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Last week was part 1, and today I’m excited to bring you the last few items to rekindle the romance, intimacy, and connection that may have been lost over the years.
Today, I am giving insights on sex, including responsive vs. spontaneous drive and libido. Which I think will help men and women – high or low drive.
Seriously, if you know someone struggling in marriage — these are the episodes to send them.
It’s definitely high-level but if they’d follow it — oh, my — they’d be in a better place!
Blessings,
Belah
PS – If you need help, we’re here! Sign up for a Clarity Call (free, but worth $300) to determine how we can help you… delightyourmarriage.com/cc
PPS – For a limited time (this training is going away soon!) there is a free masterclass for Christian wives:
Wife, it would be an awesome Christmas present to him for you to take it! <3 Enjoy!
Transcription
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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. All right, thank you for joining. So we are back with 10 ways to rekindle your relationship, part two. Now I might have, I might have a bonus one or two in here for you. But mostly we’re going to be doing nine through 10. And, and I’ll also be summarizing some of the ones we went through last week. And before I jump in, if you need help with your relationship, I want you to go to delight your marriage.com/cc and get with a clarity advisor and see how we can help you. They’ve they’ve also been transformed in their marriage, they’ve gone through many years of difficulty and sadness, and desperateness and despair in their marriage themselves. And now they’ve gone through the delight your marriage programs, and by God’s grace, it’s completely transformed their marriages. And now they’re excited to help you with it. It’s a completely confidential call. It’s judgment free. And it’s really about helping you get clear on what’s going on for you. Maybe asking some of the hard questions that you’ve been avoiding and being able to say, alright, well, what, what’s next? How do we help solve this, and if we feel we can solve, help you solve it, we’ll point you in the direction to the programs that specifically are designed to help you in what you’re going through. But either way, you’re going to get a lot of value and clarity from that call. So go to delight your marriage comm slash CC. And, yeah, I invite you to do that as soon as you can. Alright, let’s dive in.
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All right. So what we talked about so far, is number one, start over, forgive your spouse, start over, you’ve heard each other, I know you have. But that’s what Jesus asks us to do is to forgive and move forward. Number two, be grateful for them. And notice their differences and be grateful for those differences. They’re God designed. God loves that spouse of yours. That’s his daughter, that’s a son. And you get to love them. Well. Number three, never argue. Never argue. If you have that as your standard, then you get to have new ways of handling things. And you start slowing yourself down and you start getting by yourself and getting with God and being like, Okay, I just got really hurt. That was like a slap in the face. I want to yell back. And I know that’s not what you asked me to do. And there’s so many biblical passages, the back this up. So quick to listen slow to speak slow to become angry. Number four, apologize. Apologies are healing. And even it fits things that have happened far, far long ago. It’s healing for your spouse, with your husband or a wife. It’s healing, you have to own what you’ve done wrong. You can’t, it can’t change them. You can’t force them. But you can model the behavior. That’s what God wants you to be about. And you never know. Just by you becoming the human that God wants you to become. Who knows what God might do in them. Check out first Corinthians seven to hear more about that. Number five. Listen, listening, my goodness, how good a good listener is it can de escalate an argument it can show somebody you really care. It can cause somebody to actually fix their own problems and start to grow in their own confidence of their own fixing power, if you listen rather than trying to change their situation, and instead just listen and let them have those feelings in front of you and not be scared of them and not feel like it’s up to you to stop making them feel that way. Like no, we need to feel our feelings. And by sharing it with your spouse having a safe place to share. It’s extremely healing for your marriage for your spouse’s heart. Whether you’re a husband or a wife, we need to get better at listening so often and I’m I’ve been guilty of this plenty of times. It’s something I then working on as well. But so often we’re so much better at listening at work than we are at our own spouse and who’s more important. Our boss or client, or the one human that we are specifically, absolutely assigned to. And yeah, so now I feel extremely convicted. So, you know, let’s both work on this deal. Alright, so now we’re at six is no screens. Get off your screens as much like get off your screens more, start being bored together, start doing non screen activities. Take TV off the list of normal life, everyday things like let that be. Sometimes you’ll watch a movie, sometimes there’s this going on? What have you but limited, don’t waste your life in front of a screen. Like really, on your deathbed, are you going to say Oh, I wish I just stayed up on that show. I wish I binge watched three more of those XYZ things I just don’t. I don’t think that’s really adding value to your life really. And at the very least, you know, maybe there’s a couple things you could do, you can you can do a media fast, which is like, go 30 days without it and see if you’re addicted, see how hard it is to do that. And, and being bored is a good thing. It helps us be more creative. And it helps us stop being distracted. Like there are just so many things, so many reasons screens are like i Obviously I work on a screen, I wouldn’t be able to do this work without you know the technology that is required. I love that God has given us technology through what humans have invented. But
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let’s make sure they are not our Master. We are there to make sure it’s our tool in our hand, not the thing that’s controlling us. And that’s everything from social media, to TV shows, to movies, to text messaging to you know, everything, all of it news, all of it. Let’s make sure that the one thing we are absolutely assigned to our husband, and then our kids, let’s make sure that is in proper order. And then add things on top of that. So no screens, do activities that are not screens and that leads us to number seven, playfulness add playfulness and fun and silliness and games to your life again. So games and just non things that are going to make you laugh that have nothing to do with the screen. But playfulness. Fun that stuff that you did it first Okay. Eight I talked about. I talked about relaxing and resting and putting your life in proper perspective. And that’s the only can come through a rested lifestyle. That’s Jesus just wasn’t in hurry. There’s a great book called The the ruthless elimination of hurry. The ruthless elimination of hurry, it is so good, my goodness. And I would just encourage you to listen to that on your next car ride with your spouse, especially if they have a hard time rushing and being busy and having a million things on their plate, and then start doing a rest day, a Sabbath every single week. Because you need that. And it’ll put your life in perspective. Okay, that’s one through eight. That was a summary. But hopefully it also gave you jogged your memory but also gave you some new insights and reminders to put in place. Next thing, let’s talk about some more romantic things. But if I didn’t go through one through eight, you would not have gotten to this place. Alright, so number nine cuddle. I want that to be an important part of your life, non sexual touch. That’s important to both your husband and your wife. So if you’re if you’re a husband, a lot of times husbands crave non sexual touch. And a lot of times wives are worried that that’s going to lead to sex right then and there. And so she refuses to even do that. And maybe a husband is unfortunately doing all sorts of silliness of slapping her butt and those sorts of things. And that makes her go away from sex rather than towards it. So if you don’t respect her body in a way that she knows you’re Her body is respected, and she invites that kind of behavior, then she’s going to hate it, and she’s going to go farther away from it. So, non sexual touch is a really good way of healing some of that. So stopping the sexual and starting the non sexual, so for a husband doing it that way, and for a wife, you may be at a spot where you need to have a conversation with your spouse and say, Listen, every time you do you know, these kinds of touches? Are you looking for sex right then? And they might say, Well, yeah, I’d love to do it. And you could say, but are you actually asking me to have sex right then? And they’ll probably say, No, I wasn’t, I just like touching you. I just like holding you. I wasn’t thinking we were going to have sex right then. But I’d be open to it if you wanted to. Because what I want you as a wife to recognize is he just likes you. He just likes holding you. He likes your body close, it’s important to him. Yeah, sex would be great. But it’s not something that he’s expecting, necessarily, maybe it’s been several days or even several weeks. And so yeah, his his holding you, he’s hoping upon hope that it would turn into sex, because he’s, at that point desperate for it. But if you have a healthy frequency, in sex, which I mean, a couple of times a week, maybe several times a week, that you know, based on his drive you you can kind of gauge that. And you guys can come to that, together on what that looks like, if you have a healthy relationship, you can talk about those things.
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But anyway, if it’s if it’s healthy in terms of frequency of sex, he’s not having non sexual touch with you. Or holding your cat cuddling with you just because he wants sex, right, then he’s, he just enjoys your body, he enjoys holding you. And then for husbands recognize that cuddling is very healing for a wife, I would say 80 to 90% of them, some women really are not interested in that. And some women, because one through eight, I just went through these ideas, these thoughts and ideas with you are so lacking. Of course, she doesn’t want your touch because she’s so mad about the argument you guys had three days ago. And the way that you always complain and criticize, and nothing’s ever good enough for you. And you’re ungrateful, and dah, dah dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Of course, she doesn’t want you to touch her, she, she doesn’t even like you. And that’s why. So you get one through eight, establish the we’re gonna you know, we’re getting better with the non sexual touch. So that can be very healing for her to know that you don’t want it. There’s no strings attached to this BackRub there’s no strings attached to the cuddling up beside her on the couch, there’s no strings attached to you holding her in bed. You know, these are just, this is just loving. This is just who we are together. This is rekindling and that actually is going to make her desire sex, when there are not strings attached to your touch. And this includes hand holding and putting your arm around or when you’re going places and what have you. She may really, really enjoy that and want that from you. And then number 10 romance. I want you to read put romance in your marriage. Read, read, put it, replace it, put it inside your marriage again. So start planning some things start thinking about what makes her smile, start thinking about surprises. And then the same way. Why if you can take some matters into your own hands and share things like I’d love to go to XYZ and put things in place that that that happens and put romance as a priority. Again, where you guys are prioritizing just like you did on on early in your marriage. A date was important. You planned it you thought about it, you prepared for it. So honor that space as well. And and plan it out and get some systems around it. Dear husband, if this is a hard one for you, like every time an idea comes to mind or you hear about it on a movie or a friend did it or a friend of a friend or your wife mentions I’d like to do that sometime. Write that thing in a note on your phone immediately. Don’t let that thought escape you and then put that in your calendar that you’re going to do that and do it a couple times a week. At least a couple times a month that you start putting romance in your relationship. Number Number 11. Because I didn’t limit to 10 Make Love, make love. Were you waiting for me to say this dear, dear husband or wife, I’m not sure how how your marriage is set up, I usually work with husbands who are higher drives. But there are wives that I work with that are higher drives as well. And sometimes there are reasons for that. Sometimes it’s medical, and, and he needs to get levels of testosterone checked, sometimes it needs to be checked, because, you know, if he’s unable to get erect, it may be related to his heart. And it actually needs to be checked by a medical professional. So that’s one thing to be thinking about. Another thing is stress really impacts a husband’s libido and his drive. You know, if he’s thinking about a million things, that’s why rest back on. Number eight was so important. Having a rested life can impact libido, for her and for him. And also arguing and controlling, and that sort of thing can definitely turn off a husband to his wife, that really, really matters. If you’re not respecting your husband, he doesn’t want to have sex with a mother type figure. So that is a very big turn off. So those are something just to check in your own heart, if your wife is listening, and you’re like, Yeah, my husband has no libido, there might be reasons for it, and, and when you have 10 out of 10 relationship, then
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everywhere else, then it’s helpful to be able to think about, okay, now, these things are all in place. And yet, you know, sex is still not a priority for him, what could be going on? Could it be medical, also anti depressant, some medications actually impact. And in just a healthy lifestyle, sleep and eating? Well, those are things that do really impact libido. For him and for her, obviously. So anyway, make love that is, um, that is the glue. That is the thing that is oil in the relationship, that’s the thing that is consistently making things easier between you two. And that’s hugely, hugely important. And I would ask you, as a wife to prioritize it, I would ask you to put it on your calendar, put it on your schedule on a on a regular. And I’m not necessarily saying that this is something you tell him when it’s happening. And it might be on the same day each week. And then you have one that’s like a random day or two, that’s like, just random, but it may be on your schedule, just so you’re thinking about it and you prep for it. And you take a shower and you do what you need to do get to get yourself prepped for it. And then you can actually enjoy yourself during it. And there’s not a million things you’re thinking about because you’ve already you’re already ready. You’re excited. And and start being bolder in initiating start being bolder in in actually starting the thing off. And yeah, it can be a simple text message. It can be a simple emoji, it can be a simple. Hey, I’m looking forward to tonight. Make sure you show up in the bedroom at 8pm sharp, you know something as very simple as that. But do it, do it push yourself a little out of your comfort zone to do it. I have to go outside of my comfort zone too all the time. And sometimes when I’m out of practice of confidence. I’ve got to jump back in there and say listen, it’s worth it. It’s worth it. Bella it’s worth it. Get over yourself and do something because it’s worth it. We need to get back in the saddle here. It’s been too many days. We’re disconnected. We’re frustrated each other why because intimacy hasn’t been happening. wholehearted connection, wholehearted fierceness wholehearted anything, it just hasn’t been happening for whatever reason. This is going to make everything better. Sex is so important. You can reconnect in an instant. If you can just get into your body and connect So, I don’t know if I don’t know how this applies to you if you’re a husband or a wife. But if this is a hard one for you, I want to challenge you to, to put this if you’re, if you’re the spouse, I love this, this mindset actually, there’s a basically to two ideas around around sexual drive. Now you might be the spontaneous sexual desire, where at you know, your mind thinks about sex on spontaneously and you desire it. Now, if you’re that it’s somewhere around 80% of husbands are that way. And that’s usually who I’m working with, and who listened to my stuff. But you might be the wife that you have spontaneous desire for sex, mentally, and in you might be, that might be like every now and then yes, but for the most part, no. And a lot of times people call that libido that, that you spontaneously desire it right that they have sorry, a lot of times, we will say that’s a high drive or a high libido.
