SWM 050 – Anonymous Questions from September 2019 – Deployed Spouses, Passive Sex Partners, Sleep Apnea and How to Boost Attraction for your Spouse

As always, I’m about a month behind, so today we’re handling questions from our anonymous Have A Question page that came in during September.  

So, without further ado, here are the questions:

Question 1 – Deployed Husband

My husband recently deployed and will be halfway across the world for almost an entire year. Our time zones are almost completely opposite, so he’s asleep when I’m awake and vice versa except for a few hours, morning and evenings. It’s hit and miss if I even catch him at those times and often my kids are with me wanting to talk to daddy (two toddler boys).

What do you recommend for us? He’s higher drive and I know you’re against masturbation… but I also would rather he masturbate to pictures of me than be tempted by other women. What are our other alternatives? Obviously we will try to message and video chat as often as we can but it’s not looking like that will be often.

On my end, I’m at the tail end of breastfeeding, and my drive has been low for almost 4 years (since our oldest was born), but I can feel it starting to return. Inconveniently, he just left… What do you recommend for avoiding remission, connecting with each other long distance, etc.?

I really enjoy listening to your podcast and reading your blog. I love your perspective on everything, even if I don’t always 100% agree (though I usually do agree). I’m glad you are here posting and helping people work through this stuff, it’s very important. I look forward to your response!

That is a difficult situation.  Let me preface this by saying that I’ve never served, and no one I know well has either.  For some, my lack of personal experience invalidates my having an opinion. If that’s you, stop reading, because either I’m going to say something that you already agree with, or you’ll disagree and get upset because “how dare I.”

For those of my readers who already know I’m not, nor have ever been, in the military, you probably already know what my answer is going to be.  But I’ll reiterate it for those who don’t.

I do not believe that solo masturbation is inline with God’s plan for sex.  I believe God created sex to be connecting, a shared experience, between a husband and a wife, together, and with no one else.

Solo masturbation is neither connected, nor shared, nor between a husband and a wife.  It’s, well, solo. And so all the things that the Bible tells us sex is good for – procreation, emotional connection, shared recreation, etc. are invalidated when you masturbate alone.  You’re using sex in a way God didn’t intend. Same as pre-marital sex, affairs and threesomes.

Unfortunately, our culture has turned sex into a personal need rather than a relational need.  We believe that we each, individually, need sex in order to survive. This leads to statements like 

I also would rather he masturbate to pictures of me than be tempted by other women.

As if those are the only two options – masturbate or have an affair.  Unfortunately, we’re arguing between shades of sin. Either he has an affair with someone, or he has one alone.  He either breaks the marriage vow with another person, or he does it by himself. Because either way, he’s going to be spending his time deployed learning to have sex with someone other than you.  Either with someone else, or solo. Neither of which is beneficial to reintegration of the marriage down the road.