It might not be…
Know What You Are Solving For
My business mentor, Danny Iny, asks each of his clients the same essential question during our Master Minds: What is the problem you are solving for?
If your sandwich shop is not making enough money to pay the rent and you focus on bringing more customers in, but find that even when the number of customers increases you STILL can’t pay the rent… You are likely solving for the wrong problem.
Maybe you are buying too much produce for the sandwiches and throwing out more than you are selling. Maybe the system for making the sandwiches is too slow and even if you hired more people to make sandwiches, you’d run out of time in the day before running out of customers.
The problem might not be a need for more customers, but instead a new system for efficiently making the sandwiches. Or a new way of tracking how much produce to buy so there is less waste. Either way, it’s important to know what the problem actually is, and it isn’t always what seems most obvious.
Is S3X Really the Problem?
What can we learn from the sandwich shop dilemma? I’m a couples therapist and many of my clients share their struggles around sex and how much distress they feel about it. Shame from sexual abuse, painful physical experiences or erectile dysfunction among other things can create issues that need to be addressed, sometime by a Sex Therapist. Many therapists are specifically trained and certified to help people with sexual issues (but not all therapists and not all couples therapists are trained in Sex Therapy).
Not all sexual issues are actually sexual problems. Most of my clients tell me that when they are intimate in the bedroom, it goes fine, or at least fine enough. There are no physical or medical issues. But they come into therapy saying they have a sexual problem.
Consider this: if you and your partner do have good enough sex the majority of the time you are intimate, maybe you have a transition problem, not a sexual problem.
What is a transition problem?
Intimate long term relationships have two main “energies” within them. The first is “face to face” energy. This is when you are connected emotionally, focused on the present moment and everything else can fall apart around you and you wouldn’t notice. It’s how many people describe experiencing the first stage of their relationship. It’s romantic, exciting, erotic and alive. You can’t wait to see each other. You are enthralled by the other persons presence and everyone around you rolls their eyes waiting for the fairy tale to wake up to reality.
The second energy is “side by side” energy. It is the necessary interactions that make the household run, that gets the bills paid, the kids off to school and work completed. It’s boring, mundane and unexciting.
Both types of energy are necessary. But in long term relationships, one gets tended to and the other left for last if at all.
A transition problem is when you don’t regularly make the switch from “side by side” energy into “face to face” energy. The transition takes effort, thought, planning ,and attention. It doesn’t generally happen automatically.
How do you solve a transition problem?
The solution is simple, but not necessarily easy. If you want to be life long lovers, you have to deliberately act like a lover. This means setting aside distractions (your phones!) intentionally. Plan for time that is only “face to face” energy. And talk with each other about what is “face to face” energy for each of you. It may be different than you think.
A colleague recently mentioned that he intentionally turns off Netflix by 10:00pm and invites his wife to do something other than watch TV, because if he doesn’t they are both too tired for there to be any chance they’ll have the energy for sex. This is a beautiful way of being intentional and inviting.
If you have a sex problem, seek the support of a certified sex therapist. (AASECT is a credentialling body that has resources for this www.aasect.org)
Recognizing what problem you are actually solving for matters. If it is a transition problem, the number of solutions is as vast as your imagination and your willingness to shift and face each other. If you’re struggling to find time to connect emotionally with your partner, contact us to see how couples therapy can help get your relationship back on track.
