To think it’s perfectly reasonable to divorce over sex?

@LoveTheRainAndSun oh right. Thanks.

I think it's nice to feel like this when you haven't experienced anything that's turned your world upside down or totally knocked your sense of self off course.

For me, having a very ill and suicidal child threw everything I knew and everything I was under the bus. I couldn't eat or sleep, never mind have sex, when my child was in the next room thinking of ways to die.

That time has passed but it's incredibly hard to find ourselves again. And I say that as someone who had sex a week after my first baby was born.

Other Man.

Sorry but what is "OM" ?

I suppose what I'm saying is that sex is so immediate and grounding as a tool.

Not that you can't connect without it. Maybe that in an overloaded and frenetic child-rearing and working relationship it's a kind of quick circuit-buster and energiser. Makes you keen to keep going?

Interested in what Mebebecat might say.

Six months isn't very long though. My husband hasn't wanted any kind of intimacy with me for 11 years, that's no sex, no hugs, no kisses, no casual touch. It's awful. I definitely feel it's a deal-breaker.

@JenniferBooth i think iI might need to start your own thread because, tbh, this isn’t the right place to be boasting about your OM.

I’m sorry for your loss and your troubles but I don’t think all these posts about the om are really appropriate here.

Something happened to me a couple of years ago that made me not interested in intimacy for a good while, I'd say it was probably around 6 months. Thank god my husband stuck around and didn't think that was a reason to leave me

You honestly can’t understand that other people have different sex drives from you? You literally cannot understand?

in an ideal world people have matched sex drives. In reality they don’t. They change and evolve As time and the relationship progresses.

I thank my lucky stars that me and DP do. I know it’s not uncommon for it to be mismatched. For it to change. I try and empathise either way.

I know at least 5 couples (middle aged) in RL who have no sex but are loving, devoted and spend all their time together and enjoy their life together.

They would have been physical in their younger years but for whatever reason are no longer. But their love and profound care for each other is still very evident.

I don’t think you can make emphatic statements about the importance of sex in other people’s marriages. Life and health gets a bit more complicated as you get older and some things become more important.

Sex is maybe not as important to some couples as others? We could easily go more than a week even as newly weds. In hindsight, I think DH would have liked more, but he's hopeless at talking about sex, so that's on him.

Either your marriage vows matter to you or they don't. You can't pretend they're important to you to the extent that you would judge others for breaking them when obviously they're not.

I... don't believe you. You give off connected and contentment vibes that I see as borne from physical connection, even if the sex is only 1% of your time together. (I'm like this with my husband, even though we can go a week or more without fucking at times of stress.) I feel like it is part at least of the foundation of this vibe? Am I wrong?

There's also 'for better, for worse'.

EXACTLY At 19 i had NO IDEA there was such a thing as a man not interested in sex because that is not what we are warned about as teenage girls is it? We are warned that men are only after one thing. Which is why many women are a bit surprised to find themselves in a situation like mine when they are older. A lot of people here wax lyrical about gender stereotyping but seem to have a blind spot when its THIS kind of gender stereotyping

Yes but its also pick and choose when its the reverse.

That was never in my vows but I think it is an expectation when you get married that there will be sex. Of course, when I was 18 and getting married, I had no idea of all the ups and downs of life, medically, emotionally and practically, that can affect the sex life. I think it's reasonable to accept and ride out that there will be ups and downs with sex, like with everything else. If someone decides unilaterally to just shut up shop without any discussion or good reason, then the other side can consider if they want to stay in the marriage. Sex isn't something I'd leave my DH over at this point though.

And unless I'm misunderstanding the reference to OM, why be so het up on one marriage vow but not the one about forsaking all others? A bit pick and choose, no?

What was left of my sex drive going through menopause , was killed completely through taking medication

Would I mind my DH looking for sex outside the marriage, not really, not if that was all it was. If he had an affair? Hmmmmmmmmm

You can be asexual but still enjoy romance and want the stability/security of being married.

@scranonstrangler there is a big difference between sex and intimacy. Perfectly illustrated by @gestroopd whose toxic relationship included some sex but absolutely no intimacy.

I have a friend who due to medical need had a full hysterectomy before turning 30. After that she didn’t have sec with her husband for over 2 years and I don’t think it will ever be what it was pre surgery. They are still very much in love, connected and I don’t think if the sex stopped again that it would be the end of their relationship.

I know someone else whose husband nearly died due to an entirely random health issue a few years ago. He is generally recovered but so far they have not had sex since he was in hospital. She considers that they have intimacy in other ways, she would like to have sex again at some point but if he never wanted to again she wouldn’t leave. They are still in love and show each other affection, they are happy and she tells me she’s got a very good vibrator!

Sex isn’t the main crux of marriage for most people, what they actually need is physical connection, emotional understanding and clear affection. Obviously a mutually accepted level of sexual contact with s the ideal but often one person will be more keen than the other based on a whole host of factors. Sex drive varies for so many reasons and as much as I enjoy sex I wouldn’t leave my husband if we never had sec again. I’d be sad about it and try to work out if there was anything to be done to change the circumstances but I made vows for life and no one is owed sex in marriage.

Because not everyone takes that vow. It doesn't even feature in a civil marriage ceremony.

OM is 68

Wait till you and your partner are 60+
A 40 Yr marriage is certainy about more than sex.

You’re allowed to do what you want, but starting a thread about it, whereby you ‘don’t understand the point’, ‘can’t fathom’ and are ‘keen to understand’ is just downright weird. No one should have that level of invested thought in other people’s sex lives.

And I say this as someone who has a very active sex life. I feel sorry for people you post on here who feel ignored and neglected in whatever their needs are in a marriage, but it stops there. If they are able to happily resolve it in either direction, then great.