Pretending to Have Communication Issues

Types of Mind-Mapping

Lack of Communication: A Pretend Fairytale

In another article,  I described  that there is no such thing as a lack of communication in a couple and that we have the ability to mind-map each other. This segment will go deeper into the different types of mind-mapping abilities we are capable of.  

Quick Recap: What is Mind-Mapping?

Mind-mapping is our ability to understand other people's intentions and desires as well as moods and emotions through their body language, their attitudes and their tone of voice. Most people pretend they don't have this ability because it allows us to get what we want and be less vulnerable in our relationships. It also permits to argue about "nonexistent communication issues" rather than the real problems in the relationship, therefore avoiding break-ups. Mind-mapping also plays a crucial role in sex and how we go about having it with our spouse.

Types of Mind-Mapping Abilities

There are 4 different types of mind-mapping that we can use in social interactions. Each one requires the last to be able to do the next one. Therefore, there is a hierarchal element to using mind-mapping. Not everyone can use all 4 of them, but you or your partner might also be pretending you can't do it. We've mostly described the first one which is mind-tracking.

Mind-Tracking: I See You!

We are constantly looking out for other people's motives and intentions when they speak or behave. This is how we can finish people's thoughts and know where they are going before they finish their train of thought. We analyze our partner's body language such as where they are looking, how their hands and legs are open or closed, what posture they are taking. This is the basics of mind-mapping that everyone has. This is how you detect if someone is being truthful or lying or misdirecting the conversation. This allows for empathy and understanding of our spouse's emotions as well. It allows you to know when your partner says: "I'm fine...". And you know that it isn't true. 

One might think that if we are all able to do this, then wouldn't relationships be easy and people would just get along. Why would couples argue so much if we can understand each other so well? The answer is that we don't always like what we understand from each other. Sometimes it's because we don't like being vulnerable or that our lover knows things we want to hide. But if we can mind-track, how can we hide things from each other, you say? This is where mind-masking comes into play and complicates things a little bit. 

Mind-Masking: You Can't See Me!

Mind-masking is developed when we learn it from other people, mostly family dynamics. We understand at a young age that there are things we can do, say and think, but other times we cannot. We learn in most societies and social interactions that vulnerability is a flaw that we must hide. Mind-masking allows partners to lie to each other without the other person knowing they are. It also works when we want to pretend that we are not having pity sex (sex to avoid conflicts or hurting partner). Mind-masking is commonly known as the poker face!

This ability to mind-mask from others who are tracking us is a deceptive behaviour that we use to avoid conflicts that are getting too intense or when we want to get away with something we did. We've all done it before. You do something that has crossed the line and you know your partner won't like it. So you play dumb and pretend you didn't know it would bother them. A classic example is one partner isn't feeling well, but they don't want to talk about it so they put on a happy face. They pretend to have an orgasm or they hide their frustration or disappointment from their spouse. 

A typical mind-masking behaviour when it comes to sex is when a partner starts to flirt with the other and they pretend not to understand what the other wants: To have sex. This leads us to the third mind-mapping ability which is false belief implanting.

False Belief Implanting: You Think you can see me!

I know, I know, this is getting confusing and a bit diseasing. Most likely you are following me because you have the abilities that are being discussed in this article. You've either done it yourself before or you are thinking of ways your partner has been doing similar things. Now if you can think of situations where your partner has mind-masked, then you are also able to do it and most likely have done it in the past.

False belief implanting is pretty self-explanatory. It's when you can make your spouse think something is true when it isn't. Such as you not being able to mind-track or mind-mask them. You implement the idea and they believe you. It now becomes part of your relationship dynamic, such as pretending you both don't understand each other or that you have "communication issues".  Men who have the nice guy syndrome are very good as implementing the idea that they are nice, when it reality they are not. Women do it all the time as well. Whether you're a heterosexual, homosexual, transsexual or lesbian couple, you will most likely find false belief implanting dynamics.

So many times in therapy, I have a couple where one of the partners has a lower sexual desire than their spouse. They have sex even when they don't have the desire for it because they don't want to say no again just to have their partner get angry for the 77th time about their sexual desires not being met. 

The partner with the higher sexual desire will blatantly lie in the therapy session saying they didn't know that the other wasn't that into it. Only to have them confess minutes or sessions later, depending on how long they want to keep the false belief implanted, that they knew this all along. They justify their actions by explaining they wouldn't have gotten what they wanted otherwise. 

The next mind-mapping ability is the most twisted of them all. So much so that it actually has the name for it: Mind-twisting

Mind-Twisting: You'll Wish You Didn't See Me!

