How to Find Your Way Back to Each Other and Revive a Sexless Marriage
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A sexless marriage can happen for a variety of reasons. From life taking over, to changes in sexuality, to differences in sexual libido, to the inability to meet each other sexually.
Sometimes the decision to stop having sex in a relationship is mutual. Maybe it’s the stress of the relationship that affects both partners and leads them to withdraw sexually. Maybe it’s the changes in their sexual orientation that prompts the couple to shift their relationship from a romantic to a platonic one. Maybe it’s no longer prioritizing sexual connection over other aspects of the relationship, such as companionship.
It’s when a marriage becomes sexless without the mutual agreement of both partners, it oftentimes leads to significant emotional distress, feelings of inadequacy, and/or alienation, eroding the foundational trust, emotional and physical bond that the marriage is built upon.
Even when the decision to stop sex was not mutually agreed upon, when the couple wishes to come back to each other and revive their sexless marriage, both partners need to be onboard to do that. Both partners need to be willing to go through the process that I outline below.
There are important steps to consider that will facilitate the coming together and create a solid emotional foundation for connected, passionate sex in the future.
1. Face each other’s lingering resentments and heal the pain of disconnect
Sexless marriages that are not mutually agreed upon do not just happen overnight. They are typically a prolonged sequence of one partner withdrawing sexually, while the other partner pursues them for more sex.
On one side of this dynamic, there are feelings of rejection, aloneness, disappointment, frustration, anger — and a whole lot of resentment. On the other side, there are feelings of pressure, shame, lack of safety, frustration, anger — and resentment too. Without being addressed, this resentment sets in motion what I call the death spiral of a sexless marriage that feeds itself and escalates into worse and worse territory — and it need to be faced.
To create a safe space, both partners need to listen deeply, without defensiveness, to really hear each other’s pain.
When we disconnect, we have ways to that we deal with the hurt (that reflect our attachment patterns) that only hurt each other more:
Withdraw energy and care and become apathetic to partner’s struggles or needs
Hurt or punish the other because we’re hurting ourselves
Put energy into other things that are not our partner (could be porn, affairs, workaholism, childcare)
And that creates one of the most painful aspects of a sexless marriage — a sense of deep aloneness people feel on each side.
It’s important to take responsibility for the hurt you place on the other, even if involuntary. And it’s important to receive the same from your partner. It might be owning up to some pretty disturbing behaviors that you use to compensate for the hurt, while also opening up to the vulnerable truths too. You have to feel that what you're hurting about, or the relationship implodes.
The acknowledgement, deep listening, and addressing these feelings then become the foundation of building renewed trust in the relationship — and a sense of closeness.
Some questions to consider:
Are you able to face your partner’s resentments, listen without getting defensive, and repair in the conflict?
Can you accept responsibility for contributing to your partner’s resentments?
Is your partner able to face you and your resentments, listening without getting defensive, and repairing?
Can your partner accept responsibility for contributing to your partner’s resentments?
Sandra and Bill, a married couple in midlife, learned to connect through difficult conversations by staying with the discomfort:
“Sandra: Our trust of one another has grown. My trust of Bill has grown tremendously and vice versa. That has enabled us to stay present. For me, it literally meant I was able to stay in the important conversations that I avoided or gave up on in the past. For Bill, it meant emotionally staying present in conversations without exiting by way of the venting mode.
This trust also has enabled us to make a bond between us in and outside of our bedroom. We created an intimacy that was never there before. And that really has provided the opportunity for really sweeter sex, because there’s so much less fear for both of us. ”
2. Rebuild trust through vulnerability
The frustration of a sexless marriage that you did not choose — or don’t know how to change — can reach peak levels when you cannot convey what you are really feeling or what you need.
Most people cannot articulate their feelings. It’s unsafe to be real and vulnerable when there has been criticism in the room. The most logical step is to put up a wall.
Things begin to change when you repair the hurt and begin to put the wall down. It’s not an overnight process, but a slow and gradual opening, step by step.
The key: vulnerability.
Vulnerably opening up about your hurt feelings
Vulnerably naming your desire
Vulnerably naming your fears
Vulnerably asking for what you need
Vulnerably naming your fears
And that vulnerability has to come from both sides from opening up about yourself and caring about the responses from your partner.
