Give and Take: Mutual caring among partners

Give and Take: Mutual Caring Among Partners

Healthy relationships are based on mutual caring. Whether it's
friendship or marriage, there has to be giving and receiving. We reach
out to friends who could use support, make an effort to understand what
they need and often go out of our way to give them what we sense they
need. We know that is how to proceed.

But often enough we don't do that with our closest partners. And we
rarely do it when the subject is sex.

We know to be mutually caring when it comes to making decisions
about parenting, or about where to live, or whether there's going to be
one or two careers or who does what around the house

"But noticeably missing from that mix are one's feelings about
sexuality," contends marital therapist Michele Weiner-Davis, author of
The Sex-Starved Marriage. It's as if sex is in a category by itself, when
it is a very fundamental part of marriage. Often enough, the sexual
intimacies of a marriage are reflected in the emotional intimacies of the
relationship.

Weiner-Davis contends that it's critical for there to be some sort
of mutuality in how couples handle sexual issues. But instead what
usually happens is that for assorted reasons one partner has lower desire
than another. And that person controls the terms of the sexual
relationship. It's the lowest common denominator thing; that's what both
parties get reduced to.

What typically happens is the more emotionally oriented person
waits for the other spouse to invest emotionally before they invest
emotionally, and the more sexual person waits for the other spouse to
invest sexually before they invest. And that's a deadly wait, says
Weiner-Davis.

Yet, fidelity is expected. "The implicit agreement that most
couples have is something like this: 'I don't need to care about your
sexual needs, but I still expect you to be monogamous, and I expect you
not to complain about it.'" It's unfair and it's unworkable, says
Weiner-Davis, who is based in Woodstock, Illinois, outside of
Chicago.

And another thing. We rarely give our partner what he or she really
needs. We think we're giving, but we're not. When we give, we give
selfishly, looking out for our own needs. We "give" them what turns us
on, not what turns them on.

People tend to give to one another the way they like to receive,
but that's not real giving, says Weiner-Davis. Mutual caring involves
giving to your spouse in ways that your spouse wants and needs. "You
don't have to understand it, you don't have to like it, you don't have to
agree with it, you just have to do it, because that's what a real caring
and loving relationship is all about."

The Illinois therapist urges couple to take what she calls The
Great American Sex Challenge. Essentially, it goes like this: If your
spouse is irritable, angry, critical, retreating to a cave, or in any way
nonparticipatory, take action. For the next two weeks, whether you feel
like it or not, pay more attention to your sexual relationship. That
means

o initiate sex more often

o get out of your sweatpants and put on something more
attractive

o say sexy things, make a sexy, breathy phone call

o leave something with sexual innuendoes around the house where the
kids can't see it

Do this for two weeks, and Weiner-Davis personally guarantees that
you will see a change in your marriage. For the better.