Sexual Intimacy In Marriage

Sexual intimacy in marriage is critical to a healthy, happy relationship between husband and wife. Along with theemotional, intellectual, and spiritual aspects, God designed husband and wife to enjoy the experience of sexual intimacy in marriage: intimacy, as we’ve just defined it, is the

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Love, sex, and intimacy are essential components that great marriages require for complete stability. Real love is the spiritual aspect, sex is physical and intimacy is emotional. It would be difficult to love your spouse if you only thought about yourself. This is not real love. Selfish people often have a difficult time giving of themselves, and yet, that is what love is all about. Love is more than a feeling, it is an action, and therefore, real love takes effort and sincerity.

LOVE:

In scripture, a husband is commanded to love his wife. What do you think is going to happen if that love is not a sincere love for his wife? She will feel frustration, resentment, and anger, and she will have a very difficult time submitting herself to the man she married. When a husband does not love his wife the way God has asked him to love his wife, all sorts of problems will develop in the marriage, mainly rebelliousness, and selfish thinking.

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About Marriage Intimacy

Intimacy is the cornerstone of marriage and it encompasses every aspect of a relationship including the physical, emotional, and spiritual connection between two people. Physical intimacy is often what sparks a relationship, but what keeps the spark alive is the emotional and spiritual connection that forms over time. The benefits of intimacy in marriage are far reaching.

Healthy intimacy is not only good for the couple, but its by-products spill over into the lives of children, friends, family members, and even to the work environment and community.

The Challenge of Maintaining Intimacy

Many couples experience a point where intimacy takes a backseat to everything else that’s happening in life – careers, the house, the children, and just generally surviving day to day. Maintaining the level of intimacy that exists in the beginning of a relationship can prove challenging and, worse, the loss of intimacy can be a major source of stress and difficulty in marriage. So many couples find themselves in this position, especially as life gets more complicated with home ownership, children, and careers. It’s so important, at this point, to find a way to reclaim intimacy. If it was there in the beginning, it’s possible to get it back.

Couples first need to recognize the importance of intimacy in marriage and set an intention to reclaim it and strengthen it. We grow as people, as couples, and as families, and intimacy has to grow as well. This is the bond that started it all and it’s ultimately the bond that will keep it together.

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For most people, when they hear the word intimacy they often think of the physical, sexual side of their marriage or relationship. However, this is not the case when you are talking of true intimacy. Yes, sex is a big part of being intimate in a marriage, but the actual definition of intimacy is, a familiar and very close affective connection with another as a result of entering deeply or closely into relationship through knowledge and experience of the other. This basically means we know the workings of our partner’s mind. We have spent the time and energy to really get to know one another. To glow in each other’s strengths and to accept each others weaknesses. True intimacy takes time to develop, it doesn’t happen at the click of the fingers. Mistaking intimacy for lust is a very common mistake to make and if you have made this assumption then fixing the problem that you are having in the bedroom may be easier to fix than you might think.

There are 4 main aspects of a relationship: Physical, Spiritual, Mental, and Emotional. For a marriage to succeed, a certain level of intimacy is needed in all these categories. There are several different factors that keep us from being truly intimate. When you can identify the reasons keeping you from being intimate in any aspects of your marriage you can start to knock down the barriers, and achieve a closer bond with your spouse than you ever thought possible.

Identifying Intimacy Barriers

From my years of experience in this field, I have found the main factor keeping us from achieving optimum intimacy is fear. This fear usually takes 2 main forms: fear of rejection and fear of being hurt.

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Any couple who has been through a difficult time knows that intimacy in marriage can often be the first thing to exit a relationship.  Spouses who find themselves constantly at odds are unlikely to show physical affection.  The mere thought of physical intimacy can be a turn-off when you feel undervalued and unloved.  However, a sexless marriage is an unhappy one.  To save your marriage, it is essential that you make resolving your intimacy issues a priority.

What Causes Intimacy Issues…

Before you can restore intimacy in marriage, you have to understand what created the distance in the first place.  The three main causes for a sexless marriage are listed below.

