Sex in My Marriage

What happened when I changed the rules

My husband and I used to fight about sex. A lot. It was the biggest threat to our marriage for many, many years. The basic problem was he wanted more sex than I did. And I knew I had a right to say no. But whenever I did, he sulked and shut down emotionally. Then I got mad at him for sulking, which was patently unfair (his sulking). Usually, it went on until I capitulated and we had sex. Then I hated us both — him for sulking, and me for capitulating. It was a vicious cycle that went on and on and on.

One day I was complaining about this problem to a friend over coffee. She said something that changed my life. “John and I just decided that whoever wants sex can have it.”

“Wow!” I thought. “That sounds so friendly.”

My relationship, on the other hand, felt very adversarial, especially when it came to sex. “But what if you aren’t in the mood?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I find that even if I’m not in the mood to start with, I am before long.”

Her equanimity amazed me. So I decided on the spot to try enacting her policy in my own marriage and see what would happen next.

I recognize there are a number of theoretical problems with this decision, which essentially amounts to complete capitulation on my part, the principal one being men have forced sex on women for millennia. Rape and assault are so widespread the statistics are deeply disturbing. One in three women experience sexual violence. Pretty much every female friend I have was sexually assaulted at some point in her life, and all women on the planet have been harassed — trust. I personally was date raped on multiple occasions before I even understood it was wrong.

I recognize there are a number of problems with this decision, the principal one being men have forced sex on women for millennia.

So yes, bodily autonomy is an important feminist principle — perhaps the most important one. (This includes the right to have an abortion, but that’s another story.) I’m inspired by the advent of the #MeToo Movement, which I hope is changing the sexual landscape. And I’m extremely glad that younger people are learning that enthusiastic consent is an necessary part of healthy sexual relations.

So how does complete capitulation make sense?

Context is everything, I guess.

In the first place, the friend who mentioned this policy is someone I admire: an intelligent, enlightened feminist, whom I have no doubt has values that align with mine. So that helps me accept it as a reasonable approach.

In the second place, I believe my husband is a good man. I don’t think his sulking was a cynical attempt to bully me. I think it was an honest emotional reaction to feeling rejected. All it takes is being sexually rejected yourself (a rare occurrence for most women) to understand the kind of complicated feelings of hurt and insult it can inspire.

In the third place, I was the one who made the decision. True, that decision was to stop resisting my husband’s advances, but still, it was my decision, not his. That felt important in the overall balance of power.

In the fourth place, something had to change, and it was up to me to change it. I know that’s sexist and women shouldn’t have to do all the emotional labor in a marriage, but the reality is my husband, like many men raised in our women-hating and homophobic society, is incompetent in that sphere. He’s less introspective than I am and has much less understanding about what’s going on emotionally in our relationship — even in his own heart. And even though he sucks at some parts of our relationship, he’s great at others. Overall, I value the marriage and want to keep it, so I was willing to give the policy change a try.

So what happened when I changed the rules?

First off, we both needed some reeducation. Because of our unequal sex drives, he’d drifted into a habit of never approaching me sexually, due to fear of rejection. But since I didn’t approach him as frequently as he liked, he was often in a low-level sulk. I know some of you are saying ‘leaving that loser!’ about now, but again, I value this man and this marriage for myriad reasons which I won’t digress to enumerate here. The point is, I’ve done the math. And despite his drawbacks, I want in.

When I came home and announced the policy change, he didn’t believe me, at first. But the next time he tried burrowing into a sulk, ostensibly because we hadn’t had sex in awhile, I called foul. “Nope!” I announced. “We aren’t playing that game anymore. If you want sex, just approach me. You can have it anytime.”

That was when an unexpected beauty of the new policy dawned on me: I no longer had to feel guilty about his sulks. So there was another layer of complexity in our Gordian sex knot unwound. In the past, if we weren’t having sex, it was always somehow my “fault.” But now, under the new policy, we bore equal responsibility. If he continued to sulk, that was on him. I wasn’t culpable. It took a couple of fumbles for that to sink in.

Next, I felt I needed to approach him for sex, one night when he was tired and unresponsive, just to verify that the agreement went both ways. It was a posture, sure, and a little bit rude, but it took a bit of rude fumbling to shake us out of our rut until the new policy took hold.

And now? We no longer fight about sex.

The relief to our marriage is significant. The atmosphere is friendly. Taking this bone of contention off the table leaves room for us to investigate other dilemmas: How do we love each other more deeply? How do we open up to true intimacy? How do we honor and respect?

Okay, to be honest, I’m the one thinking about these things. He’s mostly thinking about the cafe he owns and operates with our son, or how to repair the projector he wants to show his old movies on, or why the algae is proliferating in his aquarium. But he’s here with me in the room. He’s not sulking. He feels loved and valued, and he’s available to participate in any orchestra I try to conduct.

And I’m also here — more present and available in the present moment with him, not lost in wounds of the past, or in the overarching wound of the female condition.

Letting go of my resistance — which was often rigid and unyielding for social and political reasons, for the good of all womankind, for past hurts which aren’t relevant in my current relationship — has opened up space in me for gentler pleasures and helped us both to level up.

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