My husband and I have not had intercourse in 12 months, says ANNIKI SOMMERVILLE. So may becoming a member of the ABC membership after 28 years collectively save our marriage? PLUS the 7 methods to reignite intimacy, by a number one knowledgeable

I’m browsing the Netflix menu and it’s littered with lovely Christmas rom-coms. Stories where the beautiful heroine faces a difficult challenge, wonders if she’ll ever find love again – and then, through some incredible plot twist, lands herself a handsome new man (or finds an old one in some way reinvented).

The scene that follows is always the same: roaring fire, bottle of red wine, soft woollen rug upon which to… well, after the first few fumbles, we’re invited to use our imagination, but it’s not called shag pile for nothing.

Christmas is definitely a time when we see the world – and our relationships – through rose-tinted specs. Or at least we’re supposed to.

Sexy Santa outfits, kisses under the mistletoe, sly encouragement to ‘make the most’ out of holiday time with our partners – if you’re not in a relationship fuelled by romantic love and a flourishing sex life, then you’re failing, right?

It’s a horrible thought, but it applies absolutely to me.

Last December I wrote about being in a 27-year relationship where my man and I don’t have sex regularly, or at all. The response was overwhelming. Some of it was mean-spirited to say the least, of which more later, but most of it was surprisingly comforting.

I wasn’t alone by any means. Dozens of messages arrived from women (and men) in the same sexless boat.

Almost all of them stated that they still loved their partner, still liked hanging out with them, but had simply fallen out of the habit of sleeping with them. They were too busy, or had lost some of that initial connection, the spark, that they’d had when they first met.

In other words, their long-term relationship was no longer a ­Christmas rom-com.

If that feels sad, it’s surely not a shock. A recent survey, conducted in association with marriage counsellors Relate, revealed that 29 per cent of British adults in relationships described them as sexless.

That feels like a lot – but at least it relieves me of some of the shame I feel at my own lack of action.

Because, when I first wrote about it, I did feel a tidal wave of shame.

I was nervous about what everyone would think and say. It felt humiliating to admit to not getting what we’re told we must get to be ‘fulfilled’.

Would people assume I was undesirable? That my partner just didn’t fancy me any more? That, at 52, I was too old? Would people believe we were both having affairs because we’d stopped sleeping together?

Yes, yes, and yes is the answer, because those were the types of comments made by some of my less-than-kind correspondents.

The truth is, it’s now a 28-year-long relationship, and my partner and I haven’t had sex for a whole year. While we share the same bed every night, I’m pretty sure the last time we even cuddled was eight months ago.

We sometimes feel like two people that pass in the hall on our way to another activity, work appointment or day trip with our two children, aged 12 and six. It feels like there is rarely time set aside for us.

I am not happy with this situation. I definitely want to restart our intimate life but after that length of time, it becomes hard to know how.

One friend told me that she and her husband have something called ABC sex, which means they do it on ­Anniversaries, Birthdays and at Christmas. Yes, only four times a year and clearly scheduled and unspontaneous but better than nothing.

And enough, she says, to keep a middle-aged, undersexed couple connected on a level which they both recognise as important. They both look forward to it. They know it will happen. It works for them. Could my partner and I do something similar?

Might this super-efficient strategy even be a means of propelling our sex life into a more regular habit and reboot our relationship altogether?

First off, I have to admit that my partner was not happy with me for going public with our story last December.

Can you blame him? Of course, we did talk about it beforehand and he knew what I was going to write, but still – no man is going to relish his partner telling the world the details of their life in the bedroom, or lack thereof.

For several months afterwards, we pretended everything was fine. ­Nothing to see here. A couple of his mates ribbed him over it, which was pretty rich since I know those friends also had relationship issues because their wives told me.

And then he and I sat down and talked about it ourselves. Talking about sex isn’t very sexy. All the relationship experts tell you to do it, but it’s awkward and difficult and weird. Sex should be fun; talking about it is not.

The reasons for our drought aren’t rocket science.

We are friends. Co-parents. Since having our two daughters, sex has gradually slipped off the agenda until it no longer figures at all. We both work hard and have all the usual worries couples have – bills, home repairs, grocery shopping, scheduling and ferrying the kids to all their weekly activities.

Sometimes we fall out and sometimes I wonder if we are really suited to one another, but that’s true of any middle-aged couple who have been together for more than a quarter of a century.

And most of the time we get on very well. We just don’t have sex.

But, yes, despite the cringe factor, we talked and promised each other we would do something about it. And then … nothing happened.

It was while I was on a five-day press trip to the Maldives this summer that I finally had an epiphany. There I was, alone in a very romantic place full of couples, and with lots of time free from domestic duties to reflect on our relationship.

I was frustrated that we couldn’t seem to move out of this intimacy­-free Mexican stand-off.

But then there was something else, the elephant skulking in our bedroom. Suddenly it hit me – the sad fact that, at times, we actually resent one another.

I resent him because it feels like I’m picking up more of the domestic load yet still working hard outside the home, and he resents me because I often fail to notice how much he is doing and how hard he is trying.

It’s this feeling of resentment which explains why I’m always flabbergasted when friends tell me their sex lives are so spontaneous and passionate that they sometimes want to jump on their partner and have sex there and then. I never have that feeling any more. I’ve almost forgotten it exists.

So is ending our mutual resentment the key to ending our sex drought? Is this the path to, if nothing else, the ABC sex that will keep our relationship alive?

My Maldives breakthrough was followed by the equally important realisation that I was only seeing the negatives in our life together. I had stopped appreciating the good things.

I was one of those women who was in danger of ‘quiet quitting’ her relationship to the point of no return.

The truth is my partner is a brilliant dad. He works hard. He’s attractive and takes pride in his appearance. He is quiet, and that frustrates me at times because I’m very talkative. But I also appreciate that if we were both super-chatty, the noise would be intolerable!

I also began to acknowledge the part I’ve played in this whole ­sexless state of affairs.

I’ve often thought it was his fault – that he didn’t make enough effort or provide the ‘romance’. And then I took a step back and started to see how lazy I am in that department too. How hard I can be to live with. I am often stressed, for example, and tend to offload my work frustrations on him.

I rarely make any effort to create a bit of mystery for him specifically.

The minute I get home from work I put on my tracksuit bottoms whereas out of the home, when I’m working or seeing girlfriends, I make a real effort.

I would never say it’s one person’s fault when sex goes off the boil (unless one of you is unfaithful or abusive), but I can certainly say that I haven’t made any meaningful effort to make sex happen. In fact, I’ve put it off. Made excuse after excuse and found other things to channel my frustrated energy into.

Part of this is about menopausal change, of course – my ­symptoms include anxiety, headaches and decreased libido – but it’s no reason to end our sex life completely.

The other big modern-day problem that impacts middle-aged sex lives, and yet very few talk about, is our reliance on screens. I often think that if there wasn’t so much good TV on then we’d all be having more sex.

Our parents didn’t have Stranger Things and Slow Horses to catch up on. And I sometimes think we’d both rather scroll than have sex.

There are definitely evenings when we are both plugged into screens and completely ignoring each other.

Screens are a massive detractor from connection and foreplay and even just noticing what your partner looks like these days.

I also have friends who, ironically, have got lost in romantic fantasies – either they’re reading lots of erotic fantasy fiction books or watching endless romantic comedies on TV.

What’s more, social media always makes me feel far worse about myself since I seem to get fed endless content on how men and women are too different to live together, and how many women my age only find happiness when they get a divorce.

The algorithm clearly reads the pieces I write.

But I don’t want to split up. I still love my partner, and I still fancy him too.

Instead, I think we both need to acknowledge the good things about our relationship, put our phones away and remember how good sex with each other can be.

If it means talking about what we really like in bed (we didn’t get this far in our discussion earlier this year), role-playing or even dressing up, then I’m willing to give it a go.

No, not as Mrs Santa or a sexy elf. But perhaps, more conventionally, I could try some new lingerie – odd and awkward as it will feel at first.

The fact is, I won’t be expecting fireworks and neither will he, but making an effort of some kind is the first thing we need to do to break the ice.

The ABC Club is all I’m aiming for at this point, but four times a year is at least a start.

Neither of us has given up the ghost just yet. I’ll let you know how I get on.