It’s the launch of a new year, and so I thought for this first Wifey Wednesday of the year we could take a big picture look at marriage, and at what’s coming on this blog this year. Over the last few days I’ve posted some of the top marriage quotes and top marriage posts of last year, and those are great resources for specific content. But today I want to offer you a challenge:
Are you really prioritizing your marriage?
Many women think a lot about marriage.
We like analyzing relationships. We did it when we were teenagers, and we were constantly wondering if he would call back, or if he really liked us. We did it when we were about to get engaged, and we were wondering if he was the right one. And we do it now.
Unfortunately, because we women like to think, we often confuse thinking with action.
If I’m thinking about an issue and talking about an issue and reading about an issue, then that means I care about the issue, right? But if it doesn’t translate into action, then it doesn’t mean anything.
If you look at the time and energy you really devote to your marriage, is it a priority? If you always fall into bed exhausted, because everyone gets your time and effort except your husband, then there may be a problem. Now, this isn’t always something it’s easy to fix. Kids do need our attention. Laundry does need to be done. Many of us work outside the home. And so we tend to focus on the things that are screaming out for attention–those little emergencies–and get those done first.
Many of us operate on this emergency mode.
Marriages aren’t emergencies most of the time, but if we stop tending to them, they can suddenly become emergencies. Your husband won’t scream out for attention to be paid. He’ll just slowly withdraw. And you likely don’t scream out, either. If your husband doesn’t pay attention, you may likely withdraw. That’s a cycle that needs to stop in 2012.
Marriage is such an incredible blessing. Because you’re married, you’re likely to live longer, be happier, suffer fewer crimes, be wealthier, have more well-adjusted children, and have less mental illness. All because of marriage. That’s not inevitable, however. It’s only if you care for your marriage.
I know, however, that caring for your marriage isn’t always easy. Many of you are married to men who don’t take good care of you. Many of you are married to men who look at porn, who are demanding in bed, or who aren’t interested in sex at all. Many of you have impossible in-laws. Many of you have chronic exhaustion or depression. Many of you are simply lonely.
And so over the next year I want to help.
I’ll point you to great resources that I’ve found on marriage (just like my list of the 50 best marriage quotes). I’ll post lots of practical tips on how we can make our marriages great. I want to start posting more vLogs! And best of all, my book “The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex” will be out in early March, and I’m so looking forward to sharing that with you (Update: Available Now!)
To get ready for that, February here on To Love, Honor and Vacuum will be a special month, where I’ll be posting “29 Days to Great Sex“. So stick around!
For now, though, I’d like to point you to a great resource that I think can help you in the new year, and it’s J’s post from Hot, Holy, and Humorous, about how she sees New Year’s Resolutions when it comes to marriage: High Standards, Low Expectations. It’s a great perspective.
Now it’s your turn! Can you help make this blog great in the coming year? Just list in the comments one or two questions about marriage and/or sex that you most want answered, to help me make sure that my posts are on target!
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 29 years and happily married for 24! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 7 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
I thought you were still on vacation, so I will edit and put in the linkbacks here. Hope you had a very Merry Christmas with your family! We had a wonderful celebration here in Texas!
Yep, I’m back! I’ll post pictures tomorrow. We really had a lovely time. Thanks for the best wishes!
Question #1: How can we keep the peace without burying issues or withdrawing? That has been a trick for me. Exactly what extent of withdrawing from an overheated discussion to keep peace is okay?
Great question! Let me meditate on that and I’ll try to write about it soon!
Hi Sheila – just wanted to let you know that I love your blog, especially Wifey Wednesdays. I’m featuring this meme on my blog today in a post about blog memes: http://thekoalabearwriter.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-is-blog-meme.html. 🙂 Thanks!
Awesome, Bonnie! Thanks so much!
My question is what to do if the sexual act of penetration (hope i’m not too graphic) gives you no pleasure at all.
Also tips and ways to focus during lovemaking because I find my thoughts always wander away and sometimes concentrating or being present in the moment seems exhausting.
Great questions, Ollie! That will be a perfect post for February, for one of the 29 Days to Great Sex. Thanks for asking!
Very good post. This is an issue in my marriage for both me and my wife as well and I think you are spot on to the cause (can only speak for myself and surveys of one aren’t always reliable) being the difficulty in differentiating what is important versus what is urgent.
Jesus was very good at making this differentiation and taking his cue from the Father. While the Jews urgently wanted and expected a saviour to save them from Roman rule, Jesus did what was important in the Father’s eyes – going to the cross
“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.” John 17:4
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. John 19:30
how do you get your husband to “talk” when you need to. All he does is listen, which is good at times, but sometimes I want to hear his heart…
thanks, looking forward to this year
Ah, that’s a problem in many marriages! Thanks, Kristin. I’ll ponder that.
I love how you break down that we may think we are prioritizing our marriage, but our calendars might show otherwise. I found that to be hardest when my kids were little; children simply demand so much time.
Thanks for linking to my article. I’m eager to help sexuality in marriage in any way I can in 2012. I’ll be praying for your ministry. Hope you’ll pray for mine.
Now I should go pre-order your book RIGHT NOW. 😉
I look forward to the series. Thank you for doing it. If you haven’t or are going to address sex and pregnancy in the series I would certainly love to hear a little on that. Blessings.
Ah, sex and pregnancy. Yes, we must talk about that!
Totally didn’t want to read this. Puts me a bit on the spot!
I’m at the stage with two little kids, a business, volunteer work, and what seems like no time for my husband. It doesn’t help that our ideas of time together are different. He wants to watch a TV show or play a computer game together (side-by-side) and I’d like to go out on a coffee date once in a while.
I think my littlest is (finally) at a stage in his life that I can leave him to the care of someone else though. Now it’s just a matter of making it a priority so that my husband and I can have some one-on-one bonding time. It’s on my list of New Years Goals and I’m going to read them regularly to keep them in the front of my mind. No excuses for this Mama! Marriage development, here I come!
Awesome, Tes! I know you’re busy with the farm and everything, too, but you can do it!
This is so great! I JUST blogged about this very topic yesterday. I linked my post up top but I can’t figure out how to get your link on my blog?
And I loved this..
“Unfortunately, because we women like to think, we often confuse thinking with action. If I’m thinking about an issue and talking about an issue and reading about an issue, then that means I care about the issue, right? But if it doesn’t translate into action, then it doesn’t mean anything.”
That is exactly what I have been telling myself. I have to DO it. Pun intended….sort of. 😉
I question I have is how I overcome not being a very physical person. I have never been very huggy, kissy, and feely. It makes me uncomfortable. Even with my husband. Now sure why this is. But he is very touchy. Not just sex, but just touching, hugging, and kissing. ANy ideas on how to enjoy touching? How to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling. To enjoy being together?
Thanks for the post!
Thanks, Theresa! I have a friend who was recently saying the same thing. She grew up in a very reserved family, while her husband is VERY touchy. She’s had to train herself to deliberately instigate touch, and she’s managed to do it! I’ll talk about this soon.
I know you’ve posted a bit on it before, but I think that coping with different financial styles would be a great topic. Financial issues are one of the biggest issues in marriage(right up there with sex), and just as people have different “sex drives”, they can have different “spending drives”, too. So what do you do, for example, when you both have the same financial goal, but either you disagree about how to get there or one of you seems to be incapable of saving. I can think of at least a couple of scenarios that would cause issues. One person spends, spends, spends leading the other to do the same just to keep up with the budget. Or one person is saving away with a savings account while the other wants to take the life savings and invest them in high risk stocks.
Would love to see what sort of ideas you have on that.
You know, I haven’t posted very much on that, but it is so important. Thanks, Rachel! I’ll try to get to that in the month of January.
Great blog Sheila! Sex is very important to the marriage relationship.
My two questions about sex are:
What can a woman do to be more sexier looking in the bedroom?
If the Bible says that the marriage bed is undefiled, how far can a couple go in the bedroom without sinning?
Great, Tiffany! I’ll add those to the list.
I appreciate you dealing with sex in marriage and issues of childhood molestation and how it affects those of us in marriage. Looking forward to reading more on that. Also, want to see about how to deal with sex when your mate is going through his “change”. Finding that men get older and sex becomes different for them, and how does the wife work to understand that and help as opposed to feeling as though he may not be interested in her.
Considering doing a Wifey Wednsesday on my blog. I am new to this all but interested in doing so in 2012.
Happy New Year!
Thanks, April! I’ll keep those questions in mind.
Thanks so much for your posts and your mission to help others in their marriages! Since I stumbled upon your site, it has led me to other sites and I have been so blessed. It has really already started to help my marriage! I learned I can give lots of mixed signals to my poor husband as I myself try to figure out what I want/need- esp in the bedroom! We are making headway though as I pray for God’s guidance and read up more on the blogs and learn to let go and have more fun!! If you could post on a topic related to being more “open” in the bedroom- not quite sure what that topic really is, but my husband stated not too long ago how he was “bored” and it was basically “the same meal” all the time- good, he said, but he wanted more variety. I just have no idea how to start making variety up! lol
Thanks again for your posts Sheila! God bless!
Nicole, that’s so neat! I’m glad you’ve found other blogs, too. That’s one of the good things about the internet–it can really be helpful!
The wonderful thing these days is that you don’t have to “make variety up.” There are lots of great resources, from trusted, Christian sources even. I loved many of the ideas in Kevin Leman’s “Sheet Music,” and there’s an endless supply of them at The Marriage Bed forums. (boards.themarriagebed.com) Just figure out which of them are “you” and have fun!
A few things that I wish I could talk about to someone are:
1) How to be intimate when it is your husband who has a number of problems that make sex impossible for the time being – between a few painful health problems, chronic depression, and an incredibly stressful job, my husband of 7 months never feels any real sexual desire. He says that emotionally, he wants to be intimate, but his body doesn’t respond. It has been incredibly difficult since I never expected to still be a virgin after 7 months of marriage. Some days I just sob because I want our relationship to be complete, and I feel like we’re beng robbed of a key aspect, but if I try to show my desire, my husband just feels “defective” and shuts down. It’s been terribly difficult.
2) How to deal with problems when both you and your spouse tend to beat yourselves up – both my husband and I are far more likely to tear ourselves down rather than each other. While it means that we rarely say or do things that hurt the other person, most of our moments of conflict come when one of us responds to a problem by shutting down and blaming ourselves. I know that we need to find a better way, but it’s hard when my husband’s natural response to conflict is to shut down and do whatever he thinks will make it just go away.
Thanks.
~R
Oh, wow, Rachel, I’m so sorry that marriage has been so difficult for you. I will certainly write a post for women who have unconsummated marriages, and for women with husbands with completely non-existent sex drives. And it sounds like both of you are suffering from some depression and some rather serious self-esteem issues, so I’ll try to deal with that, too! I understand your husband shutting down, but that sounds very passive-aggressive, as a way to get you to “back off” and not deal with the issues. But these are some important things that do need to be dealt wtih, and I’ll try to give you some ideas for how to move forward.
Sheila,
I just stumbled upon your blog during Christmas time when I decided I needed to bring Christ to the center of our family, and become the type of mother and wife that I used to be. I was so stressed all the time letting day to day tasks get to me, stressing over my marriage etc. I don’t remember exactly what I googled but it lead me here I read post after post for hours! I could relate exteremley well to your writing and minisitry. I since bought your first book To Love Honor and Vacuum and it is helping me on my journey. This post was another excellent post thank-you!
My first question would be how can I bring out my husband’s romantic side? I have always been “romantic” I love being married, I am always telling my husband I love him, dressing just for him (if you catch my drift), leaving him notes, planning our dates, kissing and hugging him, trying to spice things up etc. But, he often just half smiles or says nothing. My husband is a wonderful man, and I know he loves me, but it is hard to get him to show it to me in that way. I have tried telling him what I want and he just laughs it off or says ok but, nothing changes. What makes it harder is that he tells me about romantic things he’s done in the past for other women etc like he’s trying to explain to me what a great guy he is like I don’t see it. Our first EVER dance wasn’t until this year well after we were married, it was sweet and I adored every minute of it making sure to tell him! I don’t expect this kind of romance every day, but it would be nice more than once a year.
Can you please talk about / give examples of how to initiate intimacy? This is an area that I am very bad at and I believe my marriage is suffering because of it. I’ve asked my husband what I can do and his answer has repeatedly been “be sexy.” Unfortunately, I have no idea how.
AWesome question, Becca! I can definitely talk about that.
Awesome post! I will keep an on eye on your blog.