As Shannon and Greg, married couple in midlife, experienced, it takes both partners to open and make changes to create a safe space.
“Shannon: “Our ultimate path to healing took work on both of our ends. It wasn’t just me changing things. Greg had to be open and receptive to making changes in his behavior and how he approached me and intimacy in order to create a safe space for me to make changes.
And so it was definitely a dual endeavor between the two of us. We both had to invest in the process to get through to where we are now.”
Al and Blair, a couple in their 30s, quickly realized in their journey that having words to describe what you need vulnerably would produce different results — and bring them closer.
“Al: It was a really big deal to identify words to describe my desires or what I need for the first time in my life. It untangled a lot of my feelings, resentments and fears. It helped me see these are the things that I want and not getting them. Which means that I can negotiate my way to some version of these. I felt hope because now there’s understanding, awareness and communication. And it started with me understanding that about myself.”
3. Make time to be lovers daily
It is obvious, but it must be said: in order to experience a relationship as lovers, the couple needs to dedicate time to be lovers. And I don’t only mean doing fun things together.
It is spending time connecting heart to heart and genitals to genitals. Whether it’s opening up your hearts to each other about the trials and tribulations of your day or what excites and scares you the most, to taking time to explore each other physically and provide pleasure, to being curious about your inner experience of life, spending time as lovers leads to more … lover activities, including sex. That’s partly responsible for the commonly-experienced “vacation effect” that many couples experience when they go on vacation alone. Lover time alone is what separates you from being roommates.
Time spent intimately and alone with your partner is an important factor for HSP (highly sensitive persons) especially women as it contributes to their “pre-sex” needs that allow her to feel safe and close, opening her up to sexual connection.
As Sandra and Bill put it, intimate time together fed a positive feedback look that created more and more sex.
“Sandra: It is a full-circle effect — that’s the extraordinary part of it. We work together, so we’re together all the time, and we have 3 kids all in that awkward mostly-adult-but-not-really stage. This shift in our sex life, which feeds into intimacy, creates so much partnership that we didn’t have before—in every area. And that creates genuine affection, genuine trust, and certainly a heck of a lot less fear, which is a killer. That’s it — we just have so much less of the intimacy killers going on.
We very much have a virtuous cycle going with regards to sex feeding emotional intimacy feeding sex feeding emotional intimacy.”
On top of daily connection, Greg and Shannon dedicated weekend mornings to each other, spending quality time exploring each other, making love, having fun!
“Greg: “And that regular Sunday meeting makes a big difference. We plan our week together and lay out what expectations we have, so we can plan out our time for one another. It’s as simple as just talking about it.
Shannon: I want to thank Irene for not only providing us with the platform to talk and get on the same page, and understand where each other is coming. It’s also about having strategies and practices to put into place.
Before, when Greg would travel or if we’d have a busy week … by the end of the week, we’d both be completely empty and frustrated. Now we frontload every single week, whether it’s busy or not, with time for us. There are no more stealth expectations.
We are on the same page, and we have practices that are part of the fabric of our relationship that we look forward to every week. We start our week together and on the same page.”
Blair and Al, a couple in their 30s, saw the power of spending time on your relationship daily. Little by little, they saw huge results:
“Blair: “Every week we were given the set up tools or ways to think differently or act differently that we really tried to internalize and practice. We made these incremental steps and moments when I realized, ‘Wow, I’m using this now and I’m feeling better. Ok, this makes sense.’”
Al: “Along the way, there were a lot of small revelations and moments of enlightenment, learning frameworks, vocabulary, and practices and processes and small reassurances, not an overwhelming catharsis. But you do go into it thinking like there’s going to be a moment where we’re fixed. That’s not how it is at all. It really is very incremental. And you have to learn to appreciate partial successes along the way, but that itself creates intimacy.””
Daily lover time is at the heart of my Connection Sex framework that helps couples build emotional and physical connection as a source of sexual passion. No longer do you have to wait for the stars to align for the perfect date night. Instead, you create what you wish to happen out of everyday circumstances.
4. Rebuild physical trust daily
As you’re building emotional trust, it’s equally important to focus on rebuilding physical trust again.
