Q&A: How Can I Learn to Initiate Sex With My Husband?

Are you feeling stuck in your home and in your sex life? Think back to the last time you left your house: It could possibly have been four or five weeks! And most likely it has been even longer since you and your spouse went out for a date night.  When my husband and I were newlyweds, we committed to weekly date nights. Every Thursday night we spent time together—sometimes we dressed up and went to dinner, or we went for a walk and got street tacos. Other nights we stayed home and ordered Thai takeout and played board games. As seasons change, it becomes easier to deprioritize date nights. It starts off with missing once or twice a month, and suddenly you’re thinking, “When was the last time we went on a date?” Right now, you may be spending a lot of time together at home, but being in the same physical space doesn’t mean you are working on your relationship; lack of intentional time together impacts both your emotional and physical intimacy. Recently, my husband and I brainstormed how we can continue having date nights during the quarantine. Some of our favorite date ideas are impossible now. We decided to try “at-home” date nights, which led to a conversation about how to also spice up our sex life. For some personalities, having each day and each intimate experience look the same leads to boredom, while others thrive with routine and consistency. My husband could eat the same breakfast, rice cakes and peanut butter, every day for the rest of his life. If he wakes up late and needs to pack a lunch for work, you guessed it: rice cakes and peanut butter. During this quarantine, he is thriving! When it comes to our sex life, my husband is not any different. He has no problem with each intimate experience looking the same. I love variety. My husband loves me and wants to serve me, so he is always supportive of finding new ways to spice up our love life. Maybe you, just like me, can easily get sick of the routine of quarantine. Maybe you want variety in your sex life. If you or your spouse are itching to mix it up, I encourage you to pick an idea from the list below and try it out.    Ways to Spice Up Your Sex Life: Clean out your bedroom and make it more inviting. In Authentic Intimacy’s Bible study Passion Pursuit, Linda and Juli write about the importance of a welcoming bedroom. Use your time at home to make your bedroom more welcoming. Some ideas include cleaning your drawers, closets, or bedside tables; painting your walls or buying a new bedspread online. In my last Passion Pursuit small group, a woman shared that she and her husband redid their entire bedroom, and it had a huge positive impact on their sex life.   Have a fashion show! As you’re cleaning out those closets, model your clothes for your spouse. My husband said seeing me put clothes on and take them off made the cleaning process fun and sexy.    Focus on starting sex in the kitchen. As Dr. Kevin Leman says, too often we limit sex to what happens in the bed and we miss out on all of the smaller ways we can build intimacy. You can experience intimate moments throughout the day that can prepare you for sex. While one spouse does the dishes, the other can give a back massage. When one spouse takes out the trash, thank them with a big hug.    Eat your meals together. While working from home, many of us eat meals while checking emails or watching TV. Instead, be intentional with these times. Look into each other’s eyes during meals and not at screens. Ask each other questions like: What was the best part of your day? What was hard about your day?    Take showers together every morning or night. Since our wedding, my husband and I have taken showers together every night. My husband jokes that we need to “save water,” but in reality, we shower together because it is hard to be upset with someone you know you are going to be showering with later. Showering together is an intimate time that can focus on other things besides genital touching. You can do simple tasks like wash each other's bodies or comb each other's hair and experience intimacy and connection.   Take a bubble bath together. Sadly, we do not have a tub big enough to fit us both. If you have a big tub, take a bubble bath together. You know those candles you keep for when the power goes out? Pull them out. light them up around the bathroom, and have a romantic sexual experience!   Spend more time kissing. Remember when you were dating and a simple kissing session could cause passion to explode? Now that you’re married and can have sex, refresh your memory and body with the power of kissing.    Invest more time on foreplay. Too often couples skip the foreplay and go straight to intercourse. Use the extra time at home to experiment with touch. You can invest in the whole sexual experience by spending time rubbing each other's bodies.   Create a romantic sex playlist. My husband and I created a playlist filled with music that reminds us of our love. They include our first dance song, songs we have inside jokes about, and other songs about love. Playing the music throughout our home gets us in the mood.   Spend your Saturday mornings cuddling in bed. My husband and I have jokingly called our Saturday morning cuddles “quarantine cuddles.” Laying in bed and snuggling before we start our weekend festivities is something we want to continue after this season passes.   Get creative when you have kids at home. If you have small kids, try to prioritize your own “nap”while they’re napping.You could also have a special movie night with snacks to keep the kids entertained. If you have older kids at home, try to keep consistent bedtimes so that you can prioritize time alone in the bedroom. Without schedules, it is easy to allow the kids to stay up later, but lack of structure at night will cut from your intimate time.  Memorize scripture together. We often fail to realize or forget that the Bible is filled with sexual intimacy. Song of Solomon is an entire book in the Bible about two lovers. Read it together out loud and work on memorizing your favorite verses. My husband memorized Proverbs 5:18–19 and quotes it almost daily. “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer, may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love.”  I realize some of these ideas will not work for everyone. My husband and I are almost three years into marriage, have no kids, and just moved into our own house. Some of the ideas above are impossible during different life stages and in different homes. Which one will work for you? A few of the ideas are simple tasks that may take time, but the investment into your love life will be worth the sacrifice. I pray that one benefit that comes from this quarantine season is that marriages will grow closer in intimacy.   You may also find the following resources helpful: Passion Pursuit (book) Your Marriage Should Be Fun (blog) Date Nights In  A series of four online events* for married couples about how to talk, fight, and pray about sex. *The live event is over, but the videos series will be available for purchase in our Shop soon! COVID-19 Marriage Survival Guide COVID-19 and Porn: A Quick Fix But No Solution (blog)

As I stood in front of the mirror, I counted the number of scars displayed across my stomach, splattered across my belly like a toddler with a crayon. How could I ever feel beautiful again, let alone sexy? My thoughts were interrupted as my husband came up behind me and put his arms around my body. He whispered in my ear, “You, my Joy, are so beautiful.” (Presione aquí para leer en español) In the span of three months, I had three surgeries and many procedures, turning my stomach into a landmine of imperfections. Yet, through it all, my husband has loved me in ways that have helped me to confidently give my body, heart, and soul to him.  My value as God's child is not dependent on how my stomach looks, or any other insecurity I may have. The same is true for you. To begin to heal, I first had to discover the lies I believed about myself and begin to see myself how God sees me. Through counseling, I discovered that I believed the lie that my physical worth was dependent on what my body looked like, not my identity in Christ. Believing my worth was found in my appearance turned out to be my greatest source of insecurity—and it was hurting the intimacy in my marriage. But as I began to find my source of security in God, not in what I look like, I also grew in intimacy with my husband.   Intimacy grows through addressing the source of our insecurity. After all of the medical trauma I had walked through, I knew I needed to go back to my counselor. My trauma brought up new insecurities that actually pointed to deeply rooted lies that I believed. My new scars led me to believe I was no longer beautiful or worthy of love, reinforcing the lie that appearance matters most. As I’m learning to address this lie, I’m discovering that intimacy grows as I name my insecurities and find scriptural truths to counter them. For example, when I doubt my value, I meditate on Galatians 4:7, “So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” My value as God's child is not dependent on how my stomach looks, or any other insecurity I may have. The same is true for you. Part of “feeling beautiful” includes giving myself a pep talk and believing this truth. Every day when I wake up and look in the bathroom mirror, I see a sticker that says, “This is a good body.” I need this reminder because I often feel like my body has betrayed me. Because of my health issues, my body can feel like my enemy. But I must remind myself: my body is good. God formed me and knit me together perfectly in my mother’s womb, and He says, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).  As you begin to feel safe revealing your insecurities to God, then you might begin to feel safer sharing them with your spouse.   Intimacy grows through encouraging one another. You don’t have to look perfect to have great intimacy with your spouse. In fact, as you age, your body begins to change and will never look like it did when you first fell in love with your partner. If you’ve experienced changes in your body, true intimacy can be nurtured through encouraging one another, working through your insecurities, and praying with your spouse. For as long as I can remember, I struggled with confidence about my body. My stomach was too big, my leg hair grew too fast (I’m Italian), and my nose always felt just a little too big. Yet, since I met my hubby Zack, it was as if when he looked at me he saw a completely different person than the one I saw in the mirror.  We’ve been married for about 5 years, and I’ve grown in confidence about my body. Now, even with the imperfections and scars, I’ve become confident in who God created me to be through meditating on scripture and believing the words of my husband. My husband helps me see a glimpse of this truth in real life. The more he uplifts me with his words, the more beautiful I feel. I’m able to feel sexy because of his love and words that continue to lift me up.  My husband’s encouragement has grown my body confidence, which has deepened our intimacy. This reassurance takes place not just in the bedroom, but during regular day-to-day moments. He cheers me in the mornings while I’m still in my pj’s, hair up in a bun, and pouring my coffee. He encourages me as I’m in work clothes, right before an important Zoom call. The more we encourage one another during normal aspects of life, not just in intimate moments, the more we will believe it.  It’s not enough to simply hear our spouse’s encouraging words, we have to BELIEVE them. Sometimes, we want to deny our husband’s compliments. (I know I’ve done this.) We might respond with, “No, I’m not beautiful,” or “Really, you like this dress? I was thinking of getting rid of it.” Instead, we have to believe the encouraging words we receive and also encourage our spouses in the things they may feel insecure about. I try to encourage my husband, Zack, by praising him for a job well done at work, complimenting him on his physical appearance, or thanking him when he serves our family.   Intimacy grows through praying with your spouse. Since we were first married, my husband and I shower together every night (that’s a different blog!) and pray together every night. No matter what happened that day, even if we ended the day in conflict, we hold hands across the bed and pray. We’ve discovered it is hard to stay mad at someone for too long if you know you’re going to pray together before going to sleep.  Forming healthy patterns and habits like praying together can grow your intimacy. If you struggle with body image issues that impact your intimacy in marriage, here are some things you can begin to pray for together: Pray for your sex life. Pray that you will be able to love and value your body. Pray for God to reveal the deeper lies that could be the source of your insecurities. Pray and thank God for the body He has given you. As I grow in intimacy with my spouse, I also learn to trust him more. I believe him when he compliments and encourages me. The same is true with God. Building intimacy in spite of bodily imperfections boils down to this question, “Do I really trust God with all that He allows to happen in my life and to my body?” Even though I don’t understand why things happen, I can trust God that His plans are perfect, and I can have confidence in this verse: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). If you struggle with loving your body because of imperfections, be encouraged! You can grow and deepen intimacy with your spouse by addressing the root of insecurity, encouraging one another, and with prayer. You can get to the point where you are thankful for your body, even with its imperfections. I don’t think I will ever look at my scar-covered stomach and think, “Wow! That is attractive,” but I do look at it and believe, “This is a good body!”   Come back next week for a special guest blog from Joy's better half, Zack! In the meantime, learn more about a healthy body image with these resources: Java #402: If God Made My Body "Good," Why Does It Cause So Much Pain? Being Sexy Has Nothing to Do With Your Body (Juli's blog) Java #381: "Show It Off" or "Cover It Up": Messages That Shape Our Body Image   Image by Canva