Sex can be messy.
Some wives complain about the messiness of sex. You can put a towel underneath yourselves while you’re making love, keep wipes handy at your bedside, take a shower or bath after sex, or even use a condom if you really want to cut down on fluids.
But I like to think of the sexual experience more like art. Have you ever seen an artist’s studio? Or a preschool room where children have been finger-painting? It takes a bit of mess to create a masterpiece. You can always clean up later.
However, we wives can’t escape the law of physics: What comes up must come down.
So when your husband showers his ejaculate into your vagina, gravity demands that some will spill back out later. Even if you’re trying to get pregnant, only about 5% of his ejaculate is sperm while the other 95% is strictly semen.
Leakage can happen right after sex, when you head to the restroom to urinate and a glob of stuff comes out as well. But it can also happen the next day as you’re standing in front of a room of coworkers making a passionate presentation and you feel a sudden wetness in your undies. Seriously, could the timing be any worse?
I’m just letting you know that (1) this is completely normal, and (2) if the mess irritates you, find ways to minimize the likelihood of leakage:
- You can avoid so much coming out later if you let gravity do its thing by using the restroom and/or showering after sex.
- You can place a thin mini-pad in your panties for several hours after making love. The amount of leakage is unlikely to soak through a pad, so a small one should be sufficient.
- You can wear a menstrual cup that catches fluids. That could help if you’re needing to stand up for a while and don’t want to mess with pads.
Some of the leakage immediately after sex could also be from you. Some women have been known to ejaculate, or as some crassly call it “squirt,” during sex. I’ve written about the shejaculation experience here. But your fluids aren’t likely to comprise much of the leakage, since most of what a woman puts out comes all the way out.
One last thought, ladies: If you think this sounds supremely unfair, many men experience semen dribble after sex. It’s a bit like when you turn off the water hose and several drops plop out before the flow stops completely.
Like I said, sex can be messy.
But it’s nothing a towel, a shower, a pad, etc. can’t take care of. And you shouldn’t leak more than 24 hours after intercourse. Usually, it happens within a few hours of sex.
Do you have any of your own tips for handling leakage after sex?
Nothing that a towel and/or TP cannot take care of, or a shower if we have fun with lubricant or other gels/lotions. Personally, I don’t mind a little leakage the next day. It’s only a few drops and it makes me smile. 🙂
We bought our own set of towels to keep by the bed in a basket under the nightstand) just for sex…. it makes cleanup easy and the upside, it makes me smile when I see all them towels when I’m folding the laundry!
I was flattered when a friend specifically asked me to dinner so we could talk about sex two weeks before her wedding. One of the very first things I did was warn her about how messy it is and how she should have a towel or toilet paper or something ready. She was so confused. “It can’t really be THAT messy, can it?” I told she will understand soon enough. She texted me after her honeymoon: “Fine, you win. It’s messy. Even hours later.” So there you have it. ?
I believe a menstrual cup fits over the cervix, in which case it’s not catching any ejaculate that is in the vagina, and that would be the vast majority of it. A panty liner would be my solution.
While a cup does fit over the cervix, it definitely DOES catch ejaculate! It’s one of the things I love most about my cup. And since there is almost no risk of TSS with a silicon cup, I don’t hesitate to pop mine in after sex no matter where I’m at in my cycle.
That’s good to know! Thanks for correcting me!
We have special towels and I use panty liners.
My husband and I look at it as a “sexy secret” when we are out in public after… because we both know I have a panty liner on and we both know why.
I wish more women learned about the Semen Elimination Technique!! You can look it up — it’s a bit like reverse kegels, and it really does eliminate the majority of semen! Essential if you’re doing fertility awareness, either for contraception or to try to conceive, so you can accurately “read” cervical fluid.
We also have a drawer with our “stuff” in it — lube, condoms, and a bunch of soft, quilted flannel cloths I made before we got married. Very handy.
Can you tell me more about that technique? I tried googling, but actually couldn’t find much.
It helps if you have to urinate, but basically you sit on the toilet, urinate a little, do a kegel, and wipe, then repeat. I always say it in my head as I do it: pee, squeeze, wipe! It doesn’t get 100% but it definitely makes a huge difference compared to just letting it run out.
Sister J,
Another candid and courageous post. Thank you. This will be painful to report, but needed I fear. My church leader and saved for 50 years former wife when first married about 25 years ago used to smile at me when this leaking happened. When I was close by, she would declare softly with warmth: “memories!” Back then, our sexual celebrations were glorious. As she quickly abandoned the marriage both emotionally and sexually for her dysfunctional grown children from her first marriage and then grandchildren, the celebrations spiraled out of control to virtually nothing…and with little emotion. The last year it was only an infrequent manual function for her, and she would take a towel and with disgust now declare: “mucous.”
Abuse comes in many forms. Physical abuse by the man in marriage is maybe 1-2%. Sexual abuse through disinterest, abandonment, etc is often over 80%. I have quizzed dozens of Christian husbands one on one, and they confirm this. It’s epidemic, and the church will not, in general, preach this need for 50% of the population. Paul & Lori Byerly’s sex survey reports 80% of Christian men are in some form of deprivation….50% almost chronic.
As you know very well, the #1 way for a wife to respect her husband is the proactive, frequent, and energetic sexual celebration. A husband knows he’s loved by his wife by this. The wife needs love to respond best to sex. But all the passages in the Word that deal with marriage address the wife first…biblical code for the most influential player. You, and the other sisters who write on this, are so very needed and helpful as the alternative voice apart from the sanitized church settings. I personally have learned so very much from you all in the last 2 years, and post as much as possible on our non-profit ministry site, Walk Worthy.org
Your posts often bring me to a big smile and often a good laugh out loud as you describe what God intended in His heart…as He enjoys our enjoyment. By the way, do you have a sister that thinks, and acts, like I surmise you might do? What a blessed husband you have. 🙂 Pray for both the married and divorced men like us…
Thanks for all your kind words. I’m saddened to hear of your divorce, but encouraged by your desire for the Church to send a better message.
I am, however, reluctant to equate physical abuse with sexual neglect, because they are quite different from the testimonies I’ve seen and heard. Yet I do believe neglect is a problem in many marriages. And not just from wives to husbands, but also from husbands to wives. Too many spouses are aching for a closer physical connection with the one they love.
Thankfully, more Christians are speaking out about the importance of strengthening marriages through all aspects, including sexual intimacy. Which is obviously the topic I’ve chosen to focus on. Many blessings!
1-2%? Not even close. One in five women experiences severe domestic abuse in her lifetime. 85% of domestic violence victims are women. Nearly 20 people per minute in the U.S. are abused by a partner. Every day, more than 20,000 phone calls are placed to domestic violence hotlines.
80%? Again, not even close. Therapists estimate that 15-20% of couples have sex fewer than 10 times per year. But on average, couples have sex 85 times per year, so there are lots of people out there who are VERY sexually active in their marriages! Those numbers say that 80-85% of couples are having sex once a month or more, some of them much much more!
Approaching all this from the perspective that an imbalance of sex in a marriage is because the wife is abusively withholding sex from her poor desperate husband is really unhelpful to the many people whose relationships don’t reflect those kind of simplistic, damaging stereotypes at all.
My response of 1-2% is based on 100’s on personal interviews and 30 years in the wide circles we travel. I certainly open to your studies to see if true. The 80% is accurate from real Christians under real circumstances. The arrogance on refusing to deep deeper is never helpful and extremely damaging. The callousness of the comment belies IMO a sincere lack of compassion. Read the books stated and feel free to contact our ministry for a better prespective.
I don’t know what the exact numbers are, Marc, but I agree these percentages are suspect at the very least. Personal interviews and an online survey are not as reliable as well-developed surveys with statistical analysis applied.
Having known wives who left physically abusive marriages, I simply cannot agree that it is comparable in any way to sexual neglect. Proactive abuse is a horrible situation with extensive damage to all involved.
Brother, this has nothing to do with arrogance, callousness, or lack of compassion as you accuse me. It has to do with facts. Your interviews do not counterbalance the nationwide surveys, medical data, police reporting, and court records that bear out exactly what I’ve said: that 20% of women experience severe domestic abuse at some point in their lives, and that 20% of marriages are very low-sex. According to Christian author and researcher Dr. Jessica Cleese, in at least 1/3 of marriages where desire discrepancy is an issue, it’s the wife with the higher drive, not the husband.
