The Power of Sexual Surrender

by Marie Nyswander Robinson

But the danger is that such defenses and such compensatory activities will be held onto even if the marriage has been given a chance to turn from a meaningless one into a deeply meaningful and joyful one. A husband who wishes to help his wife in her struggle to become a woman, who wishes to make a marriage where only the semblance of one now exists, must now examine his attitudes with great honesty, courage, and thoroughness.

The way ahead of him at the beginning will not be by any means clear or easygoing. The initial progress of his wife as she undertakes to change is often barely perceptible. Why should he have any hope that anything new, exciting, or beautiful could develop from such tentative starts? And what motive can he develop to turn back, emotionally and sexually, to a woman who has so often and so thoroughly rejected and frustrated him? A very strong part of him feels that he has worked out a precarious inner and outer equilibrium which at least keeps this semblance of marriage from falling apart entirely. He generally actively resents the demand on him to alter his attitude, to see his wife through the inner odyssey on which she now wishes to embark.

We have found that at such a juncture a husband is often helped to alter his defensive attitude by seriously reflecting on the picture of marriage and love he had when he first fell in love with his wife. He should then compare that image of a relationship with the custom-staled and defeated feelings he has now, compare his first hopes of creatively shared lives with the empty realities of the present, the time-wasting, essentially loveless activities he now engages in.

Memories and thoughts of this kind can make him angry, the way a man can get angry, healthfully and aggressively; not at his wife, who now wants to make up for all that has been lost, but at himself for his passive acceptance and easy adjustment to a defeated life, a life that has become a resigned and pointless existence. Such anger is good because it can clear his inner atmosphere; it can start him back with renewed resolution on the road to his real desires. For no man who feels worthy of his manhood ever really accepts a half existence in love of the kind I have just depicted.

We have found, too, that such husbands can remotivate themselves if they will contemplate the potentialities of womanhood toward which their wives now consciously aspire. I have tried throughout this book to show, in some of their variety, the magnificent and exciting qualities that characterize true womanhood. I have shown how giving women can be in their love, how supportive, how filled with deep warmth and understanding. And I have tried to show how, in sex itself, there is no responsiveness that can compare even remotely with that of a loved and emotionally secure woman. If at this critical point in his marriage a man can clarify what he really wants and then develop the patience to wait for it, he will be most thoroughly rewarded.

Patience is very important. He will need all of it he can muster for a time and, at certain points, he may have to remind himself hard of the rewards at the end of the journey. He can, we find, be greatly helped by having as thorough a knowledge as possible of the psychological problems his wife will encounter in her hegira to womanhood.

I have shown that the path to feminine maturity is not a straight one. The traveler will often become frightened of the very progress she is making and for a short time will tend to pull back into her former neurotic defenses. At such a point the husband must be very clear that she has not pulled back for good.

The critical period, as we have seen, in a woman’s forward march, the thing that is apt to make her pull back most strongly and with most anxiety, is her first encounter with real orgasm. However, the husband must realize once more that this regression is temporary, too, even though it lasts for several weeks or, in some cases, longer. The solicitude of her husband at this point and the reassurance she gets from the knowledge of his love can be the main factors in her final victory over her difficulty.

Many psychiatrists make it a practice to discuss with husbands, whenever it is feasible, the importance of their role in the complete recovery of their wives. It is a very rare man who, after such discussions, cannot or will not mobilize his resources to aid his wife and to see her through her hard struggle. And I know of no woman who has won a victory over her frigidity who has ignored the fact that her husband’s help was decisive.

In addition to changing his defensive attitude toward his wife (or perhaps searching for and recapturing his earlier feelings toward her), in what other ways can a husband be helpful to his wife as she struggles toward maturity?