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Guys are supposed to be crazy about sex, right? So what do you do when your husband isn’t interested? In 25% of marriages the wife has a higher sex drive than her husband. So how do you get on the same page when it comes to sex? Relationship expert Sheila Wray Gregoire offers four main reasons why a man might not want to make love, and what you can do to help. Watch the video
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There are two common things that cause a divide in marriage: one is a natural drift, the other is crisis. Is natural drift happening in your marriage? Have you faced a crisis that changed your life forever? Being intentional in your marriage is the key to overcoming either of these.
Drifting seems to be a norm for many relationships after the honeymoon phase ends. Life gets busy, things pile up and it’s easy for other things to become a priority and take center stage. If you have kids, even more so. Not to mention the daily stressors of life. After a while the time and energy you once put into your relationship is diverted to other things. A subtle drift sets in. For many marriages this becomes the status quo. . . until one day you seem very far apart and don’t know what happened.
Crisis can become another factor in drifting apart. Crisis can accelerate the divide much more intensely and quickly. Crisis is what really impacted our family.
Several years ago some major health and financial issues hit our family. It was the beginning of a very stressful time in our lives. It felt like a giant wave had just picked us up and carried us to an unwanted, unexpected place and dumped us there. We had no choice, no control and didn’t know when or how we would get back to familiar territory. We faced many challenges including a major reversal in our roles. I stepped back into the workforce after being a stay at home mom for fifteen years. My husband’s health limited him. There was a lot of stress as my husband, our kids and I adjusted to the new norm. I adopted a “do what needs to be done to get through” mindset. My focus became very narrow. I needed to protect. I needed to provide. I forged ahead. This crisis really impacted our marriage. Knowing that logically and living it in reality are two different things.
A year ago I realized the way we were functioning was not good for our marriage or our family -long term. Stress behavior needed to transition back to a “normal” mode of functioning. My husband and I realized just how much of a toll it was taking on our marriage. It was time to step back and take inventory.
The cost had been high. Some of it was expected, given all that had happened, but we realized we didn’t want our marriage to stay where it was. So now what? How were we going to get to a better place relationally when it was clear our circumstances were never going back to the way they were?
We had to be intentional.
Being intentional about marriage can take many forms. For us, there were several steps to our process. The first step was to take inventory. We had to ask what this had cost us individually, our marriage, and our kids. Then based on the inventory results we developed a plan.
The plan started with both of us working on self first. We had to be intentional about what we each needed as individuals in order to be healthy before we focused on our marriage. At that point working on self was the beginning point for working on our marriage.
Next, we looked at communication. Communication is a key part of every marriage. It becomes even more important when you hit a crisis. Our inventory surfaced some communication issues we needed to work on. Top of the list was being honest and open while considering wise timing. I had to learn to be more open about things I had been keeping to myself, but I needed to consider timing and not just dump when I felt I needed to. Timing can be the difference between a discussion going well or becoming a disaster. We also had to learn a balance between over communicating and under communicating.
The next step was identifying and being proactive about our different Love Languages. We had given lip service to that concept but now we began to act on it. We made a priority of understanding and being purposeful about each other’s love language. For example, my primary languages are Quality Time and Receiving Gifts. It was amazing to both of us how even the littlest thing my husband did with that in mind made huge deposits into my emotional love tank.
We also recognized we needed to prioritize time to build our marriage. This would mean different things at different times. Going out on a date and leaving behind the difficulties of our circumstances was important. We had to be intentional about not using our date time to talk about negative things; this was our “fun” time. We needed to have fun together and enjoy each other. But at other times we needed to discuss things we had been avoiding. So we learned to set aside a specific time to talk about “that” issue and not put it off any longer. In fact, we started having a regular time for these “business” discussions. We both knew when the conversation would be so we could prepare and know what to expect. The range of issues were varied; sometimes finances, scheduling, health, parenting, or relational health for our marriage. We still meet once a week to deal with the “business” side of marriage and we always leave the house. We go get a coffee or go for a drive. We’ve come to see that we need specific time for fun and time to talk through the bigger issues of our life and our marriage. Both are really important.
In the midst of all the difficulty, the key to being intentional about our marriage was to reestablish our commitment. Statistically, it’s in times of hardship that divorce rates sky rocket. But being intentional about commitment can be the driving force that moves you forward through the hardship. When our wave swept over us, our commitment was a very key foundation. Commitment is defined as: devotion or dedication to a cause, person, or relationship. Part of this devotion and dedication to our relationship was to look for positives in our marriage and in each other. I made a list of the things I appreciate about my husband. I mentally refer to the list at random times. Especially when I’m frustrated!
The next step in our journey of intentionality was resources – books, workbooks, videos and articles - many of them from FamilyLifecanada.com. It is amazing how God provided resources for me when I needed them. Sometimes it came in the form of a well-timed email or phone call. Sometimes it was as simple as a text message from a friend that said “I care”. Friends were our best resource. We were not meant to walk through life alone. Community brings care, as well as life experience and helpful insights. A very important part of our plan was wise counsel and accountability with people we could be really honest with.
Today, a year later, I see much progress. Sometimes it was hard to detect in the midst of the difficulty and sometimes it came in unexpected or even unwanted ways. But it was there when I looked for it. There’s more needed, but after 22 years of marriage I realize that will always be the case. We are a work in progress. Thankfully we are progressing; not just drifting unawares or dividing because of crisis.
Intentionality in a relationship is SO important. And it’s especially important when your crisis “wave” hits. But let me encourage you, there is a way through: be intentional, make a plan and move forward.
For ideas about being intentional refer to the book The Love Dare by Stephen Kendrick. To learn more about the Love Languages read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Boundaries in Marriage by Henry Cloud and John Townsend is a great resource for healthy boundaries in marriage. For those struggling with the unexpected wave hitting Plan B by Pete Wilson or Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb are good books. Finally for those struggling through grief I found A Grace Disguised very helpful.
I made a beef stew for a big family event over the holidays. It was a big hit. A simple stew! Later it struck me: marriage is a lot like a beef stew. It doesn’t have to be complicated. And the better the ingredients – the better the end result.
So this year, may we encourage you to put the best ingredients into your marriage? Simple ones like time. Attention. Intention. Romance. Sex. Laughter. Gratitude. Celebration.
At the beginning of every year, Neil and I have a “State of the Union” weekend where we review the past year and look forward to the next. We talk about the joys, challenges and disappointments of the year past and set some goals, make some plans and dream forward into the new year. We started doing it about 15 years ago after a particularly troubled time in our marriage. In fact, it was the roughest season we’d ever experienced. We found ourselves frosty roommates rather than the passionate friends and lovers we’d always been to each other. We couldn’t believe we’d allowed ourselves to get so far off track. A weekend retreat helped us get honest and slowly start making our way back. We realized our marriage had become the victim of benign neglect. We’d been trying to keep a marriage alive on scraps. Scraps of time, scraps of attention, scraps of energy. Cheap ingredients. We agreed we wanted more than that. So now we get away once a year – for a day, a weekend, and this year, for a week – to take stock, to plan and to make sure we’re putting the very best ingredients in our 33 year “stew”. We leave on Sunday!
We use different tools to guide our conversation. This year we’ll be using a guide I found on a blog site (simplemom.net) I visit occasionally and highly recommend. You can download the Goal-Setting Guide for 2012 here. It might help provide a process and some great questions for you and your spouse to talk through.
Some suggestions:
| 1. | You don’t have to answer all the questions. Start with one or 2 that matter most to you. |
| 2. | Don’t get too caught up in measurable outcomes and benchmarks and implementation evaluation and all that stuff. You’re not a corporation. |
| 3. | It’s not about the list. It’s about life. |
| 4. | Remember you’re on the same team. |
| 5. | When all the goals aren’t met – and they won’t be, let’s just be honest – give each other lots of grace. |
And cover it all with a big helping of prayer. That’s the best ingredient of all.
Bon Appetit!
Neil and Sharol Josephson are the Directors of FamilyLife Canada
“Bless you.”
I heard Neil chuckle under his breath as we walked away from the elderly couple we had been talking with.
“Did you just bless them?” he asked.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. Very King James. “
Truthfully the words had just popped out. But they’d been popping out a lot. I had been blessing people right and left over the Christmas holidays. Retail clerks, Walmart greeters, theatre ushers….it was getting kind of weird. So I stopped – almost – saying it out loud. But I still bless people in my head.
This morning I read Psalm 1. It speaks of blessing. It says we are blessed when we choose to follow God’s ways. When we put God at the center of our lives. It says when we live like that we are like trees planted by streams of water. Whatever we do prospers.
The accompanying devotional reading described being blessed as “divinely or supremely favored. Fortunate. Happy. Content. “
That’s the blessing we pray over you – our Weekend to Remember alumni – as we enter 2012. May you be blessed. In your marriages. In your families. In whatever the year holds. Remember, you are divinely favored. That’s what the Christmas story is all about. God so favored us that He gave us His only Son….
This year may you find your happiness and contentment in God’s outrageous love for you. May you find happiness and contentment in your marriage. In your family. And may your happiness and contentment be contagious.
“Bless you.”
Along with our blessing comes a promise - from all of us at FamilyLife - to pray for you regularly in 2012.
Are you ready to go to sleep when he’s ready to go? In most marriages, the wife has the lower sex drive. Sex is often the last thing on a woman’s mind. But relationship expert Sheila Wray Gregoire challenges women to jump back into sex. She has tips for both men and women to help couples develop a better sex life.
Take the next step:
Uninterested in sex? You’re not alone.
Why doesn’t your wife want sex?
I want sex, my husband doesn’t
Christmas is supposed to peace, joy, and family. Yet for many, the stark contrast between the reality and the ideal renders the season very difficult.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard the stories of several teenagers who have recently taken their lives, or who have attempted to do so. My girls know other friends who are walking through a fog from which it seems difficult to emerge. And my husband, as a paediatrician, constantly sees children and teens who are so stressed at school they make themselves sick. To many in our community, then, joy seems distant.
I think we do a disservice to struggling teens when we fail to acknowledge the depth of their feelings, saying instead, “You’ll never have it so good! These are the carefree days of your life! Stop wallowing!” Sure, teens may not have bills and responsibilities, but their concerns are quite real. They’re enduring so many physical and hormonal changes, which bring stress enough. But more importantly, they are stuck in a social situation from which they cannot escape. They attend school for four years with the same people, and if they don’t fit in, there is no where to run. As an adult, if you are bullied, or feel alone, you can always switch jobs, or neighbourhoods, or even cities. But many teens see school more like a jail. They can’t get out.
And at the same time they’re supposed to figure out what they want to do with their lives, and get good marks, and plan their futures, and many just aren’t ready. Combine that with what, for large numbers of kids, is an extremely difficult home situation, and life is largely out of their control.
If I could talk to teens who are depressed, here’s what I would say: These are very, very difficult years. You may indeed have few friends. You may feel like your parents don’t care. You may feel like you don’t have any choices. And that all may very well be true.
But here’s something else that is equally true: the end is in sight. High school is only four years. You just have to get through it. At the end of those four years, you can make decisions about your own life. High school, which seems so all-consuming right now, will not matter in ten years. By the time I was 21, I no longer talked to anyone I went to high school with. I had a whole new circle of friends who shared my interests. And life does keep getting better when you have the ability to make choices.
Too often we think adult sadness is the worst kind of sadness, but I’m not sure it is. I think teen sadness is very intense, and in many cases very justified. To tell them to get over it won’t work, because their pain is real. But that pain is also likely only temporary. If we can keep encouraging kids that there is an end in sight because high school is not real life, perhaps more could find ways to cope.
Maybe that’s where the Christmas story comes in, because even though Christmas is supposed to be joyful, that first Christmas had its share of stresses. Mary and Joseph were both pariahs to their families. They were far from home, eventually having to flee to another country. They were bullied and largely alone. And yet we remember the story as being a happy one because it has a happy ending. For those of us who lean towards the religious tradition, God became man and lived and died with us and for us, so that we could live forever with him. The Christmas story, then, is one of pain that is only temporary.
This year, if your family is walking through pain, I hope that can be a comfort. Pain really is only for a time, and love is on the horizon. Merry Christmas.
Tom and Susan have a strong marriage – full of love and laughter, vibrant, intimate, satisfying. And they know it will last a lifetime. But that’s not how they would have described their relationship even a few years ago. There was a lot missing in those days. They were drifting and distant and felt more like roommates than lovers.
What changed? Susan told me about one VERY vital and important step they took when it was evident their marriage was really struggling. That step was to change their influences.
“You are the same today you’ll be in five years except for the people you meet and the books you read.
- Charlie Tremendous Jones
The Bible definitely speaks to this. Proverbs says he who walks with the wise becomes wise. The Psalmist proclaims: “Oh the joys of those who do not …join in with mockers.” Tom and Susan decided they needed more ‘positive’ marriage influences than ‘negative’ ones. This set them on the path to where they are today. Now their relationship is not only very rewarding for them but also an example for others as they mentor those around them.
What can you learn from them?
Take time to assess the influences in your life. Influence makes a BIG difference!
Decrease the negative
Do you have more ‘positive’ marriage influences or ‘negative’ influences? What do you watch, read, listen to and who do you spend most of your time
“We are the reflection of the five people we associate with the most”
- Gregory Scott Reid.
So, does this mean you drop your friends and switch jobs to get away from bad influences? Probably not…though it might be worth considering. More likely it will be a combination of reducing those negative influences while also increasing the positive.
Increase the positive.
Gain more positive influences. I recently asked a couple I was counselling how others around them were responding to their upcoming marriage. There was a glance between them and then she said, “Actually all the comments have been jokingly or seriously negative about marriage.” All of them?! I was surprised and yet I began to realize just how common this is in our culture.
Pursue and develop closer friendships with those who are positive about marriage and want to see their relationships grow. This may mean seeking out new people to spend time with. Pull back from people, including co-workers who degrade their spouse and speak negatively of marriage in general.
While you are taking time to assess your influences check your own words as well. How do talk about your spouse and what are your thoughts? If you want to control your emotions, you need to control your thoughts. Drop the negative and increase the positive. A great way to do this is to keep a record of rights. Record in a gratitude journal all the good things about your spouse. You can start with current things you appreciate or things that attracted you in the first place. Writing it down is another way to reinforce the positive.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8
Back to Tom and Susan. They say over time they began to consciously spend more time with couples who were intentional about growing their relationship. This not only made a big difference in their marriage, they also gained lifelong friends. These relationships provide healthy checks and balances and stimulate learning and growth as you journey together. Perhaps what one couple is facing today, another faced a year ago. This creates opportunity to grow from others’ experience and brings hope. Isolation can be pretty dark and overwhelming.
We all need help. Marriage works best in community – when we journey together with friends through the ups and downs. We have several friends celebrating their 25th and 30th wedding anniversaries, some even longer. Notice I said celebrating. Of course there are those who have endured but many of these couples are truly celebrating their long relationship. Early in our marriage, a friend who was celebrating his 30th anniversary told me: “Marriage keeps getting better and better.” What an encouragement to me. Today as they approach their 50th anniversary, it’s evident that statement is still true. That’s who I want to hang out with!
Who or what is has the strongest influence on your marriage?
Here’s a challenge: For one week check your influences; media, co-workers, books, and friends. Are they more marriage positive or negative?
Follow-up by making some necessary changes. Finally, track and celebrate the positive results for your own marriage. The gratitude journal would be a great place to start. It may be simple but over time, it can transform your marriage. Remember that changing direction by even one degree on a compass will – over time – completely change your destination. If your destination is a strong marriage – full of love and laughter, vibrant, intimate, satisfying – start with a degree of change. A positive change.
One of my fondest childhood memories of the Christmas season is the Advent calendars my brother and I would receive every year. If you’re unfamiliar with this tradition, the particular version my family enjoyed consisted of a nearly flat decorated cardboard box, with tiny doors on it, numbered from 1 to 24 representing the days leading up to Christmas Eve.
Every day we would open one of the cardboard doors and behind each one we’d find a tiny chocolate. Every one of the chocolates was uniquely molded in a Christmas related shape. It was a fun diversion for us as kids as we impatiently awaited the arrival of Christmas day. But it doesn’t tell us much about the actual season of Advent. What is Advent?
The season of Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, somewhere between November 27 and December 3, depending on the year. Advent is the period leading up to Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, also known as Jesus Christ. It is unknown when this tradition first began, but this period of waiting is often seen in the Christian tradition as a reminder that the world remains waiting for Jesus’ return.
The traditional color of Advent is purple, the color often associated with royalty, although today blue and red are also used. Modern day celebrations of Advent include Advent calendars, Advent wreaths, lighting special Advent candles, and a series of themed Sunday messages leading up to Christmas day.
Take the next step:
Was Jesus born on December 25th?
Take a lesson: Discovering Advent
Home Alone for the Holidays – When the most joyous time of year … isn’t.
Do you or your family have Advent traditions? Share them with us in the comments!
Image credit: tollens, used with permission, Creative Commons 2.0 License.
How do you face the Christmas season when it doesn’t look the way it used to? I’ve been thinking about this a lot this year. A friend of mine will face his first Christmas in over 20 years without his wife. Another will celebrate without the child she waited so long for and held so briefly. They had both had plans for Christmas. They knew what was coming and now, this year, Christmas doesn’t look like Christmas at all.
Heartbreak and loss, loneliness and disappointment stand out in sharp contrast to the sparkly excitement of Christmas. An article I was reading earlier quoted Kate O’Dwyer Randall, a Chaplin, who said,
“Holidays in our culture are often about families, and families are not always happy institutions. I think that particularly if you’re facing a death or a divorce, the ‘empty chair syndrome’ becomes very real at this time of year.”
The article went on to say that many churches now have “Longest Night” or “Blue Christmas” services. These services offer a more subdued atmosphere to welcome those who want to acknowledge Christmas, but can’t face the ebullient joy of a well intentioned “Joy to the World!”
Christmas gets all glammed up, but at the heart of it all, it celebrates a very quiet moment. Christmas began with a little baby in a stable. It started with two parents who were tired from a long journey and caught off guard that the baby would choose this particular moment to be born. It wasn’t glamorous, and it wasn’t shiny but it did mark the moment that hope came to the world. (If you’re rusty on the details, you can read the Christmas story from the book of Luke.)
As I was reading about the Longest Night services, I found this poem by Ann Weems from her book Kneeling in Bethlehem. Her poem sums it up perfectly:
The Christmas Spirit
Is that hope
Which tenaciously clings
To the hearts of the faithful
And announces
In the face
Of any Herod the world can produce
And all the inn doors slammed in our faces
And all the dark nights of our souls
That with God
All things are possible,
That even now
Unto us
A child is born!
~ Ann Weems
If you would like someone to talk to, we are here waiting to talk and listen. May you continue to cling tenaciously to the hope that we celebrate, even now.
Take the next step:
Read the Christmas story from the book of Luke
How to celebrate when you’re not together
Home alone for the holidays
My early morning jog seemed colder than normal. I felt chilled to the bone, so I stayed in the hot shower a bit longer than usual. I had almost exhausted the hot water supply when I finally turned off the taps.
Through the curtains my husband handed me a towel. As I wrapped the fresh white towel around my shivering shoulders, deep warmth wrapped itself all around my thawing frame. My husband had warmed the towel in the dryer! I cannot describe how magical it felt.
The warmth of the towel seeped into my skin as my husband’s thoughtfulness saturated my soul. I felt loved. What a gift! It was a simple act of kindness that warmed my body and heart.
Now… before you start thinking that this kind of romance naturally occurs within the Born household, can I set the record straight? This wasn’t my hubby’s own idea. Nope. He didn’t come up with this on his own. He got it from a book. But… who cares? As I enshrouded my body with that warm towel, I didn’t give a hoot where the idea came from. I was relishing in his implementation of the idea. That was the gift.
Have you got a Christmas gift for your spouse yet? According to the guy on the radio, if you don’t have your gifts by now… it’s too late. But I don’t believe him. Come on, they’ve been playing Christmas music for months already. The pressure tactics of consumerism are little over the top.
For Christmas this year, my husband and I are giving each other the gift of attending a marriage conference together. Now, marriage conferences aren’t cheap, so we’ll be saving up for it. But I’m thinking it’ll be more like an investment. One of the greatest gifts you can give your spouse is the desire to learn new ways of saying “I love you” – whether the ideas come from a book, a marriage seminar or from your own creativity. No matter what stage a marriage is at (and we’ve been through ebbs and flows of our own) there is always hope for a deeper and more meaningful relationship.
So with the warm towel in mind, think about giving a gift that will change your relationship. Find out new ways to say I love you. Pick up a marriage book. Plan to attend a marriage seminar. Go for coffee with a friend and share some ideas. Choosing to learn new ways to love your spouse is a life-changing gift. Now that’s a real gift.
Take the next step:
Find a marriage conference near you: US schedule Canadian schedule
Do you have questions about marriage? Come talk to a mentor
Originally posted on dorisdoumaborn.wordpress.com . Used with permission.
Guys are supposed to be crazy about sex, right? So what do you do when your husband isn’t interested? In [...]
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