Dear Coach:
My partner and I have been together for 9 years. Over the course of the past several years, our sex life has really changed, as has our relationship. Historically, we’ve had a lot of fights and arguments and have broken up and gotten back together again multiple times. We’re in a good spot now in our relationship, but our sex life is still non-existent and we’ve only been intimate twice in the last four months. It seems like when we are sexual, he’s responsive and excited in the moment, but every time it gets down to my pleasuring him, particularly with oral sex, he freaks out and yells at me with a harsh critique on how I’m doing it. I’ve always considered myself rather talented when it comes down to blow- jobs and he never seemed to have issue before. In fact, we always had fantastic oral sex. He seems perfectly content pleasing me, but when I try to reciprocate, he gets all bent out of shape and seems to want nothing to do with it. How can I get my sexual relationship back to where it needs to be?
Sexually Unsatisfied
Dear Sexually Unsatisfied:
Thanks for writing and I’m sorry to hear about the troubles in your relationship. It sounds like you’ve conquered many challenges in your relationship throughout the years and have a lot invested. Particularly since you feel like you’re in an upwardly mobile direction lately with your partner, I can imagine how frustrating it must be for you to be experiencing these difficulties in the bedroom that never seemed to be an issue before. All you want to do is please him and make him happy, giving your relationship that extra boost as things have started to get better again recently between the two of you– and then he reacts to you in the uncharacteristic way that he’s been responding to you lately when you attempt to sexually satisfy him. It could be very easy for you to personalize this and hold yourself accountable for his displeasure, but I encourage you to be easy on yourself and avoid making assumptions. The fact of the matter is that you need more information before you can reach any conclusions and try to make things better.
More often than not, sexual problems and issues in the bedroom stem from two sources. The first has to do with technical skills, and overcoming these deficits is quite simple. We’re not born knowing how to be great lovers and everyone’s sexual needs and preferences are variable, even with the same individual over the course of time. Someone may like things done a certain way at one point in his life, and then likes it a different way at another. Becoming a skillful lover can be learned. If your partner is upset over your oral lovemaking skills, and if this is truly his genuine gripe, then you will need to find out from him how he would like to receive oral sex. The next time you’re in the heat of the moment during a sexual interlude (or you could even talk about it beforehand) and you’re about to initiate your pleasuring of him, ask him something to the effect of “Come on, baby, show me how you like to be sucked.” He can then perhaps demonstrate his desired technique on you, which you can then model and practice until it’s mastered to his degree of enjoyment. And don’t shame yourself over your performance! Needs change, and it’s very possible in all your exuberance over your newfound attraction for him and excitement about your new relationship possibilities that you may be “going to town” too aggressively and not even realizing it. All you can do is ask him or have him show you how he likes to be pleased. And don’t let this just be about oral sex; let this be an opportunity for the two of you to share your own individual fantasies that could be integrated into your love-life and discuss other ways the two of you would like to be pleased to expand your repertoire of pleasuring each other!
Problems in the bedroom are often not about sex at all, however, and sexual difficulties usually stem from conflicts that exist in other parts of the relationship or issues a particular individual may be going through. It will be important for you to make a realistic appraisal of all the other parts of your relationship to see if anything could be contributing to your struggles. Sex is one of the most vulnerable aspects of a couple’s lives together and therefore tends to be the first thing affected when there are any hidden resentments, disappointments, stressors, or tensions that exist anywhere else in the dynamics between the partners. Or perhaps your partner is going through something right now that is interfering with his ability to receive pleasure. It seems your guy gets the most uncomfortable when he is on the receiving end of the pleasuring activity. He could be distracted by stress, fearful of surrendering control, or possibly experiencing temporary intimacy issues as he tries to transition back into your relationship with its new beginning.
The only way to find out the true origins behind his behavior is to communicate. If after you’ve tried the technical skill strategy above and he continues to protest in bed, it will be important for you to share with him how this makes you feel as a segue to having a dialogue about what seems to be the core issue and how to go about resolving it. You can use the common “I” statements strategy to express your needs and feelings directly: I feel ____ when you _____ because _____ so instead I’d prefer _____. (“Babe, I feel confused and hurt when you yell at me during sex when I give you head because I thought you liked the way I serviced you all these years. Can you help me understand what’s wrong?”). Hopefully his answer will help you gauge if it’s truly about your sexual technique or if there’s something more underlying going on that the two of you can pinpoint and then problem-solve potential solutions. It’s important to get unexpressed issues and feelings out on the table, otherwise they have a tendency to eat away at the foundation of a relationship and cause significant damage to trust, intimacy, and connection.
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