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How To Initiate - Heart & Body

If you’re not comfortable starting things off in intimacy, this is a discussion you don’t want to miss. Keelie Reason is on a second time to talk about what initiating has meant in her life and how she made a change. We dive into the practical realities of your husband’s sexuality and erections. We also talk about how to dismantle your hesitancy.

Find out more about Keelie Reason at lovehopeadventure.com

 

You’ll Discover:

  • How to keep a dating relationship pure…very cool strategy.
  • Why you’re not comfortable initiating sex and what that means for the rest of your sexuality.
  • If you’re not initiating, it is communicating something to him.

 

  • How to understand your body through God’s lense.
  • How shame can undermine your confidence and how to dismantle that.
  • How to understand your husband’s advances as unlike any other man.

 

  • The different types of a man’s erection.
  • Non-threatening ways to slowly begin initiating more.
  • Put more energy in turning yourself on.

look sexy for my husband

Resources:

 

Scripture:

  • Song of Songs
    • Rejoicing in each others’ bodies
    • The wife is often the one who’s initiating

look sexy for my husband (1)

Tweetables:

  • We never had “the talk” it was just a continual conversation about sex as I was growing up.
  • I think initiating is extremely important.
  • Sex was instituted by God and we should take full advantage of enjoying it.

 

  • God made you incredibly sexy to your husband.
  • In order to have the confidence to initiating, you have to believe in your value.
  • A lot of women have been made to think that their sexuality is something to be ashamed of.

 

  • I don’t want to look sexy for some guy on the street, but I do want to look sexy for my husband.
  • There are too many marriages where women have been pretending and now they’re tired.
  • Don’t feel like you’re broken if you don’t desire sex.

 

Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!

 

Love,

Belah

—

 

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TRanscript

0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host, belah rose.

0:18
Hey there and welcome. Now, I don’t know if you are anything like me or most of the wives I’ve talked to, but it’s easy to get a little squeamish about initiating sex. And it’s something we don’t talk about. And it’s often assumed that that’s something we all do well. But I think it really affects the way we feel about ourselves or confidence. If we’re feeling excited and free in the bedroom, then initiating is easy. But if we’re not, there’s a process that definitely we need to go through to become really free and confident in the bedroom. So I encourage you to listen in today I’m talking with Keeley reason, this is her second time on the podcast, excited to have her back. And she just has wonderful insights. And we kind of ping back and forth. This is a topical discussion. Just so you know. So we kind of really talk all around this heart and body issue of how to initiate. So let’s go ahead and dive in.

1:28
Hello, hello, and welcome. Thank you so much for tuning in to the delight your marriage podcast, I am excited to bring you a topic that is not often talked about but it needs to be so I have Keeley reason from love, hope adventure calm. And this is actually her second time on the podcast. If you haven’t listened to her story, if if this is one of the first times, maybe you’re listening to the podcast, I’ll just let you know how we’re structured. We basically often do a story two part interview. And then every now and then I’ll have more of a topic conversation. Or maybe it’s just me having a talking about a topic. So that’s generally how it’s structured. So Kelly did her story where she talked about finding her identity in Christ instead of her husband and her husband’s job, which is very easy to fall into. But then she also talks about how she learned from people in her life, mentors that were really encouraging her marriage. So I’d love for you to tune in to 80 and 81. Those are the episode numbers. But today we are going to be talking about how to initiate in the bedroom in your marriage. And when I was thinking this through and praying this through, I was thinking about, you know, who is this conversation really intended for. And I think there’s a couple of people that this is really going to hit home for and I think number one is the the timid wife, the one who’s not really comfortable about sex in general, maybe the way she was raised or how, you know, sex was not talked about in her family. And so now she just feels nervous about and doesn’t really doesn’t feel comfortable that way, then I think the other person we’re talking to is the insecure wife, who just doesn’t maybe feel good enough in her body, or it doesn’t feel good about it, maybe in her knowledge of sex to please her husband. Or maybe she doesn’t feel like she knows her own body to be able to understand its pleasure cues. And I think we’re talking to her too. And I think the third important person we’re talking to is the guarded wife. And maybe she has had experience without sex in her marriage for a while. And maybe she’s at a place where it seems really, really hard to bridge that gap of separation between she and her husband. Or maybe she’s kind of thinking that sex is really all about him, or it’s all for him. Or maybe it’s even degrading to to her or it feels like it’s a chore or she feels like she has to pretend and so she really pushes away from it. So I think we’re talking to her as well. And then for everyone else that could be a good refresher to just dive into this topic because I think for myself included, I’m excited to talk about talk this through with Keeley because I know she has a lot of thoughts on it. And I know it’ll inspire me and encourage my marriage. So that’s kind of the introduction I wanted to share. But Keeley has a story on this herself, in terms of where she came from in this arena and where she is now. And so currently, that’s a lot, but I wanted to say welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

4:40
I’m happy to be here.

4:42
I’m happy to and I think this is gonna be really good. So if I were to ask you, you know a little bit about how you grew up around sex. I know you talked about it a little bit on the other podcast, but you know, what was that kind of like and when you came into marriage was initiating something you were comfortable with? Or how did that kind of go?

