Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 256

November 2, 2012

Creeping Screens

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a bunch of newspapers in southeastern Ontario and Saskatchewan. This week’s column is about filling spaces in our lives.

When my babies were first born I was home with them full-time. And babies don’t talk. They may cry, but conversation isn’t their strong point.

And so it was that I turned to television. Every day, from 1-5, my TV was on non-step. First it was three soap operas in a row: Days of Our Lives, All My Children, General Hospital. Then, at four, came Oprah. In fact, my TV was on constantly, so that I could hear some voices in my house (and not just in my head).

However, I began to notice that I was rather melancholy when bedtime came around. Every Thursday night I would wander into my bedroom forlorn. Keith would try to talk me out of my mood, which is never a good idea, because we women like having our moods.

And one Thursday, while I was obsessing about my inconsiderate husband, the lightbulb went off. I realized that I was always melancholy on Thursdays because that was the night I watched ER. What a depressing show! Every week someone died in a car accident, or some child was horrendously abused, or someone lost a limb. It was terrible.

I didn’t want to live consumed with the ugliness or life, so we got rid of our television, cold turkey. I became much happier. I had more time with my girls. I sought out friends for conversation. Life grew bigger.

Last week I was at a bloggers’ conference, and this topic came up. I know a bloggers’ conference sounds insane, but I actually get quite a bit of traffic to my blog (I mostly talk marriage and relationships), and I wanted to network with some of the women that I know online. One of those women was a younger blogger who was trying to balance her online community with raising two small children. She asked me what I thought about all of these young moms blogging. Are they ignoring their kids?

I replied that I was thankful blogging wasn’t around when my children were young, or I would have been sucked in and it would have taken too much of my time, just like it has now.

And at that moment I had another epiphany, just like the one I had that Thursday night fifteen years ago. For the last decade and a half I have been so proud of myself for being able to give up television. I realized, though, that over the last few years I have simply traded one vice for another. Yes, I have gotten rid of the TV. But blogs, and Facebook, and Twitter, and Pinterest have eaten up just as much time—if not more.

Technology creeps. We spend so much time in front of screens that we ignore those we love. Men play on video games until the wee hours of the morning, leaving wives wondering if their husbands still have libidos. Women spend so much time talking to pseudo-friends on Facebook that their real live families feel ignored. And teens create communities on their computers, not in their living rooms.

I can’t quit the online world cold turkey because it’s my job. So my only recourse, over the last few years, has been to head outdoors. When our family needs to connect, we go walking or hiking or biking or birding or camping. We get out, where the computer can’t touch us.

Yet I see another threat on the horizon. Currently I have a Blackberry, and I’ve always found it a little cumbersome to check things online. But I’m due for another free phone upgrade, and I’ve been tempted towards an iPhone. I think, though, that I may say no. I don’t want technology to follow me even when I’m walking and hiking and birding and camping. I still need time just with my family. I hope this time I can keep my resolve.

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Stealing our Kids Back
Just Do It!
Little Things That Humble Me…

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Published on November 02, 2012 05:00

November 1, 2012

October 31, 2012

Wifey Wednesday: How Men and Women Think Differently About Sex

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

Rather than write a big post today, I thought I’d post this video that I just uploaded of me talking about how for women, sex is primarily in our heads.

The moral here? I’ve presented the NEGATIVE side of it: when we’re distracted, or when we have a negative view of sex, then sex is unlikely to feel good.

But there’s also a POSITIVE side: think good thoughts about sex, and deliberately, throughout the day, think about how great it’s going to be, and your body will likely follow.

We need to start thinking more positively about our husbands and about making love, rather than just hoping that mood strikes us. For us our sex drives are primarily in our heads, so use that to your advantage! Sure, there’s a downside to it–it can be harder to get aroused. But the upside is that when we do anticipate and when we do think positively, things can go very well.

So work on your friendship so you feel close to your husband. Go for walks so you can talk and get all of your distractions out. Be vulnerable with him and share some deep things that are on your heart. All of that helps us feel more positively about him.

And then look forward to making love tonight! That can make all the difference in the world.

