Healthy Sexuality for Married Couples w/ Dr. Chris & Alisa Grace | Ep. 477

Doctors Chris and Elisa, welcome to the Pure Desire Podcast. It's good to have you on. So we're just starting a series here of helping couples talk about sex and marriage, and we just find that many couples haven't received great instruction on that. And so we're grateful to glean from both of you today. And, uh, to launch into that, you know, just because we get married in church and have a desire to honor God in our marriage This is no guarantee that we have healthy sexuality in our marriage. So why are most couples underprepared when it comes to healthy sexuality in marriage?

At least there's a number of things I can think of. We got family and church and personal history and trauma.

Yeah, I think one of the early culprits in the whole thing is perhaps those kind of conversations are not happening at home to start with. It's got to start with the parents and having good, healthy conversations about sex. And in a way that it's just natural to talk about it in an appropriate way. We're not teaching that sex is bad, but that it's actually a really healthy part of a very healthy marriage that God designed. And so I think that's one of the first ones. What do you think, Chris?

No, I agree. My concern and everybody's concern, especially in my field of psychology, is that you can have great parents as well, or poor parents as far as talking about sex goes. But something happens in the teen years and maybe a little bit earlier where parents are no longer the greatest influence oftentimes in a child's world. And what impacts kids oftentimes around that age more than anything else is the culture, their friends. And so right now, you take what is hopefully maybe a good parental environment, family of origin, they take this down. Can I take you back? But a number of their friends and then don't, or they haven't been raised that way. And now that can have a negative influence along with what we see in culture. So I think, Nick, you're exactly right. The concern is it's probably multidimensional, right? I mean, you've got churches that maybe never address sexuality or healthy sexuality, and if they do, it may be geared towards parents or towards marriage, right? And then— All of us live in this culture, man. And so I think by the time they're 21, 22, figuring out themselves, figuring out what sex, you know, is going to be like, all of a sudden you have all these competing views that they have been inundated with. So it's no doubt most of us, and I'll include us in there, we're pretty Maybe unprepared for what happened in marriage.

When we came into it. Yeah, I think I would agree with that. And I think a third thing besides parents and culture, I think you were exactly right, Chris. I think that couples, as they're coming into marriage, they're not taking really full advantage of good premarital counseling. Because a good premarital counselor will definitely cover that area of sexuality, sexual intimacy, uh, in their time together. But if they're not going, to get a premarital counselor or getting a good, well-trained one, then that conversation just may never happen. And so they don't come into the relationship with the skills knowing how to talk about it.

Yeah, I have a feeling this is going to be an ongoing theme in this, uh, series, that, that we just make a lot of assumptions in the faith community that if you love Jesus, if you're doing your best to honor God, you know, and you get married It's like we all give you the thumbs up, like, great, you got married, you said I do, and now it's all going to be, you know, go figure it out.

And it'll work great. Yeah.

And we don't realize how little couples may know about healthy connection, physical intimacy, communicating expectations, or even being aware of our own assumptions. And, and when we just enter into that kind of blindly, it is a recipe for, I think, hurt and disconnection. And what we find is many couples have these things occur early on in marriage. don't really know how to talk to anyone because it can be shameful or embarrassing of like, hey, we are really struggling with sexuality in our marriage.

Yeah.

People don't really know how to go anywhere with that. And so it might be years or even decades down the road and they are like, well, yeah, it has just always been this way. And you feel like, oh, I wish early on you could have gone to someone for help, you could have asked those questions. And I think the more we can do to equip one another to be prepared to be having those healthy conversations in home and in the church, the better off we all would be.

Yeah, and I appreciate that you said that a lot of times, even if your parents, you know, you were raised in a Christian family, but the absence of information, the absence of knowing anything more than maybe what you would hear in church or, you know, something like that, then you do naturally, I think that curiosity is there. And so you Listen to what your friends are talking about, or even today, you know, you look at what's on social media, and that's what kind of frames your idea of sexuality. And instead of it being from, like you said, that this is a really good thing that God designed. And because I think a lot of us didn't ever— I mean, I never heard that growing up. So, yep.

Boy, now let's add in to that Now add in the dynamic between a husband and a wife, right? So all of my background, my identity, all the influences, we add them to hers. But now you're throwing in variables that are just as big, right? My personality might be, I'm a little bit introverted, let's say. Maybe, you know, those first couple of years of marriage, we're developing safety and vulnerability and trust.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, research is showing That being fully trustworthy and being trustful in a marriage can take up to 10 years. So now, okay, you add in that variable at the beginning that we were talking about, add in each individual's own personality, their comfort level, their safety and vulnerability level, then dynamic that happens in conversation and communication, which we know communication in general is rife with miscommunication, right? I mean, I think I said one thing. And it could be about the dishes, and my wife heard something else, right? I'm just saying, "Hey, wow, the house is messy," and what she heard was I'm criticizing her. And and it was just a simple statement. One night, check this out. One night we're lying in bed, and all I said was two words to her. I said, "You're hot." It was a hot July night, and so that makes. And she said two words back to me: "Scoot over." Really, to do— because what I intended to say was, you know, I said you— I meant to say, you know, you're sexy, I love you. Screwed over. What she heard was a critique, you know, her body temperature or something, you know. So she says, hey, you keep complaining to your side of the bed. But she really said I was screwed over. So there we go, 2 simple words. Now, is that communication? Between 2 people, which is 2 words. And now you add in so many uncertainties in each person, and sex is one of the topics that leads us to shame sometimes, right? Or depending on our past. So now we're gonna have to add in that variable. What do I feel about sex? Am I— is it shameful in general, even though I know God loves it, wants it, created it, it'll be good in our marriage? There might be some remnant shame, or there might be some guilt. Or just, I don't want to talk about that.

So about half of your ministry work is on the college campus. And so what do you wish every pre-married, married couple would do to set themselves up for healthy sexuality in their marriage?

Oh, great question. There are so many things we see in college students today, right? And those in there, you know, under 24, not married yet. Lisa, I think we've seen some We've seen some trends, and we've seen some things that we hope to try and stop. And maybe you can talk about some of those that we know are the issues that we're seeing with half of our, you know, in our ministry with these college students. Yeah, so Lisa, sometimes when we're working with the college-age population, we're finding that many of them just simply aren't able to talk about it in culture unless they do something like premarital counseling.

Right.

And I think that's the gold standard right there, is getting a really good premarital counselor. In fact, we actually teach a class with college students. We have about 120 in there every spring semester. And one of the topics that we talk about, spend a whole 3-hour lecture on it, is sexual intimacy, the way God designed it, the psychology behind it, the theology behind it. But one of the things that we really Preach to our students is when you get engaged. Well, first of all, we would highly recommend pre-engagement counseling, very similar to premarital counseling, but pre-engagement counseling we think is even better because there's not the ring on the finger yet. There's not that commitment that's already been solidified to a certain point so that if you have to make some hard decisions by something that comes out in counseling, it's a little easier to do that before.

Mm-hmm.

before you get engaged rather once you're engaged. But either way, they need to have good, solid, well-trained premarital counseling. And a lot of pastors are well-equipped to do that. But I think on the whole, just in our conversations with pastors, is a lot of them don't feel as equipped to do the premarital counseling, especially to the degree and to the depth that a trained Therapist would do it. So to find a good, well-qualified Christian therapist would be awesome.

Yeah, one of the things we see at Pure Desire, like if you said, what do we wish pre-engaged or engaged couples were doing? Like, if you know you're combating some kind of compulsive sexual behavior, deal with it. Like, like, go face that before you bring it into marriage. Because so many of us, we've walked this road and we come in after marriage, and we can tell you from experience how painful it gets. Like that The challenge and difficulty of facing your pornography use or other compulsive behaviors doesn't get easier. I mean, and sometimes there's that misnomer in Christianity that, well, you get married and it'll fix things, and we all know it doesn't. It actually makes dysfunction more painful. And so if you, if you know, like, hey, this is something in my life, it's not fully resolved, I've not really gotten it taken care of, like, do it before you get married. And it might create some hard conversations with a dating partner, engaged partner, but I can just tell you it would be better to face those things then and enter into marriage with some traction and some stability than just dragging that into marriage thinking, oh, I'll deal with it later down the road. That's not something that gets better, it gets worse.

I think you're absolutely 100% right, Nick. And in fact, when we run premarital and pre-engagement small groups at our Center for Marriage and Relationships here at Biola University, and we have a licensed marriage and family therapist Solid believer. She's wonderful. And she said her perspective coming with these couples coming in is she just assumes that there is going to be porn usage issues, and not just the men, but the men and/or the women.

Yeah.

To the level that it's like, not, hey, is this a problem? But, hey, let's just talk about at what level is it already at, and let's get it out and let's deal with it. So I think you're absolutely right.

So I think one of the challenges that we can face in marriage is the common myths that maybe our culture has given us about sex and sex in marriage. So what are some of those myths that you see being perpetuated today? Maybe the idea like that sex will always be easy, it won't take any work.

Yes. And, you know, and that's so— that's such a funny one, because any kind of skill that you develop takes Practice, right? So, like, you take LeBron James with the Lakers. He doesn't just go out there and make that 3-point shot, right? He is in the gym. He is in the— say, he is making shot after shot after shot. And he's done it years and years and years, multiple thousands of practice 3-point shots, so that when he's in the thick of the moment in the game, it's just muscle memory. And so it's the same thing with our sexual intimacy skills. It takes some practice. You're not going to sit down at a piano and play a concerto the first time you touch a piano. You've got to spend time learning the music, learning the finger placement, so to speak, and then spending years practicing. And I think it's the same thing with, with a really healthy, robust, fun sexual relationship.

Well, Lisa, 100% correct. And when you use sports analogies, I'm just gonna tell you, the moment you said LeBron, you had me at LeBron.

That's all.

You're so easy.

Oh, and there's just some love languages that some couples have learned to speak. And she says the word Dodgers and I'm— I just melt.

Somebody needs to tell Gary Chapman, put that in his book, the 6th love language, sports talk.

And, and so that myth gets perpetuated a little bit, right, Elise? And then what we find, uh, y'all, is that There's another myth, right? Every couple that you see in social media or everywhere else, maybe oftentimes more in TV or movies, they're always both in drive sexually, right? They're always both like, let's go, let's have sex, let's—

Can't get their clothes off fast enough.

Yeah, and I, and I think that's just a flawed myth out there that not only will sex fix everything, or it should be easy, it's that all of us have the same desire, right? And therefore, you know, you get into a marriage, and all of a sudden one of you is open to sex, but doesn't really initiate all the time. It was our biggest struggle, I think, for about 5 years.

Mm-hmm.

Is not understanding that even though one of us initiated more, the other one, the one that was initiating all the time felt like, wow, how come I'm doing all the initiating? Do you not like sex? Do you not feel this way about me? And it was really a mischaracterization, you know, mischaracterization of the other because the other one felt like, no, I'm open. I just, I just don't think about it as much. And when you bring it up, it's awesome. By the way, so for the first 5 years, she's all over me all the time, you know, trying to— get me to bed, and I'm like, Lisa, man, stop. And no, I didn't. I'm teasing. But here's the funny part. Once we figured out that one of us was open, receptive, just not really making an initiation, but, but that's the myth, right?

The myth is we think about it the same.

We think about it the same. We have the same desires. If we love each other, we'll always have sex.

Yeah, but research shows that there's actually 3 desire types, right, Chris? There's, like you said, there's the initiator, And if you use the car, uh, in a car as the analogy, the initiator, they have their foot on the gas pedal. They are ready to go. And then the second desire type is the receptive. That's the one that the car's in neutral, and it's like, well, I wasn't really thinking about it, but yeah, I could be, I could be talked into that. And then the third type is, um—

Resistant.

Resistant. Thank you. The resistant. That's where the car is in park and the emergency brake is on, and it's like, Yeah, I wasn't thinking about it, and it's not happening.

Yeah. And of course, Shaunti Feldhahn and Michael Sismaa did some research in this area, and we really credit them. The desire types have been around a long time, but they put in a great analogy, the car driving and some other things. So once you recognize that only 10% of couples are both initiators, the majority of us, 83%, are one or the other. Right? Either initiating or receptive, with a few, of course, being in the— especially those that come from a troubled background or whatever it might be. Yeah, they might be in the kind of resistance one. But that analogy and understanding that myth really, really helps our young couples to go, oh, okay, that makes sense why we're different. So—

It actually helps some old couples too.

Yeah, that's true.

