Sexless Relationship - Any Success Stories?

[WriteItDownHopefullyFeelBetter]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a long time reader of Mumsnet, especially on this issue, and have used lots of the advice posted to try and resolve my situation. The lack of improvement has led me to post today for the first time. What I'm hoping for is to find anyone who has been through what I'm going through and stayed with their wife / partner and it has indeed improved.

The important stats... I'm 42, my wife is also 42 and we have 4 children. The youngest is early in their secondary school journey (Year 8) and the other three are over 18. The eldest has left home and we live in a 3 bedroom house meaning that the bedrooms are quite close. We have sex roughly every 8 months. October '23, March '24, November '24 and last month (August '25). Each time it's instigated by me and very basic. We share the household chores equally but not deliberately. Gardening and Laundry have always been my thing and cleanliness of the home being hers. We both do our fair share of lifts for the kids and I'd say my wife does the lion's share of the activities. I work more hours and am the main earner, both by some distance. Her career was put back about 15-20 years due to children and I'm incredibly sympathetic to this.

Now, from reading about this for a long time, I understand that a lady goes through many changes with their body that basically kills their libido. I 100% accept that. I also gather that despite repeatedly telling my wife that she looks beautiful, she doesn't feel it and isn't very confident about her own body. I can tell her how amazing she looks a 100 times a day and yet there is nothing I can do to change this. I saw this given as advice on one forum and to be fair to myself, I have always made an effort to compliment my wife.

Another bit of advice that comes up on here regularly is to talk to my wife about this. This absolutely does not work and despite the lack of sex, i'm hit with "is that all you care about?" regardless of leaving it months before bringing it back up. The straw that broke the camels back this evening was a TV drama with a sex scene instigated by the woman. I said nothing. However my wife had a two-minute go at me as she perceived that I would be wondering why that doesn't happen to me and reminded me that this is a fictional TV prgramme - as if this never happens in real life. To be fair she was right, that was exactly what I was thinking!

I'm a big fan of my wife dressing up in the bedroom (lingerie, stockings, that sort of thing). She looks incredible. Again I have told her this. She hasn't worn anything 'nice' for sex for over a decade, saying that I should just love her as she is. This came from her just doing it when we were younger... I never demanded anything. As it'd been so long, I came on here for advice. People on here recommended that I should buy her something and tell her that she would look amazing in it. It's been sat gathering dust for 5 years. She actually bought an outfit for a hotel stay we had and showed me it before we went out. When we got back to the room she took it all off, again saying "you should just like me as I am" before we had sex with her just lying down.

I've completely given up on seeing her dress up for sex. She would murder me if I looked at porn so I don't even get my fix from that. It'd be like me banning her from her favourite brand of chocolate ever again. She reminds me that she's sacrificed a lot for our family, so I have to remind myself that I'm doing the same.

Moving away from sex, her day-to-day attire has completely changed. She's gone from dressing smart / casual to wearing pyjamas (throughout the day) and just lounge wear. I'm not expecting her to wear a dress and heels - I'm not 'that' guy - and I appreciate that most of the time, especially when chilling on an evening, a lady likes to be comfortable. However it's all the time now, pyjamas is pretty much the entire weekend. When we went out for drinks with friends last time, she criticised her friends for bothering to make an effort and making her look under-dressed.

The Mumsnet advice on the above paragraph was to ensure that I was doing the opposite. I like to think I'm an attractive man. I had gained a few pounds - which was noted! - and therefore I have been to the gym a lot over the past 18 months and am back to where I was losing a couple of stone to 13st (I'm 5ft 11 btw) so I think I'm looking the best I have for ages. I also have made a conscience effort to have a tan and maintain my hygiene to an impeccable standard. From the moment I wake, I dress smart. My thinking is that if we were to go shopping or visit family, I should be already wearing what I could go in. I have never brought this subject up as it would almost be an instant divorce!!

