Note: This essay involves candid discussion of sexuality, utilizing frank descriptions of painful experiences as well as quotes that include sexual terminology.
A woman angrily reported to me, “My husband and I have not had sex in eight years. He told me he had lost all desire.”
One day, she found out her husband, who was employed at a Christian institution, was sexually active with many other people. She also discovered he had spent a small fortune on prostitutes and hush money. Their uncontested divorce was swift.
Whatever the cause, sexlessness in marriage can be devastating. What causes it? What can help?
Sadly, there are few credible resources that are easily accessible to lay readers. The upside is the topic is wide-open for research and exploration.
What resources help address sexlessness?
Though much of the literature on sexlessness in marriage, especially from a faith perspective, is unreliable, there are some credible and informative works available. Michele Weiner Davis’ book, The Sex-Starved Marriage, provides highly engaging, down-to-earth guidance.
Married couple and nationally recognized family therapists, Talia and Allen Wagner wrote Married Roommates. It fires out of the gate with their admission they had become mere roommates six years and two kids into marriage. They use their own journey to help others.
The Psychology Today article “What Really Goes On in a Sexless Marriage” by Suzanne Phillips is helpful, although, like many other resources, it relies on very dated material.
Foreplay Radio is a great podcast that explores relationships and sexuality. In episode 203, Dr. Laurie Watson shares the story of her faith journey and vision for addressing sexuality. In episode 202, co-host George Faller—a former New York City police officer and firefighter—describes his faith and his motivation to become a family therapist.
There are other helpful episodes, such as “Can You Help Me Fix My Sexless Marriage?” and “Help! I’m not Attracted to my Spouse Anymore.”
How common is sexless marriage?
In 2014, a survey revealed among married persons aged 18 to 60, 12% reported not having had sex over the previous three months. A 2021 analysis cited relationship therapist and researcher, Laura Vowel, estimated that between 2% and 10% of marriages were sexless, with “sexless” defined as having sex less than 10 times per year.
The literature identified several well-documented causes. These included physical incapacity or low hormone levels; mental health challenges (including body shame); and relationship issues such as poor communication and boredom.
While people tend to have less sex as they age, few researchers identify aging itself as a direct cause of sexless relationships.
In Why Men Stop Having Sex: Men, the Phenomenon of Sexless Relationships, and What You Can Do About It, Bob Berkowitz and Susan Yager-Berkowitz identify additional factors. In their study, 68% of men cited their partner’s lack of “sexual adventure” as a reason for their sexless marriage.
A quarter of the men said they preferred pornography and masturbation. Among women in the study, 66% said, “He lost interest, and I don’t know why.” Taken together, these findings point to a multilayered problem.
Husbands often seem to adopt a “Why try?” attitude and may be reluctant to initiate awkward or vulnerable conversations. It is possible this assumption is rooted in failed attempts. This may help explain one of the most commonly cited reasons among respondents: anger.
How do we prevent and heal a sexless marriage?
The solutions are as varied as the causes. One intervention from my decades serving as a minister, therapist, and teacher of human sexuality may be helpful.
Years ago, an older man told me during a counseling session that diabetes had caused him to have erectile dysfunction. Yet because of a heart condition, he couldn’t take medication to treat the ED. Forlorn, he said his wife missed sex.
Around the same time, someone suggested I research the causes of school shootings. I replied, I am more interested in what stops more of them from occurring.
We know disturbed people do disturbed things. A key to progress lies in what helps disturbed people stay in control.
The same is true of sexless marriages. Most folks face the same troubles in relationships, but many find ways to navigate them. Successful navigation requires good information.
Given that we are all the children of imperfect parents and teachers, we need to see sexuality as a life skill that requires ongoing work. Unfortunately, religiously-rooted stigma around emotions and sexuality often undermines this.
As a seminarian pastoring a rural church, I pleaded with couples to sign up for a marriage retreat. One day, a senior adult woman privately and sheepishly said, “About that conference you’re promoting. We’ve been married 50 years. If we don’t have it by now, we’re not going to.” How sad.
Fortunately for the man with diabetes and a heart condition, his relationship with his wife was not beyond repair. I asked him if they had tried other means of sexual expression beyond intercourse.
Before I could say, “Like manual stimulation or a dildo,” he began vigorously shaking his head. “Oh no. She’s very conservative; she’d never hear of that.”
I pulled up the website themarriagebed.com. Its landing page featured a honeymoon suite bed with a cross and heart above the headboard. A minister, a physician, and a therapist moderated it.
While the website was quite conservative regarding issues such as homosexuality, it featured very frank but tasteful and sex-positive conversations. I found and showed him a chatroom specifically for those dealing with diabetes-induced erectile dysfunction and who could not take medication for it due to a heart condition. I suggested he and his wife read the board together.
The following week, he sat down, smiled and gave a double thumbs-up. He said, “My wife said, ‘Oh my goodness. Look what JesusGirl58 said. I didn’t know we as Christians could do things like that!’”
Small knowledge gaps can lead to sexual frustration.
A common misconception among men is that the vagina is the mirror image of the penis. They think that during sex, the inside of the vagina feels like their penis feels during intercourse.
But the female corollary of the penis is the clitoris. Because of this, many women prefer manual stimulation over penile penetration. Such misinformation coupled with deficient communication can domino into anger, leading to sexlessness.
A woman who was a member of a large and conservative Baptist church once told me, “I used to think I hated sex. Since my divorce, I’ve had sex with five men, and I’ve discovered I love sex; I just didn’t like sex with my husband.”
How tragic that the issues with her husband never got addressed. Many wait until such a tragic breaking point to seek help.
In his classic book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey said one of the habits is to “sharpen the saw.” Saws get dull with use. We need to stop work and attend to maintenance.
To avoid dullness, couples can routinely give their marriage an educational sharpening through education and therapy. Marriage and family therapist Pat Love recommends couples sharpen their relationship through intentionally engaging in sexual behaviors that are nice, novel and naughty.
If the saw of intimacy is broken, it obviously will require more work. But sharpening and repair is possible and can begin now.
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Dr. Brad Bull describes himself as a Tennessee native born in Texas (to parents in grad school). A licensed marriage and family therapist and free-lance writer, he holds a Ph.D. in child and family studies from the University of Tennessee, a 1992 M.Div. from Southern Baptist Seminary, and a BA in psychology with a minor in creative writing from Carson-Newman University. After several years as a pastor, he spent 16 years as a university professor. He has published essays in Christian Single, Family Therapy, Spirituality & Health, and Baptist News Global. He enjoys playing Scrabble as a full-contact sport.
