# Sex Therapy - How was it for you?



## Pyramus (Oct 14, 2017)

First post. Hope I'm not breaking any rules by asking this.

Sex therapy is something that my wife and I have spoken about. I really don't know what's involved or how it works but I'll google it and educate myself.

I have 3 questions for any of you who have been to sex therapy and are willing to talk about it......

1. What was the issue in your relationship that made you go for sex therapy?

2. Was the issue resolved?

3. How was it resolved and, if not, why not?

Thanks in advance.


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## Lila (May 30, 2014)

Pyramus said:


> First post. Hope I'm not breaking any rules by asking this.
> 
> Sex therapy is something that my wife and I have spoken about. I really don't know what's involved or how it works but I'll google it and educate myself.
> 
> ...


Sex therapy is psychotherapy (counseling) focused solely on sex. He/she is a specialist in sexual dysfunctions and/or communication. That's it. 

An experienced sex therapist will have heard it all. No topic is too extreme to be off limits. 

1. My husband saw 2 sex therapists to deal with his performance anxiety induced ED. The first one came highly recommended but was awful. He basically saw H one time, gave him a book on meditation, and told him he needed to learn to relax his mind. Thankfully the second one was 1000 x better. He and H hit it off great and really delved into some deeper stuff. I was invited to join a few sessions towards the end. 

2. Yes. He rarely if ever suffers performance anxiety. 

3. He learned how to refocus his mind when it started on the runaway thoughts. We were also able to communicate our ideas on how best to deal with the ED when it did happen. That helped a lot. 

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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

If you want advice tailored to your situation, it would be helpful to provide a few more facts. Why have you and your wife discussed ST? What aspects of your sex life trouble each of you? What would improvement look like for each of you?

ST for a male who has ED or PE is going to be different than ST for a woman who has never had an orgasm.


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## badsanta (Oct 13, 2014)

Pyramus said:


> Sex therapy is something that my wife and I have spoken about. I really don't know what's involved or how it works but I'll google it and educate myself.


In my opinion, anytime someone googles "sex" for academic purposes to help solve a relationship problem, as innocent as that sounds, it will probably not go too well. If you are serious, start by reading a book on the topic, and one written by someone with a PHD. "Passionate Marriage" by David Schnarch is probably a good place to start. 




> I have 3 questions for any of you who have been to sex therapy and are willing to talk about it......
> 
> 1. What was the issue in your relationship that made you go for sex therapy?
> 
> ...


Regarding a working model/example of sex therapy, I will provide you a hypothetical one. Someone with undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder often experience sensory issues (extremely sensitive to touch with wet cloths being extremely intolerable for example). Such sensory issues often create challenges with regards to intimacy and research has now proven that individuals with high functioning autism (scientists and engineers for example) often have very pronounced sensory issues with their reproductive systems. One individual may be too sensitive and experience pain when touched, while another may experience little or no sensitivity and be numb. Understanding these issues and applying that knowledge within the context of sex therapy has proven to help these individuals live very satisfying and meaningful intimate lives with their spouse. 

Regards, 
Badsanta


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

Pyramus said:


> First post. Hope I'm not breaking any rules by asking this.
> 
> Sex therapy is something that my wife and I have spoken about. I really don't know what's involved or how it works but I'll google it and educate myself.
> 
> ...




1) My wife and I grew emotionally apart until she refused to have sex with me. Actually before the sex completely stopped she used sex as a way of emotionally hurting me, except she hurt me so that she could regain her emotional distance. My wife of 40+years wanted to be emotionally distant, but at time when I took out to a special dinner or did something with our adult kids, she began to feel emotionally close to me and if she found herself having sex with me, she would pick a fight with me in the middle of or just after sex to regain her distance. I felt that she was arousing me to make me emotionally vulnerable and then would go in for the "kill." I felt abused. Ultimately, this lead to no sex between us and I basically told her I deserved better.

Prior to sex therapy I read just about every book on relationships, I could get my hands on. The once that really resonated with me and gave me insights were: MW Davis, Sex Starved Marriage, Glover's No More Mr. Nice Guy, Chapman's the 5 Languages of Love, Sue Johnson's Told me Tight, David Scharnch's the Passionate Marriage and the Crucible. There were others as well, but those were the ones that go me thinking. 

I realized that I was part of the problem and fixed myself after apologizing to my wife. It was after I fixed myself and after I started to do things in her love languages that made her feel loved and cherished that she agreed to go to a sex therapist. It took reading from Schnarch to her that all marriages have an HD and LD component and just because on is LD is some aspect doesn't mean they are broken and need to be fixed. 

We then went to a nationally know sex therapist.

2 &3) Yes the ST gave us exercises and things to read. The ST helped my wife focus on her issues. The ST helped us negotiate a frequency of sex that we could both live with. The ST also helped us visualized what we both thought a good marriage would look like in the future 5, 10 and 20 years out.


