Are you living in a sexless marriage? Perhaps you’re one of those couples that from the outside everything looks picture-perfect, but you carry a secret that no one knows about. You and your partner don’t touch each other, you don’t get intimate with each other, and you don’t have sex together.
Low sexual desire is the number one reason that couples seek out my services. This is not an uncommon issue for many people in long-term partnerships. In fact, my work with couples helps them navigate the dynamics in their sexless marriage.
How to Navigate Your Sexless Marriage
Your sexless marriage is not always just about sexual desire. It can be a combination of things.
First, before you can tackle your sex life, you and your partner have to resolve complications in your relationship. I’ve seen sex fall off the map due to other non-sexual relationship problems. In order for you to create a hot sex life, it helps to resolve the relationship problems first. This can be anything from betrayal, to parenting, money, the in-laws, career, stress or other issues.
Second, resolving your relationship problems doesn’t mean that sex magically starts happening – or that sex will be spontaneous and amazing. You may have to rebuild your sex life. You still have to work at it and that’s okay. Working directly on your sex life can feel fun, freeing and rewarding once you’ve conquered those non-related issues noted in number one.
Third, after months or years of a sexless marriage, you and/or your partner have probably shut your sexual systems down. This is where we tap into your sexuality as an individual so you can come together as a couple. Because sex and sexuality is really about your life force, your life energy, your vitality. That force starts with you.
How to Raise Your Sexual Energy
Let’s get vulnerable for a second. I want you to think to a time when you’ve had a really charged sexual experience. Can you remember all the sensations associated with this memory? If you hold that memory in your mind, you’ll remember that you radiated energy throughout your entire body. You were fully embodied in this life force, this vitality, that is almost indescribable.
So, how do you raise your sexual energy once it’s gone low? You have to tap into your own sexuality before you can tap into your sex life as a couple. It starts with this question:
What makes you (as an individual) feel most alive?
Maybe it’s going to the gym to get your body up and moving
Maybe it’s eating a luxurious meal that reaches all of your senses
Maybe it’s participating in a risky sport or adventure consistently
Maybe it’s reading an erotic novel to get sex on the brain
Maybe it’s wearing certain fabrics that feel sexy on your body
Maybe it’s touching yourself while showering to activate your arousal
Love and Live Sexy
I have worked with many couples who live in a sexless marriage. You don’t have to keep your sexless marriage a secret anymore. You can do something about it! Remember that – in addition to all the other roles you play in life – you are also a sexual being. I encourage you to use the suggestions above or come up with your own and try them.
If you’re looking for other ways to enhance your sex life, here’s where to start!
History continues to repeat itself in our nation where black, brown, and people of color are continuously oppressed, silenced, abused and murdered. How racism impacts interracial couples can affect intimacy, communication and more.
As a therapist, I commit to the hard and often uncomfortable work required, to help shift the paradigm of racism in our country.
I invite you to do the same.
If you follow my work, you know that I focus on helping couples create exceptional relationships.
What you may not know is that healthy relationships – of all forms – start with self-examination, an accountability process if you will.
So, whether you want to resolve something more personal, like a lack of intimacy or something larger like racism, the process starts with individual self-examination.
I’m not going to sugar coat this.
It’s not easy work.
The work of examining white privilege, implicit bias, micro-aggressions, systemic racism and systemic white supremacy is nothing anyone wants to own.
Sadly, many folks don’t even realize that through their denial and silence, they become complicit.
In the world of relationship counseling, this work is especially important for interracial couples where one partner identifies as white and the other as a person of color (POC).
As an interracial couple, you might find that you rarely talk about race. It’s as if there’s an implied belief that somehow, by choosing each other, you’ve overcome your own internalized racism.
Unfortunately, because racism exists, your interracial relationship sets you up to manage a lifelong conflict you didn’t ask for.
What’s The Core Conflict for Interracial Couples?
Interracial couples can never fully know each other’s worlds. Ever.
