How to Rekindle Intimacy in Your Marriage Bed In this short episode (6:46) Rhonda offers practical insights to help you rekindle the romance in your marriage.
Steps to Build Intimacy in Marriage
1. A Close Warm Friendship - Play together 2. Pursue Each Other 3. Ask God for Help 4. View s❤️x as a supernatural way God knits your souls together as one. 5. Connect on an emotional level -Make her feel seen & heard -Help her with the everyday chores -Giver her time to unwind 6. Rhonda’s resource: Ebook “A Christian Woman’s Guide to Great S❤️X in marriage 7. Building Trust is Crucial - believe the best about each other -love them for who they are 8. Affirming Words 9. Make time to make love
This episode is in no way a comprehensive resource. I am not a professional counselor, but as an older woman I offer these valuable insights. I pray the steps you learn here will help you reconnect and rekindle intimacy with your spouse.
"This podcast is for the purpose of mentoring only and is not a replacement for therapy. We suggest you seek out the help of a trained biblical counselor for help with your specific situation.”
Rhonda Stoppe:
Hi friends. Rhonda Stoppe. No regrets woman. I am going to chat with you today about an article that I wrote for crosswalk, and it's entitled, our Sex and Intimacy, the same thing.<laugh>, your ears just perked up, didn't they? Here we go again. Stan thought as he rolled over from yet another cold shoulder from his wife Debbie. It had been almost two weeks since they had been intimate. Something had changed in Debbie over the years. Their passions had waned. Stan felt like Debbie viewed lovemaking as another thing on her to-do list. Maybe you can relate to that. Ladies. Does Stan and Debbie's story sound familiar? Maybe you identify with Debbie's lack of desire, or maybe you're the one who longs for intimacy with your spouse and they're disinterested. You're not alone. Countless married couples go through dry spells in their marriage bed, and for some these dry seasons, they're able to reconnect through intimacy. But for others, the longer the couple goes without sex, the less engaged they become in the marriage bed and their intimacy and their relationship suffers. So how can you change that? How can you be the couple you long to be? Let's unpack that, shall we? First of all, let's talk about what leads to lack of intimacy. First, we're gonna ponder the synonym for the word intimacy. It means a close, warm friendship. Isn't that interesting? It's important to consider what builds a close, warm friendship with your spouse. Think about when you were dating, what was the thing that connected you? Did you do stuff together? You played together. In fact, for most men, romance with their wife was playing with her, going hiking, taking her golfing, doing the things that you love doing together. Sometimes after we get married, we get busy. Wives get about the business of taking care of their kids and the home and and husbands, they play with their buddies instead of their wives. And for all most wives, they're kind of happy that they don't have that one more thing on their to-do list. But remember that dating your husband by playing together is an important part of building intimacy with him. Lack of sex with your spouse can also undermine that intimacy between husband and wife. But it's important to note how differently husbands and wives view intimacy. One biblical counselor observed,"In my experience, men whose wives pursue them sexually are deeply in love with their wives." Notice that he said when a wife pursues him sexually, this doesn't mean, Hey babe, it's Tuesday. Let's do that thing we do. This means she pursues him being flirtatious. Were you flirtatious when you were dating? Rather than putting intimacy as one more thing on your to-do list, ask God to help you figure out how to go back to the way that you interacted with each other. When your love was young, did you know that the very act of sex knits the heart and mind and body together in oneness? In fact, the Bible says that through the covenant of intimacy, marriage, husband and wives become one soul. That's in Malachi two 15. I can't explain the mystery of it, but I know it's truly wonderful and supernatural. So how do you rekindle romance? It's not about having more sexual encounters. Here's the thing, men, I'm talking to you. While your intimacy tank might be filled up by a wife who pursues you sexually, sex for her does not necessarily satisfy her need for intimacy. No matter how great it is. For most women, building intimacy in the marriage relationship occurs outside of the bedroom before sex, in gentle caresses, romantic words, and even after glow after sex, listening to her, connecting with her on an emotional level, making her feel seen and heard. You might think buying her flowers is going to woo her to the marriage bed, but you have no idea if your wife is trying to get all the things done, how much it will mean to her. If you just roll up your sleeves and help the kids with their homework, or do the dishes or help her with dinner, those acts become romance to a woman who's in the thick of it. Instead of expecting her, throwing those daisies at her and getting out of her way and watching football until she's ready and the kids are all in bed, and then thinking she has enough energy to get, uh, intimate with you. Help her accomplish those things that she needs to accomplish so that she's not exhausted by the end of the day. And I'll tell you this, she's had her mom hat on all day long. She has to have some time to transfer her mind and take off that mom hat and go find her sexy mama hat. That's somewhere in the dust bunnies under that bed. So give her some time and help her with those things that she has to do every single night before she can even find time to relax. Are sex and intimacy, the same thing. The important part of building intimacy in marriage is it's God's way of knitting two lives together. You can learn more about creating, uh, great sex with your spouse. In my ebook, a Christian Woman's Guide to Great Sex in Marriage, you can find it on my website. It's on Amazon. In fact, the audiobook is available on my website. Trust is crucial soil in which intimacy grows in a marriage. It's difficult to make yourself vulnerable to someone who has not made you feel accepted or loved. For most men, intimacy increases when they trust that their wife believes the best about them and desires them. And for women, intimacy in their marriage grows when they trust that their husband's love for them, for who they are, and they understand them and they find them attractive. For both husbands and wives, affirming words builds intimacy. Growing intimacy in your relationship is the best investment that you can make in your marriage. The insights in this article are a good place to start:
Speaker 2:
Have Conversations with your spouse about ways to grow closer in your relationship. choose to play together. Enjoy one another's company. Make every effort to increase your spouse's trust in you with uplifting words and romantic gestures, and make time to make love. Schedule it, put it on your calendar regularly. Come together in your marriage bed because this is God's plan to intimately knit together your very souls. Obviously, this article is in no way comprehensive, but it will help you move toward a way to build intimacy in your marriage so that you will enjoy not only an amazing sex life, but your hearts will be knit together into intimacy for a lifelong love. Thanks so much. Have a great day.