Real Marriage_ The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together - Mark Driscoll [90]
To make matters worse, seemingly every book I read by Christians on sex and marriage sounded unfair. Nearly every one said the husband had to work very hard to understand his wife, to relate to her, and when he did that to her satisfaction, then, maybe, she would have sex with him as a sort of reward. After many years, I finally told Grace that I needed more sex. I asked if we could have sex more days of the week and try a variety of positions. She’d be the one to decide exactly how we would be together. Grace said that helped her think about our intimacy throughout the course of the day, which helped prepare her mind and body. To our mutual delight, we discovered that both of us felt closer, more loved and understood, and were more patient with each other if we were together regularly in some way. And whether my depression was testosterone-induced or not, I just generally felt happier.
For a wife, sex comes out of a healthy relationship, whereas, for a husband it leads to one. I (Grace) loved Mark but also needed to obey God and be sensitive to my husband’s physical needs. I had allowed fear from my past experiences to enter into our marriage and cause distance with Mark. I began to pray that God would help me overcome my fears and give me the passion for my husband that I truly wanted to express. Over time, as I obeyed God, those prayers were answered, and my desire to be with my husband grew along with my enjoyment of our intimacy.
We want to state this carefully: a spouse who is evil, distant, cruel, unloving, or abusive should not use this information to demand more sex from his wife without first dealing with his sin. But if your spouse is not getting enough sex, maybe you don’t need marriage counseling and long, deep conversations as much as you need to try regular sex. You may discover that your spouse will actually be more open to reading books like this with you, discussing matters of the heart, and even going in for marriage counseling.
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Ways We Are Selfish Lovers
It is important to identify the ways we are selfish lovers and then work to eliminate them.
• Rarely have sex. We can simply decide to rarely, if ever, have sex. This is often done through simply and repeatedly denying our spouses’ advances, which shames and humiliates them, causing them to feel unloved, unwanted, and undesired. Eventually they will simply stop seeking to be intimate with us.
• Take too little time and too little effort. We can do as little as possible sexually. By exerting minimal effort, passion, or interest, we can be sure to discourage our spouses from seeking to be intimate with us frequently. People have explained this as a gross feeling, where their spouses simply lie there, looking away disinterested and disconnected, making them feel as if they are basically using their spouses’ bodies. Wives have explained this in terms of husbands who do not patiently take their time to prepare them for lovemaking, but instead lazily rush right into penetration, thereby causing their wives discomfort. Guys, it takes the average woman anywhere from ten to thirty minutes to move from foreplay to orgasm, although forty-five minutes is not unusual. For both spouses to have pleasure, time and effort are required.
• Only have sex when we both feel like it at the same time. Can you imagine if everything in your marriage was governed by this same thinking, so that, for example, you only ate together or spoke together when you both felt like it at the exact same time? Sadly, we have heard this illogic from even pastors and their wives. Servant lovers are willing to serve their spouses even when they are not in the mood, and know that on another occasion their servant lovers will do the same for them. Furthermore, humble servant lovers know that as they serve their spouses, God often awakens their desires, puts them in the mood, and blesses their