I am in a sexless marriage...

Q. I am in my late 40s, and my wife and I have been married for nearly 15 years, and we have three children together. We once couldn't keep our hands off each other, but now we only have sex maybe once or twice a year...if I'm lucky. We have had numerous arguments about this, and she always throws it in my face that I am working all the time and there isn't enough quality time for us. But I am doing my best to provide for our family, and often I am away for work, so I don't know what she expects me to do about that.

I have tried to talk to her about it recently and she tells me that she just doesn't ever feel like having sex. She says she is still attracted to me but I'm finding this hard to believe otherwise she would want to have sex. She has been to the doctor to discuss her libido; they ran some tests etc and said she was healthy. She is younger than me, still in her 30s, and 'apparently' hormonally she is fine.

The last time we had sex was on my birthday after I initiated it, but it was shit because I could tell that she wasn't enjoying it. I completely understand that I have no right to demand or expect sex, but this wasn't the marriage I signed up for.

How long should I wait before calling it a day?

You are concluding, without saying it, that you can only be in a marriage that includes sex, and that is totally understandable. It's a human need that most of us have. Like you say, a relationship without sex is not something that you wanted, signed up for, or indeed had in the early years.

But things change. Lives change. People change. And relationships change.

You've provided a cognitive surmising of an emotional problem that hides your underlying feelings of expectation and resentment. So, you can give me a very well-thought-out constructed argument based on social norms and intellectual reasoning, but at the end of the day, if you've signed up to have a reasonably sexually active marriage and now your wife isn't feeling it - deep down you're going to be confused, definitely frustrated, and perhaps a bit pissed. It may not be morally 'right' to feel resentful, but yet I imagine that you still would feel resentful as hell.

I guess you summed it up neatly when you wondered, How long should I wait? But the more you try and push those feelings away, the harder things will become because those feelings will scream out to be heard.

Even though we know we're not living in archaic times, where women are still regarded as sexual property, unfortunately, as a woman, I hate to break it to you but...we still feel like that sometimes. And when I say sometimes, I mean a lot of the fucking time. There is still a feeling that sex becomes something objectified, and thus we feel sexually objectified.

During most marriages or any monogamous relationships, the unspoken expectation of sex rests on the belief of when rather than if. Essentially, there is an assumption of its permanent residency sitting at your table waiting to be fed, whether you've gone to the effort of carefully laying the table and thoughtfully preparing the meal, or not.

When sex is no longer even invited around for a spontaneous dinner, one person longingly misses their long-lost pal, and wonders if they'll ever meet again. They start to consider whether they can live without them. It has become black and white and the fear that your old friend will never come around again seeps out into everyday life and spills all over your relationship.

Your wife has every right to remove sex from the table for however long she wants, as do you. Sex should be something that sits at the table as a guest when invited by both people.

If sex has become a when rather than an if, how does that marry up with your conscious understanding that you have no right to expect it? We all know that any sexual contact must be consensual and that in a marriage or any relationship, there is no obligation to have sex. Let's not forget a very important part of our cultural, social and historical story where this is concerned: that law, which claimed that sex was the duty of a wife, was changed in 1994.

Yep, you read that right. 1994.

Now, we've gone a little deep and a little dark and I want to make it clear that I do not think that you are some sex-demanding monster of the Victorian era. The fact that you are trying to make sense of this and how you can fix it, I assume, is because you love her and want to be close to her, and also really miss having a physically intimate relationship with her.

Although, I notice that you haven't actually said any of those things and this makes me wonder how this is being implicitly communicated to your wife.

So the question remains - why doesn't she want to have sex, can you do anything about it, and how long should you wait?

Is it because she wants to put her comfies on, get the kids to bed and chill out on the sofa with a glass of wine because she's exhausted? Does sex feel like another thing to tick off her to-do list? Is she resentful about something from the past or present? Are you?

When you had sex on your birthday, and it was 'shit' because she didn't enjoy it, it did not give me any concern that something nefarious had occurred. That must have been very difficult for both of you. I don't know exactly how she would have felt. But I do know how I felt in those moments of my life when I had sex with a partner because I wanted it to be better between us, I wanted there not to be a problem, and I wanted to meet his expectations.

I was also really aware that my body and mind did not want to go to the party. I distinctly remember how fucking 'shit' that feels.

Here's the thing - most women withdraw physically because there is something wrong emotionally.

Women can't turn the sex thing on and off in my experience - we get turned on (ever so slightly) when the bins get taken out, when we get a cheeky slap on the bum while we're cooking, when our partner pours us a glass of wine after we've been trying to get three screaming kids to bed, when he strokes our hair on the sofa after dinner and wraps us up in a blanket whilst he does the dishes, when he texts us at lunchtime to ask how our day is going, when he's interested in something we're interested in, and when we play.

We get turned on bit by bit in little amounts through the acts of love, care and playfulness that happen every day - not just in the lead-up to sex.

Is your marriage lacking in emotional intimacy - the ultimate foreplay for women?

You might wonder, why should I up the ante when I'm getting nothing back? What you would really be saying is that you are finding it hard to empathise with your wife. You are struggling to put yourself in her shoes. If you feel resentful about doing those things for the her, then you have two choices - don't do them and don't expect anything to change, or do them and expect at least something to change.

After all, the only people we can change is ourselves.

If you want to move away from where you are, then you, at least, are going to have to do something differently. Whether she chooses to follow you to that place is down to her. Then you are in a position to make a more well-rounded decision about how long you should wait.

It's not to say that if you start introducing emotional quality and attention to your marriage everything is going to be hunky-dory, and all will be fixed as you both ride off into the sunset (pun intended). What it means is that you are both able to feel seen, heard and cared for by the other person, which makes potentially difficult communication more possible. Better communication and more acts of nurturing lead to a better connection between the two of you and, ultimately, all of this combined leads to at least being open to the idea of sex sitting at your table again.

I would suggest seeing a couple's therapist as the most obvious first point of resolution. My second thought would be to have an explicit agreement between the two of you that you will not have sex for an agreed amount of time. I know what you're going to say - but we don't have sex anyway! No, you don't. BUT...if she really does feel like it's something that she has to cross off her to-do list, then every touch and look that you give her will probably leave her wondering what your intentions are in these acts - that they are not acts of love and care but a means to an end, for you.

If you are explicitly agreeing together that you will not have sex then this leaves the playing field open for you both to enjoy emotional and physical intimacy without feeling pressured that it must lead to more.

Only you know how long you can continue in this situation and both of your feelings and perspectives are valid. But not really hearing each other, and pretending that you're not hurt and feeling rejected, isn't going to help anyone, least of all you.