My Spouse Can’t Cure Me, but Can Help Me

When it comes to sex, every spouse deserves the respect of being able to say, without fear, “Not tonight, honey.” Sex isn’t a handshake; it takes a significant contribution of relational, emotional, and physical energy, and sometimes, one or both partners just can’t get there. Besides, if a spouse can’t say “no” he or she really can’t say “yes.” Excessive pouting or resentment over a refusal that makes the other spouse “give in” just because not doing so would be punitive is manipulative and evil.

Having said that, control can be evil on either side: pressuring your spouse unduly so it feels like “obligation sex” must be performed,  or a pattern of controlling your spouse by making sex so difficult to experience that he or she has to jump through ten hoops before you say “yes,” and if they don’t jump through those hoops correctly, the gate-keeping spouse can say, “Ah ha! We don’t have to have sex tonight!”

Of course, “obligation sex” (through lecturing or guilt) is one of the worst ways to overcome sexual impasse. It’s best to focus on creating a sexual relationship marked by mutual pleasure, with each partner’s spiritual, emotional, relational, and physical health (all of which can interfere with libido) addressed. In many marriages, when those issues are addressed, gatekeeping will die a natural death.

As well, the message that a wife needs to have sex with her husband every so often or he’ll cheat on her or look at porn is so creepy a motivation we need to just throw that one out. If I said to Lisa, “have sex with me tonight or I might creep downstairs and go look at porn for a couple hours” it would absolutely crater her desire. She’d feel used, not cherished. Besides, most men get into porn long before they meet their wives, and I’ve read many heartbreaking stories from wives who made overt sexual advances only to have them rejected—after which their husband slipped out of bed to go look at porn. More sex doesn’t always mean less sin. I am grateful that an increasing cacophony of voices are calling out these destructive teachings (several of the presenters in our upcoming Married Sex Conference do this forcefully and convincingly). 

The challenge is that the church is often plagued by “binary” thinking. We throw out one extreme and fall prey to another. It is cruel and dishonest for a man to blame his porn use on his wife’s unwillingness to have sex. But it is also cruel for a spouse to say to her husband (or his wife) that they should be satisfied with sex once a month, at most. I’m not talking about times of physical illness, emotional travail, or special circumstances. I’m talking about having so little empathy for a spouse’s God-given desire for sexual intimacy long term that you refuse to deal with the underlying issues and allow a spouse to suffer accordingly.

I talked with a husband who I think strikes the right balance when he says his wife couldn’t “cure” him of his porn use, but she can certainly help him. He would never blame his wife for a fall; but when she is sexually engaged with him, he says he is less likely to fall.

See if you agree with his conclusions.

Jay and Christina

Jay and Christina put up with a sub-par sexual relationship for the first seven years of their marriage. Instead of sex contributing to the fortress of their marriage, it became one of the major contributing factors to the breakdown of their marriage. They fought constantly; it was difficult to talk about anything without it becoming a fight. There was little joy and gratitude in the bedroom, but a lot of frustration and resentment. By the second year of their marriage, their sex life had devolved to a lunar calendar–maybe once a month—though Jay would have preferred daily. For Christina, “even that once a month session was more out of duty.” Afterwards, however, she did sometimes think, “Why don’t we do this more often?” but she never felt like that beforehand.

“I had orgasms,” she explains. “Jay wasn’t a selfish lover. He never left me unsatisfied.”

This blows apart the myth that sexual infrequency is always caused by a husband’s selfishness or lack of hygiene.

After enduring seven years of this, Jay had had enough. Since both he and Christina are committed believers, “We both grew up thinking divorce is wrong, so we knew divorce wasn’t an option. But we were really angry at each other, certainly frustrated, and finally reached the point where we said, ‘Look, if we’re going to stay married, and we are, we can’t keep going on like this. We didn’t want to live miserably for the rest of our lives.’”

Too many things happened that we don’t have time to share here (but you can read about them in a book that will be published in 2022!). Among other things, Jay worked on his communication skills, they learned the difference between responsive sexual desire and spontaneous desire. And, through a female blogger, Christina became convicted about her lack of empathy toward Jay’s desire for sexual intimacy, particularly how vulnerable our spouses are to us sexually. Because Christianity’s sexual ethic reserves sexual intimacy for marriage, anything we deny our spouse becomes an absolute denial. Our spouses can have other needs met, but not their sexual needs. “Needs” might seem too strong of a word since no one will die from a lack of sex, but excusing the fact that you’re willing to let your spouse wallow in misery simply because they aren’t dying is a precarious perch from which to build a satisfying marriage. I certainly don’t want my attitude in marriage to be, “If it’s not going to kill her, she should just shut up and learn to live without it.”

If you ignore your spouse because you find porn more preferable; if you are not addressing healthful living to such an extent that sex becomes problematic or virtually impossible; if you think that withholding your participation in this aspect of marriage will help your spouse address another aspect of marriage, you risk becoming cruelly neglectful to your spouse’s vulnerability and God-given desires.

Drs. May and Hart, proponents of attachment theory (I love their book Safe Haven Marriage), suggest that a “securely attached couple” can be “summed up with the following statement: ‘I know you will be there for me.’” When a wife or husband feels they are left hanging sexually, it feels like emotional abandonment, not just sexual abandonment. Some might say, “Just where I need you most you leave me to fend for myself.”

Watching other spouses repent convicted Christina. “When I started reading other people’s stories, it really hit home in my own heart about how what I was doing was really hurtful.”

As compelling as it is, their journey to a new intimacy is much too detailed for this blog post. I want to focus here on the whole issue of porn, which Jay used to struggle with.

Slaying the Dragon

Jay believes that their renewed sexual intimacy was an enormous help in his overcoming porn. “It’s much harder to fight porn when you’re not having sex in marriage.” It’s never appropriate, helpful or true to blame a husband’s (or wife’s for that matter) porn use on the spouse. As stated before, most husbands who struggle with this started looking at porn well before they were married, and even after marriage some husbands reject their spouse’s sexual advances and then go look at porn.

Having said that, communicating your vulnerability and having that met with empathy, trust and compassion can regenerate a marriage on all levels. Jay puts it this way: “My wife can’t cure me, but she can help me. We’re supposed to help each other; I help her with her struggles and she helps me with mine.” Each partner taking personal responsibility for their own behavior while having empathy and generosity for their spouse’s particular struggles is part of what Paul addresses in Galatians 6:2 when he urges us to “carry each other’s burdens.”

Jay explains, “Most of the guys I talk to who struggle with porn tell me what they’re looking for isn’t the physical release; the majority of them I talk to want to be wanted. They desire a deeper relational connection with their wives. If you are constantly being sexually rejected by your wife and you watch a woman who is accepting of whatever, I think it’s less the physical sexual stuff and more the idea of that’s what I’m missing—a woman who wants me, a woman who will accept me, a woman who will enjoy being intimate. That’s a much deeper tie than the physical stuff. The physical stuff triggers your brain—and that’s not insignificant—but the emotional allure of someone wanting to be with me and accept me is even stronger.”

Sexual acceptance can come only from your spouse; he or she is the only one who can carry this burden. That doesn’t mean a spouse should be faulted if the other spouse falls; it does mean he or she can help carry the burden. And let’s be honest. The apostle Paul is the first teacher and writer (in 1 Corinthians 7) who said marriage is preferable to burning with lust, directly stating that marital sex can help people fight lust. Marriage isn’t a cure, but it can be a help.

Jay admits, “Our renewed relationship helped me in my struggle against porn very much.” During certain segments of their sexual famine, at his worst, Jay looked at porn almost daily. Once they started addressing the relational issues, “I quit cold turkey and haven’t looked back. When we weren’t connecting, it was horrible and I was ashamed. I’d tell myself, ‘I’m engaged, I have to stop.’ Then it was, ‘I’m married, I have to stop.’ Then, ‘I’m a dad, I have to stop.’ Then, ‘I’m an elder I have to stop.’ But I couldn’t. It wasn’t until our marriage was fully functioning that I could walk away from porn completely.”

While it is entirely inappropriate and wrong to blame a wife’s lack of sexual activity for her husband watching porn, a connected marriage does help us live healthier lives, and a healthy man (or woman) is much less likely to look at porn.  

For Jay, reconnecting with his wife wasn’t just about getting a physical release. Once they became more intimate, and he finally shared his struggle with porn with Christina, it became personalized. “I’ll never forget seeing how much my confession hurt Christina. You know it’s wrong while you’re doing it, but when you have to sit down and see your wife’s face as she reacts, and watch her cry, and know how much it hurts her—I don’t ever want to put her through that again or go through that again myself. Nothing in my life will ever compare to that brutal confession.”

