I’m with my partner for eight years, but don’t fancy him

¦ I have been with my partner for eight years but my problem is that I don’t fancy him.

I know this is a common problem for couples but in my case I’m not sure that I ever did.

I think I liked him and convinced myself that I was attracted to him sexually, but we never had that period of passion that you’re supposed to, so we’ve got nothing to return to. Now our sex life has dwindled to almost nothing and when we do have sex it seems like a chore.

In other ways we get on well and are good friends, but the tension surrounding sex is beginning to build up. Can you ever make yourself fancy someone?

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life without sex, and I don’t think he does either. >>

Had you asked me this question when I was in my 20s I would have told you not to waste another second living in such a sexually compromised relationship, but now, in my 40s, I hesitate.

Breaking up after eight years with someone you detest is hard enough. To do so with a man you get on well with and consider to be a good friend would, I imagine, be unbearable, particularly if the passionate sexual relationship that you were hoping to find then failed to materialise. Or, worse still, you ended up in a libidinous but loveless relationship.

Though walking away from sexual difficulties (and that includes not having any) is an option, it is better to delay that decision until you have explored the cause from within the relationship, preferably with the help of a good therapist.

You may be right. You may simply not fancy him, but eight years ago you chose to commit to him for a reason. Perhaps you were looking for a degree of security or maybe you purposely chose a passionless relationship because you were afraid of the complexities of sex. Whatever your motivations were, it is probably easier now to blame him for making you feel claustrophobic or sexually apathetic than it is for you to admit that you were complicit in creating a relationship that accommodated co-dependence or sexlessness.

There is little point in my telling you to try and “spice things up” with its simplistic implication that a vibrator and a scented candle can re-light a sexual flame - but I urge you to talk to your partner about how you are feeling.

All couples, whether they have been married for eight minutes or 18 years, owe it to themselves to discuss the sex that they are having and the sex that they would like to be having, even if it feels terribly uncomfortable to do so.

In long-term relationships there is no doubt that sexual complacency is compounded by lack of communication, and yet couples who can’t be bothered to have sex with each other are always surprised at how enormously threatened and possessive they feel if their other half decides to explore the idea of having sex with someone else.

As GK Chesterton put it: “The way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost.”

If you can look at your relationship objectively, and without emotion, contemplate a future in which you are alone and your good friend is passionately happy with someone else, then it may be time to separate.

If, on the other hand, you want to create some sexual tension with your partner, you need to become separate in a different way.

Just as sexual attraction can be stifled by proximity and overexposure, it can be reignited by distance and autonomy.

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