In this special Q&A episode, we answer five anonymous listener questions about the most common struggles couples face in their intimate lives. Topics we cover:
- Healthy, uplifting alternatives to pornography for erotic inspiration
- Why some men struggle to orgasm from oral sex — and what helps
- Balancing strong sexual desire with your relationship with God
- How to get on the same page when you and your spouse want sex differently
- What to do when your own sexual desire feels low or disappears
If you’d like to submit your questions for a future episode, submit your anonymous question on our website or in our private Facebook gorup.
Mentioned in the episode:
Episode #34: Horizontal vs Vertical Novelty
Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors or inaccuracies. For the most accurate and complete experience, we recommend listening to the full podcast episode.
Hello everyone and welcome to this special episode of Get Your Marriage on. This is episode number 2 69 where we will do some question and answer and I’ve got some great juicy questions. Now I get questions all [00:01:00] the time and if you wanna submit a question, you can go to get your marriage on.com, click on resources and there’s an option there to send in a anonymous question.
You can also join our private Facebook group and ask your anonymous questions there.
I am excited to talk about these questions with you today. Here’s the five that I selected that we’re gonna talk about on this episode. The first is, uh, for ideas for other sources than porn for erotic inspiration. We’re gonna talk about when you struggle to experience orgasm from oral stimulation.
We’re gonna talk about balancing sexual desire and one’s relationship with God, getting on the same page sexually with your spouse with regards to frequency or sexual behaviors. And lastly, we’re gonna talk about how to find help when you want more sexual desire, and you tend to lack it. Now, before we dive into these excellent questions.
I want to tell you about our upcoming couples retreat. This is taking place in beautiful southern Utah, and it is April eight through 12. [00:02:00] This is our annual in-person event, and this is a romantic fun and also a very transformative getaway experience. We rent out an entire resort, so they’re not in some stodgy.
Uh, conference room of some hotel. You’re actually in the beautiful space, and we take a lot of time to be outdoors too because hey, that’s what Southern Utah is known for. We’ll also a deep dive into all things intimacy into your marriage. So this is an excellent, excellent place if you and your spouse are in an otherwise.
Happy marriage, but which things were a little better. When it comes to sexual intimacy, this is where you’ll want to be. All the details are on our website. You go to get your marriage on.com, click events, click Couples retreat, and you can fill out an application. And, we only have a few spots left as of this recording.
I think we have about four spots left, so do not delay. If you’re interested in coming, please fill out that application form and we would love to see you [00:03:00] next April at our in-person retreat where we do a deep dive into all things intimacy in your relationship.
Before I dive into these questions, can I just tell you that I love you. I think of you all the time. You’re on my mind all the time. I feel like the luckiest man on the planet that I get to be a marriage and intimacy coach full time. That’s that’s what I get to do. I get to help you overcome sexual problems in your marriages, and it brings so much joy and satisfaction.
And, those that I work with in seeing just, just the, just the shifts and the changes in transformations in marriages, and I really want that for you too. So, as I go through these questions, I, I hope you see my heart in this, that I, I really do care. I really care about you looking for things, and I think the solution to a lot of our sexual problems is learning how to look at the problems differently.
So as I go through these, look for those patterns as you listen today. All right, here’s the first question. My spouse and I occasionally watch erotic content together as a way to spark new [00:04:00] ideas and keep things exciting between us. We realize that it’s not aligned with our values though, but we haven’t found great alternatives yet.
What are some healthier or more uplifting resources we can turn to for inspiration to make our sex life more fun and fulfilling? All right. I think he asked the right guy for that, by the way, I don’t doubt at all that you’ll get plenty of ideas from watching pornography as the whole goal of porn is to capture your interests with novel and interesting and unusual things.
Right? And there’s endless variety of pornography out there. If you keep searching for it, I’m pretty sure you’ll find it. But I think it’s a mistake to think that’s the only source for inspiration for making your sex life more interesting. I’m personally not a proponent of porn at all, and I don’t think I’m missing out because I choose not to use it for inspiration in my marriage.
But think about it this way, porn can’t be the only legitimate source for erotic inspiration. I mean, if it was, where [00:05:00] would the porn producers go to get their inspiration from other porn? And then where did those other porn producers get their ideas from and so on, right? It, it’s a recursive problem here.
Now, here’s the reality. There’s plenty of inspiration just from living life more fully. So pay attention to things around you that catch your interest. Sometimes you can also join a good group of friends that are willing to speak honestly about their sexual experiences, you know, with appropriate limits, of course, and give you ideas that are based more in reality, like what others actually do than what.
