Seven reasons that lead to sexless marriages following Robbie Williams’ confession about his own
Robbie Williams once joked that 'everyone knows there is no sex after marriage' as he discussed how his own relationship had changed over the years.
He and wife Ayda Field tied the knot in 2010, and since then have had four children, Teddy, 12, Charlie, 10, Coco, six and Beau, four.
However, in 2023 he said that things between himself and his wife had changed sex-wise, explaining that in the past they had 'incredible' sex 'all the time', but things had changed since then as he said he misses that 'fun period.'
That's not to imply a lack of intimacy on the couple's part, as Ayda said that was 'the important, meaningful side of love', and that she and Robbie were 'on the same page.'
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Various studies indicate that married couples have sex on average once a week, but there are some couples who are having a lot more sex than that and some having none at all.
Exhaustion and stress
There's only so much time and energy in the day, and if your reserves are running low then there won't be space for sex.
If you're living the kind of life that constantly drains you of time and energy, then there's pretty much never going to be time to have sex with your partner.
Dr Laura Berman explained that this was common in many relationships, especially as the pressures of life and the time devoted to children started gobbling up more of a couple's bandwidth.
She explained that about 15 percent of marriages were sexless, and that when she had people in for couples therapy a sexless marriage was the number one reason why.
Her recommendation was for couples to make time to be intimate with each other, not even having sex, just getting back into the habit of touching each other again.
Establishing that physical connection outside the bedroom before returning to it is important.
Poor communication
Just as good communication is seen as a key component of having good sex in a relationship, so too is poor communication, a major step on the way to having a less moribund sex life.
If there are issues in your relationship and you just don't talk about them, then nothing is going to get fixed in the short term, and in the long run it could tank the entire relationship.
You might have heard the adage that when it comes to disagreements it should be you and your partner against the problem, not you against your partner.
If you don't communicate well then your sex life with your partner is likely to suffer as a result, and if the relationship isn't going well then it's likely to become sexless as a result.
Mental health
When you're not in the mood then you're not in the mood, but something could be affecting your mood.
Dr Ian Kerner explained that a number of mental health conditions could interfere with your desire to have sex or your ability to perform.
Speaking to Men's Health, he said: "When men are depressed, their self-esteem is down and their motivation is down and their libido may be down,” says Ian Kerner, PhD, a licensed psychotherapist and sex counsellor.
“When you look at sex, it’s basically about things that excite and arouse you.
"Mental health struggles such as depression are known to lower sex drive, and there is something called 'anhedonia' which refers to a drop in the motivation to seek pleasure and the ability to feel it."
If you cannot bring yourself to do the things you used to enjoy and don't get much enjoyment out of them anyway then you are unlikely to do them.
'Desire discrepancy'
As the name suggests, 'desire discrepancy' is where one partner's desire for sex is on a different page to their partner's and this can cause problems in the relationship as both of you feel like there's an amount of sex in your marriage you're not happy with.
Psychologists Dr Lauren Fogel Mersy and Dr Jennifer Vencill said the way out of this was to have a direct conversation about the issue, work out your libido and focus on quality of sex over quantity.
Sometimes it's not all about the amount of sex, sometimes it's about having different types of libido.
The expert said that there were actually two different types of libido, spontaneous and responsive.
Spontaneous libido is where the desire for sex can just appear 'without much effort or intention', whereas responsive libido showed itself as a response to pleasure or arousal.
Work out what gets you and your partner in the mood and try to find a middle ground.
Medical and hormonal issues
This is the one Robbie Williams was talking about when he spoke about having a 'sexless marriage'.
He explained that when he was taking testosterone the sex life he had with his wife was 'incredible' and 'we couldn’t take our hands off each other.'
As men get older, they have a progressive decline in testosterone levels and one of the symptoms of low testosterone is low libido, with the singer being put on hormone replacement therapy after being told he 'had the testosterone of an 80-year-old man.'
Getting more testosterone boosted his sex life, once he was off it again is when the situation changed.
For women, the menopause can have a significant impact on sex life as it can impact your libido, but it will affect different people in different ways.
Some have found that it lowered theirs sex drive, but in other cases women have found that their libido actually increased.
There are all sorts of other medical matters, which could get in the way of you mashing your dangly bits together, and if you're worried about something like this getting in the way then you should see a doctor.
Tedious routine
They say variety is the spice of life, that the best way to spoil life's pleasures is to render them rote and routine.
True closeness and intimacy might be when you're at that point with another human being where you're popping each other's spots, but if you've explored every inch of their body and are always with them what's left to discover?
The same person in the same context day after day for the rest of your life, no wonder there's a chance the spark might fade.
Esther Perel, a psychotherapist, once explained that if your relationship had become routine and you thought you'd seen everything from your partner it might be time to shake things up.
Not by looking for someone else, but by seeing your partner in a different light.
"The crisis of desire is often a crisis of the imagination," she said.
"So why does good sex so often fade? What is the relationship between love and desire? How do they relate, and how do they conflict? Because therein lies the mystery of eroticism.
"So if there is a verb, for me, that comes with love, it's 'to have'. And if there is a verb that comes with desire, it is 'to want'.
"In love, we want to have, we want to know the beloved. We want to minimize the distance. We want to contract that gap. We want to neutralize the tensions. We want closeness.
"But in desire, we tend to not really want to go back to the places we've already gone. Forgone conclusion does not keep our interest."
She found that people were most drawn to their partner either when they were away, or when they were 'doing something they're passionate about', both of which make them 'momentarily once again somewhat mysterious, somewhat elusive', which reinjects the desire.
Unresolved conflict
While you might have arguments with your partner that lead to a falling out every now and then, the real sex-life killer is when conflict is left unresolved and festers into a resentment.
If your partner can't stand you then they're unlikely to f**k you, unless you're banking on hate sex to save the relationship which seems like a long shot.
Psychology professor John Gottman's research has indicated that unresolved conflict can lead to something called 'negative sentiment override' where things have built up over time and now there's a new dimension to the relationship where everything that's said and done is perceived negatively.
Whether you were in a relationship with them or not, it's likely you've had this towards someone where you start seeing everything they do negatively.
If you want to try and climb out of this pit you need to stat communicating again, as the expert suggests you accept responsibility for your part in any problems and make it clear you're willing to listen.
Gottman also suggests you might want to take some time away to avoid saying something you'll regret in a stressful moment, and how important it is to let your partner know this is what you're doing so they don't feel like you've walked out in the middle of an argument.
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Health, Mental Health, Parenting
Joe Harker