It’s the blessed marriage where both partners have equal libido. They both desire to engage in sexual intimacy at the same frequency. However, I would venture to say that there are a higher number of marriages that have mismatched sexual frequency expectations or desire discrepancy.
Unequal libido
This leads to one spouse being lower drive and one spouse being higher drive. But, why is this?
In a recent podcast by Dr. Erick Janssen of the Kinsey Institute, he mentions that sexual desire is an emotion. However, subtle or insignificant that may seem, it hit me over the head like a ton of Playboys. It explains so much!
I realized that my higher drive spouse had physical reasons to need sexual intimacy. But, it never dawned on me that this physical need could in fact be an emotional need.
Psychoneurobiologically speaking, emotions are one part value judgments and one part perceptions of how your body is changing. Value judgments are determining whether your end goal is being achieved. Body perceptions involve your brain gauging processes like neurochemicals being injected into the brain, hormone levels, blood pressure, breathing rate, etc.
There is a soul-essence in regards to our unique emotions, too. As a Christian, I believe there’s a third part to the emotion of sexual desire; spirituality. Sexual intimacy is the spiritual bonding of marriage.
Why is it important, as a lower drive spouse, to fully understand that sexual desire is an emotional need? It makes the needs of the higher drive spouse more compelling.
If I expect him to take my needs seriously, even though he doesn’t understand them, I need to take his needs seriously, even though I don’t innately understand them.
For example, I need to talk about things, everything, things he thinks are trivial. I like to know where he stands emotionally through discussion. I like to talk. He doesn’t need to talk. But, since he knows how important it is to me, we talk.
What if he didn’t want to talk with me? That would make me feel horrible, like I didn’t matter to him. It dawned on me, if sexual desire is an emotion, that must be what he feels like when I don’t want to make love!
To work through the conflict of our desire discrepancy, we were able to combine our two favorite things: sex and conversation. We talked about sex outside of the bedroom. We worked up a compromise that was appealing to both of us. Life happens and things sometimes wax and wane, but we make an effort to keep our desire discrepancy more equal.
Bonny Logsdon Burns blogs about Christian sex and marriage for Wilmington Faith & Values.