We just had a conference here at the university where we had several couples that were married 25, 30 years. And when we presented this concept, you just saw the light go on, like, oh, I get it now. And it's really freeing because it frees you from that frustration that, like what you mentioned earlier, where you can, you can just suppose that the other person isn't— that you're not as desired by them, where you really might be, but it just leads to misunderstanding. Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think another one of the myths, Chris, you can see what you think, is where couples might approach sex as like it sets the temperature of the relationship. If you're not getting along, if you're, you know, missing each other, then you just need to go have sex, and then that's going to fix everything. And so that's kind of setting up sex to operate like a thermostat, we just need to turn the heat up. But it's actually more analogous to a thermometer, Where sex is more like a barometer of what's already going on in the relationship and reading the temperature of what's already in the room, as opposed to setting the temperature in the relationship.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that there's a connected myth to that, that some couples do feel like if a relationship has more sex, it's a better relationship, and a relationship with less sex is worse. That we've, we've assumed that like a good relationship will have frequent sex, and maybe that's You know, like we've talked to a lot of couples that sex was happening more out of duty or routine or obligation. Like it wasn't necessarily creating healthy intimacy. It was more this idea of like, well, we're married, we're supposed to have sex, and good married couples have lots of sex. And it's like, well, that's not really what we want to be basing is our marriage good or not, because I think there are seasons you can be doing really well relationally and not having as much physical connection, or other times maybe the physical connection has been frequent, but But you're really not building a solid foundation. So I'd watch out for that one. And the other myth that came to mind for me that I kind of hear perpetuated, and some of this might be in movies and Hollywood, is this idea that if I marry the right person, there will be a good sexual connection.

Mm-hmm.

Which leads to the idea that if our sexual connection isn't good, maybe I married the wrong person. Maybe we're really not a good fit. And it kind of assumes that like we have a sexual fit that either does or doesn't work. Versus the idea that like we actually learn that connection with our spouse over time. We grow and develop in it. But I think that myth of, well, if I just find the right person, it's just gonna happen. Like, uh, there's no perfect right person out there, and that's not the measure if you married the right person or not.

I love the way you said that. Um, because I completely agree with that. And sometimes it's hard to put it into words that the sex that you have more often than not is a reflection Of the relationship that it is, and, and that, that, that the relationship you have actually is really the measure of the health in your relationship, which then shows up in the sex that you have. But it's weird how a lot of people don't see it that way. They definitely— I've heard that where it's like, oh, if we just have sex, then it kind of just equalizes everything and it puts us back to ground zero. And everything is fine. And I think more damage happens with that type of mindset.

Yeah.

No, that's great. And that— those myths, I mean, you know, we could probably keep going down the list of myths out there. But I think those are the ones that we see most in— well, frankly, at all age levels that we try and address early on in that premarital or in that younger audience. But it's still helpful for all ages to understand that, you know, we, you know, there's research that shows men think about sex 19 times a day, right? And women aren't far behind, 11 times a day. Now, I have to be honest, I haven't really read that research. I just read the results. And I thought, that kind of makes sense, you know. But the problem is, oftentimes those are getting triggered, right? That view of sex is getting triggered or thinking about sex by some pretty rotten cues, you know, something in social media, now I'm thinking about sex. Well, all of a sudden, now I begin to associate good sex with what I'm seeing or expecting. And so the myth is that my sex is going to be awesome and great, and it has to be like this. And there's no way a spouse can compete with the images and the things that are out there. A spouse can't. And so, so it leaves men and women so unfulfilled when their sex doesn't match up to the myth of what's out there as either the ideal body type or the ideal way to connect or— and so you begin to face that. That's a pernicious one because now it involves, as you said, what we've learned, what we associate with good sex and, uh-oh, we're not having that. You don't turn me on like you used to. You need to try this or do this. And all of a sudden, now you're going down rabbit trails that can be very dangerous.

Yeah.

How do you find gender differences impacting marriage sexuality? How can we make sure these differences draw us together rather than push us apart?

Boy, great question. You know, it's really helpful to separate out, for example, in this With that question, male versus female, because the bodies, you know, have been— we've been each, you know, designed and created in a different way. And so it's really helpful. And as a caveat, we also know that some men are more like women in their responses, right? Some females are more like males in their desires and interests. But in general, I think, Lisa, what we're finding—

Mm-hmm.

is really just differences. You wouldn't start with attitudes, right, towards sex. I mean, some of our attitudes are different. Then you start getting into what stimulates each other. But even there are differences.

Right, like when you think of gender differences in general, as Chris said, that we're talking about, men tend to look at life and look at sex much more physically and can compartmentalize. They can compartmentalize, like what happened at work stays at work, what happens at home stays at home, whatever the kids did at dinner stays at dinner. For women, our, our brains tend to be more like a well-organized junk drawer. You know, we all have one of those at home. I think we have 2. We must just be really messy. But you look in there and everything is kind of mixed up together and touching each other, and it's more holistic as opposed compartmentalize. It's more holistic for a woman. And so what happened earlier in the day is going to impact our attitude about sexual intimacy that night.

Yeah. And it doesn't— yeah. And we find a lot of men, it doesn't, right? Like, here's one. It's late at night, we're lying there together. And the kids are still kind of awake. Well, at that moment, when I'm sexually interested, I don't even remember if we have kids or not.

Right?

I'm like— Out of sight, out of mind. We got kids?

And she's like, Chris, man, they're awake. They can hear us.

They—

I'm afraid they might walk in.

My wife hears everything, every little movement outside the door.

Yeah. And that just is so different to me. And so that, right, there's a quick difference. Some of us categorize pretty easily. Others are impacted holistically. And then Lisa, there's different even in our Like what stimulates us or even some—

Yeah. So when it comes to stimulation and gender differences, for men, men are much more body-centric. Like, how does your wife smell? What does she look like? What is she wearing? He's much more stimulated by feeling like his wife desires him. And that's even at a place where I would say he wants to know not just his wife, but his woman. desires him, that he's desirable. And for a woman, her call, her longing is really going to be more towards— it's going to be as opposed to body-centric, it's going to be person-centric. Like, not just anybody will turn a woman on in general, but it's the person that it is. It's like, you're my person. That's going to be much more stimulating than just any person that's out there, but it's you. That's important to me. And for a woman, it's that emotional connection. It's that emotional connection that is so important, that emotional— the way the relationship has been going throughout the day.

Yeah.

And so like, for men, it's a little different. It's almost opposite. That for men, sexual intimacy makes him feel closer and more emotionally connected to his wife. And for the wife, she needs to feel emotionally connected before she's really fully ready to give herself to her husband. And so one of the things that— the ways that we explain that is for a man, we tell the guys, guys, you need to touch her heart before you touch her body.

Mm-hmm.

And you make love to your wife throughout the whole day. When you're helping with the kids, you're helping make dinner, cleaning up the dishes, your attitude is kind and thoughtful and considerate of her. And so, that goes a long way towards speaking that love language for women.

Yeah.

And then, what we tell the women is men are just messed up.

I mean, it's just— Just do your best.

Good luck.

Oh, it's good luck, man. But for men, it's a little bit— we tell the women it's a lot simpler than that, right? I can set aside those emotions or feelings, compartmentalize them, right? And so what do you tell the women about men? I'd love to hear this.

Well, like I said, it's a little opposite for men, right? You've got to touch her heart before you touch her body. And we tell the wives, when you touch his body, you're touching his heart. And so for men to feel like his woman desires him is where he feels emotionally close with her. And so for the wife, he— like I said, she needs that priming throughout the day, the love notes, thoughtfulness, the consideration. So like, if you had a fight earlier in the day, or maybe earlier in the week that hasn't been fully worked out, or maybe there's some latent leftover anger, she might have a harder time setting that aside. And in fact, if things aren't relationally good here, then having sex might actually make her feel a little used and neglected.

Yeah.

And so that emotional component's really important in that gender difference. What else do you think, Chris?

No, it takes sometimes a college class to figure this out, but we think you can do it in just a few seconds and minutes by understanding really what is that emotional connection and what's my role in it. It's not that difficult. It's just simply throughout the day touching your heart, right? And working with and being emotionally available. And then, yeah, it usually makes for a better night.

And then one of the areas that we differ in gender-wise is sexual response. And so for men, they're acyclical. That means that they don't depend on— they're not as affected or impacted by hormonal changes that occur month to month like a woman. A woman is cyclical. Every 30 days as she has her menstrual cycle, Well, her hormones are going up and down, and throughout that cycle, she's more receptive, and at other times less receptive to it. So that can be a difference.

