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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.

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Hi there, and welcome. I’m glad you’re at the delight your marriage podcast. If this is your first time, we are talking about intimacy in marriage, whether that’s emotional intimacy growing closer together as a couple in your union, or maybe it’s spiritual intimacy as you grow closer to God, and you grow in that journey together, or it might be physical intimacy, where you’re learning and getting inspired to make love to your spouse to your partner in this life. That is what we are discussing. So today sexual respect. What does that mean, first of all? And how do you know if you’re receiving sexual respect? And how do you know if you’re giving appropriate sexual respect, that’s what we’re going to talk about. Because there might be some underlying tensions that are going on, that need to be dealt with in order to allow you to be free, confident and fulfilled in lovemaking, and as well for your spouse. So let’s dive in.

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So what does it mean to have sexual respect? So I think the first thing to think about is what is your sexuality? As a woman? What does it mean, for you? What is your sexuality? Well, I think that includes your desire for sex. I think it includes the way you think about sex. I think it includes the way you seduce your husband. I think it includes the way you dress for him, the way you tease him, the way you talk to him in a seductive way. Or even when you’re making love, your smell, your taste, your orgasm, your desire for orgasm, your body, the way it looks, the way it feels. All of these things are included in your sexuality. And when that is not respected, that’s a big issue. When that is taken for granted, by your husband, maybe he feels like you’re always gonna make love when he initiates or maybe he feels like, he doesn’t need to be excited when you’re having sexual advances towards him, because he’s always used to that or you know, fill in the blank. But if you’re feeling like you’re taken for granted, I think that is not being sexually respected. I think if you’re, you know, coming up against some issues, like maybe he’s being unfaithful to you, in ways that might not be as apparent. So it could be pornography, it might not be you know, explicit affairs, but it might be pornography. So I that’s being unfaithful or it could even be just him not having the full what am I trying to say? Kind of kind of like when when it’s pretty clear that men are checking other women out, that doesn’t feel like you’re being respected does it? Um, another thing is, if he compares you with other women, that’s not the respect you deserve. So what I believe he should be doing is to have a positive regard for your sexual personhood. So what you do what you look like how you think about sex, how you smell, your tastes, your sound, he should have a positive regard about that. And when I say how you think about sex, I don’t necessarily mean you know, if he wants you to be more free in the bedroom or wants to encourage your your, your confidence in that and your growth in that I don’t want you to take what I’m saying, as you know, he should just be happy with the way things are right now, I don’t think that’s exactly what I mean. But I just mean, you know, if you feel if you feel a certain way about different things that you want to have happen in the bedroom, that that should be respected that should be heard and talked about and, you know, considered as a couple together. So. But no, I do think that these things are absolutely required for you to have the confidence, the sexual fierceness, the sexual freedom in marriage, you need your husband, number one has to be committed to you completely faithfully. And number two, not compare you with other women. And number three has a positive regard for your sexual personhood. But here’s something you might not have known. After I’ve told you these things about the respect you deserve as a wife, and you’re like, yeah, yeah, he should, he should do this. He absolutely is not treating me the way I deserve to be treated. I have to tell you, it’s up to you to be respected. It is up to you to be respected.

