Talking About Sex Without Shame

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Find upcoming training dates and register at exomarriage.com. Hey there, welcome back to the Naked Marriage Podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast, we uncover God's design for lifelong love. And you guys, we've got a great episode today, and make sure you stay till the very end because we have a really good question.

Really, really good question. Hey, before we dive in, I just want to say thank you. Thank you to just the whole listening audience. Uh, we, we're still— it still feels new being back, being back in saddle at the Naked Marriage Podcast. And we're so grateful to the team here at XO Marriage. And we're so grateful to you, the listeners who've helped make this possible. We just, we love getting to do this. And we love your feedback and your encouragement. And just being on this journey with you. Like we say a lot, we're not sitting here as experts who have it all figured out. We're on this journey with you, learning as we go and encouraging one another along the way. And that's going to be certainly true today, as we dive into the very important topic of sex and how that relates to a naked marriage. So let's dive into today's episode. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

All right, friends, it's the episode you've been waiting for.

Sexy time.

That's right.

Yes, you've had your calendars marked for the talk about sex, how to have a naked marriage. We've been in this series revisiting, of course, what it means, and now it is sexy time.

That's right.

Because Well, a naked marriage, like we always say, is a lot more than just sex. Sex is part of it. It is part of it. Nakedness, naked and unashamed in the garden represents a lot, but it also represents just being naked with each other, which is a gift in marriage. And so there's so much we could say about sex, and we're gonna, you know, over the next, I don't know, 25 minutes or so, we'll talk a lot about it. But we wanna, right from the start of this conversation, give you a few resources to go even more in-depth. One is an audiobook we did with XO called The Counterfeit Climax. It was actually unavailable for a while, but it is back available. And we're so excited about that because that's the most comprehensive resource we've ever done, I believe, on sex. You can get that audiobook on Amazon, and I think it would be really helpful to you. We also have a free digital ebook On our personal website, daveandashley.com, if you just go to that homepage, 9 Days to Great Sex is free and it has some conversation guides in it because what we found is just talking about sex for a lot of couples feels more intimate than the act itself. And so many couples don't talk about it. So we've got a lot of resources and then XO has a ton of resources to help you and your spouse just talk more about sex. And we hope today's episode is yet another one of those resources to spark some meaningful conversation in your marriage.

That's right, 'cause it does. It starts with talking about it. And I know we've already had an episode on living out the naked marriage when it comes to communication. But I think that a lot of couples, it's like they'll, you know, know that they need to communicate in a healthy way, and they'll try to do those, you know, practical steps to communicating in a healthy way. But then when it comes to this subject of sex, they kind of shut down. And I think a lot of it has to do with each of us bringing different expectations, different experiences or lack thereof, different ideas about sex based on what we were taught or not taught. And it just, it creates these very different pictures. And I know we talk about this a lot, but just very different pictures of what we think it's supposed to look like. And so odds are you and your spouse have different ideas of how often you should be having sex. Odds are that you and your spouse have maybe different libidos when it comes to your desire for sex. You know, odds are that, One of you is more comfortable with a wide variety of positions while the other is like, no, I just want to stick to these one or two. You know, there's some of you who really want to spice it up and role play and do all the things and wear costumes, and the other one's like, why do we need to do all that stuff?

And so with all of that, summer lights on, summer lights off, yeah, big one.

Lights on, lights off is a big one.

Yes, some, some want to do it right before bed, some like only want to do it during the day.

That's right. You know, or an afternoon delight.

Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, there's reason for that. But by the way, as a quick side note, not to get too far off track, but your testosterone levels— talking specifically about men, even though women have testosterone as well, they have more estrogen, of course. But for men, testosterone is the driving force in our sex drive, our virility, our performance, endurance, all those things. And for almost all men, our testosterone levels fluctuate dramatically throughout the day, peaking first thing in the morning, which is why some men wake up with an erection. And then they plummet and they're at their lowest point right before bed. So guys, if you're only having sex, if you, if you think the only time you can make love is right before you go to sleep, then you're literally only experiencing it at your physical worst and your wife's only experiencing you at your physical worst. So I would say if that's the only time you have, it's better than nothing. But think about other times of the day, you know, schedule a lunch date at home and just connect when you both have more energy. Don't, like all parts of marriage, don't give each other just your leftovers, 'cause the last thing at the day, that's leftover energy. But if you give each other the best, your best energies a little more often, it might spice things up. So that was a quick aside, but just wanted to, it felt like a good place to stick it in.

