I felt rejected and unwanted in my sexless marriage

Dear Roe,
I’ve read your columns with interest, especially recent ones where you have told several women that they don’t need to have sex with their husbands. Obviously women shouldn’t have sex they don’t want to, but I would like to know whether you would be so quick to tell husbands that they can stop contributing to the household if they don’t want to. I was with my ex for 10 years, married for eight and we have two children. After the kids were born sex was basically off the table, maybe once a month if I was lucky. Then it completely dried up towards the end.
My ex took some time off work to take care of the kids when they were small, then went back to work but didn’t earn anywhere near what I did, so I was the main provider for the house. To be working hard for my family, then to be told that wanting sex was unreasonable left me feeling used and unwanted. I got married because I wanted to be with my ex and raise a family, but I didn’t agree to live a sexless existence.
The constant rejection was soul-crushing and for years, it felt like my ex didn’t even like me. I just think we’re very quick to bash men for expecting sex in marriage but slow to talk about women opting out of what is, for most men, something pretty fundamental. I don’t expect a response but something to consider.
Thank you for your message, and I’m sorry about the dissolution of your marriage – no one gets married or has children expecting the relationship to come apart, and that’s a big life transformation you’ve gone through. It also sounds like the relationship dynamic did a number on your self-esteem, so I hope you have support around you and a good therapist helping you to build back up your sense of self-worth and faith in the world so that if love comes along again, you’ll be open to it.
Your question (or comment, really) raises a few important issues that I have seen coming up again and again. So I will take you up on your offer to consider what you’ve raised, if you take me up on my offer to not view my answer as a judgment on your relationship specifically, because you haven’t given me enough information on that. This is a comment on relationship issues I see coming up repeatedly that I think are keeping men and women stuck and quite unhappy.
Sex is important to a lot of people who value it highly and ideally would like to have sex regularly in their relationship, that is true. However, I have a few thoughts about the underlying premise of your letter, which is that regular sex is an obligation or duty in a marriage, and that partners are entitled to regular sex in a relationship. That’s simply not true.
Can you desire and aim for an ideal of regular sex? Of course. Can you leave a relationship if you don’t have the sex life you want? Absolutely – you can leave a relationship for any reason you choose. But you cannot dictate that someone have sex with you, and no one can guarantee that they will always want to have sex with you.
Even people with high libidos who view an active sex life as extremely important can stop desiring or enjoying sex, whether due to stress, illness, the pressures of parenthood, mental health, medication side effects, a shift in the relationship dynamic, and a million other different reasons. You cannot be guaranteed regular sex in any relationship, because life and human beings are complicated and go through changes. You can keep communicating about sex as your needs and desires change and see if there are ways of navigating periods of low desire or sexual difficulties, but you can’t guarantee it.
Starting from that expectation, that there likely will be periods where regular sex is not the priority, is a far healthier and more reasonable expectation with which to enter any long-term relationship. This mindset will help alleviate some of the guilt, stress and stigma about having periods of no sex, and allow for more open communication about it. Treating sex like a duty, an entitlement, a job that your partner is slacking on is simply going to add pressure, resentment and even fear into the equation, and that helps no one.
[ ‘I have to choose between love or moving abroad alone for my career – what’s the right call?’Opens in new window ]
Treating sex as a duty is an attitude that can cause another form of disconnect in a relationship. When one person talks about wanting regular sex, they’re often not discussing what type of sex they want – or asking about what type of sex their partner wants. If one partner wants sex that is unhurried, romantic, connected, intimate and tender, or sex that is passionate, kinky, loud, uninhibited – these are types of sex that may not be possible regularly when life is particularly demanding or children are zooming about the house. For these partners, quality over quantity might be more valuable. And if their partner is insisting on more regular, disconnected sex, that could feel dehumanising, pressurised and without pleasure – which of course isn’t going to be appealing. This mightn’t be the intent of course, the partner who wants more regular sex could see sex as a way of creating connection and intimacy – but that intention has to be felt. Communicating about the type of sex each other wants and being attuned to each other’s emotions around sex and connection can help when navigating these discussions.
I also want to address a huge issue that you address in your letter that is incredibly common among straight couples: the issue of domestic labour and gender roles. You write that “I was the main provider for the house … working hard for my family.” I don’t doubt that you worked incredibly hard and that your financial contributions were vital to the family. However, this framing and “provider” rhetoric that is very common when we discuss men’s roles in the family completely erases the work of women in the home – women who endure pregnancies and give birth, women who stay at home minding children and taking care of the home, working women who still do the majority of domestic labour, women who take time out of their careers and lose professional and financial progression to have children. They are also providers. They are also “contributing to the household”. Their work is also vital to the family. They are also constantly sacrificing and working – and their work is systemically devalued and erased, by society and often by their partners and families.
So many women feel like they are treated like an unpaid maid, cook and childminder in their own home and feel like they are no longer treated like a person, let alone a romantic partner – and are then expected to have sex with someone who doesn’t value them, doesn’t treat them with curiosity, respect and wonder, and doesn’t romance them. That lack of attention, appreciation and feeling valued can also feel like a constant sense of rejection and devaluation. In that dynamic, sex becomes another thing that is about them fulfilling the needs of another person, and also leaves women feeling “used and unwanted”. It’s not that these women don’t value sex, they do! But they no longer feel the respect, intimacy, connection and emotional safety that makes sex with their partner pleasurable.
[ ‘I‘m falling in love with a man who’s just out of a 12-year relationship – and still lives with his ex’Opens in new window ]
Many people want a long-term relationship that includes them having regular sex. But sex does not exist in isolation – it’s part of and influenced by the relationship dynamic as a whole. A lot of heterosexual relationships have a dynamic where women feel devalued, and it is affecting a lot of people’s sex lives. Addressing these underlying issues – gender roles, equality, mutual respect, domestic labour, emotional needs around sex, respectful communication – is much more likely to lead to satisfying relationships and sex lives than silence, expectation and resentment. Sex is fundamental for a lot of people – but so is respect, equality and emotional safety. Let’s think about all of it together.
I really do wish you well, and hope you find a relationship where both of you feel valued, desired and appreciated.