Republished: Keeping the Sexual Passion Alive

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Well I was watching these videos on Youtube about marriage for the sake of doing some research, and I stumbled onto a thread about sexless marriages. This is not the first time I had heard about this, and I had certainly heard countless references to “keeping the spark alive” or rekindling the chemistry in your marriage.  But for some reason it really struck home this time, and I started thinking to myself “What could I do before my marriage to work towards keeping my marriage sexually passionate?” Now obviously a big part of this blog is that I am a Born-again Christian, I do not believe in pre-marital sex, I literally run away from any kind of temptation regarding this.  And yet if I do not believe in pre-marital sex, I definitely believe in per-marital sex!  That is, sex during the marriage  (I just made that up, there might be a more appropriate term).  So the question then is, do you need to be actively engaged in a sexual relationship to be able to think about keeping the passion alive, or is it something that you could use a bit of imagination and online research to work towards?  The reason I am writing this post is because I am sure that in many cases a fall in sexual passion is not actually about sex itself, but rather about external factors.

Perhaps there are people who would say that I should reserve all thoughts about this until I am actually married.  But once again, I am sure that thinking about it before marriage, and possibly discussing it with your future spouse, in a way that will not tempt you to experiment practically before marriage, can only be useful.  You could work to put a foundation in place together. You could also at least try to find out if you might be compatible in terms of what you are looking forward to sexually.  Sex is apparently something that is extremely difficult for couples to talk about – even married couples, including couples who have been married for decades!  So another advantage of thinking about it before marriage is that you can then get into the habit of talking about it, until it hopefully becomes less awkward, and you can be more matter-of-fact with one another about it.

I remember the first time (or one of the first times) I had to type out the word “sex” on this blog.  It was for the tab “Sexual Purity”.  How my fingers trembled! Now, a few years later, I am a bit more comfortable with it – a bit!  And yet I feel that now is the right time to be discussing these sorts of issues on the blog. And you know what, I am looking forward to having these sorts of candid conversations with my fiance.  I sincerely believe that the more you talk about it together, the easier it will become to talk about it.  (Says the woman who recently spent almost two years running away from a guy she was deeply attracted to!)

So yes, perhaps there are some things that you can only really plan for once you’re actually sexually active within the marriage. But all the same here are some things that my imagination and my reading suggests to me as possibly being an issue:

Poor hygiene, disgusting habits – oral hygiene, body odour…etc!  Does this need to be spelled out?!  So before you get married, you can’t keep your hands off one another.  You simply can’t wait!  And then after you get married, you see him or her doing something… which puts you right off.  Suddenly, you find that you magically can keep your hands off them!  I think that when you first get married, the force of pent-up sexual desire might be strong enough to overcome this.  But then once that initial hunger has worn off, then those habits can become enough to completely negate any sexual attraction you feel towards them.

Character: Yes, once again this character thing. For me, attraction is very closely linked to admiration.  If I don’t admire or respect someone, I cannot feel attracted to him.  Rather I would be disgusted. There is simply no way I would want to touch someone romantically or sexually if I was not very impressed by him.  And yet I guess this is a very big challenge of marriage, that it is almost inevitable that you will find out unattractive or unimpressive things about one another, and yet you need to remain attracted to one another, committed to investing in the sexual aspect of your marriage.

Regular stresses, time pressures
Before you get married, somehow you take it for granted (if you are me) that somehow sex will make time for itself. And then real life intervenes, and you have tight work pressures, differing schedules.  Perhaps with your husband you have managed to avoid the traps of bad habits and character disappointments described above. But then you suddenly find that you are working nights, he is working days, and deep down you would both love to take the time to really give one another some good loving! But this is after all London, you’re both crazily working to make ends meet, there always seem to be other priorities which are more urgent. On your few days off you collapse and sleep, not necessarily at the same place or the same time; you both promise yourselves and one another that you will definitely make time for physical intimacy “next weekend”.

Fears about certain things, like financial worries
Perhaps if certain issues are looming, one or both partners might find it hard to concentrate on anything else. It might even seem frivolous to spend time making love if the end of the world seems imminent in some way.

Depression, anxiety, low self esteem
Once again these can be a consequence of our modern lifestyles.  It might seem selfish of one partner to even be thinking about sex when their partner is struggling with deep emotional or mental challenges.

Electronic gadgets and what people use them for, social media etc
Apparently these have contributed greatly to the rise of sexless marriages. If I had to compete against an electronic gadget for my husband’s attention then I fear that that gadget might somehow disappear at the relevant time, and then mysteriously reappear later.  “Tosin where did you put my…”  “I don’t know what you are talking about darling!” with my eyes twinkling to let him know that I know exactly what he is talking about!

So how can you anticipate some of these issues beforehand?  Perhaps the character one is the easiest  – just “two year” the thing! For the other issues, perhaps you could discuss together, like ask one another  – what would be make or break for you regarding habits? What creative ways could we find to make sure we had time for one another and specifically our love life even with very pressing schedules?  Are there ways we could be working now (while engaged) to step sideways into jobs so that our working hours would be compatible with one another? Both working days, or both working nights etc. This might even involve sitting down with a calculator – how much do we absolutely need to be earning as a couple? This is where planning beforehand could be useful, as you could work towards getting a place in a less expensive area, so that that could be in place by the time you are married.  Or you could work towards countless different things. I have always said that I would prefer a simpler way of life so that I could spend more time with my husband and eventual family, rather than living a more extravagant lifestyle, and never being able to see him/them.

And then there are some issues that possibly will not be solved by talking before marriage. Maybe there are some things that you simply cannot anticipate about yourselves as individuals, or about your marriage.  For those things you could pray beforehand, knowing that God was the One who created both marriage and sex; He created sex to be beautiful and fun and pleasurable.  He cares about our love lives as a beautiful aspect of our marriages. I guess that technically you don’t need to pray together with your spouse, you could individually pray separately.  But praying together will establish agreement and unity about this. So I would try to pray together about this, being honest with ourselves about whether we can handle the temptation, also finding public places to pray together.  And then if it’s clearly not working and we are both using “prayer” as an excuse to get a little too physically close before marriage, or getting a little too graphic in our descriptions then we will have to resort to praying separately after all.  Perhaps I should make it clear that I also plan to be praying individually anyway, in fact, I am already praying! 🙂

[- I initially wrote this post during a certain period of my life, so this final paragraph is one that is no longer relevant – ]