA. Others
find his ideas interesting, but don't believe that they apply to all couples.
Many say they incorporate a little of what he preaches into their practice --
like a spice in a tomato sauce." The Atlanta-based marital therapist Frank
Pittman, author of a self-help book called Grow Up: How Taking Responsibility
Can Make You a Happy Adult, is one whose approach resembles Schnarch's.
"What he's doing is teaching people the joys of adulthood," he says, "of the
wonderful things that can happen in a relationship when you take responsibility
for yourself, whether you've got your pants on at the moment or not."
The reward for all of this hard work, say Schnarch, Pittman and others, is a
kind of intimacy that helps you be more of the person you want to be and
supports an intense lifelong bond. In return you are seen, known and understood
-- truly -- for who you are. And loved and desired, to boot. It's a rare thing,
perhaps the most powerful connection we can hope for.
With this outing of yourself, so to speak, goes a greater freedom in bed.
You're no longer pretending. Schnarch considers the ability, for example, to
look into your partner's eyes while engaged in a sexual act or in the midst of
orgasm to be the height of intimacy. It's an act of mutual self-revelation that
cannot be matched almost anywhere else in life. "Once people try it, they
totally get what real intimacy is about," he says.
Eye-to-eye sex is not for the faint of heart. Even Schnarch's wife,
psychologist Ruth Morehouse, who now works with him as a marital and sex
therapist and uses his techniques, confesses to having had her doubts. At the
time that her husband was developing his ideas in the 1980s, she says, she
wasn't crazy about them. She describes herself at that time as fairly reliant on
others to give her great feedback about herself, personally and professionally.
She wasn't too keen to grow up, in the way her husband advocated. And the
eyes-open thing, well. "At first, I was mad at him for even suggesting that this
is something that people were supposed to do," says Morehouse. "It was a stretch
for me. At first, I literally couldn't keep my eyes open. After a couple of
times, I was able to do it, and it made sex more emotional and meaningful. It's
now a routine part of my sex life."
Does this mean that all sexual issues can be solved this way? Probably not.
Growing up won't do a lot for a faulty blood vessel that's contributing to an
erection problem. Or for the couple who are genuinely exhausted from chasing
small children around all day. But it maps out some promising new territory,
where personal growth and existential concerns become as much a part of sexual
therapy as do anxiety and pathology. Schnarch is creating a new way of thinking
built on growth and possibilities. Making relationships, and sex, better. How
could anyone not be fascinated by the potential?
As for me, I suspect I still have a lot of growing up to do. (Arguing about
reality? Guilty.) And I haven't dared bring up the idea of eyes-open sex with my
husband yet, for fear he'll take me up on it. I have a feeling I'd have to keep
my eyes open with pliers. But I am intrigued. And now, as I stand on subway
platforms or street corners, watching couples who really ought to get a room
groping one another without shame, I don't feel as if I've been banished to the
land of slippers and ratty bathrobes. Because according to Schnarch's model, in
which sex only gets better as you get older and wiser, I'm ahead of the game. Or
at least those couples. And that makes me feel smug all over again.
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