In this episode, Matt & Jenn reminisce over some of the highlights of this year's annual Marriage Retreat and share a segment from the live Q&A session, including:
We also want to thank our sponsors for contributing to the success of this year's Retreat:
Join us next year in The Woodlands, TX, September 19-21, 2024!!!
To send your comments, questions and suggestions, go to our website: www.intimatecovenant.com/podcast and click on the button: “Contact the Podcast” for an ANONYMOUS submission form. Or, send an email: podcast@intimatecovenant.com
Thanks for sharing, rating, reviewing and subscribing!
Cherishing,
Matt & Jenn
PS — If you have been blessed by the message of this podcast, we would deeply appreciate your support by donating to our mission of spreading God’s plan for intimate marriage and holy sexuality.
Join us at Patreon: www.patreon.com/intimatecovenant
Consider a one-time gift: www.intimatecovenant.com/donate
www.intimatecovenant.com
Intimate Covenant | Matt & Jenn Schmidt
In this episode, Matt & Jenn reminisce over some of the highlights of this year's annual Marriage Retreat and share a segment from the live Q&A session, including:
We also want to thank our sponsors for contributing to the success of this year's Retreat:
Join us next year in The Woodlands, TX, September 19-21, 2024!!!
To send your comments, questions and suggestions, go to our website: www.intimatecovenant.com/podcast and click on the button: “Contact the Podcast” for an ANONYMOUS submission form. Or, send an email: podcast@intimatecovenant.com
Thanks for sharing, rating, reviewing and subscribing!
Cherishing,
Matt & Jenn
PS — If you have been blessed by the message of this podcast, we would deeply appreciate your support by donating to our mission of spreading God’s plan for intimate marriage and holy sexuality.
Join us at Patreon: www.patreon.com/intimatecovenant
Consider a one-time gift: www.intimatecovenant.com/donate
www.intimatecovenant.com
Intimate Covenant | Matt & Jenn Schmidt
Hey, jen want to talk about the 2023 annual marriage retreat Definitely Great. Today, we're going to share some segments from our live Q&A session, including questions about sexual frequency, how to get over being embarrassed to try new things, and dealing with a distracted spouse. Let's do it. Welcome to the Intimate Covenant podcast, where we believe the Bible and Great Married Sex both belong on your kitchen table. That's right. We're talking about holy covenant-bound intimate relationships with hot sex.
Speaker 2:We're Madden Jen, founders of Intimate Covenant. We offer biblical teaching and resources to help married couples achieve a fuller relationship and an extraordinary sex life. For more information, visit our website, IntimateCovenantcom.
Speaker 1:Welcome, friends.
Speaker 2:Welcome. Thanks for joining us. And here we are sounding relaxed because our annual marriage retreat is over.
Speaker 1:We're in the books 2023 in the books.
Speaker 2:We feel both a sense of relaxed because it's over, but also like, oh, it's over.
Speaker 1:Always, I know, always bittersweet. It's always bittersweet to say goodbye to all of our friends who join us every year, new friends, old friends. We just have such a great time this weekend and it is always sad to see it pass. But, like you said, we are relieved that the work is over, at least for this year, and now we can maybe take a little sigh of breath and start planning for next year at some point we don't let ourselves plan ahead too far, quite yet.
Speaker 1:We need about a month, and there's always work to do, including the podcast. So here we are.
Speaker 2:But we do want to just take a moment with this episode and kind of enjoy the success of this retreat, Share with you guys a little bit about what we experienced and then obviously share some of the Q&A.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's always a highlight, always an enjoyable time, and we had some great questions again this year, so we definitely wanted to share some of that with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but before we get to that, a huge, huge thank you. First to Justin and JL Gerhardt. Justin is the amazing talent behind the Holy Ghost Stories podcast. Jl is there too, because she's the editor.
Speaker 1:She's helping put all of her together.
Speaker 2:I did take a chance to take an opportunity to say that to her like thank you, because I know what it is to be a little bit more of the behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:She's doing some good work, for sure.
Speaker 2:They are a phenomenal couple. It was just an incredible joy that weekend to get to be with them.
Speaker 1:Just a privilege a privilege to get to know them, a privilege to be immersed in their presence and really enjoy that and really to benefit from their talent and wisdom as well. We had them join us for one of the panel conversations and they had so much great information to share with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're doing such great work themselves and I just don't know that. I even have words yet for how amazing that Thursday night live storytelling event was. He told the story of Ruth and Boaz in such a dynamic way. He's done Ruth and Boaz on his podcast, but this was so. When just asked me today, was it the exact same? And I was like no, obviously it's the same story.