Is just produced for consumption, like, like what’s produced in porn. Now as far as erotic inspiration, for starters, there’s the Intimately US app. There’s a lot of things you can explore within the app. Even the free version has lots of things, and if you go to premium, you get even more. And these are games, there are ideas, even like sexy role play scenarios and uh, lots and lots of things in there to give you lots of [00:06:00] ideas and inspiration.
For you to explore what you find erotically interesting that you can incorporate into your marriage. And if role play is your thing, check out our friends@faithfulfling.com. They’ve got tons of great resources there. If you’re daring enough, you two can probably create your own erotic videos yourself.
And if your videos are short enough, you can use the just Between US app to encrypt and share your videos only with each other. Protecting the privacy of those videos and keeping it only within your marriage. Now I think the best source for sexual inspiration actually comes from within and this takes a lot more work. But I think if you could sit down and just be still for long enough, I dunno, set a 10 minute timer and just be still and give your inner sexual self a voice.
I bet you’ll be surprised at what things can come out. And this is actually something we focus on at our couples retreat. And also in our coaching program and course we talk about how to keep sexual interest growing over the long haul of the marriage. [00:07:00] And I think some of the best ways to do that is to just keep growing yourself.
There is something absolutely amazing about when you keep growing who you are and your spouse is growing who they are. You’re never making love with the same person twice. ’cause you’re both always changing and involving and growing. So pushing yourself to grow, and it doesn’t necessarily mean just sexual growth, but in all areas of life, you’ll find plenty of inspiration.
Now I talk about this in another episode. If you go back deep in our archives, it’s episode number 34. I talk about horizontal versus vertical novelty in marriage, and that might be another good resource for you to listen to.
And there’s also a very special kind of life giving effect on sex when it’s not so much about the sex positions or toys or role play, but something about deeply liking the person that you’re having sex with. It’s about seeing them really deeply. It’s about being seen and being known by them deeply.
It’s about having, uh, metaphorically and literally [00:08:00] speaking, eyes open sex, and you fill your life with things that grow you and stretch you. And this translates well into a deeply satisfying and interesting sexual experiences together. And at least that’s me speaking from my own experience. So I recommend giving that a try.
All right, next question. My wife loves going down on me, but I’ve never been able to finish from oral. It feels amazing and I get close, but I just can’t seem to cross that line. Any advice or techniques that might help? I wonder if your worry about not being able to finish that way is actually interfering with your ability to finish in that way.
On the psychological level, when our minds are anxious like that during sex, usually because we’re kind of goal oriented in sex, kind of like your question implies, right? It’ll release adrenaline and adrenaline in your body is the kill switch. It’s, it turns off sexual arousal. So. I wonder what it’d be like if you went into your sexual encounter without a goal and [00:09:00] just with the purpose of enjoying it for the gift for what it is, and appreciate the woman you’re married to, and that she likes doing this for you, as I’m assuming she does.
Right?
Now, sometimes there’s another layer with this, and it’s the idea that you feel pressure to finish in this way in order for your wife. To feel confident that she’s a good lover for you too. So you want to finish there, not just for your own pleasure, but also to give your wife the satisfaction that she was able to bring you to orgasm in that way.
And, and so it’s kind of this like loop, right? You want to do it for her and she’s trying to do it for you, but you’re trying to prove that she’s a good lover too. And anytime you use sex to prove something to someone, it tends to rebel, right? It tends to shut down your ability to really go over the edge.
So my first bit of advice again, is learn how to relax and calm yourself down. And if you’re open to it, establish eye contact and make it an intimate experience for the both of you as much as you can. Sometimes [00:10:00] putting your awareness into your sensations could help. And what I mean by that is as she’s going down on you, concentrate on sight, sound, taste, smell, feel the sensations.
And this helps a lot of people get outta their head and into their, uh. Other little head, you know, into your body a little better, and sometimes you just need more stimulation. So she’s open to it. She can massage a prostate, for example, whether that’s directly or indirectly, she could tug on your testicles or nipples or other things that you find, you know, physically arousing.
Or you can do it in front of a mirror if you want added visual stimulation or if you want to get even naughtier, find a different location than you usually do it. Something really new and different maybe, uh, on a car while on a road trip, you know, completely not getting caught of course, but something to add more novelty can really boost some stimulation for that too.
Anyway, I’d focus less on performance or a specific [00:11:00] goal and really learning how to relax and let go and just have fun. Regardless of whether or not you’re able to ejaculate from oral stimulation, at least you know you’re gonna have a great time together and it’s gonna be intimate and it’s going to draw both of you closer together.
