The vast majority of wives get things like ties, shirts, pants and other such things for their husbands for Christmas. But if men are honest with themselves this is not what they really want from their wives for Christmas. The gift they want from their wives would not cost their wives any money.
But what it would require is for their wives to sacrifice their pride and face their fears to truly seek to please their husbands.
Many traditional wives would respond at this point “Hey I already willing give my body to my husband anytime he desires it! What more am I supposed to do?”
And that ladies, is the million-dollar question that I answer in this three-part podcast series from BGRLearning.com. (And no, it won’t cost you a million bucks to find out the answers).
In Proverbs 5:19, God commands that husbands are to be ravished (literally intoxicated) by their wives. And the wording of the passage does not mean “men – be content with whatever your wife is willing to offer in the bedroom”. If you look in the slide show above, I show how the Hebrew words in the passage actually call for men to “drink their fill” of their wife’s body, to use her to satisfy all his desires and she is to be ravishing toward him.
But how does a wife go about ravishing (intoxicating) her husband? Does this mean she must initiate all the time? Of course not. While it is certainly good and healthy for a wife to initiate with her husband at times, God has designed men to be the primary initiators in the marriage bed.
Being a ravishing wife is not about initiating all the time. It’s about an attitude toward your husband and his God given masculine desires.
Thankfully God did not just tell women to be ravishing toward their husbands in Proverbs 5:19. He also gave us an entire book of the Bible, The Song of Solomon, which shows women how to be ravishing wives. In this three-part podcast series, I explore many metaphors in the book of Ecclesiastes to help women learn how to be ravishing wives.
Click here to to go to BGRLearning.com and listen to this series.
Biblical Gender Roles 
Okay, do you mind my asking what am I supposed to do when he not only does not initiate, but gets very angry when I do? What am I supposed to do when he rebukes me for interrupting his reading – his television watching – his internet reading – his podcast listening – his activities with our children – his life?
One time I asked him if there was anything he always dreamed of seeing me in (i.e, lingerie). Said he never thought about it, what did I like? So I told him I liked pretty things, lacy things, stuff like that. I told him that would be a nice gift someday. Never got it. I gave him my measurements in case he was concerned about getting the wrong size. That slip of paper I found two weeks later — on the floor shoved under a dresser. That was years ago (we’ve been married twenty years, for eight years we have been utterly celibate [sleep in the same room and bed, but woe unto anybody who disturbs his sleep in that bed or otherwise bothers him.] The remaining years we were intimate just enough to have our children and it was riddled with stress because he wanted me to be fast and I just couldn’t respond “fast” — I always needed artificial lubricant because my body just could not respond fast enough for him.)
When we first got married it was because his shoulder hurt, so we switched sides in bed. Then his wrist bothered him. Then he complained I wasn’t ready fast enough. Then he said the kids would hear us. A frequent favorite was that his stomach was bothering him, he wasn’t well in one way or another. That was the most frequent. For some reason he was “sick” and finally one time I bitterly remarked that someone who had as many illnesses as he had should will his body to science. That comment wasn’t well received, but I did it only once and kept quiet after that.
I have gone through I don’t know how many diets for his stomach issue whatever it is, all at his request. First we did no sweets, then we did low carb, lots of carbs, you name it, we did it. For some reason he always feels fine unless it is an activity I want to do, or when sex is even remotely hinted at. Another one was “I work”. I would snuggle up to him in bed and he would sharply inform me that he needed his sleep because he worked, and did I want him to get fired? So I learned to keep to my side of the bed.
I finally decided to get aggressive one day and bought some extremely racy lingerie (I have very conservative tastes and what I got was WAY out of my comfort zone — I prayed like crazy nobody I knew would see me because I was mortified with embarrassment — and I bought it after reading something you wrote). I put it on and not only did he not notice, but when I kept asking, he finally yelled at me asking what I wanted, and while I stood there feeling completely humiliated in this get-up, he told me I looked like a whore. I wished I could drop through the floor. I got out of that stuff as fast as possible, threw it away and haven’t tried again since.
I’m almost tempted to subscribe just so I can feel like a woman again. I hardly know who I am anymore. I’m getting older now, too, my hair is starting to gray and it isn’t a lot of fun knowing your husband only wants you as a housekeeper, especially since your kids are now growing up and starting to leave home. I might as well go back to work. I felt like a human being then.
You realize, of course, that a podcast such as this one is on the “advanced” level and hardly worth it for someone in my situation.
Mom of teenagers,
I am so sorry to hear of your husband’s wicked behavior toward you and toward sexual intimacy in your marriage. It sounds like you have tried everything you can for many years, whether it be from directly trying to initiate sex to wearing things that will catch his attention. While God does not allow divorce for just any reason, or even for just having a difficult spouse, I do believe that God allows divorce for sexual denial in marriage.
In Exodus 21:10-11 (KJV) the Bible says this:
The phrase “her duty of marriage” is referring to sex. The Bible is saying that a man must provide his wife with food, clothing and sex. These three items form the definition of marital faithfulness for a husband. If he does not do even one of these three things, a wife as the God given right to be divorced from her husband.
I do think that women should approach other men in this grave situation where a husband is failing to provide for his wife these things and see if they can convince him to change or else grant his wife a divorce. But since we lack this system in our current culture, I do think a woman can initiate divorce on her own if no man is willing to confront her husband or force him to give her a divorce.