Can you have a lasting relationship where one of you no longer wants sex?

[TomColton]

My partner & I are in our early fifties. My partner no longer wants sex with me. (We have tried many different approaches to dealing with this over the years, but it's now terminal.) We have two children, 11 and 13, & I would much rather not disrupt the household by splitting up. So I'm prepared to accept a relationship without any more intimacy, but is that manageable long term? How do other people deal with this situation?

I don't know whether my partner is interested in other people. I'm realistic enough to know that no one else is going to be interested in me at this point in my life. Unfortunately I'm burdened with quite a high sex drive, but while that's difficult, I'm prepared to accept that part of my life is over. Presumably as people age this situation isn't unusual, even if 50ish seems a bit earlier than I'd expected!

Snacking isn’t a long term solution..tell me who doesn’t feel satisfied after having a meal?
I couldn’t live in a sexless relationship, it’s too important to me. Through bereavements, stressful times and small disagreements sex has always been the glue that kept us together in hard times and made the good times better. I do feel for all those on this post in this precarious situation.

There’s no “if it was the other way around” in these cases to be honest - if one of you doesn’t want to have a shared sex life anymore, there’s nothing you can do about it. You either accept it or separate.

Personally I would separate. No way I’d be allowing myself to wilt away next to someone who finds me “sexually repulsive”. Certainly not in my 50s. Plenty of people find love in their 50s and 60s, you’re not 95.

I had breast cancer and the gruelling 5 years of meds completely killed my libido. I tried alsorts including testosterone and nothing helped. I did still have sex but it was really unpleasant for me so a year ago I said I couldn't do it anymore. I'm clear with my partner that she can leave and I'm sad I can't perform but I can't.
Part of me is relieved not to have a sex drive, after various mistakes over the decades and poor decisions I see now were hormone driven. Plus I was abused as a child.
What I'm saying is whilst it's primarily physical there can also be psychological elements to libido loss. Forcing yourself to have sex is soul destroying.

Sex is not the only way to experience intimacy. DH and I have gone periods of not having sex but there has never been a time when I felt that we were just housemates because we always maintained intimacy in other ways - kissing, cuddling, holding hands, dressing in front of one another, and emotional intimacy. What’s that like for you op?

I wish I could say that'd be fine. Unfortunately (perhaps because I'm cursed with this high drive, which I wish I could get rid of, if only there was a reverse-Viagra), I do find that difficult, because so often (not always, but often) the two things go together for me. But I certainly think it's worth trying.

I guess she needs to be honest about why she no longer wants sex...

She no longer loves you or actually finds you attractive

Her libido has taken a hit..
Menopause
Emotional baggage or covering all the grunt work has made her resentful

She could visit the doctor and see if some meds might help, or be honest and walk away from the marriage.

She can't just expect you at 50 to stop wanting, needing and enjoying sex ever again, totally not fair.

Big proviso, if it's a medical condition or disability then it's between the both of you whether this is your life, as in through sickness and health and you stick together and come to an agreement.

It’s not a curse. It’s a beautiful thing.

Tbh (semi serious) you could talk to your GP about medication. There are a lot of drugs that kill sex drive. It’s not unheard of for it to be suggested here, usually as a feminist counterpoint to people suggesting that women with low libido should try medication. But (serious) of course I don’t think you should dose yourself out of this situation.

It think that's Ok to a point, perhaps when there are shorter term, understandable reasons for the dry spell, but if I'm experiencing feelings of intimacy with someone I love and fancy, it's very frustrating not to be able to actually be intimate.

That isn't intimacy though, it's iust being close to someone and possibly being rather complacent if you don't consider how they may be feeling if you're happy to undress infront of them but nothing else.

Physical intimacy is being physically attracted to someone and wanting them sexually. It is worth it to keep a relationship happy and fulfilling for both. We aren't just in a couple to share the bills and the housework.

@TomColton I don’t think you are cursed or that you have a high sex drive. It’s normal if you love and fancy your partner, that you want to have sex with them. It’s a way of affirming, connecting and being emotional intimate. It’s a pretty fundamental part of being in a relationship for me.

It sounds like she's not interested in maintaining intimacy of that kind though, that she's classing it as part of sex and she putting that off the table.

Has she actually told you she's repulsed by you, @TomColton ? Because you've said this is the problem but if she's really told you this, well that's an awful thing to do. If she has said this and it's true then I would run a mile if I were you - there are far bigger problems than her libido. Is she prepared to have a rational, adult conversation about the status of the relationship or does she shut down any kind of discourse around it? Has she conceded that her position is not an easy one for you to deal with, or suggested she would accept you going elsewhere for sex? (I don't believe that's a good solution, to be honest, but some people do it that way. I know a couple where the wife has told the husband no more sex, ever, and that he can get that somewhere else instead if he still wants it. He has but isn't at all happy because that's a very cold, unfeeling way of running a relationship! In his position I would leave.)