Still intrigued, are we? How far have you and your spouse fallen into to the downward cycle of Normal Marital Sadism? There are people who will go far to keep the upper hand in their relationship. Who will manipulate to the point where they must crush or make their partner's feel bad about themselves so they don't have to own up to their mistakes and faults. This may sound scary, but unfortunately and frequently long term couples do fall prey to the temptation of mind-twisting.

Mind-twisting requires all three previous mind-mapping abilities to be able to pull it off. You must mind-track your partner, mind-mask yourself and implant the false belief into the other person. The twisting part comes when you are able to conclude the conflict by making your spouse believe that it was all their fault in the first place when in reality your the one who is in the wrongdoing. 

Now this type of behaviour cannot be solved by communication skills. No amount of sentences starting with "I" will save this relationship from self-imploding. Fortunately, there are ways you can get out of this. Therapy with a trained professional such as a sex therapist and psychotherapist can help you. It will require lots of self-confrontation and a hard look at the status of your relationship and your spouse. This is no small feat and will shatter your perception of your relationship. This will test your capacity to hold onto yourself and strengthen your emotional balance and create a collaborative alliance with your partner rather than having no alliance. This will push your limits which you didn't know existed to bring yourself and your lover to another level in your relationship. 

Will you take the plunge?

Ending note

Mind-mapping doesn't seem like a very useful ability to help couples in their relationships. It can seem as though it creates mistrust and cruel behaviours between people who at the basis are supposed to love each other. That is all true! But mind-mapping is also the way we are capable of connecting on a deeper more profound level with our partner. It makes sex way better than just exchanging orgasms with another person.

It is all a matter of how we decide we want to use mind-mapping. Do we want to be vulnerable and connected with each other or do we want to protect our ego and vanity? You can only choose one of those two options, which is why so many couples hurt each other through mind-mapping rather than connect with one another.

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Getting beyond communication issues: How mind-mapping makes your relationship and sex better

Previous article

There is no such thing as a lack of communication: Honey...I just don't understand you

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Francois Renaud M.A.

Sex therapist & psychotherapist in Downtown Montreal

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Getting stuck in a sexual routine: Where did my libido go?

There is no such thing as a lack of communication

Honey...I just don't understand you!

Everyone says it, nobody gets its!

How many times have you said or heard couples or even therapists saying how communication in a relationship is key? A million times I suppose. What if I told you communication is rarely if not ever the problem people face in relationships. Would you be surprised? Confused? Intrigued? Angry?

Saying it isn't the problem

People have no issues communicating what they want,  even if they don't verbally say it out loud. Have you ever heard that communication passes mainly by body language and not verbal words? Communication without body language would be bland, boring and barely comprehensible.  Well, our capacity to read each other through body language is our ability to mind-map each other.

It is a skill we all develop at the age of four years old in a spontaneous manner and it becomes mature at the age of eleven. It is our primal instincts to interpret and understand other people through body language, their tone of voice and their attitudes.  So even if your partner isn't verbally saying things, you are still strongly capable of determining what their desires or intentions might be. 

Now, I am not saying we can mind read, but we have a lot of clues as to our spouse's moods of the moment. If we didn't have this skill, we would never have sex, flirting would be absolutely impossible and you would never be able to have any type of connection with other people. 

Here are a couple of examples you might relate to:

1) Your spouse comes back from work and you feel that they are upset. Just image how that would look like without them even saying a word. 

2) Your partner is feeling flirtatious and they would like to have sex with you. Again, without saying anything, they are able to transmit to you their intentions and desires. What does that look to you if you picture it?

3) You are at a family dinner and they say something embarrassing or inappropriate and you want to communicate to them to quit it, without saying a peep. How would you go along doing it?

Are you starting to catch my drift? Well, that is also your capacity to mind-map. We also have an ability to predict where people are going with what they are saying, even though it is written down. Now I could give you some bogus explanation on human evolution and how it was used to save our butts from predators, but that is not important. What is significant is that you have the ability to mind-map. 

So what am I suppose to do with this mind-mapping ability you say?

It is pretty simple. STOP PRETENDING YOU DON'T HAVE IT! So many couples come into my office saying that they don't understand each other and they lack communication skills or that they don't communicate. That's when I have to refrain myself from having a little smile knowing full well that it isn't the case, yet they want to implement that idea in the therapy. That is another mind-mapping ability called implanting false beliefs. Which we will get to in another article. 

Most people don't want their spouse to know that they can actually mind-map them. It allows them to pretend they don't know what the other wants or that they don't understand them when in reality they do. This serves many purposes in relationships that tend to be destructive. When we pretend that we don't understand our partner's desires and intentions it gives us excuses to avoid doing things that we don't want to do. Like having sex! Being nice or emotionally available for them.

