Intimate Covenant Podcast
Intimate Covenant Podcast
“Should I sacrifice my desire for sex?” ...and other live Q&A (171)
In this "Christmas Q&A Potpourri" episode, Matt & Jenn are sharing segments from previous live Q&A sessions. We're answering the following questions:
- Should I sacrifice my desire for sexual intimacy if my spouse does not desire sex?
- What are your favorite topics of conversation for rejuvenation and reconnection?
- How do I handle my spouse being defensive when i ask them any question?
- How do I grieve unmet expectations?
- How often should we be having date nights and get-aways?
- Do you have any suggestions for making our bedroom a sacred space?
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Intimate Covenant | Matt & Jenn Schmidt
Hey, jen want to talk about self-sacrifice.
Speaker 2:It's definitely a sacrifice to podcast with you.
Speaker 1:Great. Today on the podcast, we're sharing segments from some previous live Q&A sessions, including our answers to this question Should I sacrifice my desire for sexual intimacy? If my spouse does not desire sex, let's do it. Welcome, friends.
Speaker 2:Welcome.
Speaker 1:We're Matt and Jen, and this is the Intimate Covenant podcast where we believe the Bible and great married sex both belong on the kitchen table. That's right. Just like every week, we're talking about godly marriage and hot sex and emotionally fulfilling oneness, and here we are again with another episode. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2:That's right. If you'd like to learn more about us, you can visit our website IntimateCovenantcom.
Speaker 1:And we would always love to hear from you. You can email us at podcast at Intimatecovenantcom. Look forward to your submissions. Self-sacrifice that is one of the themes that we're going to address in the episode today. Self-sacrifice is such a fundamental part of being Christ-like. It's such a fundamental part of being a Christian. So one listener has asked should I sacrifice my desire for sexual intimacy if my spouse does not desire sex? So how would you answer that question? That's what we're posing to you, because you're going to hear our answer to that question and a few more.
Speaker 2:That's right. We also have some more questions, like what are your favorite topics of conversation for rejuvenation and reconnection? Also, how do I handle my spouse being defensive when I ask them any question?
Speaker 1:Or how do I grieve unmet expectations and how often should we be having date nights or getaways?
Speaker 2:Oh, good question. And also, do you have any suggestions for making our bedroom a sacred space?
Speaker 1:So we're going to answer those questions in this episode. But first, it is that time of the year as the old year winds down and the new year kicks off. It's definitely that time of year when we all tend to take stock of our lives.
Speaker 2:And we hope that you are in the regular practice of assessing the status of your marriage. This is something we started regularly doing a while back now A few years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, More than a few. So what came out of that is that we created a tool first and foremost to help us, but we've refined it and it's a tool that you can use to assess all the realms of your marriage relationship and create actionable plans to make improvements where needed. It's actionable plans to make improvements where needed. It's hard in a lot of ways to even have the conversation of where are we, where do we want to be? Where have we been? But even harder to say to make solid plans for, okay, what are we going to do to change?
Speaker 1:things. Yeah, what are we going to do about it? Right, because that's where things ultimately have to go if you want to make a difference in your relationship. Well, we made this tool. We've used it ourselves for many years in a row now and we call it the State of the Covenant. We have our State of the Covenant conversation at least once a year, every year, and we certainly try to do that around the first of every year. A year every year, and we certainly try to do that around the first of every year. We've created that into a worksheet that is now a printable tool, a printable form that you can find on our website. It is complete with instructions and conversation starters on how to get that conversation going and to keep it going. If you're interested in that State of the Covenant, you can find it for sale on our website. You can click the link in our show notes or just simply search our website at IntimateCovenantcom slash shop.
Speaker 2:Right While you're on the website, you could also find our e-courses and other resources that we've created to help build intimate relationships in your marriage and a better sex life. So we've got some good stuff there that we think you might find of benefit.
Speaker 1:It might even be a great last minute Christmas gift if you're looking for something like that. Speaking of with the busyness of this holiday season, we wanted to put out an episode that, frankly, didn't require too much preparation.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we also wanted an episode that you you know you could listen to this in the car, maybe between last minute shopping errands or on that walk that you need to take.
Speaker 1:Yeah, after your mother-in-law, like, criticizes your cooking. Again one of those times.
Speaker 2:Not my mother-in-law.
Speaker 1:We should make that clear, okay, yes, Not my mother-in-law, one of those mother-in-laws that is going to make comments that you're just going to need to get out of the house.
Speaker 2:If you need to just take a little walk, you could listen to one of these and take some deep breaths.
Speaker 1:Yes. So this is what this episode is for and, as always, of course, we pray that our responses to these questions, which we've assembled from some marriage days and other events that we've done literally over the past three or four years, we just kind of took some of the questions that we thought needed to be put out there. So we pray that our response to these questions are thought provoking and again, we'll always be challenging you to consider how might you have answered these questions. So Christmas Q&A potpourri, we'll call it.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:Let's do it. Should I sacrifice my desire for sexual intimacy if my spouse desires to not have sex?
Speaker 2:That's a full question. I mean deep question here.
Speaker 1:Because we've been talking about self-sacrifice, right, and I think that that idea of self-sacrifice is all-encompassing and it must translate to every realm of our lives and every realm of our relationship. I ought to be self-sacrificial, so, at least on the surface, the answer is always yes. I always must make a self-sacrifice when it comes to my desire for sexual intimacy. One of you is going to have a higher desire for more frequent sex than the other. That's just inevitable, because if you're both identical in that realm, then one of you is unnecessary, but you must. You will always be in a situation where one of you wants something more than the other. So should I then force my desire upon my spouse and so every time I have an urge, I have to immediately fulfill that urge with them? I think that would be entirely self-serving, selfish and unfruitful and missing the point of sex, which is connection. So is there a place for self-sacrifice? Yes, there always is a place for self-sacrifice.
Speaker 1:Now this questioner I don't know, maybe there's the other way to read this question is should I just give up my desire for sex because my spouse will never have sex with me? And I would say no, do not give up your desire for self for sexual intimacy. In fact, I would suggest you probably can't, even if you wanted to. Because again, who put that there? You didn't put it there. God made you this way. It's there for a reason and it's there to teach you something.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, what your desires are teaching you is exactly where your idols are. So that's a question for self-reflection. Have I put too much emphasis on this? When we make sex our idol, when we make sex the thing that controls us, even though sex within marriage is a good thing, it can become an idol. It can be a place where we are dependent. So that's a place for self-reflection here. But if you have a holy, righteous desire for sex, there's nothing wrong with that and that needs to be a place of conversation. If you are not having sex in your marriage, that's a red flag and in most cases I'm not going to speak for every case. I'm certainly not going to speak for this case, but in most cases there's sin involved.
Speaker 2:First Corinthians 7 is pretty explicitly clear that you need to be having regular sex in your marriage, and by that it means for both of you. First, corinthians 7 is often weaponized against wives, and yet that passage first begins with the command that husbands meet the sexual needs of their wife and wives meet the sexual needs of their husband, and so you both have a need for sex. Now one of you may be sitting there thinking, no, I don't. No, thank you, I could live my life without this. Okay, that's okay. Don't just run from that. See that, see it for what it is and now challenge to ask why, when there's no sex happening, that's usually a symptom that there are other things happening within this marriage. Right, your sexual relationship does not happen in a bubble. You cannot believe the lie that we are each other's best friends. We just don't have sex. Lies, sorry.
Speaker 1:Lies.
Speaker 2:God didn't intend for it to work that way. That is not how either of you are built. Sex is not just for men. Sex is not just a need of husbands. You each have a deep need for sex with your beloved. Because, again, it's not about orgasms, it's not about what bodies can or can't do. It is about the relationship that is created within the bond of sexual intimacy. You can't get that relationship any other way. So if you're sitting there and you're thinking I don't want sex, recognize that you get to choose what your body does. You might be in a place where there's not a whole lot of physical arousal happening. Okay, but you can choose to show up. Okay, but you can choose to show up. You can choose to see sex for the connection that it brings and the value it is to you and to your relationship. And do you know what often happens? When you make a choice, your body will usually lead that choice. It'll follow.
Speaker 1:I would say to the person who asked this question your spouse may not desire to have sex. This person asks should I sacrifice my desire for sexual intimacy? Well, it may be that your spouse doesn't even recognize that you're seeking sexual intimacy Because we have replaced or used this word intimacy as a euphemism for sexual intercourse. That's not the whole of the truth. You need to be offering intimacy, not just sex. Offer relationship, because I would suggest 1 Corinthians 7 is not just talking about making sure that each of you have sexual pleasure physically, but it's my obligation as a husband to provide the whole of sex. That means creating an emotional and spiritual and physical environment that is conducive to connection. I haven't fulfilled my obligations under first Corinthians seven If I just put my penis in a vagina or just lay there while it happens, because I haven't created anything, I haven't built anything, I haven't offered anything. I haven't built anything, I haven't offered anything.
Speaker 2:What are some of your favorite topics of conversation to reconnect and rejuvenate with one another? Asked by a good emotional pursuer, I know these are my kind of questions.
Speaker 1:Okay one of the. Well, if you're asking us.
Speaker 2:we're not going to tell you what our conversations are because this is about our marriage and you're not invited in, but I will tell you.
Speaker 1:Nor would it be helpful, because you're not us.
Speaker 2:You're not married to us. One of the resources that we love to use within our marriage, and we love to encourage y'all to use, is things called conversation starters, a company by the name of ultimate intimacy. They have an app full of great ideas and information and games and ways to chat privately, but within that app they have a section in the app that is conversation starters. But they also sell products, and so they sell a pack of conversation starters that are all different varieties of questions. So what? We and they're not the only ones that create this, but, but we know we can confidently recommend ultimate intimacies cards because they are designed to be asked within a married couple.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's, that's the key. They are designed for married couples and designed for married couples that have a faith, a biblical couple. Yes, that's the key. They are designed for married couples and designed for married couples that have a faith a biblical faith.
Speaker 2:Yes, one of the things that we love to do on date night is take a handful of these cards with us. Our rule is that by the time entrees come out, we are not allowed to talk about the kids, we are not allowed to talk about the logistics of life. Those conversations happen on the drive there, maybe during appetizers, but that's it. After that, our conversation is about us and these questions are great for that because it can be hard.
Speaker 2:Maybe both are on board. I want to have better and deeper conversations, conversations that reconnect and rejuvenate us, but I don't know what question to ask. These kind of resources will help. You have a question that, frankly, there are some questions that if he asks, I'm going to be like what did you think of that question? Right, but if a card? Asks it okay, we can safely answer that question, and so that would be a way that I would recommend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, these kind of resources are so helpful because they also ask questions that you would never think to ask, and again, you don't have to worry about where those questions are coming from.
Speaker 2:And sometimes we read one card and that's the conversation for the entirety of dinner. Sometimes we go through five cards. I mean, it's all about, and I will tell you this we've had these cards long enough that we might be asking the same question and we have a different way of looking at that. Now. We have a different answer.
Speaker 1:Three or four years later, that question means something entirely different.
Speaker 2:I used to be terrified that we were going to run out of things to talk about. I just knew there would come a point in our marriage where we would run out of questions to ask, run out of things to talk about. But now what I know is I'm not married to the same man that I married when I was 18 and he was 21. Thankfully, we are different people and so we have a different perspective now, and we will keep having a change in perspective. And that's where you keep the curiosity about one another. That's how you create conversations that reconnect and rejuvenate you as you keep being curious about one another.
Speaker 1:This next question kind of goes along with that how to handle my spouse getting defensive or arguing when I tell them, when I ask them any question, Again, your spouse may just be a jerk. Okay, that's maybe true. I can't deny that your spouse may be a jerk. But maybe there's a way to ask a question that doesn't get such a defensive reaction Like, again, the example we gave earlier. Why are you such an idiot? I mean, that's a question but that's not going to get a non-defensive response. Why don't you ever take out the trash when I ask you to? That's a question that's not going to get a non-defensive response. Instead of you know, there's lots of other ways that we can get to the point that we're trying to get to, and again, part of that is if your spouse sees that you're willing to own part of the problem, then it feels like a we problem, not a you problem.
Speaker 2:Right. Your goal is to approach any conflict as a we problem, not a you versus me, and the way that you do that is you view the conflict through the lens of your spouse first. What happens is, when we have conflict, we immediately think of all the reasons why we are 100% right, 100% justified in our reactions. And they are 100% wrong and I am going to win the battle.
Speaker 1:You're going to have a battle is your husband wrong for not taking out the trash when he said he would do so?
Speaker 1:yes but what if you came to your husband and said is there something I can do to help you remember to take out the trash? Isn't that a different question than why don't you ever do what I ask you to do? Why can you never remember this I ask you to do? Why can you never remember this? Why are you such a bonehead? Those are two different questions, two different approaches addressing the same problem. But now, if I ask is there some way I can help? Now it's a we problem.
Speaker 2:Now, that said, the other side of this coin is we each all of us have to be willing to be vulnerable with one another.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes, getting defensive or arguing is the reaction we throw up because we don't want to be vulnerable. We are afraid of what it is that our spouse is really looking for from us, and so we throw up coldness, we throw up defensiveness, we throw the argument out there when it's really we're not willing to own our own actions. We're not willing to own our own actions, to name it, and to be vulnerable with our spouse. And so all of us have to ask ourselves where am I building barriers between my spouse and I, and what are the steps that I need to do to tear down those barriers so that I don't greet my spouse with this defensiveness or argument? And if that's my go-to method of communicating with my spouse, then some things need to change. They probably need to change within me. Again, you might be married to the jerk that's asking you a hundred questions all day long in an ugly way, but you still can control you and how you respond to that. Have a deal or grieve, so to say, with unmet expectations.
Speaker 1:Your life together not looking like what you thought it would, without hurting your spouse? I like this question because of the way that it's worded, because it represents to me a really important and crucial internal conflict that all of us have to grapple with. How do we deal with something without hurting our spouse? And I get it. You are all probably very nice people, nicer than me, and you don't really want to hurt your spouse, but unfortunately you don't get the choice about whether you're going to hurt your spouse or not. You don't get to choose the outcome of how this is all going to turn out.
Speaker 2:And here's the thing you are going to hurt your spouse because you are a broken person, and so is your spouse. You will be hurt in marriage. Neither of you are married to the perfect person. Neither of you are the perfect person.
Speaker 1:But don't we always, don't? We come to people and we say, now look, I need to tell you something, but don't be mad, that's not your choice. You don't get to control that. Now you can say things in a way that will help to minimize the negative impacts, but you don't get to choose how your spouse responds. All you can do is confront the reality of where you're at, and if that disappoints your spouse or that makes them sad or that hurts their feelings, sometimes that's going to happen, but as long as you're approaching it from the standpoint of this is going to hurt your feelings. I feel terrible about this too. Now how can we pick up the pieces and move on together in a way that's productive for both of us? Now you're asking the right questions. Now you're headed in the right direction, but you can't be afraid of hurting someone's feelings.
Speaker 2:And how do you deal with the grief of a life not what you thought it would be? Well, you let go of maybe unrealistic expectations and you learn to see the joy in what you have now. There is always something to be grateful for. There is always something that you together can say look what we have. It's not what I thought it would be.
Speaker 2:But it's better than it could have been and maybe, if you learn to view the life that you do have with gratitude, you can learn to start seeing that life for the beauty that it really actually is.
Speaker 1:And, ultimately, where you've been is so far less important than where you are headed. The trajectory of your relationship today is far more important than where you were yesterday, even if yesterday was amazing and great and perfect and good. If today you're headed straight down into the depths of terribleness, then who cares about yesterday? Where you're headed is far more important than where you are.
Speaker 2:How often do you set aside an hour, a night, a weekend and a week getaway with your spouse and only them? Oh, I like this question. I'm going to refer you to our podcast. We have an episode we just did here within the last month two months called the Daily Check-In. We have since renamed this Covenant Conversations. Daily check-in is a terrible name.
Speaker 1:We knew that.
Speaker 2:This is a practice that we recommend, especially if you find yourself in a place where you know what we just aren't really doing a good job of connecting on a deeper level. All we seem to be sharing with one another is the mundane details of life. Daily check-in is great for this. I want you to listen to the podcast episode because I'm not going to take 40 more minutes to explain it. But in essence, it's learning to set aside 15 to 20 minutes per day. This is less than an episode of Netflix right Purposefully setting aside time to connect with one another.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it involves I was going to say do you want? To go into more detail.
Speaker 1:There's yeah, there's three steps. One is 10 to 15 minutes of meaningful conversation. That means not conversation about logistics or what happened per se during your day. It's talking about how I feel, about what happened today, something that's not logistics, not who's picking up the laundry, not who's picking up the kids from soccer practice. It's about how do I feel about what's happening today or how I feel about anything. It's exchanging feelings. Both of you have to participate. Set a timer. If you need to 10-15 minutes Then the second step is you each offer a statement of gratitude or praise I am thankful to you for this, or I think you did a great job doing this or that, or whatever it is, and it's got to be different every day. That's the real challenge.
Speaker 2:And you both have to be offering you can't say dinner was great tonight.
