Just as low drive (LD) wives often don’t understand the high drive (HD) spouses’ deep hunger for sexual intimacy. Usually, the HD spouse doesn’t understand the LD’s spouse craving for non-sexual things like positive words, acts of service, and touch that does not lead to sexual intimacy. What your spouse craves is called a Love Language by some.
As hard as it is for some to believe, here’s the truth.
For HD spouses, Sexual intimacy = feeling loved.
For LD spouses, Non-sexual things = feeling loved.
For 6 years, I’ve encouraged LD wives to think about sex differently. For 6 years, I’ve educated low sex drive wives about the importance of sexual intimacy in marriage and given them strategies for ramping up physical, emotional, and spiritual sexual yearning. For 6 years, I have been a champion of sorts for husbands who are not fulfilled sexually.
Since writing, Rethinking Low Libido, and Help, I’m Angry about Sex, I’ve been getting emails about Love Languages.
It’s apparent to me this other side of the coin needs to be addressed. It is important for the HD spouse to understand their LD spouse’s needs. Don’t assume, HD’s, you know what the LD spouse needs to feel loved. HD’s, ask them. LD’s, tell them.
Why is it so important to understand the LD spouse’s love language?
In my recent post, Rethinking Low Libido, I talked about creating the willingness to be sexual. This willingness is inspired by having our hearts filled to the brim. The LD spouse’s love language is the key to decipher their particular code of sexual interest.
Wives with low physical desire can have a high drive based on emotional and spiritual connection. This emotional and spiritual connection happens through actions that meet the LD spouse’s love language.
I may not feel physically steamy, but because Dave loves on me in a way that makes me feel treasured and cherished, I happily engage in the marriage bed.
In other words, you may not understand why your wife likes to be admired verbally or have you clean out her car, but roll with it. All you have to understand is that is the way your wife is wired. Quit trying to fit her into your mold, into your way of thinking. She’s not you and you’re not her.
This is how married people love each other like Christ, by doing something that doesn’t feel natural or needed and at first feels like self-sacrifice. But, after awhile, we understand that this is the love of marriage. This isn’t the newlywed love, when sweet chemistry keeps things spicey. This is the love of a marriage that has had arguments and ill-feelings, yet chooses to put that aside to move forward to building a holy and happy marriage. Get that? You have to forgive, set it aside, and never use it as ammunition. You lay down the defensive attitude.
Sadly, some marriages have not dealt with their mismatched sex drives in a healthy manner. They haven’t talked about it. Or, they have tried to talk about it but it becomes Desert Storm. She’s lobbing angry missiles. He’s running for shelter. Or, he’s a jerk and she runs from him. If your marriage feels like a battle field, chances are it didn’t happen overnight. It takes time for war to be declared. It also takes time for the cease fire to come about. So, if you are in a long season of sexual frustration don’t think it’s going to change overnight. However, it can change in 9 weeks. Change can start to take place as you consider the following behaviors.
Understanding and accepting on a heart level that your spouse is different from you is a step toward cease-fire.
Here’s how to navigate love languages and grow in meeting each other’s top need.
Kindness
Even though you don’t understand his/her top need, you respect it. You give your spouse grace and mercy and kindness. You don’t say their needs are stupid because you don’t understand them. You make your spouse’s feelings a priority.
You don’t point the finger at your spouse and focus on where they are lacking in meeting YOUR needs. You start making their needs just as or more important than your own.
“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds…” Hebrews 10:24.
“Honor one another above yourself,” Romans 12:10 (NIV).
Deference, Honesty, and Persistence
Even though you are making their needs more important than your own. You speak kindly, gently, and honestly about your own needs.
“The squeaky wheel gets the oil,” was a phrase I heard often from my mother. Gentle, kind persistence will eventually influence action.
Years ago, we bought an off-white upholstered recliner. Now, with 3 middle school boys, I normally wouldn’t have made this choice. Off-white will not stay clean. I was assured that by paying a large extra fee for Scotch Guarding it would clean up in a jiffy. Wrong. So, I started my gentle persistent campaign. Weekly, I called the furniture store manager. I kept calling asking about his decision. I wasn’t nasty. I used sweet words and reminded him of the satisfaction guaranteed agreement the company had made with me. After months, seriously months, of making these phone calls, he finally agreed to completely replace the recliner. If I had used nasty, angry words and given ultimatums, I doubt the end result would have been as nice.
This isn’t about giving so you can get.
This is about understanding our spouse feels differently about something and that doesn’t make it wrong. Don’t be so arrogant to think that the only way to think about something is your way to think about it.
The beauty of this godly principle is that when we open our hearts to a new viewpoint, don’t react harshly, and forgive past offenses, blessing will follow. For the measure you use to bless your spouse, it will be measured back to you. That’s how love always wins.
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you,” Luke 6:37-38.
Develop Strategies
How do you meet needs you don’t understand? How do you meet needs that are hard to meet? You come up with an action-oriented plan.
This involves four steps.
