If you’ve spent any time on this site, you might start to wonder if anyone actually has a good sex life.

Problem after problem. Struggle after struggle. Mismatched drives, painful sex, dead bedrooms, porn addiction, resentment. It’s enough to make you wonder why you’d bother getting married at all.

But it’s not just people reading marriage blogs who feel this way. Many couples hits a version of this question at some point; either before marriage, or in the quiet after another disappointing night. “Is this normal? Is everyone else struggling like we are? Are we the only ones?”

Someone submitted this to our Anonymous Have A Question page a while back, and it captured that fear pretty well:

I (m, 32) am in my first (and new) relationship (f, 28), we are both committed to wait for intimacy until marriage. I have a past of premarital sex until about 28 or so. I freed myself from that behaviour (sex outside marriage, porn, masturbation, etc.) with external help and I am now ‘clean’. 4 years after I am now trying to find out whether this relationship could ultimately turn into marriage. As for most men – I suppose – sex is quite a key component for me in a relationship. Having read quite some articles on your page, I have come to wonder:

1. Are most marriages struggling with their sex life? I basically only stumble across articles describing how it is a problem and all the stuff that is going wrong in it. Doesn’t sound like a very motivating outlook to me tbh.

2. What advice would you give me today, helping to provide for the best foundation possible such that I can enjoy a fulfilling sex-life with my future wife (whoever that might be)?

First off, congratulations on getting “clean” from all of that – that is an impressive feat.  I know many who have tried and failed.  Many end up married and still struggling.

So, to answer your first question – yes, I think most are struggling in their married sex lives.  And it’s for a lot of reasons.  So, we’re going to spend some time going through them all, because I think a lot of people either have this question, or its corollary: “Are we the only ones struggling?”

Now, I can’t hit every single reason someone might struggle, so we’re going to go with larger categories with some examples. Let’s start with the most fundamental one and the easiest to address.

They don’t understand how sex works

Or they incorrectly understand how sex works.  As ubiquitous as sex is in our society, you would think more people would understand how sex works, but the truth – most don’t have a clue.

Whether you learned it from 50 Shades of Grey, RomComs, American Pie, Romance Books, Porn, teenagers when you were in high school, unwanted early attention  – you likely learned the wrong things.

And this can be a host of different things.  I mean, where do we start? Seriously – there’s so much to teach, I don’t even know where to begin.

Women generally aren’t as interested in sex as men are.  That’s normal.

Women operate on a 28-day (ish) hormone cycle.  Men operate on a 24-hour (not ish) hormone cycle.

Men tend to experience spontaneous desire – they get in the mood randomly and easily.  Women tend to experience responsive desire – they don’t randomly get in the mood as often or as easily, and it gets harder the older they get, and the more responsibilities they have (like children).

Your wife might not like the same things you do in bed.  You will have different favourite activities.  Different positions will be better or worse for each of you.  Sometimes your favourite will be their least.

Women tend to struggle with body image issues more than men.  Men tend not to really care what their wife looks like – they care more that she’s going to get naked for him.  He’s not lying if he tells you you’re beautiful – even if you can’t see it.

I mean, yeah, there are jokes about men not knowing where the clitoris is – but it’s not that simple – even if you know where it is, that doesn’t mean you know how to stimulate it well – and I can’t teach you, because every woman is different.  That’s just one spot.  There are many more – and even if I teach them all to you (which could be an entire post) – you’re still going to have to learn how and when your wife likes them to be touched.

Men tend to be simpler – act like a toddler – put your mouth on everything – that works for most of them.  

And of course, everyone is an individual, these are not rules – they are generalities. But even if you’ve got the knowledge side covered, there are physical and medical factors that can get in the way too.

Physical and medical factors

Hormonal birth control doesn’t affect some – for others, it makes a complete mess of their sex drives – some for years after they stop – some never really recover.

ADHD affects sex.  Autism affects sex.  About 10% of the population has one, the other, or both.  Add to that all the people who struggle with their sexual orientation, and we’re getting into a sizable percentage of spouses.

