I’ve come to the conclusion that there is one single cause for all divorces and unhappy marriages:
We fail to do what we should because of selfishness. We do things we should not because of selfishness. We withhold grace and forgiveness because of selfishness.
We may blame what we do wrong on our wife’s selfishness. And while that will often be valid, we could instead deal with our selfish response to her selfishness.
The good news in this is the way to a better marriage is simple: work on being less selfish. Do please note that generosity is the opposite of selfishness.
Sex is a huge control issue in many marriages; be it controlling when sex happens or using sex to gain control of other areas (aka manipulating).
First to the wives reading along: using sex to get control of other things, or exerting control to limit sex, are both exceptionally bad ideas. Neither is loving nor godly, and both will hurt your marriage relationship. If you want your husband to stop caring, if you want him to just go through the motions of marriage while slowly slipping away, doing these things is one of your best bets. However, if you want a healthy marriage, if you want your relationship to grow, then you need to avoid these things.
Now that I have told the ladies what most husbands want them to hear, it’s time to deal with the guys.
First, what I said above to the women is true for men as well. The best estimates say 30% of wives are frustrated by a lack of sex, and I would bet most of those women have been on the receiving end of sexual control games. If you want her to leave, or just to leave you alone, carry on; if you want your marriage to continue, or get better, then knock it off.
The big sexual control issue for men is trying to get sex with various forms of manipulation. Once you start getting sex by using shame, guilt, or threats (such as “I might lose control and doing something stupid”), you’ll find it increasingly difficult to get sex without these things. Likewise, if you start getting her to say yes to sex by offering her something special, some favour, some treat. This is essentially prostitution, and once it becomes a business transaction, why would she want to give it away? Getting sex by any form of control means sex is no longer an act of love, which is a bad thing for your wife, for you, and for your marriage.
Frankly, it’s better not to have sex than to have sex through manipulation or other forms of control. I know, you think, “easy for you to say”. Actually, it is not. I’ve been there, and I remember how much it hurts, how much it drives you crazy, how you want it to just stop. I fully understand reaching a point of frustration and desperation where it seems like a good idea to do whatever it takes to get sex; I gave in more times than I want to admit. Because I gave in, because I have obtained sex by manipulation, I know how it turns out. I know the sex is fine physically, but empty in every other way. I know it solves the immediate physical problem, but erodes the relationship. And I know it hurts your sex life as a whole, making future sex less frequent, and less enjoyable for both of you. This road leads to a wife who hates sex, and a man who eventually feels like a jerk. Try to understand what I am saying here is true, and remember it the next time you start to do something you know is neither kind nor loving to get sex. Aside from being the right thing to do, if you look at the long-term, it is the only wise choice.
I have a confession. I expect far too much of others. I don’t do this to my wife, and usually not to my friends, but my standards for everyone else are unfairly high. And when they fail to meet those unrealistic expectations, I silently judge them.
As I have been thinking and praying on this, I have come to suspect a big part of the problem is I think too highly of myself. I generally set a higher standard for myself than I do for others, but I suspect I’m not a fair judge of how well I meet my standards. Beyond that, I give myself grace based on my past and other things, but I don’t extend similar grace to strangers.
Doing this to strangers is wrong. Doing it to friends is a problem. Doing it to your wife is a disaster.
My wife gets a pass on this for three reasons. First, I know her history, and I give her grace based on that. Second, I chose to give her grace in general. Third, I have to live with her, and judging her the way I judge strangers would make that difficult!
I’m not saying I never question or confront my wife. I do. But I try to think and pray before I do that, and then I make a concerted effort to approach her in a soft, loving way.
I’ll be working on doing better with strangers. Or at least giving them grace in my mind. Do you need to do the same? Do you need to start with your wife?
If your wife is too busy, your only loving choice is to expect less from her.
Of course, you should get more and better than others, but too busy is going to impact every area of her life, including her marriage. And her sex life. Expecting from her what would be reasonable if she were doing half as much is unkind and selfish.
If you’re not happy with what you should expect given how busy she is, then it’s time to find ways to help her be less busy. That could look like you doing some of what she is doing. And while that is appropriate, unless you have a lot of time on your hands, it’s not a long term solution. For most of you, the only real fix is both you and your wife having less busy lives.
If your lives are too full, many things will get short-changed. And right or wrong, your marriage and sex will be on that list.
99.9%! As I was making sure I had thanked everyone who donated, I found some I had not thanked, and had not added to the total. With all of that fixed, we are $10.00 short of our goal. So I’m going to call that a success, and say a huge thank you to all of you.
