Latest / Behind Every Great Man / EP 50: Why You're Rejecting Your Husband Even When You Love Him
Transcript
- Jessica Zubchevich: Behind every great man is a great confident exceptional woman. Behind every great man is a great woman who stays honest and curious about intimacy. There has been an influx of men responding to a video that I put out about them being rejected. It was in an episode that I created on how the mental load is killing your sex life. I have received hundreds of messages, responses on the videos, but also personal messages of. Being rejected by their wives. And there is so much pain, so much resentment, so much anger at their wives, at women, so much loneliness and confusion and indifference and just completely checking out. So I wanted to dig into this deeper, but not on the man's side. On the woman's side, on our side, and what's going on. I want to get very honest and raw and real about why you may be rejecting your husband. Yes, there are times when you truly are tired, when you truly do have a headache, but not all the time. I know that. I can speak into this because I'm in it. We're in this together. So let's. Dig in deeper from the surface excuses or reasons that we may be using. If you're a mom, of course you know that you're so you can be so exhausted. I'm not talking about those times. Of course those happen. I'm talking about if this is a dynamic that has crept into your relationship. So this episode is not for the woman who is completely checked out of her relationship and does not care that she's rejecting him. Not it. This episode is for the woman who loves her husband dearly, who wants to be close to him, who wants to feel connected to her husband, but this dynamic of rejection is present. Let's talk about that. I want to start with a book that I've been reading called Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy. She writes: This idea of multiplicity, the ability to accept multiple realities at once, is critical to healthy relationships. And I love that because this doesn't have to be one truth, what you're going through. There's multiple truths. All at one time. You can love your husband, and something else can be going on with you. You can want to be intimate with him, but something's getting in the way. We can hold more than one truth. So before we get into this, I want you to keep that in mind. Two things can be true. She also says in the book, the whole point of holding two truths is for connection, understanding. Not convincing yourself that what you're feeling is wrong or it's right or he's right and you're wrong, none of that. Sexual researchers, John Bancroft and Eric Jansen, developed what's called the dual control model. The basic idea is that our sexual response has both a gas pedal and a break. So maybe the question isn't only what turns me on. But also what is pushing my break? That's what I want to explore today. What is actually underneath your no? So we're gonna go over five reasons why you may be rejecting your husband. So number one, you are still hurt from something that happened in the past. Maybe it was the recent past, or maybe it was a long time ago, years ago. Maybe you were betrayed. He hurt you. You felt dismissed or disrespected, maybe all of them. Maybe it's ongoing. Maybe it was one incident and maybe you talked about it, but you never fully repaired it. Maybe you have still been carrying it, and maybe you stopped talking about it. Maybe you guys have moved on, but it is still alive inside of you. So it is very difficult to be acting like everything is fine on the surface when this is still present inside of you. You don't feel like you have fully healed from this. Emotional distance can be caused by other things as well, where you want to talk with him and connect and share what happened, and he meets it with defensiveness or distraction or is dismissive. Or you maybe have shared something. Very difficult with him, something that was very hard. And he just meets it with solutions and well, you need to do this, just get over it. Relationship researcher Gert Bernbaum, I hope I'm saying that right, and her colleagues found that when people experience their partners as responsive to them, meaning they feel understood and valued and cared for, they report greater sexual desire for their partner. Particularly strong for women. So emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy are not two totally separate things. They're very much connected. How emotionally distant you feel from your partner absolutely plays a part in the sexual distance between you. So ask yourself, do I feel emotionally connected to him? Is there something between us that never really got put to rest. Is something still alive in me? Number two is has sex started to feel like pressure? I know for myself, this is a big one. If I feel pressure or I feel expectation around intimacy, sex, it shuts me down because it doesn't feel open and free flowing. It throws me off. Maybe you feel pressure because it's been too long. Maybe you feel pressure because you know he wants it. Maybe you feel pressure because you feel you should want it and you don't. Maybe you feel pressure because you just had sex and you put in the effort, you did all the things, and then he wants it again. And you're like, We just did the whole, I just did all that. Now, now here we are. You want it again. Maybe you feel pressure because you've already rejected him multiple times. And now when he reaches for you, you know when he's rubbing your back, he's not just wanting to rub your back. You know that he's wanting to have sex with you. So that makes you feel pressure. And then that can change the way that you experience touch in itself. So he goes to touch you and connect. You shut down because you think he just wants sex, he feels rejected, then you're avoiding the very affection that will bring you closer to him. So it's two people who actually want to feel close, yet they keep creating this distance. And then there's another layer to this. Are you so accustomed to giving to others that when it comes to intimacy, it feels like it's just another thing that is required of you? You give to your family, you give to your children, you give to your community, you give to your work, you give your attention, your time, your energy to others. So when it comes to intimacy, You view it as this is just another place that I have to give rather than in a position to receive, to give and receive that beautiful flow, that beautiful back and forth. Do you not know how to receive anymore? Do you find it so difficult and uncomfortable? Maybe your body doesn't hear, come and receive. You hear, ⁓ it's something else that's needed from me. I would get very curious if this sounds familiar to you or this resonates with you. So maybe the questions to ask yourself here are has pressure replaced desire? And have I forgotten how to receive? Number three is has the way you see your husband changed? And this one can be really complicated. Maybe he's not being the stand-up man that you wish he would be. Maybe he isn't handling your finances and is frivolous. Maybe he's not providing for your family in the way that you want him to. Maybe he's out of integrity. Maybe it's been hard to respect what he does. Maybe you know he watches porn and you don't respect that. Maybe he's disrespectful to others and you don't like it. Maybe he's lazy. Maybe you see him as a dependent and you feel like you need to mother him rather than be his wife. If you see your husband in a different light, that's gonna throw you off sexually. So ask yourself, do I see him as a true partner? Do I respect him? Do I hold him in a high light? Do I still admire him? Or has something shifted in the way that I see him? Or maybe the opposite is true. Number four is have you stopped seeing the man? Yes, he's an amazing dad. Yes he's an amazing provider. Yes, you adore him. But is that all you see now? You just see dad, you see provider, you see best friend. It's more of a sibling energy, roommate energy. He's family, he's safe, he's the provider, he's home to you, he's the golden retriever. But you stopped seeing the man. You stopped seeing him as the man that you first met, the one that you looked at across the room. Esther Peril talks about this tension in a relationship between security, safety, and eroticism. She says, we want familiarity, but we also want mystery. We want togetherness, yet we also want separateness. We want safety, yet we want excitement. And those things can be difficult to hold at the same time, is what she says. So maybe nothing terrible has happened. You're not holding on to anything in the past. He's an amazing guy. He didn't become this terrible husband. Maybe you have gotten so intertwined in the business of building a life together that you have difficulty seeing each other outside of the roles that you play. When is the last time you saw your husband as the man, not as dad, not as the guy sitting next to you? Working on bills, trying to figure out the schedule for tomorrow. So maybe what Esther Perrell shares is that your love hasn't disappeared, but the familiarity that you feel with each other and in the roles that you play, the eroticism has disappeared or has gone quiet. And number five on why you may be rejecting your husband is the way that you see yourself now. Not him, you. Maybe you had a baby and you put on some extra weight. Maybe your skin isn't as tight as it once was. Maybe you just don't feel good in your body. You don't like getting undressed. You don't like him looking at you naked. You don't want the lights on. Maybe he follows beautiful women on social media or he likes their photos or videos. And you assume that that's who he likes. That's what he's attracted to. And that's not you. He may like tall blonde women and you're short with black hair. That can cause a disconnect for you. And whether or not he has even said a word about your body or you physically, you have an idea of what turns him on. I wanted to share this. Researchers have looked at what they call appearance based cognitive distraction. Basically, they say instead of being completely inside an experience, part of you is watching yourself have the experience. What does my stomach look like? What does he see right now? Does he see the fat on my thighs right now? Does he see this role? Does he see that my fat is jiggling all over the place? What do I look like from this angle? Is he comparing me to someone else? So maybe sometimes what sounds like I don't desire him. It's actually, I don't feel comfortable being desired. Those are two different things, and that distinction matters because one of those is pointing to him, and the other one is pointing to you and what's going on inside of you. Now that we've talked about what's underneath the rejection, what's underneath the no, I want to talk to your heart. Because if you love your husband, sister, if you genuinely are with a good man and you love him dearly, I know you don't want to reject him. I know that it makes you feel sad when you see that he's lonely or sad or feeling rejected. I know that it puts you in a very difficult position. Maybe you're newly married and you're experiencing this. Maybe you've been married for years and you're experiencing this. Either way, I know it doesn't feel good. I know that this isn't the marriage that you envisioned for your life. I know that you didn't walk down that aisle and say I do with the intention of rejecting your husband. I know you don't like living like this. And this is why we need to be honest. We need to get honest about what's really going on, not making him the villain, not making yourself the villain, but just being honest and curious about what's really going on. Maybe the first step isn't completely changing your sex life. Maybe the first step is just being honest. This is where I'm at. This is what's happening inside of me. Now what? I don't want you leaving this conversation thinking that I'm saying you need to go home and have sex with your husband tonight. That's not the goal of this at all. The goal is for you to understand what's actually happening so you can start moving towards the intimacy that you want in your life. What is one degree of movement you can take? If it's number one where you're still carrying and holding on to pain. Maybe it's having an honest conversation with your husband about what's really still going on, calling it out. Maybe it's asking for affection without expectation. Maybe it's being honest about how you see him now or what has changed. Maybe it's letting him know what's actually going on inside of you and your relationship with your body. Whatever it is, choose one. And if you still don't know what's underneath your no, you can simply say to your husband I know something is happening with me around intimacy. I don't completely understand it yet. But I care about us enough that I want to understand it. That's movement. That's one degree movement. Because there are two people hurting here. He's experiencing rejection. You're experiencing whatever is underneath the rejection. And neither of you want to live there. So the goal isn't. More sex. The goal is getting back to or getting to a place of connection and closeness and intimacy. It's time for a weekly pause. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, please take these couple moments for yourself. If you can, close your eyes. Let's all take a deep inhale together. Exhale at our Another deep soothing breath in. Let it out. One more deep breath in. Let it go. I want you to picture your marriage. The marriage you want. Picture the two of you together. How do you want it to feel between you? How do you want to feel when he walks through the door? How do you want to feel when he reaches for you? How do you want to feel lying beside him at night? What does loving and intimate connected look like for you? Really stay in that for a moment. Let yourself actually want it. Desire it. Now gently ask yourself What is standing between me and that marriage? What is pressing my brakes? Maybe it's something that happened between you, something happening inside of you. Just notice Just truth. Now look at that marriage you pictured one more time and ask yourself What is one degree of movement I can make toward it? Not the whole way back. Just one degree. One movement toward honesty. One movement toward healing, one movement toward my husband. One movement toward the marriage you want. Let's all take one more deep inhale together. Exhale it out and open your eyes. Sister, maybe you don't know how to get from where you currently are to the marriage that you picture that you truly want, but you don't need to know the whole way. You just need enough honesty to see what's standing in the way, and enough courage to move one degree towards what you still want. Behind every great man is a great woman who stays curious and honest about intimacy. Thanks for joining this podcast episode. You can find more episodes of Behind Every Great Man on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And if this spoke to you, please subscribe and share it with a friend. Thanks again, and I'll see you next week.