OF COURSE desire discrepancy is a problem. OF COURSE it’s a sign of a hurting marriage. OF COURSE it should be addressed. But I can counter your anecdotes with statistics that encompass hundreds of thousands of people, and also with anecdotes of my own. I don’t know anyone among my married women friends who withholds sex from her husband. My church teaches and has always taught that sex is good and beautiful within marriage and that it is never to be used to punish or as a bargaining chip.
But I could say that it shows a lack of compassion on your part to dismiss the psychological torment, the gaslighting, the fear, the physical pain, the emotional anguish, and most of all the grievous SIN involved in domestic abuse, and claim that it’s of less importance than a lack of intercourse. I have seen the results of domestic abuse and I simply cannot equate a spouse (wrongfully!) withholding sex with a spouse screaming at, threatening, belittling, knocking down, slapping, shaking, cursing at, and mocking the person they swore before God to love and honor.
85 times a year?!?! On AVERAGE?!? That stat is enough to send me into a depression. Ugh. I would be thrilled if my husband loved me that much! I’m lucky if we have sex 50 times a year. My word! I knew I was a loser in the “attractive wife” department, but by that much?
Honestly, I do take care of my appearance. I don’t know why my husband doesn’t desire me the way normal husbands do. But sincerely, I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was THAT bad. It was bad enough when I first read Marc’s comment about how many of the wives who are desired by their husbands deprive them, while all I long for is to one day know what it feels like to be desired (as opposed to pacified). But then to read the follow up comment that the average couple has sex 85 times a year was like a kick in the gut.
I guess I just need to accept that we can’t all be beautiful and desireable to our husbands. When my husband tells me he loves me, he’s gotta be talking about my cooking, because he is not attracted to me sexually very often, nowhere near 85 times a year. I must be far uglier than I think I am.
And the stress excuse? Well this stat just blew that out of the water. Lots of folks are stressed, and if they can manage to have sex 85 times a year, then the stress isn’t getting in the way – so that excuse is just that – an excuse.
And I will never, ever, ever understand why my husband won’t just be honest with me and tell me what it is about me that he finds so unappealing, so I can change it – instead of acting like there isn’t a problem. If I told him most other couples have sex an average of 85 times a year he’d just get angry and tell me to stop reading blogs.
To other readers: I know a lot of background about B’s story. So I’m talking not only to this comment, but many others.
B – Stop, stop, stop the madness! In fact, maybe you need to stop reading the comment section. Because others will share issues going on their lives, but then you bring it back into your situation whether or not it applies. I don’t know about 85 times, but I do know that wherever a couple is, they can take steps in the right direction. You’ve been doing that lately, so stay on track. Take heart. Let God bring you strength, comfort, and hope! I’m pulling for you, girlfriend.
“I knew I was a loser in the “attractive wife” department, but by that much?”
This is an incredibly cruel comment and I can’t read it without commenting any more than I could keep my mouth shut if you were saying it to someone else. How can you dare to speak so callously, so hatefully to someone made in the image of God, who has TRUE beauty, not just fading outward beauty? Would you tell another woman in your position, “I know your husband SAYS it’s not about your looks, but honey, you must be UH-UH-UUGLY to him if he’s not ripping your clothes off twice a week! Seriously. He’s a filthy liar and you’re a disgusting cow.”?!? I hope anyone you spoke to like that would call you out. I suspect they’d never speak to you again.
I beg you to get right in your mind before the Lord, and to plead with him to help you see yourself TRULY and RIGHTLY. Right now, you’re just being hateful and mean and insulting to yourself. Where is that going to get you?!
Sister, please. The language you are using of yourself is unworthy of the gospel.
I’m not sure what to say right now. You defending me to myself is kind of a surreal thing.
I would never say anything like that to another woman – a. Because it wouldn’t be true and b. Because I’m actually a lot nicer and kinder than you think I am. I don’t speak these things aloud, because it’s downright shameful for others to know your husband is only pretending to love you and isn’t that interested in having sex with you (and he doesn’t have a porn issue or a girlfriend, so the only excuse is I’m just not good enough for him). It’s much easier to share what I’m going through anonymously.
