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Intimate Covenant Podcast
Intimate Covenant Podcast
Marriage Retreat Live Q&A - keeping secrets; defining virginity; aging; and more... [180]
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What happens when a room full of couples asks the questions most people are afraid to say out loud? We lean into the hard stuff: purity culture hangovers, what “counts” as sex, how to tell the truth without breaking trust, and how aging bodies can still enjoy rich, connected intimacy. Recorded live at our Intimate Covenant Marriage Retreat, this candid Q&A blends biblical wisdom, practical tools, and warm honesty to help you move from silence and shame to clarity and closeness.
Ready to invest in your marriage? Subscribe, share this episode with your spouse, and register for our September retreat when doors open on February 14th.
Warning: We cover necessary and important topics about the marriage relationship and sex. We use frank language without being crude or crass. Our approach is biblical and wholesome, but not intended for singles — especially not for children.
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Cherishing,
Matt & Jenn
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Intimate Covenant | Matt & Jenn Schmidt
Welcome
SPEAKER_03Hey Jim, want to answer live questions from the 2025 Intimate Covenant Marriage Retreat?
SPEAKER_00I can't think of anything better. Great.
SPEAKER_03Today on the Pummit Camps, we're answering questions from the Intimate Covenant Marriage Retreat, and we are so happy to be joined by all of our friends.
SPEAKER_02Welcome, friends.
SPEAKER_00Welcome. We're Madden Jim, and this is the Intimate Covenant Podcast.
SPEAKER_02Where we believe the Bible and great married sex both belong on the kitchen table. That's right, we're talking about godly marriage with hot sex and emotionally fulfilling oneness. Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're glad you're here. If you'd like to learn more about us, you can visit our website at intimatecovenant.com. And we would always love to hear from you. You can email us at podcast at intimatecovenant.com.
SPEAKER_02If you're new to the podcast, thanks for joining us, as Jen said. And uh just so that you know, New Year, maybe we have some new listeners. Uh just to let you know, we are here. We are talking about marriage, uh, specifically in the podcast because of the uniqueness of this medium. Uh, we use this opportunity to speak mostly about the uh we'll call it the intimacy of marriage, as some call it. However, uh, just to be plain and frank, we're talking about sex. We're talking about married sex, but we also want you to know this is not just a sex podcast. This is about looking at the whole relationship and how that impacts the sexual relationship, and how does the sexual relationship impact the whole relationship?
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Um so we're using this uh this venue because uh you're not looking in my eyes, I'm not looking in your eyes.
SPEAKER_00And it's a little bit more of a private medium for us to dive into these hard topics that frankly we don't often talk about. Um, and if you're curious, Matt and I don't just talk about married sex. Um, at a lot of our live events, people will come up to us and say, Oh, that wasn't like just sitting and listening to a podcast. And that's what I thought it would be. No. But again, the podcast is a great place in which we can dive into um some of these questions that we just really don't know how to how to ask the questions or in what setting. And and especially though, know that this podcast is going to not just tell you details of how to do things. That's not our goal. Our goal is to look at topics about married sex through the lens of God's word and how to have a conversation within your marriage about those things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, a conversation that maximizes the oneness and the intimacy and the closeness in your marriage and strengthens your marriage uh in every respect.
SPEAKER_00So thanks for joining us. Glad you're here. If you've been here all along, thanks for being here. And hey, happy new year!
SPEAKER_02Hey, happy new year. First episode of the new year. Thanks for your patience in uh allowing us to get through the chaos of the holidays to get this uh new episode out to you. Um, as many of you know, every year in Houston, we host our big annual marriage retreat in September.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's three days of fellowship, relaxation, fun, and we hope that you feel it is challenging marriage-centered conversations that we encourage, all intended to help Christians renew, refresh, and recenter focus on their relationships.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and at the retreat, just like at every live event that we do, we open up the opportunity for participants to ask questions. Any question about marriage or sex. Some questions that we get asked are specific to the content of that weekend, and some are not.
SPEAKER_00Right. We provide a way in which people can ask questions anonymously. Um, and then we take those questions, we read them. Nobody in the room knows who asked what question. Um, but we can read them and we can answer them live on the spot. Doesn't that sound fun for everybody? Yep.
SPEAKER_02Extemporaneous sex questions by Jen.
SPEAKER_00Just exactly what I thought I would be doing with my life. That's exactly right. So for this episode, we want to share some of those questions and our responses. Um, and we hope and think that you'll be challenged and encouraged by these.
