Relationships: "I Love My Partner, But I'm Not In Love With My Partner"

A common issue that comes up in individual and couples therapy is that one or both people in a relationship feel they love their partner but they're not in love with their partner (see my article: How to Develop Your Relationship Beyond the Honeymoon Phase).

"I Love My Partner, But I'm Not in Love With My Partner"

Many people will say they were once in love with their partner, but they no longer feel that way. They worry about what this means for them as individuals and for the stability of the relationship.

Transitioning From In Love to Mature Love

As I have discussed in prior articles, relationships often start with that heady, passionate, in love feeling, known as the limerence, which lasts anywhere from a few months to a couple of years (see my article: What Are the 3 Stages of Limerence?).

"I Love My Partner, But I'm Not in Love With My Partner"

After that, as the couple deepen their emotional connection, those initial feelings usually transition into mature love.

This is the time when the couple deepen their communication, develop emotional honesty and mutual respect for one another to build a lasting connection that includes emotional vulnerability, empathy and a commitment to personal growth as well as the growth of the relationship.

• Moving Beyond Infatuation: During the initial stage of a relationship, you might feel intense romantic and sexual feelings. You might even have a sense of being swept away.

"I Love My Partner, But I'm Not in Love With My Partner"

• Evolving Connection: As the heady feelings subside, if the relationship is going well, you both focus on understanding each other's wants, needs and values.

• Developing Open and Honest Communication With Empathy: If the relationship is going well, you both feel comfortable enough to share your thoughts and feelings with a lack of judgment and a sense of vulnerability. This helps you both to develop emotional intimacy and trust, which is essential to a strong relationship.

• Learning to Adapt: Transitioning from the heady in love phase to a relationship with a deeper connection requires patience, flexibility and a willingness to adapt to changes in the relationship.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette illustrates the challenges of transitioning from the passionate "in love" phase of a relationship to a more mature loving relationship. It also illustrates how couples therapy can help. As always, this case is a composite of many different cases with all information changed to protect confidentiality.

Sue and John

Five years into their marriage, John began to worry about his feelings for Sue. He knew he loved her, but he no longer felt in love with her the way he used to feel when they were together the first two years.

For a while, he didn't know how to talk to Sue about this because he didn't want to hurt her feelings, so he avoided it. Instead, he began spending more time on his own at night and he waited for Sue to fall asleep before he went to bed.

After a year had passed and they stopped having sex, Sue asked John if there was anything wrong. Initially, John told her that there was nothing wrong. He made up excuses about being too tired and stressed out to explain his lack of sexual desire. But after they went on a romantic vacation to the Caribbean and John still didn't want to have sex, Sue knew there was something wrong.

"I Love My Partner, But I'm Not in Love With My Partner"

After Sue insisted on knowing what was troubling him, John admitted reluctantly that he loved her but he wasn't in love with her.  

At first, Sue was very upset. She accepted that her own initial passionate feelings had changed to a more mature way of loving. But she was afraid that since he was struggling with his feelings, this meant he was going to leave her. In response, John told her he wasn't sure what it meant, so he suggested they seek help.

Their couples therapist was also a sex therapist. She normalized their situation. She said most relationships go through this transition after a while and they could both learn to adapt.

She helped them to develop a deeper emotional connection with each other by helping them to develop new relationship skills for this phase of the relationship. Specifically, they found ways to communicate in an open and honest way, to share new interests, and to rekindle their sex life.

Over time, they both began to enjoy this phase of their relationship. They realized that, even though it might not be as "exciting" as it had been before, what they had together was so much more than just excitement and passion. They had a deeper connection that continued to develop.

Conclusion

The heady and passionate in love phase doesn't last forever in most relationships.

Once couples learn to appreciate the mature love that has developed over time, most of them wouldn't trade that for all the sexual and romantic excitement they felt during the early phase of their relationship.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

Many couples need help to transition to the mature phase of love.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help in couples/sex therapy.

A skilled couples therapist can help you to have a more loving and fulfilling relationship.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (couples therapy), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience working with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Relationships: Are You Confusing Drama For Love?

I began a discussion about this topic in my prior article,  How to Stop the Drama in Your Relationship.