Let’s look at this logically :
How many articles/comments are there about men who want more sex with their wives? TONS.
How many articles/comments are there about women who wish their husbands didn’t want sex so much (and often they see his loving pursuit as a negative thing)? LOTS.
How many articles/comments are there about wives who want more sex with their husbands? A FEW.
How many articles/comments are there about men who wished their wives didn’t want sex so much? ZERO.
See my point?
Which means the only logical explanation for my situation is a husband that does not love me the way a man who truly loves his wife loves her, or, he finds me completely repulsive.
So you can see, I’m not saying these things about myself to be mean, I am just trying to understand the problem and find a reason for it. It’s actually much easier for me to be realistic and face the harsh reality, than to fluff myself into thinking I’m good enough and oh it’s just “stress”. People use stress as an excuse for EVERYTHING.
Actually, I don’t think your reasoning is entirely logical. Let me go down your points with my own answers:
How many articles/comments are there about men who want more sex with their wives? QUITE A FEW. AND IT’S A COMMON THEME IN OUR SOCIETY.
How many articles/comments are there about women who wish their husbands didn’t want sex so much (and often they see his loving pursuit as a negative thing)? TOO MANY. BUT THERE ARE AN INCREASING NUMBER OF ARTICLES/COMMENTS FROM WOMEN WANTING SEXUAL PLEASURE FOR THEMSELVES.
How many articles/comments are there about wives who want more sex with their husbands? ONCE AGAIN, AN INCREASING NUMBER. IT’S ALSO REFLECTED IN THE EMAILS I GET FROM HIGHER-DRIVE WIVES. IN FACT, THE ANONYMITY OF THE INTERNET HAS SHED LIGHT ON THIS PROBLEM AS WOMEN WHO WOULD NOT HAVE SPOKEN UP FACE-TO-FACE NOW HAVE SOMEPLACE TO GO AND TALK ABOUT THIS SCENARIO. INDEED, EXPERTS NOW BELIEVE THAT 15-25% OF MARRIAGES HAVE HIGHER-DRIVE WIVES.
Do you hear that, B? That’s up to one in four marriages where the wife wants more sex than the husband.
How many articles/comments are there about men who wished their wives didn’t want sex so much? VERY FEW, BECAUSE MEN HAVE BEEN RELUCTANT TO ADMIT THIS PUBLICLY. SOME OF THEM FIND THE ISSUE FRUSTRATING THEMSELVES; OTHERS FEEL THIS SITUATION PUTS INTO QUESTION THEIR “MAN CARD”; AND GENERALLY SPEAKING, MEN ARE LESS LIKELY TO SEEK OUTSIDE HELP FOR MEDICAL AND RELATIONSHIP ISSUES. BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S NOT HAPPENING, AND LOW-DRIVE HUSBANDS ARE STARTING TO LOOK FOR ANSWERS TOO.
Finally, yes, yes, yes — it can really, truly, honestly could be stress. I don’t know that it is. However, let me take an example from my own life: I’m the higher-drive spouse. Except that Spock and I recently returned from a week-long cruise where he was the higher-drive spouse. What happened? He was removed from the stresses of his workplace and demands on his time. Nothing else changed.
B, I’ve said it before and I pray I don’t have to say it again, you are calling your husband a liar every single time you think and speak like this. He tells you why he has low drive. You refuse to believe him, and badger him to tell you the TRUTH, which you believe you know. You think you know your husband’s mind better than he knows it himself. You assume your thought processes are so superior to his, and that he’s so stupid, deceitful, or immoral that he can’t even or doesn’t want to admit his “true” reasons according to you. That is INCREDIBLY unkind, harsh, and judgmental. So not only are you speaking and thinking in this hateful way about yourself, you’re speaking and thinking harshly and unkindly about your husband.
Now I don’t for a minute think that you’re doing this intentionally. But intentions are almost nothing, IMO — it’s the effect our thoughts and actions have on others that matter. You are, effectively, continually undermining your husband’s stated opinion of you (“I love you!” “No you don’t, or you would do this thing I want!”), his reasons for not being in the mood (“I’m tired and stressed.” “No you’re not, it’s because you hate me and I’m ugly!”), his very identity as a man (“It’s not you, I’m just exhausted!” “But every other husband wants his wife all the time!”).
