Sexless Marriage: Causes and What Couples Can Do
A sexless marriage is one where sex has become rare or stopped and at least one partner is unhappy about it. The usual causes are a mix of health changes, stress, unresolved resentment and a cycle of avoidance. Couples can often improve things by addressing medical factors, talking openly without pressure and repairing the wider relationship.
What counts as a sexless marriage?
“Sexless marriage” is an everyday phrase, not a diagnosis. There is no clinical cutoff, and numbers you may see quoted online are rules of thumb. A more useful definition is practical: sex has become rare or has stopped, and at least one of you is unhappy about it.
That second part matters. Some couples have little or no sex and are both at peace with it, because of age, health, asexuality or simply shared preference. That is not a problem to solve. The situation this article is about is the one where the absence hurts: one partner feels rejected, the other feels pressured, and neither of you can raise the subject without it going badly.
The same applies whether you are married or not, and whatever your genders. The dynamics of a long dry spell look much alike across long-term couples.
How common is it for couples to stop having sex?
More common than most couples assume, which is worth knowing because shame thrives on the idea that everyone else is fine.
An analysis of the nationally representative General Social Survey covering 1989 to 2014 found that American adults were having sex about nine fewer times a year in the early 2010s than in the late 1990s, and that frequency fell among people who were married or living with a partner. Age had a strong effect: people in their 20s reported sex about 80 times a year on average, compared with about 20 times a year for people in their 60s.
A later study of adults ages 18 to 44 using the same survey found that the share of married people having sex weekly or more dropped between 2000-2002 and 2016-2018, from about 71% to 58% among married men and from about 69% to 61% among married women.
These are self-reported averages from surveys. They describe trends in a population, not what is right for you, and they say nothing about how satisfied people were. Their value is perspective: a long quiet stretch is an ordinary thing for a long relationship to go through.
Why does sex fade in a long-term relationship?
There is rarely one cause. Usually several pile up, and then avoidance itself becomes the biggest one.
Health, hormones and medication
Bodies change. MedlinePlus, from the National Library of Medicine, lists physical causes of sexual problems in women that include diabetes, heart disease, nerve disorders and hormone problems, notes that some medications affect desire and function, and includes painful intercourse among the problems it describes. For men, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases lists conditions affecting blood vessels, nerves or hormones among the causes of erectile dysfunction, and notes that it can be a side effect of many common medicines. When sex becomes painful or unreliable, people often start avoiding it without saying why.
If a physical cause is possible, a medical appointment is the place to start. Questions about a medication belong with the clinician who prescribed it.
Stress, mood and exhaustion
The same federal sources list stress, anxiety and depression among the causes of sexual problems for both women and men. Long work hours, caregiving and poor sleep leave little energy for desire. New parents are a clear example, and the guide article on your relationship after a new baby covers that stage.
What is happening between you
Resentment is a reliable way to lose desire. So are unresolved arguments, feeling criticized, feeling like a co-manager of a household instead of a partner, and broken trust. Many couples find that the sexual distance arrived after the emotional distance, not before it. The practice’s article on why intimacy often disappears in long-term relationships looks at that slide.
The avoidance loop
Once sex becomes a tense subject, a pattern often takes over. One partner initiates and is turned down. They feel rejected and either push harder or stop trying. The other feels pressure, and pressure makes desire less likely. Before long both avoid any touch that might be read as an invitation, so ordinary affection disappears as well. This is a version of the pursuer-distancer pattern, and it can run for years.
Different levels of desire
Partners seldom want sex equally often. When the gap is wide and unspoken, the lower-desire partner’s pace quietly becomes the couple’s pace. That topic has its own article: mismatched sex drives.
Does less sex mean the relationship is in trouble?
Not by itself. The research is more reassuring than the headlines.
A set of three studies with more than 30,000 participants found that among people in relationships, more frequent sex was associated with greater well-being only up to about once a week. Beyond that, more sex was not linked to more happiness. A separate analysis of General Social Survey data found that adults who reported no sex in the past year had happiness levels very similar to sexually active adults once background factors were taken into account. That study included single people and did not ask whether the lack of sex was wanted, so it cannot tell you how a particular couple will feel.
What does seem to matter is the link between sex and the rest of the relationship. Two longitudinal studies following 207 newlywed couples over four to five years found that sexual satisfaction and marital satisfaction each predicted later changes in the other. The couples were early in marriage, so the findings may not carry over to every stage, but they fit what therapists often see: the bedroom and the rest of the relationship feed each other.