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So how how does that happen? How do you receive the respect that you desire? So I think there’s a number of steps to go through. The first one is confidence. So if you don’t have the confidence that you deserve to be respected, then that I mean, that’s baseline, you have to believe that you deserve respect, that your body deserves to be cherished, that who you are is enough that your orgasm is just as important as his, that is the baseline, his confidence, his belief that God gave you a sexuality that deserves respect, who you are in the bedroom, matters to God, he designed every part of your body, every part that includes your beautiful vagina, the lips, the clitoris, it all was his creation, all his design. And if your husband is not giving you that respect, it’s up to you to recognize you deserve it. So that’s the first thing is confidence. That’s your responsibility to become a confidence. It’s not automatic. It’s not that people have confidence, or they don’t. Maybe I should say it’s not that people are born with confidence, or they’re not, or their parents taught them how to be confident about their sexuality, or they didn’t, or somehow they learned it along the way picked it up from some girlfriend somewhere. And now they they learn how to be confident, it is a day by day discipline. Eventually, it does become natural, for the most part, but you might slip into insecurity again, I mean, certain definitely different things happen in your body, whether you have a baby or you gain some weight or you lose some weight or your hair falls out or you get wrinkles or your all these things can happen to your body and you have to have the discipline to say my body is enough. My sexuality is enough. Even if things change menopause, things get drier. I mean, all these things change around your sexual desires. Maybe you have medication and you have no libido or different things happen in this life. But no matter what, you have to recognize that you deserve it. There is you have a confidence in that. So that’s the first piece is is is exercise the discipline of confidence. That is your responsibility. Be confident in that. Number two is boundaries. So we’ve talked about it plenty of times on the show before but there’s a great book called boundaries. One of the I guess series in that books is also called boundaries in marriage. But essentially the idea is that what, what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours, I’m only responsible for me, you’re only responsible for you. And there’s certainly Interplay within that. But what we have to realize as women, is that just because we say no to our husband, doesn’t mean we did something wrong. We have to have the freedom to say, No. It doesn’t matter what relationship you’re talking about, you have to have the freedom to say no. So that that’s in any area of your marriage, you have to have the freedom to say no, and I’m not saying that you need to say that word, no. But you can say things like that in a kind way, you can say no, in a kind way it could be.

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I didn’t, I’d like to do that another time. Or it’d be great if we could do that tomorrow. Those are all saying not yet, or later, or whatever. But it is also saying, I have the freedom to make a choice right now. So boundaries is really when you say no, what you’re doing is freeing yourself up to make the decision that you want to make, because that’s what boundaries is all about is your free choice. That’s what you have to have in your marriage is free choice. So the reason this matters to getting respect in your sexuality, is because you don’t have to take what he’s dishing out. So that makes sense. You don’t have to receive everything that he is, is putting on you. So I don’t know if he’s saying things that are negative to you, or it’s just a general negative regard or, or different little comments, or whatever it is that you’re seeing as his not respecting your sexuality. You can say, No, you don’t have to take that you can walk out of the room, a great suggestion by a wonderful lady, Laura Doyle, her book surrendered wife, phenomenal book. But one thing she suggests is say ouch, and walk out of the room. So if he’s saying something that hurts you, that hurts your feelings. Don’t sit there don’t endure the, you know, lethal, verbal attacks, no, say ouch. And leave the room. So it clearly says that hurt me. And I’m not going to be disrespected like that. So that’s, that’s the boundaries. That’s number two. Number one is confidence, you have to realize your worth. Number two is boundaries is saying, Enough, I’m, I have my own choice. And I can do what I need to do to be respected. Boundaries is not saying you have to do what I am telling you to do. Because that’s the opposite. Right? Then you’re telling him what to do. And that’s not your choice. He’s responsible for him, you’re responsible for you. So you have the free choice to leave the room. But you can’t tell him? You can’t say that to me, blah, blah, blah. No, that’s not. That’s not it. That’s not a boundary because you’re telling him what he can’t do. And that’s his free choice. So I think the better way to say something of like, well, honey, you you can do with that if you’d like but my response to that is to leave the room, or my response to that is to not want to be around you. My response to that is I don’t feel close to you when you say those things to me. So yeah, it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as leaving the room, but recognizing that you have the freedom to respond in a way in your free choice is is vital here. So okay, so number one, confidence number two boundaries. And number three, which we kind of have already addressed, but just to underline is consequences. So if your sexuality is not being respected, we talked about if he’s not faithful to you, there have to be boundary there have to be consequence. insist that it’s not in God’s design for the husband to be unfaithful to the wife. It’s just all over scripture. Adultery is a sin. It’s not. Okay. So what are the consequences? Well, I don’t want to tell you what your consequences should be. But there should be consequences. This should be a discussion, there should be open communication, there should be clarified expectations, there should be consequences. Honey, if you do this, this is what’s going to happen. This is what I will do. This is I just, I want you to know that this hurts me. And if this happens, again, I’m going to do X, Y, and Z. I’m going to take the kids and stay at my mom’s house, I’m gonna, you know, whatever the the case needs to be. But there does need to be consequences.

