Q&A: Mismatched Libido & Anxious-Avoidant Sexual Dynamics
Mismatched libido in a relationship is a challenge that a lot of couples face. In today’s episode, I’ll be answering a listener's question of how to navigate mismatched libido in a relationship, particularly in an anxious-avoidant dynamic. I’ll guide you on strategies to break the anxious-avoidant spiral, by initiating open dialogue and finding a middle ground between both partners.
We’ll cover:
It’s not going to be 100% aligned all the time
How sex shows up for anxious and avoidant attachment styles
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Use the code PODCAST50 for 50% off the Sex and Attachment Masterclass
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode I am answering the listener’s question of how to navigate mismatched libido in a relationship and particularly in anxious, avoidant kind of dynamic. So this is something that I've touched on before on the show, but I haven't very recently and it is such a common experience and I think unfortunately one that doesn't get talked about anywhere near enough. And so, so many people end up feeling really lonely and isolated and convincing themselves that it's just them and everyone else is having really great sex and a really thriving sex life and they are alone in their struggle.
[00:01:04]:
I can tell you from the privileged position of hearing a lot of people's stories all the time that that is far from the truth and so many people are struggling with this. So with one partner wanting sex more than the other and all of the things that can flow from that the shame, the conflict, the sense of rejection and unworthiness and worrying about the relationship not really knowing how to connect internalising that taking it very personally. All of these things are so much more common than you would realise and I think, as I said, really important to talk about so that we can destigmatize that a little and hopefully empower ourselves to feel like we have more agency in how to talk about it and how to approach finding a solution. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. And as I said, we'll be looking at it with a bit of an attachment overlay because often sex and attachment are spoken about in isolation. When really if attachment is looking at the way that we relate to and experience intimacy and what fears we might have around that, it makes sense that sex would bring those wounds to the forefront in very profound ways. And that has certainly been my observation and my personal experience as well. So that's what we're going to be talking about today.
[00:02:19]:
Before we dive into that, I did just want to flag that one of my Master classes on my website is called Sex and Attachment and it's over 2 hours. Just on this topic, I've created a discount code for you. If anyone listens to today's episode and feels like they could use a little bit more of a deep dive on this topic or you're just interested to learn more, you can use the code podcast 50 or One Word and we'll link all of that in the show notes to save 50% on that Masterclass. That's less than $50 that it'll come to for you. So yes, as I said, if you're interested in learning more about sex and attachment, which I think most all of us should be because it's such an important area of relationships, definitely go and cheque that one out. Okay, so let's talk about this mismatched libido and anxious avoidant sexual dynamics. Even as I say that it's such a big topic I don't even know where to begin. Maybe we can start by acknowledging that mismatched libido is incredibly common.
[00:03:15]:
If we think about libido as being this combination of our desire for sex, interacting with all of the reasons why we wouldn't want to have sex at any given moment, most often that's around stress. So our brain is going through this process of basically tallying up reasons for and against having sex. And some of us are really sensitive to the reasons against so that if there's any slight reason against having sex, we have no interest in sex, and we really don't want to go there, whereas some of us really are quite open to having sex most of the time, and we don't place a lot of weight on the reasons why we wouldn't want to have sex. And so when we've all got these complex equations going on with all of these different inputs and our levels of openness to sex at any given moment, is it any wonder that mismatched libido is so common? Of course it is. Right? It's so personal when and under what circumstances we feel like being intimate with a partner. And so when we've got two people with their own sets of equations and circumstances, it's rare that it's just going to organically line up all of the time. So mismatched libido is something that most people will encounter at some point in some season in one or more of the relationships in their life. So it's really not something to be ashamed of.
