Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Most people intuitively know that intimacy is an important part of a healthy marriage. However, it is also very common to try to make excuses for decreasing intimacy or to try to explain it away when it happens in your own marriage. We are living in very stressful times right now. And, marriage and parenthood can bring their own sets of stressors. So, most of us don’t immediately panic when we notice that intimacy has begun to wane. However, when this trend becomes extreme or persistent then, understandably, we may become concerned. An example is when a husband makes a habit of sleeping on the couch, or worse, no longer attempting to be intimate.

A wife might explain, “For the past few months, my husband has not slept in the same bed as me. He no longer sleeps in the master bedroom. It started out when I had a cold. He didn’t want to catch my cold, so he slept on the couch. But once I got better and was perfectly healthy, he didn’t return. I asked him what was wrong and he said that he was falling asleep watching TV because I go to bed earlier than he does. His explanation sort of made sense, so I didn’t dwell on it. But now he never initiates intimacy. We get along otherwise. But lately, it feels like more of a roommate situation. The other night, I got up to get some water, and he was on the couch, in his pajamas, watching TV with a blanket over him. I sarcastically said, ‘don’t let me disturb you,” and his response was that maybe he should start sleeping in the guest room. I have repeatedly asked him if I should worry about this, and he always replies that I should not. Should I?”

Why Waning Intimacy Is A Legitimate Marital Concern: I believe that there is always a concern when intimacy begins to wane. Simply put, having sex or being intimate is a very effective way that couples remain close to one another. And it helps to maintain a commitment to your marriage. Without this, you no longer have that glue that holds you together. Sure, other things in your life can bring you together – like your children, shared interests, or joint finances. But, people separate or eventually divorce, at least in part, because they are not getting their emotional needs met, and they do not feel close to their spouse. They don’t typically divorce due to the other factors that bring you together, like kids or joint interests. So yes, intimacy is quite important.

In fact, most of the correspondence that I get from wives who know that their marriage is in trouble frequently mention some variation on a loss of intimacy or a decreased interest in sex by their husbands. Many suspect an affair or flirtation when they see this behavior.

Of course, this situation doesn’t always mean that the couple won’t make it or that the husband is cheating. Sometimes, couples will temporarily sleep in separate rooms during illness, early parenthood (particularly if mom is nursing much of the night,) or different work schedules.

I have a friend who is a nurse that works nights. She doesn’t want to wake her husband when she gets home, so she sleeps in the guest room on work nights. But, she returns to the master bedroom when she is off of work. And the couple makes sex a high priority. This is different from someone who never appears interested in sleeping with or having sex with their spouse.

Determining Why (Or If) Your Husband Has A Lack Of Interest In Intimacy: One easy way to get some more information about what you are actually dealing with is to just attempt to initiate intimacy yourself. You don’t even have to pressure him into the master bedroom. Just show him affection and see what happens when you attempt to initiate intimacy. If he is uninterested or refuses, then you know that you have a larger issue than just him crashing in front of the TV.

You’ll want to be very honest with yourself about whether there are any issues that you can identify and then fix. Is your husband under stress or pressure? If there any issue that has been dividing you or hurting your marriage? Is there any identifiable reason that he would lose interest in sex? It is obviously important to correctly identify any issues so that you can fix them.

On the flip side, if he enthusiastically has sex with you and intimacy isn’t a reoccurring issue, then you’ll need to have an honest conversation about what each of you wants (or doesn’t want) out of sharing a bed. Sleeping in the same bed to get a good night’s sleep and regularly having sex are obviously two different things.

But to answer the question posed, yes, it can be a worry to your marriage if your spouse distances himself from you at bedtime so that he can avoid intimacy. Some spouses sleep in separate rooms during special circumstances. But couples that make this work make sex and intimacy a priority.

Most of the time, you can’t allow sex and intimacy to wane and then expect that it will have no impact on the closeness of your marriage. Most of the time, it absolutely will.

I am not trying to scare or alarm anyone. But if you can avoid serious marital problems, you should.  A lack of intimacy was one of the precursors to my marital problems and eventual separation. Although I saved my marriage, it would have been easier to avoid the issues in the first place.  You can read more about how I was able to restore my marriage at https://isavedmymarriage.com

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