FF: Paving the Way for Change

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This is a follow-up on Confessions of the Husband of a Sex Positive Wife post, and specifically comments and emails generated by the post.

…you can be the best person possible, even near perfect, but if your wife doesn’t want to also do this, the place where Paul has gotten to cannot be attained. This obviously applies also to a good woman with an uncooperative or indifferent husband.
So this is my question for Paul: what made your wife decide to turn towards you and move forward to the place you are at?

My wife addressed this in the comments, as did I, but I want to say more about it. While we are talking about sex, the concept here is true for any desired change.

It’s easy to understand how we could do things to reduce the chances of our spouse making the change we want. It’s more difficult to see what we can do to make it more likely they will change, so let us start with the negative. Your attitudes and actions about sex are only part of what can mess things up. Sure, you could be a total jerk about sex, which would discourage her from wanting to do it. That would also dissuade her from wanting to work on sex. But things completely unrelated to sex can have the same effect. If you’re mean to her, if you refuse to spend time with her, if you ignore her every request, she’ll be far less inclined to have sex or to work on making sex better. Not doing all these things removes roadblocks, which increases the odds she will change.

On the flip side, you can do things that have nothing to do with sex that will increase the odds she will change sexually. Being kind and generous will make her feel better about you, and about herself. Both of those make it more likely she will want sex, and more likely she will enjoy it when she has it. It’s human nature to be nice to those who are nice to you, to do for those who do for you, and to sacrifice for those who sacrifice for you.

Try this thought exercise: imagine your wife started to do what you wanted sexually. Over a matter of a few months, she became so sex positive and sex desiring you wondered if she had been replaced with a clone. If she was everything you ever desired sexually, what would you be willing to do for her? If she mentioned something in passing, might you go out of your way to do it for her?

Why do you think your wife would be any different? If you blessed her greatly, giving her everything she wants, don’t you think she would be likely to want to do the same for you? In that situation, might mentioning you would like more sex result in her making sure it happened? If she has real struggles with sex, isn’t it possible she would be willing to work on that because of how much you were blessing her?

There are some possible road blocks:

Your wife could have major sexual baggage. This could be past abuse, or bad experiences with boyfriends before she met you. It might also be bad experiences with you. It’s also possible she has been limited by being taught sex is dirty or a way men abuse and control women. Yes, this is a problem, but it’s not insurmountable; my wife had all of those issues!
Often the problem is the husband doing too little. He is working to be better to her, but he is only doing a small amount.
Other times, the husband needs to keep at it longer. This is especially true if you have been married for a long time, and even more so if you’ve been unloving for a long time. (Unloving, by the way, is about not giving her what she wants.) To be blunt, if you’ve been a selfish jerk for a decade, don’t expect a month or two of being a perfect husband to make a difference to her. Anyone can play a role for a while, but that doesn’t mean they’ve really changed. It may take six months to a year for her to think it’s for real, and to start reciprocating.
It’s also possible a woman is just mean and selfish, and no matter what her husband does, she will have no interest in ever doing anything for him. Yes, such women exist, but they are far fewer and farther between than you think. You have no chance with a woman like this, but odds are this isn’t what you are dealing with. Give, and give, and give some more, and see if she changes. Even if the changes aren’t what you most want, good changes prove she’s not completely selfish.
If you want to encourage her to give you what you want, you have to give her what she wants. If you want more and better sex, you wouldn’t be impressed by her becoming a far better cook. Yeah, it would be nice, but it wouldn’t meet your real need. The same is true for her. Giving her things other than what she most wants and needs from you is “nice” but it’s not life changing.

The bottom line is this: the more you give, the more likely she is to give to you; the better you meet her deepest needs, the more likely she is to try to meet your deepest needs. The more you sacrifice for her, the more she is going to be willing to sacrifice for you. This is true of anything in life, including sex. There is no magic, no secret, just hard work to love her as best as you can.

If I had it to do over, I think I could have got what I have now in a fraction of the time. I would do it by talking a lot less about sex, doing nothing more than letting her know what I hoped our sex life would become. Along with far less talk about sex, I would do far more giving, loving, and sacrificing. Every time she “failed”, I would take it as a cue to work even harder to bless and love her.

Finally, as my wife said in her comment, pray a lot. Don’t just pray for her to change; pray primarily for you to change. Ask, no beg, the Lord to show you how to be move giving, and to help you to sacrifice more. Give until you can’t give any more, then pray for the strength to give some more. Ask God to help you become a model of Christ like, sacrificial love. This is one of the most powerful things any man can do.

[This post first appeared Aug 12, 2012.]

Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with stockdreams.ai
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