How to Improve Your Marriage and Sex Life: 7 Marriage Tips for a Healthy and Happy Marriage
by Jim and Vickie Sloderbeck
Published by Jim and Vickie Sloderbeck at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Jim and Vickie Sloderbeck
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Chapter 1: Appreciate the Differences Between You and Your Mate ~~ Be Fascinated--Not Frustrated ~~ He Actually Has A "Nothing Box!"
Chapter 2: Stop Thinking Your Husband Is A Jerk Because He Thinks About Sex A Lot! ~~ Hubby and Hormones ~~ He's Normal!
Chapter 3: Deal with Past Sexual Sin ~~ What Does Past Sexual Sin Look Like? ~~ We're All in This Together ~~ Why Sexual Sin Is Such a Big Deal ~~ Why Does Sexual Sin Bother Us? ~~ Oxytocin: God's Bonding Hormone ~~ Why Is Sexual Sin So Entangling? ~~ What You Can Do About Your Sexual Sin ~~ Ask for Forgiveness ~~ What Does the Process of Forgiveness Look Like? ~~ Steps Involved in Forgiveness ~~ Forgetting ~~ Set Free
Chapter 4: Make Love: It's Good For Your Marriage and Your Health
Chapter 5: Make Your Marriage Bed Sizzle ~~ Adding Sizzle Using Your Senses
Chapter 6: Make Your Bedroom a Special Place ~~ Evaluate Your Engedi ~~ How We Created Engedi
Chapter 7: Add Variety to Your Sexual Relationship ~~ What's A Couple To Do?
Chapter 8: BONUS--Spice Things Up with These Romantic Ideas ~~ Romantic Things To Enjoy Together ~~ Romantic Things To Do For Your Wife ~~ Romantic Things To Do For Your Husband
Resources to Enhance Your Marriage and Sexual Relationship
About Jim and Vickie Sloderbeck
Other Resources by Jim and Vickie Sloderbeck
Remember back to your wedding day. We’re not talking about just the ceremony and reception. We want you to remember how you felt. Think back to how it felt to look into the eyes of your intended spouse and how happy you were with them. You were certain your marriage was going to last forever because this man or woman made you feel so special.
The first few months of your married life may have been one where you couldn’t keep your hands off each other. Those around you may have rolled their eyes as they watched your public displays of affection with envy. What was their problem? Why didn’t they feel the same way about their spouse as you did about yours?
Then something happened to the two of you. Somehow a strange reality set in. You began to notice little things about your “true love” that drove you crazy. You found yourself beginning to pull away a bit. You were still in love with your spouse, but somehow it just wasn’t the same.
You found yourself starting to take your spouse for granted. All married couples do that—right? You realized you had certain expectations for your spouse—some that came along with you after you said, “I do,” and others that came into focus along the way. “My mother always _____, why can’t you?” “My dad made sure my mom never had to _____, why can’t you?” “If you loved me, you would _____.” The problem with expectations, however, is they are “requirements” you’ve placed upon your spouse. You expect your mate to be able to read your mind and do what you’ve decided they should do because you have decided it is the “loving thing to do” for you. In reality, expectations don’t come across as loving. Instead, they simply bring your spouse up to “zero” or baseline. Once they’ve met your expectations and fulfilled their responsibilities, your spouse is now back up to where they should be. In actuality, you are unconsciously saying, “Now, do something that shows me you love me!”
One morning you wake up and look over at your love. You wonder, “What happened to the fire—that amazing, burning desire we used to experience—the one that couldn’t be controlled? Why don’t I feel like I did on our honeymoon? How can I recapture that loving’ feeling? Is our marriage coming to an end?”
Do you believe romance eventually dies in every marriage? After all, doesn’t every couple eventually settle into a daily routine of financial, household, and child-rearing responsibilities? Who in the world has time for romance and being alone anymore?
In reality, things don’t have to be this way. There are many married couples where romance is still alive and well after many years. Consider some of the older couples you know at church or see together at public functions. While some of them look like they’ve swallowed sour grapes, others enjoy being together and speak politely and respectfully to their mate. They glow somehow and make you curious about what they have that you don’t have.
