Shannon’s SCW Blog

“Don” writes via email:

Hi Shannon! Thank you for your site. My wife and I just celebrated our first wedding anniversary! Our sex life has been good…except in one area. I was a virgin when we married. My wife was not, and I knew this. It did not bother me…until after we said “I do.” I began worrying “am I good enough to make her forget?…will she compare me?…will she have flashbacks when we are making love?…will I meet her expectations?”

My question: What do I do when the thoughts of her former sex partners come lofting into my mind?! The advice so far has been: stop playing tug-o-war with the devil…you can’t win…drop the rope (memories of her lovers). Do you have any extra encouragement/advice???

Uh huh, I do. Think about human nature. When we focus on what we SHOULDN’T or CAN’T or WON’T ALLOW ourselves to do, guess what we naturally do? We’re all the more tempted to do that very thing. Instead, focus on what you CAN or WILL CHOOSE to do. There is power in remaining positive. CHOOSE to win your wife’s trust, and you’ll win her heart. CHOOSE to become her dream lover (and this is far more about tenderness than technique), and I guarantee that all others will PALE in comparison.

Want to know HOW to make those kinds of healing choices? Read on…

My husband and I came into marriage 20 years ago with a similar dynamic. He walked into my world a 26-year old virgin. Between the ages of 15 and 20, I’d had more partners than any woman cares to admit. I forewarned Greg about “what kind of woman” he was interested in before we got engaged. He seemed undaunted. Even when I approached him after two years of marriage crying, “There’s no way you could possibly love me if you knew how many men there have been!”

“I don’t need to know how many, Shannon. But if you need to tell me, I’m willing to listen,” was his response. I spent a few days combing my memories and creating a long list. I approached him with a total number, braced for a look of disgust and a renunciation of his wedding vows. I vocalized the number, literally choking on the sound of it emitting from my mouth, so broken with shame and self-loathing.

“Even if you told me a number 100 times that, I’m still not going anywhere,” Greg replied. “Besides, I know that your past isn’t about you & me… it’s about you & your dad.” Although I didn’t understand that at the time, Greg was absolutely right. An emotionally distant father left a hole in my heart that I went looking for love to fill as a naïve teenager. Sadly, as a result, Greg wasn’t the first man I ever slept with, but I do intend him to be the last. And isn’t that what matters most?

So for 20 years, my husband has never even once thrown that number, or my inappropriate past, up in my face. Perhaps it’s bothered him at times, I don’t know. I can’t imagine how it couldn’t. But he’s never let me know it, and his commitment to me hasn’t wavered or waffled. If he’s had sexual insecurities as a result of my past, he’s dealt with them on his own, which has certainly helped me deal with my own. And as my sexual confidence quotient has risen, I think Greg’s sexual confidence has risen as well. It’s definitely been a win-win.

So my advice, Don, is to buck up and be the man she needs you to be. Be “Jesus with skin on” to her. Let your life and love paint her a vivid picture of God’s unconditional love and mercy. Teach her that her self-worth is not based on her sexual scorecard, but on who she is in Christ. And most of all, don’t take her sexual mistakes personally. It was most likely never about you. So be a sexually confident husband, and you’ll inspire her to be a sexually confident wife.

Richest blessings,
Shannon

P.S. I’d also encourage both you and your wife to read Part 2 in The Sexually Confident Wife called “Confronting Ghosts from the Past” – I think it will bring a lot more healing in your marriage bed!

The previous blog about “Trent’s dilemma” has sparked an interesting question from yet another husband:

Imagine you were at a conference and a man like Trent comes up to you with his wife and says, “I really like what you are saying, but my wife and I just have a huge gap in our sexual desires.” You can tell that the wife is not too thrilled. What would you say to that couple, to really inspire her to become a Sexually Confident Wife, and for him to hold onto hope and his morals until she does?

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a single sentence or even a paragraph in the world that would magically move a woman from one end of the spectrum to the other on the scale of sexual confidence, but I’d love for all of us ladies to offer these male readers some advice. What are some things that a husband can do to INSPIRE our sexual confidence rather than REQUIRE it? Or what are some things that he subconsciously does that kills our confidence? For example…

Intimacy BUSTERS might be:

· Forgeting to take out the trash even after we’ve asked you repeatedly (we know you’re only human and forget things on occasion, but it translates as, “I don’t really want to put forth the effort to serve you.”) Therefore, we’re not so inspired to put forth the effort to serve his needs, either.

· Expecting sex after you’ve had your head in the television all night (which often translates as, “I’d rather vegetate here on the couch than talk to you.”) Therefore, we’d rather drift off to sleep on our pillow than to have sex with you.

