If you are struggling in a marriage with infrequent or no sex, you are not alone. Sexual incompatibilities can cause deep tension and open conflict or can be a silent and lurking issue that is difficult to discuss. In either case, the loneliness and fear can be overwhelming at times.
Since sex is often considered taboo to talk about, we don’t usually hear a lot of discussion about sexless marriages. Even though it isn’t talked about very much, sexless marriages or relationships are more common than many people are led to believe. We are often led to believe that physical intimacy is something that comes naturally and frequently for couples, but this isn’t true. Sexual intimacy takes work. Depending on you and your marriage, there are various considerations to be made.
Ways to Begin to Address a Sexless Marriage:
1. Pause
The urge to fix things in a sexless marriage can be intense. Instead of jumping to solutions, first pause. Put effort into observing your emotional intensity. What are the feelings? What do you do with the feelings?
2. Learn how to honor your emotions
Karla McLaren, author of The Language of Emotions, proposes that emotions are one form of intelligence and that each emotion has a particular set of questions and messages for you. I recommend purchasing her book or looking for her short videos on YouTube. What needs to be honored? What needs to be restored?
3. Study the emotional vortex
The emotional vortex is a concept that’s been studied for decades now by family therapists. It is officially known as the family emotional system, but I call it the emotional vortex. It is the experience we have that our marital problems seem to have a life of their own. The more we try to change them, the more they seem to stay the same. The idea is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And it’s the feeling that your marriage has YOU rather than you having it. It’s not pleasant, but it can be studied. There are predictable patterns you can identify. Four of them to be precise: distance, conflict, borrowed functioning, and emotional triangles. When you can begin to identify these patterns, you can begin to change them.
4. Deliberate Disruption
Real change occurs in four stages. The four stages of change. It starts with one person disrupting the status quo. It means that something has truly changed within them. Something they can no longer do. Something they can no longer hide. The predictable second stage is that there is a “change back” reaction. The emotional vortex rears up and says “don’t do that…don’t change the status quo.” Stage three involves a choice: does the person who has made the change stick with it? If they do it takes them to stage four which is change. If one person sticks with the changes that they are making, if they do not cave to the pressure, then the entire system starts functioning better.
5. Therapy to help you stick with the changes
This is a complex process. An experienced therapist can help. You can go at your own pace. In fact, an experienced therapist will help you take conversations about this sensitive topic slowly and with dignity and respect.
Learn more about marriage counseling or contact me to get started!
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