I hear this more often than you might think. You’re lying there after sex, feeling hollow and used, wondering how the person who just touched your body can be so cold to your heart. Your husband wants you sexually, but outside the bedroom? You’re criticized, ignored, or treated like you barely exist.
If you’re reading this, you probably feel caught in a painful contradiction: desired but not valued, wanted but not loved, sexually pursued but emotionally abandoned. And you’re likely asking yourself the same questions my clients ask: Is this normal? Am I overreacting? Why does he want sex with me if he doesn’t even seem to like me?
Let me be clear from the start: What you’re experiencing is not okay, and you’re not crazy for feeling hurt by it.
After years of working with couples navigating these exact dynamics, I want to help you understand what’s happening in your relationship and, more importantly, what you can do about it. This pattern is more common than people realize, and while it’s deeply painful, it doesn’t have to be permanent.
Why This Hurts So Much
The pain you’re feeling isn’t just about bad treatment. It’s about the dissonance between physical intimacy and emotional distance. Sex is supposed to be one of the most connecting experiences between partners, but when someone uses you sexually while treating you poorly otherwise, it creates a unique kind of betrayal.
You end up feeling like an object rather than a person. Like your body matters but your feelings don’t. Like you’re good enough for his physical needs but not worthy of his respect, kindness, or emotional presence.
Related: Is my husband a narcissist?
This contradiction messes with your head because it sends mixed messages: “I want you” and “I don’t value you” happening simultaneously. Your body is accepted while your whole self is rejected. That’s not just hurtful—it’s psychologically destabilizing.
Many women in this situation start questioning their own perceptions. Maybe you’ve wondered if you’re being too sensitive or expecting too much. You’re not. Wanting to be treated with basic decency by your husband isn’t asking for the moon. It’s the bare minimum of what marriage should be.
What’s Actually Happening (From a Therapist’s Perspective)
When I work with couples dealing with this dynamic, I usually see one or more of these patterns at play:
1. Compartmentalization of Sex and Intimacy
Some men have learned to separate sex from emotional connection. For them, sex is a physical need or release that doesn’t require—or even include—feelings of love, respect, or emotional intimacy. This often comes from how they were socialized about sex, messages they received growing up, or their own relationship with vulnerability.
They genuinely may not understand that for most women, emotional connection and respectful treatment are prerequisites for wanting sex. They’re not making the connection between how they treat you on Tuesday and whether you want to be intimate on Friday.
2. Using Sex as Connection When They Can’t Connect Emotionally
Paradoxically, some men pursue sex because it’s the only way they know how to feel close to their partner. They’re emotionally stunted or afraid of vulnerability, so physical intimacy becomes their substitute for the emotional intimacy they can’t provide. The problem is, they’re seeking connection in a way that actually creates more distance because it feels one-sided and objectifying to you.
3. Power and Control Dynamics
Sometimes—and this is harder to hear—the poor treatment outside the bedroom is about exerting power and control. Seeking sex while treating you badly can be a way of keeping you off-balance, making you try harder to earn affection, or maintaining dominance in the relationship. If he’s also controlling in other ways, dismissive of your needs, or shows other signs of emotional abuse, this is especially concerning.
4. Unaddressed Resentment
Your husband might be carrying resentment about something in the relationship that he’s never properly addressed. He’s angry or hurt, but instead of talking about it, he withdraws emotionally while still pursuing sex. It’s a passive-aggressive pattern where he punishes you emotionally but still wants sexual access.
5. Modeling What He Learned
If your husband grew up watching his father treat his mother this way, or if he absorbed cultural messages that wives are supposed to provide sex regardless of how they’re treated, he may genuinely not see the problem. He’s operating from a broken template of what marriage looks like.
Understanding these patterns doesn’t excuse the behavior, but it can help you see what you’re dealing with and whether change is possible.
The Questions You Need to Ask Yourself
Before we talk about what to do, you need to get honest with yourself about a few things:
Is the poor treatment ongoing and pervasive, or is it periodic? There’s a difference between a husband who’s generally loving but going through a stressful period where he’s withdrawn and irritable, versus someone who consistently treats you with contempt except when he wants sex. The latter is a much more serious problem.
Have you clearly communicated how this makes you feel? Some men genuinely don’t realize the impact of their behavior until it’s spelled out explicitly. If you haven’t had a direct conversation about this pattern, that needs to happen before you can assess whether he’s willing to change.
When you do express your hurt, how does he respond? Does he get defensive and blame you? Does he minimize your feelings? Does he apologize but never change anything? Or does he actually listen and try to understand? His response to your vulnerability tells you a lot about whether this relationship can heal.
Are there other signs of emotional abuse or control? Does he monitor your activities, isolate you from friends and family, control finances, or regularly put you down? Sexual use combined with other controlling behaviors is a red flag that shouldn’t be ignored.
How is this affecting your sense of self? Are you losing your confidence? Feeling depressed or anxious? Starting to believe the negative things he implies about you? The impact on your mental health matters and needs to be part of your decision-making.
What You Can Do About It
You have more power in this situation than you might think, even though it doesn’t feel like it right now. Here are the steps I walk my clients through:
Step 1: Stop Participating in the Pattern
If you’re having sex with him while feeling used and disrespected, you’re reinforcing the pattern. I know this is complicated—you might fear his anger, worry about the relationship ending, or feel obligated. But continuing to have sex when you feel treated like crap teaches him that this arrangement works.
You have the right to say no to sex when you don’t feel emotionally safe or respected in the relationship. This isn’t withholding sex as punishment; it’s honoring your own boundaries and dignity. Sex and intimacy should emerge from a foundation of mutual respect, not exist in spite of its absence.
