A Healthy Sex Life Begins with Dishes and Laundry

I don’t want to be too provocative or racy on the blog today, but I need to tell you something.  I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher this morning.  In addition to that, I was the one to get up when Laylah got up this morning.  (She is definitely the first one up every morning since time change.)  After I got her breakfast, I remembered that I had run the dishwasher last night.  I unloaded it and put the remaining dishes in.  I went around the house and gathered up other dishes.  In the meantime, I also noticed some stuff of mine that needed to be put away.  I also saw a basket of laundry in our room that needed to be folded.  I’ll work on that tonight.

Again, I hope that story wasn’t too racy for you but romance is in bloom at the Loften house today.  It actually started last night with the original loading of the dishwasher and watching one of our shows on Hulu last night.  We were next to each other and holding hands and just being tired next to each other.  Can you feel the heat?

This, my friends, is what romance actually looks like in your typical marriage.  Sometimes when we are watching a TV show or movie that supposedly is “romantic,” I’ll notice how suddenly, aggressively and awkwardly these people start having sex.  I wonder out loud to my wife, “Does that happen in real life?’  If it does, there is a completely different magical world out there where people aren’t exhausted from kids and life and sex is on the front of everyone’s mind all the time.

In the world in which I live, a healthy sexual relationship is a slow build over time.  It begins with the husband serving his wife all day or for a couple of days.  He communicates to his wife how much he loves her and is thinking of her, not simply with physical flirtation, but also with domestic service flirtation.  He is going out of his way to communicate love for his wife in the way that she receives it, not simply in the way that he is feeling it.  A guy gets a lot more mileage out of folding socks than a random physical grab or a sexual comment (shocking, but true).

In the world in which most guys live, a sexual relationship starts at night, in bed when he thinks, “We’re both here.  We are already laying down.  What do you say?”  Then that same guy gets frustrated that his wife isn’t into it and rejects him or begrudgingly goes along.  He gets frustrated that she is distracted by her day or tired or overwhelmed.  He is shocked that she didn’t have the same thought, you know, what with them both being in the bed and all.

Too many men do not do the hard work to recognize how differently the mind and sex drive of their wife is.  They assume that women are just like them and get frustrated with them when they discover repeatedly that is simply not true.

I’ll never forget the day it fully hit me.  I was watching TV in the living room by myself and there was a basket of unfolded clothes in front of me.  I simply started folding the clothes while I was watching.  Heidi comes by and says, “What are you doing? Trying to romance me.”  I think, “Ummm, nope. But I am now.”

It was then that I had finally noticed after more than 10 years of marriage, that it wasn’t simply being nice to my wife and what I would call flirty, that romanced my wife.  I realized just how much serving her and trying to eliminate the things that distract her makes a huge difference in how she views me and our intimacy.

This may sound weird or even manipulative.  It’s not, it’s how romance works.  I show her love in the way that she wants to be loved and my wife responds to me by showing me love in the way that I want to be loved.  It might become manipulative if I bang a dish loudly, thinking she may not know that I’m doing dishes or I yell from the living room that I am folding clothes.  But even in that, it’s just fun flirting.  Honestly, I wouldn’t even be sure who would be manipulating whom.  Am I folding laundry to get sex? Or is she giving sex to get the laundry folded?  It doesn’t matter.  We are both loving each other the way that we need and want to be loved.

A healthy marriage means each person is giving and receiving love.  That means that I need to know the way that she wants to be loved.  She wants to be pursued and served and she hates folding laundry.

The Power of Offering

by Heidi Loften

My dear friend Kay(name changed) was a colorful character.  She taught me how to lift weights and “sew” curtains with a glue gun.  Her time on earth was too short but full of love and passion.  Kay left an impression on me in so many ways, but one of the things that has stuck with me most is the fierce way in which she loved her husband.  He travelled for his job, but before he left home she always made sure his “love tank was full.” (Her colorful terminology)  She saw a vulnerability and knew that she had the power to help bring strength and health to her husband and her marriage.

Recognizing sexual temptation as an area of vulnerability in any marriage is not a matter of blame or accusation.  Creating a marriage that can stand strong against the constant bombardment of opportunity for sexual impurity is the responsibility of both husband and wife.

Kay was gorgeous and vivacious and everything a husband could want in the way of physical attractiveness, but these were not her greatest strengths as a wife.  Her greatest strength was her awareness.  Her eyes were open to the temptation that her visually oriented husband faced every day.  Rather than judging him for being more easily enticed than she was as a woman, she put herself in his shoes.  She imagined what it would be like to be a man away from his family, lonely, in a hotel room with easy access to sexual comfort and excitement.  She accurately assessed that a man whose “love tank was full” would likely be less vulnerable to temptation in that situation.

The decisions in the hotel room still belonged to her husband.  He was still responsible for running towards or away from temptation.  But his marriage teammate had done what she could to set him up for success.  Rather than viewing this as his issue to battle alone, she saw an opportunity to stand with him and strengthen him in the fight for the purity of their marriage.  If you don’t feel the constancy and intensity of the battle against your husband and your marriage, ask him, ladies.  Walk a mile in his shoes by beginning to see the world through his eyes.

In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.  Philippians 2:3,4

Many of us battle our own insecurities in this area.  No longer looking like we did on our wedding day, we feel that “what we have to offer” is not worth having.  Aging and child bearing take their tolls on our bods, ladies, but the truth of the matter is, your bod is the only one he has legal access to and that is probably good enough for him!  Most husbands would choose to have you using your fluff and flab to love them and affirm your attraction to them rather than a Swedish swimsuit model.  Intimacy is physical, but it is so much more than that.  Shave your legs and jump in the game, girls.  You aren’t perfect, but you are his!  Love your man with all you’ve got.

Even when you are tired, not in the mood, or the timing doesn’t seem quite right, you have the power to offer.  Even if he chooses to wait for “the mood” to strike you too, your willingness to offer yourself to him will affirm your love and respect for him in a way that few other things can.  Our men are very physical creatures but our sexual responsiveness to and interest in them affirms and encourages them in ways that go far beyond physical satisfaction.  Our physical availability strengthens their confidence and builds them up in a way that pours into all aspects of their lives.

It’s not “just sex.”  It’s so much more than that. Your choice to “fill his love tank” has the power to do your marriage a world of good.

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.

Proverbs 3:27

[Allow me to say that I would certainly never want to add blame to the pain of infidelity.  Infidelity and sexual addictions are complex issues with tangled roots.  If these are issues in your marriage, I encourage seeking professional help.]

Stop Using Sex as a Weapon

We are now one day post-sermon about sex.  It was a sermon that I have wanted to give for a long time.  You can watch/listen to that here.  I wanted to talk about this for a lot of reasons.  One is that I am very passionate about the fact that it has seemed historically that all the church has had to say on the topic is to discuss when you should not be having sex.  This leads to a culture that is embarrassed and ashamed of sex, which leads to not talking about sex which leads to all sorts of problems. (You could read my thoughts on that here.)

One of the ways that sex becomes a problem in marriages is when we use sex as a weapon.  God created sex as an incredible pleasurable act of unity for a marriage, and far too often in marriage it becomes a divisive tool in the hand of one or both spouses. Sex becomes a wedge between a husband and wife not an act of unity.

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Genesis 2:24-25

“One flesh” is a concept that we talk about in marriage and we use it almost exclusively in spiritual and metaphorical terms.  While those usages are true, there should be no doubt that the original usage is primarily sexual (see word: naked).  Becoming “one flesh” is exactly what happens physically during sex and is the primary expression of oneness in marriage.  It then says that they were both naked and felt no shame about it.

That is a far cry from how so many of us feel.  We often bring shame and fear into our sexual relationship, in part because of how we use sex as a weapon against our spouse.  How do we do this?  Here are a few examples:

1) We use sex as a reward or lack of sex as a punishment for our spouse’s behavior. We use sex to try and manipulate our spouse’s behavior.  If they are good, we reward; if bad, then punish.  We somehow tell ourselves that this is helping our spouse become better. We are fixing a problem.  You may perhaps be temporarily modifying behavior but you are not fixing anything.  What changes you may see are at the expense of bitterness and staining the act that is meant to bring intimacy.

2) We use guilt and pressure to force our spouse into having sex with us. Sex requires someone to take initiative.  What you say or communicate may be different, but it needs to have this feel: Would you like to connect with me in this awesome, physical, spiritual, emotional way? I think it would be great!  Pressure and manipulation bring shame and guilt where there should only be celebration.

3) We shame our spouse for wanting sex too often. The fact that your spouse has a sex drive greater than yours does not make them a pervert or overbearing or aggressive or any of those things.  They are simply wired differently than you.  As we are connecting with each other, each spouse has to make an adjustment to understand the other.  One’s drive is not right and the other wrong.  Different is what brought you together and is part of what you are celebrating in sex.

4) We shame our spouse for not wanting sex often enough. Similarly the fact that your spouse has a sex drive lesser than your yours does not make them a prude or scared of sex.  Different is not bad.  Different is different.

(Disclaimer: it is possible that you or your spouse has an unhealthy sex drive in either direction.  Just being different doesn’t tell us that.  If you think you or your spouse is out of balance, you should talk to other couples that you respect and ask them what their respective drives are like.  You and your spouse are likely normal and just don’t believe it.  However, it’s better to know by asking than wonder in isolation and silence.)

