Blog

A few weeks ago, in Episode 441, Bait and Switch, I talked about the comments that show up under my reels from men who feel like their wives changed after the wedding. I read a lot of those comments. Most of them come from men who are hurting. Some come from men who are angry.

The most common thing these men write is that sex is part of marriage. There’s truth in that. Sex is part of a healthy marriage. For a lot of these men, though, “sex is part of marriage” means something more. It means sex is her job, her duty, something she agreed to when she married him and now owes him. One man wrote that his wedding vows promised him sex. A loving marriage doesn’t ask that of anyone.

That’s what I mean by sexual entitlement. It’s the belief that because you’re married, sex should happen when you want it, and that you’ve been wronged when it doesn’t. A lot of us believe sex should be part of marriage, and that part isn’t the problem. Entitlement happens when the “should” turns into feeling wronged. Most of the time that shows up in smaller ways, in how a spouse talks, keeps score, or acts after a “no.” And sometimes it shows up as a threat.

Some comments turn into threats. If she won’t, he’ll pay someone who will. He’ll find another woman. Most of the men writing those probably aren’t Latter-day Saints, and they may not share our values around marriage. Those comments are still hard to read.

Divorce is what comes up most with faithful men. I think that’s partly because it feels more in line with their values. Divorce can feel like a choice a righteous person is allowed to make. Cheating doesn’t. And men who don’t see divorce as an option sometimes end up looking for the validation they aren’t getting at home somewhere else, through pornography or another woman.

A lot of the time, divorce comes up because a man is struggling. He doesn’t know how long he can stay in a marriage that feels this way, or whether he even wants to. Often these are men whose wives won’t talk about sex, rarely engage when they do have it, or want sex so much less often that the gap feels impossible to cross. That pain is real. Some of these men tell their wives how they’re feeling, hoping it will motivate her. She hears it as a threat, and it creates a whole new set of problems.

Then there are the men who feel stuck. Cheating isn’t an option. Pornography isn’t an option. Divorce isn’t an option either, and I understand why they feel that way, because of the covenants they’ve made. I also believe no one should be trapped in an unhappy marriage, even a marriage that’s happy in every way except sex.

And then there are the men who are blatantly threatening divorce. Have sex with me, or I’m leaving.

And none of it, the threats, the pressure, the sulking, the scriptures quoted at her about her body belonging to him, makes a wife want sex more. The entitlement itself is what turns her off. A husband who believes he’s owed sex almost always ends up with less of it than he had before he started pushing for it.

I know entitlement is a hard word to hear, and most men listening won’t see themselves in it. From the inside, entitlement rarely feels like entitlement. It feels justified. You’ve been patient. You’ve tried to talk about it. But no matter what you try, nothing changes. If that’s you, I’m not asking you to take on a label. I’m asking you to stay with me and see whether any of this fits.

So today we’re going to talk about where this entitlement comes from, how it shows up in a marriage, what you can do if you see it in yourself, what you can do if you see it in your spouse, how repair happens, and what becomes possible when it changes.

Wanting Is Different From Being Owed

Wanting sex and feeling owed sex can look alike from the outside, so that’s where we’ll start. Wanting sex with your wife is a good thing. I’ve spent a lot of episodes encouraging husbands and wives to own their desire and tell their spouse about it. Desire sounds like “I want you.” Entitlement sounds like “Sex is part of marriage,” or “It’s been a while,” or “I’m a man. I have needs.” Most men would never say “you owe me.” But underneath, that’s often what those sentences mean.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day” and “I’d love to be with you tonight” are desire. “It’s been nine days” is scorekeeping, and keeping score assumes a debt. In Episode 442, Why Keeping Score Never Gets You What You Want, I talked about what that does to a marriage. When the score is about sex, every day without it gets added to what she owes.

Researchers James McNulty and Laura Widman have studied sexual entitlement in marriage. One of the statements on their questionnaire asks whether a person feels they deserve sexual activity when they’re in the mood for it. They followed 120 newlywed couples through the first several years of marriage. The spouses who scored higher on sexual entitlement saw their sexual satisfaction decline over time, and their satisfaction with the marriage went down with it. Their husbands and wives became less satisfied too.

That study measured entitlement in both husbands and wives, and entitlement can absolutely show up in women. Today I’m focusing on men because that’s where these comments are coming from, and it’s the version I see most often.

Russell and Lydia have been married fourteen years and have four kids. They came to a consultation call together, and Russell didn’t waste any time.

