My wife used sex as a way to try and control me and I wanted her to.

My wife used sex as a way to try and control me and I wanted her to My wife is a wonderful woman, whom I love and adore. She also used to try and control me with sex. It wasn’t always overt, and it wasn’t usually something that was designed to make me do something that I didn’t want to do. In fact, it was the opposite. She was trying to get me to not do something. She was trying to keep me from looking at porn and I didn’t really want to look at porn. I wanted to stop. It was always, in her mind, something she would do to “meet my needs”. And I thought she was, by her actions, “meeting my needs.” In her mind, my pornography problem was about controlling how often I needed to give in to my urges. If she could interrupt my urge by engaging with me sexually, then she was helping me. She thought she was helping control my choice to use pornography. She would ask questions like, “How are you doing today?” in an effort to gauge where I was and if she “needed” to intervene by providing me with an outlet for the day. What she was doing, in reality, was frustrating herself and rewarding my pleasure center for disconnected, isolating behavior. Two main things were frustrating her. First, was the fact that she could not, despite her best efforts, control my urges or when or how I acted on them. Whenever we try to control others, we will always find ourselves frustrated. They will rebel, they will deceive, they will find a way around you. People are like water; they will go wherever their personal gravity takes them. It is inevitable. Second, and I think more importantly, when what each of us really wanted was intimacy in the deepest and most connected sense of the word she was creating resentment and I was creating disappointment. Control is antithetical to intimacy because inherent in intimacy is trust and control requires none. She resented needing to look over my shoulder to make sure I was making good decisions. I was disappointed that the intimacy that I wanted wasn’t available in a resentful spouse Don’t get me wrong, when you and your spouse decide that pornography use is not ok in your household then both of you should take steps to create an environment where viewing pornography is difficult. I am also not condoning pornography use. I am also saying, whether you are a man or a woman, making a decision to intercede in the urges of your spouse in an effort to control their actions is not going to work out in the long run. Let’s flip this on its head for a moment. Imagine a wife who is struggling with eating sugary treats. Each morning her husband asks her how she is feeling about that cheesecake with fresh strawberries in the fridge. During that discussion the husband hears the wife is having a hard time not sneaking a piece. She knows that it is for dessert after dinner this evening, but that she really wants to have just a little. So, he says, I know what, I’ll help you out. I’ll meet your needs. I have a carrot for you. It should tide you over because carrots have a lot of sugar. His attempt to “help her out” places him in a position that makes no sense to anyone. He’s giving her a “sweet treat”, but it isn’t what she wants. Not really. She may even take and eat it. But she may feel resentful that he is trying to control what she eats. Do you see the parallels? What we all have to understand is that controlling others behavior isn’t really going to bring us or them to the place we want to be. It may only to create a short-term fix and will probably create a long-term negative effect. ...