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James is in his 60s and for two years has been with Claudette, whom he met on an online dating site. He describes his sexuality as follows: “I am a man.” For James, sexuality combines with his masculinity and is something he feels very central to his personality. He says that he learned how to be a boy and later a man from his father and especially his brother, a role model for his marriage and responsibility as a husband.
“In my teenage years, I was so caught up with the idea of needing to get a girlfriend," James explains. "My brother taught me how to ask girls out on a date. Initiative and action was the model of my dating in my youth. I understood this like it wasto be a 'man’s duty and responsibility,' and I did not question it. Back then, girls took more passive roles in dating and they did not tend to question that approach to dating.
"'Initiate, lead, and entertain,' are the three words that pop out of my mind when I think about dating throughout my young adulthood," he says. "When Claudette was talking about the shame connected to her sexuality, I had a thought that I, too, felt embarrassed when I couldn’t fulfill my role. My role was to initiate a date and entertain my girlfriend during the date. I felt like a failure and I felt embarrassed when my girlfriend rejected my gestures or did not laugh at my jokes."
In hindsight, James says that the three ideas—initiate, lead, and entertain—grew in his mind to became “the way things should be.”
With his ex-wife, James had been the initiator of all sexual intimacy. “I felt like I should initiate sex because that was my role from the beginning, and my ex always remained passive in this area," he recalls. "And I believed that I was okay with this arrangement. It was simply the way things were.”
Masculine roles in the 1970s
As I listened to James describes his sexuality, I think about how his sexuality and gender role are intertwined. Movies and TV shows in the 70s showed the male role in a romantic setting as a seducer and as the lead player in the development of relationship. Men are the ones who ask women on a date, the ones who initiate the first kiss and any action leading to sex.
Women are consistently portrayed as passive receivers of their male partner's affection and desire. James and I discuss how it seems as if the entire culture and society in 70s portrayed men as taking what could be called a leadership role in intimate relationships with little room for role flexibility or fluidity.
Changes in sexual appetite
At some point in his former marriage, James started to notice distancing by his wife. "It started as 'I don’t feel like it' or 'I am too tired to have sex.' I felt like my ex was pushing me away. There was already a distance between us then, but when we stopped having sex I started feeling like a failure as a man and as a husband. I believed that in order to be the real man one has to sexually satisfy your woman. Otherwise, in my mind, I was a failure and not a real man.”
James saw his sexual being and function based largely on making his wife feel sexually satisfied. When she was not sexually satisfied, he questioned his potency as a husband and a man. The pain of being rejected by his wife was exacerbated by feeling like a failure and embarrassment at not being able to please her sexually. Worse, he was unable to talk about this with his ex or anybody else.
Silent anger and isolation
James says that he grew resentful towards his ex-wife, and she reciprocated. “In my mind, I was doing everything. I was already working long hours, but I added even more work to distract myself. I dealt with the distance by being silent. In my stern silence, I said to myself, 'I am doing so much. What else does she want me to do?'"
What he did not see then, he say, was that "my silence was really hurting my marriage. I did not want to reach out to anyone about this. I was quiet, angry, and righteous. Eventually our marriage fell apart. It took a long time before I could see my part in that. After the divorce, my sister-in-law told me that I had ignored my wife when she in fact needed me to talk to her and try to resolve what was dividing us. As obvious as that now seems, it shocked me at the time.”
After the divorce, says James, "I realized that I did not know how to show up for my partner when she was going through her own changes. I knew how to perform the role of husband on the surface but did not know how to take care of the internal work of the marriage (communicating, connecting, and spending time with a partner). I was isolated in my silent anger and was not aware of many other things that were going on. And, as odd as it seems for this person to coach me in love, my ex-sister in-law tells me that I need to learn to communicate with Claudette instead of repeating my old mistake: quietly bottling things up inside.”
As I listen to James talk about his new relationship, I think about the book “How can I get through to you?” by Terrance Real. Real says that men are trained to avoid pain and socialized to mistrust their feelings, particularly vulnerable feelings. James had very rigid ideas of how to show up as a husband in his marriage. He understood his role as a financial provider and initiator of sexual intimacy with his ex. On the surface, he was able to perform the role of husband. But beneath the rigidity of that role, he hid his painful, vulnerable feelings. He would discover that his rigid ideas of masculinity did not allow him to communicate about the issues surrounding sexual intimacy.
For James, learning to communicate is necessary in the strengthening of his relationship with Claudette. And he has learned how this will support him in establishing and maintaining a sexual intimacy with her. And, most important, communicating with Claudette about his vulnerable feelings will help him alleviate his feeling of isolation when he is hurting. James says, “I am learning to communicate with Claudette one thing at a time and one day at a time. I am committed to learning how to communicate with my partner.”
