Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married Read online

  This was another area of marriage in which I never anticipated problems. I was fully male; she was fully female—and we had a high level of sexual attraction for each other. What more could we need? I anticipated that this part of marriage was going to be heaven for both of us. After the wedding, I discovered that what is heavenly for one may be hell for the other.

  No one told me that males and females are different. To be sure, I knew the obvious physiological differences, but I knew almost nothing about female sexuality. I thought she would enjoy it as much as I did; that she would want to do it as often as I did; and that what pleasured me would also pleasure her. I repeat: I knew almost nothing about female sexuality. And I discovered that she knew little about male sexuality.

  Had I done any reading on the topic, I would have discovered that the ancient Hebrew scriptures were correct when they suggested that it would take one year for the newly married couple to learn how to have mutual sexual satisfaction.1 Again, I had been blindsided by my lack of information. What I am going to share with you in this chapter is what I wish I had known about sex before I got married.

  First, I wish I had known that while men focus on intercourse, women focus on relationship. If the relationship has been fractured by harsh words or irresponsible behavior, the female will find it very hard to be interested in sex. To her, sex is an intimate act and grows out of a loving relationship. Ironically, men often think that sexual intercourse will solve whatever relationship problems may exist. One wife said, “He speaks to me with intense anger. Thirty minutes later, he says he is sorry and asks me if we can make love. He says, ‘Let me show you how much I love you.’ He thinks that having sex will make everything right. Well, he’s wrong. I can’t have sex with a man who has verbally abused me.”

  For a husband to expect his wife to warm up to a sexual experience after there’s been an altercation in their relationship is to expect the impossible. Sincere apologies and genuine forgiveness must precede the experience of “making love.”

  “If I had known that taking out the garbage was sexy for my wife, I would have been taking out the garbage twice a day.”

  Another way of expressing this reality is that for women, sex begins in the kitchen, not in the bedroom. If he speaks her love language in the kitchen, she is far more open to having sex when they reach the bedroom. If her love language is acts of service, then washing dishes and taking out the garbage may be a sexual turn-on for her. I remember the husband who said to me, “If I had known that taking out the garbage was sexy for my wife, I would have been taking out the garbage twice a day. No one ever told me that.”

  On the other hand, if words of affirmation is her love language, then complimenting her on a meal or on how beautiful she looks will stir inside of her the desire to be sexually intimate with him. The same principle is true whatever the love language of your spouse. While a husband may have a satisfying sexual experience with his wife even when his “love tank” is not full, the wife would find that extremely difficult.

  Second, I wish I had known that to the wife, foreplay is more important than the actual act of intercourse itself. While women like to simmer, men tend to reach the boiling point much faster. It is the tender touches and kisses of foreplay that bring her to the point of desiring intercourse. If the husband rushes to the finish line, she is left feeling, “What was supposed to be so special about this?” Without sufficient foreplay, the wife will often feel violated. One wife said, “I want to feel loved. All he is interested in is having intercourse.”

  Third, I wish I had known that mutual sexual satisfaction does not require simultaneous climax. Largely because of modern movies, many couples enter marriage with the idea that “every time we have intercourse, we will have simultaneous climax and it will be heaven for both of us.” The fact is, seldom do couples have a simultaneous climax or orgasm. What is important is that each of you experiences the pleasure of climax or orgasm. Such pleasure does not have to come simultaneously. In fact, many wives indicate that they much prefer to reach orgasm as a part of foreplay. When his stimulation of the clitoris gives her the pleasure of orgasm, she is now ready for him to complete the act of intercourse and experience the pleasure of climax. The unrealistic expectation of simultaneous climax has produced unnecessary anxiety for many couples.

  Fourth, I wish I had known that when one forces a particular sexual act upon one’s spouse, it ceases to be an act of love and becomes sexual abuse. True love is always seeking to bring pleasure to the spouse. It is never demanding something that the spouse finds objectionable. If the two of you disagree on a particular kind of sexual expression, then it calls for communication and negotiation. If you cannot reach an agreement, then love respects the desires of the spouse who objects. To violate this principle is to sabotage mutual sexual fulfillment.

  Fifth, I wish I had known that sex is more than intercourse. By its very nature, sex is a bonding experience. It is the union of male and female in the most intimate way. It is not simply the joining of two bodies. It is the union of body, soul, and spirit. I think that is why the Christian faith and most other world religions reserve intercourse for marriage. It is designed to be the unique bonding experience that unites a husband and wife in a lifelong intimate relationship. If intercourse is viewed only as a way to relieve sexual tension or to experience a moment of sexual pleasure, it ceases to reach its designed purpose. And it eventually becomes a mundane act of selfishness. On the other hand, when intercourse is viewed as an act of love that expresses in the deepest possible way our commitment to each other, it leads to mutual sexual fulfillment.

  Sixth, I wish I had known that communication is the key that unlocks sexual fulfillment. In a culture that is saturated with explicit sex talk, I am constantly amazed at the couples who enter my counseling office who have never learned to talk about this part of their marriage. If they have tried to talk, it has often come across as condemnation and rejection. They have focused more on telling than they have on listening. The only way we can learn what is pleasurable or objectionable to the other is to listen as they choose to talk. None of us is a mind reader. That is why I’ve spent a great deal of my life encouraging couples to learn how to listen with empathy.

  “What could I do or not do that would make the sexual part of the marriage better for you?”

  Empathetic listening is listening with a view to discovering what the other person is thinking and feeling. What are their desires and frustrations? I have often encouraged young couples to ask this question once a month for the first six months of their marriage: “What could I do or not do that would make the sexual part of the marriage better for you?” Write down their answer and take it seriously. If you do this the first six months of the marriage, you will be on the road to finding mutual sexual fulfillment.

  Number seven, I wish I had known that the past never remains in the past. In today’s sexually open culture, many couples have been sexually active before marriage. The commonly held idea is that sexual experience before marriage better prepares you for marriage. All of the research indicates otherwise. In fact, the divorce rate among those who have had previous sexual experience is twice as high as those who have had no sexual experience before marriage.2 The reality is that previous sexual experience often becomes a psychological barrier in achieving sexual unity in marriage.

  Our culture has taught that sex before marriage is recreational and that once you get married, you can simply wipe the slate clean, commit yourself to be sexually faithful to your spouse, and all will go well. However, it is not that easy to wipe the psychological slate clean. Couples often struggle with the desire to know their spouse’s sexual history, and when they know, it sometimes becomes a memory that is difficult to erase. When it comes to marriage, something deep within the human psyche cries out for an exclusive relationship. And we are pained by the thought that our spouse has been sexually intimate with others.

  I believe it is far better to deal with past sexual experiences
before marriage. When we are silent on this subject and enter marriage without discussing our past sexual activities, almost always the past has a way of erupting into the present. When this happens after marriage, the awareness of deception is often more difficult to overcome than the sexual activity itself.

  If knowing the truth about past sexual experiences does not help you find healing and acceptance before marriage, then my advice is to postpone the marriage while the two of you work through the issue with each other or perhaps with the help of a counselor. If ultimately you cannot find healing and acceptance of the past, then in my opinion you would be wise to cancel your plans to get married. If you are struggling with this issue, I would encourage you to read The Invisible Bond: How to Break Free from Your Sexual Past,3 which will give you further help on how to process the past in a positive way.

  I hope that the ideas I have shared in this chapter will help you enter marriage with a much more realistic view of how to find mutual sexual fulfillment. I have one final suggestion. During the first year of your marriage, read and discuss with each other a book on marital sex. You will find some suggested books in the resource section at the end of this book.

  Talking It Over

  How would you describe the current cultural perspective on sex?

  In what ways do you agree or disagree with this perspective?

  Research indicates that couples who have sexual intercourse before marriage have a higher divorce rate than those who do not. Why do you think this would be true?

  To what degree have you shared your sexual history with the person you are dating?

  If you are seriously contemplating marriage, you may want to read The Gift of Sex by Clifford and Joyce Penner.4

  10

  I Wish I Had Known …

  That I was

  MARRYING into a FAMILY

  If you think that after the wedding it will just be the two of you, your thinking is wrong. You are marrying into a family, for better or for worse. Her family does not disappear the day after the wedding. Both of your parents may allow you to have a few days for a honeymoon alone but after that, they will expect to be a part of your lives. In some non-Western cultures, parental involvement is more pronounced and overt. In some cases, the bride actually moves into the house with her husband and his parents and lives there indefinitely. After all, the dowry was paid, and she belongs to his family. His mother will teach her how to be the wife he needs. In Western culture, in-law relationships are not rigidly formalized but are nonetheless real.

  For over thirty years, couples have sat in my office and made the following complaints:

  “His mother wants to tell me how to cook. I’ve been cooking for ten years. I don’t need her help.”

  “Her father doesn’t like me. He tells his friends that his daughter married down. I guess he wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer. I don’t have the heart to tell him that as a plumber, I am making more money than either one of them.”

  “His sister and his mother never include me in their social activities. They invite his brother’s wife, but they never invite me.”

  “Her brother is addicted to sports. We don’t have much in common. I don’t think he has read a book in years and he has no interest in politics.”

  “Her father is an accountant. Every time we are together, he’s giving me advice on how to manage our money. Frankly, I don’t usually agree with his advice, but I try to be nice.”

  “My husband’s brother is always telling him what he should do. He is four years older than my husband. I guess he’s still trying to be the big brother, but it bothers me that my husband is so influenced by his brother’s advice. If I have a different idea, he always sides with his brother.”

  “My wife’s parents give her money to buy things we can’t afford. I resent that. I wish they would let us run our own lives.”

