Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 109

Are You Responsible to Reach Out to the Loners in Your Midst?

This week, in my hometown of Toronto, a loner rented a van and rammed into pedestrians, killing 10 people and wounding 14 others.

While I don’t live in Toronto now, I grew up there. I’m familiar with Yonge & Finch (where it happened). This one hit close to home, literally, as so many others have hit close to home for many of  you.

When stuff like this happens, the debate inevitably turns to guns, or mental illness. And that’s not what I want to talk about here (PLEASE let’s not do the gun control debate in the comments, okay? Guns were not involved here and there were still multiple fatalities. That’s not what I’m trying to talk about.)

Instead, I want to talk about this thread that we often hear about how these mass murderers were loners who were rejected. This guy belonged to an “incel” group, which stood for involuntary celibacy. Girls wouldn’t give him the time of day. He was lonely and angry about it.

The Montreal Massacre, which occurred December 6, 1989, when a gunman burst into an engineering class, lined up the men and women separately, and gunned down all the women, was similarly lonely and mad that women had rejected him. Pretty much all the mass murderers have been “loners”.

What are we supposed to do about that? I do think, as a society, we have to ask what steers kids in this direction. We have to ask if there’s something we can do to identify people who may be dangerous and reach out to them earlier. But here’s where things get dicey. I read this comment on the New York Times site, and I thought it had interesting insight:

There is often…reporting about their status of a “loner” or “being awkward” in school and, I think, an implied link that … if the kids around him reached out more this could have been avoided. I can say that as a girl in my school years, I often did reach out to kids, often boys, who sat alone or who were awkward. Many times this resulted in regret on my part–they, being socially awkward, did not have much emotional intelligence or boundaries and I would have to extricate myself from the “friendship” or be endlessly bothered or harassed. I don’t think there is a person alive who did not feel lonely or left out sometime during their schooling years, but always reporting about how the person (man) was “lonely” or “socially isolated” in school indirectly places blame on the other students, often girls. The cliche of the “snobby cheerleader” who often gets what she deserves (humiliation) in almost any teen movie or show reinforces this. Often times, children stay away from or shun other kids they know are dangerous. This is different than bullying and is an adult problem to be handled by professionals. Kids should not be held responsible, directly or indirectly, for the actions of a classmate.

I tend to agree. Bullying a classmate is different from avoiding a classmate who seems like they may be dangerous or awkward.

I remember reaching out to loners in high school, too, and then regretting it as they stuck to me like glue and asked me out every day.

I want to be Jesus’ hands and feet in this world. We know that Jesus loves all, and that His eyes are especially on the loners. But sometimes people are loners because they are simply nerds or socially awkward. Other times people are loners because they seem dangerous (and they start stalking anyone who gets close).

So what are we to do?

I asked Rebecca to chime in today with some thoughts about this since she was a pretty social kid in high school. Here’s what she thinks:

When tragedy like this occurs, it’s natural instinct to try to figure out why it happened so we can prevent it from happening again.

That’s why people are focusing on the “loner” part of this story–the problem was just that he didn’t have any friends?! That’s an easy fix! Just get kids to talk to each other more!

But I don’t agree with that necessarily. And there are 3 main reasons why:

Many of these “loners” are loners for a reason

It sounds harsh, but it’s true. Looking back on my own youth group and work experience in high school, there are two groups of marginalized people: the people who are just a little odd, and don’t quite fit in while they’re in high school; and the people who are downright scary or uncomfortable to be around.

The kids who were just a little odd, I had no problems being around. I made sure they felt welcomed, I actually became quite good friends with some of them! (I think the argument could be made that in Jr. High, I was one of the weird kids!)

But the scary ones were another story.

At my youth group, we had an over-night event once where a new guy showed up to participate in. He was scary. Really scary. I remember realizing that I was in a room alone with him at one point and becoming overwhelmed with the feeling that I needed to find someone else pronto. I grabbed onto two of the older guys who were my friends and told them, “You’re sticking with me for the rest of the group time” and they acted as my security whenever that guy was around.

Within a few years, my impressions about him had been confirmed many times over.

When we talk about having to reach out to the “loners” in high schools, youth groups, or whatever it is, I think there needs to be a difference between the “loners” who are just a little bit odd and the “loners” who are loners because they are really scary people no one wants to hang out with. And let’s recognize that there is a difference.

Kids need to be told that they are allowed to have discernment about who they hang out with.

Discernment is not the same as prejudice. Saying, “I’m not going to talk to him because he’s really nerdy and will make me look uncool” is totally different than saying, “I’m not going to talk to him because I don’t feel safe when I’m around him”.

Kids shouldn’t have to talk to everyone. In fact, with the amount of sexual assault, drugs, and binge-drinking that goes on in high school, kids should be encouraged to be wise in who they hang out with or talk to.

We need to be honest about evil and what it looks like.

We talk about these horrible, evil acts like this attack as if it’s the result of mental illness.

And that bothers me.

I struggle with anxiety. One of my best friends struggles with severe depression. I had a professor who has OCD. Many of the people in my church struggle with mental illnesses, too.

But none of us are evil people. None of us would ever even consider hurting someone else.

All this talk about how if people had just talked to him more maybe this wouldn’t have happened misses out on the root of it all, in my opinion. I think the root of all of this is that evil people don’t attract nice people to themselves, are actually unwise to spend time with, and will do evil things. I’m not sure it’s really anything other than that.

I think we need to start talking about evil again, and what it looks like. Maybe evil acts aren’t the result of mental illness, but maybe mental illness is one of the inevitable side effects of being evil. I don’t have a fully fleshed-out theory of this yet, so I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, but I think we need to accept the fact that sometimes, evil is evil. And when we agree on that, we can figure out how to recognize and deal with the evil in our midst.

I’m not saying that there’s nothing we can do, or that we shouldn’t be trying to help these kids. I just think it is unfair to put the responsibility on teenagers when this is a systemic issue, and one that children should not be responsible for.

Whatever your opinion is on this issue, please pray for Canada right now. Pray for the families who lost loved ones and those who were injured. Pray for the fear that so many people are facing right now.

But I also want to know your opinion–what do you think of my three points? Do you agree, or disagree? I haven’t fully decided what I believe on these issues yet, and I’d like your input.

Women: Do We Understand What Rejection Does to Husbands?

When you reject your husband sexually, do you know what that does to him?

I’m a big proponent of great sex in marriage! I believe that God created us to be intimate physically, spiritually, and emotionally, and they’re all supposed to feed together.

But I’m quite aware that for most women, our natural libido doesn’t give us that drive for sex that most men have (though in 30% of marriages the woman has the higher sex drive). And over and over again on this blog I’ve seen how that plays out: women who have given up on feeling good sexually, and think sex is overblown; men who feel rejected; marriages that get more and more distant and more and more angry.

I’ve tried to write to women about how sex is for you, too! But sometimes I think we need to hear from the other side. And so today I’d just like to run a comment that was left by a husband a little while ago.

So I’m reading this and the one thing I keep thinking about is my situation. For ten years my wife would reject me. We would talk about it, she’d say something like “I never say no” but her signals would. I’d then think it was me, then I’d initiate again and get the same signals. I felt like I was going mad. Then one morning after said rejection, I asked her if that was her intention (you know, because she never said “no”). Her response was yes. So all those years I’ve been right, she just didn’t want to admit it.