So that’s what I would recommend really focusing on. Next question. Lately I’ve been wondering how to balance my desire for sex with my relationship with God. I think about sex and my husband often, not in an obsessive way, just that the desire is strong and present. I know God created sex to be good, but sometimes I wonder, when does healthy desire cross a line to making sex and idle?
How do you tell the difference between honoring it as a gift from God and starting to worship it? This is a great question and I think I would say I used to struggle with this too years ago. ’cause I used to think sexuality and spirituality were at odds with each other. In other words, if you wanted to be more spiritual, you had to suppress your sexuality.
Now I see them now as they serve one another. [00:12:00] My sexuality helps me grow spiritually, and my spirituality helps me grow sexually. They’re integrated as a whole. They’re not at odds with one another. So if your view of God is such that sexual desire diminishes or estranges you from your relationship with God, you’ll always struggle with feeling like there’s this tug of war.
Or if you’re a view of God is that he doesn’t get really excited about his children engaging sexually in the right context, or that he kind of just permits it like he, he turns a blind eye towards it, right? He permits sex, but only just enough to, I dunno, have children, rather than God really embracing it.
Then you’ll always struggle to see the life giving and deep spiritual purpose you can find in sexual connection. This epiphany came to me years ago as a family. We’re visiting the San Diego Zoo, which is one of the biggest zoos in the country. I was there with my family and I just kept thinking how much God loves creation, and I was in awe at the variety of [00:13:00] his creation.
Not only just animals. But plants and landscapes, and I like to people watch, right? Especially people, there’s so many varieties of personalities out there. And in that moment I came to know a God that not only loves creation, but he’s also a very erotic God, erotic as in Eros, the Greek word, as in as life force or creation.
So yes, while being in the heat of the moment with your spouse and being super turned on during sex and feeling the carnality of experience is awesome awareness. Of that part of me that longs to be with my spouse in that way, it’s a very creative and definitely a life giving experience and I, I think that’s what God intends for me to experience in my sexual experiences.
Now, of course it is possible to have the kind of sexual experiences that definitely are not in harmony with what I would understand, what God intends for me, such as when it’s done out of coercion or as a way to take from another person or even when it’s about trying to [00:14:00] prove something to someone else.
That’s the kind of sex that I think panders to the lower part of me, the lesser side of me, and to me, this is when sex can become an idol or a false God. I like how Jesus taught this. On the Sermon on the Mount, he says, where your treasure is there will your heart be also? So I think you can think about where is your heart in it.
But it’s also really possible to have a super passionate, carnal, or goofy or lose your mind. It’s so hot kind of sex and even raunchy sex, meaning sex doesn’t have to be so sanctimonious all the time, right? Where it’s about really undressing physically, emotionally, spiritually, and to experience what it’s really like to be with someone in a very.
Intimate way. I think that’s awesome. It feels really good to ravish another person or to be ravished by another, but in order to ravish and be ravished, it takes quite a bit of self-development in order to get to that point. Hence why I think spiritual development and sexual development [00:15:00] are closely linked together and serve each other.
I hope that helps, reconcile that in your mind of, is my desire for sex, my husband turning into an idol? Is this, is this a replacement for God or am I seeing the greater context in my desire and my enjoyment of sex as a way to help me grow and develop spiritually also. All right. Next question. What do you do when you and your spouse just can’t seem to get on the same page sexually?
The frequency, what you both enjoy, even being able to talk about it. My wife and I have been struggling with this our entire eight year marriage. We only have sex every couple of weeks. She’s not into toys or lingerie, prefers the lights off and doesn’t do oral. Every time I try to talk about it, she either shuts down or says, all I ever want is sex.
Recently she said she’d like to try more cuddling and non-sexual touch, but when I try, she pulls away. I’m honestly exhausted from trying to work on something she doesn’t seem to want to [00:16:00] fix. Oh, that sounds really painful, and I’m sorry that it’s like that in your marriage and judging by her behavior.
You’re right, it does seem like it’s something she says she wants to fix, but her behavior says She doesn’t really want to fix, so I would pay close attention to what’s actually being communicated there with the way she responds to your touch. There might be an incredible amount of information there, but that’s not where we’ll end today.
There’s a lot deeper we can go here. I recommend that you start by asking yourself in your eight years of marriage, have there ever been any bright spots or exceptions to where sex was a little easier or more fun or more engaging for the two of you? Now, I find my coaching, there are. Often exceptions to the norm.
