Do you ever wish there were a reset button on your sex life?
A reset button that would take you back to the beginning, and all the tension you and your husband have built up would be gone. All the bitterness from past porn use, or from times when you’ve hurt each other, or from times you’ve done things you wish you hadn’t.
All the disappointment from expectations about your sex life that weren’t met when you married.
All the hurt from past relationships and past abuse and past regrets.
Can they really be gone?
We’re in the middle of the 29 Days to Great Sex series, and today’s challenge is on hitting that reset button on your sex life–and finding real freedom.
This content is exclusive to 31 Days to Great Sex, the book.
Part of the 29 Days to Great Sex series has been removed from the web, but it’s all available in 31 Days to Great Sex–which is only $4.99 in its e-book format!
Do you want MORE for your sex life?
The 31 Days to Great Sex Challenge was written to help you spice it up in the bedroom!
Try new things, explore each other, and turn on those fireworks!
- Exclusive content not found online
- Challenges tailored for couples to work through together
- Bonus challenges that were never in the online series
- Works great as a gift!
Here’s what’s coming up next: What’s Foreplay? How to Orgasm and 5 Ways to Spice Things Up!
29 Days to Great Sex: The Series
Day 1: The Act of Marriage
Day 2: Starting Fresh
Day 3: Loving the Skin You’re In
Day 4: Pucker Up!
Day 5: Reawaken Desire
Day 6: Why Your Hubby Wants You!
Day 7: Dealing with Differences in Sex Drives (BONUS content in 31 Days to Great Sex)
Day 8: 14 Ways to Play as a Couple
Day 9: Prepare for Sex throughout the Day
Day 10: Ways to Flirt with Your Husband
Day 11: Show Affection (BONUS content in 31 Days to Great Sex)
Day 12: Hitting the Reset Button on Your Sex Life (BONUS content in 31 Days to Great Sex) (This one!)
Day 13: Getting Your Head in the Game (BONUS content in 31 Days to Great Sex)
Day 14: What if You’re Not “In the Mood”?
Day 15: What is Foreplay?
Day 16: How to Orgasm
Day 17: The Pleasure Center
Day 18: Foreplay Can Be for Him, Too!
Day 19: Little Changes that Increase Pleasure for HER and for HIM (BONUS content in 31 Days to Great Sex)
Day 20: Deciding on Sexual Boundaries (BONUS content in 31 Days to Great Sex)
Day 21: 5 Ways to Spice Things Up
Day 22: How Often is Enough?
Day 23: Quickies Are Great!
Day 24: Initiate, Baby!
Day 25: Sex Once Kids Come (BONUS content in 31 Days to Great Sex)
Day 26: New Positions to Try–to Ramp Up the Fun! (BONUS content in 31 Days to Great Sex)
Day 27: Experiencing Spiritual Intimacy when you Make Love
Day 28: Being Mentally Present When You Make Love (BONUS content in 31 Days to Great Sex)
Day 29: Celebrate! And Keep Up the Momentum (BONUS content in 31 Days to Great Sex)
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. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
I read your posts and always walk away feeling worse about myself than before. Yet, I still read them. I don’t know why but I do. I guess I know that all the things that you say I should be doing as a wife are true but what about my side of the story? It still exists even if it’s not acknowledged. What if I have baggage that makes me afraid to put myself out there? What if I need him to step up just because he is my husband and not in response to all the sex I give him? What if I need him to love me because he likes the person I am not how often I meet his need. What if I need him to care how I feel and take some of the weight of responsibilities off of me even when I’m not putting out every day? What if I am too uncomfortable to give him step by step instructions on how to touch me so that I like it (and somehow when he gropes me and I block him, that has given him the impression that I like to be manhandled)? What about the lies he believes about sex? Like slapping my butt as he walks through the kitchen is supposed to make me drop the spatula, forget about dinner, and follow him to the bedroom to jump his bones. That just makes me dread going to bed that night. After 7 years, you’d think he would notice a pattern, which tells me he doesn’t really care what I like. HE likes to slap my butt…that turns HIM on…that’s why he does it. Why can’t he take steps to make things better? Well, because I am always supposed to be the bigger person, that’s why. Problem is, I can’t. The rest of the world may be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and keep on truckin’ but, I can’t. So, I am the loser that will never be the Godly wife my husband deserves. I’m sure I will keep reading these things that I should be and feeling more condemned for not being them. I guess I am a glutton for punishment.
