Seasons of Sex | Dave and Ashley Willis

Welcome to the Naked Marriage podcast. We're Dave and Ashley Willis. On this podcast, we Undress the truth about sex, intimacy, and lifelong love. We're going to share something with you today that I'm so excited to share in all the talks we've ever given about sex, this talk that we're going to share, these principles about the seasons of sex, we've gotten probably the most feedback on from people saying, that was so helpful in helping me and my spouse understand just how sex looks different in different seasons. And what works in one season doesn't always work in another, and that's okay. And we're going to just talk about what that really means and what that looks like. And. And we hope that it's helpful to.

You and you definitely want to listen all the way till the end because we really do unpack what each season looks like. And we have a special message for those of you who right now feel like you're in a season of brokenness, especially when it comes to sex. So definitely do not, do not skip any part of this episode because I think that you can relate to each and every component that we share. And also, I want to tell you about something else. So if you love this podc, but you really loathe ads, you are not alone. I'm one of those people. But, you know, ads are something that podcasts have to do. But there's a solution. You can actually become a premium subscriber. And you can do that by going to nakedmarriage.supercast.com joining there, paying $5 a month. That money goes directly to XO Marriage Ministries, and it helps marriages all around the world to grow stronger. And it gives you the opportunity to hear the content ad free, but also to get bonus content that you can only get by being a premium subscriber. So definite, go today to nakedmarriage.super cast.com and with that, we will start today's episode.

Today we are going to kick it off with a talk that we call Seasons of Sex. And this is based on a talk that we did at the exo Marriage conferences last year. If you've never come to one of our live Exo Marriage conferences, you're missing out. These things are so much fun. We've got a bunch of them coming up. Go to xomarriage.com you can get the full calendar. And. And if you can't come in person, you can also stream it online. Though coming in person is a lot of fun. At last year's conference, one of the talks we gave from our book, the Counterfeit Climax, which is all about sex, was a talk called the Seasons of Sex. And the main idea of this talk is every season of life, and every season of sex is gonna look a little different. And that's okay. And just helping you think about it that way can bring a lot of peace and understanding to every season of your sex life.

That's right. So these. These seasons aren't necessarily about, like, it's not about sex per se, but it's about life. Seasons, Seasons of life, and then how sex can look different within those seasons. Okay. And so when we describe that, just kind of keep that in mind. So the first one is what we refer to as the beach season. And as you can imagine, for most of us, when we're newlyweds, that's what that feels like. You know, it's. It's like sex is hot. It's happening frequently. You kind of. Maybe you went to a literal beach on your honeymoo. It's a place where you feel like it's pleasurable, it's exciting, hot, it's vacation. And the thing about this beach season is I think that people think that maybe that's how it should always be or how it's going to stay. And if you've been married any length of time, you realize that that's not necessarily true. And honestly, it shouldn't necessarily be that way, because I'm just gonna be real honest. The beach is fun, but even in real life, when you go to the beach, if you stay out there too long, you get burned. You also get chafing, let's be honest, like, from the. From the. From the sand and from all the stuff. And in the same way, I feel like if sex, you know, if you're constantly at this on the beach, so to speak, and in this honeymoon phase, it's like you're not. You're maybe focusing too much on sex and not enough on building the relationship itself, so.

Good. All right, so as we continue on, I want you to picture the visual that we kind of designed to go with this. So it was four chairs on a stage.

That's right. So that one was a beach chair.

Yes, a beach chair. And each one of these four chairs represents, of course, one of the four seasons we're going to discuss. And you move from one to the other, not in sequential order usually, but back and forth. And you're going to be in all four of these chairs at different times in your marriage. And I want you to just think about which of These four chairs you're in right now as we talk about them. So picture in your mind the beach chair representing the beach season where it's hot and easy and all those things.

We'Ll go through and describe each separate.

One and then the other three chairs we're going to get to. So the second chair is regarding what we call the busy season.

Busy, busy. So just imagine like a stool.

Yeah, like a kitchen stool. Because during the busy seasons of life, like, and even in our family, people sit at the kitchen stool, at the bar thing, at the kitchen and are sitting there a lot more often than they're in the dining room. Like, in fact, like the formal dining room. We almost never use it.

