Having Sex vs. Being Sexual

One of the things my husband and I had to learn early in our marriage was that there is a difference between being sexual and having sex. And with all the guys on MH who are frustrated about their wives’ lack of sex drive, I thought this might be a concept to unpack, just in case it is helpful to anyone else out there.

So, here’s the deal. When we first got married, every time my husband reached for me, I knew that he was requesting sex. And when we first got married, this was totally awesome.   I was up for sex all the time in those days. I wasn’t working full-time. I didn’t have kids. In fact, back then I was actually kind of bored a lot of the time, and sex was a totally fun way to spend some time together before falling asleep.

So sex was a win for everyone. And that was great.

But then, baby #1 happened, and then baby #2 happened, and then I had some health problems, and then I went back to work.

And all of a sudden, life was a lot more full than it had been back in those days when I was up for sex every night.

But my husband kept reaching for me.

And every time he reached for me, I knew he wanted sex.

And I didn’t have space in my brain or energy in my body to deal with sex.

So I’d say no.

And then he’d feel rejected.

And then he’d roll over and go to sleep.

And then I’d feel rejected.

And then I wouldn’t be able to sleep because I was grumpy.

And then I wouldn’t get a good night’s sleep.

And…well, you get the idea. It created a cycle. A hopeless cycle of rejection and frustration and exhaustion. And we weren’t getting anywhere.

But the truth was, it didn’t have to be that way. And one night we actually had a conversation about what was going on, and here’s what we figured out.

  • My husband rolled over and went to sleep not because we didn’t have sex, but because he felt that I didn’t desire him.
  • I felt that my husband only thought it was worth getting close to me if I was going to put out.

But see, neither of these things was actually true.

So we realized we had to change how we understood the concepts of “having sex” and “being sexual.”

So we made an agreement.

  • And we agreed that just because he reached for me in the night, it did not mean he was asking me for sex.
  • We agreed that it was okay for me to say “no” to sex, but “yes” to being sexual.
  • We agreed he is always welcome to masturbate whether I am present or not.

And overnight our crappy, dysfunctional cycle stopped.

Now, years later, my husband and I are sexual with each other all the time. We’ll lay in bed at night complaining about how tired we are, and I’ll pinch his nipples and play with his penis and talk about our day. And then we’ll spoon and go to sleep.

Or he’ll fall asleep with his hand in my panties.

Or he’ll stand behind me when I am in the kitchen washing dishes, and he’ll push his hard dick into my fully clothed ass, while I grind against him and ask him to please take out the garbage before he leaves for his meeting.

Or I’ll text him about how good his cock would feel in my mouth right before I tell him that I’ll be late coming home from work that night.

Or we’ll be at the pool with the kids and he’ll give me a “look” and make some cheesy comment about how he’s heard it’s “mating season.”

Whatever.

But do you see the difference?

When we decided to say “yes” to being sexual without the expectation for sex, our marriage suddenly got a lot more fun and both of us started getting our needs met a whole lot better.

  • My husband now knows that I constantly desire him whether we are actually fucking or not
  • I now have permission to flirt with my husband without sending the message that I want to get laid.
  • I am now getting more of my “girly” communication needs met.

And you know the funny thing?

Though it didn’t happen immediately, I think we have more sex now because of it.

  • Because now I think about sex more often which in turn makes me hornier.
  • And now I am getting chat time with my husband in bed at night so I feel more connected and more valued.
  • And now since my husband doesn’t feel like he is risking rejection every time he asks for it, he actually asks more, and that just statistically ups the odds of me saying “yes” more often as well.

And it’s all because we changed our goal from “having sex” to “being sexual.”

So, guys, it’s just a thought. Try to figure out if you are unintentionally sending the message to your wife that she is only worth your attention if she is going to let you blow your load in her body.

Because, really, you know, there are other ways you can put that excess semen if you need to.

Try to figure out if there are sexy ways you can connect that don’t put pressure on her to perform. Because pressure to perform is about the last thing your wife needs after doing laundry and wiping snotty noses all day.

But you know what can actually do her worlds of good? Hearing that she’s hot. Hearing that you really like her new and improved child bearing curves. Feeling your tender touch on her body. Feeling you care for her after she has spent her day caring for others. Knowing that you love her unconditionally. Knowing you can be patient with her.

And you know, it’s a funny thing. But when a wife gets all that and doesn’t feel extra pressure….sometimes, just sometimes, she might be the one reaching for you in the night.

