Intimate Covenant Podcast

Q&A (low sexual desire; body shame; reluctant spouse…) [161]

• Intimate Covenant -- Matt & Jenn Schmidt • Episode 161

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In this episode, Matt & Jenn share excerpts from several different live Q&A sessions recorded at previous live events.

- How do you differentiate between responsive sexual desire and a medical problem resulting in a lack of sex drive?
- How can I keep striving for spiritual and emotional intimacy when my spouse is reluctant to do so?
- How can I overcome shame in my physical appearance that hinders me from giving myself to and fully enjoying physical intimacy with my spouse?
- Is it primarily a man’s responsibility to redeem a marriage?
- Do you have suggestions to make the bedroom a special place for us?

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  Cherishing,
  Matt & Jenn

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Intimate Covenant | Matt & Jenn Schmidt

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Speaker 1:

Hey, Jen want to talk about dealing with a reluctant spouse.

Speaker 2:

You ought to be an expert at this by now.

Speaker 1:

Great. In this episode, we're sharing our responses to questions posed at several recent live events, including how to keep striving for connection even when your spouse is reluctant. Let's do it. Welcome to the Intimate Covenant podcast, where we believe the Bible and great married sex. Both belong on your kitchen table. That's right. We're talking about holy covenant-bound intimate relationships with hot sex.

Speaker 2:

We're Matt and Jen, founders of Intimate Covenant. We offer biblical teaching and resources to help married couples achieve a fuller relationship and an extraordinary sex life. For more information, visit our website, IntimateCovenantcom.

Speaker 1:

Welcome friends, Welcome Ni hao. Greetings from China.

Speaker 2:

I don't even know if that's how you say it, but that's what we're going to go with. But by the time you're listening to this, we'll have figured out how to say hello in Chinese, because we will be in China, yes.

Speaker 1:

Lord willing, we will be in China when this episode drops in China. Yes, Lord willing, we will be in China when this episode drops, as we announced in the last episode. Please continue to pray for safe travels and we ask that you'd still be praying that the souls of the couples who are with us would be encouraged and touched by the Spirit of God. We cannot wait to get back and to tell you all about what we have learned, what we have seen. So look forward to that in the next couple of weeks, maybe even on the next episode.

Speaker 2:

Maybe so, and in the meantime, we're sharing some excerpts from live Q&A sessions from several of our recent marriage days. As you know, we generally share a few of these after we get home from one of these events, but we never have enough time in a single episode to share all of the great questions that we get. So we dug back through the archives, pulled together a few of our favorites that never made it into an episode and we're going to share that today.

Speaker 1:

Yep. So here's what you have to look forward to. One of the questions is how do you differentiate between responsive sexual desire or between a medical problem that is resulting in a lack of sex drive? Yeah, good question. And another question is how can I keep striving for spiritual and emotional intimacy when my spouse is reluctant to do so?

Speaker 2:

We're going to answer the question. How can I overcome shame in my physical appearance that hinders me from giving myself to and fully enjoying physical intimacy with my spouse?

Speaker 1:

Another question is is it primarily a man's responsibility to redeem a marriage?

Speaker 2:

Do you have suggestions to make the bedroom a special place for us?

Speaker 1:

So, as you can tell some good questions, hopefully the responses meet the quality of the questions. I guess that'll be up to you to decide, but we'll look forward to sharing that with you in this episode. How can you differentiate between withdrawal as a responder and an actual medical lack of drive, and how do you deal with that lack of drive?

Speaker 2:

That's a great question.

Speaker 1:

Be willing to go to your doctor Get your hormones checked, go to your doctor, and if your doctor won't talk to you about your sex drive, go to your doctor. Get your hormones checked, go to your doctor. And if your doctor won't talk to you about your sex drive.

Speaker 2:

Go to another doctor. That's what they're there for.

Speaker 1:

You need a better doctor if they won't talk to you about your sexual health. But yes, that said, I think it's also important to acknowledge that lack of drive. One of the least common lacks of drives is physical or hormonal. That's rarely the cause. Sometimes it is. It's rarely the cause, though. More often lack of drive is due to stress or other relationship issues. Sometimes it's hormonal or medical and there may be health problems. So start with ruling that out.

