What to Do When Your Sex Life Is Gridlocked, Stuck or Shut Down

/
how-to-get-out-of-sexual-gridlock.png

When sex is a source of perpetual conflict in your relationship, it becomes a gridlock issue. You might have small breakthroughs here and there, but ultimately nothing you do changes the situation in the long-run. 

Worse, you get stuck in what I call the “season’s effect.”

It has happened to all of us before.

You have that sticky area in your sex life. 

  • Maybe it’s your partner wishing you initiated more, were more interested in sex, wanted them more. 

  • Maybe it’s you wishing that you didn’t have to be pressured so much or be the one rejecting all the time. 

  • Maybe it’s getting stuck over asking for what you need and not getting your partner to change their behavior.

Whatever your pattern, it’s laden with frustration and resentment. 
You don’t feel heard or understood.

And it happens over and over.
Like you’re stuck in “Groundhog Day” — with no way out.

In relationships where this gridlock exists, it rears its ugly head in seasons. Like the seasons of nature, it comes and goes, almost predictably.

Things may be going well, smoothly, until you see a look in your partner’s eyes or feel a change of tone in their voice ... and you find yourself back in the land of frustration. 

The storm approaches …

You feel the heat of your anger rise up in your chest. 

One of you decides to give it one last push, to argue your point, and repeat your side of the picture. Wishing that the other will hear them this time. 

Or you withdraw, like you've always done before, and wish that this wasn’t happening — again. You might just want this problem to just disappear. 

But no luck. You’re back into the old pattern. The same old conversation you’ve had with your partner a thousand times before. The same words. The same frustrations. The same dead end. 

Whatever your coping mechanism, you feel angry, disappointed, perhaps exasperated, and tired of the whole thing. 

One of you might end up withdrawing in the garage or the bedroom, busying themselves to take the edge of. Or you might give your partner the cold shoulder for the rest of the day — or week. Sometimes one (or both) of you plays victim and blame each other or make threats:

“You always do this.”
“You don’t care about me.”
“You’re always the innocent one here.”

At some point, when things cool down, one of you apologizes. Or both of you do.

You want to break out of the gridlock so badly.
You want to be on your partner’s good side, to be understood, to be valued, to feel loved again ... like you were in the beginning.

You want your partner to see that you want to change and are trying hard, really hard.

You promise to make progress … to work on your sexual desire … to TRY HARDER. 

You promise to initiate more, to be more flirtatious, to be interested in sex more.

You promise that things will change.

And so the good season begins ...

You feel there is change in the air.
The sun shines brighter, the birds sing louder.

You find that new book to read. 
You commit to more date nights.
You reach out to touch each other more.
You are playful with each other.

And you maintain it for a couple of weeks. 
You see small shifts, good shifts. 
Like scheduling date nights and having fun at a concert. 
You stick to scheduling sex for a few weeks and achieving the goal of having more of it.
There is more lightness in your relationship, less tension.

You feel good about yourselves, and optimistic too — like change is on the horizon. 
“Maybe this is it,” you hope. 
“We’re putting this awful pattern behind us.”

Until … you miss the scheduled sex night.
Or forget to passionately kiss your partner hello when they walk into the door because you’re distracted. Or your partner rejects your tepid enthusiasm because you’re tired as simply not enough.

And you trigger the same response that began this cycle. 

The skies darken, the mood changes; it’s back to darkness again. 

Have you been here before? 

In the land of the changing seasons of emotional gridlock? 

A place where you find yourselves in the same scenarios over and over.

In cycles of frustration and despair, then excitement and possibilities, then back to despair again.

It’s like “Groundhog Day,” with the same scenario, the same words, the same outcomes playing out over and over again. With no movement forward. 

Each partner ends up feeling hurt, frustrated, and rejected. 

As promises are not delivered on, the trust in each other continues to erode. 

You feel further and further apart, your hearts closing to each other. 

With each round, you feel more exhausted and hopeless. 

You default into thoughts of despair:
“Does this mean that this is over?”
”Is divorce the answer?”

And your inner sense of confidence erodes too. 

The burning feeling of shame eats you as you face another round of failed attempts.
“Why can’t I change?!” you think.
“What’s wrong with me?”

And your partner feels rejected, and pulls away, making this even harder. 

You feel their anger and their rejection too. And it is all so painful.

And it happens over and over.

Reasons You Cannot Sustain Positive Efforts for More than a Few Weeks

1. You take small steps to fix a bleeding wound

You promise to work harder ...
You get the best book ... 

Yet little things set you off back to square one.

That’s because …

You’re not just going through sexual gridlock.
You’re going through emotional gridlock — and that’s far harder to break.

The deep emotional disconnect is what has you bounce back and forth between good seasons and bad. 

In fact, taking small steps such as another YouTube video create the illusion that you’re doing something, but simply steal time that works against your relationship.

The emotional rift underneath is bleeding out.

Waiting to reach out for personalized support actually delays the SOS that’s needed for your relationship. According to research by the foremost relationship researcher, John Gottman, couples wait eight years before seeking support. But in those eight years, you do a lot of damage.

Through the cycles of rejection, frustration and hurt, couples end up emotionally disengaging from each other. The very heart of your romantic partnership — the ability to connect heart to heart and see and hear each other — crumbles.

When they emotionally disengage, they end up hardening positions against each other. And trust erodes. 

Without trust, you get your guards up against each other. You “test” each other with every move. And naturally, when both people walk on eggshells, they eventually mess up, confirming that they cannot be trusted.

Emotional gridlock is natural and common; we all get stuck in it.

This does not mean the end of the relationship — if you get support in time that gets you the right tools to rebuild that trust.

2. You keep doing the same things and hoping that your partner will finally understand you

In other words, you keep putting out an electric fire with water and wondering why it keeps electrocuting you back. Ouch! 

The thing is that resolving emotional gridlock requires new skills — skills that are very different from the ones that you’re using today.

You cannot get out of sexual and emotional gridlock by doing the same thing that got you into gridlock to begin with. 

That’s the definition of insanity.

Trying harder is not the answer.
You’ve been trying hard enough. 

Putting more effort into what’s already not working will have you lose self-esteem, rather than gain it. It makes you feel further apart, rather than closer. It will erode trust, rather than build it.

Gridlock does not have to mean divorce or separation. It is an opportunity to bring new life to your relationship.

Successfully working through this kind of emotional gridlock requires the development and practice of new skills — the first of which is admitting that you’re stuck and need the support of a specialist.

You have to reestablish trust and emotional connection in your relationship before you can deal with the sex gridlock. You have to find your way back to each other.

The emotional healing has to happen before you move to trying new things sexually. It has to take place before you ask each other one more time to do something differently. Or you’ll be stuck in gridlock, again.

P.S. When you’re ready to find your way back to yourself and your partner, here are a few options for you: