Sexless Relationships Get Worse the Longer You Wait

You've been in a sexless relationship for months, maybe years, and you have no idea where to begin to find your way back. You've read the books. You know what you're supposed to do differently. But nothing changes, and you can't help how you feel.

What you're up against isn't a communication problem. It's a pattern that started in your mind long before it showed up in the bedroom, and it's now running on autopilot. The thoughts you have about your partner create chemical reactions in your body, those reactions become emotions, and those emotions drive the behaviors that keep the cycle going.

In this episode of The RISE to Intimacy Podcast, I walk through the neuroscience of why these patterns become so automatic in a sexless relationship and why waiting to address them makes them harder to change. I explain how cognitive behavioral therapy, neuroplasticity research, and the thinking-feeling loop all point to the same conclusion about how relational patterns get built and broken. You'll learn what's happening in your nervous system when you and your partner repeat the same fight, and three things you can start practicing today to begin interrupting the cycle.

2:59 – The specific cognitive pattern that does more damage to relationship satisfaction than the conflict itself

5:52 – The biochemical loop that makes rejection feel like your baseline reality

8:29 – How mindfulness practices help you shift your internal state before engaging with an angry partner

11:22 – Why will alone isn't enough to break the cycle and how just 30 seconds can physically alter your brain

13:28 – What the data shows about waiting years to address the constantly repeating patterns that’ve led to your sexless relationship

16:00 – Three practical steps you can start today to interrupt the cycle from the inside out

Mentioned In Sexless Relationships Get Worse the Longer You Wait

Fixing a Sexless Relationship Starts with Emotional Regulation

How to Stop the Pursue Withdraw Cycle Without Blame

What Actually Happens in Sex Therapy? 

The Neuroscience of Goals and Behavior Change

Rise to Intimacy Free 30-Minute Consult

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Transcript

Valerie McDonnell: Welcome to The Rise To Intimacy podcast. I'm your host, Valerie McDonnell and for over a decade, I've worked as a sex and couples therapist, because intimacy used to feel really overwhelming for me. I felt a lot of pressure to perform, I was disconnected from my body and I often felt like desire was out of reach for me. But through my own trauma work, I stopped checking out of my body and started feeling connected to it again. I learned what it's like to experience intimacy without fear, without shutting down and without numbing out. Now I'm on a mission to help you do the same thing. This podcast exists because trauma doesn't get the last word. You can learn how to calm your body, change the story you've been carrying and rebuild real connection, first with yourself and then with the people you love. 

Let's begin. Today, I'm going to talk more in depth about why you might find yourself in a sexless relationship. Many of the couples I see have been living in a sexless or low sex relationship for months, sometimes years, y'all, and they have no idea where to begin, to find their way back to the sex life they used to have. So in a past episode, I talked about how fixing a sexless relationship starts with emotional regulation. And that's true, it absolutely does. But today I'm going to talk more about what comes before the dysregulation. Because after working with hundreds of couples and doing more research into this subject, I've realized the disconnection in your sex life didn't start in the bedroom. It starts in your mind. Your thoughts are running the show more than you realize. And by the time those thoughts turn into feelings and those feelings turn into behaviors and those behaviors create a pattern between you and your partner, you've got a full cycle going that feeds itself. 

So today we're going to talk about how your thoughts literally create your emotional state, how your emotional state then drives the way you show up in your relationship and what the neuroscience says about how to actually change these patterns. And I also want to be really honest with you about something more important than most couples realize. The longer you wait to address this, the harder it gets. And I'm going to share some of the research around that too. Because one of the things I wish more people understood is that time is not neutral, when it comes to relationship repair. Waiting does not make things easier and it certainly doesn't make problems just disappear, even when you feel like not addressing them. Instead, it makes the patterns more rigid, because resentment settles into a deeper and repetitive pattern and then the emotional walls become harder to break through. 

So I want you to think about the last time your partner did something that bothered you. See if you can recall what thoughts started running through your head. Was it something like, they don't care about what's important to me, or here we go again, or I'm always the one putting effort into this relationship. Those thoughts feel like facts in the moment. They feel like reality. But what's actually happening is your brain is running on an old story, one it's been telling you for a long time. And that story creates a chemical reaction in your body that you experience as an emotion. This is one of the foundational ideas in cognitive behavioral therapy. Aaron Beck, who developed CBT, noticed that people in distress weren't responding to what was actually happening at the moment. They were responding to what they believed was happening. And those beliefs were often distorted. Things like mind reading, where you assume you know your partner's intention, or all-or-nothing thinking, where one disappointing moment becomes a script you repeat by saying things like, you always or you never. 

