Is your 'low libido' actually your body setting boundaries?

Avoiding sex? Feeling the "ick" when your partner initiates? Going to bed at 8pm to dodge intimacy? You probably think you have low libido. But what if that's not what's actually happening?

In this vulnerable episode, I share my own story of years spent in what I call "the messy middle"—that phase where you've stopped having sex you don't want, but you haven't figured out what you DO want yet. From the outside, it looked like my libido vanished. But what was really happening? My body was setting boundaries after years of performing intimacy.

I walk you through the three phases: passive withdrawal (where most people get stuck), learning to own your voice and have the hard conversation, and discovering your authentic pleasure. I also share the specific fears that keep people stuck—"What if talking about this makes it worse?"—and what actually helps you move forward.

Note: This pattern happens most for women due to socialization, but it affects anyone who's learned to perform sexually rather than connect authentically.

If you're in the messy middle, this episode will help you understand why—and what comes next.

Get my free guide: 5 Steps to Start Solving Desire Differences
(Without Blame or Shame), A Practical Starting Point for Individuals and Couples, at https://laurajurgens.com/libido

Find out more about my offerings and read the blog: https://laurajurgens.com/

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Transcript

0:01  
Laura, welcome to the desire gap podcast. I'm your host, Dr Laura Jurgens, and whether you want more sex than your partner or less, you are not wrong, and your relationship isn't doomed. You just need better tools to solve the struggles of mismatched libidos. That's what we do here, so welcome, and let's dive in. Hello, hello. Welcome to today's episode we're going to talk about is your low libido actually your body setting boundaries, and this is going to make some of you probably feel really seen, maybe uncomfortably so at first, but I promise this is worth hearing, and for others of you, this might give you some real insight into what is happening for your partner, if you are avoiding sex, if you are feeling the ick when your partner initiates, If you suddenly feel exhausted at 8pm or you're trying to go to bed early to avoid your partner, or stay awake very late to avoid being in bed at the same time as your partner, or pretend to take a bath, or whatever it is that you might be doing to avoid. Or if you're snippy and resentful, and you can't even really explain why, but you just want, you kind of feel like you have an aversion to their touch or their initiation. You may be thinking that there is something wrong with you for not wanting sex. You may be thinking you have low libido and that it is either a medical condition or a midlife transition issue, like a change in your hormones, and sometimes those things are contributing. But I also want to offer that there's some other things going on in midlife that could be equally, if not more important to your story. And also you may not even be in midlife. This can happen. What if this is not about just low libido or your hormones? What if what looks like low libido is actually your body finally setting some boundaries, especially if you won't so quick note, before I go any further, this pattern I'm talking about today happens most often for women, and it makes sense, because we've been socialized our whole lives to believe that our sexuality exists for other people, not for us. But I have also seen this happen with men, especially when sex starts to feel very performative, where it feels really centered on their penis, performing in whatever way they think that it should, or when they're in burnout and just juggling way too much, or dealing with depression and disconnected from themselves, but still feeling like They need to please their partner. So it does happen for people socialized of all genders, but it is really, really more common for women because of how much we're socialized to over care, take others at our own expense, and to to have our sexuality before other people. But whoever you are, if this resonates, then it's for you. So I'm going to share a little bit about my own story today of what I'm calling the messy middle, which is this phase where you've stopped doing what you don't want to do sexually, but you haven't figured out what you do want to do yet. And I want to help you understand why this phase is actually important and progress, even though it feels like total chaos and it can feel like a problem. And what I see oftentimes in it, when it does really become a problem, is when people get stuck in it. They get stuck in this phase of withdrawing, and they never make it to the other side, and I don't want that for you, so that's why we're going to do this episode today. So let's dive in. The thing I want to start with is just something I really, you know, I want to just be really vulnerable and honest with you about this. I didn't know for very many years that if, if I actually liked penetrative sex, like if I actually liked having an object in my vagina, did not know. Genuinely did not know. And I don't mean that I was confused about it philosophically. I mean, I'd spent so long just kind of going along with it, believing that I should like it, whether it was toy with a woman or whether it was an actual penis, that I never actually stopped to check in with myself about what I was what was true for me, because I was afraid. It meant that I was broken, and I had a really rough introduction to having objects in my vagina. All of my introductions were non consensual when I was a child, and so it is really normal for me, being a survivor of sexual abuse, to not know, but I didn't give myself permission around that, and so that that's, you know, hopefully not your experience, but it could be. But what I see is common with a lot a lot of my clients, whether they've had sexual abuse or not, is that they lose sensation after a while, when sex becomes performative and obligatory. And so people can wind up in this pattern, not because somebody else crossed their boundaries through violence, but because they cross their own boundaries through doing sex repeatedly for somebody else. And when I finally stopped and asked myself, okay, what do I actually feel? The answer for me was really uncomfortable. It was nothing. It was just nothing. I felt numb, and I figured out later why this made sense, and that I had been crossing my own boundaries for a really long time because I had been forcing myself to do something that I didn't even know if I liked, because I thought either, maybe I'll get there, maybe I'll find some enjoyment, right? And I knew that my partner liked it, right, but my I had been doing this for somebody else, and part of my shutdown was a protective mechanism of my body imposing boundaries that my mind wouldn't let me have for myself. And then on top of that, I was dealing with some old sexual trauma that I'd never actually processed, right? And a lot of people are carrying around both of those things without realizing how much they're affecting their desire. But at the time, I just thought something was wrong with me, and my partner was confused, and it looked from the outside like my libido had just vanished, like I just wasn't interested in intimacy anymore. But that wasn't it, and it's not it for most of my clients, where there's some aspect of this going on for them, they're not we're not uninterested in intimacy. We're uninterested in performing it. And there is a huge difference. There is a huge difference between not being interested in performing intimacy and not being interested in actually being connected to another human being. I still was interested in that. I just didn't know how to get there, and I really wanted to stop performing it, and my body was telling me that, even when my mind wouldn't really let me know. So let's look at what does this type of shutdown actually look like. Because for me, when I started pulling back from sex, it didn't happen with some big announcement. I didn't just like, sit down and be like, I am done. I'm never having sex again. I just started avoiding. Getting really busy going to bed earlier, right? And this is really common. People start avoiding. And I want to say, if this is you, I see you and you have good reasons, but it's not helping you. Avoiding and staying stuck in avoidance is really, really going to be challenging on your relationship, and I want to invite you you don't have to change it right now, like if that's what feels okay to you right now, just start noticing that that's what you're doing. And this is also common in this phase, to get that sort of aversion or kind of ick from when somebody is coming in, initiating with you and that sense, or like getting snippy about random stuff, right? Getting irritated. That is resentment from your allowing your own boundaries to be crossed, crossing your own boundaries over and over again, you will resent the other person if you were doing it on their behalf. There's no way out of that, and it will make you snippy, and it will make you get angry about random shit that normally wouldn't bother you, right? It's because we are trying to suppress the resentment that is just leaking out everywhere in our tone, our body language, the way we suddenly need to, like, you know, repack the car because we think our spouse didn't do it right, or the dishwasher. So I knew that I wanted a few things. I wanted more affection. I wanted more affection without obligation to have sex. I wanted different types of touch, but I wasn't very good at saying what I wanted. I could say things like, kind of not that way, but I couldn't really say what I wanted. And so my partner is over here.