They are expensive, but much less expensive than 2 divorce attorneys and that was the alternative in my mind. Get a good one who knows what they are doing. Trust them. Expect to find out that you are not a victim but that both of you are part of the problem.

Good luck.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

Lila said:


> Sex therapy is psychotherapy (counseling) focused solely on sex. He/she is a specialist in sexual dysfunctions and/or communication. That's it.
> 
> An experienced sex therapist will have heard it all. No topic is too extreme to be off limits.
> 
> ........


My understanding is a bit different. To become a board certified sex therapist one must be an experienced licensed marriage counselor and then get extra training in dealing with sexual problems. 

There are lots of different "methods" they can use depending on their training. The methods, I prefer are "emotionally focused (Sue Johnson), or Gottman approach.....but that is just me.

Yes there are bad ones out there, like in any profession. 

Yes, they have probably seen and heard it all.

The one I hired helped save my marriage and it was totally worthwhile.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

Young at Heart said:


> 1) My wife and I grew emotionally apart until she refused to have sex with me. Actually before the sex completely stopped she used sex as a way of emotionally hurting me, except she hurt me so that she could regain her emotional distance. My wife of 40+years wanted to be emotionally distant, but at time when I took out to a special dinner or did something with our adult kids, she began to feel emotionally close to me and if she found herself having sex with me, she would pick a fight with me in the middle of or just after sex to regain her distance. I felt that she was arousing me to make me emotionally vulnerable and then would go in for the "kill." I felt abused. Ultimately, this lead to no sex between us and I basically told her I deserved better.
> 
> Prior to sex therapy I read just about every book on relationships, I could get my hands on. The once that really resonated with me and gave me insights were: MW Davis, Sex Starved Marriage, Glover's No More Mr. Nice Guy, Chapman's the 5 Languages of Love, Sue Johnson's Told me Tight, David Scharnch's the Passionate Marriage and the Crucible. There were others as well, but those were the ones that go me thinking.
> 
> ...


You don't give an update on what happened? I assume it got better but what does that look like?


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## Lila (May 30, 2014)

Young at Heart said:


> My understanding is a bit different. To become a board certified sex therapist one must be an experienced licensed marriage counselor and then get extra training in dealing with sexual problems.


That's not quite accurate. AASECT certification requires "the applicant hold a valid state regulatory license or certificate*for the state in which the applicant practices, in one of the following disciplines: *psychology, medicine, social work, counseling, nursing, or marriage and family therapy*". 

The sex therapist my husband saw is not a licensed marriage counselor. He is a psychotherapist who specializes in sexual dysfunctions, LGBTQ issues, and counseling non monogamous relationships. 



Young at Heart said:


> There are lots of different "methods" they can use depending on their training. The methods, I prefer are "emotionally focused (Sue Johnson), or Gottman approach.....but that is just me.


My husband's sex therapist used a combination of mindfulness training, talk therapy, and some cognitive behavior mod therapy to help with the performance anxiety. 




Young at Heart said:


> The one I hired helped save my marriage and it was totally worthwhile.


Ours was awesome too. 

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## Max.HeadRoom (Jun 28, 2014)

No help here; just tossing my 2 cents in to the pot.

I’ve never been to one but did consider it and talked to her on the phone. She thought that I could punch though my anxiety on my own.

concern was getting physical again with someone new after my wife died and this new gal was ten years younger than me, yikes. What helped was finding a large jar of Viagra in my farther possessions after he died; 7 months after my wife but still b4 I meet this young hottie.

As my paw would say “It puts lead in your pencil”; or some confidence.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

sokillme said:


> You don't give an update on what happened? I assume it got better but what does that look like?


We are married. The ST saved the marriage along with the work that my wife and I did to rebuild the relationship. We typically have sex twice a week and quite happy. We have occasional ups and downs, but we are committed to making our marriage last, to making each other feel loved and cherished and not emotionally driving each other away.


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## Pyramus (Oct 14, 2017)

Thanks you all for your replies.

I didn't have time to elaborate when I put up my original post. We're mid 50's. Married 25 years. We have 2 kids both in their 20's.

Since we got married (and before that), my wife has been LD. Looking back now, I probably thought that all that would change after we got married. I put it down to a religious upbringing, guilt etc. (She's no longer religious, by the way).

From the outside looking in, we are a great success story. Good jobs, nice house, great kids and very popular socially, both individually and as a couple. The only thing we ever really fight/argue over is a lack of sex. 

We've often gone months without sex. I think about 15 months is our record. We've talked about it over the years and when I make an issue of it, I get what I regard as duty/pity sex but soon we're back to normal again. 

