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Wifey Wednesday: 4 Things You Must do if Your Husband Uses Porn

Note: Just want to give a shoutout to Spice and Love and Cheri at at the Purse-onality Challenge who are participating in my blog tour for 31 Days to Great Sex! Visit their blogs to read a review and enter to win!

It’s Wednesday, the day when we talk marriage! I write a post, and then you can comment or link up a marriage post of your own below.

This week I’ve had a mini-series on what to do when you discover your husband is using porn. I’ve been interviewing Vicki Tiede, author of When Your Husband is Addicted to Pornography. We looked at what to do when you discover your husband’s using porn, and how to deal with your husband’s porn use. Today I thought I’d sum up what we’ve discussed and add some of my own thoughts.

So what do you do if your husband  uses porn?

1. You Must Grieve

It’s going to come as a major sucker punch. You’ll feel betrayed, and dirty, and angry. That’s natural. Likely you knew something was wrong, and you suspected something, but you couldn’t put your finger on it. Now you know, and very likely the feelings are overwhelming. People often arrive on this blog the night they discover it, and they find posts talking about it and pour out their hurt in the comments. That hurt is raw and very real.

That’s okay. Give yourself some grace to be upset. Give yourself some time to yell at God about it, to wrestle this through, and to cry. You don’t have to fix anything overnight, and sometimes if we try too hard to fix it right now we do more damage. At times, when we first find out something so devastating, we’re tempted to say, “it’s okay, I know you didn’t mean it, let’s just forget it and go back to normal” because we’re afraid to face what this means.

But sometimes we need to admit brokenness. If we don’t admit it, it can’t be fixed. And it could be that what God is going to make out of the pieces will be different from what you started with, but that doesn’t mean it won’t also be beautiful. Grieve, and give God time to work. Don’t deny the gravity of the hurt.

At the same time, if I can offer some reassurance, so many marriages have emerged on the other side. And one thing that helps is that, after that initial grief is over, you realize that you are on the same page, fighting an evil together. Don’t let porn come between you; instead, decide to fight together to defeat this. Most Christian men desperately want to stop. They don’t want to be doing this. It enslaves them. If you can be an ally, rather than an attacker, you both will move forward so much more easily.

2. You Must Live in the Light

Porn thrives on secrecy. In her book, Vicki  recounts the words of one woman, married 45 years, who discovered her husband’s masturbation habit two years into this marriage. “if it ever got out, I’d kill myself,” he told her. And so she didn’t say a word, and lived with it. For 45 years. Can you imagine?

Vicki doesn’t believe that staying in darkness is the answer. As I’ve said before, you need to bring these things to light.

As a church, we need to bring this to light.

There is so much ignorance around the whole pornography problem. It truly does ensnare people, making it almost impossible for them to function normally sexually with a human being. What becomes arousing is an image, and they become so focused on masturbation and pornography that a relationship isn’t sexy anymore. And it’s too much work! Once you start using porn, too, it rarely stays with the tame stuff. People will seek out more and more hard core stimulation. Eventually, they may even act things out. This isn’t people just looking at something to get their jollies; this is something that can all too easily turn into an addiction.

And that’s why you must bring light to it. You can’t let it stay a secret. He needs help, but so do you. You will likely need someone to walk through this process with you, and that’s okay. More churches need to provide support for couples going through this. And most pastors have dealt with this at length. So talk to your pastor and find out what support your church offers.

3. You Must Get Help

It is not enough for a husband to apologize and promise never to do it again. You wouldn’t accept that of an alcoholic; you would ask him or her to go to AA meetings. The same goes for porn use.

There’s such shame involved with porn because it’s sexual, but the admonition from the Bible doesn’t change. James 5:16 says, “confess your sins one to another”. Confession should be a regular part of the Christian life. If a husband admits he uses porn, apologizes, but then asks that his wife not say anything and is unwilling himself to seek any help, then he hasn’t really repented.

True repentance is always accompanied by true humility, and that means that someone will seek help. I’m not saying tell everyone you know. I’m saying tell one person who can hold you accountable; one person who can call your husband or take him out for coffee periodically and look him in the eyes and challenge him on what he’s doing.

Pray about who that one person should be, but do find that one person for him.

And then find one person for you, too. One person that you can pour your heart out to, and can help guide you as you deal with this, move on to forgiveness, and rebuild.

4. You Must Set Boundaries

Finally, if you don’t want this to happen again,  you must set boundaries. That isn’t being vengeful; it’s just being smart. If your husband had an affair at work, you’d likely want him to find another job. You’d want something to change so that he won’t fall into it again.

And this should be the same thing. I don’t know what those boundaries will look like for your family; they could involve computer controls, or getting rid of the internet temporarily. They could mean choosing to share computers and cell phones so that there is no longer any secrecy. Perhaps sharing passwords. Maybe it might mean setting “technology free” hours at home, where all screens go off at 9:00 pm, so that it’s relationship time and you know you have his attention.

One warning about boundaries, though. It is must easier to build trust again if you know that there is someone else helping your husband set those boundaries, and someone else holding him accountable. It’s not a good situation to feel as if you have to monitor your husband’s every move. That sets up a very unhealthy dynamic, where you’re constantly on the watch for him to mess up.

But for the men reading this, know that your wife will be able to trust you easier if you have an accountability partner. So don’t shy away from finding someone to talk to!

Rebuilding trust and rebuilding your sex life takes time, but it is possible. But it is only possible if you admit the gravity of the problem, get some help, and truly repent and become humble before God. You both need God’s help. You both need outside help. And you both will need some time.

In my book, The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, I share the story of Anna and Paul. Anna discovered Paul’s porn use years into their marriage; she was devastated, and he was mortified to be found out. But in the end, it was the best thing to happen to their marriage. Paul had been living in secret shame for so long, and now he was able to deal with the problem. And their marriage has been rebuilt.

Your problem is not bigger than God; and if you are honest before God, His strength is more than sufficient to see you through.

If you’ve ever had this problem, leave a comment (anonymously if you have to) and let us know your story.

Do you have a marriage post you’d like to share? Just leave the URL in the linky below!

Related posts:

Should You Marry Someone Who Uses Porn?
Marriage VLog: My Husband Used to be Addicted to Porn
Wifey Wednesday: Does Your Husband Want More Variety?

Dealing with Your Husband’s Porn Addiction

Yesterday we began our series on what to do when you discover your husband’s using porn.

I asked Vicki Tiede, author of When Your Husband is Addicted to Pornography, to answer some questions that I know my readers have, because we get to talking about it in the comments section of this blog! And I have receive so many emails from readers in agony over this.

Yesterday we looked at how to deal with the discovery. Today we’re going to look at what, practically, you should do.

Here’s what I asked Vicki:

If a woman finds out her husband’s using porn, when should she get other people involved?

A woman is usually faced with determining whether her husband has a problem with / is addicted to pornography. If he has come to her and confessed it’s much easier. The situation is more difficult if she has “discovered” the pornography either on the computer or by walking in on him. Now she will wonder if he’s really sorry or if he’s just sorry he got caught.

If a man truly has a one-time exposure to porn and he is horrified, confesses, and absolutely never looks at it again, then you don’t have a problem. If however he describes himself as only looking at it “now and then,” you have an issue. You can no more accept the “casual use of pornography” any more than you would accept the “casual adulterous affair.” Both represent an infidelity. Both are disobedient to Hebrews 13:4, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”

Now, here’s part two … when should you get other people involved? As soon as you have determined that this is more than a onetime event, you need to get others involved. (so glad Vicki said this! I wrote this, too, a while ago in this post, and it’s good to see we agree!)

Don’t miss this … I didn’t say you post this as a Facebook status or announce it to the world! I didn’t say you call your mother.

First, you take this to God. Pour out your heart and ask Him to direct you and your husband to whom you should tell. If your husband is eager to seek recovery and restoration, then I encourage you to make the decision together about who to tell and where to get help. Both you and your husband need safe sources of support, but you should not necessarily feel that you need to carry this load alone. I give a lot of information about this in my book, so I encourage you to read it to hear everything I have to say about choosing safe support, but some options to consider include a pastor*, a counselor for individual and joint therapy, a support group for wives/men, another couple who you know has gone through a similar experience. (*In the appendix of my book I talk about how to know if your pastor is a safe person to go to for help.) In my book, I also address why you might not want to go to a family member first.

You said that some women are too quick to forgive. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Many Christian women believe they must forgive almost immediately upon discovering their husband’s addiction/struggle. Here’s how that typically plays out…

She says she forgives her husband right away, then she wields the “pornography” club over her husband’s head and beats him with it on a regular basis. The goal of forgiveness is healing and growth. Fast forgiveness sabotages the healthy work that needs to be done to experience genuine, long-lasting restoration. Both the woman and her husband have work to be done. She needs to grieve her losses, and there are many! She needs to work through her anger; fears; inability to control this situation, her husband’s choices, and his recovery; and her guilt.

In my book, I wrote,

“Some Christian men may demand immediate forgiveness. This type of man is also apt to believe that, like an Etch-a-Sketch, his wife’s memory of his miserable choices has been turned over, shaken, and wiped clean so it’s good as new. He will become accusatory, withdrawn, or annoyed when she is depressed, angry, or inquisitive.”

Instead of quick forgiveness, I encourage women to go to the foot of the cross and meet with the Wonderful Counselor. She needs to allow Him to do the hard work of healing her wounded heart, so that she is able to stand ready to extend genuine, sold-out forgiveness when her husband seeks it and demonstrates that he is “turning from acts that lead to death” (Hebrews 6:1 NIV).

Sheila says: I found this part of the book fascinating, and I’ve been praying over it since I read it. I’m formulating a new post in my mind about forgiveness, and hopefully I’ll have it written next week!

5. The big theme of your book is that we have to trust in God, not in our husbands. You even said, “I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but we are talking about addiction here, and the likelihood of recurrence exists. As a result, you can’t base your hope on your husband.” How does a woman get to the point where she can even feel hope in God?

If my plane crashes in the middle of the ocean and I survive, I don’t want to hear about forgiveness or that I’m a child of God. No. I want to know that there is hope that God can and will rescue me from this situation. I need to know that He sees, and hears, and cares, and that He won’t leave me in this place of pain. That’s why I start the book out with hope. I believe the most pressing need we all share is to embrace the hope that the God is able and willing to rescue us, wash the filth that clings to our hearts and minds, and usher us to the next step of healing.

I think one thing that helps a woman begin to feel hope in God is to hear directly from Him through His Word. Trust me, this addiction may have come as a huge and ugly surprise to her, but He sees what’s being done in a darkened office or in the wee hours of the morning. This came as no surprise to Him.

Jeremiah 32:17 assures us that “nothing is too hard for (Him).” THAT is something a woman in this situation needs to hear.

Might I just add that this is the enemy’s first line of attack? He wants her to feel a spirit of hopelessness. He will try to discourage her when her husband experiences a slip (Slight Lapse In Progress) in his recovery. That’s why her hope and happiness must not be dependent on the choices her husband makes every day.

My prayer for the women who would read my books was that this passage would be a living testimony of their own healing: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13).

Thanks, Vicki, for sharing that with us!

Vicki Tiede is the author of When Your Husband is Addicted to Pornography, a step-by-step road to healing for you as well as a game plan for what to do.

She writes: I am an author and speaker who has a passion for opening the Scriptures and pointing women to their true source of grace and faithfulness. For the past ten years, I have been honored to speak for numerous women at conferences, retreats, and women’s events. I am the author of three books including When Your Husband is Addicted to Pornography (2012), Plug Me In and Let Me Charge Overnight (2009), and Parenting on Your Knees: Prayers and Practical Guidance for the Preschool Years (coming January 2013). I live in Rochester, Minnesota, with my husband Mike, daughter, and two sons. Visit her on the web.

Tomorrow in our Wifey Wednesday post I’ll do a summary of what to do when you discover your husband’s porn use.

Related posts:

Discovering Your Husband’s Porn Addiction
Wifey Wednesday: Marriage Recovery After a Pornography Addiction
How to Deal with a Husband’s Pornography Use: A Man’s Perspective

Discovering Your Husband’s Porn Addiction

Note: Today Christian Momma, Always Learning, and Surrendered Marriage are all participating in the giveaway and blog tour for 31 Days to Great Sex. Go visit them to enter to win!

This blog focuses on marriage, and so, tragically, it’s only natural for the subject of pornography to come up. So many of you send me hurting emails about discovering your husband’s porn use. I received an email just yesterday from a woman who has just left her marriage after three years without sex because her husband spent hours on porn every night. This is a horrible evil that is rampaging so many families. We need to take it seriously.

And so I’ve asked Vicki Tiede to join us for a few days, because I thought it’s time we delve into this topic in a bit more detail. Vicki is the author of When Your Husband is Addicted to Pornography, and I’ve read her devotional book, and sent her questions that I know you readers have. Today and tomorrow we’re going to go through those questions, and then on Wifey Wednesday I’m going to do a wrap up myself.

So let’s jump in!

Has your house ever been infested by termites? You don’t notice at first. They gnaw away at the insides, and on the outside everything can look perfect. But it’s not. There’s rot deep within, and eventually that rot is going to become apparent. It can’t hide forever.

Vicki says that’s what porn is like. He may keep it secret, but it rots away at your marriage. It rots at your relationship, it rots at his relationship with God, it rots at your intimacy, and it rots at your sex life.

And so she’s written a book for women who discover their husband’s porn use. She says, “It’s not a handbook for fixing your husband.”Instead, she walks you through Scripture to help you deal with this on an emotional and spiritual level first, and then to help you get in the right frame of mind to take the practical steps that are necessary to protect yourself and your marriage (if possible), and to seek help.

I sent her these questions:

1. When a woman finds out that her husband is using porn, it feels like such a betrayal. Can you talk to our readers and help them understand the nature of this addiction–and that it honestly has nothing to do with their bodies, or their sexual ability in bed?

Let me preface my answer by telling you that my book is about helping the woman experience healing through Christ and I don’t promote myself as an expert on pornography. However, I’ve spoken with many who are experts on this issue and they have explained that pornography is an intimacy issue for both the man who is using pornography and (don’t shoot me) for his wife. Often the husband experienced emotional detachment from one or both parents. As a result, sex addicts have four mistaken core beliefs according to Dr. Patrick Carnes:

1. I am unlovable

2. If someone really knew me they wouldn’t love me

3. No one can meet my needs so I must meet them on my own

4. Sex is my greatest need. (this can come in the form of not wanting sex too–that would be an avoidant attachment style).

The acting out is not about the wife. That means she is not in competition with digitally enhanced images of other women. This is not about her appearance, her sexual availability, or her competence in the bedroom. She does not need to be a size 8, get a tummy tuck, or engage in sexual acts that make her uncomfortable.

Though the acting out is not about the wife, how they share intimacy (emotional connection) is. There is a reason she was attracted to an addict. This reason is different for everyone, so it’s important for a woman to seek counseling to understand what this is for her. Carnes believes wives carry the same mistaken core beliefs as the addict (listed above). They are more neatly packaged though–harder to crack and convince to the wife as she has been majorly betrayed and is wounded deeply/to her core by her spouse. She can always pull the ‘you hurt me’ card, which in reality holds a lot power.

2. You said, “remember that YOU did nothing to drive your husband to pornography.” Is that really true? Because we’ve had a ton of men on this blog commenting that they started using porn because their wives wouldn’t have sex. Is that a cop out?

The sexual availability question is trickier than you might first think. In an extremely small number of cases, I hear a woman admit that she almost never has sex with her husband, so he turns to porn because he’s frustrated. Note: It’s still wrong, so to answer your questions, yes, it’s a cop out. However, Scripture is pretty clear on this one. In such a situation it would appear that both of them have sin issues that need to be addressed. Counseling is probably in order. Answering this question requires me to walk a fine line as those who want her to share the blame for the pornography are going to read this differently than those who want to understand what might be contributing to her choice to withhold intimacy. This is not the subject of my book and therefore I do not spend a great deal of time on the issue. Again, this scenario is very rare. Having said that, on more than one occasion I let my reader know that it’s not biblical to get into a pattern of withholding intimacy from her husband or using the gift God has given her as a means of wreaking vengeance on her husband.

What I usually hear (and research supports this) is that women are more than willing to be intimate with their husbands, but their husband isn’t interested because of the porn. You see, when men regularly engage in porn use, their interest in real relationships decreases and their appetite for more porn increases. In fact, more than 50% of people involved in cybersex eventually lost interest in intimacy with a loved one.

I’m not interested in playing the blame game in my book, so you won’t find me ever pointing fingers at the wife and suggesting that she is equally responsible for the sin. How would that promote healing in the name of Christ? In the end, we are all responsible for our own choices. Whether or not she was as sexually available as she would have liked, he still had a choice.

With that said, I want to share this thought with you and I’m going to quote directly from my book (p. 67) on this one. Before you read this, I want you to know that this comes directly from the chapter that addresses surrendering guilt. When you read this out of context, it may sound like I’m shaming the wife. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I hate to break it to you, but you have not been the perfect wife. The truth hurts, doesn’t it? Before you let this revelation get you all worked up, I want you to know that it was unrealistic to assume that you always had to be the perfect wife. There. That feels better, right? However, it doesn’t let you off the hook. You still need to do some constructive self-examination to determine if you have done things to contribute to your husband’s addiction. (Remember, he is still ultimately responsible for the choices he makes. You are not.) If you are being honest with yourself, there are certainly things you may have done that contributed to the problem you are dealing with today. Every time you make a decision to act or react to your husband’s addiction, you are choosing to feed the problem (pornography addiction) or feed the solution (actions that promote healing).”

Sheila says: I so agree with Vicki here! Honestly, I have scads of women who write to me in agony because their husbands never want sex, but they’re into porn all the time. As I said in a comment on a Reader Question post recently, in general, I have found far more marriages are sexless because the husband uses porn, rather than the husband uses porn because the marriage is sexless. This is especially true for younger women. So many women marry guys who have used porn all throughout their childhood. For a few weeks of the marriage they have sex a lot, and then it suddenly comes to a stop, because the guy turns back to porn.

I do believe that a woman can feed a habit (in Vicki’s words) by withholding sex, though this isn’t an excuse for her husband using porn. But I think far more marriages find that sex comes to a standstill because of the husband’s porn use, rather than the sex comes to a standstill so the husband uses porn. Neither are right; but let’s not assume that when the husband uses porn, the wife drove him to it.

Tomorrow: what to do about it!

 Sheila says: ladies, this is a HUGE problem in so many marriages, and the women don’t know what to do about it. Can you share this post on Facebook or Pinterest or Twitter? Do it like this: “I know porn is a huge problem in many marriages, and here’s a post that deals with it.” That way it doesn’t look like you’re announcing “my husband uses porn!” You’re just saying, here’s a resource many people need. Thank you!

Related posts:

Wifey Wednesday: Marriage Recovery After a Pornography Addiction
Wifey Wednesday: Should We Be Upset when Our Husbands Are Tempted?
Will Porn Be the New Smoking?

Have a Friend Getting Married? She Needs This!

My anniversary is coming up in just a few short weeks.

I was married December 21, 1991. This anniversary will be our 21st, and I was married when I was 21, so I have now been married for officially half of my life!

But I can tell you that I was completely unprepared for marriage–and for our wedding night.

Before I married I was given a book that was supposed to prepare the bride for the wedding night, but it left me an absolute nervous wreck. I felt like the wedding night was a Pass/Fail thing: either I did everything right, or I messed it up and I’d never get the opportunity back again. And I felt like I had to memorize all of these steps to make sex great the first time out. It was so stressful.

I didn’t really recover for about five years. We got off to a bad start, and it took us a while to really connect intimately on all levels.

I detail our journey in my book, The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, because I wanted to write a book that was the exact opposite of the one I was given. I wanted to write a book that told women that sex is a journey–you may start out with baggage, or with questions, or with trepidation, or with excitement, but it doesn’t matter, because you have decades to get it right! So relax, love your husband, surrender to God, and everything honestly will be okay.

Relax.

That’s my main message.

Still 30% off at Amazon!

And did you know that December is a huge marriage month? So I know that many of you will be attending Christmas weddings. Can I ask you to pass on The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex? It’s meant for all married women, and if you’ve been wed for a while, I know it will help you connect spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

But I also believe that if you start your marriage off right–even if your time before your wedding wasn’t stellar–you put yourself on far better footing later. So it’s my prayer that this book will get out to brides everywhere.

I recently received this email from a new bride, and she wrote:

I just recently bought the Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex and just had to write and tell you how much I LOVED IT! I’m getting married in 6 weeks and am a virgin- in fact, my first kiss ever will be with my husband on our wedding day! I was browsing the marriage section (as I’ve been doing a lot lately) and came across your book.

The title caught my attention and then I flipped through it and thought “Okay, why not?”, not sure exactly what I was going to find. Oh my goodness! It was exactly what I needed to read! I loved how you explained it from a Biblical point of view and offered God’s design and intention for it and changing your mindset about it. The chapter for virgins was especially helpful- I don’t feel quite so unprepared now. I loved the “good girl hints” too. I couldn’t put it down and have been rereading bits and pieces of it, preparing for the big day. There are hardly any books that deal with this topic in regard to virgins and it was explained in such a way that was comfortable and made sense.

I knew that I had to write you and tell how much the book helped me. I’m going to recommend it to anyone I know that is getting married (even though at 31, I’m the last of my friends to get married. LOL) but recommend it to my friends too. It was so refreshing to read and answered a lot of my questions that I was not about to ask and alleviated my fear and concerns. Can’t wait to try out the hints:x lovestruck.

Thank you again for allowing God to use you and your book.

(Incidentally, I so appreciate emails like that. I save them so that when I’m discouraged I can reread them and God can whisper to me that He is doing things through me!).

If you’re going to a wedding or a shower, don’t forget The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex. If more marriages started off on good footing, imagine the families, the churches, the communities that would be stronger as a result!

Did your marriage get off to a good start, or a bad start? Let me know in the comments!

Related posts:

How Much Do You Want to Talk to Your Mother About Sex?
Helping New Brides: Great Bridal Shower Gift
Wifey Wednesday: Wedding Night Disasters

Reader Question of the Week: How do We Support Struggling Couples?

Every weekend I like to post a question someone sends in and let you readers have a go at it. This week, a woman writes in and says this:

I have a friend, who I know is struggling in her marriage. I don’t know the details of the struggles, but I can tell they’re there. Financial issues are causing a strain at the very least, but I doubt that’s the root. My husband and I are sending them on a date at our expense. Does anyone have any other practical ideas for what we can do to support this couple? For those who read this blog who are struggling, what would help you the most? I don’t want our offers of help to be seen as intrusive in any way or feel like “charity” that would offend them. At the same time I feel a real burden for this couple and pray for them all the time. Thank you in advance!

What ideas do you have that would be a blessing to this couple?

Related posts:

Reader Question of the Week: Healthy Tug-O-War
Reader Question of the Week: What About Menopause?
Reader Question of the Week: Respect the Line, Please

Aiming Lower

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a bunch of newspapers in southeastern Ontario and Saskatchewan. This week’s column encourages taking pride in living an ordinary life.

Lately our family’s soundtrack has been country music. Perhaps it’s because there’s a group of teenage boys that my daughters hang out with who listen to country, but for whatever reason my girls have started downloading country songs off of iTunes. And one of the ones they love is Montgomery Gentry’s “That’s Something to Be Proud of.”

It bears no resemblance to anything Taylor Swift would sing, so it seems like a surprising choice. It’s a song for guys, and the first verse, about losing your brother in the war, always makes me tear up. But it’s the second verse that seems to be the reason for the download. It says:

“You don’t need to make a million, Just be thankful to be workin’. If you’re doing what you’re able, and putting food there on the table, and providing for the family that you love, that’s something to be proud of.”

I think it resonates because our culture no longer takes pride in living an ordinary life. My girls and their friends are obsessing over their futures: What should I take in school? What business can I start? What do I want to do with the rest of my life? And the message they get, over and over, is aim for success!

What if that’s the wrong message? Too many people are aiming for the virtually impossible. They want to have a high paying job where they love their work but have short hours. They want to be famous. They want things easy.

Life, however, rarely works like that. Most who do eventually earn great success do so only after putting in their time in the trenches. But let’s not forget that the time in the trenches is not just a means to an end; like Montgomery Gentry sings, it’s something to be proud of, even if you never rise that far above it.

What’s wrong with earning an honest living? What’s wrong with working hard, putting in an effort, and slowly but surely building up a small nest egg? You may not take a cruise every year, or have a collection of shoes, or buy each new iPhone that comes out, but it can still be a very rewarding life. Everything you have you worked for. Maybe, instead of telling kids to aim for a life of massive success and leisure, we should be espousing the virtues of aiming lower.

We talk down honest work too much. We tell girls who want to be nurses’ aides to be doctors instead. We tell boys who just want to work with their hands that they need a university degree. We tell kids that they should aim for a life where they’ll be rich and don’t have to get dirty. No wonder so many people think simple work is beneath them!

The Brookings Institute recently found three things that virtually guaranteed you would never be poor: graduate from high school; don’t get married until you’re 21, and only have children after you’re married; and take a full-time job—any full-time job. Do those three things and you have a 2% chance of being poor and a 74% chance of being in the middle class.

You may begin at minimum wage, but work hard and you’ll work your way up. You’ll be able to save for a small house, put food on the table, and buy a few luxuries. Aiming lower may not be glamorous, but it’s still something to be proud of.

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Related posts:

Avoiding Tragedy
The Family’s Breaking Down–and Now We’re Paying the Price
How I Would Do Obama’s SchoolKids Speech Differently

Card Swap Giveaway: A Neat Way of Earning Points while You Spend

Hi everyone! Are you feeling the Christmas spirit yet? I sure am! I’ve never been much of a Christmas person, because I don’t like the hassle and trying to figure out gifts for everyone. But this year I’ve decided I’m a big bah humbug and it’s going to stop! So everyday in December I’m doing something new that’s Christmas-y, whether it’s baking or knitting a present or shopping or decorating.

And today I want to tell my Canadian readers about a really practical site I just found that helps us earn money when we spend at major retailers.

Not Canadian? I don’t want you to feel left out, so skip to the bottom for a special offer for my American (or British, or Australian, or European) readers!

What is Card Swap?

It’s an online “store” where you can purchase (and redeem for cash!) gift cards for almost any large Canadian retailer or restaurant. Basically, anything you can buy a gift card for, Card Swap sells.

 

So far, that’s no big deal. I can buy gift cards at the checkout counter at my grocery store, after all.

But here’s what’s neat: when you buy the gift card from Card Swap, you get between 5-10% back in Card Swap “rewards”, which sit in your account until you decide to purchase a new gift card with them. So it’s like getting 5-10% off of everything you buy! Now, just as an example, we shop at Shopper’s Drug Mart a lot. We only ever shop on the 20x the points events, and then we only ever redeem our points on our double the reward points days. I did the math once and I figured that we saved about 32% doing it this way. But if I start buying Shoppers Drug Mart cards through Card Swap, I’m going to increase that to 37%–or 42% if I buy the cards when there’s a special promotion on offering you 10% back.

So that’s 42% off of all my shampoo and all my makeup and all my toilet paper and all my “feminine” products (hey, I have two teenage girls!). That’s cool.