[00:04:34]:
It's just part of navigating relationships, is that you're likely to have to negotiate a little on this because it's unlikely you're going to just start and finish at the same point, pardon the pun, but you're not going to be 100% aligned on that all the time just because you're different people with different experiences. So recognising that libido is not something that's objective in terms of what is normal, right? And ask anyone, any experts in the field of sexuality, there's no objective metric for what a normal amount of sex is or what a healthy amount of sex is. A standard libido is wanting sex x amount of it's not like that. It's really what's normal for you and what allows you to feel like your sexual needs are being satisfied and is not causing you any distress. So if you're having sex three times a year, but that is perfectly fine for you, then that's your normal and that's fine. Whereas someone else might need to be having sex three times a week minimum to be feeling like their sexual needs are being met. And part of being in relationship with someone is negotiating your needs to the extent that there are divergences and finding ways to meet in the middle or find ways for both of you to get your needs met. To the extent that there are vast differences in your needs that feel like you can't bridge the gap, then maybe you're not compatible, right? But before we get to not compatible, let's look at some of the ways that this might show up in relationship and particularly why it might be present in anxious avoidant dynamics and why it might cause particular distress in those dynamics.
[00:06:08]:
So, for anxiously attached people, sex is often used as a barometer for the overall health of the relationship. So if my partner wants sex and we're having sex and they seem to be sexually satisfied, then I feel safe and reassured and wanted and desired and all of those things. And that's like a big tick in terms of I can relax because there's nothing wrong, right? I use sex as the litmus test for whether the relationship is going well overall and because anxiously attached people tend to struggle with unworthiness and fears of being undesirable and also jealousy or fears about potential infidelity or just outside threats to the relationship, sex feels like a really important glue to hold things together. And so, to the extent that there's any change in the sexual dynamic or their partner pulls away sexually or loses interest sexually, even if just for a period of time, the anxiously attached person is likely to take that and spin it into a really catastrophic story. So the interpretation is likely to be very severe. There's something terribly wrong. They've lost interest in me, they don't find me attractive anymore, they're falling out of love with me, they're seeing someone else, there's someone else they're interested in and that's why they don't want me. All of these things are likely to go to existential threats to the relationship just because that's what we know anxious folks do.
[00:07:29]:
And so what often happens and why this can be such a predictable cycle is that at the start of a relationship between an anxious person and an avoidant person is there'll often be a lot of sexual chemistry and intensity as there tends to be in most relationships, certainly here. And then as the relationship progresses, becomes a little more serious and a little more stable and steady, the avoidant person will often start to pull away and they often won't really have a solid understanding of why that's happening for them. They might just have this inexplicable loss of desire or reduction in desire and attraction. And for the avoidant person they might start to make meaning out of that and go oh, maybe this means it's not the right relationship. What is often happening is that for avoidant folks, they don't really know how to desire someone that they love and someone that is a comfortable person who they have a level of intimacy and vulnerability with. For most avoidant folks, I think it would be fair to say that more casual sexual encounters are going to be more comfortable than more intimate ones. And that's kind of just the opposite for a lot of anxious people who go the more intimacy the better. But for avoidant folks, sex is vulnerable for all of us and it's really how we relate to that vulnerability that can change how we respond to that, to the idea of sexual intimacy.
[00:08:50]:
So for a lot of avoidant people, they won't really know how to have sex in a vulnerable way with someone that they love and so they can start to experience this withdrawal. And when that happens, the anxious person responds by testing escalating, upping the ante, trying to figure out if it's just all in their head or whether something really is wrong. So they might try and initiate more frequently, might try and be more affectionate with their partner to see whether they pull away or whether they're open receptive. And so the anxious person gets to work on gathering information and trying to test their hypothesis. And oftentimes the avoidant person feels that additional pressure pulls away more because they just feel overwhelmed. And then the anxious person goes well yes, I was right, they are pulling away, something really is wrong. And then it spirals and spirals because as one person escalates and the other pulls away and there's no actual open dialogue about anything, it's just both people living in these fear stories and whatever their self protective mechanisms are that just happen to be in direct opposition. So that's kind of a dynamic that I've previously termed the anxious avoidant sexual spiral.
