How to restore your ‘sexual confidence’

Every woman deserves to enjoy great sex with her husband. However, issues such as body inhibition, shame or fear from past sexual abuse, guilt over past intimate relationships or lack of knowledge about male and female sexuality often hold women back from discovering unconditional sexual fulfillment. In her new book, "The Sexually Confident Wife", author Shannon Ethridge shares ways to help women stay connected, emotionally and physically, with their husbands. An excerpt.

Chapter one: Where did our confidence go?
At one time, I was perhaps one of the most sexually confident women on the planet. I loved my body. I was willing to share it freely. I enjoyed sex.

What changed? I got married. And it took me longer than a decade (along with months of counseling) to return to the place where I loved my body, shared it freely, and enjoyed sex once again.

Some of you know what I’m talking about. As single women, sex was often a game that we liked to play, and some of us were very skilled at it. I’ve got it. You want it. But the price of admission into my private playground is a big dose of attention and affection. Make me feel really good about myself, and I’ll make you feel really good in exchange. But now that we’re sleeping next to the same man night after night, month after month, year after year, the challenge has worn off. The payoff is no longer clear. Hubby isn’t wooing and pursuing us like he used to, so our motivation wanes. Sex feels more like an obligation than a mutual thrill.

And maybe that mental list of previous sexual partners has begun to haunt you. You calculate all of the sexual favors you paid out in hopes of earning emotional interest, but now you feel sexually bankrupt. How could I have just given my body away like that? And how could my husband possibly love me and want to be with me after all I’ve done? you may wonder.

Or perhaps you weren’t skilled at all when you came into marriage. You assumed your husband was going to teach you everything you needed to know about sex, or that you’d figure it out together. Now that he’s so masterfully taught you that the round peg goes in the round hole for approximately 2.8 minutes, you’re left wondering, Is this all there is? Disappointed and disillusioned, you’ve come to see sex as something you’re expected to just dish out like a scoop of ice cream whenever he gets hungry, which makes you want to close the ice cream shop altogether most days.

Or maybe your sexual confidence has been robbed because while you’ve been dishing it out, he’s been salivating over other flavors. You notice him glance up and down another woman’s body as she walks by. You know where he keeps his pornography stash. You’ve gone to his most recent websites to see what he’s been looking at on his laptop. You catch him masturbating alone, most likely fantasizing about any woman except you.

Perhaps you, like millions of other ladies, have lost your sexual confidence as a result of past sexual abuse. Rather than associating sex with passion and pleasure, you’ve associated it with pain and degradation. You know in your head that it’s not your husband’s fault that you were abused, but you’ve insulated yourself from further pain with walls of anger, resentment, and fear of intimacy. You can’t imagine how you’ll ever get over what’s been done to you in the past.

Maybe you simply do not feel beautiful, especially when you compare your postpartum body (complete with stretch-marked hips, flabby tummy, and saggy boobs) to the airbrushed magazine models. Excess food becomes your drug of choice to medicate your emotional pain. Your husband asks why you’re eating turtle cheesecake if you already feel fat. You inhale a second piece just to spite him, and think, No sex for you again tonight, pal!

Or perhaps children clinging to your ankles all day prevent you from mustering enough energy to enjoy sex much anymore. Your idea of a blissfully indulgent evening is ordering takeout, throwing the paper plates away after dinner, and heading straight for bed at eight p.m. without having to tuck anyone in or take care of anyone else’s needs.

Oh, the many issues that we let rob us of our sexual confidence! No wonder more and more married people are claiming to be sexually frustrated. No wonder there are so many sexless marriages today. In 2005, Family Circle magazine published the results of a national survey in which they asked married women to reveal their innermost desires, needs, regrets, and joys. Consider these results and what they say about the quality of couples’ relationships:

• Only 8 percent of married women consider their sex life “very hot.”
• 21 percent call their sex life “routine and boring.”
• 21 percent of respondents asked, “What sex life?”

Sound familiar? Maybe you’ve been thinking you were alone in your struggle to discover sexual fulfillment. Think again ...

Chapter two: Getting on the right track
Extra space was hard to come by in my first apartment. My couch, coffee table, and television ate up almost every square inch of my combination living room/kitchenette, and my bedroom was filled wall-to-wall with a queen- size bed, dresser, and two nightstands. With some determination, however, I managed to squeeze a treadmill into the corner of my bedroom near the closet door.

As I came home from work each day, eager to shuck my business suit and panty hose, my treadmill became less and less of a workout machine and more and more of a clothesline. Although my clothes remained relatively clean and wrinkle- free dangling from the handrails, my body remained relatively weak and flabby. I’d have been much better off taking the extra five seconds to hang the clothes in the closet, then using the treadmill for a good workout.

Any time we use something for a purpose other than which it was created, we don’t get the maximum benefits. I could use my car to store numerous boxes to keep them safe from the weather, but then I’d have no transportation for my family. I could use my laptop as a snack tray, but then I’d never write another book or send another e-mail. It’s only by using things according to the purpose for which they were created that we get the most benefit from them.

Our sexuality is very much the same way. We can use sex for a wide variety of reasons. We can manipulate and control our husbands, giving sexual favors as a reward for good behavior or withholding sex as a punishment for bad behavior. We’re able to appease our partners, giving in to an occasional quickie just to get his paws off us for a while. Or we can frustrate our husbands, creating expectations in our minds that he can never live up to. But none of these fulfill the purpose of sexual intimacy (although many women are using sex for these very reasons).

More from TODAY Palin says presidency 'not on my radar screen'  After rummaging trash for food, he lost 250 lbs. Chimp attack victim: I still ‘feel like me’ | Video Get your man on our Guys Tell All panel! Ambush: From fashion faux pas to fabulous

MORE FROM TODAY BOOKS: RELATIONSHIPS

Ex education: 10 signs you’re not ‘just friends’

Ex education: 10 signs you’re not ‘just friends’ ‘Superior Wife Syndrome’ aims to save couples RUEA? (That is, are you emotionally available?) Scorned lovers: Moving on is best ‘Revenge’ To snag a man, let him do the chasing What women can learn from bad pick-up lines New novel follows adventures of single women ‘Vixen Manual’ bares tricks to snare a man Boys 101: Writer offers teen girls a crash course How to get a great deal ... on a husband   Add Today Books: Relationships headlines to your news reader: