At a glance
A sexless marriage is a pattern, and it almost never begins with a decision. One of you stops asking to avoid being turned down, the other stops offering to avoid being asked, and the quiet does the rest. Where both of you want it to change, the place to start is the silence.
Clinical insights from 20+ years in psychotherapy
I’m Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist in Copenhagen. Qualified at the Psychosynthesis Education Trust and the University of East London. 20+ years in practice.
- Every couple believes they are unusual. Almost every couple who finally comes to therapy believes they are unusual.
- Who stopped initiating. The partner who stopped initiating is very often the one who felt most rejected, which is the opposite of what the other one had assumed for years.
- Early progress is asking. It is about 2 people managing to ask for it out loud without the evening ending (badly).
Clinical notes: These observations are anonymous and compounded from session notes since 2004.
What counts as a sexless marriage?
Fewer than 10 times a year is the cut-off most writing on the subject uses. It is a descriptive line; no diagnostic manual defines a sexless marriage.
- How common. The Gottman Institute, citing survey work by Laumann and colleagues from 1992, puts about 20 per cent of long-term couples below fewer than 10 times a year.
- How to read the figure. It is an old American survey reported at second hand, so read it as a sign that this is common and no measurement of Denmark today.
- The number is beside the point. Plenty of couples are happy well below it, and plenty are miserable well above it.
- The real test. What matters is whether the 2 of you are at ease with where you are.
Why have the 2 of you stopped having sex?
Usually through what the Gottman Institute calls an avoidant dynamic. Nobody decided this.
- The refusal. One partner reaches for the other and is turned down, which happens in every relationship.
- The repeat. It happens a few more times.
- The withdrawal. That partner stops reaching, to avoid the feeling of being refused.
- The misreading. The other partner notices the reaching has stopped and reads it as being no longer wanted.
- Affection goes next. A hand on the shoulder now seems to be a question, so ordinary affection stops, and the closeness follows.
- Two private versions. Both people have a private version of events, neither has said theirs out loud, and the silence has become the bigger problem.
Read more about telling lost love from a couple who stopped.
What else lies behind a sexless marriage?
More than couples usually allow for. Where sex has stopped, something else usually stopped first.
- The body and the calendar. Desire moves with sleep, stress, pain, illness, the medicines people take, pregnancy and the years around the menopause.
- Outside my field. Exhaustion, pain and the effects of medicine are common and they are not my field; what they are doing to the 2 of you is still worth talking about.
- No verdict. None of it is a verdict on the relationship, and that is worth holding on to before anybody in your house decides what the silence means.
- “Just tired.” Often it is true, and sometimes it is the easiest thing to say when the real answer is harder; asking about the rest of it is how you find out.
Read more about growing apart in a relationship.
Is a sexless marriage a reason to leave?
For some people it is, and that is a legitimate position.
- Find out first. Establish whether it is a pattern that both of you want to change before you decide.
- The gap, not the frequency. Couples fall out over the gap between them, and no normal exists that is worth measuring yourself against.
- Nobody is the problem. The question I ask is whether the 2 of you talk about this without one of you being cast as the problem.
- Less sex also counts. Some couples work through all of this and settle at less sex than they expected, quite happily, and that counts as it having worked.
I do not push anyone towards a number. Read more about a partner who runs hot and cold.
How do couples start again in a sexless marriage?
In 3 steps, and in a different order from the one most people try.
- Raise it at a neutral time. Choose a time that is neither bedtime nor the end of an argument.
- One sentence about yourself. Say one sentence about yourself, nothing about your partner, and stop there; the aim of the first conversation is that it happens at all.
- Step one: emotional connection. Affection that arrives without it feels like a request, so do small things often and skip the grand gesture at the weekend.
- Step 2: affection without pressure. Both the Gottman Institute and Relate suggest taking sex off the table deliberately for a period.
- Why that works. Relate says a lot of sexual anxiety comes from the feeling that any kind of sensual touch will have to lead eventually to full sex.
- Step 3: reintroduce sex slowly. Only if you both want to, in very small steps: touching or kissing more, massages, holding hands.
- Agree the last step. Relate says it comes only when you have both agreed you would like to try; the Institute recommends structured sensate focus exercises for the same purpose.
Relate reports that 94 per cent of people who attend sex therapy with them found their sex lives improved. That is its own figure from its own clients, with no independent trial behind it. None of this is a sequence you owe anybody.
These steps fail when neither of you manages to raise it without the evening ending in a row or in silence. That is what the session is for.
Questions people ask
How much sex is normal?
There is no normal worth measuring yourself against. The useful question is whether both of you are content with where you are.
Is a sexless marriage a reason to leave?
For some people it is, and that is a legitimate position. Find out first whether it is a pattern that both of you want to change.
My partner says they are just tired. Is that true?
Often it is true: exhaustion, low mood and the effects of medicine are real causes, and none of them is a judgement on you. A tired partner who is asked about the rest of it will usually tell you.
Does taking sex off the table help?
Yes, it removes the pressure that keeps the loop running. Ordinary affection returns once a hand on the shoulder stops being a question.
What if only one of us wants to do anything about it?
Then start on your own. One person changing how they raise it often changes what comes back.
You may also find these helpful
Sources
- The Gottman Institute, Can a Sexless Marriage be Saved, citing Laumann and colleagues (1992)
- Relate, “We have stopped having sex”
How this article was written. I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. Nothing is published until I have read it, corrected it and stood behind every clinical statement in it. The professional and clinical judgement is mine and mine alone.