[00:09:57]:
And you can probably imagine why if you've experienced it, I've experienced it, it's hard and it's really, really easy to internalise their stories of what's wrong? What have I done? Has something happened? Why do they not find me attractive anymore? What do I need to change about myself in order for them to desire me? Again, as is often the case, we take someone's behaviour and we make it about us and then we try and solve the problem by solving ourselves. And needless to say, that's really painful because usually it doesn't work and then we just feel like we failed and there's something really inherently wrong with us and the relationship. So all of that to say, there's a lot at play here and I think the first step in making any sort of headway here is can I depersonalise this? Now, I'm not going to tell you to not be impacted by it because I know that's not realistic and I can't even do that myself, right? Because it hurts and it's really easy to take that personally and to feel hurt by it. And that's I think totally fair enough. But we want to just interrupt between hurt and there's something wrong with me where that story starts to take root. That's what we want to interrupt and just soften away that story rather than feeding that and going, okay, this is uncomfortable, or this is painful. How can I change myself or do things differently or start frantically over functioning to try and get this person to want me? Because that's really kind of overstepping on where our responsibility lies. And we tend to then, as I said, feel like a failure if and when that doesn't work, which it usually doesn't.
[00:11:36]:
So can we hold on to the primary emotion of oh, this feels uncomfortable, this feels scary, I feel rejected, which is not good, I feel embarrassed. Even all of those things really normal. But can we just nudge in between that and the stories that spring from it and try and be really careful there so that we don't add more suffering to what is already a painful experience? I think when we can do that, we can also tend to those emotions more skillfully and we can share with our partner from a place that is self honouring and honest without being really, really charged with all those stories that we've been crafting and spinning around in our head. So being able to say to someone, look, it's really important to me and I really value when we're intimate and I've noticed that recently you've been less open to that. Is that something that you'd be willing to talk about? Is there something going on for you? And really being open minded and curious rather than projecting all of the fears and the hypotheses that you might have as to what's going on for them, seeking to understand. And if they are reluctant to have the conversation, you can kind of say, look, I get it. I get that this is really uncomfortable. It's not really comfortable for me either, but it's important to me.
[00:12:51]:
We don't have to have the conversation right now, but we do need to have it because it's important to me that we nurture this part of our relationship. And I really want us to be able to do that in a way that feels safe and good for both of us and here's what I'd need in that respect. So really being firm but compassionate in the way that you approach the conversation with your partner and emphasising everything that I've shared with you, that it's not something to be ashamed of. Mismatched libido is super common and stress is such a big part of it. So having a little more awareness around what goes into our experience of sexual desire, what we call libido, and tinkering with the variables. So if I know that being really tired at the end of the day is not conducive to sexual desire, then maybe you need to reverse engineer your environment to be trying to initiate sex at other times of day when your partner is likely to be more conducive. Or if you know that when you guys don't have enough space and privacy, then that makes you more stressed than allows for an enjoyable experience. Right? We need to get really clear and specific on what factors contribute to and detract from our experience of desire in a way that allows us to get really pragmatic and just help ourselves out rather than being very passive and then hoping for a miracle and then feeling awful when things aren't going the way we'd hoped.
[00:14:20]:
So I think we need to dispel this idea that sex should be really effortless and romantic and easeful all the time and really go, okay, if this is something that we're prioritising in our relationship, like any other thing, any other type of quality time, then we need to prioritise it and stop just waiting for it to happen or to improve or whatever. That's not going to happen on its own. So going if this is something that we both value about our relationship, then we're going to need to be really active participants in that process and in making it really great. And again, some people will have resistance to that. Your partner might be of the view that it shouldn't be hard and that it should just come easily and that there's something wrong if it's not really natural and easeful. And I think you've just got to say to them, look, I understand that that's the messaging we've gotten, but I just don't think that that's true. And I think that that can be a defence mechanism that people come up with. It's like, oh, it shouldn't be this hard and that's why I'll just kind of run away and go find someone else where it'll all be easier and I'll just get to start from scratch.
[00:15:24]:
I think that that's just a defence mechanism that allows us to move away from vulnerability and convince ourselves that with the perfect person it'll all be easy. And of course, we know that that is unfortunately a myth. So I hope that this has given you at least a starting point. Obviously this is a huge discussion. I have had a few episodes previously around sex and sexual communication and sexual dynamics. You can scroll back through the archives if you want to listen to more on the podcast or as I said, the sex and attachment masterclass is very much a comprehensive deep dive on this issue and you can use the code podcast 50 to save 50% on that masterclass which we will link in the show notes. Or you can find via my website. Otherwise I really hope that this has been helpful and if it has, please do leave a review or a five star rating.
[00:16:11]:
I really do appreciate so much your ongoing support of the show and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again sooner.