Sorrow's Web by ANNE SHEFFIELD

Author:ANNE SHEFFIELD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Self-Help/Recovery
Publisher: THE FREE PRESS
Published: 2000-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Sex and Depression Don’t Mix

Sex is a wonderful method of communication and mutual pleasuring. Innumerable couples head for bed as a way of erasing the aftereffects of an unpleasant exchange. While it is true that sex is sometimes employed as a Band-Aid, satisfying desire while postponing settlement of underlying problems, more often it is a genuine expression of mutual love and affection. Part of sex is nonverbal, but hand in hand with the physicality go all those sweet mutterings and murmurings. Taken together, they’re good medicine for marriage. Most couples in which one member is depressed don’t get to have good sex; in fact, they often have no sex at all. Under that overall heading “Loss of interest in activities previously enjoyed” is sex, because depression suppresses both desire and performance.

Rejection in the bedroom can be devastating, especially if no one knows the real reason for it. A natural reaction is to find other, more belittling reasons, the two standard being, “He can’t make love with me because he no longer desires me” and “She doesn’t want to make love with me because she’s fooling around with someone else.” Both will heighten an already charged atmosphere. Sexual problems are never easy to talk about, and so give free rein to the imagination of troubled partners.

Even more damaging is the cruelty and viciousness that can characterize depression-speak by both sexes. One long-married spouse of a depressed man observed that she didn’t have much to say about sex because there wasn’t any anymore, but she added that was only part of her problem. “At one point I gained a lot of weight. I was so miserable. Eating was one of the few pleasures I could count on and I blew up like a blimp. Ben said to me one day, “You’re so fat I’m never going to sleep with you again.” I don’t think I’ve ever felt so awful, so low and hopeless and ugly. What made it even worse was that he already wasn’t sleeping with me, hadn’t been for several years, but of course by saying that, he made feel that it was my fault.” Although less inclined to express their feelings so openly, plenty of men with a depressed partner must have similar complaints.

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