If husbands actually viewed sex from their wives perspective, they might get lucky more

One of my husband’s favorite lines to me after he tries to get some and I deny him is “You should be happy that after 15 years I am still so attracted to you.” Somewhere in his brain, he thinks that is a compliment and to some degree when I look at it from his perspective, I understand what he is trying to say. He just chooses every single wrong word to communicate his feelings.  Nothing gets me more in the mood then hearing how lucky I am that the man I vowed to spend the rest of my life with through good times and bad feels the need to remind me that he still finds me attractive after all these years.

Now, I know that I am not giving my husband the goods as often as he would like, but I also don’t think that he is dying of thirst either. He seems to forget that he is not the only adult living in our house that has certain needs. But for me, it is not my only need. And for me, the amount of sex we have does not equate to how much I love him, yet he 100% views it from that perspective. If I am “not in the mood” then I have hurt his feelings and he feels unloved. So in addition to all of life’s pressures, work pressures, kid pressure and family pressure, I now have to ensure my husband feels “loved” every day. For the record, I do love him, very very much.

I do not believe that men have an understanding, in any way, of the amount of pressure we as women and moms just naturally bestow onto ourselves.  Just like men are born with more testosterone, we are born with more feelings, emotions and hormones which make us by design, more nurturing, which then in turn, makes us worry and feel like we have to solve the world’s problems by 5pm. We as women are already hard enough on ourselves  and try to take care of everyone else’s needs around us and most of the time, we think we are failing at managing it all, then another bomb is dropped and now you have to make time to make sure your husband feels loved. But at what point is he worrying about making you feel loved?

I felt it was important to really gain a better understanding from the male’s perspective. Clearly, my husband considers himself an expert on why sex is the most important thing to men, but being a marketer and understanding the value of both qualitative and quantitative research, I did my own to gain better insight on the matter. It was very important, to me, to understand where he was coming from and why. I felt that if I could understand why it was so important to him, then I could re-adjust my thinking. In a nutshell, here is what I learned (safe to say we all already know this):

1. Men have more testosterone and drives them to want more sex. Their physical makeup makes them want to get physical all the time.
2. Men have more energy when they have more sex. It actually triggers the happy cells in their body (I actually tried an experiment to test this theory and I am not so sure I believe it. Another blog another day).
3. Men enjoy the feeling of having an orgasm (breaking news I know).
4. Sex is the way men give love and feel loved

So basically, men’s reasoning for needing sex has not changed since the days of the caveman. You do have to appreciate their simplicity though. This is not really rocket science.

Since having this information, I have tried very hard to meet his needs. But guess what, sometimes; I need him to love me less. Seriously, I just need him to give me a break and not make me feel so guilty.  At what point is it a man’s turn to take a look at things from your perspective?

Truth is, no amount of sex will be enough and when you miss an opportunity you are reminded just how deprived they feel. My desire for sex cannot be summed up into four easy to digest bullets. I also do not need all the stars aligned and the world to be in perfect order for me to be in the mood. In fact, I am in the mood most of the day. I like it. Just like men, women think orgasms feel good too. If they didn’t then we would not have a draw full of hidden vibrators in the house.  But what we need is more understanding and looking at things from our perspective. It would be nice if someone, mainly our husbands considered our needs. Yes, we all want to feel loved by our husbands, but sex is not our only way of feeling loved by them. Understanding, patience, and compassion are just a few other little ones that matter to us.

I wonder how many men take a minute to step back and understand why “now” is not a good time or why we may just want to go to sleep early. No! It is not because we need our beauty sleep. What the hell is beauty sleep after you have kids? No. We go to sleep right after the kids do because that will give us two to three hours of sleep before the first of multiple kids wake up through the night and we, as moms, have to do the musical bed routine throughout the night.  Or maybe we don’t go to sleep right after the kids. Not because we are wide awake and bushy tailed and just can’t sleep, but it is the only time that we can finish the remaining list of endless mom and wife responsibilities without interruption. Men have no idea what an amazing feeling it is to fold laundry alone. No one throwing around the nicely folded unwrinkled shirt. No one stealing a sock when you worked so hard to ensure that each sock had a matching pair make it out of the dryer. It takes triple the time to get a chore done when the kids are around versus when they are not and as planners and organizers, we know how to use that alone time wisely. Being able to complete one simple task without interruption is all we are looking for.

It takes the average woman 14 minutes to just get aroused. As horrible as this sounds, I am thinking about what I could be getting done in those 14 minutes and how I am going to have to be up 14 minutes longer than I really want to be. It is not right to think that way I know, but when you are responsible for taking care of everyone else’s needs it is hard to shut off that thought process, even for 14 minutes.

There are so many articles that live online about why it sex is important to a man, or why, even when you don’t feel in the mood, take advantage of the time you have. Screw that. I think there should be more articles on what a woman needs in order to feel okay from taking time away from getting everything else done to have sex. Or what a husband can do to ensure his wife has time for sex. Yeah, more of those articles need to be written.  I remember when I was around the age of 24, my mother and I were having a conversation and I had just starting dating my husband. I told my mother that I just don’t understand how married couples don’t have sex every day. I remember her looking at me and just laughing and saying “I hope you do.” I now understand why she said it with a sarcastic tone. Sometimes, I wish I could go back to my 24 year old self, as does my husband, but for now, I will just have to accept my husband still being attracted to me after ALL THESE YEARS.