SPEAKER_02But before we get to the questions and answers, uh, we want to let you know, as we mentioned uh in the last couple of episodes, there is still an opportunity to book a 2026 marriage enrichment event in your community. We want to meet you. We want to meet other people like you. We want to meet like-minded Christians who want to focus uh on their marriage. We want to come to your community. And uh we we have received a lot of interest, and there are definitely some plans that are in the works for some new trips to new locations and hoping to be able to give you some solid announcements on a couple of those uh events, hopefully in the near future.
SPEAKER_00Okay, we're really excited by um these that are that are in the works because frankly, Matt and I love to travel. We do love to travel, we love to travel, and we're pretty much empty nesters these days. So, you know, why not travel, right?
SPEAKER_02So we have some freedom. We want this year to be different than last year, and so we want to get out there and spread God's word and spread God's message for holy sexuality and intimate marriage.
SPEAKER_00And get to meet you.
SPEAKER_02We want to hug you.
SPEAKER_00So, in light of that, we are still willing to waive our speaking fees. Um, that is something that we have just decided to offer right now as a way to kind of incentivize um bringing us. Um, we recognize that sometimes money is a factor in trying to plan a marriage day or marriage weekend. Um, and so we're trying to really cut down on that just because, again, our goal is to just do as many of these in 2026 as as we possibly can.
Valentine’s Affiliates And Discounts
SPEAKER_02If you can get us there and you can provide us with a venue and some people to speak to, we will get there. We won't charge you our regular speaking fees. Um, we just want to get out there and meet you. So if you're interested, reach out to us. Feedback at intimatecovenant.com uh and we'll get the rope, but we'll get the ball rolling.
SPEAKER_00As we release this episode here towards the end of January, we recognize that a big holiday is coming up. Yes, I know we just passed all of the big holidays, right, Matt? Well, President's Day is a day. That's what you're thinking. Oh, yeah, President's Day is it. Valentine's Day is approaching. All of you husbands, make sure that's on your list.
SPEAKER_02Come on.
SPEAKER_00So, in light of Valentine's Day approaching, we want to go ahead and share with you some affiliates that we know and love their products and put them out there for you as you're considering what to purchase for Valentine's Day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and these companies have been have have sponsored Intimate Covenant uh in the past uh in significant ways. So we want to make sure that you're aware of them and most importantly, maybe most importantly, to some of you that are cheapskates like me, these companies also have uh provided us with discount codes that are exclusive to Intimate Covenant listeners. So if you uh go to our show notes, uh you will find uh listings of these companies and you will find their affiliate uh discount codes. If you use those discount codes, you will receive uh perks and uh special discounts. So uh first, first of all, Mary Dance, um, they are a Christian sex toy company. Uh they've been sponsoring and helping uh promote Intimate Covenant for a very long time. Uh so uh if you're looking for that sort of thing, get on Mary Dance, uh go to MaryDance.com. Uh CocoNew is another uh of our affiliate uh sponsors. Again, they will have a discount code in the show notes.
SPEAKER_00High quality lubrication.
SPEAKER_02There you go. Uh DateYour Spouse.
SPEAKER_00Formerly known as Dating Divas. Some of you that have been around for a while know of dating divas. They have rebranded to DateYour Spouse. Phenomenal resources, a lot of things that you can purchase very cheaply and print at home or put together at home. Just really, really great um resources and ideas that they have on their website.
SPEAKER_02DateyourSpouse.com. Um, and we've partnered with uh that that company uh on a number of different occasions for different projects.
SPEAKER_00And then two kind of newer to us affiliates over the past year or so um Honoring Intimates, high-quality lingerie, um, featured in nudity-free website intended to shop together with your beloved. Um and then another similar company, great company, is Ginger and Peach. Um, both of those offering beautiful pieces. Um, and and you can be assured that when you go to their website, you're not gonna see anything you don't want to see.
SPEAKER_02Right. Just mannequins at most. Many of them are just displayed simply by themselves. Um so again, all great companies, all deserve your attention. Uh, if you're shopping for something a little bit romantic or even on the spicy side uh for Valentine's Day, you would do well to check out those uh sponsors. Go to our show notes, find their um links and websites and discount codes, and you'll be glad that you did.
Retreat Registration Opens On 2/14
SPEAKER_00You know what else happens on Valentine's Day, Matt?
