My good fortune is that I am an electronics whiz and I know exactly how to tweak most of those knobs on my wife. But hey, I'm only 55. I'm still learning.
Posted on 12/23/2008 12:09:15 AM PST by goldstategop
Given our preoccupation with politics and economics, it is easy to forget that for most of us micro issues still play a greater role in our lives. So here are some thoughts that, as heretical as they might sound, have been found extremely helpful, sometimes even marriage-saving, from listeners to my radio show, which features a male-female hour every week.
The subject is one of the most common problems that besets marriages: the wife who is not in the mood and the consequently frustrated and hurt husband.
There are marriages with the opposite problem -- a wife who is frustrated and hurt because her husband is rarely in the mood. But, as important and as destructive as that problem is, it has different causes and different solutions, and is therefore not addressed here. What is addressed is the far more common problem of He wants, she doesn't want.
It is an axiom of contemporary marital life that if a wife is not in the mood, she need not have sex with her husband. Here are some arguments why a woman who loves her husband might want to rethink this axiom.
First, women need to recognize how a man understands a wifes refusal to have sex with him: A husband knows that his wife loves him first and foremost by her willingness to give her body to him. This is rarely the case for women. Few women know their husband loves them because he gives her his body (the idea sounds almost funny). This is, therefore, usually a revelation to a woman. Many women think men's natures are similar to theirs, and this is so different from a woman's nature, that few women know this about men unless told about it.
This is a major reason many husbands clam up. A man whose wife frequently denies him sex will first be hurt, then sad, then angry, then quiet. And most men will never tell their wives why they have become quiet and distant. They are afraid to tell their wives. They are often made to feel ashamed of their male sexual nature, and they are humiliated (indeed emasculated) by feeling that they are reduced to having to beg for sex.
When first told this about men, women generally react in one or more of five ways:
1. You have to be kidding. That certainly isn't my way of knowing if he loves me. There have to be deeper ways than sex for me to show my husband that I love him.
2. If this is true, men really are animals.
3. Not my man. He knows I love him by the kind and loving way I treat him.
4. You have it backwards. If he truly loved me, he wouldnt expect sex when I'm not in the mood.
5. I know this and that's why I rarely say no to sex.
Lets deal with each of these responses.
1. You have to be kidding.
The most common female reaction to hearing about men's sexual nature is incredulity, often followed by denial. These are entirely understandable reactions given how profoundly different -- and how seemingly more primitive -- men's sexual nature is compared to women's.
Incredulity is certainly the reaction most women have when first being told that a man knows he is loved when his wife gives him her body. The idea that the man she is married to, let alone a man whose intelligence she respects, will to any serious extent measure her love of him by such a carnal yardstick strikes many women as absurd and even objectionable.
But the question that should matter to a woman who loves her man is not whether this proposition speaks poorly or well of male nature. It is whether it is true. And it is true beyond anything she can imagine. A woman who often deprives her husband of her body is guaranteed to injure him and to injure the marriage -- no matter what her female friends say, no matter what a sympathetic therapist says, and no matter what her man says. (Very few men will confess to the amount of hurt and eventual anger they experience when repeatedly denied sex).
Of course, there are times when a man must simply refrain from initiating sex out of concern for his wife's physical or emotional condition. And then there are men for whom sex rarely has anything to do with making love or whose frequency of demands are excessive. (What excessive means ought to be determined by the couple before the refusals begin, or continue.) But the fact remains: Your man knows you love him by your willingness to give him your body.
2. If this is true, men really are animals.
Correct. Compared to most women's sexual nature, men's sexual nature is far closer to that of animals. So what? That is the way he is made. Blame God and nature. Telling your husband to control it is a fine idea. But he already does. Every man who is sexually faithful to his wife already engages in daily heroic self-control. He has married knowing he will have to deny his sexual natures desire for variety for the rest of his life. To ask that he also regularly deny himself sex with the one woman in the world with whom he is permitted sex is asking far too much. Deny him enough times and he may try to fill this need with another woman. If he is too moral to ever do that, he will match your sexual withdrawal with emotional and other forms of withdrawal.
