In a ministry that deals with marriage, it’s difficult NOT to cover the issue of birth control. It’s a necessary decision to make —whether you consider it a viable choice for you as a married couple to use it or not.

From time-to-time we will receive letters from people (primarily women) asking whether it’s biblical to use birth control. Our answer is, “that depends.” The following is part of a response I sent out to someone asking our opinion on this:

As for your question about it being “wrong” if you use birth control, I have to say that I see nothing in the Bible that would make one think it’s biblically wrong (and I’ve looked because we’ve had many, many other inquiries about this). Birth control, as long as it doesn’t take the life of the baby (like having an abortion) is something that I believe as a follower of Christ, is wise and isn’t against God’s will for us, unless He individually shows us otherwise.

God created sex for many reasons. And one of them is for pleasure and intimate connectiveness with our covenant marriage partner. He wants us to enjoy having sexual relations within marriage with our spouse so we feel closer to each other. It’s actually a sacred act within marriage. (We have several articles on our web site in the “Sexual Issues” section on this subject.)

In the book, A Celebration of Sex, which is a Christian book by Dr Douglas E Rosenau, there are several pages dedicated to birth control. Part of what he says is this:

“The Genesis passage of being fruitful and multiplying is in the context of God’s giving humankind control of the natural world. We are to be wise stewards of the children God places in our care. To choose to have one or two or five has to be a thoughtful and prayerful decision. You as a couple will have to sort through which method of birth control best fits you as you consider personal sensitivities and values.

“…It is good for all of us to remember that God values family and procreation with the planting of seed and the possibility of contraception. Thinking through birth control requires us to sort through our theology of procreation and life, and the deeper meaning of lovemaking in God’s overall sexual economy.”

God gave us a brain to think with and use. And if we don’t think that it would be a good idea to have a baby at this time (or even ever have a baby) we need to pray about it and see if this lines up with God’s will for our lives and use our God-given wisdom to use something that will prevent pregnancy. Every baby that comes into this world should be seen as being a blessing and one that we are prepared to care for and raise as the Lord would have us. If we aren’t ready to have a child or we think we might not be good parents then we need to be wise and consider using birth control.

If, on the other hand, you become pregnant because the birth control didn’t work, then you need to view it as God’s way of telling you that He will help you to love and care for this baby. You did your part to prevent an unwanted pregnancy but if God over-rides your preventative actions, then this would be God’s will for you and you would then lovingly raise the child the Lord has decided to give you.

As for the type of birth control and other related questions you may have, I advise you to put “Birth Control for Christians” into your search engine of your computer. I put that term into the Google search engine and quite a few articles came up that looked very interesting and helpful to read. I believe as you read through what God inspires you to read, you will eventually know what God’s will is in this area of your life.

As you read each one, pray as to what God would want YOU to do. There are many opinions as to what may be the best birth control method, but trust God to show you what would work best for your family.

Please enjoy having sexual relations with your husband and if God leads you to, I hope you will use whatever birth control God shows you is OK. I believe you are being a wise steward with the wisdom God is giving you if you pray over whether or not having more children will work for you in your marriage. Just as the Bible says that there is a “season for everything under heaven” I believe there is a season to be “fruitful and multiply” and there is a season to stop the harvest.

So, to help those of you who are struggling with this question, we’re going to list a few links to some web site articles that you might find helpful — giving different perspective. We encourage you to prayerfully read through each article. You might also research more on your own if these don’t answer your questions after praying about it.

Please click onto the links below to read:

• CAN CHRISTIANS USE BIRTH CONTROL?

• BIRTH CONTROL: A CHRISTIAN’S PERSPECTIVE

• SILENT VOICES: BIRTH CONTROL

We have one last consideration we encourage you to to pray about concerning the issue of whether you should use birth control or not. Please read Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 10 in your Bible. Within these scriptural passages, the issue is raised on certain practices such as eating meat sacrificed to idols, and whether this was permissible for followers of Christ.

From what I read, the message was that “it depends” —just as we said at the beginning of this article. “Everything is permissible —but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible —but not everything is constructive” (1 Corinthians 10:23).

It’s a matter of praying about it, reading and discussing together what you perceive God is telling YOU as marriage partners —whether to use birth control or not, and then going in the direction God leads on this matter. When you ask for wisdom, consider all the facts, asking God for clarification for your life path together with Him, and then you will make the right decision, we are sure.

Please know that for all who read this, we are asking God to “fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may life a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:9-10).

The above article was written by Cindy Wright of Marriage Missions International. We greatly welcome your constructive discussion below to help others who may be reading this article.

Our first instinct may be to laugh at that “joke” but if you’re the one going through a hormonal change (or you’re married to someone who is going through that change) it’s no joking matter. It’s a pretty serious subject.

There are a lot of things competing to sabotage your relationship with your spouse and one of them is a wife’s fluctuating hormone level (if she is one who experiences this phenomenon).

“It’s not a subject most people like to discuss, but PMS or Pre Menstrual Syndrome can wreak havoc on relationships, especially when it is not recognized. Despite what many people seem to think, hormonal fluctuations throughout a woman’s cycle can be as hard on her as they seem to be on the people in her life.” (Sherry Holetzky)

Hormonal fluctuations can be something that attacks our bodies, emotions and our intimacy on so many levels, and it’s difficult for someone (particularly our husbands) to understand if they’ve never experienced them first hand in their bodies.

I’ll never forget a number of years ago, something that happened, when our sons were younger. I came to the realization that I was anything but a pleasant person when my menstrual cycle came around. So I thought I’d do my husband and two sons a “favor” by explaining that I would give them a “warning” when I was feeling tense, and that for their own good, I advised them to tread lightly for a while. I thought this would be a merciful act.

I remember well, one time when I gave the men of our household a warning to please ease up on their noise level and the manner in which they liked to tease me. I told them that I was struggling to “keep it together” and I needed their help to do so.

Our one son didn’t take my warning seriously because he proceeded to start teasing me right then and there. I immediately “lost my cool” and started screaming. I’ll never forget how he looked at me. All the color drained out of  his face and he looked absolutely shell-shocked. He just mumbled, “I guess you were serious … sorry!”

Yep! I was, and I can tell you that when I gave out my polite warning, no one tested my seriousness after that! We somehow came to an agreement that warnings were to be taken seriously.

One woman writes a solution she’d like to see happen:

“If I was going to invent something for the good of mankind I know exactly what it would be: a pill for men that would let them experience all of our worst PMS symptoms… The trouble is, I fear my plan would backfire. Instead of making them understand what we go through so they’d be more sympathetic, it’d be my luck to give [my husband] the pill and he’d expect me to cater to him. ‘Bring me the heating pad. Get me another Advil. Tuck me in for my nap.’” (Courtney Mroch)

Isn’t that the truth? As much as we may want sympathy and understanding on a different level, it could backfire in various ways —especially for the one who isn’t acting in an “understanding” way.

Another complication caused by these fluctuating hormones, happens to those who are prone towards depression and anxiety.

“While the symptoms of PMS are very familiar to many women, those who have a history of anxiety and depression or who currently suffer from anxiety and depression may notice that the changing hormonal levels during the month bring about increased emotional problems. The week before menstruation is well-known by women and feared by men as being the most emotionally difficult week of the month. That makes for twelve to thirteen ‘difficult’ weeks per year for women of childbearing age.” (Beth McHugh)

Actually, it doesn’t end there … even those who are getting beyond childbearing age battle with “difficult weeks” and even years when Pre-menopause and Menopause comes into play. (Somehow the word “play” doesn’t seem like the appropriate word here, does it?)

To help us deal with these problems and attacks on our bodies, minds and marriages, below are several links to various web sites that have articles posted on this subject. To read them, please click onto the links below.

(And if you have any input, suggestions, or comments, please “Join the Discussion” below this article so we can all benefit from what you have learned and are learning.)

• HOW HORMONES HARM OUR MARRIAGES

• HORMONES AND BEHAVIOR

• BEYOND THE POST-DELIVERY BLUES

• DEALING WITH P.M.S.

• NATURAL TREATMENTS FOR P.M.S.

• MANAGING MENOPAUSE

The above article was written by Cindy Wright of Marriage Missions International.

Nowhere is the challenge of those differences more evident than in the sexual relationship. I recently read a few suggestions about those differences that I’d like to share with you.

How to Impress a Woman

Wine her
Dine her
Hug her
Support her
Hold her
Surprise her
Compliment her
Smile at her
Listen to her
Laugh with her
Cry with her
Romance her
Encourage her
Believe in her
Pray with her
Pray for her
Cuddle with her
Shop with her
Give her jewelry
Buy her flowers
Hold her hand
Write love letters to her
Go to the end of the Earth and back again for her

How to Impress a Man

Show up naked
Bring chicken wings
Don’t block the TV

It’s a joke, of course, but there’s a kernel of truth at the center. This tongue-in-cheek list captures the fact that men and women are very different in their sexuality.

Sex was designed by our Creator to be a tremendous blessing in the marriage relationship, but it can also be a source of great tension. Many people marry because of sex; and just as many get divorced because of it.

…The challenge, as our humorous lists illustrate, is that men and women have very divergent sexual needs. …We differ in nature, intensity and timing. Throughout marriage, our respective sexual needs will ebb and flow. Rarely will they synchronize. Thus, couples will avoid a lot of misdirected energy and frustration by understanding that few, if any, husbands and wives have the same sexual needs.

Our general example of this is the fact that men peak sexually in their late teens and early twenties. Women, however, tend to reach their sexual peak in their late thirties or early forties. (Why did God engineer this difference? Probably so that we could have a few years of getting some real work done!)

Men are visually stimulated —they want to “see” their wives. Women are more stimulated when their emotional needs have been met. That’s not to say that women are blind to their husbands’ bodies; but they’re not nearly as visually oriented. (This has led to many a “lights on” versus “lights off” controversy in the bedroom.)

There are other differences. Men can get aroused quite quickly. They don’t have to have much foreplay, or even forethought, to be ready for sex. But for women, the turn-on to sex is very gradual. Marriage counselor and author Gary Smalley says that in the world of sex, “men are microwave ovens and women are crock pots.” It’s true. Women have to warm up to the idea of sex —and it takes awhile.

A man can compartmentalize the sexual experience. He can block everything else out. He could have just had the worst day of his life and been told that tomorrow is Armageddon, and still enjoy sex right now. That’s because to him, sex is just another compartment of his life. Not to a woman. A woman is inclusive in her nature. Everything that happens to her is connected to her sexuality. What her husband said to her leaving for work that morning, her interactions with the kids and/or her parents, and the overall condition of their finances is all connected to her sexual responsiveness.

Here’s another difference: For a man, sex is a primary need. For a woman, sex is secondary at best. In one study in which men and women were asked to rank how important sex was to them, sex consistently ranked 1,2 or 3 to men. Women, on average, ranked sex in the number 13 slot —right behind “gardening together,” which came in at number 12. That’s right, in the average woman’s hierarchy of things to do with her husband, sex takes a backseat to pulling weeds.

There are more differences. But the ones I’ve mentioned are enough to make the point: Men and women are different in nature and in need when it comes to sex.

Don’t Base Sex on Mutual Desire
With such wide-ranging differences in priority, intensity and timing, it’s clear that we must base our sexual fulfillment on something more than mutual desire. If we’re always waiting for our spouse to have the same sexual needs at the same time we do, we’re going to spend a lot of time waiting. Rarely are we going to have the same needs at the same time.

For that reason, there must be a spirit of servanthood in the marriage relationship. This was no secret in the first paradise. Sex was God’s idea. Adam and Eve were wired for ultimate sexual fulfillment. They could have had the ultimate sex, because God created them to serve Him and serve each other. They were helpmates in the Garden.

But they sinned and lost the paradise of their marriage. Do you remember that one of their first responses when sin came into their relationship was to cover themselves with fig leaves? Their sexuality was separated, withheld from each other, the moment they sinned, because the essence of the sin of mankind is to reject servanthood to God and others.

Servants Live to Please
Sin has made serving one another seem much more complicated than it really is. That was evident when a lawyer, who was testing Jesus, asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (See: Matthew 22:36).

Jesus answered, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

The two greatest commandments are a response to man’s greatest needs —to serve God and to serve other people. Serving others is the essence of why we were created. That’s why many servants are much happier than their masters —they live to please another person, not to please themselves. This is the way man is designed. It’s why government employees —from the police officer to the president —are called public servants. It’s why a successful employee seeks ways to help serve the vision and goals of the business he works for. And it’s why business owners succeed not by hard work alone but by making sure their businesses serve the needs of their customers.

If your goal is to please other people, you can do that all day long and be successful at it. But if you live to please yourself, you have taken on an impossible task. Like a dog chasing its tail, self-satisfaction is impossible to find when that is what you live for.

Man was created to serve. All fulfillment in life comes from being a servant. …The world’s way is to be served; God’s way is to serve. The world’s way teaches us to focus on our own needs; God’s way teaches us to focus on other people’s needs. Nowhere is this principle of servanthood more at work than within the marriage relationship.

The above article comes from the book, Our Secret Paradise by Jimmy Evans, published by Regal Books. “You will find that Jimmy and Karen bring their hearts and their experiences to every page. This book is biblical, practical and full of rich illustrations of the Evans’s home and marriage. They are open about their own hearts and their experiences, not painting a picture of perfection but rather one of being sold out to help marriages grow that are on their watch.

“The seven secrets —the foundational principles to a better marriage —will give you hope. If you are single and discouraged about the potential for a healthy biblical marriage, Jimmy and Karen will paint a picture of what it takes to have a great marriage and encourage you to seek God’s best for yourself. If you are currently married and struggling, this book will give you a road map so that you can make mid course corrections to recapture your own paradise.”

-ALSO-

An additional article you may find helpful on this subject is found on the web site for Marriage Partnership Magazine. Please click onto the link provided below to read:

• I’M NOT AGGRESSIVE ENOUGH

This involves taking the penis into her mouth and simulating intercourse there, often with a light suction. It may lead to orgasm in the mouth or outside of the mouth.

Surely there is some Bible verse for this one —but there is not. Oral sex is not listed as being prohibited, and God is never caught off guard. It falls within the broad freedoms we possess within marriage to explore each other and discover what pleases the other (1 Timothy 4:4).

One reason that oral sex is so desired by men is that it feels good! Another reason lies in the fact that the penis is the symbol of manhood. When a woman acknowledges that organ and gives special attention to it, she is letting her man know that she appreciates him as a man.

It is common for a man to struggle secretly with insecurity regarding his ability to please a woman, wondering how he compares to any other man she could have had (or has had). Oral sex tells him that he is man enough for her and that she likes what he has to give. And it doesn’t have to continue to climax, but it can be a part of foreplay alone. This is important, because some women do not enjoy oral sex for fear of the ejaculate.

There can be no coercion by either party to get the other to do something they do not want to do. But if both are willing, oral sex can be a wonderful enhancement to marital sex.

Novelty Items
Some people ask me about vibrators and other sex toys that they see the world using. Vibratos can be used to help a woman reach orgasm if it is acceptable to each party. Other things that are novelty items may also add some fun to the encounter. I am not a fan of “bondage” items such as leashes, handcuffs, whips and so forth, because it may demean and demote the other person. But I would not interfere with what is honestly mutually acceptable to both spouses. There are those who even find various foods such as chocolate, whipped cream or strawberries an exciting addition to lovemaking. It might make a great excuse for your wife to break her diet!

Some couples ask if there is a role for fantasy in sexual intercourse. My opinion is that as long as it involves just those two people, they can pretend to be whatever role they wish. A man can pretend to be a fireman rescuing a woman in distress. He must still be himself, playing a role. A woman can pretend to be a nurse, giving her “patient” a sponge bath or massage —you get the idea. A word of warning concerning role-playing is that each person must stay true to his gender. The man should never dress up or pretend to be a woman and vice versa.

God knew that in the sixty to seventy years we might be married to the same  person, there would be a lot to learn. Part of the excitement of marriage is the discovery of what makes the other person happy and what pleases them. As our bodies are constantly changing, we will never come to the end of our quest for knowledge and the delight of discovery, if we will only continue to pursue it.

In general, I find men more willing to experiment than women. A certain Puritan ideal, which conveys a false modesty, is prevalent in many Christian circles, even into the bedroom. Many women would never dream of wearing a Victoria’s Secret garment to bed because, in their minds, it conveys the world’s view of sex and women. The real problem with Victoria’s Secret is that it has left the secret place of the bedroom and now appears on billboards and television sets across America. It is not wrong in the bedroom if the massage you are trying to convey is an invitation to explore the sweet gift God gave your husband when He gave you to him.

Song of Solomon paints an intimate portrait of a wife who knows how to use the resources God had given her to both arouse and capture her man’s attention:

Why should I be like a veiled woman beside the flocks of your friends? …While the king was at his table, my perfume spread its fragrance. My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts. (Song of Solomon 1:7, Song of Solomon 1:12-13) 

And the man replies:

You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice! …The fragrance of your garments is like that of Lebanon. (Song of Solomon 4:9-11)

This is a biblical portrait of a sensual woman who has perfumed herself and worn garments that are pleasing to her lover. The sensual man makes wise use of those things the Lord has created that bring pleasure to a woman. God has covered the earth with beautiful flowers that display a rich palate of color and fragrance. Women are endowed with an ability to appreciate these gifts of love and affection. A bed sprinkled with rose petals is an invitation to drink deeply of love. The flickering of scented candles is but a prelude to the warm embrace that awaits her.

There are countless other examples I could give of questions I am asked from sincere Christians. The bottom line is that God desires sex to be fulfilling, pleasurable, intimate and lifelong. Sex is not the cure for all of life’s problems, but it has the potential to be far more satisfying than most Christian couples allow ti to be. It is not an activity, as men often see it, nor an obligation, as women may tend to view it.

Marital sex is an invitation God extends to a husband and wife through which He invites them to know one other person on this planet at a level and depth that will not be found anywhere else this side of heaven.

