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Most of us spend our entire lives trying to avoid one particular feeling. We control, we manipulate, we people-please, we withdraw – all to avoid this one uncomfortable emotion. And in doing so, we’re actually destroying the very thing we’re trying to protect: our intimate relationships.

That feeling? Disappointment.

And here’s what’s wild – the better you get at feeling disappointed, the better your sex life becomes. I know that sounds backwards, but stick with me.

Let me start with a moment most of us have experienced. You’ve been thinking about your spouse all day. Maybe you unloaded the dishwasher, took the kids to practice, had a great conversation over dinner. You didn’t expect sex—but you were hoping. You climb into bed, maybe brush their hair back, kiss their neck… and they say, “I’m just too tired.”

And there it is. That sudden heaviness in your chest. That moment where the hope drains out of you. Disappointment.

Maybe you roll over and say “no problem,” trying to play it cool. Or maybe your stomach knots and you lie there awake, wondering what you did wrong. Or maybe you withdraw emotionally—not out of punishment, but because it hurts. Because you wanted something. You were open. And it didn’t happen. Again.

But instead of acknowledging the pain, most of us do what we’ve always done—deny it, numb it, hide it, or try to make it go away. Because most of us? We never learned how to sit with disappointment.

What Is Disappointment?

Disappointment is what happens when hope meets reality—and they don’t match. It’s the moment your heart reaches out… and there’s no hand to take it.

It’s when you want sex with your spouse tonight, but they’re exhausted and need to go to sleep. It’s when you want them to initiate sex more often, but weeks go by without them making a move. It’s the silence after you share something vulnerable and they change the subject. It’s the way you imagined your anniversary, and what actually happened.

Here’s what’s crucial to understand: disappointment is not a problem to be solved. It’s information. It’s your brain’s way of saying, “Hey, what you thought would happen didn’t happen.” That’s valuable data, not a catastrophe.

Disappointment isn’t drama. It’s not neediness. It’s the emotional bruise that forms when something mattered to you—and you didn’t receive it. And we only feel disappointment where love, desire, or longing was already present. Which means: your disappointment is proof that your heart is still alive.

But because no one taught us what to do with that ache, we often treat it like something to be ashamed of. We tell ourselves we’re too sensitive. We shouldn’t want so much. We should just be grateful for what we have.

Why We Didn’t Learn to Handle Disappointment

Most of us didn’t grow up in families that modeled emotional resilience. When you didn’t get invited to the party, your parent said, “It’s not a big deal.” When your relationship ended, they said, “Plenty of fish in the sea.” When you came home devastated from a bad day, they tried to cheer you up or distract you rather than sit in it with you.

And that taught you, slowly and consistently, that disappointment wasn’t safe to feel.

Your parents may have meant well—they didn’t want you to hurt. But what you learned was that hard feelings should be avoided, that if you express pain you’re being dramatic, and that your emotions make other people uncomfortable.

So you adapted. You learned to bury your disappointment. Or worse—you learned to never hope too much in the first place.

In our faith tradition, this gets even more complicated. We’re taught to have hope, to work toward righteous desires, to invest in our relationships. But sometimes we think that if we’re living righteously, if we’re doing all the “right” things, we should be able to avoid disappointment. We think it’s a sign we’re doing something wrong or that our faith isn’t strong enough.

What We Do to Avoid Disappointment

Now fast forward to your adult relationships. You’re married. You want sex, connection, romance, tenderness, delight. But every time you even think about wanting something, you start to panic: “What if I get let down again? What if I care too much and it doesn’t happen?”

So what do most of us do when we realize disappointment is lurking around the corner? We become masters of emotional self-protection.

We try to control everything. You micromanage dinner, the schedule, the lighting, the energy in the room—because maybe if everything is just right, you won’t be let down. You clean the house, put on music, light candles, make sure the kids are asleep – all to create the “perfect” conditions where your spouse will surely want to have sex. Then when they’re still tired or stressed despite your perfect setup, you’re crushed.

