Today’s question is from a higher drive wife:
I am the higher drive spouse in my marriage, though not by a big gap. I love finding helpful sexual advice from HHH or similar sources, but often have to invert the advice for husbands and wives, since I am higher drive. After some thought and occasional conversations with my wonderful man, I think one of the reasons I’m struggling is that he’s so content with “same as usual” sex. If I do not take the initiative to put on lingerie, set the mood, flirt, etc, then he is fine with getting into bed with the lights off and initiating sex with me quietly, pretty much out of nowhere, and what I would call “bread and butter sex.” I would prefer more. He is always happy when I make the effort to make it more of an encounter, which I do several times a week, but I’m longing to feel pursued in the bedroom, not just responded to…
He’s often willing to try something, but I have to take the lead. Can you suggest some ways I can help my husband be more adventurous in bed and help him initiate more?
Do you feel like you have a “lazy lover” in bed? You’re having sex, but each time is pretty much like the last and, to be honest, the last one only scored about a C+.
You’re getting fed, sure, but you’re missing out on the feast of sexual intimacy in your marriage! Yet you wonder when you’ll experience that biblical phrase: “Drink, be intoxicated with love!” (Song of Songs 5:1, HCSB). How do you get your guy to raise his goblet and drink his fill? Or pour out a goblet of goodies for you that fully satisfies?
Talk about your desires. Have you talked outside the bedroom about what you’d like to see happening inside the bedroom? Like any other goal in our marriage, it often takes intentionality and conversation to decide together what we want to attain.
Explain what you’d like your sexual intimacy to look like. That can include the build-up toward sexual encounters, how often you each initiate, what practices you’d like to try, what feelings you want to evoke, and the overall mood of sensuality in your marriage. Avoid complaining about the past or the current situation, focusing instead of nurturing sexual intimacy and adventure in your marriage bed.
Just as important, listen to his desires. Ask how he views your sexual intimacy and what he’d like to see happen. If he tries to brush it off saying he’s happy with the status quo, you could tell him you appreciate that, but you’d like to know what would make him even more eager to make love and feel “intoxicated” with your sex life. Be willing to attend to what would make him feel loved. There might be an area of neglect you didn’t know about, that you can then remedy, which could embolden him to engage more.
Turn to helpful resources. If you’re tired of initiating, maybe you can turn up the heat by introducing some love-stoking resources into your bedroom. Get a sexy board game or offer to play Strip Poker or Battleship. Go through sex-focused books for married couples, like Sheila Gregoire’s 31 Days to Great Sex or Kevin Leman’s Sheet Music. Although written primary for Christian wives, you could also go through Intimacy Revealed: 52 Devotions to Enhance Sex in Your Marriage together to spark conversation and sexual intimacy in your marriage.
Purchase some lovemaking coupons or make custom ones. See if he’s willing to try out a new coupon with a fresh idea each week. Make a list of locations or positions you’d like to attempt (I say attempt, because some don’t work out like you’d think…), then refer to the list when you’re ready to make love. (For more specific positions with no explicit pictures, you can check out Christian Friendly Sex Positions.)
Make a point of assessing how things are going, by letting each of you rate the new “adventure.” By the way, I’ve learned with my cooking that the best way to rate recipes is for my family not to say things like, “That was too dry” or “It was too salty” or “Blech,” but rather give a thumbs up or down on whether it’s worth repeating and provide suggestions for making it better next time. I suggest trying that with your bedroom activities. Keep things positive: Ask if it’s a repeat and talk about what you might want to tweak next time around. You might discover some adventurous activities among these ideas that he enjoys and eagerly anticipates repeating.
Pursue deeper answers if needed. If after trying to stir up the sexual fires, his flame is still burning low, you may need to dig deeper and find out why he’s not willing to do more in bed. There are a number of possibilities — ranging from low testosterone levels, to poor teachings about sex that make him feel guilty for being adventurous even with his wife, to past or current porn use that makes arousal more difficult face-to-face. If there’s an underlying reason why he isn’t more engaged in sex, you need to find why and then get on his side to help him through it.
Men typically have a tough time revealing the obstacles they’re facing and asking for help. But open a conversation and encourage him to reveal what’s going on. Let him know you are a safe place for him to dump his concerns, and that you’ll support him in figuring things out and becoming more involved and excited about your sexual intimacy.
I often counsel wives to introduce difficult topics through shoulder-to-shoulder conversation, rather than face-to-face. We women usually want to look each other in the eye, but men often reveal more when you take a side-by-side walk or drive somewhere together or just sit on the couch facing forward. Let him look somewhere else if it helps him talk through what you need to know.
If there are underlying issues preventing him from engaging, resolving those will likely open up your marriage bed to greater adventure. And if you’re the one who needs to be more adventurous in bed, here’s a post to get you started.
Now for my readers, how have you been able to increase your spouse’s sense of adventure in the marriage bed? What has worked well for you?
This reply may very well not apply to the lady who asked the original question, but I suspect that in many cases, the lingerie, the candles, the flowers, etc., that the wife uses are not meant so much to please the husband but are intended to provoke the husband to please the wife. It’s true that we men are essentially dumb, but even we can figure out from time to time that we’re being manipulated, and sometimes we resent it:. “OK, I’ve got you turned on now, so satisfy me.”
In the beginning of the marriage relationship, the husband will be so intrigued with sexual congress that the only thing the wife will need to do is make herself available. But after some years have gone by, the husband can begin to feel like he’s some sort of circus animal who’s been trained to do tricks, and when that happens lovemaking can feel like a chore to him. Do not make the mistake of thinking that he’s been satisfied just because he’s had an orgasm while he was working on you. Sometimes, the wife needs to “do” her husband just for his own sake. Simultaneous orgasms are a myth. There’s nothing wrong with taking turns pleasuring each other, and it’s actually a lot of fun!
You really do have to talk to each other. And for goodness sake, wives, never ask, “Am I good enough in bed for you, dear?” How can he possibly answer a question like that honestly? It’s like saying, “Does this dress make me look fat?” Instead, if you are sincere, ask him, “What could I do differently in order for us to have the best love life possible?” You want to help him learn to communicate with you, and that is not easy for us men! But if there’s one mortal with whom honest talk is the highest priority, it’s your spouse. Believe it or not, it often takes us men a long time, days, weeks or even more, to begin to understand our feelings enough to verbalize them coherently. Women really are more advanced socially!
I agree with so much here! But I’m going to nitpick on one little thing: “Simultaneous orgasms are a myth.” No, they happen. But they’re not all that common, and not all they’re made out to be in movies and novels, etc.
Thanks!
My husband is the higher drive but lower initiator, he always waits for me to initiate and I have gotten sick of it. So last week I told him that it was Guy’s Week and I was not even going to hint at sex all week; he had to blatantly initiate. The rules were that as long as the kids were safe and not screaming and nothing was cooking on the stove, I had to drop what I was doing if he initiated, no matter how often. It was also up to him what we did in the bedroom. It was the best week ever!!
Maybe a customized version of this challenge to this husband? Perhaps include a minimum number for that week that he has to initiate (prob 2 or 3)? Or would that turn him off altogether? The next week could then be lady’s choice where she initiates and she is in charge but he has to at least try what she wants? Or schedule his and her nights, or even take turns initiating but set a time limit where once reached you have to initiate that day? (Obviously they can be loose rules.)
It ultimately needs to be an ongoing conversation and both of them have to give a little.
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Simultaneous orgasms are a real thing. We have them together quite often. Just saying.
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