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26 replies
  1. Hopeful Hubby says:

    Totally agree Eva, my wife and I went through something similar I wanted to cuddle and she thought I wanted to have sex which in turn made me feel rejected glad you and your husband figured it out

  2. PassionateForChrist says:

    Dear Eva, thank you for having written that all out! The moment I saw this post in the dashboard draft section, I knew this one would be a great one! True, I only saw the Title in the dashboard section BUT I was instantly intrigued to read it… just yesterday I thought to myself anew “I wish that post would come up soon. I so wanna see what Eva has elaborated on in there!”… and I just knew this topic, handled by you, would be so worthy to read! And here it is! And you of course delivered! Thank you for sharing your marriage wisdom! So appreciated! 🙂 God bless!!

  3. Upcomingauthor says:

    Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I disagree. Eva, I feel like this article is basically saying that women view sex with their husband as another chore. Or in your words as “performance” and if that’s the case then there are other deep seated issues there than not being told by her husband enough that she is desirable other than for sex.

    Sex is meant to be a way for a husband and a wife to reconnect after a long day. Spouses should look forward to being in one anothers embrace after a long day, not be thinking, “I had to wipe these kids noses all day and now he wants to have sex? Really?” It should be “Man, I had a long day at work, drove the kids around town when I got off. I really need to relax, and I know just who can put me in that relaxing state.” But to sit there and to think that spending time with your husband or vice versa is having to “perform” is down right wrong to me.

    BUT! That being said, your article is also right. You should make your spouse feel wanted out side of bed room. Your every compliment to them through out the day shouldn’t be a way to somehow get into their pants. Being sexual is a way to keep the love alive while you’re waiting for the next time you guys can get together.

    But to also tell men that there are other ways to go and get rid of their semen is also right and wrong. Right because yeah, we can handle ourselves, but lets be honest, if I wasn’t in the mood and my wife wanted some and I said, no, but reminded her she can go handle herself, she’d be pissed or would feel unwanted, no matter what I had said all day long. It’s kind of the way I felt right now reading that paragraph.

    Also, not everyone is open to the idea of their spouse masturbating. Yes we talk about it all the time HERE, but outside of this website, most Christians view masturbation as wrong, and unfortunately most people masturbate to porn. Especially men, we’re more visual a lot of the time than women. And yeah, we can have pictures, or text, or even videos we made with our wife, but it’s not the same. Actually, doing that in my opinion is sometimes worse than porn. I’ve tired that where I look at the stuff the wife and I have made and then I get upset and can’t finish because I want the real thing, and she’s laying right next to me or in the next room, so why can’t I have her?

    I’m not saying that we can’t say no, Paul said there are certain times when we can tell our spouse yes or no. What I’m saying is this post made it sound like sex is a chore, or a performance, and either way that’s wrong. It’s soooo much more. And personally after a long day at work, or during those days where she’s gone and I’m taking care of the house and kids all day, I look forward to reconnecting with her at night. I don’t flop in bed and she starts initiating sex and thinking “Doesn’t she know the day I had? Can’t she see I’m tired.” No, I’m thinking, “Damn, I really need this right now, come her Princess!” And I know that’s how she feels as well.

    There are days were both of us are just too tired. There have been days where she knew it was stressful as I texted her on my breaks and lunches and she would tell me she’d give me a special blowjob when I got home, and I’ve fallen asleep on the blowjobs, because I was just that tired. Didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate her gesture, and I didn’t make her feel any less loved. And there have been days where I’ve thought about rocking her world all day and I get home and I can just see on her face that she’s ready for bed, and I take her to bed and fall asleep with her. So it fits with what you said in your article but at the same time the mentalitiy is I don’t view sex as a chore and neither does she.

    And no, I’m not just speaking for her, I did talk to her about it and I’m reading my comment to her first before I post it to make sure she approves of what I said.

    But all that to say, you’re right but you’re also wrong. My wife said if women view sex as a chore, telling her all day how pretty she is will make her feel good, but it’s not going to make her open her legs. Same with us guys, my wife can tell me how sex I am all day but if I viewed sex as another thing on my long list of things to do today, I wouldn’t really rise to the occasion–and us guys do know there are different levels of hardness we can get to depending on how we’re feeling.

    So as a fellow member of the MH family, I agree with you about being sexual outside of the bed room, but I also want to caution BOTH the HUSBANDS and the WIVES to not look at sex as another chore because that can cause more problems than anything else. You should have a fire and a passion that burns for your lover, and sometimes it may be a little weaker than normal because of the day you’ve had, but it shouldn’t be out completely to where you’re dreading actually getting up to go get firewood–if that makes any sesne.

    That’s just my two sense, I hope it helps, sorry it was so long.

