No sex or relationship question is too embarrassing because it's time to ask EmpowHer's sexuality expert, Dr. Marty Klein, anything.
Michelle King Robson:
Dr. Klein, one of our women asks, “Why do couples quit having sex and then never talk about it?”
Dr. Marty Klein:
I don’t think there is a sadder question that a person can ask than that. The sad part is not that people stop having sex. The sad part is that people stop talking about it, and I think the reason that people stop talking about it is because they feel so sad or because they feel lonely or because they feel embarrassed, because they feel like a failure.
In my experience clinically, when people stop having sex, they are either really, really, really angry, or they feel like a failure. And nobody likes to talk about failure, whether it’s failure at work, or failure raising kids, or failure in a sexual relationship. And I think that’s why people stop talking about it, and, of course, another reason that people stop talking about it is that if you talk about it, that means you have to do something about it. And if you don’t talk about it, you can pretend that there’s no problem, or you can pretend that “I am not thinking about it. You may be thinking about it, but I am not thinking about it,” and this strategy is not limited to sex.
People use this strategy about a lot of things, whether it’s your gambling problem, or my drinking problem, or our kids not doing well in school. A lot of people just don’t like talking about stuff when it’s a problem that they don’t know how to solve.