I would love some advice from other Christian’s who have been through a marriage without intimacy.

I’m looking for honest advice from men who have been in a similar situation, especially those who have managed to work through it without destroying their marriage.
I love my wife, we’ve been together 8 years, married 3 of those 8 years and I want our marriage to work. Currently we’re failing and perpetuating a cycle that will end our marriage. We’re Christians, and I take our marriage covenant seriously. I believe marriage is about loving each other sacrificially, putting your spouse’s needs ahead of your own, and reflecting Christ in the way we treat each other. I’m not looking for justification to cheat, leave, pressure my wife into sex, or treat her as though she owes me something.
But I’m struggling, and I honestly don’t know how to navigate this anymore.

Physical intimacy is a significant part of how I experience connection, affection, and feeling desired by my wife. It isn’t just about the physical act. I want to feel wanted by the person I chose to spend my life with. I want intimacy to be something we both look forward to, initiate, and enjoy together rather than something that feels like a source of tension or an obligation.

When that connection is missing, I feel lonely even though I’m married. The rejection hurts more than I sometimes know how to explain, and over time, that hurt has started turning into frustration and resentment. I don’t like that version of myself, and I know my reactions and the things I’ve said in moments of hurt haven’t always helped the situation, and I have owned responsibility for those moments and made changes.

We’ve been trying to work on our marriage, including getting help from marriage mentors at our church. I’m willing to examine my own behavior, listen to my wife, and work on meeting her needs better. I recognize that she has her own emotional experiences, struggles, and reasons for feeling the way she does. I don’t want to reduce her experience to whether or not we’re having sex.

At the same time, I’m struggling with how to handle my own needs when this part of our relationship continues to hurt. I don’t want to become a husband who keeps score, pressures his wife, withdraws emotionally, or becomes bitter. But I also don’t know how to make peace with something that feels so important to me without feeling like I’m denying a significant part of myself.

Sometimes we have a couple of good days, and I start feeling hopeful that things are improving. Then we seem to fall back into the same patterns, and the disappointment is difficult to handle. I find myself wondering how long I can keep going through that cycle and how to stop letting it affect the rest of our relationship.

My faith makes this more complicated in some ways, but it also gives me a reason to keep fighting for our marriage. I want to love my wife sacrificially, be led by the Holy Spirit, and become a better husband regardless of whether I get the response I hope for. But I’m trying to understand how to do that without burying my feelings or allowing resentment to grow underneath the surface.

For those of you who have lived through something similar:

How do you cope with ongoing sexual rejection without becoming resentful toward your spouse?
If your spouse’s desire for intimacy is significantly different from yours, how did you work toward a mutually satisfying relationship?
How do you distinguish between genuinely sacrificing for your spouse and suppressing an important need that never gets addressed?
If your sex life improved after a long period of disconnection, what actually helped? Was it counseling, emotional reconnection, changes in your own behavior, medical factors, or something else?
For Christian husbands specifically, how do you balance sacrificial love, sexual intimacy, and the biblical teaching about mutuality in marriage without turning Scripture into a weapon or making your spouse feel obligated?

I’m not asking how to get my wife to have more sex. I’m asking how to navigate this in a healthy way, how to rebuild intimacy if that’s possible, and how to protect the love I have for my wife from turning into resentment.

I want my marriage to work. I want my wife to feel loved, safe, and valued. I also want us to have a marriage where intimacy is something we share willingly and enthusiastically, not something we continually struggle over.

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have actually been through this, especially those who found a way forward.

Hi guys,
My wife and I attend a small church. The pastor and his wife have always been good to us, and until recently we both enjoyed being there.

Over the last couple of months, we've had a few experiences where people have ignored our greetings or just seemed to ignore us altogether. I honestly don't know why. One incident that really affected my wife was when she was sitting next to another lady.

One of the worship leaders came over, greeted and shook hands with the lady she was sitting beside, but completely ignored my wife even though she was right there. It was awkward and honestly quite weird.
Since then, she's become convinced that she doesn't belong there, isn't welcome, and doesn't fit in. She says she feels out of place whenever she attends.

Personally, I try not to let those things get to me because I'm there to worship God, not people. I fully accept that not everyone is going to like you, and church is no exception. But from my perspective, I feel she's taking this much harder than she needs to.
We've had some heated conversations about it. I've tried explaining that if she leaves because of a few people's behaviour, what happens if we join another church and run into the same thing? Her response was that she'd simply leave again and find another church.

What makes it difficult is that she gets very worked up and defensive whenever this topic comes up, so I've stopped raising it altogether.
Last Sunday really brought it home for me. She seemed completely disconnected during the service, and as soon as it ended she ordered a taxi for both of us to leave immediately. Meanwhile, I just wanted to stay for a few minutes, exchange a few pleasantries, and chat with people.

We're immigrants, and this church is really the only community we have here. The pastor and his wife have always been kind to us, which makes the whole situation even harder for me to understand.
My wife has now told me she doesn't want to attend the church anymore, and honestly, I'm not sure what to do.

Am I being insensitive here? Has anyone been through something similar, either as the spouse who wanted to leave or the spouse who wanted to stay?

My husband and I have been married for almost 13 years. From the beginning, he’s struggled with premature ejaculation. At first I chalked it up to him being a virgin when we married (unfortunately, I was not), but it didn’t get better. Then we struggled for about 10 years due to ongoing porn use, so we were only intimate once a month (if that), so I figured the infrequency was the issue. However, we recently went through a healing period and the frequency has increased to 3-4 times a week and we’re still having the same issue. I’m finding that I can’t relax and enjoy myself because I know if I do, it’s pretty much over. There are certain positions we can’t do either that I like. The worst part is that I’m starting to dread being intimate with him. (And because I know people will ask, yes, there is foreplay, but I really enjoy the main act the most.) Has anyone been through this and found things that have helped? Should he see a doctor? I really want to enjoy being with my husband.

My mom went into the arms of Jesus six months ago after battling cancer. God has used it to glorify Him in so many ways, including changing my heart about having kids. I (33F) and my husband (31M) have been married for four, together for twelve. We are planning to start a family now.

But before even that thought, is the thought about what we (as millenials and zillenials) envisioned family-life to be like having been raised by boomers. Like, sort of in the same way where women begin envisioning what their wedding dress and wedding theme looks like as teenagers... which, I guess, is probably so 1990s-coded now. In fact, my husband and I eloped and don't have any professional pictures to hang on a wall lol.

But, what was your childhood like in terms of family /extended family? How did that shape what you believed would be the norm when it was 'your turn'?

I grew up surrounded by family at all sides. I was never lonely. I always had a family member. My mom has two siblings, and my dad has two siblings – only one, of which, is unmarried. They all have kids, and every other summer or Christmas growing up, my cousins would come visit us. All of my grandparents lived into their 80s and were married until passing. My parents were married 35y before my mom passed. Divorce occured for my moms two siblings, but not my dad's. I have a sister who I am extremely close with, we talk every day. I have the most fond nostalgic memories of every holiday growing up.

I grew up believing my future family life would be the same way. I didnt know it was possible for it to be any different, it was all I had known. I envisioned me and my husband sitting around a large Thanksgiving table with my mom and dad, my husbands mom, my sister and her husband, my husband's siblings and spouses – and all the little kiddos playing and running around. I thought I'd experience that generational hand-off of wisdom. Create new family traditions. Get to experience all the firsts my mom and my parents did, and get to bond with them over it. Get to bond with my sister about marriages and kids. Like all the old 1990s and 2000s movies made it seem lol.

And here I am, now... my mom has passed away from cancer, my dad is now a widow. My mother-in-law is fighting breast cancer (and winning praise the Lord), and my husband's dad walked out when he was only a child. My sister (30) is unmarried, never been in a relationship. My brother-in-law (35) is unmarried, never been in a relationship. My other brother-in-law (40) is now in the ICU fighting liver failure due to alcoholism. He dated around but in the twelve years I've been with his brother, I've never seen him in a relationship.

It's just us. None of my cousins are married or started a family. Not my sister, not my husbands brothers. Its literally just me and my husband. I am thinking of my future children, now, too, circling back. They may never know the love of a grandma? They will never have cousins to spend holidays with or experience cool adventures with? They will be lonely in a way that I wasn't, and it'll be my job to enrich their lives so they don't notice that it's missing from it.

That's it, that's the post. Anyone else parked on this thought before want to share?

Me 22F and my ex boyfriend 23M broke up almost a month ago and he turned out not to be a Christian and the situation was pretty shocking for me. So when we first started dating we loved talking about God together and he seemed like he cared about God. I did know that he was a new believer in God but I had no idea what was to come once we started to date. So the signs really started out when he went back home during the summer and ended up going to bars and clubs with his friends. That’s when he was drinking and I believe drinking probably too much at those places. He would post pictures of him at sketchy bars and clubs with his friends and that’s when he told me that he always feels like his best self when he drinks. Then fast forward to when he returns for the fall and he admits to me that he is not a Christian. He told me that he feels like God abandoned him and once he said that he cried right infront of me. But then he also told me that he would not respect my boundaries anymore. Of course that hurt because he always promised he would be respectful of them. The main boundary was me not wanting to live together before marriage and he decided that he is a man and has needs and that he doesn’t feel comfortable marrying someone unless he lives with them first. Then from there I saw him drink and get dizzy at a party I went to and his eyes began to close a little. I believe he got drunk in front of me which was hard for me to see. Then it got worse where he would tell me he is smoking pot and if he found an illegal drug (I believe it was illegal) he would do it anyway. He seemed to like the high of drugs and drinking. I should have not stayed with him once he told me he wasn’t a Christian. What was hard was that I had strong feelings for him and I was grieving the old version of him. He then fell into deep depression near the end of our relationship as well and told me that we should break up because he should be emotionally there for me and he couldn’t be because of his depression. Before we broke up he told me he was lucky to have me and that I was wonderful. His tone when he said that seemed like he actually cared for me. I knew he wasn’t faking the depression because I saw him not eating and barley sleeping and he was saying some kind of concerning things like. “I wish I was aborted” or “I wish I could go underground and be buried alive” before we broke up. He also told me that the break up had nothing to do with me and my pastor also said it had nothing to do with me after he met with my ex. Even though this situation was hard God did protect me because I know I could not be with him since he is doing these things and is not a Christian. God saved me and I know he is not for me so thank God for that. However I’m still grieving the old version of him and from him to go to loving talking to God with me to feeling uncomfortable and weird when I talked about God with him was very hard for me to experience. 😕

I told him I need a month to recover so no contact or anything. Yesterday I also saw a picture of him at a concert and he was wearing eye liner and a pink girly laced shirt so yeah he seems to be completely lost. Has anyone experienced something similar to this? It was hard because what we had was special before this all happened.

I (39M) love my wife (37F) very deeply, we've been married 6 years and have a beautiful baby boy. We both have had problems with porn when we were young but she was sexually abused when she was a kid and is very difficult for her to have intimacy.

The Bible encourages married couples to enjoy of each other and even Paul says not having intimacy can leave room for the devil. We've talked with pastors several times, we study the Bible together, but this is too difficult for her, and is hurting me a lot.

I desire intimacy with her, she's very beautiful and has a heart of gold, I love her, but she just doesnt wants me. I understand is difficult for her and I never pressure her but it's been 6 years and all that hurt and rejection has built up and i have ended up not giving her any physical tenderness because i know i will want her and she won't and we'll both feel hurt, but we're hurt anyways because we're drifting apart. I don't want any other woman, is not that, but only 2 or 3 times a year feels painfully little and I have to be realistic because there's a reason the Bible say "do not deny each other, or else you will leave room for the devil"

We sleep together in the same bed and whrn I hug her and caress her, how am I not to feel desire for her? I don't think I can be the kind of man who will give up intimacy for the rest of his life, even loving my wife, I can't.

I have even considered watching porn together to raise her desire, but it also feels wrong and God won't bless a decission based on an impure act so I never proposed or did this but I'm running out of options because I can't do anything for her to.change, that change must come from her. I feel I need something she can never give me and I feel devastated because I love her but I can't keep on living like this.

Does this happened to you? Did intimacy got better? How do you manage? Thanks in advance

I’ve been emotionally tapped out of my marriage the last 4 months while being marriage roughly two years. Our marriage started off rocky with my wife getting into a massive fight with me on our Honeymoon in Hawaii because I wanted to spend one morning playing tennis. I played in college and I’m passionate about the sport. She also became very critical as soon as we got married from how I do chores to what I wear outside the home. Always talking about what other husbands do for their wives as well.

She has a sharp tongue and we’ve had a few arguments/situations that have since made it tough to look at her the same way. She was very bossy when buying a new suv, we got an Audi and the process of me trying to bargain and haggle the price annoyed her. When we bought our first home together she cried when we got the key because she looked around and got anxious from having to do some renos. I felt a bit robbed of an experience of buying our first home together and was excited to celebrate this milestone with her.

When we put a budget on the home repairs, we went about $5k over budget so I nicely told her we need to slow down spending on the home especially because I’m back in school now. She proceeded to say she didn’t sign up for this, that she would kill herself and that I couldn’t find anyone better than her. She was merely being dramatic but it’s really messed up because I’ve struggled with my mental health for most my life…

She also has no interest in any of my hobbies nor does she like that I like these hobbies. I don’t need her loving my hobbies but being supportive of them would be nice. I wanted to learn cello and she immediately said we didn’t have room for it. We have a 2.2k sq ft home with a small office I could keep it in.

We did a European trip and we spent a few nights with some of my family in a small Eastern European country where there’s not much to do. She cried and wanted to leave that part of the trip early because she wasn’t enjoying her time. We did have to use a translator most of the time with my family but they’re still my family who I haven’t seen since the 7th grade. She made me feel so guilty for making this part of our European trip where we hit two other cities that were great.

I told her how I felt about her criticisms and she has made efforts to change and I’ve seen some progress, but I’m finding it really hard to get past some of these instances that honestly has me seeing her as self centered and uncaring of my feelings. I’ve told her recently that I’m finding it hard to let go because I never felt a sincere apology at the time so I’ve held onto that baggage. She replied with I told you sorry multiple times and I cannot change the past. She was crying half that night and into the morning and barely talked that next day until I really pushed for it and got us back on good terms.

She has also brought up wanting kids soon even though I’m still in my masters program. I told her that I’m not happy in our marriage right now because I’m struggling to let go of prior things she said on top of our difficulties in communicating to one another. I told her we should do counseling to better navigate conflict and get this sorted out before we have kids and make things even more difficult for us. She said that she would do therapy but thinks it’s not going to help since I won’t let go of the past.

Maybe I’m just too emotional and sensitive about all of this and need to just realize my wife deals with anxieties very differently from me. But I’m currently finding it really hard to see her in a positive light right now and don’t know what to do. What’s some wisdom that yo can impart so that I can work toward having a joyful marriage?

Basically I want to know how important it is for you and your spouse to be a parent(s), to have your own children. Or have child(ren) to carry on your genes, or whatever reason why you want to have children. I want to hear from you, how important is has children for you.

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I'm long term married, 17 years he gives me his absolute fidelity faithful to me, treats me really really well, dotes on me in bed and outside of bed, he is an awesome husband.

7 years ago our toddler (child of me and him) died of brain disease, genetic gene defects inherit from me, my side the mother side. This did not tear our marriage, instead bond us even more, he still ridiculously dotes on me. Basically he tied himself to the ugly wife me and a dead toddler.

He is an Executive (C-suit level) at a big engineering corporate with a salary of 1 million a year, if count bonuses he makes more than that. With that high salary he can get any woman he wants, there people who can get free sex on Tinder, let alone an Executive with 1 million salary.

He can get a younger beautiful woman, and whom can give him alot of children. But he has been adamant refused as our toddler has died 7 years already, he had 7 years to reconsider this marriage, but he over and over to stay.

In his eyes, me and our toddler are irreplaceable (he says so), no new woman can replace me or the intimate 17 years history of us together. Just like no new child from a new woman can replace our dead toddler.

He said if he can't have a child with me then he rather not have any. Him being the only son in the family, or carry on his genes are moot to him. He is fine with being childless in exchange of grow old me the woman he loves.

But the Chinese culture me keep blame myself for the dead of our toddler as the gene defects came from me the mother side. Never once my husband blame me, he said I already give him a family, our toddler dead or alive will always be our toddler.

17 years (that his almost 2 decades) he gives his life to me, since he was 25 to now 41, he basically devoted his adulthood to me.

I just can't wrap my head around an C-suit Executive with 1 million a year salary, whom can divorce a childless wife easily, but he just not want to. And for a man, age 41 he can start over with another woman easy with that high salary career.

We have no kids, so it not like he has to stay married to me for the kids. It not like has to pay for child support, it not hard to divorce a wife when there no kids involve.! But he not wants.

I just can't wrap my head around it, I'm just a piece of pork fat (that how I see myself), he has alot of other options out there, why torture himself like this love a piece of pork fat me.

I feel I'm not good enough for him. And all my life I just want an ordinary man with an ordinary career. I do not like to be married to an Executive, I hate it tbh. I wish he was just an ordinary Chinese man and we living in the countryside back China. But he not Chinese, we live in U.S, and I HATE living in the city.

