by Dr. Lori Davis, DNP, FNP-C, Clinical Sexologist & Sex Counselor
Your partner looks at you in that way. Or touches you in that certain way. Or says “Do you want to…?”
And immediately, before you even consciously think about it, your body does this:
Your chest tightens. Your throat closes. Your shoulders rise toward your ears. Your stomach clenches. A feeling of overwhelm washes over you—like too much is happening all at once and you need to get away, but you also feel guilty for wanting to get away, which makes you angry that you feel guilty, which makes you sad that this is what happens between you, which makes you feel ashamed that you can’t just be normal about this.
All of that. In seconds. Before you’ve even answered.
I call this The Knot.
I’ve described this feeling to hundreds of people in my practice, and they all say the same thing: “Oh my god. Yes. Exactly. How did you know?”
Because The Knot is one of the most common—and most misunderstood—experiences for people who don’t spontaneously want sex with their partner.
And it’s one of the worst feelings you can have.
TL;DR
- The Knot is a bodily shutdown response — when your partner wants sex, it can show up as tightness, overwhelm, anger, guilt, and shame all at once
- It’s not just “not wanting sex” — it’s ambivalence: part of you wants to move forward, while another part wants to run
- The Knot has the physiology of a trauma response — too much, too fast, without enough support, leading to hypervigilance and shutdown
- It comes from many sources — early messages about whose pleasure matters, experiences of being pursued, and beliefs that sex should be spontaneous
- The Knot perpetuates itself — it creates loneliness, which then creates even more shutdown
- The work is not about having more sex — it’s about developing a new relationship with The Knot
- For higher-desire partners, turn toward this — your partner’s biggest pain is often the doorway to real intimacy
What The Knot Feels Like
Let me describe it more fully, and you tell me if this is familiar:
When your partner initiates sex—or you think they might, or you realize it’s been a while and they’re probably waiting for you to initiate—your body does something that feels like:
A tangled mess of contradictory feelings all happening at once:
- Tightness in your chest or throat
- Tension in your shoulders or jaw
- A sense of being trapped or cornered
- Overwhelm (this is too much, too fast)
- Dread (here we go again)
- Guilt (I should want this, what’s wrong with me?)
- Anger (why do they always want this from me?)
- Resentment (my needs never matter)
- Sadness (we used to be close, what happened?)
- Shame (I’m broken, I’m failing them)
- Confusion (I don’t even know what I want)
- Shutdown (I just need this to stop)
And underneath all of that: a terrible feeling of being trapped.
Part of you wants to move forward. Part of you wants to run away. You’re frozen between these two impulses, neither able to say yes nor able to say no in a way that feels clean and clear.
This is The Knot.
And if you recognize this feeling, you’re not alone. And you’re not broken.
Why The Knot Is So Painful
The Knot is one of the worst feelings you can have in an intimate relationship because:
It makes you feel trapped in your own body.
You can’t move forward (your body won’t let you). You can’t move away (guilt and shame won’t let you). You’re stuck in this horrible in-between place.
It makes you feel like you’re failing.
You “should” want your partner. You “should” be able to just say yes or no. You “should” not feel this way. The gap between who you think you should be and what’s actually happening in your body creates deep shame.
It creates loneliness.
You can’t explain this to your partner. They don’t understand why you’re not “just willing to try.” You feel isolated in this experience, like something is uniquely wrong with you.
It perpetuates itself.
The more you experience The Knot, the more your body learns to associate your partner’s desire with this awful feeling. Which makes The Knot tighter. Which makes the whole thing worse.
And it makes you feel like the problem is YOU.
If you could just relax, or be more spontaneous, or want sex like “normal people,” this wouldn’t be happening. Your partner’s frustration confirms this: clearly, you’re the broken one.
But that’s not true.
The Knot Is a Response, Not a Defect
Here’s what’s important to understand: The Knot is not a personal failing. It’s a physiological response.
What you’re experiencing in your body has all the markers of what happens when your nervous system encounters too much, too fast, without enough support.
Somatic Experiencing founder Peter Levine describes what happens when we experience overwhelm:
- Hypervigilance – You’re always monitoring. When will they want sex? Are they initiating? Should I initiate? What’s the right timing? You’re on high alert for any sign that sex might happen.
- Startle response – Your partner touches you affectionately and your body tenses. You can’t relax into touch anymore because you don’t know if it’s “just touch” or if it’s leading somewhere.
- Shutdown/immobilization – When you can’t fight and you can’t flee, your nervous system freezes. You go numb. You disconnect from your body. You “just get through it.”