We need to stop using God’s greatest gift to marriage to hurt and wound our spouse.  We must allow sex to be the incredible celebration of love and unity that God made it to be.  As with all issues that we have with sex in our marriages, healing begins with an open, honest conversation with our spouse–a lights on, clothes on, middle of the day, believe the best in each other, unity bringing conversation.  Joy, health, unity, pleasure and more are just on the other side of conversations like that.

Let’s Talk About Sex

We got the word out last Sunday that we will talk about sex at The Grove Church this Sunday.  It is not unheard of for a church to talk about sex on a Sunday morning, but it is still unnecessarily rare.  We are not talking about it to simply be provocative and potentially have a high (or low) attendance Sunday.  We are talking about sex because it’s important and we need God’s voice on this topic to be as loud as all the other voices.

I grew up in a church that talked about sex, at least in our youth group, but really we only had one thing to say about sex.  SEX IS BAD! DON’T DO IT!  You just keep saying that over and over again until it takes root in their hearts.  If it doesn’t seem to be working, then say it louder or with more guilt and anger.  Perhaps you should even consider using awkward illustrations, the more props the better.  Maybe you should even consider using an outdated video.

Before you think I am something that I am not, I firmly believe that God’s design for sex is only for a married man and woman.  I am 100% for abstinence.  I’m the guy who has crazy restrictions on his daughters for dating.  (Read here.) I’m certainly not encouraging anyone who is not married to have sex.

However, can we agree on a couple of things?  Sex is not bad.  Sex is not a necessary evil.  Sex is amazing and an incredible gift from God.  Also, God has much more to say about our sex lives than a list of people who shouldn’t be having it.  When we act like all that God has to say about sex is that some people shouldn’t have it, we do damage.  We also make the only voices informing us about sex to be voices that are pointing people away from God’s design. So, we at The Grove Church and your lovable curmudgeon Cloften will be talking about more than just when not to have sex.  Because when we fail to do that we make the following mistakes:

1) We confuse our kids.  Your kids don’t have to be geniuses to figure out that sex is not bad.  They don’t even have to experience it to know that.  Too many people seem to be enjoying it.  Pursuing sex also seems to be very natural.  For heavens sake, they know that you have done it…at least that one time.  Please, please, please do not be one of those parents that is ashamed of your physical attraction to your spouse or make it seem awkward or dirty.  It would be better to make your kids uncomfortable and show your kids that you have a healthy love and attraction for each other rather than reinforce that sex is dirty or something to be embarrassed by.

So if you are only telling them that sex is bad and they intuitively know that is false, then you become an unreliable source.  Everything you say about love, sex and dating is false, because this one thing that you say is definitely false.  If this post gets some traction, I’ll will post later about talking to your kids about sex.  I’ll give you 23 words on it here.  Try this: Sex is awesome when done in the right context–marriage.  When you do it any other time, it causes more damage than joy.   Ok, a few more words–do not every make your kid feel embarrassed for asking a question about sex.  Affirm their question and answer fully.

2) Our marriages suffer. If we are not talking about sex openly and honestly, then our marriages will face serious consequences.  Without open, real conversations about sex, we are left with two conflicting ideas.  One is that sex is dirty and I should be embarrassed. (There is no switch that you can flip that goes from “Sex is bad. Sex is bad. Sex is bad.” *Wedding Ceremony* “Sex is great.”)  The second is sex is supposed to be like it is on TV or movies, or worse, porn.  Hey guess what? It’s not.  However, it is an awesome time of emotional connection and physical intimacy which married couple should do, a lot.

Have you had a conversation with your spouse about it? Are you satisfied with your relationship? Does your spouse know? Is there something that if your spouse started doing or stopped doing during sex that would make it better? Do they know?  Talk about it!

3) We miss out on God’s awesome gift. Seriously, you know this, I think.  Sex is great.  It is a designed gift from God given to us.  If he wanted it to just be about making babies, it wouldn’t also feel so great.  It wouldn’t also be a time of such emotional connection.  Too many of us are settling from something significantly less than an ideal sex life. We don’t have this great emotional, spiritual connection with our spouse, because we don’t talk.  We are having sex too infrequently.  We are not meeting each other’s needs.  It’s just not as fun as it could be.  The simple reason is because we won’t ever have a clothes on, lights on, calm conversation about how we are doing in this area. The only time we talk, somebody is mad because someone just got rejected or feels put upon.

What if? What if we had healthy conversations with our kids and they grew up without the awkward discomfort that some of us grew up with?

What if? What if we knew how we could serve our spouse better by just asking?

What if? What if there is something way better than what we are experiencing out there?

What if you made a decision to actually talk about sex?