Again, I don’t think this is your intention. But do you not see how your stubborn clinging to this view of yourself as hideous and undesirable, your refusal to see that you’re just one of quite a large group of women who want more sex than their husband rather than a freak, actually turns agains your husband? It is a constant accusation against him — that he is a liar, a freak, not a real man, too stupid to know his own mind!
You are sabotaging the health of your marriage, dear sister. I beg you, learn your value as a dear and precious daughter of the God who reached down through time to rescue you.
Where’s the ‘like’ button on this thing!? 🙂
Ya know, B, you really need to get over yourself girlfriend! Stop the pity party already, it’s gone on long enough!
You are your own worse enemy! You are allowing your own negative self-talk to destroy yourself. I don’t think it’s your husband who finds you unattractive — I think it’s you!
Let me tell you about myself, and hopefully you hear my words and actually listen without turning it all around to you.
I lived in an abusive marriage for 20 years of my life, starting when I was a naive 24-year-old. I married a man who I knew watched porn before we got married and now realize he probably still did through our marriage, but I was either blind to it or just too naive to know better. Not ONCE in 20 years did this man ever try to bring me pleasure sexually. Not ONCE! I was told early on how it was my ‘problem’. Now there’s a man who did NOT love his wife and who actually told me on occasions and made me feel most of the time I was unattractive. He wanted sexually what he saw in porn and was very selfish not only sexually but in all areas of his life.
Fast forward to 5 years ago when I remarried after finally getting out of that first marriage. I’ve been given the opportunity to experience a healthy marriage and it is like night and day compared to my first one.
My husband loves me to the moon and back! And I know he does. But my husband is also content with sex once a week. I can literally count on one hand how often we have sex in a month. And while I did struggle with this for a long time as is evident in my comments over the past few years here and on other marriage blogs, I finally realized that true change was only going to occur if I finally spoke up and shared my feelings. I stopped telling myself that perhaps I wasn’t attractive enough for him, that I wasn’t sexually exciting enough for him, etc etc etc. And I finally started believing the TRUTH which is my husband is exhausted from horribly long work hours and being gone a lot during the week, but him not wanting to make love every.single.day or even more than a couple times a week had and has NOTHING to do with me! I would love to have sex more often and at times I crave it, but I have to look at the reality of our lives and right now anyway, there just isn’t more time in the week. So I make sure to tell him often how much I love him and he does that for me too, and we cuddle on the couch while watching tv, hold hands everywhere we go and keep that connection alive in those ways too. And I open my mouth and communicate my feelings to him. If I really want to make love I tell him and then we often do.
AND one of the best pieces of advice I can give you — graciously accept compliments he gives you and say thank you. Believe him when he tells you how beautiful you are. Don’t make him feel like a liar or after a while he may, if he hasn’t already, stop giving you compliments. Why would you continue to tell someone something when all they do is dismiss you and not want to believe what you’re saying??
So stop acting like you have some major problem, sit down and have a open conversation with your husband, and start enjoying the man whom God gave to you. Sex is great and we do need to nurture it in our marriages, but perhaps your focus has become so much about what you’re NOT getting that you’re missing out on all the other ways your husband is showing you love.
Life is too short to be so miserable. Choose to be happy and honestly, you may start to see some changes in your marriage.
🙂
I wanted to add to my comment above.
I am a higher drive wife just like you, B, and many other women. I feel your pain of reading marriage blogs in which many are only written to the low drive wife and husbands galore come out of the wood work to talk about how much they desire their wives and yet their wives don’t want sex with them very often. I actually get so upset when reading stuff like that because we don’t fit that profile.
So, I made a decision — not to read these blogs much any more and if I do to take what is said from both the blogger and the commenters with a grain of salt knowing that my husband and I are unique to our marriage alone. And just because we don’t have sex 85 times a year and maybe even under 60 times a year, doesn’t mean we are abnormal or that I’m not attractive enough for him or he has some porn problem.
