My Sexless Marriage Is Killing Me: 16 Solutions 2024

Good communication is the cornerstone of any happy marriage, so all partners need to be talking about how they’re feeling within the relationship. If your spouse doesn’t know your sexless marriage is hurting you so badly, they’re unlikely to make any efforts to change the situation.

2. Stay Calm And Be Kind

Bring up your frustrations about your sex life in a calm moment. Don’t blame your partner. Instead, enquire what you can do to help fix the problem.

It’s possible that your husband or wife will become defensive when you bring up this subject. Perhaps they’ll try to avoid the topic or shout at you for even daring to talk about sex. It’s a sensitive subject, after all.

Remain calm if this happens. Remind your partner that you’re two teammates trying to fix the problem together.

3. Be Honest

While it’s important to remain calm, loving and kind, you’ll also need to be honest about your feelings. Explain if this is about more than physical pleasure. If you feel rejected by your partner, let them know that. If you can’t see yourself in a sexless marriage for much longer, admit it (in a loving way rather than a threatening one, of course).

To be motivated to open up about this topic, your spouse will often need to fully understand how important this is to you.

4. Listen

Once you’ve made your partner feel calm and unjudged, listen to what they say with an open mind. This might trigger your urge to become defensive and argue back, but avoid this temptation.

Whatever your spouse says is spoiling their sexual desire is true in their reality. It’s up to you to turn that around for them – and convincing them they’re wrong isn’t the way to do it. You’ll need to use actions, not words.

5. Understand The Problem

Sometimes your partner will tell you that they don’t know what’s responsible for their low sex drive. In this case, you might need to dig a little harder.

Do they still find you physically attractive? Are they bored of intimacy with you? Do they have body image issues? Are they dealing with stress, other mental health issues or maybe other health issues? Do they feel disrespected or taken for granted in the relationship? Are they physically exhausted from taking care of a child or other family members?

These are common reasons for a lack of intimate activity in a marriage or a relationship. Perhaps suggesting these reasons will prompt your spouse to dig a little deeper into their own mind. In many cases, they’ll know deep down what the problem is, but it may require a bit of prodding to get the answer out of them, such is the sensitivity of the question.

6. Decide How You Both Feel About Intimacy

You’ll need to both agree that you’d prefer a marriage where you both desire intimacy. What’s more, you’ll need to agree that you’re willing to work on a solution to return to that type of marriage.

Alternatively, you might agree that there’s no place for intimacy in your marriage anymore, but since you say your sexless marriage is killing you, we’ll assume that you need a intimate relationship with your spouse.

7. Fix The Problem

Most of the reasons behind a sexless marriage are simple to fix, although not always easy.

If your spouse feels unappreciated in a relationship, it’s time to step up and be the great husband or wife you know you can be.

If health problems are behind your sexless marriage, seek advice from a doctor on what can be done.

If stress or exhaustion are the cause of your spouse’s low libido, it’s time to explore some lifestyle changes that can aid your sex life.

It’s not always as simple as this, but it’s a great idea to see what you can do yourselves before seeking help from a third party.

8. Find A Way To Re-Energise

A lack of energy is a big reason why intimacy can dwindle in a marriage, especially as you get older and if you have children to raise.

Perhaps there are ways to improve your diet and exercise plan to help you boost your energy supplies.

Sure, exercising more will exhaust you more at first, but it’ll increase your energy supplies over time and it can do a lot to boost one’s libido as well.

9. Make Time For Fun

If your marriage has become predictable and monotonous, it makes sense that your wife has lost interest in intimacy with you. Women (in particular) often need to feel the emotional tingles to be in the mood for it.

So, make some time to add some fun back into your relationship. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a mind-blowing date night, just something to help her momentarily forget the stresses of her everyday life.

On top of that, see what you can do to sprinkle some fun and excitement into your everyday life. When your spouse sees you as their source of fun and joy, they’ll often be a lot more inspired to enjoy physical pleasure with you.

10. Add Some Romance

It’s not just fun that your wife needs to spark her desire. A little romance goes a long way too. It’s not the romantic gestures themselves that awaken a woman’s drive, it’s being made to feel special. Perhaps you have some romantic surprises up your sleeve to add some fire back into your marriage.

11. Improve Yourself

Self-improvement is great for everyone, not just married couples.

Still, a husband or wife will often let themselves slip after their marriage and stop doing the things that made them attractive to their spouse in the first place.

If you engage in a little self-improvement, your spouse is likely to find you more attractive.

At the very least, they might step up their efforts to impress you out of fear of you finding someone better.

12. Add Some Extra Intimacy To Your Marriage

Not all intimacy is about intercourse.

Physical intimacy includes a hug and a kiss before work, or holding hands on a walk in the park.

Intimacy also includes engaging in shared activities. It could be as simple as spending more quality time and doing more things with this person.

These types of gestures can go a long way towards making you both feel more sexual.

