Have you been getting the feeling that your wife is not attracted to you?

You might be wondering “why doesn’t want me any more“?

Why would your wife fall in love with you and want to be with you emotionally, physically, and spiritually, but then as time passes, the connection just doesn’t seem to be there any longer?

Has sex with your wife decreased significantly or utterly come to a halt?

What is happening in your marriage when your wife often avoids intimacy and sex?

It can cause you to start to second guess yourself and her as well.

Does she no longer find you attractive?

Are you doing something wrong?

Is she going through some stage?

Is your sex life as you use to know it, completely over?

is your sex life ending

I get so many questions from men who are trying to understand “why doesn’t my wife want me sexually anymore?”

Or they will ask, “could she be cheating on me“?

In fact, on that topic, I recently wrote an article about when women get mixed up in an affair of the heart.  Take a look…

https://marriagerecovery.com/is-my-wife-having-an-emotional-affair/

It’s a problem when your lover doesn’t want to make love.  Sure, there will be times when the time isn’t right for her.

But when a guy tells me that he feels uncertain as to how to approach his wife and is sure his wife doesn’t want him to touch her anymore, there is usually something significantly wrong and the issues  need to be identified, understood, and addressed.

It is  tough when you come to believe that your wife loves you but doesn’t desire you.

So what should you do when your wife won’t sleep with you?

Can you make your wife want to make love to you?

Should you insist upon it, like it is her sacred duty to please your needs?

Usually when men talk to me about these matters they are eager for a resolution. But if their wife doesn’t want to be intimate with them anymore, the problem is seldom solved quickly.

What also matters is the nature of the problem between the couple.  One should not start throwing solutions at a problem until you have arrived at a solid understanding of what is exactly going on.

As a relationship coach, my approach is to seek first to understand not just the nature of the relationship and when the intimacy issues first arose, but also what form do these problems take.

does your wive turn you down

Does your wife frequently turn you down?

Do you and your wife have sex, but it is over with and done with far too quickly?

Rushing to solve problems usually bring about more problems or deepen the existing issue.

If you lash out at her for not wanting to be intimate with you, then you will likely compound the situation and never get around to understanding what she is thinking and why.

The effect of you grumbling and being critical of your wife’s lack of interest in having sex will usually create resentment and further divide.

For example I get a lot of complaints from men about their wives who they claim are depriving them of sex.

Chris,  my lady has turned against me and doesn’t want me sexually. My wife doesn’t like being touched by me any longer.  This whole issue came on gradually.  I don’t think she has some hang up as it’s not been a problem in the past.  I have not really complained or said anything yet, but it is becoming very noticeable from my perspective. I am thinking I should make a big fuss because it’s not right that my wife seldom wants to make love.

Hello Chris.  I have a question about the lack of sexual relations in our marriage. The down and dirty of it is my wife never touches me anymore.  She doesn’t seem to even care about my feelings or my needs and keeps coming up with excuses.  I know something is wrong. What does it mean when your wife won’t show affection and pulls away when I try to touch her.  It’s like she cringes when I reach for her.

My sex life sucks. My wife doesn’t really want to have sex unless we are both drunk and even then I can tell she just wants to get it over.  It wasn’t this way before.  Now I get a litany of excuses and frankly I am tired of begging for sex.  We end up fighting about it and I get all worked up and admittedly say stupid things.  I threatened her that I might just go outside of our marriage to get some and now she is completely rejecting me.  I am lost for what to do.

Reasons for Why Your Wife Is Denying You Sex 

is your wife unhappy with sex

So let’s get into it.

I don’t believe there is such a thing as a common reason for why your wife is acting like she doesn’t want you anymore.

There are all kinds of things that can happen and unfold within a marriage that can contribute to your wife’s decrease desire for sex.

Let’s call these things “triggering events“.

So when your wife seems to frequently push you away and demonstrates through her words or actions that she has no interest in making love with you, this behavior is usually caused by a one or more triggering events.

You can usually put these triggering events into two main categories.

These events are usually either things you are doing (or not doing) that causes her to withdraw her affection and desire to make love or the triggering events are these things that are happening in her life  (from her side of the equation).

