Shannon Ethridge - The Sexually Confident Wife: Connecting with Your Husband Mind Body Heart Spirit

The
Sexually Confident
Wife

Contents

Part 1
Opening Our Eyes

Part 2
Confronting Ghosts from the Past

Part 3
The Fantastic Sexual Female

Part 4
Getting Behind Closed Doors

Part 5
Overcoming Obstacles

Part 6
A Celebration of Sexual Confidence

Dedicated to every woman who has shared her personal story
with me over the past two decades.
May this book bring great hope and healing.

Authors Note

In describing my experience with women I have counseled, I have changed their names and other identifying characteristics in order to protect their privacy.

The
Sexually Confident
Wife

Part 1

Opening Our Eyes

Where Did Our Confidence Go?

A t one time, I was perhaps one of the most sexually confident women on the planet. I loved my body. I was willing to share it freely. I enjoyed sex.

What changed? I got married. And it took me longer than a decade (along with months of counseling) to return to the place where I loved my body, shared it freely, and enjoyed sex once again.

Some of you know what Im talking about. As single women, sex was often a game that we liked to play, and some of us were very skilled at it. Ive got it. You want it. But the price of admission into my private playground is a big dose of attention and affection. Make me feel really good about myself, and Ill make you feel really good in exchange. But now that were sleeping next to the same man night after night, month after month, year after year, the challenge has worn off. The payoff is no longer clear. Hubby isnt wooing and pursuing us like he used to, so our motivation wanes. Sex feels more like an obligation than a mutual thrill.

And maybe that mental list of previous sexual partners has begun to haunt you. You calculate all of the sexual favors you paid out in hopes of earning emotional interest, but now you feel sexually bankrupt. How could I have just given my body away like that? And how could my husband possibly love me and want to be with me after all Ive done? you may wonder.

Or perhaps you werent skilled at all when you came into marriage. You assumed your husband was going to teach you everything you needed to know about sex, or that youd figure it out together. Now that hes so masterfully taught you that the round peg goes in the round hole for approximately 2.8 minutes, youre left wondering, Is this all there is? Disappointed and disillusioned, youve come to see sex as something youre expected to just dish out like a scoop of ice cream whenever he gets hungry, which makes you want to close the ice cream shop altogether most days.

Or maybe your sexual confidence has been robbed because while youve been dishing it out, hes been salivating over other flavors. You notice him glance up and down another womans body as she walks by. You know where he keeps his pornography stash. Youve gone to his most recent websites to see what hes been looking at on his laptop. You catch him masturbating alone, most likely fantasizing about any woman except you.

Perhaps you, like millions of other ladies, have lost your sexual confidence as a result of past sexual abuse. Rather than associating sex with passion and pleasure, youve associated it with pain and degradation. You know in your head that its not your husbands fault that you were abused, but youve insulated yourself from further pain with walls of anger, resentment, and fear of intimacy. You cant imagine how youll ever get over whats been done to you in the past.

Maybe you simply do not feel beautiful, especially when you compare your postpartum body (complete with stretch-marked hips, flabby tummy, and saggy boobs) to the airbrushed magazine models. Excess food becomes your drug of choice to medicate your emotional pain. Your husband asks why youre eating turtle cheesecake if you already feel fat. You inhale a second piece just to spite him, and think, No sex for you again tonight, pal!

Or perhaps children clinging to your ankles all day prevent you from mustering enough energy to enjoy sex much anymore. Your idea of a blissfully indulgent evening is ordering takeout, throwing the paper plates away after dinner, and heading straight for bed at eight p.m. without having to tuck anyone in or take care of anyone elses needs.

Oh, the many issues that we let rob us of our sexual confidence! No wonder more and more married people are claiming to be sexually frustrated. No wonder there are so many sexless marriages today. In 2005, Family Circle magazine published the results of a national survey in which they asked married women to reveal their innermost desires, needs, regrets, and joys. Consider these results and what they say about the quality of couples relationships:

Only 8 percent of married women consider their sex life very hot.

21 percent call their sex life routine and boring.

21 percent of respondents asked, What sex life?

Sound familiar? Maybe youve been thinking you were alone in your struggle to discover sexual fulfillment. Think again...

20 to 30 percent of men and 30 to 50 percent of women say they have little or no sex drive.

33 to 50 percent of women experience orgasm infrequently and are dissatisfied with how often they reach orgasm.

10 to 15 percent of American women have never experienced orgasm at all.

Although many women have lost (or never found) their sexual groove in marriage, it doesnt mean they are sexually dead. We get married, not buried. If your husband isnt floating your sexual boat, you may be thinking about what it would be like to sail on other oceans. According to the aforementioned Family Circle survey...

44 percent of wives have fantasized about having an affair, most often with a stranger, celebrity, or coworker.

29 percent of women admit to flirting with other men.

25 percent of women fantasize about another man during the act of sex.

If you ask me, these statistics merely indicate the number of women who are willing to admit their issues to researchers. I think the number of women who actually engage in these extramarital games and struggle with finding genuine sexual fulfillment within their marriage is much higher. What gives me this impression? The multitude of e-mails I receive every day from women lamenting their lack of sexual confidence. For example:

Lisa, who was sexually abused as a child, confesses, Sexual fantasies of other men have always been an issue for me, and extramarital affairs littered the first five years of my marriage. Even now that Im being faithful to my husband, I still struggle with feeling the need to compete with other women for my husbands attention. We spent two weeks in Hawaii and I was miserable the whole time because of all the bikini-clad bodies around. My husband says, But Im with you, so whats your problem? I just wish I knew the answer to that question.

Sylvia was sexually active before marriage, then married a virgin three years ago. She asks, How do you and your husband keep the past out of your marriage? Do you ever talk about it? How do you get beyond the hurt? I am afraid this is affecting my sex life because I still feel unclean at times. I am also afraid of trying anything new to please him because I dont want him to think Im a slut. I know he must think about my past sometimes, but I dont ever want to talk about it. I just want the whole thing to be forgotten, but I cant erase the memories or their negative effects.