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Do you want unity in your marriage? Do you want her to feel safe to be utterly vulnerable and literally naked before you? Then it is NOT helpful for her to know your past sex life.
You probably have forgotten plenty of your past, but once you’ve told her it will stay with her for years–even decades.
Whatever sexual sin you’ve had before (or even the porn you’ve done while) is sin. It’s your job as a man to discipline your mind, and your actions to be faithful to her. But if you’re making her your “accountability partner” it’s like saying: “honey, I’m trying not to look at other women, imagine them naked and pretend having sex with them”. That will hurt her. Get your act together sir, get to a church, get vulnerable with someone–don’t do this in isolation but don’t load your dirty laundry on her. Because this will make it HARDER for her to make love (and of course that’s what would actually HELP you avoid the temptations anyway).
So, whether you think you’re just “being honest” you do not need to be unwise with your words. Words start forest fires. I speak to women daily about how unloved and ugly they feel because their husband struggles with porn. Women have constant insecurities all around sex. Your job as a man? Gratitude for EVERYTHING she is and does around sex. Tell her and show her how extremely grateful and gratifying her sexuality is to you.
And recognize you don’t and shouldn’t be a victim to your sexual cravings. And I am working with men to change these dynamics in their marriages and have already had incredible results:
-Women are now initiating “I can’t remember the last time”.
-“We made love 2 times this week and it was ‘making love’ not just duty sex”.
-A man separated from his wife shared that they’ve now had several sexual encounters.
SO! If you want to know next steps with me, if you’re a man, I’m opening my Clarity Calls now to you. You can book one here: www.dym.as.me This is a $500 value and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be doing these, so I encourage you to book very soon.
transcript
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.
0:19
Hey there, welcome back. This is belah rose. I hope everything’s going well, today for you, I so appreciate you joining me. I don’t know what you’re up to. But I can just imagine you are driving your car commuting to work. Maybe you’re picking up the kids or not know doing laundry, and there’s so many things. But thank you for choosing to make me part of your day. I want to talk about our sexual past, all of us have sexual pasts. And I want to talk about what should be shared with your spouse and what should not and why. Awesome. So my name is belah rose, I by God’s grace have been given great opportunity to share with the world really sexual education and insights from what I believe is the way God wants us to look at sexuality in our marriages. And what I have an offer for you right now is an actual free clarity call with me which at this point I am doing for free, though it is a $500 value. So I would really encourage you to go to schedule with me www.dy M dot A s dot M E. And I do encourage you to go ahead and do that as soon as you can. Like I said, I’m really not sure how long I’m going to be able to offer this, my schedule is tightening up over and over and over again. So I encourage you to go there as soon as you can. So let me go ahead and get started on this wonderful topic.
2:24
Alright, so first off, I want to talk to you about the power of words. The Bible says a lot about words. If you’re familiar with James at all, I encourage you to go back and read it. It is so in correcting I think is probably the best word about words. It says that words can actually start a wildfire. Let me let me just read a few passages. It’s James three especially. It says and the tongue is a fire a world of an righteousness. The tongue is set among our members staining the whole body setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird of or reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God from the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers these things ought not be so does a spring pour forth from the same opening. both fresh and saltwater. Can a fig tree my brother’s there all lives are a great fine produce fix. Neither can assault Pon yield freshwater I think I’ll continue here 313 who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false in to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above but as earthly unspiritual demonic for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every kind of vile practice. This is my favorite but the vism the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere and a heart harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. It’s pretty powerful to consider how important the words that we speak are. Sadly, I think so many people in marriages, they might take these kinds of verses seriously, outside of their marriage. But inside of their marriage, they act like it doesn’t apply. I find it so strange. You know, why can you treat your spouse? poorly? Why can you speak curses over your spouse? And feel like there’s no problem with your character? I mean, God specifically says wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy, and good fruits and impartial and sincere. Is that what arguments sound like in your household? Is that what the interactions between you and your spouse sound like? Why in the world? Do we cross over all of our standards of character and our standards of decorum? Because we happen to be married to that person? I think this is really important because I think what we do as married couples a lot of times is we think that our character ends up the door once we enter our house, it doesn’t matter that much than when we leave the house, okay, we, we step back into our person in front of Jesus, but while we’re in the midst or in the presence of our spouse, it doesn’t matter. I think that is dead wrong. When you think it’s okay to gossip with your spouse.
