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Desire mismatch & the Pursuer/Avoider Cycle

February 3, 2014 By Annette & Graeme Leave a Comment

What if My Partner Wants More Sex than Me?

There’s a very common cycle that develops when there are differing levels of desire for sex in a relationship, and many painful ways the cycle plays out.

It’s called The Pursuer/Avoider cycle.

Do any of these this sound familiar?

For Pursuers:

  • Doing everything right simply with the hope of getting a ‘yes’ to sex.
  • Feeling your partner cringe instead of respond to your advances.
  • Giving your lover a massage with the hope of stimulating a sexual response.
  • Saying “yes” to sex in the hope of receiving some intimacy.
  • Continuing to have sex even though it hurts to see your partner is uninterested.
  • Withholding emotional intimacy as payback for a lack of sex.
  • Fearfully suggesting sex, then slinking into a corner to lick your wounds of rejection.
  • Feeling somehow invalidated to your core.Man frustrated in bed
  • After being rejected too many times, giving up mentioning sex at all.

For Avoiders:

  • Feeling like your partner selfishly wants to use you for their needs.
  • Avoiding offering affection in case it’s mistaken as a sexual advance.
  • Going to bed early before your partner arrives home or staying up later than them.
  • Finding important work that you suddenly have to finish if your partner wants sex.
  • Keeping extra busy with your kids in the hopes of avoiding being asked.
  • Offering ‘sympathy’ sex to temporarily relieve the tension between you.
  • Finding yourself starting an argument before bed to reduce the chances of intimacy.
  • Feeling unseen and unlovable.
  • Finding that you want sex less and less.

If this is you, you’re not alone. These and many similar scenarios are being acted out in homes across the world.

Relationships are energy cycles, and wherever there’s an action, there will be a corresponding reaction. It’s common for partners to have differing sexual needs (or at least appear to on the surface). How these needs are negotiated is one of the key markers for relationship success.

For the PursuerNo oral sex orgasm

The cycle begins when the partner with the higher level of sexual desire finds their sexual needs unmet, so they start pursuing the less interested partner. The more the pursuer chases, the more the other partner starts to avoid them, becoming more and more emotionally and sexually unavailable.

This results in the pursuer becoming more needy, unhappy and focussed on getting what they want. They manipulate every situation into a potential ploy for sex, and act out their anger and frustration in covert ways that make to them unattractive their partner.

So however much sex they get, it’s never enough. This frustration makes them grumpy, irritable, emotionally closed and critical of their avoidant partner, whom they make wrong for not wanting sex. Being repeatedly rejected sexually by the person who’s supposed to love and desire them results in a lowered sense of self-esteem and self-worth.

For the Avoider

The avoidant partner will either do anything to avoid having sex, or finds that saying ‘no’ to sex makes them feel guilty. They circumvent their need to reject sex by avoiding any type of physical touch or affection, often keeping themselves too busy to be approached, commonly focussing on the either children or work as a distraction.

Couples need relationship trainingThis creates physical distance between themselves and their more highly sexed partner. They also make the other person wrong for their desires, shaming them as being too sexual. They see the pursuer as focussed only on sex, and find it easy to blame them for the lack of intimacy that they may long for deep down, but avoid in case it leads to potential sex. Or they try to create it separate from sex.

When the repercussions for avoiding sex get too high, they offer palliative sex to soothe their partner’s pain and get them off their back – but they offer it with resentment and a lack of joy.

If you see this dynamic is happening in your relationship, try these suggestions:

  1. Agree to communicate about your situation, whilst acknowledging the challenge and vulnerability in doing so. For this cycle to end, BOTH of you need to drop the victim stance and be willing to change. Remember that the goal here isn’t to get more/less sex but to get onto the same team.
  2. Each person needs to STOP making both the other and themselves wrong for wanting or not wanting sex. This allows you each to listen non-judgementally to how it is for the other one and develop some compassion. Remember that you’re both looking for the same thing: to love and feel loved in return.
  3. Know that you’re NOT responsible for each other’s desires. You’re only responsible for finding a workable solution.
  4. Recognise that this is a behaviour cycle. And it’s one that’s likely to make any underlying mismatch in desire more pronounced than it actually is.
  5. Recognize that an extreme desire for sex or to avoid it likely comes from disconnection with your selves. Using your ABC practice to get back into connection with your selves is your most important port of call in this situation.
  6. Acknowledge that sex is an important human desire. Realise that it’s a unique part of an intimate relationship, a potential source of connection, pleasure and contentment, and a special activity you share with no one else that has many health benefits.
  7. Give up palliative sex. It’s soul-destroying for both of you over time.
  8. Understand that you’re not entitled to sex in your relationship. And, in the same way, you’re not entitled to intimacy when and how you want it either. In the West particularly, we can take our entitlement for granted. Sex and intimacy both come from a place of mutual understanding, connection and desire that you’re each responsible for, rather than being about entitlement and obligation.
  9. Mark on a mutual calendar when sex happens. This will help you both to be clear on what you’re dealing with.
  10. It’s OK for anyone to say NO to sex without having to feel guilty. What’s NOT reasonable is to do so repeatedly Heart Connectionwithout discussion or consideration of the other person, given that you both entered the relationship with sex being an accepted part of it.
  11. We find honest, vulnerable communication helps enormously here. As does approaching sex from the many understandings and practices in this book helping people to get into both their bodies and their hearts. For when this happens desire is a natural outcome and lovemaking becomes incredibly satisfying so frequency is less important.

As the Pursuer, you can:

  • Validate your desire for sex as a beautiful and loving part of yourself, and not as something dirty or selfish. Be real about sharing with your partner how much not having sex hurts. The more you get real, the more your partner can hear you and be motivated to do something about it.
  • Don’t get sucked in by sympathy sex and let it placate you for a while. It isn’t addressing the issue, and it lets your partner think they’re fixing the problem when they aren’t.
  • Recognise that your high drive for sex may come from not being fully satisfied by the sex you’re having. Seek greater connection with yourself, rather than just seeking it through your partner. Learn self-pleasuring techniques that circulate your sexual energy and deepen your connection to yourself, rather than building up frustration that seeks release in masturbation. This will make getting a ‘no’ slightly less painful. Reducing your frustration, neediness and manipulations to create sex will paradoxically make you more attractive.
  • Be clear and upfront when you do ask for sex. Make the asking about YOU wanting to share something rather than them needing to give it to you. Hard as it may be, let go of any attachment to getting you want, as this gets rid of any unconscious manipulation. This creates space for your partner to potentially feel their own desire and move towards you.
  • Rebuild a safe physical intimacy between you. Offer unconditional nurturing touch outside of sex, such as a slow hug or foot massage. Also try sensual touch, such as brushing your fingers across your partner’s shoulders or resting your hand on their waist for a moment. However, if no change occurs over time, give yourself permission to drop it.Man facing forward
  • Assess the kind of sex you’re offering. If you’re only focussed on performance and a release of tension with limited connection and pleasure for your partner, you can hardly expect them to keep coming back for it, or you. Are you willing to explore heart-connected, intimate, nurturing yet potent lovemaking? This is not about having to be the world’s greatest lover – it’s just about approaching sex from a bigger perspective and being open to learning. This is what seeking a more Tantric approach to sex can offer you. Graeme and I find that couples make the biggest shift in their libido discrepancies here.
  • Look for the simple solutions too. Could you benefit from getting fitter, helping around the house, having fresh breath and generally making more of an effort to be attractive if you haven’t been?
  • Make a genuine effort to compliment your partner about things that are unrelated to sex. However, also compliment them when they show any sex-positive behaviours, especially if they lack sexual confidence.
  • Drop any behaviours that are a covert manipulation to get sex. Your partner can feel this, and it only pushes them further away.
  • If you do get rejected, don’t just sit on the couch and suffer. Move through the feeling with your ABC, then get up and do something good for yourself.
  • Ask your partner about having sex with a definite timeline, eg. in a couple of hours or the next night, rather than wanting it immediately. Ask them if there’s anything you can do to help them get into the space for lovemaking. This can allow them to feel less pressured.
  • Ask yourself whether your need is actually for intimacy. If so, can you create this another way? Try a hug, sharing an embodied conversation, a drink or movie together, or lying together just holding each other.
  • As painful as it may sound, consider taking a break from sex. Being denied sex immediately makes you want it more than you otherwise might. Focus your energy away from your partner into something else like getting fit, a new hobby, or time out to just chill. This nurtures you and can give your partner a chance to miss and desire you again.
  • If you’re looking for a more direct approach, find a good sexual counsellor. They can help you to discover what might be going on beneath the surface of your relationship.
  • Be prepared to ask some hard questions here. You have every right to understand what’s happening for your partner, and not being willing to at least talk about the situation is not OK. Try a Speaking The Unspoken If you get a complete and permanent no-go zone here, ask yourself what other options you have to deal with your situation, rather than shutting down.

If you’re the Avoider, you can:

  • Acknowledge that underneath your partner’s desire for sex IS a desire to connect with you in a place of love and pleasure. It’s not about wanting to ‘take’ anything from you.
  • Be real about not wanting sex. Don’t just make excuses, as this blurs the picture.
  • Make an effort to re-establish emotional closeness if this has deteriorated. Spend time with your partner sharing mutual interests, even if it’s just a cup of coffee – but remember this is not a replacement for sex.
  • Explore whether your lack of desire for sex is truly a lack of desire. It might just be slow arousal, where it just takes you longer to get into sex. Explore taking your time and using a variety of approaches to see if this makes a difference to your overall desire.
  • Woman being self awareLook at ways that sex might be of value to you. It could be a way of nurturing and connecting with yourself, rather than something you have to ‘give’, which could help you to develop a pro-sex attitude.
  • See what might be limiting your desire that you can change. Is your lack of desire due to something about your partner that they may be willing to change? Is there something in you that you could address in you, eg. your stress and energy levels, protection around your heart, or feelings of inadequacy or resentment? All of these will impact your libido.
  • Take a look back through the chapters on sex (Chapters 7 and this current one). Especially check through Identifying Your Unique Blocks to Pleasure.
  • As you learn to rediscover this part of you, be willing to negotiate levels of sexual participation. For example, you could be with your partner whilst they self-pleasure, or being willing to go into sex without needing the desire to be there upfront, as often desire for sex can come after arousal. This is NOT about forcing yourself to have sex you don’t want, but instead creating an openness to the possibilities within it.
  • Meet your partner in the emotional vulnerability of connecting sex to the heart, rediscovering making love, rather than just having sex. The more you show up, the more they will be invited to and vice versa. Start with talking about it.
  • If none of these things are possible, least negotiate a way for the Pursuer to get their needs met outside the relationship without shame or judgement. Being denied sex (especially without really knowing why) is a very lonely and painful place to be that can damage their self-worth, and at the very least leave them irritable and dead inside.

If you have difficulties in exploring this territory, you’re not alone. Looking at the ideas above is a great start. The many understandings and practices in this book will also help to bring your sexual desires into greater balance.Bali Couples Retreat

Graeme and I have seen many high-desire partner find that their sexual desire changes from quantity to quality, and low-desire partners find their fires kindled in ways they might never have imagined. They may even on occasion find themselves in the high-desire position! Getting onto the same team here will support you in finding a way out of the maze and into a new place of self awareness, understanding, pleasure and connection.

If you have difficulties in exploring the above territory, you’re not alone. Don’t be afraid – or ashamed – to seek outside professional help to guide and support you in f and into a new place of self-awareness, loving understanding, connection and pleasure.

For assistance email here or call 1800 TANTRA

 

Making Love as a Meditation

September 23, 2013 By admin Leave a Comment

Regular quality sex is essential to good health and wellbeing

Regular sex is widely believed to be an important part of maintaining good health and wellbeing through its heart opening experience of intimacy and stimulation of rejuvenating hormones. However what we generally believe sex to be – a biological urge resulting in a brief encounter between two people, experiencing some physical closeness and/or the release of tension through orgasm, is an Fantasy sex happens in the mindenjoyable but limited view. In Tantra, sex is seen not just as an itch to scratch but as an opportunity to be as Gods and Goddesses in sexual love.