Yeah, it's a good tidbit of information. But when we consider all these differences that we have coming into marriage, and then how we carry that into the marriage bed, you can see why we tend to have maybe some apprehension when it comes to talking about sex. And so, probably the greatest thing that we hope you take away from this episode is just listening in to what we're saying, and it giving you license to also carry on this conversation with your spouse, and maybe even giving you language. 'Cause I think sometimes we just don't have that conversation about sex because we don't know where to start.

Yeah, it's true.

And it always takes, you know, one spouse going first. And so, you know, here's the deal, you know, to live out the naked marriage, there can't be anything that you can't talk about. There's nothing that's off the table, right? Everything is on the table. Everything can be talked about, right? And so sex is one of those things. Sex isn't everything when it comes to marriage, but it is an important part of marriage. And we know too that there's a lot of people watching and listening to this that you have, you know, some complicated feelings around this, and maybe for, you know, probably some really good reasons. And you're probably thinking, well, Dave and Ashley, you don't know what I've been through. You don't know what my spouse has said when it comes to sex, or you don't know how they treated me, or you don't know how long we've gone without sex. And we don't. We know that everybody's coming at this from a wide variety of experiences. But the truth of the matter is, God gave us sex as a gift for marriage to bring a husband and wife together like nothing else can. Because sex is something where you are, you know, I mean, I've heard it described as a mingling of souls. And it's body, mind, and spirit. And so it's this emotional connection, it's this physical connection, and it's a spiritual connection. And so to deprive yourselves of that, and the Bible talks about this, it says, don't deprive yourselves of sex as a husband and wife, except for maybe a time of prayer and fasting, right, from sex, just to focus on the Lord. But it says don't do that very long, and to come back together and experience that gift together. And so we know that it's something that's important to really ground a marriage, you know, in the Lord, and on an emotional, physical, and mental, and spiritual level. And so if we're at a crossroads in our marriage, maybe a long, you know, maybe it's been a, a long period of time where you're kind of on different pages when it comes to sex. Sweetie, what would you say a couple could do to get back on the same page and to really live out sex as it relates to the naked marriage?

Yeah, that is really good. We were coaching a couple pretty recently that they would say like, our marriage is good in pretty much every area except this one. We're just not on the same page with this one. And there were multiple reasons why they aren't on the same page. You know, one, that they have fairly young kids. There's a lot of things competing for their time and attention. Two, I think that the husband had such a high drive and such a high need that the wife felt like every time he was nice to her, every time he touched her, it was always just to get to the bedroom. Like that was always the end goal. And she just kind of felt like, you know, she was just being used for sex. Like, you're not connecting with me emotionally, you're not pursuing my heart. Where the husband felt like they weren't, by his perspective, they just weren't having it at all because he wanted it constantly and it was not happening nearly as much as he wanted. And so he felt like she was having an unfair view of him. And we're delicately, 'cause it is a delicate topic, you know, we're working with this couple talking about different things, trying to make sure they're both, they're both heard, they're both seen. And we let them know, like, listen, for every couple, every able-bodied couple, you know, sex needs to be a priority because it's a gift. Like Ashley said, it's something that God designed not only for your pleasure, not only for procreation, but he designed it for oneness. He designed it for connection. And if you're depriving yourselves of that, then you're limiting the marriage of a source of fuel God-given fuel that's meant to keep the two of you going strong together. But if this gets out of balance or if it becomes this weird power play where sex becomes all about one person's pleasure or one person's preference over the other, and the other one just feels like an object or just feels like they're having to serve in that way, then that's gonna create disconnection. So sexual frequency alone isn't the only standard, 'cause you could be having sex a lot and still be really disconnected because sex is all you're having. You're not making love. You're not, you're not really connecting on all levels the way that, uh, that the gift of sex is designed to do. For this couple in particular, as we talked to them and we tried to hear them out, one thing that seemed to help them— and maybe this was just their personalities of being— they're both very structured, they're both very kind of calendar-driven. We suggested this as a starting point along with some other things to help them connect outside the bedroom. But we said, you know, one for the husband, one for the wife. So for the wife, where she feels like all day, every day she's having to, she's having to just say like, well, everything he's doing to me, every nice gesture, every bit of affection, it's all designed just to have sex.