7:08
That is not okay, that is not godly, gossip anywhere, anytime, is not godly, judging. Right, it says, Judge not lest ye be judged as the same measure that you judge others, you too will be judged. So if you’re judging others, speaking it even just in the confines of your marriage, you’re still judging. You’re still who you are before your spouse is who you are. That is your closest human relationships. So if you are having a temper, if you are speaking
7:59
impatiently, if you have a, you know, cursing, if there’s a lot of discord in your marriage, if there strife is there, backbiting is there not being open to reason in your marriage? That is who you are before God. Don’t think these are two different things. They are the same thing. Just because you’re married and you became one flesh. When you became one when you got married, that doesn’t mean that who you are before Jesus has changed? I don’t believe I think there’s this really silly notion about how there’s no secrets between couples. And people mean that to say that everything you tell one spouse should be told to the other, or the expectation that one spouse is going to tell the other every single detail. I don’t think that’s right. I think that I don’t care. When people say, Oh, I’m just being honest. Oh, I have to be honest with them. I have to be honest with my spouse. And you know what? No, there are many, many, many things in your heart because the heart is exceedingly dark. We know that from the Bible to many, many, you know, opinions and thoughts that just run across your mind. That should never be shared with anyone, much less the one you hold the most in esteem and the one you care about the most you love the most the one that you want to honor and protect the most. That’s what I keep talking to my my clients about, you know, especially for men. Their role is to protect their wife to protect her heart. Why would you why would you do her in the sword against your spouse. It’s absolutely the opposite. That’s tearing down your marriage. And your wives the same thing. Why would you tear down your husband, it affects him. It affects who he is, as a man, when you tell him negative things about himself, when you accuse him, he, he says, you know him the best. And so if you’re tearing him down, that’s how he believes. That’s what he believes about himself. But I’m just being honest. I’m just being honest. No, you don’t need to be open about everything. You should not be open about the negative things about your spouse, you need to pray long and hard about speaking things over your spouse that’s going to hurt them. And if you just take a moment to consider, ask the question, is this going to hurt my spouse? Is this going to hurt them? Sometimes hurting? Isn’t it bad? But is this going to harm them? Is this an unnecessarily wound I am inflicting? Or is it the truth that must be shared? So here’s another verse that I want to share is in Proverbs 12. Proverbs is my favorite book, and I encourage you to read it. If it’s been a while since you’ve read it. There are just so many truths in there that I mean. I feel like every other verses underlying proverbs 1222 lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. But those who act faithfully are his delight. The next verse says, A prudent man conceals knowledge. But the heart of fools proclaims folly. So the first verse says, lying lips is an abomination to the Lord. The next verse, a prudent man conceals folly, or conceals knowledge. So God’s not saying, Go out and lie. That’s not the answer. Tell the truth. But be wise and conceal knowledge. Does that make sense? You can be a man and woman of truth of God’s truth. But you don’t have to share it all the time.
12:56
Just because you have a truth or something you think is a truth in your marriage? It doesn’t mean you need to share it with your spouse, maybe they do lack confidence. Is it going to help them to say you’re not confident? No, it’s not going to help them. What you can focus on and what you can share are the areas that they are phenomenal in with confidence. So that that starts to permeate other areas of their marriage and of their life, you can start to share. Wow, I loved how you, you know, spoke in that meeting, about your convictions. It reminded me of what a confident woman you are. Who I loved how you stepped up to coach the the Little League baseball team. It just reminded me of how sexy arts you are to take charge of situations when they need to be when there needs to be a leader. Yeah, maybe he’s not the confident man that you feel like you fell in love with but goodness, you need to start helping him have greater confidence is going to grow. It’s going to grow. Be careful with your words. And this all ties into your sex life, all of it. Men and women have this horrible, horrible assumption that your wife needs to know about your sexual past. Horrible If wife and I’ve worked with women like this. She learns about her husband’s sexual past maybe early in their marriage, and it plagues her for decades. decades. She cannot get over it. Because in the back of her mind, she’s thinking is he imagining me or is he comparing me with her? Or all that pornography? Is he imagining that rather than me? You know, there’s a lot of insecurities around that. A lot. That’s the way I think women are wired. You know, it’s not a, you know, as a woman, as someone who has been told, over and over and over again by men, you know, how do you get inside my head, it’s amazing how you understand us better than I understand myself. Like, these are the kinds of things I constantly am emailed from men and yet my own heart has to has to deal with this myself, of how sad it is that my own spouse has had so much sexual history prior to me, it’s very hard to keep your your mind discipline disciplined to believe that he’s not imagining anyone else, he’s not comparing you to anyone else. They you have to keep your confidence about your body, you have to discipline your mind to be confident, you have to discipline your mind to feel your sexy. That’s a discipline for us women. So do not tell your wife about your previous sexual experiences. You as a husband need to discipline your mind. And we as wives have to believe that that’s what you’ve done. But if you share those things with her, that just adds to her burden of discipline that she has to walk in this life with. Instead of wondering, you know, is he thinking about her is he thinking about those experiences that he’s viewed, even if he hasn’t, quote, had them, pornography for a woman feels like he’s had those experiences, because he’s witnessed them. It doesn’t feel like some fake intangible thing, it feels very visceral to her. So I would encourage you, just as a man needs to be extremely careful with his mind. Don’t share those things with your wife. Anything that’s gonna make her concerned that you’re comparing her with anyone else. Don’t share those things with her. Your past. If you’re struggling with your mind, things where you’re comparing if you’re struggling with addiction to pornography, if you’re struggling with
17:44
Yeah, considering affairs, any of that you need to take to share it, but not necessarily with your wife. You need to be considering talking to a pastor talking to a mentor talking to a spiritual man who can be accountable with you who can guide you in that. But heaping all those coals on your wife, I don’t think is, is as helpful.