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That’s important here. So maybe things are not as severe. As I’m explaining right now. Maybe they’re just little things. And of course, little things happen all the time, where we just feel a little, like, awkward, like, I really wanted him to be excited about what I was trying to do sexually. And he just wasn’t, well, is that a big deal? It’s not, but it feels like a big deal in the moment. I mean, especially sexually when you stick your neck out there, and you’re, you know, doing something fancy and you feel kind of silly anyway, and pretty embarrassed and exposed, and he doesn’t even respond. I mean, how do you deal with that? How do you make sure your sexuality is respected in that situation? Well, I’m glad you asked. Because I have a little story that happened very recently to us. But basically, the kids were playing and my husband was on the couch watching them. And I guess it was 130. I guess it was one o’clock. That’s right. So it was one o’clock, the boys usually go to sleep at two. And so I said, Honey, I’d like to go take a shower. And he’s like, yeah, go go for it. Go ahead. So I went and took a shower, I got all clean and just had a, you know, really relaxing time and just got refreshed. And I love really hot showers. So anyway, I was thinking like, it’s been a little while since we’ve made love and it was on our rest day. So that means that we really just have a chance to completely relax and enjoy each other’s company and pray and just have a really good time. So we usually make love on rest days, because we do have so much time and we do get to enjoy each other. So I was kind of having that in my head that you know, I get all prepared and have a really exciting time with him. So with that in mind, I you know, dolled myself up and got ready. And then I even thought about what I should wear. So I went in the bedroom and put on something fancy and I won’t give details. But I will say that there was some fishnets involved in a stroppy blue thing. And then I put my clothes on top of there. And I walked in where my husband was and and I thought I was being pretty sneaky, because I was you know, playing with the kids, it was just kind of a subtle, subtle little seduction there. And I look over and he is clearly noticed. And and then I go over and I’m like honey, what do you think about the boys going to sleep a little earlier? And he says, he looks at his watch. And he’s like, Oh, babe, it’s 130. And I was like, yes. And he’s like, I think it’s too early. And I caressed his chest a little bit. And just so you know, in the past, that would be it. I would be so hurt, so frustrated, I would probably have thrown up my hands and been fine. And nevermind, or stormed out of the room or just sat there and cried are plenty of other options. But by God’s grace, I, I, I made a different choice. This time. I think it just shows that God has grown me in this area. But I kind of in that moment after hearing that he was rejecting me. I instead didn’t take it that way and continued to caress his chest and I said well, so you’re making me wait. And he kind of smiles he’s like yes I’m making you wait. And I said, All right, well, this is a limited time offer. And he said, What does that mean? And I said, Well, I’m going to go into the other room. And if you take too long, I’m going to change clothes. And so I did, I went into the other room, and I had enough time. So I blew dried my hair, and I put on some extra makeup and some lipstick, and I got even more fancy. And because I had the extra time, I started to brainstorm what we could do together specifically, and maybe I could do an even extra special seduction for him. And I got even more excited about the, about the time that’s coming. So he put the kids to bed.

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He knocked on the bathroom door. And I said, Honey, you’ll have to wait. And then kind of for the rest of our interactions, we’re kind of it was just back and forth about how we’re waiting. So it ended up being a really fun time. But do you notice that how there was, first of all the confidence were, you know, I knew how sexy I looked, I felt that way I knew my sexuality was valuable. And then when I didn’t feel respected, I put up a boundary. I said, Well, it’s a limited time offer. If and then there were consequences. If you don’t hurry up, I’m gonna change my clothes. So that and that didn’t make him feel bad that didn’t ruin the experience that didn’t upset either of us. We, I did what I was free to do. I I worked within my own freedom. And it ended up an even better experience for both of us. So let’s talk about his sexuality because again, in that story, his sexuality was also respect it. Right, mine was respected as a woman, but his sexuality as a man was respected. So I get so many emails from men. And I know why it doesn’t baffle me in the least it doesn’t surprise me in the least, because men want to figure this out. As a woman, I know how to respect my sexuality. I just explained it to you. But as a man, how do you respect your own sexuality? If your sexuality as a man is not being respected? What is the appropriate response? Anger? Addiction, pornography, being controlling, having distance, distraction, being consumed with work, video games, friends, anything but you? I don’t know. I don’t have the answer. I don’t know what he should do if his wife is ignoring his sexuality. And we can ask the question again, what is his sexuality? The way he feels about sex? The way he desires sex, his member everything his sexual body

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the his erections. That’s Isn’t that all his sexuality? But what what about when it’s not respected? What can he do?