What You Could Be Doing Wrong To Cause Your Wife Not To Desire You

what are you doing wrong sexually

I am often surprised at how some men are clueless to their wife’s feelings about a great many things and often these feelings can impact her desire to have sex with you.

Men and women emotional systems are engineered differently.

From your wife’s perspective, having sex is an expression of her many feelings and moods, driven primarily by your behavior.

Again, let me underscore, your behavior in its entirety and how you act and treat your wife is the primary driver to her wanting to be held, touched, and made love to.

This notion that your wife is reluctant to have sex with you because of her raging hormones or she is not in the mood is usually way off base.  Sure, men and women can have spikes in their hormones.  Our brain chemistry can impact our moods and desire.

But the triggering events for your wife will usually revolve around the emotional intimacy between the two of you.  If your wife feels loved and is treated with kindness and made to feel valued and appreciated, her desire to connect with you in a physically intimate way is greater.

Most wives enjoys the romantic process.  It is important through your actions that you demonstrate you understand her needs and appeal to her romantic notions.

You need to romance your wife’s mind, before being romantic with her body.

Men on the other hand are driven more by carnal desires.  Men don’t read romance novels and if they did, they would go straight to the page with all the sex.

So consider if your approach to having sex with your wife is heavy-handed.

Consider if you have invested sufficient time in appealing to those things that matter to your wife.

When was the last time that you really listened to her without interruption for a long period of time

Even the smallest act of love, kindness, or appreciation can lead to a romantic evening.

Emotional intimacy with your wife is a prerequisite to sexual intimacy.

Here is one such example….

We spent a quiet evening together as you suggested. She was pleasantly surprised when I ordered some nice meals for us to eat and lit some candles and opened some wine.  It is not something I usually do, but I decided to devote the entire evening to her and listened to everything she told me and encouraged her to share more.  I am not unusually this way but decided to be a bit more romantic without it coming off as fake.  I had no expectations of sex that evening and was happy to just make that night about her.  It was something she seemed to know instinctively.  Ironically, it was my wife who made the first move.  It turned out we made love and it was out of this world.

But it is not always about being romantic.

Men sometimes push too hard and can get too aggressive and vocal about their desire to make love with their wife.

That can be the fastest way to turn her off.

Remember, having sex with your wife is not an entitlement.  It is not something you have a right to have.

In her mind, having sex with you is a reflection of her own physical and emotional needs and sense of attachment to you.  She makes love with you, not because it is her duty, but because she gains enjoyment from the act.

If she feels compelled to do so, your love life will be one sided and lack spark.

Lovemaking in your wife’s mind is also a reflection of the love she feels from YOU.  She reciprocates this love by looking for ways to please you.

If this is not the picture of your marriage, then something is wrong.

If you exhibit far too many behaviors that are controlling or domineering, your wife will have less desire to please you and share intimate sexual moments with you.

Within the act of love is a powerful bond that holds two people together.

This bond is called trust.

So if there are trust issues in the marriage, your sexual relations will suffer. Without trust, a woman has no sense of security.  And it is difficult for any woman to desire you if she doesn’t feel safe.

If you want your wife to be physically intimate with you on a consistent basis, you best be sure she feels secure with you, her environment, and what might be going on in her life.

Sometimes after conflict, anger and resentment can linger.

If there have been many marriage battles, these little wounds can add up and as result impact your wife’s desire to make love with you.

So take a good look at your part of the marriage and the things you are doing to make her feel loved, safe, and fulfilled.

Are you doing and saying things that encourage conflict or do you take on the role of peacemaker?

What Might Be Happening In Your Wife’s Life That Could Cause Her To Avoid Sex With You?

is your wife struggling in bed

Stress and fatigue can affect whether your wife feels like having sex with you.

If she is going through an anxious period in her life or a lot of stress is bearing down on her, these things can get in the way of the brain chemistry that leads to sexual interest.

Another trigger that could lead to your wife’s lack of interest in you is her sex drive.

Sex drives for men and women can wax or wane.

