DYM Ep 94: Marriage With Chronic Illness with Kimberly Rae
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1 in 2 of marriages deal with chronic illness, and most of them are invisible (ie: depression, diabetes, ). Kimberly shares what life is like when you’re dealing with constant challenge in your body. She has an incredible heart and really gives us wisdom whether we’re serving a chronically ill spouse or receiving their care. Spoiler alert: There is so much hope in this episode.
Check out Part I at delightyourmarriage.com/93
Learn more about Kimberly Rae at kimberlyrae.com
You’ll Discover:
- How to do marriage when you have chronic illness
- How illness affects marriage and how it often (75%) ends in divorce
- How people respond to stress differently and how vital this is
- How Jesus shines through the way we handle the most difficult things in our marriages
- Thoughts on chronic illness and physical intimacy
Books & Resources Mentioned:
- You’re Sick They’re Not Kimberly’s book dealing with the challenges of chronic illness in your marriage
- Why Doesn’t God Fix It? Kimberly’s book that helps us understand God’s reasons for suffering and challenges… There is so much hope in there.
- Intended For Pleasure book for fantastic practical how-tos on sex! (I read this when I was first married and it was a huge help…even talks about the “pre-orgasmic wife”)
- Delight Your Husband book by me (Belah Rose) to get other ideas and practical know-how on how to enjoy the bedroom even when you’re so tired.
- Gift For God by Mother Teresa has such an incredible heart
- Joni Eareckson Tada a quadriplegic who’s heart is just incredible. Check out a video of her story here.
- Love & Respect book centering around what God desires each of us to submit and love each other through.
- “A guy’s definition of love is respect.”
Scripture References:
- Hebrews 11 – ‘The Hall of Faith’ full of faith & hardship
- 2 Corinthians 10:12
- We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.
- Proverbs 28:26
- He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But he who walks wisely will be delivered.
- 2 Corinthians 8:12
- For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
- (I have memorized this since my conversation with Kimberly…and I’m so grateful! I encourage you to do this too, it really helps!)
- Psalm 85:10
- Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Tweetables:
- There will always be unfulfilled longings in your life. God made you that way because He wants to be the only thing that will ultimately fulfill you.
- Turn your marriage into a spiritual adventure instead of a selfish adventure.
- Sometimes it takes greater faith when God doesn’t give you what you want & still you choose to trust Him.
- As soon as I said “I do,” he became the right person.
- A tree branch doesn’t produce fruit; being stuck to the tree makes us produce fruit.
- It may not look spiritual, but its not about looks.
- Some days the victory is just in enduring. -Corrie Ten Boom
Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!
Love,
Belah
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Transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah. Rose.
0:18
Hi there, and welcome. Thanks for joining me on the show today. When you and I took our vows, we said that we were going to be faithful to our spouse, in sickness and in health. And for a lot of us out there, according to my guest, Kimberly Ray, one in two couples experience chronic illness. And today, that’s what we’re talking about how to be the person, either that’s dealing with the illness, and receiving care maybe from your spouse, and or how to be the one that’s giving the care and giving the support. And a lot of illnesses aren’t very obvious, as Kimberly talks about, it could be a mental illness, or mental health illness, depression, bipolar, I mean, there’s just a myriad of things that require extra care and sensitivity. And so I think today, it’s really a good idea to understand not only for the potential that your own marriage could encounter this, or that you are dealing with it right now, or that you know, someone that needs some guidance and some help. The other part of this is that no matter where you land on whether or not you need guidance with chronic illness, I was talking to a friend’s husband, we visited them just last weekend. And the husband was telling me that a lot of times when you hear the stories of someone else, what they’ve gone through what they’ve come out of it gives you this encouragement, I mean, you have so much more to be grateful for, don’t you. So it turns out that this man grew up in Rwanda. And he experienced the genocide that went on there in his lifetime, right. This affected his extended family members, his friends who saw a lot of people killed. And when I talked to this guy, I mean, the kind of kindness and generosity of spirit and the way he is with his wife, it’s incredible. So I guess I say that because when we hear the stories of what we’re going to hear from Kimberly, now, Kimberly has got an amazing heart. She’s been a missionary to many countries. And it was only because of her pain, her actual illnesses that she and her husband had to come home. And so you can just tell the breadth of experience and understanding she’s bringing to this conversation. But I think we can really learn from her because of what she goes through every single day, and how she honors marriage. In the midst of that, I think each of us can take something very helpful back with us.
3:20
Okay, so I want to ask, what does your marriage look like? Now we talked about in the last episode, if you haven’t listened to part one of Kimberly Ray’s interview, it’s really wonderful. It really talks about love languages, how to be proactive in those. But today, we are talking more about your marriage journey and what your marriage looks like now, after having gone through kind of figuring out how to get your needs met, how to be direct, and also kind of relax and let God have your desires in the midst of that.
3:54
I remember hearing one, I think it was in the live woman belief book, her saying that there will always be unfulfilled longing in your life. God made you that way. Because you want to be the only thing that can ultimately fulfill you. And I realized I was trying to get that from my husband. And that was too much of a burden to place on him. He cannot succeed in being everything I need. He can’t. And me wanting him to and expecting him to leave me miserable and leave him feeling like a failure and leave our marriage less than God intended to be. Um, I love our marriage now. And I he’s always been my best friend. But I’m being a better friend. His point. He was always good at being a friend. I was not always good at being a friend. I wanted to be good at being a wife, you know, and now I’m learning to be a better wife by being a better friend. And so when he comes home tired, instead of thinking, Well, we haven’t gone on a date and as long as you haven’t done this and so longer, other people say should have a date night, every week. It’s a we should have a date night, every weekend, there’s something wrong with that we don’t have a date night every week. It’s why don’t you sit down and rub his head because he absolutely loves that. And then when he gets over being exhausted, because he’s been serving his family, he will probably want to do something loving back. But it’s not always doing something so that you get something back. But being the first person to do the positive thing, it actually ends up beating you too. When I’m rubbing his head, I think you know what, this is a great guy. And I’m so glad he goes to work every day. And maybe I’ll say so. And, you know, I appreciate him. Or maybe I’ll pray for him while I’m doing this. And it’s a good thing, turning your marriage into a spiritual adventure, rather than a selfish adventure, you think that means I’m going to get taken advantage of if I don’t fight for what I need. If I don’t find what I want. I’m going to just be this blob of unfulfilled loneliness. I thought I was so afraid of. Yeah, I was wrong, not just the plane. In thing was I was wrong. Giving your marriage to God is the best thing you can do and letting go control is the best thing you can do. And I’m so grateful that God did not give up on me and kept pursuing me the way I wanted my husband to pursue me, but his pursuit was for a godly purpose instead of a selfish purpose. And, you know, the Bible talks about submission and that’s such a scary word for us. Women were like, oh, no, no, no, that means doormat. That means doormat. I know. I know. But the scripture says as unto the Lord, if not, I, you know, people say I shouldn’t respect my hubby’s earned respect. He doesn’t deserve respect. Or I’ll respect him when he starts loving you the way Christ loves her. Thank you very. It’s like skip that whole thing and go into the essence of the Lord. Does God deserve your respect? Yes. Does he need to earn it? No, he already did. And can we do this for over? And then actually, when you start doing it for the war, you often find out there are a lot of reasons to respect my husband too. And he does he has earned my respect. And yeah, it’s not. The problem wasn’t as much with him as it was with my own heart. We have a little piece of paper, it sounds so silly to me. But we would have the same conversations. I don’t know about you. But you may notice that the discussions you have, you know, the arguments, the discussions, you have all seem to center around the same theme. I finally realized this after a while, it’s like, wait a minute, we’re talking about the same thing over and over and over and over again. Can we stop this whole little merry go round? Yeah. And so I tried to figure out what is the base of it. Somebody I said once asked the five why’s you know, I’m frustrated? Well, why? Because he didn’t do this. Well, why does that frustrate? You will because I want to feel love. Right? Because I feel lonely? Why? You know, and you go keep going back until you’re like, Whoa, what is it that you really need and so I finally down that just about every time we have a discussion is that I am wanting to be reassured about something. And he doesn’t feel like reassuring me because every time when we have a discussion, he wants me to recognize there was no mal intent. He wasn’t intentionally doing something unkind. And I stuck that little piece of paper in the little mirror on our backboard between us in bed. And is that thing, all the difference in the world? If we start something, I can look at that and be like, You know what, we are here all over again. And if I could just say, could you please reassure me about this, then he can do that, and he can succeed. Whereas when I’m saying it, I’m trying to say if you understood me, and blah, blah, blah, and he just feels and all he wants me to do is say, I recognize you didn’t intentionally whatever, but this hurt. And then we can move forward. Wow, feel the attack, keep going to keep defending himself. And if you keep to myself, I don’t himself, I don’t feel reassured. And so I keep attacking, you know, and it just keeps you going. big washing machine circle that. Yeah, it’s just gross.
8:56
Oh, it’s so true. I mean, we all fall into that, that is so wise. So to practically speaking, get yourself a piece of paper and think through what are the discussions that happen over and over and over again, in your marriage that kind of have that similar theme? And then ask the five why’s and get really to the bottom of what is it that you really need? And what is it that you want from the interaction? And then walk him through the same process? Is that what you suggest Kimberly?
9:26
Yeah, kind of, again, stop yourself and be like, what is it you wish I would do right now? Just something as simple as that stop moment that Oh, emotional, yada, yada. If you got to go blow your nose, you know, leave the room for a minute down you can do whatever you need to do back and say, Okay, what’s really going on here? Because you know, it’s just like little kids, you can get started. Next thing you know, everybody’s crying. You come in, what’s the problem? They’re like, Oh, you know? What started it. Well, he said, Hey, Lord, help us. We’re just a bunch of overgrown little toddlers.
9:59
Yes. We are, yes, we are being one that has two little toddlers running around. It is a is a wild time, man. That’s awesome. I love that. Well, I think that the amazing thing is underlying everything that we’ve talked about so far can really is this glaring, chronic illness chronic challenge that you have in your life constantly. And so I wonder if we can dig into that a little bit? Because I know what did you say one in every two people are dealing
10:31
with? Yes, about Yep. In America, oh, my gosh, some kind of chronic illness. And like 95% of them, I think are called Invisible illnesses. Which means, whatever their problem is, they don’t look back. They’re not in a wheelchair, they’re not wearing an oxygen mask. And so we assume everybody’s fine. And people all around us are really struggling.
10:48
Wow, wow, that is really, I think that’s really helpful. Because just thinking that through on top of marriage, right, because marriage by itself is very hard. But then thinking through, you’ve got something chronically going on, whether it’s pain, or psychological challenge, or just just just so many, there’s so many categories of it. But ultimately, it’s a it’s a constant thing. It’s funny, because it’s something we’ve been dealing with. I’ve been dealing over the last year and figuring out some, some health challenges that, yeah, are chronic, and I’m trying to figure out how to handle them on a daily basis. And I had no idea that there were so many others that deal with that. I mean, can you give us some insight into what what you’ve learned what it’s been like,
11:42
it one thing that really hit me hard was finding out the divorce rate among chronic illness people, it’s 75%. Wow, that is really shocking. But the longer I get, you know, the more groups I’m part of that have chronic illness, I’m seeing it less and right, it’s, you know, they just can’t handle it anymore. And they just, it’s just too much, or whatever or, you know, like I said, if you make your marriage based on yourself what I need, what makes me feel happy, of course, being married to a sick person is not going to be worth it. And so Christian marriages should be much more solid, we should have a lot more blue than that, because our marriage should be based on price. But it does cause a challenge because your needs get bigger. Your knees are not married me. They’re just playing a lightning. And it’s like, they didn’t sign up for this. You know, it’s hard. I actually wrote a book called you’re sick, they’re not because there are just so many struggles with learning how to live with each other. When one of you is sick, and one of you is healthy, I miss hiking, I love going hiking with my husband and I can’t go hiking anymore. Oh, shoot, I’m gonna cry. Okay, so there’s like, all these things that are limitations. Now we can’t have as many people decide. And we can’t get together as much with people as we like. And we we did not just me. And one thing that was important for me to recognize was that he doesn’t have to be limited. You know, he has a choice to do all these things. Still, he accepts limitations because of me. And that’s something I should recognize as huge sacrificial love. And I should also recognize that sometimes I need to let him go and be a healthy person, you know, he doesn’t have to. He’s not sick. He’s not unlimited, like I am. i You give him permission to be healthy. Because sometimes you just want to say this isn’t fair. And you know, Misery loves company, you should be sitting next to me feeling as bad as I do. You know, and that hope? Yeah, that has really helped. The other thing that the thing that made the biggest difference of all is recognizing and this is this is in my book, recognizing the different ways different personalities respond to stress, because chronic illness is a very stressful thing. And it’s kind of like when there’s a crisis in your family, okay, somebody goes to hospital or somebody gets in the car wreck, How does everybody react? You watch everybody and it’s so funny. One person immediately does the kitchen starts cooking thing. One person feeds and goes shopping. And you’re like, what, you know, one person jumps in and starts making a spreadsheet on all the things that need to be done so we can fix this problem. One person sits down and cries, one person starts praying. One person goes on with, you know, it’s like going on and the one person who’s doing the one thing things all the other people are being insensitive and I’m loving. The other person who’s shopping is saying, I can’t handle all this and the other person is watching TV. You know, it’s just you think the other person is not doing what needs to be done. For example, money, money and chronic illness are bad combination, money in the biggest conflict that marriages have in the first place. Add to that illness that costs money, and you have a recipe for divorce. I take about $1,000 worth of bills a year. That just makes me cringe just thinking about it. So mutations are Got an option in our family? You know, we make sacrifices just for that. And that’s not counting the doctor bills. And it’s not counting all the weird paraphernalia I have. And you know, yeah, yeah. So when there’s a crisis, and I think I think I might need to go to the emergency room. My thought is, I’m in a crisis, I need to be loved right now. So you need to hold me, and you need to pray with me. And you tell me that you love me and that I worked all this and you know, all these things that I would think of as love. Yeah, my husband starts talking about the money. Like, that’s like the most unloving thing on the planet. That’s what I that’s what I thought, yeah. And then I started reading about different personality types. And I found out that my husband’s personality type is some personality types, they have to leave the problem to cope with it. They’re the ones that go shopping, they’re the ones who eat chocolate, they’re the ones that you know, are going to leave the scene. That’s their way of coping, they can come back later and deal with it. But right now, to deal with it, they’re running away, they need to do that. Other people, like my husband, they need to go through all the details, figure out the information, which usually means recounting all the problems that makes them feel better, which, when you’re the one in crisis is the last thing you need is to have a heap of problems fall on you. And I’m like, now I’m totally depressed along with feeling sick, you know. But learning that was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. This isn’t unloving. This is his way of coping. And so every once in a while, when he needs to do that I have learned to listen, but kind of tune out, listen, as a friend, not listen as his wife.
16:33
As his friend, he needs to do this, and then he’ll feel better. And then we can move on. As his wife, it’s like, Oh, don’t get me, you know, but then I found out me, my personality dies. When there’s a crisis, it’s to work harder, attack the problem, annihilate the problem? I do as soon as there’s a problem, I am on it. Let’s figure out what we can do. Let’s do all of them in the next five minutes, you know, I had totally overwhelmed him. So when he’s in crisis, and I’m like, I can fix it. Let’s, you know, make this big old chart and you know, whoa, whoa, he’s kind of like, Oh, my goodness, I’m so overwhelmed. When I’m in a crisis. He’s like, let’s talk through all the details and the problems. And that’s all we need to do. Like, what what are we gonna, you know, right, we’re done. And I’m like, but just learning that all of a sudden, it just made it. He’s not doing anything wrong. I’m not doing anything wrong. Neither one of us is wrong. We’re just trying to cope the way God made us to. And when I figured out God made us this way, nobody’s fault. Nobody needs to change. It’s okay. Now he’s like, Oh, that’s so wonderful. It just freed up all this mess. So with people with chronic illness, the best thing I can tell him is find out how you deal with stress, find out how he deals with stress, so that when the stress comes, you’re not trying to figure out how to function when you feel unloved or whatever, so that you can say ahead of time. If I’m feeling bad, this is what would be meaningful to me. What if I’m feeling bad? What do you need from me? What kind of reassurance do you need from me? Because a lot of times they feel totally unappreciated. Because it’s like, I need I need I need I’m the sick one. I’m the sick one. And the sick one gets all the attention and all the prayers and all the appreciation and I took it with me for my husband, because it’s hard to be the one who’s not sick. You know, you like when your kids suffering, you’re suffering too. And you take it if you could, but can’t fix it, if you could, but you can’t. And so you’re just they’re suffering and sometimes they need a break. So that’s another thing is that when I’m sick, okay, I don’t get a break. Sorry. But I am one. And that may not seem fair, but it’s right. Not fair, we can still do the right thing.
18:43
That’s awesome. Yeah. Well, Kimberly, I want to ask you. And what do you think the I mean, some of the guiding principles that you have held that have kind of kept you sane, since you found out about your illnesses. One of the things that
19:01
has really helped us to recognize that chronic illness affects you emotionally as well as physically, people with chronic illness or most chronic depression. And that’s, that makes perfect sense. And we have to be careful of what we put into our minds just the same as we have to be careful what we put into our bodies, we chronic illness, you know, you have to make sure you take your medicine on time, you have to make sure you take the right medicine, you have to keep track of your symptoms and what’s going on. But in the same way you would be careful of what you are putting into your thoughts. If you started dwelling on all the negatives. It’s just toxic to your mind. Is this your body. In fact, I read some words, it actually kind of causes a black hole in your mind when you’re dwelling on the negative things. And you know, the Bible talks about us renewing our mind. And one of the things that really helped me I wrote a book called Why doesn’t God fix it? Because I kept thinking, you know, sometimes people will start saying, Oh, if you just had enough faith, your problems would all go way. And if you were just strong enough, that wouldn’t matter. And if you were just this, that and the other, and sometimes even well meaning Christians, you know, I’ll pray that you get better. And next week, it’s like we weren’t better. What’s the matter with you? Yeah. And so I wrote that to ask the really hard questions of okay, why am I not getting better? Does that mean I don’t have enough faith? Does that mean God loves me less than he loves other people who are healthy? And I found some amazing things in the Scriptures I have found whenever there’s a really hard question instead of kind of avoiding it, because you think maybe the answer is not in the Bible, or whatever. It’s like big, the scriptures have the answer, and have so much hope in there for us. And one of the things I love most is Hebrews 11. We call it the hall of faith chapter. And, quote, stuff in there. You know, people were having these great victories, and they’re having to dead come back to life, and they’re getting healed, and all these wonderful things, and faith, all the things we think of that come from faith. But the second half of the chapter is these other people were afflicted and stone and tortured and sewn into. And that was April, well, and you can’t have the first part of chapter without the second half. And so sometimes it shows greater faith, to let God leave you with illness and be content and love him. It doesn’t take much faith to say, Okay, God, you can make me feel and then I’m healed. And I’m all better. And yeah, God gave me what I wanted. Well, of course, I made that way. But it actually is a better testimony, in some ways, a stronger testimony when God doesn’t give you what you want. And you say this, in this, I trust him. So flaky yet? Well, I trust him. This is okay, I will choose to have joy within this that really is the kind of space that will draw people to Christ. Because otherwise, they’re just drawn to the fix it. Oh, God, because your problem, okay, I want that too. Well, that’s not what God is all about. And the scriptures don’t teach that. And so a marriage that really represents love within this difficulty, I think, is a greater testimony for Jesus Christ. And so when we’re serving each other, even through a difficult season, it shows the love of God represents in people, which is what he intends.
22:11
That’s beautiful. It shows the love of God represented in people. And that’s what he intends. Yes, that’s so good. What do you think has been the three major things that has been vital to your marriage succeeding?
22:26
Wow, that’s a great question. I think about that, for like a year, the biggest thing would be God, of course, a three fold board is not quickly broken. And a marriage with just two people is not as strong as America’s intertwined with Jesus Christ. And that another thing would be a commitment to commitment. My husband talks about that a lot. He says, you know, it’s not as romantic and it’s not as fluffy. But that’s what’s gonna keep your marriage strong, because the feelings they come and go, and especially when you’re going through hard times, it’s easy to get discouraged, or whatever. And if you are totally committed to the fact that you’re totally committed to each other, there’s no option for thinking, talking, threatening divorce, it’s not even part of the conversation, that helps keep the glue through, when you’d be tempted to maybe think maybe I married the wrong person, you know, Brian, right. As soon as I said, I do, you are the right person, period. It’s not even something to think about. And that’s been good. And then I think the other thing would be to really cultivate your friendship, because that is going to be your strong, that’s going to be there when the passions not there. And maybe the romance isn’t there. And some of the other things that, you know, we think of is love, like the Hallmark movies, say, you know, when you’re pregnant and you feel huge, or your kids is throwing up all night, you know, there’s times when there’s not much room for romance, your friendship is gonna be solid.
23:55
I like that a lot. And, you know, on this podcast, we talk about sex a lot, because sexual intimacy is a huge piece of marriage that often doesn’t get enough air time on on Christian circles, and it needs to we need to have healthy, holy conversations about sex that helps us navigate the hard times because it’s supposed to be a really wonderful part of marriage. And, you know, in just thinking about chronic illness and the difficulties and a lot of times there’s pain involved, or at least like consistent. Like you said, depression is a is a huge part of it often. You know, can you give us some some tips that you’ve learned along the way or something that you just wish someone kind of let you in on sooner?
24:43
I’m trying. I’m really blessed that I grew up in a home where, you know, my mom always taught us that sex was a wonderful thing. It was a gift from God. It was meant to be enjoyed, and it was worth waiting for. And I was one of those very naive people going into marriage. which was a good thing. And so my mom gave me this book called intended for pleasure. And I would recommend that for anybody who’s getting married, who’s who grew up in a Christian home, so they don’t know very much, or, yeah, we’ve been in marriages that they feel like, sex is a guy thing, you know, guys do it. And we’re just supposed to grin and bear it or whatever, which is, so not what God intends. So it’s good. And it’s got a lot of practical stuff that I would feel totally embarrassed talking about on here. But I think the biggest thing for me not on a chronic illness thing, but just in general is to remember, your marriage is your marriage. And your husband is your husband, and he’s not the guy in the book. I read so many books before I got married, and guys are this way. And women are this way, you know, and I made all these assumptions and plans and I started doing all these things based on what business the way a guy is. And I found out my husband doesn’t fit all those, you know, generalities, or stereotypes or whatever. And I needed to find out who he was. And I need to find out who I am. Because sex is a brand new thing and enjoy it, for goodness sakes, you know, enjoy the learning about each other. That’s part of this fun, enjoy, you know, it’s not about getting it perfect or out, okay, to be really honest, one of the best things, when we got married, before we got married, my husband sat down at some point. And he said, something akin to the fact of it doesn’t have to work right away. Like, basically, your honeymoon night doesn’t have to be this perfect, amazing experience where something happens. That was the most wonderful gift, because I was feeling all kinds of pressure about it. Because you know, here, I’m going into it like nothing, and you want it to be this, whatever. And so we were able to just enjoy each other. And it wasn’t about making something work or figuring it out, it was about loving each other with what it should be. And that made all the difference. It was such a different thing, because I didn’t feel like we had all these expectations. And I didn’t have to have all these expectations. And so we were able just to grow and learn and enjoy each other. And with chronic illness, I say the same kind of thing applies, you get this idea, oh, I read the statistics, or this many times a week or whatever, your marriage, your marriage, your husband is your husband. And there can be marriages that are just as happy on once a month as there are on three times a week or whatever. Mm hmm. The Bible says those who compare themselves among themselves are not wise. Right through, we have so much information now that you can think, oh, there’s something wrong with me. For example, I’ve read that like 25% of marriages, the wife’s sex drive is stronger than the husband. And those four women, even though there’s plenty of them, if you read stuff, and you hear stuff, you think I’m such a weirdo, because, you know, as I go on sex all the time, what’s the matter with me that he doesn’t want me like all these other men on the planet, you know? And so it’s about learning about each other. And when chronic illness comes in, that changes the dynamic and need to talk about it. It’s not something talking about facts is just like, oh, you know? Yeah, totally creepy thing. And again, that might be another situation where shoulder to shoulder would be way better than face to face. You’re laying in bed some nights staring up at the ceiling. And you say, can we talk about this? And oh, that’s another thing. No serious discussions after nine o’clock, that was, Oh, that’s pretty much my house growing up. And it saved a lot of arguments because you’re emotionally exhausted. So it was like, Can we plan a time to talk about this so that he’s ready, you’re ready, you’re not springing it on him? You can just say, you know, can we plan this, maybe even write down your questions. And even if you need to give him the written down questions, and let him write his answers, we have time to think about him. Writing my husband, a note with questions has gotten more accomplished than any conversation I have ever started out of the blue. That’s good. That’s about
28:52
Yeah, I like that a lot. Mm hm. Yeah, I think that’s really wise. Thinking about your marriage is your own marriage. And we do talk about sex a lot. And obviously, if you’ve listened to any of the podcasts, you know that everyone has a different marriage and a different sex life and they’ve learned different things and different books have helped them and different mentorship has been, has been great. And you mentioned that earlier Kimberly of how important it is to be talking to the older women are teaching the younger women to love their husbands and to and to to guide or maybe love their children as well. I can’t remember it’s Titus two, two, I believe. But anyway, it just is so important to be receiving good guidance about sex. So you’re not Yeah, reading statistics and thinking that you’re so weird and that other people don’t struggle in the same ways that you do, and especially with something around chronic illness. I mean, I was on a significant amount of medications. And it was so important for me to have guidance on other things to do in the bedroom rather than just The normal, you know, intercourse kind of stuff because that was vital because I was so exhausted, I was so completely lacking any kind of libido and any kind of get my husband’s still very healthy and, you know, desirous and how was I supposed to respond to that. And so that was very vital to me that was, you know, delight, my husband is kind of all about some other avenues that you can explore that that really give your husband that, that what he may need. And again, kind of like what you just underlined is that don’t think that if that’s not the way your marriage looks, that something’s wrong with you. But yeah, to seek out those those resources so that sex is still something that can can happen. I mean, is there any other advice you’d like to give to those that are going through chronic illness in the area of sexual intimacy?