Have you ever kissed your partner wanting to show them you wanted to heat things up and get funky? Then only to receive those duck kisses that let you hang dry (the situation can also be reversed). That is when the partner later says: I didn't understand that you wanted sex, it wasn't clear! This allows avoiding the "I don't want sex with you" discussion and putting the blame on the other person for not communicating properly what they wanted. If you had to choose between telling your partner you don't desire them or arguing about how you both communicate. Which one would you choose? Most people would take the latter option.

Sex and mind-mapping

Mind-mapping also plays a huge role during sex. This sets the mood and tone of your sexual relationship that you are about to have. The way you kiss, touch and what you do will be determined by mind-mapping. Rethink about your last sexual encounter. How did you know when to move on from kissing to touching genitals? How did you know it was time to penetrate or have oral sex? Have you ever felt that your partner wasn't that into it or really was hot for you? If you are capable of understanding the flow and movement of sexual activities, then you can mind-map. Not that anyone doesn't have the ability anyways! Now are you still going to pretend that your spouse and yourself don't communicate well?

 Understanding, just disagreeing

When people come in therapy saying they have "communication issues"; what they are really saying is: I don't agree with you and I want you to change your mind ASAP. Sometimes, they want the therapist to change their lover's mind. It is easier saying that we don't understand each other when in reality we perceive things differently from our spouse. We have difficulty in our relationships when we are faced with a partner who doesn't want the same things as us. We can take it personally and feel unimportant to them. It can break our perception of who they are as a person. It doesn't validate our point of view, which obliges us to confront them. It confronts us to making tough life decisions that we may not want to deal with.

Can we not agree to disagree?

Nope, you may not! When it comes to negotiating our values, our principles, and our integrity, we cannot agree to disagree. You are faced with constant dilemmas in a relationship where you have to choose between what you want and what your partner wants which more often than not, will not necessarily be the same. You cannot have sex and not have it at the same time. You cannot spend money and save it for later. You cannot clean the house and not clean it. You cannot go to your in-laws at the same time that you stay at home. 

When we tend to disagree on numerous things in relationships, that's when the infamous "communication issues" start to arise. Sex, cleaning, in-laws, money and educating the kids are the general subjects we argue the most about. Others are also possible. They touch our most profound values and integrity, which no one wants to lose. 

How to get out of this never-ending cycle?

Like I said earlier: "STOP PRETENDING YOU DON'T HAVE MIND-MAPPING ABILITIES". This will allow you and your partner to stop arguing about something that doesn't exist and discuss the real issues at hand. Be honest about what you want and the fact that you know what your partner wants, but that you just don't want to give it to them. This will end the none sense bickering about the "I already told you this before" and the "how come you still don't understand". Take into consideration that you are not the only one who has made sacrifices in the relationship. That all your needs and desires will not and cannot all be answered. Stop avoiding the hard truths of your relationship and have the conversation with your partner. You will only appreciate each other more for being fully honest about who you are and what you want. 

This can lead you to separation, but mostly it makes you a better person by being more understanding which tends to bring people closer not further apart. Knowing you can mind-map and that you are being mind-map changes the game in a relationship. It is up to you to decide how you want to play from now on. 

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Pretending to have communication issues: Types of mind-mapping

Getting Beyond Communication Issues: How Mind-Mapping Makes Your Relationship and Sex Better

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Unhealthy couple dynamics: Normal Marital Sadism

Emotional Gridlock: Underlying issues in relationships

Different Types of Sexual Desire Part III

How to Achieve Self-Validated Sexual Desire*

There is a fundamental difference between self-validated intimacy and all the other types of desire we mentioned in previous articles. It is on the level of intimacy that we can perceive it; more specifically the perception of ourselves and our authenticity. Feelings of being desirable are based for many people on the perception that their partner has of them. This way of functioning inevitably kills sexual desire in couples who have stayed at the attachment phase of sexual desire. At the beginning of a relationship, we seek to obtain others validation and approval, especially in sex. We want to be desirable in the eyes of our partner, we want to be able to offer sexual pleasure, to seduce and be loved at all cost. All of this is necessary and enjoyable in couples, although in long term relationships this dynamic weighs negatively on sexual desire.

Self-Validation

There are four fundamental elements that play a role in sexual desire in long term relationships.

• Our self-perception or self-esteem
• Our partner's perception of us
• The perception we have of our partner
• The way we treat and are treated by our partner

These four aspects have an important impact on our own sense of being desirable and the desire we have for our lover. A person can have a high sexual desire, but it isn't necessarily aimed towards their partner's. For which they may have lost respect for during the long years of living and being together. Following a plethora of numerous conflicts, deceptions, rejections, lost of integrity and low blows (Normal Marital Sadism) in their sex lives, they can diminish their admiration for their partner's and their own self-worth. This bring partners to seek for validation from others to feel desirable and desire. This dynamic can be translated in these terms: ''I want you to find me desirable, because I can't find myself to be desirable''.

