by ·4 Comments

Sexy Corte says she thinks this reaction to the repeal of Rove v. Wade is fake because she’s seen it before, but even still I find it amusing. Whether this meme is real or fake, I pray that men and women around the world do rediscover the God’s plan for marriage.

Me and some of my girlfriends did a retreat this weekend to help us cope with the monumental setback in fundamental rights. By the end of it, we had moved from sad and afraid to ANGRY [mad face]. We all agreed to a pact: no having sex with any men, until he had proven himself a capable provider, and until that man had signed a contract, written on paper, agreeing to stay with us and support us if we get pregnant. We started drafting an actual contract, and we’re planning on sending it to a lawyer to make sure its legit. At this point, I am completely done with men who want to hook up and leave, it’s high time for american men to STEP UP.

Whether real or fake, what this woman says she wants is pretty much exactly what God intends for sex. Men and women both need to “step up” to God’s high calling.

If you liked this, please share it!

by ·2 Comments

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.”

Genesis 1:1-4

Right from the start God brought order out of chaos. Creation is often the first thing we learn about God. A few years ago someone pointed out to me that God’s creative process was the act of speaking order out of the chaos. In His good, perfect manner of doing so, His creation was declared good. 
Our world has abruptly descended into chaos. In a matter of a few short weeks all of our lives have changed drastically.

We are at an inflection point. The world is going through a transformational experience. Our actions right now will shape and define what our future will look like on the other side of this transformation. In a short time, many of our habits have changed. If we are not careful, bad habits will creep in. I want to encourage you that now is the time to be intentional in following God’s model of creation. It’s a time that in our individual lives we can act with integrity to bring order out of the chaos that we’re in. We all have the same amount of time, but it has shifted around. For me, the time I would usually be doing do chores I’m homeschooling instead. The time I would usually be working I’m doing chores. Our evening activities are cancelled but we’re maintaining connections through virtual socializing. Right now, as things are in flux, it’s the opportune time to look at our lives and allocate our time in a positive way.

As Christians: We can be light and hope to a world that’s in the dark. Even though many of us are isolated, we can still “rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) What reach could you have right now if you were being joyful instead of worrying, praying instead of looking at Facebook, giving thanks instead of complaining? How can you be generous when our instinct says to hoard? Who do you know that is suffering that you could call and offer hope to? When you are outside, how can you take some time to get to know your neighbors?

As spouses: Sit down with your spouse and have a discussion. How do we want to move on from here? Our time has shifted, so how are we going to best use it? When are we going to wake up in the morning? When is the best time for us to have sex? A date night? How can we be creative to have a date night when we can’t go anywhere? You still need to connect with your spouse physically, emotionally and spiritually. What good habits do we want to bring into our marriage right now? What bad habits have we started that we need to correct? If sex isn’t on your calendar regularly, now is a great time to make it a high priority. Make sure your spouse is sexually satisfied. Talk about your fears with each other — naming them will give you power over them. Keep a healthy diet, or if you don’t have a healthy diet, now is a good time to start one. Encourage each other. Thank each other. Play with each other.

As parents: Are you acting in a way that you will be proud of when you look back on this time? Are you acting in a way that you want your kids to imitate? How do you respond when your child walks into a room and needs something? Does your face light up to see them or do you look annoyed? Kids feel safe and secure when there is structure and a schedule. How can we establish a new schedule that allows them to thrive?

These are the questions El Fury and I are thinking about as we take tentative steps through the chaos. Thankfully El Fury is busy with work right now. He is serving our family in that capacity. Also thankfully, my work has slowed a lot, which has allowed me to adjust to the new rhythm of homeschooling. I want to serve my family by tending to their needs, encouraging them, praying together, and making good meals.

Transformational experiences are good opportunities to shape how you want to be in the future. Do this by using the timeless model that God lays out in His creation story. Trust in Him to guide you in bringing your chaos into order.

If you liked this, please share it!

by ·0 Comments

Schools are shut down, and so are many workplaces. Your family is self-isolating at home for several weeks, and maybe a lot longer. It’s tempting to just “Netflix and chill” for the foreseeable future, but here are some more productive ways to spend your time during the global COVID-19 shutdown.

Have sex with your spouse. Sex has a ton of health benefits!

TV medical expert Dr. Mehmet Oz says that people stuck inside should be having lots of sex to combat the effects of social distancing for the coronavirus.

“The best solution if you’re holed up with your significant other, quarantined, is have sex,” advises the doc in a TMZ video Tuesday. “You’ll live longer, get rid of the tension.”

“Maybe you’ll make some babies,” he adds. “It’s certainly better staring at each other than getting on each other’s nerves.”

Be grateful for your spouse! Single people are having a really tough time dating thanks to coronavirus.

Alexsis Venable, 23, says she’s “a little more hesitant to go out on dates.” The New Jersey resident explains, “I know some people are touchy-feely, so if I was on a date and someone would like to hold hands or touch my face, I would be taken aback.”

Some people are nervous, but find their dates are not. Gen, 22, is “very worried,” adding, “I can’t see myself going home with or even kissing a random guy anytime soon.” (She requested her last name be withheld.) As for her dates? The Los Angeles resident notes, “I think guys are pushing less to meet up in person from apps than they might have once. In person, though, I find that guys don’t really seem to care about the coronavirus over their own desires.”

Maybe that’s part of the reason male life expectancy is a lot shorter than female.

Worship. Read the Bible together as a family. Our kids enjoy reenacting Bible stories as plays for us. Sing songs — our favorite hymnal is Hymns of Grace, and Grace to You offers MP3 files of piano accompaniment for free!

Exercise. Don’t just sit on your butt all day! You can still go outside to walk, run, or ride bikes with your family while social-distancing.

Board games and cooperative/multiplayer video games are great quality time for couples and families! Much more interactive than television.

Virtual sightseeing courtesy of Google. It’s not the same as being there, but here are a few cool resources:

Do you have any other suggestions for productive ways to spend your time during the coronavirus? Share them in the comments.

If you liked this, please share it!

by ·5 Comments

New research shows that Americans are having less sex than 20 years ago and suggests that the decline might be due in part to improvements in electronic diversions like Facebook and Netflix.

American adults had less sex in the early 2010s than they did in the 1990s, to the tune of nine fewer times a year, according to new research published in Archives of Sexual Behavior. (That’s a drop from a yearly average in the low 60s, to one in the low 50s.)

This slump holds true regardless of gender, age, race, work or marital status, although it’s most precipitous for American who were married or living with a romantic partner, a group that reported having sex 16 fewer times per year in the early 2010s when compared to the early 2000s.

[…] Twenge has another theory on why we’re getting frisky less frequently: technology. More specifically, the rise of smartphones and streaming services, which began gaining real traction in the late 2000s.

“Entertainment is more entertaining now, it’s more on demand — you can access it anytime you want,” she says. “DVRs became more common right around that time, too.” In other words, we might be too busy binge watching shows, playing video games, and Snapchatting our friends to bother having sex.

Basically the theory is that electronics are out-competing you for your spouse’s attention. No one likes competition, but you can be more interesting than the internet if you’re intentional about it. In addition to the tips in that post (go read it!), here are some ideas for protecting your marriage (and family) from excessive electronic distraction.

