What About Him?

A woman’s difficulty experiencing interest in and enjoyment of sex reflect is often tangled up in things that have nothing to do with her husband—premarital sexual baggage, past sexual trauma, lessons that teach us that sex is dirty or shameful or that men can’t be trusted, body image, and so on. You’ll find a lot on this blog to help you in these areas (and I’ve included some links at the end of this post to help you find them).

Sometimes, though, her husband is the primary reason sex is difficult.

4 Reasons

Most of my blog posts talk about things you can do to work on yourself—but that doesn’t help much when your husband is the problem.

I’ve seen four husband-related reasons women have told me they don’t want to have sex:

1. His sin
2. His selfishness
3. His grooming
4. His technique

I’d like to talk about the first one today.

His Ongoing Sin

It breaks my heart to hear from women who are trying to work on sex in marriages in which the husband is in unrepentant sin against her.

We are all sinners, and it is important that we give our husbands some grace when they mess up—just as we want them to do when we mess up.

While I write my posts with the assumption that my readers’ husbands are generally good-willed, well-intentioned husbands, I know that some of you have husbands who simply are not like that.

A man’s ongoing and unrepentant sin can make sex very difficult for his wife. Here are just a few of the situations I’ve heard about from women:

• He slaps her when she does something he doesn’t like.
• He berates her in front of the children.
• He watches porn most nights and then expects her to be like the women in porn.
• He insists on a sexual act that she finds painful or humiliating.
• He reminds her that she is supposed to submit and should do what he wants.
• He disregards her concern about having sex in a location without privacy.

Women have told me of these situations and then have said that their husbands insist that their wives work on their issues with sex and figure out how to desire him. I am baffled that these men expect to be able to treat their wives so poorly and then expect them to want to be sexually vulnerable with them.

My friends, if your husband is doing these kinds of things, I want to be very clear:

Sex may be a problem in your marriage, but it is not THE problem.

Your husband’s sin is.

Working on sex isn’t going to address his sin, and it is unlikely to make sex easier for you.

If your husband is in ongoing and unrepentant sin against you, please seek help from a professional counselor with expertise in your husband’s sin area or from a pastor who has demonstrated care for women married to men who aren’t good-willed husbands.

I encourage you to work on your own sin and pursue spiritual growth. These things will be good for you—but they won’t fix the problems in your marriage. (See Does Your Husband Abuse You?)

Importantly, I want to point out that if you feel threatened or unsafe, or if you think your children are at risk in any way, it is okay to get yourself to a place of safety. You don’t have to be living under the same roof as your husband while you are addressing his sins against you.

His Past Sin

Sometimes our struggle is with a husband’s sin from long ago. Perhaps he had an affair many years ago. He pressured her to have sex before they were married or he raped her before or after marriage. He used to criticize her frequently. He used to do some of the things in the list of ongoing unrepentant sins, but it has been a long time since he has done so. Perhaps he repented and apologized. Perhaps he didn’t. The point is that he used to sin against her but has stopped that behavior.

It is very hard to forgive someone from a hurt they have caused us, especially if they have never apologized or sought our forgiveness. However, if something from long ago is getting in the way of your sex life today, you need to address it.

This might not look the same in every situation, depending on what the sin is and how it has shaped your relationship with your husband since then.

It may involve telling your husband that something hurt you long ago and that you struggle to trust him enough to enjoy sex, asking him or a trusted friend to pray for your healing, seeing a marriage counselor or pastor with your husband, or forgiving him for something from two decades ago because you know that isn’t the man he is now.

If your husband has demonstrated his repentance—even though he hasn’t spoken of it—you may find that your words and actions can make enough of a difference that you can then begin to work on sex.

These posts may guide you in working through your husband’s past sin against you.

• Responding to Your Husband’s Sin
• Restoring Desire After Your Feelings Have Been Hurt
• Get Rid of All Bitterness
• Broken Record: Do You Revisit Long-Ago Events?

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In the coming weeks, I’ll write about ways to deal with other reasons our husbands might be why we struggle with sex (his selfishness, his grooming, and his technique).

What suggestions would you add for a woman whose struggle with sex is related to her husband’s sin?

If your difficulty with sex has to do with you and not so much with your husband, you may find these posts helpful:

• Dealing with Sexual Baggage
• Healing from Sexual Trauma
• Silence the Lies
• Unbearable Lessons
• He Can’t Really Be Happy with My Body (guest post by J Parker)
• Body Image Got You Down?
• Body by God