The maternal instinct is so strong that it is inevitable that a woman will treat her male lover from  this instinct.  For most women, this is not really a problem at all and, in fact, even bolsters their sense of intimacy and connection with their partners.  In fact, most women can comfortably move between a wide range of relational states with their partners —  easily shifting between the relational poles of eroticism and nurturance, and comfortably occupying the middle ground between these poles, as situations and circumstances arise organically in the relationship.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for most men!  In the male psyche,  there is a struggle between relating to his lover as an erotic figure vs. a partner who he protects, supports and soothes.

While it is not exactly clear why the genders are so different in terms of their capacity to synthesize the sexual and emotional components of intimate relationships, many conflicts among couples involve the failure to recognize how one partner’s relational tendencies may inadvertently be limiting the other partner’s ability to occupy and shift between eroticism and nurturance.

One common example of how this dynamic may occur is the woman’s gestures of nurturing, support and tenderness toward her partner.   Although these gestures are motivated by benevolent intentions, their timing, intensity and/or magnitude may actually trigger in the man’s mind a gradual or sudden shift in how he sees and experiences his partner.

In the worst case scenario, his partner’s kindness and loving efforts may, in his mind, catapult her from being an object of his sexual desire to a doting maternal figure.  As this dynamic unfolds, he may gradually begin to feel less and less of a man in relationship with a woman and, instead, more and more of a boy (son) who is in a relationship with his now “surrogate” mother.

As you might imagine, when this occurs sexual intimacy quickly erodes, the partners become locked in misunderstandings, frustration, and conflict, and  the potential for break-up increases dramatically.  This erotic/nurturing dilemma may emerge at any point in a relationship, often first in the dating stage and, if the relationship manages to survive, re-occurring in one form or another throughout a long-term commitment.

Deepening the partners’ acceptance and understanding of this and other related dynamics, and helping the partners negotiate the insidious quality of unresolved historical material, stimulates the couple’s ability to achieve a refined type of intimacy, one that integrates erotic and emotional roles.