Like, so she couldn't enjoy any of it because she thought that it had, you know, that that he was always hoping for it to lead to the bedroom or he wouldn't be being nice to her. And basically that's how she saw it.

Right, that's the only reason. And he's like, well, that's not fair. I just wanna be with you anyway. Like, but of course I do want sex, but like, I'm nice to you and I love you and I wanna show you affection anyway. And she was having a hard time receiving that. And then, so we said, how about this? Two things. Number one, we're gonna prescribe a sexual Sabbath every week. Meaning, you referenced that verse, if you're not gonna be together, let it be a limited time where you focus on prayer, fasting, other things. So like one day a week, you pick the day, we let her pick the day, she goes Thursday, right? Where sex is off the table that day, one day a week, like it could happen any other day of the week, but on Thursdays, you know you're not gonna do it, it's a sexual Sabbath. On that day, you can know for certain that every act of kindness he gives you, every act of affection he gives you, it isn't motivated in any way by hoping that you're gonna have sex that night because it's already off the table. And that gives him the opportunity to really shine in those areas to serve you, knowing that, okay, this isn't tied to this outcome. I can just show her this without any pressure, you know, on either of us. And that gave her some relief. It's like, okay, yeah, I think. And then I said, but for him, like, let's have one day of the week where unless there's some extenuating circumstances, you're always gonna have sex. You know, maybe it's like Monday or something. The week might get away from us. Hopefully it's gonna happen spontaneously at other times, but at least on Monday or whatever night you choose, that you're both gonna agree, like, we're gonna go into that day with this mindset of we're gonna be intimate today at some point. We can look forward to it. We can prepare ourselves, mind, body, soul. And that structure, and that might seem like, oh, that's so unromantic, like having that kind of structure, but it's practical, guys. We want to just give you some practical tools. That might not be what you need, that kind of structure, but in the busyness and chaos of the season they were in and with very different needs and very different drives, they both felt seen in that. And then it left 5 other days of the week where, you know, we'll see how it goes kind of thing. But just having that built in, it seemed to help them. And that's the only couple we'd ever specifically said, "Hey, try this," but it seemed to resonate with them. And so we're sharing it with you as well.

That's right, because we do sometimes have to think outside of the box. And creating structure when it comes to sex, if you're going to have it, or maybe a day where you're doing what Dave described as like a Sabbath where it's off the table, that gives you that baseline of, okay, Here's where we're gonna have it, here's where we're not gonna have it. And then you can do a lot with those days in between. And that can feel empowering because one of the biggest complaints we get from men is feeling often rejected. And not just men, I mean, there's some women out there with a higher libido and higher desire for frequency who feel rejected as well. And so, but you know, I would say probably in the work we do, we see about like probably 80 to 85% of men would say, gosh, I'm always, you know, pursuing my wife and wanting to have sex and she just doesn't wanna have it. And then on the flip side, the women say, I feel like my husband always wants to have sex and he's nice to me because he wants to have sex. And then when he knows it's not gonna happen, he's not as nice anymore, but I just feel this pressure. They use that word pressure, just like this wife did in this particular intensive. And she was like, I just feel this pressure, even though he would say, well, I'm not actually putting that on you, that's you putting that on you, right? But for whatever reason—

She feels it.