Speaker 1:Same story, but this was 90 minutes of just an immersive, incredible moving experience.
Speaker 2:It was so good. I don't have words still, I'm just so sorry for those of y'all that missed out. It was just a once in a lifetime opportunity and it was such a great way to start the retreat because then we moved into with material of our retreat on really looking in depth at married couples in the Bible and lessons we could learn from their marriages. So it's just a fantastic start to that.
Speaker 1:It was a great storytelling experience all across the board, starting with Justin and Jail doing the, and I guess we should also thank Mary Grace, who also was the cellist who came and performed with them.
Speaker 2:We had a live cellist.
Speaker 1:Yes, we had added quite an experience, but it just tied everything together. We talked about these stories from the Old and New Testaments of other marriages, and we also had the couples there tell their own stories to one another in some of the exercises that we worked through together. So I think it was just a great overall experience of really we got down to covenant stories and what that's all about.
Speaker 2:It was really a fun, fun retreat. A fun, a different way to approach the material, and I think it was great and we loved it.
Speaker 1:We had a great time.
Speaker 2:And just if you are not listening to Holy Ghost Stories podcast. I mean, I know we just kept saying that.
Speaker 1:Add it to your playlist.
Speaker 2:You've got to add this to your playlist. It's just phenomenal. And again, just thank you to Justin and Jail for all of their hard work and for what they're doing in the kingdom themselves.
Speaker 1:Really truly good work, good workers and thanks. Certainly Thank you also to our sponsors. We had a good number of sponsors who really made some significant contributions to the retreat by providing welcome gifts to our attendees. Some of these sponsors provided some fabulous door prizes. Just in general, a great amount of support.
Speaker 2:So Jay Parker of Hot, holy and Humorous, who all of our loyal listeners will recognize her name. She was a guest speaker at last year's retreat. We've actually interviewed her on our podcast, and she has interviewed me and us on her podcast as well, and Jay Parker is just a really, really fabulous author blogger, all about Christian married sex. That's someone you need to add into your your reading list.
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 2:All of her books we highly recommend, and so she was one of our retreat sponsors, which was great we also had Ultimate Intimacy.
Speaker 1:Ultimate Intimacy is a marriage and intimacy app. It's a smartphone app. Look it up, download it. Ultimate Intimacy it's a marriage and intimacy app that is clean, it's non-graphic, but it is so much fun. Lots and lots of resources just on the app Dozens of different articles, different information. There's even several games that you can play with your spouse.
Speaker 2:A secure way to communicate with your spouse. Yes, separate from text messaging. I don't know, you could probably find something fun to do with that if you use your imagination. But yes, they are very marriage focused. And then they also sell products to help strengthen and enhance your emotional and physical intimacy, spice up your relationship. We particularly highly recommend their conversation starters, which is a card deck. They do have conversation starters within their app, but we also highly recommend getting their card deck.
Speaker 1:The card deck is a great way to take the cards. You don't have to get your phone out to use the card, so you can do this on date without being a distracted. So it's a great way, great tool there and a resource that's ultimate intimacy. Thanks also to Married Dance. Marrieddancecom is a Christian friendly, marriage centered sex toy and marital aid store for couples, designed for couples, and all of their products are displayed on their website in a nudity free and in a marriage centered way. Lots of great resources there as well. At MarriedDancecom, in fact, brent, who is the owner and operator of that website, he and his wife. They even included us as one of those resources.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were actually just looking on their website to make sure we had current information and clicked around a little bit and found a link to our podcast.
Speaker 1:And so that was an exciting find Married. Dance has been a longtime supporter of Intimate Covenant and we appreciate the efforts that they are doing to provide a marriage centered way to add a little fun into your marriage if that's what you're looking for, and I think Married Dance has been a sponsor for our retreat every year. So again, just a shout out to marrieddancecom we certainly appreciate their support and their loyalty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another one of our sponsors was Coco New. Coco New is a company that is dedicated to helping couples increase their capacity for connection, intimacy and pleasure by providing high quality organic lubricants. So, family run business based out of Utah doing great things, themselves makers of really great lubricants.
Speaker 1:Yes, very. Several different varieties. Yeah, very high quality. Several different choices there. Check out Coco New. That's C-O-C-O-N-U. Coco New.
