The 2 Main Reasons Passionless Marriages Happen
Reconnect emotionally for powerful passion.
Vanessa Garcia | Pexels A passionless marriage might be just the tip of the iceberg. We know from our work with couples that a far greater number are emotionally disconnected even if they do have occasional passion. For these 'roommate marriages,' the once strong passion and emotional closeness have gradually morphed into silent routines and polite indifference.
Roommates do all the work of being married while getting few benefits. They do not feel loved, honored, and cherished. And without a cushion of physical and emotional closeness, their relationship feels hard and brittle.
Everyday stresses are harder to bear, parenting becomes more difficult, and staying faithful looms as a bigger and bigger challenge. Increasingly, partners ask themselves “Is this all there is?”
Why do so many husbands and wives start loving one another as soulmates but end up living together as roommates?
Here are two main reasons passionless marriages happen:
1. Benign neglect
The first is benign neglect. Some partners spend so much time and energy on everything else in their lives that their relationship, the quality of their togetherness, falls to the bottom of their “to-do” list. Without realizing it they take one another and their marriage for granted.
2. Mismanagement of anger
The second, more prevalent reason shown by a 2010 study is the mismanagement of anger. Anger is inevitable in a marriage. But problems develop when angry feelings are allowed to pile up. Accumulated anger kills love and passion. Most roommate marriages are separated by a wall of anger that’s become so high they can no longer reach over it and touch one another.
And yet, despite the anger and neglect most husbands, wives, and partners in sincere, long-term relationships do not want to be just roommates. They emphatically say they long for the lost “in-love” passion of being true soulmates.
Can roommates become soulmates? Can couples regain lost passion and get back “in-love” feelings? In many cases, the answer is “yes” if they are highly motivated, willing to look at themselves honestly, and get professional help to guide them through the journey.
Are you in a passionless roommate marriage and want to change? Here are six pointers to get you thinking and acting in a more marriage-friendly direction.
Here's how to save a passionless marriage when you're more like roommates than a married couple:
1. See each other in a new light
Recapturing “in-love” feelings requires seeing your partner with new eyes, eyes unclouded by old images. We call this imageless perception. Images are made up of bad memories you and your partner have of each other. Every hurt that’s not healed, every fight not made better, and every disagreement not fairly settled adds to the image. These Images then color how you see and react to one another. They prevent you from seeing each other fresh in the present moment. Reacting from images is a major reason you and your partner get stuck repeating old tit-for-tat cycles of bickering and blame.
Imageless perception interrupts this pattern by denying images the mental energy they need to survive. Whenever you notice yourself dwelling on memories pull the plug on them by switching your attention to the present moment. Focus on what’s going on now — don’t contaminate the present by dragging in old images from the past.
In the present, you can consciously create a more loving space for you and your partner to appear in. You can be more forgiving by appreciating and valuing one another as if you only had today. Savor the good in your marriage, put it front and center, have gratitude for and celebrate all that works well between you.
2. Play together
Playing together is where you create opportunities to re-discover the important things that first drew you together. Set some time aside regularly to be alone together. This itself won’t be easy given your busy schedule but make it happen.
Once you’ve carved out the time try out some new activity that neither of you has done before. Keep it simple and stress-free. A new activity means you’ll both be sharing an adventure on new territory.
Make sure you don’t fill it with competition. Don’t tease one another. Instead, have each other’s back, encourage each other, and enjoy not needing to be perfect. This kind of non-competitive play can be a strong aphrodisiac.
3. Let go of the need to be right
Living together 24/7 can spawn lots of disagreements, so making yourself heard at those moments is important. But knowing when to let go is just as important. Digging your heels in, being rigid, and refusing to budge can make you feel powerful. But it’s a false power that comes at a steep price: damage to your relationship.
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If you want to get back that “in-love” feeling it will not come from a partner who feels they’re always wrong because you’re always right. Prioritize your needs. Is your need to be right more important than your need to be loved? Being flexible and cooperative brings caring and affection toward you while needing to be right pushes love away.
4. Offer affectionate attention
To people on the street, you give passive attention. The persistently barking dog gets your negative attention. Affectionate attention is reserved for those closest to you, those you love.
Affectionate attention is special because it is infused with caring, concern, interest, and involvement. It’s the kind of attention that is nurturing, supportive, and encouraging. It contains no judgments, blame, or criticism.
Partners in roommate marriages often feel judged and unappreciated. They say they feel invisible, that their presence is not welcomed and their voice is not heard. Affectionate attention cuts through this sad situation by offering a safe emotional space where your partner feels valued and cherished.
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You offer affectionate attention by putting yourself in your partner’s skin so to speak and seeing what they see, feeling what they feel, and hearing what they hear, which is shown by research from 2017 on the importance of empathy and compassion on social relations. You listen deeply to both the facts and feelings in what your partner shares. You’re alert to sensing changes in their mood and whenever possible anticipate their needs.
5. "Carefront" your anger
Carefronting means taking the hot emotion out of anger. Anger is a physical/emotional reaction. There is nothing about anger itself that is bad or destructive. It’s a feeling like any other. All feelings come and go, they rise up and if we don’t latch onto them they pass through us like a cold chill.
Some people latch onto anger and feel empowered by it. They vent their anger and say and do things they later regret. Others latch on differently. They are afraid of anger, so they push it down and pretend it’s not there. It comes out disguised as being moody or sad or not feeling well.
There are also those individuals who nurse their anger, they hold onto it for long periods. They always have some old anger on hand to add to any new anger that comes up.
When you carefront your anger, you don’t vent, deny, or nurse it. You begin watching for any angry feelings as soon as they start moving inside you. This kind of “witnessing” gives you some distance from the anger. A 2024 study of couples demonstrated the importance of emotional self-regulation for couples. You will not immediately latch and automatically begin repeating bad anger habits.
With this distance, you will have more control and you’ll be less likely to act out your anger in destructive ways. Carefronting will help you be on friendly terms with your anger so you can express it directly in a non-blaming and non-attacking way. This sets the stage for discovering the issue or issues that triggered anger in the first place.
6. Be your best self
A simple truth: you cannot be selfish and happily married. Another truth is that we live in a self-centered culture that encourages us to think in terms of “me, my, and mine.” Self-interest, looking out for #1, we are told is the way to a happy fulfilled life. Consequently, most of us operate with a kind of me-first survival mentality. We rarely consider an alternative way of being.
Loving as soulmates rather than living together as roommates requires this alternative way of being. Your best self, rather than your ego, must guide your actions. Your best self is wise, fearless, and kind. Intelligence is not measured by IQ tests, as explained by Robert Sternberg in a 2020 article. It’s your true self, the authentic you that is not defined by status or success or how you look or the role you play.
Sit quietly alone for five minutes a day. Keep your eyes open, take in your surroundings but do not think about what you see. Instead, sense the silence that surrounds and envelops all you see, hear, and feel. Listen to the silence, and savor the depth and expansiveness of it. This timeless silence is the non-material dimension of life; tune into it, become more familiar with it and it will help you switch out of being in survival mode.
Evelyn and Paul Moschetta are marriage counselors, therapists, and workshop leaders who have written many books dealing with marriage including The Marriage Spirit.