The Hidden Reasons She Pulls Away and 9 Ways to Reconnect

In the last few days, I’ve spoken with two men who were struggling in their relationships. They love their partners, but they are frustrated. Both men described the same issue: intimacy has faded, physical affection feels tense, and sexual connection is often absent.

Each of the men were trying not to blame their partners for the lack of sex, with different degrees of success. And both men said something along the lines of, “I just want her to get help so we can have a normal sex life again.”

Both were sympathetic to their partners’ histories of sexual assault or abuse, but they didn’t really understand why the past was still affecting the present. And how they can help.

Here’s what I told them:

Trauma lives in the body, not just the mind

Every woman has been conditioned to respond to male arousal, women are trained to respond to an erection as if it is something they have to respond positively to, because they have to protect a mans ego and be in service to it, or because not dealing with it could lead to negative consequences. Please understand that this isn’t your fault. It’s a product of patriarchy*** and the objectification and subjugation of women through centuries that is passed down through intergenerational trauma and women’s DNA.

This alone is burden enough. But when a woman has also lived through sexual assault or abuse, her nervous system learns that male arousal equals danger. Even decades later, her body can react as if the past is happening right now. This is not her conscious choice. It is the way her brain and body have wired themselves for the survival of horrific circumstances.

So when you approach her with your arousal and your needs, even with love and tenderness, and even with the best of intentions, her body may interpret that arousal not as affection, but as a potential threat. To her nervous system, it’s not that “my partner is turned on.” It’s more likely to be an unconscious response of “his arousal represents pressure, coercion, secrecy, shame, danger, violation, violence and even death.”

That’s how deeply trauma imprints itself.

Why she may pull away

This is why she may resist holding your hand, cuddling, or responding to your platonic advances. It’s not that she doesn’t love you. It’s not even necessarily that she doesn’t want to be close to you. It’s that once a connection is established, her body is tells her that you won’t stop with the kiss on the cheek, her nervous system says that you will want mire and she won’t be able to stop you. You see, her nervous system and her neural pathways are still working with the past trauma and haven’t updated to send new signals of, “I’m safe now.”

And here’s the difficult truth: when you place the responsibility for your sexual needs on her, when you say, in essence, “I need you to fix this trauma so I can have sex again”, you’re not just turning her off. You are unintentionally re-creating the same conditions of unsafety, thereat and coercion that she has already lived through: and reminding her body of situations where she couldn’t say no or her no was ignored.

The hidden cost of masking

Many women push through for years, trying to keep their partners happy. They may go along with sex they don’t truly want, or they may overperform to try to ignore or overcome their difficulties. They may wear the mask of being “fine.” Or even enthusiastic, but it’s unsustainable and eventually, the cost is too high. As she begins to heed the effects of the trauma and fear responses in her body, her body will rebel and the mask(s) that she worked so hard to maintain, for you, for her and for the relationship will fall away.

What can painfully feel like rejection of you is actually an unconscious rejection of the danger signals her nervous system still associates with sex and intimacy.

In both these cases, the women actually wanted to have more sex, intimacy and connection with their partners, but could no longer ‘go along with’ or perform.

What healing requires

Healing does not come from pressure. Healing does not come from guilt, ultimatums, or frustration. She cannot force herself to perform for you, and if she does, she will be betraying herself. When she is saying no to you, she is actually saying yes to herself, to reclaiming autonomy over her own body.

It’s not that seeing a therapist won’t help, but most of all, healing comes from safety. From patience. From consistency. From repeated experiences of trust. From the deep knowledge that she can say no, and you will honour her. When you respond to her no with a heartfelt ‘thank you’ or ‘thank you for taking care of yourself’, you reinforce that her no’s are as welcome as her yes’s. And that her safety and wellbeing is more important to you than any feelings of rejection you may feel. After all, do you really want your partner to have sex against her will? No, I didn’t think so.

If you want intimacy with your partner again, here are some steps to consider:

1. Prioritise building trust. Not just in the bedroom, but by taking out the trash when you say you will, by holding up your end of the bargain. Doing what you say at the right time.
2. Prioritise emotional safety over sexual fulfilment. Let her know she never has to perform for you. Her body and her boundaries are hers. Thank her when she says no.
3. Listen without trying to fix. If she shares her story, It will be hard for you to hear. How could it not be? Yet when you simply listen to her experiences, how she feels and witness her emotions, her pain without judgement. And when you resist the urge to minimise, rush past it or fix it, you can help her to move through the shame, fear and anger that surrounds her experiences.
4. Notice how you initiate. If your advances are often physical, try beginning with connection; talking, laughing, spending time together. Trust grows from non-sexual intimacy too.
5. Respect her “no” as sacred. Every time you honour her no with a ‘thank you’, you help build the safety she needs for a genuine yes.
6. Encourage support, but don’t demand it. Therapy, trauma-informed counselling, and healing practices can help. But the decision to pursue these must be hers, not something she’s pressured into.
7. Take sex off the table. Communicate that you are offering and seeking platonic, non-sexual intimacy that you both want, so that you can both disentangle emotional intimacy and platonic touch that is often (mostly) conflated with sexual arousal.
8. Get support for yourself. It can be painful and lonely to navigate this. Speaking to a therapist yourself can help you process your own frustration without putting that emotional labour and burden on her.
9. Manage your arousal. Rather than dealing with your frustration by seeking seӿ elsewhere, or through porn, fantasy and resentful, functional or boring masturbation, learn how to nurture, honour and channel your sexual energy so that it becomes something for you to celebrate and savour. And as fuel for your vitality and your life.

The bigger picture

The goal here is not just to restore a “normal” sex life. The real goal is a relationship where emotional and sexual intimacy can be safe, mutual, and deeply desired by both of you.

When your partners body finally trusts that your arousal does not equal danger; when you have shown her again and again that you are safe and trustworthy, that she is safe; then intimacy can flourish in a way that is not only “normal” but richer, deeper, and more authentic than before.

I support individuals and couples through my one-to-one sessions, Wheel of Consent trainings, psychotherapy sessions and I supoprt men specifically through The Art of Personal and Sexual Mastery programme.

Arrange a call using this link.

*** I talk more about patriarchy and how this system of oppression doesn’t only affect women, but has negatively impacted the lives of all of humans, in my free downloadable book From the Bedroom to the World: Seӿ as a Key to Unlocking Your True Manhood.