Wives: what kinds of emotional needs does your sexual interest meet for your husband? Do you know?
In written survey comments and in my interviews, I noticed two parallel trends. They are the great benefits a fulfilling sex life creates in a man’s inner life and, conversely, the wounds created when lovemaking is reluctant or lacking.
Lets look at a few of the benefits.
Benefit #1: Fulfilling sex makes him feel loved and desired
Not surprisingly, the first thing surfaced from the survey comments was that having a regular, mutually enjoyed sex life was critical to the man’s feeling of being loved and desired. One eloquent plea captured it perfectly:
I wish that my wife understood that making a priority of meeting my intimacy needs is the loudest and clearest way she can say, “You are more important to me than anything else in the world.” It is a form of communication that speaks more forcefully, with less room for misinterpretation, than any other.
The reason why this message is needed is that many men —even those with close friendships —seem to live with a deep sense of loneliness that is quite foreign to us oh-so-relational wives. And making love is the purest salve for that loneliness.
One man told me, “I feel like I go out into the ring every day and fight. It’s very lonely. That’s why, when the bell rings, I want my wife to be there for me.”
Another related that sentiment to the power of fulfilling sex: “A man really does feel isolated, even with his wife. But in making love, there is one other person in this world that you can be completely vulnerable with and be totally accepted and non-judged. It is a solace that goes very deep into the heart of a man.”
This is one reason why some men may make advances at times that seem the furthest from sexual. One woman relayed a story about her husband wanting to make love after a funeral for a close relative. Making love was a comfort and a way of being wrapped in her love.
Benefit #2: Fulfilling sex gives him confidence
Your desire for him goes beyond making him feel wanted and loved. Your desire is a bedrock form of support that gives him power to face the rest of his daily life with a sense of confidence and well-being.
By now most of us have seen the television commercials for Viagra. It’s on in which a man’s colleagues for friends repeatedly stop him and ask what’s “different” about him. New haircut? Been working out? Promotion? Nope, the man tells them all, with a little smile.
One man I interviewed brought up those ads. “Every man immediately understands what that commercial is saying. It’s all about guys feeling good about themselves. The ad portrays a truth that all men intuitively recognize. They’re more confident and alive when their sex life is working.”
Once my eyes were opened to this truth, I realized how often I’d heard the “man code” for this fact. But I failed to understand it. When men had told me they “felt better” when they got more sex, I had just assumed they meant physically better.
But as one husband told me, “What happens in the bedroom really does affect how I feel the next day at the office.” Another wrote, “Sex is a release of a day-to-day pressures. Plus, it seems to make everything else better.”
Wound #1: “If she doesn’t want to, I feel incredible rejection.”
As much as men want sex, most of them would rather go out and clip the hedges in the freezing rain than make love with a wife who appears to be responding out of duty. My husband, Jeff, explained: “The guy isn’t going to be rejected by the hedges. And that’s the issue. If she’s just responding because she has to, he’s being rejected by his wife.”
Again, keeping in mind that what he wants most is for you to desire him, try to see what he wants most is for you to desire him. Try to see this rejection issue from the man’s point of view. If we agree, but don’t make an effort to get really engaged with the man we love, he hears us saying, “You’re incapable of turning me on even when you try. And I really don’t care about what matters deeply to you.” On the other hand if we don’t agree at all, but throw out the classic “Not tonight, dear,” he hears, “You’re so undesirable that you can’t compete with a pillow. I really don’t care about what matters deeply to you.”
Although we might just be saying we don’t want sex at that point in time, he hears the much more painful message that we don’t want him.
Here’s what the men said on the survey:
• “She doesn’t understand that I feel loved by sexual caressing. And if she doesn’t want to, I feel incredible rejection.”
• “When she says no, I feel that I am REJECTED. ‘No’ is not no to sex —as she might feel. It is no to me as I am. And I am vulnerable as I ask or initiate. It’s plain and simple rejection.”
• “She doesn’t understand how even her occasional dismissals make me feel less desirable. I can’t resist her. I wish that I, too, were irresistible. She says I am. But her ability to say no so easily makes it hard to believe.”
This feeling of personal rejection, and a sense that his wife doesn’t really desire him, tends to lead a man into darker waters.
Wound #2: your lack of desire can send him into depression.
If your sexual desire gives your husband a sense of well-being and confidence, you can understand why an ongoing perception that you don’t desire him would translate into a nagging lack of confidence, withdrawal, and depression.
The men I talked to scoffed at my tentative suggestion that a string of similar rejections wouldn’t necessarily mean that their wives were rejecting them as men. They warned that any woman sending those signals would undermine the loving environment she wants most. That is because, as one man said, “She is going to have one depressed man on her hands.”
A man can’t just turn off the physical and emotional importance of sex. This is why its lack can be compared to the emotional pain you’d feel if your husband simply stopped talking to you. Consider the painful words of this truly deprived husband—words that other men, upon reading them, call “heartbreaking”:
We’ve been married for a long time. I deeply regret and resent the lack of intimacy of nearly any kind for the duration of our marriage. I feel rejected, ineligible, insignificant, lonely, isolated, and abandoned as a result. Not having the interaction I anticipated prior to marriage is like a treasure lost and irretrievable. It causes deep resentment and hurt within me. This in turn fosters anger and feelings of alienation.
Feeling Loved
If you view sex as a purely physical need, it might indeed seem comparable to sleep. But once you realize that your man is actually saying, “This is essential to my feeling of being loved and desired by you, and is critical to counteract my stress, my fears, and my loneliness,” well, that suddenly puts it in a different category. So how might you respond?
First, know that you’re responding to a tender heart hiding behind all that testosterone. If at all possible, respond to his advances with your full emotional involvement, knowing that you’re touching his heart. But if responding physically seems out of the question, let your words be heart words—reassuring, affirming, adoring. Do everything in your power—using words and actions your husband understands—to keep those pangs of personal rejection from striking the man you love. Leave him in no doubt that you love to love him.
And remember, if you do respond physically but do it just to “meet his needs” without getting engaged, you’re not actually meeting his needs. In fact, you might as well send him out to clip the hedges. So enjoy God’s intimate gift, and make the most of it!
…I recognize that some wives might very much wish that they could respond more wholeheartedly to their husband’s sexual needs. But they feel stopped in their tracks for various personal reasons. I don’t want to add any more frustration. I do, however, want to encourage you to get the personal or professional help you need to move forward. The choice to pursue healing will be worth it, both for you and the man you love.
Wives: Make sex a priority
An excerpt from a Today’s Christian Woman article captures this issue. It provides an important challenge to wives to change our thinking. The author starts by admitting that although her husband really wanted to make love more often, it “just wasn’t one of my priorities.” She then describes a subsequent revelation:
I felt what I did all day was meet other people’s needs. Whether it was caring for my children, working in ministry, or washing my husband’s clothes, by the end of the day I wanted to be done need-meeting. I wanted my pillow and a magazine. But God prompted me: “Are the ‘needs’ you meet for your husband the needs he wants met?”
If your daughters weren’t perfectly primped, he didn’t complain. If the kitchen floor needed mopping, he didn’t say a word. And if he didn’t have any socks to wear, he simply threw them in the washer himself.
I soon realized I regularly said “no” to the one thing he asked of me. I sure wasn’t making myself available to my husband by militantly adhering to my plan for the day. Would the world end if I didn’t get my tires rotated? I’d been focused on what I wanted to get done and what my children needed, I’d cut my husband out of the picture.
Reevaluating Priorities
Are the many things that take our time and energy truly as important as this one? Now would be a good time to reevaluate priorities with the help of our husbands so they know that we are taking this seriously.
Having heard from so many men on this, I would urge wives: Don’t discount it. It’s more important to him—and to your relationship and therefore your own joy in marriage —than you can imagine.
Now that you understand the tender places in your husband’s heart, hopefully you have developed compassion for him and the way he is wired.
This article comes from the terrific book, For Women Only: What You Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men
There’s also a For Women Only Discussion Guide available for wives, written by Shaunti Feldhahn and Lisa Rice, published by Multnomah. It’s designed to be used by book clubs, or in small groups. Or it can be used for having a one-on-one dialogue with the man of your life. Many wives, after reading the For Women Only book may wonder, “What do I do with the info I’ve been given?” This discussion guide helps answer that question. It contains personal stories, questions, and situational case studies to help equip you to apply the truths you learn.
Filed under: Sexual Issues
(USA) Hi Bobby. Except for the issue of deceit (because I like to give the benefit of the doubt), I agree with Mel. Especially about getting help. I went through a similar experience with my own beloved. She was the new Christian and shortly after we got married, she lost interest in the physical aspects of intimacy. It drove me crazy!
By God’s grace, I was able to resist the urge to find it elsewhere or improvise. This went on for at least five years. Prayer and talking must have worked because late last summer she had an “epiphany”, so to speak. I was actually able to share this site with her and her eyes were opened. Additionally, I picked up a couple awesome books which we read together. They’re listed on Page 8 in one of my comments. Looking back on the experience I would say:
1. Remain faithful! As Christians, we must be defined by our Christian beliefs, not our current situation. Finding your own “solution” NEVER WORKS.
2. Remain loving and tender! You stand a better chance of getting through this if you maintain OPEN CHANNELS of COMMUNICATION.
3. Remain supportive! Gently prod her to go WITH YOU to Christian counseling. You need it, too! There are always two sides. Combine it with lunch or dinner out to make it seem less like therapy and more like a date.
4. Remain in prayer! God is more capable of healing then any human program.
I have no doubt that He intervened in my marriage. Nothing short of a miracle!
5. Finally, Remain Hopeful!!! No matter how dark the horizon may look, God’s Word is nonetheless active and things are happening behind the scenes that you may not see or recognize. Expect a miracle, brother!
I’m replying to my own comment more as a means to providing an update on where things stand. So in March of 2012 it looked like things had straightened out and we were on the same page in terms of sexual need and the fulfillment thereof. Alas, it only lasted a few months. Here it is two and a half years since I wrote that comment and in 2014 we have yet to have real intercourse.
I just returned from a 3-week business trip and when I “made my move” she informed me that we needed to “mentally reconnect” before anything like that could take place. So apparently despite morning and evening conversations every day of the trip, which she could have accompanied me on, we have become “disconnected”… It makes me wonder what we could have had before if it only took three weeks to lose it… And, for the record, it’s not the sex so much as the intimacy that I miss. I didn’t get married to just hold hands watching TV and then sleep on opposite sides of the bed. I would appreciate any and all comments. Thank you and God Bless.
(USA) I can completely understand the gentleman who wrote the following comment:
We’ve been married for a long time. I deeply regret and resent the lack of intimacy of nearly any kind for the duration of our marriage. I feel rejected, ineligible, insignificant, lonely, isolated, and abandoned as a result. Not having the interaction I anticipated prior to marriage is like a treasure lost and irretrievable. It causes deep resentment and hurt within me. This in turn fosters anger and feelings of alienation.
If I didn’t know better I would have said I authored that comment.
Our wedding night was met by a lecture from my bride stating that our marriage was not going to be based solely on sex. What I discovered was that her comment was to be translated into our marriage will be devoid of sex. This coming from a woman I courted for 2.5 years, went through premarital counseling with and spoke in glowing terms of having a loving, caring , emotional relationship. After three months of marriage we had only been intimate once. Every suggestion or initiation on my part to being romantic, even if it was just to snuggle on the couch was met with a resounding, “No!”
I weathered the first year and could count the times we were intimate on one hand. I went to the minister who married us and spoke to him about the situation, he suggested counseling which I was all in favor of. My wife begrudgingly agreed but added the stipulation that the counselor had to be Christian. The minister complied with her request and sent us to see a very reputable Christian counselor in the town we lived. It was going to be a lunch time session as both of us had work schedules that had too many conflicts. She never showed. That night when we returned home I asked what happened and she told me that she decided she wouldn’t go to a counseling session that was being conducted by a man. I went back to the minister and he said he would do his best to try and locate a female, Christian marriage counselor within out area. There weren’t any, but he did find a female counselor in the area who was recommended by the original counselor.
To make a long story short, I have remained married to this woman even though we have gone without intimacy since our son was born in 1998. I have gone to counseling on my own to help me deal with the absolute loathing I have for this woman. She has isolated herself from everyone but her mother and sister, and treats my side of the family with indifference.
I am often depressed when I see couples of my age group walking hand in hand, sharing their love and lives together, and wonder why the only woman I truly ever loved treats me as nothing more than an inconvenience. I thank God for all he has given me and trust in him that he has never given me more than I can handle. If it wasn’t for his love I don’t know where I’d be.
(AUSTRALIA) Theodore, I am female but feel exactly the same about my relationship with my husband who closed the door on verbal intimacy long before I closed door on sexual intimacy. I always remember my husband mentioning how friends and family needed to be “useful”. Your description of your wife implies to me that she only sees you as someone she must ‘use’ in order to have a son to share with her own blood relatives. I often felt that I was a human incubator for my husband’s family and no more. I have been a good incubator -4 children. I treasure my relationship with my children and, sadly, they replace what is unavailable elsewhere.
I remember the early stages in my relationship with my husband. I fell over myself trying to provide plentiful sexual activity. I also adopted his needs in this department and pretended that it was my desire too. I did my best to be “useful”. The whole time however, I secretly wished the frequency (daily) would reduce. I struggled to be professional at work because my time at home was claimed by his desires. He was also heavily controlled by his family which left me at their service too. He never really lived away from his family before marriage and does not know the loneliness I can see you have experienced too. One is meant to leave the shackles of childhood and merge with a marriage partner, but many people remain tethered.
I see our problems as being very similar. The energies our spouses have are not directed towards us, but toward their childhood securities. For me, I have no real emotional or verbal linkage with my husband. He is emotionally distant. I still try to keep us linked in any way I can find, but my sexual athleticism has faded over the years and my ability to provide here is greatly reduced. What really hurts is the painful awareness that my husband cannot connect in any other way. The constant failure to ‘pick up’ on a loving cue is heart breaking and devastating for the children’s self-esteem too. I constantly try to mean little broken hearts also.
My advice to you is to bond like glue to your children and communicate richly with your wife in every non-sexual way you can manage. Even if she never turns up to the sex party, you will be a great Dad and an accepting husband. Many people have achieved much less with their lives. Can’t you tell from this site that most men end up with far less sex than they ever imagined marriage to offer and women are not swept off their feet by a knight in shining armor? Instead women spend their lives sweeping up after them and their kids? Women age, men age, but hopefully love grows?
If I can live with a wordless man, then you can live with a sexless women. All the best. Kate
(USA) @Katie (8 October 2011 at 12:24 pm) , that is what my wife said but she found time and energy to take care of the neighbor’s sexual needs three doors down twice a week while I worked to support her. Funny how one finds time for what matters to them.
(USA) Bobby -Mel is right –bio-identical hormones will not make a woman gain weight –the opposite is true. They help women maintain healthy weight.
Recently I read an article that talked about how we can expect to live longer and healthier than any human beings in history. It discussed how, for the first time, humans are living longer than 50 years and for the first time in history, we are seeing diseases of old age that were never seen previously …yes Alzheimer’s disease, prostate cancer, osteoporotic hip fractures are just a few of the medical problems that were never really seen until the last 100 years.
I thought ‘yes, that has got to be true’ and it is a fact that as we get older our bodies will start to break down …we will need treatment for various bothersome aches and pains as well as some serious illnesses …but, this does not mean that we should not look for ways to optimize our health and extend our lives.
This piece I read said that until the beginning of the 20th century human females also ovulated until death! (Of course the average life expectancy at that time was only about 50 years!) In 1900, for example, only 6% of women in the United States were post-menopausal. Now almost 35% are post-menopausal. So, with advances in medicine, sanitation and diet, we women (just like captive laboratory and zoo animals), can expect to live a third of our life after cessation of menses.
Some captive primates will not only cease ovulation (if they live long enough) but will also stop producing estrogen. The majority of mammals, however, continue to produce estrogen until death even if they no longer ovulate. So human menopause (cessation of ovulation and estrogen production) is an Unintended consequence of living beyond age 50. The “natural state” of mammalian evolution leads to functioning ovaries until death, and for females, maintaining circulating estrogen levels during the entire adult life is the overwhelming intention of mammalian evolution.
The risk of uterine cancer is decreased below baseline levels if HRT consists of a combination of estrogen
and progesterone (i.e. HRT, if used properly in women with a uterus decreases risk of uterine cancer).”
Progesterone should always be viewed as the life-long partner of estrogen, since they balance each other out and work together to promote optimal female health. Progesterone is the “feel good” hormone, as it acts as
a “natural anti-depressant,” boosting moods and well being as well as stimulating bone growth, healthy heart function and offering protection against breast and uterine cancer. HRT may decrease the risk of colon cancer.
I TELL ALL WOMEN – HANG ON TO YOUR SEXUAL STEROIDS! If we set aside the mildly troubling symptoms of menopause we
are left with the far more important fact that without estrogen, there WILL be bone loss. Women can take all the calcium and vitamin D that is recommended, they can lift weights and stay active but none of this will entirely prevent bone loss.
(USA) Everyone is different, your menopausal symptoms may be mild, mine have been unbearbale but I now find that regular sex has done much to tame my symptoms.
We start with MENstruation, then to this and the MENtal anquish in the middle. Anyone ever notice how these maladies all start with the prefix “MEN.”
For a laugh :)
(USA) I’ve been getting denied constantly. I don’t know why. It seems she used to enjoy sex but now it seems revolting to her. She has no idea how this causes me to feel. I feel like my life partner/best friend is “just being nice” in staying with me because sex isn’t important to her. We are going on 2 years and she still not understanding. I have been getting more and more mad lately to try and make the point clear, but if this keeps up I will end up cheating and/or leaving her.
We have sex 2-4 times a month and when we do she lays sideways, barely moves and she watches TV or plays on her phone while we do it. Then afterwards she looks irritated like someone just wasted her time. Other than that she seems purely happy with the relationship.
Jake, this is an article for husbands and wives –not for those who aren’t married. But just so you know, you are getting a glimpse into the future. Whatever you do, don’t cheat. Don’t allow yourself to become a cheater. Either find a way to work together on your relationship so you are on the same page, as far as being sensitive to each other’s needs. If she will not partner in that mission, please leave the relationship or resolve yourself to a lifetime of this type of insensitivity to your needs –and don’t complain because you have been forewarned.
I can’t tell you what to do. But please don’t allow yourself to believe the lie that because you hurt so badly –because you are frustrated, solutions to cheat and do that which you should not, are acceptable.
(USA) PLEASE listen to Cindy on the “don’t cheat” issue. When my husband would threaten me with that I would say “you will regret it” and he would smirk and say “you don’t know me”. It severely damaged all of us, our 3 innocent children. His testimony and self image and he said he has more regret than he ever thought possible. He is changed for the better but he cannot undo all that horrific damage and the people that thought he was an outstanding Christian man now know he was an abusive phony. He did a great deal of damage to God’s “Kingdom” for all those that may have been listening or watching my husband claim Christ.
They ran the other way, want even less to do with the name of God than before. If you read your Bible, see the accounts of the men that did this. It violates every commandment and as it is obeying Satan, you come out used and trashed by her and the devil. A vile rape of all involved and my husband sees the grief it has caused, everyday.
He hates himself because he sunk to a level he loathed as he saw it in others. He would not even try with me but now that he cares about my needs, we are having the best sex we have ever had-EVER. There is so much pain I wish was not there though.
Please try to communicate with her. Ask if there is something missing that you can change. When it’s good for the women too, some cannot get enough :) Do not lower your standards to become a cheater. That is a liar and a thief as well.
I wish my husband would share his side here. I’m praying that he will but he will tell you it was the most heinous experience, aftermath and the mistake of his life and it will never go away. His exact words were “it was so filthy, vile and akward” and “she” seems to agree although she’s used to that in her line of work. He was a dirty, old, pathetic man and admits that.
If you are not married, you have a huge issue going on there and may not want to hear what a bunch of “Christians” have to say but even my unsaved niece told me that once she married her boyfriend, all the feelings of love intensified. Please seek the Lord’s will for your life. Prayers for both of you.
(USA) I wish my soon to be X-Wife would have read and heeded this article. For 8 years I suffered. I tried to talk to her about it, tried to explain how I felt, it was all met with rejection.
I prayed every night that God would touch her heart so she would be open to my needs. I was the best husband and father I could be. I rose early every day, woke the children and fixed their breakfast, got her up and had her coffee waiting, worked a full time job, did laundry, cleaned house, was romantic, wrote her poems, and the list could fill several pages.
All I ever asked of her was to make love to me on a regular basis, and this she just could not do. I even told her, “you can do anything you put your mind to except me!”. Pastor after Pastor counseled her, still she refused.
In desperation I asked her in our final “discussion”: “Is our marriage not worth 30 minutes a week?” To that she responded “If you put it that way, NO!”. I was in such a deep depression that I was done. We began arguing constantly after this and she soon abandoned me and went to live with her parents. She called me a “narcissistic nymphomaniac” for wanting to have sexual relations more than once a year!
Now she will get what she wanted, to be left alone. Hopefully the Lord will bring a good, loving, caring, understanding woman into my life.
It is so sad that she has thrown it all away, over “30 Minutes a week”.
(USA) Scott, As a 45 yr old woman married for 18 yrs… reading that men are in sexless marriages like this… BLOWS MY MIND! I read these stories and it’s hard for me to wrap my brain around it. I mean sex once a year??? That’s It??? I’m very sorry for your hurt.
As a woman I think some women “Just don’t like sex”. It’s not you personally… it’s where they are in their heads about sex. Some women don’t “feel” sexy. If a woman doesn’t “feel” sexy… chances are there is no desire to have it. Husbands can do little about that. I have lots of girl friends that tell me they just don’t like it. BUT thats NOT all women I assure you.
I have a very healthy sex life with my husband… yes, it gets a little mundane at times but we manage to spice it up together. Its not a “duty” to me at all. I hear often women talk like its the dreaded duty. I know women stay in marriages for the kids, money and because they are just comfortable. As for what men should do??? I have no idea… BUT men need to know it’s not always about what they do or don’t do, it’s in the womens heads.
(BAHAMAS) I am so frustrated. I am a Christian woman who has recently committed to Jesus in the last 2 years. I grew up in the church but didn’t understand what really living for Jesus is and the peace I have is amazing. Here is my story:
I didn’t understand when I first got married how much men need sex but now I do. It took a couple years. I got married because I got pregnant. We have been married 7 years. When my husband and I first met we went out a lot, got intoxicated and of course your inhibitions are lowered and we had sex a lot. But to me it wasn’t real when I look back because alcohol was involved. Since I have changed I don’t drink anymore and I don’t like to go out, except to dinner, etc.
My issue is this; yes I don’t feel close to my husband. In short it is hard for me to feel attracted to him. He is a baby and kind of feminine at times BUT he is a good man. I know this deep down inside. But because of his personality it is so hard to find him attractive. So it’s hard to have sex with him. The thought of him touching me makes my skin crawl. I don’t want my marriage to end. I love my children and I believe that it is important to keep your family together. I just need help. My husband physically is a good looking man. He is frustrated with me and tells me how I don’t desire him, etc. He screams at me and tells me he is physically frustrated and can’t take it anymore. I know he is. And after reading all of this and seeing how much men need to feel loved by sex I understand more. What do I do…? Now I just have sex with him when he wants it, but I know this won’t last much longer. I want to enjoy it… but how?
He has a long background of issues with him and his family. It’s too long of a story but he isn’t respected by his family, constantly gets teased, has temper tantrums, always calls me up complaining about someone who has done him wrong. He second guesses himself all the time. He has low self esteem and low confidence, he had this before we got married. His mom informed me of this. Anyway this probably makes him feel like he needs me to be there for him even more. But I just wish he would be more of a man and stand up for himself, stop the tantrums and stop complaining. He reminds me of a teenager a lot of the time. It would so help me to become more attracted to his personality.
ANother issue I have is before we met he had continuous one night stands (he informed me). I am not holding this against him but I really do believe that he needs sex for self-esteem even before he met me.
I don’t know, but I don’t want our marriage to fall apart. I want to desire my husband and I want our family to stay together. I will pray more for an answer. Anyone have any good advice…?
(USA) Ashlie- Your story is very common. As I posted above, there are a lot of women who don’t like sex but in particular don’t care to have it with their husbands for various reasons. I think if you truly want to make your marriage work you will have to get past some of the things that prevent you from enjoying it. Talk to your husband, maybe find new ways to be together. Chances are your husband not going to change. It’s a really tough situation and have many girl friends that eventually left their marriages or their husbands just learned to accept it. Try to find a happy medium.
(USA) This site claims Biblical teaching regarding marriage, hence the opening Bible passage.Jesus said in Matt 19:4-6: And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ “and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? “So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (NKJ) Bottom line: When a husband or wife defrauds their spouse and denies intimacy they are in DISOBEDIENCE. Period.
I deeply loved my departed wife. She died last year of cancer. Many times she would be available and many times she simply didn’t feel like it. Women and men typically have differing levels of desire in this area with women usually being the “gate keepers”. Hey, I get it. Men have this thing called testosterone which alone increases desire.
Look at the words of Jesus: “THEY ARE NO LONGER TWO BUT ONE FLESH…” (Emphasis added). Herein lies the problem. When one or both spouses cling to there “two-ness” and refuse to accept they are supposed to be ONE. Savvy?
Bad news ladies: Proverbs 12:4: “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: BUT SHE THAT MAKETH ASHAMED IS AS ROTTENNESS IN HIS BONES.” (Emphasis added). This whole “self-esteem” thing isn’t Biblical at all. At the same time however, deny your man your vows of oneness and you will SHAME him deeply, becoming “AS ROTTENNESS IN HIS BONES”!
My wife got soooo much right, but alas she repeatedly defrauded me regarding the above. It both saddens and sickens me to share this. She had a wonderful cerebral knowledge of scripture to be sure, but clearly she didn’t get this ONENESS or desire it as I did in our marriage. It was and still is the deepest shame I have ever known. I’m so shell-shocked that I don’t know if I can ever remarry. I really fear it happening again so faced with that I choose to remain unmarried.
Broken vows. That’s the way I see it. I was true to her for over 20 years and right up until her death. I still wear my ring too. Sad because she was so beautiful and sweet in so many other ways. I still love her so deeply despite the broken heart.
(CANADA) Great article. I have read it carefully, but far too late. I think in my case, the problem was that my husband was not able to articulate these ideas. I wonder how many men can? I might have listened, had he explained it this way, instead of making up some story about a gland in the back of his head.
I am not one of them, but it does seem from what I hear from others, that many women are simply not very interested in sex. I guess there are many reasons for this, and if anyone cares, here are my theories. People need to learn good sex -whatever ‘good’ means for them. If you marry another person, who is not the kind of person to ‘coach’ you at what good sex is, you may never become interested because you might miss the point of it. I think for women this is particularly important.
I also think that body image is so highly emphasized in our culture, that yes, many women, even from a young age, do not feel ‘sexy’. Then there’s the old standard of how men ‘ask’ for it. At the beginning, everything is hunky dory and it doesn’t matter how he asks for it. Then, he gets used to not having to ask properly.
Then a few years later, all of a sudden, it becomes important for him to ask differently -using all of those standard tricks that women like, and not things like just grabbing parts of the anatomy. I love this article, but men need to understand what it feels like when you assume that our body is yours. Yes, it might belong to you but it doesn’t mean you don’t have to ask nicely.
In any case these are my thoughts on the subject, but overall, I have learned a great deal from this article and will use it wisely in future.
(USA) Having a hard time. I have given my husband everything. but I can never be first. He chooses my in law brother to get between us and does not tell him I am his wife and that he needs to honor that and love me like a sister… like he loves him like a brother. I do not feel like having sex and I just can’t bring myself to do it with me feeling very dishonored as a wife.
I am the breadwinner, I take care of my husband. I have spent $30,000 in lawyer bills to help him avoid deportation and still I am not treated like a wife. I am born again and he is not. He is Nigerian. He attends Church and calls himself a Christian, but leaves the church to go back to the world. What shoud I do about my feelings of not wanting sex? It has been 5 months.
(AUSTRALIA) I found this website while googling night after night lying beside my wife as she sleeps soundly (she is as I write right now asleep beside me) trying to find a reason that does not lead to a dead end! I”m 29 years old and my wife which, I have been with for 8 years has no interest in sex, intimacy or anything that could even look like it might lead to it! I’m sick of being denied, feeling lost, lonely and unfulfilled.
We got married 6 months ago, which I thought might at least spice things up a little, not to be with no sex in the last three months. I’m angry; I feel Lonley betrayed, empty, and resentful. But at the same time selfish and a slave to my sexual needs. I ask myself why? Why does she push me away? Why does age get nasty if I’m the slightest bit persistent? Why can’t I sleep but she can? Why if we do have sex on the rare occasion, do I feel like I’m having sex with myself? Why won’t she kiss me passionately?
I love my wife but I am scared that my resentment is rapidly turning into hatred. We fight constantly over it. When we do have sex and I try again a few nights later she says “you got it the other night.” I do not want to feel like this any longer. I’m tired, feel unattractive, unloved, unneeded, yet still feel obligated to be caring and act like a happy couple. I’m sorry to all of you who feel I’m blabbing on a lot about myself. I’m just confused and anxious every day! This has been going on for the last 6 of our 8 year relationship. Can anyone shed some light?
(USA) Tim- As a woman I will give you a woman’s perspective. Not just from me but from many women I’ve talked to that are “like” your wife. I think for some women, they just don’t enjoy sex. It’s just not something they physically, emotionally, or mentally need. I have several friends who can “take it or leave it” preferably leave it. I think for women to have that “OMG… I love sex gotta have it” mentality there has to be PASSION. We need passion for that person along with desire. Both something hard to keep in a marriage.
I myself after 17 years of marriage have gone through my DRY periods but for the most part sex with my husband is “mechanical” …It’s great and we have it regularly but there’s not a whole lot of passion. I think either woman like it or they don’t. And women do rule sex in a marriage. For her to change her thoughts on sex may take some outside help. I do know lots of men in sexless marriages who have been married a long time, have kids and just can’t leave their marriage. They are not happy but they stay. Sadly their wives act on the outside and to friends that they are perfect. Its a decision you will have to make…
(USA) It’s the exact same trap Satan sets for all of us. I didn’t want sex because it was clear my husband’s heart was full of adultery yet he pretended to be this great humble Christian. When I did give in, he took care of himself and went to wash up. Back to the couch and made sure I knew he took a shower before work where a female he could not hide his interest in had been for 5 years (began in 05 but he had always been a jerk to me) and they ended up, after her husband left her and she was desperate for money, having a 12 day unsuccessful sex affair.
My husband had been a hateful abuser to me almost since the beginning in 89. 3 kids in 3 different decades and I begged him to go. I didn’t want to live in this loveless marriage anymore.
He had the nerve to say that he had not had sex in 10 months, I had not “enjoyed” sex in 9 years 2 months when he had his affair. He worked so hard turning the kids against me. My oldest at 22 came crying to me when this all broke saying how sorry he was that he ever believed any of the horrible things daddy said. My 15 year old still hates me and my 10 year old would not hear anyone speak ill of anyone but I saw that he was resenting her back then for not playing along like the boys did.
Maybe you should show your wife some of these posts. Communication can change everything and now that my husband is focused only on me, he really can’t keep up with me. Men could be slapped around and still want it, we girls are quite different. We need to feel adored and when we do, we give it all back!
One guy wrote on here how beautfiul and sexy his wife was. All he wanted was to make love to her and please her. I asked if he ever said that to her- “No” well why not?
My husband and I can talk abut anything now. Request anything and there’s no embarrassment (I never was that way but he was) He’s always said He had the best with me but I didn’t feel that way. I do now.
Remember too that many women have never had the big “O” and many fake it because they don’t know how to approach it. Clear that one up and do what you have too to fix that. Imagine as a guy you have sex over and over and never “get there”. Huge drag. Get those lines of communication open before your feelings get any worse, that is the devil deliberately trying to get you to cheat and if something doesn’t change, one of you will, and share the site with her. I’m sure it would at least get you talking. Love and prayers to you both. God wants the best for your marriage.
(BRAZIL) I’m 33 and have been married for almost 8 years. I have a young daughter. My husband and I are having issues because he has very high sexual needs while I do not want it so often, since I feel tired most of the time. I really wish it could be different for my relationship sake. He says that if I do not want it, I just have to say ‘no’ instead of accepting it to meet his needs. But If I say no, he insists and often does it, whether I show any interest or not.
He also has a drive for pornography, which makes me sick, so when he is looking at me during sex I often wonder if he is really seeing me or thinking about those women on web pages. The last time I found out about the porn web sites he said he was very sorry, that he loved me and wanted to change. I forgave him but I simply can’t forget what he did. It’s disrespectful and unacceptable for a Christian man. How can I become more interested in sex? How can I save my marriage?
(KENYA) Dear all, I read the articles posted on this website with deep concern. It is the desire of our Lord and Saviour that families should be intact. God honors the marriage institution and so should we. However, please note that the enemy always works to kill, steal and destroy and marriages are no exceptions.
From experience, most of the issues posted on this site can only be solved if a Spiritual solution is provided. To assist you understand what I mean, please watch Emmanuel TV online-http://www.emmanuel.tv/tune_in.html. You can also search for Emmanuel TV if you have Cable or Satellite TV. Please pray and ask the Holy Spirit to take charge/control. There is a lot to learn from Emmanuel TV and can guarantee you your life will change for the better and for the glory of God. Be blessed and lets work to keep the enemy out of our marriages.
(USA) I’ve been married 45 years and I thought sex was really important!!! Until I married my husband, what a mistake. I was a virgin when we were married and really only had sex and intimacy once on our wedding night. At first I had mixed feeling about sex. I guess I didn’t know what to expect. As for my husband he didn’t like it; he thought it was boring, no excitement, way to much work for so little, and totally disgusting. He told me on our wedding night that mistake will never happen again.
And to this day it never did happen again. Really nothing ever happens between us. He lives in the basement and I have the upper level. I don’t understand what went wrong if anything. We’re married on paper but in reality we’re just apartment dewellers. We never see each other, or talk. According to him, I don’t exist.
(USA) I get all of that but as it is in this “Man’s World”, what about us? This is a long one but I have the time and if it helps one person before destruction, it would be a dose of healing on me. I did not come from a Christian home and was not “saved” until I was 33 so pre-marital sex was no big deal in my life. I did reserve it for those I felt really special with and some things only for the really special. Like living together and there were two. I do not condone it; it was all sin and if I could change the past I would. But I cannot so I’m using it to relay these points. Not glorifying sin.
At 18, I lived with my 28 year old musician boyfriend. He was drummer for a popular group of the 60’s and 70’s. He was well versed at women and taught me well. Raised by my step mom who was a true lady and had only had sex with the two men she was married too, she told me once that it was her desire that all of us kids save sex for marriage but since that didn’t appear to be that case, she wanted to make sure that her girls understood that women are supposed to “enjoy” sex too.
More than once I had conversations with a group of friends and sisters to learn that most, nearly all of them had never “been there”. A man has to achieve that to make a child, a woman does not so, it’s clear it’s purely for our enjoyment (and I believe SOLELY within marriage) but I’d heard many older women in my family talk of the drudgery of sex. From the painful horror of their wedding nights to the weekly duty and it really does become unbearable if you aren’t enjoying it. A vicious cycle of us dreading it, to refusing, to the man’s growing hostility towards us because it destroys their delicate egos. They truly do gauge themsleves by their sex lives. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad.
No insult intended but so many of them are easily led by their peers and that talk. Their pride is out of control and in the mid-life crisis and the always there, a tramp that tries to get in big with the high dollar earners at work, the opportunity is sure to come. Satan makes sure of that! Women don’t usually hire male prostitutes for sex or say I love you to a prostitute! Yet men do it all the time. So many have taken the scripture that says women are the weaker vessel to mean we’re emotional, fragile and crazy but “vessel” means the body. We are weaker frame and muscle structure-wise but emotionally and spiritually much stronger than most men because they are controlled by one protruding body part. God speaks of the delicate nature of man too. He saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone, so made woman for him.
My husband did not care what I wanted, he wanted Muslim-like submission. I read the book of Surrah (Qur’an) when there was so much about that religion of peace and it says that if a woman displease her man in any way he is free to kill her, bury her in the desert, unmarked grave so another man does not defile that grave insulting him. She is property and there to fill his desires only. No promise of Paradise but waits in hell for men to come by and have sex with her. THIS IS WRITTEN IN THAT BOOK! That is the devil’s hatred of God’s plan, the way a man is to love his WIFE as Christ loves the Church (Body of Believers) and notes that all of that cultures buildings are Phallic symbols. They worship that body part and according to lore of their battles, it was/is a source of pride to rape women taken in battle. That is where the term “Booty” came from.
