How To Live In A Relationship Without Sex

In a relationship

I am a married man, and I am writing this secretly for the reader who finds the topic interesting.

I am living in a relationship with little sex, but we have what I most of the time think of as a pretty good relationship

My wife and I have been together for more than 30 years. When we met, we were very much in love, and we had a great sex life for many years. We had children and we were very fond of each other for the first few years.

But now, after all these years, our sex life has been greatly reduced and in recent years it has been possible for months to pass between each time we are together sexually. The past year has gotten a little better, but it is still a problem for me that we have very little sex and not physical closeness and contact. Being together sexually only about once a month or less is far too little for me.

I have talked to her about it and have let her know that I feel it is very important to me to have close physical proximity as well as emotional closeness and contact. We manage to talk about it, but she keeps me at a distance also when I ask only for emotional closeness and contact.

I wish we could have sex together at least once a week. But she rejects it in the most specific way. She says she can't do better than what she does now, that is, once a month. And she doesn't want me to touch her and put her hands on her shoulder or that I take her around and give her a hug.

There is something strange here because she shows me that she does not want any kind of physical closeness. The real reason she still wants to stay married with me  -  as I see it  -  is my income, the pension I get, which is pretty good because I had a good job and worked for many years. And then she wants me to wash and clean the house three days a week while she is at work.

Stopped drinking beer

She also has told me she does not want me to drink alcohol when we're together. Previously I had the habit of drinking some beer on Friday and Saturday evenings, and I can see now that this was a bad habit.

It has been easy for me to stop drinking on Fridays and Saturdays. Stopping drinking wasn't a problem for me, because I feel much more at ease and I increase my creativity and my productivity as a writer when not drinking those beers.

My wife says she wanted me to stop drinking beer when I am with her because she finds that I change personality and say stupid things in some way. I've never beaten her or my family or other people. What happens when I drink alcohol is that I become affectionate, uncritical, talkative and happy. I understand that she can find it a little annoying.

What I have found out is that it makes sense to drink less because I am so old that my body does not tolerate alcohol so well anymore. For this reason I generally refrain from drinking alcohol. Reducing alcohol use is healthy for me and it means that I can be active and creative in better ways than I was when I had the habit of drinking alcohol every Friday and Saturday. So I met her on this issue by not drinking alcohol and it has led to us having a better relationship, but still not getting as well as I wish it to be.

Over 3 decades together

I have lived for more than 30 years in the relationship with my wife. Our sexual life was good for the first 10–15 years. What we had together then was regular and gave both of us a lot. But now our sex life over the last 5–10 years has been reduced to almost nothing.

I feel a great lack when I think about this and there is a big void inside me. It is as if I do not live whole and full, so now something is missing in my life and I am dissatisfied that it is so.

What should we do? The woman I am married to is a good and nice person and she does very much for the family and for us to have a nice house and a good time with the family. But she does little for our relationship and for us to have a good and close relationship. She says she can't or won't have sex more than once a month. I say I need to have sex at least once a week, and there we are. We have been standing there for a long time now because we have talked about this many times and I am constantly criticized because I mumble about sex. She gets angry and annoyed, and I'm sorry.

What to do

I'm not sure what to do.

I want proximity to the person I live with and love, and I want to have sex. I see it this way because I feel that sex and closeness are necessary for me in the relationship and in my life. It helps little to this need that she is a person who provides and gives very much in our family (apart from the sex and closeness I ask for).

No doubt that she is a responsible person and a good organizer who takes a lot of responsibility in the home and when it comes to the kids, who are now grown and have moved out. But this does not help much when I do not cover some of my basic needs.

I know that after more than 30 years of marriage, I have a lot to take care of, and in fact, I prefer not to leave her.

But now I have been feeling this for so long, and I feel that I get both frustrated and uncomfortable because I do not get the closeness I need with her physically and mentally, nor do I get sex as I need to.

This means that I'm starting to get a little indifferent to the question of taking care of our relationship or not.

She has told me that I can find another woman to have sex with, because she cannot or don't want more than what is now, which means about five to ten times a year.

I have a great longing inside me.

I long for the time when we had closeness and sex more often and things were good between us.

I wonder if it really must be so that one should have little sex and physical closeness in old age.

Is it a hallmark of old age that we must be without this important dimension of human life?