When on your honeymoon you were on top of the world! You had it all ahead of you! You had married a beautiful, smart, fun, and sexy woman. She was awesome and wanted a strong life partner to protect her, keep her safe and build an amazing life together. Instead, you didn’t protect her (from herself as well as you) or support her as you knew you should have done. It was early on honeymoon and you’d had sex every day and she was taking the lead making it happen, knowing full well that you wanted to have sex. You thought that was awesome and you assumed that she also wanted to have sex with you that often. After all, she had had more sexual partners over the years and seemed to enjoy wearing lingerie, although you sensed something was off.
Then, walking out of the hotel room and walking to dinner you were taken aback by her excitedly repeating “I can do this!”, “I can be a good wife!” and “I can have sex everyday”. You were taken aback as you had assumed she was enjoying and wanted to have sex on honeymoon, but this made it sound like she was talking herself into having sex in the first place. It seemed that after a few days of honeymoon she was now excited since she realized she could make herself have sex often – and perhaps was enjoying having sex on her honeymoon. This was what you sensed was off when having sex – she was essentially making herself do it most of the time.
Later, you would find out she was feeling obligated to have sex now that you were married, but in the moment you didn’t realize the obligation, just the feeling that something was off and it was that she was making herself do it. This explained why she was leading it and looking for ways to have sex in the hotel room.
In the moment you didn’t say anything about this, as you didn’t really know what you saw, you just knew it was odd and it seemed like you weren’t both into having sex as much as you thought. You reassured her she was a good wife in any case and inside you knew that you were not expecting to have sex every day, far from it – but hey, if she felt that being a good wife was to have sex every day then who were you to tell her otherwise? That would be self-defeating and lead to less sex, right? Wrong!! You moron. You didn’t stand up and protect your wife, from herself in the first place, from her expectations of herself, and then secondly from your desire to have sex with your wife – no matter what.
Later you would realize you were feeling entitled to have sex with your wife, but in the moment you didn’t see that. You just thought sex was expected – you two were married and you “should” be having sex. There was even some teaching in the bible about not depriving each other and the duties of husband and wife. Later you would realize this is complete BS taught by generations of male leaders of the church to be self-serving and maintain dominance over women. But you didn’t see that then.
Additionally, you’d even been inspired by some of the teaching at church and after enjoying sex in the early months of the relationship, you had chosen to wait during the engagement to have sex again once married. That was a noble thing to do and showed your commitment to her. She was enthralled with the love and protection that you provided her in that moment. The engagement was 13 months and that felt so looonnggg! You struggled with the desire to have sex during that time but were proud that you had made that commitment and followed through. Now that you were married, you selfishly felt that it was time to enjoy sex and that made it easy for you to overlook what was really going on and not say anything to deter her from thinking that sex every day was a reasonable expectation to be a good wife. You idiot! At some point you even told her that she didn’t need to have sex every day to be a good wife, but you didn’t go so far as to blow up that ridiculous expectation at all, you left it hanging there, meaning that if you didn’t have sex one day, then surely you’d have sex again soon – the next day or later that week. You had the expectation that you should be having sex regularly – no matter what.
Later you would learn that sex is something that occurs naturally when connection and intimacy is present between two people – not simply on a calendar or a schedule. It took you years of upset to finally hear this in a seminar. If you’d just realized this all those years ago and led your wife down that path starting on the honeymoon you could be enjoying a fun and fulfilling sex life today. By removing the entitlement and the obligation before the years and years of hurt you could have focused on the relationship rather than being attached to having sex.
After returning home from honeymoon, it was still an awkward dance of obligation and entitlement around sex but you didn’t see that at the time. One night you asked her to wear some lingerie that you had excitedly bought her. It didn’t go well. You thought she enjoyed wearing lingerie for you, and failed to notice there was no connection or intimacy present. You knew something was very wrong but you were scared of looking at sex as anything other than something that just should happen inside of a marriage.
A few weeks later you compounded the situation by doubling down on the sex every day expectation by using it in an exercise in a relationship seminar that you were already registered for prior. The exercise was designed to show how love can be conditional, with statements of “I’ll love you as long as…” fill in the blank. After serious answers like “as long as you…”, “you don’t cheat on me” and funny answers, like “as long as you…”, “shower regularly” or “put your laundry away”, you said, “as long as we have sex every day”. She broke down in tears and was distraught with anger. The statement hit her hard. You knew it wasn’t a realistic expectation but you still used it to further support the position that you should have having sex regularly. Essentially, you piled on, reminding her of what she said on honeymoon. Looking back, I think she had been keeping it together but had realized that she could not make herself have sex every day, she did not want to have sex every day and therefore she could not be a good wife in her eyes. And now she heard you say that you would not love her if we didn’t have sex every day.
You idiot! You were such a scared little boy, holding onto what you really wanted (sex) without thinking about your life partner. You hid behind entitlement and societal teachings and norms, and you thought sex should just happen in marriage, rather than creating the extraordinary marriage that you claimed you were committed to creating. The first time you met her you looked into her eyes and could see she wanted someone to take care of her, to come alongside her – and she was inspired to accept your proposal – and now here you were, abandoning her and not coming alongside her and sticking to what you thought was right and just the way it needs to be. Deep down you knew it didn’t feel right, and have known that all along, but you didn’t proactively look into that to see what other teachings there are around this. It was just way easier to hide behind all the evidence that wives should have sex with their husbands. You fucked up and ruined the marriage, way back at the start – by not saying what you saw, and then inquiring together into the area of sex and intimacy, to uncover what you didn’t see at the time.
Instead you went along for years, causing a ton of hurt from your entitlement to sex and her being obligated to have sex – irrespective of the health of the relationship and the level of intimacy and connection you were generating for the marriage. There was some great sex in there too when you happened to be connected but a lot was simply entitlement meeting obligation and you never spoke up and raised the subject. You let her lead, finding answers with seminars and counseling and thankfully you did good work with that. You learned about creating intimacy and safety but then you fucked it up again when your entitlement reared up again.
So don’t follow my path. Don’t waste all those years – speak up and support your wife. If it doesn’t feel right, say something. Tell her you don’t need to be having sex to enjoy being with her. Tell her you love her no matter what the sex is or isn’t. Focus on being a great husband – loving, supportive and stable. Create time together, build intimacy. Enjoy each other.
