Why Do I Feel So Rejected by My Spouse?

Why Do I Feel So Rejected by My Spouse?

"I struggle with rejection, even when I haven't actually been rejected." At our last Couple's Night, one of the guys put his finger on something that has a name: Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Check out the blog post here [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/feeling-rejected-by-your-spouse/] for more details and links. RSD is a wave of emotional pain that lands way out of proportion to whatever actually happened, and the rejection doesn't even have to be real. It is most strongly tied to ADHD, and in a marriage it can quietly do a lot of damage: over time the higher-desire spouse stops initiating, the marriage slowly goes quiet, and neither spouse understands why. In this episode I unpack what RSD actually is, how it shows up between spouses and in the bedroom, five things that genuinely help, and why none of it means you were woven wrong. In this episode: * (0:00) Intro * (1:13) What Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria actually is * (2:00) When the rejection isn't even real * (2:41) The ADHD connection * (3:16) How RSD shows up in a marriage * (4:11) RSD in the bedroom * (5:20) What actually helps - 5 steps * (7:05) Medication, and why SSRIs miss it * (8:29) You're not woven wrong * (11:09) Book a free ADHD discovery call Scripture referenced: Psalm 139:13, Revelation 13:8, 2 Timothy 1:9, Ephesians 1:4, Titus 1:2, John 14:2-3, 1 Thessalonians 4:17, Revelation 21:3, Luke 23:42-43, Romans 10:9, Romans 10:13, John 3:16, Revelation 3:20, Revelation 22:17. Links mentioned: * Married with ADHD - book a free discovery call [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/married-with-adhd-coaching] * Marriage Coaching [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/coaching] * Subscribe to our newsletter [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/subscribe] Follow us on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/UncoveringIntimacy/], Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/uncoveringintimacy/] and Twitter [https://twitter.com/uncoveringlove]. If you'd like to discuss topics like this with other married Christians, consider joining our private forum [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/champion]. Thank you to all our faithful champions! If you'd like to support our ministry and see it grow, check out our support page [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/donate] for more info. Even $5/month makes a difference! Lastly, if you like our podcast, click here to give us a rating and leave us a review [https://lovethepodcast.com/uncoveringintimacy]. They help others know this is a good resource for their marriage. You managed to find us; help someone else do the same.

Why Don’t We Ever Talk About What We Actually Want in Bed?

A deep dive into one of the most consistent findings from our survey of over 1,000 married Christians: couples who can talk openly about sex report dramatically higher satisfaction than those who can't. Check out the show notes here [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/why-dont-we-ever-talk-about-what-we-actually-want-in-bed/] for more details and links. In this episode, we cover: * Why so many couples stay silent about what they actually want in bed * The communication gap: satisfaction scores by comfort level across manual sex, oral sex, and mutual masturbation * Who is actually talking — and how many couples are stuck wanting to but don't know how * What openly discussing preferences actually does to sexual satisfaction * Why the gender picture is more surprising than you'd expect * Why the silence persists — and how it calcifies over time * A note on couples who don't discuss it and are doing fine anyway * How to start the conversation if you've been sitting on something unsaid Follow us on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/UncoveringIntimacy/], Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/uncoveringintimacy/] and Twitter If you'd like to discuss topics like this with other married Christians, consider joining our private forum [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/champion]. Thank you to all our faithful champions! If you'd like to support our ministry and see it grow, check out our support page [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/donate] for more info. Even $5/month makes a difference! Lastly, if you like our podcast, click here to give us a rating and leave us a review [https://lovethepodcast.com/uncoveringintimacy]. They help others know this is a good resource for their marriage. You managed to find us; help someone else do the same.

SWM 158 – Solo Masturbation – When You Remove the Other Person From Sex

Today we’re continuing with our Sex as Worship series, and in this post, we’re going to be talking about masturbation [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/tag/masturbation/], which is a highly contested argument in Christianity.  Is it okay, is it sinful, it is helpful or harmful? And before I say anything else, I want to share that I didn’t always believe the viewpoint I’m going to share.  Also, I don’t really want to talk about it.  It’s still an embarrassing topic, and I know I’m going to get a lot of flak for it.  People will unsubscribe.  Sometimes I get messages saying they hope to see me in hell.   But, I don’t think I can skip it.  This is a topic I see damaging so many marriages, so how do I leave it alone?   Also, this is my second rewrite.  I tried to make the first one more clinical, and after recording it – frankly, I hated it.  I was bored from recording it.  So, I rewrote it.  Let me know what you think. So here we go, take number two. I grew up in a church culture where masturbation [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/tag/masturbation/] was not discussed. It wasn’t encouraged, but also wasn’t warned against.  There were jokes here and there, hints and side comments, but more or less the message was that it was private and not to be discussed.   And as a young teenager – I honestly don’t remember how young, I developed a habit of masturbation [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/tag/masturbation/], and it followed me into adulthood and marriage.  Later, as BBS became popular (pre-internet) and then the internet, I added porn to that habit. But masturbation had already become more than a sexual habit.  It became a coping mechanism. I used it to self-soothe, to manage sexual frustration, and, later, I used it to avoid dealing with things in my marriage like differing sex drives, or when conflict got in the way of intimacy. I remember the first time the idea that masturbation might be sinful was really challenged for me.  It wasn’t until I was already married.  I was helping lead a youth group, and one of the other leaders decided the boys should read Every Man’s Battle [https://amzn.to/4t3i5yL] together. That was the first time I encountered the claim that masturbation itself, not just porn or lust, might be sinful. I don’t remember the arguments they used, I don’t remember any verses they shared, and I haven’t read the book since.  That was decades ago. What I remember is my reaction. I thought it was ridiculous.  I had a decade or more at this point of reasons, rationalizations and more for why it was okay that I’d built up myself, and I thought that my reasons were solid.  Looking back, I think I was really just defending my addiction.  I didn’t want it taken away from me, because I didn’t know how to cope without it. At that point, our marriage was clinically sexless – we barely had sex, and we couldn’t talk about it without getting into a fight. We had bad communication skills, no real intimacy at all in the marriage, and no hope of it really getting better.  Masturbation felt like survival. So when the idea was shared that my survival mechanism was sinful, I rejected it almost immediately. I leaned on my rationalizations, and I felt perfectly at peace with that decision.  I told myself that if God wanted me to stop, He would have put it in the Bible, or He would fix my marriage.

SWM 157 – Why Sex Gets Derailed Right Before It Starts

From time to time I get questions from our anonymous Have A Question page [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/have-a-question].  I received one a bit ago that I thought would be good to answer in its own post because this is a feeling that’s common to a lot of marriages.  I’ve heard this same complaint, with very minor variations, from many husbands and some wives.   And like this person, if you don’t know what’s going on, it can lead to some bad assumptions.  Maybe this has happened in your marriage.  Here’s the question: Am I going crazy or is my wife subtly sabotaging things? I’ve often pointed out to my wife that there’s a clear distinction in how she approaches our plans based on whether it’s something she really wants or it wasn’t really her idea.  I’ve seen her move mountains and leap over obstacles in some areas of our life together.  But in others she’s a never ending fount of potential issues, problems and risks.  They seem reliably separable into categories of what she really wants and what I possibly want more. One area, I see this and is making me feel like I’m going crazy, is our sex life.  If we’re going on a holiday and she wants to have a lot of sex, she will plan ahead, bring outfits, lube and be very vocal about it.  It’s great, fantastic even. If it’s a regular day we’ve scheduled sex, she won’t exactly say no, but the likelihood of some kind of ailment popping up just on time is about 75%.  Tiredness, tummy/digestive problems, a slight cough or cold; just enough to be a dampener. I particularly enjoy going down on her, but upon approach she will just mention something wrong. (some version of “I haven’t washed up” or “I had an upset stomach earlier”).  I like to make out, but after the first peck she’ll says something like “Not too much though, I was getting some sniffles yesterday”.  Moreso in the past, she would physically behave like someone who would rather not be touched, as an almost knee jerk reaction to my affection. It’s just too much of a coincidence that when we’re getting intimate she will bring up some of the most off putting topics in a way that perfectly sabotages the mood for me.  Sometimes it’ll just be something completely unrelated and left field. We do talk a lot, so I don’t think it’s a case of just needing some time to offload.  We spend an abnormal amount of time together, talk at multiple points during the day and usually a lot in the evenings too.  I know she really likes to talk, and I’m willing to be a listening ear but help me out here! I have raised this with her.  She has previously denied it happens at all. She has admitted it now, when I’ve pointed it out in the moment.  She has explained some particular situations.  She has apologised. She rejects my rationale that it has anything to do with desire or attraction.  All of this leaves me none the wiser as to how to move forward.  She thinks it shouldn’t be a blocker but for me it is.  It completely turns me off and leaves me feeling like a man she’s trying to distract herself from or manage, rather than a man she’s into.   Is that the plight of being a husband? When women have affairs with some guy they desire, do they ever bring up weird unrelated issues right before they get intimate? I know you can’t confirm if I’m imagining it, but is this something a lot of women do? Am I out of touch as a husband to expect that our only scheduled time to be intimate may ...

SWM 156 – Pornography, Erotica, and AI Companions – When You Replace the Person with a Fantasy

SWM — Sex as Worship: Pornography, Erotica and AI Companions. Check out the blog post here [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/swm-156-pornography-erotica-and-ai-companions-when-you-replace-the-person-with-a-fantasy/] for more details and links. Pornography and erotica have become ubiquitous and socially normalized, and AI “companions” are increasingly marketed as hyper-sexual substitutes. These offer the appeal of intimacy without risk—no rejection, responsibility or vulnerability—yet they train desire away from real people and covenant relationships. God designed intimacy for embodied, vulnerable union within marriage (Genesis 2:24–25; “to know” as in Genesis 4:1). In the “Sex as Worship” framework, aligning with God’s design is worship; deviations declare that we know better. Scripture shows God’s insistence on real relationships, not images or illusions (Exodus 20:4–6). Marriage pictures Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:31–32), and the incarnation underscores embodied presence (John 1:14). Substitutes like porn, erotica and AI reject that design (Romans 1:25). Practically, these fantasies retrain desire through novelty-driven dopamine, dulling normal arousal and escalating content. They reduce relationship satisfaction, weaken empathy, and increase objectification by orienting desire around control, not mutual love. They soothe loneliness without healing it, and intensify conflict avoidance—eroding skills vital to intimacy. Common rationalizations fall short: “It’s better than cheating,” “It’s just a character,” “It helps me cope,” “My spouse doesn’t meet my needs,” “Everyone does it,” “You’re sex-negative,” or “I can separate fantasy from reality.” In reality, formation happens; what captures your brain shapes your life. Relief isn’t healing, and avoidance entrenches wounds. If you’ve been using these, stop and seek accountability. Share with your spouse if possible, involve a pastor/elder or coach, and retrain desire toward your spouse. Neuroplasticity means change is possible; meditate on what is true, noble, pure and lovely (Philippians 4:8). Healing aims at presence, covenant, and embodied love. You were made for more than illusion. Fantasy promises intimacy without pain; only reality delivers intimacy with meaning. God’s design is harder and riskier—but far more satisfying. Follow us on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/UncoveringIntimacy/], Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/uncoveringintimacy/] and Twitter [https://twitter.com/uncoveringlove] If you'd like to discuss the questions as they come in, consider joining our private forum [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/champion]. Thank you to all our faithful supporters! If you like that there are no ads in our podcast and want to keep it that way, check out our support page [https://www.uncoveringintimacy.com/donate] for more info. Even $5/month makes a difference. Lastly, if you like our podcast, please rate it as it helps others know this is a good resource to help with their marriage. You managed to find us—help someone else do the same and receive the same benefits to their relationship.