On Again Off Again Sex: Whose Holding You Hostage?

You think there is no harm being done in a relationship when you deliberately make up in your mind you don't want to have any intimacy with your partner?  Maybe he or she made you angry days even weeks ago, but if you keep playing with fire, you will get burned.  However, what if you are the one who isn't playing games with sex.  You actually enjoy it, but want more.  Maybe your partner is the one using sex to control you.  If so, this is an abusive tactic that must be stopped.

The more society preaches sex the more society is lacking sex.  The human spirit loses interest in anything that is constantly being preached, taught, marketed, sold, or simply discussed.  For those powers that be, whether in your home or out of it, they are glad one is tired of hearing and seeing sexual symbols, because if you are, you won't be having sex and if you aren't having sex you aren't making any babies or more of them.

You know a relationship is headed for ruin when normal, healthy couples choose long hours on the Internet and in front of the TV over having sex.  Something is wrong on top of or under the sheets when one or both is seeking an escape from being intimate and/or sexual.

We all know true intimacy starts before one takes his or her clothes off.  Hand holding, a kiss, a hug, or something else has to happen to influence the start of a positive sexual experience.  Without the thought-provoking stimuli, sex just isn't good emotionally and/or physically especially for a woman who wants to be truly loved by a man.

Now some people choose to play the on again off again sex game.  It goes like something this.  He got sex yesterday, because he was good, but no sex today because he was bad.  Couples in situations like this feel like they are going crazy.  A partner may treat his woman like a rose today because she gave him sex, but then treat her like a thorn afterward.

Then some couples wonder why all the fussing and fighting?  Do you see emotionally what teasing a man or woman about sex can do?  Do you realize that when you give, then withhold, give, then withhold you are playing games with a person's mind? 

The angry partner may be feeling guilty that he or she let her guard down once again to have sex with his or her mate and may be grappling with real emotions about what he or she has done.  A voice in this person's head may sound like this, "Why did you do it?  You know she is only going to upset you again.  You always fall for his crap.  Don't give him sex next time.  You are so stupid!"  Meanwhile, the unsuspecting partner really enjoyed sex this time around, yet unresolved fears, resentments or simply a bad past may keep he or she connecting.  The same holds true for the abuser as well.  The abuser, for purposes of this writing, is the one who withholds sex for all sorts of ridiculous reasons from his or her partner.

In a relationship such as this, the best thing to do is refrain from being intimate until you both know where you stand in the relationship.  It will take a lot of will power, but you must do it, if you do want to be the abuser or the victim.

How long do you think a person will stay with someone who keeps acting interested in having sex on one day of the week, then not interested the next, and so on?  Eventually, someone will come along in his or her life willing to give more than just on again, off again romance.  Then that's when the one doing the abusing will cry, "But I love you...I will do better, I promise." Unless the mentally handicapped seek professional help, nothing will change.  That's right, there are some mental issues that need to be dealt with and they can't be dealt with in an abusive relationship where the abuser is allowed to wield such power.  Chances are the abuser learned about using the absence of sex in a relationship as a weapon in a previous relationship or noticed this pattern of behavior growing up between mom and dad.

Don't allow anyone to use sex to control you!  Get out of this kind of relationship as soon as you can before you start justifying your partner's behavior as normal or worse cheating on him or her which is another case of abuse (read more by clicking links on this site related to cheating.)  Sex was never meant to be something rationed out like candy.  Learn more about what it means to love someone in the Holy Bible I Corinthians 13. 

Once your mate has gotten the help he or she needs, and you both have come to terms with the relationship (ie. such as abstaining from sex due to a health concern or spiritual reasons,) or simply got a serious wake-up call, try starting over; otherwise call it quits.

Nicholl McGuire

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