How I Scuttled My Marriage’s Sexual Ship
When I got married, gentlemen, I was a young, spry 21 years old. When I started dating my hot wife, I was only 17. You know what that means?
I had a bunch of pent up sexual energy without a whole lot of wisdom, know-how, maturity–to be able to wield it well.
Oh, yes. There were sparks between us, and my girlfriend/fiancee/wife was definitely sexually attracted to me.
But little did I know that I was inadvertently creating patterns for myself that would actually end up throwing water on our fire and eroding my own masculine energy and leadership in our relationship.
But who could blame me?! No one told me this stuff!
I was figuring it out as I went, and loving every minute of it. Because, let’s face it: at the beginning of my marriage, and probably at the beginning of yours, the sexual heat flowed freely.
But over time, if a man doesn’t act like a man, that wanes.
Six Sexually Toxic Mistakes I Made:
1. I looked to my wife and her desire for me/sex to provide my happiness and confidence.
2. I approached each day as another chance for her to show me that she wants me.
3. I saw myself as subservient to my wife, always looking to make her happy so that she would have sex with me.
4. I gave up pieces of my own identity–my own convictions–in order to meet my wife’s approval.
5. I idolized her. I made her the center of my attention and my universe when only God has the right to that spot.
6. I communicated my desire for sex in a needy, whiny, butt-hurt way. Not manly. Not sexy.
Disclaimer: Those six toxic mistakes have no reflection on my wife. They are my own approaches to life, my own mindsets, my own messed up way of operating. My wife is awesome.
Eventually, all of this toxic sludge built up in our marriage and before I knew it, I had lost a major part of who I was. I had given it up, choosing to find myself in sex with my wife.
No woman is meant to bear that weight, and so she eventually started feeling pressure, expectation, the heaviness of my sexual need, the weight of carrying my happiness (or unhappiness), the burden of leading me into my identity.
Jacked up and not sexy.
As our sexual fires dwindled, I started growing in all of the wrong things, the things that quench your bedroom heat even more:
Bitterness.
Low confidence.
Neediness.
Whininess.
Blame.
None of this was me. None of this was who I used to be. None of this was the identity that God had created me to live in. This didn’t look at all like the calm, confident, assertive, bold Jesus that I knew.
What was I doing?
WAKE UP CALL: What are YOU doing?
I wish I could say that I immediately course-corrected and got back on track. But no. Years went by. Years of fighting feelings of
desperation
hopelessness
bitterness
like I was pretty much worthless and a failure
But the (not) funny thing is, I never took any freaking responsibility for these things.
I played the wimpy victim and blamed my wife with thoughts in my head, and word on my tongue, like, “If only she would ………then I could finally…….”
So all of my efforts to “fix” things became centered on how to get HER to change.
My bad course of action
So I began looking for all the help I could find. And being a good Christian man, I looked at Christian books and blogs. I talked to pastors. We even went to Christian marriage workshops.
And the bottom line from all that? I got so freakin’ frustrated.
The vast majority of the advice/instruction/wisdom I found was all sh*t I was already doing! According to these people my wife and I should have been getting hot and heavy every single day.
I bought the flowers. I wrote the notes. I did the dishes. I planted long kisses on her.
I was more thoughtful. I was more obliging. I was more selfless. I was all the things that a good little Christian guy is supposed to be, and our sex life was still filled with so much pain.
I was still feeling like she didn’t want me. She was still feeling pressure and the need for space rather than the need for good hot sweet lovin’.
No matter how hard I tried, I felt like I was slowly losing my wife’s attraction, desire, admiration, respect, and body. And it hurt like hell.
And all along the way–as the pain in our sex life kept growing, my efforts kept failing, and my own desperation persisted–I would pray.
We are Christians after all. Isn’t Jesus supposed to help us?
Can you relate to this?
Have you been praying that God would heal your marriage? Have you been praying that he’d revamp your sex life? That he’d make your wife more horny for you?
Has it happened yet?
Crickets.
Now, I’m not claiming to know all the reasons why your prayers may not have been answered thus far, but I’m willing to bet that a major area for improvement in your praying about sex and your marriage is the attitude/mindset that you pray in. It was for me.
I spent who-knows-how-much emotional energy praying for God to reach down and flip the switch in our marriage so that we would enjoy a lot of sex, all the time. everywhere. And I prayed this way in the middle of the pain, the heartache, the bitterness, the self-contempt—all of it.
But it wasn’t faith. Desperation? Yes. Dependence on God? Probably. Faith? No.
This is bad because, as Hebrews says, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God].”
Then to add insult to injury, James says that we need to ask in faith because, if we doubt, we’re like a wave tossed around in the sea, and we are unstable, and we’re foolish for ever supposing we’ll receive anything we ask for.
Well crap.
So even if we’re praying with all our heart that God spices up our marriage with amazing sex—if we don’t know how to pray this in faith, we’re screwed, and not the good kind. We a) don’t please God, and b) don’t get what we’re wanting: amazing sex.
Then, next, we’d better figure out how to have faith when it comes to our sex lives.