30:52
Well, probably like you were saying, you know, sometimes you’re just white. And yeah, it’s kind of like when you first have a baby. Yeah, even when you’re pregnant, I remember somebody saying your husband’s not pregnant, you know, you need to remember that. He’s not, yeah, he’s not nauseated, he’s not, you know, all these things. Yeah. And kind of maybe recognizing, every once in a while, it’s just a gift for him. Kind of like if he give you a background, he’s not getting anything out of it, except the the joy of being able to serve you. And every once in a while, you can just serve him that way. And that’s, there’s nothing wrong with that. Your husband may be the kind that’s like, oh, great, thank you very much, your husband maybe to kind of like, I can’t do that, because it’s supposed to be both of us. And if that’s the case, you know, figure something else out your mind, I tell myself, I am more than my feelings. I am not my feelings right now. Feelings are not to be trusted. The Bible says you trust in his own heart is a fool. Women, especially we’re inclined to that. And we’re so vulnerable to our hormones and things. And there are times, I will actually my husband is really helped me with this because he is my stable one. And I’m not, you know, behind him and say, I’m feeling this way. Is this true or not true, like, Hunger Games Real or not real? You know? Because he can tell him, you know, I’ll get worked up, you know, cuz I said something at a party. And I’m worried that they might think this, that or the other and I can, I can spend two hours on that at night and not sleep and be a wreck. And I have learned to just ask him, this is what happened. This is how I’m feeling Should I take this seriously. And nine times out of 10? He says no, Kim, but nobody would even say that about that. Every while they’ll say you know what they may have that may have come across the wrong way you should, you should talk to them about it. And it’s like, there are times when I cannot trust my own thinking. And I will ask the Lord, please give my husband the right insight. So that when I talk to him, he can tell me what the right way to think about this is. And I can trust when I go to him and what he says I need to believe it. Instead, no dwelling on things. And you know, wallowing in it and worrying about it so much, because anxiety is really bad for our health. And not to mention, it’s not really the way God wants us to live anyway, in the delivery of under life with chronic illness. It’s hard, but it is, and God wants it. And he talks about if you abide in my word If you abide in me. And somebody once said, you know, have you ever seen a treatment sweat, we try so hard to produce fruit. And a tree branch does not produce fruit. Fruit is the fact that they’re stuck to the tree. And they’re getting their resources from the tree. And that’s where the fruit comes from. Sometimes we start flapping plastic fruit on there, because we feel like I can’t do this. And I need to look like I’m spiritual. And that’s not the way it is. There are times when I stay home from church because I know it will feed me more to spend time with God alone, than to go to church and be exhausted talking to people and you know, making it through sitting in the pew with the pain and etc, etc. And I mean, I look spiritual, but it’s not about look, it’s not supposed to be about looks. Now Jesus is looking at our hearts. And another big thing for me is recognizing the fact that sometimes I just can’t handle things. You know, when you’ve got small children and the mom Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, you know, struggling you just want to lose it. And there are times when it’s like, okay, I’m supposed to be this perfect spiritual, wonderful person, you always have the right attitude and always is just totally ready to give to everybody. Sometimes your neck, you don’t feel well, you are not as equipped, as you’d like to be. And the wonderful verse that I’ve taken as my own and I don’t remember the reference, but it says if a person has a willing mind basically God expects them to serve according to what they have not according to us. And I always thought of that in terms of finances. You don’t have a million dollars. I can’t give a million dollars but I can give $2 During the $10 it’s the same thing with our health. If I didn’t give me this myself, he’s not expecting me to act according to that myself. So I had to quit the choir. Yes, we had to leave the mission field. Yes. All these other things. I can’t do anymore. That’s not my fault. You
34:59
feel guilty. about it. And so God has given me a way to serve within what I have. So what do I have? If it’s those two little widow’s mite, he said that was more than everything everybody else gave anyway, the scale is different with God. So there are some times when I will tell my husband, I need a break. I need two hours, fine. You need me? I need something. Can you help me? Instead of why doesn’t anybody give me a break? You know, it’s not the whiny ask specifically, I need this. You know, why did he think of this? Well, he can’t read your mind. Yeah. And when I say that, it’s one of the things it’s been a huge help to us is David told me this. If I come to him and say, It’s not you, but I’m feeling really frustrated right now. You know, I’ve got PMS, I am mad at everybody, but you didn’t do anything, you know. And then by start early, and he starts feeling attacked, he’s gonna get defensive, because he’s not going to want to be helpful. He’s gonna want to go away with the kids, and you know, all the things that are that I need a break from, where I can go to them and say, It’s not you. But I’m really struggling right now. The medicines freaking me out. And I feel like I’m going and saying, Can I please, ours? Can you help me with this, they want to help. They just don’t know how, and we can help them help us. And then everybody’s good. Because I told people, I will be a better mom in my room with the door shut today. And I was out there, you know, doing what I think is the right thing to
36:26
do. Oh, that’s so good. That is so good. So I’m going to look, there’s a couple of verses that we talked about already. And I want to have those for people because these will be really good verses to go back to and memorize and think through. So I’ll have those on the on the show layouts, I’ll see if I can find the one that you reference, because I really love that because I feel like that’s something I’ve been struggling with too. Because my heart You know, I went on different international trips years ago, and they just really meant a lot to me. I wanted to be a missionary for a lot of my life. And I’ve just had such a heart for the poor and the broken. I was reading Mother Teresa’s just got a book called gift gift for God. I was reading that yesterday. And I feel like a lot of times, it’s um, it’s so easy to Yeah, to just be like, This is what these other people are doing for God. And, you know, does what I’m doing matter and, and how can I when I have these limitations, whether whether it is chronic illness, or whether it is any anything, whether it’s the state of your marriage is just in complete disarray. And you’re like, how am I supposed to serve God when I you know, have all these troubles going on?
37:35
Yeah, hold and things just don’t happen. But you know, I, yeah, I found it. It’s Second Corinthians 812. There the gift is acceptable, according to what one has not according to what one does not have. I love that. But yeah, like you’re saying it’s, there may be a time, okay. Corrie 10, boom, two years in a Nazi concentration camp. She wants said, some days the victory is Justin Dory. And she’s one of most spiritual people I’ve ever met. She’s one of my heroes. And I think you know, there are some days when I think if I can exceed you, if you just got through today, that success, errands all the other days don’t decide, you know, did I do something amazing? Did I fulfill all my whatever it is, like I got through today. Okay, well, you can have this one. Let’s Can you help me tomorrow. And I think another thing is a real attitude of humility. There’s times when we totally screw up. Apologize to your kids, if you need to apologize to your husband, if you need to make it right. And then move forward. Don’t live in it, Don’t wallow in it. You don’t really awful but since you’re open talking about sex, we’ll be we’ll talk about pattern to this room, you flush it. And I I’m a very visual person. And so if I can find something that works for me, you know, when I would do something wrong, I was just leaving it. You know, I’m the failure on such or whatever. This is so bad, and other people are so much better. And you know, you can just start rolling around and around and around in it. And it was kind of like God, would you flush it and move on? It’s like when you go to fashion you don’t care? Like why did that happen? Oh, it’s so good. Leave the bathroom, you know, wash your hands, but move on. Don’t Yeah, it’s the same way with our marriage. You know, it’s like you were saying forgiving your husband too. Forgiving is a way and let’s just not make our lives about what we can’t do or what we did wrong or about all the you know, all the junk. Basically, renewing your mind is forgetting those things that are behind and moving forward and pressing forward somewhere. God can use us in amazing ways. I mean, Johnny, your cantata is another hero. She’s been in a wheelchair for over 40 years. Yes, I love her just her attitude. Now she’s dealing with chronic pain on top of everything else you guys haven’t she had enough? But when he gets to heaven, none of this mess is gonna matter. But think of all the people who bring with her. That’s right, because of all these people who are in pain, and they don’t understand why God won’t fix it. Someday, you can get through the day having loved God, you loves your husband, he loves your kids. You feel like you didn’t do squat. Your house is a wreck, you know, that the baby ran around with a dirty diaper and finger painted all over the wall, whatever. And I’m basically resistant into it. Yeah, he’s okay. God can have that, you know, and God can even use
40:35
it. Mm hmm. Love that. Yep. Yep. Yep. I’m gonna include a video on the show notes by Johnny i, she’s just I think about her. So so often she, yeah, she’s a paraplegic. Or quadriplegic actually. And she. She says, Sometimes I wake up, and she has to wait for people to come and to wash her and clean her and get her ready for the day. And she wakes up and she’s just like, Lord, please take away my rotten attitude. That’s the first and only thing she can say. Because she’s like you said in pain, she can’t move. She has to wait. And I mean, just a huge testimony to us to come before Jesus with that same attitude that conscious change me to be. And that’s what she says, when people ask you can I pray for you for healing? She’s like, yes, pray that I would be healed my rotten disposition. My horrible attitude,
41:29
amen. And I think of her you know, when I want to get discouraged and say it’s not fair, and I’ve got so many troubles, and I think you know what, I can brush my own teeth. And the reason that one really gets me every time I can brush my own teeth on I’m so blessed. I have so much. This is no bad. I can live today with this.
41:50
Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. Well, you know, we’ve talked about it quite a bit already. But due to the specific marriage you’ve had, what opportunities have you had to serve and get to know God?
42:03
There is a verse in Psalms that I absolutely love. It talks about mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. And as a romantic at heart, that verse has always struck me but when I got married, it got really deep meaning, mercy and truth. It’s like truth is your, here’s the truth. Here’s how you need to live kind of the rebuke aspect of mercy is the here’s the compassion, I understand you, God forgive righteousness and peace the same way. righteousnesses. Here’s the rules, pieces. Here’s, you know, here’s the hope. And my husband and I are like those two sides. I am the compassionate, the understanding the sympathetic, he is the more prophetic, you know, this is the way it should be. This is what is justice, this is what is right. Each of us represent an aspect of God. Each of us represents not God fully, that was an interesting grammatical thing. But hey, we’re on radio, so I can’t edit it. Anyway, my point was, none of us can represent God fully, because God is fully two sides of like everything. And when we come together in a marriage, we can represent God better together than we can on our own. There are times when I would have compassion, when I should be reviewing, there are times when he would want to focus on the rules when he should be emphasizing. When we serve God together, we represent him better. And it’s, it’s been great for ministry, I’ve been so grateful for his input into my writing and into my speaking. I’ll read him things sometimes and say, you know, am I too far on one side? Or too far on the other, you know, and he will come to me, there’s this relationship situation, and I don’t recognize what’s going on. Can you help me understand? And particularly overseas, we were in countries where they were very segregated, according to gender. Muslim countries, for example, you know, a guy is not allowed to talk to a woman have a relationship with her, give her the gospel, whatever. So I was able to reach people that he couldn’t reach, he was able to reach people that I couldn’t reach. And I find even in our ministry now, you know, we focus in those directions, women are better at reaching women and men are better reaching men, because we’re gonna feed each other better. Yeah, together, we can reach couples, or we can reach families. And I just think that’s beautiful. I think the wonderful thing.
44:21
Yeah, that’s awesome. I love that. Each of us represents an aspect of God, though none of us represent all the aspects of God, which is really great. So I love that you shared a couple of the books that you’ve written, I wrote down a couple One is you’re sick, they’re not. And the other one, why doesn’t God fix it? Both of those I would really like to read so thank you for that. But is there another book or program that you would specifically recommend maybe centering around chronic illness and intimacy or, or marriage or that kind of thing?
44:53
For marriage, love and respect hands down? I read so many books on marriage, and that was the only one that I would say Both of us had big lightbulb moments. And I think one of the reasons it was because you know, I find this book and you like me read this together, can we do this together, and you know, he’s tired. And he’s thinking, as we start reading this kind of started discussion, and we’ll never get the bed, you know, often it would cause more problems. So I thought, I’m like, I’m done with reading, you know, just having problems, that you were going to actually teach a marriage course in our church, I got the audio book. And we were on a big long trip. And we listened to the book on audio. And that made all the difference. Because again, we’re shoulder to shoulder, we could stop it and talk. And it was the first one that he felt like, was it tilted over toward women, because most marriage books are read by women. And I mean, I’ve well admitted. And so they’re focused on the love, love, love, love, love. Whereas this one is saying, a guy’s definition of love is respect. And to disrespect me and you can love him all day long. But if you disrespect him, he will not feel loved. And it just opened all this stuff up that I did not understand. You know, I was talking about different cultures, it just was not clear. And I was saying pack the potatoes as the potatoes, Basil potatoes and saying, You’re being so rude. You’re being so rude, you know. And that one was you that one was great. So I would highly recommend getting the audio and next time going on a trip saying, Hey, can we listen to this together? If it even gives me the option of if after a half an hour, you don’t like it? We’ll turn it off. You know, so he doesn’t know I’ve got this five hour thing we’re gonna have to go through, but it’s fine. Wow, somebody finally understands me, somebody, Brian said. He’s finally saying the things I’ve been trying to say for all these years and didn’t know how to say them. And it was like, Oh, my goodness. So that one yes. Huge, awesome. Wonderful.
46:37
Yeah, love and respect is such a huge one. So lastly, if you could go back to your first year of marriage, and sit yourself down, what is one piece of advice that you would give to you? Mm
46:51
hmm. So much of it is the learning and growing aspects, you know, we say if I knew then what I know now, but you can’t, you know, when you need to, you don’t know. And that’s part of the growing process. But I would say if I could tell myself something it would be take his words at face value. Guys, don’t talk around in circles. They are indirect, they don’t hint unless your guy’s more emotionally based. But I needed to learn to believe what he actually said instead of interpreting it as you know, translating it according to my brain. And deciding he really meant this, you know, when he said this, you know, if he said it, this is what he says this is what he meant. Sorry, that would have helped a lot of things. Like, in our first year of marriage, we had quite a few talks, because he thought he liked me better without makeup. And good old southern girl, don’t go to the grocery store without your makeup kind of girl. And I was like that cannot be possible because I knew what I was like without makeup. And I’m all lucky. And I’m just at the other end, whatever. And you know, I’m so pretty. And he was like, I like you better though makeup. And it took a long time for me to actually believe him. And now I hardly ever want to make. And it’s been wonderful to be accepted that way. way that I didn’t even accept myself. I mean, isn’t that beautiful about marriage that they can represent the love of Christ for us? in ways we never expected. They see is that our worst? And they’re the ones who love us more than anyone in the world. What a beautiful gift. That’s really cool. But it took me a while to believe that and learning to believe him has helped me believe God’s word a little better to because I’m seeing it and hearing it in him and learning to believe that you know, or if I say you meant this, and you know it was hurtful. And if he said I did not mean to be hurtful, I need to believe him. I need to just get over myself and believe it. So that’s what I told myself. And I believe myself, so it wouldn’t work.
48:45
Yeah, exactly. That’s right. Very cool. Okay, well, would you go ahead and share how our audience can find and connect with you online? Yeah,
48:54
I have a website, www dot Kimberley re, that’s r ey.com. And I write books. So I’ve got my books on there. And there’s a connect button if you want to drop me a note. And I do have a lot of people with chronic illness, you know, kind of get in touch with me. And just their questions are just as they need somebody in the world to understand them. Yeah, so I would love to hear from you. And I think that’s about it. There is some info on there. And there’s plenty of like on my blog, if you get on the blog and do a search for like chronic illness, a lot of things will show up. And maybe that was you know, maybe find something that’s helpful on there. And I also my big thing is fighting human trafficking. So there’s plenty of stuff on there if you’re interested in that.
49:38
Yes, that is so cool. Yeah, well, I would definitely encourage anyone to go to her website because there’s a lot of really great resources and I really would love to spend some time another time really talking about your mission and the work that you do around human trafficking because I think a lot of us have passions on our hearts and things that really bother us and and really affect us when we hear about them and see about them. But then a lot of us don’t know what to do or, you know, with limitations how to do that. So I’d love you know, if you’re interested, I’d love to have you on again to really talk that through,
50:16
that’d be great. And you know what I’m with the whole chronic illness thing, a lot of time since it was a chronic illness don’t have big budgets. So if you want to drop me a note on the contact button, if you’re listening, and you can let me know, if you’d like either the Why doesn’t God fix it? Or the you’re sick? They’re not. And I’ll send you that in a PDF over the email for free. So drop me a little note and tell me which one you’d like and get that your way. And hopefully, it’ll be a blessing.
50:40
Oh, that is so kind. Very cool. Okay, well, I’ll have that also linked up on the show notes. So either way that you can get to her link and the Contact page, please do that is so cool. Thank you. Thank you for everything. Kimberly, this has been wonderful, all of your insight and wisdom. I appreciate it.
50:57
It’s been great to talk to you. Thanks for having me on here.
51:04
Well, I hope that you were encouraged and inspired the way that I was by Kimberly story and her life and her day to day. And I really encourage you if you’ve not checked out show notes for delight your marriage, this might be a great opportunity to check it out. Because there was a lot that Kimberly referenced in here, there are so many resources, so many verses that would be really helpful to memorize, especially if you’re dealing with chronic illness, and you need some hope, because she just went through a lot of them and they’re all linked up. So go to delight your marriage.com/ 94 just the number 94. And you can find all of that as well as a lot of the people she talked about Corrie 10, boom, Johnny Erickson Tata. There’s a video linked up for her. And there’s just so many amazing giants of the faith that have dealt with chronic challenges. And, you know, God uses them, and he works through them. And I hope that you have got some practical insights about marriage, about chronic illness, about your dedication to Jesus in the midst of the hard, hard, hard times that maybe no one in the world can understand. But the good news is, God does. He sees you he knows. And yeah, that’s my prayer that you would be encouraged. And I pray that You would also consider sharing this episode with someone that might need it, whether they’re going through a hard time, and they need to know that there’s hope, because I think Kimberly shares a lot of hope in this episode. Well, God bless you. I’m praying for you. And I will talk to you next Tuesday. Thanks so much for tuning in. Oh, by the way, I’ve got a really cool announcement that I’ll be making next time, so hopefully you will have the time to tune back in. Alright, God bless you. Bye.
53:00
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 impassion
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DYM Ep84: Journey To Sexual Freedom with Melanie Lloyd
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
From a wife who saw sex as a chore to a woman who feels free and enjoys frequent intimacy in her marriage. How did she get there? Well, it didn’t happen overnight, but Melanie was able to come to place where her past didn’t define her marriage anymore. And she was shocked to find God wanted her to find freedom in a place she had never known. Listen in to discover how God transformed her heart and made her sexually free.
Melanie Lloyd blogs at awaken-love.net
Scripture/Quote:
- “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten– the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm — my great army that I sent among you.” Joel 2:25
You’ll Discover:
- How Melanie came into her marriage with sexual baggage, as we all do, and how that grew into resentment towards her husband
- How she wanted a deeply in love marriage but she felt guilty of her past and how she saw her intimacy
- The journey God led her through to healing
- How a Bible study revealed the lie she had believed that was keeping her from enjoying freedom in sex
- How growing in our relationship with Christ grows us in our marriage too
Books/Resources Mentioned:
Tweetables:
- We weren’t feeling known to each other in deep ways and we weren’t connecting to each other in deep ways.
- I really wanted more. I wanted everything in his life to be influenced by our love.
- I struggled with the lies that I couldn’t have freedom because of my baggage.
- We’ve had a 180 degree shift in our marriage bed and in our relationship.
- Any time I go deeper with God it always positively impacts your marriage
- Sex is this marital glue that covers our marriage
- Am I requiring my husband to earn my favor or am I unconditionally loving him?
Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!
Love,
Belah
—
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Transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah. Rose.
0:19
Hi there, and welcome. Thank you so much for joining me on the delight your marriage podcast. If this is your first time listening, I want to say, welcome. This is a safe place to talk about sex and intimacy, and the hard stuff and the good stuff in marriage. So, welcome. Today is a wonderful topic, about your sexual journey. We all have one, we all have baggage that we bring into marriage, regardless of what extreme yours might be, whether it’s really conservative or really not. I mean, we all come from a broken world. And so we’ve got baggage that we bring into the marriage. And today I want to share Melanie Lloyd’s story with you. And before I do, I just wanted to give a shout out to someone that is on my Facebook group. If you haven’t heard about the delight your marriage Facebook group, you’re welcome to join. It’s just for wives to talk about intimacy and marriage, and how to make their marriages better. And of course, intimacy Affects Emotions, and mental and it affects everything. So. So that’s what we talked about. But anyway, someone I’m going to keep her name anonymous, but she said, I’ve been married with my husband for 13 years, we were married at 20 and 21. So we’ve grown a lot together over the years, we have three children, and we’re also new foster parents. So life is a little crazy right now. We’ve had our ups and downs in our marriage, but it’s mostly been good. However, since I started listening to the dy M podcast in November, my marriage has been transformed into an amazing marriage, the kind I always dreamed of. In December, I was so amazed by the change in my marriage, I felt God calling me to open up to friends from church. And it was definitely from God, because I tend to be very private person. So we now have open talks about your podcasts, your changing marriages for the kingdom. Thank you, belah for putting it all out there. Well, praise God, I’m so grateful. And this brave woman who gave me the go ahead to share it on the podcast. So that’s why I’m sharing it. But I am just so grateful for you taking the courage to not only implement the things that you listen to, because that takes courage, but also to share it with other wives that may need some help. And we all do we all need inspiration for our marriages. This is not an easy gig. Look at the statistics. You know, we all know that it’s, it’s something we need God’s help on. And we need wisdom and instruction. And that’s and that’s why we do this. So thank you again, for sharing that. Okay, well, let’s dive into Melanie’s story. And again, she gives the very most important first steps and kind of a guide into how to become fully really sexually free in your marriage. It’s a journey, but it’s so worth it. Alright, let’s go ahead and dive in. Alright, welcome back to light your marriage listener. I am thrilled that you’re here. Thank you for joining me. And today I’ve got a special guest, Melanie Lloyd from awaken hyphen, love dotnet. That’s her website. And she’s got some wonderful material there talks a lot about sexual intimacy and marriage. And she’s got wonderful insights she’s going to share with us today. But welcome, Melanie, how are you today?
3:37
Thanks for having me. I’m doing great today. I’m really excited to talk with you.
3:41
Yay, me too. I am really excited to hear what’s gonna unfold today. So would you go ahead and introduce yourself share a little bit about your family and what your day to day life is about?
3:54
Sure. Um, so I have been married to my husband Brian for 13 years. And you know, we make a great team. He’s very confident and decisive he, you know, can cut to the core of an issue and make a decision and move on. And he’s kind of the big picture guy and I am the small details, project oriented. One in our relationship, I’m definitely more quiet to the deliberate decision maker where I want to know all my options, do all my research before I push, go on something. And so I think we balance each other out pretty well in, you know, helping each other with our weaknesses and also affirm each other’s strengths. So we my husband, I actually we met at work about 15 years ago, we started working at the same place and I like to tell this funny story that you know, we worked at the same place for three years without ever talking to each other, even though our offices were like two doors away from each other for a while, because I thought he was married because we had a picture on his desk of what I thought was his wedding, um, and it took a long time for me to find out that no, that was actually his brother’s wedding and he’s an identical triplet.
5:11
Oh my gosh, right. So
5:13
are yours. I that hey, this guy, man, I don’t think too highly of him cuz he’s married and doesn’t even wear a wedding ring. Oh, yeah. Turns out he was totally available the whole time. Darn it. No,
5:31
I was totally his fault, though. He could have easily, you know, had a even a sign on there. I’m a triplet. Like, you just can’t lead people to think you’re married when you’re not.
5:42
Right. You just you don’t go there. And you’re like, oh, wait, maybe he has a brother looks exactly like to. But
5:52
this poor mom, that’s unbelievable.
5:54
Oh, and then they have an older brother. So yes, his his his role is She’s a delight. Now, I’m not sure what the early years were like.
6:04
We were talking about parenting before and how it shapes you and changes you into a into a better person. And I think having triplet boys can only changed you into being better somehow through the, through the fires.
6:17
Yes, definitely patient more patients of my husband and I, we have two boys, we have a 10 year old and a seven year old. And you know, they are as opposite as night and day as well. Our oldest is very rational. And he’s very slow to warm up. He enjoys quiet, he wants to know all the rules before he enters the game. And he kind of just has this amazing memory where he category izes all of life. And then my younger son, and he just embraces life, he’s full of joy. He loves everyone. And, you know, he’s like, why do we need rules, let’s just go and have fun. And so I learned a lot from him because he just displays empathy and, and a freedom in his life to you know, to dance and be creative and just embrace what comes to him. And so it’s really fun to see them interacting and challenging each other, to grow in different ways too. So I love I love my boys, they’re such a blessing to me. But like my kids go to a university model school. And so that means that they go to school a couple of days a week, and then they do their work at home the other days a week. And so that certainly impacts what my day to day life looks like. Yeah, so they, they are insanely early risers. And we’ve tried anything to change that, but we can’t. So now we embrace it. So we are family time in the morning, before my husband goes to work, we’ll have a family breakfast and all hang out together. And then on the days that they’re at home, you know, I’m doing schoolwork with them and having fun with them. And then on the days that they go to school, I’m enjoying a more extended quiet time with the Lord and I’m working, you know, on the awaken love ministry, I love to take time to find some refreshment with a girlfriend, whether I’m going for a walk so we can talk or you know, meeting someone for lunch and then just kind of rushing around trying to check off those necessary to do’s that, you know, wife and a mom need to get done when she has time to do those. So that’s kind of what our life looks like. Both of our boys are into fencing. And so the sports not building and I’m shuffling them around me they don’t build fences as a hobby. Not yet. No, but I’m sure soon that’ll be a side job. That’s right. That’s taken into practices and tournaments. And
8:53
yes. Yeah, that’s very cool. My brother did fencing for a while. So I’m a little familiar. And that’s, that’s not easy sport. That’s, um, and it’s also not common. So you can’t just like pick up with any of your buddies and do it. It’s you got to really kind of have practice buddies that you do it with. That’s cool.
9:08
Yeah, yeah, they’re pretty passionate about it.
9:12
You will. So you shared a little bit about you and your husband personalities. So I want to ask you about and of course, you know, this whole podcast is about encouraging and inspiring wives to live in wholehearted intimacy in their marriages. So it’s, it’s kind of that’s the purview of what we do here. And so we kind of put ourselves in the shoes of our guests to try to understand marriage in a different way and understand it by someone who’s done it successfully and figured out tools and keys that we can implement. So I would love for you to share, just to start off that inspirational train, kind of share a scripture or a quote that’s meant a lot to you.
9:50
You know, there’s um, in Joel God talks about the locusts and Joel 225 has been meaningful to me for a number of years. yours, it says that, then I will make up for the years that the swarming locusts has eaten the creeping locusts, the stripping locusts and the non locusts. And that was meaningful to me when I first pursued a relationship with Christ when I was 20. Because I felt like God could redeem my past that all of those years of me not regarding him would not go to waste. But even more recently, that’s gained a new meaning to me, as I, I recently went through a Bible study called Path to sexual healing to kind of work through more of my, my baggage. And that was the first time that I noticed that, you know, in general, when, when he’s talking about these locusts, he’s talking about different one. So you know, he’s talking about the great locusts and what was left than the young locust ate, and then what was left by the young locusts, then, you know, other locusts ate. And I think, it struck me that there was different types of damage from different types of locusts, which made me think about how easy it is for us to just be torn down, you know, and to go into some downward spiral as a result of circumstances or lies, we believe, but how God can redeem all of that, that his redemption is so detailed, that he can redeem all of the different types of, you know, experiences or damage that we have in our past?
11:24
Yeah, that’s a wonderful insight. His redemption is so detailed. That’s beautiful, because it, you know, just just like this verse talks about that you, he’s gonna make up for those years for those different tragedies that you suffered. Yeah, that’s wonderful. I love them. I’m excited to hear more about your story and how this fits into that. So would you share about a difficult season or struggle in your marriage that you know, that affected you all and and how you came through it?
11:56
Yeah, I really wanted to share today about how God transformed me from being a wife, who was disconnected from sex and saw it as a more of a to do a task and obligation to my wife, who is free and finds refreshment in, in sexual intimacy with my husband, and it kind of walk you through what that journey was like? Yeah, that’s awesome. Great. Well, you know, I really been blessed by a great marriage. And despite entering it with a lot of baggage from my youth was, you know, baggage that was consensual, but also some baggage that was non consensual, that kind of tweaked my perspective of, you know, what healthy relationships look like, or what God’s intentions for sex really were. And so, you know, we came into marriage as a team. And really, we could tackle anything together, you know, side by side, we were really strong. We were great friends, but for years, I felt like intimacy was an area of weakness for us. Physically, because of frequency, you know, we weren’t coming together frequently enough for it not to feel like we were starting all over again. Every time there was that Yeah, I hear that awkwardness, you know, that, huh? Oh, can I Is it okay to share myself like this with him. But I think with that comes the emotional and the spiritual weakness where, you know, we weren’t really feeling known by each other in deep ways. And we weren’t connecting with each other in deep ways. And, and I knew a lot of that was due to my baggage that I was in most emotionally disconnected. I had no expectations that sex was a good thing, or anything that had, you know, something that could positively contribute to my life. But looking back now, I can see that, you know, lacking that emotional and spiritual intimacy with Him, made it really easy for me to become resentful toward him, and to assume self question wrong motives about him. And you know, it’s only now that I can see that I was attributing traits and character qualities to him that we’re not him at all, and how fair that was for many years in our marriage, for me to kind of operate through that lens, rather than seeing him as the man that God created him to be.
14:25
And I want to ask you just so two things, I want to point out one thing you said basically, when there wasn’t frequency, it feels like you’re starting over each time you do make love and I think that’s so true when we kind of get in this rut of it not happening very often than it is that it’s just really difficult to bridge that gap again of like, okay, let’s, let’s get into this again, let’s, you know, strip our clothes and ourselves and who we are and joined together but when you’re in kind of a, a run of frequent sex you it’s so much easier you’re just like in it. It’s it’s you know, you’re right Ready to go? It’s so much easier. So I love that insight. And the other thing I wanted you to expound about is, you know, you were attributing certain characteristics to your husband that weren’t necessarily true. But that’s how it felt in the moment. Could you just share a little bit more? Because I think a lot of women can relate to that?
15:16
Yeah, I think I definitely was quick to assume that he wasn’t prioritizing me. Even in the little things, right? If like, hey, on the way home, could you stop and get some milk, and if he forgot to get the milk, while instead of seeing that really as, like, Hey, he’s, he’s a busy guy. And he sincerely forgot in he, you know, he’s upset with himself that he forgot, because he wants to take care of our family. It was, well, you know, I’m sure you didn’t think about it, because you’re not thinking about me during the day, don’t care, you’re not here to help me. And not that our conversations were necessarily that direct. But it was, those were the tapes that I was playing in my head of, well, I guess I can’t trust him, because I can’t trust him with even these small things. You know, I guess I can’t open up and share who I really am with him. Because I can’t even trust them to do a chore that I asked him to do. Or so I think that as women, it’s so easy for us to, to start scaling things up in our minds, and just going through instead of capturing our thoughts, and really, you know, determining what is true and what is not. And, um, I mean, I don’t think at the time at all, I realized that I had this underlying distrust or resentment toward him. And I think it took many years to where, you know, our, our connectedness and our intimacy grew to where I saw that be released and go away, and then I recognize its absence and the impact.
16:57
So when you talk about this, being absent, is that because your intimacy grew stronger?
17:05
Absolutely. You know, I, I was definitely at a place where I wanted more connection with him. Because I had no question that he loved me, I no question that he’d be faithful to me that he would take care of me. And I knew he was a man of integrity and a gentleman, he’s very steady. And I don’t take that for granted. But I really want to know more. You know, I wanted like in Song of Solomon and chapter eight, verse six, it says, place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm, like I wanted everything in his life, to be influenced by our relationship and everything in my life to be influenced by our love. Like I wanted everyone to know that I was his, I wanted our love to be that mighty flame. And, and I felt like instead that we had this very reliable and civilized love, here, but I wanted to know that he couldn’t get enough of me, and that we could be just crazy with abandon in our time together. And so I really felt torn, because I knew that I desired these things. But at the same time, I felt like that deeper connection, and that, that really having intimacy in marriage, the way that God intended it to be that that wasn’t allowed for us because I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t. I didn’t deserve God’s full blessing because of my past. And I felt guilty that my husband suffered the consequences of my sin like sin that I committed, even before he came into my life. And I was very hesitant to even ask him if he knew that, like, I didn’t want to talk to him and ask if he knew that there could be more because I knew the blame would be placed on me, at least in my mind. That, you know, I don’t think he actually would have blamed me at all. That’s not who he is. Because he’s accepted me wholeheartedly. But I struggled with those lies of, you know, I can’t, I can’t have freedom, because of my past. And so God took me with my baggage, and helped me work through to get into a different place, where I mean, we’ve had a total 180 shift in our relationship, you know, in our marriage and but also just in our marriage, where now I’m able to see that sex and intimacy and that deep connection goes way beyond physical aspects, that goes toward my thought life and my ambitions and my spiritual life. And you know, that God really did design sex for husbands and wives to enjoy. It’s not just something for me to do for him.
19:50
Mm hmm. So yeah, I love that you said it goes way beyond your, you know, your physical self. It goes into your spirit and your heart and your emotion. and your thought.
20:01
So I feel like when it for God to move me to this place of new understanding, it was a fairly long journey, it didn’t happen overnight. And I know God’s healing can come in an instant, or it can come over a span of years. And he’s been working on me for a really long time. But have now in hindsight, on the other side, when I look back, I see that he really started working on me, by working on my relationship with him that he drew me in closer to him, before he ever started talking to me about my relationship with my husband. And, and the thing that I noticed first was that he sort of creating a meat a heart of appreciation. In Texas, the legislative session meets every other year. So for six months, it’s really intense. And then you have 18 months of a lighter load and my husband’s involved in the legislative session for his job. And so that was always a cycle for us in our marriage, where, you know, just for six months, we know that we’re going to grow distance, and then we’ll just repair it at the end of that six months. And after several years, we decided like, there has to be a better way than that, right? Like, you don’t just intentionally say it’s fine for us to grow apart from each other. And we’ll just fix it later. And so during one legislative session, and God put it on my heart to choose appreciation, and to keep a list of all the things that I was thankful for. And I mean, it was it became a very long list over the course of that six months from, you know, the elderly man who saw me at the grocery store with a toddler and a baby strapped to my chest, who says, I’ll take your cart for you, oh, thank you, or, you know, at a time when I really couldn’t get out of the house very easily, because I had two littles and my husband was really busy at work. Now I had a friend who cleaned out her closet and brought me a bag of hand me down clothes. And as I just got a whole bunch of new clothes, and I didn’t even have to go to the store. So I think that that led me to deeper intimacy with God, because I saw how he was caring for me in very detailed and specific ways. Yeah, and so that deeper intimacy, and gave me the security to go deeper with my husband. And, and I’ve seen God do that multiple times over the course of my relationship with my husband, even when we were dating, you know, we had gone on just a few dates. And in my quiet time, I specifically heard God saying to me, you can trust him. And that was so important to me. And I think I went back to that many times as we were dating of No, no, I need to keep investing, I need to keep revealing more of who I am. And you know, and taking those scary steps in, in becoming closer to someone because God told me that I can trust him. And so, you know, anytime I go deeper with God, it always positively impacts my marriage. Hmm, yeah. Okay, the next step that I now can see God, working in big ways in my life is I went through a Bible study on forgiveness. And I had no intentions of this addressing, you know, my sexual past at all. But it it did in a very big way, where I was able through the course of that study, and what I learned to acknowledge the lie that was really holding me back from experiencing everything God intended with my husband. And I had felt that I was marked by my past and, and I found that his truth is that I’ve been washed clean. And if he had washed me clean when I had repented for my sins in the past, and it was really me that was holding me back because I needed to let go of that, that I needed to embrace his forgiveness and walk in the freedom that Christ had offered me, as I was experiencing the completeness of God’s forgiveness. That strengthened me to move on to the next step in the journey.
24:13
Yeah, that’s awesome. So if I’m understanding the story, so far, it’s started out as really a chore to have sex and it wasn’t a connecting thing for both of you. You didn’t necessarily feel fully connected, you didn’t feel fully embraced and cherished as a wife, and you desired this fiery intimacy, this passion, this love and so there was times where you would get super separate distance because of his job and these requirements and some things that really were vital to this transformation was growing in your relationship with the Lord him drawing you closer to him, allowing you to see that he’s taking care of you through everything that you’re going through in your life. And yeah, how did things shift from there?
24:54
You know, once I got to a place where I realized that I was forgiven and set free That really gave me a desire to explore God’s design for sex. Because I had to replace all the lies. In my head, I used to replace all of those old tapes, with his truth and with a newness of what it is that I’m really supposed to be walking in. And so, um, where do you go to find good information about cars designed for sex? There’s not a lot of places and it’s scary to Google that.
25:27
Oh, my gosh, yes. But
25:30
But I ended up you know, finding no J. Parker’s blog. Yeah, holy and humorous. And Julie Siebert of intimacy and marriage and the fire lease of a marriage bed. And I just read and I read, and I read, and I would, I would follow the links to the other articles. And one of the articles that I read actually linked me to Ruth fuses, who had, you know, who’s who created the awakened love ministry, who I’m now partner with. And so most of my reading, like the biggest, the start of the reading, I guess, the biggest indulgence in the reading was when my my two boys and my dad and I went on a road trip. And I had a lot of time to read, you know, I read on the phone in my car, while my dad was driving, I read at night after my kids went to sleep. And I really grew and in my understanding of what God wanted for my marriage, you know, from from seeing broader information about what, what are God’s boundaries, what is God’s design, and then praying about, you know, what does that look like, in my specific marriage. And as my understanding grew, my confidence grew. And as my confidence grew, my desire grew. And I feel like that’s really when I did have an awakening. And everything changed. And when I came home, there was a new wife, you know, there, my husband met a new Melanie and, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that while we were on that trip, my husband was at home, remodeling our bedroom, or, you know, he was redecorating it, he painted it, he built us a headboard. And so I came home to this new bedroom, and, and he came or when I came home, he received this new wife, and it just, it just all fits together, right? Because our room is our oasis. It’s our in Getty to get away and be refreshed with our spouse. So yeah, I think it’s easy to think that, you know, I came home and told my husband like, hey, like, we should have sex a lot more. You know, let’s, let’s get on that. But right, it wasn’t necessarily that smooth of a transition, you know, my husband was really confused. And I think it took time for him to trust that this wasn’t a fleeting, you know, a fleeting thought that was I really, what I really available, and did I really want to grow with him. And it was a time that required a lot of communication, and grace and patience with each other. Because it I wonder like, why isn’t he ravaging me like, it’s I said, 24/7 Anytime, you know, but even it started some really great conversations, because you have to have tough conversations sometimes to get through to the other side, and just understood having a better understanding of what did each of us desire. And what did we think this was supposed to look like? And how are we going to invite God into this aspect of our marriage, but through working together, sex really became holy and emotional and enjoyable and refreshing. And, and I found that it became something that I craved, that when I, you know, I noticed the distance when there was an emotional distance between my husband and I noticed it so much quicker. Or when I had a really tough day, I wanted to turn to Him for refreshment and comfort. And I think that truly is God’s design for marriage.
29:08
Yes, yes. And I love that you said, your understanding. So you grew in your understanding, and that grew your confidence. And I think about confidence in bed because it’s all so often it relies on what we understand either about ourselves about our spouse about the sex act in general, it’s not. It’s not something that we can just flip on and flip off. That’s, that’s a process. That’s a journey that God wants you to go on, because he has this for you. He has amazing intimacy in your marriage that he wants you to enjoy because it’s that’s part of this whole process of becoming one becoming unified, becoming the marriage that He desires for you. And I love that and I love that you also shared that, you know, through this process. And as you talked about earlier that you had to do some scary things and some things that weren’t comfortable and I would love for you to expound on that a little bit for for wives that are out there and like this, that’s just not me. I mean, how did you kind of move past that? You know, I’m this, you know, very, you know, holy wife, I don’t do that sort of thing. Like, how did you move past that?
30:15
You know, I think that it took me understanding that, um, you know, sex is this marital glue that God gave us to connect with each other, and that he wants, like, he desires it, you know, we can go to Song of Songs and ethey, you know, on their wedding day, and God standing there encouraging them to be intoxicated with each other’s love. And so, we so often think of it how powerful sex is outside of marriage, like powerfully bad, how damaging the outside of marriage. And so it really took learning about and embracing how powerful powerful sex is within marriage, that it’s not just God’s boundaries of saying, Don’t do it, outside of marriage, that God has boundaries for us within marriage, and to keep us safe, but also to give us freedom. Like, if we know where those boundaries are, then we can run around that huge playground within that fence, and experience all sorts of creative things with our husbands that God is not limiting our pleasure that he actually intends for us to experience pleasure. And so I think it was really learning more and more about his design. And I did that by going through the awaken love. The Bible study that we offer a six week study for women. And I actually, I went through it twice, because I felt like I had so much to learn. But that was super helpful to me to figure out, you know, what are, you know, what are his boundaries? What are the reasons that he even created sex? Like, why? Why does he want us to do this? You know, how is it that my baggage is holding me back, and creating, you know, this lack of freedom in my marriage bed, and then giving me an understanding of, you know, how does my body work and giving me an appreciation for how amazing God created my body and our husband’s body and how they seem so different, but yet, they complement each other, if we’re willing to go on that journey, of figuring things out together. So if we, it took a lot of challenging conversations, no doubt, to get to that place. But I know whenever I stretch myself to go deeper with God, or to reveal something new about myself, and with God, I mean, he already knows it. But when I’m willing to go there with him, it always it always is fruitful, it always pays off in a positive way. And I was able to see so many parallels between my relationship with God, in my relationship with my husband, that I was, I got the courage to say, you know, what, if this, if me revealing myself to God makes that intimacy so much better than I need to reveal myself to my husband? And yes, it’s scary, but his enthusiasm, or his, you know, acceptance, or the love that he expresses, whenever I did open up and talk to him, that ohms spurred me on to go deeper that yes, he is a safe place for me to get to.
33:36
Yeah, that’s so true. And I, I think that, you know, a lot of times when you, as a wife understand well, when you understand your husband, and what his desires are, and how his body works, and what and fulfilling those desires, then he is freed up more and more to fulfill your desires, because he feels so fulfilled himself. And it’s kind of this wonderful exchange back and forth, that you both are learning to meet each other’s strongest needs, in marriage. And so And the coolest thing about that, I think, is that God teaches us through that, that he teaches us to be more like himself, because he made us in Him to image both male and female that both the maleness and femaleness is a reflection of God’s self. So we learn more about God when we learn more about our spouses and that intimacy in it. And I love the comparison you’re making also about trusting God and giving him more of who you are revealing yourself and sharing yourself with him. And also how that’s that’s exactly what you should be doing in your marriage as well. Yeah, so I want to dive into that just a bit more of when someone’s thinking about how do they grow in their relationship with Jesus in intimacy and knowledge and understanding. I was listening to a sermon recently and he made basically said, you know, intimacy with Jesus, when you when the word intimacy, if you look it up in the dictionary, you know, it’s like 10 down. And then it says sexual intimacy, the most of it is talking about knowledge and understanding in this knowingness. And so I think that’s like a good way of understanding intimacy that Jesus is talking about, knowing him understanding him having a, having a relationship, knowledge of each other. And, anyway, if you could give people, you know, practical steps on how to move that way,
35:30
I think it’s easier to think about how to grow in intimacy when we compare our marriage to our relationship with God, because in Ephesians, we hear that, you know, marriage really is this picture of what Christ wants with his Bride, His Church, right. And so that’s really the the measure that I use is I go back to my relationship with God of, hey, you know, when I was an immature Christian, or just a new Christian, you know, I had to write down on my to do list like, read the Bible today. Pray to you, okay. And as my relationship with God has grown, that has moved into me wanting to, you know, me not even having to remind myself like, I naturally I crave that intimacy with God, I need that quiet time. And, and I found that same in my relationship with my husband, and when we really became more emotionally in tune with each other that, you know, I do, I crave that intimacy with Him that I need to be just as connected to him, or, you know, thinking through with God, you know, God doesn’t barter with me, I don’t have to earn his affections and his love. And so how am I interacting with my husband? Am I having, you know, my requiring him to earn my favor? Am I requiring him to do something to unlock that door for me to say, okay, tonight, I’m available, or am I unconditionally loving him, but even in the midst of a conflict, you know, we could be physically intimate together. And through that, we could be comforted reminded that we’re a team and being refreshed to, you know, continue that discussion, and find a resolution in that. And so I think it’s, it’s always going back to those things of, you know, where, how does this relate to my intimacy with God, that God really wants me to be completely vulnerable with him that his design, and marriage originally was to be naked and unashamed. And so he wants me to have that same level of vulnerability with my husband, because I mean, sex does give us the gift of knowledge, we get to know our spouse in a way that no one else does. And that, I mean, that is a gift. And I think that it takes a complete perspective shift to see it that way.
37:58
Yeah, yeah, it’s a gift to intimately know your spouse. I love that. And I love also considering your relationship with your spouse as being the one that loves your spouse deeper than anyone else, just as Jesus loves your spouse. So you’re the I mean, you’re you’re Jesus to your spouse, you’re giving him the love that he so deeply needs. And so, so yeah, so thinking about do you have can I like how you said, Do you have conditions on that love? You know, well, if you do this and this and this for me, why then I’ll respond and do what you need. And then that’s not the way Jesus is with us. He’s, he’s for us. He’s, he’s gentle, he’s kind he’s unconditionally available, and, and willing to meet us where we are. And you know, your husband’s not perfect, you know, your husband is not going to be perfect, and neither are you. But you have that opportunity to bless him in ways that only you can
38:53
write. Well, I think that it’s that’s why it’s so important for us to go deeper in our relationship with God because it’s through that security that we have with him the trust that we have in God that we can unconditionally love our husbands, you know, are going to fail us from time to time. But yet we can get back up and continue to extend grace and patience and gentleness to them without harboring you know, bitterness or resentment toward them.
39:25
I think Melanie has just brought up time and time again, how important our relationship with God is to our marriage, intimacy to sex, it’s vital that we have this understanding that we are washed, clean. And I’m talking to you, dear wife, you by the blood of Jesus don’t deserve it. No, that’s not what this is about. It’s about God’s grace, that he loves you so much, that he didn’t want this to separate you from him any longer. You are washed clean. That is what’s most important, that’s the very most important step to sexual freedom is for you to have that grace and receive it from Christ. Because he gave it to you freely when he went to the cross. So thank you for spending the time to meditate on that, to accept that to recognize that as truth in your own heart, pray about that. I want to invite you on the rest of the journey to understand what God really thinks about sex and what is really happening in your body, in your husband’s body and in your body. And it’s truly a journey, it truly is to sexual freedom. And Melanie has got some great resources that she shared already. But one I want to share with you is a book that I wrote, because I’ve been through so much pain, in sexual in the sexual arena, that I really couldn’t help but share my story and what I’ve learned. And so I wrote a book called delight your husband, a Christian wife’s manual to passion, confidence, and oral sex. And I decided that this topic was so important to share is because oral sex is a very important way that your husband feels intimacy and feels loved by you. It’s very important to marriage. And I just didn’t find anything practical on the subject. And at the same time, I didn’t, I never found anything, especially in the Christian world, and most importantly, in the Christian world that was practical in a way that helped women feel free to explore truly what their husbands truly desire. And that’s what I wanted soups to nuts, how to get your heart from a place of timidness maybe reserved sadness from your past of the way you grew up and into a place of freedom. And truly taking those risks that are scary, but walking you into it step by step. And that’s what I do very practically, through that book. So I’d love for you to check it out delight your husband can go to delight your marriage.com to find it there. I think it’s just an amazing opportunity for you to engage in that journey for your sexual freedom. I think it’s important and I think God wants that for you. All right. Well, Melanie’s got a great episode at next week. Come back on Tuesday, and I will talk to you more then God bless you. I love you. I’m praying for you and your marriage.
42:16
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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DYM Ep72: Become More Engaged In Love Making with Jay Dee
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Hi there! Belah here. Today, I have with me Jay Dee of sexwithinmarriage.com. It’s so easy to slip into a habit of ho-hum intimacy. But Jay says you’re robbing yourself and your husband of the wonderful experience sex is meant to be. He talks about how to become more engaged as a wife and why being engaged is even important. How can a man speak to this? Well, he answers that too! This is a journey but there are plenty of keys here to get started.
You’ll Discover:
- Why sex is not just for your husband
- That you were created to be a sexual being
- How historically wives were seen as the more sexual creatures
- Why a man wrote a course on how a woman can be more engaged in sex
- What oxytocin means for wives and husbands and how long it lasts
- How many couples will have sex 2-3 times per week but never talk about it
Books & Resources Mentioned:
Tweetables:
- We need to change our tune from “don’t have sex” to “wait to have really great sex.”
- I think engagement is ultimately what makes a woman sexy.
- Some nights, I say forget me, this is going to be just about you. And I still have a fantastic time!
- Too often we approach sex just from our perspective.
- There are a lot of people married for decades who are still not really intimate.
Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!
Love,
Belah
—
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Transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host, belah. Rose.
0:19
Hello there. And thank you so much for joining me on the delight your marriage podcast. I think this matters that you’re here to not only your marriage, but I think it matters to God, because the way that we are in our marriage and the way that we love our spouse matters to him. And today, we’re going to be talking about being engaged as a wife intimately. And that matters, because, you know, it’s sometimes hard to turn off the noise in the background of our mind and actually be present. And I think JD, my guest today has got a lot of really good insights that we can learn from. But before we dive into that, I want to just usually I’ve been reading an iTunes review. And I want to just take this moment to thank those of you that pray for dy M. There’s some people that have contacted me from all the way from South Africa to Canada, to the east coast of the United States that have agreed, oh, and the West Coast, actually, now that I’m thinking about it, that have contacted me and said that they’re praying for the program. And I am so encouraged by that, because this is truly difficult work. It’s not something that’s easy to talk about or easy to present. And sometimes it’s hard for me to even present this work for you and I and I want to and I work hard at it. But sometimes it’s it’s a challenge. So I just want to thank you so much for your prayers. And this is changing lives by God’s grace. And I just want to appreciate you for being a part of it. So anyway, let’s go ahead and dive into the content today. I think it’s going to be really powerful for you, Jay has got some awesome tips about intimacy and being engaged as a wife. So let’s dive in
2:14
All right, well, welcome back delight your marriage listener, I’m really excited to have J. D here. He’s from sex within marriage calm. And this is actually his second time on the delight your marriage podcast. So thank you for being here. Jay.
2:28
Thank you for having me.
2:30
Absolutely. Well, I’m really excited. And the first time I had you on was episode four, and five. And we’ve done just about 70 episodes since then. So it’s really exciting to have you back on. But if anyone wants to go back and listen to his story, you can go ahead and listen to that. On episode four, and five. But today, Jay is here because he’s got a brand new course that he has out. And the name of that course. Let me see if I can get it right. It’s a it’s becoming a more sexually engaged wife. Is that right?
3:08
Close enough is becoming more sexually engaged for Christian wise, but your total there actually be better?
3:15
Well, no, that’s great. And I think that’s a really great topic to tackle. And I mean, we’re just gonna dive in and talk about it. So. So first off, how how does being engaged, sexually benefit you in the experience? How does it benefit a wife?
3:39
I found when talking to wives, a lot of them they kind of said that they felt sex was for their husband, and not for themselves. And so a lot of times it wouldn’t be they wouldn’t be engaged in the activity, they would be just like, Okay, I’m here, do what you want with me kind of thing. Right? But I think they miss out on so much then when they can be more engaged and actually realize that they’re, they’ve been created to be a sexual being as well. They can draw a lot more pleasure from it, and also be a lot more connected. And it can be more of a shared experience. And instead of a, this is something I’m doing for you. Because I think too many people too many wives see it as a sacrifice. That whole you know, just lie back and think of England kind of mentality for the Victorian area.
4:31
Yes. Uh huh. Yeah. Now when you say being a sexual being, what do you mean by that?
4:41
I mean, God created I believe God created men and women to both be sexual. That it wasn’t just okay here. The guys are the sexual ones. And the women have the babies I don’t I don’t think that’s the way in fact, if you if you read through the Bible and you read through a lot of The old, like really old Jewish writings about the Bible and about their tradition. In the Old Testament, the assumption was always that the woman was the more sexual being. Really, yeah. And like, the women were required kind of by rabbinic law to provide children to the husband, but the husband was required by law to provide sex to the wife. Wow, his responsibility. Even so, like in the Old Testament, when they took on more than one wife on those strange circumstances, like when they’re at war, when their brother died, or whatever they’re allowed to so long as they didn’t deprive their prior wife of sex, and food and shelter. Those were the rules. And all all wife had to do basically to say, he’s denying me sex, and she could get a divorce. It was that important.
5:55
Wow. Isn’t that wild? Huh? How Why do you think it’s gotten so switched now?
6:02
Ah, personally, I think is because of a lot of our history of Christianity. During the whole, when Jesus was around in the whole Roman and Greek era, there was a lot of bad teachings that got brought into Christianity, that didn’t really have any place to be there. Because this whole idea of dualism, where there’s this teaching in Greek, that, you know, the body was kind of evil, and the spirit was what was good. And that sort of made its way into Christianity. And the church picked it up for a very long time. You know, that pleasure was considered bad. You were supposed to be live like almost an ascetic life. Yeah, joint, nothing. And just focus on prayer, basically. Yeah. But I don’t think that was ever the way it was intended.
6:56
Hmm. Yeah. Well, okay. So then the kind of leading us to present day. Why is it so hard to be engaged in sex for a wife?
7:09
I think a lot of those mentalities still exist. And they were really strong. Like during the whole Victorian era, they got out of hand. So bad that I’ve, I’ve heard reports of, they used to put coverings on the furniture legs, because they are considered to sexual. I’ve heard that. Like, that’s, that’s how far away from like, healthy sexuality we got. And it hasn’t been that long that we’ve wiped that from our memory kind of thing. Like that mentality still is there. Yeah, it’s it’s starting to slowly die. But churches are doing a really bad job of teaching. We do a really good job of teaching people don’t have sex. Right, a really bad job of teaching them. Okay, now you’re married? Go have sex. Right. Enjoy it. Right, right. Change our message from don’t have sex to wait to have really good sex.
8:15
Yes. I love that. Wait to have really good sex. That’s the point. Awesome. Well, okay, so I have to ask the elephant in the room. As a man, what made you tackle this topic for women?
8:33
Oh, I get asked that question a lot, actually. The the first reason was just that I got asked so many times by wives sending me emails saying, Okay, we’ve had a marriage for X number of years. Some of them are a couple. Some of them are decades. I just realized how important sex is. And now I have no idea what to do. Yeah. Because they they’ve realized, okay, this is an important thing. I need to invest in it. Great. How do I do that? Yeah. Because it’s not something they feel like they can go to their posture and ask them for help, or to their friends or their family or anybody. And they’ve spent, in some cases, decades, avoiding sex, or just like their, and so they’re like, I don’t even know how to start. I don’t know what to do. My brain just can’t come up with anything in that, like, in that direction. Yeah, I do. So after I probably got a few dozen emails like this over the last few years, I figured, well, me as a guy, were pretty engaged in sex generally. I could write something to say, Hey, this is what your husband might appreciate from you. Yeah. And so, but it’s a first step. thought, Okay, well, this is just going to be like a how to have techniques and tips and things like that. And it changed into this whole other thing about going right back to, you know, who are you as a person? And what’s the biblical perspective on sex and beauty, and marriage and all this stuff. So, like, we don’t really even talk that much about sex for the first couple of chapters. Because more of it is about the wife as an individual. Yeah. And how her husband sees her, and how God’s and how you should see yourself.
10:39
Oh, that’s good. Why do you think that’s so important for a wife to understand how she’s viewed not only by your husband, but by God?
10:49
I think I first I think it’s very important for us to know who we are. Yeah, I think that’s something in our culture that we’ve lost a lot of. We’ve We’ve kind of forgotten that we were created by God for purposes. You know, we get too wrapped up in our own lives with our own goals. And we get taught a lot of bad stuff along the way. I, I want to work on another course for men, because I think men have completely lost for the most part, what it is to be a man. We’re not being taught anymore. And women I think, are being taught bad teachings as well about how to be how to be a woman how to be a wife, and you know, that they, yeah, they were created to be sexual. That it’s a good thing. Like one of the first things God said it was like, Okay, I made you to, and then they went and had sex basically, like, reads, you know? And so, yeah, I, I just think there’s a lot of pad teachings surrounding this, or a complete lack of teaching in a lot of cases. I know, you shared your story on your podcast about how you got no teaching, and your first kind of introduction was in grade school. Right. Right. Class. And, you know, I think that that’s hurting a lot of marriages.
12:21
Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. Yes. So, um, alright. So, when, when a wife is, is trying to be engaged more, why? Why is it engaged instead of something else? Like, be more sexy? Or be more, you know, attractive, or something along those lines? Why is engagement so important?
12:53
I think engagement is, is ultimately what makes a woman really sexy. Hmm, you know, my wife could be wearing the exact same thing. But if she has an attitude of, hey, you know, let’s get together. That’s way more sexy of, than, okay, come here, and I’m gonna lie here, you know, what she’s wearing, or about how she looks necessarily, but her attitudes and our actions, you know, you even the actions, you could do the exact same action. And but with that mentality behind it, that I’m really here, I’m not really present or this is just for you. And not to say that you can’t do something. thing. Sometimes I don’t like, Oh, I’m just gonna do this for you. Right. But even that can be done in an engaged way. Yeah, where, like, I’m going to do this for you. But I’m going to enjoy your pleasure kind of thing. Rather than Yeah, I’m just going to do this. So you’ll be happy and leave me alone?
13:54
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Which
13:57
being engaged is is crucial.
14:00
Hmm. Well, and that is the state of a lot of marriages is where one spouse? Generally the wife is just, just yeah, just being there for it not really enjoying it at all. And, and, and then, of course, she doesn’t want to have it very often, because it’s such a drag on what’s going on for her. So this also would help her to engage more often, and want to engage more often. Is that right? Yep.
14:33
We also go through kind of what happens with all our hormones and everything when we have sex and how long that lasts. And what are the side of the if you if you’re having sex frequently, you know, what are the effects of that with with our hormones and how do those play out in your life? And then if you’re not having sex frequently, well, what are the effects of those hormones dropping off and how does that play out in your life?
15:00
Do you mind telling us a little bit about that?
15:02
I don’t mind. Okay, so it happens a lot more for men. Okay? The primary hormone that I’ve been looking at most of the time is oxytocin. And for those that don’t know, oxytocin is considered the bonding hormone is what makes you feel a connection to someone. Right? So for example, you get massive doses. Well, you, as in women get massive doses of estrogen. Oxytocin when you give birth, and it’s what makes you kind of go, okay, all this was worthwhile, because now I have my baby. And it’s what gives you that feeling like, it’s my baby. And again, when you breastfeed, you get massive doses of oxytocin. Again, because, honestly, breastfeeding looks like a chore. But I see my wife do it. And she just looks down. And she’s like, in awe, because she’s just dripping in oxytocin.
16:01
Yeah, you’re just like,
16:03
oh, no, this is completely worth it. It’s, you know, it’s no trouble at all kind of thing.
16:07
Yeah, I actually miss breastfeeding. It was it’s just it’s a special experience. It really is.
16:12
Yeah, I’ve heard that from a lot of women. And, and as a guy, I look at him like, that looks like a lot of work. irritating to have someone attached to you so often. But we don’t get that benefit of all that oxytocin?
16:28
Yeah, it makes sense. So women have,
16:30
I can’t remember if it’s five, seven times, or 11 times it’s one of those same notes, but I’m working memory. They have seven are between seven and 11 times the oxytocin that men have in their system all the time. Wow. And so that’s tends to be why women are more caring and more compassionate and more emotionally bonding, they bond easier to other people. They make stronger relationships, things like that. Yeah, men, we basically are oxytocin deprived most of the time. Yeah. And until we have sex, as soon as we orgasm, it jumps to, I can’t remember if it’s the seven or 11 times stat. But basically, it jumps through the roof. Yeah. And it only happens when we have an orgasm. I mean, there’s a slight increase when we have sex, and they always tell everyone says, oh, you know, you get oxytocin for hugging, and from kissing it from touching and sitting near there. And that’s true. But it’s nowhere near the same levels. And as soon as we have sex, you know, it lasts for like, a half an hour, and then it starts dropping off. And you really, as a guy, most of us only feel kind of those effects for a day or two, maybe three. Yeah, and then we start feeling like, I don’t feel connected anymore. I don’t feel bonded anymore. And then if it goes too long, we start thinking she doesn’t really care for me. She doesn’t love me. And often women kind of miss read this to think, oh, all he wants is sex. But really what he’s what is intimacy and connected like a connection. Because we have so little oxytocin in our system. Most of the time, it’s really hard for us to form those kinds of connections. Hmm, yeah. So that’s, that’s my whole spiel on oxytocin in sex.
18:26
No, that’s good. That’s really good. I love I love. I love oxytocin. I’m thankful for that. Hormone. Good, okay, well,
18:38
thinking if you can keep them awake after sex, they tend to become a lot more chatty, because emotionally connected, and they feel bonded, and they feel safe, and they feel like they can be vulnerable. And so if you can manage to keep them awake, you can have an amazing conversation right after sex.
18:55
Yeah, it’s yep, I hear that. That’s true. That’s good. Well, I love you can tell that Jay kind of takes the perspective of the female even while he’s, you know, talking, he’s able to kind of, you know, jump into her shoes. So, just a little insight into what, what’s coming further with his course. But well, can I ask the big question and see how you do see what you say to it, but the question is, how do you become more engaged as a wife? Ah,
19:25
I don’t think it’s one like simple trick. Yeah. If it was it would be very easy because you could just go around everybody and go and this is what you need to do. And now you’re good. Right? But that’s exactly why I broke this thing up this course up into like eight different modules or chapters or whatever you want to call them. Because it’s, it’s a lot of little pieces. You know, from from understanding why it is that your husband wants sex to what were you created for to do? With this whole sex thing, and how does, how do we communicate about sex? And what is passion look like? And yeah, you know, how do you initiate? And what are your boundaries? And are they good boundaries? Or are they just boundaries because you don’t want to grow? You know which ones are attached to moral things and which ones aren’t. And there’s so much in it. And we go through all this stuff. There’s also scheduling issues that people have today, because everyone is so busy. Yeah, and sex just kind of like, oh, yeah, we’ll do that later, when we’re not tired or not exhausted, yeah, we’re not busy, or you don’t have a meeting or whatever.
20:40
Yeah, I just was thinking about this yesterday. And just, I mean, you really put into sex, or you get out of sex, what you put into it a lot of times. So if you are actually putting in the hour and a half and say, Okay, we’re gonna actually have a really great experience, then you’re gonna get out a really great experience versus, you know, the 15 minutes or the 10 minutes that you’ve got, you’re just gonna, you know, half hearted, do it, it’s, um, it’s a different experience, you won’t get the same out, I mean, still worthwhile. It’s still, especially for men, it’s still worthwhile. But for the woman in terms of what she’s going to get out of sex, it’s it’s often what she puts into it in the first place. Yeah. Especially
21:22
with that whole orgasm gap. idea that, you know, men can have an orgasm in, whatever the stats are, they change every year, but somewhere between two to 10 minutes. Yeah, I mean, tend to take more like the 10 to 20 minutes. 30 or more. Right, right, depending on ver a variety of things.
21:43
Do you know, can I just ask you on the spot. And if you don’t, it’s fine. But so women get a lot out of the touching and the oxytocin releases is really, a lot of the foreplay is where she gets most of her oxytocin release. But do you know what happens with her for orgasm? Is it still an oxytocin release? And it’s just not as much as as foreplay or it’s comparable? Or do you have an idea about that?
22:12
I honestly don’t know. Yeah, I don’t need reading a study on it once and I’m guessing it wasn’t something noticeable, or else I would have remembered it. Yeah, yeah. The the man’s one, I was just like, Oh, my goodness, look at that. Right. Right. That stuck in my head for years. I mean, it was years ago, I read the study. Right. But I haven’t seen anything like that for women.
22:37
Yeah. It’s, it’s interesting, because a lot of times women think that they’re not a whole person, if they’re not able to orgasm or, or orgasm has to be a certain way in sex, or just, we just act like orgasm is this huge thing for women. But I guess I’m trying to say that. It’s not that orgasms are not important they are and they’re a wonderful part of the experience of the whole sexual experience. But it’s not the biggest, most important thing for women. And I guess I’d like to also address those women that have an orgasm before, if you would like to, and figure out and understand your body in that way. There’s definitely ways to do that. And I would suggest one of the easiest ways to learn is to start out using a vibrator. And then your body can learn in different ways how to orgasm. But if you are interested in trying a vibrator, you can go to delight your marriage.com/resources. And there I have a resource, which is Christian’s a site that doesn’t have any gross pictures or anything nasty, but is just clean. And I also have some recommendations for you. So that might be something to try out. Because I would love for every woman to have the experience of orgasm. Just realize that you are not a broken person or missing out on something monumental. It’s a great part of the experience, but it’s not the whole enchilada, if you will. So those are my thoughts there.
24:06
Yeah, I agree. I, I’ve stopped I’ve seen or that women, on average tend to orgasm 1/3 of the time that men do. And most of them seem to be happy with that.
24:19
Yeah, yep. Yeah.
24:22
I’ve even had kind of played with this as like the male side. I’ve been like, Okay, well, what is sex life if I don’t have an orgasm, but she does more often. And so sometimes I’ll just be like, Okay, forget me. This is going to be focused on you. And, frankly, I still have a fantastic time.
24:45
Yes, that’s awesome. Good. Okay. Well, we’re in talking about what, how to be more engaged. Can you give like, maybe two or three thoughts that women usually miss that they should really make sure they focus in on.
25:04
Sure. With the two or three. Understanding your how your spouse sees it. Hmm, you’re too often we approach sex as in like, just from our perspective. Yeah. Or at worst, we make an assumption about our spouses perspective without actually talking to them and asking them. And that’s why I put in like a whole chapter about communication and sex. Because I think I’ve talked to so many couples that are like, Yep, we’re having sex regularly. I’m like, great. Are you talking about it? And they’re like, No, we’ve never heard about sex. Like, you can have sex two or three times a week. And that’s going fine. But you can’t talk about it. Like that. They’re like, No, we believe we know never even mentioned the word sex before. I don’t think we to each other. Like, wow. And it’s, and I get it, I mean, in some ways, talking about it is more intimate than actually doing it. Because that is not just your like you’re your body involves, but now your, your thoughts and your emotions are involved as well. And, yeah, in our day, that those are more closely guarded than our bodies. I think. You know, that, well, it’s okay, we can have sex, but I’m not going to let you into my mind to kind of orient in my heart. Yeah, that’s, that’s kind of a very sad statement to make for a couple of who’s been married for a long amount of time. Like, I kind of get it for newlyweds who are just trying to learn to be vulnerable together. But yeah, there are a lot of people who have been married for decades, who still, they’re still not really intimate. Yeah, so I think I think talking about it, and communicating and understanding, you know, this is what sex means to me. And this is, you know, how I approach it. And this is how my mind works. Because I’ve learned over the years, my wife’s perspective on sex is completely different than mine. They could not be more different. Yeah. As far as I know. And yeah, and that’s, you know, I’m not sure I’ll ever really understand how she sees and approaches and thinks about sex or what it feels like to her or anything. But I’m going to do my best to try and figure it out. Because every time I learn something, I can figure out a way to make it better for her, which in turn makes it better for me. And it, it makes it more of a connection rather than just a physical activity. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s that’s one big one, too. Yeah.
28:03
I think one of the things that I hear most often from men,
28:11
even if they’re having sex regularly, is that their husband or their wife is never initiating or initiate it’s extremely rarely. And, you know, I think many wives are very scared of that. They’re, they don’t know how to initiate. They don’t know what initiation means. Because a lot of times, like, you’ll ask the husband, he’s like, no, she never initiates. And she’s like, I initiate all the time. Just the other day. I was waiting for you. It’s like, that’s not initiating. That’s just being receptive. Yeah. Yeah. So I think there’s this big struggle between what is initiating what is not. So one of the units in my course is, I didn’t write a whole lot in that one. Honestly, I took comments from, I think it’s about 100 husbands who answered a survey that I posted up saying, you know, what is initiating mean to you? You know, what does it look like? And how does it make you feel and all these things, and I just posted the comment, and it’s one of the longest units and, and so many of the wives who went through the course said, I had no idea that that was amazing. Like just to see their perspective. Because too many of these them they’re not asked they’re not talking about sex, so they have no idea. Yeah. And a lot of them said, Wow, I thought I’d been initiating for years and I haven’t ever Oh, wow. So that that’s a it’s very cool to see feedback like that. Yes. And to be able to see people’s lives changing, and for the better. Yeah. And once I do it, I mean, all the white said, yeah, it’s scary. But yeah, it was really good.
30:14
Yes, yes.
30:17
You know, the more often you try it, the more you do it, the more comfortable it becomes.
30:21
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s more enjoyable for the wife a lot of times because she gets her head in the game. And it’s, um, it’s enjoyable that way.
30:31
And I’ve also found that, you know, a lot of times men, they think they know what they want, but they don’t really know what they want. Yeah. Because a lot of them, hear them. And they’re like, no, no, I want her to initiate every time. And then later, if it actually happens, he’s like, You know what, I don’t want her to initiate everything. Yeah, and so it seems to be that somewhere in there, like 10% to 30% kind of range is like, where men like their wives to initiate. So it doesn’t need to be like, all the time. Yeah, it was just once in a while. And then they, these husbands, they feel so appreciated. That happens, because they feel like their wives actually desire them.
31:15
Hmm. Wow. That’s really cool to hear that that a husband feels appreciated by a wife initiating that I mean, for women, that’s not normal for us to think. But that he’s being appreciated by us initiating sex. It’s cool.
31:35
Yeah, probably the number one comment I got about the course from wives was them saying, I thought this was just about, like, the physical act of sex. And all I wanted was to feel good. Yeah, Mikey, that’s what he wants is to feel good. But you’re, you’re on the wrong level. Like, the physical aspect of it. It’s kind of it’s fun, and it’s entertaining. And it’s exciting. But the emotional connection and the appreciation and everything else that is worth 100 times the physical sensations.
32:12
That’s awesome.
32:14
Never didn’t have a clue. They thought there was absolutely no emotional aspect to it whatsoever. Yep. That’s awesome. Actually, a lot of them had their husbands read some of them and their husbands like, yeah, that’s how I feel. And she’s like, Why didn’t you tell me?
32:32
You’d ever asked like, yeah, right. Or I thought you knew this was bad. We don’t communicate
32:36
well, either.
32:39
Yep. Oh, my gosh. Well, this sounds like a sounds like an awesome course, Jay, and I’m really grateful for everything that you shared on the podcast. And do you have any last thoughts for us?
32:52
Oh, my last thoughts. I think my last one would be that. Too often, I find couples think that sex becomes boring after a while. And so I wrote one of our chapters on like, becoming more adventurous during sex. And I don’t mean like doing crazy things. You don’t have to like buy whips or chains. Sex at a party or anything like that. That’s when you go online, and you’re like, how to spice up your sex life? You get some crazy and often dangerous responses. Right? Right. So but I’ve often said to people, and I kind of put this in the unit, you know, monogamy doesn’t need to result in monotony. Hmm, you know, that if you can learn which boundaries or viewers are good and wholesome, and which ones are just you being scared to grow, then you can start to push some of these boundaries that are, you know, not bad to be pushed upon. Yeah. And once after a while you you kind of get a repertoire of all these things that you can do together. And you can cycle through them, and it never gets old. And you still keep figuring out and learning stuff if you are communicating. And if you’re willing to try things. If you’re willing to push boundaries. That I think that’s, you know, too many people, they just say no, we just do the same thing over and over and over again. And right, we’ll stop
34:35
That’s right. No, that’s great. Awesome, cool. Well, Jay, thank you so much for all this, this is really great. And for you listener, if you would like the course you can just go to delight your marriage.com/ 72 and that’s the number 72. And actually, Jay has been generous enough to give us a really significant discount if you purchase Just before the end of November 2015. So I’d encourage you to go to delight your marriage.com/ 72 and get this course it could be fantastic for your marriage. But Jay, thank you so much. This has really been fun and and I appreciate all your wisdom and advice.
35:17
No problem. It’s been, I always enjoy talking to you.
35:23
Gosh, thank you, Jay. And I just appreciate all of his insights. But if you are inspired by this, I just want to encourage you that this is exactly what intimacy is meant to be of two spouses really enjoying the experience because God made it pleasurable on purpose. It’s supposed to be a pleasure and a joy and ultimately, unification of the husband and the wife. So I’d encourage you go get that course delight your marriage.com/ 72. It’s I’ve gone through it myself. And there’s so many great insights that I didn’t know myself. And he talks a lot about sciency things that I think is cool. But he also talks practically, and there’s challenges in there for you. And it’s a great course. So I’d encourage you to do that. Otherwise, Jay and I are actually hosting a webinar together. If you haven’t gone to one of my webinars before, I would encourage you to come my last webinar actually, I received some feedback from a wife that’s been married over 25 years. And she says that, Bella, this work is of God, it is very good. Thank you. This webinar is so important. I hope it reaches every married woman. So very cool. I hope that you would be able to come go to delight your marriage.com/webinar and, and join us there. Otherwise, thank you so much, again for listening. And I just encourage you to engage this week that your intimacy would be at a greater level of, of intimacy, really. And anyway, I’m praying for you. God bless you and we’ll talk soon. Thank you.
36:58
Thanks for joining. If you’ve been inspired by this show, would you help spread the word? If you take a moment to review and subscribe others can find us more easily. Find out how to delight your marriage.com forward slash iTunes. Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion
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DYM Ep63: He Wants You To Want Him with Sara
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Hi there! Belah here. Today is Part II of my interview with Sara, a DYM listener. On this episode, she shares valuable tips and advice about how to treat your husband, about intimacy, and about prayer. Sara emphasizes on respect and how changing her attitude has driven her and her husband to become best friends. She also stresses the importance of being present in the bedroom, of actually desiring to be with your husband, to want to fulfill his desires. Don’t miss her insights about oral sex and her tips for intimacy. Hint: It has something to do with Cadillacs and coconut oil! Curious? Listen in!
Check out Part I at delightyourmarriage.com/62
Through research and study, I’ve discovered the secrets I wish someone told me years ago! Receive my free gift: “The 4 Stages To His Best Oral Orgasm” by going to delightyourmarriage.com/4stages
Scripture or Quote:
- And provide for those who grieve in Zion– to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor. Isaiah 61:3
You’ll Discover:
- How Sara and her husband’s marriage looks like today
- How Sara and her husband became best of friends
- How oral sex could potentially change your intimacy game
- How prayer and being faithful to God has helped her through the difficult times
Books & Resources Mentioned:
Tweetables:
- Sit down and think of things that you could do together—and enjoy them.
- Sexy is an attitude.
- Your misery is your ministry.
- I found comfort in the Word, and comfort in praying.
- It’s not my job to change my husband; you can’t change anybody. So I worked on me, and it helped my marriage.
Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!
Love,
Belah
—
Episodes come out Tuesday & Thursday mornings. But, in case you forget…I love to subscribe with my phone so I never miss an episode. You can too:
| iPhone: Podcast App is on updated iPhones. Open DYM & subscribe! |
Android: Download Podbay.fm App. Open DYM & subscribe! |
If you enjoyed this episode, would you add your review to iTunes (via your phone or computer)? It will encourage me & it will help others find the podcast easier. Find out how at delightyourmarriage.com/itunes Thank you!
Read More
DYM Ep61: Make Sex All About You with Laura Doyle
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Hi there! Belah here. Today is Part II of my interview with Laura Doyle of lauradoyle.org. On this episode, she gives us a picture of how her marriage looks like now, after letting go of the fear and learning from her own mistakes. Laura talks specifically about making sex about you—say what you want, to get what you want for pleasure. And she tells us that if words seems to be awkward in the bedroom, then whisper to your husband. This can paint a picture in his head. It’s a total win-win!
Check out Part I at delightyourmarriage.com/60
Through research and study, I’ve discovered the secrets I wish someone told me years ago! Receive my free gift: “The 4 Stages To His Best Oral Orgasm” by going to delightyourmarriage.com/4stages
You’ll Discover:
- What Laura and her husband’s marriage looks like now
- How she ultimately let go of her fear
- How fear translated metaphorically into her relationship and her faith in God
- How to be more bold and brave in the bedroom
- How to focus on making sex about you—because you are a woman, and you can!
Books & Resources Mentioned:
Tweetables:
- Laughter means emotional safety.
- Sex is the one place that makes it amazing.
- Make sex all about you.
- As women, we sometimes forget who we are and that we are special.
- All control is based on fear.
- I feared that God wasn’t going to take care of me, that’s why I was controlling.
Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!
Love,
Belah
—
Episodes come out Tuesday & Thursday mornings. But, in case you forget…I love to subscribe with my phone so I never miss an episode. You can too:
| iPhone: Podcast App is on updated iPhones. Open DYM & subscribe! |
Android: Download Podbay.fm App. Open DYM & subscribe! |
If you enjoyed this episode, would you add your review to iTunes (via your phone or computer)? It will encourage me & it will help others find the podcast easier. Find out how at delightyourmarriage.com/itunes Thank you!
Trancript
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.
0:17
Hi there, and welcome. This is belah rose, and you are listening to the delight your marriage podcast. I want to thank you so much for joining me if this is your first time, it is definitely an honor to be able to speak with you today. And I have something for you that I’m going to be sharing on Tuesday. So tune in again. And I’ll let you know this very exciting project that I’m working on that I think you’re going to love too. Otherwise, I have a wonderful second half of the interview today for you, Mrs. Laura Doyle, who just gives so much amazing insight, I don’t want you to miss even a part. If you have not listened yet to the first part of this the first half, I want you to go back to Tuesday’s podcast and listen to it because it’s just so good. But we are listening to the second half of this. And let’s go ahead and dive in.
1:23
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 looked like in the difficult stage and and how has it transformed? Yeah. Well
1:43
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 going 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 things right. My parents were divorced. And following what I saw mom do and there’s a failed recipe by definition and but 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 feel like I have the relationship now that I dreamed of when I said I do that all the things I hoped for. Oh my gosh, Sophia, still because you know, a month it was I almost didn’t have this. I almost I was divorced 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 flowerbed while we’re walking along or something. Like, Misha thing that kind of goes along with it. And I treasured that too. Because we, you know, we just love to laugh together and teach each other and I really went missing when there was we had a lot of Cold Wars at my house where there’s silence. But it wasn’t like, you know, it wasn’t just relaxed. I was like total tense silence, like, we’re not seeking silence kind of thing. And that that laughter to me is such a higher level of emotional safety and confidence in ourselves and each other and our connection.
4:09
Wow, the laughter is that emotional safety and confidence? Yeah,
4:14
exactly. You laugh when you’re scared. Yeah, yeah. So I laugh a lot. And I love to laugh.
4:24
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
4:37
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, even even with lovemaking, 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, you know, my hands on my hips or whatever, which is so not attractive and was not. Right, let’s you mean? Yeah, so. And when I don’t know, 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? But yeah, and he, you know, he was like, knock the magazine on my hand 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?
6:13
Yes, yes. It’s so good. That’s interesting that you said that you take a feminine approach. So so it’s a very, very judicious like, you’re very intentional about being pursued. Is that right? Yeah.
6:28
Because I have what’s really important, what’s something I really value is feeling desired. And if I am 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 you just RZ and yeah, the more I take that’s got us the fun and love, 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 the excitement’s 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,
7:34
I love that. I love that. Yeah,
7:37
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 not your hardhat in 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
8:11
oh, gosh, like, totally oh, gosh,
8:15
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 also 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 deadly for intimacy.
8:50
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 and 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, if I was learning i that is Lord. Yeah. Yeah, I love that well. Okay. So tell us then if you could, if you could dumb down the three chief reasons that your marriage has been successful. Could you tell us those?
9:33
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, 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 it has been 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. Yeah, have fun. Okay. Okay, first, you need some driving lessons, you know, behind the wheel, we 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 then we think you might get into a little accident, no. And I just think it’s the same way with relationships. But if 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 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 site for you go
11:45
to the second one, can you tell us where can we find those skills? Oh,
11:48
sure. Absolutely. Yeah. So um, 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 can use with your husband that will get you amazing results. And you can go to get cherished.com. And it’s all about feeling desire, cherished and adored everyday for life, and get cherished, calm, we have a 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 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 Yang ages. And it’s really it really works.
12:54
That’s awesome. That’s so cool. Okay, get cherished, calm. We’ll also have this linked up, but delight your marriage. So we’ll have that for you, too. Okay, so the second one?
13:02
Well, 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. So 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 then 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 man and Deborah Tannen talks about how women use about 2500 words a day more than men do. And I laugh and think about I know my house and probably The whole world over it 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 here. Sisters 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 up the new rug with his black shoe polish on or anything for that, like, Hey, 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 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.
15:47
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 tip that you wish you knew about earlier? And specifically, sexual intimacy?
16:09
Yes. Well, I really love the policy of being available whenever 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 horse 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 can be 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, it’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 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 always thrilled in the bedroom. Like, you know, it was not easy. I’m sure it was like, Wait, that’s not true. 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? No, 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.
18:21
Hmm, I love that. Yeah, I love that. So just make sex all about you. It’s brilliant. It is always all
18:29
about 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 where’s your 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, great, really awesome is if we pretended you were a pilot and I was uh, you know, I was right, like, whatever it is. Just bring it to him outside the bedroom. He knows he’s gonna take notes. And then when you’re inside the bedroom, you know, like, look, the words just be minimal, because you can give a lot of feedback verbally, but non verbally to write you can be funny, or just expressing your pleasure without actually using words.
19:39
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?
19:53
Okay, well, I gotta tell you, for me. The whole concept of surrendering has been to 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 going to 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. And I was like, oh, God’s not going to take care of me. That was the 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, 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 here he was that lesson, like, just, yeah, it was just about, I’m, I’m such, I really feel like I am a woman of faith. Now. 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.
21:56
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,
22:15
I appreciate getting to hear myself say it too, because it’s just a reminder of for me, because 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, no, I’m very grateful and thankful to God for that.
22:46
Man, that’s, that’s so good. So then a book or program that you would specifically recommend?
22:52
Oh, I recommend this right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and first, kill the marriage counselors. You know, I mean, the Turner 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 at 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 her wife, and wow, oh, you know, my whole world is changed. So this girl, I certainly recommend that for me that first killed a marriage counselors is 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 out. And I promise you’ll find blessings in both of those books. Oh, that’s
24:01
awesome. We’ll we’ll take good care of your children 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?
24:27
Yeah, I feel sad for when you’re married Laura. 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 just didn’t see how things were gonna ever work out. And, um, I guess I would just, I just would want to tell her that you know, you’re doing good, you’re doing fine. You’re gonna find your path. And, and it’s, it maybe isn’t going to look exactly the way you think it is. But you’re gonna 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 this was helpful advice, but I like it. Yeah, the reassurance that, yeah, faith in things that are unseen. Right. So I guess that’s what I’d say to her most is as have some faith. Awesome.
25:29
Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that I think it gives you 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? That
25:51
I think the best thing is to go to the get cherished calm and and see the gift 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 stands.
26:09
They know most people don’t. You’re right. Yeah. I’m glad to you know.
26:14
So I tried to just pack it full, which is the most ridiculously helpful information that I can every week and some inspiration. So yeah, welcome, everybody, to the blog to
26:27
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.
26:36
Thank you. Well, it’s just really been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Oh, absolutely.
26:45
Well, I hope that you just got as much out of Laura, being with us as I did. I really love her insights about making sex all about you and making sure that it is the one place that your relationship gets to be intimate. No other relationship is like that. And so I really love so much of her insights there. Okay, well, thank you again for joining me today. And I’m just praying that God would bless you and bless your marriage. I love you. Thank you. Bye bye.
27:17
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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DYM Ep54: The Way We Do Sex Is the Way We Do Life with Dr. Corey Allen
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Hi there! Belah here. Today, I have with me Dr. Corey Allen of Simple Marriage and the Sexy Marriage Radio podcast. On this episode, we discuss a refreshing male perspective into the intricacies of sex in marriage. What exactly do men think when they are engaging in intimacy? How is sex considered a responsibility? Join us as Dr. Corey Allen digs deep into the reasons behind why your spouse might be rejecting you. He also gives quite an eye-opening stance on sex and how what we do in everyday life relates to how we act in the bedroom, and vice versa. You surely wouldn’t want to miss this episode!
Through research and study, I’ve discovered the secrets I wish someone told me years ago! Receive my free gift: “The 4 Stages To His Best Oral Orgasm” by going to delightyourmarriage.com/4stages
You’ll Discover:
- How he and his wife struggled with intimacy during the first five years of their marriage because of his skewed priorities when it came to sex
- Why we should never depend on our spouses to make up for our weaknesses
- Why we should get rid of the practice of blaming
- How to effectively end an argument that has become personal
- How life, in general, relates to how you go through sex
Books & Resources Mentioned:
The Family Systems Theory by Dr. Murray Bowen
SMR Ep 191: Sexy Every Day by Shannon Etheridge and Dr. Corey Allen
Tweetables:
- We have sex to the level of anxiety we can tolerate.
- I am responsible for me, period. I am not a victim.
- We should be wanting each other rather than needing each other.
- The person rejecting sex has the better view of what’s going on because the sex they are having is not worth wanting. Sometimes it is too one-sided.
- If you are risk-averse in life, you are going to be risk-averse in bed.
- I gotta bring myself to the occasion, not just fantasize my way through orgasm.
Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!
Love,
Belah
—
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Transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host, belah rose.
0:16
Hey there, and welcome back. This is belah rose, and you are listening to the delight your marriage podcast, where we talk about sex and intimacy and marriage and messy and embarrassing and fun and exciting and laugh. We’ve talked about all of that. And today is no exception. I have got Dr. Corey Allen, who’s just so generous to share all of his insight, and he’s just got so many great tips to give us. Specifically, he talks about how we do sex the way we do life, which might be shocking to hear, but it’s really true. And I think Dr. Allen makes a great case for it. So let’s go ahead and dive in. Alright, well, welcome back. delight your marriage listeners. I’m so thrilled to have today Dr. Corey Allen, thank you so much for being on the show with me, Dr. Corey.
1:20
Absolutely.
1:23
Well, I’m really excited. How are you doing today? So
1:25
good. Let’s, let’s roll this, this will be fun. Perfect. Okay. Well,
1:29
first off, would you be willing to introduce yourself and your family and your day to day life?