So what can you learn from those better times that you’ve had? What is it that made those good? Are there any clues you can gather and maybe you can focus on that to inform what would be better for your marriage? That’s a very practical first step. I don’t know if this is helpful specifically, but from my [00:17:00] experience, issues about sex like this have more to do with a couple’s ability to be intimate, as in to allow someone else to be really close to you and know you than it is really about differences in sexual preferences alone.
First of all, remember, you’re not entitled to sex even though you’re married. Now, some people listening to this might disagree, but I want you to see that sex in and of itself with your wife, it’s a gift in the first place. It’s a gift in the first place that she even married you. She doesn’t owe you anything.
But if you were to go through your marriage with an attitude that you’re owed better sex, that you’re owed more frequency or more exciting sexual behaviors, then you’re setting yourself up and you’re setting your relationship up to where you’re gonna be a very hard to please person. And no matter how hard she tries, she’ll feel like it’s never enough for you.
So why bother? Sometimes though, when I give this advice, to the higher desire spouse complaining about this, they’ll push back at me and say, so what should I do then? Should I pretend that I’m happy with all this [00:18:00] and roll over and just give in and let her prevail? It’s not that either that doesn’t serve the marriage either.
Now what has happened in your marriage is
you’ve made sex a tug of war. It’s a power struggle in your marriage. So the question between the two of you is, of the two of us who is really gonna prevail here? And because she has a lower desire for sex, often she’s gonna win. You’re gonna lose because that’s just how marriages go. That’s how relationships.
And as long as you keep it as a power struggle, like you’re trying to get her to come on your page and she’s trying to get you to come on her page, you’re going to stay in this gridlock for a long time. And this is why I really highly recommend marriage coaching. There’s something special about being able to talk about these things in a neutral space with a neutral third party that can give you a third view as to what’s really going on in your relationship.
And if you work with a very highly trained professional marriage coach [00:19:00] like myself and my team, they’re very good at spotting patterns quickly and helping you see things that you probably haven’t noticed or things that admittedly you have noticed but you actually don’t want to see. And bringing these things to the surface lets you look at them and analyze them in the new light.
Oftentimes this includes, getting both of you to be more honest. And less emotionally reactive to the other person’s actions. This often means challenging you to take more personal responsibility for your marriage’s circumstances. In other words, owning your choices and let your spouse own her choices.
And by letting your spouse own her own choices, what I mean is you look for her behavior or her actions to dictate what’s being communicated, not what she says. Like in the case of she’s asking for more non-sexual touch, right? You actually look at her behavior. Also look at your own behavior and actions.
Instead and see what that actually communicates and see if that speaks more loudly than words, because if you’re [00:20:00] like, okay, fine, then I’ll give you more nonsexual touch. But you do it as an agenda, as a strategy of like, if I do more of this, then she will do more of what I want. Then of course, that’s just digging you both deeper into your respective positions and you know your gridlock is getting more locked up.
So I highly recommend you apply for the Get Your Marriage on Program for Marriage Coaching and Counseling. ’cause we help couples just like you two, overcome your challenges. Get outta your gridlock so you can actually like love each other and enjoy sex together. Have more desire for each other, have more joy in life and in your marriage too.
All right, here’s the last question I’ll address today. I really need help. My sex drive is almost non-existent, and I just realized my husband and I have only had sex 13 times this year. I’ve tried everything, books, mindfulness counseling, vitamins, even faking it. Till I make it to see if desire to follow and nothing seems to help.
I feel [00:21:00] guilty and frustrated, and I’m starting to resent my husband, which only makes it worse. We’ve been married nearly 13 years and this has always been our struggle. It breaks my heart because our marriage is amazing in every other way, but when it comes to sex, I feel discouraged and cheated. Like something that’s supposed to be beautiful has just become a source of pain between us.
I am so sorry that you’re in this situation, but I want you to know that this situation is very, very common. Most marriages experience what you’re experiencing, what time or another, it’s just part of married life, but you don’t have to stay stuck there. It’s through overcoming and growing through this challenge is where I think couples actually find.
That’s when their marriage really starts, right? That’s why couples in their forties, fifties, sixties, are actually starting to experience real good sex for the first time in their life because it’s through this and the growth that happens through [00:22:00] all this. What I’m trying to say is give you hope here.
even though you’ve been stuck this way for 13 years, it doesn’t have to remain this way for the rest of your marriage. There’s definitely, definitely hope for you.