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We often repeat that a good self-esteem, having confidence and being assertive is sexually desirable. The thing is, in long term relationships we get to see our partner in their most vulnerable states and glimpse at their insecurities. We know when they are seeking approval from us or others. This lowers sexual desire towards one or both partners. This is where alliances between partners in a relationship becomes either collusive,combative or non-existent. This difficult transition for couples to past from a other validated intimacy to self-validated intimacy necessitates a commitment to ourselves and a collaborative alliance in the couple. Certain couples are capable of overcoming these normal hardships with their own volition and emotional balance. On the other hand, many will need help from a sex-therapist who specializes in couples and sexual desire issues. This process with or without a professional obliges partners to self-confront about their anxieties, insecurities, short-comings and learn how to self-validate during periods of intense emotions and sexual intimacy.

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Different Types of Sexual Desire

Do you know your sexual needs?

Part I

Sexual desire is one of the most complex and mysterious aspects of human sexuality. The evolution of sexual desire in a person and in couples is a process that can be separated in many steps and it does not respect a linear path. This process is unique for everyone depending on their experiences, their values and perceptions of sexuality. This article will explore different types of sexual desires and their possible varieties in individuals and couples

Categories of sexual desire

Physiological:

Sexual desire can be physiological, which consist of a cocktail of hormones and sensory stimuli (visual, touch, hearing, smell, taste) that give us that urge to have sexual activities. This category of sexual desire is often perceived as animalistic and based on hormones and it calls upon our basic instincts of reproduction and of searching for physical pleasure.

We can actually separate this category in 2 distinct types. The first one is called hygienic, which is when we feel a sexual tension in the area of the genitals that needs to be released by sexual activity such as masturbation or sexual intercourse so that we may feel pleasure following this release. This sexual desire can be created by an accumulation of stress and is transformed into muscular tension in the waist area that needs to be liberated or relaxed. This type of desire is more common in men, but it is also found in many women. It creates a need or desire to liberate the muscular tensions because of the discomfort. This desire doesn't require an emotional or relational aspect to it.

The second type is created by the change in the levels of hormones that are secreted in the body to fulfil our instinct of reproduction. This desire is often in cycles in relation to ovulation in women. Men on the other hand, have a daily cycle of hormones, which make it harder to pinpoint due to the small length of time between them.

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Emotional :

Another category is constructed through emotions. This category is more complex than the last as it has many aspects that come into play. It's important not to mix this category with the sexual desire based on relationships, which is a category in itself. The difference between the physiological and emotional categories it that their is an emotional component that isn't necessarily focused towards another person. For example, one of the types of sexual desire in the emotional category is the desire motivated to have children. This desire is not based solely on the purpose of procreation, but rather on the emotional aspect of wanting a child of our own. This sexual desire tends to disappear once the family has been formed. It is different from the relational category as it doesn't pertain to the relationship to the partner necessarily. It is more common in women and they can tend to lose their sexual desire entirely, once they've had the babies they wanted.

Another type in this category is the desire for penetration or being penetrated. This sexual desire is motivated by a the need for sexual activities where penetration is present and a central focus of sex. The sensations are strongly related and focused by the desire to penetrate or be penetrated and satisfaction will not be achieved if there is lack thereof.

We can also find a type of sexual desire that is based on the need to fulfil emotional needs of affection, but that is transformed into sexual arousal. This need is met when we make love in a romantic, tender and loving way. Touches are more soft, slow and sensual and we kiss slowly with intent.

Finally, the erotic or carnal sexual desire is characterized by a sexual and emotional intensity where there is a profound liberation of inhibitions and of letting ourselves go entirely to our pleasure. Theses sexual activities are filled with creativity, newness and a certain ferocity that brings partners in a torrid sexual exchange and sensuality. Often shared with a partner that we've known for quite a while, some are only capable of feeling this type of sexual desire with strangers in one night stands.

Nota Bene

It is possible that theses multiple categories and types of sexual desire are combined together and they are not exclusive from one another. Each one brings a different dynamic and approach to sexual activities and the attitudes are variable according to the person. Sexual desire can be influenced by a variety of elements such as anxiety, sexual preferences, our Modes of Sexual Arousal (MSA), our needs at the present moment or the relationship we have with our sexual partner. There is no major difference between genders when it comes to different types and categories of sexual desire. Finally, the relationships component brings us to our last category of sexual desire. Read the rest...

Read the next article :

Complexity of Our Relationship and The Influence on Our Sexual Desire 

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