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.

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How Arguments About Stupid Little Things Turn into Major Blow-ups

The Grouchy Guy:  How Arguments About Stupid Little Things

Turn into Major Blow-ups

BLOGGER:  LAWRENCE JOSEPHS, PHD

I am always surprised by the fact that couples who fight like cats and dogs all the time usually fight about stupid little things that get blown up out of proportion. Someone forgets to clean up after themselves, someone doesn’t want to take directions when driving, someone thinks the kids are being treated too permissively, someone isn’t in the mood to do something like have sex or go out to dinner, someone doesn’t want to spend money on something, etc. These are just all the little conflicts and tensions of married life that require two people with two different personalities, two different points of view, and two different sets of preferences to peacefully negotiate their inevitable differences and come up with a workable compromise. Why is that so difficult to do and why do these little conflicts become triggers of major blow-ups?

The problem seems to be that on average men and women seem to have different ways of managing conflict and angry feelings in a close relationship. When men are annoyed about something and assert their grievance, they want respect and are hypersensitive to not getting it. When women are annoyed about something and assert their grievance, they want reassurance that the relationship is solid, isn’t threatened by the difference in opinion, and are hypersensitive to not getting that reassurance. Men want to feel that their wives respect them no matter what and women want to feel that their husbands still love them no matter what, though women also want respect and men also want love. Perceived lack of respect and perceived lack of reassurance is what escalates a minor conflict about a petty issue into a major blow-up. The argument takes on a larger symbolic significance once the couple becomes insecure about whether or not they really love and respect each other. That’s the underlying hot button issue that can lead to a major conflagration.

When a difference of opinion arises and our viewpoint is questioned, it is only natural to defend ourselves by further justifying our own position while more strongly attacking our rival’s position in order to win the argument. Once a competitive mindset has been activated, that winning the argument is all that matters, the stage is set for an escalating conflict that may get totally out of control. Many men are hypersensitive to being questioned by their wives as though being questioned puts their masculine competence in doubt. To assert their dominance men start to make their argument all the more forcefully as their temper is rising. Of course, women don’t want to feel bullied into a submissive position so they too defend themselves all the more forcefully, leading to an escalating conflict. As men get more and more frustrated that they can’t get respect by winning the argument, they start expressing more disgust with and contempt for their wives and as they begin to get fed-up start to threaten to withdraw in anger. At this point, many women get alarmed that the relational connection is threatened and start demanding reassurance that they are still loved by a devoted partner who seems to be threatening hostile rejection. Of course, a man is not going to give reassurance that he still loves his partner when he is fuming inside and beginning to withdraw in anger. This is the stand-off: the man demanding respect or else to be left alone in peace and the woman demanding reassurance through some intimate gesture that brings them closer together and neither getting satisfaction. Then it’s a screaming match.

The challenge for anger management is captured by the title of the famous Rolling Stones song “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” Men aren’t going to get respect and women aren’t going to get reassurance once their partner is upset and angry because people have difficulty thinking straight when they are only seeing red because they are so angry. You have a difficult choice to make, give up trying to win the argument so you can diffuse an escalating conflict or keep trying to win the argument, knowing it’s just going to end up in a big blow-up. The best response is simply to say: “This isn’t worth getting in a big fight about, let’s discuss the issue later when we are in a better mood.” Since the hot button issue must be discussed sooner or later, you have to remember that you can never talk someone out of their true feelings. Everyone is entitled to their feelings or point of view so there is no sense trying to prove that someone’s feelings or point of view are wrong and your feelings and point of view are right. So you may just as well cut to the chase. The way to arrive at a negotiated solution is to accept the fact of eventual compromise and concession. So you say something like this: “I understand that from your point of view it looks this way and from my point of view it seems exactly the opposite. Let’s not waste time trying to change each others’ minds because we will just get into a big fight and just dig in our heels all the more. So let’s just figure out what kind of compromise or concessions we can each live with.” Ultimately, you can always just walk away from a fight if your partner isn’t ready to negotiate a workable compromise. A little time-out from the relationship gives everybody time to cool off and arrive at a more conciliatory attitude.

