Beyond Valentine’s: Showing Your Wife Love Year-Round

by | Feb 17, 2025 | Do It For Her, Understanding Her

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Valentine’s is over. But the need for your wife to know you love her is not.

Husband surprising his wife with flowers

This week, buy her flowers or candy. Send her a loving text. Take her out for the evening, or serve her breakfast in bed. Do this no matter what you did or did not do for Valentine’s.

It means even more when it’s not expected.

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Embracing the Whole Package, Quirks and All

by | Feb 7, 2025 | Friday Flashback, Gratitude, Seeing Clearly, Understanding Her

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My wife puts up with me.

It’s not that I am a horrible person, but I know I can be a challenge. I see life as an adventure looking for a place to happen, and I feel obligated to make room for as much adventure as possible. In addition, I figure if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing to excess. Case in point, last weekend I spent a good deal of time turning sixty pounds of home-grown tomatoes into 7 gallons of tomato purée. This tied up the kitchen for a good while, and I required help from Lori a couple of times.

A bucket of tomatoes

My point here is we’re all complex people, and the “other side” of something we like in our spouse can be something we have to put up with at times. You married her because she was so outgoing, but her always wanting to go out sometimes wearies you. She married you because you had the self-control and money sense she lacked, but she gets upset when you’re “stingy”. She married you because she loved how creative you are, but it comes with a messy side that drives her crazy.

Behaviours, personality types, and other preferences have both an upside and a downside. Expecting your wife to remove the “annoying part” while maintaining the part you like is asking something impossible. The best option is to accept the parts you could do without as part of the whole. Focus on the good, and downplay the annoyances. My wife has been greatly enjoying some of the best tomato basil soup ever made. She also says she loves the adventures I get her into, at least most of them.  And she is never bored… even if she might like to be on occasion.

If the annoying side is destructive, to her, you, or others, or if it just bothers you so much you can’t ignore it, ask her to tone it down some. But understand it’s part of the whole, and not easily limited.

[This post first appeared Oct 27, 2012.]

Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with stockdreams.ai
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FF: Why Can’t She Be The Way My Girlfriends Were?

by | Jan 31, 2025 | Friday Flashback, Seeing Clearly, Sexuality, Understanding Her

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A comment on a recent poll read, “If only my wife treated me as well as my sinful high school girlfriends so many years ago”.

Teenagers making out on the couch

I suspect many men who did more than hold hands with someone before their wife have had similar thoughts. If you got more, or better, when you were single, it’s understandable to think this way. What you need to realise is this is comparing apples to orange juice.

What a woman does sexually before marriage has little or nothing to do with drive, desire, preferences, or enjoyment.

Even in most Christian circles, some level of sex is required to get repeat dates. In marginally Christian or non-Christian circles, the expectation is greater. Going from dating to a serious relationship means more is expected, and if you want to get married, you better be ready to do just about anything he wants.

Try to put yourself into this reality, the reality of many young women in Western cultures:

You want companionship, love, and eventually marriage. You like guys, but you don’t have a huge sex drive, and you feel being sexual is questionable if not wrong. If you engage in sex, the guy is usually done before you really get started. At best, they get theirs, and you get nothing. Or even worse, he gets his and leaves you horny. If it were up to you, you would avoid sex at least until you were engaged. However, you find most guys expect sex, and expect more as the relationship continues. You feel your choices are offering sex you do not really want or being alone. Being alone seems a worse fate, so you engage in sex. You don’t want to be doing anything, and you don’t get much pleasure out of what you do, so it doesn’t matter much what you do or how often you do it. It all feels wrong on one level, so how can you say, “I don’t like that” or “I think that is wrong” to anything?

Gentlemen, can you grasp this? Can you understand the bad, no-good-choices situation many women experience when single? Can you understand why they say yes when they want to say no? Can you see why they say yes to things they don’t want to do? What they offer is not real; it is just them playing a part. This has two bad results: it creates men who want from their wives what their girlfriends did in sin, and it creates women who neither want nor enjoy sex. When such a man and such a woman marry, it is a given they are going to have sexual problems.

If you have expectations created by sinful sex, you really need to repent of the sex and see the expectations created as fruit of the poisoned tree. Expecting your wife to meet those expectations is asking her to pay for your sins. If you’ve been doing this, you need to deal with it, seek her forgiveness, and promise to change.

