When He Wants More Sex: Bridging the Emotional and Physical Intimacy Gap in Marriage
When He Wants More Sex: Bridging the Emotional and Physical Intimacy Gap in Marriage
"My husband wants more sex, but I just want him to talk to me."
If this sounds familiar, you're describing one of the most common patterns I see in my Canal Fulton therapy practice. You need emotional connection before physical intimacy, while he seems ready for sex without the deep conversations you crave. Both of you feel frustrated, misunderstood, and stuck in the same exhausting cycle.
As an LPCC specializing in sexual desire and relationship dynamics, I work with many women—often moms in their 30s juggling work, kids, and marriage—who find themselves in this exact situation. The good news? Understanding what's really happening beneath the surface can help you break free from this pattern and create the connected, satisfying relationship you both want.
The Dynamic That Keeps You Stuck
Here's what the cycle often looks like: When he touches your shoulder, it feels like a signal that he wants more, and you freeze, shut down, or snap because you're not in the mood for sex. Maybe there's an unconscious part of you that feels shame about this because you've been taught it's your "duty to please your husband." He feels rejected, gets defensive, and now you're both in a conflict spiral, feeling hurt and disconnected.
You're both trying to get your needs met, but it's coming out all wrong. He wants physical connection. You want emotional intimacy first. And somehow, you're both ending up with neither.
Why This Happens: Common Barriers to Sexual and Emotional Connection
How Purity Culture Affects Your Sex Life
If you grew up in purity culture or conservative religious environments, there could be threads that remain and are playing a role in your perspective, beliefs, and behaviors around sex. For example, you may have an unconscious narrative that says, "it's your job to please your husband so he doesn't stray." When you're not in the mood for sex, you either comply regardless or experience shame and get defensive when saying no.
Because of the lack of comprehensive sexual education and the "badness" attached to sex growing up, you may have discomfort exploring what turns you on, asking your partner to try something new, or expressing what you do and don't like in the bedroom. Those underlying narratives will likely leave you with sex that you don't feel excited about having but feel obligated to engage in.
Why Talking About Sex Feels Impossible
The hardest relationship for all of us to talk about is typically the relationship in the room—the relationship between you and the person you're talking to. This is why there's so much avoidance around addressing sexual issues in our partnerships.
What happens instead? It gets talked about in the heat of the moment and comes out sideways, causing hurt feelings on both sides. Someone feels rejected and gets defensive. Someone feels unseen and shuts down. Someone feels uncomfortable and snaps. And then, instead of this area being an opportunity to draw you closer as a couple, it drives you farther apart.
How Motherhood and Life Changes Affect Sexual Desire
As our lives change, we change too. Our priorities, hormones, and desires all shift over time, and this requires adjustment in our partnerships. If you've become parents, the amount of time you have to emotionally and sexually connect significantly decreases.
Time becomes more constricted, tension can arise over dividing up caregiving responsibilities, and your energy is depleted at the end of the day. Your partnership can begin to feel more like a business arrangement than the lovey-dovey days you once had and imagined for your long-term relationship. You're "touched out" from kids climbing on you all day, your mental load is overwhelming, and sex feels like one more thing on your to-do list.
Other Reasons You Don't Want Sex
Past sexual trauma, body image concerns after having children, and unresolved wounds in the relationship can all be getting in the way of the intimacy you want. These are real barriers that deserve attention, not judgment.
Understanding Your Sensitivities and Defenses
In her book "Who Deserves Your Love," therapist KC Davis discusses how we all have sensitivities—emotional reactions to a current event based on past events—and we often respond with defenses, possibly unconsciously, as a way to protect ourselves from feeling pain.
A helpful exercise is exploring and identifying what some of your sensitivities and defenses are in relation to sex. If you're familiar with Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, think of sensitivities as the exile parts and defenses as protector parts.
For example, you might realize: "I have a sensitivity around when you touch me and I assume you want to do more sexually. I feel bad for not being in the mood, irritated that you can so easily be in the mood, and then I snap into a defense of talking with tone or shutting down."
"I can see how some of my sensitivities are tied to purity culture narratives I picked up, pressure I put on myself, and fears of losing you. I'd like to shift this dance between us."
Why Emotional Connection Must Come Before Sex
Vanessa Marin, a sex therapist, shares that in her previous work with couples, she'd try to address each need simultaneously in the beginning and then realized that in order for the couple to move forward, the emotional connection needed to be a priority first.
