Hot, Holy & Humorous

A Prayer for Higher-Drive Wives

Blog post title + female praying handsThose of you who read my blog often know that I have a tender spot for higher-drive wives. They aren’t the majority of wives, but rather represent 15-30% of marriages. However, that’s still millions of women! And unfortunately, a lot of marriage resources presume a higher-drive husband and a lower-drive wife, leaving couples that don’t align with this expectation feeling like abnormalities or even freaks.

Today, as part of my Saturday prayer series, I want to offer a prayer for higher-drive wives to bring their concerns before God. Lower-drive wives, I promise to write a prayer for you as well soon.

Dear Lord,

It’s hard to have a higher libido than my husband. At times, I feel like I’m not good enough or that something is wrong with me.

When I undress, he doesn’t pause and gaze the way I wish he would. When I initiate, he sometimes postpones or even dismisses my advances. While I long to be sexually intimate with him more frequently, he doesn’t feel this burning desire to be with me. And while it leaves me physically feeling empty at times, more often my heart is wounded.  I ache to have all the things You, Perfect Creator, designed sex in marriage to be — experiencing pleasure, deepening intimacy, and expressing covenant love.

Lord, lift me up into Your arms and comfort me. Give me Your eyes to see myself and my marriage as You see them. Help me to feel deep down that I am beautiful, worthy, desirable.

You, Lord, knit me together in my mother’s womb and created my inmost being, which includes a healthy sex drive. I will not denounce or discourage my higher libido, because You placed that in me and Your works are wonderful, including our sexuality (Psalm 139:13-14).

Likewise, help me to accept where my husband is with his sexuality. He is also Your creation. If there are obstacles keeping him from desiring and enjoying sex, please help me to support him in discovering and addressing those issues. Give me wise words and loving actions that unite us in facing our challenges together.

Take away the negative feelings I sometimes have toward him and replace them with Your view of this man, your son. Remind me of all the good in him and the love we share. Strengthen me to be his helper and partner, as you intended me to be (Genesis 2:18).

Soften my husband’s heart so that he can see my desire to support him, to grow closer, and to thrive in our marriage. Help him to overcome his own insecurities about having a lower drive and to pursue a better sex life for both of us and our marriage.

Help me to always communicate that my husband is all man to me — the man I love — and that his sex drive is only one part of him. But let him also see that sexual intimacy is a blessing You want us to have in our marriage, regularly and enthusiastically.

Awaken our physical love for one another and show us both how to drink not only to end our thirst, but to be intoxicated with love (Song of Songs 8:4, 5:1).

Lord, sometimes I don’t initiate well and my frustration can come through in my tone or my facial expressions. Calm my heart, give me Your joy and peace, and grant me the right words to invite him to our marriage bed (see Song of Songs 7:11-13). And in those moments, Father, I ask that you awaken his physical desire for sexual intimacy.

When sex doesn’t happen, keep me from storing up resentment in my heart. For I know that godly love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Instead, help me to trust, hope, and persevere in pursuing the best for my marriage (1 Corinthians 13:7).

Keep me from making comparisons and thus coveting what others have (Exodus 20:7). It’s hard when wives around me talk about their husbands desiring sex more often than they do, when my own husband doesn’t seem to have this strong desire. But You, my God, know the state of my marriage, the secrets of our hearts, the hope of our future. Calm my anxious thoughts and help me to respond in ways that aid marriages, including my own.

Surround me with the support I need — the right resources, the encouragement of others, the wisdom of mentors. Speak through them to me, so that I know what steps to take and remain on the right path.

Lord, above all, bring to mind how Your own son Jesus knew rejection, even from those closest to Him. Yet He always pursued Your truth and your glory, and never His own selfish aims or insecurities. My husband is not rejecting me as the Messiah was rejected, but his actions have brought me emotional pain. Let my response be Christ-like. Mold me into His image. 

When I waver in my resolve, in my positive outlook, wrap your arms around me tighter, dear Father.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

13 thoughts on “A Prayer for Higher-Drive Wives”

  1. Thank you for this. It is true that most blogs assume it is the wife that is the lower drive spouse so they give tips and encouraging words on how to overcome and higher drive wives are unable to identify with the ‘solutions’ when a man is uninterested in being intimate it stops the show…lol but if a woman is uninterested she can ‘get in the mood’ and her husband wouldn’t know the difference. It’s frustrating.

  2. It’s beautiful. Thank you for the prayer and for recognizing this issue in many marriages.

  3. I’m right here too. My drive is even higher yet when I’m pregnant (just had #3 in 2.5 years), but hubby’s not attracted to me when I’m big and prego. 🙁 Desperately trying to lose weight right now without affecting my milk supply.

    1. Not attracted? Or just not sure about having sex with you while you’re pregnant? Because some men do become standoffish during that time, but I don’t know that it’s physical attraction so much as other things interfering. Be careful with your health! Hang in there.

  4. Thanks for this, J. I’m not struggling with it right now as much, but I’ve felt like a freak for years because I’m a high-drive woman. I’ve felt like that in general, but especially in Christian circles, when so many women pride themselves on their low drive, and gripe about their husbands for his wanting sex. I remember talking in women’s small groups about how I actually do want my husband, and getting told repeatedly, “Just wait till you’re married a few years, you’ll feel like we do.” God, I pray not! I read your blog and a couple others sometimes, and you’re one of the few that addresses high-drive women. Thanks for this!

    1. I got told that too. That’s a terrible message to tell a wife, and I think it’s part of our desire to relate to each other so much that we want to commiserate. Sad.

      I’ve personally experienced seasons when my drive was quite low, but I’ve never stopped enjoying sex and my drive bounced back up. It’s a good thing for my marriage, and I believe it can good for yours too. Many blessings!

  5. this prayer reflects what both sexes have in common the pain of rejection .
    It does not matter from which side of the bed it came from.
    It turns out that both feel not good enough worthy enough or valued enough.
    In a situation where cherished should be the normal not the rarity.

  6. Thank you so much for this prayer. It’s perfect and beautiful and expresses so much of my heart. The first few months of our marriage were rough — I just couldn’t fathom why my husband didn’t want to have sex very often and I felt so rejected and unlovely. We’ve worked through a lot and things are much better — his drive is even increasing! Prayer has been key, and this one is wonderful. Thank you!!

  7. This is a beautiful prayer, and one that I should be praying. I need to just tell myself to shut up, and I need to read this prayer over and over and try to absorb it. To push out my own negative thoughts.

    But I feel like I’m not quite good enough or worthy to pray it.

    Especially these two parts:
    “Help me to feel deep down that I am beautiful, worthy, desirable.”
    I kinda don’t think that’s going to happen. It’s a nice thought, but it would be like praying “help me to become the best NFL quarterback ever.” Yes, all things are possible. But is that really ever going to happen? Most likely not. I wasn’t created to be those things. If I were beautiful, worthy, desireable – or any one of those things – my husband and I probably wouldn’t have these issues.

    And then…
    “You, Lord, knit me together in my mother’s womb and created my inmost being, which includes a healthy sex drive. I will not denounce or discourage my higher libido, because You placed that in me and Your works are wonderful, including our sexuality”
    Yikes! I have prayed a hundred times for God to take away my sex drive. I see it as a curse. I long to be low drive, or no drive, with a husband who is far more interested in me. I get it that I am incredibly selfish. But I would much rather be low drive with a husband who found me attractive enough to pursue, than to have this high drive that just frustrates both of us. As of yet, God has not answered my prayer to have my sex drive disappear. Although it would definitely make my husband much happier and make me feel less ugly (inside and out), God must have other plans. I’m trying to accept that.

    But yes, this is a beautiful prayer. I’ll keep reading it. Maybe someday I’ll feel able to pray it. I want to pray it, but I’d feel like I’m lying because I don’t agree 100% with what it asks for. I know I should agree, but the stubborn and hurting parts of me don’t agree.

    1. Fake it ’til you make it. Which sounds a little deceptive, but in this case it’s more like deciding to agree with God, even when we struggle to accept His plan. I hope this prayer helps you! Blessings, B.

  8. So I’ve been struggling with this for days now. Reading this prayer, re-reading it, wanting to pray it, feeling unworthy of praying it, understanding it, being upset that I need to pray it, having weak faith, wondering if there’s any point to praying it, getting mad at myself for wondering that, knowing it would be worth a try, fighting against it, and so on and so on and so on.

    And then today, in my inbox, I got my daily devotion by Dr. Charles Stanley. And the last paragraph said this:
    “Do you live in eager expectation of what the Lord will do? Or have you chosen to linger in the depths of despair? Like Nehemiah, turn your disappointment into a petition for God’s help. He can restore your hope and prevent negative emotions from gaining a stranglehold on your life.”

    Wow. If that’s not encouragement to pray this prayer, I don’t know what is.

  9. closertotheheart

    This is a beautiful prayer! I am a high drive husband, and I found my eyes welling up as I read through it. I need this prayer. I copied it, then edited it to be appropriate for a husband to pray. I hope you don’t mind. Thank you.

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