Why do I shut down when my husband initiates sex?
It’s libido week here at To Love, Honor and Vacuum! I’ve been working for the last two month son my Boost Your Libido course, a video-based course that also has fun assignments, tons of extra resources, and so much more that can help you overcome this feeling that sex is an obligation.
With Valentine’s Day coming up next week, I know many of us are thinking about how to put a smile on our husband’s face. But so often the problem is that as soon as we start to think that he may want sex, we immediately tense up. What if I don’t want it? Then will he be disappointed?
That’s actually quite a common scenario. Listen to this question from a reader:
I’ve been married for a year and I really do like sex usually. But something weird happens whenever my husband initiates, or I think he may initiate tonight. It’s like my body completely shuts down and I almost start a mini-panic attack. What if I can’t get in the mood? Now he’s stopped initiating and I feel like we’re not having sex as often as we should. How can I change myself so I don’t tense up if he initiates?
Great question!
Now, I know that for many of you reading this, the situation is flipped and it’s your husband who rejects sex. If that’s you, I encourage you to read this post, or this one.
But let’s deal with this woman today.
Why do women tense up if their husband initiates sex?
Here’s how the scenario usually unfolds: sexual tension exists when there’s a sexual pull between two people, and you don’t know whether that’s going to be fulfilled. In movies, it’s often a fun element. We like seeing the tension between two people as they decide whether to move forward in their relationship.
But sexual tension can exist in a marriage, too, and that’s not always as fun. The one who wants it dances around the issue, because they’re trying to feel you out: will she say yes? He doesn’t come right out and say it because he doesn’t want to be rejected. And so he may try to woo her (often clumsily), and in so doing she may actually retreat even more. She gets in this guilt-induced funk before anything even happens, because she’s not responding like she knows he wants.
I know that’s how it was in my marriage in the early days. Whenever Keith wanted sex, I did panic. Now, some women panic because it triggers issues of sexual abuse, and if that’s you, I just want to say that I am so, so sorry. For someone to violate you like that is just plain evil. And I’d encourage you to read this post on how to recover after sexual abuse.
But many people feel panicky or tense even if there is no abuse in their background.
Why? Because for a woman to enjoy sex, she needs to have her brain totally engaged.
She needs to be looking forward to it. She needs to see it as an exciting, pleasurable thing. She needs to be able to throw herself into it. And for us that’s largely emotional. The problem is that if we feel pressured, it’s hard to imagine being excited about it.
It’s like when you were a kid and your mom tells you that her friend is bringing some kids over for a play date, and you have to behave and have fun with them. While normally you could have had fun with them no problem, as soon as she tells you that you have to your instinct is to feel as if you’re not going to like those kids.
Emotional pressure tends to send us running in the opposite direction, even if we have perfectly healthy sexuality.
Jay Dee explained this well in his guest post for me on why women sometimes feel as if they don’t have a sex drive. It’s not true! But think of your sex drive like an engine, with both brakes and gas. You can’t really move forward until you take your foot off of the brake. And a lot of us have our foot on the brake.
The unhealthy way around this sexual tension is to try to make the person with the higher sex drive have a lower one.
When The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex was released, Keith and I made a funny video to show what this may look like in a relationship:
The healthy way to resolve this sexual tension is to start thinking in a different way.
Yes, we have an emotional response that backs off as soon as he wants sex, because at heart we aren’t sure that we can work ourselves up and enjoy it.
But what if we could learn to control that emotional response?
You see, our emotions are rooted in our thoughts. And study after study has shown that it’s actually possible to change your thought patterns, which will, over time, change our emotions. That’s actually quite biblical! Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:5:
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
You CAN take every thought captive.
And how to do we do that?
Start thinking of yourself as someone who enjoys and anticipates sex.
Seriously. That’s the big thing that we have to do.
I spent the weekend reading some business books that can help me move ahead with my ministry. But one of the themes that came up again and again is that it’s been shown that how a person thinks of himself or herself determines how much success they have. Jeff Goins, who writes a ton about being a writer, said this:
Believe that you already are what you want to be, and then start acting like it.
That may sound hokey, but it actually works. If you want to be a writer, then you have to think of yourself as a writer. Why? Because often people don’t write because they think, “well, this is just a hobby”, or “I can never make money at this”, or “I’m just being silly.” So it’s hard to sit down at the computer and do it. But if you think of yourself as a writer, it’s much easier to actually write. You don’t have these negative thoughts in your head.
Have You Heard of the Boost Your Libido Course?
If your libido really is sub-zero, I want to help you BOOST it–and get to the point where you actually WANT sex again!
