Marriage and Intimacy Tips for Christian Couples: Secrets of Happily Ever After

Debunking Sex Myths in Marriage

• Monica Tanner - Marriage and Intimacy Coach for Christian Couples • Season 4 • Episode 341

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Bad sexual advice is one of the top reasons couples struggle early in marriage, often because most grow up with distorted expectations about what a healthy sex life looks like.

• Sex advice is usually messed up because the topic is taboo in most families
• Most couples start marriage with distorted expectations about their sex life
• "A Good Wife Keeps Her Husband Satisfied" creates an unhealthy obligation dynamic
• Healthy sex is mutual with both partners free to say yes or no
• The myth that "men always want it and women never do" oversimplifies desire
• Desire varies from person to person and changes in every season of life
• Understanding "bridges to desire" helps couples communicate about intimacy
• The myth that "great sex should happen naturally" creates disappointment
• Most couples have one partner with spontaneous desire and one with responsive desire
• Great sex takes communication, intentionality, and sometimes scheduling
• Sex is a journey, not a destination – you'll grow and learn together
• Sex is more about connection than performance
• Communication is essential – you can't fix what you don't talk about
• Sexual satisfaction gets better over time when you make it a priority

Go get your copy of Bad Marriage Advice on October 1st, and join me next week for a special episode where I'll interview my oldest son and his wife about what they wish they'd known before marriage.

If you are ready to work with a coach around these topics, email me at: moni@monicatanner.com.


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Speaker 0:

Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, monica Tanner, and we are officially one week from the launch of my new book, bad Marriage Advice. I am getting so excited and I hope that you will all go and purchase your copy on October 1st to be the first ones to get your hands on it. It's also a wonderful gift for anyone in your life who is getting married or just their marriage needs a boost. I mean you could order several copies and just have one on hand anytime you need it. All right.

Speaker 0:

Today I want to talk about something that doesn't get a lot of airtime, and it is the worst advice about sex that we're given and what newlyweds, or even if you've been married a long time, need to know. So let's be honest when it comes to sex and marriage, most of us grew up in families that didn't really talk about it. If your family did talk about it, usually it was the just obligatory birds and bees talk, but most families, I would say, don't talk about this topic enough to their kids who are about to get married. When I talk to my clients, I am usually appalled at how they describe the way they first learned about the topic of sex and all the things that their parents never taught them. Most of them felt confused, ashamed or completely unprepared for what sex and marriage is really like. So today I want to talk about the worst sex advice you've ever been given and what I wish every couple, especially newlyweds, knew about sex. Don't worry, I'm going to keep it real fun and PG-13 enough so that you can listen without blushing too hard. But this is important because bad sexual advice is one of the top reasons that couples struggle early in their marriage. And, of course, most of this is straight out of chapter 11 in the book which, remember, is launching on October 1st. All right.

Speaker 0:

So the question is, why is sex advice usually so messed up? Reason number one is that in most families, like we said, the topic is very taboo, and so most of us just grow up with radio silence around the topic of sex. There's no real conversation about it. Just don't do it before you get married. Church and cultural messages can create shame, and the media portrays very unrealistic expectations about what good sex actually looks like. The bottom line is most couples start out marriage with very distorted expectations of what their sex life will be like, and not only that, but typically the husband and the wife have very differing ideas about not only what it will be like, but also how to talk about it, or if they talk about it. I think about it like getting handed a car with no manual. You're told this is powerful, beautiful, dangerous and it's the most important part of your marriage, but no one tells you how it actually works. And no wonder so many couples stall out early. Today I want to talk about three really bad pieces of sexual advice, and then I'm going to tell you the better thing to think about. So number one this is the title of chapter 11 in my book.

Speaker 0:

A Good Wife Keeps Her Husband Satisfied. Unfortunately, this is not only stated a lot of times, but definitely exemplified in a lot of marriages. I remember specifically hanging out at a friend's house and we were playing pool with my friend's mom who had just recently gotten divorced and she was so heartbroken, but she shared with us, kind of inappropriately, that she always kept her husband satisfied, that she was always available whenever he wanted sex and he cheated on her anyways. Now, at the time, I remember thinking, well, that doesn't sound very fun, but doing what I do now. There's so many things wrong with that statement. First of all, if she was always available for her husband, then sex wasn't fun or something that she desired. Basically, it was a chore or obligation, and when both partners don't feel free in the sexual relationship, that never turns out to be a good experience. The reality is that healthy sex is mutual. Both partners are free to say yes or to say no, and neither partner is acting as the caretaker for the other. Meaning this idea of sexual obligation or managing your partner's needs and desires is completely antithetical to mutually beneficial, desire-driven, committed sex. Both partners' needs need to matter. Intimacy is about connection and not keeping score. I once heard the line that sex isn't a customer service hotline where one partner's job is to handle all the requests. Being on either side of that isn't very fun, all right.

Speaker 0:

Moving on to the second piece of really bad marriage advice that I hear so often is that men always want it and women never do. Sometimes women or girls are taught growing up that a good woman doesn't have any needs or desires. That feeds right into the idea that a woman's job is to handle the needs of her husband. The problem with that is it completely oversimplifies desire. It creates shame for men who don't always want it, and for women who actually do desire to be with their husbands. The reality is that desire varies from person to person and in every season. Healthy couples understand that healthy sexuality is something that needs to be renegotiated over and over and over again throughout the lifespan of the marriage. Healthy couples learn how to communicate about their desire instead of relying on stereotypes.

Speaker 0:

One of the things I teach my newlyweds, but also couples that have been married for years or decades, is about bridges to desire, because our desire profile is so individual and unique. One of the things that's really important to learn about is where our desire comes from, or what feeds our desire. I call these bridges to desire, so I learned pretty early on in our marriage that laughter for me is a huge bridge to desire. Anything to lighten up the mood a romantic comedy, watching some comedy skits, memes on Instagram, anything that can take me kind of out of my to-do list and into that fun, playful energy is a bridge to desire for me, and when I was a young mother, taking me literally anywhere outside of the home and having to tend to the needs of my children continuously was a huge bridge to desire. But again. These things change over time and in the different seasons and stages of my life, so it's really important to always be having these conversations with our spouse how can I help you get in the mood, if you will? And finally, the last piece of really bad sexual marriage advice that I hear is that great sex should just happen naturally.

Speaker 0:

I think we see so many spontaneous sex scenes in the movies and on TV that we get this really warped idea that everybody has spontaneous desire, which is definitely definitely not the case. The problem with thinking this way is that it creates disappointment when sex actually requires effort and planning. It is very typical for most couples to have one partner with more spontaneous desire, meaning they're ready at all times. They'll happily drop everything for a sexual encounter and also another partner with responsive desire, meaning that that takes more time and effort and planning for them to be able to get in the mood. Life, kids, stress and seasons all affect desire and sexuality. That doesn't mean that anything is broken and actually having a spontaneous desire partner and a responsive desire partner creates an equilibrium, because if both partners were spontaneous, not a lot would get done and if both partners were responsive, then it would be difficult to enter into any sexual experiences at all, so that tug and pull between spontaneous and responsive desire, higher and lower desire, is actually equalizing for the couple.

Speaker 0:

Great sex takes communication, intentionality and sometimes scheduling. When I meet with newlywed couples, we talk about lots of different ways to structure and schedule, even though oftentimes it takes a little while to fall into those ruts and routines. But if you learn about these cycles early on, it makes it much easier to implement them in the high stress situations when you're building a business, working on your career, creating a family and keeping a home. I guarantee you're never just going to stumble upon great sexual experiences. They have to be created intentionally, and learning what each partner likes, desires, prefers is a lifelong endeavor and it does require that awkward communication and there are lots and lots of ways to practice doing this.

Speaker 0:

So here's a few things that I wish every newlywed knew about sex. Number one it's a journey, not a destination. You'll grow together, you'll learn together, you'll experiment and discover and explore, and that's part of the fun of it. Creating your sexual relationship is never a one size fits all. Every single couple is going to do this differently and that's part of the magic. Number two sex is more about connection than it is about performance. If one partner feels like they just have to put out, if you will, you're never going to be able to create the beautiful connection that we all desire.

Speaker 0:

Number three, and this is a big one communication is everything. You can't fix what you don't talk about. You have to be able to communicate with each other about everything surrounding your sexual experiences. I know this is not comfortable for most of us, but doing something like a sex talk Tuesday which is what I always recommend where you're either walking together or driving in the car together, so you don't have that awkward staring into each other's eyes, and you definitely don't want to do it in the bedroom, so find an alternate location to talk about it when you're not in the heat of it and do it regularly. And, last but not least, it gets better over time when you make it a priority. You both have to decide that it's good for your relationship, that it's worth working together to create something that you both enjoy, and I promise you it is such a worthwhile endeavor.

Speaker 0:

The best sex isn't about technique or position or performance. It's about building trust, safety and fun, because when those things are in place, the rest will flow more naturally. So, in closing, if you've ever been weighed down by bad sexual advice or you've just felt like you're not living up to what it should be, I want you to take a deep breath. You're not broken. Your marriage isn't broken. Your spouse isn't broken. You're just operating on bad advice. There is help.

Speaker 0:

Start with the book Bad Marriage Advice, and if you would like a coach to walk you through this, please reach out to me, monnieatmonicatanercom. Or if you know of newlyweds who are getting ready to get married, my number one piece of advice is to sit down, have a few sessions with a relational life trained coach or therapist like me, and put a plan in place so that sex does not become a problem down the road. You want sex to be a really important, fulfilling and beautiful connecting part of your relationship, but you can only do that when you're operating on good information about it. That's literally why I wrote the book Bad Marriage Advice Debunking Myths that Will Make you Miserable, because operating on bad marriage advice will absolutely make you miserable. And chapter 11 is all about debunking those harmful sexual myths and helping couples build intimacy that's fun, mutual and lasting.

Speaker 0:

Don't forget to go get your copy of the book on October 1st, and be sure you join me next week for a very, very special episode where I'm going to interview my married kids, my oldest son and his wife. They've been married for just over four months and we're going to talk about all of the things they wish they'd known, all of the things they're grateful they knew, and their thoughts about the book. Don't miss that one. We'll see you same time, same place next week and until then, happy marriaging.