Hi - I had to double take that I hadn't written this while drunk! Maybe it's more common than we are lead to believe from what I've picked up from the old discussion I've heard - it's certainly not something that's openly discussed freely. In my experience though, you can both discuss this until you are both blue in the face but fundamentals don't change if you are mismatched you are mismatched. We've tried this many times and sort professional help twice before.

Two things popped up in my head that a read years ago that I think are true: 1 is that your sex life halves for every child and 2 the honeymoon period (and wanting children, body clocks etc.) skew things considerably, meaning you were most likely not that compatible in the first place. So unless we have some sort of 'screening' period at the start of a relationship this just how most of us have to live.

So we either learn to just accept things and learn to coexist - or we move on. If I took the later choice then I would rather be single than just be in a relationship for the sake of it. The trouble with just accepting it is that periodically some real resentment creeps in. I feel for you OP with the comment "false hope" - maybe this is a normal protection mechanism?

The trouble I find with the advice "do something else that makes you happy" is that I could have done that at any time - and with anyone else - if this is what may relationship now boils down to, it's just friendship really - but with someone you wouldn't have considered "just" friendship material right at the start.

Speaking from experience, and as a female who also took sex out of my marriage, I will give you my honest reasons for doing so. I am 53 now so a similar age to your wife.

(1) My husband wasn’t passionate. Ever. There was never any play, kissing (he didn’t like it), teasing, hand-holding…just boring sex. I hadn’t been with anyone else to compare.

(2) There was a ten year age gap. He aged faster than I did. I found him old in the way he looked and the way he acted.

(3) He was very cold, emotionally. Never said he loved me to my face. Lacked emotional connection.

(4) He never seemed to get horny so not sure if he had a low sex drive. I did have suspicions he was gay but not sure.

(5) I got the ick as the years went by. We hadn’t had an active sex life and I became bored and frustrated. It was like a chore. I stopped it. He never asked again. I matured and changed. He didn’t look after himself.

(6) I knew I was living in a marriage devoid of passion, intimacy and sex but made the decision to live with it. We got on ok aside from this (although that ‘spark’ was never there). I was 35 years old the last time we had sex. It was rubbish. I got nothing out of it.

(7) At 45, I hit menopause. My main symptom, a few months after my periods abruptly stopped, was high sex drive. I was insatiable. However, I still could not go near my husband. I started to realise how I was feeling and how I was living. I suddenly realised that I wasn’t happy in the marriage. I definitely wasn’t attracted to him and had never had the heart to tell him. I wish I had.

(8) Another man came into my life (he is still in my life years later and, like you, lives in a sexless marriage and won’t do anything about it). Yes, we got involved. Big time. I have never experienced so much passion in my life. My eyes were opened. My sex drive with my husband had been tanked, not because I naturally had a low sex drive, but because I was with someone who didn’t bring out the best in me, someone I thought a lot of but wasn’t attracted to in a sexual way. He didn’t turn me on, basically. I ended my marriage immediately (once I got involved with this man) and my world was turned upside down. My sex drive was so crazy going through the first few years of menopause that I ended up with this man in my life - I know how very wrong it was. He is still in my life. We are very good friends now and we have had amazing times. Sadly for me, it’s her he loves, and insists he is coping in his sexless marriage. He isn’t. He gets ridiculously horny! He has cheated numerous times. Meanwhile, I have lost my marriage, home etc. and am still alone.

I am still very sexual and crave that closeness that intimacy and sex can bring. To find someone who you get on really well with in and out of the bedroom is amazing. I wish I had had that (I wish this man had given me that but I was stupid enough to fall for someone who was never going to be mine). Big mistake. But, it opened my eyes.

I regret not ending my marriage years earlier. It was very obvious I viewed him as a friend. I was lonely in my marriage. I wish I had acted earlier and said something. For both of our sakes.

My guess is that your wife isn’t attracted to you. Sorry. You need to have a real conversation with her. You are entitled to a happy, fulfilling life. Are you getting one? No. She will not change. Your high sex drive is not a curse - it’s a blessing to the right woman.