5:04
Well, I mean, I grew up in a very sex pause, citizen environment, my parents did not have that talk, they just had an ongoing conversation with us about sex. Like, I probably from the time, I was like nine or 10. And they did not waste time, because they knew there were going to be a lot of cultural influences on me. And so I started that conversation with my parents. Before I even got married, my mom gave me some resources of how to be prepared sexually for marriage. And I don’t even remember what that book is. It’s somewhere around here. But it was really interesting that my parents, they, they were so like, active in helping me to understand things. And my dad, he was like, Look, you know, you can tell that guy that he knows your husband, that guy. He’s doing something that’s hurting you, you need to tell him. I mean, like, we were very open and honest about things. And I came into the marriage, I would say that I wanted to be intimate with my husband. And I did enjoy that time. But I never wanted to initiate that felt so weird. And it was hard. It’s I think it’s very hard to initiate even though I was very confident, I wouldn’t get turned down just the whole fun doing it was very hard. And it was kind of weird, because, you know, my husband and I dated for five and a half years. So for five and a half years, I had to actively cut off my sexual desires, like when they would start coming up, I’d be like, Okay, let’s refocus. Right, right, go for a block, hang out. But and what Austin and I decided, because we started dating at 16, we knew we were going to be dating for a long time, if this was ever going to turn into something long term. Yeah, stop kissing or having any physical relationship after like a year and a half or two years. So really, yeah, we didn’t kiss her or anything for the last three and a half years of our dating relationship, because we both kind of were like, there’s no way we’re going to be able to shut this off. And a physical relationship will only rest. So we, you know, I think I had a little undoing to do once we got married. Yeah, it’s like a right, I’m supposed to want this, I’m supposed to entertain these feelings. And I was.

7:43
Mm hmm. And I just want to like, kind of point that out. If you’ve got a daughter or you know, someone that’s younger in your life, that this might be a really good episode for them to listen to just to be inspired about this idea that, I mean, that’s such a wisdom at 16 to be like, You know what, this is going to go way faster way sooner than we both want. So let’s just calm things down.

8:09
How I almost ate pain when we made that decision to stop kids? Because yeah, I mean, my mom constantly told me she’s like Healy relationships are progressive. You know, and you can’t, you can’t kiss forever. If I tell people, I something’s got to give you either going to go further, or you’re going to break up.

8:30
Wow, that’s so true. Oh, that’s so true. Okay, so. So then, okay, so you had a lot of undoing when you got into marriage to figure out how to get in tune with your body again. And I mean, what was that process like?

8:48
Well, I would say that I always enjoyed our time together. My husband was the one who initiated all the time. And I mean, I think naturally, a lot of times sex will happen very often in the first part of your marriage, because it’s new. And it just happens. And I’m not. I mean, I assume somebody initiates. That, I guess, in a way, it still just happens when we started having kids. So and I was so exhausted. I really started. The timing just wasn’t right for me. And because I was waiting on my husband to initiate and to say, let’s go do this. We just were not hitting it with timing. I was shutting down for the night. I was tired. And I mean, I was the one with the problem, not him. He didn’t have a problem, you know, time work fine for him. And it was hard because I was saying, hey, not tonight, and I would try to go back to him another day. But even that that was very hard for me to even do that. Once He initiated or whatever. And I said Not tonight, let’s do it in the morning or something. And it became a problem because he stopped initiating as much he felt rejected that problem when a wife, like gives her husband the idea that she doesn’t want to have sex. Make him retract it. Nobody wants to be rejected, especially on something that personal, right?

10:30
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so when you kind of, you know, I know, You’ve known you knew sex was important your whole life and kind of grew up with these understandings. But then, you know, as kids were happening, and your relationship was getting older, how did? How were you able to progress from there?

10:55
You know, I’m not really sure what happened, I think I noticed a change in my husband. And I’ve tried to always be pretty in tune with him as far as what he needs. And I will say that I did not have near the understanding of him and what he was thinking or saying, back then, as I do now, but I think that’s any relationship when you’ve been with around someone for 18 years, you know, it’s just going to really grow. But, I mean, I noticed a change. And I thought, Okay, this is a problem. And he communicated to me that he felt rejected and that you know, that he was going to kind of cut back on the initiating. He basically put it in my court, I don’t remember any specific conversations, I just know that there was a point when I was like, Okay, I’ve messed something up here. And I’ve got to figure out how to fix this. And, I mean, I don’t, I can’t really necessarily remember, but I do remember making a mental switch in my mind, that we were gonna have sex every other day, whether he initiated or I initiated, and we’ve we’re having pretty regular sex anyways. I mean, it’s not like it went really far down or something. But that’s just what worked for us and our marriage. I’m not suggesting everybody out there needs to have sex every two days. That’s just what was working for us. And that’s what I wanted to do. I was like, this is the frequency that will work for us for now. And if he doesn’t approach me, I’m gonna have to do things to let him know, I’m open. I’m ready. And I’m interested in doing this.

12:42
Yeah. Yeah. And I kind of want to just think a little bit about how our husband thinks about sex and like, why it’s important for a wife to initiate. Do you have thoughts on that? Well, there’s

12:58
some of the problem is why aren’t you initiating? I think you have to go to that group problem, that core issue, because there is a reason why you’re not? Are you feeling shameful for passing acts? Have you had sexual abuse in your past? Are you just shy and reserved? Do you have body image issues? And when a woman does not initiate sex, when she’s not willing to do that, what other part of her intimate life is she not giving herself to? Because if I have poor body images, and I don’t feel like initiating because of that, what does that do? Well, I’m in the middle of intimacy with my spouse, if I hate the way I look, I’m not going to have a very good time, if I feel shy about sex, and it’s going to be like, well, this is just for him. Let’s get this done. And when you are not initiating, you’re sending that signal to your husband, hey, I’m not interested in having sex with you. This is really for me. And most of us, Wives, Love our husbands enough, we want to do that for them. But you send a signal to your husband at this, his duty is to bless it, or he just tries to get in and get it done as quickly as possible. Weighing you. And all of a sudden, it’s just terrible things your sexual needs aren’t getting met, because he’s just trying to get in and get it done. Because he thinks that’s what you want. Right? And you don’t have the ability to communicate to him. No, in fact, I want more. And this would be better for us and me, if you would do these things, but you’re unable to initiate for whatever your reasons, and you can’t even communicate to him. You know, these are my reasons why. These are the things I need from you sexually to be pleased. Right. So I think initiation is insanely important. And I know a lot of women will say, Oh, but we’re still having sex. I mean, he’s doing all the initiating But you’re sending the signal to him that you’re not enthusiastic about sex. And if you’re not willing to have that conversation with him and go out on a limb, and say, I want to do this with you, what else are you feeling reserved about? I mean, I don’t really know how you can fully enjoy sex if you’re unwilling to initiate it.

15:22
Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s great. If you if you’re unwilling to initiate How are you truly able to enjoy sex? I think that’s, that’s brilliant. Because, as you mentioned, there are so many heart issues that go into this. So if you are feeling badly about your body, or even just your eating choices that day, I know that sometimes trips me up where I’m just like, I feel gross, because I, I didn’t nourish my body. Well, that day, that’s okay. I mean, those are things you’ve got to just forgive yourself and continue on. But But there’s so many hard things that are going on whether it’s, you know, again, abuse or whether you just need, understanding about sex that you haven’t gotten. And being timid and shy, or another thing I think that is important is thinking about in our society, and even Christian culture, a lot of times it’s like, is the woman even supposed to initiate?

16:13
Oh, well, I think the Bible does show us putting, you know, examples of women initiating. Yeah. And right. I don’t see, I don’t know why that has ever been a thought, like, I’ve never personally had that thought. That’s not my worldview. Yeah. I mean, my parents just taught me that sex was instituted by God, but it was for our enjoyment, and we should enjoy it. And we should take full advantage of enjoying it. And that, you know, they enjoyed sex with one another, it wasn’t up to the one who always initiate so.

16:52
Right. And I think that being raised in the church myself, and seeing the model of my parents in my background as someone who never talked about sex, and I had to learn through friends and embarrassing situations about what sex was actually. Yeah, yeah, it really is. It really is. And it’s so often it’s so common. But, you know, from my background, it was like, you know, I can very much understand the wife that’s grappling with, am I even supposed to be sexy? Like if I, you know, show up in the bedroom, scantily clothed? Am I going to look like someone who’s immoral? Someone who doesn’t follow the Bible. And, you know, that’s,

17:42
that is a concern that a lot of women have. I do think that was probably a cultural thing, because I can remember my mom telling me that in her day and time, women that were anklets were those that were more open. And I’m like, really? Right. My parents are kind of a very different generation, because I’m the youngest of five children. And there’s 10 years between me and my oldest brothers. Oh, yes. Uh huh. Back in the 50s, you know, wearing anklets. So my mom kind of had to be like, Okay, this is not currently this situation. So she would let me wear them. But it was hard for.

18:23
That’s really funny. Yeah, well, I think that, I mean, I even have Christian friends that have shared that with me that, you know, initiating is, like, a friend that’s coming to mind was not raised in the church. So when she became a Christian, she had to totally change. You know, her whole, yeah, her whole worldview, lots of experiences that she had, but she saw things that she was raised with, you know, her her mom, the way that she talked about sex, you know, now all of a sudden to my friend was very wrong and very bad. And so it’s just this, this strange thing we have to we have to walk this line where, you know, how is it that I’m sexy, and totally righteous and totally holy before Jesus. And I think the key is marriage. That’s the difference. That’s the difference. You are not doing something scandalous or in, in a space that is immoral. And it absolutely is immoral, outside of marriage, but within a marriage. That is your space to be exactly everything that you are that you want to be and I want you to know that you are sexy, you are a sexy woman, God made you that way you can’t help it. God made you with curves regardless of how they are shaped regardless of all the areas. God made you incredibly sexy to your husband. And that’s why he chose you. That’s why he picked you out of the millions of women out there you were the one that caught his eye and caught his attention. And so I think that kind of touches on something It’s very important that as a woman, in order to have the confidence to initiate, you have to truly believe your value. I think you truly have to believe the value that God places on you. When he designs you, I mean, truly, we are his masterpieces He didn’t create, you know, it’s funny, I’ve got a lot of freckles. And my whole life, I’ve always, like disdain them, because they’re just everywhere. But the truth is, that’s exactly how God wanted me to be. He wanted me to have these beautiful little funny things all over the place. And I just embrace it, you know, whatever, whatever peculiarities your body has, I mean, that was God reflecting his creativity, his design his the just the interesting ways that we are all created is a reflection of God’s creativity in his masterpiece. So anyway, what are your thoughts on that?

