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“Duty sex” or “lazy or selfish husband”. These are phrases I hear a lot. And it’s sad.
It’s certainly not what a good and loving marriage should be. “Duty sex” often means a wife’s body might be present during physical intimacy, but her mind and enthusiasm are far, far away. These are painful to a man’s heart.
And “lazy or selfish husband” is usually the man who from her perspective takes her for granted–the romantic getaways, surprises and special gifts or experiences are long gone and his character is abysmal. These are painful to a woman’s heart.
It comes down to our discipline to change these parts of ourselves. Feelings are important and God-given. They get to be acknowledged, drained, and let go. They are important, and you can curiously listen to them (in yourself and others), but at the end of the day they don’t get to “drive your bus”–your values do.
In this episode, both husbands and wives will be edified to become more aware of their own gaps of discipline which is causing their feelings to go in the wrong direction.
And I’ll share the important and generally unusual disciplines that will get your feelings on track to pursue God’s will for your life in the context of your marriage.
Blessings,
Belah
PS If you write a review on iTunes, I’d love to send you some free trainings! Post a review and send me a screenshot – find out how at delightyourmarriage.com/itunes
Transcript:
Belah 0:02
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. Hi there and welcome. I’m so grateful that you’re joining me. And if this podcast has meant something to you, and impacted you, I would so appreciate you to add an iTunes review. You can go to delight your marriage.com/itunes to find out how to do that. And if you do, you’ll actually be you can send me a screenshot at belah at delight your marriage calm. And I’ll send you some free trainings from some of my best selling courses. So I’d love to have you involved in that promotion. Yeah, it helps spread the work. So I really appreciate your help on this. And today, I want to talk about the discipline of intimacy. And that may sound really awful. And I don’t know, the 1950s or something where I don’t know it was normal for sex to be a duty. And that’s that’s not but what I mean by that, but but let’s dive in because I think it’s going to be elucidating for you and I pray it will be.
Belah 1:40
Alright, so discipline sounds like a dirty word. For a lot of reasons, but I think it’s because our culture and society really elevates feelings. And I understand feelings are important, they should be validated, they should be heard between a husband and wife, you know, if if somebody is having significant feelings, I mean, that’s an opportunity of the spouse to listen and to be there and to validate and to allow that frustration to be aired. And we’re learning in parenting coaching right now that that gentleman named Gordon Neufeld says that emotions need to be drained. And it’s this idea that for their for children, it’s you know, it starts out as anger, that frustration is anger. But you want to eventually it get to sadness, because there’s nothing they can do about whatever the issue is, and, and you need to be there to, to hold them in their sadness, essentially, you know, metaphorically hold them, but also even physically hold them. And so that’s something in in marriage, that’s very, very important. So with your spouse, strong emotion, all you need to do is be there to listen and reflect what they’ve said back to them. And, you know, say I’m so sorry, you’re feeling that way, that’s really tough. And help them to, to work through it themselves, not fix it, not say, Oh, that’s too much for me to handle any of those things. It’s, it’s not about you in the midst of the emotion. They’re not, you know, sad and upset, and all these things because of you. But you get to be that person, that safe person who listens, and lets those emotions drain. So that’s the first thing about feelings and emotions, their God given gifts, they’re valid. Husbands, you can validate your wife’s emotions, why if you can validate your husband’s emotions, that’s, that’s a good thing. Listening to those. Hearing those being curious about how each other are feeling. My husband often says, How are you feeling? It just random, that’s just at random times. And that was something I never grew up with that somebody cared about my feelings I was, I was a new concept. Not, you know, not in a you know, not, not to say badly of my upbringing, but more of that just wasn’t part of the conversation. But as a spouse, you want to care about your spouse’s feelings. Okay, so now let me switch the attention to you. Because so far, I’ve been inviting you to care about your spouse’s feelings. What about your feelings? Well, first of all, uh, be gentle with yourself. That that’s my first encouragement is that feelings are very. It’s almost like they need to be acknowledged, and then they need to be let go. If they’re not aligned with your values, so our society often is like, well, if you Don’t feel a certain way. That means almost like it’s guiding you, your feelings guide you into good or bad. And, you know, sometimes God does speak to us through our feelings sometimes that that does happen. But you have to be very cautious of, am I letting my feelings you know, drive the bus? Or am I saying okay, I, I hear you, I hear that feeling, I’m going to keep driving, but you go ahead and sit back there. And when they need to get off the bus, they will maybe they’ll get off the bus because so what I mean by all of this is that you have to know what matters to you most have some, some strong articulation of those values. So one thing that I work with my clients on is a vision document, and a life vision document and what that does, as I go through each area of my life, and I really articulate when I get to Jesus, what do I want to be true of me? What do I want to present my life and say this is true. It’s not exactly a
Belah 6:11
you know, Stephen Covey with the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I read that, gosh, years, years and years ago, and that really informed a lot of my life. But one of the things that it talks about is imagining your own funeral. And, and what different people in different areas of your life would say about you. And so your work and your, your job, you know, what, you’re your home life, your extended family, your immediate family, all of those, your spouse. And that’s important, that’s good. But the problem is, it’s really focused on living before people. And as believers, that’s not really what we’re doing. We’re living before Christ. And if we’re living to impress people, then then our anchor is wrong. Our anchor is in people’s opinions of us. And, you know, as well as I do, humans are such fickle people one minute, they love you one minute, they’re, they, they have this awful judgment of you. I mean, that’s just how all of us are, it’s something we have to constantly die to the flesh and, you know, discipline our minds to but so articulating what you want to be true of your life before Jesus is important, to really get clear, like, a lot of us have this vague idea. But what do you really want to be true of you? So what I have is, is basically a document that clarifies, you know, what do I want to be true of my character? Of my, well, I guess the first thing is of my relationship with Jesus. And that kind of clarifies into habits what, what is my habit look like? Because we can’t have a relationship that doesn’t have time spent with him. Or, or time in His Word, or those sorts of things are required for us to have a real relationship with Jesus. So if you think about, okay, that’s first, then your spouse, what does that look like? What are the areas that matter most to your spouse? And, you know, if you’re a wife, you want to be loving your husband in respect and admiration and wholehearted sexual intimacy and how are you in all of those areas of your husband, you want to be loving your, your wife and knowing her in making her feel safe and finally wholeheartedly cherished? So how did you do on all those things? The next one family, you know, how are you as a parent? What are the things your kids knew about you over and over and over again, and and then just moving into, you know, maybe extended family may be career what are the other elements of your life that are most important and just articulating that getting it thought through. So that becomes basically the anchor of, of you, of who you are of what you want your life to stand for. And so then, when you are having feelings, it’s okay to have feelings, you can acknowledge those you can say those are valid, and you can trust that there there may be elements of this that God wants to show you through it. But if you kind of have that feeling, maybe express it have someone safe that you can talk to about it hopefully it’s your spouse or or someone else. But then you have to look at that feeling and decide is this according to scripture you know, is this according to my values is this according to again that life vision document and as a Christian, it’s it’s so great that we have the Bible because it’s so, so much easier to get clear on What we value and, and what matters to us because there’s so much insight in the Word of God to help clarify what? What matters most. So this is a discipline, it’s a discipline to realign our feelings to, to our deeper values. So how do you fix your feelings? If you’re like, I’ll give just some examples here. Let’s say you are struggling with attraction to someone else. And you just have these strong feelings. How do you? How do you get out of those feelings? Well, it’s, it’s, it’s what we focus on, produces feelings, what we focus on produces feelings. And
Belah 10:54
so if you start to shift your focus, you say, You know what, it’s more important that I lust after my spouse than anyone else, I mean, that’s my value. So then you change your focus, you start focusing on your spouse, and their sexual, sexually exciting qualities and the things that you are attracted to them at first. And, you know, even if you’re having struggles with fantasies during sex, I mean, that’s a discipline of your mind to stay present, to bring yourself to the present over and over and over again, and decide, no, I’m, I’m going to have passion for my spouse, that’s who I’m allowed to lust after. And that’s what I’m going to do. And then it’s your focus, bringing your focus back to their sexual qualities, you were attracted to them. If you’re struggling with that, now, remember, you were attracted to them, you can bring those memories back to mind the memories of of being hot and and excited about your spouse. And allowing that to be your focus. Alright, so that’s one example. Another example is, and I’ll, again, kind of address this to women is your sexual desire. If we if we focus on you know, a lot of women, I mostly work with women who has have low libido, if their focus is on, oh, I just don’t want to make love or I’m not that I don’t crave my husband or I just don’t think about sex. Well, think about it. Is that aligned with your values? Is that aligned with that life vision document? Do you want to crave sex? Do you want to be wholehearted in sexual intimacy? Do you want, you know, that includes feeling sexy about your body and not putting yourself down? That’s a discipline, it’s a discipline to decide, you’re going to have a strong desire. Okay, fine. So maybe it’s not totally natural right now. That’s okay. It’s sometimes it’s the it’s an act of the will, to get to a place where you can be present and enthusiastic and sex. It doesn’t mean that it’s a duty. No, because that’s the that’s not enthusiastic and excited. But just like, in lots of areas of life, we have to say, You know what I’m feeling a certain way. But I am going to get in there and do something different than my feelings. For example, maybe you’re feeling nervous to get in front of a audience to say something. But you know, it’s important that you say that thing, whether it’s for work or presenting in a ministry arena, it is more important that you do the thing. And you act as though it’s natural. So, again, getting in front of an audience when you’re nervous. Instead you decide, I’m going to be excited. I’m going to be confident, I’m going to put my best foot forward and pretty soon you start feeling those things because that’s, that’s your focus, that’s your decision, is to be that way is to possibly act in faith that way before you necessarily feel it. But pretty soon, you start feeling it starts being easier for you. So with a wife, who doesn’t feel in the mood, okay, fine. What’s more important, your feelings, or actually loving your spouse in a very real practical way? What’s more important? And again, you might start by acting in faith, but the cool thing is your feelings catch up to you because that’s what you’re focused on. That’s your focus. Your feelings go where you focus. If you’re focused about Gosh, this feels good to connect to my husband, it feels good to enjoy the pleasure, it feels good to be present and feels good to actually pursue my own orgasm, it feels good to, to feel sexy in my body and choose to feel sexy, my body, all those things are going to cause it to actually come real true. Yes, it might be faith at first. But then the cool thing is the way God made us is, when we have faith for the way that we want to be. He changes us into those things that might start out as an act of the will. And the cool thing about women is, with our cycles and with everything else in our lives, and I think I have a podcast that says something like an episode that says something like
Belah 15:53
organize your life for passion, wives, you know, when we do some of those things, we can get to a place where passion is a natural thing, a natural desire. And then there are some days that it is an act of the will, and there are some days that, you know, instead, it’s too much energy to receive. And it’s better to actually give. And that’s where Penny is a great opportunity for you to love your husband in a very practical way where he feels loved and and sometimes that actually takes less energy than you receiving intimacy. But don’t think of this as a duty. This is your opportunity as a spouse, as a wife, to make your husband feel loved, to cause him to have an extra pep in his step, to give him an incredible surge of all the good feelings of oxytocin. And just, I mean, this is this is us practically doing what we say is important to us. When we say we want to get to the end of our life and say yes, my highest human assignment I served in loved Well, that’s got to be your spouse. And that is a discipline on a consistent basis. And you’ve got to get your feelings in line, you’ve got to make decisions, so that you’re not a victim to your life. None of us are victims to our lives. Unless you are, you know, dragged off into prison. And even then there are there are people that have chosen to change their inner state. So they are not a victim there. I mean, there are just so many amazing examples of that, that we can be inspired by. But none of us have to feel as though we are victims to this life, we all have an opportunity to shift our interstates. No, it’s not easy. And it takes a process and over and over and over again. But we can get there so so no, it’s not a duty, it is an opportunity. And it gets to be your discipline to have a choice that your your feelings can be aligned with your values. Alright, so I’ve I’ve talked through things for women, what about for men? What about for you? Um, well, are there things that would make your wife smile? That have been a while since you’ve done them? Probably, what are some things she loved in the beginning of your relationship? That, golly, it’s been a minute, since you’ve decided they were important enough for you to do them. You know, whether it’s surprising her to take her on a date, or really going far out of your way to think about what would make her smile and doing it and, you know, part of that is confidence. Just like for women, it’s requires confidence for them to get out there in some skimpy thing and shake her hips in front of you. That’s confidence. It requires us to put our self consciousness on the backburner and say, You know what, I’m going to get out there. I’m going to risk being rejected or judged. I’m just going to go for it. It’s worth it. I think my spouse deserves me to to be confident enough to try these things. And so you know, if it’s been a while since you’ve bought her flowers or done some special you know, delight or I call them delights. I encourage husbands to go out of their way to do a delight at least twice a week. Because that’s, that’s putting in your habits to make her feel like you know her And she’s wholeheartedly cherished by you. You think about her, you want to surprise her. You want to do fun things for her. Yeah, again, and to have a wholehearted mindset around it is a discipline.
