By Ryan Parks
One thing that has been on my heart is the communication between husbands and wives in the area of sexual intimacy and romance. Yes, I said it.
Over the years, I’ve attended a few premarital seminars/classes and marriage events. And I’ve always heard tips like, “keep in good communication with your spouse,” “never go to bed angry at one another,” “keep God in the center of your marriage,” and many more great marriage phraseologies. However, the one topic that always seemed to be missing (at least in my mind) was an authentic, real talk about the importance of sexual intimacy and romance within the marriage.
No, I’m not a sex freak, but let’s be real: it’s an important aspect of marriage. If you want to continue to have fulfillment and spontaneity in the marriage, the bedroom is a good place to set that off. This is a topic that I don’t commonly hear much about in the Christian church or a lot of times among believers. But why would God say “the two shall become one” (Mark 10:8), if He didn’t desire our sexual intimacy in marriage to be an awesome experience? Think on that!
As a person who had been single for most of my adult life (15+ years to be exact), was in a courting relationship with my now husband for 1.5 years and has been married now for a little more than three years, I’ve learned a few things as a fairly young married woman.
We’ve learned that not investing time and intentionality into sexual intimacy and romance can drastically affect our communication between one another or even trigger built-up feelings of frustration. If you’ve experienced being physically frustrated, you can probably identify with this.
The one thing we’ve learned is that if either spouse is not constantly having a way to “release” (I’m referring to sexually), then it could subconsciously lead to silent frustration toward your spouse. According to a recent Psychology Today post, for “married couples living in America, frequency of sex, sexual satisfaction and marital satisfaction all decreased over time.” If sex and marital satisfaction are both decreasing in the average marriage, can we not correlate the two?
Early on in our marriage, we had learned to be open about our intimacy desires and needs. And frequently communicating those needs and desires with one another, went a long way. The key here is that we communicated our sexual desires to one another, NOT to a co-worker, a best friend, family member or even mentor.
This was important to us because when God says “guard your heart with all diligence, because out of the heart, flow the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23), He means that it’s important to guard who we allow to speak into our heart and who and what we open our heart up to. Sharing sexual desires or even frustrations with anyone other than your spouse is a disaster waiting to happen.
That said, let’s talk about sex—but only with our spouses. Here are 5 things to talk about first.
Tip #1: Communicate your sexual desires and needs to your spouse OFTEN.
Since my husband and I first got married, we were very open about our sexual desires with one another, needs and what we liked. Express your sexual desires with one another without feeling ashamed or embarrassed. Once you achieve this level of candidness, your sexual satisfaction should increase as you both will be able to address each other’s sexual needs.
Tip #2: Discuss bringing creativity and new experiences to the bedroom.
Bringing creativity to the marriage bed will make sexual intimacy fun, exciting and spontaneous. My husband and I love to act silly, so we’ve had times when we wore silly undergarments before making love and even wrestled at times. This may not be your thing, but discuss ways you and your spouse can switch things up in the bedroom.
Tip #3: Talk about intimacy challenges and then pray over them.
If there are any issues directly affecting your sexual satisfaction in your relationship, know that prayer changes things! Whatever is concerning you about your marriage, know that God hears and will give you the desires of your heart.
Tip #4: Compliment your spouse in the bed.
Encouraging words and compliments go a long way when they are genuine and from the heart. If you had an amazing experience in the bed with your spouse, tell him or her. Don’t keep it to yourself because sometimes one word of encouragement or a nice compliment can boost the confidence of your spouse more than you know.
Tip #5: Allow each other to freely discuss lulls with your spouse and embrace them.
There may be times when either spouse has had a long day or may be too tired to engage in love-making. If this is the case, don’t belittle your spouse or think something’s wrong. Love on them and embrace the fact they were honest about how they were feeling at the time. I have learned that it’s healthier to not force sexual intimacy with my husband, but to wait patiently, with love. When your spouse is ready, then he or she will be open to give themselves to you with joy.
BMWK family, in what ways have you enhanced your sexual intimacy and romance in your marriage?
Bio:
Ryan Parks is a God-loving wife, step mother of three, entrepreneur, dreamer, inspirational writer, and encourager, whose passionate about personal growth and encouraging others to NEVER give up on their dreams and goals in life. Parks also partners with her husband as an Independent Business Owner through Amway. Visit her website here. Also, find her on Twitter at @NcouragerRParks.
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