10 Men Talk About Their Sexless Marriages

Sexless Marriages exist and a surprising number of couples stay in these marriages.

These men shared their own stories. They all have different reasons, different points of view and different situations.

Read about their stories below.

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1. My Wife Said to “Stop Harassing Her”

“My wife of 4 years has essentially stopped having sex with me. Maybe 1-2 times per year when the stars align and the circumstances are exactly perfect in her mind.

I get the usual excuses: tired, headache, bloated, period, “tomorrow, I promise”, all of that. A few months ago she said it stresses her out when I ask her for sex. Also that she doesn’t like when I try to touch her ass or leg or anything because she said the expectation of sex is too much. So I stopped doing that. For a couple of months solid, I just bit my tongue and beat off a lot.

So the other night after the kids when to sleep, it was still kind of early, all the chores and crap were done, it was just a nice calm evening. I sat on the couch to watch a movie and when she came into the room I said to her “hey, come sit with me for a little bit”. Truly no ulterior motive.

But wanted to get and give a little affection which is mostly non-existent most days. Her response was “no, I’m good”. And not like she was off to do anything else. Just sat on the other couch looking at that stupid fucking cell phone.

Then just this afternoon, the youngest was taking a nap and my oldest was at her parent’s house for the day. A rare kid-free moment in the daytime and I suggested maybe we could fool around and she said “stop harassing me”. That’s a quote. And it really hurt. I literally hadn’t suggested or asked for anything in like 2 months because she said to. But asking to cuddle up on the couch and then a suggestion of sex equals harassment.

After those last two encounters, I think I’ll go ahead and declare this bedroom dead now.”

Via Reddit Talking About Sexless Marriages

2. She is Disgusted By Her Own Body

“Been with my wife 14 years and married 9 one 4 1/2 year old. She never wants sex, doesn’t like me touching her, goes to bed early so she’s not awake when I do.

She says it’s because she’s disgusted by her own body even though she’s not fat. I kept telling her how much I fancied her etc but it was never enough.

I’m currently sleeping in the spare room and looking to move out before Xmas.

It doesn’t matter what they tell you, you’re going to feel like it’s an issue with you. We had chats about it but I never wanted sex to be a chore, it should be love and passion. Something that’s not in our marriage.

Making the leap was the hardest thing but I know long term we will both be happier.

What you do is your business but can you see yourself doing this for the next how ever many years?”

Via Reddit Talking About Sexless Marriages

3. No Definitive Reason – Just Rejection

“I know being in a sexless marriage means different things to different people. For me it means that I’ve spent 23 years in a marriage where we have sex 8-10 times a year. She never initiates, and when I do, half the time she gives me an excuse and the other half the time she says she tired and tries to talk me out of it. I know other people here have gone years without sex.

I’ve gone through 1.5 year dry spell, 6 month try spell and am currently in a 4 month one because I just refuse to beg anymore. For those of you in your 20’s and early 30’s, get out. I don’t care how much you thing you love them, or how much you think they love you. Get out. They wouldn’t treat you like that if they truly loved you.

If you don’t get out, Here’s what you have to look forward to:

In the beginning you fool yourself into thinking it’s you. You failed somehow in making your partner happy. You try harder. Do more work around the house. Maybe you do the cooking, house cleaning or laundry or all of the above. You bring home unexpected gifts like flowers periodically.

You take your spouse to shows and on dinner dates. You read books like The 5 Love Languages and No More Mr Nice Guy but they don’t help. You have The Talk periodically when you get to the point where you just can’t take it anymore. All of your trying gets you nowhere because it’s one partner trying when it really needs both. All you hear is NO.

The constant rejection hurts. It comes from the person who is supposed to love you unconditionally, the person who should do anything for you. Over the years, the rejection not only hurts you emotionally, but it erodes your confidence. You no longer feel like you can achieve your dreams. It hurts your work and damages your chances for promotion.

At first, the years of rejection begin to make you lose respect for yourself. Eventually, you lose respect for your partner. All of their little quirks begin to gnaw at you. You harbour resentment for them.