“I’ve been patient,” he said. “I’m a man. I have needs. She made a promise when we got married, and she’s not keeping it.”

Lydia said, “He’s brought up divorce. More than once.”

Russell didn’t argue with that. He said, “I’m not going to pretend it hasn’t crossed my mind.”

One word in what Russell said matters for everything else we’re going to talk about. Sex is a desire. It isn’t a need. Nobody dies from not having sex. When we call sex a need, we change what it is. A need has to be met, and someone has to be responsible for meeting it. The moment Russell calls sex a need, Lydia becomes the person in charge of supplying it, and every “no” becomes a failure on her part.

What “needs” creates is obligation. A wife can meet an obligation, and she can meet it faithfully, but obligation doesn’t create desire. She can’t want her husband because she’s supposed to. And a husband can’t feel chosen by a wife who is meeting a requirement.

Dr. Lauren Fogel Mersy, a psychologist and sex therapist, offers a few questions that show when “need” has started turning into entitlement. When your wife says “no,” does it feel like you’re being deprived? Does her lack of desire feel like she’s failing at her responsibilities? Does your hurt start to feel like proof that she should have sex anyway? That’s where the language of needs starts turning into pressure.

For a lot of men, calling sex a need is an attempt to show their wife how much it hurts. The pain is real. The word still turns it into an obligation.

Where Entitlement Comes From

Before the break, I was talking about how calling sex a need turns it into an obligation. So where does that idea come from? Entitlement around sex rarely starts with a man deciding to be selfish. Most of the time it gets handed to him, piece by piece, long before he’s married.

A lot of us grew up hearing that men have needs and women have to manage them. Boys heard that their bodies would demand sex and that marriage was where those demands would finally be met. Girls heard the matching message. Keep your husband happy so he won’t be tempted. Don’t turn him away too often. If he strays, ask yourself what you weren’t giving him. Both messages put a man’s desire at the center and treat a woman’s desire as optional.

Then there’s the promise a lot of young men grew up with. Keep the Law of Chastity, wait until you’re married, and it will be worth it. Marriage is where the reward comes. He keeps his side. He waits. And when the reward doesn’t arrive the way he pictured it, he feels like the deal was broken. That’s a big part of what those “bait and switch” comments are about. A man who believes he was promised something will feel owed.

Some men reach for scripture to back up that feeling. I hear this one most often from evangelical Christian men. The verse is 1 Corinthians 7:4. “The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband.” That’s usually where the quote stops. The verse keeps going. “And likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.” It’s mutual. And the verse right before it asks husbands and wives to show each other “due benevolence,” which is goodwill and kindness.

Presiding gets misread the same way. Some men hear that they preside in the home and translate it into having the final say, including in the bedroom. The Doctrine and Covenants warns about exactly this. In Section 121, verse 39, the Lord says, “We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.” President Howard W. Hunter addressed presiding directly in a 1994 general priesthood session. He taught that “for a man to operate independent of or without regard to the feelings and counsel of his wife in governing the family is to exercise unrighteous dominion.”

Another version I hear all the time, from clients and in my DMs, is some form of “I’m just a very sexual person, and this is important to me.” It gets said as if it settles the question. He’s more sexual than other people, so his position is justified. Some men go further and say they regret getting married because their wife won’t meet their needs.

Desire discrepancies happen in most marriages. Saying you want sex more often than your spouse does is fine. Trouble starts when “I’m a sexual person” becomes a trait that outranks hers. Her lower interest becomes a deficiency, and his higher interest becomes the standard she keeps failing to meet.

Being a sexual person is about more than how often you want sex. A sexual person is curious about his wife’s body and her pleasure. He pays attention to what turns her on and what shuts her down. He cares whether she’s enjoying herself. He wants to understand her sexuality, knowing it might be different from his, and he doesn’t judge her when it is. He wants to know her as a whole person, not only in the bedroom. A man who is truly invested in sex would be invested in his wife wanting it too. And she is a sexual person as well. Her desire might show up after things get started. It might need more warmth and less pressure. That doesn’t make her less sexual than him.

Saying “I’m just a sexual person” has the same problem as a wife saying “I’m just not a sexual person.” Both make a person one-dimensional. Our sexuality is part of who we are, and it’s only part. It belongs alongside the rest of us, our values, our relationships, and the way we love.

Russell said it in one of our first sessions. “I’m just a more sexual person than she is.” Lydia didn’t respond. Later, in a session on her own, she told me, “I used to think I was a sexual person too. I don’t know anymore.”

