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The specific steps to seduce:

1. Get him to want it
2. Tease him
3. Give him a little bit
4. Pull away
5. Give him what he wants

I also cover in this episode: why seduction is important, helpful tips on what will help you seduce and next steps.

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The Seduction Course P1 will be released next week! Purchase now to have the most discounted price! (It will go up on Tuesday!)

I am SO excited to share this content with you. I think it will really get to the place of implementing and doing practically those things that will really make you feel powerful. Because you know that you know how to drive him wild.

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Main points:

-God’s might and glory is shown in the uniqueness of creation. And in the tiniest of details of your body.

-The way you feel about your body affects the way you interact with your spouse and the rest of the world.

-Children are released in their bodies. Body insecurity is learned (and its unattractive).

-Our self-perception is tied to so many different things. Time of the month, what we’ve been eating for the last couple of weeks, what stresses are in our lives etc. And this affects the way we eat and look at ourselves.

-You can honor and listen to your body. But you don’t have to feel pressure that you have to get “there” before you can seduce your husband and be released in your body.

-Practical tips on what you can do today to be more released.

Check out The Seduction Course presale here for 50% off before it goes live (very soon)!

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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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Welcome, welcome. Thank you so much for joining. I wonder where you are right now, and what you’re thinking about what you’re doing. Welcome, I’m glad you’re here, I hope that this is an encouragement to you pick up in your day, whatever you’re up to. Now, I think this is going to be something that inspires you. We have been tracking on this body series, I don’t know if you have been along for the ride or not. But feel free to just go through them again, and kind of get the the nuggets that you can to give you a greater sense of freedom in your body, with your husband. Because as women, you and I both know, that body is huge, the way we think about our body affects the way we encounter our husband in the bedroom. If we think it’s gorgeous, then we’re much more free. If we think there’s a lot of room for improvement. It’s challenging to feel that way. So we’ve talked a lot about our body being a gift, that it’s not ours, we’re not responsible for the way it looks, that God made it perfectly beautifully. He designed it, he created it, he is the master creator, He’s the heaven, He is the God of heaven and earth, he doesn’t make mistakes. You know, if you zoom in to the itty bitty tiny, tiny molecules of a flower, you know, think about, I don’t know, if you remember, biology class, I can just imagine the plant cells, you know, there’s the different nucleolus, and the just imagining all these little colorful blobs inside this green capsule, called a plant cell, it’s kind of where my mind goes in the science textbook, I remember but all these little plant cells, all these tiny little things inside of there, then then layers and layers of plant cells, and suddenly you zoom out, and then that’s what created one leaf. And then from there, you’ve got one leaf connected to the stem connected to the ultimate flower. And that has got to be connected to the root system. And that, you know, brings in all the nutrients, and you’ve got to have certain things to make plants work like water, and sunlight and air, all of those things in order for an a certain temperature, right? I mean, these are details that God did, God is a God of details. So the tiny little details of your body are important. He put them there, they’re not accidents. You know, if you have a certain color skin, that wasn’t an accident, he didn’t accidentally decide that you are of that ethnic origin, whatever it was, that was on purpose. So it’s beautiful. And you should think it’s beautiful. And you should take your body as beautiful in every respect. And we’ve been talking about this a lot. But But don’t let this go Don’t, don’t listen to it passively. Embrace this cause this to be something you can start to live into. You know, it’s interesting, I was visiting a friend the other day, and she’s very passionate about social justice. And that’s one thing I absolutely love about her. And I went into her bathroom, and I saw this kind of framed, quote, and it was interesting because it was about skin color. And I one line just stuck out to me where it said something like my skin does not was not for thought or there was not for thought in my the way I look or something along those lines. And even though I understand that she’s saying, you know, the overarching you know, heart of it is that we are all created with equality and there’s no reason to separate that because of a certain particular aspect of our, our physical characteristics. I agree with that, except that they were for thought that God did

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have it in his mind to create us with such intention. So for whatever reason, he wanted you to be uniquely you that you are that specific height, that specific colored hair, the specific eyes, the specific way your hands are shaped, the length of your arms, the length of your legs, the shape of your toes, like those are things that he intended for them to be that way, because God is he’s his might, his beauty, his creativity is reflected in his designs. And diversity is who God is. He made this world incredibly diverse, just walk in the forest. Is there one type of tree? Wouldn’t it be horribly boring if there was one type of tree? No, there’s just zillions of different trees and leaves and vines and saplings and giant giant trees and, and then trees are absolutely full grown butter, you know, no more higher than your leg, or, I mean, God just, it just shows more of who he is. And the way we think about our own body is a reflection of how much we are willing to say that God creates that God designs that God intentions. So I want to circle back to this idea of being released in your body. Because as you continue to meditate on this truth, and continue to live into it, it begins to shift the way that you think about your body. Now it’s so funny, because I spent my previous season really focused on this as a as a theme, I guess, we’re a topic of, of prayer and focus and intention, and, and reading and learning and journaling and processing. Because I really felt like God wanted me to focus on this. And my aim was to focus on freedom with food, slash body stuff. It was really freedom with food. But that totally plays into your body and how you feel about your body doesn’t it? And it was last season, and I felt that, you know, it was going to be done after that season. And what God showed me is that as I was going through this process, I got to the end of those few months, and realize that I have gotten so much farther in terms of my understanding in terms of wisdom. But I have a lot more to go in terms of just the way life unfolds. You know, I think that myself, and I think many women are this way that when they have had emotional eating, as the way that they’ve dealt with life, when it gets rough. That there, it kind of comes in waves, you know, or cycles that, you know, as you get really good with processing your emotions and, you know, understanding your trigger triggers and, and seeing them as triggers. That don’t mean in order to survive this experience, you have to eat, you have to numb instead of that, realizing that this desire to eat when I’m not hungry, is really a red flag to say there’s something hard, I need to process there’s something really difficult happening. I don’t know if I know what it is, I might know what it is. But I don’t know if I know what it is. And maybe it’s something like loneliness, maybe I want to eat because I feel lonely. Maybe I want to eat because I feel insecure. Maybe I want to eat because I just lost a person that meant a lot to me and I don’t know how to deal with life unless I eat

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these are things that I am currently continuing to process. I say that it comes in waves because it’s interesting. I did the first part of this series about a month ago and I scheduled it all out in advance and it’s so funny that just a month later, I’m noticing that I’m in a different space. And I’m in this place of processing it again and and continuing to do the hard work Continuing to say, this is the body God gave me this is of such value that I need to be listening to my body. And what I put in, it needs to be listened to and honoring how it feels. And taking the space and time for that, and realizing that it matters, that your life is not too busy to value, the the entity that causes you to have life. Right? I mean, it’s your body we’re talking about this is what makes you have life and for us to value it in a positive way, and to stop feeling so negative about it and to stop doubting ourselves and feeling so insecure and not being comfortable in our own skin. And this is something like I said, I’m, I’m in the, in the wave where I am feeling a little bit farther off than I, I was just a little while ago. And I want to be honest with you about that, because I want you to know that I’m not telling you, from a space of you can’t work at this or, or once you work hard enough, you’re going to get there, it’s it’s really a daily decision to honor what God’s given you. And in honoring and listening to that. And not numbing this world and saying that it’s too much to handle, I’m just going to use food as though it were a drug and totally avoid life. And I think that in women food, and God, she does a great job of helping to cause you to recognize that it’s not just it’s not just this idea of you know, using food in terms of eating, necessarily, you might be in a restrictive way of, of significantly dieting, or dieting in this idea of that’s kind of your obsession with with keeping weight off, or, you know, working so hard to get weight off. And that’s your obsession and your way of checking out of life of the things that really are important. So those are just kind of meandering thoughts, but it might provoke something in you to cause you to think about putting your body in a more honored place in your life, you know, because your body is a lot more than just an entity to carry around your brain. You know, especially when we think about intimacy, especially when we think about enjoying and engaging in intimacy with our spouse. So again, circling back to being released in our body. When was the last time you saw a kid, just jump and run and laugh and dance. I mean, it is the most wonderful thing. We actually had neighbors over yesterday for a surprise party for the father, he came in and was totally unsuspecting, we jumped out and scream surprise. And then shortly thereafter, there was a really funny song that I’ve never heard before, but maybe you’re familiar with it’s called the gummy bear song. It’s kind of hilarious and ridiculous. Anyway, we put it straight on. So the kids could jump and run around and sing and dance and it was hilarious. And the kids they just flail around having fun, whatever and, you know, adults we just, we are so more self conscious. And we don’t need to be that way. We can be so much more free with our body.

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And not necessarily Am I asking you to be free in front of people dancing with your body, by it in front of your husband, to be free in that to be free in front of your husband to dance to seduce to entice. So there’s so much more I want to say about this seduction. And I was trying to like tease out what what are the things that I could say that I feel would be okay, on a public podcast where anyone can just pick up and listen. And I realized that I the details I want to share, I’m not going to be able to share on the podcast. So what I’ve done is I am creating a course actually dubbed the seduction course, we’ll see if I make a more interesting name here pretty soon, but it’s currently the seduction course. And I am going to set up a pre sale for 50% off right now. So before it is absolutely live, and it’ll be live in the next couple of weeks. But if you’re listening to this, right now, you can get it 50% off at delight your marriage.com. So go there and sign up. Basically, I will give you just a quick overview. But here’s what I want to include, because I just think it’s so important. You know, women so often I think they get the heart of it. You know, I hear people that I coach, they they kind of understand, okay, it’s not wrong, it’s not sinful. My husband loves it. Okay, now, what the heck do I do? So this is what it is, I want to be very clear. This is for you. What is seduction, the three necessary components of seduction, the four steps to steamy yet sacred seduction, and then tons of exact specific examples. So we’ll deal with language, examples, text sequences, example phone language, example in person language, example intimacy, language, example situations, example activities, example actions, then the three things to steer clear of at all costs. And then how to make it genuine from your body, your heart and your spirit. So like I said, I want to get really practical, really specific, because I think it can really help you. How do you turn what you know about your body, what you know about your husband, what you know about the way he thinks and is into practice, so that it can be of benefit to your marriage, and ultimately, your walk with God? If that’s what this is, it’s more than just having a steamy passionate, sex life. It’s so so much more. Okay, so I want to end this show with a quick story. So it wasn’t too long ago that my office had this Christmas party. And it was actually really cool. They had rented out this big, beautiful ballroom, there was tons of people there. And they had a dance floor. I couldn’t believe it. So, you know, there was buffet style food, and you kind of walked around and, you know, got a drink here and did that. And so my husband and I did that for a while. And, you know, the DJ eventually got to some more kind of dancing music. And I was like, Honey, I’d really love to dance. And, of course, my husband wants to make me happy as all husbands do. So he was like, Oh, okay. So then we went and started dancing. And you know, it was just so fun, because I just, I get so into the music and start just feeling the music with my body. And it’s not this disconnect, but it’s this, like just letting letting the beat guide where I put my body. Funny enough, when I was growing up, nowhere near that. I wear T shirts and long, baggy pants to hide any kind of shape of my body that I might be because I was so insecure about it.

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But I remember one specific moment was my mom and sister were in the kitchen. And they started dancing to something on the radio and I come in and I was dancing too. And apparently, I just looked so awkward and funny that they all just burst out laughing, which is you know, fun. But the point is that I haven’t always been that way. I haven’t been a person that’s been comfortable in my own skin. And it’s only been really meditating on the way that I don’t need to be insecure about how I feel about money. I’m in I, I have beauty, I am beautiful, I don’t need to walk down the street, and make apologies for not being the standard of beauty that someone might think I am. Because really, when I’m thinking that others are judging me, I am really judging myself. Does that make sense? So when you think that others think you look a certain way, you’re actually just judging yourself, you have no idea what they think, none, unless you go ask them, and then they might not even be honest, so you have really just no idea. So all that to say, though, is that you decide to be released in your body, you decide to go out on that dance floor, and listen to that music and move your body, regardless of how it looks. And, you know, it was interesting, because while we were out there dancing, you know, just kind of seeing other people dancing too, there were two ladies that stuck out in my mind. One was very beautiful. And she had very I would say the standard of beauty in society, in terms of proportions. In terms of dress length, she had it all she was very modelesque on the dance floor. And there was another lady that was fairly, just much larger, you know, had very different kinds of clothes on but she just much, much larger in terms of her weight, overweight and those kinds of things. But I will say that the First Lady, when she was dancing, I would say that she was pretty uncomfortable in her own body, she was uncomfortable in her own skin. And honestly, if I was a man, I wouldn’t be very attracted to her because she just was so insecure, just not enjoying who she is. But then the second lady was having a great time, she was relaxed, she was moving, she was grooving like I was, I was excited, I was inspired to continue to enjoy because she was so clearly enjoying herself. So I encourage you, regardless of where you are, in terms of the way you feel about your body, the first step is honoring what your body is be released. Except that you’re beautiful don’t apologize that you don’t look a certain way or you haven’t you know maintained a certain weight. Just just accept that you can be released you can be everything you know. So, this ultimately goes back to the bedroom. It goes back to understanding that your husband is so attracted to your body, your husband’s so desires to see your body he so desires to see you seduce him. he so desires to see the slow uncovering the slowly being unveiled.

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But it’s a choice for you to choose to be released to choose to be confident even when you don’t feel it. Like I said, I mean, there’s been these recent days and weeks where I have just not felt good about my body in terms of what I’m eating in terms of maybe my menstrual cycle which is all very regular part of us women our lives, right there’s all sorts of reasons we feel bloated or whatever. And yet, our husband still deserves to enjoy our beauty. Our curves, our bare waist, our bare breasts or bare bottom, you know all of those things that he loves, you can reveal seductively because you recognize how much it matters to him. You can still be released. Regardless, I am still processing I am still loving. I am still learning to honor my body but it doesn’t mean that because I’m not quote unquote there that I’m going to you know, rob the opportunity Have for my husband to enjoy what he’s meant to enjoy in who I am. Does that make sense. So he is meant to enjoy his wife’s curves. I mean, that’s the way God made him is to enjoy the visual feast of his wife. And that’s my privilege to bring him a visual feast of who I am. And so I encourage you to be released in your marriage. And do the hard work, continue to discipline yourself to honor your body, and recognize that your body is gorgeous. And it deserves to be appreciated by your husband. So here’s some practical things. Like I said, I really feel the seduction course, can give you the, you know, action items to do the examples, the practical, that kind of stuff, but I can give you some really key things that will inspire you to move forward in this. So number one, very practical, is check your posture. So, whatever situation outside of the bedroom inside of the bedroom, both of those are going to be helpful to you. In this process of being released is practice. Doing a big breath, break breath in. Big breath out, putting your shoulders down and back. kind of relaxing your shoulders, lowering them from your years. And then just putting your Yeah, your shoulders back, just changing your posture sitting up. Right. So as you’re about to go in front of your husband and have a seductive dance striptease, you know, put your yourself in the right posture. So that’s number one. Number two, affirmations I’ve said this before, but I really mean it. I don’t think you’ve been doing your affirmations enough, young lady. Me either. We need to do those affirmations more. But truly, they make a difference the way you talk to yourself. So you got to be intentional, because I know so many times the records are playing about how you look as negative and all these ways, but you’ve got to start playing the right records that say You’re beautiful, you’re gorgeous, you’re fearfully and wonderfully made. I curves, I’ve got everything to drive my husband wild. I am gorgeous. All the details of my skin were divinely created. Okay, so, posture, affirmations. And then the last one, in terms of homework that I want you to do in being released, is to push yourself out of your comfort zone, out of your comfort zone, push yourself, not just push yourself, but stay in that discomfort. Stay in the discomfort. I know, you feel silly, or you feel ridiculous, but stay in it. So if there’s something that your husband has mentioned that, you know, if only you had the courage you would do

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do it. Use this is your motivation this week to go for it. Or if there was some, you know, thing at work that, you know, would really cause you to have discomfort, but at the same time, you know, it’s just a confidence thing, it would ultimately be a great thing for you to do. Just go for it. You know, be willing to sit with that discomfort because soon it’s not going to feel as uncomfortable soon, it’s going to start feeling more normal and natural. You know, it’s kind of funny, I got my haircut not too long ago. And at first I felt super self conscious because it was such a dynamic, dramatic change. And then and then I started just really living into it. And it just felt so normal. It’s felt just so like you know, this is a very normal way to have my hair but at first because it was not only different color, but different length and all this it was just so uncomfortable to be around people to walk by people it felt like everyone must be staring at my head. But then pretty soon it just now it’s normal. It’s no big deal. So I encourage you to just sit in the discomfort. Yes, it’s going to not feel good for a while, but eventually it’s going to feel better and is going to get better and it’s going to be more natural. Alright, well go. And the probably the last thing I would say is check out the selection course, I think there’s real value there, I would really encourage you 50% off right now and get that practical stuff that you can do. You know, I will give you the lines, the actual words, the actual situations. So you don’t have to think that this is completely out there. Because I belah rose and telling you what to do and say, and eventually, this is going to become second nature to you and you won’t need me to script to feed you stuff to do and say but in the beginning, you might need that, and that’s totally okay. It’s totally okay. And maybe you’re even far, far along and you just want creative ideas, which I totally support. So go for that as well. All right, my dear. God bless you. I am looking forward to talking to you more next week. Otherwise, I will see you at the presale, delight your marriage.com Click on Resources, and it’ll pop right up. Thanks so much. God bless you. Bye.

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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

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I thought my body was gross. I thought God didn’t give me a good one. God changed my perspective. Now that insecurity has become fierce respect for this wonder God has given me.

Now I’m convinced that we as women are jewels. Our bodies are of the highest value. And we should not put our jewels before swine. Your body should be adored by someone who deserves it. By someone who serves you, respects you and makes you feel worth it. Your husband (though he himself is a work in progress) is the only one who fits the bill.

Tips:

• Assume the attraction is there.
• Practice affirmations. I do this with my clients and this is one of the most effective strategies.
• Spend time journaling rather than eating. Eating allows us to numb ourselves from the difficulties of life. We stuff ourselves with food so we don’t feel.
• You are not being cocky by telling yourself you’re gorgeous. Your body is God’s work of art. He gets the credit. God made you beautiful. When you get compliments, receive it and give the glory to God in your heart. You don’t have to let that puff you up in pride, you can give that to God.
• It is a discipline to have confidence. And it takes discipline to get there.
• Write through the hard times, rather than stuff the hard time with food which make the enemy distract you from life and God’s voice.

Resources: Women Food and God (Though not a Christian book, amazing principles that we can apply through a godly lense can be gleened.)

Next week: 174-Body P3: Flaunt It, Don’t Ask For Approval

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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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All right, welcome back, I am excited to have you. Now if you are just jumping into the body series, exciting stuff, I would encourage you to go back to last week’s episode, the first series. In fact, if, regardless of where you are, I encourage you to go back and listen to the entire series, I’m going to go through kind of point by point, a cohesive structure. So I encourage you to just go through it the way that it’s presented on the podcast. So this one is about knowing your worth, and understanding the way God set up your body in the way that men are wired as well. So I think this is really important, in an interesting way. The way that I figured out that my body was valuable was by understanding a man’s mind. So that’s actually the big premise behind delight your husband is to understand a man’s mind. And that’s practical, you know, explicit directions, but also practical understandings of a man’s mind. For me, I had to go through that process. Before I could get to a place of like, wow, my body’s awesome. Because, as I talked about last week, I thought my body was gross. I thought God just didn’t give me a good one. I was like, What the heck, all these other women are beautiful with these tiny waist and these amazing boobs and Bud and, you know, the skinny legs, and I just had this like warped view of what I thought was beautiful. And yet, turns out, God did it on purpose. And what I learned was that my body is unbelievably attractive to men. I had no idea. None. I thought it was gross. And so when I started to learn that men are attracted to the female form, to the degree that they are, I began to change my perspectives. See, I think that women are so insecure, that they start getting attention from men, and they just go into that. That’s why there’s so much immodesty, I truly believe is because we don’t know how attractive we really are. If we had any idea, we would cover that beauty up is what I mean to say. We cover it up because we would realize that is that it’s just so valuable, that you don’t want to put your pearls before swine. They don’t deserve to see your jewels. Are you kidding me? They don’t deserve it, those, there’s people that are gonna, you know, slobber all over your beauty No. But you deserve is to be adored by someone who deserves it. Someone who serves you and loves you and makes you happy that one man deserves to see you. And I think when you recognize your worth, as as you’re your body, your physical attraction is so significant, you get to a place of feeling like, you have something valuable, that your body is valuable. So I don’t know where you are on this. If this is, you know, you’re to a place where you’re like, Well, I’m overweight. And you know, I’ve had three babies, I’ve got stretch marks and my boobs sag, and there’s no way that my husband would find me attractive. I gotta tell you, it’s, it’s not true. It’s it, he does find you attractive. And the more you find you attractive, the more he will find you attractive. So you need to just assume the attraction is there. You need to just tell God to give you that confidence that your body is amazing. Because it is he made it amazing. You are not being cocky by telling yourself you’re gorgeous. No, you are not being prideful by knowing that you’re beautiful.

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because God made you beautiful. He did that. He didn’t have to do that. No. Well, you are, is when you receive compliments, give the glory to God in your heart and say thank you. You don’t have to like grovel and be like, Oh, this is a terrible shirt, or Oh, did you see my rolls or Oh, I feel fat, you don’t have to say any of that you can receive that compliment, you can receive that you are beautiful. And give the glory to God. You don’t have to keep it. You don’t have to let that puff you up and pride. Every compliment you receive, receive it. And then in your heart, give the glory to God. And if it’s a safe person, or however you want to handle it, you could be like, Thank you praise God for making me this way. I mean, if they know your heart, and you’re not, you know, whatever. But the point is that God made you gorgeous. He gave your body worth, he made your body beautiful. This is a long time coming for me. And I still struggle with it. It is a discipline to have confidence. I really do think so I think that it gets easier, and becomes more second nature. But it takes discipline to get there. And you might just think, Well, I’m not one that is that way, I’m just not, I’m not confident about my body. And I hear you. But at the same time, at the same time, it’s a discipline. So I want to kind of circle back to this idea of maybe I’m just someone who isn’t beautiful, because I’m so overweight, I have been there. And I still struggle with that, at times. It wasn’t even that long ago, I had this like kind of skin tight, sleeveless shirt on. And then I had this big shawl on top of it. So no, so no one could actually see the skin tight shirt. And my son, we had some friends over and my son was just being goofy and decided to, you know, take my shawl and run with it. And so I had no more shawl. I was thankfully my bedroom at the time. So I had no more shawl. But I was not going to walk out into polite company with the skin type thing on. And so I put on a another shawl. And I gotta tell you, I actually found myself being really embarrassed. Because I felt like it was clear to everyone that I was insecure about my body. And the truth is, maybe I was trying to be modest. Or maybe I was just insecure. Maybe I just didn’t want them to see the parts of my body that I don’t want to show anyone. So yeah, I struggle with that, too. And in, you know, what I had to do is I had to spend some time journaling about my insecurity. I did, because it was a hard feeling to have. And it made me want to eat. Because a lot of times, if you’re like me, that’s how we deal with our hurt feelings that makes us want to eat, we want to numb ourselves from that pain. And it’s funny because I was just looking at my journal, kind of flipping through for something else. And I saw that journal entry and I was like, wow, that’s kind of hilarious. And also kind of really cool that I kept myself from having a binge by journaling, something that was important, and actually processing it through actually going there, actually recognizing the pain, because so often we stuff our selves full of food, so that we don’t feel the pain. But now suddenly, if we feel the more familiar pain of, you know, being angry at ourselves, for stuffing down the pain with food, and then

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it just exacerbates the pain we had in the beginning. But when you recognize the pain is not going to kill you. The pain of trying to prevent experiencing the pain is actually worse.

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There’s this great, great book that I have been processing through the last three months my most recent season that God has taken me through it’s called Women food and God it’s phenomenal. I have probably read it. I read it once I listened to it, I bought the book. Previously I had it just from the library, but now I have actually kind of an accountability partner that she and I write back and forth talking about different processing that we’ve done and whenever I feel like I’m kind of getting off track with my food perspectives, I come back to just read a couple passages in that book and it really frees me from a lot of the you know patterns that I had in my thinking with my relationship with food, and how it brings me back to a place of peace and freedom from that obsession. And from the cycle that I had been in, when a hard thing happens, I emotionally eat, and then that makes me even worse. And then it just keeps the cycle going. So that’s called Women, food and God, I will say, as a caveat, it’s not written from a Christian perspective. But it is written in a way that if you put it in the lens of Christianity, it’s really cool. It works really well, because it’s kind of this idea of food and dieting, and our body being skinny. And these kinds of things are an obsession that distracts us from what makes that matters most in life. And I think that makes so much sense with what the enemy is trying to do with humanity is distract us from what matters, and actually Poulos into the place of depression and despair and binge eating and social media and isolation. Instead of processing the pain of loneliness and processing, the pain of losing someone that you love, or processing the pain of a marriage that feels like it’s falling apart. Instead of running to your obsession with food, you know, of the guilt tripping and the anger and the frustration and then the nother binge or purging or however you are unhealthily eating, and having that relationship with food. Instead not be obsessed, not be thinking about that if you had a good day or a bad day, or suddenly your genes are tight, and everything in your life seemed to have gone wrong, and it’s falling apart. Instead, recognizing that what matters most you are God’s creation, the Holy Spirit is in you. And God’s gonna take you through those hard painful moments. And taking a moment to pull out your journal and right through the hard times, and recognize that you’re not alone. In that process. You’re not alone. Thinking through that pain, and just writing answers to questions that you have for yourself. Like, what am I really hungry for? Am I really craving chocolate when I’m not hungry? Or am I really craving? Friendship? You know, am I responding to, you know, that time recently that I felt humiliated by binge eating? Or am I really responding to that, that person that that I felt embarrassed about? You know, write yourself questions and answer them or just process. It’s a struggle. It’s not easy. I’m, you know, working through it, it’s a daily thing, because it’s not like alcohol, where you had this horrible addiction, and suddenly, you’re like, oh, never again, not touching alcohol again, get it away, you know, not going to go to bars, don’t invite me to your parties. Or if I go, I’m going to drink soda. Like you can’t do that with food, because you got to eat, it’s part of life. But the cool thing is, and that’s actually what she really points to, and women food, and God is it’s actually an opportunity into life, it’s an opportunity to stop numbing yourself and start recognizing, when you see that you’re being pulled into those negative obsessive food habits, that you’re numbing life, that you’re not fully engaging with life. And like I said, I’m on that journey, too. But I will say that I have had so much more freedom than I’ve ever had. And

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if your question is like, but am I going to lose weight if I, you know, live this way. And the truth is, if you start eating, only when you’re hungry, then your body is going to respond by putting you at your natural weight. It’s going to respond by giving you what you should have. You know, what you as a human need to have on your body to be healthy. Because your body knows if you eat when you’re hungry. And not when you’re not. It knows. Um, yeah, it’s a great book, women food and God. If anyone has, if any of this resonates with you she’s wildly adept. I think it’s the word at written word. It’s beautiful language. And every time I pick it up, I’m just floored by how much it sounds like she’s reading my mind and writing about how to kind of get free from it. But as I said, you know, put it in the Christian lens and give God glory for the help that this woman Janine is, is, you know, supporting. So encourage you

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in that way. All right, join me next week, we’re going to be talking more about flaunting, not seeking approval. So that’s a little bit more about sex, specifically.

