Sex? Not This Year, Darling.

Is your sexless marriage getting you down? Can’t remember the last time you two did the wild thing?

Are you one of the silent-but-angry majority who curses each frustratingly difficult day that passes by without a little horizontal tango?

BOOM! You need to hang around here. You’re my audience. If this nasty routine has taken root in your bed, please read further.

I’m not going to go into why marriage becomes sexless. The reasons are many.

• Too tired
• Too busy
• Taking a break
• Not in the mood
• Not likely
• Is that all you think about?
• Why now?
• This place smells bad
• It’s not your birthday
• I’ve got glue going off

There are plenty of other web pages that list the usual phrases: Do you always want sex? You’re a sexual deviate! Is that all you think about?

You’re probably in the right place to hang around and figure out what’s going on on this site. I was you. I AM you. I was lured into a sexless relationship, and then I endured it way longer than I should’ve before doing something about it. Ten years. My ten sexless year marriage was preceded by seven years of abstinence. I felt like a dunce for waiting so long to expect a change. When I realised that sex wasn’t happening, I sought the comfort of a lover and then I finally found bliss. I felt guilty but that didn’t compare to the feeling of discovering sexual sanctuary. I empathise with sexless people. I know the heartache. I also know what it’s like to push through the barriers of moral tradition and get nowhere.

My page is rare. It’s for those who’ve exhausted their quota of fairy tales. They’ve done all they can and want something new.

For those of us who’ve tried counselling, books, sites and the like, we’ve come to a different understanding. Our marriages remain as sexless they ever were.

It affirms what we already knew. A horse can be led to water but not made to drink it. Thirst can’t be forced.

A make or break moment is what’s needed if a marriage is going to move forward. Almost everyone in this situation agrees with this outcome as too the concept of monogamy.

Monogamy. Now there’s a word couples recognize well.

I won’t beat around the bush with this next statement: If you’re in a sexless marriage, you’re not monogamous. The rule of monogamy has been broken and it wasn’t you who broke it.

Surprised?

Perhaps you’d like to read that last paragraph again. This time read it aloud and do it slowly.

Yes, that’s right, this is where you really stand. You may not be cheating on your spouse but you’re not in a monogamous relationship with them either. You were outside-the-loop long before you knew the loop had an outside!

Now you’re coming up to speed, here’s another truth or two: You’re also in a celibate marriage. You could say you weren’t consulted to participate in one nor approve of it if you were asked to do so – but here you find yourself anyway.

BOOM AGAIN!

What happens next?

I wrote a book based on my own sexless marriage. In it, I tried to answer that question with fervour and honesty. Just what happens after you find yourself standing alone in your marriage?

How do you cope? What do you feel? Why the hell did this happen?

I articulated the best and worst of emotions encountered over these ten years of so-called wedded bliss and put it into a text, a novel actually.

It’s not easy to reveal the inner workings of a sexless marriage while it’s underway so I called it fiction. (My spouse would not approve at all.)

Admitting failure. That’s where I started. Once this happened I was free to explore and start over. So I did. I explored and made discoveries the likes of which you’d never believe.

By the time I finished writing the novel, I’d changed my thoughts about life, love, sex and marriage.

I understood I married a wonderful, sensible person who had all the core qualities I admired in a partner. Almost everything was perfect but, for her, physical intimacy has no priority whatsoever. It’s something I never knew about her beforehand. She didn’t know either.

My side of the story differs. Without sex, I feel incomplete and can’t function properly. This is something I didn’t know when we married, nor did she.

Much of our future was assumed. It followed us all the way down the aisle and then into the bedroom.

We married each other in good conscience but we are different people when it comes to sex. Nothing changes this. God knows we’ve tried changing!

We now have a fantastic life together. As long as we don’t go there, we’re perfectly okay.

She’s asexual. That’s the deal. I’m not asexual but we’re happiest when she’s satisfied. She’s satisfied not having sex and not talking about it.

I wrote a novel about all that’s left unsaid.

There’s much, trust me.

–M

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