So, if your husband had been injured or contracted a disease that prevented normal sexual relations, what would you have done? Just how important is sex to marriage? What does God, the Maker of sex, say? Does He make a big deal of sex in His word? Is it, in His view, a must-have? You need to eat; you need to sleep; you need to drink water; you need shelter and clothing. But sex? No. How long could you go without water but having all the sex you liked? Two days, maybe. How long could you last never eating but having lots and lots of sex? Maybe a week, ten days, tops. Now turn this around: If you could eat and drink as much as you liked but never had sex again, how long could you live? Days? A week? Many decades, actually. How is it, then, that we have taken up this notion that sex is as vital - for some, perhaps more so - than the truly essential things of life? This view of sex, and the variations of it that Christians adopt, is the World's view, not God's.
Now, of course, the World will disagree vehemently. But its perspective isn't fundamentally spiritual, as God calls His children's perspective to be. No, the World is all about the flesh, about the natural rather than the supernatural, about the body and its impulses and drives, and satisfying them as fully and frequently as possible. Simply look around you at the sex-mad World you live in. I go to the mall (though very rarely these days and always in the company of my wife) and in the windows of shops may see twelve-foot high images of women in their skivvies, staring sensuously at me; I drive down the road and pass billboards displaying women in skimpy bathing suits, their bottoms largely exposed, breasts bulging out of what little fabric contains them; the constant, sexual drumbeat of t.v. is grotesque and overt these days, and so on. One Christian researcher has called this stuff "ambient inappropriate contentography", a sort of wide-spread saturation of the environment with overtly sexual images.
When the Christian gives attention to the World's way, particularly to its preoccupation with sex, they must necessarily move away from the fundamentally spiritual, self-sacrificing way in which God has commanded them to live.
Matthew 16:24-25
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
John 12:23-26
23 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit.
25 He who loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
26 If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.
And when the Christian does this, dissatisfaction in some measure is always the result; for God never intended that His children should find satisfaction or fulfillment in the things of the flesh, but in Himself. The flesh is never fully satisfied; the more it is fed, the hungrier it gets. Ask any addict.
Romans 8:5-8
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Galatians 5:16-24
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,
20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,
21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Galatians 6:7-8
7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
The sex drive is powerful. And the more it is attended to, the more one focuses upon it, the more powerful it grows. And the more the sexual impulse grips one, the more it directs one's thinking and behaviour, even to the point of destruction of oneself, one's marriage, and one's relationship with one's Maker. This is the way of the flesh, though: More, more, more. Which is why it is so vital that the child of God be under God's control all day, every day.
Romans 12:1-2
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Romans 8:14
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God.
James 4:4-10
4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: "He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"?
6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE."
7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Romans 6:12-13
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Under His control, the flesh is put in its proper place and one discovers that God is far more fully and deeply fulfilling than sex could ever be; He actually satisfies - not just temporarily, as the sex act does - giving joy, peace and rest where sex only ultimately provokes more hunger, a never-ending pursuit of the next moment of fleshly gratification.
If one tells oneself that sex is a must-have, that life is impossible, unhealthy, unnatural without sex, one is speaking after the manner of the World, not God. Yes, normally, sex is a part of married life - a very good part, to be sure - but it is not an essential; again, just ask the man whose wife is dying of cancer; or the woman whose husband has been in a car accident and now spends his days in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the neck down.
To your situation more specifically I would offer the following:
The more you pressurize the sexual dimension of your marriage, the more your man may attempt to de-pressurize it by relegating it to the margin of your relationship, increasingly treating it as insignificant the more you elevate its importance. He may be trying to lower your expectations so that he can actually meet them - especially if there is a natural distinct difference in libido between you.
If there is one sure killer of healthy sexual relations between a couple, it is inappropriate content. Even "ambient inappropriate content" can have a stultifying effect on marital relations, unwanted images encountered in the environment of impossibly beautiful, near-nude woman intruding upon a man's mind when he's with his wife, creating dissatisfaction and guilt, both of which stifle sexual desire. And if a man is lured by ambient inappropriate content into more direct, active pursuit of inappropriate content, it will shut down sex - normal, healthy sex, anyway - within a marriage. Many is the man, evidencing the traits of a inappropriate content addict, who has stridently denied ever looking at inappropriate content only to be later discovered to be an addict.
Staying fit, staying healthy - especially if one is not big on fitness to begin with - gets more and more difficult as one ages. As I'm sure you know, being sedentary and overweight produces lethargy which, in turn, mutes sexual interest. But, you can't force your man to exercise. And if he is working unconsciously or consciously to diminish your expectations of him in the sexual area, it will be doubly difficult to prompt him to activity since he will interpret your promptings to fitness as just another form of sexual pressure.
Anyway, these are all hurdles to healthy marital sexuality that demonstrate why it is so vital that a husband and wife be under God's control. He can do things in a person's heart and mind that no human has any hope of doing, exposing the myriad expressions of natural human selfishness for what they are, enabling a person to act totally contrary to their natural inclinations, in self-sacrificing love laying down perceived rights, giving up comfort and ease, fleshly desires, even, for the sake of a spouse. Only God has the power to make us the selfless, Christ-honoring, eternally-focused people He intends all of His children to be which is why we must every day be submitted to Him, at every turn choosing to be under His control. As a husband and wife live together as such people, their marriage is the wonderful, incredibly-satisfying, spiritual union God intends for it to be. It is God's plan for marriage that a husband and wife meet Christ in each other. And the more they do, the sweeter, richer and deeper their marriage will be.
God, though, doesn't say to married couples, "Only if your spouse is Christ-like are you obliged to be so, too. Only if s/he sacrifices for you are you required to sacrifice for him/her." No, instead, He shows us by His own example on the cross of Calvary that real love, godly love, always costs - and costs a very great deal sometimes.
John 1:11
11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.
1 John 4:7-11
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Philippians 2:5-8
5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
On the far side of the cross, of dying to ourselves, is joy, peace, contentment with God Himself, the Creator of the Universe, who will show us, if we'll let Him, that He is better by far than the temporary gratifications of the flesh. In the example of Jesus, however, one can see the truth of the saying: "Love can't wait to give; lust can't wait to get."