How do you cope emotionally with a sexless marriage when you don’t want to leave (for now)?
I’m mid-40s, married to my husband since we were very young, and we have two secondary-school-age children. We haven’t had sex for around two years.
This isn’t something I’ve only just realised, and I’m not really looking for “LTB”. For various reasons, particularly the children, their schooling and exams, I don’t want to break up the family at this point. We actually function pretty well as a family. There is affection between us — cuddles, hugs, companionship — but there is no sexual intimacy.
Historically I’ve been the more dominant one in our relationship, including sexually, and I think I carried a lot of that side of our relationship. But I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to initiate and drive everything. I want to feel that my husband actually desires me and comes towards me.
Something brought it home to me recently. We spent time with another couple and the wife is a very strong, dominant, successful woman and the main breadwinner. But her husband is clearly sexually attracted to her. She casually talked about things that turn her on, kissed him, mentioned him always touching her bum etc. Nothing outrageous — just an obvious sexual connection between them.
It really affected me. Not because I want her husband or necessarily want their marriage, but because I realised how much I miss being wanted. Seeing that she can be a strong, dominant woman and still have a husband who pursues and desires her also challenged something in me. I think I’ve always had some fear that allowing a man to be sexually dominant would somehow mean being controlled by him. Seeing them made me realise those things aren’t necessarily connected.
I also have a child with additional needs and life has been exhausting and stressful for a long time, so I can see how we’ve ended up letting years pass while dealing with everything else.
But underneath all of that, I feel profoundly rejected. Sometimes I look at other women whose husbands obviously desire them and feel “less than”. I hate that because rationally I know my worth isn’t determined by whether my husband wants sex with me, but emotionally it really hurts.
I have friends, a career and interests. I go to the theatre, have been going to the gym and intend to get back to it, and I’m trying to invest more in myself. So I’m not really looking for advice just to “get a hobby” or keep busy. I can have a full day and still come home and feel the absence of being desired.
I’m also not asking how to change or fix my husband. I’m increasingly aware that I can’t, and I’m not even sure I want to spend my energy trying.
What I’d really like to hear from women who’ve been in this position is: if you stayed, at least for a period of time, how did you protect your confidence and sense of yourself as a woman? How did you cope with the loneliness and longing without constantly feeling rejected?
And did you eventually reach a point where you knew what you wanted longer term?
I used AI to help me compose the post