Intimacy BOOSTERS might be:

· Grab a bottle of lotion and say, “You’ve been on your feet a lot lately. Would you like a foot massage?” When my husband offers a foot rub, letting him work his way up with that lotion doesn’t seem like such a bad idea at all.

· Call during the mid-afternoon craziness hours and suggest, “We deserve a break tonight. If I picked dinner up on my way home, could we tuck the kids in early and have dessert by candlelight in our room?” Ministering to her needs like that may have her eating out of the palm of your hand!

Other ideas, Ladies?

What does your husband do or say that makes you put up a wall?

What do you wish he’d do to help you tear down that wall and build a bridge instead?

The sky is the limit — DREAM BIG!  Let’s help men understand what we REALLY want and need in order to become the Sexually Confident Wives they dream of having.

Wishing you lots of creativity,

Shannon

One of the most interesting things is how many MEN seem to have found this website, and are ordering the book for their wives – a gesture which I hope all wives will interpret as something along the lines of, “Gee honey, I love you so much, and I want to connect with you more deeply!” rather than coming to any negative conclusions that he’s just being a selfish pig.

I’m absolutely delighted to be striking a chord with husbands, but it’s the WIVES I’m hoping will really open themselves to the message of The Sexually Confident Wife, or else the term “Desperate Husbands” will become a more popular term than “Desperate Housewives.”

One husband emailed recently asking for advice about how to talk to his wife about a huge struggle in their marriage. “Trent” says:

“The real problem is that I have a much higher sex drive than she does and while she is happy with making love once or twice a week, I deeply desire to be sexually intimate with her far more than that. Not every day, but four or fives times a week is what I really desire. Whenever I make any loving motioning toward intimacy – such as close hugging or even massaging, she immediately withdraws because she thinks that I just want to fulfill my desires and have sex. It has got to the point where anything romantic, even buying flowers, is viewed as a manipulative maneuver to have sex that night. It has now got to the point where she simply refuses to make love more than twice a week and she says I need to gain control of my desires and should be putting my wife first and respecting her needs. I just don’t know what to do…

Sexual intimacy has become such a problem and it is like she has a castle wall built around her – and the gate only gets opened twice a week. So many nights I just lie in bed wanting to make love so much – and knowing that she simply does not want to. I am denied. I don’t want to masturbate. I want to be intimate with my wife, my lover, that God has given to me. She says there is no need for a husband’s sexual desires to met by the wife as regularly as four to fives times a week. I thought that as husband and wife our bodies belonged to each other and that we should fulfill the intimate desires of our spouse – but her desire is not to make love more that twice a week. It is immensely difficult as a man to know how to deal with this, or how to properly channel my desires.”

If anyone has any advice for “Trent,” that’d be great, but I also want to ask you, Ladies, could YOUR OWN husband have written this email? Would he share the same sentiments if given the opportunity to do so anonymously?

I’m not trying to create any paranoia – just encouraging us all (myself included) to realize how important his sexual needs are, and how vital of a role wives play in fulfilling those desires.

Would love to hear your thoughts! (And I’ll bet “Trent” would too!)

Shannon

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been bombarded with emails from SCW readers bemoaning the fact that their HUSBANDS are the ones who have robbed them of their sexual confidence, through a variety of different ways such as pornography use, negative comments about her weight, too many paranoid questions about her past relationships, unrealistic expectations in the bedroom, etc. etc.  Then this week, I received this email from Jerry saying:

I caught just the tail end of your interview today on the radio. I wish my wife would have had your book to read 10 years ago. The intimacy has all but left our 22 yr marriage. I believe that we are both committed to one another so long as we both shall live, but this void in our relationship is very difficult for me to deal with. I have attempted to discuss it with her to no avail. I have offered counseling, suggested discussing with her physician, left books on her desk, begged, and bribed. I had to give up years ago or I was going to burn up with the anger, frustration, etc. If you get around to writing a book for men I will likely read it… From the little I heard, you are doing vital work for healthy marriages. Keep it up.

My heart breaks for Jerry and the thousands of couples in similar situations. It seems like whether a couple has been married many years or just a few months, there’s often so much pain and disappointment in the sex lives of both husbands and wives.

SO… I’m thinking about writing a book to help men understand what a vital part THEY play in building their wives’ sexual confidence.  What do you think about:

THE SEXUALLY SAVVY HUSBAND:

Discovering the Secrets to Helping Your Wife Blossom in Bed

???????

Do you think it would be helpful to marriages?  Do you think men would read it?  Would you buy it for your husband so that he can understand what you REALLY need from him in the relationship in order to be a sexually confident wife? What would you want YOUR husband to understand about you?

Eager to hear your feedback,

Shannon