Dear Coleen
I’ve had a major falling out with my husband over the lack of sex in our marriage. We’re both in our late 30s and have two kids at primary school.
Over the past couple of years I admit I’ve lost interest in sex, but it’s not that I’m unhappily married. I’m actually very content but I just don’t feel the need for sex any more.
I love my husband and we have a good life together and that’s enough for me. When I’ve tried to help him to understand that it’s not that I don’t love him, he just says that’s BS and that if another man walked into my life who I found attractive, I’d want to have sex again.
I really don’t want to lose my marriage over this, but we’re on different pages. He’s angry with me now and goes out with his friends a lot to avoid being at home with me.
He’s taking this really personally and is at a point where he said he doesn’t want to discuss it any more. I keep worrying he’s going to come home one day and say he wants a divorce.
Am I being unreasonable and what do you think I should do to save my marriage?
Coleen says
Of course he’s taking it personally! I don’t know what you expect of him – to go from being lovers to housemates and not have any say in the matter?
He’s in his 30s and clearly not ready to be that at this point in his life. You can’t expect him to carry on and not question you.
I’m not sure you’re being honest with yourself about your reasons for avoiding sex either.
Maybe hormones are affecting your libido or maybe you have lost interest in your husband romantically and don’t want to admit it because that means the end of the marriage and breaking up the family.
Intimacy is an important part of a relationship – it’s part of the glue that holds you together, so you must be on the same page.
It would be different if both of you were OK about not having sex, but that’s not the situation here. If you want me to be entirely honest, then I think he will walk in one day or come home from work one night and ask for that divorce.
You can’t expect him not to feel angry, confused and frustrated. And it’s bound to make him feel very insecure because it’s natural to think you just don’t fancy him any more.
Be honest with yourself and with him about why you want to stay in a marriage that has no physical intimacy.
I think you would benefit from some joint counselling sessions to talk it through and figure out where you can go from here.
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond. Sign up to our daily newsletter.