Then add in any other medical conditions that can affect sex. Low testosterone (men and women), thyroid issues, PCOS, heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, obesity – we can keep going.

Then add in life changes – pregnancy, postpartum and menopause hormone shifts.

And lastly (but not really, because I’m sure there’s more), there just plain old exhaustion, stress and anxiety.

And then if you take medication to deal with any of the above – well, that’s likely going to add sexual side effects as well.

Now, who doesn’t have any of those things above?  Maybe you don’t – let’s keep going.

Wounds and baggage they brought in

It’s estimated that roughly 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men have experienced sexual violence – depending on the study / survey.  Those are hard to get over.  Sometimes you aren’t even aware that it’s in your past if you were too young to remember, or blocked it.

As well, any prior consensual sexual relationships train you in a dynamic with someone else – positively or negatively.  Those positive behaviours that your prior relationships appreciated may not be appreciated by your spouse.  But it’s likely the negative ones will also not be appreciated either.

And the younger you are when you experience those other relationships, the more likely you are to use sex as a substitute for love, for communication and for conflict resolution.  If sex is the only thing you know how to leverage to keep a relationship together, then you’re going to find a lot of other problems as well, on top of the problems you’re having with your sex life.

Now the above sections are all about problems the individual has, or brings into the marriage.  But sometimes the relationship itself is the problem.

The marriage itself is the problem

Sometimes the problem isn’t sex, sometimes the problem is the rest of the relationship.  Pay attention to the relationships around you – how many do you think are actually thriving?  How many are putting on a good face in public – at church, at the kid’s games and clubs, on social media?  It’s pretty easy to act loving for an hour or two.  

If your relationship failed to thrive, or worse, then likely this is spilling over into your sex life as well because marriage is a holistic relationship – every part affects every other part of it.  

When couples tell me “everything awesome except for our sex life”, I know they’re either lying, or they’re ignorant of what’s really going on.  I don’t mean that in an insulting way – most of us have no idea how good marriage can be – we didn’t get good role models growing up, we don’t have many in the church, and a lot of the marriages around us are falling apart, or staying together for the kids.

But I’ve never met a couple whose only problem was sex.  I’ve met a lot of couples who start coaching because of sex and then we start working on the rest of the marriage instead, and that fixes the sex part of the relationship.

Usually there are attitude problems, communication problems, conflicts that aren’t getting resolved, resentment that’s building.  Sometimes they’ve backburnered their entire relationship to focus on the kids, and they think that sex is the only issue, because they can parent just fine – yeah, they’ve lost all their hopes and dreams and they don’t know who they are anymore, but sex is the only problem because they operate well as co-parents.  They’ve become parenting partners instead of lovers.

And lastly, at least for this list that I made up off the top of my head, I see a lot of bad theology out there. 

Bad theology

Beliefs that sex is a necessary evil.  That wives are supposed to control their husband’s animalistic urges.  Most no longer believe that missionary is the only “approved” sexual position, but they’ve got a pretty narrow view of what else is allowed in the marriage bed.

They’re a new breed of Pharisees – creating moral laws that can’t be found in the Bible – they define morality based on their personal preferences, and shame anyone else who thinks differently.

I had a discussion with a pastor once who believed anyone who wanted oral sex was mentally unwell.  It’s okay to have preferences – it’s not okay to demonize others who have different ones.

On the other side of the spectrum are those who use the Bible to coerce their spouses into sex, using pressure and self-righteousness to demand love – as if you can ever get it that way.  If you quote a verse like “Do not deprive each other” to your spouse in an attempt to get them to have sex with you, then you’ve lost the plot and you should go back and read the rest of the Bible before you come back to that verse again.

So with all of that stacked against us, it’s fair to ask: were we actually meant to struggle this much?

Were we meant to struggle this much?

That’s a hard question, and my answer might step on some theological toes.  I think we were.