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1-Emotional Distance: This tends to be the main reason why women stop responding to their husband’s advances.  A wife who feels unappreciated by her husband often does not feel inclined to open herself to sexual intimacy.  Many women equate a helpful husband with a loving husband.  It is no wonder that a recent study discovered that men who share household chores are more likely to have frequent sex with their wives.

2-Physical Appearance: Yes, it seems as though appearance should not matter to committed spouses, but the fact is that we are visual creatures.  While it is commonly the husband who loses desire when his spouse gains a substantial amount of weight or practices poor hygiene, women too can be turned-off by an unkempt spouse.  If you suffer from a sexless marriage and give little thought to your appearance, extra attention to hygiene and health habits might make all the difference.

3-Poor Self-Esteem: Intimacy in marriage can be hampered by a spouse’s fear of rejection and failure.  Low self-esteem can be paralyzing.  Sexuality involves opening oneself up completely emotionally and physically.  The very vulnerability that makes sex a sacred part of a marriage relationship can also make the thought of intercourse unbearable to some.  If you or your spouse suffers from debilitating self-esteem issues, you will need to work patiently together to overcome these fears.  In addition, many couples find that a professional marriage therapist can help cultivate needed trust.

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Honesty in Marriage © Penny R. Tupy 2004

Honesty is perhaps one of the most basic needs in marriage. Without honesty, problems that may destroy the relationship can lie hidden for years, building momentum, creating blocks to intimacy, and then suddenly surfacing larger than life to wreak destruction in your marriage.

Honesty is the foundation upon which all other aspects of marriage are built. With honesty you know exactly how your actions will affect your mate, and you can make the necessary adjustments to accommodate his or her feelings.

With honesty, you and your spouse are aware of each other’s weaknesses, and can work with that knowledge. Knowing and understanding the thoughtless things you might be inclined to do, allows you to take precautions to prevent that from happening.

“But we are honest!” you say?

How honest are you? Is there a line you can draw which marks where a little bit of secrecy turns into dishonesty? Is there such a thing as mostly honest?

Being honest is like being pregnant, or alive. You either are, or you’re not. There is no half way, no mostly, about any of those things. In marriage, partners must learn to become completely honest with each other if they are to achieve true intimacy.

Here’s a little quiz. Do you, or have you, shared the following information with your spouse? Do you know the same sorts of things about him or her in return?

Your past. Does your mate know all there is to know about: former lovers, friends, occupations, dreams, mistakes, achievements, failures?

Your feelings. How do you feel about the events of your life? Especially your reactions to the things that your mate does? How do you feel about the life you have created together?

Today. What are your plans for the day? Who will you see, what will you talk about, where will you go, when will you be home, how can you be reached?

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Studies are showing that more often today couples who have been married for some time can often experience a loss of intimacy.  While intimacy can be defined differently, it’s common that many couples will experience some amount of disconnect or diminished amounts of affection and intimacy towards each other.

In many of these cases, this experience and subsequent behavior spirals out of control, and what’s left is a marriage that is void of intimacy, and the couple begins to wonder what happened.

While there can be many different reasons that lead to this problem, there are remedies and exercises that can be implemented to help reverse this process, and restore intimacy to a marriage.

A very common technique marriage counselors use is to simply recommend taking a break from sex, for 2 weeks to a month.  What this does is encourage the couple to first see if they can be intimate again, and then focus on the intimacy itself.  While this approach is not bad, and often helps, the following techniques and exercises take this several steps further.

Couples usually get married to their soul mates, with the belief that this person is the only

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I was 8 when it started. My daddy, the most important person in the world to me, would come into my room at night. Drunk and most likely stoned (I knew my daddy smoked weed) he would creep into my room and finger me or perform oral sex on me. He was my hero and I used to say how if he died I would jump into the coffin with him. I always thought he thought he was with my step-mother, he was just to drunk to know. I never cried while it happened. I would act like I was asleep and I would try to push him off or to fight him, but we all know that doesn’t work. Around when I was 10 I actually ran from him and called the police, but daddy wasn’t far behind me and hung up on the operator. The next morning the police showed up asking who had called and why. I wanted so badly to tell them why but I couldn’t. When I was 11 I was on a camping trip with my best friend Stephanie. While we were walking around the campground we were talking really deeply when I told her about daddy. At that moment she revealed that her brother had done similar things to her. We then thought if we tell her parents maybe they could adopt me. He was also physically abusing my older brother and me. I remember my brother having black eyes and fights so fierce we wound up in the front yard beating the sh*t out of each other. But like I was saying, the whole time from 8 to 12 he would come in at least 3 nights a week and molest me. No screams, crying, I would bite and kick and resist. At 12 I started to think, “What if I became pregnant with my fathers baby?” Granted he still hadn’t gone that far and I hadn’t started my period but I knew it was coming soon. So I made a pact or a promise to myself that next time it would not happen. So when he came to do it again I was awake and waiting. He just told me good night, kissed me on my forehead, and left. I called my friend Stephanie and told her about my promise and I told her I would be there in about 30 minutes and asked if she could meet me. I made my bed and wrote my daddy a letter saying that I would rather run away then ever let him touch me like that again. When I met up with Stephanie we talked about the possibilities. Finally it came down to me making one call to the local sheriff’s department. I was so surprised how quick they showed up, but also how many were there. I swear at least 10-15 different patrol cars came through. They asked for my story, tried to calm me down, and tried to figure where I would go. First, I was taken to an abuse center and examined. Then, they took me to the county Juvenile detention center. I was in there associating with the female inmates for the next three days until my biological mother’s parents came and got me. But the thing is I never have nightmares or emotional breakdowns. I hurt when I think about the memories and I still talk to my dad I just can’t ever forgive him. I’m 18 now and I live with my boyfriend. It’s really hard to talk about and some of my family members will never forgive me for bringing the truth out. But I know in my heart what I did was right and what he did was truly wrong. He still hasn’t said sorry.

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What Is Marital Intimacy?

Intimacy is the closeness of your relationship with your spouse — emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, sexually, and in many other ways. Intimacy is not an end goal but rather a journey that lasts throughout your marriage. Marriage and family researchers Schaefer and Olson (1981) describe attaining intimacy as “a process that occurs over time and is never completed or fully accomplished” (p. 50). As you both grow and develop, each of you changes. If you neglect intimacy in your marriage, you will grow apart. The time to work on intimacy is now.

Benefits of Intimacy in Marriage

Studies show that marriage offers many benefits. According to Olson and Olson (2000), “Married people tend to be healthier, live longer, have more wealth and economic assets, and have more satisfying sexual relationships than single or cohabiting individuals. In addition, children generally do better emotionally and academically when they are raised in two-parent families” (p. 3).

The physical benefits are widely supported by research. Several recent studies, for example, found heart benefits that are particularly dramatic for men. At Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, researchers assessing the marital intimacy of 10,000 married couples asked the husbands: “Does your wife show you her love?” The husbands who answered yes reported having significantly less chest pain within the next five years than the men who answered no (Ornish, 1998). In another study of 119 men and 40 women, Yale scientists found that husbands who reported feeling loved and supported by their wives had less artery-blockage than those who did not (Ornish).

Mental health is also better for couples with healthy intimacy. Researchers Firestone and Catlett (1999) say, “In our opinion, love is the one force that is capable of easing [depression]” (p. 13).

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Codependency – What is it?
Codependency is when a person has a strong desire to control people around them, including their spouse, children or co-workers. Codependents believe they are somehow more capable than others, who need their direction or suggestions to fulfill tasks they are responsible to complete. They feel compassion for people who may be hurting and feel they should be the one to help them. Codependent people give of their time, emotions, finances, and other resources. They have a very difficult time saying “no” to any requests made of them.

Codependency – A Matter of Control
Codependency, for others, doesn’t express itself in a desire to control, but instead, in the need to be controlled by others. Because it is nearly impossible for Codependents to say “no” to people, they may find themselves the victims in physically and emotionally abusive relationships. They believe that if they can be good enough, or loving enough, they can change the other person’s behavior. They sometimes blame themselves for the abusive behavior: “If only I had not forgotten to do the dishes, he would not have had to hit me.”

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