SPEAKER_02Um I didn't think we were talking about that on the podcast.
SPEAKER_00Not that. I'm referring to retreat registration. Aren't you funny?
SPEAKER_02Yes, uh retreat registration. Our 2026 retreat, as we mentioned, happens at the end of September. Uh but it does what uh what is happening now is that registration is going to open on February 14th. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Always on Valentine's Day. Always on Valentine's Day. Open up registration for the coming year's retreat. So if you want to jump it and get on it and uh buy your spouse the most incredible Valentine's Day gift you could get them, you can plan to go ahead and register for the retreat that year. That day.
SPEAKER_02And you should know, if you don't already know, that uh the retreat tends to sell out. Yeah, we're gonna sell out way before September. Um, and so you are going to want to register as soon as you can for a$200 deposit. You can register on February 14th. Reserve your spot, lock yours lock yourself in so that you can uh make sure that you get the hotel rooms that you want, make sure that you can get everything booked. You have plenty of time to get a babysitter, uh, get get that date locked in. It's the best Valentine's Day gift you will be able to get your spouse.
SPEAKER_00That's right, because it is the most amazing weekend of the year. This year, 2026 dates for the retreat are September 24th through the 26th. That's the last full weekend of September. Um, and you never know what the Houston weather will be, but we're hoping, we're hoping it'll be a beautiful fall weekend. Let's all imagine that together.
SPEAKER_02It won't be August, so it it will at least be better.
SPEAKER_00It'll at least be better than that.
SPEAKER_02And and it won't be an ice storm like we have just recently suffered as well.
SPEAKER_00The entire country is under that at the moment. Uh the retreat always happens here in the Houston area, the woodlands to be specific. So it's kind of the northwest Houston area. Um, we are again holding the retreat at the City Place Marriott. Um, this will be our sixth year with them. Beautiful venue, great, great staff, great. Um, it's it's just wonderful. Has a beautiful walking area, restaurants nearby, um, super great place. Easy to get to from the airport.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, very simple.
SPEAKER_00You don't even have to rent a car, you can just get on over.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if you don't want a car, you can Uber right to the venue, and then there's plenty of restaurants within walking distance, or you can Uber if you want to have a night out as well. But um, very simple to get to, beautiful place, like Jen said. Um, our theme this year, uh, we're going to revisit, re-imagine, um, redo, uh, revise, upgrade uh a topic.
SPEAKER_00How many re-words can you?
SPEAKER_02I was trying to see what I could come up with. I was digging through the mental thesaurus. But um, we're gonna uh revisit the Song of Songs. Uh we did this as a theme, maybe our second year, our second retreat.
SPEAKER_00So it's better. But we were brand new to planning marriage retreats, so it's gonna be so much better.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So that was like seven years ago or something that that we did this. Uh so uh yeah, we it was a it's great content, but I'm very excited to go back, work through it again, dig out some things that are probably fresh for for me and also hopefully for our listeners and and our audience. So we're really looking forward to it, really digging into scripture, but also just pulling out some of those themes that we might sometimes overlook uh and concentrate and focus on what does what does married, uh, what is the marriage relationship should it look like? How can we celebrate it to the way that the Song of Songs does? And uh how can we help to find some tips in scripture that will help to build the romance in our in our marriages today. So that's what we're really excited to get to do uh and to explore with all of you. So we're looking forward to seeing you guys.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And if you think, oh, I've already heard Matt and Jen present that kind of material before, it's gonna be new. Yeah, it's gonna be all the rees, right? That's right. This will be different. And so back.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and most importantly, our hope in this weekend is to spur on important conversations between you and your spouse. Yeah. And hopefully, and I would expect that these will be conversations that you might never have had. So even if what I present is what we present is old hat to you, the conversations will be something that you have probably never had before. And that's where the real value is.
SPEAKER_00So mark your calendars, calendars for Valentine's Day to get ready to register for the retreat. Okay, so for today's episode, the content comes from the QA session of last fall's retreat, 2025 marriage retreat. We always like to put the QA, some of the questions out there, um, because our fall was just our fall and crazy. Uh-huh. We're doing it in January, but that's okay.
SPEAKER_02That's all right. It it works perfectly because this is a nice segue. I think what what I hope that part of what you get from listening to the QA is that you sort of get into the mood and you feel a sense of the energy that is there, is even in the crowd and the reactions that we're gonna get and that they provide for it. It's so much fun. It's it's a lot of fun. Um, I think you'll get a sense of that even as we um go through the questions, but also just the the impact um from even the quality of the questions that we get. You'll you'll definitely see some of that impact. Um questions that we selected for this episode. We we actually covered, I think, nine or ten questions in that uh whole hour that we spent together, but we selected five questions or five topics from this uh from that episode, including um a question about overcoming the negative effects of purity culture. Uh, we covered a question about defining virginity, um, and also kind of tied to that topic, we we talked about some uh some of the impacts of what are we teaching our kids about sex. Um we answered a question about keeping secrets from my spouse, as we alluded to in the open. And uh we talked about a question about maintaining healthy sexual relationships despite the challenges of aging.
SPEAKER_00That was a good question. I appreciated considering what does it look like to have a sex life as we get older and further into our marriages.
SPEAKER_02Some of us, one of us is having a 50th birthday next week.
SPEAKER_00One of us.
SPEAKER_02So not me. Uh maybe that maybe that question becomes more and more relevant. Maybe that's why we thought it was significant. Um and and also we talked uh about fostering vulnerable relationships among God's people. That was a also a great question.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so many good questions. I do have to give a disclaimer though. You will hear that Matt has not his normal voice because there couldn't be enough challenges, Matt, to to to last year's retreat. There were there were a lot. If you know, you know. Uh, but on top of it all, Matt actually lost his voice that weekend. Um, so that was fun. That was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh Friday night. Friday night was rough. Saturday morning was really bad.
SPEAKER_00It it it was at least listenable. Oh man.
SPEAKER_02So it it yeah. It's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00Please bear with us when you listen to these QA questions. Hopefully, you'll be so enchanted by the content that you won't notice.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I should shout out Mr.
SPEAKER_00Frog voice.
SPEAKER_02I should shout out to Jacob Mock, who is uh a uh just a great friend and such a big help for these weekends with on the technical side of doing all the recording and everything. Uh he did a great job of getting the audio and cleaning it up quite a bit and helping to smooth out some of the uh crowd noise and background noise. And as much good work as Jacob could do with the audio, there was no way to make my voice sound any better than he did. So I can only imagine how bad it would have sounded without his help.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Jacob.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, thanks, Jacob, for getting that uh audio um put together for us and taking care of all the technical details. You I'm just I'm trying to embarrass him because he does not get enough credit for all of the work that he does that weekend. Since running behind the scenes. Thank you, Jacob. Appreciate you.
Healing From Purity Culture
SPEAKER_00Enjoy these questions and let us know your thoughts as you listen to them. What advice do you have for someone from purity culture dealing with negative effects like feeling sex is wrong, despite knowing it's good?
SPEAKER_03It's a great question that gets to the heart of what you know and what your heart tells you. And uh a great question about having to kind of work through and challenge the things that you maybe have always been told, um, and challenge even sometimes your own conscience, which let's be real, our conscience is guided not just by truth, but our conscience is guided by what we let it be guided by. And so sometimes that means that uh what we've always thought was true maybe is not always true. This topic is huge, and that is, of course, why we did a series, a podcast series on this very topic. Um episodes 82 and 83 deal with this topic specifically. Uh so if you're a podcast listener, that's actually one of the great things about this podcast is we can answer questions like this by saying just go to episode whatever.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, listen to that podcast.
What Counts As Virginity
What We Teach Our Kids About Sex
SPEAKER_03Um But I I do think it it at least dirt deserves a reply. So I'll I'll keep it shorter than a two hour response. I I think the main thing that is important in this is to challenge everything. You think you know about sex. If you're coming up against things that you know are not right, but you feel them anyway, that's where you just have to simply dig deeper in knowing and uh emphasizing truth in your own mind. If you want your conscience to be guided by truth, then that's what you have to fill your heart with. So stop taking your preacher's word for it, stop taking your Bible class teacher's word for it, stop taking your parents' word for it. Get in the word and make sure that you know and that you believe and that you are acting on what the truth is. That goes for purity culture, that goes for everything else. Don't take my word for it either. What you believe needs to be grounded in what is true. And only what is true. And uh that kind of gets even to the heart of even the weekend that we've spent here together. Don't take my word for it. I mean, we we've presented some truth that I we've we've read scripture, so you can take that to the bank. But you also I've given you a lot of opinion about what I think the Bible says. Don't take my word for it. If you don't agree with what I have said, and that's perfectly fine, then get your own interpretation of what the Bible says. But your opinion and your interpretation needs to be based solely on truth. And to whatever extent that you can, you need to try to eliminate the influences from other people and other people who may be misguided. If sex is more than intercourse, and I participated in oral and manual sex before marriage, does this mean I actually was not a virgin before marriage? That's a heavy question. I don't think everybody's gonna like my response. I think personally, one of the maybe the primary reason that we have, as a society or even as a church, have tried to limit the definition of sex to intercourse is for this very reason. So that we could justify ourselves in thinking that we were virgins when in reality we probably weren't. I mean, if you walked in on your mom engaging in oral sex with someone who wasn't her husband, would you think that, oh, that's okay? Why? Because they don't belong together and they shouldn't be sharing that. So the truth is, if you engaged in oral and manual sex before marriage, it probably at least in my mind, it means you were perhaps not as, quote, sexually pure as you should have been. But here's the bigger issue. Does that matter? You're all married, so we're past that point. It does matter because it's important. It's not by God's design. The purpose of keeping people pure and sexually chaste before marriage is not just so that they avoid intercourse. The point is they shouldn't be sharing those things before they're married because it's not theirs to share. But just like Jen just said, believe in the power of redemption. Guess what? If you weren't virgins before marriage, you can't change that then what happened then, but you can change the trajectory of where you're going. And where you're headed is far more important than where you've been. Because guess what? None of neither of you, none of you in this room were perfect and sinless before marriage. Does that somehow taint your current situation? Does that change anything about where you are and where you are headed now? No, because of the power of the blood of Jesus. And if you believe that Jesus rose from the dead, if you believe that Jesus has power of life over death, then you can change the trajectory of your marriage. You can resurrect that relationship, you can redeem your past. So were you virgins? It doesn't matter what I think. What matters is are you striving towards oneness and purity in your relationship today?
SPEAKER_00Now the side point to this question is what are we teaching our kids? What are we teaching our kids? When we allow our kids to engage in the dating culture as the world has defined it, that there are things that are, oh, don't do that, but you can come right up as close as possible to that. What are we teaching our kids? Think carefully about that.
SPEAKER_03Yes, we we live in a culture where it is perfectly acceptable, even expected, that 12 and 13 and 14 and even 17-year-old kids should be sharing everything possible with each other, except somehow they're supposed to avoid having intercourse. We set our kids up for failure when we immerse them in that, when we when we live with those expectations that you should we try to pair them up from the time that they're in kindergarten. They come home from their first day of school and we ask them, Do you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend? Like, what are you what are we doing? Why are we putting our kids in these positions? And then expect them to not have intercourse, but don't give them any kind of guidance on how to even navigate a relationship. That's a whole nother that's a whole nother thing. That is that is somebody else's circus.
SPEAKER_00Speaking of, there's a question that says, can we do this every six months? Sure. Who's planning the one in six months? I would love to come to a marriage retreat. So please plan a marriage retreat that I get to come to and be all like all of y'all and go have my cute little conversation and then come back. Yes, tell me tell me when the sign-up goes live. I am in. Until then, I'll see you here next September. That's right.
SPEAKER_03Um this other this next question didn't get a lot of upvotes, but I am intrigued by it.
SPEAKER_00Um We have the power to pick the questions.
SPEAKER_03Um is it ever right to keep things from your spouse? Not the first time we've been asked this question, not the first time that we've even considered this as a couple. Under what circumstances would that ever be the case? I'm assuming that this is referring back to the the conversation that we had yesterday. Uh uh, where if you're going to have intimacy, intimacy means that there are no barriers. That is naked and unashamed. That is the that is the um ideal that is put forward in the garden. And what we said is that when you get married, you lose your right to privacy. And I think that that foundationally that is true. But is there ever a situation in which it would be better for you to keep a secret from your spouse? And what I would say is in almost every case, it's not wise. In almost every case, it's not wise to keep things from your spouse. Now, does my spouse need to know every single detail? Well, let me give you an example. I I leave my house in the morning and I'm gone at work for 10 or 12 hours a day sometimes, often when I leave, when I go to work. Is there any possible way that I could recount to my wife every single thing that happened to me that day, every single conversation that happened to me that day? Is there any way? Of course, I would spend the whole re next 12 hours telling her everything that happened. So am I does that mean I am keeping things from my spouse? No, but the things that I'm keeping from my spouse, she does not care that I did a colonic evacuation on it on a dog yesterday. Nope. She doesn't care.
SPEAKER_00Don't want to know what that is. Don't want to talk about it.
SPEAKER_03So, but but am I keeping a secret from her? No, because by the time I got home from work, I don't even remember what I did most of it. So I'm not, but what if I had a tough day and I had a very difficult conversation with an employee and you know I had to I had to give them bad news or they said something that really hurt my feelings or whatever. And what if on my way home I'm really troubled by this, but I think, man, if I tell my spouse, it's just gonna, if I just, if I tell Jen, it's gonna make her upset, and I don't really want her to have to deal with that. And so I'm just gonna hold this this these bad feelings to myself. You know what? That's a really stupid idea. That's really stupid. Why did you get married if you got married to someone who's too childish or too immature or incapable of dealing with my problems? I can assure you, each of you, you married a grown-up person. They're capable of bearing your burdens. That's what they are there for. Now, am I ne if if I walk in and there's all chaos, and you know, we have four little kids and they're all climbing on top of her and she's trying to get dinner done, that's not the moment to bring up the hard time I had at work. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Jose, oh, you want to talk about that?
Challenges of Aging -- Menopause, Low Libido
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So, yes, there's a time and a place, and there's discretion. But if it's something that troubles me, even as a big, strong, manly man, if it's troubling me, my wife should know about it. That's what she's there for.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I mean, obviously, we have no idea what the questioner means as far as things. You know, what are the things that this person is considering, whether or not they should or shouldn't reveal. Um, you know, when it comes to thinking about revealing hard things about yourself, perhaps it's things that um you have done in the past before your spouse was a part of your life. Um perhaps it is revealing porn or porn addiction or you know troubling, deep troubling things like that. Our advice is always be careful what you reveal and how you reveal it. So, yes, ultimately your spouse needs to know if you are struggling with porn. You might need to be careful with sharing details about that. Yes, your spouse does need to know about your past, but there are certain details that will injure your spouse. So if you're the spouse that something's being revealed to, think carefully before you ask for those details. Will those details help you better know your beloved, or will they build a wall in between the two of you? So there is always discretion that might need to be used when it comes to revealing troubling things. And you might need to talk to somebody to get some help, an outside source, to help you in deciding how to have that conversation. But I will say this you can only be loved to the extent that you're willing to be known. So if you want to be loved for who you really are, then you have to be willing to know and be known. That is what intimacy is. And that's what this whole weekend is about. If you want to be one, then you must be willing to be intimate. You must let someone see into you. Know and be known by one another. And I will close with this also. Believe in the power of redemptive love. Because there is nothing more powerful than revealing your whole self and seeing in the eyes of your beloved, maybe hurt, yeah, that can be there. Maybe betrayal, that might be there, but also love. That's where healing happens. So if there's something that you need healing from, then yes, be willing to be known and be willing to let God give you through your spouse that place and that source of redemptive love.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. Okay, so there were there were two questions about aging. Um let me read the first one, which is During hormonal changes like menopause, which can lead to very low libido, what suggestions do you have to help keep the spark alive? I'm an aging sexual pursuer. What advice do you have as I face a declining sex drive while maintaining my role as the pursuer?
SPEAKER_00So both of these questions have to do with bodies changing and bodies getting older. And guess what? That's gonna happen or is happening to all of you. We we are blessed to have some very newly married couples, and we are blessed to have some older couples with us, and all of us in between, and none of us are the exact same as we were a year ago. Bodies change, hormone levels change, and that means your interaction with one another changes. So that's why it's important when you're young to put a lot of tools in your toolbox, like we've been saying. When you broaden out your definition definition of sex, when you seek uh ways to share sexual energies together and bring pleasure to one another and connection in all sorts of different ways, then when bodies don't work the exact same, you have other things that can help with your place of connection. But especially when it comes to menopause and libido, I mean that that's very true. That's what happens throughout menopause, is it can it can definitely tank your libido. What do you do to keep the spark alive? Well, you become all the more intentional. You have to get intentional about planning sex, you have to get intentional about thinking about sex. Um, you do things, you're you're as a woman, our biggest sex organ is our brains. Which means you better be engaging your brain if you want your body at all to follow. Now, sometimes your body's just not gonna follow to the level that you that it used to follow or that you would wish it to follow. You do practical things like use lube. I mean, that is a very real part of menopause, is your body is just gonna change as far as hormone levels and your ability to create any kind of natural lubrication. And so don't make yourself miserable. Use lube. Hooray, we live in a day and age where that's available.