1:34
Sure. But my name is Dr. Corey Allen, if you want to go formal is Dr. Corey Allen. I’m a marriage and family therapist that have a private practice here. And I live in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. I also have a online presence via simple marriage dotnet, which is a site that’s been around for about eight years that started as a hobby and a blog is turned into what I’m pretty proud of a really good resource for marriages. Yeah, and, and help and relationships. And because my main goal, and belief is that marriage, marriage can be one of the best relationships there is. And so I want I want him to survive and thrive. And yeah, so simple marriage produces resources, and ideas and thoughts and books and just help for various stages of relationships. And then three years ago, I started a podcast called sexy marriage radio. And that comes out every Wednesday, where all we do is talk about married sex. It’s me and then a female co host right now at Shannon Etheridge. And yes, that’s been a lot of fun to just speak into the void that is the sex world, when it comes when it comes to looking at it through a healthy lens. Yes. So that’s been a whole lot of fun to just see the response and the impact that we can make just from sitting on a microphone. So it’s pretty cool. Yeah.
2:55
Yeah. And I love that. I love your podcast, and I’ve listened to quite a few of your episodes. You guys have a great dynamic. And yeah, you you tackle a lot of the heart issues. And when we tackle some of those here as well on the delay marriage, so So I hope that you’ll be bringing that expertise to the intimacy in marriage, and then go into it that way, though. Could could you go ahead and share a little bit about you and your wife’s personalities?
3:20
Well, yeah. Wow, that’s a I’ve been married to my wife, Pam, for 22 years. We have two kids, a 10 year old and an eight year old that are just fantastic. on a on a quick detour note, we just came off of a four week vacation together, where we traveled to the western part of the United States and just spent four weeks together, just seeing everything we could see. And now Now we’re trying to figure out how we can do that more just because it was such a great, a great time as a family and as a couple. So. But now my wife, she’s a CPA. So she’s the devil in the details. Woman, and I’m the dreamer. Constantly changing my mind, what if we do this? Let’s try that, you know, pie in the sky kind of guy. Yeah. So it’s, it’s a good balance. And it’s a frustrating ending balance at the same time. It’s so it’s one where, you know, through the, through the journey of our relationship, we’ve we’ve had to grow and challenge ourselves and each other just because of our personalities. And so she’s probably one of the best things that’s ever come to my life. And because she makes me better.
4:33
Hmm, that’s awesome. I love to hear that. She makes me better. Yeah. I hear that. I mean, I feel the same way with my husband. So that’s, that’s great to hear. How old did you say your kids were?
4:44
I have a 10 year old daughter and an eight year old son.
4:47
Yeah. Okay, cool. So yeah, just just coming up on the teenage years pretty soon. Yes. So
4:53
that’s part of why we’re trying to figure out how to travel more as maybe we can bypass teenage years by just being on the road. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, I’m sure it will work, but it’s a goal.
5:05
Yeah, right. Yep. Yep. Well, cool. Well, um, could you share it? And now this is all about empowering and inspiring wives to live in wholehearted intimacy in their marriage. And so I’d love to have you’re kind of a male perspective on the whole topic. And to start things off, is there a particular scripture or a quote that has meant a lot to you over the years?
5:28
Well, I don’t know. To me, the, the way I encapsulates all of just what the Bible talks about with with marriage, because there’s, because that’s the one thing that’s a big struggle is the Bible doesn’t tell you how you’re supposed to do marriage, specifically, it gives you guidelines and ideas. But it’s, it’s still kind of global, with a lot of gray, a lot of gray areas that allows for a lot of interpretation. And that’s what we fight about, you know, if you think about it. So the way I think about it is that I believe marriage is designed just to help us grow up. That’s the whole point of it. It’s that God cares more about our character, and our wisdom and our maturity than he does about our pleasure. And so, I think what better way to really be challenged to become a better person than get into a marriage. Because, because that person is going to challenge you just because they live with you. Yeah, and, and so it goes right against the whole notion of, you know, the Jerry Maguire, You complete me. Yeah, it just ruins a lots of things in my book. So I just kind of sum up that I think, I think marriage is designed to help us grow up to help us to grow in maturity and wisdom, and to be able to be better people. And, you know, if you want to put a Christian lens on that, that makes the kingdom better. You know, that makes us that makes God’s world better in the sense of, we’re better, better equipped to then handle and love others, when we can handle and love ourselves. So yeah, so it. That’s not an actual scripture. That I know, but but I think it’s the main idea is captured.
7:13
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I want to ask you a couple questions about that is, so you said the phrase you complete me, right, right. Why is that ruining things? He said?
7:23
Well, there’s, there’s this, the Hollywood isation. And the Hallmark world of marriage is that you my weaknesses will be overcome by my spouse’s strengths. And while there’s merit to that, in certain circumstances, if I expect my wife to make up for my weaknesses, I’m destined in my relationship for trouble. Because that’s not her responsibility. I mean, the other way to think about it is, you know, when you when you when you say your vows, we have those for better for worse, in sickness and in health notice, typical, that’s one of those typical phrases that are in there. And a lot of times, the unspoken assumption of that is there will be as little as worse as possible, because I’m working on that, you know, I’ll handle my worse, because I’m dating and you know, I want to put on my best foot forward, and I want you to still like me, so I’ll put my marketing department to work so that you’ll see the best parts of me. And that’s what you’re doing at the same time. And so we don’t really know who we are, and I don’t really know who you are. And so as this goes on into marriage, what we do is we often flip that and say, well, but you said you would take me for better for worse. So that means you have to accept my worse and no, it doesn’t it’s so it just sets up this whole dynamic of, it’s easier to blame my partner for my failures and shortcomings. Because they’re not doing something or, or whatever. Yeah, rather than recognizing that’s my failings and shortcomings. So that’s my responsibility. And that’s what sets up the huge, it’s easier to beat up my partner than it is myself dynamic.
9:08
And tell me a little bit more about the dynamics easier to be to my partner than myself? Well, it’s,
9:13
I mean, think about human nature is we place blame on things we get when something doesn’t go our way. And I think we fight that if you if you have little kids, you see it from early on that well, but he did it or I you know, you did it or whatever, maybe go all the way back to Adam and Eve, you know, sin, you know, God’s like, Hey, what happened and well, I we ate the apple or the fruit. It wasn’t actually an apple maybe, but you know, yeah. And what, who told you to do that? Well, she did it the woman you put me with and then he looks at it, but she’s well, the serpent trip tricked me. You know, and so it’s like, we constantly place blame. Yeah, and when you get into a marriage, you know, there’s some times where all right circumstances kind of dictate Yeah, that I was it fault, but I still contribute to it. And if I don’t own that side of it, then then what we’ve what we create is a marriage, that’s according to the least common denominator. And so it’s the less developed person controls the marriage. And that’s because if you’re with somebody that’s really volatile, and, or emotionally reactive, or fragile, yeah, you have to come, you have to compensate for them all the time. And so you never really do grow. And they hold you hostage. And so it’s learning. Wait, I’m not responsible, completely for you. You’re responsible for you. That’s the idea that you are, you’re, you know, you were hopefully a fully functioning individual, before we before we met. And when you will, if you can stay fully functioning individual once we’ve met and stay together, then we both get the benefit of our growth. And we don’t have to need each other as much we can turn into the whole world of wanting each other different. Oh, and that’s the whole different paradigm.
11:08
Yeah, wanting each other rather than needing each other. I like that a lot. Yeah. Well, and you mentioned, you know, if one person let’s say, there’s a couple that’s listening, or a wife or a husband that’s listening, and they’re thinking, Well, I’ve been doing all the growing and I have been, you know, overcompensating for my partner. What would you suggest that that that one person does?
11:30
Be honest? Yeah, yeah, that’s typically the best thing is just acknowledging the fact that, you know, there’s some things that I cannot do for you. So, here you go. This is this is the best example of how this played out in my marriage, because when I was when I was in grad school, is when I was introduced to this whole theory. And in basically, I’m going to go psychobabble for a second Bella. So with you go, right, it. Basically it’s a family systems theory by Marie Bowen. Okay, Dr. David snarks came along later, and adapted it to couples. And so what is the whole psychobabble term is called differentiation, I change it to just growing up, that’s just it makes more sense to me. And it’s more simple. And that’s I try to keep things as simple as as possible just because that way, but it’s it’s the idea of that I can be in charge of my choices. I’m not a victim to. So it’s it’s learning that I’m responsible for me period. That’s that’s the whole that’s the whole theory that if I’m responsible for it, then it’s on me, I can’t I can’t blame anybody else. So as I’m introduced to this, it just clicks, it just makes sense to me. And I’m learning everything I can about reading all the stuff I can about it. And I’m teaching it to my wife as as as I’m like, hey, what do you think of this? And I’m just, you know, because I’m starting to live it. So it’s putting some pressure on her, which God loves a woman, you know, she had to go through a little roller coaster, when she’s like, What in the world are you doing? You know, so. But we had a time that when my when our firstborn was born, we kind of created this agreement that whenever, because we were both working full time, I had a little I have a more flexible schedule, just because I’m you know, self employed. So I can set set currently my calendar the way I want, which allows me to be around with the kids a whole lot more. And, and my wife has a at the time and a really steady, high stressful job. And so we had this agreement that whenever the day was coming to an end, as far as school or daycare, whatever we had the kids that from then when from the time we got home until the kids went to bed, we wouldn’t have the TV on. So that way we could spend time as a family be outside, eat together. As a family, we just had some priorities of the way this is the way we want to live a life as a family. And but I had negotiated basically, that on the weekend. If there’s a sporting event on then I want to watch it, you know, I want to turn it on. And she’s like, that’s fine, because she’s a she’s a sports fan, too. So I got lucky.
14:09
I sure did.
14:11
So but what at what we found is, you know, with DIRECTV on the weekend, there’s sports on all the time, you know, I can’t find a sporting event, even if it’s cricket, you know, or something, I can find something. So TV would be on all day long. And it wasn’t like we would just sit there and watch it but it would just beyond which that just is that added, you know, a draw of doing nothing rather than doing something together. Yeah. So that what she What happened is over the course of several months, about every six to eight weeks, she would get in this funk of we watch too much TV. You know, we watch too much TV on the weekends and I’m a smart guy and I could I wish I was hearing her what she’s really saying is you watch too much TV I need you so that I don’t have to face the fact that I don’t want to get sucked into this. And it makes it easier for me if you would let take the lead in this. I mean, that’s not what she’s saying at all. But that’s what she’s saying. It’s yeah, yeah. Right. So she would just you watch too much TV, but I’m a smart guy. And also know, that’s just a mood and a reaction from her, she’ll get past it, and I don’t need to change anything. And, and so she would, you know, it’d be a day or two, if she kind of be in a funk, that she’d be fine. And then we’d go another six to eight weeks, and everything would be cool, for me, at least, and then would happen again. And so I, you know, this went on for about a year, just kind of riding that storm. And both of us trying to manipulate the other while acting like we’re not manipulating the other. And yeah, until finally one day, it was a Sunday afternoon during the Masters, she came in. And I said, they’re watching the the end of end of the round. And she came in and she says, I’m tired of how much time I’m spending watching TV. On the weekends, I’m going to go start doing things differently. I’m going to go out with some friends on the weekends. I’m gonna go do some things in the community on the week. Again, sometimes I’ll take the kids with me, sometimes I won’t, and they’re going to be your responsibility. But I’m just letting you know, I’m tired of how much time I’m spending watching TV on the weekends. When she phrased it like that. I knew immediately the game changed. Yeah, because she was now saying something she has complete control of. If she’s trying to get me to do something different, she does not have control of that. She could manipulate manufacture it in a lot of different ways. You know, she could walk around naked and say, Hey, we want to you want to not watch TV and about Yeah. But, but it’s still I mean, it’s that’s still hurt, something she can’t control. She can influence but she can’t control it. But when she phrased it that way, she just changed the game to where I am now. I’m like, Oh, man. Now I have to decide, you know, do I really want to spend time with her because I don’t see her during the week, sometimes anyway, other than the evenings. And if I if she’s an important part of my life, I need to make choices. And so that kind of, to me, that’s the dynamic of what married life really is on life terms. That yeah, if it’s scary as can be, though, because you know, she makes that call, it could have very easily been okay, I guess I’ll see when we go on vacation together, you know, right? Because maybe I don’t want to give up stuff. And that’s stuff that we still kind of battle because there’s times where she’s like, I want to go do this. I’m like, Okay, then I’ll see you when you get back. I’m gonna stay here and do this. And, yeah, but it’s both of us taking more responsibility for ourselves is the goal.
17:36
Yeah, yeah. Interesting. I like that. Because just like you said, about needing versus wanting, you know, before she could have said, I need you to change, I need you to
17:46
different. And that’s, that’s often what we’re saying. And that’s the undercurrent of what we complain about is, yeah, I need you to change that behavior, because it influences and impacts me and I don’t like the way it impacts me. Right, cite the different I mean, the a good takeaway, that I use this with my clients. Yeah, times is like if just as an example, that if if they can get heated with their partner, and let’s say their partner starts to get real emotionally reactive, and me crosses the line starts to get personal changes subject to make it stuff about you know, about them, rather than what’s going on. One way to handle that, if you especially if you’re handle this on the phone is, if you want to continue to talk to me this way, we will not be talking. And they do they just hang up. And that simple way to kind of take charge of what you can handle. Yeah, and, but it’s just recognizing what’s my responsibility in this because I contribute to it. And if I’ll own my contribution, I can change what happens. But I also risk losing everything when I do that. And that’s important thing to realize.
18:59
And how do you mean, so they, they risk losing everything?
19:02
If I, if my wife is is adamant, well, let me use a different example. If I’m adamant based on the fact that we traveled for a month, and it was fantastic. She loved it. I’m pushing to try to do it full time. You know, let’s let’s you have a full time let’s travel ever sell everything and just travel. That’d be such a fun year or two. Yeah, she’s I don’t know, you know, well, if I’m adamant that I want to do that, and in me beating myself means I load up everything and leave. Well, she may not be around when I get back. Gotcha. So yeah, that’s a oversimplification of what’s going on. But it’s a reality of what’s going on, you know, if I stand up, or if you stand up to your husband for something that yeah, that, you know, he wants her enjoys or whatever, and you’re like, you know what, I don’t I don’t want to do this. I don’t like Chinese food anymore. I only want in food. And he’s a hold on. I grew up on it and you risk the relationship and that’s just the Reality, but we can’t act like it’s not there. That’s just the reality of it.
20:05
Right? Right, right, right. Yep. Yep. That’s good. That’s good. I want to ask you being that you do sexy marriage, and I’m interested in? How does sex help us to grow up? Because that’s a huge part of marriage. I’m interested if you got ideas of that.
20:22
Okay. Well, to me, I think you boil it down to the idea that the way we do life is how we do sex. And how we, how we do sex is how we’ll do life, those two are always interchangeable. So for your listeners, if if they will take some time today, tomorrow, whenever and kind of look through the lens of their sex life as a language. Well show them in mirror how they also do life. So a lot of times, if I want to take a challenging step to really confront something that bothers me in my life, yeah, sometimes that happens in sex. You know, it could be well, actually, it happens both ways that happen sex and it also happens outside of the bedroom. So maybe I want my wife to take more initiative. Something, well, that could be in bed, but it also could be with other areas of life. Yeah. So if I want to really grow up, I’ve got to step up and say, You know what, honey, I really wish you would, whatever. And I see if she does it or not, but me saying it, is what I’m responsible for. That’s all I can’t make her hat. I can’t make her do it. And maybe I need to challenge it. I mean, yeah, you made a comment. Right? Before we started, you know, off air. This is kind of a personal side plus professional conversation. Yeah. So on the personal side, first, the first five years of my marriage, sex was all one sided about me. And I feel really bad for my wife now thinking about it. This, it really sucked, because I was I was a horrible lover. Because it was all about me. It was just my anxiety release and my desire to want to feel needed. And yeah, so sex was just a manipulation for me to have an orgasm. That’s all it was. It was not at all about her pleasure. Yeah, yeah. So as that unfolds, you know, she is a very smart woman. And she realized early on, you know, it’s easier to say I don’t like sex, than it is to say, I don’t like sex with you, because I don’t get anything out of it. But the latter is more true. Because not a woman that doesn’t like sex. She’s a woman that likes sex. It’s just she, the first five years, she didn’t like me. And I don’t blame her. So I had to confront my own inadequacies, and my own selfishness and my own porn issues, and my own, just junk that I brought into the table that was just unrealistic, and learn how to be a better lover. Yeah, so now, where I am now at 44. You know, if she was to say, I don’t like sex with you, I’d be like a woman, you’re crazy. You know, what I’m doing now, I’m a grown man, that it’s not all about me, that this could be just about you, if that’s what you want. And so it’s a chance that if I, if you look at it through the lens of her responsibility, is to take care of her desires and wants as well, and seek them, not just accommodate to mine. So when she finally stood up and said it, it, it hurt on my side, but it was true. So I had to then learn and, and confront and challenge myself on. Okay, you know what, you’re right. Let’s, let’s deal with let me let me give me some time that I’ll fix that, you know, let me yeah, let me own that. And then let’s see what we can what happens?
23:55
Yeah. Well, so for the husbands that are out there listening and like, oh, my gosh, maybe this is the scales coming up, or their eyes just right, that they have been selfish in this area? I mean, are there some practical pointers that you can give to those husbands?
24:12
The best thing I ask. I just think of this in terms of when I work with clients. And we just did a show on this on sexy marriage radio that that is called sex every day. And oh, cool. And it was one because typically, whoever the high desire is that’s pushing the cart for I want sex every day. They act like it’s so great and wonderful. And their partners like yeah, sometimes, you know, the rest Yeah, rest of the time. I’m just a receptacle for your penis. And that’s a lot of fun for me. So, right, it’s learned so I what I asked in this, what I would ask to the husbands that are kind of wondering, well, what if that’s me, is how do you handle it when you don’t get it? You know, crumble and pout and throw a tantrum. Or do you are you solid enough to say okay, I get it. Yeah. Because it could be what you’re offering to your wife is not worth wanting for her. So lots of times, this is just my theory. Yeah, times the, the person that keeps rejecting sex has the better view of what’s going on. Because the sex that they’re having isn’t worth wanting. Because it is too one sided, or it is, you know, he’s got an issue that he won’t, he won’t confront he through ejaculation, you know, that he won’t, he won’t do anything about it. And he blames her. Well, hello, hold on. She’s a part of it. Yes. But maybe you got to learn to get something under control and learn how to be a better lover and add more foreplay. So she enjoys it more. And then you can have your or maybe you need to learn to slow down. And yeah, and maybe you need to be learned to be more engaged in not just routine. And, you know, because men Yeah, no, man, we fall victim to the do what works last time. And, you know, if I figure out what button push to push on my wife that really brings her to push it every time. And you know, just worked. And yet, well, if you’re building something, that’s good philosophy, but if you’re making love, that’s not always the philosophy. To change it up.
26:19
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Wow, that’s great, great advice. I love that you said the way we do sex is the way we do life. And would you even let us know? So for example, when you’re patient in life, that means you’re going to be patient in the bedroom? Is that kind of how you’re talking about it?
26:35
Maybe it can, it’s I think it’s going to be more that if you look through the idea of what are the things that you really struggle with? When it comes to having somebody be close to you? Yeah, that you’re going to have that face, you’re going to face that in your life. If you are risk averse in your life, you’re going to be risk averse in bed. If you are I want things just a certain way, then that’s the way sex is kind of be, you know, no, no, no, hold on, you just deviated from the script. You can’t do that you’re supposed to stay doing this. And, and so it’s recognizing, okay, maybe, you know, if I’m OCD in my household does, maybe I’m probably OCD and sex. And yeah. And so I’ve got to learn. And that’s a great way I could change things up and challenge myself. Yeah, you know, if sex is always supposed to be missionary position, well, what if as a wife, and I start stopping in the middle of it and say, Hold on, I want up on top of you. Yeah, that’s a challenge of myself to do it. And it could be a challenge of him. Because it’s like, oh, I can’t, I can’t finish in this position, or I can’t and then you bring a whole nother world into the interplay of, yeah, okay, now you’re both having to confront yourselves in the presence of each other. And that’s where it starts to get really cool. Then you start to get more of you present and more of you able to handle another person because you can handle yourself better.
28:09
Yeah, yeah, that’s good. And it sounds like you learn a lot of this just through practice. Yeah.
28:14
What? Yeah, this is me. Nothing prepares you for marriage. But marriage. So yeah, that’s good. on the job training and sex. Yeah, definitely the same way, especially in marriage, because you’re having sex with somebody you live life with. That’s where the day that’s where the dating world that gets off the rails. You know, I’m not a proponent of sex before and outside of marriage. I think it’s best in marriage. But that’s just that’s what my belief is. I don’t people don’t have to love what I believe. But it works for me. And the beauty of it is that because I share life with my wife, yeah, that I’m confronted with things more when we have sex, because I know, and I can read her differently. And it’s Yeah, so if I, if she really wants me to be with her present in emotional, I have to and that’s kind of not my strong suit. Sometimes. I want to just disengage and just go all physical. And just yeah, just make it about the pleasure. And she’s like, No, no, no, hold on. I want I want more of you here. I want more of a connection with you. And I’m like, hold on. I am here now. Not your body. I want you. Yeah, that means I got to bring myself to that occasion. Not just fantasize my way to orgasm. That’s a whole different ballgame.
29:33
Yeah, so I’ve never heard that before. Could you say that again? Or explain that a little bit. fantasize your way through orgasm? You don’t mind?
29:42
Alright, let me frame it this way. Wow. We’re getting we’re getting deep on some of this. I
29:46
appreciate it.
29:47
I love it. Because this is a lot of people don’t talk about and yeah. I had a client I was working with last night that she made that exact same comment as we were talking she said you know, nobody refers to it this way. I’m like, Whoa, yeah, everybody else is wrong. That’s my belief. So that’s right. It’s the idea that we have, we have sex up to the level of anxiety we can tolerate. Wow, that’s just the reality. And so a lot of times, as you got all this multiplicity of stuff that’s happening in the middle of sex, you’ve got the pleasure, you’ve got the mental, you’ve got the emotional, and you got the spiritual, right. So you got physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. So all of those are inaction. And if you’re with somebody that you’ve known for a while, because you’re married to him, then all of those can be derailed pretty easily. Because, you know, I know my wife’s facial expressions, you know, and I know when she’s frustrated, I know when she’s disconnected, I know when she’s just going through the act, I know when all of those stuff. So if I read that in her, that puts a pressure on me to decide, am I okay with her not being present other than physical? Or do I want her really involved? Yeah, you know, do I want her engaged and enjoying this. And so, lots of times, anytime something gets uncomfortable in the middle of sex, we will just disconnect. And we’ll focus on the physical, which is interesting, because you know, if, you know, for most women, if they’re going to have any kind of orgasm, the clitoris has got to be involved. Right. So you know, what only 25% of women can have vaginal orgasms during during intercourse. I mean, that’s kind of what the research shows. Sometimes it can be skewed to 30%. But, but it’s still not a lot of women, they’re gonna achieve orgasm, just from penal, vaginal intercourse, right out clitoral stimulation. And he can do that with it with his body with his fingers, you know, while he’s inside her, but it’s still, that’s if that’s not involved. Lots of women cannot achieve orgasm. So if, if she’s all of a sudden not engaged, and I’m like, wait, hold on, am I okay with this? Or is this you know, then I’m faced with Wait, I need to get back involved, or I want you involved? So am I willing to stop and risk losing everything? Or do I just start focusing on my own sensations so I can get it over with and be done? And that’s kind of Yeah, going on on both sides. A lot of times. That’s why Yeah, a lot of times a wife would be like, you know, she’s going through it to do list or, yeah, a article she read online or something while she’s hoping he’ll get done quick so that she can move on with her day. So she’s at fault for that, but he’s at fault for accepting it. You know, it’s so it’s like, Hold on a sec. There’s a whole lot more going on. Yeah. And so it’s recognizing all of that and being willing to risk everything. Because when this played out in my marriage, yeah, when I grew into becoming a better lover and learning how to be more comfortable being present, that challenged my wife to have to own her staff. And her staff was, you know, coming to grips with not being objectified, and being okay. objectified by our husband. And yeah, no, and, and all of this.
33:18
Okay, I know that we had to stop that short. But Dr. Allen gives so much more information on the second half that’s coming out on Thursday. So definitely listen into that. And before I let you go, today, I want to give you a free gift. Basically, I don’t know if your story is anything like mine. But after I was introduced to different flavors of sex, I generally didn’t know what to do, and how to implement them in my marriage. And so it took quite a lot of research. But I have been able to uncover the four stages of his best oral orgasm and that’s the guide I want to give you for free. It took quite a lot of research, but I wanted to give that to you for free once you sign up at delight your marriage.com/four stages. Now that’s the number four S T A G E ‘s, you can you can sign up for that as soon as you can. And you’ll receive it right away. So whether you’re in the future or not, that’s the place to get to it. delight your marriage.com/four stages. And that’s a free PDF. Check that out and I will talk to you on Thursday. God bless you praying for you love you. We’ll talk soon.
34:28
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 impassion
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DYM Ep52: Intimacy Changes with Age with Jenna
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Hi there! Belah here. Today is Part II of my interview with Jenna. On this episode, she talks to me about how she and her husband got through the struggles they experienced, including the falling of their child into the claws of drug and alcohol addiction. Jenna emphasizes on putting God in the center of your marriage and the importance of humor too. As a wife of 30-plus years, Jenna has lived through the intimacy issues that are being faced by most women—and she couldn’t be more clear: intimacy changes as you age. It’s a reality, but something can be done about that. Listen in as she gives her tips and advice on how to keep intimacy interesting, fun, and comfortable for you and your husband.
Check out Part I at delightyourmarriage.com/51
You’ll Discover:
- How a wife should love her husband before anyone else
- How we have to be deliberate about our intimacy
- How intimacy changes as we grow older
- What this wife wished she knew earlier in her married life
- How you try to outlove each other—which is the secret to marital success
Books & Resources Mentioned:
Tweetables:
- The secret to marital success is you have to outlove each other.
- This little thing called marriage can affect so many more generations down the line.
- Keep things light with humor.
- If a couple remains focused on pleasing the other, then that intimacy they share will blossom.
- Because we’re both committed to seeking God first and fighting for our marriage, we don’t only survive it. We flourish.
Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!
Love,
Belah
—
Episodes come out Tuesday & Thursday mornings. But, in case you forget…I love to subscribe with my phone so I never miss an episode. You can too:
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Transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah. Rose.
0:17
Hi, there. This is belah rose. And I want to thank you for listening. Today, we are going to talk about what intimacy does, even in later seasons of life. I really love our guests today. Jenna, this is the second part of her interview. If you haven’t heard the first you’ll want to listen to that. But she gives really specifics on how we can expect bodies to change. And as love matures, what happens and I just love her heart. And I think we can learn so much from her. Before we dive in, though, I want to mention, if you’re ready to take your marriage to the next level in your intimacy, this is an opportunity for you, up until July 31. I have a free coaching strategy session where you and I are going to talk about what you’d like for your marriage. And to see if you would be a good fit for the coaching program. What will happen is it’s just you and me. And we’re talking about your goals and how to move you past your reservations and the things that are hindering you, in order to have full, wholehearted intimacy as God desires and has destined for you. So I want to walk this journey with you and go to your email and just email me belah at delight your marriage.com but you’ll need to do it as quickly as possible. Because July 31, is just around the corner. So B E L A H at delight your marriage.com and all return your email as soon as I get it. Okay, God bless you. And let’s dive in you know, think about well, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about how you said, it’s still really hard for you to kind of allow your husband to lead. What does leadership look like in your household? And how do you kind of know when you’re stepping outside of that or continuing in that zone? Does that make sense?