It's special occasions.

Yeah. And so everyday life happens in the busy season where we're sitting on stools and talking and catching up and doing homework and doing all those things that season of life in the busy season. And we all have busy seasons. Sex is going to look a little different. It might be a little quicker. You're not going to be able to always put on romantic music and light scented candles and give each other an hour long massage before and have all of that ambiance. It's going to have to be a little more, I don't know, planned sometimes. Like, hey, it's Tuesday night. Tuesday nights we'd be circling the calendar as our special night. And that's okay. It's not going to necessarily be the beach, but it's still going to be consistent, hopefully.

Exactly. But the thing about the busy season is this is where we can really lose sight of each other and sex can become kind of boring for a lot of people. This chair, it's not a chair where you could experiment with a lot of positions, let's be honest. Right. It's not a comfortable chair. It's just something that gets it done. Right. This is where we have quickies. This is where we just kind of make sure we're ticking that box. But you don't want to stay in that season all the time because then you're missing out on the true romance, on trying new things together. And so it is a place we can spend some time, but we don't want to always keep on going back to the busy chair. And we also don't wanna get lost in it. I think in the busy seasons especially, we kind of detach from our emotions, you know, because we're like, I don't even have time to, you know, really go there because I've gotta, I've just got this to do on my list. I've got this other thing to do. My list. There's the kids, you know, at the door, literally at the door, like, waiting.

They always know. They just always know.

We're gonna talk more about that. Cause that's a whole season in and of itself. But the busy season, it's not something that is bad necessarily, but it's something that we just need to be careful not to always kind of just be stuck in the busy season.

That is so good, my love. So they all start with B, by the way. So we've got beach busy next season. And again, these don't always happen in any kind of order.

Sure.

Next is babies, babes. Babies is a rocking chair. So we've got the beach chair, the kitchen stool, the rocking chair, or just the glider that you would have in a nursery where you're holding a baby and rocking a baby, representing that season. And when you've got young kids at home, it's a different kind of busy. It's a different kind of physical exhaustion. Or even when you're preparing for children and trying to get pregnant. And just kind of how sex can become almost like work at that point, because you're trying to conceive. It's not about connecting as much as it's about conceiving. And it can create a disconnect. And then once the baby comes and then there are, like, body issues. You know, the mom is feeling like she's not comfortable in her body at that point often. And there's hormonal issues, and you're both tired and your sleep schedule's interrupted. And there's a lot going on in those. Those. Those years. And sex is still very important. But it's going to look different.

It is. I mean, even just after you have a baby, you have to, for a time, not have sex just to let yourself heal. So there's a lot of times you can have sex for, like, six weeks. You know, there's that going on. And then sometimes if you've had more trauma in that area, it lingers. And that can be a really frustrating time for both of you. And so we have to have a lot of understanding in this season. But you also have to get creative with when you're having sex, because, again, you know, we. We have these children. They're such a gift. But then the very, you know, thing that. That happens after sex, you know, having children is the very thing that keeps you from often having sex.

That's God's sense of humor.

They know exactly God's sense of humor. They're always at the door. And it's very hard, at least for women maybe. I think more men can tune, can tune out kids at the door.

Get out of here. We're busy.

And I'm like, I can't. When I hear kids around me, like even on the other side of the door, I can't get in that mode.

You know, Just turn the TV up. They're fine.

Yeah. He's like, they're fine, they're fine, they're fine, they're fine. But you know, it is, it's a season that I think for us, like we took 10 years to have our kids. So this was a long. Still is. You know, we're not in the little kids season, thank goodness.

No. But we were changing diapers for. It felt like forever. I mean, it was like a 14 year stretch where somebody was in diapers.

Right. Or potty training, which is just the worst, let's be honest.

And that's a long time. We just kept spacing the kids out, but now they're all much more self sufficient and it's a beautiful season. But you know what, when they were little, it was a beautiful season.

100%.

100%. It just, it was more physically taxing.

Yes.

So give yourselves a lot of grace in those moments, but make it a real point to connect. And marital satisfaction. Like in terms of people that have gone through lots of seasons of marriage, a lot of times they'll rate their marital satisfaction at the lowest in those seasons when the kids are really young.

Sure. Yeah.

And so don't feel guilty if it's difficult to connect because you got so much on you. You've got work demands and financial demands and then the exhaustion of young kids. It's a beautiful season, looking back, but it's a difficult season when you're in it. So give yourself and your spouse a lot of grace and still prioritize sex even though you might not be feeling it the same way you felt in that beach season. Sure, that's okay. Just give yourself grace and say this is a temporary season. We're going to enjoy it and savor it and get. And we're going to get through it together. And other seasons will come. Now, the fourth season is the, the broken season. This is represented by. On our stage it was represented by a wheelchair. And I always give kind of a quick asterisk beside that. That a person can be in. In a wheelchair all their life and still live a very rich and full life. It doesn't mean that they somehow are broken in and of themselves. But this was a wheelchair that was more of, like a temporary wheelchair, like, you know, one you would. One you would get temporarily.

Right.

When you've broken a leg, you've broken something, and for a while, while you're healing, you're having to sit in this chair and work through that. I think there are going to be periods in your sex life where something is broken in your health or in your trust, something that's causing real pain, where you have to very tenderly work through that together and acknowledge where you are and that you're not always going to be there. But even in that season, we're going to do our best to still connect sexually, that it might be impossible because of a temporary or even permanent health issue or otherwise to have actual intercourse, but to do whatever you can to connect in an intimate way. In our marriage, you know, we've been in that broken season a couple different times, a couple different ways. You know, early on, you've heard us talk about our testimonies where I had a struggle with pornography, which broke trust in our marriage. It caused all kinds of brokenness in my own mind, and it took a lot of time to work through that. Ashley went through a period of anxiety and depression, starting with postpartum depression after our first son. And she's talked so courageously about that season, but when she was working through that, it was difficult to connect sexually because of all that she was facing. And then most recently, I went through health challenges with an autoimmune disease that first was diagnosed with a thyroid disorder probably six or seven years ago. And it's been a long journey of getting to a place of just feeling normal with that, because it affects everything. And so, like, I mean, my hormones were way off for a long time, which killed my libido. It gave me anxiety about sex. I went from having a huge sex drive to a diminished one and an anxiety that I would even be able to perform, which is a terrifying thing to feel. And a lot of men can relate to that. And there's no shame in it. There's. There's, you know, medication to help, but my hormones were off. And so I'm finally, after a really. A long journey. Yeah, kind of sitting in that wheelchair in that broken season of coming out of that and being on all the right medications, you know, and at this point, I mean, I'm on. I take vitamins and supplements, and I'm on. On four different daily prescriptions, two thyroid medications, hormone replacement, and an antidepressant. So I'm basically being held together by Jesus and duct tape at this point. And Ashley has so lovingly.

It's really helping, though, tenderly.

She's just happy that I'm. She's like, you're yourself again. And so I say all this, you know, not that it's fun to talk about, like, everything that's wrong with you or wrong with myself, but I talk about all this to give you the courage to be able to get help in your own life, to talk to your doctor, to talk to your spouse, to say, like, do you see anything in me that feels like off? Because your spouse will help you see your blind spots, and Ashley's helped me see mine. And to keep going to doctors, I've had to go to different physicians and I've had to try different things to finally get to a place where things are all. I don't know, I just feel like myself again. But it took a long time to get there. So I'm telling you, if you're in a place where you feel like things are broken and you're. Your hormones, your mind, your body, whatever, you don't have to live like that forever most of the time. There are some solutions. And, yeah, these bodies aren't perfect and they're. They're all wearing out and we're all dying in some way or another, but we're going to get brand new bodies in heaven, and that's going to be awesome. And because of Jesus, this is all temporary. But still, as long as we're on Earth, I think it's up to us to do everything in our power to live life to the fullest. And that means going to doctors, getting on the medicine that you need, being honest about where you are, and embracing that wheelchair season when you're in it. But don't stay there longer than you have to. Don't be a martyr. Don't just say, well, this is how life's going to be. Do everything you can to get out of there and to move on from that season.

Yes. And definitely be tender with each other. I think especially in the broken season, there has to be tenderness. We can't blame each other. We can't be hard, you know, on each other and with each other. I think there just needs to be such a tenderness and such a grace that we offer each other because we don't want to complicate it and make it worse, you know? And I think it's easy, though, to get frustrated, especially if you're the one feeling broken. It can be so frustrating. And I know, you know, in the midst of you. All these years of trying to get the right medication and the right therapies and things to work, it's like you would get so frustrated, and then that frustration, you know, it would manifest into, like, things that had nothing to do. Right.

I was just frustrated about everything in general. Nothing's working. This didn't work. Nothing's working.

And, well, it would. And it would be like you'd be. Have this. This undercurrent of frustration about your body and everything. And then, like, a little thing would happen to you, and you'd be like, just another thing, you know, because. Because it feels like the world is against you and like your body's fighting against you. And I think that that's very common whenever you're going through a broken season. And I know, you know, we. Dave, touched on infertility, but I wanted to say a little bit more about that. I think INF can also be represented by the broken season. Because as I've talked to women who are going through this, they feel like their body's broken, and they feel like, why am I not able to do the thing that I so desire to do? Like, God put it on my heart to be a mother. And it's just not happening in the way that I had hoped. And it's a deep, deep wound. And then they feel guilty. You know, they feel like their husband is not looking at them in the same way. And they feel. They feel like they did something wrong, and so they're being kind of punished. It's just so sad. And I just wanna say that, you know, please don't believe those lies. So many women go through this. In fact, a recent stat that I heard from someone who actually went through long, many years of infertility, she told me that it's one in four women that experience infertility. And I feel like it's a shame that we don't talk about it more, because I think that one of the lies that the enemy really wants to convince us of is that we're the only one and that we will never, ever have the fulfillment of that desire that God gave us. And, you know, only God knows how that desire is going to be fulfilled. It may be by having a child after years of infertility, you know, biologically having a child. But it also might be adoption. You know, it might be, you know, raising. Like, there might be a family member who passes away and you end up raising their child. I mean, we just never know God's story. But I think holding onto hope and also not, you know, seeing sex as work, because I think it does, you know, And Dave mentioned that in the baby season, I feel like an infertility, you're going in between those two. You know, you're in the broken season, but you're longing for the baby season. And I would just say if that's you, go, go take yourselves to the beach, like, literally and figuratively, because you need to just not be keeping track of your body temperature anymore and your ovulation schedule and. And, you know, just give yourself a break. Because I think so many people I've known who've gone through this once, they kind of gave themselves a break and took that stressor off. They either got news that they were pregnant or they both felt an epiphany like, oh, my goodness, we're meant to adopt. You know what I'm saying? Like, there was usually a freedom involved. And some I know ended up. I mean, I know multiple stories of this. Some I know ended up deciding to adopt, adopted a child, and then got pregnant later because they stopped. They stopped using any kind of.

Right. Because they took the stress off.

They took the stress off.

So go back to the beach. Like Ashley said, go, literally book yourselves, go to the beach, a hotel room at the beach, and just enjoy some time together with no pressure and just reconnect again. And you'll be amazed at what might happen. So in whatever season you're in, just recognize that it's a season. And I think that simple revelation that it's not always going to look the same, your bodies are aging, you're seasons are changing, but in every season, sex can be great, marriage can be great, but it might have to look a little bit different. And I hope that just simple revelation can help you and your spouse think about your own marriage and your own sex lives in a more, I don't know, realistic and productive way. And to set you free from the trap of thinking, if it doesn't look like it did at the beach, then we're doing something wrong. It's like, no, you're just. You're living life in all the different seasons. If you want more on this, our book the Counterfeit Climax, which came out last year, has. It's the most comprehensive resource on sex we've ever created. And you can get that as an audiobook, hardcover, ebook, wherever you get books or on the XO Store. Guys, thanks so much for tuning in. Stay tuned all this month or we're going to continue this series on sex in marriage. And it's going to be a lot of fun. We'll see you next time.

Bye, guys.