I’m your wife in this scenario. I don’t want sex. I don’t really want to be touched or even kissed. I’m 55 and I feel bad for my husband but I’m done. If he wanted to get sex elsewhere, I’d be fine with that - more than fine, as then I could stop feeling guilty about it. If that led to him then falling in love/leaving, I wouldn’t blame him and would hope we could split amicably. I think it would absolutely be fair enough if he were to take that path and I wouldn’t blame him. I have no idea whether I will ever want sex again and I actually don’t really care. I think I am just completely burnt out by caring responsibilities (SEN and medical issues with our kids), carrying all the emotional and mental load in the house and the day to day trials and tribulations of marriage. If I’m honest, a life time of low level sexual harassment and the litany of stories of men behaving badly in the press over the last decade or two - scandal after scandal of seemingly normal (but famous or powerful) men behaving like dogs on heat - a childhood in the 70s and 80s when, ridiculous as it sounds, it now feels like there was a pervert on every corner (I literally just gave a witness statement yesterday for an investigation into one of our my old primary school teachers, and, to be honest, a lot of what I said about him, I could have said about at least another three of my teachers (not all in the same school) plus several other adult males on the peripheries of my life growing up. I wasn’t abused in any major way, but dodging men who seemed to think young girls were fair game was a life skill that I (and most friends from back in the day) picked up pretty quickly. This is obviously not my husband’s fault, or yours, or the vast majority of the many lovely men I know, but nevertheless, something me seemed to snap in the last five years, and I just don’t want sex, or any form of sexual attention, ever again (as far as I can tell). No idea whether that helps/whether any of this would resonate with your wife, but that’s the perspective of someone on the other side of this (difficult) fence,

Well if you feel so bad for your husband then leave him alone & ask for a divorce , besides all this talk of “ you feel so bad “ & “ you wouldn’t blame him “ ..
You’re trampling all over the man’s self confidence, & some of your reasons, quite frankly are bizzare ..
He deserves a partner who will make him feel wanted & loved ..
That woman is out there , she certainly isn’t you …

I'm your wife too. I have no horrendous backstory like @Seeing70 and I don't have a horrendous husband like @HamptonCourtPrincess , but I still can't really be arsed to have sex, even though I love my husband very much and we are very tactile and affectionate. I'm just 51, perimenopausal and simply not up for it. He does more than I do his fair share round the house, keeps slim, is an all-round good egg, but it's nothing to do with his attractiveness - I would have no interest in Brad Pitt either.

I used to enjoy sex with DH very much and he still fancies me as much as ever. I give him a wank once or twice a week and we maybe shag fortnightly. It's enjoyable, he's very good at it, no question, but I'd be happy enough without it, probably ever again.

Whether things change once the menopause is done and dusted, I couldn't say. Bloody hope they do, though.

I imagine your wife is probably coming from a similar place, but I think you probably need to have a very frank chat to find out.

My experience of a celibate marriage was torturous for me. Sex is such an important part of a relationship, the intimacy of sex is the bond that elevates the relationship beyond friendship. I hadn’t had sex for over ten years when I finally called an end to it. TBH the previous 10 years had been once or twice a year of miserable, failed PIV, that left neither of us happy and both of us further apart.

What I should have done was to instigate the end much earlier, for my mental health, his quality of life (he will never have to pretend to like sex ever again), my financial situation - the list is endless - but I didn’t want to break up the family.
The reality is that the family was broken anyway, our three children saw unhappy parents, who have moved from not being in the same bedroom, to struggling to be in the same building, who have spent a chunk of money on solicitors, fighting over our very average home which has to be split to provide two very meagre properties with no time left to earn anything to enhance that life style (believe me there will be no style).

I wrote on another thread on here recently that it is ironic that I may never have sex again, so could have just stayed in the marriage anyway, but it isn’t just about the sex, it’s about the rejection, the soul destroying day in, day out rejection. The endless self blame and questioning - have I aged badly/what if I lose some weight/ he likes my hair better when it’s longer/what if I become a better housewife/get a better job and your realise that you’ve asked yourself those questions for decades and acted on them all (apart from the housewife bit!) and actually nothing makes any difference.

When you realise it’s your partners attraction to you that is missing and has been for some time and it doesn’t matter what you do it is never coming back, that you are desperately lonely within what should be a supportive, loving marriage, that if he really fancied you looks, weight, hair wouldn't matter….that rather than being snubbed at every opportunity, being on one’s own is a preferable alternative.

That’s when you realise that you have a much bigger decision to make than hair colour, that you really have to be brave.

After all the hideousness of the last five years and it’s not quite over yet, when I return home to my tiny, damp, rented house I am so happy that I hear the drip of the kitchen tap rather than have the drip, drip, drip of rejection, that I don’t have to live the lie, pretend I don’t care whilst feeling my inner self is curling up and dying a little more every day.