10:00  
Feeling rejected, like he's constantly doing something wrong, but he doesn't know what, genuinely wanting to make things better, but also being kind of terrible at taking feedback, which made it really defensive, which made me shut down even more. And here, neither of us had good communication skills at this point. We were really just stuck in this awful loop, and this went on for years, plural, many years, and I was frustrated because I wanted affection without obligation, but I wasn't really holding any of my own boundaries anyway, and I didn't know how to ask for what I needed in a way that he could hear, and he didn't really know how to hear, right? So this is so common, and if this is you and in your relationship, I just want you to know this is you are not alone. This is what's happening to a lot a lot of couples out there. And there's absolutely solutions. There's absolutely ways out of this, even if you don't see it commonly talked about, and even if your therapist has no idea, and I want to be honest with you that most of your therapists will have no idea. They do not have good training in this. They do not have good training in nervous system dynamics with desire. And that's what this is, okay. So what I understand that I didn't then right, was that all of my pulling back was actually the beginning of growth, but it didn't look like what we think growth is, quote, unquote, supposed to look like. We have this idea that sexual empowerment looks like confidence and adventure and enthusiasm and like running around with all your sex toys, like and your whips and chains and your sexy lingerie, and like getting boudoir photos and whatever, right, that's what we think sexual empowerment looks like. And nobody tells you that it can actually look like disconnection, like avoiding your partner like saying no way more than you say yes. But I want to tell you that's exactly what happens when you first stop people pleasing with sex, when you stop trying to manage somebody else's feelings with your own body, because that's what it's about and you do when you finally, finally finally start listening to what you actually want instead of what you think you're supposed to want. It may look like shut down for a little while. It may look like avoidance. And yes, you do need to say no, and that's okay, but you don't have to pull into avoidance and disconnection when you say no, even if that's how it needs to start. And unfortunately, the this is the place where a lot of people get stuck because they don't understand that this is actually the beginning of growth. They just start judging themselves for it, feeling like there's something pathologically wrong with them about it. And they start barking up the wrong trees, right the like, just give me some hormones, or like, so that i i I can, like, force myself to have more of this obligation sex I've been having for years. No, that is not the right answer, and it's not because it's like these are well intentioned, smart people, but the world is not showing us the solutions that we need. So of course you're just grasping at straws. Of course you are. And I mean, kudos for you for taking action, for trying. But the problem is, if you're trying a bunch of the wrong things, then you get burned out and start feeling like it's hopeless, but it's not hopeless. It's not hopeless, and there's nothing wrong with you for being in phase one of growth, which looks like avoidance. Okay, we can get the problem here is that most people, and I'm including myself here for a long time, get really good at this sort of passive, no, the avoiding, the excuses, creating distance, but they never actually learn how to use their own voice. So I had stopped, successfully, successfully stopped having sex I didn't want, which, you know, was necessary, but to reclaim my sexuality and not just shut it down, I eventually had to be able to sit down with my partner and have a really vulnerable conversation. And that's what everybody needs to do to get out of this place. Something like, Hey, I can't keep having sex just for you. I need to figure out what actually feels good to me, and I need your help with that. Could we get curious together about this, and can we take all the pressure off? Any pressure for you to be amazing. You do not have to be off for me to be satisfied. I do not have to be and can we just, like, hit a restart button to rethink what we're doing here and start from the beginning and look, I get it. That's a really scary conversation to have. It was for me, and I needed help learning how to even approach. Coach that I was still teaching university of biology, and I wound up diving deep into relationship and intimacy, coaching, training and shifting out of being a coach for women in science, partly because I was trying to figure this out and heal this stuff for myself, and because everything I learned, the communication skills I learned, they didn't just change my sex life. They changed how I showed up everywhere in my life, all of my relationships got better. My relationship with myself underwent a radical shift. I finally had the tools to have the conversations I needed to have with me and with my partner and with everyone else in my life, and it was so wonderful. It was so connecting to finally be that honest and vulnerable with myself and with my husband was amazing. And the bonus I didn't expect was that I learned that my partner is actually really good at communication when he has the right tools, like epic at it. He just didn't have them before. He didn't know what he didn't know, and we didn't know what we didn't know. And so the most important thing that happened was when I started showing up for my own needs and my own boundaries, with my actual voice and my curiosity and vulnerability, not just avoidance, my body started to trust me again, that is the most important thing that happened. And I started to be able to feel myself from the inside and to find my own pleasure as a resource for navigating this challenging world. We have been given pleasure, and it is beautiful, if you can feel it. And so this was really huge. This was huge for me, and I got access to more energy and aliveness than I've ever had before, really late. You know, some people might say in your 40s, that's pretty late. Well, who cares? I would have taken it in my 80s, if that's the earliest I could have gotten it and been grateful it is not ever too late. But the thing is, if we get stuck in just avoidance, in passive No, instead of owning our No, then it we just get stuck in this place of avoiding our own power, avoiding our own joy, and avoiding our connection. And so this is the part that most people, to be honest, just never get to is starting to own your no learning to say it directly, not just through avoidance. That's a big deal, and it's the first step, but it's only the first step, right? Because then the next transformation that happens is when you go to be able to say no and feel free to do that, and feel like you've got your own back when you do it, and you're not going to guilt or shame yourself. The real transformation happens when you go from being able to say no to finding your authentic Yes. And by that I mean what you do actually want, not what you think you should want, not what works for your partner, not what works on movies and for you know, the porn stars that you have no idea what's actually going on behind the scenes, right? That's all fake entertainment. What genuinely turns you on, what actually brings you pleasure that is your authentic Yes, and you can't find it until you actually own your right to say no, because your body's not going to like, respond, it's going to be shut down without if you don't claim your autonomy, your own power to say no, then you won't feel safe to say yes. And of course, that makes total sense, right? If we're treating ourselves like we're prisoners in our own bodies, and our bodies are supposed to just like do whatever we think society tells us that they're supposed to do. Maybe they're not going to love that so much, right? And for me, I had to go all the way back to the beginning. I gave myself permission to explore what felt good in my body, by myself, without trying to perform for anyone, without any agenda about where it had to go. I had to learn my own body from the beginning. And that was actually pretty fun. It was a little scary at first, and it was kind of awkward, I will tell you. We really like, I had to find just the right toys. I had to put a little Do Not Disturb sign on my door.

