Evaluate Your Attitudes
I have this suggestion for those of you who are longing for a better sex life, or for you who admit (without longing) that it isn’t all that great for your husband. Take stock of your own attitudes first! This calls for some time alone, when you can honestly evaluate your attitudes toward sex and toward your husband as a lover. Before you are done, you will find that you are taking a long look at your self-esteem as well, for that too occupies a place in the total picture.
Begin with your attitude toward sex in general. When you read the word sex, what do you think about? What image comes into your mind? Something warm and loving and tender and yielding? Or perhaps something a bit distasteful, or even unpleasant?
What was your attitude before you were married? Did your mother tell you everything you needed to know beforehand? Did she tell you anything? Perhaps you thought your husband would know it all, and yet he didn’t. Do you still have sexual inhibitions? Do you endure sex as a duty or anticipate it with delight? Are you warm and responsive to your husband’s lovemaking or do you scoot over to the other side of the bed, hoping he won’t show any interest?
Did your honeymoon experiences disappoint you or turn you off, establishing an unhappy pattern that has not yet been broken? I cannot count how many women have told me their first experiences in marriage were very disappointing: “The moon did not glow . . . the stars did not fall . . . and no lightning flashed at all!” Can you accept this disappointment, which perhaps still programs your reactions, by understanding that the difficulties you and your husband experienced were probably due to a lack of information and hopes too high for the moment you had been waiting for? Although romantic literature has implied that as soon as you are man and wife all your sexual responses are automatically released, this is just not true. The sex act is not instinctive. It takes time to establish a truly great sex relationship.
Here’s a way of evaluating your contribution to the physical love relationship, suggested by Shirley Rice in Physical Unity in Marriage. She says that we women should try measuring our physical love for our husbands by the yardstick in 1 Corinthians 13, the great love chapter. See how you do. Remember we’re talking now about physical love. Is yours patient and kind? Never envious or jealous? Not possessive? Not conceited? Never rude? Never indiscreet? Not insistent on its own right? Not self-seeking? Never touchy, fretful, or resentful? Does it pay no attention to a wrong suffered? Nor count up past wrongs? Does it not rejoice in wrongdoing, but in the truth? Does it always believe the best of him? Does it never fail?
What a strict measuring stick! We are just not capable of that quality of love without God’s power. But the point is that we can have the enabling of God’s power as women born again in Christ to remake and transform every wrong attitude we have found in ourselves during this evaluation time.
Let’s continue the evaluation by considering just how we look at ourselves. Do you accept yourself the way you are? Or do you feel inwardly that you are unattractive? Either overweight or underweight? You think perhaps your hips are too big or your legs too skinny? Or you don’t have enough bust? (And you know how men seem to look at full busts.)
When you and your husband make love, are you anxious to keep covered with a long gown, or to turn out all the lights, so that he won’t see your deficiencies or blemishes? And doesn’t this affect your behavior during the process? You aren’t quite free; you never quite forget yourself and how you look!
Most of us know that we do not have figures to compare to the legendary Marilyn Monroe, so it is hard for us to accept the fact that our husbands might think that we with our ho-hum bodies are beautiful or desirable. I believe this is a bigger issue with most women than they will ever let on. The problem is compounded if you have the kind of husband who never says anything encouraging or complimentary to you. A woman who feels beautiful is going to be beautiful for her husband when they are alone together—and much more uninhibited in lovemaking. You and I should remember that our husbands chose us, above all others, and that if they get the loving response they want, they’ll never think about our imperfections.
While we are evaluating, it is time for every woman to ask herself if she accepts her husband just as he is—not only in appearance, but with the kind of temperament, strengths and weaknesses, and even the earning ability that he possesses. You see, this has a definite effect on the way you respond to him in lovemaking, or the way he approaches you. If you cut him down in word or thought, your relationship will be damaged. After acceptance of your mate just as he is, it is time to concentrate on his strengths and focus your thoughts on them. How about a few compliments for him? As women, we may expect to be always on the receiving end. How about telling him how glad you are that he knows how to repair your car or your washing machine himself? Or how much you appreciate his kindness to your parents? Or how you admire his good taste in clothes? Or how wonderful it is to have such a physically strong husband, or a husband who gives you such wise advice when you need it? Or whatever applies to your own man. It is all a matter of honest appreciation, which you pass on to him, instead of keeping it to yourself. The couple who appreciate each other and show it have every reason to expect a wonderful sexual relationship. Difficulties in their situation are more apt to be only physical in nature, matters of adjustment, which can be readily solved by applying proper information.
Posted in Attitudes and Communication
To Ed Wheat Sr. and Gladys Gibson Wheat, whose commitment, devotion, warmth, generosity, and integrity stood for fifty years as a beautiful picture of genuine agape love.