Is Lusting Over My Spouse a Sin?

Hey, guys. Welcome 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. Got a great episode for you today. One quick announcement before we dive in. Check out the Naked Marriage book. We just want to thank you guys for those who've been reviewing that, reading that, leaving your reviews on Amazon, different places, listening to the audiobook, that's really encouraging. That's another great resource you can find to help you engage with this content in a more meaningful way. And now Ashley, my lovely bride and the brilliant one in this partnership, she has got a review from one of the recent reviewers.

That's right, this is from Kelly Belly and she entitled this review exactly what I need, she says, I followed you guys on Facebook for a few years now, but I just started listening to your podcast last night and I'm probably halfway through them already. Haha. Thank you guys for being naked with the issues of marriage. You guys have been a voice of affirmation straight from the Lord, encouragement to keep fighting through the toughest times. I can't wait to get your audiobook. Thank you so much, Kelly Belly. And thank you to all you guys who have been leaving reviews. And if you haven't left one yet, please leave one. This is the best way that you can let other people know about our podcast. So thank you guys in advance and we can't wait to dive into this program today.

I wrote an article recently called is it a sin to lust after your spouse? And Ashley and I both write lots of articles. It's a great way you can connect with, with our content. If you go to marriagetoday.com you can read a ton of articles about a lot of different topics, both from us and from Jimmy Evans and from others. But this one really sparked a lot of conversations. And so we thought, well, let's build on that and just have a podcast episode about it. Is it a sin to lust after your spouse? This is a question somebody sent into us, and it was one we'd never thought about before. And it's really led to some great conversations both among us and then, and then with others through the article and now hopefully through the podcast as well.

Right. Well, because there's this word lust, which, you know, we know lusting after anybody outside our marriage is a sin. We know that. Lusting, you know, after someone who is married, you know, maybe you're not married yet, but you're lusting after someone else's spouse. That's a sin. Like, that's very clear. Jesus Talks about that. But what about our own spouse? Like, you know, that is a legitimate question that we had just never heard before. So we were like, yeah, we do need to address this. And honestly, just right out of the gate, the answer is, no, it is not a sin to lust after your own spouse.

Right. But it's deeper than that. So don't just. Don't just cut off the episode. Like, okay, I got the answer. I can move on.

But we're explain why.

Right? So, yeah, my short answer is, if lusting after you is wrong, I don't want to be right. I don't want to be right. So I'm having a hard time concentrating. You know, you're wearing sexy glasses today.

Oh, my gosh.

And so what were you talking about? So here's the deal. What is lust? First of all, Jesus talked a lot about this Matthew, chapter five, the start of what's known as the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus teaches about all kinds of things. And he talks about lust. He says to even look at another woman with lust, talking about someone other than your wife, is to commit adultery with her in your heart. So he was speaking against having this very selfish, objectifying view of other people for your own personal sexual gratification and the damage of that, particularly for a married person, lust is a sin, you know, looking at anybody that's not your spouse that way, for anybody single or otherwise. But when you're married, it does great harm to the marriage and the sacredness and the monogamy and the exclusiveness that God intended with marriage. Plus, it objectifies other people, which means it turns other people into objects as a body to be used instead of a soul to be cherished. So as it relates to marriage now, God wants us to take all of that energy, and it talks about this both in the Old Testament and New Testament, kind of all of this drive that God has given to us, which is good and natural and healthy, and the one place where it is appropriate to express all of that and the place it was made for right, is within marriage. So both, like in books like proverbs that say, let's don't look outside the marriage, but let the wife of your youth, the wife you've always had, be the one to always satisfy. You may always captivate you in really kind of vivid language. You know, you can read that the.

Song of Solomon is super steamy.

It is super.

And they're definitely. They're lusting after each other. I mean, there's a lot of marital lust happening there.

That's Right. And it's celebrated.

It is, it is. And it's really like keeping your fantasy on your spouse, you know? Cause I think another way to describe lust, especially if you didn't grow up in the church, you know, lust isn't a word we just, in the vernacular, kind of throw around, but, you know, fantasy. Yeah. So it's like if your mind is focused on someone that is not your spouse and you are sexually fantasizing about them, then that is wrong. That is clearly out of bounds. But if it is your spouse and you are fantasizing about them and them only, there's nothing wrong with that. That is something that God put inside of you to want your spouse. That's good. You know, you need to have sexual desire towards your spouse. And there's nothing wrong with that. But we have to be very careful where our mind goes, because that's where it really starts. Lust is all in the mind. I mean, it really is. It's all a fantasy in your mind. But what we think about in our mind eventually becomes our actions. And so we can't let anything get a foothold in there. We can't let any kind of fantasy about our neighbor, fantasy about a coworker, whoever it is, or maybe it was a past, you know, somebody you haven't seen in a long time. And even though you don't come in contact with them, you may tell it. You may be telling yourself, I'm never gonna see this person again. I just like to fantasize about them. Because he was my old high school boyfriend and she was my old college girlfriend. You can't do that. That's dangerous. Because really, it's giving your passion, your mind, your focus to this other person. And God says that marriage, and sex specifically is for marriage. And that even means our sexual fantasies. And so we can't go out of the bounds of thinking about anybody else, in a way, sexually except for our spouse.

Yes. And this is where this gets murky. And this might have been really the root of where the question came from is like, well, may I'm only having sex with my spouse. But it's like I'm allowing these kind of fantasies from other places to play out, and my spouse is just kind of the available body. I have to act out these fantasies. And so you convince yourself, I'm being monogamous, I'm being faithful, but I'm coming into the marriage bed with this kind of very selfish, scripted fantasy that's been charged from lust, from pornography, or from looking or thinking about all These other things. And now my spouse is just gonna kind of be this, this place where I act out all these fantasies. And so while you're convincing yourself, I'm being faithful and loyal to my spouse, really, that's where you're coming into the marriage bed with kind of this inappropriate lust fueled thought process. Because if the fantasy hasn't been about your spouse, the lust or the desire hasn't been focused on your spouse, it's like I've got all of this outside the marriage fueled love.

Warming yourself up.

I'm just kind of warm myself through.

All these other fantasies.

Yeah, through all these other fantasies. And my spouse is just the instrument, in a crude way of describing it, the instrument in which I can act out. You can fulfill, I can fulfill all these fantasies. But even as I'm doing it, it's like I'm not even making love to my spouse. They might as well just be a sex doll at that point because I'm really acting out all these other fantasies. What's going on in my mind has nothing to do with, with my spouse. Just my body is present, but that's the only part of me that's present. And so we do have to be really, really careful. And God calls us to be not only physically monogamous, but mentally monogamous. And when we allow our mind and heart to open up, like Ashley was talking about, to all of the different stimuli out there in the world.

And there's a lot, there's a lot.

That are designed to create lust. Because sex sells and people are selling it right and left through every form of entertainment and advertising out there. Man, we can get to some really dark places in our mind that are creating a wedge in the marriage bed. Even if it feels like on the surface we have a normal, healthy sex life, we make love regularly and all that. But what's happening in your mind really, really does make a difference. And so maybe you've never thought about sex that way. That's why the Bible talks so much about sex as being this mind, body, spirit thing. It's not just the physical act, but it's all these things coming together. Now as long as your mind, body, spirit are focused on each other, then you have an enormous amount of freedom in the bedroom. Just an enormous amount of freedom to express each other, to explore each other, to have fun and really enjoy sex. And not to. You shouldn't feel like God's there as a referee in the bedroom calling foul to everything you do. He gave you an enormous amount of freedom, but he Wants us to keep the marriage bed pure, as it says in the New Testament, by not bringing in all of these outside fantasies and then just mentally acting them out while you're in the physical act with your spouse.

So well said, sweetie. Yeah. So definitely talk through these things with your spouse. You know, one of our main goals with the Naked marriage podcast is that this will spur some really good conversation between you and your spouse. And maybe you're the only one listening right now. You know, encourage your spouse to give it a listen. Like, if you hear an episode where you're like, my spouse is not really a podcast person, but I know this subject matter will really pique his interest, will really pique her interest. You know, get them to listen with you. And it's a good way to just start great conversation, to open up to each other like never before, to literally become naked, you know, spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, in every way and become closer that way. So I highly encourage you all to listen together and talk about it.

Yeah, absolutely. Before we get to today's question, kind of like, you know, one other point to kind of camp out on, on this is like, what do you do if this is an issue? Like, how do you get back fantasies of your spouse if your fantasies have been focused on others? Maybe from porn, maybe from past things? And I know what it's like to have to kind of detox your mind, because I've talked about this a lot. From my teenage years into early adulthood, I had a real struggle with pornography that just implanted deeply in my brain. These very, very just vile and wrong images of other people that planted in my head what sex is supposed to be and these fantasies that were clearly not godly and certainly not helpful to my marriage. And I know there are many people listening now where porn is a part of your struggle, or maybe it's even just part of what you would consider entertainment. You don't think there's anything wrong with it. You're just doing it in your words to spice things up in the marriage. But any of those images that we're putting into our mind, we are implanting and embedding lust and fantasy that has nothing to do with our spouse deep in our head. And we've got to allow God to renew our mind from that. You know, In Romans, chapter 12, verse 2, it talks about allowing God to renew our mind so that we can really. We can really be aware of what his good and pleasing and perfect will is for our life. And I think putting God's word in your mind and Heart is important. I think retraining your mind. You know, the Bible talks about taking thoughts captive, which means when that wrong thought comes into your head, you don't get to decide what thoughts shoot through your mind. But you're the air traffic controller of your brain. You can't determine what airplanes fly through, but you can determine which ones get to land and stay there. And so if something flies through your brain that is not the right thought, then immediately take that thought captive and say, that thought keeps going and I'm going to replace it right now with God's word or with an image of my spouse or with focusing my thoughts and my fantasies completely on my spouse. And over time, you have the power to retrain your brain. When we start feeling like I don't have any control over my thoughts, then we've already lost, because you do have so much control and responsibility over the air traffic that's coming through and landing in your brain.

It's so true. And, you know, keep kind of the flame going strong by spicing things up between you and your spouse. You know, be flirty with each other. I know we talk a lot about how technology can hurt our marriage, but this is where you can use it to help your marriage by texting each other, you know, flirty little like, I can't wait to see you later if, you know, today's the day you're gonna be making love, you know, and just, you know, get excited about seeing you later. Lingerie's, you know, definitely like unwrapping a package, supposedly. That's what Davis told me.

Yeah. No, I'm telling you, it's. Yeah, it's. It's.

I always thought the point is that the clothes are going to be on the floor.

Well, right.

But supposedly lingerie is still packaging matters. Something that guys really like.

I mean, our office is right next to a Victoria's Secret. And I think how appropriate that our office is right next to Victoria's Secret because these are two places helping marriage together. I feel like they should be sponsors of this podcast.

Keep it keeping it spicy, right? Yeah.

So we need to reach out to them. If you're an executive Victoria's Secret, why don't you sponsor this podcast? Cause I think that you are helping marriages and we wanna work with you.

You are so silly. Oh, my goodness. I'm so glad we got to talk about this. So keep things spicy in your marriage and know that lusting after each other, fantasizing about each other only, there is nothing wrong with that. But be very careful about Lusting after anybody outside of your marriage and keep on. Keep on pursuing one another.

That's good stuff.

All right, so we're going to get to one of our favorite parts of the podcast where we answer one of your questions that you have sent to nakedmarriagepodcast.com so our question today says, how can I model a good Christian example for my children if my spouse has decided to walk away from the Lord but is still okay with me teaching them the Bible and how to serve God? That's a good question.

