Can A Lack Of Sex Give You Anxiety?

today we're going to talk a little bit about the correlation between anxiety and lack of sex and have a little bit of a discussion with a few principles to think about in how you're viewing sex in your relationships and whether or not it's actually healthy what's going on you guys i'm tyler wandering therapist i'm excited to be here with you today we're talking again about sex that seems to be a hot topic on this channel and i think it's a good topic we're gonna talk a little bit about whether or not a lack of sex can give you anxiety this is a question that comes to me frequently and if you're watching this video you've probably asked it yourself 100 times or you're probably even answering it for yourself right now saying of course it's true a lack of sex can give you anxiety i've lived it before i'm probably living it right now and in marriages a lot of times this is a really common thing where one partner is maybe more of a higher desired partner than the other oftentimes more often than not it's the man who's the more higher desire partner and then the woman he feels like he's chasing his woman around and she's not quite as high desire and it feels like she's got all the control in the relationship now this can flip and it can be the other way around too where the woman is maybe the more high desire partner and the man is the lower desired partner and it can feel this it can also work in reverse the key here is this is that how are we viewing sex in our relationships if i'm viewing sex in my relationship in terms of needing to have it to reassure myself that everything's okay in the relationship and that i'm okay and that i'm good and needing to please my partner in some way in that way in order to know that i'm good when it's not happening the anxiety is going to be higher because it's attached to my value as a person and so if i'm attaching sex in my relationship to my value as a person the answer is going to much more likely be yes anxiety is attached to sex the next question is does it have to be that way and i would say that there's obviously some level of physical response that goes on in a relationship my mom used to refer to this thing as tsb or toxic sperm buildup and she'd say that say hey we must have some tsb because you're being really irritable right now and basically what she was saying is you haven't had sex in a while so that's probably why you're being upset or frustrated or disappointed and and you probably need to go figure that out that does happen physiologically we do ride waves of emotion and it's no different with our sexuality we ride waves where we're really amped up where we're really triggered where we really want to pursue and then we also ride waves where we're maybe content or even further maybe we're apathetic about it and those waves move back and forth like waves in the ocean what we don't understand is is that when the wave is high we feel like it has to come with an action instead of just understanding that it's just part of who we are that we have changes in our physiology we have changes in our emotion and those changes can also be sexual and those are just like waves in the ocean that move us and pick us up and put us down and we don't actually have to act on those things we can just understand that that's part of our natural process a lot of people that i work with in my line of work they honestly start to believe that they aren't going to be able to survive without sex or they can't have a high quality of life without sex and i just want to point this out that i don't know a single person who's ever died or exploded as a result of not having sex it's okay to have the physical urges it's okay to have the desires and not have to act on those things and life can continue to go on you can start to see yourself with compassionate eyes with patient eyes your partner with compassion eyes and patient eyes and realize that while you might be feeling a little bit of angst it may not be just because you haven't had sex it might be because of how you're viewing sex so are you viewing sex as something that allows you to connect to your partner to offer your strength to your partner if they choose to accept it and to not feel rejected if they choose not to accept it or not to take it personal or feel like it's defining you if they don't accept it or is it something that's bigger than that for you and if you're pursuing an answer to your value through sexual ways from your partner that's something to consider going to work on that can change you can find your value from other true places and other true sources that'll allow you to understand who you are and then to pursue your partner sexually from a place a more healthy place where you're offering yourself instead of taking from them if you struggle with these feelings don't worry it's really normal but understand that you can learn to trust yourself to have these feelings without having to act on them and without having to judge yourself or your partner as being wrong or bad hopefully this is helpful great question you have a great day thank you so much for being here with me if you found this to be valuable for you please hit the like and subscribe button if you're facing particular struggles that you need help with or roadblocks that you're running into please submit a question i'd be happy to answer it for you [Music] you