What About the Sexless Marriage?

After my first post on 1 Corinthians 7:1-5, I had various conversations with friends and colleagues. A question that came up a few times was, “What about sexless marriages?” This is a more common problem than you might think. Sexless marriages come from a wide variety of scenarios. Don’t the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 7 speak to those marriages? Well, yes, but not in a simplistic way. Each case should receive thoughtful counsel according to the specifics of the individuals and situation.

Let me illustrate by describing something I have encountered often in this ministry. Consider a husband who has had a pornography problem that has severely impacted his marriage. He has used porn for a significant period of time during the relationship. For years, he hid this and lied to his wife to cover it up. Now he has either confessed or, more commonly, has been discovered.

She is deeply wounded, not only by the betrayal of his porn use, but especially by his deception. It is right to say she doesn’t feel loved by him, but it goes much deeper than that. She doesn’t even know who he is, and her interpretation of their entire past relationship, including their history of intimacy, is now colored by this betrayal and deception.

Now, do you think she warmly receives his advances? She feels like one of his porn fantasies: exploited, a mere object of his selfish lust. Worse, like she’s competing for his attention against the images in his head, and she feels she does not measure up.

So in this situation, if the husband complains to me, “But my wife is depriving me. She’s not obeying 1 Corinthians 7,” how should I respond? Let’s suppose he sincerely wants to move forward. He is truly repentant and growing, but he also feels like his wife’s coldness to him is making it more difficult. Is 1 Corinthians 7:1-5 relevant for him? Absolutely. But it will only be helpful if he is willing to let it speak to him. So what does this passage say to him?

First, he needs to recognize that he has greatly violated the principle of these verses. He has not faithfully given his body to his wife, but has used it as his own possession to do with as he pleases, seeking his own pleasure without regard to his covenant commitment to her. He does not stand before these verses in a neutral moral position. He is guilty. And there is grace in the gospel for guilty sinners. But he needs to own it. He needs to see that his sin necessitates his need to seek that grace from God and from his wife.

Second, according to these verses, repentance for him means turning from his selfish preoccupation with his own needs and turning in love toward his wife and her needs. What does she need from him right now? She needs him to listen to her. She needs him to seek to understand how his sin has affected her. She needs him to give her the space to seek healing from God. She needs him to pray for and pursue whatever will help her spiritually at this time. She needs him to be a new creation in his relating to her, to commit to honesty, to transparency, to the long haul of rebuilding the relationship wounded by his actions.

This relationship may not be rebuilt to the point of physical intimacy for a long time. But if he begins right now, truly giving himself to her in love, he will be able to patiently handle whatever sacrifices this love requires. This is a hard path, but it is a gospel path. Christ is able to redeem the most broken of marriages and heal the most painful of wounds. So this is a path marked not by frustration, but by hope.