In the union of man and wife, or two differing yet complementary strengths, God reveals Himself in His creation. As we experience the riches of marital love and intimacy, we are drawn to the One who is the source of it all. As a result of our loving marital union with our spouse, we can reflect to the world God’s character, His love and His heart.

The above article came from the book Intimate and Unashamed, by Scott Farhart, M.D., published by Siloam. This is a book that is timeless and can be passed from generation to generation as a guiding light in an area of absolute darkness to most Christians. In it, Dr Farhart, one of the premier Christian physicians of San Antonio, Texas, approaches traditionally forbidden topics boldly. As the keynote speaker at highly successful seminars, Dr Farhart answers the questions Christian men and women of America are asking. His answers are not pious platitudes but are truthful, insightful, biblical and no nonsense in his approach. Review or Buy This Book Now

Ask your spouse, “Is there anything I can do to help you be in the mood more often?” Perhaps he’s bored with the routine. Perhaps she needs help with the kids. Consider together together whether lack of interest in sex is a new problem, or if it’s been this way since day one. Is he getting his needs met elsewhere? Does she seem to have no desire at any time? Is work particularly stressful lately? A man will often avoid sex because he’s having potency problems and is afraid of risking failure. This is why it’s so important to discuss his lack of interest in a supportive and loving way.

Seek medical help if the lack of desire is not a temporary difficulty. Physical reasons for low sexual interest in men include conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, extreme stress, and a history of alcohol abuse. Often the medication history can give clues, as a variety of drugs can impact libido and function. Anti-hypertensive medicines, medications used for migraines, and most of the SSRIs (Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft), so useful for certain anxiety and depressive disorders, can dramatically lower libido. If brain serotonin levels are relatively high —as is true for many patients on antidepressants —sexual dysfunction may occur.

People with high-stress jobs or very physical jobs can, indeed, be physically tired. A phenomenon that appears unique to men, though, and that seems similar to a general depression, involves an unsatisfying work experience, or a sense of “failure to accomplish” something significant in a lifespan. For many men, job performance and sexual prowess are tightly linked. In addition, failure to perform up to his own “standards” can begin a downward spiral of ongoing failure. If a man tries to have sex when tired or distracted by job or other concerns and can’t maintain a satisfactory erection or reach ejaculation, it can plant deadly seeds of doubt in his mind. These can be powerful enough to cause him to prefer not trying rather than trying and failing. Encouragement, support, and “another time, another place, another try” without pressure may resolve the issue.

A husband who experiences these episodes is hardly alone. The e-waves and airwaves are inundated with advertisements for erectile dysfunction aids —both prescription and non-prescription approaches. This change in publicity is striking. Erectile dysfunction has, in fact, surfaced as a major male issue and is frequently followed by seeming lack of interest in sexual expression. Erectile dysfunction along with premature ejaculation cause considerable male sexual difficulties. However, there are may successful therapies ranging from biblical counseling to specific medications for particular patients.

Hormonal issues can play a role for both men and women. As a man ages, the testosterone slowly decreases which may cause a noticeable change in libido, size and firmness of the erection, as well as force of ejaculation. For the man who has been able to perform “on demand,” these changes can be anxiety-producing, even frightening aspects of the normal aging process.

For aging women, besides the hormonal effects, body image seems to play an enormous role. As a woman feels less attractive and less secure, she may resist advances and be more reluctant to initiate sexual expression. So we find husbands with failing confidence in their ability and wives that are insecure in their appearance —a recipe for decrease in the number of intimate encounters.

For men, obesity may also be a factor. In a study of nearly 2,000 men at the Harvard School of Public Health, “those with 42-inch waists or larger were twice as likely to have problems getting an erection as those with 32-inch waists. Researchers suspect that’s because they had risk factors for heart disease —high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and inactivity —which compromise not only blood flow to the heart, but also to the genitals. The solution? Frequent work-outs and low-fat diet.”

Seek competent counseling. One woman wrote, “When my husband takes his arousal pills —about four times a month —we have great sex. But I’m angry at his need to take ’something’ to have sex with me.” Her words demonstrate how easy it is to take his low desire personally, but if he needs medication to achieve an erection, his lack of drive is probably out of his control. The available medications increase blood flow to the pelvis, and perhaps boost his confidence. Her anger would seem to be misplaced in this situation. This couple could probably benefit from a third party to help them have some difficult conversations in a supportive atmosphere. It’s not easy to talk with someone else about your love life, but sometimes a neutral party can help a lot.

Many counselors and most pastoral counselors, however, have no experience in sex therapy or dealing with these intimate issues. So try to find someone with training and expertise in treating sexual problems. Checking with your physician might be a good first place to start.

When the wife has a lower sex drive than her husband, she can still usually help him experience sexual release in a relatively brief time. Providing sexual release is more complex, however, when the one with the lower libido is the husband. Because sexual satisfaction for her generally takes longer, requires more concentration and ambiance, and is a reflection of the intensity of her feelings toward her man, the uninterested husband must involve himself for much longer to satisfy his wife. And her partner’s enthusiasm is more closely linked to her ability even to experience orgasm than it would be for many men with less interested wives. Nevertheless, it’s still worthwhile to have intimate contact, if only to assure her of his love, affection, and concern for her welfare.

Bear in mind that there are alternate ways to achieve orgasm even when the husband suffers from erectile dysfunction. Couples should feel free to explore and experiment in these areas. Perhaps once the husband is successful in these ways, his lagging libido will be less of an issue.

Some husbands are trying to be sensitive, but they often find themselves having painful conversations that go something like this:

HIM: “Do you need me to meet your needs tonight, sweetheart?”
HER: “It would be nice if you actually wanted me.”
HIM: “Hey, I’m doing the best I can.”
HER: “I don’t want some sort of sympathy session —doing it because you have to. You’d just be pretending.”
HIM: “Then what do you expect me to do? Lie and tell you I can’t wait? I’m willing to meet your needs. That’s the best I can do right now.”

The neglected wife will probably feel insecurities such as, “If only I were more beautiful” or “If only I were more sexy.” Even if doctors can identify a medical cause for the husband’s seeming indifference, these feelings are difficult for her to overcome. Yet it’s important for her to remind herself that God created her in His very image, so she is a beautiful creature, fully desirable, despite her husband’s medical or emotional issues.

Because a spouse’s lack of interest usually brings feelings of rejection and even insecurity for the more interested partner, he or she may be especially vulnerable. First Corinthians 7:5 gives the clear command not to deprive each other for this very reason —because it leaves one’s spouse more vulnerable to sexual temptation. If your spouse refuses to or can’t help you achieve sexual release, you as the deprived spouse must recognize the additional moral vigilance that must accompany such difficulties in your life.

The way your spouse decides to respond to your need, though, is largely out of control. If he or she ignores your pleas despite attempts at communication and intervention, seek the help of a third party. If your spouse remains unresponsive, you must live with the devastating realty of life as a celibate married person. The ongoing support of a trusted friend will be essential to helping you deal with such a loss.

In this case our Savior’s submission to the Father serves as a source of enablement and encouragement: “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23 NIV). That is not to say you silently bear it, opting never to bring it up. Periodically express your ongoing desire for marital oneness. Yet recognize that if your spouse fails to respond, it’s out of your control.

For many women, their husbands’ lack of interest is a source of ongoing grief, as sexual oneness was created as an essential piece in the marriage equation. If this is true for you, express your emotion to God, knowing He will honor your for exhibiting a quality that reflects the heart of God Himself —loyal, faithful love that cares for those who cannot reciprocate.

This can go both ways. Many wives are no longer available to their husbands after the kids are grown and gone. A man in such a situation must learn to live godly in the midst of her selfish approach, as well.

Jesus Christ understand the difficulties of the celibate life. In Ronald Rolheiser’s book The Holy Longing, he notes, “When Christ went to bed alone at night, he was in real solidarity with the many persons who, not by choice but by circumstance, sleep alone. And there is a real poverty, a painful searing one, in this kind of aloneness. The poor are not just those who are more manifestly victimized by poverty, violence, war, and unjust economic systems. There are other less obvious manifestations of poverty, violence, and injustice. Celibacy by conscription is one of them.”

As we’ve said before, the number-one sexual difficulty couples experience is the inability to talk about it. This appears to be a pattern that continues through the years unless couples make a specific effort to communicate about their intimate lives. Physicians estimate that nearly half of their menopausal patients suffer from a loss of sexual desire or satisfaction. And while approximately two-thirds of the men have noticed a decrease in sexual activity since their partners entered menopause, only half of the couples have discussed these changes together.

So the first line of defense of communication. The second is knowing what to expect. The third is knowing to seek help any time you experience discomfort or ongoing anxiety. Finally, focus on benefits of loving well at each age. In their time of youth, couples experience new, exciting sensations, and awaken to worlds of self-discovery. With maturity comes skill, confidence, and deepening intimacy. In old age, couples bring to each other the wisdom and joy of love learned over a lifetime. As the authors of Love and Sex After Forty remind us, “Love and sex are twin arts, requiring effort and knowledge. Only in fairy tales do people live happily ever after without working at it …but sex does not merely exist after the middle and later years; it holds the possibility of becoming greater than it ever was.”

Like the bride in Song of Solomon who felt free to say, “Dark am I, yet lovely” (Song of Solomon 1:5 NIV), we face growing old together by working to create a secure atmosphere to reach other. In that place, loving eyes look beyond physical imperfections and exclaim, “This is my lover, this my friend” (Song 5:16 NIV).

The above article came from the book Sexual Intimacy in Marriage, written by William Cutrer, MD and Sandra Glahn, published by Kregel Publications. There is even more in this particular chapter, that we weren’t able to include in this article, so for this reason and because it’s a good book, we hope you can find a way to obtain it. Sexual Intimacy in Marriage will help you to “understand why marriage is the only context in which authentic sexual intimacy is possible. In addition, you will discover a practical approach to many of the sexual problems and challenges that confront married couples.” “This easy-to-read book has blended the glory of sex with the realities of life. It addresses real people in a real world without compromising God’s wonderful design and purpose for His gift of sex.” It “holds in highest esteem the institution of marriage, and the sexual relationship is given its proper place within the context of marriage.” Review or Buy This Book Now

“There is no condom for the brain or the heart. So when you have sex before marriage you’re playing with fire that will most likely burn you at some point in your life… especially in your marriage relationship.”

And tragically a lot of couples are finding this to be true. How do you erase the memories you have of having sex with someone else and even playing “the comparison game” when you are making love with your spouse? And how do you deal with the guilt when you realize that you have violated God’s standards?

When you confess and ask the Lord for forgiveness, “God is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” but then there’s the matter of forgiving yourself and moving on in life past it. Premarital sex is sin and sin causes problems.

As Brian and Heather Jamison said,

“Premarital sex wounds the sanctity of a heart and, left untreated, can scar a marriage for a lifetime. We speak from experience; our relationship began with a fall. And we have the scars to prove it.”

To learn further what Brian and Heather learned that helped them to deal with this issue and to read about the “Four Keys to Reclaiming Intimacy” that the Jamison’s pass along to help others dealing with this situation, click onto the web site link provided below:

• HAUNTED BY PREMARITAL SEX

Lets hope not. Your marriage may not survive that long.

“In a marriage, sex is the spice that rescues our relationships from becoming mundane pursuits of chores. Adult life is filled with responsibilities. We have mortgages to pay, yard work to maintain, laundry to clean, cars to service, and so on. But none of us got married so we could load up on chores. We got married out of hope. We got married because we believed there was some kind of magic between us. We got married because we believed we could have great sex together.

“A satisfying sex life can add dignity to all the other pursuits of life. It is the thing to look forward to after a dull or miserable day at work. Sex is the moment of connection that creates a deep bond, even when sprinkled weeks or months apart. Sexual union adds an underlying deposit of strength that can help hold couples together when life threatens them apart. …God gave you this gift to be enjoyed, savored, and strengthened. When you enhance your overall marital well-being, the rest of your life is more effective in accomplishing God’s purpose for you.” (Bill and Pam Farrel, from their book, “Red Hot Monogamy”)

Most of us would probably agree that having a satisfying sex life and romantic life together as husband and wife is important to the health of  marriages. And yet how is it possible to achieve that after you have children and you’re so tired and preoccupied (and sometimes even the desire is gone)? Let’s face it:

“As soon as the baby arrives, nearly every aspect of your relationship changes —including your love life.” (David and Claudia Arp)

It may be that before you have children:

“You swear it will never happen: you will not become one of those couples who lets the fires of romance burn out as soon as children come on the scene. You know the ones – with puke stains on their t-shirts and bags under their eyes, they seem to have little in common other than an obsession with telling everyone about their wonderful child. Then one day you wake up with the Barney theme song running through your mind. You realize that your conversations with each other now revolve around sleep (as in who has had less), poop (as in who has cleaned up more), and the new host of Blue’s Clues. Maybe keeping the romance alive is going to be tougher than you thought.

“Take heart! Though it may seem impossible, your love life can survive the Diaper Phase…”

To read more, please click into the Family Life Today web site article to read:

• SURVIVING THE DIAPER PHASE

It’s important to survive the Diaper Phase because as parents and authors David and Claudia Arp say,

“Your kids will wait while you build your marriage, but your marriage won’t wait for your kids to grow up. …Becoming parents should not make us celibate, so how can couples have kids and still maintain a sex life?”

To read more, please click onto the Marriage Partnership Magazine web site link to read:

• SEX AFTER KIDS?

To go a step further, Sheri Miller gives another phase of marriage that has challenges all in its own. As she wrote,

“Everyone warned us that small children would impact our sex life. They forgot to mention teenagers.”

How do you overcome that obstacle? Please click onto the Marriage Partnership Magazine web site link to read:

• WHEN NO TIME’S A GOOD TIME

Upon reading the above articles, not only can you make the time and find the opportunity to have sex even after the kids are born, you should. And an added bonus is that you can become a better mom if you make it your priority.  Mother and author, Karen Scalf Linamen gives the following insight:

“I believe there is no conflict of interest between motherhood and loverhood. In fact, the bond that is created by sexual intimacy between you and your husband does far more than enhance your relationship alone—it also enriches the lives of your children. That’s right! The best mothers are not those women who devote every waking moment to their children. The best mothers are, indeed, those women who take the time—make the time—to cultivate, protect, and express the lover within.”

To read her reasons why, please click onto the Family Life Today web site to read:

• MOTHERHOOD AND LOVERHOOD

If you have additional tips you can share to help others in this area of marriage, or you want to share requests for prayer and/or ask others for advice, please “Join the Discussion” by adding your comments below.

Some of you may be thinking, is Scripture saying I can never say “not tonight?” No, but we would caution you to be very careful about how you can say it. Men are very vulnerable in the sexual area. You may think women are sensitive in this area, but men are even more sensitive. Remember, their feelings about their masculinity are wrapped up in their prowess as a lover. Your husband feels emotionally rejected when you turn down his sexual advances. It is important that wives understand the vulnerability a man has in offering himself to her.

Yes, there are ways to lovingly say “later” or “for now, let me satisfy you,” but we must remember that God says we are to give our bodies as a gift. Perhaps you think that since we are writing a book on sex, both of us are always ready and eager to make love. Not so. Like you, we get tired. We have wacko hormones. We often have “more important” things on our minds. Sometimes we find ourselves irritated with our husbands and don’t want to be in the same room with them, let alone the same bed. But we’ve made a commitment to honor God and be exciting lovers to our husbands. That decision helps our attitudes when sex is the last thing on our minds.

Our friend Brooke told us that she recently struggled with her attitude, yet made the choice to honor her commitment to her husband. She shares the following story from her journal:

Driving home on the snowy roads, my heart was singing. Tonight I would be alone. Jake had a basketball game with the church league and the children were each invited to a sleepover. An empty house. What joy! Visions of slipping into a bubble bath with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate danced in my mind.

When the garage door opened, I saw our blue car. Jake was still home. I was totally unprepared for him and his plan for the evening. With a grin, he informed me that a night of lovemaking awaited me in front of the fire. My heart sunk to my feet. I was anticipating aloneness—not togetherness.

I felt sad that my evening alone had vanished. Sex was the last thing on my mind. Perhaps I could get up for hors d’oeuvre sex, but it was obvious Jake wanted Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings! I just wasn’t in the mood. What was I to do?

My thoughts went to a conversation I’d had with a friend. She told me my husband never wanted her. I should be grateful that after 17 years of marriage, Jake still yearned for me, that he preferred a romantic evening with me over a basketball game. But I wasn’t. Not tonight. Help, God, I prayed. I love this man. Help me want to love him. One decision followed another. I prayed that Jake would not see how hard this was for me.

I told Jake how much I loved him, told him how I was going to give him pleasure, but my mind and heart were in the bath with my book. I continued to pray and love my husband. I choose to love him, Lord. Give me desire for him.

As I write, it’s hours later. My Jake is asleep. I can’t sleep because I’m still thinking about what happened tonight. It was a beautiful time of lovemaking—exquisite. Afterward we felt so close and intimate.

What a lesson for me. Yes, my plan was shattered, but how grateful I am that I made a choice and went with the new plan. I made one husband very happy, and I’m at peace that I chose to love. And someday, God will even have an evening alone for me.

Brooke had to make some hard choices to change her attitude but what a difference it made. She chose to give unselfishly and to allow God to work.

We don’t know the number of sexual relationships sabotaged by a wife’s poor attitude, but we know it is high. When it comes to sex, we must each answer the question: Will I selfishly demand to have my own way, or will I minister to my husband and trust that God will bless my obedience?

Making the right decision is never easy but there are benefits to adopting the right attitude. When we choose to love selflessly, we honor God, we make our husbands happy, and we find more pleasure in our lovemaking.