Now, what advice do you have for us today? Link up a marriage post in the linky below, or leave a comment!

This week I’m putting the final touches on the 31 Days to Great Sex ebook! If you liked the 29 Days series, this is going to be even better. Instead of being directed just at women, it’s directed at couples, with challenges for both of you to do. And I’ve taken out some days, and added a few more, so there’s new material, too. Want to receive an email and a coupon when it’s released? Just sign up here!

Wifey Wednesday: Why Women Need to Talk to Warm up
Wifey Wednesday: Women Are Not Like Slow Cookers
Wifey Wednesday: Getting Over Thinking Sex is “All for him”

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Published on October 31, 2012 03:47

October 30, 2012

Why Purity Early Protects You Later

Today’s guest post is from Alecia from Marriage Life Ministries.

My husband had an affair. It almost wrecked our marriage, but instead it was the catalyst for bringing us closer together. But through the whole sordid process, I learned something important: what we do before marriage often impacts what we do after marriage.

Most of the world thinks that purity is for the birds–that saving yourself isn’t relevant, convenient or even necessary. Or that remaining pure in your mind body and spirit after you get married isn’t important. I beg to differ.

It’s interesting that while over the last few decades our culture has gotten more sexually permissive, it has also adopted firmer attitudes against adultery. This “oddity” was found by the Marriage Project at Rutgers University when they were doing research on marriage and infidelity. People now disapprove of adultery more than they did a few decades ago, even though we’re also becoming more promiscuous. How can we as a culture not see how these two things are completely connected to one another?

Our behavior, as a culture, definitely speaks to different priorities than what the studies and surveys are suggesting. A majority might feel that cheating on one’s spouse is wrong, but that’s not stopping very many affairs.

Why? Again, it comes down to this. Purity.

I was slapped in the face with this concept shortly after Clint’s confession. Oh, sure, I’d heard it all growing up: “Don’t’ give yourself away.” “Sex before marriage is bad.”, but it was amazing to me to sit down and think about the ramifications of the choices that had been made in our situation. It wasn’t just Clint’s lack of sexual purity (before marriage and during our marriage) that led to our problem, but also my own lack of sexual purity. I had contributed to an atmosphere in our marriage that made us susceptible to adultery.

Infidelity doesn’t just create an atmosphere of non-purity in our marriage relationship…it stems from one.

Just as much as it matters what you do with your mind and your body after you get married, it matters what you do with it before. Our marriage wasn’t just affected by Clint’s infidelity. His infidelity was made possible because of sexual impurity.

The things you view, the way you think, the relationships you have, the sexual experiences you participate in, can all too easily impact your marriage–its health, longevity, and its ability to ward off infidelity.

If you didn’t have purity when you were younger, single, and dating, though, it’s not too late! With God, it never is. The important thing is to recognize that you need it—that you need Him to help you.

But you also need to work at it. If you don’t work at it, your choices will fester in your marriage like an old rotten pair of gym shoes shoved in the back of the closet. You’d like to forget they’re there but the smell wafts out at you every once in a while until the stench permeates the whole house and you’re hunting around playing the “What’s that smell” game. You can’t shove it under a rug or hide it or minimize it. As a couple you must deal with it.

If you feel like your marriage lacks what we would call purity, make some changes. Take the time to care about what you watch (by yourself, with your spouse, and as a family). What you expose your eyes and ears to will affect your mind and will affect your marriage. Take the time to care about the relationships and connections you make with the opposite sex. Strike up non-negotiable boundaries that serve to protect your marriage. Take the time to care about the type of intimacy you and your spouse have and build up a more positive form of it from the foundation up.

This thing called purity is kind of an important thing. After all, the couples who enjoy the best sex are those who are monogamous, and who waited until they were married to have sex. Oh, the irony!

This antiquated, stuffy, prudish word is actually anything but.

It’s the portal to you and your spouse living the next 50 years happily together.

From Sheila: I so appreciate Alecia’s take on this, as someone who has lived through an affair and has come out the other side.

