"What can I do to make sex more appealing if I don’t feel attracted to my husband any more?" There’s lots that you can do… Take responsibility for the fact that getting turned on is dependent on firing the pleasure-sensing zones of your brain. Sex is appealing when you get pleasure from it, making you want more. This is both emotional pleasure, through the intimacy and closeness it creates, as well as physical pleasure, through all those turned-on sensations.
Getting turned on is largely in your own power, although it is also important to teach your husband what sort of touch you enjoy. Focus in on what is stimulating about the touch, allow yourself to feel sexy, and let go of all those negative thoughts. Centre on the nice feelings and let them lead you. Feel confident to let yourself go and be abandoned with your husband. This is the true gift of trust that makes sex such a bonding experience.
You can also make sex more appealing by nurturing your own sensuality and letting this be the foundation on which you make love. For some, this is done through wearing a beautiful negligee in the bedroom, putting on a pair of high heels, moisturising your skin, how you take off clothes (or what you leave on), scents, light, music, privacy, and the linked thoughts in your head. None of these are must-haves or don’t-haves. What is important is that you have doorways to open up your God-given femininity and sexuality. When you make love with your husband, base yourself on your own sensuality, rather than being dependent on him. Give to him from this place so that your love-making is a gift from your abundance to make him feel special, adored and sensual himself – let him catch it from you. Maybe in doing this you will unlock something more erotic and passionate in him too that will cause his image in your eyes to be changed. So much of what we think we see is actually what we project and have introjected. Nurture what you do have control of that is within yourself, and don’t be surprised if the world changes around you as a result. Why do they say ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’? How we see people affects what they look like.
But after all that stuff which takes your focus off your husband’s body, let’s also think about direct attraction. Some of this is physical, and it may be there are things you can work on with him to change his look through his wardrobe style as well as through dieting and exercise. Present this positively so as not to crush his ego, but let him realise that it is important to you. Also, allow yourself to break down attraction into different parts, as nothing is global. If you are turned off by his belly, maybe you like his height, or the look in his eyes. Focus on what you are attracted to and don’t let the negative features eclipse all else. The other thing you can do is to remember back to a time in your relationship when you did feel attracted to him, and remember what that was like.
Let’s also acknowledge that attraction is not a purely physical thing. Attraction is fuelled by respect – happy feelings with that person. Focus on what makes you feel good about being with your husband and feed your eyes on that. Check out if there are any emotional barriers between you and face them together, as the physical is often an expression of the emotional. This is true sexually as well as in other areas of health. The dynamic also flows back in the other direction: when women have an orgasm we release oxytocin which makes us feel more in love. It lowers our defences, makes us trust more and increases levels of empathy. When we are aroused, up to 30 different parts of the brain are activated, including those responsible for emotion, joy and satisfaction. Two minutes before an orgasm the brain’s reward centres also become activated! It means that after sex we are more likely to let our guard down and feel in love with our man. So let yourself get to that point and trust God to join up the dots, as you focus on all the positives available to you.
