What is the answer to a sexless Marriage

[avatar4321]

Replace soda and juice with water. That alone will shift your calorie intake.

talk with the Lord. You can't build a strong marriage without Him.

Court her again. The purpose isn't to get sex but to remind her why she married you.

keep the commandments and get things right in your life. You'll have more energy.

do some core building exercise and you'll see results quickly

[Misshalfway]

I was thinking too that there are so many possible reasons for no sex.  

 

No one tells us that sex is challenging in marriage. No one tells us that it isn't like it is on TV and that most of the time it's a very human experience that changes over time.   They just say "don't do it before"  and "You better do it after".  And no one warns you that sometimes your body betrays you. 

 

 I think people get married and think that it's going to be easy  And then reality hits and we don't know what to do.  So we panic and blame and demand and mope and withdraw and sometimes we even coerce or guilt or even tantrum by acting out. Yuck, if you ask me.  I mean its not like any of that stuff works.  So why do we do it? Probably cuz we don't know what else to do.  But I think it could help if we all understood that sex is challenging and that struggle is way more common than no struggle at all.

 

Long ago, a poster on this site recommended "Constructing the Sexual Crucible" by David Schnarch.  It's a lot to digest and not by a mormon author....but it might be one of the best books I've ever read on the subject. It taught me loads.  So much I may not have been ready for my first year of marriage, but still really valuable stuff like how sex is suppose to be challenging.

 

I remember my grandpa telling me at the dinner table how frustrated he was with his prostate cancer and how it was interfering with his performance.  I was 17.  It was....you know...the most uncomfortable conversation of my life.  Lol!  But gosh his feelings were so so normal!!  Maybe if we understood this we'd give our spouse a break once in a while.

Edited December 15, 2014 by Eowyn
editing out particulars as per site rules

[Vort]

I'm not going to go back and reread this thread from the beginning, so I don't know if I'm repeating what others have said or if I'm just completely off track of what the thread was originally about. But MissHalfway's response gives me a reason, or at least an excuse, to pipe up. Here is my thesis statement:

 

Sex is pretty much the greatest thing in the world.

 

Television might be the greatest single disservice we do to this truth, since television (and movies) portray sex as "doing the nasty". There is little desirable in the media portrayal of sex, most of which is fornication.

 

Here is my concession: I do think that, by their natures, men tend to "get" this much more easily than women. Men seem more intuitively to understand and have a connection to the depth of their sexuality -- which ironically might be why men tend more toward sexual perversion and misuse of all types.

 

If our LDS culture viewed a wife's reluctance to engage her husband in frequent physical intimacy with the same loathing and abhorrence that we view a husband's consumption of pornography, we might perhaps have a healthier overall view of marital sexual relations. Or maybe not. But that's my current theory.

 

But rather than adding intolerance for women's weaknesses on top of existing intolerance for men's weaknesses, maybe we would just do better all around to extend a bit more sympathy and less condemnation for those fighting the good fight and struggling to overcome the natural (wo)man.

Edited December 15, 2014 by Eowyn
editing out particulars as per site rules

[Guest]

I think this thread has gone a bit too long past the rules, but just a reminder that More Good Foundation (owners of this site) has requested no discussion of sexual topics.