K, I’m really sorry you’re feeling this way in your marriage. I’m sure you feel really lonely. I just want to comment on a few things.
First, it sounds like you two really don’t have very good communication. I think before I did anything about sex I’d work on that. Do you have much of a friendship? Can you just find things that you can do together to have fun? To laugh together? I find that couples who laugh together once a day have a much easier time in all other aspects of their relationship because they’ve built up some goodwill.
Then, it doesn’t really sound like you’ve actually communicated to him what you want or don’t want. He’s obviously not touching you properly in bed, but the thing is he doesn’t know that unless you tell him, or take his hand and show him how. Men like to be touched much more roughly than women tend to like being touched (which is why we often touch our men too softly; we don’t understand that, either). But he can’t know unless you tell him.
Also, you say that you want him to want you regardless of whether you meet his needs for sex, which I totally understand. That’s a very common feeling, and I certainly felt that way. But the thing is, you’re asking him to do something that you’re not willing to do. You’re asking him to forget about his needs and just meet yours, but you don’t really want to do that, either. I know you need affection and love, but believe me when I say this: You are far more likely to experience that in a relationship where your husband is also getting his needs met.
If you have baggage from your background, that’s okay. Many of us do. Find a counsellor or a mentor to talk about it with and pray through it with. Don’t be stuck here forever! It really can get better, but it sounds like you need to decide to start communicating and telling your husband what you need and what you appreciate.
If you really don’t want him slapping you in the kitchen, for instance, why not sit him down when you’re both in a good mood and say something like, “Hon, you know I love you. I want us to have a great relationship. But when you slap my butt while I’m cooking, it makes me uncomfortable, because I feel like you’re expecting something out of me right when I need to get some cooking done. How about instead if you just tell me you love me, and then after dinner’s all done we can snuggle and you can touch me? I just need to feel as if you give me space to get some things done sometimes.”
In other words, communicate your needs.
One final thought: men who are insecure about whether their wives really want them are often much more “demonstrative” (like slapping butts) and demanding (like wanting sex constantly) than men who are experiencing regular and frequent sex with wives who do want them. When he’s insecure about something so important to him, he’s likely to go out of his way to try to verify for himself that you want him, and that just makes it all worse.
If you can talk to him and work towards having a good sex life (that includes him knowing what to do with you), then you may find that a lot of his desperation or demands actually diminish.
I know that’s hard to believe now, but trust me. And do find a way to really talk to your husband, rather than just getting angry at him now!
I just posted my own thoughts below before reading K’s comments, but I have to say that I could have written what K wrote…and I have been married for 23 years, and it’s still the same way. I have communicated what I like and don’t like…but it doesn’t matter. He begrudgingly respects some of it (such as I cannot have my stomach touched – or I get this feeling that I will die) so he doesn’t do that directly…but he tries to do it in subtle ways no matter how much it freaks me out. And, because I’ve talked to him so much about it, I just don’t trust him to not violate my boundary, and that sets up tension similar to what K describes. Yes, in the ideal world I’d have no boundaries, but I have worked with a counselor on my past issues more than once…and this thing doesn’t go away. It’s a thorn in my side…and a difficulty for my husband. But instead of just accepting me as I am, he tries to make me get over it. NOT a healthy thing on his part! And I understand what K is saying about always feeling as if we have to be the bigger person and do what we don’t want to do even though that is not reciprocated. I provide regular sex for my husband – not enough for him, but that’s partly because I so despise feeling pursued that the more he chases me, the more walls I put up. And, if he would just be my friend, I’d be much more willing. But the thing is this: Even when it’s more frequent, that doesn’t calm him down as you suggest it might. Maybe it does for some husbands, but I can’t win. If sex is not frequent, he always pursues me; if it’s more frequent, he’s so happy about that that he always pursues me. I cannot live a day in my house without him wanting to get me naked…and that is upsetting because I feel like I might as well be a blow-up doll.
The more posts I read, the more I realize how many lies I believe. I realize how much I need to take it to God and let Him control those thoughts and lies that flit through my mind. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I find pleasure in sex, but there are certain areas that are hard for me, and you are helping to open that door to understand all the whys. Blessings to you!!
Hi Sheila,
Thanks so much for encouraging other women in this area. Your blog is a blessing to many!
There is another thing that I think is important to mention to those who don’t enjoy sex. It can be helpful to go to the doctor and make sure nothing is physically wrong that could be hindering pleasure during sex. There can be physical obstacles such as hormone imbalances, chronic pain, chronic illness, and other physical issues. Working to solve these problems, or learning to work around them, can increase pleasure and make sex better. It is challenging, but so worth it!
I hope that the rest of your series goes well this month! You’ve shared some great tips so far. Thanks!
Rachel
Maybe a woman’s sex drive is not a medical problem. Maybe God just made some folks with less libido. Why isn’t that okay?
Tina, He very well may have given people different libidos. But He also made sex to be something wonderful, and if it isn’t something wonderful, don’t you want more? I’m not trying to say that you should just have sex because your husband wants it–although I do think that’s a valid biblical point of view. I think that it’s because this is something that God really did create for our pleasure and to bind us together, and it doesn’t sound like you’re experiencing that. But don’t you want to get unstuck?
You say that you don’t want it very much, and so your husband should just want it less, but it is biblical to have very regular and frequent sex. So there must be a reason, and I don’t think it’s because God just wanted women to “lie there and think of England”, so to speak. It’s supposed to be because it’s a wonderful part of your marriage.
I don’t think women realize just how much sex means to a man. It isn’t the release that he needs; it’s the fact that his wife wants him and affirms him in that way, because sex is his way of “checking in” on the marriage and making sure everything’s okay. When we make love “just for him”, and don’t really enjoy it, and rarely initiate it, then he gets the message that we don’t really accept him, even if that’s not what we think.
Now, we can get mad at men for that, but remember that this is the way that God made them. It is not their fault. God made you to need affection, and God made him to need the affirmation he gets through sex. And when we can’t give him that affirmation, but we expect him to give us affection, then we’re not really being fair.
I know you’ve got a lot of baggage, and I know that it’s really hard for you. But I’d just challenge you to go back to day one and try again. Really do the exercise where you just touch each other. Close your eyes and honestly learn what feels good, because it truly can. I don’t want this just so that you’ll make love to him more; I want it because you truly are missing out on something wonderful, and because of that your marriage is more distant. It’s not a lie. It really is true.
And I know that it feels like life would be easier if sex just didn’t exist, but God made sex, and He made it to feel good. If that’s a problem for you, then He wants to help you get over it. He doesn’t want you to stay stuck there and accept that as your reality.
We don’t do it in other areas of our lives, so why would we accept less in this? Can you talk to your husband about this at all? Or just ask him to explain what it is that he needs from sex? Maybe if you could really hear his heart, and learn that it isn’t that he wants to hurt you or impose on you, and it isn’t that he’s being selfish. He just really wants to be intimate with you, and this is how he experiences it. And it doesn’t mean he’s a lesser person for it. Does any of this make sense?
I’ve been reading these every day – though I can’t listen to your video just now, as my daughter is sitting in the room practicing her piano – and I, too, have been really struggling. I guess I just don’t see that sex has to be that important in a marriage. I just don’t get it…and, if I were Catholic, I probably would have made a good nun, lol. I know it is important, but I will admit to being frustrated reading here this whole month (and on your blog before) that it is basically THE most important thing to a healthy marriage. Now, part of my situation is that I am incest survivor – so I know I have baggage from that – but I do think well-meaning Christians have fallen into the trap the world has set (overestimating the necessity of sex). And I think we do our husbands a disservice by putting an evolutionary type presumption on them (i.e., they have this drive they pretty much can’t control and our responsibility as wives is to provide the release). That said, my husband wants sex a whole lot more than I feel comfortable with, and that is an issue in our marriage. Somehow, though, I think there should be a balance – that, because I’m comfortable without sex and he wants a lot, he should be okay with what I can give because it’s already an emotional stretch to give what I give. He is not happy, though – he doesn’t really believe that I am doing the best I can. And so the whole thing makes me profoundly sad. I cannot imagine myself ever being “free-wheeling” about it with him…or even wanting to feel like being so free. I’m still reading here, thinking, praying…and I am not intending to come off critical of you. I think your tips are great for those who want to put that much emphasis on sex; I’m just not sure it’s really necessary to do so.