Speaker 2:And then Dating Divas. Dating Divas has also been a longtime sponsor of. Intimate Covenant. I had to think about what our name was. I was like, uh uh, Intimate.
Speaker 1:Covenant is who we are.
Speaker 2:Dating Divas is a sponsor. Dating Divas is out to strengthen marriages one date at a time. They have a website that is chocked full of great date night ideas and resources to just help make your dating life fun.
Speaker 1:I don't know how people can be that creative. I'm glad that there are people that creative. They are incredibly creative. They have so many different kinds of resources, even some apps to help you figure out what to do on date night.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was one of the door prize offerings was a free one of their neat apps. That is all about. How do we figure out?
Speaker 1:what to do on date. So again, so many great options there. Check them out. Dating Divas.
Speaker 2:And speaking of highly creative, another sponsor was Adventure Challenge. They joined with us again this year. They are the makers of the best selling scratch off adventure books. These are very, very popular books. Um, and specifically we highly recommend their couples edition, which is full of scratch off date night adventures. Really really neat book that gives you lots of different ideas and things to do.
Speaker 1:It's a fun way, kind of a little surprises here and there, you don't know what's coming next. It's like a choose your own adventure.
Speaker 2:You scratch it off For all of us who read choose your own adventure books. In the 80s, this is what you should be doing on your date night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:And then they also have the in bed edition which is scratch off bedroom activities.
Speaker 1:Yes, so you can imagine what that might be like as well. Great products, great people, and again we appreciate their support as well. We're going to put links to all of these in the show notes so that you, if you want to get in touch with these great companies, you have that option, if what we're describing sounds like fun and their products are all high quality and lots of fun. And again we appreciate their support. But we also would encourage you to check, check these companies out. If we didn't believe in these companies, we wouldn't ask them to partner with us.
Speaker 2:So right and we're just very thankful to all of these companies for their support this year. And just you know, it really helps make the retreat that much better to have all these nice welcome gifts and the door prizes and just add a whole other level of enjoyment and fun.
Speaker 1:Yes, and there is certainly one other thank you that we need to add to that, and that is to our Lovers Club and to our Patreon subscribers. Lovers Club, you know who you are. This is a very select group of individuals who support us in a number of ways, including emotionally and mentally and spiritually sometimes, but even those who have helped with significant financial contributions or other substantial sacrifices of time and energy. Thank you to our Lovers Club. Thanks to our Lovers Club, this year we were able to sponsor 11 scholarships to the retreat.
Speaker 2:We love that. That's just tremendous. We understand that the retreat isn't necessarily something every couple can afford financially every year. To be able to give away some scholarships like that solely thanks to the Lovers Club and the generosity of these couples who find great value in adding worth to it so.
Speaker 1:Lovers Club. You know who you are Patreon subscribers. Again, we just are humbled every month when the Patreon sends us a payment, and just purely from the generosity of our Patreon subscribers who believe in this work and who want to partner with us. It really is so meaningful to us and has helped us to keep the equipment up to date, keep the website subscriptions up to date, keep everything as we need it to be, so that we can continue to do what we're doing Keep the doors open and the lights on.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's exactly right. It is just a lot of fun to see. Five dollars is maybe a small donation for most of us in a monthly budget kind of idea, but the five dollars adding up and then coming to help us, that means so much. So for as little as five dollars, you can support us via Patreon and it really means a lot.
Speaker 1:It is a huge monthly boost for us and just so meaningful.
Speaker 2:Helping us do intimate covenant even bigger and better.
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean that's the goal, right, so thank you for that. If all of this sounds like fun and, trust me, the retreat weekend is so much fun Our 2024 dates have been.
Speaker 3:Do we have a drum roll.
Speaker 1:I don't have any drums, but the 2024 retreat dates are going to be September 19th through the 21st. We're already.
Speaker 2:Write it in your calendars. Write it down In pen.
Speaker 1:Write it down. Get the babysitters lined up now. Make this happen September 19th through the 21st of 2024.
Speaker 2:We'll be doing it again.
Speaker 1:Here in the Woodlands Texas, again right outside North Houston. The weekend will open almost certainly on February 14th, like it does every year. Valentine's Day Seems fitting. We'll start the registration at that point and you'll have your opportunity to jump in and be a part of the retreat next year.
