The sin of refusing sex

What is there to be angry about? The original post that started this thread is a direct quote from the Word of God.......

I agree. If your spouse has to nag a husband or wife, that individual is probably not rendering 'due benevolence.' One can pre-empt nagging by offering or initiating. The spouse who is waiting for a convenient time, is probably waiting for a time that feels convenient for him or herself. In other words-- waiting until he or she wants it, not the other partner. So he/she gets her needs fulfilled, but the other partner is stilling there during the time in between not getting his/her needs met, which seems kind of selfish. I get my needs met. Yours are a lower priority. Or else the 'convenient time' is begrudgingly squeezed into the schedule.

I hear Christian wives joke about this a lot. I find it very disrespectful to your spouse. Neither hubby or I discuss our intimate life with anyone but each other. I recall the ladies in my family always eye rolling and tittering about their husbands wanting sex. I think it's a bad example. That part of your life should be only for you and your spouse unless you are going to someone for help. But intimacy should be your priority as a spouse. Too many people take their cues on sex from the world. We are created to need that time together. If a person is too busy to spend that time with their spouse, they are too busy and something else has to go. No spouse should feel they are begging for intimacy, that's degrading. That's a commitment you make to your spouse when you marry. It's unfair to get on the other side of the fence and say "not tonight honey, I have a headache". So many women complain their husband is addicted to porn, which is sin, but they don't see their wrong in refusing their husband night after night. smh

@Kim82

I see your profile says "not married" .
If you don't mind me asking (and you don't have to answer) have you ever been married?

I ask because I've noticed A LOT of very strong opinionated comments from you (and several others who are "not married" ) in regards to marriage and family/child rearing. And I can remember being single and having my views and opinions of how ideally things should be, which lead to some VERY RUDE wake up calls later in life after marriage/kids. Things that I might have been able to handle better had I not gone into it so sure of my inexperienced, strongly opinionated views.

Honestly,(in hindsight) it pains me when people who don't have experience in an area (WHATEVER that area may be, ) do that.

(it's one way we end up with situations of "blind leading the blind")

Let me put it to you like this, since you seem to be a thinking from your point of view only, and the husband should keep your feelings at the forefront of his consideration too. Should you not care about your husbands struggles? What if coming together regularly is what helps him in this day and age where sexual images are thrown at you 24/7 and sinful gratification is nothing but a few button presses away/ It's a hard thing to struggle with, and if you can help you husband in that battle tremendously by being with him regularly then do you not want to help him in this way? Praise God that my wife sees this, because she is naturally not a very sexual person in general. But she know's my lustful struggles and has made an effort to come together a bit more often, and you know what? It has worked wonders in so many other ways we could have guessed. God is good and He gave us this as a gift, we are aloud to enjoy it in marriage.

Okay all this said please know I was not trying to imply any of this applies to you at all, I was responding to your words with my own personal experience, and was only sharing a possibly different way of looking at it. I just want to be very clear I was not "telling you what to do", or anything like that.

Also as far as "a new Christian doctrine", nope it's been there since the beginning, no body was presenting anything new that I saw. It's not new unless you can point out exactly what you mean and what I'm missing. Anyway I hope you have a nice day.

Lol, I felt the same way. I was single for a lot of years. I was in my 40s before I met my spouse. And when I got married I changed my strongly held beliefs on a LOT of things. I was the last person anyone would have seen as a housewife, cleaning and making supper for her man. Ugh! But then I met a most wonderful man, and he had the patience to put up with my strong personality. And before long I began to change, I began to soften and honestly, less selfish.

I traveled in ministry for 20 yrs. Lived my life on the road. I knew the kitchen was the place to eat and that was it. My husband knew how to cook more than I did! All the women in my family were good cooks. Then one day I had a talk to myself and realized this was a new journey in my life and I needed to commit to it. Poor hubby said before we married "I'm not marrying you because I need a maid. I'm marrying you because I love you". My family felt sorry for him, they just knew he was going to starve to death in front of the microwave. They use to tease me before I ever dated about learning to cook and I would say " there's a microwave, there's Mc Donalds, he won't starve". lol I decided I needed to learn a lot of things fast if I was going to be a stay at home wife. And I did. I recall the first time I cooked a turkey, I know my grandmother was looking down from heaven saying to God "That can't be my grand-daughter"!! Oddly enough I found out it was something I liked to do and did well, along with baking. So much so that our first year of marriage hubby put on so much weight that his doctor told him he needed to be careful. So now he tells me to only bake on the holidays. rofl

Bottom line, once you marry your life is not your own. You either learn to become one with your spouse, or you will have one miserable marriage and it won't last long. You commit to each other, and intimacy is part of that. The Bible makes that clear.

