SWM 046 – Responsive desire is a blessing

I get two types of emails when it comes to the topic of responsive desire.  If you don’t know what responsive desire is, I suggest reading the responsive vs. spontaneous desire post first.  

The first type of email comes from spouses (generally, but not always husbands) who are angry/frustrated/hurt/sad/etc. that the person they are married to never seems to be interested in sex.  From their perspective, when their spouse initiates it’s out of duty and/or pity. In short – “they’re not attracted to me”, which often gets translated into “they’re not in love with me”.

The second type of email comes from spouses (generally, but not always wives) who feel inadequate/broken/confused about the fact that their spouse always wants to have sex, but they don’t themselves.  Usually they enjoy sex, when it happens, but on any given day, if you were to ask them “are you in the mood for sex”, the answer is almost always “no”.  

Those with responsive desire, once they learn about responsive desire, are relieved that they aren’t broken.  That doesn’t mean everything is resolved immediately. Some are able to simply flip a switch and learn to be open to being aroused rather than waiting to be “in the mood”, and they go on to have happy fulfilling sex lives.  Others have a hard time adjusting. Even though they now know they’re not broken, just different, they still struggle with feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, etc.. 

The spouses on the other side face a similar split.  Some accept that their spouse isn’t broken, but that they just have to adjust, be okay with being the initiator and they go on to have happy, fulfilling sex lives.  Others have a hard time adjusting.

Unfortunately, when either spouse has a hard time adjusting, it tends to either hold back the other spouse, or actually undo their progress.

For example, if you have a spouse with responsive desire and you hold on to the belief that “I shouldn’t even initiate sex unless they want it”, even though you know they will never want it before you initiate, then you start to feel like you got the raw end of the deal in marriage.  They feel similar to someone learning to live with a spouse who has a disability.  They continue to go through the stages of grief about the death of what they assumed/expected their marriage to be.

This tends to make those who have responsive desire feel like they’re disabled and broken as well.  Either these feelings start over, or they get reinforced, while they’re trying to break free of them.  These responsive desire people who were often excited to learn that they’re not broken, just different, start to question it, because their spouse is still moping about it.  They start to feel like maybe they are broken.  Maybe they’re just fooling themselves.  Ultimately, it can be their spouse’s lack of acceptance of them as different that makes them feel inferior, and actually holds them back from learning how to work with this dynamic.

So, today, I want to tell both spouses about what’s good about responsive desire, whether you have it, or you have a spouse with it.  I want to share these things so that those who have it can see the benefits for themselves, and those who don’t can stop wallowing in pity about the short end of the stick they think they got.

What’s good about having responsive desire?

You aren’t constantly distracted by sex

Those of us with spontaneous desire, particularly when we have higher sex drives (by that I mean the spontaneousnes...