When Silence Isn’t Held: From Infant Quiet to Adult Desire

Rina Lahav, certified sexologist and sexual therapist (MSW)

https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/298172f5-ba6a-41d7-a3c5-32de0367b85a?artifactId=22a41f0e-b1e2-4709-b78d-cdf27c74fbb1

Podcast – enter the Studio and click

Abstract

This article presents a clinical model for understanding the difference between “dead quiet” and “living quiet,” and how an experience of unheld quiet in infancy can shape patterns of regulation, attraction, sexuality, and partner choice in adulthood. It describes an infant girl born into an environment that was quiet yet lacking vitality, who was forced to develop a rich inner world as her first regulator. This regulatory mechanism continues to accompany her in adulthood: she is drawn to “alive,” dynamic men; finds it difficult to tolerate stable quiet in sexuality and closeness; and experiences stable men as “boring” or emotionally extinguishing. The article explores the clinical distinction between dead quiet and living quiet in relationships, its impact on sexuality, and therapeutic implications in work with individuals and couples, including marriage to a “boring” man and the creation of the conditions for encountering shared living quiet.

1. Introduction: Quiet Too Big for a Baby Too Small

A baby cannot define “postpartum depression” or “a lack of maternal vitality.” She only knows how to sense:

• Is there movement toward me?

• Is there a spark in the eyes?

• Is the quiet accompanied by presence, or does it leave me alone?

In the case described, the baby was born into a world with a great deal of quiet:

gentle facial expressions, a soft voice, but very little vitality, movement, or mutual arousal.

This quiet was not dangerous in the classical sense of active trauma,

but it was too big, too empty, unheld.

In terms of early affect regulation,

the developing self was left with too little brain-to-brain regulation and too many moments of the experience:

“I am alone inside quiet.”

2. The Inner World as the First Regulator

When there isn’t enough vitality on the outside, the infant nervous system does what it knows how to do to survive:

If there isn’t life outside—I will create it inside.

A rich inner world emerges:

imagination, thoughts, inner movement, stories, psychic vitality—

functioning as a primary regulator.

This is not a “defect” but a creative survival solution:

the inner world saves the psyche from an experience of emptiness and unbearable quiet.

Over the years, the inner world becomes:

• a home

• a source of depth and sensitivity

• a source of creativity and understanding

But also:

• a place the self retreats to when the external world feels thin, flat, or unresponsive

In emergency states (for example, war), the system may return to it—

not as a sign of regression, but as a renewed choice of the most familiar survival solution.

The illustration describes how an infant who did not receive enough vitality from the external world creates a rich, colorful, enlivening, and consoling inner world.

3. Over-Attraction to Vitality: Why “Problematic Men” Feel Alive

When this woman grows up and begins to meet men,

her body does not remember the story—it remembers the feeling.

3.1 A stable, quiet, “good” man

• few emotional fluctuations

• consistent presence

• stable, predictable sexuality

• a soft, non-dramatic bond

For most people, this signals safety.

For her, it recreates the same unheld childhood quiet.

The bodily experience:

• shutdown

• decreased arousal

• emotional boredom

• a sense of “no spark”

She does not experience a “boring man” in the ordinary sense,

but rather a quiet she once had to endure alone.

3.2 A man with chaotic vitality / lots of movement

A man who moves–disappears–returns,

a man with drama, instability, emotional gaps, uncertainty—

the body translates as:

“Here. There is life.”

External movement → neural ignition → vitality → sexual and emotional arousal.

The attraction is not to the “problem,” but to vitality as a regulatory resource.

Movement outside brings life to the world within.

Hence the unconscious equation:

I am drawn to vitality because dead quiet was unbearable for the baby I was.

4. Dead Quiet vs. Living Quiet: A Clinical Definition

To work with these patterns in therapy, it is important to distinguish between two kinds of quiet:

4.1 Dead quiet

Quiet in which there is no reciprocity and no interpersonal pulse.

Sensory-emotionally, it feels like:

• disconnection

• disappearance

• emptiness

• lack of response

• apathy

• “I do not exist”

This is unheld quiet; the infant/partner is left alone inside it.

4.2 Living quiet

Quiet in which there is presence, warmth, and attention even without many words:

• a lively gaze

• shared breathing

• gentle touch

• attunement

• a felt sense of “I’m with you” even in silence

This is quiet that generates life:

validation, soothing, depth, the ability to be together without disappearing.

In short:

Living quiet = quiet that generates life.

Dead quiet = quiet that extinguishes life.

5. Implications for Sexuality

The primary regulator directly shapes sexual patterns:

5.1 Stable, calm, slow sexuality

• soft touch

• predictable rhythm

• sweet closeness

• gentle intimacy

In the described woman, this may trigger:

• decreased arousal

• a sense of emptiness

• “no spark”

• mild disconnection or a drift inward

Meaning: sexuality of rest is experienced bodily as “returning to being alone in quiet.”

5.2 Sexuality with movement, tension, and uncertainty

• a hint of the forbidden

• disappears–returns

• emotional distance alongside attraction

• dynamism, surprise, drama

The body responds with:

• ignition

• arousal

• desire

• vitality

Sexuality based on activation may feel easier,

while sexuality based on shared rest may be more challenging.

5.3 A tendency to “skip inward”

In calm sexuality, the inner world awakens as a regulator:

thoughts, imagination, attentional shifting—

less presence in the sexual encounter itself, more inner vitality.

This is not a “deficiency,” but an expression of the same early rescue mechanism.

6. Marriage to a “Boring” Man: Dead Quiet or Living Quiet?

In clinical work, many women describe being married to a “boring” man.

The therapeutic challenge is to distinguish:

1. Is this a stable, calm man with living quiet (potential for shared vitality)?

2. Or a disconnected, apathetic man with dead quiet (absence of connection, absence of relational pulse)?

6.1 Living quiet in a partner

• stable presence

• genuine listening

• ability to respond, even without drama

• willingness to learn emotional language

• potential for mutual movement

Here, marriage to a “boring man” can become a marriage full of vitality—

if the couple develops expression, warmth, and sexuality with gentle movement.

6.2 Dead quiet in a partner

• ongoing disconnection

• lack of curiosity about her inner world

• minimal emotional responsiveness

• extinguished or technical sexuality

• a sense of “I am alone even though we are married”

Here, without deep change on his part,

the marriage remains a space of dead quiet,

not living quiet one can truly live within.

7. Emergency and War Context: Returning to the First Regulator

In emergencies (for example, war),

the system returns almost automatically to the first regulator:

• the inner world

• imagination

• psychic withdrawal

It can look like “I went backwards,”

but in fact it is an over-return to an ancient survival mechanism that once worked well.

Therapeutic meaning:

there is no point in fighting it, but rather in mediating it:

• recognizing it as a resource

• teaching bidirectional movement: inside ↔ outside

• bringing images of living quiet there too (gaze, hand, presence)

8. Therapeutic Implications

8.1 With the client

• normalizing the inner world as a rescuing regulator, not “the problem”

• processing the unheld childhood quiet

• building a representation of living quiet: someone who is with her in silence

• experiential practice of staying together in regulating silence (safe place, guided imagery, EMDR, EFT)

• gently distinguishing attraction to chaotic vitality from longing for safe vitality

8.2 With couples

• mapping: does the partner bring living quiet or dead quiet?

• helping “quiet” partners develop responsiveness, warmth, and small emotional movement

• building sexuality that integrates stability + gentle movement (waves, shifts in pace, eye contact, shared breathing)

• exploring with the client:

  
  

  “If I could promise you he can learn vitality—would you want him?”

  
  

  A “yes” suggests potential; a “no” suggests deep incompatibility.

Closing Summary

This article offers a new understanding of a rich inner world not as pathology, but as a neurobiological-emotional solution born from an attempt to endure unheld childhood quiet. It proposes that attraction to “alive,” and even chaotic, men is not a flawed choice but a longing for vitality in the place that once felt thin and empty. It also invites a renewed look at marriage to a “boring” man and asks whether this is living quiet that can be enlivened, or dead quiet that extinguishes the self.

This distinction between living quiet and dead quiet makes it possible to understand patterns of attraction and sexuality in depth, locate the inner world in its precise context, and guide therapy toward building spaces of shared living quiet—where a person does not disappear, but can finally rest within connection without being left alone.