The last place entitlement comes from is harder to see, and I think it’s the most common. For many men, sex is the main place they feel close, wanted, calm, and okay about themselves. When sex carries that much weight, a “no” doesn’t land as a “no” to sex. It lands as a “no” to him. And when we feel that threatened, we reach for control.

That was a big piece of it for Russell. When I asked him what happens inside him after Lydia turns him down, he took a long breath. Then he said, “I lie there and feel like the least wanted man alive. And then I get mad, because at least mad feels like I’m doing something.”

It sounds like Russell’s entitlement was sitting right on top of a lot of fear. That doesn’t make the threats okay. It does help explain why he kept making them.

How Entitlement Shows Up

Wherever it comes from, entitlement shows up in a marriage in some predictable ways. It doesn’t always look like a husband demanding sex. Sometimes it’s obvious, and a lot of the time it’s subtle.

It shows up as scorekeeping. Knowing exactly how many days it’s been and making sure she knows too.

It shows up as deposits. He does the dishes, handles bath time, takes her to dinner, and then expects sex at the end of the night as the return on all of it. She can feel the expectation, and the kindness starts to feel like a transaction.

It shows up as guilt. Scripture verses dropped into conversations. Comments about how other men’s wives seem to manage just fine. Reminders that he could be doing much worse things.

It shows up as blame. A husband who turns to pornography and tells his wife she left him no choice.

It shows up as threats. Divorce, affairs, paying for sex. Researchers who study sexual pressure in marriage use a questionnaire called the Sexual Coercion in Intimate Relationships Scale, developed by Todd Shackelford and Aaron Goetz. Several of the items on that scale describe a husband hinting or threatening that he’ll have sex with another woman, or pursue a relationship with another woman, if his wife doesn’t have sex with him. Those threats are on the scale because they are a way of pressuring someone into sex.

And very often, it shows up as punishment after a “no.”

Kurt and Shauna are a good example of that last one. Kurt never threatened anything. But after a “no,” the whole house could feel it. The next morning he’d skip making the kids’ lunches, which he usually did. He’d leave the dinner dishes for her. When she reached for his hand at church, he’d let her hold it without holding hers back. At bedtime he was short with the kids and snapped at their oldest over a backpack left on the stairs. If Shauna asked what was wrong, he’d say, “Nothing. I’m fine.”

Shauna learned that a “no” cost her his help, his warmth, and a tense house for her kids. So she started saying “yes” to keep all of that from happening.

From where Kurt was standing, things were getting better. He was getting more sex. What he couldn’t see was that Shauna was getting further and further away from wanting any of it.

Those are some of the ways entitlement shows up in a marriage. So why doesn’t any of it work? Some of these tactics do get a husband more sex for a while, the way Kurt’s did. They just can’t get him what he actually wants.

Why Entitlement Backfires

A wife’s “yes” only means something if she’s free to say “no.” If saying “no” means her husband pulls away, stops helping, or brings up divorce, her “yes” isn’t about wanting him anymore. She’s saying “yes” to avoid what happens when she says “no.” And both of them can feel the difference.

Threats do something else too. They take away emotional safety. Back in Episode 434, I talked about why that safety matters so much. When a wife hears that her marriage might end, she can’t relax around her husband anymore. She starts watching him. She reads his moods, tenses up when he comes to bed, and wonders whether tonight’s “no” is the one that pushes him out the door. Most women need to feel emotionally safe before they can open up sexually. A threat removes the very thing she needs in order to want him, so it makes sex even less likely.

When I asked Lydia what happened for her when Russell brought up divorce, she said, “Something in me went cold. I’ve said yes because I was scared he would leave me if I didn’t. But I really haven’t wanted to have sex with him at all since then.”

Russell heard that in session. He’d gotten exactly what the threat was designed to get, and it had cost him the thing he wanted most.

There’s a reason her body went cold. Emily Nagoski explains sexual response using what’s called the dual control model. We all have something like an accelerator, the things that turn us on, and something like brakes, the things that turn us off. And it almost doesn’t matter how hard someone presses the accelerator if the brakes are on. In my experience with clients, pressure is one of the most reliable ways to hit the brakes. So are fear, resentment, and the feeling that sex is an obligation.

There’s research on what happens when people have sex for those reasons. Emily Impett, Letitia Anne Peplau, and Shelly Gable looked at the motives behind sex. Some people have sex to move toward something good, like closeness or pleasure. Others have sex to avoid something bad, like conflict or a partner’s disappointment. Sex for those avoidance reasons was tied to lower personal well-being and lower relationship quality, and it was especially hard on relationships over time. That study looked at college dating couples, so it isn’t a perfect match for long-term marriages, but it lines up closely with what I see.