1. Identifying your most important need.
For the LD spouse, this can be hard because oftentimes it isn’t a physical yearning. It is more subtle. But, with introspection, the LD spouse can figure it out. Is it affection (things like non-sexual touch, “thinking about you” texts and phone calls)? Is it conversation (not just “to do” lists, but dreaming and sharing deeper emotions)? Is it doing fun stuff together (golf, bike riding, putt-putt, walks through the neighborhood, going to concerts)?
For Low Drive spouses who may have trouble pinpointing their top emotional need, here is a questionnaire to help you. Emotional Needs Questionnaire
2. Communicate!
Sit down together and start with prayer. During this part of strategy development you should each identify your one top need. Brainstorm creative ways to meet each others needs.
You gently, kindly, lovingly hammer some things out. Be open and honest and yet not condemning with no words of attack. Acknowledge what their needs are and then share what your needs are. Talk about accepting that you each value different things and how that relates to feeling loved.
Neither of you should “parent” the other, telling the other how to feel. If one spouse starts to get defensive, end the conversation for the moment. But, commit to coming back together to finish the discussion after a certain period of time (24 hours for example) so heads can clear.
Even if a spouse is generally good-hearted, it’s OK to ask him/her not to act like meeting your need is a burden. Tell them eye-rolling or big sighs will break your heart. Tell them that you are each different and that is OK. The aim of marriage is to think together not think alike. You’re a team, not clones of each other.
Your manner must be loving, nonjudgemental, with no hint of defensiveness.
This Marital Negotiation Worksheet may help you with ground rules.
From an LD spouse, let me tell you what works in growing a successful marriage bed during this time of negotiation. Increase frequency in increments. We started out once a week for a couple months and then went to 2-3 times per week always with an option for more. You don’t have to understand the why of this. Just know, that if you push too hard, you will scare her off. If you care for her above yourself, she will understand this and want to love you above herself eventually, too, honest.
3. Commit to the follow-through.
I’ve often told of how my husband started meeting my needs of positive words. He put a reminder in his phone. He didn’t grow up hearing a lot of positive words, so it didn’t come naturally to him. At first, I was a little put off that speaking kind words wasn’t instinctual for him. But, I finally realized I needed to get over that. The fact that he was willing to do what he had to do to meet my needs spoke the world to me. Hearing his authentic words, “You are so beautiful,” and “I love you just the way you are,” made me forget that he had to remind himself to do it. The cool thing is that now he no longer needs a reminder!
I’ve also often told of how I met Dave’s needs through sex-scheduling. Here he had to embrace that sexual intimacy was something that didn’t rate as high on my love scale, but just as I came to accept his need for a reminder to say kind things, he came to accept this as how I could meet his needs.
Neither of us condemned the other for needing strategies. Don’t condemn your spouse for needing strategies. Applaud them for their willingness to go the extra mile to love on you in a way you feel most cherished.
4. Write out your agreed upon strategy for accountability and sign it.
This agreement should be for a period of time (1 month, 6 weeks, 2 months, etc). After the period of time, you agree to sit back down and evaluate how it went. What went well? What can you do better?
By signing this, you are agreeing that your spouse can “hold you accountable” to the agreement. This means, your spouse can gently and lovingly remind you what you said you’d do. This will become important as time marches on and someone starts to drop the ball. See more on this under Final Thoughts.
Final Thoughts
Your spouse is not responsible to fulfill every one of your needs. If you have a great need for conversation and your husband just isn’t a talker, it may be up to you to find additional sources of conversation. This doesn’t mean he is off the hook for all discussion. He should be sharing his inner thoughts with you. However, his inner thoughts may only comprise 15 minutes. If you need hours of conversation, you might need to look to your girlfriends to help with this. Or, read more. I find that reading substitutes for conversation for me. Read the Bible, even better!
Your spouse is not responsible for making you completely happy. Wives, our husbands aren’t going to be the same kind of best friend our girlfriends are. He just isn’t going to relate to us like a girlfriend or sister. The beautiful thing is he becomes more than your best friend (See, My Cowboy is not my Best Friend.)
Another thing that needs to go by the wayside is neediness, grumpiness, clinginess, and whininess. You develop a strategy so that you point to your agreement. You don’t whine or grump that they aren’t fulfilling their half of the bargain. You simply lovingly point to the agreement and you both be mature enough to understand what a commitment means.
In all things you treat each other with love and respect. For the war to end, someone has to go first. Lead the way in kindness, communication, and strategy negotiation. It may not sound romantic, but strategy negotiation saved our marriage.
One last thing……99% of the time, marriage problems don’t land on only one spouse’s shoulders. BOTH spouses have a part in the break down of the marriage. So, if you think all your marriage problems are because she won’t have sex with you, I loudly and firmly disagree. Take the log out of your own eye.
“For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other,” Galatians 5:14-15.
Two great resources to continue this discussion in your home (in order of my preference):
His Needs, Her Needs by Dr. Willard F. Harley
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman
