Hi Brooke,

I wrote before explaining the situation where I told my husband that ‘I didn’t want to have sex unless I felt like it’. I then ran a model on how I felt about him ignoring me after this. Since then some new insight has come to light;
So I’ve been walking around feeling hurt that he is punishing me for just being honest but it didn’t occur to me that the conversation I had with my husband was me trying to change my actions without changing my thoughts.
I thought the problem was that I was agreeing to have sex when I didn’t want to and therefore resenting him for it. So the solution seems to be that I told him I wasn’t going to do that anymore. But he wasn’t aware for all these years that I didn’t want to have sex and that I was feeling all of this resentment. All he saw was me me abrupt and rejecting him. What I should have been doing is addressing the constant thought I was having that ‘I don’t feel like it’, ‘I’m too tired’, ‘but I better do it anyway because otherwise he might lose interest in me’. I was treating not feeling like having sex as fact, and not questioning if I was choosing to feel this way.
So the real solution to the problem would be to get myself to a place where I did feel like it. Because that’s where I want to be.

So here are the models;
C- My husband initiates sex
T- I don’t feel like it, I’m too tired
F- Turned off, detached
A- Distance myself from him
R- I never feel like it

New model

C- My husband initiates sex
T- I’m never too tired for this sexy man
F- Turned on, energised
A- Intimate with husband
R- Wonderful sexual relationship