Intimacy Blocker #3: There’s an Elephant in Your Bedroom
Exploring answers to the very tender question, “Why won’t my wife have sex with me anymore?”
Answer #3: There is a huge, unaddressed issue in your relationship which leaves no room for intimacy.
In this series, I emphasize reasons why that are nobody’s fault. Today’s topic may SEEM like it’s a blaming topic. That is not my intent. We all have problems that can interfere with sex, trust, and intimacy.
Problems like:
Betrayal
Addiction
Meanness
Injury and illness
The Elephant in The Bedroom isn’t exactly the PROBLEM. The Elephant is the AVOIDANCE of the problem. In order to shrink and maneuver any Elephant out of any bedroom, we have to face the taboo stuff head on.
This involves opening up to SHAME. You know shame: cringing, creepy, crawling feelings up and down your limbs. Nausea rising in your throat. A pit in your stomach. Sounds like nails on a chalk board. Feels like a strong pull inward, trying to shrink you down or reduce you to a pile of dirt. Shame is deeply uncomfortable. No wonder we avoid it.
Unfortunately, what we ignore takes root in our homes and grows and grows until there’s no room left for love.
Trust is destroyed, and nobody's talking about it.
There’s this phenomenon I see online, where any time you get that sinking feeling there’s something really seriously wrong in your marriage, the default go-to answer is “she’s having an affair” (or he is). And, absolutely, infidelity CAN be what’s wrong. Affairs are common enough. An affair is usually felt as deep betrayal that drives a huge wedge between a couple. The affair itself is an elephant, sometimes it was set off by a different elephant, and then the fallout is a whole nother elephant. A three-ring circus of elepants right in your bedroom! No wonder so many people spend so much time worrying about affairs.
However, the affair isn’t the most common Elephant among the couples that come to me. I see various forms of trust-violation, compulsivity, and ignoring-of-injury more often than I see affairs.
Some elephants I see on the regular:
Erectile dysfunction that you are too ashamed to talk about or see a doctor about.
A vasectomy you keep promising to have. But you still haven’t called the urologist. For years.
An abortion or other major life decision that the two of you didn’t agree on. Either she did it and you didn’t support her, or she didn’t do it for you, and she resents the hell out you for it.
A time you finally trusted her enough to show your vulnerability and she shut you down because she couldn’t handle it.
Any time sex hurt her and you didn’t notice.
Drinking or drugs that just keep ramping up.
Other addictive tendencies, like gambling, over-shopping, and sneaky porn use.
Unaddressed mental health issues or personality problems (like narcissism).
These are BIG PROBLEMS, some of which (addiction, abuse, illness) need more help than just coaching.
Regardless,
The solution is leadership — your leadership.
And leadership is something a coach can coach.
My work with couples facing these big problems-turned-Elephants focuses on personal empowerment — for whichever partner comes to me first.
As my teacher Layla Martin wisely says, “a relationship only needs one visionary leader.”
If you're the one reading this, guess what: it's you. You're the leader.
If the problem is yours, the work is your empowerment. Let’s take the necessary steps to fix this. Gather the team. Get sober. See the doctor. Feel the uncomfortable feelings and do the brave, vulnerable thing to save your marriage. I have got you every step of the way.
If she’s the one with the problem, but you are the leader, we raise your standards, teach you to hold a strong expectation, express yourself with crystal clarity, and stick to your guns. Let’s lovingly, respectfully, raise the stakes on the marriage. In this case, coaching is about clarifying your power and your communication to be unshakeable.
Remember - having an elephant in your bedroom isn't about fault or blame. It's a call to choose courage over comfort and reclaim the intimacy you both deserve.