The Power of Desire Dethroned

 

There is a famous couple problem that a majority of psychotherapists encounter in the exercise of their practice. This complaint, made equally by men or by women, could be summed up as follows:

"I love my companion, a priori, I like making love, but I no longer have any sexual desire at all. 

Generally, the person asks the therapist to help him regain his sexual desire when it comes to individual therapy, or else the request will be formulated within the framework of couple therapy, and there, it is a situation where one of the two partners is waiting, and the other is at fault for not desiring.

Moreover, it is to the latter that the reproaches are made.

Failing To Find Your Desire

So, the "offending party" feels guilty of malfunctioning, guilty of not succeeding in rediscovering his desire, and guilty of hurting the person he loves and putting his couple in danger. And for the other, who is waiting, it is also extremely difficult because he feels frustrated, sexually, and rejected.

Because even if there is a difference between the fact of being rejected and the refusal, it does not prevent that in reality, the person on whom the refusal is imposed has a strong chance to feel rejected and badly -beloved; moreover, by dint of hearing refusals, she no longer knows how to approach the other.

So she begins to doubt, to doubt her ability to seduce, to doubt herself, and even to doubt the legitimacy of her own desire.

And for some people, often women (but not always), this low position of demand can be experienced as extremely humiliating.

It's such a difficult situation, and of course, everyone initiates the implementation of avoidance processes.

Namely, no longer going to bed at the same time, having lots of very important things to do on the computer until the middle of the night sometimes, falling asleep suddenly at the very beginning of the evening, having lumbago, the head, and finally all sorts of things that will help to avoid these moments of intimacy where the following questions will arise:

• "Are we making love, or not? 
• "Is the desire going to be there or not? 
• "And if he is there, will he stay? Will he last until the end? 

It's as if a desire should be a kind of guarantor bringing the proof that we are indeed a real woman or a real man, that there really is love, that we are a real couple, completely forgetting that you can have a desire for someone you don't love and with whom you have no intention of being in a relationship!

Thus, desire finds itself loaded with heaps of stakes which cause the expectation of its appearance to be experienced in anguish, in apprehension, which generally degenerates into an argument, and in the end, the couple stops having sexuality. What he generally experiences as a failure is all the crueler as a society, the media, and the times are spreading the message that if you want to succeed in your life, you have to have a fulfilling sex life.

This stalking of desire then prevents any desire from arriving

Ultimately, it's a paradox: be spontaneous, and make your partner understand implicitly (or explicitly)!

So it's just not possible. There is no need to have a particular pathology. Anyone balanced, projected into the situation of having to have sexual desire, following the ideal of the couple, regularly, spontaneously, definitively, puts pressure on themselves to fulfill a quota, an objective, otherwise they miss their life sexually, is no longer quite a man or no longer quite a woman, and in addition puts his couple in danger.

Paradoxically, the more we try to bring back this desire, the more we will make it disappear.

Well, what if we considered looking at things from another angle?

Dr. Wendy M. O'Connor is among the famous Relationship and Marriage Counseling Therapists in Los Angeles, California. If you are looking for the Best Psychotherapist in Los Angeles, visit The Traffic Light Center website for more information.