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Wives, Pleasure Is An Important Part of Life (Really!)

If you’re a wife who feels like physical intimacy just isn’t for you… this post is for you.

Maybe you’ve been hurt in the past. Maybe sex feels awkward, or painful, or even meaningless. Maybe it seems like something only he wants, and you just go along with it.

If any of that resonates, I want you to know: you’re not broken. You’re not alone. And there is hope.

When Sex Feels Disappointing or Painful in Marriage

When I first got married, I was so excited. I had saved myself for marriage and imagined physical intimacy would be beautiful and bonding. But what I experienced instead was disappointment. It was physically painful, emotionally awkward, and deeply confusing. I felt ashamed, fat, insecure, and unprepared.

My marriage at that time eventually ended in divorce. There was no biblical reason—I just couldn’t take the strife and anxiety anymore. I was devastated. I had followed what I believed was the right path, and yet my marriage still crumbled. And then, I drifted. I walked away from God’s design, from purity, and into promiscuity.

But God is a Redeemer.

In time, He gently brought me back. I met a kind, respectful man, and with him, God showed me what healthy, healing intimacy could look like. And it has been a journey—one filled with slow growth, freedom, and true pleasure.

 

Understanding God’s Design for Sexual Pleasure in Marriage

Let’s be honest—many wives could take or leave sex. Some even hate it. And yet, God designed physical intimacy to be good—not just for your husband, but for you.

You may have grown up in purity culture, where sex was labeled “bad,” “shameful,” or “off-limits.” Then suddenly, you get married and are expected to flip a switch and enjoy it. That’s confusing, to say the least!

But what if we started thinking of pleasure the way God does? What if we saw it as a gift?

You enjoy a clean house, right? You feel at peace, relaxed, energized. That’s pleasure. So why is it so hard to believe that sexual pleasure could be just as valid, just as worthy, just as holy?

 

Why Christian Wives Should Value Pleasure in Intimacy

God didn’t create intimacy only for reproduction or duty. He created it for joy, connection, healing, and pleasure. Even Song of Solomon celebrates sensuality—touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound.

Pleasure is part of God’s design. It doesn’t have to end in orgasm or even intercourse to be sacred. A simple act like cuddling, stripping down just to rest in your husband’s arms, or a gentle caress can be deeply meaningful. An moment where you focus on intimacy without the pressure of a “goal.” It’s healing. It’s freeing.

 

How to Begin Enjoying Intimacy Again—Even If You Feel Broken

You don’t have to leap from disinterest to passion overnight. What if you started with just an inch in the direction of intimacy? A kiss. A caress. A flirty smile. That’s it.

Then maybe next time, a little more.

Intimacy doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It’s a dance. A progression. A fluid rhythm between two people who are learning how to love and be loved.

Biblical Boundaries for Sex—and the Freedom Within Them

I’ve seen it time and again—wives who once hated sex now pursue it with confidence and joy. Not because they’ve become someone they’re not, but because they’ve allowed God to rewrite their story.

You don’t have to live stuck in shame, apathy, or duty.

You were made for more.

You were made for joy.

You were made to receive pleasure—and not just physical pleasure, but the peace and playfulness that come from deep connection. You can laugh, relax, and actually look forward to physical intimacy.

Even if you’re post-menopausal.

Even if you’ve been through trauma.

Even if you feel like you’re the one who’s “just not into it.”

God can change it. He’s done it in me. He’s done it in hundreds of wives I’ve coached. And He can do it in you.

 

With love & hope,

 

The Delight Your Marriage Team

PS – For more information on the Connection Sessions mentioned in the podcast, check out Delight Your Marriage: Connection Sessions.

PPS – To learn more about our research on Biblical boundaries in marital intimacy, please visit Delight Your Marriage: Boundaries in Sex.

PPPS – Here is a quote from a recent graduate:
“So much of my prayer time was trying to pray for my hubs and me and us in our marriage and lamenting over the state of our marriage…it was so hard for me to engage in intimacy with my husband…Most times I just had to turn off my heart and pray and power through, which only served to make me even more avoidant of it…[Now,] I don’t feel like I need a brick wall to protect my heart from my husband…Intimacy feels like a safe place…It’s not intimacy’s ‘for him’, it’s ALWAYS intimacy for ‘us’.”

 

Transcript:

Belah Rose  00:01

Belah, welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me, Bela rose, as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truths about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. Delight your marriage.

