Sexless relationship – real story

Georgia has been married to Jason for 12 years. They have three children they both care about deeply, but have a sexless relationship together and no shared intimacy.

“We went to see a counsellor who said we should just make a decision and stick to it”

Georgia is married with three children. Her first child was the result of an accidental pregnancy and the father, now husband, stuck by her though she says he didn’t really want to. They have had a lot of problems in their relationship, most stemming from the fact that he feels she trapped him into the relationship.

Georgia and Jason have been together 12 years and have three children together. Georgia says that one of the main problems now is a lack of sex. Due to tiredness, disinterest, or arguments they have a relatively sexless relationship and often sleep in separate rooms. She says sometimes she feels like she wouldn’t care if she never had sex again. Both have tried counselling which she says was partly effective and they are now in a position where they appreciate the position they are in and the children they have and are trying to make the best of things. Advice for couples having similar problems can be found in the article Just do it.

“I had been dating Jason a little over a year when I found out I was pregnant. I knew at that stage he didn’t particularly want to be in a long-term relationship with me. But I was 30, I’d had two previous terminations and knew that I definitely didn’t want another.

“It was awful. He accused me of putting him in a very difficult situation. He felt like I was forcing him into having a baby. I told him he could leave if he wanted because I was quite prepared to have the baby on my own. He said he wasn’t the type of person who would abandon a pregnant woman.

“We hummed and hawed about what to do for a long time. We went to see a counsellor who said we should just make a decision and stick to it. So we decided to go ahead and have the baby. Jason went along with it, but all the time I knew he wasn’t really into it. He became quite passive-aggressive towards me, making me suffer all the time.

“But when we had the baby we both totally fell in love with her. Things got a bit better and we started seriously trying to work things out between us. A couple of years later we decided to have another.

“When I got pregnant the second time, Jason decided he needed to make some choices about his life. He realised the whole idea of being head over heels in love was not that realistic and he needed to work with what he had got. So he asked me to marry him. He wanted to try and draw line under all the bad that had gone on and rewrite it as a good story.

“Marriage for me felt like an important step in formalising us as a family. But even after the wedding we continued to have problems. I can’t help but constantly feel like he wishes he’d married someone else. I know deep down I’m the wrong girl for him and I know he is disappointed in how it’s ended up for him. It feels like our whole relationship has been dogged by the way it began.

“Our sex life has suffered too. He never wanted to have sex with me when I was pregnant simply because he didn’t find me that attractive. I also have issues about my weight. When I feel fat I feel so unattractive the thought of having sex goes out the window. So often he has to cope with me saying ‘don’t touch me’. We have these nights where we lie in bed together, but are really cold to each other so there is no possibility of sex. We close off to each other, it’s like there’s a big invisible wall between us.

“On and off we sleep in separate bedrooms. Sometimes I feel like I’ve had my kids, I’m done with sex, and I wouldn’t care if I never have sex again. But realistically I think it’s important for our relationship, it’s something that brings us closer. When we do have sex, we feel much warmer towards each other afterwards and get on better.

“We’ve had counselling, but it was terrible. They seemed to forget who we were from one week to the next. I’ve also had individual counselling and that’s helped. I believe you can’t change the situation but you can change the way you feel about it.

It’s like there’s a big invisible wall between us.

“In a way I think the whole thing has made us both realistic about things. We’ve become almost business-like. I think the whole premise of being in a relationship because you are so in love is a little misguided. I don’t feel that its necessarily the key to success either, because you can still fall madly in love, have kids and end up getting divorced. We’ve been together 12 years now and we have accepted that maybe we aren’t head over heels in love, but we have got children together so let’s just get on with it – be kind to each other and learn to love one another, if only just a little bit.”