[This post first appeared Oct 27, 2012.]

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FF: Understanding Her Sexuality: A Guide to Pleasuring Your Wife

by | Jan 24, 2025 | Friday Flashback, Sexuality, Understanding Her

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Men are straightforward sexually. Our bits are on the outside, they respond dramatically to stimulation, we climax easily, and we usually give good indications by sounds, movements, and words when we are enjoying what is being done. Additionally, men are fairly similar in what we want and enjoy. Yes, there’s some variation, but not a great deal.

Women are a completely different story. Their bits are hidden, changes in response to stimulation are small and hard to see, climax can take awhile (by male standards), and feedback is often poor or non-existent. Additionally, there is a huge range of what women like, not only from woman to woman but for the same woman one time to the next. It is enough to drive a man to celibacy! Okay, not really, but it can be frustrating.

Husband scratching his head, in confusion.

What follows are various sexual issues. Some of which will apply to your lady, some will not. Most of these have links to other posts if you want more information:

  • Communicate, communicate, communicate. Nothing else will help as much, and nothing else will make up for not communicating. If you’re the one holding back, get over it. If she is, work on it gently. You need to know what she wants, what she thinks, and what she feels sexually. You also need her to tell you what feels good and what doesn’t, when something goes from feeling good to feeling great, and if it goes from feeling good to not so good. Assure her she won’t hurt your feelings. You don’t have lady bits, so you need her to help you learn how to handle them for her best pleasure.
  • Just because she is not feeling “horny” doesn’t mean she is unwilling to have sex. Nor does it mean she won’t enjoy sex if you have sex. For men, sexual desire is spontaneous, but for most women, sexual desire is triggered.
  • Her menstrual cycle affects her sexuality a great deal. You should know where she is in her cycle at all times, and know what it means for her.
  • The pill and other hormonal forms of birth control have been found to cause hormonal changes that significantly reduce sex drive and pleasure in many women. If your wife is using hormones to avoid pregnancy, this may be a part of any sexual problems you are having. Other drugs, especially antidepressants, can also cause problems. Her doctor may be able to help find ways around these issues.
  • Because her genitals are so much more sensitive, she’s far more likely to feel discomfort or pain from sex. If you ignore signs of pain, she may stop complaining, which is not a good way to deal with it. Ask her if she ever has pain, and what you can do to help. (Learn why sex can hurt)
  • She might not want to climax every time. Some women get upset when I say this, while others agree that for them, the “pressure to climax every time” actually puts them off sex. Ask her, and take her at her word.
  • If she has difficulty reaching orgasm, or has never had one, the problem could be between her ears. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help.
  • Her orgasm is not like your orgasm, in a number of ways. Learn how it works for her and you can make it better for her.
  • Lack of sleep is the primary reason women say no to sex. This in turn is usually a result of being too busy. If you want her to desire and enjoy sex, she needs a sane life and plenty of sleep. (Other reasons women say no)
  • Sex toys can make sex easier or better. But talk about it before you buy one.

[This post first appeared Oct 23, 2012.]

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Tailoring Marriage Advice: Your Wife’s Unique Needs

by | Jan 2, 2025 | Understanding Her

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I’ve been asked if I do in my marriage everything I suggest here.

I do not.

And I do not, for the same reason you shouldn’t do everything I suggest: our wives are unique individuals.

Group of different women

  • My wife is uber-practical. So when I got her a vacuum cleaner for Christmas one year, she was thrilled. But most women would not be pleased with an appliance for Christmas.
  • My wife is not particularly moved by romance. So I don’t do a lot of that, and carefully pick and choose for best effect.
  • My wife is an introvert. She enjoys going out with me, but adding a date night to a week when she’s out of the house multiple times is not going to bless her.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Some of what I suggest isn’t good for Lori, and other things need to be tweaked to be a good fit.

Know your wife, and apply what I and others say with that in mind. 

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FF: Her Perspective on Christmas Lingerie

by | Dec 13, 2024 | Gifts, Sexuality, Understanding Her

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We did a little poll on Facebook asking wives if they wanted lingerie for Christmas.

Red panties with a Merry Christmas heart-shaped tag.

