What kinds of emotional needs does your sexual interest meet for your man? In written survey comments and in my interviews, I noticed two parallel trends—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.
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 women. 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 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 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 and 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… and 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 themselves 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 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, which 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.
…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 women might very much wish that they could respond more wholeheartedly to their husband’s sexual needs, but 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.
Make sex a priority
An excerpt from a Today’s Christian Woman article captures this issue—and provides an important challenge 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.
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 you: 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.
The above article comes from the terrific book, FOR WOMEN ONLY… What you Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men -by Shaunti Feldhahn, published by Multnomah. This is a GREAT book (which has much more insight on this and many other subjects) to help women learn about what motivates men and their thought processes behind their actions (or non-actions). Shaunti had interviewed over 1000 men in researching this book. As a result she found that she didn’t know the mind of her husband and others like she thought she did. So what she does in this book is reveal the findings her research brought out so that other women can better understand the men in their lives which will help them to better interact with them. Preview or Purchase this book now
There is also a For Women Only Discussion Guide available, written by Shaunti Feldhahn along with Lisa Rice, which is published by Multnomah. It’s designed to be used by book clubs, in small groups, or even for having a one-on-one dialogue with the man of your life. Many women, after reading the For Women Only book may wonder, “So what do I do with the information I’ve just been given?” This discussion guide is designed to answer that question. It contains personal stories, questions, and situational case studies to help equip you to apply the truths you learn in your own life. Preview or purchase this book now
-ALSO-
There was a radio broadcast series that aired a while ago where Nancy DeMoss interviewed Shaunti Feldhahn and Barbara Rainey on this same subject. We believe you would greatly benefit from reading the transcripts. To do so, click onto the links provided below:
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(USA) Amazing… There is much about women we simply have to take on faith, that God made them that way and they really do feel the way they do. This is like the male version, there is absolutely no way one could over emphasize how important the often and regular physical connection is to men because of how we were made. What’s more is that it is so very true that sex is not about sex. It is about safety and security in the relationship and “no” or “not today” day after day, is the same as not being loved. It is about desire and wanting us as husbands and men. Reason it away with the female mind and the relationship will suffer big time. And just like you will find an emotional connection outside your marriage if we don’t meet that need, this is the reason many men find someone to want and desire them outside their marriage. They were not looking, but someone came along and wanted to meet that need and they fell for it. It’s just that a sexual affair is more “sinful” than an emotional affair, but they are the same –finding someone else to meet the primary needs we have in marriage. And it usually happens because the needs are not met. It’s about choice, to meet them or not meet them, it’s our choice.
(USA) I believe that over time, as a relationship is tested, built upon, nourtured, etc., sex becomes even more fulfilling for a woman. That is how it can be so much better and more fulfilling for married couples than for the one night standers.
(ZIMBABWE) l always find that having great mutual physical contact with my wife gives my emotional state a good boost, resulting in me being able to positively tackle the challenges that life brings. However, when my wife regularly turns down my advances (not only for sex, but even any form of sensuous touching that would not lead to sex), I feel gutted. And more often than not, I end up not having the fighting spirit to tackle issues in life. One can only imagine the stress that is brought about by having sex once or twice (at most thrice) a month for a couple in their early thirties. The thought of a mistress start creeping into one’s mind (although this has been dismissed all the time, because of the fear of God’s wrath).
(ZIMBABWE) It always baffles me that wives do not seem to be aware that their refusal to be loving in a physical way towards their husbands, invariably invites all sorts of evil thoughts into a man’s head. A man starts noticing other women (that he would otherwise not), starts fantasizing about past partners or even any woman. So I think it is important for wives to know that in as much as it is key for husbands to provide emotional stability/support to their wifes, the wives need to equally do the same. This principle is not only good for the marriage but for the Kingdom as well, since it is apparent that the devil attacks marriages. And if any of the spouses engages in actions that do not build up their marriage, then they are handing victory to the enemy.