So... to get to the point, I feel completely trapped. I love my wife so much and I really want her back. The last time we had a sensible conversation about all of this, she said the size of the house was an issue and if we had a bigger place, there would be less chance of the kids hearing us. However there have been a few occasions where we have been without kids and it's always been "don't even think about it, I just want a night off". I'm reticent to look into a bigger place as I have seen plenty of women on here who openly admit they are waiting for the kids to move out before divorcing their husband. I absolutely don't want to fall victim to that, especially whilst funding a larger house, only for the kids to move out in a few years!!

What I'm hoping to find are any couples (men or women) who have been through what I'm going through and came out the other side with a relationship that's somewhere close to what it was at the beginning. I'm not expecting sex every day / week. Once a month would be a dream at this point.

I'm driving myself mad in not knowing whether I'm unreasonable for wanting anything more than I have (a lovely family, job and home) or whether I'm being a simp for accepting what I'm going through. The advice is so conflicting. Feel free to ask me anything that I may not have covered.

Thanks for reading

Thank you for taking the time to repsond, Sugarnspicenallthingsnaice.

This isn't my first port of call. Naturally I have tried my wife first, and I have spoken with a couple of my closest friends. Most of my friends are as close to my wife, so it does limit my options. Family is out of the question. Professional advice comes at quite a cost and whilst i'm not broke, I'm not swimming in cash. It is certainly an option if things were to deteriorate to a point where I can't go on.

Regarding MumsNet, this isn't exclusively for women. You must know that. Given the responses from men on this chat, that would indicate this. There aren't many places like this where men can speak and be taken seriously.

I have a few gay friends, and when we went on a night out I was shocked to see how many straight men and a hell of a lot of straight women were in there. The main reason was that they could have a good night out without getting hit on. Me using MumsNet is similar in that I can feel comfortable speaking with openminded folk. However, I do apologise if I have misinterpreted this. It (small edit) feels inclusive in here.

She's only 42 and it's been like this for years. It's not perimenopause. It's the relationship or something about her or something about you. You guys need marriage counselling if you really want to save it.

You're getting a rough time here and it's probably because you're a man.

It's absolutely soul destroying when your partner no longer wants you. I haven't had sex for nearly 3 years. He reckons it is pssd. But hasn't had a diagnosis or won't get any treatment for it.

Doesn't matter how much it has utterly destroyed my self esteem, he's content and fine with that after 20 years together.

Tbh I don't know what the future is for us. There are things on my side I am trying to change. I'm on the way but I don't think it's going to make any difference. I can't believe my sex life stopped in my late 30s and I didn't even get a say. I also know what is consent is and I certainly do not want to be touched by someone who doesn't really want me.

He says he loves me but how?
Sometimes I cry to and from work.
I know people will be like why do you stay. There are reasons for now and jumping ship too early wouldn't be good for me. I still have feelings and my god it hurts so much. I'm ND too which doesn't help with the rejection or the making of decisions.

I just cant belive my life has ended up like this. It's like physical touch is my love language and I feel like something has died within me and it's not coming back. It's so hard when you love someone and they are now like a flat mate. I get pecks and hugs now and then. I feel like all of the glue between us has gone.

I'm not a selfish person, I just miss being with my person. And now I'm not even allowed to touch them anymore :( I'm heartbroken.

Anyone can mock me for being this pathetic, believe me I recognise how pathetic I am. I feel like all the world has gone grey. I've had an awful 2 years. 2 bereavements and my relationship changed. I'm grieving it all.

Op I just wanted you to know you aren't alone. The dressing up thing is neither here or there really. It's about being desired and loved by the one you chose to spend your life with. I hope things get better for you as they certainly aren't for me.

It also means for me that unless I have IVF he has taken away having children from me too. Which hurts me so bad but I have a plan. One day I hope to smile again.

I suspect there are a few things going on.

You have 3 near adult children at home and no doubt, in true ''kid style'' they probably feel they can walk into your bedroom at any moment as well as look through your wardrobe for something they are missing, so first up I would suggest there is no possible way your wife has the opportunity to ''dress up'' or a place to hide tantalising outfits. Plus the ''when''. I'm assuming you might not have an ensuite, so the run to the toilet for a tidy up, would be noticed by the household?

It's also possible in your early days together, you had more time to wine and dine, and court your GF, which mentally leads up to feeling very special and loved. Ive always said sex starts in the head, not someone having a quick, direct grope and hopping on....

As someone who grew up in a 3 bedroom home, it was very obvious to me when Dad was pestering Mum for sex. All she wanted to do was sleep and I wouldn't mind betting your Wife is as tired as by the time bedtime rolls around.

Do you just cuddle before going to sleep or is it a big divide in the centre of the bed?

Have you been able to get away regularly for a couples weekend? Your children sound old enough to be left to fend for themselves for a long weekend, so if you haven't, I would talk about going somewhere different together for the weekend minus the teenagers. Keep at it. Remember there is life after children and after they move out. There's some good pages such as grown and flown and people left wondering how to re-build their lives together without the kids. Start before they leave the nest...

As someone who has given birth and breast fed, after that I felt absolutely no sexual desire for or in my breasts. My DH had prostate cancer and the focus became more about him being able to do anything, rather than nothing which was his biggest fear and at one point I was concerned to think he might become suicidal. Fortunately he had a great specialist who he was able to talk to, but that took a toll as the focus became about him and whether he was suffering pain (he did initially, and putting aside his feelings for this conversation, was an absolute death nell to any enjoyment for me).

Anyhow these are my ideas and I hope there is something helpful in there for you to reflect on.. good luck

Funny.

If you are coming on here expecting any positive feedback from the Mumsnet brigade you are very much mistaken. From the radical anti trans men hating brigade no matter what the issue it is always the man’s fault. If it’s lack of sex and the man complains - it’s the man’s fault. If its lack of sex and the woman complains it’s also the man’s fault.

The pattern is the same for all issues. This is also not a place where freedom of expression is tolerated because if you speak up against the tad fejs or post a different point of view to theirs misavdrt your profile gets suspended. ( as in sure mine will now too)

This is just a place for rad fejs to get again come together and complain with no self realisation that some of them are the problem. Mir does make you laugh reading some of their comments though 😂

I don’t think this is fair. The vast majority of men don’t talk to each other about intimate, personal issues and would find it mortifying to say to a friend “my wife never wants sex with me”.
And you could apply the “we don’t know, we haven’t spoken to them” thought to any post on MN.
I think you have to raise the issue op and tell her how unhappy you are with it. Perhaps suggest couples counselling to get to the route of the problem?

If you are coming on here expecting any positive feedback from the Mumsnet brigade you are very much mistaken. From the radical anti trans men hating brigade no matter what the issue it is always the man’s fault. If it’s lack of sex and the man complains - it’s the man’s fault. If its lack of sex and the woman complains it’s also the man’s fault.
The pattern is the same for all issues. This is also not a place where freedom of expression is tolerated because if you speak up against the tad gems or post a different point of view to their misandrist views your profile gets suspended. ( as Im sure mine will now too)
This is just a place for rad fems to come together and complain about men with no self realisation that some of them are the problem. It does make you laugh reading some of their comments though 😂

The majority of men don't discuss their intimate, personal issues with a group of women they don't know, either. And talking to friends was one of a number of suggestions I made.

I think people are being harsh here, I have a dead bedroom at the moment. I still love my husband but it’s slowly killing it. It’s pretty miserable tbh if you still have a sex drive, a spouse who claims to love you but seems to never want to touch you.

OP I think this isn’t going to change, you either accept it or leave. She has to be willing to discuss it with you for there to be any improvement.

@WriteItDownHopefullyFeelBetter Is there other intimacy in your daily lives? After 23 years of marriage my dh(60) and I (50) have sex vary rarely (due to vastly different bedtimes, adult children in the house with thin walls, and general lack of interest from me after Menopause. However, we still kiss each other every time we meet, or take leave of each other, still hold hands when walking, still snuggle up on the sofa when watching a movie, and on the rare weekend morning when we are both enjoying a lay in, we love a cuddle in bed.

