I wish my wife and I could be sexually intimate more often, but she’s not interested. How do we work on this?

I really appreciate this question and I especially appreciate the, how do we work on this? Because what the question acknowledges and the way that you're asking this question is, our sexual intimacy in marriage is something that we do together, is something that we must work on together. And that's exactly the image that we see in scripture. So let's look at the song of songs where sexual intimacy is depicted as a garden, a private garden that a husband and wife create and tend together. Or it's an aquifer, if you will, an underground streams that replenish wells, that replenish a spring, that then gives refreshment and water and life and new growth to a couple in the intimacy of their relationship. It's something that a couple works on together that actually isn't just work, but it actually nourishes them. And as we see in scripture, sex is a good gift.

It is protective on a husband and wife's relationship. It builds them up, it nourishes them. It smooths over rough corners in their relationship. It softens them to each other. It draws them near and is part of God's gift to creating a close and intimate relationship. But the problem is past about 30 or 35 years old. Sex isn't just something that is just spontaneous, right? It becomes something that has to become a habit, something that it has to be become a priority. And it's something in scripture, let's say in one Corinthians seven, that Paul describes as somewhat like a financial trust, something that both a husband and a wife are contributing to that are both are mutually responsible for and mutually benefit from, but we both have to contribute to it. We both have to work at it. It's not after some age and some point it's not going to just come spontaneously and naturally.

And the thing is, as you get into your midlife and work stresses, ramp up stress in parenting difficulties, illnesses, unresolved conflict that starts to build up between a husband and a wife. Well, all those things just naturally push sex to the margins of a couple's relationship and even into extinction for many couples. And you hear these jokes like sleep is the new sex. That's what we'd rather do with the few moments that we have together, is just take a nap or just fall asleep at night. But sex in many ways is like breakfast and hang with me here in the sense that breakfast is very important. Some people can skip breakfast, some people do skip breakfast, but it won't go well for them that it won't go well for them physically and even emotionally. It is something that nourishes you and it's something that lasts throughout the day.

It has a lasting effect. It's not everything, but it is something wholesome and something important for you physically. Well, sex is very much like that. It's not everything, but it is something that a husband and wife need to prioritize and need to put effort into. Now, if you wrote this question, you're thinking, totally agree with you, can you talk to my wife? Maybe I can get her to watch this and no, I'm not going to talk to your wife. But the thing is, couples who enjoy years, decades, 30, 40, 50 years of marriage and who report having very good, healthy, satisfying, mutually satisfying, sexually intimate relationship, you know what they all say when we ask them, they say, we found a way to talk about it together. It is a hard conversation, but we developed a way to be honest, and we developed a way to actually share our desires, share our sensibilities, and to actually put that on the table of discussion between us and what do we know?

We know that talking about sexual intimacy with our spouse even after we've been married for years, is incredibly difficult. It's probably the most difficult conversation that a husband and wife can have, right? We don't want to hurt each other's feelings. We are embarrassed. We're very vulnerable when we have this conversation. But in order for you to grow in your sexual, intimate relationship with your wife, you need to find a way to talk about it. Now, at the heart of your question is, I would like to be sexually intimate more often. There's a discrepancy between what my wife would like and what I would like. And lemme just tell you that it's so common. It's common in almost every marriage that I counsel. So the problem isn't that there's a discrepancy in the frequency of sexual intimacy. The problem almost always is how you deal with the discrepancy, how you deal with the difference.

And some couples, they just don't talk about it. Some couples talk about it in selfish ways and in very inconsiderate ways. Some couples though find a way, a language to address it in a way that is all ears that really hears the other person and draws them out. And one thing that I've found, there's many different directions that we could go, but one question that I'd like and that I often do ask couples is what kind of sexual intimacy would be worth desiring would be worth working on and developing together? And that's where you start to, people start to be honest and say, well, it could be. There's a lot of things that really inhibit my sexual desire that are essential to talk about, and there's a lot of things that would actually accelerate my sexual desire that a husband may not know. Another thing that we know that's become very clear is that sexual desire is almost always responsive.

It's not just spontaneous and just comes out of the blue like when you're much younger. And so talking about sexual desire together, oftentimes I'll use a metaphor of a garden metaphor because the Song of Songs depicts sexual intimacy as a garden, as a vineyard that we cultivate together a private walled garden or a vineyard. And it's asking questions like, well, in a garden there's different types of plants. Some plants need more sun. Some plants are actually shade growing plants. Some need a ton of water, some actually need a little water up front, but then prefer a drier climate. And what kind of plants are you when it comes to sexual desire? A different metaphor is as you drive most vehicles, if they're automatic transmissions, you have two pedals, you have a gas pedal and you have a brake sexually. What accelerates your sexual desire? What kind of things?

Is it context? Is it the room setting? Is it the time of day? Is it that our relationship is reconciled? There's nothing between us. Is it time together? Is it conversation, it, cooking, dinner? What accelerates sexual intimacy for you? On the other side, we could talk about what is a break, a sexual break, what turns off and inhibits sexual desire? And it could be everything from contextual factors. We have children and we don't have a good door on our bedroom to more relational things. There's things we need to talk about, right? Sex isn't disconnected from our relationship. There's things, it is a fruit of our relationship. Sexual intimacy, yes, it's God's gift to actually grow and nurture a close, intimate, fruitful relationship. But it's also the reverse. It's also our relationship leads into nourishing and satisfying and God-honoring sexual intimacy. And so talking about sexual desire in terms of what kind of sexual intimacy would be worth desiring and what inhibits your sexual desire versus what accelerates it. We have to find a way to talk about these things. And no, I'm not going to talk to your wife, but you need to, and you together can carefully and in a very sensitive and considerate way start to learn from each other and to tend this garden together.