Sexual Fulfillment in Marriage: Emotional Differences in Men & Women

When it comes to sexual fulfillment in a marriage, one of the first things husbands and wives need to understand is that they are different. If you don’t expect these differences – and learn to deal with them – they can drive you crazy.

Our differences are related to the ways men and women connect emotions and sex. For men, sex stimulates our emotions. In other words, we are put in touch with our emotions through sex.

If a wife wants her husband to get more in touch with her emotions (and his, too), then meeting his need for sex is a good way to spur him in that direction. Men and women become more emotionally connected through sex.

Women, of course, take an opposite approach. For them, emotions stimulate sex. When a woman is not feeling sexual, her husband can make her feel more sexual by stimulating her emotions instead of stimulating her erotically.

God created women to become more sexual when their emotional needs are being met. That’s why a man who does housework can be sexually stimulating to his wife. (Really!)

But guys? God created us to be aroused visually. Housework doesn’t do it for us unless our wives are doing the housework naked.

There are other differences, too. Men can turn on to sex almost immediately, while women warm up slowly to the idea of sex. It’s been said before that, sexually speaking, men are microwaves and women are crock pots.

A husband will see sex as just one more compartmentalized element of his life, separate from everything else. He can enjoy sex anytime, regardless of circumstances. But a woman’s sexuality is connected to everything else in her life. If she’s having a bad day, sex is the last thing on her mind.

Why did God make us so different? One reason is so that each of us will have to look outside ourselves for fulfillment. It gives us an opportunity to get outside our comfort zones and to serve each other.

Our differences also enable us to fulfill different roles in life. Hundreds of years ago, men had to be emotionally detached enough to leave the family, go out and hunt for food. Their sexual desire was something that brought them back home.

The wife, meanwhile, was wired to hold the family together emotionally until her husband returned. She nurtured the family and helped reconnect the father to the emotional needs of the family when he got back home.

God made men and women different, but He did it for a reason. Understanding these differences – and learning how they can complement each other – is the key to sexual fulfillment in marriage.