The fear that cripples your love life

What struck me when Mary and John walked into the consultation room was that Mary was carrying John’s briefcase.

She then pulled him a seat, got him a small bottle of mineral water from her handbag and asked him if he was comfortable.

She remained standing beside him like a mother watching over her sick child and attending to his every whim. I wondered to myself if John was unwell.

Dwindling intimacy

“So how can I help?” I asked instinctively looking at Mary for instruction.

“We read your article on sexless marriages and we thought we should see you.” It was John who answered,. “We are pretty intimate but somehow sex does not happen.”

They had been married for three years and had one child. In their first year of marriage they had sex two to three times a week. Over time, this had reduced to once or twice every three to four months making it a maximum of eight times in a year.

“Do not get me wrong; we live together and sleep in the same bed every night but that is how far it goes,” John explained. Mary nodded in affirmation.

“Do you frequently disagree or fight?” I asked, trying to understand why Mary, initially portraying herself as a mother, was now playing a sycophant role.

“What? Never, I cannot do that!” Mary exclaimed, frowning. I apologised so that we could continue the conversation.

Going further into their sex life, it was John who always initiated the act. Mary simply did as instructed. Over time, John also withdrew from driving the process and so increasingly, no sex was happening.

“You know, I am never sure if I am welcome,” he explained. “If she was equally interested we would both be initiating it and enjoying it.”

After a number of sex coaching sessions, it turned out that Mary had fear of rejection and abandonment. This develops after a devastating life experience of rejection and/or abandonment. It could be that while you were a child your parents rejected or abandoned you emotionally or physically by having you live with relatives or friends instead of living at home. Or maybe they took you to boarding school and this made you feel rejected.

In Mary’s case, she developed this fear after being abandoned by her first love.

“A man I truly trusted and planned to marry walked out on me, days to our grand wedding,” Mary told me amid sobs.

Three days to the wedding, the man declared that he was no longer interested in the wedding. No persuasion would make him change his mind. The wedding was cancelled and Mary was left with disappointment, anger and shame.

After three years of emotional abstinence, Mary fell in love with John. They tied the knot 11 months later. As they grew closer in their relationship day by day, a strong fear gripped Mary: what if John decided to abandon her one day? She increasingly behaved in a way to retain John, albeit subconsciously. She chose to be a housewife to “effectively take care of her family”.

In the bedroom, her subconscious could not allow her to make a first move just in case John said no to her. This would have provoked a strong feeling of rejection in her. Further, she remained more or less inactive during sex, not sure if a strange move would offend John. This made her a sexual zombie.

Sexless marriage

Without reciprocal activity in bed, John soon got tired of initiating and leading sex. He withdrew emotionally from Mary. The result was a sexless marriage.

It took weeks to clear the fear of rejection and abandonment from Mary’s mind. This called for intensive counselling.

She started to see that love is not enslaving but is supposed to motivate and make people grow emotionally and be able to face life with confidence.

She was also made to realise that when you are rejected the problem is not that you are bad; the person rejecting you is the one with a problem, in most cases.

John also had to appreciate that his acceptance of unusual favours from Mary only served to worsen her situation. He was counselled to forthwith reject uncalled for acts of kindness. Within six months, the couple was back on their feet. The frequency of sex naturally picked up.

New aspirations

One year later, Mary was more confident and started her own business. She had new aspirations for her life and planned to register for a business management course. All this was testimony to the fact that the fear of rejection and abandonment not only interferes with bedroom matters but with life in its entirety. This fear must be fought and treated to liberate the many women who may be trapped in it.