Why Some Women Withhold Sex

Michele Happe MA

October 15, 2014

I believe that many men think that women withhold sex as a form of punishment and power over.  This is a passive aggressive technique.  I am sure that some women do this with that goal in mind, but it is important to consider an alternate motive.

I learned about this from my own experience with menopause.  It was as if upon entering menopause a switch had been turned off.  That switch activated desire.  It wasn’t that I did not enjoy sex because I did I just lost the motivation to pursue it for myself.  This of course changed my relationship with my husband.  I believe that this has been a very positive change for both of us.

I contemplated these changes as they were occurring and shared the fruits of my contemplation with my husband.  I came to the conclusion that in order to be willing to engage sexually with my partner, I needed to feel love and respect for him.  I shared with him that it wasn’t that I was withholding, it was just that I was honoring myself and my desire to be left alone when I had irritation or resentment toward him.  I felt much more authentic when I engaged with him because I felt loving and positive toward him.  When he came to understand and believe me he was motivated to be the person that I loved and desired.  He made more attempts to take responsibility for his part in our conflicts.  Just that fact caused me to love and respect him more.  As a result he started getting a lot more intimacy.   

We are both Buddhist so I always make an attempt to come from a place of compassion when we communicate (although I fail on a regular basis).  He has this same philosophy.  So now we are communicating in a much more constructive and rewarding basis.  I think he is beginning to see that I am not just another bitchy woman who wants to be in control.  

I learned a while back that women are the receivers.  We take a mans energy literally inside of us so we need to be very careful what we let in…because we absorb all that energy into us.  This in my early years helped me to be a bit more discriminating in my choices even though I have made plenty of bad one…I reaped the karma of all of those bad choices as well.  

I enjoy being generous with him and he enjoys me wanting to be close to him.  This is what we both call “old peoples sex”  I am 64 and he is 60.  We have a sense of humor about our intimate times and have lots of fun because we both feel more open and receptive.  

Take note that getting older is just another stage of our development on all levels.  We do become wiser and less motivated by greed and selfishness.  We do become more authentic and less worried about what others think.  

This is just another reason I love menopause

Until next time, 

Be Well