Sunday, January 20, 2008

Resentment and Frustration and often Deceit

A woman I know emailed me this question:

I'm trying to understand the dynamics of a relationship with no sex. I would think it would affect every interaction with the partner, because there is underlying resentment and frustration and often deceit involved. Wouldn't this sour the relationship altogether?

Any insight you can give me into this would be greatly appreciated.




MY REPLY

I think the proper order is different than the one you suggest in your question. I also think you might have left out a few elements. I shall suggest some missing elements and the logical order that they may present themselves.

Pangs

Animals experience pangs. Pangs are the internal signals that the self needs something.

What are pangs? Well you know there are hunger pangs, thirst pangs, physical comfort pangs, companionship pangs, familiarity pangs, remembrance pangs, and sex pangs.

Whenever there is an unsatisfied pang there is pain.

I suppose in the vernacular sex pangs are referred to as horniness or "wantin' some".

Pain

The longer the pang goes unsatisfied the more the pang pain increases. The design being that the pain increases until the individual is motivated enough to get the pang satisfied and thus eliminate the pain. If this means getting off one's butt and searching for food, or go to the stream and get water, or move into a cave… we are motivated by pain to act to eliminate it. When it comes to the pain of sex pangs, we are motivated to execute sexual courting behaviors that have evolved for our species. Bathing, grooming, shaving, for example. Dinner and a movie for another. Begging for many.

Frustration

When pain is not alleviated the result is frustration. This is a secondary pain heaped upon the primary pain… one might call it the pain of pain. It's not enough to have the pain from the pangs; no, we also have to have frustration dumped on top of it all.

Now, this pain is slightly different because it is not a physically hurting kind of pain, but instead a mental hurt, manifest as extreme mental discomfort. Nonetheless frustration wrecks as much distress to the individual as physical pain.

Frustration usually presents itself after attempts have been made to cease the pain and discovery that you lack the ability to end the pain. So when the pain is at its worst, and there is no relief in the immediate future, that is when you get to have frustration added to you mix.

Reflection: I am very frustrated with the way nature evolved my species.

Futility

You're in pain and you are frustrated. So you now move onto the experience of futility. This is a byproduct of human intellect. We are smart enough to see that with no end in sight for our pain, and frustration that our plight has become futile. Lucky us to be so equipped with such intellect!

In this stage not only do we doubt our prospects, we doubt ourselves, we feel impotent due to our inability to get what we need. In the case of sex pangs, this lead to us feeling unlovable, undesirable, unattractive, ineffectual, ugly, covered in unsightly sores.

We have the urge to give up, because well, nothing absolutely nothing has changed our predicament… and thus we just try to shut down… do a mental cauterization in a last ditch effort to quit the fucking hurting.

Resentment

Look at all you've suffered above leading to this juncture. Now, consider the person that necessitated you suffering all that suffering. Now, that feeling that comes up in your being, before all other feelings… that is what we call resentment. Let's breakdown the word: resentment. Re- meaning "again" and SENTMENT meaning "knowing the culprit". So, resentment means knowing the culprit (for your pain and frustration) again, and again and again.

It's like when you walk into the room, and you see that person that is suppose to be your source of happy good sex but is not, and you are cognizant that it is because of their deficiency that you are living with such misery. Resentment.

Loss

After a period of time (of diminished sexuality in your day to day existence), you will come to realize that you have lost your sex life. Of course as with any loss, you will experience all the five stages of loss: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.

If you take no action and accept the acceptance of the loss of your sex life, this might eventually result in you coming to the realization that you have also lost your sensuality, your sexuality, your sexual being, or whatever you want to call it. Symptoms of such a loss will be a lackluster journey through existence, perhaps an associated loss of creativity, general vitality, or even the basic joy of living. Be prepared for a secondary round of the five stages for these losses.

More Resentment (2nd Round)

The first time through you had pangs and pain and frustration and futility to be resentful of towards the person that just couldn't find it with themselves to have some sex with you… now you can add all this loss to that mix and experience more resentment.

Deceit

Though other philosophers may be deluded and claim otherwise, there is only one true deceit, and that is the deceit of others. Nobody can truly lie to themselves; such is an impossibility.

But we can deceive others, and this happens whenever we don't supply others with 100% disclosure of the truth as we know it. Having to live with a sex drive imbalance almost makes it automatic that deceit is introduced into the relationship. (Now of course there's a good chance that there already was deceit in the relationship, but we won't speak of that right now.)

How in the world could we interact at all with a sex partner who has generally disengaged from sex with us if we didn't employ deceit? Completely truthful interaction with that person would have to consist of us telling them over and over and over again how much pain, frustration and futility they are causing in us, until they acted to alleviate this torment. Well that wouldn't be workable and so we enter into the first deceit by withholding the truth that their asexuality towards us is causing us distress. Voila, deceit is now in the relationship.

Think of this as a gateway deceit… a deceit that can let subsequent deceits seem permissible.

Don't blame yourself for deceits you are caused to create. Remember that the truth is not a right of the other: others have to earn the truth from you. If a person can not be trusted with the truth, or can't cope with the truth, then it's not your fault that they don't get the truth from you.


What does all this mean?


We have traced the path from Unfulfilled Sex Pangs to Frustration and Loss to Resentment, and we have also seen how Deceit is almost automatically introduced into the relationship. Now back to answering the original question, does a libido imbalance lead to a soured relationship?

I would think that resentment would be to a relationship, as bacteria are to milk. As the bacteria multiply the milk becomes sour, the greater the number of bacteria the greater the souring… until at last the milk is spoiled and not fit for consumption. So too it is with a relationship, the more the resentments pile up, the more sour the relationship, until it too reaches a point where it is spoiled.

The only thing that keeps a relationship that has the problem of libido imbalance from spoiling is something that counteracts resentments: keeps them from building. Things like understanding. If one understands what it is that keeps one's spouse from fulfilling one's sexual pangs, and the understanding is mitigating, then that would keep resentments from growing. Perhaps extra-marital distractions might keep resentments from growing. If there is another way that sex pangs are satisfied then resentments might not grow as fast, or not at all. (Of course this can turn around and explode instantly if when such extra-marital outlets are discovered and they are used to vilify the spouse that was merely trying to cope for the sake of the relationship.)