You stayed through the pain so your children could have a better life than you. You are cordial around your spouse so that the kids don’t catch on. Secretly knowing that they probably know your marriage isn’t normal. After all, mom and dad kiss and hug on the shows they watch.. so they know.

It has wrecked you. Underneath, you hurt. The emotional toll of not being shown any physical love has made you a different person.

You turn inward. Your only relief is your dreams. You’ve long ago given up dreaming that your spouse will figure things out or there’s a magic pill that will make them better. You dream about a new life with someone who shows their love as much as you show yours.”

Via Reddit Talking About Sexless Marriages

4. She Gained a Lot of Weight

“My wife gained about 25% of her body weight and completely lost interest in sex. And I lost interest in having sex with her. Everything else about the relationship is great, however. We have no plans to split up. And she has no plans to lose weight, and I have no plans to find obesity attractive, so here we are.

Fortunately, she lets me have sex with other women. Even encourages it. (Note: The whole concept of swinging, polyamory, sounds so foreign to most people that they assume such an arrangement couldn’t possibly exist. But it does.)

I’d love to have sex with her; I’d love her to want to. But she doesn’t, and thank God I have another outlet or I’d go nuts.“

Via Reddit Talking About Sexless Marriages

5. We Have No Intimacy

“My (33M) wife (36F) wife and I barely have any intimacy. I used to initiate often but I’ve been shut down so often, I barely try anymore. She doesn’t seem to mind as she just wants non-sexual intimacy.

I think about sex all the time. It’s constantly on my mind. All-day I dream about the sexual acts I want to do with my wife. All the daydreaming has actually made me want to explore different aspects of sexuality that I’ve never considered before. I’m excited about this part of me. I’m not the type that needs multiple partners to feel satisfied. I just want my wife’s affections. BUT…..

Then I come home from work and the minute I actually see her, it all turns to disappointment and anger. I know that my sexual satisfaction isn’t important to her. I know that I don’t turn her on anymore. And I know that we will not actually be having sex that evening. I’m not even sure she really enjoys my company all that much anymore, or at least that’s what it feels like.

Just needed to vent a bit. Feeling blue.”

Via Reddit Talking About Sexless Marriages

6. I Take Care of My Own Needs Now

“It’s been 7 and a half years so the wife and I last had sex. I would never leave her because of it. I love her completely and understand that she is no longer interested in it. I take care of my own needs. Our marriage is better than it has ever been because our relationship is not built solely on physical intimacy.”

Via Reddit Talking About Sexless Marriages

7. It’s Like She is Just Fulfilling an Obligation

“We’ve been together for 5 years and had problems with sex for the last four. Generally, I want sex more often and I come onto 4, she feels pressured and asks me to lay off, I do lay off but I start to get frustrated and talk through it, she sees the talk as more pressuring her into sex (which does seem valid) and we end up further distanced and ready to repeat the cycle.

We do have sex about once a week, but it tends to be boring and stilted given that she’s doing it to fulfill some obligation and I’m just emptying my pipes at that point. In the past we would have sex in the night when we were both sleeping after drinking. It would be really uninhibited, passionate, animalistic and rough but loving sex that we both agreed was the best sex we had.

Recently though, in talking about her frustrations, she mentioned that “night sex” as we call it made her feel violated and that she couldn’t talk to friends or a therapist about it because they would call it rape and tell her to leave. I was pretty flabbergasted.

She said the issue was that she was waking up to me touching her sexually and although she was always receptive in the moment, she later felt violated. So I’ve stopped responding, but now I have her drunkenly touching my dick after 5-6 days without sex and I just have to roll over. When I come onto her normally she ignores it until I flatly put it to her and then she acts resentful that I’m pressuring her.

So now we’re finalizing plans for a wedding and booking hotel rooms for a honeymoon and when i try to bring up that “as it stands, our wedding night and honeymoon may end up being a little awkward if we want different things during them” she tells me I’m pressuring her more. When I don’t bring it up or talk about it m, we go multiple weeks without sex and I begin to really resent her lack of attention to it.

So if I bring it up and now she tells me, “I just hate sex” and “now i resent kissing and touching because you want sex out of it”, so I’ll continue to lay off. I guess we’ll catch back up on our wedding night.”

