Marriage is a sexual relationship. If you are going to marry, and you do not understand and desire that you are going to have good holy sexual intercourse with your husband or wife, then do not marry the person. Either you will have to cease from marrying altogether, or you will need to wait and prepare yourself before marriage to engage in meaningful, God-given, life-long, sexual and romantic practices with your spouse.

God the Creator restricted sex to marriage, because sexual intercourse and sexual practices establish a strong bond and a soul-tie between the two people. Your souls enter into each other during sexual intercourse.

This bond is so spiritual in nature that it was designed to form a permanent bond of connection and attachment between the man and the woman in marriage.

This explains why, for example, a woman whose virginity was broken by a previous man, cannot easily forget about that man, even when she is married to another man.

Sex in the marital home must be balanced with domestic and other marital duties. As much as you should have a delight in having sex with your married partner, you should not become merely addicted to sexual activities as your primary habit in your marriage, nor engage in too little amounts of sex with your mate, without proper management of your emotions, wisdom to make the right moves at the best time, and self-control that checks your feelings from running aimlessly wild.

For a good sex life in your marriage, you need to MAKE TIME FOR IT ---continual romance, frequent good foreplay preceding good sexual intercourse, and a mindset plus a strong desire to ensure regular mutual sexual satisfaction.

Sex problems

The problems associated with sex in marriages are so many, and the topic is quite wide, therefore I thought it will be fine for us only to explore just a few here.

Sex problems commonly develop in the marriage as a serious ‘red flag” when, for example, we:

1) Allow sex to lose its important value in our minds and hearts.

2) No more respect sex in itself (by thinking of it as an “unclean” or unnecessary act under all circumstances etc.).

3) Find any sex with our legally married mates as repulsive (for various reasons such as body smell, unusual fluid discharges, lack of neatness, disease etc.).

4) Lose respect and value for our mate due to pre-marital sex that was forced on you, sexual infidelity through adultery, and other factors.

5) Lose the real value of sex and decency of it as a result of mixing it up with pornography and indecent sexual practices.

6) Lose interest in sex due to body changes in a spouse (sagging of rounded breasts after childbirth, weight gain or weight loss, wrinkles and other changes due to aging, menopausal changes, mate no more looking attractive etc.).

7) Become disinterested in sex due to lack of any good fore-play before intercourse, or poor sexual performance, or nagging and making annoying complaints by one partner during sexual activities.

8) Lose interest because your mate doesn’t initiate sex or participate properly when you initiate, but he or she does not cooperate.

9) Find your mate using crude (and sometimes ungodly) sexual styles that harm you, or which you do not appreciate or enjoy.

10) Do not experience intimacy or romantic attitude in the marriage that will stimulate your sexual drive.

11) Do not see any real love, care, concern, compassion, and demonstration of affection that will promote any sexual desire in you or enable you to enjoy intimate sexual activities.

Sexual un-fulfilment

When a spouse complains that he or she is sexually unfulfilled, it could be due to one or more of these factors:

1) Weak love and weak sexual bond between the husband and the wife.

2) One spouse has less desire for the body of the other mate (or both have grown disinterested in each other).

3) Interest for sex is lost or dwindled down considerably in one or in both.

4) Adultery and other adulterous practices have set in (sexual activity with an outside person; sexual activity using sex toys; masturbation; having sex secretly with a gay or lesbian partner and hiding it from your mate etc.).

5) There is no faith or trust between the two people anymore.

6) Important needs have been neglected or ignored in the home and especially the needs of each other.

7) One (or both partners) has become too busy to think of the other partner in order to engage in romantic or sexual activities with him or her.

8) There is poor communication, which has affected all the links and bonds between the two people.

9) There is no respect between the two people.

There is no appreciation and thanks for any efforts made to help the marriage to move forward.

10) A possible pre-mature ejaculation could have hindered any real orgasm on one side or not enabling the wife to get any orgasm at all.

11) The man could be impotent, and unable to sexually perform altogether. Or the woman could be very insensitive to sexual stimulation, and unable to get any sexual arousal.

12) There could be denial of sex frequently by one partner.

