Most husband’s who use inappropriate media for intimacy don’t really care that they don’t meet their wife’s physical needs. Here’s what lack of intimacy does to a woman.

If your husband isn’t interested in intimacy with you, rather than listening to his gaslighting, see if he’s using any one of these 19 different types of emotional abuse. Take our free emotional abuse quiz.

The Five Components of Healthy Intimacy

1. Safety
2. Honesty & Transparency
3. Respect
4. Playfulness
5. Joy

Since safety is the first thing necessary for healthy intimacy, to determine if your husband is safe, enroll in the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop.

If you relate to any part of this podcast episode, you need support. Attend one of our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions TODAY.

Transcript: What Lack of Intimacy Does to a Woman

Anne: On today’s episode, a certified sex therapist will talk about what it means to have safe sex. And what lack of intimacy does to a woman. We’re going to call her Maria. All right, so thinking about this topic of safety. Especially the question, is healthy sex possible after intimate betrayal? I mean, where do we even start?

Maria: You know, when we choose our spouse, it’s really a matter of, I’ll keep you safe and you keep me safe. And we’ll look out for each other. So when our person has secretive behaviors. Whether with another person or with pornography, this is a safety risk.

Anne: Yeah, because the lying and the gaslighting is all emotional and psychological abuse.

Maria: Yes, in the support group, I often hear stories of how women feel. Some throw up, some can’t breathe. Some can’t get off the floor, because their person is their person for safety. And when they are betrayed, they are not safe.

Anne: I felt that right after my husband’s arrest, when I realized that things were bad. Because before, I didn’t understand my true situation. I didn’t understand what was going on. And after his arrest, I lost like 15 pounds in three weeks. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. Realizing that the person I’d been relying on was never safe. But I didn’t know that.

Maria: Yes.

Navigating Safety After Betrayal

Maria: So many times in the aftermath of betrayal, We experience come here, go away, come here, my husband, come here for safety. Oh, wait, you just betrayed me. You’ve lied. You’ve cheated. Go away for safety. Wait, wait, wait, where are you going? Come back for safety. No, no, go away for safety. This can happen emotionally. We can want to go to our husband emotionally for safety. And we can go toward our husband for sexual safety, for physical safety. We are so vulnerable when we are going to be sexual with someone.

When we take off our clothes, when we are naked with someone, that leaves us tremendously vulnerable. And for women especially, the sexual act is one of our most vulnerable times ever. Doesn’t get more vulnerable than that. For those who choose to stay with their abusive spouse. This means they’re choosing to stay with the source of pain.

And the source of their safety risk and to navigate not only how to function daily with someone they don’t trust, but they also do this tough job of trying to figure out how to maneuver physical and sexual intimacy. And what lack of intimacy does to a woman.

Anne: In my case, once I realized my husband wasn’t safe, I observed from a safe distance. To watch what he would do. And he shut down my bank account, and he didn’t make any effort to see the kids. And he was lying about what had happened. He actually said to people she wouldn’t have sex with me. How am I supposed to be in a loveless marriage?

Determining Your Level of Safety

Anne: She also won’t talk to me. How are we supposed to work out our marriage issues? If she won’t talk to me? And so it’s traumatic either way, whether you stay or are separated. In both cases, the first step is to determine your level of safety. Which is what the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop is for. Because you might determine that he’s not even safe enough to talk to, let alone have sex with.

Maria: Yes. I agree with you. Safety must be the first step. We cannot be that vulnerable with somebody unless we know we are safe with them. Sometimes women will choose to be sexual to try to keep him from cheating on her again. And women often compare themselves to their husband’s affair partner, whether it’s a pornographic image or a prostitute.

Women will compare themselves to that affair partner and wonder what’s wrong with them and why they don’t measure up . And sometimes partners will choose to be sexual in ways they wouldn’t otherwise, to try to measure up to what they imagine that affair partner was like or to measure up to the person in the pornography. That’s what lack of intimacy does to a woman.

Anne: Which is sexual coercion. I mean, that’s a form of sexual abuse.

