Love and Respect (30 page)

So she said, “All right, Lord, I will serve him and I will meet that need gladly.” And she proceeded to do so. So what happened? Did her need for emotional release and talking face to face ever get met? She reported back to me, “When we lay there in bed afterward, I couldn’t get him to shut up!”

THEY KICKED THE DEVIL OUT OF BED

This couple who had been so unhappy for so many years because they had been in a lose-lose standoff suddenly found a win-win situation. As she met his physical need, he reached out to meet her emotional need. Someone has said, just as the devil will do everything he can to bring two people together sexually
before
marriage, he does everything he can to keep them away from each other
after
marriage. This couple defeated the devil soundly. You might say they kicked him out of bed!

If there ever were an issue that isn’t really the issue, it is sex. Over the years I’ve had dozens of couples come to me complaining they weren’t getting along. Often the answer to the problem lay in the fact that she wanted intimacy and affection without all the sexual touching, while he wanted sex and was not being too patient with moments of affection only. Sex for him and affection for you is a two-way street. Just as he should minister to your spirit to have access to your body, so, too, you should minister to his body if you want to gain access to his spirit.

“The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband”

(1 Corinthians 7:3).

During counseling a wife told me that she thought sex was man’s number one need. I responded that sex is symbolic of his deeper need —respect. By way of analogy, a wife needs emotional release through talking. When that need is met, she feels loved. When a man refuses to talk, that symbolizes to her that he does not love her or care about her need. A husband has a need for physical release through sexual intimacy. When a wife refuses, that symbolizes to him that she does not care about him and does not respect him and his need. A wife also needs to think about how unfair it is to say to her husband, “Have eyes only for me,” and continually turn him down when he approaches her sexually. As a wife, you spell respect to your husband when you appreciate his sexual desire for you.

TWO KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING YOUR HUSBAND

There are two aspects to understanding your husband sexually. First, realize that his sexuality is much different from yours. Proverbs 5:19 says, “As a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times. Be exhilarated always with her love.”

It is no coincidence that there is no Bible verse commanding a woman to be satisfied with her husband’s breasts at all times. That’s a ridiculous statement, but why is it ridiculous? Proverbs 5:19 is speaking to the fact that a man is visually oriented when it comes to sexual desire. He sees a beautiful woman, her face and her figure, and he is stimulated. Women are not visually oriented when it comes to sex, at least not to the degree that men are.

“Your two breasts are like two fawns, . . .

which browse among the lilies” (Song of Solomon 4:5 NIV).

Think about when you get out of the shower versus when he gets out of the shower. When you step out of the shower, he is all eyes, oblivious to everything else. But what happens when he steps out of the shower? You probably say something like, “Please stand on the bath mat!” or “Be careful! I just waxed the floor!” You are not visually oriented.

The second aspect of being able to appreciate your husband’s sexual desire for you is that he needs sexual release just as you need emotional release (intimacy). In 1 Corinthians 7:5, Paul writes: “Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” When it comes to our sexuality, both husband and wife need to meet each other’s needs. Paul says each is to fulfill his or her duty to the other. Husbands, particularly, can come under satanic attack when deprived of sexual release. Wives might be able to better understand this if they think about how they would feel if their husbands didn’t want to talk or listen to them. Being deprived of emotional release would make most women miserable.

A young woman told the following story to Sarah after one of our conference sessions. Every Sunday she and her husband would visit her parents, but one Sunday morning she called her mother and said, “We’re not coming.” The mother asked, “Why not?”

“Well, because my honey is in a twit,” the daughter said.

“Why?” inquired the mother.

“I suppose because we have not been sexually intimate for seven days.”

Mom did not hesitate; gently but firmly she let her daughter have it. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why would you deprive him of something that takes such a short amount of time and makes him soooooo happy!?”

