As I was changing my attitude toward sex, I wish I’d done some things differently.
One in particular has been on my mind lately:
I moved from one extreme to the other.
We often talk about how a pendulum swings from one extreme to the other—but we may forget that a pendulum does that in order to seek equilibrium. The purpose of a pendulum is NOT to move from one extreme to the other. The purpose is to find balance.
It Was All About Me
For most of our marriage, I was self-centered. I was always aware of how something affected me, and I rarely thought about how my husband would experience it. I paid attention to whether I felt loved, cherished, or nurtured. I didn’t notice how my husband was doing unless it affected how he treated me. In my world, everything was all about me.
Our sex life was no exception. If I wasn’t already aroused (and hey—I’m a woman, so this was usually the case), I perceived his sexual interest in me as an intrusion and as extreme. I wasn’t about to think about how to help myself get in the mood. It didn’t occur to me that my lack of interest would have any actual impact on my husband. See? I told you I was self-centered. It was as if I’d forgotten most of my wedding vows.
The Pendulum
Imagine that there’s a pendulum in marriage, suspended from the fixed point of God’s truth about marriage and sex, swinging back and forth as a husband and wife try to keep their balance as individuals and as a unit. Sometimes one spouse needs a bit more love and care, and sometimes it’s the other spouse who has greater need. Sometimes they both cling to each other in a way that keeps them centered around God and each other.
A healthy marriage has give and take and overall seems to maintain a sense of balance, or at least fairness.
Early in our marriage, I dragged that pendulum onto my own side of the equation, holding on with everything I had lest it wander over to my husband’s side.
So just imagine how I felt when I realized how deeply I’d hurt Big Guy by caring so little about him and about our sex life. In a life-changing moment, his pain washed through my heart. That moment of devastatingly hard truth made me feel his pain as if it were my own.
My response was unhealthy and unwise, but it was a common one. I began to think only of whether Big Guy was feeling loved. I said yes to sex a few times when I probably shouldn’t have. I poured myself into healing all the hurt I’d created in his heart. (By the way, his healing is not your job.) Meanwhile, when I had struggles, I stuffed them down where I thought they wouldn’t get in the way of healing our marriage. I suppressed my feelings, thinking I didn’t deserve connection and pleasure because of my self-centeredness/ While it was good that I was learning to not be self-centered, I nearly pushed myself into selflessness, as in being without self.
I swung that pendulum all the way from my side over to my husband’s side, and I worked just as hard to keep it there as I had previously worked to keep it on my own side.
A noble interpretation of this would be to say that I died to myself. I’d moved from self-centered to husband-centered. Some wives take this approach throughout their entire marriage because they’ve been taught—by word or example—that this is what they were supposed to do as a wife. But me? Nope, no bad messages about what I owed my husband. I did this all to myself.
Imbalance
When the marriage pendulum isn’t able to freely swing back and forth as needed, it becomes unsteady and erratic.
Importantly, it doesn’t allow us to relate to each other sexually in the way we should.
In 1 Corinthians 7:3-4, we are reminded that sex should be mutual:
The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.
It’s fine to occasionally swing the pendulum into a “just for her” or “just for him” encounter. Or sometimes a couple may go through a short season in which one spouse needs to direct how things go as part of the process of healing from past trauma or restoring sexual connection after a medical or health situation. But generally, throughout the lifetime of your marriage, your sex life should be something that is mutual and for both you and your husband.
A husband-centered sex life is just as problematic an idea as a wife-centered sex life.
I wish I’d realized that earlier. By focusing sex all on my husband at the expense of myself, I made things harder for me and for us. I needed my husband’s support and prayer while I learned how to change my actions, I delayed the beginning of my husband’s healing, and we lost out on the opportunity to feel unified and on the same team. (You can read more about these things in Bring It into the Light.)
We both grew, individually and as a couple, but we missed out on a time when intimacy and care would have been helpful all around.
Furthermore, I created more struggles for myself. I had so many habits to unlearn, both in attitude and behavior. However, in developing new habits as part of a husband-centered approach, I created a whole new batch of habits to unlearn when I realized that wasn’t a healthy way to deal with things.
Had I learned to do things in a way that invited mutuality and oneness in the first place, rather than this “it’s all about him” business, I would have had one set of habits to unlearn, not two. My husband had to learn my new wifeliness and then unlearn it all when I finally got around to communicating better and encouraging mutuality in the bedroom.
Making Change Biblically
As I look back on what changes had the best impact on my marriage, several scriptures come to mind.
Romans 12:2
When something isn’t working well, we’re tempted to think we just need to do the opposite of what we had been doing.
We look at Romans 12:2 that tells us, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Psalm 51:10
Being transformed doesn’t mean to turn everything upside down or to do the opposite just for the sake of doing something different. Rather it is transforming and renewing in pursuit of God’s good will.
I found it helpful to focus on Psalm 51:10: Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me. The clean heart and right spirit within me gave me fresh eyes that looked forward to what God wanted, not backward to simply change what I’d done before.
My heart was cleaned of all the muck, and that was the transformation that allowed me to truly pursue God’s will in our marriage. I moved from “doing something different” to “do things that move toward this goal.”
Philippians 4:8-9
The goal that propelled me forward was this: God’s goodness in marriage.
Philippians 4:8-9 says, Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Keeping the good things on the horizon kept me going. When I was frustrated, confused, or weak, I was able to look ahead at what beauty there could be in marriage. That beauty drew me ever closer.
Balance
As I looked toward the true, noble, and right things God showed me, I was able to swing that pendulum from the husband-centered extreme toward the center and bedroom mutuality.
I learned new habits that have served me long past the initial change. Our marriage and sex life aren’t perfect, but we have learned to communicate and we’ve learned to tend to each other in healthy ways. These are habits that continue to move us—together—as the pendulum restores equilibrium.
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