HomeSex and IntimacyIf Your Husband Prefers Sleep to Sex Do You Feel Rejected ?

If Your Husband Prefers Sleep to Sex Do You Feel Rejected ?

I wonder: since we’ve grown up believing so much that men want sex all the time, then when he doesn’t initiate sex, do women feel rejected? I’m not talking about the rejection that higher drive wives feel (that’s real, and that’s difficult, and I’ve got a series on what to do if your husband doesn’t want sex here.) I mean that even lower drive wives can feel rejected, even if they don’t want sex themselves, if their husbands don’t proposition them. For example: do you feel rejected whenever your husband prefers sleep to sex?

Let’s talk about the dynamic where he has a libido and does want sex, but it may not be everyday. He’s perfectly healthy, there’s no porn use, he just isn’t necessarily always trying to get sex. 

I read a great book recently. Here’s a taste of it:

I thought sex would be my magical wifely power, able to comfort and cure anything that ailed my husband. Because I was told that he would want sex constantly, I experienced deep and unnecessary rejection when he wasn’t in the mood. Men had been painted as sex machines, not human beings who experience tiredness, sickness, and stress, just like everyone else. 

~ Rachel Joy Welcher  Talking Back to Purity Culture (p. 98)

Welcher recounted a conversation she had with two men, Blake and John, who are good husbands with normal sex drives, but who chafed at the description of men as sex machines. She writes: “I went into my marriage with certain expectations,” Blake told us. “Things people were telling me, like men crave sex six times more than women do.”

“Where did you hear that?” I asked him.

“One of the megachurch pastors was on stage with his wife and they were breaking it down.” He continued, “A wife might think her husband is looking at pornography, when really, maybe he just had a long day, and if you sit still long enough, you’re going to fall asleep.”

We all laughed. I thought about times I’ve interpreted my husband’s tiredness as rejection and other woman who have shared similar experiences. It is a deep pain, pressed deeper still by the stereotype that men always want sex. Women wonder if there is something wrong with their body, their perfume, or their performance in bed. They wrack their brains trying to figure out what they are doing wrong. Shouldn’t their husband always want them?

Read Next on Thriving Marriages  Actually, You CAN Change Your Spouse. Here's How.
Rachel Joy Welcher  Talking Back to Purity Culture. (p. 57-58)

When her husband prefers sleep to sex, she often interprets it as rejection

When her husband prefers sleep to sex, she often interprets it as rejection, because she hears that men’s sexual appetites are insatiable, and he can’t feel close to her without sex.

As Blake and John continue to discuss this with Rachel, one makes the observation that it’s not so much that Christian men are obsessed with sex as it is that they are immersed in sex. Christian manhood is almost always defined as:

  • Getting a job and providing
  • Wanting sex a lot (and working at being good at it)
  • Lifting lots of weights and being physically strong

Sex is so much of the male conversation that the church ends up reinforcing negative stereotypes.

Just because some men struggle with lust doesn’t mean all do; just because some men struggle with porn doesn’t mean all do. But when we talk constantly about these struggles, it can give the impression that real men lust and struggle with porn and want sex all the time, and only “wimps” don’t.

That ends up hurting men, who can feel “unmasculine” or “beta” if they actually treat women like whole people, and it hurts women who can feel rejected by a husband who isn’t sex obsessed.

Right now my husband, Keith, and I are writing The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex, and I’d like to include some stories from this perspective in it, because I don’t think this is talked about enough.

Have unrealistic expectations about sex and your husband’s sexual appetite ever left you feeling rejected, even when your husband is simply acting like a normal guy? What was that like for you if husband prefers sleep to sex? Did you ever talk about it? How have you worked that through?


(And if you do have difficulty because your husband doesn’t want sex and it’s a perpetual problem, here are some other posts that can help:)

 

This article originally appeared here, and is used by permission.

 

 

 

Sheila Wray Gregoirehttps://tolovehonorandvacuum.com/
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. Plus she knits (Even in line at the grocery store.) Shiela a speaker, a blogger, an award-winning author of nine books, and a wife and mom. She loves God, loves marriage, and loves her family.
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