Sexless Marriage: She Takes Care of Herself But Won't Touch Me

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What do you do when you find out that your wife doesn't have problems with desire necessarily, just desire with you. This is what a guy named Derek wrote into me about here recently. I won't give away the dirty details, but let's just say he came home and discovered something. And what Derek discovered is more common than what a lot of us are willing to admit. And the reasons for what you're going through is probably not what you think. Let's get into it. Email from Derek says, I don't even know what to call this. He says, hey, I've watched probably 40 of your videos at this Thank you. Usually late at night when my wife's already asleep. Never thought I'd be the guy sending one of these. I need to just say the thing. My wife and I haven't had sex in over a year. 14 months, give or take. I stopped trying around month 8 because every time I initiated, it turned into this whole thing, and I'd rather feel nothing than feel that. Last week I came home early from a work trip. Flight got changed. Didn't think to text ahead because I I figured I'd just be home for dinner and surprise her. She didn't hear me come in. I could hear the bedroom TV on, and then I could hear, look, I don't need to spell it out. She had her vibrator. She was fine. She wasn't tired or touched out or any of the other things that I've been hearing for over a year. She was completely fine. I went back out to my car and I sat there for about 20 minutes. I don't think she knows I saw anything. I came back in, made noise, she came back downstairs, we had a totally normal dinner. She seemed completely normal. I don't know how I seemed. I don't remember much about that night, honestly. Here's my problem. I could handle, I mean, I wasn't handling it, I was just surviving, the rejection when I thought it was about her. Low libido, stress, kids, whatever. You tell yourself a story and you just get through it. This killed that story. It's not that she can't, it's that she doesn't want to with me. That's the thing I can't get past. She's fine. I'm the problem. I'm 43. We've been married 12 years. I'm not some guy who stopped trying. I work out. I'm present with the kids. I'm not checking out. And she's in our bedroom with a vibrator on a Tuesday and won't. Touch me. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that. You know, Derek and others that are going through this, this story is not that rare. I hear some version of this from a lot of different guys. I've talked about this before in other videos where we have some guys that are so anxious in their attachment to their partner and a little codependent, a little insecure. We'll get into what all that means. But they're the types that will— they know that their wife has a vibrator and they suspect that she's using it and they will go into like the woman's, uh, what do you call it, like the, the nightstand there, and they will take the vibrator and they'll move it to like one side of the nightstand drawer there. And then they'll check the next day and I'll be damned, the vibrator moved over to the other side. The insinuation being that it's being picked up and used. Aha, I knew that my wife is using her vibrator. Or we have some guys like Mr. Derek here who walk in on the wife and hear the old buzzing noise and go, what the hell? And invariably how all of these anxious men internalize this is to say, Something's wrong with me. Obviously the energy is in there. She's just directing it towards this object versus the loving husband who's been bugging her for sex all these years. Obviously the issue is me. I suck. What the hell? But from what I've seen, a little bit of digging, a little bit of introspection, a little bit of look back at their years together as a couple, things start to become a little clearer. Now Derek did what a lot of guys do, his own version of it anyway. So what did he do? He saw the thing, he turned around, walked the other way, went outside and sat in the car for a while and like, What the hell do I do with this information? He was in shock. His head is spinning with all these thoughts of, holy shit, it's me. It's not her. She has that energy. I had no idea. What the hell? And then eventually he gets up the nerve and he goes back in, makes some noise, you know, so he can say like, I'm here, wife. You know, let's not make this awkward. She comes down. Obviously she didn't notice that he was there or she doesn't care. And he does not confront her. He does not talk about it. He just lets it go. And the grand statement that Derek says in all this is She's fine. I'm to blame. So he has internalized everything. But I think there's a less nefarious, if you want to use that word, explanation for what's going on here. It's not all, hey Derek, you suck as a spouse, a chump, a simp, a wuss, whatever word you want to use here. No, and I've kind of hinted at it already. There's something in psychology, by the way, not a psychologist, not a therapist, loudmouth bald dude with a microphone, but there's something in psychology that we can learn from. And that's something that is called attachment theory. And you guys need to be familiar with this, a lot of you guys, because a lot of you guys watching online self-help material specifically related to relationship stuff like my stuff, I'm going to go on a limb and say most of you are what we call anxiously attached. You're very preoccupied when it comes to the health of the relationship. And ironically, you are matched up with the polar opposite, the avoidant. An avoidant doesn't sit around all day wondering about the relationship. They don't sit around and think about how can I make this better? They don't give a shit. What they're concerned with mostly is being an independent person, independent of you in the relationship, independent of thoughts of how do I make this better and what does this mean and what are we going to do down the line and blah blah blah. It's just like, no, they just want to be left the hell alone. But what that doesn't mean is that necessarily