Overall, I think this is a good idea.
My thoughts on the part about removing refusal of intimacy as justification of divorce are more nuanced, however - and partially informed from anecdotal experience.
this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2026
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Yeah it's a whole different argument.
Being married does not entitle you to sex - great.
Wanting to divorce because not enough sex - fine.
It's not so much that you felt the other person was obligated to provide the sex (though probably this is th real arhument) but more that it just turned out you are not that compatible or you just grew apart. Should a person not be allowed to divorce if they fell out of love with their partner, ergo they turned out to have less or no more sex?
Should a person not be allowed to divorce if they fell out of love with their partner, ergo they turned out to have less or no more sex?
They absolutely should, and they will still be able to, nothing's changed there.
No, no, there's a big change here.
Yes, divorces still go through as before, that doesn't change. What does change is the context of fault in the divorce.
If sex is a marital obligation, the party refusing it can be considered at fault for the marriage failing. This usually carries consequences when it comes to splitting the assets, with the judges usually penalising the party "at fault".
This makes it so that refusing to have sex cannot be grounds for being found at fault, and makes things more balanced.
Yes this is correct, we're in complete agreement there. The comment I was responding to worded it vaguely though, which made it sound like you cannot get a divorce because you have a sexless marriage. It made it sound like people were being forcibly kept married, which is false. You can get divorced because it's Tuesday, or because the moon is in retroflux. Holding your spouse responsible for those things is a different story, however.
For reference here's the part of the comment I replied to:
Should a person not be allowed to divorce if they fell out of love with their partner, ergo they turned out to have less or no more sex?
Emphasis mine.
I admit I worded my comment vaguely because I was rather tired and wasn’t sure how I should express the nuance I feel around that. But to fix that:
In my experience, going from a reasonable, mutually healthy level of intimacy to one party just completely lacking interest is essentially never the core issue in play, but it is an exacerbating issue. For instance, with my ex, who I was with for five years: for the first couple years, things were pretty great. Then she ended up slipping into perhaps the worst long-term episode of severe depression and video game addiction I have ever seen in my life. I’m talking 12-14h at least a day in a KRPG, completely withdrawing from IRL social interaction (including with me, for the most part) and supplanting it with constantly being on voice chat with the various clans she was a part of over time in the game. Mind you, I enjoy gaming myself, and have struggled with overdoing in the past as well, but never to this extent in terms of length and severity. And despite trying to find numerous ways to help/support her, encouraging her to find different and better therapists and psychiatrists, and figuring out how to rebalance her meds - including offering to just be on the phone with me for 30 seconds at the beginning of the call and just saying “I give permission for my partner to discuss this stuff with you and try to find a better solution because my mental state prohibits me from doing that right now”, being effectively unable to make any motion in a positive mental health direction. To the point that it got so bad that I became severely depressed and began aggressively self medicating, eventually to the point that I realized staying in the dynamic would probably kill me, in a very literal sense. She would barely come out of her room for dinner towards the end, and I was absolutely not about to get her to just let me “use” her for intimate gratification when the chemistry was completely gone and she was gonna just lie there like a fish - I’d have felt like I was assaulting her, and I refuse to do that.
So: no, it shouldn’t be the grounds for a divorce (or partner separation, I happen to not give a shit about marriage outside of the context of tax benefits, but I take a committed partnership very seriously), but it can and should be considered an exacerbating circumstance in a relationship that has extremely serious, long-lasting problems that essentially put everything into a death spiral.
Also: I’m sharing this for context and nuance as an explanation of my opinion. I’m not asking for or desiring feedback or constructive (or otherwise) criticism or judgement. Me explaining this is an infinitesimal fraction of the lived experience of it, like you saying your partner is “pretty cool”, when there are myriad shades of nuance to a partnership. It is a closed chapter of my life, and I am better for it.
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Fault divorce makes you prove that harm is being done thus a divorce is needed. This is removing no sex as a fault. I think there are usually financial ramifications from being the at fault spouse. Thus there would be financial repercussions for refusing to have sex with someone. Obviously a bad thing.
There is a thing called no-fault divorce that requires no proof of harm. I don't know if France has this, but it is how you get around needing any reason besides that one spouse wants to.
As long as "I don't like her anymore" is an acceptable reason, it won't have a practical effect. But if you have to file according to a narrow set of categories like infidelity and abuse, that's a problem.
They did say it would be removed as a reason for "fault-based" divorce, not divorce generally. You won't be able to say "he's at fault for not wanting sex" and so get a preferential settlement.
A huge victory for the assexual community.
assexual
That extra S kinda changes things.
I was surprised to see it existed in France. I tried to search for other countries that have that particular kind of law, but only found general areas, not specific countries.
It was a quite debated matter amongside law specialists, if i remember my time learning it. Like there was an obligation of community in the text, translated as an obligation of sexuality in jurisprudence since more than a century, but some recent interpretation of it were far more tolerant. I remember one case where judges ruled that a lesbian woman married to an asexual man for the apparences, and both living their sexual lives separately was still proper marriage because they cared for each other. Still was kind of an exception though, i'm happy to see it change officially at last.
Honeyyy it's time for our state mandated sex!
*Pulls out state-mandated condom and state mandated vibrator*
As a French, it's about time
impossible to use lack of sexual relations as an argument in fault-based divorce
Is it an acceptable argument in other kinds of divorce? Ive never had to look into it so I don't know nearly any of the rules, also not French, but that seems like a pretty good excuse to me?
Yeah I don’t get this part. Preventing marital rape is a good thing.
But then why force people to stay married if they are unhappy with the sexual situation? Seems like this would have the opposite of the desired effect.
In a "fault" divorce, it could allow people to use the obligation of a spouse to perform sexual acts as a way to assign blame in the divorce. Basically allowing one partner to claim harm and therefore pursue financial damages or even leverage in custody disputes because they were owed sex. It trapped people in situations where they were forced to have sex or face potential civil penalties if their partner refused a no-fault divorce.
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I'm unfamiliar with french law. But I doubt you need a reason to divorce. If 2 ppl no longer have sex and they want to divorce over it, they probably can.
This is more probably about "we are divorcing because you refused to fuck me, so now you owe me something"
It’s that the lack of sex can’t be used as a reason for a fault-based divorce. A fault based divorce can have legal consequences for things like alimony and child custody.
People can still separate via a no-fault divorce.
They're saying it can't be used as a reason for assigning blame in a divorce. Infidelity is a classic example of when someone can be "at fault" and so assigned blame for the marriage ending.
"No-fault" divorce exists for situations where the relationship is no longer tenable but not because anyone did anything damaging.
You don't need any argument in no-fault divorce. IMHO that's how it should work everywhere; it's not like you need to prove your case in court to get married in the first place.
The other kind of divorce is no-fault divorce. You don't have to give a reason there, you silly goose!
Speaking as a man, I don't anyone to fuck me out of obligation, I want to be fucked by a someone who is really into me and wants to fuck me because they are a really into me and are horny as fuck for me :3
didn't even know it was a law in france
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