Cognitive behavioral couples therapy applies this same idea to relationships. Researchers have shown that when partners make negative attributions about each other's behavior, meaning they interpret their partner's actions as selfish or unintentional uncaring, it fuels emotional distress and conflict. Partners who made more negative attributions about each other had worse relationship satisfaction, especially during moments of high stress. And the interpretation was doing more damage than the actual conflict. So here's what that means. The thought, my partner doesn't care about me is not a neutral observation. It sends a signal to your nervous system that says, I'm not safe here. And then your body responds accordingly. You may shut down, or you might ramp up. You might withdraw, or you might pursue your partner even harder. And your partner, who is having their own set of thoughts and their own nervous system response, does the same thing back. Then this becomes the pursue/withdraw cycle I've discussed before, where one partner reaches for more attention or more connection and the other one pulls away. 

Research conducted in 2009 confirmed that this demand withdrawal/pattern, when it plays out at home during real conflicts, is strongly associated with problematic relationship outcomes and even depression, in both partners. So this is not a communication issue, it's a nervous system and thought pattern issue. Now, a lot of self-help content will tell you to change your thoughts by thinking positive or reframing the situation. And look, cognitive restructuring can be valuable. It's a core technique in CBT, which is cognitive behavioral therapy and it can work well. But to go deeper into that, your thoughts and your emotions are not separate things happening in your brain, they're woven together. They feed each other in a loop. So Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about this as the thinking-feeling loop. You have a thought, that thought produces a chemical reaction in your brain and your brain sends those chemicals to your body. Then your body feels an emotion and that emotion generates more thoughts that match it. And now you're stuck in a repetitive cycle. So Dispenza's framework is built on research that explains how every thought produces a biochemical reaction. 

Your brain releases chemical signals that get transmitted to the body. And the body becomes, in a sense, a record of your emotional history. If you've been thinking, my partner doesn't desire me for three years, your body has been marinating in the chemistry of rejection for three years. And that emotional state has now become familiar. And, unfortunately, it becomes your baseline. And then your brain will actually seek out evidence to confirm it, because that's what feels normal and predictable. And this is why so many couples tell me, I know I should think differently about this, but I can't help how I feel. Because that's an accurate statement. You can't think your way out of a feeling that lives in your body. You have to change your emotional state too. And here's what neuroscience says about this. Research on neuroplasticity, including a major review published in Neuroplasticity in 2014, confirms that the adult brain is not fixed. Factors like learning, environmental stimulation and emotional experiences physically change neural structures and connectivity. So your brain is rewiring itself based on what you repeatedly think and feel. 

So if you've been running the same loop of negative interpretation, emotional shutdown and avoidance in your relationship, you have literally built neural pathways that make that pattern automatic. But the encouraging part is that you can build new pathways that will change this repetitive pattern. So when I work with a couple and one partner says, I've tried everything. I've read the books. I know what I'm supposed to do differently, but nothing has changed. The missing piece is almost always the emotional state. You can have all the right information and still show up in your relationship from a place of resentment or fear or lack. And your partner doesn't respond to just your words, they respond to your energy. They respond to the emotional frequency you're carrying, when you walk into the room. So think about this. You've probably experienced this yourself. You can tell when your partner is angry before they say a single word. You can feel it. That's because emotions have a physiological signature. Your body is broadcasting them whether you're aware of it or not. And Dispenza describes this as your body being a giant recording of your past. And if you want to create a different future in your relationship, you have to stop replaying the same emotional record. 

So that means the work isn't about knowing the right thing to say. It's about learning how to shift your internal state before you engage with your partner. That's where practices like mindfulness come in. A study published in “Clinical Psychology Review” examined the empirical evidence on mindfulness and psychological health. And what they found is that mindfulness practices, the kind where you learn to observe your thoughts without reacting to them, or judging them, significantly reduces emotional reactivity. You start to create a gap between the thought and the response. And change occurs in the space between your thoughts and reactions. Because if I can notice the thought, my partner is pulling away from me again. Without immediately going into the emotional spiral of rejection and self-protection, I now have the opportunity to make a different choice. I can become curious instead of defensive. I can ask questions instead of making assumptions. And I can stay present instead of shutting down or escalating into an argument. This is what emotional regulation looks like at its core. It's not about suppressing emotions, not at all. It's about shifting them and changing your relationship to them. 

So now let me quickly recap this cycle of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Thoughts create emotions, emotions drive behavior and behavior reinforces the pattern. So the question is, how do you actually break this pattern? Well, a paper published in 2018 called the “Neuroscience of Goals and Behavior Change” separates behavior change into two dimensions. One is called the will, which is your motivation to change and the other is the way, which is your cognitive ability to execute the change. And most couples have the will. They want things to be different, but where they get stuck is the way. Because changing a relational pattern requires you to do something different in the exact moment your nervous system is telling you to do the old thing that is familiar and therefore feels easier. Your brain has literally grooved a pathway for the old response. It's automatic, it's efficient and it takes real effort to override it. But when you practice a new response, your brain doesn't erase the old pathway. It builds a new one alongside it. 

