“How can I get my wife to be as interested in sex as I am? She just never seems to think about it at all.”
You are the one who’s in control of your wife’s desire.
That’s a bold statement, I know. And probably hard for you to believe.
After reading this post, you understand that women have responsive rather than spontaneous desire, and aren’t wired to be the sexual initiator.
What you might not know yet is that there are specific actions you can take that will trigger your wife’s hidden sexuality. It’s just a matter of understanding the truth about what engages her responsive desire, and then putting it into practice in your marriage.
You’ve been given a lot of misinformation over the years as to how a woman’s sexuality works. You’ve been told to bring her flowers, give her soft, sweet kisses and love notes, and cuddle her gently. There’s nothing wrong with all this, and it provides a lot of relationship comfort in your marriage.
The only problem?
It doesn’t work to build sexual attraction.
You know it doesn’t work because you’ve tried that route for years and it’s a dead end.
In fact, the more supplicating you’ve been, the less sex you’ve had.
The reality is that a woman responds best to a man who is bold, confident, and has intense desire for her. One who isn’t ashamed of his own sexual desires and doesn’t hesitate to pull her into his world.
Keep Sex on Her Mind
Responsive desire means that your wife doesn’t think about sex as much as you do without some kind of stimulation. This is a feature, not a bug. It’s completely normal for the vast majority of women. So how can you keep sex on her mind?
Flirt with her the way you did when you were dating. Be playful. Tease her a little. When you’re together, talk about something other than the kids, the house and the bills.
Make eye contact. It’s amazing how many married couples simply stop really looking at each other. Take time to look straight into her eyes. It will be uncomfortable at first, but it heightens intensity.
Text her during the day with light, flirty texts. No heavy relationship talk, though. The goal here is to have fun.
Do ‘drive-bys’. Not every minute, but when you walk by her in the kitchen, lift up her hair and kiss the back of her neck. When she’s bending over the bed to make it, make sure to pat her. Pull her down on your lap while you’re watching TV, or motion her over to you for a kiss.
Look at what she’s reading. Now this one sounds silly, but take the time to skim over the book she’s reading, especially the romance or erotic fiction novels. It can tell you a lot about what she finds sexy.
And just as an aside, the fact that your wife reads romance novels is a good thing. It means that she’s got a sexual streak hidden away in there, and it also keeps a sexual spark burning in her. Once you learn how to trigger her responsive desire, you can use that spark to start a fire.
Flirt with your wife and act like a lover, not a roommate.
Show Enthusiastic Pleasure in Her Body
Women are a little crazy when it comes to body image. When we look in the mirror, most of us completely overlook our assets and see only our flaws.
The biggest favor you can do your wife … and your sex life … is to help your wife feel sexy. Let her know you love her body, both through your words and your actions.
What part of her body do you enjoy the most? Do you love her booty? Then tell her so frequently and back up your words with actions. Tell her how much you love ‘dat ass, and pat it, rub it, stroke it, massage it.
Tell her which outfits flatter her booty, and lay them out for her once in a while. Ask her to wear them. It doesn’t matter whether she complies or not. Ignore the way she rolls her eyes and says she’s fat. It’s a gradual process. Your goal is simply to get her thinking of herself as a sexual person.
I’ve seen men be very successful with this strategy, including my own husband. He took me from being self-conscious about my figure to the point where I now dress to please him. All by showing unrestrained enjoyment of my body. It’s an effective technique.
Encourage her sexuality by demonstrating your pleasure with her body.
Show Intense Desire
Your wife needs to know that you want her. Not just that you want sex, but that you want her, specifically. Let her see your urgent desire for her.
When a woman feels a man’s desire, it triggers her own responsive desire. That’s why the sex is so good in a new relationship. It’s erotic for a woman when a man is in hot pursuit of her. It makes her feel sexy. And she needs to feel sexy in order to want sex.
As the love affair progresses, and the man’s hot desire fades to lukewarm, so does her sex drive.
Look at any romance novel … the basic plot is that the man desires the woman so much that he will go to any lengths to have her. He’ll give up lands, title, wealth, even life itself, in order to be with her.
Unrealistic? Of course, but it’s a timeless plot for a reason. It’s an erotic turn-on for a woman when the man is the hunter and she is the prey.
Over the years of sexual rejection, you have probably gotten gun-shy about showing your desire for your wife. After all, no one likes to be rejected. However, without feeling that desire from you, her responsive desire doesn’t kick in because she doesn’t have anything to respond to.
So it becomes a vicious cycle where you don’t show desire for her because you don’t want to be rejected, and without feeling that desire from you, she can’t summon up a sexual response.
Armed with your new knowledge about what really attracts women, it’s time to break the stalemate.
Let her see your intense desire so she has something to respond to.
Go Big or Go Home
Along the same lines, when it comes to sexual initiation, the bolder, the better. Women are attracted to bold, confident men. When you do that thing where you timidly stroke her hip and tentatively ask her, “So … I dunno … what do you think … ya wanna?” it’s not going to work. In fact, if she started out interested at all, that interaction is pretty much guaranteed to kill it for her.
And avoid verbal initiations. “I was thinking maybe tonight we can get to bed early and … ” Again, that type of diffidence is not going to trigger her desire.
If you want sex with your wife, don’t be shy. Own your own desire and don’t be ashamed of it. Healthy men like sex, there’s nothing wrong with that and you don’t need to apologize for it.
Stop waiting around for her to take action. It just leads to a hopeless deadlock.
Take the initiative and make your move and let the chips fall where they fall.
Assume the Best
Until you understand responsive desire, it’s easy to assume that your wife has a low sex drive because she doesn’t initiate and doesn’t always immediately feel sexual. She’s probably also wondering what happened to her libido, and what’s wrong with her.
She’s not broken, she’s just different than you.
Being a man means that you typically experience sexuality this way:
Desire –> Arousal
You feel spontaneous desire, usually swiftly followed by physical arousal.
For a woman, it’s quite often the opposite. She may need to be physically aroused before she feels any sexual desire.
Arousal –> Desire
But here’s the important thing you need to understand.
Your wife doesn’t know this. She has probably never heard of responsive desire and just assumes there’s something intrinsically wrong with her sexuality. She feels like because she’s not walking around turned on and wanting sex, then she has ‘low sexual libido’ and is sexually broken in some way.
Every time you have a conversation with her about why she doesn’t want sex, or complain about not having sex, you’re reinforcing her belief that she’s just not a sexual person, thus making the situation worse.
She has no idea why she doesn’t want sex. But you do. As the leader in this marriage, it’s up to you to help her find her path forward and get things back on track.
I’ve thrown a lot of new concepts at you in this series, and you may be having a tough time taking it all in, so here’s an example of how responsive desire played out in my house.
The other night, my husband and I had great sex late into the night. Very intense and passionate. Much fun was had by all.
The next morning, I was completely satiated, and my thoughts were veering toward a quiet, snuggle kind of evening with an early bedtime. At some point during the morning, I completely ruled out sex in my mind.
However … my husband started texting me during the day, alternating between strong leadership and sexy stuff. Sometimes combining the two.
So my frame shifted to indecision. “Hmmm … maybe I was too hasty. I’m really tired, and don’t really have the energy to spare, but last night was pretty amazing … ”
My husband shifted me from a default no for the night to a default maybe. All with only his written word keeping sex on my mind.
That, Dear Reader, is responsive desire.
Hi, I’m Rebecca Watson. Author, Researcher, and Marriage & Attraction Consultant.