13. Take The Pressure Off

During this period of improving your marriage, it’s important not to pressure your spouse into having sex with you. There’s little that’s more unsexy than whining and complaining about your dry spell.

You’ll want to make your partner feel like you’re putting in this extra effort because you love them – not just so you can get some action.

When you spend time making your partner feel more loved, they will usually feel more inspired to reignite their intimate life with you.

14. Explore How You Can Spice Up Your Sex Life

Could it be that your sex life has grown stale over the years? This can easily happen when you spend years having sex with just one person. Maybe sex doesn’t excite your partner anymore and that’s why these dry spells are occurring?

If so, perhaps it’s worth discussing how to inject some excitement back into your intimacy life. Of course, these should be ideas that you both consent to.

Sometimes, it’s as simple as the husband doing something about their weight gain, their erectile dysfunction, or another problem. Other times, one partner might want to introduce something spicier to awaken their interest. A specialized therapist can help with all of this.

If your partner is dead against having intimacy in the future, an extreme solution could be that they let you see an escort once every so often. There’s no emotional intimacy in that type of arrangement and maybe it’s a better option for them than a divorce.

15. Seek Professional Help From A Marriage Counsellor

Marriage counseling gives you both a safe space to air your grievances about your relationship. Your counselor will act as a mediator to help you find a compromise and work together to improve your marriage.

This is a useful option for couples who are refusing to communicate or cooperate when it comes to disagreements in their intimate lives or other areas of their marriage.

16. Last Resort: When To Walk Away From A Sexless Marriage

It would be wrong to pretend that all sexless marriages can be fixed. In some cases, it’s best to walk away and seek better relationships with other partners.

If your partner refuses to explore ways to try and fix this problem, you’re at a dead end. There’s no way to fix relationship issues unless both people are willing to work on them.

If you tried counseling and it didn’t help, that’s a reliable sign that things aren’t even going to get better.

If your sexless marriage is due to irrepairable trust issues, that’s another sign that your relationship has run its course.

A common reason why marriages devolve into sexlessness is that the two partners simply fall out of love with each other. Some couples choose to stay together for their children, but there’s not too much benefit for kids living under the same roof of a couple that hates each other.

In such a case, you’re usually better off seeking a new life with someone else.

Of course, it can be frustrating having spent all this time building your marriage only for it to fall apart. Perhaps you never expected this would happen. But there’s little worse than staying in a relationship with someone who has no desire to meet your needs.

My Sexless Marriage Is Killing Me: Frequently Asked Questions

Let’s round off this guide with the answers to some frequently asked questions about sexless marriages and relationships.

How Does Sexless Marriage Affect A Man?

Sex is a vital part of romantic relationships for most men. If their wife refuses intimacy, it will usually make a married man feel unloved and it could have a harsh effect on his self-esteem. Men tend to feel trapped in sexless marriages, since they vowed to be faithful to their wives, but they’re probably now experiencing tremendous urges to have sex with other partners.

A man will also miss out on the many benefits of intimacy associated with his mental and physical health. Once you understand this problem, it might become clear why men are so keen to fix a sexless marriage as soon as possible.

Related Content: Sexless Marriage: Dangerous Effects On Husband

How Does Sexless Marriage Affect A Woman?

Sexless marriages affect women the same way as men. Most women will certainly feel unloved if their partner doesn’t want to sleep with them. In many cases, constant rejection will hurt their feelings and lead them to feel unattractive.

Related Content: Tips To Know That You Are Good Enough

How Do You Mentally Survive A Sexless Marriage?

It’s not easy. The best tip is to remain aware that your spouse is on your side. That’s why it’s important to be talking about your feelings with your partner on a regular basis. If you’re aware of the reasons behind your sexless marriage and still feel loved by your partner, it can be a lot easier to mentally survive this situation as you move towards a permanent resolution.

Related Content: Benefits Of Embracing Rejection & Strategies

How To Awaken Intimacy Again

Intimacy isn’t just about your naked bodies. It’s about small hugs, kisses and holding hands. It’s about honesty, trust and showing you care for each other. These little gestures can often lead to the reawakening of sexual intimacy in a marriage.

What Percentage Of Sexless Marriages End In Divorce?

A recent study of divorcing couples in OECD countries found that 70% of spouses initiating divorce cite a bad sex life as a first or second reason for filing.

However, a lack of intimacy is usually a symptom of a bigger problem in bad relationships. Indeed, most unhappy couples will stop having sex in the final weeks and months before filing for a divorce.

When Should You Give Up On A Sexless Marriage?

Here are some reliable signs it’s time to give up on your sexless marriage.

Your spouse refuses to help fix the situation;
You tried counseling and nothing changed;
The trust has disappeared in your relationship, perhaps after infidelity;
You’ve fallen completely out of love with your partner.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading my guide on sexless marriages. I hope it helps you reach your ultimate goal of a reinvigorated marriage.

Perhaps you’ll never hit the heights of passion experienced during the ‘honeymoon period’ of the relationship, but it’s definitely possible to recreate a marriage you’re both happy to be in.