My wife says she rarely thinks about sex. Strangely, she really enjoys it when we have sex and will O with ease, usually more than once. I will perform oral on her but she refuses to do it on me. I used to get about a minute of it but those days are long gone. We do the romantic stuff - dinner, movies, holding hands while out etc. but when we get home she's tired or not interested or I get "I didn't realise you wanted to tonight."

I've suggested spicing things up - sex toys, mild bondage, etc. I get a kind of a possible, maybe response but she is not interested in actively buying anything with me. She says I should do that but is not very encouraging and will be completely disinterested a day or two later. 

We were away in another city for a weekend break recently. We stopped outside a lingerie/sex shop and I suggested we go in and browse with a view to buying one or more items. She politely refused and said that I could go in on my own and that she be too embarrassed to do so. 

A few days later I suggested that we try some mild bondage to spice things up. Again I got the hmmm, maybe, ok response. Two nights later I told her I'd been looking at mild bondage items on eBay and asked what she thought. I got a fairly cold, disinterested response and she walked away. I felt a bit of a fool to be honest, as I did outside the sex shop. There have been numerous times over the years when her responses have made me feel foolish after I'd told her how I feel or what I'd like to do to make for a better sex life.

And instead of being insistent about things, I'll back off for a while, feel sorry for myself and let her off the hook, as it were, and let the resentment and anger at her grow inside me. 

Despite all I've said here, she is a truly wonderful wife in every other way. She is kind, caring, considerate of others and really supportive of/to the kids and myself. She has helped/talked me through many mini and not so mini crises over the years. Sex is the only area in which I find fault with her. 

In response to Holdingontoit, when I said we've spoken about sex therapy, what really happened was that I suggested it and again I got the maybe, ok response. 

My innocent hope was that we'd go in, discuss it all and, after a few sessions, things would improve considerably. Probably naive, I know......

That's where things are at, at present.


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## WonkyNinja (Feb 28, 2013)

Lila said:


> 3. He learned how to refocus his mind when it started on the runaway thoughts. We were also able to communicate our ideas on how best to deal with the ED when it did happen. That helped a lot.


When you say "runaway thoughts" can I ask if your H suffers from ADD or ADHD?


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## Lila (May 30, 2014)

Pyramus said:


> Thanks you all for your replies.
> 
> I didn't have time to elaborate when I put up my original post. We're mid 50's. Married 25 years. We have 2 kids both in their 20's.
> 
> ...


 @Young at Heart has some excellent posts describing his experiences working through the life long LD/HD relationship. I'll let him speak for himself but in general, I think the sex therapy will help you to get back some of what you had previously, but I don't think you'll be able to change your wife into a lingerie wearing, toy loving, bondage vixen. That's asking a lot. 

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## Lila (May 30, 2014)

WonkyNinja said:


> When you say "runaway thoughts" can I ask if your H suffers from ADD or ADHD?


He's never been diagnosed and denies he has it. 

Based on my experiences with him over 23 years, _ I _ think he does.

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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

@Pyramus: I basically agree with @Lila. ST might help you but set your expectations reasonably. There is an upper bound on what you can hope for with your current wife.

That said, having done ST in similar circumstances, you might find out that the process is something like the following:
1. The ST asks you both a bunch of questions about what your current sex life is like, what you each wish it could be, and what obstacles exist to making that hoped-for sex life a reality. The idea being to see if conversation can get you both to open up about what you want and what it might take to get there. Some couples the main problem is not communicating well, and a trained ST can help you convey messages in a way that is more likely to be heard and understood by your partner.
2. Most likely your wife will not immediately get on board the better sex life train.
3. The ST may give you both "homework" to do between sessions. At the beginning, these will not be sexual. They might include things like extending hugging with clothes on. Back and should rubs (with clothes on). Kissing. All over body massages (clothes on). Getting naked (separately) and looking at your own naked body in a mirror. Getting naked together and looking at each other's bodies (but no touching).
As you can see, this process is designed to get each of you comfortable with non-sexual touching and comfortable with your own and each other's bodies before doing anything sexual. Only if you work through all of these types of exercises will you get to working on sex techniques. This process is designed to address blockage and fear. Maybe your wife is afraid to try new things, or fears what you might ask for if she "opens the door", but is willing to take baby steps so long as the ST is there to "rein you in" if you try to go too far too fast.
4. My wife and I did this and never got through the non-sexual homework to reach the sex homework. That is valuable information even if it feels like failure. If you can't get your wife to be sexual even with a trained counsellor trying to assist with communication, then you don't have a communication problem. And if the ST can't get your wife to take baby steps to work with you, then you don't have a hidden overlap between what you want and what she is capable of providing. If you can't get on the same page even with a ST, then you have a "null set" problem. There is no overlap between what you want (sex) and what she wants (to be left alone). That is useful to know even if it doesn't resolve the mismatch.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

Lila said:


> @Young at Heart .... but I don't think you'll be able to change your wife into a lingerie wearing, toy loving, bondage vixen. That's asking a lot.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


:iagree: Thanks!

