If you are not attracted to your wife anymore, or you love her but have no sexual desire for her, you are in a very common situation, and it rarely has a single cause. Desire in a long relationship rises and falls with health, stress, mood, conflict and daily life. Losing it does not mean you married the wrong person, and it does not mean something is wrong with her.
This page is about desire. If the desire is there but the erection is not, see getting hard alone but not with a partner or what the research says about porn and erection problems.
Is it normal to love your wife but have no desire for her?
Yes. Love and sexual desire are related, but they do not move together, and guilt about the gap can make it heavier.
Desire also often stops arriving out of nowhere. Early on it can feel spontaneous. Years in, it more often shows up in response to the right context: feeling close, feeling wanted, being touched, having time. In interviews with 30 men aged 30 to 65 in long-term relationships, Murray and colleagues found that desire was sparked by feeling desired, by exciting and unexpected sexual encounters, and by intimate communication. It was dampened by rejection, health problems and a lack of emotional connection. Read the study. If those sparks have been missing for years, fading desire is not surprising.
Why have I lost attraction to my wife?
The NHS lists relationship problems, stress, anxiety, depression, certain medicines, drinking too much alcohol, and long-term conditions such as diabetes, heart disease or an underactive thyroid among the main causes of a low sex drive. NHS overview. In a marriage, these tend to show up as:
- Routine. Same time, same place, same order. Predictable sex can start to feel like a task.
- Resentment and unresolved conflict. It is hard to want someone you are quietly angry with.
- Rejection. Being turned down repeatedly can teach you to stop wanting, just to avoid the sting.
- Stress and tiredness. Work, money and caring for others use up the energy desire needs.
- Low mood. Losing interest in sex can be part of depression.
- Medicines and health. Blood pressure medicines and antidepressants are among those the NHS mentions. Talk to your prescriber rather than stopping anything yourself.
- Parenthood and changed roles. Pregnancy, a new baby, broken sleep and seeing each other mainly as co-parents can push sex far down the list.
- Body changes. Pregnancy, age and weight change bodies, yours included. Ask honestly whether the change itself is the problem, or whether distance, resentment or comparison with images have landed there.
If you have never felt attracted to her, or you find yourself questioning your orientation, that is a different question from desire that faded. A therapist can help you think it through without pressure.
When should I see a doctor or a therapist?
See a GP if you are worried about your sex drive, or you think a medicine may be affecting it, as the NHS advises. Book sooner if:
- your desire has dropped for everyone and everything, not only for your wife;
- it came with tiredness, low mood, poor sleep, loss of muscle or poor concentration. The NHS notes that low testosterone can sometimes cause these, though stress, depression or lifestyle often do, and blood tests check it. NHS on testosterone and midlife symptoms;
- the change started after a new medicine;
- you feel hopeless, or you have stopped enjoying most things.
If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, contact emergency services or a crisis line now.
If the problem sits mainly in the relationship, the NHS names relationship counselling as a treatment. You can start on your own if she is not ready.
Could porn be part of it?
This is the cause people rarely check, and for many men it will not be the reason. Porn offers endless novelty on demand, with no risk of rejection and no history. Some men find that what feels arousing shifts towards that pace and variety, and partnered sex starts to feel flat by comparison. Sex can also become a solo routine that meets the need before it can be shared.
The evidence is limited and mostly correlational. A 2017 meta-analysis of 50 studies by Wright and colleagues found men’s porn use was associated with somewhat lower sexual and relationship satisfaction. It cannot show which came first: unhappy men may also watch more. Read the meta-analysis. In a survey of 487 young men, Sun and colleagues found those who watched more were more likely to call up porn images during sex to stay aroused, and less likely to enjoy intimacy with a partner. Read the study.
A short self-check:
- Do you feel desire when you watch porn, but rarely for your wife?
- Have you needed more novel, more intense or more specific content to get aroused?
- Do you picture porn scenes during sex with her?
- When you feel an urge, do you go to your phone rather than to her?
- Do you compare her body or responses with what you see on screen?
- Have you tried to cut back and found it harder than you expected?
Several yes answers suggest your habits are worth looking at alongside the other causes, not instead of them. This is not a diagnosis. If most were no, set this section aside.
Should I tell my wife I’m not attracted to her?
She has probably noticed the distance, and silence invites the worst explanation. What helps is honesty about your experience, not a verdict on her body. For example: “I’ve felt distant and less interested in sex lately, and I don’t think it’s because of anything you’ve done wrong. I want to understand what’s going on with me, and I’d like us to work on feeling close again.”
If porn is part of it, and especially if it has been hidden, read about how secrecy affects a relationship and how to talk to your partner about porn before you start.
How do I get attracted to my wife again? A 30-day experiment
Attraction is not a switch, but the conditions around it can change. If you want to test that, choose a 30-day window to observe. It is not a cure or a recovery timeline.
- Write down a starting point. Rate your desire and your sense of closeness from 1 to 10. Note sleep, stress, alcohol and your solo habits, and add a line each day.
- Rebuild closeness that is not about sex. Spend 15 minutes a day talking without phones. Touch without a goal: a hug that lasts, sitting close. Neither of you owes the other sex.
- Bring in something new together. Once a week, do something neither of you has done before, or change where and when you are intimate.
- Change the solo routine. Leave porn out of masturbation for the month, or pause masturbation, and notice where your desire goes.
- Make porn harder to reach on your phone. Turn on a content blocker or your phone’s built-in screen-time limits, and charge the phone outside the bedroom.
- Deal with the other causes too. Book the GP appointment, drink less, protect your sleep, and raise the old argument you have both been avoiding, or find a counsellor to help.
At the end, compare your notes with the starting point. If something shifted, that is useful, even if you cannot tell which change helped. If nothing did, you have not failed, and your notes are a good start for a doctor or therapist.
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