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Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about delight your marriage. Hey there, it’s belah thank you so much for joining. So what I want to talk about today is for the gents, who are at a spot in their marriage where either intimacy is not happening regularly, or it doesn’t happen as frequently as you’d like. Or just the random times that she says no, and you’re really into it, you really want it. So I want to talk about that with you. Now, I do have some resources for gents that are like, If only I could get my wife to listen to Bella’s material, we would, you know, things would really move. And if you’re in that spot, I’d love to give you a free short video training series, you can go to delight your marriage.com/advice. And then you can get access to that. And a gentleman who actually did take the advice and went forward with what I recommended, ended up sending me an email saying, I’m going to paraphrase here, but he was like, you know, Bella, it’s incredible. My wife initiated lots and lots of exclamation points. And then he goes, You know, we had not made love in five plus months, we were on the brink of divorce. I did what you asked, and yeah, and it was better than our honeymoon. So by God’s grace, things can really shift. But let’s talk about what I recommend for gents who are at a spot where you really are craving intimacy with your wife, and, and she’s not, she’s not there. She’s not interested. Whatever may be blocking her. Let’s go to that. Let’s go ahead and dive in. Alright, so what can you do if you are craving intimacy and your wife is not there? Well, a couple of these are going to be lifestyle shifts, so they’re not going to take effect immediately. But then some of these are more immediate, what you can do in the moment. Alright, so the first thing is, I want you to recognize that what makes you a man is not sex. In fact, what you have to do as a man is find things that make you feel like a man, aside from sex. That doesn’t define you. So, when we look at Scripture, it’s very clear. I mean, Jesus was the manliest man, he is our model of manhood of masculinity. And yet sex was not part of his life at all, at all. So that means for you, you can do this. The reason you got married was yes, so you wouldn’t burn with passion. But there are ways for you to feel like a man without having sex. And so what I want you to do is go ahead and, and really dig into God’s will for your life. Because you and I both know that when you get to the time before Jesus, there’s going to be there’s going to be a judgement, there’s going to be an opportunity for you to say, Yeah, this is what this is what I discerned you want me to do with my life, and this is what I did. And so what I encourage you to think about is Matthew, starting at seven starting at 21. It says, Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So, I mean, just apply that to your own life even right now. Are you doing God’s will?

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It says, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven and then a little bit further, I will declare to them I never knew you. So this is I think ending encouragement that you need to know God, and by knowing him discern His will for your life. And so an obsession with whether or not your wife is pleasing you sexually. I mean, in light of eternity, is that not small? Does that not make us embarrassed? Yes, I mean, you can listen to all my podcasts and you know where my heart is, yes, I wish and want and, and pray for a wonderful, intimate connection between the two of you. But if that’s not happening, where, where is your heart in this? What are you doing productively, to make sure that the kingdom of heaven is advanced, regardless, that you are doing God’s will for your life. So that’s the first thing is I want, I want you to purpose in your heart that you’re going to pursue to know God, you’re going to pursue to do His will. So that’s the first one is get your purpose, right. And, you know, in the moment, when you are really craving and your wife is either rejected, or there’s a big barrier to not be able to do that. Literally, reading scripture, in the moment of you being in the mood and turned on will help you. I’ve heard it from men that this is this is something that can help them turn down the Flame of Desire in the moment is Get your Bible out. Start reading scripture, Matthew, that’s one of my favorites. Proverbs, one of my favorites, you could go into the Psalms, get your mind out of the desire, and let your focus rest on God’s purposes. Alright, so the next lifestyle thing is getting a culture in your marriage. That is romantic. Romantic. So we just saw valentine’s day go by and, and I don’t know, if you gave her flowers. I don’t know if you took the extra time to make her feel special. Hopefully you did, but you can make it up to her today. Get her flowers, make her breakfast in bed, take her on a date, do special things that make her feel like she is wholeheartedly cherished. And known for who she is that uniquenesses of who she is who God made her. That man you are graced and gift. Your gift was this woman, the daughter of the king, you have an opportunity to know her to find out more about God through knowing how God designed her. And the final thing is making her feel safe, emotionally safe, where you listened to her, you really listened to her. You care about her emotions. It matters to you how she feels. So when you have that kind of a culture in your marriage, she is drawn towards intimacy. So it’s not a one, you know, incredible, beautiful date day, and then she’s gonna respond to you that night and intimacy. In fact, sometimes that’s in exactly what she won’t do is this incredible, beautiful date day, and it doesn’t end in intimacy, it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong, means you did everything right. And she still needs to get herself in a place where intimacy is something that’s on her mind, and it’s going to be enjoyable and those sorts of things. But if that’s a culture of your marriage, where that’s just normal, then she’s able to be drawn towards intimacy. So it’s got to be a lifestyle. It’s got to be a shift in the way you interact with her every day. Every day that you honor this woman for more than what you can get out of her that your sex drive is not her highest priority. I mean, your expectation of it so so not too long ago, somebody reached out to me and was like, you know, should I something about they read my book and my the only book I have out right now is for women at some point I’ll get one out for men. Sorry, guys, but you know, I have courses for you. So that’s your opportunity there to grow. But for women, you know, the book is very specific in intimacy, actions toward a husband. I do not think men need to read my book. No, it’s for women. Don’t Don’t

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don’t sin out of your curiosity, because now you’re thinking about, Oh, I wish she did that. And I wish she did that. And I wish she did that, gosh, if she only could do that, like, no, don’t cover it. Put your eyes on yourself, discipline yourself in the ways you need to go. So that your wife would respond in love towards you. So make the culture different. That’s the second piece. And a huge part of that is to have low expectations. In fact, no expectations is really the key sexually speaking. So you’re doing these actions, not because you want her to make love to you. But because you want to love her as Christ left this the church, that you are called to a deeper level of love for her. The cool thing about is that I see over and over again, is that she does respond that way. But if you start out with expectations of that, then you’re going to be discouraged. And it’s not going to be long term. But if you’re doing this, because you know what, I’m going to be a different man. Because Darn it, I have I have messed this thing up, I’m going to change, I’m going to be different. And you know, wives are smart, they’re intuitive, and they’ve been hurt. So it’s going to take a while to heal this thing. It’s not going to be, you know, one time and she’s healed, it’s not going to be too it’s not gonna be three, this is a lifestyle of changing who you are with her. So when you have that shift, and the way you interact with her, that the arguments, aren’t there? Yes, you can have disagreements, but they’re completely different than a flat out argument. Argument turns off her desire for intimacy like probably nothing else. I mean, when you fight with her, especially over silly things, I mean, it doesn’t actually silly or big, you can always make an argument. First of all, you can de escalate it. Through listening. You can just not even go there. I mean, I’ve heard of people arguing over which side that toilet paper is on like toothpaste like whites. Are you? Are you five, we don’t need those things. No, no, think about the last three arguments you’ve had? Are they actually? Do they matter? Are you proud of yourself that you got so snippy over something so tiny? I mean, I’m looking at myself here, that happens to me, too. That happens to me too. But if my goal is no arguments, then I get a lot closer to that, than if I say, Oh, well, that that’s a possibility in our, in our culture in our marriage, that’s possibly normal is for us to fight, huh? No, it’s not. It doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be the possibility in our marriage. So this happened just the other day for us is I haven’t fully figured out the motivations here or why or that I was distracted, or I wanted to watch the show or that he was I can’t remember, but I wasn’t especially patient with him. And he had either things he wanted to tell me or anyway, we were both kind of getting snippy at each other. And we both were kind of getting frustrated. And so at some point, I could tell we were we were just not. We just weren’t connecting and it was late. And I said, you know, honey, I think we’re both tired. And I think at this point, we just, were just mad. And there’s I think it would be better if we finish this conversation tomorrow. And you know, I know you’re tired and I kind of want to do this thing is okay if we finish this tomorrow. And we both agreed. Because there’s that verse about never let the sun go down on your anger. I don’t think that means that you need to hash it out before you go to sleep. I think it means that you need to say let’s take a break. And it’s in your heart that you decide I’m not going to be angry. I’m not going to go to bed seething. I’m going to realize you know what, I’m tired. And I probably made some silly choices today and in my mind not thinking right and no, I don’t need to take out my

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lack of sleep on my spouse. I’m not going to do that. Going to bed angry I don’t think means going to bed after you’ve had a big discussion. And usually hurt feelings happen. been late at night because your both are not at your best. You know, big arguments happen at night, very frequently, especially the ones that everyone feels regret afterwards. So that’s a huge encouragement I would give you is to not argue, let that be your goal and decide it’s possible for your marriage, decide you can do that. So like I said, arguments shut down intimacy and desire for my wife, like faster than anything else. And it can take days for her to think that it might be safe to open up again. Especially, I mean, I have no idea what you said in the argument, like, things come out when we’re angry that we do not mean. And so we just can’t let it get there. When we don’t let the fight get there, we start to see that the blood is boiling with emotions are high, we start to see that, oh, man, I want to interrupt the other person. And we stopped and we pause. No, I’m not perfect at this. I’m not. I have a strong desire to interrupt. One thing my husband’s really good about is he slows right on down. He slows down his speech when I start getting fast. And I, you know, I’ve gotten far better than I ever was, I never saw that modeled. I definitely saw a very different way of arguing and fighting modeled. But that’s, that hurts. That kind of arguing hurts. It’s painful. And you’re taking rhetorical knives to your partner. And you expect there not to be wounds afterwards. Anything that you say does affect your spouse, and especially your wife. So be very intentional to change that culture. When I say culture, it just means this is not what we do. This isn’t us. This isn’t what we do in our marriage. This isn’t normal. What is normal is peace. What is normal is calm. What is normal is playfulness. A lot of people they say I don’t know how to flirt with my spouse. Well, you got to start with playfulness. Playfulness needs to be normal for you to before it ever can be any kind of flirtation kind of sexual teasing. It’s got to just be starting out is playful. You like being around this person. I mean, think about the dating phase. You’re playful, you made each other laugh. It was fun to be around the other person. So how do you become playful? Well, you you stick your neck out of there, you you, you’re vulnerable. You try to make jokes and it falls flat. But slowly, she gets more safe. She feels like, Okay, if he’s gonna put himself out there. I’m gonna put myself out there and you’re gonna laugh when she tries it. You know, playfulness. It takes courage. It takes courage I love I love seeing people take courage to be playful. Because I think we don’t realize how courageous it is how much bravery it takes to try to try it to look silly. It doesn’t always work. And sometimes even me and my husband were so playful and flirty and all that but every now and then it falls flat. Sometimes he thinks that I’m serious. So my sarcasm was a little too. Too strong. It wasn’t it wasn’t the, you know, relaxed, playful that I meant it to come out, as you know, and that’s okay. I mean, I love that the the nine out of 10 times it lands really well. And it’s actually connecting experience. So change the culture of your marriage. Make it fun and warm and good. And service oriented in love oriented and making her feel safe and known and cherished wholeheartedly. So that’s the second piece is is changing the actual culture. And then the final piece I would encourage you to do even is you know, when you are desiring intimacy,

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things think about it a little bit less immediately. And thinking about it in like a two three day kind of situation. Because sometimes wives need some time to prepare and decide, Okay, today’s the day you know, maybe she needs to take her shower, maybe she needs to make sure that she’s got all of her stuff shaved and she’s got all of the different things to just prepare. Okay, physically speaking, but what about preparing emotionally and, and feeling like she is loved and she is cherished? So you know, what you could do? Here’s here’s some ideas you could do kind of a I kind of do like maybe a tier one tier two tier Three types of things. So if she is not particularly open to you initiating, so the way you might do it is you start out by just drawing her a bath, and candles and just saying, honey, there’s no strings attached, I just want you to enjoy your evening, I’ve got the kids, you know, and you just let her have time on her own. And I’ll tell you this, you’ve got to have no expectations, and you need to tell her that. And between you and me, that often turns a wife on. And like I said, it might not be the first time might not be the second time might not be the third time, but eventually it might, or it might not. So keep your expectations low. But that is an opportunity. That if you’re really excited, and you’re really turned on this is this is something productive you can do to serve your wife. And possibly she’d be open to more, it’s up to her, but you’re not going to be you’re not going to be grumpy, you’re disappointed in a way that she can perceive. If she doesn’t, because you didn’t have the expectations in the beginning, this was just for her. Another thing you could do is give her a full body massage. But again, you have to in the beginning, make it really clear, there’s no strings attached, you just get to enjoy. Now that might turn around, it might not, she may, you know, she should just be able to enjoy a massage with no strings. So recognize that that’s, you know, that’s an