Sexless Marriages Support thread

[Aishabibi]

I’ve noticed since coming onto this section that there are a lot of us in sexless marriages. I wonder if having a thread to share experiences, survival strategies, sex toy recommendations, FwB set ups for those who’ve agreed to open things up or anyone that has managed to get things going again.

my situation is nothing from DH for over 3 yrs. he says he’s not interested at all, no urges whatsoever. He agreed I could explore a FwB, which I did find. Before that, lots of failed attempts to get him interested (lingerie, porn, and a growing collection of toys

Thanks, all good ideas. I will try (but not try too hard!) and see how things go. Also trying not to get too hopeful as I don't want to end up going over the top and being weird lol

🤣🤣🤣 That actually made LOL. Something my husband would say....!

Good plan. Agree don't go too full on or it may seem too much. Aim for natural and easy like you're doing it without even thinking about it. You don't want to give the impression that you're only doing it to get laid. Which obviously is the end goal but I think it's more than that for you.

Just see how it goes.

Good luck 😉

This article on a sexless marriage has just appeared in The Guardian.

" It’s not just about missing out on sex. It’s about feeling as though your wellbeing doesn’t matter very much. It’s about being told you can’t have something valuable to you and then feeling lascivious or base for even valuing it"

Thats so well said.

Yes, it's very powerful. I suppose I should be thankful that my sexless state is only in single figures and - who knows? - could change.

I’m going to post on here whilst I have the courage. I feel terrible about even posting.

Im 44 and have been married to my DH for 16 years. I think I read at the start of this thread that the frequency of a sexless marriage was less than once a month. We have probably had about that for the majority of the last decade. Whilst that was less than I would have liked, it was enough. DH has never had a particularly high sex drive and having dated a pesterer before him, I didn’t want to be a sex pest so I didn’t like to push much.

Last spring DH was diagnosed with prostate cancer and in that 9 months we had sex twice, both times on holiday and without an orgasm for me. He had his surgery for prostate removal in January and since then we have had sex once(again on holiday) and although he struggled with ED he managed an orgasm unlike me.

He is taking viagara for rehab and I understand that he might never return to normal and I’m so sorry for that, but I’m just sad about what it also seems to mean for me.

I am so grateful that he seems to be currently beating the cancer with clear blood tests. But his libido is non existent and when he had his hormones tested, he is a bit low but because he had an aggressive form of cancer which feeds of testosterone, the doctors don’t feel like increasing his levels would be a good thing.

He has offered to touch me but has made it clear it does nothing for him, so it just feels pretty grim to even remind him of that offer.

A few weeks ago when the first heat wave hit, I put a summer dress on to go out and I thought I looked good and when he didn’t comment, I asked him if I looked good and he snapped that the cancer meant he didn’t see me like that anymore and he had no sex drive. I did point out that the cancer didn’t stop him from telling me I looked nice, just like I tell his mother she looks good in something. He apologised but it was so upsetting.

He has rectified this and will now comment more if I’m dressed up which is something I am grateful for.

I did suggest we do something like hand and forearm massages to put some intimacy back into our marriage, a physical act but without anything sexual but after suggesting it a few times I have given up. We do see each other naked and share a bed. We hug each other and a brief kiss every now and then. He is a good husband, he is honest, hard working, pulls his weight at home, will listen to me about other problems, is caring and has many great qualities. He just isn’t interested in sex.

Sometimes I can go weeks without being upset about things, other times I will wake up and have a cry over this. It feels so selfish, after all the important thing is he survived and is otherwise leading a normal life.

I am not going to raise this with him, it’s not his fault and I’m certainly not going to feel comfortable doing anything if I feel he is doing it just for me and doesn’t want to. So I guess I just wanted to feel heard, when I’m in a situation where I don’t feel I can talk to anyone who knows me.

I am grieving without being able to talk or to be able to be seen to be grieving. So I feel so sad and frustrated and alone.

For me it’s very much a keep quiet and carry on situation.

I don’t know if anyone has any tips apart from the ones I saw about exercising hard? I’m looking for ways to accept my loss and ways to lower my libido please.

Sorry for the essay, I just needed to get this off my chest.

I am also really sorry that so many others find themselves in the same situation.

@Chocja : There's not much I can say except I'm so sorry you're going through this, and I'm sure others on this thread feel the same. I feel for your husband. I hope you find a way through this.

@Chocja : "I’m looking for ways to accept my loss and ways to lower my libido please."

I've always resisted considering anything that will lower my libido (except masturbation: that does the trick for a few hours.) Regarding accepting your loss, the only thing I can suggest is time for yourself, but you need to take that very seriously.

