How men struggle in a sexless marriage
/
It’s not just about sex.
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 on both partners.
While I have focused in depth on the distress of the woman in such dynamic in a heterosexual couple, it’s time to also focus on men.
For men for whom sex is a vehicle of expression of love through the connection and physical intimacy of love-making, the relationship turning sexless means a severing off of an extremely important point of connection that differentiates a marriage from a roommate or business engagement.
Yet men are least likely to speak about their inner experience. In our culture where sexual conquests win you macho points, men rarely share their real feelings about real-life situations that affect every single couple, in every couple in the world. From feelings of disappointment to despair, from loneliness to grief, men are alone in holding the weight of those feelings and facing their impact. Men get left behind, often to the detriment of the rest of the marriage, their ability to face the world and its stressors with confidence, their relationship with children, and often work.
These are some of the feelings that men face when there is no resolution to the sexless or near-sexless relationship dynamic where their partner is not onboard to fix this together:
Resentment
Anger
Hopelessness
Loneliness
Abandonment
Despair
Powerlessness
Loss of confidence
Feelings of inadequacy
Grief over losing their lover
Grief over losing the sexual part of themselves
Grief over the dream of the romantic relationship they wished for
In a situation where their partner is going through her own struggle with losing her libido and the pressure from her higher-desire partner, men are not able to get the validation or understanding that they need.
How Men Typically Cope in a Sexless Marriage
Stoicism: Men are taught to bear it. Men don’t cry. Men should not feel disappointment and not let it bother them.
In times of war, stoicism is a mission-critical virtue that lets men conquer the enemy effectively and efficiently — and that can mean the difference between life and death of others. Stoicism in a long-term love relationship leads many men to apply the same principles of bear it all and lock their feelings away to their own detriment and that of the relationship. It may start with a holding in a small disappointment here and there; it grows into resentment and anger when he is rejected time after time; it eventually rolls over into a growing snowball that includes strong and painful feelings such as grief, aloneness and despair.
Some men are willing to go so far as to shut down the sexual part of themselves to stay in the relationship, partly out of duty for the family and out of respect and love for their partner, partly to further cope with these tremendously painful feelings in the only way they know how. They become distant in the relationship to be able to maintain their stoic position, withdrawing emotionally and physically to do just the bare minimum.
Protest: Especially if they are the higher desire partner, men will protest and get into patterns of trying to influence the situation and get their side of the experience across. It often come across as complaining about lack of sex that turn into fights, most often about some trivial stuff. He is desperately looking to his partner of the validation of his feelings and experience — to be seen in his pain by his beloved — but gets an opposite reaction: more resistance.
With each protest cycle, the fights add a wedge in the couple’s closeness and intimacy, often leading to patterns that are detrimental to the relationship. That distance further makes it impossible for the kind of closeness to develop from both sides that would lead to Connection Sex, not just sex done out of pity or obligation.
Everyday stoicism that turns into monthly protest cycles: This is the most typical situation I see with couples in my couples coaching practice: stoicism + protest. The man holds in all the feelings the entire month, then the frustration pours out over something small, something trivial. It ends in a fight that leaves both partners distanced and hurt. The fight provides some relief — a sense of validation of his feelings and feeling heard, but it often ends with an impossible promise on the woman’s part to change her interest in sex that sounds like “I am working on it” but lacks any substantive means for her to actually do that on her own.
The man temporarily feels better so he holds his feelings for another month, until he cannot bear it any longer, and the next fight happens all over. Thus the cycle continues.
Coping Is Painful and Makes Things Worse
All three of these cycles are painful. They are coping mechanisms that get you through the day. Overtime, however, they erode confidence — to show up in the world, to deal with its stressors, to protect and provide for loved ones. Closeness deteriorates in the relationship, often accompanies by a lessening of trust. Stressors leave bigger impact and become more challenging to solve. Relationships stop growing or start to deteriorate.
If you’re a man who is coping in a marriage without sex, without your partner on board to solve this together, you don’t have to use these fights to validate your feelings. Nor do you have to stoically bear it.
There is another way.
Join a men’s support group where your feelings will be validated by other men going through a similar situation as well as expert facilitators helping you along the way. You no longer have to go at it alone.
I am partnering with my colleague Sex Therapist and Men’s Group Facilitator, Ronnie Burke, to hold an 8-week men’s group for men who are coping in a relationship without sex.
It is an invitation to join a safe, non-shaming community of other married men who share this common struggle and feel supported and seen by those on a similar journey.
Join this group to support each other and get support for yourself.