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I mean, certainly, I’m all for, you know, talk to your to your wife. I mean, absolutely. You know, love on her, give her help her to feel your love and help her to understand that, that she’s, you know, all your desires for her and make her feel cherished and give her affection and all of that, but, but then what? What happens next? I, I can’t say I don’t know how to get that respect. You know, speak to her, give her let her know what what sex means to you let her know you receive love through sex. But ultimately, you know, I have to say that ultimately, I have this podcast I have my book my video course it’s all so that I can teach women what it means to respect their husbands sexuality. Because honestly, we don’t get it. We don’t we don’t understand what that means. Because I I think that I think there’s here’s what I think. I think that when a man feels loved through sex, he naturally wants to love his wife with affection. But when a woman feels loved through affection, I don’t think she naturally wants to have sex with him. I think if she understands his mind and body, then yes, she will want to have sex with him. But I don’t necessarily think it’s natural. Let me just say it again to make sure that I’m clear. So I think when a man feels loved through sex, he naturally wants to love his wife through affection. But when a woman feels loved through affection, I don’t think she naturally wants to have sex with him. So again, it’s just this natural thing. I just don’t I don’t understand why I don’t know why women, like don’t just respond automatically, with wanting to make love. I mean, it is kind of there, it’s easier because you love your husband. So you want to do more for him sexually. But it’s, it’s also like, I love you so much. You’re making me feel so wonderful. Let’s just cuddle on the couch together. It’s like, wait, the husband’s like, I just want to get in the true Come on, you know, so. So that’s why I think it’s important to talk about how do we respect our husbands, sexuality, because I speak to women. My role is to educate, to inspire, to empower you to live in holy, physical intimacy. And God wants that for your marriage. That that is what God wants you to be in your marriage, a generous lover, to the man that he created. He wants that for your relationship. So there’s certainly excuses we could all make for why we don’t respect our husband’s sexuality. Maybe ignorance about sex, growing up, insecurity about body image, being physically awkward or feeling unattractive. Your past, maybe abuse in your past, your sexual history, his sexual history, adultery, maybe your living arrangements, things are too close together. It’s not pretty enough or there’s neighbors nearby or people might hear you or the kids might wake up or maybe not feeling like you can afford the things that you want to make you feel relaxed and make you enjoy sex or you can’t go to hotels and go out on dates. And you know, you’re not prepared for sex, or maybe there’s health issues. Maybe there’s things that are physically kind of getting in the way there. Maybe there’s other kinds of health issues like depression or other mental illnesses that are getting in the way. And I can really relate to these things are real things, these are real difficulties to to get through. I mean, much less just busyness just time just things crowding out your your ability to make love. What about being completely exhausted. Not to mention, what if you’re just mad at him because he’s not doing X, Y, and Z. These are all reasons we as women have to not respect to sexuality.

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And I feel for you, I have been there I’ve, I’ve been in those spaces. But I do believe that when we respect who our husband is sexually, he thrives. He thrives. His confidence source, his ability to focus is increased his capacity to be the man you want him to be increases his potential to follow Jesus more closely, can grow. And I don’t say that lightly. When more when Paul in First Corinthians seven, nine, when he talks about if you’re unmarried, stay unmarried. But if you can’t control your lust, get married. Please recognize here he didn’t mean that the man who can’t control his lust should get married. So he has a wife who makes him feel bad about his lust that he can’t control That wasn’t it. Know, if he can’t control his sexual desire, that’s why he got married. That’s what you signed up for when you married a man. You didn’t marry someone without sexual desires, he wouldn’t have gotten married. I guarantee you, he was not the one planning the wedding. He was the one excited about the honeymoon. Your husband has strong sexual desires, very strong, very important. And you are his wife, you have the honor, the privilege, the ability to respect that. And you will never understand how important that is to him. It’s impossible for you to understand you’re a woman. And it’s funny. husbands have reached out to me to tell me that it’s freaky that I can understand them better than they understand themselves. Or someone said, You’re You’re a man with a woman’s voice or just different things like this, it just, it makes me happy that you know, God has taught me different things. But it also just underlines how important this is to your husband. Okay, so the question has to be how do you respect to sexuality? Well, number one, you have to understand it. Again, it’s unnatural for us to think like men, we just don’t have the same nature.