I think sometimes we misunderstand purity. We think that it applies BEFORE marriage, but as Alecia says, it’s just as important once we’re married. We need to keep ourselves pure, which means keeping ourselves focused simply on our husbands.

When we’re married, we have great sexual license, which I talked about in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex. But let’s not confuse that freedom with a lack of boundaries. Just because you can, and should, enjoy sex now does not mean that it’s a good idea to focus on just getting yourself aroused any old way, like thinking about another man, or watching porn, or immersing yourself in explicit HBO miniseries. Many couples have found that taking this license too far is quite dangerous.

Why? Because it reinforces the idea that sex is only about the physical, only about getting aroused, and not about a spiritual and emotional intimacy. And once we start to entertain these thoughts, it’s too easy to get careless.

So let’s keep pure in our marriages! Today, can you tell us how you do that? Leave a comment, or if you’re having a tough time figuring out what this means, leave a question, and maybe we can help you!

Alecia and Clint blog at Marriage Life Ministries. Find them on Facebook here.

Lasting Bliss: Hope and Inspiration for Your Marriage
Wifey Wednesday: What is Appropriate Sexual Release?
Wifey Wednesday: Is Pornography the Same as Cheating?

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Published on October 30, 2012 05:00

Don’t Be Afraid of Brokenness in Marriage

When you get married you think you know who you are. You’re confident in what you want out of life, and you’re sure that your spouse is it.

You walk down that aisle thinking to yourself, “here is the man who is going to complete me for the rest of my life.”

Sure, you sat through pre-marital counseling and the pastor warned you of all the problems that most couples encounter. But that will never happen to us, you think. We’re different. We really love each other.

Then you wed, and within a few months your dreams are shattered. How could this man whom you loved so much have changed so much? How could he hurt you like that? How could he not understand?

That’s how I felt when I was first married. I was so positive that Keith and I were meant for each other. We were best friends. We prayed together. We knew each other inside and out.

But when we wed it was as if all of these expectations that we both had on each other collided. I thought he was only interested in me for one thing, and he thought I didn’t really love him because I wasn’t as interested in that one thing. And so we went, back and forth, each feeling totally broken. How could the person that I love most in the world–the person who was supposed to love me–hurt me this way?

I received an email not too long ago from a new bride struggling with different communication patterns with her husband. This is part of what she wrote (edited to remove any identifying details):

Before making dinner tonight I put on some cute lingerie, stuff that I know he likes. Meanwhile, he is occupied playing computer games. I come out to see what he wants to eat, he says something rudely sarcastic in response. I’m standing there, all dressed up and vulnerable for him, trying to serve him by getting him food….and that happens. I come back in a little bit and curl up on the sofa next to him and ask if we might talk so that things don’t go worse tonight. He doesn’t even look up, but plays his game and asks me why? because he says there’s nothing to

discuss.

This is a normal routine. I calmly explain how I felt unloved by him not even caring that I was dressed up for him, and how his sarcasm made me feel. I explained that I am trying to serve him and didn’t understand his response. His reply was that I had sent him a couple links and he had read them (1 was a good bible-related post and the other one related to a marriage area we struggle with) and now he “wasn’t in the mood.” I asked why? and he wouldn’t tell me. He also continued saying demeaning things about who cared if i was dressed up.

Things did not end well. I came to our bedroom and prayed my heart out. It seems like I’m doing that every other day with tears streaming down my face. Struggling not to sob because he hates it when I cry. According to him tonight, “crying is a scientific fact that it’s a turn-off.” But I couldn’t stop it! I tried, and then I choke.

This woman is in pain. She feels so unloved. He won’t look up from his video games. He won’t respond when she is trying to be a “good wife” by making him dinner and putting on lingerie for him.

But at the same time, he’s probably feeling unloved, too. She sends him emails trying to help their marriage; he interprets it as criticism. He feels like he’s not good enough, and she’s mad at him for playing video games; he can’t handle the criticism so withdraws more. When she cries, he feels even more inadequate.

They’re broken.

All these dreams of how they were perfect together, of how they fit together, of how they would love and honor each other–broken.

Are you broken today? Do you feel like your marriage–and your heart–are in pieces?

Brokenness is not a bad thing, in and of itself. It’s when we’re broken, when we realize that we can’t do things on our own, when we see that we aren’t perfect, that we’re hurting, that we turn to God.

And I think that’s when God is able to change us and to grow us.

I asked on my Facebook Page on the weekend what everyone’s hardest year of marriage was. The most common answer was year 1. That’s often when we’re squeezed and broken. When we feel so unloved and we’re hurting and choking and crying.

And yet, out of brokenness beauty grows.

'Seattle St. D's exonarthex window 2-transformed' photo (c) 2009, Joe Mabel - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

God takes those broken pieces and creates something new–something beautiful. Something different.

Sometimes God needs to break it. He needs to break all of us to mold us.

I believe that this overwhelming feeling that we are not loved–this feeling that we are drowning because we’re hurting so much–is the feeling that drives us to our knees in desperation. And when we are desperate enough, when we want and need the pain to stop, I think God starts talking to us, and whispering things like:

Do you realize that only I can give you peace? That only I can give you joy? You can share those things with your spouse, but they ultimately come from me.

Do you realize that what I ask of you is that you love your husband? Do you realize that I put you on this earth to learn to love, not just to be loved? And perfect love is focused on the other person; it’s not focused on how we feel.

Do you realize that when you are weak, when you can’t do it yourself, then you finally let me in? And you can start to live in my power?

I am not saying that we should pursue brokenness; not at all. But I do know that it is often in my darkest moments, when I truly become vulnerable with God, and then with my husband, that God does His best work in me. And that is when I start to understand peace, and grace, in a new way.

Everyone is broken in marriage at some point. Everyone goes through periods when our dreams are shattered, when our hearts are shattered, when we feel vulnerable and betrayed and unloved. But God does not waste those pieces. God does not waste anything.

And in our pain, He shows up. And He brings His glue. And He reworks our hearts, and our relationships, so that they look more like Him.

I am not saying that if your spouse has cheated on you that you should necessarily rejoice and stay put because of what God will do; that’s a deeper decision, and much more complicated. But often the brokenness we feel in marriage is not due to a huge infraction but rather just a difference of expectations.

Last week I attended the Allume conference for Christian women bloggers, and Ann Voskamp gave one of the keynotes. She was talking about how brokenness is not something to fear; it is instead the precondition for God working in our lives. We have to get to that point where our pride is in pieces, and where we honestly admit, “God, I can’t do this anymore. I need you. I am making a mess of things.”

When we say that, God shows up.

I was broken in my marriage. I still go through periods when I’m sad and struggling. But it is often from those periods where God starts to do real healing both in our relationship and in my heart.

So don’t fear the brokenness. Don’t fear the end of a dream. God will build something new, and something beautiful, if you let Him.

How a Marriage Changes
I’m at a Marriage Conference!
Quick Weekend Intimacy Tip

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Published on October 30, 2012 04:19

October 29, 2012

God Is Not Your Red Bull

Do you ever think to yourself, “if only I gave God more of my morning, I’d have more energy and discipline to get done all the things I need to get done today?”

I’m prone to that.

I think that approach, though, is wrong. It treats God like He’s a can of Red Bull: Read your Bible, and you’re energized and can get your to-do list to-done!

Sometimes I worry that the reason that I feel exhausted is because I’m doing things in my strength, not His. And so what I need to do, then, is to spend more time with God, so I’ll have more power and can get things done and be more disciplined.

Wrong.

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If you’re exhausted, the problem is likely that you have not allowed God to set your agenda. You’re asking more of yourself than God is asking of you, and you’re putting your energy in the wrong things.

This week, instead of asking God to make you more disciplined, what about asking God to help you set your agenda?

Point out what things you can get rid of, and what things you need more of. Ask Him to show you where His heart lies, and then follow that heart.

Don’t treat God like a Red Bull. He’s more than that.

How to Start the Week
Wifey Wednesday: What Does Submission in Marriage Mean?
Wifey Wednesday: Getting on the Same Page

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Published on October 29, 2012 04:05

October 27, 2012

Reader Question of the Week: Sexless Marriage

Every weekend I like to post a question someone sends in and let you readers have a go at it. This week a reader shares her very personal story of a sexless marriage.

My husband has always been a Choleric driver-type personality who is very focused on work and being productive.Sometimes his job seems like it’s 24/7 – when we were first married he wasn’t home much and now he is home more but slaving away in our home office. Even when he’s not at work he spends a lot of time doing yard work or researching and managing our investments. Like so many people in the current economy, he is stressed out about his job security. It seems like he’s either working like a madman or worried if things are slow.

This has been going on ever since I met him and of course, it has negatively affected our intimate life. I think that he sees sex as a fun leisure activity when he has some spare time. However, he never has any spare time! He would feel guilty taking time out for sex when he should be doing something more productive like reviewing the investments or answering work email. As a result, our sex life has been pretty sad – we have officially been in the sexless marriage category for years, and only really had sex while on vacation once a year! Since I’ve been reading your blog, we have been having sex more – maybe more like every 2-3 weeks. But I can sense that he is just going through the motions and has a hard time focusing. I know that this could be for other (scary) reasons – maybe he’s just not attracted to me anymore, or maybe he’s looking at porn, or having an affair, or maybe he’s gay. But I have known this man for 20 years and I honestly feel it’s work stress more than anything else.

What advice would you give to her?

****And Don’t Forget: Today’s the last day when you can order The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex for $15, shipping included. If you’re a little embarrassed to buy it in a store, I’ll mail it to you!

Here’s more info.

Now leave your advice for this woman!

Reader Question of the Week: Keeping a Schedule
Reader Question of the Week: Clean Standards
Reader Question of the Week: Mission “Impasse”able?

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Published on October 27, 2012 05:00

October 26, 2012

The Low Down on Homework

Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a bunch of newspapers in southeastern Ontario and Saskatchewan. This week, Sheila wrote about homework! The new column is a little political, and you can find it here. But here’s one from a few years ago that got more responses than anything else she’s ever written. See what you think!

I’ve been conducting an informal poll with all the thirtysomethings I run into lately, asking, “when you were in elementary school, did your parents help you with homework?”. I have yet to hear anyone answer in the affirmative. I don’t remember even having homework before high school, except for special projects. We were expected to get our work done in class.

And yet, every person I talk to today says that homework takes up a ton of everyone’s time. Now, I’m not the best one to weigh in on this because we homeschool. But I do know what my friends and family tell me. My sister-in-law’s biggest complaint is that the kids aren’t taught the material before it arrives home. Recently her second grade daughter was given a project on buoyancy, but the teacher hadn’t spent time going over what makes things float, nor had she given the kids any clue how they were supposed to do this experiment. That was for the parents to figure out. In other words, the expectation is that children will not do their homework alone. That’s a far cry from what happened when I was eight.

Another friend had a horrible time last year when her daughter was in grade 6 and struggling through her math homework. My friend sat down with her, and taught her the best she could how to do it, and the child did eventually arrive at the right answers. The next time my friend visited the school, though, the teacher took her aside and reprimanded her. “You’re teaching her wrong,” she was told. “You have to let me teach her.” My friend let fly a few well-chosen words about how if the teacher had been teaching her in the first place such a thing wouldn’t have happened, but I don’t think her experience is unique. Many kids simply aren’t learning in school.

Part of this certainly must be because family life has become more chaotic so that kids aren’t as well behaved. It’s very hard to teach even a small class of 21 if you have two or three behavior problem kids in it. Another reason is that they’re cramming stuff in the school day that was never there when I was a kid. We weren’t taught conflict resolution or health and safety or touchy-feely things. We were just taught math and spelling. And we learned it, too. Maybe today there’s just not enough time.

Or is it computers? When we were in high school we handed in everything hand-written. Now that computers are commonplace, there’s pressure on even third and fourth-graders to hand in reports typed, with a pretty cover page. That means Mom does the typing, and so the homework falls on her.