Tantric sex is an experience of true bliss:

With senses and hearts wide open where we can experience any, or all of the following:

  • we feel relaxed yet fully alive and nurtured
  • pleasure and orgasm happens throughout the whole body rather than just in the genitals
  • our aloneness retreats
  • our consciousness expands
  • we experience being at one with love – which is our true nature!

Tantric sex is a merging of body, heart, mind and spirit.

This experience of expanded consciousness is not just a place to ‘escape to’ or ‘get high’ but is where we connect to our essential truth of being one with love, the Divine and the universe, bringing us to a higher sense of gratitude, compassion, peacefulness, wisdom and acceptance. It also allows time for an expanded experience of orgasm and the optimal stimulation of rejuvenating hormones. As humans we are unique in being able to experience sex at this level. In Tantra we can learn to create these experiences through meditation and while making love. Regular experiences of bliss allow us to approach life with gratitude and enthusiasm, motivated by love.

What is Tantric Sex actually like?

Tantric EnergySex is breathing, feeling, warmth, tingling, connecting, creating, sharing, trusting, meeting, here, there, more, less, moving, gratitude, safety, opening, vulnerability, surrendering, expanding, dissolving, stillness, being nothing or everything, ecstasy, bliss. 

  • In Tantric sex there is no goal of getting anywhere, of striving for the big “0”.
  • With an open heart you approach your partner as an aspect of the divine.
  • You are in the now, purely awareness and feeling.
  • The mind is still, focussed on being rather than doing.
  • Your ego dissolves and your heart opens.
  • In Tantra, sex is making love as a meditation

 Relaxing into bliss…

How does Tantric Sex differ from other kinds of sex?

A snapshot of typical fantasy sex:

  • The setting is idyllic, ambiently lit and subtly scented.
  • He is handsome, well built, rich, romantic, suntanned, eloquent and has million dollar hands.
  • She is beautiful, slim, pert-breasted, silky haired, smooth skinned, perfectly groomed, wet and willing.
  • The sex is spontaneous, effortless, explosive…

A snapshot of typical reality sex:

  • The same old bed, lights off, eyes closed.
  • He carries stress from a hard day at the office and seeks an opportunity for release.
  • She is tired from overload and would love to just have a cuddle and go to sleep.
  • Often when we’re not sure how to have sex we can be focussed more on what is going wrong, than on creating what we want…
  • “I hope he turns the light out so he doesn’t see how big my bum looks,”
    “I wonder if I’m doing this right?”
    “I wonder how much longer I have to do foreplay before I can have an orgasm,”
    “I’m too tired and too angry at him for not helping me today and now he wants sex too!”
    “I’m really worried about work, I hope I can get it up,”
    “mmm that’s nice, I wonder when/if will I come?”
    “I want to come, it feels good, just not yet, not yet,”
    “I hate it, I never come, what’s for dinner?”
    Orgasm feels so good because it allows us to let go of control and go beyond our minds to experience bliss for a short time, but it gets even better than that…
  • The sex is familiar, brief, orgasm oriented, over. Done.

Tantric sex: Pleasure, Passion and Love

  • According to prior agreement, a space is created to share intimate, sensual, sexual time with no other agenda than connection and pleasure
  • Recent and authentic sharing has created a strong connection between you
  • Your conscious intention for personal and mutual pleasure encourages sexual energy to arise
  • Caring communication and comfort enables vulnerability and closeness
  • A meditative mind clears in preparation for being present and feeling
  • Coming fully into the NOW allows space for creativity and spontaneity to arise.
  • Stories and tensions of the blame game are released in preparation to meet our God and Goddess within
  • Acknowledgment of the healing power of sexual love enables a letting go of the frustrations of the ego
  • Desires are communicated and heard without judgement
  • Desires of each are embraced and accommodated using tantric tools
  • Full body awareness deepens, encouraging the flow of life force energy, opening and tantalizing
  • Deep and deeper connection evolves through eye contact, conscious breathing and gratitude
  • Intensity builds then is dispersed throughout the body, over and again, with delicious valleys of stillness in between
  • Where we as lovers are invited to step into something larger than our everyday ordinariness.
  • Sex is the original act of nuclear fusion where chemistry becomes alchemy.
  • Completion comes in its own good time, with feelings of nurture, renewal and expansive love

In the Tantric sex experience, there is no goal of orgasm, no tensing or pushing for release. You create love and pleasure together. Depending on your desire you can create increasing levels of intensity and scale the dizzy heights of peak orgasmic pleasure, perhaps meeting the face of God (or devil), or just drift along together in bliss of the orgasmic valley. Letting go of trying to force orgasmic pleasure allows orgasm to happen naturally and spontaneously. As you respond to each moment the love Tantric Heart spaceyou create can be gentle and flowing, intensely passionate and hot, primal and earthy or expansively magical. There are so many wonderful pleasures to experience that being willing to take a risk and create something new, rather than staying in the safety of the familiar seems so worth it, don’t you think?

How can we experience this bliss?

Sex, intimacy and heart connection

Understanding that it is possible for sex to be more than a biological urge, an ego stroking performance or just a release of tension is an important part of achieving bliss.

From emotional walls to relaxation

One of the reasons we can avoid or rush sex, doing it in the dark or with our eyes closed, is that we have emotional walls of fear, frustration, shame or vulnerability which prevent us from feeling comfortable being really close to another person. When we learn to relax and feel comfortable with intimacy our hearts open, allowing love to flow and our capacity for orgasmic pleasure to expand. This is a great motivation to dissolve barriers to intimacy.

From physical friction to our energetic body

An understanding that sex happens at more than just the physical or ‘friction’ level –but involves our energy body as well – that feels like it comes from deep within us – is an integral element in the experience of bliss. Where we awaken the sexual energy deep within the body with the Principles of Tantra. We can learn to feel the orgasmic or Life Force energy that exists in us all the time through awareness, use of the breath, meditation and tantric practices. Our experience of this energy deepens when we take it into lovemaking through sacred sexuality practices.

From Having Sex into Making Love

Where we have opened our hearts, both to ourselves and our partner, where sexual energy does not feel only like arousal or excitement, but it feels somehow nurturing and blissful as well, bringing contentment and inner peace.

Men and Tantric Sexuality

Men learn to take their time, to open their hearts and expand their pleasure, and to express pleasure as a divine language of love. Men can become multi orgasmic and separate orgasm from ejaculation, extending duration of lovemaking and expanding blissful sensation exponentially. They also understand they can give and receive exquisite pleasure with or without an erection. Honouring their partner as a goddess, touching her with love and confidence, men also learn to take sexual energy through their hearts and so begin to make love as well as have sex. In Tantra the man is empowered in sexuality by learning to control his sexual energy, to slow down and not be ashamed of it, to ride waves of orgasmic energy as a surfer would ride waves on the ocean.

Women and Tantric Sexuality

A woman is empowered by learning to overcome social conditioning and enjoy connecting to and nurturing herself with her sexual energy, seeing sex as a pleasure that she truly desires, rather than an obligation. There is time for her to feel her glorious and powerful sexual nature, to enjoy being nurtured through loving connection with herself, and her lover. And to learn that she can become active in expanding her own orgasmic or multi/omni orgasmic capacity. As she comes to know her body and descend into her depths she learns to feel the love that exists within her. Then she can choose to allow herself to surrender and receive the man from this place of infinite love and fullness.

A Journey of Growth and Discovery

Like anything worth doing Tantric sexuality takes practice.  But you don’t have to wait until you know it all – every little step you take in this direction brings its own rewards. It’s really a journey of getting to know yourself intimately first. We begin with the physical, explore the emotional and set the Inner Firestage for the Divine.

The good news is that tantric sex gets better as we get older!

And after reading about it your next step is to begin to experience how all of this really feels, in the safe and supportive atmosphere of an Oztantra Session or Workshop.
So make a booking today!

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