By Chris Taylor
Has your wife ever mentioned something that you did to upset her long ago? Have you ever found yourself thinking she is holding your past actions against you? Do you make decisions about what to do or say based on whether your wife could use it against you in a future argument?
If you answered yes to any of these, you have a lot of company—including my own husband.
Since “getting historical” (bringing up past history) is common, it’s worth explaining what your wife is thinking—and what is has to do with sex.
Why Does She Bring Up the Past?
Although it may seem that your wife is storing up information to be used against you, that may be far from her mind. Your wife doesn’t intentionally choose to store up memories of things you’ve done that have upset her. Women and men tend not to have the same levels of relationship awareness. We don’t remember these things on purpose. We just remember them—in the same way my husband remembers lines from John Wayne movies or the way my father-in-law remembers what kind of cars and tractors his friends drive.
A wife stores both positive and negative memories related to her relationship with her husband. She mentions the negative memories for two main reasons.
1. She is concerned about a pattern of behavior or interaction.
A specific incident might not matter so much on its own, but when it is something that your wife has frequently observed, she connects the dots and realizes it is part of a pattern.
Maybe you don’t always look at your phone when she is talking to you, but you might do it often enough that she notices it repeatedly. When she says, “I wish you wouldn’t look at your phone so much when I talk to you,” you might even ask her when you’ve done it before because it isn’t something you’ve been aware of. So she tells you.
She mentions past incidents as examples to show that she has genuinely noticed this behavior and her concern doesn’t come from out of the blue. She wants to be sure you know that she isn’t just being overly sensitive. She wants you to believe her. She wants you to understand that this is something that bothers her.
2. She is still hurting.
When your wife’s hurt hasn’t been resolved from an incident from the past, she may bring it up frequently over the years because she still needs help dealing with the hurt.
She may be hoping for an apology, trying again to feel heard by you, or wanting her experience to be acknowledged in some way.
What Does She Hope to Accomplish?
When I used to bring up the past to my husband, it was because I hoped that this time he would finally acknowledge my feelings, empathize with me, apologize, or in some way indicate that he truly heard me.
I wanted—desperately—to hear something along the lines of “I’m sorry this was hard for you” or “how can I help you through this?”
Instead my husband responded with words that made my hurt even worse:
“It was five years ago. Why aren’t you over it?”
“Let it go.”
“You’re wrong to feel that way.”
Each time I brought up an issue and was dismissed, it added new hurt on top of the hurt I still carried. His responses made me hurt even more.
What Does This Have to Do with Sex?
J and I have talked a lot on the Knowing Her Sexually podcast about the ways a wife’s sexual interest is affected by the relationship overall.
When a woman brings up something from the past, her husband’s response can draw her closer to him or push her farther away.
I remember the very moment I realized I wouldn’t be able to enjoy sex with my husband again. There was an area where I was hurting and needed my husband’s encouragement and support. It wasn’t anything he had done wrong, but it was something that had resulted from a decision he had made (a decision I had fully supported). Instead, he would shut down the conversation every time. I now realize that it was because he felt guilty and helpless in this area, but at the time, all I knew was that every time I tried to talk about it, he dismissed me.
One night he said, “I don’t want you to ever bring it up again. Ever.”
At that moment I knew that he didn’t truly value me. After all, if he valued me or cared for me, he would want to know my feelings, even if they weren’t positive ones.
I thought, Our relationship is hopeless. If he can’t even let me talk about something that hurts me, how can I trust him with anything else? He won’t let me share my feelings with him. His frequent refusal to engage with me in meaningful conversation about something I’ve struggled with for years is just too much. I don’t know how I can bring myself to have sex with him again if doesn’t actually care for me.
After that evening, when we had sex I felt like I was betraying myself. I felt like I was agreeing with my husband that I wasn’t allowed to hurt.
Your Wife
I had a legitimate right to feel hurt, but I did not deal with it maturely.
At the very least, I should have told my husband that I needed to feel heard because it would make me feel less alone in my hurt. I should have explained that I wasn’t angry at him and that I wasn’t expecting him to fix anything.
Your wife needs to communicate clearly to let you know what she needs. She might need to work through some issues for herself rather than put the responsibility of healing on your shoulders. She should make more effort to think about how you see the situation.
But you might want to think about how you respond. If your wife frequently mentions something from the past, be aware that your response might be affecting your sex life.
If you usually respond with the frustration and anger that you feel, consider trying one of these responses next time:
“How can I help?”
“I’m sorry you’re hurting.”
“You’ve mentioned this before. Can you help me understand why it is still bothering you?”
“How can I pray about this for you?”
And when she speaks, listen. You may discover that it leads to one less barrier in the bedroom.
Image credit | canva.com
Blah blah blah…more excuses for a wife’s refusal/disrespect/SIN.
Done with you people. You’re not helping anyone. You need to stop pretending that you are, or that marriage as a whole (as it exists today) is anything but a Satan-honoring sham. God sure isn’t the one being honored.
I’m curious. What do you think this post should have said about the subject? I’m talking to husbands here, so what would be the point of talking about whether their wives are sinning?
Chris
i feel the need to expand on Alan, although I have no right to interpret his feelings because I think many of us have had this thought. Women today do these things because they have been taught that it is acceptable behavior. Our Grandmothers wouldn’t have considered it so. I think what he means is that you are not teaching wives that there is a line they shouldn’t cross. Wives today not only cross the line regularly, most of them LIVE on the other side of that line. It would be better, I think to teach them where that line is.
It doesn’t matter here what we should or should not be teaching wives. We have a very specific mission of helping husbands better understand their wives. When a husband understands WHY his wife crosses a line that he thinks shouldn’t be crossed, he has information that helps him change the dynamic in her marriage. Chris
I can’t speak for Bill or Alan because none of us are wired the same. Painful experiences and how we deal with it are uniquely different.
It seems obvious there is a severe emotional connection issue maybe more severe than the I experienced for 30+ years, where I’d stay awake for a week at a time. (dwelling on what is missing)
I know in my case, I wasn’t emotionally connecting or stimulating my wife’s mind and she wasn’t connecting/stimulating my mind either. Heck we didn’t know what that was, because our own parents failed to do that. So we were already handicapped the day we said “I do”. (I wonder how often that happens to other couples we are lucky and blessed that we figured it out)
If there is hope for forgives and healing (rather than focusing on painful past mistakes) a good place to start, is focus on what it means to emotionally connect or at least stimulate one another’s mind. (being polite stimulates the mind)
This means discovering solutions without verbally sparring or saying mean and insulting things and avoid holding the other captive of mistakes made in the past and be polite, no matter what.
My spouse and I had to realize we shared differing personality types, free-spirit vs being regimented, but even so, even if we were wired the same, we didn’t really know how to communicate because our parents verbally sparred. (no mentors)
It wasn’t until I finally gave it to God and began to pray and meditate (through one of my depressive 5 nights of no sleep cycles) that is when God began to reveal that I needed to change the way I think and talk.
God taught me, to understand there is severe “danger” when we don’t communicate with dignity or get too frustrated when I magnified (or fabricated) a crisis, over what really amounted to trivial matters.
This can create rebellion of the minds and put a great big emotional wedge between spouses. (it does work both ways)
Marriage is about respecting and understanding each others emotional boundaries and when those boundaries get crossed constantly, the wedge will get bigger and create emotional voids that are craving to be filled.
When we see danger we instinctively react almost instantaneously to avoid it. Words can heal or hurt a marriage. We do have abilities to instinctively see the danger that words and thoughts can afflict marriage that is already in trouble.
If we can make a quick instantaneous decision to ease on the brakes when the light turns yellow and avoid severe injury, then we can do the same by stepping on the emotional brakes as a way to avoid severe emotional injury to our spouse.
(maybe speeders that step on the gas on a yellow light won’t understand that concept, but they should)
I was instinctively treating my piece of a crap truck, better than how I instinctively treated my emotional health as I wasn’t stepping on the emotional brakes and say “don’t do this to yourself or your spouse” I was a workaholic, which didn’t help either as negative energy was flowing through my veins.
No matter who is at fault, the key is understanding the danger is real and can be severe with lasting emotional consequences to our spouse, when we say things that will create emotional distance in our marriages. (sometimes permanently if undiagnosed)
If our dangerous words happens repetitively, “I’m sorry” doesn’t cut it, because the wedge gets bigger with every impolite exchange.
Sometimes when honest mistakes or clumsiness that regularly occurs it being constantly magnified it will create a wedge and other times when a willful mistake occurred could be a result of an emotional wedge that had already existed for a very long time.
If healing is possible, a couple can agree in advance (when voices begin to elevate or an insult blurts out or antagonism sets in) to give one or the other the green light and immediately say “we agreed not to do this” and cause both to think “oh yeah” and instinctively avoid danger by mutually stepping on the brakes in 5 seconds flat and give one another a hug. (lf they want to save the marriage and love each other) Which is a far better alternative than saying something regrettable or carrying on long enough to severely hurt the relationship.
When things remain calm the conversations turn into thought provoking compromises (and forgiveness and trust grows) which in our case allowed us to finally connect emotionally and stimulate one another’s mind.
(stimulating the mind is comparable to making love of the minds)
Thank you for taking the time to make such a thoughtful and helpful comment. It sounds like you have been working very hard at this. Chris