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So it’s about flaunting, not seeking approval. Oh, no homework for this week. Check out women food and God at the library. See if they have it. If not, I would order it, if I were you. Otherwise, encourage you to write out the affirmations I’m going to give you and practice them every day in the mirror with enthusiasm and excitement. The first affirmation is, my body is beautiful, because God made me beautiful. That’s the first one, I want you to be enthusiastic when you practice. Write that out. Number two, I want you to say my curves, turn my husband on like nothing else. And say it while you’re moving your hips a little bit, my curves, turn my husband on like nothing else. And then the last one, I want you to say, I am worthy of attention. Because God gave me worth. I am worthy of attention, because God gave me worth. I want to remind you that you have got to exercise your faith, to make changes in who you are. You’ve got to practice different ways of thinking you have got to change the patterns of thoughts that you have been given or given to you because of childhood or, or culture or society or whatever. You are worthy. Because God made you worthy because he said you’re beautiful because he decided to live inside you. And he only lives in beautiful things. And he built your body. He designed it you are his masterpiece. Now I really hope you engage this week with this material. Because truly, only if you do the work will you change only if you do the work. Once again, TV series don’t change your life, because you passively receive them. But if you do a course, if you write and think and consider and pray. That’s what changes you when you do the work. When you engage when you articulate your own beliefs. When you think about it, when you pray about it. When you write out what you’re thinking. It’s very, very different than just receiving someone else’s thoughts or considerations, etc, etc. My last thought once again, is to make love this week. Don’t let the week go by without connecting unifying with your husband. It’s very important. There’s too many women that I coach that are on the brink of divorce, or it’s pretty much too late because they let this vital piece go. I understand that there’s lots going on in your life. But make it happen this week. Don’t let it go by the wayside. Check out my podcast why sex matters to him to really understand what’s going on in his heart and brain in thoughts. But do it this week, at least once, twice, three times wherever you are on the scale of however much you do it. Do it more this week. Connect with your spouse this week. God bless you. I will talk to you next week. I’m looking forward to it.

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Thanks for joining. If you’ve been inspired by the 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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Welcome to this brand new series all about body. Body image, food issues, body acceptance, comfort in sex… all of it affects how you make love.

But who made it? Is it yours? Are you responsible for how it looks?

My body image struggles caused me great pain throughout my life. It was my “project.” It was my obsession. It was my thing that made me feel OK but also horrible. But as my eating increased, so did my body. And I hated it. I wanted to get liposuction. I prayed God would make me thin. I prayed He’d increase my metabolism. I ordered many ridiculous contraptions that were supposed to make me lose the weight. I binged. I purged.

I share about my eating disorder and what God has brought me out of. Even the times I did lose the weight, did it fix my life? Or were there still things underneath that were still broken?

You can imagine what this all meant about my sex life and connecting to my husband.

If you’re anything like me, this is a journey. And in this series where I want to join with you on this struggle.

I think this is a huge barrier to a fulfilling sexual intimacy in your marriage. But where is God in all of this? What might He want you to know about your body?

Do the work to actively engage in this series to change.

Homework:

• What’s your food story and your body image?
• Where are you now?
• Where do you want to go, what do you want to feel, what do you want sex to be like?
• And make love to your man this week (“do before you feel”)

Next week we continue with Body P2: Know Your Worth, Freedom With Food

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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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Hey, Hey, and welcome. This is belah rose. And I have got to thank you so much for joining me back in the new year 2018. I’m excited, you’re here, I hope you had a wonderful, wonderful holiday. And I will say if you haven’t gotten a chance to go back and listen to my new year episode, I would encourage you to do that there’s really fantastic reflections in there that I believe God could really speak to you through so feel free to run back to that one. Otherwise, let’s dive into this brand new series I am so so excited about, I feel like God has given me just so much freedom in this area. And I really want to share it with you. And I really want to pray that God would change your heart, your life, the way you think about yourself, your body food, all love it, I’m just praying that God would give you a greater capacity to be free in it. So I titled this episode, behold your body. Because I think that for a lot of my life, I have thought of my body as my, my project, essentially, this is the thing that I have hated from elementary school, I remember being excited to go to middle school, because in middle school, you would walk between classes. So you’d be in like one class science class for an hour. And then you would walk down the hallway, across the school building to math class for an hour, and then you would walk across the building around your locker and then back to social studies class and all that rock walking, I was sure was going to make me lose weight. And then I also had the food thing, obviously, which was the, you know, the reason of the the the weight thing, and the food thing was a constant issue. Right, I was always going back for seconds or thirds of things that I really liked, especially sweet things. And, you know, I remember, awful, but I remember sleeping over at friend’s houses. And I remember the specific time but I am sure it happened more than this. But one specific time, I knew they had whipped cream in their freezer. And throughout the night, I ate the majority if not all of their whipped cream. which even now like I don’t make me embarrassed. But that was I grew up that way. And it’s not that my mom told me I should go eat, you know, other people’s sweets, that was not the case. But for whatever reason it is what happened. And I I struggled with this. And I remember, you know, boys will, I guess brothers will tease their younger sisters and I got teased that I was the tomato my sister was the carrot because she was always been. She’s my older sister, and oh my gosh, the way I wished my body was different. I would constantly be looking in the mirror, you know, squishing the sides of my,

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my belly, trying to make the rolls go away. And I wished and prayed that God would make me thin and that I would you know be able to get liposuction. And there were different times that I would watch these ads on TV and I would buy the ridiculous contraption that you know I had one oh my gosh, I had one. Maybe you’ve seen these things, but I had one that you would put gel on the it was like this giant WWE wrestling belt and it would go around your midsection and you’ll put gel on these like metal circles and you’d put it on your your abs. And then it would like send these electric shocks that were supposed to like make your abs flex. And you were supposed to be able to like watch TV and it would give you a six pack and hilarious stuff. That was just one of the things the other one oh my gosh, this was hilarious. There was a woman that produced this program where there was this rod, probably three feet long. And there was like this run rubber band as long rubber band that went from one end to the other. And then I think what you would do is you would put the rubber band underneath your feet, and then you would pull the rod. And you’d go to the side, and you would pull it over your head and go to the other side. And at the same time you’re doing that you’re doing these hilarious, like giant like breaths in and then slow, like breaths out where you’re pushing the air. And it was so important to push the air so that you’re making it a Rubik and oh my gosh, there’s so funny that my mom, let me buy those things. But I had the money and she gave me the opportunity, you know, my babysitting money. Ah, anyway, the point is that this has been an obsession of mine, since I was very young. And it just continued. So as life heated up, my food was my go to, that was what made me feel okay. Which then made me hate my body more and more. And I went through middle school feeling that way. And then high school, I was in such a place of discomfort with my body, that my wardrobe was just hilarious. I mean, just t shirts and pants, pants that were boys pants often and, you know, loose fitting everything, which is fine. I don’t want to critique anyone’s wardrobe. But for me, it was just to cover up it was to not be seen. I didn’t have a boyfriend in high school. I couldn’t. I mean, my face got red in the face anytime a boy got near me because I was so insecure about the way my body looked. And not, you know, not for lack of trying at some point in high school, I ended up being part of the field hockey team and ended up starting after that, like I got in shape. And I started running four miles a day. So I did lose weight, probably for a short season there, but then came back and it regardless, I still was insecure, I couldn’t have gotten skinny enough, no matter what.

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So then it just exacerbated as life kind of exacerbated. And then I ended up becoming Billy MC in college, but that it wasn’t bulimic because it and then I lost a lot of weight, what ended up happening is I would just go buy a big tub of ice cream, eat the whole thing. And then, you know, purge that. And so it was just this, this, this dark place of my life. It was dark. And I wanted so badly to be thin, and I thought my life would be fixed. I thought it would be fixed. And yet, the truth is, regardless of how much I ended up being able to lose because of some crazy diet of calorie counting, or, you know, some really hilarious stint of going to the gym three times a day, which I did do that in college at one point. And it just did not matter how much I actually ended up losing. It didn’t fix my life. It didn’t make me have the life I wanted. It didn’t make me confident didn’t make me have peace. It didn’t make others like me. Like I was hoping it didn’t make me have best friends and the loneliness I felt. It just exacerbated all the problems I already knew were there that I just didn’t want to deal with. We’re gonna talk about more about that later. But here’s what I want to say is that, first and foremost, you are a bearer of God’s Holy Spirit. You are His temple. He does not choose to live inside ugly things. Did you know that? Go back and read wherever section in the Old Testament is probably like Deuteronomy or I don’t know Leviticus, something where it talks in detail about how beautiful the temple of the Lord should be. Or the holies the holy of holies should be incredibly gorgeous. And here, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you. That’s one thoughts about beholding your body. The second thought is God designed your body. He did. This isn’t your responsibility. Your body wasn’t your creation. It’s not something you can critique and act like this is, you know, you’re, you’re critiquing the paper you’ve wrote, or somehow that it’s your ownership, you aren’t the owner. It’s not your masterpiece. It’s God’s, you are God’s masterpiece. And so when you have these ridiculous conversations with your friends about how fat you look, and how your nose is like a pug nose, and your eyes are too close together, and all these things, oh, my gosh, and I used to be there, right? I used to have those conversations. But since then, every single time, now that God has opened my eyes, every single time I hear something like that, I have to interrupt the conversation and be like, You know what, I am God’s masterpiece. And I am not going to let anyone criticize that much less myself. So I’m gonna have to leave. And you know, normally it’s around ladies that will laugh, and I’ll walk away, and they will continue that conversation. But, you know, I’m kind of willing to be the person that makes a different choice. And maybe it’ll spark something in them, that will make a change. Either way, the point is, you are God’s masterpiece. And eventually, I wanted to give you kind of a vision of where I’ve come from. But I also want you to have a vision of where you can go. Because when you get to a place where this becomes reality for you, where food is not an obsession, or dieting is not an obsession, you can have the freedom to embrace what God really wants you to embrace in this world. It’s hard work, I struggle, because this is my past, this is my pattern I grew up with.

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But by God’s grace, I’m at such a different place than I’ve ever been in freedom in my body. And why does this have something very important to do with marriage is because when you feel free in your body, you can enjoy sex, when you accept every stretch, Mark, every roll, every you know, cellulite, and every beautiful curve, and, you know, amazing fingers and to die for clavicles as I enjoy my clavicles. But when you can accept it all, and you can just relax and you can just enjoy and you can just enjoy your ReSSA and be one with your husband, that makes sex different than sucking in. I’m not good enough to make love tonight because I over ate and I cannot enjoy intimacy. It’s like, that’s, that’s undermining your marriage, and you need that you need your marriage. So that’s why this is so important. That’s why I want you to really engage in this series. wherever you’ve come from, on the food journey, I encourage you, there’s a lot of freedom to be had. And, and I say food journey body journey. You know, it all kind of mixes together in my head. So if it doesn’t mix together in your head, feel free to, you know, pick out the nuggets that work for you. All right, well, here’s your homework, because I want this to be something you really engage in. I want you to do this homework. I’m purposefully making my podcast shorter, because I want you to really articulate what your thoughts are, you know, in my video course to let your husband is, you know, the Christian wife’s practical manual for passion and intimacy in marriage, passion and confidence in intimacy and marriage. That is where I really really encourage you to articulate your thoughts. You know, I give you questions to be answered that sex therapists have said, these are right on target. They need to be answered by you. You need to articulate your answers so that you can move forward but if you just passively listen, it’s like watching a video. Right? You don’t actively engage. It’s not something that can change you if you are not going to engage in it. Does that make sense? So here’s the questions. I’m going to send it ask you to write out Literally articulate. It’s hard work. I know. It’ll take probably five minutes. Lots of time. Just kidding, you can do this. Write it out. What’s your food story? Just a couple bullet points. Where did you come from? You know, I kind of gave you my story. Where’d you come from with food? And your body image? Okay, first, first question. Second question, where are you now? Are you struggling? Are you having challenges? Where are you now? And lastly, where do you want to go? What do you want to feel? What do you want to be like? What do you want sex to be like, because your body perspective and you’ve changed. So write those, write those out. And I will be talking to you next week to encourage continue the series on body, food, all that fun stuff.

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So I hope that you’re writing in your journal, I will take a quick moment to say, make sure you’ll make love to your man this week, at least once, if not twice, if not three times. If you’re doing more than that, God bless you keep on. But it’s so important. And I think the enemy lies to us and says you have to be perfect before you can do anything. And especially the body. If you’re not perfectly beautiful. You can’t make love and enjoy it and unify your marriage. It’s just not true. You’ve got to act before you feel. You have to enjoy an act like you want to make love before you feel like making love. That’s the way a body a woman’s body works. We’re going to talk so much more about this. But don’t wait. Make love this week. It’s so vital to your marriage to the heart of your husband, to the way you connect to the unity that both of you need to do God’s work in this world. God bless. I will talk to you next Tuesday. Bye.

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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

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In the long view of your 100 years on earth, what is going to matter in THIS season?

I had an abrupt and unsettling realization when I had a parent teacher conference a few weeks ago. Though I believe I was discerning God’s will and way for my life. I don’t believe I was pursuing it in God’s timing.

And that is one of the central themes around today’s podcast. What is your season (mine is a quarter inch) in the grand scheme of life? And what matters most right now.

From there, what do you do with that understanding? How does it become practical and lived out?

Some topics covered:

• The enemy wants to distract you from what matters in eternity
• Parenting requires focus. I was allowing other “priorities” take that focus.. which now I realize was foolishness given my season.
• Distractions include Netflix, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, food (a personal struggle I’ll talk more about in the new year)… just to name a few.

Next DYM Season is all about “Body” image, food, insecurities… it’s a series in confidence, acceptance and comfort in your body.

—

Check out Delight Your Husband: The Christian wife’s manual for passion and confidence in intimacy

delightyourmarriage.com

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Hey there, welcome. Welcome belah rose here, Happy New Year, I hope that you have had a fantastic break, and you’re ready to dive into the new year. All right, well, I wanted to share about what should your life be about at the beginning of 2019. I went ahead and actually posted this video up on my private Facebook group today, the first day of January, and I’d love to share it with you. So here it goes. Hi there, how should you spend the first three months of your year? I’m belah. Rose, I am intimacy expert and coach, award winning podcaster and author. And I am joining you this morning because I wanted to help you deeply. And I had a really good demonstration of colorful things and all of that that I was going to share, and it just didn’t feel like that’s what was going to be helpful this morning. So instead, I’d like to share my process for discerning what my life should be about. So every three months, I take time to pray, and process and journal about what I think God wants me to do in that season. And I break my years up by seasons, or quarters, because I can’t focus on things for a whole year. You know, and I, that’s how I teach my coaching clients, you can’t, you can’t just focus on something for the entire year. That’s why people give up their resolutions. Three years down the road, four years down the road, because they’re like, sorry, three months, three months into the year, four months into the year, because they’re like, I just can’t, it’s too long. And a lot of times you you change as a person, you’re like I’m different than I was in January, I can’t change these things. So they feel like a failure. And it really negates this whole process of goal setting and and vision casting, which I think is a really godly thing to do. So what I do is I discern my season. And then what that does, is it helps me to know exactly what to say exactly what to commit to exactly what not to commit to exactly how to reassess my life and my goals, and what I’m accomplishing and what I’m not according to those particular those particular themes or goals for the the quarter. So I’ll tell you what, my quarter one 2019 goals are up leveling, delight your marriage. So I have done a lot of podcasting, a lot of creating courses and in book book, only written one. So that’s my book. And in speaking and you know, it’s fantastic. It’s such a great calling, and, yeah, to uplevel that to grow that because it’s really a responsibility to help to help to help marriages and women and children is is it ends up affecting children, it ends up affecting society. And okay, so many things like you keep talking about that. And the next thing is to focus in on cleaning the inside of my cup. You know, Jesus talks about the hypocrites of the the, the Pharisees being hypocrites in their hearts, you know that they’re clean on the outside, but they’re dirty on the inside. And, you know, we all have very dark hearts, and full of negative things. And I’m certainly not exempt from that. So I want to really focus on and let God guide me on how to clean when I see something dirty, just what what to do about it in my heart. And then the next thing is my boys, my son’s spiritual development. I was really convicted recently by Matthew 24. And talks about really horrible things are going to happen in the end days. And at the very end, it says, but are in there somewhere it says, but those who endure to the end shall be saved. And I really pray that I will endure to the end, in the midst of the awfulness that I will have a life that says yes to Jesus every single day, so much so that by the end of that horror, it’ll just be so normal and natural and habitual to have said yes to the hard things of Jesus every single day. So then it’s just another yes, no big deal. And I want that for my boys. You know, because they might experience the end days, and I might not or we might experience it together or they might need to teach their kids I don’t know. But no matter what I want to teach them so those are my goals for the new

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year. I recently talked about how if your marriage is not fixed, your goals might only be about marriage this year. And I would encourage you in that, because if you have the capacity, if you have the peace and the joy and the encouragement that a marriage can provide, you can live on purpose, you can live on God’s purpose. And yeah, I want to talk to you for free. Like I said, this is my focus in 2019. So you can get on a call with me 30 to 40 minutes, and we can get you to a totally different place in your marriage. And if I think that it’s that I can help you that I can get you into the right spot, I’ll ask you, you know, if we think it’s the right fit, maybe you’ll want to work with me. And that’s the focus that you’re going to have in 2019 in the next three months. And then you’ve got all this capacity, emotional energy freed up so you can focus on God’s will for your life, for the rest of the year, for the rest of the years, the decades. I often say, you know, how much money did you spend on your wedding day? And then, how much money did you spend on your marriage? decades and decades of years? Whereas a wedding day is one day? Why did you prioritize that? And so maybe it’s time to prioritize your most important human relationship. So go ahead and click below, I’ve got a link. If you liked this video, if you are thinking about how do I priorities, how do I goal set? I want to hear from you. I want to hear how you goals. How did you go set? How did you think about what’s important in 2018. And you’ve got the first week or so of 2019 to still have that, you know, energy that everyone has for the new year. So yeah, comment below. I

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want to hear it. I want to comment back, I want to think about it with you. But yeah, let’s jump on a call you and me. I love doing that. I

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love working with women. God bless you and we will talk tomorrow. All right, so that is the Facebook group. But right I do I want to work with you. Go ahead and sign up. The link is in the show notes. So you can just find the free link there to do a free breakthrough call with me 30 to 40 minutes. And I’ve scheduled some time in my calendar for that. And then you can also just go to dym dot A s dot M E, and that is the full website to get to my scheduling page. Well, gosh, I hope that you have a wonderful, wonderful beginning of your new year and that this is encouraging and helpful for you to be thinking about and prioritizing getting the most important human relationship in your life in order. All right, God bless you and I will be sharing a full length delight your marriage podcast soon. Love you. Bye

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When you think about the women of the Bible who comes to mind? Ruth, the loyal daughter who served her widowed mother-in-law. Esther, who risked her life to save her people. The hardworking Proverbs 31 wife. Mary, the teenage girl who’s heart was so tender before the Lord that He chose her to be Jesus’ mother.

Yes. The women in the Bible are incredible and should be aspired to. Did you immediately think of the Song of Solomon? Probably not. Not because she doesn’t take up space in the scriptures. Actually she has more spoken words than any woman in the whole Bible. But we probably haven’t heard many sermons about her.

I’m joined by intimacy expert Dr. Juli Slattery. And we discuss the desire and pleasure of the woman (in the Bible) of the Song of Solomon.

God wanted us to hear and understand that desire. He wanted us to see the holiness in it. What does this mean to your marriage? How can you apply this in your marriage?

Juli’s site can be found at: authenticintimacy.com Thanks Julie!

The study she mentioned: Passion Pursuit.

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My book—Delight Your Husband: A christian wife’s manual to passion and confidence in intimacy—may be the tool God would use to bring light and joy to your marriage bed.

If you’re at a place of desire for change in intimacy in your marriage, consider intimacy coaching to move you from being stuck to enjoyment.

Transcript

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There’s a lot we can do to make our love lives more lively. More than you might have thought. What about making sex into a game?

Here’s a wife who made a Christian app that makes sex more fun for all of us! Amy’s passion has come out of a place of understanding the significant impact that comes out of a place of marital intimacy.

This is the second half of her interview and it is so important for us all to prioritize and enjoy making love. We all can only be so creative—Why not get a little help to make it more fun and spicy?

Her desire is to make more marriages succeed. So much of the app is free, I would really encourage you to check it out: ultimateintimacy.com At the end of the interview, Amy walks us through step by step how the game works (so you can download and walk with her through how to use it).

My other encouragement I share on the podcast, is maybe you’re not at a place where an app will help you spice things up. Maybe there are significant challenges that need to be worked through before you can get to that stage. I share a lot of the challenges I’ve had to fight through in regards to intimacy and I want to help you get to the other side. Coaching 1:1 with me is 30% from now until Nov 24.  We meet via video chat every week to dig into the deep stuff to move you to amazing intimacy.

Check out Amy’s app—here’s their hilarious video!

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
Oh, right, thank you for joining. This is Bella, I just appreciate that you’re here. I appreciate that your heart is to be encouraged in your marriage to be the best person you can be in your marriage in your intimacy. I think God blesses that heart to, to desire to be open to learning to growing, it’s not easy. You have to be humble and a teachable spirit to be impacted by other stories. When I look at the difficulties I’ve had in intimacy, I mean, there’s so I mean, they’re huge. They’re huge things, the ways that I was brought up, it was basically just never talked about. And so I learned that it was gross and dirty, never do it. You know, I saw pornography when I was young. So I learned that it was very sinful, and anything having to do with sex was bad. You know, and I brought that into the marriage, but I saved my, my self for marriage. And then when I had the, you know, green light from God, so to speak, I couldn’t do it, I was in pain and uncomfortable. And I still felt like it was wrong, even though it was with my husband. Um, some other challenges I’ve had are getting over my own fears of confidence, and knowing what to do, you know, understanding how to work his body, and how to receive pleasure with mine, how to orgasm, that was a big process, that I thought it was broken for a long time. Another intimacy challenge that I faced was just feeling like my husband wanted sex all the time. And that’s all he really wanted me for, was not for me. And so I tell you, some of these, and these are, you know, there’s more, but I tell some of these examples, because I want you to understand, if you’re listening your wife, if you’ve, you know, experienced those things, I’ve been there. And now I coach women who are there to help them get to the other side, you know, cuz you don’t have to stay there. Your intimacy is so important. It’s vital to your marriage, sex issues, tears, couples apart, the toilet, it tears entire families apart. So I’m just wondering, how can I help you to move to the next stage in your intimacy in your marriage, that you can move through those obstacles that you can get on the other side, where there’s peace, and there’s pleasure, and there’s joy in your marriage, because your intimacy is just the way God wants it to be? The way he designed it to be. So that’s why I want to work with you. So you might be thinking, well, how does she know? You know, she’s just like, a woman like me? How would she know? And just to let you know, I get emails from husbands all the time, in fact, vastly more emails from men than I do from women. You know, I hear things like, for example, here are just some quotes. Because of our sex life, I became very keenly aware of how depressed and unfulfilled I was feeling. Another one said, I was recently feeling like a frustrated and hurt husband. Another one said, she says that I’m pathetic for needing sex. And to add to their hurt, she dislikes my body or the erogenous portions. Another husband said, my wife and I are struggling with sexuality in our relationship. I just listened to your podcast for husbands which is prompted me to write to, I don’t know what more I can do. Another one said, I am in desperate place in my marriage and have been for several years. Another one said our sex life is well, it’s been really tough. Frankly, it’s a source of great pain for me. I’m trying not to tear up as I type this out. So that’s the kind of emails I receive from men a lot. But then I also get emails like this. It’s freaky how well you understand the mind and heart of a man. And the other one said, I think you know more. What guys think that guys do. And that is scary. Keep up the good work. Wish you had been around 40 years ago. And then another husband says I’m a husband, I’m guessing You get a lot more emails from husbands than you do from wives probably like 80%, if not more, I am one of those men who is astonished by your ability to get inside my head.

5:12
And so those are just a couple quotes. Those are just a few, you know, mentions from husbands. But I want you to know that, you know, it’s not to puff up myself, it’s to let you understand that this is real, what we’re dealing with, I’m not just trying to sell you on what I have to say it’s something about what we’re talking about is the real thing. It’s really intimacy, it’s really that important. It’s really that significant. And you need to get the right advice, the right understanding. I will say one other comment I received from my husband, recently, and he said, as a medical professional colleagues do talk about anatomical physiological things that normal people don’t. So I’ve had occasion to talk to some women that sort of get men at some level. But I have never heard any woman that seems to understand and be able to articulate and express the heart of a man as well as you do. It seems to be at a very deep level. How did you learn that? Were you born with that understanding? What did you read? Who did you talk to? It is amazing to hear a lady with the level of understanding that you seem to have. So again, this is not to puff me up or to any of those kinds of things. But I need you to have confidence that I’m not making this stuff up that this is true, this is real. And so if this is what you need for your marriage, if you need to understand if you need freedom, in intimacy, let’s work together. Let’s dig through this one on one 30% off, go there today. delight your marriage.com. And I look forward to working with you.

7:10
Now today, Amy McKinley, she’s here with her second part of the interview. Now after our episode, she kind of goes through step by step some of the bells and whistles of her app. So after the after the episode is complete, if you want to listen to that, and you can pull it up on your phone, you can actually see step by step what she’s talking about. So anyway, let’s dive into her story

7:55
so it’s funny, like three different experiences happened, just the past. It was like about a year ago. The first story is that I was sitting in Las Vegas with some, some girlfriends, and we started talking about one of their daughters, and how she had just barely gotten married. And, and they, you know, kind of asked her, you know, joking around, you know, how is you know, how’s your honeymoon night? And you know, how’s your love? Like, you know, how did it go? And, and she just kind of looked at her mom and said, Is that all there is? Oh, got it. Yeah. And you know, that was just so saddening. Because, you know, all of us were like, oh, it’s awesome. Like, it just takes time. It just takes figuring out, you know. And so it was sad to think that after, you know, several months of marriage, that she wasn’t finding enjoyment and intimacy, being intimate with her husband, especially, you know, they’re so young and the second experience my friend, we were sitting at lunch about a month after that, and told me that her husband had gone into pornography. I mean, that’s a whole different situation than the self, but she was devastated. You know, and there’s so many women going through that and heartbreaking to me, and, you know, a lot of it, you know, she tried blaming it on herself, which was even more sad, but no, like, I don’t really enjoy sex. You know, I don’t, I don’t really want to be intimate with Him. I kind of feel like it’s a chore. And that was heartbreaking to me. After that situation, I was at lunch with a bunch of girlfriends and I, we had talked you know about going through trials together and how we stay strong and marriage and just having a good marriage talk. And she’s like, she’s like, What advice would you give me like, why are you so happy during your hard times? And I was just joking. Joking around. I said, Oh, I just need to have more sex. Yeah. She looked at me disgusted like, Why? Why I feel like it’s a chore. why would why would you say that to me, you know? I’m like, it’s like gift. It’s supposed to be wonderful. And it was saddening to me to hear so many women say that it wasn’t exciting to them anymore, or it had turned into a chore. And so, anyways, so I was kind of, I mean, we’ve always had a really get into it and sex life in our marriage, I, I felt we were figuring each other out fast, my husband’s always been very good at taking care of me first, never being selfish in our marriage. So it’s always been absolutely great. But like I said, we’ve been married, you know, 15 years now. And about six months ago, I just kind of crazy, I wanted to spice it up and do something different. And so I ordered a sex game online, I thought it would be appropriate, you know, no graphics or anything, just, you know, different things to try. And I received in the mail, and honestly, I, I looked over some of the questions and things that was telling you to do with your spouse, and they were not Christian friendly at all. I thought the words were vulgar, very crude, almost like some college kid Hebrew, written them up. And anyways, we decided to play you know, some of the cards and try some of the things out and it was, the game was, it was awesome. It definitely spice things up to the to new level. But we were really kind of offended by some of the language. And we, I sat there that night, and over the next week thinking, holy cow, I have this brilliant idea. I want to make a game where it’s on an app, and it’s on a phone, and I don’t have to play a game on my bedroom in the dark with a flashlight or be trying to use pieces or things that are not appropriate or have bad pictures or bad language. Yeah. And so my idea just started coming along. And we went with net with an app guy and decided to take it to the next level. And so the whole purpose of this game, and this app that we have created, is number one to, to teach couples more about each other in a very loving, great way. It’s entertaining, it’s a great way to just build up your communication, I feel like intimacy can always be improved so much when you are communicating fully, and able to talk about what you like and dislike, and when couples are open with that. And yeah, that’s kind of where it got started. So I hope that answered your question.

