How Love Dies
By Dr. Keith M. Waggoner
Founder, Undisputed Mastery and Strategic Edge Coaching
The Tragedy of Modern Love
It begins with warmth, laughter, and fire.
Two people meet and believe they have found what everyone searches for. Their connection feels natural. Their desire is alive. Their nights are filled with intimacy and wonder.
Then, little by little, something begins to change. The conversations become shorter. The laughter becomes forced. The touches grow less frequent. The marriage bed, once alive with passion and playfulness, becomes cold.
I have watched this happen thousands of times. Couples start with fire but end in frost. They tell themselves it is only a phase. They get busy. They get tired. They stop flirting. They stop exploring. Eventually, they stop touching altogether.
The tragedy of a sexless marriage is not only physical. It is emotional, psychological, and spiritual. The absence of intimacy becomes an infection that spreads through every area of the relationship.
In modern culture, many couples have been deceived by the lie that sex is optional in marriage. Some have been taught that it is a secondary issue or that love can thrive without physical connection. Others have been numbed by overexposure to pornography, fantasy, and emotional distraction. They forget that real intimacy is not about lust. It is about covenant.
Sex is not simply an act of pleasure. It is a sacred exchange of trust, vulnerability, and creativity. It is the physical language of love. When that language disappears, the soul of the marriage begins to starve.
After more than thirty years working as a coach, psychologist, and therapist, I can say with certainty that the decline of most marriages begins in the heart but reveals itself first in the body.
Here are the ten stages of relational death that I have seen repeated across thousands of couples.
Stage 1: Emotional Neglect and Disconnection
Love begins to die when attention fades.
John Gottman calls these “failed bids for connection.” They are the small attempts to connect—a glance, a comment, a playful touch—that go unnoticed or ignored.
Mark and Jenna once stayed up talking every night. Years later, they went days without speaking beyond logistics. When Mark reached for her, she turned away. When she needed comfort, he stayed silent.
Neglect does not explode. It erodes. The first death in marriage is often emotional invisibility.
Stage 2: Loss of Polarity and Attraction
Attraction is not luck. It is polarity. When the masculine and feminine energies no longer dance, desire fades.
Daniel and Maria once had a magnetic connection. Over time, Maria took control of everything, and Daniel retreated. She stopped trusting his leadership. He stopped pursuing her. Their roles flattened into neutrality. They became partners in logistics rather than lovers in life.
Tony Robbins teaches that sameness destroys passion. When couples become identical in energy, desire disappears. Love turns into friendship, and friendship without passion becomes quiet despair.
Stage 3: Irritation and Emotional Stacking
Resentment grows in silence. When couples stop communicating, every small frustration builds into a larger narrative.
Alyssa once adored her husband’s humor. Now it irritated her. She began cataloging his faults. Every unspoken irritation became proof that he did not care.
Unresolved conflict corrodes attraction. When frustration builds up, affection feels unsafe. The desire to touch fades because emotional tension kills physical connection.
Stage 4: Criticism and Contempt
Criticism attacks the person instead of the problem. Contempt mocks, rolls its eyes, and sneers. Both are poison.
Robert and Elaine could not have a conversation without sarcasm. When I asked Robert to compliment Elaine, he said, “She never lets me forget what I do wrong.” Elaine smirked, “At least I have a memory.”
Contempt is the opposite of desire. You cannot feel attraction toward someone you look down upon.
Stage 5: Defensiveness and Withdrawal
When one partner feels attacked, they protect themselves. When both feel attacked, they stop listening entirely.
Jason and Emily were trapped in defensiveness. Every conversation was a competition for moral superiority. She blamed him for being distant. He blamed her for being critical. Both were right, but both were blind.
Withdrawal feels like safety in the moment, but it always becomes a slow starvation. When communication shuts down, so does intimacy.
Stage 6: The Death of Physical and Spiritual Intimacy
This is the most devastating stage of all.
The body stops speaking the language of love.
Couples justify it at first. “We are just busy.” “We are tired.” “We have kids now.” Months pass. Then years. Touch becomes awkward. Sex disappears completely.
A sexless marriage is not neutral. It is destructive.
The absence of intimacy communicates rejection, even when unspoken. The partner who is refused feels undesirable and disconnected. The one who withdraws often feels guilty or resentful. Both suffer.
Sex is more than pleasure. It is covenant renewal. Each act of lovemaking is a physical vow that says, “I am still yours.”
When sex disappears, so does the renewal of that vow. The relationship shifts from romance to roommate status.
I once counseled a couple who had not been intimate for three years. They lived in the same home but functioned as polite co-workers. Both were kind. Both were dying inside. When they finally reconnected physically through intentional healing, their laughter and partnership returned within weeks.
Healthy, passionate, and consensual sex strengthens trust. It clears emotional clutter. It binds souls. Its absence creates vulnerability to temptation, resentment, and despair.
The marriage bed is not a side issue. It is the altar where love becomes visible.
Stage 7: Competing Stories and Quiet Lies
Once intimacy fades, each partner begins to tell a new story to explain the pain.
“She is cold.”
“He only wants one thing.”
“We just have different needs.”
Michael justified his affair by saying his wife had lost interest years ago. “We were more like friends,” he said. “I just needed to feel alive again.” What he wanted was not another woman but the version of himself that felt alive when he was desired.
The story of “we just drifted apart” is often a disguise for “we stopped investing.”
Stage 8: Power Struggles and Resentment
Without connection, control takes over.
Sara became controlling because her husband would not lead. Her husband became passive because she would not trust him. Each blamed the other for the distance. Both had forgotten the dance of polarity.
Power replaces playfulness when couples no longer feel safe enough to flirt, pursue, and surrender.
Stage 9: Numbness and Emotional Exhaustion
Eventually, exhaustion replaces anger. Couples stop arguing because they no longer care.
One couple I worked with had not touched in eighteen months. When I asked them what they wanted, the husband said, “We are not miserable, just done.” His wife cried silently. They had reached the stage where apathy felt easier than hope.
Numbness is the death rattle of love.
Stage 10: Separation and Collapse
At the final stage, one or both partners check out entirely. Some leave physically. Others leave emotionally but stay for appearance or stability.
Caroline begged her husband to go to counseling. He refused. “It will not matter,” he said. “We lost it years ago.”
This is the funeral of the heart.
Yet even in this darkness, love can rise again. I have seen couples reignite passion after years of emptiness. I have seen laughter return to quiet homes. I have seen faith rebuild fire.
The Real Cause of Relational Death
Love does not die because of incompatibility. It dies because of inattention.
It dies when couples stop flirting, stop touching, and stop being intentional. It dies when people forget that marriage is not merely companionship but covenant.
Sexual intimacy is not optional in a thriving marriage. It is the creative force that renews love, energy, and unity. Without it, the emotional, physical, and spiritual oxygen is cut off.
A healthy sex life between two committed partners is not about lust. It is about life. It is the creative act through which love continues to grow.
A Word of Hope
No matter how distant a marriage has become, it can be resurrected. The same energy that once drew two people together can return when they reclaim polarity, presence, and purpose.
To learn how love is rebuilt and intimacy reignited, read Part Two: How Love Is Resurrected, where I reveal the path back to connection, passion, and spiritual unity.
Invitation
If you recognize your story in these words, take heart. The decline you feel is not the end. It is the invitation to rebuild.
For more than thirty years, I have helped couples restore intimacy, repair trust, and rediscover the joy of true connection.
You can begin today. Schedule a private session or attend our Undisputed Mastery Couples Intensive, where healing becomes tangible and transformation begins.
Visit keithmwaggoner.com to start your renewal.