Step 2: Have the Direct Conversation
Pick a calm moment (not right after sex, not during an argument) and be completely direct. Use specific examples: “When you criticize my cooking but then want to be intimate that night, it makes me feel like you only value my body. When you ignore me all day but then pursue sex, I feel used rather than loved.”
Focus on the pattern rather than isolated incidents. “I’ve noticed that you seek out sex, but outside the bedroom, I don’t feel valued or respected. I need to understand what’s happening because I can’t continue feeling this way.”
Watch his response carefully. Is he willing to hear you? Does he take responsibility? Or does he deflect and make it your fault?
Step 3: Insist on Couples Therapy
This pattern doesn’t usually resolve without outside help. The dynamics are too entrenched, and both partners need support to understand what’s happening and change it. Couples therapy provides a structured environment where you can address these issues with professional guidance.
If he refuses therapy, that tells you something important about his willingness to work on the relationship. You can still pursue couples therapy for one, where you work with a therapist on your own to understand the dynamics and decide what you want to do.
For couples not in the same location or with scheduling challenges, online couples counseling can be just as effective and often easier to coordinate.
Step 4: Set Clear Boundaries
Boundaries aren’t threats—they’re statements of what you will and won’t accept in your life. This might sound like:
“I’m not willing to be intimate when I don’t feel respected and valued in our relationship. If you want a sexual relationship with me, I need to feel like you actually like me as a person.”
“I won’t accept being criticized or ignored and then be expected to be sexually available. Our intimate life needs to be connected to how we treat each other overall.”
“I need to see consistent effort and change, not just promises. That means therapy, actual behavior changes, and time to rebuild trust.”
Boundaries only work if you enforce them. If you set a boundary and then don’t follow through, you teach him that your boundaries don’t matter.
Step 5: Decide What You’re Willing to Accept Long-Term
Here’s the hard truth: Some men will hear your pain and make genuine efforts to change. Others won’t. Some will try for a while and then slip back into old patterns. And some will get angry that you’re no longer accepting the status quo.
Related: My boyfriend called me a fat pig!
You need to think about what you’re willing to live with if nothing changes. Can you stay in a marriage where you’re sexually desired but emotionally neglected? Can you accept intermittent improvements that never stick? Or do you need fundamental change or you’re out?
I’m not telling you to leave—that’s your decision. But I am telling you to get clear about your non-negotiables. Too many women stay for years in this painful limbo, hoping things will magically improve while their self-worth erodes.
What If He Won’t Change?
If you’ve clearly communicated your needs, set boundaries, asked for therapy, and he still won’t address how he treats you, you’re facing a difficult reality: He’s choosing this dynamic. Whether consciously or not, he’s decided that having sexual access while treating you poorly is acceptable to him.
At that point, you have to decide what’s acceptable to you. Staying doesn’t mean you’re weak—sometimes there are legitimate reasons people stay in imperfect relationships. But staying should be a conscious choice you make with eyes wide open, not something that happens because you’re afraid to rock the boat.
Some questions to consider:
- What message does staying in this dynamic send to your children about what relationships should look like?
- What is this relationship costing you in terms of your mental health, self-esteem, and quality of life?
- If nothing changed, could you live like this for another five years? Ten years? Twenty?
- What would you tell your best friend or daughter if she were in this exact situation?
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do—for yourself and even for him—is to stop accepting unacceptable treatment. When you stay in a dynamic where someone treats you poorly, you enable that behavior to continue. Change often only happens when there are real consequences.
A Word About Emotional Abuse
I need to address something important: If your husband’s treatment of you includes regular criticism, belittling, controlling behavior, isolation from friends and family, financial control, intimidation, or any physical aggression, you’re not just dealing with a disconnected spouse. You’re dealing with emotional or domestic abuse.
Sexual coercion—where you feel pressured or obligated to have sex—is also a form of abuse, especially when combined with other controlling or manipulative behaviors.
Abuse doesn’t get better with couples therapy. In fact, couples therapy can make abuse worse by giving the abuser more information about your vulnerabilities and more tools to manipulate you. If you recognize signs of abuse in your relationship, please reach out to resources like the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) for guidance on how to stay safe.
You Deserve Better Than This
I want you to hear this clearly: You deserve to be with someone who treats you with respect and kindness both inside and outside the bedroom. You deserve a partner who sees you as a whole person, not a collection of body parts. You deserve to feel valued, cherished, and emotionally safe.
The fact that your husband wants sex with you isn’t a compliment if he treats you terribly the rest of the time. Sexual desire without respect is objectification, not love.
I know it’s complicated. You might still love him. You might have children together, shared finances, a life you’ve built. You might remember times when things were better and hope you can get back there. All of that is valid and real.
But none of it makes it okay for him to treat you like crap while using you sexually. None of it means you have to accept this pattern. And none of it means you’re wrong for wanting something different.
Moving Forward
Whether you’re working on your relationship or considering leaving it, therapy can help you navigate this painful situation with clarity and support. You don’t have to figure this out alone.
If you’re looking for help in understanding these dynamics and deciding what comes next, couples therapy provides a space to address these issues directly. And if your husband won’t participate, individual therapy or couples therapy for one can still give you the support and perspective you need to make decisions that honor your worth.
You are not asking for too much. You’re asking for the basics of what every marriage should have: mutual respect, emotional connection, and genuine care. If your husband can’t or won’t provide that, the question isn’t what’s wrong with you. The question is what you’re going to do about it.
You have the right to be treated well by your spouse. You have the right to feel valued as a whole person. And you have the right to insist that sex happens in the context of a respectful, caring relationship—not in spite of its absence.
Whatever you decide, make sure it’s a decision that honors your dignity and worth. You deserve nothing less.