12:37
Yeah, that’s so cool. Yeah. And, and now it makes sense that you’re a graphic designer, because it’s gorgeous. Oh, did you do the graph had a

12:45
lot of help? I actually, didn’t we hire that out? I was, yeah, they’re nice. Well, you

12:49
have a good eye for it, then.

12:51
Well, thanks. And you know, I just, in our mission really is to, I want women to enjoy being intimate with their husbands, I want them to be able to talk to their husbands about what they want, and figure out what they want. If they, if they don’t know, you know, a lot of Christians go into marriage not having a clue. Not knowing how they like to be touched or pleased, or how to orgasm. And I, there’s a lot of help out there. I just want women to be excited about it and passionate about it. And it’ll not only affect them wanting to be excited intimate with their husbands, but it will just like we said it. It’s a reaction in so many other areas of marriage, just communication. And I think when a husband and unity and and becoming one with God, I just it’s a beautiful thing. And I just want everyone to be excited about being intimate with their spouse and women especially.

13:50
Yeah, why women especially.

13:53
I don’t know, I guess I there’s a lot of women that love to be intimate. I just I guess with my experiences and a lot of friends and people I know just I, I want to women to stay passionate about it. And I think husbands I think if they and so many men are so so wonderful. Like I have such a wonderful man. If they really take the time to know their wife and their wife’s body and what their wife likes. I think that the women just want sex as much as they do. Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing. What a beautiful thing to be one both want to be intimate. So much the same amount, you know?

14:37
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so earlier on, you said that you’re a very sexual person you always have been. I’m sure there’s wives out there that are like, well, how can I be more sexual? How can I enjoy sex more and I don’t know Is there are there ways that you’re able to help other wives that are not enjoying sex, like just some things that you can tell us at this time. Get your app is the one is number

15:08
one. You know, I think that is why we developed it is because it’s not just about physical, it’s, it’s about emotional and, and it takes a lot to desire to be intimate, you know, they say women, you know, we’re complicated and that it turns us on more when our husbands are doing the dishes and helping with the kids and sending us little love notes or whatever. And we’re also different, but the app has so many different features of all the things that the ways to communicate the differences between men and women. I just think that it’s like, in our game, you know, starts with romance, talking, you know, communicating about life and our M kids and what’s going on with things and, and at a deeper level, you know, communicating that way and, and then, you know, it goes to light foreplay just touching and massaging. And, and, you know, just getting excited to be close with one another. It leads up to wanting to be passionate with each other. And that’s the great thing about the game and ultimate intimacy is that it builds up step by step to wanting to be intimate with your spouse, and I don’t know, it just it’s such a deeper level. The ultimate intimacy takes your marriage to a deeper level, not just sexual, but just communicating. And

16:45
this is amazing. And it’s, it’s very beautiful. It looks like very modern and very, very beautiful. Well, I am so excited. Well, cool. Okay, so let me ask you what do you think the chief three things has been central to your marital success?

17:09
The chief three things, um, definitely God. Faith in God

17:21
because of God, I mean, it kind of all stems out from that. Forgiveness, love and faith. Not just faith in God, but we’re faithful to each other. Like our my husband’s my best friend and, and we have the same goals to be together forever.

17:41
Yeah, that’s awesome. And I just love how much we’ve talked about sex. Because when you are so consistently and so deeply intimate with your spouse, friendship, does that’s a normal response. It’s not, you know, it kind of seems like well, you can’t be their friend if you’re their sexual lover, you know, but that’s actually the opposite. You are incredibly connected, incredibly unified. Best friends because you are so sexually connected. So?

18:17
Absolutely. I feel like because we are sexually close. And we both love to be intimate. It’s made every aspect of our marriage better. We are best friends. We are business partners. We are we work together all day long. We want to be with each other all evening. We we want to be intimate as much as we can at night like he I know. We’re We’re soulmates. I wish everyone felt like that.

18:45
Yeah, I Yes, I completely agree with you. I feel like my husband and I talk about that all the time. We’re like, we just want everyone to have this. Like, you can do so much more for God when you have an amazing marriage. You just you can help people more you can love people more you can give more to others. You can be better parents, like make love to your spouses and yes, good. Okay, great. I love it. So, um, okay, so if you could kind of dial in a little bit and give maybe, obviously, you have a ton of tips or advice, but was there some tip or advice that you wish someone told you about sex early on in your marriage?

19:37
Let me think about that. You know what, I, if I could go back, you know, I never really had any issues in our marriage or in our sex life. I really feel like we figured things out fast. We were we communicated well. I think I was a little hesitant at the beginning of our marriage to tell him exactly what I wanted in the bedroom. I think that I had little fantasies or little Little things I wanted him to do to me that I was a little hesitant to come out and say, maybe this feeling being nearly wet? I don’t know a little shy about that. Yeah. I think if I could go back now, I would just feel like this a little more open in that category and communicating a little bit better in that area. And yeah, I don’t know, I, I feel like we did a really good job. I think we figured it out really fast. But if I would have had this app when we were first married, yeah, it would have been awesome.

20:34
Question for you about communicating your desires as a woman because I think that’s super common, right? We just feel like, you know, we just feel frozen. You know, our mouth is tongue tied. We can’t talk when we’re making love, when you would suggest to a wife when to tell him what you want during sex before after? Like, what? How would you guide a woman who has trouble telling her husband what she wants in bed?

21:04
Um, I would probably would probably tell them to be open with it. Uh, before it started, I, I’m not an expert, I have read a lot about what women want and need in the bedroom. And you know, how different we are from men. And I think a lot of men don’t know quite so much about the woman body. And I would probably just tell them to be very open about it before six, and even during if there’s something that they wanted, you know, not not to hesitate. Don’t have to do it in a way where you’re offending them in any way. But maybe you just move their hand or show them what you like, just to, just to, I don’t know, I think that women are afraid to tell men what they really want sometimes. But when it comes down to it, our husbands really want to take care of us. They want to please us, they want us to find as much enjoyment as sex as they do. Yeah, they really do. They’re not they’re not trying to be selfish. I think a lot of them if they knew exactly what their wife wanted, would absolutely be dying to do that for them.

22:23
Yeah, yeah. Because it gives them the most pleasure to give you the most pleasure.

22:29
Absolutely. My husband, his number one focus is to take care of me first, it always has been. And that’s probably why I enjoy it so much. The more I enjoy it, the more he gets to enjoy it. Yeah,

22:40
it’s true. Yeah, it is really true. It is really true. And I think something that I, again, going back to surrendered wife, because I feel like if you get the stuff with sex, right, if you, if you love, you know, if you do sex, well and love it and do it a lot. And you get the surrendered stuff of respect and appreciation of your spouse. Those two together make for an amazing, amazing a marriage, like in terms of what a wife can do productively to, to be her part of the of the puzzle, but I think in terms of how to speak in sex, I think, using the language I would like, or I love it, when you do XY and Z. I would like to do XY and Z because sometimes, without us meaning to we say things like, Oh, don’t do this. Oh, don’t touch me there are and the poor guy is like he’s just trying to third. Like, he feels like, you know, these big, chunky fingers and he doesn’t know where to go. You know, and he’s trying. So at the same time, if you say things like, Oh, I love I love that or that feels so good, like, try to direct in a positive way rather than direct and negative way. That’s that’s one thing. Yeah, I mean, it’s just one thing to keep in mind as we’re, as we help guide our our man into our pleasure zones. Okay, absolutely. Yeah. Right. So due to your specific marriage, how do you feel you’ve been able to serve and get to know God?

24:26
Oh, man, marriage is the biggest test that we are set forth for. Hmm, I truly believe that he has created two completely different beings and said, Get married and make be joyful, you know. And here we are totally different in so many different areas. And sometimes marriage can be absolutely the biggest test. But that’s why it can be so great to us because we can pass that test and we can pass it together. Yeah. And I just I believe with God’s help But if we’re, if we’re trying to be selfless and loving and forgiving, yeah. And doing all those traits that we know we should do. I think any marriage can succeed.

25:13
Yeah. Yeah, right. And it’s a daily test, it’s a absolutely day by day, minute by minute, I’m gonna do the dishes so that he doesn’t have to.

25:24
It’s never marriage is the most selfless act of love. It really is like, when I am thinking about myself more than I am about myself. And he’s doing the same, we are completely committing ourselves to each other and giving complete service. I, you couldn’t have a happier marriage when you’re both doing that. Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard sometimes.

25:53
Can I dive into that a minute? I totally agree with that. Sometimes, though, I think how, you know, in light of eternity. I. So here’s a question. How do you recognize God in the midst of that service? I mean, I know it’s his will and these kinds of things. But sometimes I’m like, am I loving this man more than God? Does that ever come to mind for you? And what would you say?

26:25
Oh, I think I think a lot of people question that. Probably. I. Yeah, it’s hard, right? That’s a good one. It’s, I I feel like I love my husband more than anybody. So I know when I see God one day that that love is just going to be amazing. So I can I can’t even imagine, but I don’t know. I? I? Yeah, yeah, that’s a hard one.

26:56
I mean, it’s one of those things like, you know, when Jesus was asked, What’s the greatest commandment, the first one Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, with all your mind with all your strength. And like, and the second is like it Love your neighbor as yourself. And I feel like we so often just focus on the second one, which is love your neighbor like yourself, which has nothing to do with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength. And, you know, sometimes I throw myself at God’s grace, I’m just like, that feels like this giant mountain that I can’t get even anywhere close to by having, like, loving you with everything that I am. Like, it’s just impossible to love you the way that you deserve the way that I should. And it’s like, well, that’s why Jesus, you know, his grace, is that good? Because there’s absolutely no way. There’s absolutely no way. And I guess the other piece of it may be kind of what you’re saying is like, for me to understand how much I love my spouse, and like that, but times a million is the love that God deserves to also realize that that’s the grace that Jesus gives us that that’s how big his his you know that, that, that because of his sacrifice, we still have access to God, even though we don’t give him what he deserves. So yeah, ultimately, those are some of my thoughts on it. Any other thoughts?

28:33
No, that you just hit right on the head. That was beautiful. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah, I, you know, until we are in front of God, I don’t think we’re gonna realize how much love he has. That will be something that we experienced, but we can only try our hardest here, you know, to love. Like he does, and we’re just human, we’re, we’re never going to be perfect. And that’s why we have Christ is because we don’t, we don’t have to be, we don’t have to be perfect. We can just try our best. And I think that’s where marriage comes in, is we just have to try our best every day. We just try to, we have to remember to put God first. And when we do that, everything else kind of comes natural. A little we’re a little bit better at forgiving. We’re a little bit better at being self less selfish, and giving to our spouse. And I think that’s when we we feel that kind of love.

29:26
Hmm, that’s beautiful. All right. Well, let me ask you finally, if you could go to back to year one of marriage and sit yourself down. And what is one piece of advice that you would give to you? Oh

29:56
that’s a hard question.

30:00
Get Amy Mackenzie’s app.

30:04
Oh, wow. Yeah. I seriously, I when this app came about, I was like, I want this in every woman’s and husband’s hands, because I feel like it can do so much for a marriage. But

30:22
it’s awesome. So great.

30:25
Yeah, I hope with the whole reason I did it seriously is to just, I want to see more marriages succeed. I do. I just want people to be so in love, that they find the most joy in their entire life with being intimate with each other.

30:45
I had to give a pause there, because I think I might need you to say it again.

30:51
Really, I just want every person to be so in love with their spouse, that the biggest thing they desire is to be intimate with each other. That’s awesome. Cool. Well, thanks.

31:12
I love it. Well, this has been so fun. Amy, I really, this has been great. Yeah, tell me tell everyone where they can find your app, find you. Website, all that stuff.

31:27
Okay, so the app is on the App Store. And it is if you type in ultimate intimacy, it’ll come up. And it is downloadable, free, no charge. With the no charge, you will get all the resources, you’ll get the conversation starters, the products. And the first two levels of the game. If you want to take your marriage and your intimacy to a hot and spicy upgrade for the small price, you get the rest of the game, which is amazing. It’s the heavy for playing the hot and heavy. And it’s it’s just the best intimacy game ever. So I hope that you will all go download ultimate intimacy in the app store and just take that little step of improving your marriage and spicing things up.

32:18
Awesome. Well, Amy, again, this has been such a pleasure, I really appreciate you coming on.

32:23
I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. Thank you so much for letting me absolutely.

32:31
So awesome to hear from Amy on. How important. Exciting, spicy, wonderful intimacy is in marriage. And I just cannot agree more. It really, really is. So go to ultimate intimacy, check out her app, you can listen after the music to find out, you know, more specifically what’s involved in the app, you can even follow along in your phone. But the other thing I just wanted to mention, you know, maybe an app isn’t going to do it for you, maybe you need some real one on one deep work that needs to be done so that you can get to a place where you know fun games or something you’re even open to or maybe some of the stuff that you know, just is not where you need it to be. So I would love to talk to you. I’d love to receive any questions I can answer. You can just send them to belah at delight your marriage.com That’s B as in boy, e l a H at delight your marriage.com I would love to hear emails, any questions you might have. For me there. Anyway, like I said, Go to delight your marriage.com Click on Resources, click on intimacy coaching with Bella. And you can see all the full details. Well, God bless you. Thank you for joining. And again, I love your heart. I love that you want to grow in your marriage in every way. God bless you have a wonderful week. I will talk to you next Tuesday. Oh, and the topic for next Tuesday is actually how my husband who originally proposed to me with fast food became into this amazing romantic husband. Pretty incredible. Join me next week.

34:35
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

35:00
So you can download ultimate intimacy. And then pause this. And then once you download it, come back. And then Amy, could you kind of walk us through what? What we would do kind of like, first, second and third, like what are as we’re looking at that first like purple screen?

35:25
Okay. Are you ready? Yeah. Okay, so when you when you first open the app, there is a couple different sections you can choose, you can choose to play the game. We also have resources for physical and emotional intimacy. The Reese’s sources tabs include anatomy for men and women emotional intimacy, which is great. It has some romantic ideas, data ideas, what healthy sex is, and tips for a happy marriage. There are some great resources on that. We also have the tab that teach you some more techniques in the bedroom. If you’re wondering, you know, what women like and what men like those are just some ideas, and they give great descriptions of how to do different things.

36:11
Pictures are so beautiful.

36:13
The great thing about the ultimate intimacy app is that it was built by you know, us and another Christian couple, and we want it to be clean, appropriate. And we just want you to feel good when you’re getting on it together and and doing some real research about likes and dislikes between each other and how to communicate. In the sugar and spice section. They’re fun and sexy dares you can do in the bedrooms. Eight reasons why you should have sex tonight. We also just added which is awesome. If you want to take your bedroom experience to a fantasy escape. We have sounds from the beach and islands.

36:53
Oh my goodness. Yeah. It’s

36:54
awesome. Different audios. There’s a now there’s a mountain Brook Secret Garden romantic for us. Anyways. And then there is a sexy bucket list where if you decide there’s some fun, kinky things you want to try or put on your list, you can make your own little list on there.

37:16
Oh, really? Is it like one that you could save your own? You could?

37:18
It’ll save on your app. Wow, this is amazing. It is amazing. There’s so much to offer so much to offer. If you go into let’s see conversation starters, this is a great way. If you’re on a date, or if you’re just sitting around and you want to get in the mood, but you just kind of want to talk you know and get in some good discussions. We have tons and tons of different things to discuss family life, intimacy, romance, all sorts of categories finances, screen for date nights just driving in the car.

37:55
I’m confused. So I just went to I clicked on conversation starters. And then it gives me one question, is there a way to go to all of the left so

38:04
at the top, you can scroll through the different sections that you want to talk about family life finances, see those arrows at the beginning? Miscellaneous romance there just at the top.

38:15
Oh, yeah. Okay, so the arrows, okay, so I see finances, but there’s arrows on either side. So if I click on that, it’ll go to another one. Oh, that’s

38:22
so cool. Got it. Yep. There’s lots of different topics to discuss. So if you’re out of things to discuss, I’m pretty sure that you’re gonna find something here to start our long conversations.

38:31
Oh, my goodness, oh, this is so fun. And this is ultimately to get you to a place of being connected. And after and done and excited.

38:41
Wow, it all, it all starts with being connected with each other. You know, having a great, deep discussion is always a great way to start. If you go, we also have a product stuff section. We have books that we recommend, and then there’s bedroom fun. Lots of toys, lubricants, pillows, all sorts of that kind of stuff you can use in the bedroom. Cool. They’re all they’re all awesome. Yeah. And they’re all pretty and

39:06
not. Yeah, great. Yeah, they’re pornographic or anything like,

39:10
Absolutely, they come in discreet packaging. They are definitely Christian friendly, great way to order something if you’re hesitant. You know, I don’t know, for me and for our marriage, we don’t like to get online. We don’t like to research about sex. I don’t want to buy I don’t dare buy anything online. Who knows what the package is going to come? Yeah, everything is discreet and just completely Christian friendly, which is what we’re so excited about so people can feel like they’re safe, downloading it safe playing it and safe ordering anything they want off of it. So the best part of our ultimate intimacy app is definitely our game. Like I was telling you about it. The game is amazing. Our app guy did an amazing job. If I could just take a sec to go through. Yes, please. So it is completely customizable, which is so amazing about it. And it’s so personal. So when you first click on the game settings, you actually, there is a view instructions button if you have to go back and read through it. But can I

40:14
just pause for one quick second? If any listener is not looking at the app right now, it’s a free app, just go get it loaded onto your machine. And look at it right now is we’re talking because Anyway, okay, now you keep going.

40:28
Amy. Okay. So the game is the best part of our ultimate intimacy game, okay, or app, it is. Awesome. It’s so first of all, you actually when you click on it, you will type in wife’s first name and husband’s first name. So when you are playing the game, you are actually it is giving you the questions under your name, it is so personal. It’s awesome. That’s cool. It’s so cool. So there’s a romance section of foreplay section, a heavy four play section, a hot and heavy section. And so you can click on you know, if you’re just in the mood to talk, do some massaging that night, great. Just put on those two sections. If you’re really, you know, want to get hot and heavy that night, you could click on all the sections, you know, you could totally customize it. You could select your minutes per action. So what the game is doing actually is taking turns from husband to wife, having the spouse, the wife do something to the husband, and then for that certain amount of time, and then the timer goes off, and then it turns to the other person. So you can pick how long you want those actions to be. You can include if you want oral or not. You can include if you want read aloud actions, so it’s hands free, so you won’t even have to touch your phone. Oh, cool. Okay,

41:43
so you just scroll down, I didn’t realize that. So you scroll down. And then you can see Advanced Settings. Okay, cool.

41:49
Yeah, background settings. So that’s there’s a hands free mode, and it will just read the positions or whatever it’s asking you to do to between each other, we’ll read it to you, so your hands free. And then you can actually go into customize actions. And that is the upgrade, and in app purchase. But that way, you can actually go see every single part of the entire game, all the different, different actions that you’ll be doing between each other, you can see every single one in the entire game and you could thumbs up and thumbs down. Whatever you want to be in your game. It’s completely customizable. So cool. If there are certain things you don’t want to do, or you want it to do, again, it’s you know, it’s kind of like Spotify, you’re completely customizing your game to your marriage, which is awesome. So once you have customized put your name in, put exactly what you want to do, you push play your game, and you push the start button, and it will have a timer. And it will just take turns showing what the the wife does the husband and the husband does to the wife. And then the little timer will go off and it’s other person’s turn. Oh my goodness, it is an awesome game to play.

43:02
Oh, that’s so fun. Okay, so question. So I started with romance and foreplay. So then I, I started it was first a question the husband asked the wife, it was that question. And then I went to the next one, and it said, Oh, is it because I didn’t click start? Okay, but then you can’t skip through it. Maybe?

43:23
You can you could skip through it. Just in case if you don’t like that one swipe over. Okay. Oh, yeah. Anything you’re not comfortable with you just swipe through and go to the next one.

43:32
Oh, so fun. Oh, my goodness. Okay, so I have to ask me. So I see the prices of doing the customizable is like $5 a year at the most, pretty much. So why is it so cheap? How do you how, how do you make money doing this? If it’s so it’s free and then doing it for the year? It’s cheap. Like, is it just a gift, like you give it to everyone? Just out of the goodness of your heart.

44:01
You know, like I I told Nick You know, I would pay big bucks to get an app on my own phone just so I would have this game for us to play. That was my main goal. And now that I have it on my phone, I’m the most excited. Oh, let’s be honest with you like it just, I don’t know, my goal is seriously to strengthen marriages and to get people to love to be intimate with each other and to save marriages. And I I feel like the game is fun. It’s put sparks in your marriage. It’s exciting. It gets you to try new things and a really fun way. Yeah, it connects you you know, like we were talking about with the romance and the foreplay, just talking and getting to know each other better. And like I feel like ever since we’ve had this on our phone and we’ve been playing this game like I feel our intimacy has just evened out. We thought it was perfect. And it’s just that is so cool. That’s our goal. We just want everyone to have it and to enjoy each other. Oh,

44:58
I love it’s so fun. Because I just told you this wonderful romantic story that my husband did for me, which was absolutely incredible. And the funny thing is he and actually he does things like that. Now, he does things like that all the time, which is such a gift. But I’ve recently found out that a lot of times he gets the ideas from other women, because he can’t come up with these ideas himself, which is like, Wait, way to go for him, for him for being so resourceful, but also like, it’d be nice if if there was like something giving him some ideas that he could like, utilize. He could just click the how do i romance my wife and then you know, a million ideas pop up.

45:42
Hey, if a guy if a guy doesn’t know how to romance his wife, turn on his wife give his wife an orgasm, any one of those things. They’re gonna find it on ultimate intimacy. Oh my goodness. I just was really quick. Not it’s designed for both like I would hand this to a man that’s barely gonna get married and say this is a great asset to teaching you all about your your new wife, all the ways to romance her all the ways ways to treat her how to touch her. And vice versa. This is great for a guide to I built this with my husband right by my side is benefiting both people. Absolutely.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Financial challenges aren’t easy. They are in fact the #1 reason for divorce. How did her marriage survive when things got really stressful financially?

When you’re stressed tensions run high in the household. Often the last thing on your mind (especially for women) is making love.

Amy McKinley, a wife and mother believes it is what brought them through the serious challenges in their marriage. Find out more about her app here.

God doesn’t promise us an easy life. We will have struggles throughout this side of eternity. But, our marriage can be a place of respite. (CAN being the operative word). Listen to hear how this wife was able to work–during the stress–to keep her relationship with her man strong, so they were unified in facing those challenges.

30% off of Intimacy Coaching with Belah until Nov 24, 2017!

Check out Amy’s app—here’s their hilarious video!

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
Hi there, and welcome. This is belah rose, thank you for joining. Now, I’m not sure if you’ve listened to the podcast before, but we often do either solo shows, or journey interview shows. And so the reason I love to do solo shows is because I really focus in on a topic that I feel maybe God has put on my heart to really educate, empower, inspire women in particular areas of intimacy. Or I love to do journey interviews where I bring a wife on, and I talk about her marriage journey, and what she’s learned and the principal things that she struggled through and what God’s taught her and how and today is no different today is a journey interview with a woman named Amy McKinley, she actually has developed a very cool app, where it makes sex into a game, which is pretty fun. So I wanted to share that. The other thing is, I was wondering, how long have you listened to dBm? You know, I’m hopeful that you have received insight and inspiration over the months, or even years depending on how long you know, we’ve been together on this journey. I’m so grateful that you have spent time with me in it. Like I said, I hope insight and even education has become available to you through this podcast. My question to you is, are you still having challenges? Are there still difficulties that you haven’t been able to figure out, maybe certain blocks are just coming up again and again, and you’re just not able to get through them? Maybe there’s certain understandings that you feel like you if you just had them, you could get to a better place with your spouse. You know, intimacy is vital to your marriage, and your impair It is vital to the way you interact in this world. I mean, marriage is the most important relationship to you the most important human relationship. And your human relationships affect your relationship with God, they affect your ministry, your commitments, your your work, your parenting, everything is connected to how your intimacy is in your marriage. So if that’s challenging, it’s gonna reverberate everywhere else, whether you like it or not. And that’s deeply how I feel. And that’s why I do this work. But truly, not everything can be handled on a massive scale, if that makes sense. If I don’t understand what’s really going on, and there’s still issues that you’re having, we might need to spend time one on one wrestling through these things, me helping and coaching you through the challenges understanding why you’re, where you are, and how to move you forward. That’s why I love coaching. Because that’s truly my strength is helping someone change in the ways they want to change. That’s why I do this podcast. But coaching is really where we can get in, do the hard work together and get you to the next place of intimacy that that you want to be but also that I believe God wants you to be he wants you to be an amazing intimacy with your spouse. So I would love to work with you. You can feel free to go to delight your marriage.com Click on Resources, then click intimacy coaching with Bella, because the holidays are here. I would love to work with you with a special 30% off discount. So be sure to go in this month to get that discount. If this is a husband listening and you’d like me to work with your wife. Maybe this is the opportunity to to bring her into this. I look forward to working with you one on one. Again, delight your marriage.com Click on Resources, intimacy coaching with Bella in order to get that gift of 30% off this month. So do that right away. All right, God bless you. Let’s dive in

4:43
All right, welcome back to let your marriage listener I am excited to have Amy McKinley on the show. Hi, Amy.

4:51
Hi, how are you? I am good.

4:53
Welcome to the show. delight your marriage listeners are excited to have you.

4:58
Thanks so much. So, Amy,

5:02
we’d love to have you just kind of start off by introducing yourself a little bit about your family and your day to day life.

5:12
Okay, um, gosh, I just feel like I’m in the prime of life right now. I wish I could freeze time. It’s exciting, adventurous, fun and challenging all at the same time. Every day. I have been married 15 years to my sweetheart. We’ve met on a blind date and got engaged quick, and there’s no better person I’d rather be with in this journey. We have four kids, we have a son who is 13. And then three girls who are 10. seven and four. So we are busy. Yeah. It’s, it’s fun. It’s so exciting, though every day. Um, yeah, I opened up a business a few years ago. So I was a stay at home mom for my first 1011 years of marriage. And now I am doing both mom and business and it’s great. Wow, super fun. Super fun trying to balance life, you know? So.

6:08
Yeah, right. Oh, I love that. That’s great. Well, and can you tell us about a little bit your, your and your sweethearts, personalities?

6:22
Yeah, so I’ll start with him. Um, gosh, I, I just felt like we really complement each other. I think if I was to describe him in just a few words, I would probably put number one honest, faithful, loving, romantic and just sweet and very determined. I wasn’t sure how I would explain him. And for me, I feel like, you know, a lot the same. We’re pretty similar. Probably. I’m probably a little more opinionated in our marriage. Not in a bad way. Probably just a little more. voiced my parents opinions, I guess. She’s a very good listener and very good to communicate. So we have very good communication. I, I would probably describe myself also as a little more reserved. I am an artist and graphic designer on the side. And so I I’m good, you know, on a computer, and he’s probably a little more like to be more business oriented out with people. He’s really good with people. Okay. That’s probably how we complement each other a little bit. Yeah.

7:42
Cool. That’s awesome. Yeah. Are you familiar with introvert extrovert? I am. Okay, so do you? Do either of you classify yourselves in those ways?

7:55
I’m probably not. I still love people. I still love going to lunch with friends and being social and hanging out. And so I think we’re probably pretty average. Okay, one way. A bit extreme. Yeah.

