Why I Have Chosen a Season of Celibacy with My Husband (As a Sex & Intimacy & Coach

For the last few months, I haven’t had sex.

Wow. That was hard to write.

I’m an integrative sex coach and educator, married, deeply in love, and historically very sexual but we haven’t been having sex since September.

Three months.

Now this wasn’t an accident.
And it wasn’t something we drifted into.
Nor was it because our relationship was failing.

It was a conscious pause. One that taught me more about intimacy than sex ever has.

When Desire Disappears (And No One Is Broken)

For most of my adult life, I’ve had a high libido. Sex has been a place of aliveness, connection, play, and grounding for me. Then earlier this year, everything shifted.

In February, I went on medication for hyperthyroidism. For the first time in my life, my sex drive disappeared completely. At the same time, my husband was under enormous business stress, which deeply affected his libido too.

Then in July, our standard poodle, Zoe, died.

She was not “just a dog.” She was our fur child. She collapsed from a heart attack in the park at not even four years old. There was no warning. No preparation. One moment she was alive, the next she was gone. She was still a puppy!

Grief has a way of dismantling things you didn’t know were holding you together.

Instead of bringing us closer, the grief pulled us apart. My husband withdrew in a way I had never seen before. He is normally super affectionate, emotionally expressive, deeply cuddly (he’s a Cancer). Suddenly, he wasn’t. And for the first time in my life I finally understood how people loose each other to the grief when they loose a child or someone gets sick…

We were both trying to survive the loss.

Our dog had been high needs. Anxious. Reactive. Possessive. Loving, but intense.

Over the years, without really noticing, we had reduced our intimacy around her. We didn’t dance together in the house. We didn’t hug freely. Even affectionate touch could trigger her anxiety.

When she died, it became painfully clear how much of our sensual and relational world had been organised around her needs.

By August, neither of us wanted sex. We were working constantly. Preoccupied. Disconnected from our bodies. Disconnected from each other. So deep in the grief of it all.

And yet, we still felt the pressure to try.

The Moment We Stopped Having Sex

One night in September, we decided we should have sex. Not because we wanted to, but because we believed we should.

Sex is important for a relationship, right?
Celibacy is bad, right?
I’m a sex and intimacy coach. He’s a man. Surely this means we should want sex all the time?.

We started. And then we stopped. We were both feeling the same obligation and neither of us wanted it.

We held each other. I cried.

We were performing desire instead of feeling it, wanting it, choosing it.

And in that moment, we both decided to stop pushing and trying to force it.

Choosing Celibacy Instead of Obligation

That night marked the beginning of our pause.

We decided to remove the pressure of penetrative sex completely. We decided to recognise that we both needed some time in order to restore desire.

We still kissed. We still cuddled.

But penetrative sex was off the table.

As an intimacy coach for women, I see this all the time.

People forcing sex to keep something alive, to keep their partner “happy” or to prove everything is ok.

What Celibacy Taught Me About Intimacy

We became very good at not having sex.

And that’s when the fear crept in.
What if we’ve gone too long?
What if desire doesn’t come back?

Emily Nagoski talks about this beautifully in Come As You Are. She describes that for some couples, sex is like a party you don’t feel like going to. You resist. But once you’re there, you often end up having a good time.

That’s where we are now.

Not bursting with spontaneous desire, but curious. Open. Willing to arrive gently and see what unfolds.

This is what real intimacy looks like.

Not forcing arousal.
Not performing desire.
Not using sex to prove that everything is okay.

Why Intimacy Isn’t About Wanting Sex

One of the biggest myths I dismantle in my work as an online intimacy coach for women is the idea that desire should be effortless.

Desire is contextual.

Emily Nagoski’s dual control model explains this clearly. We all have accelerators and brakes.

Accelerators are the things that turn us on to sex.
Brakes are the things that turn us off.

You can press the accelerator all you want, but if the brakes are slammed on, nothing moves.

Why Our Holiday Didn’t “Fix” Anything

We recently went to Bali for a family holiday. I packed the candles. The lube. The massage oil. I had all the right intentions.

And still, nothing happened.

Because the brakes were everywhere.

Family dynamics. Heat. Constant activity. Overeating. Exhaustion. No privacy. No spaciousness.

For me, spaciousness is erotic. Beauty is erotic. Rest is erotic.

A crowded hotel room filled with competing needs is not.

No amount of “trying” can override a nervous system that doesn’t feel safe enough to open.

What Actually Reopens Intimacy

Coming home did more for our intimacy than a luxury holiday with my family ever could.

Space. Quiet. Familiarity. Slowness.

This is what I support women with in intimacy coaching. Especially women who are burnt out, grieving, hormonally shifting, or emotionally overextended.

You don’t need to fix your libido.
You need to listen to it.

Why I’m Sharing This As an Intimacy Coach

I’m sharing this because too many women believe that something is wrong with them when sex ebbs.

There isn’t.

Sometimes the most intimate thing you can do is stop.

Stop pushing.
Stop performing.
Stop overriding your body’s truth.

And then, from a place of understanding, return consciously.

This is intimacy. Not just sex, but safety, honesty, presence, and choice.

If you’re in a season where sex feels distant, heavy, or pressured, you’re not broken. You might simply be listening to something wise inside you.

And that is where real intimacy begins.

For the Woman Ready to Come Home to Her Body, Reclaim Her Eros & Befriend Her Soul

If you feel the pull to reconnect with your body, soften into your femininity, and experience the kind of healing that comes from being deeply witnessed, I invite you to join The Wonderfully Wilde Women’s Circle, a monthly online gathering opening in 2026.
Join the Wait List

If you’d like to explore deeper one-on-one support, you can learn more about Online Sex Coaching for Women here.

And if you want more sensory embodiment practices, rituals, meditations, and stories of feminine reclamation, you can explore the full Sabina Wilde Blog here.

With wilde tenderness,
Sabina Wilde xx