That's a real good question. And first off, if you are listening and you're in a situation where you feel alone in your marriage, just know that we're praying for you. It's heartbreaking. Those can be heartbreaking situations, and God is with you in it. The Bible says God is close to the brokenhearted. He rescues those whose spirits are crushed. And he is with you in this. You know, he's always with us, of course, but I think that we can sense and feel God's presence in such a unique and special way in those valleys of disappointment and aloneness and hurt. And if you're there, reach out to him because he's there. So to get to your question, very specifically, your husband's walked away from God, but he's still cool with you being the one to teach the kids these things. And so I would say, take advantage of that. And you model for your kids. You teach your kids. I once heard a pastor tell a story about being out outside in the summertime in a part of the country where they had lightning bugs or fireflies. And he would see this bug kept lighting up right by his eye. And he said, I'm outside, and there are all these huge lights around me. There's the moon, this massive light. There's the big lights of a city off in the distance. There's a street light down the road. But the one light that I noticed the most wasn't the biggest or the flashiest. It was that little lightning bug. But it's all I could see, and it's because it was the closest. And the point was, he said, you as the parents, you don't have to be the biggest, flashiest light in your kid's life. You only have to be the closest. And so you get as close to your kids as you can, and you take advantage of that proximity, and you love them and you serve, and you point them toward Jesus and you model your faith in very real and practical, authentic ways. Bring them to church, help them get involved. Help them to see faith is not just a Sunday thing, but something that impacts every part of their life. Whether it's how you weave stories of the Bible into daily conversations, or praying with them, thanking God for the good, praying with him about the struggles, and your close influence in their life could be the very thing God uses to really help a real faith take root in them. And so I'm just so thankful that they have a mom who clearly cares and they have a mom who. Who clearly loves the Lord and loves them. And who knows, maybe by your example and you living out your life that way, just maybe your husband's heart might soften and you might be the main factor God uses to bring your husband back to faith. Who knows? But you just do what you can do, and really, you got to trust the rest into God's hands.

It's so true. And this is where definitely teach your kids about the Lord, take them to church, keep on just fostering their faith and pouring into them. I think that's just a beautiful, beautiful thing. But I would say be very careful not to demonize your husband. I think, you know, not saying things. And I can tell this lady has got a kind heart. But just in case anybody else listening has this same problem, you know, be very careful not to say, you know, well, we wish dad would come to church with us because he's just gonna burn in hell. I mean, don't say things like that.

Like, your dad wasn't worshiping the devil today.

I mean, seriously, I'll start talking like the church lady. Like the church lady. But, you know, it can become that way because we have to be very careful with our heart, too, because it can become a resentful thing, because your kids are going to ask questions. They're gonna say, why doesn't dad come with us? And you could say, you know, sweetie, I don't really know. You know, maybe you could ask your dad. You know, maybe he could give you an answer. But you know what? Your dad loves you. And we're gonna keep on inviting him to church instead of saying, well, he just doesn't love the Lord. You know, like, I love the Lord. And. Cause I think it's easy to prop ourselves up and then put our spouse down because we're like, well, we're just walking in the spirit. And I mean, he's just not, you know, And I don't know what's gonna happen to him because he's just leaving himself out to dry. Like, we can get in that mode. So I would just encourage anybody in this predicament to be very careful. And instead, keep on inviting your spouse. Keep on loving your spouse. Showing your spouse God's love. I mean, in the Word, it talks about this. When there's one spouse who's a believer and one spouse who is not, it says, keep on loving them. Just like Christ, you know, loves them. And who knows your love. Your example of walking with Jesus could very much bring them to the Lord. But I will also say this one awesome thing about church and about getting your kids involved in youth group and the preschool programs, the elementary school programs, is they always have performances. And this is a great way to get your unbelieving spouse who never steps foot in church to actually come to church. And the beautiful things about these programs is these program directors know that there are unbelieving spouses out there and they always present the gospel. And I'm telling you that I have seen God work through the gospel presentation of three year olds singing about the Lord. I have seen parents tears coming down their face when they see their child proclaiming the love of Jesus. And so don't underestimate God. Working through your kids, working through you and what you're doing, and keep on leading into the Lord in the way that you are.

Yeah, that's so good. And as you interact with that spouse who right now is in a different place in their faith, don't interact with them with a judgmental tone, but just with joy and authenticity. Be willing to share the good things God is doing in your life.

Absolutely.

And in your kid's life and even.

In his life or her life.

Yeah. Help them see it through your kindness and through your love. Nobody was ever nagged into falling in love with God or nagged into changing their heart in any real way. But love is the very thing that God uses to change all of us. And so if you really want to change somebody, you don't do it by trying to change them. You do it simply by loving them and letting God do the rest. And so we're praying for you and cheering you on for anybody that's in a tough season in their marriage for any reason. And I hope this podcast continues to be an encouragement to you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing, reviewing, helping others discover it. We're just blown away by people who literally all over the world are discovering the podcast and reaching out and being encouraged by it. So thank you for being part of this, this community.

Yes. Thank you guys so much for listening. Please submit your questions to nakedmarriagepodcast.com and we would be so happy to answer them. We will see you next.