8:09
Yeah. I find a lot of times people are either extrovert or introvert, or they are kind of one or the other. But anyway, so it sounds like you both are kind of kind of average, in the middle of

8:23
average, we both like to hang out. We both like to be alone and just kind of do our own thing too. So yeah, I don’t know. Yeah,

8:29
that’s good. Okay, well, before we get started, you know, this whole podcast is really about inspiring wives to live, wholehearted intimacy in their marriage. And, you know, that’s physical intimacy, spiritual intimacy, emotional interest, intimacy. And so just to start off, could you share a scripture or a quote that has meant a lot to you over the years?

8:54
I can’t think of a scripture right offhand. But I just we’re both firm believers that a marriage just really takes having God involved, you know, and that’s just huge. I don’t know how people make it through marriage without involving God and prayer and faith. And it just changes everything. It just helps you be more forgiving and more patient and knowing that there’s a higher power. And that marriage is not just for this life. I just don’t know that this changes everything to me. That marriage is not just for this life. I love that. Yeah. I believe that and I just believe that we have such bigger goals than just this life. And that makes decisions and and marriage and every aspect of marriage just so much easier when you’re involved God in prayer.

9:48
So with that in mind, would you tell us a story of a difficult season, or maybe a struggle in your marriage

9:59
Okay, Well, I would probably say that we haven’t had any major, major struggles, I would say, you know, we were both in the real estate mortgage professions when the first economy crash hit, and so financially, things got really, really hard. And that can take a real toll on a marriage, when you’ve got all this financial stress and stuff. And for us, I just feel like, you know, having that faith and that patience to get through those trials, and knowing that we have each other that God would help us get through hard situations, and that we were best friends, we could make it through anything. And, you know, we made it, it was a hard couple years for us, you know, I was staying home and I was having babies at the time and, and things get tricky and marriage, but you know, there’s so many different trials that can hit you at different times in your life, and just having faith and, and sticking by each other. And having trying to have patience, can really get you through that. And it did for us.

11:06
You know, when they do statistics on reasons for divorce, financial stress is often number one, you know, it’s usually sex and finances are like the two major. So I’m sure we’ll be talking about sex and a little bit, but in terms of the financial stress, like how I think so many people have that as an issue that like some of the biggest issues in their marriage. So what I guess what kind of guidance can you give the wife listening who’s going through, you know, the worst time of her marriage because of that.

11:49
So, by financial stress, I agree with that, it’s usually has to do with sex or financial. Financially, it’s really hard when your husband is not able to provide for a long period of time to keep that respect for your husband as the provider. And I think that’s where it gets tricky, because it does actually affect your intimacy and sex like, so. Yeah. So they’re actually intertwined, because for four months, it was really hard for me, when I had so much stress on my shoulders, and women, and I’m sure we’ll get into this, women are very much emotionally need to be connected with their spouse, you know, when they’re intimate. And it’s really hard when there’s a lot of stress coming from other areas or for a period of time when it’s a long period of time. And you know, that respect as a provider is going down. That takes a big toll on your marriage, and your sex life also. And so I just, I think what got us through, honestly, getting us through that couple year trial of that financial trial, was that I was very, I’ve always been a very sexual person. I love being intimate with my husband. And I can honestly say that, keeping that alive, even when I wasn’t in the mood for him, because that’s a need that he has. And I know that men have that need, and women do too. I really think that when you’re going through something hard, making sure that you’re staying intimate together, is going to it does help keep you together. Yeah. I think that’s really important. And I think that I’m glad that I like to be intimate with my husband, because I really feel like that got us through that trial.

13:38
Wow. It’s so good. I mean, I know we’re gonna talk more about your ministry soon. But I mean, that’s really so key. So huge. I think you can’t underscore it more. So actually, let’s talk a little bit about that. When you I mean, in the midst of this financial stress, when you felt like you couldn’t respect him, because he wasn’t able to provide you just grinned and buried it. You were just like, well, we’ve got to make love because that’s what’s going to connect us. Is that how it went?

14:16
I want to say completely because obviously, I mean, financial, being a financial provider is just a piece of the pie. I mean, he’s still my best friend. He’s still the father of my children, and I still love him more than anything. I mean, I think you always do. I think just when things get stressful, it’s a great way to connect, bring back what you’ve always felt. Yeah. And I don’t know. It’s just it’s sex is a gift from God. And I just, it’s how you become one with each other and making sure that that remains a priority in your marriage. I really feel can get you through any trial.

14:55
Yeah. So then when you got out of The financial challenge was it? I mean, how did it happen? What, what changed?

15:07
I actually opened up my own business a couple of years later, I decided that it was my turn to pull some weight. And my kids were growing up a little bit was easier for me and in a situation where I was able to do that. And so it didn’t just change overnight, but I took on a responsibility also on my shoulders, which was also a whole nother thing in itself, you know, yeah, taking on motherhood and a business and still trying to, you know, how, I don’t know, just, that’s a lot for, you know, for women to try and balance both. And, and so I yeah, it changed in a way that I didn’t think that my husband really, it changed our marriage, because all of a sudden, you know, it was a it was a real partnership. Like he had to step up. Be, you know, half mom, it was it was good for a marriage. You know, he became the romantic help around the house do everything for the kids, which was huge. Yeah. And what an incredible it’s incredible to watch your husband be awesome like that. I guess that’s the right way to put it like,

16:14
yeah, it is. Yeah, it’s very sexy to it is absolutely what a turn on. It’s true. It’s true. My husband is now the full stay at home dad. And it is amazing. And I so often are just tell him, you know, thank you for taking care of our family. Like, he’s absolutely. You know, I think it’s a shame in our culture, how, how, how that’s not a wider opportunity for for men to do that. Because they really are taking care of the family when they when they do that kind of work. It’s incredible. So yeah,

16:52
well, I think I think it’s so good for a marriage to because we both been on both sides, we know that the stresses that both carry, and that mothering is just as hard as going to work. I mean, right. It’s both it both has its challenges. And we’ve seen both sides. And it’s amazing now because it strengthened our marriage, because we have such a genuine respect for each other’s opportunities, and we balanced our family. Well. Now, you know, I feel like we both pull equal weights, which has caused our marriage to only get better at it, Edison, and that in that makes your intimacy even better when you’re when you’re on the same level. So

17:31
yeah, that’s awesome. And it almost seems like the way you’re talking about intimacy is almost like ah, I lost it. It’ll come back. I was trying to say it’s almost like you’re talking about your intimacy. Oh, like one affects the other your life is affecting your intimacy, your intimacy is affecting your life. Is that think about

17:55
it? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, we women are complicated. Like, we are all mental when it comes to sex, yeah, you’re half physical, it takes longer physical, you have to have things done, we have to be warmed up. There’s just I mean, we are kind of complicated, you know, and it’s, it’s wonderful when you figure each other out in that area, and it takes years.

18:28
Yeah, what do you mean, figure each other out?

18:31
Just figure out each other’s not just sexual needs, but emotional needs physical needs. Like it’s just, we’re humans are complex, you know, and, and we’re designed so different that? I don’t know, I think it takes a lot of experiences and marriages to really figure it out. And that’s what’s so great about marriage is that it just gets better with age because we continue to grow and learn together.

18:57
Yeah. Yeah. And I like what you’re saying about it gets better with age, I fully agree with you. But I feel like a lot of people would not agree with you. Because they’ve built up a lot of baggage or they’ve built up a lot of, you know, experience that has taught them that doesn’t it was much better in the early days when things were easier because they didn’t have as much. Yeah, baggage. And I guess, could you address that?

19:27
I agree with you. I think it’s all how you look at it. Um, I guess that would take me to my next story, please. Um, so I feel that marriage gets deeper. It changes. It’s not always better. I guess it’s better if the way the aspects that you look at it again. So when we first got married, we came from very different backgrounds. I had a very, I came from a very loving home. Very Christian parents. Right marriage, very affectionate, very intimate. I could tell, I could just tell you know, they were very appreciative and, and close and affectionate towards each other. My husband came from a broken marriage, family with a broken parents divorced when he was 14, his family was split apart, right after a little more of a complex situation. But his parents didn’t show a whole lot of love or appreciation towards each other, they grew apart. And so when we were dating, you know, he wanted me over, I got lots of flowers and dozens of roses left at my door. And home cooked meals, you know, I know it was very romantic. I’m like, Oh, this marriage is gonna be great, right? And then you know, you get married. Few months into it the flowers or start my first Valentine’s Day I cried myself to sleep, because I didn’t get roses only wait a second, I got him every day when we were dating, you know? Yeah. And he and I, no more candlelight dinners. You know, he’s like, Well, we’re married now, you know. And we, it was okay, because that was the first time that I had to open up and be like, Okay, we’ve come from different backgrounds. And so that that first Valentine’s day after we were married, we had a major, major discussion, it was, I need these things after we’re married, I don’t need them. When we’re dating, I need you to constantly be doing these little things, that means so much to me, continuously, and not just have them stop. And that was eye opening to him. It wasn’t because he didn’t love me less. Or he didn’t want to be romantic. He just had never seen his parents do those kinds of things when they were married, you know. And so it was eye opening to him. And he’s like, I’ll step it up. You know, he’s like, I know that this is important to you. Now I know, these little things still mean something to you. And they did, even though they were an all little love note here, there. It still meant a lot to me. And so he it was a great conversation. And after that he tried a lot harder. And it led to other things and deeper conversations about his parents marriage and mine. And we had a lot of discussions about what we both needed in a marriage, you know. And so I guess that’s where I’m going with the whole thing is, I guess it depends, you know, if you’re looking at marriage, okay, it’s different now. There’s baggage, whatever, we’ve gone through problems. We’ve gone through trials. Yeah, if you think it’s gonna be flowers and candlelight dinners, your whole marriage, that’s not going to stay like that kids calm, stress comes, you lose jobs, you lose. People, like, things get really hard. But I guess for me, it’s it’s more deeper now. It’s deeper. We’ve learned to make it through those things. We’ve learned to make it through the trials. And we become closer because of those trials. And I guess that’s why I look at marriage now. As as better. Mm hmm.

22:58
Yeah. Yeah, I think, yeah, I like that. You say marriage gets deeper, that is really true. Because the suffering that you guys do together in life just puts you closer? Well,

23:14
it can put you closer, it can break you apart. And it’s sad to see the world now because it’s breaking way too many people apart. And, and I look at the cute old couples, you know, their 8090 have made it 5060 years together. And I’m like that, to me. That’s love. That’s because people are back in the older days. They were staying together and they were sticking it out. Because there was a deeper love there. And so yeah, I don’t know. I guess that’s just how you how you look at it.

23:45
Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting. So I’m gonna mark what time we are at right now because I’ve got to ask my husband if I’m allowed to say these things. So we’ll find out but, um, when we actually got engaged it was, you know, we had already talked about marriage, we had planned the whole thing, but our engagement actually involved fast food. So I was less than excited. And then that’s kind of what happened throughout the first years of our marriage was just like these forgetting holidays and all these these these events that like meant so much to me, and, you know, my heart was broken that my birthday was completely forgotten about and I you know, cried at midnight and you know, woke them up, but like look up lately. And I’m like guys, trying to console you know, like, get him to understand the depth of hurt and pain he was putting me through. And honestly, God was So kind because literally, it’s so funny. But one book has revolutionized the way I’ve thought about these things. And it’s the book that I’ve often mentioned, it’s called surrendered wife on my, on the podcast. But it basically taught me to let go, and to stop trying to push him to change or make me happy. And instead really appreciate the really small things that he does, like just the small, wonderful things that he does every day. Every time he’s, you know, whatever, he’s took the trash out, or the tiniest, tiniest things. And then as you you know, move forward in that you then start to say things like, Oh, I’d really like that. And then slowly, it becomes something that happens. And then oh, I so appreciate that. That happened, you know, and he kind of, again, it’s an amazing book, but all that to say that we had our anniversary this week. And it was a surprise. And he walked me, he got the kids, he figured out the kids babysitters, when I came home from work early to get dolled up, there was flowers in every room. And then it was a surprise dinner cruise around Manhattan. And it was just amazing what God did. But it’s also one of those things that like, I used to be this person that just like had to have it my way. And then God just totally transformed it in a way of like, just let go. And just appreciate and see what God does. And so it was just anyway, I’m just so so grateful that ultimately God can change things around. So if there’s a wife out there who just feels like so broken, and so heartbroken that she’s not receiving the kind of affection that she deserves. And God loves her enough to give her those things that ultimately, you know, there’s hope, there’s wisdom that you can learn, to give you insight on how to deal with your specific situation. But don’t lose hope. You know, I think that was something that I wish I had heard that, that your husband can change, and you can change first. And you can be the person that changes in a way that will allow the relationship to become a relationship that’s more godly, more centered on serving each other, loving each other. And the best marriage, the best unified marriage, then ultimately can serve God the best so. So I encourage you in that. So kind of funny, I went back and asked my husband to listen to that part, if I was allowed to share it with the audience. And he was like, Yeah, in fact, you should do a whole show about that, how you changed how I changed how things were how they are now and pretty hilarious. So I am going to do an entire show. That’s going to be episode 165. So join me again to listen into, yeah, the details, the gory, heartbreaking details of my pain.

28:24
And, and then how I changed and the specific things I did differently. And then how my husband responded and change to pretty amazing. God is so good. So come back for that. Also, next week 164, I’m going to have Amy’s part two, and she’s going to be talking about her app a little more, we’re actually also going to go through kind of step by step the bells and whistles which are cool. But also just her story and what she’s learned. And we talk about, you know, God’s love being so much more than our love for our spouse ever could be and how vital that is and how that interact. What that has to do with intimacy, and how does that have to do with marriage? It’s just, it’s cool. So yeah, stick around for for next episode on that. Also go to delight your marriage shot calm. Consider how we can start working together one on one to get you to the next level. Like I said, there is no reason to go forward any longer without having these things figured out. These issues sorted through who else are you going to work this stuff out with? Who else knows this stuff, and that you trust to get you to that next spot? I mean, if your husband trusts my show, if he listens to this stuff, and he thinks I’m on to something, I would love to work with you so that we can get you to the next level so that you can enjoy yourself so that you could feel free in intimacy It’s time to go to delight your marriage.com Click on Resources, click on intimacy coaching with Bella. Take advantage of this 30% off gift. It’s time to do it. God bless you go there today, and we’ll talk next week. Bye.

30:19
Thanks for listening. If you’ve been blessed by this, why not share it? Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion

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I get so many emails from husbands. I want to send a message to their wives…the wife I used to be. I was a wife who saw sex as

• Sex is dirty
• Sex is wrong
• Sex is ungodly
• Sex is scary
• He is sinning for wanting it
• Sex is too much work
• I don’t like it / it hurts / I don’t know what to do
• He’s way too interested in sex–not healthy or biblical
• I don’t have time
• I don’t have energy
• What’s in it for me?

And so I avoided it and got resentful that the things I was doing wasn’t appreciated. He kept asking me to learn more… and I got angrier.

Well God has changed my heart on this. I have discovered that God made my husband’s member, and I am his wife. It is my privilege to be a part of intimacy with him. I am his only means of receiving this vital fulfillment righteously.

I believe this podcast will bring you closer to God. If you’re anything like I was, I wish I had known this even before I got married. If I could only understand what sex meant to him. If I could only understand God’s purposes for it.

I pray this would be something husbands can give to their wives (when she’s ready—listen and practice these 3 episodes: Encourage Your Wife’s Sexuality (How A Husband Can Help His Wife Be More Into Sex) 156, 156/157, 157 first).

Podcasts I mention:

• 132-S: The Most Important Piece To Amazing Intimacy with Belah Rose
• 144-S: The Discipline of “No” with Belah Rose
• Encourage Your Wife’s Sexuality (How A Husband Can Help His Wife Be More Into Sex) 156, 156/157, 157

Praying for you and your marriage,

Belah

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.

0:19
Hey there, and welcome. Thank you so much for joining. I’m belah rose, nice to meet you. I’m trying to imagine who’s on the other side of this microphone. I wonder if you’re a wife, who was asked by your husband to listen to this podcast. And if that’s the case, I would just love to smile at you and welcome you and let you know this is a safe place. Ultimately, if I knew you, I would love to have coffee. And you and I could sit down together and you could tell me what’s going on in your heart and your background, your past, even the difficulties in your marriage now and how you’re feeling about intimacy and why it’s where it is. And I know there’s so much beneath what’s going on for you. And you probably think I have no clue how your marriage is or why it got there, or the difficulty you’re in right now. And the truth is, I don’t, there’s no way for me to know. But here’s some questions I might have in case you are at a place where I have been. You might be feeling if you are anything like I was that you’re frankly annoyed, that he’s asking you, again, to read something to listen to something to change the way you are sexually. You might be just flat out frustrated, you know, hands on your hips, or crossing your arms and being like, come on, this lady has no idea what’s going on in our marriage. And this husband of mine, over and over and over again, tries to tell me about sex. And it’s just so frustrating. I want this to stop. Another thing you might be going through is you might be hurt. Because it feels like he doesn’t think you’re good enough in bed. Once again, he’s hurting your feelings by giving you another resource to look into. Another one is you might just be angry, upset that you do so much every single day. Maybe you take care of the kids full time, which is hard work. Maybe you are working outside of the home for a paycheck. But it’s just as hard or you know, you come home you clean you do the dishes, you work with the kids. I mean, it’s a constant work in your life. And then when you’re completely exhausted by the end of the day, your husband like rolls over and wants to get frisky. You’re like are you kidding me? And then, you know, here you are trying to be good wife. And he’s asking you to listen to another thing to give you another item on your to do list, which is pages long as it is. Another thing is you might be asking, What the heck is he doing for me? When was the last time we had a date? When was the last time he picked up flowers just to surprise me? You know, how was he loving me if I’m supposed to do all this sex stuff for him. Another thing you might be thinking is, as a Christian man, he should not be thinking about sex as much as he is. However much we’re having sex, he should be grateful. Because look at Jesus. Look at Paul, John the Baptist, those guys didn’t have sex and look how much they were able to do for the Kingdom. You might be like, my husband has got to get it together. Isn’t he supposed to be dying to the flesh? And you could quote a million Bible verses at him to let him know that he’s sinful for wanting you to do those things. So I don’t know where you are. In that you might I think finally probably I would say you might also just be struggling with the whole idea that this act, sexuality in your marriage is just dirty. It’s wrong. It’s sinful. It has never been talked about in a good way. How in the world you don’t even have good language to speak about it with every time you try to talk about different different parts that either sounds like you’re reading a medical dictionary, or you’re on a, excuse me, but pornography site. I mean, this seems like a horrible thing. How in the world? Is this supposed to be positive and holy and godly?

5:16
So I kind of wanted to just give you just a little bit, maybe, hopefully insight of where I have been, as a wife, as a woman. I have been in each of those spots. I want to address each of those. But before I do, I want to tell you that I hear you. I have been there each of those items I understand completely. I have been in those spots. That’s why I can describe them. Because I have been there I am a woman I felt those things. Another thing I could say is, what about I have low libido? I don’t want to have sex. Why is his drive more important than mine? How about this one, he is selfish in sex. I don’t want to do all the things he wants me to do. Or what about this one? I do have sex with him. But he never stopped. He just always wants intimacy with Me. It’s too much. There’s are all the excuses. But I would say reasons. Those are all reasons that you’re like, This is not what I am going to do all of the time. I am not going to do all this. I’m not okay with it. I don’t think it’s the way God wants me. It’s not what he’s asking me to do as, as a wife as a person, it it’s not, honey, it doesn’t matter that much. Stop asking me to do this all the time. So if you any of those things, identify with you. That’s what this conversation is about. I hope you’ll listen in with an open heart to see if God wants to speak to you through this podcast through this episode, if there’s some truth in here that he wants to show you.

7:14
So I wonder if you can agree with me that God made the universe that God designed everything carefully. With deep detail. Every single molecule, every cell in your body is designed and created by the master himself. Your body, my dear, is a masterpiece. Whether you like it or not. God designed all of it. He designs Your beautiful eyes. He designed your glorious fingers. He designed your heart. He designed your insides, he designed your brain. And he designed your intimate, womanly parts. He designed all of that. He also designed your husband, his broad shoulders, his however your husband looks maybe he’s got a beard, maybe he’s got whatever it is, I rouse all this stuff he designed. But he also designed your husband’s penis. So just a quick note about language, I recognize that there is hard language to figure out how to say things in a good way. And I’m sorry if the wording that I’m using is not the best for your particular experience. But I’m going to try as hard as I can to make it neutral say words that don’t evoke things. So I’m hoping that you’ll give me grace and just kind of keep your heart open to what I might say beneath the wording what’s the message behind it? So let’s try that again. He also designed your husband, his broad shoulders, his however your husband looks maybe he’s got a beard or maybe he’s got whatever it is I rouse all this stuff he designed but he also designed your husband’s penis. He designed everything about your husband’s penis. Just take that in. Recognize that is true. God made his member every part of your husband’s member is God designed, God made your husband’s penis to become erect. He made your husband’s penis exactly the shape exactly the way every part of it, God designed. So let me tell you a little bit about what that means. Your husband’s penis is an appendage from his body. It’s right between his legs. Every appendage of our bodies has blood pumping through it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the blood is constantly pumping, because it’s bringing oxygen and nutrients. And it’s also carrying out metabolic waste. It’s doing all these processes all of these things. And honestly, I don’t really understand most of it. But I will say that blood is constantly flowing. Your husband’s penis is not like anything else. The only time blood flows in there and flows out is when it’s wrecked. Which means for a healthy appendage, it has to have blood flowing. So if you were to cut off circulation from your hand, long enough, your hand would not be functional. And that’s the same way. So God designed your husband’s penis to become wrecked very often, very frequently. For this reason to stay healthy. So your husband’s penis actually has four different reasons to become a wrecked. One, you probably are very familiar with the morning erection. Very natural, happens every day, every single day he has this morning and what reaction that he wakes up with. Another one is called a reflexive erection. Which means if something or someone touches his penis, it becomes erect. Blood starts flowing, it’s very natural.

12:11
But when I say something, he literally could bump up against a trash can. And suddenly blood is starting to flow and it’s becoming erect. Another one is the mind erection right? That is when he’s thinking about sex or he sees something sexual. It comes through his mind, that’s when it actually becomes erect that way. And then the last one, right is the random erections. Literally because to keep your, your husband’s body healthy, the bloods going in the blood just going out, there’s no actual stimuli, there’s no reason aside from his body’s got to clean that thing out or get oxygen to or whatever. There’s reasons. So. So that’s, that’s the piece I want to just be clear about the way God designed your husband’s penis is to have erections. Now, shockingly, there, you’re an average husband has 11 erections every single day. 11. That’s shocking to us, isn’t it when shocking, 11 erections. And regardless of the cause, he wants to use it. Because the blood flowing into his penis, as the blood is flowing, it’s very pleasurable, every type of erection he has is very pleasurable, every type of touch is pleasurable to him. Now, us as women, we don’t have to really touch ourselves very often. It just, it’s not part of the way we go to the bathroom and things like that. But for husbands, they always have to touch their penis to use the restroom. Just to make sure it doesn’t spill onto the floor, they’ve got to touch it. And that’s pleasure that even if they’re not grasping it to orgasm, just touching it is pleasure. It’s, that’s the way it was designed. It’s not a normal appendage. It’s not anything like that. So God made your husband’s penis very specifically,

14:23
very uniquely. So talking about what your husband’s penis means to him. Let’s discuss that. His penis is what makes him a man. Think about it. It’s his whole manhood is in between his legs. If you didn’t have that, he would not be considered a man.

14:50
He would be called a unike. And I just wonder would you be would you want to marry a husband that doesn’t have a penis is that Is that what would that be attractive to you?

15:02
I don’t think so. I think you want a man, I think you want him. Because you know, it’s important. You know, it’s the thing that makes him a man. It’s what makes him special.

15:15
It’s what makes him unique. From women. It’s different. It’s, it’s that thing. It’s that part of him, that’s a man. Every day, your husband walks out into this world. And the question he asks of life is, do I have what it takes? Am I good enough? Do we have what it takes to take on this world to do this job to be there for my family, to make enough money so that we can survive to, to give to my, my wife, what she needs to serve my children to be what God wants me to be in this world? Do I have what it takes? Am I enough? Those are the questions that essence is who your husband is his heart. And his penis is the thing that makes him that man that’s asking those questions. So when his penis is not being respected in your home, he feels like he’s not enough. He feels like he doesn’t have what it takes to make it in this world. And every erection that he has, every time he sees his penis, every time he touches that it’s a reminder of the intimacy or lack of an intimacy that he has in his marriage. It’s a reminder, regardless of all the, you know, advertisements, all the, you know, nonsense that is so rampant in our world of all the sexual imagery, regardless of that, just the way he’s built, just the way the erections happen all the time, reminds him, that he’s not making love, that he’s not enjoying. his manhood is not respected in his home. So when you ignore when you reject, and sadly when you criticize, or accuse or anger really respond to his meager attempts at seduction, or, or desire for you, you’re rejecting his manhood, you’re saying, You’re not enough for me, babe. You’re not enough for this world, you don’t have what it takes. And you may be thinking, Why in the world would I have the ability to make this great man feels so terrible about himself. You know, if he was so great, he would be able to do that all by himself. It’s not up to me to make him feel that way. And I hear what you’re saying. Because certainly, there’s an element of him having to rely on God to for his self worth. But you as a woman have the privilege of making him feel like a man of honoring his manhood in your marriage, you are the only one who’s allowed to touch that to interact, to enjoy, to caress to cherish his member, he is a man because of what’s in between his legs and you are the only one that’s able to love and appreciate that. He’s sitting if he gets that any other way. That is your responsibility, and your privilege that you can make him feel alive and excited about life. I need to tell you that when a man doesn’t make love to his wife, he feels lonely. He feels depressed. He feels stressed, literally that is when oxytocin is released is at the point of orgasm. He has a much lower oxytocin load in his bloodstream than women, women, you know, seeing a baby or being cuddled or a hug. Those are things that release oxytocin in our bodies. But for a man it’s very, very low until the point of orgasm where this big surge of oxytocin is released. And it’s this amazing feeling in his body where he feels loved. He feels depreciated. He feels excited about life. He feels alive. That’s what you give him when you give him the opportunity of loving you through love making He feels your love through the act of sex. And large part is the way you feel about his member.

