So, the question I’m going to answer today is, what impact is no sex having on your husband, and ultimately, what impact is it having on your marriage?
Hi, Cody Butler here, marriage coach, and today I want to talk to you about what is going on with your husband and how a no sex or a low sex marriage is affecting him. The simple answer to that question is, it’s having a profound effect on your husband and your marriage, probably more than you understand right now.
Let me start by explaining what sex means to a man and how you can understand it as a woman. The easiest way to do this is to think about sex as communication. So, if you’re a woman watching this right now, what is your need for communication, and what would be the consequences of all communication being withdrawn by your husband and refusing to talk to you? It’s kind of like the consequences of no sex, right? Because communication is what opens up a woman to sex, but sex is what opens up a man to communication. Withdrawing sex from a man is making him not want to communicate with you. It’s making him unable to communicate with you, and it’s closing him down. That is the first impact that it’s having.
Depending on how long this situation has been going on, a man is going to get his needs met, as is a woman, somewhere. So, if a woman is getting no conversation whatsoever, if her husband or partner is not talking to her, she’s getting that conversation somewhere else. She’s talking to someone, maybe a friend, maybe a relative. A woman is not going without conversation. A woman with no conversation is like being in a desert, and that need is going to be met. The same is true for a man; that need is going to be met somewhere. It cannot and will not just go unfulfilled. Now, that doesn’t mean that he’s out having an affair.
But there are other activities that he can get engaged in, which are pretty undesirable, such as porn and that kind of stuff, right? So if he’s getting no sex from his partner, from his wife, from you, then he’s getting that need met from somewhere for sure. Now, the next thing to understand is to turn it around and have a little empathy. Try to put yourself in your partner’s shoes, and this will help you understand what’s going on.
So, what would happen if, let’s say, your partner, your husband, only spoke to you once every three months, or your partner only spoke to you once every six months? It probably wouldn’t do a great deal for your relationship, and it probably wouldn’t do a lot for how you feel about him, and you wanting to give him more sex. It would be a very detrimental thing to do to the relationship. But exactly the same thing is going on in the man’s mind when sex is withheld from him.
It’s not helping him at all to relate to you, to feel loved by you, to want to be passionate with you, and to feel passionate about you. Because without sex, at the end of the day, it’s going to be nothing more really than a roommate relationship. If you’re living in the same house as your husband, and there’s absolutely no sex whatsoever, it’s really nothing more than a roommate relationship. It’s a relationship of convenience at that point, and that’s pretty much how he’s going to see it.
So, when you create an environment of convenience, when you create an environment of roommates, or just friends basically, it’s quite understandable, and hopefully, you can see why those feelings of passion, emotional love feelings, and those feelings of connectedness start to disappear. It’s the physical intimacy that makes those connections for a man, and it’s through that physical intimacy that makes him want to connect with you emotionally, which is what you need.
The secondary effects of this? You’re not going to get your needs met very well either. So, we can look at date night. Date night is a great example. Date night is composed of two parts. It’s composed of the date, which is the restaurant, the movie, whatever it is, the place that you go that would be typically considered the date. And then the second part of date night is what happens when you get home, right? When you get to the bedroom.
And the first half of date night is for you, the female, the second half of date night is for the man. Now, I speak to women all the time. I’m married to one, and my mother’s one, so I have a little bit of understanding, and I get it that as a woman, you don’t want the expectation of having to have sex at the end of the night. But just flip that around, and again, try and put yourself in your husband’s shoes or your partner’s shoes for a while.
Going out and having dinner or going to a movie and sitting and just being intimate emotionally and having conversation, he can really do without that. Men do not need conversation. Men do not really need that intimate connection emotionally like that. We like to grunt at each other.
That’s how we communicate. We don’t use a lot of words if we can use two words to convey something. We’re not going to use three. We’re going to use the minimal amount of words. So, if a man is willing to go on that date night, he’s willing to participate in that process to meet your needs on the understanding that, at the end of the night, he’s going to get his needs met as well.
Now, if he’s been expected to go on date night after date night after date night and there is simply no reward at the end of it, he’s not going to want to go on date night anymore. I speak to women all the time who say, “My husband just won’t go on a date night. He won’t take me out to dinner. He won’t do this. He won’t do that.” It’s like, “Well, what’s he getting in return?” And I know that doesn’t sound great. It sounds like quite a selfish thing to say. But at the end of the day, that’s what we are as human beings. If we’re not getting our needs met, we’re going to leave the relationship.
Relationships don’t just end. They don’t just stop. Marriages don’t just stop. They starve to death. Marriages are starved to death. And if there’s no sex going on in the marriage, the man is starving to death. In the same way, if there’s no conversation, no communication going on in the marriage, the woman is starving to death as well.
The solution to pretty much all marriage problems is a change of philosophy. It’s a change of thinking, a change of how you approach the relationship. Because ultimately, our lives are built around habits, rituals, and routines, and our marriage is no different. Think about when you drive a car, you’re on autopilot. You’re not consciously driving that car. You’re driving it subconsciously through habits, rituals, and routines. You know exactly how to drive that car, and you can even have your knee on the steering wheel and your hand on the stereo, paying no attention. The only thing you’re looking out for are anomalies, dangers, someone running out in front, or a car where it shouldn’t be. That’s the only conscious part of driving, and it’s only about 5% of the process. Your marriage is exactly the same. It’s running on autopilot right now, and it’s running based on habits, rituals, and routines. The habits, rituals, and routines that you have are subconscious, and they are impacting your life and shaping the outcome of your marriage.
The key is to identify those unhealthy habits, rituals, and routines and replace them with healthy ones. One of the philosophies that translate into habits, rituals, and routines is committing to the concept and philosophy of commitment over convenience. Marriage is a grown-up business, and if you want it to work, it’s about commitment and choosing commitment over convenience.
Sex is a difficult thing for women in a conversation with a man. For a man to open up, he needs sex, and for a woman to want to open up to sex, she needs emotional connection. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Ideally, both parties are going to give more than they need in return. The man is going to give more conversation and emotional intimacy than he needs, and in return, he’s going to get sex. The woman is going to give more sex than she wants to give, and in return, she’s going to get emotional connection and intimacy. That’s commitment, committing to the relationship, doing whatever it takes, having that philosophy, and making it a habit, ritual, and routine.
I know sex can be a difficult thing, but there are ways to sexually satisfy your man, even if there are physical challenges. Ultimately, there is no excuse for not making the effort. If your man is not getting any sexual satisfaction, the marriage is starving to death, and it’s probably going to die of starvation. It’s a good idea to start providing some form of sexual activity into the relationship. It doesn’t have to be intercourse; it can be other forms of stimulation or satisfaction. Learn how to communicate with your husband about what you need in return. Communication is key. You don’t want to give sex and get nothing back in return, and a man doesn’t want to give communication and get nothing back in return either. It’s about understanding each other’s needs and communicating those needs.
Thirdly, let’s see whether we’re using the alphabet or numbers here. The fact is, we’ve got to compromise and choose commitment over convenience. Marriages that succeed, marriages that thrive, do so because the couples do what they have to do before they do what they want to do. They choose commitment over convenience because commitment and convenience don’t live on the same street.
Now, there are a lot of things you would love for your husband to do, no doubt, but it’s not always convenient for him to do them. If he can adopt the philosophy of choosing commitment over convenience and commit to meeting the needs of his wife, then his wife can commit to understanding his needs and choosing commitment over convenience as well. She can commit to doing whatever it takes to make the relationship work. When both partners make this commitment, they become a team again, and it’s teamwork that makes the dream work. That’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to become a team again and come back together.
If there’s no sex in the relationship right now, or there’s very little, you guys are not operating as a team. There’s no teamwork going on; you’re two individuals living together because it’s easier to pay the bills, or you’re living together because you have to raise the kids, or whatever it is. Just fill in the blanks.
That’s all from me. If you want some help on this, then I’m here for you. Check out the links in the description and the pinned comments. There’s going to be a free book there, “Seven Ways to Save Your Marriage.” I’ve also got a training on how to increase and improve communication in your relationship, how to bring the sex back, and how to stop the fighting. Additionally, I hold a five-day marriage retreat that is completely free. It’s five days of marriage enrichment training, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re separated right now or if you want to go through this with your partner. It’s going to be for you, and it’s completely free. The link for that will be somewhere around here too. Go ahead, sign up for that.
God bless you, watch another one of these videos; it’s going to help you out. And if you like this, give us a like, subscribe to the channel, leave a comment. I’ll talk to you soon. God bless you.
