tinsley
The secular marriage book, His Needs, Her Needs describes the issue rather well. You marry her with the understanding that you will have a regular sex life, giving up all other options for sex with anyone else by choosing her and marrying her. Then, she rips you off by not holding up to her part of the bargain. The Bible says for married couples not to defraud one another.
It sounds like you are a really nice, easy-going guy. Maybe that's the problem. You want to love your wife like Christ loves the church, but does that mean not to have any expectations for your wife or not to be firm about them? Talking like that about sex may seem a bit unromantic, and a bit of a drag, for a wife to have sex because it is an expectation. If it helps, think of something else. If you have little children, is it loving the children to talk to you any way they want, not to do their chores or homework, and let them get away with it? From the way a parent interacts with the children, shouldn't it be clear that not showing respect to their parents, not doing their homework, and not doing their chores is not an option? In parenting, letting the kids get away with anything is not the way to love them. What if you managed a company? Would you let the employees sleep with their heads on their desks, and tell yourself you don't want to confront them, and not fire them, because you want to be loving? If you love your kids, you may have to set boundaries and make it unpleasant to interact with you if they don't do what they should. If you love your employees, you want them to be good employees, develop skills, and learn to be excellent in their work before God. You have to give an account to your manager for their behavior.
And as a husband, you are responsible for how you run your household. Elders are to be the husband of one wife, rule their houses well, and they are to be an example to the flock. That implies that married men are to rule their houses well. You are the head of your wife. For every area of your marriage, you are responsible to God. Your sex life is a part of that. And though you are the one perceiving the need for it, you can also realize that having sex is a needful part of the marriage. For one thing, it has something to do with the unity of the husband and wife, and two becoming one flesh reveals something of the mystery of Christ and the church. You also benefit from sex 'to avoid fornication' and not having it can open you up for temptation, even if it is in your heart and mind. Is it good for your wife to sin by defrauding you? You also have to help her see that this is sin, so that she can repent for the sake of her own relationship with the Lord. It is not unloving or selfish for you to want to have a regular sex life with your wife.
With children, you would communicate to them that showing respect or doing homework is non-negotiable. If they don't do it, you won't drop the issue. You don't budge on it. With employees, there would be issues you do not budge on. With your wife, you may have to be firm on this issue. You insist on bringing it up. If she tries to shut you down with emotional outbursts, grumpiness, changing the subject, you point out what she is doing and bring it up later until you really discuss it. Frame it as something serious you want to talk to her about, but you just want her to listen. Then give an elevator speech on how she is sinning by defrauding you of sex, how it is bad for you, and how you are not going to insist that this huge marital problem be fixed. You might try a counselor if other approaches don't work. You could also get her some marriage books or videos or even expose her to online Christian videos and blogs on the topic. If she opens up, you can get a commitment to start trying to have sex at least X times per Y to start (1, 2, or 3 x a month, week, day, etc.). Make sure to say it's a start if she low-balls you. Don't agree to a really low number either. If you have to schedule specific times.
You may want it to be spontaneous. You may want her to want you, but just get the ball rolling first.
Also, consider reasons for lack of desire. Did you put on a lot of weigh since you married? Do you think her physical attraction to you was low since you got married? If there is something you can do, like lose weight, work on that. Even if you are thin, you can start to lift weights and try to get some arm, shoulder and chest muscle, especially if your wife has ever let on that she likes those features.
Something else that can cause a wife to loose attraction for a man is if he is 'too nice' in the wrong way, for example, if he is too indecisive or soft. If you talk about where to go to dinner, and the man's answer is always, "Wherever you want to go, Honey", she may not like that. If you have been too indecisive, that could cause her to lose some attraction for you, and for it to whittle away over the years. You could take her on a surprise date where you just tell her what to wear and everything else is arranged by you. Each step is a surprise. That's a fun way of your being 'in charge', showing leadership, and other things she may find attractive.
Also, if you don't stand up for yourself to her, how can you protect her from the lions, tigers, bears, and burglars? She may find your letting her get away with unreasonable requests or not doing what she should toward you or toward the home to make you less attractive. They say some women, without realize it, test their husbands with unreasonable requests. For example, you tell your wife to stop carrying so much junk in her purse so it won't be so heavy, but she brings along this stuffed shiny leather pink duffel bag of a purse stuffed full of the entire Mary Kay product line. Then you go to the mall, and she asks you to stand in the hallway holding her pink purse while she shops for women's shoes. You didn't want to shoe shop with her, but you gave in. She likes you holding the purse and shopping, but subconsciously, she may respect you less for you letting her give you that big duffel bag and for you letting her 'make' you go shopping for women's shoes instead of the other activity you had in mind. Some women lose respect for you if you don't stand up for yourself.
You also have to stand up for yourself when it comes to your sex life and not drop it because you are hurting. It is an area in the marriage that needs to be fixed, and it isn't good for her either, or for the marriage, for the problem to continue unaddressed.
If she isn't yielding to your sexual desires, she might have a problem with not yielding to your other desires. Part of it could be a submission issue. Does she have trouble submitting in other areas of her life? As a wife, she should submit to her husband. I believe this effects the bedroom as well. I'm not talking about dressing up in leather and hitting her with a whip when I say submission. And I don't mean saying, "You must have sex with me because you have to submit to me, woman." What I mean is if she is already in the habit of submitting to you, if she respects you and yields to your desire, it can naturally effect the bedroom. Not as a power struggle issue where she decides to have sex just to be submissive, hopefully. Maybe if she thinks that from time to time as she struggles with the issue of submission in her own mind, that might be okay. But you wouldn't want to have a sex life based on you insisting submits to you.
A lot of Christian woman say they want their husbands to lead. Then they tell their husbands exactly how they think they should lead the right way.
If you are leading, sometimes you may make decisions that aren't her favorite for the good of the family. Hopefully, that will be rare. But if your roles are reversed, that may kill her sexual attraction for you. Maybe she wants a strong leader type that isn't going to back down over an important issue if she raises some concerns. But if she ends up playing the mommy in the relationship, that can kill her attraction for her husband. Playing the mommy could just be a result of a woman's desire to control. Getting her to respect you and submit to you may help her attraction for you. I've read that women who respect their husbands have more sex. A recent study showed that couples with marriages with more traditional labor division (e.g. wife washes dishes, husband cuts grass and washes car) have more sex, too.
If your wife has trouble with submission or respect, you'll need to address that. Assuming she is a believer, address it from the Bible, maybe read a Christian book that deals with the issue in depth, or have her read some good blogs on the topic. It is very important that you pray for her about this. That can really help. Pray with her daily or nightly, and read the Bible together. Ephesians 5 talks about Christ washing the church with the water of the word. It is an example for us. If she's being disrespectful to you, either blatantly like name calling and yelling, or more subtle bossy-mommying type behavior, point it out every time and correct her. If she buys in to what the Bible teaches, then she can start working on her problems.
I don't complain when she wants to go out with her friends.
Maybe you should put up a little resistance to her going out with her friends. You don't want to cut her off from them, but you could say, oh no, tomorrow is a bad night. I was planning on us having sex tomorrow night. You can't go out then. If she doesn't like it, tell her, I guess we could have sex tonight (or tonight and tomorrow before you leave) and then you could go. It's not wrong to have some expectations on her schedule, since you are her husband, and it may help her develop in some areas of her character if you do.