Entitlement trains a wife to have sex for avoidance reasons. That’s the kind of sex that wears a relationship down. And her husband can usually feel it. Russell described it this way: “She’s there, but she isn’t there.” So he pushed harder, which made her pull further away, which made him push harder.

President Hunter spoke to this directly in that same 1994 talk. He said, “Tenderness and respect, never selfishness, must be the guiding principles in the intimate relationship between husband and wife. Each partner must be considerate and sensitive to the other’s needs and desires. Any domineering, indecent, or uncontrolled behavior in the intimate relationship between husband and wife is condemned by the Lord.”

Entitlement creates the very thing these men don’t want. Pressure, threats, and pulling away after a “no” aren’t attractive, so she wants him less, and over time there’s less sex. What most of these men really want is to be chosen by their wife. Entitlement makes that almost impossible. He might get a wife who gives in and has sex with him. It won’t be good sex, and it won’t be because she loves him and wants him. It will be because she’s scared of what happens if she doesn’t. Every time he pushes, he moves further from what he’s actually after.

And if what a man truly wants is just a body, and not his wife, she may be better off letting him go.

If You See Entitlement in Yourself

Before the break, we talked about why entitlement backfires. So what can you do if some of this sounds like you? Seeing entitlement in yourself can be a hard thing to sit with, especially if you’ve thought of yourself as a patient husband who’s been going without. If some of what I’ve described sounds familiar, here are a few things you might try.

Start by paying attention to what happens inside you right after a “no.” Whatever comes up in those first few minutes tells you a lot. Is it disappointment? That’s normal, and it’s yours to feel. Is it anger, or a sense that you’ve been wronged? That’s usually where entitlement lives.

Try separating your want from your claim in the way you talk. “I want you” is something your wife can respond to. “It’s been a week” is something she can only defend against.

If you’re hurting, you can say that too, without turning it into pressure. Something like, “When you say no, I sometimes feel rejected. That’s mine to work on, and I don’t want you saying yes just to make me feel better. Can we talk about what’s going on for you?”

If you’ve made threats, consider taking them back directly. Not with a vague apology, but with a specific one. Russell didn’t get there quickly. He wanted to feel justified. When he started to see that he was creating the very thing he didn’t want, it started to change him. It took real introspection and some humbling before he was ready to apologize. When he did, he said to Lydia, “I’ve brought up divorce to get you to have sex with me. That was a threat, and I’m taking it back. I’m not going anywhere.” Lydia cried. She said later that it was the first time she’d been able to take a full breath when she thought about their marriage in a very long time.

Get curious about what sex has been carrying for you. If it’s your main source of feeling loved, wanted, or calm, every “no” is going to feel enormous. I believe a big part of maturing in marriage is learning to hold onto yourself when your spouse says “no.” That means finding ways to settle yourself down and remember that you are still okay, still loved, and still wanted, even when she isn’t in the mood tonight.

And ask her what would make her want to say “yes.” Then listen without defending yourself. You may hear things that are hard to hear.

Your entitlement is yours to deal with. Your wife can’t fix it by having more sex with you, and it isn’t her job to try.

Russell found the first stretch hard. Lydia said “no” more often once there wasn’t a threat hanging over her. He wanted to start scorekeeping again, and he caught himself more than once. He kept initiating, but differently. He’d tell her he wanted her, and when she said “no,” he’d say, “Okay. I love you.” Some nights he meant it. Some nights he had to work at meaning it. He kept working at it.

When She Won’t Talk About It

Russell and Lydia did this work together in coaching. Not every wife is willing to do that. Some won’t talk about sex at all. Some won’t come to coaching. Some say things are fine when they clearly aren’t fine for him.

If that’s your marriage, there’s still a lot you can do on your own. Letting go of entitlement doesn’t depend on her. Neither does learning to hold onto yourself after a “no,” or becoming a husband who is easier to want. Individual coaching can be a good place to start. And sometimes, when one spouse changes how they show up, the other starts to move too.

Sometimes they don’t. In his book Necessary Endings, Henry Cloud describes the difference between hoping and wishing. Hope is based on evidence. Wishing is based on what we want to be true. If you’ve changed how you show up, you’ve asked her to work on this with you, and you have no evidence that she’s willing, you may have some hard decisions to make.

