Archives For married life

6 Ways to Kick Boredom Out of the Bedroom

stugray —  03/22/2010 — 1 Comment

Lost that lovin’ feeling? The passion and zest you once had in your marriage? I’d like to offer you 6 ways to kick boredom out of the bedroom (and every other room)!

1. Curiosity

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. ~Dorothy Parker

My 4 year old son can play in the dirt (for hours, it seems) and never get bored. He sits right on the edge — where the pavement meets the grass. Rocks, dirt and a little boy. He asks me to come look at something he has found. A bug, A rock, A hole. He is surveying the ground and interested in what he sees.

Your spouse might not be full of rocks or covered in dirt (unless that’s your thing).  Seriously though: Have you stopped being curious about your spouse? Do you assume you know them inside and out? Continue Reading…

In Keep the Fire Burning , , ,
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Wives Try This: Initiate Sex With Your Husband

Lisa Gray —  10/21/2009 — 1 Comment

Passionate Kiss Between Lovers
Beautiful Wife™ here… I want to say thanks for reading here at Stupendous Marriage! My Incredible Husband™ has a passion for marriage… our marriage and for encouraging others in theirs!

I read through his posts and often help edit or add a woman’s point of view, but for the first time, I thought I would post something from me!

Looking over the stats from our marriage blog, I noticed one post in particular that gains the most interest from readers: 5 Reasons Why I Should Initiate Sex With My Wife.

When My Incredible Husband™ wrote that post, it was from his point of view why he doesn’t initiate sex more. Yet, when I see how many emails and questions he gets from husbands about how to get their wives to initiate sex more, I thought I should post something specifically for wives.

Why Don’t Women Initiate Sex?

As women, why don’t we initiate or want sex more? I know the stereo-typical excuses of “I have a headache”, “I’m tired” or “I have to get up early” and I agree that sometimes these reasons are valid… but maybe there is a bigger issue to think about.

Sex is Not an Obligation, It’s Connection

Sex is not about filling an obligation – “if I give him sex tonight, then I will have a couple days where he is not bugging me”.   You may not look at sex that way, but I believe some wives do.

So what is one of the purposes of sex in your marriage?

How about this one: Wanting to physically and emotionally connect with your husband? Or, filling his needs the way you want him to fill your needs? I believe that God gave us sex as a gift, an essential and incredible part of the journey of marriage. Yet, I don’t think I realized how sex is important to my husbands emotional connection to me. It is not just the physical activity he desires, but the emotional connection it can give us through the act of sex.

As women, we tend to feel loved when we are connected through communication – that is why we talk more than men!

Men don’t work like that.

They feel loved when we show them respect and desire to share ourselves with them… not just our minds but also our bodies.

They need us to need them in every area of our lives, not just to share our emotions with them, but to share our beings with them. If your husband loves you, chances are he wants you sexually more times in a day than you can imagine. For every time you think about the stuff you have to do in a day (clean house, feed dog, pick up kids, etc.) he’s probably thinking about sex with you!

Attention is Different for Men

What we can give our husbands is the thing we want them to give us… ATTENTION… it just looks different.

Attention We Need: listening to us share our stories, helping with the kids and house, running errands, being romantic.

Attention He Needs: making him a priority, listening to him, being intimate with him mentally and physically.

How different would our marriages be if we really gave our husbands our physical attention, not out of obligation, but out of a desire to want to have the best marriage we can?

This is one of the many things we can think about when it comes to sex with our husbands. I hope it challenges you to give your husband the attention that he needs!

Did this post help you or inspire you? Want to pass it along to someone who needs encouragement in their marriage? One of the best ways to share is by retweeting this post, or sharing it on Facebook. Both of those options are below! Thanks!!

photo by Graela

In Sex and Marriage , , , , , , ,
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The Marriage Triangle

stugray —  07/28/2009 — Leave a comment

marriagetriange

First off, let me just say that I love Microsoft Paint.

Ok, with that out of the way, I wanted to pass along this cool illustration.

The Marriage Triangle

A triangle. God is at the top point and the Husband and Wife are the two bottom points.

The point (ha!) of the illustration is this: The closer the husband and wife are to God, the closer they are to each other.

