By Mark Ryan, BACP Accredited Psychotherapist and NCPS Accredited Relationship Therapist
If you are in a sexless relationship, you probably know exactly how long it has been, and you may be carrying a lot of feeling about it. Some people are hurt, lonely or angry. Others are ashamed, anxious or relieved and then guilty about the relief. You may be the partner who wants more, the partner who wants less, or you may both be unhappy and unable to say so. This article explains what tends to sit underneath a sexless relationship, how it feels from each side, and how couples of every kind can start to change it. The most important thing to know is that sexless now does not mean sexless forever. Some people are asexual or content with very little sex, and for them nothing needs to change. This article is for the many who are not content.
Article Summary
In my experience, the conversation around sex has usually stopped (or had never started).
At the start of a relationship couples often do not need to discuss sex because it just happens, so the habit of talking about it is never built.
The more useful question is how satisfied each of you is with your sex life, because there is no such thing as normal.
The partner who wants more often feels denied or undesired. The partner who wants less often feels like a gatekeeper, and that pressure works against desire.
Research links desire differences with satisfaction, and a survey found that strategies used together were linked with higher satisfaction than strategies used alone.
A good order is to reflect, make talking safe, start the conversation and then build a plan to rebuild closeness.
Opening a relationship can be a healthy choice. For some couples it can also stand in for the work of connecting desire with emotion.
What a Sexless Relationship Feels Like
Partners usually experience the same silence in opposite ways.
If you are the partner who wants more sex, it often feels like being denied something, or like your partner does not desire you. Over time that can turn into rejection you brace for, so you stop asking and the distance grows. You may find yourself keeping score, withdrawing affection so that it cannot lead anywhere, or wondering if the problem is your body, your age or your worth.
If you are the partner who wants less, it often feels like being the sexual gatekeeper. Every touch might be read as an invitation, every refusal as a rejection, and you carry the decision for both of you. That is a lot of pressure, and pressure works against desire. Many people in this position come to feel that they are the problem, and they feel guilty, defensive or numb.
Both of you may also feel lonely, and both may be protecting the other from something neither of you has said out loud. If that sounds familiar, why do I feel lonely in my relationship may help, and nothing left to say to each other looks at what happens when conversation shrinks.
Why Sex Stops
At the beginning of a relationship, sex tends to happen without much discussion. Then life settles. Work, children, tiredness, illness and routine take up the space, and sex becomes less frequent. Because it used to need no talking, many couples never learned to talk about it. When sex tapers off there is nothing to lean on, and each of you may come up with a different explanation.
Several things can sit alongside this.
Stress, exhaustion and caring for others can leave very little energy.
Unspoken resentment or hurt makes closeness feel unsafe.
Rejection, even small, can teach a partner to stop initiating.
Health, medication, pain or changes in the body can shift desire and comfort.
Shame, past experiences or messages about sex can make the topic feel too exposed.
It helps to be clear about what sexless means. There is no universal line, and normal is not a real thing. What matters is how satisfied each of you is, and whether you are able to say so. Is our sex life normal explores this, and why couples stop having sex and why desire fades in long term relationships describe how the pattern develops.
How It Affects the Relationship
A sexless relationship rarely stays about sex. One study of 72 heterosexual dating couples found that desire differences were associated with relationship adjustment, and that the link with relationship satisfaction ran through sexual satisfaction, for both women and men. In that small study, women whose desire was lower than their partner's reported lower relationship adjustment (Davies et al., 1999). These were heterosexual dating couples, so the findings may not reflect long term or same sex couples. They do suggest that when sex becomes a source of dissatisfaction, relationship satisfaction can suffer too.
It also helps to know that how a couple responds matters. A mixed methods study of 229 people in long term relationships identified 17 strategies for coping with desire differences. Strategies done together, such as communicating or doing activities as a pair, were linked with higher sexual and relationship satisfaction than strategies done alone, and people who found their strategies very helpful reported higher satisfaction (Vowels and Mark, 2020). This was a survey, so it shows an association and not cause and effect. This fits the idea that facing a difference together may help, though a survey cannot show that it does.
When the silence goes on, partners often start to see each other through a story, such as that one is cold or the other is demanding. Blame in relationships looks at how those stories form, and when your sex drives don't match looks at wanting different amounts.
At the start of a relationship couples often do not need to discuss sex because it just happens, so the habit of talking about it is never built.
What Helps
If you feel afraid or pressured, please read the section called When Something Else Is Going On before trying any of this. Otherwise, rebuilding is usually a slow process in a clear order. It starts with understanding yourself, moves to making it safe to talk, then to talking, and finally to a plan.
On your own, these steps matter most.
Reflect on how satisfied you are with your sex life, and not on whether it is normal. What do you want, and what have you stopped wanting?
Reflect on your history. What messages did you receive about sex growing up, and how have they shaped what you expect from yourself and your partner? I usually give clients a free reflection workbook for this first step.
If you are the partner who wants less, notice the gatekeeper role. You do not have to force desire. You can say what you need to feel safe and unpressured, and also what touch or closeness you do want and what you miss.
If you are the partner who wants more, notice how your requests may feel to your partner. Say what you feel, such as lonely or unwanted, before you say what you want.
Ask yourself whether the problem is sex, or whether sex is where a deeper hurt or distance shows up. Whether you stay, leave or change things is your own decision.
Together, the next step is to make the topic safe to talk about.
Choose a calm time away from the bedroom and away from an argument, and agree that the aim is to understand and not to decide anything.
Start with how each of you feels about the silence, before you discuss what to do. Listening without defending is what makes the conversation safe.
Name what you appreciate about each other, as well as what is missing.