Open up your local paper or read online the section that highlights the anniversary announcements. It can be quite motivating to see couples who are celebrating their 25th, 30th, and even 50th wedding anniversaries.
One vital factor in a marriage is romance. It is important to every marital relationship. It isn’t a trivial matter. It matters to the health and well being of your relationship. Romance speaks volumes to your mate when it comes to appreciating and celebrating your love for them. However, romance begins to die when one or both spouses in the marriage begins to feel unappreciated. For many, this can be the beginning of the end of the relationship. And sadly, appreciation will sometimes begin to be sought after outside the marriage.
Be assured, you don’t have to let this happen to your marriage! While there are many different facets that comprise and make up a marriage, many problems in marriage are due to couples not being knowledgeable about what works and doesn’t work in marriage and romance. Becoming a “student of your spouse” and taking the time to educate yourself about the “relational laws of marriage” will supply you with the tools you need to make your marriage better.
Keeping romance and your marriage alive can be achieved, but it does require some work. However, the rewards are huge and well worth the effort. In this book you will find several “tips” concerning some of the facts involved in marriage and sexual intimacy. While this is certainly not an exhaustive study, it does supply you with some areas in your marriage you may not have realized were important. The areas addressed here are substantiated by different experts in their field and have clearly shown themselves to be some of the foundational “relational laws” involved in relationships and marriage.
So, begin your journey by reading straight through this book, or jump to the chapter that interests you the most. All chapters contain some important information and ideas that can help you, whether you’ve only been married a short time or many years. Consider this an investment in your marriage and think of it as an adventure. Now journey with us as you seek to achieve a healthier and happier marriage and sex life.
Chapter 1: Appreciate the Differences Between You and Your Mate
One of the important facts to realize in a marriage between a man and a woman is both of you are wired very differently. While this is clearly obvious physically, there are some important brain differences that make up who you are from birth. When a couple understand and appreciates these differences, they come to realize that many of the misunderstandings that happen in a marriage are not due to "heart" issues, but are instead, "head" issues. With that said, a couple can learn to work with their differences in how each of them interprets and understands different situations and ways of thinking that happen in everyday life.
Mark Gungor, author and seminar speaker on marriage often talks about how men and women can be very different in how they use words. He uses this example of how the word, “nothing,” can mean two entirely different things.
It seems that one day a friend of his called him and shared how his wife was very upset. Gungor asked his friend, “What did she say she was upset about?”
His friend replied, “She said, ‘Nothing.’”
Gungor responded, “Did she really say, ‘Nothing?’”
“Yep. She said, ‘Nothing.’”
With great enthusiasm Gungor told his friend, “Man, whenever a woman says, ‘Nothing,’ she really means ‘Something.’ In fact, you had better get out of there because most likely, she’s going to kill you!”
In contrast, when a man is asked if anything is wrong and he responds with, “Nothing,” then that’s usually what he means--there’s nothing wrong.
Can you relate?
Here’s another example Gungor uses that you can probably relate to as well. He asks, “What exactly do men and women seem to mean whenever they are heard to say, “I have nothing to wear?”
He shares that when a man says, “I have nothing to wear,” he means, “I have nothing clean to wear.” However, when a woman says, “I have nothing to wear,” she usually means, “I have nothing new to wear.”
The differences between men and women are incredibly fascinating, yet our differences can cause us great frustration when we don’t understand them. Learning how we are wired uniquely can result in our ability to appreciate our differences in our spouse, or men and women in general, rather than resent our uniqueness.
There have been some amazing brain research studies conducted medically on men and women using sophisticated testing such as MRIs and brain scans. The results have actually proven that a man’s brain works very differently from a woman’s. One of my favorite analogies demonstrates this using food images.