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But then, the other question to ask is, what practically, am I suggesting that you do? Number one, make love consistently. If you don’t know how often he’d like to make love, find out and work to move in that direction. I cannot underline how important this is. Your priorities in life have got to shift. If you do not have enough time, energy, ability, strength, if all those excuses that you just gave me, or I gave you but you nodded your head and said, Yeah, that’s my ex years. Things have got to change. They just do. And the thing is, God has given you the grace to do it. Why? How do I know that? Because it gave you a husband, and your husband’s not dead. So he still has sexual desires. He has given you the grace to do this. I know I’ve been where you are. You won’t believe me. But I’ve been some pretty strong, difficult, hard places in marriage. And I’m telling you, you can do it. Shift your life. So your sexual so your man’s sexuality is respected. So the first one make love consistently. Second one, make love enthusiastically. And the third one make love confidently. And I want to talk about those last two. They may be the hardest ones. Because to be really confident, to be really enthusiastic. You need to a know what you’re doing. Be feel good in your body and see know his mind and his body. So this was the these I guess these were the biggest hurdles for me. I really was so insecure about each one of these about what I knew I was insecure about the way I looked I was insecure about whether or not God thought it was okay. I was insecure about how to do it. I was insecure about why it looked like the bad sin that I see elsewhere. And I needed godly understandings. But I also needed just plain old practical knowledge. But I needed it in the context that God desires it to be in. It I needed to know very specifically how his member works. I needed very clear instructions on how to do the different things to make it feel good. So I’ve gone through that process. It was excruciating at times. I don’t want you to go through that I have a resource for you that will give you the keys. It’s a webinar that goes deeper into your husband’s mind and the way he really He wants you to feel about his body, what sex means to him. And we’ll be talking about specifics of what I call Penny. It’s when a wife uses her mouth in hand to delightedly bring her husband to ecstasy. So this is a vital piece of intimacy that I’m sure your husband has brought up. But to really understand who your husband is, sexually, this is the understanding that you need to have. And once you master that, everything else opens up, you know, the way he thinks, you know, the way his member works, you know how to work it, you understand all the ways around his sexuality. And I’d like to invite you to this free webinar. I’ve had such wonderful feedback I started doing this webinar is for wives who are from newlyweds and others who have been married 40 plus years from around the country and even around the world. And I’ve just had such wonderful feedback. And even just the other day, I received a message from a couple who had watched the webinar over a year ago. And they still talk about how it has affected their love life. So I’d love for you to join, you can go to delight your marriage.com. And the webinar will pop up. And again, it’s free right now. I’ve done a lot of work to get it hosted to get the editing and all these kinds of things to get it available for you again. But I’m not so sure if it’s going to be free forever. So if you’re listening to this in the future, you can go to delight your marriage.com and click on

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just quick search webinar. But like I said, I’m not sure how long it’ll be free, but at least for now, it’s definitely free. So I would encourage you to go as quickly as possible to delight your marriage.com. And you can watch that with me. But like I said, respecting his sexuality is key. How do you do that? Learn. Don’t let this podcast go by without getting to a place of confidence of enthusiasm and consistency in your marriage. Okay, God bless you. Thank you for listening. And I am excited to see you at the webinar. We’ll talk soon.

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Hey, I’m so glad that you joined me today. I hope you got a lot out of today’s conversation. If you have gotten a lot out of it. Can you think of one person who you’d like to share it with? Maybe a girlfriend that you have or someone you’d like to talk this through with? I would definitely encourage that and maybe grab a cup of coffee with them after you both have listened to it at some point and get a chance to discuss it be like digging into these topics like what do you think about this? I would really encourage that and again talk about it have some camaraderie with this. Alright, well, that is the show today. Thanks again for joining. Go to Gillette, your marriage.com watch the webinar and we’ll we’ll see you next week. Next Tuesday. Talk to you soon. God bless you love you, praying for you.

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Thanks for listening. Stop by delight your marriage.com to check out all the show notes as well as many more resources and articles. Until next time, live with love, wisdom impassion