(Mobile readers, please see note at the bottom)

The better you and your wife know each other, the better your marriage will be. That means asking and answering questions is important. 

My bride, who would be known as The Question Queen if she were not the Generous Wife, has a free tool to help you with this - A Year of Questions for You and Your Spouse. The PDF has 366 questions. Right click and save as, then print, cut, fold and away you go. You can fancy it up like the picture if you want.

The questions are very good (yeah, I’m, biased, but I’ve seen a lot of lame questions, and this is not that). There are even some questions about sex! It will take you just a couple of minutes a day to do this with your wife, and it will bless her and your marriage.

Do you read TGH by phone or tablet? A few months ago, I changed the system used for mobile readers. The new system is much nicer, and it has solved the problems some had not being able to see the posts, but I am on the free version and it is limited to the last ten posts. If a lot of you are reading, or would like to read, from a mobile device, I would be willing to spend the $90 a year to upgrade and make all pages available. (If someone wants to throw money at that, free.) Otherwise, I will go back to the old system. Hit reply or the comments and let me know.

Image Credit: © Lori Byerly

My Saturday post, Celebrating the male sex drive, resulted in the expected emails from men struggling with a wife who believes lies about male sexuality. I also got emails from bloggers and a couple of folks working with couples dealing with this problem. ~

One email stood out for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was written after my post, but before my post was on-line; so it was not in response to my post, but it fits perfectly. Secondly, it expresses the most extreme case of this I have ever heard. The wife has indicated that God wants her to limit the amount of sex because the man cares too much about sex, and denying him sex will help him develop a deeper relationship with God. In other words, this woman claims it is God’s will for her to say no to her husband for as long as a couple of months at a time.

As far as I can tell the women is serious about her faith, and wants to do what is right before God (and the husband strikes me the same way). Yet, this woman is convinced that God is asking her to do something that is in direct contradiction with the Bible! Does this show you how pervasive the lies about male sexuality are in the church?

What strikes me about this is that Paul was addressing this very thinking in 1 Cor 7. The roots of the situation were a bit different, but not much. There were those known as Gnostics who thought that the body was inherently evil, while the spirit was inherently good. They taught that the way to know God better was to abstain from pleasures of the flesh – with sex being near the top of the list. The Gnostics said even married couples should abstain from sex for the sake of their walk with the Lord.

This is what we are up against; the lies run deep and they have been in place a very long time. This is why I am asking begging for help! It is going to take a massive effort to put the truth in front of enough people enough times to make a significant difference. On the other hand, sharing the truth once with someone could result in a change for that person and her current or future spouse. This is especially true for those not yet married – including teens. Teach that sex in marriage is an incredible thing to be enjoyed for a couple’s entire life. Make sure every bride expects her husband to want her 24/7. If you are a married woman who has a good sex life, find ways to let other women know you like sex and like that your husband wants you. If you hear women expressing lies about male sexuality, lovingly challenge those lies with truth.

Bottom line: Be an unapologetic sex positive Christian!

Image Credit: © nokhoog_buchachon | freedigitalphotos.net

I would like to propose a new marriage holiday – Generous Wife Day. 

My thought here is not to have a day for giving of gifts or being expected to take her out; this is a day to thank your wife for her generosity. A nice single page letter from you, thanking her for specific things is my suggestion. If you want to leave it on the table under a single rose, or give it to her with dessert at a home cooked meal that is a nice touch.

I declare June 10^th 2013 as the first annual Generous Wife Day. 

If you are thinking, “My wife is not generous” I suggest you try to find a couple of places where she is. Praising her for those may spur her to do more.

Image Credit: © Ermess | Dreamstime.com

Why are so many otherwise decent, loving, Christian women unwilling to be sexually generous with their husband? Seriously, it’s like an epidemic! What is causing this? Sure, there are all kind of things we can blame, but is there one major cause? I think there is. (If you blog about marriage, don’t miss my challenge at the bottom!)

I once heard a woman say something to the effect of “If he wanted it less, I would do it more.” Why would a woman feel that way? I think many women would identify at least somewhat with the following:

• “He does not desire me; he just wants to use parts of me for his pleasure.”
• “He wants an orgasm, and I am the only place he is allowed to put it.”
• “If my vagina fell out, he would leave me.”

Can we start by agreeing that feeling like that would not make one feel good about sex? If your wife feels that way, even a bit, it is reducing her interest in sex. Can you understand why a woman who felt that way would see her husband wanting less sex as a good sign, as an indication that he really loved her?

Are you yelling at the screen that you are not that guy? I get it! However, what affects your wife is not how you are, but how she thinks/fears you are. Okay, but if you are not that way, why does she think you are sexually selfish?

The sad reality is the world around us is full of examples of sexually selfish men. Most porn is just about his pleasure, often at the expense of the woman. The stereotypical frat boy or man at a bar is there to “get lucky” or “score” and he does not care who he hooks up with as long as it ends in sex. Common sayings such as “Your standards go down at closing time” and “Doesn’t matter, had sex” give the impression that men are all about sex with any halfway willing woman.