don't touch me, leave me alone doesn't necessarily equate to and I don't have a libido or sex drive. Sometimes, often, They do. They just don't express said sex drive and libido within the confines of a real long-term safe relationship. They feel safer expressing that sexuality in a very non-intimate, non-vulnerable way. One way in which we see some of these people do this, and by the way, it's not a man-woman thing. In fact, most avoidants are men. The way these avoidant people express their sexuality often is outside of the confines of the safe, secure, vulnerable relationship. Affairs, not unheard of. Using sex toys, devices, which definitely have no vulnerability or humanness or emotion attached, really common. So you got a wife who has an anxiously attached husband who craves closeness. He craves reassurance. He wants to know that everything's okay between he and his wife. And sexual connection between the two of them is the ultimate expression of, dude, you have nothing to worry about. Everything's fine. I, as your wife, adore you. I'm not going anywhere. When he doesn't get that, just his brain spins out of control. And unfortunately, he usually puts all of his emotional eggs in one basket, and that's his wife. So he hangs a lot of his emotional health on her shoulders. Ironically, probably the last person you should do that to, then avoid an individual because they're just like, don't even come near me with that shit. So you can see how it's like trying to put two— what do you like when you have a magnet and you flip it over to the wrong side and you try to put them together and you can't put them together? Very similar energy between an avoidant and an anxious individual. They just repel each other. So the more he pursues, the more she goes away. And so you can see the dynamic between the two of them, how it just snowballs and snowballs into this resentment and lessening of attraction. I say lessening, hell, attraction probably just goes completely out the window. Those feelings in that way for their anxious partner just gone. So every time he comes to her and says, "Can we touch?" and "Can we kiss?" and "Can we hold?" and "How come we haven't done anything?" he just digs a hole deeper and deeper that he can't get out of. Closeness to her feels extremely threatening. It's the last damn thing she wants. But if she's a human being with a healthy sex drive, what's she supposed to do with that energy? She can't direct it towards husband, the person that she's basically repulsed by at this point. So there's the old electronic pal in the nightstand. And she can't use the device, you know, in front of husband because he's just going to jump her bones and say, "Woohoo, we're getting it on." It's like, no, she's got to wait till he's gone out of the house, gone to work on a work trip. Hallelujah, I'm all by myself. I can be me. No worry about any kind of outside anything, people needing me, kids, husband, just everybody get out, leave me alone, let me do my thing. That's what he walked in on. So what does Derek and others like Derek going through this, what do you do? Like, how do you process all this? It's okay. We know what's going on here. Possibly could be something else, but likely this is what's going on here. What do you do with that info? First of all, stop what I call like the self-audit. You staying up till 2 in the morning staring at the sky or on your computer Googling and YouTubing, probably how you found me here today. Like, what's wrong with me? Why doesn't my wife want me? Et cetera, et cetera. Right now in the environment that you're in, this mental environment that you're in, Uh, you can't answer that right now. You're not thinking straight. You're hurting. You've been basically kind of traumatized. What happens is often your brain goes to the most self-punishing reason that it can find. It's the most simple thing. Men love simple. We like black and white. Let's just find a solution here. And often with our ruminating, very negative neurotic brain, the solution is, I suck. I am less of a man. The device is better than me. Sometimes we catch our avoidant wives in affairs. The other guy's better than me, whatever it may be. You need to recognize there's another person in this equation, your wife. And it's not up to you to be her therapist and try to psychoanalyze her and everything, but you need to know what you're up against. You need to understand that if she is one of these avoidant people, your constant movement towards her is precisely what repels her. And no, before you say it, that ain't, that ain't healthy. Yes, it's a very broken way of going through life. She's fundamentally insecure, much like you are, but in her own little unique way. And her insecurity basically prevents her from having any kind of intimate, close, vulnerable relationship with anybody. No, dude, before you say it, you can't fix her. Don't even go there. It's not your job. Number one, you're not her therapist. You're not her parent. You're her husband. You shouldn't be taxing yourself with thoughts of what can I do to make her better? You know who can make her better? She can make her better. She needs to raise her hand and say, I need help with this situation. I'm really, I'm pushing away good people. I'm losing my family. I'm losing my loved ones. I got something going on with me. I need to figure this out. The problem is if you are a legitimate avoidant individual, that's like the last thing you're going to do because that requires what? Vulnerability. It requires you saying, I got a problem, and raising your hand and say, can somebody help me please? It's the last thing an avoidant person wants to do. Often they have to hit the rock bottom moment. A husband who slides divorce papers across to them, the kids who say, I just want to be with dad. I don't want to be with you anymore, mom. You're not fun. You're angry all the time. You're very cold, whatever it is. And they realize, oh shit, I'm I'm losing my loved ones. I got to go get help. And then everybody needs to be what? Super patient as mom or dad goes through and talks to therapist for shit years.

