Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 54
July 7, 2020
Reader Question: What if My Husband Thinks I’m Boring in Bed?
What do you do if your husband accuses you of being boring in bed–or when your husband thinks your sex life is boring?
It’s our Sex Questions You Can’t Ask Your Pastor month, and I wanted to start with this one because it’s a great example of how we need to look at a problem from three different perspectives if we want to uncover the real issue.
A woman writes in:
We have been married for 3 years. Our sex life has never been very exciting, let’s just say it is almost satisfying. After having a bumpy sex talk tonight my husband told me that on a scale of 1 to 10 his pleasure is at 1…. I find that very discouraging and I don’ t know what to make of it since he always finishes when we have sex and so do I. I may not be very adventurous in bed and I always feel clumsy but I want to change things and this is why I tried talking to him. He says that if it doesn’t come naturally I shouldn’t try anything because he wouldn’t like it. Please give me some advice.
That’s so hard! Our sexuality is really tied up in our identity. It’s in our sexuality that we’re often the most vulnerable–that the “real me” comes out. If your spouse then tells you you’re boring in bed, that’s a big rejection.
1. Is it You: Are You Comfortable in the Bedroom?
When you’re the one where sex has short-circuited
Don’t worry; I’m going to deal with his issues in a minute, because I do see several red flags in this email. But it’s always good to begin with ourselves–and you may have a similar problem to this woman’s but with a different cause!
She’s admitting here that her sex life hasn’t been that exciting, though she does reach climax and so does he. That’s pretty good! Not a lot of couples can say that, so she’s already doing pretty well.
One of the big reasons that it may not feel super exciting, though, is because we tend to do the same things each time, or we hold ourselves back. Sex becomes stupendous when you stop holding yourself back and you jump in with both feet–and any other body parts you want!
If we’ve grown up ashamed of our sexuality, so that it’s hard for us to say what we want, or to try new things, then it could be that “boring in bed” pretty much describes your relationship.
If you want to try to make sex exciting, but you really don’t know where to start, I’ve written a post on spicing up your marriage that you may find quite helpful! And if you want to feel freer in the bedroom, here’s how to feel more adventurous in bed.
Remember that God created sex, and He really does want us to enjoy it. It isn’t something shameful. There is nothing particularly holy about the missionary position over any other position, and there is nothing wrong with exploring your bodies and feeling good. You may have to ease into that a bit–talking to him if you’re nervous and keeping the lights off. But do try! And see how good you can feel.
Other posts you may enjoy:
10 Ways to Get More Adventurous in Bed
10 Ways to Ask Your Husband for What You Want in Bed
7 Things Sexually Confident Women Know
31 Days to Great Sex also has several challenges that will help you with this! Days 1 & 2 help identify lies you’ve believed about sex that may be causing shame. Days 14 & 15 put the “play” back in foreplay! And Days 22-25 will help you spice things up, including things like the “dice game” or how to make any position a new position! Plus the whole book is filled with opportunities to talk about what you want–in a much less awkward way! Pre-order it now.
2. Could it Be Your Husband: Are You “Boring in Bed” or Is Your Husband Emphasizing the Wrong Things?
When he’s the one where sex has short-circuited
There’s something about this particular letter that is sending some bad vibes to me. Many men wish that their sex life could be more exciting, and there’s honestly is nothing wrong with that.
But in this case he’s not looking for sex to be more exciting; he’s looking for her to be transformed into something else. “if it’s not natural, don’t try,” he says. That sounds to me like he isn’t willing to put in any effort; she’s just supposed to live up to some ideal of what he thinks sex should be. That’s not intimate; that’s not a partnership; that’s a distorted view of sexuality.
Also, she’s reaching climax, and he’s reaching climax, and he’s still rating their sex life a “1”. Believe me, many men would be ecstatic if their wives were enjoying sex that much, and for most men, that’s the majority of their pleasure–giving their wives pleasure. He’s not rating it a 5 or 6, though; he’s not even rating it a 4. He’s saying it’s a 1–the worst it can be.
Again, that says to me that there are some issues going on that have nothing to do with her.
He could be fixating on a particular thing he wants to try, and he’s so fixated on that that until he gets it he won’t be satisfied. Or he could be picturing what to him is a “good lover”, and quite often that image lines up with something someone has seen in pornography. Porn wreaks so much havoc with our expectations and with our libido, so that we’re no longer able to take pleasure in being together.
Often when a guy has a genuine sexual issue stemming from unrealistic demands, we women “own” the problem. We start to feel like the issue is with us, as if we aren’t beautiful enough or sexy enough or “nympho” enough. But the problem may not be with you at all. The problem may be that either our society’s warped view of sexuality or past porn use has put images in your husband’s head that make a marriage relationship seem boring.
I don’t know if that’s the case with our letter writer, and I don’t know if that’s the case with you, but I have seen this many times. A husband starts telling his wife she’s awful in bed or that she’s boring or that she’s frigid when really the issue is that he has used porn and robbed himself of the ability to enjoy a regular, healthy sexual relationship in marriage.
So examine yourself and ask, “am I being myself in the bedroom? Am I being vulnerable? Am I letting myself go and having fun?” And if you can say that you are, but he still isn’t satisfied, then perhaps it’s time for a conversation about where this is coming from. What exactly does he want you to be like? Why does he want you to be like that? If he can’t communicate it to you (as this husband seems unable to do), then it’s likely that he’s embarrassed to tell you what’s really going on. And in that case it’s probably good to start asking about past porn use or present porn use.
Other posts you may enjoy:
My Husband Wants Something in Bed I Think is Gross
Top 10 Effects of Porn on Your Brain, Your Sex Life, and Your Marriage
31 Days to Great Sex has a few big exercises specifically for couples who have porn use in their marriage to confront it, deal with it, and get rid of it. It also has detailed information on how porn hurts your sex life. And then, on Day 23, we talk through how to discuss your sexual boundaries. Then, throughout the book, you’re given a better picture of what sex is supposed to be like–and how sometimes porn and Hollywood can distort our vision of it! Pre-Order it now.
3. What are You Believing about Sex? Maybe we have the wrong view of sex!
When your beliefs have short-circuited sex
I’d like to offer one further possible take on the letter writer’s husband ideas that “if it’s not natural, don’t do it.”
I’ve heard many men express this sentiment, and sometimes it is linked to porn or a warped view of sex that needs to be confronted. But other times it’s linked to the fact that we tend to view the “correct” route to sexual response and sexual arousal as the typically male one–and then label women’s more common response and route to arousal as somehow deficient. Men feel as if women are placated them or putting on a show when it’s simply that women heat up in a different way than men do, and men can feel rejected and hurt when there’s nothing of the sort going on.
I’ve talked a lot about how many (not all) women’s libidos are more responsive than spontaneous: they don’t tend to feel a deep desire for sex until they actually start kissing and touching. They’re not aroused before the start; arousal only kicks in afterwards, and desire after that. It’s Module 1 in my Boost Your Libido course, and many women have told me that that message alone saved their sex lives.
It’s not that these women DON’T want sex; only that they respond to sex differently than their husbands might.
But in our society, “spontaneous” desire is thought of as the proper one, and responsive desire as the deficient one. Orgasming through intercourse is the “right” way, while needing a ton of foreplay means that you’re not really into sex. Women’s common responses are thought of as deficient, while men’s are normal.
This makes women doubt that we’re really sexual, when we in fact are, and it makes men feel as if we don’t really want them or don’t really want sex, when we do–we just heat up differently!
And add to that the additional problem where women can be mentally turned on, and want to have sex, before their bodies are aroused (it’s called arousal nonconcordance, and it’s very common in women), and you get men thinking that we’re faking, when we’re not.
So guys honestly feel, “if it’s not natural, then you’re just faking and forcing yourself, and I want it be natural,” when what they don’t understand is that natural for men and natural for women can look very different. Or, to put it a better way, natural for you and natural for me might look very different, because even among men and among women things aren’t the same and straightforward at all!
The problem is that if a guy has a high sex drive, spontaneous arousal, and little need of foreplay, then he’ll also get constant reinforcement from TV, movies, books, and popular culture that his experience of sex is right, normal, and “real”. If his wife has a lower sex drive, more responsive desire, and lots of need for foreplay, even if she enjoys sex and does reach orgasm, he’ll feel disappointed, like it’s not “real”. Then he’ll feel rejected and disappointed when there’s nothing actually wrong, and she’ll feel nervous and unsexual when there’s nothing actually wrong, either. If they can just accept each other as they are, then they’d likely find that sex was actually quite fun!
If this is you–stop judging each other; and start appreciating each other!
Other posts you may enjoy:
10 Things You May Not Know about Arousal in Women
Can the “Do Not Deprive” Verses apply to women, too?
31 Days to Great Sex helps couples understand different routes to arousal–even if he’s the one with the lower sex drive! Day 7 helps you talk through accommodating libido differences, and Days 14-18 help men understand that most women need more than intercourse to reach fireworks! Pre-Order it now.
4. What Are You Believing about Sex? Maybe we have the wrong view of “boring”!
When your relationship has short-circuited sex
The best sex isn’t when we try 10 positions in one night, or when we use sex toys, or when we act out a weird scenario. It’s when you feel completely and utterly one, and when you are open and vulnerable with one another. Intimacy is the best aphrodisiac.
So if sex has become boring, maybe what you need to work on is your prayer life together. Or perhaps you need to start being more vulnerable and sharing more of your dreams and passions for your family. Or maybe you need to talk about some of your fears, and have him share some of his fears, and work on building your emotional connection. Those don’t sound sexy, but in fact couples often find that the best sex comes after you feel so completely and utterly emotionally connected.
We also tend to believe that there is “good sex” and that there is “bad sex”, and that the “goodness” and “badness” is related to how spicy or freaky or totally into it you are. But what if it’s far more about how you feel together?
That’s really what 31 Days to Great Sex will help you see–that sex is holistic. Days 8-11 help you work on your relationship outside the bedroom to feel close before you try to turn up the heat. And Day 20 helps you feel spiritually intimate when you make love–which really is the key to great sex.
Whatever your sex question, those are 4 great lenses to view it through:
Is it me? Is it a problem with shame, trauma, anger, bitterness, fear, pain, or addictions?
Is it my spouse? Is it a problem with their shame, trauma, anger, bitterness, fear, pain, dysfunction, or addictions?
Is it our view of sex? Do we have some real misunderstandings about how sex works for each of us, and are we judging ourselves, rather than appreciating each other?
Is it our relationship? Do we think of sex only in physical terms, and have we neglected the rest of our relationship? Do we have big relationship problems we haven’t dealt with? Are we trying to tack sex on to a relationship that’s been drifting apart, trying to make up for not knowing each other anymore?
Of course, often (usually?!?) it’s not just one problem; it’s multiple. That’s hard to sort out!
But I hope 31 Days to Great Sex can help, because we take you through sex step-by-step, in a non-blaming and non-judging way, so that you learn what sex is supposed to be like; you stop throwing around ideas like “there’s only one right way to do this”, and you learn to appreciate each other. And, of course, you learn to talk about it, too.
The new-and-improved book launches July 14, but you can pre-order now.
I Need That!
So those are my thoughts on the “boring in bed” question, and I hope they show how, with most sex problems, it’s good to ask yourself which lens (or lenses) fit the problem best.
What do you think? Have you ever secretly wondered if your spouse is bored? How do you spice things up? Or how do you address it if there’s something weird going on? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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July 6, 2020
Who’s the REAL Sex Expert for Your Questions?
When you have questions about sex, or you want to improve your sex life, where’s the best place to go?
This month, as 31 Days to Great Sex launches again, our series will be on Sex Questions You Can’t Ask Your Pastor. I want to tackle a bunch of reader questions that have come in, and give people a chance to ask me some at my webinar on Thursday! (And if you sign up, you’ll also get a FREE copy of 31 Days to Great Sex AND my 24 Sexy Dares).
But a funny thing happened last week on Facebook. I announced my webinar and referenced the name–Sex Questions You Can’t Ask Your Pastor. Many commenters took to defending pastors, worrying I was maligning them.
In truth, I was just trying to be funny, but maybe I missed the boat somehow!
But I think it speaks to a bigger issue in the Christian community: where do we go when we need help? Is the pastor the best resource? So let’s start our series with where I think you SHOULDN’T go for help–and then talk about the best sex expert you have!
So let’s start: Who is the best sex expert you have?
All of us have questions about sex, and we certainly need safe places to ask questions!
But a lot of us don’t have those places. And when we don’t have a place to ask a question, the pastor is often framed as the go-to person (which is why I targeted pastors in my series title!).
When it comes to sex–is that really what we want? Do we want to be in a pastor’s office asking about orgasms or erectile dysfunction or vaginismus or female ejaculation?
I think most of us would say no–indeed I hope most of us would say no! And I think most pastors would actually agree.
We need to stop assuming that pastors should be the go-to for everything
We’re part of the body of Christ, and different parts are useful for different things. Pastors should be there to shepherd you spiritually, absolutely (although I’d argue that pastors can’t carry the whole congregation). But in other areas of our lives we may need extra help.
It is not appropriate to expect pastors to be experts in areas where they don’t have extensive experience or expertise
Most pastors have a four year undergraduate degree and then a two year Master’s degree, if that. Most take one course on counseling, and it isn’t extensive. To assume that your pastor can guide you when it comes to finances or marriage or parenting your special needs child or dealing with a terminal ill mother or dealing with sexual abuse in your past isn’t really fair to either you or your pastor–unless your pastor actually is an expert in one of those things. Chances are for all of those things, someone else in your congregation is better equipped.
Just because someone has a Masters of Divinity doesn’t mean that they know a ton about marriage or finance or business or abuse. When it comes to marriage and sex, most pastors only have their own marriage to judge from, and pastors often assume “everyone is like me.” (I think that’s one reason why higher drive wives often feel so left out!)
Before we accept help for complex problems like sex, make sure that they have expertise either through extensive education; working specifically in the field of sexuality; or conducting research in it and staying abreast of current research. Most pastors just haven’t done this (and nor should they. That’s not their main job). And so we should stop expecting them to be experts.
It is not appropriate for male pastors to speak one on one to congregants (especially women) about sex
I would hope this would go without saying, but women should not be speaking one-on-one with a male pastor about intimate details of her sex life–and most pastors would prefer not to be put in this situation. And if the pastor wants to do so, honestly, that’s a huge red flag!
It is not appropriate to expect pastors to be able to address sex in its entirety from the pulpit.
I actually get quite upset when people blame pastors for the fact that the church doesn’t teach well on sex, because how is the pastor supposed to do that? I don’t think it’s appropriate to preach in the kind of detail that would be required because teens and children are in the audience (as a very sex-positive mom, I still would have been incensed if my pastor had said the sort of thing I do in this blog). What churches need to do instead is offer book studies, resources, or extra events that fill in these gaps!
So where do you go for help when it comes to sex?
Well, first and foremost, I’m glad you’re here! And this month, in our series and in our podcasts, we’re going to tackle a ton of different sex questions! And, of course, this blog has so much information about how to make sex feel good or how to spice things up.
Need more help? Try these!
10 Tips for Newlyweds Who Haven’t Had an Orgasm
Finally Reaching Orgasm–-a Breakthrough
But I’m not the only one! I know lots of blogs where people fit this bill–like my friend J at Hot, Holy, and Humorous. When we did our research for The Great Sex Rescue, our book coming out next spring, the Christian book by far that I thought was the best about the physical aspects of sex was The Gift of Sex by the Penners. And, of course, just check out my books and courses for more!
Boost Your Libido Course$39.00
Sexy Dares–24 Dares for Couples$6.99
The Honeymoon Course$39.00
But here’s what I’d really like to suggest.
Who is ultimately the biggest expert about sex in your marriage?
You.
That’s right. You.
You can read all the books you want, all the blog posts you want, work through all the courses. But ultimately only YOU know what advice is applicable to your situation. Only YOU know what you’re really feeling, and what needs to change. Only YOU know what feels good, or what you want.
Other resources can help you uncover deep rooted issues, or put you on the journey to healing and discovery. But only YOU have the answers, because sex is deeply personal and unique to each of us.
And that’s why I believe that the key to improving your sex life is learning how to communicate openly with your spouse about sex.
Now, communication alone isn’t what you need, because many of us have shame that we need to deal with, or we have misperceptions that we need to correct, or we have a lack of information in general. And we do need help (and that’s why I’m here!).
But once you do have that information; once you do have an inkling what the problem might be; once you do have an idea of what can help–then you have to talk to your spouse about it.
All the advice and information in the world doesn’t do much if you don’t put it into practice or don’t figure out how to apply it.
This month, as we talk about sex questions you can’t ask your pastor (and please sign up for the webinar!), I’ll try to give you very practical help so that you can put what I suggest into practice. I’ll try to give you ways to talk to your spouse about it.
And honestly, talking to your spouse about sex is really what 31 Days to Great Sex is all about.
The new, super improved 31 Days to Great Sex launches on July 14, and that’s why I’m dedicating this month to answering your sex questions and trying to get practical about helping!
But what people who have worked through 31 Days to Great Sex have told me is that the most helpful part of it was not learning how to make her feel good; it wasn’t getting more comfortable with body image issues or spicing things up or trying new positions. It wasn’t even dealing with past baggage (although all of this was helpful).
It was simply having an easy way to talk about sex.
The breakthroughs came when they were finally about to talk about their sex lives.
Often he has the higher libido, and he doesn’t understand that it’s not that she doesn’t want sex; it’s that she has so many things going on in her head it’s hard for her to get in the mood! Or she thinks he only wants sexual release, where what he really wants is to feel connected.
We just don’t understand each other, and it can lead to so much hurt. I hope this month, we can get over some of those misunderstandings, and bridge some gaps. And I do believe that 31 Days to Great Sex can help you do that!
So sign up for the webinar this Thursday, and you’ll get a free copy of the book!
And remember: YOU really are the expert about your sex life. You know more than you think. You know what makes you tick. You know what information will work for you, and what isn’t right. Trust yourself. You’re not broken. And then let’s practice talking to our spouses about this, too!
Do you find it difficult to speak to your spouse about sex? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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July 2, 2020
The Sex Questions You Can’t Ask Your Pastor Podcast!
Do you have questions about sex that are super awkward?
Or even just non-awkward ones, but you don’t know where to ask them? That’s likely why you’re on this blog!
Well, in the month of July, our series is exactly that: Sex Questions You Can’t Ask Your Pastor. I’ll even be hosting an AWESOME webinar where you can submit your own questions. For just $20, I’ll answer as many questions as I can, PLUS you’ll get a FREE copy of the updated and superly awesome 31 Days to Great Sex (which launches again July 14), a FREE copy of our 24 Sexy Dares, and my post-webinar report of answers to the 75 most commonly asked sex questions! Sign up here.
To launch this month, we’re doing TWO cool things! First, I’m answering a bunch of your questions in this first podcast of the month, which is cool, in and of itself.
But the second thing that’s really cool is that we’ve decided to take the podcasts to video as well! So you can listen through your normal subscription channels (and I HIGHLY recommend you subscribe!), but I’ll also be posting the video of the podcast on YouTube–and welcoming my daughter Katie to the team as she now edits the podcasts and even stars in some of them (she’s in July 16!).
So before I link to all the awesome “extras”, listen in, or watch!
Browse all the Different Podcasts
See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast
And here’s the YouTube version of it!
For this podcast, Rebecca and I just tackled 5 different questions that had come into the blog:
How Do I Flirt without Feeling Awkward?
A woman writes in with this question:
I’ve been blessed with a wonderful husband who in the last year or so has been putting in some major work on himself (for various things) And he has been encouraging me to voice my needs more and to be more proactive in taking care of myself.
What I’ve found is that I am way more sexual than either of us gave me credit for because I was always waiting on him and he was always waiting on me… you see where this is going. Anyway, this learning curve has been great in so many ways, but it’s also brought to light how timid and just awkward I feel in trying to signal interest to him and build up “the mood” in myself.
I think it probably needs to be balanced with some advice for husbands too on how to respond and communicate, because several times when I’ve tried I’ve gotten weird reactions and it hits a tender spot in my heart. It makes me feel not quite safe in showing that side of myself even though I KNOW that’s not how he meant it.
Great question! Other links that can help:
10 Ways to Initiate Sex with Your Husband
10 Ways to Signal Yes to Your Husband
Why is it hard to initiate sex?
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I enjoy sex–so why do I never want it?
The next two questions have a lot of similarities, so I’ll post them both first!
My husband and I have been together for a decade. We were never a “sex every day” kind of couple…we reliably had sex once on the weekends, and occasionally during the week. I think the main reason we weren’t super active in the start of our relationship was because we were both gaining weight and commuting over an hour, so we were unmotivated and tired. Now we have a three kids under 5, and we are struggling. We sometimes go a few weeks without having sex, longer in rare cases…I think what worries me the most is that we both seem to be ok with it most of the time. We’re getting healthier and losing weight, and our kids all sleep well, but it seems like most evenings we’re just so tired. In theory, we’d like to be having more sex, but neither of us is initiating, so it’s not happening. Our relationship otherwise is pretty great. We make time to connect throughout the week and have a date night in almost every Friday. When neither of us is motivated to initiate, how do we make sex happen?
While filling out your recent survey, I realized that I am extremely blessed with a wonderful husband and a wonderful marriage. Besides that, my husband is an excellent, generous, caring lover. When we have sex, I am always able to orgasm, and we have a great time together. However, we currently have sex only about three times per month. We have kids, and we’re busy and tired. I also, admittedly, have some body image issues, but overall, there really isn’t an excuse for our sparse sex life. How can I make myself want sex? It’s not an issue of bad sex, or not having my needs met, so what’s the deal?
Great question! And in the podcast Rebecca and I talk about the different ways libido often works for women, and more.
But you may also enjoy:
10 Ways to Stop Being Too Tired for Sex
Why is My Sex Life So Boring?
And don’t forget my boost your libido course, too!
Are you TIRED of always being too tired for sex?
Do you yearn to actually WANT to make love–and figure out what all the fuss is about?
There is a way! And in this 10-module course I take you through what libido is (it may surprise you!), what affects libido, and how we can reclaim the excitement that God made us for.
Tell me more!
How Do I Tell if Sex is Feeling Good?
Then I’ve got two women asking about why orgasm is so elusive, and what they’re supposed to feel when their husbands are stimulating them:
My husband and I have been married for just a few years, and I’ve never orgasmed. Since listening to your podcast and reading your blog I have mentioned this to my husband a few times. For a few days it’s clear he’s trying harder to please me. The problem is I’m not sure if what I feel is actually pleasurable, and I end up pushing him away and not being able to carry on. When he rubs my clitoris I feel ‘something’ but I wouldn’t naturally call it pleasure. Sometimes it’s more like pain or discomfort. I may have some shivers, but it gets to a point where I feel scared to continue, partly because I don’t know what will happen, partly because I’m not sure it’s really enjoyable. Mentally I’m telling myself that it’s pleasurable, not discomfort, but I’m not sure. After a few times of this my husband seems to give up again, and won’t focus on me like that until I mention it again. What is it I’m meant to be feeling down there? Do you have any advice for me to push through and get past the fear? I’m hoping that once I’ve experienced it once I’ll understand what the fuss is about!
My husband and I have been married for a decade, both virgins at marriage. Our love life has been increasing in intensity over last few years although I’ve only had orgasm through intercourse 1-2x at the very beginning of our marriage. Out of some complacency, some frustration and a lot of naivety, we’ve not pursued orgasm for me successfully until learning that many of my friends are orgasming with their husbands through manual stim…. I want to too!!! I’ve read your posts about orgasm but I’m having trouble not being frustrated. We’ve tried a variety of times, but not successfully. How long does it take before people are successful? And does the clitoris need continual uninterrupted stim to reach orgasm or can it be interrupted and continue to orgasm during the course of an encounter?
To be frank. if he goes right for the clitoris before she’s aroused, she’s not going to feel much of anything! We’ve talked about this in some recent posts and podcasts, but here are links if you’ve missed them:
Arousal: The Missing Piece Podcast
Aiming for Arousal Podcast
The Secret to Orgasm: Listening to Your Body
10 Tips for Newlyweds Who Haven’t Had an Orgasm Yet
And don’t forget to sign up for our Sex Questions You Can’t Ask Your Pastor Webinar!
It’s just $20, and you’ll get access to my webinar where I answer YOUR questions, PLUS a free copy of 31 Days to Great Sex (it’s launching again July 14!), a free copy of my 24 Sexy Dares, and our report of the 75 most commonly asked sex questions.
Sign up Here!
What do you think? Any question stand out to you? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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July 1, 2020
Sex Questions You Can’t Ask Your Pastor is Coming!
Where do you go when you have questions about sex?
Likely you come here! In fact, that’s likely why most of you ended up here in the first place. You saw something on Pinterest about sex, or you Googled some frantic question late at night and hoped against hope that nothing gross would come up.
And here you are!
I’ve been saying for a long time that the church needs to get much better at talking about sex.
After all, we shouldn’t be embarrassed to talk about what God wasn’t embarrassed to create.
I know sex is private, but that doesn’t mean it has to be secret.
We shouldn’t be embarrassed to talk about what God wasn’t embarrassed to create.
(So pssstttt….that means it’s okay to ask questions about sex).
(Click here to tweet this quote)
I answer a lot of questions about sex on this blog and in my podcast–but I want to give YOU a chance to ask more!
I get so many questions that come in, and I can’t answer them all. And I tend to choose the ones to answer based on what I’m talking about that week or month.
So sometimes people have questions that I never seem to get to–even if they’re important. (Sorry about that! I really do try!).
And I don’t just try to answer questions. I also try to put out resources that can help you build a healthy sex life! Resources that can help you and your spouse learn to talk about this important area of your lives, too, so that it can grow into the passionate, intimate experience God intended.
So I want to give you both–resources AND a chance to ask a question!
After 7 very long months, 31 Days to Great Sex is available to buy again!
Check it out!
I self-published it for years, and it sold really well. But last year I made the decision to sell it to Zondervan so that it could get bigger exposure in bookstores and online platforms, and a new, revamped, and expanded version is coming out on July 14! I changed several of the challenges, and added a more “magazine” feel with lots of articles, tips, and information pieces scattered throughout so that it becomes a wealth of information and encouragement as you build your sex life.
It’s really the cornerstone resource to this blog, and I’m so excited it will be available again. It’s a simple 31-day challenge that you do with your spouse: every night you read 3-4 pages together, and you do what it says! And you’ll learn all the aspects that go into a great sex life, from flirting and affection and talking about your roadblocks to trying new positions and spicing things up!
And I want to give 31 Days to Great Sex to you FREE when you sign up for my webinar, Sex Questions You Can’t Ask Your Pastor.
July 9 (next Thursday) at 9 pm EDT, I’ll be hosting a webinar about 90 minutes long where I’ll try to get through as many questions as I can. When you sign up for that webinar, you can submit a question. I’ll get through a whole bunch, and then I’ll take some live at the webinar, too (you’ll be able to send them anonymously).
I’ll be honest–sometimes I don’t do the super graphic questions on this blog because I do worry about having certain words here or too much technical detail because of how search engines may classify me. And sometimes it’s just awkward to type some of this stuff! But in the webinar, I can be a lot freer. So it will be a ton of fun!
The Q&A period for my Girl Talk event is always the most fun for me. People write in anonymous questions, and I just answer on the spot, without weeding through them first.
The awesome Q&A box set up at a Girl Talk in Macon, Georgia
So it’s unscripted and real, and I think people get to know me even better!
Answering anonymous questions at a Girl Talk in Calgary, Alberta
When you sign up for the webinar, then, you’ll get a chance to ask a question, and a copy of 31 Days to Great Sex sent to you.
But you’ll also get a bunch of other resources!
This webinar costs just $20, and here’s what’s included when you register:
The 31 Days to Great Sex book
This newly revamped favorite includes 31 days of challenges to build a sex life that’s alive, fun, and satisfying. Choose the Kindle or paperback version.
(Value $18)
24 Sexy Dares
If you want to spice up your sex life, try these dares. 8 dares for you to initiate, 8 dares for him to initiate, and 8 dares for you to tackle (!!!) together.
(Value $6.99)
The 75 most commonly asked sex questions report
After the webinar is over, you’ll get this collection of the 75 most commonly asked questions from the webinar emailed to you.
(Value priceless ;))
I’ll give you my 24 Sexy Dares for free, too. PLUS after the webinar I’ll compile the 75 most common questions I was sent into a report, and I’ll send that to you as well!
So you get the webinar, 31 Days to Great Sex, 24 Sexy Dares, and 75 Sex Questions You Can’t Ask Your Pastor, all for $20. Which is basically what the book costs, so everything else is bonus.
It’s kind of like i’m throwing a celebratory party for the launch of 31 Days to Great Sex, but I’m giving you a bunch of the presents!
I’d love to see so many of you there! And, of course, if you can’t be there in person, you will still get access to the recording afterwards. But if you’re there in person, it’s even more fun.
Here are some of the questions that have already come in:
Is it normal for me to require my husband to touch my clitoris all the way to orgasm–not just as foreplay?
How does he actually perform oral sex in a way that feels good for me?
I need to fantasize in order to get aroused and reach orgasm, but I hate it! How do I stop dissociating?
It took me a while to be comfortable talking about sex.
I know it’s awkward.
What got me over the awkwardness?
Recognizing how desperately the Christian community needs an open conversation about sex that doesn’t hurt couples, because a lot of the information we’ve been given is actually quite hurtful. So let’s spread healthy information, even if it means a little bit of awkwardness.
And besides–awkwardness can be awfully funny, too!
Check it out!
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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June 30, 2020
A Shout Out to the Great Guys Who Share Emotional Labor & Mental Load
It’s the last day of our emotional labor and mental load series!
We wrapped up the big teaching points yesterday talking about how important it is that both spouses get down time.
And we’ve tackled a ton of things this month, including what mental load is; how to stop the nagging dynamic; and how to decide on common standards, among other things. And we’ve had podcasts explaining it, too!
One of the tricky things about talking about how exhausted many women feel with mental load is to make it clear that we’re not man bashing.
Our intention this month is not to make anyone angry at their spouse; it’s to help women (and it is mostly women, according to surveys, but in some marriages the dynamic goes the other way) articulate why they’re frustrated and exhausted, and give them ways to explain it to their spouse and find a solution together.
In the last few centuries, our society has gone under tremendous upheaval. It used to be that most families lived and worked together. They had a farm where they both worked; or they had a family business, like a store, and they tended to live above it or beside it. Dad would be around, the kids would often help dad, and the family all worked together.
When dads started going out to work and left the home, suddenly the home became the woman’s domain in a way that it hadn’t been before. We had much more stringent ideas, then, of “women’s work” and “men’s work”, and these became solidified. And because the church especially tends to see gender roles as crucial for marital harmony, these ideas of “women’s work” and “men’s work” had moral weight to them in Christian circles.
But then two things simultaneously happened: women started working outside the home, too, and life simply got more complicated. Managing the home became a bigger task than it was fifty years ago, and many women are also spending a lot of time outside the home earning a living. But the ideas of “women’s work” and “men’s work” haven’t kept up with the changes our society has gone through. And so many women are trying to do even more than their grandmothers did, at the same time as they work more. It’s no wonder so many women are exhausted!
Women’s mental load is not a problem with men as much as it is a problem with the way our whole culture sees the responsibilities of men and women.
Think about the fact that everyone assumes that women are better multitaskers, for instance. Studies have shown that this isn’t actually the case. So why do women multitask? Because they have so much to get done, often all at once. They don’t have the luxury of doing one thing at a time. But this cultural belief that women can just do it is one of the things that perpetuates our mental load problem .
So as we’re wrapping it up, I thought what I’d do today is to point us to something better.
Yes, there are a lot of women exhausted by way too much mental load. But there are also a lot of men who have fully embraced the idea of being an equal partner in the relationship.
Many men–and especially younger men–are not content to sit back and let their wives do most of the work of the household, and especially most of the work of childcare. They want to be fully involved. They want to be engaged with their kids. They want to be a team!
This is not just possible; it’s becoming normal in many Western subcultures (I would say that it’s the norm in my kids’ social circles). And if we keep speaking up, it will become normal all the more!
So I thought, to end this series, I’d highlight some of the big success stories that were left in the comments this month, and then invite you all to share your own stories of how you have a great husband who is determined to “own” mental load with you.
Let me start with a big shout out to my husband and my son-in-law Connor.
They shared last week on our Start Your Engines Men’s Podcast on how they have determined not to need lists, but to instead notice what needs to be done themselves.
(by the way, this is my all time favourite photo of the two of them, taken on a cruise a few years ago. They were each trying to perfect the “Blue Steel” look from the movie Zoolander. And this photo hangs on our wall):
And now–Shoutout to the Guys who Try to Break the Stereotypes
I love this story Andrea shared yesterday:
One of my friends got married last year and her new husband unintentionally caused an awkward situation at her parents’ house when, after Thanksgiving dinner, he got up from the table together with his wife, her sisters, and their mom, to help with the clean-up. This made the dad uncomfortable, so he asked his new son-in-law to sit back down with him, but the new guy made the situation even worse when he responded with, “Oh, I’ll totally come sit back down with you, just as soon as I finish helping in the kitchen.” Eventually, my friend’s mom asked my friend (her daughter) to ask her new husband to stay seated after dinner and not get up to help because it just made her (mom’s) life harder if her husband (the dad) was being emasculated by his new son-in-law. So now my friend and her husband pretend to be a traditional couple when they visit her parents in order to spare her mom from dad’s post-Thanksgiving grumpiness. My friend says that her husband not helping in the kitchen actually, ironically, makes the holiday get-togethers at her parents’ house less tense and more pleasant for everyone.
Andrea
I’m sorry the story didn’t have a better ending, but at least he tried. And I feel sorry for this young woman’s mom who has put up with this her whole marriage. Generation X men–we really can do better! And Generation X women–it’s okay to ask for more.
When Guys Recognize the Importance of Teamwork:
A lot of commenters gave big shouts out to the husbands who truly were partners and jumped in with everything:
My husband has honestly been great about handling some of the daily grind tasks. He almost singlehandedly deals with our laundry, which is fine with me since he’s much picker about how towels and sheets are folded. He also does the trash on a weekly basis without being asked, and is usually the one to deal with getting and sorting the mail since he grabs it on his way home from work. We both handle bedtime currently. I usually take the baby so I can nurse her, and he gets the boys settled. We also both handle dishes as needed, which will be much easier now that we finally have an operating dishwasher again. Handwashing multiple times a day for a year and a half was wearing on both of us! He also usually takes the lead on getting lunches packed for things like our homeschool co-op day before COVID shut it down for the year, and packing for day trips. Though I usually help with that to make sure we don’t forget sunscreen, and giving feedback on how many outfits and diapers are needed per kid.
I hope this doesn’t come across as bragging, because I honestly never realized until this series how good I’ve got it in the emotional labor area. I guess I just kind of assumed that both of us handling household responsibilities is how it was supposed to work. I do wonder if one factor in my relationship is that I did marry later than many in the Christian community do, and my husband was already a homeowner who was used to handling the entirety of household tasks on his own (aside from cooking, since he just usually grabbed prepackaged stuff or fast food.) So he was already accustomed to seeing what needed to be done and handling it without being asked.
Becky
My husband lived with housemates for 10 years before we got married. He cooked dinner twice a week and shared a chore roster with his housemates. He NEVER had the mindset that housework was my responsibility or that he needed to “help” me keep the house. He notices when laundry needs to be done and throws a load in. He folds more laundry than I do, and always empties the dishwasher and takes out the trash. When we had our first kid, the rule was that I was responsible for input (feeding) and he was responsible for output (diapers) — and I had also had a pretty traumatic emergency c-section after being VERY sick, so he had to take on more child-caring tasks than I think a lot of dads end up doing, and that persists to this day. I can count on my fingers the number of times in almost three years that I’ve given our son a bath or put him to bed solo. We do post-dinner cleanup together, always.
Reading this series has given me such a deep appreciation for him
Laura
Then there are the guys who truly “own” their areas of responsibility:
This series has been so helpful for me – in learning to be grateful for my husband!
We have our problems (I found your blog for a reason haha) but dividing tasks is something we have always done naturally. We both came from very traditional households where dad brought home the bacon and mom did everything (and I mean everything) else. I guess we both subconsciously knew we wanted something different.
He would never think to do a load of laundry, bathe the kids or pack their lunches, arrange carpools/play dates/drs appointments or vacuum floors. But he does all the cooking! And the bills. Light bulb or batteries need to be changed? The kids know to talk to dad. Pet food is low? His problem! Of course we can ask each other for help but he truly OWNS so many takes. And we share a google calendar so if one of us wants to make plans for a day the other person has something already on the calendar, cool. But it is up to the spouse scheduling over the other’s plans to find childcare.
Jenna
We always have room for growth!
And finally, I wanted to share one of the emails that touched me the most this month. It wasn’t only about this series, but it touched on it. And this one was from a guy:
On Monday I finished listening to your podcast on “Marital Rape, Consent, and Obligation Sex”.
It was a very sobering podcast for me because after some reflection I realized that much of the time in our marriage, to use Rebecca’s term, I’ve been a “pig”. That is not an easy thing to admit but I can now connect what was communicated to what my wife hasn’t been able to explain all these years (we’ve raised several children who are now adults).
It’s not that I’m into porn, or abuse or anything like that but I don’t think I understood the weight of being disappointed/frustrated/angry if my wife said “no”. I’d honor the “no” but not with grace and understanding. I also didn’t understand the emotional weight of tracking all the things in the house. I’ve always been good about helping around the house (cleaning up dinner, making the bed, etc) but not really taking the emotional weight off her shoulders. This of course is very selfish which is another hard thing to grapple with; admitting I am more selfish than I thought:)
We both love each other very much, are working through things and see hope for the future; and in reality God has been incredibly faithful and our married life is not all doom and gloom:) We’ve had great times together and look forward to more in the future.
So I just wanted to say thanks for loving Jesus, being passionate about the topics and message God has called you to communicate, not pulling any punches and giving voice to emotions and feelings that, sometimes, our wives can’t express themselves (or at least not in a way that we guys can understand).
G,
I love the humility in that email, and I hope that’s what we all can have. I’ve seen it so much in some of the male commenters on our site this month, too, and in some women who realize they have put too much on their husbands’ shoulders. So thank you!
We all have blind spots in our marriage (and I’ve shared many of my own with you, and Keith regularly shares his, too!). We all have room for growth. And I hope that when we read things that make us uncomfortable, our first reaction won’t be to just dismiss it out of hand, but instead to honestly ask: “Is this something I need to improve in?” And if it is–then let’s work at it!
We don’t have to be perfect. We just have to be moving in the right direction.
In my marriage with Keith, if something is bothering him, that should matter to me (although I’m not always the best at hearing it at first). We should listen to each other’s frustrations. And I hope that we can all grow!
Anybody else have some bragging they want to do? Or anything else they’ve learned this series? Let’s talk in the comments!
Posts in the Mental Load/Emotional Labor Series:
How Emotional Labor Series: How Mental Load Affects Marriage
The Fair Play Solution: Conception, Planning, Execution
The Emotional Labor Series: How Do We Decide Our Standards?
The Emotional Labor Series: How to Eliminate Nagging for Good
Mental Load Example: The "Let's Go to the Beach" Saga
The Emotional Labor Series: Why The Daily Grind Needs to Be Shared
The Emotional Labor Series: Why Everyone Needs Time to Themselves
PODCAST: What is Emotional Labor?
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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June 29, 2020
EMOTIONAL LABOR SERIES: Why We All Need Downtime
You can’t be emotionally healthy if you don’t have downtime–time when you can relax, pursue passions, or care for yourself.
We’re finally here–at the conclusion of our mental load/emotional labor series for the month of June! We’ve talked about the problem of mental load and emotional labor; we’ve covered the Fair Play system that can help solve the problem; we’ve looked at how to decide what needs to be done; how to divide up the daily grind (and why you should); and how to stop nagging for good.
And today we’re going to end the series by talking about the ultimate aim: that everyone has some head space and free time to develop themselves, relax, and care for themselves.
In other words–that everybody gets to be emotionally healthy.
Before we get started on that, I want to do a shoutout for my Sheila’s Spotlight product of the day, an affiliate product that I love and use, where your support helps me eliminate ads from the blog. Can I point you to Passion4Dancing? This online ballroom dancing course breaks down all the different dances into very small steps, so that each video builds on itself. It’s how Keith and I learned to chacha, swing, rhumba, and more! I love it, and if you’ve been having a stressful time with COVID, here’s a way to inject some romance back into your marriage.
This month, as we’ve been talking about mental load, we’ve been focusing on the book Fair Play by Eve Rodsky. It’s not a Christian book, so there is some language, but she explains the issues so well, and she guides you through how to have conversations as a couple about this stuff.
Fair Play:
A Game-Changing Solution for Sharing Mental Load and Emotional Labor--
that will transform your marriage!
Check it out here!
If I can sum up Rodsky’s system, it’s that:
Everyone “owns” different tasks in their entirety–conception, planning, and execution.
Everyone has to take at least 6 of the 30 daily grind tasks.
Everyone should have roughly equal amounts of downtime, even though the household areas of responsibility don’t need to be shared equally.
Everyone needs downtime.
But in our families, we often act like one person’s time is more important than another person’s time. Why is it that one spouse may be able to make plans to see friends or go golfing or head out on Saturday without checking with the other? Because there’s an assumption that they are not responsible for what happens in the home. They act like their time is more valuable than their spouse’s time. They can take time off, because they don’t need to consider what their spouse may want to be doing.
And that’s just plain wrong.
Yes, one person may have a stressful career.
But having the chronic stress of carrying the load for all the details in the family is routinely rated as one of the most stressful jobs there is. In fact, stress levels of stay at home moms are higher than that of working moms, according to a Gallup poll of 60,000 women. That’s not to say you shouldn’t stay at home with the kids. It’s only to say that we need to realize that this is a very stressful job, largely because you are never “off”.
And pssstttt….this can be why we grow apart!
Not just that women feel taken for granted–which we often do. It’s also that we start forgetting what made us truly us.
Before you were married, what were your passions, your hobbies, your interests? What did you like to talk about? What subjects were you really interested in, and where you knew everything?
Chances are a few things come to mind. These are the things that made you uniquely you. These are the things that made you interesting, and that your spouse saw in you when you married.
And yet, for so many women, these things disappear when they take ownership of what goes on in the household.
Maybe she even used to always have her makeup done and she chose great clothes and her hair was always cut, but now she wears it super long with split ends always tied up in a messy bun because she simply doesn’t have time to go to the hairdresser.
And then the spark is gone from marriage, because she doesn’t even feel like a woman anymore. She simply feels like “Mommy.” He feels like he married a wonderful, vibrant woman, but soon they only ever talk about the kids.
You can’t expect to have a relationship based on interests, ideas, and activities if she has no space to cultivate these things in her life anymore.
That’s what Rodsky says in Fair Play:
When my husband and I started dating, I was an ambitious, dynamic woman who challenged the status quo, fought for the underdog, and always had eyes wide open to civil rights issues that shouldn’t be left for the next generation. I was engaged. I was passionate. I was interesting, damn it. But after kids rocked our world so completely, I lost some of my spark.
Eve Rodsky
What Rodsky realized is that this lack of time to pursue who you were made to be is one of the biggest drivers of women’s stress, and also of marital distance.
In short, we should all be able to be interested in something, and to be interesting.
This is not to say that SAHMs aren’t interesting–not at all! And I’ve always said that I consider being home with my kids one of the highlights of my life. But unless we carve out time to make sure we stay who we were made to be, it’s easy to feel as if we’ve disappeared. And that’s very lonely.
And so Rodsky introduced what she calls “Unicorn Space”
It’s that time where you can pursue a passion or a calling that makes you feel more like “you”. For me, it’s a combination of working on this blog and writing and also knitting (I have the joy that my Unicorn Space and my job coincide). For Keith, his Unicorn Space is definitely birdwatching (and here’s something extra he saw on a walk just last Friday!)
I would add a Jesus component to this: He has prepared good works for us to do before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 2:10), and these good works are not ONLY about our family. They’re about our unique giftings and talents and circumstances. Maybe it’s volunteering somewhere, or leading a Bible study. Maybe it’s getting politically involved. Maybe it’s helping refugees get settled, or tutoring some kids who live down your street. I don’t know. But we’re all uniquely equipped to help in some way, and we all need to feel as if we’re listening to God and following His leading.
Rodsky’s Happiness Trio
Adult friendships, Self-care, and Unicorn Space.
We all need to spend time on these areas every week–and this is the only area where 50/50 time split is absolutely encouraged.
“If you’re resenting the time your partner spends on the Happiness Trio, you’re likely not claiming or carving out equal time for yourself, inevitably triggering feelings of jealousy and creating even more contention within your marriage.”
Eve Rodsky
How to Negotiate Time Off with Your Spouse
Maybe your home is just really busy, and you may only be able to garner a few hours by yourself each week. When my husband was working really hard in his pediatric office everyday, plus call at night, and I was homeschooling our girls when they were young, he ended up taking a half day off a week so that I could write. That was him honouring my “Unicorn Space”. He gave that to me so that I could start pursuing what I felt was my passion and calling, and it’s grown from there. I know other guys who take the kids Saturday mornings so their wives can head to a Starbucks and write for a few hours, or who do the bedtime routine and dinner routine one night a week so their wives can take a class.
And while Keith gave me Thursday afternoons to write, I gave him Tuesday nights to spend time with some friends in a historical war game club. So he had time to pursue something he loved, and I had time to pursue something I did.
1. If a spouse takes time off, they should not have to do more work when they get home
Don’t create the Sandra and Mark story from day one of our emotional labor series! If she gets time off, then he should do the chores that would normally get done during that time. If she gets three hours without the kids, but then comes home and has to cram three hours of housework into the next two hours, she isn’t going to feel rested or rejuvenated. So have a list of what needs to be done at that time, and make sure you both understand it!
2. Relaxation is important, in and of itself
We should not have to justify our time off. Everyone needs down time. If his downtime is fixing up a car that will never run and that will never be sold, and she would rather he be more productive, that judgment should stop. We all have certain ways we relax, and we all need to relax. It shouldn’t go on for hours upon hours, but we shouldn’t make judgments on how each person spends their time (unless it’s going to a bar or getting drunk or something!)
3. Down time works best if it’s regularly scheduled
Let’s say that he takes half an hour when he gets home to work to himself while she makes dinner, and then he does the bedtime routine with the kids while she takes time to herself. Plus she gets 3 hours on Saturday morning, and he gets Thursday evenings. When it’s regularly scheduled, then each spouse also knows that at other times, they’re expected to be pitching in and helping.
4. At all other times, if one spouse is working, both spouses should be working
If there is nothing to do and you’re all caught up, by all means take a rest and have some fun! But if one spouse is run off of their feet, and another is playing video games, that’s going to lead to a lot of resentment.
5. Just because you’re tired doesn’t mean you get to sit down
Here’s a tough one, where some grace is needed: sometimes someone has had a really bad day–way worse than usual. And they need to be by themselves. That’s valid, and please give it to them. Sometimes one spouse may have major health issues, or even just exhuastion from pregnancy, and they need to be able to sit and take care of themselves more than usual. Again, totally valid.
But if every single day one spouse comes home and says, “I’m tired, I’m just going to relax,” that’s not okay. If you are so tired that you absolutely cannot help around the house ever, or be engaged with the kids ever, then you likely need to get a different job. Everybody is tired. Everybody is stressed. Talk to your spouse about it and figure out how we can have a “down” evening, but you simply cannot justify playing video games all the time because “you’re tired”, and then making your wife the default for caring for the kids all the time and for cleaning up after you. Similarly, a woman can’t say, “I’m tired after looking after the kids all day,” and then have him make dinner most nights when he gets home, and have him put the kids to bed by himself most nights, while she does nothing.
You both need down time, and it isn’t right for one spouse to be put in the role of the servant of the other. That’s not teamwork or partnership. That’s using someone.
One of the most chronic stressors of women especially is seeing men have time to sit down while they are running around after everyone else
How many family events have you been to where the guys sit around talking and the women run around getting the food ready and clearing the table and washing the dishes? How many church potlucks have you been to where the women are busy setting everything up and taking everything down, while the men sit around and talk? How many nights has she put the kids in bed and made dinner and managed homework while he sits on the couch and stares at his phone or plays video games?
This is very disheartening to so many women. This is one of the biggest causes of stress and resentment in marriage. Many men have the luxury of sitting down and doing nothing, while many women don’t.
If we want marriages to be strong, and we want women to feel supported–and even if we want great sex lives–women simply can’t feel taken for granted anymore.
And the best way around this is to make sure that everyone has equal downtime, and that, outside of those times, if one person is working, they both are working.
This isn’t a lot to ask. This is simply fair and right. I have had such a deluge of emails from women thanking me this month for finally putting to words the exhaustion they’re feeling, and this, I believe is the final piece of the puzzle.
I hope we can work towards this–giving each other space to be both be interested in something, and to be interesting. To pursue God’s calling, and to take time to hear from God again. To feel as if we’re part of a partnership and part of a team, rather than a master-servant relationship.
That’s my heart for this. And now, I think, I’m done.
Posts in the Mental Load/Emotional Labor Series:
How Emotional Labor Series: How Mental Load Affects Marriage
The Fair Play Solution: Conception, Planning, Execution
The Emotional Labor Series: How Do We Decide Our Standards?
The Emotional Labor Series: How to Eliminate Nagging for Good
Mental Load Example: The "Let's Go to the Beach" Saga
The Emotional Labor Series: Why The Daily Grind Needs to Be Shared
The Emotional Labor Series: Why Everyone Needs Time to Themselves
PODCAST: What is Emotional Labor?
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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5 Ways COVID 19 Increases Mental Load
We’re finishing up our mental load series at To Love, Honor and Vacuum!
I’ve got one more important thing to cover on Monday–why we all need time to ourselves–but we’ve covered a lot of ground this month. And I’ve had so many people write in and tell me: “I finally have words for what I’m feeling!” Which is a great feeling for me!
I originally planned this series to run in April, but then COVID hit, and I thought that doing a series on housework wasn’t really a good thing to do when everyone’s lives were upside down. But when it looked like this was going to last a while, I thought I may as well jump in anyway. And the more I think about it, the more applicable I think it is for what we’re going through right now.
So here are 5 reasons why COVID makes mental load worse.
1. Big life events are now much more complicated
Life goes on, even in a pandemic. People still move, babies are born, people die and need to be buried. But given the pandemic, all of those major life events, which are full of additional mental load and stress at the best of times, become much more stressful in a pandemic.
The TLHV team has had a bit of a baby boom in the last year. Three millennials on staff with the blog have had babies in the last year (two in the last month) and another is currently 31 weeks pregnant. As for the Gen Xers? Well, we’ve all become grandparents for the first time in the last year. Every birth except Alexander’s last October has been complicated by COVID-19. And all the new babies make decision-making about self-isolation that much more challenging. Baby showers are cancelled, it’s harder to get things you need, and on and on.
Trips to see extended family have been cut. We are helping to plan a wedding and the pandemic just adds layers and layers of additional complication and difficult decisions.
Keith’s great-aunt died of COVID last week, just a few weeks shy of her 90th birthday. It’s very sad that we won’t be able to have the funeral we would have liked and that the card caravan that was planned by family for her big birthday was obviously no longer possible. Mourning during the pandemic is difficult and I’m sure many of you are going through that.
Rebecca and Connor bought their new home just before the cases exploded in Ontario and they moved up their closing so they could be in their new home before the stay at home order. They had to move by themselves and haven’t been able to get “plugged in” to their new community because it’s not yet safe to do so.
Joanna’s husband Josiah lost his job as a lawyer due to COVID 19, and while they were fortunate that he got a great new position, it’s located in the Canadian arctic (seriously). They’re planning an extremely complicated move to Iqaluit, Nunavut scheduled to begin when the little girl they are expecting is less than a month old. Selling a house, quarantining, getting as much family to visit without risking the baby’s health and while dealing with border closures (Joanna’s parents live in the U.S.)… it’s a lot.
The military families on staff are on high alert and are in a state of uncertainty while they wait for new trajectories and orders. They’ve had to give up their expectations and plans for the next year and are now unsure of how things will move forward. That’s just the news from my small team… and I’m already exhausted just reading it! (Side note – check out the new staff photos on the home page). I don’t know what “big things” are happening in your family right now, but I’m sure there are big things. There always are. And whatever added layers of complexity you’re dealing with, I just want to say that I’m sorry you’re going through this. It’s not fair.
2. Everyone is home, so there’s more to do
The mental load is simply bigger because the house is being used for more than it used to be. Kids who were in school are home now, and they understandably make more of a mess since they’re in the house more. Plus, everyone has been cooped up for so long and spaces need to be used in new ways. That means new chore charts, figuring out new routines, and troubleshooting what isn’t working. That’s a lot more mental load!
And if everything is opening up where you live, there’s the added dimension of figuring out your new normal.
3. Formerly mundane tasks are now uber complicated
Take grocery shopping. Never the most fun of tasks, now you’ve got so many extra things to keep in your mind. Avoid touching produce, follow the flow of the store, stay 6 feet from people, and on and on. Doctors appointments need to be figured out – do you need to sort out an online system? Are you going in because you have to and therefore need to deal with all sorts of new regulations? Or are things being rescheduled indefinitely? All three of those scenarios add to the mental load associated with them. Whatever errands you need to run, they are ALL more complicated due to the virus. Bank hours are different, there are now people at the doors making sure it’s safe to go in, and on and on. No wonder we feel exhausted after a quick errand run.
I bought a new computer (online) a few weeks ago, and the wifi is doing something wonky. It won’t detect any networks unless I run network diagnostics, in which case it immediately detects them and will go online. But every time I try to go online I have to go through this rigamarole. Now, it’s just a hassle. It’s not terrible. But to get it fixed, I have to stand in line at Best Buy, 6 feet apart from everyone else. We keep going by, and the line is too long to stand in the sun like that. So I don’t know when I’ll get it fixed.
4. Job loss is very common, and always horrible
Many of you have had jobs disappear due to the pandemic. And with job loss comes a crushing mental load of a to-do list. Calling insurance providers to figure out coverage, dealing with applications for unemployment or other government benefits, job hunting, adjusting the budget to hopefully stay afloat until work returns. And after job loss, purchasing decisions become more complex and difficult, too. Where can you cut back? What is truly necessary? And on and on it goes. If you’re dealing with reduced work or job loss, please know that we are praying for you and we wish we could do more.
5. Kin-keeping is harder
We talked recently about kinkeeping and how vitally important it is. But, as with everything else, COVID makes it harder. How do you see family members who live abroad when borders are shut? Are you getting groceries for elderly relatives? How do you manage visits to see a new baby – who self-isolates when? Here’s Joanna sharing the added layers of complication they’re facing,
I’m expecting a new baby in August and we’re moving to the arctic in September. We won’t return south for awhile, six months minimum. It’s a lot to navigate at the best of times. If it weren’t for the pandemic, we’d have a revolving door of people coming to help with the baby and meet her before we head north, but that just isn’t possible. Plus, we have to trust family members to self-isolate before visiting to an extent that we feel comfortable with, which is hard. Everything is way more complicated and I frequently feel like the “bad cop” and that’s tricky, even when I know I’m doing the right thing by my baby and myself. There are so many more decisions to make, so many more difficult conversations to have, and so many unknowns to navigate.
Joanna Sawatsky
All of this is to say–give yourself a break if you’re feeling overwhelmed.
So many of you have said that the term “mental load” encapsulates what you’re feeling. So just recognize that it’s a real thing, and that it’s worse right now than it’s been in a long time. And that’s okay.
But maybe also take this time when we are home more, and when there is a more obvious problem, to talk to your spouse about it! Work through the first two posts in the emotional labor series, and read about the Fair Play solution. Listen to some of the podcasts. And I hope that this series has given you words for what you’re feeling!
So there you have it, 5 ways that COVID makes mental load more challenging. I’d love to hear what your experiences with mental load and the coronavirus pandemic have been. Let me know in the comments!
Posts in the Mental Load/Emotional Labor Series:
How Emotional Labor Series: How Mental Load Affects Marriage
The Fair Play Solution: Conception, Planning, Execution
The Emotional Labor Series: How Do We Decide Our Standards?
The Emotional Labor Series: How to Eliminate Nagging for Good
Mental Load Example: The "Let's Go to the Beach" Saga
The Emotional Labor Series: Why The Daily Grind Needs to Be Shared
The Emotional Labor Series: Why Everyone Needs Time to Themselves (June 29)
PODCAST: What is Emotional Labor?
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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Hey, Guys: This is What Mental Load Means to Women
How can men and women work together to understand mental load–and deal with it well?
It’s the last Thursday of the month, which means our podcast today is aimed at men (although both men and women can listen!).
And today we’re capping off our mental load/emotional labor series by focusing on what mental load means, and understanding why “just make a list and I’ll do it” isn’t what women actually want.
Before we jump into that, though, let me introduce you to “Sheila’s Spotlight” item today. Your support of my affiliate suggestions helps me keep ads off of the blog! And here’s one of my favourite products for the guys: Grillmaster’s Club. If you’re staying away from restaurants during COVID, what better time to up your barbecue game? Your Grillmaster’s Club subscription gives you a new barbecue sauce, new rub, accessories, recipes, and more every month. And it’s super fun and you’ll learn so much about grilling! Check it out.
And now, I’d invite you to listen to the podcast!
Browse all the Different Podcasts
Listen to the Last Regular Podcast
It’s often hard for women to explain what mental load means to them–but it’s the #1 reason for women’s low libido.
When women feel as if they have to keep all the details of the household/kids in their head at all times, because otherwise things won’t get done, it can be exhausting. They can never switch “off”. And if you can’t switch off, then it’s hard to switch on with libido!
So many women have said something to me this week that echoes this woman on Instagram:
I’ve been having SUCH a hard time getting into words mental load and why I’m having such a hard time as a SAHM even though I don’t work at all. The past few episodes you have released have finally given me WORDS and reasons why I’m feeling overwhelmed, even though my husband does a few things for me such as grocery shopping etc.
We’ve been talking about this all month, and today in the podcast Keith and Connor discuss why guys need to get more engaged at home (and what that looks like), and Connor and Rebecca discuss when lists can actually work.
But the big picture is the same: women really need men to be present and invested in the household life.
You can’t just say, “I’ll do the paid work, and you be responsible for the house.” Not when the house includes everything to do with the kids, and remembering all the in-laws birthdays, and remembering that there’s potluck at church this Sunday and we need to cook something, and remembering all the different extracurricular activities, and remembering that it’s our turn to bring the snack for the kids’ hockey, etc. etc. etc. It’s too much.
And even if a guy has a stressful job, he can’t check out of the home. Kids need their dads to know what’s going on and being engaged!
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But how do you figure out how to divide mental load?
I’ve got tons of posts on it this month, and rather than reiterating them all, I’d invite you to read them:
Posts in the Mental Load/Emotional Labor Series:
How Emotional Labor Series: How Mental Load Affects Marriage
The Fair Play Solution: Conception, Planning, Execution
The Emotional Labor Series: How Do We Decide Our Standards?
The Emotional Labor Series: How to Eliminate Nagging for Good
Mental Load Example: The "Let's Go to the Beach" Saga
The Emotional Labor Series: Why The Daily Grind Needs to Be Shared
The Emotional Labor Series: Why Everyone Needs Time to Themselves (June 29)
PODCAST: What is Emotional Labor?
If you’re going to read anything from that list, I’d suggest reading the first post on what emotional labor is, and the post on the “let’s go to the beach” conundrum. And then discuss them with your spouse. Often men and women have very different reactions to these posts, and so they’re great jumping off posts to talk about this stuff!
Rebecca and Connor also talked about when lists CAN work.
Yesterday on the blog Keith talked about why he kissed “just give me a list” goodbye. He realized that owning tasks was a much better way to do it!
But sometimes lists CAN work, and Rebecca and Connor talked through how they created chore lists for certain days, and then whoever is “on” the house that day has to do them all.
In my post on the “let’s go to the beach” saga, a number of commenters were also saying that they had lists for special events, like “what to pack when we go away for a week” or “what to pack when we go camping” or “what to pack to go to the beach”, and then they both chipped in and did what was on the list.
So that’s it! I hope that this podcast helps guys better understand what we’ve been talking about all month. Again, the aim was not to man-bash. It was simply to explain, “this really burdens a lot of women and is hurting marriages, and it’s actually a relatively easy fix.”
So that’s it for today! What do you think? Can lists work? Do men and women just see this differently? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila has been married to Keith for 28 years, and happily married for 25! (It took a while to adjust). She’s also an award-winning author of 8 books, including The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles. ENTJ, straight 8
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Why I Kissed “Give Me a List” Goodbye
Is it fair for husbands to just say, “Give me a list of what you want done and I’ll do it?”
It’s Keith here today; welcome back to Men’s Corner! It has been interesting to watch people wrestle with the concept of mental load over the month. The fact that in the comments much of the discussion seems to always circle back to the concept of how many housework tasks each person is doing makes me wonder if we might still be a little fuzzy on what mental load means, though. So here are some of my thoughts and experiences as they relate to the concept of mental load. Hopefully I won’t make it more confusing!
I think that managing mental load is something that Sheila and I tend to do fairly well. To be honest, though, some of that may not always be for the best reasons. It could be said that she and I ascribe to the “if you want something done right…..” adage a little too much. It is may also be possible that she and I have occasionally had the label “control freak” tossed in our direction.
Finally, it may have happened that over our years together there have been times where we would divide up household cleaning, then secretly go back and “fix” what the other did. We can laugh about it, which has always been helpful, but eventually we have learned over time that for some things it is really important to one of us that they be “done right”. So given the kind of people we are, we naturally just took over those things and did them ourselves. And if you really want something done right, you need to take charge of the whole task – to see it as a “package deal”.
But I have a confession to make – and it’s a real shocker, too!
In the first few years of our marriage I did almost nothing to help with the day-to-day management of our household.
Practically everything – not just doing the tasks, but also the mental load of planning & supervising all household tasks was on Sheila. Even the traditional “husband jobs” were off my plate.
Lawn care? Nope, we lived in a little apartment in downtown Toronto.
Household repairs? Nope, Sheila just called the landlord.
Balancing the chequebook? Nope, Sheila did that as well.
You see, when Sheila and I first got married, I was in medical school. Then we had our children while I was doing my residency in Pediatrics at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Now most of you probably know this, but the workload expectations for medical students and residents are somewhat higher than your typical jobs. Thankfully, things have improved since I was in training, but “back in my day” it was not unheard of for me to physically be at the hospital for over 100 hours some weeks. And when I was finally home, there was the constant need to study in preparation for qualifying exams (and to make sure you kept doing a good job with the patients you were caring for!).
Keith helping at the Rebecca’s third birthday party
Sheila & I were both realistic about our current situation and what my availability to the family truly was during that time. And after discussing it, she & I both felt the main thing I needed to be doing when I was home was to be interacting with the children. Of all the “tasks” in our household that was the priority. So my life for most of those first seven years was basically work, studying & kids. End of story.
After Keith’s residency exams; Rebecca and “Mommy” decorated the apartment door when he arrived home.
I say this because several people have been arguing in the comments that we need to realize “husbands are stressed, too.”
And, yes, I certainly understand that based on my own life.
However, the response to some husband’s stress not to give all husbands everywhere a “free pass”.
A good man wouldn’t want that anyway! He wants to contribute and to be valued for his contribution (whatever proportion is in or out of the home.
Instead, a couple needs to have an open and honest discussions about what each is doing both inside and outside the home including the mental load associated with that work. If one spouse has a job that is really emotionally draining then that definitely has to be factored into the equation. And of course we both need to be careful and remember that human beings tend to overvalue our own contributions and underestimate other people’s. If you don’t believe me, just imagine asking all the contributing partners in a business to estimate their percentage contribution to the company over the past year. I can guarantee you the number will add up to more than one hundred! When having those discussions, therefore, we need to keep an open mind and a humble heart. And we need to recognize that if circumstances in life change, we need to reopen those discussions and recalibrate in a way that is fair to both of us.
But some discussions in the comments suggests to me that talking about mental load in general is still a foreign language to many readers.
For instance, some male commenters have offered “Just give me a list” as a solution.
When I read that I think two things. First, they seem to honestly want to help. Second, they have totally missed the concept of what mental load is all about. So I started thinking of ways that I could illustrate the concept. Then I recognized I have had my own lesson in what mental load looks like due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
As I was writing this, I realized that I have had less time to follow the discussion on the blog this month than usual because I am busier – – but not in the traditional way we define “busy”. Two things are true for my practice. First, the number of patient encounters I am having is stable or decreasing and second, my workload is massively increasing. Covid-19 has made medicine a very different environment at present. Balancing the need to care for patients with the need to contain the spread of this virus generates a great deal of extra work. Whether it is going through my list of scheduled patients to decide who can be assessed by distance medicine options, trying to figure out what resources are still available in the community for families or reading up on the most recent guidelines for patient care to make sure I am doing everything right – it all takes a toll. If someone told me that the number of patients I have seen has dropped by 10% I wouldn’t be surprised. If they told me that meant I was 10% less busy I would tell them they are insane. I am much busier now than I used to be but the extra work is not clearly visible from outside. It is planning, adjusting, and organizing – all things that are difficult to quantify, but nonetheless very real. When we ask for a list from our wives, all that organizational load involved with the task stays invisible – and firmly on her plate. She can find that frustrating.
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Time for another confession. I didn’t always understand this concept and to be honest I was one of those “list guys”.
Interestingly, though, it was only for certain tasks and not others. Once I finished training and got settled in to practice, I started to have more time. Obviously, I “upped my game” and started to share more in the managing of the household. Although I am half a century old, I like to flatter myself that I am a fairly progressive guy. I like to think I am not wedded to outdated notions of “his jobs” and “her jobs”, but I must admit, the first things I took over during that time were the typical masculine jobs – looking after the property for our new home, taking over the finances, etc.
Now the interesting thing is that when I took those things on, I took them completely without even thinking, including the mental load that went with those tasks. I just said to Sheila one day, “Why don’t I take over paying the bills & doing the finances.” It was a fairly easy sell; Sheila instantly “gave” it to me and then stopped worrying about it completely. But that was no surprise to me, of course. When I had suggested it, that was what I had expected would happen. It was my job now. Similarly, I didn’t expect Sheila to do anything when it came to the property. When our first lawn mower stopped working, I didn’t ask Sheila about it; I figured it out on my own.
But when it came to things that were more traditionally considered “wife tasks” I must admit that I had a very different approach.
I was a “list guy” through and through. And in my experience it was a terrible place to be. I can’t believe the fights we got into over laundry! We ended up in a dynamic which frustrated both of us. Sheila was still in charge of the organizational aspects so she felt like the task was really still hers. Similarly, I was doing all the execution so I felt like I was being a total hero but getting no credit. Then Sheila would have the nerve to criticize the way I had done the task when in my mind all I was trying to do was help her out! I was frustrated that things had to be done a certain way for what seemed to me to be no logical reason other than that was the way she wanted it.
In reality it was because having never “owned” the task I had no idea what was involved. If I had, then I would have realized why things had to be done a certain way – or perhaps found a better way to do them based on actual experience rather than my convenience. In any event, Sheila still felt exhausted and I felt micromanaged and more like an employee than a partner.
Then we decided that certain things would become “My tasks” from top to bottom and others I could give back to her completely.
Everyone was happier. To me this is a much better solution than having a default setting of “give me a list”. I’d never want to go back to that! Even when we do have lists these days, we try to do a joint list. For instance, rather than saying, “I’ll get the groceries. Can you give me a list?” I tend to say, “I’ve got time to do some grocery shopping. Can we make a list together of what we need?” I no longer feel like an errand boy and my wife feels like she really has a partner. It is such a little thing, but it matters so much to her. It is a way of telling her both our contributions are valued. And of course, that is how we all want to feel.
What do you think? Can we get past the “just give me a list” dynamic? Should we? Let’s talk in the comments!
Posts Coming in the Mental Load Series:
How Emotional Labor Series: How Mental Load Affects Marriage
The Fair Play Solution: Conception, Planning, Execution
The Emotional Labor Series: How Do We Decide Our Standards?
The Emotional Labor Series: How to Eliminate Nagging for Good
Mental Load Example: The "Let's Go to the Beach" Saga
The Emotional Labor Series: Why The Daily Grind Needs to Be Shared
The Emotional Labor Series: Why Everyone Needs Time to Themselves (June 29)
PODCAST: What is Emotional Labor?
Keith Gregoire
Blog and Podcast Contributor, Co-Author with Sheila of two upcoming marriage books
Keith is the rock that supports Sheila, who runs this blog! Sheila and Keith married when Keith was attending Queen's University medical school in Kingston, Ontario. He later completed his residency in pediatrics at the Hospital for Sick Children, and has since directed the pediatric undergraduate program at Queen's University, and been Chief of Pediatrics at a community hospital in Belleville, Ontario. He and Sheila speak at marriage conferences around the world, and together they've also done medical missions in Kenya. Next up: They're authoring The Guy's Guide to Great Sex together! Plus, of course, he's an avid birdwatcher.
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June 23, 2020
Learning to Let Your Husband Serve You
All month we’ve been talking about mental load and emotional labor, and how much many women feel overburdened by bearing too much of the load.
But there is another side of this: some women have a hard time allowing/encouraging our husbands to help us because we want to be independent, or we don’t want to feel as if we need help.
So I thought, as we’re getting ready to wrap up this series, it may be good to hear from someone coming at the issue of mental load and emotional labor from a different point of view: what if your husband wants to share the load, but you’re not letting him?
Here’s Kat, the Pensive Soul, with some thoughts!
Sheila
“I’m trying to love on my wife.”
Ten months into marriage and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this phrase from my husband. The most recent may have been a several weeks ago when I was sick and miserable, (I mean on the couch, not moving, miserable) and my husband was in the kitchen taking care of things and asking me what I wanted for lunch. Of course, my stubborn butt said that he didn’t have to do it and I could get it myself.
However, my husband is just as stubborn as I am, so you can probably guess my response didn’t get very far off the ground.
So, when I continued to argue that I could get it and he didn’t have to take care of me, that’s when I received the “I’m trying to love on my wife” statement.
It’s beautiful and I’m so grateful to my husband for loving me so well. The countless times he’s said it to me (usually when I’m trying to be stubborn and just take care of something so that I’m not a burden to him) has made me think about the nature of letting our husbands love us.
I’ll start by saying that I’m all for equality.
Women can do a lot of amazing things and don’t have to be treated in any sort of condescending manner simply because we’re women. But, that being said, sometimes, in the quest to be strong, we forget the great gift it is to let someone else serve.
We’ve become so convinced that we as women have to be overly competent and able to take care of ourselves that we’ve lost the ability to let our husbands love on us.
Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “I’m a strong, independent woman, who don’t need no man”?
Yes, the grammar is horrible but the phrase has often become women’s battle cry. I’m strong, I’m independent, and I don’t need help. The end.
I like to think of myself as strong and independent. I’m uber competent. I can take full and complete care of myself. And I’m not the only one.
But what happens when we take that attitude into marriage?
After all, what is it that God asks of husbands?
Love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
That’s huge. But it’s easy to gloss over because in the Western world few, if any, of us, will be in a position where our husband literally must give up his life for our sake.
But the concept of laying down one’s life for the other person doesn’t just have to be literal. In marriage, we are to become selfless servants, man and woman, taking care of the needs of the other person.
Yes, we are independent women, we don’t need to be taken care of. But here’s the thing that I’ve been learning.
Needing to be taken care of is not the point.
The point is that in allowing my husband to take care of me, I am letting him love and serve me and I am in turn loving and serving him.
But wait! I’m still a strong independent woman and I don’t need a man!
Yes, I hear you. And you’re right. You’re strong, and you’re independent, and you’re completely capable. But what I’ve learned is that it’s not about whether we need it or not.
Allowing our husbands to love on us doesn’t mean that we can’t do the thing ourselves, whatever it is. Rather, it’s our own act of allowing our husbands to express their love for us in their provision, in their serving.
If my husband weren’t there, I could have gotten the chicken soup by myself. No questions asked. I still could have gotten it with him in there and offering to do it.
But if I would have gotten up to get the soup, I would have shot down his manhood. I would have virtually spat in his face saying that I didn’t need his help when all along he wasn’t offering because he thought I needed help getting the soup.
He knew I could get it myself but he was offering because he wanted to care for me.
I know it’s hard to restrain ourselves, to let someone else take care of us. So many times, I have to hold myself back from doing things I am perfectly capable of doing because my husband wants to do it for me. And it feels really weird, because I can do it.
But our capability to do it isn’t the point at all. The point is loving our husbands, and letting them love us.
Sometimes, okay a lot of times, we’re going to have to stay seated and let our husbands love us. And it doesn’t mean we aren’t strong, independent women. It means we are honoring our husband by letting him love us.
Kat Kalinauskas writes The Pensive Soul, a Christian blog, through which she uses the lessons God teaches her to encourage others in their walks with Christ. She and her husband live in Illinois where she spends her time reading, writing, and enjoying family & friends.
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Kat Kalinauskas
What do you think? Can you relate to this side of the emotional labor/mental load debate? Is it hard to let your husband do things for you? Let’s talk in the comments!