21:00
Well, I, I would say that women do have a lot to get over. Because, yes, I mean, first of all, depending on where you grew up, if you grew up, like I did, in inner city, I dealt with a lot of street harassment. There wasn’t a term to this back in the day, but now they’ve actually like, terminology is strictly harassment, where you’re walking down the street, and random guys are constantly hollering out at you. So it makes you feel like you’ve got to put your defenses up, because this isn’t a safe thing. When when random strangers are hooting and hollering at you. And I think that a lot of women have been made to feel like their sexuality is something to be ashamed of, or something that could put them in danger. Because I mean, we’re very fragile. And what if someone decides they’re going to come take advantage of us. So I really personally had to separate what other men’s intentions toward me were and my own husband, because he wasn’t just any guy on the street, or whatever, my husband, I needed to embrace that. But it was very hard for me to do that. And I shot him down several times over the years, for his advances to me, because I had just been in that mindset. And the mindset was, that I had to have with the world as I’m not here for your pleasure, you know, I’m not looking sexy today for you, or I didn’t get dressed for you. So you really don’t have any claim to my body or my attention. But in my home in the marriage, like you said, what makes the difference, okay, in the marriage is what makes the difference. I don’t want to look sexy for some guy on the street, but I do want to look sexy for my husband, and I want to embrace that he finds me beautiful. And I think so women that are struggling with that, is it. Okay? And what does God say about this, or whatever. I mean, if you will read this Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs with Trevor Bible, you’re you’re reading it, like her husband gives her amazing praise. And light goes over every inch of her body and talks about it. And she does the same thing for him. And like, they’re just rejoicing in each other’s bodies. And that is pure that is holy. And that is okay. Yeah, I don’t think a woman should ever do something that makes her feel sweaty, or something like that. But I, I do think she should open her mind and not be so reserved that she can’t ever put on a piece of lingerie because she’s like, I’m going to look like a sweat. If I do. Well, you would if you went outside, you would? Yeah, exactly. You know, you went out on the street like, yeah, they might hear your bedroom.

23:57
That’s exactly, exactly well. So I really liked that you touched upon an area where a woman might be coming from where she is you felt growing up with a lot of attention. That was not, I mean, biblically, it’s inappropriate, that attention is not meant for them at all. It’s meant for your husband, that kind of sexual attraction, all of that is meant for the marriage bed. So I really like that you talked about how women can feel that their sexuality is something to be embarrassed of, or to hide or to keep up for themselves, protect,

24:35
protect their sexuality, because it could be taken from them. If they go out on the street or out in the road, and they look too sexy, and then somebody takes advantage of them or they don’t protect themselves. But that has to go away in the marriage bed and that is very hard to do.

24:53
Mm hmm. Yeah. And I think that’s, I mean, I definitely have seen that in my own heart where my has been, we’ll make an advance. And that just reminds me of something out in the world that either I’ve experienced or I’ve listened to I’ve seen on a movie, something like that. I’m just like, Oh, that feels so bad. I don’t want to be that kind of a woman. And then to recognize, wait a second, I saw that in a context of sin. And so I’m associating it with the sin that was in that context. But this is the context of holy union, this is not that sinful scenario that you may have experienced before. Regardless of you were doing the sin or someone who’s doing the sin to You. It is not the case in marriage. Absolutely. The other thing that I think you touched on, that’s very different from my story that I wonder if others relate to is that when I was growing up, I grew up in very rural area, like we had lots of animals, goats, sheep, horses, pigs, ducks, Donald pie. I mean, it was, it was the gamut. It was a lot of I think I missed some in there. But there was a lot of a lot of animals going on. And I was a little Tubby when I was young, and it was just something of my whatever, I just grew up that way. And you know, I had an older brother, I’m one of five also. So he, you know, picked on me, that’s what kids do a lot of times. And if you haven’t heard my story on this, you can actually hear about it ended up developing into an eating disorder later in life. And kind of the way I’ve worked through that, if anyone can relate to those kinds of, you know, eating and body image issues. That’s me just look that up. I think it’s a I think it is episode 20. Yeah, if anyone can relate to that, that’s episode 20. But anyway, that kind of brought me into my, you know, dating and ended up in marriage, really, you know, asking the question, Am I gross? Like, that’s how I felt, I felt like, I would never really be desired. And that was something that was really hard for me to, to figure out because I grew up with this whole idea of like, if I was ever rejected in the bedroom, it was because I was gross, I was not good enough, I was not sexy enough. I wasn’t one of those ladies that, you know, has all the curves in the right places. And so that was something I had to really change my mindset about that my body is a temple of God, like he chose my body to live inside my body. It’s not we our bodies, we can’t ignore the fact that God made us into sensual beings, literally, we got the five senses, we got, I mean, so that’s, I mean, I’m still working through a process, I’m reading a great book called The Four day when if anyone is going through a process like mine of be understanding to love your body again, and have a healthy relationship with food, but it is a constant daily process of like, my body is good. It’s lovely. I’m loving the things that it does and what it is and how it tells me things and beginning a brand new relationship with my body even daily, so. So yeah, I think that, depending on where you’re coming from, that’s a very important piece to initiating is, is loving your body for what it is right now, not what it could be or what it should be, quote, unquote. But what it really is right now,

28:24
I think a lot of women are made to feel that their bodies are shameful, because it does cause a sexual reaction in men, whom they are attempting to cause that reaction. And it’s hard, you know, I’m a big chest to girl, I will go ahead and say that, and so a lot of attention on account of that. It was very inappropriate and made me feel very self conscious about my body. And I carry those things with me today. Because I know that that is, and somebody may not even be trying, but you know, their eyes wander hard, and you feel ashamed of yourself. And I am, I try really hard to teach women to feel beautiful. And that’s a series I have on my blog is about feeling beautiful, and the things you can do to feel beautiful, because I don’t really do anything in the way of saying this is how you look beautiful because I think women are I think they’re already beautiful. But like they could be a runway model and if they don’t feel beautiful, right here now the way they are they will not feel that way if they had, you know a bunch of professionals working on them all day long. So they could be a runway model because you know, that’s body image issues from the most beautiful people on the planet tells you something. Yeah, we have to feel beautiful and part of that is definitely quieting that negative noise that we hear from the world. Whether it’s, you know, reading, I don’t know, just maybe body shaming articles or whatever, like, I personally don’t use 2d magazines at all. And I actually quit that when I was like, 17, because they just made me feel ugly. And I was like, Well, I’m not gonna. Yeah, I’m gonna read beauty magazines, because they just make me feel ugly, they make me feel like I have a problem that I don’t actually have.

30:28
Mm hmm. Absolutely. And I think this, I mean, all of this body stuff, and our past, it all comes into the bedroom, it absolutely affects us in the way that we enjoy our husband. And so I like to You said earlier that initiating is insanely important, because from my experience, when I initiate my, like, heart, body and mind is in the zone, it is in the moment. Whereas if I’m receiving initiation, a lot of times, I’m like, Oh, I was just thinking through my to do list or I was trying to unwind from the day, or I was really wanting to go to sleep. And yeah, you know, it might take me a little bit of time to actually get in the zone. But when I’m the one that puts my heart in that place, from the get go, it’s way easier for me to stay there and present and enjoying my husband. And another thing that women It’s peculiar about women, it’s very unlike men, and a lot of times men don’t understand this, but you know, a man gets turned on, it’s very, very obvious. And often, it’s very quick, it doesn’t always know always, and as a wife, there’s definitely things you can do to help help him get turned on. And, you know, there’s different ways that he has directions. And there’s, you know, either it’s either a mental thing, there, there’s like, four different directions. So it’s the morning, any reaction can be used for sex, just so you know, as women, there’s the morning erection, there’s the erection that happens through thinking or a visual. So it’s all mental, that that one, which often we think that’s the only erection that men can have, but it’s not. And then the other one is, it’s called reflex erection, which means by touch, so let’s say he’s stressed or distracted, or that kind of thing, touching is a great way to bring that about. And then the last one is random. And the reason I think random is really important for us as wives to know is that a flaccid penis actually doesn’t have any blood flow going through it, and every other part of your body has blood flow, and that’s cleaning it keeping it healthy, getting all the metabolic waste out of it, that’s a very important the blood flow. But if there’s no blood flow, it’s not staying healthy. So the average man has an average of 11 erections every single day, which you might be shocked to hear. But that is actually scientifically the truth. And if you ask your husband, I bet he’ll affirm it. And they’re not necessarily all the way erections, but there might be partial reactions. But the point is, your His body has a way of cleaning things out to keep it healthy. So that’s a very good thing. And I think as women and mothers, we need to understand how their bodies work. So we don’t shame them inappropriately or think something bad is going on in their head when it’s just simply this, this very physical reality of their bodies. So the reason I say all of that, and all of that and more is outlined in my delight your husband book, that’s why I’m really passionate about this. Because as women, if we’re not confident in how our husband’s body works, we will be so insecure, we will be so insecure about how to interact with their body because we don’t know how it works. And the truth is we don’t because it’s different than ours. But I say all of that because as a woman, feeling confident in initiating with her husband, is vital for her own feelings of self worth, for her own feelings of confidence, her own feelings of sexy and beautiful when she knows she can turn on her husband and make him feel great. Like those are huge, boost your self esteem, but also, they want they make you want to come back over and over and over again to the sexual experience. There’s too many marriages out there where women are hiding, because they don’t want to pretend anymore. Maybe they’ve pretended in their sex life for years and they’re just tired of doing it. And so, I want you to stop pretending and get to a place of real confidence and real sincere desire for your husband sexually. And that as Keeley was talking about earlier is exactly what he wants. He wants his wife to want him. He doesn’t want her to think it’s a chore. He doesn’t want her to. Like it’s the last thing on her mind. Or she’s just doing it to please Him. He wants her to want him very, like truly and completely. What are your thoughts on that, Kelly?

34:45
Well, well, first of all, I did not know that much about penises, but I never knew all of that. Okay, that’s just awesome. Now I have more information. I think that when we have our own body image issues, okay, and we have a problem with the way we look, the way we feel, and we feel shameful about the way our bodies look because of, you know, sexual advances towards us from inappropriate people, when we don’t have sex with our spouse, when we reject them, and we don’t initiate, when we don’t give the indication that we’re open to this and want this, we’re actually shaming their sexuality. And then they will experience their own amount of insecurity, because it’s like, I feel ashamed that I have these desires. And instead of being able to embrace those desires, they feel bad about it, they feel guilty about it, they aren’t enjoying the sex with you as much they know they need it. It’s like I have to eat, you know, but they feel guilty. Like if they were on a diet and cheating and eating pizza or something. Like I’m firstly having the self denial, but I have to have something and here’s pizza, so you’re not so guilty the whole time. And they feel guilty for wanting it. And really, you just end up with very two unhealthy, insecure people in the marriage. And the woman starts thinking that her husband’s being selfish, because he’s asking for sex. And not really listening to her needs. But she’s sending the signal to him that she doesn’t want to have sex, and that it is a burden to her. So that’s how he’s acting kind of comes to be this cycle. That is very damaging and destructive to a sexual intimacy, because you’ve got a spouse that feels guilty about initiating sex. The other spouse feels like that spouse is being selfish towards them, because they aren’t, you know, trying to help them get in the mood. But the other ones like I got to do this quickly. Right, right. Right, right. It’s a whole lot of miscommunication going on, all the way around.

