I have this theory that in many marriages, wives train their husband not to initiate sex until we give the signal that we are open for business. We like to control our lives, including when and where we have sex. So, we develop subtle, or not so subtle signals. Maybe we linger as we kiss, or we touch more than usual, or we just tell him, “do you want to have sex tonight?” And our husband simply waits.
My Experience
Years ago, I controlled when we had sex. If I kissed my husband and immediately rolled over, the gate was closed. But if we kissed and I lingered to talk or touch, my husband knew he might get lucky. Recently I asked my husband if he knew my signal and he said, “When you went to the bathroom one last time before we turned out the lights, then I knew I had a chance.”
Of course, sometimes my husband would patiently give me a back rub or snuggle in hopes that he might sway me towards connecting. But for the most part, he patiently waited. I trained my husband to watch for my signals and because he was kind and considerate, he catered to my time table and needs.
Maybe one of the reasons our husbands don’t initiate without a signal, is because he doesn’t want to be one of those pushy guys that always wants sex. He wants to prove that he can love us in other ways than just making love. So he patiently waits, or timidly tests the waters. And even though there are times when our husband probably senses that the two of us need to connect, he waits. He holds back and we miss out on opportunities to bond.
The Turn Off
Here’s the really bad part. A husband that tip toes around, always testing the waters, and never quite knows what he wants is a real turn off.
We want a man that will lead.
After a hot date we want a husband that can’t wait to get us somewhere private. When we feel insecure, we want a man that will look us in the eye and say, “You are more beautiful today then the day we met” and show us. When we least expect it, we want a husband to confidently say, “let me” and treat us to some of the most delicious sex because he loves it as much as we do.
In Naked Marriage by Corey Allan, Ph.D. he lists three rules for great sex for husbands.
- Approach your wife as if she is the most adventurous, passionate, and open-minded woman in the world. When you assume less that this, you limit the possibilities of excitement in the relationship.
- It’s her job to say no to anything she’s not interested in trying or doing. It’s your job to speak up and express your desires.
- Don’t take things personally. If she says no to sex on the roof tonight, don’t take it personally, then refer back to Rule 1.
When I read these rules, I immediately thought, Amen. I want a husband that will acknowledge his desires, stick his neck out there and go for it. And I want to have the same freedom. My husband can always say no, but I don’t want to just play it safe. I want to live and I want my husband to live.
Encouraging Him to Lead
God created our husband to lead, even in the marriage bed. Yet because of our controlling nature, we seem to think we should determine when and how we have sex. We’ve believed the lie that when our husband reaches for us, he is just like all those other men that use women for sex. We’ve lost touch with the fact that our husband would do anything in the world for us – even cater to our sex drive.
And because our husband doesn’t want to be one of “those” pushy men, he kindly waits for our signal. . And the very thing that we want most, a strong, loving, confident husband who knows what we need even in the midst of our insecurities starts tipping toeing around second guessing himself.
So my question to you is,
Do you want your husband to lead? Even in the marriage bed?
Does he have the right to initiate sex when he feels disconnected? Or when he wants to love you? O maybe even when he needs to feel loved?
How do we trust our husband enough to let go of control?
How do we build up our husband and affirm his healthy desires?
The Author
From a husband’s point of view, I will say that this is beautifully and sensitivly stated. Yes, I was the Christian nice guy who didn’t want to be pushy and therefore didn’t own or say my feelings and desires out loud. Yes, it was a turn off to my dear wife. I now know that the truth is that it wasn’t that I didn’t want to be pushy as much as it was my fear of rejection. It was my version of brokenness getting in the way. While my dear wife doesn’t always make it easy for me to lead, I now realize that it is important for me to bring my authentic self to her with my feelings and desires unhidden. I must do this out of my strength as an offering of myself (not as a demand) whether she makes it easy for me or not. Otherwise, she cannot really know me and intimacy is blocked. She may say no and that has to be ok, otherwise her yes means nothing. In fact, she might make it difficult for me at times and I still need to not return to hiding. This is fairly easy for me to understand and so very difficult to do at times.
Thanks for sharing a husband’s point of view so beautifully.
This is about as insightful a commentary as I have read anywhere on the general nature of sex within many marriages Well written and keenly understood. Very often husbands fail to lead because they have been conditioned not to and because they don’t want to push too far. It is counterintuitive to suggest they should do the opposite but it may very well be what the wife both wants and needs. As long as the husband remains within the bounds of consent and approaches it with a heart of earnest longing and desire, he should pursue.
This is so true! Thank you!. I will share this with my husband.
Great post! Very encouraging and affirming, specially for those women here, that actually have enough interest in a sexual relationship, to come on to a great site like yours, to read more about how they can improve their sexlife. But how many husbands are here, reading this, kind of as a last ditch attempt to scrape up what ever courage they have left, to stick their head out one more time, only to find out that it was a big mistake.
Or, how many guys here feel that they have been doing what you suggested, for a decade or two and now that their drive is all but completely gone, now she wants him to pursue her and initiate? Telling him that his lack of leadership in the bedroom is a turnoff can be rather counterproductive. Maybe he doesn’t even want to turn her on anymore.
I think this is great advice for BOTH to hear before or very early on in their marriage. But usually that’s when we tell the man to be patient, kind, gentle, not pushy, understanding, don’t let your sex drive be your driving force! And then a decade later, after his confidence and selfesteem is close to zero, then he gets labeled as Dr. Corey Allen’s wimpy “Mr Nice Guy”.
I don’t disagree with what you say and certainly every individual has to discern what is the best way to love their spouse. But I also don’t believe that it is ever too late to make changes. God can work miracles.
One of the things that I really liked about your post Ruth is your heart for husbands who have struggled in this area and your encouragement to do things differently. You were not condemning, shaming, or having pity on us yet you were passing on Dr. Allen’s encouragement to speak up with courage and confidence.
I can relate to the internal conflict of not wanting to be pushy because I was ttrained to be a nice guy and to be willing to sacrifice.
What I wasn’t taught is that a gentleman asks for what he wants (so does a gentle lady!) And Jesus wasn’t a nice guy in the way that I was taught to be.
After seeing your recommendation, I have downloaded and read Dr. Allen’s book, it is excellent. One of his significant points is the importance of allowing my marriage to grow me up and an important part of that is to develop a secure sense of self or an identity. If my marriage is to grow me up, then I must keep my focus on what I need to do to grow up rather than focusing on my wife’s growth needs. My attention on her growth is at best a waste of time and energy and, in my experience, it’s actually very counterproductive and somewhat arrogant.
A corollary to staying focused on my growth is not viewing myself as a victim. If I am able to develop a secure sense of self then I will not view myself as a victim. Because I am secure, an attack by someone else, even my spouse, does not have to affect my self-esteem or self confidence. Jesus had a secure sense of self. Just prior to washing the disciple’s feet, John 12 says, “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God…”. It was his secure identity that enabled him to wash thier feet. In the garden and on the cross, Jesus did not view himself as a victim because he knew who he was and why he was here.
Therefore, I am trying to learn a new set of behaviors. When I have a desire or a feeling that I believe my dear wife is not going to go along with, whether it’s in the bedroom or elsewhere, I am trying to lovingly speak up and disclose what I am feeling or desiring. It may not be well received, and that’s ok. A negative response doesn’t have to affect my self esteem or my sense of security. Actually, this is one of Dr. Allen’s main points as well.
The point is, in my 38 years of marriage, I’ve gotten a lot wrong. Now, at 61 years old, I desire to have as intimate a marriage as possible. I can’t change the past but I can change me. It’s not easy, but it is happening. One day at a time. And as I change, my marriage will and is changing too. Jesus is trustworthy.
Thank you for your work and for suggesting Dr. Allen’s book.
