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Four years into Diane's marriage, her husband became "bothered" by the prospect of sleeping with her and moved into a room vacated by her grown daughter.

Fourteen years later, the Pennsylvania artist has still not had sex with her "emotionally closed off" husband, who has taken to masturbating to pornography in a separate building on their property.

"I can't remember the last time I got a hug. It's probably been a couple of years since I've even gotten any kind of a kiss," says Diane, who did not want her full name used.

She says initially children, and then money, have bound her to the marriage.

Frustrated, she joined the Experience Project last March. The website lets members post stories and comment on each other's tales in specialized forums, and the "I live in a sexless marriage" discussion board quickly became one of its most active.

Many members feel helpless and frantic, writing of marriages marred by little or no communication and habits that have solidified through circumstance and familiarity.

"A lot of times, you're just venting. ... The great majority of people [on the site] are very non-judgmental," Diane says.

It is just one of several websites where desperate partners commiserate and share self-help resources. About 20 million couples in the United States are in sexless marriages, according to recent reports - meaning they are sexually intimate 10 or fewer times in a year.

On other forums such as sexlessmarriage.yuku.com and loveshack.org, spouses left in the cold share fantasies, thoughts of affairs and even prayers. On the sites, they can finally discuss a reality that, offline, remains undisclosed.

"My wife and I have sex so little, maybe twice a year, that each time is kind of like my own little one-night stand," writes Troy at sexlessmarriage.yuku.com. To which Privateer1812 responds sternly: "Don't be drawn into the dysfunction of a sexless marriage. ... I'm in my 8th year of a sexless marriage and if I wasn't 61, I'd be outta here, believe me. The years go by quickly and despite promises, nothing usually changes."

Irked spouses post tales of low libidos, "mean wives" and rejection.

"I can't even shave my own legs without getting pissed. I know I'm wasting my time," nonamenosex writes.

Some members turn to religion for comfort: "Trying" from Texas has started a prayer chain, writing: "I cry out to be touched and loved."

For many on Experience Project, the forum serves as a "replacement for therapy," says Armen Berjikly, the site's San Francisco-based founder.

"This is one of those things that you suffer in silence about and you have no idea that there are so many people in that same scenario. ... It's peer-to-peer support that's incredibly customized."

He adds: "It is a support group and we have found that members may get the push that they need one way or the other" to stick it out or separate.

And although the conversations are highly intimate, to his knowledge, "none of the users have hooked up while in the group," Mr. Berjikly said. Indeed, when members solicit advice on whether they should cheat, the resounding answer appears to be no. And while the yuku.com forum features a section called "Spice" filled with explicit fantasies, a message on the site stresses: "This is not a dating service."

Although the obvious question is why not divorce, the issues that recur throughout the sites reveal the solution is often not so simple. Some couples no longer have sex because one partner is chronically ill. Others are locked in financially, or raising young children together. Many are so terrified of change or being alone that they willingly forgo affection for decades.

Marion Goertz, a registered sex therapist in Toronto, says that although 30 per cent of her female patients complain about low sexual desire and many of her male patients suffer from erectile dysfunction, "couples avoid being sexually intimate for reasons beyond the physical. ...

"If a couple isn't connecting well on many levels, sex becomes the scapegoat," Ms. Goertz said.

"[Sex] is a highly exclusive way of sharing who you are at your most vulnerable and playful with someone you love. If fear, anger and distrust are getting in the way ... the ultimate connectivity of the couple will decline over time."

At York University in Toronto, psychotherapist Catalina Woldarsky Meneses counsels couples who have experienced serious betrayals that have killed the "safety or connection," and the intimacy.

"When things don't get resolved fully, they start to fester. People might get along fine day to day, but when it comes to fully connecting sexually, that's where it plays out," says Ms. Woldarsky Meneses, project co-ordinator for the Emotional Injury Project, which is run through the university's department of psychology.

Site user Diane is hoping she'll be propelled into filing for divorce later this year, when she expects to receive compensation for an injury she suffered in 2007. As for contacts made on the Experience Project site, Diane has befriended a British man whose wife rejects him regularly, and has counselled younger wives experiencing the agony she has been grappling with for more than a decade.

"I am over the anger," she says. "I'm just resigned to the fact that this is the way it is. [My husband]'s who he is. He's not going to change" or discuss it.

"When I look back," she adds, "I can't imagine it's been that many years that I've been like this."