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But you might have a responsive desire where your body has to be engaged and aroused before your mind does. So you respond to it. And so maybe you consider yourself to have a low libido, because you’re in a responsive design desire person, your responsive libido. And so if that’s the case, then what I want you to do is think about, how can you get yourself in a position on a regular, where your body is going to be in a place to be aroused and stimulated. So it’s kind of that that’s what I say, when you push yourself into the decision, I’m going to make love tonight, then your body can can start getting engaged, sometimes it starts with that decision, rather than with that spontaneous desire. So you might think you have a low libido. And it just means you need to be intentional about getting into a space where you will respond to His desire. Or you will respond to her desire if you’re a low libido husband. So keep that in mind. Your schedule is your friend, we schedule things that are important to us. Now, I don’t necessarily mean that if your spouse is a spontaneous desire, they probably don’t want to know it’s on your schedule. They probably don’t want that. But let me tell you, I have ticked tricks and tips and secrets, if you will, about what gets me ready for sex that he doesn’t need to know about. It’s okay, that I need to be thinking a couple of days in advance and be like, Okay, this is the day this is the time I’m going to get myself ready, I’m going to wear this I’m going to do he doesn’t need to do he doesn’t need to know, those are those are sexy mysteries, that he gets to just be
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like, Oh, she’s wearing what she looks like. She sent
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me. Like, he just gets to enjoy this this incredible experience. And I don’t have to tell him all my secrets of like, okay, so this is what I’m thinking and here’s my schedule, and here’s don’t like that would be very an sexy, it’s kind of like the difference between a surprise birthday party and a, I’m doing all these things for you. And, you know, like, it’s just a very different experience. Rather, like if you knew every detail about your, your birthday party that your spouse was throwing for you, it’d be a very different experience than if they just surprised you. And you found out all at once, how amazing all these things that they did, and etc, you just got to enjoy it. So yeah, number 11 is all about making love. And, and then just two more important tips. So I’m gonna say 12 and 13. But these are like, perspectives, I want to say overarching perspective. So think about the long game. Think about the long game, don’t don’t look at your marriage as short term, that you’ve got a lot of time. You’ve got a lot of time, these 10 ways to rekindle your relationship. It’s over and over and over again. This is a change in culture. This is a change in how we do things in our relationship. And this is the long game we’re not talking about. Oh, I’m going to try this for a couple of weeks. This is the long game. I like the phrase life is long. I don’t I don’t maybe in different contexts. Life is short is helpful, but life is long, I think is a really good way of looking at life. Because so often, when we think about life is long, it helps me to think in in, like, not immediate, like, if we don’t get this settled, tonight, we’re gonna have a big problem for the webinar, blah, blah. And it’s like, no, this this point of contention needs time and it needs space and my connection with my spouse, I’m not willing to sacrifice the feeling of peace and connection with my spouse over this simple argument, this might be something that’s big and important. And if it is big and important than it deserves my time and attention of it. The long game also helps me in every area of my life, like, I’m not going to talk to somebody badly, because it’s very probable I will re encounter them at some time in my life, it’s very probable that a bridge that may have been burned, I will somehow become back in touch with them. And I will feel embarrassed by my behavior if I wasn’t careful with it at the time. So life is long is important. It helps us to value another person. And then the final thing I want to encourage you in all of this is prioritize the Word of God and prioritize prayer.