SPEAKER_03Um talk to your doctor. There are other even medical interventions that can help to slow down this progress, uh, that can even reverse some of the changes that are occurring. Uh and so there are ways to address this even with a healthcare professional that can help lessen some of the impact.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
Creating Vulnerable Communities
SPEAKER_03Um so those are all things that that uh you should be considering in doing. But again, even beyond medically, this is about making sure that you're engaging your brain and engaging the relationship. If you continue to see sex as a means of connection, it's not as difficult to get up the drive to want to participate. It's gonna look different. The older you get, uh it's gonna look, it's gonna continue to look different and be different. And that's perfectly fine. That's exactly by design. But the more you engage, even as a 20-year-old couple, you should be thinking about how are we going to invest today so that in 30 or 50 years we still have a vibrant relationship in all realms of intimacy. For this aging sexual pursuer, one of the things that I would impress upon you is that just because you're the pursuer today doesn't mean you have to be the sexual pursuer tomorrow. It's okay that your sex drive declines. It's okay that all that your hormones change. It's okay. That is a natural, normal part. Read the end of Ecclesiastes, that's part of it. You're just not going to have the same physical ability. And frankly, there's some freedom in that not having to be constantly distracted by testosterone. It's a blessing and a curse. And so if you if it comes to a point where, in some cases, many cases, after a certain age, The pursuer and respon the sexual pursuer and responder roles very often will flip in in older age. And that's okay. That's sometimes the way that it is. But again, there are medical interventions that can help. If that's something that is causing you anxiety or grief, talk to your spouse about it and talk to your doctor about it. And sometimes those things can help soften that blow of aging. But again, I don't think you have to worry about it. It's not wrong, it's not bad, it's not broken. It just simply is. How can we help others become more open and vulnerable? We want to have these conversations, but it feels as soon as we do, walls and shields go up.
Keep Striving and Don't Settle
SPEAKER_00Welcome to our life. Big thank you to those willing to say that you're friends with Matt and Jen. I mean, we get it. We get it. Someone uh just a little while ago asked, so how did all this get started? Which I'm like, great question. Um it got started because we were that young couple that just wanted to be open. We wanted to be vulnerable, mostly because we had such brokenness. And we started in such a hard place. And when we looked for help and for answers, we just found a lot of nicely dressed people on a Sunday morning that said, How are you? Great, fine, bye. And we were in a marriage full of brokenness and demons that we were fighting against, some that we had brought in, and some that were against us. And we just decided there has to be a better way. And so we started having conversations when we were not equipped at all. But we just decided we didn't need all the answers, we just needed the hope of Jesus and the willingness to shine the light. So, how do you help others be more open and vulnerable? Will you you go first? You be open, you be vulnerable. Will you that mean that sometimes you get hurt? Yeah. Yeah, some people will look at your openness and your vulnerability and they'll walk away from it. And that's okay. Because others will see that and they'll say, same. And then there's power. There's power there. There is not power in pretending like we're perfect people, there is power in being real and saying, you know what, this is hard. Heart is not bad. Hard is hard. Hard is better when we do hard together.
SPEAKER_03But not everybody is looking for that. And that's disappointing discouraging. I I I feel the pain here with in this question in that you want to have vulnerable conversations with people who simply won't go there. And not everybody's ready for that at the same time. What you can do is pray for their hearts, pray for them to see the value in being open and honest with themselves and with each other and with you. And keep demonstrating the power of vulnerability. Keep demonstrating the power of sharing and truly bearing one another's burdens. Keep demonstrating the power of oneness in your relationship. And sometimes people come around. Sometimes people get in over their heads and finally realize that they actually do need some help. And if they know that you are open and vulnerable and not going to shame them for their difficulties, you'll be the one they call. Keep being vulnerable. Keep being open. That's the best thing you can do. Let people know that you are a safe place. A safe place to be weak and insecure, and a safe place to explore their problems, and a safe place to reveal their weakness. Then that's how you can help.
SPEAKER_02We want to thank you, of course, for listening. And as always, we would love to hear your feedback. If there's something we missed or left out, or something that you would challenge uh or you would answer differently, uh hit us up podcast at intimatecovenant.com.
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