I have haunted relationship forums and scoured books and articles about monogamous relationships for a long time. One relationship pattern that appears over and over is the sexless relationship.
I created an online survey for the higher-drive partners in sexless relationships for this series of blog posts because my hope is that by hearing from these partners, others might escape their fate.
I’m only considering relationships of at least 2 years. Most new relationships have much more sexual activity than longer ones, so we can’t really tell what the sexual dynamic will be like for a long-term relationship based only on the sexual activity during the first couple of years. After a couple of years, you usually have a good picture of the sexual compatibility of a couple.
The respondents of this survey are mostly married. Many of them I have known either online or personally for quite a long time. Some of them I individually invited to take the survey because I knew they fit the above parameters, and I knew their story was particularly insightful. So my survey and methods are totally unscientific, yet because these respondents are not complete strangers to me for the most part, I actually trust my own data here a lot. Here are the survey questions and responses…
*What are your gender and age?
I surveyed 50 people who are or have been the higher drive partner in a long-term sexless relationship. 60% were men and 40% were women. The majority of the people who responded were between the ages of 30 – 50.
*How many sex partners have you had? Do you know how many sex partners your partner has had?
Some people didn’t answer or did not estimate for their partner. Others used answers like “many” or “lots” or “not a lot”. I discounted all incomplete answers and vague answers and made an average of the rest. I did not sort the answers by the gender of the respondent, but as stated above, more men took the survey than women.
The average number of sex partners reported by all respondents (the higher drive partner in sexless relationships): 12
The average number of sex partners of respondents’ partners (the lower drive partner in sexless relationships): 3
*Where do you think you land on my Sexual Proclivity Scale, and where do you think your partner lands on it?
I didn’t find any common theme in the respondent’s answers about their own sexual proclivity. They were all evenly distributed between moderately sexual to extremely sexual. But they all reported their partners as being less sexual, or lower on the scale, relative to their own answers. I don’t know if this is true or not. Are the partners of the respondents really less sexual than they are, or are there other issues causing them to have a low desire for sex with the respondent? This survey can’t determine something like that, but later I plan to do a survey for people who were the lower drive partner in a sexless relationship to hear from them, too. Were they naturally lower drive, or were they only lower drive in that relationship? I’m sure that in the cases of the people who responded to the survey, there are both types.
*If there is a mismatch between the proclivity level of you and your partner in the answer above, do you feel this is part of the problem in your sexual relationship?
Every respondent said yes, there was a mismatch, and yes, it was at least part of the problem.
*If your relationship wasn’t always sexless, do you know if there was an event or reason that made the relationship become sexless, and did it change all at once or slowly?
15% said there was an event that caused the relationship to become sexless, sometimes suddenly, sometimes not so suddenly, but they were aware of a specific event. Most of these also said that the event was the birth of a child. A few described an event of emotional significance or a bad fight that caused the sexlessness.
9% said sexlessness was caused by a chronic health issue, health event, or tragedy that made sex physically impossible or nearly so.
18% said the sexlessness started as soon as the honeymoon period was over.
51% said the change occurred slowly over time, and most described things like kids, financial stress and weight gain as contributors to the slow change.
1% said the relationship was sexless at the start and never changed (in some cases, they married as virgins).
A couple of respondents said their relationship wasn’t technically sexless, but that they felt the sex present in their relationship was very frustrating, unfulfilling, and not what they wanted for themselves.
*Describe how being sexless makes you feel, physically and emotionally. Describe how it affects your life, whether positive or negative or neutral.
The answers to this question are the meat of my survey, and they are so important that I’m dedicating the entire third post in this series to them, which you can read here once it is completed (soon!).
As you can imagine, the voices of people who feel they are being denied something they love, sexual intimacy, from within a loving relationship, are full of angst, anger and pain. Their pain is the reason I want to increase awareness of what a sexual mismatch can mean in a long-term relationship.
Before we can make good sexual relationship choices, we need to have some amount of sexual self-awareness, which means knowing what we really need and want in a sexual relationship in order to be happy. Before we know ourselves, we can’t know what we will be happy with (or without). I would like to see this become common knowledge, with the understanding that ending up in a sexually mismatched relationship will cause a lot of pain, frustration and depression.
Creating that understanding is the basis for this series of blog posts.
*Are you currently physically attracted to your partner? Are they physically attracted to you?
I asked this question to try to see if loss of attraction was an issue in the respondent’s relationships. I figured a big physical change by either partner or both (and the resulting loss of attraction) might be a common problem. I asked if the respondent felt their partner is physically attracted to them, or not, to see if any had been told straight up by their partner that they feel no physical attraction. Here are a few answers that I found interesting and that give a sort of overall picture of the type of replies I received:
“Yes, I’m attracted to my partner. My partner does not appear to be attracted to me.”