2:19
Oh, yeah. I had to laugh because I remember one. I don’t know what it was Bobby, I tend to use a lot of humor. We try to keep things light, we try not to let things get too serious and too heavy. I don’t remember what it was we were talking about. But he was he was saying something. And he was sure that he was right. And I was sure that he was wrong. And I said, you’re not perfect. You know? And he said I am so yeah. Because it was fun. And you know, he just He lightened up right off the bat. And that, you know, that kind of says okay, let’s just calm down here and talk about it. Yeah. Father is a really laid back guy. He’s, he’s very fair minded, very logical thinker. And he’ll just look at the situation and say, Okay, well, what I think we should do. And typically I agree with them. There have been times we have disagreed. And there have been times when I was sure that he was making the wrong decision about something. But I said, Okay, you know, what, God puts you in charge. So I’m going to back off, and 99.9% of the time, but instead on he said on, right. Usually the trouble star, if I want to force my way of doing something, and typically talk things through. Usually, if there’s a big situation going like, like with our son and his addiction, he would, he gives things a great deal of thought possible, give things a great deal of thought, and really think about the best way to approach it. That fair, but gentle, and still kind of extend that idea that we love you and we really want to do what’s best for you. He he tries to be very merciful in his approach. And I go back to the people of our son and his addictions, because that was such a big thing. And it was it was recent, just a year ago, and he just had away. He’s not, he’s not overbearing. People often will misinterpret the scripture that speaks about a wife being submissive, and they equate submission with slavery. And I think you know, that is so not true. That word submission. Going back to the original translation, it was actually a reference to a military term that dealt with a subordinates committing to the authority of his superior officer. And the idea was this, your your officer has more training, and more experience and more wisdom. And this person was placed in charge for that reason. And by submitting to that authority, you are saying, I trust your judgment, I know that you’re doing what’s best for this family. And I know that this will be for my protection, and my safety and my well being. And it’s when you get out from underneath, or the trouble starts. And you start trying things your way, when you are just not equipped to do it, you just not. And in the military, you have your superior officer, he has his superior officer and in the chain of command, as far as God is concerned, God is the ultimate authority, and then the husband, and then the wife, if I am mindful of that, back off, but if I decide to dig in my heels, and there’s some be some trouble, and it’s gonna be trouble I create. And there are times when I’ll just dig in, like, whatever you say, Well, I’m just gonna do it this way. And then inevitably, I end up, you know, coming back on him, oh, please forgive me.
6:21
Well, you know, it’s interesting, because sometimes, with Adam and Eve, for example, he was the one that took the fruit, but Adam was the one that was responsible for it, which I think that’s something kind of powerful. There’s, when God puts a husband as the person that’s responsible, that’s a big deal. And then if we were kind of outside of that covering, going away our own way, like had Eve, you know, went and did something else without her husband even knowing it, why then he’s not responsible for you anymore. He can’t be that protective person that he’s supposed to be. And that’s what I kind of see it as Is that something that you would, um,
6:58
you know, that Adam and Eve story is a fascinating read. And if you reread it, reread it, you really start to get some new stuff out of it. You know, if you read through, it clearly states that, obviously the serpent tempted eat and what did he do? He called, he put a little seed of doubt in her mind. Did God really say that? So then he starts to compromise on it, she starts to swell, you know, he said, and she throws in things that God didn’t say, God obviously had instructed Adam to instruct his wife. So he knew she knew what God says, because I’m cooler. But then it says that he took the fruit and ate it, and then gave some to her husband who was with her. And when you think of the matter with Adam, that he dummied up, when the serpent was testing his wife walking, he opened his mouth and say, No, we don’t do it. But he just stood there like an observing, and then he participated. And then you’re right. Who did God go looking for? Adam? Where are you? What did you do? And what did Adam do? Well, it was that wife, you gave me more? The one who gave me that’s sort of a picture of what we do in marriage, oftentimes, like, you know, okay, well, you know, God’s gonna hold you responsible, and then you’re gonna find God for the wife. Yeah, no, I don’t think so. And at all, always God holds the husband responsible. And throughout Scripture. There’s so many examples of the wife trying to usurp the husband’s authority, thereby usurping God’s authority. And Sarah and Abraham was a classic example of this. You know, God promises them a child. And Sarah, you know, she’s like, No way. I’m just too old. And that’s never gonna happen to here and Abraham here, take this maidservant mind and you know, you go lay with her and you haven’t begun blah, blah, blah. Okay, well, that was stupid. I don’t know what she was thinking, What wife would do that. But anyway, that whole act of disobedience caused everything it that was the beginning of the month of religion through that main service chop fold. And that that One act of disobedience. I think, you know, I would like to think that if God came to me and told me something, I wouldn’t laugh at him and try to do it. Probably would, because that’s what humans and she usurped Abraham’s authority. She served God’s authority, and it cost her dearly, and it is costing us to this day because of her disobedience. And, you know, that’s a whole nother story is this little thing called marriage that exists between two people affects so many other people and can can affect everything in history. From here on down the line. Yeah.
10:04
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that’s really good. I love that you said this little thing called marriage can affect so many more so many more generations down the line. That’s incredible. So I want to hear a little bit of how how your marriage looks like now after, you know, you talked about the struggle, kind of in the beginning of how it was difficult to have your husband above your children, you know, and how, how has that kind of happened? And what does it look like now?
10:33
Well, a marriage now is, it’s just the list. It’s really very, very sweet. And, you know, I’m always very, very troubled it not possible to separate and divorce. And I think, you know, if you work through these battles, and obviously, there are just some battles that can’t be worked through, there are some situations where there really is no hope. And I don’t mean, at all to condemn anybody who’s been divorced. I don’t mean that at all. But there’s so many people nowadays that divorce for really petty reasons, and meaningless reasons, or they just get tired of one another. And I think it’s so sad. I just think if you can work through those battles together, you just have no idea how sweet marriage can be, when you’re 30 years in like we are and how awesome it is to love waking up together. And spending time together on the porch playing and taking walks. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or fabulous. It just being together. That is such a sweet, sweet thing. The closest comparison, don’t laugh, John and Olivia Walton. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched. But John and Olivia. I know they’re a fictional couple. But there’s so much like Bob and I, there’s so much in love after decades of marriage. They’re very affectionate. They’re just absolutely devoted to one another. They kind of communicate with a secret, unspoken language that really can only be developed after years of marriage and life and struggling side by side and working very, very hard to protect. That precious relationship, that marriage relationship. John Walton is like my husband in a lot of ways. He’s pretty no nonsense guy, but he’s always very loving and attentive to Olivia, he only has eyes for her. He just cherishes her above all else in the world. He’s nearly head of the household, but without the airing and that being harsh. He’s very firm with the children, but very loving. And he always he’s always fair, always fair. Olivia is kind of like me, she’s very happy to admit to John’s leadership because it’s not an overbearing leadership. But But Olivia is not above voicing her own opinion. She’s very independent. And John, appreciate that about her. And so he encourages her to spread her wings, and to explore her God given gifts. Alinea always allows John beliefs. And together they are just a team to be reckoned with. And that’s best Bobby Nye, we just, you know, after 30 years of marriage, you survive enough stores to be pretty well seasoned, assuming you weathered the storms together. And you’re determined to again, and at this stage of life, I don’t feel the need to panic at the first sight of conflict. I know from experience that we’ll work through it. We work through whatever comes our way just like we have in the past. And you know, during the past three decades, we’ve been trials we never, never would have expected. We’ve dealt with mental illness and addiction and you know, some financial trends, injury, the course of our times was altered or maybe redirected. But because we’re both committed to seeking God first and to fighting for our marriage, we don’t only survive at least flourish, we allow not to transform those ashes into roses. Make something beautiful, out of something that could be ugly. Marriage now today is strong and healthy, loving and affectionate, very passionate and deliberate. We both purpose to please the other or attentive to one another we pick up the slack but the other is struggling. We expensive one another last reason a lot of and we work through the tough times and we celebrate the happy times together always together. And Bob has this little motto that he’s always used and it really sums up how to have a happy marriage. I think he just simply says you have to try it out love each other. You Your sole focus is on making the other person happy, then you’re gonna have a good thing. A really good thing.
15:09
That’s so good. So you have to try it out love each other.
15:14
I love that loving.
15:16
Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. So what a beautiful picture of where you have, you know where this, this 30 year long journey is taking you. That’s just incredible. Praise God. It’s just incredible. It’s a beautiful picture of anyone who is on the side of difficulty, that you can weather these difficult storms and maybe even come out with this beautiful, beautiful picture. So I’m so grateful for that. And I want to ask what are the three chief things that you feel have been central to your marital success?
15:49
Um, the first and foremost is Christ and biblical precepts. No matter what comes to us in life, whether it’s regarding our marriage, or politics or child rearing, or whatever. The question is always, what does God’s Word say? That’s it. That’s it. For us. It’s what does God’s Word say about? What does God’s Word say, if you base everything from that point is that if that’s your anchor, then you don’t have to, you don’t have to be whipped around in the store, you will have definite direction, you’ll have definite answers. You don’t have to try to make it up along the way. The second thing is making the others happiness, our priority getting back to that out loving one another thing, you know, just really every single day, how can I make Bob happy today? What can I do for him that will please him today? How can I help lighten his load. And a third thing is just keeping things light with humor. Don’t be too too serious. Obviously, there’s going to be situations that really don’t call. But a lot of times, humor can really defuse a situation and take, take the darkness out of it, lighten it up, and make it not so big and heavy. That’s that’s a really important Laugh. Laugh a little bit laughing.
17:13
Yeah, I love that. So it was first of all, keeping Christ in the center. What does God’s Word say as being number number one, and number two was make the others happiness, your priority. And then number three is keep things light. And I’m so grateful that yours was Yeah, included the the lightness of things because I find that in my own marriage too. It’s just so easily we can stop an argument, right? When you see it’s like perking up you’re about to that you can tell there’s an argument coming then just laugh at each other about it. Laugh at yourself, poke fun at yourself about it. This isn’t that big of a deal. Most of the time, think about how ridiculous these arguments are, you know? What was it sorry? Yeah, I almost think about if someone was actually videotaping, when people had arguments in their relationships, you’d be incredibly embarrassed to see though if anyone were to actually have those. It have those videotapes because they’re just ridiculous. We that starts with, you know, accidentally bumping into each other or not thinking first to offer like just random ridiculous stuff. So I love that so much. Great. Well, now here’s here’s the steamy part of the interview, I want to ask you if you’d be comfortable maybe to share a tip about intimacy that you wish either someone let you in on earlier or it’d be helpful for the wives that they could even implement tonight.
18:43
For me, I wish that I had been a believer when I gotten married, I think that would have helped at all. I was raised going to church, but I never knew Christ in a personal way. I never understood salvation. I never understood that you could know God on a very personal and intimate level. Thankfully, though, I came to Christ at the age of 26. I’ve been married seven years at that point, but simply found God a little, little, little bit later in life. I had a lot of catching up to do a lot of learning to do and a lot of misinformation to dispel in my heart. I think if I had been a Christian, when I got married, had that true understanding of Christ to God, I would hope that I would have had a better understanding of the sacredness of sexual intimacy. fish that I would have known how important it is to the marriage relationship and how important it is for my husband. I wish that sexual intimacy is a very unique way that I can minister to him in a way that nothing else and no one else can, that it establishes a bond between the two of us that some part from me What else? I wish I’d known that God uses sexual intimacy to strengthen that bond. And that that strong bond helps prepare us as a married couple for a life of serving the Lord in unity. And I wish someone had told me to relax. Yeah, I’m terrible. But after 30 years of marriage, and a very healthy and active, intimate relationship, I’m still embarrassed for my husband. And
20:30
I also wish I don’t know if it would have mattered to me at that time, because I was so young. And some things just don’t enter your mind. But I do wish someone had given me a heads up on how sexual intimacy would change throughout the marriage would have been nice to be prepared ahead of time that intimacy would sometimes have to be placed on hold, like after the birth of a child or during a lengthy illness. You know, a selfish lust filled spouse would use those difficult times as an excuse to indulge in sinful behaviors, just to satisfy their own fleshly desires, but of some less spouse like mine, willingly and patiently wait until the crisis is over. And that’s really, really important. I know there’s too many married couples, either the husband or the wife that puts the guilt trip on the other, and sometimes just can’t be helped. You just have to extend that extra measure of grace and mercy and just be patient. It’s not about us, it’s about him, it’s about her. I also wish someone had told me that as a woman ages, her body changes from the inside. As you progress into the menopause process, everything dries up and becomes accidents and tender skin, hair, nails and vaginal tissue. In conjunction with the changes in a woman’s body, a man’s body changes too. Sometimes, a man might have more difficulty achieving and maintaining an erection of making just requires more time and more patience. And you know tenderness, just a lot of tenderness. God knew this in advance. And even as a cut, if it comes as a surprise to marry couples like it kind of came to this surprise. The timing usually works out fairly well. Usually by mid life. Couple are become empty nesters or at least close to it. Usually there’s a little bit more time to spend with one another, just in general, but also in intimacy, just because adults are a little lighter, you’re not tending to young children or running children to various activities. During this midlife stage, sometimes it becomes necessary to try things that were necessary in years past and one of those very simple things of vaginal lubrication. And conventionally, After much trial and error, we find that coconut oil works very well and it’s non toxic. I’ll just
23:13
Yes, thank you for that.
23:15
Yes, if a couple remains focused on pleasing the other, and that’s just generally speaking, but this also applies to intimacy, then that intimacy they share will blossom into a new and really delightfully sweet season, it can be a really precious time. It’s it’s different now. We have more time now, we need more time now. But know that it’s still a very important part of our marriage of any marriage. And it’s, it’s imperative not to neglect that part of the marriage.
23:56
Yeah. I just love that. Thank you so much for sharing those things. Jen, I think we can all learn from all of that, because it’s very important for each of us to understand that what’s working now might not be working in a couple of years, or what we need to be flexible. But the most important thing is to recognize that that is a central piece in your marriage and not to neglect it, which is basically a huge and this is again lived wisdom. You’re not just saying this as someone who’s done it for a couple of years, you know, but this is 30 years of, of continuing to minister to your husband this way and yourself and making sure that you’re in Union together as you do this, do this thing called life I just I’m so grateful that you shared all of that. Well, and I wanted to ask you with with the kind of thinking about the specific marriage and the specific road that your marriage has taken, what are the some of the opportunities you’ve had to serve and get to know God?
25:00
I think because God has always encouraged me to nurture my gifts. And he’s always kind of spurred me on to do things that I never thought I could do or would do. He always had a lot of confidence in me, even if I didn’t. And I might say, I could never do that he pictures you can. One really practical example is power tool. He told me these power tools. You know, my mom and my sister look at me, and they just think, wow, you know, that’s the coolest thing. Bobby taught me this, Bobby taught me that. So I’m pretty self sufficient. has always given me that confidence. We both always purpose to serve God, and whatever we do. And God is always teaching us new things along the way, but some of my personal adventures. Some of the things that I did that I never thought I could or would do. homeschooling, I you know, I homeschooled our kids, years, I opened the bed and breakfast, and I ran that for eight years. And that was my ministry for eight years. And writing, you know, writing is something I love. And I’ve written a blog for a number of years, and I’m just starting a new marriage blog. And I’m also working on writing a book. And these are things that I always wanted to do. I wasn’t really sure that I could, but he’ll always say, Sure, you can. Of course, you can, you know,
26:27
praise God. That’s awesome.
26:30
Thanks. Most, I guess the most important opportunities I’ve had personally have been really one on one. And this really goes back to marriage again, which has always been my number one passion. We had a honeymoon couple that are Bed and Breakfast a couple of years ago, the husband was military and he was deployed and only able to come home for three days to get make and have a brief honeymoon. Now, this sweet young couple spent the entire first year of their marriage living in different countries. They really struggled with being apart. No emails and phone calls can only do so much to strength. matrimony. Sadly, for whatever reason, the wife’s family did not like this man for husband. I don’t know why I really don’t know why. She didn’t either, for that matter, but they, they were really trying to persuade her to file for divorce, instead of joining her husband overseas, when his assignment when his deployment ended. She was really troubled by this. She just didn’t know what to do. She came to visit me one afternoon, and she shared her struggle, and just couldn’t decide if she should end the marriage or not. And I said, you know, what does God have to say about it? What’s God’s opinion about marriage, and she didn’t really know she wasn’t quite sure. And her family was calling her one way. And she just didn’t know what to do. And because they were physically separated, it was just putting such a strain on their relationship. And they were arguing on the phone a lot. And so she started to believe, well, maybe I made a mistake. I said, you know, if you don’t join in your husband, how will you ever know what your marriage could be? I told her that if she didn’t join him, she’d spend the rest of her life wondering what would have been or what could have had, if she hadn’t joined him. So enter cursor, just just get on that plane and go to him. The best thing that could happen to your marriage would be for the two of you to be in another country together, all alone with no distractions and no family. Here, so she finally did decide to go ahead and join him. When his deployment was over, she joined him overseas sided just give it a try. The first few weeks were very tense and very difficult, but they did work through it together. And they’ve been married for over two years now. And very much in love and very committed. And that just blesses my heart and I I just pray, pray, whatever word God may speak to me in any given situation, I pray that it would be uplifting and valuable. And conversely, I pray that God will shut my big mouth and or the listeners ears if I steer them wrong.
29:28
That’s really funny. Well, I yeah, I’ve I pray those things, too. But I just I just love the I just love that that picture that. Who knows what’s gonna come from that marriage? You know, there’s so many good things that come from marriage, just like you said that you and Bobby are encouraging each other to do what God has for you to do. And just think about how many more people that even just that one couple will touch and then yes, and now your blog coming up and this interview And praise God for that. Now, is there a book or a program that you would specifically recommend to the listeners?
30:06
Yeah, there’s a few, a few books. So I recommend love and respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. And I’m not sure I’m pronouncing your last name correctly. But that’s an excellent book a lot, I’ve given that book to a few couple. And a lot of them when the wife starts reading it, because the first half of the book is really directed towards the wife. They stopped reading it because they get a little bit out of shape. And they don’t like what it has to say. But you know, I don’t make any apology for God’s word. And this book is just God’s word elaborated. And that’s just, it’s a very, very good book, read the whole thing. Don’t, don’t shut it down. Also, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman is very, very good. And that focuses hours of trying to please the other. If you become acquainted with your spouse’s, quote, love language, they’re their most I guess their greatest need, then you can better minister to them in that way, and you will have a better feel for how it is you can meet their needs. And oftentimes, so whatever love language you have, for example, if my love language is words of affirmation, I tend to minister in that way, I tend to be very affirming in my words, but if his need his physical touch, then meeting his need, I’m missing the mark a little bit. So that was a really good book that I read more recently, it’s called Not a fan. By Kyle Idleman, not a fan poses a question. Are you a fan of Christ or follower of Christ? And it really causes you to question your walk and really dig a little deeper, and look at your Christian life. And the term well, you know, am I a fan, we’re an island follower. It’s, it’s just a really, really good read. It’s, it’s really meaty. And then there’s a real lightly very humorous, quick read. It’s called Saturdays with Stella by Alison Pitman. Stella is Allison’s dog and Saturdays with Salah is relating her experience with going to dog obedience class with her dog, and how that really caused her to look at how we are living the obedient Christian life and the correlations that she draws. They’re really, they’re, they’re very scripturally accurate, but it’s, it’s done in a very light hearted way. So that was just a really enjoyable book. Just for any, any believer, really.
33:01
That’s really good. Well, and again, I think it’s nice that you’re giving ideas of just Christian books that you have found really helpful, because again, that’s the foremost in her marriage. That’s what’s keeping her marriage together is Christ at the center. And so I love that and love and respect is a huge favorite of mine as well. My last question for you is if you could go back to year one in your marriage and sit yourself down, what’s one piece of advice that you would give to you,
33:30
I would tell myself, treat your husband with the God ordained respect he deserved. Be obedient to God’s word, and trust God in all things. Don’t withhold a portion of your love. Give your husband all of your love all of yourself. Put your husband first above all, hell.
33:52
I love that. Don’t withhold even a portion of yourself from your husband, give yourself to your husband above all else, that’s awesome. Or give all
34:02
all of yourself and put Him first above all else.
34:07
Give all of yourself and put Him first above all else, I love that. Okay, now where can we find you or connect with you online?
34:15
Okay, my my new marriage blog, which I hope to have published this afternoon. It’s a little bit a little bit long the blog name is finding what is bliss. And the web address is finding wedded bliss dot Wix Wi x.com/healthy-living-blog That long
34:42
Well, you know, what we’ll do is we’re going to have that linked up easily for our listeners on the delight your marriage show notes page for this episode, so we’ll have that all written down for them. Yeah, okay. Well, Jenna, thank you so much. This was so delightful to hear from you. and all of your wonderful lived wisdom. And I just appreciate it. Thank you so much.
35:06
Thank you, and thank you for this series of podcasts. I mean, you are tackling some subjects that a lot of Christians don’t really want to deal with. It’s it’s a tough subject, but it really shouldn’t be. It’s a very biblical subject. And you know, as far as sexual intimacy in particular, we need to talk about these things. And it’s okay to talk about these things in a godly, scripturally based manner. And I really, hats off to you belah. Rose, you’re good. You guys.
35:38
Thank you so much. It really means a lot to me. Thank you. Wow, what a great story and testimony. Jenna has 30 years of lived wisdom, and I’m just so grateful that she shared so generously with us. Thank you for that. Also, if you are listening, I want to thank you for taking this journey with me. Every time you listen to a delight, your marriage podcast, you are investing in the most important human relationship in life is the one of your spouse. So thank you for that. I really want to acknowledge you. This is not easy work. This is hard work matters of the heart. So thank you. And if you are ready to go ahead and take the next step with your marital journey. And there are just certain things that you need to get through. I want to take that journey with you. So go to your email and email me at belah at delight your marriage.com and I’m really looking forward to working with you. Okay, well thank you again for listening. Thank you for diving in today and digging deep and being real. God bless you and I love you and praying for you and your marriage. Bye.
37:01
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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DYM Ep46: What a Woman Needs to Make Love with Sheila Wray Gregoire
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Hi there! Belah here. Today, I have with me Sheila Wray Gregoire—speaker, author, and blogger behind tolovehonorandvacuum. On this episode, she gives us such a wonderful insight about how different a man and a woman can be when it comes to sex, or wanting sex, that is. Generally, she discusses how women react to certain things men do, and vice versa. As someone who has gone through some difficult times in her married life, she offers great advice for wives to stop feeling used or rejected! She does not only share about how a woman thinks, but she also digs into why our husbands could probably lose interest in sex when he becomes engrossed in pornography. Listen in and be inspired! It’s an episode filled with insights you wouldn’t want to miss!
Scripture/Quote:
- “Men need to make love in order to feel loved. Women need to feel loved in order to make love.” -Anonymous
- The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18
- “There are times when I’ve just thought about, on my worst day, just, you know, leaving our house and going some place. Like checking into a hotel and just being in a quiet room by myself. Just sitting in a quiet air-conditioned room, sitting down, eating my lunch with no one touching me, drinking a Diet Sprite, by myself.” -Tinay Fey’s character, “Date Night”
- Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1
- Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21
You’ll Discover:
- What a woman thinks about sex versus what a man thinks about sex
- How women feel toward sex in general
- How bringing too much emotional baggage into a marriage is really not a good idea
- Tips and advice on how to let go of the baggage and move on happily
- Why sex is an important part of marriage—it’s not optional!
- What’s keeping us from finding our balance
- How pornography affects your husband’s libido
Books & Resources Mentioned:
Tweetables:
- The more you say, “I would be happy if only he . . .,” the more you put your happiness in his hands; it’s no longer in your own.
- We need to make sure we’re still learning something new, that we have some intellectual stimulation. Even in the baby years. Keep reading a book, or watch a TED talk while nursing—something to make you feel like you’re more than just a mother.
- There are things that are hindering us that are not necessarily sin.
- Some people think sex is shallow. And it shouldn’t be. And if we put enough emphasis on sex being shallow, I think we rob ourselves of a very rich life.
- No matter what kind of brokenness people have, marriage can be one of the most healing tools that God can use.
Thanks for listening! I hope you are encouraged to live in wholehearted intimacy!
Love,
Belah
—
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Transcript
0:00
to your marriage episode 46. Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast, the 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.
0:21
Hello, and welcome. This is belah rose, and you are listening to the delight your marriage podcast, where I interview a wife or intimacy expert on what it takes to have a thriving, wonderful marriage. Now today, you get both. A lot of these overlap. They’re an expert and they’re a wife. But she like Greg Walker is going to give us some amazing insights specifically about what a woman needs and what a man needs in this thing called marriage. And she shares really some good tips not only about getting out of maybe a rut that you’re in, but also understanding how we can have sex with our whole being not just the physical, so it’s really good stuff. Now before we dive in, I want to mention if you have not yet listened to the webinar, I did recently. It’s called How to make him wild for you the five secrets to receive love and passion in God’s plan. I want to make sure you get it. So would you go to delight your marriage.com/webinar and I will send it to you as soon as possible and listen into this wonderful interview with Sheila. Okay, well welcome back to light your marriage listener. This is belah rose, and I’m really excited to have Sheila Greg voir. And Sheila, I forgot to ask you before we started, I’ve always pronounced her name Gregoire. Is that correct? Yeah, that’s actually really good. Most people get it totally wrong. But that’s that’s very good. Okay, very cool. Well, that makes me happy. Okay, well, welcome, Sheila. I’m so excited that you’re here. How are you today? I’m doing great. And I’m so excited to share with your audience too. Oh, good. Good. Well, could you go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit about your family and your day to day life for anyone who doesn’t know you already? Sure. Well, I have been married for 23 years to my husband, Keith. And we’ve been happily married for about 18. So we’re a little bit rough. We’ve raised two daughters, one of them is getting married, and three weeks. So I’m a little bit under the gun, and I’m having nightmares of all the things I’m forgetting to do. Oh, my gosh. But that’s exciting. And we’ll be empty nesters next year. So we’re getting used to that idea as well. But I’ve been writing and blogging for about 16 years. And my ninth book is coming out in August 9 thoughts that will change your marriage. But I think what I’m most known for is writing about marriage and sex, because that’s the fun part. So it is the fun part. It’s the stuff that we don’t talk about, but need to be and I just love I definitely consider you a pioneer in this space. And I just I’m so grateful that you’re with us. So really cool. How old is your daughter? Did you say? My daughter is getting married? She’s only 20. Yeah, so Wow. Yeah, a little young, but they’re really good together. And they’re both they’re both going to be in school forever. So there’s no point waiting till schools done. So. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, with you being her mother, I’m sure she’s gotten plenty of tips and advice. And oh, that’s really cool. Okay, cool. Well, could you share a little bit about you and your husband’s personalities? Well, that’s funny, you should, because I did a post on that this morning. If you anyone knows the Myers Briggs, I’m an EMT j which means that I’m an extrovert. I’m a creative thinker. I’m very black and white. I make decisions quickly. Yes. Hitler was an INTJ. Oh, no. But so it was really Churchill. So that’s okay. You know, very much the decision makers, the leaders, my husband is more of a traditionalist, He’s, um, he’s more of the administrator, the loyal, get stuff done person. And so usually when we plan because I’ve got a million ideas of a million different things that I want to do, and he’s thinking, if it isn’t broken, why try to fix it, so? Yes, Mm hmm. That’s really funny that you say that, that I actually am a huge fan of the Myers Briggs or any any personality test, honestly. Right? Do you just love all personality tests? I do. And you know, my daughter, the one is getting married is also an INTJ and my husband’s and ESF j and then our youngest Isn’t ESFPs so she’s your little people pleaser? Oh my gosh, you know, and she just is so funny because she’s so opposite from the rest of us, but a lot of fun.
5:11
Oh, yeah. Well, anyone who hasn’t heard of the Myers Briggs or specifically about this, there’s a great website called 16 personalities the number one six personalities calm. I’ll have it linked up on the show notes so people can find out what they are. But I just looked you up. Yes, you are the commander bold, imaginative and strong willed leaders. Yes. That’s awesome. Yeah, I’m, I’m close to you. I’m an F in FJ, which. charismatic and inspiring leaders able to mesmerize their listeners. So there you go. Those who start cults are most likely to be ENFP. Oh, scary, right. You know a lot about this. That’s awesome. My mom did this for a living. She’s an INFJ, too. So yeah. Oh, very cool. Okay, well, we, we could go back and forth on this all day. That’s awesome. But um, tell me, if you would, you know, this delight, your marriage is all about inspiring and empowering marriages to have really great intimacy. So could you share a scripture or a quote that’s meant a lot to you over the years for your marriage? Um, well, one thing that I always tell people that they need to understand is that men make love in order to feel loved. Women need to feel loved in order to make love. That is so so good. Well, and I yeah, I mean, it’s something we’re gonna unpack shortly, I’m sure quite a bit more. But yeah, I love that. I think so often as women, we feel the opposite. We feel like I need to, I need to feel loved. I need to feel cherished in order for it to even happen. And the guy’s like, well, I don’t feel loved until we do. Yeah. So it sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t work. It can work. Yeah. Well, I hope that you’ll be talking about that in your in your story. So it could you you mentioned in the very beginning, you’ve been married 23 years, but happily married? What did you say? 18? Okay, so tell us could you share that difficult season or struggle in your marriage? Well, we had a whole lot of issues when we first got married, and one of them was I came into marriage with so much baggage. You know, my parents split when I was very young, I had a lot of rejection issues with my dad and with my stepfather later on, and with a lot of bad relationships as a teenager. And then when we were engaged, my husband actually broke off the engagement. And we got we got back together a few months later, but that really threw me too. So when we did get married, a trust was just a huge issue for me, and I didn’t know it was going to be it wasn’t like I got married, knowing that I was going to put up all these walls, you know, usually we don’t know how we’re gonna read, right. But when we, when I did get married, I did put up a lot of walls. And that made, you know, I made sex difficult, it make communication difficult. And so we spent the first few years of our marriage hurting each other and feeling hurt, without understanding how the other person was feeling. You know, it seemed like, every time he wanted to make love, I experienced that as rejection because it meant he only wanted me for what I could do for him. And yet, every time I did, he experienced that as rejection. And so we both felt like the other person didn’t love us, even though we both really did love each other. So we just weren’t connecting at all. And it took a couple of years to get over that. And to realize that it wasn’t there wasn’t any point in wallowing about it and and feeling, you know, why doesn’t he really love me? Why doesn’t he meet my needs? Eventually, you need to take the first step and start doing what is in your power to make the marriage better. And we both kind of came to that the same time. And ironically, having kids helped us a lot, you know, people it takes some part for us. I think it brought us together because it gave us something else to concentrate on and focus on and you know, and even though we were exhausted in those years, we did have a lot of fun. So I think that can I ask just to kind of pull out some of the things you talked about already. You said specifically, you were hurting. You felt rejected when he would make advances for sex. I know into most men, that will make no sense but right men probably understand what I mean. Yes. Uh huh. Could you unpack that a little bit more? Why do you think men wouldn’t understand that because to a guy if you want her it means that I love her. So obviously, if I you know, I wouldn’t want her if I didn’t love her. So to him, that’s his way of showing love. Whereas to me it felt like your love comes with strings attached. You’re only going to love me if I perform for you or something. And so it just Got into this really, this really cycle where we just go downhill and spiral downhill without really understanding how the other person was feeling.
10:10
Yeah, that is really so true. And, and it’s true, especially if a if a woman is coming into marriage with baggage, maybe from honestly just society as a whole, right? I mean, there’s just so much abuse of women all over the place. So even if your wife hasn’t specifically had, you know, abuse in her past, she easily could have internalized I mean, don’t you think that’s like a easy thing for a wife to kind of have in her thoughts is like, he just wants me for sex. Yeah. And I think that our culture objectifies women so much. We see it in the NOG Rafi industry, especially, you know, and if he’s been involved in porn at all, she she’s gonna internalize that and experience any overtures he makes as rejection as well. You know, in a lot of couples, it may not be right when they get married, that this happens. It might be right when a baby comes, you know, for us. But I know a lot of couples where the honeymoon periods great, but then yeah, baby comes they get into this cycle. And why do you think that happens when the baby comes? Well, I think there’s a lot of reasons. One of them is just playing pro bono. For women after the baby’s born, her desire for sex goes way down. Because you’re nursing, your body can be kicked back in yet plus, darn exhausted. Yeah, yeah, getting any sleep. And you are totally consumed with this little tiny bundle that is attached to you constantly. At the same time he, even if he loves that baby dearly, starts to wonder if you’re still a family unit, or if it’s just the mom and the baby. And so he needs to feel like he’s still mean something. So he might be pushing more for sex at the same time. And she’s like, I can’t do what I already have to do. Don’t add something else to my to do list. And so then they get Yeah, well, it’s interesting. You bring that up because my youngest is five months old, so are just turned six months old. So yeah, I hear that. That’s actually really, really true. And I would even add to that list. The the wife is still not even in her own feeling good in her own skin yet. I don’t think yeah, by nose. Yeah, body image is huge. But yeah, yeah. Okay. Wait, what it was, oh, Bobby. Yeah. Oh, took me a while to get that pun actually. That’s really funny. Yes, exactly. No, that’s really good. So you guys had kids, and that helped you actually focus on something else? You know, if someone’s in that rut, and a marriage is in that rut that you’re talking about where both of you are feeling rejected back and forth? I mean, what are some tips you can give them? The first one I would say is stop pointing your finger at your spouse. I think it’s true, especially for women. We start feeling rejected, we start feeling unloved, we start feeling heartbroken. And you know, there’s all these verses in scripture about how God is close to the brokenhearted, and how can we care about the brokenhearted? And so we start to feel like God is on our side. You know? That’s me feel so sorry for his poor, broken daughter. And when we pour this heartbreak out to God, we pour this heartbreak out to all of our friends. And it reinforces this idea that our husband doesn’t love us. Yeah. And yet, I don’t think that that is really the way that God looks at your marriage. My two daughters, as I said before, are older now they’re 20 and 18. I remember the time between the ages of eight and 12. were horrible. You know, because the older one had gone through puberty, the younger one hadn’t yet. And so they were constantly clashing. And I know how I felt as a mother. When my two daughters were clashing. It hurts me, because I love both of them. And they’re they are in their clashing. So I really don’t think that God is up there in heaven, you know, looking at you as you’re brokenhearted, and wanting to stroke your hair and say that’s okay. I know, he’s a really mean person. I think he was looking at you and saying, I love you. But I love your husband too. And I just want you to love each other. You know, and instead, we tend to wallow and we tend to retreat into ourselves and we don’t see that there are actually things that we can do to make our marriage better. Instead, we say things to ourselves, like, I would be happy if only he would give me some time to myself, I would be happy and only he would figure out what I need to feel loved. I would be happy if only he would learn to put the toilet paper roll on or whatever.
14:52
Yeah, and the more you say those sorts of things to yourself, I will be happy if only he The more you put your happiness in his hands, it’s no longer in your own. And therefore, you’re helpless. You’re just waiting for him to change. And that is never going to work, especially because there are things that we can do to make our relationship better. Yeah. No, that’s great. I love that you said, if we kept on saying, I will be happy when dot dot dot, whatever that is, then the husband, the man or or, you know, the husband, the wife, whatever, they have control over your emotions. And that’s, that doesn’t make sense. Yeah. That’s not a Yeah, no, I love that. Okay, so what about the wife that is feeling totally affection starved? And, and she’s just saying, I will be happy when now what what can she do then in terms of her own? Her own being making herself feel good? Well, there’s several different things. I mean, first of all, we do need to make sure that we’re feeding ourselves, you know, apart from the marriage, right, we need to make sure that, that we have a good emotional outlet with some friends, we need to make sure that we’re still learning something, and we have some intellectual outlets, even in the baby years, you know, like, keep reading a book, or watching a TED talk while you’re nursing or, haha, yeah, something to make you feel like you are more than just a mother because you are. And there’s things that you can learn even in these times. And I think that when we keep learning when we keep engaged with friends, when we keep praying, when we keep having that relationship with God, we become more satisfied, we become richer in ourselves. And that, you know, you need to be a rich person, a complete person yourself to terms in terms of marriage, and I think that’s the first step is getting yourself in a strong place. And that includes, by the way, sleeping well, and eating well. It makes a difference. You know, I’ve got some real health issues in the last year, nothing life threatening, not at all, just pain issues I had to deal with. And it’s amazing how just changing your diet in little ways, can dramatically change your life, you know, and I never believed that before I heard people say it, and I always thought that they’re just environmental crazies or something, you know? Sure, yeah. But you actually it’s true when we stop eating so much junk. So I mean, that can that can really help. I love that. But then I think it’s also really important to say, marriage is it, you’re always in a certain balance. And that balance might be unhealthy. Like, you know, when you’re on a teeter totter at a playground, and the kids going up and down. Because and the way to go up is you push off with your feet, and then you know, the other person goes down, and you go back and forth like that. And sometimes you can be in in the balance on the teeter totter, where one person’s taking a lot more of the weight. And the you know, what happens if you’re on the bottom, and you suddenly get off? Right? Yeah, that’s either just the person on the top now it’s just gonna go flying. And there’s different ways that you can change that balance. And, you know, you need to look at your mirror, she’d say, Okay, what we’re in unhealthy balance right now. And I can either wait for them to step off and have me go flying. Or I can see how I can just make small adjustments so that we find a new status quo that is just healthier. And if you’re if you’re the kind of person, here’s something very, very minor that I mentioned on my, on my Facebook page the other day, and it makes such a huge difference. Ask for help. Like, just ask for help. If you are overwhelmed with everything that you are doing in the house, and he never helps. Sometimes he just needs to be asked really directly. I don’t know how many of you seen the movie date night? You know, with them still. And Tina Fey I love that movie. But no,
18:56
I haven’t yet. Oh, it’s a great movie. I mean, there’s some we’re okay. But okay, the message about marriage in it. I think everybody will relate to and you know how you can get into this rut, but how love is still love. And we just need to find that again. And really great. But there’s one scene where they’re, they’re talking and she’s saying, you know, I never I never daydream about leaving you. I never daydream about another man. I never daydream about that. The only thing I really daydream about is one day leaving the home. I think myself into a hotel and drinking a Diet Sprite on my own with no one touching me. That’s so funny. That is rotating. And she says, Today, I do everything for everybody. I have to get the kids in their pajamas. You know, why is that every day? It’s it’s big news. So these kids have to get in their pajamas and she has things and she’s just so tired. And he says, Well, you know, your life would be so much easier if you would just let me help. But every time I try you send me away and you never ask And I thought, you know, that’s really true. A lot of us are upset that our husbands don’t help, but we never actually asked. And so I put that on my Facebook page. And some people have some really interesting comments about how for five years they had been angry about their husband in the dishwasher, how he never put anything in the dishwasher, and they would feed him. And then one day, they said, Honey, can you put your coffee cup in the dishwasher? And he just opened the dishwasher and did it and from now on, he always puts his coffee cup in the dishwasher. It it just never occurred to him before. No, that’s so funny. And also, I think sometimes we ask, with that resentment already built up. And so then so then it becomes a big issue when it really could have started with this open ended. Honey, would you help me with this? Yeah, I love that. And I find two men, if you say, Can you help me with this? That’s often not as helpful. As you know, instead of I’m making dinner, can you help me make dinner? How about can you feel and chop the carrots? Oh, good one. Yeah. You know, like, like, give them something specific because we have this is the thing about being a multitasker is we have so many things in our head at all times. And we know everything that needs to be done. And we have this huge list. And so we see the whole picture. Men don’t work that way. And so to them, they don’t know what you want them to do. Yeah. So if we can, if we can just break it down. That’s a much more helpful method of communication. Yeah, yeah. And I love that. And I appreciate that. You also talk about how men think versus how women think a lot of times, it is very different. And so you have to sometimes be very, very specific. And the other thing, I think, I wonder if you agree with me, Sheila, but I think a lot of times we micromanage in a way that’s just unhelpful. And so maybe, maybe we’ve asked for help, or our husband was originally helping us with whatever, getting the kids ready or whatever. But then he does it a totally different way than you would and then you kind of pick apart his delivery of helping you. And then it kind of, Okay, nevermind, you won’t, next time. Yeah, I wrote a book called to love honor and vacuum was actually my first book. And I shared the story in that about a dad who, one day together with another dead friend of his, they decided on the spur of the moment, they were going to take the kids to the beach, give the wives a day, home with it with, you know, with just the women. And this sounded like a good idea. But they took off to the beach. And they have forgotten towels, they have forgotten sunscreen, they didn’t pack a lot, you know, like to a woman to go to the beach is a huge undertaking, right? And this the day before, because we need all of this stuff. And the guys just went. And yeah, it’s been a really fun day, like, like when they realized they didn’t have sunscreen, they just had the kids go in the water and then roll around to the sands so that they had sand covering their bodies. Oh, that’s so funny. Oh, my gosh. And then they just dried off in the sun later on. And I you know, it was just remembered as this really fun day with dad, where everything was not normal, but everyone may do and so the kids had a great time. And arms learn that sometimes you just have to take a step back, and he really will be able to do it. And she’s just doing his own way. And so yeah, we do need to give our husbands the, you know, the leeway for that stuff. Yes, that’s so true. Yeah. What, what is the premise of to love, honor and vacuum? Because I know you’ve got a vibrant blog and this book? And could you just share what someone picking up your book would be able to learn from it?
23:39
Well, the subtitle is if you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother, and I think that that’s what happens. So many women, we get married, thinking we’re signing up for this relationship. And then five years later, we feel like our life is just one endless to do list. And what do you do, then? How do you find the love again? How do you make sure that people are actually respecting you, when you like everyone takes you for granted. And it’s all about things that we can do to change our marriage and to change the dynamic so that our husbands, you know, do cherish us and do treat us well. Because, you know, the things that we tolerate, tend to continue. And I think women are tolerating things that they shouldn’t. And then a lot of women are becoming such control freaks, that our husbands tend to retreat. And that’s not healthy either. So there’s these two problems, you know, one is that we may tolerate things that that we really shouldn’t. And the other is that we may start acting in ways that we really shouldn’t. And so how can you find that that proper balance we’re more of a team? Yeah, and I know you use Scripture kind of throughout your, your website, is that also in the book like a godly approach to that as well? Oh, absolutely. I think one of the yeses that really sums up I think everything that I write in Hebrews 12 I guess it’s two verses Hebrews 12 One and two. We The writer of the Hebrews, after Hebrews 11, where they did this great heroes of the faith and they explain all these great heroes of the faith, they start off chapter 12 by saying, therefore, since we’re surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, you know, all these people before. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith and let us Why am I blanking on his now? That’s okay. I just I just looked it up, throw off everything that founders Yes, throw off. Yeah, anything that hinders and the sin which so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance, the race that is set before us. And the one thing that really hit me about this versus when I first read them, probably when I was a teenager, was the things that we’re supposed to throw off, you know, we’re supposed to throw off everything that hinders and the sin, which means that there could be things that are hindering us that aren’t necessarily sin. And I, I think that often, we feel like if there’s a block in our marriage, or if there’s a block in our relationship with God, it must be because there’s some huge sin issue. And that certainly may be the case. And we certainly need to examine our lives to see if that’s the case. But often, it’s not a sin issue, which is keeping us from God’s best. Often, it’s just behavior patterns, or time wasters or things that are not necessarily bad, but they’re holding us back. They’re weighing us down. And what are those things I really challenge people to look at is because I think we fill our lives with a lot of things that are not helpful. Yeah, you know, a lot of behavior patterns. You know, even for women, especially like our attitude towards sex. You know, all this and what do you mean by that back? And I think that we, now now I’m generalizing here, okay? Let me put a disclaimer out there. When I did the research, for my book, The Good Girls Guide to great sex in about 24% of marriages, the woman is the one with a higher sex drive. So it is not always the guy with the higher libido. Okay, so please, if you’re one of the women who has a higher sex drive, just give me a bit of grace for what I’m about to say. And then we can come back to that situation in a minute, too, because there’s some unique problems with that. But I think a lot of women really see sex as something which, you know, is optional. Like, it might be the icing on the cake, but that really is all it is, like, it’s just something that’s extra, whereas sex is really more the oil in the engine, the thing that keeps the relationship going, and God created it to be something which is so wonderful. Um, you know, it’s intimate on three levels. It’s emotionally intimate. It’s spiritually intimate. It’s physically intimate. And a lot of people haven’t necessarily experienced all of that. And so we tend to make sex seem like it’s something which is almost shallow, and it shouldn’t be. And when we don’t put enough emphasis on it, I think we rob ourselves of a very rich life. We don’t just rob our husbands.
28:09
Yeah. Hmm. That’s good. No, I love that. It’s interesting. I love that you you talk about sex that way? Yeah, I want to ask you just a follow up about the higher libido wise, I’ve definitely had encounters with plenty of higher libido, wives, they’ll talk about it. But the thing that gets me I just don’t understand it. Maybe you can clarify this for me, is I don’t get how our society doesn’t reflect it. Does that make sense? We don’t have, you know, sex slavery is not happening to serve the female drive. Nothing is happening to that, you know, pornography is generally not serving the female driver. I mean, it just, it seems like if it were more comparable to each side, the sex drive, it seems like that was showing up in statistics elsewhere. I mean, what do you kind of think about that? Well, I think that the, the media’s portrayal of sex tends to be more male focused. But I think that that’s largely also a cultural shift. Because what happened was, you know, somewhere near the beginning of the century, when Christianity stopped being as much of a driving force, we really started seeing sex as something which is outside of marriage. And if you take, oh, yeah, if you take sex outside of a commitment, marriage relationship, then all you really have is the physical. You don’t have the emotional intimacy, you don’t have the spiritual intimacy because those things you know, to have those things you need trust, you need commitment, you need vulnerability, and not yet are present if you don’t have a real commitment. And so what we’ve done is we’ve taken sex outside the marriage relationship, we’ve made it only about the physical, and so we start to portray sex in that way. I mean, What What what’s super sexy, it’s the body, you know, and this is why we see such pressure on women to look a certain way. And there’s always been pressure on women to be beautiful always. But it’s become almost sinister, I think in the last 30 years, the, you know, the pressure that women face. And it’s because in order to attract someone, you have to be a certain type of sexy. That’s only true if sex is only about the body. And so, you know, and then what happens if you have sex and you feel like something’s missing, it doesn’t feel quite as good as it’s supposed to? Well, then we figured what we need to do is we need to stretch the boundaries, more and more, we need to try more and more weird things, exciting things, we’ll see if we can get that high. And that’s why you see all these weird sexual practices that nobody ever did, or, you know, nobody even talked about when we there’s that now our 12 year olds know what they are. And so think, you know, boundaries are really getting stretched. And yet, what people don’t realize is that the reason that sex seems to be missing something is because what it’s missing is that idea of spiritual intimacy, when you feel like you’re one where you feel like you’re really connecting, you can’t do that, and you’re not married. And so I think what’s happened is that the, the media’s portrayal of sex has become something which is completely physical. And that may seem more like a male portrayal of sex. But I think that men have a greater desire for intimacy too. So guys are shallow or anything like, yeah, it’s just that our whole portrayal has really made sex shallow. Yeah, and that’s what we’re, that’s what we’re missing. I love that. I like that so much. And so to kind of circle that into the, the higher libido, wives kind of journey to talk about the reason that maybe statistics doesn’t like the things that I shared about the pornography or prostitution, those kinds of things. And the female, her nature would not kind of go after things like that, because she’s looking for the intimacy. Yeah, that’s an in marriage, not the physical? Is that what you would say? Yeah, I would, I mean, our sex is certainly very different. And, you know, there’s several reasons why a guy could have a lower sex drive. And also, it’s really common in marriages for it to ebb and flow. You know, she has a higher sex drive, and then for there to be a period where he has the higher one. So it’s not like this is all the static. Yeah, the things that can kill libido. You know, the first of all health issues, antidepressants, you certain medications, diabetes, if you’re really overweight. For guys, especially who are overweight, it means they’re gonna produce more estrogen. Estrogen in a guy is like the opposite of testosterone, it’s gonna kill their sex drive. Yeah. So any of those things can do it stress can really kill your libido.
33:00
Relationship issues if he’s had performance problems, so if he’s had erectile dysfunction in the past, I get scared of trying again, and so that can kill it. But the interesting thing is that all of those reasons have been present forever. You know, yeah, not the the antidepressant stuff, but health issues, stress from work issues, all of those have been present forever. But what we’ve seen in the last 10 years is a huge spike in the number of men who have no sex drive. And the only real change in the last 10 to 15 years is the prevalence of pornography. Pornography is really the number one libido killer for men. And that’s, that’s counterintuitive, because most people think, Well, if he’s watching porn all the time, it’s gonna be really excited. But that’s actually not the case at all. Because what happens is, if he watches porn, he is rewiring his brain so that what becomes exciting is an image rather than a person. And so Oh, yeah. And so now it actually becomes almost impossible, depending how much he uses point to get aroused by his wife. Yes. And, you know, the, there’s a, there was a really interesting, huge study done out of Italy about three years ago now, that found that most sufferers of erectile dysfunction are now under the age of 40. It’s not Bob Dole with the little blue pill like, you know, that we used to see him. It’s really young guys, and those little blue pills will do nothing for them. Because it’s not a physiological problem. It’s not a physical problem. The problem is in the brain, because you’ve literally rewired the brain about what is arousing. So, you know, porn is toxic for so many reasons. Yeah, but that’s one huge thing that’s going on. And so we’re raising this generation of teenagers who are getting their sex education from pornography. So you know, as soon as they start to have sexual feelings, they they see porn on the computer and that, that solidifies that relationship between pornography and arousal. And now normal arousal isn’t isn’t even, you know, possible. So there’s so so the boys were growing up today they’re going to have a big challenge. And I think as parents, we need to be protecting them. Yeah, absolutely. We had an interview just recently by Luke Gilkerson. From covenant eyes. Yeah. So like, yeah, we need to be protecting them by by, by Absolutely. Guarding, putting on filters. So I think that’s very, very important. You know, it’s interesting. I, I’ve been swimming in this stuff for a while. I don’t know if this ever happens to you, Sheila. But sometimes it’s just so overwhelming the brokenness, the brokenness of our world. And, and God kind of gave me a scripture recently that I felt was really helpful that says, Some Romans 1221 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And that has just been really helpful recently, to me, because the brokenness of our world is so stark, that I just love someone like Sheila’s message, you can, you can see that it’s a hopeful message. So she’s saying, this is the sadness of what’s happening today. But we need to be overcoming evil with good, we need to be getting married and having appropriate and good intimacy in it. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know, no matter what kind of brokenness people have marriage, I think can be one of the most healing tools that God can use, I know that my marriage has been an incredibly healing tool in my life, you know, just feeling some of those rejection is just that I had as a child, and, and it’s okay to be broken. It really is. And I think that when, when God is in our brokenness, amazing things can happen. And so, you know, if you’re a woman, and you’re listening to this, and your husband struggling with pornography, there’s two possibilities. One is that he will acknowledge it, and he doesn’t think it’s wrong. And if that’s the problem, if that’s the case, you really need an intervention, you need to get someone to come and talk to him with you. But you know, in a lot of Christian relationships, what I’ve seen is that he really wants to step up, he’s just having a really hard time. It isn’t something he’s happy about. He’s really deeply ashamed about it, he just doesn’t know how to stop. And if that’s the case, I would really encourage you fight the poor and do not fight your husband, you know, fight with your husband, not against your husband, because he just needs your support. And I know that your hurts, I know that you women listening are hurt, if your husband’s doing that, and you feel rejected. But if he really is trying to stop, then be his biggest cheerleader, don’t make it harder on him. You know, and if, you know, talk to some friends about it to get out your own feelings, but I think you can be his biggest ally in this fight.
37:54
Yeah, that’s so good. I’m so glad you mentioned that, Sheila, because you’re absolutely right. And I struggled with bulimia, when I met my husband, and it was the the love and support that he gave me was so vital in me getting free of that addiction. And, and that’s, that’s something I kind of think about with the pornography is that wives have an opportunity to love their husband through this to get totally free. And, and the other I guess, side of this, that I think is a helpful piece. I wonder, you know, what your thoughts are on this Sheila is that, you know, I, I know that my husband is someone who has has struggled with pornography in the past. And so it’s possible, it could come up again. And I just have to have a real, honest understanding of that. Because if we if we kind of put our husbands on this pedestal, that they’re never going to struggle with this, it puts the extra pressure on them. And then also, it makes it a lot harder for them to share with you. If and when it does occur. Yeah, that’s exactly right. And okay, you know, we and there’s such a difference between a guy who uses porn every day and a guy who relapses maybe once and benches for a weekend, you know, saying that we can binge is fine, it’s not. But think about it for you, if you’re trying to lose weight, how many of us have tried to lose weight, and we’ve been really good on a diet for 29 days, and then on day 30? You know, we had to Krispy Kreme and we get right, right? I mean, it’s hard. It’s really hard when you’re trying to defeat something and, and for guys to you know, pornography can be really paired with stress relief. A lot of guys turn to it when they are stressed. And so you can be fine for five years, and then you’ll go through a period of financial stress or job loss, or even like a child’s illness, and that’s when it will come up again. You know, it’s just, you know, let’s just show each other some grace. Like I said, it’s entirely different than your house. and won’t admit it’s wrong and continues to use it and that that’s a good situation. But if he really is trying to address it, then let’s address it with him and be his cheerleader. Yeah, yeah, that’s really good. That’s really good. Wow, such great insights. I am excited to share with you actually the next half of this on Thursday. So she gives so much more insight. You won’t want to miss it. Come back on Thursday, and you’re going to hear, really, one in particular is a very specific technique that women will need to start implementing in their love making for the most possible pleasure. So that is coming up. I know. You’ve got to wait. I’m sorry. But let’s, let’s come back, come back and join me with Sheila on Thursday. And we’ll talk then God bless you. Have a great rest of your day. Bye.
40:55
Thanks for joining. If you’ve been inspired by this show, would you help spread the word? If you take a moment to review and subscribe others can find us more easily. Find out how to delight your marriage.com forward slash iTunes. Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion
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When Will You Move Past Your Sexual Past?
In the past couple of months I watched two movies that were really insightful in understanding addictions. One was about alcohol addictions and the other was about sex addictions (ironically). Now, I came away from both movies thinking they were helpful in understanding those topics and entertaining. Unfortunately, the more prevalent memory of both was two burning images in my mind that was very explicit in nature. Both movies displayed nudity or explicit sex scenes. I so wish the director had made a different choice. But I am responsible and in my heart was the desire that I had made a different choice 
I could have looked away from the scene–often you know when a sex scene is coming or as soon as it happens shield my eyes. Or I could have chosen not to watch the movie based on the rating. Had I done that, these images would not have stayed with me. But, I sinned.
My Sexually Sinful Past
Obviously it’s not the first time I have sinned in the area of sex and it’s probably not the last. As a young woman, I stumbled upon porn while doing research for middle school homework. I was initially shocked and appalled. Then surprised by a physical response to a visual stimuli. That day, sadly led to weeks, months and years of heart-wrenching addiction.
I grew up as a Jesus-loving, young lady who no one would ever have considered that I was struggling with porn. And I did love Jesus, sincerely. But it’s true. I was struggling. In the dark. In the shame. In the guilt. I prayed every alter call, every youth group function, I prayed and repented and asked God to help me. Then a day or so later I was caught up in the same struggle. It was off and on like that for years.
[As a side, if you are a parent, put guards on your child’s phones, computers and TVs. There is no reason to give them the access & opportunity to struggle with this. Check out Covenant Eyes or similar resources for help. Even if there is a cost involved, please make this priority for the sake of your child. Also, I have no affiliation (financial or otherwise) with this company, I just know it can help.]
(Update: Since this post when live I now, I reached out to the company and now have an affiliate program set up with Covenant Eyes. I’d so appreciate it if you’d use my link, please click here.)
How I Got Out Of Porn
I was so full of shame and guilt. I remember reaching out to one friend during the struggle and she was shocked and didn’t know how to respond. Unfortunately, her impulse reaction was an embarrassed “Well, stop!” in a hushed, and hurried tone. That ended the conversation and she never brought it up again. Neither did I. I bet you can imagine that that didn’t help. It added to the problem. Once, I was open about it at a youth group function. One leader comforted me, but other leaders present sat quietly, while I sobbed. I assumed they were judging me, not to mention all the wide-eyed peers sitting around me. The truth is most of them had probably struggled themselves at some point, if not even at that time.
But there was one wonderfully souled lady that I confided in. She was just a couple of years older than me, but her wisdom was vast. We met on a missions trip. She was kind and empathetic and shared a sin-struggle she also had. We prayed for each other and that was beginning of the end to my addiction. But, then the trip ended and I was alone with my computer and the temptations again. I unfortunately struggled alone for far too long.
[Another side: if you are struggling, please open up. This horrible cycle can end. Open up to those who can help you. There is help, there is healing].
Slowly, very slowly, in college the addiction did end. Lots of praying and studying the word of God and being around Christians was a huge help. I heard some brave speakers at the Christian group on campus talk about how they got rid of their sexual addictions. They themselves had struggled and wanted to help others out of it. Thank God, it ended for good. The temptation is not even present anymore and hasn’t been for years. [There is hope!]
Seeing Sex As Sinful In Marriage
So, I came into marriage after having a significant struggle with my sexual sin. I was in the zone of ‘fleeing from sexual sin’ (1Cor 6:18). Before porn, I didn’t know much about sex, at all. My mom was worried I’d start exploring, so she seemed to regard all my childhood innocent curiosities as appalling and never talked about it. (Which unfortunately actually encouraged–not deadened–my explorations). Needless to say I entered into marriage with a lot of mixed messages and didn’t know how to sort them. In intimacy, I felt I was sinning and doing something wrong.