While it is not always easy to quantify, given a person’s sex drive is not wholly independent of their partner, it can vary from person to person.

Husbands and wives can both experience changes in their desire to have sex given a host of variables including age, health, attitudes, and changes to their brain chemistry.

You have probably already heard that our brain is a human’s most important sex organ.

It is true and depending on how neurotransmitters are firing in the brain, your wife may be more likely to act on these hormones and move toward the sexual act.

How do you influence that?

This is where I need to emphasize the holistic nature of this discussion.  How your wife’s brain will fire such that she desires to have sex with you is largely dependent on things like the history between the two of you and what you may be doing or saying at the time.

Is your mere presence and smell going to cause your wife to be sexually stimulated given the right environment or will she feel repelled due to longstanding resentments?

The answer to that question goes back to the kind of husband you have been and whether you have been making the right deposits in her romantic brain.

It is impossible to have this conversation without also pointing out how an affair can impact your wife’s desire to have sexual relations with you.

If she feels like you have been cheating on her, she will likely not want to touch you or be touch by you.

Her active mind will roll over and over again the images of you with this other woman and you can be assured that sex is just not going to happen.

Even if she is completely off base about you cheating, her suspicions may  have aroused anxiety and uncertainty thereby causing her to reject you until the matter is reconciled in her mind.

Likewise, if your wife is having an  affair, you can expect that the frequency and quality of sex will decline.

It usually does not stop cold turkey as she also secretly fears you may find out or be suspicious as to why she won’t put out.

If your wife is having an affair, the guilt of cheating on you and the sense of loyalty to her new lover, can also cause her to shy away from intimate contact.

With all these confusing feelings your wife may just choose to opt out of any type of sexual activity with you and make use of all kinds of avoidance behaviors so she doesn’t have to deal with it.

it is also possible your wife could be engaged in an emotional affair.  This is a case in which your wife is sharing an emotional intimacy with another man.

While there is no sex involved, such a relationship can create close attachments and as result impact a marriage.

Closing Thoughts For Men Who Feel Rejected By Their Wife

talk with her to understand needs

I realize there is a lot to process here but before you assume anything or do anything, go back to first making sure you understand well what are the “triggers” to why your wife is showing less interest in you sexually.

If she truly doesn’t want you any more, then something has changed.

It usually isn’t just one or two things but often a series of events that have unfolded over time.

Getting to what is going on in your wife’s mind may at first seem to be an impossible task.

Often, when it comes to sex, people find it difficult to talk about things openly.

Sometimes couples are left to trying to deduce what is going on.  This problem is compounded if the trust between the couple has eroded.

But it is imperative that if you and your wife are going to turn this around, you need to create an environment where she feels completely safe in talking to you about this most difficult topic.

She must understand completely that despite what she reveals, you will be supportive and will work toward making things better for her.

Also, if you wish to solve this problem, you must remove the notion  that you are the “victim“.

There cannot be any sense of blame hanging in the air, otherwise whatever discussions you have will only serve to breed more distrust and fear.

Such a discussion should take place when you are both calm and are in a private environment where you won’t be distracted or interrupted.

Now, if you are certain the problem resides with your behavior…..that you are primarily to blame for her lack of interest because of some of the undesirable behaviors I discussed earlier, you should still open up and discuss the matter with your wife.

That doesn’t mean that all will be made good, but it is a first step and important to building trust.

And when we are dealing with your wife’s readiness for sex, building trust, as I described earlier, is critical.

How likely is your marriage to succeed?

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20 responses to “Why Doesn’t My Wife Want Me Anymore

  1. A marriage with out intimacy is the best, both do our own thing! Don’t try to fix something that can’t be fixed. No one cares any more it is what it is. Live on the same piece of land but no bothering with each other. Or just split up! It’s all very simple and easy to fix. Been living like this for 40 years married 53 years.

  2. Thank you for the article. I have a question:
    If as stated in the article “Having sex with your wife is a gift she offers you,“ than I assume there is a gift men offer women.

    If, men need sex and women need security and women offer sex as a gift, it reasons that security is men’s gift to women. Do you have an article on that?

