kaylagrl said:
Okay ladies but what about considering your husband? He's been at work all day, a harsh and unloving world. He comes home to his wife and hears again "Not tonight, I have a headache"!! You're having sex with your husband is also an act of love. Hey, men should be saying this, not me. Ladies, we hold all the cards when it comes to sex. Let's be sure we are not just thinking about our own needs. Your body is no longer your own, remember that.
So, I just read about the first 4 ½ pages of this thread and the last 2 or 3 pages of this thread up until this post that I’m now quoting (haven’t yet read what comes after it), and I obviously missed quite a bit of what was said in between those pages. If I therefore say something out of ignorance, then know that I literally am ignorant of quite a bit of what’s been said on this thread, and please direct me to anything pertinent that I might have missed. Thank you.
With that disclaimer out of the way, I stepped out of retirement (again) to give my opinion on what you said here as a man who was once married for 17 years.
In relation to “being at work all day”, for the entirety of my marriage, I was self-employed, and that was by design. In other words, I wanted the flexibility to make my own schedule so that it would leave me time to serve God, and to best accommodate the needs of my wife and any children that we might have (we had three) together. Normally, I worked only three days a week, but those workdays, including my commute in both directions, sometimes lasted as many as 14 to even 20 hours in a single day. So, yeah, there were many times when I was “at work all day”, and my “work” often didn’t end when I arrived home either.
As I already mentioned, over the course of time, my wife and I had three children, and they were all initially homeschooled. On the days which I worked outside of the home, my wife did most of the homeschooling (while also performing a whole host of other parental duties), but, even then, I normally taught our children math, science, and English (my wife’s native tongue was Spanish) after I arrived home from working all day long.
In all honesty, there definitely were many days when I was working that the thoughts of intimacy with my wife later that night came to my mind and somewhat invigorated me. Notice that I said “intimacy with my wife”, as in making love to her, and not as in merely “having sex” with her. In other words, there’s A LOT MORE to intimacy than just some sexual act. Yes, believe it or not (believe it), I actually desired a SPIRITUAL AND SOULISH CONNECTION with my wife FIRST, and not just some sort of self-satisfying physical act. Anyhow, there were also many times when such thoughts of intimacy never came to fruition for at least the following two reasons.
First of all, as I’ve mentioned on this forum before, I learned that my wife had been sexually molested by her own father repeatedly between the ages of 5 and 6 years old about a month or so AFTER she and I were married. I’m mentioning this again because there were many times during my marriage when my wife had flashbacks of what her father had done to her as we were getting intimate ourselves, and we always refrained from any sexual activity during those times. Unlike some “dog in heat” (which is how men seem to be described in some of the posts that I have read here in relation to their “needs”), I was very understanding and compassionate, and I oftentimes just spent the night holding my wife, and praying for her/with her, and I was totally content in doing the same. The thought of me possibly telling her, “Hey, woman…roll over and perform your conjugal duties!” never even entered my mind, but it seems as if some people here would have no problem at all if they had.
Another reason why my thoughts of intimacy with my wife oftentimes never came to fruition was that I oftentimes put such thoughts to bed (by themselves) on my own. In other words, raising three children at home all day long is full-time work in and of itself, and there were many times when I could sense that my wife just needed some quiet time of her own, and I gladly gave it to her. Again, the thought of me possibly telling her, “Hey, woman…roll over and perform your conjugal duties!” never even entered my mind, but it seems as if some people here would have no problem at all if they had.
After all, she better NOT defraud me of what I’m due and sin against God in the process, right?
Wrong.
Well, wrong for those who actually see their wives as something more than just a leg to hump like the aforementioned dog in heat, anyway.
Maybe there’s something wrong with me (or maybe I’m just a normal Christian), but it seems to me that my now ex-wife (and all women) are more than just a body with a hole in it. Sorry, to be so vulgar, but that’s how some people here almost seem to be describing women themselves. Personally, I always (and I still do, even though we’re now divorced) saw my wife as a spirit-being who possessed a soul, and who lived inside of a body. Her spirit and her soul were of top priority to me, and if I took care of those two aspects of her being, then physical intimacy, apart from the reasons that I already mentioned, was never an issue. And don’t forget that my wife basically HATED ME and tried to destroy me for almost the entirety of our marriage…even as I’ve mentioned here quite a few times in the past. Even then, I still treated her right, and she oftentimes desired intimacy with me. In fact, I still recall that right after a courtroom judge found me innocent of all the phony charges that my wife pressed against me with the police, phony charges in which she sought to take my children away from me permanently, she told me that she wanted to make love to me. Go figure. She’s either nuts or I’m simply irresistible…lol (most likely the former of the two).
Anyhow, women aren’t just some piece of meat that God demands to be served on a man’s plate when he gets home from work, nor are men just some sort of living sex toy for women to enjoy at their fancy. The same Paul who wrote I Corinthians chapter 7 also wrote Ephesians chapter 5 in which he likened the natural marriage relationship between a man and his wife to that of the spiritual relationship between Christ and the church.
Does Christ just care about our bodies while ignoring our spiritual and soulish/emotional needs?
Seems to me that we’re supposed to love him with our whole heart, mind, and strength.
How about husbands do the same towards their wives, IN THAT ORDER, and then see what happens as far as sexual intimacy is concerned?
In my personal observations, and I say this as a man, most men truly are just like “dogs in heat”.
I don’t know about you, but when a dog tries to hump my leg, I push it away.
I’m certainly not seeking to justify all women who similarly push their husbands away, but there definitely is a very real parallel at times.
That said, most women are no day at the beach either…unless there’s a typhoon…lol.
Anyhow, none of this was meant solely for you, kaylagirl.
Instead, I’m just using your comment as a springboard to say certain things which I felt needed to be said.
For whatever that’s worth.
P.S.
I honestly feel sorry for any of you who truly live in a world/situation where “the woman holds all the cards when it comes to sex”.
That’s not the world/situation in which I live/lived, nor is it the way that God designed things to be.
If a man’s wife doesn’t desire intimacy with him, then, in my estimation, it’s probably more the man’s fault than the woman’s fault.
P.P.S.
Quite frankly, I find some of the comments on this thread to be demeaning to both men and women alike in that they’ve basically been described as slabs of meat to satisfy the carnal cravings of others…and all in the name of allegedly obeying God’s word.
Whatever.