  “My husband’s parents just drop in unannounced and expect us to drop everything and visit with them. It’s beginning to be very irritating. I don’t want to hurt their feelings, but I wish they would call and find out if it is a convenient time for them to visit.”

  When you marry, you become a part of an extended family. This family may include a mother, a father, a stepmother, a stepfather, brothers, sisters, stepbrothers and stepsisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, stepchildren, and perhaps an ex-husband or an ex-wife. You cannot ignore this extended family. They will not go away. Your relationship may be distant or close, positive or negative, but you will have a relationship because you are marrying into a family.

  Life will be much easier if you can have a positive relationship with this extended family. Your relationship with each of these individuals depends on the opportunities you have to interact with each other. If you live a thousand miles from both of your extended families, then your relationship may be positive but distant. Your opportunities to develop your relationship may be limited to holidays, weddings, and funerals. However, if you live in closer proximity, then you may have a great deal of interaction with members of your extended family.

  Five Key Issues

  Normally, the most intimate of these relationships will be with your spouse’s parents. Thus, in this chapter, I want to focus on mother-in-law and father-in-law relationships. What then are the issues that will need to be processed with your in-laws? Here are five typical areas that will call for understanding and negotiation.

  One of the first issues that will likely demand your attention is holidays. At the top of the list will be Christmas. In Western culture, more families get together at Christmas than at any other holiday. Often, the problem is that his parents want both of you at their house on Christmas Day and her parents want the same. If they both live in the same town, that may be possible. If they live in the same state, it could be Christmas Eve at one set of parents and Christmas Day with the other. However, if they live several states away, you may have to negotiate Christmas with his parents this year and her parents next year, and spend Thanksgiving with the parent or parents who won’t see you at Christmas. There may be other holidays that will be deemed extremely important for one or both of your families.

  Unless you have spent a great deal of time with in-laws before marriage, you may be blindsided by these expectations.

  In addition to holidays, there will also be traditions. One young wife said, “My sister and I have always taken our mother out for dinner on her birthday. Now that we are married, my husband says we don’t have the money for me to fly back for Mom’s birthday. I’m finding this really hard to accept. I don’t want my mother and sister to feel badly toward him, but I’m afraid that’s what will happen.” A young husband said, “For as long as I can remember, on the Fourth of July, my family has a fish fry. The men go fishing early in the morning. It’s an all-day event. It’s the one time each year that I get to see all of my cousins. My wife thinks that we should spend the day with her parents, but all they do is go out to a restaurant for the evening meal. We could do that any time.” Traditions are often undergirded by deep emotions and should never be treated lightly.

  Your in-laws will also have expectations. Unless you have spent a great deal of time with them before marriage, you may be blindsided by these expectations. One husband said, “I found out the hard way that when my wife and I go out to a restaurant with her parents, they expect to pay for our meal one time and they expect me to pay for it the next time. I was so embarrassed when my wife said, ‘It’s your time to pay.’ When we go out with my parents, they always pay for our meal. It had never crossed my mind that they were expecting me to pay.”

  Some of these expectations will have religious overtones. A young wife said, “I found out that when we spend the weekend with his parents, they expect us to go to the synagogue with them on Friday nights even though both of us are Christians. I feel very uncomfortable but I don’t want to hurt their feelings. I’m wondering if, when they come to visit us, they will go to church with us on Sunday.” Her husband said, “Whe
n we go to visit her folks for a weekend, they expect me to wear a suit when I go to church with them on Sunday morning. We attend a contemporary church and I only have one suit that I bought for my grandmother’s funeral five years ago. I feel uncomfortable wearing it.”

  Each of your in-laws may also have patterns of behavior that you find irritating or troublesome. You may discover that your father-in-law goes out with “the boys” every Thursday night and normally comes home intoxicated and verbally abuses his wife. Your mother-in-law tells your wife about this behavior; she tells you. You wish there was something you could do but you feel helpless. You are troubled by your father-in-law’s behavior but you are also irritated that every time your wife talks to her mother, she brings up the topic, and your wife gets upset.

  Megan had been married only five months when she said in the counseling office, “My mother-in-law is the most organized woman I know. You should see her closets. Every shoe is in the right place and all of her dresses are color coordinated. The problem is I’m not very organized and when she comes to our apartment, she tries to give me suggestions that she thinks will make my life easier. I’m sorry but that’s just not who I am. Besides that, I don’t have time to keep everything organized.”

  Your in-laws may also have strongly held religious beliefs that differ from yours. One young husband said, “Every time I’m around her father, it’s like he’s trying to convert me to his brand of Christianity. I am a Christian but I’m not as dogmatic and pushy as he is. I think religion is a personal matter and I resent him trying to pressure me to agree with him.”

  Suzanne, who grew up in a Lutheran home, said, “His folks are Baptist and are constantly talking about my getting baptized. I was baptized as a baby and I don’t feel any need to be re-baptized. They act like it is a big deal. I don’t get it.”