Sorry to read all this. Its such a tough position.

I spoke to my Dr about lowing my libido and she told me to go to counselling before anything extreme. I was hoping there would be a drug.

It’s an interesting article, as it says moving away from the almost automatic assumption that, when it’s the woman who has no interest, it’s due to hormones, body image etc whereas it may just be they don’t enjoy sex. Certainly feels that way in our relationship, multiple attempts to discuss it end in nothing and, looking at the occasions we do have sex, it does feel as if it’s something she participates in with a view to as little physical contact as possible, rarely touches, definitely no oral, it’s like just do it and let me go to sleep, perhaps she actually doesn’t enjoy it, but it would be so useful if she’d just say that if it’s the case, I’ve suspected for sometime that it’s me that she doesn’t want the sex with rather than just not wanting sex at all but getting any discussion on that is harder than trying to have sex

Getting to the point of realizing it was that she didn't like sex at all rather than sex with me personally pulled me back from a seriously dark spiral of body image issues and eating disorders.

@Chocja that sounds like such a hard situation for both you and your partner, good on you for saying out loud on here some very difficult feelings.
I’ve been watching this thread for a while, I’m a 45 female married to man, without children, and it’s been an issue in some form or another throughout our relationship but it goes through particularly bad patches (and if im honest, though it’s a bit depressing, the general trajectory is downwards). Once or twice in the last year, short and not very inspiring, although loving. My husband is good at showing affection and love in other ways, although he does have a low threshshold for ‘touch’ and affection feeling a bit much, he’s not autistic but he does seem to get overwhelmed by closeness/touch if it’s not within comfortable boundaries. This probably feeds into the problem for me as well, since I often feel shortchanged and wanting more in matters of physical intimacy of any kind.
Like lots of posters on here I can be fine with it for a while and then something will trigger it and I’m just not fine anymore and very consumed by it. as others have said also hot weather and this sight of gorgeous young (and old!) people out and about having fun does not help!
I cant offer that much advice only that it’s very likely that the partner is also hurting in their own way by the situation even if they mightn’t be showing it. I hate my feelings of loss and sometimes rage but they will also be feeling shame which is very hard too.
Also I think I’ve finally come to an acceptance that this isn’t about me it’s about them. I used to think of only I was this that or the other they would want me more. The reality is I do my best to look after myself, and I actually don’t feel any less attractive than I was 10 years ago, just a bit older. And even if it was about me, what on earth can I do about it, it’s out of my control.
I do wonder if my partner is on the asexual spectrum (graysexual I believe the term is for sporadic/infrequent interest). The AVEN website and support threads have been helpful for learning about this, although depressing in some ways because many posters say this is something that is just built in and won’t change to any significant degree.
Another thing that’s helped me a bit is that although we are so different there is a logic to the way he thinks about it in the way there is a logic to the way I think about it. Both are understandable but just incompatible. My husband needs conditions to be exactly right to consider sex, I on the other hand see sex as a way of helping conditions to be right.
we have been having some difficulties alongside this and trying to work on communication skills. I think one of the thjngs I struggle with most in the sexless relationship is feeling unheard, my parter would most often rather have his teeth pulled out than talk about it. I think this is the most distressing thing like my feelings just don’t matter, or that my needs have absolutely nothing to do with him. On the rare occasions we do talk though it does help. So I wonder if you can foster better communication elsewhere so your partner feels safer in openings up about this? If I hear more about it from his perspective the whole thing troubles me less.
i did ask what he thought about open relationships but it was a no from both of us really. But I’m glad I said it, it made me feel heard I guess. That feels like it wouldn’t be an option right now (who has time for the admin apart from anything else) but I do realise it may come to that or we may just have to separate. It sounds ridiculous on the one had to separate over ‘just’ sex but all posters on here will be familiar with how it leeches out into other areas of the relationship dynamic.

@blueblotch A couple of things from your post: "I do wonder if my partner is on the asexual spectrum (graysexual I believe the term is for sporadic/infrequent interest)." And I wonder how helpful terms such as 'asexual' etc are. Personally, I think we need fewer labels, not more. Labels externalise the problem.

"My husband needs conditions to be exactly right to consider sex, I on the other hand see sex as a way of helping conditions to be right." I'm sure that's a very common mismatch, and I'm with you. I think I'm a pretty decent husband but, with regular sex, I'd be husband of the year. Regarding my wife, I believe that for her (at least with me), sex appears on the list of chores; always near the bottom - and there are always more important chores than sex, so we never really get to the bottom of the list. I say "with me" because my wife had an affair (the details of which I had to read about) and, in that relationship, no chores got in the way of sex. Oh no.

@Eric1964 excuse the impertinence, but I've read several of your messages on this thread & wondered, if your wife had an affair, one that you had to read about, and if as you say, she appears uninterested in sex with you except very occasionally when everything is right & even then it appears that it's just a chore she has to perform, then, why on earth would you want to stay with this woman?

Surely being on the other end of that behaviour & 'putting up with it', will only eat into your self esteem & enjoyment of life and become toxic in the relationship anyways over time??

@ThatDaringEagle It's not impertinence. The very short answer is that you'll put up with a lot when you genuinely love someone. As for affairs, shit happens. Also, I know my wife adores me. You might think that's contradictory but life's full of paradox. But a deeper answer to your question is what I'm paying my therapist to help me find.

I'm sorry but to proclaim your wife loves & adores you but nonetheless had an affair and barely ever wants to get intimate with you, hmmmm, are you kidding yourself here?

I mean reading your posts I've no doubt you love & adore her, but frankly from this remove, it's hard to see that being reciprocated. But look you & she are the only ones who can truly answer that....

@ThatDaringEagle "But look you & she are the only ones who can truly answer that...."

The idea of a woman loving person A but wanting a good, hard fuck from person B isn't so strange. We have monogamy hammered into us from childhood; our minds reject anything that challenges that.

Okay, but there's maybe wanting a good shag, and having a full on covert affair, assumedly over some time, behind the back of the person you're supposed to love & adore , so much so, that they have to go through the igmony of reading about it somewhere to find out.... jeez

Add this to the fact that this woman clearly doesn't want to get intimate with you too much if ever.... you know the person you claim she loves & adores....

Look there's obviously nothing wrong with her libido, she's just not that interested in being intimate with you.... can you join the dots perhaps!?

Jeez, sorry, but it sounds to me that you've drank the therapy kool aid. Isn't it far more likely that this woman is simply just not that into you!?

@ThatDaringEagle As a dinner lady once said to me when I was about 8, seemingly apropos of nothing, "Life's hard; funny how we still seem to enjoy it."

Okay, so if I'm understanding you correctly you're kinda saying you enjoy being a doormat for this woman....

That's your perogative for sure, but maybe don't also try to kid yourself that she loves & adores you, because her actions do not say that at all. She most likely sees you as her doormat too. Sorry.

The difference here is you’re both seeking a solution to an issue. There’s communication, compromise, understanding and an effort to work on an issue and move forward.

Many people aren’t offered that opportunity in their relationships. The issues are ignored by their partner. There’s no communication or any effort to compromise.

that’d the real misery.

I completely agree.

And sadly that's when it gets to the point where a hard decision (no pun intended) needs to be made.

It's completely soul destroying 😔

<sound of soapbox scraping>

My DW (who incidentally is ND) adores me. She says she's not naturally at all interested in sex but I told her that it was very important to me. She listened, meaning we've had a huge amount of fun over the years. While I've done everything I can to make it worth her while, that would have meant nothing if she hadn't been willing to explore with me. Her actions are my proof of her adoration for me.

Right now we are having a lean time. That's because of some external problems and possibly a hormonal change in me. But there will be no surrender to the circumstances: we will find a way through.

Be careful what you wish for @Eric1964, losing my sex drive (hopefully temporarily) has been like losing my ability to taste and enjoy my food. I think you said a few pages back that I was a moral relativist. Well I think relative moral judgements are part of life, and they properly take into account how others treat you. I worry that you're a good man but trapped by your situation and principles in a way that is good for no one.

<gets off soapbox>

I would agree with this.

She may “adore you” but I would assume she means more like a close friend rather than “lover”. She’s clearly not sexually attracted to you. That happens over the years, but she doesn’t love or adore you as a sexual partner. Something stops her having sex with you, probably because she doesn’t “see you like that.”

Bit of a ramble based on some other posts, but those saying just leave, it's not that easy, imagine sleeping next to someone for years, with that level of intimacy, you care about each other, you want to make sure everyone is safe and comfortable and still have a good comfortable life, the pair of you might be good friends and travel companions, you still might enjoy each other's company, how many can honestly say they'd leave all that, because they wasn't getting enough ?

I've tried living apart from my wife and something drew us back, it wasn't financially nessacery for us to reconcile, no kids involved etc.

If I left her, brought a new house, met someone new etc, I could miss out on all the other positives, in exchange for sex two or three times a week, whilst probably still wondering how my wife was coping or whether she was doing okay. This situation has made me realize life isn't all black and white.

Apologies if this comes across as a mini rant, wasn't my intention.