Sexless Marriage for Years… Now She Doesn’t Want to Be Touched

I got an email from a guy that I think a lot of you are going to relate to. If you ever find yourself saying, I'm just staying for the kids, or hey, this is just how marriage is, well then stay tuned because this email is going to hit home. This message is a little long, so bear with me. This comes from Bob. He says, I'm 50 and she is 52. I knew her for about 10 years during college and grad school, and we eventually got married later on. We've been married for 20 years and we have an 18-year-old who's about to graduate high school. Like most relationships, things were great in the beginning, and then we had a child. And that's where the downfall began. There wasn't much sex during the pregnancy, not like I hear others talk about. Or once our child was born, sex was basically nonexistent. And years passed and sex eventually started again, but nowhere near what it used to be. Instead of hot sex, it turned into duty or starfish sex. More like, let's get it over with. I hated that, but I still did it when I could. I honestly thought that was just part of marriage. About 5 years ago, I got caught in an emotional affair. I can't lie, probably a good thing it was caught because if not, it more than likely would have become physical. What I realized through that situation was that while she thought it was about sex, I learned it was really intimacy that I was missing. I've talked to her about this until I was blue in the face and nothing has changed. She holds a grudge against me for not recognizing that she was postpartum after having our child. I can see that now, but honestly, I didn't know it back then. We talked, she said she forgave me for the emotional affair, but deep down I don't think she ever truly did. Still, we became amicable again and continue to raise our child and function as a family. We go on vacations. She doesn't want for anything materially. She just isn't intimate. She is cold. And before you ask, no, I don't think she's cheating. It's just a sad situation. I am afraid to lose her, but I also think she'd be fine either way. If we stay together, that's fine to her. If we don't, she'd be fine too. My neighbor and his wife recently split and she moved out. My wife made a comment the other day, quote, everybody's not meant to stay together. Inside I was like, damn, but I didn't really respond. Honestly, there may be some bipolar tendencies there. That's just my opinion. She hasn't been diagnosed, but she has recently been prescribed mood stabilizers. They have helped in the sense that she's no longer up and down, and I'm not wondering who I'm coming home to. But while she is more stable, she's still not warm. The last 5 years or so, I've really noticed this. Truthfully, I've only stayed because I wanted my child to grow up in a two parent household. I can't be mad at anyone at this point. It was my decision to stay. If I don't hug her or kiss her, it's nothing to her. The other day we had an argument and she told me she doesn't like to be touched and she doesn't like to be hugged and she doesn't want me in her personal space at all. That was a real gut punch. I didn't get mad or react like I might have in the past. After she said that, she sat there almost provoking me, telling me to get mad like she wanted me to blow up. And that's when I realized I may be in a toxic marriage and I honestly don't know if there's any saving it. I have told her several times that I'm not staying in a sexless marriage, but since I have stayed for our child, I think I've trained her to believe that I'm all talk and that I'm not going anywhere. I'm rambling at this point, but I just wanted to see if you think there's any hope. I have read The Dead Bedroom Fix. I work out 5 to 6 times a week. I dress well. I try to take her out and do something every weekend. We go on vacations. I just don't get it. I would love to repair things and stay together, but only if she changes. If not, I don't think I'd ever get married again. Let's say I have 25 good years left on the earth. I'd rather have 5 solid 5-year honeymoon stage relationships than go through this again. As much as I want to keep my marriage, I'm not jumping through hoops or playing games when the effort and sentiment aren't reciprocated. She makes me think I'm asking too much, but I've lowered my expectations so far over the years that I'm wondering if I'm just asking the wrong person. All right, if listening to that email made you feel a little tight in the chest, well, I can relate, and so can thousands of men out there because I talk to them on a daily basis. A lot of men say they are staying for the kids, and that does not come out of weakness necessarily. That comes out of a sense of duty. It comes out of a sense of loyalty. And to a good dude, your duty as a man and your loyalty as a spouse are pretty damn important. But as I've mentioned in a lot of other videos, here is where Bob and others like Bob go wrong. And that is you are being very, very passive. You're not lazy. Necessarily. You're not clueless. You're just very inactive and passive. You tried talking, didn't change anything, did it? You tried just sitting back and being patient. That didn't result in anything positive. You stopped pushing. You stopped having any kind of expectations in the relationship. You stayed and you hoped and you sat back and waited. And yes, Bob, if you're watching this, over time, you have in fact trained your spouse to believe certain things. One is that obviously you're unhappy in this relationship, but you know what? You're safe. You are not going anywhere. Believe it or not, that dynamic of a guy saying, I'll just take what I can get. I have a real feeling of scarcity when it comes to relationships. I'll put up with a lot of nonsense and just stick around and suck it up. That kills any kind of attraction that may have been left in your relationship. It most definitely kills any respect that your spouse has towards you. And as you can see, it obviously kills any kind of intimacy. These are the kind of things that I talk about in my most popular book, The Dead Bedroom Fix, and you can learn more at deadbedroomfix.com for those of you who haven't read it yet. The book isn't necessarily about getting more sex. It's about what happens when a guy loses his sense of boundaries, his sense of self-respect, his sense of autonomy. He removes all pressure and consequences in life. Why? He doesn't want to rock the boat. And when you live in such a meh existence, as I often call it, you get meh results. Now let's pause that train of thought and talk about something that's really important here. The big elephant in the room, your wife's mental health. Mood stabilizers. That caused me to raise an eyebrow. That's not something they just hand out like candy. Her emotional flatness, that lack of intimacy, that lack of warmth that you are describing there. Not good. That provoking behavior on her part. Oof. That's really not good. Her aversion to any kind of touch, mm, that doesn't bode well for a relationship, especially with a quote, normal human, for lack of a better word, that does enjoy touch. So whether she is bipolar, if she's just genuinely depressed, if she has unresolved postpartum issues, if she has a real, as Dr. Psych Mom calls it, an empathic rupture with you based upon your behavior towards her after the baby came into the picture when she was suffering from postpartum depression by her estimation, All that, it's very real. But the big picture issue is that her mental health is most definitely affecting your marriage in a very negative way. And you need to be, as Mr. Husband, supportive. But here's the thing, being supportive does not mean tiptoeing around the issue. It does not mean silently absorbing all of this negativity and awfulness and just crossing your fingers and hope that everything improves. Being supportive means being involved, being proactive, the opposite of passive. This means saying pretty bluntly, this isn't your issue anymore, wife. This is our issue. This is most definitely affecting us and the family, and we need to address it together as a team. Team Bob and Mary. This is something that you, Bob, and others listening need to hammer into your heads. All you codependent Mr. Nice Guy types, and I'm not picking on you right here, dude. I was one of them. Ready? If she is not willing to work towards reconnection and addressing the giant elephant in the room of her mental health and working to come closer together as a team, team Bob and Mary, then you quite frankly have zero hope of turning this relationship around. And I don't mean working towards just stability. I don't mean just coexisting and co-parenting. I don't mean just living as amicable roommates. I mean genuine, real reconnection as a couple. That is not going to be easy, and it's going to take a Herculean effort on her part and yours. And if she ain't up for the task, sorry, buddy, you cannot fix this marriage all by yourself. You cannot negotiate desire out of your very, seems to be asexual wife. You can't outlift and outdress up and out alpha male somebody who has a real mental hangups, somebody who has emotionally withdrawn and refuses to come to your side of the fence. And when somebody removes any form of intimacy from the relationship, no touching, no verbal anything, when they've just put a wall between the two of you and and then they provoke you to see how you respond, that's not just intimacy struggling, dude. That is a relationship that has gone into something very, very unhealthy. Which is precisely why that moment hits so hard for you, because you finally see it clearly. Holy shit, our marriage is broken. Yeah, dude, it is. In a big way. Is there hope here? Technically, yes, there is. But here's the thing. Hope doesn't come from