Can a sexless marriage work?

[bamamama]

Ok, the clue is in the title here & apologies if this subject has been done to death but I've read a couple of threads recently where there has been some discussion of men with low (or non existant) libidos. I'm in that situation myself and have just kinda got used to the situation. Who out there is in the same boat? How much does it bother you? (Just need to know I'm not on my own here..!)

His parents had a pretty shit marriage and so he flitted between his parents and grandparents, when we met he had been living with his Grandparents for 5 years. Whilst he had 3 or 4 Girlfriends in his late teens he had just had a series of one night (sometimes a week) stands up until he met me. We actually split up for a while just before our daughter was born and during that time he had 3/4 grilfriends and agian loads of one night stands, one of the girlfriends he had he really fell in love with. She dumped him after about 4 months and he came crying on my shoulder, great fun when you are pregnant. We got back together when DD was 6 months old. I was a size 8 to 10 then, I am a size 22 now and so I can understand his excuses now. His excuse at the size 8/10 point was that I wasn't toned enough. We have talked abut the past in detail and he says that he didn't know what he had at that point and could kick himself for not having slept with me much at that point.(I was 23 and he was 31) I always thought that part of his problem was his obsession of the new challenge. I don't ask or make the first move now, as it is humiliating to be turned down time and time again.

Monkeytrousers no I am not on AD's, I have had counselling in the past for 2 x PND. The counsellor said that he was emotionally stunted, and a moron. at the moron bit.

In my limited experience when the sex goes, so does the relationship but that is in my experience only. My libido has been limited recently, probably as I've been having problems with my dp and it's the only way I can retain some autonomy for myself within the relationship (subsconsciously although I do worry that this is a sign of ageing for me). When he rolls over to me in the morning, I feel like screaming at him to stop pawing at me and to leave me alone to sleep some more . Having someone ask for sex all the time tbh feels like a nuisance even if you know that they're only doing it cos they love you. SOrry this isn't more upbeat.

Yeah I realise that bookwormmum, that is why I really try hard not to ask any more. I seem to feel the need for affection most during my period. I have been trying to sort things out with myself lately I have a DD who has CP so I have spent the last 6 years really rather busy IFYKWIM, but when I had got her education (statement) and health as settled as I could and she was in school full time I looked at me. I know have a job for 20 hrs a week during school hours as a sec to the school nurses, and last year I re sat the two GCSE (from home) I had got shit grades in at school (B & C grades ) this yr I am doing Alevels eek I sat my last exam on friday and so I had a bit o wine last night hence my post. I am not THAT open normally. Also I have joined weight watchers.

Sounds like you have a lot on your plate -congrats for just getting through the last six years or so! This may have been addressed already but have you considered counselling (with or withour your OH) with relate or similar? It's also a long shot but is your dh generally healthy and energetic? Tiredness or general fatigue does nowt for desire if you already have a low libido.

Girls, don't be so hard on yourselves - it is NOT because you gained weight, or you aren't pretty enough. Trust me, that's just not the case I have a feeling. I have been married for one year (on saturday) and although my husband and i were very intimate all during our years dating, through our engagement and through the first month or so of marriage - we have not had sex for the last six months. I am very discouraged for several reasons. One - although I did not wait for marriage to be intimate with men, i waited for marriage to be creative and to try my fantasies. Now this is out of the question for me, possibly for life. Two- I am 5'7, 105 pounds, blonde, blue eyed, getting my masters degree etc etc...everyone THINKS i have the perfect life, perfect body, perfect husband, perfect sex life...but I don't. My husband (age 27) doesn't desire me and I cry myself to sleep too. He suffers from severe depression and managed to keep the severity of it hidden for many years. I convinced him to seek help, both therapy and to see a psychiatrist - now he is on antidepressants and cannot be off them. He has been on for two years now, off and on, and it has been decided that he must stay on them as he has recently, privately, discussed suicidal thoughts. I know he loves me and i Love ever single ounce of him....but I do share the feeling of loss thinking that I may never be intimate with a man again... I am only 24 and my husband really wants children, as do I, but now IVF seems like the only way. He is my best friend, but he cannot get an erection, and he doesn't see the need to pleasure me since he has no "feelings". So please, dont blame yourselves, don't blame your figures, don't you worry - its not you. I have a very strong feeling about that. My eyes weld up with tears when I read some of your comments, as I empathize and so desperately wish to solve your fears. Good luck to you all, may we live fulfilled lives in every way possible...