Dying to self is difficult, but it is necessary if you want to grow in godliness. Being godly means having a godly attitude. Godly attitudes result in godly actions, such as giving your body to your husband. This is easier if you surrender to God and allow His Spirit to work within you. “Nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). He is able to give you desire where none existed before. He can help you exchange wrong thinking with godly thinking. He can cause you to enjoy deeper intimacy than you ever thought possible.

God, I confess that I have not always appreciated your gift of sex—or even wanted it. I have shunned You and withheld my body from my husband. Forgive me. I want to be a willing and creative lover—but it’s hard. Please stir up in me passion and desire for my husband. Help me get my mind off myself and focus instead on him. I surrender myself to You and humbly ask that You begin now to work in me.

We can’t even begin to tell you how much we recommend that every Christian woman obtain this book. It is so practical, informative, biblical, and solid in its teaching! As once commentator said, “This is more than an excellent and well-written book, it is an important book.” And we agree!

Question: My husband and I are newlyweds, but we only have sex about three times a month. He just says he is unwilling to become more affectionate toward me. Sometimes when I bring up the subject, he pushes me away or gets sarcastic. Am I doing something wrong?

Answer: Eventually, you might need to see a counselor, but you can start with self-help. Begin by sorting out with your husband the source of his resistance to sexual intimacy. Ask him if you are doing something wrong. It will be important for him to feel that you genuinely care for him as you attempt to understand what is causing him to avoid sex. Review the following reasons men are resistant to sex.

Childhood experiences
Men who were raised without intimacy (especially the lack of bonding during the first years of life) end up resisting sex. They have sexual drive but no capacity for closeness and warmth with a woman. The sexual retraining process of gradually learning to give and receive pleasure can help a man gain the capacity and desire for intimacy. However, he has to be willing. The decision to pursue sexual closeness may require the help of a therapist.

Sexual addiction
If your husband is uncomfortable with intimacy, he is probably finding sexual release through self-stimulation. A sexual addiction may lead him to get sexual release by looking at pornography or engaging in some other sexual preoccupation. If so, he probably feels conflict and guilt about his secret life. Your sexual approaches then only irritate him because they remind him of his sexually destructive behavior. If addiction is the problem, you will get the most help from one of the 12-step programs.

Personal issues
Some men avoid sex because of a personal issue, such as their wives’ bad breath or an aversion to vaginal secretions. If that is the case, your husband may not feel comfortable telling you. You will need to free him to express whatever he is feeling, even if it hurts you. A personal issue can usually be resolved by changing the habit.

Sexual inexperience
Your husband might feel sexually inept. The good news is that a sexually inexperienced male responds quickly and positively to education about sex and to sexual retraining. If you feel competent, teach him by talking him through a sexual experience as you would enjoy it. If not, the two of you would benefit from reading aloud together and following the sexual retraining program in our book, Restoring the Pleasure.

Past influences
Perhaps your husband grew up with a dominant, controlling mother who depreciated men; or he might have received rigid anti-sexual teaching as a boy. If he came to marriage with deeper emotional sexual blocks caused by destructive influences such as these, you should see a counselor.

Feeling crowded
If your husband senses neediness from you instead of sexual desire, his sarcasm and pushing away may be a reaction to your approach. A turned-on woman is a turn-on for a man, but a needy woman is a turn-off. If this is the source of the problem, get help with understanding the gap in your life that you are trying to fill with sex. In addition, allow your husband to initiate all sexual experiences and work on ways to connect with him non-sexually to fulfill your longing to feel desired.

Overwork
If your husband puts all his energy into his career, he may have no energy left for you. This is clearly an issue of priorities. You will have to schedule time for just the two of you—even if you become an appointment on his crowded calendar.

As you can see, the solution you pursue will depend on the source of your husband’s resistance to sex. If the steps you take don’t achieve the results you desire, find a counselor who specializes in treating sexual problems. You can’t make your husband want you; you can only address the issues that interfere with his desire for you.

The above article (along with other great articles) is posted on the web site for Dr Clifford and Joyce Penner at www.passionatecommitment.com in the “FAQ’s about Sex” section. If you have additional questions about this article or other sexual issues you may want to try to contact them through their web site and pick up a few of their books to see what additional information you can glean from what they write.

In addition, there are several articles and a blog web site you can read through on this subject which are featured on various web sites. Please click onto the links provided below to read:

• WHEN THE HUSBAND HAS A LOW SEX DRIVE

• HELP! MY HUSBAND DOESN’T WANT SEX!

• MY HUSBAND HAS A HEADACHE

• HUSBAND WITH LOW SEX DRIVE

In addition, there is an article in a Question/Answer format that answers a plea for advice from a struggling wife. Please click onto the Gary Smalley ministry web site link below, to read what is written on this subject:

• QUESTION OF THE WEEK:
My Husband Has Little Interest in Sex

— ALSO —

For an article (and then comments below) written to HUSBANDS on this subject, please click to read:

• FOR THE HUSBAND: Why Sex Is So Important to Your Wife

If you have additional tips you can share to help others on this issue, or you want to share requests for prayer and/or ask others for advice, please “Join the Discussion” by adding your comments below.

Sometimes the well-worn excuse, “I’ve got a headache, honey,” is actually true. Just the thought of having sex makes your head hurt, and maybe your heart as well. It’s hard to feel amorous when you’re angry or disappointed, and it’s equally difficult to desire your husband sexually if you’re not attracted to him.

Many women in difficult marriages lack a desire for sexual intimacy with their mates—and you don’t have to look far to understand why, at least in part. We’re all aware that women are wired differently than men when it comes to sex. While men are aroused by physical and visual stimuli, women usually need to feel affection and trust in order to be responsive to a man’s sexual advances. When a wife receives her husband during intercourse, she is, in a sense, allowing herself to be invaded by him—not just physically, but on emotional and spiritual levels, as well.

Wives who feel loved and secure welcome this invasion as an opportunity to experience intense intimacy and pleasure with their husbands. But wives who lack sexual desire or who feel animosity toward their husbands often experience sex as a violation rather than as loving communion.

Many women in difficult marriages find sex undesirable. So, if you have problems in this area, know that you’re in good company—and that you can take steps to have a more satisfying and healthy sexual relationship with your husband.

You may be surprised to learn that Scripture can shed some insight into why you may be feeling resistant or resentful when it comes to lovemaking. In a well-known but often misrepresented passage about marriage, Paul writes, “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife” (1 Corinthians 7:3-4).

These verses have been used to browbeat wives into feeling guilty for not wanting to have sex or for avoiding it. But notice that Paul doesn’t say a wife’s body belongs only to her spouse. It says it belongs also to her spouse. As “one flesh,” a wife shares her body with her husband. Bible commentaries also point out that when Paul says we “belong” to one another, he’s not just emphasizing our ownership rights over one another, but he’s also clarifying that our exclusive conjugal rights belong to each other—no outsiders allowed.

This passage does not teach that a wife (or husband, for that matter) should submit to sex whenever, wherever, and however our partner demands it, no matter how we feel. Rather, it teaches that since my husband’s body belongs to me, I should care about it enough to give it pleasure whenever I possibly can, and he likewise with my body. In the same way, since my husband’s body belongs to me, I should also be understanding and generous when it’s not “in the mood,” and he likewise with my body. The emphasis is on mutuality, not selfishness.

At first reading, this passage may also seem to teach that sex is a duty, a required act. But duty is better translated as sacred responsibility. Paul is advising couples to continue to have sex on a regular basis because sex is at the heart of our sacred oneness and helps to protect our fidelity. The intent of this duty isn’t that a wife complies with a husband’s selfish appetite for sex on demand or vice versa, but to fulfill her sacred obligation to meet her husband’s sexual needs, keep the marriage bed pure, and keep each other free of sexual temptation.

Let’s look at another passage. In Ephesians, husbands are told to love their wives “as their own bodies” (Ephesians 5:28). “After all, no one ever hated his own body,” Paul writes, “but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church” (v.29). God describes a husband who loves his wife so much that he puts her needs as high on the chart as his own bodily needs! In regard to sex then, if a husband loves his wife this way, there’s no danger that he’ll mistreat her or take sexual advantage of her, because that would be like hating his own body.

In God’s ideal picture of marriage, if a wife wasn’t feeling up to sex, for whatever reason, the husband would honor and respect her feelings as if it were himself who wasn’t in the mood. If a husband doesn’t love his wife this way, he—not she—is sinning when he expects his wife to be available for intercourse on demand and without regard to her feelings.

Okay, so now we see that God didn’t intend for a wife to be a slave to her husband’s sexual needs. However, on the other extreme—saying that a wife has no responsibility or can shirk her obligation to nurture a healthy, ongoing sexual relationship—is equally wrong and unbiblical. A wife who regularly refuses to have sex or is only willing to be intimate with her husband on her terms is also acting selfishly. If you consistently rebuff your husband’s sexual advances and resent intercourse, you need to take active, positive steps toward restoring consistent and mutually satisfying lovemaking to your marriage.

Here are some suggestions to start you on the path to discovery and change. For starters:

Tell your husband that you want to improve your lovemaking and you’re actively pursuing positive changes. Assure him that you understand that you have a part in the sexual problems in your marriage. Be sure he knows that your goal is for both of you to be sexually satisfied.

Take a “time out” from sex. Paul said not to deny each other except for a time of prayer (1 Corinthians 7:5). The reason for a sexual hiatus isn’t to avoid sex—it’s to pray and take active steps to bring about change. It’s not to stop resentment from building; it’s to bring healing so that resentment is no longer an issue. Talk about this with your husband. Tell him what you’re doing and why. If he knows the goal isn’t less sex, but more and better sex, he’ll likely feel less threatened by a tome out and be more willing to see a counselor together, read books together, or otherwise, explore the problem. If he gets angry or refuses to respect your wishes, talk with a counselor in order to gain wisdom and support for what you can do.

Educate yourself. There’s not enough room here to address the myriad of emotional and physical aspects of sexual dysfunction, and there are plenty of good books available. One or both of you may have grown up with ideas or teachings about sex that are inhibiting you now. Some good Christian books include:

• Restoring the Pleasure by Clifford L. Penner and Joyce J. Penner

• Intimate Issues by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus

• Intended for Pleasure by Ed Wheat.

Check your history. Could it be that past sexual relationships are interfering in your present one? Were you involved in sexual activities earlier in life that you left feeling resentful and used? If you have a history of any kind of abuse, chances are great that you need healing from these hurtful experiences before you will begin to have a healthy attitude about lovemaking. Since this is a complex issue, you should seek help form a professional as soon as possible.

Rule out physical problems. Sometimes physical problems, such as hormone imbalances, inhibit a woman’s desire for sex. If your troubles have more to do with a lack of physical responsiveness than with emotional resistance, see a physician who specializes in sexual dysfunction and explore possible cause and solutions. You should also visit your doctor if you don’t experience orgasms, if you lack lubrication, if you find intercourse painful, or if you are on medications that might be interfering with your sexual drive.

Experiment with being the initiator. In most cases where a wife is reluctant to have sex, the husband is the designated initiator, which can lead to an unhelpful pattern in which the problem only gets worse. Authors Clifford and Joyce Penner point out:

Because the wife doesn’t show her interest in being together sexually, the husband begins to believe she has no interest in him sexually. His insecurity is triggered by her apparent lack of interest, so he anxiously beings to initiate sex more often than he would want it if he were feeling sure of himself in relation to her. She feels pressured by his initiation, so she begins to avoid him or pull away sexually. The more he approaches, the more consistent is her avoidance. The more frequent her avoidance, the more anxious is his approach. It becomes a negative spiral.

Talk with your husband about waiting for sex until you approach him. Many men, once assured that sex will take place, aren’t put off at all by waiting for the wives to signal their readiness. If you are the initiator it may remove some of the feelings of pressure and duty you experience. Instead, it becomes something you are giving, versus something he is always approaching you to take.

Spell it out for him! “If she [a wife] feels uncared for, she may believe the only interest her husband has in her is sex,” write the Penners. “He comes home from work, turns on the television, sits quietly at dinner, and watches television after dinner. Then at bedtime he becomes friendly—and her anger sizzles.”

Sound familiar? Tell your husband exactly what it takes to please you in bed and to make you feel happy to be invited there. You’d be amazed how many men just don’t realize that a wife needs to be courted during the day, instead of only five minutes before lovemaking. And chances are, it probably doesn’t take that much: a midday phone call, kisses on the way out the door, a long hug when he gets home. Be specific about what you’d enjoy and list for him several small things he could do to help you be in the mood more often.

Consider sexual therapy. For some couples, the road to a healthy sex life may require outside help. Often sexual therapy involves literally starting all over again with a clean slate. Couples typically follow a program that begin with nonsexual touching; over the course of weeks, homework assignments build back up to intercourse (Restoring the Pleasure contains a step-by-step program). If your husband is unwilling to see a counselor with you, consider seeking help alone. You’d be surprised how much progress you can make this way. A therapist may not only be able to help you deal with your own issues pertaining to sex, but may also help you find non-threatening ways to talk about them with your husband.

Be honest about turnoffs. It’s important to find a way to let your husband know what dampens your mood. For years, Catherine’s husband Jason had no idea that his wife was repelled by the smell of a prescription lotion. When she finally mentioned it one night, he was hurt that she’d never been honest before. Now he never applies his bedtime dose of lotion until he’s sure that they won’t be making love.

If it’s something he can change, let your husband know that while you accept and love him as he is, you’d think he were sexier if he could deal with this particular problem. If it’s not something he can change, the problem then becomes yours. In truth, your sexual responsiveness to your husband, if all else is well, shouldn’t be dampened by baldness, graying, or wrinkled skin. If they trouble you, you need to deal with your own thought patterns and values and try not to let them detract from lovemaking.

Making changes in your sex life won’t necessarily come easily. Some changes might not come at all. However, never give up or relegate sex to the old days. A healthy sex life is foundational to every marriage. The Penners put it this way: “How important is sex in marriage? A simple answer is that when sex is compared to an automobile, sex is to the marriage what the oil is to the combustion engine. At least a little oil necessary to keep the engine running—without sex, one’s marriage will eventually break down.”

Dear Lord,
Thank You for the gift of sex! I want to become more and more grateful for this miracle of oneness You created. Help me, I pray; to do everything in my power to make my love life with the husband You gave me all that You would have it be. Restore our passion, revive our affections, and fill us with mercy and grace for one another. Amen.

The above article came from the book, Lovers for Life which is published by Christian Publications, Inc. www.christianpublications.com. This book is an interesting compilation of writings from over 30 different authors on the subject of marriage. Kenneth Musko is the compiler and Janet Dixon is the editor.

Some of the contributing authors include: Gary Chapman, Kevin Leman, Cheri Fuller, Willard Harley Jr., Steve and Annie Chapman, and Bob and Yvonne Turnbull. What’s great about this book is that you get the benefit of reading on different aspects of marriage from many different angles because of the variety of authors that are included in it. Some of the authors are well-known and others are lesser known —which is great because it doesn’t really matter how well-known the authors are, it’s the substance of what they have to teach us. And many of the authors have some great things to say in this book.

There was more in this particular chapter that we wanted to include but we needed to respect the copyright of the book itself. We know this article will give you some help on this subject but you need to get the book to get the rest of the information. Also, this chapter is taken in part from the terrific book, Because I Said Forever, by Debbie Kalmbach and Heather Kopp (which we give further explanation of in the Resources part of the “Troubled Marriages” section).

Bill went from full-time freelancing to a full-time pastoral position at a church while also keeping our writing and speaking commitments—in essence, he has two nearly full-time careers. In that change came a two-hour roundtrip commute for Bill and our son Caleb. Then God blessed us with more speaking opportunities and my schedule picked up. Then another happy event took place: our oldest son proposed to his girlfriend and they set a date, and then he and his fiancés decided that date was just too far away so they moved it up. We’re thrilled with our new daughter-in-law, so of course we wanted to be very involved in wedding plans and celebrations.

After five months of commuting we grew tired of it, so we fixed up our home and put it on the market—and it sold in five days! Then we frantically had to figure out where to move just a few weeks before the wedding. In addition to this, we had two books due in this time frame along with our regular parenting responsibilities and speaking schedule. If any couple could claim no time for sex, we’d be in the running. Yet in all of this we have amazingly been able to keep the home fires burning. How? We chose to make sex a priority.

When scheduling demands first began appearing, we happened to be in the car driving to some obligation and began to talk over the situation. At first I (Pam) was a little frustrated and a bit melodramatic.

“Bill, I’m going to call the publisher and tell them I can’t write a book about sex if I am not going to have any while I write it!”

“Pam,” my husband replied calmly, “I can see why you might feel that way. We have always been authentic in our writing. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to try to fan the flame of our love life instead of bailing out on the project.”

“You know, Bill, this is where many couples are at. No time for sex. I was watching some talk show in my hotel room last week, and the host was saying that most Americans should cut their commitments in half if they wanted to get a sex life back again.”

“I’m sure many couples need to take a hatchet to their calendar, Pam, but we’ve always been a busy couple and yet made time for sex.”

“True. But this time it seems more difficult.”

“It can’t be impossible, though. God wouldn’t call us to an impossible schedule that would starve our sex life.”

“Okay, Bill, here’s the deal. Before when things got crazy, we’d call a time-out and head to a hotel for 48 hours and have a private marriage conference. Just order room service and have sex and relax. What if we tweak that idea?”

“I’m listening…” “What if we make this an eight week book? You know, an eight-week fan-the-flame refresher course? But I think we need to test the idea ourselves for eight weeks and then write it.”

“Sounds like a great idea, honey!” Bill reached over and put his hand under my skirt, “When do we start?” he asked, smiling.

“Right now if you want, but you’ll have to pull over and get us a room. Seriously, let’s make a concerted effort to make sex a priority during the next eight weeks and see if it heats things up a bit despite the schedule and responsibilities we are carrying.”

Then we began to discuss how to bring the honeymoon home again.

EIGHT WEEKS TO FAN THE FLAME

Think about it. In the next 3 months do you have eight weeks you two can set aside to make sex a priority? You don’t have to quit your job or spend a month in Europe or two weeks in Hawaii (although that might be great). You just need eight weeks where you both can say, “You are my priority.” If you are taking the nursing state boards or the bar exam, start the eight weeks after the test, but other than some extremely demanding responsibility, set aside the next two months for some red-hot monogamy. (Remember all the stuff we are responsible for? We did it and kept our day jobs. So can you.)

We found the key to success in sex when you are stressed is to feel the need for intimacy. It is impossible to write a book on sexual intimacy without experiencing some along the path. If all couples sensed the urgent need for sexual intimacy and kept the goal and the payoff in mind ( a strong marriage that can weather any storm), then more couples would enjoy passion more often. Sometimes to get the spark a flyin’ again, you need to remember back to why you first got married and how things were when you first fell in love.

THE NEWLYWED GAME

The first task of this eight week project to fan the flame of your love is to remember back to when you were newlyweds. The day probably went like this:

Wake up (often by initiating sex).

Shower together (so if you didn’t wake with sex, you made time for a quickie here).

Breakfast (if you had any time left; otherwise grab a granola bar). Then you both run out the door, kissing. While you are kissing you are making plans for the next romantic rendezvous.

“Can you get home for ‘lunch’?”

You worked frantically all morning because nothing, not rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor anything else was going to keep you from your midday “snack.”

You both zoom into the driveway and the minute you get inside the door (or maybe before on the sidewalk), you begin to shed clothes, and once the door is closed you tear at each other’s zippers and buttons in a frenzy of passion.

You enjoy a quick romp and grab a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich to take with you in the car on the way back to work. Midway throughout the day you call each other with messages full of innuendo and remembrances of your magical times together while you make plans for the evening.

“Want to go to the gym and work out together or to the pool and swim and sit in the Jacuzzi?”

“Want me to make your favorite dish?” “You are my favorite dish!” and you flirt back and forth enough to make everyone within earshot jealous by your obvious and open lovesickness.

The evening then may consist of a walk, a talk, a swim, or time in the Jacuzzi, or a romantic movie. You might cook together and feed each other because that’s what lovers do. As newlyweds, you make time for the foreplay and romantic and interesting conversation. Sex is relaxed and sleep comes easy because you both feel so terrific. Finally, you fall asleep content in each others arms and wake up to begin the same wonderful routine all over the next day.

WHO STOLE MAUI?

Why does this routine change? In a word, responsibility. The average couple doubles their level of responsibility every 10 years, so by the time you’re a midlife couple you are running everything:

• Running the kids to their numerous outside activities.
• Running the PTA, the church board, or the city council.
• Running your own corporation or someone else’s.
• Running to meet friends, to the mall, to get the dog or yourself groomed.
• Running to care for your aging parents, the neighbor, or your best friend.

Life seems to catch couples running to everything except into each other’s arms. While these are all good, worthwhile, and important activities, couples need to make each other something you run to regularly too.

Couples need T.I.M.E together. Here is what we see as the minimum time commitment you should have to maintain (not deepen or grow a relationship, but just maintain the minimum connectedness needed for a healthy strong marriage with little red-hot monogamy.

Ten to twenty minutes to talk together alone every day. (Time in the car with the kids listening doesn’t count.)

Invest in a weekly date night (or date breakfast or lunch) together for at least 4 hours. (It takes a couple of hours to emotionally connect, and then you want to leave a least a few minutes for sex.)

Make a monthly “day away” policy. At least once a month spend 8 to 12 uninterrupted hours together to reconnect. You can spend time doing things you both enjoy: errands, shopping, exercising, or a relaxing activity or hobby. Be sure you have the house alone (or at least your bedroom) for a few moments of red-hot monogamy sometime during this special day together.

Escape quarterly (or at least bi-annually) for a 48-hour weekend.

Will you give 8 weeks of red-hot monogamy a shot? If so, both sign the commitment section below:

I _________ (husband) do passionately commit to _________ (wife), and I _________ (wife) do passionately commit to _________ (husband) to make you a priority for the next several weeks, and I am anxiously look forward to investing in our love life together and producing some red-hot monogamy.

Signed:

___________________________________(Husband)

___________________________________(Wife)

Date:__________________________

Start of 8 weeks of red-hot monogamy_____________ to end of 8 weeks _______________.

The above article comes from the book, Red Hot Monogamy… Making Your Marriage Sizzle, by Bill and Pam Farrel, published by Harvest House Publishers www.harvesthousepublishers.com.

This particular article is part of a chapter titled, “Bringing the Honeymoon Home.” The rest of the chapter describes the steps to bringing the Honeymoon home. We wish we could include them in this article, but we really need to honor the author’s copyright and so we recommend that you find a way to obtain the book to learn the rest of what the authors Bill and Pam have to say on this subject.

The main point of the book is that “sex is not to be an event—sex is to be a relationship.” In this book, Bill and Pam Farrel give you practical, personal tips for creating the kind of sex life that really works. They have a lot of fun with the topic, but in actuality they believe that sex is a serious matter.

As they say,

“In a marriage, sex is the spice that rescues our relationships from becoming mundane pursuits of chores. Adult life is filled with responsibilities. We have mortgages to pay, yard work to maintain, laundry to clean, cars to service, and so on. But none of us got married so we could load up on chores. We got married out of hope. We got married because we believed there was some kind of magic between us. We got married because we believed we could have great sex together.

“A satisfying sex life can add dignity to all the other pursuits of life. It is the thing to look forward to after a dull or miserable day at work. Sex is the moment of connection that creates a deep bond, even when sprinkled weeks or months apart. Sexual union adds an underlying deposit of strength that can help hold couples together when life threatens them apart. …Because we recognize the powerful impact of good marital sex, our goal is to fan the flame of your love. God gave you this gift to be enjoyed, savored, and strengthened. When you enhance your overall marital well-being, the rest of your life is more effective in accomplishing God’s purpose for you.”

Whether you and your spouse are newlyweds, a mature couple still young at heart, or somewhere in between—this book offers hundreds of ideas to fan the flame of love and gives an understanding of your spouse that will inspire romance and passion to fuel every aspect of your lives.

“I’ve been married 10 years. There were times when once in three months was a good thing,” said a 33-year-old Santa Clara County employee who didn’t want her name used. “It’s feeding the kids, getting them to bed, all after putting in a full day and commuting. I have a ‘no-sex-after-8 o’clock’ rule. When I crawl into bed, I want to go to sleep.”

Low sex drive is such a problem, said Al Cooper of the San Jose Marital and Sexuality Centre, that it’s considered the “common cold of sexual issues of the new millennium.”

Whether sex drives are lower in general now than in years past is uncertain. But one thing is sure, Cooper said: “Women are complaining more.” When it comes to seeking counseling, it’s the women who are dragging the men into sex therapy offices. And in these instances, contrary to popular belief, it’s the husbands with low desire. “In our society, it’s more culturally acceptable for the woman to have no sex drive,” Cooper said. “When the man has no sex drive, it’s more upsetting to both of them.”

Sexless marriages seem to be the constant talk these days, from Oprah and Dr. Phil (who calls it an “undeniable epidemic”) to numerous books climbing the bestseller charts, including “The Sex-Starved Marriage” by Michele Weiner Davis. New York Magazine wrote a recent story about “Generation Sexless” — young New Yorkers so busy with their careers and demanding toddlers they have little time or desire for sex.

So, how much sex is “normal?” Sex experts are reluctant to quantify how much sex is enough sex (it could make some couples feel wholly inadequate, and some couples get along just fine without much sex). But while fewer than 10 times a year is considered sexless, having sex once or twice a week is considered average.

“Unlike vitamins, there are no daily minimum requirements,” said Weiner Davis, who wrote The Sex-Starved Marriage. “If both spouses are satisfied with having a sex-lite marriage, that’s great. However, it’s much more often the case that couples are polarized, that one person is unhappy with the quality and quantity of their sex life and the other is saying, ‘What’s the big deal? Get a life.’”

Only 40% of married couples say they’re very satisfied with their sex lives, Weiner Davis said. While medical problems and some medications can cause loss of desire — including some antidepressants and some birth control pills — most problems revolve around differing and unfulfilled expectations.

Heather and Jarad, who have been married for 5 years and have a 6-month-old daughter, say it’s hard to squeeze in time for sex, or even work up the desire, in their hectic lives. The couple, who commute to San Jose from Hollister each day, say they’re lucky to have sex twice, maybe three times, a month. “It’s the game of trying to slip it in when the baby’s sleeping,” Jarad said. “It’s a fight for time.” “There are times when I may want to and he may not,” Heather added. “It’s important for me to have that time to remember I’m not just a mother, I’m his wife.”

Dramatic changes in men’s and women’s roles over the past decades also have altered expectations of marriage — and corresponding feelings about sex.

“I look back to my parents’ generation; they had it a little easier. Their roles were carved out,” Weiner Davis said. “Now in relationships, although we have a lot more freedom, it’s hard, because everything is up for grabs: Who takes the garbage out? Who gets up with the baby? In a sense we have to invent our marriages, and with that freedom comes conflict.”

In addition to stress and exhaustion, experts say, anger and resentment can build to the point where sex stops. Other factors in sexless marriages include subverting one’s sex drive to, say, pornographic Internet sites or affairs with other people. “I saw a doctor last week who wasn’t having sex with his wife but was looking at pictures of big-breasted women on the Internet,” Cooper said. “We see this a lot in the valley.”

In general, however, a couple’s problems are often less about sex, per se, than getting to the sex, Cooper said. No couple’s willingness for sex at any given time lines up perfectly, he said. The key is how well a couple negotiates the times when one initiates and the other refuses.

“If it becomes a major battle every time, the person with the lower sex drive feels constantly barraged and harassed about sex. The one with the high sex drive feels constantly deprived, and the fights get more intense each time,” Cooper said. “We see there that the sex just drops away.” And when the sex stops, often the casual affection stops: the hand-holding, the laughing at each other’s jokes, the sitting next to each other on the couch. When relationships become that icy, they risk infidelity and, ultimately, divorce.

About half the population needs to make a real effort to feel desire, Weiner Davis said. A reluctant spouse must make a “decision for desire,” she said. “If you wait for the feeling to sort of wash over you, when the dogs are out of the house, the phones are not ringing, the kids are in bed, you’re never going to have sex.”

Couples need to put as much energy into their sex lives as their job and children, she said. Set the mood early in the day with simple flirtations around the house, a patting on the rear end, complimenting the spouse’s appearance. And of course, avoid bickering before bedtime. Couples with more deep-seated problems should seek counseling.

“I wish I had a dollar for everyone who said ‘I wasn’t in the mood when I started, but I really got into it,’” she said. “One of the best ways to make it happen is to be receptive to your spouse’s advances.”

It’s advice that the 33-year-old woman with the “no-sex-after-8″ rule didn’t take. She and her husband are separating. “The world is just very busy,” she said. “You need to have a two-income household. You pay a price for it.”

We, at Marriage Missions, don’t feel that God would have us “pay the price” of sacrificing our marriages because we’re too “busy” to have sex. Scripturally we feel that God wants us to work with each other, as long as it doesn’t go against scriptural grounds, to accommodate each other’s sexual needs.

The scriptural basis we see for this can be found in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 where it says,

“The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone, but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

Hi Michele:
I’d like to ask your advice about sex. My husband and I have very different sex drives. For him, everyday would be great, and twice a day would be greater. For me, once a week, but to accommodate him, I’d have sex twice a week. I don’t think I’m abnormal, but he asks, “What’s wrong with you?” I say it’s normal for a couple to have sex once or twice a week. He says he doesn’t care about ‘normal’; it’s not enough for him. He has a point, but everyday and even every other day is too much for me. We’ve been married almost 20 years and have both built up a lot of resentment towards each other—he, because of the sex, and me, for a whole lot of other marital problems. Neither of us knows how to solve this problem, but it’s a big one. Signed, K

Dear K,
I am very glad that you are asking for feedback about your sexual relationship with your husband because the patterns in your marriage are so common that others reading your letter and my response might benefit greatly.

First of all, know that testosterone, one of the hormones responsible for sex drive, is 20-40 per cent more prevalent in men than women. Though it is not always the case, it is very common for men to desire sex more often than their wives. This gender difference often creates problems in marriages, particularly when people blame each other for being different. Men think their wives are passionless and women think their husbands are sex maniacs. (I write about this in A Woman’s Guide to Changing Her Man). Blame is the thing that destroys marriages, not differences in libido.

When men and women have substantially different sex drives, something interesting happens. Most women need to feel close to their partners emotionally to desire sex. Women need to spend time with their partners, to communicate on a deep level and feel like they’re team mates in regards to housework and kids and so on. All this has to be in place for most women to really desire their men.

Men, on the other hand, generally need to feel close to their partners physically before they invest a great deal of energy into their relationships. So she’s waiting for him to be more intimate emotionally and he’s waiting for her to be more tuned into him physically and the resentment that results in this waiting game is so huge, it’s beyond belief.

That being said, it’s really important for both of you to become more understanding of each other. This means you both need to try to imagine what it would be like to live in each others shoes for a while. He probably walks around feeling that if you loved him more, you would be more sensitive to his needs. He undoubtedly feels hurt and rejected and might even question his sex appeal.

You probably feel that if he loved more, he would be satisfied having sex once or twice a week. He would also be more responsive to the other issues concerning you in your marriage that you alluded to in your message. You also probably walk around feeling bad that he never seems satisfied, that no matter what you do, he’s always unhappy. This isn’t a pleasant feeling when you love your partner.

One of you needs to be the big one here to break out of the vicious circle. Since you wrote to me, I’m counting on you. It could just as easily be your husband, but since I don’t have his ear (eye), I’m going to direct my advice to you.

First of all, know that you’re right about the average amount of sex most American couples have per week. Know also that that statistic isn’t worth a dime because your husband isn’t fazed by it. So he’ll go on being resentful, angry and distant. The upshot is that you need to make him feel better about your sexual relationship. When you do, I promise you, he’ll be more responsive to you. Thousands of women have told me this has been true in their lives.

There are lots of ways to accomplish this. Some may be more appealing to you than others, but don’t rule anything out just yet.

1. Flirt with him. Do you remember the early part of your relationship? Even though you were never highly sexed, didn’t you flirt more in the beginning? This makes a difference.

2. Put other things aside and make time. Sometimes, women place too much priority on everything else they have to do and make their sexual relationships last on their lists. Examine if this is true for you. If so, other things can wait. Your marriage can be better than ever if you reprioritize your time.

3. Even if you’re not in the mood, do it anyway—sometimes. So many women have told me that they can jump-start their sex drive by just getting started. Once they’re into it—they’re into it.

4. Consider just pleasing him. If you’re really not in the mood for sex, your husband may be satisfied if you do something nice for him once in a while.

5. Discover new ways to rev up your interest. Let’s face it, after so many years of marriage, you might need something new to renew your interest. Cast your inhibitions to the wind and experiment with anything that might intrigue you.

Okay, I can almost hear you saying, “Why do I have to do all the work?” Just remember that the way to a man’s heart is not through his stomach. The more responsive you are to his needs, the more responsive he’ll be to you.

I want you to know that I really understand how difficult this has been for you during your 20 years of marriage and I’m proud of you for hanging in there. It says a lot about your (and your husband’s) strength and character.

Try being a little more receptive to your man.

Take care,
Michele

Even though the above advice is not written from a “Christ-follower’s” perspective, we feel the advice is still very sound and very good. That is why we wanted to include this article on this web site. Michele Weiner Davis deals with this issue and other similar issues in her book, The Sex-Starved Marriage … A Couple’s Guide to Boosting Their Marriage Libido, published by Simon & Schuster. Again, this is not a “Christian” book, so you need to read it accordingly but we have heard some very good things about the helpfulness of its content. We’ve read a lot of Michele’s material and have heard her speak several times and appreciate her frankness and have found what we’ve heard to have a lot of truth to it.

The scriptural basis we at Marriage Missions see for the advice Michele gave can be found in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 where it says,

“The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone, but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

To help you in this quest, we came across a fun web site where they gather the “best and brightest experts, authors, and teachers” under one roof to share their years of experience with you. And what’s different and fun about it is, they answer various questions posed to them, on video so you can both see them and listen to their answers.

These “experts” deal with topics ranging from marriage (including intimacy questions) and parenting to money and career. They also intend to add many more answers in the areas of health, faith, and legal issues in the coming months.

So, to view frequently asked questions being answered by “experts, authors, and teachers”:

CLICK HERE:

And then select the question you want answered.

However, we are always on the lookout to find answers for those of you who are questioning — answers that don’t contradict God’s principles.

In our quest, we found the web site of Passionate Commitment, which is put together by sex therapists Dr Clifford and Joyce Penner and their staff. On their helpful web site they address the following questions:

• Is Quickie Sex Okay?
• Should We Strive to Achieve Simultaneous Orgasms?
• Deciding on Birth Control
• Reduced Sex Drive After Children
• Finding Privacy For Sex with Kids in the House
• Kids Barging into Parent’s Bedroom
• Positions for Maximum Pleasure
• Inhibited About Appearance
• Adapting to Body Disfigurement
• Turned Off By Weight Gain
• Facing a Hysterectomy
• Guarding Against Lust
• Re-establishing a Love Life After an Affair
• Disturbing Sexual Requests
• Anal Sex
• Uncomfortable with Oral Sex
• Is Masturbation Wrong?
• Diminished Sexual Excitement
• Husband with a Low Libido
• Difficulty Getting an Erection
• PMS Interrupting Sex Life
• Painful Intercourse
• Plagued by Premature Ejaculation
• Haunted by Childhood Sexual Abuse
• Female Ejaculation
• Penis Size
• Headache During Sex
• Sex in the Later Years

We wish that we could link you directly to each one of these questions, however, that isn’t possible. So, to read the articles posted for each subject you will need to do the following:

• HOW TO OVERCOME SEXUAL AVERSION

• 7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX

• PERFECT BODIES EQUAL PERFECT SEX and Other Lies

• GIVING POINTERS -plus- Playing Dress Up, Initiating Sex

•  PERFORMANCE ANXIETY

• KEEP SEX FUN – Use These 13 Tips

• OUR BEST SEX ADVICE

When you’re done reading the articles:

You can then arrow back to our web site to:
• read another article on our web site
• or you may want to leave a comment
that could help others
in the space provided at the bottom of this page.

