What do you do when you don't feel like you're good enough in bed for your partner? Photo / 123RF
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Hi there, I need your help. My partner of 6 years just brought me a vibrator for Christmas and it was a real turn off. He keeps asking when we are going to use it and I keep making excuses as I don’t want to hurt his feelings, he was only trying to help. I have become less keen over the last few years to have sex and am finding it harder to orgasm. It started after I felt pressure from him a while back to be more adventurous in bed, he started to ask if I wanted to watch porn with him and he tried to get me to go to a burlesque workshop to learn to dance for him. I started to feel like I was not good enough in bed for him and he has sort of implied that he finds our sex life boring. I starting to feel like I am the problem. What do I do about the vibrator situation? Alicia
Dear Alicia,
Partnered sex is a team activity and functions best if both parties work together to design a sex life that is mutually satisfying. It sounds like your relationship took a wrong turn when your partner did not talk with you about what was going on for him and instead started making indirect suggestions to change you. This happens a lot in relationships and never ends well.
Sadly, it seems like you are buying into his blaming of you. Rather than challenging him to talk about himself and what is happening for him, you have gone along with the focus on you. This is very common in heterosexual relationships and reflects the ways so much of our thinking and talk about sex is oriented around unquestioned acceptance of a man’s view as “normal” – so any difference from what a man wants is wrong.
So, forget about vibrators for a moment; the bigger issue here is that it appears you have ended up being positioned as “the problem” in your sex life – “not good enough” and “boring”. Seeing yourself this way is not going to help anyone feel desire or able to orgasm! No one ever felt much motivation to improve their sex life from a position of feeling not good enough or “the problem”. In his avoidance of responsibility and vulnerability, your partner is making things much worse for both of you.
When he started making suggestions, that was the time to stop and invite him to talk intimately (deeply) about what was going on for him rather than talking what he wanted you to do. You could also have spoken about how you felt about your sex life, the changes you were starting to experience. From there, you could have come up with changes that were equally influenced by your perspective and knowledge.
It’s time to restore your sexual self-esteem and sit with your partner and look at the unproductive no-exit street you have both let the sex life drive down and take a more productive and sexier route. The work of Dr Peggy Kleinplatz and her team exploring what makes for Magnificent Sex emphasises that “relational factors such as feeling connected, vulnerability, authenticity and deep empathy were more salient in optimal sexuality than intense physical sensation, “chemistry”, attraction and desire.
These relational factors can lead to the kind of “spicing up” your sex life that your partner seems to want, but that only works when it comes out of a desire from both of you – a team effort. Then again, the route to hotter sex may not be novelty per se, but rather deepening the relationship through taking emotional risks, being more open and vulnerable with each other, including around how you might prefer to be touched and related-to sexually.
Maybe you have not been that ‘into’ sex with your partner as he is no longer cherishing you in other ways. Has there been a drop-off in loving words and actions? Do you feel important to him? Are you harbouring resentments around emotional or domestic labour? Has he stopped making an effort around non-sexual expressions of intimacy?
Shifting these factors may lead to an increase in sexual desire for your partner, which can increase the charge around sex without adding in any novelty factors. If conflicts and tensions were building up and not getting resolved, this may be affecting your keenness and arousal during sex, too.
How well do you know yourself sexually? You need to start thinking your own thoughts about what works for you. It’s common for women to go along with what pleases their partners. Most find it enjoyable enough for some years but have never really had the opportunity or invitation to find out what works for them sexually. Frequently, what works for them is in a very different direction to what their male partner finds easy or expected, and so is met with resistance. If this has been part of your history, now would be a good time to put that on the table, too!
The two of you having a conversation as equals about what the next stage of your sex life may be about is important. It requires you both to step away from the idea that you are not enough and that your partner’s ideas about novelty are the only solution.
Feeling better about yourself in bed is going to be one definite positive step and then you can look at other factors that will enhance your enjoyment, embodiment and full presence during sex other than porn, sex toys and burlesque. If you want to try any of those from a place of “I am enough”, go for it, but currently, any of those ideas are not likely to work well for you when you are feeling like a problem
If one of the places your own desires or curiosity leads you is to explore what a vibrator or other toy could add to your pleasure, then it’s important that you explore that at your own pace. Sex toys are a very personal item, best purchased with the person going to be pleasured being involved, especially if sexual enhancers/aids have not been used before.
There is a huge range of styles and modes of stimulation that you would be wise to explore in a shop with helpful and knowledgeable staff. Female users often have particular preferences about the type of stimulation that works for them (and what doesn’t), and this is something that can also change over the lifespan (i.e. the style of vibrator you loved 15 years ago is now boring or annoying).
A shopping expedition like this can be a very enjoyable and intimate couple experience, but only if your partner comes along with an attitude to learn about you and your preferences rather than a chance to exercise his fantasies.
Boring or routine sex generally happens because both partners are afraid to speak up about what’s happening inside them around sex. Talking vulnerably and intimately about sex is a challenge for most of us. But until you explore what’s going on for each of you at a deep and intimate level, your attempts at improving your sex life are likely to be stabs in the dark.
Verity & Nic are psychologists and family therapists who have specialised in relationship and sex therapy for more than 25 years. They have been working on their own relationship for more than 40 years and have two adult children.
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