Yeah.

And for men, it's, it's pretty straightforward, right? You don't— again, we're talking in general.

So, but in general, kind of for men, one and done, right, when it comes to orgasm. But for women, women can have multiple orgasms. And so just biologically, Physiologically speaking, we're able to. However, it's also important for men to understand that even though that may occasionally not happen, women don't have to have an orgasm in order to enjoy sex with her husband. She doesn't have to have it. Although, you know, hear this, men, if you never had an orgasm, how interested would you be in having sex regularly? Absolutely.

Great point.

I'll, I'll tell you, that was a big part of our growth curve. You know, when I was stuck in my addiction to pornography, I viewed my orgasm as mandatory and my wife's as optional. And, and she was, you know, she was very loving and kind and we had frequent sex. But in our recovery, when I started to prioritize her pleasure and orgasm as central to the relationship, it improved our connection a lot because it's like, oh, we now, we both feel included and seen. And I think a lot of couples inadvertently grow Or maybe have an a subtle, uncommunicated message of that that like well the male orgasm is mandatory, the wife's is is optional, and then it's no wonder that maybe wives don't feel that same level of engagement. So I yeah, I think there's tons of wisdom there. You know one of the things I kept thinking in all those examples you were giving because I feel like my wife and I walked through a lot of them, and I'm thankful that early in our marriage we read a book. I think it was by Les and Leslie Parrott, but they made the comment. that too often couples think this is a Nick and Michelle problem, or whatever your names are. Not that everybody thinks it's our problem. You know, you identify it personally, this is our problem, when really this is a male and female problem. Like a majority of couples have faced the orgasm and response gap, that men get there much quicker, women slower. Like that's not a Nick and Michelle challenge. That is a male and female challenge.

Yeah.

The, you know, men being more visually and physically stimulated, women maybe being more emotionally stimulated. I think we walked through all those and it's easy to start to look at the other person and say, well, what's wrong with you? Why aren't you more like me?

Yeah.

Versus learning like, oh, this is some of God's creation. And you guys have been wise to say it's not 100%. We don't want to stereotype that everyone is this way because there's uniquenesses to every one of us. But in general, in a lot of these areas, there are those male-female differences. And rather than looking at each other like the culprit or the problem, if we look at them as the opportunity, like God made us this way so that we would learn one another, we would grow towards each other. I mean, I love what you said about that Gottman quote, to be each other's dream detector, or the idea like I should become the expert on my spouse.

Yes.

Like no one in the world should understand her uniqueness, the way she responds to things, what her needs— no one should understand that better than me because that's my job, to move towards her And in a loving relationship, believing she's moving towards me. And, and then those differences actually become a beautiful part of the marriage dance and not the fighting of, well, why aren't you like me? No, why aren't you like me? That many couples can get stuck in.

Yeah.

Your thoughts, Heather?

I really love everything that you said, and especially the differences between women. It's like touch her heart before you touch her body, those kind of things. And I know I've heard that, But it's so simple. You know, it puts it in a context that I don't think that people hear very often, that people hear in the church as often. And also, even stuff about sex, and orgasm, and response cycles, people don't hear that in your regular traditional premarital counseling. And so, and it's a big piece that's missing. Because I think that it kind of sets couples up to fail if they think that this is equal, or if they think that, you know, well, my husband, him having an orgasm is more important than me having an orgasm, and so I'm just gonna not ever have an orgasm. We have people come up to— women come up to us at conferences and say, I've been married 40 years and I don't think I've ever had an orgasm.

Yep.

That's crushing. Crushing.

It's crushing and it's messed up, man. I mean, that couple needs to recognize and just listen to this podcast and see, here's where men— I believe one of the reasons why this may be different is for men to start owning this, that they are the ones God has given this other person and the only avenue for this other person in your life, you know, for having this sexual experience is through that person. And it behooves all of us, men or women, to do, Nick, what you said. That is, learn about your spouse, identify them, their interests, the times that it takes to get them ready.

Mm-hmm.