Belah 20:18
It’s a discipline. No, you probably are not thinking about just naturally how can I make this woman swoon? You’re not thinking about it, because you’ve got her, quote unquote shoes in your house already. You’re not having to win her heart like you were at first. But that’s, that’s not the way God wants us to love our spouses. He wants us to love our spouses wholehearted Lee, you know, Jesus doesn’t just give up on us was like, okay, they’re a Christian, I don’t even have to be part of their, you know, I don’t have to keep loving them actively. That’s not because Christ loves the church. That’s the same way husbands are to love their their wives. It’s a consistent pursuit. It’s a consistent love. It’s a consistent way of being with your spouse, being a man of character. No, that’s not always fun. It’s not always easy to put your spouse first and take care of the kids while she has a bath or gets to do something fun with her girlfriends. No, that’s not always fun. But when you have a whole hearted attitude about it, when you do put her first that matters to her heart. So yeah, that’s a that’s a discipline of the mind. And so when I say the discipline of intimacy, I don’t just mean physical intimacy, but you thought it was the only thing I was talking about. But I’m actually talking about every part of intimacy, emotional intimacy, spiritual intimacy, you know, you’re supposed to be the spiritual head of the household. If you’re not doing that, if you’re not starting prayers in your family, if you’re not making sure your own relationship with Jesus is on point with time with him with scripture, reading with pursuit of him, then you know, that that’s an element of her feeling safe that, that even if you don’t feel like you want to, that’s required for you to, for you to really have that intimacy. And when a wife feels really safe, that’s she feels a lot more free in the bedroom, and the things that happen out of the bedroom impact that things that happen in the bedroom. So yeah, so again, if we can be joyful about discipline, I mean, we are supposed to be disciples of Christ, that’s disciplines. Those are, those are things that we are doing on a consistent basis, to cause us to live the life that we believe that God wants us to live. You know, I love the image of eternity. Thinking about golly, at any moment, we could be there before Jesus any moment. Are you proud of yourself right now? That you’re like, Yes, I can’t wait to get there. You know, I can’t wait to get there. I mean, heavens gonna be pretty amazing. We want to live our life now. With the sustained focus of, yes, it’s gonna be amazing. Because we’ve got things in place, it’s kind of like, having your will in place, like what, you know, getting ready. Because we never know, none of us know. You so the discipline of every day of, of, of living, like it’s, you know, we’re gonna be meeting Jesus soon. And as you act in faith, according to what matters most to you, God gives you more and more feelings about it. Which is awesome. Which is awesome. I you know, I would encourage you to get some, some girlfriends some some men around you, you know, if you’re, if you’re a man men, if you’re a lady girlfriends so that they’re speaking into your your life, it’s not bad to speak about some of the feelings that are coming up for you know, as I mentioned, the beginning they’ve got to be, they’ve got to be acknowledged for them to kind of dissipate for them to become less to drain. They’ve got to be acknowledged, but but don’t stop there. Don’t stop with a big venting session. Then think about Okay. Hmm,
Belah 24:45
I’m glad I got that off my chest. How do I changed my thinking? How do I change what I’m focused on? Release it and move forward, to walk according to what matters most. You know, I love to think about Who in my life can mentor me? Who am I like, can I get frequently close to where I can share my challenges, and they can help me fix them. Not, you know, a big venting session, you know, isn’t is not necessarily a productive thing. Unless it’s with somebody that and yeah, that’s not an easy thing to necessarily find. I have resources, I’ve got the men’s program and the women’s program, we just finished our launch, but we’ll be launching again in a couple months. So keep that in mind be be praying about that. But God is God’s faithful, he can find the people that you need to be reaching out to and surrounding yourself by, but also, you doing practical steps to get that community around yourself, as I said, you know, my program might be the right one, but maybe it’s a church you need to find in your area, or, you know, over zoom, or there’s lots of different ways, but getting wise counsel around you is is a godly, godly notion, a biblical notion. So, two disciplines, I want to encourage you to adopt. One is a morning routine, that includes face statements. And what face statements are, is basically, I would say, somewhere around five, you know, it might get overwhelming if you have more than that. But something where you have decided this is true of me, whether I feel it or not, this is true. And then you say them out loud, with enthusiasm. Every morning, I will tell you, the quality of my confidence in the shifts in my heart. According to what matters to me, completely is I mean, it’s a completely different quality. It’s when I have this discipline consistent. That’s one discipline I invite you to do. The next one is at night. I don’t, I really don’t know why God has made it this way. But I really feel that there’s a there’s a, a softness, right as you go to sleep that your mind meditates on. So if you’re, you know going to sleep to the sound of TV, or if you’re going to sleep to the sound of whatever it may be the last thought in your mind, it does impact you. And so I’ve learned of this practice, that’s kind of like saying, what you want to be true, and thanking God for it in advance. So the way you do it is, you say something like, you know, my, my toes are relax. And this is while you’re, you know, laying down just about to fall asleep, my toes are relaxed, my legs are relaxed, my thighs are relaxed, my belly is relaxed, my chest is relaxed, my shoulders relaxed, my necks relaxed, my face is relaxed, my eyes are relaxed, my forehead is relaxed, my head is relaxed. And then when you’re in that relaxed state, you just start almost like a melody as you go to sleep. Thank you, Father for and then whatever it may be, you know, think of like one of the principal things that you want to work on right now. Maybe you want to restore your marriage. Thank you, Father, for restoring my marriage. Thank you, Father, for restoring my marriage. Thank you, Father, for restoring my marriage, you know, or Thank you, Father, for giving me desire for my husband. Thank you, Father, that I desire my husband, thank you, Father, that I desire my husband, you know, don’t get tripped up on Oh, this has to be the most important thing ever. It’s just someone thing you’re working on, that you’d like to have changed about your life. And in this context, your marriage, your sex, life, whatever. And then you say it, it’s got to be short can’t be long. So it’s got to be short and easy to say for you. But you say it as though it were done. Thank you fathers though you were thanking God for it already happening. And that’s producing phasing. You’ll be surprised it happens pretty instantaneously. The next day, you’re going to feel a different level of confidence that this thing either has been completed or will be completed. Intimacy in marriage.
Belah 29:50
So what are my practical takeaways from this conversation? One is to articulate yourself a life vision document The next one is to decide what your values are. Right? That’s, that’s in the life vision, document decide that that feelings are important, they need to be drained. And, and then they need to be aligned with, with what matters most to you. The next practical thing is to get around people that mentors that can teach you and help you to pursue this better and, and a community of people that are doing this life to pursue that next piece is to get your morning and evenings in a place of faith. With your faith statements in the morning, and with your thank you, Father for something you’re having faith for, but as though it were already accomplished at night. All right. So just wrapping this up that we can, we can discipline, our minds, our hearts, our actions, towards desiring intimacy, in all forms, physical intimacy with your spouse, if that’s hard for you, emotional spiritual intimacy as well. Obviously, this is not exhaustive. There are many, many ways this applies to you, and your marriage and your sex life. But choose to make those things go together. Choose to decide those things go together. Alright, let me pray for you. Father, I pray for the person listening God that you have given us way more power, than a lot of times we trust that you have God you have given us so much ability, I mean, faith as a mustard seed moves mountains, God that you have given us the grace to do so much in US and in our worlds. But it does require discipline, it does require us to, to have faith, to make choices that cause us to live according to what matters to you, for us. I pray God that even after listening to this, they would, they would be empowered. They would make decisions for themselves that are even unlike others they have that it was a moment of decision even right now. That impacts the rest of their life and their marriages and their walks with you. In Jesus name. Amen. All right, thank you so much for listening. If this episode or any episode has impacted you, I’d love for you to leave a five star review. Send me a screenshot and I would love to send you some free trainings. Send it at belah at delight your marriage.com God bless you, and we’ll talk more soon.