How many couples are in sexless marriages right now? What about the success/failure rate — that is, those marriages that get back on track versus those that don’t? Which age groups are most affected? Which gender loses interest in sex most?
Let’s wrap it up with two questions: When it comes to sexlessness, you’ll want to know if you’re normal or someone living an especially awkward life? You’ll want to know how to fix it so you don’t live with the awkwardness anymore.
Did that summarise it for you?
When there’s no physical intimacy in your marriage and no logical reason for it to occur, it’s a living nightmare. I can attest to knowing that feeling. It very nearly killed me. You’re meant to be half of a sexual couple but, unfortunately, your spouse won’t play that game. It hurts you badly. They avoid sex and always give you reasons like: Too tired, too busy, too sick — every excuse not to engage but none to go ahead and do the naughty. They roll their eyes, check their watches, go to bed early, and complain that this is all you ever think about. You feel hurt. The rejection is killing you.
The numbers have been pouring in ever since my “sexless marriage” podcast began in mid-2021. I get real-time information sent to me as it occurs on the ‘Net. Real-time data is fantastic but it’s the cumulative figures that tell me a whole lot more. Those behind-the-scenes traffic numbers have created an extraordinary set of new sexless marriage statistics that I am now prepared to share with you.
- 32% of visitors are female.
- 62% are male.
- The remainder is listed as sex not specified or non-binary.
Now let’s look at the ages of people who are in sexless marriages.
- A whopping 76.5% of visitors to my podcast are aged between 35 and 59.
- 7.9% are aged 23 to 34.
- Ages above 60 represent 6.5% of visitors.
- Ages below 22 rated just a few per cent.
Remember, not everyone who’s in a sexless marriage does online searches for this kind of content and, of those who do, fewer listen to online podcasts. These numbers simply represent a small but well-screened online cohort moving around the Internet, looking for answers to a problem not spoken of in open spaces.
In truth, some won’t even make it this far because they’ll refuse to look for answers. To do so would be like acknowledging the problem. Some searched but never found the Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast at all. Both of these groups aren’t represented in my statistics but should be.
Similarly, when we look at the statics posted by online polls, we’re only seeing the results of respondents who agreed to share their intimate lives with strangers on a poll. Some lie. Some exaggerate while others abstain from revealing everything. Some vote more than once because they have an agenda. The numbers get further skewed if one-half of the couple chooses to tick the box that says “We Have a Sexless Marriage” but the other does not. This takes a 100% statistic and halves it right away!
My ex-wife was like that. She was adamant about our sex life. She told the counsellor we had one. “Everything’s fine,” she said. Four years of therapy on this very topic and she was still in denial. My marriage was one of those magical 50% sexless marriages. One in two people within my marriage had a sexless one. The other one was perfectly happy with it.
Sometimes our partners just don’t want to know.
This leaves me wondering if the sexless marriage statistic is much higher than recorded. A 50% sexless marriage just isn’t possible. It’s either sexless or it isn’t. Affairs and open marriages aside, the monogamous faithful have one from which to choose, not both. Who knows, if we’re to be truly honest about what doesn’t happen between the sheets, it’s possible that there are 80-90% of marriages are sexless. No one is prepared to say so therefore no one knows.
No, you’re not living in an abnormal marriage. You’re probably experiencing the same one as many others do. What’s not normal is knowing this truth and then not doing anything about it. By accepting this nasty habit to take root of itself into your marriage, you’re enabling your spouse to continue his or her life journey which, in turn, affects yours.
What does this mean for you and the future of your sexless marriage?
Firstly, despite what your partner might be saying to pacify you about your situation, if you feel you might be in a sexless marriage, then you’re probably in one. And, let’s face it, it was you who did the research to find this page. It was you who read all the words that brought you down to this point of the text. I don’t need to convince you any more. You’ve already qualified yourself without knowing it. Welcome to the club that you didn’t consent to be a member of.
Secondly, there are five clear choices ahead of you:
- Suck it up and live without sex for the rest of your life.
- Go to couples counselling to bring sex back to your marriage.
- Divorce.
- Have an affair.
- Open the marriage.
Did the temperature just drop a few degrees?
Did you see anything in that list you don’t like? I bet most or all of them aren’t ideal. That’s because your sexless life isn’t ideal either. Solutions to this difficult problem will include making some difficult choices and hearing difficult words. This is not going to be a snap-of-the-finger kind of fixit. That’s not how your marriage got sexless in the first place, I bet.
I’m a big fan of saving a marriage. I/We did counselling. I desperately wanted to fix our problem… and so did my wife. Counselling helped me a great deal. I found out my wife was asexual. Sex wasn’t her thing. She wanted a life partner, not a lover.
What did I do to fix my sexless marriage?
I ended it.
Scary, isn’t it? Those three words are just as powerful as I love you. There’s a certain sense of coldness that surrounds these ones — but it’s already cold out there, right?
Yep. Cold. Absolutely freezing.
My real happy-ever-after came a year after the separation and divorce. I met another person and we’ve been melting the ice and turning water into steam for almost twenty years. We make love, hold hands, play together and giggle every day. In my spare time, I talk about the horrors of living in a sexless marriage to people like yourself through my book SEETHINGS.
No, it’s not a self-help guide.
It’s a novel. It talks of the private war fought within yourself when your marriage is sexless and has been like that for a long time. It’s about the lonely journey endured while being rejected over and over again. It speaks of keeping your shit together while maintaining a facade for others to enjoy, including your spouse. It’s about looking for answers and not liking what’s found. Some of us turn mad and make poor life choices just to get through each day.
My novel is pseudo-biographical. Mitchell Felding wears the eyes and ears of my former life’s character. You’ll get to sit right beside him and hear/see what goes on behind closed doors — in the bedroom, in the counsellor’s office, and during a secret affair. You’ll get to go between the sheets and sense something that’s quite familiar to you. There’ll be some new horrors that’ll turn up. You won’t see everything that’s about to come out of the text but they too may be a sign of your not-too-distant future.
The book is free (for now) and you can pick it up at Smashwords.com. All I ask you to do is to leave a comment on my Goodreads page so others in the same situation as yours can make the same discovery you did. This is what the book looks like on the site:
Good on you for staying in your sexless marriage and making it this far. Keep going.