Category Archives: DoNotDisturbBlog

Marriage Challenge: Third Time’s a Charm

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Today’s challenge is simply meant to add some fun, variety and entertainment to your sex life.

Marriage Challenge: Every third time you make love change one variable. After all, the third time’s a charm right?

The variable could be

  • location
  • position (at least to start with)
  • style of initiation
  • fragrance worn
  • vocalization (make some noise, different words, etc)
  • ambiance
  • what you wear
  • use your imagination!

Don’t let a drift in your sex life lead you away from one another. Keep it fresh and new, allowing your imagination and creativity to be used to the fullest extent.

Sexual Snooze Button

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This morning was a snooze kind of morning. Usually a morning person, this is a rarity.  I (Megan) enjoy the quiet house, the chirping birds and a few minutes of calm before my day starts. This morning however, my body was in no way ready to get going so I allowed myself to hit snooze and take full advantage of a few more minutes of sleep. After all, that’s what the snooze button is for.  If you’re a person who hits the snooze everyday, maybe even multiple times and you find that works for you, I won’t judge. But what about your sex life? Are you ever tempted to hit the sexual snooze button?

I regularly ask people in my life, “How are you doing?” The most common answers I hear are fine and/or busy.  Busy is just a way of life for most people.  Our society values productivity, success and the bottom line. Busyness is often seen as a way of accomplishing and living out those values. As a result, relationships take a beating, proper rest and rejuvenation is ignored and married couples sex lives suffer. Couples who find themselves in a “too busy” period of life, often and regularly hit the sexual snooze button.

Reasons for hitting the sexual snooze button are endless, so rather than list them here I would encourage you to consider the reasons you reach for that button.  Do you regularly hit snooze when you are: too tired? don’t have the energy? aren’t “feeling sexy”? it’s easier this way? Once you have thought about the reasons you have or do hit the sexual snooze button, here are a few things to consider.

1. Stamp out selfishness.

A healthy marital sex life is not concerned solely with self. When the sexual snooze button is regularly being hit out of convenience, selfish ambitions or outright refusal to give of yourself to please your spouse, something must be done about it.  Consider the benefits of sex in marriage (closeness, connection, fun, restoration) and choose to engage. Grow in your understanding of sex. Ask for help in healing from past sexual pain.  Keep moving forward. The benefit of the snooze button is not to sleep the whole day through, it’s to provide a few extra moments of preparation in order to get up and get to it. Put selfishness aside, engage fully and enjoy the benefits to your marriage when you pursue a vibrant sex life.

2. Allow the ebb and flow of sex drives to work for your marriage rather than against your marriage.

Healthy marriages can withstand the occasional snooze button moment.  However, a continued refusal to engage in sexual intimacy will harm the marriage.  A helpful way to allow the ebb and flow of your sex drives to work for your marriage rather than against you is to have open communication and mutual understanding. Love, respect and understanding must be the prominent attitudes that permeate your marriage and intimate lives. Learning how to communicate that a “not now” moment (snooze) doesn’t mean “never” is important. Allowing your spouse the occasional option to hit snooze shows a great deal of understanding and concern for their emotions and sensitivity to their sexual interest.

Of course, it’s equally important to note that there is great benefit in making the mental switch from “I really want to hit snooze right now” to thinking “I want to bless my spouse and be blessed.” Loving your spouse through the act of physical intimacy by responding rather than refusing their initiation is within your control. When your sex drives seem to be in opposition to one another, turn around and head in the same direction. Sex is not great because your drives match up 100% of the time, sex is great when you learn that you can give, you can receive and you can grow together.

3. Choose not to snooze!

Sex is an important and necessary part of marriage. Learning to make it a priority and keep it a priority even during the busy times of life will help solidify and strengthen your marriage.  Both Justin and I believe that sex is meant to be enjoyed and that sexual freedom is found in the confines of marriage, but we would be lying if we said we were always ready for sex. Busyness, tension, arguments, kids, sickness, laziness…all these and more show up in our marriage as much as they show up in yours.  Choosing our snooze moments carefully and rarely is a priority for us. We also live by our own advice, we choose not to snooze very often.  Consider how you can make your sex life better. It will require work, you’ll need to talk about it and find a workable solution for your snooze moments. In the end though, if you want a active and fulfilling sex life, choose not to snooze.

Linking with: To Love Honor and Vacuum, Messy Marriage

Learning to Listen

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I (Megan) must confess, I’ve a lot to learn about listening. I have no problem talking, but listening has been known to cause me problems.There are times when I get distracted or try to multitask while Justin is talking rather than giving him my full attention. Sometimes I  formulate my answer while he is still talking rather than listening and then appropriately responding. There are even times when I fill in words and finish sentence for the man because I believe I already know what he is going to say! Like I said, I have a LOT to learn about listening.

In talking with others I’ve found I’m not alone in my need to grow in this area. People are quick to blame stereotypes of men or women for not knowing how to listen but I believe it’s a human problem not just a male or female problem. At the root of a seeming inability to listen is a selfishness problem.  When we recognize that others have worth and value, that what they say should be given merit, then and only then can we begin the process of learning to listen.

Here are a few tips I am learning on my way to becoming a better listener.

1. Determine what kind of listening a situation requires.

  • Does the person speaking require my input or are they just venting?
  • Is this conversation primarily one of obtaining information or is it to gain understanding?
  • Is what I am listening to for my own enjoyment or is there need for an appropriate response?

While there is a great deal of overlap in most conversations, it can help to understand what action the person communicating will find most helpful.  I believe this article has a lot of great information on how to become a better active listener.

2. Listen with empathy.

Allowing others to feel, process and think differently is part of the human experience.  We are all different and acknowledging that in listening skills rather than holding fast to unworkable expectations will do wonders for building relationships.  Listening with a desire to understand and learn in place of defending and assuming is key to continued open dialogue.

3. Recognize listening as a gift.

Priscilla Shirer writes: “Listening is one of the most significant ways He (God) blesses us. Therefore, quite predictably, it’s one of the key ways we can bless others. So choose to listen. Resist the urge to criticize, insult, laugh, or make sarcastic remarks. Battle the press of time and urgency and the hunger to get away. Just lean in, quietly, emphatically, purposefully. And Listen. It’s your gift. Your blessing. Give it to whomever you can.”

Undivided attention. The desire to know and be known. True understanding. I want that in my marriage and I bet you do to. Recognizing that those gifts are ours to give just may be encouragement enough to make some changes.  I want to be a good gift giver in my marriage and if you do to, let’s make the effort to learn to be better listeners.

Join the conversation:

How have you or are you learning to be a better listener? What else would you add to our list?

Linking with: To Love Honor and Vacuum, Messy Marriage

Seasons of Busyness or Change

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Change.

It’s one constant in life we can count on.

Unfortunately, knowing that change is part of life doesn’t always make it easier to accept. Right now, we are in the midst of some very exciting change in our personal lives.  Justin mentioned in our Frantic Friday post that we are in the midst of moving into a new facility with our church. As a pastor’s family we are extremely busy with last minute details, meetings and installations.  Feeling connected during this busy time is important to us but practically knowing how to stay connected is providing much room for improvement.

During seasons of change or busyness, here are some thoughts to keep in mind:

1. Be on the look out for ways to serve your spouse.

While Justin’s love language* is words of affirmation through and through, I am finding that right now acts of service mean a great deal too. Yesterday I spent the day washing the cars and mowing the lawn because I knew it would be greatly appreciated.

Taking on a household responsibility that would normally fall to the shoulders of your spouse can lighten their load. Or perhaps you are both equally busy and neither of you can take on more responsibility. In that instance, maybe you could work together on a task to show you support each other and are on the same team. It could even mean that hiring someone else to help out for the time being would prove to be the biggest blessing you could give one another. Take time to consider how you can best serve each other and follow through.

2. Make room in your life to practice introspection and quiet.

If you’re anything like me, during busy seasons introspection is the first thing to go.  Healthy eating, regular exercise, adequate sleep, healthy relational connections all seem to fade away. Though this is typical it’s not wise.  Taking a few minutes each day to evaluate what is most important and then living that out is essential.

As a believer in Christ, I know the importance of staying connected to God and it’s my chief desire to glorify Him in all I do.  By making time to sit quietly and have my mind renewed, I am being far more productive than if I were to start immediately on my “to do” list. Consider today how you can leave margin in your life in order to sit quietly and reflectively. The ability to do this will impact how you move through your day and accomplish the tasks set before you.

“Exchange whispers with God before shouts with the world.” ~ Lysa TerKeurst

3. Adopt a “what works best now” mindset.

“Always” and “Never” kind of thinking during seasons of busyness or change can be detrimental. It is selfishness that thinks everything should remain the same all the time. Stamp out selfishness by learning to accept and look for the ways love is showing up in your relationship.  Voice concerns if the period of neglect is turning into a habit of neglect but understanding that for the time being, what is working now, may not be permanent.

These are just a few of the things that I am trying to apply to our marriage right now and thought you might be able to use them as well. Please feel free to share what works for you during your most busy times in life.

* For more information on love languages, check out the book 5 Love Languages or the website.

Sex in a Box: Introduction

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“Hey Dad, I’m reading a book I think you would enjoy. Why don’t you peruse it to see if you would want to read it.”

My dad, the always and forever English teacher replied, “Megan, did you know that peruse actually means ‘to read intently’? So no, I’m not interested in perusing it right now but I’m more than willing to glance over it.” (Spoken in good fun and with a smile.)

I laughed and gave my Dad a quizzical look. Apparently I’ve been using the word peruse incorrectly my whole life. In my desire to sound somewhat educated, to prove I could use big girl vocabulary, I pulled out a word that I thought I understood. Turns out I didn’t really understand it at all. I think the same can be said about sex. Clear pictures, experiences and expectations accompany the word sex in our minds.  Each of us have thoughts when we hear the word sex and those thoughts form and develop our understanding of sex. The only problem with that is that so often we don’t understand the greater context and story into which sex was placed. We place the word sex in a box and tie it up neatly, believing we fully understand what it means.

“Freedom may be found behind closed doors” has always been our tag line here at Do Not Disturb Blog.  It truly is our desire to provide practical and spiritual truths about marriage and the sexual relationship for married couples.  We believe it is possible to experience freedom in sexual intimacy by understanding that sex is a gift from God to married couples. In order to experience this freedom though, each individual has to dismantle preconceived opinions concerning how they think about sex. A person has to be willing to take sex out of the box and understand it in a larger context. For the sake of this series we will examine and consider what we believe God says is the proper context for sex and how our “boxes” must be broken down to experience true sexual freedom.

The first several posts (1per week) will examine the most common sexual “boxes”. Then we will offer some suggestions on how to break down those boxes and begin a journey towards sexual freedom. We hope that you will join us on this journey and that you will feel free to comment and participate in conversation.

*This series will cover much of the subject matter we raised a few weeks ago in our post: Compartmentalization: Spirituality vs. Sexuality. We have since revamped how to approach the subject. Thanks for your understanding.

Linking with: Happy Wives Club, To Love Honor and Vacuum, Messy Marriage

Frantic Friday Update: The Finish Line to the Starting Line

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Ever end a really big project only to jump right into another one?  This seems to our story over the past several months.  Here’s a little taste as to what we’ve been up to:

Justin’s World:

I’m totally into the TV Series “Fringe” right now.  I recognize it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, and that for those who do enjoy that sort of thing, I’m about 3-4 years late to the party.  Nevertheless, I may be late to the party, but I still walk out with the most beautiful woman in the room – my sexy wife!

I JUST finished a Spring semester class and was getting ready to take a deep breath.  However, the sigh of relief was very temporary as my university is flying in a professor from Oxford to teach a Summer course and he has kindly assigned 1700 pages of reading.  No time like the present to get started!

Finally, for those who may not know, I’m a pastor at a growing church and we’ve been renting a facility for our Sunday services for 8 years.  But in just a few short weeks we’re going to be moving in to our very own facility which has been under construction for the past 18 months.  Nevertheless, we are continually telling our congregation that this isn’t the finish line.  It’s simply a step in a very long journey to change the spiritual landscape of our city.  We’re moving in…but we’re still just getting started.

Megan’s World:

Megan has also been doing a lot of reading, and is currently enjoying Strangers and Aliens by our friend, Trey Dunham.  If you enjoy reading, we would strongly encourage you to pick this one up.  Trey’s writing is just remarkable.

Outside of that, Megan continues to stay busy here on our blog, volunteering in our children’s school, and always finds a way to have a hot meal on the table every day.  I really don’t know what else to say about her – she’s amazing!

That’s a brief look into our frantic lives, but through all the chaos we continually strive to keep our relationship with God a top priority, and our relationship with one another as a close second.  We learn together.  Laugh together.  Love together.  And when we’re done doing all those things…we simply return right back to the starting line.  Our lives are full of experiences.  But they’re experiences we always share – together.

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So, what do you do when you end a really big project or a busy season in life?  Do you take a little bit of a break, or do you jump right in to something else?  Is your life a series of sprints…or is it more of a long marathon?

 

Marriage Challenge: Personal Pursuits and a Question

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Personal development is important to a healthy marriage relationship. Pursuing goals and personal passions can enhance the experiences and habits you bring to your marriage. In our marriage, we share common interests but we also have personal interests we pursue.  The same could probably be said of your marriage. Perhaps one of you likes to train for marathon racing. Maybe one of you plays a team sport.  We know a couple where the wife enjoys being a unicyclist for sport and fun. We might add, that while her husband supports this, he has not developed the same personal pursuit.

Providing margin in our lives to have time for personal pursuits is healthy and beneficial for marriage.  But as with most things, when taken to the extreme, following our passions can place our marriages on parallel roads rather than keeping us on the same course.  The marriage challenge today is to examine whether or not your personal pursuits are enhancing your marriage or being used as a means of escape.  Take time to consider (make a list if you want) the personal pursuits for which you carve out time. Consider the ways your personal pursuit detracts from or enhances your relationship.  Evaluating what is or is not working in your relationship is important and the only people who can do that evaluating is you and your spouse. Take the time to assess how your personal development is healthy and what you can do if it borders on escape rather than enhancement.

Question: Are the things I am personally pursuing right now being used to enhance my marriage or as a means of escape?

Leave a comment about how your pursuits enhance your marriage. Also, feel free to share about a time when personal pursuits may have been used as an escape and how you dealt with that.

Related post: The Marriage Road: Keeping Your Eye on the Road

Insecurity and the need to be “sure”

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Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.  “Pooh!” he whispered.  “Yes, Piglet?”  “Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw.  “I just wanted to be sure of you.”  ~A.A. Milne

Have you ever felt that way? Had a desire that you just want to be “sure” of your spouse? Maybe you have felt that way after a betrayal.  Maybe you need that “sure” feeling in the midst of a very stressful season that has brought on some form of insecurity.  Doubt and insecurity can find their way into the cracks and crevices of even the strongest of marriage relationships.  Times of stress, discontent, unaddressed conflict and unhealed pain enhance the fact that we all need assurance from time to time that our spouse is for us and with us in this life. That we are facing all of life’s challenges and troubles…together.

Here are a few things to be aware of when the need for assurance and security arise in your life or the life of your spouse.

Proximity matters. It goes without saying that spending time together in all types of settings increases security, in being “sure” of your spouse. If it’s been awhile since you have spent quality time with your spouse, make a plan to do that soon.

Honesty matters. If you are feeling insecure speak to your spouse about it.  If we fail to speak up about what is going on we fail to give our spouse the opportunity to quell our fears.  Allowing our spouse to speak truth into our fears and misgivings is one of the greatest benefits of marriage. If your spouse is the one struggling, take time to speak encouraging words into their life. Develop a positive word culture in your marriage and consciously choose to build up your spouse.

Growth matters. We all pass through different seasons of life.  Fearing change or trying to control everything chokes out the ability to grow.  Observing times in our lives in which we are entering a new season or that our spouse is entering a new season can help us learn how to make our marriage stronger. Make the choice to grow through open communication and support from outside friendships and resources.

Intimacy matters. Don’t let emotional, spiritual and physical intimacy take a back seat to a busy or disordered life.  Make time to connect and reap the benefits of feeling closer, feeling fulfilled, feeling satisfied. While initially it may mean making a decision of the will to connect intimately, following through can actually increase the desire to connect over and over again.

Walking through life together is what marriage is all about. During the ups and the downs. The unknown and the difficult. Marriage is a blessing that can and does give us the ability to face all of life with a certain level of security and assurance that we are not alone. Today, think about the ways that you and your spouse can help each other be “sure” of your relationship.

Linking with: Happy Wives Club, Messy Marriage,Women Living Well, To Love Honor and Vacuum

Re-post: Identity Crisis

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This is a re-post from May 15, 2012:

Over the last several months, I (Megan) have been wrestling through some identity issues.  I don’t really need to go into details in this post but I tell you this because I know that most, if not all, marriages will encounter a season where one spouse goes through an identity crisis of sorts.  Re-evaluation of self worth and identity often happens when big or difficult life changes occur.  Since marriage is supposed to be the one constant relationship that weathers these life changes, it stands to reason our marriages will encounter some identity crisis.

Here are a few things to keep in mind if your spouse is struggling with difficult questions and trying to figure out what the best next steps are for their life.

1.  Support rather than condemn.

Wrestling through the BIG questions in life is never easy and sometimes leaves one feeling condemned or alone.  When it’s your spouse wrestling through these questions, they already feel the complexities of life and may want to try to figure out the answers by themselves.  In this situation, you only have two options.  You can either 1) react or 2) respond.  To react is the choice of most individuals, and isn’t always done with your spouses best interest at heart.  To react is to do so swiftly, and oftentimes negatively.  But when you respond, you take the time to appreciate who they are, encouraging them to better explore and understand who God made them to be.  Taking time to think it through and respond accordingly means only good things for the marriage relationship as a whole.

2.  Love them just because.

There are many reasons you love your spouse.  They are kind.  They are funny.  They are thoughtful.  They are sexy.  They are…  When your spouse is wrestling through something, take the opportunity to remind them of these things.

But remember: during an identity crisis, these reasons may not always seem apparent.  Some of these characteristics may even change through time.  Does this mean you love your spouse any less than the day you married them?  Of course not!  In marriage, you love your spouse…not the individual characteristics of your spouse.  Help them find their identity within themselves and the person God created them to be, not the individual characteristics they act out each and every day.  Love them the way you promised to on your wedding day.  Love them the same way God loves them (1 Corinthians 13).  Love them, because they’re worth it.

3. Develop a network of supportive relationships.

This is important for both you and your spouse.  Your spouse needs people in their life to be honest and real with.  Unfortunately, the times when we need others most are often the times we isolate ourselves from others the most.  If your spouse is needy and does not have supportive relationships, that need for support often falls onto you.  When you feel you can’t give anymore, take the opportunity to rely on those in your circle of friends who can give you energy and encouragement to continue giving your spouse what they need from you.

4. Find something to laugh about together.

Laughter is a gift.  It’s good for you.  It’s great stress relief.  It’s helps you forget about your day, a day that was anything but ‘positive and encouraging’.  That being said, we know there are times when laughter just doesn’t come easily.  During these times, try to find something to bring humor into your spouses life.  It could be anything from a joke, to a comedy movie, to tickling them with a feather while naked.  When they know you can make them laugh even when they’re in the midst of an identity crisis, it helps them find a part of their identity directly in you.  And that may be the small nudge they needed to help discover the rest of it.

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How do you help encourage your spouse when they’re struggling with their identity?  Feel free to leave a tip in the comments below.

Linking with: Messy Marriage, To Love Honor and Vacuum

Compartmentalization: Spirituality vs. Sexuality

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People have thoughts about God.  People have thoughts about sex. Unfortunately, many people don’t ever consider thinking about God and sex in the same context.  Many hold the view that there is nothing Godly about sex or that God even cares.  This simply is not true.  God desires to be part of every aspect of our lives and the physical union a husband and wife share is of the utmost importance to him.  God has blessed physical union in marriage.  There is no separation between the body and the soul, the spiritual and the sexual.  God made us sexual beings with passions and desires but He also made us spiritual beings.

The danger in separating our sexual desires and our spiritual aspirations is that we begin to live compartmentalized lives, in one compartment are spiritual aspirations and in another are secular aspirations.  God desires that every part of our life (yes that includes our sex life) glorifies and honors Him and He does not want us to compartmentalize our lives.

We would like to explore this idea a bit more through a few more posts on the subject but would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.  Please comment and let us know your thoughts and opinions on why people tend to compartmentalize their lives.

Here are a few questions to provide some food for thought:

  1. In what ways do you tend to separate your spirituality from your sexuality?  What circumstances or attitudes have contributed to this thinking?
  2. Romans 11:36 – “For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory.” (emphasis ours)  Do you believe sex is included in this “everything”?  Explain why.
  3. God has given the gift of sexual intimacy to married couples as a picture of our spiritual intimacy with Christ.  Read Eph. 5:31-32.  How do these verses influence your perspective on intimacy?

“God is not covering his eyes in embarrassment nor is he aghast at his creation’s activity during sexual intercourse.  He created the whole idea and is actually smiling because we are enjoying his gift to us.”  Dr. Larry and Kathy Collard Miller