It's Not a Tool

As women and wives, we have great influence with our husbands and something I see at times is wives that use sex as a controlling device. That's wrong. God gave sex as a gift. He did not give it to us as a weapon, or a means of revenge. Sure, times come when we're thoroughly disgusted with our husbands, when we think he's making the wrong choice and when we feel we just need some breathing room—those times are part of life with our human, sinful nature. But that does not mean that we can let those things stand between us and our husbands. If we do, we're building walls –walls that will eventually destroy our marriages. That not what we're to be about! We're to be building our marriage, not walls.

Many time I've heard ladies say (in person, not here at Adding Zest) that they withhold sex until they get what they want, or that they use sex as a means of getting what they want. They wait to ask for something until they've “given him what he wants.” In my opinion, that's using sex as a tool and in the process, abusing the gift God has given us.

How many times have we had a child come to us and say something like, “Mom, you're the greatest! I love you”? As moms we have a built in radar that lets us know if they're genuine or if we need to ask, “Okay, what do you want?” We don't want our husbands to develop a radar like that. After receiving a great gift, we don't want them wondering what it's going to cost him. That leads to feeling used and to resentment—two things that shouldn't be in a marriage and that will weaken it.

When we meet up with other ladies who view sex as a tool, let's speak truth to them and remind them that sex is a gift that God has given married couples, not a tool to wield against each other. I'm not talking about hitting them over the head, but rather the gentle reminder spoken in love like God's Word tells us to do.