19:19  
And I told my husband, this is what I was doing. I was like, I want to find out what my body actually likes so that I can communicate it to you. I want to be close to you, but right now I don't know what to tell you, so I'm going to spend some time playing with myself. And that was a gift to both of us, right? And that's the stage that most people never reach. They get to this sort of passive version of No, or even the owned version of No, and they think that's the end point, but they stay disconnected and feel guilty about pulling away, and then never actually learn what their pleasure potential is. And in that case, then the messy middle just stays messy, right? And it's permanent instead of temporary, and it makes. Complete sense, because women, especially, we've been taught from childhood that we're not entitled to our own pleasure, that our bodies exist to be approved of by other people, that being a good lover means ignoring what we need, to focus on whatever the other person needs. And you know, men get a lot of pressure to be these great lovers too, and to ignore their own needs, and to not give themselves approval to have normal human bodies where erections come and go, right? That's okay. But unlearning all this socialized crap, this misinformation about sexuality, it's not a weekend project. It's not an you're not gonna listen to one podcast and be like, Aha, okay, I fixed it all. There's this whole in between phase where you know what you don't want, but you haven't discovered yet or even given yourself permission to decide to want what you do want. So getting to that authentic, yes, requires starting to believe that your pleasure matters just as much as your partners, not as like a nice bonus if there's time, but as an equally important non negotiable part of the whole thing, and that usually requires help. You do not have to figure this out alone, but even if you want to start alone, that's okay. Just know with a K, N, O, W, that your No, the N O version is valid, but you also deserve your Yes. You deserve your highest, greatest pleasure and what's on the other side, right? Like where I am now. My marriage is fantastic. My sex life is better than I had ever imagined. It could be back when I had no idea what I liked. But more important than that, I finally feel like I get to inhabit this body fully. I get to take up space. I have desires and needs, and I don't apologize for them anymore. I feel more confident. I feel sexier than I've ever felt, and I'm 48 and I could give a hoot about like, trying to be younger, or whatever anybody else wants, or wear, what they'd like, or whatever. All this energy, it's mine now, and I reclaimed it. It was sitting there stuck in my sexuality because I'd been too busy performing what I thought I needed to do. Because, you know, frankly, it was a trauma response, and yours may be too, and it's also doesn't have to be big T trauma, right? It can be the little T trauma of feeling that you're that people disconnect from you if you don't act the way you they think, or you think they expect you to act, but it's just not worth it. It is just not worth it to stay disconnected and disembodied and stuck when you could actually reclaim your full aliveness and your own sexual energy and your pleasure. And when you do it doesn't just stay in your bedroom. It ripples out everywhere, your work, your relationships, your whole life. When you stop abandoning yourself sexually, you will stop abandoning yourself in all the other places too. And that's what I learned, and it is my absolute honor to be there to support my clients doing that. It is the most beautiful thing to see in the world. I am like it is. I had a review with a client yesterday, on her 11th session, we were looking back over her intentions and seeing all the ways that she's made change and how much freer she feels, and she was just lit up. And it was just, it was beautiful. And I started having tears, and I think we both did, and it was lovely. And I the relief is real, and I just want that for everyone. So if you are stuck in the messy middle right now, if you've stopped having sex, you don't want but you're stuck not knowing what comes next. If you're feeling like you're broken because you don't want sex, you don't want you're not wrong and you're not broken, you are in a transformation phase, and the key thing is just to keep going. Just don't stop there. Don't let yourself assume that the withdrawal is the only thing that's for you in the future, right? The next step is really learning to own your voice, to actually have that conversation with your partner, to be vulnerable together. And that is a challenging thing, and it's where people get really stuck, and that's why I have a job. I love helping people through it, but I'm not the only one who can do that. There are other people who can help you have those conversations too, but you know you need to say something, right? And you might not have an idea right now of a way to say it that won't make everything worse. And I totally get that right. What if I try to talk about this and my partner gets defensive? What if it turns into a fight? What if I make things worse? And if that's where you are, where you know you need to have the conversation, but you're terrified of how to approach it, I am here. That's exactly what I help people with. And I want you to know that skill is totally learnable. You can get good at this and your partner, chances are that they can too. There's a few people out there who aren't interested in real vulnerable communication that is effective. There are a few people, they typically have personality disorders, but you if your partner is a good human being and one that is worth staying with, then they can learn, and they will want to. And one of the things that we do when we work together is practice saying what you need to say.

