[EP9] What If Your Husband Rejects Your Affection On Purpose

Transcript:

Natasha: Welcome back to another episode of the Awakened Wife podcast, I’m Natasha Koo—

Jachym: And I’m Jachym Jerie from Your Exceptional Relationship dot com.

Natasha: Today, we’re going to be answering a toughie. Now, this question builds upon our last episode, which was all about, you know, how do you get your husband to give you more affection. If you’ve lost that affection, how do you get that back within your relationship? Those tips, which are three major ones we covered in episode number eight. Now for today, we’re going to be addressing the problem: What if he rejects you anyways?

Jachym: Right. He asks for affection. He rejects it. What are you gonna do about it? Well, number one is I would go back to number eight of what we’ve talked about before because they really set the stage for everything. And when you follow those tips, it will really help you because they are those foundational pieces that are helping to set the stage for affection to flourish and come back into the relationship. And without those foundational pieces, as we have said on that episode, actually, you’re going into it asking for the affection, and it’s going to backfire because you have not found trust, love, connection. You have not softened yourself. Right. And all those things that we discussed in that episode. So I would go back and listen to that one first.

Natasha: Yeah. And as always, you can get the whole complete transcript and the resources and articles that go further into the topic. You can always find them at the show notes, which is yourexceptionalrelationship.com/9.

So just to number nine. For the previous episode where we cover the three tips to get more affection, that’s a forward slash, just number eight. Right. So you can always go there and, you know, get more information that you need.

Jachym: You know, as you’re talking, I was thinking it’s actually a misnomer to say tips because it kind of downplays it because you’re like three foundational pieces that are setting the stage for the whole thing. They’re not just tips, but anyways, go check it out. Now, when it happens. OK, so you have asked for affection or and he’s he’s rejected it, or you’ve made advances, and he’s rejected it. They are things that you can do that are practical. You don’t have to just, you know, set the stage and everything like that. You’re in this position right now. We want to help you with that immediately right now.

Now, the first thing that you want to do is you want to not enter the cycle of drama. Now, what does that mean? Well, here’s what it means. When you are a couple, you have certain dances that you dance together.

So, for example, one of them could be, I want affection, and he withdraws. I want affection, and he withdraws. Now he goes, I wanted affection. He withdraws. I feel hurt. I feel hurt. I go and approach him, and I talk to him about it. He feels pressure. He withdraws even more. I feel more lonely and abandoned. And you can see that this is a cycle, right?

It starts with one thing wanting affection. It doesn’t happen. And then it starts triggering other events that you have visited over and over and over again in your relationship already. It is not something that’s new. It is a cycle of drama that is unfolding that leads to more hurt, misunderstanding, and not feeling loved. You don’t want to enter that cycle, meaning you want to become aware of it. OK, so here’s the dancer playing. I want to have affection from you, and you don’t respond. And then, from there, it goes on. You have a choice. I want affection from you. You don’t respond.

What I’m going to do differently now? I’m not going to go chase after you and hunt you down and talk about affection and sparked a whole thing. I’m going to do something different. This is what we mean by don’t enter the drama cycle. You want to quit it before it unfolds, and you want to start looking at yourself first.

Natasha: Mm. And for this is really important not to only look at the reaction or the rejection of your partner like what he said to you.

What that means and why he did that, you know, not to get caught up in that, but to notice when he does that, when he rejects me or rejects whatever I’m offering or suggesting, how am I reacting? What’s my knee-jerk reaction?

Jachym: Yeah.

Natasha: And what I’m about to do.

Jachym: Yeah.

Natasha: And and this really has to do with communication because, you know, within this conversation of asking for or approaching him for more affection, there’s communication involved. Right? And so he communicates, and then you respond. So what is happening within the communication, this conversation that makes it go down, this spiral of the whole drama cycle? Kind of this pattern of either blame or further conflict or arguing.

So it is for you to pause and to know that at any given point, you can put a stop to that conversation by suggesting, ‘OK, I’m not quite ready to keep talking about this. I need a break. I needed fresh air. I need to take a walk or to slow down.’ Just take a moment. Whatever it is that you need so many times, um, we don’t realize, and we forget that you have a choice. You don’t have to keep going the same ways that you always have. But that can be more difficult, especially when you feel triggered by his rejection, when the response of your husband gets you quite riled up and emotional.

And if you find yourself in this very emotional place and you have the tendency to say things you regret or conversations kind of get out of control because of, I don’t know, the very emotional state that you’re in, it’s kind of hard to reel it in. Then we really suggest to listen to episode number three of our podcast, where we really talk about emotions. How do you deal with them? How do you, like if conversations get very emotional, what do you do? How do you kind of stay in control?

Jachym: Right.

Natasha: If emotions kind of get in the way? So that is a very, very powerful resource if you want to know the how-to.

Jachym: So this is really useful. And also, it’s important to notice that the drama cycle is built on emotion. Right. So he you want affection, he doesn’t give you affection. He’s rejecting you. You get very emotional. Right. Your capacity to be with that emotion is going to help you transform the emotion and heal certain parts within you that need to be looked at. Now, what’s not going to help that is entering the drama cycle and playing out the same thing over and over again, which is why we say you want the first thing you want to do is you want to stop the drama cycle, and you want to sit, and be would be able to be with those emotions and increase the capacity to hold, you know, that hurt part and not give in to just having to go and then just, you know, push it on to your husband, basically. Right?

So that is really important. And as you said, within those emotions. Right. If you do want to have a conversation at some point, go to it and listen to that episode. But it’s not just with this episode. You can also bring this topic up when it’s not just when it’s not triggered. Right. Because it’s not necessarily the best time to talk about it, especially if you don’t have a high capacity of holding those uncomfortable emotions so you can bring it up at other times in the relationship. And for that, you can refer to another episode, which I believe was episode number one, how you can talk to your husband about your marriage, um, where you can learn about how can I bring up some topics and these other episodes as well. How can you talk to me about with problems without fighting, um, which I forgot. Do you know the number for that one?

Natasha: So episode one and up until four are really are all talking about a communication.

Jachym: Right.

Natasha: And how to address issues and what to do if emotions get quite high. So all one to four are very useful.

Jachym: Right. Good.

Natasha: I also want to say that I highly empathize with any of you ladies who are in this position, you know, where your partner has rejected you even though you reached out, because I know for myself. I hate conflict. I hate conflict. It’s stressful, it’s just not a nice place to be when you disagree on something, and you’re trying to find some resolution, and sometimes it can get quite messy. There’s different points of views. They’re trying to find a common ground.

And it’s you rather wish you know of the boat was not in rocky waters and it is smooth sailing, blue skies, you know—

Jachym: Just smiles.

Natasha: Easy peasy. You know, who wants to deal with conflict. So I know for myself, I was a conflict avoider for a long, long time. Now, being a conflict avoider, that doesn’t make the conflicts go away. No, it just means that you ignore them. You back off. You don’t stand up for yourself. You become a yes woman or yes man.

And it doesn’t help. Um, but I have great empathy because if you are someone like me who doesn’t really like conflict, but you’ve actually, you know, brought up the courage to say something to, try to address something important in your relationship, and yet it still doesn’t work, that that’s scary.

You know, that that might feel even more hurtful because, you know, because you start that conversation with a bit of hope in your heart that he’ll respond in the way that you want to and that things will improve and get better. And when he rejects you, it’s normal. It’s okay to get triggered sometimes or to feel emotional and to have a reaction, have an emotional reaction, which is actually number two, really, I think I just kind of transition us into the next point, which is to take care of yourself, to acknowledge that what you’re going through is really OK. Like, you don’t have to judge yourself or be harsh to yourself that you feel the way you do.

Jachym: Mm hmm. Yeah, I think it’s really vital. Taking care of yourself starts with acknowledging where you’re at and accepting where you’re at, and being OK that this is how you feel. OK, um, when we talk, for example, about drama cycle, you may feel like this is almost a judgment statement. You know, it’s bad. Well, no, it’s not. It’s just looking at how things are unfolding. And there is a good amount of emotions and drama involved in this. Right?

