Heath Lambert: We love to answer your questions on the Truth and Love podcast and we’ve received a number of questions over the last few weeks about the sexual relationship in marriage. Specifically, some people have asked about what to do when sex has not been occurring in your marriage for a number of years. Now, a number of years is a very long time to go in most marriages without the sexual relationship happening. But it’s common for many couples to experience a sort of drought and their sexual relationship that could last a number of weeks or a number of months. And the issue is, what do we do when your spouse doesn’t want to have sex?
Well before we can really answer that question, we need to talk about what the Bible commands in this regard. It is clear that the Bible commands married couples to have sex in marriage. In 1 Corinthians 7, starting in verse 1, the Apostle Paul says, “now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman, but because of immoralities each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does and likewise also, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (1 Corinthians 7:1-4). The text grounds the command in the reality that in marriage, a husband loses the exclusive right to control his own body and the wife loses the exclusive right to control her own body. That is to say, in marriage, a husband’s body does not belong to himself alone and a wife’s body does not belong to herself alone, but these bodies are shared by one to the other in the context of marriage. And so, we share our bodies with one another. And I don’t have a right to say as a husband, on my own, that I’m not going to have sex with you, and you as a wife don’t have the right to say, I’m not going to have sex with you—we have to share our bodies. This is the case because the Bible understands that sexuality is a blessing. We need to be sure we’re clear about this as Christians because it’s possible for Christians to be misunderstood as we condemn sexual sin, and that all sex is bad. But of course, the Bible does not teach that all sex is bad. The Bible teaches that sex outside of marriage is bad, but that sex within marriage is a wonderful blessing from the Creator.
And so in marriage, this is a gift that is to be enjoyed. The text in 1 Corinthians 7 goes on, not just to endorse the sharing of our bodies in Christian marriage but to give a command about depriving one another. The text says, “stop depriving one another except by agreement for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer and then come together again” (1 Corinthians 7:5). The text is saying that the times when we aren’t engaged in the sexual relationship of marriage, is during a season of prayer and it’s a season that we both have agreed to engage in. So this isn’t a season of prayer, that one spouse would unilaterally impose on the other. But this is an agreed-upon reality that exists for a short period of time and then we come back together in sexual union. And what’s even more interesting is, the reason why this is such a short-lived season when couples agree on it. It says, “come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7:5). In other words, couples that do not enjoy the blessing of sexuality in marriage are inviting satanic temptation into their marriage. So one of the ways that we engage in spiritual warfare in marriage is by enjoying the body of our husband or our wife in the context of the sexual relationship. This is actually a way that the apostle Paul says that we combat Satan in our marriage and so it is very, very important for married couples to be enjoying the blessing of sexuality and it’s very, very serious when this is not happening.
If you are a couple that has struggled to enjoy this blessing over weeks or months and particularly in the case of those who have written in questions for years then there is a problem that we need to solve. These problems could be any of a number of realities but let me break it down into two big categories.
It could be that you are not enjoying the blessing of sexuality in your marriage because of reasons of suffering. This suffering could be physical or this suffering could be spiritual. Let’s talk about the physical first. Some people cannot enjoy the blessing of sexuality in marriage because of physical suffering—there is a bodily problem. There is a way that God in a perfect world designed your body to work and for all kinds of reasons, maybe because of age, maybe because of health, maybe because of an accident, a couple is not enabled to engage in the sexual relationship the way they would like to. In such a situation, couples need to seek out help from a medical doctor to see if and how such medical problems can be treated. Many physical difficulties that prohibit sexual expression in marriage can be treated—others cannot—but that is going to be a reason for you to visit your doctor and other medical professionals to try to get guidance on that.
It also could be the case that you’re not able to enjoy the blessing of sexuality in your marriage because of spiritual suffering. Here I mean that something has happened in the life of one member of the couple or both members of the couple that makes it very, very agonizing to think about sex in marriage. One example that I’m familiar with and have helped a number of couples with is when one member of the couple is raped. It is possible for us to imagine a situation where a wife would be physically attacked and now the thought of having a sexual relationship—even with her husband, who is blameless—is very, very challenging and is even impossible to think about. In a situation like this where something terrible has happened and one member or both members of the couple are suffering under the weight of that kind of spiritual pain, then what you need to do is get some help with that. This would mean you would find a biblical counselor, a pastor—we’d invite you to visit our website at ACBC, where we have a ‘Find a Counselor’ tab and you can be connected with somebody who’s committed to the Scriptures to be able to help you deal with this problem.
Another reason why it might be difficult or impossible for a couple to enjoy the blessings of sexuality in marriage is because of sin in the marriage. Here were thinking of examples where sin has taken place in the life of one member of the couple or has happened in the midst of the relationship within the marriage. There are a number of possibilities for these sins. One spouse could have committed adultery. One spouse could have committed some sin against the other which creates an environment of distrust in the marriage. Maybe one spouse is looking at pornography or something else. In such a situation, you have to have a couple that knows how to deal with sin biblically. There are a lot of things that we need to say about this, but at the end of the day, those who are guilty of sin need to confess that sin to the Lord, and to one another to pursue reconciliation. There are going to be all sorts of different specifics, all sorts of different practical steps that you would take depending on the sin that’s in place, but you would need to be committed to dealing with sin in a biblical way in order to resolve the conflict and be restored to one another sexually.
Whether the problem is a result of suffering, or whether the problem is a result of sin, if you are in a marriage where there has been a lengthy break in the sexual relationship, you can be assured of this: you have a problem that needs to be addressed. And if you are in a marriage and you’re listening to this, and you’re interested in a sexual relationship with your spouse, but for reasons that your spouse has not made clear to you, they are expressing no interest in you physically, then you need to hear me say that you have a problem in your marriage. You perhaps don’t know what it is, but there is a problem there. And I would encourage you to find again, a biblical counselor, a pastor, a wise and trusted friend to engage with you, explain what’s going on and ask them if they could help you. This is where we need the body of Christ to be the body of Christ. This is where we have to be humble enough to open up about difficulties in our life and seek help from those who are wise enough to offer.