Confusing Drama For Love

In the current article, I'm focusing on the topic of confusing drama with love.

What is Drama in a Relationship?

Here are some of the concepts from my prior article:

Drama in a relationship refers to unnecessary conflict, emotional manipulation or the creation of problems (where they don't really exist) to get attention or control the relationship including:

• Attention Seeking: Some individuals in a relationship create drama in an effort to feel validated by their partner--often at the partner's emotional expense.

• Poor Communication Skills: When one or both people lack good communication skills, they can struggle to express their emotional needs or resolve conflict in a healthy way.

Confusing Drama For Love

• Unrealistic Expectations: When partners don't have realistic expectations of each other, this can lead to drama, especially if they don't know how to communicate well (see my article: Are You and Your Partner on the Same Wavelength About Your Relationship?).

• Projecting Emotional Pain: Partners can project their own emotional pain onto each other which usually leads to conflict.

• Past Unresolved Psychological Trauma: Partners can unconsciously project their unresolved trauma from the past onto their current relationship (see my article: How Unresolved Trauma Can Affect Your Relationship).

How to Distinguish Love From Drama in a Relationship

The following suggestions can help you to distinguish love from drama:

• A Loving Relationship Tends to Be Stable: All relationships have their ups and downs, but a mature loving relationship tends to be stable and consistent with mutual respect and not with constant drama and conflict.

Confusing Drama For Love

• A Healthy Relationship Tends to Be Secure: You experience a sense of security in a loving relationship--not anxiety or fear.

• A Loving Relationship is Reciprocal: A secure relationship has mutual care, respect and support. It does not involve one-sided drama, attention seeking and constant upheaval. It's also not transactional (see my article: What Are Transactional Relationships?).

• Self Love is Essential: In healthy relationships each person experiences self love which is different from codependency or the need for constant validation.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette illustrates how someone can confuse drama for love:

Jane

When Jane met Tom, she felt instantly drawn to him.  She liked that he was quirky and he introduced her to his taste in art, music and culture which was so different from what her own experience.

Although their relationship was fun at the beginning, over time, Jane began to wonder about the relationship as she noticed certain of Tom's unstable behavior patterns.

He would text her constantly for days and then he would be unreachable for a week or more. In addition, he might show up at her apartment at 2 AM because he would say that he missed her so much and couldn't wait to see her, but then he would ignore her for days at a time.

When they began arguing about his behavior, Tom would tell her that they had a loving, passionate relationship which was why they had so many arguments, but Jane felt increasingly unhappy with their dynamic so she sought help in therapy.

Confusing Drama For Love

Jane told her therapist that she wondered if Tom was right: Did they have so many arguments because they had a passionate loving relationship or was there a problem?  She felt confused because this was her first committed relationship.

As Jane talked about her relationship with Tom in her therapy, she began to realize that she didn't like feeling so insecure in their relationship. She also realized their relationship tended to be on Tom's terms and when he didn't get his way, he would sulk and withdraw emotionally.

After a while, Jane came to the conclusion in her therapy that she didn't like being in such an  unstable relationship. She enjoyed their fun times together, but their fun times didn't make up for the instability and the one-sided nature of the relationship.  

She also became aware that she had confused the drama for love, but she realized that love and drama are two different things.

Confusing Drama For Love

Soon after that, Jane ended her relationship with Tom and she began seeing Bill. A few months into her relationship with Bill, she realized her new relationship was much more secure, reciprocal and stable. Although it might have lacked some of the excitement she felt with Tom, Jane knew her relationship with Bill was a relationship that could grow and flourish.

Conclusion

During the early stage of a relationship drama and chaos might seem fun and exciting, but it shouldn't be confused with love.

When a relationship is based on drama, it's difficult, if not impossible, to build the necessary a foundation for the relationship to grow.

When you can make the distinction between love and drama, you can decide if you want to remain in a relationship that's based on drama or you want a more solid, stable relationship.

Get Help in Therapy

Relationships based on drama can be challenging to get out of--even when you realize that it's the drama that's keeping you together and not love.

Get Help in Therapy

A skilled mental health professional can help you to discover why you might be hooked into an unstable and unhealthy relationship.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who has the expertise you need so you can lead a more meaningful life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience helping individual adults and couples with a variety of issues.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

 

Based on Sex Research: What Gets Women Turned On?