But taking care of yourself really starts with being there and holding yourself with love and rather than, you know, because when this happens, you can have all kinds of voices in your mind about telling you see, you’re not lovable, you’re not good enough. See, he doesn’t really like you. All this whole thing is pointless. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right.

And so it is important that you don’t keep listening to those voices, but rather come to yourself and coming to your heart and hold that hurt and that your feeling in that moment. Because when that hurt is acknowledged,  the voices stop having the power that they have when it’s not acknowledged. Mm hmm.

Natasha: And this is a very crucial skill that we teach within our Cherished Wife Program, our coaching program, um, for the ladies because sometimes when we find ourselves in that emotional state and we just had a conversation with our partner that was turbulent, and that didn’t go our way, we’re quick to feel that he made me feel this way. You know, if only he just would give me that affection, if only he loved me more, if only he cared for me more and gave me attention, I wouldn’t feel this way. You know, you get frustrated at him like, you know if only he would change and it’ll be fine.

Now, maybe, right, maybe that’s the case. But, well, we teach within our program is for our women to learn the key skills to actually take care of yourself, to actually heal, and to be able to be an independent, strong woman, meaning you know how to take care of yourself. You’re OK with your own emotions.

Jachym: Yeah.

Natasha: You know—

Jachym: Yeah.

Natasha: Because sometimes these conflicts in these situations, tough situations we find ourselves in, we can be so quick to blame and to draw that conclusion that, OK, if A happened, I would not be at B. But sometimes, what’s really lacking are the key skills to actually be with yourself, to be OK with the emotions that you’re feeling, to bring compassion and kindness towards yourself, or you to even find acceptance.

Jachym: Yeah

Natasha: To find that, um, soft, OK, feeling—

Jachym: Yeah.

Natasha: That you are all right. You know, because I know that sometimes when the relationship is kind of tumbling down and uh, things feel scary and you have doubts and things like that, it’s tough. It’s a tough place to be, and it kind of pushes you to try all sorts of things and tactics and, you know, things that might not work, and that’s hard. But it doesn’t need to be that difficult. It doesn’t need to be that painful of a process if you can give yourself what you need, and that’s the healing component that we help women with.

It’s not just about getting to the endpoint of having an exceptional relationship. It’s like as you get there, as you heal and improve your relationship, are you able to bring that kindness? Are you able to bring that love back to yourself? And are you able to learn the skills that make this not just bearable because it’s tough when your marriage is not working out the way that you want it to. But can you heal in that process yourself and not just heal your relationship.

Jachym:  Just to do a little segue here without going too much into detail with it. But taking care of yourself means also to take ownership of what you’re feeling. Because blame, whether it’s your husband or blame towards yourself uh, keeps you stuck. It locks you into the position. And here’s this little mind experiment you can do. You get upset, and you leave, and your husband is not there, but you still feel upset. There’s nothing in this moment that is making you upset that’s happening within you. Right. And that’s what I mean.

Taking ownership is that you can recognize that this experience is happening from within yourself and that these all those emotions coming up within yourself and acknowledging that and taking the ownership for that, not in a blaming way, but it puts you in the position of actually looking at it and doing what you said, you know, bringing the kindness and bring the compassion and bringing the acceptance in, because if you are in the blaming phase, you’re going to have a much harder time.

Natasha: Mm hmm. So those are two ways, uh, to deal with, uh, a situation. It is a tough situation where your partner has rejected, uh, your invitation or your conversation or your suggestion to bring more affection into the relationship.

Um, yes, you can take the steps that we’ve suggested, whether he’s onboard or not. Clearly, you know, he has a different idea of how things could be done. He’s not quite with you on this journey towards more affection, but these steps are for you, and you can take them, whether he’s onboard or not, whether he’s committed to change or not.

You can make a change. Now, we actually received a question, uh, which is about affection from a different angle. Now, the question is: What if a wife, she feels that her husband is withholding affection on purpose? Like maybe he’s withholding affection and love because he’s trying to punish her for something that went wrong within the relationship, and she feels like there’s something behind this action that’s intentional and not necessarily like they lost it slowly over time. And, you know, they lost their spark. What should she do in this scenario?

Jachym: So we need to distinguish first between two things. One is that there’s a conflict that happens, and he gets hurt in the conflict himself. And he’s withdrawing from her because, um, he’s  trying to heal himself. Right. So he’s withdrawing because he feels hurt. And it’s just he’s taking care of himself, basically. Right. And he’s withholding the affection on purpose, not in terms of trying to punish her, but in terms of just taking care of himself because he feels like he has to guard his heart now. Right.

So that’s one scenario. And the second scenario is very different, is that he really tries to punish you. Right? So he’s withholding you, withholding affection with the intention of hurting you, which is different. Now, that intention of hurting might not be always a conscious intention, but it’s still something there. And if someone does this, they most likely a passive-aggressive. OK, so if he is doing this, um, and that he feels the need that he has to punish you in some subtle way, uh, that you can’t really, you know, point your finger at it and be like while you are doing this or that. And he’s like, well, what are you talking about? That’s very typical for someone who is passive-aggressive. OK, so but they are two different things, and you need to be a little bit discerning to not just fall into like, oh, well, he’s passive-aggressive when actually he’s just hurt, and he’s taking care of himself first.

Natasha: Hmm. So sometimes you can’t know for sure because, um, depending on the type of communication style or dynamic that you have with your partner at the moment, you might not, both of you might not feel comfortable enough to be that vulnerable to truly reveal what’s going on. And sometimes it’s hard to say to your partner this happened.

I still need to work through it. I’m not over it. I’m not ready to forgive and move on yet. I’m not ready to bare my heart and move on like everything’s normal, you know, and love you as usual and be affectionate as usual.

And I need my time to actually withdraw a bit and process through things. Right.

Sometimes, you know, if especially when we’re talking about a situation where someone lacks that affection in the relationship and they’re able to recognize that that is missing, it probably means that, um, within the communication or within your dynamic, uh, there is this power struggle now, you know, it’s not uncommon to for couples to use, um, giving each other the cold shoulder with a silent treatment as a way to kind of punish the other person after a conflict or after fighting. And in fact, uh, we do have an article on our blog, on our website, your exceptional relationship dot com talking all about how do you talk to your partner after a fight?

Because a lot of people after feelings are hurt, they do feel unable to open themselves up easily, um, and start that conversation again without coming from that emotional and triggered place again. Right.

Jachym: So, you know, when someone does this thing, and it is out of punishment, let’s just say for the sake of it, that it is really coming from this place. The advice that we’ve given in the previous episode still holds true because here’s the thing: Someone who is passive-aggressive has a huge issue with conflict. They’re very afraid of conflict, actually. And so you want to check in and see how have you how are you set up the relationship? Is it grounded in love? Is it grounded in gratitude? Is it grounded in appreciation? Have you create a space where he can be vulnerable, where he’s not afraid he’s going to just get a backlash and all of that. These things setting the stage are so valuable for someone who might have a passive-aggressive tendency because he can help them to see that they are safe.

They’re safe here, and, you know, you start to see that I can actually talk to this person without having to, you know, get some repercussion or something like that. So they it’s still valuable to go and listen to that episode because it still helps with that, because, again, the foundational piece is so they really can shift this entire dynamic.

Natasha: And when you find yourself in this position right where you suspect that your partner is withholding affection and they might be doing it intentionally or they might be punishing you after some fight you’ve had or after some event, negative event in your relationship, I mean, we brought up passive aggression, and we brought up, um, giving the partner the cold shoulder or the silent treatment.

Now, all of these things are actually, um, negative communication styles. They, depending on the severity, it can become very toxic. And the reason why it can become toxic is especially when you get used to that communication style between each other. It starts to create this battlefield where hurtful conversations almost become the norm.

Or whenever you bring up a certain topic, it kind of just goes into that argument or goes into that fight.

It could be a silent war zone to which is, you know, as bad as, you know, the words.  

So all of this indicates that your communication might actually has broken, have broken down. That there is a lack of trust or somewhere a lack of transparency, um, lack of honesty within how you engage with one another now.

And this often could be a symptom of something much more major underlying the topic of affection or what whatever subject matter that you think this is really about. It could be a symptom of something much greater, some something that you two actually need to work out, or you need to work out yourself. But oftentimes, if there is a major issue and it’s kind of bubbling up, and it’s causing trouble, it usually shows first within your communication. So if you’re kind of in this place and you’re wondering, oh, man, you know, we’re kind of getting there, our emotion, our communication has broken down to some extent. It’s not as healthy anymore. And I do walk away feeling more hurt. And this is not the first time.

Then please go to our website and do the free quiz, which is, um, at yourexceptionalrelationship.com/understand. Do the because it checks in as to whether you are making some very common communication mistakes that kind of keep this power struggle, keep this toxic spiral in place, which doesn’t help you to actually get to the bottom of things and get to the solution and get more of his affection back. You know, it takes you further and further away from each other and from actually addressing the problem at hand.

So if you find you might be in that position, then take that for your quiz because you’ll get some customized results and you get to actually troubleshoot like, OK, where are we in terms of how we communicate? Because that is where things start to break down. And it’s in it’s a very clear indication that how you speak to one another no longer works. Right. And if you keep on going on that path, it’s not going to get better.

Jachym: Absolutely. And, you know, so there’s two things I want say about this because we don’t know who is going to be listening to it. Now, if you do have a husband who may have psychopathic tendencies or something like that, basically someone who has no empathy whatsoever, then, of course, you know, we really urge you to go seek professional help because you might be with someone who is not a good fit. They are those things that it’s actually the case. And we need to mention this here because we don’t know who is going to be listening to it. But in many cases, you actually can do something about it.

Now, if he’s doing it for fear of punishment. Right. Um, self-care is still vital. Right. Because you’re going to feel hurt. You have all the stories that are popping up in your mind about what this means about you and all of that. So self-care being able to discern in your mind about those stories, um, is really important. And being with that hurt and all of that, they are really vital. But on top of that, also comes boundaries like you want to be clear, uh, about what’s actually acceptable for you in a relationship, what isn’t acceptable. And actually, this has to do, again, align yourself to love. You know, when you are loving towards yourself, you are going to actually not accept certain behaviors.

Now, not accepting it doesn’t mean that you’re going to, like, hardball him and all of that. But it becomes very clear within yourself how kind of relationship you do want to have. And then you just simply stop feeding this energy in the relationship. Right. So it will start changing because you have this clarity and those clear boundaries in yourself that are, you know, in love, like they are grounded in love. And when you have then a conversation with your husband, you know, you say you’ve gone back and listen to one of those communication episodes, you can come from a place of compassion and love, which you can come from a place of speaking your truth and saying what relationship you actually want to create together. So this is really how you can handle it when you see it withholding affection for punishment.

Natasha: Yeah, to be honest, this kind of reminds me of the, um, the turn that our own marriage had. I kind of realized as you were speaking, just how much we as women receive, what we expect to, um, what I mean by that is when years ago within our relationship, when I didn’t value how I felt myself when I didn’t cherish my own self when I didn’t respect myself, I couldn’t demand that same respect. And care and love from you, I couldn’t because, within my head, I already believe that I was unworthy to receive the type of love that we have now.

I didn’t think that I was lovable or deserving of that type of goodness, you know. And whatever I felt, I thought it’s no big deal because who am I to ask for more and who am I to, you know, say that I need this and that’s not OK, and you shouldn’t treat me that way or that’s not OK to say to me, you know.

Like, I feel like the whole world has a pretty low bar when it comes to relationships.

Um, yes, we want that hero and that knight in shining armor and a man who loves us so much and holds it holds us up so high, you know, like that kind of dream love. Like we all want that. But deep down, on a personal level, like on a spiritual level, do you actually feel deserving of having that? I, for the longest time, didn’t believe it.

I just growing up, I didn’t feel worthy. I didn’t feel lovable. I didn’t feel like I was right. In many ways, I felt like I was wrong in a lot of ways.

And so when it came to our relationship, I did not step up to demand more or to ask for more from you. And that became kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy, where why would you then? You know, if I don’t set my boundaries, why would you respect nonexistent boundaries? If a woman doesn’t love herself and cherish and respect herself in this high standard, why would you do that? You know, it’s just not the norm.

And so what we’re teaching, both within our Cherished Wife Program and in our whole philosophy, is that there is such a great deal of healing that can happen within you. And when that happens, that completely changes who you are being within your relationship, and the normal shifts completely. So for us, it’s like what used to be OK, like nagging bickering, passive aggression, kind of ignoring each other, withholding affection.

It’s not OK today because it’s simply not aligned with our truth. But we needed to dig deep and work on ourselves and heal lots of aspects of ourselves and understand what’s really going on and our limiting beliefs in order to get there. And so, a lot of women actually find themselves in this position where they’re trying to reach out to their husbands for affection. They’re getting rejected, and they don’t know what to do. And there is that passive aggression. There is that power struggle. There is no teamwork. There is no harmony anymore, even if there’s love, to begin with.

That all, you know, indicates that things have broken down over time for a while, and I’m not pointing fingers; I’m just saying the course of events. Course of events to get to this point means it probably has been going on for a while. And it hurts to say this. And it really hurt when I realized myself that it wasn’t that I was at fault, but I was a key player into the breakdown of my relationship.

Jachym: Yeah.

Natasha: It hurts to know this fact because you have to take responsibility. You have to realize it’s not just him. You know, it’s not just him. But I knew, and I had to learn that, and I had to learn that I can’t depend just on him to change, to give me affection. I need to learn that I deserve affection. I do not deserve to be treated this way. And it doesn’t start with how he treats me; it starts with how I treat myself. And that doesn’t start with just your behavior; that starts with the healing that needs to happen within you. So this topic, you know, it’s pointing at something major, which is life-transforming for you if you get the help that you need.

If you take the steps that bring you to being the woman who does deserve his love, deserve his affection and welcomes it in to learn the skills, to heal, and to communicate with love, with compassion, and without this power struggle. And so that’s what we teach. And that’s what I had to go through. Not comfortable. I needed to reach out for external help to go down this path because it’s not necessarily easy, but it’s necessary for me to show up as who I am today so that we can actually have this beautiful, exceptional relationship that we have today.

Jachym: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, as you’re talking, I think what one key point here is to discover the love within you. And we don’t necessarily mean to you the old saying you have to love yourself in order to be able to love someone else. And we’re actually saying that there is a place within you that’s just loving. It just is and fully accepting of everything. And you can really you can actually connect to that place, and eventually, you actually realize that you are at a place, and that is part of this journey that Natasha so beautifully talked about, because when you realize that you are at a place, it doesn’t become a question anymore of deserving or not deserving. You just are it. And you emanate this. And with that, you touch your husband, you touch your family, you touch your coworker, and the life around you transforms and changes because you’re showing up from a different place.

Natasha: Yeah, everything changes. And that is how we help people, because that’s how we helped ourselves. That’s the transformation that we were able to create within our own lives. And just we know how significant of a difference that makes, not just in our relationship like this is what we mean when we say like when we heal our hearts, and we transform our relationship, we can revolutionize the world. Like that’s our tagline for an exceptional relationship because it’s truly what happens. It’s like a domino effect the moment you take that first step to heal within your heart and to become whole as a woman. And this is a journey that we wish every single woman on this planet could have, you know.

Jachym: Absolutely. So it’s been really lovely talking to you today. Uh, next episode, it will be just me solo. We’ll kick Natasha out for a while, and we’ll be looking at, uh, the reasons why husbands are not paying attention to their wives. Um, I believe I’ll give you eight reasons, but you’ll see it on that episode. Stay tuned. We’ll look at the various ones that are coming from my personal experience or working with men and women. Uh, they will give you more clarity. And with that, you’ll be able to move forward, uh, in your relationship and get back the attention that you crave.

Natasha: So if you want to revisit any of the resources, articles, quizzes, um, that we mentioned here on this episode, just head over to yourexceptionalrelationship.com/9 the number nine. You can get the transcript and everything that we talk about there. So thanks for joining us today. And until next time.

Jachym: Take care. Bye-bye.