If passion decreases after a few months, sex remains a cement for many couples. But can one live happily in two without having sex? Testimonials and decoding.
It's not necessarily a question of age. Neither torque duration . It takes little to desire to waver or to extinguish, even though hard love, in its own way. But the hour is for the flamboyant, loving and sexed couple.
Then the questions interfere, disturbing the duo: what have we become? Brother and sister? Old peaceful buddies? A parenting couple? How to revive the spark? Should we go? Hang on ? And how do the others? For some, the death of desire sounds the knell of the couple . Others arrive to do with, cahin-caha, some even manage to find unavowable arrangements. And then there are those who wait for desire to be reborn from its ashes. Confessions of three women who all love love but do not really have the same conception of the couple.
Living without sex: "Sometimes I find it normal, other times I create it"
Anne-Laure, 39, a couple for twenty-two years, mother of a child
"That's not the way I looked at the couple, especially with Paul it started in a rather hot and carnal way, and yet ... three years ago we did not touch each other. I could not date it ... At first it was all right: there was something epidermic between us, not the least shift, dysfunction ... It is so far ... With the hindsight I come to tell me that maybe I was not so satisfied, basically.
Of course, the birth of Laura, ten years later, has made a tremendous difference, but it is only a revealer, certainly not the cause. Let's say we settled down in the role of dad and mom with a suspicious facility. And we're gone.
We made love from time to time, once a month perhaps, without great ecstasy or communion
The event that made everything emerge is a connection, totally unexpected and hyper-intense, five years ago, which has rekindled in me sleepy things. And made me realize brutally that I was sleepy for years. I quickly cut short, but lack, dissatisfaction have not left me since. Paul, at that time, seemed quite satisfied. One made love from time to time, once a month perhaps, without great ecstasy or communion. I think, I feel it was enough. This history has still distanced us from each other. Until one comes to no longer touch or have the slightest momentum towards each other.
We have never put words on it, and I really do not see how we can go back. The worst thing is that today we no longer even have small gestures of tenderness, I find it very hard. But at the same time, Paul remains my home port. We hardly ever leave, all our past binds us, our two families, our daughter ... And there are many things on which we work perfectly together, in the habits and rituals of everyday life. Lots of pleasant moments. We are a company that is running. But there's nothing romantic about it, no surprise.
This is one of the many questions that haunt me: do I still love him? How do I like it?
Sometimes I try to make a reason for it: that's how it's normal. Other times I'm dying. I find myself dreaming that he arrives from behind and makes me a kiss in the neck. Or that I wake up against a man with whom I made love ... Having sexuality elsewhere, each on its own? Of course I've already thought about it, but considering Paul in the bed of another, I can not. Nor did he. It's not our thing. So what ? Is it possible to "pass our love to the machine", as in the song of Alain Souchon? I can not.
Why ? This is one of the many questions that haunt me: do I still love him? How do I like it? Are we still a couple? When he gives me a pat on the buttocks in passing, like a brother, I have doubts. In any case, our trio is a family, which it is unthinkable to break ... Perhaps when Laura will fly with her own wings I will see things differently. For the moment, I have no idea of what follows. "
Living without sex: "I regularly have lovers"
Nicole, 36, married for fifteen years, mother of two children
"Of course a couple can survive without sex!" It took me years to accept it, but I find it quite comfortable today. "Peter, I met him at age 20. It was not not my most torrid adventure, but the first one that gave me desires for the future.We married, for me it is not a commitment lightly and very quickly we were in the construction: choose an apartment , make children, settle down.
We had more and more things and interests in common. And less and less urgency to make love. It was mostly he, in fact, who became less ardent, after my first pregnancy, two years later. But I did not really have time to ask questions; we found another rhythm, other habits, comfortable, and nothing has ever again become as before. The arrival of the second child did not help, nor the fact that Peter works more and more, sometimes arrives at home while I was already lying ...
I needed his desire, I was very in demand, it sometimes created real tensions
In the beginning, I have lived rather badly that he desires me less, I even thought that he had someone else in his life. But, to be honest, I too had less desire. I loved to see him become an important man in his work, a father who makes the big voice; I saw him less and less as a lover. Despite everything, I needed his desire, I was in high demand, it sometimes created real tensions ... Until my first connection: with a man in the same situation as me, who had not many relationships with his wife, even if he still loved him, and made me understand, in his way, what Peter felt. I put the holâ before falling in love , but a door had opened.
Since then, I have regularly lovers, if possible married, and fathers of families: we have the same gaps to fill, and the same good reasons for not succumbing. With them I feel beautiful, desirable, woman. And with my little family I'm less surly, less in demand, I feel in my place, safe, well. I do not have the impression of betraying Peter, to whom the almost asexual existence with me seems to agree.
Desiring the same person for twenty years, it's just unnatural
He always has tender gestures for me, we have remained very cuddly, and every night I fall asleep in a spoon against him. Like a rampart. I had to force myself a little when he was in demand, because it seemed abnormal not to make love any more. Then it got out, and I stopped wondering if it was normal or not ... More than two years ago we did not make love, and I find it clearer, finally . Our link is not there. Does Peter have connections? I do not think he has the time. And anyway, I do not want to know.
I know that my double life shocks many girlfriends, even those who are facing the same problem. But I found a balance like this, cutting myself in two. I do not know how long it can last: as long as I can, I hope. For I am convinced that if I fall in love tomorrow and start a story again, after some time it will be the same impasse. Desiring the same person for twenty years, it's just unnatural ... With Peter I built a building that I hold, much more resistant than the libido. And more reassuring.
Living without sex: "I left him, I did not want this life"
Anna, 42, separated after fourteen years of married life, mother of two children
No, a couple can not survive without sex. Not only am I convinced but I have paid dearly for this creed. Finally, for me it is the concept of couple that is fickle. The couple is a social construction. Certainly, one can very well be in couple and not or more love, to be couple and not to make love any more. I know many cases of this kind around me. But this link, I do not want it. I do not need a crutch. What I need is to love and be loved. A love relationship, indissociable from sexual intercourse.
I renounced seven years ago a wonderful story with my children's father, because we had become brother and sister. Yet this man really loved me, and so did I. They lived a pleasant life together. As I left him, I cut myself an arm. But I did not want this life anymore. When he realized that I was leaving, he was ready for anything: that I had my room apart, my adventures ... Maybe if I had been old and rowed sex cars , that would have been suitable for me. It was way too early, I took my legs around my neck. When I think about it today, it was like a new birth, my transition to adulthood.
If the desire were to die out, it would clearly be the end
In my eyes, these stories of love without emotion are based on something perhaps more fundamental than sex, a childhood trick. That's why they're so painful to cut. As for me, when I left I felt as if I had lost my father, my mother, my brother, my sister. I left to set myself free. If I had stayed, basically, we would still be "a couple", a small business that works on its own, without the knowledge of its members. Without a stake. I refused, and I still refuse.
I am currently in love, and I am terrified by this threat. We love each other and we have wanted each other for three years. He would like us to live together, like a "couple". Not me. In fact, it's gunshot sex, couple life. It mixes everything. For the moment I resist, and it goes very well like that. If the desire were to be extinguished, it would clearly be the end. A gentle, harmonious relationship ... and asexual? We have friends for that.
Living without sex: the opinion of the psychologist
we Surviving without sex, does this concern only old couples ?
Sophie Cadalen (1) : Not at all. Because everything happens very early in a couple, depending on how it is organized, and it is not always around the sexual question. I hear a lot of young people for whom the commitment is decided when, from the beginning, sex is not very important between them. And that does not mean, in any case, that it will not last long. They're hoping it's going to come off one day. Something misses the call, but " it's not that bad, " there are " so many other things that go so well "... And, a few decades from us, indeed, the question would not even be asked. Except that today hovers over the couple the norm of regular, full-blown sex. And some question then when ever, in fact, sex was among them the heart of the subject.
On what conditions can a couple last without it ?
So there are those couples for whom this aspect of the relationship has never been important. The two can say, " Sex, no, it's not my thing. " It's still difficult to accept for men, but it is a confession that is done on the couch. A little "blow" from time to time is enough. And if they are no longer solicited, they do without it. It is more common than we imagine ... The other big case is the duo "dominant-dominated": one is in a position of demand, the other is waiting, guilty of doing suffer the first. It works very well in a neurotic mode, and it can last a lifetime.
But if the absence of sex really becomes a suffering ?
One has to wonder about this suffering, from oneself to oneself. What makes me suffer? Sometimes it's just the question of the norm. I often hear in my office: "But sex is still the cement of the couple! Or: "Is that normal? Is it logical that it can stand without it? Now, if there is indeed an area where there is nothing normal or obligatory, it is that of sex and love. Is it a narcissistic suffering: "You do not want me? Do not you think I'm beautiful? Now the real question is: "Do I desire you? Am I really lacking sex? Or lack of confidence in me ... "Sometimes, all this suffering can push the couple to build up otherwise. Go to the other side. One moves away, and it wakes the other. Or both have parallel lives. But it is rare : a couple can organize in this way if, already, it was like this at the beginning, even without his knowledge. There is also the solution of cleavage. It's very complicated to manage sex and love, it does not organize at all in the same way. Some choose for everyday a teddy bear, while they dream of life disheveled and sexual tornadoes ... that they can end up offering themselves in a parallel life. One way to put things in different places. while they dream of disheveled life and sexual tornadoes ... that they can end up offering themselves in a parallel life. One way to put things in different places. while they dream of disheveled life and sexual tornadoes ... that they can end up offering themselves in a parallel life. One way to put things in different places.
In which cases can the absence of sex cause the couple to explode ?
If one is really in a sexual drive. For the couples who have found themselves on this ground, the disappearance of sex can reveal dysfunctions that the reconciliation on the pillow occulted. Sex is often the concentrate, the revelator and many other things. It's unconscious that it is, not gymnastics! Even for couples with "just that" going, this is far from trivial. This attachment is extremely powerful.
But when the couple survives, has it not become a story of brother and sister ?
You know a lot, brothers and sisters able to live together? No, it is not brother or sister, nor roommates who share nothing but rent. These couples, on the contrary, generally have much in common. A connivance, tenderness, intellectual interests, militancy (something very libidinal is played there, something passionate, exciting, feverish) ... The whole problem is what one expects a priori from the couple. In fact, no definition is universal. A couple is a creation, it counts by three: one, the other and this other state, this sphere that we invent together and which belongs only to us. One must read the book of the philosopher Alan Badiou (2) on this subject ... There is nothing installed, rigidified in the couple. Everything rests on a balance between a myriad of elements. Sexuality is but one among many.