Present day they “circumcise” their girls so they will never enjoy sex and hopefully make it painful forever. This is not at all what Christ wants or teaches about our sexual relationships in the beauty of marriage and there is a religion coming called “Chrislam” and combining of the two where men can have all the wives they want and still hear they are okay with God. I am not making this up. Please research this for yourselves.
With my husband, I would give in after weeks of hearing it and he would do what he had to, no mistaking there was nothing in it for me and back to the couch. He threatened me weekly that he was going to cheat on me the first chance he got. Actually spoke the words “I will destroy you first chance I get” and he wasn’t kidding. He had always been this way but especially since he met her. Although she was after money and says so, he was “in love” and I watched and lived with that since 2005. And anyone could say, with that kind of hatred for me our kids and God, he was a saved man? No one outisde of this house saw what we saw though.
Then in his hatred, made sure I knew he showered before work where his “friend” was. He stopped wearing his ring, wanted a private e-mail and to the couch when she came there in 2005. He took her to lunch, even in my new car and as she slandered her husband who “didn’t make enough money” he began slandering me and the effects of all of that worked on me, my family and kids daily. To the church crowd he was such a great humble man but he loathed us and did not hide it. God is very clear about a man’s position with his family. That determines a real man and if he gives to his wife an ounce of what he gives to the world and the strangers, it begins to grow. You cannot help but benefit. As with all things, The Harvest.
I do not know what the future holds fo us. I’m watching as we all battle depression, even my precious 10 year old because his messages to us all were loud and clear and what he didn’t convey clearly, the devil sure did but I have sex with him now and because he cares about my needs, it’s not hard at all. Too bad he couldn’t have been that man all along. None of us would be in this shape now.
So while I know all these topics are beneficial to someone along the way, to us who have the babies, sacrifice to raise our families. Manage the money and all matters here at home enabling him to travel the world and doing as he pleases “WHAT ABOUT US? OUR NEEDS, EGOS, FEELINGS, DESIRES?” In that first 21.5 years as his wife, I felt used, unappreciated, betrayed, hurt and embarrassed and for good reason.
In this year and a half of suffering from his adultery, I’ve lead my ex brorther-in-law to Christ. Don’t know how, I was dying but God does all that anyway. He has married his gf of 20 years. Living obediently to God, caring for her like he should and said he has never been happier in his life. He did not know he could be that happy. After two decades of hating her and dreading going home he cannot wait to get there to see her. She is up and about after all those years of depression and health issues. Because he puts her first, she marvels at the site of him and it build and gets better each day!
Working together, each other’s needs the priority (after God) and best of friends. That is what we all should desire and it is so easy to achieve but the devil and his deception is there to blind us and deceive the heart which is pre-set to deception anyway. I pray people get that before this kind of agony. I’m hanging on, caring for us all in this depression. Trusting God for a Miracle!Stick together families. Resist the devil and he will flee.
There is nothing sexier than a man that loves his wife the way God intended. You see it in his eyes, body language and in hers. I used to be the wife that walked 10 feet behind my man as he let the door close in my face looking at other women. I see it all the time and it’s so painful. The way he feels is so obvious to everyone. Everyone should be adored by their spouse, they are one flesh. As I’ve said before, the only way Satan can hurt God is by bringing us down. God’s most precious are children and marriage and adultry destroys them. Do not obey Satan, that is love for him and hatred for the LORD.
(SWITZERLAND) Well first of all it’s still of course a generalization, because I’ve heard plenty of stories where it’s the other way around too more than I can count where the wife is getting rejected and not feeling loved (both mental and physical) so there needs to be a mutual understanding of each others needs and at least some of their wants. However in regards to this situation in the line of men, I never do believe that men have ‘a greater sexual need then women’, this is preposterous…Everyone has sexual needs, just in differnet ways. Some women who have these needs and wants are often in turmoil because they feel left destitute and defaced because society claims any woman with the desire who equals the sexual desire of man, is a skank. So they keep it quiet and to themselves while they try and wait from GOD to bring them someone. Men should be happy that their sexual desires are openly understood and globally accepted by any society. Women do not have this luxury.
Logically, woman was taken from man; not man from woman…So I can imagine there is quite a deep longing in a lot of husbands to be connected to their other half. However if more men married truly based on personality and how that person loved and cared for their needs instead of sacrificing 70% on the person’s overall appearance, they would most likely not be having these problems as much.
Granted, GOD may not always want you to go with the perfect person. GOD is about bettering you AND your partner, which means putting you both through the furnace to change you to gold. Remember you are EQUALLY to submit to our partner’s needs, but before all else you are to submit to GOD. Wives get battered over the head about these problems but people never seem to address most times that there’s an underlying problem the husbands aren’t addressing themselves. If your wife makes a daily habit of saying no, that’s one thing. But if it’s every other day, this is not to be taken negatively. Remember a relationship is meant to stregthen you; if GOD encouraged us to at times to take breaks from eating, we can certainly do this with sex which is despite what many say, is not a neccesity to living. If that were the case, I would be long dead. Wives with this need to learn, your body is no longer your own and if your husband is addressing your physical needs when you ask/want them, then try to kindle the feeling and desire to fulfill these things for him also because if you weren’t in want of this, why did you marry? If you are tired, reserve one spot in the week where your can focus on him and he on you. Husbands need to learn you are a slave to nothing and no one but GOD, do not let sex control you to the point of nessesity. If we believers encourage this line of thinking, if a husband is brought about in a situation in which he has to be separated from his wife (eg. Military, job meeting, missionaries etc.) from a short to lengthy time, he will faulter and sin.