opportunity for you to serve her. Or even just a neck massage or a hand massage or foot massage or just different things like that. Okay, so that’s kind of tier one. Tier Two is more along the lines of, you know, sharing with her maybe in the morning and say, Honey, I’d really love to make love sometime maybe today or tomorrow. And you just mentioned it, just a little seed, if you will plant a seed, and then water that seed by sending her a text of how much you love her. And a little bit of romance Have you looked beautiful this morning. I love the smell of your hair, something something very beautiful and, and loving, you know the stuff that’s like, you look so hot, or you look so sexy, that doesn’t always really actually turn on a wife. Necessarily, maybe in the moment it does, but, but ahead of time, especially text communications or nodes, that doesn’t always do it, it depends again, on your culture. Like if you’ve gotten to a place where that’s normal and good, and she likes that then then feel free. But if you’re not there, then then that’s you know, stick to the more romantic type languages language. And then that night, you know, make her dinner, the kids and then clean up afterwards and say Honey, I you know, feel free to go go take your time. Now here’s something at the at the the last part of this that’s really key is transitions. So when you are transitioning to sex that’s the part where it gets awkward. So I’ve heard a lot of times men are like, she says something in the morning that she’s open to it or wants to tonight, and then nothing happens that night. Um, so you know, frustrated, disappointed all that stuff. Which makes sense. But the thing is, in her mind, she might think that she initiated but you just didn’t take the initiative, you just didn’t kind of go with it by the evening time. Because it’s that transition. That’s that somebody needs to start. Right. So she did the indication she was open to it. You get to when she comes in the door of the of the bedroom, you get to say, Wow, you look awesome. Come here, honey, let me kiss you all over, you know, something where you are then providing the energy for sex to start.

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Unless you know, like that, I mean, that’s just somebody’s got to take the courage and energy to start and you kind of in a half back, half baked way. Right before bed. You’re like, alright, let’s come upstairs or, okay, I’m turned on let’s have sex or something like that without having giving her the preparation without, you know, kind of the morning and the day of her being able to prepare, then you are Yeah, you’re you’re you’re setting yourself up for failure. She’s, she’s not in the mood because she was never put in the mood. She was never enticed into the mood and that’s your opportunity. So, again, this might take a day it might take two days, you know, but if sex is really as important as you think it is, then Isn’t it worth you going out of your way to make it such that she wants it. If it’s really as important, as you say that it is, then then do the effort to make sure it actually happens. Don’t put in your head like, oh, this should be so easy for her. You know, it takes under a half an hour or whatever, however long it does take you guys know, it’s not easy. It’s not. And you actually become more of a Christ centered man, by the fact that it doesn’t just naturally happen many times for women. It’s not just this natural desire all the time, and that’s okay. You get to become more like Christ. Because of that. Right? You become more of a man of the fruits of the spirit of love and joy and peace, and patience and goodness, patience, right Patience, patience, patience and gentleness, man, a gentle man, he sexy, gentle man. It’s true. It’s true. Faithful faithfulness, a man pursuing Jesus with his time in the Word, His time in prayer and faithful to his wife, and self control, where he doesn’t say everything on his mind. Where he doesn’t pursue sinful things. Self control. That sexy, that’s what attracts your wife. So that those are those are really important things. I think I’ve given you some lifestyle things. I’ve also given you some practical things. The other just some practical things, if you’re desiring in the moment, and she just can’t get herself there. She’s not in the mood, you guys don’t have a great relationship. There’s whatever, you’re still working on these lifestyle, culture things. And you’re just not there yet. So so how do you keep yourself from sinning? When you’re really turned on? Well, get yourself really busy. Go for a walk, you know, pick out that guitar and start playing. Do something that makes your mind busy. This is key. Thinking about it all the time, you know, even even just moving into praying about it? I mean, yes, pray about it. That’s good. But you have to understand there are limits. Right? Is it is that the only thing God wants you to be praying about? Is your sex life? I don’t think so. I don’t think so. There’s too many things going on in the world that you can put your mind on and pray about and help start a ministry start a part time thing that’s going to help other men or other individuals that are going through certain things like serve more volunteer more go fishing. You know, somebody said he bought a, he bought a lawnmower because he realized that was his, that was kind of his, his time alone. And he he realized that that’s something he actually enjoyed. He thought him Yeah, so anyway, I mean, just different things that you can do. You know, think about when you were young, like what were the kinds of activities you liked, get a skateboard, I mean, do something that that gets you active pickup. Boxing are different ways, I really encourage you to move your body you know, get in the word and, and add hobbies to your life. Those are important just in the moment things so. So if you’re, you know, let’s say you learned piano, which there’s actually this great app, I just got turned on to called simply piano and it’s actually really fun to learn the piano. So that might be something you want to do. And

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and then you’ve got this skill that now when you are frustrated, or you are whatever, you’ve got this you can just turn to right away. You know, get your mind off of it. So yeah, so that’s my encouragement for you. There’s lots of lifestyle things that you can shift and then there’s in the moment, things that you can shift right away to let me pray for you. Father, I pray for this gentleman who is struggling with desire that his wife is not filling and you know, his heart and you know, my heart is for him, you know that? Gosh, I want him to have a great intimacy in his marriage but I want more so for him to be in line with your well. I want more so that when he gets before you that you say well done, good and faithful servant, calm and enjoy that. I think it’s the joy of your master. Come in. board I pray That’s what he would hear God because this disappointment in his marriage is not going to consume him any longer. He’s going to do things that are productively moving the ball forward for his marriage, but he’s also going to take his mind off of it. And he’s also going to pursue things that are going to make you smile, God, not not just listen to another podcast that’s only about this topic, God that he’s gonna add balance to his life, and he’s gonna cause his mind to be freed up to do more in this life, Lord, and you’re going to give him the grace. It says in first Corinthians 10, that we’re never tempted, tempted, beyond what we are able, but you always give an opportunity for escape. Give him that place of his opportunity to escape. Lord, you care about this man. Men are awesome. You want him to be the man that he’s supposed to be? And Jesus, you modeled manhood was not about sex. That is not what manhood is. Give him the grace to have a vision for manhood. True masculinity father. We love you. We thank you for this opportunity. Lord, let this podcast go out to every man that needs it. In Jesus name, Amen. So, so this is actually a great segue didn’t plan on this, but my masculinity reclaimed program is coming up. So it’s going to be coming up mid to late March. And so in order to get on that list, I encourage you to actually go to delight your marriage.com/ Men’s training. And if you go to that, you’ll actually be signed up for the free men’s masterclass, that’s going to be coming up. And then at the end of that masterclass, I’m going to have an opportunity for you to enroll in the masculinity reclaim program. I had a gentleman reach out to me, and he’s a graduate, he’s had incredible results with his marriage from even just a couple times a year, and now it’s mostly every week for intimacy for him, and his wife didn’t know he was doing the program by God’s grace. And that’s a common result. Honestly, it is. So thank God for that. But he didn’t like the name masculinity reclaimed. And so I’ve decided, I’m going to keep it. Because I just can’t think of anything better. And I think it’s the right one. Because I think you what we learn in what I teach in that program is truly masculinity in the way I believe God desires it. And yes, I think our culture has caused masculinity to be freakin the wrong way. And so that’s what this program is about is getting it aligned. And by God’s grace, yeah, intimacy is a very common result, it’s generally the result, in most cases, that intimacy, in every respect, including physical intimacy grows, as a result of the men actually doing the work in the program. So go ahead and go to delight your marriage.com/ Men’s training, if you’ve been on, you know, listening to me for a while, and you’ve just, you know, your heart’s kind of been tugged each time, like, should I go? Should I do it? Should I do it? I mean, you know, the days are just ticking by, this might be the opportunity to completely change your life. And that’s, that’s the definite result. No matter who you are in the in the program, if you do the work, your life is changed by God’s grace.

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And so you’ll hear more about that. I think next week, I’ll probably have an interview I did recently of a graduate that’s just such a cool interview and, and he gives a lot of the tools in fact, in the concepts that I teach in the program, so no matter what, you’ll get some really good value from that. All right, well, thank you for listening. And I just believe that God’s gonna do awesome things in your heart. And it’ll turn off this podcast after this one and, and do something productive that I kind of gave examples of, don’t, don’t binge Listen to me anymore. All right, go to something that’s gonna make you really smile and be in love with Jesus and, and pray and read your word, but also just have a good time. Enjoy the abundant life that Jesus died to give you. All right, sir. Thanks so much for listening. God bless you.

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Bye