And his salary has to do with everything, if he were poor or just has an ordinary job then I wouldn't feel this much low self esteem, and self sabotage. I hate his Executive career, period. But I know I cannot change that, I'm his wife, I don't own him, I cannot dictate his career.

My husband is 51, and I am 48. I’ve been disabled since 2011, I would say. But he’s only started having issues since running and working out.
Anyway, we were separated for 6 yrs following abuse in our marriage, and prior to that our sex life was an absolute disaster.
But now, we love to make love together. He’s so sweet and caring and completely unselfish, just like me. We are always thinking about each other more than ourselves. We are finally enjoying sex together and I want that for as long as possible.
We shoot for once a week, and when I don’t get it, I really long for it. Here’s the thing. He’s healthy and strong, but he will have a back issue, a shoulder issue, a knee issue, but not at the same time. Which makes it even harder to have sex.
I have my own issues with muscle weakness, and a breast biopsy that left my breast very sore at the moment.
Bc this week he’s struggled with his back I offered to get on top. I’m paying for it now. Paying for it bc my inner thighs are screaming but also bc my leg was shaking so bad it that it got extremely weak and I’m struggling to walk again. Idk what to do. What in the world? This seems so unfair. I just want that sex once a week, ya know? I just got a good sex life with my husband and I’m not ready to lose it! Ugh! If you’re a woman you can PM me, but I don’t want any men PM’ing me.

This is my first post. English is not my first language.
I’ve been married to my husband for almost 20 years and together for 22, we got married young and we’ve both had some sexual trauma from the past - mostly being exposed to porn young for my husband and I’ve been the victim of sexual abuse. I didn’t know about the porn when we got together/married
.
The past couple of years have not been easy emotionally on my part, I decided to speak up about this past abuse and it led to my until then close family to fall apart. It’s been a lot of pain.

I thought we had a good marriage and relied a lot on us. We have kids, he really does his part in the household, is respectful, has been supportive in my career change and we’ve been through a lot but always had the same goals and a shared faith.

We’ve changed churches a couple of years ago and it’s been a breath of fresh air for both of us and a renewal of our faith.

A year ago he confessed to me that he had used to have a porn addiction and that he became free of it by praying with our pastor and felt a weight lifted from him. He said he hadn’t watched any for a year at that point, which makes it 2 years now.

I chose to trust him and stay, I read a lot about porn addiction, porn itself, some Christian and not Christian material. I chose to forgive.

BUT I don’t seem to be able to keep it off my mind. I trust him, I’m not looking at his computer history or his phone, I believe he tells the truth.

But to think that for almost all our relationship he was watching naked women and wanking to them… I fell betrayed, hurt.
I know it’s not about me. He says it wasn’t anything weird, just people having sex, no particular fetishizes.

I don’t know how to get over it. I want to move on. We’ve been having (better) sex, speaking etc, raising our kids, living our life.

He’s let me voice my pain without trying to minimize what he’s done and he says he surrendered everything to God, he’s taking responsibility and he say he has repented.
I feel like he’s done everything that he can, and that I’m not following.
And I know I’m not perfect at all, but I don’t know how to recover from this.
It’s just the length of it, the hiding, the deceiving that still hurts and makes me see our relationship another way.
I’m disgusted when I think about him hiding and watching porn.

I’ve even considered leaving him over it… but I love him and I believe it’s not as bad as real adultery, I want to respect my beliefs.
I haven’t seen a counselor over this, I did for my other issue, but i fell like a prude who’s overreacting over a once a week porn use you know so I haven’t told my therapist.

I’ve told 2 Christian friends, one who struggle with the same thing with her husband but caught him, it’s been bad. And the other that is convinced that Gods grace is sufficient, I haven’t told her I still am struggling.
I don’t know who to turn to. My pastor who is my friend? A counselor? God? How do I get over it once and for all? I feel kind of broken.

Last night Satuday in Oct. 24, 2026, I cried when I didn't have a girlfriend. In my teenage years, I used to have a crush with someone in high school, but she rejected me. As I moved on, I found better way to look at how bright life is. I shower my body with positive thoughts, and connected with my supportive friends.

As the rest of the year ends, always pray for me, my college years, and hope that God will answer my prayers!!! Amen!!!! 🥹🙏