37:02
Yeah. Yeah. And I was honestly, Keeley when I started out, and Keeley and I talked a little bit before this, and we, you know, had an email exchanges about what we were going to talk about, and we went way off the tracks. But I think we covered things that are really helpful. And I think, kind of, to summarize this conversation is there’s a lot more to be said a lot more to be learned a lot more of a journey to travel down, depending on where you’re coming from in the spectrum. But I think, you know, maybe some last words of advice. You know, Kelly, if you, you know, kind of want to just make sure women get these couple of thoughts. What would you kind of say?

37:44
Well, I would say that, first of all, you really need to address the issues within yourself of what’s keeping you from initiating sex and enjoying it. What? Because you’re gonna have sexual desires. I know a lot of people, a lot of women will say, Well, I’m really low drive, okay, maybe so but there is going to be a period of time in the month where you are not going to be low Dr. What’s keeping you from initiating at that point, and figure out what the root causes that is, you know, and I had to figure out for myself that I cared a lot of body shame from just a lot of sexually inappropriate comments and things towards me. I had to deal with that and recognize it. And then I think a woman has to do the things that she can do to be comfortable initiating, just put yourself out there on a limb. And understand that it is important just because sex is happening if you’re not initiating that is a problem. Yep. Yep, yep. Yep. That’s good.

38:49
And I agree, I It’s funny, because I’ve done I’ve written some about this. I think it’s somewhere on my blog, but I’m probably low drive. Like, if I were to really just try to tune in and only have sex when I, you know, fully desire it. It would not happen very often. It really wouldn’t. And I do this whole podcast, I think about sex all the time I read about you know, like, like, if I’m that way that I’m pretty confident there are other women that are just like, I don’t want it like he does and, and that is okay. And that is completely, okay. So don’t, don’t feel like you’re broken. If you don’t have that strong desire. It doesn’t mean that and don’t also let that be a barrier between you having sex with your husband, because again, the way the female body works is very different than his you have to decide in your heart. A lot of times not everyone is like not every woman like a lot of women have just a stronger libido than others. But if you’re like me, you have to decide in your heart before you ever get there. And so that might mean putting it on the calendar. We’ve talked about this so many times on the podcast, but putting on the couch Specifically when you are going to initiate and so all day you are thinking about it all day you were like when am I going to take my shower, I need to go for that run. So I feel sexy and confident I need to, you know, wear some specific laundry, maybe I need to pick up something that’ll make me feel extra sexy tonight. And then do it, you know that that is your process, then go for it. Because it is huge. It is so important in your marriage, he needs to, he needs to know that you desire him. And as a wife, we’ve got to be really intentional about that this is not something that’s just going to happen. The thing that is happens if we let it go, if we’re not intentional about it, is we fall into a rut of no sex. And that’s where so many marriages are. So as wives I think I’m I just want to commend you for tuning in to this show, because it shows that you want something more from your sex life, you want to get to a place where you feel confident in initiating. And so that’s my background with this kind of low drive. Like, like who I am, but I’ll tell you what, and this is backed by science to is that the more you have sex, the more you desire it. And so they’ve even done studies where there was like a group of people where one group only had sex when the both parties desired it and then one group had sex even when only one party was interested. And the group that decided to do it only when one party was interested ended up with happier relationships, more fulfilling sex lives. And they stayed together, far longer. And in fact, you know, the study didn’t say if they ever broke up like, and then this was a secular study, this had nothing to do with you know, serve your husband, because he’s, you know, blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t that it was it was specifically putting the other person before yourself. And, and if you think about the whole story of why Jesus wants us to be married, and why it it teaches us things every single day and makes us better people and more like him. Learning to serve and learning to put the other persons first is a process that he smiles upon that matters to him and, and helps us become people that he wants us to be. So if you’re having a hard time, you know, we’ve talked about sex, most of this conversation, we haven’t talked that much about God. But if you’re having a hard time understanding why God wants this for you just just, you know, hear us out. Here we are Bible believing women that love Jesus, and we’re having great sex in our marriage. So if you’re not there yet, you can get there and just continue on that journey.

42:33
Well, you know what I’d like to point out one thing, because you were saying that you’re you consider yourself to be the lower Dr. spouse, and that could absolutely flip flop for you. You might get to a place in your life, when your kids are grown. Look, it’s so hard to feel sexy. When you have little kids, it really is it really dampers, your ability to initiate, you’re exhausted, whatever there’s like so many physical factors that may change for you. And your spouse may eventually be the one that has the lower drive. But one thing I have found in our marriage is because we put such an emphasis on being intimate regularly, there are nights when neither one of us are necessarily like in the mood. But it’s been, you know, two, two days or something like that. And we’re like, hey, we need to come back together as a couple and do this. And I think, you know, we could probably have both just gone to sleep plenty of times. But it’s so important part of your marriage. And I think you’ll eventually get to a place where maybe both of you aren’t really in the mood really. But you know that this is healthy for your relationship and you want to reconnect? Yeah. And so you initiate even if you’re not in the mood, I think that’s so important to understand is that both parties should initiate whether you’re in the mood or not. Yeah. Because by the end of it, you will be Yeah, hopefully. I mean, yeah, yeah.

