Advice: Should I see a sex therapist? I don’t know how to satisfy my wife

In a relationship that lasts more than a few months, or even years, sex can stop being the glue that sticks you together. Photo / 123rf

Dear Rachel,

I would like to see a sex therapist because I am not “letting go” with my partner sexually. I know I can be passionate and get out of my head in bed, but I’m feeling lost and isolated – as is my partner. I’m so amazed she has stayed with me, but I am stuck and want to make her happy and fulfilled in bed.

At the moment, our sex life has stopped as I cannot bring her to orgasm and we are both stuck. We love each other dearly and I really don’t know where to turn. If there is a list of sex therapists available so I can reach out, this would be really helpful – thanks. I live in the Bournemouth area but I guess nowadays with Zoom the location is less important. Thanks so much.

– Jim

Dear Jim,

This is such an interesting question, and must be the bread and butter of psychosexual therapists. As you say, you’re in a rut. It’s not a drought (you can both have sex if you desire to, even if it’s unsatisfying) but it’s gone off the boil and you’re blaming yourself for the fact that when you make love, she knows what’s coming next – and it’s not her.

I’m sure many couples will relate to your letter on a deep level. Let’s face it: in a relationship that lasts more than a few months, or even years, sex can stop being the glue that sticks you together. As the decades pass, it can stop being the solvent that sunders you apart, too.

To your great credit (you don’t say how long you’ve been together), you have acknowledged the problem and want to tackle it. Or you want your partner to, it’s not clear. Whatever, you want to get your sex life done, as if it’s Brexit, or smashing the gangs. It may be more complicated than that. Or, indeed, more simple. It could be that you’re just not that into each other. As I’ve said before, there is nothing so capricious as Cupid. We can have fantastic sex with people we despise and terrible sex with people we adore. Chemistry, innit. This is where, I suppose, stimulants and sex toys can play a role to bridge the animal attraction gap.

I’ve deployed the experts to answer, and useful websites are at the end. Sophie Laybourne, a relationship therapist, says: “An unsatisfying sexual experience is the best predictor of future unsatisfying ones, unless you take stock – because fearing that things will go wrong generally becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in this particular department.” She suggests that old favourite – self-focus exercises: cuddling, soapy showers, stroking. “They might then move on to graded sensate focus exercises, where penetrative sex is initially taken off the table and the hectic pursuit of orgasm replaced by no-pressure touching and stroking of different parts of the body,” she says.

Sexual desire in the female is not “uni-directional”, and can be turned off by small things. Dirty sheets, even a bad haircut, can send a woman toppling backwards down the old “Ladder of Desire”. To make sure you’re on the same rung, you need to communicate. It’s not always a simple case of, “Go and brush your teeth, darling”; it’s to do with accelerators and brakes too, she says. Accelerators can be a quiet dinner together where you ask her questions, laugh at her jokes, and listen. A brake is expecting her to be up for it when your mother-in-law is staying, children apt to break in at any moment and the dog barking. You know.

Laybourne explains: “Most women, as [American sex educator Emily] Nagoski points out, experience what’s known as ‘responsive desire’, which means that they are not like three-day eventers waiting for the off but more likely to experience desire in response to something like, say, a fun night out with a man who asks them lots of questions about themselves and displays a side-splitting sense of humour.”

It was the turn of the married therapists David and Ruth Kern next. “The role of a sex therapist is to understand and work through various areas of a couple’s life, to pinpoint where the block is and then help the couple work through this – often with the use of exercises, although this is not effective without the deeper psychological work first,” they say.

“Before any real work can start, it’s important to rule out any underlying medical/biological problems that may affect sexual connections. If there are no underlying issues, then there is a need to look at and understand the psychological aspect to this problem” – stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and, of course, loss of attraction. They dig deeper, too. This blockage could track back to your childhood, which is father to your adult attitudes to sex and relationships.

“A lot of psychological blockages to sexual connection can be due to loss of control: during orgasm, the body and mind have to completely let go to achieve climax. Losing control can be scary and feel vulnerable, thus ‘not letting go’. It’s understanding the deeper reasons for this that may include negative reinforcement of sex and relationships as a child; sexual abuse in any form; over-smothering from mother as a child; your personal space not being respected, which can lead to intimacy issues later on; or being raised in a family system where you felt unheard, unseen and not given choices.”

Ah, the traditional, old-fashioned childhood, then, could be to blame for your shared experience of repression now, and the tendency of many to lie back and think of England for as long as it takes.

The Kerns go on: “With Jim and his partner, it will be good to work through the above points to see if some of their issues lie in those areas. This is about both of them and how they relate to each other sexually; unless there is a medical issue, both partners have a role in why their relationship is where it is. One thing that we do advise is to take sex off the table completely for a month or so. This takes the pressure off and gives some breathing room to talk and discuss what the underlying issues may be for them both.”

Back to me. You say you love each other dearly. Have you ever talked about this issue, or is it too painful to acknowledge that you don’t click in bed? My instinct is that it is something you can’t change – love and sex not always being on the same page – but if you do love each other and want to stay together, that may be more important in the long run than the earth moving every time for you both.

Oh yes, websites: to find a therapist working in your area, visit the College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists’ site: cosrt.org.uk. If face-to-face is not important, try eastlondonrelationshiptherapy.co.uk for a psychosexual therapist to work with online. Thank you for your letter, Jim – you sound nice and, most importantly, kind.