Grouchy Gals: Women’s Ambivalence About Monogamy

Grouchy Gals: Women’s Ambivalence About Monogamy

BLOGGER:  LAWRENCE JOSEPHS, PHD

Cross cultural research suggests that world-wide men cheat more than women do. Yet it has been noticed that in more egalitarian countries women are quickly catching up to the men in terms of prevalence rates of infidelity. In addition, women are much more likely to report infidelity in anonymous surveys than in face to face interviews. These findings suggest that women may be just as sexually frustrated with monogamous arrangements as are men so frequently look for extra-marital sexual outlets. Research also suggests that on average women are more often unfaithful in search of romantic love whereas men are more often unfaithful in search of casual sex. Yet many men seek romantic love outside of marriage and many women seek casual sex outside of marriage.

Beginning in childhood, males tend to externalize their emotional upset whereas females tend to internalize their emotional upset. As a consequence sexually frustrated wives are just as likely to become sad and depressed (i.e. anger turned inwards) going through the motions as though everything is OK as they are to become grouchy gals who dump their frustrations on their husbands. If women are the more monogamously oriented sex as research suggests why are they so frustrated with monogamous arrangements? Research suggests that the honeymoon phase of a romantic relationship, when men are at their best behavior (i.e. most adoring and eager to please) rarely lasts more than 18 months. As suggested in previous blogs, once the honeymoon phase is over many men turn into grouchy guys who become sexually selfish and irritable due to their own sexual frustrations. They begin to treat their wives like slaves whose function is to service them. Naturally, women resent such mistreatment and begin to yearn for a more adoring and appreciative romantic partner. Yet even if a husband is a perfectly decent guy sex can become boring if it’s just the same old thing once the initial romance has faded. Women too enjoy sexual variety, novelty, and the thrill of new romantic conquests as well as the ego boost of still being able to evoke love and lust from new and desirable romantic partners, despite being older and having put on a few pounds.

Many women stay in sexually frustrating monogamous arrangements for the sake of the children or just for the emotional or economic security of having someone with whom to grow old. Yet many women do cheat, do seek divorce, and are even relieved when their grouchy and unappreciative husbands kick the bucket and they don’t want to get stuck providing undeserved custodial care for another old fart. Research suggests more health and psychological benefits for married men than for married women. We also know that men seem to be the more sexually controlling, sexually possessive, and violently jealous sex. Though men don’t like to admit to this issue, men do need to worry about what they need to do to hold onto their potentially philandering wives so they don’t get cuckolded or replaced by a competitor who is better in bed than they are. Sexually betrayed and/ or dumped men don’t fare too well, either emotionally or physically.

If your wife is privately depressed but pretending everything is OK or is openly “bitchy” and you don’t want to lose her to another man this is what husbands have to do:

1. Don’t be sexually selfish. Make sure your wife is sexually satisfied.

2. Don’t treat her like a slave. That means cut out the contempt and disgust in your attitude.

3. Don’t threaten her with abandonment and/or replacement when you are angry and in a punitive mood. That’s being mean since it’s going for the jugular.

4. Be affectionate and don’t reject affectionate gestures and overtures from your wife.

5. Stand up for yourself in an assertive, respectful way. Don’t be a wimp but don’t be a bully either. Try to be someone your wife would respect and admire.

Being a loyal and devoted partner compensates to some degree for the fading of romantic love and the sexual boredom that can be an inevitable aspect of long-term monogamous relationships. Men have to overcome their egocentrism and realize that just because they are sexually frustrated with and resentful of monogamous arrangements doesn’t mean that women aren’t as well. Women are more likely than men to live lives of quiet despair hiding their true feelings than are men who are more likely to stomp around the house making sure everyone else is just as miserable as they are. So men better wise up if they don’t want to end up dumped and replaced by their sexually frustrated wives for someone who is better in bed than they are.

To find out more about Dr. Josephs, click his photo below:

To receive ImagineAge Updates when new blogs are posted, enter your email address in the “subscribe” box on the left side of the screen.  Your email WILL NOT be sold!!!