It ain't easy.

But again, don't consume your mind with thoughts of her, what she needs to do, what you can do to push her towards the solution. The only thing that you, Derek and others, what you can do to fix the situation is work on yourself, man. You got your own problems, this anxious attachment thing. You're going to push away not only avoidant people, which is frankly not that bad of a thing. You don't want them in your life anyway, but you're also going to push away very secure individuals because very secure individuals are way turned off by your anxious preoccupied temperament. When a secure person picks up on, wow, this person is very dependent on me and my attitude in order to determine how they feel and how they act. And it's just, it's energy that nobody secure likes in their life. So what you need to do is work on things that can help you become a more secure individual. One of those things is to work with other men that are going through the same thing. And if I may, check out the Brotherhood at help4men.com. It's our private support community for men only. Hundreds of guys from around the world in live meetings, private discussion forums. We get together in person. We talk about this kind of stuff all day, every day. And by the way, if you like audio, which a lot of guys like audiobooks, podcasts, and so forth, we have like over 1,600 hours of audio just for our members in the group. So check it out, the Brotherhood. @help4men.com. Also, don't forget to check out my book, my bestselling book, The Dead Bedroom Fix, the third edition of which just came out last year, deadbedroomfix.com, and the new Dead Bedroom Fix app, the little daily exercises that you can do to become a more secure person and make it more likely to have a healthy sex life. deadbedroomfixapp.com. So to recap, is this fixable, Derek and others? Technically, yes. Likely, no. It takes two to tango, as I often say. Here's you over here, Mr. Anxious. You gotta do the work of becoming a more secure individual. Stop pushing yourself on them. Stop being Mr. Codependent and relying on her emotions to determine your emotions and how you go through life. Not good. You need to work on that. Issue is, is that you are way more, Mr. Anxious, likely to work on that than Miss Avoidant is. And Miss Avoidant over here, she's got to work on her stuff. That's going to take a lot. She first has to get through the door of the therapist's office. That's saying a lot right there. And then she has to endure day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year of consistent work to figure out why she acts the way she does and how to turn things around. And Mr. Anxious over here, as he becomes more and more secure, what I have seen over and over again is his patience for this bullshit goes way down. So guys, you got to be honest with yourself. Do you have the patience to go through this? If not, let her go, man. Better things await you, trust me. But if you do, if you want to make this work, you want to work on your family, be patient, dude. It's going to take a while. Remember what you walked in on with your wife and the device there. That's not proof that you are less than. It's not proof that you're some kind of simp, weakling, horrible man. No, it's proof that you two are pretty disconnected, obviously, and she's got problems. So do you. I know the device is not close to her. It's not the thing that loves her. That's precisely why she likes it in that way. As effed up as that may be, that's it, guys. You married a pretty broken individual. She just wants to be left the hell alone. That's why she has rejected you for so many months, if not years. You need to take the hint and leave her be. And if she wants to use her device, that's fine. But you know what? You don't need to be around for it. You deserve better than that. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching. I do appreciate it. If you could give me a like, give me a subscribe, a follow, however it works, I would appreciate it. Thank you so very much, and we'll catch you on the next one.