Belah Rose  00:20

Hi there. My name is Belah Rose and author coach trainer, and I’m thrilled that you’re joining today. I want to specifically talk about intimacy, because that’s actually the topic that we started out 10 years ago, really focusing in on, I guess, 11 years ago now, and that’s kind of where this all began, at delight your marriage. And since then, we’ve had the opportunity to coach people in physical intimacy, but spiritual intimacy, emotional intimacy, to transform their marriages from the inside out, because they’re all so interrelated. But today I want to really focus in on the element of physical intimacy, and really direct this conversation towards wives. A lot of times, men will listen to the episodes that are directed towards wives, and wives will listen to the episodes directed towards husbands, and that’s totally fine, but I’m going to just speak to you as though this is a wife listening, because I think it will give you insight into maybe some challenges and struggles you’ve had in your own marriage, and Lord willing, it’s going to really open up some freedom for you that you can walk into with confidence and joy and peace. So let’s go ahead and dive in. You.

Belah Rose  01:48

I remember there were only a couple of couples when I was growing up that I would want my marriage to turn out the there was a specific woman who actually I interviewed for my first book to let your husband and I, I named her. It’s not her real name, but I named her Miss Susan in the book. And I remember when I was interviewing her, she talked about passion being seasonal. And I thought that was interesting. Passion being seasonal. And as I’ve matured as a married woman myself. I do see that. I see that there are some times that I just get these, these pockets of easy passion. I mean, it’s just so easy, and then there are pockets of like, wow, Life is stressful or hard or things are challenging. Sex doesn’t seem to be something I’m naturally moving towards but I’d like to kind of take a step back, and if you’re newer to delight your marriage, I want to just share a little bit of my story growing up. I was really dedicated to Jesus scripture and making sure that I was pure before I got married. I wanted to save my self for marriage, and I was really excited about sex when I got married, I was just like, this is going to be great. Fast forward to actually getting married. It was not what I anticipated. It was painful, emotionally and physically, and it was not what I had envisioned. It was awkward. I felt fat, and these areas of my body my whole life I thought were disgusting. And this is, he wants me to do what, and this is I don’t even know what to do. Is humiliating, embarrassing. The lights are on, like, Oh, so many bad things. And it was, it took a while. Well, actually, I’ll just fill in some of the gaps of my story. So not only that, it was not just the sex stuff, it was emotional. Connection was so challenging because he wasn’t feeling loved in certain areas. I wasn’t feeling loved in certain areas, and so we’re just fighting against each other all the time. Strife was so consistent and it was so stressful, and I had this visceral anxiety in my stomach and in my body, it was constant. And so I did what the Bible says not to do, is to get divorced, and I decided that I was going to go forward with it. And so that was totally on me in terms of we didn’t have what was biblically says divorce can happen. There wasn’t sexual immorality. And yet I had to plead the blood of Jesus on that decision. And I was so disappointed at God, was disappointed at this person who was also a believer, but was disappointed at God. I prayed, I fasted, I stood on the word, why didn’t our marriage work out? And then I spent some time away from God, and I was promiscuous, and I decided sex didn’t matter, and the way that God designed sex obviously wasn’t important. And so then. And again, fast forwarding to deciding that, wow, things actually are set up a certain way, because sex does matter, because my heart hurts with this hookup culture type life. And so then I decided I wanted somebody who treated me well and cared about my heart, and I met a man that I refer to as Darrow, and now we’re married. And then sex became something that was great and really something that I would go towards seasonally. But I would say the really neat thing is, I have had more and more and more freedom and even desire for sex than ever before, and it’s been a slow process because I had a lot of woundedness in my past from my ex husband, but also before That mistreated by men, and also just not having a good, solid recognition