In this 10-module video course, I walk you step-by-step through understanding what libido is, identifying your roadblocks to libido, and figuring out how to turn yourself ON again! And we look at how the brain, body, and emotions all contribute to our desire (or lack of it). It’s super fun, and right from the beginning you’ll experience HOPE that you really can anticipate and yearn for sex in your marriage!
Start acting like someone who enjoys and anticipates sex.
One of the most inspiring life stories I’ve ever heard is that of Ben Carson, the pediatric neurosurgeon who is now the Secretary for Housing and Urban Development. He and his brother grew up with a single mom, who made her living cleaning a very wealthy family’s home. She saw what the wealthy family did, and then decided to emulate it herself.
In the wealthy family’s home you couldn’t see the TV because of all the books. So she made her sons read a book a week and write her a book report on it (though she couldn’t actually read the book report; she didn’t let her sons know that until much later). In the wealthy family, the kids played instruments. So her sons had to take violin lessons. All the things that she saw them doing she decided she was going to do at home, because she figured those things must have made a difference.
Discipline, no TV, emphasis on books–it worked, too!
So how does someone who enjoys and anticipates sex act? What makes up a sexually confident woman? She likes feeling good about her body, so she tends to take better care of it. She flirts a lot with her husband! But the biggest one? She takes time just to smile and imagine how great sex will be.
When you visualize yourself enjoying sex and responding to his advances, you will enjoy sex more!
When I wrote 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage, I was trying to show how it’s often our thoughts about marriage that undermine that very marriage. And there’s so much scientific research to show that, too! Here’s a study I recently came across that’s fascinating.
Researcher Judd Blasotto at the University of Chicago was wondering if you can harness the power of the brain alone to help basketball players to improve their jump shots. He divided the players into three groups. For 30 days, one group couldn’t work on their jump shot. The second group worked on their jump shot everyday. The third group didn’t work on their jump shot, but they spent time everyday visualizing exactly how they would do the jump shot.
At the end of the thirty days, the first group had no improvement whatsoever. The second group had a 24% improvement. But the third group had a 23% improvement. They hadn’t even picked up a basketball; they had simply thought it through in their heads over and over. That study revolutionized how athletes now train, adding visualization to their routine.
What would happen if we added visualization about how great sex will be to our daily routines? What would happen if we thought of ourselves as a sexually confident woman, and deliberately told ourselves that sex was going to be awesome tonight?
Start believing that you will like sex, then start acting like someone who likes sex, and you may just find that you really like sex!
I know it sounds far-fetched. But God made us so that we don’t need to be carried away by our emotions. Our emotions are changeable.
This may be a different scenario, but think of what Paul said about his emotions in Philippians 4:11-13:
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be contentwhatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
What is “the secret” he learned? I believe it’s that he had the “mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).
I know it sounds weird to think about having the “mind of Christ” at the same time as we’re talking about getting all sweaty with our husbands, but this actually totally goes together! Hot and holy are really two sides of the same coin. Our God is a passionate God, and He wants to unleash that passion in us. He created us to be carried away by desire and passion with our husbands. And so He wants us to start changing our thought patterns, so that we can change those emotional responses and emotional triggers–and actually enjoy sex again.
You can do it! And if you’re having trouble with this, my Boost Your Libido Course takes you step by step how to do this. It talks about how much of libido is “in our heads”, and then moves on to what’s in our bodies, and then even how to feel sexually confident and really anticipate sex.
Check it out now–and let’s stop panicking when our husbands initiate 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 completely agree that a wife can think her way towards having a positive attitude when a husband initiates. What I found helpful in my marriage was to create a loose weekly schedule of encounters. For example, Wednesdays and weekends we aim to have some ‘alone time.’ This helps me get more in the mood because I can anticipate for hours and visualize my positive response (that you describe so well above!) . Our minds absolutely the most influential ‘aphrodisiac’ we possess. Thanks for this encouragement, Sheila!
Great idea, Bonny! Thank you.
My amazing wife started to initiate regularly 17years into our marriage. It changes everything. We are much happier, she lost a bunch of weight and has multiple orgasms regularly.
The las 3 years of our marriage have been nothing short of extraordinary
That’s wonderful! It really can get better.
Okay, I’m the only one in the marriage who wants to have sex, but the video does make me laugh in a sick way. That’s what I do to turn *myself* off. Like, of course there’s not even a possibility of sex tonight — that’s why you are wearing flannels or didn’t shave your legs or whatever. Also … the eye cream …
Glad you liked it. 🙂
Nope I do but after being turned down multiple times during the week I’m not in the mindset when he decides he’s interested. It’s getting very frustrating and hearing let’s cuddle is not cutting it.
