Normalize therapy.

Caleb answers a question from a listener about sexual addiction and its consequences in marriage.

Today we have a question from one of our audience members who is asking for help to overcome some significant mental barriers around her husband’s sexual history.

Hi, I have a question. 

I got married just recently and much later in life...around 40 years old.  I was a virgin when I got married. My husband was not. However he shared with me that he had not had any sexual partners for at least three years prior to our being married, because of his renewed commitment to Christ. 

I've been a Christian since I was a youth and my husband had also been a Christian since he was a child however he was not sexually abstinent in his relationships.

We did not have sex prior to getting married. Since we have been married we have had a great sex life, but I have struggled with the fact that he's had previous sexual partners.

My question is how can I best deal with my husband's previous sexual history and not let it interfere with our sexual relationship now.  Of course, this is a vulnerable issue for me since I came into the marriage without sexual experience... So I get feelings of insecurity...wondering if he is comparing us to other relationships...etc. These thoughts can be intrusive for me. 

Now, today I had a bomb dropped on me when I got the results of a recent Pap smear saying I tested positive for HPV.  It's very upsetting to find out that after being abstinent all these years and waiting for my husband to have sex; that he gave me a STD that could cause cervical cancer. The strain I have is the dangerous strain and will require more testing. 

I've already been struggling with feelings over his sexual past and now it's intensified a thousand fold as a result of contracting this STD  from him.  I feel like this is definitely going to affect my feelings toward him and toward sexual intimacy with him. 

He was tested for std's before our marriage but there is not a test for men for HPV, so in his defense he could not have known he had been exposed unless his previous girlfriend knew and told him. 

I'm hoping and praying that my immune system will fight off this virus and I will be okay, but unfortunately I've had previous health problems that have weakened my immune system so I'm really upset and stressed that I may end up not fighting it off. 

I'm just disappointed, sad, upset and hurt that I have to deal with an STD after waiting all this time to have sex with one man in my life.... My husband. 

I'm sure this is going to cause me anger and resentment for his choices and not being abstinent as a Christian man who proclaims Christ. 

I really have to say, at the risk of sounding judgmental.... That I am so tired of Bible believing Christians completely ignoring the word of God when it comes to sexual integrity! Why is it that people just wink at this sin like it's no big deal ??? People that I see at church every week that are living with their boyfriends and girlfriends that are having sex and acting as though it's not a sin.  I don't understand it's very frustrating!

Christians act as though it's inconsequential and casual...

Please pray for me that I can be full of grace and forgiveness toward my husband and that we would grow stronger and more in love and that I won't withdraw from him like I feel like doing at this moment. 

The last piece of this puzzle is the question of fidelity?? Has he had sex with someone else during the time we've been together and contracted this STD and now passed it to me??  I really, honestly in my heart and soul, mind and spirit are telling me that he is being truthful about his sexual history and hadn't had sex for 3 years before we met...and that was his previous girlfriend for a couple years. But, my question is...why wouldn't she had let him know she had HPV. Most women know they have it because of their annual Pap smear. She would have known either back then or since then. They broke up in 2013. And they remained good friends.  So wouldn't a good friend tell you this??   And if it wasn't her that gave it to him then who did? As he said he's only slept with a couple girlfriends from about 2009 to 2013. 

Sorry for the super long email but it felt good to vent all of that to someone, as I can't necessarily share this with other people and cause discredit to his character.  

I would love to get some feedback from you guys!!!!! 

Listen to the Podcast Episode to get Caleb's breakdown of this and his answers.

One of our listeners asked for help with his situation. His wife is in an ongoing affair but also wants to keep the family unit intact. As you might imagine, despite his willingness to forgive and move on, he is wondering how to handle this very difficult situation.

A listener wrote in asking how he could help his wife trust him after his infidelity in their marriage. Caleb gives him lots to think about!

This is episode #114 and we are going to be talking about whether or not it is possible to have a hectic life AND be happily married. So in this episode, you will find out if you need to change your career and lifestyle, or if you’re all good to go. No pressure.

Jealousy. This can drive some people absolutely nuts - and their spouse feels completely justified.

It’s a real conundrum. And it’s particularly worse when the jealous spouse has had prior reason to become jealous — a betrayal has occurred.

What does a person do?

Healthy And Unhealthy Forms of Jealousy.

Research shows that jealousy can have positive or negative effects on a relationship, depending on the type of jealousy that is being displayed.

There are three kinds of jealousy:

Reactive jealousy: the degree to which individuals experience negative emotions in reaction to a betrayal/unfaithfulness.

Possessive jealousy: the effort jealous individuals can go to to prevent contact of their spouse with individuals of the opposite sex.

Anxious jealousy: a process in which the individual ruminates about and cognitively generates images of a mate’s infidelity, and experiences feelings of anxiety, suspicion, worry and distrust.[i]

It is important to note that, in contrast to reactive jealousy, neither possessive nor anxious jealousy actually need a rival or a betrayal to be triggered.

Results from the same research showed that individuals high in anxious jealousy had lower relationship quality, as did individuals married to spouses who were high in anxious jealousy.[ii] Remember, anxious jealousy is just about rumination thoughts – there isn’t necessarily any reality to it.

The conclusion here was that anxious jealousy is bad for your marriage. Other clinical studies show that this type of thinking is characteristic of pathologically jealous individuals who, in general, experience great relationship distress.

If you’re the anxiously jealous individual, I’m guessing that you’re not enjoying being that spouse any more than your spouse is enjoying your jealousy. Ruminating is not fun. It takes a lot of energy and creates a lot of negativity. I want to encourage you to get some help. Life doesn’t have to be this way.

You’ve probably had some very real, even traumatic experiences or really, really significant disappointments in very important relationships, but there is healing. It doesn’t have to go on like this. The best thing you can do is take this to a good therapist and work with them towards finding a less anxious way to evaluate the world around you.

The study also found positive associations between relationship quality and reactive jealousy.[iii]

When a spouse reacts jealously to a betrayal, it is likely to be interpreted by their offending spouse as a token of love and caring and can even enhance the relationship. While reactive jealousy is good – you should be jealous if your relationship is threatened, we don’t recommend inducing reactive jealousy as a way to enhance your relationship. There are many other, safer ways to work on your marriage!

Another finding from the study was that possessive jealousy was not found to be consistently related to relationship quality.[iv] Remember, that possessive jealousy is considerable effort a person goes to in order to prevent contact with the opposite sex. What the researchers felt is that this depends on how this jealousy was expressed.

If you are buying flowers or romancing your spouse to keep them interested, it may help your marriage. In contrast, when you use threats or violence or debasement to prevent unfaithfulness, that will reduce the quality of your marriage.

In either case, you need to ask yourself if this possessive jealousy is coming out of a place of fullness or a place of neediness. Fullness is – I appreciate what we have so much, I’m going to guard it. Neediness is – I can never be sure of what we have so I’m going to keep slapping romance Band-Aids on my anxiety to try to reduce the pressure. That is not healthy.

Relabeling Jealousy in Your Relationship

If your spouse is jealous and you have found this frustrating in the past, you might consider reframing it. For example, if you understand that reactive jealousy does not negatively affect the quality of your marriage, you may choose to see this reactive jealousy on the part of your spouse as a sign that not all love is lost and they really want you, and the relationship they have with you.

You probably don’t want to do that with anxious jealousy, which could lead to accepting conflict or demanding or nagging which really isn’t good for you. The same goes to possessive jealousy. Is it really adding to your marriage, or is it just adding a burden?

Not all jealousy is bad, but some of it is definitely unhelpful.

Communicating Jealousy in Healthy Ways

What happens with jealousy in particular is that it often is communicated in a way that undermines the security of the relationship. This is so ironic, as jealousy is about protecting but it is actually having the opposite effect.

How you express any concerns you have to your spouse is so important. Just looking jealous, or appearing hurt, or crying, or acting all anxious, or accusing, or using sarcasm is all unhelpful. Clear, open communication is what is helpful – direct, non-aggressive disclosures and assurances.[v]

If you have concerns, we don’t want you to feel you have no voice or that you cannot express them, just be mindful of how your express those concerns. As you’re expressing those concerns, another thing you need to look at is how your boundaries differ.

Defining Healthy Boundaries

Some researchers recently stated that “jealousy is usually an indicator of incongruous definitions of boundaries by the two partners.”[vi] Given that statement, we have a question that you need to think about: Have you two defined what monogamous means to you?

Each couple needs to define monogamy. You need to define what fidelity looks like in your own marriage. This varies from marriage to marriage. Even with the moral boundaries of a lot of our listeners who self-identify as Christian, and want to honour the marriage standards of the Bible, there is a lot of grey area. Think about these questions:

How much separateness and togetherness do you tolerate? (In some marriages, one spouse travels a lot for work. For other couples, they don’t even like to be apart for one night.) What works for you?

What is private and what can be shared?

What do you consider acceptable social behaviour with the opposite sex? What one person considers being friendly, another might think of as flirting. You need to find the boundaries for your marriage.

The same researchers also stated that jealousy often comes about because “individuals vary a great deal in terms of how much freedom they expect for themselves and their spouses.”[vii]

Determine what this balance will look like in your relationship. “Most couples need a balance of security and freedom to maintain vitality in their long-term relationship. However, couples struggling with jealousy end up in polar opposite positions with one partner feeling threatened by separateness and the other insisting on the right to freedom.”[viii]

This is an area where a couple needs some give and take. Perhaps the more anxious spouse will need to realize that when his wife is being friendly with another guy, she’s only showing basic human courteousness – there’s nothing more there. For that wife though, she may need to be conscientious about her husband’s fears and maybe be a little more conservative with the opposite sex than she would naturally be. Perhaps she can find her outlet with same-sex friends.

Both spouses need to be careful to build and strengthen their own marriage bond so that this internal sense of safety and security is very robust.

Distinguishing Between Past and Present

Finally, we need to talk about the possibility that something may have happened in the past to trigger this jealousy.

Jealousy often arises out of memories of a past event that become entangled with the present.[ix] This is a rather tangly situation!

The researchers explain it like this: “Jealousy is usually multilayered. For both partners, there are aspects of the present situation that instigate the pattern. However, there are fears from the past, or other contexts, that also inform the meaning of what is happening. These ‘remote files’ containing images, beliefs, sensations, and fears tend to quality and distort the present situation.”[x]

Couples can learn to identify when current jealousy is being influenced by past experiences in the current relationship or other significant past relationships and begin to untangle the two.

This is where it is very easy to get upset and lump things together, but you really need to go slowly and tease things apart in your own mind. This is where couples get really frustrated because you’ll have on jealous spouse and one not.

For example, let’s say the spouse who is not jealous actually had an affair a while ago. It’s extremely difficult for the betrayed spouse not to get triggered into jealousy now, but you have to do the work of removing the past event from who your spouse is today. Yes, if your spouse is still a philanderer, I can see why you’d be jealous, but if they have grown and learned from that unfortunate experience, there there’s a good possibility that today’s jealousy is no longer necessary and may, in fact, be dragging you and your betraying spouse backwards.

Which brings us back to where we started: even though jealousy feels like you’re protecting your marriage, it’s probably having the opposite effect and is eroding the bond between you.

We need to challenge ourselves about distinguishing between past and present and make sure we’re thinking correctly today.

References

[i] D. P. H. Barelds and P. Barelds-Dijkstra, “Relations between Different Types of Jealousy and Self and Partner Perceptions of Relationship Quality,” Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy 14, no. 3 (May 1, 2007): 176–88, doi:10.1002/cpp.532.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Jennifer L. Bevan,...

Learn more about the problems, symptoms and deeper issues that are present in sexless marriages. If you’re in this situation, you can find hope and ideas for recovery.

We know for some of you, this episode is going to be a tough one. We’re going to speak the truth in love because we’re committed to integrity, but at the same time we want to give you hope because this IS hope, and recovery of your marriage IS possible.

If you’re at the point where you think your marriage is fine, I hope you will take from this post the need to be proactive. Don’t want until you’re wondering if you can recover your marriage to take action – take action now!

Personally, we don’t believe that any marriage is ever beyond recovery. We do believe that in some cases, like an abusive marriage, it is not safe to recover the marriage until the abuse issue is addressed thoroughly.

We do not have any judgment for folks that have decided to move on – we’re not God and it’s not our job to judge that – but if you’re out there today and you just want someone to tell you there’s hope, then listen, there is hope! We’re going to talk about a number of things that challenge that hope, but we will end up with some things that you hope, so stick with us.

