In this interview, Heather, a sexologist and intimacy coach, recounts her experience in a sexless marriage with a 26‑year age gap. She defines a sexless marriage as six or fewer sexual encounters per year and explains how the relationship started strong but gradually lost its sexual component. Key events—including her husband’s heart attack and her scheduled tummy‑tuck surgery—triggered shifts in confidence, body image, and insecurity for both partners. Heather’s post‑surgery weight loss and increased gym activity boosted her self‑esteem, while her husband’s health scare and aging concerns fostered jealousy and suspicion of infidelity. Their coping strategies diverged: Heather sought social activities to avoid home loneliness, while her husband grew more possessive. The couple eventually divorced amicably, recognizing fundamental incompatibility regarding sexual and emotional needs. The host interjects with broader gendered observations about men’s experiences of aging, menopause, and societal pressure to suppress sexual desire, linking these themes to the prevalence of pornography and sex work. The conversation highlights how health crises, body image, and gender expectations can erode intimacy and lead to marital breakdown.
You just kind of tap danced around something. You were in a sexless marriage, something that a lot of men watching this and listening to this can relate to. But Heather, you're an attractive sexologist. If this can happen to you, yes, it can happen to anyone. So, um, I don't know how much you want to get into that, or whether you feel comfortable getting that, but what the heck happened?
Yeah, we, you know, I was married to someone much older than I am, and which, you know, you— there was a 26-year age gap there. And literally one of the most amazing men I've ever met in my entire life. And we got along so well on so many levels. Um, even now, like, post-divorce, because it was not an ugly divorce at all, you know, we're just in different places in life, and this is just, you know, where we decided to go. And we do, you know, I think— I'm sure he probably thinks the same thing as far as like, I don't know if we jump too soon on that. You know, you'll— I guess you'll— you won't really know. But we were in a sexless marriage for a couple of years. And, you know, like I said earlier, I kind of define sexless marriages— in my case was about 6 or less times a year. And, you know, we had a great relationship. We didn't fight about finances. We were both, you know, successful. We, you know, didn't— we complemented each other, you know, as a as a team versus, you know, one overpowering the other. And sex just eventually, while it was great in the beginning, it, you know, tapered over time. And we eventually fell into that sexless marriage. I had— well, he actually had his heart attack on Easter weekend 2 years ago, and I had a tummy tuck already scheduled for like 2 months after that. So he was recovered and good to go. I had a tummy tuck, and I think The timing of that was horrible. It just happened to work out that way. Um, he had his heart attack, had already started feeling like— I'm very healthy, not having any sort of, you know, health issues. Like, he takes care of himself, he's active, he has a young wife. So, you know, and I have young children, so he was starting over. You know, my young— my youngest is 10, so you think, you know, he's 59 and he has a 10-year-old and he's been in her life since she one. That's a very long time. So he did, he started over, and so he felt like, hey, we're— I'm healthy, I take care of myself, I'm not gonna have to worry about these crazy things. But then you ring in genetics, and his family has a history of heart disease. So he did have a heart attack. He went in, had a stent put on the main vein, the heart, you know, the heart back in the back, and recovered well. But I think a lot of that was already in his head, like, wow, I am older. I think it was already starting to bother him. I had a tummy tuck scheduled, so we carried on with that plan. I had my tummy tuck, and I think obviously my confidence skyrocketed. You know, I'm— wow, that one piece of skin that, you know, my first husband was extremely awful, you know, would make the comments of, you know, no one will ever love you with those horrible marks on your body. And, you know, though, the skin is disgusting. So it was something that definitely bothered me, even though You know, Jared never did anything to— or said anything like that. Was one of the things he was always very careful about. He loved and appreciated every part of my body regardless of whether I felt it was flawed or not. So had my tummy tuck, my confidence, you know, goes up big time because that was my biggest insecurity. I get more involved in the gym, I start working out, I'm motivated, losing weight. And you know, in the last year I have lost, you know, like I said, like 45 pounds, I think. So drastic weight loss between my efforts and some medical things that had come up. So I think that with that confidence boosting and his confidence kind of being, you know, stunted for a little while, I think that it did cause some insecurities. And definitely you roll into the accusations of, you know, maybe they are— maybe she is cheating on me, you know, maybe she is gonna find someone better than me because I'm old, and I'm using air quotes because I didn't look at him that way. You know, this is— that's my husband. So, you know, I don't— that's the only person I want, you know. So I think a lot of that kind of, you know, got in his head, and definitely those insecurities took over, and it definitely just ended up not being a great thing for us. And I think that the tension, you know, my case, yes, I was staying with friends. I was, you know, hanging out with friends a little bit longer if the girls were at their dad's house and he was here because I wanted to go and do things and not party. I'm not a partier, but we would go and we do things and he kind of just wanted to be home. And if he wants to be home, I'm not going to make him go anywhere. Like, he is his own individual. So, you know, I would go and do things without him because he wanted to be here, which is okay. But of course, doing those things when typically that wasn't something that I would do, but that was kind of my escape from, hey, we're not having sex and I'm not getting this intimacy, so I need to keep myself busy in other places. Was kind of my thought process. And now looking back, no, it probably wasn't the right way to do it, but that's how I was keeping myself from being home and being sad, thinking that my husband didn't want me, you know, because it's not a good feeling. And in his case, he's thinking, oh, she's out doing whatever it is she's doing, and maybe she's being unfaithful, you know. And now having been through all that and on this end of it, I can kind of— I can see where he's coming from 100%. So yeah, it was a bad situation. Just a—
you were just— I mean, you were fundamentally incompatible at one big— at one part. It's so funny listening to your story because I hear this exact word-for-word story from the opposite side of the gender aisle, from men who kind of have this awakening, as we call it in our group, of, you know, I'm 40-some-odd years of age or 50-some-odd years of age. I'm unhealthy. I'm this, I'm that. I just want to get back into shape. And they have a wife that's kind of sitting on the couch saying, At no fault of hers, I'm perimenopausal, or I've gone through the world of menopause. And I know this is different for every woman, so ladies, you know, don't jump on me for saying this, but for a lot of the women, it's, and that means my sex life is over, or at the very least severely diminished. I'm not the spring chicken anymore, and you know, if I do it once a month, that's cool with me. How about you, husband? And the husband's like, No, I don't. And there is a chorus of people, and I'm curious to see what, what you heard from your social group, but there is a chorus of people in a man's life who will look at him and sit him down and say, you better just, uh, basically stop thinking with the thing between your legs, and you need to, you need to cut it out with all this 'I need sex' nonsense, and 'I need intimacy,' and 'I need—' There are bigger— there's a bigger picture here, and that is the marriage, and it's the family and everything else. So set aside your very real physical need for that type of connection and prop up the other side of the relationship. That's just as, if not more important. And the men are shamed. And of course, this is why we have, you know, your pornography and your sex workers and everything else, that they're there for a reason. It fills that void, so to speak. But just curious, did you hear from your own little social group, Heather, what are you doing? You got a good man here. He's, he's everything any one woman could want in a partner.
You know, I kind of— mine, I kind of kept more quiet. I didn't really talk to people. And I think the biggest thing with that too is you think of the shame that a man goes through when they're hearing, oh my gosh, just be okay with once a month or whatever. But intimacy is a big thing in a marriage, and you need that to have that connection with that partner, you know. And in my case, he's an amazing man, but, you know, as far as showing intimacy, the main time that he would show intimacy was during sex. And so that's like, I knew when we had sex, this is— this man loves me. Like, it's not just having sex, he's literally making love to me. And it is out of this— like, it's just a whole other experience. But in between sexual experiences, while yes, he, you know, helps provide, he did all the things that, you know, he, he should have been doing, he He was great. As a woman having the higher libido, you're, I feel like you're ashamed even more because you're not supposed to have the high libido. So when people look at, in my friends group, when I would talk about it, they're like, ugh, I wish that my husband wouldn't want to have sex with me all the time. And you're like, why? You know, and of course being a sex coach, being a sexologist, intimacy coach, that's important. And I know like, hey, I need to keep this relationship as healthy as we can keep it. And intimacy is a big part for me because this is my passion. This is something that I see marriages go from, you know, being, you know, in a rougher stage and then they bring back that intimacy and their love just blossoms and they become so much closer together. I see the beauty in it and I want to have that. So it's an even bigger deal, like not just having a high libido, but also doing this for a living. That's a big— that's my entire life. You know, that's your brand. Yes. So I'm like, how ironic is it that you have a sexologist in a sexless marriage? You know, and while I love this man, it's like, you can— you— I don't— I didn't want to build resentment. And I know over time it probably would have. And so I've, you know, thinking this through and having all this was kind of, you know, that's why I kind of go back and forth on maybe it was a good decision, maybe it wasn't. I'll probably regret it.
