Uncovering Baffling Sexual Dynamics

Multiple determinants go into sexual behaviors, and it is important to avoid drawing premature conclusions about them.

Sexual behaviors may not be primarily about sexual drive.

My experience working with teenagers and college students has taught me how vulnerable young women can be.

One of the most poignant examples of vulnerability was Sandra, a sixteen-year-old girl who had recently transferred to another high school because of her reputation for promiscuity. Her modest dress and pleasant appearance made her look wholesome rather than sexual. But Sandra didn’t know much about sex, didn’t have much sexual drive, and didn’t find the sex act enjoyable.

She did eventually identify a vicious cycle. She would feel worthless and unlovable. A boy would flirt with her. Then she’d begin to believe she could be cared for. Sandra would do anything the boy wanted her to do sexually. For a brief moment, she’d feel wanted, desirable, and loved. She’d so rarely felt that and would have so much hope associated with it that when she realized she had been complicit in being used, it was all the more devastating. She felt betrayed and degraded. She had been fooled and abandoned once more. Her self-loathing was intense. She resolved not to be fooled again.

The boy would talk to his peers, who would speak to their girlfriends. The girls at the school were fearful of her taking away their boyfriends, so they ostracized her. It felt like everyone knew, and people at school would shy away from her. This situation made Sandra feel even more needy for validation. And this set her up to give in to the next boy. When a person is emotionally starving for love, validation, and acceptance, they are at risk of being exploited.

In my work with children and teens in a residential treatment center, I worked with children who were perpetrators of sexual abuse. I found it hard to believe that, at eleven years old, a child could be a sexual predator. One child was very skilled at spotting other children who had been abused and who could become their victims. They could identify the one abused child in a room of sixty potential victims.

Sometimes, revenge, the excitement of the forbidden, or competitive strivings are the motives behind what appear on the surface to be simply sexually motivated behaviors.

For example, some men have mothers who were cold and unsatisfied with anything their children did when growing up. These men find themselves seducing women and leading them on, unaware that their motive is to let them down. It is not the sex they seek but the opportunity to turn the tables on the women and make them feel they are not enough, just like their mother made them feel when they were children.

Clients’ interpersonal dynamics may manifest in their sexual behaviors.

Nowhere are dynamics more reductionist than when we try to understand the motives behind some sexual behaviors.

Nonetheless, I will describe some of the dynamics that I believe were behind affairs.

Different sexual needs may be the dynamic behind some affairs. For example, clients have explained that sometimes, they want their partner to be tender and loving, and other times, they want passionate, lusty sex that does not make time for tenderness. One may have an affair when the other is consistently absent from their sexual relationship.

Ernesto’s difficulty with being able to love resulted in an affair.

Having never experienced love or seen examples of it, Ernesto did not know how to love or form an intimate attachment. He equated the initial, perhaps pheromone-driven, infatuation with mature love. Ernesto fell in love with the idea of love.

When infatuation stopped, the need for joint everyday problem-solving began. He could not build the give-and-take, interdependent caring about each other that loses “me “and “you” in favor of “us.” Having sex did not grow into making love. Emotional intimacy eluded Ernesto, and he was stuck with sex without love.

Habituation became a problem for Ernesto. Habituation is seen in different situations. For example, when a person repeatedly views pornography, the stimulus that is initially exciting grows less exciting over time. The viewer needs to seek something novel to achieve the same level of excitement. Then they become habituated to the new stimulus, and so on.

Ernesto had an affair and explained to himself that it was because his sex life had become routine. Because he was just having sex, he had become habituated. The enduring emotional intimacy that would have sustained him and given him relationship depth was missing. He and his partner lacked the contentment that can serve as a buffer against the difficulties associated with the ups and downs of sexual performance and life.

There are other people who don’t become unfaithful; they never were faithful to begin with. They are not capable of fidelity. The cause may be a lack of impulse control. Other people may be unable to form attachments. Perhaps they are sociopaths who marry for money or political advancement.

Some people marry to convince themselves that they are not gay or lesbian, but it does not work. They have difficulty ignoring their sexuality and may have an affair. Their partners may feel unattractive and seek reassurance outside the relationship as well. Often, there is more love between the couple than there is in the average marriage, along with a basis for a friendship that lasts beyond the divorce. Both parties may have a long history of kindness toward each other

and want the best for each other, but the process is still painful and confusing to the kids.

The dynamics of naivete and overconfidence may lead to an affair.

I once heard a minister deliver a sermon on adultery. He said that an affair dilutes or adulterates the energy necessary for a relationship. He spoke about how naive people overestimate their impulse control and put themselves in situations that set them up to give in.

I have taken advantage of his concept of stages to talk to people dealing with impulse control. The minister said it starts with a look at an attractive person. At that point, if the person looking is aware of the process, this is when it’s easiest to change the behavior—to look away and try to think about something else.

Next comes the lust stage, in which the person allows themselves to develop fantasies about the object of their attention.

In the lingering stage, the person will create a way to be around the attractive person. In the lingering stage, they trust their impulse control and tell themselves it is just an innocent interaction.

In the lure stage, the two people find themselves in a more seductive situation, alone and lacking deterrents to acting on their impulses. Then, the impulse is acted on. It seems the act happened suddenly, but both parties ignored the warning signs that would have made it easier to prevent it.

I’ve had several clients who could relate to this situation. They told me that work compounded the temptations by throwing them and the other party together on work projects, where they worked long hours. That tired them out, lowered their impulse control, and isolated them. At other times, work resulted in employees being assigned away from home for extended periods.

Dahlia’s husband’s affair extricated her from a loveless marriage.

Dahlia had come to understand that leaving her dysfunctional husband would make her life much easier, but it would take time, energy, and money. She had just enough to hold things together and take care of her kids. She lacked the added energy needed for transformation. Even if her religious beliefs had allowed her, she was too tired to have an affair.

When Dahlia met her husband, she’d felt needed. She mistakenly equated that with being loved. But over time, she felt used. She was ambivalent about the idea of leaving her husband, but she convinced herself that there were some things she could do to improve her life without committing herself to making that decision. Having a plan made her more optimistic, even though there was no immediate relief in sight.

She set about getting more education, finding a better job, saving money, and getting her kids through school. Dahlia was not a manipulative person. I doubt it occurred to her that her diminished sexual interest would lead her husband to have an affair. But, over time, it did. Then Dahlia could justify a divorce. And by that time, she was prepared. She felt his affair just happened, but it was actually the culmination of an unconscious war of attrition.

Some affair dynamics revolve around affirmation. Men have told me that their wives belittled them in public and demeaned them sexually in private. These men found a “testimonial woman” to have an affair with until they could feel good enough about themselves to leave their abusive wives.

I have treated testimonial women who rehabilitated men, only to be left for less nurturing but more physically attractive women. I suspect that the nurturing and mothering these women provided turned these men off because men want a partner, not a mother.

There are also baffling sexual dynamics related to actual inadequacy. Women have often complained of having to over-function and mother their inadequate, dependent husbands who refused to grow up. Their sex life suffered in part because these women did not want to sleep with a “son,” and the men did not want to sleep with a “mother.” When I hear this part of the story, I am listening for any clue that the inadequate husband slept with a victim in the vicinity, like a child or the wife’s best friend. Some men are too lazy or inadequate to pick up someone at a bar or seek someone online.

Some affair dynamics involve a client’s unwillingness to lose marital advantages. Clients may have convinced themselves that they loved a partner who offered them and their kids security and kindness, only to realize later that it was need and not love. They find the partner does not excite them sexually or romantically. Rather than end the marriage and lose their security, they have an affair.

Men have told me they stopped caring about their relationship with their wives years before the divorce. It did not matter if a wife learned how to communicate better, was more appreciative, offered sex more, or understood the husband better.

It took me a while to realize that when I was treating the wives of these men, I was wasting the wives’ money trying to help them communicate better. But sometimes, a wife needed to make that effort before she could believe she had tried everything. Then she could drop her denial, grieve, and regain agency over her future. Some baffling sexual dynamics involve affair dynamics in which an unconscious contract is broken. I have not seen many trophy wife couples, but I believe these marriages are in trouble if the wife gains weight or the husband loses money. If the relationship develops into a meaningful, loving one over time, the trophy wife must adapt to becoming a nurse to her much older mate.

I treated an older man who had dominated and mistreated his younger wife over the years. The wife’s life and family situation prevented her from leaving. She was unusually fit, and it seemed she had decided that staying healthy and outliving him would ultimately give her a life of her own. Eventually, the older man needed his wife to care for him, but she used the opportunity to withhold care as a kind of torture. When you see contempt in the eyes of your elderly male client’s wife, ask yourself if he is getting his medication and the treatment he needs.

Being loved nurtures the remarkable person a partner has stunted.

Rose’s partner was well known for his compassion and selfless behavior. Her partner was a genuinely good person and parent. On the other hand, Rose, who was a teacher, was seen as somewhat distant in her relationships with her colleagues. I wondered whether they felt subtly intimidated by Rose’s trim figure, the understated elegance of her clothes, and her fine facial features.

Sometimes, her students’ parents would ask the principal to move their children to a different class. Most students and their parents would begrudgingly acknowledge that Rose was an excellent teacher who took a special interest in needy students. But her aloofness made her seem cold.

It was a puzzle to me that Rose’s partner would be so dismissive and undermine her when he was so lovely to everyone else. Eventually, I learned that his mother gave him up as a small child. And he took out his anger on Rose. She tried many things but found her character being subtly attacked daily. She described it as soul-destroying.

Rose described her affair as lifesaving. What baffled me the most was how she almost became another person. Others noticed a warmth and openness they had not seen before in Rose. She was not just in love; she had discovered that she could be loved and valued for herself.

I felt sad that two good people couldn’t get along, but I was blown away by how much a person can blossom when they’re loved and how that person had been there all along, pushed down inside. It was like love had melted the iciness.

Eventually, Rose left her partner, and it felt like she was making a statement about her worth.

The best book I have ever read on developing and sustaining intimacy in marriage is A Lifelong Love Affair: Keeping Sexual Desire Alive in Your Relationship by Joseph Nowinski.