I see posts from guys who are married and have gone 5 years, or 7 years with no sex at home. This is really hard for me to wrap my my around, and honestly freaks me out a bit... scary too when I think of it happening to my marriage.

I'm sure they love the woman since they are sticing by their sides, but for me sex is the glue that holds a marriage together. Its what allows men and women to tolerate each other's idiocincracies, what heals wounds, what refreshes the spirit. I get 'down' if a week goes by without making love to my wife.

I really don't quite understand how a relationship can stay together with this key relationship component absent so very long (maybe permanently).

What makes a guy (and a woman) stay in a marriage like this???

I totally agree with you, it is essential to tolerating each others faults. It's not so much the sex but the intimacy of it all the connection thats created between partners.
Health related issues, hormone issues, age, two careers going full steam ahead, a boat load of kids in the house and responsabilities, and some people believe it or not, just are not into it like their partner is...
Many times there is intimacy without the sexual connection.
I hear it all the time from the Gentlemen I spend time with. They have Intimacy in many ways with their partners just not sexually. They have that closeness but true its different. Thats where I come in. Filling the gaps.  It in no way takes away from what they have and in many cases have forged these tight bonds over many many yrs with their partners, their lovers just the dynamics have changed. They still have that connection and closeness its just different.

many times, they are "waiting it out" and the wait drags on til they realise its not going to change. Many men in these situations were always faithful to thier partners and the decission to see a provider takes 5, 7 or even 10yrs. It can be a difficult decission for many to "stray".

I am one of those husbands that you speak of.
I have been married for 32 years and been without sexual intimacy with my SO for just over the past two years.
My wife went through her change early in years and began to find it difficult to cope in what use to be ordinary situations. They call it the change of life for a good reason. Menopause effects woman differently. Her sexual appetite diminished greatly over time until it was completely non existent.
For the first 28 years together, my wife and I shared what I considered to be a fairytale existence. At times I was genuinely surprised how two people could relate to one another so strongly after so many years, without falling doom to simple boredom. But we didn't.
I love my wife today and don't see that feeling ever changing. She gave me three wonderful children and leaves me with so many fabulous memories that I will never be able to let go.
I never considered seeking a provider my entire married life until that day came that I realized there would be zero possibility of the two of us getting together again.
Its unfortunate but it happens, and sometimes beyond our control.

I agree. Physical intimacy, sex, is a glue for me, but so is intellectual and emotional intimacy. For some, some combination of all three is enough. For some, there is little if any of any kind, and they stay together in order not hurt each other, the kids or the image others have of them. Some are like the frog in the pan that allows himself or herself to be boiled alive. If you just turn up the heat by very small increments, the frog can't sense the change, and eventually dies from the heat. Many couples have dealt with small and steady increase in discomfort, unhappiness, and distrust until they can no longer tell what great distress their in.

I see this all the time, and I see the saddness they show when explaining what brought them to me. Yes they miss that Sexual Intimate connection with her, and no I am not a replacement for that, it's different. They adore their partner and understand it's not for the lack of interest in them, they are intimately connected in many other ways, it truely is beyond their control.

It's very individual, round_the_world,

For most, it begins with seeing themselves not as individuals independent of one another, but as a couple, a unit. Once you are in such a union, it can get difficult becoming the one that's going to break this union apart. Thus, many people stay because they don't want to be the one - or the cause - of divorce or dissolution of a marriage, particularly if there are children involved. To them, sex is NOT the glue that holds the marriage together. It may be the icing on the cake, but it's not what makes them tolerate the idiosyncracies and/or what heals wounds. Remember that existential fear of "aloneness" looms very large in most people's lives. This fear overwhelms anything remotely sexual - particularly when good sex can be had for money, while emotional attachment is not for sale.

Since other posters have gone into detailed explanations of their experiences, I will insert a quote from a script to a motion picture. To me, the film itself was a piffle, a blip on the cinematic horizon. And yet, it did contain this nugget of existential wisdom - in fact, so wise that it took me aback and threw me for a momentary loop, particularly since I'm no fan of marriage as an institution:

"Why is it that people get married?
Because we need a witness to our lives.
There’s a billion people on the planet.
What does any one life really mean?
But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything…
The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things,
All of it… all the time, every day.
You’re saying “Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.
Your life will not go unwitnessed - because I will be your witness."

Check out other reasons in the link,
The Love Goddess

My situation is different, my wife and I have an active sex life but she is so, so conservative, that after 35 years, I just need to taste something different.  There is one position "allowed" and my suggestions to try something different are greeted with a resounding no.  I am not allowed to touch her in her vagina area, no thought of anything oral because that is "Gross".

I am the guy who had not have sex with his wife for five years. There are many reasons we are still together; some are relatively noble, some are very practical. Remember – this is just my (and not hers) point of view.

1. When we married, I knew I am not going to have great sex, so when it was gone,  it was not such a big deal.
2. We are very compatible in many other ways, except for in bed.
3. Realistically, if I divorce can I get what I want sexually (a young pretty enthusiastic 20-some old)? And even if I could – how would I keep her around? Keep her not sexually bored? Not getting jealous over her looking at younger men? I am not any Charlie Chaplin or Mike Douglas or any such… So – why bother?
4. And even (in the most unlikely case) you get what you want, sex will go away (it always does). And I will have a bit younger version of my wife with some other flaws that may bother me way more than my current situation. So –why bother?
5. Divorce will cost “mucho dinaros”...
6. I feel sorry for my wife; she does not work and I am not sure she remembers how.

Shit happens...There are as many reasons for people staying in bad marriages as there are bad marriages. I wouldn't waste too much time worrying about why or how people do it, just be glad it's not you...

-- Modified on 3/21/2009 4:16:56 PM

i once had a marriage counselor give me words of wisdom ... sex is kinda like air, it only really matters when u arent getting any ...

ah man, what a shame. she is missing one of the finest things in life

i'm booking time to meet you LG.  everything i read from you is so on point and direct and genuinely caring.  and i forgot insiteful.  surely u must have posted some crap here sometime, but i have yet to find it.

Marriage isn't built on sex, but for me its an important element.

I guess I'm starting to understand though...

does NOT always mean it is a Bad marriage.  Just one lacking that extra pizzaz.
Its for me at least a much required aspect of a relationship but not for everyone. Intimacy can be involved without sex.
Marriages have many levels of Intimacy and companionship sexuality being only one of them.

and, just for the record, my marriage was not actually one without sex.  If it had been it would have ended even sooner!

I can think of a few, very few, possible scenarios where a sexless marriage might still thrive and they all include some sort of physical condition involving one of the parties involved that makes sex impossible. Even in this sort of scenario both partners would have to be OK with the healthy partner seeking sexual gratification outside of the marriage. I can also understand that an older, and I mean MUCH older, couple might simply lose their desire for sex at a certain age.  Since there are quite a few guys in their sixties and seventies right on this board seeing providers I'm not sure exactly what that age would be.

I believe love can overcome many things but I also believe that sexual intimacy is a very important part of a good relationship.

Also extricating myself from a 26 year marriage- but mine the last five years have been without sex... primarily my choice along with her not pushing it either.

We all make our choices for whatever reason whether healthy or not.

My reason was wanting to be totally present and involved with my kids lives while they were in the house still.... and although I couldn't model a loving relationship for them and may have done them a disservice there, it was not a volatile or fighting miserable relationship either.  I just haven't loved my wife or had any interest in her in a long time.

But I would not trade my decision for anything... I achieved what I wanted in enjoying raising my kids in an intact home.  With the last child off to college in a few months, then I'll change my situation.

As for a relationship healthy with the sex component missing, I think not unless there is a medical reason and the love was otherwise unchanged.  Barring a medical reason, my opinion would be that the missing sex would surely be a symptom of an ailing relationship.

I agree and as I said I would not be happy without that connection but I see many clients who for many reasons most being medical, hormonal and so on, sex is not a factor in their marriage any longer but they deeply love their wives, and do not plan to change their situation. True they miss what they once had so this is why they see Ladies here.
At the same time they have a very intact loving companionship with their partner its just different now.

I know of several sexless marriages but they are marriages by legal standards only. - Other than when I was deployed with the military, the longest no sex period i had with my wife was 20 days and that was during a period when we almost broke up.

I have been in a sexless marriage for 4 years. It started after I realized that every encounter in 10 years had been of my doing. So I said, "Fuck it - I will wait for her to do something" - she didn't - so we haven't. I even tried to call her on it, after 2 years - and she gave me some bullshit about needing to "woo" her again - to get her excited.
Please.
So I hobby - and do it guilt free - actually.
I stay with her because of our 3 kids - and she is a great mother to them. But when they are out of the hosue - so will I.

I stayed for the same reason.  I asked myself many times over the years if I was doing the right thing for my kid-never for myself. As I watch my now 21 year old daughter begin her life as an adult I am convinced that she was better off with me in her life every day than she would have been if I wasn't. The funny thing is we are closer since my wife and I split...

My marriage was not sexless but there was no intimacy or trust for the last seven or eight years.  I made a decision to stop trying to save what couldn't be saved and started finding the intimacy that I was craving in the arms of the women I paid for sex. You would be surprised how many great P4P ladies are missing the same thing-intimacy, trust and understanding from someone they can trust as a confidant.  Escorting is a lonely life sometimes and it carries with it it's own sort of isolation for the women involved. I know things about my ATF that her parents and best friends(even the ones who know what she does) will never know.

for the affirmation.... I have no regrets and am very close to my daughter as well.  Don't know who she'll react to a split though, remains to be seen since it won't occur until later in the year when my son is safely off to college.

I too decided there is nothing left to save and have been finding my intimacy in the p4p world.

As you have found, I have found a number of companions who are indeed lonely and have found intimacy despite the 'rules' of the p4p world.  

Lol lonely travelers on the road of life collide in the night!

Very similar deal here.  Wife has ZERO interest and she's in her mid 40's.  Physically, she is perfectly healthy, so she has no valid excuses there.  A most frustrating situation that fills me with nothing but resent.

What do you think - is sex with your partner an "obligation" of marriage?  Said another way, should a husband expect his wife to please him for his sake, even if she no longer enjoys the act?  

Lord knows I do a lot of stuff with my wife that I sure don't feel like doing, such as her family reunions and crap like that.  But if I permanently stopped going to those things because I didn't feel like it, she'd scream bloody murder and I'd be a terrible husband.  But the no sex thing unfortunately gets to remain her and my little secret.

She will occasionally refer to me as "honey" or something which irks the hell out of me.  Don't call me intimate names if you're not intimate with me.  

When we got married in 1991 my wife-to-be (now deceased) had her adult daughter from a previous marriage read part of the following poem, which I still think is a beautiful answer to the question.

Why marry at all?

Why mar what has grown up between the cracks
and flourished like a weed
that discovers itself to bear rugged
spikes of magneta blossoms in August,
ironweed sturdy and bold,
a perennial that endures winters to persist?

Why register with the state?
Why enlist in the legions of the respectable?
Why risk the whole apparatus of roles
and rules, of laws and liabilities?
Why license our bed at the foot
like our Datsun truck: will the mileage improve?

Why encumber our love with patriarchal
word stones, with the old armor
of husband and the corset stays
and the chains of wife? Marriage
meant buying a breeding womb
and sole claim to enforced sexual service.

Marriage has built boxes in which women
have burst their hearts sooner
than those walls; boxes of private
slow murder and the fading of the bloom
in the blood; boxes in which secret
bruises appear like toadstools in the morning.

But we cannot invent a language
of new grunts. We start where we find
ourselves, at this time and place.

Which is always the crossing of roads
that began beyond the earth's curve
but whose destination we can now alter.

This is a public saying to all our friends
that we want to stay together. We want
to share our lives. We mean to pledge
ourselves through times of broken stone
and seasons of rose and ripe plum;
we have found out, we know, we want to continue.

   -- Marge Piercy

i know that at least in panama and several other cultures i have read about it is a common practice to have a wife and 'girlfriends'  .  ideal situation is to get all in one package, but hey, life is short ... if making our way thru it the best we can involves something more creative than the 'ideal', i think its a good and healthy solution.  my two cents worth

i agree, but i cant fault folks who stay anyway, i just hope they dont forego sex all together as it is so much a part of being a human and not a part of life that should be missed.  i once had a shrink tell me in marriage counseling, 'sex in a marriage is kind of like air.  it really isnt a big deal unless u arent gettin any'.  sage advice i thought

there ya go babe, dont throw the 'baby out with the bath water' .  we all need the intimacy, the connection, the milk of human kindness and sometimes just a good roll in the hay.  glad u decided to go ahead and pull the trigger

"What makes a guy (and a woman) stay in a marriage like this???"

In my case we were never married, but it was a 10-year relationship with the last 7-years containing no sex whatsoever.

There's no other way of saying this other than she was a victim of violent rape; following that incident whenever I would try to make any kind of move towards anything sexual she would have flashbacks, some of them would be really bad.

So after a while I stopped trying.  But after 3 years, what kind of a guy would dump someone because of this?  Not me.  What kind of guy would begin to look "outside" for sex?  Again, not me.

When her company transferred her in February she offered to break up and I agreed.  Even now it still affects me because a guy is expected to make the first move but obviously I have trouble doing this due to past experiences with her.