Why YOU Don’t Want Sex With Your Husband Anymore

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1:04Emily Morse: Hey everyone, welcome to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily Morris and my mission is to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. Whether you're looking to improve your relationships, have better communication, explore your desires, or simply have your best sex ever, you are in the right place. Before we jump in, make sure you're following me everywhere. It's at Sex with Emily on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, for even more sex and relationship advice and more resources, go to sexwithemily.com. Sign up for my free weekly newsletter. I hear I give a really good newsletter.

1:36Emily Morse: Shop my curated sexual wellness products and pics at shopsexwithemily.com and explore hundreds of articles, download free guides, and everything you need to have the best sex ever. And one more thing, I'm taking Sex with Emily on the road. My new live show, The Best Sex Ever Tour, is coming to cities across the country. It's basically live coaching meets comedy meets audience Q &A, and we're getting into it. There has been magic happening in these rooms. You just have to come experience it. There's real conversations about sex and dating and relationships, and we become very close by the end of the night.

2:14Emily Morse: Visit sexwithemily.com slash events for dates and tickets. And thanks for listening or watching and for being here. And thanks for prioritizing your pleasure. All right, everyone, enjoy this episode.

2:28Emily Morse: If you've been lying next to your husband at night, quietly hoping he doesn't reach for you, and then hating yourself for hoping it, I need you to hear something first. You're not broken, you're not hold, and this doesn't automatically mean you've fallen out of love with him. When desire goes quiet in a marriage, we often jump straight to the worst story. Something is wrong with me, my libido is broken, I'm the problem. But that may not be the full story. You can love him and still find yourself sliding away when he reaches for you. That does not necessarily mean you're cold. Your body may be responding to something you have not said out loud yet.

3:06Emily Morse: It is not betraying you. It may be trying to protect you. And if you stay with me, you'll stop asking, why am I broken? And start asking the question that can actually lead you somewhere. What is my body trying to tell me? I'm Dr. Emily Morris. I have a doctor in human sexuality, and I've hosted one of the biggest sex and relationship podcasts, Sex with Emily, in the world for over 20 years. I'm going to walk you through a four-part desire check-in. First, we'll explore whether your body is pulling away from everyone or specifically from him. Then we'll identify what it may be protecting you from.

3:42Emily Morse: And after that, we'll consider physical and mental health factors. And finally, we'll look at what could make desire feel possible again. I'm not here to convince you to have more sex. I'm here to help you understand what your body might be trying to tell you. Step one, is your body pulling away from everyone or just him? The first thing I want you to do is stop trying to fix your libido. Instead, get curious. Now, I've been saying for years that curiosity is one of the sexiest qualities we can bring into our relationships. So let's get curious about the pattern. I hear women say this to me all the time.

4:19Emily Morse: Emily, I love my husband. I just don't want him touching me. And they almost always say it was so much shame. Like, that's proof they're broken. I don't hear it that way at all. I hear it as a clue. Because clues help us ask better questions. So ask yourself, do I still enjoy hugging my friends? Do I still like cuddling my kids? Do I ever fantasize? Do I masturbate? Do I enjoy flirting? Can I access desire when I'm by myself? And another really important question, When did this start? Because timing matters. If touch feels overwhelming no matter who it's coming from, if everyone feels like too much, that often points to something bigger.

5:00Emily Morse: You might be really burned out. You might be stressed. It could be your hormones, health. Just like a really burned out, exhausted nervous system, an empty take. But if desire still exists and you still enjoy touch and you still fantasize, but the shutdown mostly happens with your partner, well, that's different information. That tells me we need to look more closely at the relationship itself. Now, neither answer means you're broken. They simply point us in different directions. Step two, what is your body protecting you from? This is where I think things get really interesting because our bodies don't usually shut down without a reason.

5:38Emily Morse: In my experience, there are three big things your body me protecting you from. Number one, emotional safety. Ask yourself, do I feel emotionally safe with my partner? Do I feel accepted? Do I feel heard? In other words, do I feel like I can bring up a concern without turning into a fight? Because your body has a really hard time opening sexually if it spends the rest of the relationship bracing for criticism. Now, one of the biggest predictors I see isn't whether couples fight. Every couple fights sometimes, or maybe some couples, you know, don't fight as often, but it's what happens after the fight.

6:17Emily Morse: Do you repair? Does your partner take accountability? Can you reconnect? Or does someone shut down, give the silent treatment, or pretend like nothing happened? Because unresolved conflict doesn't just disappear. Your body remembers. Your body remembers everything. And your nervous system remembers. And eventually your body starts protecting you before your mind even catches up. So think about that. And number two, burnout and the mental load. Now I've been saying this forever. Stress is one of the biggest cock blocks out there. If you're carrying the kids, the calendar, the groceries, the emotional labor, the invisible work, your job, and everyone else's knees, your nervous system may never actually get the message that it's safe to relax.

