Your Husband Wants Sex? 3 Things He’s Thinking Inside

When your husband approaches you for sex, it goes beyond a need for a physical release or a desire for pleasure. There are emotions under the surface, emotions that you might not realize are very powerful. Keep reading to learn more.

1. “I need to feel desirable.” We women often think sex is primarily a physical need for a guy, but that’s not most of what is going on. When his wife responds to him — or initiates it herself! — it meets a deep emotional need to feel that his wife desires him.

2. “I love you and want to be closer to you.”  Women typically want to feel close outside the bedroom in order to feel close inside the bedroom. But for many men, when they feel tension in the air, when there’s distance, when they know something’s just not right… they miss their wife. For a man’s biological chemistry, in fact, sex is one of the only times that his brain releases oxytocin, the bonding hormone, which brings a great feeling of closeness with someone. When he reaches for you, you may think, I cannot believe he would want sex now, when we’re at odds / fighting / distant. But instead, realize: he’s reaching for you in order to get back that feeling of closeness with you that he is longing for.

3. “I’m really vulnerable right now.” Because sex is more of an emotional need than a physical one for him, many men in my research told me there is no time more insecure, scary, and vulnerable than when they approach their wives in that way. They are essentially laying their “desirability” and their heart out in front of you and asking, “what do you think of me?” Without realizing it, when we are tired or just not in the mood, it is easy to brush him off in a way that cuts that vulnerable heart deeply. Now, just to be clear, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have a say in the matter! Of course, there will be times we simply aren’t able to respond. But when that happens, it is even more critical that we tell him how much we care, how much we love him, and make a promise to plan some fun for another night!

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Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Her latest book, Find Rest: A Women’s Devotional for Lasting Peace in Busy Life, focuses on a journey to rest even with life’s constant demands.

Visit www.shaunti.com for more.

This article was first published at Patheos.