Being in a long-term relationship is about making compromises for the sake of the relationship. You can’t always have everything your way even if you genuinely believe your way is the best way, the right way, or the correct way to go. Being in a relationship means we have to patiently suffer our partner’s mistakes and errors of judgment and still find it within ourselves to respect and love them anyway. Nobody is perfect so part of being married is learning to tolerate our partner’s imperfections, which means letting your partner do things his or her way even when you know for a fact that his or her way is the absolutely wrong way to do things. We all have to learn from our own mistakes so we can’t micro-manage our partners to make them do everything our way which is of course the “right” way. So we have a choice:  We can try to win every argument and get our partner to do everything our way and end up fighting all the time. Or we can give up trying to win arguments and try instead to negotiate a workable compromise, perhaps having to suffer your partner’s errors of judgment. Yet at least you won’t be arguing all the time and your partner, following your lead, will learn to let you do things your way even when they think you are dead wrong.

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THE GROUCHY GUY: SECRET SEX LIVES

The Grouchy Guy: Secret Sex Lives

BLOGGER:  LAWRENCE JOSEPHS, PhD

The Secret Sex Lives of Grouchy Guys

To some degree all men are inclined towards what might be called “dual track” sex lives, one track in the marriage and one track outside of it. This is an extremely touchy issue in most long-term relationships that rarely gets discussed in any open manner. There is usually a “don’t ask don’t tell policy” when it comes to this aspect of a couple’s sexual relationship. Many men have a need to maintain what psychologists call “orgasmic constancy” in their lives. That means that many men have a need for a certain number of orgasms per week, whether that means daily orgasms, three orgasms a week, or one orgasm a week. If they are not meeting their need for orgasmic constancy with their partners, they will satisfy their need for orgasmic constancy in some other way, usually through masturbation. A study looking at male sexuality between ages 40 and 70 discovered that every decade men’s erectile functioning deteriorated, it took greater stimulation to get aroused, the strength of their orgasms diminished, and the volume of their ejaculate decreased. Nevertheless, the one thing that remained the same was the frequency of masturbation to orgasm. Whatever the demoralizing effects of aging on male sexual functioning, men appear stubbornly determined to maintain their orgasmic constancy to the bitter end.

This aspect of male sexuality tends to remain shrouded in secrecy. Perhaps men have a stronger sex drive because they have seven times as much circulating testosterone in their blood stream and testosterone levels seem to influence sex drive. Female transexuals who take testosterone report that their sex drive significantly increases as does the frequency of their sexual fantasies. Some post-menopausal women are given testosterone to increase their sex drive and it appears to work.   Whatever the reason, many men seemed to be obsessed with maintaining their orgasmic constancy and become grouchy when they can’t. It is not that many women do not struggle with such issues as well. Women’s adrenal glands and ovaries secret testosterone so it is possible that women with higher basal testosterone levels may also struggle with the problem of how to gratify a particularly strong sex drive.

Many women in committed relationships don’t like to think about this issue, especially if they do not experience their own sex drive as an incessant obsessive pressure to be relieved on a daily basis. Many women don’t really want to contemplate how many orgasms a week their men need to have in order to maintain orgasmic constancy or how many orgasms a week her partner is having with her and how many he is probably having on his own and not mentioning to her. Some women might like to assume that if her sex life is dropping off with her partner and she is having fewer orgasms that her husband is most likely having fewer orgasms as well. That is often a mistaken assumption. He is most likely relieving himself in some other way and not talking about it. He may even come to prefer relieving himself in some other way in order to preserve a sense of having an independent sex life outside of the committed relationship. He may be maintaining an independent sex life through masturbation perhaps accompanied by pornography to intensify the fantasy of having sex with someone other than his partner.  Or he may act out his fantasy of sexual independence by actually having affairs or using prostitutes, like one former governor of New York State.