(USA) Interesting that the comments here are from men only. I wonder if any wives have ever read this? I wonder what they think about it?
All very true by the way. My wife says I am trying to use her to satisfy my physical needs, even though I have explained many times that sex is how I experience love. It is how I know in my heart that she really loves me.
I don’t think it matters what I say or what she logically believes. If she doesn’t feel like having sex, then I don’t want her to "just do it".
On the other hand, I do the things my wife and children need and want, no matter how I feel about it.
(USA) I am a woman and I have the same problem you do in that I do not get sex from my husband or any type of intimacy. I feel so alone and disconnected and miserable. I do not have proof of infidelity on his part, which he says he had never cheated on me, but I have to wonder. I have been married 30 years to the same man and I have never turned him down in the bedroom. I too am a Christian woman and that is the only reason I have not left him as of yet.
I have told him how I feel many times but we have not had intercourse in the last nine years. We do not cuddle together or kiss or anything. I feel trapped hurt and very confused. I want to do the right thing but I want a relationship that fulfills me. We used to make love all the time and had a wonderful sexual relationship. I need to be fulfilled that way as much as most of you men say you do. I love sex and for most women I know, they have the same feelings as I do that they feel loved and needed when their husband has sex with them too.
I do not think that is an only men related thought. Doesn’t sex bring men and women closer together in a marriage and make them connect on a deep intimate level? Well, this woman needs that too and I feel like I am dead inside without it. I loved being with my husband and I never refused him sexually ever. I’ve always tried to support him in his work and show him I cared in everything he did. I’ve always bragged about him and told him how proud I was he went to work every day especially when he was having a hard day. I’ve always tried to make him feel important to me. I’ve even left him notes in the bathroom when we were both on different schedules and in his wallet and car to show him how much I loved him always and how proud I was of him.
One note that I might put in his wallet would maybe say, “Thanks for all the work you do to provide for our family even on the days you do not feel like it. I appreciate all you do for us. I love you” and I would sign my name. I like caring for him and taking care of him. I always put him first and have made time for him even when the kids were small. I wasn’t a neglecting wife and I did things for him even when I was very sick and not able to. I never have been selfish with myself or time toward him. He was always my first priority. I feel so cheated. What do I do and how do I connect with a husband who is depressed and hates sex or any physical connections with me? Tell me what you think please? Lori
(USA) Lori, As a man, I see what you mean. It’s rare that he is the one denying. He is either getting fulfilled some where else by images or a woman(en). Or maybe he has some issue physically that he just has no drive (doubtful).
He probably could care less about gifts as a love language i.e “the notes”. Incredibly sweet, but he may not give a hoot. I don’t like gifts. I like nice affirming words, not just from my wife. Maybe that helps give you some insight.
(USA) Go to a marriage counselor, let them propose a sex rate in between what you are getting today and what you want. No self respecting marriage counselor would force the sex-rate to be at the one with the low sex drive.
(USA) I’m a Christian husband of 29 years. My wife has deprived me all, but maybe 3x a year. I think I’m losing the struggle. I have no self-esteem, I don’t go out except to the drug store/doctor & back home. I’m 48 & retired. I’m no longer a man. I’m retired from law enforcement. She wonders why I wear a frown & I get criticized for it. Everything else is more important than me. My heart is broke in half. I used to be in ministry also. Please pray. She says she still loves me, but I feel more like a roommate.
(USA) This article actually explains to me some things that I didn’t understand. I’m another man married to a woman just not interested in sex. If I ask she’ll put me down on her ‘list’ which I think means she just needs a day to mentally prepare herself I guess. For years I had been involved in pornography and self-gratification and I guess in a way that kept my desire for her down, but I’m sure it also perpetuated the problem since I didn’t have that desire for her as I should have.
I’ve been free of porn for a couple of months now and my desire for my wife is through the roof now. I like that very much, and she knows what I’m going through. Unfortunately, I think she believes that my need for her is just physical and I don’t know how to explain what’s going on with me. This article does a great job of explaining that. Like I said, I didn’t understand my need for her as well as I do now.
A warning to everyone– pornography cannot offer you fulfillment, and the satisfaction you do get is temporary at best. I’m thrilled to be free of it thanks to God. It isn’t easy, but it is wonderful to have this desire for my wife again. The next step is to restore my physical relationship with her and have the relationship God intended us to have.
(USA) I do understand that my husband’s need for sex is emotionally connected for him. So, at least once a week, though I don’t always want to, I do spend an evening with him. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, it’s great on a physical level, & he seems fulfilled. I do it for him; I know he needs it. He is happy for a few days, then he starts moping around the house, becoming more and more distant. I assume that this is because he needs more sexual intimacy, so the cycle repeats itself. If it’s been longer than a week, he gets extremely depressed or angry. When this happens, I begin to feel manipulated or coerced, and much more unattracted to him because of his inhuman behavior. But, eventually, I bite the bullet and give him what he needs in order to keep the peace, though I hate myself more for it every time.
I’m a great actress, so he is fulfilled even when I fake it. The problem is that I never get my emotional needs satisfied, and I am coming to resent the sex. I feel cheap…like a woman giving away sex without getting any sort of affection in return. It’s really starting to wear on me. And he just doesn’t want to talk about it.
We’ve been married for 12 years. It wasn’t always like this. He began to pull away from me emotionally 9 years ago when he became involved in pornography. He has truly repented and changed, but he spent so many years being emotionally detached from our relationship.
We recently talked about our emotional needs (a rare occasion) & he said he is not willing to spend the minisquel amount of quality time with me for me to feel more loved, but he wants me to provide him with more sex. Any advice? If he’s not going to change, is there anything I can do to keep myself sane? Can I get my emotional fulfillment somewhere else & still not feel so abandoned in our marriage?
(USA) Well do you want to really be in your marriage? It sounds like the old argument of what came first the chicken or the egg? You don’t enjoy sex because he is emotionally detached and he gets further detached because you don’t enjoy sex with him, which he sees as you not loving him.
My wife and I are separated but we continue to be committed because of our devotion to God. We have made great strides in our relationship and it is getting better each day. I was the one who found God, she was always a believer, and found out my responsibilities to her.
So I put aside all the feelings of hurt and abandonment and gave her what she needed emotionally. I prop her up daily, tell her how much I love and desire her, spoil her when I can. She now knows that everything I have physically and emotionally is hers. With that she has become more and more attracted to me. She lets me know that she desires me, which in turn makes me feel like a complete man. With that I feel even more drawn to her and find new ways to feed her ego and let her know that she is the most important person in my life.
I could have put conditions on her and I working out, she needed to do this etc. But I just let go, put it in God’s hands and treated her as God wanted her to be treated. When I talked to her, I let God speak for me and let her know that His unconditional love was coming through me.
One person has to say”enough”, one person needs to start the healing. I could have waited for her but I didn’t. I took the lead and my marriage is turning into everything I have always wanted. I stopped thinking about her having to change this or that, and started focusing on my changing so she wanted to be with me.
What I am saying is, do you want to let go or do you want to hold on and make the first step? You can sit back and do nothing or you can take the first step and try to lead him to being a Godly husband who satisfies your emotional needs.
I made the first step because I needed to break my self destructive behavior and I did not want to die. With that I finally understood what my wife needed and started to give it to her. Through wanting to fix something else I ended up fixing my marriage. Are you willing to let your husband get to where I am? Are you willing to let him make the first move as a show of faith on his part? Or are you going to put on God’s armor, which no rejection or attack can penetrate, and take your marriage back?
45 David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
God will be there for us to stand with us in all our challenges and battles. The only time we will fail is when we stray away from Him and try to work it out on our own.
(USA) Hi Barbara, Having been on both sides of your story, in some ways, I hope I can share some helpful thoughts with you.
1. It sounds like your husband has some problems being honest. It may be that he is a “nice guy” (see Paul Coughlin’s book, No More Christian Nice Guy). So, instead of talking openly with you about sex and his sexual desires, he uses his “hints” -some negative (moping, bad moods, etc.) and probably some positive (for example, are there times, about once a week, where he is extra-sweet to you or more “touchy” toward you?). “Nice” guys (take it from a recovering nice guy) are not so “nice” at all, even though they may not be blunt, because they aren’t honest. They expect others to respond to them through things like manipulation or, when people don’t take their hints, through anger. Of course, it may be that he just is so bitter that he feels he shouldn’t have to ask you or tell you what he wants.
You know him better than I.
2. It sounds like you give him sex to placate him, like giving a lion a steak so that he won’t eat you or a three-year-old little boy the toy he wants so that he’ll stop screaming and leave you alone. In other words, you are pandering to his attitudes rather than giving to him in love. Don’t misunderstand… I’m being simplistic. I know that there are mixed motives, including love (probably). But because there is no connection with him, no honesty about your lack of overall intimacy with him (this isn’t primarily a problem with sex, I bet), you resent him because you feel like you are giving to that bratty little child just to shut him up even though he doesn’t care a rip about giving back to you. But, despite how great an actor you might be, I bet your husband senses your distance. There is no connection, and he knows it. Plus,
I’m not a sex therapist, but I will tell you from my own experience that it sounds like there is an overall lack of intimacy between the both of you. A counselor once told me that intimacy is being fully known and fully loved (accepted) without fear of rejection. I’m not saying that he won’t open up because of you -it is probably partly due to the interaction between you both and partly due to his own sin issues- but people do lots of things to “keep peace”: placate the other person, keep quiet, don’t tell them what is really bugging them, enable sinful behavior, etc. But there is often a huge price to pay down the line. It leads to resentment because nothing is dealt with and those little internal messages we have about what we want, don’t want, like, and don’t like, get stuffed down further and further inside. They spoil and turn sour in our hearts, and we shut down more toward the other person. Eventually, we are two strangers living in the same house, and then we wonder why there is no affection or emotional connection.
Since you can’t directly change him (or anybody for that matter) but only be an instrument of change in the Lord’s hands, my imperfect and humble opinion is that the following things might be helpful.
1. Prayer. I’m sure you’ve been praying like crazy about this, so I’m just listing it for completeness. Pray for yourself, that the Lord would reveal the things in your own heart that you need to deal with. Pray for your husband, too. Don’t just pray that he will change so that life will be easier. Pray that the Lord would help him get in touch with his own bitterness and fear, which are keeping him locked away.
2. Forgive. Forgive your husband. I’m nobody to tell you that this is easy, but I think you need to come to some peace with God about this situation and realize, truly in your heart, that your husband is just a sinful, flawed person just like you and everybody, who needs Jesus. I know you know that, but to “know” it in our hearts and be able to let go of the debts we are holding against them is a different story. If you don’t do this, then whenever you try to talk to him (see my next step) you will inevitably turn it around on him -you’ll start talking about him and his problems and how angry you are at him, and you’ll get nowhere because nobody wants to be punished. He won’t be open to listen at all. Men, especially, don’t respond to anything that feels like nagging or punishment.
3. Confession and honesty. As you see things about yourself, like about how you grow resentful, about how you placate him, and whatever else the Lord shows you about your heart, confess it to your husband. Keep it about you and your sins and problems, not his. What is the difference? Well, for example, his problem is that he is manipulative about his sexual needs and doesn’t seem to put any effort into connecting with you or making you feel like a woman. Your problem is that you don’t like his moping and distance, and it brings you to give him sex but just resent him. As you start to open up to him and also confess to him where you have resented him, it will cut through the tension like a knife and, Lord willing, will pave the way toward him opening up, too. So, in short, find out your problems, your responsibilities, and be honest and open about where you have sinned and failed.
4. Continue to build safety and intimacy by conveying love, acceptance, and commitment toward him even when you disagree with him or think he’s an ass. There has to be that honesty and safety. That is the “formula,” if you will, for connection in relationships. Does your husband know that you are safe? I don’t mean “safe” in the sense that you won’t leave him. I mean safe in the sense that he knows he can be completely himself without being punished, condemned, rejected, abandoned, or belittled. Do you feel that way with him?
If all of this does nothing, then it may be that your husband refuses to cooperate, which you’ve alluded to. In that case, he is on a course of self-destruction with no desire whatsoever to change. That is where setting firm boundaries may come in essential, along with the honest communication (don’t be tempted to run under ground, withdraw, and start punishing him). The book Boundaries or even Boundaries in Marriage (by Cloud and Townsend) might be helpful, if you haven’t already read them. Keep in mind also that you don’t want to go through these steps simply to make him behave differently. They are good for you to go through simply because it will help you heal and deal with your own issues before the Lord. This is a stab in the dark. I hope things get better with you guys.
I know they can.
(USA) Many wives lose their libido from chronic health problems, hysterectomy/ovary removal, change of life, weight gain/self image, fatigue, etc. As much as she might know his need, sex is no longer on her radar, and when it does infrequently occur, there’s so much pent up emotion between them it’s like a match to gasoline: best avoided. I suspect many Christian husbands just bear it the best they can, with most becoming irritable, distant, depressed or overly busy outside the home. Pornography often fills the void, to the detriment of all. When the only woman in the world that can fulfill his sexual need (without the threat of hell) just doesn’t feel like it anymore for the above causes, and the wife won’t counsel, what’s a Christian husband to do?
(USA) Well, I pay plenty of attention to my wife and she will agree with me any day. She says to me she has sex with me just to please me. I want to be desired but somehow she can’t seem to do that. I love our intimacy and desire it so much. I have loads of testosterone running through my veins. When she comes home she seems to get the jump on me and says I’m tired before I can even ask. It’s like she knows what I’m thinking and shuts me down before I can say.
I don’t know what to do. I do look at porn just to get by. But I would take her over porn any day. So porn has its place for me even though I know it’s wrong. I’m not like other guys. I think I do everything for this woman. Yes, you name it, I do it, so I can’t understand what the problem is.
She says I should be happy I get what I get. But I’m not. I get mad every month or so and she says she will try more but it just keeps returning back. She always says to other people we have such a great marriage but I just shake my head inside. And she gives advice to many people also. Weird.
(USA) I’m sorry John. Just letting you know I hear you. I understand what it’s like not to feel desired by your wife. It’s almost funny when you mentioned your wife giving advice. My wife actually mentioned once that she thought we should become marriage mentors at our church because we had such a good marriage. I said something like “Uh, I don’t think so…”
I’ll be praying for you. Are you a Christian John? There is another Christian website with a lot of good folks on it that may be able to give you better advice than I. Themarriagebed.com if you sign up (free) they have a Sexual Refusal section and a Lack of Desire section that you might want to look at. At the very least, you can find a lot of Christian support there.
Anyway, take care bro. I believe it CAN get better, though I haven’t really seen it in my marriage. But I know it has for some other folks I know. I’m sorry it’s so frustrating. LS
(SOUTH AFRICA) I guess many of us women want to be fed emotionally as much as men want be fed physically. I have experienced that the reason I do not have interest in sex is because I am not getting the quality time that I need from husband. Men are either busy with their work or sit in front of the TV.
The solution to getting your wife back to be interested in you as the husband, is planting a seed of love and taking care of the seed planted. Water the seed and eventually the wife will know that your interest as a husband is not just physical but to her as well. God created us women to be emotional beings and we need to be given the attention emotionally, so that it will be easy for us as women to give back physically.