Too Little, Too Late?

For a wife who has avoided and resisted sex, the realization of how deeply she has hurt her husband can be crushing. I shared about my own realization in A Moment of Hard Truth. Every week, I hear from women with similar stories.

Where we once were clueless about how our avoidance of sex emotionally devastated our husbands, when this realization hits us, we want to do better.

We are convicted that what we have done was wrong. We acknowledge how our actions have hurt our husbands. We want to do better going forward. We want to soothe the hurt we have caused.

Finally we understand what our husbands have been saying to us all these years. He should be ecstatic, right? He’ll be thrilled that we finally get it, that we finally admit we’ve been wrong, and that we are truly committed to turning things around.

Sometimes a husband doesn’t respond as his wife expects, though. Sometimes his response is to say that he is no longer attracted to her, that he is leaving once the kids are grown, that he’ll never initiate again, and that he’s given up the hope of any true intimacy in marriage. He may say that he doesn’t believe her anyway, or that her effort is “too little, too late.”

His wife—already crushed by the realization that she has deeply hurt him and that she has been wrong—is devastated. Her entire view of marriage has been turned upside down by her realization, and now she doesn’t even know if her effort to change will make any difference at all.

She feels like she has lost her marriage just when she has begun to see the light. She feels hopeless.

Hope anyway

Dear one, if you are that wife who feels hopeless in the face of her crushing realization, I know you are hurting. You may feel guilty about that, too, thinking that it is just what you deserve after hurting your husband for so long.

But here’s what I want to encourage you to do: take a deep breath—and hope anyway.

Your husband’s words are coming from a place of deep hurt, but remember Who it is you worship.

God’s power is greater than your husband’s hurt.

Now that you understand your husband’s hurt, there’s still a lot you can do—even if your husband’s words make you feel pretty hopeless.

Remember Who it is you worship. God's power is greater than your husband's hurt. Click To Tweet

Be patient

Healing takes time. It is not too late (even if your husband says it is)—but it won’t get better overnight, either.

In large part, it is because your husband has been hurt. It will take him time to heal emotionally. It may be months before he even believes that this change is for real. His healing process will not be easy, either. Our husbands experience sexual rejection at the deepest part of who they are as men. Recovering from that may require times of grief, anger, and sadness.

It also takes time for a very practical reason. Your husband has trained himself to ignore his sexual desire, to not trust himself to believe what he has perceived as sexual interest from you, and so on. Even when he believes that the change is real and knows in his head that his desire will not be rejected, he has developed habits that are so automatic that he may not even be aware of him. Those habits took a long time to develop, and it will take time and effort to unlearn them and replace them with habits that respond to the new reality of intimacy in your marriage.

Be patient with yourself, too. You have some habits to unlearn , and there will be times when your husband’s response to your efforts will hurt. If you get stuck, give yourself some grace. As you travel this journey, you may discover some areas where you have your own healing to do. Your healing takes time, too.

Persevere

As devastating as it was to realize how deeply I’d hurt my husband, that was exactly what helped me stay motivated to keep going.

It’s a good thing, too, because it took two years for our marriage to noticeably move to a different place. I was learning new habits, and so was my husband. I did see a reduction in some of the tension in our marriage fairly quickly–but then we went through a season when my husband was very angry that I had waited so long to do what I clearly could have been doing all along.

Maintain compassion for the hurt your husband has felt. Let that help you stay motivated to keep at it.

Initiate

Social researcher Shaunti Feldhahn has said, “Because sex is more of an emotional need than a physical one for him, many men in my research told me there is no time more insecure, scary and vulnerable than when they approach their wives in that way.” If the typical response has been a rejection, it isn’t surprising that some husbands have stopped initiating.

Whether or not your husband has given up approaching you for sex, it is really important for you to initiate sex. First, it communicates your desire and love for him. Second, it relieves him of the vulnerability and guessing that has accompanied so much of the initiation in the past.

Here’s another very practical reason for you initiating: it can help YOU. If you’ve developed negative automatic reactions to your husband’s approach for sex, taking charge of the timing can help you avoid the situation that triggers those reactions while you are still in the process of learning new habits and thoughts about sex.

When you initiate, do more than offer sex. Ask for it. Tell him that you want him.

