The Queen of Romance

A LONG-TERM MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP full of romance, excitement, and expectancy is a rare find. The typical couple usually meets, falls in love, gets married, and has a honeymoon for a couple of years—if they’re fortunate. In the early years the romance is high and the fires burn at full flame. But the cares of life, the stress of having children, and the familiarity that grows from looking at the same spouse year in and year out can take its toll. Eventually, if a partner isn’t willing to fan the flames of romance, the marriage relationship can and will grow stale. Romance will become almost nonexistent, and what used to be an electrifying sex life turns into a chore. Soon, what once was an enthused “Wow! It’s you!” turns into a disenchanted groan and an “Oh, it’s just you.” The divorce rate in America reflects this plight. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the divorce rate is 41percent for first-time marriages. Unfortunately the number of divorces for Christian marriages isn’t that much different.

And that rate doesn’t reflect the thousands of marriages that are legally together, but emotionally and physically divorced. Many couples are admired for staying together through the years, when in reality their relationship is either waning or kaput. They put on a happy face at church, but their marriage relationship long ago shriveled. You can forget romance! And sex is only an occasional occurrence. A wife might infrequently “give in,” but the act is a duty just to keep her husband from annoying her. .

When I had been married about seven years, a well-meaning friend told me, “Debra, after 15 years of marriage, you can forget the romance.” Sadly, this claim is too often true. Another so-called nugget of wisdom I received states, “No matter how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion will eventually die and there’d better be something to take its place.” I firmly believe passion dies only if a husband and/or wife allows it to or a partner becomes so ill that romance takes a backseat to survival.

Despite all the open-mindedness about sex and the advancement of modern medicine, we still have a tendency to believe that exceptional, invigorating sex and romance happen only during the early stages of a relationship. Certainly there is an element of suspense and electricity when a couple is engaged and planning the wedding, and the electricity surges once the wedding vows are stated and the honeymoon begins. Those exhilarating, romantic days cannot be repeated in a relationship. Once they’re over, they’re over. Then it’s time to move on to something longer lasting—the thrilling romance and physical relationship that a long-term commitment can achieve.

Most women who don’t have an exciting marriage can easily tell you that the sexual issue boils down to a relationship issue. According to Gary Smalley in Love Is a Decision, women are relationship oriented: “Women have a built-in marriage manual.…A wife is a gold mine of relational skills.” Women have a thermometer that constantly measures the status of our marital relationships. If our relationship is going well, then romance and sex will be excellent. If the relationship is not going well, then the romance dwindles and sex is anything but fulfilling.

In His Needs, Her Needs, Willard F. Harley Jr. states that while a woman’s first need in a marriage is for affection, a man’s first need is for sexual fulfillment. Other research by Gary and Barbara Rosberg claim that both the husband and wife’s first need is for unconditional love, and their second needs are sexual for men, and emotional intimacy and communication for women. Both findings prove that while women’s top needs are emotional/relational, our husbands’ top needs are physical/sexual. Harley further states that “when it comes to sex and affection, you can’t have one without the other” and “the typical wife doesn’t understand her husband’s deep need for sex any more than the typical husband understands his wife’s deep need for affection.”

I have been married to the same man for 19 years, and I didn’t need to read any books to figure out that my man needs sex. Furthermore, I’ve come to the conclusion that the difference between my husband’s sex drive and mine is like the difference between a volcanic explosion and a small bundle of dynamite. From everything I have read and gleaned, I am a fairly amorous woman. But my husband, Daniel, has told me that I can take my most amorous moments, multiply them by two, and then I might understand exactly how he feels every other day of his life!

The bottom line? Men need sex…and women need affection, relationship, romance. We need to be adored, told we are beautiful, and shown open affection. We need candlelight dinners, clandestine getaways, and heartfelt conversation. Women enjoy romance.

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(Excerpt reprinted by permission Harvest House) To purchase this book from Amazon.com click the link below Romancing Your Husband by Debra White Smith