Men typically dismiss such wifely outbursts as complete nonsense. The sad reality, however, is that the best of us are in danger of lapsing into shallow sex, dragging our wives down with us. Even more disturbing is that we men seldom sense when we are on this decline. Women, on the other hand, tend to be acutely perceptive of what we are really doing to them. The popularity of porn proves this male tragedy. As unbelievable as it sounds, men are capable of so demeaning themselves as to have sexual interaction with ink on paper or electrons in a computer! As if this were not shocking enough, they can engage in this depravity and barely be aware that they are degrading and depersonalizing what was meant to be the pinnacle of interpersonal relations. If so many men can fall into having a sexual experience with a piece of paper, each of us live a knife edge away from sometimes treating our wives as no more than a lump of flesh and not even realize how much we have debased both ourselves and the most precious person in our lives.

The shocking truth is that the most common reason for female frigidity is that their men are not the great lovers they imagine themselves to be.

As an egg cannot burst into life unless it is kept warm, and plants can flower only under the right conditions, so a normal woman can reach the pinnacle of sexual passion and abandonment only if she feels loved, valued, secure, relaxed and physically refreshed.

When, instead of doing more to foster these feelings, a man tries to overcome his wife’s sexual inhibitions by focusing on the physical, she slips from feeling secure and relaxed to feeling pressured to perform. She slumps from feeling valued as a person to feeling reduced to a toy. Under the devastation of this emotionally crippling insult, her sexual passion dries up. Her sex drive will most likely vanish for as many weeks or years as she continues to feel that this is how her husband sees her. On the other hand, if it gradually sinks into the core of her being that she is loved, honored and cherished by her husband, her yearning to sexually thrill him will skyrocket.

Your wife’s passion is the culmination of all the feelings you have generated within her, not just in the last ten minutes, but every time you have been in her presence in the last days and weeks and even months. If a woman is cold in bed, it is usually because the way she is treated outside of bed has left her cold.

In making a woman feel loved, a hug not intended to lead to anything, is worth twenty passionate kisses when is sex on the agenda. When a husband does little to make his wife feel valued except when he wants his sexual needs met, acting like the world’s greatest romantic for what to him are the few critical moments, will not prevent him from being a miserable failure as a lover. Rightly or wrongly, she will feel not loved, but the victim of a cold-hearted con artist who is unconcerned about her and wants only to manipulate her for his selfish gratification.

A woman’s hearing fails if the only time she hears, ‘I love you,’ is during foreplay. To her, the words end up sounding remarkably like, ‘I love conning you into serving my needs.’ And, ‘You’re beautiful,’ begins to sound like, ‘Just forget about your feelings – I have. All I care about is using your body as something to masturbate inside of.’

It’s too late to suddenly transmute into the perfect lover when you want sex. If how you treat your wife then is inconsistent with how you treat her the rest of the time, your attempts to arouse her will affirm not your lovemaking skills but your hypocrisy. The show you put on might be so convincing that you fool yourself into thinking you are loving her, but she will see right through it and feel not loved, but violated. Hypocrites arouse in their victims neither love nor lust but pure disgust. Under those circumstances your failure to sexually arouse her would prove not her frigidity but her intelligence.

A particularly important time for a man to show love is the few minutes immediately after he has been sexually satisfied. At this, the very time when most men feel like sleeping, a hormone is usually released within a woman that heightens her alertness and longing for romance. This makes it a critical time for bonding.

A man does not deliberately create his wife’s coldness. He simply becomes preoccupied with other things and so his wife’s feelings fade from his consciousness. Unfortunately, this preoccupation means his wife has slipped in his priorities. No matter how much we kid ourselves, our priorities are a most revealing measure of the genuineness of our love.

Animals seek to satisfy their sexual needs. Humans make love. Lovemaking is a sham if it is only seen when a man wants his animal needs met. Since women are made to be sexually drawn to men, not animals, women can be expected to be turned on by the qualities that set us apart from animals. In addition to love and selflessness, speech is one of the major characteristics separating us from animals. The less you really speak with her, and the more you merely grunt at her, the less you are acting like a human being, and so the less appealing you can expect to be in the eyes of a normal woman. Conversely, the more deeply you communicate with her, drinking in her words and baring your heart to her, sharing your joys, your dreams and your failures, the more sexually responsive you can expect her to be.

The way we treat others bounces back at us, profoundly affecting us. We couldn’t murder someone without it turning us into murderers. We can’t steal from anyone without it making us thieves. And we can’t degrade our wives, as if they had no feelings or preferences, without ourselves being degraded.

For humans, sex is divinely designed to be the height of personal interaction. If we reduce it to a mechanical act or to selfishly gorging ourselves, we end up debasing and dehumanizing ourselves as well as our wives. So you have much to be grateful for if your wife acts as an alarm alerting you to times when you are on the slippery slide to degradation.

Technique

It is generally realized that for good sex most women need genital caressing during foreplay. A common complaint women have about this is that their partners keep pressing too hard. This mistake, however, is merely a symptom of the real problem. At the heart of such matters is that the wife has not taught her husband how to please her. In most cases this can be traced to what is commonly called the male ego – the tendency for a weak man to crumple, pathetically thinking himself a failure, if forced to admit to himself that he knows less about his wife’s sexual feelings than she does.

Let’s face facts. Every woman is unique. No one can become a good lover merely by reading books or from former partners. The only way anyone can learn how to sexually thrill a specific woman is by responding to guidance she gives. Many couples tragically miss out because the woman is too timid to provide the feedback necessary for good sex. Usually it’s because the husband has given the impression that he is that weak sort of male who can never learn from the only person who truly knows how to thrill his wife – the woman herself. If you cannot learn from your wife, you might pass as an animal, but as a husband you are a failure.

