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Your Questions Answered by Dr. Poosha Darbha, PhD.

 

 


Correct & Consistent use of
CONDOMS

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Husband doesn't understand my needs

My husband has a 12 year history of sex clubs, orgies, threesomes, prostitutes, swinger's parties... with previous wives. He told me these things and what a dark place he was in and would never go there again.  After we were married he asked me to do things that morally I feel I could not do in good conscience-such as asking me to wear mini skirts with no underwear and flash strangers.  At the same time he asked me if we could add another person to our relationship.  He also used to watch porn movies much of the time and would put them in every time we had sex.

We do go to counseling and are working on some of these issues.  He knows now that I'm not going to do these things, so he doesn't ask.  The porno is also slowed way down.

He has never had an intimate relationship and I am struggling to teach him how to be intimate in and out of the bedroom.  He highly loves my slow intimate building of his arousal; but, never reciprocates.

I'm menopausal and have been able to reach orgasm through masturbating.  When we are in bed, he sometimes skips by me after long or short sessions of arousing him.  When he does decide to give some attention to my clitoris, its direct without any sensual warm up.  This gets me to the edge, but that's all.  I can't orgasm and become very frustrated.

I have discussed the problem with him and had him read excerpts from two books, Tantra Techniques, and, Sex for Him and Her.  When nothing happened after that, I had him take a look at some articles from the internet about what women need in foreplay.

I'm at the end of my rope.  I don't know what to do.  I'm so frustrated when we have sex; but, I enjoy pleasing him.  I just wish he was into pleasing me as well.

Do you have any other suggestions for me to help him understand how important the caressing and teasing is for a woman.  Keep in mind, I have been direct in telling him about these pleasures I NEED!

Any advice is tremendously appreciated.

client_beliefs:

Menopausal, I need more foreplay


                                                                                                                         -F, 41, USA


At the outset, I really appreciate your  positive contribution towards improving your marital relationship and also the way your are trying to initiate change in your husband's perception and sexual behavior.

Though I cannot offer a direct solution for your problem through email, I will try to give some insight into it and encourage you to seek relationship therapy and cognitive behavior therapy with some form of treatment employed for compulsive behaviors and paraphilias. (I am not given to understand which therapist you are visiting presently).

It appears to me that your husband's present sexual preferences have been deep rooted and may require intensive therapy to help him overcome them.

This involves understanding (on the part of the therapist) as to what factors were causing, perpetuating and/or complicating his sexual preferences, attitudes and behavior.

Techniques such as cognitive restructuring and behavior therapies are employed to bring about desirable change in the client, but your therapist is the best judge to decide what techniques suit best to your situation.

During the process, the client is helped to identify for himself his cognitive distortions, and how he utilizes them in the maintenance of his alternative sexual behavior and finally how to overcome them.

It's also important to teach the client how to recognize and respond to the sexual needs of the partner and to derive sexual pleasure from stimulations other than those to which he is used hitherto.

For this therapy to be successful, I suggest, you  enroll yourselves in a relationship improvement program before entering into behavior therapy for your husband. With the introduction of new changes in how you relate to each other and with better sexual communi-cation skills (especially, communication from his side), the therapy for him will be promising.

I say so because persons with paraphiliac and alternative sexual needs / practices in general tend to have a variety of social and interpersonal deficits.

A skilled therapist team usually usually addresses these deficits by integrating into therapy tools to improve several communication skills such as capacity to listen, improve self-disclosure, develop sensitivity to hidden agendas in communicating with others, improvement of sexual communication with the partner, the ability to initiate and sustain appropriate sexual relationship, improve sexual self-confidence (feel adequate, secure etc.) and the like.

With the acquisition and application of relevant skills coupled with sex therapy that involves some form of treatment for paraphilias, compulsive sexual behavior, as the case maybe, your marital and sexual life should get very much better.

The good thing in your situation is that you are working towards that goal... with the right approach ... and, he is cooperative ... but as it happens most of the time, self-help does not really help as much as one would expect, so please consult a relationship and sex therapist team.

You may wish to visit  www.aasect.org or www.apa.org to locate one near you.

 

 

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