She felt pressure and he felt rejected, right? And she's like, but I'm not trying to reject you. It's just that, you know, on that particular day when you were pursuing me, I just had spit up all over me and I really didn't feel sexy and my mind was elsewhere and you weren't even giving me a chance to kind of catch up. And so it's really about coming together, having really gut-level honest, in a loving way, conversations about this and then finding a way to make it work in this season. Now what works in one season, as far as frequency and the check-ins that you may be having around sex may look totally different in another season. You may not have to have such structure like that. But when you have busy jobs, kids, you know, visits to the extended family, and all the different hats that we all wear in our busy lives, it's really important that we make sure that we prioritize sex. And a great way to do that is through scheduling it and giving it some kind of structure and having some agreements between you on how you're going to do this.

Yeah.

And it also takes away some of those assumptions we make, and they're usually wrong, right? And these different expectations that we don't even speak, and we just expect our spouse to figure it out. It takes away those miscommunications and gives you some footing when it comes to prioritizing sex.

Man, that's so good. So we're gonna pivot a little bit and talk about how sex looks different in different seasons of marriage. You know, we did a talk at one of the XO conferences, and then we used the same illustration Counterfeit Climax book that I mentioned earlier about seasons of sex. And we kind of led into it saying, you know, we come into marriage, a lot of us, with mindsets about sex that are shaped by things that aren't true, really. Whether it's dangerous counterfeits like pornography, which is part of my past testimony, or it's just pop culture. You know, you're growing up watching Disney movie romances and thinking that's normal. Every Disney love story is weird, by the way. It's like interspecies, It's like a woman and a beast or a mermaid and a dude, or, or, you know, you got like Sleeping Beauty, a guy's making out with a woman while she's in a coma. That's illegal, I'm pretty sure. Creepy at least. And but you think, oh, well, that's how love's supposed to look. And then you graduate to Hallmark movies and everybody looks perfect and they're all in sync all the time. And you think, well, that's how it's supposed to look. And of course, none of those things are based in reality. In reality, you're going to have moments where there's spit up on you. You're gonna have moments where you're exhausted, where you have the highs and the lows, the for better, for worse, in sickness and in health. And what we've discovered is that, like the Bible says, to everything there is a season, that there are seasons of sex and they don't happen necessarily in a certain sequential order. In fact, that you'll experience all these seasons probably more than once. But the illustration we used in that talk and we talked about in the book We had 4 chairs lined up in a row, and the 4 chairs represented 4 different seasons that all started with the letter B. Beach, busy, babies, and broken. So there's a beach chair, a kitchen stool representing that kind of busy chair you sit in in your house when you only have a few minutes to grab a snack or something, baby chair like a baby seat, and then, and then the broken chair, just the chair that's broken. And, and each of those represents a season of life and how sex is gonna look different in each of those seasons. You wanna unpack what that can mean? 'Cause I think just having this framework might help you understand, okay, well, it's not always gonna look this way. It's gonna look different ways in different seasons, and that's okay. And so what it looks like to have a healthy sex life in this season we're in right now might look different than what it looked like over here. Just framing it that way might take a lot of pressure off of it.

Exactly. So as we describe these, I want you to think about where you think you are right now, like which of these seasons that you're in. And then I would encourage you to have your spouse listen to this, um, or explain it to them yourself and say like, where do you think we are? Because you may have actually different ideas, which is interesting too. And then it gives you a great opportunity to talk about it. For the beach season, I think this is the one that we often equate to the honeymoon season, where things are just hot and it feels good and we can We can have sex anytime we want. We have very little responsibilities. It's easy. It's like we get each other. We're both in the same mood, or we're both in the mood at the same time. It's just easy breezy all the time. And we often think, well, if sex doesn't look like that, then it's not good. And we're somehow missing it. You know, we've missed that beautiful season. And so we often kind of think if we're not in the beach season, then, you know, oh well, I guess this is our sex life now. But that's really not true because there's some other, seasons that have good points to them as well too.

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you're not gonna be constantly at the beach as much as you might want to. So you got the, the next one is the busy season, which represents in our talk by this kitchen stool. Kitchen stool in our house is one of the least comfortable chairs of the house, but it's the most popular because it's functional. And the kitchen is where people grab snacks, pay bills, have talks, just sit, catch up on the day. I mean, a lot of action happens in the kitchen in our busy season of life. And you might be in a busy season of life right now between work, kids, different demands on you. And that kitchen stool, it isn't a La-Z-Boy recliner where you can just lay back and spend hours and hours in it, but it is functional. And so how this relates to our sex life in the busy season is you're not gonna probably have like hours of foreplay and lighting candles and putting on sexy music and just setting the mood. Sometimes you're gonna have to just be real practical. Like, hey, we got like a little 20-minute gap here before we have to be anywhere before the kids kids wake up from their nap, let's go, you wanna do this? And you're thinking, well, that isn't very romantic. Well, it's practical. And sometimes practical beats romantic. And so in the busy season, you gotta just grab the moments when you get 'em.

That's right. And this is also where scheduling sex becomes very important because whether that means you put it on the calendar or you have what we refer to as the sexual threshold, meaning like you, the two of you agree on a certain number of days that you don't wanna go without sex. And that means also at least, maybe you talk about it. Like, so let's say you have like a 3-day rule or a 4-day rule. So when each of you knows you're coming up on maybe 3 days, you'll have a conversation about it and say, hey, it's been about 3 days, do you wanna have sex today? And if not today, maybe tomorrow. And so it gets you in that rhythm of being intentional about sex. And so schedule it or have the sexual threshold. But the reason we do this is because when we're in the busy season, if we're not being intentional about making sure sex is happening, it often can go on the back burner. This is where we see a lot of couples find themselves in long periods of time without sex. And the truth of the matter is, the longer you go without sex, the longer you actually want sex. This is just our bodies. But the more you have sex, the more you crave it. And so it's important to try to find, well, what is that rhythm for us? Because it's, again, it's gonna look different in different seasons, but having a conversation about it and then making it happen is really important. And again, I wanna say real quick before going into the next season, This does not give either spouse license to coerce your spouse or use the sexual threshold or the calendar to hold it over their head and say, but you said on Tuesdays, every Tuesday we're having sex and you're not doing it. You're not fulfilling your wifely duties. You're not fulfilling your husband duties. Like that is never okay.

No place for that. There's no place for coercion, manipulation. I mean, you just can't have that.

It's not loving.

No, it's not at all. So when we give these guidelines that you both have to mutually agree on, it doesn't mean that, you can't, you lose the right somehow to say, you know what, not today. But it just, you get in the habit of that. It's a bigger conversation of like, why? This isn't just about a headache. This is about something deeper. And let's get to the heart of what's going on.

And with that said, honey, I wanna say this, we need to be tender when it comes to talking about sex. And especially when it comes to saying, you know what, I would love to make love to you, but right now I'm just not feeling it. Whether it's a mental load issue, whether it's a physical issue, issue, or maybe there's something between the two of you, and you're just not, you're kind of mad. This gives you an opportunity to be tender and to open up your heart to your spouse and actually grow closer, even through that, what could otherwise just be seen as rejection, it really gives you an opportunity. And I think where there's a lot of communication breakdown and sexual breakdown in a marriage is when we just reject each other willy-nilly, or we approach each other and want sex and do it in a really harsh, assuming way. And so we need to be super tender when it comes to this.

Yeah, that's so good. Always be tender. Marriage bed should be the safest place on earth for both of you. The third season kind of goes hand in hand with the busy season because this is also a busy season, but it's tied directly to babies. And the baby season goes from the time you're trying to conceive, which especially if you're struggling with infertility, sex can become, it can feel mechanical. It can feel deeply disappointing because you're no longer just connecting. It feels clinical. We have to do it at this time. I'm ovulating, we have to do it right now. And it's a tender time where you're trying to conceive, which is a beautiful thing. But if you're having difficulty there, sex itself can feel like an act of betrayal or just like a medical thing you're doing. And you just need to be careful to also make sure you're connecting, not just to procreate, but to really enjoy each other and be tender with each other. But once babies come, like Pastor Jimmy Evans says, sex is how you have kids. And then once they come, they try to make sure you never have it again because they just want all of you all the time. They know, they can just hear when you lock that door. They're knocking on the door at the worst possible moment. Like, Dad, can you get me a snack? And I'm like, you're 18 years old, get your own snack. Or sometimes it really is a little one that needs something and you have to just sort of pause, I guess. But it's hard in that season, I think especially for moms, because the way God wired us up, stress and how it affects our sex drive has a completely different impact on us, whether a man or a woman. So for men, stress tends to make us want sex more because we see sex as a form of stress relief. For women, it's an opposite approach. Most women need stress relief before they can be in the mindset to make love. So you and your spouse are both experiencing the same stress. It will affect you in opposite ways as it relates to your sex drive. The man will be like, oh, I'm so stressed, let's go do it. The woman will be like, I'm stressed, don't touch me. And that's just the way we're wired. It's not that either of you is wrong, but understanding those differences can really help you, I don't know, have more tenderness to each other.

Man, that is the truth because we do have different responses. And like you said, I mean, the key there is neither one is wrong, it's just different. And I think we get confused sometimes between those two words because we think, well, you're different than me, so it's wrong. But it's like, no, no, no, we're just different. We're just different. And we have to have a lot of grace for each other, especially in the baby season. I know for us, that season, man, it was prolonged 'cause we have 4 kids and we kind of spread our kids out. And I know it was tricky sometimes to find, you know, the time to have sex, but I feel like, And I think that was a really important time. Like, you know, pretty much every season of marriage, it was important for us to keep on connecting. But we just, we did have to get creative sometimes with making, you know, finding those windows when they were napping or otherwise occupied and safe. And I know for me, I really had to fight the tendency, as a lot of women do, to put sex as just another thing on the list. Because we often carry, you know, what's been referred to, and it's like a buzzword on TikTok, but the mental load. Most women, men have a mental load too, but most men can compartmentalize. Whereas women, we carry this mental load and it's really hard for us to separate all those things going on in our mind. And so it kind of lives up there until it's done, right? Until we check that box and put it aside. Whereas, you know, a guy, you know, you can say, well, sweetie, we have this moment to have sex. He'd literally be in the midst of doing taxes. And he's like, okay, I don't care where I am in this. I could start all over. I don't care. Let's put all this aside and let's go have sex. And for women, that's just very hard for us to do. And I remember seeing sex as this thing that I love and I want, you know, obviously to make it a priority in our marriage, but I had to get ahold of those thoughts of it's just another thing. And, you know, 'cause when we make it just this thing on the list, we don't look forward to it as much. It's just ticking a box. And we really remove ourselves from the emotional connection that sex is supposed to include. You know, it's a big part of sex is being dialed in, is to be there mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. And I remember, I remember when I would take those thoughts captive of, oh, it's, you know, here's another thing I have to do. And I would really remind myself of what a gift it is, and I would try to get excited about it. And I would, you know, I would like— for us, with the— we've often operated with the sexual threshold, and that's looked different in different seasons. But we would have like a number of days that, um, you know, we would— we wouldn't go this many days without at least talking about sex and then making sure that we were engaging in sex. And, um, that really helped me to get my mind around it because I knew it would be coming up and I would start thinking about, okay, it's going to be time to have sex. Let's get excited about it. Let's think about what time of day we could do this. Like, how could it be a little more romantic? You know, maybe, maybe I'll put on the lingerie today. You know, like, whatever it is, like something to get excited about.

Speaking to that, whoever has the, the lower drive of the two of you, if that person will initiate sex sometimes, yes, it makes a world of difference for the higher drive spouse. Because if one spouse is always initiating, um, then even if you're, you're doing your best to like say yes to those initiations as best you can, they don't feel as wanted as if— as when you sometimes will be the initiator, you know. But for the one who's always initiating, you've got to step back and give them a chance to initiate sometimes, you know. Like, it's one thing Ashley said to me early on. You're like, yeah, I say, you don't— you never initiate. She says, you never give me the chance.

I said, I never have a chance. "But when can I initiate?" There's something practical there.

So it's just serving each other. The final one is the broken season where we have a broken chair on stage and we say there are gonna be seasons in your marriage where it's hard to sit in this chair because of physical ailments, because of emotional tragedy, because of grief, because of trust issues, a lot of different things. And we've experienced all that. We've talked at length about many of those things. You know, thyroid disorder that wrecked my sex drive for a while until I got on the right medication. You know, Ashley's bout with anxiety and depression, which, which, uh, was a really tender time as it related to our, our whole marriage, but our sex life in particular. Um, rebuilding trust after my porn issue. And, you know, for the sake of time, we won't dive deep into all those, but I do want to point out a few resources, including those two books I mentioned early on. But XO NOW, which is the streaming service for this ministry, has some really great ministry courses to help you work through, in particular, that broken season where whether it's trust, whether it's overcoming pornography, there are some great video courses. And I want to encourage you in particular to look up our friend Joshua Broome, who, you know, he's a part of the XO team here, former adult film entertainer that came out of that, got saved, but understands better than any of us really the brokenness that can come from pornography and shame and all those things that can lead to the broken chair.

There.

He's got some great content that I want you to look up, and there's some other courses there as well, including Pastor Jimmy's 21 Days to Inner Healing. Because a lot of times when we're experiencing a broken season, it comes from one or both spouses having brokenness inside that may or may not have anything to do with sex. But if we're feeling broken emotionally, if we're spiritually in any other way, it's, it's going to impact the bedroom. So get healthy, not just for the sake of your sex life by any But for the sake of living the full and abundant life Jesus has for you. And there are a lot of great resources at exomarriage.com and at XO NOW that can help you navigate that.

Definitely. And that's the key term is help, that you can have help in this area. You're not just expected to know all these things. We certainly didn't. I don't know any couple that in every season of their marriage is like, oh yeah, sex is no problem. Like, I think every single married couple will go through these seasons of sex. Like, and, and sometimes the broken season may be at the beginning. Like, I know for us, and we'll go into this in more subsequent episodes, but we started off in a broken season. We did not start off in the beach— at the beach.

No, we did not. We skipped right over that honeymoon season at first because there were just very different expectations, a lot of different struggles we were facing. Uh, you know, that, that porn issue was a factor. There were a lot. And so we, we get it. We're not coming at this as two people who've just lived in the beach chair for the last 25 years. Not at all. We've learned to really appreciate that beach season when it happens, but we've also learned to stay connected in whatever chair we might be sitting in. And God wants the same for you. He wants you and your spouse to thrive in every part of your marriage, including your sex life. One final challenge before we get into the question today is I wanna encourage you to pray about your sex life. And maybe you think, pray about my sex life? That's crazy. Why is that crazy? God made sex. He made you. He wants you to thrive in it. We can pray about anything. So pray, pray about this. I challenge you with that. All right, we're gonna dive into today's question. Thank you for those who submit questions for us to read on air. You can always send us questions on Instagram @DaveAndAshleyWillis or at nakedmarriagepodcast.com. Today's question says this, "My wife never wants to have sex. She says she doesn't need it. I want it all the time. I'm desperate for my wife, but I feel constantly rejected. I'm so tempted to look at porn or just end the marriage. Can a sexless marriage survive? What can I do?" Wow, thank you for that question. And that you can feel the pain, not just sexual frustration, but the deep rejection and hurt and confusion and all of it. Sweetie, put on your counselor hat for a second, 'cause I know you've had conversations like this with a lot of people. What would you say to this gentleman?

Ben, first of all, I'm so sorry that you're in this frustrating dynamic. And you know, the fact that your spouse says she just doesn't need it. And I mean, that says a lot too, 'cause that's a really hard dynamic to be in because, you know, the fact of the matter is in marriage, there's gonna be different needs that each of you have that the other maybe doesn't have, or maybe doesn't have to the level you have. And to just dismiss it like, well, no, I'm never gonna engage in that because I don't need it, is really hurtful, right? Because in marriage, we're called to serve one another. And, you know, there are certain situations where maybe sex can't happen because your bodies aren't physically able to do it. But I think that even in those situations, if there's any way you can connect sexually, we always encourage married couples to do it. Like, for example, we met this amazing couple years ago where the wife had very severe MS, or multiple sclerosis, and her body, you know, just over the years was unable to do the things that she was able to do. And so they came to a crossroads where they couldn't have intercourse anymore. And she said, you know, we could have just thrown up our hands and said, oh well, we can never have sex again, that's just not going to be part of our marriage. But she said, it really gave us an opportunity to be creative and to still connect sexually in other ways, which God gives us the ability to do that, and in ways that you both are comfortable, but that can be satisfying, that can be connecting, and still make sex, sexual engagement, a part of your marriage. And so for your wife, I have some questions. I would say, um, I would encourage her to really talk about why she doesn't need it, because odds are there's maybe some things from her background with maybe how she was raised, or maybe previous sexual experiences that possibly just put a bad taste in her mouth, or maybe there's some fear there, or maybe there's some hormonal things that are off. I mean, you know, who knows what the reason is, but I would encourage you as the husband to be very extra tender here. Tender is the word. I know we keep saying that because just telling her like, oh, you know, you're so mean because you won't have sex with me even though you don't need it, or you're always rejecting me, that's just gonna shut her down and she's not gonna listen. But if you can come to her tenderly and say, hey, I understand that you don't have the need for sex that I do, but I really love the fact that sex is a gift from God and it's a gift for marriage. And I would love for this— for us to be able to engage in this in some way. So can we talk about what it would look like if we started engaging with each other sexually? And, you know, if you're going from zero to sex, that can really create a lot of misunderstanding and can be kind of, uh, you know, it can be maybe off-putting to the person who thinks they don't need sex. So I would just start with having more affection, and then I would start with maybe some different forms of sexual touch. But I have a really good resource for people who are coming kind of from your wife's standpoint of just feeling like they don't need sex. And in some counseling circles, they call this sexual aversion. And there's a great ministry website from a couple, and it's called Marriage Builders. If you go to marriagebuilders.com, and you look up sexual aversion, there's a great article there that actually takes anyone experiencing this through these steps to help them discover what is off-putting about sex, why is there not the need, and it helps them to kind of address it with their spouse and get to a point where there is more sexual engagement. I've actually had some counselees in the same spot have success with this, but I will say the hard part about this is that you have to get to a point where both of you want to make sex a priority. Because it sounds like right now, and that's a mindset, that's a mind shift. It sounds like right now your wife's not quite there. And so that's where a trusted counselor could really help with this. I'm a biblical counselor. You can go to ashleywillis.net. I'd love to walk through this with you. Or you can maybe go through an intensive if you wanna have like, you know, I don't know, 2 months worth of counseling in a short amount of time just to make make the most of your time, you might wanna talk to one of our XO Marriage coaches. They're amazing, they're highly trained, and you can do one of the XO Marriage Intenses. You can find out more about this by going to xomarriage.com. But the truth is there's so many resources out there. Go to that website I mentioned earlier and just know that you're not alone and we'll be praying for you.

And great answer. Guys, thank you for that question. Thank you to all of you for, for just being part of the Naked Nation, our family of podcast listeners. And please do us a favor if you haven't already and subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode. And let somebody know about it, you know, post about it, send a text, share an episode. It, it, it'll reach someone, I guarantee, who would be encouraged by these conversations. So guys, thanks so much for tuning in. Can't wait to see you next time.

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