“When it comes to sex, most married Christians just do what works for them. If they have been blessed enough to have discovered something that brings satisfaction, pleasure, closeness, and climax, they most likely will continue that practice. However, some are plagued with guilt because they wonder if what they’re doing is sinful.

Marriage Partnership [Magazine] receives many questions from Christian couples who want to know what is and what is not okay to do sexually.”

So, to address these issues, therapists Melissa and Louis McBurney, M.D., attempt to answer some of the questions that are posed to them. To read what they wrote we will provide a link below which will take you to the web site for Marriage Partnership Magazine. We pray you will find it to be helpful!

Christian Sex Rules

When you’re done reading the above article:
You can then arrow back to our web site to:
• read another article
• or you may want to leave a comment
that could help others
in the space provided at the bottom of this page.

We read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and compiled a list of every scriptural reference to sex. As we reviewed our list it became apparent that God gives tremendous sexual freedom within the marriage relationship. But God also sets forth some prohibitions that we must honor.

These are the ten things God forbids:

1. Fornication: Fornication is immoral sex. It comes from the Greek word porneia which means “unclean.” This broad term includes sexual intercourse outside of marriage (1 Corinthians 7:2, 1 Thessalonians 4:3), sleeping with your stepmother (1 Corinthians 5:1), sex with a prostitute (1 Corinthians 6:13, 1 Corinthians 6:15-16), and adultery (Matthew 5:32).

2. Adultery: Adultery, or sex with someone who is not your spouse, is a sin and was punishable in the Old Testament by death (Leviticus 21:10). In the New Testament, Jesus expanded adultery to mean not just physical acts, but emotional acts in the mind and heart (Matthew 5:28).

3. Homosexuality: The Bible is very clear that for a man to have sex with a man or woman to have sex with a woman is detestable to God (Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13; Romans 1:27; 1 Corinthians 6:9).

4. Impurity: These are several Greek words which are translated as “impurity.” To become “impure” (in Greek, molvno) can mean to lose one’s virginity (Revelation 14:4), or to become defiled, due to living out a secular and essentially pagan lifestyle 1 Corinthians 6:9, 2 Corinthians 7:1). The Greek word rupos often refers to moral uncleanness in general (Revelation 22:11).

5. Orgies: For a married couple to become involved in sex orgies with different couples is an obvious violation of (1), (2), and (4) and needs no discussion.

6. Prostitution: Prostitution, which is paying for sex, is morally wrong and condemned throughout Scripture (Leviticus 19:29, Deuteronomy 23:17, Proverbs 7:4-27).

7. Lustful passions: First, let us tell you what this does not mean. Lustful passion does not refer to the powerful, God-given sexual desire a husband and wife have for one another. Instead, it refers to an unrestrained, indiscriminate sexual desire for men or women other than the person’s marriage partner (Mark 7:21-22, Ephesians 4:19).

8. Sodomy: In the Old Testament, sodomy refers to men lying with men. The English word means “Unnatural sexual intercourse, especially of one man with another or of a human being with an animal.” Unfortunately, some Christian teachers have erroneously equated sodomy with oral sex. In the Bible, sodomites refer to male homosexuals or temple prostitutes (both male and female). In contemporary usage, the term sodomy is sometimes used to describe anal intercourse between a man and woman. This is not the meaning of the biblical word.

9. Obscenity and coarse jokes: In Ephesians 4:29, Paul says, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth.” The Greek word for unwholesome is very descriptive and literally mans “rotten” or “decaying.” In Ephesians 5:4, the Bible warns us to avoid “silly talk” or, as it is called in some versions, “coarse jesting.” We have all been around people who can see a sexual connotation in some innocent phrase and then begin to snicker or laugh. This is wrong. However, this does not rule out appropriate sexual humor in the privacy of marriage, but rather inappropriate sexual comments in a public setting.

10. Incest: Incest, or sex with family members or relatives, is specifically forbidden in Scripture (Leviticus 18:7-18; Leviticus 20:11-21).

God leaves much in our sexual relationship with our husbands up to our discretion. In all likelihood, the questions tugging at the back of your mind were not even touched upon. When she read this list, Shelby commented: “It’s helpful to know what God says is wrong, but I still sometimes wonder if what my husband and I are doing is right. We have a great time together in bed, but every now and then, this nagging doubt comes—does God approve?”

To help you and all the Shelby’s, we will get more specific and address the questions we are constantly asked.

IS ORAL SEX PERMISSIBLE? Clifford and Joyce Penner, in their excellent book The Gift of Sex, give this definition of oral sex: “Oral sex or oral stimulation is the stimulation of your partner’s genitals with your mouth, lips, and tongue. The man may stimulate the woman’s clitoris and the opening of the vagina with his tongue or the woman many pleasure the man’s penis with her mouth.” This sexual stimulation may or may not lead to orgasm for the husband and wife.

What does Scripture say about this sexual activity? Most theologians say the Scriptures are silent about oral-genital sex. Some believe two verses in the Song of Solomon may contain veiled references to oral sex. The first is Song of Solomon 2:3:

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest,
so is my beloved among the young men.
In his shade I took great delight and sat down,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

Throughout the Song of Solomon, the word fruit refers to the male genitals. In extra biblical literature, fruit is sometimes equated with the male genitals or with semen, so it is possible that here we have a faint and delicate reference to an oral genital caress.

The second possible veiled reference is found in Song of Solomon 4:16 (KJV):

Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south;
blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.
Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.

These erotic words spoken by Solomon’s bride are at the culmination of a very sensuous love scene. Shulamith asks her husband to blow on her garden (a poetic reference used throughout the Song for the vagina) and cause its spices to flow out. Of course one cannot be certain, but it is possible Shulamith is inviting her husband to excite her by caressing her with his mouth. She then invites him to enter her and feast on the pleasures waiting in her “garden.”

Dr. Douglas Rosenau believes Scripture is silent on the topic of oral sex. “This does not make it right or wrong,” he says. A key emphasis in the New Testament is Christian liberty. Nothing is unclean in itself, says Paul (Romans 14:14), and this presumably includes sexual variety. Lewis Smedes, professor of theology at Fuller Seminary, amplifies Paul’s statement abut nothing being unclean.

Christian liberty sets us free from culturally invented “moral” taboos; and since there is no rule from heaven, it is likely that the only restraint is the feeling of the other person. For example, if one partner has guilt feelings about oral sex play, the Christian response of the other will be to honor the partner until they adjust their feelings. On the other hand, if the partner has only aesthetic reservations, and if these are rooted in some fixed idea that sex is little more than a necessary evil anyway, they have an obligation to be taught, tenderly and lovingly, of the joys of sex in the freedom of Christ.

In Intended for Pleasure, Dr. and Mrs. Ed Wheat says that oral sex is a matter that concerns only the husband and wife involved. If both find it enjoyable and pleasant, then it may properly fit into the couple’s lovemaking practices. One goal of lovemaking is to fill a treasure trove of memories with delightful love experiences that will quicken your responses during your future times together.

One minister’s wife blushes happily as she recalls a memo her husband sent requesting her presence for an urgent “appointment.”

RUN DON’T WALK! YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS THIS EXCITING, DYNAMIC, RIPPING, SLEEP-DEFYING MEETING. Details follow: Would you like to have a meeting in the bathtub? (Loving massage and oral sex included.)

I love you,
Your husband

One woman might feel horrified by the above playful interchange between a husband and wife. To her, oral sex is repulsive. Another may think the minister and his wife have a gloriously free, creative, and fun sexual relationship. She sees that oral sex adds a beautiful dimension to this couple’s lovemaking.

Before we go any further, let us clarify our intent in this chapter. Are we suggesting you incorporate oral sex into your love play? No. We are not making recommendations. Instead, our purpose is to set out for you what Scripture prohibits and to encourage you to seek God’s wisdom concerning His personal recommendations for your marriage.

Each couple is different. Each husband and wife is unique. Because Scripture is either silent —or veiled —concerning this practice, the only way to discover what God allows for you is for you to ask Him. If you’ve never talked to God about your sexual relationship, now is a good time to start. You will not shock God. Remember, sex was His idea. God is a God of wisdom (Daniel 2:20). He promises that when we lack wisdom, if we ask Him, He will give it to us (James 1:5).

As you seek God’s wisdom, you might find it helpful to ask these three questions about any sexual practice you and your husband are considering:

• Is it prohibited in Scripture? If not, we may assume it is permitted. “Everything is permissible for me,” (1 Corinthians 6:12).

• Is it beneficial? Does the practice in any way harm the husband or wife or hinder the sexual relationship? If so, it should be rejected. “Everything is permissible for me—but not everything is beneficial.” (1 Corinthians 6:12).

• Does it involve anyone else? Sexual activity is sanctioned by God for husband and wife only. If a sexual practice involves someone else or becomes public, it is wrong based on Hebrews 13:4, which warns us to keep the marriage bed undefiled.

Let’s see how these questions can help when it comes to making decisions about certain sexual practices that are not specifically spelled out in Scripture.

ARE VIBRATORS PERMISSIBLE? Some couples enjoy incorporating the use of sexual aids such as vibrators into their lovemaking. To find out if the use of vibrator is right or wrong, let’s apply the three questions. Is the use of a vibrator prohibited by Scripture? Is a vibrator beneficial in lovemaking? Does the use of a vibrator involve anyone else?

As we look at the list of ten prohibitions, we see that there is no scriptural reference that would prohibit the use of a vibrator. So if a vibrator enhances a couple’s lovemaking and is used exclusively for the couple’s private enjoyment, then it is permitted. Does this mean we are suggesting you run out and buy a vibrator? No. Again, we are not recommending any sexual practice. We are only trying to help you discern what is best in your marriage as you seek the wisdom of God.

WHAT ABOUT X-RATED VIDEOS? Obviously videos did not exist during biblical times, so we will not find “Thou shalt not watch X-rated videos” in Scriptures. (The same is true for vibrators.) But as we read through the list of the ten prohibitions, a red flag is raised. In number two on the list, adultery is defined as “looking on a woman to lust” whether the woman (or man) is on a video, in a picture, or in the living flesh. Secondly, number four on the list describes impurity as “moral uncleanness.” X-rated would qualify as “morally unclean,” thereby making them something God would disdain.

Now let’s apply the questions:

• Are X-rated videos prohibited by Scripture? Yes, based on (2) and (4).

• Are X-rated videos beneficial? Anything that promotes “moral uncleanness” is not beneficial.

• Do X-rated videos involve someone else? Yes. You bring the man or woman on the video into your lovemaking.

Based on these answers, we could conclude that God wants us to stay away from X-rated videos. [PLEASE NOTE: Look for a link to another article to read on this subject at the end of this one.]

We have considered three “gray areas,” oral sex, vibrators, and X-rated videos. There are many others. We encourage you and your husband to prayerfully seek God’s wisdom, study the list of ten prohibitions, and use the three questions to help you discern what to do in your specific situation.

As Christians we are simultaneously free and responsible. We are responsible to seek the best of the one we love, to think more highly of him and his desires than our own (Philippians 2:3-4). But we are also free to explore new territories of sexual delight.

According to Dr. Lewis Smedes, “The Christian word on trying out a sexual practice that is not prohibited in Scripture is ‘Try it. If you like it, it is morally good for you. And it may well be that in providing new delight to each other; you will be adventuring into deeper experiences of love.’”

God has given you great freedom in your sexual relationship with your husband. Remember His words to Solomon and Shulamith: “Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers” (Song of Solomon 5:1).

The above article comes from the book, Intimate Issues… Conversations Woman to Woman, published by WaterBrook Press. This is powerful —one of the best “no-holds-barred books on intimate issues that’s available for Christian women (if not THE best)!

It addresses 21 questions that Christian women ask about sex and contains so much practicality, healing sensitivity and spiritual wisdom on each subject. The authors present the union of two people so attractively, excitedly, and sacredly that it may be one of the most important books out on the market for Christian women to read because it honestly addresses the real sexual concerns of women. We can’t recommend this book highly enough!

• SHOULD WE USE PORNOGRAPHY TO ENHANCE OUR SEX LIFE?

Answer: Thanks so much for emailing us. You pose some great questions and thoughts.

Well, you didn’t miss the “do’s” and “don’ts” guidelines on the website. Actually, they’re conspicuously missing because they don’t exist. Well, I guess they do exist, but maybe not in the form most of us think. I searched for 13 years to find the comprehensive list of guidelines for how to remain sexually pure and concluded my search in frustration and shame. I made up numerous rules along the way to try and keep myself from acting out, but all proved to be in vain. I tried, and tried, and tried, but failed every time. Why? I was focused on changing behaviors rather than having God change my heart.

This may seem like oversimplifying, but it really isn’t. We have hundreds of men contact our ministry who want to know specifically what to do to walk in sexual purity. They say, “Give me the rules so I can be a man of purity.” The problem is that we have had the “rules” for thousands of years. The Old Testament law is the rules. But we have proven over and over again that we cannot keep the law.

That’s why Jesus Christ paid the penalty we owed in order to gain the freedom we needed. Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Christ did not pay the ultimate price so we could wander back into slavery to the law. He fulfilled the law so we could benefit from the life He now gives us.

Living a lifestyle of purity every day is more about our faithfulness to submit our will and emotions to God than it is about striving to behave “just right.” Focusing on behavior requires that we focus on ourselves. Focusing on submission to God requires focus on our Savior. Do you see the difference?

I know how frustrating it can be to ask for a specific answer and get the reply I am sending. But that’s how I believe God works in our lives. He wants us to dig deeper than external actions and focus where life occurs—in our hearts (Proverbs 4:23). “For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45b)

Our actions will fall in line with the direction of our hearts 100% of the time. It is a principle of life. So, to be pure in action requires we become pure in heart. And to be pure in heart means we must develop intimacy with our Creator.

I hope this makes sense and is an encouragement to you. I realize it may seem vague and hard to grasp, but it works. God radically changed my life when I shifted my focus from all that I was doing wrong to gazing intently at Him. I’m convinced that the primary “task” of being a man of purity is constantly checking to see if my heart is focused on God. If my heart is in line with truth, then my actions will be also.

One final encouragement—don’t try this alone. God makes it clear that He wants us to grow in our faith in fellowship. “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17)

Build a network of support with some other guys who can sharpen you and keep you focused on where God is leading. The friendships you develop will be worth it.

This article came from an e-mail they send out periodically to those who subscribe to this service. This section of their newsletter is designed to give one “sample” of a person who contacted their ministry seeking answers—and their response to them. (Names, if used, have been altered to protect the identity of these courageous individuals.)

This ministry is dedicated to helping hurting people find the grace of God to heal the wounds inflicted by pornography and sexual sin—not only to heal, but to allow God’s grace to empower sexual strugglers to walk in purity day by day. Their site is designed to assist you in finding help, resources, and education on sexual purity. Whether you battle a sexual addiction or struggle lightly, you should benefit from the resources there. If you have any questions you can contact them athelp@bebroken.com.

To give you the opportunity to read a couple of articles which address this issue, we’ll take you to the helpful web site for Marriage Partnership Magazine.

After you read the first article arrow back to our web site so we can take you to read the second link. And then even though we have the third article linked with another article, we think it is also appropriate for this section as well since they talk about orgasm.

Then afterwards you can arrow back to leave a helpful comment on the space provided below these links if you desire to do so.

Below are the links to both articles:

• ANTI-CLIMAX

• WHAT EVERY WOMAN NEEDS To KNOW About SEXUAL SATISFACTION

• 7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX

QUESTION: My husband and I have been married six years and have a good sex life. But I always experience pain at the moment of penetration. We take things slowly, and after the initial pain things go well. But what can I do about that early discomfort?

God intended sex in marriage to bring pleasure. When that pleasure is interrupted because of pain, the entire process of “becoming one” is affected.

Unfortunately, pain is often difficult to relieve because the reason for it can’t be identified. To help you and your doctor determine why you are having discomfort, for the next four of five times you have intercourse, write down a description of the pain. Describe exactly when you feel the pain begin and when it lessens, the exact location of the pain, and the type of pain (stinging, burning, jabbing, or a feeling of pressure).

It’s also helpful to write down information from a vaginal self-examination. In a comfortable position, and using a vaginal lubricant and holding a mirror, examine the opening of your vagina for redness, irritation, rash or sores. Is there tightness or pain when you insert a finger? Note any sensations you feel when tightening or relaxing your vaginal muscle around your finger or when pressing your finger against your vaginal wall. Write down what you discover.

Once you have recorded the data, schedule an appointment with your physician. If he or she still can’t help, try to locate a medical doctor who is both a gynecologist and urologist who specializes in treating painful intercourse (dyspareunia).

Inflammation or irritation of any of the structures of the genital area will cause pain and will require medical attention. Chronic infections such as genital warts or herpes also can cause pain upon entry.

As sexual therapists, we treat a common cause of painful intercourse called vaginismus, the involuntary spastic tightening of the muscle controlling the entrance to the vagina. To relieve vaginismus, the woman uses a series of graduated dilators to stretch and relax the muscles that control the opening of the vagina.

She begins by inserting the smallest dilator that she can comfortably insert —several times a week —using the same process as recommended for vaginal self-examination. She leaves the dilator in place for 15 to 30 minutes while tightening and relaxing the vaginal muscle.

When she feels ready, she tries the next largest dilator. She continues to graduate to large dilators until she is able to comfortable insert a dilator of the same or larger circumference as the head of her husband’s erect penis. You are fortunate to have a good sex life in spite of your initial discomfort. But you need to pursue a solution that will enable you to have entry without any pain.

The above article originally appeared in a back issue of Marriage Partnership Magazine www.marriagepartnership.com. Since that time they’ve included it along with other articles in the book, The Healthy Marriage Handbook, published by Broadman & Holman Publishers. In this insightful book you’ll find more than 200 confidential, personal questions that real people asked the editors of Marriage Partnership.

“It’s almost like having a trusted, wise couple come alongside—ready at a moment’s notice to help you safely clear the inevitable hurdles husbands and wives encounter. This advice is offered with compassion and understanding, and most important, based on the counsel of God’s Word, the Bible.”

Dr Clifford Penner, and Joyce Penner are the authors of The Gift of Sex and Restoring the Pleasure (both published by Word Publishing). Clifford is a clinical psychologist and Joyce is a clinical nurse specialist. The Penners are sex therapists in private practice in Pasadena, California.

• PAINFUL INTERCOURSE
• WHEN SEX HURTS
  

QUESTION: For two weeks every month I’m on an emotional roller coaster due to premenstrual syndrome (PMS), and it has done real damage to our sex life. My husband is reluctant to suggest that we have sex because he’s afraid I’ll shoot him down. Since he doesn’t have a similar hormonal civil war going on in his body, he doesn’t understand what I’m facing. What should I do about this?

PMS is real! It affects the quality of life for millions of women, yet too many couples do not realize there are ways to battle this problem.

Begin by identifying the specific symptoms you experience. Typical symptoms include: fatigue, depression, irritability, angry outbursts, cravings for sweet and/or salty foods, headache, abdominal bloating, anxiety, confusion, difficulty with concentration and/or memory, swollen hands or feet, tender breasts and tearfulness.

Next, keep a log of the dates you experience certain symptoms. On your monthly chart, mark your symptoms with a number from 0 to 10, indicating the severity of the symptom on a given day.

These charts will enable you to predict the onset of your internal warfare and plan ahead for its effects. Plan positive sexual times for you and your husband for the two weeks leading up to your symptoms. Then, depending on the severity of your PMS, plan for the type of sexual encounter that would meet your needs and help relieve your stress during that difficult time.

For example, you might enjoy being caressed everywhere except your breasts and genitals. Or you may not want to be touched anywhere, but would enjoy caressing your husband.

During those difficult two weeks, make time in your schedule for extra rest. Schedule a “walk-and-talk” time together to occur before your sexual time. Begin your actual physical time with a relaxing bubble bath or a warm shower. Planning for your PMS will reduce the damage to your sex life and increase your husband’s understanding.

It might also be possible to treat your PMS. Nutritionists and medical researchers recommend avoiding fat, sodium, alcohol and caffeine, increasing fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes and whole grains, and drinking eight to ten glasses of water a day. Some nutritionists recommend avoiding red meats and dairy products and including a daily intake of safflower oil and Evening Primrose Oil (a nutritional supplement).

In addition, aerobic exercise is a must. Exercise is thought to stimulate the release of ankephalins and endorphins-neurotransmitters responsible for a person’s sense of well being. They need to be elevated in women who have PMS, so work up a good sweat with at least a half-hour of jogging, swimming or some other aerobic exercise.

As the medical world begins to identify possible causes of PMS, treatments are becoming more effective. Some doctors encourage taking a vitamin-mineral supplement that, after a month or two, relieves mid to moderate symptoms in many women. Consult with your physician or nutritionist for a recommendation. Two supplements that we have found to be effective are Optivite and Theraids; one of these may work for you.

If these measures don’t relieve your symptoms enough to boost your sexual relationship, seek further medical help.

The above article originally appeared in a back issue of Marriage Partnership Magazine www.marriagepartnership.com. Since that time they’ve included it along with other articles in the book, The Healthy Marriage Handbook, published by Broadman & Holman Publishers.

In this insightful book you’ll find more than 200 confidential, personal questions that real people asked the editors of Marriage Partnership. “It’s almost like having a trusted, wise couple come alongside—ready at a moment’s notice to help you safely clear the inevitable hurdles husbands and wives encounter. This advice is offered with compassion and understanding, and most important, based on the counsel of God’s Word, the Bible.”

Dr Clifford Penner, and Joyce Penner are the authors of The Gift of Sex and Restoring the Pleasure (both published by Word Publishing). Clifford is a clinical psychologist and Joyce is a clinical nurse specialist. The Penners are sex therapists in private practice in Pasadena, California.

Perhaps the most difficult act of forgiving and the most critical one for the abuse survivor is leaning to forgive herself. She must forgive herself with the same determination with which she forgives those who have brought her pain.

A whole jury of self-accusations cries out against her: “Why didn’t I say ‘No!’? Why did I compound my plight with acts of emotional self-mutilation? Why didn’t I accept the truth sooner? —perhaps I could have salvaged my marriage, raised my children better? What is wrong with me? How can anyone stand me? How can I stand myself?”

When I talk with victims of child abuse who now carry not only the displaced guilt of the truly guilty perpetrator but also struggle with the weighty baggage of self-hate, I remind them that they are a lot like the little child who was introduced to a dope habit early in life. Some adult injected a small dose of heroin into the child’s vein, continually increasing the dosage until a dependency had been created.

Of course the child enjoyed the drug-induced high, loved the effusive moments, craved others injections. Of course, the child now has to deal with the effects of that addiction, the insatiable need for more, the days to stupor, the cycle of physical and emotional highs and lows, the humiliating ugliness of withdrawal.

But the culpability, the true guilt, the error was on the part of that adult who stabbed the needle in the child’s skin and injected the first dose, then the next, then the next. The child is not responsible for that adult’s action.

Child sexual abuse is the same. You are struggling against the symptoms of withdrawal, from an act (or acts) perpetrated against you of which you were innocent —and there is a confusing welter of causes and consequences —but you were not guilty in that first act. This realization can become a foundation on which you can lay the other bricks of self-forgiveness.

Begin by saying aloud the words, “I forgive myself.” Forgive yourself for the moments that were not your responsibility but for which you have held yourself in judgment. Deal in confession with those actions which are your responsibility: your hatred, resentment, and bitterness; your sinful lifestyle; your vindictive “taking it out” on the people around you.

Take some quiet time and write out the specifics: I confess and forgive myself for searching for live in promiscuity. I forgive myself for trying to punish my parents by experimenting with drugs. I forgive myself for my hatred toward my husband who was innocent of the crimes which were really the crimes of my father. I forgive myself. I forgive.

The release this kind of forgiveness provides is indescribable to those who have never experienced it; it is like laying down the ten-pound load of pain strapped to your chest which you have carried to bed, through each day, to work, into all your relationships. You put it down —truly lay it aside when you forgive yourself. Then you can rejoin the dance of life.

The above article comes from the book, Child Sexual Abuse: A Hope for Healing, by Maxine Hancock and Karen Burton Mains, published by Harold Shaw Publishers.

Unfortunately, this book is no longer in print so you may find it difficult to locate it. But we want to thank the authors for putting together such a helpful book which we’re sure has ministered to thousands of people and through this article will continue to help those who suffer from the devastation that sexual abuse has caused in their lives.

Psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck puts it this way: most abuse survivors “are simply seeking relief. When they realize they are going to be challenged as well as supported, many flee and others are tempted to flee.”

The lack of understanding on the part of fellow-Christians with regard to the length and depth of this healing process is often a frustration to the survivor determined to discover permanent wholeness. As one survivor testifies:

“I find only too often people think you are living in the past when you speak of it… People say, “You should be over that by now.”

A Time for Healing
Healing can be instantaneous for some; many testify to spiritual moments that hastened them toward health, allowing them to bypass certain developmental steps. But most of the time, healing is deliberate and orderly. It helps to keep in mind the analogy of physical healing. While a scratch or a sprained ankle heals relatively quickly, the multiple injuries caused by a terrible accident can take months, if not years to mend. The impact may have shattered bones and torn internal organs.

First come sessions of delicate surgery. The patient is not whole when wheeled out of the operating room. Then comes a long period of recovery: the slow knitting together of flesh, muscle, ligament, the multiplication of new cells, the removing of the old, traumatized ones. Both the wounds inflicted by the accident and the incisions made by invasive surgery must heal.

Healing takes time. Often the expectation for quick healing from the effects of early child sexual trauma is unrealistic. It is just as simplistic as thinking: Why do I have to have this tumor removed? Why won’t it just go away? Why do I have to take penicillin for double pneumonia? I hate medicine. Won’t I get better if I just get plenty of rest?

Some survivors want to get well without cooperating with the natural healing processes which the Divine Healer has built into the human psyche.

Damage from early child sexual abuse, from incest, is often enormous. It is also reparable. Perhaps that needs to be repeated. It is also reparable. But there must be an attitude of help-seeking on the part of the wounded one. Jesus still asks us, as he asked the paralyzed man beside the pool of Bethesda, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6). In a very real sense, it is up to us.

I asked a sexual assault counselor how I could motivate a woman to come for help. “Women like this have had so little control of their lives that it is important that they act autonomously in seeking help. All you can do is tell them of the help available, and offer your support in getting to it. Then they must act on their own behalf. If they don’t we can’t help them anyhow.”

God usually does not help us toward health until we take one step, one action which indicates serious decision, serious desire to be well, on our part. We must seek healing at whatever level we are at —even if we can offer no more than a faint, desperate gasp, “Oh God, help!”

We begin to walk, crawl, creep, and strain toward the light, going past a Christian friend’s house, going to a Bible study, seeking out a pastor, attending a women’s conference.

At some point, the individual must commit herself to the rehabilitation process. The lack of this commitment is like the child shaking his head at the teaspoon of medicine, clamping his mouth shut, spitting out the tablet, or purposefully gagging while swallowing the capsule. Without a cooperative leaning toward health, we are like little children still waiting for someone to do it for us, to take care of us, to make it all better. God does it with us and works through others on our behalf, but we must take some initiative toward health on our own.

In The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck assures us that deciding to seek counseling or psychotherapy is one of the hardest, yet most courageous and significant decisions an individual can make.

The Determination Factor
After physical injury, atrophied muscles must be exercised, rebuilt limbs must be painfully stretched and flexed, sometimes nervous signal systems must be re-patterned in order for the body and brain to coordinate. Whenever world class sports events are shown on television, there is the inevitable story about the championship athlete who last year suffered a terrible injury, or broke a leg in a skiing accident. “We thought he would be scratched from this season’s competition,” some newscaster invariably comments.

The cameras then focus on scenes in physical therapy rooms showing the determined skier working out for hours on weight machines under the hovering attention of a medical sports therapist, building again the traumatized bones and muscles. To the whole world’s surprise (the part of the world that is interested at any rate) the athlete appears in this year’s skiing circuit, better than ever.

This determined action is what we must bring to the search for emotional wholeness; we must learn to grit our teeth and say, “I will be well.” We must expect that God will become the surgeon who excises the malignancy of the past which threatens to spread in our souls. He will use many means in this operation —Scripture, the inner light of the Holy Spirit, loving Christians skilled non-Christians, groups of incest survivors, and the offices of the church. Healing, no matter in what form it comes, is always a part of his plan for us.

And after this holding of hands, this task which requires the rich interplay between human love and divine intervention and help, we grit our teeth and say, “I will be well, so help me God.”

Divine Therapy
God is also the Divine Therapist who oversees our rehabilitation, whose hand is available for us to squeeze when the pain becomes unbearable, who makes sure if we trust ourselves to Him that we won’t be plunged into therapy more demanding than we can possibly sustain. But He also insists that if we are going to compete in the circuit of life’s championship experiences, we must sweat, strain, and work out under his rehabilitation program.

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor the drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, RSV).

At first glance, these verses may seem discouraging to the survivors of early child sexual abuse who are hounded by self-blame and self-hate and who immediately fixate on the negative phrases— “the unrighteous will not inherit” —and actually miss this Scripture’s tremendous positive implications for survivors.

In the moral confusion of a sexually perverted Corinthian society, Paul gives powerful hope: “And such were some of you, but you were washed (made clean), you were sanctified (set apart as holy for God’s special use), you were justified (made as though you had never sinned).” No one who wants to be whole, to be restored, to remember innocence again is beyond the circle of God’s healing power. And such were some of you. As one person testified:

“I was molested and raped as a child. I’ve been into drugs, drinking, etc. All my life I have felt dirty and worthless and no good, and was told that all my life. I’m middle-aged and I’m still feeling this. I’m going to group counseling and that has helped, but I need to know how God sees me. I’m crying out to God for help.”

Help comes when the abuse survivor learns how to put herself in God’s way.

Unfortunately, this book is no longer in print so you may find it difficult to locate it. But we want to thank the authors for putting together such a helpful book which we’re sure has ministered to thousands of people and through this article will continue to help those who suffer from the devastation that sexual abuse has caused in their lives.

For me, it was the way my husband Don touched me at times, or a sound he made when we were being intimate, or his attempts to embrace me when I was sleeping. All of these could flash me back into my childhood bedroom where I would relive a segment of the abuse I endured as a child. It was a frightening experience, one that Don didn’t understand at first. It hit home one night about 3 years into our marriage.

As Don tells it, he wanted to be intimate with me, so he showered, put on some aftershave, did a few push-ups and prepared for bed. We went to bed and he began caressing me. All of a sudden I froze. My entire body became stiff as a board. I couldn’t move. I felt strange. It was like I was there in bed with my husband, but I wasn’t there. I knew enough from being I therapy to know something had triggered this flashback.

Don and I talked for a few minutes and ruled out several possibilities. It wasn’t the way he touched me; it wasn’t the lighting in the room; it wasn’t anything obvious. As I lay there, Don just held me close. The trigger suddenly became clear as I nestled to my husband’s chest. He had put on the very same aftershave my stepfather had worn for years. My memory made the connection before I knew what was happening.

The victim of sexual abuse begins to believe many lies about herself as a result of the abuse. Some of those lies are centered around her value as a person. The victim often feels her only value is determined by her sexuality. Many victims find themselves sexually active prior to marriage, only to marry and then have little desire for sexual intimacy with their mate. Some of this is due to faulty thinking.

My step-dad had told me as I was growing up that young men were interested in me for only “one thing.” The underlying message I received was that only my “body” had any value. When I married, I desperately wanted Don to love ME, separate from sex.

Unfortunately, the only way to gain proof that he really loved ME was to stop engaging in sex to test his love. Don had no idea of my thoughts, nor did he enter into marriage to be celibate. We have had to work through this erroneous thinking through the years. It has taken time for me to really believe Don loves ME. I have had to understand it is possible for me to feel that love without withdrawing sexually.

I do believe there will be times in the healing process when a victim may need to have some space and to be given a choice about participating in sexual intimacy.

It Takes Two
For the first six years of our marriage, I assumed that all the difficulties we had I our sexual relationship were due to my being a victim of sexual abuse. Don had no trouble performing, so it was all too clear who had the problem.

After writing the book, A Door of Hope, I went back to school to get my master’s degree in marriage, family and child counseling. That program requires each student to obtain at least 10 hours of individual therapy. I prayed about where I should go for more counseling and felt the Lord leading me to a female counselor who had been one of my professors. At this time, I was doing quite a bit of speaking across the country and had clients of my own. I entered therapy; sure I would have to spend only a month or two in it.

Don and I were still having some sexual difficulties, so I determined this would be the area I’d focus on. At the third session, Dr. Basbas sat down with me to go over some test results. Confidently I asked, “Well how long do I have—a couple or three months?”

Dr Basbas looked across the room at me and said “Considering these test results, you could leave early at six months, or you could stay two years and really let God do the healing He wants to do in your life.”

I’d love to tell you that I said, “Oh, thank you, wise counselor…,” but I didn’t. I looked her straight in the eye and said, “You don’t understand—I’m famous. I’ve written a book on this subject.” She calmly said, “Well, it’s up to you.”

I left that session angry. How dare she tell me I wasn’t okay?! I went into a depression. I was ready to call the publisher with instructions to take all my books off the market. I thought, “If I’m not healed by now, I’ll never be.”

Then the Spirit of God seemed to speak to my heart: “Jan, this does not mean I haven’t healed you. It just means I want to do more. Are you willing?” I said, “Yes, Lord.”

I have shared this with victims all over. I spent two years in counseling, and it was the richest time I had spent so far. In the middle of that therapy I told the Lord I would be there five years if that’s what He wanted. He touched areas I had total avoided. God is faithful in our lives to keep “removing the debris.”

Repairing the Damage
To men, we would encourage you to learn to develop intimacy outside the bedroom. How is that done? By being willing to share your feelings with your wife. Sit down at the kitchen table and talk to her about things like where you want to be in your career in five years. Tell her about your childhood; hug her when she’s cooking dinner—no strings attached— and pray with her, sharing your innermost desires; ask her what she cares about most deeply; be willing to spend an evening caressing and kissing—agree in advance that that’s as far as it goes. As you invest in your relationship by sharing yourself, you will begin to see a response.

Be careful not to do these things with an ulterior motive; she will pick it up if you are insincere. You want to create emotional closeness with her. When she feels that closeness, she is better able to respond sexually.

A woman who has been sexually abused needs first of all to feel safe. She needs to know that she can trust you, that you love her for who she is, and that she has a choice with regard to sexual intimacy. If she feels she has no choice, watch out! Be careful of making demands in the name of “submission.” Many men I have counseled have made this mistake, only to inflict more damage and cause more distance and hostility. Remember, Jesus laid His life down for us. In the same way, according to Ephesians 5:25, the husband is to lay his life down for his wife.

To the women, we encourage you to seek help if you have been a victim of sexual abuse. Some women who are going through the healing process need time to withdraw from sexual intimacy; however, you must recognize that men physiologically different and may need your sensitivity as well. Work on recognizing some of the lies you believe about yourself, about men and about sex. Root those lies up with the help of the Holy Spirit, and ask God to replace in your heart the truth about what He intended the sexual relationship between a husband and a wife to be.