If we move closer to God individually, we move closer to each other. The further we are away from God (the bottom points of the triangle) the further we are from each other.

Simple and Easy.

Great point from Ed Young. (Get The 10 Commandments of Marriage!)

Where are you with God? Do you think that putting God first and foremost in your life helps your marriage?

In Faith and Marriage, The Stupendous Marriage Blog , , , , , , ,
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Here Are 4 Ways to SPARK Electricity in Your Marriage

stugray —  07/01/2009 — Leave a comment

It's Electric!

Every Halloween, my Beautiful Wife™ and I dress up together. Its something we started doing when we were dating. Actually, I don’t think there has been a Halloween that we haven’t dressed up together in 9 years.

Being that her birthday is November 1st, it has always been a BIG holiday in her life, so we make the most of it!

Now, we get the kool kiddo involved. We have been Batman, Robin and Batgirl (I voted Wonder Woman, but was unfortunately overruled), Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and Mickey, Minnie and Goofy (that was me, by the way). [We are currently thinking about what famous threesome to dress up as this year - send me your ideas. It would be greatly appreciated!]

We have this tradition that bonds us together. It’s special to us, its something we do with each other (even if we DO wait til the last minute to put the costumes together!) We also have the memories of the shared time together, the decision making process, plus all the pictures to go back to to help us remember.

Its ONE way to keep the electricity in our marriage.

What about the electricity in your marriage?

Is it still there?

Sometimes you take for granted the good things you have in your life.

Couple weeks back, the Electric Company turned off the electricity in our house, only for an hour, yet it was enough to get really really hot! We didn’t have tv, fans, lights, we were just twiddling our thumbs. And, being that my Beautiful Wife™ and I are both home based workers, we were literally ‘in the dark’.

But we did get to hang out with the kiddo for about an hour. So thats what we did.

You don’t realize how big a deal electricity is until it’s gone!

Is there electricity in your marriage? Has it gone away? How do you get it back, how do you get the spark going again? (I have written some ideas in some previous posts)

Keeping the Voltage up (If you know what I mean)

Quick thoughts on generating electricity in your marriage again:

  • Build Traditions: Sit down to dinner every night with the family. The new tradition in our household is Pancakes every Saturday Morning. All three of us get up, and make pancakes together. It is something enjoyable, and we are building into our marriage and our family by making it a point to do something together. Holidays are a great time to build your traditions. Something that you do with your spouse (or family). (As I write this, July 4th is a week away – and a great time to think about sparking some electric in your marriage by starting a new tradition)
  • Make it Special: We make most of our Halloween costumes. Well, let me rephrase that. We go and FIND most of our costumes, and don’t buy them “off the rack”. They are unique to us. No, I wasn’t the prettiest Goofy out there, but who cares. We made it together. And it was special and fun for us together.
  • Do it together: This is a continuation of the first two but needs to be said by itself. You can do something special by yourself. And you can make little traditions in your own world. But the point is to do them together so you build your marriage and have something to remember and enjoy together later on. Which leads to…
  • Take the Time to Remember: Pull out the picture book and look at the pictures from good times and good events in your marriage. (we have our wedding pictures, baby pictures and all the pictures from other various events – like every Halloween!!) Why not get lost in the fun and terrific times – draw those to your memory instead of pulling up every negative thing that your spouse has done?

Don’t Lose the Electricity!

It’s easy to get lost in the day to day of life and then wake up and realize what was once an “electric” marriage is now just a “dead wire”.

It takes work, commitment, and action. Dedication, sacrifice and “want to”.

But you know that.

And I believe that you want that electricity back (or a little extra jolt!) or you wouldn’t have read this far!

In Keep the Fire Burning, The Stupendous Marriage Blog , , , , , , , , ,
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The 10 Commandments of Marriage – Book Review

stugray —  06/22/2009 — Leave a comment

A Marriage is not so much the union of two great lovers, but two great forgivers” – Ed Young

Title: The 10 Commandments of Marriage, the Do’s and Don’ts for a Lifelong Covenant

Author: Ed Young

Basic Plot or Story:

This book is not a story per se, but a collection of stories and helps for married couples with a ‘framework’ of the 10 Commandments.

While normally, this would not be a book that I would have picked up in the bookstore, due to the “cheesy” (in my mind) title, there are some really great helps in this book for married couples.

Its always nice to read a book that goes back to the Bible for principles, and Ed Young does this throughout.

A quick run down of the commandments (chapters) gives you a good idea of where the book goes:

1 – Thou Shalt Not be a Selfish Pig
2 – Thou Shalt Cut the Apron Strings
3 – Thou Shalt Continuously Communicate
4 – Thou Shalt Make Conflict they Ally
5 – Thou Shalt Avoid the Quicksand of Debt
6 – Thou Shalt Flee Sexual Temptation – Online and Otherwise
7 – Thou Shalt Forgive Thy Mate – 490 Times and More
8 – Thou Shalt Keep the Home Fires Burning
9 – Thou Shalt Begin Again and Again
10 – Thou Shalt Build a Winning Team

What can you apply right away?

…they began to ask each other, “What says ‘I love you’ to you?” They committed to act on the answers they heard and thus found the key to mutual submission.

There are several Anagrams and Alliterations throughout the book that are explored in depth – (some don’t enjoy that type of teaching – but I find it helps my memory!) Here are a couple:

What makes a MATURE Marriage:
*Motivation
*Attentiveness
*Tenderness
*Understanding
*Respect
*Excitement

What Factors contribute to an Affair?
*Proximity – ‘Over’ closeness with someone from the opposite sex
*Problems – We all have them at home
*Playboy Philosophy – “if something feels good it must be ok”

If you liked this, what other books might you enjoy?

Turn Up the Heat by Kevin Leman

If I could only read one chapter, which one would I read?

Chapter 4 “Thou Shalt Make Conflict Thy Ally”.

All marriages have conflict, and as I continue to be married, I realize that I bring some pretty screwed up ways of communicating to the table. And many of those weird ways to communicate come out when we are arguing.

Ed discussed good and bad conflict, the myths of conflict in marriages, some don’ts of conflict (ie. Don’t air your dirty linen in public), and how to keep conflict constructive, and learning to control your reactions.

Have you ever considered that your reactions may have a greater effect on your marriage than your actions?…How we respond reveals the real person inside…What happens when you put a tea bag in a cup of hot water? The water soon begins to turn brown. Why? Did the hot water turn itself brown? No. The “brownness” was in the tea bag the whole time; the hot water merely brought out its natural color.

The Big Wrap up

While this book may not have been high on my reading list, I think that the heart is in the right place. And to be honest, I did learn a couple new things in the process.

This book would be a great beginning book to read together if you are looking for something easy to enjoy and share with one another. With questions at the end of each chapter, it would give you and your spouse some great conversation starters.

In Marriage Resources , , , , ,
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9 Marriage Spots to Check Out Online

stugray —  06/18/2009 — Leave a comment

victorian-romance

Here are a couple great sites to check out regarding marriage that I have found this week!

Marriage Junkie – The blog of K. Jason Krafsky who also runs:

Full Marriage Experience – Helping couples before they say “I DO”.

Marriage Comission – Marriage strengthening teams in various cities – you can check to see if your city has a “team”.

Love Better Camp- If you are a writer/blogger, they are taking submissions for blog posts about relationships!

Hitched Magazine online

Families – Lots of great stuff here. (Leans very female friendly. I lose ‘man points’ for hanging around here)

Marriage Counseling Cafe- good info, but there is an annoying “Don’t leave” pop up when you try to navigate away. (be warned)

The Association of Marriage and Family Ministries – A Ministry to help churches develop and continue

Dad Labs – After reading a great write up in USA Today, I went to check out this site – great advice for today’s dads.

Pic from Old Pixels

In Marriage Resources , , , ,
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16 Ways to Show Your Spouse Love in Under Four Minutes

stugray —  06/09/2009 — Leave a comment

Here are 16 Quick ways to show your spouse love in under four minutes

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In Focus on Your Marriage , , , ,
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What Should You Talk About In Your Marriage?

stugray —  05/09/2009 — Leave a comment

The Marry Blogger talks about one important topic to ‘conversate’ about with your spouse!

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In Communicate with Your Spouse , , , , ,
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