3. Not my man.
Many women will argue, understandably, My husband knows I love him. He doesn't need me to have sex with him to know that. And this is especially so when Im too tired or just don't want sex. Anyway, my man only enjoys sex with me when I'm into it, too.
The importance of mutual kindness to a marriage is impossible to overstate. But while necessary, it is not sufficient. Women can understand this by applying the same rule to men. Most women will readily acknowledge that it is certainly not enough for a man to be kind to her. If it were, women would rarely reject kind men as husband material. But as much as a woman wants a kind man, she wants more than that. If a man is, let us say, lacking in ambition or just doesn't want to work hard, few women will love him no matter how kind he is. In fact, most women would happily give up some kindness for hard work and ambition. A kind man with little ambition is not masculine, therefore not desirable to most women.
Likewise, a kind woman who is not sexual with her husband is not feminine. She is a kind roommate.
Furthermore, a woman who denies the man she loves sex is not kind.
4. You have it backward.
Every rational and decent man knows there are times when he should not initiate sex. In a marriage of good communication, a man would either know when those times are or his wife would tell him (and she needs to -- women should not expect men to read their minds. He is her man, not her mother.)
But, to repeat the key point, rejection of sex should happen infrequently. And it should almost never be dependent on mood -- see Part II next week.
5. I know this and that's why I rarely say no to my husband.
This is a wise woman. She knows a sexually fulfilled husband is a happy husband. (At the same time, men need to recognize that complete sexual fulfillment is unattainable in this world.) And because a happy husband loves his wife more, this cycle of love produces a happy home.
In Part II, I will explain in detail why mood should play little or no role in a woman's determining whether she has sex with her husband.
I conclude Part I with this clarification: Everything written here applies under two conditions: 1. The woman is married to a good man. 2. She wants him to be a happy husband. If either condition is not present, nothing written here matters. But if you are a woman who loves your husband, what is written here can be the most important thing you will read concerning your marriage. Because chances are the man you love won't tell you.
>>Women just aren’t ready at the drop of a hat, and it is the smart man who recognizes that.<<
Actually, I disagree. If you have been engaging her all day, she IS, as a matter of fact, ready at the drop of a hat.
But you gotta know when to drop the hat. To use the punchline of the old joke, “we’re not allowed into Safeway any more”.
Well, good for her! I think there are a lot of women with plenty healthy drives.
>>If you take sex out of the marriage, something else takes its place.<<
Yup.
Porn, alcohol, gambling, Smurfs.
No, scratch that last one...
It wasn't a celibacy pact you made when you got married, you know. Since grownups are supposed to responsible for their own 'mood', married women get to choose to be cold or to be warm to their husbands. Mr Prager is suggesting that warm is the better way to go.
There is a key element to that Joe. You did it because you love her. Many women never experience that. Their men will do that stuff as payment for sex. I know it is a fine line. It gets done either way, but it makes a huge difference as to how it is perceived, and if you are doing those things with an ulterior motive in mind it just doesn’t work. You have to love her....period, be affectionate....period. If you do those two things you will have sex about anytime you want it.
You said it yourself, though. That if you have been engaging her all day... There are guys out there who will practically ignore their wives all day, then wonder why “Hey, baby. What about it?” does nothing. SOunds stereotypical, but it happens. Well tenderized and a woman will jump the guy. Oh great! Now I’m comparing women to steak. LOL!
I doubt he is a male supremacist, whatever that is, but he may have been looking for the wrong kind of woman. I know he's been married a few times. Maybe he constantly seeks variety or reinforcement that he's the hottest thing. In which case his problem is to reconcile the traditional Jewish lifestyle with the hedonistic one he really wants.
Better to be a single tomcat than a cheating husband, Jewish morality-wise.
>>If your wife doesn’t want to, it’s not “making love” just humping. I wouldn’t insult my wife by humping her.<<
“Making love” and “humping” are just words. If a couple is “humping” and both feeling incredible love for each other, is it suddenly not “humping”, or even F$$$ing?”
Human beings are incredibly complicated intellectually and emotionally. Sometimes the use of a simple word at the right time can be incredibly erotic. Sometimes that word is not very “nice”. I dunno. I can’t explain it.
>>”and if I am not in the mood it is your fault so you better fix it before getting near me.”
That is how I think many of them see it. Several of them from my church used the same divorce attorney.
>>Think of a time at work where it’s super-hectic, and you’ve got a huge “to-do” list running in your head.
You don’t have enough time to get it all done, and everything on your list is important.<<
Unless one of the items is “get cookies out of oven in 3.5 minutes”, my wife has no problem dropping the list and coming back to it in a half hour, with me helping. Shoot, sometimes it’s HER that makes the move to temporarily abandon the list. ;)
It’s not that important in the general scheme of things.
>>A “personal” relationship that is drudgery indicates that the rest of the relationship is drudgery, too.<<
I agree with that. But often the problem is perception. Some women (and men) just blame all problems on the spouse. I have said to young people thinking of marriage that if they cannot remember their potential spouse ever giving a heartfelt apology for some SPECIFIC wrong, RUN, don’t walk, from the relationship for they will blame you for all the problems in the relationship and quite possibly leave you for it.
It is actually a very common tale as told here: http://www.fredoneverything.net/Divorce.shtml
It is almost exactly what happened to me the first time around.
>>He knows how to make me forget about the laundry.<<
Precicely. ;)
I don't think most people give a hoot whether sex is within marriage or not. In my opinion, that contributes greatly to problems in marriage, but that's a different thread.
Yes, that's true, and it's going to be harmful no matter what the perceived problem is.
My good fortune is that I am an electronics whiz and I know exactly how to tweak most of those knobs on my wife. But hey, I'm only 55. I'm still learning.
That is the tragedy. It is so simple and so easy, they can’t buy the fact that it is the key. They think the answer has to be complicated, expensive and sacrificial.
I just have to get this prostate business out of my mind or I’m going to crack up (or throw up) if my husband turns up acting affectionate. Sheesh.
It all degenerates to the “where do you squeeze the toothpaste tube”. It is not relevant just one of a litany of wrongs percieved.
IOW
“I will not show affection unless you comply with conditions”
but first
“I will not comply with conditions unless you show affection.”
Conditions on unconditional love (as in marrige love not mere physical expression)
I remember seeing one of those nifty marriage videos from focus on the family.
The skit involved a couple that kept “score” of how many nice things they did for each other. It was the mistaken notion of love being pavlovian.
I am fascinated how many women here simply don’t get it and are offended by that fact.
It makes the women that do get it simply worth their weight in platinum.
LOL! That is when they feel the most deprived!
The more they get, the more they want. ;-)
“and you marry the right woman”
And there is the flaw in your statement. I married my first wife at 21. I had not a clue what was the “right” woman.
I married my second wife at 44. I had very MUCH a clue at who was the right woman for ME. Funny thin is, I met her not three months after my then wife of 20 years kicked me out “without cause”. Meanwhile, I am in marital bliss the likes of which I thought only existed in Princess Bride, while she goes from boyfriend to boyfriend with knockdown dragout fights (so say my now grown daughters).
I don’t wish ill on her, but the chickens did come home to roost. It happens. Blamed me for all her problems, even after I went to counseling, read books, grew up, and on and on.
Marrying the right woman is either the answer to prayer (I was not a Christian the first time I got married) or a crapshoot.
But then, I feel that love is a choice. All people are loveable and hateable. You CHOOSE to love your spouse and want the best for them. At least that is the commitment we all made at the altar.
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