So frequency is the wrong scoreboard. The better questions are whether you both feel wanted, and whether you can talk about it.
What can couples do about a sexless marriage?
- Rule out the physical. Pain, erection problems, hormonal changes and medication side effects are common and often treatable. See a medical provider before assuming the cause is the relationship.
- Talk about it outside the bedroom. Choose a calm time. Describe your own experience (“I miss being close to you”) instead of your partner’s failure (“you never want me”).
- Take the pressure off. Pressure and guilt reduce desire. Agreeing that affection does not have to lead anywhere lets touch come back first.
- Stop waiting for spontaneity. A position statement from the European Society for Sexual Medicine on desire differences recommends, among other things, normalizing variation in desire, challenging the myth that desire must be spontaneous, and promoting open sexual communication. The authors are candid that these are consensus opinions, because research on the subject is limited.
- Tend to the rest of the relationship. Repairing an old argument or spending unhurried time together is often the more direct route back to wanting each other.
- Agree on what counts. Intimacy is wider than intercourse. Couples dealing with illness, pain or aging often do well by widening the definition together.
One limit is firm: nobody owes anybody sex. Pressuring, guilting or coercing a partner is not a solution, and wanting to be close is different from having a right to it.
When is it worth getting professional help?
Consider it if you cannot discuss the subject without a fight or a shutdown, if resentment is building, or if the distance has spread to affection in general. Couples counseling works on the pattern around sex: the avoidance, the hurt and the things that have gone unsaid. For a specific sexual function problem, a physician or a sex therapist may be the right specialist, sometimes alongside couples work.
Talking with a therapist
If this has become the subject you both avoid, a conversation with someone outside the relationship can make it easier to begin. Moshe Ratson, LMFT, offers a free phone consultation and works with couples in Midtown Manhattan and Online by Video. You can reach spiral2grow here to ask whether couples counseling fits your situation.
Common questions
It varies widely by age and stage of life. National survey data show sexual frequency falling with age and declining among partnered Americans over recent decades. One large set of studies found that for people in relationships, well-being rose with frequency up to about once a week and not beyond. There is no correct number.
Yes, particularly when both partners are comfortable with it or when you find other ways to stay physically and emotionally close. Trouble tends to come when one partner is unhappy and the subject cannot be discussed. In that case the silence and resentment usually do more damage than the lack of sex itself.
That is a personal decision, and there is no rule. Before treating it as the end, it is worth checking for medical causes, having an honest conversation, and trying counseling, since a long dry spell is common and often changes. If you have done that and your needs remain far apart, a therapist can help you weigh options.
Pick a calm moment away from the bedroom and away from a recent rejection. Speak about what you miss and what you feel instead of what your partner is doing wrong, and ask about their experience too. Aim for understanding in the first conversation, not a fix. If it keeps going badly, a couples therapist can help.
Sources
- Declines in Sexual Frequency among American Adults, 1989-2014 (Twenge, Sherman and Wells, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2017), PubMed, National Library of Medicine
- Trends in Frequency of Sexual Activity and Number of Sexual Partners Among Adults Aged 18 to 44 Years in the US, 2000-2018 (Ueda et al., JAMA Network Open, 2020), PubMed, National Library of Medicine
- Sexual Frequency Predicts Greater Well-Being, But More is Not Always Better (Muise, Schimmack and Impett, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2016), SAGE Journals
- Sociodemographic Correlates of Sexlessness Among American Adults and Associations with Self-Reported Happiness Levels (Kim, Tam and Muennig, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2017), PubMed, National Library of Medicine
- Longitudinal Associations Among Relationship Satisfaction, Sexual Satisfaction, and Frequency of Sex in Early Marriage (McNulty, Wenner and Fisher, Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2016), PubMed, National Library of Medicine
- Sexual Problems in Women, MedlinePlus, National Library of Medicine
- Symptoms and Causes of Erectile Dysfunction, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
- Sexual Desire Discrepancy: A Position Statement of the European Society for Sexual Medicine (Dewitte et al., Sexual Medicine, 2020), PubMed, National Library of Medicine
This article is part of the Couples Counseling Guide. It is general information, not a substitute for care from a licensed professional who knows your situation.
This article is for general education. It is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis or treatment.
