How to cope with an almost sexless marriage? Can counselling really help?

[LosingIt2022]

Hoping this is the most appropriate subforum.
I'm looking for some advice because the lack of sex life is putting a huge strain on our relationship.
I want to propose some form of couples therapy / counselling because this is the only way I can think of to make her understand how important this is to me; I do not expect miracles but I do not want to leave any stones unturned.
If nothing changes, I would at least like to understand if there are some coping strategies to help me not lose my sanity - I am banging my head against the wall while dying inside and she doesn't seem to take notice.

What are your experiences?
Is there really a solution for couples whose sex drives change so much over time?

The story:

I'm male, my wife and I are both mid 30s, we have 2 kids.

I have always had a higher sex drive but, while mine has remained constant, hers has been constantly plummeting.

It used to be about once a week, I imagined it would have become less frequent, but I never imagined once every 2-3 months.

When it happens, she gets really lost in the moment, which is amazing, but it has simply moved at the very bottom of her priority list: it will only happen if she's not too tired, if she has already finished her favourite TV series, if that night her best friend doesn't call her to rant about her new life as a divorcee, etc etc.

Any attempt at experimenting has been shot down mercilessly: new lingerie makes her feel under pressure, toys are not her thing.

I have tried to plan and set some time for ourselves in advance, but she says this makes her feel too much pressure.

Any attempt at communicating is very hard because she just does not want to talk about these things; she was brought up in a very conservative, not religious but Jane-Austen-like environment.

I asked if she would ever be willing to, well, tease me; there are times when she wants to cuddle and nothing more, is that really that different? Apparently for her yes, she was horrified at the idea.

I got really, really cross because a couple of weeks ago she told me in the morning that she would have actually wanted me but I was in the loft, working. Why didn't you call me? So I should just wait in bed for you to finish your TV series, on the off chance that once in a blue moon you might actually want me, but there can be no communication or planning?

I have lost count of the number of times I told her how I feel rejected and unimportant, and how I feel less important than a stupid TV series. It just doesn't register, it's as if I were speaking a different language.

There are lots of other things in the relationship which work really well, and they are a huge reason why I fancy her so much, but this remains a big problem.
I often wonder: had I known it would have ended up like this, would I have married this person and had 2 kids?

I haven’t read the full thread so sorry if this has already been said but do you think it’s attraction based? It’s harsh to say as obviously we all age and gain weight etc but some people really let themselves go in marriage. It’s difficult to have sex with someone who doesn’t care about their appearance , who sits there burping and farting. Most people struggle to realise what they have become as they are comfortable.
Also I see you say she goes out and has interests etc but you don’t. Are you interesting, do you have interesting conversations , do you date and have things to talk about with her. Do you spend time with her not focused on dc, do you show affection in between the sex? There is nothing less attractive than a man who has let himself go and does nothing interesting apart from work and sit on the sofa.

You're very keen on laying the blame for poor communication at your wife's feet but good communication takes two.
Your style here is very belligerent, and peppered with self-satisfied "Gotchas" that are quite childish.
For example you can't understand that a woman using an anti woman slur doesn't make it any less a slur. You're just not listening to anything here that you don't want to hear.
. If your verbal communication is like this, it suggests you're aggressive in your style (perhaps just out of frustration), and not open to listening without rebutting and defending, which may be one reason why your wife finds it hard to open up to you.
Again, counselling may help, but if your counsellor is a good one they will challenge you on these things (and her on her reticence).
And you both need to be prepared to really think about and act on the constructive criticism if you want real change.

To the OP, I suspect that you are not going to get anywhere on this forum. I started a thread that I think was similar a long time ago, although I think you have done a better job of describing your circumstances, and the responses fell into three groups: (1) it's all your fault and you're a monster for wanting to have sex with your wife; (2) get counseling (ignoring the part where you say over and over again that your wife won't engage in solving the problem); or (3) that sucks and it's hopeless.

How about tell his wife how unhappy he is and that he needs to get out. Go find someone who wants to have sex with him

I'll just point out that both op and you, @rudeboy1977 , deliberately ignore option 4. open up the marriage either openly or secretly and 5. leave.

What all male posters on dead bedroom threads have in common is it's all moaning and complaining and no willingness to actually take action. It's extremely noticeable after a while. Go chat to men who took action and get some courage.

I would say that options 4 & 5 here are just more detailed versions of 3. By "it's hopeless", I mean that you are not going to fix this relationship, so (3A) live with that, (3B) get divorced, or (3C) sleep with other people within this relationship, with (3C1) cheat, and (3C2) somehow talk your wife, who won't talk about sex, into talking about an open relationship.

I wonder how many folks who participate in discussions like this one are here because they are unhappy with their own relationships. Certainly me. I came to the conclusion that asking folks who chat on the Relationships board might not be the most promising way to solve my own relationship problems.

👏

I wondered this as well.

It would explain why she doesn't talk about what the issue is. It's hard to say 'actually my sex drive is fine but you've gotten so fat it's a massive turn off'

@rudeboy1977 there's plenty of measured advice on this thread from women. Do more around the house, connect intimately with sex off the table, soften up your communication style, organise and book the counselling yourself etc etc. None of it will instantly drop her knickers but it's all good advice from women who can put themselves on op's wife's shoes.
Some posters are even advising him to go outside the marriage.
Men can't come here asking for women's advice and complain if they don't like the advice. Ask men if what you want is an echo chamber.

And which of those detailed options under 3 did you take?

They are plainly not all the same. 3a involves taking no action and just whinging. All the others involve doing something. So actually there are lots of solutions. You can unilaterally open up a marriage, it doesn't need agreement, although of course she may then leave.

I get it - you love your wives, you want things to go back to how they were, you think you want sex only with your wives and not other women. That's just social conditioning. And your wives don't want, and probably won't ever want, the kind of sex they used to have with you. If you split up, their sex drive for other men will probably come back btw.

So stay and put up with it, or do something.

I still recommend counselling first - individual if she won't do joint. You know you tried, then.

You’re wasting your time, it won’t change.
from personal experience ( I’m 20 years on from you) and also I’ve been watching videos of a couple councillor who said basically when a woman loses interest the man is told to do this do that, it makes no difference. SHE IS NOT INTERESTED IN YOU ANYMORE!
if she was, and you know this is true, you could be a total wanker and she will still want to have sex.
honestly just pack you stuff and get out.

Options for solving any problem

1. Change the situation (plenty of advice about that on this thread)
2. Change how you feel about the situation (get individual counselling to weigh up pros and cons, focus on the positives, modify the belief that sex should always be as it was when you first met, accept that mature love is different from young love, love and enjoy your wife as a person with sex only a facet of your relationship etc)
3. Leave the situation (or open the marriage)
4. Do nothing and tolerate the situation

Why anyone would do 3 or 4 before trying 1 and 2 is beyond me.

I recommend the book "Passionate Marriage" by David Schnarch too.

I went with 3A, live with it. As part of that, I skulk around the internet, whinging and whining about my condition and looking for excitement. I could never really believe that anyone would want to sleep with me before I met my now-wife, and I can't imagine that anyone would now, so I've gone back my pre-wife existence of celibacy (perhaps more accurately, auto-sexualism), sitting in the dark cursing the darkness. My wife has suggested that I get counseling to address my generally poor mental health, although I find that odd, because surely even she understands that the first thing I'm going to do if I ever get my own head tuned up is leave her. Perhaps she's trying to get rid of me without taking on the guilt of being the one to pull the plug on our dead relationship, but I don't think so. I think she prefers the appearance of a happy marriage. But I don't know, because she will not under any circumstances that I've found talk about our relationship. And I'm sure that's all my fault too, as someone will explain to me.

Good lord. Why on earth not get counselling? Why choose to live like that?

They prefer it all to be someone else's fault, don't like doing anything proactive, and enjoy the self pity.

After a while reading threads like this you can see what the ones who stay in dead bedrooms have in common, and quite possibly how they ended up there in the first place.

Sometimes it's like holding open a cell door and showing a life prisoner the blue skies and green grass beyond the door but they can't even see it, or refuse to look. They are more comfortable in the prison they know.

OP - seems like you've only come here to rant about your lack of sex. Try listening. So much good advice on the thread, but you don't want to hear it if it doesn't fit your existing 'I'm good, she's bad' narrative. If you communicate with your wife in the same way you're communicating here, it's no wonder you're having problems.

Do you masturbate together?

One billion percent THIS!

I actually know the usernames of the men on here who claim to be in sexless marriages due to no fault of their own, but aren’t motivated enough to be proactive and change things. They’d rather mope in their pity party blaming the wife. All have pissy attitudes on here that they likely carry through into real life too. So it’s no wonder their wives are sick of them.

Fuck, if you can’t be motivated enough to do something about it, then I highly doubt they’re motivated enough to make the effort in the bedroom either. Newsflash: buying a toy, lingerie or a night away isn’t effort.

Met one man in real life who claimed to be in a sexless marriage. I don’t think he’d brushed his teeth since his wedding. Yet it was ‘her fault’… He even looked after the kids once in a blue moon and could name the three times he’d switched on the dishwasher. He turned to porn and ruined the marriage with a porn addiction. All he had to do was have a bath and brush his teeth really!

@LosingIt2022

You said that you get along really well and have never had an argument. Then in your own post you write

'A couple of times she told me she did want me, but wanted to watch Stricly first, and after that she was too tired. When she says this we argue furiously because my point is: admit if FFS, you find the telly more important than me, at least have the decency to admit it and don't insult my intelligence.'

Which makes it sound like you argue furiously and a lot.

Which is it?

'

OP have you had a listen to Esther Perel? She has a podcast and writes on the death of intimacy and eroticism in marriages. She is a relationship counsellor. She was a great help to me. She’s done a Ted talk which is a good intro.

Esther talks about how ’ partners put the least effort into each other, and prioritise everything else ahead of each other (to, friends, work). And she talks about how long term relationships and marriage kills the eroticism in a relationship.

