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FF: Applying the S-Curve Model to Strengthen Your Marriage

by The Generous Husband | Feb 21, 2025 | Change, Friday Flashback, Seeing Clearly, YOU4HER

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Whitney Johnson, a Harvard Business Review blogger, has some interesting ideas I think apply to marriage nicely. In Throw Your Life a Curve Johnson talks about the S curve model for understanding how we learn new things.

You start to do something new to improve some aspect of your marriage, or just to make your wife happier. This could be a change of habit, trying to listen better, a new approach to sex, whatever. You start at the lower left of the curve, in the yellow area of the chart above. You are unsure how it’s going to work or exactly what to do. After you struggle for a while, you get the hang of it, and you start to improve rapidly. You get positive feedback from your bride because she is seeing the rapid change; this is the green area. Finally, you have almost mastered what you’re doing, which means there’s not much room to grow or improve. Your wife may stop bragging on you; you may start doing whatever out of habit without much thought, or you may get bored with it. This is the red area.

Each phase has dangers:

YELLOW: The danger here is giving up. This is the most frustrating part of doing something new. There is little growth, plenty of failure, and little or no recognition of what you’re trying to do. The important thing here is to just keep going.
GREEN: The greatest danger here is getting a big head. Don’t let your success or her praise cause you to slack off here or in other areas. You need to add this to the other ways you meet her wants and needs. Another danger is thinking that you’re owed something (see Say no to Quid Pro Quo).
RED: One danger here is backing off just before you master whatever it is you’re doing. Another danger is slipping into autopilot, which means you won’t do as good a job. You might also get so bored you stop doing it, do it less often, or don’t keep doing it as well.

Do you see any of this in your past when you tried to improve your marriage? Do you tend to drop out in the yellow zone? Do you think too much of yourself in the green zone, or think she owes you? Do you get to the red zone and drop what you are doing to start a new curve?

[This post first appeared Nov 29, 2012.]

Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly
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40 Years Strong: How God Defied the Odds in Our Marriage

by The Generous Husband | Jan 27, 2025 | Good Marriage

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Today, Lori and I celebrate forty years of marriage. Her comment to me about this yesterday was, “And they said it wouldn’t last”. And I suspect there were more than a few who thought if not said that.

Honestly, there was good reason to think that way. She was too recently divorced from a bad marriage. I was unprepared to be the step-father of a six-year-old. And while I did have a decent job, the income was not great for a family of three. Then there were the problems we each had that we’d not dealt with. Including some we didn’t even know we had.

The first two years were rough, to put it kindly. We had a lot of problems, and couldn’t find the help we needed from our church. But we had one thing going for us: God. We were both serious about following Jesus, and we knew He would have us deal with our stuff and grow into a great marriage. With His grace and help, that is exactly what happened.

What God did for us, He can and will do for you. Man said our marriage was doomed. God said it was not.

God was right.

Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with stockdreams.a
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FF: God’s Design for Her Sexual Pleasure

by The Generous Husband | Jan 17, 2025 | Friday Flashback, Sexuality

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Sex is not just for men. God intended women to enjoy it too. How can I say that? Because His design leaves no other rational conclusion. While female orgasm is not necessary for conception, the clitoris has no purpose other than pleasure. Additionally, women can have multiple orgasms, their orgasms tend to last longer than the male version, and when they have a good orgasm it is far stronger than anything a man will ever experience.

Sadly, many women are not enjoying sex, or at least they’re not enjoying it nearly as much as they could. There are several issues here: men who do not really try, men who don’t know what to do, and women who resist or limit sex. I will devote a post to each of these.

Men who don’t really try:

It is tempting to say rude things about a man who doesn’t make a real effort to give his wife as much sexual pleasure as she can handle. Certainly, some men in this category are guilty of selfishness, but there are other possibilities:

He has no idea what to do, and isn’t getting any help or feedback from his bride. (See Tuesday’s post)
His bride has shown no interest in sex. (See Wednesday’s post)
Exposure to porn has given him a greatly skewed idea of what a woman wants sexually, and how a woman should react to various sexual situations. If you keep trying what you “know”, and it doesn’t work, you eventually just give up.
He is so sexually starved he can’t see past the end of his own, ah… nose. This isn’t a valid excuse, but it’s easy to understand why it happens. If you have this problem, at the very least, you need to be all about her pleasure after you get your pleasure.
He has bought into the lie women don’t really care for sex much. This lie is still circulating in the church, with both men and women spreading it. If he thinks she is “supposed to” spread her legs and just lie there, he doesn’t even know there’s a problem.
Premarital experience has convinced him women don’t want or enjoy sex very much. Often women see sex as the price they must pay for dates, or to get a husband, and this doesn’t inspire passion or pleasure on her part.
Fear. Yup, just plain afraid of what a turned on wife would be like. I don’t know how common this is, but I’ve had a couple of guys express this concern, saying “What is she starts to want more than I do” or “What if I can’t keep up” or “What if I can’t satisfy her?” If a man sees her enjoying sex as Pandora’s Box, you can understand why he might try to avoid her enjoying sex.
Laziness. In general, women need more time and attention to get aroused and to climax. A man who got used to his own pace during years of masturbation may find her pace frustrating. If he doesn’t understand this is a normal male/female difference, he may think there’s something wrong with her, or think she doesn’t desire orgasm.

If you aren’t giving your wife all the effort needed to make sex fantastic for her, please ask yourself why. She needs and deserves to enjoy sex as much as you do. Don’t be the reason she’s not enjoying it to the fullest.

[This post first appeared Oct 22, 2012.]

Image Credit: © George Dolgikh | stock.adobe.com
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Unsung Heroes In Action

by The Generous Husband | Dec 17, 2024 | Beyond the Marriage

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I talk a lot about serving others. Today I want to share about some folks who are doing that in very real, practical ways. The names have been changed.

Mary, an elderly woman, can no longer drive. For several years, Joe has picked her up at her home, driven her to church, and helped her from the car to her seat and back again. Lori and I assumed Joe was related to Mary. But he’s not. He saw a need, and moved to fill it.

Sally ran a coffee shop in Deer Park. One day, when I was at Costco in Spokane, I saw her pull up in a big van. Several of her customers who don’t drive got out. There is no public transportation from Deer Park to Spokane, so Sally was providing that for folks she knew needed it.

I know others who take an elderly person shopping, or go shopping for them. It’s not glamorous, and most of the time no one even knows they’re doing it. But they’re very much obeying Jesus’ command to help the least of these.

During this season of giving, think about how you could help someone. And then keep doing it all of next year.

TEN DOLLAR TUESDAY: Speaking of giving, our Year End Donation Drive is ongoing. Today is ten dollar Tuesday. If everyone reading gave ten dollars, we’d blow our goal out of the water.

2024 Year End
18% of 15,000 raised as of 12/15

Help us meet our goal! Be a part of helping marriages by supporting us with your prayers and finances.
Thanks, Paul & Lori

Donate with Check or BillPay

Print out our donation form and mail it with your check or money order. Make checks payable to The Marriage Bed. Or skip the form and put “Paul & Lori” in the memo.

Mail to:

Paul & Lori
c/o The Marriage Bed, Inc.
4641 Lyons Hill Road
Springdale, WA 99173

US donations are tax-deductible

Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with stockdreams.ai
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Improve Your Marriage One Small Act at a Time

by The Generous Husband | Nov 18, 2024 | Simple Ideas, YOU4HER

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What might happen if you made a point of doing one small act of kindness for your wife every day?

Some might be so small they don’t register with her, but they will add up. She will feel better loved and more accepted. She may not know why she feels that way, but it doesn’t matter as long as she feels it.

Image Credit: © abir | stock.adobe.com
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An Annual Couple’s Vacation is Crucial for a Healthy Marriage

by The Generous Husband | Nov 15, 2024 | Friday Flashback, Good Marriage, Quality Time

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I’ve mentioned the importance of a couple’s vacation before. And I will do so again.

I know you’ve a long list of reasons you can’t possibly do it. I can only counter with this: doing it is very good for your marriage. You need a chance to get away together and be a couple. You need to do this away from friends, and you especially need to do it away from family, including children. Getting away together lets you remember how things used to be. That can help you put some of what you’ve lost back into your marriage when you return from vacation. A low stress, non-busy vacation will greatly reduce your stress level, which is good for your marriage. A vacation gives you a chance to clear the air, and to dream about the future. A vacation also allows you to do things together and build shared experiences.

Find a way to get a couple vacation each year. Talk friends and family into taking the kids. Go somewhere you can drive. Get a low-cost motel. Pack your meals. Give something up so you can save the necessary money. Do.Whatever.It.Takes.

[This post first appeared Oct 1, 2012.]

Physicals: A Life-Saving Act of Love for Your Marriage

by The Generous Husband | Sep 17, 2024 | YOU4HER, Your Needs

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The last couple of weeks, Lori and I have both done what we affectionately call “The Butt Cam”. Also called a colonoscopy by some.

Not my favourite way to spend a few hours, but it’s really an amazing thing that they can remove precancerous polyps and keep you from getting one of the most common, and deadliest cancers we face.

A lot of men ignore doctors. When we’re young, we can more or less get away with that, but as we get older, an annual physical can save your life. Or keep you from pain or disability. In addition to finding problems, an annual physical sets a baseline for your body that could be helpful later.

The current guidelines call for a man to have a physical every five years under the age of fifty, and yearly after that. I’ve mentioned before that an annual physical when I was 58 found a condition that would have done significant harm to me before I had any symptoms.

This is a marriage issue because it’s rude to die on your wife when you could easily have avoided it. So man up and do it!

Time Envelopes: A Practical Approach to Work-Life Balance

by The Generous Husband | Sep 3, 2024 | Her Needs, Margin, Your Needs

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I see a good deal about having a healthy work-life balance. Getting that right is necessary for your sanity, for your physical and mental health, and for your marriage.

One of the side effects of my doing a real sabbath rest every week has been creating a better work-life balance without trying.

I have developed a habit of making certain non-work things in my life must do. They have a minimum amount of time I will spend on them. Most of these will get more time if it’s available, but they won’t get less time unless something extraordinary happens.

It’s a lot like Dave Ramsey’s envelope system. Time put in the “be with family envelope” doesn’t get used for anything else. Likewise, for time assigned to relaxing or spending time with my wife.

The difficult part is not feeling guilty about breaking from an important task to play with my grandkids or follow my wife into the bedroom. When something is overdue, it can be a challenge to switch to something else. Sabbath has taught me how to do that because sabbath is a hard stop no matter what. Spending time for non-work things has become the same way.

This could mean I don’t accomplish things that need to get done. I avoid that by having enough margin to do what’s critical, not putting too much on my plate, and regularly reassessing my time use. I’ve also learned to set realistic goals, and to modify goals if it becomes apparent I miscalculated.

If you want to do this, I suggest you start with a couple of time envelopes. Make one something you really enjoy doing, and the other time with your wife. Assign those things a minimum amount of time each week, and make that happen unless some catastrophe occurs.