OP, only you can decide what this means to you, and you may be happy to stay. It certainly isn’t easy to divorce (there was much more going on in my marriage than I am disclosing here) but it seems faintly ridiculous in the cold light of day to offer by explanation that there was no affection or sex.
Obviously for those living in celibate relationships choices are limited, but your feelings are equally valid in this situation. We only get one life and as my user name implies, I wish I had valued mine enough to ensure it was rather more wild and wonderful. What your ‘Wild and Wonderful’ looks like is for you to decide.

I really appreciate seeing this perspective (I kind of hope this is how my wife feels, granted we don't have the sexual element and I suspect outside of being eager to please I'm a bit hopeless in bed, but I'd like to think I tick the other boxes).

Did you have the frank conversation you mentioned, and if so would you mind sharing how it came about?

Part of what stops me from having said conversation is that things work so well in every other regard that I don't want to rock the boat and risk making everyone else feel bad.

He knows I love him. We laugh, we joke, we hug, we hold hands. We just very rarely have sex, which suits me. You talk about me leaving him and trampling all over his self-esteem. Are you not according him any agency? If he wants to leave, he can. Are all men equally at the mercy of their wives, and only to be freed (set free so another woman can have them?) on their say so, or is it just the ones whose wives have gone off sex?

I think that depends. I know people who would acknowledge an untenable incompatibility and support their partner in moving on. I know others who would make life very difficult for their partner if they decided to move on. They'd do whatever they could to ensure their quality of life was diminished by leaving, so much so that it will likely be better to stay and tolerate the incompatibility.

@JadeSquid absolutely, but ultimately you’re not suggesting that it is the responsibility of just one person to end the relationship for the other’s benefit? I am not ending our relationship (or as Missj25 sees it, ‘setting him free’) because I don’t think it would be in anyone else’s interests to do so, especially our children’s, but also my husband’s. I actually fantasise about living in a little house all by myself, though I suspect that’s a product of having too many demands placed on me, rather than a desire to be alone. Financially, I think we could just about sort things so that we could both buy a little place (very little) but emotionally, the toll it would take on everyone else would be huge. By not initiating sex/showing much interest, I am aware that it is possible that my husband will ultimately look elsewhere, and, I would absolutely facilitate an amicable split, should it come to that, but it’s not for me to initiate one on his behalf. He has to decide. He has agency. Only he knows whether leaving/splitting up is worth it, to have a full sex-life again. It’s no more my responsibility ‘to set him free’ than it is to have sex that I don’t want (for info, I’m not rejecting any advances - I’m just not making any, and my caring responsibilities mean we rarely make it to bed at the same time). I find it bizarre that anyone would suggest otherwise: we all have agency. We all decide on what we are/are not prepared to accept in a relationship.

No but you could say to him that you are aware youve restricted intimacy and you'd support him in moving on if he wanted to. You could list the ways you would support him. That way, he knows you'd help minimise the chaos, not add to it.

I have. He knows. He says he doesn’t want to look elsewhere - he just wants me. He knows I don’t want anyone else. The reason why I’m saying, hypothetically, that if he does end up finding someone and wanting to leave, I’d support that is because I know, that whatever he thinks now, that not having that intimacy with me does make it more likely that if he does meet someone with whom he shares a spark, it will be nigh impossible to resist - and there will be no blame from me if and when happens. We’re in the trenches at the moment, dealing with all sorts of horrendous life events that I don’t want to derail the thread by getting into, so I don’t think either of us would have the time or energy for sex outside of the marriage, but when these events have played out their course and the dust has settled, he may decide that he wants that physical connection with someone else; he may realise that life is too short to settle for what he’s got with me, and I will do nothing to stand in his way. Our marriage is a friendship - the best friendship in my life.

Your posts are so interesting @Seeing70. It is helpful to read a well reasoned and fair viewpoint.

I am the partner who is compromising by living in a sexless marriage. Yes, I can choose to leave. But my self esteem has been eroded, my sense of self worth battered, my self image destroyed. I chose to stay with my husband because I love him and hope that his attraction to me will return. And I don’t think anyone else will love me. So yes, I’ve made a choice.

I just hope you acknowledge to your husband and to yourself that your lack of sexual desire towards your husband is likely having a more powerful affect on him than merely lack of sexual gratification.

i’m sorry if this comes across as critical of you. It’s a sore point for me and one that affects many aspects of my life. I don’t feel fully connected to my husband and that makes me sad. And he never talks with me about it which comes across as ‘like it or lump it’. I don’t bring the subject up now, because I can’t face the rejection and reminder that he doesn’t owe me sex. No, he doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel inadequate for him.

As long as he knows
.