Sin-Covered Glasses
Maybe your story is similar to mine in ways. Maybe there is more (there is more in my sexual sin too, a lot more). Maybe there is less sexual brokenness in your story. At the very least, I bet your first exposures to sexual images was not in the context of your marriage. Maybe your first images of sex came from an R-rated films, porn, a magazine or Google search results. Obviously, this was not the right context of sexual intimacy. Those things were sin. The individuals posting the content sinned and you those viewed it sinned. (Matt 5:28).
The Good News
Let’s not cover sin up. It is important to call a spade a spade. Recognize it was wrong. I sinned. You did. We all have. If this is your story, first thing is first: repent. Ask God to forgive you of your sin.
But, I have an inkling you have done this already (if you haven’t, now is the time–say a heartfelt prayer asking God for forgiveness and then keep reading).
The good news is you are (now) forgiven. Completely. Washed. Cleansed. Redeemed.
- For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. – Heb 8:12
- If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. -1 John 1:9
- You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins. -Psalm 85:2
- Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! -2 Cor 5:17
There are many more verses to this effect. If you haven’t gotten the picture: Christ has taken your sin and forgiven it. He has paid the price. He took your sin and your punishment to the cross. He has even forgotten it. (Woohoo!) Now it’s time to start believing you are and acting like a new creation.
Not Just To Make You Feel Better
It is useless to walk around with your head hanging as though you are still under the bondage of sin. You are not. You are a new person, a new being. You are a daughter (or son) of The King! And He calls you righteous (2 Cor 5:21).
Being forgiven causes you to love God more (Lk 7:47). But, also recognize that there is more reasons as to why you have been forgiven: “he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” 2 Cor 5:15. In other words, Jesus paid your price and now you have the privilege to live for him. He wants you to do stuff. He wants you to live for Him.
Why Does This Matter In The Bedroom
In other posts, I have made it clear that God designed us for sex with our spouse: 6 Reasons You Should Not Feel Guilty About Marital Intimacy & What’s Holding You Back From Frequent Love Making?
But if we are not living into that important sexual intimacy in our marriages–because of our views of sex as sinful–we are missing God’s will. In 1 Cor 7:5, Paul is specific in instructing spouses not to deprive each other of sexual intimacy because it’s easy to fall into temptation after too long. So, if you are not living into intimacy in your marriage because of past sexual sin… I hate to tell you, but you’re still sinning.
You are missing God’s wonderful desires for your marriage. He has got amazing purposes He’d like to do through your healthy, strong, and sexually fulfilled marriage. But if you’re caught up on previous sin, darling, you’re still doing it. (Now may be the time to re-read “The Good News” section above).
Our God Is The Best Father, Imagine This
I want to make this easier to understand our Father’s heart in this. Imagine you were playing with your toddler son. He was supposed to build a castle with you out of blocks. Instead, he knowingly, used his blocks inappropriately. He threw them at the most expensive vase in the world, which of course broke. You were disappointed and had to shell out $100,000 to fix what your son destroyed. Now, he came to you in tears, regret, and genuinely asked for your forgiveness. You love him dearly and were glad for his authentic change of heart. You completely forgave him and were so excited to play together. But then, he had the blocks and refused to play. All he could think about was that moment he made the wrong choice. He sulked and regretted and could not get over it, even though you were sitting there ready to make castle with him and have a glorious time together.
Can you imagine how frustrating that would be for you? You already paid the price and forgave him! Why doesn’t he ‘get it’? In this example the toddler doesn’t understand. But you do!
God has a purpose in His sacrifice for you. You sinned, yes. But He forgave you. He wants you to fully engage in this life He has given you. He forgot that you did anything wrong, because He wants you to walk in righteousness and freedom! He purposed you to have a fulfilling and vibrant marriage for many reasons. So, you can go ahead play!
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5 Tips To Gain Confidence With Your Hubby Under the Sheets
It can be nerve-racking to put yourself out there. Especially if you’re not the type or just have never felt comfortable initiating. Maybe you’re just having trouble starting something new or being willing to let your husband see your body.
The female brain is such a unique creation. God made it extremely connected to our physicality. As women, when we set our mind to get into sex, we are actually giving it permission to get turned on. For most women, our physical bodies do not crave the experience like our husbands do. We may crave the intimacy and physical closeness, but generally speaking, we can go much longer without intercourse or orgasm than our husbands. Funny enough, I know I get way more ready, physically and mentally, when I initiate.
In a recent interview for my podcast–launching this month!–a guest who I will keep anonymous for now, shared that it is difficult to initiate sex. Even though she is deeply in love with her husband, it is still a challenge to get started sometimes. She has found the same, that when she initiates she feels more “into” sex than otherwise. I could not agree more!
I have and am still working through these insecurities. But I find these tips are a huge help for me and I continue to strive to live them out. And they really help my marriage.
- Try It First Without Pressure
Here’s the tip: do what you’re doing now to get the experience to happen (maybe he’s the one to initiate). But, then after the experience, try out the new thing. Let me illustrate. I wanted to try something new with my hubby. I thought he’d like it, but it was definitely something new for us. In our marriage, I am intentional about making sure we have open communication around sex, so it is not abnormal for us to talk about what we like and what we’d like to try out together.
For some reason this was just too different and unusual for me to approach verbally or otherwise. And when I wanted to try it with my hubby in the midst of lovemaking, I could feel myself getting nervous. So, I waited until after the experience and we were both enjoying the afterglow. I brought it up. “Honey, would this be something you would like?” I mimicked the action. He said he would. “How does it feel to you?” He let me know if felt good and what it would be like for him. He said he’d like me to try that sometime. I was thrilled and I felt totally at ease.
Then in our next encounter I went for it. But it was not scary, because a) I knew how to do it–I had already practiced b) I knew that he liked it and c) I had already broken the ice and it was no longer new or scary.
- Stop Looking At Your Reflection
I kind of wish all women still wore long robes like in Bible times. Not because I think it’d be comfortable, but because we’d stop criticizing ourselves every time we walked by a mirror, store window or pane-glass-anything! Further, we wouldn’t be judging other people’s bodies against our own. We wouldn’t see supermodels’ cellulite-free legs and decide we should have legs that hang out in salons and gyms every day, all day. It wouldn’t be a thing to empathize with each other’s “imperfections” with friends. (“Imperfections” because why should society decide for us what is “perfect”?)
Body insecurities can derail your confidence and focus in intimacy. Unfortunately, Bible-dress is not quite in vogue in our society. So, what can we do about it? Don’t look. Yes, I mean don’t judge yourself and don’t judge others. I am specifically saying choose not to check yourself out in the reflection, instead thank God for how great your kids are (and totally worth the cellulite!). Choose to look away and recite a Bible verse when a TV advertisement pops on the screen with scantily clad ladies. Choose to be grateful for the areas of the your body you love, when a friend seems to have the perfect [insert body part]. Don’t let what pops into your head or your line-of-sight, dictate how you feel about your body.
Choose to take back the ground the enemy has stolen from you and choose NOT to let these thoughts exalt themselves above what God is doing in your heart and marriage. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for…bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10:3,4 & 6).
- Remember Whose You Are.
You may be thinking: “Oh come on, it’s not that big of a deal”. I can make sure I look nice before a meeting. Yes, you can. But keep in mind, every time you’re checking the mirror you are judging yourself and your worth according to the world’s standards, not God’s. We want to look at ourselves like God does: “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (Sam 16:7). If we begin to train our thoughts to think about what He thinks about, we can develop the areas that He wants us to develop.
He has created and crafted and knit together your body. It is by no mistake that He made you the way that He did. Do not take that lightly. You are His masterpiece.
- Don’t Forget Your Husband Is Wired For Visual Gratification.
Not only God, but your husband loves it! Just as you were knit together, so was your husband. And he was made to loves your curves! Another interviewer (I’m telling you, this podcast is going to be good!) mentioned that he polled husbands and wives about their attraction for one another. I let you listen to the details in the episode (I’ll link here once the podcast is live). He found that most women feel unattractive to their husbands, meanwhile their husbands are very attracted to them!
Don’t let this be you! Decide you are going to accept the compliments he gives you. Decide that you are beautiful and believe he loves the way you look. Decide that you are going to present your body as though you love it. Slowly at first, but I believe you will!
- Affirmations Aren’t Just For Business.
As I came from the corporate world and love to read business literature, I have always heard a lot about affirmations. If you’re not aware, affirmations are short phrases that you say to yourself. It may sound crazy, but it works. The affirmation is something you’d like to believe about yourself, about the world, about God, etc. I encourage you to say them aloud. It interrupts whatever thoughts were going through your mind and allows you to focus on the affirmation.
Here are some examples:
- I am beautiful.
- God wants me to enjoy and accept the gift of my body.
- My husband loves to see my body.
- God made my body with perfection and purpose.
- My body was designed to bring pleasure to my husband.
- He enjoys my curves.
- I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Yes you may have trouble believing them at first. Say it every time the doubt and fear pop into your mind. Stick with it and slowly you’ll start to believe it. We can and should control our thoughts especially around something as important as marriage.
God tells us to. “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things” (Phil 4:8).
- Just Start Touching.
This is very practical: figure out how to start touching your husband more. If you’re too shy to give him a seductive dance right now, that’s ok. He will still enjoy your initiation in any way. Start to make touching part of your relationship. Just begin to make it normal to touch in everyday life. Find excuses to let your hand graze his arm, back, or chest. Stay physically close to him. While in the kitchen, find excuses to touch him. Maybe reach for something near him and let your hand stay on his back for an extra moment. Or put your body against his when you need him to move over. Even be silly about it. Sometimes I bear hug my hubby while he’s washing the dishes. I touch him to let him know I like him and like his body.
The more you touch him the easier it is to move to something more. For example, begin by suggesting to watch a movie together. Turn it on and sit very close, next to him and touching his arm. Eventually, lean against his chest. By the end of the movie, since you’re already very close to each other, start kissing passionately. And let things move forward.
If you’re interested in reading about how often you should initiate, I give some insights in Move Past Low Libido To A Great Sex Life or if you’d like some more practical ideas to initiate check out: 10 Ideas to Start In The Bedroom (without the awkwardness) or What’s Holding You Back From Frequent Love Making?
So those are my tips for now. What are yours? How do you get your mind in the zone to try something new in the bedroom?
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What’s Holding You Back From Frequent Love Making?
If you’ve hung around Delight Your Marriage for very long, you know that I think frequent intimacy is important, if not vital, to the health of your marriage. Regardless of who wants it more, who is the initiator, or who may generally accept the invitation, the key is to make sure this experience is happening a lot.
What is holding you back?
If this is not what your marriage sounds like, it’s time to dig inside and find out why. Is it that you don’t think it’s that important? Or are you insecure in your body and therefore would not enjoy the activities? Or do you have so many rules around the experience that there just is never the time or energy to make it happen? I’d like to dive into each of these concerns with you.
Is It All That Important?
a- God Designed It
God made sex very special. It is the most intimate experience one can experience with another human. It is something that people are fascinated by even in childhood, and God made it that way. He designed this incredible connection to be enjoyed in the context of marriage to pull a husband and wife closer together to each other than any other person. It’s incredible even in the midst of an imperfect marriage. Even when tensions are high, sex can still be involved in the situation to help to assuage and even encourage forgiveness. It is truly a unique experience that God highly esteems in your marriage. “And the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Mark 10:8).
b- Higher Priority Than The Rest
Kiddos, appointments, your work, extracurricular activities etc are all very important to the health of your life. However, your marriage is highest priority human relationship. Yes, if you love your kids, you should love your husband, first. I am a child of divorce and though there were serious issues in their marriage when together, I often imagine the joy the whole family would’ve enjoyed if they were somehow able to get through their issues.
Sex is an opportunity where you both can have an enjoyable experience and feel such love for eachother. It gives you the opportunity to remember why and how you love each other. It is a physical and chemical release that brings you both together in the most unique and powerful way. Yes, sex is very important to your marriage.
Should You Listen To Your Insecurities?
a- You May Struggle With Your Body Image
I am with you sister, I do not have the perfect body. I have struggled accepting my weight and body proportions since I can remember. I was excited to graduate from elementary school to go to middle school because there students walk between classrooms. I was sure with all that walking, I’d lose weight in middle school. A little later in life, I struggled with eating disorders and have generally had issues feeling comfortable in my own skin.
That was my childhood self. Maybe yours is similar. But as adults we can reason through those fears and recognize they are inappropriate concerns in our marriages. My husband (and yours) is incredibly moved by the visual of the female body. Your body is wonderfully enjoyable to his eyes. God designed it this way. The curves of your body that may even be a point of concern for you in the mirror, turn him on!
b- Made With Care
Do not denigrate your own body. It is beautiful. Your Lord designed you. You are His masterpiece. He has even the hairs on your head numbered (Luke 12:7). Your physicality is valuable to Him. Marinating your mind in the truths of God’s word, will help you to silence the fears from the enemy. Your body is not only “good enough”, it is wonderfully crafted and carefully designed according to your Father’s good pleasure.
Your husband was designed to enjoy your body. God gave your hubby a significant gift of His own handiwork when He gave you to your husband. Your husband enjoys your body. And sister, keep in mind, a secure woman is even more attractive. Drop the “am I good enough?” face and prance nude before your husband with fierce confidence!
c- Faith-Focus
We choose to focus away from fear and on faith all the time. It is necessary for us to walk under a bridge, live in a house, drive a car etc. Yes, each of these activities have their risks that we could focus on. But, in order to have a peaceful life, we must not be fear-focused. Apply that habit to your body insecurities. Focus on the purpose of making love: to increase unity and joy in your marriage, for lifelong intimacy.
When you’re thinking about the purpose of the activity, it helps you decide not to focus on the fear. So what if you don’t look like a supermodel? What does that have to do with having a fulfilling and enjoyable marriage? Stop letting yourself think about those things. Focus on what is important and relevant in your marriage to get past your insecurity and into the arms of your beloved hubby.
What If I’m Not Ready?
a- Too Many Rules
Are you waiting to make love when you feel turned on? When the house is spotless? When he brings you a bouquet of flowers? When you’ve lost the pesky 10lbs? When you have a 2-hour timeslot? When the kids are away for the weekend? When you’ve showered, shaved, spritzed and plucked? If you’re waiting for it all to be perfect, you’ll be waiting a long time meanwhile your marriage is eroding.
I get that somethings make us feel more in the mood. I encourage you to figure out what those things are and try to get them done, so you can feel sexy and free. But, don’t forget to make love while you’re in the process of doing those things. Yes, 2 months from now when you’re on vacation, you’ll be able to fully relax and enjoy amazing, world-shifting orgasms with your honey. But, maybe in the meantime, you can still be making love even if it they’re a little less mind-blowing. It is worth it to take away some of your rules in order to make love. It might not be “perfect” sex, but it’ll still show your husband you love him and you will enjoy it too.
b- Just Starting Is Key
If you’ve gotten a little out of practice of making love frequently, the best thing to do is start. If you accidently fell into a rut of making love twice a month, just give yourself a kick in the pants to start initiating every other day. Just see what a difference it’ll make in your relationship to start. It is just like beginning a routine at the gym. It takes some effort and even will-power in the beginning. (It is ok, if that is the case in your marriage.) But once you get into it, you miss the days you’re not able to steal away and get on the elliptical. The key is to start and get back in a habit of frequent lovemaking.
c- It’ll Get Better Once You Get Back On Track
Yes, it can be awkward in the beginning. It can even start awkwardly sometimes. (You may want to check out these ideas to make starting less awkward). That is ok. What’s the harm in looking silly in front of the person who knows you and loves you more than any other human? He’s safe. You can be awkward in front of him. He will love your effort. As you get back into a frequent routine, things will get easier.
Remember, love making can mean a lot of intimate things. Feel free to let it be varied. There is not one right way to connect on a sexual level. You can enjoy each other in many ways. Feel free to explore and delight. Just do it frequently!
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Why My Last Marriage Failed And This One Thrives
I had a conversation with a friend recently, who is going through a really rough struggle with her husband. I listened empathetically to the sad (and familiar) difficulties. I have been married before. It was the most difficult years of my life. There are many reasons why it failed and how I think about marriage now.* Today, I want to focus on what I learned through it.
I felt convicted after the conversation and followed up with an email. An updated version of my email to my friend is below:
Dear Friend,
I am so grateful for you and our conversation. I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit. I wanted to apologize because I may have not been very truthful.
When you asked me if my husband, D, and I are very connected and feel we have a deep understanding of each other, I said “yes”. But, I don’t think I was honest about the back story. I am very different with D than I ever was with my ex. In sum, I guess it is because I realized I didn’t want to mess this up as I did before. I am much more careful with D, I want this relationship to be lifelong and I had to realize without significant effort on my part, it won’t be. My ex made serious mistakes, but so did I.
In doing some reflection, I’d summarize the major ways I have changed into the four major reasons below.
Show Him Respect
a) As a man, D’s highest value in our marriage is to feel that I respect him. On a daily basis, I try to take out everything that spells disrespect to him. When I raise my voice as I get upset, interrupt him (especially during a heated discussion), or argue with him in public, it makes him feel very disrespected. These make him feel the greatest frustration & anger towards me. Instead, I try to honor and show him that I respect him even in overt ways, because I know that means a great deal to my husband.
Seek to Understand Before Being Understood
b) I try to really listen and understand him when we talk. Before I even formulate how I am going to respond, I am intentional about understanding him first. Since we are not from the same cultures and our native languages are different, this one is key. But it may be even more important for those with the same background, because the assumption of understanding is even stronger.
I used to get upset and respond angrily at my ex very quickly. If he used a phrase that had a negative connotation to me, I didn’t even try to get at the root of what he meant. I just got angry and responded that way. Many times, in retrospect, after a hurtful and screaming-filled argument, I found out that I had misunderstood him from the very beginning.
With D, if I think I heard something hurtful, I try to calmly ask him what he meant first. Then I spell back what I understood him to mean. Just beginning in a calm, kind, and empathetic way could completely avoid an argument and actually provide an avenue for greater connection.
Making Love A Priority
c) In the past, my feelings dictated whether or not I was willing to make love. I am not saying this is bad. But if you’re in a rut and haven’t made love to your husband in a while, we women don’t generally spontaneously feel the need. At least we don’t to the level that our husband does. I understand now that even if I don’t necessarily feel my body wanting the experience, I know it is important for our marriage.
Women often need to commit in their mind to the experience before their body begins to get in the zone. I know my husband needs this more frequently than I generally do, so I try to make sure we make love at least a couple times a week. I often am the initiator. I know that if I start things off it guarantees I am fully engaged. Frequent lovemaking is vital to men, so I really try to prioritize my husband’s needs in that arena.
A Time and Place
d) The last key that I never used to pay attention to is timing. I used to get angry about something and blow up immediately, regardless of where we were or what was going on. I used to say things like, “I cannot go on pretending,” or “I’m not going to fake being ok when I’m not”. I still am a big believer in authenticity. However, we can be authentic AND be considerate of when something is addressed.
Now, I try to be very intentional about addressing things calmly, and when we both are in a good physical and emotional place. For example, just the other day I found something that I wanted to ask D about. It was a question that could have easily turned into an argument. He could take it as an accusation, if not handled carefully. When I happened upon the concern, he was going to leave for work in a couple of hours and we had already planned to watch a movie together (something that comes less and less frequently since kiddos).
I felt that we both just needed an enjoyable and relaxing experience together. So, I didn’t bring it up and it was a great movie and cuddle time. The next day, when we were at a good place, I said “Honey, do you mind if I ask you about something that concerned me?” He said “sure”. He was open to the conversation. When I calmly explained, we talked and got to the bottom of it. It turns out that (thankfully) there was no reason to be concerned at all. Because of timing, we were able to turn my potential accusation into a positive and connecting experience.
I’m A Different Person
My dear, I just didn’t think I gave an appropriate answer as to why my other marriage failed and this one thrives. Yes it’s a different person, but more, importantly, I’m a different person.
There really is hope for your marriage. And before throwing in the towel, why not do everything you can to save it? Do everything so that in clear conscience you can look back and say “I tried everything to work it out with my husband”. Who knows what will be the end of that story?
Look At Marriages That Have Turned Around
I just was talking to J from Hot, Holy and Humorous, who described her husband as Spock because he basically shows no emotions. She described how completely awful their marriage was in the beginning years. And then she talked about how she changed and slowly so did her husband. It took some time, but now they have an incredible friendship and marriage. The depth and fulfillment she feels now in her marriage were so evident in how she talked about it.
I say all of this without judgment and in love. I think you’re a wonderful, strong lady and I truly want what’s best for you and your life.
Love,
Belah
*If you have been through a divorce, I want you to know I do not condemn you. I believe God hates divorce (Mal 2:16) but He also hates, murder, rape, lying, stealing, and many other sins that I have also committed. The beauty of the gospel is that he takes our sins on Himself at the cross. If you accept that gift, you are fully forgiven and your sin is wiped away and He remembers it no longer (Is 43:25). Be encouraged, my friend, God has forgiven you and set you free to walk in His love, grace, and truth! You are His beloved daughter.
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Habits For Marital Bliss This Year
As we all have now turned the bend on this new trip around the sun, I sense a familiar, uncanny faith that this year my goals will come to fruition. Truthfully, I love New Years because of the new hope it somehow gives. I love to spend time reflecting on the past year and making goals for the new year ahead. Yes, we’re half-way in to January by now, but if you haven’t taken the time to reflect and re-prioritize for the new year, here’s your chance! I always say January is a practice month, February is when the real work begins.
I’d like to share with you my marital goals for 2015 and encourage you to consider them for your marriage this year. Keep in mind, the most important relationship–aside from God–is your husband. Establishing goals around your marriage is a wonderful way to keep focused on what’s most important in your life.
Consider Your Habits
My favorite quote for many years has been:
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
-Aristotle
Aristotle’s quote is quite applicable in marriage as well. What generally ruins marriages are poor habits. Addiction, anger, criticizing, complaining, moping, disrespecting, nagging, and unrestrained thinking are some examples of habits that are disastrous for a marriage.
Sometimes it feels daunting to get rid of all of our bad habits. However, just start working in good habits and slowly the bad habits will be pushed out of the way. I want to infuse my marriage with as many good habits as possible. Here are the ways I especially plan to increase better habits for our marriage.
1. Compliment Him…In Public
I am a big believer in “we see what we want to see”. If you are looking to compliment your husband, you’ll start to notice the areas that he is awesome. When I focus on giving him encouragement suddenly his great qualities, like being an attentive dad, doing the dishes regularly, and his unwavering diligence at work become so apparent.
I’d like him to know, between the two of us, that he is doing a great job. But, don’t we all feel most encouraged by a compliment when it is shared publicly? Isn’t that why we have award ceremonies, the Oscars, and the Golden Globes? My husband feels especially appreciated when I give him a compliment when we’re with friends. It lets him feel honored (which is of chief importance to your man). I would encourage you to find times that you give him that appreciation when around others.
2. Honor His Love Language
Do you know your husband’s love language? I would encourage you to find out! Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages. It is a wonderful resource about finding out how to make your partner (or anyone really) feel loved. We all have specific ways that we naturally prefer to give and receive love. It’s always hard for me to pick my top one, so I’ll give my top three: time, words of affirmation, and physical touch.
My husband’s primary love language is acts of service. So, it means the world to him when I cook a meal, clean the house, make him coffee in the morning. Sounds like someone has 1930s view of marital roles? Not so, he is incredibly active with the kids, house work, and–if we can swing it eventually–he is enthusiastic about being a stay-at-home dad. But, service is the way he feels most loved. It is not mine, but because I know that about him I choose to serve him. This year, I will up my game in this arena, because I know it means so much to him. What can you do to love your husband in his love language?
3. Establish Boundaries On Your Anger
When we’re having a conversation that turns into a discussion that elevates into an argument, it’s pretty hard for me to keep my keep my voice in check. My husband is very sensitive to the level and tone of my voice. Once I cross the line into yelling, he feels like I am his mother scolding him. You can imagine that makes him completely disengage at a minimum.
I grew up understanding emotions worked I guess like a volcano. Once the lava under the surface got hot, the person unavoidably is going to blow. It doesn’t matter the place or situation, when someone got angry they couldn’t be held responsible for what happened next. That is not reality. It is not the way God talks about our emotions or anger. The Bible says, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19).
In my favorite movie, About Time, the mother played by Rachel McAdams finds her daughter shredded and colored on her very important manuscript for work. This happened while her husband, was supposed to be watching her. Rachel, understandably is very angry and wouldn’t let hubby leave the room while she reprimanded him. The phone rang in the middle of her tirade and she answers it with a “What!?”. Immediately her tone, face and behavior changed. We found out that it was her mother-in-law is on the other line to tell of her husband’s sickness. The anger is gone, just like that.
I like this anecdote because it shows that our anger is not immovable or unavoidable. If your pastor walked into your living room in the middle of a heated argument, I am sure you would calm down or begin to speak in much kinder ways. Its time to put some limits on our anger. Establish boundaries that no matter the situation you will not cross.
4. Get Back In Lovemaking Shape
I just had a baby! He is officially a month old, yesterday. I don’t know how you carry babies but I am not great at laying off the sweets during those long, hormonal 9 months. Somehow I think I’m going to gain weight anyway, what’s the point? Not great, but now that I am not pregnant anymore (hallelujah!) I can take responsibility and get the weight off. I’m tracking my food with a handy, free app called: My Fitness Pal and I am signing up for our local gym starting February (once I’m cleared to start).
Of course whatever shape you’re in, you’re in lovemaking shape. So, be lovemaking now! Don’t wait until you feel your body is perfect (your husband can’t wait for that! You are enough!) But if like me, you know you’d feel more comfortable in your own skin, more sexy, and more confident after having shed some pounds then please do it! Especially if you know your husband would appreciate it too! Start with the suggestions I gave, we’ll do this together!
5. Up Your Intimacy Frequency
Being pregnant kind of put a damper on our frequency. And you probably know, after a baby you’re supposed to wait 6 weeks (!!) before making love. There are certainly other things a couple can do during this time to stay intimately connected. But, I am very much looking forward to diving into a normal lovemaking habit again. I am also encouraged to up my game a bit and get life structured in such a way that we’re making love frequently every week (even with a newborn).
6. Learn More About Sex
Yes, I love learning about sex. I have a pretty large bookshelf on the topic. This is a habit I have established. But writing out my intention to continue always helps me to do more. I’d encourage you to do the same.
Why not make this your year to revolutionize your love life? What are you waiting for? If you have hangups in the bedroom (most of us do) realize that can change. With the right information, you can be surprised to be living an incredible sex life. Don’t waste any more months or years having so-so sex with your spouse. Learn what you need to, to liven up your love life!
Final Thoughts
Prioritize your marriage this year, in all aspects. Marriage effects every part of your life. A great marriage makes for a great life. If yours is on the rocks, get the help you need. Join our community, listen to our podcast (starting in 2015) and check out our blog and resources to get your marriage on track. It’s worth it to do everything you can to get your marriage on track this year!
What are your marriage goals this year? Let me know in the comments!
Blessings!
Belah
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10 Reasons Oral Sex Should Be A Part of Your Marriage
Oral sex. Does it have a negative connotation for you? It did for me, for many years and I know it does for other women like me, married Christian women, that is. What I’ve learned through experience and Biblical study is that the stigma surrounding oral sex is absolutely misplaced. It’s a stigma that is keeping people from having the level of married intimacy they need and deserve. It is holding back lukewarm married folks from becoming passionate lovers. I mean, isn’t that what we’re all after? Couldn’t you love more, serve more, and give more if you had an incredible and satisfying marriage to come home to? There are huge reasons oral sex should be celebrated rather than shamed. It is a gift you should be giving this holiday season and all year round. Here’s why —
Learn more of the practicalities of oral sex by downloading our FREE 1-page. Sign up below to receive the 4 Stages To His Best Oral Orgasm guide, for free!
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10 Ideas to Start In The Bedroom (without the awkwardness)
Often I find one of the most difficult parts of marital intimacy is just getting started. If I’m tired, feeling particularly self-conscious, or just not in the zone, I want him to do all the “work” of starting. Meaning, I want him to be super sweet, encouraging, and affectionate. Then I want him to start with gentle caresses and compliments and move on to an epic experience. Don’t we all? But do we forget that he has his own stuff going on? Instead of that being our excuse to not make love, why don’t you take a cue from the wife in Song of Songs and initiate?
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