Remember that sexual desire is really complex. It’s almost as if our sexual selves are like a rowdy three-year-old. Sometimes it doesn’t have a large vocabulary, but it does know how to say no. A lot of the advice on the internet, by the way, if you’re to search for this, it’ll tell you to go get your hormones checked.
And although I don’t disagree that physical health is an important aspect of feeling better about yourself and. Hormones do have a effect on our ability to desire sex from a healthy standpoint. Hormones alone aren’t always the solution to more sex.
For example, you can’t take a pill that will solve all of your sexual desire issues. And if it was that easy, then I would be in the wrong business. I would actually not be a marriage and intimacy coach and go into, I dunno, pharmacology or become a medical [00:23:00] doctor instead. ’cause that sounds like a really easier path than needing to grow up.
But, we’re just not hormone driven a hundred percent when it comes to sex as humans. We’re not like dogs, right? Or other animals that just copulate given the opportunity. If we were, then when the UPS driver, when the milkman comes by, they’d get humped if they show up at the right time or the wrong time of the month, right?
It’s not like that. That being said, there are definitely a few aphrodisiacs that I do know. The first is learning to like yourself. I wanna ask you, do you like yourself? Would you consider that you are your own number one fan? Can you feel confident in yourself? Can you look in the mirror and think, man, I like who I am
when you like who you are and you feel good about who you are and feeling better about yourself, you’re gonna be more willing to be intimate with another person. This is akin to the second great commandment [00:24:00] to love your neighbor as yourself. And one interpretation of that scripture that I like is you can’t love another person beyond your capacity to love yourself.
Learning how to be happy with your own gifts and just to accept yourself flaws and virtues and all the whole package, that is the foundation for being really able to love another person well, and it helps you be more sexually interested as well if you can really accept yourself in that way. Another thing to consider is your mindset around sex.
I’ve coached so many couples where for her sex is about a duty to perform for her husband. She may not think about it in those words, but, uh, like your inner rebellious three-year-old inside, right? Your sexual desire rebels and kills desire. If it’s told to do a job, passion will go out the window. The moment sex feels like work and not play.
So if you have the mindset that you’re not a good enough wife, we’ve only had sex 13 times this year, I’m failing him, how [00:25:00] come I don’t have, don’t have more desire, I’m starting to resent him. I don’t think those thoughts are gonna help you at, you know, long term find passion and joy to engaging with your husband.
So if your mindset is about, you know, I gotta please him, or you make it your low frequency as a scorecard on how you’re measuring up as a wife. Chances are your desire will vanish. You’ll get yourself maybe physically undressed, but be very hard for you to be emotionally undressed and passionate between the sheets.
A better approach is to learn to love arousal for arousal’s sake. Can you just sit back and enjoy pleasurable touch? Can you look your husband in the eyes for an extended period of time and just fill the intimacy of that connection? Can you hug for a long time? And by that I mean more than four seconds, or maybe five minutes or 10 minutes.
And allow yourself to calm down enough in his embrace to feel yourself relax in his arms. [00:26:00] In this podcast, I talk a lot about responsive and spontaneous desire patterns, and this seems to resonate with a lot of people in realizing that because their sexual desire doesn’t look like the Hollywood model, they’re not broken.
Responsive desire means your sexual interest comes after you’ve experienced some sexual stimulation in a context that’s enjoyable. It is true though that on the whole more women experience responsive desire than they do spontaneous desire most of the time. But just because one is responsive doesn’t mean they’re not responsible for their part.
Truly responsive. Women know how to mobilize themselves towards arousal, trusting that most of the time if they can get themselves at least stimulated, sexual desire will show up. I highly, highly recommend that you apply for our Get Your Marriage On Program. It’s the perfect blend of expert coaching that’s done privately, one-on-one, and also men’s and women’s small groups. So you [00:27:00] get the benefit of, meeting with other people in your similar circumstances and expert guidance privately, the whole program comes with an in-depth course that serves as the backbone of the whole program. And you also get to join a community of hundreds of other couples that are experiencing growth breakthroughs, inspiration, and discovering the joys of deeply intimate and passionate marriages.
And you’ll find all of these details on our website@gearmaryjo.com.
Thank you. I’ve really enjoyed this half hour or so with you today. I encourage you to make your marriage a priority in your life. And it’s not the big things, it’s the little things done consistently over time that make the biggest difference. I encourage you to look deep within yourself, find inspiration for erotic joy and deep connection with your spouse and mobilize yourself.
Do things that will push yourself to grow who you are. And now thank you for listening. It is time for you now to go and get your marriage on, and I’ll talk to you [00:28:00] again next week.
