Q My husband and I were good friends before we married but in my culture there is no sex outside marriage. Since our wedding three years ago we have had sex only six times. I did all I could to try to make him have sex with me but he did not respond. He refused to go to marriage guidance but began to ask for sex after realising that I might leave him. I still have my sex drive but I just don’t want to do it with him any more. Please help.

A The first thing you ought to know is that any woman, from any culture, who found herself in your situation would be feeling the way you do right now. In England no marriage is lawful unless it is consummated and conjugal rights mean that both parties in a marriage are expected to fulfil their partner’s sexual needs. And in her speech “Muslim Women into the Mainstream”, Fauzia Ahmad, of the Department of Sociology at the University of Bristol, points out that one of the rights of women according to Islam is “the right to sexual pleasure”. According to Ahmad, “In Islam, ‘lawful sex’, ie, within the context of marriage, has always been held in high esteem and regarded as an act of religious devotion for which the rewards in paradise are acknowledged. It is believed to be the healthy way to lead to reproduction, release tensions, meet psychological and emotional needs and strengthen ties between spouses.”

However, Civitas, the institute for the study of civil society, reports that under Sharia a husband can have conjugal rights over his wife but that his wife may not necessarily have similar rights. Cultural differences may also mean that you are concerned about being blamed for the breakdown of the marriage or rejected by family members and this fear would add greatly to feelings of distress and isolation.

You mentioned that you were good friends before you married, which means that your relationship is built on a solid foundation, but whether your husband is charm personified or not, his refusal to have sex with you has annihilated your self-esteem. The first three years of any marriage should be the honeymoon period but, instead, you have been reduced to humiliating yourself in an attempt to persuade him to have sex with you. Continual rejection has left you feeling as if there is something terribly wrong with you and now that he is offering what you once wanted so badly, you beat yourself up for not being able to accept his advances.

Don’t be so hard on yourself. The bile of bad feeling amassed over the past three years is not easily dismissed and when you consider the feelings of disappointment, frustration, anger and rejection that you have learnt to associate with sex with your husband it is unsurprising that you have developed an aversion to it.

You are clearly very angry with your husband for rejecting you, angry that you have been demeaned, angry that the marriage you so believed in now feels like a sham, angry that you may not have children, angry about the real possibility of divorce and, ultimately, angry for the anguish and hurt that you feel he has caused you since your wedding night.

Given what you have been through, anger is a normal and healthy reaction, but with the right support you could potentially turn things around. I know your husband believes that counselling would make him vulnerable and that he needs to focus on his new business, but if your relationship is to have any chance of surviving you do need professional help (you can find a private practitioner through the “find a therapist” search engine at bacp.co.uk). Therapy will, of course, be completely confidential. The first three years of your marriage have gone terribly wrong and you have been badly hurt, but the fact that your husband is now requesting sex, even if it is just as a precautionary measure to stop you from leaving, means that he is willing to try. If he is a kind and loving man and your friendship is still intact you should persevere with getting him to counselling and, if necessary, repeat your ultimatum. You should also hold on to the thought that hate can be the flip side of love and that if you did not hold some genuine and deep-rooted affection for your husband you probably would not be so distraught. Good luck.

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