Major points out that lust for a partner is “dictated often by life stages; after the first flush of getting together, where they did nothing but have sex. Day jobs, having kids, having to care for people, general stresses and strains of everyday life mean that sometimes it ebbs and flows. That’s normal.” Plus, even if interest in sex dwindles for a period, that’s not to say it won’t return.
Maya Kelman* stopped having sex with her husband six years after they married. “I don’t feel like we’re missing out,” she says, but she is open to the idea that they may yet sexually reconnect. “One day we might start again but, for me, it’s not about ticking a box or doing it because I feel like our relationship requires it.” Kelman, 47, says that many friends are caught up in performative coitus, sleeping with their husbands because of expectation, rather than desire: “I would rather have no sex than bad, awkward sex.”
Along with the high-status job, exotic holidays, perfect home and children, “having sex regularly can feel like yet another expectation… I think how we define marriage is changing and our expectations around sex can change, too.”
Kelman admits that the physical toll of menopause and running around after her children has dented her libido. Social media and other distractions can play their part, too: the 2019 National Survey of Attitudes and Lifestyles recorded a drop in how often couples were having sex each month, finding that phones and “diversionary stimuli that can take up your spare time… may prevent intimacy”. Weiner-Davis says that the best way to handle the absence of sexual desire, especially for women, is to be led by a partner’s physical cues. “I wish I had a pound for every time a woman said to me, ‘I wasn’t in the mood when we started but once we got into it, it was great.’” She thinks women are more likely to engage with responsive desire rather than spontaneous desire (feeling instantly in the mood, apropos of nothing) – they just “need some sort of trigger to remind them that they’re interested in being physically close”.
That can even be a conversation, she says – and it doesn’t always have to lead to sex, or an orgasm. Even the smallest amount of physical intimacy has the power to “make the world seem right; it makes [people] feel so close and connected to their partner, and makes them feel wanted, and makes them feel loved”.
With closeness of some kind – Kelman and her husband “cuddle and massage one another and hold hands”, as well as talking openly about how they feel – professionals say marriages are more likely to last the course. Major adds that Covid “has been a huge pressure cooker for a lot of couples, both in terms of their emotional intimacy and their sexual intimacy” but that relationships capable of surviving global pandemics and sexual hiccups are likely made of strong stuff. “The only thing that matters is: would your partner be there for you through a crisis and beyond?” one Marriage Diaries reader asked, in response to last month’s column. “If yes” – sex or otherwise – “there’s no issue.”
How to regain intimacy
Be aware
“Very often people come to therapy and one or both of them say, ‘When I think back, this has been going on for years.’” Major says. If you first started noticing something going off the boil, or not feeling quite right, raise it sooner rather than later: addressing issues “starts with a conversation”.
Share – carefully
Talking through problems is all in the framing, according to Major, so instead of saying “I think this is your fault”, begin with “I’ve been noticing” or “I’m feeling sad because we don’t seem to be as close anymore.”
“Owning it for yourself invites a partner to own it for themselves,” Major says. Placing blame will “invite a very defensive, defendant position with your partner and they will feel put down.”
Check in
Assess your own confidence and self-esteem levels: “If you feel attractive and sexy and just generally feel good about yourself, that is often attractive to a partner.”
Compromise
This is the “bottom line”, Major says. “It’s not fair to say to your partner, ‘I don’t enjoy sex and I don’t want to have sex with you ever again because it’s just not important to me, but I expect you to stay in the relationship.’” Talk about what meeting in the middle looks like, and how you can get there. “Settle for a bit more reality,” psychotherapist and author Phillip Hodson says. “If you can’t get what you want, can you want what you can get?”
Take the time to rebuild
“Accept things today are rocky and don’t expect to go from cold to hot in a day,” Hodson advises. Warming things up often requires behavioural change: “Be nicer [and] learn to listen properly.”
Maintain physical contact
“Foreplay should be redefined as the art of making someone feel wanted far more often than you could ever actually have sex – hugs, brief touches, praise, appreciation, saying thank you, giving your time, mending stuff – it all feeds into eventual closeness,” Hodson says. “It’s much easier to have sex with someone if you are already in touching distance.”
Think emotionally
“What is mostly on your partner’s mind right now causing them concern (apart from you)? If you don’t know, try to find out.”
*Names have been changed
