The Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast by Michael Forman

What does sexual disconnection feel like from the other side of the bed? Michael Forman examines the pain of lower-desire partners through accounts and relationship research. Exploring lost desire, pressure, responsive arousal and duty sex, this episode reveals how two spouses can suffer differently without making either one the villain.

Homesite: https://michaelformanwriting.com/Vowels, Laura M., and Kristen P. Mark. “Strategies for Mitigating Sexual Desire Discrepancy inRelationships.” Read the paper summary throughPubMed.

Shoikhedbrod, Ariel, and colleagues. “Being Responsive and Self-Determined When It Comes to Sex: Howand Why Sexual Motivation Is Associated with Satisfaction and Desire in Romantic Relationships.” Read the paper.

Shoikhedbrod, Ariel, and colleagues. “When a Partner Supports Your Sexual Autonomy: Read the open-access paper.

One man’s confession reveals the quiet grief, moral wrestling and hidden loneliness endured inside marriages that look perfectly normal.

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Duty sex can look like a solution to a sexless marriage, yet leave both partners feeling lonelier. In this episode of The Dirty Rabbit Hole, Michael Forman examines the difference between intimacy freely chosen and sex performed through guilt, fear or obligation. He explores responsive desire, rejection, bodily autonomy and the painful truth that nobody owes sex—but nobody owes lifelong celibacy either. Intimacy requires mutuality, honesty and the freedom to say yes and no.

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Can a sexless marriage recover? Online forums overflow with stories of rejection, loneliness and resentment, while successful outcomes are far harder to find. Yet couples do recover—through therapy, medical treatment, honest communication, patience and shared effort. Others find a workable level of intimacy or consciously accept a loving marriage in which sex no longer defines the relationship.

In this episode of The Dirty Rabbit Hole, Michael Forman examines real accounts of bedrooms revived after trauma, depression, parenting exhaustion and years of misunderstanding. He also explores whether accepting a sexless marriage can be considered success—and where acceptance ends and resignation begins.

The common thread is not a particular sexual frequency. It is the end of the stalemate: acknowledgement, understanding, action and two people deciding together what a successful relationship should look like. Recovery may mean renewed desire, a different kind of intimacy, peaceful acceptance or, sometimes, leaving.

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Your spouse says: "Is that [sex] all you think about?"; "You make my skin crawl"; "I love you, but I'm not in love with you".  We've had a line thrown our way that has made our jaws drop. Listen now for some others.

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In this deeply personal episode of The Dirty Rabbit Hole Podcast, Michael speaks directly to the silent heartbreak of living inside a sexless marriage. “My Rights in a Sexless Marriage” explores the emotional cost of monogamy when intimacy disappears, asking what happens when one partner remains faithful to a relationship that no longer offers desire, touch, or closeness. This episode is not about entitlement to another person’s body. It is about the right to feel hurt, the right to speak honestly, the right to grieve what has been lost, and the right to question whether a marriage can survive when rejection becomes its daily language. With raw emotion, anger, despair, and painful clarity, this monologue gives voice to the person left waiting outside a locked door, still married, still faithful, but no longer willing to suffer quietly.

Need a new word to describe your sexless marriage situation? Getting tired of saying the same thing? Use these words when talking to your spouse one-on-one or with a relationship counsellor.

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This episode goes out to spouses who refuse to participate in sex. I'm not sure if you're listening, but I'm putting out the call anyway!

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"Silent consent" reveals how sexless marriages form not with words but through emotional withdrawal and passive acceptance.

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They say sex isn't everything in a marriage, but without it, life gets hard. Is a sexless marriage sufficient reason to initiate divorce proceedings, or do you see it as a shallow and selfish option?

Listen now.

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