Sexual shutdown: submissive defense mechanism

I like sex. In fact, I love sex. Love may even be a bit of an understatement. In a conversation with my husband I once defined sex as my three top hobbies. Writing about sex, thinking about sex, having sex with my husband. Yep, that's three, isn't it? I have a vast array of other interests; I am easily drawn into subjects. I'm interested in most things, but sex is the top three, absolutely.

I also adore my husband to distraction. He is my true love.

Something happens to me, though, when we go long enough without sexual interaction. I shut down. I've written about it briefly before.

We went for three days without sex, activity or talk, except for a blow job one night, which normally I'd count as sex but in this case really felt like servicing him for his relief rather than mutual pleasure. I was already partially into my shutdown.

I had a very bad day in there, and he was extra-attentive during the day, giving me lots of extra hugs, long soft kisses in the middle of the grocery store, squeezing me close to him while we cooked. In fact, he's done pretty much everything right.

My sex drive still shut down.

I don't deny him access to my body, his pleasure, or the opportunity to do other things. I gave him the blow job freely and willingly, even enthusiastically. Despite my own lack of desire, I wanted to be pleasing to him, to hear his noises of enjoyment. We played video games and listened to music and sat around fiddling with our computers. I don't want to be a chore for him; I want him to enjoy spending time with me, and he does.

My sensual, sexual self is really the largest part of me. Lying naked or nearly so next to him night after night and just falling alseep, or briefly servicing him before he falls asleep, signals my sexual self that she's not needed anymore. She's there, ready, willing, wanting, but he doesn't need or want her, and so she goes into what I can only describe as hibernation. She's not really the sort to throw a tantrum, to take her ball and go home, but she's very much the sort to feel unnecessary and to withdraw, quietly, without being noticed.

I do it in the rest of my life, too. I see my friends having a grand time without me and, feeling completely unnecessary to anyone, I retreat - sometimes physically removing myself from being around them, sometimes just withdrawing emotionally. Truthfully, I'm not necessary to anyone's happiness, of course I'm not. Thank goodness for that since having other people's happiness depend on you is exhausting. At most I'm a pleasant diversion from life, but some moments I feel my basic uselessness more than others and I withdraw, sad.

My sexual self retreats even more quietly. I'm still there for my husband, still submissive, still communicative, still very much in love with him. There's no absence noticed by anyone but me, unless my husband might happen to notice something is off. My entire experience of the world feels dulled, my nerve endings and other sensory inputs reduced to perhaps a quarter of their normal functionality. I feel crippled. Delight in the rest of my life is harder to find. I wander around, feeling like a branch that's been cut for a vase; I show all signs of life but I'm slowly dying inside, disconnected from my source. It looks very much like depression. I pick at meals which I only cook because there are people besides me who need to eat, I struggle to enjoy things I normally do, and I think longingly of the days when he wanted me - when he really, really wanted me. The love he expressed over the sexless days was sweet, good, and needed, but it didn't make me feel desirable.

That's the thing, isn't it? It's not the lack of sex we may have, it's the lack of desire that I feel from him. The days I think of longingly are the ones when we were forced to be apart by our widely-flung places of residence, the days when he'd tell me every day, often explicitly and in great detail, how much he wanted me. Those days, if I'd been naked in his bed neither of us would have slept for a very, very long time.

Of course I don't actually long for those days; they were horrible. I spent far, far more days wandering around in a haze of misery then than I do now. We couldn't even talk to each other with our voices without spending a lot of money, but I was wanted, and I knew it.

So this is my defense mechanism: my needs dry up and go away when they're not met, or made to feel important, and it really doesn't take that long for me to begin to feel that way. It's quite clever, really, because it means I can function, even if at a severely reduced capacity.

The biggest problem, besides me wandering around in zombie mode, comes when he does want that part of me again. She's gone, far, far away. I start to plan things that will work around having sex, just to avoid having him realize she's gone. "Let's play a game! Or you can work on your website!" I know he's easily distracted and it will get late pretty fast if we start doing something engaging, and then he'll be tired, and I can go on with my life without him realizing that she is gone. While it makes me very sad that any of this goes on at all, somehow when the defense mechanism kicks in, I feel a great need to protect the hibernating part of me.

Inevitably, the week will end, as it did this time. I managed my avoidance tactics on Friday, we played video games and he fell asleep. My sexual self rolled over a little when he began toying gently with my nipples, but ultimately she never woke up, and we fell asleep. Saturday morning is another issue entirely. With nowhere to go and our little one not yet up, he started playing with me, stroking my body, kissing me, holding my wrist tightly and slapping my inner forearm, spanking my breasts. All things I generally enjoy quite a lot, but this time, while I didn't stop him, I wasn't really feeling anything. I wasn't responsive; it didn't matter to me. I moved when he nudged me, did what he told me, and let him do what he wanted. He's a pretty bright fellow, though; he knew I wasn't into it after a little bit and he stopped, confused.

Then we had to have the conversation I'd been avoiding for two days. I feel like such a failure when I shut down like that, like I am throwing a tantrum. It's not a tantrum, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. It's a failsafe to protect me so that I'm not throwing myself at someone who doesn't want me and getting even more hurt. It's doubly needed because as a submissive woman, it's so so important to me not to force my own desires onto him. I can't temper my needs, but I apparently can shut them off, send them away completely. I can recognize it for what it is, but I can't change it. He gathered me into his arms, feeling pretty terrible himself because it happened at all.

This happens. This is a thing. I have read other people's blogs and heard them talk about experiencing something very much like this. Feel free to chime in with what your experience is like, I'd love to know I'm not alone.

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Saturday afternoon, we came home from an outing and spent two hours in bed making out. He kissed me until I melted into a puddle of want. "I'll do things to you tonight," he told me as I whimpered longingly into his mouth. That part of me? Yeah, she's awake now.

Turns out, it's been a pretty bad week overall for us, in all kinds of arenas. Hopefully we can start turning that around tonight.