Transcript: Sexual Intimacy part 4

Video Transcript: Sexual Intimacy Part 04

This is the final presentation in the class on sexual intimacy. And we're going to be talking today about 10 ways to cultivate sexual intimacy within the marriage. Couple of these concepts might have some redundancy, because when we talk about what men need, what women need is certainly also going to be speaking about intimacy in general. But it is definitely noteworthy to deal with again, please, please deal with the hurts. Some couples struggle with intimacy because they have grown to not like each other, it might be a hurt that has been caused in the relationship. I resolve tension keeps many couples from being tender, some couples can't come together because they tripped over the rug, where they swept their past issues under or perhaps are carrying scars from past abuse physically or emotionally. Now remember, when I talked about the forgiveness cup, this is an example of forgiveness cup activity. I think about a time though a couple that I was working with. They had been married under two years, and lived in an apartment in a busy city area, he was going on a business trip, and the apartment was broken into, and she was violently raped. Now, up until that experience, they had had a very normal, satisfying, wonderful sexual relationship. After that, everything changed. What we had to do is start to work on the ability for her to understand that the Lord God would help her with this. We actually did some reframing exercises, because it happened in the bedroom of their apartment, I was very much understanding and actually encouraged this couple to do some things. They purchased a different bed, they did some redecorating, they had a different comforter. And we did some exercises, I talked about it in therapy they did it was in their bedroom, where he would sit on the bed with her and let her know that he was her husband. And he wanted this to be a place of safety. And it started out with that he would just touch her affectionately and comforting. And this had to happen quite a few times before there could be any sexual touching. 

She at the same time was doing her work individually with that abuse and that rape, and also was seeking God and praying that she could be released. And little by little, her mind was able to create an imprint for their bedroom again, and for that sanctuary that they brought as a couple. And one of the last things that they did, but it wasn't a lasting because it was not important it was very important is they anointed every part of that bedroom to be protected by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Because there was an evilness about that rape. And that's dark is demonic. And as they anointed that, again brought incredible victory for continued healing and the return to sexuality in their bedroom. I think about another experience, it was a man that had a sister wife had been sexually abused. And he very much wanted to have meaningful conversation with her, and to let her know that he was going to cultivate their sexual intimacy. She had let her husband know that her father has sexually abused her between the ages of three and 12. When she got married, she found the whole idea of sex, revolting. I've talked about that she went that way. Certain images transported her back to the horror of her childhood, but her husband was so patient. When he knew that she was having a flashback. She said that while they were making love, he would gently say, honey, I love you. Let me just hold you or he'd whisper over to her ear. I am your husband who loves you. You can trust me, and I will never hurt you. That was reframing a meaningful conversation. You know spouses who need regular intimate conversation with each other in order to feel loved and appreciated. This is normal. This is what we all need. your spouse's hopes, dreams and needs change and evolve with time. So it is very true for women that connecting with her husband emotionally and through meaningful conversation actually heightens the fires of physical intimacy. Now, I tried to help folks understand that if there is a need for conversation, that they don't have to script it to be negative. Sometimes my men will do this.

Remember, we talked earlier that they will be already interpreting that there's going to be a discussion, that means they've done something wrong, or they might be thinking our mates are just frustrated. Our mates are going to tell us what we've done wrong? What if they want to tell us what they need? Because really, if the problem is avoided, it will only intensify and you know sexual feelings cannot be separated from our emotions. This is both for men and for women. If they are not feeling closer emotionally, there's a very strong likelihood that it'll be more difficult to be close sexually. Attending to our feelings and needs makes them feel profoundly respected. Prepare your minds throughout the day start positive talk to promote a healthy attitude toward your sexual intimacy. That can be flirting, innuendos, gestures, tax, all those things can be life giving. How about practicing spontaneous acts of love. On the husband side, Matt was stated that one of the most encouraging moments in his marriage with his wife unexpectedly wrote a small letter expressing her appreciation. And this is again, with the words I respect you. Or how about a handwritten note or text message encouraging your spouse with a feature, we learned that both men and women need that Hebrews 3:15 teaches that every believer needs to be encouraged daily. In order to escape temptation, your spouse needs you to encourage them daily. This is not just with words, but also with acts of love, and it will help them escape temptation, Roman spiritual intimacy together. Now that's probably the fourth time I've talked about that is because it is so important, have regular state of the sex life conversations. And as a therapist or as a pastor, please be willing to do this with your couples, because it will honor their relationship and help them and you can use Song of Songs to be your manual, schedule and follow through with regular date nights. We know that there's ideas for that too, whether it's exchanging with other couples going to a motel, coming up with specific monthly events. And no, you can't expect a burning desire for your spouse if your interactions have turned into business transactions, date nights, we'll make that be different types of non sexual physical touch. So often, the principle guessers like holding hands when dating becomes almost non existent when married, even kissing. I mean, my couples will tell me they're having sexual intercourse but they never kiss anymore. If the only time that you and your spouse touch each other as when it's time to have sex, you are doing yourself a great disservice. Physical affection does not have to be just sexual, and it can bring great joy, back massages or cuddle times without the expectation of sexual intercourse every single time may even be a good way to not have that expectation. And your spouse won't feel like the massage was more like a bait and switch. I was thinking of an example. 

I had a couple that had been married for about 10 years. When they came into my sessions. She was ready to leave the relationship. What had taken place was in the beginning of their relationship, she was full of joy. She was light hearted, she was very playful, she often would be the initiator, she would approach him wanting to kiss wanting to hug. He came from a family that was very stern in nature, they never showed affection. They never gave any hugs. They did not display emotions. He struggled with that. And many times he would read buffer, he would actually even put her down that she was being just too frivolous. She was acting too childlike. Well, it got to the point that she no longer even wanted to be close with him. And if she did allow and gave in to what she felt was something that she didn't want to do, which was sexual intimacy, she just would lay there like a brick. That's when he started to notice. And then when she said she wanted to leave the relationship, he was devastated. And it's what brought an awareness as something had to be addressed. Now, this was an example of I would give homework for this couple to do to work other intimacy to work on touch, and they would come back and never do it. Because they would admit to me it was very difficult. They would feel embarrassed. The husband just didn't have the confidence in that area. 

He was so used to shutting down and not showing emotion and the wife was so shut down because she felt the rejection. So I decided with their permission, I would introduce a bit of that touch into session. And I asked them if I could put the I had a soft fleece blanket around her shoulders. And then I asked if she would crawl out on his lap, and I said, I just want you to just sit on his lap a while. If you want to not say anything, if you want to just cuddle a bit, whatever is fine, but I'm going to leave the room for about five minutes. So I walked out of the room. And when I came back in, it was a whole different energy in that room. They were laughing, she was cuddled up on his lap. And I said, so what's happening. And they both said it was like returning home. It was a place that they had not felt in a long time. But as a therapist, I needed to be the bridge to begin that process. And then they were able to take more of the exercises and do these exercises at home. Don't forget health and hygiene when doing your best to take care of your health and hygiene. It helps to eliminate the barriers of personal insecurity and keeps you from offending your spouse, one of my very gentle man, I can tell how difficult this was. Because they were working on enhance sexual intimacy. He had a very hard time even looking his wife in the eye. But he said, I'd really like it. If she take a shower before she comes to bed. And his wife looked at him, she was so shocked, because her normal routine was to take a shower in the morning before she went to work. And he said, it would just be nice. And she was fine with that. And in fact, they started to incorporate that more. And the next session was some nice conversation about their intimacy. How about foster an atmosphere that encourages intimacy, putting away any romance novel. I bet if they're secular Burnham, turned off the electronics, maybe keep the lights on. 

