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Well, by now you know that I’m a fan of The Surrendered Wife. It has changed the way I think and I am so grateful. Well, this time I have some of the more challenging questions about making your desires known, sex, and some more challenging realities like pornography. Ultimately, its a fantastic conversation which I hope you’ll listen in!

0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host, belah. Rose.

0:18
Hi, and welcome back. I’m so glad that you’re here. I’m not sure if this is your first time to delight your marriage podcast. But it is it’s all about inspiring wives, and empowering them to live in wholehearted intimacy in their marriage. And that means physical intimacy. And that’s something I spend a ton of time on. Because there’s a whole lot there, we can’t break it down into something simple and easy. But also, it’s emotional intimacy, where what happens outside of the bedroom affects what goes on inside the bedroom, and vice versa. And so that’s really the focus of today’s show is to really talk to an amazing woman, Laura Doyle, who I have been transformed by her material. And I just hugely respect her as an author and thinker in this space. And you know, every time you are, you know, every time you interact with material in the world, whether it’s Christian or non Christian, I hope that you feel the same way about my material. But every single you know, information that you receive, I hope that you filter it in the view of is this biblical? Is this, what God is telling me is true? Is this accurate? For me in my situation in my marriage, and my life, and you can get nuggets from everything, everything, showing you something, whether this is something Yes, this is for me, or this is something that doesn’t really apply or whatever. So I encourage you to have an open mind and determine like, what are the things that you can be applying what are the things that make sense to you in your marriage, Laura has a ton of really great stuff. I really love so much of what she puts out in terms of the material and her books. And I’m really excited that she’s doing so much good work in the world, because strong marriages mean strong families mean, the possibility of pursuing more in this life than just struggling through marriage. Because even if you’re not a Christian, but if you have a peaceful marriage, why then suddenly you have space and room and safety to then go pursue something that’s deeper, more spiritually fulfilling, which I think brings you towards Jesus.

2:57
So let’s dive in. Okay, so you mentioned a few things about restoring his respect, restoring respect towards him and how to affirm him. And

3:21
those kind of all move towards his self esteem, increasing that how, how would you suggest if a wife is noticing her husband just is often down on himself? What are your thoughts there?

3:40
She’s noticing that he’s often down on himself, I think that’s an interesting thing to focus on, in a way. Like it for me, it just became a really valuable exercise to look at what I was focusing on about my husband to who, you know, I fell in love with because he’s so much fun, and he’s funny, and he is a musician. He’s super talented. And then, you know, later on, I would get mad about, like, you know, the things that he wasn’t like, why isn’t he an investment banker or something? Right, like, making up things that I think, you know, the way the world should be? So, um, I think I know that my husband does take a great deal of his opinion of himself from what he sees in his wife mirror. So he looks into my eyes and sees either that I think he is the smartest man in the world, or which I do now. Or, or he sees that I’m like, you know, thinking he’s a big loser pants, like I did. And so, for me, I just feel like I have tremendous influence. I don’t feel like it’s my job to boost his self esteem or, you know, tell him that he’s great necessarily, but I do think it is incumbent on me To focus on the things that I respect and appreciate, and I’m grateful for, and that really seems to do the trick. I mean, I think that my respect, has really translated into my husband’s higher self worth and and even higher net worth, his self worth and net worth kind of go together. I see him being more successful in the world, as he leaves with that home court advantage of the respect that he feels for me.

5:31
I’d love that. And I love that you said, Where’s your focus? Is your focus on him having low self esteem, the negative things? Or is it on the really amazing things and

5:43
it’s genuine, you’re having that genuine encouragement, you don’t have to drum up these things about? Well, honey, you’re good at this or did it? Because you’re trying to try to manufacture it rather than you’re genuinely focusing on his strengths on the amazing things about your husband?

6:02
Yeah, it’s always interesting to this kind of check my motives, you know, I’m feeling afraid that he has low self esteem, then everything that’s gonna come out after that is probably going to be controlled. And if I’m feeling just grateful that he’s such a smart guy, then then everything that comes out after that is going to be from my faith and from from love. And that’s where I want to be coming from.

