Why would sex just stop in a relationship?

He has a physical problem you don’t know about or he is cheating. If he wont’ talk about it that is reason to leave, not the lack of sex.

There are serious issues in this relationship. You need to either talk to each other or get some counselling. Without some clarity and honesty, this can end only badly.

If you want to remain in a relationship with him, it sounds as if you two need conselling. Since you say he has no physical problem, I assume you know this for sure? I dated a guy at age 25 that was not interested in sex and found out his blood pressure medicine affected his libido. Sex is everything, when you aren’t getting it.

Other than the sex issue our relationship is pretty much perfect. Unfortunately that is the granddaddy of all issues and unless it can be solved the relationship is probably doomed. I know that sounds awful and rather cynical but I think it is reality. When one partner is interested in sex and the other isn’t, it has a horrible impact on the partner who wants sex. It impacts everything from your self-esteem to your confidence in the relationship to your trust for the man himself. Ask if he is willing to have a physical to rule out any kind of condition that might impact his sex drive, once that has been done try to find a good counselor to help get to the bottom of this.

The problem is that I know he’s physically capable of performing he just chooses not to. I’ve gained about 20 pounds because of this. I keep going back to the idea that I’m not attractive to him anymore but he absolutely insists that I am. It’s to the point where if I keep bringing it up I’m going to sound like a sex crazed lunatic. I’m really not. I recently went to another state for six weeks for some job training. He came to visit one weekend halfway through the training. I thought for sure he’d be ready to jump my bones having not seen each other in so long. Nope. Nothing.

I would also suggest counseling. My wife and I have also have trouble with sex in our relationship that did not surface until several years into our marriage (we’re coming up on 7 years now).

We are in couples therapy currently and the frequency and quality of sex we are having has improved since we started… and most of what we “worked on” in therapy is not directly sexual.

Get him to do it… if he feels like there aren’t any problems then he shouldn’t have any problem going to counseling with you.

Don’t kid yourself, sex can be a huge deal, and most likely there are bigger issues involving communication and trust.

@wmspotts what you say about your not feeling attractive to him shows that this situation has already impacted your self-esteem and sense of worth. Let me assure you – as a woman who has been there – this is his problem, not yours. The fact is that unless and until he is willing to discuss this there will be no resolution. Unless you are willing to accept the fact that you will be sex starved in a relationship with this man and will continue to blame yourself for it, you are going to have to solve this problem.

Then if you can’t get him to talk about it to you, or to go to counseling with you, this is the time you have to choose what you want out of your relationship. I personally would not proceed in a relationship with someone who will not have a sexual relationship with me.

Is he pissed at you? That will do it every time ;)

Do you think a guy is going to tell you, “Yes dear, you are too fat to fuck now?” Of course not! Most guys won’t even admit to themselves that that is the issue. I’m not saying this is the issue between you, but if it is, he may well not tell you.

He could feel guilty as hell for being as shallow as that, but it’s not something he can overcome simply by motivating himself through guilt. Of course, once you stop telling the truth to your lover, it’s all downhill from there. You are hiding a part of yourself, and then you feel guilty about that and then each time you are with your lover you can only think about the problems and…. yuck!

That’s why everyone is telling you to seek counseling. You have to get the real issues out on the table. He’s hiding from you, and you are probably an accomplice by being afraid to tell him everything that you think. Maybe you think he’ll leave you or something. Better you should be together with no sex than apart with no sex and all that other pain.

That’s what happened to me. After our second child was born, she stopped having sex with me. I felt less and less like a person. Eventually, I began to feel that if I asked her for sex, she’d divorce me on the spot. I decided that I would try to find sex elsewhere, just so I could stay in my marriage without bothering her.

Eventually I went really crazy with the sexual behavior, and finally confessed to her, and that’s what got us into counseling. Amazingly, she didn’t want to lose me. She actually loved me. Who knew? It’s been three years now, and we’re still in counseling, but things are a lot better. I actually asked her for sex last night! I asked her! And she didn’t say no! I don’t know if you can understand what a radical change that is for both of us. I can’t even remember the last time I asked. It’s been up to her for a decade, because I got tired tired tired of being told no.

Don’t go there! Please don’t do that to yourself. Head it off before it can ever get that bad. You do not want to go through anything like I went through. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.

So please find a way to talk to him. To be open. It can take a lot of guts to do that, but I assure you that it will be better than suffering for years, even if he tells you to get lost. God forbid you should bring a child into a relationship with this kind of tension between the parents.

Why are you so sure he isn’t cheating?

Some possible things that haven’t been mentioned yet:
1. Recently he learned he has an STD that he doesn’t want to “share with you
2. Constipation (does a lot of weird things to your body, including shut down libido!)
3. He’s exhausted from work/school therefore doesn’t have the libido

He is gay.

He’s lying.

I just re-read your whole question. has the question of marriage come up? even if it hasn’t, he may be freaking out about marriage, at 25 he may be far away from it. Not having sex is a pretty good way of driving you away.

but like everyone says, you won’t know for sure until you guys get into counseling and talk about it.

The supposition that he should be a wild animal because he’s 25 is yours. His sex drive and yours don’t match. If you’re looking for wild animal sex, this is probably not the guy for you.

I hate to sound shallow but 20 lbs is a lot of weight to gain in such short period of time and may be driving his lack of desire. To me that sounds like you have changed one way or another besides clothes size and IMO I would start there. What caused you to gain all this weight? I’m sure he has noticed this and at his age he may not be ready to bring up sensitive issues like this. Something is up in your relationship and I would start with examining your weight issue first.

I would say that there’s something he’s not telling you. It could be some issue he’s having within himself, it could be an issue he feels toward you and/or your relationship… it’s difficult to speculate because really could be a lot of different things.

I was your boyfriend, in my last relationship. I have trouble sorting out my feelings and talking about them, to begin with, but my ex was very sensitive, volatile, and defensive, which made it about a hundred times more difficult for me to talk to her. In the beginning, things were good, don’t get me wrong, and originally I felt I could tell her anything… but as things got worse, I found myself not able to talk about things the way you should be able to in a healthy adult relationship.

She had a high sex drive and normally, I do, too.. However, because of my feeling distanced from her emotionally, my feeling displeased with her childish emotional volatility and selfishness, I became less attracted to her. Because of this, amongst other issues, I also found myself wanting to have sex less and less, even finding/making excuses to avoid it. I simply couldn’t have the kind of constructive conversation that needed to happen, like, ‘Hey.. when you blow up, it scares me, and I can’t get into the mood when feeling like that.’

So, it got to be a bigger and bigger issue, amongst our other issues. I tried really hard to make it work because we lived together and I had no money, nor any place to go. Several months of that was pure torture for me and I dreamed about getting out and being free.

I suggest addressing this situation head-on because I don’t think you have anything to lose and everything to gain. It sounds to me like something’s going on and if it stays like this, I can’t see how the relationship is going to work out long-term. I agree that you should attempt counseling, or some other way to have a direct, adult conversation about where things stand, how you feel, etc.

The fact that he won’t tell you what’s going on suggests that there is clearly something going on that you are unaware of.

The most likely culprit is that he is cheating on you (of course you wouldn’t know—that’s why it’s called cheating!). The second most likely reason is that he does have some type of impotence or other male problem that he is too embarrassed to tell you about and/or he’s too afraid to go to a doctor to deal with it (that’s why you wouldn’t know that he has a medical problem). The third most likely cause is that you have changed in appearance in some way and he is no longer physically attracted to you (although he may, indeed, love you).

The only way you can find out for sure is to sit him down, when he is in a calm mood and point out that you’ve noticed that you haven’t had sex since (and give the date) and say that you used to have sex much more frequently then ask him if it’s any of the three reasons I listed above or is it something else. If he says it’s nothing, then tell him that you can’t stay in a relationship with someone who is not being honest and forthright with you. And then make plans to either seek some counseling (together or separately) or make your plan to end this relationship. Until he gives you an answer an/or a solution, this will just get worse.

@Kardamom Are you trying to help or ruin the relationship?

@wmspotts Do not, under any circumstances, mention the date you last had sex. My wife does that (to tell me we’ve had it recently) and it makes me so mad. The date is not the point. It’s the feeling that is the point. Telling him you feel like you aren’t having sex enough for you, no matter when the last time was is the real deal. That’s sharing your feelings. You talk about dates and you’ll get sidetracked into irrelevant issues.

Similarly, asking him if the reason he isn’t fucking you is one of these three is the wrong way to go. If you have to mention infidelity, then tell him you are afraid that he might be having an affair. Leave it open for him to formulate a response openly, not defensively. You’re more likely to get the truth that way.

Telling him he’s not honest and forthright is also antagonistic. It makes you judge, jury and executioner. You can’t know for sure he’s hiding something. There could be other reasons you haven’t thought of to explain his actions. He may not even know why he is behaving this way. If you tell him his choices, he’s not going to want to do anything other than to attack you for doing that.

A counselor can help you find a safe way to discuss things. I think that if you follow @Kardamom‘s suggestions, you’re pretty much guaranteeing the end of the relationship. It’s like you’re trying to corner him. It’s antagonistic. It does not speak of a desire to be sympathetic to your partner. He’ll pick up on that right away and wonder why he should bother.

@wmspotts In response to @wundayatta ‘s comments, of course I am trying to help you. I am going by the experience of my best friend, who had a very similar situation to yours. If you follow @wundayatta‘s advice and sit there and do nothing and don’t ask any questions or don’t seek the advice of a professional counselor, your situation will just get worse. It’s too bad that @wundayatta gets angry when his SO talks to him honestly. I’ve noticed that in most of his posts there is a lot of angst and uncertainty and depression going on. Sorry for that.

But in my experience, talking out the problem and then seeking help with a professional is the best way for the couple to move forward (or break up if necessary). My best friend, after wallowing in misery and ignorance for awhile, finally told her SO that she needed some answers and asked him a lot of questions. And yes, he was mad as a hornet at first. But when she finally got some answers (turns out that he was cheating on her) she told him that she thought that they should get couples counseling. He refused at first, but then she said that if he was un-willing to help her solve their issues then she would go to counseling by herself and then if he still wouldn’t come, then she would have to start making plans to move on with her life without him. And that is exactly what she did. She went to a counselor by herself, then her SO finally saw the light. He absolutely loved her and didn’t want her to leave. He said that he had cheated because a woman (a mutual acquaintence of all of ours) came along and told him (in secret, when my friend was at work) that my friend didn’t love him anymore and that she had said terrible things about him behind his back. None of this was true at all, but this acquaintence had a crush on him and had done this to several other couples before (we found out later). So my friend’s SO finally agreed to go to couples counseling (and he confronted the acquaintence with the truth and she just moved on). They went to about 6 sessions and they both learned new ways of communication and how to increase trust. Their relationship is much stronger now, in spite of the cheating.

But if you don’t ask questions and don’t go to some kind of counseling (if the questions are not answered) and if you don’t find out why your SO has intimacy problems, or problems with talking honestly with you, or why he simply clams up, then your problems will only get worse and you may never find out why. Of course you run the risk of losing your SO, but why would you want to stay in a relationship with someone who won’t talk to you or even tell you why? I wish you the best of luck.

@wmspotts I think talking is a good idea. What I don’t think is a good idea is putting your husband on the defensive. If you mention the exact date that you last had sex, you can forget it. There will be no communication. That’s the kind of thing that is sticking a knife in and twisting it.

If you want a relationship to survive, you don’t do that. Instead, you try to be open and you try to listen without getting defensive and you seriously try to understand his situation. You don’t beat him on the head with how bad he is and how he isn’t meeting his conjugal obligations and look how long it has been.

Some people do this: they store up every little piece of information, and burn it into memory, and then trot it out when the couple is trying to communicate. It’s like a shotgun blast. It blows away any idea the other person had of trying to share their story. Maybe, just maybe, if you have a good counselor, they’ll tell the memory partner to shut up and listen instead of always asking questions designed to show the other person how wrong they are.

If you’re going to find out anything from your husband, you have to truly want to know. It can’t be just an opportunity to bash him. In my experience (and I’ve had a lot of training in communications skills over the years), attacking questions will be counter-productive. But that’s something a counselor can help you avoid.

@Kardamom First of all, I am calling you on two underhanded rhetorical techniques. The first is rephrasing my arguments in a completely twisted way. I did not say anything that you paraphrased me as saying. You’ll note, if you read me carefully, that I urge counseling and discussion (just not putting her husband on the defensive—a great way to kill discussion).

Second, you use an ad hominem attack. You should be attacking my arguments, not my person or my relationship. It’s double wrong to attack a person who isn’t even here. My impression had been that you were a fair person, so this surprises me.

@wundayatta Sorry if you’ve taken offence by anything that I’ve said. I’m only going by what you have said in this thread and referring to other things that you have posted in your other threads. I can only interpret what I am reading. I can’t interpret things the way you want.

I still think that being direct is the best method. If her husband objects to direct communication, then she has none.

We met in a hotel lobby and from day 1 the sex was amazing. It was a big part of what attracted me to him to begin with.
That right there is the all telling line to me. You met in a lobby, so all of the attraction was physical, what you could see and little more. It appears you started boinking almost immediately, no time to talk about who you each were, where you were going personally of professionally, no hopes or dreams; it was all about meeting up, boinking, then whatever after that. With the desert coming before the meal ended, what do you do with the broccoli? If all of the other parts are great it would be enough to withstand the sex drought. Anything done so much so often starts to be boring, less than special. Then there is the idea ”oh, we have to have sex, but I am tired”, it becomes a chore. You say the relationship is great how many events or activities do you do knowing it will not lead back to the bedroom later and be happy just to have his company without any physical cravings satisfied? Maybe he is feeling less than appreciated as a person apart from the sex and that is affecting his desire. Try letting it go, and easing back into it than blowing up. Try just cuddling and smooching and let his own loins fire him up.