Maria: Always, because we’re at risk. Women who decide to be sexual with their spouse who has betrayed them are at risk. When we get scared, we might feel like I need to do this so that he won’t cheat on me again, or he won’t leave me. They do something they don’t want to do, that they might never have done, out of fear and desperation. We really experience distress from having that experience.

What lack of intimacy does to a woman: The Impact of Sexual Coercion

Anne: Yeah, of course, we’re going to be distressed when we’re a victim of sexual coercion.

Maria: Yes, why do I still want to be with him? Why, after he’s hurt me so much, do I want to stay? In that place, it’s important that I realize I’m not staying because there’s something wrong with me.

Anne: Yeah, part of the sexual coercion is his manipulation. Manipulating us to think that if we’d been somehow different, he wouldn’t have cheated. And that’s also a threat. That’s the definition of sexual coercion. You feel like you have to have sex. Because you’re threatened and manipulated. That’s when we realized that we’re a victim of a type of sexual abuse. And what lack of intimacy does to a woman.

Maria: Really, there’s nothing you could have been, done, or acted like to keep the betrayal from happening. That is their choice. It’s not because you did or said something wrong, or weren’t enough or too much. It’s because that person chose, that’s on him. I joined the support group, and there were women of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, ages, educational backgrounds, and socioeconomic backgrounds. And it proved it didn’t matter how I showed up in the world. It’s not my fault he betrayed me.

Anne: One of the fears I felt was that my husband would say to his family or other people she’s not giving me sex, because in society, that’s like terrible. If a husband says she refuses to have that, then all the problems are my fault because I’m saying no. They don’t know, that’s sexual coercion. If she can’t say no, then she can’t say yes. So that’s a really serious form of sexual abuse that people aren’t recognizing.

The Fear of Saying no

Maria: Yes. And addicts tend to use that as justification, which is not fair or accurate. I get really scared here and often wonder, is it okay to say no? I fear being criticized for saying no or being condemned. And I feel a fear of being a bad wife or a fear of being alone. On the one hand, I value being a good and loving wife, and I might tell myself that being that kind of wife means. I show up sexually, at the very same time wanting to pull away from him to be safe.

So on one hand, I think I should show up at the same moment. Oh, I think I shouldn’t show up. Again, do I go toward him? Or do I pull away from him? That’s what lack of intimacy does to a woman.

Another example, I value keeping an intact family unit. So the kids have limited exposure to emotional abuse, gaslighting, or other safety issues. And I feel like I have to have sex to maintain an intact family. Some think honoring God means honoring or submitting sexually to their husband. I honor God by being authentic, by protecting this body that God gave me, by protecting my heart that God gave me.

Am I honoring God by being sexual when I don’t want to? Or am I honoring God by not and protecting myself?

Anne: Yeah, with sexual coercion, it’s so difficult to sort through the manipulation and gaslighting. To figure out how you actually feel.

Maria: Yes, it gets really confusing.

Taking physical intimacy off the table

Anne: Yeah, so many of us have been manipulated so much, and our emotions have been hijacked by the emotional abuse. Because he wants us to focus all our energy on him. We’re thinking, how does he feel? How is he doing? What can I do to help him? What can I do to ensure our families are intact? So many women have said that to me. I didn’t even recognize that I felt emotionally unsafe, and I didn’t even know what emotional safety meant. Before they recognize the emotional abuse, they don’t even know they can say no.

About six months before my husband was arrested. I decided that I did not feel emotionally safe during sex. And so I stopped initiating. Historically, I had initiated sex, and I told him, you’re welcome to initiate if you want, but I’m not going to initiate it anymore. I’m not going to say yes if I don’t feel emotionally connected. He didn’t attempt in any way, shape or form to connect emotionally with me.

I really remember this, I had purchased a workbook for the two of us to go through, to improve our marriage. And one night, I pulled it out and he was so excited about it. He was like, this is going to be amazing. And I said, if you want to do it again, you’re going to need to be the one that initiates it.

And he was like, I’m going to do that. That’s going to be great. And he never did, not once. Like he never initiated that workbook. He never initiated sex. So I learned what lack of intimacy does to a woman.

What lack of intimacy does to a woman: The abuser perceives himself as a victim

Anne: So for me, it was helpful to see that he was exploiting me to do all the work in the relationship. And he used emotional and psychological abuse to do that.

Maria: There’s real value in taking sex off the table. Let’s imagine, the husband is not reaching for his wife. She is not having emotional intimacy or physical intimacy. Instead, he has sexual experiences outside the relationship. The hope for the couple is that if we shut down the sexual experiences outside the marriage, we will now have intimacy inside the marriage. Except that’s not what happens.

One of the common beliefs of someone with a sex addiction is that sex is my most important need. It’s not their most important need. We could live without it. If someone is not sexual, they’re not going to die or spontaneously combust. They’re emotionally abusive behaviors. We need to know what we’re dealing with, so we can make choices.

Anne: Yeah, one of the things I’ve learned is that abuse is a character issue, a way that they perceive the world. The abuser perceives himself as a victim. And that’s what causes him to be emotionally and psychologically abusive and use sexual coercion. Because he’s a victim, he’s entitled to these things, and he’s not getting them. When in reality that’s just not true.

Maria: Many addicts exhibit profound gaslighting behaviors because they’re trying not to get caught. They’re trying to get their spouse to back up, to not find out about their secret. They will be manipulative, bullying, mean, and say critical and contemptuous things to get the wife to back up. What lack of intimacy does to a woman.

The Role of Gaslighting

Anne: Yeah, I just wish I could have seen that for the emotional and psychological abuse it was. I mean, when I went through it, and I think most addicts think like this. My ex was like, Oh, yeah I’m a sex addict. So now I’m going to recover, and I’m going to be sober for six weeks, and then we can have sex again. And he was just checking boxes off the list, to groom me.

A lot of times we talk about healthy sexuality. I assume everyone else assumes we’re talking about actually engaging in sex. But I’d like to point out that healthy sexuality could mean abstinence. Healthy sexuality refrains from sex, with someone emotionally abusive. Who’s gaslighting you and lying to you. And who doesn’t respect you. I mean healthy sexuality in that scenario is abstinence.

Maria: We need to talk about gaslighting here and the consequences of gaslighting because he will do and say things that distort her reality. If he’s rewriting history, she’s going to wonder what’s true. The consequences of gaslighting are she will doubt herself, her intuition, what’s real. Over time, a decline in her ability to trust herself, to trust gut instincts. We often talk about how our intuition has been damaged. Our ability to trust our gut instinct has been damaged.

They doubt themselves, and if they doubt themselves, they doubt their ability to stay safe in the world. They doubt their ability to pick a safe partner. How will I not get back into the same kind of relationship with the next guy? What’s gonna keep me from picking another sex addict? The gaslighting erodes our intuition, and confuses what feels safe. That’s what lack of intimacy does to a woman.

Healthy Sexuality & Abstinence

Anne: Yeah, I feel like being in touch with ourselves, and our intuition, is the first line of defense before even attempting to date again.

Maria: Absolutely, yes, I hope to take the time to heal before getting into another relationship.

Anne: And for single women, I think that’s what healthy sexuality looks like. I mean, for someone who has either never been married or divorced. Healthy sexuality looks like I have a voice, I can speak it, I have boundaries, I can say no.

Maria: As a sex therapist, a series of conversations I often have are, how did you learn how to be a sexual being? Where did you learn? What did you learn about your body parts, how to be in relationship? And what did you learn about sex or being sexual?

What did they believe about their body and challenge some beliefs they may have learned, because that’s what someone told them to believe. And really come to terms with what they authentically believe. To help them define their value system. So that when they approach a romantic relationship with another partner, they can have their behavior align with their values. That’s healthy sexuality.

Anne: Yeah, that’s been really important to me. Well, Maria, thank you so much for talking with us today about what lack of intimacy does to a woman.