I’ve been praying that God would remove my desire. This was after years of various other prayers, including anger at God. Well, I think he’s answered my prayers. One night on vacation, she rejected me, and I was laying there praying for the removal of my desire. The next morning I woke up with a medical issue. Flash forward 6 months and my medical issue appears to have reduced my desire.

That combined with the fact that I take care of myself in the shower when it has been a particularly long stretch has allowed me to remain nice in a marriage that feels less like a marriage and more like her using me. She only wants sex when her hormones rage. Other than that “meh, I could take it or leave it” (her words, not mine).

I feel like now that I’ve stopped initiating, she’s starting to get worried. Well, at this point I think hope of a better sex life in her use of me is hopeless. Thing is, there’s only one thing that I cannot acquire from anyone else and that is sex. Everything else I can hire out. I don’t ask much of her. I work, she stays at home. The kids are old enough now they spend most of the day at school. It isn’t like she has much to do around the house, but she does some of it. I’m just over it all. I’d much rather hire that stuff out and have a wife who wants me, than have her do any of it.

So, all this to say, maybe the husband has been rejected so many times, he’s given up hope of improvement.

Now I’m not saying that this guy is perfect. I do think that masturbation in marriage can actually further drive you all apart (although I completely understand the drive to do it; it can feel actually selfless if it helps you let your spouse off the hook). We don’t know what else is going on in the marriage.

But I just want to ask the wives today: Could your husband have written this? Are you, by giving sex a “take it or leave it” attitude, contributing to major distance in your marriage?

And if so, is that really what you want?

I firmly believe that it is possible to boost your libido and to start desiring sex again. That was my story, and I share it with you in my boost your libido course!

I understand not wanting sex. I understand seeing it as a chore. I understand not getting what all the fuss is about.

What I don’t understand is why you would settle for that when it will hurt your marriage so badly, and when there is indeed something you can do about it!

If you have no libido, then, please take a look at these posts. And then decide that you never, ever want to be the wife whose husband could have written that comment.

Why is sex so boring?
The only way to embrace your sexual side
Why enthusiasm matters to your husband
The Boost Your Libido course–it will help you see sex totally differently!

Your marriage truly can rock, but it takes a decision on your part to figure out how to desire sex. Sitting back and waiting for that desire to come will not do you either of you any favours.

So, please, for your sake, for your husband’s sake, for the sake of your marriage–make a change!

Could your husband write that email? Or could he have written it in the past? What causes this dynamic in marriage? Let’s talk in the comments!

The Night My Marriage Almost Ended

Do your conflicts with your spouse ever get far more serious than you ever intended them to be?

You dig in, and you don’t realize the effect this is having.

I found an amazing new marriage blogger on Twitter lately, who just shares some great insights about what she’s learning in her marriage. And I asked her to tell us all a story about a moment when God really showed her something. It went so well with yesterday’s post about the silent treatment that I just had to run it this week!

Here’s Ketsia Gutsave, from the blog Pure Couples, telling us about a night when she nearly wrecked her marriage:

They say the first year of marriage is like a honeymoon, but that wasn’t the case for my husband and me.

We had done things the “right” way and gotten premarital counseling, stayed celibate until our wedding night, and made vows to be an example our family and friends could look to. We prayed together most mornings and genuinely wanted our marriage to be Christ-centered.

But some days I felt like I was constantly struggling to climb uphill. There were so many little details to work out: who would be responsible for different chores, figuring out when we would spend quality time together since he was still in school, and learning what made each other tick. At one point, it seemed like we were constantly getting on each other’s nerves.

Then one night our marriage almost ended, and everything changed.

Up until that point, our disagreements had a certain pattern: one of us would get upset (usually me), then I would give him the silent treatment for a few hours, and eventually he apologize to me and we would talk things over.

In my mind, giving my husband the silent treatment was a punishment that would train him not to cross certain boundaries. I thought that if I held out long enough, and treated him with enough contempt, he would realize just how badly he had messed up and know never to do it again.

My parents had a very rocky marriage, and when I think about my parents, their arguments are the main things that stand out in my memory catalogue of their interactions. More often than not, my dad would do or say something really inconsiderate and my mom would react emotionally, flinging back hurtful words calculated to cut just as deeply as she had been.

I grew up thinking, “I will NEVER stay with a man who doesn’t treat me right.” I never took into consideration the fact that my father had grown up with a very harsh father who thought nothing of burning his son’s arm with a toaster for leaving bread in it too long. All I knew was that my dad could be really rough with his words and didn’t realize how easily he could hurt my mother’s feelings.

So when I went into my marriage, I already had a chip on my shoulder and I didn’t recognize the pattern that I kept reverting to whenever Jono and I had a disagreement.

One day he said something that really hurt my feelings. I’m a pretty sensitive person, and I don’t even remember exactly what he said, but I remember feeling hurt, unappreciated, and maybe even disrespected. In my mind my husband was lucky that I married him, and should have known better than to hurt my feelings the way he did.

So I gave him the silent treatment again. Except this time, the frost between us lasted a couple of days.

Finally I figured that I should say something so that we could talk about it and get it over with. I knew it was the right thing to do, but my heart wasn’t in the right place yet. I hadn’t repented of anything. I tried to make peace for the sake of saying that I had tried.

Well, things did NOT go well. Instead of listening to each other and trying to understand where the other was coming from, Jono and I just kept repeating ourselves, saying why we felt wronged. Finally my husband said, “I need you to be patient with me. I’m trying to change, but I can’t do it overnight.”

When he said that, I instantly remembered my parents’ marriage. I imagined myself stuck in a marriage where I wasn’t happy, desperately waiting for the day my husband became a more sensitive man in tune with my emotional needs. I remembered my promise to myself, that I would NEVER stay in a marriage where I wasn’t happy.

A cold calm came over me and I told him in so many words that I didn’t know if I was willing to stick around for him to change. It was too hard and I didn’t know if I wanted to stick it out.

My husband snapped. He shouted back at me, “And that’s why I’m always afraid that I’ll end up alone again.” He kicked the chair he had been sitting in and put his fist through the wall, sobbing.

I stood frozen in shock. I’d never seen him so emotional.

I went to our room and quickly locked the door, my heart racing. What had just happened?

I heard our front door open and close.

As the hours went by, God started showing me my part in what had just happened. I came to some realizations that were hard to face. I wept as I realized that my fear of being hurt was poisoning my marriage. Instead of preventing the cycle I had seen with my parents, I was actually making it certain.

I cried out to God to save my marriage in spite of my selfishness and fear. I realized that I couldn’t keep holding on to my fear and be fully committed to my marriage at the same time. I kept holding my husband to a standard that was impossible for any human being to live up to.

Instead of giving him the time and space to work on his flaws, I was using them as a weapon to threaten him into submission. I had been selfish and manipulative.

God broke me down real good that night.

And by the end of it, I was praying and hoping that Jono was safe and that our fight wouldn’t be the last interaction we had. I asked God to bring him home so that we could work things out and start fresh.

When he finally came home around 2 in the morning, I threw my arms around him and gave him a fierce hug. He looked so confused! “I’m so sorry,” I said as I kissed him on the cheeks and mouth. “Let’s work this out.” He admitted that he had been expecting my bags to be packed and me ready to leave him.

