husband was almost entirely a product of her personal problem.
Another powerful conviction she possessed was that her husband did not really love her. She felt that he was mainly interested in exploiting her, both for his "selfish" sexual needs and to advance his business. At the beginning of their marriage her husband had entered his father's engineering firm and at once had been faced with the necessity of doing a great deal of entertaining. His wife, he soon found out, was an excellent hostess and he came to depend on her gracious parties mightily. His dependency on her collaboration she at once took for exploitation and even extended that to mean: "He doesn't love me; he merely finds me a convenience. Any other presentable woman would suit him as well." There was another twist to this irrational conviction, though it was more hidden and did not emerge until quite late in the treatment. Her feelings might be expressed in these words: "He didn't succeed on his own; I made him what he is, even if I never get the credit for it." Imagine, with an underlying feeling of this kind, how much chance for survival any tender feelings toward her husband might have.
As the sessions continued and Mrs. Agnew gained more and more confidence, she began to feel freer about discussing her sexual life. She at length confessed that she had never experienced any sexual pleasure in her entire life, neither before nor after her marriage. At no point, could she recall, had she ever masturbated or attempted to do so, even in early childhood. Kissing or being stroked gave her no sensations whatsoever. From the beginning, intercourse had been distasteful and often painful, though sometimes she took a slight satisfaction from the obvious pleasure her husband obtained from orgasm.
The actual sexual life of this couple had been at a virtual standstill for nearly eight years. Intercourse occurred, at