You can care deeply about sex. You can want more of it than you’re having, feel lonely, feel rejected, and even decide the gap isn’t something you can live with. As Dr. Fogel Mersy points out, none of that obligates your wife to have sex with you.

What won’t help is staying entitled. The pressure, the scorekeeping, and the threats don’t move her toward you in any meaningful way.

If You See Entitlement in Your Spouse

Now let’s turn it around. If you’re a wife living with your husband’s entitlement, this part is for you. Living with a spouse’s sexual entitlement wears on a person, and a lot of wives handle it by giving in. I understand why. Giving in feels like the fastest way to keep the peace. The trouble is that every “yes” that comes out of pressure teaches both of you that pressure works, and it moves you a little further from your own desire.

If this sounds like your marriage, one thing that can help is describing what happens and what it does to you, without labeling his character. “You’re so entitled” will probably start a fight. Describing the pattern gives him something he can actually look at.

That’s what Shauna eventually did. She waited for a calm evening, not a night when Kurt had just been turned down, and she said, “When I say ‘no,’ you stop helping, you pull away from me, and you get short with the kids. So I start saying ‘yes’ just to keep the house calm. And then I don’t want you at all. I want to want you. I can’t get there when every ‘no’ costs the whole family.”

Kurt got defensive at first. “So I’m not allowed to be disappointed?”

Shauna said, “Of course you’re allowed to be disappointed. But it’s not okay to take it out on the whole family.”

Kurt came back to it later. When he did, he said, “I didn’t know I was doing that. I thought I was just tired.”

You might also tell your husband what does open you up. A “no” can sometimes come with an invitation, if it’s true. “Not tonight, but I’d love it if you’d come find me Saturday morning.” That gives him something to move toward besides the closed door.

And it can help to look honestly at your own part without taking on his. Maybe you’ve never told him what you want. Maybe your “yes” has never really been yours either, because you’ve been saying it out of duty. You can look at that for your own sake. His entitlement is still his responsibility.

Repair Takes Time

Whichever side of this you’re on, repair takes time. The pressure on one side and the pulling away on the other usually didn’t start last month. For a lot of the men writing these comments, and a lot of the couples I work with, this pattern has been building for years. He has felt rejected over and over. She has felt pressured over and over. Each of them carries a long list of moments that hurt. One apology or one good conversation won’t undo all of that.

Repair means both of you acknowledging the hurt, his and hers, without turning it into a contest over who has had it worse. It means him owning the pressure and the threats. It means her being honest about what’s been happening for her, including the times she said “yes” when she didn’t want to. And it means trust gets rebuilt in a lot of small moments, where a “no” is met with kindness and a “yes” is real.

A wife who has been protecting herself isn’t going to stop because her husband said the right thing once. She’s going to see whether it holds. That can feel unfair to a husband who is trying hard. It’s also how trust gets rebuilt.

After Russell took back the divorce threat, Lydia told me, “Part of me was thinking, how long until he says it again?” Russell had to keep showing up the same way before she believed him. Lydia had some repair to offer too. In one session she turned to him and said, “I know you’ve felt rejected. I didn’t let myself think about what that was like for you, because I was so focused on protecting myself.” Russell said that was when he started to feel understood.

What Becomes Possible

And when repair starts to take hold, a lot can change. When entitlement starts to leave a marriage, the first thing that usually changes is the air in the house. A wife can relax again. She can sit next to her husband on the couch without wondering what he’s going to expect from it.

That’s what Lydia noticed first. She said, “I can sit on the couch with him now and just enjoy being with him.”

In the beginning, Russell and Lydia actually had sex less often than before. Russell will tell you that part was hard. Then things started to shift. Lydia started touching him more, just walking past him in the kitchen. She started flirting. And one Saturday morning, she reached for him.

Russell said, “I almost didn’t know what to do with it. She chose me. I didn’t have to push or ask or wait her out. She just wanted me.”

They still have nights when one of them says “no.” The difference is that a “no” doesn’t end the evening anymore. They can still sit together, still talk, still go to bed close. And they’re having sex more often now than they were when Russell was scorekeeping, and it’s the kind of sex both of them want.

That’s what entitlement can never get a man. It can get compliance. It can’t get his wife wanting him. He only gets that when she’s free to say “no,” and he trusts her “yes” when it comes.

When a husband lets go of what he thinks he’s owed, he usually discovers he was never really after the sex itself. He wanted to be chosen. And a wife can only choose someone she’s free to turn down.