
It can be just about anything. You’re tired. You’re angry. You’re not turned on. Whatever it is, you say “no” to protect yourself from having to give.
The problem is you’re cutting your man off from “emotional intimacy.” That’s right. He needs to be touched to feel loved and he needs to touch to fulfill that need. Imagine for a really unpleasant moment if he cut you off from sharing — your emotional intimacy.
Instead of “no,” you can learn how to facilitate one important process that fosters and deepens intimacy between you:
Your opportunity is to suggest other intimate acts (with limits) that please you – such as hugging, kissing, eye gazing, head massages, lying together in stillness, breathing together, or hand and foot massages. This way you engage him in a way that feels intimate instead of shutting him down or punishing him for wanting his kind of intimacy. Often men go for sex, when what they want is to be held or to hold you.
You can say, playfully: “I want you. I just don’t want sex tonight. I’d love to be intimate, although with limits. How about if we just kiss? How about if I massage your head? That would feel really good to me.”
What’s key is to convey that not wanting sex isn’t not wanting HIM, and then SHOW him other ways to be intimate with you that are satisfying for you. He often doesn’t know that he too will find fulfillment in these other ways. Be expressive in how much you find these other acts of intimacy to be satisfying, and thank him for giving them to you, and for maintaining the boundary of no sex.
Opening yourself in this way, instead of shutting down, also makes you feel more love, and more like making love – and that’s a good thing, although not required.
A woman naturally shuts down when sex is offered before emotional intimacy. Notice this, and then use these smaller intimate acts as a way to get what you both need to feel loved and fulfilled, and to find yourselves on the same intimate page.
Karen Brody, copyright 2011 All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact the author, or simply use a link to this site.

Guys, if you’re in a relationship where the passion and connection have fizzled or even dried up, and you’re frustrated and angry, you’re not alone. Without even talking to you, I know what you’re going through and I know what your woman is feeling too.