It is not that women are not having their own secret sex lives outside of their committed relationships. In egalitarian societies women are cheating almost as much as the men but they seem to cheat more often in search of romantic love than casual sexual relief. Yet many women feel betrayed when they realize the extent of their partners’ secret sex lives even if it is only a secret obsession with internet pornography. This issue is an underlying tension in most long-term relationships and as touchy an issue as it is, it is probably better to try to openly discuss it than pretend like it doesn’t exist. Every couple has to find creative ways of dealing with differences in the intensity of their sex drives and desires for sex outside of their long-term relationship, whether it is men looking for casual sex or women looking for romantic love outside of the marriage. Women have to make clear to men what their “line in the sand” is when it comes to extra-marital sexual outlets. If the line in the sand is “you can look but don’t touch” men better understand what the consequences will be for touching or letting themselves be touched. And in an age of computer sex and phone sex, there are now all kinds of sex that don’t require actual touching that women may not want their partners participating in.  If you want a relationship in which there is trust based upon complete honesty about sexual matters, you have to learn how to talk openly about touchy topics but many people believe, rightly or wrongly, that some things are better left unsaid.

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

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GROUCHY GUY: TEASING AND ANGER MANAGEMENT

Grouchy Guy: Teasing and Anger Management

BLOGGER: LAWRENCE JOSEPHS, PHD

As grouchy guys privately try to manage their conflicts about sexual fidelity in long-term monogamous relationships, they sometimes begin to lose their sense of humor and that’s why they can become very touchy about stupid little things. Arguments about stupid little things then can easily escalate into major blow-ups. Sometimes such an ugly scene can be nipped in the bud by turning an irritable interchange into an amusing one through a teasing remark that doesn’t take a grouchy guy’s complaints too seriously or too personally.

Social psychologists have noted that teasing is central to social life from childhood on and can be used to bring people closer together or to bully and humiliate them. On the positive side, teasing can be an imaginative and playful way to socialize, to flirt, and to resolve conflicts. On the negative side, teasing can be used as a weapon that is used to demean someone while pretending that it’s only kidding around. Teasing can turn a tense and testy moment into a special form of intimacy, two people having a good laugh with each other as they narrowly averted a major blow-up. Nobody is taking themselves too seriously. And in a romantic relationship since teasing is such an important part of flirting, teasing can re-awaken romantic feelings in a couple whose irritability with each other has thrown a big wet towel on their romantic passion.

Yet teasing in romantic relationships can backfire if it cuts to the quick, if it pores salt into old wounds rather than let’s those wounds heal. Especially, when teasing has that sarcastic edge, it is more likely to antagonize than amuse. The challenge in long-term romantic relationships is how to enable grouchy guys and grouchy gals to rediscover the pleasure they once shared in flirtatiously teasing one another. Flirtatious teasing does seem to be the basis of romantic seduction and just might be the basis of restoring romantic passion in a relationship once it has been lost because of never ending petty bickering over stupid little things.

So the challenge is this if you are living with either a grouchy guy or a grouchy girl. The next time they are barking at you about some stupid little thing. Try not to take it too personally, try not to take the specific complaint too seriously, try not to become too defensive, and try not to respond argumentatively as your grouchy partner is unconsciously trying to bait you into an argument. Remember that your grouchy partner is probably stressed out about some deeper inner issues that aren’t really being discussed and that they aren’t quite ready to talk about openly. They are being grouchy to blow off steam, unfortunately at your expense, but it’s better not to get too indignant about that. But just maybe you could find it within yourself to respond with some flirtatiously teasing comment, the sort your partner used to like back when you were originally trying to woo and win your partner as a lifelong partner, before the demands and frustrations of a long-term monogamous relationship began to wear both of you down. Just maybe you might be able to avert an ugly blow up by turning a testy moment into a humorous interchange that just might reawaken some of the romantic passion that you shared back in the good old days when you used to share the enjoyment of flirtatiously teasing each other.

Once a big fight has been successfully avoided and romantic passion reawakened by flirtatious teasing, it might seem that staying in a long-term monogamous relationship isn’t such a bad idea after all and maybe the grass isn’t greener anywhere else. For anyone interested in a comprehensive literature review of the research on teasing see: Keltner, D. et al. (2001) Just teasing: A conceptual analysis and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin. 127: 229-248.

 

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

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

 

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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.

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