7:03Emily Morse: You know how common that is that we just, our whole life is about checking things off the list and all we want to do is relax, but then we really can't relax. Like relaxing is also a skill set. Now, desire doesn't tend to thrive in survival mode. So if you've been telling yourself what is wrong with me, maybe a better question is when's the last time I actually felt relaxed? That's a very different conversation. Sierra has all the best active and outdoor brands you need from athletic stuff, like a full-court pickup game. Swish! To athletic-ish stuff, like a half-mile stroll. Get those steps in!

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8:28Emily Morse: For three, unresolved hurt. Sometimes we forgive something intellectually, but our body hasn't caught up yet. Now, maybe it's resentment. We're holding on to something that's happened in our relationship, but we've never addressed it. Or maybe it's betrayal. Maybe it's years of just feeling unseen. We might not even be able to name that we felt unseen, but we just were like, no, they don't know me anymore. Maybe it's a hundred little moments when you needed your partner and you felt alone. It's really hard to open your body to someone you're still protecting yourself from. Let that sink in. How could your body open if you still feel unsafe or if you feel unsafe with your partners?

9:09Emily Morse: So sometimes what happens is what disappears isn't your libido. It's your willingness. Because sex has slowly become associated with obligation. I gotta do this thing. It's my chore. Sex is a duty. Or maybe it's pressure. Maybe it's like unresolved pain. And suddenly, what looks like a libido problem is actually a relationship problem. This reminds me of a couple who I was working with who convinced their issue was low libido. They were like, check her libido, check her hormones, all the things. And she did everything. Like she went to therapy and she got a medication and she did the hormones.

9:52Emily Morse: But when we started digging deeper, we realized they hadn't repaired years of resentment. And then the wife looked at me and said, my body has been keeping score this entire time. There were things that happened repeatedly that she didn't even remember, right? Our bodies are paying attention even when we aren't, even when we don't remember what happened. Now, before you decide your marriage is the problem, there's one more really important step. Step three, rule out the physical and mental health pieces. I never want women blaming themselves or the relationship because without looking at the full picture, you have to look at the full picture because your libido doesn't exist in a vacuum.

10:35Emily Morse: There's so many other things that contribute to your libido. It's your hormones matter. If you're in perimenopause, menopause, estrogen, testosterone, thyroid issues, birth control, antidepressants, pain, pelvic floor challenges, like all of this matters and so does your mental health. You know, depression, anxiety, trauma. I mean, these are, all of these things are swimming around and they all affect your desire. So please don't assume this is just in your head and please don't assume it's just your marriage. Talk with your health care provider that you trust. So get curious, rule things in, rule things out.

11:12Emily Morse: You deserve answers. not more self-blame. Now you've looked at your relationship and your body and your health, let's talk about where you actually begin rebuilding desire. Step four, rebuild safety before you rebuild desire. Now here's the hopeful part. Desire isn't necessarily gone. It may just be buried. Buried under stress, pressure, a lot of pressure in your life, resentment, exhaustion, feeling disconnected and when you start removing those barriers desire has room to come back and rebuilding safety doesn't have to be so complicated it might just mean you need more affection that isn't leading to sex i hear this all the time from people are like i fake sleep when my partner comes home or when they come up behind me and like put their arms around me i assume it's going to escalate to sex.

12:05Emily Morse: And that's why we're looking for, you know, times where a hug that's just a hug or a kiss that's just a kiss. And it doesn't have to mean we're full blown going to have sex. It might mean your partner taking more of your plate. So you're not in survival mode all the time. It might mean finally having a conversation you've both been avoiding. I know there's conversations you're avoiding. It means we're pairing faster, laughing together again, flirting. Remember when you used to flirt? It can just be like a 30-second hug or looking to each other's eyes or going on dates. You know how important date night is?

12:42Emily Morse: There have been so many studies that have shown that when couples stick to a guaranteed date night, they have much more relationship satisfaction. Or maybe it's remembering your lovers, not just roommates running a household day in and day out. None of this is about forcing yourself to want sex. It's about creating the conditions where desire has a chance to return. So if you need just one sentence to start the conversation, try this. I don't think my body is saying no to you. I think it's saying no to how overwhelmed I've become. Now, I love that sentence because it changes the conversation. Instead of your partner hearing, I don't want you, They hear, I miss us too.

13:25Emily Morse: And then you get curious together. What helps each of you feel desired? What shuts your body down? What kind of touch feels good when there's absolutely no pressure? Because the goal here is not blame. That's not going to get us anywhere. The goal is understanding. Because understanding is what creates safety. And safety is where desire grows. So if you take one thing away from today's episode, let it be this. not wanting sex doesn't automatically mean your libido is broken. It doesn't automatically mean you've fallen out of love. Your body may simply be trying to tell you something. So instead of asking, how do I fix myself?

14:06Emily Morse: Ask, what is my body trying to protect me from? And then listen for the answer. Talk about it. Get support if you need it. And remember, your body isn't the enemy. It's been trying to communicate with you all along. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Was it good for you? Follow me on all social media, Sex with Emily. You can also check out my website, sexwithemily.com. And please subscribe to the podcast, which is available on all podcast platforms. As I head into my 21st year, you can find them all. Also, I'm going on tour. If you want to check it out, go to sexwithemily.com slash events.

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