Common Mistakes In Intimacy | Pure Desire Ministries

So you guys talk about this and I love that we're spending some time on intimacy in general just so people have a good understanding of it. But in your resources, you really unpack that there is an order to establishing intimacy, a pattern or a rhythm or flow of creating intimacy, specifically in marriage. So this may sound like a funny way to start. We're not going to start with what the actual order is and should be. I want you to talk about what are the common mistakes in the ordering of intimacy that we often see. And this could be in our upbringing, it could be what is communicated from the platform at church. But what is the common assumption in regards to the order of intimacy in marriage?

Yeah, I mean, you know, we have this mindset, right? He's what Phil just mentioned of a hookup culture, you know, and so what we. And I think that's just the new word, but I think it's been around forever. You know, in our days it was a one night stand. Now it's a hookup culture. And but the thing is, is that we have disconnected because of this cultural narrative of that you can disconnect your body from your spirit and your emotion. That that's where we are. We're in a disconnected state that we can do things that, that we believe will not affect the other two.

Yeah. And we experience this even in our dating life. I mean, Priscilla and I started good. We really did. We didn't date that long, but I knew she was a missionary's kid and we didn't kiss till we got engaged. And then we had only a 12 week engagement. So you would say, what can happen in 12 weeks? Well, let me tell you, a lot. Yes. So the 12 weeks were full of temptation and struggle and everything else. Right. And yeah, we waited for intercourse till we got married, but we let our minds sit set on something else. So now we enter marriage thinking that we had prepared with some type of spiritual foundation and we completely reversed it in 12 weeks. So we enter marriage into a situation where our intimacy now is based on our feelings, our lust, our passions, our desires. And as you know, that stuff will last about 12 or 18 months. And then you've got something else you've got to deal with. You got, you got real life. And I think that happens to many, many, many couples.

Yeah. I've heard a pastor say that God designed our sexual intimacy or our sexual union to be like the dessert at the end of the meal. But now we're treating it like the appetizer. And it's no wonder we can't get the main course right. Because we've got it out of order. And that's what I hear you describing is we so prioritize that, like, the point of getting married is that now we can have sex. And that's kind of what married couples do. That's the main difference between a married couple and an unmarried couple. So we can get so focused on that that we miss the depth of relationship that God is really inviting us to experience. And what I expect we're going to get to in a minute, kind of the right ordering of intimacy.

Yeah, yeah. We're putting a lot of weight on the sexual part and not on anything else.

Yeah, yeah.

And. And the thing that's going to get us through life is not the sexual.

Yeah.

It's the spiritual and the emotional.

Well.

And it leaves a lot of couples feeling kind of disillusioned or even deceived. Like, you know, I saved myself for marriage. Then we had sex, and it's not that great. It's. Or it's not feeling good, or it's not what I thought it would be. And then they wonder, did I. Did I marry the right person, or is there something wrong with me? And all these questions, because we've so. We've so prioritized sex that if it's not working, then we think the marriage isn't working versus getting things in right perspective can be a real difference maker.

Totally. And I was just sharing this. Our executive team went on a trip together recently, and I was talking about. About this. We had a dinner, and someone asked. Someone asked the question, like, what has parenting taught you about, like, life and your relationship with the Lord? And one of the things that came to mind was that recently my wife has told me that the way that I treat my kids, especially when she's around, impacts our intimacy. And I would think that it'd actually be the opposite. Like, how we interact is like a starting place of our intimacy. And then, you know, it plays out from there. But what I've been understanding is that there are these other things outside of just my relationship with my wife that impact the intimacy that her and I can have. And so to put it in the context of our conversation, I am in some way misordering the flow of intimacy. Then I'm assuming that it starts with just my relationship with my wife when it's like, well, no, that's actually not true. Because if, you know, let's just say, to Nick's point, that if sex is the dessert, well, the appetizer may actually be how I interact with my family on any given day or that week leading up to maybe a time we were going to initiate sex together. And so for me, it has frustratingly created reality in my life where this is something I have to address and I have to think through this. So you guys didn't know, but this episode I've really been looking forward to because I'm hoping that you minister to me today.

Well, it's a great example and I think part of my own trip into that, Trevor, is me thinking the same thing you were thinking, that, you know, if I can just make this good between Priscilla and me, then there's sex at the end of the day. Right. But I think what I've started to understand now is a lot more affects her and in living with her in an understanding way. First Peter 3:7. I've had to learn that it's other stuff. It's her whole day and I might not be involved in it at all. But it's other things that are impacting her, that have caused her anxiety or whatever it is. All that stuff will play out in her sexually. Us guys can compartmentalize all this stuff, right? But our wives are much more intricate in that and I never understood that very well.