Just under half said yes, some was nice, while only 8% said the more, the better. A full quarter said it was okay, but they saw it as a gift for him, not for them. Seventeen percent would rather have a gift certificate so they can pick out what they would like. About ten percent said what he buys is uncomfortable, doesn’t fit, or makes them feel like a thing rather than a person.

Before you decide this poll says most wives would be okay with some Christmas lingerie, please realise the poll audience is a decidedly pro-sex group of Christian women. In a group more representative of women as a whole, I would expect to see more of the negative answers.

Part of the issue is women as a whole tend to feel more defined by their clothes than men do. What she chooses to wear is an expression of how she sees herself, and what you buy her is thus an expression of how you see her. You buy her something because you think she’s sexy, but it may communicate something different and negative to her.

So be careful here. If in doubt, don’t buy lingerie. If you think it is okay, err on the side of too little and not as sexy as you think she can handle. If you want to get something, but have no clue how to shop for it, check out my Buying lingerie without dying of embarrassment article.

[This post first appeared Dec 8, 2012.]

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FF: 4 Words You Should Never Use With your Wife

by | Dec 6, 2024 | Communication, Friday Flashback, Good Marriage, Understanding Her

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First, a confession, I have no idea what four words you should never say to or in front of your wife. What’s more, the list is probably larger than four. However, I can help you narrow down the list by giving you four common problems areas.

Words many woman don't want to hear.

  1. Painful family words: Never use words her family used to shame, tease, or control her. This could be something like “stupid” or a nickname she hated. I don’t mean a loving name she was okay with; I’m talking about mean ones, or ones that felt mean to her. These words have deep, painful roots, and nothing good comes from you tugging at those.
  2. Painful childhood words: Much like the above, but from school and other places she interacted with other kids when she was growing up. Kids can be exceptionally cruel, and even friends can be hurtful by teasing past what is fun.
  3. Painful sex words: Some women don’t care what words you use for sex, while others are very sensitive to anything she wouldn’t hear in a doctor’s office. A great many women have a rather violent internal reaction to a certain word starting with “c”. And many are not a fan of the words “moist” and “panties”. Whatever her no go sex words, using them is making things worse for you, both in and out of bed.
  4. Sarcasm and insults: Unless she grew up the only girl with several bothers, odds are she doesn’t enjoy sarcasm and teasing insults the way your buddies do. Save it for the guys, and treat her differently.

All of these are personal and vary from woman to woman. A word that offends one woman is a loving nickname to another; a word that means “I like you” to one woman is a deep insult to another. If you’ve been paying attention, you should have some idea what words bother her. Of course, you could also just ask her. Give her the categories above as a guide, or ask her for a list of a few words she would like to never hear from your mouth.

[This post first appeared Oct , 2012.]

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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.

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

 

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FF: 3 Gifts a Month

by | Nov 29, 2024 | Acts of Service, Encouragement, Friday Flashback, Gifts, Understanding Her

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Gifts: It’s supposed to be the thought that count. But is it?

A husband giving is wife a gift.

For most of us, it is. A gift says, “I was thinking of you” and a gift that has special meaning or relevance says, “I know you well”. These are things you want to communicate to your wife, and regular small gifts do that well. I say small as in “it’s not the cost, it’s the thought”. Aim for three gifts a month, which might mean four one month and two the next. If the gifts are small and inexpensive, most months will cost you little more than a trip to St. Arbucks.

Some ideas to get you started

  • Flowers: Yes, the classic. And for good reason. Do a flower or flowers once a month.
  • A card: A real paper-in-an-envelope card. Write something nice, and it is very much a gift.
  • Coupons: This is the perfect gift for an acts of service gal, or to gift your time. The Marriage Bed has some nice print your own coupons.
  • Collectables: Preferably something she has already collects. This could be a specific item, such as a brand of figurine, or anything with a certain symbol or animal on it.
  • Candy nuts, or whatever: If she is not on a diet!
  • Anything given to disappearing at your house: Pens, scissors, AA batteries…
  • Bookmarks: If she’s a reader.
  • Pampering items: Such as bubble bath, hand lotion, scented soaps…

Wrap your gifts, or not. Leave them out, or hide them where she will come across them.

Is three gifts a month a lot? Maybe, but the process of thinking about it, and trying to come up with better and better ideas, will help you know her better, and tell her you are getting to know her better. It is a win/win!

[This post first appeared Oct 3, 2012.]

Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with stockdreams.ai
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