18:12
Your tongue may start a wildfire of hurt in her heart. And along those lines, what dear women dear wife, do not ask your husband, about his his discipline, how he’s doing with those things. If he’s quote, honest, it may very well hurt you a lot. Because we as women don’t understand the male mind. They have a lot of stuff going on in there. There’s a lot of temptation that they have to walk through every single day.
18:59
Every single day, he has to discipline his mind, not to look at the things that naturally he’s drawn to, not to imagine the things that are so very, even geographically close to him because of, you know, someone who walks by in a miniskirt or an advertisement that pops up on the screen. You know, he really has to work hard at this. And dear wife, if you are obsessed with trying to figure out what he’s thinking, it’s going to really blow up in your face. Don’t have this idle curiosity of what’s going on in his mind. Just trust that he’s doing the best he can. He loves you. He loves your body, and it’s your job, to love your own body and to present it to him in a very confident, sexy way. And that’s the most and everything that you should do. You should not be asking him about his sexual past. You should not be asking him about how he’s guarding your heart. Or if that woman was attractive to him, or you know how he felt about the waitress, or these kinds of things are not going to help you. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. You want to guard your heart, you want to guard your own thoughts. And you want to be the attractive woman to him. And you want to present yourself that way. So you want as a wife, to guard your own thoughts and speak truth over you and blessings over you. That God created you sexy, attractive, that your husband loves your curves. You know, I talk about faith statements a lot, get some faith statements, that you speak over yourself, and you speak over your body, and you speak in the mirror about how beautiful you are, and how much your body turns your husband on. That’s what you need to be talking to yourself about. Don’t talk to yourself about the lies that the enemy wants, those are lies from hell. That’s going to what that’s what’s going to separate you to. Instead, you want it to be the truth of God’s word that he made you that he made you beautiful, that he loves the way you look, that he designed every aspect of your body. And sure, maybe your body doesn’t look the way that it looked 20 years ago, when you and your husband got married. But honoring and loving your body now is the most you can do. It’s the most you can do, it’s the best you can do. Don’t give up on your body. It hasn’t given up on you think about all the people that are on on the you know, in the hospital bed, about to about to perish. Oh, what they would give to trance to trade bodies with you. Don’t disregard your own body because you’re comparing it to someone on the screen. It’s a waste of everything. I found myself doing that recently, to be vulnerable with you to share.
22:24
I found myself doing that recently. I was I’m excited the the movies, all the Avengers movies, you know, all those action movies I like. So they’re coming out with the next one end game. Right. So I, you know, let myself kind of check out some YouTube videos of interviews of some of the cast members of what’s coming, and what are some of the things to look out for and all that stuff. And I found myself just getting into this spot of comparison, you know, because of course, all the women are wearing skimpy clothes. And it just turned into this, this place of like, Whoa, that was fast. That and turned into a comparison game in no time flat. So I just encourage you, you know, depending on how sensitive you are to those things, I’m extremely sensitive to them, I have to be very careful about what I watch and have have to be very careful about what I listen to. I think some people are quite as sensitive as I am. So I don’t want to give a sweeping statement that those are things you can’t look at or whatever. But for me, it’s not healthy, it’s not good. It doesn’t make me want to seduce my husband to a greater degree because I saw these other sexy women, instead of makes me want to hide makes me want to freeze. So I just encourage you don’t let your mind go there. Don’t let you speak those evil things over yourself over your own body over your own sexiness. You have to have trust and faith and discipline that God gave you an amazing, amazing body and he did. And he did you work that thing, honey? Wow, he did. And your husband married you. He loves your body. And the more you’re confident about your own body, the more he’s going to love it. You don’t need to share with him your insecurities. Share that with a girlfriend. You can share it with her. Be like I’m feeling pretty fat today. Or I’m feeling like I don’t have enough of this aspect of my body or whatever. Your husband’s not looking at that. He’s excited about all the things you do have and what you do have in your body. Maybe you’re especially voluptuous because of a bit of extra weight on you since you’ve been married or something so great. You can absolutely accentuate that. In the bedroom, when you’re giving a striptease, you can be very specific about these areas of your body that have become fuller. Recently, let’s say, don’t use that as an excuse or a way that the enemy can get between you and your husband. Use it as an opportunity to grow you all closer. Wonderful. So just running back to this idea of words. You know, we’re supposed to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our mind with all of our strength. And then love our neighbor as ourselves. So when you think about priorities in life, I talked about this a lot. But it’s key, it’s key to be thinking, trying to just put life in a little, little bit of simpler terms, right? Loving God with everything. That’s the first and foremost, that’s the greatest commandment. Is your life looking like that? That you love God with everything? With all with all with all with all? I mean, just by saying it, I feel convicted. How can I love my, my, my husband? Now? That’s not it? How do I love my god? With all? He is God? He is all How am I loving Him with all? I invite you to think about that. What are you loving with all? You know, we have finite resources in this life. It’s not just finite time. It’s not just finite money. It’s not just finite, you know, whatever else resources, but it’s also a finite affection. I don’t think you can love everyone. All the time. But God is a God that requires that affection, loving Him with all.
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And the next thing is to love your neighbor as yourself. And here it makes it a little bit easier, right? Because now you can prioritize who’s your neighbor? Well, the first one is your spouse, if that’s what you committed to for the rest of your life. The next one is your kids. You know, because a good marriage supports raising children. But it has to be in that order. We talked about that in a lot of other podcasts, but your marriage, then your kids. Then your ministry, you know who whose God calling you to minister to. And you know, sometimes that’s people at your work. But a lot of times that’s not a lot of times that’s friends that seemed to be the quote takers in your life. But maybe those are just people you’re supposed to be ministering to. And they shouldn’t be in the taker category. They should be in the category of people I’m supposed to love right now that they need help in this season, I’m supposed to be the one to help them or love them. So it’s your ministry, then it’s your work, right? Bring in finances into, into the family. So the problem is, is when you get those priorities in your life mixed up? Well, then it’s, you’ve got a lot of problems because then you got if you don’t have if you have problems in your marriage, well then it messes up your ability to be a good parents. And it messes up your ability to do well in your ministry. And it messes up your ability to do well with your finances, all those things get messed up if your marriage is in shambles. So what I always encourage, obviously, through this, my ministry is to get your marriage in the right space, so that everything else can fall on top of that, or can fall in place. But consider just consider for a moment if your God is above your marriage. I love what Francis Chan says. He says, if if priorities shifted. Let’s say you were supposed to love your spouse, and then love God.
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would your life change at all? Does that make sense? Are you loving your spouse as though they were God?
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Because your spouse isn’t God. And just because you were meant For 30 years, and it’s a happy marriage that does not guarantee that God is going to be thrilled about the ministry you lead during your life or the way you loved him, or when you look at him at the end of the age that he knew you, right, because that’s what it’s all about is knowing God in this life. And I say this a lot is that it’s all about knowing Jesus in the context of our marriage. Marriage teaches us more about KNOWING JESUS, but don’t let it replace KNOWING JESUS. Knowing Jesus is first and foremost. What does this have to do about words? What does this have to do about your sex life? What does this have to do about marriage? A lot. Because of your sharing things with your spouse, because you think they should know everything or they should be, you know, one with your heart, your heart belongs to Jesus, your oneness belongs to God, your all of your heart belongs to Jesus. So you should be talking to him about all those things on your heart. You should be spending those those those words with God. Your days should start with your with your conversations with God, they should end with your conversations with a god you should have mid time, to at times, in conversations with God, there should be prayers with God, there should be times of just enjoyment and rest and relaxation with God. You don’t have to fill your life with what our society says you have to fill your life with. Keep God as the first of all. And so reading the Bible, reading His word, helping you to be more in line and more. Loving God with everything. That’s what’s gonna matter in this world. That’s what’s gonna matter at the end of the age. After all of that beautiful, wonderful love you have with God. That’s when your marriage comes in. And that’s when your kids and that’s when your ministry and that’s where your finances, that’s when all the other stuff.
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But God is first. And so when you want to talk about anything, talk to God.
