Help! I Love my Husband but I Don’t like Sex
Has love betrayed you? There is hope.
“Why was it so hard to resist sex before marriage, but now in marriage, resisting is all I do?”
“Why do I love my husband, but don’t want to make love?”
“Why was sex so good before marriage when I shouldn’t have been having it, but now that I can, its lost its sizzle, and I’ve lost desire?”
You’re not alone…
Can you relate to any of the women above? Like them, do you love your husband, want to stay married, but struggle with sex? Do you yearn for physical and emotional closeness with your mate, yet shun their intimate advances? “What happened to our sexual relationship?” you may wonder. If these questions have crossed your mind, you’re not alone.
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Many married women genuinely want to feel more desire toward their husbands, and can’t figure out what went wrong. They wish their sexual relationship could be more and are dismayed that it’s not. They want to give themselves without reserve to their husbands, but can’t. I know, because I was one of them.
As a newly married wife I was surprised to find that within a short time, sex had lost its appeal for me. I loved my husband, but avoided sex. And when I couldn’t avoid it, I was a passive participant, rather than an enthusiastic one. I thought there was something wrong with me, yet I couldn’t tell anyone. After all, everyone else seemed to like sex…the women in the media seemed to enjoy it and want it all the time. And my husband liked it a lot…so what was wrong with me?
There’s good news
If you’re wondering the same thing…I have good news! There are many reasons why women may have fluctuating desire for sex in marriage. Children, fatigue, hormones, work, illness, medications, emotions and stress are some of the obstacles to enjoying or desiring sex. I certainly experienced all of those. But then God began to take me on a journey of healing from my past abortion, and my past sexual relationships. Even the sexual relationship I had with my husband before we got married.
I never imagined that my sexual past could have an impact on me today, but God was showing me that it had. And with healing, He set me free. Free from the wounds I’d accumulated, free from the lies I’d ingrained, and free from all my past sexual partners that were keeping me from experiencing true intimacy with my husband. Healing set me free to love my husband, and enjoy being loved in return. I thought it was too good to be true. But since then, as God has given me the opportunity to lead hundreds of women through healing, I’ve watched Him do the same thing in others.
I imagine that you may be wondering how your sexual past could be affecting you today. I want to share what God has taught me about sexual bonding, and how our past – whether from sexual abuse, or trauma or our own choices – can impact emotional and sexual intimacy in marriage.
Sex and the brain
What does the brain have to do with sex? Everything. The brain is our biggest sex organ. Scientists have discovered that we release chemicals and hormones that create a bond during sexual arousal and release. The chemicals released give us a feeling of pleasure, and make us want to do it over again. In addition, the hormone oxytocin is released which is designed to relationally bond us to our partner.
Oxytocin is an amazing hormone…I call it God’s super-human-glue. Its released three times in a human, when a woman gives birth, when she breastfeeds her baby, and in both men and women when they experience sexual arousal and release. In addition, men release vasopressin which also helps with bonding. When we save sex for marriage, the only person that we bond with will be our spouses. And as our marriage progresses, and we’re having sex over and over, that bond gets stronger, causing our love to deepen and mature. I believe God gives us a glimpse of oxytocin in Genesis 2:24 when He says; “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Other versions use the word cleave for united, which literally means to be glued together.
But what happens when we take sex outside marriage, and bond with other partners? What about in the case of sexual abuse? Preliminary science is showing that if we have past negative sexual relationships, we can inhibit our production and release of oxytocin. In other words, every time we have sex in a relationship and then break up, we release less oxytocin in each subsequent relationship. Then we get married. We hope that marriage is a big giant eraser, wiping all the past away, but instead we bring all our past sexual bonds into marriage with us. They can keep us from releasing oxytocin and bonding exclusively with our spouses.
How does past bonding impact our desire in marriage? If over time we’re not bonding well enough sexually, we can begin to experience sexual withdrawal. Sex can become less enjoyable, less intimate, and less desirable. Bonding in previous relationships keeps us attached to past partners. This can cause us to compare our current spouse with past partners leaving us dissatisfied or disappointed. During seasons of struggle in our marriage, we may feel drawn to the past, thinking, “Maybe I should have married someone else…”
To summarize, if we’ve bonded to past sexual partners, we will not bond as well in marriage, and if we’re not bonding well, it can decrease sexual desire and enjoyment in marriage.
The Emotional divide
Human beings are relational. There are five recognized levels of emotional intimacy that we move through as we get to know someone intimately. They have various names, but I call them: lowest, low, moderate, high and highest. With each level we share more of ourselves, placing us at increasing levels of vulnerability. And a greater risk of being hurt or rejected. And that’s why to become truly intimate, not only do we need to progress through the levels slowly, but also at the same pace. Women tend to be more comfortable relating emotionally and therefore can move more quickly through the levels. Men more often (not always, of course) relate in practical terms, with less emotions, and therefore need more time to move through the levels.
Couples who start having sex outside marriage generally are at the moderate level of communication. At this level we’re sharing opinions, beliefs and thoughts. That doesn’t mean we aren’t occasionally sharing feelings, but when experience conflict, we’ll gravitate to our safe zone, or the level where we communicate the most. Once we start having sex, we’re releasing all those chemicals and oxytocin, and now we’re bonding. We feel close, attached, one. At this point, the sex makes us feel closer than we really are. It becomes a false sense of intimacy and our relationship will begin to focus on the physical. Its how we’ll communicate love, and resolve conflict. Outside marriage, wherever sex begins on the levels of intimacy is where our intimacy will get stalled. Because working through conflict is required to move to the higher levels, we’ll avoid greater vulnerability as it may threaten our relationship.
And then we get married.
The sex has made us feel close, but over time the newness of our relationship wears off, and the reality of life settles in. At this point we begin to discover that we don’t know each other as well as we thought we did. We’re not able to communicate our deepest needs, desires or fears. We bring the same communication patterns we had before, into the marriage and continue to avoid conflict in fear of threatening the relationship. Many couples live in this emotional divide long into their marriages. I see this most often once the kids are gone and a couple discovers that they share less in common than they first thought.
For most women, sex is about being emotionally connected. The closer a woman feels emotionally to her partner, the greater desire she’ll have for sex. Women feel emotionally connected through communication. When we’re connected emotionally, we feel heard and loved. This is what stimulates our sexual desire. Men on the other hand feel emotionally connected through sex, and once they’re connected, they’re more open to communication. In other words if you want to get your man to talk, have sex. Men if you want to get your wife to have sex, talk to her.
To summarize; if we’re not connected emotionally it can inhibit our desire and enjoyment of sex.
Shame on you
As I’ve talked with women all over the country I’ve discovered that regardless of how they were sexually wounded, from abuse as a child or young adult, forced into sex as in date rape, or promiscuous by choice, they all carry emotional damage. Shame, self-blame, regret, pain, brokenness, unworthiness, despair, and distrust are some of the baggage women carry into their future. Emotional pain accumulates with each relationship. Although we’d like to believe that we leave it behind as we move on to the next partner, without healing it gets buried deep until it resurfaces in the next relationship.
These emotions can inhibit sexual desire in marriage. How? Because now in marriage when we have sex, it triggers the shame we experienced in the past. Remember that the brain is our biggest sex organ. As the shame, pain, thoughts and memories flood our mind, it robs us of our desire for sex. We’ll begin to withdraw, pull back emotionally and physically. Whether from sexual abuse, trauma or our own choices, the shame we felt in past situations will revisit when we begin to feel the same arousal in the present. The negative associations we had with sex in the past situation will resurface in the present. We may feel unworthy, dirty, shameful. Details of past abuse or promiscuous choices become vivid realities, stealing our moment of desire.
In summary: the negative emotions we experienced in past sexual relationships will be triggered in the present and will extinguish our desire for sex.
God can Heal
The good news is God can heal your past and restore your desire for your husband, and for sex. Yes, its true! Not only has He done it for me, but He’s healed countless others as they’ve trusted God with this area of their lives.
God can break the bonds you’ve created in your past relationships, heal the wounds you’ve accumulated, replace the lies you’ve ingrained with His truth, and help re-bond you to your husband, increasing your desire and enjoyment of sex. Even chemically, preliminary science is beginning to show that with healing, our brains heal too. As we heal, we’re able to release oxytocin again. I’ve watched this happen in women. As past wounds heal, their emotional walls come down. Gradually you see them feeling more love for their husbands, and being able to receive love. With healing we no longer trigger negative associations with sex from the past, and our desire for sex improves.
Below are some of the steps of healing that I’ve experienced and led others through. If you’ve experienced sexual abuse or sexual trauma as in rape, you may also need to enlist professional help with a licensed counselor.
The Steps to Healing:
- Acknowledge what’s happened and surrender it to God. Write out your story using the life map exercise in Kiss Me Again.
- Break the silence…tell someone. A counselor, trusted friend, your husband.
- Grieve your losses and wounds. Let God show you what and how you need to grieve and the wounds He wants to heal.
- Break past bonds. Write out your sexual history list. Ask God to show you everyone you’ve created a bond with. Write the names, or details of the event down. Ask God to show you how each one of these situations and/or people hurt you, and damaged your view of yourself, others, God, men and sex.
- Pray this prayer with each person/situation on your list asking God to sever the bond you’ve created with them.
Lord, I ask forgiveness for sinning against you and against my own body. In the name of Jesus, I sever and renounce the bonds I created with _____. I release my heart tie with this person physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I choose by faith to forgive _______ for their violation against me. Please forgive me of my violation against _______. Please remove the negative emotional baggage I’ve been carrying around with me. Restore to me a virgin heart—as though I’d never been with this person, and heal me completely of the damage this sin has caused me and my marriage. Thank you for your forgiveness. I accept it fully.[i] Amen.
The pain that heals
Its hard work, I know. But I promise you, its worth it. You’ll go through some pain as you bring up the past, but its what psychologists call ‘good pain’. Good pain allows us to heal. Good pain is allowing God to expose what’s hurt us in our pasts, and surrendering it to Him so He can heal us.
He’s done it for me and countless others. He can and will do the same for you. He’s just waiting for one thing…He’s waiting for you to ask.
[i] Used with permission
Do you want to read more of Barbara Wilson’s articles? The first two in her series can be found here:
The Five Levels of Intimacy
Kiss Me Again
How is your love life? Do you need to talk? Either contact us privately by filling out this form and one of our mentors will contact you or make a comment about this article below the form.
You are right LN, abstinence is not what leads to perfect sex. And there have been many unhealthy attitudes about sex that have been developed by Christian people. I know in this article that Barbara focussed her attention on the negative impact of sex outside of marriage but if you read her books and other articles on our sites you will know that she sees many other reasons for people’s intimacy problems.
Let me also say that God does not present sexual intercourse between a husband and wife as a shameful thing at all. It is His desire that the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual union that happens when a husband and wife come together will be an expression of great love, joy and pleasure. The writings of Solomon in the Bible are explicit love songs that celebrate the love between a husband and wife. The opening line sets the mood, “May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine. Your oils have a pleasing fragrance, Your name is like purified oil; Therefore the maidens love you. Draw me after you and let us run together! The king has brought me into his chambers.” (Song of Solomon 1:2-3) Or what about this, “How beautiful and how delightful you are, My love, with all your charms! Your stature is like a palm tree, And your breasts are like its clusters. I said, ‘I will climb the palm tree, I will take hold of its fruit stalks.’ Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, And the fragrance of your breath like apples, your mouth like the best wine” (Song of Solomon 7:6-9)
My encouragement to people who have issues with intimacy in their marriage is to talk to God about it. He is the one who created marriage and sexual union and He knows how best to experience it. He is the healer of all that is broken and as we allow Him to work in our lives, we will discover that all parts of our lives are made new, even our sexual intimacy with our spouse. Whether the issues abound from a promiscuous life style, prudish shame, or the effects of abuse from others, God is able to heal it all and make us new. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2Corinthians 5:17)
Does that make sense LN? I know it probably doesn’t sync with your experience of the Church but believe me, the church is full of people who are still in the process of being made new and they are still prone to mistakes. We all are! And God works in all of us to help each other to come to a true understanding of who He is and who He has made us to be.
I also just want to say that I was raised in the church and I think one of the BIGGEST LIES that women are taught is that perfect sex happens simply because you wait till marriage to have sex. I did things the “right way”, waited till marriage and, frankly, my sex life has been a huge let down. Many of my Christian “waited-till-marriage” girlfriends feel the same way. I think that sexuality is complicated and things like past abuse, what we’re taught about sex, our personal sex lives (masturbation, etc) ALL contribute to what marital sex is like — whether you ‘wait for it’ or not.
First there are the mechanics of the thing. If you wait till marriage to have sex then, well, chances are you will not be good at it right off the bat. It took me two years of having sex with my husband to achieve the *beginnings* of an orgasm. Prior to that it was two years of me squirming around while he was on top of me, trying to figure out why I wasn’t really feeling anything. Even now the orgasms I do achieve are extremely faint and, frankly, I feel FAR MORE INTENSE orgasms when I masturbate (which I DO NOT make a habit of. I mainly do it when I’m up at night and can’t fall asleep.)
Then there’s what I was taught about sex as a child. As a teenager, my Christian parents SHAMED ME for liking boys. They SHAMED ME for the hormones and NATURAL sexual desires I felt as a teen girl. Their response was to lock me up in the house (basically) and not allow me to go anywhere where I could interact with boys. The lesson I learned? Sex is shameful. When my husband and I started having sex, it would feel so good when he touched certain parts of me (not orgasm-good, but good nonetheless), and it would make me feel SO dirty. I felt like a whore and when sex started feeling too good, I would switch to a less pleasurable position or even ask him to stop because I felt so dirty. This hasn’t stopped and, to this day, sometimes I can’t get through a sex session without tears of shame rolling down my cheeks.
Now… All that I’ve described has NOTHING to do with having sex before marriage. Because I didn’t. But I struggle with my sex life nonetheless.