44:06
I mean, yeah, it definitely isn’t an automatic that you’ll be in the mood. But if you really put yourself out there like attentionally get there. Yeah, I think you will. And another thing I want to point out something that you said, you said, you know, don’t do something that makes you feel sweaty. And it’s funny because for my background, missionary with the lights off under the covers would make me feel sweaty. So Oh, like literally my, my bar first bloodiness was so low because it was never talked about. It was always shameful. It was always disgusting. My curiosity was bad, you know, it was always negative. And I know there are people that have those concerns, or on the flip side, maybe they’ve gone way too far done way too much. And they’re like, that reminds me of that bad stuff. So I don’t want to do that either. And, you know, and I’ve done that too. So I mean, I’ve got a lot of God has really redeemed a lot. In my heart and experience, but one thing I would suggest for women is that and again, I, I really in my book, I really ask people to take very practical steps to encourage them to do something that they’re uncomfortable with, and then get comfortable with that. Because Because so often we will just say, well, that’s wrong, and we’ll just not touch it. And it’s like, well, wait a second, this end what we’re talking about in the context of your marriage. This is right, there is no, God God gives he’s very specific about what’s right and wrong in the Bible. But and with sex, the it stops within your marriage. That’s where it stops in your marriage. It’s okay. And, and in, in Sangha Solomon’s the wife often is the one that’s pursuing the husband, it’s very interesting. She’s the one that’s initiating, she’s the one that’s going after him. She’s the one that’s daydreaming about him sexually. Like, that’s what we can be as women, we are so free to be that way. And I think, you know, kind of what we’re talking about, it was a process for you Keeley. It was a process for me, it didn’t happen overnight. With this, this one podcast, even if you listen to it six times is not going to be the end of your journey to this place of freedom, you really, I do believe have to be intentional about getting to that place. And I’m still learning I mean, you should never stop learning about sex and learning how to be more in your body. But I do think you can come to a place of greater, greater freedom. If you do take some intentional steps to work through what’s going on in your heart in your past, to get to a place where you can freely confidently initiate with your husband.

46:43
You know, some practical things you can do to initiate is to flirt more, I think women do end up flirting more. But I think we put like the we stopped that a lot of times because we are not open to have sex. So definitely flirting more is very helpful kiss him and pinches button stuff during the day. So my parents do this all the time, by the way. They constantly. How does so cool? Yeah, I think that that is a non threatening way for a woman to start initiating is to flirt more because that tells her husband that she is interested, especially if she’s constantly shuts it down so that he doesn’t get on the Yeah, I think it’s Sheila from to Love on Her vacuum that says put more energy in what you can do to be turned on tonight, instead of putting all your energy into turning yourself off, or turning your spouse off. I mean, so much energy burning him off and put that same energy into turning yourself on. If you feel super shy, you could always text your spouse or leave a note, hey, let’s be together tonight, like so if you are a wife that is desiring sex, but doesn’t know how to ask for it. That will help you if you’re a low drive spouse, and you’re like, but I still want to initiate this that will help you too, because you’re kind of backing yourself in a corner with that. Yeah, if you’re if you’re saying, hey, let’s have a time. I’m gonna leave this note for him. Let’s have sex. Yeah. And I would also say that there are ways that you can trick your mind into being turned on or to be more ready and open for set. It’s kind of like that. I don’t know that experiment where they ring the bell for the dog and the dog mares to come eat their food or whatever. Mm hmm. Sure, that same thing, if you will have a specific fragrance that you wear when you have sex, this actually helps for both of you. So you can put this on would probably be like, Wait, that’s the sex smell. very dedicated scent for the bedroom so that it doesn’t get confused. And so when you wear it, you are sending a very real signal to him. It’s time to have sex because you’re turning him on. You’re turning yourself on because every time you have sex, you’re wearing this scent. It’s just gonna happen and opposite to because I don’t know if you’ve ever sprayed air fresheners and a bathroom and you’re like, oh, every time I smell that it makes me smell think of bad bakes. Oh, sure. So it’s, it’s so important. You can also do that with music. You can have a specific style of music that you play. And you always are playing this while you’re making love and then you start playing it during the day and put on your scent. I mean, you’re already telling your brain this is what’s going to happen. And you can do the same thing with certain kinds of clothes if you want to tell your spouse you know, because sometimes women that struggle to initiate all we got to do is like put that first foot forward than their spouse will kind of take over. So if you come out and play in lingerie, they’re going to know, if you come out kind of a sexy outfit, that’s going to be confusing, but that’s right. I’m out riding lingerie or if you don’t sleep naked, go to bed naked one night, that’s gonna send a very clear signal available to you. That’s right. And I actually encourage any woman to sleep naked any way if especially if she slow drive, because it just makes it so much more available. Yeah, it because you don’t have to take your I don’t know, there’s just cumbersome to have to take your clothes off. So those are some simple ways that you can work towards initiating. I don’t know if any, I think maybe go into bed naked might be kind of out there. For some women. This is feeling ashamed of their body, which that’s a big, big problem for most women feeling. You can work up to that though.

