Why I talk about sexless marriage so much
(maybe because no one else does?)
Why? Because not only was I in one and I lived it from the inside - my whole female family tree did too. Come on. And, also, I am the only one of them who know what it feels like to get out of it (not gracefully or with a plan by the way).
And the reason it happened like that is because we never had THE conversation.
That is the real thing for me. Not just the lack of sex. The silence around it. The avoiding. The two of us carrying on as if everything was more or less fine, when obviously something very important had gone missing.
And when you don’t face reality, reality doesn’t go away because you’re too busy with the kids, the house, dinner, school runs, and pretending to be a normal functioning adult. It waits. And then it enters through the back door like an elephant in a China shop 🐘.
In my case, something external came in. A third person. And then there was no time to process, no time to respond consciously, no time to sit down and say: hang on, what is actually happening to us? It just exploded.
Maybe that pain was necessary. Maybe that was the only way life could wake us up at that point. But I do think some of the mess could have been softened if we had been honest earlier.
I talk about it because I wish someone had said to me:
“Stop for a minute. Tell the truth before life forces the truth out of you.”
Because if you don’t have THE conversation, life eventually has it for you. And life is usually much less polite.
Here is the part you perhaps don't expect me to say.
I was the wife who didn’t want sex. I was the one with the excuses. Too tired. Not now. Maybe tomorrow. I was the one quietly checking out while someone next to me was becoming a ‘friend’ - and I did not want to see it.
He didn’t either. We just accepted it silently as ‘normal’.
And I didn’t have the language, the awareness, or the courage to face the reality. So life created the rupture for me.
This is also why I see it everywhere. So many people around me (family, friends) and online forums full of frustrated and resentful people are living some version of this. Two people sharing a house, bills, children, holidays, maybe a bed, but not really sharing themselves anymore. Functioning. Managing. Keeping the machine going. While the romantic and sexual relationship has quietly disappeared.
And we keep mixing up love and wanting as if they are the same thing.
They are not.
You can love someone and not want them.
I know that’s brutal but it’s true. You can care about them, raise children with them, laugh at the same stupid joke, worry when they’re ill… and still not want their hands on your body. That doesn’t mean the love was fake. It means the erotic bond has changed. Or died.
“I love you” and “I want you” are not the same sentence.
And this is incredibly painful for the person on the receiving end. Because wanting to be wanted is not shallow. It is a very human need. And when you are being rejected over and over while someone tells you the marriage is still good - that is a very specific kind of suffering.
A sexless marriage is rarely only about sex. It is usually a symptom of disconnection. Resentment. Emotional distance. Loss of attraction. A relationship that has changed shape while both people were busy surviving life.
One day you wake up and realize you’ve been running a very efficient domestic operation with someone you used to be in love with. And nobody announced it. Nobody decided it. It just happened. While you were busy.
The model most of us inherited was never designed around desire, truth, or two people actually choosing each other. It was designed for appearances and survival.
The dead bedroom is not bad luck. It is a predictable outcome of a broken blueprint.
The Way Out
So I am not here to tell you what to do. I am not a therapist. I am not going to give you a seven-step plan.
What I will say is this: start by telling the truth. No need for throwing a grenade in the kitchen while the other person is making tea ( I did a version of that ☹️), truth can be calm and uncomfortable without being cruel.
You can say: “I don’t know what is happening to us but something is not right. I don’t feel connected to you anymore. I miss being touched and I don’t know how much longer I can pretend this doesn’t matter.”
That conversation may not save the marriage. And I think this is important, because maybe it doesn’t need saving. Maybe it needs understanding. Maybe it needs a different shape. Maybe it needs to end as a romantic relationship but continue as a family.
You cannot know any of that while everybody is avoiding and pretending that “not tonight” is still just about tonight, when it has clearly become the whole marriage.
The pain of truth is immediate. The pain of avoidance rots slowly.
That is why I talk about this. Not because I did it beautifully but because I lived the mess. And I have also lived the other side thankfully, a different kind of family, a more honest life, a life where love did not disappear but changed form.
I didn’t break my family. I broke the model.
And I know that is possible.
But it begins with the conversation. The one you are avoiding. The one I avoided. The one that might hurt but might also stop you from sleepwalking into a much bigger pain later.
I talk about three possible paths in my Sexless Marriage Way Out (free download and fucking worth it. I have worked hard on that 😅).
And by the way - to make it clear - some people are in a sexless marriage and, if both partners are okay with it, then there is nothing to fix, talk or face.
It only becomes a problem when it is only one-sided and there is one who is NOT okay with not having sex anymore in this only lifetime we are given to live. 😓
And another thing is true. You can:
Do nothing about it and, if nothing happens from the outside, carry on “til death do you part” while putting your energy in other areas. Doable I guess.
Do nothing about it and wait until life does (could be unexpected and painful, ask me how I know).
Consciously look at the beast in the eye and just…talk it through. Sort it out with the best intentions and heart in hand. With love.
So, despite the videos I am finding about this topic (and that I am going to comment on soon because how could I shut my mouth, right? 😅) that focus on “fixing it” mainly, in my world, when romance is gone and desire walks away … no amount of Super Glue will ever put the pieces back together because there are no pieces. It’s just gone.
Love💕
Eva :)