- Overwhelm – Too many feelings happening at once. Your system can’t process it all, so it jams up.
- Disorientation – “I don’t know what I want.” You’ve lost connection to your own desire because the system is too overloaded to access it.
- Shame – A deep sense that something is wrong with you, that you’re not enough, that you’re failing.
This is what’s happening in The Knot.
You don’t need to identify as traumatized for this to be true. What matters is: your nervous system is responding to something as overwhelming, and The Knot is what that response feels like in your body.
Where The Knot Comes From
The Knot doesn’t come from nowhere. It develops over time, often from multiple sources layering on top of each other:
Early Messages About Love and Pleasure
Somewhere along the way, you learned things about what love means and who it’s for:
- Is pleasure FOR you, or is it something you provide?
- Whose desire matters? Yours? Theirs? Both? Neither?
- Can you say no to someone you love and still be loved back?
- Were people boundaryless with you? Did you learn early that protecting your boundaries was dangerous?
- Or did you learn that being walled off was the only way to be safe?
These early lessons live in your body, not just your mind. You might intellectually know “of course my pleasure matters” while your body knows something different.
Believing Sex Should Feel Spontaneous
Responsive desire means you don’t spontaneously think about or want sex—but you can enjoy it once you’re engaged and aroused. This is common in long term relationships – and it doesn’t have to be a problem, as long as you know how to work with it.
But you were told—by culture, by media, by the way everyone talks about sex—that desire should be spontaneous. You should “just want it.”
When you don’t, and your partner does, The Knot forms in that gap:
- Guilt (I should want this)
- Shame (what’s wrong with me?)
- Pressure (I need to force myself)
- Resentment (why do I have to be different?)
The Knot perpetuates itself because you’re trying to force your body to respond in a way it doesn’t naturally respond.
“Normal Marital Trauma” of Being Pursued
This phrase might sound dramatic, but hear me out:
When you’re in a relationship with someone who wants sex more than you do, and you care about them and don’t want to hurt them, and they’re frustrated and you can feel it, and you know it’s “been too long” but you still don’t want to, and they’re trying to be patient but you can feel their longing, and every touch starts to feel like a potential initiation…
That is a lot to carry.
Your nervous system is constantly navigating:
- Their desire
- Your lack of desire
- Your guilt about the mismatch
- Their hurt (real or perceived)
- The pressure to fix it
- The feeling that you’re failing
This creates what I call the Sex Clock—a hypervigilant tracking of time, frequency, their mood, your readiness. You’re always monitoring because you’re trying to manage their feelings and yours at the same time.
And all of this is the underlying dynamic at play when having mismatched desire gets really hard. You can read more about mismatched desire here. One way to work with it is to think deeply about how sex is initiated in your relationship. You can read more about that here.
All of this is exhausting. And it creates The Knot.
Messages About Whose Pleasure Matters
Here’s something that might sound political but lives in your body:
You’ve been swimming in messages your whole life about who gets to want, who gets to say no, whose pleasure is central, whose pleasure is optional.
The idea that one person’s desire can be prioritized over another’s. That “convincing” someone to have sex is normal. That sex means intercourse (which often doesn’t feel good to the person being penetrated). That women’s arousal is “optional” but men’s orgasm is required.
You might not consciously believe any of this. You might actively reject these ideas.
But your body might still be responding to them.
The Knot can be your body saying: “Wait. Something about this doesn’t feel safe. Something about this doesn’t feel like it’s FOR me.”
And that protective response is wise, even if it’s painful.
The Knot Creates Loneliness (Which Creates More Knot)
Here’s the terrible cycle:
The Knot makes you pull away.
You can’t explain what you’re feeling. Your partner doesn’t understand. You feel isolated in this experience. You start to avoid situations where sex might come up—intimacy, affection, even just being close.
Pulling away creates more distance.
Your partner feels rejected. You feel guilty. The gap between you widens. You’re both lonely, but you can’t reach each other.
Loneliness makes The Knot tighter.
Now when your partner reaches for you, The Knot also carries: “We’re so far apart. How can I be intimate with someone who feels like a stranger? This will never work.”
And the cycle continues.
The Knot creates loneliness. Loneliness perpetuates The Knot. Both of you are suffering.
For Higher-Desire Partners: This Is the Work
If you’re the partner who wants sex more, here’s what you need to know:
Your partner is not withholding from you. They’re suffering.
The Knot is not “I don’t want you.” It’s “My body is overwhelmed and I don’t know how to move through this.”
Your work is not to convince them to want sex.
Your work is to turn TOWARD their biggest pain point. To be curious about The Knot. To witness it without trying to fix it.