Speaker 2:

Figure that out, but then look at your whole life as a whole. Now it's super important to recognize that sexual drive is a use it or lose it phenomenon for most women. If you are not having regular orgasms, you're not getting regular doses of oxytocin. Your body just kind of checks out. So sometimes the answer is you have to make the choice to check back in. And I know that's hard when you're sitting in a place of I just don't want to have sex. Hard when you're sitting in a place of I just don't want to have sex. So do the work to recognize do I not want to have sex because maybe something's going on in my body? Do I not want to have sex because of my relationship? Do I not want to have sex because sex doesn't feel good? If it hurts, stop. Figure that out, don't keep doing something that hurts. But if you're not having regular sex, your body is programmed to just say eh. So if you're just waiting for something magically to happen to make you want to have sex again, probably not going to happen.

Speaker 1:

And, that said, it's not necessarily even a problem if you don't have spontaneous desire. That's may not necessarily even be your job. You don't have to be the one who wants it, just spontaneously.

Speaker 2:

Again, most women would not say I want to have sex until they are 20 minutes in to some kind of sexual play. You're not broken. Most women are made to be responders. That is okay. Recognize the beauty of the response and stop trying to be a pursuer. Stop trying to have spontaneous drive.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's perfectly fine if just one of you is the initiator and the pursuer. That's kind of how it usually works, and that means you're working normally.

Speaker 2:

What can I personally do to keep striving toward emotional and spiritual intimacy when my husband is not interested in implementing practical ways to do such? I love this question, clearly from the standpoint of a wife, and it is interesting to me that this wife is asking how do I strive towards emotional and spiritual intimacy with my husband? She's not asking how do I strive towards physical intimacy. Now I'm having to suppose a lot in just this question, but here's what I'm going to say. If you're trying to have emotional and spiritual intimacy with your husband outside of physical intimacy, it will not work because they are all meant to go together and so you cannot have emotional intimacy with your husband but say sex is off the table. That is not how God intended you to work, your husband to work or your marriage work Because it is within physical intimacy that your husband is able to open up emotionally, because the truth is he doesn't want sex.

Speaker 2:

He wants connection with you. Sex is often a man's route to emotional connection. So, number one how's your sex life? Because if that's not working, then that could be part of what's going on Now. Maybe you're a wife who's happy and willing to be having sex and you're still feeling like you're missing that emotional and spiritual component with your husband. Tell him that. I know that seems like a simple cop-out answer, but have the conversation. But have the conversation from the standpoint of this is what it would look like to me. Here's what I'm asking for, but then here's what I'm willing to do to change me, to achieve this for us. Because if you're waiting for your spouse to fix himself in order for your marriage to be fixed, you're missing it. So what are you doing to seek emotional connection Now?

Speaker 2:

Might your efforts be rejected? They might. So call them out on that. Don't just take it. That's not submission. Submission is not suffering in silence, so be willing to say that that hurts. When I ask a question and you don't answer it, here's what I feel. You probably didn't intend that to happen, but I need you to know me.

Speaker 1:

And I would say I mean, the wife is asking what can I do to get my husband to do something else? And the short answer is nothing. You can't make somebody do something they don't want to do. That's just the hard reality of living with other people. I don't mean to be just like totally dismissive of the question, but ultimately we could ask this question a million ways what can I do to get my wife to have more sex with me? Well, maybe nothing. Maybe nothing would change that.

Speaker 1:

But what my job is is to work on my side of the equation, and that is, if I want more emotional or spiritual connection in my relationship, then I'm the one that's going to need to inject that.

Speaker 1:

If I need, if I want more spirituality in our relationship, then I'm going to have to be the one to initiate a prayer, or I'm going to be the one to have to suggest the workbook or the devotional, or I'm going to have to be the one to initiate a prayer, or I'm going to be the one to have to suggest the workbook or the devotional, or I'm going to have to be the one to start reading scripture more. I'm going to have to be the one to take the initiative to do that. If that's what I want in my marriage, and I think that's what my marriage needs, then I'm going to have to be the one to do it Now. Maybe my spouse will be inspired by my actions to come alongside. There are definitely good ways and poor ways for me to invite my spouse to come alongside that, but ultimately it's up to me to do what I can do. I can only inspire. I cannot require not require.

Speaker 2:

How can I overcome shame in my physical appearance that hinders me from fully giving myself to and enjoying physical intimacy with my spouse? I appreciate this question and I'm going to let you all know that this question is asked in some form every single place we go to. This is a problem amongst so so many of us, and usually wives, although this is not just a wife problem, a wife problem. But we are bombarded daily, men and women, with being told what beauty is. We're especially bombarded with the message of what sexy is, and it all revolves around a certain body type, body shape, set of numbers. And I'm here to tell you that sexy has nothing to do with body numbers. It has everything to do with your mindset.