6:28
So when you say check my motives, it seems like a lot of the things you’re saying, a lot of times our motives are based around fear. Do you feel that’s the case? Yeah,

6:40
all control is based in fear. Like, if you’re not afraid, you’re gonna have to work harder, pay more be lonely or drive in traffic, you don’t have to try to control it. So it’s just kind of a, it’s been powerful for me to just get down to what is it I’m afraid of, in this situation. And I one of the ones that still can come up for me from time to time, my husband has his own business, very successful with it. But sometimes they’ll say, like, oh, so and so hasn’t paid me and it’s their invoices past due. And I’ll get like, Okay, I’m going to tell them how to collect my like, debit here. And I’m like, so I know better. Now, I don’t want to sacrifice the interest, he would cost me to try to control how he collects. And he doesn’t need me. But I was like, Okay, what is my fear? And he thought, that’s interesting. You know, what, what is it I’m afraid of? Well, I’m afraid that we aren’t going to have as much money, and then I’ll have to go without something that I was like, you know, may have to skip a pedicure or something, right. It’s not a very realistic fear in this situation. But it’s still it’s my fear, right. And so fears don’t have to be rational. But it’s great to just uncover it. Because then from there, I can take, I can make a decision that’s rational, in my world, which is, hey, I don’t want to, I can’t probably control this anyway. I don’t want to cost myself the intimacy. And my fears, probably not very realistic. So I’m going to carry on as I was, in fact, I might go schedule my pedicure right now. Because that’s a better choice than just wasting my energy trying to control someone else.

8:20
Mm hmm. I love it. I love it. Well, we’ve talked about sex a little bit. And I want to make sure that we do talk about that if you’re okay with it. So I do remember one of our interviews in the past you said Laura doyle.org. And you know, org is for org. Yes. I know you’re comfortable talking about.

8:50
It’s such a big part of marriage. It’s an important part of marriage. It

8:53
is it is an delight your marriage, we talk about it all the time. So okay, so what? What if a wife wants more sex? Or wants sex more often? than he does? What are some things she can do about that?

9:07
Yeah, well, um, you know, so much of what goes on outside of the bedroom affects what goes on inside the bedroom, too. So, for me, you know, I didn’t realize there’s this amazing aphrodisiac for men. I didn’t know about it at all, and that it was free and everything else. So I’m going to make sure everyone here knows that the best aphrodisiac on the planet is respect. It’s that is how you want to have your husband look at you like your supermodel. Bring on the respect that’s how you become a supermodel to him. That’s how you become so special. So So for me, I was kind of the opposite. I wasn’t respectful at all. And I was highly critical. So it’s kind of like a porcupine wife so trying to seduce your husband when you’re porcupine wife. Really an eye uphill battle. I don’t recommend it at all. It’s very lonely, and, and ineffective. So. So for me, I start there, you know, I start kind of looking at like, how respectful Am I being? How am I showing up in that regard. And then like, so for me, like just implementing all the intimacy skills, a lot of a lot of problems in the bedroom kind of vanish, because the intimacy is back, right, the connection is strong, and the physical intimacy really flows out of that. So, so that’s definitely where I start, but let’s just say, you really feel like your relationship is good, and it’s playful, and the connections high, and they’re just happy, just wish there was more physical intimacy. Well, what men are most fundamentally attracted to, is the feminine, you know, the, the essence of femininity, is receptivity. And so when ever we put ourselves in a position of receiving, we actually become 10 times more attractive than we were. So letting your husband know that you would be receptive to his advances sexually, is actually the most seductive thing you can do. So instead of initiating it, you’re still initiating in a way, because you’re seducing but instead of doing it in a very direct way, you might send out a signal, you might just put on a, you know, you might just put on a cute little tiny Knight II kind of thing, and read a book, right? Or just lay on the bed naked, or, you know, like, you might say, I’m gonna go take a shower, and feel free to join me if you want, or whatever is. And you know, what’s interesting, like, I remember when I first start taking this approach, there’s so much scarier than to saying, like, the average couple has sex two and a half times four weeks, we should do it right. Like that was not vulnerable at all. It wasn’t scary at all. And it wasn’t attractive either. But when you put yourself out in the ways I’m describing, you’re really taking a risk, you could get rejected. And that feels lousy. And so it’s, it’s scary. So sometimes you think, oh, no, that’s too awkward. I, you know, I don’t want to do that. But really, Fortune favors the brave. And I find there’s just so much intimacy and connection to be had when I choose my faith over my fear.

12:23
Wow, I just love that. So when you do get rejected, when you work hard to do some of those things,

12:34
are there other I mean, just gotta suck it in and say, Okay, that’s what happened.

12:46
It’s hard to coach in the abstract. You know, this is because

12:51
I am thinking of an example. I’ll tell you that. Okay. Okay. giving too many. Anything. But yeah, sure. So it’s not me, but I have the other trouble.

13:02
Friend. Hi, Bella, you could ask your friend. All right.

13:06
I get it. So it’s all personal advice in here? Yeah.

13:11
I will tell you that 99% of the time we start out with a challenge around, he’s not interested in me physically. It does end up that we we may end up somewhere else, it really doesn’t usually end up being a true problem of physical intimacy can imagine. So yeah, so my, my coaching instinct is kind of popping up right now. And I want to ask like, Okay, well, how does the overall culture in the relationship? How’s the? How’s the tension? Or how’s the peace? How’s the? How’s the connection? How, you know, what happens? When one of you walks in the door? You know, what’s, what’s the, what’s the culture like? So that’s kind of where I want to take that conversation. But given that we don’t have the your friend here to kind of ask her those questions. I guess that would just that would be my, my first line of inquiry is like, how how’s it overall relationship? Because 99% of the time, that’s where the problem is going to be not it’s not really about the physical intimacy, that’s more symptomatic of the other, maybe a lack of emotional safety, I would say in the relationship.

14:26
I it’s beautiful that you just gave us some really good insight into what your coaching looks like. Because, you know, that’s a huge part of what you do. And could you talk a little bit about your coaching because I know, I’m sure that listeners are like, Oh my gosh, that’s amazing.

14:43
Coaching is an amazing experience. And gosh, I just love it. So I have a whole coaching body we have, there’s over 30 coaches that and we all have the same credential, I would say that the one that I’m most proud of which is, we have all had marriages that were broken to some greater or lesser degree. All the way from I have coaches where the husband had another woman and was filing for divorce. And she’s the skills to not only save the marriage, but make it better than it’s been since they were newlyweds. So every coach has this credential. You know, to some degree, like I don’t have that story. But I certainly was right on the brink of divorce. And many of my coaches were right on the brink of divorce, and have made things great again, so. And just like you wouldn’t want a personal trainer who’s like got a spare tire, right? Or like, you wouldn’t want your financial planner to be on the verge of bankruptcy, right. So that’s the thing I feel like is the most compelling is that we’ve, we’ve been in the ditch, and we figured out how to revitalize that intimacy. And so, so I’ve just felt like that gives you the most credibility in terms of showing another woman how to do it. But we also, we also don’t have any advice, we don’t really know what’s best for anyone. But we just have these experiences that we’re willing to share. And we also have just deeply listening and empathy is a big part of coaching, just being present to what your client is going through and having her know that she’s not the only person who maybe just didn’t have a good role model of what an intimate relationship looks like, right? My parents are divorced, so I was following the failed recipe. So for me, it’s just been a wonderful thing, to be able to provide these examples of real relationships, that are really what we all want out of a relationship where they fall asleep, snuggling, or, you know, they dance together in the kitchen. And that’s what they’ve created for themselves. That’s what these women have done by using the intimacy skills. So So yeah, so coaching is magical, I highly recommend for everyone who can who is interested or wants to create that for themselves?

17:07
Yes, yes, yes, yes. And the thing I, you know, I have very limited capacity in terms of timing to coach, but when I do, it’s, I just love and I, I fully 100,000,000% recommend that they go with your coaching, because of everything that you just discussed. But sometimes I feel like, I’m so grateful that person came for coaching, because they are suffering, they are suffering so, so much, and they don’t have to be suffering. Like, I’m so grateful they made that choice. You know, like, and I have suffered through that. And it’s in its literal suffering, you know, the kind of abuse that women experience in marriage, and you’ve said it yourself and in different resources that very often emotional abuse is as a result of not implementing a lot of the things we’re talking about, it turns into an emotional abuse, and it is literal abuse. It is, after marriages, you know, breakup, like that there’s, there’s greater risks of, of mental health challenges, not to mention a myriad of, you know, just, there’s just so much and I mean, you so deeply know this, but it’s just so sad to think that people spend 1000s and 1000s of dollars on a wedding day, and no money on something that could literally transform their marriage. I mean, absolutely. I mean, here you are talking about it, I’m talking about it, my whole audience, I’m pushing them towards your resources, because it changes marriages. You just, it does, like by God’s grace, you know, you have a gift to be able to share how to, you know, it’s interesting. So, obviously, this is a Christian podcast, you know, and we do seek to follow scripture in the way that we are wives in my first marriage, I sought very, very much to to submit, I tried very hard to do what I was supposed to do, and it broke my spirit. I was abused emotionally and physically and economically. And had I gotten a hold of your work. I’m fairly confident that none of that would have happened. By God’s grace, where we are today is exactly or should have been, but it’s just incredible to understand, you know, so, to continue the story, my second marriage who I’m married to now. I was just like, I’m done with this whole submitting nonsense. I’m the leader because that’s my role. Like that’s what God made me to be. I have the stronger personality. I lead in professional situations. My husband doesn’t like bleeding, those kinds of things. And then and then there was so much discord. And it was didn’t make any sense. This should be peaceful. And so yeah, what your work in reintroduced me to is? How do I become a more biblical wife with the freedom and the equality and the understanding of I am just as equal to a man and I’m just as uniquely made in God’s image. And yet there are uniquenesses that allow us to be complements, rather than competitors or those kinds of things.

