Intimacy Blocks #5: She’s Overwhelmed By Big Feelings

Emotions are huge, wild things. They blow through our consciousness and our bodies like storms on the sea. Just as a hurricane can heave the waters of the ocean and change the lay of a landscape, emotions shift and change the human body.

For this reason, a woman’s feelings can shut down her sexual response.

But this isn’t just about your partner’s feelings. Your own feelings can either shut you down to sex or make you crave it more as you lean into love in tough times. If you and your wife have that kind of opposite response to big feelings, grief does a doozy on both ends of a marriage.

Further, there’s the interplay between two people’s emotions. A woman’s feelings can seem totally overwhelming to her partner, and shut him down. So many men believe it is their job to “make my wife happy.” Proximity to a woman’s enormous painful emotions can evoke really uncomfortable feelings like helplessness and failure. But it’s such a trap. It never was your job to make your wife feel any feeling. Relieving yourself of that responsibility lets you come closer and opens up new ways to help.

Here are three ways feelings can shut down sex:

Some feelings evoke a stress response.

Fear can shut a woman’s body right down, because it warns her body that she’s not safe. Not only will her body be un-turn-onable from this stress state, but other basic biological functions (like digestion) also deteriorate. A felt-sense of being SAFE ENOUGH is necessary for good sex. First, we have to look at her surroundings and reduce any danger we find. This is a big one for any woman who has had an abortion. For her, sex led to a crisis pregnancy, and her body doesn’t want to let her go there again. Safety here might mean making a really solid birth control plan. This is so concrete, and something that a husband could so easily do by gathering information, leading discussions, or simply buying condoms and putting them on before sex gets too hot and heavy.

But what if she is safe and is still afraid and shut down? If we look around and determine that sex is objectively safe, it’s time for nervous system regulation exercises. When all is objectively safe, flexing the relaxation muscle builds that felt-sense of safety with time. Please don’t try to gaslight the nervous system by leaning too hard into regulation exercises when the situation is unsafe! Deal with the safety first, then work on soothing the body.

Feelings can be dissonant with pleasure.

Sometimes, the emotional “problem” is less of a safety concern and more self-policing around what feelings she feels allowed to mix with eroticism. Shame or anger, for instance, are feelings that women often feel are dangerous or inappropriate to mix with sex. I see a lot of GUILT in my TFMR moms. Guilt is just a cocktail of more basic tough feelings (impotence + sadness + responsibility). Guilt doesn’t have to mean anything about right or wrong. But it often comes with stories that try to make this meaning out of pure feelings. One very common story is:

“My baby is dead. If I enjoy pleasure, it will mean leaving him behind. I will be separated from my baby all over again. I will be a bad mom.”

This is a story, not a truth. The truth is that your baby is always your baby, whether or not he’s here in your arms. The truth is that you couldn’t forget him if you tried. The truth is, you are worthy of the good things in life even when you’re feeling sad and heavy.

It is absolutely possible to mingle intimacy, love, and pleasure with the feeling of guilt — and it’s safe to do so. Same goes for anger. We so often hold a story that anger is dangerous and inappropriate to mix with love, but anger is simply a feeling, and it’s ok to have sex mad. It’s ok feel your feelings in a big, embodied way and to mix that with pleasure. In fact, to eroticize anger is a powerful practice of emotional alchemy, and one that I lead (and practice, myself) all the time. We can feel many emotions and sensations at once, and it is ok to mingle different, big feelings together.

But what if it isn’t exactly the feeling that blocks sex. What if it is the THREAT of a feeling?

Sometimes, sex EVOKES exactly the feeling she’s been trying to avoid.

A classic example of this is the post-loss cry-gasm that so many of my baby lost moms experience when they do return to sex. I spoke about the crygasm at length in a recent podcast. For our purposes here, you can support your wife returning to sex by supporting whatever emotions come out of her when she finally lets go. Love her body, and love her sadness. Kiss her and tell her so: “I love you and I love your sadness, too. I’m here for all of you.

The way a partner shows up for emotions in the bedroom can elevate sex to sexual healing. It is profoundly supportive. And it’s something the partner who’s ready for sex can do as you both work your way back to closeness together. Crying at or after climax does not indicate that you’ve done anything wrong to make her sad. It means she feels safe enough with you to let go. If you can stay with her, stay right there with her and her feelings, you have given her one of the greatest gifts of intimacy.

Emotional alchemy is a skill that most of us were never taught. Emotions do not have to get in the way of connection, intimacy, or even pleasure. If you or your wife want help in how to feel big feelings and enjoy even deeper intimacy in intense times, please reach out.

This is what I do.

It’s why I specialized not just in grief, but in grief, sex, and relationship. There is a special power in working where all the biggest feelings overlap. This work is sacred. It will take sex to another level, of course. And it will also expand what it feels like just to be alive.

Want to talk through how big feelings are affecting your relationship? Book a call.