I remember once buying lingerie for my wife and having her coldly look at me and tell me, "You didn't marry a slu#t, don't expect me to dress like one."

My suggestion for the OP is to start with MW Davis book the Sex Starved Marriage, as 15 months counts. 

I would also suggest to the OP that rather than being the victim of a frigid wife, like I felt, it took a while to learn that I was part of the problem. When I figured out what I had done to hurt my wife, I also figured out how to make her feel loved and cherished. That is when things started to turn around (it was using her love languages as in Chapman's 5 languages of love).

If you are willing to read some graduate school level books, David Schnarch's Passionate Marriage and the Crucible are also good. I quoted Schnarch to get my wife to understand that going to a Sex Therapist wasn't because she was broken and needed to be fixed, it was because we were mismatched and we needed to work on resolving our mismatch.

If you have patience, you might want to read through the thread on Minimizing Bad Sex, you might learn a lot about people who have HD/LD relationships, what is and is not duty sex, and a host of topics that might help you in your situation.

Good luck to the OP.


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## TheCuriousWife (Jan 28, 2013)

> 1. What was the issue in your relationship that made you go for sex therapy?


My husband's lower drive and lack of enthusiasm/passion for sex. 



> 2. Was the issue resolved?


Not resolved 100% but MUCH better.



> 3. How was it resolved and, if not, why not?


The sex therapist did NOT fix our issues. She gave us tools and opened up our communication to be able to talk through and work out our issues on our own. It wasn't some magic bullet. But it brought some hidden issues to light and helped up get to the root of the problem and be more open with each other. It is now a lot easier to talk about issues and nip them in the bud before they get really bad. Things are not always sunshine and roses, and problems still pop up wherein we don't follow our training 24/7... 

Right now I'm on day 8 of no sex, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't getting ticked. No hugs, no kisses, no mention what so ever that my husband has even thought about sex in the past week. Despite me being topless yesterday evening for several hours and subtly "flaunting". He played on his phone and didn't even look up, until I gave up and went and took care of business alone. This morning he finally casually said, "we can have sex if you want when I get home..." Ugh. Not exactly the enthusiasm I want. Now what I should do/have done would be to sit him down and talk about it. Instead I'll just be passive aggressive and steam about it. lol. Shame on me.

No seriously though. The majority of the time we can calmly talk things out without much fuss. I HIGHLY recommend a sex therapist. She was expensive, but well worth the improvements she made.


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## TheCuriousWife (Jan 28, 2013)

I also recommend the Sex Starved Marriage book and the 5 Love Languages.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

TheCuriousWife said:


> .....This morning he finally casually said, "we can have sex if you want when I get home..." Ugh. Not exactly the enthusiasm I want. *Now what I should do/have done would be to sit him down and talk about it. Instead I'll just be passive aggressive and steam about it. lol. Shame on me.*
> 
> No seriously though. The majority of the time we can calmly talk things out without much fuss. I HIGHLY recommend a sex therapist. She was expensive, but well worth the improvements she made.


You know you should have handled it better, but might as well comment. One of the hardest things I have had to learn is to forgive my LD wife when she says things that she doesn't mean to hurt, but do hurt. I keep going back to Glover's covert contracts and tell myself that I don't want to play that crazy game anymore.

Next time consider saying, "Great, but you better take a nap at lunch as I am going to give you a heck of a workout when I see you tonight" and then figure out what and how you are going to "get yours" tonight and if you need any props from the Halloween costume store.

Enjoy.


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## TheCuriousWife (Jan 28, 2013)

Young at Heart said:


> You know you should have handled it better, but might as well comment. One of the hardest things I have had to learn is to forgive my LD wife when she says things that she doesn't mean to hurt, but do hurt. I keep going back to Glover's covert contracts and tell myself that I don't want to play that crazy game anymore.
> 
> Next time consider saying, "Great, but you better take a nap at lunch as I am going to give you a heck of a workout when I see you tonight" and then figure out what and how you are going to "get yours" tonight and if you need any props from the Halloween costume store.
> 
> Enjoy.


No worries. We have already talked it out. I told him I didn't feel in the mood because we haven't been intimate in a week and I'm feeling disconnected. He tried to say we snuggle when we sleep, but I explained that snuggling while asleep does not count towards the intimacy I need. So he has promised intimacy when he gets home and possibly some sex. We haven't gotten to the point where our conversations are light hearted yet, or where I can just take the reigns and initiate even if he seems disinterested. There is too much previous rejection/hurt there. But at least I can tell him how I am feeling now instead of just keeping it inside. I will only be upset for a day or two now before I speak, rather than bottling it for weeks.


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