Bring a Spark Back to the Bedroom

It can happen to the best of us: Your sexual relationship with your spouse falls into a rut. Wives, do you know just a little change from you can bring a spark back to your bedroom?

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Gary counsels with many authentic believers and concerned husbands who are trying to find answers to tough questions about a fundamental part of their lives and a crucial part of the marriage relationship – their sexual relationship with their wife. Here’s what he has discovered:

• A husband needs his wife to initiate sex.

• A husband often struggles with feelings of inadequacy or failure.

• A husband gets discouraged when his wife does not express her passion for him.

• A husband feels as if he’s not important to his wife when she doesn’t take time to make love.

• A husband becomes concerned when life situations (such as depression, grief, and loss) interfere with his interest in sex.

• A husband feels loved when his wife receives him and responds to him sexually.

For one thing, men aren’t sure what “normal” sexual desire is. Since they don’t even know where

the desire comes from (besides the fact that God put it there), knowing what’s normal in marriage is even more complicated.

Psychologically, of course, there is a strong connection between men’s sexual interest and their psychological health. If they are stressed or depressed or going through a difficult time, their sexual interest may diminish. Between their brains, their hormones, and their emotions, a lot can influence the sex drive and the sexual relationship in marriage.

Usually, however, it isn’t the “internal” problems men are most worried about. It’s their wives—you.

Why has it been months or years since you’ve initiated making love? Why, when there are no obstacles to intimacy on a Saturday morning, do you choose to do laundry or clean the bathrooms instead of cuddling up next to him? Why, evening after evening, is there no spark in you for him? Why have you once again rebuffed his overtures when you’re in bed at night?

These are the questions that are dividing marriages across the land. Some couples divorce because the hurt and neglect have gone so deep. But many Christian couples simply endure emotional distance. Men who love God, their wives, and their children are going through intense struggle, trying to figure out what’s going wrong. 

Unless both partners agree, sexual infrequency (once a week or less) should be a cause of major concern in any marriage.

So would you like some ideas to bring some spark and excitement back to your sexual relationship with your husband? Here are some ways you can romance your man: 

• Call your husband during the day and tell him that he is your one and only and that you can’t wait to have an interlude with him at just the right time!

•  Leave him notes (always in discreet places: his briefcase, suitcase on trips, lunch bag, personal planner) to stir the passion.

•  Remind him that you are committed to meet his needs just as you need him to commit to meet your needs of intimacy, both emotionally and sexually.

•  Ask him where you need to be a better student of him and where you both need to “go back to school” in the development of your sexual relationship. This will stir some great discussion!

•   Don’t forget that few things affirm your husband more than when you initiate, initiate, initiate times of sexual intimacy.

•  Tell him that when you see him serve you by spending time with the kids, it draws you to him and you can’t wait to spend some tender private time with him later!

•  As you see him growing in his spiritual life in prayer, reading the Word, and sharing spiritual insights with you, bring him in on this secret: that as his wife you feel nurtured and secure in his spiritual leadership and this makes you want to draw close to him sexually.

• Flirt and play with your husband.

*For more revealing insights about what your spouse’s most intimate sex needs are - and how to meet them - check out The 5 Sex Needs of Men and Women in our online bookstore!

The Danger of Unhealed Hurts

Unhealed hurt from a conflict in your relationship can trigger anger. Anger is a secondary emotion, typically following hurt, disappointment, or fear. It’s what grows out of the offense and the hurt when they are not dealt with quickly. Unleashed anger only makes things worse in a conflict and becomes another hindrance to resolving it peacefully.

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When we talk about anger in a marriage relationship, we share what we call the “baked potato syndrome.” Picture a big, brown russet potato in the oven. You turn on the heat and the potato begins to warm. Given sufficient time, it bakes to a fluffy white inside, ready for butter, sour cream, chives, and bacon bits. But if you forget about the potato and let it bake too long, it could explode and make a mess in your oven. This illustrates what can happen when offenses, hurts, and anger are allowed to heat up through lack of loving action. The result can be a disaster.

You will be better equipped to deal with anger in your marriage if you understand the different types of anger and identify why you respond the way you do. There are three varieties of the “baked potato” of anger: situational anger, displaced anger, and chronic anger. Each one has a different cause.

Some anger responses are situational, triggered by specific events. You can almost predict it: When a certain something happens, one of you reacts with anger. Behind every eruption of situational anger are offenses and hurts that have not been resolved. The sooner you close the loop on offenses and hurts, the less damage you will suffer—or inflict—from anger.

Another variety of anger is one counselors refer to as displaced anger. Rather than confronting and dealing with the direct cause of the anger in a situation, the offended spouse expresses his or her feelings indirectly. Displaced anger may not be as damaging as other forms, but it still leaves a painful open loop in the relationship.

A third type of anger resulting from unhealed hurts is chronic anger. When an open loop is not closed in a timely manner, the hurt and anger are often shoved to the background and ignored. Because it is unresolved, this anger can flare up again and again. Buried wounds and anger generate an assortment of psychological and physical stresses that can ruin a person’s perspective on life and eat away at the soul. People with chronic anger are like loose cannons, ready to blast away whenever someone unwittingly touches off the fuse.

Unless you and your spouse learn how to work through your hurt and anger, you will likely find yourself on an emotional roller coaster that never slows down. Stuffing anger into some dark corner of your heart may temporarily help you skirt past a conflict, but the anger doesn’t go away. Venting anger through a verbal tirade, an argument, screaming, crying, or slamming doors may help you let off a little steam, but it won’t solve the root problem and you will explode again and again. The longer you allow the cycles of stuffing and exploding to continue, the more you will hurt yourself and your spouse.

Much of the hurt and anger you experience in your marriage relationship are the result of unresolved conflicts between you and your spouse. They are all part of open loops, and the longer the loops remain open, the greater will be the turmoil in your marriage. Closing every loop as soon as possible is vital to divorce-proofing your marriage. And dealing with those hurts and resolving them will help you and your spouse grow closer in your relationship.

*Our book, Healing the Hurt in Your Marriage, can help you understand different conflict styles and teach you how to move toward forgiveness and healing!

Fighting Over Friends

Q: We don’t like each other’s friends. What should we do?

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A: You both need to handle this with a tremendous amount of honor and respect and grace. You don’t want to be overly critical or judgmental about another person. What is the reason that you don’t like certain of your spouse’s friends? Perhaps it’s just a personality clash. If so, then back off and let your spouse enjoy the person. You don’t need to be involved. Let your spouse know, and then he or she can leave you out of the picture when they get together.

However, perhaps you don’t like a certain friend because you feel that your spouse’s relationship with that person is not edifying, not honoring to God, and ultimately even hurtful to your marriage. Maybe it’s an old drinking buddy, or the twice divorced friend from college with less than honorable morals. You need to delicately express your concerns to your spouse, and your spouse needs to hear and validate those concerns. Then trust each other. Work it out. The drinking buddy maybe comes over, but there’s no drinking—just nachos and watching the game.

Bottom line is that you need to validate your spouse’s friendships—you both need your same sex friends and you need to spend time with them. Just communicate, set good boundaries, and be willing to be flexible.

*For more practical marriage advice, check out The Great Marriage Q&A Book. It's available in our online bookstore!

Questions (And Answers) about Premarital Sex

Q: How can we know if we’re sexually compatible or not if we don’t sleep together before we get married?

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A: God designed marriage. True or false? The culture supports marriage. True or false? Media supports marriage. True or false? What do you believe is God’s design for marriage? Is it the same now and forever as it was in the beginning? Does it change? And is the desire for marriage nothing more than nostalgia for the past? What do you think? Listen to Lisa:

“I’m about twenty-five, single, never been married. I’ve never lived with a guy, but I have close friends who say they’re Christians but cohabitate. Then they break up and their hearts are broken and they don’t understand why there’s so much pain. They justify living together by saying that it’s a test run for marriage—that you wouldn’t go buy a car without test-driving it. They try to say that marriage is just a slip of paper. They just don’t understand the spiritual significance of being joined as one. My girlfriends are living with their boyfriends thinking that they’ll persuade the guys they’re living with to get married. Sometimes it’s very hard for me, but I found that my stronghold is to have a really good church with a good singles group of people my age who are also career people.”

Lisa makes the point that God’s design is the best design. Biblical advice against premarital

sex works out to be true in life after life—both in the pain felt by those who disobey God’s plan

and the blessedness of marriage for those who have followed it. God gives us rules and guidelines not because he’s mean or wants to keep us from anything, but because he loves us so much. His plan for purity before marriage is the best plan. It’s like a hedge of protection.

Q: What about just living together without having sex? We’re planning to get married soon, and this saves us money.

A: A young woman called us with just this scenario. She said that she and her fiancé were Christians and wanted to live together. She said they weren’t going to have sex until they were married. She wanted to see if we thought this was okay.

Well, she discovered that we don’t think it’s okay at all. Here’s why.

Paul wrote to the people at Ephesus, “Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people” (Ephesians 5:3). We asked the young woman if she had neighbors or kids next door. She said yes. So then we asked if she believed as a Christian that God calls her to walk with him above reproach so that she could be a light to draw other people to a relationship with Christ. She assured us that she did.

Our encouragement to this young woman, and to any of you who might be considering this “living together/no sex” scenario, is that if you want God to bless this union, then the best thing you can do is to be above reproach. Listen to what another caller said:

“My husband and I dated for two weeks and then we moved in together. Within two weeks we had decided we wanted to be with each other and we were going to get married. Financially, we thought it would be good because we could pay off bills and save for a house. We decided we were just going to move in together, have separate bedrooms, and not have sex. But the temptation was so great and we were so in love, we did end up making love. Later we got married. I can tell you from experience that making love in marriage is completely different—and it’s amazing. Having sex without the bond of marriage truly becomes an obstacle to really knowing and learning and communicating and seeing the broad spectrum of gifts that you bring into the relationship.”

Even if you are truly able to withstand the temptation to have sex, you still are giving the suggestion of immorality to your family, friends, and neighbors. If you want to start your union on the right foot, let there be no hint of or putting yourself into a situation that tempts you toward sexual immorality.

*For more practical marriage advice, check out The Great Marriage Q&A Book. It's available in our online bookstore!

Healthy Boundaries with In-Laws

Q: My mother-in-law really has my husband under her thumb. How can I get her to back off without hurting either of their feelings?

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A: We have heard this often in the counseling room, and often it’s a situation where the husband is caring for a mother who has been widowed or divorced. These husbands are trying to be there for mom. So every time the wife brings this up, he feels threatened and angry because he’s just trying to do what he feels is right. The problem is, sometimes mom can be a bit overbearing. She may call at all hours and expect her son to come right over to do whatever. She may expect him to do all the yard work—not taking into account that he has his own yard work to do. There are plenty of ways that the controlling nature of a parent can play out. Sometimes it is a wife who is controlled by her mother.

We would offer a few suggestions to stop having your marriage controlled by one of your parents. There may be other siblings who can help—and there may not be. In either case, your spouse needs to do some maturing when it comes to setting boundaries, but it won’t happen overnight.

For example, it would not be wise for a husband to just go pull the plug on spending time or connecting to his mom. It’s a process. If there are siblings, encourage your husband to start with the one or two siblings to whom he’s closest and who also may be inclined to help and share the burden in an honoring way. Even if they live far away, there are ways that they can help. One sibling can make a call to the kid down the street to mow the lawn and send him a check once a month so that your husband is not burdened with weekly lawn care. Someone else can be sure to check in on mom by phone or e-mail every few days. That takes some of the emotional burden off of your husband.

He needs to help his siblings understand that he is trying to get his marriage and family off to a healthy start—and that helping mom all the time is making it difficult. Discuss how other siblings can pick up some of the responsibility.

You don’t want to dishonor your husband for seeking to honor his mother, so you need to make sure he understands that. Instead, you want him to set healthy boundaries.

*For more practical marriage advice, check out The Great Marriage Q&A Book. It's available in our online bookstore!