20:40
Yeah, absolutely. I was laughing with a friend recently, they were saying, feminism is where you say, men are awful. And we’re the same, you know, it’s like, Well, wait, you know? But right? Absolutely consider myself a feminist in terms of wanting to see women have equal opportunity to earn and provide for their families or, or just be successful with what their calling is, right? I have a big mission in the world, to end world divorce. And so I’m just every day I try to think how I can become the leader, I need to be, you know, to really grow into those big shoes. So, so I absolutely hear you that you know about the biblical principles and submission and feeling like, yeah, you are, of course, you’re going to try to follow your faith because you know, it’s there to guide you to your greatest good and your greatest happiness. And I just remember feeling like, I believed it, too, you know, I believed submission was the right thing. And I just didn’t know how, just how, and so for me, it was like those devils were in the details. And just finding the letters, the words to, like I say, to put my heart in the right spot, where I wanted it to be was really helpful. Just that. And they mostly, mostly, the cheat phrases feel really awkward the first time you say, like, the first time say, I apologize for being disrespectful, like that’s awful. But then you see the results? And that’s actually magical.

22:25
Yeah, it really is. It really, really is. Can I ask you about? What if sex feels unsafe? In terms of being receptive, but what if, whether, let’s say it’s it’s not physical abuse, let’s say it’s not, you know, that, but what it feels like he just doesn’t respect your sexuality, and so you don’t feel safe?

22:57
Yeah, that’s, that’s an awful, lonely, horrible feeling, to feel. And I think it’s, sadly, I think it’s fairly common that women feel like they’re just getting used. And it’s really not even about lovemaking. It’s just more about him getting off, right, so. And so, for me, the were the key, the key to that challenge has been going back to that idea of desires, and really expressing desires and honoring my desires, not discarding them so easily. So. So for instance, it might be so I might start out by saying, you know, what I would love to do is just, like, get into the batter together, in like, I would love some rose petals, and I would love a glass of champagne, and I would love to have the music on. And I would love this kind of music. And so that so then the lovemaking really becomes about my desires, and him really, and so. And that’s been because men are so built with that hero gene to make their wives happy. That can be a really effective way to make, make it feel like love making unless like, you know, something less than that, that that nobody really wants. So, so that’s been a powerful thing is just getting super clear on what those desires are. And by the same token, it’s interesting as I let my husband influence me too, I’ve realized that so when his values is he loves a quickie, right? I think most men do slow mo to microwaves right when it comes to sex. And so I have actually come to really appreciate also a quickie and that wouldn’t mean that I’m not getting satisfied, like I’m still going into this, you know, 99.9% of the time, I’m going to be orgasming to also just like kind of like seeing like letting his influence also be part of our lovemaking. So, so it doesn’t I don’t feel taken advantage of I just feel like okay, here we go. This is gonna roll I got like 10 minutes or whatever. 10 minutes, right? Yeah.

25:12
Yeah, yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love that. So it sounds like just just kind of not not going into it, you know, with fists and, you know, kind of like we’re gonna, I’m gonna explain how terrible you’re making me feel and all these things instead, you’re, you’re expressing your desires. And you know, this is what I’d love to do. I’d love to, I’d love to enjoy ourselves tonight, I’d really love you to just touch my whole body and enjoy my breasts and all these other things. Whereas normally, maybe he would just go straight for his own pleasure. But you can just kind of express the very specific things you’d like. That would be really wonderful.

