— relationships & desire
What is often overlooked in mismatched libidos
When one partner wants sex and the other doesn’t, most advice focuses on the wrong thing. The real problem — and the real solution — is almost always hiding in plain sight.
Dr. Marisol Westberg, PhD, LMFT
AASECT Certified Sex Educator · 20+ Years in Practice
— what’s really happening
When sexual desire fades in a relationship, the obvious explanation is that something is wrong with the partner who isn’t interested. Maybe they have a hormone issue. Maybe they’ve fallen out of love. Maybe something needs to be fixed.
But in twenty years of practice, what I see most often is something quieter and more predictable: pressure. The pressure to perform, to meet expectations, to maintain a sexual frequency that no longer feels natural. That pressure creates a cycle of anxiety and avoidance — and that cycle, over time, erodes desire almost entirely.
Research backs this up. Low sexual desire is remarkably common among women, and much of it is connected to the experience of consenting to unwanted sex — not out of genuine desire, but to avoid conflict or meet what feels like an obligation.
When people are freed from the need to meet someone else’s expectations, something shifts. They begin to explore what they actually want. That exploration — authentic, unhurried, without the weight of obligation — is usually where desire reappears.
— from the therapy room
Margaret and Toby
Margaret came to therapy after her fiancé Toby gave her an ultimatum: resolve the sexual issues or he was leaving. He wasn’t willing to get married unless things changed. When we explored what was actually happening, the picture became clear quickly. Margaret hadn’t been having sex because she wanted to. She’d been having it to keep the peace — to get Toby off her back, to prevent an argument, to avoid the look of disappointment she knew was coming if she said no.
When Toby learned this, he was frustrated and concerned in equal measure. He said he didn’t want her to feel forced — but he also had needs that felt unmet, and the ultimatum had felt necessary. Margaret felt trapped. She didn’t want to lose Toby. But the thought of sex had started to make her anxious. Then repulsed. Then nothing at all.
She felt guilty for not meeting his expectations, which deepened her disconnection. The more obligated she felt, the more her desire shut down. A vicious cycle, tightening with every interaction.
“I hate sex. I think it’s disgusting. I’m done with it.”
Margaret, after months of obligation-driven sex
That statement was her nervous system drawing a hard line. It was also, in an important way, the beginning of her recovery — the moment her own needs finally became impossible to ignore.
Therapy for Margaret and Toby focused on dismantling the pressure system that had caused the shutdown in the first place. That meant helping Toby understand his role in it — not to blame him, but because his understanding was essential to changing the dynamic. And it meant helping Margaret reconnect with what she actually wanted, independent of what she felt she owed.
— why common advice backfires
Focusing on desire misses the point
Traditional advice for mismatched desire usually focuses on the partner with lower interest — address their inhibitions, work through trauma, improve communication. These things matter. But when they land inside a relationship already thick with pressure, they tend to pile on rather than help.
The core issue is the pressure itself. Any intervention that adds to that pressure is likely to make things worse. The nine approaches below are all oriented toward one thing: reducing the pressure, and creating the conditions where genuine desire can return.
— how to reduce the pressure
Nine things that actually help
01
Stop having sex you don’t want to have
Going through the motions is common, and in small doses it’s often fine. But when it becomes a consistent pattern, the body starts to associate sex with something to endure — and eventually refuses. The shift is simple in principle and hard in practice: both partners commit to only having sex that both people actually want. For the higher-desire partner, this means sitting with frustration without making it your partner’s problem. For the lower-desire partner, it means learning to trust that a genuine no won’t break the relationship.
02
Stop asking for sex
Stepping back from pursuit is uncomfortable when you’re already frustrated. But the goal isn’t punishment — it’s changing the dynamic. Defining a time frame helps: give yourself six months to try this differently. During that window, find somewhere outside the relationship to put your frustrations — a therapist, a trusted friend, a journal. Keeping that pressure out of the relationship changes the atmosphere in ways that are hard to predict but consistently positive.
03
Practice emotional regulation
When your partner doesn’t want sex, the emotions that surface — rejection, inadequacy, fear — are real and valid. But if they drive your behavior, they become part of the problem. Mindfulness, journaling, and breathing exercises aren’t just wellness habits — they build the capacity to stay steady in a difficult season without making your partner responsible for regulating your feelings.
04
Change performance expectations
When sex becomes something to perform rather than experience, it stops being intimate. For many people — particularly women — this means unlearning the message that their value in a relationship is tied to their sexual availability. Letting go of performance expectations isn’t permission to check out of the relationship. It’s permission to reconnect with what genuinely feels good — and that reconnection is usually where desire starts to return.
05
Restructure societal expectations
Both men and women carry cultural scripts about how sex is supposed to work. Women are expected to be available. Men are expected to be capable and in control. Neither standard maps onto reality, and both produce shame when reality falls short. Part of the work is simply naming these scripts out loud — recognizing them as external noise that has been mistaken for personal truth. That recognition alone can be freeing in ways that are difficult to anticipate.
06
Improve communication
When one partner doesn’t want sex, the other’s mind fills in the blanks: they don’t love me anymore. Something is wrong with me. They must be interested in someone else. These stories feel convincing. They’re rarely accurate. The antidote isn’t better phrasing — it’s understanding your own pain points well enough to talk about what’s actually happening underneath, rather than reacting to the story you’ve constructed.
Effective communication in this context also means tolerating your partner’s emotional reactions without either caving to them or escalating. The partner with higher desire needs to be able to feel disappointed without turning it into pressure. The partner with lower desire needs to be able to accept that their partner’s feelings are real without taking responsibility for fixing them.
07
Rebuild sexual autonomy
Sexual autonomy means having a genuine say in your own sexual experience — the ability to express what you want, what you don’t want, and what you’re curious about without it immediately becoming a negotiation. When that autonomy has been eroded over years of obligation-driven sex, rebuilding it requires intentional work. That work benefits both partners — it creates a clearer, more honest picture of what each person actually wants, and a more respectful curiosity about each other.
08
Rekindle the past
Early in a relationship, most people show up differently — more present, more intentional, more interested in making an impression. That effort often fades as comfort sets in. For many people, desire is responsive rather than spontaneous — it follows connection, novelty, feeling genuinely seen by someone who’s making an effort. Showing up for your partner the way you would on a first date isn’t just romantic advice. It’s an evidence-based way of creating the conditions desire needs to return.
09
Get professional help
The approaches above work. But they work best when the dynamic isn’t already too entrenched. When fear of rejection, past trauma, or years of resentment are running the show, those layers need more than self-guided effort — they need someone with the experience and skill to work with them directly. There’s nothing shameful about that. Some problems are genuinely complex, and recognizing that is a sign of clarity, not failure.
Mismatched desire isn’t a verdict on your relationship. It’s a dynamic — and dynamics can change.
Whether you want to work through it with professional support or start with a structured framework on your own, there’s a path forward.
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