Ask Dr. Drew:
 
Q: I’ve been seeing a man for several months, and it’s been going well. Recently though, I’ve been having a tremendous urge to cry after sex. I have felt rejected in the past after being intimate with someone, but this man is very sensitive to my feelings. He has never done anything to make me feel he was going to leave and not want me any more. Where might these feelings come from? MV. Illinois

A: In my experience, this is not uncommon. Some women actually cry tears of joy after sex, but that’s a small minority. Crying usually occurs because the sex exposes an incongruence of some kind. How you feel about the relationship or yourself doesn’t match with the intense intimacy you’re experiencing.

It might be that your feelings have changed and you’re not in the relationship the way you have been before. You’re expecting very strong emotions, and they’re just not there. The sex confronts you with that emptiness and lack of love and makes you feel bad.

Sometimes people cry after sex because they expect rejection and distance. The fact that he is showing you genuine feelings is exposing deficiencies in your intimate relationships in the past, perhaps when you were growing up. You may see yourself as unworthy of such openness. Ironically, many women who feel that way actually become rejecters themselves, unconsciously sabotaging their relationships so they won't have to experience abandonment.

Finally, if you are a survivor of trauma or abuse, sex can trigger a kind of flashback. You’re flooded with by feelings and just get overwhelmed and cry.

My advice is to hang in there and see what comes of it. Don’t allow yourself to bail out because you can’t deal. If you can’t sustain it, that’s when I would recommend therapy. Drew Pinsky MD.

Gabby's Reply

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Hi MV: Get yourself to a counselor or communication-skills coach. You’re on the verge of destroying your relationship. It’s time for you to take sex to its next level—from rudimentary beginner's sex to exquisite intercourse; I'm speaking of the kind where after-climax conversations are as satisfying as the physical communications.

The fact that you have written reveals that although you may have talked about crying with him you have not been in-communication with him. The way we know this is because when the truth is told, when communication takes place, the experience is transformed. It’s complete. There is no mystery left.

For example:

You: "Gosh, I feel like I’m going to cry.”

Him: “H’mm. What’s it about?”

You: “Nothing. I don’t know.”

Him: “H'mm . . .” (men sometimes start with ‘H’mm’ when they are coming from nothing, not knowing, no intent to fix you, merely to be there for you).  “. . . what thought is associated with the experience?” The ensuing conversation would transform the experience, resulting in an expanded experience of love.

The fact that it concerns you concerns me. I have these emotional peaks all the time (typically when I’m driving) however, I can eliminate the possibility that it’s about pain, or fear, or an incomplete (some unacknowledged out-integrity) by looking at the thoughts that accompany the emotion. “No pain, no grief, no guilt, no thoughts, h'mm, let's see, it follows a previous pleasant experience, it must be joy." Most often it triggers tears of joy.

Two of the foremost barriers to the experience of joy are thoughts withheld and unacknowledged perpetrations. That you don't think your after-sex emotions might just be joy leads me to support you in listening to your intuition, which in this case triggers concern and worry.*

He may very well be the best man you’ve ever dated and still be merely one of many dates in the learning curve to discovering (creating) love through intercourse. You say he is, “. . . very sensitive to your feelings,” yet it appears he doesn’t pick up on this non-verbal (very obvious) communication that’s emanating from you and gently whisper, “What?" Or, a conscious deep inhalation to support you in breathing through the experience.

Friends remind each other to breath when they see the other stuck with a breath-holding thought. Quite often when a thought or experience triggers an emotion the mind doesn't share the thought and it becomes stuck in the drama of crying instead of having an intention to get to the truth. A reminder to breath supports one in choosing to live, in opening up, and in letting go of the pain.

If it’s hurt or sadness the breathing allows the sadness/incomplete to come to the surface. If it’s joy, breathing allows the joy and ecstasy to bloom. In other words, because he doesn’t get this subtle communication and complete it for you and himself (get certainty) suggests that his sensitivity is partly a “sensitivity act.”

When I say "intercourse" the communication model I refer to is open, honest, and spontaneous communication, zero withholds. In such a relationship the agreement is, "The way to let me know you don’t want to continue the relationship is to choose to withhold a thought." In such a relationship the experience you've been having begs to be shared. A thought withheld becomes as ". . . a mote in thine eye." Your “rejected” experiences of the past suggests that you might have a pattern of attracting/rewarding rejecters or worse, of setting it up to be rejected by not communicating spontaneously, by shutting down.  If so, this would be your integrity at work, in support of you recalling the first incident, the one that runs you about rejection, so as to complete it.

Now here’s the kicker: The fact that you have been withholding thoughts, specifically, that sometimes you verge on crying after sex, reveals that he too has he been withholding thoughts and emotions from you. You can’t see the speck in his eye for the mote in yours. It’s a given that withholders always attract withholders, each withholding their thoughts of choice. It’s called control. There can be no sustained experience of love and joy in a relationship in which thoughts are withheld. Another way of putting it, breathers hang around breathers. Thanks, Gabby

* Could it be that you sense the relationship is not as great as it appears, that you intuit the thoughts he's withholding (hiding) from you are deal-breakers? Thoughts such as, prior unacceptable perpetrations/illegal activities, or unethical behaviors, or, that he operates from a firm decision to not have certain must-have conversations, conversations you suspect he wouldn't be willing to have.  In any case, ask him to do The Clearing  Process for Couples with you (it's free, it will restore the integrity of the relationship).

Check back occasionally for minor edits (lasted edited 2/4/12)

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