Even if he isn’t ready to respond to your initiation because he has squelched his innate sexual desire for you, try to communicate to your husband that you are serious about making a difference. If you’ve always worn pajamas or a t-shirt to bed, start wearing a nightgown without any underwear. Even more, sleep naked! Undo an extra button on your top when you’re around the house. Make a point to pause and touch him non-sexually throughout the day. Give him a kiss for no reason at all–even if it’s just a kiss on the top of his head while he’s watching TV. All these small things add up over time.

Small pieces of hope are what will start to open his heart to you again.

These posts might help you think about initiation:

• 10 Ideas You Can Use to Initiate Sex
• How Can You Initiate When You Don’t Even Want Sex?
• How Do You Initiate Sex?
• When He Wants You to Initiate
• When You Initiate, Do This

Apologize and repent

Express your genuine remorse for how you’ve hurt your husband.

If he’s said, “too little, too late,” “I’m leaving when the kids are grown,” or “there is no hope for our marriage,” he likely won’t respond well to your apology. Remember that this comes from his own hurt. He has lost hope himself, and it may take him time to believe that it is safe to hope again. If you’ve promised to do better before and it hasn’t resulted in any change, it may be even harder for him to believe you this time.

Regardless of his response, it will matter that you have said the words to admit that you were wrong and to say that you are sorry. You might even tell him some of the things you are doing to turn things around. Show him what you are doing. Ask him to pray for you—and promise to pray for him as well.

Help yourself grow

The fact that you are here reading this post shows that you’ve already taken at least one step toward turning things around in your marriage.

Your next step is to keep going. But how?

Learn more

I’ve written quite a few posts about how husbands react to our efforts to change our views on sex. They may help you better understand what your husband is going through.

• After All That Effort, Now He’s the One Who Doesn’t Want Sex
• Care for Your Husband’s Heart
• Have You Waited Too Long?
• I Worked on Sex, and Then He Got Angry
• I’m Changing, but My Husband Doesn’t Seem to Notice
• Rebuilding His Trust
• What If Your Husband Responds Negatively to Your Sexual Changes?
• Your Husband’s Healing

If you struggle with sexual desire, you may find it helpful to read at Bonny’s OysterBed7. Bonny’s book Unlock Your Libido: 52-Week Sex Drive Transformation (affiliate link) can lead you prayerfully through an understanding of your sexual interest.

If you’re interested in a book that would have helped me early in my journey, read Awaken Love (affiliate link) by Ruth Buezis (you can read my review here).

Pursue your own healing

If your own baggage or hurt has been part of why you’ve said no so often, then get help. Even more than helping your marriage, it will help you. You are God’s beloved daughter. Seek His healing. You can find links to many posts about baggage and healing in Dealing with Sexual Baggage and Sexual Healing and Wholeness.

Get help

You don’t have to walk this journey alone. If you’d like to work with me, I have several options that might be a good fit.

• If you want personal support from me, sign up for my Intimacy Mentoring program.
• If you’d prefer just a little boost every week, the Intimacy Encouragement Subscription might be a better fit for you.
• The Passion Pursuit study from Linda Dillow and Juli Slattery has helped many women learn about God’s design for sex in marriage and put it into action. I lead a couple of these studies every year. You can learn more here. I’ll be leading another study on Facebook starting in March—but I’m also going to facilitate it in another format that doesn’t require you to be on Facebook. If you’re interested in being notified when enrollment opens, be sure to sign up on this page

You may also be interested in Sheila Gregoire’s Boost Your Libido course (affiliate link). The course includes practical steps to apply what you are learning.

Pray

Pray for the sexual intimacy in your marriage. If you’d like some help, you might be interested in Intimacy Revealed: 52 Devotions to Enhance Sex in Marriage by J. Parker (affiliate link).

Be joyful in hope

The journey to turn things around after realizing you’ve hurt your husband isn’t an easy one—but it is completely worth the effort.

Even if it feels like your effort is too little and too late, hang on to hope.

If your husband has told you that your marriage might as well be over, remember that his hurt is not bigger than God’s power to heal.

Take the steps in front of you, pray for your husband, and be joyful in hope for a restored marriage.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12

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