We are honored to have J. Parker from Hot Holy Humorous on the Love Hope Adventure podcast to share tips for wives who have a higher drive than their husbands. This is a topic that we think hasn’t been covered enough, which leaves wives in this position feeling like they are alone.
J. gives us great insights into what a wife in this situation is dealing with and things she can do to communicate to her husband what she needs.
You can connect with J. on her website here, on Facebook, or Twitter.
Transcription:
Hey welcome to the love of adventure podcast where we talk about marriage relationship, intimacy and marriage and how you can go deeper with your spouse. And today we’re talking with Jay Parker, she is at potholing. humorous. Also, she’s one of the sex chat. Ladies, if you haven’t checked out that podcast, you should. And Jay, tell us where else you’re blogging. I feel like I’ve seen you blogging other places, and I can’t remember the name of those different places.
Oh, I don’t know where else I’ve been blogging. Exactly. But I have on hot Holy humorous.com. And you can find most of my stuff there. And I also have a, I also have a ministry with Chris Taylor, where we have knowing her sexually and that is for something one. Okay, that’s k HS. ministry.com.
I wanted to say KDP. And I was like, that can’t be it. But publishing. Kindle Direct. That’s it. That’s the other one. I’m like, what is it?
Fine books? Like? what’s ours? The conversation starters. And then you have one out there, right?
Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. You’re going to have some books to actually you have a few I have several books. So I have one actually, by the name of my ministry. So hot, holy and humorous sex and marriage by God’s design. So yeah, I also have intimacy revealed, which is a devotional book for wives and helps them to embrace their sexual identity and intimacy in their marriage. And then I also have Pillow Talk, which is a conversation guide. And Kayla, you’re the person who told me that, you know, it sounded like it was conversation starters. And that you realized it was more and I needed to talk more about that. Right. So that was really very enlightening to that I’ve started really saying no, it’s not just conversation starters. It’s like, a wise guide on like, how, you know, it’s got it’s got much more, it’s got like scripture, it’s got like, questions, you actual specific questions, we asked each other, but also some guide lines on how you do that. It’s got some activity take aways. It just, it’s, it’s a much more robust, cool resource than just conversation J, real quick, like, When are you planning to like, really, you know, take this thing seriously, and do some work out there.
Just wondering, you know, as I’ve been doing this for 11 years in one wow, rather. So yeah, I started blogging back in late 2010. So that’s amazing. That’s fantastic. Well, yeah, a lot. Kelly was saying, she sees you all over the place, I see you in one place, because I follow your Facebook page. And so that’s where that’s where I encounter all of your stuff. But I feel like all of those other things. You you funnel through there. So I see whenever y’all have a new podcast out. I see it through there. And, and the and the KDP, the KH s ministry, I see I see you, you boosted those things over there. So yeah, your your stuff is in my feed on the regular. So good things.
Well, thanks for following me there, too. So well, I followed you for probably since the beginning of my blogging, I guess I maybe started 2013 or 2014. And you know, what’s really interesting that I’ve always valued about your blog is you talk to HYDrive wives, and I did this. I did this mops talk once. And I don’t know why they keep kept inviting me back. But the first time I spoke, they were like, oh, it’s Valentine’s or whatever. So why don’t you pick the topic? And I’m like, well, obviously, it’s Valentine’s I have talked about sex. Is that okay? And they’re like, Oh, sure. So I had that that first initial talk. And everybody, like started calling me the sex talk lady at my table, like, oh, wait, you’re that sex talk lady. And even the following year, they did. So for whatever reason, Mops invited me back. And I think at that point, I had gotten into marriage blogging. Initially, I wasn’t. And I remember, like being really become aware of HYDrive lives because of you. So in that talk, I was like, and listen, if you’re a HYDrive life, and you’re not the person in a marriage, where your husband is coming after you all the time, and you’re putting them off, there are resources for you. And I actually had somebody to come up after and tell me like I am that wife, like in a room of Who knows 60 of us. One person came up to me, doesn’t mean she’s the only one that was in that kind of relationship. She was just the only one bold enough to be like, No, that’s me. Can you talk to me? So I pointed her to your resources at that time, and the only thing and I’ll be honest, the only thing I really know what to say to wives in that position is you’re not alone. And, you know, I think that’s where you have such a valuable men ministry because you’re coming from that, you know, from that type of relationship where you’re a HYDrive SP out, and maybe you can speak to the wife whose husband isn’t? Now I’m not saying there aren’t a lot of HYDrive spat wives in a marriage with HYDrive. Husbands, I think there are. So don’t think that but I think the big problem with any marriage is when one spouse wants sex more often than the other, and they’re kind of like at this impasse. Right.
And that’s so interesting that you say that because I’m also in the middle of writing another book, which is on hire Dr. Wives. And so that’s what I’ve been working on for a while. And in the thick of, and someone asked me, if there was any one message that you wanted to get across with this book, what would it be? And I thought for a while, and I thought my biggest message is you’re not alone. So the fact that you say that it’s just so important that a lot of higher desire, wives have felt alone, because so many of the resources or experiences that people around them, address where the husband wants sex more than the wife, and so they’re speaking to wives in that situation. And then, and that’s great, because that’s actually, you know, that’s totally needed. So I’m not taking anything away from that that’s totally needed. But if you’re in that percentage, where that’s not true for you, not only is it hard for you not to find resources, you’re being reminded often, that there are husbands out there who are after their wives and you long for that so much. And and I think it’s true whether the spouse is a husky, whether it’s a husband or a wife, who’s the higher desire, a lot of it is about wanting to be desired by their spouse, and be Intimidators. Yes. And so just that feeling of Wait, am I am I not desirable? Why doesn’t my husband want me especially when the quote unquote normal is for a husband to want his wife. And so I’m a bit on a mission to say, you’re not abnormal, like, it’s fairly normal I, I’ve done a lot of looking into the numbers on this to statistics are some people will go as high as Oh, well, it’s 50% of women, or it’s 40% of women. What I find in the research that I can trust so far is about 15 to 20% of marriages have a wife who desires sex more than a husband. And it could be that that is the entirety of their marriage, or could be a season.
Yeah, I have definitely had some wives write into me and tell me that after gaining a lot of weight, post children, whatever their husbands have literally told them, they’re less attracted to them and have less sex with them. You know, obviously, you’re only getting the one perspective, who knows what’s actually occurring in that relationship. But I’ve had more I’ve written several posts regarding this because they’re like, attributing it to one very specific thing. So at the very least, that’s how they feel whether or not the husband is actually coming right out and saying that, and maybe some of them actually are. Shame on you.
Yeah, that’s not what I usually hear what I usually hear is husband saying, I don’t deliver Dr. husband’s been like, I don’t know why I find you very attractive. I think you’re beautiful. I just, it’s just not as interested in having sex often.
Are you finding? You mentioned the idea that sometimes it is a lifelong thing. And sometimes it’s more of a season of life. Do you do you have any kind of feel? Or is there anything in the research that says, Which of those is more common? That, that it is that the the drives of both spouses kind of remained the same over over the long haul? Or does it more often than not? They change? Or do you know at all?
I think it’s, I think it’s more likely to have seasons, especially because, well, aging for one thing for men, I mean, you’re nowhere near this, nowhere near this. But, you know, eventually for men, even men who were very eager to have sex, some of that urgency goes down as you grow older, as your testosterone decreases. And also some men begin to have some erection difficulties. And so a lot of men don’t want to do something that they don’t feel they can do very well. So they, you know, out of worry, and they may not even be at a conscious level, but they may be kind of avoiding it. Another issue I think is I hear from a lot of couples where he got further into the responsibilities of life. So, you know, you get to a point, especially men middle aged and older, where, okay, I have a household, I have kids to support, I have a job that is taking a lot out to be I’m now at a maybe at a management level. And I’m running a lot of things. And so the stress of all of that can have a dampening effect on your sex drive.
Now, what about the flip side? What about the wives? Are you finding similar kinds of like hormonal changes throughout life that can contribute to that and or responsibilities in life are shifting and so that it can it can be a contributing factor as well?
Yeah, it’s kind of this weird thing, how the the waves happen, because a lot of times, wives find themselves more interested in having sex as they’re hitting middle age because the kids are drawn. Yeah, it made me.
I was thinking about as I was asking the question, that it’s kind of this inverse relationship. Yeah.
It’s funny how it forces us to do this stuff. And people ask me, you know, why, why is this got to be so hard? And I’m like, you know, life’s a challenge, so that God can help us to grow. I mean, that, ideally, when you have these sexual desire differences, it’s something that it’s a challenge, but it’s not an intimacy stopper.
Well, I think that people always said about sex. And I’m like, it’s like that with everything. Like, why do we have to keep fighting over the thermostat? And what we’re gonna have her suffer and whatever, like, nobody likes sits here and goes, Why is that gotta be so hard.
That is, and that’s actually really good analogy to this, because for the vast majority of my marriage, my husband and I have been on the same page about the thermostat, he gets cold, I get cold. That’s me. I know, we didn’t we find some odd years. No arguments over the thermostat. And then I hit menopause.
