20.01.2017 Sabrina Ludwig 11082

Sex in a partnership: "I'm too tired, rabbit!"

What is the secret of a stable relationship? Couples therapist Dagmar Cassiers is convinced that happy couples are a good match sexually, unhappy ones a bad one. Part 1 of the interview.

We float on cloud nine, make plans for the future and then often fail: to have a long-lasting and happy relationship. pme employee Dagmar Cassiers has been a couples therapist and relationship counselor for over 20 years. In her book "Sex Passport", she argues that unhappy couples often have the same problem in common: dissatisfaction in bed.

Hair in the sink or constant arguments about raising children: How did you come to the conclusion that sexual frustrations are often to blame for conflicts in a relationship?

Dagmar Cassiers: I've always wondered why every third couple gets divorced. Most couples get married because they want to spend their whole lives together. At first everything is rosy, you're terribly in love, and then this great love suddenly comes to an end? How did that happen?

I'm a bit of a statistics freak and over the years, while working as a therapist, I noticed that couples who had split up reported an incredible number of issues: Stubble in the sink, cosmetics taking up the whole bathroom, peeing standing up, the dishwasher that he or she never emptied.

So the couples split up over supposedly minor issues such as a different understanding of order?

It was actually these everyday issues that caused the couples to get into each other's hair. That made me suspicious and I got into the habit of asking them specifically: What is the sexual situation like with them? The answer I usually got was a roll of the eyes, a meaningful look between the partners or they said quite clearly that nothing had been going on between them in bed for a long time. I then probed deeper and asked what satisfying sex was for them? It turned out that the two partners often had very different ideas about it. These experiences were the basis for my thesis: happy couples are a good match sexually, unhappy ones are a bad match.

Happy couples probably don't come to your consultation. How do you know that they have a fulfilling sexuality?

Couples also come to me because of other conflicts - for example, high levels of stress at work or pubescent children to whom the parents cannot find access at the moment. When sexuality as a partner is also discussed in these contexts, I hear in almost all cases that the sex was great from the start and still is after many years - for both of them equally.

What is good sex anyway?

There is no standard. It's like food: one person likes Brussels sprouts, another doesn't. One is no worse than the other. That's why I deliberately avoid the terms "good sex" and "bad sex".

Sex is good when both feel it is good. It doesn't matter whether sex takes place once a day or once a year. It only becomes difficult when one person wants it five times a day, but the other only once a week. In most cases, one person will give in to the other's need, even though it is not their nature. This may work for a while. But after a quarter or six months, the person giving in thinks: "Oh no, not again!"

Conversely, does this mean that if things don't work out perfectly in bed on the first few dates, I'd better admit to myself right away that we're not a good match?

It would be ideal to be honest about your own sexual needs. It's usually like this on a first date: there's a guy who we find good-looking first and foremost. Maybe he still has those bright blue eyes that we've always wanted in a man, and maybe we can have a good conversation with him. We feel magically attracted to him, because that's how we've always imagined him: our dream man. So far so good. Sooner or later, the first caresses usually follow. And the first kiss can be incredibly revealing.

For example, I had a couple in counseling where the wife told me that his kisses were far too wet for her from the start. She never told her husband that. Everything else was perfect. At some point, she turned her head away more and more often when he wanted to kiss her - and that's when the misunderstandings began. He decided for himself that she had to have another man, accusations followed on various levels and everything led to them breaking up.

What I mean by that is: In this exceptional hormonal state of being in love, disturbing and inappropriate things are simply blocked out. Oh, that wasn't so good today. But otherwise it was always nice. It'll be fine, we tell ourselves. When we take off our rose-colored glasses, we stumble across these inaccuracies more and more often. But then we're often already in the middle of the relationship.

Instead of rejecting my dream man straight away because his kisses are too wet for me, I could talk to him about it first ...

Yes, of course. If she had approached him about it from the start and asked if he could kiss less wetly, then the relationship might have been more durable. But if he had said that kissing couldn't be wet enough for him, then it would have been clear from the start that a relationship between the two of them couldn't work. Talking about it takes courage, of course, but it can also avoid disappointment. However, fundamentally different needs are difficult to change.

Continue to part 2 of the interview: "We need to talk!"
 

Dagmar Cassiers: Sex passport. Sexual accuracy of fit. With 423 questions on the sexual profile. Tredition. 13,95 Euro

A fulfilling sexuality is a strong foundation that supports and sustains relationships. Sex makes you happy or extremely unhappy. Depending on whether your love life is running smoothly or bobbing along. The decisive question is not whether sex is "good" or "bad", but whether two people are sexually compatible.

With 423 questions, the book gives you the opportunity to concretize your own sexual profile and compare it with that of your partner or potential partner This leads to the sexual I and the sexual you and, ideally, to the sexual we. Order now.

www.cassiers-coaching.de