Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 138

Does Your Spouse Have a Porn Addiction or Just a Bad Habit? The Difference Matters!

Does your spouse truly have a porn addiction–or does he just have a bad habit?

I’ve written a TON about porn use on this blog. It’s so destructive, and it wrecks marriages, and it changes your sexual response, and it’s just plain awful. It hurts the spouse of the porn user; it’s linked to human trafficking; and it objectifies and degrades both the user and the porn star.

In fact, I’ve written so much about it that I didn’t think there was much that was new to say.

Then my blogging friend Leah Grey sent me two posts that were just awesome. Leah is an unwitting and unwilling expert in addictions because of what she’s been through with her husband, and I think her perspective here is really worth listening to–and very freeing.

So today and tomorrow I’m going to run this series on how to handle a husband’s porn use. I think it fits well this week as we’re talking about how churches can support marriages, because this is such a big issue that hurts marriages. I’m so glad Leah shared these posts with us, and here she is:

Before anyone gets upset with me for being insensitive, let me preempt this post by saying I know how much it hurts to have your spouse “cheat on you” with porn. It’s beyond awful. It makes us feel like dirt. We can’t stop thinking about it. We unwillingly compare ourselves to their internet history, “Large chest and big butt?! But I have a TINY chest and NO derriere… He must not like me” or, if you’re a man it may go more like, “I don’t have abs! Obviously, she thinks I’m fat too. No wonder she’s looking at porn. She’s probably having an affair too”.

I know. I know how it feels. I’ve been there before and in ways, I wouldn’t dare tell you. For the record, the porn-perusing web history is not an indication of whether they like our bodies. In my opinion, it doesn’t look like us because if it did, our loved ones would be riddled with guilt.

“Porn addiction” is a term that gets thrown around often. Especially in the Christian community.

I’m in the “business of addiction”, I talk about it daily and there’s a question I think it’s time we ask: Is porn addiction on the rise or are we using the term “addiction” too loosely?

What Is an Addiction?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, addiction is defined as a:

“Compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly: persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful.”

Interestingly enough, the word “addiction” doesn’t actually have one, agreed upon definition. If you look it up, you’ll find a hundred different definitions for the same thing. Why? Because let’s be honest, nobody really knows where habit ends and addiction begins until they realize they’re physically unable to stop.

What’s a Habit?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says a habit is:

“A behaviour pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance, an acquired mode of behaviour that has become nearly or completely involuntary, an addiction.”

So, wait. By that definition, a habit is an addiction? Obviously, even Merriam-Webster is confused. If even the dictionary is confused, who really knows the difference between an addiction and a bad habit?

Addicts, that’s who.

In search of answers and to clear up confusion in the church community for Christians every-where, I went to the only place I could think of to get clarity on all things addiction-related, my husband. [Want to read my story? Check out my new series, “The Grey Diaries”. Excerpts from my personal journals showing my journey from small-town girl to the city of dreams only to find myself in a New York City nightmare!

My husband has been to both Christian and secular treatment centers for a long battle with addiction. Spending that much time around other people struggling with addiction brings a lot of clarity on misconstrued definitions. According to his educated-first-hand-experience with all things addiction and recovery, he estimates ninety percent of the people in treatment had a habit and not an addiction.

Ninety percent! Which means, there’s a lot of good people out there feeling defeated because they have an “addiction”.

When we call all porn use a porn addiction, we make people feel helpless. It's a bad habit!Click To Tweet
Please don’t misunderstand me, a “bad habit” using pornography is still destructive to the individual and their relationship.

Regular pornography use contributes to sexual dysfunction, unhealthy views about sex, only climaxing by masturbation (That’s not good for a relationship!) not to mention the effect on the spouse and those are only a few of the negative effects of porn use!

All that said, I want to make a case of why it’s important to define whether your loved one has a true sex addiction or a destructive pornography habit because the way each is treated is different.

Your loved one may be believing they have a disease when really, they need to stop passing blame and exercise self-control

(Yep. I said it.). Satan is a deceiver and wants you and your spouse to believe the problem is bigger than it really is. Because he’s a liar. And wants to de-stroy your marriage. And hurt you in the process.

“…He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” -John 8:44 (ESV)

What could be more devastating to a marriage than a sex addiction? I talk to spouses of addicts every day and can say without hesitation, the most hurtful thing in any marriage is sexual unfaithfulness, whether lust or infidelity. Spouses stay through alcoholism, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin addiction but infidelity? That’s the one that will, “Break the camel’s back”. In fact, pornography has become so rampant and so destructive, even the liberated secular community is taking a stand against it.

With how destructive sexual infidelity is to a relationship, isn’t it possible Satan convinced you your spouse has an addiction, convinced them they have an addiction, and it’s all a lie intended to destroy your marriage?

What if your spouse's porn addiction is really just a bad habit? Habits can be unlearned!Click To Tweet
How Do I Know If My Spouse Has a Porn Addiction or a Destructive Habit?

When I asked my husband what the difference was between a porn habit and a true sex addiction he said from his experience, a pornography habit is formed when a man (or woman) needs motivation for self-stimulation, they may feel a void in their relationship so they turn to porn, they lack excitement in some area of their life (Not necessarily in the bedroom), or it’s simply an old, bad habit they started when they were young and were not convicted on until later on in life.

On the other hand, he said when someone has a true porn addiction they cannot live without it. It’s all they care about, all they can think about and they won’t feel “normal” until they get it. He also pointed out a true addiction is progressive. Don’t forget that part, it’s very important! If someone is struggling with sex addiction they can’t watch the same thing over and over because it will no longer satisfy and they’ll need more stimulation. True sex addiction rarely stops with pornography, it’s simply not enough stimulation to satisfy an increasing need.

Do you know the difference between porn addiction and a bad porn habit? Click To Tweet

This is not meant to be condemning, it’s intended to be freeing! Your spouse doesn’t need to keep living with overwhelming shame, thinking there’s something very wrong with them.

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” -John 8:32

A destructive habit is not the same thing as having a mental illness or medical disorder, it’s a learned behaviour and the good news is, learned behaviours can be unlearned.

God is in the business of fixing bad behaviour. Is it easy? No. Is your marriage hopeless? Absolutely not!

Love your spouse, encourage them to go to counseling and get to the root of the real, underlying issue. I also suggest they find an accountability person (Who isn’t you!) while you work on re-building intimacy. Christian marriage counseling is a great way to work on restoring closeness. When you’re ready, and it could take some time, teach them what healthy sex looks and feels like. This is a pro-active job. Being involved in the “healing” and “recovery” is more effective than nagging. Take the appropriate steps to remedy the problem and you can be happier, healthier and closer than ever.

“And the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” -Mark 10:7-8 (NIV)

You will bless your spouse by refusing to shame them knowing what you’re really up against is a big, fat, destructive, lie from Satan.

I Wish That Was True for Me, but My Spouse Does Have a Sex Addiction!

Addiction is not hopeless. I personally believe part of the reason people give into addiction is because of the messages we hear in the news and media.

“Relapse is part of recovery.”
“Once an addict, always an addict!”
“Addiction is a disease, there is no cure.”

Baloney.

Not one of those statements line up with the Word of God. God says, He gave us a spirit of self-control (2 Timothy 1:7 ESV), if anyone is in Christ they’re a new person and who they were be-fore is totally gone (2 Corinthians 5:16-18 TLB), He lifts us out of our pit of despair, heals our diseases, forgives our sins and crowns us with love and compassion (Psalm 103:3-4 NIV). If you’d like to read more about God’s truth about addiction I wrote a great, big post about it called, “The Biggest Lie About Addiction (And why it’s so dangerous!)” Spoiler alert! The lie has to do with it being a disease. I know. Prepare yourself.

For more addiction-related support sign up for my free resource, “The Scaredy Cat Faith Guide for Crisis Situations” and get a three-part email series on overcoming fear.

If you need help with substance abuse, addiction, mental health or recovery from pornography (Habits OR addiction!) here’s a list of my favourite resources for support:

Online Support for Pornography Recovery:

XXX Church

No Fap

Christian Treatment Centers:

Teen Challenge USA

Teen Challenge Canada

The Lighthouse Network (Help finding affordable Christian Treatment Centers- USA)

For Women Struggling with Pornography:

Dirty Girl Ministries

Support for Christian Wives of Addicts:

The “Live, Love, Hope” Community

[image error]Leah Grey moved to New York City full of hopeful aspirations until her husband went into long-term treatment for addiction. Unable to afford to stay, she picked up her childhood dreams and moved back to her rural, Canadian beach town with her two young children. From rooftop city skyline views to her parent’s basement, in the darkest time of her life, she created Grey Minis-tries to support, encourage and empower women with loved ones who struggle with addiction. With a practical faith-based approach, she challenges popular beliefs about addiction while teaching women in crisis how to find God’s peace within the storms of life. In March 2016, she launched her website, leahgrey.com and popular peer support community, “Live, Love, Hope”.

The post Does Your Spouse Have a Porn Addiction or Just a Bad Habit? The Difference Matters! appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

What a Strong Marriage Ministry Should Look Like

If a church is going to support marriages, what should that marriage ministry look like?

When I give my Girl Talk, my evening event where I talk sex and marriage, one of the biggest applause lines I get is when I’m talking about how we need others to come alongside husbands who are watching porn and say, “this stops now.” I ask:

If the body of Christ can’t have your back, then what is the body of Christ for?

It’s amazing the outpouring that gets. People hunger for practical, authentic community.

And so today I thought I’d write a different kind of post. I’d like to sketch out what I think a church with a strong marriage ministry would look like, and then I’d invite you to share your thoughts, in the hope that this could be a resource page or a springboard for discussion for churches that want to be more intentional about supporting the marriages.

I’ve created a .pdf of this post so that you can print it out and take it to a meeting at your church and start MARRIAGE MINISTRY now! Get it Here!

So let’s get started.

A Strong Marriage Ministry Will Identify and Train Marriage Mentors

Pastors should not be the main focus of a marriage ministry. First, a pastor may not be gifted at counselling, which is okay. Pastors were hired to primarily preach! Also, there’s only one (or a few) pastors. They can’t do all the work.

Thus, a strong marriage ministry will involve strong couples from the congregation. If a church is going to support marriages, then it needs to find a way to forge relationships between people where couples can talk about important issues. Mentorship, I believe, is the best vehicle for this.

Some general principles about marriage mentorship:

A mentor couple should be a couple whose marriage is very strong and who has been married for at least ten years.
Marriage mentors are often better equipped for pre-marital counselling than pastors, who may not have the time. It’s often better to talk to a couple, as well, than just a pastor.
Mentors should be trained on how to ask questions that encourage discussion. Most breakthroughs will come not because the mentor teaches something but because the couple is able to talk through issues.
Mentors are not counsellors. The role of a mentor is not to help couples solve problems but instead to raise important issues for discussion and to guide conversations and prayers. If counselling is necessary, the couple should then be referred elsewhere.
Mentors do not need to have all the answers; they need to be equipped to ask the right questions.
The church should set up a system where it’s easy to get a mentor couple if you need one, and where it’s expected that a year after the wedding a couple should start seeing a marriage mentor for a time to redo some of the issues from pre-marital counselling (since after being married for a year new issues often pop up).

Some of the best marriage mentorship materials that I have seen have been made by FamilyLife.

Marriage Mentors Will Be Chosen Based on Their Relationship Now, Not their Past

We have a tendency to promote leadership that looks one way–Christians their whole life; always chose well; never rebelled; still married to their first spouse. In many churches, the couples who are assumed to have the strongest marriages are those with the most children who have the most trappings of ardent faith–homeschoolers, ministry leaders, or family of other leaders.

However, the strongest marriages are not necessarily those that fit the “ideal” Christian mold. If congregation members are to relate to marriage mentors, then there should be some diversity in faith journeys among the mentor couples. While all should have rock solid marriages now, it’s okay if some people were not born in the church, and became Christians after a difficult faith journey. It’s even best if some marriage mentors are blended families. Let’s have the marriage mentors resemble the congregation, rather than assuming that those who “look” the most Christian automatically have the strongest marriages.

A Strong Marriage Ministry Emphasizes Accountability Where Appropriate

While marriage mentor couples are awesome, single-sex mentoring and accountability is also crucial, especially in the area of pornography (and not just for men! Let’s remember that 30% of porn users are female).

Churches should make it easy to get accountability partners, having an easy but anonymous place to sign up, and having it regularly advertised from the front and from small groups that accountability is available.

What does a strong marriage ministry look like? A blueprint for churches!Click To Tweet
A Strong Marriage Ministry Flows From an “Authenticity” Culture

The culture of a church is passed on, top down. At the church my daughters attend, the senior pastor is very open about some of the mental health battles his family has faced, so that the church family can pray for them. At the last song of the service, those who need extra prayer are always encouraged to come up to the front, without judgment.  It’s never seen as a sign of weakness.

People will not open up to marriage mentors unless the church does not punish those who admit failings. One awesome man I know, for instance, was asked to serve on a leadership board and was asked for his testimony. In his testimony, he wrote about his battle with porn, which, after decades, he had won by joining Celebrate Recovery. And the church said he was no longer eligible for leadership because he had struggled with pornography.

My friend is very open and honest about his struggles, which is as it should be. By making sure that only “perfect” Christians who have never struggled (or at least have never admitted to struggling) fill leadership roles, we make confession and authenticity far too difficult.

If churches want to rescue marriages, then people need a safe place to admit when they’re starting to have problems. If they do not have that, then often no one says anything until the marriage implodes, when it could have been helped if people had felt safe to ask for help earlier.

Churches with strong marriage ministries, then, likely also have strong Celebrate Recovery, DivorceCare, or mental illness ministries. The more we deal with the messiness of life, the more people can admit problems when things do get messy. If no one can dare admit an issue without appearing strange, then no amount of marriage programs will accomplish very much.

Like this information? I’ve got a 50-minute talk I gave to church leaders on how to build a strong marriage ministry! See it here.
Leaders in a Church Emphasizing Marriage Must Have Strong Marriages Themselves

It’s a biblical principle that one shouldn’t serve on church leadership unless one has strong family relationships at home. If the church wants to send a message that marriage is important, then, it must choose leaders that also have good marriages. Even if those couples do not directly take part in marriage mentorship, the leadership of the church must still model good marriages.

Leader couples should always speak well of each other
The couples should have no whisperings of impropriety
The couple should support one another in their giftings, rather than the wife seen as simply an appendage or servant of her husband. There must be a “team” feel to every ministry couple.

The latter point is especially important. In churches where women are seen more as servants of their husbands, the divorce rate is far higher than in churches where marriage is seen as more teamwork. Researchers have concluded that this is because women don’t feel entitled to speak up about marriage problems when they first occur, because they believe that to identify issues would be seen as unsubmissive. Then, after years of dysfunctional behaviour, the wives often throw in the towel. If leaders demonstrate grace and care for one another in a team framework, then congregation members are far more likely to feel free to raise issues when they crop up, rather than letting them fester.

A Church That Supports Marriage Does Not Overburden Those Who are Married

Quite frankly, those who are super involved in church as leaders are often burned out with no time for their families. If the leaders don’t have strong marriages, then they can’t support other people’s marriages.

My husband has been repeatedly asked to serve on a church board. He’s been told, “it’s only one meeting a month!” But then he would also be expected to belong to a small group. Now my husband is a physician who was often on call 8 or 9 nights a month with no actual schedule. Joining a small group has never been an option for us, because we never have a consistent night of the week free. In addition, leaders were expected to go to prayer meeting once a week. Then every leader also had to join a ministry to report back to the board. So in reality, to be a leader meant 10 nights  a month outside of the house on church activities, plus his 8 or 9 hospital calls a month, leaving only 10 or 11 nights for the family.

That’s not sustainable.

It’s also true that too many ministries in churches require far too much of people in their 30s and 40s, as I wrote, rather exasperatingly, in this article about what would happen if women started saying no to all the church activities?

So, a church that values marriage will:

Ensure that no one is expected to be at church activities more than one night a week (including pastors, if possible)
Examine their ministries to make sure that they aren’t “make work” or “make busy” events. Choose only events that feed the community and that reach those outside the church. And lower the scope and expectations of some of those events so that people are not so burned out.
Encourage those in their 50s and 60s to do more of the child care, Sunday school, and nursery ministry to give parents a break
Host more adult mixer activities, like board game nights or movie nights, rather than always dividing by gender so that couples can do more things together (and so that singles can meet each other)

A Strong Marriage Ministry Practically Supports Couples

Sometimes churches shy away from offering couples’ events because we don’t want single people to feel left out. Yet marriage is the bedrock of families, and thus the bedrock of the community. It is not taking away from single people to sometimes offer something for couples. One person recently sent me this note:

Being married for 27 years and having 3 children I can remember the need for support during some seasons. Now looking back I want to bless other couples in a ministry way. However the churches seem to be heavy in the ministry of single moms and not in marriage. For instance, we have Saturday Big Brothers and Big Sisters, we have single mom groups with free lunch, and we have activities and topics for support for single mothers. Maybe three times a year marriage is honored, but it’s at a beach resort retreat that costs $800 or $75 Valentine’s Day dances. When my kids were little, we couldn’t afford much of anything. I asked the church to set up a babysitting service at the church once a month for married couples to have a date night out. Did not fly. I have found churches not interested in honoring marriages in practical ways because of not offending single parents.

I think she makes a good point. Our ministries should not compete with each other. Couples need help, too.

I’ve created a .pdf of this post so that you can print it out and take it to a meeting at your church and start MARRIAGE MINISTRY now! Get it Here!
A Strong Marriage Ministry Addresses the Tough Topics

What is it that tends to rip apart marriages? Money and sex.

Yet few churches address either very well from the pulpit. Before we blame pastors for this, though, let me say, as someone who goes around speaking on sex at churches, that I don’t think much of this should be addressed from the pulpit. There are children and teens in church; single people; divorced people. While sex can be addressed in general ways, you can’t get nitty gritty on a Sunday morning, and, as a parent of two young women, I would have been extremely offended if the pastor had said anything resembling what I say at a Girl Talk from the pulpit when my girls were teenagers. There is a time and place, and that is neither the time, nor the place, for anything that explicit.

With the money issue, too, what people really need is practical help on managing debt and using credit cards, and those sorts of things aren’t handled well from the pulpit, either. You need a workshop.

What I would suggest, then, is that the church go out of its way to make resources available on tough topics, remembering that if the church doesn’t address them, the world will fill the void.

Encourage Bible study groups to do a study on a tough topic (I have a FREE 6-week Bible study course for a women’s Bible study group on my book The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex)
Host events like my Girl Talk, where I talk to women about sex, intimacy and marriage, or our couples’ night, where Keith and I talk about sex together
Encourage membership to sites like Covenant Eyes, which allows accountability and filtering for computers, phones and tablets to help prevent porn addictions
Download Covenant Eyes’ book Fight Porn in Your Church, and have all leaders read it
Share through social media, Pinterest boards, men’s and women’s Facebook ministry pages, or newsletter lists great articles about sex, marriage, money, and other issues
Host financial planning seminars and good financial management seminars, and have debt counsellors available for couples who need help


I’ve created a .pdf of this post so that you can print it out and take it to a meeting at your church and start MARRIAGE MINISTRY now! Get it Here!
A Strong Marriage Ministry Is Focused on Wholeness, Not Marriage

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a strong marriage ministry is focused on God’s heart for us: that we all be transformed into the likeness of His Son (Romans 8:29).

A strong marriage ministry is not focused on making sure that all marriages stay intact.

That may seem like a very loaded statement, but where I see churches err most often is that they are so scared that a marriage will fall apart that they fail to call people to wholeness.

For instance, if a woman comes to the church leadership saying that her husband has been using porn for years, and has promised to stop but never has, this is the scenario I often see unfold: The husband promises the leadership that he has stopped, and the wife is lectured that she must forgive, because Christ forgave 70 times 7. Now the church leadership has likely shortcircuited the work that God was trying to do in that man’s life.

He has a porn problem and a repentance problem. Quick forgiveness will not solve it, but it will make church leadership feel better because, “now we saved another marriage!” God is interested in changed hearts, not shells of marriages. 

Churches must be able to identify toxic things that will destroy a marriage–porn use, addictions, emotional, verbal, physical, or sexual abuse–and when these things pop up, the emphasis must be on healing these issues, not healing the marriage. True relational healing can only happen once the underlying toxic things have been properly dealt with. But we’re often too scared to deal with toxic issues because they’re so huge and they threaten the marriage. Instead we try to paper over them.

Churches must be better at supporting those in difficult marriages and calling sinners to repentance. Not every marriage problem is a communication problem, and yet we often treat them as such, telling people to learn each other’s love language or to learn to talk more. Some problems are caused by a huge sin, and those problems are often one-sided. Not every marriage issue has two parties at blame. Until churches can start calling a spade a spade and calling people to something more, while supporting the hurting spouse, no marriage ministry will ever be effective because you will be undermining the authenticity of your witness.

I’d point you to this excellent article on “burning down the house” to learn more.

Does your church support marriages enough? A checklist for a strong marriage ministry!Click To Tweet
The Wrap-Up: Where Does Your Church Fit on the Strong Marriage Ministry Scale?

If you’re talking about this article as a leadership community, here are some questions to ask. Rate each question on a scale of 1-5, which will give your church a score out of 75. This may provide some insight on where your efforts should first focus as you grow a strong marriage ministry.

Does our church have “marriage mentors”?
Do the couples that we believe have strong marriages all fit that “ideal Christian” mold? Could we be missing some strong marriages because we have preconceived notions of what a strong marriage will look like?
Is the weight of marriage ministry resting primarily on our pastor?
Do those struggling with pornography in our church have an obvious, well-advertised place to get help?
If a couple needed marriage help, or a person wanted an accountability partner, is there an easy way to access that help?
Looking at our church leadership, including the board(s), paid staff, and ministry coordinators, how overburdened are they? How are their marriages?
Is teamwork a hallmark of the marriages among our church leadership?
Do leaders in our church regularly speak well of their spouses and encourage their spouses’ spiritual giftings?
Looking at those aged 25-45 in our church, how much of the practical, hands on responsibility for ministries falls on their shoulders? How much falls on those aged 45-65? Is this a healthy balance?
Do we have a culture where people can safely admit that they are struggling without judgment?
Does our church handle sex in a healthy way? Do our small groups, couples’ ministries, or single-sex study groups feel comfortable talking about it?
If couples are having major debt issues, do they know where to go for help?
Have we had low-cost, affordable marriage events (either couple events or single-sex teaching events) at our church in the last year?
Do we have a network of trained Christian counsellors to whom we can refer couples in trouble?
Do we regularly refer couples who are dealing with toxic issues, rather than trying to deal with issues of that magnitude when we may not be trained for it?

Remember: You can Download a .PDF of this post to take with you to a meeting at your church and start talking about this!

 Download it here.

Like this information? I’ve got a 50-minute talk I gave to church leaders on how to build a strong marriage ministry! See it here.

Now let’s talk in the comments: Have I left anything out? What works at your church with marriage ministry? What doesn’t? Let me know, and we can help each other!

And can you help me by sharing this post? I’m really passionate about building marriage ministry in actual congregations, rather than just online. I think we all need face-to-face community. So share this on Facebook and Pinterest so more people will see, and hopefully more churches will feel called to minister to the couples in their congregation!

The post What a Strong Marriage Ministry Should Look Like appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

Are We as Busy As We Feel?

Do you feel like you’re always busy–that you can never catch up?

I think it’s the modern malaise! And today, in my Friday musings, I want to hopefully convince you that the problem isn’t necessarily that we have too much to do. It’s that we’re trying to relax in the wrong ways.

Sheila’s Musings: Are We Trying to Relax in the Wrong Ways?

When you ask people how they’re doing, chances are they won’t say, “I’m fine,” though that used to be the standard answer. Chances are they’ll comment on their busy-ness. “Things are starting to slow down, and maybe I’ll be able to come up for air soon!”

We feel so busy. We’re overwhelmed. We’re exhausted.

And yet something weird is going on. When you look at time studies, the amount of work we do has increased slightly over the last forty years. But it hasn’t increased a ton. If you combine housework and paid work, we’re still, as a society, doing roughly the same as we did in 1970. Slightly more, but not like 50% more or anything. We actually have a fair amount of leisure time.

So why do we feel so busy?

The difference is in how we’re choosing to spend that leisure.

Some of us are simply overextended with committees and extracurricular activities. But I think there’s something else at work. When we choose to spend our leisure time in front of a screen (either the internet or the television), we often LOSE a significant portion of our day, and feel far less rejuvenated than we would otherwise. 

When you sit down at the TV, do you think to yourself, I think I’ll sit here for two and a half hours? Chances are you don’t, but often you find that that is exactly what you’ve done. Same with the internet. I sit down to “check a few emails” and suddenly an hour has gone by.

When we spend so much of our lives in front of a screen, then we do have less time to get things done.

But it’s not just that the internet eats more time than you intended it to. It’s also how it leaves you feeling.

I’m guilty of binge watching Netflix when I’m alone. Yet I’ve noticed that my mood is much improved if I spend at least half an hour a day reading an interesting book. I’ve given myself something to chew on, I’m using my brain power, and I’m feeling rooted in something important.

Relaxing is necessary and wonderful. Relaxing the wrong way, though, can leave us drained.
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The problem with time wasters is just that: they waste time. Sure, it feels temporarily fun to let a few hours go by watching TV, but afterwards, do we really feel good about life? But if we were to identify something that does feed our souls and make sure we have time to do that, we wouldn’t feel as if life were passing us by and we weren’t getting things done.

I wonder, then, how much of our busy-ness simply stems from the crazy ways we spend our leisure time. I talk about this a lot in To Love, Honor, and Vacuum: When You Feel More Like a Maid Than a Wife and Mother, but sometimes I need to remind myself of the concept. Often we turn to time wasters, like TV and the internet, because we’re tired. We’re exhausted. And we just want to relax. The problem is that these things don’t relax us. So we end up worse than we were before.

To Love, Honor and Vacuum--what's it about?
To Love, Honor and Vacuum was the first book I wrote. At the time, two women who were very close to me were feeling miserable in their marriages. They were doing everything for everybody, but their husbands were getting more and more distant.

How could that be?

But soon I realized the problem. They thought that they could win affection and respect by pouring themselves out for everyone else. And what they discovered was that this almost always backfires. If you want a satisfying family life, then you have to see family as a team, rather than yourself as a servant.

And in To Love, Honor and Vacuum (now with the updated edition, 10 years later!), I show how you can stop feeling like a maid, and start feeling like a wife, mom, and woman again, because you put first things first.

Check out the book here!

I’ve made it a goal to read a book a week this year and to try to use my Wii to exercise for twenty minutes a day. When I do those things, it’s okay if I watch Netflix, because I’ve already fed my soul.

But if we spend all of our leisure time on things that ultimately don’t satisfy, we’ll feel as if we’re gulping for air. We’ll feel like something’s missing. And that makes us feel busy, because we’re obviously not getting done what needs to get done. But what’s our reaction to feeling busy? We need to veg more. And it becomes a vicious cycle.

Spending too much time in front of a screen ironically makes us feel busier. Here's why!
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I’d just encourage you in the week coming up to break that cycle. Figure out what feeds your soul, and add even a little bit of it to your day. It can change your whole outlook, and stop that constant “not getting enough done” feeling.

If we took steps to prioritize those important things, then we’d feel better. We’d feel more productive. We’d go to bed at night knowing that we had had a good day. I’d really like that feeling again, and I’m going to try to catch it next week! Are you with me?

What’s #1 at To Love, Honor and Vacuum?

Marriages have time of highs and times of lows–I don’t think anyone can argue that–but how do you deal when things aren’t going exactly your way?  Maybe your hubby has an addiction that is damaging the relationship, or maybe we’ve let ourselves go (physically) over the years and we are finding it more difficult to stay attracted to each other.  Maybe our personalities just don’t mesh.  Does this give us an excuse to give up?  Are we allowed to go back on the vows we made before God?  Or how can we work through our problems to find the spark we had at the beginning?

#1 Post on the Blog: Help! My Husband Has A Big Belly  

#1  on the Blog Overall: Top 10 Effects Of Porn On Your Brain, Your Marriage, And Your Sex Life 

#2 from Facebook: Why I’m Anti-Divorce And Pro-Remarriage

#4 from Pinterest: Just Your Type: Personality Differences And Marriage 

Have a great weekend, everyone!

The post Are We as Busy As We Feel? appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

When Making Love Doesn’t Seem “Hot” Enough

Let’s face it: sometimes sex with our husbands just doesn’t seem that “hot”.

Now that may be because sex has just gotten boring. But sometimes there’s something more sinister at work. And I want to talk about that today, since it’s Wednesday, the day when I always talk marriage (and usually try to talk sex!)

I remember a conversation I had that opened my eyes to the extent of the problem.

Her face showed sadness and confusion. I knew she wanted to believe what I told her, but she didn’t see how it could be possible for her.

I had just finished speaking at a marriage conference where I had talked to couples about how to experience greater intimacy–specifically in the bedroom. “Say his name. Say I love you. Concentrate on him, not just on what you think is sexy,” I had told them.

And as soon as I was finished, this young woman made a beeline over to me. “I just don’t get it,” she said. “If I say his name, that completely kills the mood.”

To some of you that may sound shocking. It doesn’t to me, because I hear the same stories over and over.

Like far too many women, she had become trapped in a lie that our culture peddles: making love isn’t about intimacy; it’s only about physical fun. And when that’s what we believe, sex becomes shallow. It’s not about our husbands; it’s about fantasy.

I have often thought about that conversation in relation to Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians:

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. (1 Corinthians 13:6, NIV)

I’m not sure exactly what Paul had in mind when he wrote those words, but today, in 2017, what comes to mind for me is how we have so distorted the beauty of intimacy that we often rejoice in the opposite of intimacy, rather than in truth.

We live in a culture which has divorced sex from marriage.

And when you take sex outside of a marriage context, all you have left is physical pleasure. It’s not about feeling close to each other, or reaffirming a commitment, or building intimacy; it’s only about feeling good. And so many of us then get married and find that our spouses quickly lose their appeal. That’s not what’s sexy.

In Jeremiah, God warns us:

Woe to those who call good evil and evil good!

Our culture calls “good” intimacy evil: Don’t stifle yourself! Don’t be so uptight! Explore!

And our culture calls evil–fantasy and lust–good. Anything that helps you feel sexy is seen to be a good thing.

My email friend Jessica knows what that’s like. When she first wrote to me, she was newly married. She wanted to have a beautiful, intimate life with her husband, but almost as soon as they were wed she found out that he used porn. He was a Christian, but he told her, “I don’t look at any weird stuff. And we’re married now; we’re supposed to enjoy it! It’s supposed to be fun! It’s all good!”

So she started indulging with him. She felt so ashamed. She didn’t like it. But she had done so many things, and now she didn’t know how to stop. He had no interest in stopping, either. He became angry when she started to suggest that perhaps making love was really supposed to be about, you know, LOVE.

And now she was at her wit’s end. Should she keep sinning to keep her husband happy, or should she insist that they stop?

Jessica’s not alone. About 70% of Christian men are tempted by porn (though not that many use it on a regular basis). But women increasingly are tempted by it, too. And so many women have turned to erotica to boost their libidos, using the justification, “it’s my body, and I should be able to have fun with it. It’s good to imagine these things because it gets me revved up!”

And now, of course, the second 50 Shades of Grey movie has come out. How many women have flocked to watch that because it seems like a great way to boost their libido–but in the process they’re killing desire for their husbands. You start delighting in a fantasy that objectifies women, rather than delighting in intimacy. And then when you’re with your husband, you can’t get aroused by him without fantasizing. It’s scary.

We’re rejoicing in evil.

What is the truth? Like I showed in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, God designed sex to make us truly intimate on every level: physical, emotional, and spiritual. And here’s the neat thing: the women who actually enjoy making love the most are those who have been married for a decade or so and feel really close with their husbands. In other words, emotional and spiritual intimacy make the physical better. It’s a lie to think that ignoring spiritual intimacy makes sex more fun. In fact, it robs it of its power to connect us on so many ways.

How do we rejoice in truth when it comes to sex instead?

Realize that God wants to be a part of everything in your life–including in the bedroom. We don’t often think of God and sex in the same sentence, because we don’t like to picture Him knowing what we’re doing. But God created it just the way He did for a reason: He wants us to enjoy each other, and He wants us to feel close. That’s an intimacy like no other. And hot and holy can totally go together!

Get rid of erotica and porn from your marriage.

Watching porn together won’t make sex better; it will rob intimacy from you and actually rob you of the ability to enjoy your spouse. And it will take you further down the road where you’re closing off your heart to God, who actually is the One who can make you the most sexually responsive!

Ramp up your spiritual and emotional vulnerability.

True aphrodisiacs can’t be found in a store. They can only be found when the deepest part of it–the heart–is touched. When you become more vulnerable with each other, by praying together and sharing and talking, you’ll find that your desire for each other increases.

If this is a problem in your marriage, sign up for my  FREE 5 lesson emotional connection email course.

Work through 31 Days to Great Sex.

The great thing about this book is that it doesn’t just help you to spice things up. It helps you to work on all three aspects of sex–the emotional and spiritual as well as the physical. And it helps you to have those conversations about porn and libido differences and keeping things really intimate.

It’s March 1, and so today is a great day to start. And, no, you don’t have to have sex everyday! Lots of the challenges are just to get you flirting more or talking more or becoming more affectionate (though there’s lots of sex, too, even in the first week!).

And, yes, it’s okay if it takes you more than 31 days.

But I took everything that I know and teach about sex, and divided it up into these 31 days, because I really wanted you all to be able to take the things that I teach and actually put them into practice. And this is CHEAP. I’ve made the ebook only $4.99 (it’s really underpriced). This is a full-sized book. It’s over 186 pages. (But normally you really only have to read like 3-4 pages a night. So it’s super easy to do!). Check it out here.

If sex doesn’t seem “hot” enough, then do something about it. Let’s reclaim sex for marriage, because married sex was always meant to be the best sex. And when we get things right, it will be!

31 Days to Great Sex is here (only $4.99!) It's the best $5 you'll ever spend on your marriage!

Learn to talk more, flirt more, and even explore more! You'll work on how to connect emotionally, spiritually, AND physically.

Find out more To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

The Unexpected Way Kim Added Pizzazz to Her Love Life

Could your bedroom be robbing you of a great love life?

I talk a lot on this blog about how to have fun with your husband, stressing finding hobbies to do together and finding ways to think positively about him and deciding to make sex more of a priority.

These are all important.

But increasingly I’m starting to understand how much our surroundings can actually impact our mood, and even our desire for our husband!

So when long-time reader Bumi, who actually attended one of my Girl Talk events in Los Angeles, asked to sponsor a post on the blog about how to create a bedroom that encouraged your sex life, rather than discouraged it, I eagerly agreed. Especially when I saw the results of what she was doing!

I’m excited to share it with you today.

First, she shared with me a startling “Before” and “After” of her client Kim’s bedroom, which she and Kim designed using Bumi’s bedroom decorating online program: Magical Escape – The New Science of Decorating Your Bedroom to Rejuvenate You and Rekindle Your Romance. Bumi is an architect, interior designer and design psychologist.

Before the makeover, Kim had this nagging feeling that she and her husband, Matt, were in a bit of a rut. They loved each other and their young kids, but as busy professionals juggling corporate careers with marriage, parenting and so on, life often got stressful and ho-hum. Here’s their original bedroom:

Kim’s “Before” Bedroom

What Bumi does differently from conventional interior designers is that instead of helping you decorate your home merely to look good, she helps you intentionally decorate your home to change the way you feel – to make you feel calm, enchanted, romantic, rejuvenated, or any other way you wish to feel! This is based on the cutting edge science of Design Psychology.

Before the makeover, Kim told Bumi that she wanted her new bedroom to engulf Matt and her in the tranquil and romantic feeling they’d experienced in an oceanfront cabin in Fiji. But they also loved the elegance and sophistication of five star resorts. The challenge was to decorate Kim’s bedroom to give her and Matt these specific feelings and experiences that they longed for. Does the new bedroom succeed at this? Kim thinks so – she says it feels like oceanfront cabin-meets-five star bedroom suite!

Kim’s “After” Bedroom

She says that in her bedroom today, she and Matt feel as though they’re on some magical vacation. She swears that it’s added fresh excitement to their love life! In her own words, “Who knew that decor could make such a difference?!”

Regardless of your taste in decor, which bedroom feels soothing and enchanting? Which one might put you and your hubby in the mood for romance? Which one feels like an escape from the outside world with its cares and concerns? Which bedroom might make everyday feel like a holiday? Which one might make every night feel like date night?

Compared to the “After” bedroom, how would it feel to spend every night in the “Before” bedroom? Enough said! No wonder Kim and Matt were experiencing the blahs! Does your bedroom feel like the “Before” bedroom or the “After” bedroom? Does your bedroom feel magical?

Surprisingly, many of the changes that make Kim’s new bedroom feel soothing and magical, are things that you can do by yourself with little time and money – if only you knew how!

Whether you’re single or married, your bedroom should give you an escape from the stresses that you deal with daily. It should indulge your senses, soothe your nerves, uplift and enchant you. And you can make this happen yourself, without spending a ton of time or money!

Here are a few things that Kim did, which you can easily do yourself.

Awesome Before & After presentation on how interior design can add pizzazz to your love life!
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She got a bed with a substantial headboard and installed a bed canopy

The word “bed”room means a room for the bed. This means that the bed is the focus of the room. And indeed your bed should feel like a focal point or mini-cocoon within the larger cocoon of your bedroom – it should feel like a cozy little place.

The problem with many beds is that, like Kim’s “Before” bed, the headboard is small, flimsy, or even non-existent; and so the bed feels neither like an anchor nor a cocoon.

In the “After” bedroom, Kim selected a bed with a tall and substantial headboard. The tall headboard anchors the bed within the room, makes it feel like a focal point, and helps to define an intimate space around the bed. To further strengthen the sense of intimacy around the bed, she installed a tiny rail on the ceiling and hung a sheer canopy.

Compare both beds. What a difference the headboard and canopy make! Where better to feel like you’re in a cocoon with your beau than in bed?

Reality Check

Does your bed have a headboard? Is the headboard substantial or flimsy? The good thing is that many beds allow you to replace the headboard without replacing the entire bed. If your headboard is flimsy or nonexistent as in the “Before” bed, replace it with a substantial headboard that anchors your bed and makes it feel like a cocoon.

Canopy beds and poster beds are also great for creating a cozy, cocoon-like ambience around your bed. And you can tie back the bed canopy drapes at the four corners as shown, or even slide them completely out of the way.

She added some color to her walls and ceiling

Most people are terrified of dealing with color. They think, “What if I paint my walls and the colors clash?” Or they think, “Selecting colors is so hard; I don’t even know where to begin.” And so, like in the “Before” bedroom, they paint their bedroom walls white or beige. But as we all know, white is the most sterile color there is, which is why it’s used in hospitals and laboratories. It’s emotionless! And your bedroom is the last place where you’d want to have feelings of sterile or emotionless. You want lots of emotion, sensuousness and pizzazz in your bedroom!

But you don’t need a ton of color to create a cozy and sensuous mood in your bedroom. In Kim’s “After” bedroom, mid-tone mocha walls and ceiling create a warm and cozy mood. The dark brown accent wall adds further warmth and depth, and the wine red benches and nightstands add a lush burst of color. Compare the warmth of the “After” bedroom to the sterile and stark mood of the “Before” bedroom. What a difference a little color can make!

Reality Check

What color are your bedroom walls? Does the color make your bedroom feel like a warm and sensuous cocoon? Or like Bedroom 1, are you one of the 70% with bland white or beige walls? If so, it’s time to create a sensuous and romantic mood in your bedroom using color!

Those are just a few relatively easy décor tweaks that took Kim and Matt from feeling blah and stuck in a rut, to feeling enchanted and romantic. These tweaks demonstrate how our surroundings can change the way we feel.

Scientific studies show that your home’s décor affects your feelings, moods and behavior 24/7. This is not Feng Shui; this is the cutting edge science of Design Psychology. Indeed, several studies show that your home’s decor may be secretly stressing you out, sometimes making you feel blah, creating tension in your family, dampening your love life (like Kim and Matt), hurting your and your kids’ productivity, making you fat (believe it or not), and worse!

But unfortunately, much of conventional interior design helps you to create a certain “look” in your home, more or less neglecting the psychological impact of your decor.

When Oprah discovered some of the things, she had a huge home decorating Aha moment! And she began to overhaul the décor of her Santa Barbara mansion.

In this complimentary presentation, Bumi reveals how your home’s décor may be negatively impacting you and your family. And then she shows you how to decorate your home to not just look good and function properly as you’re used to doing, but to intentionally calm and enchant you, bring your family closer together, add some pizzazz to your love life, boost your productivity, and much much more. All with little or no time or money! This is not interior design or decorating as usual; this is ground breaking design – this is design that literally transforms your life.

Do you dream of an enchanting lifestyle? Could your love life use some pizzazz? Join Bumi in this complimentary presentation and discover how your bedroom’s decor may be secretly sabotaging your love life.

Like Kim, you’ll learn how to easily transform your bedroom into a magical escape that’ll rejuvenate you and add pizzazz to your life and love life!

Bumi Lauren Kristen, AIA, ASID, LEED AP, is a licensed architect, interior designer, and pioneer in design psychology – the scientific study of how our surroundings affect our feelings and behavior.

For over 20 years, she’s designed and built buildings ranging from multimillion-dollar hotels, offices and condominium complexes to private homes, which are her greatest passion.

Bumi is the founder of The Design Psychology Studio(TM), and author of the groundbreaking home decorating online programs: Transform Your Home, Transform Your Mood(TM) – The New Science of Decorating Your Home to Make You Happy, Calm and Productive and Strengthen Your Relationships Rejuvenating Retreat – The New Science of Decorating Your Bedroom to Revitalize You and Rekindle Your Romance.

Bumi is a member of the American Institute of Architects, the American Society of Interior Designers, the US Green Building Council, and The Environmental Design Research Association. She’s passionate about providing clean water, electricity and decent housing to African villagers.

 

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10 Ways to Make Your Marriage a Priority

How do you make your marriage a priority? We talk about it all the time, but how do you actually do it?

Having a great marriage doesn’t happen by accident. Marriage requires active effort to drift together, not drift apart. And today I’m excited to have Leah on the blog giving some practical tips to keep your marriage a priority, even when life is hectic and overwhelming.

Here’s Leah!

Making your marriage a priority. It feels like it should be pretty simple, right? “My husband is my priority,” we say.

It’s often said that you can tell someone’s real priorities by looking at their calendar and their checkbook. If days and weeks are full with all the things in life and you’re not getting that connection time with your husband, you may be wondering how to reset the priorities and make your marriage a priority again.

Here are some life-tested ways to make your marriage a priority – even when you have kids at home!

1. Teach your kids that marriage is your number one priority.

One of my favorite authors tells his kids that he loves God the most, and then mommy, and then the kids.

How we’re teaching this to our kids (5, 3, and 1) is by having a weekly date night at home. Every Saturday night, we have a date night at home. The kids go to bed a little early. And they know it’s our date night, our time to be together. We’ve started eating together, just the two of us. And we talk to them about how it’s important that mommy and daddy spend time working on their marriage so they can be better parents and better husband and wife to each other. As they get older, these conversations will no doubt grow.

2. Say no to other stuff.

Focusing on your priorities means saying no to other things. That can mean not making other plans on the night of your weekly date night or keeping your schedule generally less full so you can spend time together each evening. It may even mean saying no to something like a TV show that you like watching so that you can spend time talking or connecting. 

3. Be thankful.

What you look for is what you’ll see. And if you focus on just the areas where you feel like your husband falls short, you’ll continue to see areas in which your husband falls short.

But, if you look for things to be thankful for about him, you’ll notice those things start to grow and they’ll become easier and easier to see.

This turned one of the hardest seasons of my marriage on its head when I started focusing on things to be thankful for. It’s amazing how the perspective change will impact you. 

4. Assume goodwill.

If you are in a good intentions marriage and none of the 4 A’s (abuse, abandonment, addiction, and adultery) are present, then you can and should assume the best about your husband.

We all make mistakes in how we present things, say things, do things. But if you can take a step back and assume that he meant to do it as a good thing and didn’t intentionally make a mistake and certainly didn’t mess up AT you, things diffuse a lot more quickly.

I ran our car battery dead yesterday. We have a fickle headlight system and I left a door open. My husband knew I didn’t run the battery dead on purpose or to make his life harder. He just pulled his car up and jumped it. No yelling. No passive aggressive down talk. Just fixing the problem. Because we all make mistakes.

Imagine how differently that interaction would go if he didn’t assume good things about me and instead assumed I was trying to make his life hard or that I messed up on purpose? 

5. Drop the expectations.

We’d all be a lot farther ahead if we didn’t assume our husbands could read our minds. Don’t expect him to know you had a hard day and that he should somehow compensate for it. Don’t expect him to know you think it’s time to mow the lawn and your dreams of being featured in Better Homes and Gardens is presently being crushed.

Sort out needs from wants in the expectations department. And be realistic with your resources. Then tell him.

6. 10 second kiss. 

I could not stop kissing my husband once I started. My lips were all kinds of chapped and still all I wanted to do was kiss him.

But somewhere over the years, kissing just for kissing sake has turned into more of a quick thing on the way in or out the door.

Reclaim the passion with a 10 second kiss at least once a day (I say more like 4 -10 times a day). 

7. Go to bed at the same time.

This isn’t ALWAYS possible with work schedules or baby sleep schedules but make it a priority to try to go to bed together. I love just lying in bed and reading with my husband. It’s one of my favorite parts of the day.

8. Learn his love language and use it. 

It took us a few years (and actually taking the 5 Love Languages assessment) to figure out my husband’s love language. Thankfully, it was what my default giving language already is and is probably how I’d won his heart years ago. Just kidding. Well, kind of.

I think we all can assume we know what a man’s love language is…I mean…*wink* right…and forget that there are 4 others that play a HUGE part in this equation (and that the physical touch love language is WAY more than just sex).

It also helps to know YOUR love language.  How you both give and receive love (which can be different). I’ve explained it to my husband like this – On a good day, I can see the acts of service that you default to as love. I can translate that from acts of service into love when I’m rested, happy, and having a good day. But if I’m having a hard day or you and I are having a disagreement, I need you to speak MY love language. I need you to touch me, take the freeze off, and help me thaw out. I can’t translate when I’m like that. I need it plain and simple in my love language.

9. Rock a daily communication method.

Technology is a beautiful thing when it’s used well. There is absolutely no reason we can’t spend a good chunk of our day talking, flirting with each other. This is not meant to be a continual all day dump of things the second they happen like a play-by-play. This is meant to build into your relationship.

This can go from texting the “thank you” from earlier all the way to definite flirting time. Your call.

10. Share an interest or hobby.

My husband is SUPER into gardening and permaculture. I like eating fresh food but frankly the work is a little harder than I’d like if I was choosing a hobby. There are parts of it I love though and I want to try to learn to love more of it. So I head out to the garden with him. We talk about broad forks and seeds and starts and soil blocks and how much composted manure we need. Sometimes I help, get my finger nails good and dirty. Sometimes I watch. Either way it’s great. We are sharing an experience together and that is great shoulder-to-shoulder building time for any marriage.

Start small. You can try one of these today and the rest of the week, and then add another and another as you go. When we start small, it’s easier for our new behaviors to become habits that’ll stick with us for the long haul.

And marriage is all about the long haul.

Leah Heffner is a wife of 7 years and a mom to three kids – with one on the way! She loves coffee, a good Netflix binge, and encouraging other women. You can find her giving encouragement to fuel the journey of marriage and motherhood at Life Around the Coffee Cup.

What are some of your tips for making your marriage a priority? Let’s talk about it in the comments below!

 

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Reader Question: Help! My Husband Has a Big Belly

How do you have sex with your husband if he has a big belly?

That may seem like a little out of the ordinary for a Reader Question of the Week, but it’s amazing how often I get it. Not to intentionally make a pun, but this is a big problem. When your husband is too fat, sex just often doesn’t work. Plus it’s hard to see him as attractive.

One woman writes about her husband’s belly:

What should I do- my husband is something like over 40 pounds overweight but he thinks he is very athletic and hot and he does not see he has a very big belly. I have tried to focus to the things what I like about him but sometimes this thing just overwhelms me. And problem is also that he wants me to say that I like how he looks and that he is athletic and hot but I’m awful liar. What should I do? I love my husband but this thing is very difficult to me and I don’t know what should I do. I don’t understand how he can see himself so different than he is but also I know he has low self-esteem and I do want to honor and love him the way he is.

Another woman writes:

My husband is getting so fat that having sex is becoming almost impossible. Seriously, his stomach gets in the way! What am I supposed to do?

So, I’ve got to tell you, readers, usually when I’m tackling a problem I have in my head a series of things I’m going to suggest, and I can visualize the answer in my mind.

This one more or less has me stumped. I think that’s why I’ve never really answered it, in all my five years of doing reader questions. It’s not like I haven’t got the question; I get it all the time. But I look at it, and I just think, “Yeah, that’s really crappy,” and nothing really comes to me.

But I’ve got to say something, so let me give some rather technical sex advice, and then we’ll just get philosophical for a moment and deal with how you handle an overweight husband.

Sex Positions that Work Better when Your Husband is Just Really Big

Even when I’m having sex there’s something I like doing even more, and that’s BREATHING. Breathing is a very good thing. I appreciate it a lot. And let’s face it: if your husband is too big, the missionary position just doesn’t work. First because you can’t breathe; and secondly because if his belly is too big, he likely won’t be able to achieve full penetration because his belly will get in the way.

So what do you do?

Think about it this way: If one has a big stomach, then the erect penis is likely going to rest right along the stomach. In some cases, the stomach could even protrude over the penis. So if sex is going to work, you’re going to have to do something that will angle the penis away from the stomach. That leaves standard missionary and often woman-from-behind not working particularly well.

Try Woman on Top, Leaning Back Away from His Belly

I tend to like the woman-on-top positions if your husband is overly big, because it makes use of gravity. Not to be too unpleasant, but the fat can fall towards his sides rather than go straight up, and it will likely diminish quite a bit compared to when he’s on top or upright.

If you can then lean back towards his feet, this can work better, because the angle is quite different. I read too in some research I was doing (yes, I actually did some reading for this one) that one of the benefits is you can actually get some clitoral stimulation against his stomach, so that’s good, I guess.

Try Woman on Top, Facing His Feet.

This is a little bit different, but you climb on top and turn around. Again, the point is that he’s angled more down, and so there’s more room for you to move and get penetration.

Try You Lying Down While He Kneels

If he isn’t too big this can work better because if he stays kneeling upright during penetration, then he’s angled away from his stomach again.

The Reality of Excess Fat and Sex

Basically, too much fat is difficult when it comes to sex, and not just because things don’t work together as well. When men have bigger bellies, their testosterone levels also fall, which leads to a lower sex drive. And no matter what I can tell you about being attracted to the whole person rather than just his physical appearance, let’s get real. It’s just difficult to be attracted to your husband when he’s really overweight. It doesn’t mean you can’t have sex by focusing on the pleasure that he can give you (and he can give you pleasure!) and focusing on how much you love him, but that spark can definitely be gone.

But How Do You Get Your Husband to Lose Weight?

That’s a tough one, because you can’t control someone else and you can’t change anyone else’s behaviour. I do have some tips for helping a husband stay healthy here, and those are good. But I was talking to a woman recently who does all of those things and her husband still orders full sugar pop at restaurants and still buys his own Kraft Dinner and chips even though she never buys any of that.

I don’t think it’s okay to say to someone that you don’t find them attractive. I think that’s too much of an esteem killer and you can never take those words back.

But I do think it’s okay to say something like, “I want us to have so much fun together, and I enjoy sex with you, but your weight is really starting to impact our sex life. I don’t want that for us. Can we make some goals together?” And addressing the issue as being about health (not getting diabetes; not putting strain on your heart and your joints) is a better way to frame it than being about how you find him gross.

Honestly, though, maybe sex can be the incentive. I think a lot of men don’t realize they’re creeping up and up and up on the scale, but when their wife suddenly says, “we can’t do missionary anymore because I can’t breathe,” that can be the wake up call that they need.

I have a friend who promised her husband that if he lost 25 pounds she’d have sex everyday for a month. He lost the weight. She made it through most of the month before they both decided that it was okay to stop pushing things so much. So maybe that can be an incentive, if you can do it playfully. To manipulate, though, is never really a good idea. But if he’s wanting to lose weight anyway and recognizes the problem, and you promise something like that–that’s a different dynamic than if he denies there’s a problem or is really defensive about it.

But I really I don’t have any other brilliant thoughts.

I asked my now-married daughter what she thought last night as I was getting ready to write this, and she said, “just say to him, “you know what’s really sexy? Jogging! Jogging is sexy!” But somehow I think you need more than that, and quite frankly I don’t have it.

I’m hoping you all do.

What works to help a guy understand that he has to lose some weight? Let’s talk about it in the comments, because this is such a common problem, and there aren’t easy answers. 

 

The post Reader Question: Help! My Husband Has a Big Belly appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

When Did You Feel Grown Up?

When are you grown up?

All week we’ve talked about aging–midlife crises, eldercare, and more.

But just because we’re physically getting older doesn’t mean we emotionally age.

And the truth is that I didn’t feel like a grown up for a very long time. So today, for my Friday musings, I thought I’d answer that question.

Sheila’s Musings: When Did You Feel Like a Grown Up

It has taken me a long time to feel like I’m actually a grown up.

I thought I’d feel like I was a grown up when I got married, but I didn’t.

I thought I’d feel it when I had kids, but I didn’t.

But sometime in the last decade I have crossed a line. I don’t know where it was, but I am now a grown-up. And I’m trying to figure out how I define it.

I knew I was a grown up with men when I could stop asking, “Does he like me?”, and start asking, “Do I like him?”.

I knew I was a grown up when I could begin to make a recipe without a recipe book and without worrying whether it was how my mother-in-law would make it.

I was a grown up when I stopped worrying what other people thought of my children’s behaviour and just concentrated on being the best mom I could be.

I was a grown up when I started taking better care of myself, like caring what I looked like again and not just hiding the earrings in the drawer because I couldn’t figure out how to wear them when the kids liked to pull on them. When I started prioritizing feeling good in my body, I felt like a grown up.

I was a grown up when I called my mom for her advice, and not her approval.

I was a grown up when I could calmly talk to a salesperson about what their establishment had done that was beyond the pale, instead of letting them walk all over me.

I knew I was a grown up when I could start looking at other people’s kids and at teens and telling them what I honestly thought instead of being intimidated into worrying that I’d be labelled “the mean mom”.

I knew I grew up when the fact that my father didn’t understand me became a cause for pity for him, rather than for angst, anger, or introspection on my behalf.

I was a grown up when I started letting myself dream dreams, instead of living out the dreams of my family members.

I felt like a grown up when I could pray with other women in my church, even older ones, and feel like I could offer some counsel.

I felt like a grown up when I acted like others were my equals, instead of feeling insecure around those who were of higher rank or status than I was. Once I realized that didn’t matter, I knew I had grown up.

I felt like a grown up when I could see someone and have a conversation and not remember until the next day that I was supposed to be mad at them. I guess I don’t carry grudges anymore.

I knew I was a grown up when I could ask people over for dinner and not worry about whether they’d like what I made. I’d just cook what I liked, and figured everybody else would make do.

And I know I’m a grown up now that I can admit my faults to other people rather than trying to pretend to be perfect. I know now that there’s no point in pretending.

And I feel like a grown up now because I’m realizing that this isn’t my life; the next life is my real life. This is only preparation. So I think I can let go of things a lot easier now and not worry so much what other people think.

When do you finally feel like a grown up? Here's my list!
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What about you? Do you feel like a grown up, or do you still struggle with it? What makes you a grown up?

Leave a comment! I’d love to know!

What’s #1 at To Love, Honor and Vacuum?

In marriage, your spouse is your partner, your confidant, and your best friend.  It is important to keep building that relationship in every aspect — getting to know what they like, what makes them feel good, how your can walk along side them when they struggle.  In this week’s Tops, let’s look at how we can continue building our relationship with our spouse.

#1 Post on the Blog:  Help! My Husband’s Having A Midlife Crisis! 

#1  on the Blog Overall: Top 10 Effects Of Porn On Your Brain, Your Marriage, And Your Sex Life 

#1 from Facebook: 10 Ways To Make Sex Feel Great For Your Husband

#1 from Pinterest: An Awesome List Of 79 Hobbies To Do With Your Spouse 

Have a great weekend, everyone!

The post When Did You Feel Grown Up? appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

When Eldercare Takes a Toll on Your Marriage

What do you do when eldercare begins to take a toll on your marriage?

Caring for aging parents or in-laws can put strain on the relationship of the child taking care of his or her parent. It’s often a hard road for many couples, so I hope this post today can bring you some encouragement. We’ve been talking this week about getting a little older–and as we age, our parents’ health starts to play a bigger role in our own lives.

An anonymous guest poster today has some wise words for those of us struggling in this area. I encourage you to really tackle this area of your life–find ways to find peace, or new ways to live to make a more feasible long-term plan.

I hope you’re encouraged.

Not long into my marriage, my mother-in-law’s health began to decline – to the point that she could no longer drive, yet could still live in her own home.

That set my husband and me on a journey that has lasted nine years to date.   

Nine years of me being the primary resource for my mother-in-law’s errands, grocery shopping, doctor appointments, hospital stays, prescription pick ups, banking and gift shopping. Nine years of my husband caring not only for our own home repairs, mowing and snow removal, but also that of his mom’s house.

She isn’t flush with cash and neither are we, so rarely has it been an option to hire many of these tasks out. Not to mention, as children of an aging and increasingly declining parent, we feel an overwhelming sense of integrity and responsibility to be her advocates and support. 

We love her, she needs us, and we know it. She has no one else, as she is widowed and my husband is an only child. We are it, so to speak.  

And we have been doing all of this while raising two kids. Our children were 3 and 9 when we began caring for my mother-in-law. If you looked up sandwich generation in the dictionary, you would see a picture of us.  

Along the way, my husband and I have aged as well, facing our own emotional and physical difficulties. Sometimes – especially early in this eldercare journey – we have mustered the resolve and grit to face the heaviness of it all together.

But the toll of the journey slammed against the toll of our individual angst has begun to add up. Our marriage has stood the test, but not without damage to our oneness.  

This last year has been the worst year of our marriage. The. Worst. Certainly that wasn’t all because of eldercare. But eldercare thrown heavily into the mix of normal everyday stressors puts a couple on a fast track to depletion, and we increasingly have been depleting in isolation, not in each other’s arms.

And that has been painful. For him. For me. For our relationship.

So, now you know the raw and vulnerable back story. It also is good, though, for me to share what has kept me from reaching my breaking point and has kept our marriage from imploding.

Some of you may be navigating eldercare (or you will at some point), and it can be reassuring to know you aren’t alone.

Here are the five things that have helped me tremendously:  

1. Embracing an eternal perspective.

This sounds cliché. I know. But there is a boatload of truth in the reality that we all are simply passing through.  This life is but a glimpse, and each of us will face struggles and challenges.

Yes, my eldercare journey has been hard, but I began to look around. I saw that everyone I knew had faced or were facing difficulties, whether it be a loved one’s addiction, devastating career challenges, illnesses or debilitating disabilities, tragic deaths of people they love, crumbling marriages or unfulfilled dreams.

God also has been faithful to soften my heart to help me see that my mother-in-law too has faced her fair share of devastation in her life.

I struggle at times keeping my eyes on the eternal perspective, but when I do, I see better. I cope better. 

2. Getting good counselling.

I started seeing a counsellor once a month three years ago, because I realized I hungered for the insight of someone who is removed from the situation.

Certainly she has helped me in many areas of my life, but as far as eldercare, she has equipped me to grasp that it is possible to acknowledge my frustration, yet at the same time journey it with humble maturity.  She has helped me not get steeped in resentment, and simultaneously encouraged me toward practical problem solving.

She has listened unconditionally when I most needed it. 

If you can’t afford a counsellor, consider asking your church or other local ministries if they offer free counselling. And definitely find one or two safe friends in whom you can confide without fear of judgment. Women should have women confidantes, and men should have men confidantes.  

3. Relying more intimately on God.

A mentor encouraged me to let the challenging journey of caring for my mother-in-law compel me to rely more on God. Her words came at a good time, because I had been looking for my husband to be something to me that truly only God can be.

I’m not saying I stopped leaning on my husband, because that wouldn’t be healthy either. But I have become discerning about my need to press into God, His Word and His steadfast encouragement.  I needed to let go of my expectation that my husband fill a need in me that only God can fill.  

4. Having something to look forward to daily.

In the messiness of life, this one little technique has sustained me often. Each day I make sure I have at least one thing to look forward to.  

Sometimes it is as simple as carving out an hour to curl up with a book. Other times it may be coffee with a friend or a trip to the zoo with my younger son. And still other times it might be a date with my husband when we can bolster our fragile connection. 

I also began to embrace the “don’t wait to live” mantra. If someone has an extra ticket to a baseball game or hockey game and invites me to go, I say “yes.” I also challenged myself to take up watercolour painting. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I went to the art supply store, picked out some paper, brushes and paints and gave it a try. I find it incredibly relaxing.

I cannot change the responsibilities of caring for my mother-in-law, but I can become more intentional in taking care of myself in the midst of it all. 

5. Slowing down.

I admit. This is a tough one for me, because like a lot of you, on any given day I have a bazillion things to do.

Not surprisingly, there is no rushing with a sick and weak elderly person. While driving to appointments, sitting in waiting rooms or stopping by her house to drop things off, I have tried to take more time to ask her questions and learn more about her past – the years before she was married and had a son.

I try to be more patient, because I know – truly know – that this journey of relying on me is not easy for her either.

You may or may not face eldercare responsibilities in your life, but I assure you that God is faithful to give you ways to cope and navigate. By His very nature, He wants to be next to us and reveal to us glimpses of goodness. 

I still stumble in the journey, even after nine years.  But I have learned to cope and some days even thrive.  I trust that my heart and my marriage are better for it, even if I can’t always see it in the moment.

What are some ways you’ve “dealt” with eldercare? Do you have any creative problem-solving ideas that have worked for your family?

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When Your Husband Goes Through a Crisis of Faith

If your husband is having a crisis of faith, are you helping him or inadvertently making that crisis of faith worse?

It’s Wednesday, the day when we always talk marriage! And this week we’ve been looking at marriage issues as people start to age. We looked at what to do when your husband has a midlife crisis, and then yesterday I talked about why it’s normal to start feeling dissatisfied, and why that’s not always a bad thing, if you handle it right.

Today I want to look at another dynamic when it comes to these life reevaluations: are you giving your husband space to figure out who he really is?

A reader wrote to me with this question:

Lately my husband is seemingly becoming quite distant. He is not a communicator, and for the first time last week, he did not come home until 8:45. No phone call, dinner sat waiting and we have two kids. He was on his boss’ porch drinking beer.

There have been times he’s at least once or twice a week late for dinner, I kiss him and he’s had beer. He says he only drinks with his boss after work. We are both Godly, but I am the one where if there’s conviction–I hear it. He grew up in a home with parents as elders. So I’m lost on what he’s thinking.

He doesn’t want to date me, doesn’t want to do family together time unless his parents are involved. I am stay at home mom for our children.( my first yr not working)  And he had vasectomy after Christmas.

Does any of this fall into play with his changes? I’m feeling like he resents me. I feel like, where is my husband? We talked, and I think he thinks I’m nuts. He becomes very defensive. But his actions actually make me worried and worried is not of God. Any helpful words for me. I love him and will never give up on him.

There’s a lot going on in this letter. First, they’re in the middle of a lot of transition. She’s just quit her job to stay home with the kids. He’s the sole breadwinner. He’s also the main emotional outlet for her. He’s had a vasectomy so they’re not having any more kids.

Given their age, this likely isn’t a midlife crisis. But it has a lot of similarities to some of the dynamics that I’ve seen happen to people in middle age, so I want to talk about it.

One thing first: it was really wrong of him not to call, and then just arrive home at 8:45. Her husband was being inconsiderate. It’s also wrong for him to ignore the fact that he has small children he should be caring for. How this husband is acting is not right. However, there’s another dynamic in the letter that I actually want to focus on today.

Often people have a midlife crisis because their life has become stifling.

Now, sometimes their definition of “stifling” is totally the wrong one. Maybe what’s stifling is having so many children to take care of and not being able to have fun anymore, or feeling like you’re tied down to a woman you’re not sure you love.

We all know men who have blown apart marriages for these selfish reasons (and women, too).

But there’s another kind of stifling. There’s also the kind that looks at your life and says, “Am I letting other people tell me what I should or shouldn’t do?” And that question can actually be a healthy one to ask.

Here’s what triggers this sort of life re-evaluation

Many teens want nothing more than to be accepted. And so they try very hard to do what their parents want. Then they get married, often to the kind of person that their parents want, and they spend the next few years with babies and jobs, trying desperately to do the right thing so that they will have the right life that everyone is always telling them they should want.

And sometimes there’s a trigger–maybe it’s suddenly having responsibilities ease off so that you’re able to think for yourself (that’s why it often happens in midlife) or maybe it’s meeting someone and getting close to someone who thinks differently than you do (like in this situation, with his boss) or maybe it’s having a ton of responsibilities and realizing something has to give. And when that trigger happens, you start to ask, “What kind of life do I actually want to live?”

Wives, be very careful of pushing your husband into a corner if he’s having a crisis of faith

Is your spouse going through a crisis of faith? Be careful you don't make it worse!
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I may be reading this letter all wrong, but I worry about some of the words she’s using:

“we are both godly.”
“his parents are both elders.”

She is very preoccupied with being godly. Normally I’d say that was a wonderful thing! We all, after all, are supposed to “seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).

But sometimes we put such rules in place as to what being godly means that we end up sucking the life out of, well, life. I’m reading a lot into this letter, and this may not be what’s going on here. It could just be a cultural difference in the way we say “we are both godly.” (We Canadians wouldn’t tend to phrase it that way).

So I don’t want the rest of this post to be about this particular letter writer, because I don’t know what’s actually going on in her house. After all, this guy could be really irresponsible and veering towards alcoholism, and if that’s the case, she needs some help! Contact an Al Anon support group about what to do. Talk to his parents and have an intervention. Absolutely.

But I have also seen women blow up their marriages because their husbands have wanted to do perfectly reasonable things, and the wives have overreacted. Again, I don’t know if that’s what’s happening here, but this letter made me remember those examples I’ve seen. And I think that scenario, whether or not it applies to this reader in particular, is worth exploring.

A lot of us spend our whole lives living under rules.

We want to be “godly”. “We wouldn’t drink because we’re godly people.” “We wouldn’t watch that movie because we’re leaders in our church.”

And sometimes it just gets to be too much. After years and years of being “godly” and doing the right thing–you just want to have some fun!

Here’s where the trouble starts: Is drinking beer on his boss’ porch necessarily a bad thing? What if they were talking about serious, life changing matters? What if he was trying to get to know the boss better so that he could speak into his life? My husband has a beer with work colleagues all the time! Some of their best conversations happen there.

And yet, you know what? I never, ever put a picture of us drinking wine or beer on Instagram or Facebook because I know many of my readers will assume we’re not “godly.” In fact, every Christian speaker and author I know (and I know a lot) does the same thing. We’ll all be out for dinner and we’ll share a bottle of wine, but then we can’t Instagram it because the alcohol is in the picture.

I never have more than a glass of wine at a time. My husband never has more than 2 beer, ever. And yet in nine years of blogging I’ve never admitted that we drink until today, because I have always been worried about people thinking we’re not “godly”. 

Let’s not overreact.

What marriage dynamic is this reaction to his crisis of faith setting up?

If he admits he wants to have a drink, she will get very upset. She feels convicted FOR him. She’s praying that he will be convicted. So he simply stops telling her. And now drinking a beer has to become something secretive. So he’s out with his boss, and he knows he’s late, but he can’t call her without her getting very disappointed in him. So he doesn’t call.

Now, if he were going to strip clubs–totally different thing. If he were getting drunk–absolutely different thing. But if we freak out over a beer, we make it far more likely that he will get drunk because he will have to do all of his drinking away from us. And if we also define him as someone who is no longer seeking after God, and then that’s how he starts to define himself, too.

Paul wrote “I knew nothing when I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:20). The cross is what matters. But when we put up extra-biblical rules are ALSO non-negotiables in our eyes, then we turn people away from the God who is calling out to them.

Do you love Jesus, or your ideal of what the Christian life looks like?

Do you love Jesus, or do you love the ideal of what your Christian life is supposed to look like?
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Sometimes our husbands will make us nervous. My husband went through a period of doubt. A crisis of faith does not mean he’s leaving God. Instead of spending your energy trying to pull him back and make life just like it was before, what about praying that God will show you what path of faith He wants you both to walk on?

I have seen this dynamic a lot:

Husband and wife grow up with a lot of rules.
Husband starts to reject rules.
Wife overreacts, assuming husband is leaving the faith.
Wife treats him like he is a big sinner.
He grows tired of all the pressure.
He does leave the church, and there’s a huge gap in their relationship.

What if it could go like this instead?

Husband and wife grow up with a lot of rules.
Husband starts to reject rules.
Wife prays about how she can support her husband during this emotionally difficult time for him.
They talk about what faith is meaning to him, and wonder about finding a church where they both may feel comfortable.
They seek out people who are also wondering some of these things, and find some new friends.
They both leave the church for one that has fewer rules, and more of an emphasis on authenticity and grace, and their relationship is restored.

No, things aren’t always that simple. But I’d still rather be in the second group. What about you?

Let me know in the comments: Have you ever let go of a big “rule” that you had growing up about what you believed to be “godly”? How did that change your faith or your marriage? Let’s talk!

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