Relationships

Sexless marriage: an honest look

By Kenneth Kintsugi, holistic relationship specialist · Oct 16, 2026 · 8 min read

A sexless marriage is usually defined as one where a couple has sex fewer than 10 times a year, or less than about once a month. That line is a convention, not a diagnosis, and it counts the calendar instead of the marriage. What tells you whether it's a problem is whether it was ever said out loud, and whether both of you are living in the same version of it. Here's what the research says, why so many couples drift into this, and a three-question test you can run tonight.

What counts as a sexless marriage

The 10-a-year cutoff is the working definition used by clinicians and by the Gottman Institute, which puts roughly 20 percent of long-term couples in that range, citing a 1992 study by Laumann and colleagues. That estimate is more than three decades old and depends entirely on where the line is drawn. Two couples at nine times a year can be in very different places, and a couple at fourteen who feel starved isn't covered by the definition at all.

Gottman's own write-up makes the same point. A sexless marriage is only a problem if it distresses one or both partners, and the count misses the emotional pain couples can feel on either side of it. So the number is a starting description. It isn't a verdict.

The line counts the calendar, not the marriage

Here's the argument the rest of this piece rests on. Two couples with the same number can be living completely different marriages, and the difference is silence. In one, both people know sex has mostly stopped, they've said so to each other, and they've decided what to do about it, even if the decision is "nothing, and we're fine." In the other, it stopped by degrees, nobody named it, and one person is waiting while the other hopes it won't come up. A frequency count can't tell those two apart. The marriage can.

Gottman describes how the second kind usually forms. One partner keeps initiating and the other keeps declining, until the initiator quietly stops asking. Less sex leads to less non-sexual touch, which leads to emotional distance. The stopping is the dangerous part, and from the outside it can look like peace. That's our reading, but it fits something else in the same article: the one sexless stretch Gottman actually recommends is a deliberate one, a sex embargo that both partners agree to out loud, so that touch can feel safe again without a question mark attached.

Why couples end up here

There's rarely one cause. The Gottman piece, written from the clinical experience of Jordan Rullo, PhD, groups them this way:

• Relationship factors: poor communication in general, no real conversation about sex, and little emotional connection.
• Sexual difficulties: pain during sex, low desire or arousal, and erectile difficulties.
• Everything else: chronic health conditions, a skill gap that makes sex unenjoyable for one partner, and what Rullo calls an erotic template discrepancy, where one partner's arousal needs aren't being met.

Then there's the wider drift. Jean Twenge, summarizing her analysis of General Social Survey data from more than 25,000 American adults, found that married and cohabiting people had sex about 16 fewer times a year than in the late 1990s. She offers possible reasons, including phones, streaming and games, dating apps, and higher expectations of relationships, but she's clear these are theories and not tested findings. If you want the population-level picture, our piece on the sex recession goes through the data. If the gap is more about one of you wanting more than the other, mismatched libidos covers desire discrepancy.

The said-out-loud test

This is our own framework, not a validated clinical tool, and it's deliberately short. Ask yourself three questions about your marriage, and if you can, ask your partner the same three separately.

1. Has it been said out loud, by both of you, in actual words? "We don't really have sex anymore" counts. Assumed doesn't.
2. Would each of you describe it the same way? If one of you says "we've settled into it" and the other says "I stopped asking," that's one marriage with two stories.
3. Is anyone waiting? For the other person to change, for a better season, for the kids to leave, or for the nerve to bring it up.

Three clean answers mean that whatever the number is, it's something you've chosen together, and nothing in the research gives a reason to call that broken. A "no" on any of them means the problem isn't the number. It's the silence, and the fix starts with a conversation, not a schedule.

What the once-a-week finding does and doesn't mean

You'll see a "once a week" figure quoted everywhere, and it's worth knowing what it actually is. Amy Muise and colleagues analyzed General Social Survey data from more than 25,000 Americans collected between 1989 and 2012, an online survey of 335 people in long-term relationships, and more than 2,400 married couples tracked over 14 years. Well-being rose with sexual frequency up to about once a week, and beyond that the link was no longer significant. Among single people, there was no association at all.

The researchers say plainly that the study wasn't designed to identify cause. It can't tell you whether weekly sex makes couples happier or whether happier couples simply have more sex. So it isn't a quota, and it doesn't say that a couple below weekly is failing. It's an average across thousands of people, and you aren't an average.

If it's hurting, what helps

When the answer to the test is "this isn't working for one or both of us," the Gottman Institute lays out a sequence that's worth following in order:

1. Rebuild emotional connection first. Small, frequent deposits, which Gottman frames as roughly six hours a week of intentional time, including stress-reducing conversations, six-second kisses, and regular date nights.
2. Agree to an embargo, then bring touch back. Both of you say sex is off the table for now, which removes the pressure, and then kissing, cuddling, hugging, and massage return without anything expected to follow.
3. Reintroduce sex slowly. Gottman points to sensate focus, structured touching exercises. We explain how they work in our mismatched libidos piece.
4. Change the pattern. Move from turning away to turning toward each other's attempts at connection.

Rule out the physical side early. Pain, a chronic health condition, and a new medication all show up on the causes list above, and each deserves a doctor's visit before anyone assumes it's about the relationship. When the pattern is long-standing or you can't talk about it without a fight, a certified sex therapist or couples counselor is a reasonable next step, not a last resort.

When it's the reason you're thinking of leaving

It's worth being clear-eyed here, because "sexless marriage divorce" is something people search for. DivorceNet's overview says a sexless marriage isn't a standalone legal ground for divorce. Every state allows no-fault divorce, and a spouse's ongoing refusal would likely fit under irreconcilable differences unless both spouses are content with the arrangement. A few states address sexual refusal in older fault-based grounds such as desertion, and courts decide those case by case. The page recommends talking to a lawyer before pursuing a fault claim, and it notes that its content isn't legal advice. Divorce law varies by state, and I'm not a lawyer either.

What I'd point to is the same page's list of warning signs that divorce may be worth considering: a partner who refuses to communicate or improve things, loss of love or respect, an affair, or abuse or untreated substance use. Notice that none of those is a frequency. They're about refusal and engagement, which is where the said-out-loud test was pointing all along.

Common questions

Sources

• The Gottman Institute, Can a Sexless Marriage Be Saved?, citing Laumann et al. (1992) and drawing on the clinical experience of Jordan Rullo, PhD.
• Amy Muise et al., news release on sexual frequency and well-being (Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2015).
• Jean M. Twenge, Why Couples Are Having So Much Less Sex, Psychology Today, 2017, summarizing Twenge, Sherman & Wells, “Declines in sexual frequency among American adults, 1989-2014,” Archives of Sexual Behavior.
• DivorceNet, Sexless Marriage and Divorce.

Figures are rounded as published. See each source for full methodology. Journalists and writers are welcome to cite this page, just link back so others can find the sources too.