Searching for more passion in the bedroom

Rob Stafford Correspondent • Profile

ROCKY MOUNTAINS, COLORADO - It’s the dirty little secret of marriage—say “I do” and in only a matter of time, many couples are admitting “We don’t”—have sex that is.

One of every 3 couples reports sexual problems in marriage. Nearly 20 per cent of couples in one survey admitted they haven’t had sex in at least a month.

From movies to magazines, books to billboards and television, it seems people are having sex so often in so many places it’s amazing anyone gets anything done. But have an honest talk with your married friends, or check with just about any therapist and you’ll find sex seems to be flourishing everywhere except in the place you’d expect it: the bedrooms of millions of married couples.

It even has a name— "the sexless marriage."

Meet two couples confounded by the lack of passion in their relationships. Each volunteered to participate in this story and to allow our cameras to follow them through an unconventional sex therapy. It will be a rare glimpse into the most private part of marriage.

John and Lakethia
John and Lakethia, who goes by the nickname Keye, answered the ad we placed in a national magazine for couples wanting to escape a sexless relationship. 

Rob Stafford, Dateline Correspondent: How often do you have sex?

Keye: It’s been a long time.

John:  --three or four months—

Keye: Yup.

For these Texans, it’s a dramatic and disappointing change from the instant attraction they felt on a blind date six years ago.

Keye: I thought he had melty eyes.  Like you look into them and they just soak you up.  I was like “Whoa, that face”.

Stafford: And how quickly did you know that she’s the one?

John: It was probably after only two or three months.

And the memory of what their sex life used to be still puts smiles on their faces.

John: It is probably five or six times a week. Or five or six different days maybe one or twice.

Keye: We were active (laughter) to say the least.

Now, life revolves around their three active kids, two careers and one very hectic household.

John: I get up to go to work at six because she has to be at school by four so she  has to get the kids all three of ‘em ready without me there.

Keye: Right, dress everybody, feed everybody dress myself.

Keye is a fulltime mom, part-time student and partner in a catering business.  John works long hours as a software engineer and he’s a hands on dad at home.

John: I get done with work. We switch off and I take the kids home. She goes to school.

Keye: For the most part we keep it on track.  We’re a good team.

John: Yeah.

Keye: We work well together.  We support each other well.

In fact, John and Keye insist their 5 year marriage is great except in the bedroom, where sex is so infrequent it’s hard to remember how much intimacy they actually do have. 

John: Last year the one time we had sex, we got pregnant.

Keye: No we had sex two times last year.

John: Oh, ok.

John says he would love to rekindle that old flame but Keye doesn’t seem interested.

Stafford: Why do you think this is happening?

Keye: I don’t know.                

John: Yeah, I’ve put on a few pounds, quite a few.

Keye: Yeah.

Stafford:  Are you still attracted to Lakethia.

John: Yeah.  Absolutely.

Stafford: Lakethia, are you still attracted to John? (Laughter)

Keye: Probably not as much, but yes, I am. 

Stafford: How much resentment do you feel when you get the “no” in the bedroom?

John: It’s pretty big.  I mean—

Keye: Really?

John: I mean I love her absolutely, and—and I’ve always found her attractive.  And so that—that does hurt.

Keye: We connect so deeply on so many other levels and then have a problem with this one thing, it’d be great if we could fix it.

In fact, John and Keye believe their marriage would go from good to great if only the sex were better.

Jack and Tammy
Out in Wyoming, it’s the same story with our second couple—Jack and Tammy.

When they said “I do” 15 years ago, sex was red hot and often. Now?

Tammy: I think a month and a half.

Jack: I’m not really sure, I don’t put x’s on the calendar. But if I had to guess, I’d say maybe a couple of months.

Stafford: How do you feel about that?

Jack: Extremely frustrated.

Jack and Tammy never expected sex to be a problem in their marriage.

Jack: Right off the bat I was attracted to her.

These two fell deeply in love back in high school while marching in the school band. After graduation, they wasted little time tying the knot.

