Help! My wife is romantically incompetent

Rose was on the verge of breaking up with her husband. What started as a trivial disagreement had grown over three months into an energy usurping conflict. At the persuasion of her pastor and her husband, she agreed to come with her husband to the Sexology Clinic for consultation.

“I am not sure that coming here will resolve this conflict, but let me give it a chance anyway,” Rose said as her husband narrated what they had gone through for three months.

Rose was 42 years old. She was a lawyer. She had no child. William, her husband, was 45. He was a businessman. The couple had been married for three years.

“So you people got into marriage rather late in your lives, was there a reason?” I interrogated, trying to decipher the circumstances of the conflict.

“Well, not as such. I am a widower, this is my second marriage,” William explained. His wife of seven years died in a road accident, leaving behind two children who were in boarding schools. William got married to Rose two years after the calamity. Rose had been single until the marriage. She was 40 at the time.

“Rose has refused to have sex with me for the last three months because I snore. She has moved to a different room, and I am spending cold nights alone,” William explained. He further explained that Rose had warned him that she would sue him for attempted rape if he ever dared touch her.

William had seen a doctor who attributed his snoring to an increase in body weight over a short time. He was advised on dieting and exercising. He went into a crash programme and lost seven kilogrammes in two months to save his marriage.

“My wife has, however, refused to come back to the bedroom. Instead, she has been rude and uncaring. She has said I can get another woman if I want,” William explained.

“You know what, if you cannot meet my standards, you better start early and file a divorce,” Rose answered back. “I have lived all these years without a man, and I never died.”

I requested to have individual sessions with Rose and William separately. I did two meetings with Rose and one with William to understand the root cause of this conflict. After the sessions, I concluded that Rose had romantic incompetence.

Romantic incompetence is the inability to develop and sustain intimate relationships. It is a developmental problem resulting from abuse at the family level in childhood. The hallmark of romantic incompetence is a lack of intimacy and insight for yourself and for your partner. What this means is that you are unable to understand your own and your partner’s emotional, intimacy, and relationship needs. As a result, one becomes aggressive and does things to intentionally hurt their partner.

The second problem in romantic incompetence is a lack of mutuality, where people become individualistic. They repeatedly remind their partners that they can do without them. They think that being in a marriage is unnecessary trouble and a bother. They lack the skill to show care and love. They do not appreciate attempts by their partner to show care and love. They selfishly take acts of kindness as their right and get aggressive if the kindness is not forthcoming.

Most people with romantic incompetence also lack emotional regulation. They tend to have emotional outbursts and do not care if this hurts their partners. They magnify small disagreements into mountains and put their partners in a permanent state of anxiety and confusion.

“I did not know that refusing to have sex with a husband could make one be analysed this much,” Rose interrupted as I explained my diagnosis. “So, what exactly do you want me to do?”

Treating the root causes of romantic incompetence is the solution to this problem. Rose grew up in a psychologically abusive family, and therapy was needed to help her heal. I therefore booked her for therapy sessions. Sex was withheld till further notice.

It took seven sessions to pull Rose through some of the deeply engrained psychological difficulties. She had to learn new methods of behaviour to be lovable. She had intimacy practice sessions at home, and by the time she was done with the sessions, she was transformed.

“It has just dawned on me that I have wasted my life. If I had been treated earlier, my life would have been different. I would have married at the right time, and I would be having grown-up children by now,” Rose said as I wished her well in her marriage.

She was worried that she was too old and would not be able to conceive. However, we were all in agreement that since she was back in her bedroom, had learned to love, and was not yet in menopause, a baby could come any time.