I have similar issues with DP, not sexless but he has a lower sex drive than me, and mine isn’t particularly high. I initiated the conversation first drunk, on holiday and by basically saying we’d not had sex all holiday and going ‘what is wrong with you?!’ Which I absolutely would not advise, but it kind of worked for us as it got the ball rolling. It helps that we’re good communicators anyway, after some previous shit relationships I’m very clear now about what is and isn’t ok by me and we’ve always been quite upfront about everything. Once sober, the conversation continued by me saying how much I love him, trust him and fancy him, and I want to be with him and make it work. I said I know it’s awkward and embarrassing for both of us, but it’s not ok for him to just say ‘I have no sex drive anymore, The end’, because that made me very unhappy and it’s not ok for either of us to be made unhappy in the relationship. I said I didn’t want to put pressure on him to ‘perform’ or make him uncomfortable but st the same time I like and need sex within a relationship, so we were going to have to work together to find a way to both get what we need, or risk losing each other which neither of us want.
It’s still far from perfect in that department, but it’s a lot better. We do need to keep talking, reassuring each other, and finding what works. He knows I’d like more sex in a perfect world, but that I value the rest of our relationship so much I’m prepared to compromise on this, like he does with some things on me, as long as he doesn’t shut me out and refuse to keep working on it.
It helps that he’s very physically affectionate in other ways, tells me how much he loves me, that I’m beautiful etc, and that we can laugh about it together. We have times when things are more ‘regular’ and times when it fades away, it would be easy to just let it peter out and silently seethe or feel shit/rejected etc but I try not to let that happen, I raise the conversation again, ask him how he feels about how things are between us, whether he’s noticed that side of things slipping again and what he thinks we could do about it. Sometimes it’s ‘sorry I’ve just gotten lazy, I know that’s not fair and I’ll try harder’ which is great, other times it’s ‘actually I’m super stressed with work, my anxiety is getting on top of me a bit and I’m getting really pissed off with you leaving shoes all over the bloody house again’ in which case I accept that, we talk about the work thing and how we can deal with the anxiety and I pick up my bloody shoes! It might be a case of ok well sex isn’t going to happen for a bit then, but I’m missing intimacy and need reassurance so please could we do x, y, z instead (eg go on a nice date, give me a back rub, have a duvet day cuddling and watching shit tv, whatever).
If they’re talking about moving in together I’d actually use that as a conversation starter ‘so I really do want to move in together and I would love x/y/z about it but right now I’m really hesitant because we’re not having sex and we don’t seem to have talked about that properly or made any plans about how to address it. I know this is awkward and a difficult conversation to have but I want to let you know it makes me feel really rejected and upset. How do you feel about things? How do you see this resolving itself?’
If he refuses to engage or just fobs her off she needs to let him know that isn’t good enough, she doesn’t expect him to suddenly turn into a sex machine but she does need him to work with her on finding a solution they can both be happy with.
I wouldn’t move in with him until they’ve at least had some proper conversations and he’s shown he’s willing to try to improve things. No sex and no communication is a ticket to disaster.