The above article comes from the book, “WHEN VICTIMS MARRY-Building a Stronger Marriage by Breaking Destructive Cycles” by Don and Jan Frank, published by Here’s Life Publishers. Unfortunately this book is no longer in print so unless you can find a used book somewhere it would be almost impossible to obtain it.

But we want to thank the authors Don and Jan Frank for being so open and candid in sharing their stories and reaching out to help others who are victimized in their earlier years which can deeply affect their marriages. As Don and Jan show, you CAN reach out for healing and help so you don’t have to live as victims for the rest of your lives. What the enemy of our faith causes for harm, God can redeem for good!

Although I told my husband, Patrick, about the abuse while we were dating, after we were married, I pretended immunity from my past trauma. But keeping up the charade wasn’t so easy, since sex reminded me of the abuse. I didn’t tell Patrick, though, because I felt guilty, as though I were a poor wife.

I hoped somehow I could work out everything through sheer willpower. So throughout our early married life, I tolerated sex, never letting Patrick know how much I was hurting. I’m not sure if I even knew the extent of my pain, at least enough to verbalize it.

When our eldest daughter turned five, however, I began to relive the molestation I’d experienced at her age. I felt the horror afresh. I saw those brothers steal my innocence on muddied nature trails, in secluded playgrounds, and in their bedroom…

The above is an excerpt from an article titled, Opening the Door to Healing… When Childhood Sexual Abuse Affects Marriage Intimacy, written by Mary DeMuth, featured in the Fall 2005 issue of Marriage Partnership Magazine www.marriagepartnership.com.

This article not only tells how the past affected Mary’s marriage —especially sexually, but it also gives “Coping Strategies,” plus Mary’s husband Patrick tells his story in all of this. You’re also given the opportunity to discuss this article on the Marriage Partnership’s “Help and Healing” Message Board.

To read the article in its entirety we’ll send you to their web site article.

To do so:

CLICK HERE

— ALSO —

Below is a web site link to a “Question and Answer” article on this subject of past sexual abuse that you may also find to be helpful. Please click onto the link below to read:

• HOW CAN I GET ON WITH LIFE DESPITE PAST ABUSE?

— ALSO —

Below is a web site link to an article written by Pastor Roger Barrier that deals with this same issue. Please click onto the link below to read:

• HOW DO I COPE IF I’VE BEEN SEXUALLY ABUSED?

If you have additional tips you can share to help others in this area of marriage, or you want to share requests for prayer and/or ask others for advice, please “Join the Discussion” by adding your comments below.

This is one of the reasons sex is so abused in our world. There is a spiritual push to distort our understanding of human sexuality. Pornography, casual sex, and self-gratification are all glamorized in the fabric of our society. Our kids are inundated with it, our computers are flooded with it, and our thoughts are challenged by it. To put it simply, your sexuality is under attack spiritually.

To combat the assault, every couple should institute some simple measures to safeguard the love gift they have been given. At a bare minimum, you ought to be praying together. We know that some of you are uncomfortable praying together, and we very respectfully recommend that you try to push past this discomfort. You’re willing to get naked and have sex together; surely you can pray together.

There really is no secret to a successful prayer life as a couple. Keep it short, be yourself, and pray daily. Don’t try to be over spiritual. And don’t imitate anyone else. God made you the way He wants you to be, so talk to Him the way you talk with the most important people in your life. Once you have practiced a few times, praying together will be natural to you.

In addition to prayer, reading the Bible together is extremely helpful in creating a safe zone in your marriage. Demons do not like the truth, and when you proclaim the truth aloud in your home, you create an environment that is irritating to them. This is exactly what Jesus did in Matthew 4 when He was led out to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He quoted the Bible over and over again.

Your spiritual fortress will be further strengthened if you share with one another what God is teaching you. You can accomplish this by going through a devotional book together or doing your personal devotions separately and then taking the time to share with one another in a relaxed setting what God is currently doing in your life.

The spiritual battle can be more intense than this if your past has been marked by decisions based on some deception. Each of these decisions opens up footholds from which Satan can have an influence in your life. You may be more self-conscious than you know you ought to be. You may be unable to overcome a relatively simple habit. You may be run by guilt and shame; even though you know intellectually you’re forgiven for everything. These can be signs of a lack of spiritual freedom. If you suspect this may be your story, we encourage you to talk to your pastor to see if he’s familiar with Steps to Freedom in Christ (www.freedominchrist.com).

The toughest obstacles you face are in the area of emotional programming. You were born with an innate ability to trust your parents. Early in life, you believed everything they said and trusted everything they did. As a result, your early life experiences create emotional programming in life. In other words, your definition of intimate love is attached to whatever you experienced as a child, unless you do the hard work to rebuild your emotional definition of love. If you grew up in a balanced, encouraging home, you are wondering what we are talking about. You have a healthy perspective on love, and you naturally choose to be with people you can trust.

If, on the other hand, you grew up in a chaotic home environment (by chaotic, we mean anything that doesn’t fit with the way life is supposed to be), you’ll have a tendency to have low-quality relationships and you will unwittingly sabotage your success at relationships. It is common for those who have experienced relational trauma to be unreasonable, abusive, and unpredictable with the ones they love most.

While you are tearing down the relationship, you are internally trilling yourself to stop talking this way and stop acting this way. You may have tried self-discipline and self-help books but have found they make no difference. If this is your experience, you must take it seriously. The path out of this destructive living is simple to outline but hard to accomplish. The path consists of aggressive forgiveness of those who have hurt you and strategic decisions that will reprogram the way you emotionally attach to others. It is the rare person who can do this on his or her own.

We recommend you commit to a regimen of focused counseling followed by a deliberate routine of personal growth. If you don’t connect with the first counselor you see, check out another one. Every counselor has a unique personality and specialty. Don’t get frustrated. Just keep looking until you find one you connect with.

[The following prayers could be helpful for a married couple where infidelity was involved and they’re attempting to reconcile their marriage back together.]

When your relationship is reestablished to the place you are feeling love toward one another and want to take the step to reconnect emotionally and sexually, below is a meaningful ritual to do at the foot of the bed before engaging in intercourse as it marks the moment of a fresh start.

Pray this verse over the spouse who has caused the pain:

____________ (name of spouse) has been crucified with Christ and ___________no longer lives, but Christ lives in____________. The life__________ lives in the body, __________lives by faith in the Son of God, who loved __________ and gave Himself for____________. (Galatians 6:10)

Have the spouse who caused the pain pray:

Hear my cry for mercy as I call to You for help, as I lift up my hands toward Your Most Holy Place (Psalm 28:2) Forgive [me], who [has] sinned against You; forgive all the offenses [I] have committed against You. (1 Kings 8:50)

Pray this verse over the victim of the pain:

[Lord, You heal] the brokenhearted and bind up (___________) wounds (Psalm 147:3). Then Your light will break forth like the dawn, and Your healing will quickly appear (Isaiah 58:8) and provide for those who grieve…bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and the garment of praise instead of the spirit of despair (Isaiah 61:3).

Pray this over the spouse who caused the pain:

If my [___________], who [is] called by [Your] name, will humble [himself or herself] and pray and seek [Your] face and turn from [his or her] wicked ways, then will [You] hear from heaven and will forgive [his or her] sin and heal [our marriage] (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Then use your original wedding vows or the ones below, to renew your commitment:

Husband: I, __________, Take you ___________, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward. I promise to love you, comfort you, honor you, and forsaking all others, cling only to you as long as I live.

Wife: I, ________, take you __________, to be my lawfully wedded husband to have and to hold from this day forward. I promise to love you, comfort you, honor you, and forsaking all others, cling only to you as long as I live.

When reestablishing the sexual relationship, we encourage the spouse who caused the pain or breach to give the gift of making the first sex act all about the spouse and full of the things that first drew you together. By adding in the familiar territory, it is a reminder that it was worth it to spend all the time and energy to reestablish the relationship. At any time during the time of intimacy, if the spouse who was hurt is hesitant or has an emotional reaction, then the spouse who initially caused the trauma should be overly patient, overly sensitive, and understanding. Forgiveness is one thing. Reestablishing trust and a trusting sexual relationship is another and takes time. Sometimes lots and lots of time.

(A note to the spouse who was hurt: Our friends Bob and Audrey Meisner have a powerful book on restoring love after an affair, Marriage Undercover. While talking with them about their story, Bob shared the wisdom that helped them turn the corner. His mentor turned to Bob and said, “You’ve been hurt, but the person who forgives has the power in the relationship.” The forgiver has the power to restore the relationship and to save the children from the pain of divorce or an unhappy hostile environment. In giving love as a symbol of forgiveness, you give yourself, your children, and your marriage the opportunity to build something better and stronger than it was before the pain because God will add His power as you replicate His grace, mercy, and love.)

As they say,

“In a marriage, sex is the spice that rescues our relationships from becoming mundane pursuits of chores. Adult life is filled with responsibilities. We have mortgages to pay, yard work to maintain, laundry to clean, cars to service, and so on. But none of us got married so we could load up on chores. We got married out of hope. We got married because we believed there was some kind of magic between us. We got married because we believed we could have great sex together.

A satisfying sex life can add dignity to all the other pursuits of life. It is the thing to look forward to after a dull or miserable day at work. Sex is the moment of connection that creates a deep bond, even when sprinkled weeks or months apart. Sexual union adds an underlying deposit of strength that can help hold couples together when life threatens them apart. …Because we recognize the powerful impact of good marital sex, our goal is to fan the flame of your love. God gave you this gift to be enjoyed, savored, and strengthened. When you enhance your overall marital well-being, the rest of your life is more effective in accomplishing God’s purpose for you.”

Whether you and your spouse are newlyweds, a mature couple still young at heart, or somewhere in between—this book offers hundreds of ideas to fan the flame of love and gives an understanding of your spouse that will inspire romance and passion to fuel every aspect of your lives.

I DO know that his need for sexual contact is much stronger than mine. While I would be thrilled, with a romantic rendezvous about twice a month, his need is more intense.

I noticed a pattern: the longer he went without sexual intimacy, the more irritable he became. On the days when we made love, Ron was mellow and easygoing about things that might normally have bothered him. During the day after, he was still patient, kind, and cuddly as a six-foot teddy bear. On the third day after our “session”, he would start to get restless and make sarcastic comments like, ”Don’t worry about me. You just live your life and I’ll wait here.”

Then, if we hadn’t “played doctor” in four days, the veins in his eyes would get red and bulgy and his upper lip would start to twitch. If we went into the fifth day, he’d start to gnaw on the sofa.

The longer he went without release, the more pressurized—that is, grumpy—he became. If we ever went a whole week without sex, it’s as if his skin would turn green, black bolts would pop out of his neck, and he would morph into Franken-Husband.

Ladies, if you aren’t “taking care of business” a couple times a week, you may be creating your own monster.

Ron and I talked about my theory, and he agreed with it. He said, “After several days without sex, I start to feel like you don’t care about me. It isn’t a conscious decision, but my resentment just starts to build and keeps getting worse each day that you ignore or reject me.”

Men Need Release
Then, I did some research and it confirmed our experience. Men’s need for sexual release is based on actual physical, hormonal needs. Many studies agree that because of sperm production, natural testosterone, and other factors, men naturally want sexual release about every seventy-two hours, or three days.

Men need sexual contact. God designed them that way. It’s not bad or dirty or perverted, it just is. If a wife makes an effort to meet her husband’s needs, he’ll be more willing to meet hers. Sex is number one on Ron’s priority list and approximately number forty-seven on mine, but I have learned to honor its importance to him.

You Are Sex-Driving Me Crazy!
I don’t fully understand the hormonal, physical male sex drive, but I do know a thing or two about the female hormone cycles. Ladies, have you ever gone on a PMS-driven mission called “Gotta have chocolate, or someone’s gonna die?” I have. I once ransacked every drawer in my son’s room looking for last year’s semi-sweet Easter Bunny’s ear.

I’ve clawed through the kitchen cupboards like [the movie character] Indiana Jones on a quest, looking for a little golden bag containing stale chocolate chips. As I ripped it open and blissfully inhaled the aroma, my pulse reacted as if I’d just found the necklace that the old lady threw off the Titanic.

Now imagine that you’re on a take-no-prisoners chocolate chase and your husband has a Snickers bar in his locked briefcase—but he won’t give you the key. He has the capability to relieve your hormonal obsession, but he refuses. How would you feel about him? Would you think that he was selfish? Mean? Cruel?

Ron says that’s how a man feels when his wife rejects his sexual needs.

Ouch.

Would You Like a Me-Burger?
If you think of a man’s sexual need as a hunger, his desire can be satisfied in many different ways. Each “feeding” does not have to be a banquet. His wife could “feed the need” with a snack, a meal, or a feast.

Often, a quick snack will satisfy his appetite. (Use your imagination here) Other times, he’ll be thrilled to sit down (lie down) for a simple meal. On special occasions, however, get out the good china (satin sheets), send the children to Grandma’s house, and flambé a fabulous feast.

Ladies, next time your husband gets hungry for you and you’re too tired to prepare a banquet, ask him, “How about a quick snack?” He’ll probably be thrilled that you’re not rejecting him, and you’ll be able to meet his need without resenting it.

Don’t Make Him Beg
Bambi had four children in five years. She went from being a sex kitten to a fat cat who craved catnaps. She lost all interest in sex and was so tired that she had a “headache” for most of the next decade. When her husband tried to get frisky, she’d often arch her back and hiss, “You must be kidding!” He wasn’t. She refused him so many times that he quit asking. Not surprisingly, they’re now divorced and in the middle of a bitter custody battle over the kittens.

Men have fragile egos in this area and, in order to avoid rejection, they may stop pursuing their wives. Ladies, if your husband isn’t asking anymore, immediately sprint into a lingerie shop. I mean now, this minute! March in there, and buy a little—and I mean little—something. Then call your hubby and say, “I’m cooking up something special for dinner—hurry home!”

Unless your husband is a eunuch, he has sexual needs. Do your best to satisfy them.

“But I’m Embarrassed”
I don’t know why, but men are stimulated by visual cues. That’s why they’re much more likely to look at pornography than women are.

That’s also why they like to make love with the lights on. I’d prefer the flattering glow of a single votive candle, but Ron wants to use the same wattage a dentist uses for a root canal. So we have a conflict.

We’ve been married for 27 years and my body is almost fifty years old, and it’s showing signs of wear. I think of it as a comfy sofa: lumpy, frayed, and a little saggy. I try to avoid full-length mirrors, but my hubby still wants to see me—and that’s a good thing.

Several years ago, we discovered a wonderful compromise: we use a red or pink light bulb in the lamp next to our bed. I know it sounds crazy, but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. The rosy glow diminishes most flaws, wrinkles, and stretch marks. You can buy these magic bulbs at most larger grocery stores for less than five dollars.

Ideally, you should be at a place in your marriage where you can ask each other, “Are you happy with our sex life?” If one of you is not, ask, “Why not?” As a married couple, it’s vital that you are able to discuss your needs openly and honestly. If it’s important to one of you, it needs to be important to both of you.

Metaphorically speaking, if the wife waters the husband and the husband waters the wife, they will both be satisfied. “Drink water from your own well—share your love only with your wife [husband]“ (Proverbs 5:15 NLT).

The above article is adapted from the great book, Avoiding the Greener Grass Syndrome: How to grow Affair Proof Hedges Around Your Marriage, by Nancy C Anderson, published by Kregel Publications.

This book was written by a woman who strayed to the other side of the marital fence — and returned to find forgiveness and restoration. Based on the principle that the grass is always greener where it’s watered, this book focuses on how to grow a beautiful marriage in your own backyard by establishing six protective “hedges” around it.

As some reviewers have said —which we agree, “This is wisdom born of tragic but genuine experience. Because Nancy Anderson nearly ruined her marriage due to infidelity, she truly knows the misery that an affair can cause. Her honesty, vulnerability, and repentance provide marital lessons guaranteed to revitalize and strengthen couples who are susceptible to the lure of an affair. She does a terrific job telling her compelling U-turn story of rebellion, repentance, and restoration. In the second part of the book, she gives helpful suggestions and funny examples that demonstrate how to create a healthy and satisfying marriage. She has a delightful way of teaching without preaching.” This really is a very good book for every Christian couple to read! We highly recommend it.

Author Nancy C Anderson and her husband Ron, speak nationally to couples’ groups of all denominations. They share their message of hope and restoration with tenderness and humor. If you live in the United States and would like for them to speak with your group please contact them at www.RonAndNancyAnderson.com. You may also want to visit their blog at www.joyfulmarriage.blogspot.com.

Benefit #1: Fulfilling sex makes him feel loved and desired

Not surprisingly, the first thing surfaced from the survey comments was that having a regular, mutually enjoyed sex life was critical to the man’s feeling of being loved and desired. One eloquent plea captured it perfectly:

I wish that my wife understood that making a priority of meeting my intimacy needs is the loudest and clearest way she can say, “You are more important to me than anything else in the world.” It is a form of communication that speaks more forcefully, with less room for misinterpretation, than any other.

The reason why this message is needed is that many men—even those with close friendships— seem to live with a deep sense of loneliness that is quite foreign to us oh-so-relational women. And making love is the purest salve for that loneliness.

One man told me, “I feel like I go out into the ring every day and fight. It’s very lonely. That’s why, when the bell rings, I want my wife to be there for me.”

Another related that sentiment to the power of fulfilling sex. “A man really does feel isolated, even with his wife. But in making love, there is one other person in this world that you can be completely vulnerable with and be totally accepted and non-judged. It is a solace that goes very deep into the heart of a man.

This is one reason why some men may make advances at times that seem the furthest from sexual. One woman relayed a story about her husband wanting to make love after a funeral for a close relative. Making love was a comfort and a way of being wrapped in her love.

Benefit #2: Fulfilling sex gives him confidence

Your desire for him goes beyond making him feel wanted and loved. Your desire is a bedrock form of support that gives him power to face the rest of his daily life with a sense of confidence and well-being.