“I don’t know if he is attracted to me. I would say he is not, because he doesn’t even act like a man who is attracted. No flirting, no touching, no affection until he wants sex and then it’s the same old kiss on the neck, and I’m supposed to be wet and ready to go. He is attractive to me, but I don’t really ‘see’ it anymore because we just don’t interact that way.”
“I am physically attracted to my partner, but the longer we are sexless and the greater our other relationship problems become, the less sexually attracted I am. He claims to find me attractive.”
“She is physically attractive yes, mentally attractive, not at all at the moment. She seems as attracted to me as much as she ever has or maybe can be.”
*Do you talk to anyone about sexlessness: friends, relatives, a counsellor?
This question was answered about half and half, yes I do have people I can talk with and no I don’t have anyone or don’t want to talk to anyone. Of the half who do talk to others, many of them had talked to at least one counsellor about the sexlessness in their relationship, and some had talked to couples counsellors about it along with their partner.
I was glad to see that people were trying to talk about this issue in their lives, as reported by at least half of the respondents. It is something that needs to be talked about if there’s any hope of getting out of it.
*How concerned are you that this relationship will end because of the sexlessness? (Or if it did already end, was it primarily because of the sexlessness?)
The majority of respondents (55%) said yes, they are very concerned that the sexlessness in their relationship would cause the end of it, or the relationship had already ended. Here are some of the typical answers:
“Very concerned. I’m not likely to end the relationship until children are grown, but after that, I do not plan to continue with the relationship if things don’t change.”
“This will end the relationship, sooner rather than later. I’m in my fifties and don’t want to leave it too late to find a man who will love me physically.”
But a few said they are not concerned because they don’t ever plan to leave. Here are a couple of those answers:
“Honestly, no. Even without the sex, I love him. I love the companionship in other areas. And, as bad as it may sound, I feel stability is important for the kids. Mom and dad love each other, that’s the stability they need.”
“It will not end. We have already talked and decided even if sex stops completely, we will maintain the marriage.”
*If sexlessness is a problem for you, do you think becoming non-monogamous would be a possible way to deal with it?
I got some interesting answers to this question. Although 50% said a straight-up NO, this would not be a possible way to deal with the problem, the other half said a lot of maybes and even some yes, please. Here are some examples of answers other than straight-up NO:
“I think this would be the only way to deal with the problem and stay in the marriage.”
“I’d LOVE that. I would gladly stay within the boundaries he felt comfortable with — no physical contact (online only), no one in our state, etc. I wouldn’t have a problem with him following the same if he wanted.”
“I am intellectually poly so I could certainly envision it working on my side, but I know it would not work for her.”
And then there were a couple of respondents who said they already do have sex outside the marriage, but that they are not doing it openly and they are not happy about this solution.
*How do you think your life might change if you were able to have all the sex you want and could always have the quality of sex you want? (Assume for this exercise that you may or may not have the same-sex partner as you do now).
Here are a few examples of answers to this question, and nearly every response was some theme of these:
“I would feel more complete, less moody, and I would definitely be a more pleasant person. I would go to the ends of the earth for a partner who cherished me, and made me feel desired.”
“I think I would feel more fulfilled, and less depressed. Definitely more assured of my attractiveness and worth as a wife and partner. I think I would feel loved and worthy.”
“I would feel more joy in a general sense, more confidence in my femininity, be more relaxed. I would have a well spring of goodwill and well being from which to draw on for him and the rest of my family.”
“I think I would be totally happy with life. The rest of my life is fine – great children and grandchildren, live in a nice place, have a job I enjoy, etc. The sexual mismatch is spoiling everything else for me.”
*Is there anything else you would like to share about your relationship?
I wanted to share these two responses to this survey question (both from women) because I have written about the plight of highly sexual women before, so these hit home for me:
“I would like to comment generally that being a highly sexual woman is thought of as an anomaly in this society (USA) and that most books on marital improvement are misogynistic and assume that the female partner is the least sexual part of the union. It is also assumed that sex is on par in a marriage with a division of household responsibilities. Both of these things are patently untrue.”
“There should be more attention paid to the plight of women who want more sex in their relationships as well. I don’t think it’s fair to only assume that men are in this kind of predicament. It’s doubly hurtful because society doesn’t really prepare us for this — we are so often told that men want sex and that we just have to show up and be pretty. And when we are faced with this (unwanted sexlessness), it’s somehow made to be our fault (too demanding, not pretty enough, too aggressive), etc. It makes you question your femininity on such a basic level, and we don’t even have the kind of societal language or base to deal with it. Thank you for your interest in doing this study.”
Thank you to everyone who participated in my survey!! There were actually more questions on the survey than what I detailed above.
[Unknown Author]
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