For what it’s worth I don’t think this is your fault. And I don’t think your posts are toxic or bad. i think there’s a fair bit of baiting posts on here from people saying maybe you’re not attractive, maybe you don’t help out, your sexiest.. And the rest. I don’t get that from your posts.

Has anyone considered that the wife may be having an affair?

Just saying this as speaking from experience (as a female) who also lived in a sexless marriage (my doing) for well over a decade. Like this man’s wife, I would make up excuses. He gave up in the end. Bottom line was - I WASN’T ATTRACTED TO HIM!! I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him this but couldn’t, for the life of me, have sex with him. He was older, we also lacked connection in the end - meals out were met with silence, he never complimented me, he never showed any sort of affection outside of the bedroom, we never sat together at home, we ended up in separate bedrooms, he physically didn’t turn me on (he also didn’t have a clue what he was doing), sex was awful and selfish on his side. It was just awful. I had been a virgin when we met so had no comparison (also hadn’t really had a boyfriend before due to shyness, although I grew out of that). This list goes on tbh. I lived with it but knew I couldn’t have sex with him. But, I also didn’t have the guts to say what I should’ve done and ended the marriage. The opening to my vagina was slammed shut for many years!! He blamed me. He said I was frigid. He would say it was my fault that we didn’t have sex. He never once considered that I wasn’t attracted to him!!! I allowed him to believe that I wasn’t interested in sex. I was, only not with him.

Many years went by. I had never planned to go with anyone else. It was against my morals. Hormones, and other things that had happened to me recently, were going crazy (at a certain age) and this led me to seek out male attention. Innocent at first. Totally innocent! This, I guess, was the start of something massive! I was, subconsciously, starting to turn my back on the marriage. My world was turned upside down when feelings crept in for a man I’d started chatting to online and I ended up in an affair outside of marriage. Even though neither of us wanted to meet, we did after a year or so. He was stricken with guilt every time we met but I wasn’t. I feel bad now, obviously, and realise that this was not the way things should’ve proceeded and that I should never have dipped my toes in the water like that. However, we get on well (still do) and were aligned in many ways. Chemistry is extremely strong. We can talk for many hours on the phone. The man, like OP, is also in a sexless marriage but loves his wife and won’t leave her. I think both of us had something missing from our marriages (we both know what that is). My plans (nor his) had never been for anything to happen but years and years of neglect, on an emotional and physical level (my husband couldn’t show affection) led to me cracking - big time!! I was just swept up in this ‘attraction’ so much, and feeling out of sorts due to hormones changing, that I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. There was a reason why I had ended up on this road but I couldn’t see, at the time, how and why. I ended my 23 year marriage immediately after sleeping with the other man (the first time, although we didn’t do anything the first time we met ). Both of us, in time, realised how we’d ended up in this situation. He felt guilt. He loved his wife. I had fallen for him. It was hurting me badly. We had to stop all sexual stuff as it wasn’t fair on anyone. It wasn’t going anywhere. It was wrong and, believe me, I feel bad about what I did. This had gone on for over 5 years. However, it made me feel a strong attachment and attraction to someone else!!

I ended my marriage as it was a massive wake up call for me and my biggest regret is that I stayed for many years with the wrong person living without affection, intimacy and sex. I wasn’t attracted to him. I think this feeling had got worse after we married as he did change. He is like an old man now. I think this was part of the problem too - the age gap. I always felt old before my time. Like I was being forced to be a lot older than I was.

I am one of the most passionate females out there but couldn’t go near my husband in the end. Deep subconscious activity was buried for years. Eventually, it blew up.

My guess is, she isn’t attracted to you anymore. She either is already, or will be in the future, seeing someone else.

No amount of counselling would have made me have sex with him. You can lead a horse to water and all that. I was sacrificing my own happiness, and his, by living this way.

You can try counselling but, if nothing changes, you need to consider drawing a line under this ‘marriage’ because all you have become - almost - is flatmates. You are still young. Imagine how you will feel in 20 years time if nothing changes.

It sounds like you aren’t aligned.

I hope neither of you end up doing what I did.

ILoveMyNewThermosFlask - exactly
my thoughts.

You lost me at “feminazi.” Your poor wife.

you’ve thrown enough tantrums in this thread to make it crystal clear why you have no sex life… I bet it’s a one way transaction, and “getting lost in it” is a damned performance.

go work on yourself. Take some damned responsibility.

Doubt she is having an affair right now (always harder when kids are young, plus she sounds from ops pov still stuck in the no libido phase and hasn't realised it's just no desire for her partner not 'no desire full stop' that's the issue)

There's a lot been written now on women's libido. Short version - we get bored of our partners quicker, but societal pressure makes us think we have lost libido, rather than just need some variety.

Unlike other posters I don't have a position either way on affairs - just know yourself before you start, would be my advice. The only thing less appealing than a man wanging on about boohoo his wife won't sleep with him is the same man crying over how guilty he feels for having an affair.

In other words, my advice in general is 'man up', take some kind of action then own your actions.