Thanks for writing this, I can really relate to this

I don't think women understand this enough. I know I didn't until I got married. I always dressed modestly. But one day I was at a public pool with my husband. As we were enjoying the cool water on a very hot say I saw a woman step out of the pool. She was stacked, I guess is the best word to use. She had it in all the right places. She was a beautiful woman for sure and she was half dressed. She had the attention of every straight man in the place. And there was no doubt she was looking for it. And it hit me. I looked to my husband, who was looking at me. So I pointed her out and commented on her beauty. To which he looked at me, kissed my forehead and said " But I love you. I don't need to look anywhere else." And I don't give him a reason to look anywhere else. And I'm not just talking about intimacy. He's on his foot a lot during the day and when he comes home I ask if he needs his feet rubbed. I know he's in pain. He'll say "you don't have to do that". And I tell him I do it because I love him. And we do the same for each other. Because that is what love is.

I hope no one puts you down for being open and honest. Because women are not as visual they do not take into consideration how a man feels and what he faces, especially today. Nothing is left to the imagination. I saw a commercial for a laundry detergent, laundry, and there was an old woman in a sweater grinding and clearly alluding to sex. And I'm like, seriously?!! Our body is not our own, once we marry. Intimacy is what helps a couple grow together, it should never be taken lightly.

It would feel kind of like a rip off. Two Christians get married. They both have the same Bible that says to render 'due benevolence.' One of them, let's say the husband decides that rendering 'due benevolence' isn't that important and is a low priority and won't budge from that position. The wife just gave away the possibility to have her sexual needs met, something she reasonably expect to happen in marriage. Wouldn't she feel cheated? Defrauded?

Boys in high school in the locker room may talk rudely about sex, even about specific girls on occasion. But I read somewhere that married men do not talk much to other men about their sex lives. But married women will discuss these things a lot more than men.

Well I don't think it should be discussed and it's not something my spouse and I do. It's private and should remain that way IMO

There are many levels of intimacy that have nothing to do with sex to give to the spouse unable to 'partake' due to physical reasons. At the same time, there are plenty of ways to keep the other spouses physical desires fulfilled. Married couples that truly love each other find what works for them...and if they haven't found a solution, they should keep trying.

jv

This thread seemed familiar. I'm not sure how to do a quick search "posts by me in this thread" but the conversation has clearly progressed.

I "re-jumped" in at whatever video that somebody posted. I actually do think there is a fleshly expression even within marriage that is inappropriate for believers...or at least I think it may be possible but that is fairly unlikely unless a person struggled with spiritual waywardness in general.

I just put that forward because being single all my life there is a confusion about "needs of the flesh" and what Godly married interactions are vs something that reinforces and strengthens the old man.


I'm not saying that poster was relevant with his/her video but I do believe there is spiritual work to be done in a lot of marriages with how people view sexualiy.

HOLY matrimony. This seems like an important area to pursue continued holiness and righteousness in and obviously intimacy is the framework. That is not to say that if someone simply has the framework that they are "in the clear" but that a Godly framework still needs continuous "purposing" and occasionally "repurposing".

Neglecting that framework or degrading that framework is dangerous and foolish. If someone had a lust problem and had somehow made it to marriage unhealed and used their wife as an outlet that way, that would be a problem.

I'm uncertain how to properly and appropriately lay this out, but obviously focusing on physical needs and mutually agreeing is a first resort/consistent practice.



I suppose a distinction between ungodly lust (even within marriage) and Godly passion could productively be made. I have had chance conversations that allow me to think that even within marriage and active intimacy, something can still be seriously amiss...It makes sense that the receiver of ungodly lust where the wife/husband becomes a sex object could react in such a way to withhold sex. Despite that being unbiblical, there's more to it.


Again, I can't be specific seemingly, but the heart matters within marriage itself (I base this off a relationship with the Lord) you could be doing all the right things and your body could be "content" and the "heart" be off and not be in agreement and it makes sense that this could cause things to go quite out of balance and manifest in different ways.

To vaguely close, if someone were withholding the root of the problem can be diverse and even a spiritual crisis for one and not the other and that is important to focus on as well from my perspective.

Thats right I'm not married, and I've never been married. But based on observation of other people's unhappy marriages, and based on who I am as an individual and my understanding of scripture, I am able to form my own opinion.

And I have no worries. I know that if I should get married, my husband will accept me just the way I am. I certainly do not want a man who has sex as his number one priority. No thanks.

The title is certain to get people riled up, and then a Bible verse is dropped without any context. That's what makes me wonder if this thread is designed to rile people up and draw attention.

I certainly don't believe that one should continuously deny their partner. Come on now. My point is that, I do not believe that refusing sex is a sin.

Again, I don't see where that is the OPs intent at all. He's talking about a serious marital issue that many people face. Why should that rile anyone up?

Some of you posters seem to be missing the point. You number one priority is to your spouse and sex is part of that. Your body is not your own. And knowing a few married people is not the same as being married. Not even close. Some people seem to have a belief here that sex within a marriage is wrong, or that a spouse expecting sex is wrong. That's totally un-Biblical. The two become one flesh.

The OP didn't post any context relating to any sort of marital issue. No context about his life or why he put that verse out there. It's just a verse out of context on a subject that riles people up.