So while he’d never blame Christina for a relapse, he appreciates her empathy and help. Today Jay has a strict policy of never having an orgasm without Christina being present, and he urges other husbands to follow this same rule. “The goal is that if the husband is going to ejaculate, the wife has to be there. The corollary rule is that she has to be available. Instead of trying to get him to stop having a sex life, the goal is to redirect the sex life towards his wife. Of course, it has to be within reason. He can’t say, ‘A quickie, now’ when it’s not appropriate, and he can’t be focused only on his own pleasure. He has to exercise some control.

“The goal is to get the husband’s brain to start re-associating sex to be solely focused on his wife, to make sure the dopamine spikes from orgasm and the oxytocin bonding that follows occurs only with his wife.”

MY THIRD WARNING: This teaching about the wife’s availability can be perilous, as it can become one-sided (all about the husband’s need for release) and take much of the pleasure out of sexual intimacy. The thought that a wife must have sex or her husband may mentally cheat on her is horrendously unfair. On the other hand, Jay believes he wouldn’t have been able to leave porn behind if his wife hadn’t decided to make herself so available.

“Christina decided on her own to never say an automatic ‘no,’ [but she did, indeed say no on some occasions] though I never asked that of her. But, to be honest, I’m not sure I could have quit without her making that decision. It also helped her because at the same time she was trying to learn to stop automatically saying ‘no’ and at least be willing to become aroused. But, knowing that I wasn’t interested in having sex if she couldn’t get in the mood helped her be able to always be open.”

 Can you see the lack of manipulation here? Christina was committed to accommodate Jay if she could, knowing that Jay wouldn’t force her or pout if she couldn’t. Jay appreciated Christina’s intentions and empathy, so he wasn’t bitter or resentful if sex just couldn’t happen. They both had to exercise control. Jay had to learn how to say “no” to himself more frequently than he wanted to, just as Christina had to learn how to say “yes” more frequently than she initially wanted to.

Since he works with so many couples, Jay says “I want wives to be aware of how much power they have to help their husbands; not just by being available but having compassion for their struggle. It’s harder to quit porn when you’re made to feel terrible for it and left on your own.”

Let me step in here to mention that some therapists recommend a period of sexual abstinence if the husband has a long-standing issue with porn, followed by the pattern that Jay recommends above. The challenge with marriage “advice” like this is that what’s good advice for some marriages isn’t the best for other relationships, depending on what’s going on at the moment. In general, Jay and Christina have found a pattern that I believe is healthiest for most marriages eventually—it just may take a little time to get there. You can’t have a healthy marriage if there is an active addiction however. I can’t cherish my wife if I also cherish porn; my brain isn’t big enough to do both. But Jay’s experience is such that cherishing his wife and mutual sexual enjoyment did help him leave his addiction behind. These words are best applied when a repentant husband (or wife) is in counseling and recovery and growing toward wholeness. In my discussion with therapists, a porn addict will never get better simply by having more sex. He or she needs to change their entire relationship with sex.

The application to wives (or husbands whose wives struggle with this) is clear: never blame yourself for your spouse’s fall, but ask if you are generously helping your husband or whether you have become hardened to a natural desire that God created your husband not just to desire, but in many cases, to crave. In a healthy marriage, God designed your husband’s brain to crave you, desire you, and long for you. For the vast majority of husbands, we find our wives’ bodies beautiful beyond compare. Seeing you and not being able to be sexual with you can feel like torture (I know, I know, I know: some of you have husbands who say they are not attracted to you and they reject you; I’m so, so sorry if that has been your experience. I’m not speaking to those marriages here).

And, guys, if this is an issue in your marriage, trying to up the frequency of sexual intimacy in your marriage by making your wife feel sorry for you, or threatening her with your sin, is foolish and completely ineffective. I know one husband whose wife refused to sleep with him for a couple weeks after he got the Covid vaccine because, she said, he was “shedding” toxins. When they did come back together, he made sure she had three orgasms. He got busy and distracted with work so it was almost a week later before they were sexually intimate again. Earlier that day, his wife said, “By the way, we’re having sex tonight, and it’s not an option, so get your mind in gear and your body in bed before 9:30.”

He used pleasure, not guilt or manipulation, to make her crave him sexually.

This is not to blame you as a selfish lover if your wife doesn’t desire you. You might, indeed, be married to a selfish wife who has little empathy. But what you can control is the quality of how you treat your wife, in and out of the bedroom. Perhaps (not always) that will help. And pray she reads the same blogs Christina read!

Married Sex Conference

Another option: consider signing up for our Married Sex Online conference. Especially now that we’ve watched the videos that have come in, we’re so excited to get this information out there.  We want to encourage Christian couples to go ever deeper into God’s plan for mutually enjoyable sexual intimacy in marriage.  

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