By now most of us have seen the television commercials for Viagra in which a man’s colleagues for friends repeatedly stop him and ask what’s “different” about him. New haircut? Been working out? Promotion? Nope, the man tells them all, with a little smile.

One man I interviewed brought up those ads. “Every man immediately understands what that commercial is saying —it’s all about guys feeling good about themselves. The ad portrays a truth that all men intuitively recognize. They’re more confident and alive when their sex life is working.”

Once my eyes were opened to this truth, I realized how often I’d heard the “man code” for this fact, but failed to understand it. When men had told me they “felt better” when they got more sex, I had just assumed they meant physically better.

But as one husband told me, “What happens in the bedroom really does affect how I feel the next day at the office.” Another wrote, “Sex is a release of a day-to-day pressures and seems to make everything else better.”

Wound #1: “If she doesn’t want to, I feel incredible rejection.”

As much as men want sex, most of them would rather go out and clip the hedges in the freezing rain than make love with a wife who appears to be responding out of duty. My husband, Jeff, explained: “The guy isn’t going to be rejected by the hedges. And that’s the issue. If she’s just responding because she has to, he’s being rejected by his wife.”

Again, keeping in mind that what he wants most is for you to desire him, try to see what he wants most is for you to desire him, try to see this rejection issue from the man’s point of view. If we agree, but don’t make an effort to get really engaged with the man we love, he hears us saying, “You’re incapable of turning me on even when you try, and I really don’t care about what matters deeply to you.” On the other hand if we don’t agree at all, but throw out the classic “Not tonight, dear,” he hears, “You’re so undesirable that you can’t compete with a pillow… and I really don’t care about what matters deeply to you.”

Although we might just be saying we don’t want sex at that point in time, he hears the much more painful message that we don’t want him.

Here’s what the men themselves said on the survey:

• “She doesn’t understand that I feel loved by sexual caressing, and if she doesn’t want to, I feel incredible rejection.”

• “When she says no, I feel that I am REJECTED, ‘No’ is not no to sex—as she might feel. It is no to me as I am. And I am vulnerable as I ask or initiate. It’s plain and simple rejection.”

• “She doesn’t understand how even her occasional dismissals make me feel less desirable. I can’t resist her. I wish that I, too, were irresistible. She says I am. But her ability to say no so easily makes it hard to believe.”

This feeling of personal rejection, and a sense that his wife doesn’t really desire him, tends to lead a man into darker waters.

Wound #2: your lack of desire can send him into depression.

If your sexual desire gives your husband a sense of well-being and confidence, you can understand why an ongoing perception that you don’t desire him would translate into a nagging lack of confidence, withdrawal, and depression.

The men I talked to scoffed at my tentative suggestion that a string of similar rejections wouldn’t necessarily mean that their wives were rejecting them as men. They warned that any woman sending those signals would undermine the loving environment she wants most because, as one man said, “She is going to have one depressed man on her hands.”

A man can’t just turn off the physical and emotional importance of sex, which is why its lack can be compared to the emotional pain you’d feel if your husband simply stopped talking to you. Consider the painful words of this truly deprived husband—words that other men, upon reading them, call “heartbreaking”:

We’ve been married for a long time. I deeply regret and resent the lack of intimacy of nearly any kind for the duration of our marriage. I feel rejected, ineligible, insignificant, lonely, isolated, and abandoned as a result. Not having the interaction I anticipated prior to marriage is like a treasure lost and irretrievable. It causes deep resentment and hurt within me. This in turn fosters anger and feelings of alienation.

…If you view sex as a purely physical need, it might indeed seem comparable to sleep. But once you realize that your man is actually saying, “This is essential to my feeling of being loved and desired by you, and is critical to counteract my stress, my fears, and my loneliness,” well… that suddenly puts it in a different category. So how might you respond?

First, know that you’re responding to a tender heart hiding behind all that testosterone. If at all possible, respond to his advances with your full emotional involvement, knowing that you’re touching his heart. But if responding physically seems out of the question, let your words be heart words—reassuring, affirming, adoring. Do everything in your power—using words and actions your husband understands—to keep those pangs of personal rejection from striking the man you love. Leave him in no doubt that you love to love him.

And remember, if you do respond physically but do it just to “meet his needs” without getting engaged, you’re not actually meeting his needs. In fact, you might as well send him out to clip the hedges. So enjoy God’s intimate gift, and make the most of it!

…I recognize that some women might very much wish that they could respond more wholeheartedly to their husband’s sexual needs, but feel stopped in their tracks for various personal reasons. I don’t want to add any more frustration. I do, however, want to encourage you to get the personal or professional help you need to move forward. The choice to pursue healing will be worth it, both for you and the man you love.

Make sex a priority

An excerpt from a Today’s Christian Woman article captures this issue—and provides an important challenge to change our thinking. The author starts by admitting that although her husband really wanted to make love more often, it “just wasn’t one of my priorities.” She then describes a subsequent revelation:

I felt what I did all day was meet other people’s needs. Whether it was caring for my children, working in ministry, or washing my husband’s clothes, by the end of the day I wanted to be done need-meeting. I wanted my pillow and a magazine. But God prompted me: “Are the ‘needs’ you meet for your husband the needs he wants met?”

If your daughters weren’t perfectly primped, he didn’t complain. If the kitchen floor needed mopping, he didn’t say a word. And if he didn’t have any socks to wear, he simply threw them in the washer himself.

I soon realized I regularly said “no” to the one thing he asked of me. I sure wasn’t making myself available to my husband by militantly adhering to my plan for the day… Would the world end if I didn’t get my tires rotated? I’d been focused on what I wanted to get done and what my children needed, I’d cut my husband out of the picture.

Are the many things that take our time and energy truly as important as this one? Now would be a good time to reevaluate priorities with the help of our husbands so they know that we are taking this seriously.

… Having heard from so many men on this, I would urge you: Don’t discount it. It’s more important to him—and to your relationship and therefore your own joy in marriage —than you can imagine.

Now that you understand the tender places in your husband’s heart, hopefully you have developed compassion for him and the way he is wired.

The above article comes from the terrific book, FOR WOMEN ONLY… What you Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men -by Shaunti Feldhahn, published by Multnomah. This is a GREAT book (which has much more insight on this and many other subjects) to help women learn about what motivates men and their thought processes behind their actions (or non-actions). Shaunti had interviewed over 1000 men in researching this book. As a result she found that she didn’t know the mind of her husband and others like she thought she did. So what she does in this book is reveal the findings her research brought out so that other women can better understand the men in their lives which will help them to better interact with them. Preview or Purchase this book now

There is also a For Women Only Discussion Guide available, written by Shaunti Feldhahn along with Lisa Rice, which is published by Multnomah. It’s designed to be used by book clubs, in small groups, or even for having a one-on-one dialogue with the man of your life. Many women, after reading the For Women Only book may wonder, “So what do I do with the information I’ve just been given?” This discussion guide is designed to answer that question. It contains personal stories, questions, and situational case studies to help equip you to apply the truths you learn in your own life. Preview or purchase this book now

-ALSO-

There was a radio broadcast series that aired a while ago where Nancy DeMoss interviewed Shaunti Feldhahn and Barbara Rainey on this same subject. We believe you would greatly benefit from reading the transcripts. To do so, click onto the links provided below:

• WHAT DO MEN NEED?

• WORDS HE CAN HEAR

• UNDERSTANDING HIS NEEDS

• DELIGHTING IN MARRIAGE

“It’s difficult to keep the passion burning, but not impossible. Sex isn’t an event. It is an environment. We must make passion a priority and then set an atmosphere where passion can reign” (Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus). 

All of us, men and women alike, are affected by what we let our minds dwell on. If our mental representation of who is having “great sex” stems from romance novels, movies, or soap operas, we’ll be handicapped by a warped view. If we allow our minds to dwell on jokes, magazine surveys, or water-cooler conversations that deal with sex as an impersonal physical experience, we’ll never seek the oneness nor experience the freedom that sexual intimacy was designed to provide.

If we use our brainpower to form a critical picture of our spouses, our marriages, or our mating practices, we are, in fact, violating the sanctity of our God-created oneness. And we are robbing our mates and ourselves of the grace of holy sex.

On occasion, my wife finds herself in a group of women when a lively game of Bash the Husbands begins. Amy has no desire to play the game, so she tries to redirect the conversation or she simply excuses herself. She doesn’t do this because she’s married to the perfect man. If she joined the bashing game for two very simple, yet powerful, reasons. One, she and I have made a commitment that, if we have a problem with each other, we’ll tell only one person: each other.

Two, we both realize the truth of the old proverb: “A marriage is only as good as it is in public.” In other words, deal with your problems at home, not in front of friends. And we must guard our unspoken words as well: We must keep our thoughts about our mates pure. Concentrating on pure thoughts doesn’t mean ignoring problems. Our thoughts are pure when we see our mates and their bodies as they truly are: God’s gift to us. We don’t bash our spouse when we’re talking to friends, and we don’t secretly wish they were someone else.

Likewise, we keep our thoughts about sex pure. Not pure from a staid, inhibited, or ’sex as duty’ sense, but pure in that we savor the fact that the God of the universe smiles when His children “imbibe deeply.”

Song of Songs 2:15 is a strange verse about catching “the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards.” Both counselor and marital researcher Scott Stanley and psychologist John Trent have concluded that these “foxes” are the little things in marriage that, if left unchecked, will eventually undermine the relationship, just as foxes will destroy a vineyard.

In marriage, for instance, the little foxes can be mishandled conflict that is allowed to fester until it results in barriers between spouses. And when it comes to the gift of our sexual connection, we must catch and destroy the little foxes that run through our thoughts and threaten to kill the passion and fun God desires for us.

So what does your mind tend to dwell on when sex is a topic? I’d enjoy having sex with my husband if he were more like Mary’s husband or Sex would be better if my wife would just lose a few pounds. Or perhaps you find yourself thinking, I need to come up with a good reason to avoid sex tonight or I need to figure out how I can talk my frigid mate into having sex tonight. When you allow thoughts that are critical or demeaning, no matter how slight, to fill your head, they will kill your passion. We need to catch those foxes, get them out of our minds, and then work hard in the vineyard to keep passion blooming.

Other thoughts about our mate and sex, however, need to be dealt with differently. If a husband or a wife is turned off to sexual intimacy due to certain behaviors that can be changed, then those behavior changes need to be dealt with in love. If innuendos or comments, ways of touching or responding, or even elements of hygiene cause you to think negatively about your sexual relationship, then lovingly address those issues. All little foxes need to be chased away through prayer and open, accepting conversation.

The above thoughts come from the inspiring book, SACRED SEX… A Spiritual Celebration of Oneness in Marriage, by Tim Alan Gardner, published by WaterBrook Press. For years, Christians have been told that sex is God’s creation, designed as a gift to husbands and wives. Yet few couples know sex as a spiritual, God -ordained experience.

Within this book you can learn how to approach marital sex in a way that brings the fulfillment of true oneness. Find out how to experience a beautiful life of intimacy that blesses you far beyond the bedroom walls, serves as an act of worship to God, and touches your hearts and souls in ways you never could have imagined.

Demanding Has Gotta Go:
1 Corinthians 7:3-5 is an often misunderstood Scripture. People have tried to use it to prove they have a “right” to their mate’s body. But that’s not what it’s saying at all. Let’s take a closer look at it:

The husband should not deprive his wife of sexual intimacy, which is her right as a married woman, nor should the wife deprive her husband. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband also gives authority over his body to his wife. So do not deprive each other of sexual relations.

The only exception to this rule would be the agreement of both husband and wife to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time, so they can give themselves more completely to prayer. Afterward they should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt them because of their lack of self-control.

This is talking about mutual giving and mutual willingness to not deprive. It is not talking about taking or demanding. It’s not that we own our mate’s body and can demand, “Give, because I own you!” We’re not in that position. This Scripture commands us to give. As a married couple, we’re both in a giving relationship, not in a position of ownership where we have the right to take or demand.

Based on this principle, we then have to take responsibility for our own sexual pleasure. We know this sounds a bit contradictory to the idea that we’re to be other centered. But it’s not! Because if we are not taking responsibility, then we are demanding that our mate take responsibility for our sexual pleasure.

Clifford and Joyce Penner describe what we’re talking about in their book The Gift of Sex (page 108).

“We advocate the idea of taking the responsibility for your own sexual needs. The sexual response is something that happens in your body. It is personal and loaded with emotions. Each individual differs from every other individual and each individual differs from one experience to another. You can’t count on all women wanting it “this way’ or men ‘always wanting’ …or even this particular woman or man responding to the same thing every time. Because of the beautiful and complicated creation you are, there is no way your partner can consistently guess what would please you. [That's what we would be demanding they do—‘consistently guess.'] However you usually know what you like, so you should take the responsibility to go after that desire.”

• We believe this. We promote it. But… with these three cautions:

1. Honor your Mate’s preferences. Don’t proceed in pursuing your own needs at the expense of your partner. Otherwise it becomes a self-centered, selfish pursuit. No pushing, badgering, nagging or manipulating your spouse to do what you want. Simply ask. If your spouse doesn’t feel comfortable with what you are asking, back off without coldness or theatrics. Such antics are seen as punishment to your mate for not doing what you want and will actually lower your mate’s sex drive. Now that would be pretty dumb, wouldn’t it?

2. Ask to be scratched where you itch. Simply tell your spouse about your needs and desires without placing demands on them. Your spouse is not a mind reader. He or she can’t know where you itch or how you want scratched…unless you say it out loud.

We sometimes hear, “But if he loved me — if she loved me — they’d just know!” Now we ask you, does that make any sense?

3. Communicate to your mate when he or she is doing something that turns you off. Here are the ground rules: Talk together outside of your bedroom, fully clothed. Otherwise, you are both too vulnerable. Talk kindly about what it is that’s turning you off. Put it in positive terms like, “If you would try ‘this’ instead of ‘that,’ it might work a lot better for me.” Or, “I think it would be sexier if you…” If you talk about the problem in a non-blaming way, giving a positive solution for it, your mate will feel like there’s something definite he/she can do about it. Then it doesn’t seem so hard.

Harmful Games Have Gotta Go:

A lot of couples fall into the habit of playing manipulative, selfish games with each other. Instead of mutually giving to one another and being willing to not deprive one another sexually, as 1 Corinthians 7 clearly states, they manipulate their mate to get what they want. And instead of being honest in their communication about sex with each other, they play games that hurt their relationship.

We play these games because we don’t understand our differences sexually. Women are wired: “No love, no sex.”

Men are wired: “No sex, no love.” This is hard wiring, so we need to give ourselves to truly understand the way God made our mate.

Female wiring declares: value me, love me, make your love obvious to me, then I’ll want to have sex with you.

Male wiring says, “Have sex with me, then I’ll know you love me.” Generally speaking, that’s the way we’re wired. And guess what? God made us different sexually on purpose. He wants us to learn how to adjust to each other. You’ve got to learn how to understand each other and adjust to each other sexually, or you and your mate are going to be in a standoff that will harm your marriage.

This standoff usually manifests itself in a little game called The Approach/Avoidance Game. One of you has a greater sex drive than the other. Generally men have a higher sex drive than women, but that’s not always the case. The game starts when the spouse who has the higher sex drive starts believing he or she has to ask or hint for sex 6 or 7 times in order to get it once. You feel like you have to go through this pattern, this game, in order to get sex one time.

The problem with this is every time you hint, every time you ask, is seen as a full-blown approach to your mate with the lower sex drive. So what it looks like to your mate is approach, approach, approach, approach… that can be very intimidating.

If I were to run as fast as I can at you, would you want to lean forward to catch me or would you step back out of the way so you wouldn’t get run over? You’d step back out of the way, right? That’s called self-protection. That’s what happens with the mate who has the lower sex drive. She or he will back off from you out of self-protection and start avoiding sex altogether. If you are the “Approach-er” in the Approach/Avoidance game, you are actually lowering your mate’s sex drive.

That’s not what you want. You both have to talk about this. Together you have to confess you are playing this game.

If you are playing the game, you must decide together what you are going to do about it, because it takes both of you to stop it. If you’re the “Approacher,” you’ve got to back off lovingly without even subtly trying to lay guilt on your mate. If you lay guilt, you’ll lower your mate’s sex drive. You’ll shoot yourself in the foot. Back off lovingly.

If you are the “Avoidee,” then you have a responsibility here too. Talk about how you have been playing this game and together decide that it’s going to stop. As the “Avoidee,” you must be honest with your mate and with yourself. You can now stop avoiding sex with your mate, because he (or she) is going to stop approaching you so much. Start learning to talk together about your sexual desires. Learn how to mutually give to one another. Think about loving and giving to your mate, not about taking.

We’ve had “Approach-ers” complain to us, “I quit approaching last week and it’s not fixed yet!” We have to ask, “How long have you played the game?” You see, if you’ve played this game for years and years, don’t expect that in a week or two you’re going to turn things around and everything’s going to be hunky-dory again. It’s going to take time and effort, but if you work on this together, you can stop playing this game.

If you kick these two habits out of your bedroom, it’s going to be a lot happier place. Not only that, but Satan won’t be able to use these habits against you. 1 Corinthians 7 makes it clear that the devil wants to get a foothold in your love life. And it also makes it clear that one way to kick him out of your bedroom is to be sure you are mutually giving to and willingly not depriving your spouse.

This great ministry has a number of other articles related to marriage that you can read on their web site at www.marriages.net as well as resources and other information you may be interested in obtaining. It’s sure worth the visit to their web site. We hope you’ll do so!

Harold and Bette Gillogly have been helping marriages succeed since 1983 by conducting conferences and retreats. They teach interactively and have written several marriage books and many magazine and newsletter articles. They share their message in a practical, down-to-earth way. Using poignant life stories, humorous cartoons, and down-right hilarious anecdotes, they will encourage you and challenge you with practical tools to address everyday issues.