Breaking News!

Free PDF Download »

Mark's highly anticipated teen seminar is now available!

Check out our all-new teen relationships area and download our free Discussion Starters Guide.

Posts Tagged ‘men’

Sexless Marriage? The Desire Myth

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

In a previous post I gave one possible explanation for why some married couples don’t have much of a sex life. Sexless marriage is a very common problem in millions of marriages today. As I’ve stated before, a sexless marriage is one where a couple engages in little to no sexual activity–anything less than ten times per year is considered to be sexless. There can be many reasons that contribute to this phenomenon—anything from health issues, kids and busy schedules, to pornography use, masturbation, issues due to past sexual abuse and serious problems or difficulties in the relationship. But there is one very simple misunderstanding in regard to sex I would like to address, and I truly think it can make a big difference for a lot of couples. Many, many people mistakenly think that you can only have sex if it is preceded by great desire and/or a huge emotional connection. But I say that neither is required every time to have a great sex life with your spouse.

Let’s deal with the desire issue first. The typical model says we first feel desire, then arousal, followed by the actual event of sex (intercourse)—but as I say in my Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage book and seminar, this is not true for millions of people! Many people don’t feel that great desire first and often don’t want to do it until they are actually doing it—then they are glad they did! Unfortunately, the misinformation that we have been given by so-called experts and the media in our culture has led most people to believe that both the man and woman always feel all this hot and heavy desire before they can have sex.
(more…)

Attention = Desire Disorder (Part 2)

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

In the last post I wrote about the connection between attention and desire and explained that when a man pays attention to his wife, it builds desire in him. As human beings we want or desire what we give our time and thoughts to. It could be a shiny new car that you keep driving by the lot admiring or the big piece of chocolate cake that you continuously look at sitting on the counter! Then I explained how this applies in marriage—mostly from the man’s point of view—trying to get women to understand this connection between attention and desire in a man’s brain. If you haven’t read it yet, you may want to check out Attention = Desire Disorder (Part 1) first.

Now, I didn’t say that every time the guy gives his wife a little attention she needs to fulfill his immediate desire (as some readers assumed). Rather the intent was to explain why some men stop paying attention to their wives. If time after time a man gives attention, causing his desire for his wife to grow, and then she constantly stiff-arms him and pushes her husband away, the dude is going to stop with the attention. He will do it if for no other reason than to keep his arousal and desire in check and limit his own sexual frustration.
(more…)

Attention = Desire Disorder

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

It’s the New ADD. Attention = Desire Disorder.

It is not a secret that men and women typically want different things from one another in a marriage. Ask 100 women what they want more of from their husband and most of them will say they want him to pay more attention to them. Ask 100 guys what they want more of from their wife and most of them will say they want more sex… no surprise there! These differing wants are the ingredients for a perfect stand off between men and women.

Women will say, “I’d make love to him more if he’d just give me some attention and I felt like he cared about me for more than just sex.” Men will say, “I give her attention and that just makes me want her more, but she still doesn’t want to have sex.” And it’s true that when a man gives his attention to his wife, it increases his sexual desire for her! Desire fills him as a result of paying attention to the woman—his sexual interest increases as he focuses in on his wife. Much of the attention that men give, whether women like it or not, is sexually driven. Sex and attention all go together, you can’t separate the two. Whatever we give our attention to is what we end up desiring.
(more…)

Don’t Change the Guy

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Way too many women are dating guys thinking they can change or morph them into the man they want him to be. It would be far better to just find a guy that is more of what you want. If he’s a frog, you aren’t going to turn him into prince charming. You need to move on. I don’t know what it is in the female psyche that makes women think that the bum will be different when they are married.

If you don’t like the fact that he isn’t a devoted follower of Jesus, or that he smokes or is a slob, or whatever—you fill in the blank—but think by some “magical cosmic force” he’ll be different once you are married, you are fooling yourself. Women will say they want a solid Christian man, someone with a good job and a wonderful mother, but date a guy who stays in bed and watches TV rather than going to church, can’t hold a steady job and whose mother is a banshee. Then they think these things will go away, won’t matter or that they can change him. These ladies are in for a ton of misery.
(more…)

 
Share this site: