Last week, in the first episode of our series, Reconstructing Manhood and Womanhood in a Culture Where They Are Broken, we looked outward at one of the most influential but broken worldviews of gender and sexuality shaping our culture—gender theory. This week, we want to look inward at how our own sinful nature fractures the intimacy of the marriage relationship, which is the foundation of marriage in God’s design. No Christian couple walks down the wedding aisle planning for their love relationship to fracture. But nearly 50% of Christian marriages do. A careful examination of what divorcees say was missing in their marriages reveals time and again that what was lost was the closeness that we call “intimacy.” This episode examines how our sinful natures fracture the intimacy in marriage, and what to do about it.
At the heart of fallen sinful nature is SELF. And one of the more subtle components of SELF-CENTEREDNESS is expecting and perhaps demanding that others BE LIKE ME. When I look closely at the biggest time of struggle in my marriage with Sandy, at the core was self-centeredness, expecting her to be LIKE ME, and if not like me then at least accommodating to ME. I became resentful when she did not accommodate to ME. I think she would say the same about herself. Here is our story:
Several years into our marriage we found ourselves growing distant to one another emotionally and sexually. We knew that having four children born to us in three and a half years was putting a strain on our relationship. But we had compensated by intentionally setting apart a weekly date night and even romantic weekend get-aways from the kids each year. Yet, we were growing distant and worse than that, resentful towards each other. I resented her because the coolness in our relationship made her far less interested in sex than I needed her to be. I’ve always feared Satan tearing me and my ministry down by my sexual failure. I know that the biblical teaching is that the best defensed is a great offense. Let her breasts fill you AT ALL TIMES with delight; be intoxicated ALWAYS in her love. (Prov 5:19).
But I had not been meeting the intimacy needs of her heart. She was spending a lot of her time caring for my father who was living with us and when one of my relatives unfairly criticized her care for him, I defended my relative instead of realizing and understanding how much this was hurting her heart. She was resenting me and my desire for sex when she felt so wounded by me. In her words, “With four children born to us in three and a half years, I wanted to keep u with Gary’s desire to make love, but my tired body couldn’t. Before long, I found myself having a negative attitude towards Gary’s sex drive. ‘What is it with men. All they ever want is sex.’ I had no idea that he is hard-wired by God to need sex every few days to feel close to me and fill his emotional tank. (Sandy and Gary, Intimacy: God’s Design for Marriage). The distance between us was so real that on Valentine’s Day that year—a day that has always been special to us, because on Valentine’s Day I asked her to be my wife—we spent the evening with our young kids, avoiding our usual delightful Valentine’s Day together. Eventually what pulled us out of this intimacy breakdown was realizing that in our self-centeredness, WE WERE DEMANDING THAT OUR MATE BE LIKE OURSELVES and in so doing REJECTING GOD’S DESIGN of the other.
VALUING THE CREATION DIFFERENCES
As we all know, God’s creation design of marriage is spelled out in the second chapter of the Bible. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Gen 2:24-25. This text is overflowing with significance for understanding marriage. First, marriage is the joining of LIVES—husband and wife leave father and mother to begin life together. It is the joining of our SOULS, i.e. our minds—sharing our opinions, our hearts, sharing our feelings, and our will, making mutual decisions. Second, marriage is the joining of our BODIES in sex, and they shall become one flesh. This oneness of heart and soul is celebrated through the passion of uniting ourselves in the deepest sense of the word by joining bodies.
But God’s description of marriage doesn’t end there. God then gives us the goal of marriage—and they were both naked and not ashamed. God’s goal for marriage is LOVING INTIMACY between husband and wife! Eve is created with a spirit, heart, and body which correspond to Adam’s. Marriage is given as the one safe arena where husband and wife are naked, body, soul, and spirit--laid bare and vulnerable to each other. God makes such nakedness as safe as is humanly possible be designing marriage to be a covenant in which husband and wife vow to love each other unconditionally—till death us do part—in front of the state, the church, their parents, and friends. Thus, husband and wife can be naked and not feel ashamed or afraid. Adam and Eve’s 1) like natures combined with 2) a vow to love each other unconditionally, and 3) the experience of baring their hearts and bodies to one another) enable them to experience LOVING INTIMACY. So, God wants us to pursue LOVING INTIMACY—both the interaction of our SOULS through conversation and the interaction of BODIES through sex.
Pursuing CONVERSATION
Sharing our experiences, feelings, ideas, plans, hopes and dreams is the path to the oneness of soul God wants married couples to enjoy. This requires taking control of our schedule and making time each day to talk. It also requires active listening, seeking to understand our mate’s feelings and ideas. Christian counselor, and wife Barbara Rosberg in, The Five Love Needs of Men and Women writes:
The word, “intimacy” comes from a Latin word that means “innermost.” What this translates into for those of us in the marriage relationship is a vulnerable sharing of our inner thoughts, feelings, spirit, and true self. Both men and women need to feel secure in this sharing and confident of their spouse’s support. This support is achieved through listening, empathy, prayer, or reassurance.