    • Eva says:

      UpCA-

      So, I’ve read through your response a couple times now, and I can’t actually decide if we disagree or not.

      So, I think regarding the idea of sex as a chore…as a woman who has born children and who has held a job through most of time since the children were born, and who was also experiencing chronic hip pain through some of that time, yes, sex was sometimes a chore. It was a chore because at the end of the day after I had cared for everyone else, I came to bed and felt that I had one more person I had to take care of before I could finally go to sleep.

      But see, my husband never actually had that expectation of me.

      And that is the whole point of this article.

      He didn’t actually want to be the last job I had to do at the end of the day, he just wanted to love me and to know that I found him desirable.

      And I ALWAYS no matter how tired I am, find my husband desirable. It’s just that some nights, especially those nights were I was getting up 2-3 times to take care of a crying infant and then showing and going to work in the morning, sometimes, on those nights during those years no matter how much I DESIRED my husband, I still didn’t have the energy to have sex with him.

      And that was where our needs were getting lost in translation. And that was why we had to learn the art of being sexual rather than just resorting to sex all the time. Because I almost always have the emotional and physical capacity to be sexual. But I don’t always have the emotional and physical capacity for sex.

      So, I don’t know. Maybe this whole article is about something that you and your wife have already mastered, and maybe that’s why it doesn’t resonate with you. From the way you talk, it sounds like you already know how to just be together and to work sexuality into your daily lives and just let it be a natural part of your relationship all the time whether it ends in sex or not.

      But that wasn’t something that came natural to us in our marriage. It was something we had to learn. And that’s what I was attempting to communicate in this article.

      You also made reference to the sentence about there being other places you can put your semen. And I agree, that sentence was a bit crass. I went back and forth about whether or not to leave it in the post. And I see I left a typo in it even after all my indecision. But I do want to stand by the fact that during the early years of parent-hood, it is wise for husbands and wives to agree that masturbation is an acceptable form of sexual expression. Certainly it isn’t a substitute, but as my husband says, it is a postponement. It can get him through another morning, or another day, and it doesn’t make him want me less, but it takes the edge off until that time when we can come together again.

  4. Silver says:

    I liked this post a lot! I think this really spoke of how it is for a lot of women who have little kids hanging on them all day. Well done! Lord X and I try to maintain our flirting all day long. He’ll swat my behind while I’m walking away from him or fondle my breasts while I kiss him “welcome home from work”. I’ll stick my hand down his pants while we watch a tv show or alone in the kitchen making supper together (we like to cook together). Sometimes these flirtations lead to sex right away, other times they’re just sexual and fun and building anticipation for when we actually do have sex 🙂

    • Eva says:

      Yeah, it pretty much sounds like you two have it nailed. And I have to say, that’s really how it is at our house an awful lot of the time nowadays too. It just wasn’t so much like that earlier in our marriage. I can think of a few reasons why that might have been, and they are pretty good and logical reasons, but I won’t go into them here.

      I think what’s important for women and men to realize is that the baby days don’t last forever, but that the patterns you create in your sexual life during those days can have long lasting effects. If a couple gets totally out of sync sexually during the baby days, it can be hard to recover later.

      I am happy to say that Walls and I totally have made it through the baby days. I wrote this post to tell about a time when I was the one turning him down for sex…but today, the tables are turned. Now, at this point in our marriage, I’m the one who is up for it nearly every night and he’s the one who’s sound asleep before his head hits the pillow. But it’s okay! We laugh about it and sometimes we manage a quick roll before work in the morning, but most of the time we don’t. But neither of us care that much because now sex is a lifestyle not an activity. And we both know we’ll get to the activity when we both can, but that in the meantime we have something even richer to draw from.

  5. Lovinghusband says:

    Thank you Eva for such a stimulating and thought provoking contribution. I think the interchange of perspective with you and Upcomingauthor was helpful to make us think on this at a deeper level. Your two viewpoints shared a lot in common – while also revealing different experiences at some levels. It is very interesting to ponder all of this more. The end result is always for Scriptures norms to become our norms. Thank you Eva (and Upcomingauthor). LH

    • Eva says:

      I like good discussion on a subject. It’s difficult to have that online, though, because it’s so hard to read people. But it is nice when you can having someone counter you in a thoughtful way. As iron sharpens iron….

  6. TPC says:

    Eva,

    Great article and I really love the title. My wife and I are high school sweethearts and just celebrated 21years of marriage. Being married to my wife is the Lord’s greatest blessing in my life. What you articulated is what we experienced also. In our first five years of marriage we were just a couple andhad plenty of sex and enjoyed it. It was raw and passionate. Then in years 5-10 we had 3 kids. We still had sex but started making the transition from just having sex to being sexual. It was a bumpy transition mainly because God was using the bumpiness to strip away our “self focus” and teaching us how to be “not me focused”. Now in years 10-21 our love life and marriage has been in a period of refinement. We have experienced kids growing up, job loss, health issues (nothing super serious-thankfully), transition from public school to home school, etc. Some days are challenging and some days are a blast. But the Lord has used all of that to keep us dependent on Him and more unified as a couple in and out if the bedroom. We make love and have sex plenty (and its amazing) but even better we are sexual lovers who by God’s grace are walking this part of our journey to our eternal home together. Thanks again for this post. Blessings.

    • Eva says:

      TPC- I think it is so amazing how our sex lives transition through the phases of our lives. Like you said, sex is “raw” it is emotional. I remember a time when I had lost a close family member. The sex that night was different from any sex we had ever had before. That depth of emotional freedom in sex is something that I really don’t think people can understand until they have been married for a awhile. It’s something you have to work towards. Something it might take years to unwrap. Remember the onion in Shrek? Sex is like an onion… I love hearing how far you’ve gotten in peeling your onion. :O)

  7. Harper Shelby Thornton says:

    Great post my dear Eva, yet I agree with the fact that husbands and wives should look forward to reconnecting. I understand how looking after children is a big job, I had 2 girls myself. But for me personally, sex was always relaxing, and after orgasm I’d just lie there in bed with my husband and after a little while fall asleep. Sometimes you may initially feel tired, but sometimes these things can invigorate you. Of course everyone’s different, it’s just my experience though I do recommend it 😉

    But having said that, I’m so glad you are having more sex again and I’m also happy that your marriage as a whole is improving. And gentlemen, I second what Eva said about being called “Hot” – if you give her compliments that’s a least a great start, how could she get tired of that? Keep writing and God bless you, Eva 🙂

    • Eva says:

      Mrs. Thornton-

      “Sometimes you may initially feel tired, but sometimes these things can invigorate you.” You know, I was thinking about writing a post about this. But I wasn’t sure I had enough to say for it to be a whole post. But I remember nights when I knew Walls was needing sex, when I totally wasn’t feeling it. And instead of saying no, i said, “lube up, let’s go for it.” And for me, on those nights, it wasn’t even worth trying foreplay, because I knew it wasn’t going to get me in the mood, but somehow, having his dick inside me, thrusting into my body, I would finally feel the moans overtaking me. And he would come and fill me up, and then, and only then, was I finally so horny I could hardly contain myself. And then I would need to have 3 or 4 or 5 orgasms before I could fall asleep. Poor Walls. He’s such a good guy. He’d try so hard to stay awake and help me out.

      Haha. Sometimes, I guess, sex just isn’t pretty. At least for us. Maybe other people aren’t like that. But we are. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you wish they would. But somehow even when it doesn’t work out perfectly, it still brings us closer together. It still teaches us to open up more and more to the needs of the other. And really, that’s what it’s all about, right?

    • Lovinghusband says:

      Eva, your testimony about this is really helpful. We are not all the same in our
      experiences. I love your saying “sometimes things just don’t work out the way
      you wish they would.” We as Christians still live in a fallen world with spouses
      who are not yet without sin. We can still be so selfish at times. We can want
      our way about things and really struggle about attitudes concerning why are
      spouse (and our self) can’t make things work like we think they should. I’m
      speaking about sex – but it applies to so much more.

      Anyway – I think you are touching on that vein with not only your article – but
      some of the thread that has followed. I want to strive to be more like Christ in
      the way I pursue my wife sexually – I really do. I sure get in the way a lot!
      God bless you Eva and thank you for what you write. LH

    • Harper Shelby Thornton says:

      Of course, I was just letting you in on what goes on with me personally, that’s all and I’m glad you had nights like that 🙂 I’m sure you can make a post out of it, it’s a min of 300 words, I think. 3 or 4 or 5?! Wow, I’d be sleeping like a baby! May God be with you always, Eva!

  8. PacMan says:

    Wow. This post is right on the money. It’s exactly where our marriage is at. We are way too often living in that cycle. Simply calling the cycle “wrong” is not helpful. But YOU orovided a way of escape and gave me a lot to work on.

  9. Married Couple says:

    Thanks for putting into words what has happened with so many of us in our marriages.. Reading your story has made a REAL difference for my wife and me and has helped us to improve our sexual interactions with each other. Thank you for sharing!

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