Or we go into avoidance mode. You convince yourself you didn’t want it anyway. You play cool, detached. “I don’t even care anymore.” But you do care. You’re just trying to get out in front of the pain.

Then there’s the people-pleasing route. We become sexually accommodating to the point of resentment – always available for our spouse’s sexual needs, hoping that our accommodation will guarantee they’ll say yes when we want sex. We say yes when we don’t really want to, building bitterness when they don’t reciprocate the same way.

I see this all the time in coaching. A wife avoids telling her husband that she doesn’t enjoy the kind of sex they’re having because she doesn’t want to disappoint him. A husband goes silent about his desire for more connection because he’s sure his wife will feel shame—and that’s unbearable for him. So they both tiptoe around the truth. Around themselves.

Here’s the problem: the cost of avoiding disappointment is that we also avoid truth. We avoid growth. We avoid intimacy.

Immature Ways We Handle Disappointment

When our control attempts fail – and they always do eventually – we often resort to immature ways of handling disappointment. Let me walk through some of the most common ones I see.

The Emotional Withdrawal: This is when we get disappointed and then shut down emotionally. We might say, “Fine, whatever,” and then give our spouse the cold shoulder for days. We think we’re protecting ourselves, but what we’re actually doing is punishing our spouse for not meeting expectations they may not have even known we had.

The Guilt Trip: This is when we make our spouse responsible for our disappointment. “I guess my feelings don’t matter to you.” “If you really loved me, you would want to have sex with me.” We’re essentially saying, “You caused this feeling, so you need to fix it.”

The Catastrophic Thinking: When we’re disappointed sexually, we make it mean something huge about our relationship or our worth. “She wasn’t in the mood tonight, which means she’s not attracted to me anymore.” “He didn’t initiate this week, which means he doesn’t desire me.”

The Passive-Aggressive Response: We don’t say we’re disappointed directly, but we make sure our spouse knows through our behavior. We might be short with them, “forget” to do something nice we usually do, or make subtle digs.

All of these responses create distance in our marriage instead of closeness. They turn our spouse into an adversary instead of a partner.

How Immature Responses Destroy Sexual Connection

Here’s the big one for my audience – all of this absolutely destroys sexual connection. When someone feels like they’re constantly disappointing you sexually, or when they feel like they have to manage your emotions to avoid your sexual disappointment, they don’t feel safe to be vulnerable with you sexually. And vulnerability is essential for great sex.

I had a client who told me, “I feel like I’m constantly managing my husband’s emotions around sex. If I’m not in the mood, he gets sulky and withdrawn for days. If I say something about what I need sexually, he takes it as criticism and shuts down. I’ve started having sex when I don’t really want to just to avoid the emotional drama that follows when I say no. But now I resent him, and I definitely don’t feel close to him during sex.”

When we make our spouse responsible for managing our sexual disappointment, we create a pressure cooker environment where both people are trying so hard not to mess up that they can’t relax and be themselves sexually.

Think about what this does to freedom and playfulness in the bedroom. When someone knows that their “no” will result in emotional punishment, they lose the freedom to say no authentically. And when you can’t say no freely, your yes doesn’t mean much either. Sex becomes a performance to manage emotions rather than an expression of desire and connection.

There’s no room for spontaneity when you’re walking on eggshells. There’s no space for exploration when every sexual interaction carries the weight of potential emotional fallout. Sex becomes heavy, obligatory, and frankly – unappealing. Who wants to be intimate with someone when it feels like you’re managing a toddler’s tantrum instead of connecting with your partner?

What Does It Look Like to Sit with Disappointment?

Here’s what I want you to know: You don’t have to fix disappointment. You don’t have to solve it. You just have to feel it.

That moment when your partner says “not tonight” and you feel the sting rising? Pause. Don’t swallow it. Don’t explode. Don’t shut down. Just notice it.

