Sexual frustrations

With this writing, I would love to focus on some sexual problems in Christian marriages.  I am not an expert by any means, but I have done a lot of marital counseling where the problems were sexual.   Plus, men open up to me quite often about their sexual frustrations.  I guess I am easy to talk to, not sure.   But, here are some of my thoughts.

I want to start with sharing what I have heard countless amounts of guys tell me for many, many years.   Their stories sound so similar as they tell me that sex with their Christian wife is not fulfilling.   Many of them have turned to porn to bring relief,  others have gone into affairs with women, and even some guys have pursued the bi lifestyle simply because with it, they can get some sexual fulfillment, and they know the other guy will never tell on them.

I have heard many, many stories about guys who average once a month in their sexual relationship.    The better stories I have heard say that sex happens about once every ten days.  I probably hear that one more than another other.   And, the guys that tell me that are not happy, even though they know many guys have it worse off than that.   And, I have even heard stories where they do not have sex at all, anymore.

To me, Christians should have the best sex life of all.   It should be a witness that living for God brings about every wonderful part of our lives.     But, all too often, this is not the case.

I am not saying that the women are the problem if you think that is where this is going.   I do think women have their struggles, but I have also done marital counseling where wives have told me that their husbands were cold with them, and if the woman did have sex with them, all the husbands wanted to do is hurry up and get off.  They saw it as extremely self-centered.

If a marriage relationship is one whereby the husband and the wife are constantly growing in their relationship with God,  in my opinion,  they should be treating each other well.   They should care about treating their partner well, and they should care about the sexual needs of their partner.   To not care about these things, is not to live for God in the way He wants.   In fact, the Apostle Paul said in I Corinthians 7:5 that we are not to refuse each other, sexually, unless it is so we can pray.   Here is specifically what he said:

1 Corinthians 7:5 (NIV)
⁵  Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.   Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

How can we have a proper relationship with God, and violate this scripture?   How can we neglect our spouses, and think of ourselves as Godly Christians?

I am not “big” about couples blaming each other for their problems.  When I have done marital counseling, I mainly focused on fixing the problem, not blaming each other.   Blaming always keeps up stuck where we are.  Nothing ever changes when we blame.

Much of the problems I have seen with couples who do not have a great sex life seem to center around these things:

1.  For the Women –  Many say they grew up in an environment where sex was either presented as evil or not talked about at all.   Many of them do not even know what to do to change their thinking.   I just found this MarriageHeat.com site today, and was thrilled to find it because it helps a woman to start thinking about sex, and what they can do on their end to make it better.   (if they grew up in a sheltered home)

Men think about sex a lot, and most are not naive about the physical pleasures of sex.  But, for many women, this is not the case.     Many do not know HOW to be different because they rarely think about sex.

I met one woman who lost about 75% of her sexual interest with her husband as soon as she gave birth to her first child.   It was as if the child became her new fulfillment.   They divorced about ten yrs later because of sexual problems in the marriage.

Most Christian counselors say that the priorities of Christians should be as follows   God 1st, spouse  2nd,  children 3rd, then work, etc.  When either the wife or husband violates that, it gives Satan too much room to work in the marriage.

Even though it is probably wrong,  I read in one highly respected Counselor’s book where he said that he believes all teen girls at, let’s just say a certain age, should be given a vibrator and a  subscription to a porn magazine for women.   That counselor was not advocating that she should have premarital sex, but rather, than she should use the vibrator and learn all about sex for when she gets married some day.   Obviously, he wasn’t a Christian counselor, and I think most Christians would probably oppose such a suggestion.     But, I sure understood where he was coming from when I read it.

Again, now that I know about marriageheat.com  I will start recommending to women that struggle with not feeling confident in sex, or not knowing how to be different, to start reading stories on this   site every week.  I truly believe it can save some marriages.

I will tell you this.   When I started seeing my marriage improve sexually,  my wife also greatly benefited from it.   I wanted to hug her more and be more attentive to her as a result.  I appreciated her more.

This is why couples should never get stuck in the “blame game.”   Each spouse needs to fix their problems.   Here is one of my sayings “Everything effects everything.”   So, once you can get past blame,  improvements from either spouse affects the other spouse.  So, stop blaming.  You may find that if you fix your part, you will get what you want and feel is missing in the marriage.

Christians should stay out of the blame game in all aspects of their lives, including their marriage.    Instead, Christians should learn from frustrations and then try their best, with God’s  help, to fix things.

2.  Men  –  Most men know a lot of sexual things.   Most can tell you what they wish they could do sexually.   The problem that men have is normally not that they are naive, but rather that they either do not daily care for their wives in a loving and respectful way, or they do not make romance a vital  part of sex,  OR, they are selfish in their sexual desires.  ( They want to hurry and “get off”)

Most of the time when I have heard women complain it was about how the husband treats them in their daily life.   Husbands need to be nicer every day.  They need to eliminate, in themselves, any   reason (or excuse)  the wife might be using not to have a good sexual experience.  If they eliminate their problems, it will be one less hindrance to fixing the sexual problems.

Also,  men need to try to limit their exposure to things that peak their sexual interests.   The more excited they get from looking at sexual things they should not be looking at, the harder it will be to be patient and reasonable with their expectations of their marriage sex life.