In the last week or two, there has been a lot of discussion in the Christian marriage blog-o-sphere about teaching your spouse, as far as I can tell, it originated with an article over at Hot, Holy and Humorous called How You Like To Be Touched. I highly suggest giving it a read and watching the video, it’s hilarious.
The main premise of all these discussions are that the genders are wired very differently for romance.
For example, women (tend to/on the majority) like being touched everywhere at the beginning of a romantic moment, except where they are most sensitive areas. Men (generally/on the majority) couldn’t care less about being touched anywhere except our most sensitive area.
Another example is how we show interest in having sex with our partner. Women tend to be more subtle, they hint, suggest, toss their hair and other things. All signals that to them that speak of romance. Men on the other hand tend to be a little more direct, “I’m horny” or “Let’s have sex”.
So, the confusion is obvious. The man is approaching his wife like wants to be approached. The wife is approaching her husband the way she wants to be approached. Neither is being approached the way they want to be approached.
The solution is equally obvious, learn to approach your spouse the way they want. That’s the advice you see everywhere. Unfortunately, in response to this advice, you often hear “it didn’t work!” Actually, I hear this more from the men than from the women. Why? Well, it works out like this:
Let’s start with the wife. The wife decides she’s going to serve her husband better. She approaches him boldly and directly, asks for sex, no hinting, no subtlety, just flat out “I want sex”, or she just starts kissing and grabbing him. He absolutely loves this and since he thinks she’s really horny for some reason, they have sex. Wife sees this as a success, looks to be a win.
Now to the man. He decides he’s going to serve his wife better. He buys flowers, chocolates, hints, it subtle and romantic. She’s over the moon. The night winds down and she thinks “This has been such a nice night, and he’s not pressuring me for sex. Either he’s not in the mood or he’s taking my wants into consideration and we can just have a good night and get to bed early to sleep. How perfect.” So, when he subtly suggests they go to bed, she goes upstairs and by the time he’s turned off the lights, checked the doors, etc, she’s in bed in her least sexy pajama’s possible and nearly asleep. Husband sees this as an absolute failure. Never going to happen again.
Now, this is just one scenario, these happen the other way as well. So, what’s my point?
My point is, it isn’t enough to educate your spouse on what you want. You have to reward them as well.
Men especially are pretty simple (generally). Sex = Good. No Sex = Bad. So, if the man tries something new one day and it resulted in sex. Guess what, he thinks he did was a good thing. If he does something new the next day and it doesn’t result in sex. He’s not likely to waste effort on it ever again. I’m sorry, but it’s true.
For women, a compliment and/or conversation often has the same effect. If she tries something and doesn’t get complimented. It doesn’t matter if you had sex and gave her 100 orgasms. She’ll still think you didn’t appreciate it. But, if she tries something and gets a compliment and a decent half hour or longer conversation with you, you can almost bet she will try that trick again.
Of course, every spouse is different. There are no rules, only guidelines that will probably work for the majority of people, so adjust as needed.
How has this played out in your marriage?
that’s not to do with the topic but I sometimes feel that I have more testosterone than estrogen (I am a woman) because I generally tend to think like men I don’t think I would waste time beating around the bush with subtle hints if I would want sex I just simply say it, I have always been that way even growing up my sister would do all sorts of things in hopes that my mother would give her something she wanted as a reward or something I simply used to just ask for it I never saw the point they would either give it to me or not, nothing I did was going to influence their decision anyways so why waste my time maybe it’s just my mind set, because even when it comes to sex growing up I never had those feelings for guys WHILE MY FRIENDS WERE BOY CRAZY i WAS TO LOGICAL TO WASTE MY TIME INTO BELIEVING THAT AT 14YRS ETC THAT i WAS IN LOVE OR THAT A BOY COULD LOVE ME THAT WAY(MARRIAGE) maybe it was just maturity but what bothered me is that I didn’t feel it, is now that I’m older and actually think about it to get the feeling (I’m not married by the way) so maybe God just hasn’t changed my mind set to that of a married woman but the not feeling it in my teens where it is said that our hormones are raging I could never understand or identify with my friends why they were so boy crazy whoosh I’m done sorry it was so long and had nothing to do with this post it has been on my chest for a long while and where I’m from we don’t have these types of doctors that can check hormone levels or if we do I don’t know what type of doctor to go to and I wouldnt have the money anyway and yah my friends thought I was weird and people still do but the upside of being that way is it has helped me stay pure(sexually) for the most part but has actually made me curious as to if I could feel nything and there fore I experimented(sexual acts not sex itself which doesn’t make it any better I know sin is sin just wantd to clarify) but I’ve asked and received forgiveness from God and has moved past that I just hope not having those desires won’t affect my future marriage ok now I’m done
The above scenario is an absolute exact hit on exactly what I have experienced and she is so naïve not to notice. This includes the “why don’t you come to bed earlier and we can have sex,” so I did once and she played her tv show up to midnight, turned off the lights and stuck a pillow between her legs and proceeded to go to sleep. I thought it was a delay, so I waited there for several minutes, got up and selected a dvd movie and went back downstairs. Never again!!! Also, if she wants me to stay, she can get nude and I will be there, but, nope, she missed that one too. absolutely, positively naïve and clueless. Not surprised; she shops in grocery store with grocery cart blocking everyone too.