Wonderful insight as always. Dr. Allen is a huge David Schnarch fan, as am I. If you haven’t read Passionate Marriage and you are up for a challenge, I would check it out. But Dr. Allen simplifies Schnarch’s concepts so that a person can easily understand them. And yes, I think the concepts perfectly translate to what the Bible teaches. In fact I like to think that the way growth and sex play out prove that our amazing God had a plan.
Yes, I couldn’t agree more. I am now referring to Dr. Allen’s book as the Christian version of Scharch’s books. The one thing that is still missing is what I call the Eldredge piece. That is, just how do I acquire a secure sense of self? Eldredge answers that wonderfully in Wild at Heart and Journey of Desire and others of his books. Someone needs to write the merger of Eldredge and Schnarch, maybe a little Curt Thompson mixed in too. Maybe that’s you Ruth!!!
No, I think maybe that is you.
Ut oh!
Jay – May I encourage you a little bit? I have just re-read your post a couple of times and I am hearing your pain and your discouragement and your frustration. I can relate to each of those feelings in a big way. They are real and painful. I have felt lonely, unaccepted, and unloved. Like yours, my confidence and self esteem took major blows. The truth is, this still happens sometimes. But what I now realize is that feeling lonely, unaccepted and unloved and lower confidence and a blow to my self esteem are actually more about me than they were/are about my dear wife. I know it doesn’t seem that way at the time,when you’ve just mustered the courage to ask for what you want and it really, really didn’t go well. Unfortunately, I medicated that pain in some unhealthy ways even though I knew better.
Here is what I now know: I am loved. I am acceptable. I am not alone. My needs do matter. I am strong and worthy of affection. How do I know that these things are true when there is plenty of evidence that they are not? Well, Jesus told me they are true. He told me that in his word. He also has told me that personally. He has been so kind to give me a name, a name that only he calls me, a name that speaks of my strength, worthiness, and that I am loved. He has promised to be there for me even when it seems no one else will be. He hasn’t told me that once, he has been kind enough to tell me that frequently, sometimes daily, sometimes multiple times in the same day. He is trustworthy.
In the new knowledge of who I am, I am voicing my feelings and desires with my beautiful, wonderful, lovely and loving wife. It doesn’t always go well, sometimes I do it in ways that come across as unkind or harsh. And sometimes I crash and burn just like the old days. But I am growing and so is she. I have just prayed for us both, that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened in order that we may know the hope to which he has called us, the riches of his glorious inheritance. I believe that those riches include an intimate marriage. That’s what he longs for us to have. Please have hope. And trust in the Lord because his heart for you is good.
“Jay – May I encourage you a little bit?”
Thank you, Hopeful, for caring and taking the time to write this long encouragement! I see your heart in it and appreciate the effort.
“I have just re-read your post a couple of times and I am hearing your pain and your discouragement and your frustration. I can relate to each of those feelings in a big way. They are real and painful. I have felt lonely, unaccepted, and unloved. Like yours, my confidence and self esteem took major blows. The truth is, this still happens sometimes. But what I now realize is that feeling lonely, unaccepted and unloved and lower confidence and a blow to my self esteem are actually more about me than they were/are about my dear wife.”
Just wanted to clarify that some of the things I said in my comment were not so much about me as they were observations of how many men here, and on some other similar blogs, feel. But I have to admit that I have often felt that way or similar as well, and you’re right, the feelings of pain, loneliness and not feeling accepted are real! Very real!
I’m still trying to understand how all this is only about me and not about her though. I think it is about US and how we are so very different! As a typical “Nice Guy”, the way Corey Allen, or maybe even better, Dr. Robert Glover describe him, I long for “acceptance”. I don’t know where that comes from. I always thought it was just part of my DNA, my personality. What probably made it wors was that I tried to make a decade long sexless marriage throughout my twenties work, while being rejected and cheated on. (It did end in divorce) My now dear wife could tell me a million times, that she accepts me but that longing is not part of her DNA. Her longing and desire is for “importance”. And the moment she says or does something that seems not accepting of me, (even a glance in public) all those million times she told me feel like she didn’t mean it.
“Here is what I now know: I am loved. I am acceptable. I am not alone. My needs do matter. I am strong and worthy of affection. How do I know that these things are true when there is plenty of evidence that they are not? Well, Jesus told me they are true. He told me that in his word. He also has told me that personally. He has been so kind to give me a name, a name that only he calls me, a name that speaks of my strength, worthiness, and that I am loved. He has promised to be there for me even when it seems no one else will be. He hasn’t told me that once, he has been kind enough to tell me that frequently, sometimes daily, sometimes multiple times in the same day. He is trustworthy.”
Thank you too for these reminders of who I am in Christ and who he is to me. They are very important and I have no doubt that they are totally true. I also know that my identity does not come from my relationship with my wife but my relationship with Jesus. However, Jesus can not and does not fullfil me in a sexual relationship. He designed that to be the job of the spouse. If He did or if I didn’t have that desire for acceptance, personally and sexually, I would have never gotten married. As selfish as it may sound to some, I got married mainly out of the desire to be known and accepted by a woman. Sex is great, but to me it is rather meaningless, if the person I am having it with and I’m supposed to pursue and initiate it with, gives me the feeling that really what she wants is to experience a bit of physical pleasure and possibly an orgasm, but the rest, like thoughts, sexual desires, being creative or adventurous, exploring ideas or different techniques or even just having some interest in what others think or have to say on this topic, why would anyone be interested in that?
Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not trying to use my wife to replace a desire that only Jesus is supposed to fulfill in me but I also don’t understand how Jesus is supposed to fulfill a desire in me that my wife was designed to fulfill. And also, please don’t think that I’m trying here to throw her under the bus. Not at all! She’s a wonderful woman, talented, intelligent, caring, loving, best mother ever, great cook and also a passionate lover! (But to me passion is created through intimate interaction) I love her so much and I know she loves me the same. But like I said before, her desire is for IMPORTANCE. That is very different from ACCEPTANCE. For people like that, relational stuff is not that important. They also don’t know how to do relational stuff very well. Their goal in life is to achieve something worth while. Something you can sink your teeth in to every day and show progress. These are people who have high career goals and they take great satisfaction in conquering seemingly impossible tasks or obstacles. They are people that volunteer on boards of directors to champion a great cause and get the feeling that what they did in life, really mattered, even though they don’t really have time for it. On a night when I initiate sex, and she knows I long to do or talk about things to get us both more in the mood, and maybe create a bit more eroticism or good sexual tension between us, she’d even make a comment about that but then would rather grab a boring policy binder and study it for a few hrs to be prepared for the next board meeting.I will still go ahead later on and give her an extensive massage and we have sex after. Her words: “That was amazing” My thoughts: “… why did I even initiate?”
Sexual rejection is real!…I have experienced it too! It is hard, it is painful, very painful. But feeling like the person that means the most to you isn’t all that interested in “knowing” you (even though they enjoy having sex with you), I find sometimes hurts even more. And it is not that she does this on purpose, or because she doesn’t like me or is angry at me. Not at all! I don’t think it really crosses her mind. She rarely ever asks me personal questions. (Some guys here may think I’m living the dream. No difficult questions?) I wouldn’t mind difficult questions, if they came from a heart that cares, not condemns. If they would lead to a deeper conversation.
But unfortunately I have in the past been honest about how I feel about these things and she interpretes it as me being unhappy that she doesn’t measure up. Do you have any idea how that feels to someone who’s desire in life is for “importance”? It’s crushing! I don’t want to crush her! Words of affirmation is her love language. How do you bring up something that you would like to work on without her not picking it up as: “I’m not good enough, again”. Couples counseling was a waste of money. Blogs like this one are way to preachy and condemning. Most podcsts that really deal with these challenges are often the same, to preachy or condemning.
“I have just prayed for us both, that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened in order that we may know the hope to which he has called us, the riches of his glorious inheritance. I believe that those riches include an intimate marriage. That’s what he longs for us to have. Please have hope. And trust in the Lord because his heart for you is good.”
Thank you for your prayer! I truly appreciate it! And I know all these truths, that you mentioned here, to be true. I don’t question them at all, even though they don’t seem like much of an encouragement or solution.
But no one ever said this life would be easy, incl. Jesus. Jn16:33
Reply Comments
It’s always about the wife/woman. All these blogs are the same. If we husbands get turned down for sex 90% of the time, eventually we keep our distance. Hibitual Rejection sucks for self esteem.
I’m really confused. I always want it. It my husband that chooses when.
Well we are all different and so are our husbands.
Ruth
Same here.
Jay – Thank you for your thoughtful clarification and for sharing your heart so openly. I believe you speak for so many men, while the details may be different, the feelings are all too familiar and common among us. I can certainly relate myself. There is some good news in your reply: 1) you are in touch with your emotions, many of us aren’t, I wasn’t for many, many years, and 2) your wife is a “wonderful woman…”and you are “not trying to use my wife to replace a desire that only Jesus is supposed to fulfill.” I’d say you are far ahead of many of us.
I certainly understand your quandary that you expressed this way, “I’m still trying to understand how all this is only about me and not about her”. It has taken me a while to come to that realization and I have to be reminded of it all too often. It certainly doesn’t feel like it’s about me, it feels like it is her brokenness that is causing my pain.
Before I answer that, let me suggest that it is actually great news that this is about me, not her. If the problem of my pain is about my wife’s brokenness, or even about our unique combination of brokenness, then my situation is dire. Other than prayer, there is nothing that I can do to change my wife, nothing. Anything more than prayer is fruitless and harmful to her and to us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for praying for my wife, I do quite a bit of it in fact. But beyond that, I am helpless to change her and can easily give in to hopelessness. I have been there and it is a desperate place. Then I start to feel like a victim and that is not an attractive sight for anyone to see! However, if it is true that this is more about me than her, then I’ve got lots I can do to improve the situation.
How is it about me? There is nothing wrong with desiring acceptance from my wife. The problem is my need for my wife’s acceptance. It is 100% healthy and right for me to ask my dear wife to hear me, understand me, accept me, and to love me just as I am today. It seems like the problem occurs when I don’t receive those things. In reality, not receiving those things just exposes the problem.
I entered marriage like you did, “I got married mainly out of the desire to be known and accepted by a woman.” But for me, the truth is I thought that being known and accepted would make me complete, it would give me an identity, it would bring me something that I needed and didn’t have within myself. From what I have read, this is perfectly normal and some version of this is the way virtually all of us got into our marriages. I believe that God, in his infinite wisdom and goodness, designed marriage to take us from this place of need and insecurity to a place of wholeness and security. It is the struggles in my marriage that have given me the opportunity to grow, to become whole, and to give me a secure self.
When I am able to live from my secure self (which is more often than before but still not always!), I can ask my dear wife for what I want and when she is not able to give it, I am able to calm my hurt and anxiety by reminding myself that I am secure, whole, loved, not dependent on anyone other than Jesus for my identity. I have to be very intentional about doing this work of calming my anxiety. Once I have done that, I am able to be fully present with my dear wife and can allow myself to be vulnerable with her. Without vulnerability, there is no intimacy. It requires vulnerability to disclose anything that I perceive that she will not like, especially initiating or inviting her sexually. Prior to developing a secure self and learning to calm my anxiety, I would not present my Authentic Self to her. Instead I would either present my “wounded self” which was like a child or I would present my “gorilla self” which would only activate either her wounded self or her gorilla self.
My wounded child self and my gorilla self have acted as a “Protector” for me, they were trying to protect me from the pain that I was experiencing. While those Protectors meant well, when I allowed them to speak for me instead of speaking from my Authentic Self, they got in the way of the very thing that I wanted most which is intimacy.
