Great in the bedroom but bad outside

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Perhaps there are couples out there who experience great sex in their marriage but outside of the bedroom the connection is not real good.

To me, there’s a positive correlation between the two.

But I’m sure there are exceptions to this.

That’s what Gina and I cover in this episode of Sexy Marriage Radio.

In this episode we discuss:

  • What makes up great sex
  • Ideas on how to connect better outside of the bedroom

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3 Ways to Strengthen Your Marriage in a Blended Family

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Post written by Blended Family columnist Melissa Gorzelanczyk of Peace & Projects.

The routine of married life can leave little time left to focus on your marriage.

In our blended family, raising two (almost) teenagers takes up an enormous amount of time and energy – especially when we allow it to become our only focus.

Who hasn’t gone on a date and spent the whole time talking about the kids? I know we have.

The problem with focusing too hard on other parts of our married life – and not each other – is that when I start to feel disconnected from Mr. Right, the foundation of our family is at risk.

We are the foundation.

It is essential that we are on the same page – physically, emotionally and as co-parents – so that the family unit can thrive.

Here are a few ways we’ve committed to stay connected as husband and wife. Try focusing on your marriage as the more important link in your blended family and see how that affects the rest of the problems you face.

Daily: 15 minutes of time dedicated to each other.

We call this “marriage time” in our house. Explain how important this time is to your kids, go into your bedroom and lock the door. Use this time to reconnect as lovers, not just parents.

Kiss. Look each other in the eye. Ask about one another’s day.

Don’t let every conversation revolve around the problems you’re facing with the kids or finances or a dog who needs a bath. Here are some more ways to find 15 minutes of time for each other:

  • If you both work, commit to a daily phone date.
  • Meet for lunch or coffee.
  • Wake up 15 minutes earlier to snuggle in bed and reconnect.
  • Skype or chat through Facebook

Weekly: Date night.

Take turns planning a date night. Need some new ideas? Check out the date night tab from The Dating Divas. If you don’t have the time or money to go out weekly, plan one night a week to stay in and “date” at home once the kids are in bed. Here are 5 ideas for a date night at home:

  • Eat dinner in the backyard, patio or put a blanket down in front of the TV.
  • Give each other a back rub or foot rub.
  • Go to bed early together.
  • Recreate the first meal you shared at home.
  • Create a private blackout. Forbid use of all electricity and light candles.

Annual: Vacation without kids.

In addition to family vacations each year, plan a weekend or full week to getaway just the two of you. You’ll have time to focus on each other without distractions, something that isn’t easy to do the rest of the year. If your budget is tight, getaway close to home – even one night at a hotel with a day spent at the park can refresh your relationship for months to come.

Stay connected.

Spending quality time with your partner will strengthen your connection when the challenges of a blended family feel against you. Make it a priority to check in and constantly recommit to your spouse. This keeps your family strong, no matter what struggles you face with the kids or the ex or your finances.

How do you keep your marriage strong within a blended family?

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Marriage help every other day

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Simple Marriage began four years and over 700 articles ago.

That’s a lot of information, from a lot of different people, covering a lot of different topics.

We’ve also grown quite a bit recently, adding new readers every day (welcome, by the way).

So what if you’re new to our little community, or you’ve been here the whole time, you’re interested in reading about a specific topic and unsure where to begin?

The answer is simple: check out the free marriage courses.

So what are the free marriage courses you ask?

Custom courses broken down by topic and delivered for free to your Inbox. Topics like family life, simplicity, Nice Guy/Nice Girl, sex, and communication.

Each course is delivered every other day via email so all you have to do is sign up for the one(s) you’re interested in and check your email.

Simple, eh?

Click below to read more or sign up for the course of your choice.

—-> http://bit.ly/fx1l5i

Viva la marriage!

Marriage help gone bad

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What happens when you hear something you think will help your marriage (or sex life), try it, and it fails?

There are lots of voices out there giving advice on how to improve your marriage. Some of them are good, others – not so much. But sometimes, the tips or ideas are misunderstood and everything goes bad.

What then?

What if that’s part of the process?

Actually there’s nothing really going wrong, it’s just the growing up process at work.

That’s what Gina and I cover in this episode of Sexy Marriage Radio.

In this episode we discuss:

  • The pressure of change on your spouse
  • How your sex life is a great place to create change (or not)
  • More about the idea of growing up
  • Worst marriage advice we’ve heard

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Why Vacations Make the Best Dates

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Post written by dates and romance columnist Sean Marshall of Family Rocketship.

I once interviewed a couple that had been married for more than 50 years. I asked them what the secret to their success was and their answer surprised me.

