Wanting a Better Sex Life? How to Talk to Your Spouse
Tamyiah says, “I’m having difficulty having an orgasm and I don’t know how to talk to my husband about that, about foreplay, or just about having a better sex life in general.”
Read more to find out what Josh Spurlock, Counselor & Sex Therapist, says about how to talk to your spouse about your sex life, and book recommendations on how to have a better sex life.
CASSIE
Welcome to My Counselor Online. I’m Cassie and this is My Counselor Says. My Counselor Says is where you submit a question, either for yourself, or for a friend, and one of our incredible therapists takes their time and answers your personal question. So let’s go find out what My Counselor Says.
JOSH SPURLOCK ON THE COMMON DIFFICULTY OF TALKING ABOUT YOUR SEX LIFE
This is a common difficulty that couples have. Talking about sex can feel uncomfortable and awkward. Maybe we weren’t taught to have open dialogue around sexual topics growing up. We can come into marriage with fears, anxieties, feelings of inadequacy, conflict, disconnect, or fears around performance within our relationship.
HOW TO TALK ABOUT YOUR SEX LIFE WITH YOUR SPOUSE
Initiating and responding to conversations about difficult subjects and questions around this could trigger feelings of defensiveness or insecurity in our spouse. And so, bringing it up can be delicate. I would suggest that you begin with affirming your desire for closest connection in the relationship.
“Hey, I want to talk with you about something, and I don’t want it to come across as critical. It’s really about me wanting to be closer to you and having more connected relationship with you. I would like to talk a little bit about our sex life. I want to see if we can engage in a process for some things that would help us have more conversations about our sex life, and explore things that could maybe be different, or that we could enjoy more, and just have more freedom within our times of connection.”
Hopefully that sets the context for the conversation, that allows your spouse to respond to that without it feeling like an attack or criticism, in a way that might spur defensiveness.
BOOKS ON HOW TO HAVE A BETTER SEX LIFE
Then, you might pick up a book like Cliff and Joyce Penner’s Restoring the Pleasure, which is designed to help guide couples through growing, healing, learning, and discussing their sex life with each other. Doug Rosenau’s book Celebration of Sex is another great resource for doing that same thing. You can pick those up at most Christian bookstores.
And just say, “Hey, this is something I’d like to walk through with you, that would help us have a springboard into some dialogue and conversations, and just learn how to really enrich this part of our relationship, so we can continue to grow and enjoy it more and more as time goes by.”
I appreciate your question, Tamyiah, and hope that gives you some helpful direction for initiating that conversation.
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