I have learned and experienced that real intimacy is not based on my dear wife’s validation of me. Rather, real intimacy is based on my ability to validate myself or, said differently, to receive my validation from the Lord. When I am able to live out of my Authentic Self and to receive my validation as a man from the Lord, then I am able to be authentically present with my dear wife, to offer my vulnerable disclosures, and to offer my strength to her instead of my neediness.
So, my pain from feeling unacceptable is real. And it is a signal to me that I am looking to my dear wife for my identity, my validation. So, I purposefully and mindfully sit with myself, get in touch with those painful emotions, take them to the Lord, and ask him to validate me, to love me, again. And he does. He is trustworthy. That’s what I mean by the pain being about me, not her. She actually can not cause me to feel unacceptable, that is my choice. I did not know this for 37 years and am still learning the reality of it now. I am choosing to rest in the knowledge and security of the fact that I am acceptable.
It might help you to have some compassion for your dear wife to realize that she has the same thing going on inside of her. While her perceived need is for importance and yours is for acceptance, it’s just a different flavor of the same thing. My wife and I have a similar dynamic with slightly different needs, I think we all do. I think it is the design. The pain that your wife feels when you disclose your feelings which she interprets as “not measuring up” is just the other side of the same coin as your pain. Somewhere inside of her there is a part that believes she doesn’t measure up. Can you imagine how painful that must feel? So she “protects” against that pain by working so very hard to “be important” which probably means be successful and to add value to others so that the pain of not measuring up will be held at bay. My dear wife has a different but very similar internal protector. My job is love all of her, even the protector, and when I get to see her Authentic Self, wow! Wow! You know what? That’s what Jesus does with me. And he gives us the opportunity to do that for each other. Not perfectly, at least not perfectly yet.
Please don’t hear me saying that the pain isn’t real or shouldn’t be felt. And please don’t hear me saying that we shouldn’t have desires for more. My desire for more, your desire for more, is a very good thing. And there will always be some pain that accompanies rejection or abandonment. It this life, we will experience both. The issue is what do we do with it? Do I let it crash my self esteem, my identity? Or do I let it propel me forward to a place of strength and security that enables me to connect more deeply with my dear wife than I ever imagined? As it turns out, it’s my choice, not hers, not ours, mine.
A fair question is “how did my good desires become unhealthy needs?” In my case, I can look back on my early life and see where I experienced the trauma of not being accepted, of being truly alone when I shouldn’t have been, of experiencing the reality of performance based love and I see that in those moments, I learned to believe that: I am unacceptable, I am alone, I am not worthy of love, etc. So, when my dear wife responds in a way that sounds like any of these statements, I am already there. Her simple comment just confirmed what some part of me already believed about myself. The truth is, she can’t convince me that I am alone, but she can trigger something within me that already believes it.
Some will dismiss all of this as psycho jumbo jumbo or an over dependence on the spiritual which can’t be verified. According to Dr. Curt Thompson, the burgeoning field on Interpersonal Neurobiology is confirming that what I have described here is real and much of it can be discerned scientifically within the brain. According to him and others, I am learning to “change my mind.” Doing so actually rewires my brain in a literal sense. I believe marriage was designed by our loving Heavenly Father to do that very thing.
A couple of “Oh by the ways”: I am so sad to hear about your ten years of a sexless marriage! That is hard. And it is traumatic. My understanding is that trauma requires healing, the effects of trauma don’t just go away. According to Dan Allender and Curt Thompson, trauma requires retelling the story in the presence of kindness. That’s just the first step though.