A couple of weeks ago, I talked about Sexual Selfishness in Marriage. Today, I want to discuss passive sexual selfishness. That means just going along with sexual things that work for you, but don’t work for her.
One common form of this is saying or doing nothing to help her reach orgasm. If she comes, that’s nice. If not, oh well. You can pretend it’s her choice, and she must be okay with it, but it might not be okay with her. Maybe she doesn’t know how to deal with it, or is afraid of what you will think or say if she brings it up. Perhaps she blames herself, when in reality you could be doing more for her. Or maybe she sees you as a selfish jerk when it comes to sex and figures you won’t change.
Another version of this would be to just keep going during sex when it’s clear either she’s not enjoying it, or it might be hurting her. Again, you figure if it were really a problem, she’d speak up. Your passivity subjects her to something she’s not enjoying, or to something painful. Perhaps there’s a sex act she keeps doing, even though you know she would rather not. But she’s never said she wants to stop, so you allow it to go on.
Please be proactive about your wife’s comfort, enjoyment, and pleasure when you have sex.
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Many “sex problems” are really just selfishness. #SexTip
When you read that, did your mind go to the places your wife’s selfishness hurts your sex life? More importantly, did you then move on to consider how your selfishness might be hurting your sex life?
We can’t be unaware of our wife’s sexual selfishness, but it’s all too easy to miss our own. Or to justify or excuse it. I think this is especially true for men who are the higher drive spouse. It’s natural to focus on any refusal or resistance on her part and avoid looking at ourselves. Of course, our selfishness my have greatly contributed to her refusal or resistance.
Would your wife say you’re sexually selfish? Would she say you’re a generous lover? Would she put you somewhere between those two?
You can argue her perception is biased or unfair, or you can work to change that perception. Only one of those choices can lead to more or better sex.
I often see men wishing their wife was more like Mary Ann, or Ginger. Make that Penny or Amy if you’re younger than I. What they really want is part of each of those women, mixed in to replace parts of their own wife they find less than perfect. They want a build-your-own-wife-kit so they can pick and choose the “best parts” from all the “available models”.
We need to understand people are a package deal, and their “parts” are not interchangeable and can’t be separated. Some of what you like about your wife comes from the same roots as something you don’t like. Changing something you don’t like would likely change parts you do like.
For example, we all understand the idea of a “high maintenance wife”. If you want a woman who’s always glamorous, you’re probably going to end up with a woman who is fairly high maintenance. If what you get is worth what it costs you, great. However, if you want the “good” without the “bad”, you can forget it.
Another example – I knew a woman who let everyone know she was giving her husband (of many years) daily (or more often) sex. Many men were deeply jealous. What these men did not see was what it cost; what was not being done and what she expected to get away with because of all the sex. In the end, her husband was not happy with the package deal, and I can’t imagine any man who would have been.
As you try to help your wife become more like God wants her to be, realise no part of who she is can be isolated and changed without changing other parts.
How much of what you did this month is because of something that happened to you in the first twenty years of your life? Unless you’re very unusual, much to most of what you did was influenced by your past.
What we experience the first few years of our lives has a powerful and lasting impact on us. It gave us habits and expectations. It also gave fears, doubts, and reactions that are very difficult to ignore. The older we get the less things shape us, but it continues into our early adult years. This is especially true for how we view romantic relationships and sex.
What makes this so difficult to see is we decide that what we experienced growing up is normal. It was normal for our family and we project that on everyone else. Even when we figure out something we grew up with was a long way from normal, it’s been rooted deep in our minds and emotions, and we may function based on it even when we try not to.
Unlike your personality, the effects of your past can be challenged and you can change in radical ways. This means you’re responsible for your past-based actions. God expects you to grow beyond your past and become a better person. Society has a similar expectation, to a degree, and your wife certainly wants you to grow beyond what your past made you.
As I suggested in the first post in this series, we often try to tell ourselves that something driven by our past is part of our personality so we can feel okay about not dealing with it. But this is just a way of justifying bad behaviour and we need to do better. This gets particularly tricky when something is a function of both personality and experience. Trust is an example of this. Studies show trust is in part affected by our personality. But our experiences good and bad with trusting people in the past also affect how trusting we are willing to be. You can’t do much about the personality part of the equation, but you can fight the distrust that comes from a girlfriend who cheated on you or watching the lack of trust between your parents.
Wrestling with our past is difficult and sometimes painful. Winning takes dedication and a great deal of effort. Changes can be slow and will be hit or miss at first, but if you stay with it you can do it.
Bottom Line: Don’t let your past limit what your marriage can be today and in the future!
