So it turns out I'm part of the 20% of marriages that are sexless. Yup that's me over here, and I'm not proud of it either. My husband and I have struggled for the past 5 months trying to figure out our intimate life, and last night we finally reached that point where he clearly spelled out for me that he simply isn't interested in sex.
Now as a background for you, we have been together for 7 going on 8 years and just got married about 6 months ago. Dylan has made his affection and commitment quite clear to me over the years, and I know that he doesn't want anyone else. He lets me know how attractive he finds me, always telling me how beautiful and sexy I am. So, I know there isn't a problem where you might think there's one. He's not cheating or anything, he just doesn't like sex.
Which has a lot of implications for me. Self-perceptions got clouded with a lot of doubts. Was I bad at sex? Was I not good enough for him? What was wrong with me for him to not want me? omg he doesn't want me. My perception of his affection for me diminished and I frequently felt neglected. I didn't feel loved or wanted all because I couldn't understand why he didn't want me in bed.
According to mass media, men are sex animals and that's all they want. It was a "fact" that led me to an eating disorder freshman year. Life is all about sex and so you need to conform to what is sexy or be alone. So, when men don't want sex it must be the other person, because men want sex all the time. So, something is wrong with me right? Yet here I am, in a loving and committed relationship without sex. What?
It didn't make any sense, and I ended up reaching out to a very close relative of mine. The answer I got from her? A sexless marriage isn't really a marriage- those weren't her exact words but it was what I got from her when she let me know that a sexless marriage is a good reason to get a divorce. And man that hit me hard. I got way upset, because I love my husband and I will never ever ever leave him.
So I went to google to find out if anyone else had this problem. That's how I found out 20% of marriages are sexless (at this blog, xoJane) I was relieved but also still upset. I've only been having intimacy problems for 5 months. These women only have sex at most 10 times a year, and they described how their marriage started off with lots of great sex that they no longer have. That is not something I look forward to.
But they also described how they made their marriage work, not by forcing sex, but by focusing on other relationship building aspects. This is what I needed, I needed to know that my attempts at making a sexless marriage work will not be in vain. Of course we still have a lot of problems and feelings to work through- how is my husband going to make me feel wanted and loved without sex? how we can experience deep intimacy without sex? How is this going to affect our family plans?- but these are things we can work on, whereas before we were trying to force something that just wasn't realistic.
With our new understanding of our challenges we are working with, and accepting those challenges we can find new ways to be a loving, affectionate, functional couple.