    1. John is so correct about the “gift” aspect. This article has a feminist bent. Of course men offer women security but that never seems to be stated often. Sex should be a 2-way street. If the “gift giving ” is only from the female to the male, it wont be long before an imbalance occurs. It should be Xmas morning for BOTH partners when the physical intimacy starts !

    2. Such a joke. I told my son to have sex as much as possible before you get married. Sex is important in a marriage and you would never buy an expensive car without test driving it. If she doesn’t really enjoy sex then you will be resentful and end up getting divorced.

  3. Women have all of the time in the world for social media but none for sex once you get married. Too tired, too exhausted, not connected. All excuses when men are forced to do exhausting things and all of the not fun things in the house. This is why saving yourself for the “gift of marriage” is a joke. Do not tell your kids to save themselves for marriage or they will just miss out on great sex their whole lives. Every friend of mine who is married to a Christian wife is also going through the same thing. Here’s what you do Quit working and take away her financial security and tell her you will give effort making money once she makes an effort to make you happy too.

  4. Shitty feminist bent article. A GIFT to men? Piss off. Typical feminist trash that makes women superior, and in control of everything.

    sex is a two way street, and using it as a weapon, or a gift is disgusting. screw your feminist leverage shit. Sex is supposed to be equal between each other in the marriage.

    1. I totally agree with the feminist bull….. My wife went to Vegas, did not show up for work the next day and she told me she met the Old Ridge boys and just had a party and fun. I’m now 72 she was 26 it kills me now more then ever because she does not want anything to do with me and has never told me what really happened, I was young and stupid when she said nothing, “Who the F looses their job for an innocent party”. I also caught her f…. her boss who was the CEO of her company, she did not tell me who it was for months and I was actually at partys with the both of them. Im the ass hole because I cant let it go. Picture your wife in the Mile High club, he was a pilot in the air force. I’m f…. to old to fix and love the the sl…. Plus financially it would kill me. She now hides behind the grand kids she’s just such a great grandma. but I dont exist.

  5. Wow, great so you’ve told us all the things I should be doing. But what is the woman’s responsibility? Basically, you say she’s doing me a favor based on how I treat her. How about when I cut the lawn, or bring home a paycheck, or wash the dogs or take the kids to their games? I don’t deserve anything for that? No, just do more. What about when she lays in bed all Saturday because the kids were so hard all week? My jobs not exactly easy but no “bed days” for me. Imagine if I told my Company I just need a bed day and buy the way, emotionally, I could really use more attention or I don’t know that I can finish those financials. Sometimes it’s just easier to open some porn, be done with it, and watch SportsCenter. Guess that’s what women want… then they’ll complain about porn… then about SportCenter And complain on and on and on.

  6. You approach this with the underlying thesis that the man is always at fault. I do everything I can to show and tell my wife that I love her and she just turns away from me and falls asleep without this first care. Did you ever stop to consider that maybe the man is doing everything he can but the woman still doesn’t want him???

    1. Amen brother!

      If any of these so called relationship experts did that and held the woman to account for their actions/inaction’s, then they would be out of a job.

      It is always easier to stereotype the man rather than face the reality of the situation.

      In this case the real question that should be asked is “Whose behavior changed first?” That is the person with the problem and should work to address it. The woman should not be pitied but held to account for her change in behavior. Make her face her own issues. In this case the woman has been using sex as a weapon in her entire relationship up to this point. In other words she has never been honest with her husband regarding her true feelings on personal intimacy during their entire relationship. It is only now that she wants to change the rules of the game (not have sex with her husband) that she has revealed her true feelings. Whether she made the change on purpose or just got lazy in hiding her feelings, she now has realized that she has a problem in that her husband is on the verge of leaving her. As usual the woman’s solution is to cry and blame her husband for her untruthful years of her marriage and make everyone feel sorry for her.

      My advice to the man – GET OUT OF THE MARRIAGE AS FAST AS YOU CAN. She has lied to you from day one of the marriage. She is lying to you now. She will always be this way and will never change no matter what she says. Save your own sanity, get out. Find someone who wants an actual relationship both physical and emotional.

