Isn’t sex the activity of choice?
Why withhold it from the one person who genuinely wants to be with them?
Because sometimes, sexual addiction actually reveals itself through a person’s repeated and prolonged state of not being in the mood for intimate love making.
Sometimes, in a sex addicts mind, anxiety and fear accompany appropriate sex and real love.
Sometimes, for some people, to be safe means intimacy during sex must be avoided.
To feel powerful, tenderness and affection must be rejected.
This is an intimacy anorexic’s world.
The intimacy anorexic, like a person who withholds actual food from him or herself, will try to resist close relational nourishment.
In Intimacy Anorexia: The Book, Dr. Douglass Weiss writes that some intimacy anorexics say they “will have nothing to do with sex. They avoid sex in so many ways by shutting themselves down and over time starve or punish their spouse with their lack of sex so that they intentionally create a sexless marriage at the cost of their spouse’s happiness.”
Harsh? Definitely. Especially if you’re the partner that hopes things will change or is bewildered by the anorexic’s addiction to porn, prostitutes, or strippers.
How can an intimacy anorexic person insist that the only problem is a lack of interest or that he or she is just not in the mood? It seems that “the mood” strikes him or her quite often…just not at home.
But look closer. When a person truthfully says he or she isn’t in the mood, one or more of these factors is usually impacting sexual desire or performance:
- Stress or pressure at work or home
- Sexual Problems related to a health issue or medication
- Reduced drive due sleep disruptions
- Feelings of resentment or unresolved conflict
- An unmet need for time, communication, or fun
Are these the issue with your partner?
If not, consider the telltale signs of an intimacy anorexic:
An intimacy anorexic gets into less trouble acting out than he or she does “acting in.”
- Inside his or her head is an unbearable tension of sexual compulsion and relational isolation.
- Inside his or her relationship is an unacceptable threat of connection and subsequent rejection. Power plays over sex and intimacy become a primary focus and wholly destructive to the relationship and the partner as well.
Whether or not he or she is in the mood has very little to do with why rejection, withdrawal, and isolation have become the primary ways he or she handles sex in a committed relationship. Though she may pretend a long string of headaches make sex impossible. Or he repeats that early mornings at work keep him perpetually out of the mood.
Dr. Weiss also notes, that “some anorexics purposely negatively reinforce sex so their spouse doesn’t want to be sexual with them because of their intentional negative reinforcement.” Hence they stay aloof, not in the mood, isolated.
Sexual activity taking place outside the relationship is like bingeing on junk food. It’s junk sex. Unfulfilling and unsatisfying, requiring no real investment or preparation, and unlikely to stick with him or her.
The truth is intimacy anorexics would rather cut off loving connection and touch altogether rather than deal with the possibility of vulnerability or pain.
The only solution for that is to be perpetually “not in the mood” in order to avoid dealing with suppressed emotions, anxiety, and buried trauma.
If recovery is to be made, those deeply hidden hurts must be worked through, so that a relationship can be completely appreciated and enjoyed.