  • No television in the sex room! Televisions are ubiquitous these days, but I guarantee that if you have one in your master bedroom it is reducing the frequency of sex. Do you doubt me? Haven’t you ever laid in bed, barely able to keep your eyes open, while trying to finish a show before you pass out? I bet you didn’t have sex after that, even if you were both frisky when you got in bed. Your master bedroom should be your sex room, and you should protect it as such.
  • Keep your computers in public places. This goes especially for your kids — computers that are in public parts of the house (as opposed to bedrooms) are much less likely to be abused. If you have a home office (like we do), try to stay away from it when you’re not working so that you aren’t pulled away from your family time. If your computer is in a public part of the house, then even when you have to use the computer at least you can stay near your family instead of completely disengaging.
  • Limit access to electronics by time and place. We try very hard to limit our use of electronics to specific times and places. The kids only watch television during quiet time. Phones and tablets are not allowed at the table during meals. Mobile devices with full internet access are not allowed in the kids’ bedrooms. Sexy Corte and I only watch Netflix in the living room, usually after we have sex upstairs. It’s important to create consistent boundaries that work for your family, and these will probably change over time as your kids get older. The electronic boundaries in your marriage need to protect your relationship and your sex life — find shows and games that you can enjoy together, and have sex first!
  • Shared access. Shared devices are much less likely to be abused than private devices. Adults will probably have their “own” phones, but in our family we know each others’ pass-codes and can access all the devices — and the same goes for email, Facebook, or whatever. We use LastPass to store our passwords, which is great for security and convenience and also ensures that Sexy Corte and I can get access to whatever accounts we need. (Ensuring access would also be especially important if one of us were to become incapacitated or worse.)
  • Don’t get caught in the web. Learn to recognize when you’re mindlessly surfing the web without purpose and make yourself stop. I’m most susceptible to this trap when I’ve had caffeine too close to bedtime — I’ll just lay in bed, bleary-eyed, clicking on links when I should be sleeping. It’s hard to stop because the internet is addictive, but when you learn to recognize what you’re doing you can apply your willpower to put the device down.

Got any tips to share? How do you and your spouse protect your marriage from Facebook and Netflix? Leave a comment!

If you liked this, please share it!

by ·0 Comments

People say it all the time: “it’s only a season”. Seasons come and go. Some are better than others. Rather than wishing time away, we need to learn how to embrace the season we are in. The light parts and the dark. Maintaining a good habit of having sex with your spouse can help shape your outlook on whatever season of life you are in.

Sometimes I’m well into a season before I realize how things have changed. Right now I think I would title the season “over”. Lately I feel a lot of “over-(blank)”. I am starting my third year of being home with three preschoolers. I love our kids like crazy, but toddlers definitely contribute a lot to the tone of a season. Often at the end of the day I feel over-touched, over-stimulated, and over-tired. However, I also feel that I’m in the best time of my life! Children are a blessing from the Lord, but they can zap your energy right out of you. So how do you keep a fulfilling sex life in the midst of raising kids?

Here are some thoughts. Please leave suggestions for what’s worked for you in the comments!

  1. Time of day. The first thing I do when I find myself in a new season of life is reevaluate the best time of day for sex. Pay attention to your body and notice when you feel that urge — be alert. If you are exhausted by the end of the day, try having sex in the morning. It takes more discipline — you need to go to bed earlier, set an alarm, and actually wake up.
  2. Pray! Do you pray for your sex life? You should! Pray for desire, satisfaction, and regularity, for both you and your spouse.
  3. Take a moment. We are all busy, whether at home or at work. By the time the kids are in bed, I am not ready to be touched for a while. Similarly, if you work at a job where you have to talk a lot or are around people all day, you need a bit of quiet when you get home. I’m amazed at how even just 15 minutes alone can rejuvenate me and prepare me to better spend time with El Fury in the evening. Most of the time, this is just a nice hot shower.
  4. Make sex a habit. If sex is a regular part of your schedule, it’s going to happen! The same way you commit yourself to exercise and brushing your teeth, you should treat sex as a priority. If you’re already in the regular habit of having sex, you’re more likely to maintain a good sex life during the different seasons of life. You are in charge of your own time, and if something is important you should be able to carve out 30 minutes for it.
  5. Be flexible. If you have kids you have constant interruptions. They have lots of demands and very little patience. Even when I wake up early, am alert, and in the mood, there are times that things have to halt because there is a tiny person crying at the (locked) door. It’s frustrating, but it’s part of having these wonderful little people in your life. Keep trying. That evening. The next morning. Just keep trying!
  6. Communicate and ask for help. For me, the hours between 4 and 6 can make or break how I feel. Making dinner and cleaning up is often intense. When EF is able to help — with either clean up or baths, or just taking the kids away so I can prep dinner, it makes a world of difference. For less stress, try some slow-cooker meals. Anything you can to make dinner time less overwhelming will help!

Your spouse deserves your best, not just whatever you have left at the end of the day. Adjust yourself and your sex lives throughout whatever season you’re in. And remember, it’s only a season!

If you liked this, please share it!

by ·3 Comments

Our world has changed so much since I was a kid. There is so much to entertain. Sometimes we even need to be entertained while being entertained! It’s literally at our fingertips. With so much to distract, it’s easy to get into some bad habits. How often do we favor scrolling through our phone than paying attention to our spouse or children? What message are you conveying when your child needs something and you take your time to respond so you can finish reading your article or playing your game? Relationships take effort. Being present speaks volumes of love. It says, you are important, and worth my time. We have made a few decisions in our house to help us make time for being intentional with our family.

  1. No devices at the dinner table. We eat meals together as a family, and everyone sets aside their phones (or toys for the younger ones). Mealtime is probably the most important time of the day to engage with each other.
  2. No TV’s in the bedroom. This was a little more difficult to give up, but I’m so glad we did. The bedroom is for sex, and for sleeping.
  3. Play games! Board games are so different from when we were children. There are so many different kinds of games out there. El Fury and I love playing games together, and it’s a great way to engage with each other. We watch TV sometimes, but that feels more like parallel play. There are a lot of cooperative games out there too, so you can even be on the same team.
  4. We often say to our kids “people are more important” when they want to play on their tablets instead of hang out with our family. It’s a good thing for them to hear, and a good reminder for us as well.
  5. We also try not to be on our phones in the evening. After the kids go to bed it’s our time to hang out. We guard that time. We don’t get on our computers or phones, we spend time together.

When your spouse is talking to you, set your phone aside, and look them in the eye. They should be more important to you. Your relationship is with a person and not a device. At the end of your life are you going to be happy for all the time you spent with your spouse, or are you going to wish you would have spent more time on your phone?

If you liked this, please share it!

by ·11 Comments

Pregnancy is a special and fleeting time — although I remember while I was pregnant I felt like it would last forever! Looking back I can better appreciate how short a chapter of my life it was. During pregnancy, there are a lot of ups and downs in your sex life, and each trimester needs it’s own adjustments to keep a happy sexy time. Then after baby is born, there are even more adjustments to be made!

1st Trimester

  • When you find out that you and your spouse have made a life together, it is an incredibly intimate feeling. I felt connected to EF in a way I never had before. We shared something together that is at the most primal level of humanity, and that feeling extended into our sex.
  • Shortly after you become pregnant you start to realize that you won’t have your period for a while. This was one of my favorite parts!
  • Also shortly after you become pregnant, the hormones really kick in. For me, this is when I really started to pay attention to how I felt at different times of day. I was fortunate to not feel sick all day. Each pregnancy was different, but with each one there was a time of day that worked best for sex. So that is when we had sex! If you can be flexible and communicate you should be able to maintain an enjoyable sex life even through the more unpleasant parts of pregnancy.
  • Enjoy all the positions that you like, you aren’t really limited by your size.

2nd Trimester

  • Ah, the golden trimester for sex. El Fury loved this trimester. My libido was so high, I think I wore him out! Have sex as much as you can in this trimester.
  • For most of this trimester different positions are still comfortable. We tried to enjoy the Jockey position because we knew soon we wouldn’t be able to do it that way.
  • There isn’t a whole lot to say on this trimester, except have lots of sex and enjoy it!

3rd Trimester

  • Sex gets a little challenging during these few months. This is where I felt like I would be pregnant forever. Husbands, encourage your wives as much as you can during these months. I was super crabby the last two months of pregnancy and needed all the encouragement I could get!
  • Exercise if you are able. At this point I was only able to walk, and I think my level of activity made sex more enjoyable.
  • During this trimester we were pretty much limited sex to two positions: me on top and spooning. Sex while spooning is very comfortable when you are pregnant. The last month especially this was my favorite way to have sex. If you are unfamiliar with this position, it is exactly as it sounds: having sex while the husband spoons the wife.
  • Although it can be difficult, try to enjoy sex because after baby is born most people have to wait a little while until your body is recovered.

Postpartum

  • The first time you have sex after baby is born is pretty monumental. You haven’t had sex for a while, so both of you are pretty worked up. For the wife, it is also pretty scary (at least for me it was). Go slow and spend a lot of time on foreplay. When the husband is entering the wife, go especially slow and make sure she doesn’t have any pain through the process. EF was so gentle, and it meant the world to me that I could trust him in that way.
  • This is yet another time that you have to notice what time of day you want to have sex. Then have sex at that time! This can change rapidly, so listen to your body and embrace it when you want to have sex. Those first few months after our babies were born we had sex at all hours of the day. There were times I would come in from feeding in the middle of the night and be ready to go. EF was flexible enough that he didn’t mind waking up in the middle of the night.
  • Boob sensitivity. Before having kids, my boobs weren’t really an exciting area for me. For EF they were, but I didn’t get much pleasure out of them. I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this, but after having babies and breastfeeding, by boobs became much more sensitive. Now I get very turned on when EF touches me there.

I love looking back and remembering our experience of pregnancy and childbirth together. EF was the only person I wanted to have in that room with me. Going through all that together brought our relationship to a new level of intimacy. I love sharing this journey with him. There are times I feel like our kids are absolutely crazy, and I can look up and catch his eye. We give each other a knowing smile. He is the only person in the world that can understand our life together, and what we’ve been through with adding these little lives to our world: their quirkiness, and the intense love we have for them. Then, when those crazy moments have turned to quiet moments after they go to bed (or in the morning before they wake up), it’s amazing to look into those same eyes while we make love. That, I believe, is how God wanted us to experience this great gift of sex and intimacy.

If you liked this, please share it!

by ·3 Comments

The results from this study on co-sleeping aren’t surprising in the least!

While some parents find co-sleeping helps to make nights with a baby more manageable, others find the constant caregiving and interrupted sleep to be exhausting.

Beth Day and her husband, of Seattle, slept in the same room with their son and found he started waking more and more frequently around 12 months. As soon as they moved him to his own room, he started sleeping through the night.

“Once I got my personal space back, my relationship with my kid and my husband improved immensely. I don’t think I realized how I had such a feeling of invaded personal space until it wasn’t any more,” Ms. Day said. Getting better sleep helped, too. With the fragmented nights of co-sleeping, “I was really irritable with my son and my husband, and didn’t have the energy to really play or interact” with her baby, she said.

Your master bedroom should be reserved for marital intimacy, which includes sex but so much more!

One of the most common questions about co-sleeping is how it impacts a couple’s sex life. Parents say that when a baby is sleeping in the same room, maintaining intimacy can require creativity.

“We don’t have sex in our bed anymore, but there are other places to have sex,” said Leah Nilson of Vancouver, British Columbia. She and her husband have co-slept with their 2-year-old son from birth. “It has not negatively impacted our relationship in the slightest. Parenting in general has, but bed-sharing is one of the more pleasant aspects of parenting.”

Yes, there are lots of places to have sex besides your bed, but be honest — if you remove your bed from the equation, the frequency of sex is going to go way down.

When you have a new baby it’s easy to become completely focused on that wonderful new life. Babies are awesome! But your marriage relationship should always be your top priority, and it’s hard to prioritize it when you have an infant sleeping in your bed.

Despite how much you love your baby, you need to give yourself and your spouse permission to have your own space. You need to put the kids to bed and make time for yourselves. Keeping Mom and Dad healthy is the best thing for baby, and protecting your marriage will pay dividends for years.

If you liked this, please share it!

by ·0 Comments

When Sexy Corte and I were struggling with the decision of whether to have another child we asked many of our friends for advice. Some of the couples we asked were very sure of their decision to stop, but their surety wasn’t much help to us because it was often grounded in the specifics of their circumstances (age, health, time, etc.). The couples who hadn’t decided yet were often in the same boat as we were: agonizing indecision.

SC and I prayed a lot about our decision and it could have gone either way — there wasn’t any one determining factor that pushed us to stop. Our inertia was moving us towards having another child — years ago we had agreed on a number, and we were both happy with it. But when it came time to finally decide, we were both uneasy. We took several months to talk with each other, seek advice, and pray. In the end, we decided that either course could honor God and be good for our family, but it was best to stop. This was a very hard decision, but we’re still confident that we made the right choice.

