Our 20-year relationship is sexless. I feel I will never have a normal intimate life

Dear Roe,

I'm married to my wife for five years but we have been together about 20 and have young children. About 10 years ago, she seemed to become uncomfortable during sex, she's reluctant to kiss and she rarely likes being touched intimately.

I’ve asked her why but she won’t open up about it at all. I once asked her to take some time to think about when she’d like to change or try, she didn’t come back with anything. Her solution is always to lie back and think of England, but after all this time I know that doesn’t work.

I don’t like to bring it up often because I don’t want to pester her, and I feel she takes this as me accepting the situation. I raise it about once a year.

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She suffers from vaginismus. In the early years, overcoming this was very important to her, but not to me as penetrative sex is not what I primarily enjoy. She is also very uncomfortable with climaxing, to a point of panic. She won't talk to me about this, and I no longer feel comfortable asking.

It’s becoming increasingly frustrating, and I feel like I’ve missed my opportunity to ever have a normal, intimate sex life, which makes me deeply sad.

There are some questions only your wife can answer, such as how she feels about sex; whether she considered that she may be asexual; and whether she actually wants anything about your sex life to change. It is possible that she doesn’t experience sexual attraction the way that you do, or that vaginismus is either a cause of and/or reaction to extreme stress around sex, or that there’s another reason sex is at best unappealing and at worst deeply upsetting for her.

If sex was officially off the table within your relationship, would your wife be willing to work on other forms of intimacy?

These are questions she could address in individual therapy and you both could talk about in couple’s therapy – but only if she is willing to go. And acknowledging the source of her discomfort with physical intimacy doesn’t guarantee that she is willing or able to change it.

And there are questions that only you are able to answer; questions that after 10 years, you should be asking yourself, such as: if this situation never changes, do you want to leave, or stay – and if you want to stay, what would you need to make staying bearable and sustainable?

If sex was officially off the table within your relationship, would your wife be willing to work on other forms of intimacy to ensure you feel loved and appreciated? Would that be enough? If you want to keep your marriage but you don’t want to live without sex or intimacy, could you have an open relationship? What would that look like – purely casual sex, or would you want to date?

You cannot force your wife to be more interested in sex, but you can decide what is sustainable for you, your relationship and your life. Think about what you want and what you need, and be honest with yourself about whether or not this is a deal-breaker.

Both you and your wife deserve to be in a relationship where you feel comfortable, safe, and where your needs and boundaries are respected. It is time to figure out if that relationship is with each other or with other people.

Good luck.

Roe McDermott is a writer and Fulbright scholar with an MA in sexuality studies from San Francisco State University. She is researching a PhD in gendered and sexual citizenship at the Open University and Oxford

If you have a problem or query you would like her to answer, you can submit it anonymously at irishtimes.com/dearroe