Pursuing LOVEMAKING
God’s design for marriage to meet our need for loving intimacy means pursuing LOVEMAKING which leads to oneness of BODY. Both the OT and NT teach that frequent sexual union is the best prevention against sexual sin. In a profound way this mingling of bodies is an expression of the deepest human experience of oneness and intimacy. One Pastor’s wife explains:
Lovemaking is the most practical, binding, and enriching experience of all married love. There is one person who knows you and wants to know you more, better than anyone but God. And that’s why God gave you sex, to interact at the deepest possible human levels. Your sex life as a married couple will make your self- esteem go up or down” (Ann Ortland, Sex in a Growing Marriage).
The Intimacy Misconnect
In Scripture, by the time we get to God’s design of marriage in Genesis 2:24-25, He has already gone to great lengths to show us how different Adam and Eve are designed to be. Adam is physical. He is 1) made from the ground, 2) given a name that means ground (the Hebrew word for ground is ADAMAH), 3) called by God to work the ground, 4) when he sins, what is cursed is the ground. When it comes to the two components of marriage, joining hearts and joining physical bodies, Adam’s nature fits the earthy, primal, physical side of intimacy—sex. Men are awakened sexually by physical sight—no relationship necessary. 83% of Christian men say that their wife doesn’t understand their physical need for sexual intimacy. In God’s perfect design, this physical creature made from the ground is given a body that has a physical build-up of semen. One pair of authors explain,
A man has 17 sexual glands. Like millions of Energizer Bunnies these glands work day and night, producing semen, which is stored in an inner sack in the testes. When the sack fills up, his testes tell his brain, “Do something quick before I explode.” A man’s need for sex is not all in his mind; his sexual command center demands release from the accumulated buildup. (Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus, Intimate Issues)
The irony is that in God’s design, this earthy, physical male, who probably doesn’t even know he has any EMOTIONAL needs, is driven by his body into the arms of his wife. And it is in her arms that the deepest of his EMOTIONAL needs are met!
When a wife welcomes his sexual advances, she is giving him what he most needs to be emotionally renewed. As she yields invitingly to his caresses, revealing her nakedness, she shows her trust in him. As she willingly surrenders to the sexual desire that he is seeking to awaken in her, he feels more confident as a man. As she opens her heart and body to him, inviting him to come into her, she shows in the deepest possible way, that she wants him. Thus, for a man, his partner’s inviting surrender to him sexually meets his deepest emotional needs—to feel trusted, confident, and wanted. As his emotional tank is refilled in her nurturing arms, his feelings of love for her come rushing back, overpowering him. Most people realize that a wife needs to feel in love in order to make love. But few realize the inverse--that husbands need to make love in order to feel in love. All men know that the way back to feeling their love for their wife is making love to their wife. It was my wife understanding this truth that put an end (well almost) to rejecting my hardwired craving for sex. She stopped seeing it as a selfish appetite and now sees it as God’s ordained pathway 1) for me back to remembering how much I cherish her and 2) for her to nurture my heart.
In sharp contrast to Adam, (in case we hadn’t noticed) is the identity of EVE. She is 1) made from the man, 2) given the name woman (ISHA) because she was taken out of the man (ISH), 3) called by God to partner with the man, 4) when she sins, what is cursed is her relationship with the man and their kids. Eve is created to yearn for connection to her husband’s heart. Romance to her is attraction to the whole person; she is made from his rib! Intimacy for her is not an event, it is an environment. Christian counselor Barbara Rosberg explains to husbands:
“Men, your sex drive is connected to your eyes; You become aroused visually. Your wife’s sex drive is connected to her heart; she is aroused only after she feels emotional closeness and harmony…You feel less masculine if your wife resists your sexual advances. Your wife feels like a machine if she doesn’t experience sexual intimacy flowing from emotional intimacy.” (The Five Love Needs).
83% of wives say their husbands don’t understand their need for EMOTIONAL intimacy (Intimacy: God’s Design for Marriage). Emotional intimacy to a wife means feeling so thoroughly loved and accepted that she easily and constantly shares with her lover what is going on in her heart. The emotional intimacy she craves is having her husband be her best friend—who loves to talk with her about everything—because that is what best friends do. Dr. Gary Rosberg describes a wife’s yearning for intimacy: Melody’s idea of intimacy is sitting on the love seat with Dan, a couple of cappuccinos beside them, a roaring fire in front of them, no kids around them, and plenty of time for a good, long, heart to heart talk (Ibid). This yearning makes it very difficult for her to live with a husband who does not long to know her—what is going on in her heart.
