~Appreciate Your Spouse~Buoyancy in Marriage~Consult Your Partner~
~Dream Together Part One ~Dream Together Part Two~Empower Your Spouse~
~Have Fun With Your Spouse~Give to One Another~Honor Each Other~
~Be Intentional~Jubilee~Kingdom Focused~Listen~~Mentor Relationships~Nourish~Own It~
~Pray With Each Other~Quick to Listen~Read Together~Selfless~Teamwork~Uplift~Vulnerable~Worship~
X in a Healthy Marriage
Of Course “X” is for Sex – Matt’s Thoughts
You and your spouse are not just roommates. God’s design for marriage includes passion and pleasure. Have you read Song of Solomon?
Or how about Proverbs 5:18-19? Solomon is giving his sons all kinds of advice in the first nine chapters of Proverbs, much of which has to do with warnings against adultery. It is in this context that he says,
“May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be captivated by her love.”
That doesn’t sound dull to me.
A healthy marriage includes mutual passion and mutual pleasure. In general, the husband’s sexual appetite is stronger – as in he desires sex more often than his wife. It doesn’t take much for him to think of his wife in a sexual way. Any of the following are possible: He could simply see his woman and think…sex; he might smell his woman and think…sex; he could hear his woman and think…sex; he may think about his woman and think…sex; often, if he touches his woman he’s thinking…sex. For her thoughts to go to sex, in general, it’s not so much about one of her physical senses, but if she feels loved. This varies from woman to woman and is part of the two becoming one. They become one as they come to know each other better in every way. If a husband knows and practices what communicates love to his wife “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” as the apostle Paul puts it in Ephesians 5:25, then she’ll want to become one with him in the bedroom too.
Guys, the reality is that we shouldn’t have sex as much as we’d like to…the children would starve. It takes time for her passion to build. Show her love every day, not just when you want her in bed that night. When her passion does build, do everything you can to pleasure her. Sex is not for your pleasure only. Again, in a healthy marriage the passion is shared and the pleasure is gifted to your spouse.
Gals, the reality is that, “The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband,” and neither spouse should “deprive each other” (I Corinthians 7:4-5). For his sake, make it happen sometimes before your passion has rebuilt. Giving yourself to him communicates your love to him.
Captivating – Laura’s Thoughts
I love the phrase at the end of the passage from Proverbs that Matt shared above, “…may you ever be captivated by her love.”
Is there anything in marriage more beautiful than him being absolutely captivated by her, and her being captivated by him? To me, that is a true picture of marital bliss, and everything (and I mean everything) that goes along with it. To me, “captivated by” says a lot more than “attracted to” or even “in love with”. It also says more than “we have a great sex life”.
To be captivated by our spouse means that we are truly one in every sense. This takes vulnerability and trust. It takes a selfless attitude on both parts, and it takes honest and frequent communication. It’s amazing actually, how many other pieces of a healthy marriage come into play with sexual fulfillment in a marriage. It is all connected.
Guys, consider what you might do to connect with your wife in a way that makes her feel captivated by you. Gals, your husband finds you captivating, what are you going to do about that? (That was rhetorical. We figured you might take that up with your man.) ;)
Ladies, we know you’re reading here more often than the guys. ;) We’d love husbands to read this article as well. If you feel so inclined please send the link to your husbands, or if it’s easier, we’ve created a downloadable article for you to quickly print off and share. Healthy Marriage Tips from A to Z – X in a Healthy Marriage
Somehow, this year, without meaning to, I have apparently made a very short Christmas to-do list. We’re not making a big, long trip this year, we’re not trying to make Christmas goodies for the entire population, we’re keeping our meals simple, and our living room just holds a small tree and our stockings.