Embarrassed, the daughter shouted into the phone, “Mother! I can’t believe you said that.” But as the young woman finished relating the story to Sarah, she added, “My mom has been married for forty-seven years, and I don’t know anyone who has a happier marriage.”

This mother gave her daughter good advice, indeed. Sadly, many couples revolve on the Crazy Cycle because without sex he feels disrespected and reacts in an unloving “twit,” and she dismisses him as childish. Round and round they go! But it doesn’t have to be. Sarah says it best in our marriage conferences: “Wives, what if your husband didn’t talk to you for three days . . . three weeks . . . or three months? You would think that abominable. I think you get my point. Some wives want their emotional needs met after marriage but somehow lose sight of their husband’s sexual needs. Remember, your son will have the same need. How do you want your daughter-in-law to treat him? Your son didn’t ask to be made this way any more than your daughter or daughter-in-law asked to be made with the need to talk intimately on a regular basis!”

THE GOLDEN RULE WORKS WITH SEX TOO

The point here is that your husband’s anatomy and design is much different from yours. He needs sexual release as you need emotional release. This is why he loves the act of sex in and of itself. It is a pleasurable act that brings him satisfaction. As a woman, you may feel that the two of you have to feel and be close in order to share sexually. For him, however, it is the reverse: the sexual act is what brings the two of you close!

Remember that sex falls under the same category as everything else described in the Energizing Cycle, be it under C-O-U-P-L-E (what he is supposed to do for you) or C-H-A-I-R-S (what you are supposed to do for him). The rule that never changes is:
you can’t get what you need by depriving your partner of what your partner needs.

“Do to others as you want them to do to you”

(Luke 6:31 NIRV).

There is an old story about a question a man came upon as he filled out a job application form: “Sex: ___.” He answered: “Not enough.” Men, especially, may smile, but the cold, hard truth is that men are often lured into affairs because they are sexually deprived at home. A man who strays is usually given total blame for his affair, but in many cases he is the victim of temptation that his wife helped bring upon him. The second chapter of Proverbs describes in some detail the benefit in pursuing and acquiring knowledge, wisdom, and discretion. Verse 16 says that discretion will “deliver you from the strange woman, from the adulteress who flatters with her words.”

A Dose of Respect Beats a Dose of Viagra Any Day

Being trapped by an adulteress is precisely what happened to the husband of a woman who wrote to me after she figured out why he had an affair. She realized that her husband had been craving admiration just as she craved love from him. He was ripe for having an admiring woman tempt him, and that’s exactly what happened in his workplace. Even though they had enjoyed what people thought was a “perfect marriage” for more than twenty years (four teenage children, active in the church, successful business, etc.), he strayed. They separated for a while, but then the wife realized:

I had become so busy with life, kids, etc., that I had forsaken my husband in this area and left him vulnerable to attack from the enemy. He said he had been craving something, but he didn’t know what it was until “she” began to give him what he was craving. His need for this was so strong that at one point during our separation, he was willing to give up everything—marriage, family, business, reputation, even his relationship with the Lord—just to continue feeling the respect and admiration he was receiving from this other woman. He had an extremely intense spiritual battle during this time because he knew what the right thing to do was, but he did not want to give up what he was receiving from her. God is helping me see my part in the breakdown of our marriage. My husband is a good-willed man and I know that he loves me and he knows that I love him.

The letter went on to say that she had tried the Respect Test with amazing results. She started speaking with great respect to her husband, and he immediately responded by telling her how much it “turned him on” to hear her say those respectful things. In fact, she relates, “We immediately shared a very intimate sexual experience! It seems that a dose of respect beats a dose of Viagra any day!”

“With her flattering lips she seduced him”

(Proverbs 7:21 NKJV).

Not all affairs end on such a positive note. A husband who had been deprived of sexual release and ultimately strayed wrote to say:

I don’t blame her for [my] immorality, but she doesn’t own up to anything. I’m not blaming her, but she is not blameless. She never said she contributed to the problem. I want to forget it but she won’t let me forget it. I did wrong, but I didn’t just one day decide to go out with another woman. If I had felt she respected me, maybe I wouldn’t have done this. I felt at times like she felt I was a failure. So, when someone said, “You’re the greatest thing since sliced bread,” I went for it. She says I ran to a blonde bimbo. But [the other woman] made me feel really good; it had nothing to do with the sex. Somebody thought I was okay. The more she told me I was a good man, the more I was drawn toward it.

IF HE LOVES ME, HOW CAN HE BE TEMPTED BY OTHER WOMEN?

Sexuality often becomes the reason that couples are not as close as they could be, but it manifests itself in ways you might not suspect. Men may want to be open with their wives, but when they want to be open on topics that threaten rather than increase feelings of love, some women grow uncomfortable if not downright upset. A wife may be wondering why her husband isn’t more open when the truth is, she told him many years ago not to be.

As a rule, a wife wants more emotional intimacy only on subjects that increase feelings of love between her and her husband. When the husband shares any kind of “dark side” struggles, let’s say with sexual temptation, she grows uncomfortable, or even hurt and angry. She may instruct him to be silent and to change. In other words, be like a woman: “We don’t lust for men’s bodies, so don’t you lust for women’s.”

It is quite all right for her to share her struggles with body image, weight control, fears, and worries. The husband is to listen and empathize with her on all of these subjects. She feels so much better afterward because, in her mind, this increases feelings of love between them. The problem, of course, is that he doesn’t struggle with body image, weight control, fears, and worries as she does. He has different struggles. Because his wife does not have those same challenges, however, his male concerns usually don’t count when it comes to emotional intimacy.

Every man understands the connotation of this scripture: “David . . .

saw a woman bathing (2 Samuel 11:2).

So the husband clams up, especially after being scolded. This, then, contributes to the wife’s conclusion that he cannot be emotionally intimate. In actuality, she has told him not to be open. She has a high standard of what emotional intimacy is, but it must entail energizing the love between them and releasing her burdens. If he communicates something that isn’t energizing and it creates a burden for her (i.e., sexual temptations he may have when he sees attractive women), he is out of line. She wonders,
How can he be tempted by another woman? Does he love only me or not?

She cannot comprehend that seeing some well-endowed woman at the office with a plunging neckline would “turn him on.” So she assumes that he must be lying. She concludes that the reason he has this sexual attraction toward that woman is because they have already spent a lot of time together (or least he wants to spend time with her), they’ve been talking, getting to know each other, getting close,
etc.
She cannot understand the concept that he could be aroused simply by looking at someone he barely knows. She lets him know that it isn’t right to be tempted by any other woman in any way, and she doesn’t want to hear about that kind of thing again.

She probably doesn’t hear about it again, although her husband still struggles with his visual-orientation problem and wishes he could share. Remember the admonition to the husband in Proverbs 5:19? He is to let his wife’s breasts satisfy him at all times—and no other. Most of Proverbs 5 is directed at warning husbands of the dangers of adultery. Why? Because the wise teacher who wrote this passage was trying to give men a healthy view of sex. The husband who loves his wife should delight in God-given sex, which means only in the marriage bond.
¹

Remember also, Jesus warned: “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Our Lord understood that men are stimulated visually. Sex is in the forefront of man’s consciousness, and whenever he sees someone visually seductive, he can be stimulated.

Simply put, a man is responsive to what he sees. He needs his wife’s understanding of his struggles. If he wanted to be untrue to her, he would never allude to this problem at all. A wife longs to receive her husband’s closeness, openness, and understanding. You can achieve this in two ways: (1) do your best to give him the sexual release he needs, even if on some occasions you aren’t “in the mood,” or (2) let him know you are trying to comprehend that he is tempted sexually in ways you don’t understand. As you allow him to talk about his struggles, you have all the more opportunity to be his friend as well as his lover.