I was curious about how this male/female difference in the creation design might be reflected in the Song of Solomon. So, I catalogued the words spoken by the female lover, the Shulammite, to her lover, Solomon, and the words said by Solomon to his lover, the Shulammite. In 31 verses, the male lover’s words described attraction to her physical beauty, e.g., Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your mouth is lovely… Your two breasts are like two fawns (4:1-5). In just 2 verses he expressed longing to enjoy a relationship with her. In contrast, of the female lover’s words to her beloved, 28 verses spoke of her longing to enjoy a relationship with him. In 16 verses she speaks of attraction to his physical body, but interestingly, her most vivid description of his body ends with the craving to be his FRIEND. His body is polished ivory. His legs are alabaster columns, set on bases of gold. His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and THIS IS MY FRIEND (5:16). In summary, male = 31 verses on physical attraction, 2 on relational attraction, female = 16 verses on physical attraction, 28 on relational attraction. No wonder Christian counselor, Gary Rosberg writes, No matter how many times I hear couples lament their differences in the counseling room, or at conferences, it is the same story. Men spell intimacy S-E-X, and women spell it T-A-L-K (Ibid). The fracture in Sandy’s and my relationship began to be repaired when we stopped resenting and began to highly value the way God created the other’s intimacy needs to be so different from our own, requiring us to lean on Jesus to love each other well.
FURTHER STEPS TO PREVENT FISSURES IN MARRIAGE ONENESS
A. Devote yourself to understanding her heart—5 ways to listen empathetically.
- Pay attention. There is no substitute for locking our thoughts onto what she is talking about. One psychologist, Paul Tournier, tells husbands, “A woman thinks in detail. Details interest her more than general ideas. She has a need to tell all the days happenings, once she is with her husband.”
- Practice shutupping. Interrupting with questions makes the other person feel like she is being interrogated. Or worse—it puts you in control of the conversation and guessing about what is going on inside her instead of letting her continue to talk about what is going on inside of herself!
- Use body language that shows you are engaged with what she is sharing. If she starts to well-up always move physically towards her and show the kind of touch that fits the moment. Lock your eyes to hers as you listen.
- Listen solely with the goal of understanding what she is feeling so she can lay bare her heart and still feel cherished. There is a place for giving advice and problem solving if they are sought. But realize that problem solving and giving advice may feel to her like you are discounting her feelings or trying to change her instead of giving her the gift of understanding and cherishing the vulnerable inner self, she has just revealed.
- Occasionally mirror back to her what you think she just said, looking for her feelings. You may say, “I think you’re saying ABC and she may say “No, that’s not it at all.” That’s okay. The goal is to cause your bride to feel like you are trying to understand what she is feeling because you cherish her.
B. As the spiritual leader of your marriage, lead your wife to join you in making these three commitments to OVERCOME SEXUAL MISUNDERSTANDING.
1. We will respect the form that our mate’s sexual and romantic desires take, because we value God’s perfect design of the opposite gender. Shanna Ethridge in Every Woman’s Battle observes some common differences.
- Men crave sexual intimacy. Women crave emotional intimacy.
- Men give love to get sex. Women give sex to get love.
- Men can disconnect body from mind, heart, and soul. Women’s body, mind, heart, and soul are intricately connected.
- Men are stimulated by what they see, women by what they hear.
- Men have a recurrent semen build up cycle. Pre-menopausal women have a recurrent emotional/hormonal cycle.
- Men are vulnerable to unfaithfulness in the absence of physical touch; women are vulnerable in the absence of emotional connection.
2. We will both learn to adapt to the other’s romantic and sexual desires. Paul does not command women to adapt to their husband’s stronger sex drive—because sometimes his is weaker than hers. But what he does teach is that the one with the weaker sex drive is adjust to the one with the stronger sex drive; otherwise the mate with the stronger sex drive will be exposed to temptation. Do not deprive one another… so that Satan may not tempt you. (1 Cor 7:5).
3. We will see lovemaking as the opportunity to give the other our body for his or her enjoyment. Paul writes to the church at Corinth. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. In God’s design, on the day that a man and woman marry, they participate in a gift exchange. On her wedding night the bride gives her husband the gift of her body and her husband gives the gift of his body to her.
C. Make an anger contract with each other that has these components.
- We agree to tell each other when we are angry.
- We agree to try to NOT vent our anger on one another.
- We agree that feelings are feelings, neither right nor wrong. We resist trying to convince the other person that they are wrong to feel a certain way, but can clarify a misunderstanding of our intentions.
- We will ask for the other’s help in solving whatever is causing the pain beneath the anger.
This episode has been designed this way because this Tuesday is Valentine’s Day. You may want to talk about some of the above principles. Or maybe not. Either way the following safe questions can get a conversation going.
- What first attracted you to your mate?
- What do you remember most about your first date?
- When were some of the times when you felt closest to each other over this past year?
- What has been your funniest or most memorable lovemaking experience?
For Further Prayerful Thought.
- How does God’s creation design of male and female differently seem to explain why husbands and wives have such different intimacy needs?
- When you think about a woman’s nurturing role, why does it make sense for God to make the male body so that the buildup of semen drives him into his wife’s arms where emotional needs he doesn’t even know he has are met?
- If you are married, what is the hardest part of meeting your wife’s need for emotional intimacy?
- Why does it make sense that listening well enough to my wife so that she wants to share her heart with me, makes her feel cherished?