So, some men are sexually selfish, and part of our society glorifies such behaviour. I do not think it is the norm, but it is real. Caring parents (rightly) warn their daughters about this to protect them, and by marriage most women have a couple of first hand experiences with and many second-hand examples of men who only care about “getting some”. She enters marriage fearful that men are controlled by their penises, and human nature is to see what we fear even when it is not there. Then there is a husband’s very normal, and God-given, excitement about having sex with his wife till neither of them can walk; a woman can easily misread this as selfishness. He says something that can be taken more than one way, and she takes it wrong, and so it starts. It becomes a vicious cycle she is afraid to rethink, and a catch 22 he cannot escape.

So how do we change this? I don’t just mean how do you change it in your marriage, how do we the church change this?

Education

We need to teach the truth about male sexuality as God designed it and married sex as God intended it to be. We need to stand up and say men have extremely strong drives (compared to the average woman) and that is God’s doing. The horrible things that happen because of misusing that drive are the result of sin, and sin never makes what God created bad or wrong. The male sex drive is God’s creation, and we need to learn how to use it as God intended. We need to teach that denying that drive is just as wrong as using it outside of God’s boundaries. Denying a man a healthy married sex life is not just doing him wrong; it is saying God is wrong.

We need to proclaim proudly that God gave men a strong drive to encourage couples to have regular, healthy sex lives. We need to communicate that a good sex life is not just a bonus in marriage; a healthy sex life is necessary to have the kind of marriage God calls us to have.

I am not trying to beat up on anyone here, because both men and women are victims in this. We have believed lies about the male sex drive, and it is not just the women. Most men think they are “oversexed” or “want more sex than I should expect my wife to have”. As long as these lies live in the church, couple’s sex lives will be a mess, which hurts marriages, which hurts families, which hurts churches and communities. This is not just a marriage issue – it goes far beyond that.

My challenge: Here is my challenge to everyone, but especially to bloggers, pastors, and teachers: Make it a point to celebrate the male sex drive anywhere you have influence. Stop allowing sex to be treated as shameful or evil. Proclaim that God gave men a strong sex drive for a reason, and that we must embrace that if we want to have healthy marriages, families, and communities. Challenge those who express the lies that sex is dirty or shameful or should never be discussed.

We do not have to change the minds of those who are convinced sex is bad, we just have to speak the truth enough to drown out their voices. If they learn they will be lovingly challenged with the truth, many will stop speaking the lies they believe. We need to make calling sex bad like being openly racist is (in most places) – some will still feel that way, but they know it is not culturally acceptable to speak those lies. I want the church to be a culture that openly proclaims that sex is good!

Image Credit:© fotographic1980 | freedigitalphotos.net

I was expecting (okay, hoping) someone would say my What are you tolerating? post yesterday was at odds with the “choose to let some things go advice” I have given many times (including last Sunday). Maybe my repeated use of the word integrity prevented that. I was not talking about differences of opinion or different valid ways of doing things; I was talking about sin.

I think we have an obligation as a fellow follower of Jesus, and as husband, to point out sin to our wife. Of course, we have to be able to do that in love, and we need to work on doing it more for her sake than how we can benefit, but the obligation is clear; if it is sin, we need to speak up. Fortunately, we are not responsible for forcing her to change, or even to agree she is in sin. Neither are we supposed to bring her sin up repeatedly. If it is significant we may need to follow the Matthew 18 example of getting others to address her, but nowhere do I see us being told to nag people about their sin!

What if she keeps walking in sin, especially if she makes it clear she does not see it as sin, or does not care because she is going to keep doing it regardless? I think when you get to that point it is time to set it down. I would make a point of telling her that I am setting it down not because I have changed my mind about it, but because she has shown she is unwilling to deal with the issue. (The words “hard heart” come to mind, but that may not be a good phrase to use!) In other words, make it clear you are accepting her as she is, sins and all.

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Image Credit:© Michal Marcol | freedigitalphotos.net

This post is to balance yesterday’s “The danger of perfectionism“. Is there something in your marriage that really is not what it should be, but you tell yourself it is okay?

Maybe you don’t feel up to the battle required to deal with the issue. Maybe you know that bringing it up would cause anger and frustration with little or no chance that things would change. Maybe you have tried in the past, it was ugly, and you are unwilling to go through that again.

It is certainly tempting to put “peace” ahead of truth – especially when it seems the truth will not be acknowledged. Putting up with a wrong sometimes seems a better choice than living with on-going hostility. I get all of that, really I do. But what about integrity? If we refuse to speak the truth, if we refuse to stand up against what is wrong, are we men of integrity? We can say it is just our marriage and it does not matter, but integrity is not something we can live just where it is convenient!

I see many women saying things like “My husband is not a man of integrity” and “Why won’t he be the spiritual leader?” I wonder if the women saying those things realise their husband may be ignoring things just to keep peace in the marriage. I suspect many of those women would not initially like what their husband being a man of integrity would mean. There is a good chance both husband and wife would ultimately like the change, but only after some struggle, adjustment, and growth.

If this is not making you eager to start confronting all the things you have been tolerating it means you are paying attention. I am calling you to something that is almost certainly going to cost you in the short-term; with no guarantee things will eventually be better. This may or may not help your marriage, but it is the right thing to do.

Image Credit: © Viorel Sima | Dreamstime.com