Indicators That a Marriage is Moving Beyond Recovery

Research indicates that the following behaviours may be warning signs that a marriage is headed past recovery and towards divorce.

A Lot of Spouse Hostility

Hostility without warmth is a major warning sign that your marriage longevity is seriously threatened.

A study was conducted of over 400 couples married an average of 18 years. The study went on for five years and looked into the hostility of these marriages, the divorces that happened, and the quality of the interaction between spouses.[i]

Hostility became a theme in the marriages that ended, so let’s look at hostility for a moment. The researchers looked for the frequency of how often a spouse had:

gotten angry

been critical

shouted or yelled,

ignored their spouse

threatened to do something that would upset their spouse

tried to make him or her feel guilty, or

said that their spouse had made him or her unhappy.

On the other hand, warmth looked like times when their spouse had:

asked for his/her opinion

listened to his/her point of view

let them know that he or she cares

acted in a loving and affectionate manner

let them know that s/he is appreciated

helped them something important to him/her

had a good laugh with them, or

acted supportive or understanding.

Here’s what they found: “In every instance, greater marital instability was associated with more hostility and less warmth in marital interactions.”[ii]

This warmth vs. hostility dynamic was so apparent that the researchers were able to predict with an 80% level of accuracy which couples would divorce the following year. All they had to look for was high levels of hostility and lesser levels of warmth.

The researchers summarized their findings with the following statement, “Couples observed to exhibit high levels of hostile, angry, critical, stubborn, inconsiderate, defiant, or rejecting behavior that is not counterbalanced by considerate, cooperative, or affectionate behavior were more likely to perceive high levels of hostility in their marital interactions, were more likely to have unstable marriages, and were more likely to actually separate or divorce.”[iii]

All that to say, that hostility needs to be counterbalanced with warmth in a marriage, or it will have lasting negative effects. We all get our ugly on once in a while unfortunately, but if those times are balanced with a lot of warmth and affection, it will serve your marriage much better.

Significant Ambivalence and Lack of Responsiveness

Another study looked more into the newlywed end of the spectrum and found the following. Couples who divorced after 2 years of marriage had:

lower levels of love,

more ambivalence and less responsiveness to each other,

fewer affection acts in their marriage, and

more frequent negative behaviors.[iv]

That study speaks for itself, I think. Be sure you don’t take your spouse for-granted, and remember to respond (lovingly!!) each and EVERY time they speak to you.

Total Lack of Fondness and Admiration

Dr. John Gottman, in his training resources, refers to what he calls the fondness and admiration system. He says if that fondness and admiration system is still functioning the marriage is salvageable. He also says outright that if there is NO fondness or admiration in the marriage anywhere, then move the discussion towards how they can divorce as amicably as possible.

Now, you need to take this with a grain of salt. When you’re mad at each other – and perhaps have been for a while – you aren’t going to feel any fondness or admiration, but it still might be there!

Caleb had a couple come in for counselling, very upset with each other, and quite distressed. In the second session, he asked, “So, what is the glue that keeps you together?” They both melted – the harshness was gone, and they both responded, “We still love each other.” They were having a really hard time trying to figure out how to do life together but that system was back in there with fondness in it and they were able to recover their marriage.

So, we see Dr. Gottman’s point, but don’t think that is a rule of life. A statement like his fails to take into account the power of the Spirit of God to redeem, to create healing, to reconcile and to rebuild even a very, very broken marriage. What I hope his comment does do is incite you (and me!) to be very intentional about making sure we invest in fondness and admiration in our marriage.

Recovery is Still Possible

You may be freaking out a little at this stage. You have that horrible sinking feeling in your gut. Well, just hang tight. Thankfully there is a wide range of research that shows that recovery is possible even for marriages on the brink of divorce. The other part I keep coming back to in my mind is that God is a God of reconciliation. That’s His specialty!

So, here are four things for you to hold onto.

The Importance of Commitment

The first thing to do is to stay committed. A national survey completed by the National Fatherhood Initiative, cited that the most common reason given for divorce was “lack of commitment.” (73%) Other significant reasons included too much arguing, infidelity, unrealistic expectations, abuse, etc.[v]

The #1 reason though is lack of commitment. This tells me that if you make commitment a priority you can undermine the risk of the #1 reason for divorce.

Commitment is a powerful force in a marriage. If you want some tips on increasing your commitment, check out these five ways to increase commitment in your marriage.

The Potential for Reconciliation

The second thing is to hold onto hope for the possibility of reconciliation.

Many couples who seriously consider divorce do not end up getting divorced.[vi]

For example, “in Utah it appears that about 10-15% of couples who file for divorce decide not to go through with it, at least at that time.”[vii] Also, “research in Minnesota found that about 10% of couples there were interested in a reconciliation service, even at the last stages of the divorce process.”[viii] One statement that I thought was good, yet sad at the same time,  said that “about one in three couples who actually divorce later try to reconcile, but only about one-third of those who try actually succeed.”[ix]

I believe that if you both want to reconcile, and you’re willing to do the hard work that reconciliation demands of each of you, you can recover your marriage. Hold onto the hope for reconciliation. Oftentimes it’s just a matter of timing: where you both want reconciliation at the same time.

The problem is that often one spouse wants it but the other’s not there yet – the timing is off.

If I could wake you up and shake you and be in your face, I would tell you this. If your spouse wants to fix things, DO IT! DO IT NOW! Don’t wait until some later day when you think it’s important because by then your spouse may have moved on without you…

The Hope That Marriage Can Get Better

Thirdly, many couples in unhappy marriages, who hang on, do not remain miserable forever.

“Only about 10% of individuals say at any particular time that they are unhappy in their marriages, and only about 2% say they are very unhappy.”[x] As this study followed these couples over the next five years they found that about 15% of these unhappy individuals did divorce, but 85% hung on.

The even better news is that those who hung on weren’t miserable. About two out of three unhappily married adults who avoided divorce ended up happily married to the same spouse five years later. The unhappiest individuals improved the most; more than three-quarters of the unhappiest individuals who avoided divorce said they were now happy.[xi]

How’s that for good news? Hold onto hope! Be committed! Be open to reconciliation!

At this point, you might be wondering how you can move forward. How can you start fixing your marriage?

Other Couples Have Moved Forward

Our fourth and final hope for recovery is to consider how you might begin to repair.

A smaller study looked at 25 couples in a qualitative approach. All of these couples had considered divorce at some time in their marriage. They were asked to consider their thought process in deciding NOT to divorce and asked what they did to move forward.[xii]

Here’s what they said:

Some couples worked on their communication skills, which allowed them to resolve conflict.

Other couples found that they were able to turn towards each other and rely on one another, instead of continuing to turn inward or to other sources of help.

Many couples stated that seeking professional help was the turning point that helped them move forward.

Other couples stated that their religious beliefs helped them find common ground for moving forward.

So there you have it....

A sexless marriage almost never starts in the bedroom. By the time a couple notices that sex has slowed to a stop, the disconnection that produced the gap has usually been growing for months or years in the rest of the relationship. The bedroom is the readout, not the cause.

If you've found this page because physical intimacy in your marriage has gone quiet, or because one of you wants more and the other doesn't and the gap keeps widening, what follows is the research on what actually drives sexual desire in long-term relationships, plus what you can do about it this week and over the longer arc of repair.

A clinical note up front. The conventional definition of a sexless marriage is one with fewer than ten sexual encounters in a year. That number is useful as a marker, but the more meaningful question is whether the frequency you have is working for both of you. A couple having sex twice a year who are both content is in a different situation than a couple having sex twice a month where one spouse is profoundly hurt by the gap. The issue is not the count. It's what the gap means between you, and whether you can talk about it.

I'm going to walk through three short-term shifts you can make in the next week, three longer-term patterns that build sustained sexual connection, and a reframe of how desire actually works that may change how you read everything that came before. We'll also look at the pursuer-distancer dynamic, which is the most common pattern I see in our practice when sexual frequency has collapsed.

When You're in a Sexless Marriage

It helps to slow down on the language for a moment. "Sexless marriage" is one phrase covering several different clinical situations, and the path forward depends on which one you're actually in.

The most common is mismatched desire: one spouse wants more, the other wants less, and the difference between you has stopped being negotiable. This is the situation most couples are talking about when they search for help. Mismatched desire does not mean someone is broken. It means two people with different desire patterns are trying to find a shared rhythm, and the negotiation has stalled.

A second pattern is chronic avoidance, where sex has become so loaded with conflict, performance pressure, or unspoken hurt that one or both spouses quietly decide it's safer to opt out. The avoidance is rarely about sex. It's about what sex has come to represent in the relationship.

A third pattern is true sexual aversion, where one spouse experiences active distress around sexual contact. This often has roots in earlier sexual trauma, religious shame, or medical and hormonal factors. Aversion needs different clinical care than mismatched desire and shouldn't be treated as the same problem.

A fourth pattern, less talked about but real, is mutual contentment with low frequency. Some long-married couples genuinely settle into a low-sex pattern that both feel fine about. If that's you and neither of you is hurting, you're not in trouble. The trouble starts when one of you is.

Knowing which of these you're in matters because the answers diverge. The rest of this article is mostly about mismatched desire and chronic avoidance, which is where most marriages land.

Three Shifts You Can Make This Week

The research on what actually drives sexual desire in long-term relationships is clearer than people think. Researchers Sarah Murray and Robin Milhausen studied desire in women in long-term relationships and found a small set of partner characteristics that mattered most. Two of them are within your control starting today.

One note before we get into this. Murray and Milhausen studied women in heterosexual long-term relationships, so the language below references women's reported experience of desire. The underlying principle, though, generalizes. Whichever spouse is the lower-desire partner in your marriage, what raises desire is largely the same: feeling that your spouse is genuinely invested in you and the relationship, not invested in extracting sex.

Show Sustained Attentiveness to Your Spouse

When the participants in Murray and Milhausen's study observed their spouses putting consistent effort into the relationship, they reported greater sexual desire. What mattered was attentiveness expressed outside of sexual contexts: small thoughtful gestures, planning a date, asking real questions, listening when answers came, non-sexual physical affection that doesn't read as a request.

I've had spouses tell me in counselling, almost word for word, "They want me in the kitchen and in the bedroom and not much else." That is a place no one wants to be. It is also a place where desire reliably dies.

Romantic gestures that happen only when sex is the goal don't read as care. They read as transaction. If the only time your spouse experiences you reaching for them is when you want sex, sex becomes the price of being attended to. Over time, the price feels too high. Attentiveness in non-sexual moments is what makes attentiveness in sexual moments believable.

Have an Intimate, Emotionally Revealing Conversation

The same study found that emotionally revealing conversation, where each spouse let the other see what was actually happening inside them, was one of the strongest pulls toward sexual closeness. One participant put it this way: an unguarded conversation made her want to "get closer to him physically as well."

The phrase "emotionally revealing" matters. This is not about reporting your day. It is about telling your spouse something true that you usually keep to yourself: a fear, a hope, a doubt about yourself, a memory you haven't shared. The vulnerability is what creates the closeness. Without it, you've had a conversation. With it, you've had an encounter. Emotional intimacy is the stem that physical intimacy grows from, and most couples in long-term marriages have stopped tending the stem without realizing it.

Schedules tighten, parenting takes over, and the conversation flattens to logistics. Reopening that channel doesn't require a weekend retreat. It requires one honest sentence at the right moment.

Carry a Fair Share of the Domestic Load

A 2016 study of more than 1,300 heterosexual couples found that when male partners reported making a fair contribution to housework, couples also reported more frequent sex and both partners reported higher sexual satisfaction one year later.

The study specifically tracked male partners' contributions and female partners' satisfaction reports, but the underlying mechanism applies to any couple where one spouse is carrying a disproportionate domestic load. What corrodes desire isn't the dishes. It's the resentment of being unseen and overworked while your spouse plays the role of beneficiary. More equity at home can reduce resentment. Resentment is one of the strongest brakes on desire there is.

If you're the spouse who has been hearing "she's just tired" or "he's stressed" as the explanation for years, this is the place to look. Tiredness rarely shuts down desire by itself. Tiredness paired with the felt experience of being taken for granted shuts it down quickly.

Long-Term Patterns That Restore Sexual Connection

The short-term shifts above are real and they help, but they sit on top of a deeper layer. The deeper layer is the kind of relationship you're building together when no one is watching. A series of three studies by Amy Muise, Emily Impett, and colleagues mapped this layer with unusual clarity.

The researchers distinguished between approach goals and avoidance goals. Approach goals are about pursuing positive things together: deepening the relationship, growing alongside each other, building something. Avoidance goals are about keeping bad things from happening: dodging conflict, preventing rejection, holding the line.

Approach Goals Build Desire; Avoidance Goals Erode It

In their first study, couples who oriented toward approach goals reported greater sexual desire at the start, and that desire was buffered against decline over a six-month follow-up. Couples who organized around avoidance goals lost desire faster.

That tracks with how relationships actually work. When the central question in your marriage is "how do we keep things from getting worse," you start avoiding each other in subtle ways: avoiding the harder topic, avoiding the look, avoiding the moment that might tip into conflict. Avoidance becomes the default mode. Sexual avoidance follows.

If you're in a sexless marriage, one place to look is whether you've slipped into a primarily defensive posture toward each other. The question to sit with is not "how often do we have sex" but "what are we trying to do together."

Positive Sexual Goals Track With Positive Relationship Goals

In their second study, the researchers found that approach sexual goals (pursuing pleasure, expressing love, promoting intimacy, feeling close) mediated the link between approach relationship goals and desire. Couples who saw the broader relationship as a project of growth tended to also see sex as a project of connection rather than a way to manage their partner's reactions.

Avoidance sexual goals look different. They sound like "to keep him from getting upset" or "to make sure she doesn't feel rejected" or "to prevent a fight." When sex becomes a way to manage your spouse's emotions, it stops being a meeting place. It becomes a duty. Duty sex hollows out desire faster than almost anything else.

Days With More Positive Events Lead to More Sex

In their third study, the researchers tracked positive and negative day-to-day events in couples' lives and watched what happened to sexual frequency. Days with more positive shared experiences correlated with more sex. Days dominated by negative events did not, regardless of how committed the couple was to "trying."

That's a hopeful finding, because the input is something you can actually steer. Small shared positive experiences (a walk,...

Life is super busy.

We get that.

Rather than focusing on the hopelessness of the ‘busy’ problem, why not take the time you do have and make the most of it?

Here are 10 sure-fire ways to make time for each other in a crazy busy marriage. These are not things that will ADD to your busyness, but allow you to connect WITHIN the context you’re already in.

It would be wrong for us not to challenge you at this point though, to look at your busyness objectively and ask yourself if there aren’t some things you can eliminate. You need to be really careful that you’re not using busyness to take you away from what you need to be attending to, which is your relationship with each other.

Not every busy couple is guilty of this, but it’s worthwhile asking yourself if you find meaning in busyness. If so, why? Is your busyness a coping mechanism for something else that’s going on?

Is your busyness functional or is your busyness dysfunctional? Don’t use your busyness as an excuse to not connect with your spouse.

Some Surprising Statistics About Modern Day Couple Leisure Time

How has couple leisure time changed over the decades? The answer may surprise you!

A study from 2010 analyzed time budget diaries from 1965, 1975 and 2003. In these diaries, married couples recorded how they spent each hour of their time each day, enabling the researchers to see how leisure time has varied over the years.

They expected to see that the percentage of leisure time with a spouse decreased but actually found the opposite.

In 1965, the percentage of leisure time spent in the presence of a spouse was 59%. This increased to 62% in 1975 and 66% in 2003. The researchers stated that “the increase in the percentage of time spent in the presence of a spouse over the past four decades was particularly evident for social activities, such as going out to a restaurant, café, bar, party or reception. In addition, joint leisure time spent on in-home social activities increased, such as visiting and receiving friends and playing games.”[i]

They concluded that the evidence contradicts the popular idea that people are increasingly busy nowadays and have less time for their families, and suggest that over the years, couples have managed to find more time to spend with one another.[ii]

We have a couple of issues with this conclusion. One thing is that they’re talking about the percentage of leisure time – not the quantity of time the couple spends together. So we have no way of knowing if they have more or less leisure time, just that they spend a higher portion of that time together.

Another issue is that they don’t actually describe whether that lovely couple spending leisure time at a sidewalk café are engaged at an emotional level or if they’re both on their phones or watching the traffic go by.

But, it is still good news that more of the available leisure time is going to spousal time!