25:47  
And actually, this is one

25:48  
of my favorite things. Practice. When you practice with me, what we do

25:53  
is, I will have you say

25:56  
it in the worst possible way, first to me, like the worst possible way you can say it just hilariously bad. And then we work on refining it from there so that what you actually need to say comes out, but in a way that gets you heard and that encourages connection instead of defensiveness. So I let you say it

26:18  
to me in the worst possible way to help you get that out first,

26:22  
and then we workshop it and we practice so that it can come out authentically without you having to word police yourself. Because the goal isn't just to say the thing. The goal is to say what you need to say in a way that actually moves you both forward and when you really say a deep truth to someone and show up for yourself that way. It is profound. I was talking to a friend the other day who was just telling me how much, you know, she said something at work that she needed to say, and she just immediately burst out into tears, and she was feeling bad about it, but she was like, it was just so truthy that it just all the tears happened, right? And I'm like, of course, that is beautiful, that is, that is deeply human, that is important, right? And you may have that experience. I want you to have the experience of feeling like you get to say your truth and be deeply heard, at least with me. And then we can practice and help you with your partner. Or if you feel ready, try it on your own, right? But if it doesn't work, don't assume that it can't work, right? A lot of people are having tough conversations in ways that just aren't landing well, and it's because they just don't have the tools yet, and that that's okay, they can be learned. All that is telling you is the information is, I don't have the tools yet to make myself heard here, right? But if you're sitting there thinking I need help with this, I want to invite you to reach out. You can book a free consultation call with me on my website, Laura jurgens.com just go to the book a consult link, or send me an email. I will read it personally. It doesn't have to be that hard or scary, and it doesn't have to be as hard or scary as it feels right now. And you don't have to do it alone. Your sexuality isn't about performing for someone else. It is yours. It is your energy, your aliveness, and your right to take up space and have pleasure. So if you are stuck in avoidance and thinking there's something wrong with that, I just want to invite you to notice that it might just be growth that hasn't fully emerged yet. So keep going, and if you need help, reach out. All right, my dears, I will see you here next week. Hey. So before you go, I have some more free help for you. If you are okay with sharing your email, I will send you my free guide, five steps to start solving desire differences without blame or shame. This is a practical starting point for individuals and couples. You can opt out of my emails at any time, but I think you'll want to stick around. I am not a spammer. Go get it at www.laurajurgens.com/libido. Make sure to spell my last name right and the link is in the show notes.