Throughout my teaching on this particular topic in the area of marriage, I’ve literally seen light bulbs go off for women when we discuss how we are different using waffles and spaghetti as an analogy. These are the two food images authors Bill and Pam Farrel use to describe men and women in their book, Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti.[1]
Space limits what can be discussed here, but I want to give you just a few helpful insights into how differently men and women process life. While a small percentage of couples may tend to be the opposite of what is stated below, statistics prove that most men and women deal with life as will be shared in the following examples.
Imagine in your mind what a waffle looks like. It is made up of many small boxes, each separated by a wall. These boxes represent various compartments of a man’s brain. Each box contains one issue, and one issue only. This means that a man will usually deal with one task or activity at a time, rather than several as women often do.
For example, when a man is at work, he is in his “work box.” This is often very helpful for a man because it allows him to remain focused on the task at hand, even if he and his wife had a huge argument before he left for work.
This ability to remain focused can also be seen in other areas of life such as watching television, fishing with the guys, or working at his computer. Life around him seems to often “disappears” as he works to accomplish the task he is presently involved in. Because of the way men’s brains are wired, multi-tasking is usually something they are not very good at and may not even really know how to do.
Now imagine a plate of spaghetti. This is a visual representation of how a woman’s brain is configured. If you looked down at the plate of noodles, you would notice that all the noodles seem to intersect each other at some point. In fact, if you started trying to follow one strand of spaghetti on the plate, chances are you would end up on an entirely different noodle from the one you started with, often without even realizing it.
Unlike a man’s brain, a woman’s brain is made up of issues and events that are connected to all other issues and events in her life. As a result, a wife may start a conversation with her husband, only to end up on an entirely different subject matter by the time they have finished talking. While this may not seem like any big deal to the woman, her husband is often left wondering, “How in the world did we end up talking about that?”
He Actually Has a "Nothing Box!"
There’s another important truth in how a man’s brain is wired that every woman needs to know. It seems that a man actually has areas of his brain, or little “boxes” in his waffle that have no words in them! Research has shown that a man can actually be awake and breathing, yet not be thinking anything at all. However, a woman’s brain is constantly in motion. Words and thoughts are always available to her. In fact, most women can’t imagine not having something to say at any given moment.
A man’s “nothing box” allows him a place to go mentally to relieve tension and stress, and gives him a place to relax. Women, on the other hand, often have trouble turning off their brain because the wiring connections in her brain are constantly in motion. (As a woman, I can promise you there are times when I wish I could park my brain in a spot where nothing is going on.)
The uniqueness in how our brains are wired differently from our mate’s plays out in many scenarios during the course of a marriage and affects our everyday lives on several levels. While there are many more examples of how these differences affect us as husbands and wives, I’ll leave you with a classic one.
Ladies, the next time you look over at your husband sitting on the couch and you notice he seems to have a faraway look on his face, you might find yourself wondering what he is thinking. Or perhaps you’ll be riding in the car with your son and you’ll ask him, “What are you thinking?” Don’t doubt either one of them when on occasion they respond to you with, “Nothing.” Most likely, they aren’t lying to you and they aren’t trying to avoid answering your question. Instead, they are both probably just resting in their “nothing box.”
Footnotes:
[1] Bill and Pam Farrel, Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2001)
Chapter 2: Stop Thinking Your Husband Is A Jerk Because He Thinks About Sex A Lot!
Many times throughout a day, your husband is faced with sexual stimuli. When your husband sees you getting dressed, stepping out of the shower, or when the smell of your perfume brings back a memory of a special time you shared, he thinks of being intimate with you. The timing may be inconvenient, but these thoughts are not something he can “turn off” at will.
Although he may understand on one level why you respond negatively to his “interest,” on another level he still feels some disappointment. This doesn’t mean you need to “give in” every time he makes eyes at you, but you must understand he isn’t abnormal to feel this way. Many women think their godly, faithful husbands are “sex fiends” when actually they are totally normal!
Once your husband leaves for work each day, the bombardment of sexual images and invitations continues. It is no secret that Madison Avenue uses “sex” to sell everything from cars to food. Television, magazines, Internet and billboards all use the beauty of the female body as an attention-getter. Whether it is the Hooters billboard that shouts, “Made you look!” or the Victoria’s Secret catalog in the mail, sexual stimuli are everywhere.
As a more specific threat to your marriage, most men spend at least part of their workday in the company of women. Some of these women have no intention of tempting your husband, but because men are wired to respond to visual stimuli, temptations are still possible.
Unfortunately, some women are not innocent in their intention. They may use their sexuality to gain power, attention, and may “flirt” simply as a game.
The wife who does not understand how often the world gives her husband an opportunity to stray is living in denial. Here’s how Dr. Archibald Hart, in The Sexual Man, describes the power of the sexual drive:
Immediately after being sexually satisfied, the normal male may be able to focus elsewhere--for a while. But it is just a matter of time before his thoughts lead him back to sex. And I’m talking about the preacher as much as the truck driver.
Sure, the average man thinks of other things, like football and politics, but eventually all mental roads lead back to this one central fixation: Sex. There are times when the obsession fades and even vanishes. Give him an intense challenge at work. Let him buy a new computer or sports car. Give him a golf bag or a fishing trip. He’ll forget about sex for a while. But sooner or later, like a smoldering fire, it will flare up again. Strong, urgent, forceful, and impatient, the sex drive dominates the mind and body of every healthy male. Like it or not, that’s the way it is.[1]
You may wish your husband was different or you think this description should not apply to Christian men. The facts are otherwise. A Christian husband may live by different moral standards than a non-Christian, but their sex drives are still influenced by the same thing—hormones.[2]
Whether your husband is a Christian or not, his desire for sex has a great deal to do with his level of testosterone. Being sexually stimulated is largely a matter of hormones. Testosterone is the driving force of the male sex drive and has nothing to do with a man being a sex addict! God wired your husband in such a way that he is stimulated sexually by what he sees, whether he wants to be stimulated or not. He has to deal with every visual he encounters, whether he is a Christian or not.
These “sightings” are often not situations where a man desires to have sex with each woman he sees. However, with every sexual thought or visual stimulation, he is forced to deal with it internally. For your husband, it can be as simple as turning in the opposite direction until the sexual thought passes—or it may become a sexual battle on the spiritual level. Sometimes these visual encounters can be very intense, especially if it has been a long time since his last sexual encounter with you.
We live in a world where sexual images are always present. Your husband is literally teased and tempted all day and all night long. One of the most understanding and loving things you can do for him is to be sensitive to this. Whether you acknowledge his struggles verbally with positive words and respect and/or meet his needs physically, you can do a great deal to help him keep temptation from becoming sin.
In his classic work, His Needs, Her Needs, Willard Harley describes sexual fulfillment as “the first thing he can’t do without.”[3] Harley notes that when a man commits to faithfulness in marriage, “…he trusts her to be as sexually interested in him as he is in her.”[4] When the two of you married, your husband promised monogamy, not celibacy!
If your husband feels you have those two vows confused, his response will be hurt, resentment, and sometimes a temptation to see this need fulfilled elsewhere. One of the key elements involved in a husband’s faithfulness is where a wife remains sexually interested in her husband. This will help to discourage him to look elsewhere for satisfaction. If a wife isn’t interested sexually, it can be dangerous to the sexual relationship.[5]
If you are interested in reading more about why your husband seems obsessed about sex, you may want to read further in Kevin Leman’s Making Sense of the Men in Your Life. Remember: just because your husband thinks about and desires sex a lot, he is still normal! God put those desires and drives in there for His own good reasons.
As a woman, it’s important for you to understand that your husband may desire to have his sexual needs met two and three times a week! That can sound overwhelming. However, your goal is to develop a sexual lifestyle with your husband––not just sexual moments. Sheila Wray Gregoire makes these comments in her book, Honey, I Don’t Have a Headache Tonight:
Sex can easily degenerate into a tug of war, with both spouses feeling rejected and punishing each other for it. Men feel as if their wives don’t really love them, and women feel used. For some wives, the more her husband ignores her feelings and pressures her to have sex, the more she starts to equate sex with something that hurts her. To feel loved, what she really wants is for him to not want it at all.