Sexless marriage: what it means and how couples find their way back

Most people won’t admit to being in a sexless marriage. It sits in the category of things couples often carry privately, too loaded to raise with each other and too embarrassing to bring up with friends. And yet it is far more common than the silence around it suggests.

When sex goes in long-term relationships, it tends to go subtly, through busy periods that never end, unspoken tensions that build, bodies and life stages that shift. At some point one or both partners notices the gap, and then comes the harder question of what to do with it. If you’re reading this, you’re probably already there. You’re not alone, and this doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

What actually counts as a sexless marriage?

The clinical definition is fewer than ten times a year. That’s the threshold researchers and therapists tend to use, and it’s a useful starting point, but it isn’t the whole picture.

What matters more than a number is whether the absence of sex is causing one or both partners distress.

A couple who rarely has sex and is genuinely happy with that isn’t in a sexless marriage in any meaningful sense. A couple having sex a handful of times a year where one or both people feel lonely, unwanted, or disconnected very much is.

It’s also worth knowing how common it actually is. Research suggests¹ somewhere between 15-20 percent of married couples are in sexless marriages at any given time, and that figure doesn’t account for the many more who are heading in that direction without quite being there yet.

The more useful question isn’t how many times a year. It’s whether the gap between you and your partner feels like a problem. If it does, it is.

How does a marriage become sexless?

It rarely happens all at once. For most couples it’s a gradual drift, so subtle that by the time they notice, they can’t quite pinpoint when it started.

Sometimes there’s a clear trigger such as a new baby, a serious illness, a depressive episode, a period of intense stress at work. Life takes over and sex gets deprioritised, with the unspoken assumption that things will go back to normal when things calm down. Except things don’t always calm down, and normal doesn’t always come back on its own.

And very often, there’s no single moment to point to at all. It’s widely accepted that couples have less sex the longer they’re together, and a sexless marriage is often just one step further along that same trajectory.

Resentment builds quietly from unresolved arguments. Emotional distance grows from feeling unheard or underappreciated. Two people get busy living parallel lives and physical closeness slowly erodes. By the time either partner names it, it’s been months. Sometimes years.

Common reasons a marriage becomes sexless

• Perimenopause or menopause
• Medication, particularly antidepressants
• Chronic illness or pain
• New parenthood
• Mental health struggles including depression and anxiety
• Unresolved conflict or resentment
• Emotional disconnection
• Body image and self-esteem
• Mismatched libidos that were never fully addressed
• Sexual shame or trauma

And sometimes the sexual element was never that strong to begin with. Some couples build a life together on compatibility, companionship, and love without ever having had a particularly active sex life. That’s not a failure, but it does mean there’s less of a foundation to return to.

How a sexless marriage can make you feel

Maybe you both stopped wanting sex at the same time and neither of you quite knows what to do with that. Or maybe there’s a gap between you, where one person still wants it and the other doesn’t, leaving one feeling unwanted and the other feeling like they’re failing someone they love. Either way, there tends to be a lot of shame on both sides.

Both partners often feel like they’re the one with the problem. One is embarrassed that they no longer want sex with their partner. The other is embarrassed that they do, and that their partner doesn’t seem to. Everyone ends up feeling like the marriage is failing, even when no one is actually doing anything wrong. That shame can make it easy to start pointing fingers, or to let frustration build into resentment.

What tends to happen over time is that both people stop bringing it up. Not because they don’t care, but because previous attempts have felt too painful, too loaded, or too circular to be worth repeating. The subject becomes something that sits between you, unspoken, and in that silence a cold distance tends to grow.

Why it’s worth talking about

It’s tempting to let it go unaddressed. To dismiss the partner who wants more sex as placing too much importance on it, or to assume things will naturally sort themselves out.

But if one or both of you is being affected, it’s worth raising. And even if neither of you feels particularly troubled by it right now, checking in about your sex life periodically is simply a healthy habit in any long-term relationship.

Sex isn’t everything in a marriage, but for many couples it’s a significant part of how they feel connected, wanted, and close to each other. Leaving that gap unaddressed rarely makes it smaller.

The longer it goes unspoken, the harder it becomes to raise. Not because the situation gets worse necessarily, but because the silence itself becomes a habit, and habits are hard to break.

But it’s also worth being clear about what addressing it actually means. It doesn’t require committing to having significantly more sex, nor does it mean the relationship is in crisis. There is an entire spectrum of outcomes between where you are now and either of those extremes, and most of them involve both partners feeling considerably better. Even a single honest, considered conversation (however intimidating it feels to start) will likely lift a significant emotional weight for both of you.

The ‘turning away’ effect

Psychologist and relationship researcher John Gottman identified a pattern he called “turning away,”² which is particularly relevant in sexless marriages.

When one partner reaches out, physically, emotionally, or even just with a gesture of closeness, and that bid for connection is ignored or dismissed, it registers as a small rejection. One instance is manageable. But when it happens repeatedly, the partner making the bids gradually stops making them. Not out of indifference but out of self-protection.

In the context of a sexless marriage, this can become a self-reinforcing cycle. One person stops initiating because they’ve stopped expecting anything back. The other person may not even realise the bids have dried up, or may feel relieved that the pressure has eased, without understanding what that relief is costing the relationship.

Over time, both people can find themselves in a dynamic that neither of them consciously chose. Recognising this pattern is often the first step to interrupting it.

A huge step forward: non-sexual physical closeness

When sex has been absent for a long time, the idea of jumping straight back into it can feel overwhelming. There’s too much weight attached to it, too much pressure around what it means if it goes well or badly.