that that men are safe and loving and good role models and good character, that’s just not something that I had a lot of experience with or anticipated was true about men. So as I’ve been married now for quite a while, and really leaned into intimacy, first of all, first motivated by I want to love my husband. Well, now I know how men think I understand sex is really important, and I want to love him well now, now I recognize how important sex is, but it took quite a while for me to actually go towards my own pleasure in sex. And I’d love to just talk with you a little bit about that, because there’s a lot of women I work with, and honestly, they might say this out loud, or at least they might feel it that they could take it or leave it like a lot of women would be happy if sex never happened for the rest of their lives. Some women actually say they hate it. You might be in that category, and if you are, I want you to know there’s hope, even if you’re post menopausal, even if you’ve had bad experiences, even if you’ve had trauma as a kid, terrible things may have happened to you, and I’m certainly not legitimizing or or minimizing your pain, but I do know there’s hope, and in every regard, We are meant to have hope, because God can change your story. He can say it can it can read like this. Terrible situations happen, terrible things happened, and then God changed it. And the reason I say that with confidence conviction is because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen women go from the really hard to freedom to purpose to passion to pursuit even of their own desires. So let me first take a step back. If you grew up in the purity culture, I want to invite you to think about sex a little differently, because a lot of times, purity culture has taught women, you know, sex is wrong, bad, avoid it. Don’t think about it. Don’t do anything down there that’s really off limits, negative, even even gross. And you know, how dare you think or talk about that stuff. And then when you get married, the light switch is supposed to totally flip, and now down there is good, and pleasure is good, and all of that is free. And I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. And so instead, what we want to talk about is, how do we as adults teach our children sex is good, and it’s so good that preserving it for this particular context is best. Sex is about commitment and love. And you know, keep, keep fighting for that. Keep keep moving towards that, rather than what the world says as it should be done out here. So one really exciting shift in my journey of understanding sex as beneficial in pleasure was something called connection sessions at delight your marriage. We talked about connection sessions, which is an intimate act, but it’s doesn’t end in orgasm, and it’s slow and it’s relaxing, and it really helps a woman discover her body, truly, deeply, discover her body. So if you want to go get or the download of this resource, which goes. Into the explicit elements of what connection session is, just go to delight your marriage, comm slash CS for connection sessions, and then you can read it with your husband or husband, read with your wife, and really understand that was that was a game changer for me, because I was doing a lot of this work around sex, but I wasn’t enjoying it. I wasn’t going towards it. I I didn’t know what felt good in my body. And I wasn’t it. Didn’t have the, I guess, the gumption to go pursue it. You know, I was really into, like, okay, that if this is what makes them filled up, I’ll go for it, and I’ll have a good attitude. Because, again, that makes him feel, feel, fill, filled up, and I love my husband. I know this is God’s will, so I’m going to keep my attitude strong and go for it, but it wasn’t necessarily for my own pleasure. And connection sessions were a huge game changer, and they still are. It is something that we do infrequently, but at times, and it really supercharges my libido, so maybe in the moment I’m not interested, we do a connection session the next day I’m interested, or the next two days, or what have you, so we can get in those, as Miss Susan says, The the season where passion isn’t an interest to me, and connection sessions often can can bring that spark back. Another thing that I think is very helpful is seeing sex as pleasure and pleasure being good for its own sake. Because a lot of women might say, Yeah, well, I mean, maybe I have an organ, or maybe I don’t, and maybe you’re one that struggles with that, and we can help with that too, but for its own sake, pleasure is good. Here’s why. I can just make this argument to you,

Belah Rose  11:50

how many of you women enjoy a clean house? Probably a lot of you. And my question to you is, why? Why do you enjoy a clean house? And maybe the answer goes something like, it makes me feel good, it makes me feel at peace, it makes me feel comfortable, it makes me feel relaxed, makes me feel productive and encouraged. All of those feelings. Another way to describe all of those feelings is pleasure. I feel pleasure from a clean house and right there and then. I don’t have to, you don’t have to justify that, that activity of having a clean house, or cleaning the house. In order to have a clean house, you don’t have to justify that. All those feelings that there is goodness to that pleasure, there is goodness to having cleanliness. And so I want you to think about it the same way. The pleasure and intimacy is just as good. The reason you might think that’s not valuable or helpful or important might be some historical reasons. Might be some things that you grew up with with that purity culture of of it’s bad, bad, bad. You know, ignore, ignore, ignore, avoid, avoid. Until then, you’re supposed to really enjoy it and pursue it. And this is part of your life. So I just want to really encourage you to recognize that pleasure is valuable for its own sake. At delight your marriage, we talk a lot about laughter, having fun, being playful, because playfulness is good for its own sake. The joy of the Lord is our strength in the midst of some of the hardest sufferings of your life, I want you to have joy. You can have joy. You can rejoice in the Lord always. And sex is one opportunity to have joy, to interrupt the really hard things in life with pleasure, with fun. I’ll tell you, I had a great experience at my in laws and in a developing nation. And so they were actually, this is a terrible context. It was somebody from the town that everyone loved passed away old age. And so they were going to the cemetery, lots and lots of tears. We went, lots of tears. And then we are coming home, and everyone’s piled into the truck because the cemetery wasn’t too far away. Piled into the truck heading heading back to town. And you know, tears are still either streaming down people’s faces or staining their their their face, and my son runs behind the pickup truck and is trying to get on and everyone just breaks into belly laughter. And it was so wild to me, because I think in my culture, it would be very easy to think that’s so appropriate. We all, we’re all crying here. We’re. All sad and and don’t interrupt crying with joy. And yet, that’s actually what we’re supposed to do. We actually can have respites in the midst of pain, in the midst of the heart. James even talks about considerate, pure joy when you go through trials. So what I want to invite you to think about in your whole life that pleasure has purpose. Pain has purpose, but pleasure has purpose and it matters. So when you pursue pleasure in sex, when you pursue joy and fun and play in sex that has purpose, beneficial to your husband, to yourself, to your family. So I would just love, I would love to just paint a picture, not explicit, I promise, but just paint a picture of, what if, what if, when you’re feeling crummy, just crummy, you get the idea of just stripping down and relaxing with your husband on the on the bed, and that’s just peaceful and comforting for you. I mean, just as comforting as you know, maybe chips or a tub of ice cream or something. It the level of comfort where you can just be embraced, and maybe it doesn’t actually have intercourse involved, or maybe there is intercourse, or maybe there’s some level of a flavor of intimacy that’s connecting and loving and touching and enjoying. I mean, what if that was just as righteous as eating a good meal that’s delicious, right pleasure from your sense of taste. What if the sense of your vulva and the sense of your intimate parts were the pleasure that came there was just as valuable the pleasure that comes from a clean house, just as value as the pleasure that comes through intimate touch. So if I could kind of give you a road map to get here, we have that very clearly laid out in the program. So we’d love to talk with you, if you’re interested, delight your marriage.com/cc. Free clarity call. We’d love to help you there, but in terms of how you can get there, just from this conversation, I would say it starts with a conviction that pleasure is good. Pleasure is good. It’s, it’s worth it all by itself. The joy of the Lord is our strength. We need respite in the midst of storms. There are challenges. There will be days that you feel down and it’s, doesn’t feel great to be awake right now. That’s, real life. But what if sex was something that actually was drawing you towards it, that this is a hard day, so I want to be in my husband’s arms like, what if that was hard day equals. Want intimacy. What if that was true? You might think, Well, I’m broken. There’s absolutely no way I can do that. That’s too, too much of a pipe dream. I want you to know it’s possible. It’s possible. That’s not that was not my experience, either. And there to Susan’s point. There have been plenty of times where it hasn’t been my desire, but I have left gotten to a level of maturity to recognize that pleasure is pleasure, and pleasure has purpose. Pleasure is important, just like I can enjoy a sunset, and that’s actually enjoying God’s gift. I want you to enjoy the pleasure that God has for you. It doesn’t have to mean that you’re going towards intercourse. It might mean that you’re going towards intimacy. You’re going towards taking off your clothes and cuddling with your husband. Maybe it’s having your clothes on and cuddling doesn’t have to go as far as maybe it has in the past. What if you and your husband went on that journey that just an inch in the direction of intimacy is sufficient? You don’t have to go all the way for it to be enjoyable for the both of you. But if an inch is good and she can enjoy what she wants, and he’s satisfied with that, then maybe the next day, a half a foot is way closer, right? That’s that’s kind of the way we call them feminine. Sexual practices we we talk about that. If you can go like a heft, like if, if sexual intimacy is less of a this is our normal life, and this is intimacy, and they’re totally separate. But if there’s a little bit of, for example, flirting, and a little bit of touching, a little bit of caressing, and a little bit of this and playful and that and that that’s more fluid than actually going towards something that leads to intercourse and leads to orgasm is easier. It’s not, you know, black and white, it’s, it’s, oh, there’s lots of gray and lots of swirls and lots of back and forth, until you get to a place where intercourse is wonderful, and going back to this and obviously, hopefully, it’s obvious, but intercourse is not the only thing that can be done, in terms of intimacy, in terms of even orgasm. There’s lots of other things. In fact, the way that I like to say this a lot around what are the actual rules in the Bible around sex? Because a lot of times people think things are wrong or they’re not sure if they’re wrong or right, and it’s because no one’s ever made it clear, like, what does the Bible actually say? So here it is. The Bible has lots of different scriptures. We’ve got some resources for you if you’re needing the specific scriptures, go to delete your marriage.com/boundaries which are the boundaries and sex.

