As people try to return to routine after long nights in safe rooms and shelters, with either the husband's parents or the wife's sister-in-law, wearing sweatpants and with exhausted eyes, some are asking how to get their love lives back.
Some couples will manage. But not all couples can simply reignite their sexual spark after a period of stress and disconnection.
2 View gallery
A pause in sexual intimacy is common, but worth addressing
(Photo: Henrik Sorensen/Getty Images)
Even apart from war, a complete halt in sexual intimacy is not rare. It can happen after a personal or relationship crisis, after periods of stress and sometimes with no clear reason at all. In fact, it is one of the most common reasons couples seek relationship and sex therapy.
People who have become parents remember that it can be difficult to return to being lovers after childbirth, and again after breastfeeding and sleepless nights. But when a year, two years or more pass without sex, it is worth examining what is happening.
Maybe there is hidden anger. Maybe fear. Maybe things absorbed in childhood resurface when we become parents ourselves. It is no simple acrobatic feat to be a parent, a partner, a close friend and a teammate in life. Sexuality is often the weak link and the first to be harmed.
Couples therapy that is attuned to sexuality will look for the hidden reasons blocking a couple from being parents, friends and lovers at the same time.
British psychoanalyst Francis Grier approaches this issue differently from the way it is often addressed in advice columns and self-help literature. He does not begin by asking how to bring sex back directly, but by examining the unconscious basis for the couple’s distance.
He offers the example of Elizabeth and Andrew, a couple who came to therapy when their daughter was already 4. They told him that since the birth, there had been silence in the bedroom. During the day, they cooperated. At night, each turned to their own side of the bed.
Had they gone to a sex therapist, the likely approach would have focused directly on behavior, gently and gradually encouraging them to become physically close again.
But psychoanalytic thinking looks for the unconscious roots of behavior, based on the idea that sometimes identifying them is enough to help bring about the desired change. In Grier’s case analysis, the couple’s block was not technical or physical.
Elizabeth had grown up as “Daddy’s girl.” She felt she had won her father’s heart over her mother, which unconsciously gave her
excitement and a sense of being a “little woman,” alongside guilt toward her mother.
Dr. Irit Kleiner Paz Photo: CourtesyWhen she married and became a mother herself, the situation stirred old wounds. The unconscious guilt over that “Oedipal victory” seeped in and turned sexuality with her husband, the father of her children, into something forbidden and threatening.
Andrew, for his part, carried deep childhood baggage around relationships and closeness. He grew up with a controlling, intrusive mother and kept an emotional distance from her. He did not allow himself to “fall in love” with his mother at age 4, as children do during the Oedipal stage.
So once Elizabeth became a mother, he had to “turn off” his attraction to her to feel safe. Together, they created an unconscious alliance that preserved them as devoted parents but left them strangers in bed.
This split, between affectionate, parental closeness and sexuality, is one of the most common and frustrating patterns. During times of pressure and stress, it can become worse. But there is another split worth noting in the treatment of couples who have stopped having sex.
Over the years, the therapy world has developed an unfortunate divide: Some professionals treat the mind, mainly social workers and psychologists, while others treat sexuality, including sexologists and sex therapists. But in reality, sexuality is where the body and mind meet. When we are stressed, the body shuts down. When the mind is hurt, desire disappears. When life changes, through war, a move or childbirth, sexuality can suffer.
How do we loosen the grip of the past and change behavior?
Couples struggling to restore sexuality after childbirth or a crisis should know that the full range of their relationship can be treated, in terms of the mind, emotions, body and behavior.
In sex-informed couples therapy with a psychoanalytic lens, the therapist will also look for the “couple’s unconscious”: old beliefs and fears from the past that have colored the present. At the same time, the therapy also focuses on practical behavioral changes.
The more partners understand the unconscious sources of their blocks and avoidance, the better they can work with a therapist to make small, gradual changes so distance and disconnection do not harden into permanence. That is the professional side.
On the personal and relationship level, the first recommendation is to talk; to set aside dedicated time for conversations in which each partner can honestly express their feelings about sexuality. When talking, it is also important to know how to listen. Sensitive subjects like sex cannot be opened under pressure, threats, criticism or accusations. Open, curious and empathetic listening is the most important condition for healthy communication.
The conversation should happen without blame or attack. Avoid “you” language. Divide the time between you so each partner can tell their story while the other truly listens.
What should you talk about? Try asking questions out loud: What happened to my sexuality? For example: “My body changed, and I’m ashamed of it,” or, “I’m breastfeeding, and it has confused my relationship with my body and yours.”
Talk about what you used to enjoy and how that has changed. Talk about what you might want to try, maybe something partial, such as only hugging, or starting with a gentle touch without pressure to move anywhere else.
Another important topic is what happened in each person’s past that may be affecting the present. Try searching your memory, as in the example of Andrew and Elizabeth. You may discover things that create shame or aversion because of past experience. These may be unpleasant experiences or memories from different ages. Try to identify events that may be influencing what is happening today.
After talking, it is also important to act. If you have learned to speak openly and with mutual respect, there is a chance you will feel closer and safer. If that happens, you can move toward action, turning the insight about what harmed desire into a practical conclusion.
For example, if a woman realizes that since becoming a mother, she has difficulty thinking of herself as a sexual woman because it clashes with her new maternal identity, she may need to find a creative solution. Maybe meeting somewhere away from home or being away from the baby for a few hours.
The process of returning to one’s sexual self can be interesting and exciting, as long as it is not done under pressure.
For men and women returning from military reserve duty, sexuality may sometimes be affected by emotional residue that has nothing to do with sex itself, such as guilt: “How can I live and enjoy myself when others did not return from battle?”
In other cases, sexuality is blocked for physiological reasons because the body is exhausted after a long period of stress, which can alter hormonal balance. In that case, the question is what helps calm the body and return it to a relaxed state in which desire can reawaken. That might be alternative treatments, massage, exercise, a vacation, dietary changes or anything else the body needs.
In short, communication, both emotional and sexual, is the most important engine for growth and for coping with challenges. But in most cases, returning to sexuality also requires turning words into action.
Sexuality is a sensitive and complex meeting point between the heart and the body. Conversation can stitch back together the delicate threads of safety and intimacy, and from it, couples can identify small, practical steps each partner can take to restore vitality.
When partners listen to themselves and feel free of pressure, blame or anger, there is a real chance to rebuild the full connection between them.
- Dr. Irit Kleiner-Paz directs a training program in psychoanalytic couples therapy and is the author of The Coupled Unconscious.