According to a February 2019 article in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, women get sexually turned on by three specific factors: emotional intimacy, experiencing their partner as being separate from themselves and, most importantly, being viewed as attractive and sexually desirable by their partner. I will unpack these concepts briefly in this blog article (see my articles: Sexual Pleasure and the Erotic Self - Part 1 and Part 2).

Sex Research: What Gets Women Turned On?

A group of sex researchers led by Sofia Prekatsounaki, M.S., surveyed over 600 women who were in serious or casual relationships and found that the following three factors increased sexual desire in women:

Intimacy:

Women in the survey reported that intimacy, which is a close and deep emotional connection with another person, is an important aspect with regard to women's sexual desire.  

Whereas men usually need sex as a way to connect emotionally, women often need emotional connection to connect emotionally (see my article: Whereas Women Usually Need Emotional Connection to Connect Sexually, Men Often Need Sex to Connect Emotionally).

Emotional Intimacy Turns On Most Women

Celebrated Otherness: Experiencing Yourself as Separate From Your Partner

Aside from the findings based on this research study, Dr. Esther Perel, sex and couples therapist, who wrote Mating in Captivity: How to Keep Desire and Passion Alive in Long Term Relationships, sexual desire thrives on otherness or separateness, which allows for the space between the self and the other.  

This space allows for the unknown, the novel, the unexpected, surprise and risk.  Dr. Perel posits that love and desire aren't always driven by the same things.  

The factors that drive love and desire are the opposite for many people.  While love is driven by commitment, intimacy and egalitarianism, sexual desire is driven by mystery, distance, risk and playfulness.

What Gets Women Turned On?

In addition, the sex researchers for this study found that there was a particular type of "otherness" that was important with regard to sexual desire.  

This otherness was the opposite of fusion of two people in a relationship.  It is not the kind of otherness that results in unrequited love or other forms of disconnection or alienation.  

This otherness emphasizes the autonomy of each person in the relationship as well as an investment in each other.

Object-of-Desire Affirmation: Feeling Attractive and Desirable

This was the most significant factor for women in terms of feeling sexually desirable.  Object-of-desire affirmation means being viewed as attractive and desirable by another person.  

Feeling Attractive and Sexually Desirable

According to the researchers, women often assume an erotic self-focus (instead of a relational self focus) during sexual activities.  

Feeling good about themselves and their bodies is an important element in women's sexual desire and satisfaction.  In addition to feeling good about themseleves, the external validation from a partner is an important factor.

Sex researchers have discovered that when women have sexual fantasies, they tend to be self focused.  

Based on this and other related research, this self focus is more important in terms of getting turned on than who they are fantasizing about.  

They can fantasize about strangers or even faceless individuals as long as they feel they are being perceived by the partner as being sexually desirable and attractive.

The Three Factors Combined: Intimacy, Separateness and Feeling Attractive and Desirable

The researchers revealed that all three factors were important to the women in the study.  They posited that emotional intimacy provides enough trust and safety for feeling like an autonomous sexual being.  This is enhanced by feeling attractive and sexually desirable by a partner.

Increasing Sexual Pleasure

According to Dr. Perel, the imagination if the most important factor for enhancing eroticism.  This includes sexual fantasies.

See my articles:

• Women's Sexual Self Discovery
• What Are Your Core Erotic Themes?
• The 7 Core Sexual Fantasies
• Exploring and Normalizing Sexual Fantasies Without Guilt or Shame
• Are You Too Ashamed to Share Your Sexual Fantasies With Your Partner?
• Destigmatizing Sexual Fantasies of Power and Submission
• Enhancing Sexual Motivation With Psychological Stimulation

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I am a sex positive therapist who works with individual adults and people in relationships (see my article: What is Sex Therapy?).

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624  during business hours or email me.

  

Understanding Why You Choose Emotionally Unavailable People

I have been focusing on topics from Dr. Jack Morin's book, The Erotic Mind: Unlocking the Inner Sources of Passion and Fulfillment in my last several articles.  In today's article I'm focusing specifically on why some people choose partners who are emotionally unavailable based on concepts outlined in this book (see my article: What Are Your Core Erotic Themes?, which contains links to all the prior related articles).

Understanding Why You Choose Emotionally Unavailable People

Eroticized Longing

In Chapter 6 of his book, "When Turn-Ons Turn Against You," Dr. Morin discusses eroticized longing where people are attracted to partners who are unavailable or only partially or inconsistently available.  According to Dr. Morin, people who experience erotcized longing often discover that it is a central part of their eroticism.  

These are people who usually need the passion, excitement, storminess and uncertainty based on being involved with an unavailable (or partially available) partner.  These relationships can be passionate but, ultimately, they aren't fulfilling for people who want a long term commitment.  

These relationships often include a partner who is:

• married or in a long term relationship with someone else
• unable to make an exclusive commitment
• ambivalent
• vague about the future or eludes to a future but cannot be pinned down about the specifics
• vacillates between being open and being avoidant

And so on.

People who have a pattern of getting involved with emotionally unavailable partners often say that they are bored with people who are interested in them and willing to make a commitment.  

They don't feel the same level of excitement if they're not yearning and feeling off balance with their partner.  So, they get involved in one relationship after another that doesn't give them what they want or they get it sometimes but only intermittently. 

Even though these people say they want to be with someone who can make a commitment, they feel their only options are to either pursue a relationship that will ultimately fail because their partner can't commit to them or they have to be with someone where they don't feel the same sexual excitement. This is an awful dilemma.

Understanding the Psychological Roots of Eroticized Longing

The attraction to unavailable people is usually unconscious.  Adding to this complication, people who are emotionally unavailable often don't present themselves in that way.  

In Dr. Morin's book he gives a clinical example of a client named Maggie, who was involved in a succession of relationships with men who were emotionally unavailable. 

Prior to coming to therapy, her last relationship was with a married man who kept telling her he was unhappy emotionally and sexually in his marriage.  

Based on what he was telling her, Maggie believed he would eventually leave his wife to be with her. He seemed like he would rather be with her.  But whenever he had to choose who he would spend a holiday with, he chose his wife.  

After years of feeling hurt and emotionally abandoned, Maggie chose to leave that relationship.  But even after she left, she was still obsessed with this man.  She would call his house to hear his voice or park her car outside his home to get a glimpse of him.

The pattern with these succession of men was that they were capable of being warm and loving towards her at times, but they couldn't sustain it consistently.  Whenever they would give her what she wanted emotionally, she was happy.  But, inevitably, she was disappointed when these men became avoidant and emotionally unavailable again.

This is a typical pattern in these relationships:  The partner who is basically unavailable is available enough to provide their partner with intermittent reinforcement.  Each time the person who is yearning gets what they want, they hope their partner will finally be able to sustain the love and warmth, but they are continually disappointed.  

In other words, there is just enough of what they want to keep them hooked into the relationship, but it's never sustained over time and they are disappointed over and over again.

In Maggie's case, Dr. Morin explains that, on the surface, there seemed to be no logical explanation as to why Maggie couldn't find a man who would love her and be committed to her:  She was attractive, intelligent, kind and she had a lot to offer a committed partner.

Maggie explained to Dr. Morin that, over time, many men, who were stable and dependable, pursued her and they wanted to make a commitment to her.  But she was bored by these men.  Eventually, these men entered into other relationships with women who wanted to be with them.

Her unstable relationships had several things in common. These men were:

• adventurous in their everyday life as well as sexually
• somewhat rebellious 
• playful and spontaneous 
• unreliable in terms of showing up for dates, calling her or remembering special dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc)
• unable to make a long term commitment 

They also had an emotional vulnerability at times that intrigued Maggie--giving her the feeling that they needed her.  

Their rebelliousness was the opposite of Maggie, who considered herself to be "a good girl" who was responsible and reliable.  Although she admired their rebelliousness, especially since it was a quality she didn't have, she was continually disappointed by these partners.  

Maggie also had difficulty focusing on herself in her therapy.  She focused on the emotionally unavailable man she was seeing at the time and attempted to analyze him, but she had difficulty looking at herself.  

At one point in her therapy, she said she believed if her current partner could just overcome his problems, they could be happy together.  She told her therapist she believed if she could just win him over, she would feel loved.

When her therapist asked Maggie what she thought it would be like if her boyfriend didn't need to be won over (if he just loved her), she admitted that she didn't think she could handle that.

As Maggie and her therapist explored her childhood home, at first, Maggie described an ideal family.  However, after a while, she admitted to her therapist that her father was often away and when he was at home, he was aloof with both her and her mother.  She also indicated that her mother was overwhelmed by responsibilities, sad and deeply unhappy with her marriage.  

Apparently, her mother suspected Maggie's father of having an extramarital affair, but she never confronted him about it.  Instead, she suffered in silence.  

So this was the relationship template that Maggie grew up with as a child.  Throughout her adolescence, she read books about delayed romantic fulfillment.  

She also realized in therapy that her relationships with unavailable men all had a persistent undercurrent of grief and loss as she was emotionally abandoned over and over again by these men.  

One of the keys to understanding these types of relationships and why Maggie and others continually get involved in them is that during the intermittent times when these men do provide Maggie with what she wants, she experienced excitement and passion.  

In Maggie's case, she was repeating her experiences with each of her parents.  Her father was emotionally cold and unavailable to her, and she also had a strong identification with her sad, long suffering mother, who suffered in silence.

Fortunately, many people, who are drawn to emotionally unavailable partners, eventually get tired of being continuously disappointed and this motivates them to change.  But others spend their lives in these hurtful relationships.  And many others just give up on relationships altogether.

Choosing Healthier Partners

In Dr. Morin's book, he outlines 7 Steps to change these patterns so that eroticized longing related to emotionally unavailable people are no longer erotic turn ons, which I summarize briefly below and add in italics my specific recommendations:

• Clarify Your Goals and Motivations: Get clear on what you want in a relationship. If you want someone who is emotionally available and able to make a commitment to you, make that your goal.  Erotic turn ons can change over time so that people who are emotionally unavailable on a consistent basis no longer seem exciting.  Instead, they seem boring, emotionally limited and immature.  

• Cultivate Self Affirmation: It's important for you to believe that you deserve to be with someone who loves and respects you and who can be there for you emotionally on a consistent basis. You need to be able to put yourself first.  While you're working on this, rather than criticizing yourself, be compassionate and recognize that these erotic patterns were formed early in your life.

• Navigate the Gray Zone:  The gray zone occurs when you're in the midst of change. You're no longer where you once were in terms of being attracted to emotionally unavailable people, but you haven't arrived to where you want to be in terms of making healthier relationship choices.  When you're in the gray zone, you might feel lost and confused.  It's a matter of tolerating the ambiguity of this stage until your path becomes clearer.  Gradually, your attractions to unavailable people can change, especially if you understand the psychological underpinnings to your longing, which is rooted in your earliest relationships as a child.  Sometimes when you're in the gray zone, you might choose to refrain from dating for a while until you get clear about what is driving these unhealthy attractions and you learn to turn away from them.  After a while, as you examine your eroticized longings for unavailable people, you will probably discover that these longings include fear, hatred, sadness and shame.  Once you experience these emotions, your experience of them can motivate you to steer clear of emotionally unavailable people because you know, on an emotional level, that these relationships are fraught with emotional pain.

• Acknowledge and Mourn Your Losses: Grieving the loss is part of the healing.  Once you see that your attraction to unavailable people is linked to traumatic memories, you can mourn these losses and, importantly, work through the early trauma.  

• Come to Your Senses: Attractions to unavailable people often involve a disconnection between your mind and your body (My Note: Reconnection is possible through experiential therapy that is rooted in the mind-body connection).  

• Risk the Unfamiliar: Insight into your problems isn't enough.  While insight is important, it's not enough to help you make a big change in the emotionally unhealthy attractions you feel.  (My Note: Change occurs when the mind and the body are in synch, which occurs in experiential therapy, see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Talk Therapy).

• Integrate Your Discoveries: Changing the people you are attracted to isn't easy.  Along the way, you will probably experience setbacks.  Working with a skilled psychotherapist who helps you through this transition can make a big difference in terms of successfully navigating through the changes and making them last.

Getting Help in Therapy

Although changing your sexual attraction to emotionally unavailable people can be daunting, many people have successfully navigated this change in therapy.

Rather than remaining stuck in relationships that are unfulfilling and hurtful in the long run, get help from a skilled psychotherapist who can help you to make a lasting change.

About Me

I am a New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

What Are Your Core Erotic Themes?

The concept of Core Erotic Themes was developed by sex therapist and researcher, Dr. Jack Morin and discussed in his book, The Erotic Mind: Unlocking the Inner Sources of Passion and Fulfillment.

Core Erotic Themes

See My Related Articles:

What is Eroticism?

Discovering Your Peak Sexual Experiences

The Erotic Equation: Attraction + Obstacles = Sexual Excitement

The Four Cornerstones of Eroticism

A Cornerstone of Eroticism: Longing and Anticipation

A Cornerstone of Eroticism: Violating Prohibitions By Breaking the Rules

A Cornerstone of Eroticism: Searching For Power

A Cornerstone of Eroticism: Overcoming Ambivalence

Anger as an Emotional Aphrodisiac

Anxiety as an Emotional Aphrodisiac

Guilt as an Emotional Aphrodisiac

What Are Core Erotic Themes?

According to Dr. Morin, each person has three categories of sex scripts (see my articles: Understanding Your Sex Script, Changing Your Sex Script and Changing Your Sex Script: Understanding Your Sexual Motivation)

• Cultural scripts: The culture you grew up in
• Interpersonal scripts: Between you and another person or persons
• Intrapsychic scripts: Within your mind

    Intrapsychic Sex Scripts

Of the three types of sex scripts, the intrapsychic script is the most idiosyncratic.  This script is made up of challenging life experiences beginning from early childhood.  Since each person is different, there are an infinite number of intrapsychic sex scripts.

Dr. Morin wanted to find the connecting threads between sex scripts, so he came up with another term from drama: Themes.

Dr. Morin distinguishes sex scripts from erotic themes by comparing them to scripts and themes seen on a TV program.  

For instance, on the popular detective program, "Columbo," which can still be seen in reruns, the theme of the show is that the viewer gets to see who committed the crime in each episode and then gets to see how Detective Columbo goes about solving the crime.  Although the theme doesn't vary, the script varies with each episode.

Whereas scripts are detailed, themes can be summarized in a sentence or two.  

In addition, although most people are capable of having many intrapsychic sex scripts, they usually only have a few erotic themes.

Core Erotic Themes

Dr. Morin defines the Core Erotic Theme (CET) from each person's peak erotic experiences. As the name implies, these are sexual experiences which are the most arousing, the ones that stand out in your mind as being the most exciting and sexually satisfying.

Your CET links your current peak sexual experiences with crucial challenges and difficulties from your childhood and adolescence.

According to Dr. Morin, although the link between CETs and unresolved challenges from your childhood might seem counterintuitive, in order to understand your erotic mind, you need to know that "high states of arousal flow from the tension between persistent problems and triumphant solutions."

Even though you don't need to know your CETs to enjoy sex, if you take the time to understand them, you can develop a greater ability to understand and influence your sexual choices.

Examples of Core Erotic Themes (CET)

In order to understand CETs, the vignettes below, which have common CETs experienced by millions of people, illustrate the connecting thread between the CETs and the challenging childhood experiences of these two individuals, Laura and Ted (the names and characters in these vignettes are fictional):

A Core Erotic Theme: Being the Object of Pursuit:  

Laura

When Laura was growing up, she was told by her mother countless times that she was "the smart one" and her older sister, Ellen, was "the pretty one." 

She grew up being resentful towards Ellen because she wanted to be "the pretty one."  

Feeling inferior to her sister, Laura tried to get boys' attention by being flirty and coy when she was a teenager.  She wanted these boys to pursue her so she could feel attractive and desirable. But she was usually disappointed to see that the boys she liked were more attracted to her sister.  This confirmed for Laura that she less attractive and inferior to her sister.

Even when she got older and she got more attention from young men, Laura never felt quite secure unless a young man pursued her persistently to show that he was really interested.  

Even after she was happily married, Laura's peak sexual turn-on was when her husband, Joe, initiated sex.  When her husband took his time to seduce her and initiate sex, she felt sexually desirable and it made sex much more pleasurable.