passivity and quiet and not rocking the boat. Ironically, hope comes from really difficult conversations. Hope comes from you, dude, being able to walk away from this shitshow. That hope comes from a real sense of clarity, which is something you do not have. You're like in this weird limbo state. That's what I hear from like every dude. He's got one foot out of the relationship, but he's got one foot in. His wife, as far as he can tell, has both feet out, yet she stays in the relationship and she refuses to talk about working on the relationship. And when they talk about divorce, oh shit, all hell breaks loose. It's time to have difficult, calm conversations. No begging, pleading, and crying and all that stuff. No threats. It means just stating clearly what it is that you as a husband, as a loving, devoted, loyal husband— and by the way, cut it out with all the bears and emotional whatever horseshit— you need to say, this is what I want, this is what I need out of a relationship, and this is what I expect out of you, and this is what I am no longer willing to accept. That is what most men that I talk to are not willing to do. You know why? Because they know deep down what their wife's answer to all of that is going to be. Big middle finger. Because a lot of your wives out there just do not give a shit. And you know what? Maybe for very good reason. You may be a real dipshit in this relationship. May have always been. You may be kind of downplaying your role in this. I hear that a lot. It's interesting that on rare occasions I will actually get to speak to the spouse, the lady in the couple. And invariably the lady will say, "Did Bob happen to tell you about this?" Insert some really dramatic, horrible thing. And I'll say, "Oh no, he sure didn't." And boy, that changes the picture a great deal. Bob, to your credit, You brought up the emotional affair thing. That's a pretty huge thing. That's not helping your situation at all. But that is not the reason you're in the situation that you're in. That was a symptom of the situation. Let's be honest. Again, taking everything you have to say at face value and that there's not something else going on here. So again, if you don't have that really difficult moment where you sit down and have the adult-to-adult talk and just say, let's just cut the horseshit. This is what's going on. We both know. Here's where I stand. What do you say, wife? Are you on team Bob and Mary or not? That's going to be really tough. It's going to result in some drama. It's going to result in a whole bunch of things. Blowing up, and it may result in the end of your relationship. And you, my friend, whatever stage of this you are in, you're going to need support through all of this. You don't need cheerleaders. You don't need guys pushing you towards divorce or guys telling you not to leave no matter what. You need other men who have been there and done that. Guys that understand the dynamics at play here. Guys who will call you out when you start invariably slipping back into the old passivity, Bob, which is precisely why we have our private support community for men only that we call the Brotherhood. And you can learn more at help4men.com/brotherhood. Help4men.com/join. Private discussion forums, private meetings, over 1,500 hours of audio coaching courses. We get together in person for conferences and meetups. Check it out, the brotherhood. help4men.com/join. Trying to navigate this whole thing alone keeps you stuck exactly where you're at right now, in a weird state of limbo, feeling helpless, second-guessing everything, playing the part of a victim. Holy shit, do I hear that all the time. Everybody wants to be a victim these days. Nobody wants to face the truth, which is you have ultimate responsibility for all this. No, I don't mean you're to blame for exactly what's happening in the relationship, but you're to blame for sticking around with this and not doing the tough work of getting to the bottom of this and making a decision once and for all. Because again, ironically, it's not until you get to that point, it's not until then that things actually get done. One way or another, you need some action here. And being inactive and passive ain't gonna cut it. You are not asking for too much, dude. That's what every guy thinks. Am I just being an asshole? Is this just totally unrealistic of me to expect? No, dude. Dude, it's not at all. You're worth way more than this. You've just been accepting it for way too long. And no, you're not out of time. You're not too old. But the time of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, that time is up. All right, guys, thank you so very much for watching. I do appreciate it. If you could give me a like, give me a subscribe, or however it works wherever you're watching this or listening to this on the podcast, I would appreciate it. Thank you so very much, and we will catch you on the next one.