From a”Thankful Husband”
This husband has a really interesting perspective and he shares it articulately. I appreciate being able to share a variety of both feminine and masculine viewpoints with the wives who read my blog. Hearing different wives’ stories helps us to have a broader view of the ways God works in people’s lives. And sometimes hearing something from a man we are not married to can help us to hear our own husbands’ hearts much more clearly. A huge thank you to the Thankful Husband for sharing your heart!
Thank you & may God bless you and this blog.
It’s so tricky to be a godly, leading husband these days…so thank you for your teaching. It’s either not accepted by your wife or if it’s accepted & your family and her friends look at you like you are part of the Taliban…no matter how much you chrerish, love, protect, show affection in everyway. It’s like the words, “I’ll have to check with my husband before doing that” or “my husband thinks we’re too busy to do that”, etc…it’s you like you get treated like a wife-beater when nothing could be further from the truth.
Nobody gets more love notes than my wife, let alone hugs & kisses. I’d take a bullet for that woman, with a smile on my face! It’s like being a godly man or woman is sincerely offensive to many these days, even a lot of Christians. I can’t tell you how many of her friends tell her I’m controlling, when in fact she keeps the money, has her own car, can pretty much do anything she wants (because she’s a godly woman who makes wise choices almost every single time…she’s amazing!, they act like she’s locked in the basement…but it just rubs mostly other woman wrong who just run everywhere doing everything they want with little concern of their husbands. Most of the blogs, books, etc out there these days everything is so watered down…woman are teaching woman what they want to hear & there are very few resources for husbands…so thank you. You’ll be in my prayers as I know you are on the front lines of battle.
WE HAD SOME REALLY TOUGH TIMES
I think the most important thing you said is men are different than women.
My wife and I are so very happy these days but there was at time not long ago we were hanging on by a thread. It took more than a dozen years but my wife started to understand what sex (and respect) mean to me. We were on the brink of divorce. I had tried to love her as Christ loved the church for so many years (and she says I was pretty good at it)…but I think I just ran empty. It was like my tank was never being filled and I think after years and years I could no longer love her the way she needed also. I was oh so lonely for so very, very long.
I heard the “I just feel like a piece of meat” thing…when nothing could have been further than the truth. That woman was/is everything to me…my world & therefore it crushes you even harder when she wants no part of you. Honestly, I’d rather be beat up (physically abused, kicked in the head by a horse, etc) than here my wife say no, or I don’t enjoy sex.
For me sex with my wife is all my favorite things to do in the world rolled into one x 10. It’s what I look forward to….it’s the thing that keeps me going on the rough days at work, etc. She wouldn’t necessarily refuse me in body, but it was more in attitude and mind. I was literally told she didn’t want to be there doing that…I can’t tell you how painful that was.
Unfortunately … I made the sinful choice to use porn…it literally wasn’t about looking on another girls “parts”…I know it sounds crazy but I honestly didn’t believe women enoyed sex after hearing it so very long…in other words it was about attitude. I know it sounds crazy but I searched by heart a thousand times and it’s true. Still just as horribly sinful & wrong, but true. Thankfully I never got into the real hardcore stuff. Things went like this for a several years but as things really started to go downhill in our marriage I think we both had to take a hard look at where we were at.
- For me that meant to get back to loving her the way Christ loved the church & having only eyes for her.
- For her it meant adjusting her mind and heart to sex and respect. It even meant taking testostrone as she tested at 0 levels.
(From Peacefulwife – as a pharmacist, I know there are a lot of treatment options available medically for sexual dysfunction and lack of desire. What a great idea to have testosterone levels and other hormone levels and even thyroid levels checked if there is a continual lack of desire. Keep in mind, too, that many anti-depressants and blood pressure meds can cause sexual dysfunction and issues with desire – so can birth control pills! But do NOT stop taking your rxs suddenly. Many of these medicines will cause big problems if you quit all the sudden. Talk to your doctor if you think you may be dealing with sexual dysfunction as a result of your medications and let your doctor decide what to do. If we are suffering in our marriage with a low sex drive – I believe that it is our responsibility to figure out what is causing the problem and try to fix it so that we might fulfill our marital duty to our spouse – I Corinthians 7. Whether that means counseling, medical treatment, praying together more, removing unloving and disrespectful habits/words/attitudes, beginning to learn to show real godly love and respect… let’s take care of these issues and find healing in our marriages! It is SO WORTH IT!)
MY ACHILLES HEEL
And here is the thing I hope ladies on your site understand because maybe their husband might be the same.
My need for sex with me wife, loving & willing sex…is the one “need” I can’t seem to go without.
I can master just about anything I’ve ever tried. I can make my mind and body do whatever it needs. I can fast. (or go hungry). I can ignore pain. I can work harder longer than anyone for my family. I can run into a situation where everyone else is running away but I honestly can not live without my dear wife loving me this way…I’ve found it is my one “weakness”. It’s the one thing that puts me in not only emotional & physical pain, but is the one thing that almost broke my faith too. If I haven’t shown sexual affection from my wife in 48 hours I’m lonely, it its been 72 hours I’m lonely, on edge, irritable and starting to get desperate. 4 days and I’m a bit of a mess (from a guy that’s usually about at put together as there is), 5 days and I’m getting crazy…seriously.
I love my wife more than anything in this world and this transformation in my wife has taken our marriage from probably the worst in our church to the best. Now that I’m being loved also, in the way I feel it…now that my batteries are being charged also I can be the husband I need to be for her again. I was once considered a godly husband and father. .I have found at least in my life nothing can encourage & lift me up or tear me down to nothing faster than the gift of my wife’s heart & body in the gift of sex or lack thereof.
That said, a husband needs to be considerate & tasteful also…
Today we couldn’t be closer or happier. Our walk in the Lord is stronger & our kids are living in a house where there parents are happy, united and committed.
I’m back (and much better than ever) to being the loving husband who tries with everything he has to cherish. love and lay down his life for his wife…and what is the difference? My wife’s decision to try to understand what sex meant to me and change her perception, attitude and actions toward sex (and a little bit about respect).
MARRIAGES IN THE CHURCH ARE IN CRITICAL CONDITION
I think that until both husband and wife, finally give it their everything…hearts, minds, dreams & bodies you are never going to truly be totally happy or holy. The kind of everything that is both terribly vulnerable and scary and even hurts some of the time …the kind that goes against the human reason we have and is the radical love Jesus calls us to.
For us husbands that means giving & loving gently, tenderly and with passion for our wives and thinking of them before ourselves in the way we live our lives. To protect and to serve. For our wives that means trying to be our helpmate, who is often blessed with gifts we don’t have and using those special talents, wisdom, care and beauty to bless us and give to us.
All I know is this, I was in the ministry for several years as a pastor…there isn’t much I haven’t seen in marriages & I can tell you our marriage was one of the worst. There’s more backstory to our story, but I can tell you this,
God can heal any marriage but you are going to be beating your head against the wall until you go about it His way.
If we could get men to stop looking at porn, lead, and cherish their wives and women to respect and have sex with their husbands…I can’t imagine how much not only happier we would be but also how many more would come to know Christ because they’d see something truly joyous and special. It took us a dozen years but we got it figured out, neither of us could be happier…it just about broke my faith but I’m so thankful now.
I thank God for what you are doing!
Thanks for this !! This is 100% true, I have only find out that recently after 13 years of marriage!
Calama,
It does take us time to understand sometimes! Thank you for sharing. I am so glad that God opened your eyes and healed your marriage!
Simply beautiful
I totally agree!
Peacefulwife.com
I relate to your writing, really closely. My wife started the whole control issue, when I didn’t agree with her ditching the family and visiting with friend to watch Sex and the City. Yet she continues to say I’m to die for her and supposed to be the religious leader of my household. I’m screwed up, my family is in shambles. I don’t have peace. Threw it all, God continues to pour blessings as I lead in the business field and strive to be the best steward of what God has loned me to manage.
One crushing thing for me, huge open wound, when my spouse had affair. The betrayel, and my extreme anger and jealousy ate away at me.
My wife’s mom knew she was driving alone to and from activites with this other person, yet failed to intervene.
When she denied me sex and affection, then I discovered while on vacation she was on birth control, ouch that hurt. To top it off I found out when she ditched me to stay out to early morning hours on cruiseship. I was looking for chap stick in her things.
I’m supposed to be her protector, and when in Miami at hotel pool and very late, I wanted to go to bed. I didn’t feel it was safe to leave her alone in the pool at 1am. She responds by telling me I’m not her F-ng dad.
My huge form of showing love has been working my tail off to support my family. I know there are other things to do, but it annoys me when she or other christian pastors say your to trust god and he will provide-in the context of you slack off and don’t work hard. My wife attacks me all the time, and says I’m not showing love.
Sad Husband,
How long ago was the affair?
Has she repented? What an incredibly painful situation.
One thing that shocked me greatly when I learned about men and their perspective on life was that they view providing as their major way of showing love. That blew my mind. I had never thought of my husband working as having anything to do with his love for me. My definition of him loving me was spending time with me, talking with me, listening to me, looking at me like he cared I was there, sending me love notes, cuddling with me, physical affection/sex.
For the first 16 years of our marriage, I made a lot more money than he did. And I didn’t credit his working as being loving or a provider at all.
Now I see that I was wrong. And I wish I had understood his heart before. I also think that when the wife makes more money or is the sole provider it is MUCH harder for her to respect her husband.
It’s easy for a wife to think that if a husband is working overtime – he is NOT showing love to her. But he thinks he IS showing love to her by providing better financially. So there is such a chasm between the two perspectives. Wives DO appreciate their husbands working. But most wives also appreciate the currencies of TIME, CONVERSATION, INVOLVEMENT with the household chores and parenting, AFFECTION and PRAYER. And for women, if some of these currencies are missing from their husbands, they feel unloved no matter how much he is providing financially.
Wives want their husbands to provide financially, emotionally and spiritually.
What is it that you believe you need in order to have peace and be happy right now?
This is very good but I would love to see a little more help for when its the other way around.
I am a wife that has a very high sex drive and it can be hard.
I do have some posts on that. I can completely relate. The first thing I would ask is – is there a medical problem? Does your husband have low testosterone? Is he taking blood pressure pills or anti-depressants?
Some of the big reasons men have a lower drive can be: a naturally lower drive (maybe only desiring sex once a week or every few weeks), feeling disrespected, feeling that the wife has become too aggressive sexually (can be a turn off for some men), exhaustion and stress, low levels of testosterone, pornography addiction, infidelity.
If the issues are medical – there is SO MUCH HELP for that!
If the issue is disrespect, then as you cut out the negativity, criticisms, blaming, scolding, lecturing, ordering him around and begin to praise him, encourage him, admire him and back off a bit to give him room to pursue you – that often makes a world of difference.
There is a post linked at the top of my home page for a free e-book that is very helpful if the issue is pornography addiction.
Thank you for the comment! I pray for God’s healing and peace in your heart and your marriage!