Unmet Expectations: Sex three times a week?
If you are married, you have experienced unmet expectations in your marriage. We all have, myself included. Expectations begin long before your wedding day.
When my husband and I were engaged I met up with a friend my parents’ age who had been married for 25 years. She was very enthusiastic. She told me they had a great marriage and that sex is really important. “We have been married 25 years and we still have sex three times a week” she glowingly told me.
She went on to tell me some significant piece of marital advice, but I missed it. I got stuck on her comment. My fiancé and I waited until we married to enjoy a sexual relationship. As I sat there listening my mind was screaming, “You ONLY have sex three time a week and you think that is GOOD?!”
I share this anecdote about expectations because it is funny. However, the reality of unmet expectations is not funny, especially when it comes to unmet sexual expectations in marriage. If this is your situation, you are not alone.
For some the frustration is lack of intimacy, for others it may be meeting the demands of your spouse. Some couples have expectations about who will initiate. In some marriages one spouse wants to follow a schedule while for the other, spontaneity rules.
When you got married you probably didn’t expect to have such a “natural” thing become such a big issue. But my friend was right, sex IS important. If unmet expectations not dealt with, disappointment, frustration, and hurt will become the norm in your marriage and cause even greater problems.
If this sounds familiar, here are a couple ideas for you:
Talk about it. If you are feeling hurt, angry or left out you need to talk to your spouse about that. Timing is key. Don’t wait until you’ve initiated sex, were turned down and then blow-up. Wait until emotions are calm, you are not tired and you will not be interrupted.
Give your spouse a heads up on the coming conversation. This gives them a chance to think through the issue and ensure that they won’t feel ambushed by the discussion. For example, you could say, “when can we talk about _______?”. Or “tonight after the kids are settled I’d like to talk about ______.”
Find a mentor. There are many ways to find help if the two of you are having a hard time working it out. Find a couple who has been married longer than you have and who has a marriage you admire. Ask them to mentor you in your relationship. Having someone walk alongside you makes such a difference. You won’t feel so alone, and having an outside perspective really helps you both.
There is one caution: don’t just talk to whoever will listen, choose wisely and choose someone you admire and want to be like. Choose someone safe who you can trust to keep your confidences. It is important to talk through your feelings, but you need to use wisdom and not blab your problems to everyone, this will cause more hurt between the two of you.
Educate yourself. Find books, podcasts, chats, or articles that will help as you work through your situation. Make sure the source is reliable and trustworthy. This topic is very common and there is help out there if you look for it. Don’t let busyness or embarrassment keep you from getting the help you need; your marriage is important and needs to be a priority.
Related: If you’ve encountered the disappointment of unmet expectations recently, or know someone who has, explore our online interactive study “When God is Silent“. You will receive a personal email reply from one of our mentors.
Upcoming online chats: Join us for daily online chats. One of our features will be “Do You Need Change?” on January 31 at 12:15 pm EST. Please join us to discuss this important issue!
You make a very good point melissa….Intimacy can be kept up in many different ways, and sex is just one of those ways. As a married couple we need to be committed to working on having that intimacy between us.
I’m a woman and I WISH we could have sex three times a week. Some people just have a lower sex drive. If you do, keep the intimacy up in other ways. Intimacy is not just sex.
I think it is a matter of respect. If he fails to communicate with you or treat you (like providing) you will be turned off. it is always on his mind. But I need provision, honesty and communication before I am turned on. otherwise I feel like if he isn’t doing his manly duties, I feel like a sex object
Wondering,
As author of this blog my heart goes out to you in your situation. It sounds like you are facing complicated and probably a hurtful situation in your marriage. There are many reasons for what could be causing your husband’s lack of interest. I have included an article link on this topic for you that will help in dealing with what you are facing. There are also many responses to this topic that you can read through. You are certainly not alone, as you will see when you read the responses. http://powertochange.com/sex-love/nosex/
If you need more help please use our talk to a mentor button at the top of this page. Mentors are trained volunteers with real world experience and can often help to offer a second opinion, a listening ear or other resources. These are big issues you’re dealing with and mentors are the best resource we have to help work through them.
If you decided to give it a try, the mentor would email you using our secure system which ensures your privacy by protecting your information. If you want to keep talking, just hit reply. The conversation is confidential and non-judgmental. You can keep talking to your mentor as long as you like and there is never a fee.
If this sounds like something you want to do, just click on the Talk to a Mentor top at the top right of this page and fill out the form. A mentor will contact you.
I hope this helps, if you need more resources, let us know by posting another comment, and I will post more resources. Beth
Hello Bob,
Both men and women some times use sex as a weapon to cause pain to the other person in their marriage. I think that this comes from some unresolved issue in their (past)life. I know it did in my marriage, my wife rarely wanted to make love. I was suppose to just accept it “just as the way it was”… I tried to make it work for 35 years…abuse from her…and now I’m divorcing. Men and women should care for the needs of the other that they are married to. By the way, let’s call it “making love” because that’s what it should. You should be making love to your partner in marriage…not just having sex with them…
I am young and not married but I find the posts about men who don’t want more sex very strange… LOL
so what does a wife do when she wants sex more often and her husband just ignores her advances, says he’s too tired or has so many excuses for not being with her?
Cath, I am so sorry for the pain of your expereince and that you were misled when your reached out for help. I too was raised with the type of definition of Submission that you described. I have also been disapointed by Christian advise or lack of response to pain in my life. What I have learned is that often times the response of Christians is not the same response of Christ. Jesus would have responded very different to you and your hurt than the answers in those books, or even well meaning friends. Both women and men are important and valuable in a marriage. Submission is not a weapon to be wielded by the husband. After all his mandate is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. Controlling men get caught up on the submission thing and misuse it, and do not love their wives. Both need to be balanced.
Sex was created for both partners and both should enjoy this mutual expression of love, in a safe loving way. It is good for each to desire the other. It is not weird for a woman to want sex, it is natural. God created us both with a sex drive, it just happens to be different for men and women. I would encourage anyone who feels like Cath or Chris to seek help, if someone minimizes your feelings, don’t stop there, keep going until you do find real help.
A good book for women is INTIMATE ISSUES by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus, this book has a good chapter on the above issue as well as a balanced Christian approach on many other intimate issues. I recommend it.
If a spouse feels, used, unsafe, scared, or hurt you need to get help. These feelings are indicators that something is wrong, you both need to be open to change. There are MANY things that can lead to these feelings, it may not be as overwhelming as the above stories.
Cath, I don’t usually write into websites like this. I figure folks have raised enough discussion or opinions and they probably don’t need another one. Suffice it to say that I want to encourage you. I, too, experienced something similar in my first marriage. My husband told me that my desire for him was not normal. He distanced himself as best he could. In the end I discovered something similar to what you discovered. My ex-husband was/is gender dysphoric. He cross dressed and eventually had surgery. I say all this to let you know that God will take care of you and anyone out there who is experiencing these kinds of things. The Lord is faithful. I encourage any woman reading this to seek solid Christian counseling and remai faithful to the Lord. Find someone you can trust in a Godly way.
This is a critical article – thanks for raising the issue.
I had been raised to believe that a woman should “meet her husband’s sexual needs & pace”. Also that as a Christian divorce was NOT an option. Yet what about if the husband uses sex & the wife’s desires for her husband as a weapon???
I cried myself to sleep for yrs throughout a 14 yr marriage to a “Christian” man. We saved ourselves sexually for marriage. Within weeks of the wedding he told me my desire for him was disgusting & started with putdowns of my appearance, controlling my behavior through limiting his hugs/kisses to rewards for doing what he wanted. Our first yr we had sex less than once/month – within a couple yrs it was only every few months. We had “normal” sex less than 50 times in that 14 yr marriage. I was shamed by him, told all sorts of lies that later took yrs of counseling to sort out. It took two psychiatrists to get it through to me that his treatment in the bedroom was abuse. I didn’t see that b/c he didn’t hit with fists(amazing that I didn’t consider 3 episodes of violent/non consensual sex that started when I was asleep, that each time left me bruised for days, as rape). AND THE CHRISTIAN books I read all those yrs on marriage discouraged me from speaking out/reaching out. Told me to be more submissive, more supportive, to pray more, to search for unconfessed sin in my life, etc.
He finally left – later learned he lived a double life – was into porn & experimenting with homosexuality, a list of depravities.
I share this b/c there needs to be more info for Christian women that their sexual needs are blessed by God, what is normal sexual relationship & what is abuse and how the “abuse cycle” builds. And yes – abuse happens to devoted Christian wives.
I highly recommend Christopher West’s “The Good News About Sex & Marriage” and “Introduction to Theology of the Body” — these are great books that help a married couple understand a life-changing view of sex. It’s not a “how to” manual, it is goes to the deeper roots about how we view sex as Christians.
I also can’t stress enough how Natural Family Planning (ccli.org) helps a married couple communicate about sex. It creates a courtship/honeymoon cycle to your relationship.
Because of NFP, my husband understands, respects, and loves my fertility (the feeling is mutual) and we don’t have expectations because we have to talk through everything. It’s great!
Check out the books recommended by CCLI or the book “Open Embrace” by Sam and Bethany Torode about NFP.
Wow! What a subject! I’m so glad you brought this up. It is such a taboo issue in the Body of Christ that we are losing our men, children and marriages to secret sexual challenges.
Thank you for writing such a real and relevant piece. We must begin conversations about such topics so we can deal with the issues before they become major threats.
Signed, GodsyGirl
It is mandatory that couples deal with unmet expectations in an amicable way to understand each others needs and obligations to maintain healthy family relationships. In a way it is fulfilling the purpose of God in the family which brings glory to His name when the children are also brought up in a healthy family environment so that they emulate their parents in thier lives too
It is a fact that some couples would not want to deal with. Yet it is destroying their marriage.
It’s very important to communicate about this, and even get help. While this was not the only issue, it was one of the issues that ended our 23 year marraige.
Thank you for the article. As a 6 month newlywed, I found the issues relavant. Thanks, Tim