WIFE spends half the day working out.

She is then too tired to 'make love'.

Hubby turned off by her muscled physique.

And couple go 18 months without sex.

That was the state of British film-maker Guy Ritchie and Madonna's marriage in the final years, according to a friend of the couple, speaking to News Of The World.

The pair lived like 'brother and sister' towards the end of their relationship, the friend was quoted as saying.

Added the friend: 'He got more and more frustrated as she spent nearly half the day working out...

'Towards the end, Guy wouldn't be there. He'd get fed up waiting for her and go down to the pub with his mates.

'He is the one behind the split.'

And on the rare occasions when they did get intimate, he has told pals it was like 'cuddling up to a piece of gristle'.

'All the soft feminine tones have been replaced by the build of an athlete,' he added.

The friend said that Ritchie, 40, had 'poured his heart out to him after a few drinks one evening'.

He also said that Ritchie was 'sick of taking a back seat and letting her make the decisions - so he took the bull by the horns'.

'When the cracks began to show in their marriage, Madonna wouldn't budge. Guy was pleading with her to spend more time with him, but she just wouldn't have it.

'She'd insist she did her four-hour workout and that would be half the day gone.

'He'd ask her whether she'd still be pumping iron at 60 and she'd always reply, 'Sure I will'.'

Separate bedrooms

The friend said that the couple have been apart 'so much in the last two years' that the times when they could have had sex 'have been pretty limited'.

Added the friend: 'And they've been in separate bedrooms a lot after rows, so there has been no making-up.'

Madonna's passion for working out even got between them when rumours about a relationship between her and baseball player Alex Rodriguez were raging, in July.

The friend claimed that Ritchie flew from London to New York to see her.

'(He) wanted to patch things up. He thought his wife would be eager to show solidarity too, but he was wrong.

'When he got to the apartment, she insisted on doing her workout first. It was five hours before she sat down with him.

'By then, he was blazing mad and they had a huge row. That was when he knew it was over.'

The friend claimed that Madonna's faith in Kabbalah also contributed to the failure of their marriage, with Ritchie reportedly describing the mystic religion as 'mumbo jumbo', reported The Telegraph.

Madonna, 50, also got furious about the amount of time Ritche spent in their London pub, The Punchbowl, with friends.

She hated him eating pies and chips there instead of coming home to her macrobiotic diet of steamed fish and pulses, reported New Of The World.

This article was first published in The New Paper on Oct 20, 2008.