A little over two weeks ago Mission:Wife and Mission:Husband ran a set of “sexual satisfaction surveys” – one for us wives and one for our husbands. There were almost 800 responses combined, the results show what you probably know: sex is an issue in a lot of marriages.
It’s easy to look at the results of the survey and think, “Wow, I’m glad that’s not me” or “I’m not as bad a that wife because I don’t (fill in the blank).” We want the survey results to challenge you, to become better at the things you struggle with, to cause you and your husband to have an open dialogue about your sex life, the good and the bad.
There are a lot of results and it gets overwhelming, so instead of posting them all, the results will be broken into different posts. To start off I’m going to post the results from the husbands survey (we know what we are doing) so we can learn what husbands are thinking and feeling and find out if our spouse feels the same way. We asked the question, “If you could get across on thing to your wife about sex, and know that you could say it in a way he would totally understand it, what would it be?” Some of the answers are positive and some are filled with pain and hurt. I have not edited the responses in any way unless there was vulgarity , or profanity. There are a lot of these, but I think its worth your time to read them all (This is half of them, I’ll post the rest tomorrow, I didn’t want you to quit reading).
Before you do though … Please take a chance to pray for God to give you the right attitude and desire to change. This will be tough to read, some have so much pain and you may relate to some of the comments. The attitude we take this criticism with matters, remember its worth it to work on your marriage.
- Sex is from God for BOTH of our enjoyment
- How important it is to me that she show some interest in sex
- I have lost all desire for you because of your weight
- Sex is more than just ‘the act’. It’s a way for us to connect, to bond, to have a special shared experience that we should cherish and nourish.
- Our intimate relationship has become pretty one-sided. What can I do to help you feel confident enough to spend time developing your sexual identity?
- I can already tell her anything
- has been 10 years since last sex
- Loving a man means meeting his needs, including the ones you don’t understand.
- to talk through differences (especially sex) in a constructive way.
- Pleasuring you is my number one goal in sex.
- quality is great, i am working on the quantity
- I need you
- I don’t want sex with anyone else but you, that’s how I felt when I married you and continue to feel now. I need good sex and we both deserve a Great sex life, so let’s work together and make it Geeat for both of us.
- How important sex is to me, and not just the physical release.
- It is more than physical. It strengthens our marriage. She is the only one I want.
- My love for you drives my sex drive and you’re the only one I can and want to have sex with. I want you to feel about it the way I do.
- I want her to enjoy sex and be more of a participant.
- Initiate
- I need it more often than she thinks and I want to pleasure her just as often
- A little more would make me feel closer to you
- I want to be closer to her on every level possible and have the marriage God intends for us to have.
- Put yourself in my shoes.
- Always be available for some type of intamacy even if you can’t give your very best
- sex is my connection to her
- Thankfully my wife understands my need and drive and has worked hard to match it. (And sometimes she passes me up!) I’m a blessed man!!!
- I have felt lonely and rejected for so long because of all of the consistent rejection.
- I am more important than work and extended family
- Sex is boring now.
- I have told her that I am honestly trying to live out Eph 5:25-33. The change is phenomenal. From 2 or 3 times a month we now have sex 2 or 3 times a week.
- When I do ask for sex, turn the damn television off now, not when your show is over.
- I need the emotional connection that sex provides a lot more then just getting off.
- Sex is not “not nice”
- Get your act together sexually, read some material online, figure out how your body works, show me your effort to enjoy sex more – or this is going to end badly
- I would like her to actively desire to be intimate with me sexually and otherwise.
- I want to Know how to please you sexualy she will not comunicate this information . she says she does not know how and is unwilling to learn or help me learn. verry frustraitng
- I love you very much and I need you physically, as much as I do spiritually and emotionally.
- I still feel guilty wanting you. Like it’s wrong. Like I don’t deserve it. Like you don’t need it or want it and would rather not want it.
- As I attempt to fulfill your emotional, communication, financial, etc., needs, I need my sexual needs to be met as well. My needs are not a reflection of you and should be centered on me.
- Its awesome, and great, could be more frequent, but I’m sorry I don’t usually want it as much as you do.
- It’s really as important for me as talking as a couple is for her.
- That a one flesh marriage is completely glorifying GOD in our bodies and we should empty ourselves in every aspect of the marriage as JESUS did for us on the CROSS.
- I feel that your desire for sex (both in quantity and quality) or lack there of demonstrates you attitude towards me as a person and husband.
- i would like to make love more often. I believe it is a great way to connect with you.
- I want you to show me more often that you want me sexually. Even though I know you love me, I feel unloved when I do not see your desire to have sex with me
- I think a healthy sex life is the product of a healthy mariage. One with out the other is almost impossible. And it takes BOTH to make it happen.
- I want her to want me, and to understand it’s as important to me as communication and emotional connection is to her.
- A satisfactory sex life is the best way to make me totally attracted to you and adoring you.
- I am still interested!
- Even though I’ve tried to make it so that sex is not important to me, it is.
- It’s important for both of us individually and for our marriage.
- Be confident in your attractiveness to us
- It means a lot if she initiates. It let’s me know she wants me and that she’s happy.
- Lets do it more often
- If we have sex our marriage will be better
- We can have a great sex life and a great marriage, if you put it a bit of effort.
- Do you have any idea how much you turn me on?
- Relax, enjoy, try something new or somplace new.
- How sex is the glue that can keep us together
- How central sex is to a mans overall health and productivity in life.
- Please just save some of your energy for me.
- You want/ expect us to communicate everyday but I should be ok with sex once a week. What gives?
- It is very satisfying and means a lot more when she initiates it or makes it obvious that she wants to be there, and not just doing it to “put up” with my desire.
- sex is another important way we relate to each other, remind us we love each other
- I know I cannot change her “want to” but somehow I just wish she would genuinely want to give me oral sex, or a hand job or even masturbate in front of me (we haven’t gone there yet). Otherwise it just seems like she’s doing it out of obligation which isn’t very erotic.
- I love sex with her. It is important that she is the one I have sex with.
- Sex is not what makes a marriage great but it is the guaranteed result of all great marriages. Im not a horndog i just really love you.
- She doesn’t realize how important sex is to me as a way to show our love for each other, so treating like an unpleasant chore hurts me deeply.
- Most of my unmet sexual desire is when she is having her period and I don’t know how to ask during a time that she isn’t comfortable being pleased. I don’t want to appear selfish, but I don’t want to ignore my needs either.
- I want you to want me not just take care of my needs. A little less talk and alot more action please? Imbibe deeply oh lovers!
- I don’t just want sex. I need her to respect me too.
- i feel badly about any given sexual encounter we share when you won’t communicate about how i can best please you and then actively engage in letting me try to … i want to feel as good about being your lover and arousing and satisfying you as you feel about being my lover and arousing and satisfying me .. i want to feel that we are mutually enjoying it , not like you are ‘letting’ me
- If you don’t think about me, aren’t interested in me, and don’t initiate 1/4 to 1/2 of the time, I don’t see a reason to ask any longer. I feel unwanted and burdensome when I do.
- I would like her to initiate more often.
- My drive for the physical side of sex, which she is now avoiding, was given to us by God primarily to bless, fulfill, thrill, delight, complete, satisfy, enrapture and bring her to perfection. The emotional communicative side drive that she has, was given to us by God to achieve similar things for/in me. Our drives are to the benefit of the other. We each feel frustrated when our partner rebuffs our overtures, and overjoyed when we discover what wonderful fulfillment our partner finds and even exceeds us in when they open up to our drive. My own drive will become more fulfilling to me in the very fact of how much it blesses you – BECAUSE in as much as I have a will I will to bless, thrill, fulfill ….. you. I Love You.
- How much I need her sexually and need her to desire me.
- Sex is really important to me.
- I want to share, not have
- i realyy want to satisfy her while at the same time, need her to get ‘wild’ with me. no more hum-drum sex
- Sexual intimacy in a marriage benefits BOTH parties and is not just a husband’s need. It’s the one aspect of the marriage that is exclusive and therefore powerfully bonds a couple together in a way that cannot not be duplicated.
- we are free to have fun
- my love & desire for sexual activity with her and her beautiful body is like a hunger & need for food that craves to be satisfied by HER physically & psychologically. satisfying her sexually is a very important component of that need
- It’s important that during sex to show and express that you want not only sex but your husband. Sex is good but better when desire and admiration is shown.