To give another example: we tend to use our credit cards when we’re shopping because we get about 2% back towards travel points. We pay off our balance every month, so we never pay interest, but we do collect the points.

But I can use my credit card to purchase cards, and so I still get the 2% back, plus I get the 5%-10% back. And that gives me up to 12% off of practically everything. Cool.

Sell Cards

But here’s something else that’s neat. Last year, for Christmas, my youngest daughter got a Kindle. I know we’re Canadian and we’re supposed to buy a Kobo from Chapters, but I do so much business through Amazon (they published my 31 Days to Great Sex!), and I make affiliate fees off of them, I just thought it’s easier to keep everything with Amazon. She loves her Kindle.

But she also received about $110 in gift cards from Chapters. And you can’t read ebooks bought from Chapters on a Kindle. So her gift cards have been sitting there for a year.

You can trade in your gift cards, though, and Card Swap will either give you cash or will give you points towards other gift cards. So for Katie we have $110 in gift cards. Card Swap is offering her $88.00, or $93.50 in gift cards. I’m going to take the gift card to Shoppers Drug Mart and give her the cash (I’m very entrepreneurial that way. Besides, she owes me money).

Sounds like a great deal. I’ll likely be doing most of my shopping this way from now on.

Today Card Swap is offering a $50 credit towards any gift card you want. All you have to do is enter through the Rafflecopter below. Rafflecopter is a unique way to enter blog giveaways, because you can get extra “entries” for completing certain tasks. So if you “like” Swap Cards on Facebook, you’ll get five extra entries!

I’m going to draw the card on Monday night at midnight, and I’ll announce it next Tuesday. These gift cards are only good in Canada!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now, for all of you non-Canadians: I’d like to giveaway two copies of 31 Days to Great Sex! So leave a comment to win, with your recommendation of how to save the most on gift cards wherever you live. I’ll draw for those two on Monday at midnight, too! And if you have already purchased the 31 Days, no worries. I’ll mail you a copy of The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex instead!

So to recap: Rafflecopter=Canadian $50 gift card, comments = everybody else, win 31 Days to Great Sex. Hope that’s crystal clear!

This was a sponsored post. From time to time I accept sponsored posts that fit with my readership to help offset the costs of running this blog.

Related posts:

Works for Me Wednesday Ebook & Giveaway
Freezing Our Credit Cards
Wishful Economics 101

Wifey Wednesday: Sex Should Be a Habit

Note: Joanna Hyatt has a post and a contest up as part of the 31 Days to Great Sex launch! So the blog tour continues there today.

It’s Wednesday, the day when we talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and you all can comment or link up your own post below.

Today I want to talk about habits–and the habit of saying no.

When kids come into the kitchen and say, “Mom, can I have…” we default to “No.” We assume the words “ice cream” or “chocolate” or “Cheetos” will finish that sentence, and so the No is out of our mouths before they even stop talking. It’s habit.

And the same thing can happen with sex. When you get in the habit of not making love for weeks, that becomes your default.

Researchers say it takes 21 days to develop a new habit. I’m in the process of trying to develop a new way of handling my morning routine. Some things are so full of habit for me–I get dressed, and then I make the bed. I can’t NOT make the bed. It would bother me to no end. Making the bed naturally follows having a shower. But I distinctly remember at 14 hating making the bed. Sometime between 14 and 42 I figured out that making the bed is an important habit, and now it bugs me if the bed isn’t made.

But while I’m really good at making the bed, I’m not as good at breakfast. So I need to figure out how to make that more of a habit, because I often forget to eat, or else can’t be bothered.

Many of us have made a habit of NOT making love. We routinely say no. We may have other habits, like reading in bed, or falling asleep to the TV. We may take a bubble bath before bed, or check Facebook. We have things we do at night, but in general, it doesn’t involve sex.

How else do we explain the over 42% of women who reported making love less than once a week? Even when I took out the women who reported having a higher sex drive than their husbands (because in that case it may be the guy’s doing that they make love so infrequently) I still ended up with 40% of women making love less than once a week in my research for The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex.

We have developed the habit of saying no–or not saying anything at all. Just rolling over and going to sleep.

And we are creatures of habit. The more we say no now, the more we’ll say no in the future. We’ll start thinking of the evening as “me time” when we do things without our husbands. We’ll start to develop habits that don’t involve him. And we’ll also lose our libidos (because libido is largely a use it or lose it phenomenon).

So why not start trying to develop a new habit? Sometime after dinner, connect by sharing your hearts and concerns. Go for a walk or a hike. Do dishes together. Do some activity during which you can unload some of the burden of today, so that it’s not impeding your ability to enjoy making love later.

Then flirt! Make it a habit to do one flirty thing a day, like in this 16 Ways to Flirt with Your Husband post.

And then, make love. When you go upstairs to bed, ask him to come, too.

Instead of always asking yourself, “do I want to tonight?”–because the answer will likely be no–ask yourself, “Do I have a really good reason to say no?” Make the expectation that you will say yes, not no. Then, you’re more likely to jump in!

Here’s how it works more practically. I know what I do in the morning.

 I get on the computer.
I do my devotions.
I take a shower.
I make my bed.
I throw on a load of laundry.
And then I forget *ahem* to have breakfast.

But it’s quite predictable–as if they’re all links in a chain, naturally following one another.

Now, let’s examine the chain and say, If I want to remember to have breakfast, where’s the best place to put it? It makes a lot more sense to put breakfast after devotions and before the shower, because by the time the shower is over I’m so busy running around doing tasks on my house that I often forget. So I’m going to try to disrupt my chain and put it right there, because that’s where the habit is most likely to stick.

Why not turn this “habit” thing to your advantage at night, too? Maybe your chain could look like this:

I go for a walk and talk to my husband. I put my kids in bed. I spend an hour doing something I enjoy. We watch an hour of TV together (or read together, or play a game together, or whatever). We head to the bedroom together. We talk as we crawl into bed together. We pray. We make love.

Each link in the chain naturally follows another. Break one link in the chain and it all falls apart. So what does your chain look like at night? Maybe it’s more like this:

We put the kids in bed. He gets on his video games. I get on my computer. When I get tired I turn in. He comes to bed later.

That’s certainly what many of you told me on this Facebook post, or in our Facebook chat last week! Bedtime was difficult, because you were often doing different things.

Or perhaps your chain is like this:

We put the kids in bed. We watch TV together. I get on the computer. He pulls out his files. I head to bed alone.

If that’s your chain, maybe you could reverse it, and spend your alone time–you on the computer, him on his files–earlier in the evening, so that you’re together later.

Write out everything you tend to do in the evening, and then think, if I wanted sex to become an easy habit, how would this chain have to change? What in our current chain of activities is rendering making love less likely? What would we need to do instead? What more naturally follows so that it leads up to making love?

And then do it!

Don’t default to no. Default to yes. Your marriage will never be the same.

And if you need help on making sex a habit, why not work on my 31 Days to Great Sex with your hubby? Work on it for 31 days, and after that 31 Days you’ll be more used to spending time together at night!

Note: if you’re having a difficult time with sex because of porn use, or physical problems, or simply having no libido, I’ve got a ton of posts here that can help.

Now, what advice do you have for us today? Leave a link to a marriage post in the linky below–or please leave a comment that tells me what  you think about this habit idea. And don’t forget to hit “Pin” or share on Facebook!

Related posts:

Wifey Wednesday: When Technology Steals Your Marriage
Wifey Wednesday: The 21 Day Marriage Challenge: Pick a Habit!
Wifey Wednesday: What to Do with His Bad Habits

Winners, FAQs, and Some Celebrating!

Whew.

This has been a whirlwind week and a half for me since I launched The 31 Days to Great Sex. The response has been overwhelming. Thank you so much!

Today I have some winners to announce, and I want to answer some questions I’ve been sent quite a bit.

1. Pinterest Winners (and other stuff!)

First, the winners. I had a “Pin It To Win It” contest last week, where three people who pinned my post announcing the launch of the book would win it. We had 60 entries, and the winners were randomly chosen by random.org. They were Michelle, Heather, and Denna, and I’ve contacted them all through Facebook already. So congratulations!

And if you don’t follow me on Pinterest yet, you can find me here. If you want to leave your Pinterest account in the comments, I’ll follow you, too!

Here’s why I love Pinterest: it can be such an amazing ministry. So many women are on there for decorating ideas or cooking ideas, but if you post encouraging things, or marriage tips, they’ll actually read them, even if they weren’t looking for them. 80% of people on this blog found me through Pinterest. So if you think other people could benefit from this blog, pin it! And here are two good posts to start with.

2. Can you read 31 Days to Great Sex on the nook/Kobo/others?

It will be up on the Barnes & Noble site and on Chapters really soon. It was submitted over a week ago, but they take so long to approve stuff, unlike Amazon. But you can buy it in any format on Smashwords.com now, if you’re interested. Just go here. Then you can download the format that works best in your ereader.

3. I have an iPhone/iPad. Can I read it?

Yep! Here’s how it works:

Buy the .pdf. You receive the email after you purchase that has your download link:

You click where it says: “click here to download this product”.

The book then pops up. You can read it right then and there by scrolling down, like it’s a regular document, but it also prompts you to Open in iBooks (it does this automatically, you don’t  have to look for the prompt):

And then it will be in your bookcase, and you can read it just like a regular book, by scrolling sideways.

It works just this way for the iPad, too!

4. I don’t know which book to buy

A number of people have said, which should I get? 31 Days to Great Sex or The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex?

Still 30% off at Amazon!

That’s a hard one to answer because they are so completely different. The Good Girl’s Guide is a comprehensive book about everything sex is supposed to be about. It’s a book that you read, and think about, and show certain bits to your husband, and pray about. It’s a book

to get you to think, and change your attitude perhaps, and learn new things, and get excited about! This book is primarily in your heart, and in your head.

The 31 Days to Great Sex isn’t a book that you think about as much as it is a book that you experience. You have short readings from 1-3 pages each night, some of which will require some thinking and pondering. But then you do something with your husband, whether it’s kiss, or touch, or talk, or confess, or eventually much more! One is a series of challenges for couples, and one is a book to help you think differently about sex, and understand all that it’s supposed to be.

Personally, I think I’d read The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex first. If you’ve been thinking about these things, you’ll be in the perfect frame of mind to approach the 31 Days challenge. But I can’t say that one replaces the other, because they really are different.

Here’s where you can get The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex

Here’s where you can get 31 Days to Great Sex

5. I drew winner for my Hope for the Weary Mom contest!

So we had a bunch of entries, and I asked Rafflecopter to draw a winner at random, and it was Dawn! I’ve emailed her already, too. Congratulations, Dawn!

Didn’t win? Don’t worry! On Thursday I’ll be having another giveaway. And I’m so excited to see who will win the Kindle Fire that Karen Ehman is giving away!

6. Have a blog yourself? Want to earn some money?

I have an affiliate program where you can earn 50% of the price of The 31 Days to Great Sex if you refer the sale (and you also get a portion of anything else they buy). You can put the graphic up on your sidebar, but the best way is to combine that with writing a brief post about it. It’s super easy; just fill out this form and then I’ll send you the link and all the graphics you’ll need.

Now, that’s my housekeeping for today. Do you have any questions about how the 31 Days to Great Sex works? I’d love to answer! Or ask me anything else in the comments. And remember to leave your Pinterest account!

Related posts:

Facebook Parties, Twitter Parties, and More!
31 Days to Great Sex is Almost Here!
31 Days to Great Sex Is Here!

Let It Go: Losing the Control Freak Inside You

There’s a great scene in the movie Date Night where the married couple, Phil and Claire Foster, played by Steve Carell and Tina Fey, are fighting in the car. Tina Fey’s character explains that she is just so tired, and the only fantasies she really entertains are of checking into a hotel and sipping a Diet Sprite all by herself, with no one to hang off of her. Because all day, everyday, she does laundry, she cleans the house, she gets the kids ready for school, she goes to work, she makes dinner, she gets the kids ready for bed (It’s always a surprise that we have to actually put on pyjamas!), and then she starts all over again. And she’s exhausted.

Steve Carell isn’t really that sympathetic.

“I know you have a lot on your plate, but part of the reason is because you never let me share the load. You have to do everything. You should let me do things sometimes. I might surprise you.”

I think there’s a little bit of Tina Fey in all of us moms. We’re control freaks, and we do run ourselves ragged because we so much want our kids’ lives, and our husband’s life, and the lives of those around us to go well. We have this dream of what things should look like, and we run after that dream, full speed ahead.

Karen Ehman knows what that’s like. I had the privilege of reading an early copy of Karen Ehman’s amazing new book, Let It Go. When she sent the email out asking if anyone of us were interested in taking a look, I jumped at the chance (though I often say no to other such requests) because I knew I needed this. I suffer from major control-freak tendencies.

Do you?

Karen starts the book by recounting a time when she was completely OUT of control. Pregnant with her third child, she suffered horrible nausea all day and was laid out flat. Teens from the church came to clean her house, and instead of feeling grateful, she felt physically ill–even more so than she did before! Can you relate? Do you have a hard time when you CAN’T control things?

She realized what the heart of the matter was: the realization that she was dispensable, and that when she wasn’t in control, she couldn’t get her own way.

We try to control in a myriad of ways: we’re passive aggressive, steering things the way we want them to go. We cover up for everyone’s faults or mistakes. Or we become the drill sergeant, trying to get everyone to fall into line.

But no matter which way you manifest your control freak tendencies, the root cause is the same: if you’re trying to run things, then you’re not trusting God. And seriously, trying to be in control is tiring.

Honestly, though, I’ve read lots of books that say “you just need to trust God more”. It’s a common message, and to tell you the truth, if I can say this without getting blasphemous, sometimes the books bug me. I’m not always certain the author really understands where I’m coming from. I KNOW the answer is that we’ve got to trust God more. Seriously, that’s the answer to just about EVERY problem in our lives. That’s the central issue of humanity. The problem is not that I don’t know I need to trust God more; the problem is that I can’t seem to do it.

And that’s where I found Karen’s book refreshing, because she was sympathetic about why we are the way we are, and she gave some great insights into some of the reasons that we as women have these control freak tendencies. I really enjoyed her section, for instance, on the problems of choice. One of the reasons that things are harder today is simply that we do have so many more choices. We’ve lost simplicity.

And because of that we have the illusion of happiness–a favourite theme of mine when I speak. Because we have so many choices, it naturally follows that if we just make the right ones we’ll be happy. And thus we get all wrapped up in choosing the right things. It was much easier when your choices about work, and childcare, and even what you were going to make for dinner were much more limited. We have the problem of excess.

The book is easy to read, peppered with one-liners. There are exercises at the end of each chapter to help you figure out where you’re at.

I want to leave you with one example of an error that she feels many moms make, and then tell you the three personal takeaways I had from the book.

Take Micromanaging Mama: Does that describe you? You give the child dishes to do, and you focus on the fact that they’re doing it WRONG because they aren’t doing it the way you do. I loved this example of a different way to handle it:

Say to him, “I love how you make chores fun. I wish I were more like you.” And then, at a different time, teach him when YOU’RE doing the dishes why you wash the glasses first and not the pots.

What Karen eventually realized was the Two Plus Two Equals Four lesson:

“I just tell mysef, two plus two equals four. three plus one equals four. Seven minus three equals four.”

They all get to four. They just get there differently! I needed to hear that today.

Here, then, are three quick lessons I learned, that perhaps you need to hear today, too.

1. Giving up control should feel foreign. I think many times I’ve believed that I’ve relinquished control when all I’ve really done is put a smile on my face and tried to be nicer. If it doesn’t feel foreign, it wasn’t real.

2. Second, I do emotionally manipulate my family without realizing it. I’m great at guilt.

3. And third, I have a hard time accepting Keith’s love for me because at heart I’m too busy trying to be in control to settle down and just let him love on me, so to speak. I’m always thinking about what I SHOULD be doing.

I need that Steve Carell lesson.

What about you?

Let. It. Go is a great book which is also available as a DVD study. You can find Karen at www.karenehman.com. Karen is doing a blog tour with her book which is almost wrapping up, and one person who comments during this blog tour is going to win a Kindle Fire! So leave a comment explaining why you have a problem with being a control freak (or how you conquered it) to enter to win.

Related posts:

Some Easy Reading for You…
What I Look for in a Christian Novel
Encouragement for Those in Really Tough Marriages