Speaker 1:Honey, thank you Every night. That doesn't work.
Speaker 2:And then the last thing is you end in prayer together, and again, this is where you're getting to the heart of what. Do I need to be praying for my spouse? And guess what If I?
Speaker 1:spent 10 minutes before talking about how I feel about something. Now I know exactly what I need to pray about. Now. I know exactly where my spouse is.
Speaker 2:So on a daily basis. We think you should be setting aside that time for for that kind of check-in and this could be condensed into five or ten minutes.
Speaker 2:If you really are, are attuned to it, it doesn't have to take a lot of time but I think the point of that is don't wait for the date nights for the real conversations. Those conversations can and should be happening on a regular basis when you're being intentional. That's what extraordinary lovers do. They are intentional about connecting with one another. But I think another part of that maybe what this question is getting at is recognizing there's good to getting outside of daily life together, getting away together. We highly, highly, highly recommend getaways. We think they need to be 24 hours. At least 48 hours is so much better. Give yourself two nights away, get away together together. It may look like you shipping the kids off to a friend's house and just staying at your house for 48 hours just the two of you.
Speaker 2:You can do that only if you don't do projects together only if you don't just clean the house, but where the real magic happens is when you purposely get away from everyday life together. Your marriage needs this. Your kids need you to get away.
Speaker 1:And your conversations will invariably change. The things that you talk about and think about and have time to deal with will be so different than what you can actually accomplish on a nightly conversation or even a weekly date night.
Speaker 2:So you need to be doing that once a year at the minimum, at the minimum once a year. I know a great way you can do this and it's going to a marriage retreat that happens in September in the Houston area. I hear the people who do that are pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Something like that.
Speaker 2:Date night.
Speaker 1:And date night. And by date night we don't necessarily mean that you have to go out to an expensive restaurant and spend a lot of money on babysitters and food or entertainment. Mostly, what we mean by date night is setting aside an hour or more with your spouse in focused, meaningful time together.
Speaker 2:That could look like putting the kids to bed early and setting up a picnic on the back porch. Something that's intentional, a little different than everyday life, and purposeful, connecting with one another. If you can go out to a restaurant together, great, but don't not have date night just because you think that you can't go out. Do you have any suggestions for additional ways to make the bedroom a special place for us? I like this.
Speaker 1: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. So we went through this in our marriage.
Speaker 1:There was a time that our bedroom was literally the dumping ground for everything. 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.
Speaker 1:We've been there, done that yes, experienced it and we get it sometimes, you know, we're limited by the space that we live in, right? I understand that we can't all afford to. You know, put a 3 000 square foot addition onto our house that's solely for the purpose of having sex, as great as that sounds then you could really have a sex room.
Speaker 2: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. 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?
Speaker 2:Now, 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. So 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 this online now 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 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 want some inspiration. What do hotel rooms look like? They're not frilly and pink and lacy. They're also not sports-themed. Generally they're relatively neutral, but 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, like you know think resort. Put it that way. 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 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.
Speaker 1:Literally.
Speaker 2:Looking at your child's one-year-old picture right beside your bed might not be actually what you would like. 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. So again it's, and again this maybe goes back to this idea of sanctification of the ordinary. This is a place, 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 bring, to provide, to make a place again that's co-created, that is something special between the two of you. Thanks for joining us on the podcast, thanks for listening to our responses to these questions and certainly hope that that's been.
Speaker 2:Christmas potpourri. I like that.
Speaker 1:Christmas Q&A potpourri. We would love to hear your feedback. You can contact us by emailing podcast at intimatecovenantcom or you can submit anonymous feedback and questions if you go to our website, intimatecovenantcom slash podcast. We would love to hear your feedback, your takes, what questions did we get right? What answers did we get wrong? Certainly would love to hear from you and certainly we would love to hear your questions. Feel free to email us at any time.
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. Thanks especially to our Patreon subscribers for coming alongside us in a very real way this year. If Intimate Covenant has blessed your marriage, we'd love to have you join us too. You can subscribe at patreoncom. Slash intimate covenant.
Speaker 1:Also, please support our marriage-centered affiliate businesses. Links and exclusive discount codes are available in the show notes. Your purchases with these vendors helps support Intimate Covenant. Thank you for doing so.
Speaker 2:With deep gratitude and humble appreciation. We want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, and may God bless your new year with love and intimate connection in your marriage.
Speaker 1:In 2025, keep striving and don't settle.