Making the Most of Your Limited Time Together

We’re still really busy people. One point to consider in all your busyness is that you can dwell on how little time you have together instead of the quality of that time. Rather than obsessing over the quantity of time you’re not getting, how about focussing on making the most of the time you do have?

Studies suggest that when it comes to couple time together, the quantity of time together is not the most important factor. The most important factor is how satisfied couples report feeling with the leisure time they spend together.[iii]

Many studies have shown a correlation between couple leisure time and marital satisfaction, but a particular study in 2014 looked at this correlation more specifically. It looked at 1200 couples and how satisfied they were with their marriages and their leisure time together. It turns out what really matters is how satisfied you feel with leisure time. That matters more than the amount of leisure time when looking at marital satisfaction.[iv]

That is good news for busy couples! If you’re very intentional on making the little time you do have together to be very satisfying, that is actually going to produce greater benefits for your marriage than really trying to squeeze more time out of your weeks.

This points directly at our attitude. We can get so hung up on how little time we have and really have a negative perspective on that when we’d be better off directing that energy towards making the most of what is available. It’s coming at something from the perspective of gratitude rather than poverty (poor me).

One of the ways you can really emphasize the quality aspect is to make sure you focus on activities that allow you to converse and interact.

In 1988, researchers studied relationships between couple leisure patterns and marital satisfaction in 318 married individuals.

The results indicated “that the direction and strength between leisure and marital satisfaction are contingent upon the perceived communication during the leisure activity. Joint spousal leisure is negatively related, or unrelated, to marital satisfaction when communication is low or moderate and positively related when communication is high.”[v]

So, time together – when you’re not talking or only talking moderately, doesn’t necessarily help your marriage and may even detract from its satisfaction. On the other hand, when you’re engaged in leisure activities where there are high perceived levels of communication, you are creating a more satisfying marriage.

Think about your activities, your leisure time, and what you do together, and ask, “Are we using the time to really communicate and interact?”

10 Ways To Spend Time Together

Board games: choose games where you can interact more. Competition can be quite flirtatious…

Shower together: you have to shower anyways!

Eat together: turn off the distractions (TV, Radio and phone) and interact over a meal. It also works to put the kids to bed early and have a later supper/dessert on your own!

Go for a drive: next time you feel like watching a movie, watch some natural scenery instead. There something about sitting beside each other, facing the same way, that makes chatting easier.

Do chores together: these things need to be done anyways. Doing them together gives you a great chance to interact. Do dishes, wash the car, change the oil on the vehicle, do yard work.

Go to bed at the same time: (I think this might be my favorite!!) You both have to go sleep, make it a habit to go to bed at the same time each night. This can save your marriage from disaster and can boost your marriage at the same time.

Prayer or devotions together: This doesn’t have to replace your personal time, but doing this together too, helps you connect at a spiritual level.

Leverage kids’ activities: You don’t want to always be the parents that dump their kids and run, but at least once in a while if you drop the kids off at soccer, go for a walk instead of watching or just chatting with other parents. Or, take the kids to the park, cut them loose, and chat while you keep an eye on them (teach them independent play!).

Have a hot drink together in the evening: This is just a few moments to relax and connect. Make it a ritual. Then do #6!

Do a hobby or activity together: You may find it difficult to find something you both LOVE. You don’t both have to love the same thing; this is more about enjoying the time together, rather than enjoying the hobby. For example, Caleb loves woodworking. In our old house, we had a workshop with a big comfy chair in it. I would sit and chat while he tinkered around. We both loved the connection and time together even though it was more his hobby than mine.

Talk about your situation and see where you can spend time together in your existing schedule. Remember, it’s the quality and connection that’s more important than the quantity of time you spend together!

[i] Marieke Voorpostel, Tanja van der Lippe, and Jonathan Gershuny, “Spending Time Together--Changes Over Four Decades in Leisure Time Spent with a Spouse,” Journal of Leisure Research 42, no. 2 (April 1, 2010), https://js.sagamorepub.com/jlr/article/view/376.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Peter J. Ward et al., “A Critical Examination of Couple Leisure and the Application of the Core and Balance Model,” Journal of Leisure Research 46, no. 5 (2014): 593–611.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Thomas B. Holman and Mary Jacquart, “Leisure-Activity Patterns and Marital Staisfaction: A Further Test,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 50, no. 1 (February 1988): 69.