Grouchy Guy: Monogamy

GROUCHY GUY: MONOGAMY

BLOGGER:  LAWRENCE JOSEPHS, PHD

Why are grouchy guys so grouchy? Why do they make mountains out of molehills and pick fights about stupid little things? What do they have to be so angry about when more often than not their girlfriends and wives bend over backwards to please them and make their lives comfortable? Is it simply that they don’t like their jobs and come home to take their work frustrations out on their wives or children? That’s part of it but there is often a deeper reason, one that grouchy guys don’t like admitting to their partners because it is offensive to women. Often times they don’t even like to admit it to themselves because they feel guilty about feeling this way.

To put it bluntly, grouchy guys resent relinquishing their sexual freedom for the sake of long-term monogamous relationships, even with women they truly love. In a nutshell, men in committed relationships become grouchy because it frustrates their pressing desires for casual sex without strings attached with an endless variety of young, beautiful, and sexually indulgent women. Though most men don’t get close to gratifying this sexual fantasy when they are single, once they are in a committed relationship they begin to privately blame their girlfriends and wives for preventing them from making their dreams of playboy paradise come true.

Men don’t like to admit this fact to women or even to themselves. First, men know it’s an unrealistic fantasy and that they weren’t really such studs when they were single. They are ashamed of this fact because at some primal level men believe that if a man is not a first rate stud he is a first rate loser. Getting married then seems like settling for second best, an admission of defeat that they couldn’t cut the mustard as a first class seducer of women.  Second, men feel guilty about their womanizing ambitions. Men appreciate that thinking about women as sex objects to be loved and left to boost the male ego hurts women’s feelings even when men don’t have any real intentions of being unfaithful.  Men fully understand that any self-respecting woman wants to think that she is well worth the price of monogamy and that it wounds  a woman’s self-esteem to realize that her grouchy guy resents having to be faithful to her as though marital fidelity is some huge, almost unbearable sacrifice.

Being in a long-term monogamous relationship means giving up casual sex with other women in exchange for enduring love and affection from a woman with whom you might hope to raise a family. In other words, being monogamous requires men to endure a certain type of sexual frustration that men find difficult to endure. Men in general are much more interested in casual sex than are women. In comparison to women, men want to have more sexual partners in a lifetime, want to have more sexual variety, have more sexual fantasies about having sex with someone other than their current partner, utilize more pornography, utilize more prostitution, want to have sex earlier in a relationship, have more willingness to have sex with strangers, are more predisposed to have extra-marital affairs, and are more predisposed to have extra-marital affairs in search of casual sex as opposed to a finding a serious lover.  Curiously, though girls usually reach puberty several years earlier than boys do, the average boy has his first orgasm at age 13 while the average girl has her first orgasm at age 15. And if boys don’t masturbate they start having wet dreams to relieve themselves. In contrast, some women can go years if not decades without ever having their first orgasm and without ever having one in their sleep. Many men just seem to be driven by their sexual desires in a way that many women aren’t and men’s sexual desires often have a more impersonal and insistent quality than do women’s.

This sexual difference can be an underlying source of perpetual conflict in long-term relationships and is often a touchy issue that is difficult to discuss without being defensive. Ultimately, men have to learn how to deal with the sexual frustrations of monogamy without dumping their frustrations on their girlfriends and wives. To some extent women help men do that not by learning new sexual techniques, not by giving them quickies every time they want to be sexually serviced, not by getting breast implants, and certainly not by looking the other way while they cheat. You can help him become less grouchy by not taking his grouchiness so personally, making fun of him when he is acting like a jerk, and setting firm limits on his surly behavior when it goes over the top. Your grouchy guy has to learn how to get over himself and you can help him do that by helping him not take his fragile male ego so seriously.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

To find out more about Dr. Josephs, click here to read his bio.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE TO RECEIVE UPDATES ON BLOG POSTS, PLEASE ENTER YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE SCREEN WHERE IT SAYS “SUBSCRIBE”.