Lack of attachment may lead to a sexless marriage
Why do some women no longer want to have sex with their husbands? One woman says it’s often for a simple reason − and her take has ignited a firestorm on social media.
In a TikTok video posted last week, Sarah Hensley, who holds a Ph.D. in social psychology, according to her website, says the reason has to do with women not getting their attachment needs met inside their relationships. When attachment needs go unmet, she says, it makes women no longer feel emotionally safe in their marriages and, therefore, repulsed by their husbands.
“Attachment needs are our deepest needs inside of a romantic relationship, and if those things are not fulfilled, we will not feel emotionally safe,” Hensley says. Hensley’s video made its way to X, formerly Twitter, where it garnered more than 16 million views and plenty of strong reactions as users praised or attacked her.
So, what’s the truth? Mental health professionals say Hensley makes an important point, but there’s more to the story.
Why do women stop wanting sex with their husbands?
Many couples struggle with a lack of sex in their marriage. According to independent market research company Gitnux, about 15% of marriages in the United States are sexless, and about a third of divorces are caused by sexless marriages.
Additionally, of couples in sexless marriages, about 80% report feeling a lack of emotional closeness, and about 60% report feeling neglected by their partners. About 47% reported their sexless marriage included both partners lacking sexual desire.
Hensley says in her video that the biggest reason women lose attraction to their husbands is because their husbands aren’t meeting their attachment needs. This idea comes from attachment theory, which posits that the attachments people experience early in life affect the way they approach relationships later in life.
The key to keeping your wife attracted to you, Hensley says, is figuring out her attachment style and then meeting that style’s needs. For example, she says, if your wife has an anxious-preoccupied attachment style, that means she needs frequent affection and reassurance from you that your relationship with her is stable. If that need goes unmet, Hensley says, your wife is likely to feel emotionally unsafe, which will diminish her desire to have sex with you.
“Especially for women, when there is a lack of emotional safety, they start feeling very unsafe giving their bodies to their partner, and they start to feel extremely unattracted to their partner,” Hensley says.
So, is this true? Stephanie Sarkis, a psychotherapist and author of “Healing from Toxic Relationships: 10 Essential Steps to Recover from Gaslighting, Narcissism, and Emotional Abuse,” says attachment needs can certainly affect a couple’s sexual intimacy, but she says the reasons for decreased sexual desire often are more nuanced and varied and cannot be mainly attributed to attachment.
“There could be a physical health issue. There could be a communication issue. There could be hormonal issues, which leads to lack of desire. It could be there’s built-up resentment. It could be that there is a lack of connection,” Sarkis says. “To say that it’s solely due to attachment issues is painting too broad of a picture.”
Erik Anderson, a licensed marriage and family therapist, says it’s normal for sexual desire to spike in the beginning of a relationship − often called the “honeymoon phase” − and decline as a relationship goes on. He also says it’s possible for people to struggle to feel sexual desire in their relationships even while feeling emotionally connected to their partner and that there can be a plethora of reasons for this, from biological issues to unresolved trauma.
“Sometimes (sex) just withers away because of these things that we don’t address with ourselves that really don’t have much to do with attachment in the relationship and emotional vulnerability with one another,” he says.
For couples struggling with sexual desire and intimacy, Sarkis recommends seeing a therapist who specializes in sex and relationships. This, she says, often is the best way to figure out what’s really behind the problem and address it.
Why did this video strike such a chord?
Hensley’s video drew polarizing reactions on X as some users agreed with her and others accused her of blaming the problem entirely on men.
Anderson says the strong reactions speak to a deeper frustration in our culture with modern dating and relationships − and it’s an ire felt by men and women alike. On the one hand, he says, many women feel frustrated that so many men seem emotionally unavailable. On the other, he says, many men − in addition to being disappointed with their sex lives − feel they can’t win no matter what they do, being shamed both for expressing and not expressing their feelings.
“There are a lot of women who experience frustrations that men are not always as in touch with their emotions and able to express their emotions as women are able to,” Anderson says. “It’s a skill that tends to come easier to women and that women are more socialized in from an earlier age, whereas men are often taught different lessons about emotions.”
Though videos offering quick fixes to difficult problems may go viral, Sarkis says, it’s important to remember these issues are complicated − and solutions often can’t be summed up in tidy videos.
“Life is not that black-and-white. It’s on an individual basis,” she says. “When we speak in absolutes, we really need to be careful about what information is being given.”