Laura's favorite sexual fantasy was doing a role play with Joe where Laura was a high-priced escort. As a much sought after escort, she could choose among hundreds of men, who wanted her for her beauty, sensuality and charm (see my article: The 7 Core Sexual Fantasies).

Joe would take on the roles of the different men who pursued her hoping to be chosen.  Each of these men would try to persuade her with money, extravagant gifts and compliments to her beauty hoping to gain her favor.  

Laura felt like a queen who could either bestow her attention on these men, if she chose to, or dismiss them without a second glance.

As part of the role play, when Laura chose one of her admirers, she told him that, even though he was paying her, he would have to do what she wanted sexually.  In response, Joe, played the all-too-willing pursuer who would do whatever Laura wanted.

    Analysis of Being the Object of Pursuit: Note that this fantasy is not only sexually satisfying for Laura, it is also psychologically and emotionally healing because it allows her to feel attractive and sexually desirable after years of growing up feeling unattractive compared to her sister.  Even though Laura knew Joe found her attractive in real life, she got to experience herself as being wildly attractive to hundreds of men in this fantasy--so much so that she was now the one who would choose them and they would do whatever she wanted. This was in stark contrast to her childhood experience of her mother telling her that her sister was "the pretty one" and her teenager experiences when she felt rejected by men who preferred her sister.

A Core Erotic Theme: Being the Catalyst For Turning On a Shy, Ambivalent Woman: 

Ted

Ted grew up as in a strict, conservative household where everyone placed his father's happiness and well-being above everyone one and everything else.  As a result, Ted learned to be a people pleaser (see my article: Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families and People Pleasing).

When his friends began dating in high school, Ted was still too shy to speak to girls. His first sexual experience was in college with Dee, a young woman his friends set him up with at a party.  

Dee was sexually experienced. She was attracted to Ted, but she realized, based on Ted's awkwardness, that he never had sex before.  When she saw how shy he was, Dee took the initiative to lead him to one of the empty bedrooms at the party where she proceeded to kiss and fondle him.  

Ted got so nervous that he ejaculated before Dee finished taking off his shirt.  Ted felt so humiliated that, despite Dee's kindness and patience, he rushed back to his dorm and avoided Dee and his friends for days.

As Ted matured, he had better sexual experiences with women over time, but he continued to feel insecure throughout his early 20s.  

To cover up his insecurity, he once tried to imitate other young men's behavior by posing as a  "player" or "womanizer" (see my article: Understanding the Emotional Dynamics of Men Who Identify Themselves as "Players".  But he didn't feel good about himself when he gave women pickup lines and tried to manipulate them into having sex with him, so he stopped after that one time.

When he was in his late 20s, he met Sheena at a local bookstore.  Sheena came across as shy and quiet.  Initially, she was ambivalent about having sex. But Ted was patient and he soon discovered that, underneath her shyness, Sheena could be very passionate when she was turned on.  

Although he was no longer a people pleaser like he had been as a child, Ted loved taking his time to please Sheena sexually.  He especially loved seeing her transform from being a shy, sexually reticent woman into to passionate and sexy woman--especially knowing that he was the catalyst for her transformation.  

This experience changed how he felt about himself. His sexual fantasies about being Sheena's catalyst became a part of his Core Erotic Theme. In those fantasies he imagined being the catalyst for shy, reticent women. 

    Analysis of Being the Catalyst For Turning On a Shy, Ambivalent Woman: Note how being in this role served Ted in terms of his history of being shy and feeling sexually inadequate.  Before he met Sheena, Ted carried that young shy boy inside him even after he was an adult. But when he met Sheena and he watched her transform before his eyes from being shy and ambivalent to being on fire, he experienced himself as a man who could turn women on.  So, this experience was transformative and healing for Ted, and it became part of his Core Erotic Theme.  This is a common theme for many men--the fantasy of turning a prim and proper woman into passionate woman consumed with desire.

Getting Help in Therapy

Struggling with unresolved problems on your own can be frustrating.  It can also keep you feeling stuck.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional.

Overcoming unresolved problems will allow you to live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I am a sex positive therapist who works with individual adults and couples (see my article: What is Sex Therapy?).

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.