Java with Juli: #535 What Men Weren’t Taught About Sex
Full Transcript
Well, the research shows that about 15% of marriages are sexless. And so that means there are a lot of husbands and wives who are wondering, what do I do if my spouse never wants to have sex?
That’s a difficult place to be. You know, the first thing I would say is your spouse wants to know that you’re pursuing them not sex. And I think in this situation, sometimes the message comes across as you’re so disappointed at your sex life that your spouse doesn’t feel like you care about them. And one way to do that is to really start to dig into what’s the barrier here. And there are a number of reasons why somebody doesn’t want to have sex.
Sometimes it’s a relational issue, maybe it’s unresolved conflict, or maybe there’s been a betrayal that you’ve never dealt with. You know, that kind of thing can build resentment. It can take away from that feeling of safety and vulnerability that invites intimacy.
Sometimes it’s an emotional or psychological issue. Does your spouse have trauma in their past? The research shows that about one in four women and one in five men have sexual trauma in their past before the age of 18. And actually, most experts believe that’s an underestimation. And so there are a lot of people that have deep trauma related to sexuality. They may not be able to name that, but having sex or being intimate brings up and triggers it, it makes them feel unsafe, and that could be going on.
Another issue that you might wanna look at is [the] physical. A lot of women in particular experience pain during sex, and who wants to do something that’s painful? There are other areas besides that that might be interfering, but the most important thing is you and your spouse need to uncover what is the barrier there. And that might require some honest conversation. Again, leaning in to really understand the journey of your spouse, not to demand something. And this might be a situation where some counseling can be helpful.
You know, these conversations are difficult. They can be very vulnerable, and so you might wanna get a third party that can help you navigate some of the things that come up in that conversation. But my encouragement to you would be, you need support through this. It’s not just, again, about fixing your marriage, it’s also about feeling heard. It’s about feeling supported in your own journey because this can come with a lot of frustration and a lot of feelings of rejection that if you don’t deal with can turn into even more bitterness that can separate you and your marriage. And so get the help that you need. And you know, one of the things that I realized is that a lot of us have a kind of a superficial view of what a good sex life is. And even when there are barriers, like some of the ones that I mentioned are there, you can actually build intimacy in a way that works around those barriers. So one recommendation I’d have for you is to check out a book that I wrote called “God, Sex, and Your Marriage”. It gives a framework of how you begin to build towards intimacy and health, even when there might be physical or emotional barriers that get in the way of sexual intimacy.
