My wife and I don’t have sex and she refuses to talk about it. Should I just give up? | Sex

My wife and I have been together for over 10 years and married for four years. We have small children. I love him deeplybut our marriage is essentially void of sex and physical intimacy, and she refuseses to talk about it beyond acknowledging that there is a problem. I am a woman who values ​​physical intimacy and I am deeply attracted to her. I want to feel more wanted and alive. But love is extremely rare, always initiated by me and follows the same pattern. She doesn’t focus on my pleasure. The rest of the time I’m pushed away, leaving me feeling ashamed and unattractive. Even the lightest of playful or suggestive messages, I send are greeted with silence. So I bother less and less.

Naturally I want to know what happens to her. We are already have couples therapy, but it’s not a topic we’ve tackled successfully. Out these sessions, my attempts to discuss them are either avoided or met with anger. Do Do I just give up, after so many years of trying and failing to make things better? I can’t forgetting my needs and desires simply because they are not reciprocated.

I wonder why you didn’t persist on the issue of sexuality in your couples therapy sessions? Sex is often an expression of your entire relationship and should not be ignored in the therapeutic environment. This may be difficult to bring up and discuss, but it’s clear that you feel the lack of intimacy strongly and are obviously sad and steeped in nostalgia. If you don’t make room for this great sense of loss and shame you feel, you doom yourself to continue in quiet despair and threaten the longevity of your marriage. You deserve to be heard.

Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of sexual disorders.

If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please do not send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses a problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets not being able to enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.