Earlier this year JayDee over on Sex Within Marriage wrote a post entitled When do I give up hope? The following jumped out at me:

“When we finally did resolve a lot of our issues regarding sex, we had daily sex for a while. Turns out that’s not what we needed. What we needed was intimacy, not just sex. More sex led to more intimacy, which did lead to more sex, but intimacy was the need, not just sex.“

Sex was not the problem, but more sex pointed out the problem. I’ve heard similar stories from other men, and experienced it myself. 

When a man knows the amount of sex in his marriage is too little, it’s easy to start assuming all his marital problems are about sex. Of course, men and women do this with all kinds of things. We identify a problem, especially a problem we can pin on our spouse, and then we use it as a scapegoat for everything wrong with our marriage. It’s convenient, and it lets us off the hook for the things we’re doing wrong.

When Lori and I got married, she had significant sexual problems because of her past. We weren’t having sex nearly often enough by any sane standard, and we both knew it. I decided this was our only problem, and focused all my time and attention of fixing her sexually. Amazingly, things got better despite this (I credit the grace of God and the truly amazing woman He gave me). It took time, but sex got better and better. While this did cut my frustration level, it didn’t make things as wonderful as I expected. Gradually two truths got through my thick head: 1) sex was not our only problem, and 2) she was not the only one who needed healing and a change.

I’d like to think I would’ve come to the conclusion there were other problems, and some of them were mine, even if sex had not improved. I’ll never know. I can certainly see not ever admitting those things to myself. I could have let sex be my scapegoat, and our marriage would’ve gotten worse and worse.

If your husband thinks sex is the big problem in your marriage, or the only problem in your marriage, it’s unlikely you can change his mind. In fact, it’s unlikely anyone can change his mind. If he’s willing to really get with God he might get a clue, but otherwise it’s not looking good.

So, you can waste time and energy trying to convince him he’s wrong, you can just give up, or you can prove to him he’s wrong. Have so much sex he can no longer claim sex is a problem. If this doesn’t fix all your marriage issues (and we all know it won’t) he may admit to himself there are other problems. If he won’t admit to himself, you can suggest it. Something subtle like “I’m glad we’re having more sex, but we still have problems we need to address” – maybe right after sex.

The only risk I see is you find out he’s deeply selfish and will take all the sex he can get while denying anything else is wrong. While that would be very sad, at least you would know and could figure out what to do next.

Bottom line: Sex may not be the biggest problem in your marriage, but it could be a road block to dealing with other issues. 

~ Paul – I’m XY, and sex affects me in ways I wish it did not.

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