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We can’t do this on our own strength. The Bible is important. The Word of God is important. It fuels you. It helps you to be wise. It helps you to live this life.
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The way God asks us to live it, it helps us to know who Jesus is. It helps us to know who God is not through other spiritual leaders that we know. It’s like knowing about God through somebody else, but not our personal experience of him through the word of God. The Holy Spirit speaks to you if you spend time with the word. We need the word of God living, it’s living and active. Jesus studied the Scripture. So much so that he spoke with authority. On it, he studied the Scripture, he knew the word of God, he loved the Word of God, he stood on it, even he knew it so well that the spirit of the scripture was more than just the devil taking a scripture out of context. He knew it, he loved it. God encounters us through the word of God, then the next piece is prayer. You know, we need to do this thing through prayer, I would encourage you to I’ve just been doing this recently is putting up things about like different Bible verses and different reminders in our house. Of the fruits of the Spirit and of what we’re supposed to think about and of being patient and all sorts of things. So that I’m just physically reminded physically reminded on a consistent, like, what, what I should be about, and that is including prayer. So I have a few habits that are in place that make sure I pray throughout the day, but I really am looking to do more of that. So even like when I walk through the doorframe and have that as my as my trigger to pray and just to breathe, shut my eyes relax, release the last thing that I was involved in and then ask God to help me with the next one and kind of set an intention of where I want to go next what I want God to help me do so when I’m finished with work I work from home that I exhale. Lord, I thank you for today. I asked you to give me the grace to be loving to my highest human assignments. My husband and my kids helped me to love them well be patient, peaceful, calm, giving, self serving, self sacrificing and and then I can walk into the next one. So that’s a that’s a habit I’m developing. So that’s that another one a trigger is as silly as it may sound, but when you go to the bathroom like that’s a very simple trigger to give you the habit of like I pray and I do that like why not have that as your your trigger? When you’re washing your hands something where he like, you pray like, throughout the day, we need God’s Holy Spirit to calm us to reconnect us to get back in the zone that he wants us to be in. Alright, let’s run through these things again as we wrap up. Number one, start over. Number two, be grateful for your specific spouse number three, never argue number four, apologize number five, listen. Number six, no screens, or at least far less and do activities that are not screen related. Number seven, play silly fun together. Number eight, rest. Number nine non sexual touch cuddling. Number 10. Romance. Number 11. Make love. And then the two final perspectives is this is the long game. This is the lifestyle. And the final one is prioritize the Bible and prioritize prayer. Alright, let’s go ahead and pray. Father, I want to thank you for this person listening with a heart seeking to do Your will seeking to love you well seeking to do the best they can with a human that they were given that they chose and that is assigned to them. And I just ask that
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you would give them power from on high to love well, and that this relationship, the wood fuel the rest of their relationships, God that they are of such a great habit of holding their tongue with their spouse, that it’s easy to hold their tongue at work when somebody does something ridiculous. And they can come back and pause and think and process and then and then come back with wisdom and in a word in season. And so I just ask that in every way, Lord that rekindle this marriage, rekindle this relationship god, you’re the one that can do this. Wisdom is good. But we need your Holy Spirit to be able to live the stuff out. And we need you to heal God use us as your instruments but God the glory and the miracle is yours. And we thank you for it. In Jesus name. Amen. I love you so much. Thanks for spending the time with me. And yeah, so this was a catch all there was quite a lot of of tools and concepts in here that I went over very quickly. And so check out more episodes if, if any of these piqued your interest. I certainly have other episodes that go into them more deeply. And if you need help, we’re here we’ve got programs for you to help you so go to delight your marriage.com/cc get on a call with a clarity advisor. Yeah to process and to see how we can help you. God bless you. I look forward to speaking more soon. Bye