Agree that sex is not on the table during these conversations, so that neither of you feels pressure.
When you are ready to discuss it, talk about what you each want and need, and where there is overlap. Then build a gradual plan to rebuild closeness, with small steps that both of you choose. How to talk to your partner about sex and why it is so difficult to talk about sex and desire can help you begin.
If you would like a guided place to start, my store has two options. 13 Golden Rules for Talking About Intimacy and Desire is a 33 page guide with reflection pages for couples and individuals who want to talk more openly about sex and closeness. Desire and Intimacy is a psychotherapy led workbook (subtitled An Invitation to Grow in Your Relationships), with reflection questions at the end of each chapter. The workbook is not a replacement for therapy.
When Something Else Is Going On
Sometimes sex has stopped for reasons that need their own attention. If pain, illness, medication, a change in your body or low mood may be involved, please speak to your GP. Persistent pain during sex in particular deserves proper medical advice.
Sex can also stop because of fear or pressure. If you feel obliged to have sex, afraid of what happens if you refuse, or controlled in other parts of your relationship, this is not a communication problem to solve with exercises. If you have been made to have sex you did not want, that is not your fault, and it is abuse. Please read signs of emotional abuse in a relationship and coercive control versus conflict. Support is available.
The National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free and open 24 hours on 0808 2000 247, for women who are afraid of a partner.
The National LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline from Galop is on 0800 999 5428, and its opening hours are listed at galop.org.uk.
The Men's Advice Line is on 0808 8010327, from 10am to 5pm on weekdays, for men experiencing abuse from a partner.
If you are in immediate danger, call 999.
When a Couple Considers Opening the Relationship
The patterns above apply to couples of every gender and orientation. There is one point I see in my work that needs care, because it is easy to misread; it comes from the couples I happen to see and not from any claim about a group, and many people open a relationship for reasons that have nothing to do with sex stopping.
Some couples respond to a sexless relationship by opening it so that sexual needs can be met elsewhere. It is a legitimate choice, and it can be healthy. Research reviewing consensual non monogamy suggests that people in these relationships have similar psychological well being and relationship quality to monogamous people (Rubel and Bogaert, 2015). The review also noted methodological challenges in this research, and it does not look at couples who open a relationship because sex has stopped.
What I sometimes see is that opening the relationship happens instead of the work on intimacy inside it. The couple can become romantic roommates. Each has come to see the other as no longer sexual, and they have given up on sex together, while being happy to have sex outside the relationship. For some couples that arrangement works well. For others it can be a way of avoiding the vulnerability of connecting desire with emotion. Neither is right or wrong, and the question to ask is whether the choice is one you are making freely and with your eyes open, or one that spares you a hard conversation. If you are not sure, it can help to talk it through with a therapist. Nobody should agree to open a relationship out of pressure or fear of losing a partner.
If you are in a non monogamous relationship, the same principles apply, and as in any relationship the agreements you have made are worth revisiting. Opening a relationship looks at what to think through, and lesbian bed death isn't real challenges a myth that has made many couples feel they were failing.
How Therapy Can Help
Many people find it hard to talk about sex with anyone, let alone with a partner and a therapist. It helps to know that psychological help for sexual difficulties has a research base. A meta analysis of 20 randomised studies found that psychological interventions for people with sexual dysfunction had moderate effects on symptom severity and on sexual satisfaction compared with waiting lists. The evidence varied between problems, and there was good evidence for women with low sexual desire that met diagnostic criteria and for women with orgasm difficulties (Frühauf et al., 2013). A sexless relationship is not a diagnosis, so this is a guide to the value of help and not a promise.
In sessions, I begin with reflection, so that each of you can understand your own desire and history. We then build safety in the way you talk about sex, so that the topic stops feeling like a threat. After that we start the conversation itself, and finally we work on a plan to rebuild intimacy that suits you both. That plan may include sex, touch and closeness. If you have been carrying the gatekeeper role, therapy can help you step out of it. If you have been the one waiting, it gives you a place to be heard. If you would like to talk it through on your own first, that is fine. When to go to couples therapy can help you decide.
I work with couples and individuals of all kinds, including LGBTQ+ couples and those in consensually non monogamous relationships. If you would like to start talking about sex and intimacy in a safe space, I offer a free 30 minute consultation, in person in London or online.
About the Author
Mark Ryan is a BACP Accredited Psychotherapist and NCPS Accredited Relationship Therapist, and the founder of Rise and Grow Therapy, a private practice offering couples and relationship therapy across Kensington, Pimlico, and Angel, Islington in London, as well as online consultations. His approach draws first on Imago Relationship Therapy, alongside integrative relational, attachment based, Gottman, and systemic approaches. Mark works with couples of all kinds, including LGBTQ+ couples and those in non traditional relationship structures such as consensual non monogamy, as well as with individuals working through relational issues.
References
Davies, S., Katz, J., & Jackson, J. L. (1999). Sexual desire discrepancies: Effects on sexual and relationship satisfaction in heterosexual dating couples. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 28(6), 553 to 567. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018721417683
Frühauf, S., Gerger, H., Schmidt, H. M., Munder, T., & Barth, J. (2013). Efficacy of psychological interventions for sexual dysfunction: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 42(6), 915 to 933. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-012-0062-0
Rubel, A. N., & Bogaert, A. F. (2015). Consensual nonmonogamy: Psychological well-being and relationship quality correlates. The Journal of Sex Research, 52(9), 961 to 982. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2014.942722
Vowels, L. M., & Mark, K. P. (2020). Strategies for mitigating sexual desire discrepancy in relationships. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(3), 1017 to 1028. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01640-y