What exactly does that do?
For the withdrawers, who are typically women, touch might represent unwanted advances and create the bristle response. Physical advances will be met with hesitation or even pushback unless you learn to make touch safe again.
For the pursuer, the lack of consistency on their partner’s side can mean that they cannot trust whether touch is really genuine and wanter and if it will stay that way. They will not be there fully until they feel that genuine-ness, which naturally takes time. That hesitation in turn creates tension, making the other person bristle.
For both sides to pull the walls down and open up physically to each other, it’s important to remove the pressure from sex to restore touch to its safety by developing practices that focus on affectionate and sensual touch. For most couples, that involves taking sex off the table in my process. Then we can build new ones, including different practices that involve slow touch and focusing on sensations. Over time, it helps to take the focus from getting sexually revved up and instead on connecting with each other. Slow touch then allows you to begin to trust each other and open up to more.
Alan and Grace, young parents in their 30s and 40s, focused on learned my Connection Sex framework to break the patterns of the bristle response, which in turn led Grace to initiate touch more, which led to sex:
“Alan: We also have more vocabulary that we can use to talk to each other about sex. As a result, we’ve just been better at touching, cuddling and being together — the nonverbal connection.
Just today, for example, Grace suggested ‘let’s cuddle on the couch for 15 minutes before Irene’s meeting.’ It was Grace’s idea, which means a lot to me. It was really sweet. This just contributes to a feeling of closeness that then spills over to sex and more intimacy.”
Once again, my Connection Sex framework teaches couples how to focus on non-goal-oriented touch that produces passion and closeness. The sensuality becomes the foundation of sexual arousal for women and deep connection for both.
5. Fill your individual cup with self-care
Self-betrayal is a major cause of resentment, and we’re all guilty of it, men and women alike. It’s important to learn what you need and communicate your needs so that you come from a full cup.
Be it carving out time to be by yourself or setting boundaries with family to go to bed on time, it’s important to take care of yourself so that you’re coming from abundance, not scarcity. And that means identifying what you need and developing your voice to ask for it.
For most couples who are also parents, it’s important to create in infrastructure that supports both partners to take that space and time in a supported manner.
Shannon focused deeply on developing her voice to better take care of herself, so that she had time and space for her husband Greg:
“Shannon: “So much of having my voice is dependent upon overall good emotional health: where I’m not coming home at the end of the day so completely empty that I just want to escape with a glass of wine, to read a book, and go to bed.
That change includes being able to fill myself all day with things that make me happy and bring true joy into the day, so that when I come home, I’m not empty. Instead, I have space to give and to receive from Greg, and to look forward to our connection. This has been a true game changer!
That has been transformational and has flowed over into all aspects of my life. It’s a constant reminder to feed my true self, to enjoy life, and to come home full so that I don’t feel a need to run away or escape.”
And Grace and Alan saw the evident spillover effect of living on a full cup when they focused on their interests. It made them happier, more flexible, and available to each other, which led to more sex.
“Alan: “Grace used to talk about how she had to tiptoe around me and not ask for what she needed, because she could sense that I was so unhappy. And so she was not expressing herself. And so now, Grace is pursuing things she likes, like pottery and photography, and blossoming into all of these interests and hobbies. And she’s becoming all these facets of herself that I think she was holding back. Looking back, all the weirdness between us, we were holding ourselves back.
Grace: I probably never could have done pottery stuff either because I felt that I can’t ask him to let me leave for three-hour classes so I can just do something for myself because he’s going through so much with work. And now it’s in our “relationship constitution” right now and I do it three times a week.
Alan: And every time she comes back, she’s always happy. We started pursuing individual passions seriously.”
The journey to reconnect and intentionally build a connected and loving sexual relationship is vital for a strong marriage. As my clients will tell you, the strategies provided above go a long way to salvaging a marriage that has lost intimate connection. When proper attention is given to reversing these patterns, sex that’s an expression of your deep love is not only possible — it becomes inevitable.
Your marriage — and your love — are truly worth the effort!
Dare to follow your heart. Dare intimacy.
P.S. When you’re ready to create a sex life that reflects the deep love for each other SCHEDULE a couples consultation call for you and your partner to explore personalized support.