Can Lack of Intimacy Ruin a Marriage?

Intimacy is an important part of marriage that many couples tend to sweep to the side as the pressures and expectations of society bear down on you. You should always make time to be intimate with your spouse, though, or your marriage can suffer.

Sometimes the problems caused by lack of intimacy are troublesome enough to tear your marriage apart.

 

Building Resentment

When one partner doesn’t seek or reciprocate the affections of the other, it can lead to resentment between the couple. For example, when a woman tries to woo her husband only to have her advances ignored, she can feel frustrated and unappreciated.

The same goes for men who have their wives constantly reject their sexual advances. This resentment can cause them to quit pursuing their spouses and search for attention outside of the marriage.

 

Depression

Some people aren’t prone to anger when their plans go awry, which can be a good or a bad thing. In a relationship without intimacy, a partner can bypass anger or resentment and instead fall into depression.

He can believe that the lack of attention he receives is his fault, causing him to feel insecure about his physical appearance or his ability to please his wife. This self-loathing can lead him to give up on his marriage and sulk incessantly.

 

Bickering

When you are intimate with someone on an emotional level and a physical level, you get an added benefit of stress relief. Being close to your spouse feels good, and it has stress-relieving benefits as well. If you don’t engage in regular acts of intimate affection with your spouse, you could notice that the little things in life start grinding on your patience.

After a long day at the office, it’s nice to come home and feel appreciated. Without that stress relief, you find yourself fighting more and more with your partner.

 

The Root Cause

Sometimes you need to look past the symptoms to the disease. The lack of intimacy can stem from deeper problems, such as one partner having body-image issues, feelings of self-loathing, lack of desire for your partner or physical illness.

These problems can compound the difficulties caused by the lack of intimacy and lead to the destruction of the marriage. In some cases, both partners want to be intimate with their mate, but extenuating circumstances arise that put a damper on their relations.

 

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