So I get how you feel let down, hurt and maybe even downright angry sometimes that your husband is not showing a strong desire to have sex with you on a more regular basis. It hurts to feel we have to ask more often than he does or that the cute sexy little outfit we put on special for him doesn’t seem to have any affect or that he’d rather watch another tv show than make love. Yeah, I get it, I get the hurt, I get the pain.
But I finally learned something, that I could either wear myself out being upset over what wasn’t happening or I could communicate my feelings and start taking steps to improving that part of our marriage. And I can tell you, there is a difference in our marriage and even our sex life because I made the choice to start believing my husband when he tells me I’m beautiful instead of thinking to myself “yeah, right! If I’m so beautiful why don’t I turn you on to where you want sex more often??” I made the choice speak up if I’m wanting to make love instead of stewing over the fact he only seems interested in watching tv. I made the choice to embrace the one day a week we may have instead of being so upset by the time it arrives because he hasn’t seemed interested in sex all week and then I can’t even enjoy our time together.
I made the choice to think differently, to share what I want and desire and to be happy in my marriage. And believe me, I’m not saying to ignore something that may be an issue, I’m saying to work on the things which can be changed and to acknowledge those things which can’t be but you can find a compromise on.
I can’t change my husband’s work schedule, but I can let him know how much I desire him and embrace the time we do have together. And in doing this we are both so much happier because honestly, when I was so upset my husband was not real happy either.
I pray you find some answers to your situation and some mutual ground in which both you and husband both feel fulfilled and loved.
@a. nony and @Amy,
I have thought quite a while about this reply. I can see I should not have shared my struggle, because all it does is make other people angry. It is counterproductive of people to imply – oh you need to learn to love yourself, but don’t share how you’re feeling because you’re feelings don’t matter and you are always wrong.
[Edited out a portion here.]
@a. nony, many of the things you said I say to my husband, I have in fact, never said. You are making assumptions. Do I feel those things? Yes. Do I say them aloud to him. No.
Yes, I have asked him what he would like me to change in order that I might be more attractive to him. He always says “nothing” which we both know is a lie. He loves brunettes. Every time his head snaps in public and his eyes light up the way I wish they would when he looks at me, it’s a tiny brunette that he’s noticed. Now I can’t shrink my height six inches, but I could certainly get my hair dyed brown. But whenever I suggest that he gets mad. I’m sure it’s because he doesn’t feel I’m good enough or pretty enough to deserve to be a brunette.
There are millions of good men who love and desire their wives who are nowhere near supermodel attractive. Maybe to their husbands they are, and that’s how it should be. So if millions of men find their average wives beautiful, and yet my husband has very little interest in me sexually, that tells us I must be at the bottom of the barrel. That’s okay, I guess. We can’t all be number one. I just wish I ranked in my husband’s eyes.
Our marriage is backwards in almost every way. Even what this article is about. The messiness of sex doesn’t bother me. I don’t even see it as messiness, I see it as love and a happy reminder of what happened. My husband thinks it’s gross and has to jump up and clean up right away. That makes me feel as though he thinks I’m gross.
Rest assured, I’m not stupid enough to say that out loud, I know not to complain and make him feel bad, but it makes me feel like when he is with me he just finds it disgusting.
[Edited out a few sentences here.] I’m sorry if my sadness irritates you. There is no safe place in this world to share my feelings. I will work harder to stuff them deeper inside and paste a smile on my face so I don’t make anyone else uneasy.
I thought long and hard and prayed about how to handle this comment from B. I’ve communicated with her outside this interaction here, so rest assured, this is not all I’m saying. But I did decide to let through what I could.
@a.nony and @Amy – I believe your comments were entirely intended to boost B into a better place. And for that, I thank you. This is clearly a difficult situation, and I pray that you will not take personally anything said here. From my own memories, I know that sometimes you can be in such a dark place, it’s hard to hear what others are saying and take to heart their honest, well-meaning words. I think that’s where B is. Let’s keep reaching out, and I hope we can all be praying about this scenario and others.
Blessings – J.
B,
I can only speak for myself of course, but I’m not angry because you share your struggle nor do I imply that your feelings are wrong.
Simply trying to help you understand that you are not alone. There are many of us wives out there who crave more sexual intimacy than we are getting with our husbands AND it is easy to take it personally.
Now I certainly do not know you or your husband, nor do I know the dynamics of your marriage…perhaps there is a lot more going on than what you write about.
What I gather from your comments is that your husband does love you, tells you he finds you attractive, but you do not believe any of that because he does not desire sex as frequently as you do.
So based on your comments, I truly believe you are being too hard on yourself and you are not giving your husband enough credit when he tells you he loves you for you and you are attractive to him. Of course he gets mad if you ask him what you can change about yourself because it sounds like from what you write that he DOES tell you how beautiful you are to him. So you wanting to change yourself does say to him you don’t believe his words. And that has to be very frustrating for him.
Look, only you can make the decision to change how you think about yourself and how you respond to your husband. You’ve dug yourself into this place where you honestly don’t want to hear what anyone has to say in response to your comments yet you still continue to post the same thing over and over.
Tony Robbins once said, “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.”
Read the Psalms, pray for God to open your eyes to the truth of your husband’s words, and choose to believe you are beautiful just for you. And if there is something more happening in your marriage which makes you feel unsafe please get help.
Your sadness does not irritate me at all, it makes my heart hurt for you. As I’ve said, I’ve come out of a 20 year abusive marriage and know very well pain and darkness in marriage.
Prayers for you…
Oh B, dear sister. Come on. Nobody is trying to tell you to paste on a fake smile for the sake of others’ feelings. You don’t irritate me, I read what you write and it breaks my heart — it saddens me so deeply that you don’t believe your husband when he says he loves you.
I could rehash everything, but you’re hurting and sad. I pray for you as often as I remember you, that God would lift up your head to see the work that he is doing in and through you and your husband, that you would have hope in your loving Father, that you would trust your husband and be able more and more to rejoice in your marriage.
Sex is messy. Marriage is messy. Always.
I was listening to Chuck Swindoll on the car radio today, and he told the story of two porcupines in the Canadian wilderness who slept together in winter to keep warm. But they kept poking each other, so they moved apart. Then they got cold, and they moved back together. Then they kept getting poked . . . . ad infinitum.
Swindoll’s application was to the local church, but I immediately thought of marriage. Couples tend to poke one another. This is the Lord’s way of teaching us to be kind and gracious.
For instance, some husbands find giving oral sex to their wives disgusting. After all, kissing her “down there” isn’t as appealing as kissing on the lips: “Your lips and mine/Two sips of wine . . .” is ain’t. Cunnulingus is a powerful, intimate act of love that takes some getting used to, but for many a wife it may be the only way to bring her to orgasm. So ladies, if you find yourself bothered by the messiness of leaking, or of his penis dripping with your juices after intercourse, thank God for another opportunity to learn to accept yourself and each other as “one flesh . . . naked and not ashamed.” Maybe you could even laugh about this as you shower together afterward.
Eric
A cloth or disposable panty liner is sufficient. And then just enjoy the reminder of the great time you had!
Good for you for writing about this. I sure could have used this info 12 years ago when I got married.
Some commenter wrote on some site that I was reading: “Sex IS messy – If it’s not, you’re not doing it right!”
When my wife would leak, which wasn’t very often, we would joke, “There we go again – making love like a couple of amateurs.”
She didn’t like laying in it so we would switch places and, once it was warmed up, I couldn’t tell it was there. The sheets would be washed the next day.
Easy solution, marry a man who’s had his prostate reduced, and has retrograde ejaculation. No mess other than his sometimes very profuse Cowper’s fluid. No worries about OS, either. For the men who worry about their post-prostate lives, he does indeed ‘O’.
Interesting.
Some commentator wrote on some site that I was reading: “Sex IS messy – If it’s not, you’re not doing it right!”
I have to disagree. We have had sex for more 3 decades and never needed a towel. And I do believe that we were doing it right (not very often but nevertheless doing it right).
“However, we wives can’t escape the law of physics: What comes up must come down.”
I chuckled at this line — cause while it’s true for women, it’s also true for men. In a different way, of course.
Me? I haven’t really minded the mess. The next day I’ll notice some leaking, but it isn’t intrusive to my life or anything. I certainly haven’t lost sleep over it!