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Sometimes sex has been associated with the thrill of the chase: attracting a mate, but not with truly making love. Long-term love with deep emotional connection remains a foreign concept. Past experiences, such as sexual abuse, can also prevent a spouse's arousal or trust of another with sexual responsiveness. Being passionately sexual can somehow seem wrong or ungodly.

Solutions:

1. Examine what you believe and how you feel about sex—your own sexuality, your spouse's sexuality, and your sexual sharing with each other. Build on ways you already experience intimacy. Explore together how to deepen your emotional, spiritual, and sexual connection as a couple.
2. Grow in understanding your body, its sexual responses, and (if you aren't already) becoming orgasmic. (For more help in this area, check out chapter 17 in A Celebration of Sex by Doug Rosenau).
3. Wives, talk to other trustworthy women, and husbands, talk to other trustworthy men, who enjoy sex and can mentor you.

"I want to enjoy lovemaking, but I'm not a proficient lover. It's difficult to get excited about something that makes me feel inadequate."

Often lack of knowledge about lovemaking is at the root of this sense of incompetence. A husband may suffer from one of the common male malfunctions, premature ejaculation or erection difficulties, or perhaps simply from his wife's lack of enthusiasm.

Women also may feel inadequate. One recalled how her sexuality had been squelched on her honeymoon by a random and innocent comment from her husband: "I thought you were supposed to move more." She felt criticized and inept.

Another woman told us how she carefully prepared herself on her honeymoon night, floated out of the bathroom in her beautiful lingerie…and was greeted by her husband's snores. After a wedding day filled with hundreds of people, dinner, and a long drive to the hotel, he had succumbed to sheer exhaustion. She carried that devastation in her soul for a decade before sharing it with him and resolving it.

Even a lack of understanding of aging can create fear and shut down a potentially great love life. Even though our bodies age and physical response changes, the potential for a fun love life exists into our eighties and nineties.

Solutions:

1. Read a manual to learn about lovemaking, sexual responses, aging, and how to deal with sexual malfunctions. (Try A Celebration of Sex After 50 by Doug Rosenau and Secrets of Eve by Debra Taylor).
2. Take time to discuss sexual wounds or fears you may have encountered or created during your marriage.

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