4 Steps To More Passion & Intimacy In Your Marriage
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If your intimacy has been feeling a little lackluster as of late and passionate isn’t at the top of the list to describe your marriage, then this is for you. Here are 4 tips to reignite the passion in your marriage and help your love and enjoyment of each other be renewed and strengthened.
No matter how diligent you are in tending your marriage, sometimes the spark just isn’t what you wish it was. But have no fear, dear wife, reigniting the passion between you and your husband isn’t as hard as you might thing.
Sometimes you feel like you’ve fallen out of love and don’t know what to do. If that’s you, head on over to 4 Ways To Fall In Love With Your Husband Again. That’s where you need to start.
But if you’re already working on refreshing your marriage and are ready to add some physical intimacy to your emotional connection, this is what you’ve been looking for.
God cares about your sex life, my dear, and He’s given you some great hints in Scripture to spice up your marriage. Here are four more ways to reignite that passion and get things heating up again!
First Things First
But first, let’s talk about intimacy and what it really is.
Let’s not cheapen it by reducing it to physical coupling. Intimacy is connecting with the one you made a covenant to: physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
True intimacy in your Christian marriage can’t leave out any one of those three ingredients; they are all equally essential to a healthy Christian marriage.
For now we’ll dive into physical intimacy with some ideas for kicking up the passion.
Establish Bedroom Guidelines
I mean, why not? We make them for every other room in the house, don’t we?
“No food in your room”—obviously directed at the children.
“No toys in the kitchen”—still directed at the children.
“Shoes off at the door”—directed mostly at the children, but also guests and husbands who might forget from time to time.
So, why not the bedroom and why not directed at you and your husband? After all, your bedroom is arguably the most important room in your home because it’s where you strengthen your marriage which is the foundation for your family structure.
Bedroom rules ideas
Rules for your bedroom are of course going to be unique to your marriage, but here are some tips to get your creativity flowing.
Conversation topics
Prohibiting the conversation surrounding hot-button conversations can be a smart idea (said every woman who ever pressed any one of her husband’s hot buttons right before climbing into bed and regretted it when she wanted to move onto a cheerful, perhaps intimate topic).
It will turn him off, and after seeing his reaction, your ‘off switch’ will likely be flipped, too.
Think I left out the men here? Oh, no. Communicate to him that this is not the room to tell you that he would rather you do his laundry before having to ask you or how his mom was right and you were wrong. Talk about a buzz-kill even if his suggestion was out of love.
Treat your bedroom as holy, set apart, and the mother territory of all cease fires! Agree as husband and wife to put all firearms down.
Kid free zone: No Parents Allowed
In addition, maybe you might agree to not talk about the kids in your bedroom.
No one is suggesting that you don’t love every one of your darling kids, but without you and your husband your kids would not exist and without a strong marriage between you and your husband the whole family will come crashing down.
After you have kids, they seem to engulf every area of your lives, but there can and will come a time when you and your husband may not know what else to talk about.
Dare I say that is dangerous ground? Dare I point out that some of us are already there?
As wives (and husbands) we need to be cultivating a relationship that isn’t always centered around our children. One day, we will wake up and our children will be all grown up and then what are we going to do with the remainder 30+ years with the person we married?
Also consider not plastering your walls with pictures of their cute, dimpled cheeks. After all, you want an environment suited to the fun you’re about to have together.
Trade Preconceived Ideas for New Ones
The bedroom. Those two words alone have the power to evoke strong emotions, don’t they?
Sex. Sleep. Sleeplessness. Need to clean.
I want to focus on the word that is probably runner-up to sleep (or lack thereof) for most of us wives — sex.
I think it’s safe to assume that most wives have preconceived ideas of the bedroom and this area of intimacy in their marriage.
“All he wants is sex.” Has that phrase ever crossed your mind? I know it has mine! In my own mind and heart I hear that statement uttered out of exhaustion, but to be honest — mostly pressure.
Most days I am oh-so-tired and the last thing on my mind is making love with my man. I know my husband would be absolutely delighted for me to make a move on him (to show him I still want him and find him attractive) but ughhhh the pressure when I’m struggling to feel attractive and engaged, you know?!
Exhaustion is a very real struggle wives and mothers know well, but it’s also more than that. It’s a tactic of the enemy of your soul to create distance between you and your husband.
My dear sister-at-arms, let’s talk for a moment about the pressure that you might be feeling at the thought of initiating sex. That pressure—it’s a lie. Jesus says in Matthew 11:30, that His “yoke is easy and (His) burden is light.” That pressure is not something that God gives therefore should have no power in our lives.
Because we’re talking about a trade within the walls of our bedrooms, I’m going to suggest trading that pressure you feel with worship.
Wait—what? Before you tune me out, hear me out! God said it wasn’t good for man to be alone. Then He made woman as a helper for the man.
Could it be possible that our fulfilling our husbands’ needs in the bedroom actually has everything to do with our obedience to our God-given calling? It may be pleasurable for your husband, but it is also undeniably worship to God.
Let’s not forget that God didn’t stop with sex alone when it came to us fulfilling our husbands; He gave us the undeniable pleasure of sex as a gift, as well.
Practice retraining your brain to think of the walls of your bedroom as the place in which one of your highest acts of worship takes place. Powerful right? Your marriage will never be the same once you embrace the freedom of this truth!
Bring it Back
Ok, so maybe this is one that you have thought of, especially in light of being intimate in your bedroom, but it definitely bears revisiting.
Do you remember the early days of your relationship with your husband, right after the wedding? You adorned yourself intentionally in hopes to attract and arouse your husband. Maybe it was with a special nightie or perhaps a flirtatious look or spritz of perfume. Whatever it was, bring it back!
No matter how many years of marriage you’ve got under your belt, your husband is the same man as he was in those early days and, believe it or not, you are the same woman.
Dream
No, I’m not talking about the obvious dreaming you do in your bedroom while you’re asleep.
I’m talking about the dreaming you and your husband did before you got married and in those early years of marriage. The kind of dreaming that often falls to side once you start working to pay bills, raising kids, and have to grow up and become full fledged adults who have responsibilities and deadlines.
Dream about the future and your hopes and dreams. Your goals and your aspirations matter and still deserve attention. No matter what has happened in your life and marriage thus far, there are still things locked away in your heart that need sharing with the one you share life with.
Unlock these dreams and let them bind you even closer to your husband. When you share your heart and dreams with each other and cast a shared dream for the future, your hearts become even more entwined.
RESOURCES TO HELP YOU SPICE UP YOUR MARRIAGE
And dear one, if you feel like you need some extra help even getting to the point of wanting to reignite your passion, good for you recognizing it and wanting to work on it. There’s no shame in that at all. In fact, I applaud you, my sister in Christ! Your marriage is worth working on, even when it’s hard.
For some assistance in finding the “want to” from a Christian perspective, take a peek at my friend Sheila’s Boost Your Libido course. It’s pretty awesome and has helped hundreds of women in that part of their marriage.
If your want to is all set, but you just need some creative ideas to add some spark then try an at home date night with this Truth & Dare game that’s a gift from me to you and your husband. These cards are ready for you to print out (right now!) and enjoy as soon as you can steal away together.
You’ll find that you are connecting not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. This is a game designed to speak to all 5 love languages and leave you feeling satisfied instead of awkward.