This is incredibly hard. Because what you want is sexual connection, and what I’m asking you to do is to be patient with your partner’s pain.
But here’s the truth:
If you want to have sex with YOUR ACTUAL PARTNER—not some fantasy version who spontaneously wants you all the time—you need to be willing to be close to this.
To The Knot. To the shutdown. To the overwhelm. To the ambivalence.
This might be the most intimate thing you’ve ever done.
More intimate than sex. Because you’re turning toward their suffering instead of away from it. You’re choosing to see them, really see them, in their hardest moment.
And that might be the sexiest thing of all.
Not sexy like arousal. Sexy like: true intimacy. Real connection. Being with your actual partner in their actual experience.
This takes time. Your partner may need months or years to develop a new relationship with The Knot. They may never “get over it” completely.
But if you want closeness with them—the actual person you’re with—this is the only way.
Turn toward the pain. Be curious. Be patient. Let them know you see The Knot and you’re not going anywhere.
This Is Not About Just Having More Sex
Here’s what most people think the goal is: Make The Knot go away so you can have more sex.
But that’s not it.
The work is about developing a new relationship with The Knot.
Not making it disappear. Not forcing yourself through it. Not pretending it’s not there.
The work is:
- Knowing The Knot. Recognizing it when it shows up. Understanding what it feels like in your specific body. Getting curious about it instead of ashamed of it.
- Being compassionate toward The Knot. This response developed for a reason. It’s trying to protect you from something—even if that protection is now creating more suffering than safety. Can you thank it for trying to keep you safe?
- Understanding where it comes from. Not to blame anyone (not yourself, not your partner, not your past), but to understand. When did you first feel this? What does it remind you of? What early messages live in this response?
- Finding a way out of the loneliness that perpetuates it. This is the hardest part. The Knot creates isolation. The isolation makes The Knot worse. The way through is connection—but not sexual connection. Human connection. Being seen in your pain. Having someone witness The Knot without trying to fix it or make it go away.
This is the work.
Not “have more sex.” Not “get over it.” Not “just relax.”
The work is: develop a relationship with this part of yourself that’s in so much pain.
What This Looks Like in Practice
When The Knot shows up:
- Instead of: “Oh god, not this again, what’s wrong with me, I should just say yes”
- Try: “There’s The Knot. I feel it in my chest. My shoulders are tight. Part of me wants to run. Part of me feels guilty. This is what happens in my body. I can notice it without judgment.”
When you feel alone in it:
- Instead of: hiding it, avoiding it, pretending it’s not happening
- Try: “I need to tell you what I’m experiencing. There’s this feeling I get—I call it The Knot. Can I try to describe it to you? Not so you can fix it, just so you know what’s happening in my body.”
When you want to understand it:
- Instead of: “I’m broken, this shouldn’t be happening”
- Try: “What is The Knot trying to protect me from? What does it remind me of? What early experiences might this be connected to? What messages about pleasure, desire, or whose needs matter might be living in this response?”
The goal is not to make The Knot disappear.
The goal is to know it. To be with it. To understand it. To let someone else witness it with you.
This is how The Knot begins to loosen.
The Path Forward
The Knot is workable.
Not by forcing it. Not by ignoring it. Not by having more sex.
By knowing it. By being compassionate with it. By finding your way out of the loneliness.
If you recognize The Knot in yourself, you’re not alone. Hundreds of people I’ve worked with experience this exact thing. It’s real. It’s painful. And it’s not your fault.
The work is possible. It’s hard, but it’s possible.
Sometimes it requires professional support—someone who can help you understand where The Knot comes from, how it shows up in your body, and how to develop a new relationship with it.
Sometimes it requires patience from your partner—their willingness to turn toward your pain instead of away from it.
Sometimes it requires you to be brave enough to say: “This is what I’m experiencing. Can you see it with me?”
The Knot is not the enemy. It’s a messenger.
It’s telling you something about what you need, what you’re protecting, what hasn’t been safe yet.
Listen to it. Be kind to it. Find your way through it—not around it.
This is the work. And you don’t have to do it alone.
Working with Me
If you recognized yourself in this post, this is exactly the work I do. I help individuals and couples understand what’s happening in the body around sex and desire, and find a way through it. In person in Ithaca or virtually anywhere in the US.
Learn more about working together here. Book a free consultation here.
Dr. Lori Davis is a Doctor of Nursing Practice, board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner, and AASECT Certified Sex Counselor specializing in desire discrepancy and sexual health in long-term relationships. She teaches sexuality counseling at the University of Michigan.
Further reading:
