As an Intimacy Coach, I work with a lot of women who struggle with whether to have sex or not have sex with their husbands. Let’s face it: as a busy wife and mom with 2.5 kids, a career, a mortgage, a dog and a husband to take care of, we have filled our days with A LOT of responsibilities.
And you can see where husbands fall on that list of things to do today. (Spoiler Alert: Also notice who didn’t even make it onto that list…)
It is a sad truth in today’s world that most women in their 30s and 40s were told , and believed, that we could have it all. And by “all”, we took that to mean that being super woman to all of the people in our lives is what will make us happy: our bosses, our kids, our husbands, our moms and dads, our siblings, our pets. Even our bill collectors.
By filling up our days with endless commitments and responsibilities, we were becoming the successful modern woman.
Taking on every option open to us might lead to fitting into a certain category defined by society as “successful”. But does taking on every single possible commitment available really lead to happiness? Fulfillment? Satisfaction? Joy?
If you ask the average busy mom and wife to recall the last time she had sex, it would take her a while to count how many weeks, months or years it’s been. And don’t even bother with asking about her last orgasm.
Why? Well because as we overload our commitment calendar with 3 million tasks, appointments and roles, we end up creating a life that goes like this: sex is for your 20s, parenthood is for your 30s and a dead bedroom is for your 40s. Divorce comes in your 50s and a disappointing search for a second life-long companion comes in your 50s and 60s. Health problems are for your 70s and 80s. Then comes death.
Yikes, that’s some life we’ve chosen.
This is the sad truth for 90% of my clients. So when I am coaching them, we often start our first session with this question: which decade is left for finding true intimate connection with your partner? Which decade is left caring about your own happiness?
It is a truth universally known but rarely acknowledged, like the elephant in the room: when you are married with kids and you overload your calendar with too many commitments to everyone else, sex becomes a dull, lifeless, boring act that is relegated to a few moments when you begrudgingly agree to a mundane physical connection because your husband has finally nagged you about it enough. So you give in.
Yikes, again.
The picture I paint is a harsh one, but it’s the truth. And it’s the reality that so many women live with everyday.
We live with the guilt because in the back of our minds, we know that our husbands deserve better. We live with animosity towards everyone in our lives that have their hands out begging for our time and attention — knowing that will sap us of every urge and need we have for intimate connections with our husbands. We live with regret for overloading our lives with commitments that we don’t know how to get out of. We live with fear that our husbands will one day either cheat, or leave us, because we know our husbands aren’t fulfilled. And we live with unmet needs, because sexual connections are not the sole domain of our husbands — we long for a sexually fulfilling life, a strong physical bond with our partners, and a really good orgasm.
But we suppress some of these emotions, so far down that it’s sometimes hard for us to remember that they exist — especially our own desire for physical connection. Instead, we allow guilt, animosity and fear to rule our lives. Those are, unfortunately, the emotions that don’t usually get pushed down.
And so we create a vicious cycle in our lives: mental stress from being over-worked leads to resentment at the people in our lives, which leads to anger and guilt, which leads to a dead bedroom and a lack of connection with the one person who can help us relieve our stress.
So we turn them away, and it starts all over again.
This cycle is what leads to the five reasons women don’t have sex with their husbands:
1. Guilt and stress about not having sex.
2. Anger about having guilt and stress about not having sex.
3. Worrying about having all that guilt and stress.
4. Over-committing to too many roles in life.
5. Guilt and stress about over-committing to too many roles in life.
With all of this worry and stress and guilt and over-commitment, there is no room in our lives for intimate joy, erotic happiness and sexual pleasure.
So…Give Me Some Good News, Right?
There is actually good news here. And it’s this: women get this nasty reputation for having a “low libido”, for being cold, or for not having any need for a physical, sexual connection with their husbands. We bring it on ourselves.
Because nothing could be further from the truth.
Most women actually need sex, just like men do. So our happiness and fulfillment is just as ignored as our husband’s happiness and fulfillment when we don’t have sex.
We just make the mistake of thinking that in order to be “successful” and a “good” mom or wife, we have to put ourselves very last in line. So our sexual needs are seen as selfish, carnal, low. Something that we should be ashamed of if we dared make it a priority. And in hurting ourselves this way, we hurt our husbands and our relationships.
More good news: All you moms and wives out there: your sexual needs are not shameful. The needs of your husband aren’t shameful. Both of you deserve a real, pleasureful, honest sexual connection. In fact you don’t just deserve it, you actually need it, biologically.
And the way to take back control of your sex life, find true happiness with your partner and enjoy the intimacy you once had with him, is a simple process.
Though it’s not easy, the hardest part of the process is admitting you have a problem with intimacy.
Once you take that responsibility — the responsibility to change the part of your life that makes you cringe deep down inside — you will open yourself up to finding a beautiful, pleasurable and happy solution, so you can live the life you’ve always wanted, one special, shared moment at a time.
If you want to learn how to reignite your spark and reclaim your sexual identity, come work with me. There are a lot of great orgasms in your future, if you have the courage to ask for help.
