Sex Fire and Orgasm, Sexual Respect

August 19th, 2009

If a couple who has been together for years realizes one day that they don’t much care for one another anymore, perhaps the fire isn’t the only thing that hasdied. Maybe respect is gone, too.

“They have to decide to look at what is going on between them and why they feel the way they do about the other person”. “It’s a hard row to hoe. Have they grown apart because they no longer respect that person? It’s a very tough thing to say, ‘I don’t respect you anymore.”‘

There are dozens of ways one spouse loses respect for the other during a marriage. There also are ways to regain that respect. Here are a few.

• He doesn’t stand up for himself when his employer takes advantage of him. To turn that around, promote your talents at work, but don’t be a shameless suck-up. Don’t undervalue or overvalue your contributions. Don’t spread office gossip. Do these things, and your boss probably will respect you more, and so will your wife.

• One partner accepts the other’s lies. After her menopause, for example, she may claim that she no longer wants sex because she can no longer conceive a child. He recognizes it for the baloney that it is and loses respect. Worse still, she knows he knows, and she faults him for accepting the lie. Talk about a vicious circle. Instead, he should get at the truth. Maybe she’s withholding sex because she’s angry at him. Or perhaps she’s bored by the routine of their sex life. Or she could be going through some hormonal changes that have affected her enjoyment of sex—changes that could be accommodated if he showed an interest in talking about them.

• She fakes orgasms, and he knows she fakes them. She disrespects him for not confronting her. Rather than going along with the theatrics, he should indeed confront her to find out why she isn’t having orgasms and why she feels the need to fake it. Maybe he would find out that he isn’t sensitive enough to her desires in and out of bed. Maybe he would discover that he makes sex seem like a performance rather than genuine lovemaking. Maybe he would learn that she feigns sexual ecstasy because she feels pressured byhim to have loud, quick orgasms. Or if she actually has a real orgasm, she may feel pressured to fake several more. Maybe he would regain her respect by doing something about this.