Dead bedrooms are far more common in marriages today for a variety of reasons. Some due to husbands dine due to wives dine due to both parties. I think people are too judgemental and lack patience today. Leaving a partner because they crossdress is just silly. Like leaving your partner because they out on too much weight or don’t brush their teeth properly? Talk through your difficulties with your partners for goodness sake.

Thetr are always other primacy pursue regarding sed even outside the marriage. The most important asudxyd of marriage in my opinion are not sex. If that’s what your marriage is based on then you’ve failed before you start.

No, we just see these posts repeatedly, same tone and style, it's all men are ever on here for, "how do I make my wife have sex with me while still being a nice guy - wah".

I presume you are a man?

I can only post from my experience and it’s not yours.

I really underestimated both how much having children at home inhibited my libido and also what an impact hormonal contraception had. Having said that, my late Dh had a vasectomy and although things improved a lot (to around once every three weeks) I knew our sex life wasn’t frequent enough for him and that just led to feeling constant mild discomfort about sex which was the opposite of erotic. Also resentment.

Our life was exhausting. God I was so tired, all the time. My priority was my son, but my husband was very ill. I remember one afternoon with my son crying on my left shoulder and my husband crying on my right shoulder and just feeling overwhelmed, Weeks and months where just putting one foot in front of the other was all I could do. We weren’t earning a lot. Feeding us all on not a lot of money, trying to promote my son’s development and academics, finding we sometimes had very different takes on what was important in bringing up kids.

We did love each other. But I came to wonder really how anyone manages to maintain a sex life and a family life. The amazing thing is that so many bedrooms are alive, not that there are some dead ones.

My sex life now is a million miles away from all that, probably because I have PCOS and therefore relatively high testosterone for a woman. But I’d say if your wife is having sex without much enthusiasm once every eight months… that’s what is on offer. I don’t blame you for wanting more but I doubt you will get it.

I presume you are a woman? Your point being?

Mumsnet is a known bastion for rad fem abductees right wing viewpoint from the Mail and telegraph.

There are other opinions available. Are you saying opinions other than yours or rad fems in here are irrelevant?

Theres certain narrow viewpoints and then there’s a big wide world out there of reality

It seems to me that you’re stuck in a terrible dynamic where you push very hard, and she only pulls away harder. I feel like I can’t breathe just from reading your post. You might not say anything, but everything you do- from your doting to your extreme grooming to your gyms- seems to silently scream, “Let me have you!” You seem to be keeping some kind of scorecard of all the things you do and are waiting for a payout in sex. Your compliments are the same - even while you clearly think she looks awful you tell her she’s beautiful, and then expect to get brownie points for it (and she is fully aware of what you think and why you tell her she’s beautiful… Your words don’t sound like they say “wow, a stunning woman!” but “you don’t look to my liking, but I am a better person and I still tell you I’m beautiful. So why don’t you sex me?”)

All you’re doing is pushing her further away.

Women are told they’re beautiful, given gifts, and pursued by handsome men all the time. It makes them feel awful instead of interested if it feels coercive, transactional, done for a reward, and not out of full reciprocal intimacy. Doing gifting/doting deeds alone do not by definition make the receiver feel good (do we need to explain this even?)

The way to reach her is to build closeness between you. To see her, to hear her. I can’t believe you’ve gone through all this for so many years without investing in marriage counseling or finding ways to listen to her and connect with her—especially connection without sex. It feels to me like your relationship has calcified into an unhealthy dynamic and she has developed a very hard protective shell that I don’t know if you can peel away.

I think you need to decide how important it is to you and have a conversation with her. To be honest the dressing up bit, if you are having sex issues I think that’s already a huge ask, maybe she likes dressing up or maybe it’s a huge thing as some people don’t feel sexy in gear, they feel uncomfortable. And the telling women they’re beautiful- if that’s not natural to me that would sound like a come on and drive me mad tbh!!!

