Please Stop Suggesting This to Sexless Married Couples

Years ago, I had a marriage counselor suggesting that I should give sex a try.

For years, my desire for intimacy with my ex-husband was very low.

But I always craved intimacy in my relationships. Physical touch is my main love language.

I eventually gave it a try. But I cried as I felt horrible, trying to be intimate when my heart wasn’t there at all. My ex-husband respected me and didn’t force me to continue.

Since my divorce, I learned a lot about relationships. I dove deeply into personal development and spirituality, and it is especially because of what I learned that every time I see this kind of suggestion, my heart shrinks.

Why my desire for intimacy with him was gone

For years, I couldn’t understand what was missing in my relationship.

We’ve been together for 14 years, during which 7 were married, and we did love each other.

And yet something was gravely missing.

And it took me years to finally understand what it was.

Our situation is actually very common. The woman often felt unseen and unheard, and the man was often defensive whenever she brought up anything. Neither knew how to communicate with the other.

The core issue was that despite the love and companionship, there was no emotional safety and emotional connectedness in the relationship.

It took me years to finally pinpoint that, because for years, I went along with the false belief that women are just emotional and needy while men are just logical and detached.

My ex-husband, too, went with the false belief that since women are just emotional beings, he should just see whatever they express as them simply being women and not give much relevance.

Without emotional connectedness, I simply didn’t feel any desire for intimacy with him anymore. And to avoid the pain of needing intimacy, I simply disconnected from the part of me that needed intimacy, numbing my own needs.

The damage this suggestion can do to a woman

We don’t expect women to be intimate with strangers. And yet when we become strangers in our relationships, we expect women to still be intimate, as if the quality of emotional connectedness shouldn’t be a factor for them.

But it is. Physical intimacy by itself doesn’t usually create emotional intimacy for women, even if some would suggest that might happen, so that women might as well give it a try.

But what can happen is that when women feel the pressure to do so, despite the lack of emotional connectedness, and even worse, on top of simmering hurt and resentment from the perceived lack of care and emotional safety throughout the years, she might feel even more disconnected.

She might feel more disconnected not only from her husband, but even worse, from more from herself. From her own real feelings, emotions, needs, and desires.

Because that’s what pressuring a woman to do something her heart couldn’t do does to her. The pressure amplifies the pain of the already existing emotional disconnect with her husband, and it also tells her that the physical intimacy is potentially more important than the emotional intimacy that she needs first.

Looking back, with all the things I learned, what I really needed was rebuilding our emotional bond first by creating an emotionally safe space within a relationship.

I needed to feel that he truly cared and was there for me emotionally. I needed to feel emotionally connected to my life partner. We loved each other, but that has been missing.

And I could only tell that, as I’ve experienced a whole new level of emotional and physical intimacy after our divorce, which allowed me to reconnect with the part of me that always needed intimacy and physical touch.

The damage this suggestion can do to a man

My ex-husband was also hurting, as he didn’t feel close to me, nor desired by me.

I could only imagine how he felt as his ex-wife cried like a sacrificial lamb, when something as precious as intimacy should have been sacred and connected between husband and wife.

There’s a huge difference when a woman desires you versus when she has to do it just for the sake of relationship duty.

He knew the version of me, his life partner, who desired him deeply and couldn’t get enough of closeness with him.

And that is a version I can never fake. Even my body would betray the mask I’d put on.

Men know it. Deep down, they can tell.

And it can be heartbreaking when they can tell that their partner isn’t feeling it.

What men crave is the real intimacy and connection that comes from authentic desire and coming together.

They also need to feel desired for; they also need to feel that there’s a real bond there.

But they can feel hurt and their self-esteem lowered when their partners don’t really desire them, need them, or bond with them, and even show signs of wanting distance whenever they come together.

What could be different

It would have been possible for us to rebuild our marriage if, instead of suggesting that we simply try for physical intimacy, we had looked deeper into what we needed to build emotional safety and connectedness.

We could have started with baby steps.

We could each have individual therapy sessions to work on reconnecting with each our own needs and emotions.

We could also learn about the masculine and feminine polarity in relationships, to understand ourselves as well as each other better.

Then we could figure out how to rebuild emotional connectedness and have a more solid foundation through emotional safety.

Physical touch could be gently reintroduced with baby steps, progressing along with the development of emotional connectedness.

After the divorce, I have learned so much that I do believe that if only more couples knew about certain things, such as the masculine and feminine needs and polarity in relationships, many marriages could have been saved.

My ex-husband and I really loved each other. I do believe that if we had known about these things before, we could have had a much higher chance of saving our marriage.

So by sharing this, I do hope that more couples could rebuild their relationships and dive deeper into the real reasons why a relationship might not be working.

Mónica Valverde is a daydreamer navigating the experience of human life. She’s in love with Spirituality, Inner Work and Relationships.

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