Patterns of Sex in Your Relationship: Understanding More with EFT
Are you feeling stuck when it comes to sex in your relationship? This could be for a number of reasons. Maybe you and your partner are experiencing physical difficulty with a part of the sexual response cycle. As a result, you avoid sex altogether. Or perhaps you and your partner never feel on the same page with sex: one partner always wants more, one partner always wants less. Whatever the circumstance, you don’t understand your partner and you feel unseen in your experience. You’ve researched solutions, but you’re beginning to feel hopeless that things will ever change.
You are Not Alone
If this has been your experience, you are not alone. In a study on happily married couples, researchers found that 40% of the men experienced erectile or ejaculatory dysfunction while 63% of the women experienced arousal or orgasmic dysfunction. Furthermore, 50% of the men and 77% of the women experienced difficulties outside of dysfunction, such as differing levels of interest in sex (Frank et al., 1978). Sexual difficulties like these can bring up shame for a couple. While statistics do not completely eradicate this feeling, it can be comforting to know that you are not alone in these struggles.
Still, it is incredibly frustrating to struggle with sex in a relationship. It’s painful to feel disconnected from your partner in this way. In fact, sex is a way that many people reach out for connection with their partner. When feeling distant, some people reach out for intimacy to get reassurance and feel close. For others, having sex to reconnect feels too intimate and vulnerable, especially if they are already feeling disconnected in the relationship. While they may pull away from physical touch, they still long for both emotional and physical intimacy because this makes them feel close to their partner.
Attachment and Sex
Using the science of attachment theory, we can understand why sex is such a meaningful part of feeling connected in a relationship, and why it is so painful when we feel stuck with sex. Attachment theory posits that all people are wired for connection; in fact, we all have an innate need for safety, reassurance, and love in our relationships. We need to know that our partner is accessible to us when we need them, that they will respond appropriately when we reach out, and that they are engaged in us and our inner worlds. It all funnels down to these core questions: Are you there for me? Can I rely on you? Do I matter to you?
Sex factors into this need for safety, reassurance, and love in a relationship. Sex isn’t only about experiencing pleasure - it is also a space to show love and care for your partner, be vulnerable with them, and feel close and connected. Some of the most fundamental needs in a relationship are consistent between both emotional and physical intimacy:
Feeling wanted and valued
Knowing my needs matter to my partner
Trusting and being trusted by my partner
Being accepted
Receiving and giving comfort
Oftentimes, when a couple is stuck in a disconnective pattern with sex in a relationship, these underlying needs are not being addressed. As a result, the couple may feel like they have lost their safe connection with each other, and protect themselves in various ways. Underlying these protective responses are our emotions, messages about self and partner, and fears. These factors all come together to create a negative cycle that makes us feel more distant from each other, even though we are trying desperately to be close with the person that is most important to us.
Common Cycles of Sex: Exploring What’s Underneath our Cycle with EFT
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a theory of therapy that aims to understand the underlying feelings, thoughts, fears, and needs that lay underneath both partners' harmful, protective strategies by digging deeper into relationship patterns. It’s based on the science of attachment, and it normalizes the things we do to try to maintain connection with our partner even though these strategies often push us further apart.
One of the most common negative cycles that surfaces in a relationship is the pursue-withdraw pattern. The pursuer feels unheard, overlooked, and fears that they do not matter to their partner since their needs are not being met. They try to reach out for connection, but often do so in ways that make it difficult for their partner to see what is underneath. Examples of such strategies may be criticizing, making demands, and bringing emotional intensity to the conversation. As a result, the withdrawer feels attacked and unseen in the ways they try in the relationship, fearing that they will never be good enough for their partner. They often react to their partner’s attacks with defensiveness, shutting down, or withdrawing from the conversation. This cycle perpetuates itself as the pursuer continues to reach for connection and the withdrawer steps back, making the pursuer reach out even more intensely in attempts to be seen.
When it comes to sex, this pursue-withdraw cycle is especially frustrating. Oftentimes the withdrawing partner experiences sexual difficulties or has a lower level of desire than their partner does. For those who have difficulty with maintaining erections, premature ejaculation, or having an orgasm, intimacy brings a lot of anxiety and pressure. Ironically, anxiety is one of the most powerful factors that negatively influences the sexual response cycle. Anxiety makes it more difficult for people to be present, connected with their partner, and focused on pleasure. Without directly dealing with this anxiety, the message that sex comes with pressure, fear, and disconnection is reinforced . Partners often feel like they will let their partner down, so they may avoid sex as a result. This causes a feedback loop of the avoidance of sex, decreasing anxiety, which decreases distress, which increases avoidance…and the loop goes on. Sexual withdrawers may avoid discussing sex and withdraw from these conversations when the pursuer initiates due to their anxiety. Sexual withdrawers may also be emotional pursuers in the relationship. Many feel unheard, unvalued by their partner, and used when it comes to sex rather than seeing this as an attempt by their partner to feel close with them. Any of these experiences makes sense in context when considering the interconnection of feelings, fears, messages, and protective responses.
The sexual pursuer in a relationship often feels overlooked, unseen, and unheard. They may fear that their partner is not attracted to them, that they will never be loved in the same way they love their partner, that physical connection is not important to their partner, and that they will not feel pursued and wanted. These are very painful feelings and fears to sit with for the pursuer. They may also be an emotional withdrawer in the relationship and find it challenging to connect with their own feelings or needs. Since they might have difficulty feeling close emotionally to their partner, they reach out for reassurance and closeness through sex. Often, there are similar fears of not feeling wanted, desired, or loved by their partner underneath the surface. In attempts to prevent these fears from happening, they reach out to their partner by initiating sex or having conversations about sex in the relationship. They may have difficulty getting in touch with their vulnerable feelings and fears, so instead they focus on how often the couple is having sex, questioning their partner about their avoidance, and demanding change. When their partner continues to withdraw, avoid, or shut down without understanding what’s underneath this, the pursuer gets the message that their partner does not care about their feelings and needs and they tell themselves that things will never change. This causes frustration, hurt, and potentially resentment. They may continue to pursue, or may eventually burn out and take a step back due to feeling hurt and disconnected.
One of the most important things to remember is this: the cycle is the issue here, not either one of the partners. It’s easy to point fingers at our partner to change or to fall into self-blame and guilt when it comes to experiencing sexual difficulties. Instead, the most important first step in creating meaningful change with the cycle is realizing that it’s not some innate part of either one of us that’s causing problems, but it’s the way we’re interacting that’s causing distress, which we have power to change. This realization can help offer hope to those who have felt stuck in the same dance for so long.
How do we Shift our Cycle?
The first step in shifting a negative cycle is identifying what the cycle looks like in the relationship and what is underneath the surface for both of you. Here are some important questions to prompt exploration of your experience in the relationship:
When we are discussing our sex life, how do we interact? Do we get defensive, critical, appeasing, or shut down? When my partner responds to me, what feelings come up for me? What story do I tell myself about my partner, myself, and our relationship? How do I respond when I’m feeling that way?
How do we initiate sex? What is it like when we do have sex? How is our connection impacted when we say no to sex?
What expectations, assumptions, or fears may I have when it comes to sex and the way my partner and I are interacting around sex? When I don’t hear the underlying fears and feelings of my partner, how do I fill in the blank of their motives and feelings?
Are we able to share what we feel, need, and long for in a way each other can hear?
When a couple is able to understand what is happening in their relationship, they can begin to learn to interact with each other in different ways by sharing what they feel and need clearly. For example, rather than saying, “You never want to have sex with me anymore! What’s wrong with you,” a sexual pursuer can reach out and share, “I’m feeling lonely and distant from you. I need to know that you want to be with me and are attracted to me.” A sexual withdrawer may pivot from shutting down and withdrawing from discussions about sex, to saying, “When we talk about sex, I feel inadequate and anxious. I need to know that we’re okay and that I’m accepted as I am.” Being vulnerable with each other and offering reassurance to one another creates meaningful change in the relationship by shifting the negative cycle. Instead of reacting with our protective shields, we’re slowing down, connecting with feelings and fears, reaching out in vulnerability, and being met with the response we truly need. When we’re able to understand how our protective responses exacerbate sexual disconnection and instead reach out and respond to each other, we’re creating emotional safety with each other (a valuable skill, no matter what we’re addressing in the relationship).
For many partners, it can be difficult to articulate the cycle and organize their experience on their own. If this is you, it may be helpful to seek the support of a therapist who uses EFT for couples to help you understand your negative cycle, your feelings underlying the cycle, and your true needs. A therapist can then help you in session begin to shift the cycle and establish a safe connection when it comes to sex.
Do you find these tips on intimacy and sex for couples helpful? Are you curious about how else we might be able to help? While each person’s relationship is unique, there is always hope for repair. To find out if treatment at The Haven is right for you, contact us for a free phone consultation. Our team of counselors are licensed, experienced, and specifically trained in healing relationships and as well as treating betrayal, trauma, and addiction.
About the Author
Kirstin Franklin is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associate and a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional. Kirstin helps clients examine relational patterns, get in touch with their needs, and express those needs in vulnerability during the healing process.