Cold Showers are Cheaper than a Divorce: Understanding the Need for Sex and The Effects It Can Have on a Relationship

By Dr. Harrison Mungal

Cold Showers Are Cheaper than a Divorce will help individuals and couples see the big picture in any relationship, helping you to reflect on some major areas of contention that can affect their future together. Since the major cause of divorce revolves around sex, sex needs to be addressed in order to maintain a healthy relationship. The author has devoted several chapters to discussing the need for sex in a healthy relationship. Many chapters are based on questions and concerns brought up in his marriage seminars or clinical counselling therapy sessions.

This book targets men in particular, but women will benefit from reading it too. The author encourages every man and woman to read this book to help them arrive at a better understanding of themselves and the person they decide to share their life with. It addresses the elephant in the room with facts and life stories from couples whom the author supports.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Word Alive Press
• Release date: Jun 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781486607624

Book preview

Books

Preface

When I think of all the issues surfacing today in relationships, most of them are based on infidelity and sexual affairs. In fact, seeing what’s going on in regards to emotional and sexual affairs has inspired me to put this book together. The titles for the chapters were formed as a result of common, real issues couples have experienced, targeting causes, effects, and solutions. The fact that people find it more convenient to live together to eliminate having to deal with issues that could lead to divorce still boggles my mind.

Kathleen and I support many couples who say that they prefer not to be married to avoid what they have seen their parents go through, or what they have been through themselves. Some advise that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. That’s why they don’t see a happy, healthy marriage to be an effective way of living as a couple.

Others struggle because of infidelity; the husband or wife cheated for years before the cat was let out of the bag. Living in deceit and lies wasn’t’ the foundation they pictured when they decided to get married.

Other couples have high expectations when they decide to live together. They turn a blind eye to their extended families, believing strongly that they are marrying each other and not their families. This is true to some extent, but they don’t bother with establishing strong pillars like communication, commitment, and compatibility.

These are only a few issues that couples bypass. Many focus on the fact that they’re in love, and nothing in the world can take that away. However, being married, these major issues eventually become mountains in the relationship.

Cold Showers Are Cheaper than Divorce will help individuals and couples see the big picture in any relationship, helping you to reflect on some major areas of contention that can affect your future together. Since the major cause of divorce revolves around sex, it leads us to understand why sex needs to be addressed. I have devoted several chapters to discussing the need for sex in a healthy relationship. Many are based on questions and concerns brought up in our marriage seminars or clinical counselling therapy sessions.

This book targets men in particular, but women will benefit from reading it. It will give women a better understanding of their men.

I encourage every man and woman to read this book to help them arrive at a better understanding of themselves and the person they decide to share their life with. It addresses the elephant in the room with facts and life stories from couples whom Kathleen and I support. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Chapter One

The Strongholds of Sex

The title of this book gives a clear prediction that the content will revolve around sex and the effects it has on couples. This first chapter will lay the foundation for what to expect in the rest of the book.

I believe it’s time we face reality and deal with the core issues affecting marriages and relationships around the world. Some people refuse to even admit the core issues and choose to focus on other subjects. However, dealing with the cause of breakups has the potential to mend a relationship. Since most men struggle in the area of sex, let’s talk about the stronghold it has.

The essence of sex is a giving and receiving attitude. It includes pleasuring each other verbally and non-verbally. It’s sharing joy of each other, enriching and increasing each other’s satisfaction.

Intercourse and orgasm are a plus, but sex is about learning what each partner enjoys; it’s not about just pleasing the man or pleasing the woman. Healthy couples nurture their sexual desire and maintain a core element of sexuality in their relationships. They are not embarrassed or concerned about following their hearts in regards to pleasuring each other. Setting boundaries in this sphere of life is important, however, since we are not animals. The major difference of relevance is that we are driven by emotions.

A healthy couple’s sexuality focuses on pleasure, desire, and satisfaction. Intercourse and orgasms are an integral component to sexuality, but they might not bring sexual fulfillment. Learning the concepts of pleasure, eroticism, desire, closeness, and the joy of good sex will bring about full satisfaction.

Men may be more desirous of sex and sexual intercourse, whereas women may seek for touch and the fulfillment of their emotional needs. Men are driven by spontaneous desires whereas women prefer romance. Women gravitate toward the concept of feeling love. Sex should be healthy in the embodiment of both aspects of lovemaking. The sexual experience should be shared and be a means of deepening intimacy between a man and woman. It must include both emotions and intercourse. It works to develop both manhood and womanhood—and there are rules.

Sex can be a tension-reliever, a part of the fulfillment of marriage, a route to feeling satisfied and feeling wanted, a means of bearing children, and of fostering intimacy. But at the end of the day, it is a physical act. It is the joining together of two people, emotionally and psychologically, through a physical union. It is a mystery.

What brings sexual satisfaction to a man differs from what satisfies a woman. Healthy sexuality understands each partner’s desires and pleasure spots. Learning and understanding each other’s needs will eliminate sexual stressors in a relationship.

It is helpful to understand that every person’s sexual agenda is different. Each person has different ways of engaging in their sexuality, and that’s okay. This is especially important for those with children, those who have been married for a while, or those who have passed the early stages of a romance where one harbours an unrealistic preconceived idea of what sex is.

New couples or young couples might have ideas about sex deriving from what is portrayed in the media, especially in movies. Movies that portray passionate kissing, sex, and both people blissfully falling asleep after the deed is done, waking up hours later refreshed and happy, do not reflect reality. When reality hits, we realize that sex can be painful, quick, not at all comfortable, messy at times, and not as pleasurable or passionate as in the movies.

People, especially men, might start looking for other means to fulfill their sexual desires. The fulfillment of these desires can happen through masturbation, pornography, or outside relationships. A woman might feel like she cannot satisfy her spouse and they may drift apart emotionally. Sex becomes secondary for her, driving a wedge in the relationship. Sex then moves from pleasure to emotional pain.

When women begin to make excuses to not engage in sex, men might feel sexually deprived. Couples need to understand that this is very common, but if managed the right way the hurt and experience of not feeling wanted can be eliminated.

Sexual desires are stimulated by events like birthdays, anniversaries, moments of excitement, love songs, poems, or X-rated movies. These stimulate the invitation for sex. It builds the momentum psychologically by creating a craving for sexual pleasure. These desires grow unless the momentum is diverted. How can a woman avoid entering into the strongholds of sex with the wrong partner? How can a man do the same—and is it something he should seek to do?

X-rated movies are a quick fix for some men and women, but they eventually become dependent on these visual aids. These images supersede the mind. They turn sexual desires into a need for sexual fulfilment; the quick fix becomes the object of the game. There is no passion. It breeds raw sex as though between two animals. Orgasm may reach its peak in five to fifty minutes, tops. But we are not animals.

What happens is that people lose the satisfaction they think they’ll experience according to what their minds see, which leads to a myriad of mental issues. Men in particular have difficulty understanding this. They are driven by visual stimulation.

Couples must learn as they grow together in their marital relationship, discovering who their partner is and what his or her sexual desires are, what pleases them and what doesn’t. This is a pure and natural development. There are no quick fixes, just lots of exploration.

Sexual desires can be developed by a fantasy, an opportunity, external stimuli, a biological drive, or by the foods you eat. It can be selfish, a tension reducer, or a quick fix to prove oneself. Understanding the importance of intimacy and sexual fulfillment in a relationship is important. Failing to understand it is one of the major causes of separation and divorce.

For whatever reason, people end up marrying people who fall short of their vision. As a counsellors, Kathleen and I have to deal with couples who should have considered the nature of sex in their relationships long before considering marriage. They’re often willing to pay the fees, but at times they withhold from counsellors the important facts of their sex lives and past relationships. This has caused us to arrive at the awful state of marriage we see today.

Couples who present themselves before psychologists and counselling ministers have the responsibility to look within themselves first. We cannot fix what God has not ordained or what we don’t know about.

That being said, partners need to learn how to say no and ask for a rain cheque. At such a time, they must learn to communicate with each other rather than look for alternatives. They need to understand how to read each other’s moods, the right moment, and appropriate timing. Lack of communication gives the wrong impression, and one might end up feeling rejected and unwanted. This develops a psychological blockage that causes people to avoid sex within a relationship.

Most men will have an orgasm during any form of sexual activity, be it foreplay, touch, or intercourse. Only twenty percent of women experience orgasm, on average. Most women reach an orgasmic peak from manual stimulation, and some from intercourse, but this is not to be found in every encounter of sexual activity.

In our world today, when we hear the word sex, we visualize intercourse. You need to embrace sexual intercourse as a way of sharing pleasure with the person you’re married to, if it’s the right person. But creating a biological flow of chemicals in the body, heightening intimacy, reducing tension, minimizing stressors, burning calories, facilitating reproduction, and creating closeness in a relationship are all aspects of sex.

A couple can have good sex without intercourse. Since sex might be painful for some women—and embarrassing for some guys, due to size—other means of enjoying each other should be explored.

Although sexual intercourse is like the icing on the cake for most men, they will feel more like a man as they reach their orgasmic peak. Women, on the other hand, may enjoy only manual stimulation,