Speaker 2:That's right. So if you miss this year's retreat, then now's the perfect time to start planning for next year. You will not regret the time and the money that you spend investing in your marriage, and I mean, it's just a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:It's. It was a blast. I don't know how we're going to top this year, but we'll think of something and we have a year to figure that out. I guess right. But like Jen said, you will never regret investing in your marriage. I think that's just a universal truth and you know who doesn't require you to invest.
Speaker 2:Oh no, who's that?
Speaker 1:Open Door Financial Advisors, of course, derek Finley, our good friend Derek. At Open Door Financial Advisors, you can contact Derek. You should contact Derek at OpenDoorFAcom and his group there. Do not require investments. They don't require a minimum amount to work with him. You don't have to have billions of dollars to invest to get his wise and experienced financial advice. So again, we recommend Derek every time on the podcast and it's not just because we have this contractual obligation with Derek. We love Derek, we believe in Derek, we appreciate what he has done for us personally and we sincerely recommend him to you. Open Door Financial Advisors where finances meet faith and family, opendoorfacom.
Speaker 1:And now we're going to share some of the segments from our Q&A session. Some great questions. We definitely didn't have time to get to all of them and we're not going to have time to even share all of them with you on this episode. We picked out some that I think you're going to enjoy and hopefully learn from. As always, if you have questions for us, we would love to hear from you. You can reach us at send us an email at podcast at intimatecovenantcom, or go to our website intimatecovenantcom slash podcast and click on the button contact the podcast for an anonymous submission form if you would prefer to remain anonymous. Either way, we'd love to hear you and either way, we are so glad that you are with us this week. Enjoy the rest of the show. This next question is I have ideas of things to try with or for my husband, but end up getting too embarrassed to follow through. How do I get rid of the shame I feel around sex?
Speaker 2:A lot of us have grown up in a home or in a church environment or just a community where sex is just cloaked in silence and shame. I think you all know that is a place where we saw a need.
Speaker 2:It's why we became known as the sex couple Never the intent, but here we are, we recognize that there's a lot of silence, and what has happened from that silence is that so many of us have just attached a lot of shame, all things having to pertain about sex. That's magnified by the fact that we're living in a world. Satan, who knows the power of sex as it should be, has done a tremendously good job of taking that and spinning it for his own purposes. But do you know what we, as God's people, have done? We've handed over to him what is not his? He didn't create sex, god did, and he created it for a specific reason and a specific purpose, and there is beauty in that.
Speaker 2:So number one step in getting over the shame within your own heart is start telling yourself the truth. Tell yourself the truth, as God has told it, about the purpose of sex and your sexuality as a whole. Whether you're ever married or not, whether you ever have married sex or not, you are created a sexual being for a reason, and the work that we do with us singles, we work really hard on helping them see there is a reason to have sexuality even outside of married sex. So, number one, it has to be stop being afraid of sexuality as a whole.
Speaker 2:I think when you start doing that internal work, it starts changing the script, it starts making you be more willing to be vulnerable when you stop seeing your sexuality as shame, you start to see that this is a gift. From there you can grow into a place of it's, a gift meant to be shared with my beloved. So I'm gonna do the hard thing, I'm gonna put words to it or I'm gonna put actions to it. Now, if you're married to someone who has a hard time and who you know is fighting that battle, you can fight that battle with them by showing up with praise and gratitude. So often.
Speaker 2:You know this is kind of a question that would be coming probably from someone who's a responder. They're not the one initiating sexual encounters. A pursuer has to recognize that when a responder initiates anything new, that is a place of incredible vulnerability for them. You have to be there to meet that with praise and gratitude. Even when that's just a teeny 90th thing, it's just a teeny bit different than what they've done before. Meet it with praise and gratitude, do not meet it with great.
Speaker 1:How about this?
Speaker 2:next, all you're going to do is send that responder flying and hiding again. So, I think, challenge yourself to do the hard work to get rid of the shame, but then start being willing to be vulnerable.
Speaker 1:And I think some of that leaning into vulnerability might start in a lot of ways with just what is the worst that could happen. What's the worst that could happen? I mean, if you are married to a reasonable person who actually loves you what's the worst that's going to happen? You might feel silly or something might go amiss or it might get messy or whatever it might be. And then what? They're not leaving. They're not going to make fun of you, you won't die in that moment because it didn't go.
Speaker 2:You're not living Hollywood and then stop expecting that. If you go forward, then guess what? Now you have a story.
Speaker 1:Remember the time that I thought it would be a great idea to show up at the door wrapped in saranah.
Speaker 2:Just kidding it comes from a movie. I didn't actually do that, so again, it still fulfills.
Speaker 1:Even if it doesn't go like you planned, it still fulfills the purpose of sex, which is not some physical outcome, it is connection. And so now, even that embarrassment is a point of connection. What's the towel for you wanted to give to?
Speaker 3:you a yeah, oh yeah, all right, you know what the towel is for.
Speaker 1:But here's, I think, an important lesson. Sex is messy, Is it not? I mean and I mean that in a literal sense, but I also mean it metaphorically there is often a mess that needs to be cleaned up, and the other thing that's important to remember is that if you have a big preparation and you have a towel next to the bed, it's not three doors down. Now you have an opportunity to make the most of that opportunity. You don't have to leave the moment. You don't have to leave the room in order to still stay in the moment.
Speaker 2:A couple of retreats ago, we really dwelt on the power of afterglow and we really spent a good amount of time talking about that. Too often we share our sexual experience together and we're incredibly vulnerable together with our bodies physically and if you're doing it right, you've been incredibly vulnerable together emotionally and spiritually and then we immediately throw up the walls and we hide from one another.
Speaker 1:We rush off to clean up.
Speaker 2:We've missed the place of where the real power can and should be happening, because, again, the goal isn't that pleasure moment, the goal isn't the orgasm, the goal is the connection we're trying to give you, even like practical, tangible things, to help you stay in the moment of connection and recognize that's where the real power can come from. So use your towel, don't leave that us. I'm just trying to say.
Speaker 3:So you know what I'm just trying to say.
Speaker 1:I mean really, it's marketing genius. In that blissful moment you can think, oh, we are so grateful to manage this.
Speaker 3:We should have sent a check or something else.
Speaker 2:We should have our pantry on membership right now.
Speaker 1:What's a reasonable sex frequency per week for a male? I want to support my husband but honestly don't want to do as often as he, especially when he's working out. Is that a bit I should start? All right, man, there's a lot of time to hack into this question. But what is a reasonable sex frequency per week for a male? That is, to general, the question for me to give any kind of reasonable expectation, I think this depends a little bit on what you think is reasonable. But the real question, I think the real answer needs to come from what does that mean to your husband? He's the one who can answer that question best. I can't answer that question. Or will I answer that question more than there are so many different factors, apparently working out, but also other factors like age and the season of his life and medical issues, or whatever else the stress he's under at work or other work.
Speaker 3:Why do we have?
Speaker 1:to define this by week. Why can't we define this by day or hour? So there's ways to define this, to say that I think and we get asked.
Speaker 1:This is a question like everybody wants to know this, like how often should we be having sex? And again, that depends on what your goals are. I think you should be having sex as often as is indicated for the time in your life and the moment where you are at in your relationship, but ultimately should be having sex enough so that you are connecting in the most effective way. There is a limit to how much you can have sex and how well that's going to offer connection. You see, these challenges like all the time, even well-intentioned challenges like have sex every day for a month it will change your life, maybe, but by day 15 or 18 you're like how am I going to get myself ready for this? How am I going to get in the mood for this? And then it's now, it's sure. And so does that help strengthen your relationship? I don't know, maybe it might for you, but is there benefit in having sex for 30 days in a row? Maybe, but what if you come to resent it? So it needs to be a conversation, like husband of mine, what? How can we together make this decision about? It's not about having sex enough so that you keep them from having any sexual thoughts. Good luck with that.
Speaker 1:The point is, how can we have enough sex so that we are both connecting well every time and we're not getting to a point where we're drifting apart too much during that interval? That's the question I would have. I would want you to have is a couple, it's not like how many times do I get them off so that he stops thinking about other women? If that's your goal, you miss the point and you're not going to accomplish that. The goal is how many times can we have sex in a way that, mutually, is beneficial to the connection and the level of connection that needs to happen in our marriage and to maintain that, how can we have sex in a way that that afterglow lasts more than 30 seconds. The afterglow lasts for days. How can we connect in a way that we are taking that with us through the week?
Speaker 2:On the end of this question is you know?
Speaker 3:I don't want to as often as he does.
