While most men make it to marriage expecting that “Sex is going to be the best thing ever”, most women have different expectations. We are bombarded with lies that set up barriers to enjoying sex in marriage. In order for a husband to empathize and encourage his wife to live in God’s fullness, it is helpful to understand the lies but also to realize that his actions can either enforce the lie or counteract them. Understand the lies your wife battles so that you can help her embrace the truth about sex.
Below are a list of the most common lies that women believe about sex. Will you help her battle them?
(A continuation of what I share in my men’s class, “What in the world is she thinking?”)
1. Sex is easy
Many women believe that everything will naturally fall into place – especially if she has operated within God’s boundaries. The reality is that orgasm is a learned response. It may take some time for her body to recognize pleasure and chase after it. Culture makes us expect that our husband will know what to do, and that he will give us our orgasm. It often takes work and time exploring what feels good to her. What feels good to women is very different from what feels good to men.
What to Do – Deuteronomy 24:5 says, A newly married man must not be drafted into the army or be given any other official responsibilities. He must be free to spend one year at home, bringing happiness to the wife he has married.
God created women complicated. Husbands must spend time getting to know their wives and learning how to love them. Though you cannot stay home from work for a year, you can turn off the screens and spend time really studying her. Don’t take it personally when your wife is tricky. Embrace it as another opportunity to learn more.
You can also encourage your wife to get to know herself, and ask her to show you what she has learned. Don’t get frustrated when your usual path doesn’t work, but enjoy learning something new and taking her a different place. Be careful not to focus so much on orgasm that she feels pressured to perform. Simply enjoy the journey of discovering something new together.
2. Sex is for our husbands
Whether it is Christian books stating that “sometimes we just need to do it for our husbands”, the threat that your husband will stray if you don’t have sex, or sitcoms portraying a husband begging for sex, the message is loud and clear that sex is for men. Books often state that women don’t need to have orgasms . If you gave a woman a choice between enjoying a great orgasm or not, what do you think she would choose? God created sex just as much for wives as husbands. Sex should be equally important to us. We just don’t typically have the hormonal urgency that men do. If your wife has bought into the lie that sex is for men, she is less likely to do the hard work to figure things out for herself.
What to do – Never say you need sex. Say you miss her, or feel disconnected or want to love her. Once in a while serve her by forgoing your own orgasm and focus on bringing her pleasure. Make sure she knows that you thoroughly enjoy connecting by getting to know her and watching her. Plan a sex date that your wife would enjoy. Light a couple candles, provide chocolate, wine, or strawberries. Spend time warming up her body and woo her with your words. Learn to enjoy the kind of sex that works for your wife.
3. You have to look like the magazines
This world is filled with images of thin, tan, beautiful women looking sexy. A real women that will never appear on the cover of a magazine, one of our deepest desires is to be beautiful. Comparing ourselves to others or what we used to be, makes us want to crawl into our shell and hide.
What to do – Keep your eyes pure so that your wife’s body becomes the most amazing beautiful thing. Tell her what you think of her, even when she doesn’t believe it herself. Don’t just visually enjoy and affirm your favorite zones, but like Song of Songs, enjoy her from head to foot.
4. Good Girls Don’t
As unmarried Christian girls, the message is loud and clear, Good Girls Don’t . Even after marriage there is an under riding current of not enjoying what the rest of the world enjoys. Don’t get too wild and don’t have too much fun. Just have safe, boring, married sex. God sets up clear boundaries in the bible to protect our marriage and beyond that, He gives us a huge playground to play in. God is a creative God. Just like He offers a giant menu of food to enjoy, He offers many ways to enjoy and get to know each other physically.
What to Do –Read Song of Songs out loud with your wife to expand your definition of sex. Encourage your wife’s creativeness by being thrilled when she does something different. Talk about sex with your wife to get her creative juices flowing. Ask her what she would like, and share what would thrill you. Bring God into your marriage bed by praying about sex. Praise God after sex, and thank God for your incredible wife. Your wife can be both Godly and sexy.
5. Sex in Marriage is Boring
Media portrays boring marriages. Friends complain about husbands that constantly beg for sex, and marriages filling our pews simply look dead. Why in the world would our kids want to wait to have sex until marriage? We have bought into the lie that sex in marriage is supposed to be boring.
Proverb 5:18-19 says, Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. She is a loving deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love.
We are supposed to be captivated by each other – forever. Just because the world says marriage is boring does not make it true. We make get to choose.
What to Do – Think about what you loved to do when you were dating or just married. Spend time kissing, holding hands, using sweet words, plan surprises and play together. Be creative in planning dates and new experiences together. Don’t just add variety, but get to know each other by being present during sex. Dare to reveal desires and passions, and dare to bring your spouse’s desires to life. Have a beginners attitude toward sex and instead of assuming you know how to take her from point A to point B, discover a new path.
6. Men will take from you
As teenagers, we are told that boys have no self-control when it comes to sex. If you let down your guard they will go as far as they can. In essence, they will take your virginity and your reputation. The news is filled with stories of girls and women being hurt by men. It takes a conscious effort to believe that when your husband wants sex, he does not want to take from you.
What to Do – Be vigilant in treating girls and women with respect, whether with words about what they are wearing or how you look at them. A wife will notice how you treat other women. Respect and love your wife by keeping your eyes pure and not just looking at her like a piece of meat. She has to know that you see when she is tired or discouraged. You need to connect with her in all kinds of ways, not just physically. Ask how you can love her better. Offer back rubs and foot rubs with no expectations of payback. Sometimes make love to her and just focus on her pleasure and nothing else.
7. Sex is just a physical thing that we do
In our heads women probably know that sex is more than just physical, but we don’t live it out. Wives have sex when their hormones surge. Sex doesn’t feel like refreshment or even a way to reconnect with our husbands. We sometimes even use sex as a ransom to make our husbands love us better. Men probably understand intuitively better than us how important sex is to connect to their wives emotionally and spiritually, yet we assume all you want is sex.
What to Do – Your wife assumes that sex is just physical for you, a release that your body craves. Think about and share with your wife what it means to have great sex with her. How does it connect you to her, or open you up, or deeply affect you? How does sex makes you into one? Tell her you want to know her through sex. Share how sex connects you to her spiritually. Not easy things to do, but it will profoundly affect how your wife views sex.
The lies your wife battles ought to be a battle you fight together. Understanding and talking about these lies can be one of the first steps to claiming God’s truth. Help your wife by communicating and living God’s design for sex in marriage.
How have you helped your wife battle the lies about sex in marriage?
The Author
I hadn’t been by in a while and this was an interesting article to read as I visited, today.
I totally understand and appreciate the advice you are trying to provide here, but the truth is that it shouldn’t be this complicated. Marriages shouldn’t need twenty paragraphs of tips and insight into why they are not having sex — I don’t say that to criticize at all as your advice is quite well founded and worth reading for those who truly want to dig into “why” and perhaps are only recently stopped having sex — but in all honesty, I imagine men (and women, if the situation is reversed) such as myself tried many (or all, truly) of the things you recommend and it didn’t work.
My analysis? At some point it just is important to understand that in the area of sexual desire, marriages come in different forms.
In some, you have a man and woman where sex is going to play a significant part of their time together, as that’s what they both want. I think that’s a small sliver of the total pool of marriages.
Then there are some marriages where it’s kind of a mixture — sometimes they have a special time, say weekly or monthly, but most of the time it’s routine “life living” due to kids or jobs or whatever. There is a good deal of variety within this sphere, but in talking to people it seems that most fall into this category and it’s usually on the lower end — if it’s on the higher end, it’s more like the first example.
Then there are the marriages like mine, where the sex occurs maybe annually and you just have to realize that trying to focus on the fact it should probably occur more isn’t a healthy approach to life, and just accept cards you were dealt. In some ways it’s like the folks in the middle category but we just stopped faking it.
In my particular situation, I have completely punted on sex and just focus on making our marriage great in all the other areas of life. We focus on hobbies and interests — including some we do on our own and some we do together — versus worrying or asking or implying sexual activity. Basically, I just decided to be like her — by focusing on the non-sexual hobbies, the daily grind of life is that much easier. It’s much more enjoyable than worrying about the lack of sex.
All in all, given the other things in our marriage are going well, it’s really pretty good — fact is we don’t argue, we don’t have any of the other issues that sometimes prevent sex. We just don’t have sex. If it’s just sex, it’s “just sex”, and guys (or women in situations where the man has zero libido) just have to find ways to have a good marriage without it.
Fatalistic in some ways but a better approach to managing things. If at some point the fire starts to flicker again, that’s great.
Keep up what you’re doing though — I think blogs and sites like this are great for the couple who was having sex or wants to have more sex, but for some reason stopped recently or is just on the edge of it. And they’re quite interesting to read from an intellectual perspective. It’s almost as if “Oh, this is how the other half lives.” 🙂
For those who just have no sex at all, it’s a far different question.
Hopeful Husband,
Thanks for stopping by again.
I respect your decision to have the best marriage possible regardless of whether you have the sex life you desire or not. I pray that some day your wife might wake up and desire more intimacy with you. I pray that God would continue to give you insight into how best to love your wife and that He would give you the strength to do it.
Blessings, Ruth
Whether or not it “should ” be this complicated, marriage IS complicated because you have two unique and individual people working towards being “one.” For years my husband believed the same lie and our marriage and our marriage bed suffered. He assumed he knew what would work for me because he knew what would work for him. His assumptions and refusals to hear me or make changes to accommodate any of my needs made sex all about him and I came to hate it, both the atmosphere and the act. Once he decided to accept that I actually needed different things than him sexually and emotionally , things got better. We still have a long way to go before I feel emotionally satisfied but most of the time now I enjoy sex physically. I think part of this came from both of us believing that sex was for men.
I think what you are doing here is helping men to understand the double standard that binds women up. When I got used to my husband and started loosening up, I actually felt like a ‘loose woman’ and I would ask my husband to reassure me that he wasn’t disappointed in me – he said, as you can imagine, “DISAPPOINTED????” But it took me months to shake off the feeling that my husband married a ‘good girl’ and now I was a ‘bad girl’ in the bedroom with him. (In the throes of passion once, my husband shouted out, “You are like a million dollar prostitute!” and though we laugh about it now, at the time it really gave me pause.)
Lynn,
Great example of exactly what I am talking about. Thanks for sharing.
Ruth
This really a great post as it details steps to overcome lies wives battles especially about sex. This is because sexual maladjustment or disharmony in marriage is what brings about other marital crises. It is a proven fact, couples who enjoys their sex life to the fullness enjoys their marriages more than those with sexual disharmony or sexual maladjustment.
This is great,its great help for our husband’s but I think that there could be awomens version on wat to do
Xlaire
Your friend J at HHH has two great posts about the lies (myths) BOTH men and women are inflicted with.
https://hotholyhumorous.com/2018/11/1-myth-christian-women-learned-about-sex/
https://hotholyhumorous.com/2018/11/1-myth-christian-men-learned/
It is a wonder the human race isn’t extinct. I wonder if it wouldn’t be if left up to the “Church” these days. Good thing God is in charge is all I can come up with.
Thanks for sharing these important posts.