I hope you don’t mind me popping in here, Tina, since I blog on the subject of sexual intimacy in marriage. It can seem at times that people like me — and perhaps Sheila this month — think sex is THE most important aspect of marriage. However, it is simply one topic among several we have chosen to address. Other writers and speakers focus on communication, finances, gender roles, or whatever in marriage, while I talk about physical intimacy.
Rather than falling into a secular message, I think some Christians finally realized that we had for too long allowed the world to control the conversation regarding sex. Sex is God’s idea, His design, His blessing, and we need to take it back to what He intended it to be — a bond of intimacy in a covenant relationship. Since you can turn on the TV and hear a sexual reference perhaps every 7 seconds, it’s not enough for us Christians to say something once a year or even once a month and expect to effectively counteract the wrong messages. So some of us have tackled this subject head on with books, weekly blogs, etc. to steer marriages back into God’s plan for intimacy.
Many wives do have the perception that their husbands desire sex as a physical release or simply an act of pleasure. However, the vast majority of husbands are not looking merely to release tension. They desire intimacy with their wives, and God created them to enjoy it in the physical realm. They want to gaze upon the beauty of their wife, touch her softer and curvier body, pleasure her and receive pleasure from her, and be united in flesh. That is one of the ways in which they express love and feel loved. When we understand that sex is not simply a physical need for men, but an emotional need as well, we can see why it is important in our relationship.
It is sad to read your story because you think this emphasis is not necessary, but obviously your husband does. So there’s a disconnect. Too often, the couple ends up talking about frequency. But it isn’t HOW OFTEN you make love that is so important as HOW you make love. When you address and resolve problematic areas (such as sexual history, low drive, medical issues, gender differences, etc.) and adopt God’s attitude toward sex (it is for procreation, pleasure, and bonding), then you can begin to enjoy it for the blessing it is. Wives who experience the best sex has to offer in marriage often end up wanting more.
I had a few years in which my sex life sucked. I wish I could have a do-over on that issue for those years. However, I have thankfully moved past that time and embraced wonderful intimacy with my husband. I pray that you will find the same. Blessings.
And thanks to Sheila for the great article! Keep ’em coming.
I love these lines: ” They desire intimacy with their wives, and God created them to enjoy it in the physical realm. They want to gaze upon the beauty of their wife, touch her softer and curvier body, pleasure her and receive pleasure from her, and be united in flesh.”
I think that one thing a woman could do/must do is deal with her own body image issues so that the above becomes a beautiful thing to her, not a source of tremendous anxiety. There are resources here online to help with this, and there’s also the Bible which says we are wonderfully and beautifully made.
Sheia,
I just want to say thank you for opening up your heart to us and helping to reconnect to our spouses. My husband and I have taking your challenges and it is bringing us together more than ever before in our marriage! He tells me that I have improving my mindset about how I viewed sex and I just want to say thank you for helping me and praise to God for creating sex and knowing that its for us and wants us to enjoy it. I can’t wait to read you book!!
-In Christ
Alicia
Do you have any guidance for a wife that is not desired by her husband? My libido (sp) is high but not fulfilled at all. My husband is paralyzed and due to this and medication he takes for pain, he has NO libido. This is a constrant strain in our marrage and i just suck it up, but it isn’t nice.
Tracie, I’m so sorry for that! What a difficult situation you’re in. I’ll tell you what: I’m hearing from so many women about this, that I’ll dedicate a week to it after our 29 days is up here in February. I do have some ideas, so I’ll post them then when I can do it justice. All I can say is that God always gives you strength when you need it, but not necessarily BEFORE you need it. But in the dark times, He is there.
Thank you, and you have great blog, glad I found you through pinterest.
I just found this series. I personally could 95% of the time care less about sex. I am able to enjoy it when it happens and wonder in the moment why I don’t do it more often. But it is very hard for me to get into the mood. And when it is all over, I feel no more close, fulfilled, loved, connected anything. It does nothing for me emotionally and can even be a negative, disappointed, let down after. Do you know why this may be?