Speaker 2:

You can choose how much power you're giving to Satan, because he is the one who, who is trying to get you to decide that he gets to define beauty. When you listen to him, you're giving him power and you're allowing him to rob you of the very thing that God said you. I love you so much. I am giving you this beautiful, precious, perfect gift with your beloved. I am giving you this beautiful, precious, perfect gift with your beloved. Don't give Satan the power to rob you of enjoying what God has given to you.

Speaker 1:

I think it's important and the person who asked this question even uses the term shame. I appreciate your use of that language, especially in light of how we have used that language today, but I think something that's really important when I am feeling shame over something is critical to first recognize where is the shame coming from, because shame is the feeling that I am not living up to a particular standard. The question then to ask myself is Do I have shame because I am not living up to God's standard or is it to some other standard that I am failing?

Speaker 2:

And if it's?

Speaker 1:

not God's standard, then my shame is illegitimate, my shame is unnecessary. If my shame is because of man's standard or someone else's standard, or whatever place that standard might be, then I have put more value in that standard than in God's standard. And guess what that's called in the Bible Idolatry. You want to know what Idolatry is? Not falling down and worshiping wooden statues. Idolatry, I mean? Yes, it is, but more applicable today. Idolatry is bowing down to standards that God did not design.

Speaker 2:

So yes, it's a problem.

Speaker 1:

It's a huge problem. Women struggle with this, primarily Men. We struggle with our own standards that are not biblical and not godly and not holy. We all have shame from sources that we don't need to have shame over. Sometimes that's where it has to start. Where is the shame coming from and whose standards am I bowing down to?

Speaker 2:

Now, because this question is most often asked by a woman, I'll speak to it from that way. And mostly I want to speak to husbands, because you play a huge role in helping her believe that she is beautiful. You are the loudest voice. If you use your voice correctly, you can be the loudest voice. She has a lot of voices telling her otherwise, but it is your job to proclaim her beauty, and that's not just the physical, what you're seeing, but proclaim her beauty in every way. Help her know that you see her as beautiful in every way. Know that you see her as beautiful in every way. Especially, she needs to know that you see her as beautiful today, not the woman you married 20 years ago, not who you hope she'll be when she's 15 pounds lighter, but that you see beauty today and what's before you.

Speaker 2:

And you get to determine that men.

Speaker 1:

You get to decide what is beautiful and God has commanded you to find your beloved beautiful. Yeah, I can't say it better than that. But, husbands, you have a big part to play in this. It's not your problem to get over, but you have a big role to play and your wife knows what, what you think of her. She knows. What you think of her body, whether you use the actual words or not, she knows. Given the pattern of Ruth and Boaz, is it primarily the man's responsibility to redeem a marriage? Clearly, boaz is the redeemer in this question. But I would also ask you who is it that is named in the lineage of Christ in the New Testament? It's not Boaz, it's Ruth. So who actually redeemed? Who Did?

Speaker 2:

Ruth redeem Boaz, or did Boaz redeem?

Speaker 1:

Ruth. The other thing that I would say is that there's certainly other examples of wives, even in the scripture, who redeemed or saved their marriage in a time of crisis. Think about Abigail and Naboth off the top of my head Abigail, who intervened and saved her husband's worthless life in the moment. I'm sure there's other great examples and this is entirely off the cuff, which is maybe one of the disadvantages of doing questions this way, but I'm sure we can think of other examples of wives who changed the trajectory of their marriage.

Speaker 2:

And I think that's the heart of it. Can a wife change the trajectory I can't say that word very well of her marriage? Yeah, you can, Because you can only control your side of the equation. Right, but you can always control your side of the equation. You can use that to redeem your marriage, to redeem your beloved.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. I mean ultimately who's doing the work of redemption? It's the power of the blood of Christ. If that's what we're interjecting into our relationships, then that's where the redemption is going to happen. I think each of us has opportunity to do that in our own relationships, whether you're a husband or a wife do you have any suggestions for additional ways to make the bedroom a special place for us? I'd like this I feel like this is someone leaning into.

Speaker 2:

All right, I'm going to get the laundry out, I'm going to get the office supplies out of my bedroom. Um, so we, so we went through this in our marriage. There was a time that our bedroom was literally the dumping ground for everything.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, it was the laundry bin. We had our desk and our home computer and all of the incoming mail was piled in a corner.

Speaker 2:

And there was a baby cradle over in the other corner. Exactly, We've been there, done that experienced it and we get it Sometimes you know we're limited by the space that we live in, right?

Speaker 1:

I understand that we can't all afford to. You know, put a 3,000 square foot addition onto our house.

Speaker 2:

That's solely for the purpose of having sex, as great as that sounds, then you could really have a sex room. There you go. But how do you do this? How do you carve out and create a space that's special for both of you? For us that looked like, obviously getting rid of all of the rest, and this was when we lived in a T90 little mobile home, so don't think that we had all these big bedrooms. But I moved the desk right beside the eating table and you had to like do the shimmy to get between the two of them, but I needed the desk to be out of our room. You know we moved the baby into another room with another child.

Speaker 2:

We created, we sacrificed in other places in our home to make the priority of our special place for our room, and we also invested money. You know I got rid of the quilt with holes that I never even liked to begin with and I took and set aside a little money to say what is it that we want this space to look like? And just general advice about decorating. I'm just going to throw this out there. Ladies, it's not just your room. Your husband should have a voice in your room. There's some noises happening within some of you guys. But figure out together and this, honestly, for us looked like looking through. We're old, so we looked through some magazines. You can do some I don't know Pinterest, but we found out together what together equals relaxation. So I didn't go as frilly as I would have gone all by myself. We also didn't go as streamlined, modern as he would have gone all by himself.

Speaker 1:

We didn't hang sports posters in the corner.

Speaker 2:

We also didn't go as streamlined, modern as he would have gone all by himself. We didn't hang sports posters in the corner, we sure didn't. We co-created together what will be something meaningful. Now I will tell you, the favorite part of my bedroom, besides the bed, is the two chairs and tables sitting in the side of our room, because that's our sacred space, that we can sit and have meaningful conversations together. So if you at all have the ability to do that, do that.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and you know you want some inspiration. What do hotel rooms look like? They're not frilly and pink and lacy. They're also not, you know, sports themed. Generally they're relatively neutral, but they are there is an energy of, and I know nothing about interior design, but there is a different feeling in a hotel room than in some bedrooms that I have seen.

Speaker 2:

We're not talking like holiday inn.

Speaker 1:

Like you know, think resort, put it that way.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Good point Also. Think about just lighting and smells. That can be a really great way to bring in so you don't have a lot of money to change the decor. Buy a nice candle. Buy a candle you both like the smell of. That's a great date night. Go pick out a candle together. We literally just did this a couple weekends ago.

Speaker 1:

It's not that expensive even.

Speaker 2:

Right, go find a nice candle. And so when you burn that you are setting a stage that is special between the two of you. Turn off the overhead lights and buy a lamp, turn on something that's soft and an enjoyable light, find the candles, that kind of thing, this does not have to be an extravagant.

Speaker 1:

You know, chip and joanna gaines makeover. This sometimes is is just, piece by piece, reminding yourselves what this is all about. The, the pictures that we hang in our bedroom. There are no children on the walls in our bedroom. It's our wedding photos and it is photos of our adventures together. I mean, that's just a. We love our kids, maybe more than you love yours, but we don't want them in our bedroom.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Literally looking at your child's one year old picture right beside your bed might not be actually what you would. That's not going to do it for me.

Speaker 1:

I don't know about y'all that's not going to do it for me.

Speaker 2:

So again it's.

Speaker 1:

And again this maybe goes back to this idea of sanctification of the ordinary.

Speaker 2:

This is a place.

Speaker 1:

This is something where you can really sanctify something as ordinary as the bedspread and if each of those choices is made intentionally, then it comes together to provide, to make a place again that's co-created. That is something special between the two of you. That's all the time we have in this episode for these questions. Hope those were beneficial for you and certainly we would love to hear your feedback. What did we get right in those questions? What did we get wrong? How would you have answered these questions? We would certainly love to hear your feedback. You can contact us by emailing podcast at intimate covenantcom or to submit an anonymous question. Go to our website, intimate covenantcom, slash podcast and click the button contact the podcast for an anonymous submission form.

Speaker 2:

Thanks to all of you for listening, subscribing, rating and sharing the podcast. We're truly humbled by all your encouragement and your support, and thanks especially to our Patreon subscribers for coming alongside us in a very real way. If Intimate Covenant has blessed your marriage, we'd love to have you join us too. Subscribe at patreoncom. Slash intimate covenant.

Speaker 1:

Until next time, keep striving and don't settle.