When a guy in an intimate relationship is experiencing erectile dysfunction there is going to have to be some coping by both partners, but coping with what?
Is it coping with -
- loss of sex?
- loss of sex as you're used to it?
- fear of what it might be caused by? dying?
- changing identities?
- embarrassment?
- having to work out something new?
- having to talk with each other in deeper ways than you've ever done?
- general grieving a loss?
It helps sometimes to work our way through a pathway of inferences to get an idea of what we're dealing with. Most simply stated this involves noticing
- what all the available information on the topic includes
- which pieces of information have we chosen to focus on
- why we picked those out of all that was available
- what those pieces mean to us
Following the thread, we can ask ourselves questions like . . . ."because?" . . ."and then?" . . ."and that would mean?"
Drill down far enough and many, if not most, things that are looking bleak start to soften up around the edges, to not be quite as serious or insoluble as they appeared in the darkest hour.
Creative "work arounds" don't often show up when we're thinking like we've always thought.
An interesting approach to getting a new view of hard topics can be found in Byron Katie's work that is described in Loving What Is. It's not the only way to go (Michael Brown's The Presence Process and/or Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now are going at the same things from slightly different perspectives) but it an easy place to start.
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