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“You’re not meeting my sexual needs.”
Have you ever thought this about or said this to someone else? Has anyone ever said this to you? I have heard, and most likely will continue to hear, clients say this in my office. Either in an individual session about their partner or in a couples session to their partner. In a couples session, it generally becomes a high stress and high stakes moment because so many people interpret this statement to have negative implications within the context of whatever is going on in their sexual relationship. For example, it may be used to: complain about what one partner perceives to be the other partner’s deficiencies; ask (or threaten) to open the relationship; justify the decision to have an affair; or end the relationship all together. We are finding ourselves in a horrible combination: fears about an unseeable contagion plus the need to socially and physically isolate from others. This is a brutal mixture for many because we often turn to other people to help lessen our anxiety: socializing with friends, going church or temple, time out in the world at restaurants, bar, clubs, shopping, and of course partnered sex. Most of those options are, for now, not possible, with the exception of sex (as long as you live with your sexual partner[s]). So where does that leave you and your libido?
Everyone is having different experiences when it comes to the impact of this moment in time on their libidos. Some, in the face of all this, are reporting that their libidos are increasing while others are reporting a decline or as someone described it to me “it's like it’s dropped off a cliff”. |
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