So, how did we decide? This list of questions by Deepak Reju, a Christian counselor, was a great foundation for our discussion. It addresses many Biblical teachings on the topic of children, and then uses those Bible teachings to frame some practical questions. Here are the topics — and our answers — that ultimately led us to our decision.

  • Is your default position to stop or to have more children? Our default position was to have another child. We were struggling because we both felt that inertia was pushing us into a less-wise decision. Not unwise, just less wise.
  • What is your logistical, emotional, and spiritual capacity as parents? Our children are close in age, and we realized together that we were at capacity. If had been younger we would likely have spread our kids out a little farther and reduced the peak workload of young children, but that wasn’t an option. It’s the peak workload that limits your parenting capacity, not the average workload.
  • Are you being responsible to serve and disciple your spouse and children? We wanted to make sure that we’d always have time for each other, and for deep one-on-one relationships with each child. It was already a challenge to find one-on-one time with anyone, and we didn’t want to sacrifice quality for quantity. Our marriage is the most important relationship in the family, and we believed that having another child would add a significantly increased burden. Additionally, each child needs special time alone with each parent, and we love providing that.

So those were the factors that led to our decision. As with many decisions, we believe that God could have been honored either way — He gave us wisdom and discernment for a reason. After we decided, we wrote an email to our future selves that we could look back on if we ever doubted our choice, but so far we’ve had it affirmed in numerous ways… usually during dinner or bath time. In a later post we’ll write about how we made the decision permanent.

How did you make this decision for your family? Are you pondering it right now?

If you liked this, please share it!

by ·7 Comments

Staying disciplined with our kids’ bedtimes has been one of the best habits that Sexy Corte and I have cultivated during our marriage. We’ve written two posts about protecting your master bedroom from your children and making it a haven for your sexual relationship, and it’s just as important to protect your time as your space.

When you have young children it’s easy for them to dominate every waking second of your life, but your sex life is going to suffer if you let that happen. Maintaining a consistent bedtime for your kids is important for their mental and physical health, your sanity, and your sex life. If your kids wake up and go to sleep when you do, it’s no surprise you don’t have time and energy for sex.

Children need structure and consistency, and they need a lot of sleep.

Among the children who were in bed by 8 p.m., 10 percent were obese as teens, compared to 16 percent of those who went to bed between 8 and 9 and 23 percent of those who went to bed after 9, according to the study, published in The Journal of Pediatrics.

Although the study does not prove that early bedtimes protect against obesity, Dr. Anderson said, “there is a great deal of evidence linking poor sleep, and particularly short sleep duration, to obesity, and it’s possible the timing of sleep may be important, above and beyond the duration of sleep.”

“This provides more evidence that having an early regular bedtime and bedtime routine for young children is helpful,” she said.

We try to have our younger kids in bed by seven every evening, and the older ones in bed by eight. They’re not always asleep by then, but they’re in bed and quiet. We stick to this schedule about six days a week, and the other day we’re likely to have some church or social event that keeps us out a later. Our kids are like all other kids: they stall, delay, and beg to stay up later, but they know the routine and are generally compliant.

This schedule gives me and Sexy Corte at least two hours together almost every evening. It’s very easy to have a babysitter watch the sleeping children while we go on a date (which we try to do monthly) but most of the time we spend the evening playing board games together — and having sex! Sexy Corte’s best time of day for orgasm has moved around over the years, and now the golden hour is right after we get the kids to bed. As you can imagine, I’m pretty motivated to tuck them in!

As our kids get older I’m sure they’ll stay up later, but we still plan to enforce a quiet time in the evening starting around eight. We’ll see how that goes!

We’re frequently shocked to learn that many of our friends have their kids in activities several nights per week, let them stay up until ten, or even let them sleep in the master bedroom. I don’t see how such parents ever find time for themselves. If you’re in this position and you can’t imagine how to change things around, check out our post about creating the habit of daily sex — it contains a bunch of good tips for creating good habits in your life and marriage.

Do you have any good ideas for protecting your time, space, and energy for sex?

If you liked this, please share it!