20:11
When you treasure that, and appreciate what God has made in him as a man, you’re appreciating what God has made in him, you’re appreciating his member, those are one and the same, believe it or not. It’s funny, I was just talking to you. It’s actually it’s amazing. I was just talking to a new friend. And she was telling me that she just got back from Iraq. And she was telling me about what’s going on over there. And, and literally, she was in a town an hour outside of I think the town is Mosul were like the hub of ISIS, that they captured this city. She is literally she was staying with a missionary family who’s there long term, missionary to the Iraqi people, right next to a refugee camp, like she was one hour away from ISIS, and staying with these missionaries. And, you know, in my heart, in my mind, I’m like, I want so desperately to help. I want to help this world that’s so in need that so is broken and suffering, you know. But the best gift I can give people that are doing the hardest work in the world. That family, I just imagine that family is giving them a strong marriage, a unified marriage, where they recognize and understand each other and the love and, and what it means to connect as as marital partner so they can fully focus on the work that God wants them to focus on. So you don’t know who God wants your husband to be, until you’re loving Him, and serving him respecting him the way that you get to as a wife, you don’t know the kind of man he’s supposed to be the kind of unified couple that you’re supposed to be until you have this. This revelation to this is in your marriage that you honor his manhood, to you respect him. As a man, you don’t know what God is going to do through you through your love, through your love. This is not something the world made up the world took God’s design, God’s creation, and they twisted it. And they turned it into what it is sin plastered all over our culture. That is sin. But in your marriage, in the garden, there was man, there was woman, they were naked, and they were on ashamed. Adam was made first God said it is not good for man to be alone. And he made Eve. It’s right there. To gather together they are to be doing this work together. They are to making love. Jesus specifically said He made man and woman so they could be one flesh. I mean, Jesus, who never married, said it was important for man and woman to become one flesh. She’s talking about the connection, the sex that you are supposed to be having in your marriage, that union, that bonding, it’s a design of God. And your husband knows it. He knows it. And I think one of the reasons is so vital to a husband is because for us as women to feel loved, to feel cherished, the things we really want to experience so that we actually get turned on and want to make love are really the fruits of the Spirit. We want to experience a man who’s patient and gentle and kind, and loving, and generous. That turns us on who’s trustworthy and faithful, who’s loyal. Those are all things that we want in a man. And if you think about it, those things go together, the woman wanting a man who embodies the gifts of the Spirit, and the man wanting to enjoy sexual love from his wife and it together, they have to serve each other in in that way. And it becomes that we’re more like Christ doing those things. So one thing you might be asking and it kind of touched on it, in the beginning, is a man of God should be dying to his flesh. Right? Jesus was able to go his whole life without making love Paul, John the Baptist. I mean, there’s a lot of monks and great saints and people that that went their whole lives without it. And you know, Jesus specifically says, I don’t have the verse in front of me, but I believe it’s Matthew 19. But he says, if they can do that they should. Basically if they can

25:07
not be connected in marital intimacy, then they should, if they cannot be married, they should, but otherwise, they should be married. Paul even talks about don’t burn with passion, get married, so you can get on with the work that God has you to do. If you’re married, you should not be burning with passion any longer because that passion should be satiated by each other, you should be making love. God designed it that way. One note I wanted to make about how these other men were able to, you know, sustain a celibate life is this is just something that may be helpful to think about is that when we make love the first time when we are a virgin, and then the first sexual experience, it literally changes brain chemistry, there are brain connections that were not there beforehand. That’s why it makes it’s so significant. When someone’s a virgin, it’s so significant, because literally, they don’t have brain connections that are there after it happens. And so, I wonder, it’s just a question. I don’t have a whole lot of, you know, I don’t have a whole lot to back this up. But I just wonder if people like Paul, Jesus that never sinned, you know, John the Baptist, these these great, great men who were able to do so much, I wonder if God didn’t give them the grace to not have the constant distraction of sex, because they never had it in the first place. So that’s kind of a wonder for me. But aside from that, if you just think about our culture, right, we’ve got scantily clad women on every advertisement, even if you don’t watch movies, aside from G rated films, you would still see it all over the place constantly. There’s sexual imagery, objectification of women’s bodies, all the time, everywhere. It’s the normal style of clothes. Now, Jesus time, in, you know, the Saints didn’t live with that kind of input. You know, there wasn’t the temptation of pornography all the time, it was very different. And when that happens, that distraction, when he gets an erection very, very naturally just happens when he, you know, begins to notice his body. And just so you know, it’s his body, he notices it every single time it happens. And when he like it happens, and he’s thinking, Oh, I’d love to be making love. If he automatically is thinking about his wife. Why then that’s a holy, that’s a holy response to this natural reaction. But if he’s burning with passion, he’s like, I need something to satiate me. That’s awful. That’s distracting. That’s not allowing him to do the work that God wants him to do. It’s completely distracting. I just again, think of what God might be wanting to do through your husband, but because he’s so desperate to be loved in his marriage. It’s just not happening. I mean, we’re we’re desperate to be loved. And we have a husband or we have a wife. I mean, can you imagine? Think if it were you, and I’m sure, you know, there’s tension in your marriage, if there’s not generous intimacy, in the marriage bed, there’s, there’s significant tension, I am sure of it. So the way you feel when you don’t feel loved, it’s just a constant thing. So I do want to talk about one thing that might be on your heart as a wife. And this happens, it really does a lot is maybe you have been in an intimate situation, and your husband has not had an erection. And now because I’m talking about how natural it is, and how it happens all the time, and every day. You’re wondering, well, why did it happen when we were going to make love? Was he not attracted to me, you know, what was going on? And I just want to, you know, kind of calm and, you know, be kind to your heart for a minute because it’s actually probably has nothing to do with you. Sometimes there are just things that get in the way of him actually being able to perform. And some of those things are stress. Some of it is health things medication is a bit Big one.

30:02
And like I said, he’ll, he’s probably having, you know, blood flowing through having these directions and different circumstances. But it’s not because he’s not attracted to you. It’s simply because of these other elements. However, I will say once it happens once, and more than likely would happen again, because he begins to get anxious. Or maybe he’s anxious the first time and it just kind of continues on as a self fulfilling prophecy. So as a wife, the best thing you can do is whatever happens, except it with love, and cherish his member in every way. And remember that it’s pleasurable, when his member is filling with blood. So even if it’s soft, and there’s nothing that you can tell happening, you just being kind and generous with your touch and kiss and all the different wonderful aspects of loving his member, you can actually cause him to feel loved. Even if the act of lovemaking doesn’t happen, because he doesn’t have an erection, it’s going to make it much more likely that he’ll have it the next time. And either way, ultimately, he’s going to feel respected and loved and treasured as a man. Just because he doesn’t have a full on erection, it doesn’t mean that it’s not pleasurable, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel that depth of love that you’re giving to him. So whatever happens in any circumstance, give him that respect, given that honor of the man and honor his manhood in the midst. Maybe you had been thinking, you know, how is it that a man is so sensitive? The truth is, God made him so sensitive in his heart, about his manhood, what’s in between his legs, on purpose, in the same way that you are sensitive about the way he speaks to you, or the way he desires you, that’s your heart. You know, if he listens to you, if he loves the way you think, and the way your body is, and all these things, you’re very sensitive to that he’s the one that can hurt you the most, because he is closest to you, that romantic relationship is unlike any other relationship and it should be, he is sensitive to this, it is very, very much a part of who he is. So what I want you to do, my dream for you, is to get to a place of loving his member. This, that might sound completely silly and ridiculous right now, and that’s okay. But this is what I want. I want you to understand that it’s not just about doing your duty, or, or, you know, giving him what he wants, whatever. It’s literally about loving his soul, in your intimacy, you are loving this man. And that God made in his member, you want to know why I think that’s so significantly is because God knew this when he made Adam. Okay, when Abraham was given the promise that all his descendants would be blessed through Abraham. And at some point, he required them to be circumcised all of the men to be circumcised. Now God could have said, You are my people. So I’m going to more mark you. So all you need to do is is you know, you need to mark your forehead with a big dot, you know, maybe a big scar. That would probably be you know, very painful, but circumcision is very painful. So something where it’s on their face, like everyone knew this is God’s person, because they have a big mark and they can see it. That is not what God required of his people. He required them to mark the thing that matters most to them. The thing that matters most to your husband is his member. That’s what God asked of his people to say, I know you and I know this is most important, and I require for you to be my people and to consecrate the thing that matters most to you as a man, to me, that that is the commitment that is the value or making to me

34:49
that so that’s a little bit about his heart. Why his member means so much, and why the intimacy that he’s having in his marriage if he is having it or the frequency, why it affects him so very much, because it is because it is that important. So you might be thinking in the back of your mind, well, you know, great, so now I understand how vital it is to him. But when am I going to have time to do anything? I mean, already, I feel stressed. And, you know, the intimacy we do, have I, I can barely get that together. How am I supposed to do more than this? And when I think that you can either ask him to listen to this, and you can say, is this true? And if it is, you can say, well, I’ve noticed that I have X, Y, and Z to do every week. And I would like you to take on X, Y, and Z. And those phrases, I’ve noticed dot dot dot, I’d like dot, dot dot, are actually very, very good phrases for you to use. And that gives him the understanding of, I would love to make love to you. But I have got a lot on my plate. And I would like some help. So if you start thinking about what would you need to happen in your life to be able to prioritize this? And you might be thinking, well, how much do I need to be making love so that he feels satisfied and loved and all that stuff? Absolutely ask him, he might say twice a day. So that might not be reasonable. However, get to a place where he is feeling loved. And if you’re not doing once a week, get at least two once a week, if you’re getting two once a week, try for two times a week, and from there, you know, see what’s sustainable, then for you. I mean, I don’t want you to feel force I don’t. That’s not, that’s not the point, you should not feel forced to be making love to your husband. But it is what I do believe you need to do is reprioritize your life so that your marriage is just after your relationship with God. There’s there your relationship with God. And then there’s your marriage, the very next rung. Okay. And then there’s your family, your kids. And from there, it goes out to your ministry and your work and the other areas of your life. But your marriage has got to go before soccer practice, okay. Your marriage has got to go before, you know, craft DIY, DIY projects in your home. I don’t know what’s keeping you from doing that. But cut it out, cut that piece out. So that you can have what you need to be able to make love. And it’s not just, you know, you need an extra hour so that you guys can get together. It’s more than that, especially for women, we need peace in our lives, we need to have less stress. We need to feel good about our bodies, all of those things are required for us to enjoy intimacy. So how do you do that? How do you turn into a woman that likes to make love? While you need to value peace, you need to reprioritize cut the things out, they’re stressing you out. Really reassess your life and figure out what needs to be cut so I can love and value and cherish my husband. And if a husband’s listening, which I imagine you would be think about how you can approach your wife in, in loving her so that she can love you. Someone’s got to break this cycle. Someone has got to break this cycle. So taking her out to dinner, you know, loving on her the way that she receives love. I talked about that in episode 156 156 Slash 157 and 157. That’s actually three episodes, though it might sound very confusing. Listen to those, get some insights there. But figure out how you can offload her plate. What can you do? How can you make your lives less stressful? Maybe

39:37
it means downgrading your home. Maybe it means buying less stuff, maybe it means budgeting so you don’t have to have two jobs, maybe one job and a part time job. I don’t know but this is really important. If you want to have a God centered life, you have got to value your intimacy. You can not have your husband addicted to pornography or are going on every distraction that there is in the world because he cannot get the intimacy at his own home. It’s not okay and it has to change, it has to change. And you, my dear wife have the ability to change it. You just don’t know what God might want for your marriage for your life, I have got to tell you, I am so much happier. When I am making generous love to my husband. That’s when he does the dishes. That’s when he takes care of the kids. And with a good heart, that’s when he buys me flowers. That’s when he takes me out on dates. When I am generous in lovemaking, I feel loved in every other area of my life. So if you have a low libido like I do, you still serve you still are generous, he still love his member in intimacy, there’s a lot of ways to do it, it does not have to be intercourse if you are not physically able, or if you are lacking energy at the end of the day, or if you whatever, there’s a lot of other ways to do it. But make sure that his intimacy, that connection between the two of you is made. And I say love making again, there is a lot of ways you can make love that do not have to be specific penetration, intercourse there’s, there’s so many other ways just understand how very vital it is. Alright, so we have come a long way, you have recognized that God designed your husband’s member, it was not the world’s idea. It was God’s. It’s very, very vital to his heart. his manhood is in between his legs, who he is as essential man. And you as a wife determine if he feels like he has enough in this world. Yes, he should rely on God for that. But you are, you are that one person that can affirm him as a man. And that is through however you desire, in intimacy with your husband, you affirm him as a man, he feels loved. He feels revitalized, he’s feels rejuvenated. He feels excited about life. It releases stress from his life and makes him more hopeful. God made it this way. We are important. Women, you are vital to your husband’s life. Adam needed Eve, your husband married to you because he needed intimacy in his life, he wasn’t able to be celibate his whole life, he wasn’t able to be like Paul and Paul said, If you can’t stand it fine, get married, but then keep doing God’s work. That’s what the whole point of it is. So you can do the work that God has to do fully unified, fully loving each other. That’s going to make you better parents, that’s going to make you better church members, that’s going to make you better ministry leaders, that’s going to make you better missionaries. That’s going to make you hear from God better. Because when he gets an erection when he’s there praying, it’s not going to distract him into thinking, oh my gosh, I wish I could could could could release this somehow he’s going to be like, Oh, I love my wife so much. And then he’s gonna get back to praying. Again, it’s an erection just because of a random erection or some kind of molecular, you know, blood flow process or whatever. But it happens constantly. This is his body. This is your husband. This is the way God designed him. It is holy, it is good. Intimacy with this man with your man is good and holy. If this is something you struggle with, I really encourage you to listen to episode 132. It says it’s called the most important piece to amazing intimacy. It really goes into why the world says it’s x and what it really is in God’s kingdom in the way that God sees sex the way that he designed sex. So

44:32
next steps for you. Write down why you’re not doing this. Why is this not part of your life? What are the blocks? What are the barriers? What is the baggage? What is the pain? Write it down and journal about it? What are the things you’re not forgiving your husband of that’s preventing you from moving forward. What are the areas that you’ve been ignorant of that Now, maybe I hope and prayerfully you’re beginning to have your eyes opened to what are the things you need to understand before you can move into a greater depth of intimacy, journal these things, pray about these things. Get to an understanding that this is what needs to be happening in your marriage. This is what glues you two together for peace, for purpose for unity. I have a ton of other resources. Again, if this is your first time listening to the podcast, I, I really hope that you would prayer fully under just just seek this seek God on? Is this true? Is it real that you design my husband this way? Is it true? Is it true that this is what you care about? Is it true that you want me to love my husband’s member? The way that belah rose described it? Is that really dirty? Is it really sin? Or did I just get tainted by what the world and what this Satan wants me to misunderstand it or misrepresented as, because I want you to know do your wife my whole life. I’m talking Bella, I thought it was gross. I thought it was disgusting. I thought it was sin, I thought it was wrong. I thought all those other women are sinning by doing such nasty things to even their husband, like it just is wrong. It’s the worst. And it was a long process. But by God’s grace, my eyes are open. And this is the way God made it. Their culture was very different. I think the women in their culture understood the man’s genitalia very, very, very differently. And we’ve lost that for various reasons. But in this society, in this culture, men see sexual images all the time. It’s really, really hard for them to resist the temptation of thought, the temptation of pornography, that those temptations are real. And really, really, really, I mean, I cannot even imagine women wear scantily clothed clothes, scantily clothed things all the time around your husband. And if he is not receiving intimacy in his marriage, it’s really hard for him to turn his eyes away or not be tempted, or all these things he should be doing. But you as a wife, your his opportunity to feel loved in these ways, you’re his only opportunity to, to, in a holy way to receive that. Those desires, those needs that God put in him. So you too, could be unified for the glory of God. Because you have things that he doesn’t have. He has things that you don’t have. And so when you unify for God’s work, that’s the biggest that’s the most powerful thing. All right, so next steps action step is to journal journal through this process. Why do you think this thing’s Why are you not moving forward? What are your next steps journal through how to reprioritize your life? And then have some honest conversations with your husband? Honey, are these things true? Is this how you feel? Is this your heart? Right? Sorry, it was journal, then pray, then ask your husband about it. And figure out how you guys can reprioritize your life so that intimacy is a priority. So that you do your wife have energy for it after the end of the day, that you can change your life around so that sex becomes something that happens. You are not a victim of this world or this life, you have ability to make choices. So that intimacy is a priority. Make the choices, they’re hard choices, but make those choices. I’d love for you to listen to episode 144 If it’s really hard for you to know how to prioritize your life according to God’s will. And again, in the context of making intimacy a priority. If there are husbands listening who want to invite their wives to listen to this podcast, I really did record this podcast for you. There are so many husbands that reach out to me in absolute such suffering and pain. They have just been through. I just can’t imagine what they’ve been through for years and years and years of redacted rejection and loneliness and sadness and suffering because their own wife who committed to cherish and honor and serve him till she died. She is not even close. She’s completely non understanding who he is as a man. So these these husbands right into me at it Know how to help them. I don’t know, I do this podcast because I’m trying to get the word out. So I hope, I hope this is a gift for wives that a husband can give to his wife, when she’s ready, that he can give this to her and say, Honey, I love you. I want to live a happy future with you. I want what we are together to increase and get better and better. And I believe this is something that would really help me to feel loved when I’m with you. Together, I would love to grow in our marriage. And the reason I say when she’s ready is because I asked you dear husband, I, this may be the time to share this with her, but it may not be. And I asked you to just be prayerful about when and how to present this material to her. And, you know, listen to those episodes, I mentioned 156 through 157. See how you can implement the things that you can implement as a man that you can do what you can do as a husband to make her feel safer and more cherished and more attractive to you. And then maybe it’s going to be two months from now maybe six months from now, maybe a year from now when she’s going to be ready to receive this particular episode. Because it’s more important that it’s the right time than it is that it’s immediate. I know that you’re impatient. I know it’s been a long time. But what’s six more months when it’s been, however many years of loneliness and pain. So I encourage you to your husband on that and think about how you can help think about how you can give her like do her chores and take things off of her plate. How can you do that? How can you be active in your part there? Let’s just pray. Father, I just asked for the wife listening on the other end of my voice God, I thank you that she’s listened all the way to the end. I pray God that you would soften her heart God, I pray that you would open her eyes in the way that you desire to God. If there’s anything that I’ve said, that’s been off point, I pray God, that you would show her God I pray that you would heal her heart. There’s so many things, so many reasons. She has to feel the way she does. So many experiences. It could be abuse, it could be resentment that’s built up over the hurt and pain that she’s received from her husband. It could be ignorance that that came from her, her family and and the different you know, sin that’s that’s been put on her and I just ask that you would heal her heart. I pray God that you would heal their marriage, Lord, you want so much more for their relationship, and not just happiness, but holiness and productivity in your will in this life God that we’re living for eternity God and what they do as husband and wife in the privacy of their own bedroom matters. God give them the Insight give her the insight to understand that God and I pray that she would be she would want to understand more that she would want to seek out more and give her the grace and the time and the motivation the energy to do that Lord. In Jesus name we thank You that You are the one that changes hearts God. I pray that you would encourage the husband listening. Give him wisdom and endurance Lord, we love you. Amen.

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(Part 2)

Belah here. If I told you how my husband proposed to me, you would be shocked that I said yes (well I didn’t exactly…but that’s a different story…).

But that is not the man I have today. Just this past weekend, Mr. Romance, surprised me by making dinner, getting our 2 toddlers ready, packing extra toys to keep them occupied, packing an entire picnic, bringing wine glasses and my favorite bottle of wine… which we enjoyed in the park under the stars.

Stuff like this is pretty normal and I believe The Surrendered Wife (book by Laura Doyle) and Delight Your Husband (book/video course by me, Belah Rose) are the two resources that are most significant to this transformation. If you get the surrendered stuff (Surrendered Wife) and the sex stuff (Delight Your Husband), give it 6 months and you will have an incredible man…I truly believe it.

—–

Author of Surrendered Wife, Laura Doyle, is on for the second part of her interview. (I hope you’ll listen to the first part to see how sad and broken her marriage was). But, its amazing to see what happened.

Here’s some quotes from this show:

• “I almost divorced the man of my dreams.”
• “All control is based in fear. [Because I’m surrendered] I really do feel like I’m a woman of faith now.”
• “Fear is still going to come up. Make the decision that something else is more important.”

Hear more from Laura Doyle:

The Surrendered Wife (Please, please read this!)

Empowered Wife (new name of Kill All the Marriage Counselors book)

getcherished.com

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. Thank you for joining. I’m not sure if you’ve heard the delight your marriage podcast before. But I focus on inspiring and empowering marriages, wives, specifically in their marriage. I speak specifically to wives, because I feel as though we as women really need to be empowered with role models for marriage. If you’ve seen chick flicks, you know that there are so many unhealthy relationships displayed as appropriate. We, we think that it’s appropriate to disrespect our man, and he’s going to come back begging for us to forgive him, or we think it’s a good idea to embarrass him in front of his friends. And he’s going to recognize that he did something wrong and come back and, and, you know, give us a bunch of roses or something. And unfortunately, that’s not reality. We see these things constantly in movies. And it’s not the way humans work. We don’t work like that. And I think it’s wonderful. My guest today shares this is a second half of her interview. And she really gives the right perspective on relationships between a husband and a wife, between a man and a woman, what our unique natures specifically enable us to come together in such a complimentary way and such a beautiful one fitting into the other way. And I will say that, when I first heard her, it really sparked something unique in me. Now, of course, I have read many, many marriage books. I have read many of the marriage books that are prescribed on this podcast, and certainly, all of them have their merits. But something was quite unique about Laura Doyle, her story, and the way that she presents her message, I went back and read her book surrendered wife. And I have to say, this is one of the life changing marital books I have ever read. It has absolutely shifted my perspective on marriage, on husband and wife relationships on what you as a wife can do. significantly changing the course of your marriage significantly impacting who your husband is in your marriage. It’s amazing to me, give it six months, give it a year, and you very well, more than likely will have a very different man by the end of it. It is in credible, I’ve got to tell you, I was just talking to my sister, and on the phone. And she was asking me how my weekend was and just randomly I mentioned that my husband made a surprise picnic for us after making dinner, he got all this stuff together and got real forks and real bowls, and, you know, a big blanket for all of us to sit on and had a wine bottle and glass of wine, he brought toys for the kids to enjoy. Well, we just enjoyed the night in the park. And that’s just kind of normal at this point. I think the week before that was my birthday. And he took me on a really amazing adventure that I had never been in New York City before. It’s just incredible. And I have got to tell you, this is not the man I married the way he proposed to me. If I told you the story, you probably would be shocked that I even said yes. Now I adore my husband, but he was not this kind of man beforehand. And I’ve got to tell you, in large part, God has really shifted things Laura Doyle’s work, the work that’s in delight your husband, I would say, if you could combine those two, together, you would have basically the recipe for any marriage that’s broken. You could I believe, really fix it. From those two understandings of the sex stuff and their surrender wife stuff, you get those things together, you are golden. Alright, well, without further ado, let’s listen in to the second half of Laura Doyle’s story, but I do hope that you will strongly seriously consider reading surrendered wife. I don’t get any proceeds from her or her work, but I’ve got to say it is life changing. So let’s let’s dive in.

5:05
Cool, well, okay, so to move on to the second part of this, I would love to hear you did share a little bit already, but how your marriage looks like now you showed us kind of what it look like in the difficult stage and, and how has it transformed? Well

5:25
I, I think is really exciting and moving for me is I think about myself, like, almost 26 years ago, standing in doctor and saying I do so with my big fluffy white dress on. And it’s kind of funny, there’s a picture of us that day where we’re just goofing around or whatever. But I’m like trying to pick him up. He’s in his tuxedo, I’m in my big, white fluffy dress. And I’m trying to pick him up. And I love to show that picture now. And it just says at the top, you know, not a relationship expert. Because I didn’t know a lot of right, my parents were divorced. And following what I saw mom do and it was a failed recipe by definition. And when I look back, now, I think that I was I was hopeful. And I was optimistic. And I just thought we could figure it out. And I just felt like I have the relationship now that I dreamed of when I said I do that all the things I hoped for. Oh my god, Sophia, still because you know, a month it was I almost didn’t have this. I almost I was divorced and the man of my dreams. Wow. And so it’s still pretty exciting to for me and gratifying. Yeah, yeah. And I just, I just don’t know, anything that I think I value more than knowing how to love and be loved by my husband. Wow. And so yeah, it’s pretty great. And as I mentioned, there’s a lot of playfulness, you know, I just never know what I’m gonna get like, like a little shove into the shower bed while we’re walking along or something. Mr. Fay that kind of goes along with it. And I treasure that too. Because we, you know, we just love to laugh together and tease each other. And that really went missing when there was we had a lot of Cold War’s at my house where there was silence. But it wasn’t like, you know, it wasn’t just relaxed. I was like total tense silence, like, we’re not speaking silence kind of things. And that that laughter to me is such a higher level of emotional safety and confidence in ourselves and each other and our connection.

7:51
Wow, the laughter is that emotional safety and confidence? Yeah,

7:56
exactly. You laugh when you’re scared? Yeah, yeah. So I laugh a lot. And I love to laugh.

8:06
Yeah, it’s just so beautiful to hear. It just feels like you’ve transported us there into this place of, you know, roses and butterflies.

8:19
Like that. And she said butterflies to like the whole was so interesting is when I was in my controlling critical mode. There weren’t butterflies, of course, and there certainly weren’t butterflies in my stomach, right? Because I was kind of going around with my hardhat and my clipboard and my whistle or whatever, managing everything. And now I do feel that exhilaration like it even even with love making, especially with that too, right? i Since I’m taking a more vulnerable approach, and more feminine approach. I don’t ever, like I used to say to him, like we never make love your hands on my hips or whatever, which is so not attractive and was not. Right, let’s you mean? Yeah. So. And when I, you know, now I’ll just like I get my little Victoria’s Secret outfit on or whatever. put myself on, you know, I got a magazine or something. I’m just doing whatever, you know, like, it’s a normal day and I’m wearing my normal outfit, you know? Yeah. And he, you know, he was like, knock the magazine into my head or something. And just and or he won’t, you know, so I mean, you take a risk, right? We need to do it that way. You’re more vulnerable. And I’m, I’m kind of sending a signal like, Hey, I’m available and it’s so much more exhilarating to be in that feminine role and get approached and feel desired and devoured than it is to like, have a clipboard.

9:55
Yes, yes. It’s so good. That’s interesting that you said that you take feminine approach. So so it’s a very, very judicious like you were very intentional about being pursued. Is that right? Yeah.

10:10
Because I have what’s really important what something I really value is feeling desired. And if I am I telling him what to do? So even if I’m just saying, Hey, we should have sex or let’s have sex, it’s more of a, an order, right? It’s like, okay, let’s do it. Because you said we should do it. So we’re doing it. Whereas, so it’s almost like you can’t win from that position. Right? I can’t really, because I’m like, Wait, does he really? Does he think I’m hot? Or is he just doing it? Because I? Yeah. So for me, it’s just more thrilling and gratifying to to find out, see if he desires me. And yeah, the more I take this goddess, the fun I approach, of course, and more feminine I am right. That’s the, that’s the big thing, too. It’s like I can really set this gender contrast to like maximum, which is when they excitements the highest I get the more feminine I show up, the more masculine he shows up in another more, I’m like, Oh, he’s amazing. Oh,

11:16
I love that. I love that. Yeah,

11:19
it can be challenging these I think, as modern women. Whether you’re raising kids, or you’re in the workplace for 40 hours a week, you are having to manage things. And that’s where you have maybe got your hardhat and your clipboard on, right. So if you’re three hours a week, like I’ll give you an example, actually, my husband, before we met, he dated a teacher, she’s a third grade teacher. And she was in the habit of managing her eight, nine year old so she would say to my husband, John, she’d say, go sit down, put that away. Like she was still oh, gosh, like, totally oh, gosh, he broke up with her. I think it’s like, I mean, we can laugh at her. But in some ways, I think every modern woman has this challenge. Because you might be out buying stuff for the kids. And you’re often like, Okay, I’ll buy his underwear too, or you’re making their doctor’s appointments. And so you’re making his to do and it’s like, it’s a little bit, I think it can just take a little bit of concentration and focus to not fall into the role of mothering your husband, or managing your husband, either one. Right, and both are just sadly for intimacy.

12:32
Hmm. I just think that’s so important. I just hear it so many times from wives where it’s so evident that they are managing their husbands and yet, yeah, oh, it’s just in sometimes I’m, you know, when I coach, it’s just exciting to hear like, okay, I can just say, Okay, listen to Laura Doyle’s interview. Just listen. Learning i that is Lord. Yeah. Yeah, I love that well. Okay, so tell us then if you could, if you could dumbed down the three chief reasons that your marriage has been successful? Could you tell us those?

13:15
Sure. Well, first of all, I would say the first one is recognizing that intimacy is like anything else in life. It’s, I thought, I mean, I had a friend in college, who took psychology because she was trying to figure out her boyfriend. And I was like, That is so not necessary. And I had my own little self program. And my textbooks were like Cosmo and glamour. I’m like, Oh, I’ve got this handle. So and So sadly, you know, surprisingly, everything that I learned about how to that was true about how to have a successful relationship was kind of the opposite of what I learned in those magazines. It’s the opposite of marriage counseling, where you go and complain about each other for an hour a week, or fix him or, or say disrespectful things in front of a stranger and husband like that is just setting you back emotionally. And so for me, I think, you know, finding people that had what I wanted and really asking for their advice, that was huge. Yeah. My mom give me write that information. She didn’t have it herself. But I think about it like the way I think about a 16 year olds, like, we don’t just hand in the car keys and say, Hey, you’re 16 Now go take the car for a spin, you know, have fun, okay? Okay, first, you need some driving lessons, you know, behind the wheel or give you a written test, then you’re, you’re gonna take the exam and get a license. And then and only then, do we expect you to even though we think you might get into a little accident now, but and I just think it’s the same way with relationships that it’s You haven’t had good modeling, if your parents are divorced, or if they don’t have the kind of relationship you want to have, then you just need to go somewhere else to get the skills. And there are just, you know, there’s the six distinct intimacy skills that have made all the difference for me. So that’s one thing is just really treating it as one more thing that you want to learn and master if it’s important to you like making an omelet or learning to ski. And then, and I think the same for you go

15:27
to the second one. Can you tell us where can we find those skills? Oh,

15:30
sure. Absolutely. Yeah. So they are? Well, my new book, it’s called First kill all the marriage counselors, and I spell out each and every one of the skills and describe this very specifically and practically, exactly how to apply them like down to the words that you could use with your husband, that will get you amazing results. And you can go to get cherished.com It’s all about feeling desire, cherished and adored everyday for life, and get cherished, calm, we haven’t get chairs to challenge. And so it’s my goal for every woman to really enjoy her birth, right, which is to be desired, cherished and adored. So I want that to happen. Like maybe starting this weekend, let’s say so if you do the get cherished challenge, you will get a series of emails with experiments that you can try in your marriage, to see if you get good results. And let me just tell you, yo, well, because this has been tried with hundreds of 1000s of women all over the languages. And it’s really, it really works.

16:36
That’s awesome. That’s so cool. Okay, get cherished.com We’ll also have this linked up, but the light your marriage, so we’ll have that for you, too. Okay, so the second one? Well,

16:45
the second one, I think, for me was really about restoring my dignity. And kind of back to the courage theme. And that is that just using the tone of voice, more befitting of a calm, mature woman, and not the one of like a screeching child or my mother on her worst day. Really, I feel like through this process of trying to save my marriage, I really became my best lawyer like this was the best self improvement program I could have ever undertaken. And it’s transformed me in so many ways. And that that dignity thing is just been huge. I feel I feel so much better. I’m not that person who’s always having to fight city hall anymore. I’m calmer and I’m just more dignified is the word that that comes to mind. And that I think that the third thing that has made all the difference, for me, huge, huge difference is a community of like minded women. And it’s not the easiest thing to find even a church, it’s not the easiest thing. And I think that’s partly because, again, there’s just, I mean, we don’t have relationships, one on one in school. And if you didn’t have good modeling, it’s like we’re gonna find these women that have good relationships, and want to only improve that and strengthen that foundation by being respectful and being feminine and receptive. And I think that, if you’re having trouble finding that, I mean, that’s one of the things that we’ve worked hard to do is create that community because your husband can’t be your sole support. It just isn’t possible, right? He’s one, you know, man, and I know Deborah Tannen talks about how women use about 2500 words a day more than men do. And I laugh and think about, I know that my house and probably the whole world over like, six or seven at night, like he’s out a word. And you’re still like, Hey, I got 2500 words left to use your sister’s girlfriends. Yeah. And there’s gonna be times as a mere mortal woman that your husband does get on your very last nerve. So I don’t want to leave the impression that he never hurts my feelings or walks the new rug with his black shoe polish on or anything. For that, I say I’ve already got Okay, now my rug is ruined. That’s one problem. If I make my marriage a mess out of it, then I got two problems. So I can, I can vent to a girlfriend and say, my Rogue and she can empathize. And that feeling gets to stay in the sun. But one problem I don’t have is bickering in my marriage.

19:29
Hmm. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, I love that. You say that. There’s two problems then after you. Yeah, you’ve got a messed up rug, and you’ve got a messed up relationship, or you’ve got to fight through or whatever. Yeah, I love that. Okay, well, we’ve talked about intimacy quite a bit, but if you could, would you share a chip that you wish you knew about earlier? Specifically, sexual intimacy?

19:51
Yes. Well, I really love the policy of being available and ever. Your husband approaches you for lovemaking. And I’ll tell you well, I’ve taken a lot of heat from that suggestion, because I think people here like wait, but it’s my body and I get to choose and sure course you always get to choose. And what I’m suggesting is that you choose the opportunity to have that physical, emotional, spiritual connection with your husband, as it really is the thing that distinguishes a romantic relationship from every other relationship you have, like you might not your kids, you might share intimately, emotionally with your sister. But the one thing that really makes a romantic relationships special and amazing. And if that if that piece goes missing, or is hurting, it really affects the whole rest of the relationship. So Cindy, for that stress relief for that pleasure to get those great chemicals going through your brain actually that result. And, you know, for I have clients that say, well, it’s just it’s not that fun. For me, that’s like, you know, it’s just for him. And I just want to make it all about you make it the most pleasant thing you can think of. He’s really does want to make you happy in bed. So it’s incumbent on us to figure out how that’s going to happen. Like I say, my husband has memorized a complicated set of instructions to make sure that I’m always thrilled in the bedroom. Like, you know, it was that interview, I’m sure it was like, Wait, gotcha, gotcha. Okay, no. And I just find, I mean, I’ve asked 1000s of men, I’ll say, how important is it to you that your wife is happy? And they all say the same thing to go? It’s, it’s, it’s everything. So most important things very, yeah. So yeah, if you’ve gotten to a place where sex just feels like a chore, yeah, hey, that you good news. You’re the one with the power to transform that and really make it an area of strength and pleasure and fun.

22:03
Hmm, I love that. Yeah, I love that. So just make sex all about you. It’s brilliant. It is always all about

22:11
us, as women. Forget, you know, we forget who we are and how we were made special. But when you bring yourself back to that place, you remind yourself to get mindful of it again. Bye bye. And one of the little tips if I if we still have time, I just think about this is that if you’ve got something that you want to have happen in the bedroom, it words you’re awkward sometimes in the bedroom, so you know, it can be really sexy and just titillating and fun, is when you’re somewhere else with him, like you’re out to dinner or you’re, you’re out walking together and you can just like whisper in his ear, you know, you know, it was really, really awesome as if we pretended you were a pilot and I was uh, you know, I was right, like, whatever it is. Bring it to him outside the bedroom. He knows he’s gonna take notes. And then when you’re inside the bedroom, you know, let the words just be minimal, because you can give a lot of feedback verbally, but not verbally to write. You can be phony, or just expressing your pleasure without actually hearing words.

23:21
Yeah, no, that’s so good. I just love that. Awesome. Okay, well, now, kind of my final question to you is due to the specific marriage that you’ve had, what are some opportunities you’ve had to serve or get to know God?

23:35
Okay, well, I gotta tell you, for me, the whole concept of surrendering has been just one big spiritual journey where I’ve really grown to trust God. And what I mean by that is, I didn’t, I didn’t trust my husband to do things. And I felt like I had to control them. And that was all all control is based in fear. You know, if you’re not afraid, you’re gonna have to wait longer or pay more or do more work. You don’t have to try to control it. And so it was a giant metaphor for me, like, my husband’s not going to take care of me. It was like, God’s not going to take care of me. That was fear. And by using the opportunity I had in my marriage to practice having faith in my husband and trusting my husband, it gave me these incredible trust muscles for God. And like I say, this just gigantic, thrilling adventure unfolded for me as I started to do that. And the more that I you know, and as I continue to do that, I I I mean, my life is amazing now, right I get from home being a writer and a relationship coach and I work with other relationship coaches that you know, I have 20 coaches here at Laura Doyle connect and I get to connect with them every week, my my community of women and so Like, it’s like all these blessings that have come out of you know, there was a practical lesson for me in a spiritual realm. And my husband was he was that lesson like, just, yeah, it was just about, I’m a I’m such, I really feel like I am a woman of faith. Now. I understand before, I know what faith meant. I didn’t know what humility meant before. And so both of those have been really. I feel like those are big blessings that I got.

25:38
Yeah, yeah, I love I love those metaphors, talking about how all all control is based in fear. And that fear, fearing that God is not going to take care of me, and that’s why we control and oh, that’s so good. Someone out there needed that. Maybe it was me. Really good. Yeah,

25:57
I appreciate getting to hear myself say it too. Because it’s just a reminder of for me, this is it, the fear is still going to come up. And if I just go back to my quote, If I make the decision that something else is more important to trust my husband to trust God, then that’s when the amazing miracles happen. Right? I mean, the whole thing for me, I do feel like I got my miracle in my marriage. And yeah, and I, I’m very grateful and thankful to God for that.

26:27
Man, that’s, that’s so good. So then a book or program that you would specifically recommend?

26:34
Oh, I recommend this right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and first, kill all the marriage counselors. You know, I mean, the surrender wife is just always, it’s such a precious thing to me, because it’s helped me connect with so many women all over the world that identified and really got a lot of hope out of it. So that book was it’s a 15 year old book. And, and it just, you know, I continue to get an email, I get emails and Facebook posts every day, like, oh, my gosh, I just read through your wife, and wow, oh, you know, my whole world is changed. So So I certainly recommend that for me that first killed a marriage counselors, it’s, it’s my new book, and it really represents, like, everything I’ve learned from coaching all these women in the last 16 years, I felt like I’m a little bit, you know, I mean, some wisdom has come over those years that I didn’t have when I wrote the surrender wife, but anyway, so they’re both they’re both like my children. I love them both. And I promise you’ll find blessings in both of those books.

27:42
Oh, that’s awesome. Well, we’ll take good care of your children and, and, and read them up and be excited about them. So that’s, that’s awesome. Yeah. And I’ll also have those linked up on on the show notes. So that’s great. Okay, so my final question is, if you could go back to year one, sit yourself down. What is the one piece of advice that you would give to you? Oh,

28:09
yeah, I feel sad for when you’re married, Laura. Oh, she didn’t know what she was afraid of. I think that was that’s the main thing. That she was so scared every day, and just like, took shallow little breaths and didn’t see how things were gonna ever work out. And I guess I would just, I just would want to tell her that you know, you’re doing good, you’re doing fine. And you’re going to find your path. And, and it’s, it maybe isn’t going to look exactly the way you think it is. But you’re going to have a great adventure, and a great love story. And yeah, I don’t know how that’s applicable to other women Exactly. As I’m saying that Oh, no, that’s that’s helpful. advice, but I get I like it. Yeah, the reassurance that yeah, faith in the things that are unseen, right. So I guess that that’s what I’d say to her most is as have some faith. Awesome. Yeah.

29:11
Yeah. No, I love that. I think it gives it gives the long view because even if it’s really difficult in the short term, you’ve got Laura here who’s 26 years later, and has the you know, most fun playful marriage you can ever think of so it’s awesome. Okay, well where can our audience find and connect with you online?

29:32
That I think the best thing is to go to the get cherished calm and and see the get to get cherished challenge, but I will tell you, I also have a weekly blog at Laura doyle.org as an orgasm. Most people don’t know that’s what it sounds.

29:51
They know most people don’t You’re right. Yeah. I’m glad that you know.

29:56
So I tried to pack it. Full What is the most ridiculously helpful information that I can every week and some inspiration? So yeah, welcome, everybody counts the blog to

30:09
Awesome. Well, clearly Laura’s so much fun. And I’m just so grateful that you were able to share and give us so much wisdom and insight, Laura, thank you.

30:18
Thank you. Well, it’s just really been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Oh, absolutely.

30:26
Well, thank you for joining. Oh, my goodness. So I hope you are thoroughly inspired to go read surrendered wife. And I do actually mean read, there is an audio book. It’s not the full audio book. It’s an abridged version. And so it is good. But truly, the actual book is so much more significant. And I’m a slow reader. So I usually prefer audio books. But I would say this one, I would actually recommend that you read it, and read it with a notebook next to it, and take notes and underline things in the book and dig into this material really significantly, because you want to walk away changed from this material. It is amazing. What I actually did when I read it is I had a friend, she and I read it together. And I would just write her notes, my emails about the different areas that I was like, Oh, my gosh, I did this and darn it, I do that. And this is where I’ve been messing up. And I should try that or this is scary for me, I guess I might try it. You know, that was kind of this whole processing thing. And I really did need a girlfriend to help me stay accountable. And it’s actually amazing, because now after we’ve both been through it, and we’ve seen our marriages changed through it, both of us can come back to each other and be like, Okay, this is what I’m going through now, what would be the surrendered wife approach to responding to this. So I would really encourage finding a friend to read this with you, and someone who has marriage struggles, and that you guys can really embrace this material together. And like I said, six months, give it six months and see what God’s gonna do with your husband. It’s incredible, the way that God has transformed my husband, just towards me, but also towards others. You know, I packed a lot of, again, the sex stuff in delight your husband, which is a huge, huge part of his heart and who he is as a man. But the surrendered wife stuff is the other piece of that, that if you don’t have that understanding, you’re still going to have this significant strife and friction, even if the sex stuff is, you know, off the charts amazing. Both of these two elements together, make your marriage the strongest possible. Read this book, right in your journal about it. And let me just pray for you Father God, I lift up the wife that’s on the end of this. Listening to this Lord, you know her her heart, you know what she struggled through, you know, the pain that she’s been through God, you know that it’s really hard for her to have hope, because of what she’s experienced because of the the pain, the heart bleeding, pain, she’s dealt with the the nights of crying herself to sleep God, you know what she’s dealt with God. And I just asked God that you would give her hope. I pray that you give her wisdom. I pray that You would help her to see hope in the midst of this Lord God, help her to see that there’s potential there’s possibility, God that you want to redeem. You want to restore God, that she doesn’t have to feel hopeless God in Jesus name, I pray that You would also give her the motivation to start this thing and finish it to purchase this book, to spend the 15 bucks do write in her journal to prioritize this in her life, because this could significantly change it God. In Jesus name we pray, Amen. So, that’s our show for today. I hope that you will share this with a girlfriend who might be struggling and needs the hope and the encouragement. Looking forward to talking to you next Tuesday. We’re going to be speaking about embodying your sexuality as a woman. I think it’s going to be a great show. And I want to get back to you then. Okay, God bless you. We’ll talk soon. But go order the surrendered wife right now.

35:00
Thanks for listening. If you’ve been blessed by this, why not share it? Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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(Part 1)

Her husband didn’t want to spend time with her. He was apathetic towards her. He would rather watch television than even make love to her. Now he can’t keep his eyes and hands off her Dancing in the kitchen, less stress and glorious compliments are just side benefits.

Laura Doyle’s work began a marriage-changing transformation for me.

Laura Doyle, best selling author, speaker and coach. The book I love the most: The Surrendered Wife (though I’d prefer to call it “How to Stop Stressing and Start Enjoying” or “How to Get Your Husband to Become The Man of Your Dreams”)

(If you’ve listened for a while you’ll know I posted this interview over a year ago, but we all need a refresher, so I thought you wouldn’t mind if I posted it again!)

Find out more about Laura:

• Lauradoyle.org and getcherished.com
• And PLEASE read Surrendered Wife. I am incredibly grateful that I did! Its a marriage (and man) changer.

Listen to Part 2 of this interview, click here.

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.

0:19
Hey there, belah rose here. Thank you so much for joining. If this is your first time with the show, I want to thank you and just give you a little insight into what we’re all about. We are focused in on inspiring and empowering wives to live and wholehearted intimacy in their marriage. And that’s emotional, spiritual and physical intimacy. Because the strongest Marriage in God’s way that he designed and made marriage of a union of oneness can do the most for the kingdom of God. So that’s our intent. That’s what we do here. So today’s interview is phenomenal. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Laura Doyle. But she is a best selling author, inspirational speaker and coach. And honestly, after this interview, which I actually interviewed her over a year ago, I went back and read some of her books, at least two. And it just, I mean, it changed my marriage, it just completely did. So I really encourage listening in because her marriage started out, really rocky. And here’s the thing, it’s really not the best to learn from someone who’s never had issues in the area that you are having issues. Because it’s like, if they’ve never had issues, they can’t teach me how to get out of my issues. But Laura has been there. I mean, her husband didn’t want to spend time with her. It was happening. He was avoiding your he was totally apathetic to making love. That was the kind of relationships she was living in. And you will see from our interview, something dramatic changed. Now I will say, Laura doesn’t present her material, specifically Christian. So if you go to her website or read her books, you won’t see that plastered all over the place. But I will say that it’s Christian principles. I really do believe and there are certain things that you absolutely can take away from this interview and from her material. So let’s dive in.

2:38
Alright, well, welcome back delight your marriage listener. I am thrilled to have Miss Laura Doyle who is joining us today. Hi, Laura. How are you doing?

2:48
I’m great. I’m actually I’m Mrs. Laura Doyle. But

2:52
yes, yes. Yes, indeed, that that would be appropriate. Seeing as we’re talking about your marriage? Yes.

2:59
Sure. I don’t come off as a single woman.

3:04
Thank you for that. Yes. Mrs. LAUREL oil. Thank you. Oh, well, good. Well, can you please introduce yourself a little bit about your family and your day to day life? Sure.

3:13
You bet. So I am. I’m so fortunate. I’m in New York Times bestselling author of the book, The surrendered wife, which is published in 16 languages in 27 countries. And I’ve had the privilege of helping over 150,000 women all over the world, really revitalize the intimacy and passion and peace in their marriage. And I’m the CEO of an international relationship coaching company. But the thing I’m most proud of in the whole world, is that a very happy wife of only 26 years next month.

3:49
Oh, congratulations. That’s awesome.

3:51
Thank you. Wow.

3:54
So what is your day to day life look like? Well,

3:58
I, I’m running my company and I work from home. My husband works from home too. So we have a we have a pretty good life here. Where there’s a lot of playfulness in our relationship. So there’s a lot of like little pranking that goes on and for some reason. The quicker man from the box, he, he shows up, like in my wallet or in my travel. I know I’ve been gotten when I get the clicker. Oh, man. I don’t know why that story comes to mind. But it’s there’s just like a lot of, like, silliness. Which I’m so grateful for every day because it wasn’t always that way. You know, we went through several years of it being really dramatic, intense and constant and I was on the verge of divorce. So I think every day I’m just grateful for how much ease there is in my relationship, how much vibrancy and that he has a quick story we were yesterday. stretches Cafe recently. And he goes, Oh, don’t move. And then he like grabs his phone to take my picture. I’m like, so flattered, right, like, oh, like 25 years and he’s still acting. Oh my god. He’s like a supermodel on it. He takes a picture. He hands me his phone. I’m looking through his phone. It’s like, there’s Laura in the Kitchen. Laura in the backyard. Laura are working on it is off. Laura. So speakable. Yeah, there’s just no words to describe. Oh, great. It feels to have that kind of feel so loved every day.

5:32
Yes. Oh, my gosh, that’s wonderful. Well, and what a little bit about you and your husband’s personalities? What are they like? Well, my

5:40
husband’s a really easygoing guy, and very funny. And that was a big part of what I fell for. He’s also just a lot of humility. Like I remember, on our first date, he was just totally committed to making me laugh when he told me he made himself look bad in the process, as long as I was laughing and smiling, like I remember he said, because it’s a good thing. Someone invented contact lenses, because he has otherwise I’d have to wear glasses. And they would look like two Hubble telescopes welded together. So I’m like, but on the upside, because when you when your visions like mine, he goes, you can just take out your contacts, and you can see amazing things that no one else can see. All right. I made me laugh. And, yes, yeah, I think that was a big part of what I fell for. And then I also really fell for the way he loved me, he was just so devoted. And so there was just a lot of thought on this there. He was definitely that guy who gives you his jacket when you’re cold. Or he would just move all the furniture around just so I could see if I like the sofa underneath the window or not. And then I’d be like, no, no, no, put it back, you know, and he’s just like, really has a servant’s heart.

7:00
Yes, yes, it sounds like it. And, oh, I’m excited to get into your story more. So before we do, though, could you share a scripture or a verse that or a quote that has meant a lot to you?

7:14
Yeah, my very favorite quote in the world is by Ambrose read. And it’s that courage is not the absence of fear. But the decision that something else is more important. And, yeah, it became really critical for me to cling to that, as I embarked on the spiritual journey of just trying to save my marriage. And there were so many times when I was called on to choose my faith instead of my fear. And I made a decision that it was more important to be respectful and to choose my marriage over indulging my fear. So that poet’s became really precious to me.

8:00
Wow, I love that. And it’s so funny. I was just writing about confidence, and how that’s exactly. It’s focusing on the purpose instead of instead of focusing on the fear, so I just love that. Cool. Look, can you share then a little bit about your your story, the season of struggle that was in your marriage?

8:22
Absolutely. So we’ve been married, I don’t know, for years, let’s say four or five, six and seven, eight, probably, we’re pretty, we’re pretty bad. And I really believe that I was, I was more spiritual, I was smarter. I just was not the person working really hard on a relationship. He wasn’t doing anything, I would sit him down on the couch and tell him everything that he needed to do differently. And the conversate, I call the State of the Union address, it’s never went very well. I tried to leave that to the President to do those. But, and the other thing that was going on that, in retrospect, I really just had no idea how much harm this was doing. But I was trying to give him helpful suggestions. I call it helpful and wife language, which has been language, right. So I would say I just had ideas about how you kids like, eat more healthy and things that you could do at work, or you know, how we can tidy around the house and how to dress better. And I didn’t realize I was really shooting holes in the bucket of our intimacy in connection by trying to be so helpful. And this is kind of going back to that quote that I love. I was being the armchair quarterback of his life. And you know, it was happening in my life was going by and I wasn’t attending to it. I was missing my own life. And the minute I stopped being the armchair quarterback of his life, this whole thing emerged where I was called to write best selling books and Shawn i in front of live audiences of hundreds of people, I’ve never done that, or I got to go on national TV and international TV, and it was all pretty terrifying. And I realized that controlling him, it felt less scary. And that’s kind of why I, that was part of why I did it. But anyway, things were going really badly. And I just, I just knew that if he would change, then I could finally be happy. Because isn’t that right, right. So I made him go to marriage counseling, and just was waiting dutifully, for her to fix him. And process first, it didn’t help. And we went for years. And it just really, it didn’t fix anything I did learn there that I was controlling, like, I have an issue with trying to control. And I was, as soon as I kind of had that awakening, that was an issue for me. I was like, Okay, what do I do? And counter was like, yeah, just stop being so controlling, you know, just just. And I was like, hmm, I just don’t know. And I later kind of got a glimpse of her marriage. And she was pretty controlling, too. So I was like, Oh, no wonder she couldn’t tell me what to do. She had nice diplomas on the wall, but she didn’t have, you know, the transformation that I was seeking. Wow. So. So I really just felt like we had to get divorced. I just had married the wrong guy. I couldn’t figure it out. It was really it’s very lonely. Like I remember there was. I remember him being more interested in watching TV than he was in my company, for sure. And even in making love to me like that. John felt really lonely. I was really felt rejected, and abandoned.

11:48
Well, and so when you said shooting holes in your intimacy, what is it? What do you mean by that?

11:54
Oh, I just, I just think it’s like, it was like the bucket of my, our intimacy together. I was I was tearing it apart. I was the one that was, you know, it’s kind of funny. It’s ironic, I felt so superior, I had this big superiority complex, like I was when they had to do everything, because I would do it right. And he wouldn’t do it. And by right, I mean, my way, right, you know, the right way. And I had no concept that I was the one that was making everything so hard and stressful. And it wasn’t until I got a roll of metaphorical duct tape, let’s say, ever my mouth to correct or criticize or even instruct, even if I thought, Oh, I’m better at this than he is. I just stopped doing all that. And that was when the man who had wooed me really came back back. I just remember there was one day Bella where I, I came through the door, I came home, and I remember his face lit up like he was like, and that had been gone for a long time. And I was like, wow, that’s that’s where I want to live. That’s kind of relationship I want to have.

13:12
Yes. Oh, I just love that. Wow. Well, so the wife that’s finding herself in a marriage where she’s doesn’t recognize the person anymore, and all she can see is all of his flaws. You know, this metaphorical duct tape? Was that really the key like that? Was it

13:30
really a big one? Wow. Because what I did was I decided it was more important to be respectful than it was to just say whatever came to mind, like I had kind of confused honesty and criticism. And I thought I was just being honest, when I tell them like his shirt didn’t match, you know, his jacket. Right? Right. I’m like, I’m just saying the hard truth things that need to be said on here and yeah, I know, I recognize the difference between honesty and criticism is honesty is about me. It’s not about him. Criticism is criticism or complaining. You know, there’s that quote from Dale Carnegie, any, any fool can complain and most do. And that was really kind of my situation. I just had a really big complaining habit and criticism habit. And what was funny about it, too, is I always complained about something. And I would think that I had communicated what I wanted out of it. Like I’d say this place is a mess. And I thought he would hear that as like, would you help me clean up the kitchen? I can’t even hear me what I’m complaining he, if I can let him know what I’m wanting. If I say gosh, I would love it. The kitchen was clean, then he’s like, oh, okay, you know, I love the dishwasher and load it back up. And if I complain, he just totally can’t hear me. So it was, it was really frustrating for me because I felt that I was telling him everything that I wanted. He was ignoring. It didn’t care about me or my happiness. And unfortunately, I just, well, it’s really sad. Like, I’ll tell you. We went to Hawaii, right, even before we were married, actually took me on this romantic trip to Hawaii. And I remember getting up and being like, oh, boy, we’re gonna go to the beach today. And my first thing out of my mouth was like, hey, what do you want to do today? And he goes, Why don’t you be fun to go see a volcano? Sounds like a volcano. Okay. And I, but I wanted to be close, I wanted to be connected. So I thought, Well, I’m not going to say that I want to go to the beach because I could cause a conflict. And then there’s like a winner and a loser. And I still want that, like, it just felt like there’s gonna be just syncing. So I just didn’t say anything. And we, we got in the rental car and just start driving around and you, you can’t actually see a volcano. At first, you just are driving on this road with just a bunch of rocks next to you. It’s a hot day. And I think the rental car didn’t have air conditioning or something. So we’re just driving around the heat. And I started to get it like, I started feeling I’m like, Ah, you know, she didn’t even ask me what I wanted to do. We’ve hit the beach right now. And this is a big waste of time. And he kind of catches on something is wrong. And he turns to me and so this is something in the matter. And I’m like, this would be fun, because this was so fun to do. And it was a perm. No. Okay, no, all right, I totally lost. I mean, the way I’m saying it is probably odd, even as angry and rude and obnoxious as I found it that day. It was all red, and my hair was sticking up. And I just looked like some, you know, like, some weird monster and I took my fiancee to Hawaii, like way, like, Where was my mistake. And I just feel sad for that previous version of myself. I just had no concept of being able to just express her desires purely. And he was like, Oh, if I’d known you wanted to go to the beach, he was like, really gonna wear your bikini? And I was like, yes, you know. And after that, because he’s doing like all of that trying to make me happy. Yeah, it was, it was sad. It was terrifying. Because I knew, I remember having this horrible emotional hangover, like, you do. And you still like me, I’m really sorry. You know, and I just knew if I continue to act like that, I was gonna push them away. And, and I really had no idea how to not act like that. No, it’s been such a gift and just release it. Through learning the skills that I needed to have a good marriage. I have that I angry woman, she’s gone. I don’t know where she lives. Now. I was using my hair and her. And it is, it’s really tragic when I think back on, you know, went away. So I just didn’t really know. I didn’t have the skills to advocate for myself.

