Married Sex – 14 Truths Every Couple Should Know For Enjoyable Sex
What’s the real truth about married sex?
Many couples get married believing they know everything there is to know about intimacy in marriage. Others treat married sex like a child in a candy store – a play-field of easy delectable options.
But the truth is, even what we think we know (or don’t know) is tested and proven through the lens of reality.
If you want to improve your sex life, you have to be ready to learn and unlearn a few things. Today, we are going to “switch on the lights” so we can see the truth that helps us and kick out the lies that hurt us.
Sex is fun and deeply fulfilling but only when we understand what makes it tick.
Without further ado, let’s lay out the truth..
14 Important Truths About Married Sex
1. Just because you are married doesn’t mean the sex is great
As a single woman, I thought all married couples were s-experts.
Then I got married and discovered I was wrong: the wedding ring doesn’t come with automatic sexual endowments.
To understand how sex works (so you can enjoy it), spouses must become students of one another. They must learn new things and unlearn old ways.
Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t fancy going back to school. Humility in marriage, the willingness to learn and adapt, is hard.
Further, even those who sign up for the “intimacy improvement class” must enroll for a lifetime. Not easy for those who prefer quick gains.
Now, this truth about married sex ought to bless every newlywed couple as they realize no one has it figured out. We are all working towards deeper intimacy.
Married sex is fun and deeply fulfilling but only when we understand what makes it tick.2. Selfish sex – intimacy will show you out
Married sex shows us out. The practice of intimacy reveals how far we are willing to go when there’s nothing in it for us (at least, in the short term.)
For example, a husband who doesn’t need a lot of foreplay – how far they are willing to go for the sake of their spouse reveals their general attitude in marriage.
It reveals if they are givers or self-focused. If you are wondering about your level of giving in marriage, consider these two questions.
- Is my spouse’s pleasure as important as my own?
- What am I willing to forego, even temporarily, so sex can be more fun for my spouse?
3. How often should a married couple make love?
Great sex is seasonal. And that’s okay. No, I am not proposing settling for an average sex life but married people need to be a little less idealistic and more realistic.
A healthy sex life is the result of a healthy relationship overall. Because of the connection between the bedroom and the rest of life, we should expect ups and downs. Because life has ups and downs.
We all go through seasons of labor and seasons of rest. Seasons of honeymoon and long stretches of reality checks. Periods of newborn babies, staying up all night, and the long years of empty-nesting. Times of building a career or starting a business and periods of establishment.
So don’t lose hope because of a “down” season. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it other than riding it out.
Keep making an effort, even when it feels pitiful compared to past seasons of grandness. Your intentionality still counts for something.
4. What you tell yourself about your married sex life matters
Our upbringing, relationships, sexual experiences with other people before marriage (or with our spouse before marriage), trauma, culture and subculture, religious beliefs, life experiences; they all shape the story we tell ourselves about marriage and intimacy.
Never think, “I am my own woman.” That you are not under any influences.
Instead, consider areas of growth, change, confession, or healing. There’s always room for growth in marriage.
5. Healthy experience inside marriage..
The truth is, we can be “experts” of the sexual act with other people (before marriage) but complete novices of sex with our spouses.
Married sex is a whole-relationship affair. You have to connect with this one person emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically, socially to achieve that healthy one-fleshness we all desire.
In that sense, great intimacy doesn’t begin on the marriage bed, but further out – at the doorstep of a relationship.
I am not knocking on the person with sexual experience outside of marriage. Not at all. I just want you to be aware that consensual sex outside of marriage might mean making adjustments once married because married sex requires more than what you were used to giving.
6. Your wedding night is not the best sex you’ll ever have
When you are learning how to bake, your first batch of cookies is not the best batch you will ever make.
The first few times you go to the gym will not be your training heydays.
When you are trying to change your diet, the first spoonful of a healthier lifestyle will not taste like the best food you ever ate.
The point? The first time is rarely the best.
It gets more satisfying. More fun. Wondrous. Deeper.
With time and practice.
As you keep working on it.
7. Sex isn’t just for the husbands but that makes it harder than we think
Times have changed, and many Christian wives now embrace the idea that sex is for them too. They are meant to enjoy, not endure sexual intimacy.
But even as wives praise the new truth about married sex, some are yet to understand its full meaning.
You see, there’s responsibility that comes with sexual enjoyment. As wives, we now have to figure out what pleasurable sex means for us. We have to discover and communicate what we want in bed. (Check out The Great Sex Rescue book by Sheila Gregoire)
So, in the end, awareness has brought new responsibilities.
8. Good sex can get in the way of better sex
Sometimes we don’t change because we are still married to an old image of ourselves.
My husband and I moved to the United States from Kenya, eight years ago. For years after our move, my mind continued to wake up in Kenya even as my body was firmly in America.
It was a strange experience, rising from sleep,with the sights, sounds, and tastes of my home country playing in my mind. Only to open my eyes and realize I was elsewhere.
A lot of us are like that in marriage. The marriage we have today is different from the marriage we had yesterday.
But unlike me who had to wake up, we have refused to wake and adjust to our reality.
We keep dreaming about the days gone by, relishing the sights and sounds of a life long gone, longing for when things were different.
Meanwhile, our marriage and intimacy are begging for us to wake up to our immediate sexual reality.
It’s been years since our relocation, and my mind has adapted to being in America. I don’t agonize every morning. Time, allowing myself to grieve, growing, adapting – they all helped me welcome a new reality. And my brain switched.
A crucial truth about married sex: intimacy is a journey. Those who enjoy the ride are learners. They are continually adapting and deploying new knowledge so their relationship can thrive.
Here are four questions to help assess your sexual reality.
1. What do you need to wake up from? (for example, past hurts, good times that are getting in the way of current times, immaturity)
2. What do you need to let go of? (for example, who do I need to forgive? What habit do I need to let go? What secrets am I keeping from my spouse? What sexual acts make my spouse uncomfortable, and how do we talk about it in a healthy way?)
3. What do you need to embrace? (New habits, mindset shifts, new values, new sex routines)
4. What one step can you take today? (Pick a new book, set an appointment to talk to a trusted counselor, confess/apologize to my spouse)
9. Married sex problems and hope
Have you ever had a glorious season of marriage where everything felt amazing: you were able to set aside selfishness and really work on serving your spouse – all the while the rest of your life was going bonkers?
Looking back, you wonder how you were still happy, still holding it together, despite the difficulties you were facing as a couple.
I like to look at such seasons as mercy and kindness.
10. “Noticing” someone of the opposite sex isn’t the same as committing sexual sin
As spouses, we must accept the fact that we live in a world with other people in it. We are not an island.
Remember this truth – noticing isn’t a sin. Dwelling, making sexual remarks, fanning attraction, lingering – those go beyond seeing, and those are sinful.
Here’s what I mean.
It’s one thing to see a person (because you have eyes) or feel a stir (because someone was kinder or paid attention, for example) But it’s quite another to pause, linger, engage, pursue or fan those feelings and thoughts.
Read the following posts for further insights:
When Your Husband Talks to Another Woman – 12 Things To Do
11. How often should a couple make love?
Sex shouldn’t be the glue that holds a marriage together
Because you married a person to love, a person to do life with, (vs. a body to have sex with.) While sex is beautiful, feeding the connection between husband and wife, an overall healthy marriage is built on more than one part.
It’s built on the whole. Commitment to the entire marriage, not just some parts of it.
Maybe if we stop believing “sex is the glue of marriage,” for healthy couples
– We’d develop the necessary bandwidth to address intimacy issues. Because confident, hopeful people are more likely to roll up their sleeves and work on challenges than discouraged guilt-ridden people.
– We’d be able to love, serve, laugh, go on dates even if we haven’t been intimate —no need for all of the marriage to suffer because one part is a work in progress.
– We’d stop defining ourselves by the frequency of our bedroom interactions because we know we are more than our sex lives.
Undeniably, intimacy in marriage is beautiful. Soul shaping. Heart binding. But overall, commitment to the whole marriage, not just parts of it, is what great marriages are made of.
