Free Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship by David Schnarch Page B

take our partner’s desire personally, be it high or low. We depend on a positive reflected sense of self from others about highly sensitive issues like sex. We feel attractive when others find us attractive. We feel desirable and desirous because someone desires us. When you’re getting the positive reflected sense of self you need, you’re unaware of the process. As far as you’re concerned, everything’s going fine. You’re in love. When people speak of rekindling romance in their marriage, what they really want is the euphoria of borrowed functioning and a positive reflected sense of self. 59
    But the price of feeling good about yourself because others approve of you—or want to have sex with you—is feeling bad about yourself when they don’t.
DEVELOPING A SOLID FLEXIBLE SELF
     
    Isn’t it perfectly normal to take it personally when your partner doesn’t want to have sex with you? Likewise, wouldn’t you feel bad if you don’t desire your partner and he tells you you’re screwed up? Of course! That’s the point: Most people rely on a reflected sense of self from others.
    This doesn’t result from childhood trauma, like not getting enough praise or unconditional acceptance when you were young. Constant criticism and rejection during childhood gives you a particularly
negative
reflected sense of self. Parental neglect makes you believe you’re unimportant and unworthy. But inexhaustible positive reinforcement won’t solve the basic issue,
because you still depend on others to make you feel okay about yourself
. Even if you were the gleam in your parents’eyes, you may still demand constant attention, support, and reassurance from your partner. No amount of praise gives you a
solid
sense of self.
    A solid sense of self develops from confronting yourself, challenging yourself to do what’s right, and earning your own self-respect
. It develops from inside you, rather than from internalizing what’s around you.
    It takes much longer to develop a really solid sense of self (i.e., reach adulthood) than many people think. So, when we marry we usually still depend on others for a positive self-reflection. We bring our reflected sense of self into our marriage, because it got us there. Meanwhile, the lust, romantic love, and attachment circuits in our heads are working overtime. What happens next is a no-brainer: We become a “couple.” Marriage is an ecosystem designed to help you become an adult, by making your reflected sense of self incredibly vulnerable and finally untenable.
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What happens to the low desire partner?
     
    Like most LDPs, Sally believed sexual desire is a natural function. This put her in a weak position in her own mind. Robert believed this, too, which diminished Sally’s status in their marriage. Robert’s desire became the standard by which Sally’s desire and adequacy were measured. Since Sally measured herself by Robert’s dissatisfaction, she readily assumed the lesser position in their sex life.
    In our initial session Sally complained that Robert frequently beat her down emotionally, telling her she had a sex problem. I said this was
his
reflected sense of self talking.
    “It’s pretty common for the high desire partner to rescue his drowning sense of self by saying, ‘It’s you, not me, that’s the problem.’ The more you depend on a reflected sense of self, the less you can handle being seen as less than perfect. When your flaws emerge, your picture of yourself cracks, and you crash emotionally. If you depend on a reflected sense of self, blaming someone else makes you feel better. So lots of low desire partners frequently hear, ‘I’m not the problem. It’s
you
!’”
    Sally complained, “I feel so bad when he says this to me. I’m depressed all day. I keep replaying our interaction in my head. I keep seeing myself disappointing Robert.”
    “That’s what happens when your reflected sense of self [pointing to Robert] is having a bad day.” Sally and Robert