18:15
Hmm, yeah, I love that I love I feel the same way I in my previous marriage, I was in a similar kind of just, yeah, the criticism was so such a pattern, such a culture in our relationship. And I love I love that you said Any fool can complain? And most do. It’s good. It’s so true. But actually needing the skills are now having developed the skills. And so that was kind of the journey that that brought you to the books that you’ve written. Yeah,

18:48
yeah, there’s that saying, If you can’t be Catherine Ayers, Erica, I guess we can’t be a good example. You just has to be a horrible warning. And so like all these horrible things that I did, and what was it was really fun. I just remember we self published my book, The surrendered wife, originally, because I said to my husband, I think there might be like 2000 women that can identify with me, and they have the same issue. You know, I don’t want to read this book. And you know, 150,000 copies later and, or whatever it is. I mean, it’s more than that. It’s way more than that now, but that was pulled out of the gate 20 years ago. So and women would write and say, Where was the tape recorder? It seems like you had a tape recorder in my kitchen or my dining room or stuff. So I wasn’t the only one. It was really comforting and kind of exciting to see that. Something. I felt like it was this horrible secret that I had to keep right because we would we would maybe like have a big fight on the way to the party, be late to the party because we’re to pull over and fight. And then we can be like, hey, everything’s great. Yeah, the life that we’re living at And it was just as I felt so much shame about the conversations that were going on and, and I felt a loss of dignity about my tone of voice and the things that were coming out of my mouth. And you and I didn’t want to be around me. Yeah, that’s, that’s

20:17
awesome in terms of just how you had to live in order to be an example in order to teach others. Yeah, yeah,

20:25
that it was very freeing, and was a huge Grossberg for me to just admit, you know, things I say to my husband, I said to him, like, he’d say, oh, I want to get a Christmas present for Pat. And I’d be like, really? Did he get you a present last year? Yeah, so controlling and so overbearing? Yeah. proud of it. But it, it was, there was freedom and healing and just admitting that I was treating my husband.

20:57
Yes. In admitting that you’re treating? Yep. That’s yeah, that’s so true. And so I wanted to ask you, we do talk a lot about intimacy on the podcast, I wanted to ask you when you were saying, you know, that he would rather watch TV than even make love? I mean, what was that like for you?

21:15
Yeah, it was, it was really, it was heartbreaking. I think that like, that was when we were deep in marriage counseling. And it was totally not working. And yeah, I was just really feeling heartbroken. It was so painful. And I think that’s kind of why I felt like divorce was the only option. Like I couldn’t see my way. And really, the only way I could reach out in my head, was there something wrong with him. I kept going with it. And it was, I was like, shocked, and horrified and relieved, all at the same time to learn no harm the keeper relationship, I’ve got all the power here. And when I made the changes, you know, didn’t when I discovered the intimacy skills and started implementing them sparks are hotter than ever, you know, he was making better buys me again. And, and, and I felt more attractive and more attractive. And I was I stopped acting like his mother, I think that was kind of a big dynamic is I was like his mom, and he was a little boy, and they aren’t attracted to their sons and Sons aren’t, you know, men are? There’s so it was kind of a interestI killer right there. But you know, now, I just feel that’s like a such an area of strength for us. I mean, He’s memorized a complicated series of instructions on how to make the orgasm every time. It’s just like, it’s, we’ve mastered the art of the quickie. That’s actually awesome. So there’s Yeah, and I think there’s nothing like having the safety of a long marriage to really explore each other’s bodies and be tuned in to that. So you both really do feel successful. Because you get you get a lot of practice. And, yes, a lot of satisfaction on many levels. It’s a it’s an opportunity to connect physically, but emotionally spiritually as well.

23:23
Yes, yes. I love that you said it, you know, you’ve got the safety of a long marriage to, to explore and to really understand each other’s intimacy. And so that’s really great. Yeah, I love that I love I love what you shared. Now, would you be willing to give any insights into how to make a cookie? Awesome.

23:43
Sure, I would. Yay, on time. Okay. I think I’m big on the importance of, well, first of all, frequency, right. So I mean, I get in my position is relationship coach for years, for 16 years. Now. I get to hear the insights of what goes on in a lot of marriages. And, and sometimes, you know, it’s like, Well, we haven’t had sex since the baby and how old is the baby baby three, you know, like, so first of all, it’s, I think, one big tip for me is just the idea of making myself available to my husband. At least once a week is kind of my rule of thumb, but I for me, now, it didn’t start out this way. But for me now, like I want to just be available whenever he’s initiating. So that’s, that’s my policy. He knows that so he’s got you know, he’s, you know, he’s not gonna get rejected in Jeff. So that’s a that’s a pretty cool thing, because I know I don’t always start out in the mood, but that doesn’t mean I won’t end up there. So that’s a big part of it was really just being willing to take that opportunity when it came along. I See it as my opportunity to feel beautiful, to feel sexy to feel desired and to feel pleasure. And that has been. So that’s, that’s one part, it really it does like, the more frequently you do it, the better you get at it. But the other thing that I’m really big on is my own pleasure during sex like that is paramount. And we have the only organ on the human body that’s designed solely for us to feel pleasure. The clitoris, so I take that as a metaphor that our pleasure is pretty important, not just in sex, but I take it as a metaphor for the rest of our lives as well. But in the in the bedroom, I mean, expressing my desires back to that again, right, like what I want, like, I want a backdrop to get me in the mood or I wanted to take a bath or I want some music or whatever it is that’s gonna and that’s not that’s not necessarily for the quickies. But but being clear on what I want. My desires are the care of Laura in the bedroom has really helped us get to where there’s a reliable, there’s reliable orgasms all around. And that so I can get there fast. And that’s really fun.

26:14
Oh, that’s awesome. I love that. I love that. Thinking about sex in for females to think about it as this is opportunity for pleasure. That’s right. That’s, you know,

26:25
and and it may be your thinking. And a lot of times we are it almost never seems to be that we as women are like, Wait, he’s coming onto us going? Oh, yeah, now would be great. We’re always like, the Jewish kids like, right, right. Right. We’re saying

26:45
it’s true. But I love

26:47
the you know, I might be afraid there’s other things going on or whatever. And if I can just put that aside. Yeah, it really doesn’t take that long. Yeah, I was joking about. He’s like, Yeah, I’ll say to my wife. Just give me five minutes. And I’m like that that might be part of the problem right there. But, yes, it’s an opportunity to idle on a miss now. i Oh, I heard this story on the news that I loved about this woman who decided she made a decision. She’s going to have sex with her husband every day for a year to be interviewed on the news. After she’d done that. And she’s like, wow, I really had to get over my own impression of when I was sexy. And when I wasn’t, she’s like, I’d be thinking, Well, I haven’t showered. There’s no way and but he I look at him. And he’s like, yeah, baby. So she goes, I just had to give myself permission to adopt his point of view about how sexy I was. Yeah, it was, through that.

27:49
give myself permission to adopt his point of

27:52
view. Would you argue with that?

27:56
It’s true. Yep. Yep. I love it. I love it. No, because I think it also, even in every other area of life, it comes into the bedroom, too. But if we’re not feeling confident in our body, we bring that kind of into the bedroom. And we feel not as good but giving our giving ourselves permission to adopt his point of view. I love that.

28:15
Yeah. Yeah. And then and it really just come back a little bit to I call it replenishing your spirit with self care. And I don’t mean, eight hours of sleep, or 30 minutes cardio or five fruits, vegetables, and what I mean is that you make yourself happy three times a day. And by doing that, that was just free up. Because naturally it takes a little bit of energy to have a great relationship like anything else. It’s worthwhile in life. And yeah, are depleted, you give yourself very little chance, having a great relationship. So I think especially for women going back to the metaphor of us having the only organs designed for pleasure. We do better when we make it our priority. Frivolous fun every day.

29:01
Hmm. That’s awesome. We do better when we make it our priority to have frivolous fun every day.

29:07
Yeah. So good. For me, I’m super practical. Like when people say stuff up being controlling, I’m like, I don’t know. So for, like making my pleasure a priority. I, I implemented the structure of I would do three things a day, just to make me feel good. And for no other purpose not to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or recycling. Avoid osteoporosis or anything else is just wow, the way a child is attracted to a ball or a swing. That kind of pleasure that I look for.

29:40
Huh? That’s so good. And then this translates into the bedroom, right? Because, yeah,

29:49
I think it can come since we’re usually in the same mode or in the same mood as our husbands when they approach it. If you’ve got this energy If you’re still smiling because you, you got out your paints and your easel or you’ve spent an hour connecting with a friend over a cup of coffee or, you know you simple things, right that can really fill you up and make all the difference. Like you read your favorite blog, you snuck away read your favorite blog for a while or play games on your phone, or I like to play volleyball. So it’s a big one for me. But if you’re if he’s, if he’s approaching you, when you’re happy and filled up, you’re gonna It’s just usually have so much more resourcefulness within yourself to say like, yeah, what the heck, why not? Let’s get naked. Let’s do it.

30:39
And that’s true. That’s so true. I love that because you’re in this zone already of feeling enjoyable. And having. Yeah, yeah, having. I can’t put that

30:49
in this fun and light, you’re all are inherently unnatural. Our husbands fell in love with. And that’s what makes it so attractive to them, is when we are in that mode. So The Goddess kind of light is saying, Are you kidding? I can’t. I can’t make love with you right now. There’s dishes in the sink, right? Like, she’s like, alright, we’ll do this later.

31:11
Yeah, yeah. Whoo. That’s really good stuff. Laura, this is awesome. Okay, well, next week, there is so much more. So I’m excited for you to tune back in for that. But really, and truly, Laura Doyle has made such an impact on my marriage, on my life on my stress levels on the way I enjoy what God has given me in my family. So I just encourage you to check out her book, The surrendered wife, I originally wasn’t a huge fan of the title. Now I am because I read it. And now I like the idea. But at first, I was always hesitant, and I’ll tell you why I’ve got a episode coming out shortly. That’ll be a little bit more of my journey. And maybe why you might want to think about it a little bit more in your marriage, as well. But yes, check out her book. At the very least come back and find out some really great insights about her journey next Tuesday. And if you have been tracking with us throughout the summer, I just want to thank you so much for tuning back in. All right. Well, thank you. God bless you. I’m praying for you in your marriage. We’ll talk soon.

32:30
Thanks for listening. If you’ve been blessed by this, why not share it? Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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This is Part 2 of my advice for men who want their wives to enjoy sex more. (Part 1 is here)

Though you may feel so hurt that your wife doesn’t desire and/or meet your intimacy with joy the way you crave, there is a lot going on for her too.

“Hurt people hurt people”. In this podcast, I hope to shed light on things both of you may be going through. And not even realize that you (men) are undermining the very intimacy you seek to encourage.

I hope to help you understand the ways a wife desires to be loved in life and how that directly relates to her experience intimately with you.

Specifically discussed:
-Why she thinks you only want her for sex (and what you can do to change that)
-How you can communicate a man’s need for sex in a way that will reach her (rather than repel her)
-Specific things you can do in physical intimacy that will allow her to enjoy intimacy to much greater degree, thus desiring it more

For wives, I want you to know…

My goal for your physical intimacy is that it would get to a level and place to would support your life, but NOT be the focus of it. I want you to be able to relax into the joy of amazing intimacy so it would fuel the pursuits of God’s heart. There is much more than sex, it shouldn’t be the focus; if you’re married, it should support the focus.

delightyourmarriage.com

0:00
Hey there, it’s belah. I just wanted to start by saying a note on part one and part two of encouraging your wife sexuality. I went back and listened. And I wanted to just kind of apologize, I feel like my tone may have been disrespectful to what you are going through as a husband. And I certainly think there are nuggets of of helpful advice in here. But I think my overall kind of presentation isn’t what I wish it had been. So I hope you’ll have grace with me. I give quite a lot more context, I guess, and maybe more humility in the way I present my ideas in kind of an updated revision that I’m calling 156, slash 157. Update of encourage your wife’s sexuality. So you can find that episode on either the website or in the podcast app. Again, it’s just 156 slash 157. So, you know, because this is part two, so this is 157. Like I said, If this is your first time listening to this, part two of the podcast feel free. I think there’s very valid and important insights that you can absolutely apply. And I think it would be great for you to listen, but just understand that I think my tone is probably not what I wish it had been. So just wanted to have that note. Thanks for listening, and God bless. Talk to you later.

1:40
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.

1:57
Hello, and welcome. Thank you for joining me, I’m just imagining maybe where you are, if you’re out walking your dog, or you’re sipping a cup of coffee, or maybe you’re on your commute to work, wherever you are, I’m so grateful that you have allowed me into your ears, I hope that today is gonna be really helpful for you for your marriage, for your perspectives on life. You know, just talking to my husband a couple of minutes ago about this podcast. It’s just really so wonderful. And one thing that came out of that is the idea that ultimately, we don’t want sex to be the focus of our marriage. What we want is that it to be a support to your life, and not the focus of your life. And that’s kind of the ultimate aim is that sex would be a support, because that’s what I think God intended it to be. When he made Adam and Eve. I think that was the purpose that sex would be a wonderful pleasure and joy and intimacy. But it wasn’t to detract from what God ultimately purposes for all of us. It’s, it’s a piece of something that’s supporting us doing God’s work together. So to that aim, I’m talking again, it’s the second part of my two part series about how to encourage your wife and her own sexuality. I talked a lot about this on the first episode, I really encourage you to go back to just the episode right before this one, and listen through because it gives some foundational understandings. But today I’m really going to focus in on safety and security, and why that’s so important to your wife. And what that means in the bedroom and specifically what you can do to make her feel safe and secure. And how that’s going to make her encourage her and give her the ability to be an amazing lover. So let’s jump into that

4:21
Well, I don’t really have to tell you how close a woman’s heart is connected to her entire life, but that’s really what it is. She is emotional so much more than men. It’s it’s scientifically proven, much less proven just by our experience in life. But we do as women we are so much more about our emotions are heart. It’s the way God made us into the kinder, the softer the more compassionate sex we just we are that way God Made us that way. It’s, it’s part of his character that he gave us women. And so, as a husband, it’s your privilege and your responsibility to guard and protect that. Because she is not like you in the, she’s not able to protect the way that you do. And that’s ultimately a huge piece of you all bringing it together, that you bring this protection. I mean, that’s what you want to do, isn’t it, you want to guard and protect your woman and, you know, save her from whatever, you know, terrible thing she might have befallen. That’s just in all of our fairy tales. That’s what the woman wants her, her husband to do and, and fight the dragon for her. And so it’s the same insects that she wants to be held by a strong men, a man that’s that, that respects her and honors her that treats her like his princess. And so this idea of safety and secure, being safe, is so vital in sex, because living in this society, women are disrespected constantly. It’s just, it’s constant. She can’t even go outside of her own home. To not see it, you know, that the women are just disrespected all the time for their bodies, or, you know, if you think video games, some of the most popular video games on the market are, you know, disrespect women’s bodies, there’s, you know, obviously the porn industry and strippers and I mean, it’s just constant is degradation objectification of women’s bodies. And yet, that’s, that’s God’s temple. That’s, that’s who God made her to be. It’s very. It deserves protection, it deserves full and utter respect. And so for her to feel fully able to enjoy making love with you, she needs to feel that you respect her body, that you honor it, that you are grateful that you get to touch it, that you get to be with her. In it being vulnerable. In her taking off her clothes, it’s not easy. Men, you think it’s so easy, but it’s because you know, on TV, and these other places, those are actors, those are women that are acting like it’s easy. It’s a it’s a performance, right? But you’re with a real woman, you’re with your actual woman, a wife in front of you, and she is bearing everything, it’s very, very vulnerable. So keep that in mind you, you can’t understand how vulnerable it is. But I asked you to try to learn to remember that this is a big deal, that she’s bearing everything to you. And so for you to respect and honor that body is really what gives her the safety, to feel that she can then use it in a powerful way that she can then realize its value herself, and then move into the phase of, okay, now I realize how much he loves my body, how valuable it is. Now I can seduce him with it, because I know that he wants what I have. So then it’s this whole teasing confidence thing, but she can’t get there if she doesn’t feel that her body has value. And so you have the opportunity to teach her. And I say teach but I just talked about last week, we’re not talking about teaching. So I actually mean, you have the opportunity to encourage and convince her by your just constant approval, your constant encouragement that she has exactly what you desire, that that’s her body is so desirous to you. So what does this mean in the bedroom so, you know when, when she’s willing to undress? You are spending time to honor her entire body. You’re not going straight for the genitals you want to go softly, gently all over her skin. Start from the tips of her fingers and and don’t lift your your hand. But gently graze all the way up her arms and around her back and you know, down to her feet like every part of her her skin, that’s a really key thing you men is to understand that women’s skin is so erotic that is what arouses her when she feels her entire skin, that you value her whole body. Because it’s going to take a long time for her to really understand how you think about sex. And it may never even happen because she’s not a man. And I’m not there either, because I’m not a man. But the point is that she has a hard time thinking that you want her for more than just sex.

10:39
Again, with our society with history of oppression of women with it’s just a long history and a long you know, this education that sex is for men. She feels like, there’s this insecurity that maybe he just wants her for sex, you know, it’s just to get him pleasure, that’s all that it is. But if your your intimacy, your physical intimacy ends up being something that that, that gives her pleasure, that the focus is on what she wants, and what she needs, why then it’s a very different experience. So So I talked a little bit about respecting her body, respecting her pleasure. What does it mean for her to have pleasure in the bedroom? So maybe you’re thinking, Well, I always do that, I always try to bring her pleasure in the bedroom, you know, she doesn’t want me to touch her there. She doesn’t, you know, feel good when I do this or that. But let’s take a step back and think it through. What’s the history there? You know, has there been times where you very well knew that she didn’t want to do it, and you push through anyway, because she wasn’t gonna fight you about it. Were there experiences when she was uncomfortable, and you knew it, and you didn’t stop? You know, there’s lots of baggage there that she very well may not be able to bring herself to a level of, again, safety and security, to be able to enjoy your touch, or even to get to orgasm, if she’s never been there, which a third of women have not. So she’s in good company. But she has to feel safe. And it’s so sad, but I’ve had men write to me. And they think this idea of controlling their wife is going to help. And it’s horrific. Because that’s the absolute wrong thing is the thing that’s undermining every shred of hope you have for your marriage. If you’re trying to control her love cannot breathe. In an atmosphere of control. Love only flourishes in freedom. That’s why God had to give us freedom, so that we could actually love Him with our whole heart. Because it’s not love if it’s forced. So freedom is so key. She needs to feel safe, she needs to feel accepted. She needs to feel free. So think about that, and pray about that. How can I make my wife feel more free and safe, and our intimacy? Now I want to take a minute and and talk about that, again, about pleasure. And, and maybe again, you’re thinking, Well, you know, if we’re making love, I’m trying to encourage her to, you know, touch herself or, or do do something to make her feel good. But she has had so many experiences where sex has been all about you. When, when has she had experiences where sex has really been all about her pleasure. Let me just say it a different way. Have there been times when you have orgasm, and she has not? And have there even been one time when she orgasms, and you did not even one even one time? Probably not. And I just want to say how would she ever think that sex was about her pleasure? If you’ve never given the actual time to investigate her own pleasure and pain? Consider it. So one very productive thing I can encourage you to do is to kind of have a I don’t know how to say it, maybe a connection evening, and it’s not going to end in sex. And you can tell her that straight from the beginning.

15:27
And you can say, Honey, I just, I really want to just adore your body tonight, will you let me and maybe it starts with wine, candlelight. And you know, slowly, you undress her, and you, again, touch every area of her body, start with the non erotic, the very non erotic, things that you’d be like, there’s no way this couldn’t make any difference to her, but it does, if it’s her skin, and it’s you being slow and gentle, and makes a big difference. Okay, and then you slowly go from there, and you describe all the areas that you love about her and her fingers and her hands and her beautiful eyelashes, and you stroke her hair, and you go in her neck and you give her kisses and, and then, you know, after you’ve done all these other areas, only then do you slowly come to the more erotic areas. And then you tell her how gorgeous they are, and you caress them and you just kindly and gently move towards them. But you don’t have to do a single thing towards orgasm in the least I mean, this connection evening I would encourage is just providing her a little bit of trust that and safety, that you’re not gonna push it in, you’re not gonna, you know, jump in and penetrate her. She needs to know that you are safe, that you really do respect her desires her needs, that you are a safe place for her heart. Because again, sex for her is all about her heart. It’s all about this vulnerability. And again, if you’ve had experience in the past, which generally we all have, where the man is really focused on having his orgasm, and she’s just kind of the facilitator of that she’s not really doing anything but receiving, you know, possibly really not excited about it. So again, I think this connection evening now, I talked a little bit about this process of non erotic to erotic, let that be a template for your lovemaking where you’re going from really, really not erotic and really, really gentle to something that’s more erotic to something that’s a little less gentle evening even. And that’s what I’m talking about potentially building to orgasm, but you want to go slow, really slowly. So regardless of how long you take to orgasm, it really doesn’t matter in this case, because certainly some men go long some men go shorter, it doesn’t matter at all really, the point is I’m trying to make is make your lovemaking experience much longer than it is right now. So that your wife can really experience pleasure before you do because lovemaking is about the both of you connecting and unifying as one. It’s not about a sudden penetration that gyrates until an orgasm like that. How is that this unification and both spirits becoming one it’s just it’s not it’s it’s, it’s not. It’s not what she is going to begin to enjoy. She’s not going to suddenly enjoy sex the way that you are giving it to her. And there’s ways that you can change more than more than likely so. Okay, so those are thoughts there. Another thing about going slow is also after you’ve taken all this time after you’ve you know really learned how she wants pleasure and wants to be pleasured. A side note is don’t take things personally, when she gives you different guidance and moves your hands different ways and encourages you to maybe stop at certain places or wait. Don’t take it personally and don’t push forward. If she seems uncomfortable or whatever, just just be patient. Just To Be patient, she needs to know that you’re safe. That’s that’s what’s gonna pay dividends later. It’s an investment later for her to get to a space where she feels like she can trust that you’re not going to push it in when it’s uncomfortable for her, et cetera, et cetera.

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When a woman is not prepared, internally, when she’s not engorged with blood when she’s not wet on the inside, it’s painful for her. So it actually really does matter if she’s ready or not, if you’ve taken the time, if you’ve cared about her to begin this lovemaking process, but again, don’t take it personally. Another thing is, a lot of men have a lot of rules for sex. They think that if she touches herself, she’s going to get addicted to her own fingers and my own genitalium is not going to turn her on as much and all these things, you know about vibrator concerns and, and all these rules that this man has about, it’s got to be me or nothing. And, you know, I don’t think that’s really a ticket to her enjoying lovemaking because she feels constrained, she feels not free to touch herself, or to actually enjoy or to explore her own body. I mean, certainly, it doesn’t have to turn into whatever you’re afraid it’s going to turn into but you don’t know what it’s going to turn into, it might turn into her actually loving making love with you and becoming a woman who understands her own orgasm and then can enjoy it in a totally different way than it started out her enjoying it. So a lot of women learn to orgasm through a vibrator. And then they start to understand this is what an orgasm feels like, this is what it actually is. Okay, I think I can explore this in another way. And then I think I can explore it with my husband specifically. And then it goes from there, it doesn’t have to be this quote unquote, natural penetration is the only way to get orgasm. It’s, it’s just not. It’s not realistic, it doesn’t, I just don’t think it moves the ball forward. If your aim is to make love together and enjoy it more and encourage her to love it more, I would really encourage you to take down those rules and tell her that they’re down that you want her to enjoy it that you want her to truly do whatever she wants to do that you want her to touch yourself and explore and know what’s really going to turn her on and you want to be with her in that process. And I gotta say, men, as a woman that is very scary. It is very scary to even imagine that your husband would know that you’re exploring your own body, and yet, you’re supposed to be the safest person in her whole life. There’s no one else that should be safer than you. And so if she doesn’t feel safe to explore herself with you, it’s just never gonna happen. And then she just never will experience the joy of lovemaking. And then you understand the rest so So, I want to kind of go back to just something about the way women think about sex and how you as a man can help her to see it. As you see it as you feel it. Men in general don’t show their emotions they don’t show it on their face. They don’t share their emotions with anyone. It’s not cool to do that they have been raised you men as sad as it is have been raised to not show the the pain, the hurt the difficulty you go through your you’ve been taught that you’ve got to man up and men don’t cry. And it’s it’s nonsense. It’s not real. It’s not the way God made us. Men have to be weak because we have to all trust God, we all have to lean into him. So yes, you are weak. It’s just true. And your wife is the one that should be the most safe person to understand your hearts and to hear what you’re going through and that you can open yourself to her and what you feel about sex because here’s the thing, more than likely the reason you have given her sexual advice and teaching in the past, when you have told her about other women’s curves, and how you know men are attracted to women because X, Y and Z and you’ve tried to explain these things to her is because you haven’t had the courage to say, Honey,

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I love you. And I feel like you don’t love me when you don’t want to touch me. I feel like I’m gross to you, when you don’t want to touch my member that you don’t even want to see it or you don’t want to kiss it. It makes me feel insecure that maybe you don’t care about me. I guarantee you, you’ve never said those things to your wife. Because that’s the kind of stuff that that that touches her heart. Right? We talked about how compassionate she is how caring she is, if she knew that’s what it was that it was underneath this thick skin, that you’ve been taught to hide your whole life. She cares, she wants to know what she thought is you’ve been this oppressor, you’ve been, you know, laying down the law, she didn’t realize that you are have been hurt, that that’s how you’ve, you didn’t know how to respond to her you have been hurting. And so if you can, you know, slowly, but gently, you know, peel back those layers, become a man that’s courageous enough to be vulnerable with your wife. And I do say courage. vulnerably. Vulnerability is not weakness. It is absolute courage. It’s absolute courage. If you think about God, it’s he. There’s a passage specifically that says it so beautifully. But he acts accepted us into the beloved. He went first he was vulnerable. First, he said, I love you so much, that I’m going to come here and I’m going to die for your sins so that you can be with me, that’s how much I desire you. God was completely vulnerable to us, vulnerable to our rejection, completely vulnerable. And that was courage, that strength. That’s not weakness. That’s not what our society says. So when you’re vulnerable with your wife, when you’re talking about your feelings to her, that’s what is going to actually be effective, she’s going to see it as wow, I didn’t know what I was doing. And especially you know, I don’t know where you guys are in terms of how safe it is to be vulnerable. Maybe you guys have gotten into a really critical pattern. And it’s really dangerous to put your heart out on your sleeve right now, I can understand that. It takes a long time to thaw some really icy stuff. But if you think of that as your goal, and you slowly work through that, and you slowly change the patterns in your marriage, you will get to a place where it’s safe enough that you can have the courage to model that vulnerability. And I say model it because if she starts to see that you are strong enough, you are courageous enough to be vulnerable with your feelings, then slowly she will be courageous enough to do the same thing. Because you don’t really know what she’s gone through in terms of her sex life. Like you might know some things but you don’t know if she was abused. You don’t. You don’t know if her friends have been abused. And they told her things when very impressionable years that have affected her sex life, even to this day. You don’t know some of the things that affect her sexually. Because she, it’s really hard to talk about. And especially if you haven’t modeled, being vulnerable with her, you know that she doesn’t know if it’s safe to be vulnerable with you. So those are some thoughts about that. One thing I think that women are scared of, is that right now, they probably think that all you care about is sex. That’s something that is really an insecurity for women is that, you know, my husband just wants sex and, you know, I’m not good enough for him and, you know, not good enough at sex or I’m not I don’t have a high enough libido or, you know that but then there’s also this resentment of like, he doesn’t want me for anything other than sex. You know, this is such a, you know, what a jerk. He’s, you know, he doesn’t value me. So, I would really encourage you to make it clear to her that sex equals love to you, that when you want to make love to her, it’s truly you want to feel close to her. You want feel encouraged by this life, that it that you enjoy your life more when you’re able to connect to her in this way that you feel cared about you feel.