I agree that what's most important is building a foundation of trust, safety, respect, play, and enthusiastic consent between partners in order to create an environment that welcomes authentic dialogue about sex and a playground to explore and enjoy one another physically.
Simply put: if she doesn't feel like he actually cares how her day was, she doesn't want to fuck him.
How to Create a Stronger Emotional Connection
If you know what emotional connection looks like for you, share specific examples with your partner of times you've felt connected with them or others, and what you envision for the future. It could be your partner:
Asking more questions about your day
Sharing more about their own feelings and experiences
Checking in with you on how you're feeling
Planning quality time with you proactively
Expressing appreciation for you
Offering genuine apologies when they mess up
Healing Relationship Wounds That Block Intimacy
There may be wounds in the relationship that need repair—hurtful comments, spiteful actions, broken trust. It's crucial these are repaired and processed together so each partner can have an accurate narrative about the sensitivity behind the action and why it came out as a defense mechanism.
For example: "I felt rejected and responded with that attack. I am sorry—that's about my stuff and not you."
Understanding Responsive vs. Spontaneous Desire
This concept from the book "Come As You Are" by Emily Nagoski helps us understand how mismatched desire develops. Many men have spontaneous desire, meaning out of the blue, they feel turned on and sexually charged. Literally, out of the blue. They didn't see something, hear something, feel something, or smell something—just surprise, desire is on the scene.
If that sounds foreign to you, it makes sense, because the book teaches that most women have responsive desire. We experience something and then feel turned on. We smell a certain cologne, see our partner wearing a shirt we love, our partner kisses our neck in a certain way, and then our desire builds and presents itself.
How the Desire Discrepancy Plays Out in Daily Life
Here's what often happens: Your husband feels turned on, touches you, and is open to it going further. Meanwhile, you were in the middle of putting a dish away and feel irritated that your task got interrupted. You maybe pause begrudgingly, receive the touch halfheartedly, and quickly resume putting the dish away, looking upset.
In this moment, you're possibly beating yourself up that you "aren't in the mood, aren't as present and available as he is," while knowing that part of the dynamic is the mental load being unfair, conditioning as a woman to "please," and your difficulty expressing what you want and need.
This is a complicated, tangled web that your partner, likely unknowingly, just walked into, and their response may be, "I just wanted to give you a hug, geez." You're both left feeling more disconnected than on the same team, while both feeling this deep desire to be more connected—maybe seeing the other as the problem while being determined to figure out "your part, what you can control, how to fix it."
Practical Solutions: How to Bridge the Gap
Share Your Sensitivities and Defenses
In one conversation or spread out over multiple talks, try sharing what you've discovered about your own patterns:
"I realized I have a sensitivity around when you touch me and I assume you want to do more sexually. I feel bad for not being in the mood, irritated you can so easily be in the mood, and then I snap into a defense of talking with tone or shutting down."
"I can see how some of my sensitivities are tied to purity culture narratives I picked up, pressure I put on myself, and fears of losing you. I'd like to shift this dance between us."
"Can we talk about what it's felt like for you and dream about ways we could shift the dynamic a bit? Dream, not decide—just talking about all the possibilities, not necessarily deciding or agreeing on anything now."
Be Curious About Your Partner's Experience
Express genuine curiosity about what it's been like to be your partner in the dynamic between the two of you. Explore their sensitivities and defenses. Try to release any need to defend and instead pretend you're a scientist with an unending desire to understand what it's like to be this person.
Try to avoid personalizing what they say by reminding yourself that you're both trying to accomplish the same thing: a deeper, stronger connection between the two of you.
Work with Responsive Desire (Not Against It)
Assuming there's an emotional connection that for the most part feels consistent, safe, and nourishing, you can use the idea of responsive desire to help you. Use this concept from "Come As You Are": figure out what your "accelerators" are—things that increase your desire—and your "brakes"—things that decrease your desire.
Share these with your partner and create time to engage with your accelerators and decrease the brakes around you. It's most helpful to agree on the front end that it may not lead to intercourse, and that's not the ultimate goal. The goal is instead to explore together and enjoy one another's bodies and presence as you discover more of what is pleasurable.
This could look like: "Let's cuddle in our PJs, in a room that's organized with a vanilla candle, you wearing cologne, and us kissing gently and see where it goes from there."
Or: "I want you to grab me, push me against the wall, bite my neck, and call me dirty things."
How to Say No to Sex Without Guilt or Hurting Your Partner
You get to decide when he touches you if you'd like to explore responsive desire in that moment, later, or another time. If not then, you can "reject" him by saying lightheartedly:
"Oh baby, I so wish I was ready to jump your bones right now. I'm just not there. I love you."
Or: "Oh babe, I wish I was the wife ready to jump in your lap now. I love you so much."
This is a way you're getting ahead of the shame of "I should be different." You're acknowledging his desire, expressing that you wish you could fulfill it, but just aren't able to in this moment.
How to Talk About Sex When You're Not in Bed
Practice communicating about sex outside of the moment. Once an emotional connection is feeling on a better track, it creates a more effective environment to talk about sex in a supportive way and explore desire together.
Some resources to help you communicate about sex:
This specific podcast episode for support in learning what your motivation is for sex—this may help give you information on some of your accelerators and brakes
When to Consider Couples Therapy for Mismatched Desire
Couples therapy is most effective when you're not on the brink of divorce, and it can be incredibly helpful in earlier stages of conflict and mismatched desire—which is true of every. single. couple. ever. Every couple has conflict and mismatched desire.
A third party is a beautiful way to get support in strengthening your relationship and navigating the uncomfortable conversations no one taught us how to have.
If you're in the Canal Fulton, Massillon, or Stark County, Ohio area and struggling with mismatched desire, I offer specialized individual therapy using EMDR and IFS to help you strengthen your relationship, heal sexual shame, and navigate these difficult conversations.
Remember This
Your partner's feelings of rejection are not on you to prevent or fix. AND also, you can work as a team to figure out how to mitigate harm when communicating about a topic with lots of opportunities to be triggered.
You deserve a relationship where you feel emotionally connected AND physically satisfied. He deserves to feel desired and connected to you. These needs aren't in competition—they're actually deeply intertwined. With understanding, communication, and sometimes professional support, you can bridge this gap and create the intimate, connected marriage you both want.
Ready to stop feeling stuck? If you're a mom struggling with mismatched desire, sexual shame from purity culture, or feeling disconnected from your partner, I can help. I specialize in helping women in Canal Fulton and throughout Stark County, Ohio navigate sexual desire issues, relationship dynamics, and childhood/religious trauma using EMDR and IFS therapy. [Schedule a free consultation] to start reconnecting with yourself and your partner.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is it normal for my husband to want more sex than me?
A: Yes, mismatched sexual desire is extremely common in marriages, especially after having children. Different desire levels don't mean something is wrong with you or your relationship—it's a natural part of being two different people with different bodies, hormones, and ways of experiencing desire.
Q: Why don't I want sex as much after becoming a mom?
A: Hormonal changes, exhaustion, the mental load of managing a household, being "touched out" from kids, and the shift in your relationship dynamic all contribute to lower sexual desire. Your body and brain are doing exactly what they're designed to do. This doesn't mean your desire can't return or increase—it just means you need different conditions than you did before.
Q: What is responsive vs. spontaneous desire?
A: Spontaneous desire means feeling turned on "out of the blue" without any particular trigger. Responsive desire means your body responds to stimulation or context—you need something to happen first (a romantic atmosphere, specific touch, emotional connection) before desire kicks in. Most women have responsive desire, while many men have spontaneous desire. Neither is better or worse—they're just different.
Q: Can couples therapy help with sex issues?
A: Absolutely. Couples therapy is one of the most effective ways to address mismatched desire, communication breakdowns around sex, and the emotional disconnection that often underlies intimacy issues. A therapist can help you have the conversations you've been avoiding and create new patterns together.
Q: How do I talk to my husband about needing emotional connection before sex?
A: Choose a calm moment outside the bedroom when you're both relaxed. Use "I" statements and be specific: "I've noticed I feel more interested in physical intimacy when I feel emotionally connected to you first. For me, that looks like us talking about our days, you asking me questions, and spending quality time together. Can we talk about how to make that happen more?" Frame it as teamwork, not criticism.
Keywords: mismatched desire, husband wants more sex, low libido in marriage, sex after kids, emotional connection before sex, responsive desire, couples therapy Canal Fulton, sex therapy Ohio, purity culture and sex, sexual shame, marriage intimacy issues