Secondly, when you say, “On a night when I initiate sex, and she knows I long to do or talk about things to get us both more in the mood, and maybe create a bit more eroticism or good sexual tension between us, she’d even make a comment about that but then would rather grab a boring policy binder…,” I am imaging that your initiation of sex is probably what is known as a “side door” communication. I may be wrong about this, I just know that is something I have done a great deal of and it is not healthy or helpful. Ruth’s original post described side door initiation tactics. Here is an example of front door communication, “My love, my heart leapt for joy when you walked in the room tonight because I realized that you are lovely, you are the expression of God’s infinite mercy and goodness in my life. I feel so grateful to be your husband. I’d like to celebrate the connection that I feel with you by making love to you tonight. Would you be willing to join me in that?” Obviously, this must be the true expression of your heart or she will see right through it and not only will you not be having sex tonight, you will have lost your integrity. This is what Dr. David Schnarch calls leading with your heart instead of your crotch. Try to put yourself on the other side of that communication and ask yourself how it feels compared to a side door (is the gate open?) testing of the waters without any expression of your heart. I’m afraid that is exactly what I have done for years. And I wondered why it didn’t work!
Lastly, though this is a long response, it’s just scratching the surface. I will post a separate post with a list of books that have been particularly helpful to me and us. It’s a journey and it’s hard work and it’s worth it.
If you’d like to discuss further by email, feel free to ask Ruth for my email address and she can give it to you privately. God’s richest blessings on you and your dear wife as you embrace all that the Lord has in store for each of you.
A suggested reading list:
Allender, Dan B., and Dan B. Allender. Healing the Wounded Heart: The Heartache of Sexual Abuse and the Hope of Transformation.
Cusick, Michael John. Surfing for God: Discovering Divine Desire beneath Sexual Struggle.
Eldredge, John. The Journey of Desire: Searching for the Life You’ve Always Dreamed of.
Eldredge, John, and Brent Curtis. The Sacred Romance.
Eldredge, John. Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul.
LYNCH, JOHN. CURE: What If God Isn’t Who You Think He Is and Neither Are You?
Schnarch, David Morris. Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Marriage.
Schnarch, David. Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships.
Thompson, Curt. The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe about Ourselves.
YERKOVICH, MILAN. HOW WE LOVE: Discover Your Love Style, Enhance Your Marriage.
Thank you for the reading list and for your extensive response. I’m truly happy for you for how God has restored the many years of your life and marriage that were so challenging.
I’ve read Dr Schnach’s book three times. Also Dr Allanders and Eldridge’s books. Even though I have not read Correy Allen’s book, Naked Marriage in its entirety, I was part of his editing group for quite a while before it got published. Great books. Would highly recommend them.
Btw, your “front door” initiating suggestion, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’d be able to do it with a straight face. I’m also quite sure that my wife wouldn’t be able to hold her “laugh attack” back long enough for me to finish that proposition. And I don’t mean this in a sarcastic way at all, but that’s just not me and I don’t want to scare my wife to make her think that I lost my marbles.
And no, I did not come to her with a “side door” proposal either. I was not testing the waters, I straight out told her what I wanted to do to her that night. (It was not as elaborate as yours and for sure not as spiritual). She gladly accepted and we were both looking forward to it. And as I said before, she enjoyed it very much!
I was that husband that tried to lead Godly in the bedroom and other areas in our home, but after turn downs, excuses, and disappointments, you just don’t ask cause it’s not going to happen. I even suggested the following night, to hear we’ll see. After trying to lead and the wife not following you have a natural tendency to not do that again cause it’s not working. Then they realize your not pursuing them and they get upset when we don’t /won’t take the lead or even mention it. Then it turns into you don’t find me attractive or beautiful anymore. Which has nothing to do with that, it’s been the rejecting for years. Then Christians marriages find themselves drifting apart. I still love my wife deeply, I havn’t seen her without cloths on in years. I read this post, it gave me courage to try to lead once more in the bedroom. Thanks for you blog, it helps me and gives me hope.
Keep your chin up brother. Perhaps you can ask your wife to take the Awaken Love course – only if SHE wants to. My wife and I are currently taking it and have seen a notable improvement (mine was not to the place yours is) in two weeks. I hope it continues to improve as we continue the course.