My question is how do my husband And I get back intimacy?… I’ve had a hysterectomy so no more kids. We are good with that. Our marriage “broke” 8 weeks after we married due to porn. He didn’t want sex with me anymore and preferred porn and I found dating websites he was signed up too. I was in shock! We obviously had sex again but probably only 10 times in all these years. We’ve done [counseling] on and off. We go to church. We’ve grown in faith. He says I don’t do my “duty” of sex. That makes it awkward to me. But he’s communicating about it with me which is progress. I don’t have those feelings to want him like that, mainly emotionally maybe partially from surgery…. I think the rejection and lies over the years turned me off…. How should I handle this to grow with him?

As often happens in a struggling sex life, there’s more than one challenge here:

• He got into porn so much that he preferred it (see It’s True: Porn Can Kill Your Sex Life)
• He signed up for dating sites (see 7 Steps to an Affair)
• They have a history of a sexless marriage (see Q&A with J: What Can I Do About My Sexless Marriage? Part 4)
• She has a low libido (see More on Wife’s Low Sex Drive)
• They’ve struggled to communicate about sex in the past (see How to Talk about Sexual Problems with Your Spouse)
• He’s pressuring her for “duty sex” (see Not Quite Right Messages about Sex)
• She’s been turned off by a history of lies and rejection (see Q&A with J: What Long-term Sexual Refusal Does to Your Spouse)

That’s a lot to deal with. But as usual, the way to break through is to take the next step forward, then the next, and then the next.

To the reader, there are good signs here, in that the tenor of the message makes me believe that he has stopped watching porn. You have attended counseling, go to church, and have grown in your faith. These are important steps forward that bode well for laying a better foundation, both for marriage and for sexual intimacy.

The porn needs to stay far, far away. As the question says, “He didn’t want sex with me anymore and preferred porn…” That’s one possible result of persistent porn use — a rewiring of the brain to respond more easily and consistently to imagery than real life stimulation. Many men have reported impotence problems that have stemmed from too much porn watching and self-stimulation.

Rebuilding intimacy after the porn then requires rewiring the brain back to the sensations of physical intimacy with another person. That takes time and intentionality, but those who follow through can expect far better feelings than they ever experienced with porn. Because God’s design for sex contains not only physical pleasure, but emotional and even spiritual highs that perversions of sex cannot provide.

If your husband isn’t aware of how porn has affected his sexual responses, you should do some research with him. Read An Open Letter on Porn from The Gottman Institute, Porn Can’t Deliver What We’re Created For from XXXChurch, The scary effects of pornography: how the 21st century’s acute addiction is rewiring our brains from The Telegraph, and How Porn Changes the Brain from Fight the New Drug. (By the way, three of those articles are from secular sources, so this is not merely a moral claim religious people are making. It’s science that isn’t surprising to Christians because we know God didn’t create us for porn.) By understanding what’s happening, you can then work on rediscovering sexual intimacy slowly and surely through reawakening your senses and physical pleasure.

But now, three things in particular strike me as needing to be addressed.

1. His rejection and lies.

Sex requires trust and vulnerability. If a wife doesn’t feel physically and emotionally safe, it’s difficult to engage. This is why there are so many resources stressing to husbands how important it is to woo your wife, be kind to your wife, protect your wife, and demonstrate love to her. It’s why infidelity is so hard to recover from, because it breaks trust between spouses. And it’s why building a friendship, not just a sex life, is an imperative in marriage.

Ultimately, you have to invest in the relationship, not just the marriage bed. You two need to rebuild trust in your marriage before you can rebuild trust in the bedroom. How that happens exactly is a little hard to say. It will likely require ongoing conversation, quality time together, investing in what’s important to one another, and even more counseling.

You each need an opportunity to express what would make you feel loved and safe, and then each spouse should pursue making that happen. As much as they can. Of course, your requests need to remain reasonable, but we should be pursuing the good of one another throughout marriage.

“Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else” (1 Corinthians 5:15).

2. She has a low libido.

Maybe it’s because of his rejection and lies, maybe it’s partly a result of your hysterectomy, maybe it’s just your set-point. I’m not sure why, but the lack of libido may need to be addressed. I can give you a lot of suggestions, because I do know them, but I have some really fabulous friends who specialize in helping women with low libido. So check out:

Bonny Burns at OysterBed7, who also has a workbook you can go through

Chris Taylor at The Forgiven Wife

Sheila Gregoire’s excellent Boost Your Libido course

It could be that dealing with the relationship issues reawakens your libido. However, many women who experience a prolonged time of not being sexual require purposeful effort to get their libido going again.

“Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” (Song of Songs 2:7) — and then awaken it!

3. He’s pressuring her for “duty sex.”

So look, I believe that we are obligated to have sex in marriage. Strictly speaking, it’s a bit of a duty. But you know what? “I just love having duty sex with my spouse,” said no one ever.

'I just love having duty sex with my spouse,' said no one ever. #marriage
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We sometimes cite 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 to back up the notion that your spouse owes you sex, but if you really read the passage and let it sink in, you’ll see how it stresses the mutuality of sexual intimacy in marriage:

The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

If I were in your shoes, I’d turn that around with my husband and ask how he’d feel if I told him he was duty-bound to converse with me, to take me out on a date, to give me extended foreplay — that he owed me. While there’s some truth to that, would it make him excited to engage in those activities? Wouldn’t a different appeal work better?

“Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers” (1 Peter 3:7).

Explain to your husband that you want sex to be for both of you, and focusing entirely on what he gets out of it discourages the trust and intimacy you need in your marriage bed. And believe it for yourself. See Sex Is for You Too! by Sheila Wray Gregoire and Dear Wife, You Deserve a Great Sex Life Too from Calm.Healthy.Sexy.

Does this mean you then turn him down every time? No, of course not. You do need to rebuild sexual intimacy in your marriage, but stress the need for mutual pleasure and connection. Explain that you’ll be more excited about sex with him if/when he prioritizes your experience too. And let him know what you want in bed. That can help your husband feel that you’re a willing — or even eager — partner, but you deserve to be considered in the encounter as well.

As usual, I could say more, but this post is already really long. And there’s a lot of reading material in all those links!

One final thing: I strongly suggest that you grab my devotional book, Intimacy Revealed: 52 Devotions to Enhance Sex in Marriage. And not just because the ebook happens to be on sale right now for $2.99. Rather, it’s a helpful resource in guiding you through what God says about sexual intimacy in His Word and how to align your thinking and your actions with His design for the marriage bed. Although aimed at wives, some couples have gone through the devotionals together and say they have prompted great conversations. Maybe your husband would go through Intimacy Revealed with you.

The post Q&A with J: “How Do We Get Back to Intimacy?” appeared first on Hot, Holy & Humorous.

We chatted a few weeks ago (before my “big reveal“), and the podcast recently went live. Listening to the first installment, I wasn’t sure I’d ever talked that personally about my marriage before. But I’m happy to share it with you here, because I want my experiences — bad and good — to encourage wives and marriages:

How Being Happy Saved Her Marriage with J. Parker (click title to link)

The second installment gets into my favorite subject — sex in marriage. I specifically address the issues I hear most often from wives and how we can make positive changes for our marital intimacy:

How Sex Can Be Great for Her Too with J. Parker (click title to link)

You can also head to iTunes for the Delight Your Marriage podcast there. Belah’s interviews with me are episodes 2 and 3. (By the way, don’t let the word “Explicit” scare you. It’s nothing more than I talk about here. Promise!)

Please take a listen. And may it bless your marriage!

The post Two Interviews I Hope You’ll Listen To appeared first on Hot, Holy & Humorous.

When I’ve read about how some of these studies are conducted, I admit to wondering who in their right mind would volunteer for that. For instance, one study involved women masturbating to orgasm while researchers nearby recorded their body’s responses and brain activity. Another asked female participants to “have sex” with a fake penis that had a camera on the inserted end.

Most of us gals cringe at the thought of our next mammogram or pelvic exam, so the idea of being a research participant for a sex study would be like asking us to dance in a thong at the next inaugural ball. We would never agree to that kind of exposure.

But I have news for you! You can be a research participant. You can learn a lot about your body and your sexual responses. You can learn about your husband’s body and his sexual responses. You can sign up for this research today!

Because the very best information about what works for your sex life will be discovered in your own bedroom. You and your husband will be both the research participants. No extra equipment or cameras needed. No third parties to observe you. No fear of exposing yourself and your private sex life to others.

You see, I and others can give you a lot of information about what we have discovered generally. Some things are simple fact — like the clitoris existing solely for the wife’s pleasure — but how you use those facts is something you and your spouse should explore and discover together. And the specifics of what works with your particular bodies in your particular marriage may be different from the general prescription.

Here’s an example. Most wives can more easily achieve orgasm through manual or oral stimulation of their clitoris than through vaginal intercourse. That’s a general conclusion that has been studied and found to be true. But in your marriage, it may be that you reach climax more easily through your husband’s penis making internal contact with your G-spot. You figure that out by researching with your husband what feels good.

Research (noun). Investigation or experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts, revision of accepted theories or laws in the light of new facts, or practical application of such new or revised theories or laws. Merriam-Webster.com.

I like the idea of investigating my husband and experimenting in our sexual encounters so that we can discover facts, revise what we’re doing, and apply our knowledge in a practical way. Sign me up for that research study!

Go ahead and gather knowledge about sex from reputable medical and Christian resources. I’m certainly in favor of learning anatomy and techniques that will help in building a quality sex life in your marriage. I have personally benefited from gathering and using such information, and I have committed to provide information in this blog that might help your sex life.

However, you have to test out what you learn in your own marriage. It’s okay to treat your bedroom a bit like a lab and test those theories of which touches, positions, environments, and techniques produce the results you both want in your marital intimacy. Perform your own research. Consider your findings. Apply what you’ve learned.

Volunteer for your own marital intimacy research today!

I have a feeling your spouse would enjoy being your lab partner.

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