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.
well said.
It is simple things like that put a woman in the mood.
I guess I am in that low segment.... but the mood still stikes me from time to time, which the wife is glad to see.
She has expressed some of the articles points due to the lack of "action" on my behalf.
“It draws me incredible closer, and having read some of the posts here, it sounds as if it drives some people apart just thinking about it.”
Well - here is one happy female freeper.
But you have to recognize the basic physical differences between men and women.
Women just aren’t ready at the drop of a hat, and it is the smart man who recognizes that.
I read the article. I was commenting on the comments.
Mr. Prager annoys me on a number of topics, so I’m leaving the article alone; his writing it doesn’t make it wrong.
So much to agree with here. Thank you for posting.
Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. If you take sex out of the marriage, something else takes its place.
Sorry, I understand men to be every bit as human, intelligent, spiritual, and civilized as women. Our minds are what separate us from the animals.
Moreover, as a believer, I understand us all to be made in the image of G_d. Faithfulness and self-control are more a part of our nature than wantonness.
The illustration that there is a sub-culture from Mexico that “needs” sex more often than the rest of the nation or from men in the US, is illustrative of the role that cultural conditioning plays.
6. Then there’s the woman who knows that if her husband truly wanted sex, he’d have taken out the trash and helped with the dishes.
One of my friends had the best comeback. “Ok I’ll quit my job to help you do your job”. Ironically, he wasn’t going to do it because he was running around with a woman at work. He left his wife and married the woman at work. You aren’t going to believe what happened then. Not in a million years. He found out the new wife was running around with a married man at work. The nerve of her.
Agreed, not a good opening line. Style is everything, but it is what it is.
Agreed, talking can be great foreplay - and more intimate, sometimes, than sex. Even in marriage.
Married nearly 35 years.
I’m with Tax-chick.
It isn’t that the entire article is worthless - it has its good points.
But he loses me when he states that women should be having sex even when they aren’t in the mood.
I would agree that a woman-not-in-the-mood should consider engaging in activities that would “get” her in the mood.
I would not agree she should just march into the bedroom and “get it over with”.
Because then you’ve got an entirely different problem on your hands.
Hon, is that you?
But seriously, I do these things with my wife also.
Of course, the kids were always, "Ewwww, DAAAAD!", but it didn't matter.
My wife can be washing dishes at the sink and I'll come up behind her and give her a big hug and then just walk away with an, "I love you".
I always give her a kiss and a, "Love you", when leaving the house. You never know, it could be the last time you see each other in this life.
The last thing she hears from my lips before we sleep is an, "I love you". If I die in my sleep that's the words I want her to hear from me last.
I DO hold her hand in public. People even remark on it. "Are you two newlyweds?"
All in all, if you pay attention to each other, express your love for each other openly, and WORK to make the marriage a happy, healthy, loving marriage - all is well.
“Now she may have a valid reason for that outlook, but if she does, then she should come clean with the man and explain what is causing the mood. If he is displeasing her in some way, she must tell him, or get back to loving him fully.”
OK - let me put it this way.
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.
In the middle of the craziness - a buddy stops by your office, sits down, and wants to visit.
Your laundry list is still running in your head - you aren’t into the conversation with your buddy because your mind is elsewhere.
It isn’t that you don’t like your buddy, or even that talking to him isn’t important to you.
Your buddy thinks you’re giving him the could shoulder and leaves your office feeling slighted.
It may help to realize that for the most part, men are aroused (visually) differently than women (emotionally), hence the "sudden urges". If women expect men to be aroused emotionally, same as they, they're searching for something that's not there.
Can my wife be your new best friend? There is money in it for you, if you want.
There are plenty of urologists in the phone book.
“Animals? Well that is a little more than degrading regarding men’s nature, but men are more in touch with their animal nature, “
women have a “nature” too, and it is the smart man who understands the female response - and that guy isn’t going to be the one complaining about not gettin’ any.
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