Should You Stay in a Sexless Relationship?

A recent BBC article quotes rather unsettling numbers:

…a 2021 survey of adults ages 18 to 45 across the US, conducted by the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University and sex-retailer Lovehoney, showed that among married adults, millennials were the most likely to “report problems with sexual desire in the past year”. The survey showed 25.8% of married millennials reported this problem, while only 10.5% of married Gen Z and 21.2% of married Gen X adults reported the same.

While „problems with sexual desire“ don’t necessarily indicate that a relationship is sexless, they certainly do indicate that a significant number of married couples struggles to maintain a satisfactory sex life. To call something a sexless relationship, it is not enough to say that a couple is experiencing „problems with sexual desire“. Researchers seem to be divided into two categories on this issue. Those that think of sexless relationships in a very literal sense: relationships that do not include sexual activity of any kind; the other group consists of researchers who consider a relationship sexless if the couple has sex on average 10 times per year or less.

However, seeing that I am a working with individuals and not societies, groups of experts or imagined standards, I think the definition of a sexless relationship ought to fit your needs and your partner’s needs. You define it for yourself/yourselves. In my opinion, it’s fair to define a relationship as sexless when there is a big discrepancy between sexual needs of two partners for an  extended period of time, but whether that will be twice a day or ten times per year is less important. 

Is this a problem?

This is a simple question but a question that doesn’t have a universal answer. It is a problem if you feel that it troubles you. But there is no law or rule that says that one must have sex in a relationship. In my opinion, cultural standards have no place in relationship between two people. You should be able to define your own rules.

I will give you two examples from my private practice. Both clients gave me permission to share their statements.

Let’s call the first client Jane. She is 47 years old and has been married for 12 years. She and her husband are happily married and have one child. They have been in a completely sexless relationship for 8 of those 12 years. Jane had mentioned this in passing at the beginning of our work together and when I inquired about it she stated that this is not a problem. Here’s how she explained it:

“We are both busy people. I’m a partner in a law firm and my husband runs a company that employs over a thousand people. We work twelve-hour workdays. When we get home, the little time we have, we choose to spend with our daughter. It’s not that I find my husband unattractive. We are both very much attracted to each other, but at some point in our marriage we decided that we value our roles as parents and our careers more than sex. Perhaps that changes one day, but for now, we are both fine with this arrangement. It’s not an issue worth discussing.”

Jennifer (35) has a different story to tell. She has been married for only a year and a half and upon getting married her relationship suddenly became sexless. This is her story:

“I love my husband and my husband loves me. But I feel so rejected by this sudden turn in our relationship that I fantasize about cheating on him, yet I know I’m not capable of doing it which makes me ever more resentful. I’m a very sexual person and I feel stuck and almost punished to be in a relationship like this. I don’t know how much longer I can stay and it’s killing me because I love my husband deeply.”

Here, you have two examples that illustrate how sexless relationships can continue to work just fine and how they can cause great suffering.

If you want to learn more about resentment and how it affects you sex life, you can do so here.

If you’re interested in reading more of such experiences, you can look at this article published by The Guardian featuring several longer, carefully chosen examples.

Relationships are not static!

Relationships, like everything else, change.

A sexless relationship may come about as a result of interpersonal tensions and unresolved issues such as resentment, lack of trust, anger, disappointment, especially when they last for a long time. Unresolved issues truly are like the proverbial elephant in the room. They take up too much space, creating a boundary between partners.

Not every sexless relationship has to do with issues stemming from within the relationship. Sexlessness can emerge after one of the partners experiences a loss or illness – physical or psychological. In some cases, coping with changes or excessive amount of accumulated work stress lead to low sexual desire.

Whatever the cause may be, if there is willingness to communicate, a relationship can adjust, evolve and heal.

It’s, in fact, hardly imaginable that a long-term relationship won’t have its ups and downs, the same way that every individual has no choice but to continue to change when circumstances around them change. When you encounter relationship issues, being mindful of this constantly evolving nature of your relationship is very important. Otherwise, you may risk getting stuck in a mindset that doesn’t allow growth and you may prematurely end a relationship that otherwise has the capacity to grow out of its problems.

What can you do about it?

If you’re in a sexless relationship and you’re having a hard time with it, there are things that you can do even without seeking professional help. It’s an absolute necessity for couples to be able to communicate openly, so working on your communication is indispensable. That doesn’t mean that you have to start talking about sex right away. In some cases, it means assuring that there is mutual trust and that both of you feel safe first. Discussing such a delicate subject requires both sides to be vulnerable, open and non-judgmental.

While good communication is absolutely necessary, there are other things that you can do. Sex is closely related to intimacy and trust, so building those is indirectly also helping you get closer to your partner. Introduce new activities that you can do together, take a vacation. You can also talk about sex and your sexual fantasies without expecting to engage in any sexual activity, but as a way to get to know your partner and what their needs are.

Once you feel safe around each other and establish better communication, you can try to identify why your relationship became sexless in the first place. While this may not always be of the utmost importance, it can be helpful when reasons for making the relationship sexless are still present. For example, one of the partners may develop body image issues and if those issues are still present, it may be difficult to re-establish sexual activity. If one of the partners cheated, the other partner may have lost trust. Not feeling safe around someone and not trusting them makes it really difficult to be intimate. In such cases, those primary causes need to be addressed in order for sexual activity to resume.

If your partner refuses to discuss the issue and rejects counseling or possibility of change, this may be a sign that, however sad that is, your relationship may not have a future after all.

Important to remember

·        Sexless relationships are not uncommon; you are not alone!

·        Sexlessness can be a phase in a relationship, it doesn’t have to define it.

·        Lack of sex may be indicative of other issues – to fix your sex life, you may need to address the underlying issues.

·        Don’t judge your partner, learn to listen and communicate clearly and effectively.