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Sexless Marriage will Affect Your Mental Health
By Adeoye Oyewole (adeoyewole2000@yahoo.com)
For most married couples, the bedroom is a place of privacy and sexual intimacy. But many who have been married for a while know that this is often not the case.
Sometimes and for a long period, the bedroom can become a lonely place. To be clear, a sexless marriage is a marital union in which little or no sexual activity occurs between both spouses. A Newsweek magazine survey found that 15 to 20 per cent of couples are in a sexless union.
Studies have even showed that about 10 per cent of couples below the age of 50 have not had sex in a year. The definition is often broadened to include those where sexual intimacy occurs less than 10 times per year.
In addition, less than 20 per cent of them report having sex a few times per year, or even monthly, under the age 40. This definition takes into consideration the fact that partners may have varying sexual drives, but not as bad as having sex only 10 times in a year.
It is difficult to obtain statistics about couples in Nigeria, but sexless marriages may be common among our modern, educated couples. Our religious and socio-cultural values that accommodate polygamy and forbid divorce may mask research findings and inadvertently encourage marriages, even if it is sexless.
If you are in this category, there is no shame. What you need is help before it begins to affect your mental health.
The major causes of sexless marriages are psychological, but a few are understandably due to some biological and clinical situations that could be handled medically, such as vulvae pain syndromes, fragile vagina tissues from low levels of oestrogen, prostate difficulties in men, post-heart attack or stroke states, chronic arthritis, chronic low back pain, side effects of medications and diabetic complications.
There are also clinical psychological states such as depressive illness, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypoactive sexual drive, gender identity problems or body image difficulties. However, more than 90 per cent of the causes of sexless marriages are due to issues in the psychodynamics of the marital relationship.
A partner may have feelings hurt repeatedly, get turned down too many times, get disrespected and erect a wall that does not allow issues to be resolved promptly. These unresolved conflicts can generate a state of permanent hostility that blocks sexual expression.
The partner, who behaves in a passive-aggressive manner, may block sexual intercourse as punishment or protection from hurt inflicted by the mate. The perceived rejection may lead to loss of interest in sexual communication, which may be complicated by loneliness, anger and lowering of self-esteem in the spouse who feels that basic sexual human needs are deliberately frustrated by the rejecting partner.
Other causes of this resentment may be due to perceived imbalance of duties and responsibilities, including moral, religious and financial issues. This may get complicated when extra-marital affairs set in, which may lead to reduced sexual interest in the estranged spouse and, if the affair is discovered, the innocent spouse may cease to want to be intimate with the offending spouse.
This may manifest as restricted, formal and coarse communication as partners treat each other with contempt. Couples in this situation are definitely in mental distress or already mentally ill, hence they require professional help.
Those deeper feelings of resentment must be uncovered and dealt with as they practise active listening and try to communicate creatively in the process of discovery. You may think you have a right to be resentful of the way you have been treated, and while it might seem natural, resentment creeps into everything you do.
Every time you talk to your spouse, every action you take can be so tainted with this resentment that it becomes a psychological burden. The path to recovery is that you make a conscious effort to do everything for the benefit of both of you, and not just yourself. You must be honest and, without hatred or fear or anger, confront the problem of sexual intimacy together.
The bedroom should be a peaceful and relaxing place by keeping it free of clutter. To bring the spark back, you can go on dates, do fun things together, especially things that ignite mutual passion and excitement.
There is a need for the services of a professional marriage counselor, who will help couples to navigate and elicit hidden resentments and resolve. Such a counsellor will also help to identity faculty communication styles that may have shut down sexual intimacy and suggest new patterns and also appropriately refer those with mental health issues.
A successful marriage requires commitment, effort, compromise and forgiveness. Sexless marriage can impair wholesome development of children in the home because of discordance in communication. In addition, less than 20 per cent of them report having sex a few times per year, or even monthly, under the age 40.
The facility of education and financial empowerment of our modern wives may serve as templates for more conflicts leading to ego-stalemates that may injure sexual intimacy. Our relatively lower rates of divorce, even among our educated couples, compared with the western world, may find compensation in sexless marriages as a manifestation of emotional divorce.
The first hostages freed from Gaza under a long-awaited ceasefire agreement are back in Israel. The news sparked jubilant scenes in Tel Aviv where large crowds gathered ahead of their release.
The three freed Israeli hostages – the first of 33 to be released over the next six weeks – are Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari. They are said to be in good health and are receiving treatment at a medical center in Tel Aviv.
In exchange, 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees are set to be released by Israel from Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military withdrew from several locations in southern and northern Gaza after the truce began earlier on Sunday, an Israeli military official told CNN.
Displaced Gazans have started returning to their homes, while the aid trucks laden with much-needed supplies have crossed into Gaza. Here’s what we know about how the ceasefire deal will work.
Hamas, despite suffering devastating losses, is framing the Gaza ceasefire agreement as a victory for itself, and a failure for Israel.
One of Hamas’ main goals for taking some 250 people during its brazen October 7, 2023, attack on Israel was to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. As Israel pounded Gaza in response, Hamas vowed not to return the hostages until Israel withdrew its forces from the enclave, permanently ended the war, and allowed for rebuilding.
Source: CNN
The leader of UK’s Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has said she doesn’t want Britain to be like Nigeria that is plagued by “terrible governments.”
Speaking on Thursday at an event organised by Onward, a British think tank producing research on economic and social issues, Badenoch expressed fears that Britain may become like Nigeria if the system is not reformed.
“And why does this matter so much to me? It’s because I know what it is like to have something and then to lose it,” Badenoch told the audience.
“I don’t want Britain to lose what it has.
“I grew up in a poor country and watched my relatively wealthy family become poorer and poorer, despite working harder and harder as their money disappeared with inflation.
“I came back to the UK aged 16 with my father’s last £100 in the hope of a better life.
“So I have lived with the consequences of terrible governments that destroy lives, and I never, ever want it to happen here.”
Badenoch has been in the news of late after she dissociated herself from Nigeria, saying she has nothing to do with the Islamic northern region.
She also accused the Nigeria Police of robbing citizens instead of protecting them.
She said: “My experience with the Nigeria Police was very negative. Coming to the UK, my experience with the British Police was very positive.
“The police in Nigeria will rob us (laughter). When people say I have this bad experience with the police because I’m black, I say well…I remember the police stole my brother’s shoe and his watch.”