And I believe this is part of our mandate in a marriage is to recognize how do I serve my spouse in a way that brings God glory, And part of the way is I don't just get in there and have, you know, 4 minutes of sex and then walk away. That is the height of— it's the height of selfishness. And, you know, we mentioned that in conferences, you know, that men, you know, on average takes 5 minutes. Frankly, most of them, most of the wives say maybe try 2 minutes, you know.

You're giving them the benefit of the doubt there.

It's not that long, you know. And I'm like, oh good, I'm glad there's others. And 5 minutes sounds like an eternity. Frankly, but to hold— be able to hold back and recognize that this is to be duly— this is for both of us to experience pleasure. That's a big insight.

And as we talk about those gender differences, you know, a lot of questions we'll get from premarital and college students is about what happens if you're sexually incompatible. And it's like, well, if you're a woman married to a man, you're inherently going to be incompatible because God created us so different. And so then the next question is, why? What dirty trick did God play on us that he created us so different in this very important area of a relationship and a marriage? And I truly believe, I'm absolutely convinced, that it's one of the ways that God teaches us sacrificial love.

Yeah.

What Chris was just talking about, that, that, you know, I— if I may not feel up for it, you know, this night, because I'm more of, of that middle one, uh, middle drive, the receptive, and he's the initiator, maybe I, I'm not initially thinking about it. But you know what? I love him. I want to serve him. I want to make him feel so loved and like he is the most loved man in the world. And so that's a— not to say that, oh, I have to sacrifice, sacrifice. But it's just a mindset of like what you said, is that I'm here to serve, not to be served.

Yeah.

Because isn't that what Jesus did? And I mean, he, he's, he's the Son of God, and he himself said, I didn't come into this world to, to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. And we are made in his image. We're called to grow into the image of Christ. And part of that, in large, part is how we sacrificially love one another, where we're willing to say, no, my beloved, let's do it your way first.

Yeah.

You go first. That's Philippians 4 put into practice, to consider the other person's needs and dreams, desires and wants ahead of your own.

Yep.

But, and here's the thing, and especially if you're the one that's more of the receptive as opposed to the initiator, You may not be like fully on board at the very beginning of it, and but the— as you get engaged and you get going, you really do start to enjoy it. And so sometimes it's just getting over that initial reluctance or hesitancy, because then once you're in the middle of it, you're all in, you know, 100%, and you're having a lot of fun.

Yeah. Well, you guys, this has really been a great conversation. And as we move towards the end here, I want to just ask, you know, as So let's look at the positive side of it. If a couple realizes they're kind of stuck maybe in some unhealthy patterns, or they don't have the level of healthy sexuality in their marriage they would like, what are some steps you would encourage? What are some things they could really begin to focus on or work on to build healthy sexuality in their marriage? What would you recommend to that couple that is, is needing to grow in this area?

I would say one of the most important is If you feel stuck, like you said, Nick, if you feel like there's just an issue that we have not been able to get traction on, and it has just become a pattern of pain and hurt, as opposed to a pattern of flourishing and love in our relationship, don't wait to go get help.

Yes.

It could be a physical issue that you need to address and go see your medical doctor. Set an appointment with your primary care doctor. They can run a number of tests to see if there is something going on physically. And then in addition to that, would really encourage you to find a really good, well-trained, solid Christian therapist.

Yeah.

And there are Christian therapists out there who actually have a specialty, special training in the area of sexuality and sexual intimacy. Like, they go to school and do those 3,000 hours of supervision and, you know, 5 years of graduate school, like any other marriage and family therapist. But then there's those that have extra certification where they've gotten additional education in that specific area where that's their specialty. And if you, if you look up therapists, like there's a group that we're on their board, Center for Individual and Family Therapy, they actually have a few therapists that have special and specific training in sexuality and sexual dysfunction. But don't wait. Go get the help that you need.

Yeah, unfortunately, we're finding— I don't know about y'all, but we're finding couples wait an average of 7 to 10 years before addressing any of these issues. And by then, you know, they're on their last stand. All these things have settled now a little bit like concrete. And if they'd gone in earlier, but still, even if it has been that long, there are so many benefits to just having— even what Elisa said, listen, I mean, Going to a medical doctor is probably the answer I give most of the time to all these issues.

Go first.

