Can a marriage survive without sex?

Jay Dee

Can a marriage survive without sex?

May 12, 2016

I received this question from our anonymous Have A Question page about a week ago: Can a Christian marriage survive without it ever once being consummated? My wife and I had pain issues in every attempt to consummate our relationship. We stopped trying altogether about

Can a marriage survive without sexI received this question from our anonymous Have A Question page about a week ago:

Can a Christian marriage survive without it ever once being consummated? My wife and I had pain issues in every attempt to consummate our relationship. We stopped trying altogether about 12 years into the marriage. We have never fought about this, because we are Christians and understand the difficulties associated with painful intercourse. We have not once talked about sex in many years and frankly, would not know how to or why to bring it up since both of us have significant problems. We have been married for 28 years. Both of us are still virgins. My wife admitted to me years ago that sexual intimacy is just not important for her. I sympathize with her and can understand why. I have always wanted to be sexually active, but could not and now, at 62, I have ED. I am trying to accept the fact that I will live my entire life without ever knowing the joys of married, sexual intimacy.
I think that I have to resign myself to the fact that I will always be a virgin.
Sometimes, this makes me feel sad. Still, I have hope in God.
Sign me, Disappointed but not Depressed

and then I got this email:

Can a Christian marriage survive without it ever once being consummated?  If it can, my wife and I are living proof.  Both of us experienced pain issues in every attempt to consummate our relationship, even with preparation.  We stopped trying altogether about 12 years into the marriage.  We have never fought about this, because we are Christians and understand the difficulties associated with painful intercourse.  I am a church pastor and have researched these problems, but they are very difficult.  As both of us work, dealing with the issues of pain is a tedium and overwhelming challenge.  We have not once talked about sex in many years and frankly, would not know how to or why to bring it up since both of us have significant problems. We have been married for 28 years.  Both of us are still virgins.  My wife admitted to me years ago that sexual intimacy is just not important for her. I sympathize with her and can understand why.   I have always wanted to be sexually active, but could not and now, at 62, I have ED.  I am trying to accept the fact that I will live my entire life without ever knowing the joys of married, sexual intimacy.
I think that I have to resign myself to the fact that I will always be a virgin.
Sometimes, this makes me feel sad.  Still, I have hope in God.  I wonder what His purposes are for us.
Sign me, Disappointed but not Depressed

Obviously from the same individual.  But, then two days ago, I also got this anonymous question from our Have A Question page:

Is sex really necessary for a marriage to be healthy and intimate? Many of your blog entries address what to do when one spouse has a higher drive than the other. My question is what it both spouses are low/no drive? If neither my wife nor I really want sex can we not just move on and let it go? We are close and physically affectionate. Can that not be enough? I feel like society thinks that sexless marriages are always dysfunctional. I don’t agree with that but would love to hear your opinion.

So, I guess the ultimate question is: can a marriage survive without sex?  And the answer is: yes, it can.  However, in my non-professional opinion, it will fail to thrive.  And here’s why:

You lose out on a biological mechanism for encouraging intimacy

God created this amazing system of sex for us.  It’s more than just “scratching an itch” or “relieving pressure”.  When we have sex we receive large doses of oxytocin, dopamine, vassopressin and other hormones.  These all have a specific function, and they are released in staggaring quantities during sex.  In fact, a brain having an orgasm lights up in very similar ways to a brain on heroine.  It literally makes us addicted to our spouse in some ways.  Oxytocin encourages us to feel safe, secure, emotionally bonded and connected.  Vassopressin encourages us to keep our spouse safe, happy, healthy, to protect them.  Dopamine lights up our brain like a Christmas tree telling us “You really like to spend time with this person!”  Especially doing that particular activity.

Now, yes, you can get oxytocin from hugging and kissing and holding hands, but not in the same quantities.  Men’s oxytocin levels jump 5 times their normal value when they have an orgasm, which is why, if you can keep him awake, conversations after sex tend to be a lot deeper and more meaningful, because the husband feels safe and emotionally secure and wants to connect emotionally even more.  His oxytocin levels approach what is normal for a woman, so they can actually start to connect emotionally on the same level.  Without sex, he will never get close to his wife’s oxytocin level.  And it only lasts a short while.  30 minutes to a couple of hours, before he’s back and baseline.  The diminished effects last a bit longer, a day or two, but to keep up that emotional connection at that level, there needs to be frequent sex.