Let me give you one example:
If you identify as white, no matter how much you might experience prejudice for having a POC as your partner, or bear witness to the experiences of your partner, or perhaps your children, you will never truly know how it feels to live in the world as a POC. Our current racial system does not have a level playing field. So by default, as a white person, you simply cannot truly know in a felt way, what they experience when it comes to race.
If you identify as a POC, because privilege is not something you experience, you will never truly know the experience of your white partner. Even when you build your life together and even if you experience some forms of privilege. Under the current racial system, as a POC, you will never experience privilege to the extent that your partner experiences it, which can feel painful and damaging.
These facts are unchangeable.
As long as systemic racism exists, this conflict remains active and alive.
An easier way to think about this conflict is this: inclusion vs. exclusion.
Yes, even in your intimate partnership.
No matter how hard you might try to be inclusive, this can never be fully realized.
If not acknowledged and processed on a consistent basis, this difference can sabotage your best relationship efforts.
This unspoken conflict can make you feel like you are pitted against each other instead of being on the same team.
It won’t always show up in big or obvious ways. Instead, it will create small, consistent arguments that result in “he said, she said” or “she said she said” conversations – that go nowhere.
Not that different from the larger social narrative of “us” versus “them”.
It leaves you feeling unseen and unheard, which for the POC, is all too familiar.
How Interracial Couples Can Resolve Conflict
How does an interracial couple work through the conflict of inclusion-exclusion? How do they manage this difference?
If you’re reading about this conflict for the first time, you might feel like it’s a kick in your gut. Hopeless.
Let me reassure you. There is hope.
Hope comes when you allow love to lead you through the necessary relationship work.
It starts with self-examination and having courageous conversations.
Here’s a 3 step outline to help you get started:
Step #1: Acknowledge this core conflict.
Upon reading about inclusion and exclusion as a core relationship conflict, you might immediately dismiss it. I invite you to sit with this idea for a bit.
Consider how this might fit your experiences as an interracial couple or how it might fuel conflicts or distance between you.
Make room in your mind and in your heart for the possibility that you consciously and unconsciously include and exclude each other, and, that you live in a larger system that fosters exclusive experiences.
Step #2: Recognize how you enact the conflict
Consider all the ways that you may create or feel inclusion or exclusion with your partner. Examine all of the relationship buckets. Everything from work to parenting, financial management, domestic labor, in-laws, extended family, sex, and more.
This requires you to really self-examine. Pay attention to how you may dismiss your partner’s perspectives when it comes to a particular subject area.
Pay extra attention to the areas where you know you might dig your heels in and fight to be right.
Consider how your offensive or defensive postures might totally exclude your partner’s views.
Step #3: Validate your partner’s experience with empathy and compassion
Once you can name the ways in which you may enact this conflict of inclusion and exclusion, say it out loud. Let your partner know that you are now aware of how you exclude their ideas, wishes, presence, perspectives, and more. Do so with compassion.
Name ways you will work to be more inclusive. Talk about the pains associated with never being able to fully know each other’s experience, the way other couples who share the same race may be able to do. Acknowledge the strengths that you do possess as a result of being an interracial couple. Celebrate them.
Once you are able to take these 3 critical steps, work on forgiving yourself for any pains you may have caused each other.
In my experience with counseling interracial couples, white partners struggle to be named as white because race is not a part of how they are usually defined, which is a contrast to a person of color.
If you are white, acknowledging white privilege, implicit bias, and microaggressions – and how it influences your relationship can feel unjust and angering at times. You may respond defensively to these ideas. You are not alone in your feelings.
Conversations about race can feel upending and confusing. But it’s important that you turn to resources that help you process what you feel.
No one asked to be born into a racist society. But here we are. It’s up to all of us to do the hard but necessary work of dismantling racism.
Remember, love is a powerful force for good. As you navigate the complexities of your relationship, and as you support each other through the continued racial tragedies of our current events, let your love lead your way.
For anyone in a long term relationship, we all know that sex ebbs and flows. We have periods where it amps up. Other times, it’s like we’re in a sexual drought.
As in, not a single, solitary, sexy thought enters your head or the head of your partner.
The ebb and flow are normal.
But when a lack of sex becomes chronic, meaning, having sex less than 12 times per year (yes, that’s considered a sexless marriage), a whole host of feelings begins to set in.
Think about it. When sex is abundant, fun, and satisfying, you feel like you’re on top of the world, right?
You can conquer anything! You have a skip in your step!
Why? When you enjoy sex with your partner, you activate all the right “feel good” chemicals in your brain. Everything from oxytocin to dopamine to endorphins, that send your body singing.
So naturally, the feelings associated with this include things like:
Bonded, committed, attractive.
Playful, energized, happy.
Hopeful. Loyal. Invincible.
Desired. Close. Awesome.
This is probably similar to how you felt in the early phase of your relationship, when sex is typically more abundant.
It’s no wonder you had no problem reprioritizing “all the things” in life to spend time together, to have sex spontaneously and often.
Who doesn’t want to feel all of those good feelings?
But when sex slows down and you live in a sexless marriage, it can send your feelings in an entirely different direction.
They may include things like:
Depressed, frustrated and hopeless.
Dissatisfied, unattractive, neglected.
Resentful, disconnected, sad.
Rejected, unimportant, empty.
The contrast between how you can feel when you’re having sex with your partner versus how you can feel when sex stops happening is quite startling.
The thing is, in committed relationships or in marriage, it’s not about having tons of sex.
It IS about having sex.
And even more importantly, it’s about having good sex.
Sex that feels satisfying, inviting, erotic and connecting.
It’s about creating a sex life that’s worth wanting more of.
Research tells us that when sex winds down, it has less to do with “busyness”(althought that can be an influence too) and more to do with sexual dissatisfaction.
Not that the sex is bad. But after awhile, it becomes “just ok”.
Don’t panic! Lack of satisfaction doesn’t necessarily mean that you or your partner is a bad lover. Sure, maybe ya’ll can use a “skills” tune up. Everyone can from time to time.
Many factors contribute to sexual satisfaction.
While this list is not exhaustive, some of the reasons can include:
Relationship dissatisfaction
Body changes
Inability to relax (a big one)
Miscommunication
Lack of presence and attunement
Sheer exhaustion
Distraction
Not asking for what you want
And when sex becomes less frequent, those uncomfortable, unwelcome feelings start to set in. So, how do you fix your sexless marriage?
Here are 4 steps to help you jumpstart satisfying sex again.
1. Recall a Positive Sexual Experience With Your Partner
Think back to a specific time where you and your partner had fantastic sex. Try to recall all of the details of that time. Think about the scene, your mood, the energy of that day, how you felt in your body, the initiation of sex, the kiss, the smells, the tastes, the touch exchanged. Savor all of the details from this experience, thinking of as many details as possible. Notice how your body feels as you recall those details.
2. Share the Memory With Your Partner
Pick a time to share the memory with your partner.
Set aside all electronic devices and share all of the details that you remember.
Make sure to include what you remember specifically about yourself, how you participated in that experience, as well as what you remember about them.
Say all of the words out loud.
3. Talk About What Feels Different Now
Explore together how and why sex might feel less satisfying than before.
What feels different?
What’s different about you?
What’s different about your partner?
What’s different about your bodies?
What’s different about the life you share together?
Be sure to include both what feels positive now as well as what might feel more challenging when it comes to sex.
4. Commit to One Small Step
Rather than try to set a goal of immediate earth shattering sex, ask yourself, ‘What one small thing can we do to start moving back towards each other again?”.
Remember, you don’t have to move in leaps. You can start by making one small change to shift the sexual energy in your relationship.
It can include things like:
Make the time to talk about our sex life once per week
Go to bed earlier so that we have time for touch
Take advantage of sexy time when the kids aren’t home (bye bye chore list)
Unplug entirely one evening per week so that we can focus on each other
Buy a sexy book and read it together
Sometimes, the idea of “working on our sex life” can feel overwhelming. But when you only have to focus on one small step, it’s much more doable.
Set reasonable expectations, take things slowly and see if you can get excited about the prospect of having more consistent, frequent, satisfying sexy time together.
Remember, it’s not about having tons of sex 24/7. It’s about creating sex worth wanting, again and again.