The problem is to this wife there is still a yes/no outcome. In marriage yes should be the default with no being used very sparingly. There should be a constant him of sex in the marriage..,,like when you lay awake in bed and can hear the fridge running, the hum of the water heater, or the HVAC running….always in the background running, ready for when you need it.
I think that background hum of sex is a lost art in many marriages.
I love that word picture! That’s really accurate.
Love this Libl!
Honestly, I sometimes wonder why God made this while sex thing so complicated. I actually enjoy sex, but there is still a constant inner tension of wondering, “Will I have to do it tonight?” Just because it is so much mental and emotional work. I have sometimes dreaded going to bed, because I’m so tired, an hour of fooling around sounds miserable, even if I climax at the end of it all (something my husband cannot comprehend. The more tired or sick he is, the more he wants to do it). That being said, we are both really striving to put each other first, and in all five years of our marriage we have consistently had sex two or three times a week, even with four, going on five, kids. It’s just, well, I do struggle with finding the inner energy and get nervous like the woman who wrote the letter in this post. And I’m not sure what to do about it, as I don’t need to picture myself s enjoying it, since I always do in the end, but still don’t have the desire to engage some nights.
Oh, dear, I think your pen name on your comment sums it all up–Five Under Five! I totally understand feeling exhausted. I guess all I can say is keep at it, because one day your kids will be bigger, and they will sleep through the night, and you won’t be so exhausted–and you’ll reap huge rewards because you put in the work at your marriage in these hard years!
I think having a few nights a month where sex is specifically for you may be good too. You know, like sex that begins with a 45 minute back massage? Something like that? You likely need it!
Good for you, Five under Five! That pen name was me, too! So, I’d like to encourage you by saying…you’re doing the right thing! I’ve been there, done that! Oh, man, is it ever hard (more days than not) to come up with the mental energy to make it work! And to make hubby feel like I do truly want to do this! I’ve had to remind him over the years that yes, I DO enjoy it, and YES, please keep coming with the foreplay – I’ll get there! And then, there were those times when we just had to settle for a bit less! However, when you do that please let him know that you’re very okay with it and that it’s NOT his fault. He really does want to make it enjoyable for you, too. Plus, when you dig up that mental energy (and what follows) on a regular basis like you are then the “quickies” are easier to understand and accept. Hang in there! It’s worth every bit of effort! And…always keep praying for God to give you the strength and interest to do it. It makes a huge difference with performance but most importantly with attitude. And hubby loves a great attitude – you know it! 🙂
Great article. And what can happen is that the husband will give up trying, since the implied ‘no’ is heard loud and clear.
Unfortunately this is EXACTLY where I am….I no longer know what to do. I have tried talking, laughing about it, every single thing possible legal with the usual, honey it’s not you, I just whatever….I love my wife more than I ever thought possible and sex maybe once a month that has put me in a place of self doubt, lost confidence and my mind thinking of horrible let ways that this has happened….
I’m honestly curious about whether trying for that mindset has the same sort of effect when it’s not a case of past abuse, but just physical pain/discomfort. (Asking as someone who has struggled with vaginismus for my whole marriage– I’ve made some progress, but it’s been interrupted by pregnancy a couple of times. I’m in my third trimester now, and we haven’t done anything in a few months. I feel guilty, but I just can’t seem to get myself feeling okay about doing anything when I’m already having trouble convincing myself that it won’t hurt this time and I’m exhausted from chasing our toddler and huge to boot!)
I think that default value of saying yes to sex is too idealistic. There are too many variables that interfere for frequent sex (defined as 2 or more times a week). For many healthy marriages in our church, the default value is no. When sex does happen, the men in our church call this “getting lucky”. I would prefer “yes to sex” as the default but I know this will not happen, even as empty nesters, among my circle of Christian friends.
This makes a lot of sense. I’m a newlywed and my husband and I waited until after marriage to have sex. Before we were married, not doing anything sexual was so difficult! After we got married, however, all that changed. I am a woman who likes sex, or I did, but eventually it seemed he didn’t want it anymore, or even like it. He can go a week or 2 without (keep in mind we have no kids, haven’t even been married a year) while I wanted it every second day! Now I am nervous that he isn’t attracted to me, so when he does initiate, I don’t even want to anymore! It isn’t porn, he won’t get his testosterone tested…I don’t know what the issue is. I’ve never turned him down. Thanks Sheila Wray Gregoire! I actually just bought your book, “The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex.” It’s really good, but it’s making me realize how much this all hurts!
Oh that’s hard! Our first year of marriage was similar. And the most I pushed the more he retreated and felt judged and rejected. I wish I had been able to relax about it and just pray and talk to God about it. Six years and 2 children later, and the positions have switched. Praying for your marriage and you now.
Thanks for this article.
Often what happens for me is that I am not in the mood, so I hedge around for a while (rather than saying “yes” or “tomorrow?” straight out) and then he gets upset. Or, sometimes I will say yes even if I don’t feel like it – because I know it’s good for him, is AND me! – but he has this 6th sense that I am not in the mood… so he rolls over and we both lay there in silence 🙁
Another thing I struggle with is, for many months in our marriage (and we’ve only been married for 3.5 years) last year I didn’t enjoy sex really at all. Like, only a few times was it a bit enjoyable. I tried hard, but I did kinda give up in the end – just did it for him – because I was so upset that I wasn’t enjoying it! I cried because I desperately wanted to enjoy it (and climax, please!) because I knew what it was like…. but I still couldn’t seem to. I tried to mentally prepare myself etc but still, no luck.
I WANT to have a really active sex life, but as others have said above, it’s certainly hard work.
Thanks again for your writing – your blog is the one I look forward to most (and I read a lot of blogs!).
Blessings
Hi Rachel! You know what? It’s really hard to feel in the mood if sex has just never felt very good! I cover this in the Boost Your Libido course, too, but I’d suggest a conversation something like this: “Baby, I so want amazing sex in our marriage! I know sex was created to be awesome, but I feel like I’m missing out on something great. I want this for us. Can we start a research project on how to make it feel great for me?” And then really concentrate on that! I’ve got a lot of help on how practically to do that in 31 Days to Great Sex, and you get that free if you pre-order the Boost Your Libido course, too. But try taking that approach rather than beating yourself up about not being in the mood for something that doesn’t do much for you anyway!
pls how do i subscribe to your daily blog post?
I subscribed you! But you just go here, too. 🙂
Before we got married, our sex life was awesome. My libido was working overtime, every single day. Neither of us ever had problems climaxing. I did struggle with guilt about not having kept our promise to each other and God about waiting, but not enough to stop.
Fast forward 4 years of marriage, two pregnancies, two kiddos, and a stint of post partum depression. Both kids have breastfed over 18 months. Neither (at 3 and 1) are sleeping through the night well.
I’m always tired. I have no libido. All the forbidden excitement of our dating years is gone, and my desire for my husband is way low.
Some issues I can identify–like being on anti anxiety meds, having preschoolers, and the fact that my husband always wants just sex, whereas I miss long makeout sessions and intimacy that was common to us before marriage.
Part of me is really worried that I trained myself to need the excitement and forbidden-ness of premarital sex to become turned on, anda now reaping the consequences of that sin. My hubby seems to have no such compunctions.
What to do? Is all hope lost? I miss having incredible sex with a wonderful man. It has never been as good post-marriage as it was pre, even including our honeymoon (not that I have EVER said that to my hubby).
Oh, hang in there, Lea! You’re at a really tough stage in life, and it WILL get better! Two quick recommendations: Barbara Wilson wrote a book called Kiss Me Again about just the phenomenon you’re describing–when sex was better before marriage. It’s very helpful. And then I wonder if my Boost Your Libido course would help? I talk about all the things you mention–being exhausted, the problems with intimacy, how you think about sex–and it may help you get more positive again! I hope those help.
I found this article rather interesting. My husband met Jesus after multiple sexual relationships and four children. I was raised in a Christian home and I’ve been following Jesus since my early teen years. He is the only man I ever kissed, let alone slept with. I saw comments above from women who found sexuality more rewarding before marriage than afterward. I can relate closely because a deep, festering wound in me since marriage has been from the dramatic decrease in physical affection once intercourse became an option. I very much miss my husband holding me and kissing me like he did when we dated and I have expressed it to him countless times. I’ve started to give up on the desire for affection, but now I am feeling concerned about a new issue. My husband is attentive during sex, and therefore I usually enjoy it. But lately, I am regretting it more and more afterward. I may have enjoyed every second of the encounter, but as soon as he turns away I want him to leave or I wish we hadn’t done anything. It feels just like I ate a huge bowl of ice cream. Every bite was delicious, but now that it is gone, I feel sick! I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel as if we are doing anything wrong. I just feel like I wish we hadn’t done it – like I was much better off beforehand. I don’t understand why I am feeling that way… And I don’t know how to explain this feeling to him without hurting him. Any suggestions?