To have sex is “to know” your spouse

There is a reason that the Bible says that spouses “knew” each other when they speak of sex.  That’s the Hebrew euphemism for sex.  Why?  Well, there’s a lot of reasons.  Firstly, we’re physically naked.  Sex is one of the rare times that you get to see your spouse naked, without clothes.  See all of who they are, physically.  This is terrifying for some spouses, and I spend a fair bit of time addressing that for women in my course Becoming more Sexually Engaged.  But, if you can manage to do it…it’s a strong intimacy builder, just being naked.  Because you feel vulnerable and open, and when that goes well, when you see your spouse still desires you, flaws and all, that builds security.

But it’s not just about the physical body.  We are also open in other ways.  When we get aroused, parts of our brain start to shut down.  Specifically the parts that deal with inhibitions, measuring risk and the part that gets disgusted.  I think a lot of spouses have done things during sex, in the heat of the moment, that they never thought they’d do while they weren’t aroused.  I know, because I see their comments in our surveys.  But, when we have sex, we let our guard down.  We let walls down that we keep up in normal situations, even with our spouse.  We let the true “us” come more to the surface.  We are more fully known by our spouse in a way that I think would be very difficult to replicate outside of a sexual relationship.

Sex, if done right, trains us to be selfless

The best sex is had when both spouses are working selflessly for each other.  Each one is working to give the other pleasure.  Not only physically, but emotionally and intellectually.  Sex is more than just the physical mechanics.  Arousal is a very emotional and mental process as well.  And so, good sex means studying your spouse, knowing what gives them pleasure, what turns them on, and then working to fulfill that for them.  And, ideally, they do the same for you.  It’s an excellent training ground for the rest of your marriage, but because of the lovely hormones above, especially dopamine, it helps solidify those neuropathways, to help us to learn to serve our spouse.  That we like serving our spouse.  That we get pleasure from serving our spouse.

Because we don’t get a huge rush from doing the dishes for them.  We don’t get a huge rush from taking out the garbage.  But, giving your spouse an orgasm … wow, that is an experience.  Even if you derived no direct physical pleasure from it.  Even if it’s from manual stimulation (fingers and hands), the feeling you get from seeing your spouse have so much pleasure, and at your hands … that’s a drug I could take every day, if not more often.  And it trains my brain to think “hey, I like doing things for my wife”, so that when it’s time to do the dishes, it’s not such a fight with myself to do them, because on some level my brain things “hey, you like doing stuff for your wife, remember that orgasm?”  and yeah, this isn’t the same thing…but it sort of is.  Just on a muted level.  So, sex helps build those neuropathways strongly and more quickly, because it has a huge dopamine kick with it.

 

 

So, those are just a couple of ways off the top of my head that sex helps improve a marriage.  And improve isn’t strong enough of a word.  In my experience, sex is the glue that makes a marriage hold together easier.  Not that you can’t do it another way … but it’s going to take a lot more effort.  So, yeah, I think sex is important to a marriage.  Can it survive?  Yeah, probably.  But, I don’t think it will be the marriage God intended, and you’re cheating both you and your spouse by missing out.

Tomorrow I’m going to write a post about how to deal with sexual pain, for those who are struggling with that, so that you can have some options for a sexual relationship within your marriage.

If you have another way that sex helps in marriage, let us know in the comments below.  If you have someone you know that isn’t making sex a priority in their marriage, maybe share this post with them.  Might just turn their marriage around.  More and more I’m getting emails and comments from people saying they had a friend send them a post and it changed their marriage around.  I like to hear that, because it means we’re helping people, and that’s ultimately what this blog is all about.  Help a marriage out today.  Share this post.  Facebook, Twitter, send them an email with the link.  Whatever you think would help someone.

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