Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Interviews with LDS Relationship and Sexuality Counselor Dr. Finlayson-Fife
Here in the 21st installment of the “Ask a Mormon Sex Therapist” series Jennifer responds to two new questions. The first question asks about “dirty/degrading” talk during sex and the second asks for advice on teaching about sex in a positive way.
Also check out some of Jennifer’s Christmas sale HERE.
If you have a question for the good doctor you can comment below OR send an email to askdrfife@rationalfaiths.com
Music: Sugar Blues (Pubic Domain), and Flight of the Ginker by Doug Martin.
I really appreciate the open conversation surrounding sex and eroticism. I am comfortable with my sexuality, but I wonder if I’m just settling for mediocre? My husband is a very sexual person, and I often feel “turned” off by things that he finds erotic (for example: attending a swingers conference). He is very open minded about anything and everything and I find myself quite traditional and have a hard time pushing boundaries. In the past my initial reaction has been to “yuk” his “yum”, and I know it has been hurtful to him. I’m trying to be more open-minded, but I find some of his ideas way too far out there for me. At what point has eroticism gone too far? I know you encourage people to be in control of their own sexuality, but I continually feel uncomfortable with the ways he wants to express himself sexually (nude modeling, hanging photos of sexy women in his workshop). I feel like his sexuality isn’t focused on us and our sexual relationship. I’ve just purchased your course and plan to learn more about couples sexuality, but I would be so grateful for your comments, feedback.
Thank you for creating this safe space for us to come together!
My husband and I feel sexually stuck. We were sealed two years ago this Christmas, and we’ve been in various therapies for his pornography addiction since before we were married. He has made astounding progress in his recovery, and has been amazing at being accountable for his behaviors. I am incredibly grateful for how hard he’s worked, and recognize that many men never reach the phase where they even want to change, yet alone where they stop looking at porn all together. That said, he centered his recovery on the promise that I would feel safe to be sexually vulnerable with him if he learned to control his addictive behaviors, and now he feels a level of entitlement to “connecting with me in that way” despite still being unaccountable for his addictive mentalities and emotions. He “storm clouds” around the house, and claims that he feels like he’s suffocating when we don’t have regular sex. He has been distant and uncommunicative with me about it, and won’t bring it up unless I press him to tell me what’s bothering him. I’ve asked him why he doesn’t talk to me, and he says “because I don’t want to be a burden” – an indication to me that he’s not over his shame, even though I know he resents me for not being sexually accommodating like when we were first married. To make matters worse, there is a history of infidelity on the parts of the males in his family, which has caused him to view his remaining emotional/sexual “character defects” with a certain level of permanence. Obviously, as his eternal companion, this has done nothing for my anxiety.
Now a little about me. I’ve struggled with hypoactive sexual desire disorder for as long as I can remember, so already, sexual experiences are lackluster at best, and painful and intrusive at worst. Obviously, that struggle has been intensified by having to work through betrayal trauma, which has put me in dark places of emotional abuse and that I never anticipated. Ultimately, I’ve learned that I can’t (and won’t) have sex unless I feel safe to be vulnerable. Since I’ve chosen to stay with the source of much of my life’s “danger” (mainly because I believe in the healing power of Christ’s atonement), I have felt somewhat unsafe for much of the last two years of my marriage. I want to feel motivated to work through my long-standing distaste for sex for the sake of our relationship, but I’ve felt paralyzed because of my husband’s unwillingness to communicate deeply with me in the process. Just the other day I asked if he believed I could change, and he said no. It hurts because while he was going through the thick of overcoming his addiction, I always verbally and emotionally supported and encouraged him. But, to him, my recovery looks like one thing – more sex. To me, even entertaining a sexual fantasy in the solitude of my own mind is a stretching experience.
We haven’t had a sexual encounter in 5 months, and went eight months without it before that. I don’t want my sexual development to be centered on the fear of him leaving me if sex doesn’t start happening more frequently. So, I’ve spent those months feeling petrified, and he’s spent those months brooding.
