My wife and I watched a marriage seminar on DVD this last weekend that we both really enjoyed. It's done by a guy named Mark Grungor and is called "Laugh Your Way To A Better Marriage." First of all, it was very good and I highly recommend it to any couple interested in improving their relationship.
It gave us a good time to laugh about our differences, learn some things, and then discuss later the things we agreed with and didn't agree with (which is a very important step after these type of things to make sure they apply to your situation). There were many pearls of wisdom throughout the video, but I'd like to share one that really stuck with me.
I have often been amazed at how God designed men to need sex to feel loved, and how women need love to want sex. For years it has seemed like a big cosmic practical joke, something to frustrate both sexes for all of their married lives. Why? has been the question for many men in this area.
Instead of looking at this as an impossible impasse, however, we need to look at it as a circle in which we both help complete. For me to get the sexual intimacy that I desire, I need to be focusing on loving my wife in the way she wants to be loved. And, for my wife to get the love she wants from me, she must understand that she creates that attitude in me by giving me the sexual intimacy I want.
If husband and wife both had the same needs, it would be much harder for those needs to be fulfilled because we would both be wanting the same thing all the time. But since we have "opposite" needs, we can each focus on fulfilling each other instead of ourselves.
Mark Grungor said the reason why men have the sex drive they have is not because we're dirty, perverted, or sex crazy, but it's a simple way to force us remember to love the girl. Our sexual desire should make us ask ourselves, "How have I loved my wife lately?" and "How can I love her right now?"
Of course the problems arise when we turn our sex drive into a reason to be self-fulfilling and not self-giving. So we must ask ourselves: Am I completing this circle or breaking it?
June 26, 2008
Why Doesn't She Want Sex Like I Do?
May 18, 2008
Satisfy Your Hungry Eyes
One of my favorite things about being a man is Woman. God did something amazing with Human Being 2.0 and I will never get over it. He designed men to like to look, and he designed women to like being looked at. That design fits perfectly into marriage and can create wonderful intimacy and closeness if we work it right.
Most husbands are not married to the twenty-two-year-old Photoshopped cover models and the nineteen-year-old college girls at the beach. And for the husbands who are, they won't be for long – age catches up to us all. (That and those who want real commitment don't go looking for the girls who advertise.) Too many married men get caught up looking and lusting after these kinds of girls and they begin to take their own wives' beauty for granted. I am married to an absolutely gorgeous woman, but the more I start noticing the other women around me, the less I am affected by her beauty. And I want to be affected by her beauty.
Televesion, magazines, the internet and summer serve up an entire buffet of beautiful women daily. By starving your eyes from outside sexual stimulation, you can train your brain to define beauty based on the woman you sleep next to every night, and that is a pretty awesome trick.
The more we can keep our eyes away from Maxim and MTV, the harder it will be for us to find flaws in our wives' figures. When we can learn to starve our eyes of the sexual stimulation we get from all women – and only let our eyes go wild for one woman – we will remember how beautiful she is, and she will feel the difference.
So keep your eyes hungry.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider Stumbling it. Thanks!
April 25, 2008
Tell Her...Ahead Of Time
So I'm sitting at my computer, working hard and minding my own business when it hits me: I'd really like to get intimate tonight. I'm not sure where the thought came from, but the thought is in my mind and isn't going anywhere. For the rest of the day dreams of what will be fill my head and I get more and more excited about enjoying one of God's greatest gifts to marriage.
But my wife is having different thoughts. She's spent the day cleaning house and running errands. She's tired, but needs to call her mom before we go to bed. She's looking forward to crashing, and I'm feeling frustrated. I go to bed depressed; I don't want to tell her, but it's been on my mind all day.
This situation has repeated itself throughout our entire marriage in different ways. And there's no reason it shouldn't; we live two different lives and live a life together. Things are going to get in the way, and I will have to understand that. But I have discovered a wonderful marriage tool that can really help keep our sexual desires on the same schedule.
Now when I get that desire during the day, I simply pick a good moment to go up to her, hug her, and say that I'd really like to make love with her that night. By doing something so simple, she gets the rest of the day to expect what's coming. And when you both know it's coming, you both get to enjoy it.
Because unmet expectations are the worst.
April 7, 2008
Being Naked
Some highlights:
"When's the last time that showering together wasn't foreplay?! Ever shared a long hug in the shower?"
"Lazy naked snuggling is so easy when you sleep together IF you don't go to bed exhausted and IF you wake up more than 30 seconds before you HAVE TO jump out of bed. Just wrap yourselves around each other and enjoy the contact; no movement or talking is required."
"One reason many women avoid this is they fear that it will 'always lead to sex,' while men often avoid it out of fear that "it won't lead to sex. The problem here is..."