I haven’t given up on sex. My husband and I still make love about once every 10 days. But sometimes I want to give up on our sexual relationship altogether. It’s disappointing to need real help and happen upon an article like this that seeks to simplify a COMPLICATED issue, and basically tell women who don’t connect with their husbands that it’s their fault for having sex before marriage.
NOT HAVING SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE IS NOT THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING!! Sure, it’s a good idea and a great start, but it is NOT a guarantee to great sex. TRUST ME!
Wow. This article is so disappointing. I feel that the author is trying to twist the science to fit her Christian beliefs. I know MANY Christian women who DID NOT have sex before marriage who are still struggling to be intimate with their husbands. I recently had dinner with a friend of mine who said that the only time she wanted anything to do with her husband physically is when she was trying to get pregnant. So what about them?
I wish Christian people would stop trying SO HARD to force a faux-Biblical perspective onto everything. Just treat people as PEOPLE. Whether we had sex before marriage or not, whether we believe in Jesus or not, MANY women struggle with desire towards their partners after marriage. It is a HUMAN condition.
Thanks for the article. As a Christian, I believe there is a reason God tells us not to have sex outside of marriage. He knows us well because He created us. He knows there is a bond formed between two people who have sex outside of marriage because sex was created to keep the husband and wife close and was intended strictly for that purpose. When we misuse that, we become that close with other men. I can attest to the fact that I could be very upset with my husband, but after sex, it seems to melt away. I also agree that this can become a band-aid if we’re not careful, focusing on the physical and never dealing with the issues.
From my own experience, having several sexual partners before marriage has not helped me create a healthy sexual bond with my husband. It has had a negative impact on my ability to give and receive intimacy. But my sister and brother-in-law did just the opposite. They were each other’s first sexual encounter, and they have a very strong relationship, as well as a healthy sex life. I, on the other hand, am on my third marriage and I struggle so much with intimacy. My mind occasionally wanders to my past relationships and how I still feel connected to them in ways. And I know this should not be.
There is something very spiritual about sex, and so it stands to reason that God can remove that bond on a spiritual level as we pray and believe. There is much power in the prayer of a believer, and most people really don’t understand this.
Cthulha, even if there are more than three ways we release oxytocin, that does not take away from the fact that sex is one of those ways, the affects of which should not be piled up with other ways oxytocin is secreted and the results of those particular secretions. That is not at all what she was saying. If that is true, then the release of oxytocin from giving birth to a child or breastfeeding would also cause your sex drive to diminish later. And we know that is not true.
There is the chemical/physical element to sex . . . and then there is the spiritual element. I think the spiritual element has a much greater impact. As we come to terms with our wrong choices and seek forgiveness, we are healed from the inside out. As with any way God heals his children, it starts inside and soon the results show on the outside.
Hi Cthulha, I am no expert in this area and am dependent on other people’s studies to be able to understand the link between promiscuity and the production of oxytocin. What I did find was an article that addresses the very thing that Barbara is referring to. You can read the article for yourself and all the supporting citations of the different studies that have been done that support the idea that contribute to the authors’ findings http://www.physiciansforlife.org/content/view/1492/36.
You are right in saying that there are more than three situations where oxytocin is secreted but there are only three in which large amounts of the neurohypophyseal hormone is released. The authors of the article are clear that the role that oxytocin plays in bonding for sexual mates is decreased when sex is not joined with a long-term commitment.
Now that is just looking at the biochemistry of love and commitment. Some people need that kind of explanation to encourage them to make the commitment of marriage. Another compelling reason is the impact that a stable committed marriage has on the children being raised in that home. There are piles of studies that support the importance of a stable, loving marriage relationship in the emotional, social development of children.
For me, another crucial reason for remaining faithful to the covenant of marriage is that God instructs us to love as He loves. He then models that love by remaining faithful even when the object of His love rejects Him. He models a love that is self-sacrificing in order to serve the ones He loves. His love is generous and gracious in all circumstances. So I follow His example and command to love in that same way. Fortunately He helps me because I know I could never live up to that expectation on my own.
So what is the basis and example for your love?
This article is garbage. The rate at which the brain replenishes oxytocin has nothing to do with how many partners you’ve slept with outside of marriage. Also, there are more than just three occasions in which oxytocin is secreted. It happens to you when you pet your cat, for example & your cat’s brain is performing the same mechanism. So following the logic of this article, petting the family dog which was tragically hit by a car one day led to the fact that you’re no longer feeling sexual towards your husband. This prayer will restore your libido. What a bunch of junk.
That is a very complicated situation Rakisha. Is it your desire to make your marriage into a healthy one or are you looking for a way to get out of it so you can marry your ex-boyfriend?