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You feel like you feel loved. And when she understands it a little differently, that helps. The other thing I want to encourage is when you have made love, let her know that you’re satisfied. That was great. You know, the next day, if you’re grabbing her in the kitchen, let her know that you’re just playing and you don’t expect anything to happen. You don’t have to tell her that in the moment, like, what I really actually encourage is for you guys to have a sit down conversation and let her know that you just like playing you like touching her body in different ways you like, you know, caressing her you like when she’s naked? You don’t? Or whatever you like, you know, but she probably thinks when you do those sexual playing and teasing and that kind of stuff, she probably thinks he wants to have sex with me again, rolling her eyes, right? That’s what she probably thinks, rather than you just like it. You like it? You know, if you’re if you’re sexually satisfied, the other stuff is just fine and good. And you just enjoy the way she looks and you enjoy these parts of her body. But if she, you know, takes it in this way, have we had sex two nights ago? Why doesn’t he stop grabbing me? I just made love to him last night. You know, whatever it is. Again, she feels this reiteration of it’s all about sex. And I will say that if you start grabbing her and she obliges, even though in her head, she’s like, I don’t want to do this, but he clearly wants me to do it again. So I’m just gonna have to go for it, then you probably won’t say no, because you’re like, Oh, well, she’s gonna have sex, oh, my gosh, I was just playing, but suddenly, we’re gonna do it. i It’s not actually helping. If if, if it’s not, if it’s not a heart response from her, it’s not going to end up encouraging your, your intimacy long term, I hope that makes sense. I don’t want I want you to make your life not revolve around sex, I want you to get to a place where she is confident and comfortable and enjoy sex and like seducing you. And you guys have this deep physical intimacy, but also relational intimacy, so you’re connected. So that sex is a support to your life, but not the focus of it. You know, this focus of he’s pushing it, and she’s resisting it. And this focus where, you know, probably if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably are really trying to fix your sex life, you are trying so hard to make it better. And all she’s hearing from all that trying to fix is that you’re obsessed with sex. And if she tries to start to focus on sex, she’s just encouraging your bad behavior, and you’re obsessed and your data data. But the truth is, what ultimately will happen. If she does focus on sex, if you focus on how to make her feel safer, and more secure, and more loved, and this mutual understanding and intimacy in this whole process we’re talking about, ultimately, sex will stop being this obsession and start being a support for both of you to then do what God wants you to do in your life. So that’s the end goal. The end goal is not to be constantly obsessed about sex, about pleasure seeking and all this stuff. It’s not it’s, it’s part of this wonderful goal of living God’s life and enjoying the pleasure in it and enjoying that physical intimacy that supports that life. So that’s that. The other thing I think that just to realize is that

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let’s say you did have wonderful sex, she orgasm, she was so excited. It was wonderful, all that. And then the next day, you don’t make love and maybe there was a couple days that you don’t make love. And I don’t want you as a husband to think that it’s because she didn’t like it or she doesn’t care about you or she was faking. No, it’s just that women, they don’t often want it as much as you do. There’s a lot that goes into that. Maybe it’s her menstrual cycle. Maybe it’s what she ate that day. Maybe it’s just the things that are going in her mind. Stress is huge. This is a key I wanted to definitely share. I actually just learned this from John On Gray, Dr. John Gray, the guy that wrote Mars and Venus, that whole series thing. Anyway, he’s got a lot of really great resources. But he was teaching about how oxytocin is actually a stress reliever for both men and women and for men, that’s the biggest oxytocin release is through sex. And so it’s a huge stress reliever for men. But then for women, oxytocin is released in so many different ways. So many different small touches of, of a rose that, you know, you just randomly picked up for her as a surprise or a hug. I talked about that last, you know, hugs or wonderful or a kiss, or a love note or a text or an email. All these little touches are actual oxytocin releases oxytocin in her brain, which lowers her stress level. So if you think about it, a stressed woman is not interested in making love, I’ll just tell you, we’ll just that’s a freebie right there. Stress does not make her want to make love in the least. But gosh, if you could just do these small things that make her feel loved, that lowers her stress, and makes her feel more in love with you. It just is. It’s amazing. And one thing I really liked that he said is that a lot of times men think that okay, a dozen roses, I get a dozen points. And for women a dozen roses means one point or, you know, he thinks that you know, 1500 Roses means 1500 points, well, 1500 Roses might mean three points to her or something along those lines. I guess what I’m trying to say is that small things is what matters to her consistent small things. It doesn’t have to be this giant display, and then a week of nothing. No, it’s every single day telling her how beautiful she is, every single day caressing her face every single day, you know, hugging her and kissing her lips and telling your kids about how wonderful she is and, and complimenting her in public and, and giving her gifts and taking her out on date nights. And, you know, loving her and her love languages. Those are the kinds of things that lower her stress, to give her the pause and the calm and consideration that yes, making love would be nice, that would be lovely. I would love to love you like that I feel loved i i feel calm, I feel stress free so we can enjoy that. I talked about how if you start to think lovemaking as like a longer event. So instead of maybe the 15 Minute event that it is right now maybe something more like an hour, an hour and a half. And maybe you think that that’s too long. And you know, and maybe an hour and a half is is extreme, but but I would say an hour. That’s that’s a good amount. But if you think about your life I mean, there’s so many things you do in a day, that’s an hour. I mean, how hard would it be for you to cut some things out so you can make time for something that’s actually important to you. You know, what if love making could only happen if it took an hour. Yeah, maybe for you it takes you know, however long but let’s just say love making always will take an hour. So then cut things out of your life. If you don’t have enough time for that. Certainly you have enough time to make sure that you enjoy love with your with your wife. So just prioritize things cut things out and make it so that you can have an hour for it. So keep that in mind. Okay, so I wanted to give you a few just quick like very specific sexual advice so that I leave you with some some tools that you can use right away.

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I gave you, you know, a good amount of things and you might think that they’re not specifically sexual, but it’s because that’s how women’s bodies work. They get turned on when you’re not focused on the genitals. That’s how it works. That’s how her body works with your body. It’s like go to the genitals right away, forget everything else but for her kisses and caresses and gentle patient touch and kind and saucy words and more and I say saucy I think more like compliments just I saw you across the street Babe and I I just got so excited that that’s my wife, and you just make me so grateful that I get to have you in my life. I mean, those are the kinds of things that make her excited to make love to you. So those again, if you make love more about her, eventually she’ll get to a place of safety, where she’ll start to feel confident enough to explore some things that are more, maybe spicy, maybe hot, maybe seductive, and really, you know, fiery, like you maybe would like as well. And then there’s this dual participation. And, you know, some nights are specifically about the man. And you know, she can just go all out in seduction, and excitement and teasing and all of that. And then there’s other nights where it’s all about her, and she can just the lap of luxury of just being adored, gently and patiently and beautifully. Again, so sexual advice specifically for her. One thing that I think is very important that I think men get so excited that she let him inside, that suddenly they’re like, Okay, in and out, in and out, in and out. But what in terms of her pleasure, which she would more than likely, would like to start with is very slow. In fact, you could just slowly come in slow, so much so that you come half inch and stop. And then you give her full reign of your body so that she can focus in on her body, she can focus in on what her vagina is feeling. And then she can hold your body and direct it in slowly, if she so chooses. And she has total freedom to do that. And I want to say, that’s why it’s so important that you lay this groundwork work of safety, so that she feels totally confident that you’re not going to push through that you’re going to totally be patient. And I know it’s hard for you, sir. But this is going to really be what causes her to have an enjoyment of pleasure. It might not make her orgasm. And you might think that orgasm is the most important thing to her but it very well might not be orgasm is certainly a blessing and a gift and a wonderful thing. But in terms of the gift of security and kindness and patience and gentleness that you can give her in the bedroom. I would say that that’s far greater. The orgasms are great. Okay, well, I think that is a lot of what I wanted to say. It’s interesting, you know, because as I’ve been just thinking through some of the ideas and thoughts that I wanted to specifically say, I think there’s plenty more that I I’d like to share and talk about and give because I think I think you men really desire to love your wife in the way that, that God wants you to that you can have amazing intimacy. And I think that you can do a lot to get there. So if you haven’t listened to the last episode, definitely listened to that. And combine these two, with the idea that she wants to be captivated. And make her feel safe and secure. Both of those are gonna pay dividends in your sex life.

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But yeah, so I’m thinking through whether or not I’ll work on maybe doing a course for men, I don’t coach men on one on one, I do coach women one on one. So, you know, maybe you’ll do this work, specific work that I’m talking about. And again, I encourage you to really invest in the serve part of what I’m talking about for six months. I mean, go all out and see what God does after six months. I mean, give God any resentment, give God any, you know, impatience, just give it to God and say, I’m going to really push to what you God want me to do for six months, this, these different insights, these different ideas that I’m giving you, and after six months, see what happens. Maybe you will at least be at a place where you could talk about okay, you know, well, I don’t want to give advice for six months from now so you just wait and see because there’s plenty of ways that God could have put your marriage doing this work for six months. But anyway, like I said, if your wife if and when your wife It gets to a place. I do coach women and I love that it’s a it’s a wonderful opportunity to walk alongside a woman and really think through and live out how to bring more joy, intimacy, love, seduction and power and fierceness to the bedroom. I don’t do very many at once, because I’ve got a lot of other things going on in life. So if that is something that if you’re a wife listening by chance, or, or husband, that you have a wife that really wants this kind of coaching than I would love to work with her, you can go to delight your marriage.com you can click on Resources, and you can click on coaching with belah I don’t do single sessions anymore, because I found that it wasn’t productive enough, I really need to be able to dig into someone’s life with them and, and work with them week by week. And it’s really it’s really a God thing that says a lot of really amazing results and just people feeling free and they’re living out their sexuality and the way that God sees them and loves them. So was that what I wanted to say? Yes. And so I’m thinking about though I don’t I don’t coach for men. Which is a shame because I can’t, you know, think through and talk with you about your specific situation. I don’t think it’s appropriate, though, for me to coach you one on one. And so, I think I will work on developing a course for men. In the meantime, okay. But like I said, you know, if you know, a wife or you are one, consider the coaching potential. I mean, if you think about how expensive your wedding was, and how much more important your marriage is. It’s, it’s a really worthwhile investment. So, anyway, God bless you. I hope this has been really helpful. I’m praying for you, your marriage and most importantly, your walk with the Lord. Have a good week, and I hope that this is an encouragement to you. Alright, bye.

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Thanks for listening. If you’ve been blessed by this, why not share it? Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion

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Hey there, welcome. I’m so glad you’re joining me. I’m belah rose, this is the delight your husband Podcast. I’m not sure if this is your first time here, but we are just finishing up this summer where I’ve actually taken off and spent time in the ways that I feel like God wanted me to spend time, we’re about to restart the typical show, where I’ll be interviewing wives and intimacy experts on how to have an amazing marriage, and how to strengthen your walk with God in the midst of that. So I, for this time, I am reading excerpts from my books so that I can can encourage you throughout the time that I’m taking off. So today, I wanted to focus on helping a husband enjoy sex. So I get this a lot this question a lot from from wives that are like, Well, I feel like I’m doing all the right things. But what, why isn’t my husband responding? Why does he have a low sex drive. So that’s the section of the book I’m gonna read from low sex drive. If this is true of your husband, you will know all too well how painful reality this is. many wives wish their husbands would have headaches every once in a while, quote, unquote. But there are many other women who can’t understand why their husband is consistently turning them down. The pain and insecurity this causes and a wife is heart wrenching. If this is your story, I’m so sorry for the pain you have felt in this area. I hear you. And I want you to know that you’re not alone. There are many reasons this may be happening. And I want to go through many of the common problems and suggest solutions. As these solutions are focused mainly on your partner, make sure you approach him about it. A solution with grace, love and prayer. This is a difficult reality for your husband too. And you want your words and your actions to move you both closer together, not pull you apart because you didn’t think and pray through how to talk about something with him. So just to lay some groundwork, some kind of framework for how I want to talk about this. First of all, just answering the question. Should I wanted more than he does? Is it okay for me to do that? So I’m answering that question. It says the Bible is clear that husbands and wives should not withhold sex from each other. Your husband’s body is not his own, it belongs also to you. I’ve seen husbands withhold sex from their wives as a power move. This may not be the case in your marriage, but getting a biblical understanding of a sex act is helpful. God made sure this passage was in the Bible to correct either husband or wife that may be withholding. In first Corinthians seven three through five, it reads, Let the husband render to his wife the affection do her and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again, so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self control. It is important for you to realize God’s plan for your marriage is regular sex. He designed you to have very consistent and fulfilling intimacy in marriage. If your husband is not allowing this to happen, he is going against God’s word. This is an area of your husband needs to deal with before God and you can be a kind, loving and generous support. However, you cannot make him do anything and attempting to do anything may undermine any progress. So now that you know it does not mean you need to shove this verse in his face and demand sex. Those loving feelings will run away, far, far away and your husband might follow suit. Instead, you should pray for him and pray for your marriage. Anyone outside of God’s Will feels that emptiness. Be patient employ the solutions below. Pray for wisdom and carefully plan how to approach the topic. Write out what you want to say. The solutions below will give many suggestions of what he may be dealing with and what you can do to help. So first of all body in a world where we are constantly barraged by images of shirtless men with toned biceps and checkerboard abs. Our husbands are very

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much affected to we may not feel he may not feel confident in his body, and he doesn’t want you to see him in a less than sexy way. Instead of pushing through the discomfort as I would advise him, he instead may be hiding. This is something that may be deep in his psyche solutions. Number one you can support through preying on your own for his self image to improve. Number two, you can also provide generous and consistent touch and complements, you can come up behind him and kiss him and tell him how sexy he is. Give lots and lots of encouragement in this area. Let him know that you want his body, you’ll need to be consistent in your compliments because he will not trust you. If they only come out every once in a while. If he is overweight, he more than likely has low self, testosterone as well as low body image. So we’re going to check out that section in a little bit. Stress. financial woes are one of the most common reasons for men to be too stressed for sex. Sometimes when we have money pressures in our lives, we can feel helpless to know what to do or how to help. I shared briefly earlier that according to the following study, you may not need money to alleviate this pressure. In one study, researchers at Dartmouth College and the University of Warwick England measured levels of happiness and 16,000 men and women, the researchers even found that sex is so closely tied to happiness that they estimated increasing sexual intercourse from one month to once a week would have the same moods boosting effects as adding 50,000 a year in income. So what comes first, the chicken or the egg, more money or more sex? There are many other reasons for stress in your husband’s mind. Do you know what stressors are on your husband? Is he eternally frustrated for x? Are there solutions you can find to alleviate that pressure. So then I have some kind of solutions that just in terms of like some small changes you could make, to make things less stressful.

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One thing that we do is try scheduling regular date nights or rest days. Our church has given great wisdom in the area of rest with their encouragement, my husband and I take a rest day where we don’t do or discuss anything stressful. We make sure we are having fun and relaxing together. This is also a great day to meditate, Reorient, and are intentional about growing in our relationship with God. It was also very helpful for our marriage relationship. Amidst the many stressors of life, we take time to have a play day of sorts, and it greatly increases our enjoyment of each other and our life together. Can you institute a rest day or date night in your household, maybe just start with a day every other week, where you decide to be stress free day as possible and not bring up anything that will hinder that. Alright, so I’m out of time for this reading. But the other potential things that they may be getting the ways is being depressed. And and then I have solutions and ideas for that medications, low testosterone, and ways to alleviate that even naturally. Food specific foods and weights. Overweight is a is a huge reason for for low sex drive and how to work through that. And then vitamins, that’s a big one, make sure your husband’s taking vitamins. Alright, so that is it for today. But I want to encourage you, if that’s what you’re going through again, it’s hard. That’s a hard one. But I want you to not give up hope. I want you to not give up hope. You know, one thing that’s interesting that I have in my book somewhere, but I’ll just tell you about it so that you can just get this insight. Sex begets sex so so the more sex you have, the more you want it. That’s especially true for men. And so, you know, there’s four different types of erections men have but I’m just going to focus on the morning erection, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. But you can use that just because it’s a natural part of his body. You know, it happens every day. You can use that for sex, you can make that your routine, and that will encourage more sex to happen. And so maybe he’s not one that likes to have sex, except like once every, you know, two weeks or something like that. Well, okay, so then you start to slowly make it work. Once a week, and then slowly once, you know once every four or five days and then you slowly just ramp it up. Because as your his body starts to get more used to having more sex, it grows that way. So, like I said, I have a lot more kind of solutions, concrete solutions that you can apply depending on your situation, but I want to just give you as much as I can in this short amount of time. Okay, my love, thank you for listening. Stay with hope. Don’t despair. I’m going to read you this verse. I think it’s Romans 1513. I’ve got it on my wall. It says May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit. All right, God bless you. Thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you on Tuesday.

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Hey there. belah rose here. Thank you for joining. I want to just ask you to do a quick smile. Yeah, doesn’t that feel better? I hope you’re having a good day. Thank you for joining me. I am reading excerpts from my book. The delight your marriage podcast is on a little holiday. We’ll be back in August. And so I hope that you are being inspired every week by excerpt from my book. It’s called delight your husband, and you can go to delight your marriage.com to check it out, as well as all the many podcast episodes we have already recorded. Okay, well, I’m going to continue reading the section of the book that says great oral starts in the mind, I changed the title of the podcast to say great sex starts in the mind, just to make it a little bit easier for people to click on because they might not click on the other title. All right, but let’s start where I left off last time. switch things up. As I alluded every now and then I like to give my husband an intimate treat. Yes, we have our more routine lovemaking which is enjoyable for both of us. And we’ve kind of figured out what works for both of us to feel fulfilled. But to ensure we continue to have a vital and strong sexual intimacy, I insert some spicy experiences to keep things interesting every couple of days or weeks. My goal is to keep him intrigued and even guessing. I also enjoy the thrill of these new treats and it keeps things fresh and exhilarating for me as well. If I’m not taking risks in our intimacy, it’s easy to fall into a routine that starts to feel nice, but eventually feels stale. We need to be careful to keep our sex life fun and exciting for both our husbands and ourselves. As sex expert Dr. Ian Kerner says variety isn’t just the spice of life is the very lifeblood of great sex. So I brainstorm things which I can do for him that are unexpected or surprising. Consider how loved you feel, or would feel with the random surprises your husband does for you. Ie flowers, ghosting you in the kitchen, which I learned recently means if your husband comes behind you and like you’re washing the dishes and he puts his arms like, behind like through your arms and starts washing dishes anyway, one of those romantic things I’m leaving a love note for you, cleaning the house or giving you the surprise back massage. Your effort of creativity infuses your marriage with surprise and fresh seal that helps you both stay engaged, excited and passionate. I want to give you some examples that may help you to dream up other ways you can infuse play in your marriage. When sharing a shower after the suds are washed off, drop down and give him some love. Wake him up by licking and nibbling his morning erection. Were special panties just above your tight pants while climbing the stairs in front of him. When you’re out sitting together, drape your coat over your lap and give a little caress underneath. Whisper how you’d like to do much more when you get home. Put on some saucy music and wear a revealing dress and heels and give them a sexy striptease. Keep in your keeping your head your aim to surprise him every now and then. And that goal will alert you to ideal moments for excitement. When the moment seems right. Go for it. Do not forget to build the sexual tension beforehand. Building anticipation of an event sets it up to be memorable and enjoyable for both of you. Having already built up expectation, alleviates any nervousness and moves past the sometimes challenging task of getting things done in the moment. So I’m going to take a minute here to just I’m not sure exactly where it is on here. But again, just talking about building anticipation that is huge. That is a huge piece of seducing your husband and keeping things exciting. So you can just drop little notes. You can do text messages, you can whisper in his ear. You can have little things that you say have little keywords, you know, there’s so many things you can do

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and definitely definitely, definitely anticipate. So yeah, I gave you a couple more explicit examples. but you can find you can think of so many examples. Like, when you’re out at dinner together, you pass your phone across the table. And there’s already been a pre recorded video of you that he can enjoy. While he’s at the restaurant and covering, covering the key, you know, the screen so nobody else can see or something like that. I mean, there’s just, there’s just infinite ways for you to make it spicy for your marriage. And I encourage you to literally brainstorm literally get out a piece of paper and read and consider what you can do. Okay, that was an eye that was a thought there. But let me go ahead and read a little bit more for you. setting the mood for his pleasure. When you’re wanting to provide him with that sensual feast, it’s important to lay the groundwork, just as you enjoy candles, soft music and enticing smells. To get you feeling romantic. So does he, if he doesn’t enjoy it consciously, it may be worthwhile to get you in the headspace to fully engage in the moment. Of course, he probably doesn’t have the list of required preparation in order to be fully present in a sexual experience. But he may care more than you think. So I would encourage so I said, give your husband a wonderful Penny, put it on your calendar. start his day right with making him fresh coffee, and something he loves for breakfast, let him know you’re planning something extra special for dessert tonight. And you’d appreciate him being prompt. Make sure to help him in whatever way possible to set up for a good day. Wrap a sexy thong. In a note reading mind if I wear this tonight and place it in his work bag, you might want to write on the outside for your eyes only to avoid his opening it in public, then text him shortly before he’d be leaving work to make sure his mind is primed for the evening events. Your texts could read, thinking of what I’m going to do to you when you get home. Smiley face. Okay, next item, you should take care of his children, pets or other potential distractors. Whatever works for your life, just make sure you won’t have to worry about being interrupted. Now, think about what your husband wants when he comes home? Does he like the house to be cleaned a snack prepared, or something else that would make him smile as he comes in the door? See if you can get those items done. So he can come home relaxed and feeling positive. Decide whether you’re going to eat dinner beforehand or straight to the dessert. Afterwards, worry with dinner, try to plan ahead so that you can feel comfortable and you both can enjoy the evening. All right. So that’s the section I want to read for today. But you can see I mean, we want to just flood our husband with a sexual feast essential feasts. I mean, again, I mean, this is the way he feels loved his sex. You know, I hear so often. Women Act like sex is just as important for them. And I just disagree. If it were true, men would be wandering around in tight shirts and tight pants. But they’re not because we don’t care. We don’t want to see men in the tight stuff all the time, because we’re not thinking about sex all the time. So no, it’s not the same. Yes, you should be putting effort into your sex life with your husband because he cares about it more than you do. So yeah, it does sound one sided because it is because he cares about sex much more than you do. I hope that that encourages you to Yes, but effort and time and energy into having a wonderful sex life with your husband. God bless you. Thanks for listening. I’ll talk to you next Tuesday.

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transcript

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Hey there, belah here. Thanks for joining. So, for a couple of months, I’ve been reading some excerpts from my book, delight your husband. In that book, I take a wife by the hand, we talk about some of the most difficult things that people never talk about with sex, and your fears, your insecurities, the the lies that the world has told you about what’s sexy, and the way you should be and the way you feel like you totally are not. And so we walk through the process of understanding your own heart, how to be confident, we walk through what your what your husband really feels about sex in his mind, how he feels about your body, what it is, in God’s view, about the whole sex question and what’s okay and what’s not, and how to, how to have freedom in it all. And so the kind of conclusion of the book is me going through and walking in wife, by the hand through practicalities, some really practical items that, honestly, there’s just not Christian books about, there’s just not things that we can understand our husband’s climax, like, what are the stages to his orgasm, those kinds of things are not gone into deep enough. And so that’s what my book does is go into in depth, how to understand your husband’s orgasm, and specifically how as a wife, you can treat him to the pleasures of oral sex. And I specifically call it Penny because I like that word better than all the other words that the society uses for it. But that’s what my book kind of culminates with all this information with all this insight, with all the ways that you have been learning to enjoy your own body and sex and be confident and learn to seduce and, and learn to enjoy the sex act and learn to desire him. And so that’s all to say that I’d like that to kind of inform this section of the book that I’m about to read. So it this the the Section says the heading is great oral starts in his mind. So the sub subheading is what is sexy, sexy. When preparing your mind to approach your husband. Consider what types of teasing caressing or language will excite his senses. Just because you’re married to this man doesn’t mean you robbed him of the fun and enjoyment of being seduced. Yes, he knows you intimately. That means you can play and have fun with him and you’re acting as a temperature office. It’s a safe place to experiment with your favorite sexy accents, verbiage, costumes and sexy performances. Why not let your husband enjoy a show? Get your nerve up and be willing to give him a sexy chair dance. Selecting a nice piece of music to accompany your show will help you and him relax and have fun. He will love your willingness to spice things up and go out on a limb for his pleasure. I’d encourage you to practice by yourself first. This will help you to feel more at ease during practice being confident. Practice feeling confident while performing. Your husband enjoys seeing your body. He enjoys seeing you in sexy clothes. He loves your curves he chose you to marry and who you are is very attractive to him. visuals that do nothing for you are incredibly enjoyable to him. Remember, confidence is sexy. Just as men have to decide to be confident about their penis size, something they can’t do a darn thing about. It’s not about the size, shape or perk of your body. It’s really about what you confidently do with it. Don’t sell yourself short your body is hot. And your husband would love to see you doing something risky just to please Him.

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element of mystery. There’s always an element of mystery to sexual desire. The guarded woman may be cold and harmful hiding wounds that need light and love to heal. That is not what I mean when I encourage you to be mysterious. If you have areas of deep pain that you have not shared with your husband, other trusted friends and God honor those but be honest and allow God to heal those areas by going through this process. As you can get to a place of wholeness, you will then have the power to be a fully aware, healed and confident woman. However, a whole yet mysterious woman in the bedroom is intriguing and enticing. Your husband does not need to know all of your mind. Don’t admit to him how silly you feel. Don’t ask him if you look stupid, or melt into a pile of jello, the moment he gazes upon you in your lingerie. linger in the doorway wearing your scandalous Teddy. Sometimes you have to flaunt it before you feel it. Sometimes you have to pretend to be confident, even when you don’t feel confident. As Joyce Meyer says, you often just have to do it afraid. We all feel silly and even ridiculous before we feel strong and confident. Put on a fearless face and go for it. I remember being terrified of eating in restaurants. I came from a large family of humble means. And we would eat at a restaurant at the most one time per year. Every occasion we did by Mother you used it as a teaching moment. Napkins in labs, elbows off the table, and we dare not speak with our mouths full. In high school, I began interning at a professional office every day my boss would take me and the other professionals out for lunch. I was practically sweating each day. By 11:30am. Anticipating the noon time meal, I knew I need to engage in appropriate small talk, act relaxed when picking up the correct spoon and dabbing my mouth gingerly with a napkin, which was otherwise in my lap. Inside, I was so scared I dripped something on my blouse. Or I’d accidentally chime into the conversation while my mouth was full. Years later, I realized that no one was sitting judging my performance, there was no reason to be scared. The others were all too concerned with their own meals and their conversation to be evaluating how I was handling the situation. This is true in the bedroom as well. Your husband is delighted at the sight of you and your efforts to entice him. Everything feels awkward the first few times for you. But I asked you to push through that discomfort and you’ll end up satisfying your hubby and enjoying a marriage better than you would have dreamed. Alright, well, that’s all we have time to read for today. But I do hope that that has intrigued you to start doing those things that are afraid I have many more practical things I’d like to share. I’m not going to I am not sharing so many practical things on the podcast just because I you know children and there’s just no way to limit where things are shared. But I feel like selling a book is a good barrier for people to not be able to get it who are not, you know, who are too young or just not in a place that they should be reading the material. Okay, but anyway, thank you for listening again. I hope that this is encouraging you I pray that it would be something that would encourage you to take that step to be vulnerable to be confident. Then do something that makes you scared that is going to pay off. God bless you. We’ll talk on Tuesday.