Once upon a time there was a man and a woman who loved each other very much. They considered each other their very best friend and loved to do everything together. All day they would watch movies together, play games together, ate together and even chose to work side by side. They agreed on most things and rarely had an argument last more than a few hours. They were the perfect couple... until it was time for bed.

You see, the man loved his wife so much that he wanted to be with her intimately most nights of the week. The woman was usually tired and, while she loved her husband just as much as he loved her, valued a good night's sleep over physical intimacy. Eventually, the husband began to feel rejected and unloved by his wife. The wife began to feel nagged and annoyed with the husband's consistent requests. This dilemma started to manifest in different ways, affecting their everyday relationship.
The man and woman started to argue about little things that had never bothered them before. They no longer sat together while watching movies, avoided playing games together, ate in silence or in front of the TV, and stopped working in the same room. Their whole lives had changed because of this one obstacle in their marriage.


If this man and woman sound vaguely familiar don't be embarrassed. A lot of couples go through this exact issue, but not many of them are willing to talk about it openly. My husband and I are one of those couples. The story I just told was actually our story. In Fulfilling the Sexual Stewardship in Marriage by Sean E. Brotherson he describes this situation perfectly. He says,
"In this situation, the high-desire spouse often seeks intimacy only to find a lack of interest on the part of the low-desire spouse. Too often, what then happens is that the low-desire spouse feels pressured emotionally and the high-desire spouse feels rejected or unloved, and so each goes away feeling hurt or resentful. The high-desire spouse who feels rejected may soon become insecure and so returns to seek love through sexual intimacy, and again the low-desire spouse feels pressured again and resentful and the whole terrible cycle happens again and again."

My husband and I were stuck in this terrible cycle but knew that we wanted to break out of it and restore our marriage to it's previously blissful state. One night after my husband tried to initiate sex, and I had turned him away, we decided to talk about why we were feeling the way we were, and why we kept repeating this awful cycle.


As it turns out my husband really did view sex as the ultimate way to show love. Every time I said "not tonight", my husband was hurt and truly felt rejected. After listing to his point of view I explained that I never intended to make him feel this way. I really am exhausted after a day full of chasing toddlers around. So, we compromised. We would have sex once a week. I would do my best to be open to his advances, and he would never ask after 10:00pm. It might not sounds very romantic, but it helped us get through a very tough situation for us. Eventually, I became more open to his advances and the once-a-week rule became more flexible. He saw that I was really trying and felt less rejected when I did say no.


I'm not sure that scheduling in a day for sex, or promising to have sex once a week would work for everyone. What I can promise is that if we will listen to our spouse, and accept their feelings about a situation, and then act with their feelings in mind (above even our own feelings) we will be able to find our happy place in our marriage. It takes work, and it's not always an easy or quick process, but it is well worth it.