Dh turned around to me some time ago and said he’d felt unloved by me and didn’t know if he now loved me. It was literally like he’d punched me in the face- I had no idea. He said he couldn’t understand why we had it so irregularly (to be fair at one stage we were nearly a year). I tried to remind him we have 4 kids, I work and in general there were nights he was getting into bed two hours after me and assuming I’d be awake and waiting. We haven’t come out of it and are close to splitting, I’m gutted he didn’t tell me and bitter that life went on as normal (family stuff but also the two of us went for walks, had nights in watching tv and laughing together etc etc) while he silently had given up. We’re back to sleeping together but I think I’m out and we regularly have conversations I never dreamed the team that married would have. Best of luck in whatever happens

It's factual that women's sex drive can be negatively impacted by perimenopause. It's also factual that men's sex drive usually remains fairly high throughout this period. Many women find it infuriating that men still want to have sex after they have stopped wanting it. I don't understand this. It's a problem that needs addressing in a relationship surely? As a woman if you want to opt out of sex then you need to consider the impact of that. Most women would be devastated if their partner had a casual sexual partner even though they don't want to have sex themselves. I don't understand why so many women are so unprepared for this stage.
OP I don't think she's going to change her stance on sex. She has no motivation to do so. She doesn't want to be sexual herself and she doesn't want to try to be sexual for you. It's a very challenging time in many relationships and needs radical honesty and openness to navigate. Have you considered couple therapy?

sexless marriages are extending common for a number of reasons especially today. Stats show that is is more common than it has ever been. There are many reasons for that which include unrealistic expectations men of women of both- plus the changing dynamics in gender roles.

more men are often behaving more like traditional women and more women are now often brushing like traditional men. This is the part of equality that is inevitable. More and more men are dressing or behaving like traditional women and more and more women. Are less denying and more masculine and don’t dress in the same way as they did 50 years ago.

society is changing faster than ever and it’s inevitable that people find these changes and differences difficult to adapt.

Hiwver sex is only a small part of a successful marriage ahd other things are far more important. If you are incompatible sexually you ab still discuss and look at other options outside of both your needs are not being met. More and more marriages are going this way.

Sexless marriages are increasingly common for a number of reasons especially today. Stats show that is is more common than it has ever been. There are many reasons for that which include unrealistic expectations from men or women or both- plus the changing dynamics in gender roles.

More men are often behaving more like traditional women and more women are now often behaving like traditional men. This is the part of equality that is inevitable. More and more men are dressing or behaving like traditional women and more and more women are dressing less feminin or more manly. Those specific gender roles and appearance are not the same way as they were 50 years ago.

Society is changing faster than ever and it’s inevitable that people find these changes and differences difficult to adapt.
However sex is only a small part of a successful marriage and other things are far more important. If you are incompatible sexually you should discuss possibilities and look at other options outside if both your needs are not being met. More and more marriages are going this way.

The alternative is that you keep looking for that unrealistic ‘perfect partner’. I’ve got news for you nobody is perfect - man or woman.

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It's time for therapy.
If you're not immediately looking to throw in the towel and give up on your marriage, you need to be actively working to save it.

From your side, you've got it all figured out. You're doing your bit and your wife is letting down the team. I doubt she sees it that way. So there looks to be a gap in communication.

If you don't know why you're not having sex, you can't fix it.

I wouldn’t have sex with my husband either. For over a decade. I just wasn’t attracted to him and he made my sex drive tank to the bottom of the ocean.

Another man changed that. Massively. Of course, I ended my marriage.

My biggest regret is that I stayed in a marriage for so long when, deep down, I was deeply unhappy in the relationship. We were mismatched.

Your wife will not change. It’s up to you to decide if you’re happy to go on like this but it already sounds like you’re not. You resent her and it will eat away at you.

She is also probably approaching menopause, so be mindful of that.

Sorry would you advocate men who are not attracted to their wives anymore because of their weight or change of appearance or behaviour to leave too?

I think you're being given a really hard time too OP. I would suggest counselling as the first port of call. I know it's expensive, but surely worth the investment? And maybe nothing will change and you'll have to decide whether all the pluses of the marriage outweigh the lack of sex.

fwiw I didn't really want sex with my H. my marriage ended in my early 40s and I discovered, out of the relationship, I did (really!) want sex with other men. It wasn't my libido for me, it was my marriage. And perhaps it's that for your wife too.