And now you’re utterly dying, and he is freaking Oh, my gosh, what is it in here? It must be 100. It’s not so I’ve, I’ve had to be a little uncomfortable. And he’s had to be a little uncomfortable and adjust to those kinds of things. And you know, negotiate that with each other. But that’s something is maybe it goes along swimmingly. And and maybe somebody’s listening to this podcast, now I’m thinking we don’t have that and, and that everything’s gonna go the same as it’s always been. I don’t know, like, there are some people that later in life, have a challenge that goes the other way, you don’t know.
Well, and I guess, you know, the other thing with aging is that medications can I guess, affect this as well. And I know people who are older who have taken medications, I think specifically maybe depression and anxiety medicines that have caused them to struggle with their sex drives, like early on, like, you know, 30s and 20s, whatever, you know.
Yeah. And, you know, if you have any of those kinds of situations, there’s almost always another option or another dosage or something that people can pursue. And so if you think that a medication is having an effect on your libido, that’s absolutely something to take to your doctor. And the other thing, too, is birth control. I read a really interesting book about thick is like, this is your brain on birth control. It’s not not by Christian author, but it was all about this. And she wasn’t anti hormonal contraception, but she was basically pointing out all the research and all the things that we know about how it can impact a woman and her mood, her viewpoint. And also her libido. Yeah, and so some wives, once they’re done with all of the having kids and birth control or whatever, the couple, maybe they reach menopause, or the couple take some steps to make the birth control permanent, the SEC to be tying tubes or whatever. So now that don’t have that, and she’s off the hormonal contraception. Right. And for some wives, that means that they kind of discover that their libido is higher than they thought.
And, you know, that’s that’s an interesting moment, and maybe just sort of pause and say, if you are dealing with some sort of issue in your marriage, let’s just say marriage, not even just sex, just some kind of ongoing issue in your marriage. Are you on any kind of medication that could be impacting that? And that’s not I mean, that’s not just anti anti anxiety, like you said, it could be birth control. I mean, there’s heart medications that can change your overall functioning of your body. You know, maybe take a moment to say, is it possible that any of this is being affected by something that one or both of us is taking? Especially if if it’s something that is new, like if there’s a new problem in your life, your relationship? Can you can you pin it to right about the time that you change that medication or started that medication or something And then have a conversation with your doctor about it. Because there have been times where, you know, I’ve been completely ignorant of something that was going on that was caused by a medication that I was on at the time. And, you know, I pointed that out to Keeley. And she was like, well, we’ll Yeah, that’s probably the meds. And I was like, Oh, no. Like, it never even crossed my mind. So good. Good note there that there are so many different things that you’re not equating with. I take this pill every morning, and therefore, I’m fighting with my spouse, or therefore I’m not having sex as often or I feel like I desired more than I used to, or whatever. You’re you may not be correlating those things. But there could be something going on there. So yeah, that’s true. I kind of wanted to come back to you, you started off talking about, you’re not alone. And I’ve noticed that one thing that Killeen I have worked very hard on, when we’re talking about a lot of different areas, whether it’s sex or communication, or, you know, just emotions or feelings within marriage. We’ve tried to get away from gendered language. Because what we found ourselves doing out of habit and out of cultural conditioning, and things, is we sort of default to the stereotypes.
Whatever, like in our own personal marriage, or what’s in our Yeah, the way the way we interact. Yeah. And so you would say things like, well, when he wants sex all the time, and she doesn’t, and we had to go? Are we subcon subconsciously, or not? Subconsciously? Are we unintentionally making someone feel like they are alone? Because all they ever hear is us talking about? Well, you know, the demand is higher drive, or the man feels this or the man says this, and the woman’s feels this and says this, a man thinks that their wives are hot and sexy. And then there’s that wife who’s like, Well, my husband does, or Yeah, and maybe he doesn’t verbalize it, you know, and all those kinds of things. So we’ve we’ve tried to get away from that and say things like, you’ll hear us say, the higher drive spouse, or the spouse who craves physical touch, or the spouse who craves communication, or whatever, we’ve tried to get away from that, to try and open it up to help emphasize that. It’s not it’s not always the woman, it’s not always the man in fill in the blank situation, whatever it is.
Yeah, so there’s several messages, I think that play into this, and I really appreciate what you’re doing. That sounds great. I think that where the problem often lies, well, for the longest time, the most of the resources didn’t even mentioned the situation where the wife wanted sex more than harassment. Exactly. And then I feel like it’s, it’s an achievement that now a lot of more resources will say, sometimes in you know, such and such percent, maybe 15 to 30% of marriages, it’s the wife who wants sex more than the husband, but then immediately, they go back to talking about everything the other way. And, and that’s what I found. That’s what I found myself doing is I would say, the stereotype. And then I would say, well, um, you know, or maybe it’s the wife. But anyways, back to what we were saying about men. It’s just like, whenever it really hard not to do that, yeah, I felt like even when I was correcting myself, like, like you just said, you know, someone will say, and by the way, you know, studies show that this also happens to women. And then you go right back into only talking about how it affects men or whatever. And again, vice versa. I mean, maybe it’s, it’s a conversation about how women crave more emotional connection. Well, right, you know, statistically this out of the other thing, but sometimes the guy wants it too. And so we’ve tried real hard to do that.
That’s another point that I would make is, I think a lot of times the way that we have talked about sexuality has kind of done a disservice to men as well, because it is made it seem like men are so quickly ready to have sex with their wives, and even men with higher drives, like their relationship factors, there can be other things. And there are plenty of guys who take a while to warm up, so to speak. And it’s interesting, I’m sure you’re familiar with rosemary bass on era bass, and I never know how to say her name. The one who came up with the idea of spontaneous versus responsive desire, right?
Oh, no, I didn’t know that. Either. I definitely know the Collins we talk about that all the time now, because honestly, we’d never heard of it even when we started blogging, but it totally describes our sexual response.
Right? Yeah. It’s it was interesting, because I’ve came across an article recently now, I’ll send this to you later if you want. But where she really talked about how spontaneous the word spontaneous help people to understand what she was talking about, but she said innocence for all responsive is what are we responding to? And she said also, how quickly does your response happen? All right. And so if you’re if your response happens very quickly can feel spontaneous.
But I think I think we’ve talked about this on the podcast before, but just in case we haven’t, you want to you want to give us like a two sentence, what is what are we talking about here? Spontaneous versus? Oh, gosh, responsive design?
Yes. So the idea was basically, originally there was this sexual cycle that said that you began with a desire to have sex, and then you started engaging in sex, and you would have arousal, and then you would reach climax, and then you would have, you know, the falling off or whatever. And that is not accurate. Someone can look it up. I don’t remember the exact words for all those things. There’s something about a plateau, I don’t know. But the important part we’re talking about is that you started with a drive, and then you went, then you engaged from that drive, and you had arousal. And what Bassam looked at is, she said, listen, that’s not how it happens, especially for a lot of women, is that for a lot of women, they make a decision to engage, you can make a decision to engage, they start to become aroused, and then their libido kicks in. So they are responding to the arousal. That’s happening. Right. And, but then she said, in a sense, we’re all a little bit responsive. It’s just that response is happening so quickly for the spontaneous. And oftentimes, as you talk about a spontaneous and a responsive, marry each other very often, very often. Yes, yes. And the spontaneous is like, why don’t you want it like, I want it because I love you. And that means that I love you. I have this libido for you. Why don’t you want me in the responsive is like, okay, like, why can’t you just accept that I need a little time and I need, you know, some warm up and I need some this and that.
I need to get my mind there. Come on people. Yeah, more the responsive thinks there’s something wrong with them when there’s not Yeah, right. And that’s what I was gonna say is, especially, you were mentioning how some of our language around sex has done a disservice to men that we talk about, again, the stereotypes of guys being the higher drive. And even in this even in this context with this, this bit of nuance added on, the conversation is going to drift towards well guys tend to be more spontaneous. So then when you have someone who are not, I don’t know, I don’t know. But when you have a guy, who is whatever category, you want to say, lower drive slash more of a responsive, sexual engager, then then they feel like, well, what’s wrong with me? Why am I not the way that I’m supposed to be? And it’s not one of the things we have to remember with these labels, categories, terms, whatever, is that none of them are right or wrong, none of them are better or worse. It’s just the way your brain is wired, the way your hormones are working, even. And it’s not necessarily the way that you will always be, there could be again, the seasons that we’re talking about, if you understand that, hey, right now, at this point in my life, I’m more of a sexual responder than a spontaneous engager, then, then I can work with that. And I can understand that there are benefits to that. Whereas instead of thinking, this is a problem that I need to fix. And that again, I think, goes back to wives, you’re not alone. If you’re, if you’re counter to the stereotype, that doesn’t mean you’re broken, that doesn’t mean that you’re, there’s something wrong or bad about you, or undesirable about you or whatever. It’s just that at this season of your life, this is the way your body is working.
Right. So the other thing I want to talk when you talked about that of just saying not identifying male, female on who’s the higher desire. And so I think that’s extremely helpful. Overall, I do think we still need to be able to talk about the different experiences for male and female, because the times where somebody tells hard drives, we’ll just flip the advice.
