Ashlyn Harris has claimed she and Ali Krieger had "no intimacy" for the duration of their married life and even contemplated having an "open marriage".
The 39-year-old retired soccer star was married to US Women's National Teammate Ali, 40, from 2019 to 2023, and she insists she tried everything possible to keep their marriage alive.
She told the 'Naked Sports' podcast: “And that’s what my therapist knew right away — it was my ability to sit and suffer…my ability to serve other people before my own wants and needs, which I genuinely think probably kept me in that marriage for as long as it did."
Ashlyn admits suggesting an open marriage was her "last attempt" to stick it out.
She continued: “I started trying all these things, like, let’s do an open marriage.
“I’m like, that’s just not even me, dude. That was like, my last attempt of, you know, if I’m not getting what I want and we want to keep this together.”
Ashlyn - who moved on and is now in a relationship with actress Sophia Bush, 42 - went on to admit that she felt like she "wasn't a priority" to her ex, claiming their children, Sloane, three and Ocean, two, and soccer came first to Ali.
And the mother-of-two was "embarrassed" and filled with "so much shame" that her other half didn't want to "touch" her.
She said: “I think she loved the game so much and all she knew was how to sacrifice her life for the game. Then when you add children, which is a whole different layer. I just felt like I wasn’t a priority.
“I didn’t feel that sense of connection, whether emotional or physical. It was soccer, job, kids, and then somewhere down the line it was like, ‘Okay, what about me?’
“I felt so embarrassed and I felt so much shame that I didn’t know how to tell people that, like, oh, my wife doesn’t want to touch me."
When asked if Ali would disagree with her statements about their relationship lacking intimacy, she replied: “No. She can’t say that because we weren’t intimate the entire part of our marriage. So, I mean, the facts are just the facts."