Speaker 2:That's going to be true for all of your marriages. There is always one who would want it more than You're two different people, you have two different desire levels. There will be seasons in your life where that might even switch. Who wants it more than the other? We're kind of programming to see that as a problem, but I would challenge you instead to see that as that's a place that encourages you toward connection, toward conversation about this. We tend to think like if we would just want it both the same amount, life would be easy, maybe. But maybe we're missing the point in that Because, again, this is about connection. It's not about just meeting some kind of physical need. It's about seeking connection as a couple. And so there will be different desire levels. Own that that doesn't mean one of you is broken and one of you is perfect, and if you're in that kind of a marriage, you got to change your language, you got to change the way that you're looking at it.
Speaker 2:You will have times where there's different desire levels, but that should be times that, instead of letting that drive you apart, that needs to be driving you towards more conversation together and you need to both come to that conversation with not I want to make sure I get my way X number of times, but I want to hear the heart of my spouse. How many times does give us that place of good connection? My wife is a master at multitasking. Often I feel like she uses multitasking to avoid really focusing on us Me. How to help her focus on us Me Time to time.
Speaker 1:Having a spouse that that is distracted from you or not feeling like you are the focus of their attention Is certainly is difficult and it feels like rejection. Whether they are intentionally avoiding you or not is not always the issue. What is the issue is that it feels like I'm being rejected. That's something else Someone else's problems, or the PTO meeting or the HOA board or whatever it is that they're part of the homeschooling group, whatever it is. Sometimes that thing that your wife is doing or your spouse is doing that is otherwise important Writing retreat material or podcast material is also a distraction from my spouse and what they are looking for and what they might need from me, and when I'm not getting that attention, it feels like they're rejecting me.
Speaker 1:I think this question, without knowing more details about the relationship, it's hard to answer exactly, because maybe they are avoiding you, maybe that is their method of avoiding you, because there may be some relational issue that is driving them away. Your husband is working 18 hour days, 7 days a week. Maybe it's because he's a really good provider, or maybe he just hates me at home because you're there. I don't know what the answer is to that question exactly. Sometimes that's a conversation that doesn't always come back down to this. This is a conversation you need to have. It needs to be. I need to come to my spouse in that situation and say I don't feel as important to you as this other thing. Or I don't feel like during these times of the day that myself and or our kids have your full attention, whatever it might be. Maybe it's multitasking, maybe it's I don't feel as important as your phone when you get home from work. Or I don't feel as important as this Netflix show, whatever it is and sometimes I'm willing to bet most of the time.
Speaker 1:your spouse has no idea that you feel that way and they would be a guess that their actions have even made you feel that way. I think it's worth giving them the benefit of the dollar in that case and then offer them the chance to make that right. So let's solve this thing together. It's not going to be helpful if you say you know you're a terrible person and you hate our kids and you hate me because you're doing this. That's not. That's some right-wing approach. It, the right-wing approach is this seems to be a problem for us. How can we fix it? What can we do? How can I make it easier for you? What sort of accountability do we want to set up for ourselves? What are some ways that we can make this a better situation for us?
Speaker 2:But it has to be a conversation. This can't be just a place where you allow yourself to build resentment, don't? We often do that? There's something we need to address with our spouse, but because we know that'll be a hard conversation, we just let it sit there, and we let it sit there in such a way that it builds resentment in our heart.
Speaker 1:It builds resentment because we're telling I mean, even the question is often I feel like she uses multitasking to avoid really focusing on us or me. You're telling yourself a story here that you don't know is true, and if you keep telling yourself that story, that's what you're going to believe. And it may not be true. It may just be that your spouse is unaware.
Speaker 2:It may be that she's incredibly busy because you're doing nothing to help. It may be that you need to see that dishes do actually have to get done. Kids do have to get put in bed. Whatever it is that she's multitasking over, some of it may be unnecessary.
Speaker 2:But maybe it's also you're needing to see, instead of just for me. It's how can I help? And the point is, turn this into how can we together create a home environment that is, first and foremost, a place that we are each other's priority. I'm an excellent multitasker and I'm excellent at I used to be really excellent at not saying no.
Speaker 3:The older I get, the easier to know it's coming.
Speaker 2:That's the beauty of mid-40s. I'm like I was going to tell you no, I don't know if I can give you a reason. I'm now being I'm just, I'm not.
Speaker 3:But sometimes it's. If you're that way, if you're that multitasker, you've got to challenge yourself.
