Women Shouldn’t Have To Endure Unhappy Marriages For Their Kids

‘Just before my 50th birthday, I remember thinking I might have to just accept that I would never have sex ever again,’ writes Ulrika Jonsson in a soul-baring feature for The Sun. The TV presenter and model announced her divorce to Brian Monet, a 50-year-old advertising executive last year, and now she’s opening up about the impact of their ‘sexless’ marriage on her confidence.

In the heart-wrenching feature, she tells readers that over her 11-year marriage to Brian, she and her former-husband had sex only once in eight years. ‘It made me, as a woman who has always enjoyed affection in relationships, feel rejected and confused, especially as there had been a really great sexual attraction between us when we met,’ she stated.

Her marriage didn't just sound sex-less, though, it sounded completely devoid of intimacy. ‘The physical exchange of the love that passes between two people, it’s affection and a natural understanding’ she says, ‘It’s touching, it’s closeness. In my marriage, it was all but gone.’

‘Only having one sexual encounter in eight and half years, coupled with me starting to go through the menopause six years ago, couldn’t have made me feel worse about myself,’ she writes, ‘I put on a bit of weight, lost my memory, struggled with confidence and knowing who I was.’

So why, and how, did she stay in a marriage without intimacy? Well, despite their incompatibility going way beyond sex, she felt it was too insignificant alone to cause her kids any trauma of their own.

‘The simple truth is that we had what I felt was a magnificent family in which the children ALWAYS, without fail, came first,’ she explains. As well as their lack of intimacy, she writes about their communication difficulties, how they didn’t share the same sense of humour and how, so often she felt alone in dealing with her own depression and going through menopause. But none of these issues seemed big enough in themselves to risk tearing her family apart - ‘It seemed churlish to bow out because you didn’t share an interest in knock-knock jokes.’

‘When you take on another person and that person takes on you, there are bound to be compromises or sacrifices, no matter how tiny,’ she continues, ‘We all do it, because we hope the end result will be one of longevity and happiness. But of course, not being able to deal with the issues within your relationship then becomes a massive issue in itself.’

Now divorced, in sharing her story Johnson is starting a vital conversation to be had about the pressure on us – as women - to maintain a traditional family dynamic, at cost of all that is valuable to us. 'I think women feel an immense pressure to ensure their children have a father figure,' says Dyane, 59, who divorced the father of her two children at 35, after years of contemplating it, 'you just never know what's going to happen, whether [the father of your kids] will stay in their lives after divorce. It's scary thinking you could have to do it all alone.'

Of course, we know logically that having positive role models for relationships is much healthier for kids, and happy parents more often equal happy children. Plus, you know, contrary to popular belief you're own health and happiness does still matter even after having children. Hopefully, more women can remember to put themselves first when their marriage stops fulfilling them just as Ulrika did. As she says, no matter what you're age, there's 'life in the old girl yet.'