My husband doesn't want to have sex

At a time when you most need support, affection and to feel desirable, your husband seems to have run for the hills leaving you as you say, feeling rejected, confused and worthless. You don’t tell me when this problem first arose or how either of you would describe what intimacy was like previously so I’m making one or two assumption here which I hope will be useful. 

It sounds like this problem started maybe as a result of the cancer diagnosis. Some readers will immediately identify with the range of very profound feelings that wash over not only the person with the diagnosis but also their partners, family and friends. 

Then of course there’s the treatment. Just getting through each day can feel so isolating, depleting and scary. Of course there are now a rich sources of helpful information and online forums for both patient and those around them. Many people find all this useful. But the bottom line is that so often couple relationships get side-lined as the journey with and through cancer takes its course. Suddenly finding yourself in a place where everything is focused on hospital visits, treatment plans and just getting though the day can upend the strongest of relationships. And then there’s the whole intimacy thing... 

Being a patient doesn’t come easily. Likewise for a partner, taking on what might seem like a carer’s role in the relationship, even for just a while can take a lot of getting used to. Suddenly, the ways of communication you’re most used to don’t seem to work as well as before. Things get said that shouldn’t and other conversations that would definitely benefit from an airing get lost or put to one side both for entirely understandable reasons. You tell me you have your own business in which you play an important part. Just keeping that show on the road becomes massively difficult when life throws a real curved ball. 

If I had to guess, I would say that your husband simply doesn’t know how to respond to you now. You’ve both been through a very stressful and highly worrying time, come out the other end and want things to be the same as they were. But they’re not. Talking about what’s happened, how you each feel and want and yet being earful of saying the wrong thing or being seen as meaning that things aren’t as good as they once were can curtail the best of efforts to communicate. That is why so often, one or both partners withdraw from each other leaving one or both partners feeling bereft. 

The thing is though, you really are communicating with each other. In your respective ways, you’re being entirely clear with what’s needed. You want him love and need you and he wants you to stop asking for that – hence the excuses, because he doesn’t know how to respond. We all do this sometimes. We want something so much but we develop less than helpful ways of sharing our feelings or needs. I think that’s what’s going on here. 

So – what to do about it..?

If ever a problem cried out for couple counselling, it’s this one. You both need to work out how the relationship has changed and to talk openly and honestly about your respective fears, needs and wants. I can understand that you may well feel you’ve already been telling him all this only for him to get angry and defensive, but believe you me, working with someone who is there for both of you and can hold and support each of you to share feelings rather than just lobbing them at each other is so often a gateway to finding a new way forward together. Does it always work 100% of the time? No, it doesn’t but it can be a game changer by enabling different conversations that offer healing, care and consideration to step out from the shadows and replace the angry, sad and defeated ones which are keeping everything so stuck.