Speaker 2:Your husband is your priority. He is your covenant Take all of those daily. That's easy to say in this great big way and then really hard when we look at the daily details that we allow to fill our time, fill our space, fill our emotional energies. That aren't, they shouldn't be that priority. So, multitaskers, unite by challenging ourselves. Do you really need to have that on your plate?
Speaker 1:I was taught sexual humor is crude jesting in quotes, but I've noticed it on the podcast. Jim calls you, matthew. When you do it, what sexual humor is appropriate? I think I don't want to read too much into this, nor do I want to be critical of the person who's asking, because they at least didn't have the vulnerability to ask. So just because something is sexual does not make it crude or coarse. Just because it's sexual doesn't mean it's wrong and hush hush. What makes it crude and coarse is if I treat sex as if it is coarse and crude and profane. I mean, look, sex sometimes is funny.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you do stuff that isit didn't turn out like I hoped it would and all you can do is laugh about it. Sometimes it's messy. That's why we gave you a towel right. Sometimes it's just things are going to happen and it's not always going to turn out the way that you think it should or would. But that doesn't make it crude. I'm about to get on a soapbox, so I don't want to get too many steps up this soapbox, but it makes me so frustrated and angry when I hear people talk about dirty talk. Don't have dirty talk in your marriage, because sex is not dirty. It's not dirty. Have sexy talk, don't have dirty talk. Just remove thatif you're talking about something dirty, you should not be doing that. But talking about sex is not dirty.
Speaker 2:Just recognize where that comes from. And again, that's coming from that place of shame that we have cloaked sexuality.
Speaker 1:So is there a line, though, I mean, is there a line where it goes from talking about sex in a sanctified and holy way? Is there a line that becomes crude? Of course, absolutely. That's why you'll never hear on the podcast any hints or mention about what we specifically view or don't. Do you think you know? You have no idea, you don't and you won't. We're not going to share that with our friends, we're not going to share that in any sense. You don't know, you can wonder, and okay, that's fine, that's the risk that we have taken in doing what we do, but you don't know and you don't know what the couple sitting next to you does or doesn't think I hope they're not sharing you and you should not be sharing with them.
Speaker 2:But just because you're choosing silence when it comes to the sacredness of what you are sharing together in your marriage bed doesn't mean that you have to cloak all of sexuality in silence. Do you see the difference? What if we, together, as God's people, started proclaiming the incredible joy and beauty and peace found within great married sex? Do you think that would change the world we're living in?
Speaker 1:I know Of all of the people, God's people ought to be proclaiming how amazing this plan is.
Speaker 2:We are actually the ones having the best sex, but Satan's telling a different story and we're letting him win, because sex is a relationship, not an act, not a position whatever it is Sex, is your relationship, it is what you build emotionally, spiritually and physically together. That's the gift of sex that he has given us. So talk about sex. Talk about sex in right and holy ways. If you're a person who uses humor, throw in a little bit of humor with your sex talk, but do it in a way that still glorifies.
Speaker 2:So when I say Matthew, it's not because I think that he has crossed a line, it's kind of actually our little talk between the two of us. He pushes the boundary. I'll push back with the Matthew and this is the game we play. But I trust, I know and I trust that his talking about sex, his humor even about sex, will always be in a way that still brings glory to the gift that God has given our marriage.
Speaker 2:It will never be with me. As the butt of the joke, never. So my Matthews are. You can relax and I call them Matthews.
Speaker 3:I think it's a special Matthew.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us. Thank you for sticking with us through that Q&A session. Hopefully, again you learned something and our responses were helpful to you. Certainly, we would also love to hear feedback from you. If there's something that we just didn't clarify or you have a better response to some of these questions, that would certainly be helpful to us and we would love to be able to share that with all of our listeners. We'd love to hear your feedback. Contact us by emailing podcast at intimatecovenantcom or go to the website intimatecovenantcom slash podcast to submit an anonymous submission form. Thanks again to Derek and Open Door Financial Advisors for sponsoring this podcast. You can contact Open Door at opendoorfacom, where finances meet faith and family.
Speaker 2:Thanks to all of you for listening, subscribing, rating and sharing the podcast. We're truly humbled by all of your encouragement and support. Thanks, especially to our Patreon subscribers for coming alongside us in a very real way. We love you and if you would like to join Intimate Covenant by supporting the podcast and our greater mission to share God's plan for intimate marriage and holy sexuality, you can do that by subscribing at patreoncom. Slash intimate covenant.
Speaker 1:Until next time, keep striving and don't settle.