51:00
Yep. You totally can. And it’s funny, it was on the podcast. That someone it was about a year ago now. Actually, the podcast. Just I think yesterday is a year old. So I’m so excited. But it was about a year ago that someone suggested Sleeping Naked. And, and I’d never really tried it. And then I started doing it every now and then. And I noticed that it was it actually turned me on just being like, wow, I am so available right now, like this is really cool. So you might be surprised, like it’s not just for him, it will really cause you to start really desiring things that are interesting. So I definitely agree with that. And I’m really glad, Keeley. I’m glad that you know, this is a longer episode for people. But I really think the practical things are very, very important. So was there anything else that you wanted to share on that? On that way?

51:46
I don’t think so those were some of the things that I suggest for initiating for those that are feeling shy about it. Yeah. Obviously, there’s plenty of other things you can do to initiate but we’re just talking about a starting point here. Absolutely.

52:02
So I know the last time you talked about bedroom games, can you kind of tell people about that and how they can find it.

52:08
Okay, so I have on my website, the biggest viewed posts are my bedroom games. And I have like, sexy truth or dare, a couple of those games, I have a few card games that are different suits, and I’m about to release my last card game, which means it would be a full set, and it’s all free, just print it. And you don’t even have to have these cards. But the thing I have found about bedroom games is that it takes the guesswork and creativity out of what you need to do next. So you just pick up the card and you’re like, this says for me to kiss you here. It’s kind of like those dice where you just roll the dice and it’s got like, neck and kiss or something. I don’t it part one has different actions, which I think those are kind of boring, to be honest.

52:58
Because there’s not that much you can actually put on the little dice to really try new things. Because you’re looking at these cards, you’re like, Okay, so I should try this. And you might go I don’t know if I want to try this. But there it is. And I don’t know,

53:18
I think it just helps take the guesswork out of it. Because I know for myself I struggle like alright, I’m going to intentionally be sexy. I don’t even know what that looks like or what that means. Yeah. Right. So I think help a lot of couples out I’ve had a lot of people write into my website and say we have really enjoyed your bedroom games. Because if you go search for play moves or something like that online, I mean, you’re gonna just come up with all this garbage. Absolutely. Absolutely.

53:55
Yeah. Yeah, with awesome. Yeah. And we’ll have that. We talked about a lot of different resources here today. So I’m going to have it all on the delight your marriage website that’s associated with this episode so you can find everything that we’ve talked about so you can just click easily and get to Healy’s website. So the last thing I want to just ask is How can people follow you online Qilian and find out more about your resources?

54:19
i Yes, you can always follow me at love hope adventure.com I am on Facebook at love hope adventure. I am on Twitter at love hub Advent. I am on Instagram. I think it’s just my personal profile. Keeley reason? I’m not actually sure I’m on Instagram. No worries. Well, we’ll have to remember my own name right? No, I think I may have actually changed it to love hoop adventure over there too. And I’m on Periscope every afternoon. You can look me up Keeley reason on Periscope and I’m usually On one o’clock most days that I can Monday through Friday, so I kind of do a little talk show type thing there.

55:07
That is so cool. Yeah, Kelly, I just want to thank you so much for this fun conversation. And I feel like I got things out of what you were saying. And so I just really appreciate, you know, sharing your story and your wisdom with us.

55:20
much for having me on the show. I love listening to you. Oh, thank you, I

55:25
so appreciate that. Oh, fantastic stuff. I feel like Keeley and I could have just gone on and on and on on this topic, because it just, there’s so much to it right? It affects our heart, our confidence, how we feel about ourselves, how we feel about our marriage, how we feel about our husbands, all those things. But I want to encourage you, I’ve got a number of other resources around confidence. Actually, last week’s episode, if you didn’t get a chance to hear it is all about confidence. And I point you to some really helpful resources. One is my delight, your husband video course that was just re released, I’m so excited at an amazing discount. So please go to delight your marriage.com Click on Resources, and then it’ll drop down to video course just click there. And you can get all the details. But I’m so excited because there’s been so many people that have enrolled, and it’s just the excitement, that’s really going to change people’s lives. I’ve just been amazed what God has already done through this course and what he’s going to continue to do. So if that’s something that you would like to really get a handle on how your husband thinks, and what his body does, and how to really work his body. I mean, the whole, we talk about it all very practically very godly, very scripture oriented, getting through your barriers, making you become a woman that feels free and confident in intimacy with your husband. So I would love for you to join me there. Otherwise, thank you again, for listening. There’s lots more resources to let your marriage.com/ 96 has got every link we talked about in this show. So do check that out and check out Kelly’s wonderful resources as well. God bless you praying for you and I will be talking to you next week, Tuesday. And again, that’s going to be a journey interview where we are talking to a wife about the hard things, the amazing things, what she’s learned how she’s grown in intimacy. We’re specifically talking about porn addiction from a female’s perspective. So I talk about my experience with that as well. And if you’ve ever had that challenge, it’s going to be one that you don’t want to miss. We’ll talk soon God bless.

57:33
Thanks for joining. If you’ve been inspired by this show, would you help spread the word? If you take a moment to review and subscribe others can find us more easily. Find out how to delight your marriage.com forward slash iTunes. Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion

 

 

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