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Five years ago Dan left his secure position with a large engineering firm and began his own business. He considered this the most exciting—and frightening—thing he had ever attempted. Exhausted and preoccupied, Dan spurned more and more of Barbara's invitations to make love. She began to worry. Since men were supposed to be highly interested in sex, easily aroused, and always willing, the only "logical" explanation for Dan's lack of interest had to be that he was no longer attracted to her, that she had lost her touch, failed somehow.

So Barbara took stock and went to work on herself— dieting, exercising, changing her hairstyle, and trying other new approaches to interest Dan in sex. Nothing helped for long.

"No one tried harder than I did," Barbara explains. "But Dan was in his own world. I might as well have been invisible. His life was work, work, and more work."

Dan does not deny this, but adds, "She doesn't understand the pressure I'm under—she just piles on more. It's irritating when she expects me to drop everything, turn off my brain, and perform for her benefit."

"Obviously something is very wrong," Barbara declares during the couple's first therapy session. "Men don't lose interest in sex. They're the ones who are supposed to want it more. I've never heard of a man who didn't. So I don't see how he expects me to believe that he doesn't feel like having sex, period. That just doesn't happen."

Dan's lack of interest in sex makes no sense to Barbara. It doesn't fit into her picture of what sex is or should be. Barbara's high level of interest in sex is equally baffling to Dan. Indeed, as his own sexual appetite has decreased, he has come to the conclusion that Barbara is obsessed with sex.

When Barbara and Dan came to us for therapy, their marriage was deteriorating, Dan's sexual desire was virtually nonexistent, and the vast differences in their feelings, beliefs, and attitudes about sex were obvious. Yet, those differences had always been there. Since early childhood, Barbara and Dan had been accumulating ideas about sex and relationships. Long before they met, they had begun to piece together a picture of what sex was supposed to be like and what they should expect from themselves and their partners in sexual situations, as well as what they could expect to gain or lose from engaging in sexual activity. This vision helped them understand, organize, and know what to do during one of the most complex and emotionally charged of all human interactions— having sex.

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