Belah Rose  21:31

But those scriptures basically all point to one thing in thoughts and in Act. Sex should be between a husband and a wife in thought and act. Sex is between a husband and a wife. So those are the boundaries. I’m inviting you not to add boundaries. The Bible’s clear. But within those boundaries, there is freedom. You get to enjoy each other’s bodies. You get to enjoy what’s pleasurable for each other. You know, even song of Solomon’s talks about different flavors of intimacy, oral sex. Talks about, in Song of Solomon’s, there’s all sorts of joyful pleasures. In Song of Solomon’s, it talks about all sorts of senses that are pleasurable. Sam joelman was on the podcast not too long ago, and I highly recommend his book, sex talk, the sex talk you never got. It’s a phenomenal book, but he talks about how song of Solomon’s has so many pleasures, like sensual pleasures of drinking wine and eating certain things and the the aromas and the the feeling of the of the material, and it was just like so many senses are aroused in the act of sexual intimacy. And that’s a good thing, and that’s what I find, is very helpful for women to recognize the touch, sensing the touch, spending time focusing your attention on the touch of your husband, the caress, wherever it is, on your body, and just leaning into that, even if it’s shutting your eyes and breathing something like it takes intention to receive pleasure. So I’ll tell you, if you have children, this might help you to think about it. How funny is it? And I’m sure you’ve seen this before, that there’s like this wonderful birthday party. Everyone’s having a great time, but there’s one kid that can’t seem to enjoy himself no matter what, all he can focus on is one thing that’s not great. You know, maybe he doesn’t like the food, or doesn’t enjoy this activity, or he wants to do something no one else wants to do. And I mean, I almost want to shake that kid and say, Hey, listen, there’s so much good going on. If you can just focus on the good, you’ll actually have a great time, but it requires the child to focus. And I think that’s true for us as well as women, we have to focus on what feels good to us. We actually have to put our attention on the pleasure of our husbands caress. We have to put our attention on what does this feel like? Instead of our attention being like, I have got this to do and this to do and this to do. I’m too busy for this. I’ve got way too much going on in my life to focus on pleasure. Are you kidding me? So I want to just encourage you to put your focus on this. Pleasure has purpose. It matters, and there’s joy to be taken from every situation. If you can put little seeds of joy, plant them amidst the heart, amidst the busy even, it allows you to walk in the joy of the Lord. It allows you to walk in the fruit of the Spirit. It allows you to walk in peace, because you’re not focused on I’ve got to get all these things done all the time. You can instead focus on, this is a hard day. I’ve got a lot going on. Maybe I can just sit with my spouse and breathe. Maybe I can relax and enjoy some pleasure. Maybe there’s reason that I can go in this direction today. Let me go ahead and pray for you. Lord. It may feel to this wife that this is an impossible idea, that the way her life is she doesn’t have time to slow down and focus on pleasure and actually enjoy it, or she doesn’t feel like pleasure has purpose. She doesn’t feel like it matters to gain pleasure in her life. So Father, I just pray that You would give her what she needs to have, hope that it can change, that her own desire can be shifted. It can turn on the freedom that she doesn’t feel right now, in intimacy, the pool that she doesn’t have. In fact, maybe she’s pushed away from it naturally. Right now, I pray that You would give a vision that this can change, and it should change, that this is for her and it’s for her marriage. It’s for her husband. It brings joy to the both of them. And I pray God that she would yearn for, that she would desire, for the desire to want intimacy with her husband, to want the different flavors of intimacy, to want to enjoy together. Lord, you’re faithful, and you’re good at changing all of it, and I pray that you would do that in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you so much for listening, and if you’d like some help delight your marriage.com/cc. We love walking women through this journey. Truly. It’s amazing. And if there’s a husband listening a lot of times, if a husband goes first, she does afterwards. Seriously, I mean, hopefully I don’t have to convince you, given all the testimonials, it’s incredible. It’s incredible what God does. Otherwise, both of you could come at the same time. That’s another option as well, and men and women have separate programs, so it’s just a joy to witness what God does. All right. Well, God bless You, and we’ll talk soon. You