When your partner says, “you only care about sex,” there’s a lot more to what she’s saying that you likely realize.
If your partner is like most Western women, she got the memo that boys and men only want “one thing.”
My mother drove this idea into me from the time that I was 12. When I told her that my boyfriend loved me and wanted to marry me, she responded by saying, “Are you sure it’s you he wants, and not something else?”
My grandmother also sowed seeds of doubt in me about boys. After meeting my high school sweetheart, who I’d been with for three years, she said: “Has he cheated on you yet?” They all do, you know.”
While these messages tend to come from women, and women who have been wounded by men, men are also guilty of spreading the mistrust.
I remember partners of mine insisting that my male friends were not really friends.
“He wants more than to be your friend,” one partner, said, (eye roll), as if I were naive to think otherwise.
“Men and women can’t be friends,” he told me.
Not only did I find this infuriating, but I was aware that by his saying this, he was painting himself with the same brush.
You hear these kinds of messages enough times, and you start to question everything men do — and this doesn’t go away just because you grow up and get married.
So, what can you do about this?
Well, actually a lot! If your partner accuses you of being a “one-track mind,” or “only caring about sex,” tell her you’re done with these messages — that you find them hurtful and damaging.
It’s important that you do this, because this view of you is a barrier to a beautiful sexual intimacy with her.