ikilekittens, you sound like you are having a really hard time, with two < two and dh working away, I can honestly say you need to be very sure what you are getting into, and need to be confident your dh is able to support you as a family, as you really need it, or you could end up feeling so resentful,
Im think you need to go one step at a time,good luck

I've been in a sexless relationship for about 6 years (apart from the odd occasion when trying to make a baby). I'd assumed that both our libidos had died and because our relationship was perfect in every other way, I accepted the situation (we now have a baby). But I found out recently that my H has been having sex with a woman (also in a sexless marriage) for 2 years. I assumed he was happy with it and he obviously wasn't. I think the key is to honestly communicate. A 'no sex' relationship will only work if that's what you both honestly want.
Strangely, since I found out about his affair our sex life has been rekindled. It's been so long that it actually feels like sex with a new person. And the way I look is irrelevant I realised. I have post pregnancy jelly belly and the 1st time we did it I hadn't showered for 2 days or shaved my legs. My H is seeing a counsellor and it would seem he's been sexually scared of me for years.

Thanks Breezey, I truly appreciate your thoughts and I do believe you are right. There is no way I am going to have a child with this man until I Sort out everything. I do worry about his depression becoming a "disability" which would make him unable to work - I think about it all the time. I just feel so young to be a "roommate" in a marriage and the more people tell me they envy me, the more I want to cry about what it could be...time will tell, one day at a time. I was crying after i wrote on the wall last night and my DH came up to bed and just held me and told me he loved me over and over. I know he doesn't like the situation either. Its just so hard.

Message withdrawn

If it's mutual I guess it can. I have virutally no sex drive atm and it's difficult. I know that we need sex regularly to keep our relationship healthy but I wish we didn't.

It's so funny, I was watching a talk show with a woman who wrote a book on this topic and she said something like, "Marriage used to be used as a door to sex, now it's used as a means of escaping it". How sad. Even if both people agree to be celibate - i would think, personally, i would have some resentment of some sort either towards the relationship or the world around me. who knows.

I think that DH and I are getting to crisis point over exactly this issue...I just feel so utterly low, rejected and unattractive ....and I know that I don't want to be in a sexless marriage. I am now at the stage where I resent the fact that he has made me feel this way about myself. For me, physical intimacy is part of a loving relationship and when that has gone what else is left....

I agree with those of you who say that it's fine if that what BOTH of you want and choose, but when it's forced onto one of the parties how CAN a relationship survive...but then I guess that's why so many end up in the "staying together for the sake of the children" which is how I now feel as the thought of the upset it would cause DS and DD breaks my heart........

Well, it depends on what you mean by no sex. All this focus on penis/vagina rogering is not only what sex is about.

Like mytwopenceworth I have a pretty much no penetrative sex marriage but we kiss/cuddle/nibble each other all over all the time - we are extremely affectionate and very much in love - so if that is what you mean by 'sexless' then yes it can work.

If you mean distance between couples/one feeling rejected/some tosser blaming it on the woman not being attractive or thin/one manipulating the other or withholding sex in some passive aggressive way then NO it sounds as if it aint gonna work. In fact if you don't talk about why you're not affectionate any more then it seems that it would be a giant elephant in the middle of the room and something any couple would need to talk about.

LFC - I agree with you entirely which is why I talk about Pyshical intimacy ie doesn't have to mean pentration IYNWIM...but when you're starved of anything like that it feels as if you've died....if it wasn't for the fact that i have snuggles and lots of contact with my children I think I would just wither up and die tbh.......

I just came across this thread and I want to say it's what I am pondering at the mo too- I just don't thnk things can go on- my husband has no physical interest in me at all and it is killing me slowly inside, It's been over six months since we last had sex and I'm at the point where I don't want it anymore either now, or at least, not with hime because I feel so rejected and hurt. And who can you talk to about it? how can I admit to anyone that this is what's going on? It's not the way things are supposed to be!!!! Men are supposed to be constantly after sex aren't they??? It's women who are meant to not want it!! I feel like other people must be able to see how desperate I'm getting.....!

evening.

I think it's so sad that so many women here are blaming their weight for partners' loss of libido.

Very few men over the age of 18 have perfect bodies and it would never occur to them to think this mattered.

Felt esp sad for Dior - 16 is hardly gargantuan, esp if you are on the tall side.

Even if you are shorter, it's hardly a disaster.

Right! Just checking the secrecy thing! Have changed nickname for this!
Sex was one of the main reason I split with exdh - I simply didn't fancy him. Sex is important to me and its important to him but I remember the first time I saw him naked I was disappointed, but I really liked him and was having a good time going out with him. I got pregnant quite quickly so stuck with it and worked at it and just got on with it. But I found myself responding to attention and seriously window-shopping and eventually "tried something on" which fitted perfectly. Eventually split with dh; not entirely for this other guy but because I recognised that something massively important to me was missing with dh.
I believe that if sex is important to both of you and one of you goes off it, for whatever reason, then it won't work (dh fancied the pants off me apparently - but I remember the last time we had sex, I was nearly ill). If neither of you want it and HONESTLY arent fussed, like some posts here, then it can work. DH rejected me when I was pregnant (was gagging for it most of the time - bloody hormones -so didn't care whether I fancied him or not!) but he went off me, saw me in a different light and all that, so I know what it's like to be sexually rejected and it's not fun and very difficult to work through.
Hope some of this has made some sense

My ex went off sex when I was pregnant with DS1 but I couldn;t help feeling that it was also something to with my weight and also a form of punishment.

To conceive DS2 we did it to order ie when ovulating only.

Then since DS2 conception in 2000 we had sex only once before splitting in 2006!!!!!

He also blamed the presence of the children - ie that we were in the house at the same time as them!!!

He refused to discuss it really other than to say it was still in working order which is even more insulting really. He now has a new partner so I am assuming everything is OK in that department.

I feel that I have wasted the some of the best years of my life trying to cajole him into sex. Now I am free to start again I really want to but at the same time my confidence is at zero because of the constant rejection. But I have got to get back in the saddle soon.

So I don't think a sexless marriage can work if one of you still wants to.

There are only two ways in which a 'sexless' rleationship can work. The first is: if both parties have little or no interest in sex but are happy with each other in other ways, communicate well etc, and both are secure enough not to care about other people's perception of what a 'proper' marriage is like (hint: it's whatever the parties concerned find works for them). The second is for the partner who does have an active libido to seek sexual activity outside the marriage with the knowledge and consent of the other partner - again, for this to work you need to be happy in the marriage for other reasons and not to care about what 'normal' people think, say or do.
But a relationship where one partner is happy with the status quo but the other one is not, are doomed unless both parties can compromise.

FWIW, it depends on what you mean by "work". My marriage works, and is sexless. I won't go in to the details, but it is a situation where one of us wants one thing, and the other doesn't. The marriage works, but I am very unhappy.

Billy, if you are very unhappy then this marriage is not 'working'. Unless you really, genuinely feel that your unhappiness doesn't matter because you don't matter.

I put up with no sex for years and suddenly had a lightbulb moment and thought 'what am I doing?' I didn't even get cuddles in the end. I left and am much happier. Would've been happy to just be alone for a while but have met my soulmate and we have the same drive.

ex and his dad are like two peas in a pod but ex's mum said she just gave up 40 years ago

madamez - I think it depends on what you expect, what you want, and what you have a right to - deserve maybe - they aren't all the same thing, and while it's a big compromise, it's a compromise - I don't want to leave, so I make that compromise. In that sense, i suppose the marriage "works".