Now, I upset people when I say that I think we were set up to fail from the beginning. As in, that was the plan before creation, before the fall.  We were never going to make it in paradise.  God knew better.  The Bible tells us that the plan of salvation existed before the universe was formed. 

And similarly, I think marriages were set up to be in conflict.  Why else would God put two people together who have such a radically different hormone cycle, hormone profile, a hormone profile that isn’t even stable – it changes radically throughout the relationship.  Why make infatuation which literally makes us shut off parts of our brains so we can’t see the red flags?

Why form our brains differently?  Why make men thinkers in series and women in parallel?  Why make men compartmentalize everything but sex, and women compartmentalize nothing except for sex?

Why give men the drive to have sex multiple times a day if possible, but also give them the hormone that makes it so they can’t?  Why give multiple orgasms to women – many of whom could take or leave an orgasm most days, even when they’re having sex.

Why make men focus on hierarchies and women focus on communities?  Why make men fascinated by objects and women fascinated by people?

Could we be any more different and still genetically compatible?

So, yes, many people struggle with their sex life.  They struggle with every part of their marriage.  We were meant to!  Why? 

Because if you want to have a good marriage, and a good sex life – you have to learn to love.  You have to be patient.  You have to be understanding.  You can’t be jealous.  You can’t be selfish.  You have to be able to hold your anger.  You have to forgive.  You have to love truth more than your own opinions.  You have to protect each other.  You have to trust each other.  You have to hope, together, for a future where you will do all these things better for each other, and you have to persevere to get there.

Remind you of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7? So here’s my advice – start there.

What advice would I give you today to enjoy a fulfilling sex life?

Love your spouse – current if you have one, future if you don’t yet.

Respect them by not having sex with someone else, by not training yourself by watching porn, by building self-control and patience from abstaining from masturbation – show them how much they mean to you.

When you get married – continue to love them.  Don’t stop.  Continue to be curious about them, to want to know more about them.  Grow together – don’t stay stagnant.  Don’t grow apart.  You can have separate hobbies, but you better have shared experiences as well.

Move towards God – you can’t move apart from each other and towards Him.  It’s not possible.

Be open, be vulnerable, be intimate.  Express your joys, your fears, your frustrations.  

Don’t do anything that makes you hate your spouse.  If saying “yes” to something will make you resent them, then tell them you love them too much to say yes, and why.  But then you better figure out if that’s a heart issue for you.

Don’t assume they’re wrong, or right.  Don’t even assume you know what they’re thinking about or talking about.  Unless you can articulate their viewpoint well enough that they agree with what you said – then it’s not worth having a debate about who is right or wrong yet.

Run towards conflict, not away from it.  Conflict is where you learn, where you grow.  Be the first to apologize, to forgive, to repair.  Don’t place blame – you’re in it together, everything is a marriage problem – not a his or her problem.

Give each other a lot of grace.  Give yourself a lot of grace too.  If you think you’re unforgivable, you will push them away.  

Do things to see joy in your spouse.  Ask them to do things that bring you joy.  Offer help.  Ask for help.

Try to give more than you get. Hopefully your spouse does the same.  Even if they don’t, keep it up.

Push each other to do things you’re scared to do.  Let your spouse push you outside of your comfort zone.

Talk about everything – nothing should be off the table.  There should be no sacred cows, no topics that are off limits, no questions that are unaskable.

If you get emotionally flooded – ask for a break.  But then you better come back and continue the discussion.

You don’t need date nights. You don’t need vacations.  What you need is enough privacy to let yourself be naked and unashamed with your spouse – emotionally, mentally and physically.  Build a life where you can do that.

Focus more on your responsibilities than your expectations.  Express your feelings without telling them what they have to do, or what they’re not doing.

Don’t forget that you love them, and they love you.  Be their student – how they think, how they feel, what they need, what they like, what they hate, what they need.

Now, those probably aren’t the sexy instructions you were hoping for – but I think they’ll help your sex life more than telling you to buy a sex toy or put a pillow under her hips in missionary position (both good tips though).