They said that ever since they got married, every year, they would take a weeklong vacation without each other.

Once the kids came along, the wife would take a spa vacation with her girlfriends leaving the husband/dad at home. Then it was his turn and he would usually take a fishing trip with his friends.

The couple said the time away from each other helped them appreciate each other more. They exercised the adage, “absence makes the heart grow fonder”.

Then the couple added, while they treasured their individual vacations, they loved even more the vacations they planned and took together.

Vacations Make Great Dates

Going on a date with your spouse is already fun enough. Getting out on a Friday night after a busy week feels like such a reward. Now multiply that by 3, 4, 5 times or more! That’s what a great vacation does for you and your spouse.

The ideal vacation looks different for each couple. Sometimes it’s a trip to an exotic place. Sometimes it’s a historical or genealogical tour. Sometimes it’s as simple as a visiting a new city.

For our vacations, my wife and I have found that we really love doing something where we have to be very physically active. Last summer we fulfilled a dream I’ve had for a long time by hiking an 18 mile loop in one day in the Olympic Mountains in Washington State. No kids. Just the two of us, the trail, and the amazing scenery.

Benefits of Vacations for Marriage

The benefits of taking a vacation are pretty obvious. The real secret is how taking vacations together strengthens a marriage.

One of the most obvious benefits is the quality time you spend together. In our busy world, we can get so caught up in the day-to-day that we sometimes forget our real priorities.

Another benefit is being able to experience something new together. This is especially true if visiting a place you’ve never been before. Seeing new places, experiencing different cultures, and especially sampling new food can make for some pretty incredible memories.

Closely tied to experiencing something new is being able to learn about each other. While in Paris one time, my wife learned that I had an uncharacteristically short fuse when it came to trying to understand a subway map in French! It was a learning experience for both of us and now we go into new places studying the maps together beforehand!

Another benefit is that it’s just plain fun to plan and then anticipate a vacation. Now with the internet, you can spend hours learning about all of the cool things to go and see and do before you even get there. Imagining together is almost as much fun as actually going on the vacation itself. I did say “almost”!

But We Can’t Always Go on Vacation!

Vacations are great, but what about living everyday life? It’s true that we can’t live our lives in one continual vacation. We’ve got work, school, kids, and so forth that take up most of our time. Plus going on constant vacations can add up.

However, you can still receive all of the same benefits of a vacation with a couple of creative tricks. For starters, try taking a mini-vacation. Not every vacation has to be a two week trip though the Andes.

You can take a short road trip somewhere – even if it’s just for a Saturday. Get away from the house and explore someplace new. Sometimes, the coolest places are just outside our “daily living radius”.

Another idea is to spend the day at a spa. If that doesn’t do it for you, try something more adventurous like going paintballing or skydiving.

Sometimes the best way to do this is to skip a day of work. If you have kids, make the proper arrangements and go for it. Nothing helps you enjoy each other and your mini-vacation by doing it on a Wednesday! Leave the cell phone at home. Don’t check emails. Just enjoy your quality time together.

Another idea is to have a “staycation”. You can stay at home and enjoy each other’s company. You can do a home project together (yes, you can do chores if it’s together), or you can have a movie marathon, or even better, a sex marathon. It’s just a day that’s totally devoted to being with each other.

Whether you’re traveling to the far parts of the globe or staying in your own bedroom, the benefits to taking intentional vacations with each other are huge!

What are some memorable vacations you’ve taken together?

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How do you initiate sex?

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Post written by Dr. Corey Allan.

There’s a low desire spouse and a high desire spouse when it comes to sex – and there’s one of each in every marriage.

There’s also a low desire spouse and a high desire spouse on virtually every issue and decision in marriage. One of you wants to do something the other doesn’t, or wants to less than you. And even if you both want the same thing, one of you will want it more than the other.

Plus, no one is the low desire, or high desire on everything. Positions shift on different issues throughout the marriage.

The most common reaction to desire differences is to believe there’s something wrong … either with yourself, your spouse, the relationship, or all the above.

Keep this in mind, things going wrong and things not going the way you want are two different things.

Second, if there’s nothing going wrong, it’s more likely you can turn things around and make them more to your liking.

Fact is, desire differences are going to happen – and the positions you take (low or high) are simply points on a continuum.

There will be a high desire spouse and there will be a low desire spouse.

While neither the high or low desire position is right or wrong, one thing will be true … the low desire spouse controls sex. And this is true whether the low desire spouse wants to, or likes it, or not.

Here’s how this works:

  1. The high desire spouse makes most, if not all, of the overtures and initiations for sex.
  2. The low desire spouse decides which of the sexual overtures he or she will respond to.
  3. Which determines when sex happens. Giving the low desire spouse de facto control of sex – whether he or she wants it or not.

The key is – how you experience this, and handle this, will say a lot about you regardless whether you’re the high or the low desire spouse.

So what do you do with this?

Let’s explore this in a slightly different way:

How does sex happen in your marriage?

Who initiates? And don’t say both of you. One of you does the bulk of initiating.

How do you initiate sex?

It’s logical that the high desire spouse will carry a majority of the initiation burden. After all, they’re the high desire spouse.

Understanding how sex is initiated between you will open the doors to a better sex life.

Here’s how:

Assume you are the high desire spouse and you handle the bulk of the initiations. One complaint you may have is you wish your spouse would initiate more often. Of course, this is assuming you’re married to someone who enjoys sex with you. You may be a sorry lover, if so, that’s a different issue.

So assuming they’re into the idea of sex with you:

What if your spouse actually is initiating more than you think?

What if you’re missing their signals because you’re looking for how you go about initiating sex or how you think they should initiate?

Let’s say what you really want is for your wife to take you by the hand and lead you to the bedroom, stripping you along the way.

BUT, what if your wife is completely interested in having sex and the way she signals you is by obviously leaning over if front of you while wearing something low cut? Or she brushes by you as you pass in the hall?

Both are initiations – right?

And when you think about it, both are pretty clear signals.

Another thing to keep in mind is in every sexual encounter together, someone has to take the lead. Granted, the lead can be fought for or passed back and forth, but someone has to lead.

So what if your spouse is actually initiating sex more than you notice, but their initiations are more about getting the process rolling rather than throwing you down when you walk in the door?

It could be that they are bringing up the idea (a lot more than you notice), then handing the reins over to you to lead the rest of the way.

Does this thought change anything?

Try letting go of your preconceived ideas of initiation and see if in fact they’re already communicating an interest. If so, you’re well on your way to more sex.

 

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Having Tenderhearted Talks

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Post written by marriage columnist Susanne Alexander of Marriage Transformation.

Store up a heart-full of love from Valentine’s Day and hold it throughout the rest of the year for all your conversations together!

When you talk with your husband or wife, you need to pause to ensure that you are speaking from a place of love.

Conversations go best when you carefully consider the possible effect of your words on the heart of your loved one.

Are you prepared to be gentle, compassionate, caring, and tactful, while at the same time speaking honestly from your own heart?

Here are guides for your own actions whenever you have serious discussions together:

1. “H”: Heart-Centered Start – Focus on being loving, and turn to God in prayer. Examine and purify your motives so there is no intent to manipulate a partner. Detach from what the outcome of the couple discussion will be.

2. “E”: Empathize and Encourage – Visualize yourself in your partner’s situation. This will help you with better seeing, understanding, and compassionately accepting the other’s perspective. You can then offer positive and encouraging words and actions.

3. “A”: Apply Character Qualities – Before and during a discussion, focus on the virtues of compassion, confidence, courage, courtesy, discernment, honesty, humility, joyfulness, moderation, patience, purposefulness, respect, self-discipline, truthfulness, unity, and wisdom.

4. “R”: Refine Your Words – As you are talking, remove coarse, vulgar, or degrading elements; remain precise, clear, and pleasant to hear; use a respectful tone of voice and kind language; raise concerns without attacking your partner’s character or the character of others; reduce criticism; respect the value of your partner’s words.

5. “T”: Talk and Listen in Balance – Maintain a balance between keeping totally quiet and excessively talking. Your honest voice is needed in the discussion for it to be possible for truth to emerge. Listening allows you to fully hear your partner’s point of view. Summarizing what you have heard helps you to check for understanding. Both sharing and listening are needed to achieve the best possible decision. Welcome a diversity of opinions and perspectives. Encourage one another to fully share.

One key point made above is that of detaching from the outcome of a discussion at the beginning. When you are fixed on what decision you should be making as a couple, you make yourself right and your spouse wrong. Unity between the two of you is disrupted.

When you take this position at the beginning of a discussion, it also does not allow room for creativity, new ideas, and God-guided insights to emerge. We can never know what will emerge when ideas bump against each other, new ideas are sparked, or new solutions arise. Excellent discussions often lead to something entirely new being created. All of which is guaranteed to make both of your hearts very happy!

Note: The new Marriage Sparks eCourse on “Making Decisions As Partners” is now available in the SM Store. This article contains an excerpt from the course handout.

(photo source)

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