Today, Jack designs computer software. Tammy works part time at their church and is fulltime mom to daughters Summer and Maya. And sex? Well, the passion that swept them off their feet is a faint memory.

Stafford: So when you go down the list of the two girls, their homework, volunteer work and sex, where is the sex on the list of priorities?

Tammy: For me, at the bottom.

Stafford: And I take it its above Girl Scouts for you?

Jack: (Laughter) No, you know, it could be at the bottom—of that list as long as its included on the list. Right now its not even on the list. That little part of the list has been torn off.

And it’s not like they haven’t tried to reclaim their sexual relationship.  Tammy turned to hormone creams and Jack went to the florist.

Jack: I would try to buy her flowers, surprise her, bring home flowers, try to do all these little things.

Nothing worked. Even a marriage counselor failed to break the bedroom stalemate.

Tammy: She would give us these assignments like go home and rub each other with a brush. Well if I don’t want to have sex I don’t want to be rubbing someone with a brush.

Still, Tammy and Jack say except for sex, they’ve got a good marriage. They answered our ad because they worry: How long can their relationship stand the stress and struggle of lost intimacy?

Stafford: What has it done to the two of you to your relationship?

Tammy: We’ve had a lot of arguments and fights. There’s still that wedge between us.

Jack: But if I’m never going to have sex again, I don’t feel that that’s fair.

So what’s going wrong in these two marriages and in millions of others?

Absolutely nothing, says Dr. David Schnarch, author of 3 popular books, including “Passionate Marriage.”  This clinical psychologist has counseled thousands of sexless couples, taught hundreds of sex therapists around the world and practiced what he preaches in his own 18 year marriage.

Dr. Schnarch isn’t surprised Jack and Tammy’s  special dates, hormone creams  or conventional therapy have failed to solve their problem. He says they never work because those fixes are based on a myth.

Dr. Schnarch: We have to stop thinking that sex is a biological function that happens automatically and if it doesn’t you are screwed up.

Dr. Schnarch says intimacy can be revived whether a couple has been sexless for 5 years or 50.  But first, you must avoid a prime sex killer in marriage. That is, allowing what your spouse thinks of you to determine how you feel about yourself.

Schnarch: Your lives are so entwined and what literally happens is over the course of time, in most marriages, your partner becomes too important to show the hidden sexual side of yourself.

And so over time, spouses decide it’s too risky to be brutally honest about their desires or deepest feelings and chose to protect the status quo with years of compromise. Sex is lousy and soon come the fights about who wants sex and who doesn’t.

Schnarch: The assumption has always been the low desire partner is frigid or doesn’t like sex the reason they are the low desire partner is they know the sex they’re having isn’t worth wanting. It’s the high desire partner you really gotta wonder about because the sex is so lousy and they want two helpings of it.

Our couples don’t know it yet, but Dr. Schnarch has just described their marriages. They do know they want change.

Dateline agreed to pay the bill so each couple can give Dr. Schnarch’s approach a try. They agree to allow our cameras to follow every moment regardless of what happens.

Stafford: Have you had anyone say to you I can’t believe you guys are going to be talking about this on TV?

Jack: Yeah, most everybody.

Tammy: If it will help us, that’s wonderful. If it will help others, even better.

Kee and John say they didn’t think twice about taking our offer.

Keye: (Laughing) For the help. I mean I want the help.

Stafford: It’s so personal it’s so private why did you agree to go on TV and talk about it?

John: This is not the sort of thing I wanted to be on TV the first time over, but it is worth it to me if it keep our marriage together.

Neither couple can imagine how hard this therapy is going to be.

4 intense days, 3 hour sessions.  No sex tips, no homework, no advice on how to make love. Just a no-holds barred dissection of why sex is missing from their bedrooms.

Schnarch: It’s where couples really look at each other and they realize that whatever they’re gonna say over the next couple of days is gonna chart the rest of their lives.

Our couples don’t know it yet, but they are about to confess feelings they’ve been afraid to speak for years and there are no guarantees that these two marriages will survive.

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