That night we had a long talk. I explained everything, and so did he. He had grown up without his parents, had always felt alone, even in the midst of friends. And in the back of his mind, he feared ending up in the same position again.

That night was a turning point in our marriage. It taught us both that we couldn’t love each other the way God intended if we kept holding onto fear.

Ketsia and Jono Gustave from Pure Couples

Since then, our disagreements are a lot healthier. We’re both quick to apologize and sort things out instead of letting them fester. We’ve learned to look at ourselves as a team instead of opponents on different sides of an argument. It’s so much easier to love when you’re not constantly looking over your shoulder at the past, or for an emergency exit.

The Bible says that “perfect love casts out fear.”

Perfect love can never originate in our own selfish hearts. It takes the healing power of Jesus’ love every day to help us love one another the way we’re supposed to. When we let go of our fears of being betrayed, taken advantage of, or being vulnerable, we free ourselves to let His love permeate our words, actions, and thoughts. Instead of looking at each other in distrust and unforgiveness, we partner with each other and let God do His work in us. We become willing to take the chance to love without limits. When we do that, we take the limits off what God can do in our marriages.

Ketsia blogs at Pure Couples, and writes for many other websites on marriage, too. She’s a fresh new voice, and I invite you to follow her! And do check her out on Twitter, which is where I found her in the first place. 

How Do You Draw Boundaries With the Silent Treatment?

Does your spouse use the silent treatment to punish you?

We’ve been talking this week about how to feel emotionally connected. And one of the best ways to absolutely blow up emotional connection is to use the silent treatment in your marriage. A while ago, after I wrote a post on how to stop the emotional abuse cycle, a woman wrote in about a different type of emotional manipulation:

I’m curious. What if the abuse occurring is more of a withholding affection kind of thing? What would you recommend to end that cycle for a spouse whose uses neglect and the silent treatment as their form of emotional abuse? Example: wife inadvertently and unknowingly does something which upsets her husband. For the next week he purposely withholds affection and attention and will not tell his wife what she has done to upset him, as a method of “getting back at her”…You can walk away if someone is yelling, but you can’t force someone to talk to you and communicate through issues or give you affection.

Wow. Such a hard issue!

So let’s deal with some basic truths about the silent treatment first.

Using the silent treatment is a form of emotional manipulation

Sure, the person isn’t yelling or calling names. But refusing to talk and withholding communication is a form of punishment and manipulation; it’s just a little more subtle. The person can claim innocence; “Well, she hurt me and I had to distance myself.” It’s a passive aggressive way of getting what you want without having to be mature and communicate your needs and your feelings.

When mature people who want what is best for the marriage have an issue, they talk about it and work through it, even if that conversation is difficult.

A person who has poor communication skills and does not want to improve upon them, uses the silent treatment and is not trying to better the marriage or resolve a conflict; a person who uses the silent treatment instead is trying to pressure the spouse to doing things his or her way. It is inherently a selfish, manipulative act that destroys the marriage, not builds it up.

The silent treatment can be very emotionally destructive

When we marry, we do so to feel connected to another person. In fact, we are supposed to feel more connected to our spouse than to any other human being.

If your spouse stops talking to you, then your spouse is depriving you of one of the most basic needs you have in marriage. Just because there’s no yelling involved does not mean that it isn’t hurtful. In fact, for many people the silent treatment is MORE hurtful than yelling so setting boundaries is important.

For many people, the silent treatment is more hurtful than yelling.
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People who use the silent treatment are often either extremely selfish or extremely broken

If a spouse uses the silent treatment, it is often because they are narcissistic or controlling, and they know that they can manipulate their spouse into acting the way they want. In fact, that’s often the purpose. So if a wife makes a reasonable request, for instance, and the husband doesn’t like it, he can use the silent treatment to humiliate and frustrate his wife, showing her that she must never make requests of him or she will bear the consequences.

There is another time when the silent treatment may be used, though, and that’s when someone grew up with absolutely no examples of healthy ways to resolve conflict. Then when there is a problem, it scares them so much they retreat. Underdeveloped communication skills can be incredibly harmful to a marriage.

It’s important to know which one your spouse is coming from: are they running from conflict because of fear, or are they running from conflict because ultimately they want to control? If your spouse is simply a very broken person, then an approach that focuses on getting counselling and not on blaming can be more helpful.

One other extra thought: If you are very extroverted and like to talk everything out immediately, while your spouse is very introverted and needs to think before they talk, then it may not be the silent treatment per se. Your spouse just may need a few hours to process before you discuss a resolution to a conflict! They may not be punishing you; they just may be thinking, though it may feel like the silent treatment.

But if it goes on for more than a few hours–then it definitely is the silent treatment. So let’s talk about what to do!

You should reap what you sow–even with the silent treatment!

As I’ve talked about a lot on this blog, God set up this world so that people reap what they sow. It’s one of His main vehicles to help us learn moral lessons. But we can interrupt the law of sowing and reaping when we give cover to someone’s bad behaviour. So someone may sow discord (by giving the silent treatment), but we reap the punishment (we give in to what they want) instead of them reaping the consequence (they suffer distance in the marriage).

Dealing appropriately with someone involves stopping bearing the consequences of other people’s bad behaviour and putting those consequences back on them.

Dealing appropriately with someone involves stopping bearing the consequences of other people's bad behaviour and putting those consequences back on them.
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So if a person is sowing distance in the marriage by using the silent treatment to cut off emotional connection, what should they reap? Distance in the marriage. If they sow discord, they should reap the discord.

I am not saying that you should cause problems for your spouse; I’m just saying that you should not fix the problems your spouse is creating.

Do you see the difference?

In your marriage, are you always fixing problems your spouse is creating? Don't disrupt the law of sowing and reaping! #boundaries
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So how would this play out? If your spouse uses the silent treatment for more than a day, and if it’s a regular occurrence in your marriage, then something drastic may be required. Here’s just one idea: You can say,

“Honey, I understand that you are angry at me, but you are not telling me why, so I have no way of addressing the issue or talking it through. It is clear by what you are doing that you do not want to be close to me right now, and so I am going to abide by your wishes. I will be moving out of the bedroom. This is not what I want; but I do want to honour you. I would like to put our marriage together and improve our communication and make sure that we are both meeting each other’s needs, because I love you and I want you to be happy. However, I am not a mind reader. We obviously have some pretty big issues, and I no longer feel that we can work these out on our own. So I will be making an appointment with a marriage counsellor, and I would request that you go with me. Unfortunately, if you choose not to, then I don’t know how we can return to sleeping in the same bedroom. I will, regardless, be seeing the counsellor on my own, even if you don’t come, because I need some help to deal with the emotional turmoil you are causing by not talking to me. Again, I love you and I want to be with you. But I cannot share a bed with someone who routinely cuts himself off from me like this. That is not right, and I want our marriage to honour God.”

What do you do if your spouse frequently uses the silent treatment to punish you? A strategy outlined here:
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Does it sound drastic? Likely. And there are many other options; I’ve only mentioned one here. (And don’t use this as a first resort! This is when the silent treatment is being used regularly and when it’s been going on for a long time!).

If it’s more that your spouse just is uncomfortable talking about things, then a calm, peaceful approach where you’re open about things may work as well.

