Sexless marriage in perimenopause: what's actually happening
It was a Tuesday and we were in bed, both of us awake and both of us acting as though we were asleep since that seemed easier than having to say anything.
It was months, though I hadn't known the exact figure until I counted them out, just as one might count things they've been deliberately putting off. After I had worked out the number, I couldn't get it out of my head, not because it surprised me, but because of what I thought it signified.
I used to think that this was exactly what a sexless marriage amounted to, and the way I thought about it seemed less like an observation and more like a judgment.
No one ever plans this. There's no occasion when two people sit down and decide that intimacy has ended. It simply ceases to be mentioned. One weary night turns into two, and two nights become a routine which neither of you refers to, since naming it makes it real and because it feels as if you're admitting that something has failed.
It hadn't failed.
It had just become quiet.
It doesn't happen in one conversation
A marriage without sex doesn't usually begin with one particular incident; rather, it begins with a hundred little things that each one seemed reasonable at the time. You were tired and sex had started to seem uncomfortable so you didn't want to explain it, mostly since you didn't fully understand the reason yourself.
One night he reached out to you and you jumped without intending to, and neither of you mentioned the jump. You decided that you would raise the matter when you had more energy, more privacy, and more clarity about what was actually going on in your body.
That day kept moving.
The silence wasn't something that you had decided on; it was simply the state that occurred when no one interrupted it.
The word does more damage than the truth
When you type "sexless marriage" into Google at midnight the results are serious. You get divorce statistics, warnings concerning resentment growing in the dark, and articles that treat your relationship as if it has already lost something that cannot be recovered.
The expression has more significance than is normally the case. It sounds final and as if it describes a marriage in difficulty, a partner who is no longer wanted, or a love that is gradually losing its way.
For the majority of women going through perimenopause, none of those things is actually taking place.
What actually counts as a sexless marriage?
There isn't an official definition, but the one you'll see most often is having sex fewer than ten times a year. By that measure, far more marriages count than anyone admits at a dinner party.
I don't find the number very useful, though. Some couples are content with much less, and some feel the absence after a few quiet weeks. What matters more is whether the quiet is something you've both chosen, or something that settled on you without either of you saying a word. In perimenopause, it's almost always the second.
If that's where you are, it isn't unusual. Jean Hailes has written about how menopause affects desire and intimacy, and it's more common than most of us were ever told.
What's actually changing
Rather than vanish during perimenopause, desire changes form; it ceases to be spontaneous and begins to require certain conditions such as safety, rest, time, and a body that is not in pain or ready for something to happen. If your hormones are fluctuating and no one has ever told you so, then avoidance isn't a sign of a weak character or proof that you no longer care; it's your body reacting to actual physical changes in a quiet way without first asking for permission.
I have previously discussed the distinction between responsive and spontaneous desire, and the reason why sensation can appear to have disappeared rather than having vanished altogether.
This is the same thread; the desire hasn't disappeared, it's merely waiting for different conditions from those it once required.
Sexless marriage and separate bedrooms
Somewhere in perimenopause, a lot of couples quietly move into separate rooms. Night sweats, waking at 3am, a partner who sleeps through all of it. Sleep becomes precious, and the spare room starts to look like survival rather than distance.
It can feel like the final line. It doesn't have to be. Separate beds protect sleep, and sleep is one of the conditions desire now depends on. What matters is whether you keep a way back to each other: ten minutes in the same bed before one of you leaves, a morning coffee together, touch that isn't a question.
The room isn't the problem. The silence about why you moved is. I've written more about why perimenopause wrecks your sleep and what it costs everything else.
This is not a verdict on your marriage
One of my friends experienced surgical menopause in her thirties, which is many years before the average woman reaches it naturally. For a long time she refused hormone treatment since a certain part of her had come to the conclusion that needing help implied that there was something wrong with her.
Eventually she explained to me that the silence in her marriage wasn't due to her husband caring for her any less, nor was it because of her body being damaged; it was the result of two people who loved each other not having the right language to express what was actually taking place.
A season that lacks sex is not equivalent to a failing marriage.
The period during which your body is urging you to notice rather than to carry on doesn't mean that your desire has vanished forever. It doesn't imply that he has given up wanting you or that you have become someone no longer worth wanting. Usually, this situation indicates that two people who love each other have become quiet together, each one waiting for the other to start speaking first.
When to talk to someone
Sometimes the first conversation needs a third person in the room, and that isn't a failure either.
If the distance feels bigger than the two of you can hold, Relationships Australia offers couples counselling in every state and territory, and you can call 1300 364 277 to find a service near you. If it's more about sex itself, desire, pain, or not knowing how to start again, a sexologist is trained for exactly that conversation. The Society of Australian Sexologists has a directory of practitioners.
And if part of the quiet is physical, like dryness, discomfort or a body that doesn't feel like yours, start with a menopause-aware GP. HRT, local oestrogen and the right lubricant can change more than you'd expect.
If he's wondering what's going on too, I wrote a page just for him.
Naming it is the way back in
The silence dissolves in the same way that it was formed. It does so quietly, one straightforward sentence at a time. It's not a lengthy conversation, not an apology spree, not a plan laid out in steps. Simply a true statement spoken aloud: I miss this. I don't know how to start again. I've been frightened to mention it too.
It's not necessary for you to attend to it tonight.
I never anticipated that merely saying the number aloud would bring such a sense of relief instead of having to carry it around. It wasn't possible for one conversation to solve all the problems, but it did mean that the thing was no longer a secret and secrets are always heavier than the truth beneath them.
Your marriage isn't finished just because things have been quiet for a bit.
It's all just waiting for a person to make the first move.
If at the moment you're experiencing that silence and you don't know how to begin the conversation, I've also addressed that matter gently and without pressure should you ever feel ready for it: It's not you: how to talk to your partner about desire in perimenopause.
Martina Baroncelli
Founder of Arousi. Writing from her own experience of perimenopause.