Both my therapist and my husband feel that if I just “put out” with a little bit of a better attitude, I’ll start to feel more sexually alive – the whole “you won’t learn to ride a bike if you never try it” mentality. I feel misunderstood by the both of them to say the least. I want to be there for my husband sexually, but won’t allow myself unless I feel safe to do so. But, if I tell him that I don’t feel safe, he’ll spiral into shame, call himself a monster, and think about all the other men that deserve me more than he does – as if my choice in him day after day has no weight. I don’t want to incorporate more frequent sex into our relationship until he can learn to be happy, faithful, decent person without it. I don’t want him to rely on me for his emotional regulation like he did porn and masturbation, as he did when we were newlyweds.
What do I do? How do we overcome this? We’ve shared a 7-year friendship, and he’s helped me through so much. I love him dearly. But, I fear the supportive, God-loving, go-getter that I fell in love with in my adolescence only shows up to our current relationship when sex is a regular activity. Is that emotional manipulation? Am I too closed-minded? Any advice AT ALL would be appreciated.
I’m not a therapist but there is a closed group on Facebook for LDS women. Search: HHS LDS women’s discussion group. Answer the questions and join this group!! This group is for LDS women to discuss/share stories/ask questions/ etc. Every topic regarding sex/sexuality/sex health are discussed and I can’t tell you how helpful it has been for my sex life. I’d encourage you to look it up and join and start getting answers to your questions from other women in your same situation. You aren’t alone!
Wow! I can’t imagine how it feels for your husband to have you reject him for months at a time. It seems that your sexual dysfunction and self absorbed mentality is a larger component to your marital unhappiness than his “issues”. I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t left you. Wow. Just wow.
That is an incredibly unkind thing to say. I don’t know who you are, or what you’ve been though, but I urge you to approach the desperate people who are seeking ANY resources to quell the anguish in their lives surrounding these issues with more sensitivity and compassion.
The “all the other men that deserve me more than he does” should be in quotes. Those were my husband’s words. I do not agree with them, and recognize how that could be taken incorrectly.
I can’t imagine any man staying in a marriage with only one sexual encounter in 13 months.
You say you don’t want to incorporate more frequent sex into your marriage until he can learn to be happy, faithful and decent person without it. I can’t imagine any man being happy in a marriage without sex. Denying a husband sex is in my view the surest way of driving him to pornography and infidelity.
I think that is an excellent point. It’s critical that I now step up to give him a better idea of healthy marital sex. However, I am not responsible for his sobreity. Our therapist keeps telling the both of us that sex is not a need. No one needs it to survive. I don’t withhold sex to teach him a lesson about survival or happiness: I do it because I am terrified of him. He cheated during our long-distance engagement, and it was devastating because he tried to justify it as “missing me”. We love each other very much, but he’s so petrified of hurting me again that he doesn’t communicate, and I’m so scared of being hurt again that I’m not sure how to be vulnerable sexually without going completely numb. He deserves a “present” wife, not an automaton companion who ticks the boxes. It would be cruel to give him sex if I can’t guarantee that I’d even be present for the experience. Try as I might, I can’t help my fear; our engagement was such a raw time, as is the situation in which we find ourselves presently. We’re both in a lot of pain. Do I betray my sense of safety to heal his perception of our marriage, or is there a situation where we both heal and both get what we need? This is what I’ve come here to find.
First of all, go with your gut. Your safety is more important than your husband’s use of you as a sex object. His manipulation goes beyond emotional. He is brainwashing you into believing that you are responsible for his well-being. You are not! If your therapist continues to advise you to “put out” with a better attitude, it is time for you to find a new therapist. You need someone who will treat you with the respect you deserve. You were NOT put on this earth to fulfill someone else’s sexual desires. You feel misunderstood because you are misunderstood. People who deny their own fears don’t understand yours. People unwilling or unable to acknowledge their own traumas are uncomfortable by you expressing yours. (And those who lash out at you for doing so are being compelled by their own unconscious fear of losing control and having their own traumas exposed. It’s the job of the subconscious to protect us from pain. You expressing your pain threatens to remind others of their own “forgotten” pain.) All that stuff about your husband getting broody, calling himself a monster, and talking about all the other men who deserve you more, is designed to elicit a supportive response from you, with the underlying message that all you have to do to make him feel more worthy of you is to give him sex. That’s also why he answered “no” to your question of whether he thinks you can change or not. It was the question of a lifetime for him, because now the only way for you to show him that you are capable of changing is to give him what he wants — sex. If he truly believed there was no way you were going to change, and that he absolutely has to have sex, he would have already left. The problem with that, however, is that he would have to start over to find someone he can manipulate. He already has a head-start with you, so he stays with you. And he already has a full entourage of supporters who are more than happy to blame you for his indiscretions and ill-behavior. Our society is quite adept at blaming the rape victims and piling shame upon the “unfulfilling wife.” Why? Because if it is the victim’s fault, then I have no fear of ever getting raped, because I won’t do what she did to cause it. And, if a husband turns to other women or pornography because of his frigid wife, then that will never happen to me, because I won’t do what she is doing. I’m sorry if others don’t agree, but that’s a load of crap! If he was concerned about your sense of safety, as any loving husband would be, his attitude would be that he will do what ever it takes and wait as long as it takes in order to help you feel that security. It is his duty, as your husband, to protect you from harm, not to be the source of it. Read The Family: A Proclamation to the World. No where in that document does it say the wife’s duty is to fulfill the sexual desires of her husband above all else. Compare your experiences with that document and then ask him this question, “If I were in a car accident tomorrow, and became a quadriplegic (paralyzed from the neck down), and could never give you sex again, what would you do?” His answer will tell you if he is willing to change or not. If you don’t feel good about his answer, ask him to leave until he can honestly and sincerely give you the answer you deserve.
Essentially, you are paralyzed — emotionally. When the fight, flight, or freeze system is triggered all non-essential bodily functions cease to operate. Sex being the first to shut down. There is no drive to perpetuate the species if your survival is in jeopardy. Your gut is telling you what you don’t want to believe. I know, I was there for 23 years. I’ve been in therapy with an amazing therapist for over 5 years, and I am still afraid of my ex. Granted, I am a completely different person now. I now believe I am worth protecting. I now recognize narcissism and don’t feel compelled to remain in a narcissist’s “tractor beam”. I now know what it feels like to be treated as a daughter of God deserves to be treated. I am still learning self-respect and self-compassion (two things I never thought I deserved). No man will ever use me as a sex object again. That is a claim I finally feel strong enough to make. My husband sexually abused me for 23 years, all under the guise of “it’s ok because we are married” and his sense of entitlement as my husband. I never refused him because I thought that one day he would see what he was doing and would stop the abuse. And maybe, just maybe, he would choose to become the man in his patriarchal blessing. That ended the day he attacked our son. Shortly after that the Lord told me he was being replaced. This coming after the 4th time he threatened divorce, I no longer fought it. I didn’t try to “change my ways” and be perfectly obedient to all of his wishes and desires, like I had the other 3 times. I stopped putting him above the Lord, and he left, but not without destroying me mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and financially. I was broken and nearly dead, spiritually and emotionally. However, in seeking a therapist for my youngest son, the Lord led me to the best. He has given me a life worth living. I am finally able to FEEL the power of the Atonement in my life. I am able to FEEL the love God has for all of His children, including me. It’s been a long journey, but the journey isn’t over. Together we’ve healed a boat load of traumas, but there is a whole fleet waiting their turn to be healed. I am in school to become a child therapist, but my first priority is to heal the child within myself. And in the meantime, I share my story with others with similar stories, in order to offer my support and understanding of what they are up against.
You and your story are amazing. Thank you. Truly.
Thank you for sharing. God Bless you!
I couldn’t agree more with what you said. I was always available for my husband sexually, and he still turned to pornography and prostitutes and one night stands.
Thank goodness you spoke up SG because I was getting frustrated with the other replies.
Yes the female has to deal with her issues and yes the male has to deal with his. But it is ridiculous to say no man can live in a sexless marriage because plenty of people men and women live celebate lives for various reasons married or single.
Working on the trauma, addiction and having open communication will be crucial to being able to “show up sexually in the marriage” to use Dr Finlayson-Fife’s words.
BLOOM for women !!! It is amazing and my husband and I are in similar circumstances. Try to take control of your own sexuality but no amount of sex will fix his addiction. Addiction is an intimacy disorder. He can’t be able to meet you at you level without boundaries and without you being assertive with your needs. The purpose of sex is to be intimate with each other. It’s to share parts of yourself. It’s not all about the physical act. You are required to be chaste when not with him and so is he. The real issue here is why are you not feeling safe ??? And does he understand what you need to be able to express that part of yourself.
I understand, my husband watched pornography and masturbated for a year without me knowing, we have been sealed also. I felt betrayed, although I do feel that he’s stopped the pornography and masturbating I can’t fully trust him, as he does still lie about little things sometimes. We have only had sex about twice in 2 years. Lot’s of different reasons we really need to talk to a sex therapist.
I am not sure if this is where to send in questions to potentially be answered, but I will try it here.
My question resolves around hearing quite often that “women on average have about the same drive for sex that men do.” I can’t recall if Dr. Fife has made this assertion or not, but I have heard it from many therapists when they are discussing this topic. I can get that some men may be married to women where the woman has a higher sex drive, but I am talking overall.
I really have a hard time really believing that “on average” part. I look at the sudden floodgates of accusations of men being inappropriate with women (a very good thing). Why is it that I can’t think of any woman being accused of improper sexual advances of men in the spotlight? I can certainly write off a good portion of this as men generally have had the power, so they abuse it via sexual advances and someone with less power using sex would be considered “seducing”. But even then, a situation where a woman sexually approaching a man would more often get an “Ok, I am for it” response than the other way around.
I do think both men and women have a desire to have a loving intimate relationship with another person. And you talk plenty about how women are socialized to turn off that desire and how to try and turn it back on. But it just seems like the number of guys that would say their teenage testosterone just about drove them crazy and only subsides slightly over time is much higher than the number of women that would say something equivalent.
But I have to admit, I REALLY don’t believe the statement about mens/womens sex drives being about the same. My lived experience just seems to give that a huge eye roll and a “yeh, right!” response.
I would be interested in Dr. Fife’s comments to help me better understand.
At the 38 minute mark you said you would welcome questions about sexual abuse and its effect on relationships for a future podcast. That’s actually the topic I came to this site to find answers for. I need to heal my sexual wounds. The short story of it is that two of my brothers sexually abused me since I was a very small child (still in diapers). My mom left me with whichever sibling was available to watch me while she napped, read, or watched her soaps. I was taught from an early age that to survive I had to keep the peace and not disturb mom with “tattling.” I am desperate and determined to heal, but I am also impatient. My programming already attracted me to one covert narcissist who continued the sexual abuse. I don’t want it happening again. I won’t even pursue another relationship until I am certain I won’t let this behavior happen again. I am almost there, but not quite, yet. I don’t have a problem with sex, per se, but I want the intimacy that is supposed to accompany it. My love language is touch, but my ex would only touch me if he wanted sex. And then afterwards he treated me like I filthied him. He cleaned himself and climbed into bed, fully dressed in sweatpants and sweatshirt. He wouldn’t talk to me or look at me. Then the next day he was angry with me once again. It was the same pattern my brother used. And it’s dehumanizing.
I want the love and connection that a healthy sex life produces. How do I learn to trust that I won’t make that same mistake again? How do I heal this “broken” feeling? How do I heal the relationship with myself, so I can feel safe to have a relationship with another man? These are questions that haunt me all too often.
So, how does sexual abuse affect relationships? It makes similar abuse look and feel “normal” and acceptable.
Could we do a podcast on cross dressing men, where that comes from and how to balance that with the priesthood ? I am a wife and we have been finding a balance to my husbands quirks but it can be difficult to understand why he wants this as well as emasculating talk. He is also really into chastity devices and I want your thoughts on that.