    2. Right here too brothers. Mine happened pretty quick. Have the date memorized. Cinco de mayo 2021. Started going down quick, leveled off 1/2 way down for a week, then nose dived. We have occasional ‘get in over with’ sex, she will get in front of the hot tub jets for her pleasure, but I cant touch. She dont like me even looking at her. No dirty talking or texts. She says I smother her? She wants some space. I have purposely ignored her, minimal talking, staying in another room, no touching for a couple of weeks, did not faze her a bit. She says nothing is going on with anyone, I partially believe her. We do have a quick one arm hug, quick peck of a kiss, that is it for contact. I think that is just to slightly appease me. We will see, I will fight for my marriage but not for her love,,,,

  7. It’s offered as a “gift”.? This is a major turn off in my opinion. I don’t need a gift. It’s almost as though men are looked at as a begging dog! Good boy now here’s your treat. This article was most definitely written by a women.

  8. Thanks for the no help. I exhausted myself working to provide, while she spent thousands each week. I burnt out. She always complained she didn’t have enough money or holidays. I love her but I can’t keep getting rejected. It’s less hurtful to not try.
    She loves to be massaged but never wants to touch me. Always an excuse. When she wanted kids, it was ok, not great, but now.

    A gift to me?? You’re joking. It was given as a feeling of duty. Providing day in day out, year in year out, for her and it gets trumped because I didn’t get flowers or couldn’t afford the holiday she wanted? That’s on me!!!??? If that’s true, I’m filing for divorce. That’s not a marriage, that’s a selfish person throwing tidbits like I’m a dog. What do I get from providing? Nada. And you think that’s ok. Sorry, that’s not love. Richer, for poorer, sickness and health. We made a promise to provide for each other. What you’re saying is that she doesn’t have to if I don’t give enough flowers.

    I read this at 3am hoping for some light. Thanks for nothing.

    1. These men are so freaking clueless! Women work, too. You can’t just say your job is to “provide” and her job is to “give you sex”. BOTH spouses give EACH OTHER sex! It’s not all about you. If you’re not giving your wife pleasure, of course she’s going to lose interest. If your sex life revolves around your orgasm, your wife gets nothing out of it. You have to reciprocate. Otherwise, you’ll have a sexless marriage.

  9. Whoa just a minute there.. if a man is in a committed relationship with someone and is only supposed to have sex with that person, he is owed an explanation when things dry up. Especially vexing are women who engage in raging jealousy while simultaneously not sleeping with their husbands, or the women who sleep around and don’t sleep with their husbands. I have no intention of prancing around my house like Pepe LePew trying to get my wife’s attention. This is emotional blackmail and a failure to live up to the marriage contract. We are supposed to worry about what resentments SHE might get? Sure.

    1. its hurts when you try and tell her we have neaver had any probllem we couldnt work out but she says its not me so how can help us to fix what isbothering her thi is is unexspable amd wrong to give meme no clue to why she hasnt let me bavesex in 4 months

  10. I am a wife. I just feel why I don’t want it, I told my husband alot time i don’t want is because he always make me angry about everthing. How can I do that If my husband never change and don’t want change. I can’t. That’s not i want. How can you make love with the person whom messed up your whole life? I can’t .If he still don’t want change. That’s keep huts me.

  11. I’m a woman and I’m really getting tired of these tropes about women being asexual, childlike, and emotional. Women do not just read innocent romance novels. They read erotic literature which is very sexual. They watch porn just like men. Sex is not just an emotional experience for us. No, I would not prefer a foot massage or Ichocolates to sex. Women are sexually mature adults with a sex drive. We have orgasms just like men do. This is a physical experience. Women are not all delicate or sexually dysfunctional or rarely interested in sex. We are sexual beings, too. And we don’t exist solely to give sexual pleasure to men. Sex is for our pleasure, too.

  12. Such nonsense. Sex isn’t a gift? That’s a feminist power grab dynamic. If your wife won’t do (and she has no credible health issues..i.e..not self diagnosed) find it from someone else. If you try all of these things and she is still frigid. Get a side piece.