This Relationship Coach Is Explaining Why Women Stop Having Sex With Their Partners, and Tbh, She Has a Point

Dr. Sarah Hensley, aka The Dating Decoder, just made the manosphere mad, and we kinda see why. The psychology Ph.D. and relationship coach went straight to the point on her TikTok account and explained why most women stop having sex in a relationship — and we feel seen.

After all, we’ve all been there.

“The primary reason why women stop having sex with their husbands is because they don’t feel emotionally safe,” Hensley said, not before warning of a probable mansplaining wave in her comments. “The reason they don’t feel emotionally safe is because their attachment needs are not being met inside their relationship.”

As you might expect, most people in the comments felt she had a point. Meanwhile, others — mostly men — thought she was biased.

However, science does back up what Dr. Hensley says.

What are attachment needs?

“Attachment needs are our deepest needs inside a romantic relationship,” Hensley explains. “And if those things are not fulfilled, we will not feel emotionally safe.”

“Especially for women, when there is a lack of emotional safety, they start feeling very unsafe giving their bodies to their partner,” she continued.

Since John Bowlby’s 1944 article “Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves,” researchers have studied the importance of attachment and attachment-related experiences. This includes the primary relationship with their parents and the development of personal relationships as adults.

They found that caregivers’ failure to meet the infant’s emotional needs has long-term consequences. “Early environments matter, and nurturing relationships are essential,” they wrote. Children grow and thrive in the context of close and dependable relationships that provide love and nurturing, security, responsive interaction, and encouragement for exploration.

Apparently, how we build that primary attachment impacts our way of relating to others in adulthood. Researchers further developed the attachment theory, examining its impact on the family system in general.

What are the different attachment styles, and how can they impact our adult relationships?

As Dr. Sarah Hensley explained, women who don’t feel their emotional needs are met “simply can’t get physically turned on by their partners anymore.” But how can we recognize our attachment needs?

According to Hensley, each attachment style has “very different needs.” So, “knowing the attachment style of your partner is really the key to the kingdom.” Furthermore, it can guarantee both individuals get “all their needs met inside the relationship.”

These attachment styles are:

The anxious/preoccupied person most likely grew up in an ambivalent home, possibly with a caregiver who sometimes positively responded to their needs and other times ignored them. This individual’s biggest need in a relationship is “love, affection, and reassurance,” Dr. Hensley explains. “They need lots of reassurance every single day [to know] that you love them, the relationship is stable, and that you are appreciative of them.”

On the other hand, the disorganized/fearful-avoidant might’ve experienced aggression or hostility from their parents when they voiced their needs. In a relationship as adults, their biggest need is to “feel seen, heard and understood.” Dr. Hensley explains they must “trust you to show up for them.” 

Finally, the avoidant/dismissive person might have lived with distant and detached caregivers. For this individual, “space, autonomy, and lack of criticism” are key.

In other words, women (and men) need their specific attachment needs met

According to Dr. Hensley, when women express that their emotional needs are not met, they often also confess they “physically cannot get turned on by their partners anymore.” In fact, she assures women in her practice “start to get disgusted like they get the ick so majorly bad.”

She asks: “Could you open up your body and allow someone to penetrate your being if you feel disgusted by them?”

The answer seems simple, and many of her followers agree.

One wrote, “Funny how the needs are always met in the first three months of the relationship, but they are not met so much after a ring on it.”

Another one agreed, “I tried so hard, but it was all connected to his lack of interest in me.”

And while many men in the comments thought her approach was biased, others understood feeling safe is essential for both people in the relationship.

“Feeling emotionally safe goes both ways,” a user wrote.