Sex and Marriage

When people ask about sex in marriage, it does not necessarily mean they aren't happily married. Nor that they are sexually maladjusted. It. means simply that they are human.Three-quarters of all couples who complain of sexual dysfunction also have marital disharmony and vice versa.50% of divorces are based on sexual problems.Poor sexual response may be a symptom of a deteriorating marital relationship when affection is replaced by a hostility,or lack of respect and trust. Marriage is a legal,religious and social contract based on mutual caring and support,and provides the framework in which to raise a family.Despite the present day permissiveness and the proven stability of some non merital "stable relationship" for many the sanctity of marriage prevails,and pre-marital or extra-marital sex is unacceptable.For success marriage requires intellectual, emotional and sexual harmony and mutuality of interests.Sex does not reflect the total of any marriage relationship,but few marriages can exist as effective,complete,ongoing entities without a comfortable component to sexual exchange.It is the tone of marriage rather than the quality of sexual performance that determines how most couples perceive the quality of their sexual relationship.

Some years ago it was thought that satisfactory sex in marriage could be reached merely by acquiring knowledge about physical facts and sexual techniques. But now we know that as time goes on in a marriage, such knowledge is of little avail unless we also fulfill the emotional needs which are essential in order to build solid bridges between the two partners.

Sexual adjustment is not a matter of sex alone. It includes many emotional remnants which they bring into their marriage from their childhood and youth attitudes toward sex which go way back. It includes remnants, too, from each day's living as these are brought into bed at night. The bedeviling aggravations. The unanswered longings. The appreciative glances. The sense of meeting in trust.

It's about time we gave up some of the misinformation about how married people should behave. Time we stopped putting emphasis on not doing things we need most to do, and on doing things we need most to keep from doing. It's about time we exploded the ideas of its being wrong to show emotional upsets. Of needing to keep up a pleasant front at all times. Of not letting on if one doesn't find sex completing. Of trying cheerfully to put one's own wants aside. And of thinking that "familiarity breeds contempt."

Some of our ideas and ideals about marriage the platitudes we've hung on to are topsy turvy. They make for troubles rather than, happiness'. They perpetuate the very conditions that make love disintegrate. They ignore the very things that help to cement it.

There's too little love in this world. Too little time given to cultivating the art of understanding one another and to discovering ways of expressing love. And there's practically no attention given to recognizing and handling feelings that destroy it. Marriage should mean the fulfillment of many needs. For most of us it promises more security than any other way of life. To many of us it is a guarantee against the shadows of loneliness. By and large, it offers the most acceptable solution to our sexual wants physically, morally and emotionally.

But in marriage, far too often, despite our wishes, the kind of security we dreamed of does not come. Sexual satisfactions too frequently fall short of expectations and loneliness creeps in. We may manage to make the best of it. But the best then is only second or third best. It is not what we might have made of the marriage if we had understood more. Neither is it what we still can make it. The problem is to build understandings and insights that can help put into gear the wishes and the realities by which each partner lives day by day.

EVERY NORMAL MARRIAGE HAS ITS PROBLEMS

. Into our office come many people, young, middle aged, older, newly married, newly blessed or burdened with parenthood. All seriously reaching for answers to troublesome questions. For even the happiest marriage cannot be perfect. There are problems in every marriage difficulties which cause people to wonder, question, and seek solutions.

What helps married people stay happy? Or grow happier? What is it that we really want? What are we most profoundly wishing to find in each other? What values do we need to bring to each other in order that the vitality of our marriage should last? What about the worries that rise in the day and in the night hours? What can we do in those lonely moments when, in spite of being physically together, we feel far apart? What if our interest in each other seems to be waning? How can we contribute to each other in handling the concerns that arise when children are born? When they're little or when they are stepping with ridiculous and provoking rebellion over the last stretch of childhood? How about it when one or the other of us gets irrationally irritable or moody? And, above all, what can we do when sex is not what we've dreamed it should be?

In the world of today we have come by long and devious routes to see sex as a most important ingredient in a marriage. To see that sexual completion is essential for a marriage to be what we call "good." Because awareness of sex as a positive force is comparatively recent, many shreds of old, less helpful attitudes still cling to our feelings about it.

Essentially we want to be free in feeling able to love and to relish the ability which our bodies possess for a many toned range of mutual delight.

The best way to approach, this is to understand surely that sex in marriage is more than a matter of two bodies merging. It is, rather, the expression of two whole people coming together in the search to leave separateness behind and to feel themselves one.

A forced marriage solves few problems, particularly when both partners are emotionally immature and unable to cope with family life. Girls are resentful of their lost freedom and isolation from their friends who are still at school or college. They may be shocked to discover that marriage and motherhood carry more responsibility than carefree enjoyment. The sexual excitement may wane because of the difficulties in adjusting to marriage and childish squabbling. Young marriages are vulnerable, and those made in haste when a partner is pregnant, under the age of 18, particularly where there is parental disapproval, have a very low survival rate. Teenagers who give birth are more likely than their classmates to experience unstable marriages and to have been married several times by the age of 29. Of all teenagers who marry after conception because of the pregnancy, approximately 60% will be divorced within 5 years.

Social problems: where out of wedlock pregnancies are regarded as a disgrace, the girl may resort to backstreet abortion, infanticide or suicide. The baby may suffer social or legal discrimination, neglect or abandonment. Child abuse and the battered baby syndrome are particular risks.

Poverty is the cause of many of the problems of single parenthood as the girl's earning capacity is limited through lack of training. Unable to afford baby sitters or entertainment she may find herself imprisoned by work and caring for the child. Her loneliness may lead her to seek male support and company and place her at risk of further pregnancies. This situation does not apply in countries like Scandinavia where there is social security and no social discrimination against single parents.