What ignites a woman sexually varies enormously, not just from woman to woman, but from day to day. For example, studies have shown that, especially for a woman not on the pill, male body odors that disgust her most of the time arouse her at a certain point in her menstrual cycle. Likewise, what visually appeals to her sexually varies according to the time of month.

You can only get to know your wife’s sexuality the same way you get to know her personality – from her, not from books or videos or guesswork. Getting inside her body without getting inside her mind will end up a hollow experience for both of you.

Let’s Get Practical

Treat a computer as a football and you won’t have a computer for long. You might keep the pieces but it will be incapable of meeting your computing needs. A few seconds’ fun would turn you into a loser. Treat a wife like an inflatable doll and you won’t have a wife for long, even if you still have the pieces.

Many of the most significant things in kindling a woman’s sexual feelings are quite different to what makes a man feel like sex. The average man can see the link between maintaining a car and that car’s performance, but he seldom sees the link between maintaining his wife’s awareness of his love and his wife’s sexual performance.

Here are pointers as to how to help a woman know she is loved. From this will flow astounding benefits, including bringing her to the peak of her sexuality.

Praise her. Regularly find things you like about her physical appearance, her character and her abilities, and verbalize your admiration. Appreciate all that she does for you and freely express your gratitude.

Be loyal to her. Don’t say negative things about her behind her back. Defend her if anyone speaks negatively about her. Don’t undermine her authority in front of the children.

If you use humor that puts her down, be extremely careful. She might, laugh but at times your words could be damaging her. Try to wean yourself off such humor.

Seek to discover her inner feelings. Keep pushing yourself to new levels of tenderness and sensitivity to her needs. This is a huge challenge for most men. We live in a world that is so twisted that many of us end up imagining that the way to be esteemed as a man is to be morally bankrupt in such basic virtues as kindness and gentleness, known to Christians as the fruit of the Spirit. To imagine that to be male is to be morally deficient is a gross insult to masculinity. Aim to go beyond the standard set by your own father, gallantly breaking into new realms of tenderness and exalting your wife.

Recognize and make allowances for times when she is tired or upset or not her usual self.

Respect her opinions. You might not always agree with her, but try to. Thoughtfully consider her views. Never rubbish them.

Consult your wife before making decisions. Share your plans and dreams with her. Be open and honest with her about every aspect of your life.

Realize that for your wife to be the full woman you need her to be, she needs close women friends. Don’t feel threatened by this. It is part of what makes her a woman. You married her because she is a woman, not a man, so let her be the full woman she is.

Regularly ask her such things as:

* What can I do to make you feel more loved?

* What can I do to boost your confidence and help you feel good about yourself?

* What can we do to make sex more exciting and fulfilling for you?

Perhaps you are scared to ask such questions for fear she will say something like, “Help more around the house.” Be brave! If this really is high on her priorities for feeling loved, then it is important. More is at stake than a bit of housework. It touches her emotional well-being and your entire marriage. Only she knows the critical elements in making her feel loved.

If you are the leader in your home then your role is to lead your wife to heights she would never otherwise attain. To achieve this you must exalt her, doing everything you can to help her reach her full potential. If, however, you are not a leader but an oppressor, don’t bother calling yourself a husband.

Christian Perspective

Any man not doing what he can to make his wife feel loved and secure and honored is not just a failure, he is doing the devil’s work. I say that very deliberately. By his actions, or lack of them, such a man is in league with the Tempter, inciting his wife to go to someone who will honor her the way she deserves. If she yields to that temptation, she will be accountable before God for her sin. Regardless of her response, however, God holds her husband responsible for the temptation even existing. This is a grave responsibility. ‘Temptations must come,’ said Jesus, ‘but woe to him who causes them. It would be better for him for a millstone to be placed around his neck and he be tossed into the sea’ (Luke 17:1-2, paraphrase). Such a man might consider himself the model of faithfulness but in reality he has not only betrayed his wife, and his marriage vows, he is a disgrace to the name of Christ.

You, however, were born to be a lover, and born again to receive divine empowering to soar way beyond what you could otherwise attain. Rise to your high calling and you will find fulfillment beyond your fondest dreams.

Not Always the Husband’s Fault

A man e-mailed me, guessing that despite my first name being Grantley, I must be a woman because of the emphasis in this webpage.

“I have seldom read such a lopsided piece of writing,” he complained. “You completely ignore the fact that there are many physiological, and psychological reasons for frigidity that have nothing whatsoever to do with the relationship of the couple.”

He has a very valid point, even if he reacted without reading my many other pages that cover factors he blasts me for omitting in this webpage. And perhaps I should have insulted your intelligence by suggesting that neither you nor your wife had thought of a medical checkup. Nevertheless, the first thing a husband must do is examine himself before assuming the problem is his wife’s. As Jesus wisely pointed out, we must first remove the beam from our own eye before trying to help anyone else. This is something we typically find hard to do.

If following the above suggestions proves to be less than the full answer, here is a sample of some other pages that might help:

Serious Help for Hurting Couples

How Holy Wives Express Marital Love Smashing Inhibitions

Marital Secrets Smashing Inhibitions

Related Pages

Confessions of a Frigid Woman (Highly Recommended)

How to Bring a Woman to Orgasm or Increase Her Desire For More Sex

How to Increase Your Wife’s Sexual Responsiveness

How to Fall More in Love with God (Contains practical suggestions for re-igniting marital love)

A Second Look at Conjugal Rights

When a Wife Doesn’t Want Sex

The Husband as Head of His Wife

You Can Find Love Receiving Divine Power to be a Lover

When One Partner Wants What the Other Fears is Perverted

How Harmless is Porn?