“This is disappointment. This is what it feels like.”

First: Feel the feeling. When disappointment shows up, don’t immediately try to fix it or make it go away. Just feel it. It’s an emotion, not an emergency. You might think, “I’m disappointed that we’re not having sex tonight. That’s okay. I can feel disappointed without making it mean anything terrible about our relationship.”

You can even speak it out loud: “I was hoping we’d have sex tonight, and I’m feeling sad that we didn’t.”

Sometimes you’ll cry. Sometimes you’ll feel the heat in your chest. Sometimes you’ll need a quiet walk or a breath in the bathroom. But the goal isn’t to get rid of the feeling. It’s to let it move through you.

Second: Get curious about your expectations. Ask yourself, “What was I expecting, and was that expectation reasonable and communicated?” And then, “What was I really longing for?” Maybe it wasn’t just about sex. Maybe it was about comfort, confidence, closeness, or feeling wanted.

Third: Own your part. This doesn’t mean taking blame for everything, but it does mean taking responsibility for your expectations and your emotional response. “I had an expectation that wasn’t met, and I’m feeling disappointed. That’s my experience to process.”

Fourth: Communicate cleanly. If there’s something to discuss with your spouse, do it without making them responsible for your feelings. “I was hoping we could have sex tonight, and I’m feeling disappointed. I want you to know that’s not your fault – you’re genuinely tired, and that’s okay. I’m going to take care of my disappointment, and maybe we can find another time this week when we’re both feeling more energetic.”

When you can take ownership of your emotions but still communicate clearly what is going on for you, that’s intimacy.

Fifth: Self-soothe. Instead of needing your spouse to fix your disappointment, you comfort yourself. You might journal, take a bath, call a friend, pray, or just sit with the feeling until it passes – which it will.

See the difference? You’ve owned your experience, maintained connection, and opened the door for future sexual connection.

Sexual Disappointment Specifically

Sex is a sacred place where disappointment often shows up with intensity. You wanted sex and didn’t get it. You had sex—but it felt disconnected. You fantasized about something and your spouse had no interest. Or maybe your body didn’t respond the way you hoped. Maybe orgasm didn’t come. Maybe you felt self-conscious the whole time.

Sexual disappointment isn’t just physical. It’s emotional. And often, spiritual. It taps into our deepest questions: Am I desirable? Am I good enough? Am I loved?

You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t hurt. You don’t have to push through it to avoid “ruining the moment.” You can feel it. You can say it.

“I noticed I felt disappointed after last night. I think I was hoping to feel close to you in that way.”

That’s not complaining. That’s intimacy. And when we normalize disappointment in sex, we open the door to repair, creativity, and deeper trust.

When Your Spouse Can’t Handle Disappointment

Many people I work with say the same thing: “My spouse can’t deal with disappointment. If I say no to sex, they get sulky or cold. If I bring up something I need, they take it as a personal failure.”

Often, these people were never taught to tolerate emotional discomfort. They were raised to succeed, to solve, to power through—not to feel. So when disappointment arises, they experience it as shame, as threat, as “I’m not enough.” And instead of processing it, they turn it outward—through blame, withdrawal, or pressure.

That’s not okay—but it is human. And understanding it helps you not take it personally. Instead of managing their reaction, you can gently hold a mirror: “It seems like when things don’t go as you hoped, it’s really painful. I wonder if that’s something we could learn to sit with together.”

This doesn’t make you their therapist. But it does mean you don’t have to become smaller to keep them from feeling big emotions.

The Connection Between Emotional Maturity and Your Sexual Relationship

Here’s something I want you to really understand – the way you handle disappointment directly impacts your sexual relationship with your spouse. When you can handle sexual disappointment maturely, you become a safer person for your spouse to be sexually vulnerable with.