One of the most useful things a couple can do is take sex off the table entirely for a while and focus on rebuilding physical closeness without any expectation of where it leads.

Some things worth exploring:

• Cuddling
• Holding hands or sitting in physical contact without it meaning anything more
• Giving each other a massage with no expectation attached
• Sharing a bath or shower without it being sexual
• Kissing that isn’t a precursor to sex
• Falling asleep in physical contact

This can be something you agree on together explicitly, which in itself takes an enormous amount of pressure off. It’s also worth being mindful of giving each other space within this, allowing both people the chance to initiate closeness in their own time rather than one person carrying all of it.

Physical touch triggers the release of oxytocin, which plays a significant role in feelings of bonding and trust. Rebuilding that baseline of closeness creates a far more natural foundation from which desire can return, rather than trying to jump-start something in a vacuum.

Fixing a sexless marriage: practical routes back to each other

Sex is complex, and a sexless marriage rarely has a simple fix. There can be a lot of tension, resistance, and unspoken history sitting between two people by the time they get to this point. That’s not a failure, it’s just reality, and it’s exactly why bringing someone else into the picture, a professional who can genuinely support you both, can make such a difference.

There are more entry points than most people realise.

Couples therapy and coaching

A couples therapist or intimacy coach can help you have the conversations that feel too loaded to have alone, work through the resentment or shame that may have built up, and give you practical tools to move forward together. This is probably the most well-known route, and for good reason.

Great for: those who feel there’s a lot of emotional history or unresolved tension sitting underneath the sexual disconnection, and who need a structured, supported space to work through it.

Sensual massage

A sensual massage is far more than a treatment. It’s an opportunity for both of you to learn what feels good, to understand how to touch each other with intention, and to communicate desire in a way that feels guided and safe rather than pressured.

You can both receive a massage, or one partner can receive while the other watches and learns. Many practitioners also offer tuition sessions where they teach you both techniques you can take home.

Great for: those who struggle to communicate what feels good physically, or who find it difficult to feel pleasure or ask for the touch they want. Also, simply a sensual-forward experience for any couple looking to reconnect.

Workshops and retreats

A workshop or retreat is one of the lowest-commitment, highest-impact entry points available. You don’t have to sign up to months of therapy. A single day or weekend together, in a structured, playful, educational environment, can genuinely shift something.

You’ll likely meet other couples navigating similar things, which in itself can be a relief. Sessions are available as group experiences or privately, and there are plenty tailored specifically for couples.

Great for: those who want something that feels like an experience rather than an intervention, and who are open to trying something new together (and maybe with others) in a fun, low-pressure setting.

Tantra

Tantra can sound esoteric, but in practice it’s quite grounded. It focuses on slower connection, presence, and physical intimacy without any pressure to perform or reach orgasm.

Think eye gazing, conscious breathing, slow intentional touch. One of the most significant things about tantra is that it completely removes the goal-orientation that can make sex feel like a test. You can explore tantra through couples workshops, or with a private educator or guide who acts as a facilitator, walking you both through practices and creating a container for you to explore together.

Great for: those who feel that sex has become too goal-oriented or where performance anxiety, difficulty reaching orgasm, or other physical challenges have made intimacy feel stressful.

Kink exploration

In some ways, everyone has a kink. It’s not as intimidating as it sounds, it’s simply something specific that excites you. If one or both of you has desires that have never been explored or even named, working with a kink practitioner or attending a kink-friendly workshop can be a genuinely revelatory experience.

It’s an opportunity to learn about each other’s desires, discover something new about yourself, and reconnect through shared curiosity rather than obligation.

Great for: those who suspect that part of what’s missing is novelty or unexplored desire, or who feel curious about something but haven’t quite known how to bring it up with their partner.

Erotic art and culture

This one is easy to overlook but worth taking seriously. A burlesque show, a life drawing class, or an erotic film watched together. These things matter because desire, for many people, doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. It builds. It needs to be sparked.

Erotic art is a gentle, indirect way of doing that, because you’re engaging in something fun and cultural that also happens to have a sensual undercurrent. It’s not all about sex explicitly, which makes it ideal for couples where things have felt too heavy or too pressured for anything more direct.

Great for: those who feel disconnected from desire altogether and want to reawaken it gradually, without anything feeling too loaded or too on the nose.

You’ll find what you need on Sensuali

Whether you’re looking for an intimacy coach to work with online, a couples workshop in your city, a sensual event to attend together, or simply a place to start exploring, Sensuali is here for couples who are looking for approachable and varied routes to reconnect. Take a look and see what feels right for you.

Sources

1. Indiana University National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior — cited for the statistic that 15-20 percent of married couples in the US have sex fewer than 10 times per year. https://nationalsexstudy.indiana.edu/index.html
2. Gottman, J. & Gottman, J. (2015) — referenced in relation to the “turning away” concept and bids for connection. https://www.gottman.com/blog/turn-toward-instead-of-away/
3. A comprehensive 2019 review found that marital discord and sexual unhappiness were the most frequently cited variables associated with infidelity. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335308346

Isobel Clark

Author

Isobel is a writer and creative based in Paris. She has been part of the Sensuali team since 2022 and is deeply passionate about eroticism, kink, the feminine experience of pleasure and its place in art and culture. Originally from a Northern UK seaside town, she is naturally drawn to the best things in life: candyfloss, trashy karaoke bars and heart-shaped sunglasses.