I’m in a Sexless Marriage. We’re as Intimate as Ever

Giving up sex in midlife isn’t the tragedy men think it is. My wife and I are healthy, active, happy and still deeply in love

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Published April 30, 2026

a photo illustration shows a couple in pajamas on a yellow background as if in bed. The man is rolled over away from the woman. Their two orange pillows make the eyes of a happy face, with the mouth drawn in orange

A sexless marriage doesn’t mean you love your spouse any less.

Paul Spella

Not long ago I went out for drinks with guy friends, and somebody brought up recent reports that people are having less sex than ever — not just disgruntled millennials but people our age, in their late 40s and 50s.

“Who are these people?” one of my oldest friends asked, laughing.

“Their lives must be miserable,” another guy sneered.

I didn’t dare tell any of them the truth: Not only did I understand guys who gave up sex in midlife, I was one of them.

I’ve been married to my wife for 20 years. And for the past five, we haven’t had sex.

Writing those words, I know it sounds so tragic. Like somehow our intimacy has evaporated because we stopped.

That’s not how it is at all.

It isn’t like we suddenly decided to stop having sex. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It just fell away, like so many other things from our youth. I never made the proclamation, “I’m going to stop going out on the weekends and drinking till 3 a.m.” It just happened.

That’s how it happens with sex. One weekend you and your wife don’t have sex just because you feel obligated to do so. And you realize it’s OK and it doesn’t mean your marriage is in trouble. Intimacy can just be about holding each other as you watch Netflix, or falling asleep in each other’s arms. It doesn’t make you a loser or a candidate for divorce.

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The hardest part of being in a sexless marriage is the charade. It’s like when you quit drinking and realize how everyone around you is aggressively flaunting their alcohol consumption. Telling your friends, “No thanks, I’ll just have a club soda” is disconcerting enough. Imagine announcing, “No, I didn’t tap that. We watched Ted Lasso and kept our clothes on.”

I can’t explain my lack of interest in sex in a way that’ll make sense to most people. It’s not that I love my wife any less. It’s not that I don’t have the energy to do it anymore. My wife and I walk more than we drive, and our weekends are spent biking together out in the hills near our house. Our libidos haven’t been killed by too much junk food or lazy living. We’ve just … lost interest in sex.

It baffles me that people can’t wrap their heads around it. If one partner objects, that’s an issue. But if both of you agree — “We don’t need to keep doing this thing we’ve both lost interest in” — that’s a good thing! It points to a relationship that’s growing and evolving, not pretending to be something it isn’t.

As a culture, we’ve convinced ourselves that sex is the apex of health and happiness. It isn’t. You can be healthy, active, happy and deeply in love with your spouse without sex.

I listened to my guy friends talk about how they pity the people not having sex and how they can’t imagine being in a relationship without it. I nod along and pretend I agree. But if sex were that important, it wouldn’t be something we bragged about. It should be enough that as adult men we still want to hold our wives’ hands and spend the entire evening alone together.

I’m not sure many of my guy friends could say the same.

Editor’s note: This story ran previously in The Arrow, AARP’s former online magazine for Gen X men.

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.

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