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I Don’t Feel Like It

Have you ever flirted with your spouse in the morning before work – with a nibble on the ear, pat on the butt, or a long passionate kiss or hug? And, you achieved the oneness spiritually and emotionally that we talked about in the earlier posts, and you thought to yourself, “Yeah, baby! It’s on like popcorn, tonight.” You go through the day, thinking about your time together. But, after a long day of meetings, cooking, picking up kids, refereeing fights between kids or managers, cleaning poop and throw up (if you have little ones), computer crashing, washing clothes, maneuvering through bumper to bumper traffic, and putting out other fires or killing cockroaches (tony morgan’s insightful book on leadership), the morning foreplay is a distant memory. You don’t want to be touched and all you want is to relax and go to bed. You are so tired and all you can muster up is: “Can I take care you tomorrow, Sweetheart?” or “Let me get just 30 minutes of sleep and I’ll be ready for you.” or “Baby, I am so tired, that I just don’t feel like it tonight.” Can I get a witness in the house? 

Every couple goes through this at some point in their marriage. It’s called the Desire Dilemma. If this problem is not resolved, Good Sex will turn into duty sex – just the physical mechanics or let’s just get it over with – or sympathy sex – “I’ll give it to you so you can stop pouting.” If you don’t resolve the desire dilemma, you won’t experience all that God intended for sex to be. Here are some helpful principles that we have learned over the years regarding the desire dilemma.  
Changes in sexual desire will occur.  So, accept it. This is normal. This happens for a number of reasons. When marital expectations are disappointed, sexual desire sometimes wanes. A woman’s sexual desire tends to wane right after she has had children because she is freakin’ tired.  Not feeling loved or respected affects sexual desire. How we feel about our bodies and our weight impacts sexual desire. A woman’s menstrual cycle is another cause that may zap sexual energy. Sexual immorality (pornography, flirtation, affairs, etc.) definitely dowses sexual desire. It is just good to know that changes in sexual desires will occur. The sooner we accept this inevitability, the more energy we can put into resolving the issue.  

Waning or low sexual desire and lack of or energy seem to go hand in hand. Here are some things we have tried to put in place to resolve the low sexual energy levels in our relationship: 

1. Simpify our lives. We are busy people. I am a pastor and my wife is an educator. We have three growing and active children. We found ourselves running from here to there and back to here. No wonder were tired and had no energy to be intimate with one another, not to mention having Good Sex. So, we started saying no to all the things that prevented us from being intimate with one another. We continue to cut things out of our lives, not just for Good Sex, but in order to be relationally healthy. We have found when we are relationally healthy, our sexual desire increases greatly. 

2. Sleep more. Getting to bed earlier has helped to resolve our desire dilemma. We try not to watch television Monday through Thursday because we recognize it is one of the thieves of intimacy and sexual energy (Now, I must admit that I get my Monday fix of 24). We try to get to bed between 9:30 and 10:00. This way, we still have energy if we choose to make love at night, or in the morning (Probably TMI, but Honey Brown gave me permission to share it). Either way, we resolve the low energy problem by getting proper rest. 

3. Share the household chores - I’m bringing sexy back by washing, drying and folding clothes and picking up kids from school. If the woman is doing all the chores (sad to say, this is normally the way it shakes out. This is not right), we as men cannot expect her to have enough energy to rock our proverbial worlds in the evening. Shame on us for expecting it. This highlights what a marriage should be – a covenant partnership.
  
4. Exercise more – Eating healthy, running, and lifting weight increase oxygen and sexual desire. 
 
5. Laugh more - We laugh a lot in our house. From how we were raised and where we were raised, to the crazy mistakes we’ve made with money, parenting, etc. We are learning not to take ourselves so seriously. When a couple enjoys one another’s company, sexual desire goes through the roof.  

6. Guard your marriage from sexual immorality of any kind.  

I know this is not an exhaustive list of resolving the desire dilemma, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers here. What are some other ways couples can resolve the desire dilemma? Join the conversation.       

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Sex. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “I Don’t Feel Like It”

  1. D.C. Says:
    March 30th, 2009 at 1:54 pm

    What’s the term? I think it’s “making out”. Ya know, the things we couldn’t get enough of when sex was still a no-no. Lol. Casual touching leads to kisses to caressing, to passionate expressions that we as married couples can take to the limits now that it’s no longer forbidden! Ya’ll get what i’m saying!

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