How is Your Sex Life?

Wow, that is a bold question, isn’t it? Well, not necessarily since no one actually has to answer me. If we were in person, then it might be another story and I might be overstepping. It is interesting that sex and money are the two topics that the research shows are the hardest for a couple to talk about. Why is that? Well, there are probably a number of reasons but I will give you a few. 

Most of us probably never learned how to talk about sex. Even if we had the good experience of a loving parent explaining sex to us (before someone else did), we most likely do not know how to talk about it as a married couple. I mean who teaches you these things? Well, we do, but it has been a process of learning how to talk about it, and how to help other couples learn to talk about it. 

Another reason that sex is not discussed is that there is often a “power” play in place involving sex. Who has the power? I don’t mean for that to sound negative, but the point is that it is a reality and many times we are not aware of it. Normally the lower-desire spouse is the one that “holds” the power. Meaning, since they are the lower-desire spouse, their willingness or not to engage is many times where the power lies. This is something that you want to be able to talk about in your marriage. You want to discuss what it means that one of you probably has a higher-desire than the other. This is not right or wrong, it just is. But we want to know and understand this so we can make certain that we are mutually meeting each other’s’ needs.

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Normally the lower-desire spouse is the one that “holds” the power.

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We also may not realize that the way a man (in general) is wired, is that he will think about wanting to have sex with his wife all day long. He is “setting” the stage but initiating the desire in his mind long before he is actually with his wife. The wife (many times) is not thinking about her desire for sex during the day (she is multi-tasking a hundred other things). She may not be against it at all, she just has not thought about it. So, when her husband comes home, and he is trying to get the spark going, she may not even really have the desire until she actually starts to engage physically with her husband. The desire kicks in, but it may be well into connecting. So, the initiation of the desire may be very different between the husband and the wife. If that is the case in your marriage, wouldn’t it be helpful to know that?  Maybe even discussing things like would a heads up during the day be helpful? Is there anything that might spark your desire before your spouse arrives? 

These are just a few of the reasons that we may not talk about sex in our marriages. I would strongly encourage you to consider starting to have some conversation about your sex life. Maybe you could start with some questions like:

• What is your favorite time of the day to have sex?

• Do you feel safe to say “No”? 

• Is there anything you would like to try? 

You may think you know the answers but maybe you don’t. It might just be an interesting conversion and a start to many more. 

~Carla