But if someone is routinely using the silent treatment, they are causing major discord and craziness in the relationship, and it is time for that merry go round to stop. It needs to be dealt with appropriately, and it needs to not be tolerated, because it is toxic.

Remember–even if you set boundaries, you are not the one who is causing distance in the marriage. Your spouse did that by using the silent treatment.

And you have made it abundantly clear that you will gladly resume closeness in the marriage once your spouse agrees to talk. But allowing your spouse to understand that this behaviour will not be tolerated now gives your spouse the shove they may need to address either the selfishness or brokenness in their lives.

God does not want your spouse living in a state of selfishness or brokenness.

God wants your spouse growing! So when your spouse is sowing major discord in the relationship, make sure that your spouse then feels the repercussions of that, so that one of God’s best vehicles for getting us to grow–reaping what we sow–is fully functioning.

Have you ever had to deal with the silent treatment? How did it feel? What strategies helped you work through it?

UPDATE: A reader just sent me this great link to The Gottmann Institute talking about “stonewalling“, which can look like the silent treatment. It’s when someone is so overwhelmed with the criticism and bad behaviour of their spouse that they literally can’t take it anymore, and they start completely tuning out. In this case, it’s a defence mechanism in what can often be an abusive relationship. He’s got some great tips on how to help you self-soothe and stop tuning out so that you can actually address the issues. If you’re the one giving the “silent treatment” but it’s more of a self-preservation thing, this may help you!

 

Top 10 Ways to Grow Your Sex Life in a Long Distance Marriage

How can you work on your sex life if you’re not together to practice? How do you work on your sex life long distance?

I’ve had two women send me in questions like that recently. One woman writes:

I just finished reading The Good Girl’s Guide. Although I am not very religious I found it extremely enlightening and I definitely have a  good direction to go in now. And A LOT to work on. Something that I didn’t get answered is how to deal with sex/marital issues when you are apart. My husband is in the military and we have been apart a large chunk of our marriage. He has a very strong need for sex and I am polar opposite. I would love your advice!

Another woman said this:

First of all, I have just been introduced to your website and I cannot tell you how THRILLED I was to hear of it. I was raised in a church that stifled the idea of an enjoyable marriage and made the s-e-x word a dirty word! My question: I recently read your article on masturbation within marriage and you touched on the idea of using masturbation to be climactic and reach orgasm as being a potential problem in marriage. My husband is an active duty Marine and, for some time, we have used technology (FaceTime/text messaging/phone) to correspond and fulfill each other sexually when he is away for very extended periods of time. Is this sinful? When we are together, we obviously fulfill each other’s needs in person. Thanks again, so much, for the time your pour into other couple’s lives. It means so very much!

Both of these women are military wives, but I know many people would have similar questions, if their husbands worked on oil rigs, were long-distance truckers, travelled for business, or were just plain gone a lot. Or maybe you’re the one who is gone! So what do you do?

Let’s take a stab at this for Top 10 Tuesdays!

1. Masturbation is really up to you

I think when you’re gone for a long time from each other, and you’re using it as a way to cope–well, quite frankly, I’m simply not going to pass judgment on that, and I don’t think anyone else should, either. You are married. It’s okay to think about each other! And when you’re in the military and you’re away for that long, well, I just believe that grace should be the overarching principle here.

When I wrote previously about masturbation in marriage being potentially dangerous, I was addressing relationships where masturbation was used to get people through times in marriage where the other didn’t want sex, or because someone preferred masturbation to sex. Neither of those situations is good. It’s avoiding intimacy.

In this case, though, it’s not about avoiding intimacy.

A few things to consider: try to keep your spouse “in the loop”, so to speak, so that it doesn’t become a secrecy thing. And, as always, beware of becoming reliant on sex toys for orgasm, especially if orgasm has been difficult for you during intercourse. This can exacerbate the problem. But with those warnings, I really think it’s up to you couples.

2. Boudoir photos–again, it’s up to you!

I’ve been an agnostic on boudoir photos on the blog. I’ve written before that I think taking sexy photos of yourself for your husband can be dangerous, especially if he’s used pornography in the past. The danger there is that he can get aroused easier with a picture than with a person, so you’re actually cementing that problem. I think because I get so many heartbreaking emails about porn use I’m just hyper sensitive to the dangers of it.

But boudoir photos aren’t really pornographic photos. A boudoir photo shoot can simply be a woman wearing lingerie or a man’s shirt or something. I asked last week on Facebook what people thought of it, and got some really interesting answers. One woman said:

Boudoir shoots are an amazing way to boost confidence and can definitely spice up a couple’s sex life. In a way they are the opposite of porn because they are not exploitative. Instead they honour a woman’s sexuality and encourage a healthy relationship with that sexuality.

I tend to agree–as long as he’s not addicted to porn. And, as always, get them password protected and encrypted!

But now let’s turn to some practical things that you can do to enhance your sex life when you’re away that aren’t as focused on sexual release per se. Here we go!

Things to do to help sex feel more pleasurable
3. Do some Kegel exercises and strengthen your pelvic floor muscles

Did you know that you can exercise your pelvic floor muscles to give yourself more control? This can help sex feel more pleasurable for you–but also help you to be able to “squeeze” him rhythmically to help it feel better for him. Also, the more toned these muscles are, the more sensation you will feel.

Another benefit–if you’re having pain during intercourse (vaginismus), learning to control these muscles can help you to minimize it. My awesome friend J from Hot, Holy, and Humorous has a great article on pelvic floor exercises that can help!

4. Work on physical fitness and developing a great sleep/eat/exercise routine

I don’t think we realize how much our physical bodies impact our sex lives. When we’re feeling fit, when we’re sleeping well, when we’re eating well, to a schedule, so that we’re not suffering from adrenal fatigue–well, everything’s going to feel better. Including sex!

But sometimes when we’re together it’s hard to get into a new routine. When he’s gone, here’s your chance! Start going to bed at a regular time and getting up at a regular time, leaving at least 8 hours for sleep (do this for long enough and you won’t even need an alarm, because you’ll wake up rested). Make healthier choices for your family’s diet. Try to work in some exercise, even if it’s just a little bit more than you’re doing right now. When your body feels good, sex is going to feel better. And your libido is likely to increase, too!

Things to do to help you feel more confident

While you’re apart is also a great time to help you feel more sexually confident!

5. Redo your wardrobe

One of the ways that we can feel sexier is simply to dress better. Go through your wardrobe and get rid of clothes that make you feel frumpy. Try the capsule wardrobe idea, where you “shop your closet” for a few pieces that coordinate that you actually feel good in, and then create outfits out of those. Try to get dressed, do your hair and minimal makeup every day. Feel pretty. This helps you feel more confident for when he gets home!

And while you’re at it–throw out the ratty underwear and bras that don’t fit. Even buy one nice bra and underwear set for when he comes home. Buy some pyjamas and stop sleeping in ratty t-shirts. When you feel like you look better, you’ll be way more eager for sex!

6. Talk through and think through your boundaries

When I publish reader questions I often shorten them, and one of the letter writers also wrote about how her husband has asked her to do things while they’re away that she’s not comfortable with. It could be something like sex over skype, or talking about fantasies in detail, or something like that. While you’re apart, you may need to talk through what you’re comfortable with and what you’re not. And it’s totally okay to say that some things just don’t sit well with you! What I’d suggest doing, though, is being very clear that the conversation will be focused in two parts: What you don’t want to do, but also what you DO want to do. Share memories of things you’ve enjoyed and what you’d like to do more of. You can even make up a survey to send him to ask him what he’d like and what he wouldn’t like, and then fill out the survey yourself! Anything to keep the conversation going. Couples often have a hard time talking about these things, and doing so while you’re away can sometimes be easier.

Things to make the reunion more fun!
7. Write out some sexy dates in the year ahead

Maybe this one is too big a frustration to try when you’re apart, and so it may be better to attempt just a few days before you reunite. But each of you plan 6 sexy dates for the year ahead (which makes one a month!). Write them out on pieces of paper and then seal them in envelopes. It can be new things you’d like to try (as long as the other person is okay with it), a fun night you want to recreate, some place you’d like to go, whatever it may be. Write it out (the more detail the better) and get ready for some fun! Then, when he’s home, do one every month!

8. Talk about the important stuff–share your highs and lows

Your sex life can’t stay strong if your relationship doesn’t stay strong. Sex isn’t the cornerstone of our relationship, after all. It’s more a reflection of the health of the rest of our relationship. When you feel close to each other, passion will be greater. So make sure that in your absence you stay as close as possible. One easy way to do this, that I’m encouraging my daughter Katie to do with her new military husband, is when you check in with each other, share your high and low of the day. That doesn’t just mean the best thing that happened and the worst thing, but rather, when did you feel most in the groove? Most in the zone? Most productive? And when did  you feel the most defeated and frustrated?

When we share these things regularly, then we know what’s going on in each other’s hearts, even if we don’t know all the details of everything we’re doing. And it’s the hearts connecting that will keep the fires burning!

Take time to address any problems you may have
9. Take the Boost Your Libido course!

When you’re apart is a GREAT time to take my Boost Your Libido course! In fact, it may even be easier to do a lot of it while you’re apart, because much of it is focused on changing how we think, examining the roadblocks for our libido, and addressing confidence and lifestyle issues that can hurt libido. While some exercises will have to wait until he gets home, many of them may actually be easier when he’s away and you can concentrate on thinking through these issues!

Plus, it’s super fun and it’s a way to make sure that when he does come home, your life together is rock solid.

And because I’m passionate about this, I’m going to set up a coupon code that will work until Sunday at midnight!

Just use the code LONGDISTANCE at checkout to get $10 off!

Check out Boost Your Libido here!

10. Seek professional help if you have some sexual issues

If you’ve been having pain during intercourse, pain during orgasm, or even pain AFTER orgasm, while you’re apart is a wonderful time to try to address some of these issues. Physiotherapists who specialize in pelvic floor issues can help you with pain related to sex, and physicians may be able to help if you’re experiencing post-sex blues. Sex should feel great; if it doesn’t, take this time apart as a gift to start to try to find some healing.

But physical issues aren’t the only ones we can struggle with. Many of us deal with sexual shame. Maybe it’s from sexual baggage we have; maybe it’s from past abuse; maybe it’s from growing up in a home that taught that sex was somehow dirty or that we were responsible for guys lusting after us. It causes so many bad sexual messages that feeling like sex is intimate is very difficult.

There’s nothing wrong with having issues. Everyone has issues with something! But there is something wrong with not working on your issues. While he’s away is a great time to see a therapist and really dig deep and pray through some of these things. God doesn’t want you stuck.

So there you go–10 ways to foster your sex life long distance! Any military wives here? I’d love to hear what you think especially, since you’re often apart for so long! 

The Best 31 Days of Your Marriage!
Read a few pages. Do what it says. Have incredible fun!

Learn to talk more, flirt more, and even explore more! You'll work on how to connect emotionally, spiritually, AND physically. And the ebook version is only $4.99!

Reader Question: How Do I Deal with Post-Sex Blues?

How do you deal with the post-sex blues, or getting depressed right after sex?

We’re supposed to feel euphoria after we have sex. Our bodies release oxytocin, the bonding hormone. We’re flooded with these relaxed and happy feelings. Everything is right with the world!

But what if it’s not? What if instead of euphoria, you feel more like dysphoria? I’ve had two women ask me that question lately, and I thought it was time to tackle it!

After almost 8 years of marriage we have worked out most of our little conflicts and have an incredibly close, respectful and fun relationship… except for sex. It has been a major issue in our marriage from the beginning. Your intro in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex was the first thing I’ve seen that truly resonated with how I feel and I am feeling hope for our sex life for the first time ever. I wonder if you cover postcoital dysphoria at all? I actually just learned that there was a word for what I experience. After sex, at least 50% of the time and especially if I have an orgasm, I experience intense indifference and disconnection from my husband. It is really a lousy feeling and makes it pretty difficult to look forward to sex. If you have any knowledge about “post-sex blues” specifically I’d love to hear it.

Another reader wrote:

This is kind of weird, but most days after being intimate with my husband, I have an emotional crash and am irritable and depressed. It doesn’t matter whether I was satisfied the night before or not and sometimes it’s worse the day after a good night. It’s like an emotional hangover. Does this happen to other people? Why does it happen?

They both describe it in really similar terms: irritable, disconnection, feeling lousy. And it’s even worse after an orgasm!

Well, post-coital dysphoria is a real thing.

Sometimes called the post-sex blues, it’s an intense emotional reaction after sex that often leaves a person anxious, depressed, unable to sleep, irritable, and more. Sounds pretty awful, doesn’t it?

It’s hard to get a handle on how many married women suffer from it, because most studies combine all kinds of different groups of women. Here’s the problem: When you have sex and you aren’t married, often women feel intensely terrible emotionally afterwards because there’s no commitment, they feel used, or they feel ashamed. So some of the post-sex blues could honestly just be a natural reaction to sharing something so personal with someone who hasn’t made any commitment to you. When we’re vulnerable with those who haven’t earned it, we can easily feel really depressed. The book Unprotected deals with this phenomenon among the college-aged population really well!

But what if you’re married, you’re perfectly in love, you feel safe, and you STILL get this depression and anxiety and disconnection feeling? 

Then there’s often something else going on, and it seems to have very little to do with the quality of the relationship or the quality of the sex (except that better sex often brings on the problem!), and everything to do with hormonal changes.

Some people are more sensitive to sudden changes in brain chemistry than others, and that’s why you may suddenly find yourself depressed after a rush. One neurochemistry blog summed it up this way:

Because orgasm activates reward pathways much in the same way as drugs, it can also produce similar experience of addiction and withdrawal. In fact, people that are treated for sex addictions tend to have other comorbid addictions, suggesting that they have addictive personalities, an inclination for overactivation in this part of the brain (Hartman et al., 2012). This is because after the rush of orgasm, dopamine levels drop below baseline, similar to what happens during withdrawal from drugs of abuse. Low dopamine levels are associated with depression, low energy, lack of ambition, social anxiety, among others (Dailly et al., 2004).

Another study was done looking at how our endocrine system (the part of our body responsible for hormones) could be affecting postcoital dysphoria. Specifically, they were looking at whether there was a correlation with women suffering from postpartum depression and those who report the “post sex blues”. What they found was that there did indeed seem to be a correlation.

In summary, our results indicate a significant overlap of women suffering from [postnatal depression] and [postcoital dysphoria], indicating that there might be common vulnerability mechanism such as sensitivity to rapid hormonal fluctuations that might trigger both conditions.

So post-sex blues can affect women. But what do you do?

Talk to your doctor about your post-sex blues.

Many doctors aren’t aware of the condition, so taking with you this article from the Journal of Depression and Anxiety can show them that it does indeed exist. I would then ask for a referral to a psychiatrist or someone who deals with depression who can help you figure out what triggers it and if there is anything you can do to minimize it.

Be careful when you get pregnant.

If you haven’t had any children yet, it’s best to talk to your doctor beforehand since you are at higher risk for post-partum depression (it doesn’t mean that you WILL get it; only that you’re at higher risk). This way you can be very aware of the warning signs and seek early intervention.

Do as much as you can to keep a hormonal balance in your body.

Finally, do take care of your hormones and your adrenal system. I’ve written before about how our eating habits, sleeping habits, and cleaning habits can affect how taxed our body is, and the more taxed your body is, the less it will be able to keep everything in balance. Switching to real food, going to bed at a decent time (adults need bedtimes!), getting up to natural light and eating at the right times can help our bodies regulate. If your brain chemistry is off, this may not solve everything. But it can help, and so much of modern life wreaks havoc with our bodies. Let’s help our bodies rather than hindering them!

Let me know in the comments: Have you ever experienced the post-sex blues? What was it like?

The Best 31 Days of Your Marriage!
Read a few pages. Do what it says. Have incredible fun!

Learn to talk more, flirt more, and even explore more! You'll work on how to connect emotionally, spiritually, AND physically. And the ebook version is only $4.99!

Can We Look at Song of Solomon with Clear Eyes?

I know we’re supposed to love Song of Solomon because it’s the Bible book about sex and all that.

But has anyone else ever felt a little weird about it?

I speak about sex and at marriage conferences throughout North America (if your church is interested, let me know!), and one thing that Keith and I used to do a lot during FamilyLife Canada marriage conferences was to read humorously from the Song of Solomon to show that sex–and even rather steamy sex–is definitely a part of Scripture. So we should be able to talk about it!

But Song of Solomon has still always bothered me as a woman.

Here is the bride, talking to her bridegroom, but she is obviously part of a harem, and she is worried that he’s going to go back to the other women. How can that be true love? How can this really represent the kind of intimacy that we long for? In fact, to tell the honest truth, I’ve always found it rather creepy. We know that Solomon had hundreds of wives and concubines, so this wasn’t exactly the love story that theologians often try to make it out to be (any more than Esther is a love story; spending a night auditioning to be queen is rather disturbing. But that’s for another day).

Anyway, recently I was reading Song of Solomon in my devotions and a thought occurred to me that I think is consistent with Scripture and with God’s intentions.

We believe Scripture is God-breathed, so God is responsible for this book of the Bible. And what if He wrote it to be a wake up call to Solomon?

After all, it was his wives that led to his downfall later in life. He had too many and he followed after them. What if God wanted to tell him that true love wasn’t found in a harem? It was found in one person. And that’s why this book is focused on a relationship between one man and one woman. It’s not just focused on sex; it’s focused on the totality of the relationship, and hence the multiple references to “my sister, my love.” (He wasn’t advocating incest; the “sister” part was about celebrating a relationship that wasn’t only sexual).

What if God wrote Song of Songs to be a wake up call to Solomon? Rethinking Song of Solomon & God's depiction of healthy sexuality
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Like C.S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves, I think this refers to two kinds of love: both affection and eros, or even friendship and eros. Such a thing rarely occurred to ancient Middle Eastern men. Friendship was with men (think Jonathan and David); women were only good for eros. Yet in Song of Solomon they refer to the bride as a sister, meaning that the relationship goes beyond eros. And perhaps that is what Solomon needed to see.

I don’t think Solomon ever truly understood that. But the book remained in Scripture as a reminder to us of two things: Eros is beautiful and God created it, but it is meant to be expressed beautifully only between one man and one woman. And when it is, the relationship will grow much deeper.

Do you think Solomon really understood the significance of 'The Song of Solomon' for marriage?
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I sometimes think we try to force the stories in the Bible too much into pretty packages, all wrapped up with bows. Most stories are pretty ugly, and God was not asking us to emulate the people’s lives in the Bible, or even to approve of them necessarily. He was just showing us how He works, even through imperfect people. We do not have to accept the total person in order to accept the message from God.

I am bothered by Solomon, to tell you the truth. I doubt he ever knew true love, as much as we may want to say that The Song of Solomon describes it. He likely yearned for it, and God did show him a picture. But he himself was too busy with his harem to fully understand.

There aren’t a lot of pictures of wonderful couples in the Bible, and I think we do everyone a disservice when we try to force stories into perfect bows. Solomon and David both had harems. Rebecca and Isaac may seem like a love story, but it is clear that both parents were emotionally enmeshed with a child (though not the same one), rather than being on the same page together. Jacob may have loved Rachel, but he was still married to Leah. Abraham took Hagar when Sarah couldn’t give him a child.

In short, life is really, really messy.

But even in that mess, God shows us truth.

And in Song of Solomon, God whispered to Solomon, and to us, there is something better. There is something richer than just possessing someone’s body. There is true love, that encompasses more than just eros.

In Song of Solomon, God showed Solomon that sex was more than sex. We need that message, too.
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That’s what God is telling us today, too. In Solomon’s day, sex was just sex because women were looked down upon and not seen as true partners. So they became more objects. Today, sex is just sex because we’ve made it all about the physical, and not about the spiritual or about real intimacy.

So maybe we need that reminder, too. There is so much more than just the physical side of sex. As I showed in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, my surveys revealed that when couples feel more emotionally intimate, the physical aspects of sex work better!

Sex can be a spiritual experience. Sex can be both hot and holy at the same time.

That’s what God was telling Solomon, and that’s what God is telling us, too. And our culture needs that message more than ever.

What do you think? Do we have trouble seeing sex as both physical and spiritual? Why do you think that is?

Does Your Sex Life Need a Pick-Me-Up?
Maybe it's gotten stale. Maybe it's never felt that great. Or maybe you just feel like you're missing something!

Just a Personal Update–on Australia and More!

Hello, faithful readers!

I thought I’d take today and tell you a bit about what’s going on in my life and what I’m going to be doing for the next few months. I’ve published a lot of content lately, but I haven’t told you much about me, and I’ve got all kinds of exciting things I want to share.

Keith and I are heading to Australia for a month!

First, Keith and I are off to Australia at the end of April. We’re going to rent an RV that looks like this:

 

And then we’re going to drive about 4000 km. On the wrong side of the road (or rather Keith’s going to drive 4000 km. There’s no way I’m driving that thing!)

I’m speaking in Canberra, Toowoomba, Adelaide and Melbourne, and I may do a “meet up” in Sydney, too. I’m not sure yet. But you can get all the details on Facebook here! I’m doing my sex talk three times, and Keith and I are doing a marriage day twice (one venue has booked both). And in between we’re just driving around Australia, meeting up with some friends and some bloggers, but mostly seeing birds.

As any of you who have followed me for any length of time know, my husband is a serious bird watcher. I like the hiking and watching birds too, but I’m not as hardcore. But it’s still a great hobby!

Keith already has a list of new species he wants to see, and he’s mapping out where all the birding hotspots are. The husband of one my readers in Melbourne is a birder, and he’s actually going to take us around. So Keith’s really stoked about that.

If you want to follow along on our trip (and see our birds!), you can follow me on Instagram, or Keith on Instagram (Keith’s instagram feed is really only birds.

Wifey Wednesday: When You Disagree on Parenting

What do you do when you when you and your spouse disagree when it comes to parenting?

Lucy Rycroft from DesertMum is here sharing her thoughts and how she deals with this issue in her household!

Parenting is tough.

If you pop into our home unannounced, you could easily find me cleaning up my 3 year old’s toilet incident, whilst his twin brother is designing a new mural for the kitchen wall, his 6 year old sister (who smells like a florist’s shop) is engaged in a heated discussion with me about how she did not just empty my only perfume all over herself, and his 8 year old brother is asking me whether he can use my phone to play a game that the parental filters on his Kindle are blocking.

Add to this the fact that my phone is ringing, I’ve just remembered we need a babysitter for tomorrow night, there are approximately 21 minutes to make dinner before two of my foursome start climbing the walls, and I got about 5 hours’ broken sleep last night – and I think you’ll agree that calling parenting ‘tough’ is akin to saying that it gets a little chilly near the North Pole.

So if there are disagreements between you and your spouse regarding how to raise your kids, then this is simply adding more stress to an already challenging season of life. No wonder you’re exhausted! But is there anything we can do?

Start the parenting conversations early

Like all relationship problems, prevention is better than cure, so allow to me rewind and firstly speak to all of you who don’t have kids yet. (In a parenting article. I know. Controversial. Hear me out.)

Even before you have kids, start conversations with your other half about your expectations and dreams for your family. Pre-kids, my husband and I did this quite naturally whenever we hung out with friends or family who had children. On the journey home, we’d be all, “I like how they do this!” or “I wonder why they do that?”, which soon led to “I’d love our family to be like this…”

As part of our marriage preparation course, we completed a very quick questionnaire about children, which led to some good discussions. It was so useful that I think it should be made compulsory for all pre-kiddos couples! I’ve done my own version here – why not take a stab at it with your spouse/fiancé? If you agree on the big questions, you’ll find that the smaller decisions are easier to agree on as well, as you know where you’re headed overall in your parenting style.

Acknowledge that your parenting philosophy comes mainly from your own parents

Why is it so important to form your parenting philosophy even before you have kids? Well, it’s good to think about these things while you’re still on a full night’s sleep. And also because differences in parenting styles can cause couples to drift apart.

But primarily, I think it’s because we are so heavily influenced by how we ourselves were raised. If you believe your parents made good decisions, you will want to repeat them with your own children. If you believe they made bad decisions, you’ll want to avoid those mistakes when you’re a parent.

And here’s the news flash: you’re not the only parent. You’re in a relationship with someone who will have inherited a whole different set of ideas about how to raise a child. What if you’ve grown up assuming that you will home-educate your children, only to marry someone whose parents have a fund set aside for their grandchildren’s private schooling?

Getting a few of these issues aired before the two lines come up on the pregnancy test will certainly help smooth the way once you do have them. But you can’t possibly predict every decision you’ll ever have to make, so…

Acknowledge that there is seldom a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way

It is tempting, when issues of disagreement come up, to try and convince your spouse that your way is ‘right’. But, actually, raising a child is more complex than that.

As a child, I got an allowance – but my husband didn’t. I think we’ve both turned out pretty much OK, as humans go. My brothers went to boarding school and I didn’t. We all did well academically, and, although our experiences were different, I don’t believe one was preferable over the other – our parents simply made the best decisions based on what was happening at the time.

If you’re disagreeing with your spouse about a parenting issue, could it be that you’re struggling to let go of how you were raised? You may have inherited some wonderful parenting ideas from your own upbringing – but failing to acknowledge what your spouse is bringing to the table from his or her parents means failing to grasp the beautiful richness that comes when two people raise a child together.

Genesis 2:24 reminds us that, when we marry, we are leaving our own parents and uniting with our spouse, becoming one flesh. Parenting is one amazing way of showing our ‘one flesh’ to our family and to the world.

Be prepared to listen to your spouse, and have your own preconceptions challenged. Maybe you’ll come up with something totally different from either of your upbringings, but which will work brilliantly for your own children!

Submit – don’t defer – to one another. But listen to the one who does the bulk of the childcare.

I’m taking a deep breath as I write this. It’s sensitive territory, but we need to truly take on what the Bible is saying about submission, if we are to reach happy conclusions over our parenting decisions.

In Ephesians 5, Paul is clear that husbands and wives are to ‘submit to one another’. In Colossians 3, he asks wives to submit, and husbands to love (as Christ loved the church, remember; in other words: sacrificial, ‘putting-the-other-one-first’ kind of love).

Why mention this? Because I suspect that there are Christian husbands who feel that they should have the final say in parenting decisions, even though their wives are the ones who do most of the childcare. That doesn’t sound like loving your wife sacrificially.

Or there might be families where the wife does the childcare and automatically makes the big decisions, with her husband feeling disempowered as a parent, just because he works full-time outside of the home and spends less time with his kids than she does. That doesn’t sound like submitting to one another.

It doesn’t matter which way round the roles go in your family. You are to submit to one another, and ‘submit’ does not mean ‘defer’.

Those who work outside the home: if you submit to, and love, your spouse, then you will acknowledge the great deal of information they have read or listened to about parenting, whilst you’ve been breadwinning.

Those who do most of the childcare: if you submit to, and love, your spouse, then you will give them opportunities to become an excellent parent when they are around, spending time with your kids and building strong relationships with them. You will involve them in decision-making, because your children are theirs too.

In our family, I’m at home with our kids while my husband works full-time leading our church. If I were to walk into his study one day telling him how he should be running the church, I don’t think he’d take very kindly to it. I haven’t been to theological college, I haven’t got the years of experience that he has, I don’t read about church leadership and I don’t attend church leadership conferences.

However, if my husband asked for my input on something he was planning to say or do at church – which he often does – I can give my informed opinion as someone with considerable experience of attending church, familiarity with the people in our church family and knowledge of the Bible.

It’s not a perfect analogy, because we’re not co-leaders of our church, yet we absolutely are co-parents of our children. But I hope it illustrates the point that you need to listen to the one who deals with most of the challenges, and work on a solution together. This does not mean that one’s opinion is more important than the other’s – simply that one may have more experience to share, which will help both of you to come to a conclusion together.

Don’t defer to one another – submit!

And if you still can’t reach a solution?

Pray together. Ask God to help you both to submit to Him, and to peacefully find a solution together. Praise Him that He loves your child even more than you do, and that He wants the best for them.

If your spouse is not a Christian, you can still pray on your own about the issues that divide you. Ask God to help you be a loving spouse and parent, and – as much as you believe in your own decision – practise the art of placing this into God’s hands. Pray that He will either affirm your decision, or help you to see your spouse’s point of view more clearly.

You could also ask the wisdom of one or two friends who are close to, and trusted by, both of you – perhaps an older couple at your church, or some family members. Ask them to pray with and for you.

And, if the situation requires it, listen carefully to the advice of professionals who are involved – perhaps teachers, social workers, therapists or church kids/youth leaders. What have been their experiences of your child? You have the final say, but their testimony is a necessary ingredient for the melting pot.

Above all, remember that the relationships within your family are more important than the decisions you make. Learn to listen, compromise, pray and grow together.

How do you deal with disagreements when it comes to parenting in your household? Let us know in the comments below!

Lucy Rycroft is a mum, wife, blogger and fessed-up chocoholic. You can read more of her messy, imperfect family life at DesertMum, and she’d love to connect with you via Facebook and Twitter. Lucy lives with her husband and four kids in York, UK.

 

 

When Are We Ready to Have Kids? And How Do We Decide?

How do you know when is the right time to have a baby? And when am I ready for a baby?

Okay, excuse me for a second while I stop laughing.

Honestly, I hope we all know that there is never really a great time to have kids. There’s never a perfect time to do anything that will radically change your life! But nevertheless, we can be wise.

I missed posting a reader question yesterday, and I want to catch up because I think this one’s a good one! Recently a woman asked me how to know when she’s ready to have a baby:

We are not currently trying to get pregnant as we are sorting out some health issues and healing my vaginismus (really appreciate your posts on that by the way!). My husband has baby fever though and I feel like all my friends are having babies or getting pregnant and I feel left out because all I want in life is to be a mother! I know that the common phrase is “you’ll never be ready” but if a couple had the liberty of deciding when to start trying, what kind of things could they consider in their own lives before they add a baby to the mix? Physically, relationally, emotionally, spiritually? I follow your blog closely and you haven’t covered this topic yet, and maybe it’s a conversation you’re going to start having with your own daughters soon?

I think I actually have this conversation with my daughters almost everyday! Oldest one would love to get pregnant by accident, because if you do things wisely they’ll wait until next fall, since we’re all planning a big missions trip to Kenya in August. Younger daughter who just got married would like to wait a few years.

So let’s talk about a few different things when it comes to planning when to have children and figuring if “am i ready for a baby”.

If you’re having sex, you are defacto ready to have kids

One of the things we repeatedly told Katie before she got married was that as much as they may try to NOT have kids, there’s always the possibility they’ll get pregnant. And you have to be prepared for that if you’re also having sex. Having a baby can never be seen as a tragedy. We may make all these perfect plans, but God may have other ones, and nature just may intervene.

As my pastor said last Sunday, there are lots of accidental parents, but no accidental babies.

So never get too wedded to your big plans. If you want to make God laugh, make plans! He knows the answer to your question “am I ready for a baby” and it might not be when you think you are ready. It’s fine to have things to aim for, but these should never be things that you invest your whole heart in.

There are two big schools of thought when it comes to being ready to have a baby: One says that you have to have your life totally sorted out and have all your experiences first, and the other says you don’t.

I have some family members who decided to do the “big things” in life before the baby came. They took super interesting jobs that required moving far from family for a few years. They hiked, kayaked, travelled, had big adventures. And then, after about a decade of marriage, they started their absolutely adorable and bustling family. We were roughly 12 years ahead of them in terms of our age when our kids were born; I was an empty nester at 45; she won’t be until she’s 57.

Keith and I have been travelling and taking jobs in interesting places and having our adventures now. We didn’t do it in our twenties. We were quite poor and Keith was in school when we started having babies. We lived in a tiny 2-bedroom apartment until Rebecca was 4 and Katie was 1 1/2, and we moved to Belleville and bought a house. We didn’t have a car in those early days. I hadn’t figured out what I was going to do for work or career. We hadn’t figured out much of anything, except that we wanted to have a baby!

Keith and me buying our first house in 1998–four years after we had our first baby.

Which approach is right? I don’t think there is a “right” one when it comes to knowing “am I ready for a baby”. There are pros and cons to each. Personally, I’m glad I started young because I think I had more energy at 25 and 26 than I did at 37 or 38, and I didn’t mind my house being a total mess when I was 30 nearly as much as I’d mind it now. I’m glad we had our kids before we had the money to buy anything nice!

And the grandparents were all young, so they could help more and enjoy the kids more. And now we’re able to enjoy the empty nest years when we’re still healthy and energetic and young.

On the other hand, there can be a lot to say for getting your marriage rock solid, for having adventures early, and for getting a nest egg saved and a house bought. There’s no right answer. It’s what matters to you.

At the same time, if you can minimize stress fairly soon, it may be good to wait

While there is no perfect time to have kids, we can all likely think of some really lousy ones to have kids.

It’s hard to have a baby when you’re three courses away from graduating from university. It’s hard to have a baby if your husband is three courses away, and won’t be able to get a full-time job until he’s done. It’s hard to have a baby when you know  you’ll need to move in a few months for work or school. It’s hard to have a baby if your parents or someone close to you is terminally ill and you want to spend that time with them.

Having a baby is wonderful, but extremely stressful. And it does make money more of an issue, because it’s very hard for the mom, at least initially, to work and contribute to income.

One thing Rebecca and Connor have been doing is to save all of Rebecca’s income for a down payment on a house, and live off of Connor’s, so that if and when a baby comes, they don’t notice a change in their standard of living. I’m encouraging Katie and David to do the same thing.

If you know your income situation, work situation, or school situation is going to get significantly less stressful within a short time frame, then delaying having a baby may be a good idea.

You’re likely not ready to have a baby if you’re still unsure about your marriage

Also, if you’re in a rocky marriage and you’re not sure if it will last, having a baby will not make that marriage more stable. It will just add more stress to it. If your husband is habitually using pornography, refusing to work, or doing something else that jeopardizes the relationship, please deal with those big issues before you plan to add a baby to the mix.

And as this woman asked, are there relational, emotional, or spiritual milestones you have to meet before you have a baby? I think deliberately getting pregnant in the middle of a spiritual or relational or emotional crisis is not a good idea. When God is doing a major work on healing something from your childhood, or dealing with something in your marriage, then it likely is good to wait.

But I don’t think you have to have everything figured out. After all, one of the things you’ll learn when you become a parent is that everything really does change. You may have thought you were healed from something in your childhood, but being a mom will bring it up again. At the same time, being a mom may heal other things! Becoming a mom is such a seismic shift in your emotional self that I don’t think you can ever truly say, “I’m ready!” But the cool thing is that as you rely on God, on a daily basis, you find you really do grow.

Whatever you do: A baby is a blessing

The letter writer mentioned that her husband has baby fever; so does Rebecca’s! I think we get to that age where friends all start to have babies, and we really want to follow them. That’s a God-given desire. It is wonderful to love a baby, and having my babies was one of the most satisfying and worthwhile things I have ever done. (And having a baby can help with vaginismus, too!)

I don’t think we need our financial life totally settled, with the house and cars bought, the secure long-term job acquired, all the right furniture bought. These things can come in time. Often couples get into trouble, too, thinking that they need the house and two cars before they have a baby, and they want a baby, so they end up buying a house before they’re ready and getting into too much car debt. You can have kids in an apartment. You can use second hand baby stuff. You can get by with very little.

Keith setting up Katie’s crib and moving Rebecca into a “big girl bed” in our small apartment

So don’t have high expectations about what it takes to have a baby, or when is the right time to have a baby, but reduce stress as much as possible first where you can.

Those would be my simple pieces of advice, and now I’m eager to hear what the rest of you think! So leave a comment and tell me, when did you think you were ready to have kids?