This is a reminder to the wise as husbands are stimulated by sight and being able to look at the body of the woman that God has given as a gift is very much a blessing. Look into each other's eyes, have a clean bedroom and clean linen, put on some soft music, light a candle. Now I do want to be sensitive because keeping the lights on can be very difficult sometimes, for some folks that are struggling with their perception of their body or maybe it's some issues of one's from their past. Sometimes you can start with having the lights off, maybe bring a flashlight underneath the blankets. There's some ways to get around that to possibly lead towards keeping the lights on. And then I wanted to talk about a process called pair bonding. And why I would like to talk about pair bonding is because this can be put into an exercise for couples that are coming for marital counseling. Sociologist Desmond Morris addressed this important concept and process in his book intimate behavior, and he called it pair formation or peer bonding. He observed humans in their courting behaviors and saw a process that often included all or most of 12 separate steps. Each step is progressive, different in importance, the needs of an initial step cannot be met by skipping ahead to another. Lovers often hope that genital to genital or sexual intercourse. Involvement will instantly create intimacy, they fail to realize to their great detriment that intimate bonding is indeed a process. This is a simple summary of Desmond Morris's work, and provides important steps that can build or recapture a deeper romance and intimacy. I've assigned these 12 steps of bonding in the past to couples and I've asked them to report back in session in terms of the example, the venue and the emotions that were created with each of the pair bonding steps. Because as you will now be learning the initial steps, paved the way to the intimacy of the intercourse experience, how about eye to body? First step, now, when you're doing this as a homework assignment, I actually would be asking the couple to have times where they sit down, and they would be looking at each other. In areas of their body, taking in assessment they're. Taking in some sexual information, and maybe even talking about what they see attractive with their spouses body. 

I want that back in terms of the homework assignment, how about eye to eye, people usually watch one another privately and do not directly look into each other's eyes. Strangers will break eye contact because this is an invasion of privacy. A friendly smile or an invitation look is often the beginning of more intimate contact. I remember a session where I was meeting with this couple and the wife had to excuse herself to use the restroom as she got up, I was watching the men look at his wife, especially as she turned around, and he looked all the way down her body from the bottom of the floor to the top of her head. And as she left, I said, I saw that look, what were you thinking? He goes, I have a very pretty wife, I suggest you do. I said, Do you ever tell her? He said, Not as much as I should? And I said, Why don't you tell her when she comes back into the session? And then he did. But that was an example of an eye to body. And when she came back in, when he told her this, they did the eye to eye, that was a very nice too. How about voice to voice? Often initial verbal contact is quite casual, but furthers the bonding process. 

The connecting conversation allows more information to be exchanged accents, tones of voice, vocabularies. How about a wife that walks in, after a long day at work, and there's your husband, he goes, hey, baby, how about that type of type of an intonation, or maybe it's the wolf call, and is still using the voice. Most women know what that means and wants it to come from our husbands. The homework would be talk about ways that you've been hearing the voice from each other where it is intonation, and the type of vocabulary or the style of communication, that would be pair bonding, number three, hand to hand this number four, hand to hand or arm may be more of a supportive behavior at first as one person assist the other, it might be just the gentleman side of your husband, opening your car door helping you out of the car door. It could maybe disguise as intimacy though, and lead to more hand holding if there is a mutual inclination and desire for closeness. both partners are aware that there is a symbolic need for bonding. You know, I noticed this very, very important. One of our children went through a very serious surgical procedure when she was 13. And it was a nine hour brain surgery, where she had an area that did have a bleed. And they had to correct that. Actually, many years later, she had another brain surgery, when she was 25, with the same issue, which is doing quite well now praise the Lord. But when she was 13, that type of an issue can take such a hit in terms of emotions and closeness for couple and for us as the parents. We were so invested in her treatment, that we were completely shut down. In terms of feeling our connection, there was no intimacy happening, there was no hand holding, there was no kissing. And I remember the day that we were sitting in the waiting room. And it was during that time period of the surgical intervention of nine hours. And I walked over to my husband and I sat on I took a hold of his hand.

I mean, it was a need for support. And after that moment, he said he realized it too, that we had become so distant. And we immediately were more aware that we needed to again reconnect and that handholding led to an awareness that had been such a long time for any intimacy. So they're number four, this hand to hand is a pair bonding activity, arm to shoulder. Now the previous steps can be more casual in nature. But this step intentionally brings the partner into closer body contact. Like an arm around the shoulder communicates a message of close friendship and perhaps love. It draws the partners together and indicates a deeper desire for intimate companionship. Many women if they feel closest with her husband and safety, they feel quite a protection when they have his arm around their shoulder. How about arm to face. This is a more direct statement of sexual and romantic interest. The arm is around the waist and closer to the private areas of the body aren't always as indicative of a growing intimacy and amorous bonding. I think a couple would know that there's more interest. And is this not just precious all these steps that can lead up to more appropriate intimacy. And like the proceeding step and arm to ways that brings the trunks of the bodies into contact with increasing intimacy, which is so so very nice. Sometimes I get a smile with this one. There have been a number of movies where they showed the previews of other movies, and there's this one where it shows this adolescent boy and must be his girlfriend and they're eating popcorn, and he's trying so hard to get the courage to put his arm around her and take it off the back of the seat and actually put it on her shoulder. But I thought about how that could be an example of pair bonding. And we should think more about every part of connection that we have physically and it means something and we shouldn't stop these steps. That is such a sweet caricature of young romance. And this young boy, being able to have the confidence and the courage to put his arm around his girlfriend. 

How about mouth to mouth. Now kissing on the mouth with the accompanying behavior of a closed frontal embrace is a big step forward in pair bonding. This is the initial step that create erotic and genital arousal, especially with prolonged and intimate kissing. The lips actually have proportionally larger number of nerve endings in any other parts of the body. Also, kissing is very intimate, and personal. It's a sharing of ourselves because we are touching another with a part of our body that we also use to communicate and nurture ourselves. And again, if those of you that have seen the movie, it was out quite a few years ago, Lady in Red, it was about a woman, Julia Roberts, and Richard Gere was the man and she was a high paid call girl. And he would often hire her when he was on business trips. And believe me, I am not promoting that kind of behavior. I've already addressed that. However, the part of the movie that I was interested in was that she never would let him kiss her. Because she said that was too intimate. She let him have other parts of her body, especially her genital parts, but never would allow her to have her lips be used for I guess, because that was too intimate. Notice it is a step of pair bonding, mouth to mouth in it definitely. In healthy sexual bonding, these steps should preclude intercourse hand to head perhaps as an accompanying behavior to the intimate kissing the hands touching press the partner's head, the defensive walls let down and bonding occurs his fingers, tenderly stroke the face, hair, ears and neck. That's why I think when I mentioned about a husband doing a more nurturing touch to his wife, he could brush her hair. Sometimes the hand will lovingly class the Haddon method of communication of caring and intimate possessiveness. 

How about hand to body intimacy deepens as the hands explore the partner's body with into my caresses, the trust and bonding is deepening, with caressing of the more intimate areas and further sexual arousal will be speak will be experienced. Now, all of these as exercises should be brought back to the therapy session and discussed in terms of what the venue was, what the experience was like and what was happening when the couples did the bonding. How about mouth to breast when this step bonding behaviors have become very private, and a new level of intimacy has been reached. The first nine steps with the exception of crossing a more intimate part of the body might be expressed in public and the pair bonding developed without a need for privacy. However, this step, for the most part, and in most societies, would be done in privacy, and it does show advanced symbolism for intimacy. Hand to genital touching the lovers genitals implies a sufficient level of trust and bond of attachment for deeper intimacy, and the last pair bonding step genital to genital the final step of pair formation includes intercourse and the potential for creating life. The design for this pair bonding is that the couple remains bonded beyond the satisfaction of the sex driving intercourse. If these steps are put into more practice, and that is what has led up to final intercourse within marriage, there is such satisfaction. Now remember, that emotional and physical intimacy ignites the racket in your marriage, but spiritual intimacy fires the afterburners and gets you into orbit. emotional and physical attraction is what draws you together. But the spiritual connection is what is going to keep you together. And how about a closing prayer? Lord, help us to remember when we first meet in the strong love that grew between us to work that love into practical things so that nothing can divide us. We ask for words both kind and loving, and for hearts always ready to ask forgiveness as well as to forgive. Dear Lord, we put our marriage into your hands and we put our intimacy into your hands for blessings, Amen.