It's a general practitioner. They can—they can—they're good at assessing whether depression or anxiety are involved, or like you know, like you said, Lisa, is there something else physically going on? And just clear the deck and know, "I hold on here now. This must be something else, something I have learned, and I might need somebody to help me walk through this." Why do I not? find myself or my spouse sexually attractive anymore. What is going on with me? What's happening here?

How come I don't want sex?

And what— yeah.

And what their trauma that went on that has not been processed. But it could be any number of things. But the point is, don't wait, go get help. And I think a third thing, first and foremost, will be to pray Pray for your love life. Pray for your love life. Uh, then, you know, when you're getting ready throughout the day and you're dropping little, uh, sexy text messages to each other and you're building that anticipation, a really important part of that is just coming before the Lord and saying, Lord, you created us for sexual intimacy. This whole thing was your idea. And so, Lord, will you help me to love my husband the way he needs to be loved?

Yeah.

Or, Lord, would you help me to love my wife in a way that's meaningful and serves her? And Lord, bless our time together. Help us to find great satisfaction and thrill with each other in this specific area of our relationship in a way that brings you glory and honor, honors ourselves, and it honors our spouse.

And that right there, to me, is this great, wonderful foundation that we have to be able to do that. We also have available some awesome writers out there and researchers, you know, whether it's John Gottman or whether it's Michael Sismer or whether it's Shanti Feldhahn or Chris and Elisa Grace or whatever. Not really, but here's what you do. Go find a book, read it.

And here's what you can do together.

Yeah, read it together. Or if only one spouse— sometimes it's just one wants to do this, the other's like— then do, do something like this. Find the book. If you're the one that's interested, maybe highlight a few pages and leave it on their bed and on their pillow and say, honey, can we talk about this at some point?

Yeah.

This was— this really, uh, hit home for me. It really kind of clarify things or note what you think about. Yeah, or note the podcast and say, would you listen to minutes 20 through 25? I think it really affected me. What do you— what would you think? And that's another way. Yeah.

Yeah, man, you guys are so good because I like had my notes. Like, okay, I'm going to say the, you know, don't be afraid to get help. Oh, check, said that. Uh, keep learning and reading. Oh, check, they said that. Okay, pray for your spouse. Check, they said that. So we're on the same page. Uh, Heather, how about you? Any thoughts as we wrap up on What could a couple do to pursue healthy sexuality if they feel like they're lacking in that area?

Yeah, well, in addition to all the great suggestions that you guys made, I think that it would be maybe be willing to risk the conversation and recognizing that if you're stuck or things are not going as well as you would like, that you could do nothing and it will stay the same, or you could risk Having a conversation and, and just bringing it to light, even if it is starting it by saying, will you listen to this podcast? Or would you do this with me or read this book with me or something? Because I think sometimes if there hasn't been a lot of healthy conversation around sex, that even just being willing to put yourself out there is kind of challenging. Yeah, but it's worth it.

Doctors Chris and Elisa, thank you for joining us. Hey, where can our listeners go if they want to keep up with you? Is there a place where they could visit to, yeah, track with you guys?

Yeah, Venmo's a good start.

Okay. Yeah, so you can check out our website. Again, we're with the Center for Marriage and Relationships at Biola University, but our website is cmr.biola.edu. And then we also have a podcast, The Art of Relationships. So check that out. We're on all your favorite platforms, but we do a lot of conferences. Maybe we're in an area that'll be near you.

And you could find us also here at the university. And we— I just want to say publicly, Nick, we have spoken to you, we've brought you out to speak to our students, you know, 120, 130 students every semester on this topic.

The whole university.

And then the whole university got to hear you. And so—

Outstanding.

It is outstanding. So for all you listeners, this is an outside voice opinion. Look up Pure Desire, check out what Heather and Nick are doing in the Stumbos. We utilize you guys here at our university all the time, and we're just grateful for you for doing that.

Yeah, wonderful resource. Thank you for having us.

Thank you for that. Thanks for being on today, and we hope people will check out what you're doing and that they will grow in their healthy sexual intimacy. And if you're a fan of today's content, if this means something to you, please subscribe, share it with somebody, write us a review. All of these are ways that more people can find some light life-giving content. And if you want more information about Pure Desire's groups, resources, or counseling, visit us at puredesire.org. Journey on, my friends. You are not alone.