And over time, the new pathway gets stronger and the old one weakens. And this is neuroplasticity in action. The brain reorganizes itself, based on what you practice consistently. So if you've been withdrawing from conflict for 20 years, your brain is very good at withdrawing. But if you start practicing staying present during the conversation, even for 30 seconds longer than feels comfortable, you are creating new neural architecture. And every time you do it, it gets a little easier. Not because the discomfort goes away, though, but because your brain is building a new default. When couples start to understand that they're not broken and that their brains are doing exactly what brains do, which is repeat whatever pattern has been practiced the most, it takes the shame out of the equation. You start realizing you don't have a character flaw. You have a well-rehearsed neural pathway and you can create a new one. 

So one of the biggest pieces of advice I'd like to give you, is don't wait years or even months to find a couples therapist, if you notice you and your partner are consistently repeating the same arguments. Many couples come to see me after they've been struggling for 5, 10, or even 20 years of experiencing little to no physical intimacy. That's years spent sleeping in the same bed and feeling like strangers, or years of having the same argument that never gets resolved. And by the time they sit down in my office, the patterns are deeply entrenched and resentment has multiple layers, each one requiring hard and persistent work to chip away at. On average, couples wait three years before seeking therapy. But even spending three years waiting to seek outside support is a long time to let negative patterns go unchecked. And from a neuroscience perspective, every day you spend in a negative relational pattern, your brain is strengthening the neural pathways that support it. The thoughts become more automatic and the emotional responses become more entrenched. The behaviors then become more rigid, making change feel extremely difficult. 

Research has also found that couples who seek therapy earlier, when they're distressed, experience significantly better improvements in relationship satisfaction and communication, compared to those who waited. So beginning couples therapy is an investment with a time-sensitive return. The sooner you intervene, the more flexible the patterns are, the more responsive both you and your partner tend to be and as a result, the outcomes are better, leading to a swifter feeling of success. Couples therapy has a success rate of roughly 70 to 80%, especially with evidence-based approaches. An early intervention can increase those odds even further. So if you're listening to this and thinking, we've been struggling for a while, but maybe it'll get better on its own. I want you to challenge that thought, because the research says it won't. Distressed couples who don't receive therapy show very little spontaneous improvement in relationship satisfaction over time. And that's not an opinion, y'all. That's the data. 

So I want to leave you with something practical you can start doing today to change this cycle. First, start noticing your automatic thoughts about your partner. Observe them without judgment. And when your partner does something that triggers a reaction in you, pause and ask yourself, what story did I tell myself about what that meant? Write it down if you can. And this is the beginning of cognitive awareness and is the first step in CBT-based work for couples. 

Next, pay attention to the emotion that follows the thought. Where do you feel it in your body? Is there tightness in your chest? Or is there a knot in your stomach? Your body is giving you information about your emotional state. Learning to read that information is a skill and it's the bridge between thinking differently and feeling differently. 

And third, practice shifting your emotional state before engaging with your partner. One way to do this is to take five minutes and engage in slow breathing, or listen to a brief guided meditation. You can also move your body, because even taking five minutes to walk around the block can shift anxious or angry energy cycling through your body. 

And remember, the goal is not to suppress or avoid what you're feeling. It's to downregulate, or calm your nervous system enough, so that you can respond from your logical brain instead of your primal brain. Also, if you've been disconnected from your partner for more than a few months, please consider, again, reaching out to a therapist who specializes in sex and couples therapy and who practices from a neuroscientific perspective. Because the longer you wait, the harder the patterns become to shift. And having guided support to help you with this, makes change much easier and helps you successfully reach your goals. So again, please remember that your thoughts are not neutral. They create chemical reactions in your brain that become the emotions you feel in your body. Those emotions drive the behaviors that shape your relationship. And those behaviors, repeated over time, become the neural pathways your brain defaults to. But neuroplasticity means that you can build new pathways in your brain at any age. You can learn to think differently, feel differently and show up differently in your relationship. But it does take consistent practice. And it's also a very worthwhile pursuit. The couples I work with, who get the best results, are the ones who start doing this work consistently in between their sessions with me. And then work with me collaboratively during our sessions by giving me feedback on what's working well and what they need more help with, so that we can make appropriate adjustments that lead them to having more success in developing a securely connected relationship. 

So, if you're ready to do this work and you would like my help, please head over to risetointimacy.com and book a consultation with me. Thank you so much for listening. 

Thanks for listening to The Rise To Intimacy podcast. If today's episode resonated with you know that healing is possible and you don't have to do it alone. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a rating and review for us at ratethispodcast.com/rise. It really helps others find us and I'm so grateful for all your support. You can learn more about my coaching packages for individuals and couples at risetointimacy.com. 

And remember, sex therapy isn't for people who are broken. It's for people brave enough to look beneath the surface.