Are you in a committed relationship with a man who refuses to have sex with you? Do you constantly ask yourself, "My husband won't sleep with me... is there something wrong with me"?

If so, you are NOT alone. Many women are sexually unfulfilled in their partnerships. Take comfort in knowing this and in knowing that, in most cases, his lack of desire has nothing to do with him thinking you are not beautiful or in good enough physical shape to want to enjoy your body.

There are a few different reasons some men refuse sex with their wives or girlfriends:

1. They are depressed and their libido suffers as a result.
2. They are experiencing low hormone levels.
3. They have serious fears and insecurities surrounding sex.
4. They are gay and hiding in a straight relationship. Whether they are having sex with men or not.
5. They are getting their sexual needs met through other avenues that do not require as much or any emotional intimacy, like sex-based affairs, porn or prostitution.
6. They are not emotionally connected to you and don’t feel desirous of you as a result. This could mean they are or are not currently emotionally connected with another woman and sleeping with her as a result.

You certainly can and should investigate your man’s reasons for not wanting sex by engaging him in quality, safe, non-shaming communication. If he does mention that he is feeling down, has issues with being sexual, or if he comments about his interest in porn, please encourage him to seek help.

If reason 6 is the culprit, then this is good news. Deepening the emotional intimacy in your relationship and making him feel more desired is absolutely in your power to fix.

Here are two things you can do to improve his sexual desire for you by improving the level of emotional intimacy in your marriage:

1. Give yourself permission to feel your negative feelings.

To deny your partner sex can lead to justified deep resentment and anger. You are not being validated as desirous by the person who is supposed to be your confidence-builder and self-esteem healer. Naturally, you are bound to feel awful inside if your man continually rejects your body and sex.

You must be very kind to yourself and your feelings surrounding this issue. You need to take care of yourself and treat yourself gently. You also need to allow negative emotion to surface and boil up inside you.

There is a big difference between feeling your feelings and acting on your feelings. Most women don’t want to accept how dark and painful their feelings of sexual rejection are and, as a result, those feelings bottle-up and then take over, making these women act out in ways that are damaging to the relationship and to their own self-esteem.

Examples include:

• Berating their husband to his face or behind his back
• Flirting dangerously with other men
• Acting jealous and spiteful with female married friends
• Throwing themselves at their husbands and then explode with emotion when they are rejected

Ironically enough, when you allow yourself to feel all your dark feelings about his sexual problem, you are less likely to act out on those feelings. When you bring negative feelings to the forefront of your conscious mind, they don't subconsciously make decisions for you.You want to strive to be a witness to all your feelings without them owning you in moments of weakness. Giving yourself permission to feel your negative feelings is much easier when you are taking care of yourself by pampering yourself, praising yourself, doting on yourself.

When you are in a positive place about your body and your self-image, you can risk diving into those dark emotions when they rear their ugly heads, because you'll know that you can come out of them and return to a place of self-acceptance and general inner peace.  

When you are not allowing yourself to love your body, and your whole self-image is wrapped up in how you feel your husband sees you, you are NOT going to risk diving into those dark emotions. They will bottle up deep down inside you and eventually they will spew. Self-providing your own sexual needs as much as possible is a must for this reason.

It's helpful to list the reasons why sex is important for you and find 3 ways to self-provide these reasons best you can.

Example: I love sex because it makes me feel...

• Validated as beautiful
• Great inside when I orgasm
• Relieved of stress

I can self-provide validation by...

• Saying mantras in the mirror about how beautiful I am
• Taking photos of myself on my iPhone and uploading them to soak in the compliments
• Treating myself once a week to a new item of clothing or a beauty product

You get the idea. The point is to start looking out after you so that you can start allowing all your feelings to surface. This will stop you from sabotaging your relationship with your man and from taking the hurt his cold shoulder has caused you and putting an even deeper wedge between you both.

2. Communicate your feelings to him.

Once you start taking care of yourself and facing the reality of how hurt you truly feel inside, it’s time to start sharing that hurt... productively. The way you communicate your feelings to a man is so important. When you communicate your hurt (even anger) to a man, you allow yourself to share your female vulnerability with him.

The scarier you feel inside to say something to a man, the more likely you need to say it. Usually, the scariest things to say to him are not criticisms or judgments of him, they are revelations about your insecurities and needs.

Telling a man how much you hurt inside and how scared you are about no longer feeling beautiful or lovable is not easy. However, if you can share your raw truth with your man, and can do so from a place of openness and love, his cold feelings toward you will vanish.

Usually, men who choose not to make love with their wives are angry. Sometimes, they are angry at her, sometimes at women in general, and sometimes at something else completely. Sharing your vulnerability with him vaporizes that anger.

See, anger usually is just deep fear, and love that kills fear. The words you choose to use when you talk with your man, and the manner in which you communicate your feelings to him, can really influence his reaction to your words.