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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!

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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

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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