For different reasons, lovemaking is a higher priority for some people than for others. While it is part of what wives and husbands can expect from marriage when they marry, it should not be thought of as a “right” to be demanded. It is a privilege to be sought.

What Men Say—
I wish my wife would be more involved in our sexual intimacies. I sort of expected that I would be the initiator. . . . But I didn’t expect my wife to be so, well, detached. . . . I wish I could feel that our lovemaking was pleasurable for her, too.

I have read that men usually want to make love more often than women do, and I think I was prepared for that. But I didn’t expect to feel like an ogre when I initiated sex. . . . When I start to initiate loving her, she sighs and gives a “Not again” signal. . . . I can understand that there are times she would rather not make love, and I can go along with that. But I wish she could make it seem more like a loving postponement than an insensitive denial.

When we first brought our son home from the hospital, I was the happiest man alive. I had always looked forward to being a father—but I didn’t realize that it came with a change in our sexual lives. My wife’s desire took a long time to return. . . . I would like to feel that our love—my wife’s and mine—is still the primary love relationship in the family.

What Women Say—
I wish my husband could understand that sex for me is more than a nighttime episode. I want to feel loved and cherished all day. . . . I don’t feel very loving when the first evidence I have of his caring starts with sexual touching after we’re in bed. My husband has no idea how responsive I might be if he could be demonstrative outside of the bed!

Sometimes I have the feeling that physical expression for my husband is simply a need for sexual tension release. I have read that it generally takes women longer to become sexually aroused. . . . I don’t like to get the feeling that I am “holding things up.”

My husband seems to feel belittled or almost insulted if I mention to him something I wish he would do differently—or some way in which he could pleasure me. . . . When I mention that I would like this touch to be softer, or that caress to last longer, he seems to resent it.

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Excerpts taken, with permission, from Alberta Mazat, The Intimate Marriage—Connecting With the One You Love (Review and Herald Publishing Association). To read chapter 5 of The Intimate Marriage, click here.