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When you have trouble with your words, talk to God. When you have difficulties with hit with things, talk to God. This is not to separate you from your spouse, but it is to honor your relationship with God first and foremost. And to recognize that your spouse should not be your God. I find that a lot of people by God’s grace, you know, they listen to my podcast, but they also listen to a lot of other marriage podcasts, they read a lot of marriage books, and they, you know, they just this is an interest for them. Maybe because they’re struggling with marriage, but also maybe they’re just interested in this stuff. Super cool. Really good, all good stuff. But I want to challenge you Is marriage, your God is that fulfillment, the thing that you’re hoping is going to make you complete or make you ultimately able to feel fulfilled in this life. Because no matter how great your marriage is, and you know, by God’s grace, I have a 10 out of 10 kind of marriage. It doesn’t matter how great it is. Your relationship with God is first it has to be first. It has to be first. Now just because your relationship with God is first doesn’t guarantee you to have a great marriage. I’ll tell you that. There’s a lot of wisdom that goes on after that. There’s a lot of discipline, there’s a lot of necessary practice and by God’s grace, that’s my ministry. That’s the work I do. But don’t let yourself think that because something’s on your heart, it needs to go straight to your spouse. That might not be something that God wants you to share. It might end up hurting your spouse. There might be other ways there might be other things that God’s going to show you about whatever’s on your heart, whatever you’re thinking and praying about. There might be others. Are things okay? Making love? Yes becoming one flesh? Yes. Always Yes, that is always a good thing. Keep doing that. Yes. That is what Jesus was talking about when he said, the two shall become one flesh. But he did not say the two shall become one before Jesus or they shall be judged the same way that’s not the case. So I find sometimes women are so seeking that their husbands be the spiritual leader. And that’s such a desire for them. And it’s great, keep praying for your husband, bravo, I encourage that. I really am not. I’m not taking that away from you, but But you are not beholden to how deep your husband is in his faith. You are before Jesus in this life. And the deeper you go with Christ. You know, the more of a witness you are to your husband. The deeper you go in love and becoming more like Jesus is the more of a witness you are to your husband. So do not share what you should not share with your spouse. But instead bring that to God. Alrighty, well, I hope that has been an encouragement to you. I hope it has shown you. Honestly, some errors of your ways. It happens to me a lot when God teaches me something. And I’m just like, well, I did that wrong for a very long time. So I will just encourage you, that it’s his kindness that leads us to repentance. It’s his kindness. Maybe we couldn’t. Maybe we weren’t ready for a truth like this before now. And God has now called you mature enough. He has said, Okay, you are ready for this next truth. And I want to bring you closer, and just consider this. It’s not a it’s not something to condemn you. It’s an invitation to reclose. To grow closer to Jesus, that you are not in this world, you’re not in your situation on your own. You know, just because your husband isn’t everything that you want him to be. It’s, it’s not because he’s a bad husband. It’s not because he’s not
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the man that you want him to be. It’s because he can never fulfill you. That is God’s place in your life. It must be. It must be in life is still going to be hard at times, there’s still going to be challenges. But when the storms come, you will have your house built on the rock. Let me pray for you, Father, God, Lord, I pray in Jesus name. You know, it’s so interesting how this podcast was meant to be all about words, and becomes all about you. Father, it’s so easy to speak about ideals, and speak about even scripture and meditate on it. But God, to live it and to really connect with you. And to really be your son to really be your daughter, to really love you with all I mean, it feels impossible. But God I pray, Lord, for every person that hears my voice all around the world, in their in their places, their homes, their cars, their walking, wherever they are God, I asked for a greater, renewed, rejuvenated sense of a desire to love you deeper and more. God for a picture of eternity God, that when they stand before you they know you, because they have known you in this life. Got that they know you when they get to eternity God that nothing in this life would distract them from that, that they wouldn’t let it they would push those things aside and say yes, Jesus. Yes, God, you are all you are all to me. Lord, that their goal is not to have the most incredible marriage that’s not ultimately what they desire, but it’s God to do Your will. To do Your will in this earth. To love others well, Father and that they would put those priorities in loving people the right way. Their marriage, their kids, their ministry, whatever that is, then their finances on all the rest. God I believe that whatever nuggets the other person on the end of this microphone would would need. I asked God that you would just allow that to to linger in their hearts as they go about their day. God to just start with more conversations with you very easy, simple conversations with just Hey guys. Hey, God, I wanted to connect with you for a moment. I want you to know I love you. And that’s it. That’s all it has to be. They would start with a church family that would give more insight that they would be loved in and they would see what it’s like to grow and community and grow towards Jesus more and more.
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Lord, I love you. Thank you for being so good to us. I pray that you would hold us closer to you in Jesus name, Amen.
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Thanks for listening. If you’ve been blessed by this, why not share it? Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion