On Spreadsheets and Owing Sex

[Bumping this up.]

Much attention was recently paid to a posting by a frigid wife of a spreadsheet her husband made detailing their lack of a sex life and the lame excuses she provided in rejecting him.

In response, many people have circulated this flowchart:

Of course this is not something presented from a Biblical perspective. In the Biblical worldview, married people (uh, that's a man and a woman, for you youngsters who have been robbed of a good understanding of marriage) belong to each other. Sexually rejecting your spouse is denying something they are owed, and is religious grounds for divorce, and used to be legal grounds for divorce, back when you actually needed a reason. Marriages weren't considered valid unless they has been consummated with intercourse.

We can agree that a wife (or woman, since we as a society now want to shame slut-shamers) does not owe anyone sex. However, we should also agree that in the very same sense, no man owes a woman...

love

respect

his seat

his coat

his arm

a dance

a prom

a phone call

protection

help with heavy objects

automotive maintenance and repair

romance

dinner

a movie

a ride

the storefront side of the sidewalk

conversation

attention

flowers

jewelry

sweets

a wedding

a baby

birthday cards

birthday presents

anniversary cards

anniversary presents

Valentine's Day cards

Valentine's Day presents

tax money

Let's make sure we establish that and it will be a wonderful world of men and women not being pleasant towards each other.

Most likely, the woman who posted that spreadsheet her husband had made rarely, if ever, rejected a nice session of fornication with him. Before they married, she represented herself as enjoying sex and wanting to have regular/frequent sex with him. If he was a bad lover or somehow deficient in their relationship in a way that turned her off, why wasn't he alerted? She was able to function just fine then. Now that he has signed a legal contract giving him certain financial obligations to her, she rejects him. Is this just a coincidence?

Many unmarried men, especially ones who are divorced, find that many women seem to be willing and eager to have sex - lots of it - with them, even if they don't spend much (if any) time, money, or effort into romancing them or "setting the mood" or jumping through hoops. This is true even if those women have children, jobs, and maintain their own homes. These women really seem to enjoy the sex, too. Why do so many wives, meaning women who are legally entitled to one man's earnings, have so much less interest in sex? Is this just a coincidence?

Even stupid men eventually follow the rewards.

A strong inculcating of conservative religious notions about sexuality will tell a man that fornication is wrong. However, at some point, more and more men will be willing to be celibate or an occasional fornicator than a rejected husband, because becoming a husband means taking on very serious risks and obligations and if the rewards aren't there, fewer men are going to do it, no matter how much their churches tell them women deserve husbands.

On the personal front, it has been a while since I wrote this series. Things have gotten worse. Mercy sex is now once per week if I am lucky. Two week+ intervals are being imposed more, and that's just part of the problem. Recently we spent a little time with a married couple I admire that we do not get to see that often. I have been friends with them for a long time now, long before I met my wife. The husband was one of my groomsmen. After the visit, they wrote to me with their concerns. Their concerns matched those of my father (who has been telling me to consider divorce) and line up with what our therapist has said to me. All of them urge me to find relaxing, fun time for myself, but I just don't see how I can without further shortchanging my children, who have already been screwed by having the parents they do.

I hope somebody out there is learning important lessons from all of this.