A recent email from a reader used a phrase that caught my attention. She commented that she and her husband “fixed our differences with sex.”
Her comment started me thinking about this situation since many couples use sex in ‘fixing’ their situation. Sex gives you a release, and a reprieve from pain, but doesn’t fix many problems.
Sex is a great thing, yet using it to ‘fix’ differences comes with a price tag.
One of the problems associated with using sex in fixing problems is that it creates bonding and a sense of closeness. When this bonding is triggered without establishing a closeness or intimacy, it leads to creating a greater sense of alienation when used this way over time.
If sex fixed all the differences between people, then prostitutes should in theory be the ‘happiest people on earth’ and adult theaters being filled with joy. If you’ve ever been to those places, you’d know the feeling of despair and desperation that saturates them.
I recall talking with a patient who looked up at me with sad eyes and talked about how the adult book stores were the loneliest places he ever experienced. He went on sharing how the sense of desperation and despair are heavy there.
If sex fixed problems, in theory, those places should be happy and celebratory.
Over time, sex without intimacy or emotional closeness can leave you feeling more distant from your spouse rather than closer to them. Sure, you have a closeness to their body, but when their heart isn’t with you, it grows increasingly mechanical.
There’s a reason prostitutes takes steps avoiding intimacy. They know if they get too close, things become too painful. By keeping sex a mechanical act, they avoid the intimacy.
This is the danger of using sex as a way of fixing problems it was never designed to fix.
This means that recovery from the affair means a great deal more than just re-establishing sexual relations. Recovery needs improvements in establishing intimacy, closeness and real problem solving.
This is why I include a module on establishing intimacy and the ways couples solve their problems as part of the Affair Recovery Workshop. Rather than stop your healing half-way, make sure you address ways of establishing healthy intimacy.
You can order it today and start working on your marriage within minutes.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
