My wife is frigid

Marriage Clinic With Agatha Edo Email:gataedo@yahoo.com oragatha.edo@gmail.com08054500626

Dear Agatha,
I went through your response to a piece last week. It had to do with the man whose wife is frigid. Reading through your response, it was as if you were talking to me.
Whatever my marriage is today, my wife’s attitude to sex caused it. Right from the very first day, I met her, I didn’t hide my love for quality sex. Although we didn’t pre-empt our marital vows because I had just become born again and didn’t want to compromise on new found relationship with God, I didn’t hide the fact that I came with a lot of experience.
She too wasn’t a virgin. I didn’t mind that too. I wasn’t looking for a virgin at any rate. I desired a woman who knew her onion too. I knew myself too well that without quality sex in my marriage, no matter my will power, I would eventually capitulate to temptations. I agree totally with your submission that there are things prayers alone cannot resolve.
You can therefore imagine my helplessness when I discovered her to be so cold in bed and so beyond redemption. I have done every thing imaginable; every trick I know to make her come to life in my arms. She is forever complaining about my insensitivity to her mood.
Making love to her is a tug of war. I always feel like a rapist each time we make love.
After 18 months of trying to help her change, including buying adult films, I gave up. She said I have a perverted mind. I had to let her be especially after the birth of our only child.
For a whole year, she didn’t allow me come close to her, giving me excuses of breast-feeding the baby and her body not strong enough.
Eventually, I was forced to seek for fun outside the home; against my better judgment.
The lady happens to be an old friend. Since my plan wasn’t to bring in another woman, I told her from the beginning that I wasn’t out to marry a second wife. That I just wanted someone whom I can talk to and enjoy the essence of my adulthood with.
One thing led to another, she became pregnant. I didn’t want her to have an abortion. It is something I have never supported so I gave her the permission to have the baby if she wanted to. I knew the consequences especially if my wife gets to find out but at that moment I didn’t know what else to do. But I warned my girlfriend not to get ideas that the presence of a child changed anything between us.
She too wasn’t keen on marrying me. She actually left the country after the baby was born. She currently resides in Kenya and seems to be happy with the choice she made.
But my situation has only become worse in the home. My wife at 38, seems to have gone into menopause. I say this because she has since moved out of our room on the grounds of not wanting me to punish her with undue sexual demands. She calls me so many unprintable names simply because I want to be intimate with her. I don’t want an unwilling woman in my bed but I cannot stay without having a woman in my arms.
Agatha, for goodness sake, I am just 43. I am very virile and in need of the warmth of my wife. Her attitude has completely derailed my plans in life. I didn’t plan to have a child outside wedlock at all.
I am so disorganised and in need of counsel to help me make sense of my current situation. I don’t think I can continue like this. I married to enjoy the privilege of a married man. I am not getting it from my wife. Agatha, what do I do? Help me before I do something very stupid.
I discussed it with my pastor who says I should continue to endure the situation; that there is nothing much to sex. That once I remove my mind from it, I would go on to enjoy the other benefits of being married. If as a young woman she is unwilling to sleep with me, is it when she gets old?
I haven’t told her about my love child but sincerely, this is the least of my worry. I want a woman who is warm and loving, who knows that marriage is more than making babies but a place for a couple to be happy spiritually, physically, emotionally and materially. We don’t even communicate as a couple.
What is wrong Agatha? I need your help urgently.
Phil.


Dear Phil,

First you need to relax your nerves and emotions to avoid making more mistakes. I appreciate the emotional pains, frustration and loneliness. If it’s of any help, all these are natural. When a matured man or woman who has been used to having regular sex and who hasn’t schooled himself or herself on self-constraints, is denied sex, it could be emotionally frustrating.
Your frustration is not only that you are not getting the kind of quality sex you want but is now being denied even the crumbs you were getting. Doubtless, the situation could make you wander into the arms of not just one woman but several women. But would that really solve the problem at hand? No it won’t. Rather, it would cause many complications for you and a reputation from people who don’t appreciate what you are going through in your marriage.
Sex, is a very delicate issue. If not handled with all the maturity and openness it deserves, it can mar a lot of things in one’s life.
You are at the road where you must be strong and very prayerful to discern where the real problem is. No matter what her attitude is, make the extra effort to get her to listen to you. She is your wife, you know her more than most people. For now, don’t pressure her into making love with you for now.
Learn to draw her out of whatever shell she has moved in. Expose her to the side of you she hasn’t experienced since marrying you. Quality sex doesn’t happen from the blues. It has a natural trend - friendship. You have to train yourself to be her friend, companion and partner. It takes more than marital vows to make the magic of sex happen. It is more of trust. Both of you have to be friends first to experience intimacy, acquire the understanding of each other’s body as well as interpret the moods of the other person.
She may have gone completely cold on you because you advertised your need of sex more than your need of her as a woman, wife, friend and mother. Try to get her to understand you better. In your quest for quality sex, you may have unwittingly given her the wrong impression of what exactly you need in this marriage.
There is no way you can expect her to be happy with you when she has the impression the only reason you married her is to have unlimited access to sex. She has to be appreciated first for her to give her body to you unconditionally.
This is what you have to communicate to her. She has to grow to respect and love you as dearly as possible more than your need of her body. Anger may have made her decide to ignore you, make things emotionally difficult for you to draw your attention to her anger.
Unfortunately, you failed to decode this. Your solution has only created another problem that of explaining to your wife the presence of a child outside wedlock.
Having packed out of your matrimonial room, you need to take her out of the house, to a place where romance can be created, friendship can be established and trust planted; stop bringing home adult films or introducing your expertise on sex to your wife. She doesn’t need this now.
Taking her out is to ensure she gives you time, relax and listen to what you have to say. By the time she sees a conscious effort on your part to get into her mind rather than into her body as her husband, she would change. No woman would marry and deliberately close her body and mind to the overtures of her husband unless she has been hurt beyond measure. She isn’t a sex machine but a human being with feelings and senses. Beyond sex, what can you say about your wife, her character, attitude and disposition to life? All these are as important a part of marriage like the sex you have chosen to amplify.
By listening to her, you give her and yourself another shot at making this marriage happy. Show her you are in love with her and not in lust.
There is more to marriage. I guess this is the message your pastor is trying to pass across. Sex is very important but not when you make it the sole reason for being happy in a marriage.
By showing her you care, she would become more of a willing student. All your marriage needs is a complete change of focus by you.
And while you are trying to pick and rearrange the broken pieces, let her know about the child, best she hears from you than from another person.
Pray to God to allow you focus on your marriage properly. No one segment should be more important than the other segments. Every aspect of marriage must be delicately balanced for a couple to be happy.
Good luck