Hard Things to Hear #6: Lady, It’s Not About You!

(This is the sixth of a seven-part series; here are the links to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 7.)

In John 6:60, some objected to what Jesus was saying: “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”. While I’m not Jesus, there are some who will attest that I provoke the same reaction. Might be what I’m saying, but it’s possible it might be my manner. Be that as it may, I’m going to pull rank and lay some things on the line in the next few posts. I’m going to present some things that might be hard to hear, but trust me; forty-three years of marriage is coming at ya!

Last week, I laid into clueless, selfish husbands who refused to learn how to be lovers to their wives. I have read so many anti-testimonies from wives whose husbands have been clueless gits and treated sex as if it was simply a guy thing. You don’t know how good it felt to say some of the things I said in my last post. Unfortunately, too many guys get their ideas about sex from other bell-ends like themselves, and so know nothing about their obligations in marriage.

“Is There Not A Clue”?

So, for this post, I turn my focus on wives. I’m going to be as charitable toward wives as I was to the husbands, and assume that most wives are not intentionally mean and cruel, but are, like the husbands I chewed out last post, merely clueless. Clueless? About what?

About just how important sex is to most men. For some reason, wives can downplay the importance of sex as a expression of love. I can’t begin to tell you how often I have read statements demonstrating that wives don’t get what the deal is with their husbands and sex. “After all, it’s just sex, right?”

Let me ask you something, seriously, not Curmudgeonly. If you are a Christian, do you believe the Bible when it says that God created man and woman, male and female? If so, do you believe that you know better than God about how men work, how the male body and mind function? Do you believe that God needs to consult you about re-formatting men so that testosterone is deleted from their systems?

Another serious question – did God make a mistake in giving your husband his libido, his sex drive? If you are a Christian, and you are a wife, is it incumbent upon you to accept that, maybe, just maybe, there is nothing wrong with your husband’s desire to have sex with you, his wife? Or do you feel that your husband is your mission field, and that it is your life’s work to destroy that demon of lust in the less-Christian husband that God has made?

Here It Is, At Last! A Clue!

This clue is not found in the Bible, nor does it come from some great Christian writer. This quote is from a woman who is not a Christian, but gleaned her knowledge attained by careful observation. For those of you who think that there is something wrong with your husbands, please read this carefully, and think upon on the ramifications it has for your marriage:

Women will try to do a lot of other things to ADD UP TO what sex provides for a man. But she doesn’t know that all of these things will NEVER add up to what sex provides for a man. ~ Alison Armstrong

Is this you? You believe your husband knows he is loved because
• you have his children,
• you clean the house,
• you do the laundry,
• you do the cooking,
• you do the shopping,

But you DON’T do him. So he knows he’s loved…. how?

reworking of a graphic by The Forgiven Wife.

You are a marvelous wife. You’re a Prov. 31 wife. But are you telling your husband that you love him, or that you really don’t think much about him. Chris Taylor, over at Forgiven Wife, has assembled a collection of anti-testimonies by hurting husbands:

~ The woman I married is one of the finest women around. Anyone would be lucky to have her for a friend. But you would be as lonely as me if she were your lover.
~ What is so wrong with me that my wife, who married me, doesn’t want me?  How do I go out into my profession and interact with people I don’t know and expect them not to reject me?
~ Refusal tells me that not only am I unloved, but that I am worthless.
~ There’s nothing worse than lying in bed while your listening to your spouse sleep and breath while you’re awake and the mind is racing and you’re praying to God, “Please just end this already. I just can’t take it anymore!”

As I sit here writing this, an obscure quote just popped into my head. I am a chessplayer, a life member of the U. S. Chess Federation, and having played in both postal and over-the-board tourneys, I know chess and chessplayers. Reading the quotes on Forgiven Wife’s page reminded of something that Bobby Fischer, the greatest chess champion ever, once said. When asked what his favorite part of chess was, he responded,

“I like the moment when I break a man’s ego.” 

Can you read those anti-testimonies on that page and see that everyone of those writers has been Bobby Fischer-ed by his wife?

A Way Out? Up? Back? (Your choice)

As I said above, I’m going to assume that many wives are just clueless, and not ego-crushing Bobby Fischers in drag. If you find yourself realizing that your husband could have written one of those anti-testimonies, you might be asking yourself, “Can anything be done to fix this, to heal the wounds I’ve inflicted?” Thankfully, the answer is “Yes!”

Two years ago, a pastor’s wife wrote a message on a marriage forum telling how she realized that, for nearly 20 years, she had damaged her marriage and her husband through sexual throttling. She decided, on the spot, that she would turn it around, and began posting monthly updates in order to have a body of mentors who would keep her feet to the fire, so to speak. Her one-month post (just one month after her decision) was a list of changes that her marriage experienced due to her decision to not refuse sex with her husband. Wives, please read these three entries from that post (presented with her permission, btw):

7.  We are much more physical during the day with holding hands, hugs, kisses, back rubs, etc.  I no longer have to worry about that my “actions” will lead him to thinking about sex, it is already a given.
8.  There’s a lot less tension, arguing or snapping at each other.
13.  We have laughed together a lot more.  We’ve had several times where we both have had that belly achin’, cheek achin’ laugh.  That has been a rarity in our marriage.

So, it can be done. The testimony of many wives tells you that it can be done. So how? Move your eyes to the right of the screen, and find the section of my sidebar labelled “Christian Marriage and Sexuality”, and you will find links to several great blogs.

The Forgiven Wife ~ Chris Taylor’s blog has the tagline, “Learning To Dance With Desire“, and this is the quick “about” on her page: “The mission of The Forgiven Wife is to encourage Christian wives as they break away from sexual withholding and gate-keeping. After 20 years of restricting the sex life in my marriage, I have learned to dance with desire and enjoy the full intimacy that comes with passionate and joyful sex with my husband.”

Bonny’s Oysterbed ~ Bonny’s mission is “Encouraging the low-libido wife through a Christian lens”. Last year, Bonny wrote one post a week on helping wives to deal with low libido, and has now gathered those posts into a book, Unlock Your Libido.

Hot, Holy and Humorous ~ J. Parker deals with all things “christian marriage” and with a sense of humor that would get her thrown off of many a deacon board.

The XY Code ~ This is written by a man, who explains men to women. Trust me, ladies; your husbands are every bit as complex as you are. And should you think that this entire post is off the beam, that what I say doesn’t apply to your husband, I challenge you to read Paul Byerly’s  past posts to check up on me. See just how far off I am.

A Personal Word

Several years ago, after our “Come To Jesus” meeting, Wife read Dr. Laura’s Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands. She told me that even though we had been married 40 years, she hadn’t realized just how important, how necessary, sex is to husbands, as an expression of love. She told me that she had, like so many wives (maybe even you?), just viewed sex as something physical, often fun. But love? No way!

Wives, read. Just as I told husbands to read and learn to be lovers to their wives, I’m going to tell you to do the same thing. Read those anti-testimonies, and then look for resources to help you learn to be a lover to your husband.

CSL – (btw, if you feel the need to tell me just how badly I beat up on wives, don’t. Wife just read the post and said that I was a whole lot easier on the wives than I was on the husbands. I answer to a Higher Power, She Who Must Be Obeyed.)