Anxiety about Sex // Hump Day Q&A
30 Nov 2022 · 3 min
This Hump Day Q&A episode of the Naked Marriage Podcast (hosts Dave and Ashley Willis) addresses a listener who struggles with anxiety that prevents her from relaxing into sex with her husband—particularly after a prior marriage where she felt unwanted. Hosts acknowledge the issue, explain that female sexual desire often begins in the mind, and offer practical, non-clinical strategies to reduce anxiety: schedule intimacy, turn anxiety into excitement (new lingerie, mood music, candles), take a bath to relax, and set the tone. They also advise counseling if the anxiety is deeper or clinical.
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Foreign. You know what time it is, sweetie?
It's hump day. Q and A time.
Hump day, Q and A. Hump day, Q and A. Welcome to the Naked Marriage Podcast. Hump day, Q and A. We love answering your questions. So every Wednesday, we're dropping a special podcast episode focused on one of your questions. You can submit your own marriage related question online@nakedmarriagepodcast.com or by sending us a message on Instagram aveandashleywillis. We've got a great question today, so let's dive in. I've been with my husband for a year, only married a few months. Not our first marriage, but our last. I love him with all my heart. He is older than me, but his sex drive is, well, always. I want to please him, but have a difficult time relaxing and letting go. My previous marriage, my spouse never wanted me. Now I have this wonderful man, but I'm even anxious when I go to bed. How can I be the wife he needs me to be if I can't get out of my brain to relax? And so thank you for that question. Thank you for. I love the honesty in the question. Very honest.
Yes.
Because this is real life. You know, she's saying, I want. I want to have a great sex life. I love that my husband desires me, and it sounds like he really does, but I don't know that I can keep up or I feel tense and I want to. I want to let myself go. And how do I. How do I relax? Sweetie, why don't you start the conversation?
No. And I'm so glad she asked this because I do think a lot of women have this same issue where, you know, as women, we've talked a lot about this on our different topics about sex on the podcast. But with women, you know, sex really starts in our. In our minds. And if we feel like we have this ongoing list or we have anxiety or some kind of worry or fear going on, it really kind of shuts our sex drive down. And it's kind of like a libido killer, so to speak. And so I totally get where she's coming from on this. And. And I would say, you know, it. It'd be good if you could. And this doesn't sound very sexy, but when you can kind of put it on the calendar, know it's coming up and just get excited about it, like, turn that anxiety into excitement, it can really change things. And for some, it means like, buy some new sexy lingerie. Sometimes that can be the thing that gets you excited. And Believe me, your husband will be very excited. Maybe if you listen to music that calms you down, music can be very calming. Maybe set the tone, light some candles, take a bath. I'm telling you, people underestimate the power of a nice.
When you had a bath.
I'm a bath girl.
Yeah, when you. When you've had a b. Like, there's. I can just tell you.
I'll be like, I need a bath. Yeah.
And you'll come out of that, you know, and you just. You feel good. You feel relaxed.
I do. I do.
And. And, you know, it's.
And you're already naked.
You're already naked. You know, you're. Good. Things are more likely to happen.
They are. You're clean and you're naked. I mean, you're. It's. It's like, ready to go. Yeah. No, but, you know, and I know, I get where she's. She's saying, you know, before she, you know, she is coming from a background where her husband. Before it was totally different, where he would not be ready, you know, he. He wouldn't tell her that he. He wanted to. To make love. And now she has this husband who wants her, and she's so excited that he wants her. But there's this anxiety, and so I think part of it is overcoming that as well. I don't know from the question itself, you know, how far or how deep, so to speak, is this. This anxiety really is? And if it's an actual anxiety issue, I highly encourage you to go see a counselor, a Christian counselor. As I mentioned before in this podcast, I dealt with anxiety for a long time, and definitely it affected my sex drive.
And.
And no matter what is bringing on the anxiety, it's something where sometimes our levels, it can affect our hormonal levels, and that's why it does affect our sex drive. So I'm not sure if that's the real heart of the issue, but it might be worth talking to a Christian marriage counselor or even just an individual counselor and saying, what are those thoughts in my mind that tend to bring on this anxiety? Because a counselor could help you train yourself to replace these thoughts that kind of trigger the anxiety when it comes to sex and replace them with truth and kind of have a new narrative going on in your mind when it comes to this? Because that's really what it is, is we've got to get, you know, different thoughts going in our mind, especially if we have anxiety when it comes to sex, then we have to think new thoughts. We have to start thinking, like I'm so excited to be with my husband in this way. I know that I'm gonna make him happy, but he's also gonna make me happy. I wanna experience this with him and get excited about it. I think it's just shifting the anxiety to excitement. The thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Hump Day Q and A. We love getting your questions and we want to answer your question. So if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com, you can submit your question right there. Or you can follow us on Instagram, Ave and Ashley Willis and you can give us your questions right there by giving us a dm. So we'll catch you next time on Hump Day Q and A.