- How it impacts my self-esteem when she rejects and/or isn’t as physical towards me in general as she was years ago.
- God created sex for us to enjoy with our spouse and to draw us closer.
- If she even has an incling that I might want sex or sex crosses her mind she should initiate. Her initiating shows she cares about sex and isn’t just going through the motions.
- relationship is more that just being roommates
- Sex is a huge part of intimacy, and I feel closer to her when we have it. Once or twice a month is not enough, and I’d feel desired if she’s initiate.
- I would really like if you initiated more and also feel sometimes you really need meed badly right now!!!
- I know that you are really busy with the kids, work and school, but a little more intimacy – even if it doesn’t lead to sex – would be nice.
- Not committing to have a better sex life shows you don’t care about our marriage
- Sex for me is so much more than the physical act. It is a very strong way in which I feel emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and relationally connected to you. Without regular sex, a true desire to be with each other and please each other, I don’t feel connected….i feel alone.
- It’s hard as she is often tired and feels that I’m pressuring her. We both end up feeling guilty her for not being a “good” wife me for making her guilty. Having read many post on generous husband I’m aware that I could do a lot moreT to make her happier lived and valued rather than a failure. So really i want to give more, so the love making will flow out of a deepening of our relationship
- To understand how important it is to me.
- Sex is important to a strong marriage and communication about sex is as important as communication about other things.
- being intimate should be more of a priority
- I feel most loved when she makes the effort to be intimate with me. When we do have sex it is more often than not the last thing she does during the day and she hasn’t exhausted herself with what she has determined are higher priorities.
- It’s all good, try it.
- I masterbate because I need sex when wife is not available (usually because of physical problems). I have problems getting strong enough erections with just my thoughts and imagination and so I use porn to get enough of an erection.
- Just because I am driven by a physiological need for sex, and very much enjoy sex, does not mean that I think sex is more important than she is.
- When she rejects sex as unimportant she rejects me as unimportant
- The Bible doesn’t say, “do not deprive each other, except for during your period.”
- Be engaged is as important as frequency! I want input and participation
- I would feel better about myself and more attractive if she would initiate sex more often. Even though she does not deny me it very often when I initiate but I would like her to initiate more often.
- I need sex.
- I want it to be something we both really enjoy together as a couple
- How sex helps me feel close to her and builds stronger bonds.
- I need her to be engaged in it mentally and physically.
- That being sexually desired is a big part of my self-esteem, please initiate and help my ego about my sexuality. I am a man and am easier to get interested in sex. but it should not only be something that is only done after all the chores have been done. It makes me feel like I am the least-important chore on the to-do list.
- How can you not want to make me happy? I would do ANYTHING for you. I give and give and give to us…….
- I love you and want to be closer to you emotionally and physically. I feel like the lack of physical closeness represents a barrier to emotional closeness and lack of desire for closeness on your part.
- How big a deal sex is to me and our marriage and how bad it makes me feel when sex is the very last thing on her to do list behind kids, household tasks, her business, running, etc only happening if somehow she still has energy left at the end of the night after completing everything on her to do list.
- I want her to be happy when we have sex
- To be active in having sex, not just to lay there and let me finish.
- Your ambivalence, disinterest, and rejection is killing me.
- Doing all 3 (vaginal, manual, oral) is important & makes me feel like she cherishes every part of me and wants to show her appreciation
- That we need to schedule time for each other to enjoy sex at least twice a week. Both getting satisfied.
- Sex is vitally important: if a man is not getting it in his marriage bed, he will look elsewhere for it.
- I love her so much and don’t want sex to be a one sided thing where I get pleasure and she doesn’t, I truly want her to enjoy it.
- How much of a divide not having sex puts between us.
- Sex helps me feel emotionally closer to you.
- Let’s try new things/positions on a regular basis
- This ultimately just as important for her as it is for me…disinterest damages US.
What things surprised you? What did you find challenging?
mission:wife 
Quite a lot to chew on there. So much pain and raw emotion. Gives us further reason to do what we are doing when we write and speak about sex. Thanks for all your work on the survey.
Megan
Megan, we saw so much hurt, but we also saw areas where it seems wives as a whole are doing well. I can’t wait to show those either :) I’ve always been the timid one to write about sex, but this showed me how much I need to keep doing it, because people are hurting. Thanks for you comment, I love your blog!
So I read all of these and yes, some are perfectly kind and honest. Others sound like my husband. My husband is more along the lines of “if I can’t have sex with you what ‘good’ are you?” I have been married for 14yrs. This is not a new issue. Sex is a complicated thing for me. I must be *very* clean before an after or I get infections. (Sometimes that would mean 3-4 showers a day!) Thus putting an end to more sex for at least a week. How does a woman get around feeling like a receptacle to be used? I have prayed about this, tried new approaches, talked to friends…the only thing I can think of is I just don’t love him enough. It feels like I LOSE if he gets sex whenever he wants. I have tried to have sex whenever he wanted for several months. That threw me into a very bad place of feeling worthless, not awesome like it’s supposed to. I hated him by the end of a few months, and have worked for years to forgive the situation. Now the demand is growing again, I’ve lost a lot of weight and feel healthier than I have in my whole marriage. I get comments like “you’re too hot, it’s not MY fault I wanna jump your bones” Really? That’s not true because he chased me around the bedroom since forever! Fat or not!
I’m really at a loss now, I love my husband, my kids, my life but I am not destined to be a sex slave within my marriage, am I??? That’s how I feel. Just the other day, I felt him hovering…I know what he wanted. I was stomach sick and told him this ” Honey I’m really sick, tonight isn’t going to work” He has been making me PAY for the last 4 days. Mean to me and mean to the kids. He says it’s MY fault he’s mean because he didn’t get sex!
Sorry for the blog-a-rhea attack…I read a LOT of Christian Marriage blogs and I haven’t found much that helps. I’m so discouraged.
Frustrated Wife, I am going to post on this soon, but I will come back later today and leave you a reply!
Honestly, I knew and know all of this. I am the wife in the marriage who “could care less” about sex now. I am almost 50, with 5 kids 8-19, four pets, a larger home than I’ve ever had before, so a lot of cleaning to do, driving all day with kids back and forth, and a chronic illness, fatigue, you name it, I can barely make it through each day. Yes, I care. Yes, I want to be better, but I have been married before, had many lovers before, and I am burnt out about sex. It’s not all that for me. It’s uncomfortable sometimes, and I need way more sleep than anything else in life right now. I was a nympho in my youth and had many other lovers, and I’m just not that interested in my spouse. He’s a great guy, but he has never been “my type,” although I know God brought him to me/us, he is good to me/us, and he deserves so much more. I find it very hard to get turned on and don’t want to stray so I keep my desires to myself so I don’t go elsewhere. So it’s not that I probably couldn’t get things going again, but I think I just had too much of it in my life.
Sorry, but it sounds like a bunch of selfish excuses to me. You really need to go to God about this. This is Not what He wants for a marriage and you have the power to change that and bless your spouse, your children, your marriage and yourself.
There is a lot of I’s and my in this comment yet she says she knows GOD has sent her husband to her. Is that how you treat what GOD has given you a husband who should only come after GOD and before children,house,etc. True love is spelled GIVE..
Yes, there is obviously SO much hurt there…sigh…
I have to respond to this comment though: “The Bible doesn’t say, ‘do not deprive each other, except for during your period.’”
Actually…the Bible does kinda sorta say just that! Levitical law (which of course we are no longer under) required a man not to touch his wife at all while she was on her period, and for 7 days after. Men reading the words about depriving each other would have understood–by virtue of the culture they were raised in–that sex was off limits during a woman’s period.
Now as I said…we are no longer bound by Levitical law…but a loving husband will understand that many women suffer physical symptoms during their period that make sex during that time anything but an act of love and bonding.
Thanks for your comment, I was in no way condoning the comments, just sharing the guys thoughts :)
Reblogged this on Delightful and commented:
What Men Would Like To Say To Their Wives About Sex….
wow why didn’t I saw this page before I tank the lord for making me see this is an eye and heart opening for me I can perfectly identify my self thou this testimonies I will certainly pa more attention and think before saying a no to my husband, because i am now starting to see he is not off the way or just thing on “it” but that God did made him deferent . wow for me is going to be a little of a challenge i know its not going to be easy but with Gods help I rely want to change for the glory of God and the best of my marriage. we are a young marriage 5yers. well am thank full again for this and am going to keep on reading. God blessing!!!!