04-26-2010
Good Morning! Mark and Debbie start the show with a Psychology Today article, Why Wait?
They open with a continuing saga from last week about a teenager dating a guy she met on the internet, and now the daughter is living with a drug dealer. A wife is always questioning if her husband loves her, and young bride is wondering if her marriage is doomed because they are no longer having sex. Debbie brings an e-mail to the show about living with 2 controlling families, and a husband that doesn’t want his wife using Facebook anymore because he caught her chatting with an ex.
Mark explains why marriage is a ‘sexual contract.’
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Tags: Facebook, marriage, sex, young marriage
So glad I was listening today about the sexual contract! It is true! Women who want physical intimacy more than their husband tend to feel rejected, undesirable and like something is wrong with them for “wanting” it! I never let anyone know that I want it more than my hubby cause I don’t want to make him feel bad as a man. We have worked on our relationship in this area and totally ENJOY each other, however, I do not come on to him as often as I would because I do not want to feel REJECTED… and sometimes I think he misses that. However, when he makes I move I ALWAYS let him know how WANTED he is!
Wow. Almost never have I heard any Christian teacher proclaim marriage as a “sexual contract”, aside from not having an affair or indulging in porn. In *my experience*, I believe that Christian counseling has given way to pop psychology on this topic, providing an out for women (I am a man and addressing this from my perspective) by ratifying their feelings or lack of. “Well, he’s not doing xyz correctly, so I understand why you don’t want to have sex.” I have yet to see anyone hold a spouse accountable for not engaging sexually with the denied partner.
This was a big (but not the only) problem in my failing marriage. Over 20 years, we maybe averaged sex once a month and in the last many years, it was maybe once every three months and only on her terms. Never if I wanted to, only if she did. I recently received a message from my wife that basically stated everything with her was fine and that it was God protecting her from me. Let me be clear. I did not hurt her. I did not desire bizarre stuff. I consider myself a generous lover. Unfortunately, her outside spiritual direction totally supports her view that somehow I was bringing something evil into our engagements.
I got to thinking today, what does Mark Gungor think about the idea of “not ‘won’t', but ‘can’t”. My estranged wife got to talking, very emotionally about this today. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t, but couldn’t, having misused sex in the past and suffering some abuse as a young girl and teen. Additionally, she grew up in an environment that very much repressed healthy sexuality, emphasizing the sin. Sex caused her to recoil.