S2 EP274 – Why Many Women Don’t Think About Sex or Want to Have Sex

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. Today I’m speaking about an issue that comes up frequently with my clients and people who attend my events – the fact that many women never think about sex, and about why sex might be missing in a long-term relationship.

Laverne asked me at one of my events:

I have never had thoughts that picture me making love with my husband – or anyone else for that matter. I imagine connection, fun and feelings of love but never making love. If it was left up to me sex would never be on the agenda, just because it would never occur to me to make love. I know when my husband would like to make love, and I enjoy it when I do make love, but it would never cross my mind if he didn’t initiate. I feel I am missing being aware and connected to a part of me. Surely a reasonably balanced and mostly connected human being should have some sort of sex drive. Your thoughts and insights would be really appreciated.”

Laverne is not alone in her experience. I hear this same thing from many of women. However many women do think about romance, which can lead to sex. Women tend to think more about the process of intimacy – of fun, connection, and sharing feelings of love – rather than about the end result. In fact, for many women focusing on the result is a turnoff.

The fact that Laverne can enjoy sex when her husband initiates it indicates that there is nothing wrong with her sexuality. It’s just that it’s not separate from her feelings of love and connection. It doesn’t occur to her to make love because her sexuality mostly emerges from her emotional connection with her husband. Some women, but not all, do experience a biological push toward sex during their ovulation. But even then, for most women, it needs to be in the context of emotional intimacy.

And herein lies the major difference between men and women, which is testosterone. While some women have higher than normal testosterone levels, most don’t, which means that most women are not biologically driven regarding having sex. Not so for most men. Testosterone creates the biological sex drive in men, while love, intimacy, and romance often lead to women feeling sexual.

It would be helpful if you accept that women who don’t think about having sex are generally not imbalanced or disconnected from their bodies. What would happen in relationships if both men and women accepted that men are often more biologically driven, and women are often more emotionally driven? 

Perhaps this could lead to deep appreciation for each other. There is nothing wrong with men for generally being more biologically driven than women, and there is nothing wrong with women for generally being more emotionally driven then many men. Of course, none of this is always true, as some women are more biologically driven than their man, and some men are more emotionally driven then their woman. And these differences can just as often show up in same-sex relationships. 

If Laverne stops judging herself for not thinking about sex, and values what she contributes to their relationship, then perhaps she can also value her husband for his biology and for being the one to initiate sex. If her husband completely embraces his biology, perhaps he can fully appreciate what Laverne brings to the relationship regarding fun, love, and connection. And he might be more willing to tap into his ability to be romantic once he accepts this as a vital part of their relationship. By valuing themselves and each other for what they each bring to their sexual relationship, their differences can be a blessing for them rather than creating conflict.

Over the many years that I’ve worked with couples, the issue of a woman not being turned on to her partner has emerged over and over. I often hear from the women I work with who are in a relationship with a man: “I am not turned on to my partner. I love him, but I just can’t bring myself to make love with him. The thought of it is repelling to me.”

Michelle and Michael have been married for 8 years. After the first few months of their marriage, sex has been rare, and non-existent for the last two years. Neither Michelle nor Michael is happy with this situation, yet Michelle can’t bring herself to have sex with Michael.

Susan and Douglas have been married for three years, a second marriage for both. While sex was wonderful when they first met, Susan has become completely sexually unavailable for the last six months.

Heather and David have been married for 6 years and have two children. They fell madly in love 7 years ago and sex at that time was terrific. But now Heather can barely touch David or be touched by him.

What has happened with these couples?

The women all say that they love their husbands very much. Yet they do not want sex with them.

There is a common denominator between all these men: Michael, Douglas, and David all live in their heads, not in their hearts. They operate out of their minds rather than their feelings. In fact, all of them are completely out of touch with their feelings. Their focus is external – on getting what they want – rather than internal, focused on taking loving care of themselves. All these men make their wives responsible for their feelings of adequacy, worth, and lovability. All of these men hand their inner child – their feelings – to their wives, abandoning themselves.

All of these men are “nice guys.” All of them are very attentive to their wives – fixing things around the house, catering to their needs, buying them things. Yet none of these men come to their wives in their personal power. They come empty, needy, hoping for approval and sex to make them feel filled and whole. As a result, all of the things they do for their wives feel manipulative to the women. The women experience a pull as their men attend to them. The hidden agenda is, “If I am nice and I do things for you and listen to you and buy you things, you will love me and have sex with me.”

These women love their husbands, but they can’t FEEL them. And when they can’t feel them, they can’t connect with them. These women are kind and caring with their husbands, but they can’t feel sexually attracted to them as long as the men are abandoning themselves.

The good news is that it doesn’t take very long for the sexual feelings to come back once the needy partner starts to practice Inner Bonding. This was particularly dramatic for Heather, who couldn’t stand to be touched by David. Within a few sessions, David was diligently practicing Inner Bonding and noticing his feelings for the first time in his adult life. He found himself crying for the first time since he was 14, which is when his beloved sister was killed in a car accident. Overwhelmed by the pain, David had shut down and had been shut down ever since. Heather’s sexual feelings for him came flooding back as he opened his heart to himself and to her.

Michelle, Susan, and Heather also had their Inner Bonding work to do. All of them had given themselves up in various ways, taking responsibility for their men rather than for themselves. As long as they were giving themselves up in any way to care-take their husbands, they did not feel their own sexual feelings. Each of these women needed to let go of trying to control their husbands with their caretaking and instead attend to their own feelings and needs.

Sexuality in relationships can change dramatically and quickly when each person takes their eyes off the other person, stops trying to control the other person, practices Inner Bonding, and learns to take emotional responsibility for themselves.

Sometimes the sexual issue in a committed relationship comes from a control and resistance system in the relationship.

“I just want to feel loved,” complained my client, Angie. “Is that too much to ask? I want to be able to count on Rob in bed. I’m tired of feeling like I don’t count!” Angie wanted a good sex life with Rob but was finding herself getting more and more turned off to him.

Angie and Rob were caught in a power struggle that was having a very negative effect on their sex life. Most of the time, as soon as they started to have intercourse, Rob would ejaculate, leaving Angie angry and frustrated. The more upset Angie got, the more trouble Rob was having with premature ejaculation. They started consulting with me due to this issue.

“Rob,” I asked, “Have you had problems with premature ejaculation in other relationships before you got married?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Sometimes they would start off okay, but eventually they always ended up this way. I’ve tried lots of different things, but nothing has worked. I just don’t know what the problem is.”

As I got to know Angie and Rob, it became apparent to me that they were caught in a control-resist system, and that it was this system that was affecting their sex life. It was the same system that had negatively affected their sex lives in previous relationships.

Angie had learned early in her life, from both of her parents, to avoid feeling her pain by getting angry and righteous. When things didn’t go her way or when she felt rejected, she would get hard, bristly, blaming, and parental. At those moments, having control over getting love and avoiding pain was more important to her than being loving to herself and to others. Angie had no idea how to take loving care of herself in the face of feeling rejected.

Rob learned early in his life from his experiences with his parents that not being controlled was more important than being loving to himself and to others. He learned to go into various forms of resistance to feel safe from being controlled by others, including not doing well in school and not taking care of his health. For Rob, premature ejaculation was another form of covert resistance. It’s as if his body was saying, “I don’t want to be controlled so I need to get out of here as soon as I can.” In addition, he was covertly saying to Angie, and perhaps women in general, “I’ll show you that you can’t control me.” Rob had no idea how to take loving care of himself in the face of feeling controlled and engulfed, so the wounded part of him would revert to what he learned as a child, which was resistance.

While Angie was not causing Rob to resist and Rob was not causing Angie to get angry and judgmental, they were each reacting to the other’s learned protections with their own learned protections. Either one could shift the system by practicing Inner Bonding and learning to take loving care of themselves when their fears of rejection and engulfment surfaced.

For example, Angie can practice tuning into her feelings of rejection and reassuring herself that Rob’s behavior is coming from his fear of engulfment and is not a personal rejection of her. She can practice moving into compassion for herself and Rob, rather than immediately getting angry and judgmental.

Rob can practice speaking his truth and standing up for himself when Angie is angry and blaming, rather than going into automatic resistance. He can let Angie know that he is not available to being treated this way, and at the same time stay open to caring about her feelings and understanding that his resistant behavior is painful to her.

While the power struggle is showing up in the sexual arena, it is actually taking place in the whole relationship.

Often the sexual relationship is a barometer of what is happening in the rest of the relationship. With Angie and Rob, the control and resistant behavior is most apparent in their sexual relationship. Sexuality is a vulnerable area, and it is easy to feel rejected in the sexual arena. Because of this vulnerability, it is in this area that Angie is most controlling. It is in this arena where she feels most rejected when Rob is not fully present or prematurely ejaculates. Rob, on the other hand, is most frightened of being controlled in the sexual arena. Being told what to do and how he should perform sets off all his fears of engulfment. The anxiety he feels over performance as well as the anger over Angie’s attempts to control him combine to make him too tense to be fully present. Without being present with his love for Angie, his body resists lovemaking.

Instead of working on sex, Angie and Rob are each working on their individual participation in the control-resist system. Each are practicing Inner Bonding – practicing staying open to honesty and caring and personal responsibility for their own feelings rather than just controlling and resisting control. As a result, their sex life is slowly improving.

Sometimes various addictions can mask the real issue in a relationship. When my client Janet dialogued with her inner child, she discovered that what she thought was the real issue, which was her weight and food addiction, was actually a coverup for the underlying sexual issue.

Loving adult Janet, talked with her inner child: “I know we are tired of being so overweight, yet we just can’t seem to do anything about it. There must be a good reason that we keep this weight on.”

Inner child Janet: “I don’t like being fat but I’m afraid to be thin.”

Loving adult: “Why are you afraid?”

Inner child: “Because when I’m thin Jack (her husband) is always after me for sex and I don’t like sex with him.’

Loving adult: “Can you tell me more about why you don’t like sex with Jack?”

Inner child: “He is not nice to me a lot. He criticizes me all the time. He yells at me a lot. He withdraws from me a lot. I don’t feel loved by him. He wants to have sex with me for his own needs, not because he loves me. I feel used by him. He wants me to dress up in sexy things and act in weird ways that I don’t like. He wants me to watch porn movies with him and fantasize yucky things with him. I hate it. When I’m fat he stays away from me.”

“It sounds like when you are thin,” I said to her, “there is no loving adult to protect you from being used by Jack.”

Her inner child responded: “That’s right! She gives in to him all the time and makes me do yucky things I hate to do. I don’t feel safe when I’m thin.”

“My inner child is right,” stated Janet, “I don’t know how to say no to Jack. I’ve been taught that it’s a wife’s job to satisfy her husband and that if I say no, I’m being selfish and being a bad wife. But I don’t have to deal with it much when I’m fat because then Jack is not attracted to me.”

“Are there other areas in your marriage where you give yourself up to Jack?” I asked Janet.

“Oh yes,” she said, “I do it all the time. Many times, I don’t do things I want to do because he wants me to do something with him. I let him dictate how we handle our money and where we go on our vacations. Sometimes I even let him overrule me on what to do on my own birthday.”

“So your inner child is certainly not going to trust you to take care of her regarding sex until you start taking care of her in other areas, is she?” I asked her.

“No, I guess not,” she said.

“So,” I said to her, “it seems pointless to keep trying to lose weight until your inner child can trust you to protect her against being used sexually. Are you willing to start taking care of her in some other areas?”

“Yes, I am,” she said. “I’m tired of feeling like this. Sometimes I think I’d rather be alone than be married to Jack, that it would be easier and feel better.”

“Well,” I said, “that is an option. But if you ever want a relationship, you will still have to deal with taking care of yourself. Any relationship will challenge you in this area. If you just leave, you miss an opportunity to grow into a more loving adult. This marriage is challenging you to show up for yourself. Who knows how Jack would be if you treated yourself with respect? He might even start to respect you. And if he doesn’t, you can always leave. But why not take a chance on telling your truth and setting limits for yourself with Jack and see what happens? You might be surprised.”

“Okay.” She said, “It feels scary, but I’m willing to try.”

“What are you most scared of?” I asked her.

“I guess of being seen as a bad, selfish person” she said.

“It sounds like your wounded self is telling you that you are a bad and selfish person if you take loving care of yourself,” I said to her. “Please ask your guidance if this is true.” 

Janet asked her higher self this questions, and her higher self said, “You are a very kind and caring person, and taking loving care of yourself is loving to you and to Jack.”

So,” I said to her, “one of the things you need to do as a loving adult is define yourself instead of letting others define you. Are you willing to take on that responsibility?

“Yes,” she courageously said.

“Good, then let’s start right now. Janet, please put your focus into your heart and again open to learning with your guidance. Ask your guidance to speak through you to your inner child, telling her the truth about who she is.”

“Okay.” Janet closed her eyes, breathed into her heart, silently asking for the truth. Then she opened her eyes and looked directly at the doll that represented her inner child, allowing her higher guidance to speak through her directly to her inner child. “Dearest little one, you are a treasure. You are a good, kind, loving little girl. You would never deliberately hurt anyone. You have such a loving heart, and you just want everyone to be happy. You are not at all a selfish person. You never have been. It is Jack who is being selfish by expecting you to take care of him instead of taking responsibility for his own feelings. He expects you to make him feel lovable and worthy by doing what he wants, especially sexually, but that is not your job. It is loving to say no to him and give him the opportunity to learn to take responsibility for his own feelings.”

“Now”, I said to her, “ask your inner child how she feels.”

Janet asked her inner child how she felt and her inner child answered, saying, “I like that you said that to me, but I’m not sure you mean it. I will know you mean it when you start to say no to him and listen to me instead.”

“Okay,” Janet said, “I’m going to do this. I have felt so desperate at times about this that I have sometimes felt like killing myself. I wouldn’t really do it, but I have felt like it. I guess that’s how unhappy my inner child is about this situation of me not standing up for her. I’m really going to do this.”

Janet had a great deal of courage in facing this issue, since it related to childhood issues of rejection and abuse. But as she slowly started to take better care of herself, not only did her weight issue gradually resolved itself, but so did the sexual issue in her marriage. It wasn’t instant by any means. As Janet learned to see, value, and love herself and take loving care of herself around Jack, Jack didn’t at all like her speaking up for herself and telling him her truth. But after Janet said she wanted to leave the relationship, he actually came in to work with me and learned and practiced Inner Bonding. As he learned to do what Janet was doing, which was to define his own worth and take responsibility for his own feelings, he stopped pulling on Janet to give him what had not been giving to himself. Amazingly, their sex life slowly returned and was much more satisfying for both of them than previously. 

Most of the time in my work with couples with sexual problems, when they each do their own inner work, their relationship in general and their sexual relationship greatly improves, even in long-term relationships, and even when sex has been missing from the relationship for a long time.  

I invite you to join me for my bi-monthly masterclass and receive my live help, which you can learn about at https://innerbondinghub.com/membership. 

And, I invite you to heal your relationships with my 30-Day online video relationship course: Wildly, Deeply, Joyously in Love.

And you can learn so much about loving yourself and creating loving relationships from all of our books and courses and from our website at https://www.innerbonding.com.

I’m sending you my love and my blessings.