26:01
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that is exactly right. Those are great examples. Like, because I might say, like you to touch me here, like touch me like that, as opposed to like, not like that.

26:15
It’s true, because that also is a dig into his insecurity and his feelings of respect. And one last one that I think is really huge one, sadly, but really huge one in terms of sex. So what about so if a man’s hooked on porn? How can you help them stop that addiction? Can you? I think I’ve heard some of your thoughts on it before that all men are at least familiar with porn, if not have you know, whatever? I mean, what do you think about the

26:52
internet? Like all little boys, probably too, right? It’s so prevalent, unfortunately. Um, and so there’s a lot of reasons that porn is just a pretty tragic thing in the world, right? And it does feel just lousy thinking about like, oh, my gosh, so there’s some woman who’s younger and thinner, and make it and my husband’s looking at her like, oh, awful feeling. And so I don’t wish that on anybody. And, um, what’s been interesting is that, so as human beings, we all have this thing built into us, which is when something we perceive it’s going to be scarce, it becomes more alluring. So think about like, when there’s going to be a hurricane or something like all the batteries, and the water disappears from the store shelves, right? We just everyone goes out, it’s like, Oh, I’m not going to get any. So I’m going to get a whole bunch right now. And some, in some ways, like having expectations or rules around porn, can actually really backfire and contribute to making it seem more alluring than it really is. Because when you think about it, can a two dimensional woman really compete with a three dimensional woman that’s like in his bed, and I, you know, ideally, is willing to engage with him sexually No, really can’t compete. So does that mean like, Oh, if you have sex with your husband, whenever he wants, will that will that be the end of porn? No, unfortunately, not necessarily. That doesn’t seem to be the way it works. But it is, I think it’s a positive, helpful thing in the relationship to make sex available as much as you can so that there isn’t a scarcity, which creates a kind of unnecessary tension in the relationship, right? I mean, one of one of the vows we take in marriage is to have and to hold. And so we I think we get upset about like, well, he’s breaking the vows by looking at porn. It’s like, whoa, you know, the part that we can look at is like, how are we showing up for bows? That’s the only thing he can control. can’t really control what he’s doing. But you can make it can exacerbate the problem. You can make it much worse by focusing on it and trying to control it, unfortunately. Yeah,

29:12
it’s so helpful. This is so wonderful. I really, thank you so much for your time. And I will say that I’m I rarely sign up to emails, but I get yours. And I love it. I love it. Just it’s just a good shot in the arm. You have great blog posts and great stories that just kind of like yeah, that’s just what I needed. I needed a little little encouragement to be practicing these skills and just, it’s just great what you’re doing. I’m so grateful.

29:44
Thank you. Thank you so much. belah. I appreciate that.

29:51
are you grateful for everything that you just got to hear from Laura? I really am. And I said in the beginning of the Last are the first part of my episode with Laura is that I, I buy her books in bulk and hand them out. And that’s practically what I do. So I, I, I think the last time I bought 10, at least at least five of her books and I just I’ll, I’ll have a heart to heart discussion with someone and I will give it to them. I even a friend of mine who’s single and I went to five different churches to pick up the information about their small groups. And I got that so that she would have churches to go to with their small groups. But the deal was if I did that, she would have to read surrendered single, which is also by Laura Doyle. I haven’t read surrendered single but I’m, I believe it’s similar to surrendered wife anyway. So I just I just, I just am so grateful for Laura’s work, and I obviously am a true fan. So but like I said, from the onset, you know, test everything against scripture. How does this make sense scripture? You know, I think the first one, as women we really trip up on that make yourself ridiculously happy. How does that make sense to Scripture? Well, what about Rejoice in the Lord always and again, I say rejoice. The joy of the Lord is our strength. And like, well, that’s the Lord. That’s religious, pious, sacrificing. That’s not just happiness. But the truth is joy. God made that he made delight. That’s his it wasn’t the world’s. So absolutely, these are are nuggets within scripture that you don’t have to think that it’s not simply because it doesn’t have a Christian label. I encourage you to test things and decide is there a way that this would be wisdom for me in my marriage? I think for me, as I mentioned, I would not be able to follow what Scripture says about husband and wife’s relationship. Had I not read