Think about it from your spouse’s perspective. If every time they can’t meet one of your sexual expectations, you withdraw or blame or guilt trip, they’re going to start trying to manage your emotions instead of being authentic with you sexually. They might say yes to sex when they don’t really want to, just to avoid your disappointment. Or they might avoid being honest about their own sexual needs and desires because they don’t want to deal with your reaction.

But when you can handle sexual disappointment with grace, when you can feel your feelings without making them your spouse’s responsibility, you create space for authentic sexual connection. Your spouse can say no when they need to say no, knowing you’ll handle it maturely. They can be honest about what they want sexually and what they don’t want without fear of emotional punishment.

This creates a positive cycle in your sexual relationship. The safer your spouse feels to be honest about sex, the more honest they’ll be. The more honest they are, the more you can trust them and connect with them authentically. And authentic connection is the foundation of great sex.

When your spouse doesn’t have to worry about managing your emotions around sex, they can focus on their own pleasure and desires. They can be present during sex instead of worried about your reaction. They can explore and communicate freely because they trust that you can handle whatever they share, even if it’s not what you were hoping to hear.

Teaching Our Children About Disappointment

This is the legacy work. Imagine a child whose parent can sit with them when they don’t get picked, when they lose, when they get left out—not to distract them, but to be with them.

“Yeah, that hurts. You really wanted that. I’m here with you.”

That’s it. That’s the gift. Not fixing. Not minimizing. Just presence.

And if your child learns to feel disappointment without shame? They grow up into a teenager who can name what they want in a relationship. An adult who can have hard conversations without collapse. A spouse who can hear “not tonight” and still feel loved.

The emotional maturity you develop around disappointment will directly impact their ability to have healthy sexual relationships as adults. When they can handle sexual disappointment maturely in their future marriages, they’ll be able to maintain connection instead of creating distance.

Practical Steps for This Week

Let me give you some concrete things you can start doing this week:

First: Start noticing your expectations around sex and intimacy. Begin paying attention to the hopes you have – about frequency, timing, your spouse’s responses. Just awareness is the first step.

Second: When sexual disappointment shows up, pause before reacting. Take three deep breaths and remind yourself that disappointment is information, not an emergency.

Third: Practice the phrase “I’m disappointed, and that’s okay.” Say it to yourself when disappointment shows up around sex or intimacy.

Fourth: Experiment with sharing your sexual disappointments without making your spouse responsible for fixing them. “I’m feeling disappointed about our sex life lately. I just wanted you to know what’s going on for me.”

Fifth: Notice how your spouse responds when you handle sexual disappointment maturely versus when you don’t. I think you’ll be surprised by how much more connected and responsive they are when they don’t feel responsible for managing your emotions.

Closing Thoughts

Disappointment is not something to be ashamed of. It’s a sign you cared. That you hoped. That you opened your heart—even if it didn’t turn out the way you wanted. And that? That is holy work.

As Glennon Doyle says, “Every time you’re given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your duty is to disappoint that someone else.”

So let’s stop abandoning ourselves to avoid hard feelings. Let’s stop managing the emotions of others just to keep the peace. Let’s become people who can feel disappointment fully—and still choose love, softness, and truth on the other side.

Learning to be disappointed – really learning to feel that emotion without trying to control it away or make someone else fix it – is one of the most important skills you can develop for your marriage and your sex life.

It’s not about becoming a doormat or lowering your standards. It’s about becoming an emotionally mature person who can handle the inevitable disappointments of life without creating unnecessary drama or distance in your relationships.

When you can feel disappointed without making it anyone else’s fault or responsibility, you become someone your spouse wants to be vulnerable with sexually. You become someone who can take risks and love deeply because you’re not afraid of the disappointment that sometimes comes with being fully invested in life and love.

Remember, the goal isn’t to never feel disappointed. The goal is to feel disappointed with grace, to use that information wisely, and to stay connected to the people you love even when life doesn’t go according to plan.

So go practice being disappointed – it’s going to revolutionize your sexual relationship.