I agree that some husbands turn to pornography when they feel sexual needs are not being met in their marriage. And that wives can help fight that temptation by building a healthy sexual relationship with their husbands. Many people indeed turn to sin when they feel something is missing in their lives, and filling that hole can go a long way toward keeping us on the right path.

However, a lot of men enter marriage already having extensive exposure to porn. That colors their view of how sex should occur in their marriage. And when things are not going well, some don’t simply turn toward pornography, they turn back to it.

This prior exposure and the high prevalence of porn also feeds into situations I hear about — like a wife can’t get her husband interested in sex because watching porn is easier than engaging with a real-life woman, or a happily married man still maintains a secret addiction to porn.

Point is — there are many reasons why people turn to porn. Like you, I encourage wives to do everything they can to foster healthy sexual intimacy (for their husbands and for themselves). I also suggest husbands take responsibility for the choices they make, because it’s ultimately their choice, and get help if pornography has that kind of intense pull.

Thanks for your comment!

Now, porn is wrong and evil comes out of indulging in the use of it, but I believe most men turn to it as the alternative to turning to another woman to have sexual needs met. Eventually porn is likely to lead one to turn to someone other than their spouse, but initially it never appears as a way to that end.

There’s so much asking, entreating, serving, loving, whining, and complaining any man can take without feeling unheard unrewarded and unloved. I dare say men resort to porn easier when their sexual needs are being met with what is perceived as insensitivity on the part of their wives. The wives are for the most part clueless about negligence on their own part till the actions of their husband has evolved into habit. Habits can be hard to break and bad habits degenerate into worse things fast.

I encourage all wives to be more active in paying attention to their husbands and husbands to provide better quality to their wives in the bedroom and out of it.

I agree with that entirely! Thanks so much, e2. All the best to you and your wife!

J,

You’re absolutely right; we men are 100% responsible for what we choose to look at. Not for a second was I trying to shift blame or responsibility to wives for their men’s viewing choices. But, my wife is my helper in life, and she helps me by not bringing Victoria’s Secret catalogs into the house. She helps me by respecting my confession that her “teenage makeout TV show” was hard for me to watch. By helping me avoid the temptation, she has shown me a lot of love and respect.

My wife was also fairly controlling early in our marriage. Her expectation was if I wasn’t at work I’d be with her. She didn’t want me spending time with my guy friends anymore because, if I loved her, she reasoned, I’d only want to spend time with her.

Her controlling attitude struck a cord with me and I felt like a child most days. This was a complete turnoff sexually. Combine that with believing anything other than intercourse was off-limits and I simply didn’t enjoy sex. My wife wanted sex two or three times a week and thought something was wrong with one of us after hearing how much men always wanted sex, yet I didn’t. Sex was always on her terms and she found the mess disgusting and employed methods to control that, too. I became a gatekeeper/moderate refuser for the first 8 or so years of our marriage. It had nothin to do with pornography or a low-drive, but with lots of miscommunication, poor teaching growing up, and poor pre-marital counseling. It took years before we began to figure things out and now have a healthy, robust sex life.

By the way, this is also why I constantly tell wives to stop expecting their husbands to read their minds and speak up already! So much confusion could be avoided if we spouses would speak with truth and kindness when it comes to sexual intimacy. And then have more of it. 😉

L.L.

You wonder what your husband’s initiation would be like if he initiated. I imagine he does as well. We men are terrified of failure, especially sexual failure. We’re terrified of doing it wrong, and we’ve read and heard from enough women (in books, blogs, etc.) to know that its very easy for us to do it wrong. We can be too direct, too fast, too slow, too rough, too gentle (before I was married, I had two girlfriends complain that my kisses were too gentle; my wife complains that they’re too passionate), not verbal enough, too verbal. If I’ve learned one thing from reading J’s blog, it’s that every human being is different and what one woman craves another woman recoils from. And, people change over time so that what worked a few years ago doesn’t work today. We guys often feel like we’re constantly trying to read our wives and constantly getting it wrong. Right now, he’s in a very comfortable place. He wants it all the time (I fully believe he does). You make love three times a week (yippee!!!!) and he has absolutely no fear of initiating wrong or wondering if you’re in the mood. I really like Libl’s suggestion to tell your husband that you’d like him to initiate *and* that you will always say “yes.” If I could add one other suggestion, it would be that you reassure him verbally that, no matter how he initiates, he can’t do it wrong.

You are right, but if it is going through the motions so that actual connection doesn’t happen. It feels cold and distant. Then to have the conversation turn toward that I shouldn’t complain about our physical intimacy. I miss my wife, not sex. I would rather spend more time and have less frequent, but more meaningful encounters.