Guidance 2 Live

I Have No Sex Drive

Background information: I am a stay at home mom with a two and a half year old and a one year old. I am no longer breastfeeding. My husband works full time outside the home and we both minister to our church and community.

My husband and I are committed to Christ and to each other and we desire to have a healthy marriage which includes a healthy sexual relationship. I simply do not want to engage in a sexual relationship even though I know it is vital. We have made the decision not to have sex unless I want to (I think I am dealing with some sexual aversion issues) but my husband thinks that by my not having sex with him I am choosing myself over him and our marriage. I don’t think I am making that choice.

I do believe there are some things I can decide to do (like think positive things about him, meditate on the truth about healthy sex as God has designed it, try to eliminate any barriers that I may have, etc.), but I can’t will myself to want to have sex with him. He is feeling rejected and hopeless and I am feeling like a failure and as equally as hopeless. Please help!!!

-Jennifer

Dear Jennifer,

Thanks for sharing your situation with me and you certainly aren’t alone in dealing with this issue. It even seems that this issue is more prevalent in the church than outside of Christianity.

There are several reasons for you to not have any sex drive. First, have yourself checked by a doctor and ask to have your hormone levels analyzed. Hormonal imbalances can cause lack of sexual desire. If there are no medical issues then we have to look at the psychological aspects of sex.

Sexual abuse as a child can certainly cause sexual dysfunction so that would be your first question. Beyond that I’ve found that those that grew up in the church are often very sexually repressed. Churches seemed (in the past more than now), to teach that sex was a dirty thing and only acceptable in a very limited area.. i.e.the missionary position between a husband and a wife.

While there is some truth to this in that a marriage is the safest place to express sexuality, its not the whole truth. God created us as sexual beings and growing up sexuality is something to be celebrated and explored, not repressed. In the Biblical culture people married when they were 14, this is a different time and I think it’s a form of abuse to demand that Christian teens never explore sexuality even in the form of masturbation.

So if you grew up under this repressed, sex is dirty mentality, you may have never learned how to be the sexual being God created you to be.  I always suggest that women in your shoes, first, learn how to pleasure yourself. Get a vibrator and explore your body with it. Find out what feels good and where your erogenous zones are. Experience orgasm in this way, a way that you are in control of. Also give yourself permission to do this. It isn’t dirty and God hasn’t forbidden this.

After you begin to know your body and feel comfortable with these new found sexual feelings, invite your husband into the process. Don’t have sex at this stage, just teach him what feels good to you and focus on foreplay. Allow him to teach you what feels good sexually to him. Once you feel comfortable at this stage then begin intercourse again, but always remember the foreplay as this is vital for a woman to really enjoy sex.

I think in time as you break down the religious mindset you may have regarding sex, you and your husband will have a great sex life. Be wild and don’t hold back. God has made sex in all it’s expressions and it pleases him to know that you are experiencing life and marriage as He designed it.

All the best,

Ted