Overcoming Trust Issues

Burlington Con Delivering Good. Burlington Marcas Rebajas. Wow. Burlington Punto. Com Diagonal Cotes Paramas de hello, and welcome back to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast we address the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love. We are coming to you from the XO Marriage headquarters in South Lake, Texas, the marriage capital of the world. And you guys, we have a really good episode for you today that's all about trust. And then you have to listen or watch all the way till the end because there's an amazing question.

Pretty steamy question.

Pretty steamy. Probably this might be one to listen to without young children in the car. They're going to have a lot of questions for you. If they stay in the car, you're.

Going to hear some words. Yeah, but it's a great question.

Really good for married couples.

And. And yeah, stick around to the end, for sure.

That's right. But before we dive in, I want to share another review with you. This is from Fit Till I Die, which. I love that name. That's awesome. And they entitled the review the Shining Light. Five stars, it says. Hey, you two. Thanks y' all so much for having an amazing podcast. I searched marriage and you all were the first to pop up. I looked through the episodes to try to find something that was a related title to what has been going on. I started on episode entitled Stop Score people. Stop Score keeping. That's a tongue twister. And now I'm three hours deep in all your podcast episodes straight. My wife and I are three years into our marriage, but our lifelong story started in fourth grade. That is the sweetest thing. Oh, my gosh. I have loved every minute of your podcast thus far and will continue to listen to help shape our marriage. Some dark times are happening as I type this, but I am definitely giving. I'm gaining some insight and I want to go forth building us back up. So I again, thank you guys and I'm so glad you popped up in the search so I can listen even more. Wow, that's just amazing. So much of that is amazing. And we'll be praying for you guys. You said they're going through some dark times.

Well, and we're praying for you. We have help@xomarriage.com help for anybody going through any kind of difficulties. We've got a great team here that would love to talk with you by Skype phone or even meet with you in person here in our offices in South Lake. But yeah, you get so much history. Fourth grade, you know, one of Our kids is going to fourth grade this year. I'm going to tell him, buddy, dress up for the first day. You might be meeting your wife today. No pressure, but it could happen.

Hey, I just, I love it when I hear childhood romances, so to speak. It's really sweet. So, again, thank you guys so much for leaving reviews. And that is the best way. If you love this podcast and you're like, I want to tell my friends about it. Tell your friends about it, but then take it a step further and write a review for us today. It doesn't even have to be long, but we love hearing from you guys. It really keeps us going. And it also spreads the word about the podcast.

It does. So we're going to dive into today's episode on trust issues. This whole season, we're doing episodes inspired by our brand new book. It's not even out yet. It doesn't even come out till February. But we're so excited about the content of this book that we're talking about it already. It's called the Counterfeit Climax. And in this book, we're just, we're unpacking so many of the false messages that lead to baggage in our sex lives. And really, every married couple, every individual has some level of this. Even if you went into marriage as a virgin, you still have some sexual baggage, just from kind of the broken messages and the expectations and insecurities and a million other things. So we're cutting through all of that, all the issues that stand in the way of couples having a thriving, amazing, intimate sex life and intimate life even outside the bedroom. And so today's topic is on that, which is trust issues, which if trust is out of whack, of course that's going to affect every part of your marriage. And then like Ashley said, the question at the end today is really a good. When we spend a lot of time unpacking it. I think you're going to enjoy today's episode, so let's dive in.

Well, today's episode is an important one because trust issues are at the heart of so many marriage problems. You know, mainly when it comes to communication. I think that if there's a breakdown of trust, you know, we don't necessarily communicate in the healthiest way possible. But there can also be problems when it comes to intimacy if we're not trusting each other.

Yeah, we say a lot, like, the depth of your honesty will determine the depth of your intimacy. And even beyond honesty itself, I think sometimes even if we are being honest, there's still trust Issues in marriage. It's not always. It's not always because of a dishonest spouse. Sometimes it's because of our own past baggage. You know, we've been burned in the past, and we just don't know how to fully trust, because trust requires vulnerability. It means putting yourself in a position where your spouse can hurt you because you're being so vulnerable. And sometimes we're so guarded because of our past, because of our own insecurities, because of being burned or people breaking our trust, and we carry all that in. But until we learn to fully trust in marriage, we can't really learn to fully love, because love and trust go hand in hand. Like, we have to be willing in marriage, especially to do both wholeheartedly. And if trust has been broken, giving our spouse the opportunity to rebuild that trust. And so in this episode, we just want to talk as practically as we can about this very often misunderstood concept of trust and how to get it, how to keep it, how to rebuild it once it's been lost. And we want to talk about it through what we call the five stages of trust in marriage. We think this is just kind of how trust works in a picture that there are five Cs of trust, and it starts with commitment. That's kind of the outer ring of the bullseye, so to speak. Like, whenever trust has been broken or whenever trust is going to be established again, you have to start with reminding yourself of the commitment that you're making to each other.

Exactly. And this includes your vows. You know, usually when trust is broken, it's because one of these vows have not been kept. But like Dave said, it's not always that a spouse did something wrong. Sometimes it's that they're untrusting of their spouse because maybe their. Their parents, you know, weren't trustworthy. Maybe they didn't have, like, in their formative years, they didn't have someone they could trust, and so they just are never trusting. But even so, we have to come back to our commitments. And part of your commitment in marriage is saying, I am committed to trusting you, to wanting to trust you, and when I don't, letting you know that I don't trust you. And so it's so important that we always go back to that and that we let our spouse know. Like, hey, I don't feel like you're committed to this marriage because, you know, you're not telling me the whole truth. And I. And I. I don't know if you mean to do that, but I really want to be able to trust you. And so I need you to be honest with me.

Yeah. So that's the first level, the commitment. Level two, or step two, is communication. You know, trust cannot be built without communication. So you remind yourself of your commitment, you remind each other of your commitment to each other, and then you communicate. You communicate about why you're feeling a lack of trust. You communicate about what you need from your spouse to feel more trust. You communicate about your feelings, your hangups, your insecurities, your doubts. Get it all out there on the table, and then together communicate a plan toward complete trust or reconciliation if trust has been broken.

You know, you guys are probably. If you listen to this podcast for any length of time, you're probably tired of hearing us talk about communication. But the reason that we do is that it is usually at the heart of most marriage issues, and really, especially when it comes to a breakdown of trust. Because, you know, usually if someone isn't acting trustworthy, they're not communicating in an honest way. But also maybe the person whose trust was broken is maybe letting resentment build up inside of them because they're not addressing the breach of trust. They're not addressing the fact that their spouse did this and letting them know, like, hey, you hurt me. And this is why I feel like I can't trust you. And so it's gotta be something that is early in the process of the rebuilding of trust. And I wanna say this too, and we've talked about this in the past, but I think it is something we need to mention here as well, is that in order for trust to take place, kind of in the commitment and communication part of this bullseye. And these levels of trust, you've got to forgive. You know, you've gotta first forgive for what's happened in order for that spouse who broke the trust to regain your trust. If that's the situation and that has to be communicated, it has to be communicated. And it's kind of part of your commitment. It's saying, like, I forgive you, and I'm trusting that God is going to do the process of healing work in you, and I'm gonna allow God to do his work in me and do what I can do to make our marriage a place where we can have trust again.

Yeah, that's so good. So three is. Step three is consistency.

And this is the. I mean, goes hand in hand with this.

This is, in a lot of ways, the key ingredient. I mean, you need all five of these for trust. But consistency is really how trust is made. It's how trust is kept. I love a quote from Jimmy Evans, you know, founder of this ministry, and I use this quote often. He says, trust is built in drops, but it's lost in buckets. So we have to build trust consistently. Little by little. We can pour out a whole bucket load of trust all at once when we have a big breach of trust through our decisions. But the only way to build it is drop by drop through consistency. You can't build trust based on what you promise to do. You can't build trust based on what you say you're going to do. You only build trust based on what you do and do consistently. And that consistency is what's going to give your spouse comfort. It's what's going to give them the security of knowing, I can lean on you, I can trust you. And so just be consistent. And if there's any part of your life right now that's not consistent, I'm not saying perfect. None of us are perfect. But if you're not consistent, if you say one thing and you're doing something else, or if there's one part of your life that you're keeping secrecy, you're, you know, that's just out of bounds. That's going to disrupt trust in the whole marriage. And so you've got to be consistent.

And this is the hard one. Like, I feel like for most people, this is hard because, you know, on the one hand, there's the spouse that maybe broke. Broke their spouse's trust. They did something wrong, they lied, they didn't keep one of their vows. And so they're having to do these steps. They're, you know, and these need to be. Let me just say this. Maybe in the communication phase, the two of you need to agree on what are those things that need to be consistent. You know, what are those steps that need to be consistently upheld? And doing them is hard because there is the spouse that broke the trust that you're having to do these consistent steps. But then the spouse who was wronged, we have to not retaliate. We have to not be nitpicky and really give them the chance to show that they can be trusted again. And that's by seeing the good in them. That's by assuming good motives. That's by holding them accountable. Definitely. Like, if you're seeing, like, man, you said you were gonna be consistent in X, Y, Z, but I'm not seeing you doing this. You told me that you would not take your phone in the bathroom with you anymore because that's when you tended to look up old flames, or that's when you tended to look up porn. And I see you bring it to the bathroom. Bathroom still. And so you're not being consistent. You do need to hold them accountable. But you should also say, but listen, maybe it's an old habit. Maybe you weren't looking up anything. I'm trusting that you weren't. If you were, I need to know. If you were. I need to know because I need to. We're changing how things are here, and I need you to be honest with me. But I'm just pointing this out, not to be nitpicky, but just to tell you I really want to trust you again. And I need to see you doing these consistent things and fulfilling these promises. Like Dave said, it's not just words. You're telling me, like, these are actions. This is very action oriented. But it takes both spouses in this. In this phase. It's not just the spouse who broke the trust. It really takes the other spouse, who maybe was wronged, to kind of uphold their consistent posture of trusting that their spouse is capable of being trustworthy again. And that actually leads us to step four, which I think is also a hard one. And that's courageous because it takes courage for both spouses to go through these levels of trust. Because it's so easy to think, oh, no, this is how it's always gonna be. He's never gonna be able to be trustworthy ever again. Or I'm never going to prove to him or to her that I can be a trustworthy person. Cause even though I am, I'm doing the work, I'm being consistent. They're always gonna see me as that person who broke their heart. They're always gonna see me as the one who did whatever. And we both have to agree, we're gonna be courageous. Cause, you know, guys, being married and staying married and trying to be the best spouse you can be, it takes courage. Because life is crazy and messy, and a lot of times when trust is broken, it's not like your spouse or you, maybe you're the one who broke the trust, woke up one day and said, you know what? I'm just gonna go do the worst thing ever that I can do to break my spouse's heart and completely bust up my marriage and make things really hard for both of us. Like, it doesn't happen that way. It happens very subtly. Yeah, it's little. It's little breaches of trust that lead to usually bigger breaches of trust. And so, you know, it's not going to happen overnight that you trust this person again. It's a step. It's a. It's a process. It takes small steps that lead to bigger steps. But if you are committed to the process, if you are willing to be courageous, then you're ultimately going to find yourself in the final step of trust.

Which is the final c. Is comfortable. And you think, well, that's not what I was expecting. Comfort. Why is that the final step? Why is that the bullseye? Well, comfort is when it's like the trust is just there, and you can rest in it. Like sinking down into a chair on which you're comfortable, putting your entire weight, knowing that you're supported, knowing that you're safe. And that's what marriage should feel like, that you can just sink the full weight of your mind, body, soul into this relationship. Knowing that I'm safe in this commitment, I'm safe with this person. And not only safe, but I'm comfortable like that. This is where I want to be. This is where I long to be. And that's what marriage should feel like. It shouldn't feel like an itchy sweater that never fits. Right. It should feel comfortable.

It's so true. And I just want to say this. Comfort doesn't mean laziness.

No, no, that's a good point.

Because we can't become complacent. Okay? That's not on it. Complacent's not the best.

Not in the list.

The bullseye is com. And when we try to, you know, we get so comfortable that we're complacent, and we're, like, making assumptions about our spouse, and we're not being consistent. Like, we lose the consistency of maybe those new habits that we formed. If we stop doing those, then what we're gonna happen. What's gonna happen is we're gonna move outside that bull's eye, and we're gonna have to start all over with commitment. And you guys, don't be discouraged if this is something that you do have to come back to. Because I do think we're human beings. We have a tendency to get on autopilot not because we want to be necessarily, but because, again, life can be so crazy with our work schedules, with raising children, and sometimes we can lose sight of what we need to be doing. But we have to go back to this and say, you know what? I'm really kind of becoming complacent, and I'm not exercising courage in my relationship to be. Not only to trust my spouse, but to be a trustworthy person. And I'm not doing those things to show them I'm trustworthy. And so definitely be intentional, like, be comfortable. But also don't lose sight of the intentionality that it requires to have a very deeply trusting relationship.

It's so true. And part of that intentionality is that when you're not feeling the comfort to kind of work backwards through this, this bullseye, this five C's of trust and say, which of these areas? Maybe all of them, but maybe which one of these areas is just out of sync right now? Is it, is it our communication? Are we just not communicating? Is it courage? Like, am I not putting my heart out there? Is that really what's going on? That my spouse is doing everything in their power to show me they're trustworthy, but I just won't put my heart out there again. I won't put myself in a position to be hurt. And so I'm keeping them at arm's length instead of inviting them into true intimacy and vulnerability. Is it the consistency part that's broken? Is there something I'm doing or something that my spouse is doing? That, that inconsistency just continues to sabotage trust? And we need to get to the root of why is there inconsistency there? Like, is there just some, some habit, some broken habit in me or in you that we've got to get to the root of why it's there. And maybe that's individual counseling. Maybe that's, you know, working through our own past and saying, like, where does this baggage come from? Where does this hang up come from that keeps sabotaging trust in our marriage. Because I want to get to the root of it. Because trust in our marriage is worth fighting for. It's worth working for. And so I don't want to settle for complacency. Like Ashley said, that's not on the list. But I don't want to settle for anything less than us having a thriving, passionate, committed, trust fueled marriage. And trust is the foundation that a marriage is built on. If that foundation is shaky, then marriage isn't going to survive through the storms of life. And so get to the root of it, work through it again. Counseling, we talk about it on almost every episode can be a big, big step in that direction. And guys fight for trust. You know, keep, keep working for trust like we're going to. We've, we've talked so much about, about this. We, we kind of in some ways want to leave the conversation open ended for a couple reasons. One, our producer Marcus has Promised us, like, a really juicy question for the Q and A, which we haven't seen yet. I think we're going to have to have some. Some time to answer because he's got a. He's got a smirk on his face that makes me think, like, this is going to be a curveball. So, I don't know. Ashley's gonna say, I think one more thing about trust.

I have one more thing to say.

She's got something teed up, and so you go for it.

Well, earlier we talked about how sometimes there's not actually been a breach of trust. So I wanna talk to those of you who are like, listen, I totally get this. I wanna have all these levels of trust. But it's not that either one of us has done anything to break the other's trust. Like, we've been keeping our vows, we've been doing what we need to do. But I still feel like there's this wall between us because I think that that is the reality for a lot of married couples. And I want to ask you this. You need to really think about what kind of assumptions maybe it could be on, like, a subconscious level are you making about trust in general and about relationships in general, about marriage and what it's supposed to look like. Could it be that your parents were divorced and you witnessed that as a kid and you just felt like you kind of filed back this little, I don't know, reel that you have going in your mind? Like, well, you can never fully trust or know anybody. You can never fully trust or know anybody because my dad, he was my everything, and he cheated on my mom. And if dad can do that, then my husband, sure, you know, he really will. We've actually had friends have to work through that. And I remember the wife, she had no idea that that was. It was this, like, way back, you know, subconscious level assumption that she was making, and she was holding it against her husband, and so she had to work through that.

She was unknowingly punishing her husband for the mistakes of her father. Yeah. But those are deep wounds that, again, you have to work through. Because when somebody you trust, they completely breaks your trust. It makes it hard to trust anybody at all. But you have to, for the sake of your marriage, for the sake of your own mental health, for the sake of your family. You have got to work through those issues and know that trust is possible and trust is still the goal.

And I wanna say this, too. Maybe your parents, like, that wasn't it at all. Maybe you were married before and Your spouse cheated on you in that previous marriage. And so with everything in you, you're trying to not repeat those same patterns. It's not even, you know, let there be anything that you're not sharing with each other. And you have this amazing marriage, but you still, in the back of your mind, you're just not sure. You have to really just ask the Lord, say, God, renew my heart. Renew my heart. Remind me that my spouse is not my previous spouse, that they are a gift to me. I never thought I would love again. I never thought that I could even move past it. But you brought me past it. And just know that, you know, being intentional and relying on the Lord, that this marriage can be totally different. You know, maybe it was that your dating relationships just were really tumultuous. And. And maybe you weren't trustworthy. Maybe you tended to be a cheater. And you. Deep inside your heart, you're not sure you can even stay true. Like, maybe you're. Like, maybe I'm just a cheater. Like, you've never said that out loud. You did get married, and you haven't cheated on your spouse. You've been true. But deep in your heart, you have this little reel going, and it's the enemy saying, you know what? You're. You're not really. You're a cheater. You're gonna cheat one day, and you're just kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. That's not of God. You gotta rely on the Lord. You gotta give it to him and do your part to just be an upstanding spouse, to be an honest spouse, because you are capable of this. But it takes us being very, very honest with ourselves, asking God to reveal any blind spots. Because, you guys, we're human beings. We all have these blind spots. We all have these subconscious assumptions. And I call it a real. Because it's something that plays. It's like a reel in our mind that we just kind of have going. Sometimes we're aware of it, sometimes we're not. But we need to really be very honest with ourselves and ask the Lord to reveal any blind spots, because that's how we can work through it. And if you do have something where it constantly is a stumbling block for you, again, talk to a counselor. Talk to a Christian counselor. Make sure they are a Christian. You're gonna get all kinds of different views on things. If you don't go with a Christian. You need to have someone who shares your faith, who has the power of the Lord behind what they're telling you and they're praying about you even when you didn't know they were praying about you to know what to tell you. And so definitely find one in your area or go to xomarriage.com help okay.

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Steamer here.

Give me the dirt.

Work is stressful. My life is a disaster. Help me.

The first is mental clutter. The second is physical clutter. One requires meditating, the other requires Stanley Steamer. Start with what you can control, then go outside. It's cheaper than a spa. No appointment required. Book your deep clean now@stanleysteamer.com yes, and give one more counseling link before because our exo, you know, that great team, they're focused specifically on marriage because, I mean, that's what we're about. But if you need counseling, individual counseling to work through anything individually, you know, anxiety, depression, baggage from your past, trust issues from your past, getting with a licensed Christian individual counselor is huge. I recently have been meeting online with a counselor through Faithful Counseling, which is our counseling partner here. And it's been very helpful. We're so pro counseling. So you can go to this website, getfaithful.com nakedmarriage and that site will take you to a landing page just for naked marriage listeners. Because you get a discount for this counseling service just by being a listener. And they will, they will set you up, line you up with a counselor custom fit for you. So that's getfaithful.com nakedmarriage and we just believe in that. And that could be the step that you need. That could be the step that requires courage for you, that step of the process. It might just take courage for you to step out and say, what I really need to work through this is to take that step toward counseling. So do that. All right. Now for today's question. Thank you. By the way, for those who send in questions@nakedmarriagepodcast.com and today's question. My wife and I have been married for four years this month. Within the last month or so My wife started communicating how little she actually enjoys our sex life and has never had an orgasm. We've been trying to work through it, but recently she purchased a sex toy for us to use together. My upbringing was very fundamentally conservative, and the idea of sex toys, oral sex practices along these lines were frowned upon. My question is, can sex toys be a good sex aid? Especially if my wife has a difficult time to orgasm? She has no issue with it, but I'm apprehensive to use them. Can you help? Okay, so, yeah, I mean, this. We are so honored that people, you know, trust us to just be part of their conversations for things that maybe they grew up in homes or even in churches where they weren't allowed to ask real questions and talk about the real issues. And so the Naked Marriage podcast and really everything we're trying to do here@xomarriage.com and our upcoming book, the Counterfeit Climax, which just head on, addresses these kind of questions and issues and so many more related to people's hangups and baggage related to sex and removing all that so you can have the thriving sex life God intended for you to have. So thank you for this question. It's a really good one. I think a lot of folks are in similar situations where, you know, maybe that, like, the wife's a difficult time orgasming. We've. We've talked about some of the factors that can lead to that. A lot of it can be something. We've got a whole. We've had a whole conversation with the physical. Physical therapist about pelvic floor, which is the cluster of muscles at the. At the base of the groin that can. That can be a factor there in the lack of orgasm. There are solutions for whatever you're facing. There are solutions. But to get specifically to the heart of this guy's question, like, is this out of bounds? I feel like I was raised to think that I can't do this stuff. Is this out of bounds? Because I'm uncomfortable with it. My wife's cool with it, so I want her to have a pleasurable experience. But I'm also really reluctant to bring kind of outside stuff into the bedroom. And I'm just dying to hear what my lovely wife has to do. I just love when she tackles these kinds of questions.

And I actually really like talking about this these days. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know.

I apologize to our parents who might be listening because, you know, hearing your children talk about sex toys, oh, gosh, it's gotta be awkward.

I think they're over it by now. They're probably over it anyway. All right, so specifically about this, it sounds like. Normally I would say, like, let's get the hormones checked. But it sounds like libido is not the issue. It sounds like it's more a physiological type thing where she's not able to orgasm. And I hear him saying an intercourse and bringing in. I'm assuming it's a vibrator. Those are things where it's not inherently wrong. I mean, scripture doesn't even talk about a vibrator. That's not a shocker. But there's nothing inherently wrong if you both are enjoying it. Where I'm a little concerned is that he doesn't feel good about it and the marriage bed has to be the safest place on earth. And I do, in his question, hear him saying, like, am I just having kind of wrong looks at this? Am I putting shame on this? When really, God really wouldn't see anything wrong with it? You know, scripturally, there's nothing inherently wrong with it because it's something that is to bring pleasure into your, you know, into your bedroom. And so there's nothing wrong with that because it's not something where, you know, she is using this by herself to. To fulfill her sexual needs. That's where it would be an issue because it's going to bring the tweet farther apart. But I think I would definitely encourage her to go to maybe that physical therapist that specializes in the pelvic floor, because I know as a man, and just what David said to me and just the couples we work with, you want to be able to give your wife pleasure through intercourse. And I think him thinking, like, well, I guess if I can get her there, and I'm just talking really honest here, if I can get her there through a vibrator, that's great, but it's not me. And I think he's thinking, I really want us to have that experience together, which is how sex is designed. But there's nothing wrong with if physiologically there's some things that maybe need to happen to increase the pleasure. What I would suggest is maybe in foreplay, using that so that maybe at the end they can have that, you know, an orgasm experience together. I also want to say maybe. Maybe the two of you aren't spending enough time on floor play. Floor play. Floor play. Hey, you could be on the floor, too. But I think that oral sex could help with that. I think that exploring each other's bodies can really help with that. I just think that sometimes we don't spend enough time, you know, on just enjoying the process, you know, and so you're smiling like, I cannot believe she's saying all this. I'm just trying to be helpful.

I love when you're being helpful. No, this has been the highlight of my day, just hearing you talk about this. I want to encourage this guy, though. I think that anytime that as a man, we feel like, man, am I not enough?

Am I not enough? I really think that's enough. Right.

And then it can hurt our manhood. But. But listen, this is not about you, first off. And statistically, there's a lot about this. There's a Christian site that's all about sex called themarriagebed.com which has some resources that could be helpful, but they do a lot of survey data, and they found through their surveys that a lot of women, like, a lot of women, a high percentage have a difficulty orgasming through intercourse alone. Like, very often need other. Other stimulus. Just. It's just kind of how they're wired.

Physiologically, like nipple stimulation or. Or touching beforehand.

Well, and even. Even, you know, things like, like oral sex or oral sex of a vibrator, like, as part of the whole experience is just kind of, you know, what. What they need to kind of get them to the finish line. And that is in no way like a mark of, like, a. A guy, the husband's inability or something. It's just. It's just how she's wired and how, like, her body is wired. And so. And that's actually very common. So don't feel like, oh, man, there's something wrong with us. I think, yeah. Nothing kills your sex life faster than just thinking like, oh, my gosh, there's something wrong with us, and we're just weirdos. You're not at all. Like, all of this is stuff that there's nothing new under the sun, like the problems that any of us have, a bunch of us have. And this isn't even really a problem per se. This is just, you know, this is just how she's wired, how you're wired. And part of the problem here is, I understand, like, that you've got discomfort with some of these things that she has comfort with. And so that's really the issue here, is finding unity there. And I'm not going to referee and say she's right. I'm not going to say you're right, because you have to work through these together. But get to the root cause of why you're uncomfortable Maybe get to the root cause of why she, you know, she feels like she needs, you know, these other. Other things. Make it a safe place for both of you to have the conversation and remind yourselves we have the end goal, the shared goal of sex being a wonderful experience, a pleasurable experience for both of us.

Right?

And that's the goal. That's what we're working towards. And so we have a lot of freedom. God's given us an enormous amount of freedom. Even if we were kind of raised in a setting where there was a lot of legalism and maybe people with good intentions, but bad theology told you otherwise, told you that, like, you know, sex has to be, like, you know, boring and standard, and it can only be this way. And, I mean, God's given us a lot of freedom and creativity within the marriage bed for sure, as long as we're not bringing in other people or outside, you know, things through pornography. I think within the marriage bed, you have a ton of freedom to be, you know, creative and resourceful, and I.

Think that's what she's trying to be. But like Dave said, even, you know, he has to feel comfortable with it.

Yeah, absolutely. He has to.

And it may take him some time, you know, and I think being honest with his wife, I don't know if he's talked to her about this, but just saying, like, listen, I want you to, like, I want us both to be fulfilled sexually. I just want us both also to not feel any kind of shame, you know, in the bedroom. And I'm trying to process this, you know, and I support you in this, but I just want to. I want us to feel like it's, you know, this is a holy act, you know, I don't want there to be this, like, dark cloud over it. I want to say this, too. I remember there was something I read somewhere where it was talking about women who struggle with orgasm. You need to talk to your obgyn. And there might be another doctor that I. That maybe specializes in this that has a different kind of name. But the OBGYN is a place to start in kind of seeing and how you are made anatomically. Sometimes women have, like, tilted uteruses. There's different parts of us anatomically that it's nothing wrong with it. It's just different. Where the G spot might be in a place that he's not really getting there. And so they could tell you things about how to do that. And so. And sometimes there's even a shot they can give a woman that helps to enhance her experience. So just be willing to kind of have those conversations.

Yeah, there are solutions like in there. There are always solutions to whatever problem you're facing, whether it's inside or outside the bedroom. And again, be on the lookout for upcoming book the Counterfeit Climax, which is designed to help you and your spouse have the conversations that are going to get you to a place of where the baggage is out of the way, where the doubts and insecurities are out of the way, and you can really experience the joy of sex, the gift of sex, the way God intended, with all the freedom that comes with it. So thank you so much for that question, and we hope that that response has been helpful. And we've got a lot of other resources where we talk about these things in even more detail that you can check out as a next step. And for all of you guys, thank you so much for listening today. We appreciate you so much. Do us a favor and leave us a review. Subscribe to this podcast, share it with somebody, text it to somebody, put it on Facebook, say, check this out. When you do those kinds of things, you're helping us spread the word and hopefully bringing hope to a lot of married couples all around the world. God bless. We'll see you next time. Bye, guys.