Yet what effect does this homework push have on children? Studies seem to show that homework doesn’t have an appreciable effect on their grades in the elementary years, and excessive homework may even poison the school experience for many kids. But other studies show that kids have less homework today than they did a decade ago. So I truly can’t figure out what’s going on, except to look at the families around me and realize that for them, this surely is getting out of control.

I truly don’t understand all the factors, but I am curious, because the whole thing seems to me like a big waste of time. Why should kids have to go to school for seven hours a day, and then do homework for an hour a night while they’re still so young? When are you supposed to have family time? When do kids just play? And what good is it doing Canadian society if all over the country tonight, hundreds of thousands of fourth grade parents are honing up on ancient Egyptian funeral rites, or learning that a Kleenex box will float but a ball of silly putty won’t? Don’t we have better things to do, like playing Monopoly together or taking a spring hike? After all, if our kids aren’t learning in school, then what is school for?

When Kids Can’t Read
Teaching Disabilities
The Perils of Split Grade Classrooms

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Published on October 26, 2012 05:00

October 25, 2012

Where To Find Specific Marriage Advice

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I blog because I have a passion to help marriages. I try to post things that will help you with difficulties you face, and in so doing I also try to point you to God.

However, I know many of you have specific problems or are in acute turmoil. And many of you email me. I do appreciate my readers reaching out, and I do pray over each email. I’m finding, though, that the volume is just getting too much. I can’t do each of them justice.

Right now I have a backlog of about 80 emails I’m trying to answer, and I can’t keep going on like this, because I don’t want to delay in answering you, but I also can’t handle the volume. So I’m going to create a post here with answers to the most common questions that I get, through links to posts that I’ve written. I hope that this may prove handy for many of you! And please, share it on Facebook or Pin It so that others can see it.

You are more than welcome to continue to send emails, and I will certainly pray over them, and I may use some as Reader Questions of the Week (with identifying details removed). I also love hearing your stories! However, I can’t promise to reply to each one anymore. I’m sorry about that. I wish I could replicate myself, but I can’t. And so instead I try to write posts on this blog that can help as large a number of women as possible. I think that’s the best use of my time.

So I hope instead that you all find this list helpful. This will be an ongoing post, and I’ll update it periodically with new posts, so keep it handy!

Still 30% off at Amazon!

And remember, as much as these posts say, I go into way more detail in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex. Don’t settle for mediocre sex! The book is an awesome resource for those of you who want to take it to the next level, or who have specific problems and questions that you want dealt with.

Blessings!

When Your Sex Life Just Isn’t Working

Hitting the “Reset Button” and Starting Over

29 Days to Great Sex–try the challenge!

Experiencing Spiritual Intimacy when You Make Love

When Your Husband is Having an Affair

Hope After you Discover Your Husband is Having an Affair

How to Stop an Emotional Affair

When Texting/Facebook Cross the Line

How to Forgive Your Husband

When You Can’t Resolve a Certain Conflict in Marriage

Understanding the Issue in Conflict

Resolving Conflict

Keeping Your Head When You’re Mad

When Sex Is Uncomfortable

Help When You’re Too Tight–Or Too Loose

When Sex Physically Hurts Because of Chronic Illness

When Sex Doesn’t Feel That Great

How to Reach Orgasm

The Pleasure Center

My Journey to the Big O

Foreplay Can be for Him, too!

Foreplay Can Be Fun

When You Have No Libido

Why You’ve got to Initiate, Baby

Libido is Use it Or Lose It

Women are Not Like Slow Cookers

Preparing for Sex Throughout the Day

How to Get Your Head in the Game

What Does 1 Corinthians 7:5 Mean?

Getting Over thinking Sex is “for him”

Why Sex Isn’t Just for Him

When Your Husband Has No Libido

Reasons Why Your Husband Doesn’t Want Sex (with links to lots of follow-up posts)

What Does 1 Corinthians 7:5 Mean?

For Men: When Your Wife has No Libido

A Post to Read to Your Wife to Explain How You feel

When Your Spouse Withholds Sex

What to do When Your Spouse Withholds Sex

What Does 1 Corinthians 7:5 Mean?

When Your Husband Uses Porn

Is Porn the Same as Cheating?

How to Deal with a Husband’s Porn Use: A Man’s Perspective (great thoughts on how to get help)

Rebuilding Your Life after a Porn Addiction

When You Use Porn (or erotica) and want to stop

The Effect on Women of Pornography

How to Stop Dissociation (or needing to fantasize during sex)

Why 50 Shades of Grey is Bad for Your Marriage

What Are Appropriate Sexual Boundaries (like what is it okay to do?)

What is Appropriate Sexual Release

Should Christians Use Sex Toys

Sex Shouldn’t Need Batteries

5 Ways to Spice Up Your Marriage

Spicing Things up without 50 Shades of Grey

Deciding Your Boundaries

Sex Should be Mutual

When You Feel Disconnected from Your Husband and Have No Hope

Hope for Those in Troubled Marriages

Revive Your Attitude

Why Your Husband Won’t Meet Your Needs

Marital Success is a Matter of Attitude

Sometimes Marriage is Just Tough

Do You Feel Really Alone in Your Marriage (vLog)

How a Marriage Changes

When You Don’t Share a Friendship with Your Husband

Countering the Drift

Revive Your Friendship

Why Walking Together Works Wonders

Sex Once You’re a Mommy

17 Ways to Make Sex a Priority once you have Kids

Sex and Pregnancy

Sex When Your Hormones are out of Whack

Are You a Better Wife or a Better Mom?

When You Have Sexual Baggage

How to Come Alive Again

Healing from the Guilt of Your Sexual Past

Recovery for Victims of Sexual Abuse

Dealing with Your Husband’s Sexual Baggage

When You Can’t Decide about Birth Control

Birth Control Roundup

What About Teenagers?

7 Ways to Raise a Teen Who Won’t Date Too Young

What to do When You Discover Your Daughter is Having Sex

Dealing with a Depressed Teenager

Talking to Your Children about Sex

Should I Marry Him?

Four Things that Make a Guy Husband Material

Should I Marry my Boyfriend if He Uses Porn?

Remember to pin this post and share it on Facebook!

Wifey Wednesday: 50 Shades of Grey is Bad for Your Marriage
Great Undiscovered Marriage Blogs
Wifey Wednesday: Magic Mike, Marriage, and Women’s Libido

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Published on October 25, 2012 04:15

October 24, 2012

Wifey Wednesday: “Do Not Deprive” Roundup

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

For the last two days I’ve been writing about the meaning of 1 Corinthians 7:5:

Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

On Monday I argued that “do not deprive” is not the same as “do not refuse”, and shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that a spouse is under obligation to make love each and every time their spouse wants to. “Do not deprive” should not be used as a weapon.

Then yesterday I argued the other side: “do not deprive” means we should be aiming for the maximum of sexual activity and fulfillment, not the minimum.

Today I want to try to reconcile those two.

I don’t think it’s wishy washy to say that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Isn’t that so with most of Christianity? Is it works or grace? Is it free will or predestination? Wrestling through grows us!

And so we come to today’s dichotomy: self-control and passion.

Both are of God. Neither is better than the other. And in most marriages, one spouse leans more towards self-control, and one spouse leans more towards passion.

Why didn’t God make us both the same? Well, let’s pretend for a minute that He gave both of us super high sex drives. What would happen? We’d have sex all the time, but we wouldn’t necessarily work on communication, or intimacy, or vulnerability, or trust. We wouldn’t need to! We’d both have such high drives that we could get our needs met without any of that other stuff getting in the way. So we’d have rather shallow lives.

And if he made us both with tremendous self-control, so that we really didn’t desire very much ever, then we’d live rather solitary lives, and again we wouldn’t work on communication, and selflessness, and intimacy, and trust.

Personally, I think that communication and selflessness and intimacy and vulnerability are all pretty good things in a marriage. And here’s how the whole thing works:

The higher libido spouse feels as if they aren’t getting their needs met, and so they feel deprived. They may emotionally pull back a little. The lower libido spouse then feels that emotional distance and doesn’t like it, causing them to pull back. Both spouses have now pulled back.

Many marriages get stuck there. Both spouses hunker down, sure that they’re right, and nothing ever improves.

But that’s an awfully uncomfortable place to be. Not only are you not getting your needs met; you know that you’re losing your emotional connection. You get lonely. So what do you do?

In an ideal world, you decide to put your own needs on hold for a minute and reach out to your spouse. You start connecting emotionally. You even start connecting more sexually. You reach out where you can in order to bridge the gap.

But reaching out means that we’re going against our natural instincts. If we’re naturally more self-controlled, we’re trying to develop more passion. If we’re naturally more passionate, we’re trying to develop more self-control. And at the same time we’re developing selflessness, because we’re focused on how to meet our spouse’s need, not on how to meet ours.

That’s how God designed marriage! He didn’t design it to be easy, or we wouldn’t become selfless. He didn’t design a joining of two identical people, or we wouldn’t need to grow. But God’s whole purpose for us is to grow and become more selfless and more Christlike. And marriage is one of His vehicles for making us holier, not just happier. I do believe that marriage can make us extremely happy, but I think the point of marriage is that it first makes us holy.

So if you’re in a marriage where you have a major libido difference, don’t look at your spouse and say, “if only he would grow up and stop being so shallow!”, or “if only she would reach out and stop being so frigid.” Don’t look at your spouse at all. Instead, look at God. And ask Him to help you become more Christlike.

Our response to this problem must always be to look at God, not to try to change our spouse. Nowhere in Scripture does it say that we should demand our rights if we’re not getting what we deserve. That’s why “Do not deprive” should never be used as a weapon; it goes against everything Scripture is for. Scripture focuses on servanthood, not on tyranny.

But nowhere in Scripture does it also say that we can use God’s word to justify ourselves so that we don’t need to change, either. It doesn’t say, “if you’re in the right, you can just sit there and not do anything and act all righteous.” No, it says, “in as much as it is up to you, live at peace with all.” We are to do what is up to us. So if you feel your spouse is unreasonable, you don’t have an excuse to act justified about withholding love or affection.

Look to God instead of justifying yourself. Try this:

God, I know you’re a God of passion. You made incredible beauty. You created us with the capacity for such deep emotion and such deep intimacy. I want to live life abundantly, and I’m scared I’m missing out. Please give me a taste of your passion. Help make me more passionate in my marriage.

God, I know that you created us to be more than our passions. You created us to love you first and foremost. Help me to learn to lean on you when I feel as if I’m not getting my sexual needs met. Help me to grow in passion for you even if I feel a lack of passion in my marriage.

Use your differences to drive you to God, not to point out all the flaws in your spouse! Maybe God actually wants to change YOU. Maybe God actually wants you to grow and lean on Him more and live a more abundant, trusting life.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t areas that your spouse needs to grow, too, and you certainly need to talk to your spouse about this. But I still believe that the reason that God made us differently is so that we would be drawn to Him.

Look, people, I have seen this verse used as a weapon against spouses. And I have seen other spouses simply withdraw and withhold affection and sex from their spouses. Neither extreme is right.

So today, can you take this challenge: whichever area you need to grow in, whether it’s passion or self-control, can you commit to God to praying about it and practising it? Trying to “put on” passion when you’re not used to it may feel fake, but don’t shy away from it! God is a passionate God; He wants to help you. And trying to exercise self-control when you feel rejected is hard; but God is also a God who is used to being rejected. We all have areas to grow in; instead of seeing all the things that your spouse is doing wrong, can you commit to growing in this area? That’s what God really wants from you (even if He also wants the same of your spouse).

Note: If your spouse is completely withholding sex, I have written about this here.

Need to experience more passion in your marriage? The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex will help!

Now, what advice do you have for us today? Leave a link to the URL of your marriage post in the linky below!

Do Not Deprive Each Other Part II: What is Regular Sex?
What Does 1 Corinthians 7:5–Do Not Deprive Each Other–Really Mean?
When Your Spouse Isn’t Interested in Sex: Communicating Your Needs