Via Reddit Talking About Sexless Marriages

8. After the Kids Her Sex Drive Shut Down

“I’m in a sexless marriage. I’ve known ever since my teens that I had a fairly high libido. I used to hear stories of dead bedrooms and it terrified me. Like many others in this situation, when my wife and I first started dating the sex was plentiful, averaging at least once a day. I told my wife about my dead bedroom fears, and she assured me that I didn’t have to worry. She liked sex and was on the same page as me. We have been together for 9 years, married for 7.

And then things changed. After kids, her sex drive just shut down, as if someone flipped a switch and then it was gone. I tried everything I could to bring it back. I tried being a supportive super husband/dad. I tried being more confident and assertive. I tried to encourage her to explore her own sexuality in whatever ways she wanted to. Nothing worked. The bottom line is that she just wasn’t interested anymore.

I realized that for as long as this held true, our sex life was dead in the water. I could maybe appeal to her and she would allow me sex a few times a week, but that’s not what I want. I want to have sex with a woman who enjoys it just as much if not more than I do. I did try the “go ahead, do what you need to do” pity sex and it was horrible.

Realizing that her drive was gone, the next logical step was to allow me to have sex with others. I asked her about opening up the marriage. I carefully outlined how I would do it, showing her how I wouldn’t let it interfere with our family life. I tried to reassure her that it would only be a physical relationship, that I would never come to feel anything more than a basic friendship for them. That it didn’t mean I was no longer attracted to her I wanted her more than anything else, but since she wasn’t interested this is what I had to settle for.

She listened to my proposal and rejected it. She admitted she couldn’t defeat my logic and arguments, her rejection was based solely on how she felt about it. So she did not want me to have sex with other women. She told me that ultimately since we were married I was legally prohibited from doing so anyway. She was going to take a stand she doesn’t want to have sex, and she isn’t going to allow me to have sex with other women.

She did so knowing that she had the full support of society backing her, whatever response I chose to that other than falling in line with her, I would be wrong. Be it divorce (breaking up our family over sex) or adultery.

Neither of us wants to divorce. She described it as “the absolute worst-case scenario.” Aside from the lack of sex she’s a good wife and mother and I love her dearly. I did try to deal with the lack of sex, but it just made me frustrated and angry. She would pick up on it no matter how I tried to hide it, and the relationship suffered.

I don’t know what to do it seems that my only two options for having sex, is divorcing my wife or cheating. In the last 2 years we have had sex 5 times, and all of those times she laid there. I have tried asking her to go to a sex therapist, she doesn’t want to, to her sex isn’t something she wants to want.

I have talked to her about a divorce; she tells me that everything is great. And then she throws in whether I want to miss out on my children growing up for sex. I can’t wrap my head around this. I am really starting to think cheating might be my only way out, because she said that if I do go for a divorce she will not go easy. I know that this subreddit hates cheaters, but seriously she doesn’t value sex enough to have it with me, is it that wrong to have it with other women?”

Via Reddit Talking About Sexless Marriages

9. Busy with Kids and Jobs

“We have three kids and live in a small house. I work two jobs. She works one. We both team up to take care of the housework and run the kids to this activity and that activity.”

“But besides not having the time or energy, we’re in our 40s and my wife has become less interested in having sex. We’d rather catch up on a show we never get to watch.”

“We haven’t had sex in a couple of years but not a day goes by we don’t hug and kiss each other and say ‘I love you’. I don’t know. We’re best friends busting our butts raising kids, paying bills and doing our best to keep our heads above water.” 

Via Reddit Talking About Sexless Marriages

10. Mental Health Disorder

“We’re both 58 and we’ll be married 38 years in July. Our last intimate encounter took place in August 2002. She was diagnosed with a mental disorder after almost successfully taking her life during that time frame. She was prescribed several medications that resulted in multiple health issues and is completely asexual.

“She took care of me and the children in our younger days when I was in the military and frequently deployed. It’s my time to take care of her. She understands I still have needs and would probably look the other way, but I keep my promises.” 

Via Reddit Talking About Sexless Marriages

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