Well, that is I was gonna ask you really work because I can’t imagine it does.
You know? On some things, yes. And another things no, like, one of the things that that has been an eye opener for me is how much that desire to be. To be competent for men is just a very strong thing for just for a lot of men. Again, not every man out there, right? I’m saying it’s more likely to be a thing for men to feel like well, I want to be competent, I want to be able to engage. And so the lower desire husband also can think, well, there’s something wrong with me And then if she if the higher desire wife pursues and says, Hey, I want to talk about this, a lot of those husbands will shut down because they don’t want to talk about an area in which they don’t feel competent, they don’t want to be reminded. Whereas reaching out, if it’s flipped, reaching out to your wife, and saying, I want to know what’s going on with you, that kind of bid for attention can actually be a good thing, when it’s the lower desire wife. So sometimes the advice is not exactly the same. And I think people also just ought to be able to share their own experiences. So when y’all share your experience, you should be able to share that I get to share mine where I mean, in my marriage, I have been equally matched to my husband, I have been the lower drive spouse, and for a while now I’ve been the higher desire spouse. So we’ve had it all, I was gonna say that that’s the other thing is we’ve we’ve tried to, to get away from the the male female categories, where it where that’s not the only thing happening, you know, like, like you’re saying, even even on the example that you gave, even in the example that you gave, of like, well, most men like to feel confident and don’t want to engage in something, are competent, and don’t want to engage in something that they don’t feel competent to do. And then you immediately corrected yourself and said, Yeah, I know, not every guy. And that’s the thing is, is so much so many times where we’re putting things in those male female instead of maybe, instead of maybe, you know, a be like, because because in our relationship, there are many areas where we fit the stereotype, right? I am I anywhere we go? Yeah, I am the technology guy in the home. She is a homemaker and a wonderful cook. And you know, and we kind of like, but I am definitely very hot natured when he is cold.
And office, right? No, I you know, when I’m on Discovery, I’m not, I have a zone. Because I don’t want to be hot either. I don’t want to be hot. And I also don’t want to be cold, I want to be in my happy zone. And you like to live on the fringes of either extreme of my happy zone. But but that’s the thing is there are these spots where we very much line up with the the stereotype and the cultural norm and or, you know, whatever it is. And then there are other areas where we don’t and it’s either reversed. Or it’s it’s complicated. It’s not like that. And I think again, helping each other to understand that. And we have learned to identify those things and each other, we’ve learned to identify not just me saying to, you know, to myself, well, Keeley is this way, but also having that conversation with her and saying, you know, I’ve noticed this tendency about you and have her go, yeah. More more often. It’s the other way around. More often it’s Keeley saying that to me, and I go, that’s why I’m the way I am. You know, it can be so eye opening. And again, getting, you know, not to keep coming back to your original point. But for people to hear that and realize, Oh, I’m not broken. I’m not deficient or malfunctioning. I’m not alone. I’m one of these people. That’s this way instead.
Well, let me ask you a question. Actually, Austin. So Kelly had said earlier that it you had about 60 women in the room and one came and boldly asked you and said it may just be the heart desire wife. So statistically speaking, there were probably maybe 10 women in the room who were or would be at some point anyway. But that doesn’t mean that particular room had 10 with it. It could have, we could have again. But here’s my question. So assuming you’ve and have talked to guys throughout your life. Have you ever had a man volunteer that he wants sex less than his wife?
I think at least one I mean. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’m trying to couch it in the in the context that you asked the question. And I will say in the context that you asked the question, no, because that was someone she didn’t know or barely knew. Well, that’s true. And and there’s been, I can think of maybe three or four people, maybe three or four guys that I’ve had any conversation about sex with. Oh, okay. Because Absolutely.
Outside of blogging, you know, like, like, like, no actual conversation. And I’ve also not had the speaking opportunities that Keelie has in that realm, and I haven’t I haven’t gotten up and been, you know, because if I had done that if I if I had stood up in front of a group of 60 Guys, and talking about these paddles, somebody probably would have come up to me.
4 comments
Molly
Any advise for higher drive wives besides, “you are not alone” ?
Keelie Reason
Hi Molly! My friend Dan over at Get Your Marriage on had a great episode about this. https://getyourmarriageon.com/84-when-the-higher-desire-spouse-is-anxious-for-sex/ I think he gives some good ideas on how to deal with your emotions.
Bill Walker
Good conversation. We fell into the rut of me trying to initiate and reading her lack of interest as rejection. It is no fun playing the waiting game to see how long it will be.
Keelie Reason
I totally understand. That is very tough.