PS: I am not talking about celebrating gatekeeping. Just proposing a healthier view when intimacy can be a challenge (e.g. in illness, trauma, seasons of stress, pregnancy and post recovery etc.)
12. God is with us in our wounding
Have you been abused? Assaulted? Harassed? God has made provision: Himself. In the midst of it all. In therapy. In making police reports. In drawing boundaries. In getting safe. He is with us.
The presence of suffering doesn’t mean the absence of God.
13. Of sexless marriages…
I get emails from women who don’t like sex any more, for various reasons.
If we (husband and wife) are serious about cultivating a happy healthy marriage, we have to get serious about the “why”. That means, addressing why wives don’t like sex for example, instead of making wives have sex.
Or husbands complaining that their wives don’t like sex, instead of figuring out how they can make it pleasurable and fun for her, so she likes it.
Which brings me to this amazing truth about married sex
Affiliate link ahead
14. Married sex can be a fun.
Are you tired of not wanting sex? Perhaps confused because sex is the one the area you never measure up? I have good news for you. Things can change. Your sex life can become pleasurable again.
Sheila Gregoire, a bloggy friend of mine, has a fabulous resource, Boost Your Libido ecourse.
It’s an online course that teaches us how to move our marriages from Blah to blazing, just by understanding how our brains, bodies, and relationships all work together to impact our libido!
The course is super practical, and Sheila is hilarious.
And she endeavors to help us understand that intimacy is God’s idea. That He’s generous and knowing how He wired us for intimacy helps us thrive in marriage, as He intended.
Boost Your Libido is enjoyable, filled with practical assignments that can help you see immediate results.
You don’t have to wait until you finish the course to start your libido revving up and your intimacy rocking.
Summary
Married sex can be amazing! In summary, here are the 14 things every couple should know so their intimacy can thrive.
1. The wedding ring doesn’t come with automatic sexual skills.
2. Your sex life will reveal if you are selfish or giving.
3. Great sex is seasonal and that’s okay.
4. The story you tell yourself about your sex life matters.
5. We can be “experts” of the sexual act with other people but complete novices of sex with our spouses.
6. Wedding night sex is not the best sex you’ll ever have.
7. Sexual enjoyment comes with responsibility.
8. Spouses who enjoy sex are learners
9. Sexual problems? There’s hope!
10. “Noticing” isn’t a sin.
11. Sex is not the glue that holds a marriage together.
12. God heals
13. A sexless marriage …
14. You can make sex fun again
And those are my top 14 thoughts on how to improve your sex life!
Your turn – What did I leave out? Which thought resonated the most? Let me know in Comments
Hi Ngina!
I’m so thrilled to have recently discovered your blog. But I’m wondering from this post, for some of these tips, is the overall message that you won’t learn how to maneuver stressful obstacles until AFTER marriage and then you can start implementing said tips? Things such as building and strengthening friendship, and helping to draw your significant other out of their funk, learning communication/responsive styles, what about people that are intentional about establishing those foundations before the consummation? I’m not so naive to believe my future marriage would be immune to stressful times, but it’s a bit concerning to think that the growing, already full of many teachable moments, ever-evolving present friendship, that I have with my significant other now, will be brought back to ground zero as soon as one bad thing happens in our marriage, and our sex life will for sure take a hit? I don’t know if that’s the overall message, but it almost made me a bit fearful. In any case, communication is everything so hopefully building transparency in communication now, pre-nuptials, will pay off down the road!
So glad to connect Chinyere! Oh no, I am sorry if it came across that way. You definitely can learn to connect on an emotional, mental, spiritual, social level BEFORE marriage. That’s why we date and court so we can lay those important foundations. We need that discovery process and we need to put down some roots! However, you can’t fully appreciate the depths of those connections until you get married. Sometime put it this way, you can learn all the swimming tips but eventually you have to jump into a pool. In other words, in marriage we get the opportunity to put all those things we learned pre-marriage into practice. And because marriage reveals more of who we are, it means there are depths we haven’t explored yet..not because there’s anything wrong with us. But because we weren’t doing life together yet and getting exposed in new ways. But yes yes, building those crucial foundations now will pay off in a big way down the road! Hope that clarifies a few things!