13) Foreplay might be in a bad shape or totally absent before intercourse.

14) Sex is only on the terms of one partner without any concessions or considerations for the sexual needs of the other mate at certain times.

15) One partner is too traditionally stiff and unromantic in his or her attitude.

16) One partner engages in rough or unhealthy sex that the other mate disagrees with, or it causes harm to the partner (typically the men do harm to the ladies).

17) There could be foul body odor and stinking mouth that repels the other partner.

18) Anger, sorrow, sadness, fear, anxiety, worry, or disturbed spirit, could be habitual in one or both partners. Such emotional upsets or upheavals will always prevent or hinder sexual desire, excitement, stimulation, or enjoyment.

Absence of sexual feelings

Sometimes it is normal not to have any significant sexual feelings during sexual activity, especially for the woman.

It’s not unusual in a marriage to go through periods where we feel a lack of sexual desire for our spouse. Desire for physical affection can ebb or cease periodically. That will be obviously followed by no desire for any physical romantic or sexual activities.

For example:

1) When someone is sick or deeply disappointed or saddened by an event.

2) When menopause (or ‘andropause’ for men) and other aging factors set in.

In fact, as we age, our entire sex drive and libido can frequently or even permanently alter, as the vaginal becomes dry and sex becomes more painful; or erection dysfunction makes it difficult to make any penetration for enjoyable sexual intercourse.

3) When you have young children, and your body physiology changes in ways that affect your libido, or all attention is directed towards the children with.

In such instances it is natural to be less sexually intimate or sexually aroused.

When physical affection and libido (sexual desire) dwindles to almost zero or vanishes from the marriage, then the two become like business partners or roommates, with no meaningful romantic marital joy and contentment.

Importance of inner virtues or “unseen characteristics” to take care of dwindled sexual drive in old age couples

I often reiterate that in selecting or choosing a life partner, we are naturally prone to look for or be attracted by the “seen” and other visible characteristics (traits of the person’s physical beauty that appeal to us, dressing, what the one owns, financial position, and professional or social status etc.).

That tendency causes us to lay less emphasis on the invisible but greater and most important innate character of the person.

These cultivated inner characteristic or virtues, are what should (and will) sustain the marriage in old age when all the sex drive, attractive physical qualities, and initial visible attractive features had shriveled and virtually dried up.

We must therefore promote and enhance these unseen characteristics for them to flourish and become enriched in the marriage, for the relationship to grow sweeter and more productive, and become the solid foundation for future fruitfulness that will drive the marriage to ultimate success.

What must be your sexual objective in marriage or preparation to marry?

In your marriage, you must always aim at MUTUAL sexual satisfaction, whereby both partners enjoy each other, made to feel respected and important to each other, and help each other to reach maximum orgasm along with inner sexual contentment.

You should have a consistent objective to allow your satisfying sexual activities and enriched sex life to form a strong sexual bond of unbreakable marital love and unity between you in a way that enhances and promotes the strength and usefulness of your marital union.

In my opinion, sexual activities should be excluded in all courtships. Not only because “God Says So” as a holy command from Him as the Creator of the human body, and the Author of marriage; but we must admit that in most courtships, sexual activity from fornication or actual rape by one partner, or using tricks to seduce your fiancée into sexual activities, could rather erase all genuine love, trust, and respect in the relationship. It could ruin the courtship, and also dilute the joy of meaningful sexual life in the marriage.

Over the years, I have realized that unlawful and immoral sexual activities in dating and courtships of men and women, form a major basis for a lot of the mistrust that many married people entertain for their partners in their marriages.

The lack of God-fearing spirit to resist immorality, plus absence of purity and self-control that you portrayed in the past before the marriage, suggest strongly to your mate as a “morally weak person”. This unfortunate impression can create fear and doubt or suspicion in your mate when he or she sees or senses that you are getting very close to another lady or gentleman, or when you begin to show unexpected or unusual behavior patterns in your lifestyle.

(Obtain more information from Dr. Kisseadoo’s new book: “The 20 Major Signs Of A Failing Marriage” from Challenge Bookstores in Ghana etc. – Identifying the problem, solution, and prevention).